Two Women, attendants on Belvidera.

The Council of ten.

Officer, Guard, Friar, Executioner, and Rabble.

VENICE PRESERVED.

ACT I. SCENE I.

A Street in Venice. Enter PRIULI and JAFFIER.

Priuli.

No more! I'll hear no more! Begone and leave me. Jaf. Not hear me! By my suffering but you shall! My lord, my lord! I'm not that abject wretch

You think me. Patience! where's the distance throws
Me back so far, but I may boldly speak

In right, tho' proud oppression will not hear me?
Pri. Have you not wrong'd me?

Jaf. Could my nature e'er

Have brook'd injuftice, or the doing wrongs,

I need not now thus low have bent myself
To gain a hearing from a cruel father.
Wrong'd you!

Pri. Yes, wrong'd me! In the nicest point,
The honour of my house, you've done me wrong.
You may remember (for I now will speak,
And urge its baseness) when you first came home
From travel, with such hopes as made you look'd on,
By all men's eyes, a youth of expectation;

friend

Pleas'd with your growing virtue, I receiv'd you ;
Courted, and sought to raise you to your merits:
My house, my table, nay, my fortune too,
My very self was yours; you might have us'd me
To your best service; like an open
I treated, trusted you, and thought you mine:
When, in requital of my best endeavours,
You treacherously practis'd to undo me;
Seduc'd the weakness of my age's darling,
My only child, and stole her from my bosom,
Oh Belvidera!

Jaf. 'Tis to me you owe her :

Childless you had been else, and in the grave
Your name extinct; no more Priuli heard of.
You may remember, scarce five years are past,
Since in your brigantine you sail'd to see
The Adriatick wedded by our Duke;
And I was with you: your unskilful pilot
Dash'd us upon a rock; when to your boat.
You made for safety: enter'd first yourself;
Th' affrighted Belvidera following next,
As she stood trembling on the vessel's side,
Was, by a wave, wash'd off into the deep;
When instantly I plung'd into the sea,
And buffetting the billows to her rescue,
Redeem'd her life with half the loss of mine.
Like a rich conquest, in one hand I bore her,
And with the other dash'd the saucy waves,
That throng'd and press'd to rob me of my prize.
I brought her, gave her to your despairing arms:

20

Indeed you thank'd me; but a nobler gratitude

Rose in her soul: for from that hour she lov'd me, 'Till for her life she paid me with her self.

Pri. You stole her from me; like a thief you stole her,

At dead of night! that cursed hour you chose
To rifle me of all my heart held dear.

May all your joys in her prove false, like mine;
A sterile fortune, and a barren bed, -
Attend you both; continual discord make
Your days and nights bitter and grievous: still
May the hard hand of a vexatious need
Oppress and grind you; till at last you find
The curse of disobedience all your portion.

60

Jaf. Half of your curse you have bestow'd in vain. Heav'n has already crown'd our faithful loves

With a young boy, sweet as his mother's beauty: May he live to prove more gentle than his grandsire, And happier than his father.

Pri, Rather live

To bait thee for his bread, and din your ears
With hungry cries; whilst his unhappy mother
Sits down and weeps in bitterness of want.
Jaf. You talk as if 'twould please you.
Pri. 'Twould, by heav'n!

"Once she was dear indeed; the drops that fell
"From my sad heart, when she forgot her duty,
"The fountain of my life was not so precious→→
"But she is gone, and, if I am a man,

"I will forget her."