ILLO (to WALLENSTEIN).
Say, will you here fully
Commission me to use my own discretion?
I'll gain for you the Generals' words of honor,
Even as you wish.
Gain me their signatures! How you come by them, that is your concern.
And if I bring it to you, black on white,
That all the leaders who are present here
Give themselves up to you, without condition;
Say, will you then-then will you show yourself
In earnest, and with some decisive action
Make trial of your luck?
Seize, seize the hour,
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
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
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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.
Whence it behoves us to seek out the seed-time,
for-To watch the stars, select their proper hours,
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. PICCOLOMINI, BUTler, Isolani, MarADAS, and three other Generals. WALLENSTEIN motions QUESTENBERG, who in con
In vain his supplication! At this moment
The Duke hears only his old hate and grudge,
Barters the general good to gratify
Private revenge—and so falls Regenspurg.
Max., to what period of the war alludes he?
sequence takes the chair directly opposite to him; the My recollection fails me here!
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
But what had we to do there?
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;
The Emperor sends seven horsemen to Duke
land,
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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
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,
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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
In that disastrous Diet.
I had that which could have procured him freedom.
No! since 't was 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,
What, my Lord Envoy? May I not be suffer'd
To understand, that folks are tired of seeing
The sword's hilt in my grasp: and that your court
Snatch eagerly at this pretence, and use
The Spanish title, to drain off my forces,
To lead into the empire a new army
Unsubjected to my control? To throw me
Plumply aside,-I am still too powerful for you
To venture that. My stipulation runs,
That all the Imperial forces shall obey me
Where'er the German is the native language.
Of Spanish troops and of Prince Cardinals
That take their route, as visitors, through the empire,
There stands no syllable in my stipulation.
No syllable! And so the politic court
Steals in a tiptoe, and creeps round behind it;
First makes me weaker, then to be dispensed with,
Till it dares strike at length a bolder blow
And make short work with me.
Forbid it Heaven, that it should come to this!
Our troops will swell in dreadful fermentationThe Emperor is abused-it cannot be.
It cannot be; all goes to instant wreck.
Thou hast said truly, faithful Isolani!
What we with toil and foresight have built up
Will go to wreck-all go to instant wreck.
What then? another chieftain is soon found,
Another army likewise (who dares doubt it?)
Will flock from all sides to the Emperor,
At the first beat of his recruiting drum.
[During this speech, ISOLANI, TERTSKY, ILLO,
and MARADAS talk confusedly with great
agitation.
MAX. PICCOLOMINI (busily and passionately going from one to another, and soothing them. Hear, my commander! Hear me, generals! Let me conjure you, Duke! Determine nothing, Till we have met and represented to you Our joint remonstrances.-Nay, calmer! Friends! I hope all may be yet set right again.
Where's he who means to rob us of our general? TIEFENBACH (at the same time).
What need of all these crooked ways, Lord Envoy? What are we forced to hear? That thou wilt leave us?
Straight forward, man! His compact with me pinches
The Emperor. He would that I moved off!-
Well!-I will gratify him!
KOLATTO (at the same time).
We will live with thee, we will die with thee.
WALLENSTEIN (with stateliness, and pointing to ILLO).
[Here there commences an agitation among the There! the Feld-Marshal knows our will. [Exit.
Generals, which increases continually.
It grieves me for my noble officers' sakes!
I see not yet, by what means they will come at
The moneys they have advanced, or how obtain
The recompense their services demand.
Still a new leader brings new claimants forward,
And prior merit superannuates quickly.
There serve here many foreigners in the army,
And were the man in all else brave and gallant,
I was not went to make nice scrutiny
After his pedigree or catechism.
This will be otherwise, i' the time to come.
Well-me no longer it concerns. [He seats himself.
[While all are going off the Stage, the curtain drops.
SCENE-A small Chamber.
ILLO and TERTSKY.
Now for this evening's business! How intend you To manage with the generals at the banquet?
Attend! We frame a formal declaration,
Wherein we to the Duke consign ourselves
Collectively, to be and to remain
His both with life and limb, and not to spare
The last drop of our blood for him, provided
So doing we infringe no oath or duty,
We may be under to the Emperor.-Mark!
This reservation we expressly make
In a particular clause, and save the conscience.
Now hear! This formula so framed and worded
Will be presented to them for perusal
Before the banquet. No one will find in it
Cause of offence or scruple. Hear now further!
After the feast, when now the vap'ring wine
Opens the heart, and shuts the eyes, we let
A counterfeited paper, in the which
This one particular clause has been left out,
Go round for signatures.
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His policy is such a labyrinth,
That many a time when I have thought myself
Close at his side, he's gone at once, and left me
Ignorant of the ground where I was standing.
He lends the enemy his ear, permits me
To write to them, to Arnheim; to Sesina
Himself comes forward blank and undisguised;
Talks with us by the hour about his plans,
And when I think I have him-off at once-
He has slipp'd from me, and appears as if
He had no scheme, but to retain his place.
Well-is she coming?—I can keep him back No longer.
She will be there instantly,
I am not quite certain, I must confess it, Countess, whether or not We are earning the Duke's thanks hereby. You know No ray has broke out from him on this point. You have o'erruled me, and yourself know best How far you dare proceed.
I take it on me.
[Talking to herself, while she is advancing
Here's no need of full powers and commissions-
My cloudy Duke! we understand each other-
And without words. What, could I not unriddle,
Wherefore the daughter should be sent for hither,
Why first he, and no other, should be chosen
To fetch her hither? This sham of betrothing her
To a bridegroom,* when no one knows-No! no!-
This may blind others! I see through thee, Brother!
But it beseems thee not, to draw a card
At such a game. Not yet!-It all remains
Mutely deliver'd up to my finessing-
Well-thou shalt not have been deceived, Duke
Friedland!
In her who is thy sister.
The commanders! TERTSKY (to the COUNTESS). Take care you heat his fancy and affections—
* In Germany, after honorable addresses have been paid and formally accepted, the lovers are called Bride and Bridegroom, even though the marriage should not take place till years afterwards.
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