Yes! 'tis my fault, I know it: I myself Have spoilt the emperor by indulging him. Nine years ago, during the Danish war, I raised him up a force, a mighty force, Forty or fifty thousand men, that cost him Of his own purse no doit. Through Saxony The fury goddess of the war marched on, E'en to the surf-rocks of the Baltic, bearing The terrors of his name. That was a time! In the whole imperial realm no name like mine Honored with festival and celebration-- And Albrecht Wallenstein, it was the title Of the third jewel in his crown! But at the Diet, when the princes met At Regensburg, there, there the whole broke out, There 'twas laid open, there it was made known Out of what money-bag I had paid the host, And what were now my thanks, what had I now That I, a faithful servant of the sovereign, Had loaded on myself the people's curses, And let the princes of the empire pay The expenses of this war that aggrandizes The emperor alone. What thanks had I? What? I was offered up to their complaint Dismissed, degraded! (QUESTENBERG: But your highness knows What little freedom he possessed of action In that disastrous Diet.) Death and hell! I had that which could have procured him freedom No! since 'twas proved so inauspicious to me To serve the emperor at the empire's cost, I have been taught far other trains of thinking Of the empire and the Diet of the empire. From the emperor, doubtless, I received this staff, But now I hold it as the empire's general,-- For the common weal, the universal interest, And no more for that one man's aggrandizement! But to the point. What is it that's desired of me? (QUESTENBERG: First, his imperial majesty hath willed That without pretexts of delay the army Evacuate Bohemia.) In this season? And to what quarter wills the emperor That we direct our course?

Wallenstein Monologue from The Piccolomini: A Play

Rehearse Wallenstein's monologue