Don Carlos. Friedrich von Schiller

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Don Carlos - Friedrich von Schiller


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Through Milan, Lorraine, Burgundy, and on

         To Germany! What, Germany? Ay, true,

         In Germany it was – they know you there.

         'Tis April now, May, June, – in July, then,

         Just so! or, at the latest, soon in August, —

         You will arrive in Brussels, and no doubt

         We soon shall hear of your victorious deeds.

         You know the way to win our high esteem,

         And earn the crown of fame.

ALVA (significantly)

                        Indeed! condemned

         By my own conscious insignificance!

CARLOS

         You're sensitive, my lord, and with some cause,

         I own it was not fair to use a weapon

         Against your grace you were unskilled to wield.

ALVA

         Unskilled!

CARLOS

               'Tis pity I've no leisure now

         To fight this worthy battle fairly out

         But at some other time, we —

ALVA

                        Prince, we both

         Miscalculate – but still in opposite ways.

         You, for example, overrate your age

         By twenty years, whilst on the other hand,

         I, by as many, underrate it —

CARLOS

                         Well

ALVA

         And this suggests the thought, how many nights

         Beside this lovely Lusitanian bride —

         Your mother – would the king right gladly give

         To buy an arm like this, to aid his crown.

         Full well he knows, far easier is the task

         To make a monarch than a monarchy;

         Far easier too, to stock the world with kings

         Than frame an empire for a king to rule.

CARLOS

         Most true, Duke Alva, yet —

ALVA

                        And how much blood,

         Your subjects' dearest blood, must flow in streams

         Before two drops could make a king of you.

CARLOS

         Most true, by heaven! and in two words comprised,

         All that the pride of merit has to urge

         Against the pride of fortune. But the moral —

         Now, Duke Alva!

ALVA

                 Woe to the nursling babe

         Of royalty that mocks the careful hand

         Which fosters it! How calmly it may sleep

         On the soft cushion of our victories!

         The monarch's crown is bright with sparkling gems,

         But no eye sees the wounds that purchased them.

         This sword has given our laws to distant realms,

         Has blazed before the banner of the cross,

         And in these quarters of the globe has traced

         Ensanguined furrows for the seed of faith.

         God was the judge in heaven, and I on earth.

CARLOS

         God, or the devil – it little matters which;

         Yours was his chosen arm – that stands confessed.

         And now no more of this. Some thoughts there are

         Whereof the memory pains me. I respect

         My father's choice, – my father needs an Alva!

         But that he needs him is not just the point

         I envy in him: a great man you are,

         This may be true, and I well nigh believe it,

         Only I fear your mission is begun

         Some thousand years too soon. Alva, methinks,

         Were just the man to suit the end of time.

         Then when the giant insolence of vice

         Shall have exhausted Heaven's enduring patience,

         And the rich waving harvest of misdeeds

         Stand in full ear, and asks a matchless reaper,

         Then should you fill the post. O God! my paradise!

         My Flanders! But of this I must not think.

         'Tis said you carry with you a full store

         Of sentences of death already signed.

         This shows a prudent foresight! No more need

         To fear your foes' designs, or secret plots:

         Oh, father! ill indeed I've understood thee.

         Calling thee harsh, to save me from a post,

         Where Alva's self alone can fitly shine!

         'Twas an unerring token of your love.

ALVA

         These words deserve —

CARLOS

                     What!

ALVA

                        But your birth protects you.

CARLOS (seizing his sword)

         That calls for blood! Duke, draw your sword!

ALVA (slightingly)

                                 On whom?

CARLOS. (pressing upon him)

         Draw, or I run you through.

ALVA

                        Then be it so.

      [They fight.

      SCENE VI

      The QUEEN, DON CARLOS, DUKE ALVA.

QUEEN (coming from her room alarmed)

         How! naked swords?

      [To the PRINCE in an indignant and commanding tone.

                   Prince Carlos!

CARLOS (agitated at the QUEEN's look, drops his arm, stands motionless, then rushes to the DUKE, and embraces him)

                           Pardon, duke!

         Your pardon, sir! Forget, forgive it all!

      [Throws himself in silence at the QUEEN'S feet, then rising suddenly, departs in confusion.

ALVA

        


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