The Piccolomini: A Play

Upon the whole there can be no doubt that this trilogy forms, in its original tongue, one of the most splendid specimens of tragic art the world has witnessed; and none at all, that the execution of the version from which we have quoted so largely, places Mr. Coleridge in the very first rank of poetical translators. He is, perhaps, the solitary example of a man of very great original genius submitting to all the labors, and reaping all the honors of this species of literary exertion. —Blackwood, 1823.
The two dramas,—PICCOLOMINI, or the first part of WALLENSTEIN, and the DEATH OF WALLENSTEIN, are introduced in the original manuscript by a prelude in one act, entitled WALLENSTEIN'S CAMP. This is written in rhyme, and in nine-syllable verse, in the same lilting metre (if that expression may be permitted), with the second Eclogue of Spenser's Shepherd's Calendar.
This prelude possesses a sort of broad humor, 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 idea both of its style and purport; to have 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 seems to have been merely to have prepared his reader for the tragedies by a lively picture of 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.
WALLENSTEIN, Duke of Friedland, Generalissimo of the Imperial Forces in the Thirty Years' War. OCTAVIO PICCOLOMINI, Lieutenant-General. MAX. PICCOLOMINI, his Son, Colonel of a Regiment of Cuirassiers. COUNT TERZKY, the Commander of several Regiments, and Brother-in-law of Wallenstein. ILLO, Field-Marshal, Wallenstein's Confidant. ISOLANI, General of the Croats. BUTLER, an Irishman, Commander of a Regiment of Dragoons. TIEFENBACH, | DON MARADAS, | Generals under Wallenstein. GOETZ, | KOLATTO, | NEUMANN, Captain of Cavalry, Aide-de-Camp to Terzky. VON QUESTENBERG, the War Commissioner, Imperial Envoy. BAPTISTA SENI, an Astrologer. DUCHESS OF FRIEDLAND, Wife of Wallenstein. THEKLA, her Daughter, Princess of Friedland. THE COUNTESS TERZRY, Sister of the Duchess. A CORNET. COLONELS and GENERALS (several). PAGES and ATTENDANTS belonging to Wallenstein. ATTENDANTS and HOBOISTS belonging to Terzky. MASTER OF THE CELLAR to Count Terzky. VALET DE CHAMBRE of Count Piccolomini.