The Piccolomini (play) Read online

  You are engaged, I see. I'll not disturb you.

  OCTAVIO.

  How, Max.? Look closer at this visitor.

  Attention, Max., an old friend merits-reverence

  Belongs of right to the envoy of your sovereign.

  MAX. (drily).

  Von Questenberg!-welcome-if you bring with you

  Aught good to our headquarters.

  QUESTENBERG (seizing his hand).

  Nay, draw not

  Your hand away, Count Piccolimini!

  Not on my own account alone I seized it,

  And nothing common will I say therewith.

  [Taking the hands of both.

  Octavio-Max. Piccolomini!

  O savior names, and full of happy omen!

  Ne'er will her prosperous genius turn from Austria,

  While two such stars, with blessed influences

  Beaming protection, shine above her hosts.

  MAX.

  Heh! Noble minister! You miss your part.

  You come not here to act a panegyric.

  You're sent, I know, to find fault and to scold us-

  I must not be beforehand with my comrades.

  OCTAVIO (to MAX.).

  He comes from court, where people are not quite

  So well contented with the duke as here.

  MAX.

  What now have they contrived to find out in him?

  That he alone determines for himself

  What he himself alone doth understand!

  Well, therein he does right, and will persist in't

  Heaven never meant him for that passive thing

  That can be struck and hammered out to suit

  Another's taste and fancy. He'll not dance

  To every tune of every minister.

  It goes against his nature-he can't do it,

  He is possessed by a commanding spirit,

  And his, too, is the station of command.

  And well for us it is so! There exist

  Few fit to rule themselves, but few that use

  Their intellects intelligently. Then

  Well for the whole, if there be found a man

  Who makes himself what nature destined him,

  The pause, the central point, to thousand thousands

  Stands fixed and stately, like a firm-built column,

  Where all may press with joy and confidence-

  Now such a man is Wallenstein; and if

  Another better suits the court-no other

  But such a one as he can serve the army.

  QUESTENBERG.

  The army? Doubtless!

  MAX.

  What delight to observe

  How he incites and strengthens all around him,

  Infusing life and vigor. Every power

  Seems as it were redoubled by his presence

  He draws forth every latent energy,

  Showing to each his own peculiar talent,

  Yet leaving all to be what nature made them,

  And watching only that they be naught else

  In the right place and time; and he has skill

  To mould the power's of all to his own end.

  QUESTENBERG.

  But who denies his knowledge of mankind,

  And skill to use it? Our complaint is this:

  That in the master he forgets the servant,

  As if he claimed by birth his present honors.

  MAX.

  And does he not so? Is he not endowed

  With every gift and power to carry out

  The high intents of nature, and to win

  A ruler's station by a ruler's talent?

  QUESTENBERG.

  So then it seems to rest with him alone

  What is the worth of all mankind beside!

  MAX.

  Uncommon men require no common trust;

  Give him but scope and he will set the bounds.

  QUESTENBERG.

  The proof is yet to come.

  MAX.

  Thus are ye ever.

  Ye shrink from every thing of depth, and think

  Yourselves are only safe while ye're in shallows.

  OCTAVIO (to QUESTENBERG).

  'Twere best to yield with a good grace, my friend;

  Of him there you'll make nothing.

  MAX. (continuing).

  In their fear

  They call a spirit up, and when he comes,

  Straight their flesh creeps and quivers, and they dread him

  More than the ills for which they called him up.

  The uncommon, the sublime, must seem and be

  Like things of every day. But in the field,

  Ay, there the Present Being makes itself felt.

  The personal must command, the actual eye

  Examine. 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 be
fore 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