Think of these things, I pray you, Signori, and send men of tried principles to the wars." "Thou mayest retire," rejoined the judge.
"I should be sorry that any who cometh of my blood," continued the inattentive Antonio, "should be the cause of ill-will between them that rule and them that are born to obey.

But nature is stronger even than the law, and I should discredit her feelings were I to go without speaking as becomes a father.

Ye have taken my child and sent him to serve the state at the hazard of body and soul, without giving opportunity for a parting kiss, or a parting blessing--ye have used my flesh and blood as ye would use the wood of the arsenal, and sent it forth upon the sea as if it were the insensible metal of the balls ye throw against the infidel.

Ye have shut your ears to my prayers, as if they were words uttered by the wicked, and when I have exhorted you on my knees, wearied my stiffened limbs to do ye pleasure, rendered ye the jewel which St.Anthony gave to my net, that it might soften your hearts, and reasoned with you calmly on the nature of your acts, you turn from me coldly, as if I were unfit to stand forth in defence of the offspring that God hath left my age! This is not the boasted justice of St.Mark, Venetian senators, but hardness of heart and a wasting of the means of the poor, that would ill become the most grasping Hebrew of the Rialto!" "Hast thou aught more to urge, Antonio ?" asked the judge, with the wily design of unmasking the fisherman's entire soul.
"Is it not enough, Signore, that I urge my years, my poverty, my scars, and my love for the boy?
I know ye not, but though ye are hid behind the folds of your robes and masks, still must ye be men.

There may be among ye a father, or perhaps some one who hath a still more sacred charge, the child of a dead son.