The works of Lord Byron :: :: University of Virginia Library

—The Court of the Ducal Palace; the outer gates are shut against the people.—The Doge enters in his ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten and other Patricians, attended by the Guards, till they arrive at the top of the “Giants' Staircase” (where the Doges took the oaths); the Executioner is stationed there with his sword.—On arriving, a Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the Doge's head.
Doge.
So now the Doge is nothing, and at last
I am again Marino Faliero:
'Tis well to be so, though but for a moment.
Here was I crowned, and here, bear witness, Heaven!
With how much more contentment I resign
That shining mockery, the ducal bauble,
Than I received the fatal ornament.

One of the Ten.
Thou tremblest, Faliero!

Doge.
'Tis with age, then.

Ben.
Faliero! hast thou aught further to commend,
Compatible with justice, to the Senate?

Doge.
I would commend my nephew to their mercy,
My consort to their justice; for methinks

455

My death, and such a death, might settle all
Between the State and me.

Ben.
They shall be cared for;
Even notwithstanding thine unheard-of crime.

Doge.
Unheard of! aye, there's not a history
But shows a thousand crowned conspirators
Against the people; but to set them free,
One Sovereign only died, and one is dying.

Ben.
And who were they who fell in such a cause?

Doge.
The King of Sparta, and the Doge of Venice—
Agis and Faliero!

Ben.
Hast thou more
To utter or to do?

Doge.
May I speak?

Ben.
Thou may'st;
But recollect the people are without,
Beyond the compass of the human voice.

Doge.

I speak to Time and to Eternity,
Of which I grow a portion, not to man.
Ye Elements! in which to be resolved
I hasten, let my voice be as a Spirit
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my banner,
Ye winds! which fluttered o'er as if you loved it,
And filled my swelling sails as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for! and thou, foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a wound!
Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to Heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!
Thou Sun! which shinest on these things, and Thou!
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns!—Attest!
I am not innocent—but are these guiltless?
I perish, but not unavenged; far ages
Float up from the abyss of Time to be,
And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud City, and I leave my curse
On her and hers for ever!—Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day,
When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,

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Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield,
Unto a bastard Attila, without
Shedding so much blood in her last defence,
As these old veins, oft drained in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice.—She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her! —She shall stoop to be

457

A province for an Empire, petty town
In lieu of Capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people!
Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,

458

The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his;
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity;
Then, when the few who still retain a wreck
Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn
Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vice-gerent,
Even in the Palace where they swayed as Sovereigns,
Even in the Palace where they slew their Sovereign,
Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung
From an adulteress boastful of her guilt
With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph
To the third spurious generation;—when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turned o'er to the vanquished by the victors,
Despised by cowards for greater cowardice,
And scorned even by the vicious for such vices
As in the monstrous grasp of their conception
Defy all codes to image or to name them;
Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom,
All thine inheritance shall be her shame
Entailed on thy less virtuous daughters, grown
A wider proverb for worse prostitution;—
When all the ills of conquered states shall cling thee,
Vice without splendour, Sin without relief
Even from the gloss of Love to smooth it o'er,
But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude,

459

Prurient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,
Depraving Nature's frailty to an art;—
When these and more are heavy on thee, when
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without Pleasure,
Youth without Honour, Age without respect,
Meanness and Weakness, and a sense of woe
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not murmur,
Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts,
Then, in the last gasp of thine agony,
Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of Princes!
Gehenna of the waters! thou Sea-Sodom!

460

Thus I devote thee to the Infernal Gods!
Thee and thy serpent seed!

[Here the Doge turns and addresses the Excutioner.

Slave, do thine office!
Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would
Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my curse!
Strike—and but once!

[The Doge throws himself upon his knees, and as the Executioner raises his sword the scene closes.

This was the actual reply of Bailli, maire of Paris, to a Frenchman who made him the same reproach on his way to execution, in the earliest part of their revolution. I find in reading over (since the completion of this tragedy), for the first time these six years, “Venice Preserved,” a similar reply on a different occasion by Renault, and other coincidences arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the gentlest reader, that such coincidences must be accidental, from the very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a play on the stage and in the closet as Otway's chef-d'œuvre.

Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the reader look to the historical of the period prophesied, or rather of the few years preceding that period. Voltaire calculated their “nostre bene merite Meretrici” at 12,000 of regulars, without including volunteers and local militia, on what authority I know not; but it is, perhaps, the only part of the population not decreased. Venice once contained two hundred thousand inhabitants: there are now about ninety thousand; and these!! few individuals can conceive, and none could describe, the actual state into which the more than infernal tyranny of Austria has plunged this unhappy city. From the present decay and degeneracy of Venice under the Barbarians, there are some honourable individual exceptions. There is Pasqualigo, the last, and, alas! posthumous son of the marriage of the Doges with the Adriatic, who fought his frigate with far greater gallantry than any of his French coadjutors in the memorable action off Lissa. I came home in the squadron with the prizes in 1811, and recollect to have heard Sir William Hoste, and the other officers engaged in that glorious conflict, speak in the highest terms of Pasqualigo's behaviour. There is the Abbate Morelli. There is Alvise Querini, who, after a long and honourable diplomatic career, finds some consolation for the wrongs of his country, in the pursuits of literature with his nephew, Vittor Benzon, the son of the celebrated beauty, the heroine of “La Biondina in Gondoleta.” There are the patrician poet Morosini, and the poet Lamberti, the author of the “Biondina,” etc., and many other estimable productions; and, not least in an Englishman's estimation, Madame Michelli, the translator of Shakspeare. There are the young Dandolo and the improvvisatore Carrer, and Giuseppe Albrizzi, the accomplished son of an accomplished mother. There is Aglietti, and were there nothing else, there is the immortality of Canova. Cicognara, Mustoxithi, Bucati, etc., etc., I do not reckon, because the one is a Greek, and the others were born at least a hundred miles off, which, throughout Italy, constitutes, if not a foreigner, at least a stranger (forestiére).

The chief palaces on the Brenta now belong to the Jews; who in the earlier times of the republic were only allowed to inhabit Mestri, and not to enter the city of Venice. The whole commerce is in the hands of the Jews and Greeks, and the Huns form the garrison.

See Appendix, Note C.

If the Doge's prophecy seem remarkable, look to the following, made by Alamanni two hundred and seventy years ago:—“There is one very singular prophecy concerning Venice: ‘If thou dost not change,’ it says to that proud republic, ‘thy liberty, which is already on the wing, will not reckon a century more than the thousandth year.’ If we carry back the epocha of Venetian freedom to the establishment of the government under which the republic flourished, we shall find that the date of the election of the first Doge is 697: and if we add one century to a thousand, that is, eleven hundred years, we shall find the sense of the prediction to be literally this: ‘Thy liberty will not last till 1797.’ Recollect that Venice ceased to be free in the year 1796, the fifth year of the French republic; and you will perceive that there never was prediction more pointed, or more exactly followed by the event. You will, therefore, note as very remarkable the three lines of Alamanni addressed to Venice; which, however, no one has pointed out:—

“‘Se non cangi pensier, l'un secol solo
Non contera sopra 'l millesimo anno
Tua libertà, che va fuggendo a volo.’

Sat., xii. ed. 1531, p. 413.

Many prophecies have passed for such, and many men have been called prophets for much less.”—P. L. Ginguené, Hist. Lit. d' Italie, ix.

Of the first fifty Doges, five abdicated—five were banished with their eyes put out—five were massacred—and nine deposed; so that nineteen out of fifty lost the throne by violence, besides two who fell in battle: this occurred long previous to the reign of Marino Faliero. One of his more immediate predecessors, Andrea Dandolo, died of vexation. Marino Faliero himself perished as related. Amongst his successors, Foscari, after seeing his son repeatedly tortured and banished, was deposed, and died of breaking a blood-vessel, on hearing the bell of Saint Mark's toll for the election of his successor. Morosini was impeached for the loss of Candia; but this was previous to his dukedom, during which he conquered the Morea, and was styled the Peloponnesian. Faliero might truly say,—

“Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes!”