No More Learning

Ber_. We observed!
Let me discover--and this steel-----

_Doge_. Put up;
Here are no human witnesses: look there--
What see you?

_I. Ber_. Only a tall warrior's statue[420]
Bestriding a proud steed, in the dim light
Of the dull moon.

_Doge_. That Warrior was the sire
Of my sire's fathers, and that statue was 90
Decreed to him by the twice rescued city:--
Think you that he looks down on us or no?

_I. Ber_. My Lord, these are mere fantasies; there are
No eyes in marble.

_Doge_. But there are in Death.
I tell thee, man, there is a spirit in
Such things that acts and sees, unseen, though felt;
And, if there be a spell to stir the dead,
'Tis in such deeds as we are now upon.
Deem'st thou the souls of such a race as mine
Can rest, when he, their last descendant Chief, 100
Stands plotting on the brink of their pure graves
With stung plebeians?

_I. Ber_. It had been as well
To have pondered this before,--ere you embarked
In our great enterprise. --Do you repent?

_Doge_. No--but I _feel_, and shall do to the last.
I cannot quench a glorious life at once,
Nor dwindle to the thing I now must be,[dm]
And take men's lives by stealth, without some pause:
Yet doubt me not; it is this very feeling,
And knowing _what_ has wrung me to be thus, 110
Which is your best security. There's not
A roused mechanic in your busy plot[dn]
So wronged as I, so fall'n, so loudly called
To his redress: the very means I am forced
By these fell tyrants to adopt is such,
That I abhor them doubly for the deeds
Which I must do to pay them back for theirs.

_I. Ber_. Let us away--hark--the Hour strikes.

_Doge_. On--on--
It is our knell, or that of Venice. --On.

_I.