_Jac. Fos._ O, ye Elements!
Where are your storms?

_Mar._ In human breasts. Alas!
Will nothing calm you?

_Jac. Fos._ Never yet did mariner
Put up to patron saint such prayers for prosperous
And pleasant breezes, as I call upon you,
Ye tutelar saints of my own city! which
Ye love not with more holy love than I,
To lash up from the deep the Adrian waves,
And waken Auster, sovereign of the Tempest! 130
Till the sea dash me back on my own shore
A broken corse upon the barren Lido,
Where I may mingle with the sands which skirt
The land I love, and never shall see more!

_Mar._ And wish you this with _me_ beside you?

_Jac. Fos._ No--
No--not for thee, too good, too kind! May'st thou
Live long to be a mother to those children
Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives
Of such support! But for myself alone,
May all the winds of Heaven howl down the Gulf, 140
And tear the vessel, till the mariners,
Appalled, turn their despairing eyes on me,
As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then
Cast me out from amongst them, as an offering
To appease the waves. The billow which destroys me
Will be more merciful than man, and bear me
Dead, but _still bear_ me to a native grave,
From fishers' hands, upon the desolate strand,
Which, of its thousand wrecks, hath ne'er received
One lacerated like the heart which then 150
Will be.--But wherefore breaks it not? why live I?

_Mar._ To man thyself, I trust, with time, to master
Such useless passion. Until now thou wert
A sufferer, but not a loud one: why
What is this to the things thou hast borne in silence--
Imprisonment and actual torture?

_Jac. Fos._ Double,
Triple, and tenfold torture! But you are right,
It must be borne. Father, your blessing.

_Doge_. Would
It could avail thee! but no less thou hast it.

_Jac. Fos._ Forgive----

_Doge_. What?

_Jac. Fos._ My poor mother, for my birth, 160
And me for having lived, and you yourself
(As I forgive you), for the gift of life,
Which you bestowed upon me as my sire.

_Mar._ What hast thou done?