Venice Preserved: A Tragedy

by Thomas Otway

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I. A STREET IN VENICE.

Enter Priuli and Jaffier.

Pri. No more! I'll hear no more! Be gone and leave me.

Jaf. Not hear me! By my suffering, but you shall!

My lord, my lord! I'm not that abject wretch

You think me. Patience! where's the distance throws

Me back so far, but I may boldly speak

In right, though proud oppression will not hear me?

Pri. Have you not wrong'd me?

Jaf. Could my nature e'er

Have brook'd injustice, or the doing wrongs,

I need not now thus low have bent myself

To gain a hearing from a cruel father.

Wrong'd you?

Pri. Yes, wrong'd me! In the nicest point,

The honour of my house, you've done me wrong.

You may remember (for I now will speak,

And urge its baseness) when you first came home

From travel, with such hopes as made you look'd on,

By all men's eyes, a youth of expectation,

Pleas'd with your growing virtue, I receiv'd you;

Courted, and sought to raise you to your merits:

My house, my table, nay, my fortune too,

My very self, was yours; you might have us'd me

To your best service; like an open friend

I treated, trusted you, and thought you mine:

When, in requital of my best endeavours,

You treacherously practis'd to undo me.

Jaf. Yes, all, and then adieu for ever.

There's not a wretch, that lives on common charity,

But's happier than me: for I have known

The luscious sweets of plenty; every night

Have slept with soft content about my head,

And never wak'd, but to a joyful morning;

Yet now must fall, like a full ear of corn,

Whose blossom 'scap'd, yet's wither'd in the ripening.

Pri. Home, and be humble; study to retrench;

Discharge the lazy vermin of thy hall,

Those pageants of thy folly:

Reduce the glitt'ring trappings of thy wife

To humble weeds, fit for thy little state:

Then, to some suburb cottage both retire;

Drudge to feed loathsome life; get brats and starve—

Home, home, I say.[exit.

Jaf. Yes, if my heart would let me—

This proud, this swelling heart: home I would go,

But that my doors are baleful to my eyes,

Fill'd and dam'd up with gaping creditors,

Watchful as fowlers when their game will spring.

I've now not fifty ducats in the world,

Yet still I am in love, and pleas'd with ruin.

Oh! Belvidera! Oh! she is my wife—

And we will bear our wayward fate together,

But ne'er know comfort more.

Enter Pierre.

Pier. My friend, good morrow;

How fares the honest partner of my heart?

What, melancholy! not a word to spare me?

Jaf. I'm thinking, Pierre, how that damn'd starving quality,

Call'd honesty, got footing in the world.

Pier. Why, powerful villany first set it up,

For its own ease and safety. Honest men

Are the soft easy cushions on which knaves

Repose and fatten. Were all mankind villains,

They'd starve each other; lawyers would want practice,

Cut-throats rewards: each man would kill his brother

Himself; none would be paid or hang'd for murder.

Honesty! 'twas a cheat invented first

To bind the hands of bold deserving rogues,

That fools and cowards might sit safe in power,

And lord it uncontrol'd above their betters.

Jaf. Then honesty is but a notion?

Pier. Nothing else;

Like wit, much talk'd of, not to be defin'd:

He that pretends to most, too, has least share in't.

'Tis a ragged virtue: Honesty! no more on't.

Jaf. Sure thou art honest!

Pier. So, indeed, men think me;

But they're mistaken, Jaffier: I'm a rogue

As well as they;

A fine, gay, bold-fac'd villain as thou seest me.

'Tis true, I pay my debts, when they're contracted;

I steal from no man; would not cut a throat

To gain admission to a great man's purse,

Or a whore's bed; I'd not betray my friend

To get his place or fortune; I scorn to flatter

A blown-up fool above me, or crush the wretch beneath me;

Yet, Jaffier, for all this I'm a villain.

Jaf. A villain!

Pier. Yes, a most notorious villain;

To see the sufferings of my fellow creatures,

And own myself a man: to see our senators

Cheat the deluded people with a show

Of liberty, which yet they ne'er must taste of.

They say, by them our hands are free from fetters;

Yet whom they please they lay in basest bonds;

Bring whom they please to infamy and sorrow;

Drive us, like wrecks, down the rough tide of power,

Whilst no hold's left to save us from destruction.

All that bear this are villains, and I one,

Not to rouse up at the great call of nature,

And check the growth of these domestic spoilers,

That make us slaves, and tell us, 'tis our charter.

Jaf. I think no safety can be here for virtue,

And grieve, my friend, as much as thou, to live

In such a wretched state as this of Venice,

Where all agree to spoil the public good;

And villains fatten with the brave man's labours.

Pier. We've neither safety, unity, nor peace,

For the foundation's lost of common good;

Justice is lame, as well as blind, amongst us;

The laws (corrupted to their ends that make 'em)

Serve but for instruments of some new tyranny,

That every day starts up, t' enslave us deeper.

Now could this glorious cause but find out friends

To do it right, oh, Jaffier! then might'st thou

Not wear these seals of woe upon thy face;

The proud Priuli should be taught humanity,

And learn to value such a son as thou art.

I dare not speak, but my heart bleeds this moment.

Jaf. Curs'd be the cause, though I thy friend be part on't:

Let me partake the troubles of thy bosom,

For I am us'd to misery, and perhaps

May find a way to sweeten't to thy spirit.

Pier. Too soon 'twill reach thy knowledge—

Jaf. Then from thee

Let it proceed. There's virtue in thy friendship,

Would make the saddest tale of sorrow pleasing,

Strengthen my constancy and welcome ruin.

Pier. Then thou art ruined!

Jaf. That I long since knew;

I and ill fortune have been long acquainted.

Pier. I pass'd this very moment by thy doors,

And found them guarded by a troop of villains;

The sons of public rapine were destroying.

They told me, by the sentence of the law,

They had commission to seize all thy fortune:

Nay more, Priuli's cruel hand had sign'd it.

Here stood a ruffian with a horrid face,

Lording it o'er a pile of massy plate,

Tumbled into a heap for public sale;

There was another, making villanous jests

At thy undoing: he had ta'en possession

Of all thy ancient, most domestic, ornaments,

Rich hangings intermix'd and wrought with gold;

The very bed, which on thy wedding-night

Receiv'd thee to the arms of Belvidera,

The scene of all thy joys, was violated

By the coarse hands of filthy dungeon villains,

And thrown amongst the common lumber.

Jaf. Now, thank heaven—

Pier. Thank heaven! for what?

Jaf. That I'm not worth a ducat.

Pier. Curse thy dull stars, and the worse fate of Venice,

Where brothers, friends, and fathers, all are false;

Where there's no truth, no trust; where innocence

Stoops under vile oppression, and vice lords it.

Hadst thou but seen, as I did, how at last

Thy beauteous Belvidera, like a wretch

That's doom'd to banishment, came weeping forth,

Shining through tears, like April suns in showers,

That labour to o'ercome the cloud that loads 'em;

Whilst two young virgins, on whose arms she lean'd,

Kindly look'd up, and at her grief grew sad,

As if they catch'd the sorrows that fell from her.

Ev'n the lewd rabble, that were gather'd round

To see the sight, stood mute when they beheld her;

Govern'd their roaring throats, and grumbled pity.

I could have hugg'd the greasy rogues: they pleas'd me.

Jaf. I thank thee for this story, from my soul;

Since now I know the worst that can befal me.

Ah, Pierre! I have a heart that could have borne

The roughest wrong my fortune could have done me;

But when I think what Belvidera feels,

The bitterness her tender spirit tastes of,

I own myself a coward: bear my weakness;

If, throwing thus my arms about thy neck,

I play the boy, and blubber in thy bosom.

Oh! I shall drown thee with my sorrows.

Pier. Burn,

First burn and level Venice to thy ruin.

What! starve, like beggars' brats, in frosty weather,

Under a hedge, and whine ourselves to death!

Thou or thy cause shall never want assistance,

Whilst I have blood or fortune fit to serve thee:

Command my heart, thou'rt every way its master.

Jaf. No, there's a secret pride in bravely dying.

Pier. Rats die in holes and corners, dogs run mad;

Man knows a braver remedy for sorrow:

Revenge, the attribute of gods; they stamp'd it,

With their great image, on our natures. Die!

Consider well the cause, that calls upon thee:

And, if thou'rt base enough, die then. Remember,

Thy Belvidera suffers; Belvidera!

Die—damn first—What! be decently interr'd

In a church-yard, and mingle thy brave dust

With stinking rogues, that rot in winding-sheets,

Surfeit-slain fools, the common dung o'th' soil!

Jaf. Oh!

Pier. Well said, out with't, swear a little—

Jaf. Swear! By sea and air; by earth, by heav'n, and hell,

I will revenge my Belvidera's tears.

Hark thee, my friend—Priuli—is—a senator.

Pier. A dog.

Jaf. Agreed.

Pier. Shoot him.

Jaf. With all my heart.

No more; where shall we meet at night?

Pier. I'll tell thee;

On the Rialto, every night at twelve,

I take my evening's walk of meditation;

There we two will meet, and talk of precious

Mischief—

Jaf. Farewell.

Pier. At twelve.

Jaf. At any hour; my plagues

Will keep me waking.[exit Pierre.

Tell me why, good heaven,

Thou mad'st me, what I am, with all the spirit,

Aspiring thoughts, and elegant desires,

That fill the happiest man? Ah, rather, why

Didst thou not form me sordid as my fate,

Base-minded, dull, and fit to carry burthens?

Why have I sense to know the curse that's on me?

Is this just dealing, nature?—Belvidera!

Enter Belvidera.

Poor Belvidera!

Bel. Lead me, lead me, my virgins,

To that kind voice. My lord, my love, my refuge!

Happy my eyes, when they behold thy face!

My heavy heart will leave its doleful beating

At sight of thee, and bound with sprightly joys.

Oh smile! as when our loves were in their spring,

And cheer my fainting soul.

Jaf. As when our loves

Were in their spring! Has then our fortune chang'd?

Art thou not Belvidera, still the same,

Kind, good, and tender, as my arms first found thee?

If thou art alter'd, where shall I have harbour?

Where ease my loaded heart? Oh! where complain?

Bel. Does this appear like change, or love decaying,

When thus I throw myself into thy bosom,

With all the resolution of strong truth!

Beats not my heart, as 'twould alarum thine

To a new charge of bliss?—I joy more in thee,

Than did thy mother, when she hugg'd thee first,

And bless'd the gods for all her travail past.

Jaf. Can there in woman be such glorious faith?

Sure all ill stories of thy sex are false!

Oh woman! lovely woman! nature made thee

To temper man: we had been brutes without you!

Angels are painted fair, to look like you:

There's in you all that we believe of heaven;

Amazing brightness, purity, and truth,

Eternal joy, and everlasting love.

Bel. If love be treasure, we'll be wondrous rich;

I have so much, my heart will surely break with't:

Vows can't express it. When I would declare

How great's my joy, I'm dumb with the big thought;

I swell, and sigh, and labour with my longing.

O! lead me to some desert wide and wild,

Barren as our misfortunes, where my soul

May have its vent, where I may tell aloud

To the high heavens, and ev'ry list'ning planet,

With what a boundless stock my bosom's fraught;

Where I may throw my eager arms about thee,

Give loose to love, with kisses kindling joy,

And let off all the fire that's in my heart.

Jaf. Oh, Belvidera! doubly I'm a beggar:

Undone by fortune, and in debt to thee.

Want, worldly want, that hungry, meagre fiend,

Is at my heels, and chases me in view.

Canst thou bear cold and hunger? Can these limbs,

Fram'd for the tender offices of love,

Endure the bitter gripes of smarting poverty?

When banish'd by our miseries abroad

(As suddenly we shall be) to seek out

In some far climate, where our names are strangers,

For charitable succour; wilt thou then,

When in a bed of straw we shrink together,

And the bleak winds shall whistle round our heads;

Wilt thou then talk thus to me? Wilt thou then

Hush my cares thus, and shelter me with love?

Bel. Oh! I will love thee, even in madness love thee;

Though my distracted senses should forsake me,

I'd find some intervals, when my poor heart

Should 'swage itself, and be let loose to thine.

Though the bare earth be all our resting-place,

Its roots our food, some cleft our habitation,

I'll make this arm a pillow for thine head;

And, as thou sighing ly'st, and swell'd with sorrow,

Creep to thy bosom, pour the balm of love

Into thy soul, and kiss thee to thy rest;

Then praise our God, and watch thee till the morning.

Jaf. Hear this, ye heav'ns! and wonder how you made her:

Reign, reign, ye monarchs that divide the world,

Busy rebellion ne'er will let you know

Tranquillity and happiness like mine!

Like gaudy ships th' obsequious billows fall,

And rise again to lift you in your pride;

They wait but for a storm, and then devour you;

I, in my private bark already wreck'd,

Like a poor merchant driven to unknown land,

That had by chance pack'd up his choicest treasure

In one dear casket, and sav'd only that;

Since I must wander further on the shore,

Thus hug my little, but my precious store,

Resolv'd to scorn and trust my fate no more.[exeunt.

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