Friedrich Schiller - The Piccolomini

Oh, let the emperor make peace, my father!
Most gladly would I give the blood-stained laurel
For the first violet 5 5 In the original, — "Den blut'gen Lorbeer geb' ich hin mit Freuden Fuers erste Veilchen, das der Maerz uns bringt, Das duerftige Pfand der neuverjuengten Erde." of the leafless spring,
Plucked in those quiet fields where I have journeyed.

What ails thee? What so moves thee all at once?

Peace have I ne'er beheld? I have beheld it.
From thence am I come hither: oh, that sight,
It glimmers still before me, like some landscape
Left in the distance, – some delicious landscape!
My road conducted me through countries where
The war has not yet reached. Life, life, my father —
My venerable father, life has charms
Which we have never experienced. We have been
But voyaging along its barren coasts,
Like some poor ever-roaming horde of pirates,
That, crowded in the rank and narrow ship,
House on the wild sea with wild usages,
Nor know aught of the mainland, but the bays
Where safeliest they may venture a thieves' landing.
Whate'er in the inland dales the land conceals
Of fair and exquisite, oh, nothing, nothing,
Do we behold of that in our rude voyage.

And so your journey has revealed this to you?

'Twas the first leisure of my life. O tell me,
What is the meed and purpose of the toil,
The painful toil which robbed me of my youth,
Left me a heart unsouled and solitary,
A spirit uninformed, unornamented!
For the camp's stir, and crowd, and ceaseless larum,
The neighing war-horse, the air-shattering trumpet,
The unvaried, still returning hour of duty,
Word of command, and exercise of arms —
There's nothing here, there's nothing in all this,
To satisfy the heart, the gasping heart!
Mere bustling nothingness, where the soul is not —
This cannot be the sole felicity,
These cannot be man's best and only pleasures!

Much hast thou learnt, my son, in this short journey.

Oh day, thrice lovely! when at length the soldier
Returns home into life; when he becomes
A fellow-man among his fellow-men.
The colors are unfurled, the cavalcade
Mashals, and now the buzz is hushed, and hark!
Now the soft peace-march beats, home, brothers, home!
The caps and helmet are all garlanded
With green boughs, the last plundering of the fields.
The city gates fly open of themselves,
They need no longer the petard to tear them.
The ramparts are all filled with men and women,
With peaceful men and women, that send onwards.
Kisses and welcomings upon the air,
Which they make breezy with affectionate gestures.
From all the towers rings out the merry peal,
The joyous vespers of a bloody day.
O happy man, O fortunate! for whom
The well-known door, the faithful arms are open,
The faithful tender arms with mute embracing.

O that you should speak
Of such a distant, distant time, and not
Of the to-morrow, not of this to-day.

Where lies the fault but on you in Vienna!
I will deal openly with you, Questenberg.
Just now, as first I saw you standing here
(I'll own it to you freely), indignation
Crowded and pressed my inmost soul together.
'Tis ye that hinder peace, ye! – and the warrior,
It is the warrior that must force it from you.
Ye fret the general's life out, blacken him,
Hold him up as a rebel, and heaven knows
What else still worse, because he spares the Saxons,
And tries to awaken confidence in the enemy;
Which yet's the only way to peace: for if
War intermit not during war, how then
And whence can peace come? Your own plagues fall on you!
Even as I love what's virtuous, hate I you.
And here I make this vow, here pledge myself,
My blood shall spurt out for this Wallenstein,
And my heart drain off, drop by drop, ere ye
Shall revel and dance jubilee o'er his ruin.

Alas! alas! and stands it so?

What friend! and do we let him go away
In this delusion – let him go away?
Not call him back immediately, not open
His eyes, upon the spot?

He has now opened mine,
And I see more than pleases me.

What is it?

Curse on this journey!

But why so? What is it?

Come, come along, friend! I must follow up
The ominous track immediately. Mine eyes
Are opened now, and I must use them. Come!

What now? Where go you then?

To her herself.

To —

To the duke. Come, let us go 'Tis done, 'tis done,
I see the net that is thrown over him.
Oh! he returns not to me as he went.

Nay, but explain yourself.

And that I should not
Foresee it, not prevent this journey! Wherefore
Did I keep it from him? You were in the right.
I should have warned him. Now it is too late.

But what's too late? Bethink yourself, my friend,
That you are talking absolute riddles to me.

Come I to the duke's. 'Tis close upon the hour
Which he appointed you for audience. Come!
A curse, a threefold curse, upon this journey!