Notes
© 2017 Flora Kimmich, CC BY 4.0 http://dx.doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0101.06
In references, the three plays are cited as Camp, Picc., and Death, respectively.
Wallenstein’s Camp
1. Saxon troops occupied Bohemia from November 1631 to summer 1632.
2. Presented as a Czech spelling of “Terzky.”
3. Wallenstein’s wife and their daughter.
4. The German is alte Perücke to designate Questenberg, imperial chamberlain and counselor of war.
5. Terzky’s wife and Wallenstein’s wife were sisters.
6. Small pistols, called after the Italian word for a little hawk once used in falconry.
7. Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria, Wallenstein’s rival and most formidable enemy.
8. Schiller’s term is Jäger. These figures appear in the list of characters as “Two mounted Holk Jaeger.” Jäger were members of an elite corps, usually deployed on foot but also mounted, recruited from the huntsmen (Jäger) and woodsmen (rangers) of the great contemporary estates. Holk’s Jäger, mounted squads gathered by Heinrich Holk, a Danish-German mercenary, have entered the English language as “Holk’s Horse.”
9. In summer 1633 Holk’s Horse wrecked Saxony and laid Leipzig under tribute. The statement is that the silver braid the Horsemen display was taken as booty.
10. An in-joke. In 1785, in refuge from a vengeful Duke of Württemberg, Schiller had frequented a tavern kept by mother and daughter at Blasewitz near Dresden.
11. Name for a gold coin.
12. Protestant general whom Wallenstein defeated at Dessau in 1626 and pursued into Hungary.
13. Hanseatic city on the Baltic, allied with Sweden, besieged by Wallenstein in 1628.
14. The governor of Spanish Milan; he led troops into southern Germany in 1633.
15. In effect, war feeds on war as soldiers reproduce the next generation of soldiers, which the state feeds and shelters.
16. In Saxony, where Holk’s squads raged.
17. The reference is to booty tucked into the clothing of a raiding soldier.
18. Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, champion of the Protestant forces.
19. The Catholic League, led by the Duke of Bavaria. Its army fought beside the imperial army. The sack of Magdeburg in May 1631 was to become notorious in the annals of the Thirty Years’ War.
20. Commander of the army of the Catholic League.
21. Tilly’s defeat by Gustavus Adolphus at Breitenfeld near Leipzig, September 1631.
22. In November 1631 the Saxons, allied with the Swedes, attacked Bohemia and took Prague.
23. Wallenstein’s campaign to raise an army in 1632, at the beginning of his second command.
24. First instance of contemporary rumor about Wallenstein’s ambitions.
25. Seni, Wallenstein’s Italian astrologer, the “little gray man” at line 365.
26. Site, near Leipzig, of the battle in which Gustavus Adolphus was mortally wounded, November 1632.
27. Buttler will enter in the first scene of Piccolomini. The Sergeant makes the first mention of his rise from simple soldier.
28. The reference is to Wallenstein’s extraordinary rank and privilege under the Empire, which the Sergeant recounts at length at line 829.
29. The tale of Wallenstein’s jailing at Altdorf, near Nuremberg, is apocryphal, though his rowdiness, and that of other well-born students at the time, is historical.
30. Wandering musicians from the mines (Bergknappen) were traditional.
31. Capuchin monks, so-called for the hoods on their habits, belonged to the Order of St. Francis and went out to preach among the poor, giving important support to the Counter-Reformation. For this famous scene Schiller used the sermons of the Viennese Barefoot prior Abraham a Santa Clara (1644–1709).
32. The Swedish chancellor. He is mentioned again, Picc., Act II, scene 5, at line 715, and is a major presence, though he never appears.
33. Woman (Luke 15,8); Saul (1 Samuel 9–10); Joseph (Genesis 42–45).
34. St. John the Baptist; see also Luke 16, 22.
35. King David’s long-haired son. 2 Samuel 14, 26; 18, 9–15.
36. “Do not keep my flock.” This would seem to be a negation of the command, “Feed my sheep” (John 21, 15–17), though it has nothing of the simplicity of the Vulgate “Pasce agnos meos.” By implication, Wallenstein has failed the test of loyalty to which Jesus put his apostles and is denied the approbation they met with.
37. Cited by Abraham as Hebrew kings who were constantly at war.
38. See King Saul’s visit to the Witch of Endor, 1 Samuel 28, 6–19.
39. Book of Judith.
40. Matthew 26, 69–75.
41. Luke 13, 31–32.
42. 2 Kings 24–25; Daniel 5.
43. Sons of Hett, among the Gentiles of the Land of Canaan. These mentions, and Belshazzar, above, are liberties of translation.
44. A traditional belief, represented in Aesop and in emblems.
45. An Austrian infantry regiment that endured to the end of the Habsburg monarchy.
46. The Walloons are a French-speaking people of the southernmost Low Countries, bordering France. In these plays they are particularly well represented in the Pappenheim regiment of cuirassiers. Max Piccolomini’s succeeding to this regiment after the death of Pappenheim is Schiller’s invention.
47. Ferdinand (1609–1641), younger brother of the Spanish king Philip IV. He was archbishop of Toledo and cardinal. The march in question was to be from Spanish-ruled Milan to the Spanish Netherlands.
48. In 1625, as Wallenstein raised his first army.
49. Border stronghold to which Wallenstein withdrew from Pilsen. Death, Acts IV and V are set there.
50. Count Isolani—with his debts—enters at Picc., Act I, scene 1, line 1.
51. A prince of the Holy Roman Empire, in rank immediate to the Kaiser.
52. Brandeis in Bohemia, where Wallenstein waited upon the Kaiser in December 1627 and was allowed to remain covered.
53. In January 1628 Wallenstein received the duchy of Mecklenburg, not outright, but as surety for his assuming costs of war.
54. As Holy Roman Emperor.
55. The figure of Justitia holds a raised sword in her right hand, a balance in her left.
56. The German is Seifensieder: soap boilers. In effect, those who render the fat of butchered animals to make soap, candles, polishing wax, etc.
The Piccolomini
Act One
57. City on the Danube in southern Germany, then occupied by Swedish forces.
58. Wallenstein has summoned all his commanders to his headquarters at Pilsen as his worsening relations with the court in Vienna approach a crisis.
59. The battle of the Dessau bridge, where Mansfeld was defeated, 1626.
60. See Camp at line 57. Camp and Piccolomini take place simultaneously.
61. First indication of collusion within the army.
62. See the Sergeant’s mention of Buttler, Camp, scene 7, at line 432.
63. First mentioned at Camp, scene 2, line 71.
64. Octavio takes no account of Buttler’s promotion to major general, still unconfirmed by Vienna.
65. Illo is remembering negotiations for the restoration of Wallenstein’s command, April 1632.
66. By Gustavus Adolphus in April 1632. Tilly had assumed command of the imperial army after Wallenstein’s dismissal at Regensburg in 1630.
67. A high officer of the Viennese court.
68. In summer 1632 Wallenstein’s restored army had expelled the Saxons, who were allied with Sweden, from Bohemia. See Camp, scene 1, line 32.
69. The tag goes back to Livy: “Bellum … se ipse alet,” Ab urbe condita, 34, 9.
70. Slavata and Martinitz were Bohemian noblemen acting for Vienna and detested by their people, who hurled them from a window of the Hradschin, 1618. This was the beginning of the Bohemian rebellion that touched off the Thirty Years’ War.
71. By “child” Illo means Ferdinand, elected King of Hungary, the Kaiser’s eldest surviving son, with whom, he suspects, Vienna intends to replace Wallenstein. The rhetorical figure is stichomythia (speech line-for-line), in which a one-line assertion is promptly met by a one-line rebuttal, usually by repeating a word (as “child … child” at the end of this dispute). The device is ubiquitous in seventeenth-century German drama. Schiller uses it often in Wallenstein, for rhetorical effect and period color.
72. Emblems of Austria, Sweden, and France, respectively.
73. The Adige, now in northern Italy, prized for its vineyards.
74. The Second Horseman makes the same observation, Camp, scene 11, at line 695.
75. Not historical.
76. Anticipation of Death, Act II, scene 6.
77. Octavio, therefore, is acting not only out of personal conviction but also on orders from Vienna.
78. Enumeration of Vienna’s weaknesses: the Swedish army was standing in southern Germany and had taken Regensburg; since 1626 Upper Austria had been troubled by repeated peasant revolts; the estates had grown restless under the demands of absolutist Vienna.
79. The crime in question is high treason.
80. But see Max’s misgivings about his father, Act V, scenes 1 and 3, especially at line 2357.
81. Wallenstein retells this event, Death, Act II, scene 3, at line 869.
82. After the soldiers in Camp, the officers in the early scenes of Piccolomini, and Questenberg himself, Max delivers the fourth account of Wallenstein’s extraordinary powers before the man himself appears, Act II, scene 2.
83. This, Octavio’s reply, captures the philosophical difference between father and son Piccolomini.
84. Max delivers here a statement of the case for Wallenstein.
Act Two
85. Il Dottore, a stock figure of Italian commedia dell’arte. This is a surviving trace of Schiller’s early intention to make of Seni a comic figure.
86. The Kaiser’s eldest surviving son, also called Ferdinand, was the elected King of Hungary.
87. Eggenberg and Lichtenstein were two of the Kaiser’s closest advisors.
88. The Kaiser’s influential Jesuit confessor.
89. At the congress at Regensburg, 1630, the prince-electors had united against Wallenstein and he was relieved of his command.
90. Thekla’s parents have just taken her from the convent where she was educated. She is now marriageable. Their next duty is to establish her in an alliance becoming to her rank and station.
91. Wallenstein raised his first army in 1625. He besieged Stralsund, in Pomerania, in 1628.
92. Thekla is now perhaps seventeen years old.
93. Max describes his experience of this entrance, Act III, scene 4, at line 1350.
94. First manifestation of the extraordinary rapport between the Countess and her brother-in-law.
95. This is the “child” of Illo’s dispute with Questenberg, Act I, scene 2, line 177.
96. Absences first mentioned at Act I, scene 1, line 18.
97. Led by the Cardinal-Infante, first mentioned in Camp, scene 11, at line 685.
98. Bohemian emigrant and Swedish general.
99. This is Oxenstirn, who was present at a war council convened at Halberstadt to consider relations between Saxony and Sweden, January-February 1634.
100. For Wallenstein, a point of honor. The motif of Swedish territorial ambitions returns, Death, Act I, scene 5.
101. General in the Saxon army.
102. Wallenstein is asking about the commanders, whom Illo has been greeting upon their arrival.
103. See Isolani’s acknowledgment, Act I, scene 1, at line 52. Faro is Isolani’s favored card game.
104. The Sergeant also makes this point, Camp, scene 11, at line 742.
105. The favorable planet. Mars is the unfavorable planet. See Death, Act I, scene 1.
106. Saturn, the leaden god, associated with the element earth.
107. Reminiscent of Jacob’s ladder, Genesis 25, 12.
108. Jove, the serene and jovial god, was Wallenstein’s chosen deity.
109. The planetary houses are the twelve houses of the zodiac. The corners are the point of rising, the zenith, the point of setting, and the nadir of the lowest heaven (immum caelum) under the earth.
110. The many names that Schiller introduces from his sources give these plays a scope and fullness that borders on the cinematic.
111. A fine instance of dramatic irony.
112. Questenberg’s account begins with the restoration of Wallenstein’s command, April 1632.
113. The unvanquished king is Gustavus Adolphus. The others all stand on the Swedish side.
114. Adhering closely to historical events, Schiller has Questenberg describe the encounter between Wallenstein and Gustavus Adolphus at Nuremberg, late summer 1632. Gustavus occupied the town, Wallenstein a fortified position on the outskirts.
115. A passage of high rhetoric full of metonymy (calling one thing by the name of another) that pits Wallenstein against Gustavus. “They” are the Swedes; “he” is Wallenstein.
116. Gustavus Adolphus was mortally wounded at Lützen, outside Leipzig, November 1632.
117. The hero is Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. A well-turned compliment to the House of Weimar, where the Wallenstein trilogy was first performed, in the court theater, over which Goethe presided, April 1799.
118. The old enemy is “the Bavarian:” Duke Maximilian. Regensburg fell in November 1633.
119. Thurn was with the Swedish army, Arnheim with the Saxon.
120. The belligerents in Silesia had called a truce for negotiations, summer 1633.
121. Victory at Steinau on the Oder, October 1633.
122. One of the demands the Kaiser made of Wallenstein at Pilsen was that his army not oppress the countryside.
123. The German for a soldier’s wage is Sold, the French is solde, from the Italian soldo, sou. A soldato (soldier) is one who receives the sou.
124. The period 1625–1630, during Wallenstein’s first command. In the History of the Thirty Years’ War, Schiller writes explicitly of the plundering and pillaging by which Wallenstein’s army supported itself. The anecdote related by the First Horseman is on the same subject, Camp, scene 11, at line 733.
125. Here, in 1630, the prince-electors of Germany prevailed upon the Kaiser to remove Wallenstein, whose army had laid waste their lands.
126. A Dutch officer under Wallenstein’s command.
127. Last mentioned at scene 5, line 709.
128. The badge of an imperial chamberlain was a golden key.
Act Three
129. This imaginary address to Wallenstein functions as a soliloquy: the Countess sets out her thoughts and feelings for the audience.
130. The German is “Base Terzky,” aunt or cousin. It signifies that Max is on intimate and respectful terms with the Countess.
131. Nepomuk lies thirty kilometers southeast of Pilsen.
132. Max addresses Thekla at this point as mein Fräulein. Fräulein at the time was a title reserved to the elevated social classes, as was “lady” at one time in the English-speaking world. Max’s form of address expresses his esteem for Thekla and acknowledges her superior rank.
133. The motif of the hardships of the Duchess’s marriage returns, Death, Act III, scene 3.
134. Thekla appears in Act II, scene 3 decked out in jewels her father has given her. She observes, “he … adorned me,” line 681–82.
135. An irony. It echoes Wallenstein at the very end of scene 3, just before Max enters in scene 4, and anticipates major change in Max’s fortunes (Death, Act III, scene 4).
136. Here begins a subtle contrasting of Max and Thekla that runs throughout the act.
137. A fabulous beast, half eagle, half lion.
138. The five planets—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn—and sun and moon.
139. The olive branch is peace, the laurel victory.
140. All in northeast Bohemia, where Wallenstein’s duchy lay.
141. Max’s idyll is little to Wallenstein’s taste; see Death, Act I, scene 7, at line 504.
142. Max and Thekla address one another as Sie when they are in the presence of others, as du when they are tête-à-tête.
143. The first manifestation of Thekla’s shrewdness and steeliness.
144. The Piccolomini were in fact Sienese.
145. Thekla’s inquiry about the Countess’s state of mind borders on the impertinent. She is retaliating for the Countess’s accusation of duplicity. In effect, “Have I touched a nerve, Aunt?” In the next line she relents.
146. Just as Max and his father have different conceptions of ethos, Thekla and the Countess have different conceptions of love and duty.
147. Wallenstein’s silence on this point conduces to the catastrophe of Max and Thekla.
Act Four
148. Count Palatine Frederick IV (1574–1610) was a notorious drinker whose drunken evenings at his court in the Heidelberg Castle remained famous long after his death.
149. The text is faithful to the original document, signed 12 January 1634.
150. Buttler here alludes at length to an event that emerges clearly in his conversation with Octavio, Death, Act II, scene 6.
151. The account is not historical. Walter Butler was an Old Irish aristocrat and married to a German noblewoman.
152. Buttler’s remarks here all go to acquisition of territory. Sweden had gained important possessions in Pomerania; Bernhard of Weimar, a younger son, had gained a fief in Franconia, offered by his Swedish allies; Mansfeld had ambitions in Alsace; Christian von Halberstadt, a younger son of the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, had hopes of reward from his Protestant allies. By means of this catalogue Buttler can condone any territorial ambitions Wallenstein may be entertaining without having to be explicit. The passage also serves to create a context for Wallenstein’s imputed ambitions: many German princes—and not only younger sons—hoped to improve themselves in a war that, among much else, amounted to a land grab of continental dimensions. See “handing prince’s bonnets out,” scene 1, line 1713.
153. In 1619 Frederick V, Count Palatine, was crowned king of Bohemia, then in rebellion. He was defeated by the Habsburgs at the battle of White Mountain, 1620.
154. Here begins an ekphrasis, a sustained literary description and interpretation of an object, for example, Aeneas’s observation of the gates of the temple being built at Carthage, Aeneid I. The device is epic rather than dramatic; Schiller spoke of “epic breadth.” Goethe observed that the discontent and unrest cited here are relevant to any hopes Wallenstein may have of gaining the Bohemian crown.
155. The Hussite War followed the execution of Johann Huss as a heretic (1415). One of the precepts of the Hussites was that communion consists of both bread and wine, called communion sub utraque specie (both ways). The moderate adherents of the Hussite movement were called Utraquists; the Taborites, largely peasants, were more radical.
156. Rudolf II (1552–1612), Holy Roman Emperor.
157. Rudolf’s successor, Kaiser Ferdinand II, born at Graz.
158. Taborite army leaders.
159. First mentioned by Illo, Act I, scene 2, at line 126.
160. Diego de Quiroga, Capuchin monk and confessor to the Queen of Hungary, said to have been sent to Pilsen to keep an eye on Wallenstein.
161. Sweden took Pomerania, 1630–1631, and refused to grant a winter truce.
162. Here Octavio begins to move against Wallenstein.
163. Don Giovanni’s funereal guest, who comes from the tomb to a dinner.
Act Five
164. Wallenstein, at the very outset of Death, tells Seni that day is breaking.
165. See Max on Wallenstein’s wish for peace, Act I, scene 4, at line 489.
166. Johann Ulrich, Baron Schaffgotsch (1595–1635), of Bohemian-Silesian nobility.
167. The philosophical difference between father and son Piccolomini. It first emerges Act I, scene 4, at line 406, in Questenberg’s presence.
168. The Kaiser’s eldest surviving son, later Ferdinand III. See Wallenstein’s misgivings, Act II, scene 5, at line 700.
169. First mentioned Act II, scene 5, line 710.
170. See Act II, scene 5, at line 748.
171. Gallas’s absence—and Altringer’s whereabouts—has been a subject since Act I, scene 1, line 18.
The Death of Wallenstein
Act One
172. Opposed beams pass between stars opposite one another in the circle of the zodiac; quadratic beams pass between those that are two stars removed from one another on the perimeter of the circle. Both these are unfavorable. Mars between Jupiter and Venus would seem to form an equilateral triangle, a favorable aspect.
173. Doing evil: an astrological term.
174. In a falling house.
175. The Death of Wallenstein, famously, has a fallende Handlung, a descending action. The play opens at its turning point and the catastrophe unfolds throughout its five acts.
176. See the Cornet’s report, Picc., Act V, scene 2, at line 2317.
177. Kinsky’s name appears here among the names of men who opposed the Kaiser, an association more in keeping with the historical Kinsky, who had contact with the Bohemian emigration.
178. Wallenstein has arranged to meet at Pilsen not only with his commanders but also with the Swedes.
179. The oath signed at the banquet, Picc., Act IV, scene 6.
180. The pro memoria planned in Camp, scene 11, at line 999.
181. The first of two great soliloquies by Wallenstein.
182. Wrangel’s compliments have a ring of tautology and truism; Wallenstein seems not to notice.
183. Hostililties in Silesia ended in negotiations. See Picc., Act II, scene 7, line 969.
184. Attila the Hun (d. 453), not necessarily a flattering comparison; Pyrrhus, King of Epirus (d. 272 BCE), known for his costly victories.
185. In 1625, when Wallenstein raised his first army.
186. Wallenstein’s retelling of the story of his patchwork army. See the Sergeant’s version, Camp, scene 11, at line 764.
187. See the Wine Steward’s account of Bohemia, Picc., Act IV, scene 5, at line 1860.
188. In the play, the commander of the nearby Swedish force.
189. The Kingdom of Heaven or of the church. This is the confessional dimension of a war fought over much else as well.
190. The Moldau runs between the proposed holdings.
191. Charles, the last of the elder branch of the Bourbon line. He deserted the service of Francis I to ally himself with Kaiser Karl V, whom he aided against France in the Italian Wars; the capture of Francis at Pavia (1525) is ascribed to his treachery.
192. He was brother to Ferdinand I, who was grandfather of Ferdinand II.
193. Frederick V, Count Palatine, apparently, though the reference is obscure and not historical.
194. Schiller knew Shakespeare from his school days. After Wallenstein, while he was at work on Maria Stuart, he undertook a long-contemplated adaptation of Macbeth for the Weimar stage. Many passages in the trilogy show that he had read Julius Caesar with care, and there are reminiscences of other plays.
195. Max is coming directly from his conversation with his father, Picc., Act V, scene 3.
196. The Countess thinks Max comes to ask for Thekla’s hand.
197. See Wallenstein’s account of his dismissal at Regensburg in 1630: Picc., Act II, scene 7, at line 1022.
198. The restoration of Wallenstein’s command in 1632, when the war was going badly for the Kaiser.
199. The House of Habsburg.
200. In 1627, during Wallenstein’s first command. The Countess, for her purposes, is frank about the army’s lawlessness and plundering. See Wallenstein’s account, Picc., Act II, scene 7, at line 1022.
201. The Countess’s counter-argument to Wallenstein’s “It’s not yet time,” Picc., Act II, scene 6, line 839.
202. Wrangel made three demands of Wallenstein. To comply Wallenstein would have to send messengers to Prague and to Eger. The destination of a third is less easy to conclude.
203. “He” is the Kaiser.
204. The reference is to the dragon’s teeth from which armed men sprang in the myth of Jason and Medea.
Act Two
205. The subject is Altringer’s whereabouts. See Octavio’s surprise, Picc., Act V, scene 2, at line 2334.
206. Wrangel’s first demand was disarmament of the Spanish regiments that answered to the Kaiser, Act I, scene 5, at line 332.
207. The speech fairly vibrates with dramatic irony.
208. The German is Alter and expresses affection and esteem. Terzky and Illo speak of Octavio as der Alte, the Old Man: they are respectful and wary.
209. Wallenstein’s response to Max makes an interesting contrast with Octavio’s, Picc., Act I, scene 4, at line 406, and Act V, scene 1, at line 2206.
210. Max’s triad is capacity, nobility, and freedom. The negation of these qualities is incapacity.
211. The ancient salamander was said to live in fire. Paracelsus assigned the salamander fire as its element; hence the connotation of purity. Earth, another element, is less pure and associated with evil and with treasure, also a source of evil.
212. Caesar, returning from Gaul, led his legions across the Rubicon, a small river outside Rome and the boundary beyond which no army was permitted to pass, and took Rome. He was responding to his enemies’ attempt to have him removed from his command. Caesar’s luck was legendary, as was Wallenstein’s. If one extends Wallenstein’s line of comparison to the way that Caesar died, an irony emerges.
213. Wallenstein’s retelling of the incident before Lützen. Octavio’s account is at Picc., Act I, scene 3, line 313.
214. Johan Banér, Swedish general.
215. Wallenstein’s response to the capture of Sesina was, “An evil accident!” Act I, scene 3, line 86 and line 92.
216. The microcosm is the human being, the little world, which corresponds to the macrocosm, the world at large.
217. Rhyme makes these assertions even more positive and sententious.
218. The Tiefenbachers have been admired since Camp, end of scene 10.
219. Isolani believes Octavio has convened a number of commanders.
220. Isolani’s faro bank, first mentioned at Picc., Act I, scene 1.
221. Picc., Act IV, scene 6, at line 1948. This is the interview Octavio has been contemplating since he told Questenberg he knows a way to righten Buttler’s wrongheadedness, Picc., Act I, scene 3, at line 246. See also Buttler’s impenetrable allusions in conversation with Terzky and Illo, Picc., Act IV, scene 4, at line 1770.
222. Buttler tells Illo that Gallas tried to keep him at Frauenberg, Picc., Act I, scene 1, line 36.
223. Octavio’s knowing how to righten Buttler’s wrongheadedness (Picc., Act I, scene 3, line 246) implies that his possession of the letter is not by chance.
224. That confirmation was being withheld by Vienna. See Picc., Act I, scene 1, line 46.
225. The expression has two valences: it is both rhetorical, in the sense, “A pox upon him!” and literal, as Octavio may or may not have understood.
226. Buttler’s rapid exit precludes any further development of the conversation.
Act Three
227. The central act of a five-act drama and, here, the hinge: the fortunes of the House of Wallenstein begin to fail.
228. Max and Thekla saw each other last on the day of their arrival in Pilsen. The first two acts of Death take place on the following day. The third act takes place on the third day.
229. That is, word that the troops in Prague have pledged themselves to Wallenstein.
230. Wallenstein’s betrayal of Buttler, like the episode before battle at Lützen, is related first in Octavio’s telling, now in Wallenstein’s. See Act II, scene 6, at line 1101.
231. Octavio has seen Isolani more clearly (Act II, scene 5). But see Wallenstein’s final tribute to Isolani, below, scene 7, at line 1570.
232. Terzky reproaches the same incapacity in Wallenstein, à propos of Octavio, at the end of scene 8, below.
233. Wallenstein, on seeing Thekla again, speaks of a “kingly crown” (Picc., Act II, scene 3, line 655). Max, on entering at that point, sees splendor that “admits approach by kings alone” (Picc., Act III, scene 4, line 1367). Both passages prepare the way for this major new development. It is Wallenstein’s prerogative, as pater familias, to marry his daughter as he sees fit.
234. The Countess has cautioned Thekla in these terms. Picc., Act III, scene 8, at line 1597.
235. Franz Albrecht, Prince of Sachsen-Lauenburg (1598–1642), an officer in the Saxon army.
236. See Octavio’s instruction to Isolani, Act II, scene 6, at line 1002.
237. The admired Tiefenbachers again. Octavio took a detachment of Tiefenbachers and left the rest for Max’s protection (Act II, scene 7, at line 1228). They tell Illo they take orders only from Octavio, below, scene 8, at line 1597.
238. Just as Wallenstein, the Countess tells him, would not see the obvious when he sent Max to fetch Thekla, he would not see in Octavio what both Terzky and Illo have long seen.
239. All in Bohemia or Moravia.
240. Frederick V, Count Palatine, the Winter King, put under ban and stripped of his territories, wandered Europe in search of a protector.
241. This is Wallenstein’s second great soliloquy. Just short of the center of the play, he looks back on his past imperial service and forward toward taking action.
242. This is Max’s regiment.
243. At Nuremberg. Altenberg lay within Wallenstein’s fortified camp outside the city.
244. In Moravia, east of Bohemia.
245. Part of the fortification of Wallenstein’s position at Nuremberg.
246. The Canteen Keeper remembers Mansfeld’s flight: Camp, scene 5, at line 138.
247. Ferdinand, the Kaiser’s son: the “child” of Illo’s dispute with Questenberg, “the Kaiser’s precious little son” of Wallenstein’s first conference with Terzky, Picc., Act II, scene 5, at line 700.
248. The Sergeant cites this quality in Wallenstein, Camp., scene 11, at line 713.
249. The hero who could solve the knot on the war chariot of King Gordios of Phrygia was promised mastery of Asia. Alexander the Great used his sword to cut the knot through.
250. The statement is both false and true.
251. The Duchess, unusually, addresses her husband by his given name and as du.
252. The name of Wallenstein’s chief steward.
253. Max addresses Thekla as du in the presence of others.
254. Wallenstein begins the first of four attempts to keep Max.
255. A mythical reptile whose gaze and breath were poisonous.
256. Octavio makes the same observation, Picc., Act V, scene 1, at line 2211.
257. The image of Laocoön was current and familiar at the time.
258. Wallenstein’s second attempt.
259. At the time of the battle of White Mountain, November 1620.
260. The Order of the Golden Fleece, an award in the gift of the House of Habsburg.
261. Wallenstein’s third attempt.
262. The planet, which stands for Wallenstein, seems to be Saturn.
263. Chain shot: two balls chained together and particularly lethal.
264. Wallenstein’s final attempt.
265. Promise made to Octavio, Act II, scene 7, at line 1234.
266. Implied repeatedly in their early-morning conversation, Picc., Act V, scene 1; see, for example, at line 2081, line 2247, and line 2309. See also Death, Act II, scene 7, at line 1222.
267. John Gordon, the commandant at Eger, was a Scot. Schiller seems to have been a little vague about the difference between the Scots and the Irish.
268. Schiller compresses the march from Pilsen to Eger to one long day.
269. See the cover illustration.
Act Four
270. The figure of Buttler presides over the action henceforth.
271. Gordon, like Isolani, Questenburg, Max, and the Duchess, is characterized instantly by the way he speaks.
272. The Sergeant describes Wallenstein’s parity with the Kaiser in other terms, Camp, scene 11, at line 829.
273. But see Buttler’s last conversation with Octavio, Act II, scene 6, at line 1140.
274. See, for comparison, Isolani’s moment of conversion, Act II, scene 5, at line 976.
275. Pages were usually young nobles beginning a career at the court of a prince.
276. Wallenstein’s history recedes into earlier and earlier beginnings as the drama advances toward its close.
277. Dictator as Caesar was dictator: a commander with unlimited powers of command.
278. The conversation with the Mayor puts Wallenstein’s social elegance and affability on display, which Gordon describes at line 2385, and, like the wine cup (Picc., Act IV, scene 5), is an occasion for representing Bohemia. There is also indication—here and elsewhere—of his contempt of others’ interests.
279. That is to say, a free city and immediate to the Kaiser.
280. Wallenstein cites his indifference to confession as he threatens to resign, Picc., Act II, scene 7, at line 1126.
281. The two branches of the House of Habsburg, on the Spanish and the Austrian throne.
282. The Ottoman Turks, who stood at the gates of Vienna as late as 1683, were still greatly feared.
283. They were moving northwestward; to the left lay Germany.
284. Towns in the Upper Palatinate, in Germany, approximately forty kilometers southwest of Eger.
285. In the Erzgebirge, about fifty kilometers northeast of Eger.
286. The commander of the nearby Swedish force.
287. A town in the Upper Palatinate, about twenty kilometers south of Eger
288. Town in Bohemia, about twenty-five kilometers southeast of Eger.
289. These are Terzky’s regiments.
290. Like Buttler’s avowal at line 2416, subject to doubt.
291. Two senses of “judgment” are in play here. For Gordon, judgment comes at the conclusion of a trial or hearing. For Buttler, the Kaiser’s ban is judgment; execution of that ban and execution of the outlaw are one and the same act. But even Buttler conflates murder and execution in this passage and in line 2772.
292. At Neustadt; see at line 2576.
293. The remark reflects not only on Max but also on Buttler.
294. By “Austria” is meant the House of Austria. Illo’s boast is treasonous.
295. Where the banquet is to be held that evening.
296. Archimedes, at work in Syracuse, was surprised by Roman soldiers and slain when he would not leave off studying a geometric figure.
297. At Neustadt.
298. Buttler’s third citing of a word of honor. See at line 2600.
299. Thekla returns to this line at the end of the interview (line 2970), closing the circle.
300. Or about thirty English miles.
301. Thekla, too, is going on a pilgrimage.
302. Thekla speaks plainly enough.
303. The Rosenbergs were an extinct line of Bohemian nobility. The office of master of the horse carried high responsibility and its incumbent was often a nobleman.
304. “Sleep” has two values.
Act Five
305. Act Five, like Act Two, opens on a commander giving orders to his highest lieutenant, but the quality of the two men present and of the action being prepared has changed.
306. The municipal council of the town of Eger.
307. Deveroux and Macdonald were both Irishmen, apparently, and here both are captains in Buttler’s regiment of dragoons. They are figures of fun—of a grisly humor—in a tragedy poor in comic roles.
308. An Irishman found in Schiller’s sources.
309. A Scot, serving under Gordon, who had an active part in the assassination. He is first mentioned at the end of Buttler’s conspiratorial conversation with Illo and Terzky, Picc., Act IV, scene 4, line 1820.
310. First mentioned by the Sergeant, Camp, scene 6, at line 348.
311. Victory of the Swedish force at Neustadt.
312. Throughout the scenes that follow the portents of disaster thicken, set in counterpoint to repeated reference to the castle, where Illo’s banquet is in progress.
313. A new dimension of Wallenstein emerges so late in his drama.
314. As his regent during his absence at war.
315. An imperial war against Venice, 1615–1618, in which Wallenstein took part at his own expense. The beginning of his good relations with the House of Habsburg.
316. Gordon has recounted this experience (Act IV, scene 2, at line 2462). Now comes Wallenstein’s retelling.
317. Gordon’s modest figure irritates Wallenstein into boasting.
318. In Greek mythology a monster, son of Tartaros and Gaia and associated with fierce weather. An association with human sacrifice is not easily established.
319. In the event, “Swedish” trumpets do exactly that.
320. The subject again is time, now not a question of delay, as it was earlier in the trilogy, but of haste. The motif returns in Octavio’s reproach to Buttler, scene 11, at line 3656. See also the first soliloquy, where Wallenstein reflects on the gap that falls between the contemplation and the execution of a deed (Act I, scene 4, at line 133).
321. The signal Buttler spoke of in the first line of this scene.
322. The Order of the Golden Fleece, awarded Wallenstein in 1628 by the Habsburgs.
323. Wallenstein’s chancellery was put under seal that very night.
324. Octavio, like Elisabeth in Maria Stuart, has “preserved deniability.”
325. Buttler’s riposte to Octavio’s claim, line 3645.