The Piccolomini by Friedrich Schiller (summer reads TXT) 📖

If to be the chieftain asks All that is great in nature, let it be Likewise his privilege to move and act In all the correspondences of greatness. The oracle within him, that which lives, He must invoke and question--not dead books, Not ordinances, not mould-rotted papers.

OCTAVIO. My son! of those old narrow ordinances Let us not hold too lightly. They are weights Of priceless value, which oppressed mankind, Tied to the volatile will of their oppressors. For always formidable was the League And partnership of free power with free will. The way of ancient ordinance, though it winds, Is yet no devious path. Straight forward goes The lightning's path, and straight the fearful path Of the cannon-ball. Direct it flies, and rapid; Shattering that it may reach, and shattering what it reaches, My son, the road the human being travels, That, on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow The river's course, the valley's playful windings, Curves round the cornfield and the hill of vines, Honoring the holy bounds of property! And thus secure, though late, leads to its end.

QUESTENBERG. Oh, hear your father, noble youth! hear him Who is at once the hero and the man.

OCTAVIO. My son, the nursling of the camp spoke in thee! A war of fifteen years Hath been thy education and thy school. Peace hast thou never witnessed! There exists An higher than the warrior's excellence. In war itself war is no ultimate purpose, The vast and sudden deeds of violence, Adventures wild, and wonders of the moment, These are not they, my son, that generate The calm, the blissful, and the enduring mighty! Lo there! the soldier, rapid architect! Builds his light town of canvas, and at once The whole scene moves and bustles momently. With arms, and neighing steeds, and mirth and quarrel The motley market fills; the roads, the streams Are crowded with new freights; trade stirs and hurries, But on some morrow morn, all suddenly, The tents drop down, the horde renews its march. Dreary, and solitary as a churchyard; The meadow and down-trodden seed-plot lie, And the year's harvest is gone utterly.

MAX. Oh, let the emperor make peace, my father! Most gladly would I give the blood-stained laurel For the first violet [5] of the leafless spring, Plucked in those quiet fields where I have journeyed.

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

MAX. Peace have I ne'er beheld? I have beheld it. From thence am I come hither: oh, that sight, It glimmers still before me, like some landscape Left in the distance,--some delicious landscape! My road conducted me through countries where The war has not yet reached. Life, life, my father-- My venerable father, life has charms Which we have never experienced. We have been But voyaging along its barren coasts, Like some poor ever-roaming horde of pirates, That, crowded in the rank and narrow ship, House on the wild sea with wild usages, Nor know aught of the mainland, but the bays Where safeliest they may venture a thieves' landing. Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals Of fair and exquisite, oh, nothing, nothing, Do we behold of that in our rude voyage.

OCTAVIO (attentive, with an appearance of uneasiness). And so your journey has revealed this to you?

MAX. 'Twas the first leisure of my life. O tell me, What is the meed and purpose of the toil, The painful toil which robbed me of my youth, Left me a heart unsouled and solitary, A spirit uninformed, unornamented! For the camp's stir, and crowd, and ceaseless larum, The neighing war-horse, the air-shattering trumpet, The unvaried, still returning hour of duty, Word of command, and exercise of arms-- There's nothing here, there's nothing in all this, To satisfy the heart, the gasping heart! Mere bustling nothingness, where the soul is not-- This cannot be the sole felicity, These cannot be man's best and only pleasures!

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

MAX. Oh day, thrice lovely! when at length the soldier Returns home into life; when he becomes A fellow-man among his fellow-men. The colors are unfurled, the cavalcade Mashals, and now the buzz is hushed, and hark! Now the soft peace-march beats, home, brothers, home! The caps and helmet are all garlanded With green boughs, the last plundering of the fields. The city gates fly open of themselves, They need no longer the petard to tear them. The ramparts are all filled with men and women, With peaceful men and women, that send onwards. Kisses and welcomings upon the air, Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures. From all the towers rings out the merry peal, The joyous vespers of a bloody day. O happy man, O fortunate! for whom The well-known door, the faithful arms are open, The faithful tender arms with mute embracing.

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

MAX. (turning round to him quick and vehement). Where lies the fault but on you in Vienna! I will deal openly with you, Questenberg. Just now, as first I saw you standing here (I'll own it to you freely), indignation Crowded and pressed my inmost soul together. 'Tis ye that hinder peace, ye!--and the warrior, It is the warrior that must force it from you. Ye fret the general's life out, blacken him, Hold him up as a rebel, and heaven knows What else still worse, because he spares the Saxons, And tries to awaken confidence in the enemy; Which yet's the only way to peace: for if War intermit not during war, how then And whence can peace come? Your own plagues fall on you! Even as I love what's virtuous, hate I you. And here I make this vow, here pledge myself, My blood shall spurt out for this Wallenstein, And my heart drain off, drop by drop, ere ye Shall revel and dance jubilee o'er his ruin.
[Exit.


SCENE V.

QUESTENBERG, OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI.

QUESTENBERG. Alas! alas! and stands it so?
[Then in pressing and impatient tones. What friend! and do we let him go away In this delusion--let him go away? Not call him back immediately, not open His eyes, upon the spot?

OCTAVIO (recovering himself out of a deep study).
He has now opened mine, And I see more than pleases me.

QUESTENBERG.
What is it?

OCTAVIO. Curse on this journey!

QUESTENBERG.
But why so? What is it?

OCTAVIO. Come, come along, friend! I must follow up The ominous track immediately. Mine eyes Are opened now, and I must use them. Come!

[Draws QUESTENBERG on with him.

QUESTENBERG. What now? Where go you then?

OCTAVIO.
To her herself.

QUESTENBERG.
To----

OCTAVIO (interrupting him and correcting himself). To the duke. Come, let us go 'Tis done, 'tis done, I see the net that is thrown over him. Oh! he returns not to me as he went.

QUESTENBERG. Nay, but explain yourself.

OCTAVIO.
And that I should not Foresee it, not prevent this journey! Wherefore Did I keep it from him? You were in the right. I should have warned him. Now it is too late.

QUESTENBERG. But what's too late? Bethink yourself, my friend, That you are talking absolute riddles to me.

OCTAVIO (more collected). Come I to the duke's. 'Tis close upon the hour Which he appointed you for audience. Come! A curse, a threefold curse, upon this journey!

[He leads QUESTENBERG off.


ACT II.

SCENE I.

Changes to a spacious chamber in the house of the Duke of
Friedland. Servants employed in putting the tables and chairs
in order. During this enters SENI, like an old Italian doctor,
in black, and clothed somewhat fantastically. He carries a white
staff, with which he marks out the quarters of the heavens.

FIRST SERVANT. Come--to it, lads, to it! Make an end of it. I hear the sentry call out, "Stand to your arms!" They will be here in a minute.

SECOND SERVANT. Why were we not told before that the audience would be held here? Nothing prepared--no orders--no instructions.

THIRD SERVANT. Ay, and why was the balcony chamber countermanded, that with the great worked carpet? There one can look about one.

FIRST SERVANT. Nay, that you must ask the mathematician there. He says it is an unlucky chamber.

SECOND SERVANT. Poh! stuff and nonsense! that's what I call a hum. A chamber is a chamber; what much can the place signify in the affair?

SENI (with gravity). My son, there's nothing insignificant, Nothing! But yet in every earthly thing, First and most principal is place and time.

FIRST SERVANT (to the second). Say nothing to him, Nat. The duke himself must let him have his own will.

SENI (counts the chairs, half in a loud, half in a low voice, till
he comes to eleven, which he repeats). Eleven! an evil number! Set twelve chairs. Twelve! twelve signs hath the zodiac: five and seven, The holy numbers, include themselves in twelve.

SECOND SERVANT. And what may you have to object against eleven? I should like to know that now.

SENI. Eleven is transgression; eleven oversteps The ten commandments.

SECOND SERVANT. That's good? and why do you call five a holy number?

SENI. Five is the soul of man: for even as man Is mingled up of good and evil, so The five is the first number that's made up Of even and odd.

SECOND SERVANT. The foolish old coxcomb!

FIRST SERVANT. Ay! let him alone though. I like to hear him; there is more in his words than can be seen at first sight.

THIRD SERVANT. Off, they come.

SECOND SERVANT. There! Out at the side-door.

[They hurry off: SENI follows slowly. A page brings the staff
of command on a red cushion, and places it on the table, near the
duke's chair. They are announced from without, and the wings of
the door fly open.


SCENE II.

WALLENSTEIN, DUCHESS.

WALLENSTEIN. You went, then, through Vienna, were presented To the Queen of Hungary?

DUCHESS. Yes; and to the empress, too, And by both majesties were we admitted To kiss the hand.

WALLENSTEIN.
And how was it received, That I had sent for wife and daughter hither To the camp, in winter-time?

DUCHESS.
I did even that Which you