Puslapio vaizdai
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Of the sole blessing which my fate has left me,
Her sympathy. Must then a cruel deed
Be done with cruelty? The unalterable
Shall I perform ignobly-steal away,

With stealthly 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. O! 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!
Oct. 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.

Oct. (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.

Oct.

And if I trust thy heart,

Will it be always in thy power to follow it?

Max. The heart's voice thou hast not o'erpower'd

as little

Will Wallenstein be able to o'erpower it.

Oct. O Max! I see thee never more again

Max. Unworthy of thee wilt thou never see me.
Oct. I go to Frauenberg-the Pappenheimers
I leave thee here, the Lothrings too; Toskana
And Tiefenbach remain here to protect thee.
They love thee, and are faithful to their oath,
And will far rather fall in gallant contest
Than leave their rightful leader, and their honour.
Max. Rely on this, I either leave my life
In the struggle, or conduct them out of Pilsen.
Oct. Farewell, my son!

Max.

Oct.

Farewell!

How? not one look

Of filial love? No grasp of the hand at parting?
It is a bloody war, to which we are going,
And the event uncertain and in darkness.
So us'd we not to part-it was not so!

Is it then true? I have a son no longer?

[Max. falls into his arms, they hold each other for a long time in a speechless embrace, then go away at different sides. The curtain

drops.

THE

DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN.

A TRAGEDY,

IN FIVE ACTS.

PREFACE OF THE TRANSLATOR.

THE two Dramas, PICCOLOMINI, or the first part of WALLENSTEIN, and WALLENSTEIN, are introduced in the original manuscript by a prelude in one Act, entitled WALLENSTEIN'S CAMP. This is written in rhyme, and in nine syllable verse, in the same lilting metre (if that expression may be permitted) with the second Eclogue of Spencer's Shepherd's Calendar.

This Prelude possesses a sort of broad humour, and is not deficient in character: but to have translated it into prose, or into any other metre than that of the original, would have given a false idea both of its style and purport; to have translated it into the same metre would have been incompatible with a faithful adherence to the sense of the German, from the comparative poverty of our language in rhymes; and it would have been unadvisable from the incongruity of those lax verses with the present taste of the English public. Schiller's intention seems to have been merely to have prepared his reader for the Tragedies by a lively picture of the laxity of discipline, and the mutinous dispositions of Wallenstein's soldiery. It is not necessary as a preliminary explanation. For these reasons it has been thought expedient not to translate it.

The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted their idea of that author from The Robbers, and The Cabal and Love, plays in which the main interest is produced by the excitement of curiosity, and in which the curiosity is excited by terrible and extraordinary incident, will not have perused, without some portion of disappointment, the dramas, which it has been my employment to translate. They should however, reflect that these are historical dramas, taken from a popular German history; that we must therefore judge of them in some measure with the feelings of Germans; or by analogy, with the inte

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rest excited in us by similar dramas in our own language. Few, I trust, would be rash or ignorant enough to compare Schiller with Shakspeare; yet, merely as illustration, I would say that we should proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not from Lear or Othello, but from Richard the Second, or the three parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapidity in an historical drama; and many prolix speeches are pardoned from characters, whose names and actions have formed the most amusing tales of our early life. On the other hand, there exist in these plays more individual 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 of the scene in the first act of the first play, between Questenberg, Max. and Octavio Piccolimini. 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 labour will mingle with the feelings that arise from an afterview of the original. Even in the first perusal of a work in any foreign language which we understand, we are apt to attribute to it more excellence than it really possesses, from our own pleasurable sense of difficulty overcome without effect. Translation of poetry into poetry is difficult, because the translator must give a brilliancy to his language without that warmth of original conception, from which such brilliancy would follow of its own accord. But the translator of a living author is incumbered with additional inconveniences. 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 endeavour to give a work executed according to laws of compensation, he subjects himself to imputations of vanity, or misrepresentation. I have thought it my duty to remain bound by the sense of my original, with as few exceptions as the nature of the language rendered possible.

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