The Life of Friedrich Schiller

What I no more regard as terrible?
Dangerous I seem, for bearing thoughts too high:
My King, I am not dangerous: my wishes
Lie buried here.[Laying his hand on his breast.
The poor and purblind rage
Of innovation, that but aggravates
The weight o' th' fetters which it cannot break,
Will never heat my blood. The century
Admits not my ideas: I live a citizen
Of those that are to come. Sire, can a picture
Break your rest? Your breath obliterates it.

King. No other knows you harbour such ideas?

Mar. Such, no one.

King [rises, walks a few steps, then stops opposite the Marquis.
—Aside]. New at least, this dialect!
Flattery exhausts itself: a man of parts
Disdains to imitate. For once let's have
A trial of the opposite! Why not?
The strange is oft the lucky.—If so be
This is your principle, why let it pass!
I will conform; the crown shall have a servant
New in Spain,—a liberal!

Mar.Sire, I see
How very meanly you conceive of men;
How, in the language of the frank true spirit
You find but another deeper artifice
Of a more practis'd coz'ner: I can also
Partly see what causes this. 'Tis men;
'Tis men that force you to it: they themselves
Have cast away their own nobility,
Themselves have crouch'd to this degraded posture.
Man's innate greatness, like a spectre, frights them;
Their poverty seems safety; with base skill
They ornament their chains, and call it virtue
To wear them with an air of grace. Twas thus
You found the world; thus from your royal father
Came it to you: how in this distorted,
Mutilated image could you honour man?

King. Some truth there is in this.

Mar.Pity, however,
That in taking man from the Creator,
And changing him into your handiwork,
And setting up yourself to be the god
Of this new-moulded creature, you should have
Forgotten one essential; you yourself
Remained a man, a very child of Adam!
You are still a suffering, longing mortal,
You call for sympathy, and to a god
We can but sacrifice, and pray, and tremble!
O unwise exchange! unbless'd perversion!
When you have sunk your brothers to be play'd
As harp-strings, who will join in harmony
With you the player?

King [aside].By Heaven, he touches me!

Mar. For you, however, this is unimportant;
It but makes you separate, peculiar;
'Tis the price you pay for being a god.
And frightful were it if you failed in this!
If for the desolated good of millions,
You the Desolator should gain—nothing!
If the very freedom you have blighted
And kill'd were that alone which could exalt
Yourself!—Sire, pardon me, I must not stay:
The matter makes me rash: my heart is full,
Too strong the charm of looking on the one
Of living men to whom I might unfold it.

[The Count de Lerma enters, and whispers a few words to the King. The latter beckons to him to withdraw, and continues sitting in his former posture.

King [to the Marquis, after Lerma is gone].
Speak on!

Mar. [after a pause] I feel, Sire, all the worth—

King.Speak on!
Y' had something more to say.

Mar.Not long since, Sire,
I chanced to pass through Flanders and Brabant.
So many rich and flourishing provinces;
A great, a mighty people, and still more,
An honest people!—And this people's Father!
That, thought I, must be divine: so thinking,
I stumbled on a heap of human bones.

[He pauses; his eyes rest on the King, who endeavours to return his glance, but with an air of embarrassment is forced to look upon the ground.

You are in the right, you must proceed so.
That you could do, what you saw you must do,
Fills me with a shuddering admiration.
Pity that the victim welt'ring in its blood
Should speak so feeble an eulogium