Yes, Max, I have delay’d to open it to thee,
Even till the hour of acting ’gins to strike. 
Youth’s fortunate feeling doth seize easily
The absolute right, yea, and a joy it is
To exercise the single apprehension
Where the sums square in proof;
But where it happens that of two sure evils
One must be taken, where the heart not wholly
Brings itself back from out the strife of duties,
There ’tis a blessing to have no election,
And blank necessity is grace and favor. 
—­This is now present:  do not look behind thee,—­
It can no more avail thee.  Look thou forwards! 
Think not! judge not! prepare thyself to act! 
The Court—­it hath determined on my ruin,
Therefore I will be beforehand with them. 
We’ll join the Swedes—­right gallant fellows are they,
And our good friends.

[He stops himself, expecting PICCOLOMINI’s answer.]

I have ta’en thee by surprise.  Answer me not. 
I grant thee time to recollect thyself.

[He rises, retires at the back of the stage.  MAX remains for a long time motionless, in a trance of excessive anguish.  At his first motion WALLENSTEIN returns, and places himself before him.]

MAX.

My General, this day thou makest me
Of age to speak in my own right and person,
For till this day I have been spared the trouble
To find out my own road.  Thee have I follow’d
With most implicit unconditional faith,
Sure of the right path if I follow’d thee. 
Today, for the first time, dost thou refer
Me to myself, and forcest me to make
Election between thee and my own heart.

WALLENST.

Soft cradled thee thy Fortune till today;
Thy duties thou couldst exercise in sport,
Indulge all lovely instincts, act forever
With undivided heart.  It can remain
No longer thus.  Like enemies, the roads
Start from each other.  Duties strive with duties. 
Thou must needs choose thy party in the war
Which is now kindling ’twixt thy friend and him
Who is thy Emperor.

MAX.

War! is that the name? 
War is as frightful as heaven’s pestilence,
Yet it is good.  Is it heaven’s will as that is? 
Is that a good war, which against the Emperor
Thou wagest with the Emperor’s own army? 
O God of heaven! what a change is this! 
Beseems it me to offer such persuasion
To thee, who like the fix’d star of the pole
Wert all I gazed at on life’s trackless ocean? 
O! what a rent thou makest in my heart! 
The ingrain’d instinct of old reverence,
The holy habit of obediency,
Must I pluck live asunder from thy name? 
Nay, do not turn thy countenance upon me—­
It always was as a god looking upon me! 
Duke Wallenstein, its power has not departed. 
The senses still are in thy bonds, although,
Bleeding, the soul hath freed itself.

WALLENSTEIN.