A most experienced and renowned commander,
He did it in glad hope and confidence
To give thereby to the fortune of the war
A rapid and auspicious change. The onset
Was favorable to his royal wishes.
Bohemia was delivered from the Saxons,
The Swede's career of conquest checked! These lands
Began to draw breath freely, as Duke Friedland
From all the streams of Germany forced hither
The scattered armies of the enemy;
Hither invoked as round one magic circle
The Rhinegrave, Bernhard, Banner, Oxenstiern,
Yea, and the never-conquered king himself;
Here finally, before the eye of Nuernberg,
The fearful game of battle to decide.
WALLENSTEIN.
To the point, so please you.
QUESTENBERG.
A new spirit
At once proclaimed to us the new commander.
No longer strove blind rage with rage more blind;
But in the enlightened field of skill was shown
How fortitude can triumph over boldness,
And scientific art outweary courage.
In vain they tempt him to the fight. He only
Entrenches him still deeper in his hold,
As if to build an everlasting fortress.
At length grown desperate, now, the king resolves
To storm the camp and lead his wasted legions,
Who daily fall by famine and by plague,
To quicker deaths and hunger and disease.
Through lines of barricades behind whose fence
Death lurks within a thousand mouths of fire,
He yet unconquered strives to storm his way.
There was attack, and there resistance, such
As mortal eye had never seen before;
Repulsed at last, the king withdrew his troops
From this so murderous field, and not a foot
Of ground was gained by all that fearful slaughter.
WALLENSTEIN.
Pray spare us these recitals from gazettes,
Which we ourselves beheld with deepest horror.
QUESTENBERG.
In Nuernberg's camp the Swedish monarch left
His fame-in Luetzen's plains his life. But who
Stood not astounded, when victorious Friedland
After this day of triumph, this proud day,
Marched toward Bohemia with the speed of flight,
And vanished from the theatre of war?
While the young Weimar hero [7] forced his way
Into Franconia, to the Danube, like
Some delving winter-stream, which, where it rushes,
Makes its own channel; with such sudden speed
He marched, and now at once 'fore Regensburg
Stood to the affright of all good Catholic Christians.
Then did Bavaria's well-deserving prince
Entreat swift aidance in his extreme need;
The emperor sends seven horsemen to Duke Friedland,
Seven horsemen couriers sends he with the entreaty
He superadds his own, and supplicates
Where as the sovereign lord he can command.
In vain his supplication! At this moment
The duke hears only his old hate and grudge,
Barters the general good to gratify
Private revenge-and so falls Regensburg.
WALLENSTEIN.
Max., to what period of the war alludes he?
My recollection fails me here.
MAX.
He means
When we were in Silesia.
WALLENSTEIN.
Ay! is it so!
But what had we to do there?
MAX.
To beat out
The Swedes and Saxons from the province.
WALLENSTEIN.
True;
In that description which the minister gave,
I seemed to have forgotten the whole war.
[TO QUESTENBERG.
Well, but proceed a little.
QUESTENBERG.
We hoped upon the Oder to regain
What on the Danube shamefully was lost.
We looked for deeds of all-astounding grandeur
Upon a theatre of war, on which
A Friedland led in person to the field,
And the famed rival of the great Gustavus
Had but a Thurn and Arnheim to oppose him!
Yet the encounter of their mighty hosts
Served but to feast and entertain each other.
Our country groaned beneath the woes of war,
Yet naught but peace prevailed in Friedland's camp!
WALLENSTEIN.
Full many a bloody strife is fought in vain,
Because its youthful general needs a victory.
But 'tis the privilege of the old commander
To spare the costs of fighting useless battles
Merely to show that he knows how to conquer.
It would have little helped my fame to boast
Of conquest o'er an Arnheim; but far more
Would my forbearance have availed my country,
Had I succeeded to dissolve the alliance
Existing 'twixt the Saxon and the Swede.
QUESTENBERG.
But you did not succeed, and so commenced
The fearful strife anew. And here at length,
Beside the river Oder did the duke
Assert his ancient fame. Upon the fields
Of Steinau did the Swedes lay down their arms,
Subdued without a blow. And here, with others,
The righteousness of heaven to his avenger
Delivered that long-practised stirrer-up
Of insurrection, that curse-laden torch
And kindler of this war, Matthias Thurn.
But he had fallen into magnanimous hands
Instead of punishment he found reward,
And with rich presents did the duke dismiss
The arch-foe of his emperor.
WALLENSTEIN (laughs).
I know,
I know you had already in Vienna
Your windows and your balconies forestalled
To see him on the executioner's cart.
I might have lost the battle, lost it too
With infamy, and still retained your graces-
But, to have cheated them of a spectacle,
Oh! that the good folks of Vienna never,
No, never can forgive me!
QUESTENBERG.
So Silesia
Was freed, and all things loudly called the duke
Into Bavaria, now pressed hard on all sides.
And he did put his troops in motion: slowly,
Quite at his ease, and by the longest road
He traverses Bohemia; but ere ever
He hath once seen the enemy, faces round,
Breaks up the march, and takes to winter-quarters.
WALLENSTEIN.
The troops were pitiably destitute
Of every necessary, every comfort,
The winter came. What thinks his majesty
His troops are made of? Aren't we men; subjected
Like other men to wet, and cold, and all
The circumstances of necessity?
Oh, miserable lot of the poor soldier!
Wherever he comes in all flee before him,
And when he goes away the general curse
Follows him on his route. All must be seized.
Nothing is given him. And compelled to seize
From every man he's every man's abhorrence.
Behold, here stand my generals. Karaffa!
Count Deodati! Butler! Tell this man
How long the soldier's pay is in arrears.
BUTLER.
Already a full year.
WALLENSTEIN.
And 'tis the hire
That constitutes the hireling's name and duties,
The soldier's pay is the soldier's covenant. [8]
QUESTENBERG.
Ah! this is a far other tone from that
In which the duke spoke eight, nine years ago.
WALLENSTEIN.
Yes! 'tis my fault, I know it: I myself
Have spoilt the emperor by indulging him.
Nine years ago, during the Danish war,
I raised him up a force, a mighty force,
Forty or fifty thousand men, that cost him
Of his own purse no doit. Through Saxony