Demetrius

Friedrich Schiller

Demetrius: A Play

ACT I

SCENE I

THE DIET AT CRACOW.

On the rising of the curtain the Polish Diet is discovered, seated in the great senate hall. On a raised platform, elevated by three steps, and surmounted by a canopy, is the imperial throne, the escutcheons of Poland and Lithuania suspended on each side. The KING seated upon the throne; on his right and left hand his ten royal officers standing on the platform. Below the platform the BISHOPS, PALATINES, and CASTELLANS seated on each side of the stage.

Opposite to these stand the Provincial DEPUTIES, in a double line, uncovered. All armed. The ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN, as the primate of the kingdom, is seated next the proscenium; his chaplain behind him, bearing a golden cross.

ARCHBISHOP OF GNESENThus then hath this tempestuous Diet been   Conducted safely to a prosperous close;   And king and commons part as cordial friends.   The nobles have consented to disarm,   And straight disband the dangerous Rocoss1;   Whilst our good king his sacred word has pledged,   That every just complaint shall have redress.   And now that all is peace at home, we may   Look to the things that claim our care abroad.   Is it the will of the most high Estates   That Prince Demetrius, who hath advanced   A claim to Russia's crown, as Ivan's son,   Should at their bar appear, and in the face   Of this august assembly prove his right?CASTELLAN OF CRACOW   Honor and justice both demand he should;   It were unseemly to refuse his prayer.BISHOP OF WERMELAND   The documents on which he rests have been   Examined, and are found authentic. We   May give him audience.SEVERAL DEPUTIES               Nay! We must, we must!LEO SAPIEHA   To hear is to admit his right.ODOWALSKY                   And not   To hear is to reject his claims unheard.ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN   Is it your will that he have audience?   I ask it for the second time – and third.IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR   Let him stand forth before our throne!SENATORS                       And speak!DEPUTIES   Yes, yes! Let him be heard!

[The Imperial GRAND MARSHAL beckons with his baton to the doorkeeper, who goes out.

LEO SAPIEHA (to the CHANCELLOR)                  Write down, my lord,   That here I do protest against this step,   And all that may ensue therefrom, to mar   The peace of Poland's state and Moscow's crown.

[Enters DEMETRIUS. Advances some steps towards the throne, and makes three bows with his head uncovered, first to the KING, next to the SENATORS, and then to the DEPUTIES, who all severally answer with an inclination of the head. He then takes up his position so as to keep within his eye a great portion of the assemblage, and yet not to turn his back upon the throne.

ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN   Prince Dmitri, son of Ivan! if the pomp   Of this great Diet scare thee, or a sight   So noble and majestic chain thy tongue,   Thou may'st – for this the senate have allowed —   Choose thee a proxy, wheresoe'er thou list,   And do thy mission by another's lips.DEMETRIUS   My lord archbishop, I stand here to claim   A kingdom, and the state of royalty.   'Twould ill beseem me should I quake before   A noble people, and its king and senate.   I ne'er have viewed a circle so august,   But the sight swells my heart within my breast   And not appals me. The more worthy ye,   To me ye are more welcome; I can ne'er   Address my claim to nobler auditory.ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN   ..         The august republic   Is favorably bent.    ..DEMETRIUS   Most puissant king! Most worthy and most potent   Bishops and palatines, and my good lords,   The deputies of the august republic!   It gives me pause and wonder to behold   Myself, Czar Ivan's son, now stand before   The Polish people in their Diet here.   Both realms were sundered by a bloody hate,   And, whilst my father lived, no peace might be.   Yet now hath Heaven so ordered these events,   That I, his blood, who with my nurse's milk   Imbibed the ancestral hate, appear before you   A fugitive, compelled to seek my rights   Even here in Poland's heart. Then, ere I speak,   Forget magnanimously all rancors past,   And that the Czar, whose son I own myself,   Rolled war's red billows to your very homes.   I stand before you, sirs, a prince despoiled.   I ask protection. The oppressed may urge   A sacred claim on every noble breast.   And who in all earth's circuit shall be just,   If not a people great and valiant, – one   In plenitude of power so free, it needs   To render 'count but to itself alone,   And may, unchallenged, lend an open ear   And aiding hand to fair humanity.ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN   You do allege you are Czar Ivan's son;   And truly, nor your bearing nor your speech   Gainsays the lofty title that you urge,   But shows us that you are indeed his son.   And you shall find that the republic bears   A generous spirit. She has never quailed   To Russia in the field! She loves, alike,   To be a noble foe – a cordial friend.DEMETRIUS   Ivan Wasilowitch, the mighty Czar   Of Moscow, took five spouses to his bed,   In the long years that spared him to the throne.   The first, a lady of the heroic line   Of Romanoff, bare him Feodor, who reigned   After his father's death. One only son,   Dmitri, the last blossom of his strength,   And a mere infant when his father died,   Was born of Marfa, of Nagori's line.   Czar Feodor, a youth, alike effeminate   In mind and body, left the reins of power   To his chief equerry, Boris Godunow,   Who ruled his master with most crafty skill.   Feodor was childless, and his barren bride   Denied all prospect of an heir. Thus, when   The wily Boiar, by his fawning arts,   Had coiled himself into the people's favor,   His wishes soared as high as to the throne.   Between him and his haughty hopes there stood   A youthful prince, the young Demetrius   Iwanowitsch, who with his mother lived   At Uglitsch, where her widowhood was passed.   Now, when his fatal purpose was matured,   He sent to Uglitsch ruffians, charged to put   The Czarowitsch to death.   One night, when all was hushed, the castle's wing,   Where the young prince, apart from all the rest,   With his attendants lay, was found on fire.   The raging flames ingulfed the pile; the prince   Unseen, unheard, was spirited away,   And all the world lamented him as dead.   All Moscow knows these things to be the truth.ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN   Yes, these are facts familiar to us all.   The rumor ran abroad, both far and near,   That Prince Demetrius perished in the flames   When Uglitsch was destroyed. And, as his death   Raised to the throne the Czar who fills it now,   Fame did not hesitate to charge on him   This murder foul and pitiless. But yet,   His death is not the business now in hand!   This prince is living still! He lives in you!   So runs your plea. Now bring us to the proofs!   Whereby do you attest that you are he?   What are the signs by which you shall be known?   How 'scaped you those were sent to hunt you down   And now, when sixteen years are passed, and you   Well nigh forgot, emerge to light once more?DEMETRIUS   'Tis scarce a year since I have known myself;   I lived a secret to myself till then,   Surmising naught of my imperial birth.   I was a monk with monks, close pent within   The cloister's precincts, when I first began   To waken to a consciousness of self.   My impetuous spirit chafed against the bars,   And the high blood of princes began to course   In strange unbidden moods along my veins.   At length I flung the monkish cowl aside,   And fled to Poland, where the noble Prince   Of Sendomir, the generous, the good,   Took me as guest into his princely house,   And trained me up to noble deeds of arms.ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN   How? You still ignorant of what you were?   Yet ran the rumor then on every side,   That Prince Demetrius was still alive.   Czar Boris trembled on his throne, and sent   His sassafs to the frontiers, to keep   Sharp watch on every traveller that stirred.   Had not the tale its origin with you?   Did you not give the rumor birth yourself?   Had you not named to any that you were   Demetrius?DEMETRIUS         I relate that which I know.   If a report went forth I was alive,   Then had some god been busy with the fame.   Myself I knew not. In the prince's house,   And in the throng of his retainers lost,   I spent the pleasant springtime of my youth.                In silent homage   My heart was vowed to his most lovely daughter.   Yet in those days it never dreamed to raise   Its wildest thoughts to happiness so high.   My passion gave offence to her betrothed,   The Castellan of Lemberg. He with taunts   Chafed me, and in the blindness of his rage   Forgot himself so wholly as to strike me.   Thus savagely provoked, I drew my sword;   He, blind with fury, rushed upon the blade,   And perished there by my unwitting hand.MEISCHEK   Yes, it was even so.DEMETRIUS   Mine was the worst mischance! A nameless youth,   A Russian and a stranger, I had slain   A grandee of the empire – in the house   Of my kind patron done a deed of blood,   And sent to death his son-in-law and friend.   My innocence availed not; not the pity   Of all his household, nor his kindness – his,   The noble Palatine's, – could save my life;   For it was forfeit to the law, that is,   Though lenient to the Poles, to strangers stern.   Judgment was passed on me – that judgment death.   I knelt upon the scaffold, by the block;   To the fell headsman's sword I bared my throat,   And in the act disclosed a cross of gold,   Studded with precious gems, which had been hung   About my neck at the baptismal font.   This sacred pledge of Christian redemption   I had, as is the custom of my people,   Worn on my neck concealed, where'er I went,   From my first hours of infancy; and now,   When from sweet life I was compelled to part,   I grasped it as my only stay, and pressed it   With passionate devotion to my lips.

[The Poles intimate their sympathy by dumb show.

   The jewel was observed; its sheen and worth   Awakened curiosity and wonder.   They set me free, and questioned me; yet still   I could not call to memory a time   I had not worn the jewel on my person.   Now it so happened that three Boiars who   Had fled from the resentment of their Czar   Were on a visit to my lord at Sambor.   They saw the trinket, – recognized it by   Nine emeralds alternately inlaid   With amethysts, to be the very cross   Which Ivan Westislowsky at the font   Hung on the neck of the Czar's youngest son.   They scrutinized me closer, and were struck   To find me marked with one of nature's freaks,   For my right arm is shorter than my left.   Now, being closely plied with questions, I   Bethought me of a little psalter which   I carried from the cloister when I fled.   Within this book were certain words in Greek   Inscribed there by the Igumen himself.   What they imported was unknown to me,   Being ignorant of the language. Well, the psalter   Was sent for, brought, and the inscription read.   It bore that Brother Wasili Philaret   (Such was my cloister-name), who owned the book,   Was Prince Demetrius, Ivan's youngest son,   By Andrei, an honest Diak, saved   By stealth in that red night of massacre.   Proofs of the fact lay carefully preserved   Within two convents, which were pointed out.   On this the Boiars at my feet fell down,   Won by the force of these resistless proofs,   And hailed me as the offspring of their Czar.   So from the yawning gulfs of black despair   Fate raised me up to fortune's topmost heights.   And now the mists cleared off, and all at once   Memories on memories started into life   In the remotest background of the past.   And like some city's spires that gleam afar   In golden sunshine when naught else is seen,   So in my soul two images grew bright,   The loftiest sun-peaks in the shadowy past.   I saw myself escaping one dark night,   And a red lurid flame light up the gloom   Of midnight darkness as I looked behind me   A memory 'twas of very earliest youth,   For what preceded or came after it   In the long distance utterly was lost.   In solitary brightness there it stood   A ghastly beacon-light on memory's waste.   Yet I remembered how, in later years,   One of my comrades called me, in his wrath   Son of the Czar. I took it as a jest,   And with a blow avenged it at the time.   All this now flashed like lightning on my soul,   And told with dazzling certainty that I   Was the Czar's son, so long reputed dead.   With this one word the clouds that had perplexed   My strange and troubled life were cleared away.   Nor merely by these signs, for such deceive;   But in my soul, in my proud, throbbing heart   I felt within me coursed the blood of kings;   And sooner will I drain it drop by drop   Than bate one jot my title to the crown.ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN   And shall we trust a scroll which might have found   Its way by merest chance into your hands   Backed by the tale of some poor renegades?   Forgive me, noble youth! Your tone, I grant,   And bearing, are not those of one who lies;   Still you in this may be yourself deceived.   Well may the heart be pardoned that beguiles   Itself in playing for so high a stake.   What hostage do you tender for your word?DEMETRIUS   I tender fifty, who will give their oaths, —   All Piasts to a man, and free-born Poles   Of spotless reputation, – each of whom   Is ready to enforce what I have urged.   There sits the noble Prince of Sendomir,   And at his side the Castellan of Lublin;   Let them declare if I have spoke the truth.ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN   How seem these things to the august Estates?   To the enforcement of such numerous proofs   Doubt and mistrust, methinks, must needs give way.   Long has a creeping rumor filled the world   That Dmitri, Ivan's son, is still alive.   The Czar himself confirms it by his fears.   – Before us stands a youth, in age and mien   Even to the very freak that nature played,   The lost heir's counterpart, and of a soul   Whose noble stamp keeps rank with his high claims.   He left a cloister's precincts, urged by strange,   Mysterious promptings; and this monk-trained boy   Was straight distinguished for his knightly feats.   He shows a trinket which the Czarowitsch   Once wore, and one that never left his side;   A written witness, too, by pious hands,   Gives us assurance of his princely birth;   And, stronger still, from his unvarnished speech   And open brow truth makes his best appeal.   Such traits as these deceit doth never don;   It masks its subtle soul in vaunting words,   And in the high-glossed ornaments of speech.   No longer, then, can I withhold the title   Which he with circumstance and justice claims   And, in the exercise of my old right,   I now, as primate, give him the first voice.ARCHBISHOP OF LEMBERG   My voice goes with the primate's.SEVERAL VOICES                     So does mine.SEVERAL PALATINES   And mine!ODOWALSKY         And mine.DEPUTIES              And all!SAPIEHA                   My gracious sirs!   Weigh well ere you decide! Be not so hasty!   It is not meet the council of the realm   Be hurried on to —ODOWALSKY             There is nothing here   For us to weigh; all has been fully weighed.   The proofs demonstrate incontestably.   This is not Moscow, sirs! No despot here   Keeps our free souls in manacles. Here truth   May walk by day or night with brow erect.   I will not think, my lords, in Cracow here,   Here in the very Diet of the Poles,   That Moscow's Czar should have obsequious slaves.DEMETRIUS   Oh, take my thanks, ye reverend senators!   That ye have lent your credence to these proofs;   And if I be indeed the man whom I   Protest myself, oh, then, endure not this   Audacious robber should usurp my seat,   Or longer desecrate that sceptre which   To me, as the true Czarowitsch, belongs.   Yes, justice lies with me, – you have the power.   'Tis the most dear concern of every state   And throne, that right should everywhere prevail,   And all men in the world possess their own.   For there, where justice holds uncumbered sway,   There each enjoys his heritage secure,   And over every house and every throne   Law, truth, and order keep their angel watch.   It is the key-stone of the world's wide arch,   The one sustaining and sustained by all,   Which, if it fail, brings all in ruin down.

(Answers of SENATORS giving assent to DEMETRIUS.)

DEMETRIUS   Oh, look on me, renowned Sigismund!   Great king, on thine own bosom turn thine eyes.   And in my destiny behold thine own.   Thou, too, hast known the rude assaults of fate;   Within a prison camest thou to the world;   Thy earliest glances fell on dungeon walls.   Thou, too, hadst need of friends to set thee free,   And raise thee from a prison to a throne.   These didst thou find. That noble kindness thou   Didst reap from them, oh, testify to me.   And you, ye grave and honored councillors,   Most reverend bishops, pillars of the church,   Ye palatines and castellans of fame,   The moment has arrived, by one high deed,   To reconcile two nations long estranged.   Yours be the glorious boast, that Poland's power   Hath given the Muscovites their Czar, and in   The neighbor who oppressed you as a foe   Secure an ever-grateful friend. And you,   The deputies of the august republic,   Saddle your steeds of fire! Leap to your seats!   To you expand high fortune's golden gates;   I will divide the foeman's spoil with you.   Moscow is rich in plunder; measureless   In gold and gems, the treasures of the Czar;   I can give royal guerdons to my friends,   And I will give them, too. When I, as Czar,   Set foot within the Kremlin, then, I swear,   The poorest of you all, that follows me,   Shall robe himself in velvet and in sables;   With costly pearls his housings shall he deck,   And silver be the metal of least worth,   That he shall shoe his horses' hoofs withal.

[Great commotion among the DEPUTIES. KORELA, Hetman of the Cossacks, declares himself ready to put himself at the head of an army.

ODOWALSKY   How! shall we leave the Cossack to despoil us   At once of glory and of booty both?   We've made a truce with Tartar and with Turk,   And from the Swedish power have naught to fear.   Our martial spirit has been wasting long   In slothful peace; our swords are red with rust.   Up! and invade the kingdom of the Czar,   And win a grateful and true-hearted friend,   Whilst we augment our country's might and glory.MANY DEPUTIES   War! War with Moscow!OTHERS               Be it so resolved!   On to the votes at once!SAPIEHA (rises)                Grand marshal, please   To order silence! I desire to speak.A CROWD OF VOICES   War! War with Moscow!SAPIEHA               Nay, I will be heard.   Ho, marshal, do your duty!

[Great tumult within and outside the hall.

GRAND MARSHAL                 'Tis, you see,   Quite fruitless.SAPIEHA            What? The marshal's self suborned?   Is this our Diet, then, no longer free?   Throw down your staff, and bid this brawling cease;   I charge you, on your office, to obey!

[The GRAND MARSHAL casts his baton into the centre of the hall; the tumult abates.

   What whirling thoughts, what mad resolves are these?   Stand we not now at peace with Moscow's Czar?   Myself, as your imperial envoy, made   A treaty to endure for twenty years;   I raised this right hand, that you see, aloft   In solemn pledge, within the Kremlin's walls;   And fairly hath the Czar maintained his word.   What is sworn faith? what compacts, treaties, when   A solemn Diet tramples on them all?DEMETRIUS   Prince Leo Sapieha! You concluded   A bond of peace, you say, with Moscow's Czar?   That did you not; for I, I am that Czar.   In me is Moscow's majesty; I am   The son of Ivan, and his rightful heir.   Would the Poles treat with Russia for a peace,   Then must they treat with me! Your compact's null,   As being made with one whose's title's null.ODOWALSKY   What reck we of your treaty? So we willed   When it was made – our wills are changed to-day.SAPIEHA   Is it, then, come to this? If none beside   Will stand for justice, then, at least, will I.   I'll rend the woof of cunning into shreds,   And lay its falsehoods open to the day.   Most reverend primate! art thou, canst thou be   So simple-souled, or canst thou so dissemble?   Are ye so credulous, my lords? My liege,   Art thou so weak? Ye know not – will not know,   Ye are the puppets of the wily Waywode   Of Sendomir, who reared this spurious Czar,   Whose measureless ambition, while we speak,   Clutches in thought the spoils of Moscow's wealth.   Is't left for me to tell you that even now   The league is made and sworn betwixt the twain, —   The pledge the Waywode's youngest daughter's hand?   And shall our great republic blindly rush   Into the perils of an unjust war,   To aggrandize the Waywode, and to crown   His daughter as the empress of the Czar?   There's not a man he has not bribed and bought.   He means to rule the Diet, well I know;   I see his faction rampant in this hall,   And, as 'twere not enough that he controlled   The Seym Walmy by a majority,   He's girt the Diet with three thousand horse,   And all Cracow is swarming like a hive   With his sworn feudal vassals. Even now   They throng the halls and chambers where we sit,   To hold our liberty of speech in awe.   Yet stirs no fear in my undaunted heart;   And while the blood keeps current in my veins,   I will maintain the freedom of my voice!   Let those who think like men come stand by me   Whilst I have life shall no resolve be passed   That is at war with justice and with reason.   'Twas I that ratified the peace with Moscow,   And I will hazard life to see it kept.ODOWALSKY   Give him no further hearing! Take the votes!

[The BISHOP OF CRACOW and WILNA rise, and descend each to his own side, to collect the votes.

MANY   War, war with Moscow!ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN (to SAPIEHA)               Noble sir, give way!   You see the mass are hostile to your views;   Then do not force a profitless division!IMPERIAL HIGH CHANCELLOR (descends from the throne to SAPIEHA)   The king entreats you will not press the point,   Sir Waywode, to division in the Diet.DOORKEEPER (aside to ODOWALSKY)   Keep a bold front, and fearless – summon those   That wait without. All Cracow stands by you.IMPERIAL GRAND MARSHAL (to SAPIEHA)   Such excellent decrees have passed before;   Oh, cease, and for their sake, so fraught with good,   Unite your voice with the majority!BISHOP OF CRACOW (has collected the votes on his side)   On this right bench are all unanimous.SAPIEHA   And let them to a man! Yet I say no!   I urge my veto – I break up the Diet.   Stay further progress! Null and void fire all   The resolutions passed —

[General commotion; the KING descends from the throne, the barriers are broken down, and there arises a tumultuous uproar. DEPUTIES draw their swords, and threaten SAPIEHA with them. The BISHOPS interpose, and protect him with their stoles.

                 Majority?   What is it? The majority is madness;   Reason has still ranked only with the few.   What cares he for the general weal that's poor?   Has the lean beggar choice, or liberty?   To the great lords of earth, that hold the purse,   He must for bread and raiment sell his voice.   'Twere meet that voices should be weighed, not counted.   Sooner or later must the state be wrecked,   Where numbers sway and ignorance decides.ODOWALSKY   Hark to the traitor! —DEPUTIES               Hew him into shreds!   Down with him!ARCHBISHOP OF GNESEN (snatches the crucifix out of his chaplain's hand and interposes)           Peace, peace   Shall native blood be in the Diet shed?   Prince Sapieha! be advised!

[To the BISHOPS.

                  Bring him away,   And interpose your bosoms as his shield!   Through this side door remove him quietly,   Or the wild mob will tear him limb from limb!

[SAPIEHA, still casting looks of defiance, is forced away by the BISHOPS, whilst the ARCHBISHOPS OF GNESEN and LEMBERG keep the DEPUTIES at bay. Amidst violent tumult and clashing of arms, the hall is emptied of all but DEMETRIUS, MEISCHEK, ODOWALSKY, and the Hetman of the Cossacks.

ODOWALSKY   That point miscarried, —   Yet shall you not lack aid because of this:   If the republic holds the peace with Moscow,   At our own charges we shall push your claims.KORELA   Who ever could have dreamed, that he alone   Would hold his ground against the assembled Diet?MEISCHEK   The king! the king!

[Enter KING SIGISMUND, attended by the LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR, the GRAND MARSHAL, and several BISHOPS.

KING              Let me embrace you, prince!   At length the high republic does you justice;   My heart has done so long, and many a day.   Your fate doth move me deeply, as, indeed,   What monarch's heart but must be moved by it?DEMETRIUS   The past, with all its sorrows, is forgot;   Here on your breast I feel new life begin.KING   I love not many words; yet what a king   May offer, who has vassals richer far   Than his poor self, that do I offer you.   You have been witness of an untoward scene,   But deem not ill of Poland's realm because   A tempest jars the vessel of the state.MEISCHEK   When winds are wild the steersman backs his helm,   And makes for port with all the speed he may.KING   The Diet is dissolved. Although I wished,   I could not break the treaty with the Czar.   But you have powerful friends; and if the Pole,   At his own risk, take arms on your behalf,   Or if the Cossack choose to venture war,   They are free men, I cannot say them nay.MEISCHEK   The whole Rocoss is under arms already.   Please it but you, my liege, the angry stream   That raved against your sovereignty may turn   Its wrath on Moscow, leaving you unscathed.KING   The best of weapons Russia's self will give thee;   Thy surest buckler is the people's heart.   By Russia only Russia will be vanquished.   Even as the Diet heard thee speak to-day,   Speak thou at Moscow to thy subjects, prince.   So chain their hearts, and thou wilt be their king.   In Sweden I by right of birth ascended   The throne of my inheritance in peace;   Yet did I lose the kingdom of my sires   Because my people's hearts were not with me.

Enter MARINA.