And my commission of to-day instructs meTo free her from her good friends and protectors.
Illo. A worthy office! After with our blood
We have wrested this Bohemia from the Saxon, 50
To be swept out of it is all our thanks,
The sole reward of all our hard-won victories.
Questenberg. Unless that wretched land be doomed to suffer
Only a change of evils, it must be
Freed from the scourge alike of friend and foe. 55
Illo. What? ‘Twas a favourable year; the Boors
Can answer fresh demands already.
Questenberg. Nay,
If you discourse of herds and meadow-grounds —
Isolani. The war maintains the war. Are the Boors ruined,
The Emperor gains so many more new soldiers. 60
Questenberg. And is the poorer by even so many subjects.
Isolani. Poh! We are all his subjects.
Questenberg. Yet with a difference, General! The one fill
With profitable industry the purse,
The others are well skilled to empty it. 65
The sword has made the Emperor poor; the plough
Must reinvigorate his resources.
Isolani. Sure!
Times are not yet so bad. Methinks I see
[Examining with his eye the dress and ornaments
of QUESTENBERG.
Good store of gold that still remains uncoined.
Questenberg. Thank Heaven! that means have been found out to
hide 70
Some little from the fingers of the Croats.
Illo. There! The Stawata and the Martinitz,
On whom the Emperor heaps his gifts and graces,
To the heart-burning of all good Bohemians —
Those minions of court favour, those court harpies, 75
Who fatten on the wrecks of citizens
Driven from their house and home — who reap no harvests
Save in the general calamity —
Who now, with kingly pomp, insult and mock
The desolation of their country — these, 80
Let these, and such as these, support the war,
The fatal war, which they alone enkindled!
Butler. And those state-parasites, who have their feet
So constantly beneath the Emperor’s table,
Who cannot let a benefice fall, but they 85
Snap at it with dog’s hunger — they, forsooth,
Would pare the soldier’s bread, and cross his reckoning!
Isolani. My life long will it anger me to think,
How when I went to court seven years ago,
To see about new horses for our regiment, 90
How from one antechamber to another
They dragged me on, and left me by the hour
To kick my heels among a crowd of simpering
Feast-fattened slaves, as if I had come thither
A mendicant suitor for the crumbs of favour 95
That fall beneath their tables. And, at last,
Whom should they send me but a Capuchin!
Straight I began to muster up my sins
For absolution — but no such luck for me!
This was the man, this Capuchin, with whom 100
I was to treat concerning the army horses:
And I was forced at last to quit the field,
The business unaccomplished. Afterwards
The Duke procured me in three days, what I
Could not obtain in thirty at Vienna. 105
Questenberg. Yes, yes! your travelling bills soon found their
way to us:
Too well I know we have still accounts to settle.
Illo. War is a violent trade; one cannot always
Finish one’s work by soft means; every trifle
Must not be blackened into sacrilege. 110
If we should wait till you, in solemn council,
With due deliberation had selected
The smallest out of four-and-twenty evils,
I’faith, we should wait long. —
‘Dash! and through with it!’ — That’s the better watchword. 115
Then after come what may come. ‘Tis man’s nature
To make the best of a bad thing once past.
A bitter and perplexed ‘what shall I do?’
Is worse to man than worst necessity.
Questenberg. Ay, doubtless, it is true: the Duke does spare us 120
The troublesome task of choosing.
Butler. Yes, the Duke
Cares with a father’s feelings for his troops;
But how the Emperor feels for us, we see.
Questenberg. His cares and feelings all ranks share alike,
Nor will he offer one up to another. 125
Isolani. And therefore thrusts he us into the deserts
As beasts of prey, that so he may preserve
His dear sheep fattening in his fields
