Читать книгу The Piccolomini - Фридрих Шиллер, Friedrich von Schiller - Страница 4

   Ay! ah! more still! Still more new visitors!

   Acknowledge, friend! that never was a camp,

   Which held at once so many heads of heroes.

   Let none approach a camp of Friedland's troops

   Who dares to think unworthily of war;

   E'en I myself had nigh forgot its evils

   When I surveyed that lofty soul of order,

   By which, while it destroys the world – itself

   Maintains the greatness which itself created.

   Welcome, Count Isolani!

               My noble brother!

   Even now am I arrived; it has been else my duty —

   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 him.

   These two the total sum – strength and despatch.

   And lo! betwixt them both, experienced prudence!

   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.

   'Tis not the first time, noble minister,

   You've shown our camp this honor.

                    Once before

   I stood beside these colors.

   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.

   To supplicate? Nay, bold general!

   So far extended neither my commission

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

   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.

   Yes, yes, 'tis comprehensible enough,

   Wherefore with your commission of to-day,

   You were not all too willing to remember

   Your former one.

            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.

   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.

   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.

   What? 'Twas a favorable year; the boors

   Can answer fresh demands already.

                     Nay,

   If you discourse of herds and meadow-grounds —

   The war maintains the war. Are the boors ruined

   The emperor gains so many more new soldiers.

   And is the poorer by even so many subjects.

   Poh! we are all his subjects.

   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.

                    Sure!

   Times are not yet so bad. Methinks I see

   Good store of gold that still remains uncoined.

   Thank Heaven! that means have been found out to hide

   Some little from the fingers of the Croats.

   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!

   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!

   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

   To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering

   Feast-fattened slaves, as if I had come thither

   A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favor

   That fell 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 the army horses!

   And I was forced at last to quit the field,

   The business unaccomplished. Afterwards

   The duke procured me in three days what I

   Could not obtain in thirty at Vienna.

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

   Too well I know we have still accounts to settle.

   War is violent trade; one cannot always

   Finish one's work by soft means; every trifle

   Must not be blackened 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 watchword.

   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.

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

   The troublesome task of choosing.

                    Yes, the duke

   Cares with a father's feelings for his troops;

   But how the emperor feels for us, we see.

   His cares and feelings all ranks share alike,

   Nor will he offer one up to another.

   And therefore thrusts he us into the deserts

   As beasts of prey, that so he may preserve

   His dear sheep fattening in his fields at home.

   Count! this comparison you make, not I.

   Why, were we all the court supposes us

   'Twere dangerous, sure, to give us liberty.

   You have taken liberty – it was not given you,

   And therefore it becomes an urgent duty

   To rein it in with the curbs.

   Expect to find a restive steed in us.

   A better rider may be found to rule it.

   He only brooks the rider who has tamed him.

   Ay, tame him once, and then a child may lead him.

   The child, we know, is found for him already.

   Be duty, sir, your study, not a name.

   Sir president, the emperor has in Germany

   A splendid host assembled; in this kingdom

   Full twenty thousand soldiers are cantoned,

   With sixteen thousand in Silesia;

   Ten regiments are posted on the Weser,

   The Rhine, and Maine; in Swabia there are six,

   And in Bavaria twelve, to face the Swedes;

   Without including in the account the garrisons

   Who on the frontiers hold the fortresses.

   This vast and mighty host is all obedient

   To Friedland's captains; and its brave commanders,

   Bred in one school, and nurtured with one milk,

   Are all excited by one heart and soul;

   They are as strangers on the soil they tread,

   The service is their only house and home.

   No zeal inspires then for their country's cause,

   For thousands like myself were born abroad;

   Nor care they for the emperor, for one half

   Deserting other service fled to ours,

   Indifferent what their banner, whether 'twere,

   The Double Eagle, Lily, or the Lion.

   Yet one sole man can rein this fiery host

   By equal rule, by equal love and fear;

   Blending the many-nationed whole in one;

   And like the lightning's fires securely led

   Down the conducting rod, e'en thus his power

   Rules all the mass, from guarded post to post,

   From where the sentry hears the Baltic roar,

   Or views the fertile vales of the Adige,

   E'en to the body-guard, who holds his watch

   Within the precincts of the imperial palace!

   What's the short meaning of this long harangue?

   That the respect, the love, the confidence,

   Which makes us willing subjects of Duke Friedland,

   Are not to be transferred to the first comer

   That Austria's court may please to send to us.

   We have not yet so readily forgotten

   How the command came into Friedland's hands.

   Was it, forsooth, the emperor's majesty

   That gave the army ready to his hand,

   And only sought a leader for it? No.

   The army then had no existence. He,

   Friedland, it was who called it into being,

   And gave it to his sovereign – but receiving

   No army at his hand; nor did the emperor

   Give Wallenstein to us as general. No,

   It was from Wallenstein we first received

   The emperor as our master and our sovereign;

   And he, he only, binds us to our banners!

   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 dared

   Talk even so? One runs into the other.

   The boldness of this worthy officer,

   Which now is but mistaken in its mark,

   Preserved, when naught 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!

   The sentries are saluting them: this signal

   Announces the arrival of the duchess.

   Then my son Max., too, has returned. 'Twas he

   Fetched and attended them from Caernthen hither.

   Shall we not go in company to greet them?

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

   You'll not forget that yet ere noon we meet

   The noble envoy at the general's palace.

      [Exeunt all but QUESTENBERG and OCTAVIO.