We in the field here gave our cares and toils To make her great, and fight her a free way To the loftiest earthly good; lo! mother Nature Within the peaceful silent convent walls Has done her part, and out of her free grace Hath she bestow'd on the beloved child The godlike; and now leads her thus adorn'd To meet her splendid fortune, and my hope. DUCHESS (to THEKLA).
Thou wouldst not have recognized thy father, Wouldst thou, my child? She counted scarce eight! years,
When last she saw your face.
O yes, yes, mother! At the first glance!-My father is not alter'd. The form that stands before me falsifies No feature of the image that hath lived So long within me!
The voice of my child! [Then after a pause.
I was indignant at my destiny, That it denied me a man-child to be Heir of my name and of my prosperous fortune, And re-illume my soon extinguish'd being In a proud line of princes.
I wrong'd my destiny. Here upon this head,
So lovely in its maiden bloom, will I Let fall the garland of a life of war, Nor deem it lost, if only I can wreath it, Transmitted to a regal ornament, Around these beauteous brows.
No! 'twas not so intended, that my business Should be my highest best good-fortune!
[TERTSKY eniers, and delivers letters to the DUKE which he breaks open hurryingly.
COUNTESS (to MAX.). Remunerate your trouble! For his joy He makes you recompense. "Tis not unfitting For you, Count Piccolomini, to feel So tenderly-my brother it beseems To show himself for ever great and princely.
Then I too must have scruples of his love; For his munificent hands did ornament me Ere yet the father's heart had spoken to me.
Yes; 'tis his nature ever to be giving And making happy.
[He grasps the hand of the DUCHESS with still in creasing warmth.
How my heart pours out Its all of thanks to him! O! how I seem To utter all things in the dear name Friedland. While I shall live, so long will I remain The captive of this name: in it shall bloom My every fortune, every lovely hope. Inextricably as in some magic ring
In this name hath my destiny charm-bound me! COUNTESS (who during this time has been anxiously watching the DUKE, and remarks that he is lost in thought over the letters).
My brother wishes us to leave him. Come. WALLENSTEIN (turns himself round quick, collects himself, and speaks with cheerfulness to the DUCHESS).
[He clasps her in his arms as PICCOLOMINI enters. Once more I bid thee welcome to the camp.
Enter MAX. PICCOLOMINI, and some time after Count TERTSKY, the others remaining as before.
There comes the Paladin who protected us.
Max.! Welcome, ever welcome! Always wert thou The morning-star of my best joys!
Till now it was the Emperor who rewarded thee, I but the instrument. This day thou hast bound The father to thee, Max.! the fortunate father, And this debt Friedland's self must pay.
You made no common hurry to transfer it. I come with shame: yea, not without a pang! For scarce have I arrived here, scarce deliver'd The mother and the daughter to your arms, But there is brought to me from your equerry A splendid richly-plated hunting-dress So to remunerate me for my troubles- Yes, yes, remunerate me! Since a trouble It must be, a mere office, not a favor Which I leapt forward to receive, and which I came already with full heart to thank you for.
Thou art the hostess of this court. You, Max., Will now again administer your old office, While we perform the sovereign's business here. [MAX. PICCOLOMINI offers the DUCHESS his arm; the COUNTESS accompanies the PRINCESS. TERTSKY (calling after him). Max., we depend on seeing you at the meeting.
WALLENSTEIN, COUNT TERTSKY. WALLENSTEIN (in deep thought to himself). She hath seen all things as they are-It is so, And squares completely with my other notices. They have determined finally in Vienna, Have given me my successor already;
It is the king of Hungary, Ferdinand,
The Emperor's delicate son! he's now their savior He's the new star that's rising now! Of us They think themselves already fairly rid, And as we were deceased, the heir already Is entering on possession-Therefore-dispatch! [As he turns round he observes TERTSKY, and gives him a letter.
Count Altringer will have himself excused, And Galas too-I like not this!
Thou loiterest longer, all will fall away, One following the other.
Is master of the Tyrol passes. I must forthwith Send some one to him, that he let not in The Spaniards on me from the Milanese. -Well, and the old Sesin, that ancient trader
In contraband negotiations, he
Has shown himself again of late. What brings he That I'm not gulling him for the Emperor's service? From the Count Thur?
Off with them, off! Thou understand'st not this. Never shall it be said of me, I parcell'd My native land away, dismember'd Germany, Betray'd it to a foreigner, in order
To come with stealthy tread, and filch away My own share of the plunder-Never! never!- No foreign power shall strike root in the empire, And least of all, these Goths! these hunger-wolves! Who send such envious, hot and greedy glances Towards the rich blessings of our German lands! I'll have their aid to cast and draw my nets, But not a single fish of all the draught Shall they come in for.
You will deal, however, More fairly with the Saxons? They lose patience While you shift ground and make so many curves. Say, to what purpose all these masks? Your friends Are plunged in doubts, baffled, and led astray in you. There's Oxenstein, there's Arnheim-neither knows What he should think of your procrastinations, And in the end I prove the liar; all
Passes through me. I have not even your handwriting.
I never give my handwriting; thou knowest it.
But how can it be known that you're in earnest, If the act follows not upon the word? You must yourself acknowledge, that in all Your intercourses hitherto with the enemy,
Whence knowest thou that I'm not gulling all of you?
Dost thou know me so well? When made I thee The intendant of my secret purposes?
I am not conscious that I ever open'd
My inmost thoughts to thee. The Emperor, it is true. Hath dealt with me amiss; and if I would,
I could repay him with usurious interest For the evil he hath done me. It delights me To know my power; but whether I shall use it, Of that, I should have thought that thou couldst speak
No wiselier than thy fellows.
If I'm in aught to bind myself to them,
You might have done with safety all you have done, They too must bind themselves to me.
Seize, seize the hour, Ere it slips from you. Seldom comes the moment In life, which is indeed sublime and weighty. To make a great decision possible, O! many things, all transient and all rapid, Must meet at once: and, haply, they thus met May by that confluence be enforced to pause Time long enough for wisdom, though too short, Far, far too short a time for doubt and scruple! This is that moment. See, our army chieftains, Our best, our noblest, are assembled around you, Their king-like leader! On your nod they wait. The single threads, which here your prosperous for
Hath woven together in one potent web Instinct with destiny, O let them not Unravel of themselves. If you permit These chiefs to separate, so unanimous Bring you them not a second time together. Tis the high tide that heaves the stranded ship, And every individual's spirit waxes In the great stream of multitudes. Behold They are still here, here still! But soon the war Bursts them once more asunder, and in small Particular anxieties and interests Scatters their spirit, and the sympathy
Thou speakest as thou understand'st. How oft And many a time I've told thee, Jupiter, That lustrous god, was setting at thy birth. Thy visual power subdues no mysteries; Mole-eyed, thou mayest but burrow in the earth, Blind as that subterrestrial, who with wan, Lead-color'd shine lighted thee into life. The common, the terrestrial, thou mayest see, With serviceable cunning knit together The nearest with the nearest; and therein I trust thee and believe thee! but whate'er Full of mysterious import Nature weaves And fashions in the depths-the spirit's ladder, That from this gross and visible world of dust Even to the starry world, with thousand rounds, Builds itself up; on which the unseen powers Move up and down on heavenly ministries- The circles in the circles, that approach The central sun with ever-narrowing orbit- These see the glance alone, the unsealed eye, Of Jupiter's glad children born in lustre.
[He walks across the chamber, then returns, and standing still, proceeds.
The heavenly constellations make not merely The day and nights, summer and spring, not merely Signify to the husbandman the seasons Of sowing and of harvest. Human action, That is the seed too of contingencies, Strew'd on the dark land of futurity In hopes to reconcile the powers of fate. To watch the stars, select their proper hours, Whence it behoves us to seek out the seed-time, And trace with searching eye the heavenly houses, Whether the enemy of growth and thriving Hide himself not, malignant, in his corner. Therefore permit me my own time. Meanwhile Do you your part. As yet I cannot say What I shall do-only, give way I will not. Depose me too they shall not. On these points You may rely.
PAGE (entering). My Lords, the Generals.
WALLENSTEIN, TERTSKY, ILLO.-To them enter QUESTENBERG, OCTAVIO and MAX. PICCOLоmini, ButLER, ISOLANI, MARADAS, and three other Generals. WALLENSTEIN motions QUESTENBERG, who in con
sequence takes the chair directly opposite to him; the others follow, arranging themselves according to their rank. There reigns a momentary silence.
I have understood, 'tis true, the sum and import Of your instructions, Questenberg; have weigh'd
And form'd my final, absolute resolve: Yet it seems fitting, that the Generals
Should hear the will of the Emperor from your mouth. The Swedes and Saxons from the province. May't please you then to open your commission Before these noble Chieftains?
To obey you; but will first entreat your Highness, And all these noble Chieftains, to consider, The Imperial dignity and sovereign right
Speaks from my mouth, and not my own presumption.
When his Majesty The Emperor to his courageous armies Presented in the person of Duke Friedland A most experienced and renown'd commander, He did it in glad hope and confidence To give thereby to the fortune of the war A rapid and auspicious change. The onset Was favorable to his royal wishes. Bohemia was deliver'd from the Saxons,
The Swede's career of conquest check'd! These lands Began to draw breath freely, as Duke Friedland From all the streams of Germany forced hither The scatter'd armies of the enemy; Hither invoked as round one magic circle The Rhinegrave, Bernhard, Banner, Oxenstein, Yea, and that never-conquer'd King himself; Here finally, before the eye of Nürnberg, The fearful game of battle to decide.
May't please you, to the point.
In Nürnberg's camp the Swedish monarch left His fame-in Lützen's plains his life. But who Stood not astounded, when victorious Friedland After this day of triumph, this proud day, March'd toward Bohemia with the speed of flight, And vanish'd from the theatre of war; While the young Weimar hero forced his way Into Franconia, to the Danube, like Some delving winter-stream, which, where it rushes, Makes its own channel; with such sudden speed He march'd, and now at once 'fore Regenspurg Stood to the affright of all good Catholic Christians. Then did Bavaria's well-deserving Prince Entreat swift aidance in his extreme need;
Beside the river Oder did the Duke Assert his ancient fame. Upon the fields
Of Steinau did the Swedes lay down their arms, Subdued without a blow. And here, with others The righteousness of Heaven to his avenger Deliver'd that long-practised stirrer-up
Of insurrection, that curse-laden torch And kindler of this war, Matthias Thur. But he had fallen into magnanimous hands; Instead of punishment he found reward, And with rich presents did the Duke dismiss The arch-foe of his Emperor.
WALLENSTEIN (laughs). I know,
I know you had already in Vienna Your windows and balconies all forestall'd To see him on the executioner's cart.
I might have lost the battle, lost it too With infamy, and still retain'd your graces- But, to have cheated them of spectacle, Oh! that the good folks of Vienna never, No, never can forgive me!
Was freed, and all things loudly call'd the Duke Into Bavaria, now press'd hard on all sides. And he did put his troops in motion: slowly, Quite at his ease, and by the longest road He traverses Bohemia; but ere ever He hath once seen the enemy, faces round, Breaks up the march, and takes to winter-quarters
The troops were pitiably destitute Of every necessary, every comfort. The winter came. What thinks his Majesty His troops are made of? An't we men? subjected Like other men to wet, and cold, and all
The Emperor sends seven horsemen to Duke Fried- The circumstances of necessity?
Seven horsemen couriers sends he with the entreaty: He superadds his own, and supplicates Where as the sovereign lord he can command.
O miserable lot of the poor soldier! Wherever he comes in, all flee before him, And when he goes away, the general curse Follows him on his route. All must be seized,
Yes! 'tis my fault, I know it: I myself Have spoilt the Emperor by indulging him. Nine years ago, during the Danish war, I raised him up a force, a mighty force, Forty or fifty thousand men, that cost him Of his own purse no doit. Through Saxony The fury goddess of the war march'd on, E'en to the surf-rocks of the Baltic, bearing The terrors of his name. That was a time! In the whole Imperial realm no name like mine Honor'd with festival and celebration- And Albrecht Wallenstein, it was the title Of the third jewel in his crown! But at the Diet, when the Princes met
At Regensburg, there, there the whole broke out, There 't was laid open, there it was made known, Out of what money-bag I had paid the host. And what was now my thank, what had I now, That I, a faithful servant of the Sovereign, Had loaded on myself the people's curses, And let the Princes of the empire pay The expenses of this war, that aggrandizes The Emperor alone-What thanks had I? What? I was offer'd up to their complaints, Dismiss'd, degraded !
But your Highness knows What little freedom he possess'd of action
I had that which could have procured him freedom. No! since 'twas proved so inauspicious to me To serve the Emperor at the empire's cost, I have been taught far other trains of thinking Of the empire, and the diet of the empire. From the Emperor, doubtless, I received this staff, But now I hold it as the empire's general- For the common weal, the universal interest, And no more for that one man's aggrandizement! But to the point. What is it that's desired of me?
First, his Imperial Majesty hath will'd
*The original is not translatable into English; -Und sein Sold
Muss dem Soldaten werden, darnach heisst er.
It might perhaps have been thus rendered:
And that for which he sold his services,
The soldier must receive.
I accepted the command but on conditions: And this the first, that to the diminution Of my authority no human being,
Not even the Emperor's self, should be entitled To do aught, or to say aught, with the army.
But a false or doubtful etymology is no more than a dull pun. If I stand warranter of the event,
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