Wallenstein/The Piccolomini/A1S02

by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

SCENE II.

Enter Octavio Piccolomini, and Questenberg.

OCTAVIO (still in the distance)

Ay! ay! more still! Still more new visitors!

Acknowledge, friend! that never was a camp,
Which held at once so many heads of heroes.

(Approaching nearer.)

Welcome, Count Isolani!

ISOLANI.

⁠My noble brother,

Even now am I arriv'd; it has been else my duty—

OCTAVIO.

And Colonel Butler—trust me, I rejoice

Thus to renew acquaintance 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 Dispatch.

QUESTENBERG (to Octavio).

And lo! betwixt them both experienc'd 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 have shewn our camp this honor.

QUESTENBERG.

⁠Once before

I stood before these colours.

ILLO.

Perchance too you remember where that was.

It was at Znäim^[1] in Moravia, where
You did present yourself upon the part
Of th' Emperor to supplicate our Duke
That he would straight assume the chief command.

QUESTENBERG.

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 chuse.

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 appear'd
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 Isolan?

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 doom'd 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 ruin'd

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 skill'd 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 uncoin'd.

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 dog's hunger—they, forsooth,

Would pare the soldier's 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 antichamber to another
They dragg'd me on, and left me by the hour
To kick my heels among a croud of simpering,
Feast-fatten'd slaves, as if I had come thither
A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favor
That fall beneath their tables. And, at last,
Whom should they send me but a Capuchin!
Straight I began to muster up my sins
For absolution—but no such luck for me!
This was the man, this Capuchin, with whom
I was to treat concerning th' army horses.
And I was forc'd at last to quit the field,
The business unaccomplish'd. Afterwards
The Duke procur'd me in three days, what I
Could not obtain in thirty at Vienna.

QUESTENBERG.

Yes, yes! your travelling bills soon found their way to us:

Too well I know we have still accounts to settle.

ILLO.

War is violent trade; one cannot always

Finish one's work by soft means; every trifle
Must not be blacken'd into sacrilege.
If we should wait till you, in solemn council,
With due deliberation had selected

The smallest out of four-and-twenty evils,
I'faith we should wait long.—
"Dash! and through with it!"—That's the better watch-word.
Then after come what may come. 'Tis man's nature
To make the best of a bad thing once past.
A bitter and perplexed "What shall I do?"
Is worse to man than worst necessity.

QUESTENBERG.

Ay, doubtless, it is true; the Duke does spare us

The troublesome task of chusing.

BUTLER.

⁠Yes, the Duke

Cares with a father's feelings for his troops;
But how the Emperor feels for us, we see.

QUESTENBERG.

His cares and feelings all ranks share alike,

Nor will he offer one up to another.

ISOLANI.

And therefore thrusts he us into the desarts

As beasts of prey, that so he may preserve
His dear sheep fattening in his fields at home.

QUESTENBERG (with a sneer).

Count, this comparison you make, not I.

ILLO.

Why, were we all the Court supposes us,

'Twere dangerous, sure, to give us liberty.

QUESTENBERG (gravely).

You have taken liberty—it was not given you.

And therefore it becomes an urgent duty
To rein it in with the curbs.

OCTAVIO (interposing and addressing Questenberg).

⁠My noble friend,

This is no more than a remembrancing
That you are now in camp, and among warriors.
The soldier's boldness constitutes his freedom.
Could he act daringly, unless he dar'd
Talk even so? One runs into the other.
The boldness of this worthy officer,
⁠ (Pointing to Butler)
Which now has but mistaken in its mark,
Preserv'd, when nought but boldness could preserve it,
To the Emperor his capital city Prague,
In a most formidable mutiny
Of the whole garrison.
⁠(Military music at a distance.)
Hah! here they come!

ILLO.

The sentries are saluting them: this signal

Announces the arrival of the Duchess.

OCTAVIO (to Questenberg).

Then my son Max. too has return'd. 'Twas he

Fetch'd and attended them from Carnthen hither.

ISOLANI (to Illo).

Shall we not go in company to greet them?

ILLO.

Well, let us go.—Ho! Colonel Butler, come.

(To Octavio.)

You'll not forget, that yet ere noon we meet

The noble envoy at the General's palace.
⁠Exeunt all but Questenberg and Octavio.

 

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