happen, and I should lose my
husband. Think that thou venturest Heaven, Fiesco; and though a million
chances were in thy favor, wouldst thou dare tempt the Almighty by
risking on a cast thy hopes of everlasting happiness? No, my husband!
When thy whole being is at stake each throw is blasphemy.

FIESCO. Be not alarmed. Fortune and I are better friends.

LEONORA. Ah! say you so, Fiesco? You, who have watched the
soul-convulsing game, which some call pastime? Have you not seen
the sly deceiver, Fortune, how she leads on her votary with gradual
favors, till, heated with success, he rushes headlong and stakes his all
upon a single cast? Then in the decisive moment she forsakes him, a
victim of his rashness--and stood you then unmoved? Oh, my husband,
think not that thou hast but to show thyself among the people to be
adored. 'Tis no slight task to rouse republicans from their slumber and
turn them loose, like the unbridled steed, just conscious of his hoofs.
Trust not those traitors. They among them who are most discerning, even
while they instigate thy valor, fear it; the vulgar worship thou with
senseless and unprofitable adoration. Whichever way I look Fiesco is
undone.

FIESCO (pacing the room in great emotion). To be irresolute is the most
certain danger. He that aspires to greatness must be daring.

LEONORA. Greatness, Fiesco! Alas! thy towering spirit ill accords with
the fond wishes of my heart. Should fortune favor thy attempt--shouldst
thou obtain dominion--alas! I then shall be but the more wretched.
Condemned to misery shouldst thou fail--if thou succeed, to misery still
greater. Here is no choice but evil. Unless he gain the ducal power,
Fiesco perishes--if I embrace the duke I lose my husband.

FIESCO. I understand you not.

LEONORA. Ah! my Fiesco, in the stormy atmosphere that surrounds a throne
the tender plant of love must perish. The heart of man, e'en were that
heart Fiesco's, is not vast enough for two all-powerful idols--idols so
hostile to each other. Love has tears, and can sympathize with tears.
Ambition has eyes of stone, from which no drop of tenderness can e'er
distil. Love has but one favored object, and is indifferent to all the
world beside. Ambition, with insatiable hunger, rages amid the spoil
of nature, and changes the immense world into one dark and horrid
prison-house. Love paints in every desert an elysium. And when thou
wouldest recline upon my bosom, the cares of empires, or rebe