The Piccolomini. Friedrich von Schiller

with a man

         Whose worth and services I know and honor.

         See, see, my friend!

         There might we place at once before our eyes

         The sum of war's whole trade and mystery —

      [To QUESTENBERG, presenting BUTLER and ISOLANI at the same time

            to him.

         These two the total sum – strength and despatch.

QUESTENBERG (to OCTAVIO)

         And lo! betwixt them both, experienced prudence!

OCTAVIO (presenting QUESTENBERG to BUTLER and ISOLANI)

         The Chamberlain and War-Commissioner Questenberg.

         The bearer of the emperor's behests, —

         The long-tried friend and patron of all soldiers,

         We honor in this noble visitor.

      [Universal silence.

ILLO (moving towards QUESTENBERG)

         'Tis not the first time, noble minister,

         You've shown our camp this honor.

QUESTENBERG

                          Once before

         I stood beside these colors.

ILLO

         Perchance too you remember where that was;

         It was at Znaeim 4 in Moravia, where

         You did present yourself upon the part

         Of the emperor to supplicate our duke

         That he would straight assume the chief command.

QUESTENBURG

         To supplicate? Nay, bold general!

         So far extended neither my commission

         (At least to my own knowledge) nor my zeal.

ILLO

         Well, well, then – to compel him, if you choose,

         I can remember me right well, Count Tilly

         Had suffered total rout upon the Lech.

         Bavaria lay all open to the enemy,

         Whom there was nothing to delay from pressing

         Onwards into the very heart of Austria.

         At that time you and Werdenberg appeared

         Before our general, storming him with prayers,

         And menacing the emperor's displeasure,

         Unless he took compassion on this wretchedness.

ISOLANI (steps up to them)

         Yes, yes, 'tis comprehensible enough,

         Wherefore with your commission of to-day,

         You were not all too willing to remember

         Your former one.

QUESTENBERG

                  Why not, Count Isolani?

         No contradiction sure exists between them.

         It was the urgent business of that time

         To snatch Bavaria from her enemy's hand;

         And my commission of to-day instructs me

         To free her from her good friends and protectors.

ILLO

         A worthy office! After with our blood

         We have wrested this Bohemia from the Saxon,

         To be swept out of it is all our thanks,

         The sole reward of all our hard-won victories.

QUESTENBERG

         Unless that wretched land be doomed to suffer

         Only a change of evils, it must be

         Freed from the scourge alike of friend or foe.

ILLO

         What? 'Twas a favorable year; the boors

         Can answer fresh demands already.

QUESTENBERG

                           Nay,

         If you discourse of herds and meadow-grounds —

ISOLANI

         The war maintains the war. Are the boors ruined

         The emperor gains so many more new soldiers.

QUESTENBERG

         And is the poorer by even so many subjects.

ISOLANI

         Poh! we are all his subjects.

QUESTENBERG

         Yet with a difference, general! The one fill

         With profitable industry the purse,

         The others are well skilled to empty it.

         The sword has made the emperor poor; the plough

         Must reinvigorate his resources.

ISOLANI

                          Sure!

         Times are not yet so bad. Methinks I see

      [Examining with his eye the dress and ornaments of QUESTENBERG.

         Good store of gold that still remains uncoined.

QUESTENBERG

         Thank Heaven! that means have been found out to hide

         Some little from the fingers of the Croats.

ILLO

         There! The Stawata and the Martinitz,

         On whom the emperor heaps his gifts and graces,

         To the heart-burning of all good Bohemians —

         Those minions of court favor, those court harpies,

         Who fatten on the wrecks of citizens

         Driven from their house and home – who reap no harvests

         Save in the general calamity —

         Who now, with kingly pomp, insult and mock

         The desolation of their country – these,

         Let these, and such as these, support the war,

         The fatal war, which they alone enkindled!

BUTLER

         And those state-parasites, who have their feet

         So constantly beneath the emperor's table,

         Who cannot let a benefice fall, but they

         Snap at it with dogs' hunger – they, forsooth,

         Would pare the soldiers bread and cross his reckoning!

ISOLANI

         My life long will it anger me to think,

         How when I went to court seven years ago,

         To see about new horses for our regiment,

         How from one antechamber to another

         They dragged me on and left me by the hour

        

4

A town not far from the Mine-mountains, on the high road from Vienna to Prague.