The making of these more or less caustic epigrams amused them. Sometimes one would suggest the topic and the other write the distich; again, one would do the hexameter, the other the pentameter. They agreed that neither should ever claim separate property in the Xenia, as they were called. The number grew apace, until it reached nearly a thousand. About half the number on hand were published in 1797 in Schiller's Musenalmanach and had the effect of setting all Germany agog with curiosity, rage or solemn glee. Some of those hit replied in kind or in vicious attacks, and for a little while there was great excitement. But having discharged their broadside Goethe and Schiller did not further pursue the ignoble warfare. They wisely came to the conclusion that the best way to elevate the public taste was not to assail the bad in mordant personal epigrams, but to exemplify the good in creative work.
After his nine years of fruitful wandering in other fields Schiller returned at last, in 1796, to dramatic poetry. Once more it came in his way to write for the stage, since Goethe was now director of the Weimar theatre. After some hesitation between Wallenstein and The Knights of Malta, both of which had long haunted his thoughts, he decided in favor of the former. It occupied him for three years and finally left his hands as a long affair in three parts. Yet it is not a trilogy in the proper sense, but a play in ten acts, preceded by a dramatic prelude. At first Schiller found the material refractory. The actual Wallenstein had never exhibited truly heroic qualities of any kind, and his history involved only the cold passions of ambition, envy, and vindictiveness. Whether he was really guilty of treason was a moot question which admitted of no partisan treatment. But Schiller's genius triumphed splendidly over the difficulties inherent in the subject. In the Camp we get a picturesque view of the motley soldatesca which was the basis of Wallenstein's power and prestige. In The Piccolomini we see the nature of the dangerous game he is playing, and in Wallenstein's Death the unheroic hero becomes very impressive in his final discomfiture and his pitiable taking-off. The love-tragedy of Max and Thekla casts a mellow light of romance over the otherwise austere political action.
[Illustration: 1. THE MILITARY ACADEMY IN STUTTGART WHERE SCHILLER WAS
EDUCATED]
[Illustration: 2. THE THEATRE IN MANNHEIM IN 1782 WHERE SCHILLER'S
"THE ROBBERS," "FIESCO," AND "LOVE AND INTRIGUE" WERE FIRST PLAYED]
During the years 1795-1800 Schiller wrote a large number of short poems in which he gave expression to his matured philosophy of life. His best ballads also belong to this period. Pure song he did not often attempt, his philosophic bent predisposing him to what the Germans call the lyric of thought. Perhaps his invalidism had something to do with it; at any rate the total number of his singable lyrics, such as The Maiden's Lament, is but small. As a poet of reflection he is at his best in The Ideal and Life, The Walk, The Eleusinian Festival, and the more popular Song of the Bell. The first-named of these four, at first called The Realm of Shades, is a masterpiece of high thinking, charged with warm emotion and bodied forth in gorgeous imagery. Its doctrine is that only by taking refuge in the realm of the Ideal can we escape from the tyranny of the flesh, the bondage of Nature's law, the misery of struggle and defeat. Yet it is not a doctrine of quietism that is here preached, as if inner peace were the supreme thing in life, but rather one of hopeful endeavor. The Walk, one of the finest elegies in the German language, is a pensive retrospect of the origins of civilization, loving contemplation of Nature giving rise to reflections on man and his estate. The Song of the Bell, probably the best known of all Schiller's poems, gives expression to his feeling for the dignity of labor and for the poetry of man's social life. Perhaps we may say that the heart of his message is found in this stanza of The Words of Illusion:
And so, noble soul, forget not the law,
And to the true faith be leal;
What ear never heard and eye never saw,
The Beautiful, the True, they are real.
Look not without, as the fool may do;
It is in thee and ever created anew.
In 1797—Hermann and Dorothea was just then under way—Goethe and Schiller interchanged views by letter on the subject of epic poetry in general and the ballad in particular. As they had both written ballads in their youth, it was but natural that they should be led to fresh experiments with the species. So they both began to make ballads for next year's Musenalmanach. Schiller contributed five, among them the famous Diver and The Cranes of Ibycus. In after years he wrote several more, of which the best, perhaps, are The Pledge, a stirring version of the Damon and Pythias story, and The Battle with the Dragon, which, however, was called a romanza instead of a ballad. The interest of all these poems turns mainly, of course, on the story, but also, in no small degree, on the splendid art which the poet displays. They are quite unlike any earlier German ballads, owing nothing to the folk-song and making no use of the uncanny, the gruesome, or the supernatural. There is no mystery in them, no resort to verbal tricks such as Bürger had employed in Lenore. The subjects are not derived from German folk-lore, but from Greek legend or medieval romance. Their great merit is the strong and vivid, yet always noble, style with which the details are set forth.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH IN WHICH SCHILLER WAS MARRIED]
We come back now to the province of art in which Schiller himself felt that his strength lay, and to which he devoted nearly all his strength during his remaining years. The very successful performance of the complete Wallenstein in the spring of 1799 added greatly to his prestige, for discerning judges could see that something extraordinary had been achieved. Weimar had by this time become the acknowledged centre of German letters, and its modest little theatre now took on fresh glory. Schiller had made himself very useful as a translator and adapter, and Goethe was disposed to lean heavily on his friend's superior knowledge of stage-craft. In order to be nearer to the theatre and its director, Schiller moved over to Weimar in December, 1799, and took up his abode in what is now called the Schillerstrasse. He was already working at Mary Stuart, which was finished the following spring and first played on June 14, 1800.
In Mary Stuart, as in Wallenstein, Schiller focused his light on a famous personage who was the subject of passionate controversy. But of course he did not wish to make a Catholic play, or a Protestant play, or to have its effect dependent in any way on the spectator's pre-assumed attitude toward the purely political questions involved. So he decided to omit Mary's trial and to let the curtain rise on her as a prisoner waiting for the verdict of her judges. This meant, however, according to his conception of the tragic art, a pathetic rather than a tragic situation; for the queen's fate would be a foregone conclusion, and she could do nothing to avert it. To give her the semblance of a tragic guilt he resorted to three unhistorical inventions: First, an attempt to escape, with resulting complicity in the act of the murderous Catholic fanatic Mortimer; second, a putative love on the part of Mary for Leicester, who would use his great influence to bring about a personal interview between her and Elizabeth; and, finally, the meeting of the two queens, in which Mary's long pent-up passion would get the better of her discretion and betray her into a mortal insult of her rival. In reality, however, the meeting of the two queens, while theatrically very effective, is not the true climax of the play. That comes when Mary conquers her rebellious spirit and accepts her ignominious fate as a divinely appointed expiation for long-past sins. The play thus becomes a tragedy of moral self-conquest in the presence of an undeserved death.