TRANSLATED BY S.T. COLERIDGE

ACT I

SCENE I

A Room fitted up for astrological labors, and provided with
celestial Charts, with Globes, Telescopes, Quadrants, and other
mathematical Instruments--Seven Colossal Figures, representing
the Planets, each circle in the background, so that Mars and
Saturn are nearest the eye.--The remainder of the Scene, and its
disposition, is given in the Fourth Scene of the Second
Act.--There must be a Curtain over the Figures, which may be
dropped, and conceal them on occasion.

[_In the Fifth Scene of this Act it must be dropped; but in the
Seventh Scene it must be again drawn up wholly or in part._]

WALLENSTEIN _at a black Table, on which a Speculum Astrologicum
is described with Chalk_. SENI _is taking Observations through a
window_.

WALLENSTEIN.

All well--and now let it be ended, Seni. Come,
The dawn commences, and Mars rules the hour.
We must give o'er the operation. Come,
We know enough.

SENI.

Your Highness must permit me
Just to contemplate Venus. She's now rising;
Like as a sun, so shines she in the east.

WALLENST.

She is at present in her perigee,
And now shoots down her strongest influences.

[_Contemplating the figure on the table._]

Auspicious aspect! fateful in conjunction,
At length the mighty three corradiate;
And the two stars of blessing, Jupiter
And Venus, take between them the malignant
Slily-malicious Mars, and thus compel
Into _my_ service that old mischief-founder:
For long he viewed me hostilely, and ever
With beam oblique, or perpendicular,
Now in the Quartile, now in the Secundan,
Shot his red lightnings at my stars, disturbing
Their blessed influences and sweet aspects.
Now they have conquer'd the old enemy,
And bring him in the heavens a prisoner to me.

SENI (_who has come down from the window_).

And in a corner house, your Highness--think of that!
That makes each influence of double strength.

WALLENST.

And sun and moon, too, in the Sextile aspect,
The soft light with the vehement--so I love it;
SOL is the heart, LUNA the head of heaven;
Bold be the plan, fiery the execution.

SENI.

And both the mighty Lumina by no
Maleficus _affronted_. Lo! Saturnus,
Innocuous, powerless, _in cadente Domo_.

WALLENST.

The empire of Saturnus is gone by;
Lord of the secret birth of things is he
Within the lap of earth, and in the depths
Of the imagination dominates;
And his are all th