BUTLER (with a haughty look).
I do not put up my fidelity
To sale, Count Terzky! Half a year ago
I would not have advised you to have made me
An overture to that, to which I now
Offer myself of my own free accord.
But that is past! and to the duke, field-marshal,
I bring myself, together with my regiment.
And mark you, 'tis my humor to believe,
The example which I give will not remain
Without an influence.
ILLO.
Who is ignorant,
That the whole army looks to Colonel Butler
As to a light that moves before them?
BUTLER.
Ay?
Then I repent me not of that fidelity
Which for the length of forty years I held,
If in my sixtieth year my good old name
Can purchase for me a revenge so full.
Start not at what I say, sir generals!
My real motives—they concern not you.
And you yourselves, I trust, could not expect
That this your game had crooked my judgment—or
That fickleness, quick blood, or such like cause,
Has driven the old man from the track of honor,
Which he so long had trodden. Come, my friends!
I'm not thereto determined with less firmness,
Because I know and have looked steadily
At that on which I have determined.
ILLO.
Say,
And speak roundly, what are we to deem you?
BUTLER.
A friend! I give you here my hand! I'm yours
With all I have. Not only men, but money
Will the duke want. Go, tell him, sirs!
I've earned and laid up somewhat in his service,
I lend it him; and is he my survivor,
It has been already long ago bequeathed to him;
He is my heir. For me, I stand alone
Here in the world; naught know I of the feeling
That binds the husband to a wife and children.
My name dies with me, my existence ends.
ILLO.
'Tis not your money that he needs—a heart
Like yours weighs tons of gold down, weighs down millions!
BUTLER.
I came a simple soldier's boy from Ireland
To Prague—and with a master, whom I buried.
From lowest stable duty I climbed up,
Such was the fate of war, to this high rank,
The plaything of a whimsical good fortune.
And Wallenstein too is a child of luck:
I love a fortune that is like my own.
ILLO.
All powerful souls have kindred with each other.
BUTLER.
This is an awful moment! to the brave,
To the determined, an auspicious moment.
The Prince of Weimar arms, upon the Maine,
To found a mighty dukedom. He of Halberstadt,
That Mansfeldt, wanted but a longer life
To have marked out with his good sword a lordship
That should reward his courage. Who of these
Equals our Friedland? There is nothing, nothing
So high, but he may set the ladder to it!
TERZKY.
That's spoken like a man!