Page:Wallenstein, a drama in 2 parts - Schiller (tr. Coleridge) (1800).djvu/208

It always was a god looking at me!
Duke Wallenstein, its power is not departed:
The senses still are in thy bonds, although,
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself.

WALLENSTEIN.
Max, hear me.

MAX.
O! do it not, I pray thee, do it not!
There is a pure and noble soul within thee,
Knows not of this unblest, unlucky doing.
Thy will is chaste, it is thy fancy only
Which hath polluted thee—and innocence,
It will not let itself be driv'n away
From that world-awing aspect. Thou wilt not,
Thou canst not, end in this. It would reduce
All human creatures to disloyalty
Against the nobleness of their own nature.
'Twill justify the vulgar misbelief,
Which holdeth nothing noble in free will,
And trusts itself to impotence alone
Made powerful only in an unknown power.

WALLENSTEIN.
The world will judge me sternly, I expect it.
Already have I said to my own self
All thou canst say to me. Who but avoids
Th' extreme,—can he by going round avoid it?
But here there is no choice. Yes—I must use
Or suffer violence—so stands the case,
There remains nothing possible but that.

max.