Dramatic Romances

Your gondola—­let Zorzi wreathe
A mesh of water weeds about 210
Its prow, as if he unaware
Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair! 
That I may throw a paper out
As you and he go underneath. 
There’s Zanze’s vigilant taper; safe are we. 
Only one minute more to-night with me? 
Resume your past self of a month ago! 
Be you the bashful gallant, I will be
The lady with the colder breast than snow. 
Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand 220
More than I touch yours when I step to land,
And say, “All thanks, Siora!”—­
                               Heart to heart
And lips to lips!  Yet once more, ere we part,
Clasp me and make me thine, as mine thou art!

[He is surprised, and stabbed.

It was ordained to be so, sweet!—­and best
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, upon thy breast. 
Still kiss me!  Care not for the cowards!  Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt!  The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived:  but I 230
Have lived indeed, and so—­(yet one more kiss)—­can die!

Notes:  “In a Gondola” is a lyric dialogue between two Venetian lovers who have stolen away in a gondola spite of “the three”—­“Himself’,” perhaps a husband, and “Paul’’ and “Gian,’’ her brothers—­whose vengeance discovers them at the end, but not before their love and danger have moved them to weave a series of lyrical fancies, and led them to a climax of emotion which makes Life so deep a joy that Death is of no account.

“The first stanza was written,’’ writes Browning, “to illustrate Maclise’s picture, for which he was anxious to get some line or two.  I had not seen it, but from Forster’s description, gave it to him in his room impromptu . . . .  When I did see it I thought the serenade too jolly, somewhat, for the notion I got from Forster, and I took up the subject in my own way.’’

113.  Lido’s . . . graves:  Jewish tombs were there.

127.  Giudecca:  a canal of Venice.

155.  Lory:  a kind of parrot.

186.  Schidone’s eager Duke:  an imaginary painting by Bartolommeo Schidone of Modena (1560-1616).

188.  Haste-thee-Luke:  the English form of the nickname, Luca-f<a`>-presto, given Luca Giordano (1632-1705), a Neapolitan painter, on account of his constantly being goaded on in his work by his penurious and avaricious father.

190.  Castelfranco:  the Venetian painter, Giorgione, called Castelfranco, because born there, 1478, died 1511.

193.  Tizian:  (1477-1516).  The pictures are all imaginary, but suggestive of the style of each of these artists.