In the Carmagnola, the action extends from the moment when the Venetian Senate, at war with the Duke of Milan, places its armies under the command of the count, who is a soldier of fortune and has formerly been in the service of the Duke. The Senate sends two commissioners into his camp to represent the state there, and to be spies upon his conduct. This was a somewhat clumsy contrivance of the Republic to give a patriotic character to its armies, which were often recruited from mercenaries and generaled by them; and, of course, the hireling leaders must always have chafed under the surveillance. After the battle of Maclodio, in which the Venetian mercenaries defeated the Milanese, the victors, according to the custom of their trade, began to free their comrades of the other side whom they had taken prisoners. The commissioners protested against this waste of results, but Carmagnola answered that it was the usage of his soldiers, and he could not forbid it; he went further, and himself liberated some remaining prisoners. His action was duly reported to the Senate, and as he had formerly been in the service of the Duke of Milan, whose kinswoman he had married, he was suspected of treason. He was invited to Venice, and received with great honor, and conducted with every flattering ceremony to the hall of the Grand Council. After a brief delay, sufficient to exclude Carmagnola's followers, the Doge ordered him to be seized, and upon a summary trial he was put to death. From this tragedy I give first a translation of that famous chorus of which I have already spoken; I have kept the measure and the movement of the original at some loss of literality. The poem is introduced into the scene immediately succeeding the battle of Maclodio, where the two bands of those Italian _condottieri_ had met to butcher each other in the interests severally of the Duke of Milan and the Signory of Venice. CHORUS. On the right hand a trumpet is sounding, On the left hand a trumpet replying, The field upon all sides resounding With the trampling of foot and of horse. Yonder flashes a flag; yonder flying Through the still air a bannerol glances; Here a squadron embattled advances, There another that threatens its course. The space 'twixt the foes now beneath them Is hid, and on swords the sword ringeth; In the hearts of each other they sheathe them; Blood runs, they redouble their blows. Who are these? To our fair fields what bringeth To make war upon us, this stranger? Which is he that hath sworn to avenge her, The land of his birth, on her foes?