The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats

CASIMIR.

I kneel, I kneel!

Retract thy curse! O, by my mother's ashes,
Have pity on thy self-abhorring child!
If not for me, yet for my innocent wife,

Yet for my country's sake, give my arm strength,
Permitting me again to call thee father!

KIUPRILI.

Son, I forgive thee! Take thy father's sword; When thou shalt lift it in thy country's cause, In that same instant doth thy father bless thee!

Thy blessing did indeed descend upon me; Dislodging the dread curse. It flew forth from me

And lighted on the tyrant!

Enter RUDOLPH, BATHORY, and Attendants.

RUDOLPH and BATHORY (entering).

Friends! friends to Casimir!

CASIMIR.

Rejoice, Illyrians! the usurper's fallen.

RUDOLPH.

[KIUPRILI and CASIMIR embrace; they all retire So perish tyrants! so end usurpation!

to the Cavern supporting KIUPRILI. CASIMIR
as by accident drops his robe, and BATHORY
throws it over the body of PESTalutz.
EMERICK (entering).

Fools! Cowards! follow-or by Hell I'll make you
Find reason to fear Emerick, more than all
The mummer-fiends that ever masqueraded
As gods or wood-nymphs !—

Then sees the body of PESTALUTZ, covered by
CASIMIR'S cloak.

Ha! 'tis done then!
Our necessary villain hath proved faithful,
And there lies Casimir, and our last fears!
Well!-Ay, well!-

And is it not well? For though grafted on us,
And fill'd too with our sap, the deadly power
Of the parent poison-tree lurk'd in its fibres:
There was too much of Raab Kiuprili in him:
The old enemy look'd at me in his face,
E'en when his words did flatter me with duty.

[AS EMERICK moves towards the body, enter from
the Cavern CASIMIR and BATHORY.

CASIMIR.

Bear hence the body, and move slowly on!
One moment-

Devoted to a joy, that bears no witness,

I follow you, and we will greet our countrymen
With the two best and fullest gifts of Heaven—
A tyrant fallen, a patriot chief restored!

[Exeunt CASIMIR into the Cavern. The rest on
the opposite side.

Scene changes to a splendid Chamber in CASIMIR'S Castle. CONFEDERATES discovered.

FIRST CONFEDERATE.

It cannot but succeed, friends. From this palace
E'en to the wood, our messengers are posted
With such short interspace, that fast as sound
Can travel to us, we shall learn the event!
Enter another CONFEDERATE.

What tidings from Temeswar?

SECOND CONFEDERATE.

With one voice

OLD BATHORY (pointing to where the noise is, and aside Th' assembled chieftains have deposed the tyrant;

He is proclaim'd the public enemy,
And the protection of the law withdrawn.

FIRST CONFEDERATE.

Just doom for him, who governs without law! Is it known on whom the sov'reignty will fall?

SECOND CONFEDERATE.

Nothing is yet decided: but report
Points to Lord Casimir. The grateful memory
Of his renowned father-

Enter SAROLTA.

Hail to Sarolta.

SAROLTA.

Confederate friends! I bring to you a joy
Worthy our noble cause! Kiuprili lives,
And from his obscure exile, hath return'd
To bless our country. More and greater tidings
Might I disclose; but that a woman's voice

Curses on it, and thee! Think'st thou that petty omen Would mar the wondrous tale. Wait we for him Dare whisper fear to Emerick's destiny?

It is! it is!

OTHER CONFEDERATES.

ZAPOLYA.

Heaven's work of grace is full!

Kiuprili, thou art safe!

RAAB KIUPRILI.

Royal Zapolya!

To the heavenly powers, pay we our duty first;
Who not alone preserved thee, but for thee
And for our country, the one precious branch

Of Andreas' royal house. O countrymen,
Behold your King! And thank our country's genius,

The powerful intercession of thy virtue,
Lady Sarolta? Still acknowledge me
Thy faithful soldier!-But what invocation
Shall my full soul address to thee, Glycine?
Thou sword, that leap'st from forth a bed of roses!
Thou falcon-hearted dove?

ZAPOLYA.

Hear that from me, son!
For ere she lived, her father saved thy life,
Thine, and thy fugitive mother's!

CASIMIR.

Chef Ragozzi!

That the same means which have preserved our O shame upon my head! I would have given her

sovereign,

Have likewise rear'd him worthier of the throne
By virtue than by birth. The undoubted proofs
Pledged by his royal mother, and this old man
(Whose name henceforth be dear to all Illyrians),
We haste to lay before the assembled council.

ALL.

Hail, Andreas! Hail, Illyria's rightful king!

ANDREAS.

Supported thus, O friends! 't were cowardice
Unworthy of a royal birth, to shrink

From the appointed charge. Yet, while we wait
The awful sanction of convened Illyria,
In this brief while, O let me feel myself
The child, the friend, the debtor!-Heroic mother!
But what can breath add to that sacred name?
Kiuprili! gift of Providence, to teach us
That loyalty is but the public form
Of the sublimest friendship, let my youth
Climb round thee, as the vine around its elm :
Thou my support, and I thy faithful fruitage.
My heart is full, and these poor words express not
They are but an art to check its over-swelling.
Bathory! shrink not from my filial arms!

A banquet waits!-
On this auspicious day, for some few hours
I claim to be your hostess. Scenes so awful
With flashing light, force wisdom on us all!
E'en women at the distaff hence may see,
That bad men may rebel, but ne'er be free;
May whisper, when the waves of faction foam,
None love their country, but who love their home;
For freedom can with those alone abide,

Who wear the golden chain, with honest pride,
Of love and duty, at their own fire-side:

Now, and from henceforth, thou shalt not forbid me While mad ambition ever doth caress

To call thee father! And dare I forget

Its own sure fate, in its own restlessness!

The Piccolomini; or, the First Part of Wallenstein.

A DRAMA.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF SCHILLER.

PREFACE.

In the translation I endeavored to render my Author literally wherever I was not prevented by absolute differences of idiom; but I am conscious, that in two or three short passages I have been guilty of dilating the original; and, from anxiety to give the full It was my intention to have prefixed a Life of Wal-meaning, have weakened the force. In the metre I lenstein to this translation; but I found that it must have availed myself of no other liberties than those either have occupied a space wholly disproportionate which Schiller had permitted to himself, except the to the nature of the publication, or have been merely occasional breaking-up of the line by the substitua meagre catalogue of events narrated not more tion of a trochee for an iambic; of which liberty, so fully than they already are in the Play itself. The frequent in our tragedies, I find no instance in these recent translation, likewise, of Schiller's History of dramas.

the Thirty Years' War diminished the motives thereto.

S. T. COLERIDGE

THE PICCOLOMINI, ETC.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

An old Gothic Chamber in the Council-House at Pilsen, decorated with Colors and other War Insignia.

ILLO with BUTLER and ISOLANI.

ILLO.

Ye have come late-but ye are come! The distance, Count Isolan, excuses your delay.

ISOLANI.

Add this too, that we come not empty-handed. At Donauwert* it was reported to us,

A Swedish caravan was on its way

Transporting a rich cargo of provision,

Almost six hundred wagons. This my Croats

BUTLER.

Both wife and daughter does the Duke call hither? He crowds in visitants from all sides.

ISOLANI.

Hm !

So much the better! I had framed my mind
To hear of naught, but warlike circumstance,
Of marches, and attacks, and batteries:
And lo! the Duke provides, that something too
Of gentler sort, and lovely, should be present
To feast our eyes.

ILLO (who has been standing in the attitude of medi tation, to BUTLER, whom he leads a little on one side).

And how came you to know

That the Count Galas joins us not?

BUTLER.

He importuned me to remain behind.

ILLO (with warmth).

Plunged down upon and seized, this weighty prize! And you?-You hold out firmly?

We bring it hither

ILLO (hesitating).

How so? Do you know———

ISOLANI (interrupting him).

Max. Piccolomini here ?-O bring me to him.
I see him yet ('tis now ten years ago,

We were engaged with Mansfeld hard by Dessau),
I see the youth, in my mind's eye I see him,
Leap his black war-horse from the bridge adown,
And t'ward his father, then in extreme peril,
Beat up against the strong tide of the Elbe.
The down was scarce upon his chin! I hear
He has made good the promise of his youth,
And the full hero now is finish'd in him.

ILLO.

You'll see him yet ere evening. He conducts The Duchess Friedland hither, and the Princesst From Carnthen. We expect them here at noon.

⚫ A town about 12 German miles N. E. of Ulm.

Because

Ay, if we would but so consider it!—
If we would all of us consider it so!

The Emperor gives us nothing; from the Duke
Comes all-whate'er we hope, whate'er we have
ISOLANI (to ILLO).

My noble brother! did I tell you how
The Duke will satisfy my creditors?
Will be himself my banker for the future,
Make me once more a creditable man!—
And this is now the third time, think of that!
This kingly-minded man has rescued me
From absolute ruin, and restored my honor.

ILLO.

O that his power but kept pace with his wishes! Why, friend! he'd give the whole world to his soldiers.

But at Vienna, brother!-here's the grievance !

† The dukes in Germany being always reigning powers, their What politic schemes do they not lay to shorten

sons and daughters are entitled Princes and Princesses.

His arm, and where they can, to clip his pinions.
Then these new dainty requisitions! these,
Which this same Questenberg brings hither!—

BUTLER.

These requisitions of the Emperor,-
I too have heard about them; but I hope

The Duke will not draw back a single inch!

ILLO.

Not from his right most surely, unless first
-From office!

BUTLER (shocked and confused).

Know you aught then? You alarm me.

Ay!

You did present yourself upon the part
Of the Emperor, to supplicate our Duke
That he would straight assume the chief command.

QUESTENBERG.

To supplicate? Nay, noble General!

So far extended neither my commission
(At least to my own knowledge) nor my zeal.

ILLO.

Well, well, then-to compel him, if you choose.
I can remember me right well, Count Tilly
Had suffer'd total rout upon the Lech.
Bavaria lay all open to the enemy,

Whom there was nothing to delay from pressing

ISOLANI (at the same time with BUTLER, and in a hur- Onwards into the very heart of Austria.

rying voice).

We should be ruin'd, every one of us!

ILLO.

No more!

Yonder I see our worthy friend* approaching
With the Lieutenant-General, Piccolomini.

BUTLER (shaking his head significantly).
I fear we shall not go hence as we came.

SCENE II.

Enter OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI and QUESTENBERG.
OCTAVIO (still in the distance).

Ay, ay! more still! Still more new visitors!
Acknowledge, friend! that never was a camp,
Which held at once so many heads of heroes.
[Approaching nearer.
Welcome, Count Isolani!

ISOLANI.

My noble brother, Evel now am I arrived; it had been else my

OCTAVIO.

And Colonel Butler-trust me, I rejoice
Thus to renew acquaintance with a man
Whose worth and services I know and honor.
See, see, my friend!

At that time you and Werdenberg appear'd
Before our General, storming him with prayers,
And menacing the Emperor's displeasure,
Unless he took compassion on this wretchedness.
ISOLANI (steps up to them).

Yes, yes, 'tis comprehensible enough,
Wherefore with your commission of to-day
You were not all too willing to remember
Your former one.

QUESTENBERG.

Why not, Count Isolan?
No contradiction sure exists between them.
It was the urgent business of that time
To snatch Bavaria from her enemy's hand;
And my commission of to-day instructs me
To free her from her good friends and protectors.

ILLO.

A worthy office! After with our blood
We have wrested this Bohemia from the Saxon,

duty-To be swept out of it is all our thanks,

There might we place at once before our eyes
The sum of war's whole trade and mystery-
[To QUESTENBERG, presenting BUTLER and ISOLANI
at the same time to him.

These two the total sum-Strength and Dispatch.
QUESTENBERG (to OCTAVIO).
And lo! betwixt them both, experienced Prudence!
OCTAVIO (presenting QUESTENBERG to BUTLER and
ISOLANI).

The Chamberlain and War-commissioner Questen-
berg,

The bearer of the Emperor's behests,
The long-tried friend and patron of all soldiers,
We honor in this noble visitor.

The sole reward of all our hard-won victories.

QUESTENBERG.

Unless that wretched land be doomed to suffer
Only a change of evils, it must be
Freed from the scourge alike of friend and foe.

ILLO.

What? "Twas a favorable year; the boors
Can answer fresh demands already.

QUESTENBERG.

Nay,

If you discourse of herds and meadow-grounds—

ISOLANI.

The war maintains the war. Are the boors ruin'd,

The Emperor gains so many more new soldiers.

QUESTENBERG.

And is the poorer by even so many subjects.

ISOLANI.

[Universal silence. Poh! We are all his subjects.

Thank Heaven! that means have been found out to His cares and feelings all ranks share alike,
Nor will he offer one up to another.

hide

Some little from the fingers of the Croats.

ILLO.

There! The Stawata and the Martinitz,

On whom the Emperor heaps his gifts and graces, To the heart-burning of all good BohemiansThose minions of court favor, those court harpies, Who fatten on the wrecks of citizens

ISOLANI.

And therefore thrusts he us into the deserts As beasts of prey, that so he may preserve His dear sheep fattening in his fields at home. QUESTENBERG (with a sneer). Count! this comparison you make, not I.

BUTLER.

Driven from their house and home-who reap no Why, were we all the court supposes us,

harvests

Save in the general calamity

Who now, with kingly pomp, insult and mock
The desolation of their country-these,
Let these, and such as these, support the war,
The fatal war, which they alone enkindled!

BUTLER.

And those state-parasites, who have their feet
So constantly beneath the Emperor's table,
Who cannot let a benefice fall, but they
Snap at it with dog's hunger-they, forsooth,
Would pare the soldier's bread, and cross his reckon-
ing!

ISOLANI.

My life long will it anger me to think,

How when I went to court seven years ago,
To see about new horses for our regiment,
How from one antechamber to another
They dragg'd me on, and left me by the hour
To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering
Feast-fatten'd slaves, as if I had come thither
A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favor
That fall beneath their tables. And, at last,
Whom should they send me but a Capuchin!
Straight I began to muster up my sins
For absolution-but no such luck for me!
This was the man, this capuchin, with whom
I was to treat concerning the army horses:
And I was forced at last to quit the field,
The business unaccomplish'd. Afterwards
The Duke procured me, in three days, what I
Could not obtain in thirty at Vienna.

QUESTENBERG.

"Twere dangerous, sure, to give us liberty

QUESTENBERG.

You have taken liberty-it was not given you.
And therefore it becomes an urgent duty
To rein it in with curbs.

OCTAVIO (interposing and addressing QUESTENBERG)
My noble friend,
This is no more than a remembrancing
That you are now in camp, and among warriors.
The soldier's boldness constitutes his freedom.
Talk even so? One runs into the other.
Could he act daringly, unless he dared
The boldness of this worthy officer,

[Pointing to BUTLER. Which now has but mistaken in its mark, Preserved, when naught but boldness could preserve

it,

To the Emperor his capital city, Prague,
In a most formidable mutiny

Of the whole garrison. [Military music at a distance
Hah! here they come

ILLO.

The sentries are saluting them: this signal
Announces the arrival of the Duchess.
OCTAVIO (to QUESTENBERG).

Then my son Max. too has returned. "T was he
Fetch'd and attended them from Carnthen hither.
ISOLANI (to ILLO).

Shall we not go in company to greet them?

ILLO.

Well, let us go.-Ho! Colonel Butler, come.

[TO OCTAVIO. You'll not forget, that yet ere noon we meet

Yes, yes! your travelling bills soon found their way The noble Envoy at the General's palace.

Then after come what may come. "Tis man's nature You are now acquainted with three-fourths of the

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The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats: Complete in One Volume