SEMICHORUS I
Saw ravage, growth, diminish, add,
Here peoples sane, there peoples mad,
In choiceless throws of good and bad;
SEMICHORUS II
Heard laughters at the ruthless dooms
Which tortured to the eternal glooms
Quick, quivering hearts in hecatombs.
CHORUS
Us Ancients, then, it ill befits
To quake when Slaughter’s spectre flits
Athwart this field of Austerlitz!
SHADE OF THE EARTH
Pain not their young compassions by such lore,
But hold you mute, and read the battle yonder:
The moment marks the day’s catastrophe.
SCENE IV
THE SAME. THE RUSSIAN POSITION
[It is about noon, and the vital spectacle is now near the village
of Tilnitz. The fog has dispersed, and the sun shines clearly,
though without warmth, the ice on the pools gleaming under its
radiance.
GENERAL BUXHÖVDEN and his aides-de-camp have reined up, and remain
at pause on a hillock. The General watches through a glass his
battalions, which are still disputing the village. Suddenly
approach down the track from the upland of Pratzen large companies
of Russian infantry helter-skelter. COUNT LANGERON is beheld to
be retreating with them; and soon, pale and agitated, he hastens
up to GENERAL BUXHÖVDEN, whose face is flushed.]
LANGERON
While they are upon us you stay idle here!
Prschebiszewsky’s column is distraught and rent,
And more than half my own made captive! Yea,
Kreznowitz carried, and Sokolnitz hemmed:
The enemy’s whole strength will stound you soon!
BUXHÖVDEN
You seem to see the enemy everywhere.
LANGERON
You cannot see them, be they here or no!
BUXHÖVDEN
I only wait Prschebiszewsky’s nearing corps
To join Dokhtórof’s to them. Here they come.
[SOULT, supported by BERNADOTTE and OUDINOT, having cleared and
secured the Pratzen height, his battalions are perceived descending
from it on this side, behind DOKHTÓROF’S division, so placing the
latter between themselves and the pools.]