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It is not possible that it should torture me
More than this introduction. What have you
To say to me? Tell me the whole and briefly!
Coun. You'll not be frightened—

Thek.

Name it, I entreat you.

Coun. It lies within your power to do your

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What need of me for that? And is he not

Already linked to him?

Coun.

Thek.

He was.

And wherefore

Should he not be so now-not be so always?

Coun. He cleaves to th' Emperor too.

Thek.

Not more than duty

We ask

And honour may demand of him.

Coun.

Proofs of his love, and not proofs of his honour. Duty and honour !

Those are ambiguous words with many meanings.

You should interpret them for him: his love

Should be the sole definer of his honour.

Thek. How?

Coun.

Th' Emperor or you must he re

nounce.

Thek. He will accompany my father gladly In his retirement. From himself you heard, How much he wished to lay aside the sword. Coun. He must not lay the sword aside, we

mean;

He must unsheath it in your

father's cause.

Thek. He'll spend with gladness and alacrity His life, his heart's blood in my father's cause, If shame or injury be intended him.

Coun. You will not understand me. Well,
hear then!

Your father has fallen off from the Emperor.
And is about to join the enemy

With the whole soldiery—

Thek.

Alas, my mother!

Coun. There needs a great example to draw on The army after him. The Piccolomini Possess the love and reverence of the troops; They govern all opinions, and wherever They lead the way, none hesitate to follow. The son secures the father to our interestsYou've much in your hands at this moment.

Ah,

Thek. My miserable mother! what a death-stroke Awaits thee!-No! She never will survive it.

Coun. She will accommodate her soul to that Which is and must be. I do know your mother The far-off future weighs upon her heart With torture of anxiety; but is it

Unalterably, actually present,

She soon resigns herself, and bears it calmly.
Thek. O my foreboding bosom! Even now,
E'en now 'tis here, that icy hand of horror!
And my young hope lies shuddering in its grasp;
I knew it well-no sooner had I entered,
A heavy ominous presentiment

Revealed to me, that spirits of death were hovering
Over my happy fortune. But why think I
First of myself? My mother! O my mother!
Coun. Calm yourself! Break not out in vain
lamenting!

Preserve you for your father the firm friend,
And for yourself the lover, all will yet

Prove good and fortunate.

Thek.

Prove good? What good?

Must we not part? Part ne'er to meet again? Coun. He parts not from you. He can not part from you.

Thek. Alas for his sore anguish! It will rend His heart asunder.

Coun.

If indeed he loves you,

His resolution will be speedily taken.

Thek. His resolution will be speedily taken

O do not doubt of that! A resolution!

Does there remain one to be taken?

Coun.

Hush!

Collect yourself! I hear your mother coming. Thek. How shall I bear to see her?

Coun.

Collect yourself.

SCENE III.-To them enter the DUCHESS.

Duch. [to the COUNTESS.] Who was here sister? I heard some one talking,

And passionately too.

Coun.

Nay! There was no one.

Duch. I am grown so timorous, every trifling

noise

Scatters my spirits, and announces to me
The footstep of some messenger of evil.
And can you tell me, sister, what the event is?
Will he agree to do the Emperor's pleasure,
And send th' horse regiments to the Cardinal?
Tell me, has he dismissed Von Questenberg
With a favourable answer?

Coun.

Duch. Alas! then all is

The worst that can come!

him;

No, he has not.

lost! I see it coming,

Yes, they will depose

The accursed business of the Regenspurg diet
Will all be acted o'er again!

Coun.

No! never!

Make your heart easy, sister, as to that.

[THEKLA, in extreme agitation, throws herself upon her Mother, and enfolds her in her arms, weeping.

Duch. Yes, my poor child!

Thou too hast lost a most affectionate godmother In th' Empress. O that stern unbending man! In this unhappy marriage what have I

Not suffered, not endured! For ev'n as if

I had been linked on to some wheel of fire

That restless, ceaseless, whirls impetuous onward, I have passed a life of frights and horrors with him,

And ever to the brink of some abyss

With dizzy headlong violence he whirls me. Nay, do not weep, my child! Let not my sufferings

Presignify unhappiness to thee,

Nor blacken with their shade the fate that waits thee.

There lives no second Friedland; thou, my child, Hast not to fear thy mother's destiny.

Thek. O let us supplicate him, dearest mother! Quick! quick! here's no abiding place for us. Here every coming hour broods into life

Some new affrightful monster.

Duch.

An easier, calmer lot, my child!

Thou wilt share

We too,

I and thy father, witnessed happy days.

Still think I with delight of those first years,
When he was making progress with glad effort,
When his ambition was a genial fire,

Not that consuming flame which now it is.
The Emperor loved him, trusted him: and all
He undertook could not but be successful.
But since that ill-starred day at Regensburg,
Which plunged him headlong from his dignity,
A gloomy uncompanionable spirit,

Unsteady and suspicious, has possessed him.

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