Part 177 (1/2)

OCTAVIO.

Thou wilt.

MAX.

I will, as sure as this heart beats.

OCTAVIO.

I have, indeed, miscalculated on thee.

I calculated on a prudent son, Who would have blessed the hand beneficent That plucked him back from the abyss--and lo!

A fascinated being I discover, Whom his two eyes befool, whom pa.s.sion wilders, Whom not the broadest light of noon can heal.

Go, question him! Be mad enough, I pray thee.

The purpose of thy father, of thy emperor, Go, give it up free booty! Force me, drive me To an open breach before the time. And now, Now that a miracle of heaven had guarded My secret purpose even to this hour, And laid to sleep suspicion's piercing eyes, Let me have lived to see that mine own son, With frantic enterprise, annihilates My toilsome labors and state policy.

MAX.

Ay--this state policy! Oh, how I curse it!

You will some time, with your state policy, Compel him to the measure: it may happen, Because ye are determined that he is guilty, Guilty ye'll make him. All retreat cut off, You close up every outlet, hem him in Narrower and narrower, till at length ye force him-- Yes, ye, ye force him, in his desperation, To set fire to his prison. Father! father!

That never can end well--it cannot--will not!

And let it be decided as it may, I see with boding heart the near approach Of an ill-starred, unblest catastrophe.

For this great monarch-spirit, if he fall, Will drag a world into the ruin with him.

And as a s.h.i.+p that midway on the ocean Takes fire, at once, and with a thunder-burst Explodes, and with itself shoots out its crew In smoke and ruin betwixt sea and heaven!

So will he, falling, draw down in his fall All us, who're fixed and mortised to his fortune, Deem of it what thou wilt; but pardon me, That I must bear me on in my own way.

All must remain pure betwixt him and me; And, ere the daylight dawns, it must be known Which I must lose--my father or my friend.

[During his exit the curtain drops.

FOOTNOTES.

[1] A town about twelve German miles N.E. of Ulm.

[2] The Dukes in Germany being always reigning powers, their sons and daughters are ent.i.tled princes and princesses.

[3] Carinthia.

[4] A town not far from the Mine-mountains, on the high road from Vienna to Prague.

[5] In the original,--

”Den blut'gen Lorbeer geb' ich hin mit Freuden Fuers erste Veilchen, das der Maerz uns bringt, Das duerftige Pfand der neuverjuengten Erde.”

[6] A reviewer in the Literary Gazette observes that, in these lines, Mr. Coleridge has misapprehended the meaning of the word ”Zug,” a team, translating it as ”Anzug,” a suit of clothes. The following version, as a subst.i.tute, I propose:--