Wallenstein/The Piccolomini/A2S14

by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

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SCENE XIV.

To these enter Illo from the inner room. He
has in his hand a golden service-cup, and is
extremely distempered with drinking: Goetz
and Butler follow him, endeavouring to keep
him back.)

ILLO.

What do you want! Let me go.

GOETZ and BUTLER.

Drink no more, Illo! For heav'n's sake, drink

no more.

ILLO. (goes up to Octavio, and shakes him
cordially by the hand, and then drinks.)

Octavio! I bring this to you! Let all grudge

be drowned in this friendly bowl! I know
well enough, ye never loved me—Devil take
me!—and I never loved you!—I am always
even with people in that way!—Let what's
past be past—that is, you understand—forgotten!
I esteem you infinitely. (embracing him
repeatedly.) You have not a dearer friend on earth
than I—but that you know. The fellow that cries
rogue to you calls me villain—and I'll strangle
him!—my dear friend!

TERTSKY. (whispering to him.)

Art in thy senses? For heaven's sake, Illo!

think where you are!

ILLO. (aloud.)

What do you mean?—There are none but friends

here, are there? (looks round the whole circle
with a jolly and triumphant air.) Not a sneeker
amongst us, thank heaven!

TERTSKY. (to Butler, eagerly.)

Take him off with you, force him off, I entreat

you, Butler!

BUTLER. (to Illo.)

Field Marshal! a word with you. (leads him

to the side-board.)

ILLO. (cordially.)

A thousand for one! Fill—Fill it once more

up to the brim.—To this gallant man's health!

ISOLANI. (to Max. who all the while has been
staring on the paper with fixed but vacant eyes.)

Slow and sure, my noble brother!—Hast parsed

it all yet?—Some words yet to go thro'?—Ha?—

MAX. (waking as from a dream)

What am I to do?

TERTSKY, and at the same time ISOLANI.

Sign your name. (Octavio directs his eyes on

him with intense anxiety.)}}

MAX. (returns the paper.)

Let it stay till to-morrow. It is business—

to-day I am not sufficiently collected. Send it to
me to-morrow.

TERTSKY.

Nay, collect yourself a little.

ISOLANI.

Awake man! awake!—Come, thy signature,

and have done with it! What? Thou art the
youngest in the whole company, and wouldest be
wiser than all of us together? Look there! thy
father has signed—we have all signed.

TERTSKY. (to Octavio.)

Use your influence. Instruct him.

OCTAVIO.

My son is at the age of discretion.

ILLO. (leaves the service-cup on the side-board.)

What's the dispute?

TERTSKY.

He declines subscribing the paper.

MAX.

I say, it may as well stay till to-morrow.

ILLO.

It cannot stay. We have all subscribed to it—

and so must you.—You must subscribe.

MAX.

Illo, good night!

ILLO.

No!—You come not off so! The Duke shall

learn who are his friends. (all collect round Illo
and Max.)

MAX.

What my sentiments are towards the Duke, the

Duke knows, every one knows—what need of
this wild stuff?

ILLO.

This is the thanks the Duke gets for his

partiality to Italians and foreigners.—Us Bohemians
he holds for little better than dullards—nothing
pleases him but what's outlandish.

TERTSKY. (in extreme embarrassment, to the commanders,

who at Illo's words gave a sudden start,

as preparing to resent them. It is the wine that
speaks, and not his reason. Attend not to him,
I entreat you.

ISOLANI. (with a bitter laugh.)

Wine invents nothing: it only tattles.

ILLO.

He who is not with me is against me. Your

tender consciences! Unless they can slip out by
a back-door, by a puny proviso———

TERTSKY. (interrupting him.)

He is stark mad—don't listen to him!

ILLO. (raising his voice to the highest pitch.)

Unless they can slip out by a proviso.—What

of the proviso? The devil take this proviso!

MAX.(has his attention roused, and looks again
into the paper.)

What is there here then of such perilous import?

You make me curious—I must look closer at it.

TERTSKY. (in a low voice to Illo.)

What are you doing, Illo? You are ruining us.

TIEFENBACH. (to Kolatto.)

Ay, ay! I observed, that before we sat down

to supper, it was read differently.

GOETZ.

Why, I seem'd to think so too.

ISOLANI.

What do I care for that? Where there stand

other names mine can stand too.

TIEFENBACH.

Before supper there was a certain proviso therein,

or short clause, concerning our duties to the Emperor.

BUTLER. (to one of the Commanders.)

For shame, for shame! Bethink you. What

is the main business here? The question now is,
whether we shall keep our General, or let him
retire. One must not take these things too nicely,
and over-scrupulously.

ISOLANI. (to one of the Generals.)

Did the Duke make any of these provisos

when he gave you your regiment?

TERTSKY. (to Goetz.)

Or when he gave you the office of army-purveyancer,

which brings you in yearly a thousand pistoles!

ILLO.

He is a rascal who makes us out to be rogues.

If there be any one that wants satisfaction, let
him say so,—I am his man.

TIEFENBACH.

Softly, softly? 'Twas but a word or two.

MAX. (having read the paper gives it back.)

Till to-morrow therefore!

ILLO. (stammering with rage and fury, loses
all command over himself, and presents the paper
to Max. with one hand, and his sword in the
other.)
Subscribe—Judas!

ISOLANI.

Out upon you, Illo!

OCTAVIO, TERTSKY, BUTLER. (all together.)

Down with the sword!

MAX. (rushes on him suddenly and disarms him,
then to Count Tertsky.)

Take him off to bed!

(Max. leaves the stage. Illo cursing and raving
is held back by some of the officers, and amidst
a universal confusion the curtain drops.

 

END OF ACT II.