Known Loredano.

Lored. You may know him better. Marina. Yes; worse he could not. J. 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?

Doge. You behold These white hairs!

J. Foscari. And I feel, besides, that mine Will never be so white. Embrace me, father! I loved you ever-never more than now. Look to my children--to your last child's children:

Let them be all to you which he was once,
And never be to you what I am now.
May I not see them also?

Marina. No-not here.

J. Foscari. They might behold their parent any where.

Marina. 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.

J. Foscari. I had not

Reflected upon this, but acquiesce.
I shall depart, then, without meeting them?
Doge. Not so: they shall await you in
my chamber.

J. Foscari. And must I leave them all?
Lored. You must.

J. Foscari. Not one?

Lored. They are the state's.
Marina. I thought they had been mine.
Lored. They are, in all maternal things.
Marina. That is,

In all things painful. If they're sick,they will
Be left to me to tend them; should they die,
To me to bury and to mourn: but if
They live, they'll make you soldiers, sena-
tors,

for nobles!

Behold the state's care for its sons and mothers!

Lored. The hour approaches, and the wind is fair.

J. Foscari. How know you that here, where the genial wind

Ne'er blows in all its blustering freedom? Lored. Twas so

When I came here. The galley floats within A bow-shot of the Riva di Schiavoni.

J. Foscari. Father! I pray you to precede me, and

Prepare my children to behold their father. Doge. Be firm, my son!

J. Foscari. 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.
Lored. And present

Liberation.

(Like Barbarossa to the Pope) to beg him
To have the courtesy to abdicate.
Barb. What, if he will not?
Lored. We'll elect another,
And make him null.

Barb. But will the laws uphold us? Lored. What laws?-The Ten are laws; and if they were not,

I will be legislator in this business.
Barb. At your own peril?
Lored. There is none, I tell you,
Our powers are such.

Barb. But he has twice already
Solicited permission to retire,
And twice it was refused.

Lored. The better reason
To grant it the third time.
Barb. Unask'd?

Lored. It shows

The impression of his former instances: If they were from his heart, he may be thankful;

If not, 'twill punish his hypocrisy. Come, they are met by this time; let us join them,

And be thou fix'd in purpose for this once. I have prepared such arguments as will not Fail to move them, and to remove him: since Their thoughts, their objects, have been sounded, do not

You, with your wonted scruples, teach us pause,

And all will prosper.

Barb. Could I but be certain This is no prelude to such persecution

is taken.

"Tis

I would support you.

Lored. He is safe, I tell you;

His fourscore years and five may linger on As long as he can drag them: 'tis his throne Alone is aim'd at.

Barb. But discarded princes Are seldom long of life.

Lored. And men of eighty
More seldom still.

Barb. And why not wait these few years?
Lored. Because we have waited long

enough, and he

Lived longer than enough. Hence! In to council!

[Exeunt Loredano and Barbarigo. Enter MEMMо and a Senator. Senator. A summons to the Ten! Why so? Memmo. The Ten

Alone can answer: they are rarely wont
To let their thoughts anticipate their purpose
By previous proclamation. We are sum-
mon'd-
That is enough

Senator. For them, but not for us;
I would know why.

Memmo. You will know why anon, If you obey, and, if not, you no less Will know why you should have obey'd,

Senator. I mean not

To oppose them, but—

Memmo. In Venice "But" 's a traitor.
But me no "buts," unless you would pass o'er
The Bridge which few repass.
Senator. I am silent.
Memmo. Why

Thus hesitate? The Ten have call'd in aid
Of their deliberation five and twenty
Patricians of the senate-you are one,
And I another; and it seems to me
Both honour'd by the choice or chance
which leads us

To mingle with a body so august.

Senator. Most true. I say no more. Memmo. As we hope, signor, And all may honestly (that is, all those Of noble blood may) one day hope to be Decemvir, it is surely for the senate's Chosen delegates a school of wisdom, to Be thus admitted, though as novices, To view the mysteries.

Senator. Let us view them: they, No doubt, are worth it.

Memmo. Being worth our lives
If we divulge them,doubtless they are worth
Something, at least to you or me.
Senator. I sought not

A place within the sanctuary; but being
Chosen, however reluctantly so chosen,
I shall fulfil my office.

Go and obey our country's will: 'tis not
For us to look beyond.

J. Foscari. But still I must
Look back. I pray you think of me.
Doge. Alas!

You ever were my dearest offspring, when
They were more numerous, nor can be less so
Now you are last; but did the state demand
The exile of the disinterred ashes

Of your three goodly brothers, now in earth,

And their desponding shades came flitting round

To impede the act, I must no less obey
A duty paramount to every duty.

No

J. Foscari. No

not for thee, too good, too kind!
Mayst thou

Live long to be a mother to those children
Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives
Of such support! But for myself alone,
May all the winds of heaven howl down the
Gulf,

And tear the vessel, till the mariners,
As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then
Appall'd, turn their despairing eyes on me,
Cast me out from amongst them,as an offering
To appease the waves. The billow which

destroys me

Will be more merciful than man, and bear me, Dead, but still bear me to a native grave, From fisher's hands upon the desolate strand, Which, of its thousand wrecks, hath ne'er

received

One lacerated like the heart which then Will be-But wherefore breaks it not? why live I?

Marina. To man thyself, I trust, with

time, to master

Such useless passion. Until now thou wert
A sufferer, but not a loud one: why,
What is this to the things thou hast borne
in silence-
Imprisonment and actual torture?
J. Foscari. Double,

Triple,and tenfold torture! But you are right,
It must be borne. Father, your blessing.
Doge. Would

It could avail thee! but no less thou hast it. J. Foscari. Forgive—

Doge. What?

J. Foscari. My poor mother for my birth, And me for having lived, and you yourself (As I forgive you) for the gift of life, Which you bestow'd upon me as my sire. Marina. What hast thou done?

J. Foscari. Nothing. I canuot charge My memory with much save sorrow: but I have been so beyond the common lot Chasten'd and visited, I needs must think That I was wicked. If it be so, may What I have undergone here keep me from A like hereafter.

Marina. Fear not: that 's reserved
For your oppressors.

J. Foscari. Let me hope not.
Marina. Hope not?

J. Foscari. I cannot wish them all they
have inflicted.

Marina. All! the consummate fiends! A

thousand fold!

them!

Lend me your arm, good signor. Officer. You turn pale

ashes:

While he lived, he was theirs, as fits a subject

Now he is mine-my broken-hearted boy! [Exit Officer.

Marina. And I must live!
Doge. Your children live, Marina.
Marina. My children! true-they live,
and I must live

To bring them up to serve the state, and die
As died their father. Oh! what best of
blessings
Would my

Were barrenness in Venice! mother

Had been so!

Doge. My unhappy children!
Marina. What!

You feel it then at last—you!—Where is now
The Stoic of the state?

Doge (throwing himself down by the body).
Here!
Marina. Ay, weep on!

there!

Some water!

Marina. Ah, he is dying!

J. Foscari. Now, I'm ready

My eyes swim strangely-where's the door? Marina. Away!

Let me support him-my best love! Oh, God! How faintly beats this heart — this pulse! J. Foscari. The light!

Is it the light? I am faint.

them

Perhaps, in the air.

torment!

Barb. Lady, we knew not of this sad event, pass'd here merely on our path from council.

Marina. Pass on.

Lored. We sought the Doge. Marina (pointing to the Doge, who is still on the ground by his son's body). He's busy, look,

About the business you provided for him. Are ye content?

Barb. We will not interrupt A parent's sorrows.

Marina No, ye only make them,

Then leave them.

Doge (rising). Sirs, I am ready.
Barb. No- not now.

Lored. Yet 'twas important.
Doge. If 'twas so, I can
Only repeat-I am ready.

Barb. It shall not be

Just now,though Venice totter'd o'er the deep Like a frail vessel. I respect your griefs. Doge. I thank you. If the tidings which you bring

Are evil, you may say them; nothing further Can touch me more than him thou lookst on there:

If they be good, say on; you need not fear That they can comfort me.

Barb. I would they could!

Doge. I spoke not to you, but to Loredano. He understands me.

Marina. Ah! I thought it would be so. Doge. What mean you?

Marina. Lo! there is the blood beginning To flow through the dead lips of FoscariThe body bleeds in presence of the assassin. [To Loredano. Thou cowardly murderer by law, behold How death itself bears witness to thy deeds! Doge. My child! this is a phantasy of grief.

Bear hence the body. [To his Attendants.]
Signors, if it please you,
Within an hour I'll hear you.

[Exeunt Doge, Marina, and Attendants
with the body.]

[Manent Loredano and Barbarigo. Barb. He must not

Inter his son before we press upon him
This edict.

Lored. Let him call up into life
My sire and uncle—I consent.
Men may,
Even aged men, be, or appear to be,
Sires of a hundred sons, but cannot kindle
An atom of their ancestors from earth.
The victims are not equal: he has seen
His sons expire by natural deaths, and I
My sires by violent and mysterious maladies.
I used no poison, bribed no subtle master
Of the destructive art of healing, to
Shorten the path to the eternal cure.
His sons, and he had four, are dead, without
My dabbling in vile drugs.

Barb. And art thou sure
He dealt in such?

Lored. Most sure.
Barb. And yet he seems
All openness.

Lored. And so he seem'd not long
Ago to Carmagnuola.

Barb. The attainted

| And foreign traitor?

Lored. Even so: when he, After the very night in which the Ten (Join'd with the Doge) decided his destruction,

Met the great Duke at daybreak with a jest, Demanding whether he should augur him "The good day or good night?” his Dogeship answer'd,

"That he in truth had pass'd a night of vigil,

In which (he added with a gracious smile) There often has been question about you." 'Twas true; the question was the death

resolved