The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Iii Part 11

Swift with the fire the minstrel glow'd, And loud the music swept the ear:-- "Forth to the chase a Hero rode, To hunt the bounding chamois-deer; With shaft and horn the squire behind;-- Through greensward meads the riders wind-- A small sweet bell they hear.

Lo, with the HOST, a holy man-- Before him strides the sacristan, And the bell sounds near and near.

"The n.o.ble hunter down-inclined His reverent head and soften'd eye, And honor'd with a Christian's mind The Christ who loves humility!

Loud through the pasture, brawls and raves A brook--the rains had fed the waves, And torrents from the bill.

His sandal-shoon the priest unbound, And laid the Host upon the ground, And near'd the swollen rill!

"What wouldst thou, priest?" the Count began, As, marveling much, he halted there, "Sir Count, I seek a dying man, Sore-hungering for the heavenly fare.

The bridge that once its safety gave, Rent by the anger of the wave, Drifts down the tide below.

Yet barefoot now, I will not fear (The soul that seeks its G.o.d, to cheer) Through the wild wave to go!"

"He gave that priest the knightly steed, He reach'd that priest the lordly reins, That he might serve the sick man's need, Nor slight the task that heaven ordains.

He took the horse the squire bestrode; On to the sick, the priest!

And when the morrow's sun was red, The servant of the Savior led Back to its lord the beast.

"'Now Heaven forfend!' the Hero cried, 'That e'er to chase or battle more These limbs the sacred steed bestride That once my Maker's image bore; If not a boon allow'd to thee, Thy Lord and mine its Master be, My tribute to the King, From whom I hold, as fiefs, since birth, Honor, renown, the goods of earth, Life and each living thing!"

"'So may the G.o.d, who faileth never To hear the weak and guide the dim, To thee give honor here and ever, As thou hast duly honor'd Him!'

Far-famed ev'n now through Swisserland Thy generous heart and dauntless hand; And fair from thine embrace Six daughters bloom,[21] six crowns to bring, Blest as the daughters of a KING, The mothers of a RACE!"

The mighty Kaiser heard amazed!

His heart was in the days of old; Into the minstrel's heart he gazed, That tale the Kaiser's own had told.

Yes, in the bard the priest he knew, And in the purple veil'd from view The gush of holy tears!

A thrill through that vast audience ran, And every heart the G.o.dlike man Revering G.o.d--reveres!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COUNT GIVES UP HIS HORSE TO THE PRIEST Alexander Wagner]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Though the Ideal images of youth forsake us, the Ideal itself still remains to the Poet. It is his task and his companion, for, unlike the Phantasies of Fortune, Fame, and Love, the Phantasies of the Ideal are imperishable. While, as the occupation of life, it pays off the debt of Time, as the exalter of life it contributes to the Building of Eternity.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 4: "Die Gesalt"--Form. the Platonic Archetype.]

[Footnote 5: This idea is often repeated, somewhat more clearly in the haughty philosophy of Schiller. He himself says, elsewhere--"In a fair soul each single action is not properly moral, but the whole character is moral. The fair soul has no other service than the instincts of its own beauty."--Translator]

[Footnote 6: "Und es wallet, and siedet, und brauset, and zischt,"

etc. Goethe was particularly struck with the truthfulness of these lines, of which his personal observation at the Falls of the Rhine enabled him to judge. Schiller modestly owns his obligations to Homer's descriptions of Charybdis, Odyss. I., 12. The property of the higher order of imagination to reflect truth, though not familiar to experience, is singularly ill.u.s.trated in this description. Schiller had never seen even a Waterfall.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 7: The same rhyme as the preceding line in the original.]

[Footnote 8: "--da kroch's heran," etc. The _It_ in the original has been greatly admired. The poet thus vaguely represents the fabulous misshapen monster, the Polypus of the ancients.]

[Footnote 9: The theatre.]

[Footnote 10: This simile is n.o.bly conceived, but expressed somewhat obscurely. As Hercules contended in vain against Antaeus, the Son of Earth,--so long as the Earth gave her giant offspring new strength in every fall,--so the soul contends in vain with evil--the natural earth-born enemy, while the very contact of the earth invigorates the enemy for the struggle. And as Antaeus was slain at last, when Hercules lifted him from the earth and strangled him while raised aloft, so can the soul slay the enemy (the desire, the pa.s.sion, the evil, the earth's offspring), when bearing it from earth itself and stifling it in the higher air.--Translator.]

[Footnote 11: Translated by Edward, Lord Lytton (Permission George Routledge & Sons.)]

[Footnote 12: "I call the Living--I mourn the Dead--I break the Lightning." These words are inscribed on the Great Bell of the Minster of Schaffhausen--also on that of the Church of Art near Lucerne. There was an old belief in Switzerland that the undulation of air, caused by the sound of a Bell, broke the electric fluid of a thunder-cloud.]

[Footnote 13: A piece of clay pipe, which becomes vitrified if the metal is sufficiently heated.]

[Footnote 14: The translator adheres to the original, in forsaking the rhyme in these lines and some others.]

[Footnote 15: Written in the time of the French war.]

[Footnote 16: That is--the settled political question--the balance of power.]

[Footnote 17: Apollo.]

[Footnote 18: "Everywhere," says Hoffmeister truly, "Schiller exalts Ideal Belief over real wisdom;--everywhere this modern Apostle of Christianity advocates that Ideal, which exists in Faith and emotion, against the wisdom of worldly intellect, the barren experience of life," etc.--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 19: The office, at the coronation feast, of the Count Palatine of the Rhine (Grand Sewer of the Empire and one of the Seven Electors) was to bear the Imperial Globe and set the dishes on the board; that of the King of Bohemia was cup-bearer. The latter was not, however, present, as Schiller himself observed in a note (omitted in the editions of his collected works), at the coronation of Rudolf.]

[Footnote 20: Literally, "_A. judge (ein Richter_) was again upon the earth." The word subst.i.tuted in the translation is introduced in order to recall to the reader the sublime name given, not without justice, to Rudolf of Hapsburg, viz., "THE LIVING LAW."--TRANSLATOR.]

[Footnote 21: At the coronation of Rudolf was celebrated the marriage-feast of three of his daughters--to Ludwig of Bavaria, Otto of Brandenburg, and Albrecht of Saxony. His other three daughters married afterward Otto, nephew of Ludwig of Bavaria, Charles Martell, son of Charles of Anjou, and Wenceslaus, son of Ottocar of Bohemia.

The royal house of England numbers Rudolf of Hapsburg amongst its ancestors.--TRANSLATOR.]

DRAMAS

INTRODUCTION TO WALLENSTEIN'S DEATH

By WILLIAM H. CARRUTH, PH.D.

Professor of Comparative Literature, Leland Stanford University

Schiller wrote in rapid succession, during his Storm and Stress period, _The Robbers, Fiesco, Cabal and Love_, and the beginning of _Don Carlos_ (finished in 1787). Between this time and his last period, which opens with _Wallenstein_, he devoted himself a.s.siduously to the study of philosophy, history, and esthetic theory. Even in writing _Don Carlos_ he had felt that he needed to give more care to artistic form and to the deeper questions of dramatic unity. His own dissatisfaction with the results achieved was one of several reasons why for nearly ten years he dropped dramatic composition. He felt, too, that he needed more experience of life. He himself said of the greatest of his Storm and Stress dramas that he had attempted to portray humanity before he really knew humanity.

In 1788 he published the first part of his _History of the Rebellion of the Netherlands_, which brought him the appointment to the chair of history in the University of Jena. The occupation with his next historical work, the _History of the Thirty Years' War_, suggested to him the thought of dramatizing the career of Wallenstein. But he was not yet clear with himself on questions of artistic method. He was studying Homer and dramatizing Euripides, lecturing and writing on dramatic theory. Further delays were due to marriage and to serious illness. It was not until 1796 that Schiller felt ready to begin work on the long planned drama of _Wallenstein_.

The first scenes were written in prose, but soon the poet realized that only the dignified heroic verse was suited to his theme. Then "all went better." Constant discussions with Goethe and Christian Gottfried Koerner helped him to clear up his doubts and overcome the difficulties of his subject. He found that history left too little room for sympathy with Wallenstein, for he conceived him as really guilty of treason. He decided early to lighten the gloom of his theme by introducing the love episode of Max and Thekla. He modified also his view of the nature of Wallenstein's guilt. Gradually the material grew upon him. What he had planned as a Prologue became the one-act play, _Wallenstein's Camp_, which, when it was produced in October, 1798, at the reopening of the Weimar Theatre, was preceded by 138 lines of Dedication, since printed as the _Prologue_. Already Schiller had foreseen the development into more than five acts, and accordingly _The Piccolomini_ appeared separately, January 30, 1799, and the whole series in order about the middle of April, upon the completion of _Wallenstein's Death_.

_Wallenstein_ is a trilogy, but in name rather than in real connection and relation of parts. _Wallenstein's Camp_ is a picture of ma.s.ses, introducing only common soldiers and none of the chief personages of the other parts of the composition. Its purpose is to present something of the tremendous background of the action proper and to give a realizing sense of the influence upon Wallenstein's career of the soldiery with which he operated--as Schiller expressed it in a line of his Prologue: "His camp alone explains to us his crime." By this he meant that, on the one hand, the blind confidence of the troops in the luck and the destiny of their leader made him arrogant and reckless, and, on the other hand, perhaps, that the mercenary character of these soldiers of fortune forced Wallenstein to steps which his calm judgment would have condemned.

In a succession of eleven scenes of very unequal length the various arms of the service are introduced, together with camp followers and a Capuchin preacher; in reminiscences the earlier features of the great war and some feats of the general are recalled; in discussions the character of Wallenstein and of his leading officers is sketched; finally the report of the recent demand of the Emperor, that Wallenstein detach 8,000 men to escort the Cardinal Infant to the Netherlands, reveals the opposition of the army to such an order and its unconditional loyalty to Wallenstein.

The second and third parts of the trilogy, _The Piccolomini_ and _Wallenstein's Death_, const.i.tute, in fact, one ten-act play, which requires two evenings for presentation. So slight is the organic division between the two plays that, as first presented, in the fall of 1798 and the spring of 1799, _The Piccolomini_ included the first two acts of _Wallenstein's Death_ as later printed and here given, while the last three acts were so divided as to const.i.tute five.