_I. Ber_. Is't possible? a month's imprisonment! No more for Steno?
_Doge_. You have heard the offence, And now you know his punishment; and then 400 You ask redress of _me_! Go to the Forty, Who passed the sentence upon Michel Steno; They'll do as much by Barbaro, no doubt.
_Doge_. Give them breath. Mine have no further outrage to endure.
_I. Ber_. Then, in a word, it rests but on your word To punish and avenge--I will not say _My_ petty wrong, for what is a mere blow, However vile, to such a thing as I am?-- But the base insult done your state and person. 410
_Doge_. You overrate my power, which is a pageant. This Cap is not the Monarch's crown; these robes Might move compassion, like a beggar's rags; Nay, more, a beggar's are his own, and these But lent to the poor puppet, who must play Its part with all its empire in this ermine.
_I. Ber_. Wouldst thou be sovereign lord of Venice?
_Doge_. Aye, If that the people shared that sovereignty, So that nor they nor I were further slaves 420 To this o'ergrown aristocratic Hydra,[394] The poisonous heads of whose envenomed body Have breathed a pestilence upon us all.
_I. Ber_. Yet, thou wast born, and still hast lived, patrician.
_Doge_. In evil hour was I so born; my birth Hath made me Doge to be insulted: but I lived and toiled a soldier and a servant Of Venice and her people, not the Senate; Their good and my own honour were my guerdon. I have fought and bled; commanded, aye, and conquered; 430 Have made and marred peace oft in embassies, As it might chance to be our country's 'vantage; Have traversed land and sea in constant duty, Through almost sixty years, and still for Venice, My fathers' and my birthplace, whose dear spires, Rising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon, It was reward enough for me to view Once more; but not for any knot of men, Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat! But would you know why I have done all this? 440 Ask of the bleeding pelican why she Hath ripped her bosom? Had the bird a voice, She'd tell thee 'twas for _all_ her little ones.
_Doge_. _They made_ me so; I sought it not, the flattering fetters met me Returning from my Roman embassy, And never having hitherto refused Toil, charge, or duty for the state, I did not, At these late years, decline what was the highest Of all in seeming, but of all most base 450 In what we have to do and to endure: Bear witness for me thou, my injured subject, When I can neither right myself nor thee.