_Doge_. I have none from you, my child. Command my time, when not commanded by The State.
_Mar._ I wished to speak to you of _him_.
_Mar._ I had obtained permission from "the Ten" To attend my husband for a limited number Of hours.
_Mar._ "The Ten."--When we had reached "the Bridge of Sighs,"[51] Which I prepared to pass with Foscari, The gloomy guardian of that passage first Demurred: a messenger was sent back to "The Ten;"--but as the Court no longer sate, And no permission had been given in writing, I was thrust back, with the assurance that 60 Until that high tribunal reassembled The dungeon walls must still divide us.
_Doge_. True, The form has been omitted in the haste With which the court adjourned; and till it meets, 'Tis dubious.
_Mar._ Till it meets! and when it meets, They'll torture him again; and he and I Must purchase by renewal of the rack The interview of husband and of wife, The holiest tie beneath the Heavens!--Oh God! Dost thou see this?
_Mar._ (_abruptly_). Call _me_ not "child!" 70 You soon will have no children--you deserve none-- You, who can talk thus calmly of a son In circumstances which would call forth tears Of blood from Spartans! Though these did not weep Their boys who died in battle, is it written That they beheld them perish piecemeal, nor Stretched forth a hand to save them?
_Doge_. You behold me: I cannot weep--I would I could; but if Each white hair on this head were a young life, This ducal cap the Diadem of earth, 80 This ducal ring with which I wed the waves A talisman to still them--I'd give all For him.
_Mar._ With less he surely might be saved.
_Doge_. That answer only shows you know not Venice. Alas! how should you? she knows not herself, In all her mystery. Hear me--they who aim At Foscari, aim no less at his father; The sire's destruction would not save the son; They work by different means to the same end, And that is--but they have not conquered yet. 90
_Mar._ And your son,--how long will he live?
_Doge_. I trust, For all that yet is past, as many years And happier than his father. The rash boy, With womanish impatience to return, Hath ruined all by that detected letter: A high crime, which I neither can deny Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke: Had he but borne a little, little longer His Candiote exile, I had hopes--he has quenched them-- 100 He must return.
