Treason!-My God!-But who talks then of treason? You do me too much honor.

OCTAVIO.

That is the case. The Prince-duke is a traitor

Means to lead over to the enemy

OCTAVIO (after both have seated themselves).
You have not

Return'd the advances which I made you yesterday-

The Emperor's army.-Now, Count!-brief and Misunderstood them, as mere empty forms.

full

Say, will you break your oath to the Emperor?
Sell yourself to the enemy?-Say, will you?

ISOLANI.

What mean you? I-I break my oath, d'ye say,
To his Imperial Majesty?
Did I say so?-When, when have I said that?

OCTAVIO.

You have not said it yet-not yet. This instant
I wait to hear, Count, whether you will say it.

ISOLANI.

Ay! that delights me now, that you yourself
Bear witness for me that I never said so.

OCTAVIO.

And you renounce the Duke, then?

ISOLANI.

If he's planning

Treason why, treason breaks all bonds asunder.

OCTAVIO.

And are determined, too, to fight against him?

ISOLANI.

He has done me service-but if he's a villain,
Perdition seize him!-All scores are rubb'd off.

OCTAVIO.

I am rejoiced that you're so well-disposed.
This night break off in the utmost secrecy
With all the light-arm'd troops-it must appear
As came the order from the Duke himself.
At Frauenberg's the place of rendezvous;
There will Count Galas give you further orders.

ISOLANI.

The time is precious-let us talk openly.
You know how matters stand here. Wallenstein
Meditates treason-I can tell you further-
He has committed treason; but few hours
Have past, since he a covenant concluded
With the enemy. The messengers are now
Full on their way to Egra and to Prague.

It shall be done. But you'll remember me
With the Emperor-how well-disposed you found me. To-morrow he intends to lead us over

OCTAVIO.

I will not fail to mention it honorably.

To the enemy. But he deceives himself;
For Prudence wakes-the Emperor has still

[Exit ISOLANI. A SERVANT enters. Many and faithful friends here, and they stand

What wish you?

Count? what?

OCTAVIO.

OCTAVIO.

Ay? are you sure of that?

BUTLER.
I read the letter

OCTAVIO.

And so did I-but the contents were different.
[BUTLER is suddenly struck

By chance I'm in possession of that letter-
Can leave it to your own eyes to convince you.
[He gives him the 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.
BUTLER (starts in sudden passion).

'Hell and damnation!

OCTAVIO (coldly).

You petition'd for itAnd your petition was repell'd-Was it so?

BUTLER.

Now, in this letter talks he in contempt
Concerning you, counsels the minister

To give sound chastisement to your conceit
For so he calls it.

[BUTLER reads through the letter, his knees tremble
he seizes a chair, and sinks down in it.
You have no enemy, no persecutor;
There's no one wishes ill to you. Ascribe
The insult you received to the Duke only.
His aim is clear and palpable. He wish'd
To tear you from your Emperor-he hoped
To gain from your revenge what he well knew
(What your long-tried fidelity convinced him)
He ne'er could dare expect from your calm reasor.
A blind tool would he make you, in contempt
Use you, as means of most abandon'd ends.
He has gain'd his point. Too well has he succeeded
In luring you away from that good path

Be the whole world acquainted with the weakness On which you had been journeying forty years!
For which I never can forgive myself.

Lieutenant-General! Yes-I have ambition.
Ne'er was I able to endure contempt.

It stung me to the quick, that birth and title
Should have more weight than merit has in the army.
I would fain not be meaner than my equal.
So in an evil hour I let myself

Be tempted to that measure-It was folly!
But yet so hard a penance it deserved not.

It might have been refused; but wherefore barb
And venom the refusal with contempt?
Why dash to earth and crush with heaviest scorn
The gray-hair'd man, the faithful veteran?
Why to the baseness of his parentage
Refer him with such cruel roughness, only
Because he had a weak hour and forgot himself?
But Nature gives a sting e'en to the worm
Which wanton Power treads on in sport and insult.

Break off from him!

BUTLER.

OCTAVIO.

What now? Bethink thyself. BUTLER (no longer governing his emotion). Only break off from him? He dies! he dies!

OCTAVIO.

Come after me to Frauenberg, where now
All who are loyal, are assembling under
Counts Altringer and Galas. Many others
I've brought to a remembrance of their duty.
This night be sure that you escape from Pilsen.
BUTLER (strides up and down in excessive agitation,
then steps up to OCTAVIO with resolved countenance).
Count Piccolomini! Dare that man speak
Of honor to you, who once broke his troth?

OCTAVIO.

He, who repents so deeply of it, dares.

BUTLER.

Then leave me here, upon my word of honor!

What's your design?

OCTAVIO.

BUTLER.

MAX.

I follow thee ?

Thy way is crooked-it is not my way.

[OCTAVIO drops his hand, and starts back
O, hadst thou been but simple and sincere,
Ne'er had it come to this-all had stood otherwise.
He had not done that foul and horrible deed:
The virtuous had retain'd their influence o'er him:
He had not fallen into the snares of villains.
Wherefore so like a thief, and thief's accomplice,
Didst creep behind him-lurking for thy prey?
O, unblest falsehood! Mother of all evil!
Thou misery-making demon, it is thou
That sink'st us in perdition. Simple truth,
Father, I will not, I can not excuse thee!

Sustainer of the world, had saved us all!

Wallenstein has deceived me-O, most foully!
But thou hast acted not much better.

MAX. (rises, and contemplates his father with looks of
suspicion).

Was 't possible? hadst thou the heart, my father,
Hadst thou the heart to drive it to such lengths,

Leave me and my regiment. With cold premeditated purpose? Thou

OCTAVIO and MAX. PICCOLOMINI.

Hadst thou the heart, to wish to see him guilty,
Rather than saved? Thou risest by his fall.
Octavio, 't will not please me.

OCTAVIO.

God in Heaven!

ΜΑΧ.

O, woe is me! sure I have changed my nature.
How comes suspicion here-in the free soul?
Hope, confidence, belief, are gone; for all
Lied to me, all that I e'er loved or honor'd.
No! no! not all! She-she yet lives for me,
And she is true, and open as the heavens!
Deceit is everywhere, hypocrisy,
Murder, and poisoning, treason, perjury:
The single holy spot is our love,

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,
The very last-no, never!

OCTAVIO.

Spare thyself

The pang of necessary separation.

[Attempts to take him with him

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.

Shall I perform ignobly-steal away,

With stealthy coward flight forsake her? No!
She shall behold my suffering, my sore anguish,
Hear the complaints of the disparted soul,
And weep tears o'er me. Oh! the human race
Have steely souls-but she is as an angel.
From the black deadly madness of despair
Will she redeem my soul, and in soft words
Of comfort, plaining, loose this pang of death!

OCTAVIO.

Thou wilt not tear thyself away; thou canst not.
O, come, my son! I bid thee save thy virtue.

MAX.

Squander not thou thy words in vain.
The heart I follow, for I dare trust to it.

OCTAVIO (trembling, and losing all self-command).
Max.! Max. if that most damned thing could be,
If thou-my son-my own blood-(dare I think it?)|
Do sell thyself to him, the infamous,

Do stamp this brand upon our noble house,
Then shall the world behold the horrible deed,
And in unnatural combat shall the steel

Of the son trickle with the father's blood.

MAX.

O hadst thou always better thought of men,
Thou hadst then acted better. Curst suspicion!
Unholy, miserable doubt! To him
Nothing on earth remains unwrench'd and firm,
Who has no faith.

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.

They

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. 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 excellence will bear reflection, than in the former productions 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

THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

Friedland.

COUNTESS TERTSKY, THEKLA, LADY NEUBRUNN (the
two latter sit at the same table at work).
COUNTESS (watching them from the opposite side)
So you have nothing to ask me-nothing?
I have been waiting for a word from you.
And could you then endure in all this time
Not once to speak his name?
[THEKLA remaining silent, the COUNTESS rises
and advances to her.

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,
I know of no part in Schiller's Plays which equals
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 Perhaps I am already grown superfluous,
Why, how comes this?
language which we understand, we are apt to at-
tribute to it more excellence than it really possesses, Confess it to me, Thekla; have you seen him?
And other ways exist, besides through me?
from our own pleasurable sense of difficulty over-
come 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.

of its own accord. But the Translator of a living
Author is encumbered with additional inconveni- No syllable.
ences. If he render his original faithfully, as to the
sense of each passage, he must necessarily destroy a
considerable portion of the spirit; if he endeavor to
give a work executed according to laws of compensa- I am.
tion, he subjects himself to imputations of vanity, or
misrepresentation. I have thought it my duty to re-
main bound by the sense of my original, with as few
exceptions as the nature of the languages rendered
possible.

THEKLA.

COUNTESS.

THEKLA.

COUNTESS.

And still you are so calm?

THEKLA.

COUNTESS.

May't please you, leave us, Lady Neubrunn. [Exit LADY NEUBRUNN

DRAMATIS PERSONE.

WALLENSTEIN, Duke of Friedland, Generalissimo of
the Imperial forces in the Thirty-years' War.
DUCHESS OF FRIEDLAND, Wife of Wallenstein.
THEKLA, her Daughter, Princess of Friedland.
The COUNTESS TERTSKY, Sister of the Duchess.
LADY NEUBRUNN.

OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, Lieutenant-General.
MAX. PICCOLOMINI, his Son, Colonel of a Regiment|
of Cuirassiers.

COULT TERTSKY, the Commander of several Regi-
ments, and Brother-in-law of Wallenstein.
ILLO, Field Marshal, Wallenstein's Confidant.
BUTLER, an Irishman, Commander of a Regiment of
Dragoons.

GORDON, Governor of Egra.
MAJOR GERALDIN.

CAPTAIN DEVEREUX.

MACDONALD.

THEKLA.

Enough no further preface, I entreat you
At once, out with it! Be it what it may,
It is not possible that it should torture me
More than this introduction. What have you
To say to me? Tell me the whole, and briefly

COUNTESS.

You'll not be frighten'd-