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 300 Of leaves and most mature of fruits, and there Blush to find ancestors, who would have blushed For such a son--thou cold inveterate hater!
_Jac. Fos._ Again, Marina!
_Mar._ Again! _still_, Marina.
See you not, he comes here to glut his hate With a last look upon our misery?
Let him partake it!
_Jac. Fos._ That were difficult.
_Mar._ Nothing more easy. He partakes it now-- Aye, he may veil beneath a marble brow And sneering lip the pang, but he partakes it. 310 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 320 Of destinies: each day secures him more His tempter"s.
_Jac. Fos._ This is mere insanity.
_Mar._ It may be so; and _who_ hath made us _mad_?
_Lor._ Let her go on; it irks not me.
_Mar._ 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 h.o.a.rd 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 330 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_?
_Lor._ As rocks.
_Mar._ By thunder blasted: They feel not, but no less are shivered. Come, Foscari; now let us go, and leave this felon, The sole fit habitant of such a cell, Which he has peopled often, but ne"er fitly Till he himself shall brood in it alone.
_Enter the_ DOGE.
_Jac. Fos._ My father!
_Doge_ (_embracing him_). Jacopo! my son--my son! 340
_Jac. Fos._ My father still! How long it is since I Have heard thee name my name--_our_ name!
_Doge_. My boy!
Couldst thou but know----
_Jac. Fos._ I rarely, sir, have murmured.
_Doge_. I feel too much thou hast not.
_Mar._ Doge, look there!
[_She points to_ LOREDANO.
_Doge_. I see the man--what mean"st thou?
_Mar._ Caution!
_Lor._ Being The virtue which this n.o.ble lady most[bq]
May practise, she doth well to recommend it.
_Mar._ Wretch! "tis no virtue, but the policy Of those who fain must deal perforce with vice: As such I recommend it, as I would 350 To one whose foot was on an adder"s path.
_Doge_. Daughter, it is superfluous; I have long Known Loredano.
_Lor._ You may know him better.
_Mar._ Yes; _worse_ he could not.
_Jac. Fos._ 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!
_Jac. Fos._ And I feel, besides, that mine Will never be so white. Embrace me, father!
I loved you ever--never more than now. 360 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?
_Mar._ No--not _here_.
_Jac. Fos._ They might behold their parent any where.
_Mar._ 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, 370 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, 380 As worthiest--_you_, sir, n.o.ble Loredano!
May breathe it without prejudice.
_Jac. Fos._ 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.
_Jac. Fos._ And must I leave them--_all_?
_Lor._ You must.
_Jac. Fos._ Not one?
_Lor._ They are the State"s.
_Mar._ I thought they had been mine.
_Lor._ They are, in all maternal things.
_Mar._ That is, In all things painful. If they"re sick, they will Be left to me to tend them; should they die, 390 To me to bury and to mourn; but if They live, they"ll make you soldiers, senators, Slaves, exiles--what _you_ will; or if they are Females with portions, brides and _bribes_ for n.o.bles!
Behold the State"s care for its sons and mothers!
_Lor._ The hour approaches, and the wind is fair.
_Jac. Fos._ How know you that here, where the genial wind Ne"er blows in all its bl.u.s.tering freedom?