I. Ber. Strange words, my Lord, and most unmerited;
I am no spy, and neither are we traitors.
Doge. We—We!—no matter—you have earned the right
To talk of us.—But to the point.—If this
Attempt succeeds, and Venice, rendered free
And flourishing, when we are in our graves,
Conducts her generations to our tombs,70
And makes her children with their little hands
Strew flowers o'er her deliverers' ashes, then
The consequence will sanctify the deed,
And we shall be like the two Bruti in
The annals of hereafter; but if not,
If we should fail, employing bloody means
And secret plot, although to a good end,
Still we are traitors, honest Israel;—thou
No less than he who was thy Sovereign
Six hours ago, and now thy brother rebel.80
I. Ber. 'Tis not the moment to consider thus,
Else I could answer.—Let us to the meeting,
Or we may be observed in lingering here.
Doge. We are observed, and have been.
I. Ber. We observed!
Let me discover—and this steel——-
Doge. Put up;
Here are no human witnesses: look there—
What see you?
I. Ber. Only a tall warrior's statue[420]
Bestriding a proud steed, in the dim light
Of the dull moon.
Doge. That Warrior was the sire
Of my sire's fathers, and that statue was90
Decreed to him by the twice rescued city:—
Think you that he looks down on us or no?
I. Ber. My Lord, these are mere fantasies; there are
No eyes in marble.
Doge. But there are in Death.
I tell thee, man, there is a spirit in
Such things that acts and sees, unseen, though felt;
And, if there be a spell to stir the dead,
'Tis in such deeds as we are now upon.
Deem'st thou the souls of such a race as mine
Can rest, when he, their last descendant Chief,100
Stands plotting on the brink of their pure graves
With stung plebeians?