Schiller: “Wallenstein”

Excerpt, “The Death of Wallenstein,” by Friedrich Schiller.

WALLENSTEIN IN SOLILOQUY

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Is it possible?

Is't so? I can no longer what I would?

No longer draw back at my liking? I

Must do the deed, because I thought of it?

And fed this heart here with a dream?

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Because I did not scowl temptation from my presence,

Dallied with thoughts of possible fulfillment,

Commenced no movement, left all time uncertain,

And only kept the road, the access open?

By the great God of Heaven! It was not

My serious meaning, it was ne'er resolved.

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I but amused myself with thinking of it.

The free-will tempted me, the power to do

Or not to do.

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 Was it criminal

To make the fancy minister to hope,

To fill the air with pretty toys of air,

And clutch fantastic sceptres moving toward me?

Was not the will kept free? Beheld I not

The road of duty close beside me—but

One little step, and once more I was in it!

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Where am I? Whither have I been transported?

No road, no track behind me, but a wall,

Impenetrable, insurmountable,

Rises obedient to the spells I muttered

And meant not—my own doings tower behind me.

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Pauses and remains in deep thought.

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A punishable man I seem, the guilt,

Try what I will, I cannot roll off from me;

The equivocal demeanor of my life

Bears witness on my prosecutor's party.

And even my purest acts from purest motives

Suspicion poisons with malicious gloss.

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Were I that thing for which I pass, that traitor,

A goodly outside I had sure reserved,

Had drawn the coverings thick and double round me,

Been calm and chary of my utterance;

But being conscious of the innocence

Of my intent, my uncorrupted will,

I gave way to my humors, to my passion:

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Bold were my words, because my deeds were not.

Now every planless measure, chance event,

The threat of rage, the vaunt of joy and triumph,

And all the May-games of a heart o’erflowing,

Will they connect, and weave them all together

Into one web of treason; all will be plan,

My eye ne'er absent from the far-off mark,

Step tracing step, each step a politic progress;

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And out of all they'll fabricate a charge

So specious, that I must myself stand dumb.

I am caught in my own net, and only force,

Naught but a sudden rent can liberate me.

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Pauses again.

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How else! Since that the heart's unbiased instinct

Impelled me to the daring deed, which now

Necessity, self-preservation, orders.

Stern is the on-look of necessity,

Not without shudder may a human hand

Grasp the mysterious urn of destiny.

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My deed was mine, remaining in my bosom;

Once suffered to escape from its safe corner

Within the heart, its nursery and birthplace,

Sent forth into the foreign, it belongs

Forever to those sly malicious powers

Whom never art of man conciliated.

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Paces in agitation through the chamber, then
 pauses, and, after the pause, breaks out again
 into audible soliloquy.

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What is thy enterprise? Thy aim? Thy object?

Hast honestly confessed it to thyself?

Power seated on a quiet throne thou'dst shake,

Power on an ancient, consecrated throne,

Strong in possession, founded in all custom;

Power by a thousand tough and stringy roots

Fixed to the people's pious nursery faith.

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This, this will be no strife of strength with strength.

That feared I not. I brave each combatant,

Whom I can look on, fixing eye to eye,

Who, full himself of courage, kindles courage

In me too. 'Tis a foe invisible

The which I fear—a fearful enemy,

Which in the human heart opposes me,

By its coward fear alone made fearful to me.

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Not that, which full of life, instinct with power,

Makes known its present being; that is not

The true, the perilously formidable.

O no! it is the common, the quite common,

The thing of an eternal yesterday.

Whatever was, and evermore returns,

Sterling to-morrow, for to-day 'twas sterling!

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For of the wholly common is man made,

And custom is his nurse! Woe then to them

Who lay irreverent hands upon his old

House furniture, the dear inheritance

From his forefathers! For time consecrates;

And what is gray with age becomes religion.

Be in possession, and thou hast the right,

And sacred will the many guard it for thee!

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