No More Learning

Forgive me; there is something at your heart
More than the mere discharge of public duties, 190
Which long use and a talent like to yours
Have rendered light, nay, a necessity,
To keep your mind from stagnating. 'Tis not
In hostile states, nor perils, thus to shake you,--
You, who have stood all storms and never sunk,
And climbed up to the pinnacle of power
And never fainted by the way, and stand
Upon it, and can look down steadily
Along the depth beneath, and ne'er feel dizzy.
Were Genoa's galleys riding in the port, 200
Were civil fury raging in Saint Mark's,
You are not to be wrought on, but would fall,
As you have risen, with an unaltered brow:
Your feelings now are of a different kind;
Something has stung your pride, not patriotism.

_Doge_. Pride! Angiolina? Alas! none is left me.

_Ang_. Yes--the same sin that overthrew the angels,
And of all sins most easily besets
Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature:
The vile are only vain; the great are proud. 210

_Doge_. I _had_ the pride of honour, of _your_ honour,
Deep at my heart--But let us change the theme.

_Ang_. Ah no! --As I have ever shared your kindness
In all things else, let me not be shut out
From your distress: were it of public import,
You know I never sought, would never seek
To win a word from you; but feeling now
Your grief is private, it belongs to me
To lighten or divide it.
Since the day
When foolish Steno's ribaldry detected 220
Unfixed your quiet, you are greatly changed,
And I would soothe you back to what you were.

_Doge_. To what I was! --have you heard Steno's sentence?

_Ang_. No.

_Doge_. A month's arrest.

_Ang_. Is it not enough?

_Doge_. Enough! --yes, for a drunken galley slave,
Who, stung by stripes, may murmur at his master;
But not for a deliberate, false, cool villain,
Who stains a Lady's and a Prince's honour
Even on the throne of his authority.

_Ang_. There seems to be enough in the conviction 230
Of a patrician guilty of a falsehood:
All other punishment were light unto
His loss of honour.

_Doge_.