_Doge_. I do believe you; and I know you true: For Love--romantic Love--which in my youth I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw 350 Lasting, but often fatal, it had been No lure for me, in my most passionate days, And could not be so now, did such exist. But such respect, and mildly paid regard As a true feeling for your welfare, and A free compliance with all honest wishes,-- A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness Not shown, but shadowing o'er such little failings As Youth is apt in, so as not to check Rashly, but win you from them ere you knew 360 You had been won, but thought the change your choice; A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct; A trust in you; a patriarchal love, And not a doting homage; friendship, faith,-- Such estimation in your eyes as these Might claim, I hoped for. _Ang_. And have ever had. _Doge_. I think so. For the difference in our years You knew it choosing me, and chose; I trusted Not to my qualities, nor would have faith In such, nor outward ornaments of nature, 370 Were I still in my five and twentieth spring; I trusted to the blood of Loredano[407] Pure in your veins; I trusted to the soul God gave you--to the truths your father taught you-- To your belief in Heaven--to your mild virtues-- To your own faith and honour, for my own. _Ang_. You have done well.--I thank you for that trust, Which I have never for one moment ceased To honour you the more for. _Doge_. Where is Honour, Innate and precept-strengthened, 'tis the rock 380 Of faith connubial: where it is not--where Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart, Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know 'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream Of honesty in such infected blood, Although 'twere wed to him it covets most: An incarnation of the poet's God In all his marble-chiselled beauty, or The demi-deity, Alcides, in 390 His majesty of superhuman Manhood, Would not suffice to bind where virtue is not; It is consistency which forms and proves it: Vice cannot fix, and Virtue cannot change. The once fall'n woman must for ever fall; For Vice must have variety, while Virtue Stands like the Sun, and all which rolls around Drinks life, and light, and glory from her aspect. _Ang_. And seeing, feeling thus this truth in others, (I pray you pardon me;) but wherefore yield you 400 To the most fierce of fatal passions, and Disquiet your great thoughts with restless hate Of such a thing as Steno?