There is one without
Craves audience of your Highness.
Craves audience of your Highness.
Byron
--Hollow bauble!
[_Taking up the ducal cap_.
Beset with all the thorns that line a crown, 260
Without investing the insulted brow
With the all-swaying majesty of Kings;
Thou idle, gilded, and degraded toy,
Let me resume thee as I would a vizor. [_Puts it on_.
How my brain aches beneath thee! and my temples
Throb feverish under thy dishonest weight.
Could I not turn thee to a diadem?
Could I not shatter the Briarean sceptre
Which in this hundred-handed Senate rules,
Making the people nothing, and the Prince 270
A pageant? In my life I have achieved
Tasks not less difficult--achieved for them,
Who thus repay me! Can I not requite them?
Oh for one year! Oh! but for even a day
Of my full youth, while yet my body served
My soul as serves the generous steed his lord,
I would have dashed amongst them, asking few
In aid to overthrow these swoln patricians;
But now I must look round for other hands
To serve this hoary head; but it shall plan 280
In such a sort as will not leave the task
Herculean, though as yet 'tis but a chaos
Of darkly brooding thoughts: my fancy is
In her first work, more nearly to the light
Holding the sleeping images of things
For the selection of the pausing judgment. --
The troops are few in----
_Enter_ VINCENZO.
_Vin_.
There is one without
Craves audience of your Highness.
_Doge_. I'm unwell--
I can see no one, not even a patrician--
Let him refer his business to the Council. 290
_Vin_. My Lord, I will deliver your reply;
It cannot much import--he's a plebeian,
The master of a galley, I believe.
_Doge_. How! did you say the patron of a galley? [389]
That is--I mean--a servant of the state:
Admit him, he may be on public service.
[_Exit_ VINCENZO.
_Doge_ (_solus_). This patron may be sounded; I will try him.
I know the people to be discontented:
They have cause, since Sapienza's[390] adverse day,
When Genoa conquered: they have further cause, 300
Since they are nothing in the state, and in
The city worse than nothing--mere machines,
To serve the nobles' most patrician pleasure.
The troops have long arrears of pay, oft promised,
And murmur deeply--any hope of change
Will draw them forward: they shall pay themselves
With plunder:--but the priests--I doubt the priesthood
Will not be with us; they have hated me
Since that rash hour, when, maddened with the drone,
I smote the tardy Bishop at Treviso,[391] 310
Quickening his holy march; yet, ne'ertheless,
They may be won, at least their Chief at Rome,
By some well-timed concessions; but, above
All things, I must be speedy: at my hour
Of twilight little light of life remains.
Could I free Venice, and avenge my wrongs,
I had lived too long, and willingly would sleep
Next moment with my sires; and, wanting this,
Better that sixty of my fourscore years
Had been already where--how soon, I care not-- 320
The whole must be extinguished;--better that
They ne'er had been, than drag me on to be
The thing these arch-oppressors fain would make me.
Let me consider--of efficient troops
There are three thousand posted at----
_Enter_ VINCENZO _and_ ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
[_Taking up the ducal cap_.
Beset with all the thorns that line a crown, 260
Without investing the insulted brow
With the all-swaying majesty of Kings;
Thou idle, gilded, and degraded toy,
Let me resume thee as I would a vizor. [_Puts it on_.
How my brain aches beneath thee! and my temples
Throb feverish under thy dishonest weight.
Could I not turn thee to a diadem?
Could I not shatter the Briarean sceptre
Which in this hundred-handed Senate rules,
Making the people nothing, and the Prince 270
A pageant? In my life I have achieved
Tasks not less difficult--achieved for them,
Who thus repay me! Can I not requite them?
Oh for one year! Oh! but for even a day
Of my full youth, while yet my body served
My soul as serves the generous steed his lord,
I would have dashed amongst them, asking few
In aid to overthrow these swoln patricians;
But now I must look round for other hands
To serve this hoary head; but it shall plan 280
In such a sort as will not leave the task
Herculean, though as yet 'tis but a chaos
Of darkly brooding thoughts: my fancy is
In her first work, more nearly to the light
Holding the sleeping images of things
For the selection of the pausing judgment. --
The troops are few in----
_Enter_ VINCENZO.
_Vin_.
There is one without
Craves audience of your Highness.
_Doge_. I'm unwell--
I can see no one, not even a patrician--
Let him refer his business to the Council. 290
_Vin_. My Lord, I will deliver your reply;
It cannot much import--he's a plebeian,
The master of a galley, I believe.
_Doge_. How! did you say the patron of a galley? [389]
That is--I mean--a servant of the state:
Admit him, he may be on public service.
[_Exit_ VINCENZO.
_Doge_ (_solus_). This patron may be sounded; I will try him.
I know the people to be discontented:
They have cause, since Sapienza's[390] adverse day,
When Genoa conquered: they have further cause, 300
Since they are nothing in the state, and in
The city worse than nothing--mere machines,
To serve the nobles' most patrician pleasure.
The troops have long arrears of pay, oft promised,
And murmur deeply--any hope of change
Will draw them forward: they shall pay themselves
With plunder:--but the priests--I doubt the priesthood
Will not be with us; they have hated me
Since that rash hour, when, maddened with the drone,
I smote the tardy Bishop at Treviso,[391] 310
Quickening his holy march; yet, ne'ertheless,
They may be won, at least their Chief at Rome,
By some well-timed concessions; but, above
All things, I must be speedy: at my hour
Of twilight little light of life remains.
Could I free Venice, and avenge my wrongs,
I had lived too long, and willingly would sleep
Next moment with my sires; and, wanting this,
Better that sixty of my fourscore years
Had been already where--how soon, I care not-- 320
The whole must be extinguished;--better that
They ne'er had been, than drag me on to be
The thing these arch-oppressors fain would make me.
Let me consider--of efficient troops
There are three thousand posted at----
_Enter_ VINCENZO _and_ ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
