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MARINO FALIERO
A monologue from the play by Lord Byron
download the complete text of Marino Faliero
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted from Lord Byron: Six Plays. Lord Byron. Los Angeles: Black Box Press, 2007. |
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- DOGE: You see me here,
- As one of you hath said, an old, unarmed,
- Defenceless man; and yesterday you saw me
- Presiding in the hall of ducal state,
- Apparent Sovereign of our hundred isles,
- Robed in official purple, dealing out
- The edicts of a power which is not mine,
- Nor yours, but of our masters—the patricians.
- Why I was there you know, or think you know;
- Why I am here, he who hath been most wronged,
- He who among you hath been most insulted,
- Outraged and trodden on, until he doubt
- If he be worm or no, may answer for me,
- Asking of his own heart what brought him here?
- You know my recent story, all men know it,
- And judge of it far differently from those
- Who sate in judgement to heap scorn on scorn.
- But spare me the recital—it is here,
- Here at my heart the outrage—but my words,
- Already spent in unavailing plaints,
- Would only show my feebleness the more,
- And I come here to strengthen even the strong,
- And urge them on to deeds, and not to war
- With woman's weapons; but I need not urge you.
- Our private wrongs have sprung from public vices,
- In this—I cannot call it commonwealth,
- Nor kingdom, which hath neither prince nor people,
- But all the sins of the old Spartan state
- Without its virtues—temperance and valour.
- The Lords of Lacedæmon were true soldiers,
- But ours are Sybarites, while we are Helots,
- Of whom I am the lowest, most enslaved;
- Although dressed out to head a pageant, as
- The Greeks of yore made drunk their slaves to form
- A pastime for their children. You are met
- To overthrow this Monster of a state,
- This mockery of a Government, this spectre,
- Which must be exorcised with blood,—and then
- We will renew the times of Truth and Justice,
- Condensing in a fair free commonwealth
- Not rash equality but equal rights,
- Proportioned like the columns to the temple,
- Giving and taking strength reciprocal,
- And making firm the whole with grace and beauty,
- So that no part could be removed without
- Infringement of the general symmetry.
- In operating this great change, I claim
- To be one of you—if you trust in me;
- If not, strike home,—my life is compromised,
- And I would rather fall by freemen's hands
- Than live another day to act the tyrant
- As delegate of tyrants: such I am not,
- And never have been—read it in our annals;
- I can appeal to my past government
- In many lands and cities; they can tell you
- If I were an oppressor, or a man
- Feeling and thinking for my fellow men.
- Haply had I been what the Senate sought,
- A thing of robes and trinkets, dizened out
- To sit in state as for a Sovereign's picture;
- A popular scourge, a ready sentence-signer,
- A stickler for the Senate and "the Forty,"
- A sceptic of all measures which had not
- The sanction of "the Ten," a council-fawner,
- A tool—a fool—a puppet,—they had ne'er
- Fostered the wretch who stung me. What I suffer
- Has reached me through my pity for the people;
- That many know, and they who know not yet
- Will one day learn: meantime I do devote,
- Whate'er the issue, my last days of life—
- My present power such as it is, not that
- Of Doge, but of a man who has been great
- Before he was degraded to a Doge,
- And still has individual means and mind;
- I stake my fame (and I had fame)—my breath—
- (The least of all, for its last hours are nigh)
- My heart—my hope—my soul—upon this cast!
- Such as I am, I offer me to you
- And to your chiefs; accept me or reject me,—
- A Prince who fain would be a Citizen
- Or nothing, and who has left his throne to be so.
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