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The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 03
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BUTLER.
Count? what?
OCTAVIO (coldly).
The title that you wish'd, I mean.
BUTLER (starts in sudden passion).
Hell and damnation!
OCTAVIO (coldly).
You petition'd for it—
And your petition was repelled—Was it so?
BUTLER.
Your insolent scoff shall not go by unpunish'd.
Draw!
OCTAVIO.
Nay! your sword to 'ts sheath! and tell me calmly,
How all that happen'd. I will not refuse you
Your satisfaction afterward. Calmly, Butler!
BUTLER.
Be the whole world acquainted with the weakness
For which I never can forgive myself.
Lieutenant-General! Yes; I have ambition.
Ne'er was I able to endure contempt.
It stung me to the quick, that birth and title
Should have more weight than merit has in the army.
I would fain not be meaner than my equal,
So in an evil hour I let myself
Be tempted to that measure. It was folly!
But yet so hard a penance it deserved not.
It might have been refused; but wherefore barb
And venom the refusal with contempt?
Why dash to earth and crush with heaviest scorn
The gray-hair'd man, the faithful veteran?
Why to the baseness of his parentage
Refer him with such cruel roughness, only
Because he had a weak hour and forgot himself?
But nature gives a sting e'en to the worm
Which wanton Power treads on in sport and
insult.
OCTAVIO.
You must have been calumniated. Guess you
The enemy who did you this ill service?
BUTLER.
Be't who it will—a most low-hearted scoundrel!
Some vile court-minion must it be, some Spaniard,
Some young squire of some ancient family,
In whose light I may stand; some envious knave,
Stung to his soul by my fair self-earn'd honors!
OCTAVIO.
But tell me, did the Duke approve that measure?
BUTLER.
Himself impell'd me to it, used his interest
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