CAPTAIN MACDONALD.

AN ADJUTANT.

NEUMANN, Captain of Cavalry, Aide-de-Camp
to Terzky.

COLONEL WRANGEL, Envoy from the
Swedes.

ROSENBURG, Master of Horse.

SWEDISH CAPTAIN.

SENI.

BURGOMASTER of Egra.

ANSPESSADE of the Cuirassiers.

GROOM OF THE} Belonging to
CHAMBER, } the Duke. 
A PAGE, }

Cuirassiers, Dragoons, Servants.

[Illustration:  WALLENSTEIN AND SENI As performed at the Municipal Theatre, Hamburg, 1906.]

THE DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN (1800)[23]

TRANSLATED BY S.T.  COLERIDGE

ACT I

SCENE I

A Room fitted up for astrological labors, and provided with celestial Charts, with Globes, Telescopes, Quadrants, and other mathematical Instruments—­Seven Colossal Figures, representing the Planets, each circle in the background, so that Mars and Saturn are nearest the eye.—­The remainder of the Scene, and its disposition, is given in the Fourth Scene of the Second Act.—­There must be a Curtain over the Figures, which may be dropped, and conceal them on occasion.

[In the Fifth Scene of this Act it must be dropped; but in the Seventh Scene it must be again drawn up wholly or in part.]

WALLENSTEIN at a black Table, on which a Speculum Astrologicum is described with Chalk.  SENI is taking Observations through a window.

WALLENSTEIN.

All well—­and now let it be ended, Seni.  Come,
The dawn commences, and Mars rules the hour. 
We must give o’er the operation.  Come,
We know enough.

SENI.

Your Highness must permit me
Just to contemplate Venus.  She’s now rising;
Like as a sun, so shines she in the east.

WALLENST.

She is at present in her perigee,
And now shoots down her strongest influences.

[Contemplating the figure on the table.]

Auspicious aspect! fateful in conjunction,
At length the mighty three corradiate;
And the two stars of blessing, Jupiter
And Venus, take between them the malignant
Slily-malicious Mars, and thus compel
Into my service that old mischief-founder: 
For long he viewed me hostilely, and ever
With beam oblique, or perpendicular,
Now in the Quartile, now in the Secundan,
Shot his red lightnings at my stars, disturbing
Their blessed influences and sweet aspects. 
Now they have conquer’d the old enemy,
And bring him in the heavens a prisoner to me.

SENI (who has come down from the window).

And in a corner house, your Highness—­think of that! 
That makes each influence of double strength.

WALLENST.

And sun and moon, too, in the Sextile aspect,
The soft light with the vehement—­so I love it;
SOL is the heart, LUNA the head of heaven;
Bold be the plan, fiery the execution.