or,
Miss Dermark's 2015 Advent Calendar
DAY TWELVE
METAPHORICALLY SPEAKING
or
A REDDISH-BROWN SQUARE, CONCENTRATED AS A STOCK CUBE
och huset på andra sidan sjön, en rödbrun fyrkant stark
som en buljongtärning.
("and the house across the lake, a reddish-brown square, concentrated
as a stock cube.")
This is a stuga, the typical Swedish rural dwelling, on the shores of a lake. Doesn't the little crimson cabin contrast with the forest behind it and the water and sky?
And this is a cube of chicken stock.
"A reddish-brown square, concentrated as a stock cube." There you have an unlikely metaphor. Not as commonplace as the legs of a chair or the keys of a computer keyboard. The stuga in the Swedish poem above, due to its colour and stark chromatic contrast with its surrounding, is a "reddish-brown square, concentrated as a stock cube."
Iago talks about wearing his heart upon his sleeve, a relevant expression in a play that deals mostly with deception.
All the warfare metaphors, whether spoken about love, one's state of health, argumentation, religion, sports, or any other real referent, are a field for themselves. I could spend an eternity talking about warfare metaphors, about fighting for love, for one's life, in a game of footie... Apparently, warfare being such a powerful and relevant theme, it's commonplace to draw comparisons between any conflict and armed conflict.
Many of my favourite metaphors were written by sadly forgotten Victorian British poet Eliza Cook. In this one in particular, a group of gamblers who are desecrating a parish church see their plans foiled when the youngest of them awakens from his ethyl intoxication:
And two of the three laugh louder still,
But the third stares wildly round:
He drops the cards, as if his hand
Were palsied at the sound!
His cheeks have lost their deepened flush,
His lips are of paler hue,
And fear hath fallen on the heart
Of the youngest of that crew!
His soul is not yet firmly bound
In the fetters of reckless sin!
Depravity hath not yet wrought
Its total work within!
The strong potation of the night
Drowned all that might remain
Of feeling; and his hand shrunk not
While madness fired his brain!
But now the charm hath lost its spell,
The heated fumes have passed;
And banished reason to her throne,
Usurped, advances fast.
But the third stares wildly round:
He drops the cards, as if his hand
Were palsied at the sound!
His cheeks have lost their deepened flush,
His lips are of paler hue,
And fear hath fallen on the heart
Of the youngest of that crew!
His soul is not yet firmly bound
In the fetters of reckless sin!
Depravity hath not yet wrought
Its total work within!
The strong potation of the night
Drowned all that might remain
Of feeling; and his hand shrunk not
While madness fired his brain!
But now the charm hath lost its spell,
The heated fumes have passed;
And banished reason to her throne,
Usurped, advances fast.
He rises — staggers — looks again
Upon the shrouded dead!
A shudder steals upon his frame:
His vaunted strength is fled!
He doubts — he dreams — can, can it be?
A mist is o'er his eyes;
He stands aghast. — " Oh! what is this?
Where? where? " — he wildly cries.
Upon the shrouded dead!
A shudder steals upon his frame:
His vaunted strength is fled!
He doubts — he dreams — can, can it be?
A mist is o'er his eyes;
He stands aghast. — " Oh! what is this?
Where? where? " — he wildly cries.
So, banished reason claiming her throne? FREAKING IMPRESSIVE. So much, in fact, that I constantly refer to it. For instance, in the climax of the Baratheon Saga, the agony of the dynasty scion Gottfried (Joffrey), due to strychnine poisoning on his wedding night, is described as intensely and painfully as such an experience can get, and his death comes as a much-awaited relief:
In a certain sense, but not the expected one, the strychnine was acting as a love potion.
For then, only at the close of his life, gradually intoxicated with lack of oxygen, the wicked scion at last learned the meaning of true love. The love of family and of those who could have been friends, awakened by his distress and suffering.
It was ironic that it should have been too late.
That his death-throes were what would make him understand how wonderful the power of love is.
That he would understand the value of a mother's tears, of concerned loving ones' sorrows, of the black coat that was being loosened around his chest and the belt that was being taken off his waist, as the poison and fever usurped the throne from which reason had finally fled.
Then, exhausted by lack of life-giving oxygen, his weary heart was still.
For then, only at the close of his life, gradually intoxicated with lack of oxygen, the wicked scion at last learned the meaning of true love. The love of family and of those who could have been friends, awakened by his distress and suffering.
It was ironic that it should have been too late.
That his death-throes were what would make him understand how wonderful the power of love is.
That he would understand the value of a mother's tears, of concerned loving ones' sorrows, of the black coat that was being loosened around his chest and the belt that was being taken off his waist, as the poison and fever usurped the throne from which reason had finally fled.
Then, exhausted by lack of life-giving oxygen, his weary heart was still.
This is one of my best deaths ever described. Notice how it darkens and subverts the Eliza Cook use of the metaphor, turning it on its head by describing not the claiming of the throne, but the usurpation, and applying it not to an awakening, but to a plunge of consciousness which turns out to be eternal.
In my play Gustavus Adolphus, or The Lion of the Midnight Sun, there are some metaphors to be reckoned with. This one was actually not mine, but Jean 't Serclaës de Tilly's own, something he said during his convalescence, having lost his reputation, following his first defeat at Breitenfeld:
after weeks of lingering close to death,
he's crushed by the news of his first defeat.
He thinks Fortune's a lady, after all,
grown weary of men in their seventies,
who has a younger Northern lover found.
Indeed, Lady Fortune is female and she prefers younger men like the thirtyish King of Sweden.
To continue with the Count of Tilly, his last stand at the Lech proves opportunities for metaphors as well:
The Catholic leader in his seventies
has now entirely ceased to love himself.
His confidence fled half a year before,
shattered by the defeat of Breitenfeld.
For decades on the field, ere Leipzig fell,
Jean de Tilly was for three virtues known:
he had never made love to wench or maid,
neither had lost his reason to strong drink,
nor yielded to the foe in any fray.
Alas! Had he been slain at Breitenfeld,
as a Catholic hero he'd be hailed!
At Breitenfeld, he knew his first defeat
in such a brilliant lifetime and career,
which left his reputation shattered now.
And losing on the field is something that
Jean 't Serclaës does not tolerate at all!
For he thought one more victory would do
to wash the dark stain of Breitenfeld out...
TILLY (Taking out his rosary from his breastplate, saying a Hail Mary in Latin): Ave Maria gratia plena...
Alas! Had he been slain at Breitenfeld,
as a Catholic hero he'd be hailed!
There's no more courage in his aged heart,
which now despair has violently usurped.
And this feeling, so dreadful and so strong,
inspires him to sacrifice it all,
to risk all at one game of pitch-and-toss,
and never breathe a word about his loss...
TILLY (Taking back his rosary into his breastplate, finishing a Hail Mary in Latin): ...nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.
More than one metaphor is here, one taken from Macbeth, some of them personifying emotions, the final one taken from my favourite Kipling verses:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
and lose, and start again at your beginnings,
and never breathe a word about your loss...
It also foreshadows the old count's impending death, which will occur due to a painful condition that forces his mouth shut (not strychnine, but sharing the same effects), rendering it nearly impossible for him to speak. And the demise of this character brings on even more metaphors:
GUSTAVUS (at the head of his armies): Today is such an important day! The whole Electorate of Bavaria stands now defenseless before us, and soon the crownland, Austria itself, is to share its fate! If I were that remarkable old corporal, I would never have left such a great position in the clutches of the advancing enemy. Anyway, Jean de Tilly has been so kind to leave an empty camp here for us to spend this night without any effort!
The Swedes encamp in the League's empty post.
What happened to the distressed Catholics?
They've brought their wounded leader somewhere safe,
to the keep of the fort of Ingolstadt,
which the Swedes unexpectedly besiege.
Gustavus learns that Jean 't Serclaës is there,
in bed, in the commandant's residence,
fighting his last fight against death itself.
The King of Swedes sends his own surgeon up,
within the walls, to the commandant's keep,
to tend to the sore wounded Count Tilly,
who can't find the right words to thank this deed,
not merely for his feelings, for such love
cuts through his fever-mists like flaming steel,
but also because lockjaw has set in,
making him toss and turn and writhe in bed,
restraining him to drink, to speak, to breathe,
and racking his aged frame with searing pain.
SWEDISH SURGEON: I'm so sorry... A man his age, with lockjaw...
PAPPENHEIM (shedding tears, sobbing): Thus... Is there no hope?
TILLY (finding it hard to breathe, speaking in a faint voice and making a great effort to speak): The Swede, your king, is a true and noble knight... (He kisses his rosary, making an intense effort, then closes his eyes and ceases to breathe, as his Spanish steel rapier falls to the ground with a clank.)
His Spanish rapier falls upon the ground,
as he breathes out and then, at last, is still.
Thus dies the silver-haired Count of Tilly,
the faithful scourge of the One Catholic Church:
ablaze with fever, seized with searing pain,
against his will to breathe sadly restrained,
yet with his broken, bleeding, heavy heart at last,
after two weeks of intense suffering,
finally soothed, forever laid to rest.
The end of the act features a rhetorical question that makes use of a metaphor that also has literary origins:
Did not the Kaiser's faith have two warlords,
the older one the scourge, th'other the sword,
a younger, equally important lord,
leader of high officers and great hosts?
The "scourge and sword" metaphor to refer to Tilly and Wallenstein, respectively, hails from the Surgeon's Stories by Zachris Topelius:
Denne lille man var sin kyrkas gissel, såsom Wallenstein var dess svärd.
"This little man was the scourge of his (the Catholic) Church, just like Wallenstein was its sword."
The Count of Tilly had already been depicted as the "scourge" on his deathbed, and now it's clear who the "sword" is.
In Act Two, we get our first metaphors in Wallenstein's remark during the Swedish storming of the Old Holdfast:
WALLENSTEIN (inside the keep): Even though his host dwindles in the fray,
the golden-haired one will ere break than bend!
Like a bold young lieutenant, Sweden's king
ranks his life as a trifle, risking it...
Voilà! This ruined holdfast we'll soon leave,
and head up north, for wealthy Saxony!
The Leipzig lands will fall once more to us,
and th'enemy will be in our pursuit!
Then, we will set a trap and lure him in...
The leave-taking before Lützen is also described in lovely metaphors:
One another they give a fiery kiss,
as the sun sets for Sweden's royal pair,
ere one of them, upon the battlefield,
sees his short life of love and war recede,
having lived three decades and seven years
that he's quaffed heartily, at deepest draughts:
ere Gustavus Adolphus, slain, expires.
'Tis true, the dream he had at Breitenfeld
foretold what was to come, but disbelief
sets in with this one, the worst sight of all.
At twilight, in the autumn evening mist,
fair Eleanor dries up her crystal tears.
She feels, she knows, she has to let him go:
Her spouse must fight, for a warrior he is;
in her heart, she'll always keep his last kiss!
The beginnings of the Battle of Lützen are also remarkable: while the outspoken Gustavus's encouragement is described straightforwardly, without any metaphors, the reserved Wallenstein's is full of them. The final metaphor of the curtain before the tragedy sets the scene for the whole climactic confrontation:
SCENE 10 - LÜTZEN
On Lützen's fields lies thick and heavy fog,
as if it had grown on the heathland bloom.
The morn is cold and clammy, eerie, dark,
on the sixth of November, when two hosts
led by renowned leaders will soon clash.
On the Swedish side of the battlefield,
upon his fiery nutbrown stallion Streiff,
the Golden King rides past his waiting ranks,
with cheerful twinkles in his sky-blue eyes,
encouraging the officers to lead,
encouraging the rank and file to fight,
lively, fiery, in his manly baritone,
soon joined by the whole Swedish Army-Choir,
when, 'gainst impatience and anxiety,
they sing "Do not despair, my little band!"
Still young, though renowned and inured to war,
of gathering more laurels he is sure.
GUSTAVUS, THEN THE WHOLE SWEDISH ARMY (singing in chorus): Do not despair, my little band,
though enemies throughout the land
are seeking to destroy you!
They rejoice, hoping you'll fall soon,
but they will sing another tune,
so keep on brave and coy, you!
Next to Lützen, across the battlefield,
in a sedan chair twelve officers bear,
with scarlet curtains, on a scarlet throne
of cushions, dark and brooding Wallenstein,
the quiet leader with a heart so cold
that one can't say of stone, or steel, or ice,
casts piercing glares, as he reviews his host,
with an ironic sneer upon pale lips.
Though he's not even breathed a word or two,
his fixed expression fills them all with dread,
from the proud colonels to the rank and file:
his reputation is their guiding star,
his iron will binds all their hearts to his,
for Friedland, they will bleed and they will die.
They're all foot men, and gunners on the hills:
where's Count Pappenheim, where's the cavalry?
The Duke of Friedland wrote, after he woke,
a letter to the Count of Pappenheim.
"To Lützen! Make haste! As soon as you can!"
In Halle, by the Saale, garrisoned,
Count Gottfried has this letter quickly skimmed,
and now he rides to Lützen at full speed,
spearheading his galloping cavalry.
Now the fog lifts, the veils of cold mist, gilt
by the pale autumn sunlight, slowly part
like a curtain before a tragedy,
one filled with bloodshed, passion, love, and death.
On Lützen's fields lies thick and heavy fog,
as if it had grown on the heathland bloom.
The morn is cold and clammy, eerie, dark,
on the sixth of November, when two hosts
led by renowned leaders will soon clash.
On the Swedish side of the battlefield,
upon his fiery nutbrown stallion Streiff,
the Golden King rides past his waiting ranks,
with cheerful twinkles in his sky-blue eyes,
encouraging the officers to lead,
encouraging the rank and file to fight,
lively, fiery, in his manly baritone,
soon joined by the whole Swedish Army-Choir,
when, 'gainst impatience and anxiety,
they sing "Do not despair, my little band!"
Still young, though renowned and inured to war,
of gathering more laurels he is sure.
GUSTAVUS, THEN THE WHOLE SWEDISH ARMY (singing in chorus): Do not despair, my little band,
though enemies throughout the land
are seeking to destroy you!
They rejoice, hoping you'll fall soon,
but they will sing another tune,
so keep on brave and coy, you!
Next to Lützen, across the battlefield,
in a sedan chair twelve officers bear,
with scarlet curtains, on a scarlet throne
of cushions, dark and brooding Wallenstein,
the quiet leader with a heart so cold
that one can't say of stone, or steel, or ice,
casts piercing glares, as he reviews his host,
with an ironic sneer upon pale lips.
Though he's not even breathed a word or two,
his fixed expression fills them all with dread,
from the proud colonels to the rank and file:
his reputation is their guiding star,
his iron will binds all their hearts to his,
for Friedland, they will bleed and they will die.
They're all foot men, and gunners on the hills:
where's Count Pappenheim, where's the cavalry?
The Duke of Friedland wrote, after he woke,
a letter to the Count of Pappenheim.
"To Lützen! Make haste! As soon as you can!"
In Halle, by the Saale, garrisoned,
Count Gottfried has this letter quickly skimmed,
and now he rides to Lützen at full speed,
spearheading his galloping cavalry.
Now the fog lifts, the veils of cold mist, gilt
by the pale autumn sunlight, slowly part
like a curtain before a tragedy,
one filled with bloodshed, passion, love, and death.
The deaths of Gustavus and Count Pappenheim are entirely framed in intense metaphor, and so is the aftermath of the battle:
A CROATIAN OFFICER, WHO RIDES BEHIND THE KING: Such a tall and well-dressed rider! Surely he must be some great leader! (To Gustavus.) Long time have I sought you! (He shoots the King of Sweden in the upper back.)
The lethal leaden bullet with his name
and the three crowns of Sweden written on
has, after searing doublet, shirt, and skin,
struck, pierced, and shattered his right shoulder-blade,
then plunged into the lung tissue beneath,
taking ashes, gunpowder, bone shards in,
tearing fragile, delicate veins apart,
into that soft and fluffy shrine of life,
that hall of countless pathways firmly tied,
once rose-red, slightly stained by breathing in
the haze and gunsmoke of the battlefields,
that source of speeches, words of love, brave songs,
his "Gott mit uns!" and his "Do not despair,"
but also of love expressed for wife and child,
and for advisors, friends, motherland, creed,
and Freedom of Worship, that noble cause
for which his life now begins to recede.
Thus, filled with stranger poisons and with blood,
those thin and fragile pipes begin to swell,
cannot the good receive, nor th'bad expel.
As his teary azure eyes quickly shut,
a scarlet foam trickles through parted lips,
contrasting with his face, now strangely pale,
as his cavalier hat falls to the ground,
uncovering his short and golden hair...
the cold right hand drops the steed's leather reins,
and, plunging into darkness, falls off Streiff
the unconscious frame. His noble chest
is racked with pain that sears his throbbing heart
and stabs his sides for every time he breathes,
making it harder. And he drowns in blood.
Now his beloved spouse, Queen Eleanor,
before the wounded Vasa appears in dreams,
awaiting, once more, his kiss and embrace,
like in Poland, when wounded where his throat
joined his chest, he lay fighting for life:
she, with the surgeon, stayed by his bedside,
and clasped her spouse once he had won at last.
Now the vision of Eleanor is gone:
he sees Christina, his daughter and heir,
in his arms, pulling his golden moustache,
with those Vasa twinkles and lovely smile...
And Gustavus holds her, she claps her hands
as the cannons of Lützen roar around,
like she cheerfully did at Kalmar Slott.
"A warrior's daughter! She wants an encore!"
he told the gunners, and they fired once more.
GUSTAVUS (in a faint voice, with blood on his lips): Once... I was... the King of... Sweden... (Coughs up blood.) Elea...nor... Chris...tina... (Coughs up blood.)
As consciousness and reason leave his frame,
these visions soothe his mood and ease his pain.
Yet those around the unconscious King of Swedes
are not his loved ones, but the ruthless foe,
who now close in and recognize his face.
That golden hair, that high brow, that moustache,
and that sharp goatee... Yes, 'twas someone great,
and the lethal lead, true, pierced noble parts.
The Croats call him by the worst insults
their Slavic speech has got, though he can't hear,
as they plunge both their hot lead and cold steel
into his noble chest: once, twice, then thrice,
gunshots and stabbing blades enter his lungs,
leaving them in a worse state than before,
now making it impossible to breathe:
completely tearing that life-seat apart,
and thus, erratic throbs his failing heart.
Then, the Croatian sellswords soon proceed,
like eager children who snatch Christmas gifts,
to rifle the unconscious King of Swedes:
his rapier and twin pistols are soon theirs,
his doublet, breeches, riding-boots, and spurs,
the lace-lined collar and the lace-lined gloves,
beneath the right one, the bright wedding ring,
a modest golden band with rubies set
in which the officer, squinting, reads a name
fit for a blueblood: "Mary Eleanor."
The young lieutenant claims it for his bride,
his colonel's daughter, namesake of the Queen's,
and for himself he claims the golden chain
on the Vasa's riddled, suffering chest:
the chain with which once a child princess played,
curiously peering through the shiny links.
And now it graces a young subaltern!
To Gustavus Adolphus, in that state,
deeply unconscious, seized with searing pain,
trifles are weapons, clothes, and jewellery,
which his slayers now share as spoils of war.
The doublet will to the Kaiser be sent,
and a Habsburg heirloom it will become,
while the weapons will grace Wallenstein's hall,
displayed on Schloss Friedland's war-trophy wall.
The King's left in his blood-stained linen shirt,
riddled with stabbing and with bullet holes.
In the struggle within for life and death,
the victor is now already announced,
with those four gunshots and those two stab wounds,
but a flitting spark of life still resists...
THE CROATIAN OFFICER: Now he's suffered enough! I must give him the coup de grâce! (He takes his pistol and shoots Gustavus in the nape of the neck.)
A slower, painful death would be far worse.
Thus, Gustavus is shot for mercy's sake,
by the enemy leader's sympathy.
A trigger pulled at the nape of his neck,
another bullet with his name and crest
written on, and he finally is still.
The last thing in his life: the final shot
exploding in his head, that fills with light,
his flitting spark of life finally quenched
after struggling in vain and in despair,
with silent heart, not breathing anymore.
Yet the lieutenant, not convinced at all,
draws his own rapier of fine Spanish steel
and plunges it into the Vasa's back,
between his shoulder blades, cutting his spine,
then piercing his still heart, before it's drawn.
Still on the fields gun after gun is fired,
as Streiff, the nutbrown stallion, gallops forth
with bloodstained saddle and no pistols on
within the holsters. Through the bluish fog,
laced with gunsmoke, and through the storm of war,
like wildfire spread the words: "Gustavus slain!"
from the generals to the rank and file.
Everyone knows it on the battlefield,
both the Swedes and the hosts of Friedland's Duke.
The officers of Sweden, filled with dread
they turn to courage, fired up by revenge,
yet the fog blurs the line 'twixt friend and foe,
and every warrior's but a silhouette.
Thus, Lützen's fray becomes a great mêlée,
where everyone wounds and slays everyone,
striking with hot lead and cold steel alike:
Imperialists kill Swedes, who kill their own
as well as Friedlanders, who decimate
their own hosts. All is chaos, all is storm,
with lightning, thunderbolts, and dreary clouds,
and screams of wounded, in pain, in despair,
as only one observes it from afar:
Wallenstein, in his canopy sedan,
from a hill north of the vast battlefield,
with the village of Lützen burning near
and towards Leipzig fleeing refugees,
by the Schloss where his daughter and his spouse
spend the day, entertained with needlework,
embroidering their flowers, making lace.
The great lord's scared of gunshots: irony,
but irrational, primal fear of his:
that's why there are no church-bells near his keep,
why his officers wrap their spurs in lace
or satin ribbons off the battlefield,
to spare his panic, followed by his rage,
then, by the dreaded execution stand!
Once impatient, he's seen a distant cloud
in the western horizon: Pappenheim?
If 'tis he, will he reach the front in time?
Parting the scarlet curtains, Albrecht sees
how the cloud he has i' th' horizon seen
turns to hoof-beating, rushing cavalry,
which he watches, a spyglass to his eyes,
rushing forth right into the storm of blood:
the Pappenheimers have arrived at last!
And Count Gottfried, storming into the fray,
stark unaware of the Vasa's harsh fate,
wants to defy Gustavus to a duel.
A foretelling within House Pappenheim
told of a count scarred with the household's crest,
a marshal's two crossed swords, upon his brow,
who would, upon a stormy battlefield,
challenge and fight a great king from the North,
whom he would then in single combat slay.
Ever since he received such a scar,
Gottfried of Pappenheim strongly believes
that he's the one within the prophecy.
Thus had he, at the Lech and Breitenfeld,
stormed forth, yet lost his chances to defeat.
And thus, as those crossed scars now swell once more,
as they do with impatience or with rage,
as he seeks the fair Vasa to defy.
They're kindred spirits: both are thirtyish,
happily married, with an only child,
right-handed, quick to act in rage and joy,
they share the same initial, love strong drink,
bold warriors, impatient, passionate,
always wearing their hearts upon their sleeves,
and risking life and limb upon the field.
They could as well have been the best of friends,
if war had not brought them untimely ends
and locked them into bitter rivalry.
PAPPENHEIM (fiery, determined): Where's the bold King of Sweden? I wish that he, as soon as possible, stepped up to my challenge to single combat!
SWEDISH CAVALRY CAPTAIN (drawing his pistol): Your rival lies upon this battlefield,
wounded by either friend or enemy,
unconscious, his eyes shut, face strangely pale,
but he will ne'er awake: Gustavus, blessed,
lies on this lea, eternal is his rest!
PAPPENHEIM (shocked, in despair): Thus, nought at all is left to do for me! (The cavalry captain shoots Pappenheim in the left side of the chest, and the wounded count falls backwards, then the Pappenheimers, as some of them carry their lord to the surgeon in their own camp, fire at the Swedish officer, riddling his chest and midriff with bullets, and he falls as well).
PAPPENHEIM (half-conscious, in a faint voice, with blood on his lips): Eli...sabeth... (He reaches out his left hand to his aide-de-camp ere he shuts his eyes.) Give it... (Coughs up blood) ...to my... Eli...sabeth... (Then, he falls unconscious, as his aide takes the left glove off and takes the Count's wedding ring, a rarity inlaid with gilt flowers, which he subsequently swallows with a loud gulp, then kisses Gottfried's hand as he is brought away to the surgeon.)
Elisabeth will soon receive the ring,
by this officer hastily thrown up,
at Schloss Lützen: lady-in-waiting she is
to the Duchess of Friedland. And she will
wash the wedding ring clean with searing tears,
constantly holding her lace handkerchief,
and wake by Gottfried's bedside day and night,
as he quietly drowns in his own blood
and fights his last fray, swallowing his pain:
wishing for her spouse to return to life
and their boy Wolfgang to regain his sire:
Alas! Next week, within learned Leipzig's walls,
the bold Count Gottfried will at last expire,
earning at last for searing pain relief,
but leaving widowed spouse and heir in grief.
But let's return to Lützen's stormy fields:
now twilight descends on the weary lea,
a thin thread of the sun's true golden light
and Venus shining in the skies above,
a lonely beacon in the moonless eve,
flocks of large crows crossing the evening skies
towards the feast of which their shares will be
the few private soldiers not earthed tonight,
as the November mist rises again.
On Lützen's fields will soon lie heavy fog,
as if it had grown on the heathland bloom.
Most of the warlords have fallen this day:
Gustavus, whom his general friends seek,
Pappenheim, struggling by the surgeon's lamp,
and young Berthold von Wallenstein, the Duke's
only son: now his daughter is his heir,
and for her brother she sheds crystal tears.
So does their mother, Duchess Isabelle:
losing a child of hers leaves her no rest.
Not to count th'officers and ranker men,
whom the survivors earth in every trench
and pray for: the privates piled in mass graves,
of every nation and background, as one,
the officers, each one in his own grave,
marked by a rough and modest wooden cross.
Still by rushlight, at twilight, Sweden's lords
their liege across the fog and darkness seek,
their ankles often seized by forms that reek
yet still are fully conscious and alive,
asking them for a drink to quench their thirst
and always offered a friendly canteen,
then to the Swedish surgeons ta'en in haste,
both their own wounded and the enemy's,
for Wallenstein, crushed at last by defeat,
left his common-born wounded i' th' retreat.
The rushlights flicker as one of them finds,
in a heap of Swedish and Balkan slain,
lying flat on his face on bloody mud,
the lifeless form of the bold Golden King,
left as wretched as any officer
who has been rifled on the battlefield.
The only garment he bears is his shirt,
drenched through with mud and blood, stained, worn, and torn.
His noble parts, the sides, and chest, and back,
are riddled with cold steel and with hot lead,
shot and stabbed fiercely with many red wounds:
four stab wounds, the fourth one right in the back,
next to a deep and crimson bullet hole,
one of three: other two have pierced his chest,
which not even a Vasa can survive.
As they carry their liege to Weissenfels,
one of them notices a gunshot wound
through the left forearm, which it even broke.
And, when they reach that village late at night,
ere the surgeons embalm the Hero King,
they'll find his golden hair with crimson stains
and the hole on the nape of his fair neck,
dyed with the blood that left with his great life,
before they wash him, take his vitals out,
and fill him with preserving herbs and creams,
and broken-hearted Mary Eleanor
is forever bereft of happiness.
More stars dot the night sky. The air turns cold
in the November night, now veiled in fog,
a clammy fog in spite of their rushlights,
as cold as the strangely pale, buried slain,
but coldest are the hearts of Jan Banér
and the other survivors. And why not
since they've been shattered by the rage of war?
The Protestants have won on Lützen's plain,
yet paid a high price: lives of countless slain,
more than their liege lord, though 'tis not in vain.
Cold are their hearts, no longer heeding pain:
the fate of those who live through Warfare's reign.
The final five verses, all of them rhyming, are striking. And so is the next scene, in which Gustavus lies in state in a nearby parish church:
her golden hair bright as the candle-light
beneath a pitch black veil lined with black lace
fine as ice crystals. Her gown of fine silk,
midnight-coloured, without embroideries,
rustles, like her petticoats, in her wake.
From blood-shot azure eyes she dries up tears
into her pitch black, lace-lined handkerchief.
Hers is the likeness of a shattered heart,
that, lonely, has seen dearest hopes depart.
She is the Prussian-born and Prussian-bred
Queen Dowager of Sweden, Eleanor,
who, brokenhearted, will feel nothing more.
Here is another loan from Eliza Cook:
'Tis the type of a sad and lonely heart,
That hath seen its dearest hopes depart.
That hath seen its dearest hopes depart.
There are heart-rending metaphors even in the closure of the play, an epilogue detailing Christina's childhood, coming of age, and endeavour to end the three decades of war:
And what occurred after this tragedy?
You'd like to know it, and the end to see?
Leipzig's regained, so is all Saxony,
by the Swedes, after Lützen's victory.
Yet the King and Queen wend their way up north,
to their lands, he in state, she in despair.
The court of Sweden, at Nyköpingshus,
is draped in black when they return in spring,
and pain and sorrow rule there, bleak and sore,
for shattered within is Queen Eleanor!
She has Christina spirited away
from her aunt and the way she should be reared,
away from Stegeborg, to keep her child,
her only daughter, the likeness and heir
of the late Great Gustavus, by her side.
Within these empty, dire, tiresome halls,
forced to shed tears and sob against her will,
forbidden to play, to whisper, to speak,
yet somehow at least allowed to read books
(a pastime that her passion will become),
Princess Christina grows, a thoughtful child,
aloof and curious, defiant at heart,
until the Regency tears them apart:
parted from her young daughter, the "insane"
Eleanor's captive at Nyköpingshus,
then, after losing once more her life's light,
then flees to Denmark in the dark of night.
Christina, for 'tis best for her, returns
to friends and family at Stegeborg.
The late king had made his daughter his heir,
and thus, the Regents finally resume
to rear her like a crown prince, have her trained
in statescraft, history, classical lore,
art and philosophy, Latin and French,
which she speaks as easily as you please,
military tactics, fencing, shooting guns,
riding (her body as fit as her mind)...
instead of needlework and other chores
usually taught to maidens of blue blood.
Christina soon is called, in foreign lands,
a princess of unusual cleverness.
When crowned queen, in her eighteenth year, she'll rule
as well as any crowned male could have:
the hope and legacy of great renown!
And Wallenstein? He can't be put to rout,
as Sweden's Banér loses, in strong drink,
his reason, to drown his sorrows away.
After Lützen, as scapegoat for defeat,
a baker's dozen officers were hanged,
yet that fray proved for him the turning point
that opened his great streak of victories.
Now, life's more ostentatious than before
for the ducals of Friedland, and the throne
is soon, in Albrecht's dreams, within his reach.
A bridegroom for his daughter seeks the Duke
of Friedland, to become his heir and hope,
preferently a Habsburg fiancé.
Yet the Kaiser discovers soon the ruse
of the Bohemian upstart to usurp
the highest rank within the Occident.
And, as Schloss Friedland's claimed and occupied
by the Habsburgs, Albrecht von Wallenstein,
in exile, is in his bedchamber slain,
one February night, in Eger's keep,
by turncoats true to Kaiser Ferdinand.
Slain by his own, thus died a traitor's death
the Duke of Friedland: silent as before,
his lips sealed as they'd always been in life,
reaching his arms towards the starry sky,
a partizan blade in his cold, hard heart,
plunged in his chest: though not stabbed in the back
literally, he had been in the true sense:
a traitor slain by traitors to his cause.
His widowed lady and fatherless child,
Isabella and Thekla, soon receive
the Kaiser's pardon and their own estate,
and Thekla will the Lord of Kaunitz wed,
a clever young noble from Austerlitz,
regaining her place at the Austrian court.
Her grandson Wenzel, named for Friedland's Duke
(Albrecht Eusebius Wenzel's the full name),
whom she'll raise until her aged heart is still,
will also live in the realm's history:
Maria Theresa's chancellor he'll be,
a wise and skilled advisor of renown,
who'll bring to Austria the Enlightenment.
From one fatherless princess, we now give
the lifetime of another one up north.
In Sweden, Christina is later crowned,
now come of age, throughout the lands renowned,
a princess of unusual cleverness
crowned queen, showered with praise and flattery,
with candied lies, but with sincere truths too.
She still studies art and philosophy,
and tactics, and she owns so many books,
and speaks Latin as easily as you please,
like a dozen or more strange languages.
Her golden hair is bright as candle-light
and her blue eyes shine with her rapier wit,
yet she usually declines wearing gowns,
make-up and hairstyles, corsets, petticoats:
a ribbon in her ponytail to tie,
riding-boots, riding-breeches, broad-brimmed hat,
and a buff doublet comprise her real attire.
And she will die a maiden, without spouse,
since she would never like her mother grieve
when her loved one should her one day leave.
After ruling for nearly a complete year
just as well as any prince could have done,
she turns to her advisors, those five men,
now seventyish, silver-haired, their backs bent,
the Regents of her childhood, clears her throat,
and solemnly speaks the following words:
CHRISTINA: Why should there not be peace?
JOHANN VON WITTELSBACH, KLAS FLEMING (unison): Why not indeed?
...say two of them, those born in foreign lands.
The other three, the Swedes, sternly reply
that the kingdom should prosper with the war,
seeing that it is fought on foreign shore.
And thus, Christina, fiery, replies,
full of Vasa élan, passionately,
when she has just assembled her whole court
in the French gardens of Nyköpingshus,
of her intentions telling everyone:
CHRISTINA (passionate, to the reluctant Regents): You say the realm would prosper, but you mean
that your own wealth is what you have in mind!
So many children orphaned, maidens raped,
communities and landscapes overrun...
and, at the end of the day, how should we pay
our students, artisans, and farmer lads,
young men called by the Crown against their will
to take enemy lives with pike and shot!
Thus she her court of her intentions tells,
and so, she has determined to seek peace,
to much rejoicing and acclaim at court,
for those advisors who declined have just,
due to old age, left for the provinces,
to spend without statescraft their twilight years.
The wish for peace is, thus, now set in stone.
And, four years later, the treaties are signed
by Swedes and Austrians in Osnabrück,
thanks to Christina and to Leopold,
the Kaiser's son, the Archduke, who's just had
in Vienna's Hofburg the same idea,
as the last shot is fired... right, anywhere
in Western lands, for where we do not care.
Three decades of war that have overrun
the heart of Europe have come to an end.
And soon, the Swedish palace sees once more
a lady, now within her autumn years,
embrace her adult daughter, now her Queen.
At last, Eleanor's tears are those of joy,
and hope returns within her healing heart,
as Christina sheds joyful tears as well.
For, once peace in Westphalia had been signed,
she'd sought the traces of lost Eleanor,
down to the Prussian fortress of Küstrin,
where she had lived as the commandant's ward,
and invited her back to Sweden's court.
When Christina grew up, as half a child,
she realized why her mother reached out
and screamed, as the Chancellor parted them.
That Eleanor was not the least insane,
as Christina had thought of her herself,
but... one who loved not wisely but too well,
and, being wrought, perplexed in the extreme.
"When I am queen, I'll have her by my side,
and we'll discuss everything in our lives!"
Thus thought Christina, thus she did decide,
headstrong as a true Vasa. From now on,
Eleanor and her daughter win lost time
by watching plays, reading books, art, song, dance...
Love 'twixt a mother and her female child
is far stronger than steel, warmer than flames,
and more enduring than the universe.
Yet soon Christina'll feel the heavy crown,
the throne uneasy, the powerful urge
of crossing lands as an adventurer,
the true freedom unknown to royalty...
Naming her best childhood friend Charles her heir
(he lost her heart and hand, yet won her crown),
she'll part from Eleanor, both in warm tears,
embracing her and telling her that she
will lose her, but win Charles as son and heir
(which Eleanor will find hard to accept),
then gallop forth towards the southern lands,
until, staying with Leopold in Spa,
in the Low Countries, yes, with th'Austrian heir
(and Tilly's heir and great-nephew Ernest),
given a province of his own to rule
as practice for when he shall rule the realm...
a Habsburg and a Vasa turning friends
in such a lovely backdrop... Suddenly
she'll know her mother, at Nyköpingshus,
has closed forever those lovely bright eyes,
and is now with her Gustavus at last,
their spirits strolling across Paradise,
their bodies in the same shrine, side by side:
he in his thirties, she, decrepit, aged,
no longer the fresh flower of her youth,
but at last by his side, and that's the truth.
So now, we leave the Swedish royalty:
the warrior and his lovely lady fair,
at last reunited, and that fore'er,
their clever daughter, in a foreign land,
brooding, restless and weary, on Spanish strand,
concealing tears, head buried in her hands.
And realms rising from the ruins of war
to hope and to the future as before.
After three decades, thirty endless years,
written in history with blood and tears,
we Westerners a precious lesson learned:
that, though we'd make the same mistake, returned,
over and over, always to remind
us when prejudice has turned us unkind:
to tolerate, though we may not pay heed
to them, others' thoughts, cultures, choice, and creed,
for that will make us brave and wise indeed.
It's been a pleasure to retell this tale
drawn from real life, with values that prevail,
and thus, wishing our best wishes to you,
readers, we tearfully bid you all adieu.
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