AX.
How mere a maniac they supposed the duke;
What, he can meditate?--the duke?--can dream
That he can lure away full thirty thousand
Tried troops and true, all honorable soldiers,
More than a thousand noblemen among them,
From oaths, from duty, from their honor lure them,
And make them all unanimous to do
A deed that brands them scoundrels?

OCTAVIO.
Such a deed,
With such a front of infamy, the duke
No way desires--what he requires of us
Bears a far gentler appellation. Nothing
He wishes but to give the empire peace.
And so, because the emperor hates this peace,
Therefore the duke--the duke will force him to it.
All parts of the empire will he pacify,
And for his trouble will retain in payment
(What he has already in his gripe)--Bohemia!

MAX.
Has he, Octavio, merited of us,
That we--that we should think so vilely of him?

OCTAVIO.
What we would think is not the question here,
The affair speaks for itself--and clearest proofs!
Hear me, my son--'tis not unknown to thee,
In what ill credit with the court we stand.
But little dost thou know, or guess what tricks,
What base intrigues, what lying artifices,
Have been employed--for this sole end--to sow
Mutiny in the camp! All bands are loosed--
Loosed all the bands that link the officer
To his liege emperor, all that bind the soldier
Affectionately to the citizen.
Lawless he stands, and threateningly beleaguers
The state he's bound to guard. To such a height
'Tis swollen, that at this hour the emperor
Before his armies--his own armies--trembles;
Yea, in his capital, his palace, fears
The traitor's poniard, and is meditating
To hurry off and hide his tender offspring--
Not from the Swedes, not from the Lutherans--no,
From his own troops to hide and hurry them!

MAX.
Cease, cease! thou torturest, shatterest me. I know
That oft we tremble at an empty terror;
But the false phantasm brings a real misery.

OCTAVIO.
It is no phantasm. An intestine war,
Of all the most unnatural and cruel,
Will burst out into flames, if instantly
We do not fly and stifle it. The generals
Are many of them long ago won over;
The subalterns are vacillating; whole
Regiments and garrisons are vacillating.
To foreigners our strongholds are intrusted;
To that suspected Schafgotch is the whole
Force of Silesia given up: to Terzky
Five regiments, foot and horse; to Isolani,
To Illo, Kinsky, Butler, the best troops.

MAX.
Likewise to both of us.

OCTAVIO.