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The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03

Год написания книги
2018
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WALLENST.

Once was this Ferdinand so gracious to me;

He loved me; he esteem'd me; I was placed

The nearest to his heart. Full many a time

We like familiar friends, both at one table,

Have banqueted together. He and I—

And the young kings themselves held me the basin

Wherewith to wash me—and is't come to this?

COUNTESS.

So faithfully preserves thou each small favor,

And hast no memory for contumelies?

Must I remind thee, how at Regensburg

This man repaid thy faithful services?

All ranks and all conditions in the empire

Thou hadst wronged, to make him great,—hadst loaded on thee,

On thee, the hate, the curse of the whole world.

No friend existed for thee in all Germany,

And why? because thou hadst existed only

For the Emperor. To the Emperor alone

Clung Friedland in that storm which gather'd round him

At Regensburg in the Diet—and he dropp'd thee!

He let thee fall! he let thee fall a victim

To the Bavarian, to that insolent!

Deposed, stript bare of all thy dignity

And power, amid the taunting of thy foes,

Thou wert let drop into obscurity.—

Say not the restoration of thy honor

Has made atonement for that first injustice.

No honest good-will was it that replaced thee;

The law of hard necessity replaced thee,

Which they had fain opposed, but that they could not.

WALLENST.

Not to their good wishes, that is certain,

Nor yet to his affection I'm indebted

For this high office: and if I abuse it,

I shall therein abuse no confidence.

COUNTESS.

Affection! confidence!—they needed thee.

Necessity, impetuous remonstrant!

Who not with empty names, or shows of proxy,

Is served, who'll have the thing and not the symbol,

Ever seeks out the greatest and the best,

And at the rudder places him, e'en though

She had been forced to take him from the rabble—

She, this Necessity, it was that placed thee

In this high office; it was she that gave thee

Thy letters patent of inauguration.

For, to the uttermost moment that they can,

This race still help themselves at cheapest rate

With slavish souls, with puppets! At the approach
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