What wish you ? Count? what? OCTAVIO. OCTAVIO. Ay? are you sure of that? BUTLER. OCTAVIO. And so did I-but the contents were different. By chance I'm in possession of that letter- BUTLER., Ha! what is this? OCTAVIO. I fear me, Colonel Butler, An infamous game have they been playing with you How was't with the Count? The Duke, you say, impell'd you to this measure? BUTLER. OCTAVIO (coldly). The title that you wish'd, I mean. Hell and damnation! OCTAVIO (coldly). You petition'd for itAnd your petition was repell'd-Was it so? BUTLER. Your insolent scoff shall not go by unpunish'd. Now, in this letter talks he in contempt [BUTLER reads through the letter, his knees tremble Be the whole world acquainted with the weakness On which you had been journeying forty years! It stung me to the quick, that birth and title So in an evil hour I let myself Be tempted to that measure-It was folly! It might have been refused; but wherefore barb OCTAVIO and MAX. PICCOLOMINI. ΜΑΧ. I follow thee ? Thy way is crooked-it is not my way. [OCTAVIO drops his hand, and starts back MAX. God in Heaven! O, woe is me! sure I have changed my nature. The only unprofaned in human nature. OCTAVIO. Max.!-we will go together. "T will be better. MAX. What? ere I've taken a last parting leave, OCTAVIO. Spare thyself The pang of necessary separation. [Attempts to take him with lim MAX. Max. enters almost in a state of derangement from Come with me! Come, my son! extreme agitation, his eyes roll wildly, his walk is unsteady, and he appears not to observe his father, who stands at a distance, and gazes at him with a No! as sure as God lives, no! countenance expressive of compassion. He paces with long strides through the chamber, then stands Come with me, I command thee! I, thy father. still again, and at last throws himself into a chair, staring vacantly at the object directly before him. OCTAVIO (advances to him). OCTAVIO (more urgently). MAX. Command me what is human. I stay here. OCTAVIO. Max.! in the Emperor's name I bid thee come. ΜΑΧ. No Emperor has power to prescribe Laws to the heart; and wouldst thou wish to rob me Be done with cruelty? The unalterable MAX. Shall I perform ignobly-steal away, OCTAVIO. Thou wilt not tear thyself away; thou canst not. MAX. Squander not thou thy words in vain. OCTAVIO (trembling, and losing all self-command). Do stamp this brand upon our noble house, Of the son trickle with the father's blood. MAX. O hadst thou always better thought of men, Nothing on earth remains unwrench'd and firm, OCTAVIO. And if I trust thy heart, Will it be always in thy power to follow it? The Death of Wallenstein; A TRAGEDY, IN FIVE ACTS. PREFACE. explanation. For these reasons it has been thought expedient not to translate it. The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted THE two Dramas, PICCOLOMINI, or the first part of their idea of that author from the Robbers, and the WALLENSTEIN, and WALLENSTEIN, are introduced in Cabal and Love, plays in which the main interest is the original manuscript by a Prelude in one Act, en- produced by the excitement of curiosity, and in titled WALLENSTEIN'S CAMP. This is written in which the curiosity is excited by terrible and extrarhyme, and in nine-syllable verse, in the same lilting ordinary incident, will not have perused without metre (if that expression may be permitted) with the some portion of disappointment the Dramas, which second Eclogue of Spencer's Shepherd's Calendar. it has been my employment to translate. They This Prelude possesses a sort of broad humor, and should, however, reflect that these are Historical is not deficient in character; but to have translated Dramas, taken from a popular German History; that it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the we must therefore judge of them in some measure original, would have given a false idea both of its with the feelings of Germans; or by analogy, with style and purport; to have translated it into the same the interest excited in us by similar Dramas in our metre would been incompatible with a faithful ad- own language. Few, I trust, would be rash or ignorant herence to the sense of the German, from the com- enough to compare Schiller with Shakspeare; yet, parative poverty of our language in rhymes; and it merely as illustration, I would say that we should would have been unadvisable, from the incongruity proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear of those lax verses with the present taste of the or Othello, but from Richard the Second, or the three English Public. Schiller's intention seems to have parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapidbeen merely to have prepared his reader for the ity in an Historical Drama; and many prolix speeches Tragedies by a lively picture of the laxity of dis- are pardoned from characters, whose names and accipline, and the mutinous dispositions of Wallen- tions have formed the most amusing tales of our early stein's soldiery. It is not necessary as a preliminary life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays more individua. beauties, more passages whose ex cellence will bear reflection, than in the former pro- THE DEATH OF WALLÈNSTEIN. ductions of Schiller. The description of the Astrological Tower, and the reflections of the Young Lover, which follow it, form in the original a fine poem; and my translation must have been wretched indeed, if it can have wholly overclouded the beauties ACT I. SCENE I. of the Scene in the first Act of the first Play between SCENE-A Chamber in the House of the Duchess of Questenberg, Max., and Octavio Piccolomini. If we except the Scene of the setting sun in the Robbers, Friedland. two latter sit at the same table at work). [THEKLA remaining silent, the COUNTESS rises I know of no part in Schiller's Plays which equals COUNTESS TERTSKY, THEKLA, LADY NEUBRUNN (the the whole of the first Scene of the fifth Act of the concluding Play. It would be unbecoming in me to be more diffuse on this subject. A translator stands connected with the original Author by a certain law of subordination, which makes it more decorous to point out excellencies than defects: indeed he is not likely to be a fair judge of either. The pleasure or disgust from his own labor will mingle with the feelings that arise from an after-view of the original, Even in the first perusal of a work in any foreign language which we understand, we are apt to attribute to it more excellence than it really possesses, from our own pleasurable sense of difficulty overcome without effort. Translation of poetry into poetry is difficult, because the translator must give a bril- To-day and yesterday I have not seen him. liancy to his language without that warmth of original conception, from which such brilliancy would follow And not heard from him, either? Come, be open. ences. Why, how comes this? of its own accord. But the Translator of a living THEKLA. COUNTESS. THEKLA. COUNTESS. And still you are so calm? THEKLA. COUNTESS. May't please you, leave us, Lady Neubrunn. [Exit LADY NEUBRunn SCENE II. DRAMATIS PERSONÆ. The COUNTESS, THEKLA. COUNTESS. Himself so still, exactly at this time. WALLENSTEIN, Duke of Friedland, Generalissimo of It does not please me, Princess, that he holds OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, Lieutenant-General. COULT TERTSKY, the Commander of several Regi- GORDON, Governor of Egra. CAPTAIN Devereux. MACDONALD. |