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 King?
Doge. Yes—of a happy people.
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 slaves420
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.
I. Ber. And yet they made thee Duke.
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 base450
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.