The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Iii Part 13

SENI.

Your Highness must permit me Just to contemplate Venus. She's now rising; Like as a sun, so s.h.i.+nes 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 s.e.xtile 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.

SENI.

And both the mighty Lumina by no Maleficus _affronted_. Lo! Saturnus, Innocuous, powerless, _in cadente Domo_.

WALLENST.

The empire of Saturnus is gone by; Lord of the secret birth of things is he Within the lap of earth, and in the depths Of the imagination dominates; And his are all things that eschew the light.

The time is o'er of brooding and contrivance, For Jupiter, the l.u.s.trous, lordeth now, And the dark work, complete of preparation, He draws by force into the realm of light.

Now must we hasten on to action, ere The scheme and most auspicious positure Parts o'er my head, and takes once more its flight, For the heavens journey still, and sojourn not.

[_There are knocks at the door._]

There's some one knocking there. See who it is.

TERZKY (_from without_).

Open, and let me in.

WALLENSTEIN.

Ay--'tis Terzky.

What is there of such urgence? We are busy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALLENSTEIN AND TERZKY As performed at the Munic.i.p.al Theatre, Hamburg, 1906.]

TERZKY (_from without_).

Lay all aside at present, I entreat you.

It suffers no delaying.

WALLENSTEIN.

Open, Seni!

[_While_ SENI _opens the door for_ TERZKY, WALLENSTEIN _draws the curtain over the figures_.]

SCENE II

WALLENSTEIN. COUNT TERZKY

TERZKY (_enters_).

Hast thou already heard it? He is taken.

Gallas has given him up to the Emperor.

[SENI _draws off the black table, and exit_.]

WALLENSTEIN (_to_ TERZKY).

Who has been taken? Who is given up?

TERZKY.

The man who knows our secrets, who knows every Negotiation with the Swede and Saxon, Through whose hands all and everything has pa.s.s'd--

WALLENSTEIN (_drawing back_).

Nay, not Sesina?--Say, No! I entreat thee.

TERZKY.

All on his road for Regensburg to the Swede He was plunged down upon by Gallas' agent, Who had been long in ambush, lurking for him.

There must have been found on him my whole packet To Thur, to Kinsky, to Oxenstiern, to Arnheim: All this is in their hands; they have now an insight Into the whole--our measures and our motives.

SCENE III

_To them enters_ ILLO.

ILLO (_to_ TERZKY).

Has he heard it?

TERZHY.