The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 77

Byron's "have partook" cannot come under the head of "good, sterling, genuine English"! (See letter to Murray, October 8, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 89.)]

[396] {363}[The bells of San Marco were never rung but by order of the Doge. One of the pretexts for ringing this alarm was to have been an announcement of the appearance of a Genoese fleet off the Lagune.

According to Sanudo, "on the appointed day they [the followers of the sixteen leaders of the conspiracy] were to make affrays amongst themselves, here and there, in order that the Duke might have a pretence for tolling the bells of San Marco." (See, too, _Sketches from Venetian History, 1831, i. 266, note._)]

[397] ["Le Conseil des Dix avail ses prisons speciales dites _camerotti_; celles non officiellement appelees les _pozzi_ et les _piombi_, les puits et les plombs, etaient de son redoubtable domaine.

Les _Camerotti di sotto_ (les puits) etaient obscurs mais non accessibles a l'eau du ca.n.a.l, comme on l'a fait croire en des recits dignes d'Anne Radcliffe; les _camerotti di sopra_ (les plombs) etaient des cellules fortement doublees de bois mais non privees de lumiere."--_Les Archives de Venise_, par Armand Baschet, 1870, p. 535.

For the _pozzi_ and the "Bridge of Sighs" see note by Hobhouse, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 465; and compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV.

stanza i. line 1 (and _The Two Foscari_, act iv. sc. 1), _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 327, note 2.]

[398] {365}[For "Sapienza," _vide ante_, p. 356. According to the genealogies, Marin Falier, by his first wife, had a daughter Lucia, who was married to Franceschino Giustiniani; but there is no record of a son. (See _La Congiura_, p. 21.)]

[399] {366}["The Doges were all _buried_ in _St. Mark's before_ Faliero: it is singular that when his predecessor, _Andrea Dandolo_, died, the Ten made a law that _all_ the _future Doges_ should be _buried with their families in their own churches,--one would think by a kind of presentiment_. So that all that is said of his _Ancestral Doges_, as buried at St. John's and Paul's, is altered from the fact, _they being in St. Mark's_. _Make a note_ of this, and put _Editor_ as the subscription to it. As I make such pretensions to accuracy, I should not like to be _twitted_ even with such trifles on that score. Of the play they may say what they please, but not so of my costume and _dram.

pers_.--they having been real existences."--Letter to Murray, October 12, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 95. Byron's injunction was not carried out till 1832.]

[400] A gondola is not like a common boat, but is as easily rowed with one oar as with two (though, of course, not so swiftly), and often is so from motives of privacy; and, since the decay of Venice, of economy.

[401] {367}["What Gifford says (of the first act) is very consolatory.

'English, sterling _genuine English_,' is a desideratum amongst you, and I am glad that I have got so much left; though Heaven knows how I retain it: I _hear_ none but from my Valet, and his is _Nottinghams.h.i.+re_; and I _see_ none but in your new publications, and theirs is _no_ language at all, but jargon.... Gifford says that it is 'good, sterling, genuine English,' and Foscolo says that the characters are right Venetian."--Letters to Murray, Sept. 11, Oct. 8, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 75-89.]

[402] [Byron admits (_vide ante_, p. 340) that the character of the "Dogaressa" is more or less his own creation. It may be remarked that in Casimir Delavigne's version of the story, the d.u.c.h.ess (Elena) cherishes a secret and criminal attachment for Bertuccio Faliero, and that in Mr.

Swinburne's tragedy, while innocent in act, she is smitten with remorse for a pa.s.sion which overmasters her loyalty to her husband. Byron's Angiolina is "faultily faultless, ... splendidly null."

In a letter to Murray, dated January 4, 1821 (_Letters_, 1901, v. 218), he says, "As I think that _love_ is not the princ.i.p.al pa.s.sion for tragedy, you will not find me a popular writer. Unless it is Love, _furious_, _criminal_, and _hapless_ [as in _The Mysterious Mother_, or in Alfieri's _Mirra_, or Sh.e.l.ley's _Cenci_], it ought not to make a tragic subject. When it is melting and maudlin, it _does_, but it ought not to do; it is then for the gallery and second-price boxes." It is probable that he owed these sentiments to the theory and practice of Vittorio Alfieri. "It is extraordinary," writes M. de Fallette Barrol (_Monthly Magazine_, April, 1805, reprinted in Preface to _Tragedie di Alfieri_, A. Montucci, Edinburgh, 1805, i. xvi. _sq._), "that a man whose soul possessed an uncommon share of ardour and sensibility, and had experienced all the violence of the pa.s.sions, should scarcely have condescended to introduce love into his tragedies; or, when he does, that he should only employ it with a kind of reserve and severity.... He probably regarded it as a hackneyed agent; for in ... _Myrrha_ it appears in such a strange character, that all the art of the writer is not capable of divesting it of an air at once ludicrous and disgusting."

But apart from the example of Alfieri, there was another motive at work--a determination to prove to the world that he was the master of his own temperament, and that, if he chose, he could cast away frivolity and cynicism, and clothe himself with austerity "as with a garment." He had been taken to task for "treating well-nigh with equal derision the most pure of virtues, and the most odious of vices" (_Blackwood's Edin.

Mag._, August, 1819), and here was an "answer to his accusers!"]

[403] {368}[The exact date of Marin Falier's birth is a matter of conjecture, but there is reason to believe that he Was under seventy-five years of age at the time of the conspiracy. The date a.s.signed is 1280-1285 A.D.]

[de] {369} ----_has he been doomed?_--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[404] {370}[According to Dio Ca.s.sius, the last words of Brutus were, ? t???? ??et?, ????? ??? ?s?? [?????], ??? d? ?? ????? ?s????' s? d? ??? ?d???e?e? t???

[Greek: o~) tle~mon a)rete/, lo/gos a)/r? e~)sth? [a)/llos], e)go de o(s e(/rgon e(/skoun' sy d? a)r? e)dou/leues ty/che|]

--_Hist. Rom._, lib. xlvii. c. 49, ed. v., P. Boissevain, 1898, ii. 246.]

[df] {375}

_Doth Heaven forgive her own? is Satan saved?_ _But be it so?_--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[405] [There is no MS. authority for "From wrath eternal."]

[dg] _Oh do not speak thus rashly_.-[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[406] {377}

["Beg Heaven to cleanse the leprosy of l.u.s.t."

_'Tis Pity she's a Wh.o.r.e_, by John Ford.

Lamb's _Dramatic Poets_, 1835, i. 265.]

[407] {378}[The Dogaressa Aluica was the daughter of Nicol Gradenigo.

It was the Doge who inherited the "blood of Loredano" through his mother Beriola.]

[408] {381}[The lines "and the hour hastens" to "whate'er may urge" are not in the MS.]

[dh] {382}_Where Death sits throned_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[409] [Filippo Calendario, who is known to have been one of the princ.i.p.al conspirators, was a master stone-cutter, who worked as a sculptor, and ranked as such. The tradition, to which Byron does not allude, that he was an architect, and designed the new palace begun in 1354, may probably be traced to a doc.u.ment of the fifteenth century, in which Calendario is described as _commissario_, i.e. executor, of Piero Basejo, who worked as a master stone-cutter for the Republic. The _Maggior Consiglio_ was its own architect, and would not have empowered a _tagliapietra_, however eminent, to act on his own responsibility.--_La Congiura_, pp. 76, 77.]

[410] {383}[The _sbirri_ were constables, officers of the police magistrates, the _signori di notte_. The Italians have a saying, _Dir le sue ragioni agli sbirri_, that is, to argue with a policeman.]

[411] {384}["It was concerted that sixteen or seventeen leaders should be stationed in various parts of the city, each being at the head of forty men, armed and prepared; but the followers were not to know their destination."--See translation of Sanudo's _Narrative_, _post_, p. 464.]

[412] [In the earlier chronicles Beltramo is named Vendrame. He was, according to some authorities, _compare_ with Lioni, _i.e._ a co-sponsor of the same G.o.dchild. Signor Lazzarino (_La Congiura_, p. 90 (2)) maintains that in all probability Beltramo betrayed his companions from selfish motives, in order to save himself, and not from any "compunctious visitings," or because he was "too full o' the milk of human kindness." According to Sanudo (_vide post_, p. 465), "Beltramo Bergamasco" was not one of the princ.i.p.al conspirators, but "had heard a word or two of what was to take place." Ser Marco Soranzano (p. 466) was one of the "Zonta" of twenty who were elected as a.s.sessors to the Ten, to try the Doge of high treason against the Republic.]

[413] {386}[Compare--

"If we should fail,----We fail.

But screw your courage to the sticking-place, And we'll not fail."

_Macbeth_, act i. sc. 7, lines 59-61.]

[di] _In a great cause the block may soak their gore_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[dj] _If Brutus had not lived? He failed in giving_.--[MS. M.]

[414] [At the battle of Philippi, B.C. 42, Brutus lamented over the body of Ca.s.sius, and called him the "last of the Romans."--Plutarch's _Lives_, "Marcus Brutus," Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 686.]

[415] [The citizens of Aquileia and Padua fled before the invasion of Attila, and retired to the Isle of Gradus, and Rivus Altus, or Rialto.

Theodoric's minister, Ca.s.siodorus, who describes the condition of the fugitives some seventy years after they had settled on the "hundred isles," compares them to "waterfowl who had fixed their nests on the bosom of the waves." (See Gibbon's _Decline and Fall, etc._, 1825, ii.

375, note 6, and 376, notes 1, 2.)]

[416] [_Mal bigatto_, "vile silkworm," is a term of contempt and reproach = "uomo de maligna intenzione," a knave.]

[417] {388}[Compare--

"I'll make a.s.surance double sure, And take a bond of fate."

_Macbeth_, act iv. sc. I, lines 83, 84.]

[418] {390}[For Byron's correction of this statement, _vide ante_, p.

366. The monument of the Doge Vitale Falier (d. 1096) "was at the right side of the princ.i.p.al entrance into the Vestibule." According to G.

Meschinello (La Chiesa Ducale, 1753), Ordelafo Falier was buried in the Atrio of St. Mark's. See, too, _Venetia citta n.o.bilissima ... descritta da F. Sansovino_, 1663, pp. 96, 556.]

[dk] _We thought to make our peers and not our masters_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[dl] ----_merit such requital_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[419] {391}[Compare--