The Piccolomini | Page 3

that his power but kept pace with his wishes!?Why, friend! he'd give the whole world to his soldiers.?But at Vienna, brother!--here's the grievance,--?What politic schemes do they not lay to shorten?His arm, and where they can to clip his pinions.?Then these new dainty requisitions! these?Which this same Questenberg brings hither!
BUTLER.
Ay!?Those requisitions of the emperor--?I too have heard about them; but I hope?The duke will not draw back a single inch!
ILLO.?Not from his right most surely, unless first?From office!
BUTLER (shocked and confused).
Know you aught then? You alarm me.
ISOLANI (at the same time with BUTLER, and in a hurrying voice). We should be ruined, every one of us!
ILLO.?Yonder I see our worthy friend [spoken with a sneer] approaching With the Lieutenant-General Piccolomini.
BUTLER (shaking his head significantly).?I fear we shall not go hence as we came.
SCENE II.
Enter OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI and QUESTENBERG.
OCTAVIO (still in the distance).?Ay! ah! more still! Still more new visitors!?Acknowledge, friend! that never was a camp,?Which held at once so many heads of heroes.
QUESTENBERG.?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.
OCTAVIO (approaching nearer).?Welcome, Count Isolani!
ISOLANI.
My noble brother!?Even now am I arrived; 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 despatch.
QUESTENBERG (to OCTAVIO).?And lo! betwixt them both, experienced 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've shown our camp this honor.
QUESTENBERG.
Once before?I stood beside these colors.
ILLO.?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.
QUESTENBURG.?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 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.
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 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.
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 doomed 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 ruined?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 skilled 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 uncoined.
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 dogs' hunger--they, forsooth,?Would pare the soldiers 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 antechamber to another?They dragged me on and left me by the hour?To kick my heels among a