No More Learning

_Mar. _ I had obtained permission from "the Ten"
To attend my husband for a limited number
Of hours.

_Doge_. You had so.

_Mar. _ 'Tis revoked.

_Doge_. By whom?

_Mar. _ "The Ten. "--When we had reached "the Bridge of Sighs,"[51]
Which I prepared to pass with Foscari,
The gloomy guardian of that passage first
Demurred: a messenger was sent back to
"The Ten;"--but as the Court no longer sate,
And no permission had been given in writing,
I was thrust back, with the assurance that 60
Until that high tribunal reassembled
The dungeon walls must still divide us.

_Doge_. True,
The form has been omitted in the haste
With which the court adjourned; and till it meets,
'Tis dubious.

_Mar. _ Till it meets!
and when it meets,
They'll torture him again; and he and I
Must purchase by renewal of the rack
The interview of husband and of wife,
The holiest tie beneath the Heavens! --Oh God!
Dost thou see this?

_Doge_. Child--child----

_Mar. _ (_abruptly_). Call _me_ not "child! " 70
You soon will have no children--you deserve none--
You, who can talk thus calmly of a son
In circumstances which would call forth tears
Of blood from Spartans! Though these did not weep
Their boys who died in battle, is it written
That they beheld them perish piecemeal, nor
Stretched forth a hand to save them?

_Doge_. You behold me:
I cannot weep--I would I could; but if
Each white hair on this head were a young life,
This ducal cap the Diadem of earth, 80
This ducal ring with which I wed the waves
A talisman to still them--I'd give all
For him.

_Mar. _ With less he surely might be saved.

_Doge_. That answer only shows you know not Venice.
Alas!