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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.

ILLO . And how came you to know That the Count Gallas joins us not?

BUTLER. Because He importuned me to remain behind.

ILLO . And you? You hold out firmly! approaching With the Lieutenant-General Piccolomini.

BUTLER . I fear we shall not go hence as we came.

Enter OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI and QUESTENBERG.

OCTAVIO . Ay! ah! more still! Still more new visitors! Acknowledge, friend! that never was a camp, Which held at once so many heads of heroes.

OCTAVIO . Welcome, Count Isolani!

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! There might we place at once before our eyes The sum of war's whole trade and mystery--

in Moravia, where You did present yourself upon the part Of the emperor to supplicate our duke That he would straight assume the chief command.

QUESTENBURG. To supplicate? Nay, bold general! So far extended neither my commission nor my zeal.

ILLO. Well, well, then--to compel him, if you choose, I can remember me right well, Count Tilly Had suffered total rout upon the Lech. Bavaria lay all open to the enemy, Whom there was nothing to delay from pressing Onwards into the very heart of Austria. At that time you and Werdenberg appeared Before our general, storming him with prayers, And menacing the emperor's displeasure, Unless he took compassion on this wretchedness.

ISOLANI . 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 Isolani? 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, To be swept out of it is all our thanks, 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 or foe.

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

QUESTENBERG. And is the poorer by even so many subjects.

QUESTENBERG. Yet with a difference, general! The one fill With profitable industry the purse, The others are well skilled to empty it. The sword has made the emperor poor; the plough Must reinvigorate his resources.

OCTAVIO. What ails thee? What so moves thee all at once?

OCTAVIO . And so your journey has revealed this to you?

OCTAVIO. Much hast thou learnt, my son, in this short journey.

QUESTENBERG . O that you should speak Of such a distant, distant time, and not Of the to-morrow, not of this to-day.

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 marched, and now at once 'fore Regensburg 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 Friedland, Seven horsemen couriers sends he with the entreaty He superadds his own, and supplicates Where as the sovereign lord he can command. 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 Regensburg.

WALLENSTEIN. Max., to what period of the war alludes he? My recollection fails me here.

WALLENSTEIN. Ay! is it so! But what had we to do there?

WALLENSTEIN. True; In that description which the minister gave, I seemed to have forgotten the whole war.

QUESTENBERG. Ah! this is a far other tone from that In which the duke spoke eight, nine years ago.

WALLENSTEIN. 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 marched 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 Honored 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 'twas laid open, there it was made known Out of what money-bag I had paid the host, And what were now my thanks, 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 offered up to their complaint Dismissed, degraded!

QUESTENBERG. But your highness knows What little freedom he possessed of action In that disastrous Diet.

WALLENSTEIN. Death and hell! 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?

WALLENSTEIN. In this season? And to what quarter wills the emperor That we direct our course?

QUESTENBERG. To the enemy. His majesty resolves, that Regensburg Be purified from the enemy ere Easter, That Lutheranism may be no longer preached In that cathedral, nor heretical Defilement desecrate the celebration Of that pure festival.

WALLENSTEIN. My generals, Can this be realized?

ILLO. 'Tis not possible.

BUTLER. It can't be realized.

QUESTENBERG. The emperor Already hath commanded Colonel Suys To advance towards Bavaria.

WALLENSTEIN. What did Suys?

QUESTENBERG. That which his duty prompted. He advanced.

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