Ay,

No more.

MARINA.

Thy life is safe.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

How! wouldst thou share a dungeon?

The rack, the grave, all—any thing with thee,
But the tomb last of all, for there we shall
Be ignorant of each other: yet I wil!
Share that-all things except new separation;
It is too much to have survived the first.

How dost thou? How are those worn limbs? Alas!
Why do I ask? Thy paleness~~

MARINA.

The mind should make its own.
JACOPO FOSCARI.

That has a noble sound; but 't is a sound,
A music most impressive, but too transient :
The mind is much, but is not all. The mind
Hath nerved me to endure the risk of death,
And torture positive, far worse than death
(If death be a deep sleep), without a groan,
Or with a cry which rather shamed my judges
but 't is not all, for there are things
More woful-such as this small dungeon, where
I may breathe many years.

Than me;

MARINA.

Alas! and this

Small dungeon is all that belongs to thee
Of this wide realm, of which thy sire is prince.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

That thought would scarcely aid me to endure it.
My doom is common, many are in dungeons,
But none like mine, so near their father's palace;
But then my heart is sometimes high, and hope
Will stream along those moted rays of light
Peopled with dusty atoms, which afford
Our only day; for, save the jailor's torch,
And a strange fire-fly, which was quickly caught
Last night in yon enormous spider's net,
I ne'er saw aught here like a ray. Alas!
I know if mind may bear us up, or no,
For I have such, and shown it before men;
It sinks in solitude: my soul is social.

I will be with thee.

MARINA.

JACOPO FOSCARI. Ah! if it were so!

But that they never granted-nor will graut,
And I shall be alone: no men-no books-
Those lying likenesses of lying men.

I ask'd for even those outlines of their kind,
Which they term annals, history, what you will,
Which men bequeath as portraits, and they were
Refused me; so these walls have been my study,
More faithful pictures of Venetian story,
With all their blank, or dismal stains, than is
The hall not far from hence, which bears on high
Hundreds of doges, and their deeds and dates.

MARINA.

I come to tell thee the result of their Last council on thy doom.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

I know it-look!

JACOPO FOSCARL

Then my last hope's gone.

I could endure my dungeon, for 't was Venice;
I could support the torture-there was something
In my native air that buoy'd my spirits up,
Like a ship on the ocean toss'd by storms,
But proudly still bestriding the high waves,
And holding on its course: but there, afar,
In that accursed isle of slaves, and captives,
And unbelievers, like a stranded wreck,
My very soul seem'd mouldering in my bosom,
And piecemeal I shall perish, if remanded.

I fear, by the prevention of the state's Abhorrent policy (which holds all ties

They,

As threads, which may be broken at her pleasure), Will not be suffer'd to proceed with us.

JACOPO FOSCARI

And canst thou leave them?

MARINA.

Yes. With many a pang.

But I can leave them, children as they are,
To teach you to be less a child. From this
Learn you to sway your feelings, when exacted
By duties paramount; and 't is our first
On earth to bear.

JACOPO FOSCARI. Have I not borne? MARINA.

From tyrannous injustice, and enough

Too much

To teach you not to shrink now from a lot

Which, as compared with what you have undergone Of late, is mercy.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

Ah! you never yet

Were far away from Venice, never saw

Her beautiful towers in the receding distance,
While every furrow of the vessel's track

Seem'd ploughing deep into your heart; you never
Saw day go down upon your native spires

So calmly with its gold and crimson glory,
And after dreaming a disturbed vision

Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not.

The calenture.

Alluding to the Swiss air and its effects.

LOREDANO.

Let her go on; it irks not me.

MARINA.

That's false! You came here to enjoy a heartless triumph Of cold looks upon manifold griefs! You came To be sued to in vain-to mark our tears, And hoard our groans-to gaze upon the wreck Which you have made a prince's son-my husband; In short, to trample on the fallen--an office The hangman shrinks from, as all men from him. How have you sped? We are wretched, signor, as Your plots could make, and vengeance could desire us, And how feel you?

LOREDANO.

As rocks.

Again, Marina!

MARINA.

Again! still, Marina.

See you not, he comes here to glut his hate With a last look upon our misery?

Let him partake it!

JACOPO FOSCARI

That were difficult.

MARINA.

Nothing more easy. He partakes it now-
Ay, he may veil beneath a marble brow
And sneering lip the pang, but he partakes it.

A few brief words of truth shame the devil's servants
No less than master: I have probed his soul
A moment, as the eternal fire, ere long,

Will reach it always. See how he shrinks from me!
With death, and chains, and exile in his hand
To scatter o'er his kind as he thinks fit:
They are his weapons, not his armour, for

I have pierced him to the core of his cold heart.

I care not for his frowns! We can but die,
And he but live, for him the very worst
Of destinies each day secures him more
His tempter's.

I feel too much thou hast not.

MARINA.

DOGE

Doge, look there! [She points to LOREDANO.

I see the man-what mean'st thou ?

MARINA.

Caution!

LOREDANO.

Being

The virtue which this noble lady most
May practise, she doth well to recommend it.

MARINA.

Wretch! 't is no virtue, but the policy

Of those who fain must deal perforce with vice:
As such I recommend it, as I would
To one whose foot was on an adder's path.

DOGE.

Daughter, it is superfluous; I have long Known Loredano.

LOREDANO.

You may know him better.

MARINA.

Yes; worse he could not.

JACOPO FOSCARI

Father, let not these

Our parting hours be lost in listening to Reproaches, which boot nothing. Is it-is it, Indeed, our last of meetings?

I would that they beheld their father in

A place which would not mingle fear with love,
To freeze their young blood in its natural current.
They have fed well, slept soft, and knew not that
Their sire was a mere hunted outlaw. Well

I know his fate may one day be their heritage,
But let it only be their heritage,

And not their present fee. Their senses, though
Alive to love, are yet awake to terror;

And these vile damps too, and yon thick green wave
Which floats above the place where we now stand-
A cell so far below the water's level,
Sending its pestilence through every crevice,
Might strike them: this is not their atmosphere,
However you-and you-and, most of all,
As worthiest you, sir, noble Loredano!
May breathe it without prejudice.

I will do my endeavour.

MARINA.

Farewell! at least to this detested dungeon,
And him to whose good offices you owe
In part your past imprisonment.

Liberation.

LOREDANO.

And present

DOGE.

He speaks truth.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

No doubt: but 't is

Exchange of chains for heavier chains I owe him.
He knows this, or he had not sought to change them.
But I reproach not.

LOREDANO.

The time narrows, signor.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

Alas! I little thought so lingeringly

To leave abodes like this: but when I feel That every step I take even from this cell, Is one away from Venice, I look back Even on these dull damp walls, and-

Let them flow on: he wept not on the rack
To shame him, and they cannot shame him now.
They will relieve his heart-that too kind heart-
And I will find an hour to wipe away

Those tears, or add my own. I could weep now,

But would not gratify yon wretch so far.
Let us proceed. Doge, lead the way.

LOREDANO (to the Familiar).

MARINA.

Yes, light us on, às to a funeral руге, With Loredano mourning like an heir.

DOGE.

The torch there!