ach white hair on this head were a young life,
This ducal cap the Diadem of earth, 80
This ducal ring with which I wed the waves
A talisman to still them--I'd give all
For him.

_Mar._ With less he surely might be saved.

_Doge_. That answer only shows you know not Venice.
Alas! how should you? she knows not herself,
In all her mystery. Hear me--they who aim
At Foscari, aim no less at his father;
The sire's destruction would not save the son;
They work by different means to the same end,
And that is--but they have not conquered yet. 90

_Mar._ But they have crushed.

_Doge_. Nor crushed as yet--I live.

_Mar._ And your son,--how long will he live?

_Doge_. I trust,
For all that yet is past, as many years
And happier than his father. The rash boy,
With womanish impatience to return,
Hath ruined all by that detected letter:
A high crime, which I neither can deny
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke:
Had he but borne a little, little longer
His Candiote exile, I had hopes--he has quenched them-- 100
He must return.

_Mar._ To exile?

_Doge_. I have said it.

_Mar._ And can I not go with him?

_Doge_. You well know
This prayer of yours was twice denied before
By the assembled "Ten," and hardly now
Will be accorded to a third request,
Since aggravated errors on the part
Of your Lord renders them still more austere.

_Mar._ Austere? Atrocious! The old human fiends,
With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange
To tears save drops of dotage, with long white[bd] 110
And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and heads
As palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel,
Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if Life
Were no more than the feelings long extinguished
In their accursed bosoms.

_Doge_. You know not----

_Mar._ I do--I do--and so should you, methinks--
That these are demons: could it be else that
Men, who have been of women born and suckled--
Who have loved, or talked at least of Love--have given
Their hands in sacred vows--have danced their babes 120
Upon their knees, perhaps have mou