The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 80

"On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves its warning rung."]

[ey] _Or met some unforeseen and fatal obstacle._--[Alternative reading.

MS. M.]

[448] {430}[A translation of _Beltramo Bergamasco_, i.e. a native of the town and province of Bergamo, in the north of Italy. Compare "Comasco."

Harlequin ... was a Bergamasc, and the personification of the manners, accent, and jargon of the inhabitants of the Val Brembana.--_Handbook: Northern Italy_, p. 240.]

[ez] {431}_While Manlius, who hurled back the Gauls_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[fa] _The Grand Chancellor of the Ten_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[449] ["In the notes to _Marino Faliero_, it may be as well to say that '_Benintende_' was not really of _the ten_, but merely _Grand Chancellor_--a separate office, though an important one: it was an arbitrary alteration of mine."--Letter to Murray, October 12, 1820.

Byron's correction was based on a chronicle cited by Sanudo, which is responsible for the statement that Beneintendi de Ravignani presided as Grand Chancellor at the Doge's trial, and took down his examination. As a matter of fact, Beneintendi was at Milan, not at Venice, when the trial took place. The "college" which conducted the examination of the Doge consisted of Giovanni Mocenigo, Councillor; Giovanni Marcello, Chief of the Ten; Luga da Lezze, "Inquisitore;" and Orio Pasqualigo, "Avogadore."--_La Congiura_, p. 104(2).]

[450] "Giovedi gra.s.so,"--"fat or greasy Thursday,"--which I cannot literally translate in the text, was the day.

[451] {435}Historical fact. See Sanuto, Appendix, Note A [_vide post_, p. 466].

[452] {436}["I know what Foscolo means about Calendaro's _spitting_ at Bertram: _that's_ national--the _objection_, I mean. The Italians and French, with those 'flags of Abomination,' their pocket handkerchiefs, spit there, and here, and every where else--in your face almost, and therefore _object_ to it on the Stage as _too familiar_. But we who _spit_ nowhere--but in a man's face when we grow savage--are not likely to feel this. Remember _Ma.s.singer_, and Kean's Sir Giles Overreach--

'Lord! _thus_ I _spit_ at thee and thy Counsel!'"

Letter to Murray, October 8, 1820, _Letters_, v. 1901, 89.

"Sir Giles Overreach" says to "Lord Lovel," in _A New Way to Pay Old Debts_, act v. sc. 1, "Lord! thus I spit at thee, and at thy counsel."

Compare, too--

"You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine."

_Merchant of Venice_, act i. sc. 3, lines 106, 107.]

[fd] {437}_It is impending_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[453] {438}["Is [Solon] c.u.m interrogaretur, cur nullum supplicium const.i.tuisset in eum qui parentem neca.s.set, respondit se id neminem facturum puta.s.se."--Cicero, _Pro s.e.xt. Roscio Amerino_, cap, 25.]

[454] ["Signory" is used loosely to denote the State or Government of Venice, not the "_collegio_" or "_Signoria Serenissima_."]

[455] [This statement is strictly historical. On the death of Andrea Dandolo (September 7, 1334) the _Maggior Consiglio_ appointed a commission of five "savi" to correct and modify the "promissione," or ducal oath. The alterations which the commissioners suggested were designed to prevent the Doge from acting on his own initiative in matters of foreign policy.--_La Congiura_, pp. 30, 31.]

[456] {440}[Gelo is quoted as the type of a successful and beneficent tyrant held in honour by all posterity; Thrasybulus as a consistent advocate and successful champion of democracy.]

[457] [The lines from "I would have stood ... while living" are not in the MS.]

[fe] _There were no other ways for truth to pierce them_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[ff] {441}_The torture for the exposure of the truth_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[fg]

/ _Doge Faliero's consort_. _n.o.ble Venetians!_ <>--[MS. M. erased.]

_with respect the d.u.c.h.ess_. /

[458] The Venetian senate took the same t.i.tle as the Roman, of "conscript fathers." [It was not, however, the Senate, the _Pregadi_, but the _Consiglio dei Dieci_, supplemented by the _Zonta_ of Twenty, which tried and condemned the Doge.]

[fh] {443}_He hath already granted his own guilt_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[fi] _He is a Sovereign and hath swayed the state_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[459] {445}[The accepted spelling is "aerie." The word is said to be derived from the Latin _atrium_. The form _eyry_, or _eyrie_, was introduced by Spelman (_Gl_. 1664) to countenance an erroneous derivation from the Saxon _eghe_, an egg. _N. Eng. Dict._, art.

"aerie."]

[fj] _Of his high aiery_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[460] [_Vide_ Suetonius, _De XII. Caesaribus_, lib. iv. cap. 56, ed.

1691, p. 427. Angiolina might surely have omitted this particular instance of the avenging vigilance of "Great Nemesis."]

[461] {446}[The story is told in Plutarch's _Alexander_, cap. 38.

Compare--

"And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy; Thais led the way, To light him to his prey, And like another Helen, fired another Troy."

Dryden's _Alexanders Feast_, vi. lines 25-28.]

[462] [Byron's imagination was p.r.o.ne to dwell on the "earthworm's slimy brood." Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto II. stanzas v., vi. Dallas (_Recollections of Lord Byron_, 1824, p. 124) once ventured to remind his n.o.ble connection "that although our senses make us acquainted with the chemical decomposition of our bodies," there were other and more hopeful considerations to be entertained. But Byron was obdurate, "and the worms crept in and the worms crept out" as unpleasantly as heretofore.]

[fk] ----_you call your duty_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[fl] {447} ----_never heard of_.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]

[fm] _For this almost_----.--[MS. M.]

[463] ["Hic est locus Marini Falethri, decapitati pro criminibus." Even more impressive is the significant omission of the minutes of the trial from the pages of the State Register. "The fourth volume of the _Misti Consiglio X_. contains its decrees in the year 1355. On Friday, the 17th April in that year, Marin Falier was beheaded. In the usual course, the minutes of the trial should have been entered on the thirty-third page of that volume; but in their stead we find a blank s.p.a.ce, and the words '[=N] S[=C]BATUR:' 'Be it not written.'"--_Calendar of State Papers_ ...

in Venice, Preface by Rawdon Brown, 1864, i. xvii.]

[464] [Lines 500-507 were forwarded in a letter to Murray, dated Marzo, 1821 (_Letters_, 1901, v. 261). According to Moore's footnote, "These lines--perhaps from some difficulty in introducing them--were never inserted in the Tragedy." It is true that in some copies of the first edition of _Marino Faliero_ (1821, p. 151) these lines do not appear; but in other copies of the first edition, in the second and other editions, they occur in their place. It is strange that Moore, writing in 1830, did not note the almost immediate insertion of these remarkable lines.]

[465] {448}[The Council of Ten decided that the possessions of Faliero should be confiscated; but the "Signoria," as an act of grace, and _ob ducatus reverentiam_, allowed him to dispose of 2000 "lire dei grossi"

of his own. The same day, April 17, the Doge dictated his will to the notary Piero de Compostelli, leaving the 2000 lire to his wife Aluica.--_La Congiura_, p. 105.]

[fn] {449}_Of the house of Rizzando Caminese_.--[MS. M.]

[fo] _Have I aught else to undergo ere Death?_--[Alternative reading.

MS. M.]

[466] {450}[The story as related by Sanudo is of doubtful authenticity, _vide ante_, p. 332, note 1.]

[fp] {451}_Until he rolled beneath_----.--[Alternative reading. MS. M.]