Friedrich Schiller

“ Now, Gessler, balance thine account with Heaven!
Thou must away from earth,—thy sand is run.
Quiet and harmless was the life I led,
My bow was bent on forest game alone;
No thoughts of murder rested on my soul.
But thou hast scared me from my dream of peace;
The milk of human kindness thou hast turn'd
To rankling poison in my breast; and made
Appalling deeds familiar to my soul.
He who could make his own child's head his mark,
Can speed his arrow to his foeman's heart.
My boys, poor innocents, my loyal wife,
Must be protected, tyrant, from thy rage! ”

“ OLD MOOR. I am not a spirit. Touch me—I live but oh! a life indeed of misery!
CHARLES. What! hast thou not been buried?
OLD MOOR. I was buried—that is to say, a dead dog lies in the vault of my ancestors, and I have been pining for three long moons in this dark and loathsome dungeon, where no sunbeam shines, no warm breeze penetrates, where no friend is seen, where the hoarse raven croaks and owls screech their midnight concert.
CHARLES. Heaven and earth! Who has done this?
OLD MOOR. Curse him not! 'Tis my son, Francis, who did this.
CHARLES. Francis? Francis? Oh, eternal chaos! ”

“ Wisdom, with thy sunlike look, Awful goddess! turn thee back, And give way to Love; Who before thee went, with hero heart, Up the steep and stormy path To the Godhead's very throne; Who, unveiling the Holiest, Showed to thee Elysium Through the vaulted sepulchre. Did it not invite us in? Could we reach immortality— Or could we seek the spirit Without Love, the spirit's master? Love, Love leadeth only to Nature's Father, Only love the spirits.
I have now given you, Raphael, my spirit's confession of faith—a flying outline of the creation I have undertaken. ”

“ Humanity has lost its dignity, but art has saved it, and preserves it in marbles full of meaning; truth continues to live in illusion, and the copy will serve to re-establish the model. If the nobility of art has survived the nobility of nature, it also goes before it like an inspiring genius, forming and awakening minds. Before truth causes her triumphant light to penetrate into the depths of the heart, poetry intercepts her rays, and the summits of humanity shine in a bright light, while a dark and humid night still hangs over the valleys. ”

“ FERDINAND. His only child! Dost thou feel that, murderer? His only one! Murderer, didst thou hear, his only one? The man has nothing in God's wide world but his instrument and that only daughter! And wilt thou rob him of her?
Rob him? Rob a beggar of his last pittance? Break the lame man's crutch, and cast the fragments at his feet? How? Have I the heart to do this? And when he hastens home, impatient to reckon in his daughter's smiles the whole sum of his happiness; and when he enters the chamber, and there lies the rose—withered—dead—crushed—his last, his only, his sustaining hope. ”

“ This is not a place For you, the plighted bridesmaid of the Czar; For you, the daughter of my foremost Waywode. You are the youngest of your sisters; yet Your spirit wings a high and glorious course, And nobly grasps the top of sovereignty. DEMETRIUS. Be thou, great monarch, witness of my oath, As, prince to prince, I pledge it here to you! This noble lady's hand I do accept As fortune's dearest pledge, and swear that, soon As on my father's throne I take my seat, I'll lead her home in triumph as my bride, With all the state that fits a mighty queen. ”

“ MAX. Command me what is human. I stay here. OCTAVIO. Max.! in the emperor's name I bid thee come. MAX. No emperor has power to prescribe Laws to the heart; and wouldst thou wish to rob me Of the sole blessing which my fate has left me, Her sympathy? Must then a cruel deed Be done with cruelty? The unalterable Shall I perform ignobly—steal away, With stealthy coward flight forsake her? No! She shall behold my suffering, my sore anguish, Hear the complaints of the disparted soul, And weep tears o'er me. Oh! the human race Have steely souls—but she is as an angel. ”

“ Yet dread I the decrees of heaven. The envy of the gods I fear; To taste of unmixed rapture here Is never to a mortal given." "With me, too, everything succeeds; In all my sovereign acts and deeds The grace of Heaven is ever by; And yet I had a well-loved heir— I paid my debt to fortune there— God took him hence—I saw him die." "Wouldst thou from sorrow, then, be free. Pray to each unseen Deity, For thy well-being, grief to send; The man on whom the Gods bestow Their gifts with hands that overflow, Comes never to a happy end." ”

“ He who no such bliss can merit, Let him mourn his fate alone! CHORUS. All who Nature's tribes are swelling Homage pay to sympathy; For she guides us up on high, Where the unknown has his dwelling. From the breasts of kindly Nature All of joy imbibe the dew; Good and bad alike, each creature Would her roseate path pursue. 'Tis through her the wine-cup maddens, Love and friends to man she gives! Bliss the meanest reptile gladdens,— Near God's throne the cherub lives! CHORUS. Bow before him, all creation! Mortals, own the God of love! Seek him high the stars above,— Yonder is his habitation! ”

“ Ought that to leave any void in thy heart.
FIESCO (with great emotion) . Leonora—what hast thou done? (He falls, overcome, on her neck.) I shall never more dare to meet the eyes of Genoa's citizens.
LEONORA (with lively expression) . Let us fly, Fiesco! let us with scorn reject these gaudy nothings, and pass our future days only in the retreats of love! (She presses him to her breast with rapture.) Our souls, serene as the unclouded sky, shall never more be blackened by the poisonous breath of sorrow; our lives shall flow harmoniously as the music of the murmuring brook. ”

“ KING. Carlos, thou art a novice in these arts— Forbear, I like them not—— CARLOS (rising) . And is it so? I hear your courtiers in those words, my father! All is not well, by heaven, all is not true, That a priest says, and a priest's creatures plot. I am not wicked, father; ardent blood Is all my failing;—all my crime is youth;— Wicked I am not—no, in truth, not wicked;— Though many an impulse wild assails my heart, Yet is it still untainted. KING. Ay, 'tis pure— I know it—like thy prayers—— CARLOS. Now, then, or never! ”

“ As if it had vowed hatred to all that is called nature, it swathes the body in long, heavy-plaited garments, which hide the human structure; it paralyzes the limbs in surcharging them with vain ornaments, and goes even the length of cutting the hair to replace this gift of nature by an artificial production. True dignity does not blush for nature, but only for brute nature; it always has an open and frank air; feeling gleams in its look; calm and serenity of mind is legible upon the brow in eloquent traits. False gravity, on the contrary, places its dignity in the lines of its visage ”

“ My heart has found Its lasting shrine: ere this day's sun has set Don Manuel to thy feet shall lead his bride, The partner of his days. ISABELLA. And to my breast With transport will I clasp the chosen maid That makes my first-born happy. Joy shall spring Where'er she treads, and every flower that blooms Around the path of life smile in her presence! May bliss reward the son, that for my brows Has twined the choicest wreath a mother wears. DON CAESAR. Yet give not all the fulness of thy blessing To him, thy eldest born. If love be blest, I, too, can give thee joy. ”

“ MELVIL. Thou mountest, then, satisfied Of thy own innocence, the fatal scaffold? MARY. God suffers me in mercy to atone, By undeserved death, my youth's transgressions. MELVIL (making over her the sign of the cross) . Go, then, and expiate them all by death; Sink a devoted victim on the altar, Thus shall thy blood atone the blood thou'st spilt. From female frailty were derived thy faults, Free from the weakness of mortality, The spotless spirit seeks the blest abodes. Now, then, by the authority which God Hath unto me committed, I absolve thee From all thy sins; be as thy faith thy welfare! ”

“ But the voice of our age seems by no means favorable to art, at all events to that kind of art to which my inquiry is directed. The course of events has given a direction to the genius of the time that threatens to remove it continually further from the ideal of art. For art has to leave reality, it has to raise itself boldly above necessity and neediness; for art is the daughter of freedom, and it requires its prescriptions and rules to be furnished by the necessity of spirits and not by that of matter. ”

“ Love alike and beauty o'er, Lovely and beloved no more! Maiden, an oak that soars on high, And scorns the whirlwind's breath Behold thy Poet's youth defy The blunted dart of Death! His gaze as ardent as the light That shoots athwart the heaven, His soul yet fiercer than the light In the eternal heaven, Of Him, in whom as in an ocean-surge Creation ebbs and flows—and worlds arise and merge! Through Nature steers the poet's thought to find No fear but this—one barrier to the mind? ”