Who totters back in chains to tortures, and
Submits to all things rather than to exile,

You'd fling yourselves before him, and implore

The deaths of the two sons Heaven took from me

Than Jacopo's disgrace.

MARINA.

That word again?

DOGE.

Has he not been condemn'd?

MARINA.

Is none but guilt so?

DOGE.

Time may restore his memory-I would hope so.
He was my pride, my- -but 't is useless now-
I am not given to tears, but wept for joy

When he was born: those drops were ominous.

MARINA.

I say he's innocent!

he's innocent! And were he not so,

Is our own blood and kin to shrink from us
In fatal moments?

'DOGE.

I shrank not from him:

But I have other duties than a father's;

The state would not dispense me from those duties;

Twice I demanded it, but was refused,

They must then be fulfill'd.

Perhaps it is not requisite, if this

Concerns your husband, and if not-Well, signor,

Your pleasure!

It does their wisdom honour,

And no less to their courtesy.-Proceed.

We have decided.

LOREDANO.

We?

DOGE.

LOREDANO.

The «Ten» in council.

DOGE.

What! have they met again, and met without

Apprizing me?

LOREDANO.

They wish'd to spare your feelings,

No less than age.

DOGE.

That 's new-when spared they either ?

I thank them, notwithstanding.

LOREDANO.

You know well

That they have power to act at their discretion,
With or without the presence of the Doge.

DOGE.

'T is some years since I learn'd this, long before
I became Doge, or dream'd of such advancement,
You need not school me, signor: I sate in

That council when you were a young patrician.

LOREDANO.

True, in my father's time; I have heard him and
The admiral, his brother, say as much.

Your highness may remember them; they both
Died suddenly..

DOGE.

And if they did so, better

So die than live on lingeringly in pain.

LOREDANO.

No doubt; yet most men like to live their days out.

So far from strange, that never was there death

Your sires were mine, and you are heir in all things.

LOREDANO.

You best know if I should be so.

DOGE.

I do.

Your fathers were my foes, and I have heard
Foul rumours were abroad; I have also read
Their epitaph, attributing their deaths
To poison. 'Tis perhaps as true as most
Inscriptions upon tombs, and yet no less
A fable.

Who dares say so?

LOREDANO.

DOGE.

I! T is true

Your fathers were mine enemies, as bitter
As their son e'er can be, and I no less
Was theirs; but I was openly their foe:
I never work'd by plot in council, nor
Cabal in commonwealth, nor secret means.
Of practice against life by steel or drug.
The proof is, your existence.

LOREDANO.

I fear not.

DOGE.

You have no cause, being what I am; but were

I

That you would have me thought, you long ere now Were past the sense of fear. Hate on; I care not.

LOREDANO.

I never yet knew that a noble's life

In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown,
That is, by open means.

DOGE.

But I, good signor,

Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke,

In blood, in mind, in means; and that they know
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since
Striven all they dare to weigh me down: be sure,
Before or since that period, had I held you
At so much price as to require your absence,
A word of mine had set such spirits to work

As would have made you nothing. But in all things
I have observed the strictest reverence;

Not for the laws alone, for those you have strain'd (I do not speak of you but as a single