No More Learning

_Doge_. I do believe you; and I know you true:
For Love--romantic Love--which in my youth
I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw 350
Lasting, but often fatal, it had been
No lure for me, in my most passionate days,
And could not be so now, did such exist.
But such respect, and mildly paid regard
As a true feeling for your welfare, and
A free compliance with all honest wishes,--
A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness
Not shown, but shadowing o'er such little failings
As Youth is apt in, so as not to check
Rashly, but win you from them ere you knew 360
You had been won, but thought the change your choice;
A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct;
A trust in you; a patriarchal love,
And not a doting homage; friendship, faith,--
Such estimation in your eyes as these
Might claim, I hoped for.

_Ang_. And have ever had.

_Doge_. I think so. For the difference in our years
You knew it choosing me, and chose; I trusted
Not to my qualities, nor would have faith
In such, nor outward ornaments of nature, 370
Were I still in my five and twentieth spring;
I trusted to the blood of Loredano[407]
Pure in your veins; I trusted to the soul
God gave you--to the truths your father taught you--
To your belief in Heaven--to your mild virtues--
To your own faith and honour, for my own.

_Ang_. You have done well. --I thank you for that trust,
Which I have never for one moment ceased
To honour you the more for.

_Doge_. Where is Honour,
Innate and precept-strengthened, 'tis the rock 380
Of faith connubial: where it is not--where
Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities
Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart,
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know
'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream
Of honesty in such infected blood,
Although 'twere wed to him it covets most:
An incarnation of the poet's God
In all his marble-chiselled beauty, or
The demi-deity, Alcides, in 390
His majesty of superhuman Manhood,
Would not suffice to bind where virtue is not;
It is consistency which forms and proves it:
Vice cannot fix, and Virtue cannot change.
The once fall'n woman must for ever fall;
For Vice must have variety, while Virtue
Stands like the Sun, and all which rolls around
Drinks life, and light, and glory from her aspect.

_Ang_.
And seeing, feeling thus this truth in others,
(I pray you pardon me;) but wherefore yield you 400
To the most fierce of fatal passions, and
Disquiet your great thoughts with restless hate
Of such a thing as Steno?

_Doge_. You mistake me.
It is not Steno who could move me thus;
Had it been so, he should--but let that pass.

_Ang_. What is't you feel so deeply, then, even now?

_Doge_. The violated majesty of Venice,
At once insulted in her Lord and laws.

_Ang_. Alas! why will you thus consider it?

_Doge_. I have thought on't till--but let me lead you back 410
To what I urged; all these things being noted,
I wedded you; the world then did me justice
Upon the motive, and my conduct proved
They did me right, while yours was all to praise:
You had all freedom--all respect--all trust
From me and mine; and, born of those who made
Princes at home, and swept Kings from their thrones
On foreign shores, in all things you appeared
Worthy to be our first of native dames.

_Ang_. To what does this conduct?

_Doge_.