The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition). Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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СКАЧАТЬ the same lilting metre (if that expression may be permitted) 5

       with the second Eclogue of Spenser’s Shepherd’s Calendar.

      This Prelude possesses a sort of broad humour, and is not

       deficient in character; but to have translated it into prose, or

       into any other metre than that of the original, would have

       given a false notion both of its style and purport; to have 10

       translated it into the same metre would have been incompatible with

       a faithful adherence to the sense of the German, from the

       comparative poverty of our language in rhymes; and it would have

       been unadvisable from the incongruity of those lax verses with

       the present taste of the English Public. Schiller’s intention 15

       seems to have been merely to have prepared his reader for the

       Tragedies by a lively picture of the laxity of discipline, and the

       mutinous dispositions of Wallenstein’s soldiery. It is not

       necessary as a preliminary explanation. For these reasons it

       has been thought expedient not to translate it. 20

      The admirers of Schiller, who have abstracted their conception

       of that author from the Robbers, and the Cabal and Love, plays

       in which the main interest is produced by the excitement of

       curiosity, and in which the curiosity is excited by terrible and

       extraordinary incident, will not have perused without some 25

       portion of disappointment the Dramas, which it has been my

       employment to translate. They should, however, reflect that

       these are Historical Dramas, taken from a popular German

       History; that we must therefore judge of them in some measure

       with the feelings of Germans; or by analogy, with the interest 30

       excited in us by similar Dramas in our own language. Few,

       I trust, would be rash or ignorant enough to compare Schiller

       with Shakspeare yet, merely as illustration, I would say

       that we should proceed to the perusal of Wallenstein, not

       from Lear or Othello, but from Richard the Second, or the 35

       three parts of Henry the Sixth. We scarcely expect rapidity

       in an Historical Drama; and many prolix speeches are

       pardoned from characters, whose names and actions have

       formed the most amusing tales of our early life. On the other

       hand, there exist in these plays more individual beauties, 40

       more passages the excellence of which will bear reflection,

       than in the former productions of Schiller. The description of

       the Astrological Tower, and the reflections of the Young Lover,

       which follow it, form in the original a fine poem; and my

       translation must have been wretched indeed, if it can have 45

       wholly overclouded the beauties of the Scene in the first Act of

       the first Play between Questenberg, Max, and Octavio Piccolomini.

       If we except the Scene of the setting sun in the Robbers,

       I know of no part in Schiller’s Plays which equals the whole

       of the first Scene of the fifth Act of the concluding Play. It 50

       would be unbecoming in me to be more diffuse on this subject.

       A Translator stands connected with the original Author by

       a certain law of subordination, which makes it more decorous

       to point out excellencies than defects: indeed he is not likely

       to be a fair judge of either. The pleasure or disgust from his 55

       own labour will mingle with the feelings that arise from an

       afterview of the original. Even in the first perusal of a work

       in any foreign language which we understand, we are apt to

       attribute to it more excellence than it really possesses from our

       own pleasurable sense of difficulty overcome without effect. 60

       Translation of poetry into poetry is difficult, because the

       Translator must give a brilliancy to his language without that warmth

       of original conception, from which such brilliancy would follow

       of its own accord. But the translator of a living Author is

       encumbered with additional inconveniences. If he render his 65

       original faithfully, as to the sense of each passage, he must

       necessarily destroy a considerable portion of the spirit; if he

       endeavour to give a work executed according to laws of

       compensation, he subjects himself to imputations of vanity, or

       misrepresentation. I have thought it my duty to remain 70

       bound by the sense of my original, with as few exceptions as

       the nature of the languages rendered possible.

      Title] Part Second. The Death of Wallenstein. A Tragedy. The Death of

       Wallenstein. Preface of the Translator. 1828, 1829.

      [After 72] S. T. Coleridge 1800, 1828, 1829.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

       Table of Contents

      WALLENSTEIN, Duke of Friedland, Generalissimo of the Imperial Forces

       in the Thirty Years’ War.

       DUCHESS OF FRIEDLAND, Wife of Wallenstein.

       THEKLA, her Daughter, Princess of Friedland.

       THE COUNTESS TERTSKY, Sister of the Duchess.

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