The Maid of Orleans. Friedrich von Schiller

KING hides his face; AGNES hastens towards him and clasps him in her arms; all the bystanders express aversion and horror.DUNOIS

         She-wolf of France! Rage-breathing Megara!

CHARLES (after a pause, to the SENATORS)

         Yourselves have heard the posture of affairs.

         Delay no longer, back return to Orleans,

         And bear this message to my faithful town;

         I do absolve my subjects from their oath,

         Their own best interests let them now consult,

         And yield them to the Duke of Burgundy;

         'Yclept the Good, he need must prove humane.

DUNOIS

         What say'st thou, sire? Thou wilt abandon Orleans!

SENATOR (kneels down)

         My king! Abandon not thy faithful town!

         Consign her not to England's harsh control.

         She is a precious jewel in the crown,

         And none hath more inviolate faith maintained

         Towards the kings, thy royal ancestors.

DUNOIS

         Have we been routed? Is it lawful, sire,

         To leave the English masters of the field,

         Without a single stroke to save the town?

         And thinkest thou, with careless breath, forsooth,

         Ere blood hath flowed, rashly to give away

         The fairest city from the heart of France?

CHARLES

         Blood hath been poured forth freely, and in vain

         The hand of heaven is visibly against me;

         In every battle is my host o'erthrown,

         I am rejected of my parliament,

         My capital, my people, hail me foe,

         Those of my blood, – my nearest relatives, —

         Forsake me and betray – and my own mother

         Doth nurture at her breast the hostile brood.

         Beyond the Loire we will retire, and yield

         To the o'ermastering hand of destiny

         Which sideth with the English.

SOREL

                         God forbid

         That we in weak despair should quit this realm!

         This utterance came not from thy heart, my king,

         Thy noble heart, which hath been sorely riven

         By the fell deed of thy unnatural mother,

         Thou'lt be thyself again, right valiantly

         Thou'lt battle with thine adverse destiny,

         Which doth oppose thee with relentless ire.

CHARLES (lost in gloomy thought)

         Is it not true? A dark and ominous doom

         Impendeth o'er the heaven-abandoned house

         Of Valois – there preside the avenging powers,

         To whom a mother's crime unbarred the way.

         For thirty years my sire in madness raved;

         Already have three elder brothers been

         Mowed down by death; 'tis the decree of heaven,

         The house of the Sixth Charles is doomed to fall.

SOREL

         In thee 'twill rise with renovated life!

         Oh, in thyself have faith! – believe me, king,

         Not vainly hath a gracious destiny

         Redeemed thee from the ruin of thy house,

         And by thy brethren's death exalted thee,

         The youngest born, to an unlooked-for throne

         Heaven in thy gentle spirit hath prepared

         The leech to remedy the thousand ills

         By party rage inflicted on the land.

         The flames of civil discord thou wilt quench,

         And my heart tells me thou'lt establish peace,

         And found anew the monarchy of France.

CHARLES

         Not I! The rude and storm-vexed times require

         A pilot formed by nature to command.

         A peaceful nation I could render happy

         A wild, rebellious people not subdue.

         I never with the sword could open hearts

         Against me closed in hatred's cold reserve.

SOREL

         The people's eye is dimmed, an error blinds them,

         But this delusion will not long endure;

         The day is not far distant when the love

         Deep rooted in the bosom of the French,

         Towards their native monarch, will revive,

         Together with the ancient jealousy,

         Which forms a barrier 'twixt the hostile nations.

         The haughty foe precipitates his doom.

         Hence, with rash haste abandon not the field,

         With dauntless front contest each foot of ground,

         As thine own heart defend the town of Orleans!

         Let every boat be sunk beneath the wave,

         Each bridge be burned, sooner than carry thee

         Across the Loire, the boundary of thy realm,

         The Stygian flood, o'er which there's no return.

CHARLES

         What could be done I have done. I have offered,

         In single fight, to combat for the crown.

         I was refused. In vain my people bleed,

         In vain my towns are levelled with the dust.

         Shall I, like that unnatural mother, see

         My child in pieces severed with the sword?

         No; I forego my claim, that it may live.

DUNOIS

         How, sire! Is this fit language for a king?

         Is a crown thus renounced? Thy meanest subject,

         For his opinion's sake, his hate and love,

         Sets property and life upon a cast;

         When civil war hangs out her bloody flag,

         Each private end is drowned in party zeal.

         The husbandman forsakes his plough, the wife

         Neglects her distaff; children, and old men,

         Don the rude garb of war; the citizen

         Consigns his town to the devouring flames,

         The peasant burns the produce of his fields;