Note 432 — Scene I.—Palazzo of the Patrician Lioni.[431] Lioni laying aside the mask and cloak which the Venetian Nobles wore in public, attended by a Domestic.
Reading edition
{411}["At present, I am on the invalid regimen myself. The Carnival—that is, the latter part of it, and sitting up late o' nights, had knocked me up a little.... The mumming closed with a masked ball at the Fenice, where I went, as also to most of the ridottos, etc., etc.; and, though I did not dissipate much upon the whole, yet I find 'the sword wearing out the scabbard,' though I have but just turned the corner of twenty-nine.
"So we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. "For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest. "Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a roving By the light of the moon."
Letter to Moore, February 28, 1817, Letters, 1900, iv. 59.]