: The Piccolomini: A Play by Schiller Friedrich Coleridge Samuel Taylor Translator - Wallenstein Albrecht Wenzel Eusebius von Herzog von Friedland 1583-1634 Drama; Thirty Years' War 1618-1648 Drama

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THE PICCOLOMINI

Translated by S. T. Coleridge.

"Upon the whole there can be no doubt that this trilogy forms, in its original tongue, one of the most splendid specimens of tragic art the world has witnessed; and none at all, that the execution of the version from which we have quoted so largely, places Mr. Coleridge in the very first rank of poetical translators. He is, perhaps, the solitary example of a man of very great original genius submitting to all the labors, and reaping all the honors of this species of literary exertion."--Blackwood, 1823.

PREFACE

The two dramas,--PICCOLOMINI, or the first part of WALLENSTEIN, and the DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN, are introduced in the original manuscript by a prelude in one act, entitled WALLENSTEIN'S CAMP. This is written in rhyme, and in nine-syllable verse, in the same lilting metre , with the second Eclogue of Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.

This prelude possesses a sort of broad humor, and is not deficient in character: but to have translated it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the original, would have given a false idea both of its style and purport; to have translated it into the same metre would have been incompatible with a faithful adherence to the sense of the German from the comparative poverty of our language in rhymes; and it would have been unadvisable, from the incongruity of those lax verses with the present taste of the English public. Schiller's intention seems to have been merely to have prepared his reader for the tragedies by a lively picture of laxity of discipline and the mutinous dispositions of Wallenstein's soldiery. It is not necessary as a preliminary explanation. For these reasons it has been thought expedient not to translate it.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

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

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

ILLO. Just in time to banquet The illustrious company assembled here.

BUTLER. 'Tis all alive! a stirring scene here!

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

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