Imatges de pàgina
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Treason!-My God!-But who talks then of treason? You do me too much honor.

OCTAVIO.

That is the case. The Prince-duke is a traitor

Means to lead over to the enemy

OCTAVIO (after both have seated themselves).
You have not

Return'd the advances which I made you yesterday-

The Emperor's army.-Now, Count!-brief and Misunderstood them, as mere empty forms.

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I am rejoiced that you're so well-disposed.
This night break off in the utmost secrecy
With all the light-arm'd troops-it must appear
As came the order from the Duke himself.
At Frauenberg's the place of rendezvous;
There will Count Galas give you further orders.

ISOLANI.

That wish proceeded from my heart-I was
In earnest with you-for 'tis now a time
In which the honest should unite most closely.

BUTLER.

"Tis only the like-minded can unite.

OCTAVIO,

True! and I name all honest men like-minded.
I never charge a man but with those acts
To which his character deliberately
Impels him; for alas! the violence
Of blind misunderstandings often thrusts
The very best of us from the right track.

You came through Frauenberg. Did the Count Galas
Say nothing to you? Tell me. He's my friend.

BUTLER.

His words were lost on me.

OCTAVIO.

It grieves me sorely,
To hear it: for his counsel was most wise.
I had myself the like to offer.

BUTLER.

Spare

Yourself the trouble-me th' embarrassment,
To have deserved so ill your good opinion.

OCTAVIO.

The time is precious-let us talk openly.
You know how matters stand here. Wallenstein
Meditates treason-I can tell you further-
He has committed treason; but few hours
Have past, since he a covenant concluded
With the enemy. The messengers are now
Full on their way to Egra and to Prague.

It shall be done. But you'll remember me
With the Emperor-how well-disposed you found me. To-morrow he intends to lead us over

OCTAVIO.

I will not fail to mention it honorably.

To the enemy. But he deceives himself;
For Prudence wakes-the Emperor has still

[Erit ISOLANI. A SERVANT enters. Many and faithful friends here, and they stand

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What wish you?

Count? what?

OCTAVIO.

OCTAVIO.

Ay? are you sure of that?

BUTLER.
I read the letter.

OCTAVIO.

And so did I-but the contents were different. [BUTLER is suddenly struck.

By chance I'm in possession of that letter— Can leave it to your own eyes to convince you. [He gives him the letter.

BUTLER.

Ha! what is this?

OCTAVIO.

I fear me, Colonel Butler,

An infamous game have they been playing with you.

How was't with the Count? The Duke, you say, impell'd you to this measure?

BUTLER.

OCTAVIO (coldly).

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Be the whole world acquainted with the weakness
For which I never can forgive myself.
Lieutenant-General! Yes-I have ambition.
Ne'er was I able to endure contempt.

It stung me to the quick, that birth and title
Should have more weight than merit has in the army.
I would fain not be meaner than my equal.
So in an evil hour I let myself

Be tempted to that measure-It was folly!
But yet so hard a penance it deserved not.
It might have been refused; but wherefore barb
And venom the refusal with contempt?
Why dash to earth and crush with heaviest scorn
The gray-hair'd man, the faithful veteran?
Why to the baseness of his parentage
Refer him with such cruel roughness, only
Because he had a weak hour and forgot himself?
But Nature gives a sting e'en to the worm
Which wanton Power treads on in sport and insult.

OCTAVIO.

You must have been calumniated. Guess you The enemy, who did you this ill service?

BUTLER.

Be't who it will-a most low-hearted scoundrel,
Some vile court-minion must it be, some Spaniard,
Some young squire of some ancient family,
In whose light I may stand, some envious knave,
Stung to the soul by my fair self-earn'd honors!

OCTAVIO.

But tell me! Did the Duke approve that measure?

BUTLER.

Himself impell'd me to it, used his interest
In my behalf with all the warmth of friendship.

Now, in this letter talks he in contempt
Concerning you, counsels the minister

To give sound chastisement to your conceit,
For so he calls it.

[BUTLER reads through the letter, his knees tremble,
he seizes a chair, and sinks down in it.
You have no enemy, no persecutor;
There's no one wishes ill to you. Ascribe
The insult you received to the Duke only.
His aim is clear and palpable. He wish'd
To tear you from your Emperor-he hoped
To gain from your revenge what he well knew
(What your long-tried fidelity convinced him)
He ne'er could dare expect from your calm reason.
A blind tool would he make you, in contempt
Use you, as means of most abandon'd ends.
He has gain'd his point. Too well has he succeeded
In luring you away from that good path
On which you had been journeying forty years!
BUTLER (his voice trembling).
Can e'er the Emperor's Majesty forgive me?

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BUTLER.

MAX.

Break off from him!

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That the deed will tell you.
Ask me no more at present. Trust to me.
Ye may trust safely. By the living God
Ye give him over, not to his good angel!
Farewell.

[Exit BUTLER,

SERVANT (enters with a billet).
A stranger left it, and is gone.
The Prince-duke's horses wait for you below.
[Exit SERVANT

OCTAVIO (reads).

"Be sure make haste! Your faithful Isolan." -O that I had but left this town behind me, To split upon a rock so near the haven!— Away! This is no longer a safe place for me! Where can my son be tarrying?

SCENE VI.

OCTAVIO and MAX. PICCOLOMINI.

I follow thee?

Thy way is crooked-it is not my way.

[OCTAVIO drops his hand, and starts back.
O, hadst thou been but simple and sincere,
Ne'er had it come to this-all had stood otherwise.
He had not done that foul and horrible deed:
The virtuous had retain'd their influence o'er him:
He had not fallen into the snares of villains.
Wherefore so like a thief, and thief's accomplice,
Didst creep behind him-lurking for thy prey?
O, unblest falsehood! Mother of all evil!
Thou misery-making demon, it is thou
That sink'st us in perdition. Simple truth,

Sustainer of the world, had saved us all!
Father, I will not, I can not excuse thee!
Wallenstein has deceived me-O, most foully!
But thou hast acted not much better.

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O, woe is me! sure I have changed my nature. How comes suspicion here-in the free soul? Hope, confidence, belief, are gone; for all

Lied to me, all that I e'er loved or honor'd.
No! no! not all! She-she yet lives for me,
And she is true, and open as the heavens!
Deceit is everywhere, hypocrisy,
Murder, and poisoning, treason, perjury:
The single holy spot is our love,

The only unprofaned in human nature.

OCTAVIO.

Max.-we will go together. "T will be better.

MAX.

What? ere I've taken a last parting leave, The very last-no, never!

OCTAVIO..

Spare thyself

The pang of necessary separation.

MAX. enters almost in a state of derangement from Come with me! Come, my son!

extreme agitation, his eyes roll wildly, his walk is unsteady, and he appears not to observe his father,

[Attempts to take him with him.

MAX.

who stands at a distance, and gazes at him with a No! as sure as God lives, no! countenance expressive of compassion. He paces with long strides through the chamber, then stands Come with me, I command thee! I, thy father.

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Shall I perform ignobly-steal away,

With stealthy coward flight forsake her? No!
She shall behold my suffering, my sore anguish,
Hear the complaints of the disparted soul,
And weep tears o'er me. Oh! the human race
Have steely souls--but she is as an angel.
From the black deadly madness of despair
Will she redeem my soul, and in soft words
Of comfort, plaining, loose this pang of death!

OCTAVIO.

Thou wilt not tear thyself away; thou canst not.
O, come, my son! I bid thee save thy virtue.

MAX.

Squander not thou thy words in vain.
The heart I follow, for I dare trust to it.

OCTAVIO (trembling, and losing all self-command).
Max.! Max. if that most damned thing could be,
If thou-my son-my own blood-(dare I think it?)
Do sell thyself to him, the infamous,

Do stamp this brand upon our noble house,
Then shall the world behold the horrible deed,
And in unnatural combat shall the steel

Of the son trickle with the father's blood.

MAX.

O hadst thou always better thought of men,
Thou hadst then acted better. Curst suspicion!
Unholy, miserable doubt! To him

Nothing on earth remains unwrench'd and firm,
Who has no faith.

OCTAVIO.

And if I trust thy heart, Will it be always in thy power to follow it?

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The Death of Wallenstein;

A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS.

PREFACE.

explanation. For these reasons it has been thought expedient not to translate it.

The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted THE two Dramas, PICCOLOMINI, or the first part of their idea of that author from the Robbers, and the WALLENSTEIN, and WALLENSTEIN, are introduced in Cabal and Love, plays in which the main interest is the original manuscript by a Prelude in one Act, en- produced by the excitement of curiosity, and in titled WALLENSTEIN'S CAMP. This is written in which the curiosity is excited by terrible and extrarhyme, and in nine-syllable verse, in the same lilting ordinary incident, will not have perused without metre (if that expression may be permitted) with the some portion of disappointment the Dramas, which second Eclogue of Spencer's Shepherd's Calendar. it has been my employment to translate. They This Prelude possesses a sort of broad humor, and should, however, reflect that these are Historical is not deficient in character; but to have translated Dramas, taken from a popular German History; that it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the we must therefore judge of them in some measure original, would have given a false idea both of its with the feelings of Germans; or by analogy, with style and purport; to have translated it into the same the interest excited in us by similar Dramas in our metre would been incompatible with a faithful ad-own language. Few, I trust, would be rash or ignorant herence to the sense of the German, from the com- enough to compare Schiller with Shakspeare; yet, parative poverty of our language in rhymes; and it merely as illustration, I would say that we should would have been unadvisable, from the incongruity proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear of those lax verses with the present taste of the or Othello, but from Richard the Second, or the three English Public. Schiller's intention seems to have parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapidbeen merely to have prepared his reader for the ity in an Historical Drama; and many prolix speeches Tragedies by a lively picture of the laxity of dis- are pardoned from characters, whose names and ac cipline, and the mutinous dispositions of Wallen- tions have formed the most amusing tales of our early stein's soldiery. It is not necessary as a preliminary life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays

more individual beauties, more passages whose ex

cellence will bear reflection, than in the former pro- THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN. ductions of Schiller. The description of the Astrological Tower, and the reflections of the Young

Lover, which follow it, form in the original a fine poem; and my translation must have been wretched indeed, if it can have wholly overclouded the beauties

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Friedland.

of the Scene in the first Act of the first Play between SCENE-A Chamber in the House of the Duchess of
Questenberg, Max., and Octavio Piccolomini. If we
except the Scene of the setting sun in the Robbers,
I know of no part in Schiller's Plays which equals
the whole of the first Scene of the fifth Act of the
concluding Play. It would be unbecoming in me to
be more diffuse on this subject. A translator stands
connected with the original Author by a certain law
of subordination, which makes it more decorous to

COUNTESS TERTSKY, THEKLA, LADY NEUBRUNN (the
two latter sit at the same table at work).
COUNTESS (watching them from the opposite side).
So you have nothing to ask me-nothing?
I have been waiting for a word from you.
Not once to speak his name?
And could you then endure in all this time

[THEKLA remaining silent, the COUNTESS rises
and advances to her.

point out excellencies than defects: indeed he is not
likely to be a fair judge of either. The pleasure or
disgust from his own labor will mingle with the
feelings that arise from an after-view of the original,
Even in the first perusal of a work in any foreign Perhaps I am already grown superfluous,
Why, how comes this?
language which we understand, we are apt to at-
tribute to it more excellence than it really possesses, Confess it to me, Thekla; have you seen him?
And other ways exist, besides through me?
from our own pleasurable sense of difficulty over-
come without effort. Translation of poetry into poetry
is difficult, because the translator must give a bril-To-day and yesterday I have not seen him.
liancy to his language without that warmth of original
conception, from which such brilliancy would follow And not heard from him, either? Come, be open.

of its own accord. But the Translator of a living
Author is encumbered with additional inconveni- No syllable.
ences. If he render his original faithfully, as to the
Sense of each passage, he must necessarily destroy a
considerable portion of the spirit; if he endeavor to

give a work executed according to laws of compensa-I am.
tion, he subjects himself to imputations of vanity, or
misrepresentation. I have thought it my duty to re-
main bound by the sense of my original, with as few
exceptions as the nature of the languages rendered
possible.

THEKLA.

COUNTESS.

THEKLA.

COUNTESS.

And still you are so calm?

THEKLA.

COUNTESS.

May't please you, leave us, Lady Neubrunn. [Exit LADY NEUBRUNN.

SCENE II.

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

The COUNTESS, THEKLA.

COUNTESS.

WALLENSTEIN, Duke of Friedland, Generalissimo of It does not please me, Princess, that he holds

the Imperial forces in the Thirty-years' War.
DUCHESS OF FRIEDLAND, Wife of Wallenstein.
THEKLA, her Daughter, Princess of Friedland.
The COUNTESS TERTSKY, Sister of the Duchess.
LADY NEUBRUNN.

OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, Lieutenant-General.
MAX. PICCOLOMINI, his Son, Colonel of a Regiment
of Cuirassiers.

COUNT TERTSKY, the Commander of several Regi

ments, and Brother-in-law of Wallenstein. ILLO, Field Marshal. Wallenstein's Confidant.

Himself so still, exactly at this time.

Exactly at this time?

THEKLA.

COUNTESS.

He now knows all :
Twere now the moment to declare himself.

THEKLA.

If I'm to understand you, speak less darkly.

COUNTESS.

"Twas for that purpose that I bade her leave us.

BUTLER, an Irishman, Commander of a Regiment of Thelka, you are no more a child. Your heart

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