The Death of Wallenstein (play)

  I pulled the string. You sowed blood, and yet stand

  Astonished that blood is come up. I always

  Knew what I did, and therefore no result

  Hath power to frighten or surprise my spirit.

  Have you aught else to order; for this instant

  I make my best speed to Vienna; place

  My bleeding sword before my emperor's throne,

  And hope to gain the applause which undelaying

  And punctual obedience may demand

  From a just judge.

  [Exit BUTLER.

  SCENE XII.

  To these enter the COUNTESS TERZKY, pale and disordered.

  Her utterance is slow and feeble, and unimpassioned.

  OCTAVIO (meeting her).

  Oh, Countess Terzky! These are the results

  Of luckless, unblest deeds.

  COUNTESS.

  They are the fruits

  Of your contrivances. The duke is dead,

  My husband too is dead, the duchess struggles

  In the pangs of death, my niece has disappeared;

  This house of splendor, and of princely glory,

  Doth now stand desolated: the affrighted servants

  Rush forth through all its doors. I am the last

  Therein; I shut it up, and here deliver

  The keys.

  OCTAVIO (with a deep anguish).

  Oh, countess! my house, too, is desolate.

  COUNTESS.

  Who next is to be murdered? Who is next

  To be maltreated? Lo! the duke is dead.

  The emperor's vengeance may be pacified!

  Spare the old servants; let not their fidelity

  Be imputed to the faithful as a crime-

  The evil destiny surprised my brother

  Too suddenly: he could not think on them.

  OCTAVIO.

  Speak not of vengeance! Speak not of maltreatment!

  The emperor is appeased; the heavy fault

  Hath heavily been expiated-nothing

  Descended from the father to the daughter,

  Except his glory and his services.

  The empress honors your adversity,

  Takes part in your afflictions, opens to you

  Her motherly arms. Therefore no further fears.

  Yield yourself up in hope and confidence

  To the imperial grace!

  COUNTESS (with her eye raised to heaven)

  To the grace and mercy of a greater master

  Do I yield up myself. Where shall the body

  Of the duke have its place of final rest?

  In the Chartreuse, which he himself did found

  At Gitschin, rests the Countess Wallenstein;

  And by her side, to whom he was indebted

  For his first fortunes, gratefully he wished

  He might sometime repose in death! Oh, let him

  Be buried there. And likewise, for my husband's

  Remains I ask the like grace. The emperor

  Is now the proprietor of all our castles;

  This sure may well be granted us-one sepulchre

  Beside the sepulchres of our forefathers!

  OCTAVIO.

  Countess, you tremble, you turn pale!

  COUNTESS (reassembles all her powers, and speaks with energy and

  dignity).

  You think

  More worthily of me than to believe

  I would survive the downfall of my house.

  We did not hold ourselves too mean to grasp

  After a monarch's crown-the crown did fate

  Deny, but not the feeling and the spirit

  That to the crown belong! We deem a

  Courageous death more worthy of our free station

  Than a dishonored life. I have taken poison.

  OCTAVIO.

  Help! Help! Support her!

  COUNTESS.

  Nay, it is too late.

  In a few moments is my fate accomplished.

  [Exit COUNTESS.

  GORDON.

  Oh, house of death and horrors!

  [An OFFICER enters, and brings a letter with the great seal.

  GORDON steps forward and meets him.

  What is this

  It is the imperial seal.

  [He reads the address, and delivers the letter to OCTAVIO with

  a look of reproach, and with an emphasis on the word.

  To the Prince Piccolomini.

  [OCTAVIO, with his whole frame expressive of sudden anguish,

  raises his eyes to heaven.

  The Curtain drops.

  FOOTNOTES.

  [1] A great stone near Luetzen, since called the Swede's Stone, the body

  of their great king having been found at the foot of it, after the

  battle in which he lost his life.

  [2] Could I have hazarded such a Germanism as the use of the word

  afterworld for posterity,-"Es spreche Welt und Nachwelt meinen

  Namen"-might have been rendered with more literal fidelity: Let

  world and afterworld speak out my name, etc.

  [3] I have not ventured to affront the fastidious delicacy of our age

  with a literal translation of this line,

  werth

  Die Eingeweide schaudernd aufzuregen.

  [4] Anspessade, in German, Gefreiter, a soldier inferior to a corporal,

  but above the sentinels. The German name implies that he is exempt

  from mounting guard.

  [5] I have here ventured to omit a considerable number of lines. I fear

  that I should not have done amiss had I taken this liberty more

  frequently. It is, however, incumbent on me to give the original,

  with a literal translation.

  "Weh denen, die auf Dich vertraun, an Dich

  Die sichre Huette ihres Glueckes lehnen,

  Gelockt von deiner geistlichen Gestalt.

  Schnell unverhofft, bei naechtlich stiller Weile,

  Gaehrts in dem tueckschen Feuerschlunde, ladet,

  Sich aus mit tobender Gewalt, und weg

  Treibt ueber alle Pflanzungen der Menschen

  Der wilde Strom in grausender Zerstoerung."

  WALLENSTEIN.

  "Du schilderst deines Vaters Herz. Wie Du's

  Beschreibst, so ist's in seinem Eingeweide,

  In dieser schwarzen Heuchlers Brust gestaltet.

  Oh, mich hat Hoellenkunst getaeuscht! Mir sandte

  Der Abgrund den verflecktesten der Geister,

  Den Luegenkundigsten herauf, und stellt' ihn

  Als Freund an meiner Seite. Wer vermag

  Der Hoelle Macht zu widersthn! Ich zog

  Den Basilisken auf an meinem Busen,

  Mit meinem Herzblut naehrt' ich ihn, er sog

  Sich schwelgend voll an meiner Liebe Bruesten,

  Ich hatte nimmer Arges gegen ihn,

  Weit offen liess ich des Gedankens Thore,

  Und warf die Schluessel weiser Vorsicht weg,

  Am Sternenhimmel," etc.

  LITERAL TRANSLATION.

  "Alas! for those who place their confidence on thee, against thee

  lean their secure hut of their fortune, allured by thy hospitable

  form. Suddenly, unexpectedly, in a moment still as night, there is

  a fermentation in the treacherous gulf of fire; it discharges

  itself with raging force, and away over all the plantations of men

  drives the wild stream in frightful devastation."

  WALLENSTEIN.-"Thou art portraying thy father's heart; as thou

  describest, even so is it shaped in its entrails, in this black

  hypocrite's breast. Oh, the art of hell has deceived me! The abyss

  sent up to me the most the most spotted of the spirits, the most

  skilful in lies, and placed him as a friend by my side. Who may

  withstand the power of hell? I took the basilisk to my bosom, with

  my
heart's blood I nourished him; he sucked himself glutfull at the

  breasts of my love. I never harbored evil towards him; wide open

  did I leave the door of my thoughts; I threw away the key of wise

  foresight. In the starry heaven, etc." We find a difficulty in

  believing this to have been written by Schiller.

  [6] This is a poor and inadequate translation of the affectionate

  simplicity of the original-

  Sie alle waren Fremdlinge, Du warst

  Das Kind des Hauses.

  Indeed the whole speech is in the best style of Massinger.

  O si sic omnia!

  [7] It appears that the account of his conversion being caused by

  such a fall, and other stories of his juvenile character, are not

  well authenticated.

  [8] We doubt the propriety of putting so blasphemous a statement in the

  mouth of any character.-T.

  [9] [This soliloquy, which, according to the former arrangement,

  constituted the whole of scene ix., and concluded the fourth act,

  is omitted in all the printed German editions. It seems probable

  that it existed in the original manuscript from which Mr. Coleridge

  translated.-ED.]

  [10] The soliloquy of Thekla consists in the original of six-and-twenty

  lines twenty of which are in rhymes of irregular recurrence. I

  thought it prudent to abridge it. Indeed the whole scene between

  Thekla and Lady Neubrunn might, perhaps, have been omitted without

  injury to the play.-C.

  [11] These four lines are expressed in the original with exquisite

  felicity:-

  Am Himmel ist geschaeftige Bewegung.

  Des Thurmes Fahne jagt der Wind, schnell geht

  Der Wolken Zug, die Mondessichel wankt

  Und durch die Nacht zuckt ungewisse Helle.

  The word "moon-sickle" reminds me of a passage in Harris, as quoted

  by Johnson, under the word "falcated." "The enlightened part of the

  moon appears in the form of a sickle or reaping-hook, which is while

  she is moving from the conjunction to the opposition, or from the

  new moon to the full: but from full to a new again the enlightened

  part appears gibbous, and the dark falcated."

  The words "wanken" and "schweben" are not easily translated. The

  English words, by which we attempt to render them, are either vulgar

  or antic, or not of sufficiently general application. So "der

  Wolken Zug"-The Draft, the Procession of Clouds. The Masses of the

  Clouds sweep onward in swift stream.

  [12] A very inadequate translation of the original:-

  Verschmerzen werd' ich diesen Schlag, das weiss ich,

  Denn was verschmerzte nicht der Mensch!

  LITERALLY.

  I shall grieve down this blow, of that I'm conscious:

  What does not man grieve down?

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 32ea5563-2871-4964-8072-2ceaedeee385

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 2009-06-24

  Created using: EmEditor 8.05 software

  Document authors :

  Ghost mail

  Source URLs :

  http://www.munseys.com/book/03220/

  About

  This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.

  (This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)

  Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.

  (Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)

  http://www.fb2epub.net

  https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/