The dungeon gloom is deep enough without you, And full of reptiles, not less loathsome, though Their sting is honester.

In Canea

LOREDANO.

A year's imprisonment

afterwards the freedom of

The whole isle.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

Both the same to me: the after

Freedom as is the first imprisonment.
Is 't true my wife accompanies me?

For the only boon I would have ask'd or taken

From him or such as he is.

Is this, sir, your whole mission?

Because we have brief time for preparation,
And you perceive your presence doth disquiet
This lady, of a house noble as yours.

MARINA.

Nobler!

LOREDANO.

How nobler?

MARINA.

As more generous!

We say the << generous steed» to express the purity
Of his high blood. Thus much I've learnt, although
Venetian (who see few steeds save of bronze),

From those Venetians who have skimm'd the coasts
Of Egypt, and her neighbour Araby :

And why not say as soon « the generous man?»
If race be aught, it is in qualities

More than in years; and mine, which is as old
As yours, is better in its product, nay-
Look not so stern-but get you back, and pore
Upon your genealogic tree's most green
Of leaves and most mature of fruits, and there
Blush to find ancestors, who would have blush'd
For such a son-thou cold inveterate hater!

Again, Marina!

JACOPO FOSCARI.

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?

Nothing more easy.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

That were difficult.

MARINA.

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.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

This is mere insanity.

MARINA.

It may be so; and who hath made us mad?

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?

MARINA.

Nobler!

LOREDANO.

How nobler?

MARINA.

As more generous!

We say the << generous steed» to express the purity
Of his high blood. Thus much I've learnt, although
Venetian (who see few steeds save of bronze),

From those Venetians who have skimm'd the coasts
Of Egypt, and her neighbour Araby:

And why not say as soon « the generous man?»

If race be aught, it is in qualities

More than in years; and mine, which is as old
As yours, is better in its product, nay—
Look not so stern-but get you back, and pore
Upon your genealogic tree's most green

Of leaves and most mature of fruits, and there
Blush to find ancestors, who would have blush'd
For such a son-thou cold inveterate hater!

Again, Marina!

JACOPO FOSCARI.

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?

Nothing more easy.

JACOPO FOSCARI.

That were difficult.

MARINA.

He partakes it now

Ay, he may veil beneath a marble brow,