To every warning voice that makes itself
Be listened to in the heart. To hold us back,
Oft does the lying spirit counterfeit
The voice of truth and inward revelation,
Scattering false oracles. And thus have I
To entreat forgiveness for that secretly.
I've wronged this honorable gallant man,
This Butler: for a feeling of the which
I am not master (fear I would not call it),
Creeps o'er me instantly, with sense of shuddering,
At his approach, and stops love's joyous motion.
And this same man, against whom I am warned,
This honest man is he who reaches to me
The first pledge of my fortune.

ILLO.
And doubt not
That his example will win over to you
The best men in the army.

WALLENSTEIN.
Go and send
Isolani hither. Send him immediately.
He is under recent obligations to me:
With him will I commence the trial. Go.

[Exit ILLO.

WALLENSTEIN (turns himself round to the females).
Lo, there's the mother with the darling daughter.
For once we'll have an interval of rest--
Come! my heart yearns to live a cloudless hour
In the beloved circle of my family.

COUNTESS.
'Tis long since we've been thus together, brother.

WALLENSTEIN (to the COUNTESS, aside).
Can she sustain the news? Is she prepared?

COUNTESS.
Not yet.

WALLENSTEIN.
Come here, my sweet girl! Seat thee by me,
For there is a good spirit on thy lips.
Thy mother praised to me thy ready skill;
She says a voice of melody dwells in thee,
Which doth enchant the soul. Now such a voice
Will drive away from me the evil demon
That beats his black wings close above my head.

DUCHESS.
Where is thy lute, my daughter? Let thy father
Hear some small trial of thy skill.

THEKLA.
My mother
I----

DUCHESS.
Trembling? Come, collect thyself. Go, cheer
Thy father.

THEKLA.
O my mother! I--I cannot.

COUNTESS.
How, what is that, niece?

THEKLA (to the COUNTESS).
O spare me--sing--now--in this sore anxiety,
Of the overburdened soul--to sing to him
Who is thrusting, even now, my mother headlong
Into her grave.

DUCHESS.
How, Thekla! Humorsome!
What! shall thy father have expressed a wish
In vain?

COUNTESS.
Here is the lute.

THEKLA.
My God! how can I----

[The orchestra plays. During the ritornello THEKLA expresses in her
gestures and countenance the struggle of her feelings; and at the
moment that she should begin to sing, cont