who sent us?

_Doge_. You have heard me.

_Chief of the Ten_. With all due reverence we retire.
[_Exeunt the Deputation, etc._

_Enter an Attendant_.

_Att._ My Lord,
The noble dame Marina craves an audience.

_Doge_. My time is hers.

_Enter_ MARINA.

_Mar._ My Lord, if I intrude--
Perhaps you fain would be alone?

_Doge_. Alone!
Alone, come all the world around me, I
Am now and evermore. But we will bear it.

_Mar._ We will, and for the sake of those who are,
Endeavour----Oh, my husband!

_Doge_. Give it way: 70
I cannot comfort thee.

_Mar._ He might have lived,
So formed for gentle privacy of life,
So loving, so beloved; the native of
Another land, and who so blest and blessing
As my poor Foscari? Nothing was wanting
Unto his happiness and mine save not
To be Venetian.

_Doge_. Or a Prince's son.

_Mar._ Yes; all things which conduce to other men's
Imperfect happiness or high ambition,
By some strange destiny, to him proved deadly. 80
The Country and the People whom he loved,
The Prince of whom he was the elder born,
And----

_Doge_. Soon may be a Prince no longer.

_Mar._ How?

_Doge_. They have taken my son from me, and now aim
At my too long worn diadem and ring.
Let them resume the gewgaws!

_Mar._ Oh, the tyrants!
In such an hour too!

_Doge_. 'Tis the fittest time;
An hour ago I should have felt it.

_Mar._ And
Will you not now resent it?--Oh, for vengeance!
But he, who, had he been enough protected, 90
Might have repaid protection in this moment,
Cannot assist his father.

_Doge_. Nor should do so
Against his Country, had he a thousand lives
Instead of that----

_Mar._ They tortured from him. This
May be pure patriotism. I am a woman:
To me my husband and my children were
Country and home. I loved _him_--how I loved him!
I hav