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_ Why press his abdication now?

_Lor. _ The feelings
Of private passion may not interrupt
The public benefit; and what the State
Decides to-day must not give way before
To-morrow for a natural accident.

_Bar. _ You have a son.

_Lor. _ I _have_--and _had_ a father. 270

_Bar. _ Still so inexorable?

_Lor. _ Still.

_Bar. _ But let him
Inter his son before we press upon him
This edict.

_Lor. _ Let him call up into life
My sire and uncle--I consent.
Men may,
Even aged men, be, or appear to be,
Sires of a hundred sons, but cannot kindle
An atom of their ancestors from earth.
The victims are not equal; he has seen
His sons expire by natural deaths, and I
My sires by violent and mysterious maladies. 280
I used no poison, bribed no subtle master
Of the destructive art of healing, to
Shorten the path to the eternal cure.
His sons--and he had four--are dead, without
_My_ dabbling in vile drugs.

_Bar. _ And art thou sure
He dealt in such?

_Lor. _ Most sure.

_Bar. _ And yet he seems
All openness.

_Lor. _ And so he seemed not long
Ago to Carmagnuola.

_Bar. _ The attainted
And foreign traitor?

_Lor. _ Even so: when _he_,
After the very night in which "the Ten" 290
(Joined with the Doge) decided his destruction,
Met the great Duke at daybreak with a jest,
Demanding whether he should augur him
"The good day or good night?