The Life of Friedrich Schiller

On the spirit of the priest! That mere men,
Not beings of a calmer essence, write
The annals of the world! Serener ages
Will displace the age of Philip; these will bring
A milder wisdom; the subject's good will then
Be reconcil'd to th' prince's greatness;
The thrifty State will learn to prize its children,
And necessity no more will be inhuman.

King. And when, think you, would those blessed ages
Have come round, had I recoil'd before
The curse of this? Behold my Spain! Here blooms
The subject's good, in never-clouded peace:
Such peace will I bestow on Flanders.

Mar. Peace of a churchyard! And you hope to end
What you have entered on? Hope to withstand
The timeful change of Christendom; to stop
The universal Spring that shall make young
The countenance o' th' Earth? You purpose, single
In all Europe, alone, to fling yourself
Against the wheel of Destiny that rolls
For ever its appointed course; to clutch
Its spokes with mortal arm? You may not, Sire!
Already thousands have forsook your kingdoms,
Escaping glad though poor: the citizen
You lost for conscience' sake, he was your noblest.
With mother's arms Elizabeth receives
The fugitives, and rich by foreign skill,
In fertile strength her England blooms. Forsaken
Of its toilsome people, lies Grenada
Desolate; and Europe sees with glad surprise
Its enemy faint with self-inflicted wounds.

[The King seems moved: the Marquis observes it, and advances some steps nearer.

Plant for Eternity and death the seed?
Your harvest will be nothingness. The work
Will not survive the spirit of its former;
It will be in vain that you have labour'd;
That you have fought the fight with Nature;
And to plans of Ruin consecrated
A high and royal lifetime. Man is greater
Than you thought. The bondage of long slumber
He will break; his sacred rights he will reclaim.
With Nero and Busiris will he rank
The name of Philip, and—that grieves me, for
You once were good.

King.How know you that?

Mar. [with warm energy]You were;
Yes, by th' All-Merciful! Yes, I repeat it.
Restore to us what you have taken from us.
Generous as strong, let human happiness
Stream from your horn of plenty, let souls ripen
Round you. Restore us what you took from us.
Amid a thousand kings become a king.

[He approaches him boldly, fixing on him firm and glowing looks.

Oh, could the eloquence of all the millions,
Who participate in this great moment,
Hover on my lips, and raise into a flame
That gleam that kindles in your eyes!
Give up this false idolatry of self,
Which makes your brothers nothing! Be to us
A pattern of the Everlasting and the True!
Never, never, did a mortal hold so much,
To use it so divinely. All the kings
Of Europe reverence the name of Spain:
Go on in front of all the kings of Europe!
One movement of your pen, and new-created
Is the Earth. Say but, Let there be freedom!
[Throwing himself at his feet.

King [surprised, turning his face away, then again towards Posa].
Singular enthusiast! Yet—rise—I—

Mar. Look round and view God's lordly universe:
On Freedom it is founded, and how rich
Is it with Freedom! He, the great Creator,
Has giv'n the very worm its sev'ral dewdrop;
Ev'n in the mouldering spaces of Decay,
He leaves Free-will the pleasures of a choice.
This world of yours! how narrow and how poor!
The rustling of a leaf alarms the lord
Of Christendom. You quake at every virtue;
He, not to mar the glorious form of Freedom,
Suffers that the hideous hosts of Evil
Should run riot in his fair Creation.
Him the maker we behold not; calm
He veils himself in everlasting laws,
Which and not Him the sceptic seeing exclaims,
'Wherefore a God? The World itself is God.'
And never did a Christian's adoration
So praise him as this sceptic's blasphemy.

King. And such a model you would undertake,
On Earth, in my domains to imitate?