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You, wlio can talk thus calmly of a sonIn circumstances which would call forth tearsOf blood from Spartans ! Though these did notweep

Their boys who died in battle, is it writtenThat they .beheld them perish piecemeal, norStretch’d forth a hand to save them ?

Doge. You behold me :

I cannot weep—I would I could ; but ifEach white hair on this head were a younglife,

This ducal cap the diadem of earth.

This ducal ring wit h which I wed the wavesA talisman to still them—I’d give allFor him.

Mar. With less he surely might be saved.Doge. That answer only shows you know notVenice .

Alas! how should you ? she knows not herself,

In all her mystery. Hear me—they who aimAt Foscari, aim no less at his father;

The sire’s destruction would not save the son ;They work by different means to the same end,

And that is-but they have not conquer’d yet.

Mar. But they have crush’d.

Doge. Nor crush’d as yet—I live.

Mar. And your son,—how long will he live ?Doge. I trust,

For all that yet is past, as many yearsAnd happier than his father. The rash boy,With womanish impatience to return,

Hath ruin’d all by that detected letter:

A high crime, which I neither can denyNor palliate, as parent or as Duke :

Had he but borne a little, little longer

His Candioio exile, I had hopes-lie has

quench’d them—

He must return.

Mar. To exile ?

Doge. I havo raid it.

Mar. And can I not go with him ?

Doge. You well know

This prayer of yours was twice denied beforeBy the assembled “ Ten,** and hardly nowWill be accorded to a third request,

Since aggravated errors on the partOf your lord renders them still more austere.Mar. Austere ? Atrocious l The old humanfiends,

With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes,strange

To tears save drops of dotage, with long whiteAnd scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and headsAs palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel,Cabal, and put men’s lives out, as if lifeWere no more than the feelings long extinguish’dIn their accursed bosoms.

Doge. You know not;-

Mar. I do—I do—and so should you, methinks—That these are demons: could it be else thatMen , who have been of women born and suckled—Who have loved, or talk’d at least of love—havegiven

Their li mds in sacred vows—have danced tlicirbabes

Upon their knees, perhaps have mourn d abovethem—

In pain, in peril, or in death—who are,

Cr were at least in seeming, human, could .

Do as they have done by yours, and you your-self-

Jo a, who abet them ?

I forgive this, forYou know not what you say.

Mar. You know ft well,

And feel it nothing.

Doge. I have borne so much,

That words have ceased to shako me.

Mar. Oh ! no doubt !

You have seen your son’s blood flow, and yourflesh shook not ;

And after that, wliat are a woman’s words ?

No more than woman’s tears, that they shouldshake you.

Doge. Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, Itell thee, _ *

Is no more in the balance weigh’d with that

Which-but I pity thee, my poor Marina!

Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me jPity thy son! Thou pity ! ’tis a wordStrange to thy heart—liow came it on thy lips ?Doge. I must bear these reproaches, thoughthey wrong me.

Couldst thou but read-

Mar. ’Tis not upon tliy brow,

Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts,—where thenShould I behpld this sympathy ? or shall ?

Doge, {pointing doicmcards). There.

Mar. In the earth ?

Doge. To which I am tending: when

. It lies upon this heart, far light lier, thoughLoaded with marble, than the thoughts whichpress it

Now, you will know me better.

Mar. Are you then,

Indeed, thus to be pitied ?

Doge. • Pitied! none

Shall ever use that base word, with which men,t'loak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a fit oneTo mingle with my name j that name shall be,

As fur as I have borne it, what it wasWhen I received it.

Mar. But for the poor children

Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save,

You were the last to bear it.

Doge. Would it were so!

Better for him he never had been born ;

Better for me.—I have seen our house dishonour’d.Mar. That’s false! A truer, nobler, trustier, heart,

More loving or more loyal, never beatWithin a human breast. I would not changeMy exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,Oppress’d but not disgraced, crush’d, over-whelm’d,

Alive, or dead, for prince or paladinIn story or in fable, with a world ;

To back his suit. Dishonour’d !—he dishonour’d!I tell thee, Doge, His Venice is dishonour’d !

His name shall be her foulest, worst reproach,For wliat he suffers, not for wliat lie did.

’Tis ye who are all traitors, tyrant !—yo !

Did you but love your country like this victimWho totters back in chains to tortures, andSubmits to ail things rather than to exile,

You’d fling yourselves before him, and imploreHis grace for your enormous guilt.

Doge. Ho was

Indeed all you have said. I better boroThe deaths of the two sons Heaven took fromme,

Than Jacopo’s disgrace.

Mar. That word again!

Voge. Has he not been condemn’d ?

THE TWO FOSCARI.

Doge.