, and
inflexible: a marked character.
BOURGOGNINO, a conspirator, a youth of twenty; frank and high-spirited,
proud, hasty, and undisguised.
CALCAGNO, a conspirator, a worn-out debauchee of thirty; insinuating and
enterprising.
SACCO, a conspirator, forty-five years of age, with no distinguishing
trait of character.
LOMELLINO, in the confidence of the pretender, a haggard courtier.
ZENTURIONE, |
ZIBO, | Malcontents.
ASSERATO, |
ROMANO, a painter, frank and simple, with the pride of genius.
MULEY HASSAN, a Moor of Tunis, an abandoned character, with a physiognomy
displaying an original mixture of rascality and humor.
A GERMAN of the ducal body-guard, of an honest simplicity, and steady
bravery.
THREE SEDITIOUS CITIZENS.
LEONORA, the wife of Fiesco, eighteen years of age, of great sensibility;
her appearance pale and slender, engaging, but not dazzling; her
countenance marked with melancholy; her dress black.
JULIA, Countess dowager Imperiali, sister of the younger Doria, aged
twenty-five; a proud coquette, in person tall and full, her beauty
spoiled by affectation, with a sarcastic maliciousness in her
countenance; her dress black.
BERTHA, daughter of Verrina, an innocent girl.
ROSA, | Maids of Leonora.
ARABELLA, |
Several Nobles, Citizens, Germans, Soldiers, Thieves.
(SCENE--Genoa. TIME--the year 1547.)
ACT I.
SCENE I.--A Saloon in FIESCO'S House. The distant sound of dancing and
music is heard.
LEONORA, masked, and attended by ROSA and ARABELLA, enters hastily.
LEONORA (tears off her mask). No more! Not another word! 'Tis as clear
as day! (Throwing herself in a chair.) This quite overcomes me----
ARABELLA. My lady!
LEONORA (rising.) What, before my eyes! with a notorious coquette! In
presence of the whole nobility of Genoa! (strongly affected.)--Rosa!
Arabella! and before my weeping eyes!
ROSA. Look upon it only as what it really was--a piece of gallantry. It
was nothing more.
LEONORA. Gallantry! What! Their busy interchange of glances--the
anxious watching of her every motion--the long and eager kiss upon her
naked arm, impressed with a fervor that left in crimson glow the very
traces of his lips! Ha! and the transport that enwrapped his soul, when,
with fixed eyes, he sate like painted ecstacy, as if the world around him
had dissolved, and naught remained in the eternal void but he and Julia.
Gallantry? Poor thing! Thou hast never loved. Th
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