Sar. Then It is long We but await the signal. Myr. In sounding. Sar. Now, farewell; one last embrace. Myr. Embrace, but not the last; there is one more. 470 Sar. True, the commingling fire will mix our ashes. Myr. And pure as is my love to thee, shall they, Purged from the dross of earth, and earthly passion, Mix pale with thine. A single thought yet irks me. Sar. Say it. Myr. It is that no kind hand will gather The dust of both into one urn. Sar. The better: Rather let them be borne abroad upon The winds of heaven, and scattered into air, Of slaves and traitors. In this blazing palace, 480 Hath piled in her brick mountains, o'er dead kings,1 So much for monuments that have forgotten Myr. Then farewell, thou earth! And loveliest spot of earth! farewell, Ionia! Aloof from desolation! My last prayer 490 Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, were of thee! Sar. And that? Myr. Is yours. [The trumpet of PANIA sounds without. 1. [Bishop Heber (Quarterly Review, July, 1821, vol. xxvii. p. 503) takes exception to these lines on the ground that they "involve an anachronism, inasmuch as, whatever date be assigned to the erection of the earlier pyramids, there can be no reason for apprehending_that, at the fall of Nineveh, and while the kingdom and hierarchy of Egypt subsisted in their full splendour, the destination of those immense fabrics could have been a matter of doubt. . . . Herodotus, three hundred years later, may have been misinformed on these points," etc., etc. According to modern Egyptology, the erection of the "earlier pyramids" was an event of remotest antiquity when the Assyrian Empire was in its infancy.] Sar. Myr. Sar. Hark! Now! Adieu, Assyria! I loved thee well, my own, my fathers' land, I. Myr. Now, Myrrha ! Sar. As the torch in thy grasp. Myr. [He mounts the pile. Art thou ready? [MYRRHA fires the pile. 'Tis fired! I come. [As MYRRHA springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the Curtain falls.1 End of Act fifth.-B. Ravenne. May 27th 1821. Mem. I began the drama on the 13th of January, 1821, and continued the two first acts very slowly and at long intervals. The three last acts were written since the 13th of May, 1821 (this present month, that is to say in a fortnight). THE TWO FOSCARI:' AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.2 "The father softens, but the governor's resolved."—Critic. 1. [The MS. of The Two Foscari is now in the possession of H.R. H. the Princess of Wales.] 2. [Begun June the 12th, completed July the 9th, Ravenna, 1821.— Byron MS.] 3. [Gov. The father softens-but the governor is fixed." Dingle. "Aye that antithesis of persons is a most established figure." -Critic, act ii. sc. 2. Byron may have guessed that this passage would be quoted against him, and, by taking it as a motto, hoped to anticipate or disarm ridicule; or he may have selected it out of bravado, as though, forsooth, the public were too stupid to find him out.] [The Two Foscari was produced at Drury Lane Theatre April 7, and again on April 18 and April 25, 1838. Macready played "Frances Foscari," Mr. Anderson "Jacopo Foscari," and Miss Helen Faucit "Marina." According to the Times, April 9, 1838, "Miss Faucit's Marina, the most energetic part of the whole, was clever, and showed a careful attention to the points which might be made." Macready notes in his diary, April 7, 1838 (Reminiscences, 1875, ii. 106): "Acted Foscari very well. Was very warmly received... was called for at the end of the tragedy, and received by the whole house standing up and waving handkerchiefs with great enthusiasm. Dickens, Forster, Procter, Browning, Talfourd, all came into my room."] INTRODUCTION TO THE TWO FOSCARI. THE Two Foscari was begun on June 12, and finished, within the month, on July 9, 1821. Byron was still in the vein of the historic drama, though less concerned with "ancient chroniclers" and original "authorities" (vide ante, Preface to Marino Faliero, vol. iv. p. 332) than heretofore. The Venetian play," he tells Murray, July 14, 1821, is rigidly historical; " but he seems to have depended for his facts, not on Sanudo or Navagero, but on Daru's Histoire de la République de Venise (1821, ii. 520-537), and on Sismondi's Histoire des Républiques... du Moyen Age (1815, x. 36–46). The story of the Two Doges, so far as it concerns the characters and action of Byron's play, may be briefly re-told. It will be found to differ in some important particulars from the extracts from Daru and Sismondi which Byron printed in his "Appendix to the Two Foscari" (Sardanapalus, etc., 1821, pp. 305-324), and no less from a passage in Smedley's Sketches from Venetian History (1832, ii. 93-105), which was substituted for the French "Pièces justificatives," in the collected edition of 1832-1835, xiii. 198-202, and the octavo edition of 1837, etc., pp. 790, 791. Francesco, son of Nicolò Foscari, was born in 1373. He was nominated a member of the Council of Ten in 1399, and, after holding various offices of state, elected Doge in 1423. His dukedom, the longest on record, lasted till 1457. He was married, in 1395, to Maria, daughter of Andrea Priuli, and, en secondes noces, to Maria, or Marina, daughter of Bartolommeo Nani. By his two wives he was the father of ten children-five sons and five daughters. Of the five sons, four died of the plague, and the fifth, Jacopo, lived to be the cause, if not the hero, of a tragedy. The younger of the "Two Foscari" was a man of some cultivation, a collector and student of Greek manuscripts, well-mannered, and of ready wit, a child and lover of Venice, but indifferent to her ideals and regardless of her prejudices and restrictions. He seems to have begun life in a blaze of popularity, the admired of all admirers. His wedding with Lucrezia Contarini (January, 1441) was celebrated with a VOL. V. I 2 |