Chief of the Ten. If it be so, at least his obsequies Bar. Yes. Chief of the Ten. Heaven's peace be with him! Mar. Signors, your pardon: this is mockery. Juggle no more with that poor remnant, which, You shall not A moment since, while yet it had a soul Ayl-Ay! Stir-in my train, at least. I enter'd here By the same portals, but as citizen. All these vain ceremonies are base insults, Pomp is for princes-I am none !-That 's false, Hark! The sound! I heard it once, but once before, Even then I was not young. Bar. Sit down, my lord! You tremble. Doge. "T is the knell of my poor boy! My heart aches bitterly. Bar. I pray you sit. (A soul by whom you have increased your empire, Chief of the Ten. Mar. Lady, we revoke not I know it, As far as touches torturing the living. I thought the dead had been beyond even you, may Resemble that you exercise on earth. Leave him to me; you would have done so for Doge. No; my seat here has been a throne till now. And the apparel of the grave. Cannot comply with your request. His relics Mar. I have heard of murderers, who have Their victims; but ne'er heard, until this hour, Then it is false, or you are true. O'er those they slew. I've heard of widows' tears For my own part, I credit neither; 't is An idle legend. Mar. You talk wildly, and Had better now be seated, nor as yet Depart. Ah! now you look as look'd my husband! Bar. He sinks!-support him!-quick -a chair— support him! Alas! I have shed some-always thanks to you! * By a decree of the council, the trappings of supreme power of which the doge had divested himself while living, were restored to him when dead; and he was interred, with Doge. The bell tolls on!-let 's hence-my brain's ducal magnificence, in the church of the Minorites, the new on fire! doge attending as a mourner.-See DARU. But as thou hast-hence, hence-and do thy best! The nipple next day sore and udder dry.‡ Her bidding-wearily but willingly I would fulfill it, could I only hope A kind word in return. What shall I do ? [Arnold begins to cut wood: in doing this he wounds one of his hands. My labor for the day is over now. Arn. It bears its burden ;-but, my heart! Will it Accursed be this blood that flows so fast; Sustain that which you lay upon it, mother? I love, or, at the least, I loved you nothing Arn. As the free chase they follow, do not spurn me; For double curses will be my meed now To share their sports or pleasures. Must I bleed too Like them? Oh that each drop which falls to earth Would rise a snake to sting them, as they have stung me! Or that the devil, to whom they liken me, [Arnold goes to a spring, and stoops to wash *This drama was begun at Pisa in 1821, but was not pub- him, when his mother, in one of her fits of passion, called him lished till January, 1824. "One of the few pages of Lord Byron's 'Memoranda,' which related to his early days, was where, in speaking of his own sensitiveness on the subject of his deformed foot, he described the feeling of horror and humiliation that came over 'a lame brat!' It may be questioned, whether this drama was not indebted for its origin to this single recollection." This is now generally believed to be a vulgar error: the smallness of the animal's mouth rendering it incapable of the mischief laid to its charge. [He pauses. And shall I live on, [Arnold places the knife in the ground, with Now 't is set, And I can fall upon it. Yet one glance The fountain moves without a wind: but shall [A cloud comes from the fountain. He stands gazing upon it; it is dispelled, and a tall black man comes towards him. What would you? As man is both, why not Say both in one? Arn. Spirit or man? Stran. Speak! Arn. You may be devil. Stran. So many men are that Which is so call'd or thought, that you may add me To which you please, without much wrong to either. But come: you wish to kill yourself;-pursue Your purpose. Your form is man's, and yet Arn. You have interrupted me. Stran. What is that resolution which can e'er Be interrupted? If I be the devil You deem, a single moment would have made you Mine, and forever, by your suicide; And yet my coming saves you. Arn. I said not To taunt me with my born deformity? Stran. Were I to taunt a buffalo with this Cloven foot of thine, or the swift dromedary With thy sublime of humps, the animals Would revel in the compliment. And yet Both beings are more swift, more strong, more mighty In action and endurance than thyself, And all the fierce and fair of the same kind The gifts which are of others upon man. Arn. Give me the strength then of the buffalo's foot, When he spurs high the dust, beholding his Arn. (with surprise). Thou canst? Perhaps. Would you aught else? Arn. Thou mockest me. Stran. Not I. Why should I mock What all are mocking? That's poor sport, methinks. To talk to thee in human language (for Thou canst not yet speak mine), the forester Hunts not the wretched coney, but the boar, Or wolf, or lion, leaving paltry game To petty burghers, who leave once a year Their walls, to fill their household caldrons with Such scullion prey. The meanest gibe at thee,— Now I can mock the mightiest. Arn. Thy time on me: I seek thee not. Stran. Then waste not Your thoughts Are not far from me. Do not send me back: What wilt thou do for me? Change Shapes with you, if you will, since yours so irks We will talk of that hereafter. But I'll be moderate with you, for I see Great things within you. You shall have no bond But your own will, no contract save your deeds. Are you content? Arn. I take thee at thy word. Stran. Now then! [The Stranger approaches the fountain, and turns to Arnold. A little of your blood. Arn. For what? Stran. To mingle with the magic of the waters, And make the charm effective. Arn. (holding out his wounded arm). Take it all. Stran. Not now. A few drops will suffice for this. [The Stranger takes some of Arnold's blood in Walk lovely and pliant From the depth of this fountain, As the cloud-shapen giant Bestrides the Hartz Mountain.* Come as ye were, That our eyes may behold The model in air Of the form I will mould, Bright as the Iris When ether is spann'd ; Such his desire is, [Pointing to Arnold. Demons heroic Demons who wore The form of the stoic Or sophist of yore Or the shape of each victor, To each high Roman's picture This is the hour! [Various phantoms arise from the waters, and pass in succession before the Stranger and Arnold. Arn. What do I see? Stran. The black-eyed Roman, with The eagle's beak between those eyes which ne'er Beheld a conqueror, or look'd along The land he made not Rome's, while Rome be came His, and all theirs who heir'd his very name. Inherit but his fame with his defects! Stran. His brow was girt with laurels more than hairs. Be air, thou hemlock-drinker! [The shadow of Socrates disappears: another rises. Arn. What 's here? whose broad brow and whose curly beard And manly aspect look like Hercules, The ancient world for love. It was the man who lost Since so far I cannot blame him, Since I have risk'd my soul because I find not That which he exchanged the earth for. Stran. You seem congenial, will you wear his features? Arn. No. As you leave me choice, I am difficult, If but to see the heroes I should ne'er Have seen else on this side of the dim shore I will fight too, Whence they float back before us. You see his aspect-choose it, or reject. But not as a mock Cæsar. Let him pass; When love is not less in the eye than heart. [The phantom of Julius Cæsar disappears. Arn. [A second phantom passes. Who is he? *This is a well-known German superstition-a gigantic shadow produced by reflection on the Brocken.-The Brocken is the name of the loftiest of the Hartz mountains, a picturesque range which lies in the kingdom of Hanover. From the earliest periods of authentic history, the Brocken has been the seat of the marvellous. "The outside of Socrates was that of a satyr and buffoon, Stran. Thy Cleopatra's waiting. Hence, triumvir ! [The shade of Antony disappears: another rises. Arn. Who is this? Who truly looketh like a demi-god, Blooming and bright, with golden hair, and stat another rises. I'll fit you still, Fear not, my hunchback: if the shadows of Your soul be reconciled to her new garment. All vow'd to Sperchius as they were-behold them! With sanction'd and with soften'd love, before Stran. I gaze upon him Arn. As if I were his soul, whose form shall soon Envelop mine. You have done well. The greatest Deformity should only barter with The extremest beauty, if the proverb 's true Of mortals, that extremes meet. Arn. I am impatient. Stran. Come! Be quick! As a youthful beauty Before her glass. You both see what is not, But dream it is what must be. I love thee most in dwarfs! A mortal of Arn. Then let it be as thou deem'st best. Stran. Thou shalt be beauteous as the thing thou seest, And strong as what it was, and- I ask not For valor, since deformity is daring. Form'd as thou art. I may dismiss the mould Arn. Had no power presented me Have done the best which spirit may to make Of shape;-my dam beheld my shape was hopeless. Surely, he Who can command all forms will choose the highest, Something superior even to that which was Pelides now before us. Perhaps his Who slew him, that of Paris: or-still higherThe poet's god, clothed in such limbs as are Themselves a poetry. Less will content me; Stran. uneasy mind in an uneasy body; disease or deformity,' he adds, 'have been the attendants of many of our best: Collins mad-Chatterton, I think, mad-Cowper mad-Pope crooked *"Lord Byron's chief incentive, when a boy, to distinction, was that mark of deformity, by the acute sense of which he was first stung into the ambition of being great. In one of his letters to Mr. Hunt, he declares it to be his own opinion-Milton blind,' etc. etc." that an addiction to poetry is very generally the result of an |