S. T. Coleridge - The d**h of Wallenstein (Act 3 Scene 18) lyrics

To these enter MAX. PICCOLOMINI. MAX. Yes, here he is! I can endure no longer To creep on tiptoe round this house, and lurk In ambush for a favorable moment: This loitering, this suspense exceeds my powers. [Advancing to THEKLA, who has thrown herself into her mother's arms. Turn not thine eyes away. O look upon me! Confess it freely before all. Fear no one. Let who will hear that we both love each other. Wherefore continue to conceal it? Secrecy Is for the happy—misery, hopeless misery, Needeth no veil! Beneath a thousand suns It dares act openly. [He observes the COUNTESS looking on THEKLA with expressions of triumph. No, lady! No! Expect not, hope it not. I am not come To stay: to bid farewell, farewell forever. For this I come! 'Tis over! I must leave thee! Thekla, I must—must leave thee! Yet thy hatred Let me not take with me. I pray thee, grant me One look of sympathy, only one look. Say that thou dost not hate me. Say it to me, Thekla! [Grasps her hand. O God! I cannot leave this spot—I cannot! Cannot let go this hand. O tell me, Thekla! That thou dost suffer with me, art convinced That I cannot act otherwise. [THEKLA, avoiding his look, points with her hand to her father. MAX. turns round to the DUKE, whom he had not till then perceived. Thou here? It was not thou whom here I sought. I trusted never more to have beheld thee, My business is with her alone. Here will I Receive a full acquittal from this heart; For any other I am no more concerned. WALLENSTEIN. Think'st thou that, fool-like, I shall let thee go, And act the mock-magnanimous with thee? Thy father is become a villain to me; I hold thee for his son, and nothing more Nor to no purpose shalt thou have been given Into my power. Think not, that I will honor That ancient love, which so remorselessly He mangled. They are now pa**ed by, those hours Of friendship and forgiveness. Hate and vengeance Succeed—'tis now their turn—I too can throw All feelings of the man aside—can prove Myself as much a monster as thy father! MAX (calmly). Thou wilt proceed with me as thou hast power. Thou knowest I neither brave nor fear thy rage. What has detained me here, that too thou knowest. [Taking THEKLA by the hand. See, duke! All—all would I have owed to thee, Would have received from thy paternal hand The lot of blessed spirits. That hast thou Laid waste forever—that concerns not thee. Indifferent thou tramplest in the dust Their happiness who most are thine. The god Whom thou dost serve is no benignant deity, Like as the blind, irreconcilable, Fierce element, incapable of compact. Thy heart's wild impulse only dost thou follow. 5 WALLENSTEIN. Thou art describing thy own father's heart. The adder! Oh, the charms of hell o'erpowered me He dwelt within me, to my inmost soul Still to and fro he pa**ed, suspected never. On the wide ocean, in the starry heaven Did mine eyes seek the enemy, whom I In my heart's heart had folded! Had I been To Ferdinand what Octavio was to me, War had I ne'er denounced against him. No, I never could have done it. The emperor was My austere master only, not my friend. There was already war 'twixt him and me When he delivered the commander's staff Into my hands; for there's a natural Unceasing war twixt cunning and suspicion; Peace exists only betwixt confidence And faith. Who poisons confidence, he murders The future generations. MAX. I will not Defend my father. Woe is me, I cannot! Hard deeds and luckless have taken place; one crime Drags after it the other in close link. But we are innocent: how have we fallen Into this circle of mishap and guilt? To whom have we been faithless? Wherefore must The evil deeds and guilt reciprocal Of our two fathers twine like serpents round us? Why must our fathers' Unconquerable hate rend us asunder, Who love each other? WALLENSTEIN. Max., remain with me. Go you not from me, Max.! Hark! I will tell thee—— How when at Prague, our winter quarters, thou Wert brought into my tent a tender boy, Not yet accustomed to the German winters; Thy hand was frozen to the heavy colors; Thou wouldst not let them go. At that time did I take thee in my arms, And with my mantle did I cover thee; I was thy nurse, no woman could have been A kinder to thee; I was not ashamed To do for thee all little offices, However strange to me; I tended thee Till life returned; and when thine eyes first opened, I had thee in my arms. Since then, when have Altered my feelings toward thee? Many thousands Have I made rich, presented them with lands; Rewarded them with dignities and honors; Thee have I loved: my heart, my self, I gave To thee; They all were aliens: thou wert Our child and inmate. 6 Max.! Thou canst not leave me; It cannot be; I may not, will not think That Max. can leave me. MAX. Ob, my God! WALLENSTEIN I have Held and sustained thee from thy tottering childhood. What holy bond is there of natural love, What human tie that does not knit thee to me? I love thee, Max.! What did thy father for thee, Which I too have not done, to the height of duty? Go hence, forsake me, serve thy emperor; He will reward thee with a pretty chain Of gold; with his ram's fleece will he reward thee; For that the friend, the father of thy youth, For that the holiest feeling of humanity, Was nothing worth to thee. MAX. O God! how can I Do otherwise. Am I not forced to do it, My oath—my duty—my honor—— WALLENSTEIN. How? Thy duty? Duty to whom? Who art thou? Max.! bethink thee What duties may'st thou have? If I am acting A criminal part toward the emperor, It is my crime, not thine. Dost thou belong To thine own self? Art thou thine own commander? Stand'st thou, like me, a freeman in the world, That in thy actions thou shouldst plead free agency? On me thou art planted, I am thy emperor; To obey me, to belong to me, this is Thy honor, this a law of nature to thee! And if the planet on the which thou livest And hast thy dwelling, from its orbit starts. It is not in thy choice, whether or no Thou'lt follow it. Unfelt it whirls thee onward Together with his ring, and all his moons. With little guilt steppest thou into this contest; Thee will the world not censure, it will praise thee, For that thou held'st thy friend more worth to thee Than names and influences more removed For justice is the virtue of the ruler, Affection and fidelity the subject's. Not every one doth it beseem to question The far-off high Arcturus. Most securely Wilt thou pursue the nearest duty: let The pilot fix his eye upon the pole-star. Footnotes: 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 s**ed 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 Ma**inger. O si sic omnia!