Note 434 — 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
[Compare "The gondolas gliding down the canals are like coffins or cradles ... At night the darkness reveals the tiny lanterns which guide these boats, and they look like shadows passing by, lit by stars. Everything in this region is mystery—government, custom, love."—Corinne or Italy, by Madame de Staël, 1888, pp. 279, 280. Compare, too—
"In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless Gondolier."
Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza iii. lines 1, 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. note 3.]