What should I do with honour? Thou dost make
Of mine more havoc and less count of me
Than yet mine enemies have, to take this charge
Upon the personal quarrel of thine hand,
Unchartered by commission.
BERTUCCIO.
And of me,
My lord, of me what make you? How shall men
Not spit when I pass by, at one that had
Nor heart nor hand, eye to behold nor ear
To hear the several scoffs, by glance or speech,
That base men cast on us? Nay, then what right
Had I to call any man base that lives
Or any worm that stings in secret? Sir,
Put not this shame upon me: when have I
Deserved it? Why, a beaten dog, a slave
Branded and whipped by justice, durst not bear
For very shame’s sake, though he know not shame,
So great dishonour.
FALIERO.
Thou shalt bear it, son.
BERTUCCIO.
I will not.
FALIERO.
Son, what will is this of thine
To lift its head up when I bid it lie
And listen while mine own, thy father’s will,
Speaks? How shalt thou that wilt not honour me
Take in thine hand mine honour? Mine, not thine,
Not yet, I tell thee, thine it is to say
Thou shalt or shalt not strike or spare the stroke
That is to make my fame, if hurt it be,
Whole. I, not thou, it is that heads the house
And bears the burden: I, not thou, meseems,
It was that fought at Zara. Nay, thine eyes
Answer, an old man then was young, and I
That now am young then was not: nor in sooth
Would I misdoubt or so misprize thee, boy,
As not to think thou hadst done as gladly well
As I that service, had it lain in thee,
Or any toward our country. But myself
Am not so bowed and bruised of ruinous time,
Not yet so beaten down of trampling years,
That I should make my staff or sword of thee,
And strike by delegation. On the state
Is laid the charge of right and might to deal
Justice for all men and myself and thee
By sovereignty of duty; not on us
Lies of that load whereto the law puts hand
One feather’s or one grain’s weight. More: did we
Take so much on us of the general charge,
We were not loyal: and the dog we strike
Were yet, though viler than a leper’s hound,
No viler then than we, who by God’s gift
Being born of this the crown of commonweals,
Venetian, so should cast our crown away
That men born subject, unashamed to be
Called of their king subjects, might scoff at us
As children of no loftier state than theirs.
For where a man’s will hangs above men’s heads
Sheer as a sword or scourge might, and not one
Save by his grace hath grace to call himself
Man — there, if haply one be born a man,
Needs must he break the dogleash of the law
To do himself, being wronged, where no right is,
Right: but as base as he that should not break,
To show himself no dog, but man, their law,
Were he, that civic thief, the trustless knave
Who should not, being as we born masterless,
Put faith in freedom and the free man’s law,
Justice, but like a king’s man born, compelled
To cower with hounds or strike with rebels, rise
And right himself by wrong of all men else,
Shaming his country; saying, ‘I trust thee not;
I dare not leave my cause upon thine hand,
Mine honour in thy keeping lies not sure;
I must not set the chance of my good name
On such a dicer’s cast as this, that thou
Wilt haply, should it like thee, do me right.’
No citizen were this man, nor unmeet
By right of birth and civic honour he
To call a man sovereign and lord: nor here
Lives one, I think, so vile a fool as this.
For me, my faith is in the state I serve
And those my fellow-servants, in whose hands
Rests now mine honour safe as theirs in mine.
Which trust should they redeem not, but give up
In mine their own fame forfeit, this were not
Venice.
BERTUCCIO.
But if perchance the thing fall out?
If some be peradventure less than thou
Venetian, equal-souled and just of eye,
Must our own hands not take our own right up?
If these abuse their honour, and forbear,
For love’s or fear’s sake, justice?
FALIERO.
If the sun
Leap out of heaven down on the Lido there
And quench him in Giudecca.
[Rises.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, but then —
FALIERO.
I charge thee, speak thereof to me no more.
[Exeunt.
Scene II.
The Piazzetta.
Enter
Steno, meeting
Lioni
and
Beltramo.
STENO.
What says our Lioni now? hath he not heard
Nor seen if we lack heart or wit to strike?
Eh! what saith wisdom?
LIONI.
What indeed to thee
That art a knave and liar, a coward and fool?
Nothing.
STENO.
God’s blood, sir!
LIONI.
For thy veins have none:
A beggar’s trull breeds nobler brats than thee.
I bid thee, ser Michele, know me not.
STENO.
Well — but I bear such jests not every day;
Thou knowest me that I do not.
LIONI.
Hound, be hence;
And let a man draw breath unplagued of thine.
STENO.
Art thou my nobler?
LIONI.
Fool, the beasts are that.
Wilt thou not leave this air taintless of thee?
Wouldst thou be whipped — save of the hangman?
STENO.
What!
LIONI.
Strike him, Beltramo.
BELTRAMO.
Sir, by Christ, not I:
I am not of that office.
STENO.
No, thou knave.
Thine hand against a noble!
BELTRAMO.
Not mine hand,
Surely; but say my foot should strike a liar,
The blow should do his dogship honour: yea,
Were all high titles gilt about his head,
Scarce were he worthy to be spurned of me.
STENO.
Dost thou not hear then, Lioni, how thy knave
Dishonours thee, doing me dishonour?
LIONI.
Man,
— All true men pardon one that calls thee so! —
Leave us, or I will do my face the shame
And thine the great and yet unmerited grace
To spit upon thee.
STENO.
Christ! the men are mad.
Well, yet, God save and keep you!
LIONI.
Ay, from thee.
[Exit Steno.
BELTRAMO.
I would the Doge bore such mind as yours.
LIONI.
Thou knowest he bears a nobler.
BELTRAMO.
This I know,
His blood is more int
emperate than the sea
When red Libeccio takes it: half a sting
Will ravage all the channels of its course
With fever’s furious poison: and this worm
Hath shot the sting into his heart.
LIONI.
Can I
Help him? or thou, friend, heal it?
BELTRAMO.
No, my lord.
Would God —
LIONI.
And what wouldst thou with God?
BELTRAMO.
Alack,
What no man born, I doubt, may get of God
Whom he hath bidden in all this age of ours
Be born as I am.
LIONI.
And how wouldst thou be born?
BELTRAMO.
Even thine and all men’s equal.
LIONI.
Ay, good friend?
Why, now you thou me; being a noble too,
What could my malcontent do more?
BELTRAMO.
My lord,
I trust and think, being noble as you, I were not
Less malcontent than now, being but by blood
Your footboy’s fellow-citizen and yours.
LIONI.
Ay? Well, a brave man, were he seven times king,
Is but a brave man’s peer: so be it: but God
Unmake me that I am and make me vile
If I conceive, were I and thou, man, mates,
What then should discontent thee.
BELTRAMO.
Why, to you
The slight thing then still fretting half my heart,
The secret small snake-headed thing, should seem
Nothing; yet me not all alone it frets,
Galls no more mine than many a man’s heart else,
That any man should bear of any man
Wrong, or that right should hold not equal rule
On one as on another.
LIONI.
Doth it not
Here?
BELTRAMO.
No, my lord: nor otherwhere on earth.
LIONI.
Why, then, God help thee, why should this forsooth
Vex thee, or them whose thought keeps tune with thine,
More than it preys on others?
BELTRAMO.
Ask of God
That; some he bids not bear what others may —
Or haply may not all their patient lives
With pulseless hearts endure it.
LIONI.
God us aid!
Thy riddles ring no merrier, man, to me
Than that foul fool’s uncleaner japes than thine.
What gadfly thought hath stung thee?
BELTRAMO.
Truth, my lord;
Or call it pity — or call it love of right —
Malice, or covetousness, or envy — nay,
But I, howe’er men turn it, call my thought
Truth.
LIONI.
Be thou ne’er so strong to dive, thou shalt not
Pluck up from out the shadow where she sleeps
Truth: and for justice, if she keep not here
Her sovereign state and perfect kingdom, where
May man take thought and find her? Pity — nay,
But if our hearts should bleed but one thin tear
For each wrong known and each we know not of,
A day would drain them dry of blood. But what
Hath all our will and all our impotence,
Though this be strong as that is all too sure,
To do with him we spake of — be it for hurt
Or healing? Didst thou call on God to change
For him the face and fashion of the law
Whereby the world steers toward some end, and holds
Some heart up yet of comfort?
BELTRAMO.
Surely, no.
I did but think what good might come of ill
If this great wrong should smite a heart as great
With sense of other and older wrongs than this
Done toward no viler nor more abject hearts
Nor heaped on heads more worthy shame and scorn
Than age or place, fame of high deeds, desert,
Or pride, hath made Faliero’s.
LIONI.
By this light,
I think the heat it sheds hath even as wine
Dazzled thy brain to darkness. How should this
Do thee or any man good, that thy lord,
My lord and thine, an old man full of days
And full of honours, being than all of these
Himself more honourable, should take by chance
A buffet from a fool’s hand on his cheek,
Or spittle from a fool’s mouth on his beard,
And hardly bear to bear it? Who shall reap
What harvest hence?
BELTRAMO.
Nor you, sir, know, nor I;
But haply — so priests lie not — God.
LIONI.
May he
Bind up thy brain with comfort ere it sweat
Forth of thy scalp with fever! Mark me, friend,
Thou dost thyself, being honest, no small wrong
To let such worms for sloth’s sake feed on it.
I love thee, knowing thee valiant, — yea, by Christ,
I lie not, saying I love thee — and therein
If haply I deserve again of thee
Love, let me rather bid thee than beseech
Pluck all such thoughts up by the root, and take
Good counsel rather than intemperate care
Of what beseems not nor besteads thee. So
God give thee comfort and good day. Farewell.
[Exeunt severally.
ACT III.
Scene I. — An apartment in the ducal palace.
Faliero and Bertuccio.
FALIERO.
Did not I charge thee think no more such thoughts
Or seal them up in silence? Wouldst thou make
Honour, that here hath station if on earth,
Dishonourable? for so to deem or doubt
Of men set highest in Venice or the world
Were no less insolent madness than to make
Thy mother’s couch a harlot’s. Hast thou seen
More days than I, that what I think to see
Thou, thou shouldst hold for questionable? I know
That God put nought of traitor nor of fool
In the essence of thy spirit: else — pardon me,
My brother! I might hold this child of thine
Less than should be thy children.
BERTUCCIO.
That, my lord,
I would not be — God spare me that; I think
That unrebuked your brother’s son may say
Nor foe nor friend hath yet so found him.
FALIERO.
No;
I have known thee honourable all thy brief life through
As they that founded us our house, and sure
As mine own sword here to my hand is: hence
It is that harshlier I rebuke thee not,
Misprizing thus thy lordliest elders. Well —
Meseems the message tarries that should bring
Their sovereign sentence to us: the cause, I thought
Should need nor bear a long debate: but just
It is that justice should not mix with rage
Her purity of patience: let them weigh
My worth against my wrong ere judgment speak,
And both against the wrongdoer: I were found
Even all too much a soldier, and my state
For me no fitter than for thee, should wrath
Distract my trust and reverence toward the law
And toward their hands that wield it: as indeed
It doth not — nay, it could not though I would
And though it could I would not give it leave
Enter an Officer.
OFFI
CER.
Health from the senate to the Doge I bring,
And this their sentence.
FALIERO.
Give me this in brief.
Ay — thou, Bertuccio.
BERTUCCIO.
Bid this man begone.
FALIERO.
Why? Hast thou read already?
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, by heaven
I pray you bid him go.
FALIERO.
Ay? — Leave us, friend.
[Exit Officer.
Now, man, what is it? — I would not call thee boy,
Fluttering and faltering with so changed a cheek
Above thy task — but read.
BERTUCCIO.
I dare not.
FALIERO.
Ay?
BERTUCCIO.
I dare not, and I will not.
FALIERO.
Dost thou dare
Be called a coward?
BERTUCCIO.
Ay. No. I cannot tell.
Mine eyes were troubled, or my brain is touched.
FALIERO.
By Christ, I think so. Give it me.
BERTUCCIO.
My lord,
I cannot.
FALIERO.
Cannot — will not — dare not? Hark,
Boy; though thou find me patient, be not thou
Frontless, and light as riotous insolence.
Read.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, you bade me give it in brief.
FALIERO.
By God,
I think the boy makes mirth of it. Read, or speak.
BERTUCCIO.
Michele Steno stands condemned —
FALIERO.
To death?
Exile? God smite thee!
BERTUCCIO.
Had he struck me dumb,
It scarce were harder for my tongue to say
No.
FALIERO.
Ah! perpetual prison?
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 264
