The Piccolomini: A Play — Edition Insights

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.

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 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.

QUESTENBERG. Yes, yes! your travelling bills soon found their way to us! Too well I know we have still accounts to settle.

ILLO. 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.

QUESTENBERG. Ay, doubtless, it is true; the duke does spare us The troublesome task of choosing.

BUTLER. Yes, the duke Cares with a father's feelings for his troops; But how the emperor feels for us, we see.