Still onward driven by fate's rude wind,
He nowhere may leave his peace behind.
FIRST YAGER. He takes the two next to him by the hand—the others do the same—and form a large semi-circle.
Then rouse ye, my comrades—to horse! to horse!
In battle the breast doth swell!
Youth boils—the life-cup foams in its force—
Up! ere time can dew dispel!
And deep be the stake, as the prize is high—
Who life would win, he must dare to die!
CHORUS.
And deep be the stake, as the prize is high—
Who life would win, he must dare to die!
[The curtain falls before the chorus has finished.
THE PICCOLOMINI,
Translated by S. T. Coleridge.
"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.