CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 dramatic library 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 OF Cornell University 
 1934 
 
PH 
 
 ..per ■ 
 
B Cornell University 
 B Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013240753 
 
MODERN PLAYS 
 
 JUSTICE. By John Galswobthy. 
 
 JOY. By John Galswobthy. 
 
 STRIFE. By John Galswobthy. 
 
 THE SILVER BOX. By John Gals- 
 wobthy. 
 
 HAMILTON'S SECOND MAR- 
 RIAGE. By Mrs W. K. Clipfobd. 
 
 THOMAS AND THE PRINCESS. 
 By Mrs W. K. Clifford. 
 
 THE MODERN WAY. By Mrs W. 
 K. Cliffobd. 
 
 THE REVOLT and THE ESCAPE. 
 By ViLLiERs DE l'Isle Adam. 
 
 THE COMING OF PEACE. By 
 Gerhabt Hauptmann. 
 
 THE STORM. By Ostbovsky. 
 
 THE FATHER. By August Stbind- 
 
 bebo, 
 THE DAWN. By Emile Vebhaeben. 
 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER. 
 By Margaret L. Woods. 
 
THE PRINCESS 
 OF HANOVER 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET L. WOODS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DUCKWORTH & CO. 
 
 3 HENRIETTA STREET, W.C. 
 
L 
 
 JWHshed 1902. Seissued 1910 
 
TO 
 
 BELLA 
 
 i8 80-1892 
 
A PREFACE: 
 
 BEING SOME REMARKS ON ENGLISH 
 VERSE 
 
 " Shakes feare . . . as he threw off the trammels oj 
 his early style . . . came to determine his rhythm by 
 stress, and Milton did just the same. . . . Immediately 
 English verse is written free from a numeration oj 
 syllables, it falls back on the number of stresses as a 
 determining law.'" 
 
 " Milton's Prosody." — Robert Bkidges. 
 
 For a writer of verse to preface his own work by 
 remarks on the theory of English verse, is plainly a 
 rash proceeding. He appears to be saying, " Here 
 is the correct theory and there the model perform- 
 ance." I have no such meaning, but think it con- 
 venient to put the few remarks I have to make on a 
 subject obviously not interesting to the general 
 public, in a place where no one expects to find 
 anything of interest — namely, a preface. That it 
 is a subject which does not engage attention is 
 proved by the small effect which Mr. Robert Bridges' 
 scholarly tract, from which I have quoted above, has 
 produced. It dealt exhaustively with the prosody 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 of Milton, and therefore incidentally with the 
 structure of blank verse, stating with precision the 
 root principle of stress. After such a contribution 
 to the theory of our poetic art by a poet whose 
 works are so widely known, it ought to be super- 
 fluous for me to labour a point with which he has 
 already dealt. But although his tract has been 
 published for some twelve years, I do not observe 
 that our critics, either in the newspapers or in 
 conversation, show any greater consciousness of 
 the existence of English prosody than they did a 
 dozen years ago. Classical terms and rules more 
 inapplicable to our verse than the terms and rules 
 of music, are freely applied to it by classically 
 educated men, while others, untrained in the classical 
 system, either adopt its phraseology as well as they 
 know how or fall back on the mechanical measure of 
 syllables. Such a measure was almost inevitable in 
 French, a language in which the component syllables 
 of a word tend to stand on a footing of republican 
 equality ; but in English one syllable usually domi- 
 nates the others. It is for this reason, this stressed 
 quality of the language, that English prose falls so 
 readilyinto rhythm. That it does so is an oft-repeated 
 commonplace which would appear to lead straight 
 to the root of the matter as concerning English 
 prosody; but it has been left unpursued, a mere 
 blind alley. 
 
 That English prosody, over-laid from the begin- 
 ning with fragments of foreign systems, under 
 which it has, nevertheless, continued to assert its 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 individuality, should be difficult to understand, is no 
 wonder. It is, in truth, a complicated affair, and I 
 should be sorry myself to pretend to a complete 
 comprehension of it. And it would be absurd to 
 complain because the British public is not interested 
 in the theory of verse, for the British public is not 
 interested in the theory of anything. Nor do 
 I believe that the public elsewhere is found in 
 a more animated attitude towards such questions 
 than one of distant respect for those who have 
 successfully studied them. "The world is so full 
 of a number of things," as Stevenson has said, that 
 most of us must be content to remain ignorant 
 about nearly all of them. But it may reasonably 
 be complained that whereas some technical know- 
 ledge is required of one who would be accounted a 
 connoisseur in any other art, craft or branch of 
 learning, in poetry nothing of the kind is considered 
 necessary. One perceives the reason for this dis- 
 tinction, but it has been pressed too far. No great 
 while ago I saw in a respected literary paper a 
 passage of excellent blank verse quoted for repro- 
 bation because it contained a line of nine syllables. 
 The critic had here set forth to criticise in such 
 ignorance of the theory and practice of English 
 prosody as to be unaware that blank verse could be 
 written on principles other than syllabic, and had 
 been so written by Milton and Shakespeare ; and that 
 although nine-syllabled lines are by no means so 
 common in it as lines of twelve or more syllables, 
 they may be found and are not open to any theoretical 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 objection. To go no further than Marlowe, who 
 died before he had completely freed his verse from 
 the fetters of the ten-syllabled pseudo-iambic, 
 there is a nine-syllabled line in one of the finest 
 passages of "Tamberlane." Indeed, I cannot tell 
 where the critics get their rules; nor yet, as I 
 think, can they. In the matter of rhyme I do not 
 believe any poet — unless the more modern con- 
 tributors to " Hymns Ancient and Modern " — ever 
 observed the " rules " which continue to be quoted. 
 
 To begin at the beginning. What is rhyme ? Ii 
 is a similar collocation of vowel and consonantal 
 sounds preceded by a different consonantal sound, 
 or merely by the omission of such a sound, z.sfarm, 
 arm. 
 
 To go back before the beginning. What is the 
 written or printed letter ? It is a sign rep'-'^senting 
 a sound. It may be maintained that we have reached 
 a stage in which collocations of letters represent 
 ideas directly, without any intermediary idea of 
 sound. As regards prose, such a view is defensible, 
 although it does not appear to me to be correct. 
 But as regards poetry, the twin-sister of music, it 
 is plainly inadmissible. In poetry, letters can be 
 nothing but signs representing sounds. It happens 
 — and in English especially — that the same sound 
 may be represented by a great variety of different 
 signs. This irregularity of representation has 
 caused unnecessary travail of mind to certain 
 remote and unknown law-givers, who have given us 
 two phrases to meet our imaginary difficulty. One 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 is "rhyme to the ear," as great a redundancy of 
 expression as though one should say, " music to the 
 ear." The other is " rhyme to the eye," as great an 
 absurdity as though one should talk of " music to 
 the eye." 
 
 Yet these phrases would not be worth comment 
 if the rule of " rhyme to the ear " were carried to 
 its logical conclusion ; for it starts with an apparent 
 recognition of the nature of rhyme, as defined above. 
 A recognition, that is, of the fact that a rhyme is 
 essentially a sound, and that provided two words 
 ring true to each other in sound, the particular 
 letter-signs used to express it are immaterial. They 
 no more alter its value than two diiferent forms of 
 notation would alter a musical phrase. This is 
 admitted in most cases, for rhymed poetry could 
 not exist in English if it were not. In some cases, 
 on the other hand, arbitrary lines have been drawn 
 by the unknown law-givers ; lines which the poets, 
 however, have little respected. I open a volume of 
 Tennyson at a venture and jSnd the following rhymes 
 thick upon the page : blows — those, nursed— first, 
 grown — alone, worth — earth, dew — you, nigh — /. 
 These occur in the Lines to J. S., and have never, I 
 believe, been called in question ; nor should they be, 
 for the words chime exactly with each other. Yet I 
 observe rhymes good for the same reason, as palm 
 — arm, morn — dawn, falling under the mysterious 
 ban of critical rules. A foreigner might be led to 
 suppose that the / in palm and the r in arm and 
 morn were slightly pronounced ; but we know that 
 
xu PREFACE 
 
 they are not. They are both equally signs having 
 no independent value, but merely serving to broaden 
 the preceding vowel. In our standard modern 
 English r before a consonant is never pronounced, 
 and to pretend that it is is a useless fiction. This 
 particular sound is dead and buried, and there is 
 evidence to show that in Middlesex it never existed. 
 From the literary point of view it was a misfortune 
 that London became the capital of England, for 
 almost any other part of the country would have 
 yielded us a nobler and more varied speech. But 
 circumstances have caused the clipped dialect of the 
 Middle Saxon to be the matrix of standard English, 
 and rhyme must be determined by pronunciation 
 as it is, not as it might be. 
 
 Rhyme is for the tickling of the ear ; what then 
 is meant by " rhyme to the eye " ? Something ; 
 but something else. For where is the appeal of 
 poetry to the eye ? Is it in an elegant arrangement 
 of lines ? Then is an eighteenth-century epitaph on 
 a church wall as pleasing as a stanza of the Ode on 
 Intimations of Immortality. But, indeed, they are 
 both poor forms of decorative art, and a sixpenny 
 Japanese fan must be bad if it is not better. We enjoy 
 reading poetry to ourselves, not because our eyes 
 delight in certain arrangements of lines and letters, 
 but because, like a skilled musician reading a score, 
 we know the musical effects they represent. If these 
 so-called " rhymes to the eye " have been freely used 
 by the poets, it is for the very reason that they are 
 not true rhymes. The ear grows weary of the 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 regular beat of true rhyme upon it, and welcomes 
 the relief of a partial resemblance, in English usually 
 consonantal. That this is the true explanation 
 of their use will be apparent when it is considered 
 that no one has ever treated rot^h and bough as 
 rhymes, although if identity of spelling could make 
 them so, there are none better in the dictionary. 
 For the same reason the poets have never ceased 
 and never will cease to use what are called " bad," 
 that is, imperfect rhymes. In that masterpiece of 
 of lyric harmony, Shelley's Ode to the West Wind, 
 there occur such rhymes as sepulchre — atmosphere, 
 even — heaven — given; and the perfect use of these 
 imperfect rhymes is an element in its beauty. 
 
 To pass from the Ode to the West Wind to the 
 verse of the following play is a descent too steep 
 to be contemplated. Those who have accepted the 
 principle of stressed verse may find much to criticise 
 in mine, but not much that requires explanation. 
 
 Note. — The above was written before the re- 
 publication of Mr. Bridges' Prosody of Milton (1901). 
 
PERSONAGES 
 
 Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover. 
 Sophia, Electress of Hanover. 
 
 George, Electoral Prince of Hanover, afterwards George I. 
 of England. 
 
 Sophie Dorothea, Electoral Princess of Hanover, 
 daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Zell. Called by Konigs- 
 marck, Lionisse. 
 
 The Duke of Zell, brother of the Elector of Hanover. 
 
 The Duchess of Zell, formerly EUonore d'Olbreuse, and 
 morganatic wife of the Duke. 
 
 Clara von Platen, commonly called Madame Platen, Mistress 
 en litre of the Elector. 
 
 Ermingarda von Schulenburg, Mistress of the Electoral 
 Prince of Hanover. 
 
 Prince Charles- 
 
 Prince Max . younger sons of the Elector. 
 
 Prince Ernest 
 
 The young V'SMUca George and the little Princess, children of the 
 
 Electoral Prince and Princess of Hanover. 
 Philip von Konigsmarck, a Swedish nobleman and officer in the 
 
 Hanoverian Army. 
 Aurora von Konigsmarck, his sister, and a celebratea beauty. 
 Leonora von Knesebeck, lady-in-waiting to the Electora 
 
 Princess of Hanover. 
 Von Mesbach, a courtier and spy of Madame Platen's. 
 HiLDEBRAND, secretary to Konigsmarck. 
 
xvi PERSONAGES 
 
 Count von Platen, husband to Madame Platen. 
 
 Conrad, soldier servant to Konigsmarck. 
 
 Baroness von Heineburg, lady-in-waiting to the Electress. 
 
 Baron von Blasewitz 1 
 
 Countess von Duderstadt \ Hanoverian courtiers. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen ) 
 
 Baron von Bohl ] 
 
 Von Lindau r officers in the Hanoverian Army. 
 
 And Others ' 
 
 The French Envoy at the Court of Hanover. 
 
 The Governor of the Castle of Ahldbn, 
 
 Court Physicians. 
 
 Inn-keeper's Wife at Ahlden and her daughter Gretel 
 
 Gentleman-in-attendance on the Princess. 
 
 Halberdiers. 
 
 A Messenger. 
 
THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 
 
 OVERTURE 
 
 The garden at Herrenhausen on a summer evening. 
 A terrace is seen on the left, with steps descending 
 to the garden and a marble bench below it. The 
 terrace runs back from the eye, and parallel to it is 
 a view of fountains, formal alleys, clipped trees 
 and statues. Hildebrand is seated on the bench 
 below the terrace playing upon the lute and 
 
 THE BALLAD OF THE MAIDEN AND 
 THE ELFIN LOVER. 
 
 Hushed are the houses, the lamps are all sleeping, 
 But the moon, the white moon is awake. 
 At eve the spinners tell beside the doorway 
 Of evil spirits and their accursed love, 
 Fiercer than hate. Close well the curtains. 
 For the moon — and what beside ? — is awake. 
 
! THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 
 
 Dark and warm the narrow room, 
 But the gold and silver broom 
 On the perfumed hills was blowing 
 When the maiden went there alone. 
 
 Forth she went with swinging hair, 
 While the moon in heaven's bare 
 Rode the vacant pathway showing. 
 By the shore the maiden walked alone. 
 
 Nothing moved but on the sand 
 Shadows like a dial hand, 
 Slender shade of feathered sedges, 
 Broad rock-shadows veering under the moon. 
 
 Ere the shadows had moved a span 
 Waking or sleeping she saw a man. 
 On the bare and bright sea-edges, 
 A man of Elfland under the moon. 
 
 Yet the maiden had no fear ; 
 Her seemed she had loved him a long year, 
 Oft had seen him pale for her kisses. 
 Often looked on him silent for love. 
 
 In an hour they knew must end, 
 All of their hearts they two did spend, 
 Spent their store of mortal blisses 
 Spent in an hour the long wonder of love. 
 
 When the primrose morning crept 
 Low along the sky, she slept ; 
 Still in the dark of heaven above her 
 Small as a jewel hung the glittering moon. 
 
THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 3 
 
 Hushed and wan the morning broke, 
 Wonderingly the girl awoke, 
 Saw no more the elfin lover 
 Nor gentle shadows following the white moon. 
 
 In the unsubstantial day 
 Far off the floating hills were gray. 
 She looked across the airy water 
 And idly through her fingers poured the sand. 
 
 Suddenly her heart began 
 To beat, for she saw the steps of a man. 
 Trembling from the ground she caught her 
 And followed them along the lonely sand. 
 
 They ended where a great stone 
 Like a ruined tower stood alone. 
 At the blind gate she marked more clearly 
 The track, for in every step was blood. 
 
 She beat at the stone on every side, 
 " Let me come to my love ! " she cried, 
 " Let me in, for I love him dearly," 
 And, " Who is this that hath shed his heart's blood ? " 
 
 At length deep in the rock, one said. 
 Fiercely shrieking, " My love is dead. 
 I have killed him, accursed mortal." 
 Laughing, "And I have avenged him. Go thy way," 
 
 Fishermen with chants begun 
 To haul their net in the sparkling sun ; 
 Turning from the closed portal 
 Silent she stared on them and went her way. 
 
THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 
 
 At every step she seemed to feel 
 Cutting her heart a knife of steel. 
 Treading slow, as heavy-laden, 
 Home she came and beat at her father's door. 
 
 She turned and saw down the dusty street 
 Blood in the tracks of her own feet. 
 Never knew the dead maiden 
 Whether any opened her father's door. 
 
 At eve the spinners tell beside the doorway 
 Of evil spirits and their accursed love. 
 
 [HiLDFBRAND goes out, Up the garden 
 as he sings. 
 
ACT I 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 The garden at Herrenhausen, with the terrace, as before. 
 Evening as before. The Electoral Prince of 
 Hanover, Prince Charles, and Prince Max 
 come along the terrace. 
 
 Electoral Prince. God be thanked that is qver I 
 
 Prince Max. I should give greater thanks if it had 
 never been. Pork stew, beef stew, mutton stew, 
 onion pudding, and all served with grease ! Bah ! 
 
 Electoral Prince. I like grease ; it is wholesome. It 
 was a good German dinner and so will I always 
 eat. I hate your French kickshaws. No, I did 
 not thank God I had got away from dinner, I 
 thanked God I had got away from my mother. 
 
 Prince Charles. And your mother, not being pious, 
 is only thanking her stars she has got away from 
 you. 
 
 Electoral Prince. England, always England ! But 
 her Highness has never been to England and I 
 have. They are mad, the English, they have no 
 respect, no etiquette. I don't want to be King of 
 England ; they would take off my head with no 
 more ado than if I were a pullet. 
 
6 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Prince Charles. You can give the place to Max if you 
 don't want it. 
 
 Prince Max. I would rather have the money. 
 
 Electoral Prince. No, no, the money is just what I 
 want. Tell me, Charles, you who are so clever, 
 what can I do ? It's the same cursed business as 
 my marriage. I had to take my wife to get the 
 money, and now in the end I shall have to take 
 England to get the money. It's devilish hard. 
 
 Prince Charles. Treat England the same way as you 
 have treated your wife. Take her — and neglect 
 her. 
 
 Prince Max. Give me half the money and I'll take 
 both — England and your wife. 
 
 Electoral Prince. I wish I had thought of that before 
 I married. You're such a fool, Max. I believe 
 you would have taken the French Madame's 
 jade of a daughter for less than half her dowry. 
 
 Prince Max. Parbleu ! Prince, I would ! 
 
 Prince Charles. And so would I, and so would any 
 man except you, George. 
 
 Electoral Prince. Bah I She's not a real princess. 
 Anyone can see that. 
 
 Prince Max. Ay, that they can ! For I never yet 
 had a real princess offered me in marriage but she 
 had a shape like a sack full of meal and eyes like 
 boiled gooseberries. But Sophie! O such a 
 shape ! And a mouth — and eyes — O such eyes ! 
 
 Electoral Prince. You're in love with my wife. 
 
 Prince Charles. And so am I. 
 
 Electoral Prince. But that's nothing. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 7 
 
 Prince Max. No, for as every one knows she is 
 damnably, utterly heartless, a complete coquette. 
 
 Electoral Prince. I don't approve of your flirting with 
 my wife. That is certainly not etiquette. Now 
 if some one else ran away with her I should not 
 mind so much, for then I could kill him and she 
 also would trouble ihe no more. 
 
 Prince Charles. Beware, Electoral Highness ! Re- 
 member your own precious existence hangs upon 
 the Princess of Hanover's. Is it not written in the 
 stars that you yourself must die within a year of 
 your wife ? No, no ! Whatever happens you 
 cannot kill Sophie. 
 
 Electoral Prince. I cannot even wish her to die. It 
 is a cursed prophecy and I would to Heaven I 
 could forget it. But I might shut her up some- 
 where as safe as though she were in the grave, 
 and never see her and never hear of her any 
 more. 1 hate my wife, I hate the Princess of 
 Hanover. 
 
 Prince Charles. You are drunk, George. 
 
 Electoral Prince. Not very drunk. How can I be ? 
 Did you ever taste such liquor as the Elector gives 
 us ? I have ordered some good French wine to 
 the pavilion yonder and some friends to help 
 drink it. You can come if you choose, brothers. 
 It is all one to me. [Goes out. 
 
 Prince Charles. Our precious brother I 
 
 Prince Max. Our precious elder brother — with the 
 principalities of Zell, Osnabriick, and Hanover, 
 and it may be the crown of England to boot, all 
 
8 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 piled on his boar's head I 'Tis for him we younger 
 sons are stripped of our rights and dignities, 'tis 
 for his sake that we are beggared. 
 
 iThe Elector and Electress come 
 along the terrace accompanied by 
 the Princess of Hanover and her 
 children, the young Prince George 
 and the little Princess, Eleonore, 
 Duchess of ZmjL, and ladies and 
 gentlemen. 
 
 Electress. England ! I boast my England ? I do 
 boast her : 
 Say to be monarch there's a sovereignty 
 Sole in a world of thrones. Who governs Eng- 
 
 and 
 Rules over men. 
 Elector. Here then what do we, Madam ? 
 
 Electress. Herd sheep. 
 Elector. \Sings.^ 
 
 A doublet green and silken hose, 
 
 Rose, rose, 
 A golden crook as shepherds use 
 
 For thee I'll choose — 
 
 [Bowing.] Madam, my shepherdess at your good 
 
 service — 
 Your dainty shepherd ! 
 Duchess. [7b ^fe Elector.] Highness, your sheep at 
 
 any rate 
 Are quiet souls ; they'll not cut off your head. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 9 
 
 Electress. [Grumbling to herself. 'I 
 
 " Cut off your head ! " That's all they know of 
 England. 
 Elector. Madam Sister, you are right. These English- 
 men" 
 
 Are treacherous, fierce, like the unstable sea 
 
 Caught in perpetual swing of ebb and flow. 
 
 " I'll not be Queen of England," quoth the lady, 
 
 " Till I've two heads." Sophie, sweet daughter- 
 ling, 
 
 Wilt thou be Queen of England ? 
 Princess. Highness, no. 
 
 Not were I hydra-headed. These animals 
 
 Would chop me off twenty, spit into their hands 
 
 And fall to work on the others. 
 Electress. Ignorant girl, 
 
 Peace ! What knowest thou of England ? 
 This my England, 
 
 Not fickle, no, nor of a changeable heart, 
 
 Nor swift to smite nor timorous in smiting. 
 
 She slew her king, majestically slew him. 
 Less loyal had been less guilty. 
 Elector. Diantre, your Highness ! [Takes snufi. 
 
 Wonderful woman ! This way lies a crown. 
 Max. In a nettle-bed. 
 Charles. In a gutter, / 
 Princess. Foul the hands 
 
 That are fain of it I 
 Electress. [To the Princess.] Thou'lt not be Queen 01 
 England ? 
 
 No, for by Heaven that needs a royal heart ! 
 
lo THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 What were it to be Queen of England ? Answer, 
 
 Shade of the illustrious dead, answer, Elizabeth ! 
 
 Were it to pack, distil into one brain 
 
 The master-thought of millions, in one bosom 
 
 To house a love great as a million loves 
 
 And manifold as they; one word, " My People," 
 
 Being in your mouth, what mother, spouse, child, 
 
 lover 
 Mean upon other lips — your soul's main utterance 
 
 And key to your entire life ? 
 
 Then comes the reward. 
 Consider it, women, you whose happiness 
 Is lightly blown from ephemeral joy to joy. 
 Maidenhood, beauty, motherhood, ere it fall 
 Unwinged and spent with half your years. Consider 
 What 'twere to be a Queen, 
 A Queen of men, not marketable serfs. 
 Perchance you lean out from your balcony 
 One spring day, in the prime and rapture of youth. 
 And mark the immense crowd billowing beneath, 
 A sea of worshipping eyes, a ripple of hands 
 Claiming you theirs, lifting you to the height 
 Of their hearts' throne — all fathers, lovers, friends, 
 
 All yours and yours for ever. 
 
 These are the Immortals, 
 Not to be changed by mutability 
 Of the inconstant blood, or alienated 
 By circumstance, or in the unfeeling grave 
 
 To slumber careless. 
 
 You the years will change. 
 The small mechanic hours, you will grow old, 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER ii 
 
 Dim-hearted, cinder-grey, will drop your play- 
 things 
 
 One after one — Ay, but on any day 
 
 Choose you come forth, outstretching crooked 
 hands. 
 
 Like those youth mocks, whispering with faded 
 mouth 
 
 Such as men scorn, " My People " — and lo, the 
 Immortals ! 
 
 A sea of worshipping eyes, a ripple of hands 
 
 Claiming you with the old rapture, lifting you 
 
 To the height of their hearts' throne, yours as in 
 youth, 
 
 Yours on through age to death, sons, lovers, 
 friends. 
 
 — This were for her that had a queen's heart. 
 Princess. I 
 
 Have a woman's, madam. Truly one man's love. 
 
 One honourable love, would more content me 
 
 Than all your multitude's. 
 Max. [Aside to the Princess.] Adorable Sophie ! 
 
 [7b the Electress.] Your Queen Elizabeth was a 
 dry old maid, was she not ? 
 Electress. Boy, you talk like a girl. 
 
 Charles. You, mother, 
 
 Not like a Stuart. Whose heads have they cut off, 
 
 This people ? — Stuart heads. 
 
 Whom treasonably 
 
 Have they despoiled, exiled? — Again your kins- 
 folk. 
 
 Still Stuarts. 
 
12 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 The crown's a Stuart's — I'd rather die defending 
 
 it 
 Than live to wear't a usurper. 
 Elector. Ay, ay, Charles, 
 
 Thou speakest well. I also love them not, 
 
 These English. 
 Still, money must be considered. 
 Thou hast an excellent, shrewd, well-judging 
 mother : 
 Respect her, Charles. 
 [To the young Prince George]. 
 Come hither, George, come now to Grandpapa. 
 Wilt thou be King of England, a rich King 
 With barrels of gold ? 
 Young Prince. That I will. Grandpapa ! 
 
 Elector. What would'st thou do with it ? 
 Young Prince. Buy beer and wood. 
 
 Elector. Wood ? Donnerwetter ! Why would'st thou 
 
 buy wood ? 
 Young Prince. To burn my books with. Hey, what 
 a fine bonfire 1 
 We'd all eat pepper-cakes, and drink and drink 
 Till we were like the Prince, my father. 
 
 \The Elector laughs uproariously. 
 Princess. Chut ! 
 
 Duchess. Fi done ! 
 Electress. Peace, foolish boy, and mind thy book. 
 
 If thou would'st be a King. 
 Elector. Bah ! they are women. 
 
 What do they know of Kings ? But thou and I 
 Are men. Come, Georgie ! thou and Grandpapa 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 13 
 
 Shall set the fountain dragons all a-spirt. 
 There's fun for us ! 
 
 [As they begin to move off the terrace the 
 
 Electoral Prince George meets 
 
 them. He has been drinking. 
 
 Prince. I don't want you, any of you. I want my 
 
 Ermingarda. Where is my Schulenburg ? She 
 
 should meet me here on the terrace. 
 
 Princess. Highness! Grandfather! You hear the 
 
 Prince ? \_She bursts into tears. 
 
 Electress. George, you forget yourself. You also, 
 
 Princess. 
 Elector. [Going out and pushing the Electoral 
 Prince before him.^ Lout ! Wilt thou never learn 
 manners ? 
 
 [They all move off the terrace. As they 
 go out Konigsmarck and Hilde- 
 BRAND pass in the garden below, 
 playing the lute and singing. 
 
 Hushed are the houses, the lamps are all sleeping, 
 But the moon, the white moon is awake. 
 At eve the spinners tell beside the doorway 
 Of evil spirits and their accursed love. 
 Fiercer than hate. 
 
 [They go further away in the garden. 
 
 Madame Platen and Ermingarda 
 
 von Schulenburg come along the 
 
 terrace. 
 
 E. v. Schulenburg. The Prince is not yet here. Nay, 
 
 that is well. 
 
14 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Madame Platen. Ay, for you're well assured the 
 Prince will come. 
 
 But the Elector ? Where is he ? Walking with 
 the Princess ! 
 
 Toying with his grandson, calling her sweet 
 names, 
 
 " Sophiechen," "daughterling"! Ernest Augustus 
 
 Forgets he has a mistress, one who hath surely 
 
 Some claim on his attention. 
 E. V. Schulenburg. Do not fear, 
 
 'Tis a most generous prince. You'll not lack money 
 
 Madam, whatever happens. 
 Madame Platen. Money, Ermingarda ! 
 
 Art thou a sloth, a marmot ? Canst not hate. 
 
 Not even hate the Princess ? 
 E.v. Schulenburg. [^Eating caramels.] Why should I 
 hate her ? 
 
 The Prince does. He loves me. 
 Madame Platen. But she hates both. 
 
 Hates you and me and every day dishonours us 
 
 With ignominious terms, indecorous. 
 
 Unmeet for noblewomen — concubines, 
 
 Harpies, no name so foul but she dare fling it. 
 
 The brat of Zell. 
 E. V. Schulenburg. Pfui ! 'Tis her jealousy. 
 
 Because the, power is ours. 
 Madame Platen. Ours, Ermingarda, 
 
 To-day, but how long ours ? The Princess of 
 Hanover 
 
 Is mother of the heir, the sly Frenchwoman's 
 daughter. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 15 
 
 Each day she wins a heart and every heart 
 She wins, to us means a new enemy. 
 E. V. Schulenburg. What can she do ? The Prince 
 
 has all her money. 
 Madame Platen. Money 1 Do you desire nothing 
 but money ? 
 But I would rule, and she robs me of power, 
 Robs me of everything — O Ermingarda, 
 I have done well for thee, by how much better 
 Than for myself ! I found thee a brave young 
 
 Prince 
 For a lover girl. Tell me, dost thou not love 
 
 him ? 
 Is it not sweet to love ? 
 E. V. Schulenburg. For your good friendship. 
 
 Madam, I thank you. Little did my parents, 
 Good souls, hope to establish their poor daughter, 
 Their penniless girl thus nobly, for young men 
 Are grown so mercenary ! The Electoral Prince 
 Is well enough. 
 Madame Platen. My child, he worships you. 
 
 Do you not love him ? 
 E. V. Schulenburg. Love him ? Pfui ! What's love ? 
 
 Nonsense, I say. 
 Madame Platen. You say because you are young. 
 There'll come at length a time — Dear God ! I also 
 Was young as you are — all, beauty and youth, 
 All sacrificed, unvalued, lost for this ! 
 How ? Shall the brat of Zell, the mock Princess, 
 Conquer us, girl ? 
 
 There's not a drop of blood 
 
i6 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 In all your waxen body ; you cannot hate, 
 No, nor love either ! But between us two, 
 Me and my foe, Princess of Hanover, 
 There is a mortal hate ; it burns, it grows. 
 It cannot be assuaged unless by ruin. 
 By death, by triumph, it cannot have an end 
 
 Except 
 
 [KoNiGSMARCK and HiLDEBRAND are 
 heard singing in the garden. 
 
 They ended where a great stone 
 Like a ruined tower stood alone. 
 At the blind gate she marked more clearly 
 The track, for in every step was blood. 
 
 Madame Platen. Hark ! Who is that ? 
 
 E V. Schulenburg. 'Tis some young gentlemen 
 
 Studying their music. 
 Madame Platen. O be silent ! Listen ! 
 
 KoNiGSMARCK sings. 
 
 She beat at the stone on every side. 
 "Let me come to my love" she cried; 
 " Let me in, for I love htm dearly," 
 And, " Who is this that hath shed his heart's blood?" 
 
 Madame Platen. That voice I Ay, surely ! 
 
 My Ermingarda, I implore of thee go. 
 
 Look, tell me who they are singing in the garden. 
 
 [Schulenburg leans over the balustrade 
 
 of the terrace, looking; Konigs- 
 
 MARCK, singing, more in the distance. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 17 
 
 At length deep in the rock one said, 
 Fiercely shrieking, " My love is dead. 
 I have killed him, accursed mortal." 
 Laughing, " And I have avenged him. Go thy way," 
 
 E. V. Schulenburg. 'Tis the handsome Count, 
 
 Madam; it is Konigsmarck. 
 Madame Platen. [Throwing her arms round Schulen- 
 burg]. Ermingardal 
 E. V. Schulenburg. Heavens ! What is the 
 
 matter with you ? 
 Madame Platen. I love him. 
 
 E. V. Schulenburg. You mean Konigsmarck ? 
 
 Madame Platen. Ermingarda, 
 
 Listen, I entreat. You surely are my friend, 
 Not thankless, nor a compelled sycophant ; 
 
 No, but my friend. 
 Hold me, embrace me closer ! 
 Yes, I do love him, Philip — Konigsmarck. 
 
 brave lips blessed in the utterance ! 
 
 Philip ! They kiss themselves upon the name. 
 
 E. V. Schulenburg. But you have the Elector 
 
 Madame Platen. Yes, I have the Elector ! 
 
 Old, negligent ; but let her not count upon 
 
 him. 
 My triumphing enemy ! Once I held him bound 
 In a chain of Love, strong, yet I know a stronger, 
 A chain to haul such grey leviathans 
 Out of the middle deep — habit. I hold it, 
 
 1 hold the Elector. 
 
 E. V. Schulenburg. What if he discovered ? 
 
1 8 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Madame Platen. He'll not discover. Well, and if be 
 did? 
 You think I dare not win my love, I dare not 
 Wear Philip on my heart, superbly wear him 
 
 For the world to see ? 
 Dare I not ? Ah, dear God ! 
 
 E. V. Schuknburg. Madam, let me advise you, 
 
 Madame Platen. What do you advise. 
 
 Girl ? The continuance of the old routine ? 
 Managing the Elector, ruling at Monplaisir, 
 Mistress of the revels, while the entire court 
 Bows to my pleasure as in a feathery swamp 
 The reeds bow all the wild way of the wind ? 
 
 Power ! Money ! 
 You suppose that having won them, 
 Having assured them, we are satisfied ? 
 I thought so, too, at your age. Then I wondered 
 What 'twas I lacked — and then came Konigs- 
 marck. 
 
 E. V. Schuknburg. When might that be ? 
 
 Madame Platen. We met upon a journey 
 
 On the road to Wiesbaden. 
 
 E. V. Schuknburg. What made you love him ? 
 
 Madame Platen. Why do you ask ? Your eyes alone 
 can answer 
 What is beyond dispute. The envying stars 
 Say not there is no radiance in the sun, 
 Neither have any said of Konigsmarck 
 He is not beautiful. 
 
 E. V. Schuknburg. His sister Aurora 
 
 Is also beautiful. Why does she come here ? 
 
sc, I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 19 
 
 Madame Platen. What's that to me ? She cannot be 
 his lover, 
 Let her be whose she will. Why does he come 
 
 here? 
 Answer me that, Ermingarda. 
 E, V. Schulenburg. Surely, madam. 
 
 You are sufficient cause. 
 Madame Platen, Dear flattery! 
 
 I did imagine it once, I did suppose him 
 Love's merchantman, dallying with interchange 
 Of immaterial gauds, till the opportune hour 
 Come to reveal the whole unpriced treasure 
 That queens may traffic in. 
 A dear conjecture, 
 And false as he who is dearer than all dreams. 
 And falser than he knows. Without a word, 
 Suddenly he departed ; unannounced 
 He has returned, but cold, preoccupied 
 Like a philosopher. Who has transformed 
 
 him ? 
 What magic altered? Who unqualitied 
 The amorous Konigsmarck? 
 E. V. Schulenburg. Some black Venetian 
 
 Met in a mask, her hair dyed red. 
 Madame Platen. The Princess. 
 
 E. V. Schulenburg. The Princess of Prussia? What ! 
 Consoled already 
 With a new amour ? 
 Madame Platen. Prussia ! Who talked of her ? 
 There's but one princess, one in all the world 
 For me, my enemy — the Princess of Hanover. 
 
20 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 [K5NIGSMARCK IS m the garden with his 
 back to the terrace, playing on a lute. 
 Madame Platen advances to the 
 balustrade, and leans over it. 
 There's but one man that ever I did weigh 
 Against a ducat! Put him now in the balance 
 Against the pearls of the East, an argosy, 
 Throw monarchs in, even magnificent France 
 Himself — my Philip, yet thou shouldst outweigh 
 
 them ! 
 I love thee ; and thou dare'st, thou dare'st love her ! 
 E. V. Schulenburg. Madam, the whole of this is 
 midsummer madness. 
 I speak as a friend. If you will accuse the 
 
 Princess 
 Of a lover, find a likelier — one of the Princes, 
 Not Konigsmarck. Madam, your passion for him 
 Is a ruinous folly, natural in a girl, 
 
 But in a woman of your age, experience 
 
 Madame Platen. My age ! So thou must taunt me 
 with my years, 
 Thou baby-face ! 
 
 Most true, my Konigsmarck, 
 I bring thee not that bubble filled with fancy, 
 The heart of a girl, that cold and flimsy bubble ; 
 A wine-red ruby, an orbed jewel of flame 
 I bring thee, a woman's heart, Clara von Platen's. 
 
 I come to thee 
 Clothed in the purple of my regnant years, 
 Crowned with the diadem of men's vain desires, 
 I bring thee all I am, 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 21 
 
 Princes my vassals, kings my flatterers — 
 
 Would God thou had'st known me 
 In the old days, when the envious Frenchwomen 
 Banished me France, when here at Herrenhausen 
 I played the shepherdess, would thy heart had 
 been 
 One of the million then I stole ! 
 Cursed fortune 
 To have been so wealthy once to buy things 
 
 worthless, 
 Now to stand thus, pitiful, counting my store. 
 Well, then, I count it ! I say it is enough. 
 Time has not conquered me, but I come con- 
 quering. 
 
 Laden with the spoil of years, 
 I love thee, Konigsmarck. Mine shalt thou be 
 As certainly as yonder climbing moon 
 That like a phantom now floats from the earth, 
 Will shortly triumph, a boss of gold in heaven. 
 So certainly shall I triumph in thy love. 
 
 But look not thou on her. 
 Never again look thou upon the Princess. 
 Think'st thou none can observe, none understand? 
 Those fiery tongues thy looks have no such lan- 
 guage 
 
 Silent to me ; I know thou lovest her. 
 Forget her — or remember her at thy peril. 
 Thy deadly peril, for by omnipotent God, 
 Never will I abandon thee 
 — Konigsmarck, the power is mine — 
 To the arms of her my abhorred enemy. 
 
, 22 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Dare'st thou yet love her ? 
 
 She shall die and thou 
 Even thou, the young, beloved, adored, thou also 
 Shalt die — for I will kill thee, KSnigsmarck. 
 
 [KoNIGSMARCK and HiLDEBRAND Stng 
 
 in the garden below. 
 
 Forth she came with swinging hair, 
 While the moon in heaven's bare 
 Rode the vacant pathway showing — 
 
 [Princess of Hanover and the Duchess 
 OF Zell appear at the further end of 
 the terrace from Platen and Schu- 
 lenburg, followed at a distance by 
 Leonora v. Knesebeck, then Prince 
 Charles and Aurora approach 
 KSnigsmarck in the garden below 
 and speak with him. Hildebrand 
 goes away. 
 Madame Platen, [looking at Aurora]. The woman 
 
 yonder — who is she? 
 E, V. Schulenburg. Only Aurora. 
 
 Vender's the Princess ; the Prince then will not 
 
 come here. 
 I am going, madam, will you not go with me ? 
 Madame Platen. If I can find some insult that 
 pricks deep 
 I'll stay and meet them. 
 
 Eldonore d'Olbreuse ! 
 What's she to be a duchess ? — Nay, I am weary. 
 My head is heavy. I'll not meet them now, 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 23 
 
 For nought's to say, except — my curse upon thee, 
 Brat of Olbreuse, Princess of Hanover ! 
 
 [E. V. ScHULENBURG and Madame Platen 
 go out. The Duchess and the Prin- 
 cess advance along the terrace. 
 Princess. I will not weep. How vain and vain are 
 tears ! 
 I would unpitying Death were won with tears, 
 
 Even as compassionate Sleep. 
 She is worn Sorrow's nurse, whose breathing 
 
 bosom 
 And quiet arms upgather in the night 
 What unassuaged griefs, what hoarse despairs ! 
 
 She folds them round with rest, 
 She washes out all tears and smooths away 
 Grief's ugly writing, till the tormented wretch 
 Lies peacefully as the child wearied with play. 
 
 Nightly she brings 
 Her dear reprieve : but the eternal slumber 
 To them who ask denies the grand release. 
 Duchess. My little Sophie 1 Always so impetuous! 
 An eager spirit that must feed full of laughter 
 Or drown in misery. Child, I know it of old ! 
 You exaggerate, my dear, for what in sum 
 Makes your despair? Your husband is unfaithful. 
 Why, so are thousands, millions of common men. 
 Princes invariably. 
 Princess. Was my father unfaithful? 
 
 Duchess. Your father married me for love 
 
 Princess. Not money? 
 
 Dear heaven, had you been ignorant of love ! 
 
24 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 But no, you two had loved, you had been happy, 
 
 'Tis I must pay the price of your ambition. 
 
 Duchess. Forgive 
 
 Princess. Thou, mother, needest no forgiveness, 
 
 Who never sinned but of necessity. 
 Duchess. Compelled, I brought thee to an abhorred 
 bridal. 
 
 Yielding thy cherished youth to a house of hate. 
 Princess. Accursed day ! 
 Duchess. Enough of wasteful grief, 
 
 Which blasts thine own dear beauty but con- 
 founds not 
 
 One of our enemies. Nay, rejoice, my daughter. 
 
 Because thou hast conquered ancient enmity. 
 
 The Electress holds thee dear 
 
 Princess. Or pities me. 
 
 Duchess. The Elector prizes thee beyond his mis- 
 tress, 
 
 Who chokes with her own venom. 
 Princess. [Laughing,^ Fattens on it. 
 
 Visibly, madam. 
 Duchess. There's my own dear daughter! 
 
 Say, my sweet love, is there no pleasure in life ? 
 
 The fair Princess, the admired queen of hearts. 
 
 To whom giddy princes, grave ambassadors 
 
 Alike are tributaries — she's my daughter. 
 
 Where once I sat scorned and humiliated, 
 
 She reigns, enjoying honour. 
 Child, confess. 
 
 If dignity seem to thy youth unprecious — 
 
 Yet art thou proud — is not thy woman's triumph 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 25 
 
 Delightful to thee ? Gaiety and laughter, 
 Jewels, the dance, hast thou forgot to love them ? 
 
 Princess. No, madam. 
 
 Duchess. Thou'rt as capable of joy, 
 As full of merriment as when our madcap 
 Made pretty riot about our knees. I know her ! 
 Thy happiness is not feigned 
 
 Princess. I am often merry, 
 
 I can drink deep of joy, but Happiness 
 
 Hush ! What a sinister word ! If any utter it 
 At festivals it falls as hollowly 
 As when a stone drops echoing down a well. 
 Hinting of deep, deep darkness and drowned things 
 Far underneath, and phantoms that may rise 
 When midnight holds the house, shrouded and pale 
 And deadly cold, to haunt with long, long sighs 
 And endless iteration of old grief 
 The hushed rooms of the heart. 
 
 Duchess. What do you mean ? 
 
 My child, you are not well, you are not yourself. 
 
 Princess. When Pierrot wore his face at carnival time 
 They cried, " What a bad mask ! " 
 
 Leonora v. Knesebeck. [Approaching.] Pardon me, 
 madam, 
 Yonder Prince Charles comes with Count KOnigs- 
 
 marck 
 And his late arrived sister. 
 
 [KoNiGSMARCK and Prince Charles, 
 precededat a little distance Ziji Aurora, 
 come up the garden below to the ter- 
 race. 
 
26 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Konigsmarck, Charles, she was weeping ! 
 
 Charles. Only the usual tale; the unmannered beast, 
 
 Her husband, flouts her with his Schulenburg. 
 Konigsmarck. Were he not your brother — 
 Charles. Pray, no delicacy 
 
 On that account' — 
 Kdnigsmarck. I'd cut his heart out. 
 
 Charles. ' No ! 
 
 Princes cannot be fought ; they must be murdered. 
 That's not my Philip's business. 
 Konigsmarck. Had you known her. 
 
 The darling child that I, that every one 
 Protected ! God I This mouth has kissed the blood 
 From her scratched finger whom to-day a villain 
 
 Stabs to the heart, and none 
 
 Aurora. [From the terrace steps.] I wait for you. 
 
 Highness and brother. 
 Charles. Pardon, most fair lady ! 
 
 \They go on to the terrace where the 
 Princess of Hanover and the 
 Duchess of Zell are standing. 
 Prince Charles presents Aurora 
 to them. They all talk togethet, 
 walking on the terrace, but presently 
 the Princess and Konigsmarck 
 stand apart from the others. Hil- 
 DEBRAND is singing out of sight. 
 
 Hildebrand sings: 
 
 Nothing moved but on the sana 
 Shadows like a dial hand, 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 27 
 
 Slender shade of feathered sedges, 
 Broad rock shadows veering under the moon 
 
 Ere the shadows had moved a span 
 Waking or sleeping she saw a man, 
 On the bare and bright sea-edges 
 A man of Elfland under the moon. 
 
 Yet the maiden had no fear, 
 Her seemed she had loved him a long year, 
 Oft had seen him pale for her kisses, 
 Often looked on him silent for love. 
 
 Konigsmarck. The sunshine on the old grey castle wall, 
 
 The autumnal ochre reeds in the blue moat 
 
 Princess. Where in a row ridiculous white ducks 
 
 Would stand on their heads — until a pebble hit 
 
 them 
 
 Konigsmarck. Flung by a certain little hand 
 
 Princess. No, no ! 
 
 That I deny. I might throw, I hit nothing. 
 
 Yours was the stone and yours the ducks and 
 drakes ; 
 
 Ten or a dozen, all along the moat. 
 
 You used to make. How I did envy them ! 
 Konigsmarck. Once, madam, you contrived — do you 
 remember ? — 
 
 Head over ears, to tumble in. 
 Princess. Remember ! 
 
 Does one forget such things ? How you contrived 
 
 To pull me out — there was the miracle I 
 
 A boy as you were then 
 
28 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Konigsmarck. Faith, it appeared 
 
 One that was bold enough to plunge so deep 
 And mount so high, a princess in his arms, 
 Was over-bold. 'Twas then I got my conge. 
 
 Princess. Surely not so 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. No matter what the offence 
 
 Closed up my golden book. Let me be hasty 
 To seize the opportune moment, since your High- 
 ness 
 Deigns to review those dim and minor passages 
 In her rich memory, which firmly charactered 
 Stand in my obscure tablets, long perused 
 Yet nowise worn. Most humbly I beseech her 
 On the knees of my heart, what is the newer offence 
 That has estranged now, since I came to Hanover, 
 One who were else unaltered ? 
 
 Princess, Noble Count 
 
 If I have failed in courtesy, seemed ungracious, 
 Impute it to a mind distract 
 
 Konigsmarck, Your Highness 
 
 Has never failed. Again I ask my offence 
 — Thus, on my knee. 
 
 Princess, My lord, the place is public. 
 
 You ask ? A bitter and declared enemy 
 Fronted me the first hour I came to Hanover, 
 Into a house of enemies. Well, this woman 
 Stands yet encamped against me. She is powerful, 
 Wealthy, while I — I can forgive the herd 
 Fawning upon her, but when my playfellow. 
 Friend of my too short years of happiness. 
 When Konigsmarck shoots like an errant star 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 29 
 
 Once more above the horizon of my world — 
 I mean when you, Count Konigsmarck, appear 
 As the satellite of that unshamed harlot 
 Whom I justly abhor, that infamous harpy 
 Who shares my spoils to pay her hired flatterers. 
 Why then the shaft strikes deeper. 
 
 Konigsmarck. Madam, hear me 
 
 Princess. Philip of Konigsmarck, is it possible 
 I can believe that once sincere affection 
 Stands in the record of your memory ? 
 
 Konigsmarck. Madam, 
 
 You must believe it. 
 
 How should I be cognisant 
 Of your court politics ? When I met this lady 
 By accident, ignorant of her name and country, 
 I found her fair enough, witty enough 
 To wile the casual hour. When she invited me 
 To Hanover, where I had other business, 
 Perchance I deemed, learning her paramount, 
 Her friendship serviceable. Yet from the day 
 I knew her what she was, arch enemy 
 And infidel where unabandoned pieties 
 Enjoined me worship, I have shown the Countess 
 
 Bare courtesy. 
 Body of Bacchus ! now 
 
 I'll talk no more with her. No, may I perish 
 If I exchange a word ! 
 
 Princess. [Laughing.'] Still so impetuous ! 
 
 Konigsmarck, are you yet a boy ? 
 
 Who'd suffer 
 Should you offend grossly this paramount 
 
30 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Lady of Hanover ? Not you, Sir Wanderer, 
 Who pitch your gay pavilion here and there. 
 Making our capitals mere provinces 
 Of an unverged empire ; no, but myself. 
 She would divine, or did she not divine 
 — Although methinks yon peering moon's her spy — 
 Yet should I something lose, losing a friend. 
 For we are friends again, are we not ? 
 
 Konigsmarck. iladam ! 
 
 Princess. Losing a friend out of a world of enemies. 
 Propitiate her then. 
 
 Konigsmark. And serve my Sovereign. 
 Thus let me seal our pact and my own pardon 
 On the same little hand 
 
 Princess. [To the DuchesS; who approaches, followed 
 by the rest of the party.'] Madam, we have 
 quarrelled ■ 
 
 In the old way and have been reconciled. 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 A ball-room at the Palace. The Elector and Elec- 
 TRESS, the three younger Princes, the Princess 
 dressed as Flora in a simple white dress, with 
 carnations ; the Duchess of Zell ; the Duke of 
 Zell dancing with Madame Platen, who is mag- 
 nificently attired and covered with jewels. The 
 French Envoy, Konigsmarck, Aurora, Ermin- 
 garda v. Schulenburg, Countess v. Duder- 
 stadt, Baron v. Blasewitz and other courtiers. 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 31 
 
 Blasewits. No, Madam. Pardon me ! My reverence 
 
 for our gracious Electoral family forbids me. 
 Countess v. Duderstadt. Alas, Baron! None can 
 
 grieve more than myself at this sad disgrace to 
 
 our beloved Prince — but what can you expect ? 
 
 \Ladies and gentlemen gather round the 
 pair. 
 First Lady. What is it, gracious Countess ? 
 First Gentleman. Who is it, honoured madam ? 
 Second Lady. A scandal, a scandal ! Tell us in- 
 stantly, dear Countess. 
 Second Gentleman. We have not tasted scandal for 
 
 forty-eight hours. We are dying. 
 Countess. My lips are sealed. 
 First Lady. Is it about the Princess of Prussia and 
 
 the little dancing-master ? 
 Second Gentleman. You are mightily behind the 
 
 times, Madam. That was over six weeks ago. 
 Second Lady. Or about a certain very great person 
 
 and the Platen's waiting-maid ? There was the 
 
 devil to pay I 
 Second Gentleman. Ay, but it was the waiting-maid 
 
 paid him. The Elector 
 
 Countess. No, I thank God I listen to no scandal 
 
 that concerns any true member of our gracious 
 
 princely family, any true princess. 
 First Lady. Then it's the Princess of Hanover ! 
 All. Ah ! 
 First Gentleman. Has she at length rewarded the 
 
 passion of Prince Max ? 
 Second Lady. Or boxed his ears ? 
 
32 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Second Gentleman. Or conspired with him ? 
 Countess. I don't wonder none of you can guess. 
 All. Gracious Countess ! Dear lady ! Tell us — 
 
 you must indeed. 
 Countess. Ma foil ladies and gentlemen, I see I must 
 
 oblige you, since the Baron will not. Yesterday 
 
 the Electoral Princess, being as so commonly 
 
 happens 
 
 Baron v. Blasewitz. Indisposed and unable to dine 
 
 at the princely table 
 
 Countess. A strange sort of indisposition truly, for 
 
 when our gracious Electress - 
 
 Blasewitz. Who is always so amiable, so mild, 
 
 repairs to the Princess's apartments 
 
 Countess. Where do you think she finds her? In 
 
 bed? 
 Blasewitz. No, her Highness was not in bed. I 
 
 deeply grieve to say that her Highness was 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen. Where ? Where ? 
 Blasewitz. Unheard of ! Disgraceful ! 
 First Lady, Where was she ? 
 Countess. On the floor. 
 Blasewitz. Yes, on her hands and knees. 
 Countess. Playing with the Electoral children. 
 First Lady. Quelle horreur ! 
 Second Lady. Est il possible ! 
 First Gentleman. Monstrous ! 
 
 Second Gentleman. The floor ! It was low, undeni- 
 ably. 
 Baron v. Blasewitz. And it is in such manners that 
 
 the heir of Hanover will be brought up I 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 33 
 
 First Lady. What was to be expected from such a 
 
 marriage ? 
 Countess. Yes, indeed ! The daughter of the French 
 
 Madame ! 
 Princess of Hanover. \To the Elector.] 
 
 Your Highness will not dance with me ? You must, 
 Grandpapa ! 
 Elector. Sophie, you are laughing at me. 
 
 Princess. Laugh at the Elector ! See, my father's 
 dancing 
 
 With the Countess Platen. That's to please you. 
 Highness, 
 
 Dance with his daughter to please him. 
 Elector. Sophiechen, 
 
 I have a reason, a most secret reason ; 
 
 I cannot dance. 
 Princess. A secret ? Tell me. Grandpapa. 
 
 Elector. Love, I am fat. 
 
 Princess. Highness ! Impossible ! 
 
 Elector. I'll put thee off with a proxy. 
 
 Count of Konigsmarck, 
 
 Approach ! 
 Konigsmarck. At your Highness' service 
 Elector. We command you 
 
 To become our deputy, and personating 
 
 Most personably ourselves, to lead the Princess 
 
 Forth to the dance. 
 Konigsmarck. Highness, I am all obedience 
 
 And gratitude for undeserved honour. 
 
 [7b the Princess.] Madam, I await the moment 
 
 \He bows and withdraws. 
 c 
 
34 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Max. Honoured Father, 
 
 Are there not princes here, young, personable- 
 
 Elector. And damnable bad dancers. Keep your 
 breath 
 
 To cool your porridge, when you get it. 
 Princess. Max, 
 
 I'll dance with thee one day. 
 Max. Now that's a promise. 
 
 Eledress. You amaze me, gracious Prince I Truly, 
 odd couples 
 
 You have contrived ! To choose your princely son 
 
 Were more conformable 
 
 Ekctor. To etiquette. 
 
 Potztausend, Madam I Are you such a Christian 
 
 You'll not allow me vex my Platen, eh ? 
 
 Our Countess meant to dance with Konigsmarck, 
 
 I know it. Well, he dances to perfection — 
 
 And Sophie has him. How that child does laugh ! 
 
 Pretty, i' faith ! 
 Electress. H'm. 
 
 French Envoy. [Talking to the Princess and the 
 Duchess of Zell.J —Dream I'm in Paris. 
 
 Parisian wit, Parisian elegance 
 
 Shine where you move. I could almost believe 
 
 I had dined to-day. Ah, me ! In Germany 
 
 One never dines. 
 Duchess. One stuffs, 
 
 Princess. With long solemnity. 
 
 French Envoy. Lady, for you enchanting Ganymede 
 
 Hath served his honey from Olympian flowers. 
 
 Young beautiful Bacchus, fresh as when he found 
 
sc. n THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 35 
 
 Ariadne, nothing dark, nothing mysterious 
 
 Shadowing his amorous eyes, hath pressed a 
 vintage 
 
 For you with divine hands, ere he uplifted 
 
 His delicate, shining cup. What should you eat 
 
 Or drink at our gross banquets ? 
 Princess. Goose, my lord. 
 
 Beer, sauerkraut, sausages 
 
 French Envoy. Hold, hold, assassin ! 
 
 Their very names murder me. Pardon, ladies, 
 
 I have detained you. 
 
 \He goes to speak to Madame Platen, 
 who has finished dancing. 
 Duchess. Is Flora so enamoured 
 
 Of her own beauty ? Or when she laughs in a 
 mirror 
 
 Is it for other eyes, more circumspect. 
 
 Or, as is very probable, unallured ? 
 Princess. Madam ? 
 
 Duchess. The Elector chooses Platen's lover 
 
 Princess. No ! 
 
 Duchess. But I say she owns it — out of malice 
 
 To be your cavalier. 'Twill much amaze him, 
 
 Ay, and chagrin, to see his darling daughter 
 
 Ogling the fortunate swain — Platen and she 
 
 Pulling caps before the court for the same gallant. 
 
 How all the world will smile ! 
 KSmgsmarck. [Approaching^ Highness, permit me. 
 
 I hear the summoning music. 
 
 [The Princess, haughtily and in silence, 
 accepts his hand, and they dance. 
 
36 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 A Gentleman. The Princess looks her loveliest. 
 Another Gentleman. Beautiful 
 
 In pure simplicity ! 
 Mesbach. Bah ! Affectation ! 
 
 Second Lady. She would be pretty were she not a 
 
 Princess. 
 Her Daughter. Mother, our jewels are nought. I'll 
 wear carnations 
 
 And a white dress another day : they're perfect. 
 
 What a splendid cavalier 1 Is he a prince, 
 
 Madam ? 
 Second Lady. No, but a Swede, wealthy and noble, 
 
 Handsome enough. Look not so long upon him, 
 
 He is a snare for eyes — the Countess Platen 
 
 Cannot remove hers from him. 
 Daughter. Out upon her ! 
 
 She is as old as you. 
 Platen. [ To the French Envoy.] An exquisite dancer ! 
 French Envoy. For a hyperborean, one who hath not 
 visited 
 
 Versailles, the temple of Terpsichore. Surely, 
 
 Madam, you remark in him a certain roughness — 
 
 A grace, an air, in brief, a something French 
 
 Wanting ? 
 Platen. Your women would find nothing wanting 
 
 In Konigsmarck. 
 French Envoy. Truly he and the Princess 
 
 Are a porcelain pair, shepherd and shepherdess. 
 
 Forgive me, beauteous lady, if my preference 
 
 Lean to an ampler grace, and contemplating 
 
 Your shape, your dress — a miracle of taste 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 37 
 
 Mid travesties of toilettes — I am impatient 
 
 Of all but pure Parisian, that's yourself. 
 Platen. Out, flatterer ! 
 First Lady. [7b Platen.] Madam, Count Konigsmarck 
 
 Is handsomer than ever 1 
 Third Lady. What a dancer ! 
 
 That pink and silver suit him to perfection. 
 Princess. [To KOnigsmarck, with whom she is dancing i]^ 
 Count Konigsmarck, 
 
 You held my hand too long ; observe the music. 
 Platen. [Aside to Schulenberg.J 
 
 O, but my heart will burst ! 
 
 I am enraged beyond measure with the Elector. 
 
 Is he mad to give Konigsmarck to the Princess ? 
 Schulenberg. No, but he is jealous. 
 Platen. That for his jealousy ! 
 
 She shall not have him, not though the fool Elector 
 
 Thrust him into her arms. I'll choose damnation 
 
 Rather than yield him. Child, what will you wager ? 
 
 My diamonds, girl — I am primed to dare the devil — 
 
 Against your necklet, Konigsmarck is mine. 
 
 Mine before morning. 
 Schulenberg. But I love not wagers. 
 
 Because they are never certain. 
 Platen. This one shall be. 
 
 The Eleciress. [To Prince Charles.] 
 
 I want no coward son, yet be persuaded, 
 
 Charles, here's no place for honourable swords. 
 
 Enough the Emperor has his Hanoverians, 
 
 Bought by the hundred; shall a prince, a brave 
 one, 
 
38 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Ay, and a dear, be thrown him at a bargain. 
 To complete the tale ? 
 Charles. Mother, I would be gone. 
 
 The Elector is unjust — not even contented 
 With having robbed us of the inheritance, 
 He grudges at us. I'll build myself a throne 
 Of savage scimitars, or else I'll take them 
 In my appeased heart. 
 
 In truth I am sorry 
 KOnigsmarck will not join, a tried soldier 
 And an approved friend. Persuade him, Madam, 
 To go with me, for I am irrevocably 
 Fixed to depart. 
 
 \While he is speaking K6nigsmarck 
 approaches, conducting the Princess 
 to her seat. The Electress beckons 
 them to her. 
 Electress. '[Indicating Charles.] My daughter, all 
 our prayers, 
 Our prodigal persuasions, here fall barren. 
 Charles will go fight the Turks. God knows why 
 
 fight 'em, 
 For none of us do. I am but his mother — 
 Have you no eloquence to turn his purpose ? 
 Princess. All is exhausted, Madam, the Prince is 
 
 adamant. 
 Electress. Then turn it elsewhere. 
 
 Count of Konigsmarck, 
 Since our dear son, the well-beloved brother 
 Of a Princess to whom former benefits 
 And honourable friendship make you bounden, 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 39 
 
 Since he will go upon this dangerous business, 
 We pray you, a man older, more war-experienced. 
 Hardier than he, to accompany our prince. 
 Reap laurels for yourself, assist his youth 
 To reap them too, and above all, Konigsmarck, 
 Bring him safe home again. 
 
 KSnigsmarck. [7b the Princess.] Do I understand, 
 Highness, you join yourself to this requirement ? 
 
 Princess. I do, my lord. 
 
 Konigsmarck. The more must be my sorrow. 
 Electoral Highnesses, that my private business 
 Renders it difficult, I may say impossible, 
 To obey commands which should command obe- 
 dience. 
 I have reasoned with Prince Charles, implored, 
 
 upbraided, 
 Bidding him wait till the fierce torch of war. 
 Which smokes yet unextinguished, fire again 
 Flanders or the Palatinate. There's a school ! 
 What should a man learn of the Turk ? And now 
 What laurels grow on the waste Grecian hills ? 
 He knows my mind and my heart also. 
 
 Prince, 
 Let these illustrious ladies govern you. 
 Let them dismiss the Envoy of haughty France — 
 Yon oily-tongued rogue with the red on his cheek — 
 And bid us march against her. 
 
 Princess. How ? Against France ? 
 
 Electress. Nay, my good Count, if that be your con- 
 dition 
 'Tis one beyond our power. 
 
40 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 KSnigsmarck. Pardon me, Princess, 
 
 And you, august lady, my pledged word 
 
 Being inviolable, I am scrupulous 
 
 In pledging it. 
 Eledress. You have permission, sir, 
 
 To retire. 
 
 [To Charles.] Your friend smacks of the savage 
 
 North- 
 Esau, in a smooth Italian Jacob-skin. 
 Charles. 'Tis a mettled courser. He who'd manage 
 Konigsmarck. 
 
 Must bear light on the rein. 
 French Envoy. [To the Princess.] Exquisite lady, 
 
 They who admire you here are yet inconscient 
 
 Of half they should admire. 
 
 Dame ! This was dancing ! 
 
 Would I could once emparadise mine eyes 
 
 Watching your highness and our unparalleled 
 King 
 
 Dance at Versailles ! 
 Aurora. [To Konigsmarck.] God grant I may be 
 
 angry I 
 Konigsmarck. What do you mean ? 
 Aurora. There's nothing so becomes 
 
 A Konigsmarck as anger, Philip, my compli- 
 ments ! 
 
 You are exceeding handsome. 
 KSnigsmarck. What ? Damnation ! 
 
 Your pardon, sister, I am a mere Northman, 
 
 One that was never apt to fawn and smile 
 
 Whertf he has had oiTence. 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 41 
 
 Aurora. Who has offended you ? 
 
 KOnigsmarck. The Electress. 
 
 Aurora. How, dear brother ? 
 
 KOnigsmarck. She commands 
 
 As easily as 'twere a ball-room compliment — 
 " Pick up my fan," or " Hand my scent-bottle," 
 " Go to the Morea." I am not her subject, 
 No, nor the Elector's hired mercenary, 
 Following the honourable art of war 
 As 'twere a trade. I am a gentleman. 
 And one that very hardly owns allegiance 
 To any King who crosses him 
 
 Aurora. Ay, infidel ! 
 
 One that will play the courtier to crowned 
 
 heads 
 And yield them courtly reverence just so long 
 As they shall not draw on your complaisance 
 As it were piety. That's your complexion — 
 At least, I know 'tis mine. 
 
 KOnigsmarck. Truly, Aurora, 
 
 I think it is. 
 
 Aurora. Yet my impetuous brother, 
 
 Our shrewd Electress may have excellent reasons 
 For wishing you in the Morea, at Kamschatka, 
 Anywhere, in short. Your visits to the Princess 
 Pass unobserved of the world, you being accom- 
 panied 
 Always by a young Prince of known devotion 
 To her. But something by the mind's finger and 
 
 thumb 
 Not to be caught a moment, something im'palpable 
 
42 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 As air and full as real, may be perceptible 
 To this old, hard, well-judging woman. 
 
 Konigsmarck. What ? 
 
 Aurora. You adore the Princess, she 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. [Laughing bitterly.'] Say that she loves 
 me! 
 
 Aurora. I wonder that she should. What women 
 see ! 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Love? That capricious, haughty, 
 cold coquette ! 
 True she has called me " friend," has let her gaze 
 Melt in my own an instant : that was Wednesday. 
 To-night she treats me like a dog. By Heaven, 
 I'll make no woman's pastime, were she Empress 
 Of the Indies ! 
 
 I have been the fool of dreams 
 And they are right who mock me. Laugh, Aurora ! 
 
 Aurora. I beg her pardon. I believed her Highness 
 A kind of simpleton. I see 'tis otherwise, 
 She'll fight the duel through. An easy victory 
 Makes an unvalued triumph. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. There's your cant ! 
 
 What triumph, what victory, what duel is here ? 
 I held my heart for her in the bare truth 
 Of entire love, desiring she should take it 
 Without a price, without a recompense. 
 Without a word, so it might comfort her. 
 This heart as plainly, in the high simplicity 
 Of an immortal soul, she should have taken 
 Or left. 
 
 A curse on women ! I believed 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 43 
 
 One of them free from the world's hateful shrewd- 
 ness 
 
 And dull diplomacy, Here I abjure such faith 
 
 And arm for the duel. If women challenge 
 me 
 
 Let them expect the worst and if they can 
 
 Revenge it. 
 Madame Platen. \Approaching.'] Count, you have 
 outshone yourself ! 
 
 Not Flora, no, nor Venus' self were worthy 
 
 To tread the dance with Konigsmarck. 
 KSn^smarck. [Bowing.^ Fair Countess — ! 
 
 Yet Venus did abandon Konigsmarck 
 
 To-night for a weightier cavalier. By Venus, 
 
 It was unkindly done ! 
 Platen. Eternal chaos 
 
 Devour the god that wrought it ! Venus wept. 
 
 Nay, but I mean this merely mortal Clara, 
 
 Unworthy of divine honours. 
 Konigsmarck. Great Mars 
 
 Himself would deem here was his Paphian love, 
 
 And dead Adonis, might he live again, 
 
 Marvel at his own coyness. 
 Platen. Flatterer I 
 
 Yet not Adonis to his divine lover 
 
 Was colder, KSnigsmarck, than you to a friend. 
 
 Well, we play high at Monplaisir. Young gentle- 
 men 
 
 Of a prudent disposition do avoid us, 
 
 Having emptied a purse or two 
 
 Konigsmarck. Body of Bacchus ! 
 
44 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 I am not such. I'll treble all your stakes 
 
 To-night if you will 
 
 Platen. Oh, 'tis a revel to-night ! 
 
 God knows what you would think 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. For what do you take me ? 
 
 A puling girl ? 
 Platen. You have a girl's complexion. 
 
 Konigsmarck. My looks belie my age and disposition, 
 
 If you speak truth. To-night, then, at Monplaisir. 
 Platen. Nay, softly, in your ear. Not at Monplaisir. 
 
 To-night we sup at the Castle behind the Mill, 
 
 I and some intimates. Do you know the place ? 
 
 An old, grey, solitary tower, private 
 
 And homely. There after these chill Court-cere- 
 monies 
 
 Do we assemble and thaw our frozen spirits. 
 
 Play high, drink deep like lords, and dance like 
 peasants. 
 
 You will come ? 
 Kdnigsmarck. Madam, my sister and her lady 
 
 Rode hither in my coach 
 
 Platen. Let them return 
 
 Without you. Gome ! I am alone in mine 
 
 And frightened in the dark. 
 Kdn^smarck. I will be with you. 
 
 Platen. [Aside to Schulenburg.] 
 
 What did I say ? If KQnigsmarck is mortal 
 
 I win — I win — I win ! ^ 
 
 Schulenburg. But not my necklet. 
 
 I would not take your wager. Hush I They are 
 going. 
 
sc. Ill THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 45 
 
 [7%e Electoral party go out, followed by 
 the rest of the Court. 
 Platen. \To Konigsmarck.] Shall we go ? 
 KOnigsmarck. \Offering his hand.'] 
 To the Castle behind the Mill ! 
 
 [They go out laughing. The hall is left 
 empty except for lacqueys, who begin 
 putting out the lights. Hildebrand 
 comes in looking for Konigsmarck's 
 lute, which is left in a corner of the 
 hall. He takes it up and sings. 
 The lights are put out one by one as 
 he leaves the hall singing. 
 
 Suddenly her heart began 
 To beat, for she saw the steps of a man. 
 Trembling from the ground she caught her 
 And followed them along the lonely sand. 
 
 They ended where a great stone 
 
 Like a ruined tower stood alone. 
 
 At the blind gate she marked morii clearly 
 
 The track, for in every step was blood. 
 
 SCENE HI 
 
 The Princess's apartment, with windows opening on 
 to a balcony. Prince Max, Aurora von Konigs- 
 marck and other ladies and gentlemen sitting and 
 standing round the window and in the balcony, 
 Kontgsmarck, hazard and carelessly dressed. 
 
46 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 leaning over the balcony. The Princess within the 
 room, half reclining on a couch. Leonora von 
 Knesebeck at her side. The noise of an assem- 
 bling crowd comes up from below. 
 
 Aurora. If we had desired to hear a lying-match 
 between cheap-jacks, pedlars, and quack doctors, 
 we had better have gone to Heidelberg Fair. 
 No ! Never again will I take a seat at a play 
 where a prince is chief actor, for though he come 
 an hour by the clock after he is called, we may 
 not so much as throw a nut at him. 
 
 Prince Max. From hands so fair as yours, Madam, 
 my brother would esteem even a nut a favour. 
 
 Aurora. But the gipsy's ape down there would 
 esteem it a favour from any one's. Poor beast ! 
 See how he runs on three hands, and begs with 
 the other and his tail 1 
 
 A Young Lady. And shall we see Prince Charles at 
 the head of all his soldiers ? 
 
 Prince Max. No, my child, they will show us only 
 the ones that are fit to be shown. My brother is 
 taking the ugliest men in Germany with him to 
 frighten the Turks. That is why Monsieur de 
 Konigsmarck and I are not going. 
 
 Konigsmarck. Diantre, Prince ! How do you know 
 Monsieur de Konigsmarck is not going ? 
 
 Prwce Max. Because you have a loose garter, a 
 soiled ruffle, and your cravat awry. This is the 
 trim of a lover, but it is not one my father would 
 suffer in a Hanoverian soldier. 
 
sc. Ill THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 47 
 
 Konigsmarck. I do not dress to please you or any 
 
 other prince. 
 Prince Max. No, nor princess either — but to please the 
 
 young, the fair, the virtuous lady of Monplaisir. 
 A Lady. And of the Castle behind the Mill. 
 
 Enter Prince Ernest. 
 
 Prince Ernest. Ladies and gentlemen, if you are 
 not tired of waiting yet you will be presently. 
 There is some delay, God knows what, and Prince 
 Charles bids me tell you it will be another hour 
 before the troops will be ready to march. Mean- 
 time I would have you know there is a French- 
 man here with the prettiest performing dogs that 
 ever I saw ; and if you will do me the favour to 
 come to my apartments, where they now are, I 
 promise you shall weep for laughing. And so 
 you will come weeping, as it is very proper you 
 should, to bid farewell to our gallant brother and 
 his gentlemen. {Aside to the Princess.] Sister, 
 Charles desires one more word with you before 
 he leaves, and would not find you with company. 
 
 Prince Max. Well thought on, boy ! To the dogs, 
 to the dogs I Sister, you must come too. This 
 will be a cure for the migraine. 
 
 Princess. I thank you, brother, I will stay here. I 
 am not well. 
 
 Prince Ernest. Indeed you do look exceeding pale. 
 You were best left in peace. Gracious ladies, 
 noble gentlemen, I invite the whole company to 
 my apartments. 
 
48 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 SCENE IV 
 
 The same. The Princess on the couch. Leonora 
 VON Knesebeck. 
 
 Leonora. [With solicUude.'\ Madam, can I do no- 
 thing ? 
 Princess. Nothing, Leonora. 
 
 [Leonora retires to an embroidery frame, 
 
 and works. KSnigsmarck enters 
 
 unannounced and stands beside the 
 
 door. The Princess opens her eyes, 
 
 sees him, then starts up on the couch. 
 
 Princess. You here ? What do you want, my lord ? 
 
 Konigsmarck. A jewel 
 
 I have lost. Madam. 
 
 [Leonora rises and goes on to the bal- 
 cony, as though seeking for the jewel. 
 KSnigsmarck remains standing by 
 the door. 
 KSnigsmarck. [Suddenly.'] By Heaven, I want no 
 jewel ! 
 I want one word of pardon. 
 Princess. Pardon, Count ? 
 
 You sin, but who would dare affirm you sin 
 Against me ? 
 Konigsmarck. I could answer all my sins. 
 The ignoble common sins of all my life 
 Were against you. 
 There's answer more immediate. 
 You have an enemy: being ignorant of it, 
 
sc. IV THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 49 
 
 I was her friend. 
 
 You have a mortal enemy. I — O treason 
 Mortal beyond her hate ! — I am her lover. 
 Princess. Is this your news, my lord ? 
 Why, it is old, older than yesterday. 
 KOnigsmarck. Yesterday ? Older than a hundred 
 years. 
 Were we not friends before ? 
 Princess. Perchance we were. 
 
 Well-counselling Time brings us considered 
 
 changes. 
 You do wisely, 
 
 Having to choose between my crowned nullity 
 And her substantial power, to set your fortune 
 Where it may most abound. 
 Sir, you do wisely. 
 
 I am a shadow, not a woman, a slave. 
 Or God knows what, for if I were a woman — 
 
 Young fair women 
 Are loved when first men marry them, but I 
 
 Was always hated. 
 It seems you have no affection for me. Well, 
 Why should you have ? My father does not love 
 
 me, 
 Or even pity now. Yet you remember 
 
 Formerly he adored me. 
 My very mother has denied me mercy 
 And God and man alike are grown incapable 
 Of care for one made a mysterious outcast 
 From those deep laws and charities of love, 
 Which do protect our souls. 
 
 D 
 
so THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Farewell, my lord : 
 
 It is most natural that you also leave me. 
 Konigsmarck. Madam — dear lady — 
 
 Pray you, most dear lady, be comforted. 
 
 Some of us have done ill. The unworthy Prince — 
 
 We are all unworthy — yet there's Charles, your 
 brother, 
 
 And the Elector favours you 
 
 Princess. The Elector 
 
 Is clay in Platen's hand : ay, the same Platen 
 
 Who is your mistress too. 
 KSnigsmarck. Highness, have mercy- 
 
 Princess. Mock me not with the terms of royalty — 
 
 Her prisoner ! 
 
 I only asked reprieve. 
 
 The smart of wrong, the sleepless haunting passion 
 
 And ever-during madness of my misery, 
 
 Make me to fear. I ask a moment's shelter 
 
 From the storm and driving ruin of my soul ; 
 
 The anodyne of an old quiet castle, 
 
 Home and familiar things. 
 
 But the wise, good Platen 
 
 Counsels I shall not go — and she's omnipotent. 
 
 She'll not consent I breathe an instant air 
 
 Untainted by her presence, live one hour 
 
 Forgetful of her and her friends. 
 
 What make you, 
 
 Konigsmarck, here with me? Go, you have 
 chosen, 
 
 You have done wisely, you are prudent. 
 Kenigsmarck. No I 
 
sc. IV THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 51 
 
 I am a monster, but not prudent, no ! 
 
 A madman happier bound and scourged with iron 
 * Than free to his own madness. 
 
 Say I am infamous, 
 
 But never say of Konigsmarck, " he was wise." 
 Princess. What else ? You love this woman ? 
 Kdnigsmarck. Platen ? Gods ! 
 
 Have we a star in heaven ? Mine when I met 
 her 
 
 Put out the unprized lamp, and some pale candle, 
 
 Some corpse-light wanderer of infected marshes, 
 
 Drew on my destiny. 
 Princess. Yet you are Platen's lover. 
 
 I cannot understand. 
 Kdnigsmarck. Do not, my Princess. 
 
 Yet could you understand ! O for some word 
 
 Sharper than knives, more strong than forked 
 lightning 
 
 That tears the iron heart of the oak, so might I 
 
 Show you my naked soul, and you forever 
 
 Must apprehend it yours ! 
 
 There's no such word. 
 
 Only such syllables as men have lied with 
 
 From immemorial time, and credulous women 
 
 Have brought into contempt. 
 
 I'll not defend myself. 
 
 I would die for you and know you'll not believe it. 
 Princess. Konigsmarck, have you no excuse, no 
 explanation ? 
 
 O speak, and I will hear you ! 
 Kdnigsmarck. Shall I speak? 
 
52 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Then 'tis yourself, your all but perfect self 
 And the one blot on your brightness I accuse. 
 You are capricious past all privilege 
 Of womankind, your moods are more inconstant 
 Than the chameleon's colour, more deceiving 
 Than April sun, the sharp wind's playfellow. 
 
 Your kindness 
 Made me half worthy of it, legions of angels 
 Encompassed me in your fair smiles; but sud- 
 denly 
 Frowns, undeserved contempt — Hell was my por- 
 tion. 
 And devils came and ministered. 
 Princess. I am capricious, proud, most blameworthy. 
 Kdnigsmarck. I said so ? 
 Princess. It is true. 
 
 KSnigsmarck. O what a villain I 
 
 A shameless villain, to accuse your light offences, 
 Dust in the balance where my heaped sins 
 Weigh down the scales of Heaven. Do not for- 
 give me. 
 Never pardon me. 
 
 {The Princess ts weeping, Konigsmarck 
 kneels beside her and kisses her 
 hands. Prince Charles has en- 
 tered, and stands looking at them. 
 Charles. Never on your life ! 
 
 Put enmity, calumnious words, revenge 
 Between you, but not pardon. 
 To whom shall I speak ? 
 Which of you entreat, saying, " Forbear to ruin 
 
sc. IV THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER S3 
 
 One whom I love so well ? " 
 Konigsmarck, my sister has no consolation 
 For all her sad youth, loveless, uncherished, 
 
 But innocence. 
 She has no arms against her mortal enemy 
 
 But innocence, 
 No spell to hush her own unquiet spirit 
 But quiet innocence. 
 
 Konigsmarck. My Prince, you are in error, you 
 wrong her Highness. 
 
 Princess. Brother, I protest 
 
 Charles. Away with protestations I 
 
 I speak to you as a dying man, for certainly 
 I think I never shall return. The needle 
 Is drawn to the Pole, and I am drawn as surely 
 To some unvisited place my star looked down on 
 When I was born, saying, "Thou shalt have his 
 blood.", 
 
 Princess. Alas, dear Charles ! 
 
 Charles. The time is very short. 
 
 I brought you hither, Konigsmarck, I bid you 
 For friendship's sake, and for love's sake, depart. 
 Look, I speak plainly. Leave this honoured lady, 
 Your love dishonours, this unhappy woman 
 Your consolations kill. 
 
 Princess. Brother, how wildly 
 
 Do you mistake, imagining this man loves me 
 Who is the Platen's lover. 
 
 Charles. Ay, that reptile, 
 
 That beast of fierce embrace and venomous mouth 
 Hangs coiled about him ; your most deadly danger. 
 
.54 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 For rather would she kill you, Philip, much rather 
 Shatter the huge earth like a ball of glass 
 To pluck you from its centre, pull down kingdoms 
 To crush your love under the enormous wreckage. 
 Than loose you to her enemy. She is fatal 
 If Fate herself were other. 
 
 KSnigsmarck. Sir, not falsely 
 
 You judged, pronouncing that I love this lady. 
 I have loved her all my life, and dare to say so 
 Now that she'll not believe it. Nevertheless, 
 I come to bid farewell, I have determined 
 To march with you to the Morea. This resolve 
 I have maae within an hour. 
 
 Charks. Philip, my friend, 
 
 Well done ! At last, well done ! 
 
 Kdmgsmarck. I will rejoin you 
 
 In two days' time. 
 
 Charks. Nay, the resolve was sudden. 
 
 As sudden be fulfilment. Hildebrand 
 Can follow with your gear, ay, Hildebrand 
 Knows all that you need — but do you, Philip, 
 To horse and ride with me. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Madam — farewell. 
 
 Princess. You will go instantly ? 
 
 KOnigsmarck. Highness — farewell. 
 
 Charks. Adieu, my sister. 
 
 Heaven be your help, angels your comforters. 
 I have loved you well. 
 
 Princess. Brother, sweet brother, adieu ! God speed 
 you both! 
 KQnigsmarck — sir, adieu. 
 
sc. V THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 55 
 
 Leonora. Dear Highness, my lord Count, 
 
 Heaven prosper you ! 
 Charles and Kdntgsmarck. Ladies, all thanks. Fare- 
 well. 
 
 [Prince Charles and Konigsmarck 
 go out. 
 
 SCENE V 
 
 The same. The Princess and Leonora v. Knesebeck. 
 
 Leonora. Loss on the heels of loss, grief upon grief ! 
 Princess. Hush, Leonora ! 
 
 All those black-winged sorrows 
 That preyed upon my heart, in a flight are gone. 
 
 Philomel sits there 
 Piercing the dark with strong melodious cries 
 
 A triumphing grief 
 More exquisite than all sharp visible joys 
 That revel up the blue. 
 
 [A silence during which the noise of the 
 crowd without increases. There is 
 a sound of marching, words of 
 command, and military music. Leo- 
 nora goes on to the balcony. 
 Leonora. [Returning.] 
 
 Platen and the Elector, coming hither ! 
 Princess. [Hastily rising.] 
 Some Barbary water for my eyes ! The rouge ! 
 Quick, child ! Pin up these curls — the Alen^on 
 lace! 
 
S6 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Tire me thus carelessly, 'twill lend a shadow 
 To hide the stain of weeping. Dost thou come 
 To witness my despair ? Come, Jezebel ! 
 
 Enter the Elector and Madame Platen, accompanied 
 by ladies and gentlemen. 
 
 Elector. Give you good day, Highness ! 
 
 How goes it, daughterling ? What ? Sickly, 
 sadly ? 
 
 Diantre ! but every prince goes once to the wars, 
 
 And why not Charles ? Do him a world of good. 
 
 Do you want a man at mother's apron-string 
 
 The whole of his life ? Do you or don't you, eh ? 
 
 That's what I say to the Electress. She's a-bed. 
 
 Lest folks should see her weep. 
 Madame Platen. The Princess of Hanover 
 
 Is public in her grief. 
 Princess. For what cause, Madam, 
 
 Should I conceal it ? 
 Elector. [Stepping into the balcony. '\ 
 
 Ladies, a brave show, 
 
 And will be braver presently. 
 Madame Platen. [7b the Princess.] 
 
 In your ear, Madam, 
 
 The world — be assured I do not credit it — 
 
 But the scandalous world whispers your brother 
 Charles 
 
 Loves you much more than brotherly. 
 Princess. Your world 
 
 Of Monplaisir. Did I concern myself. 
 
 My world and I, with all the scandalous comments 
 
sc. V THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 57 
 
 Of yours, I must become like a waxen image 
 Carried at my burial — nor yet avoid them. 
 Truly the princes, all save one, do love me. 
 Poor fortuneless gentlemen ! What would you 
 
 with them 
 At Monplaisir ? 
 Madame Platen. Madam, I say your grief 
 Is too great for the circumstance. I warn you. 
 
 Being experienced, as an elder sister might 
 
 Princess. An elder, truly. 
 
 Madame Platen. Pfui ! your easy jibe ! 
 
 I keep no calendar, my years are counted 
 On a rosary of lovers' vows, and verily 
 It has lately lengthened. 
 
 \A loud burst of military music from 
 without. 
 Elector. Hasten, ladies ! Hither ! 
 
 [All crowd to the balcony and the window. 
 The Princess remains at the back 
 of the party, somewhat within the 
 window. There is a sound of 
 marching, the rattle of arms, cheers 
 and music. 
 Elector. Ay, my stout Hanoverians ! There be 
 soldiers ! 
 Clockwork upon the march, stubborn in battle. 
 Look at their uniform ! That's worth the money 
 The Emperor paid for the lot. Hang 'em, they're 
 
 cheap. 
 I put the price too low. Vender's Prince Charles, 
 A brave boy when all's said — my son. 
 
58 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act i 
 
 Madame Platen. Your Highness, 
 
 The House of Hanover breeds heroes. 
 Elector. Soldiers. 
 
 A Lady. KOnigsmarck rides with him. 
 Madame Platen. Not KSnigsmarck ! 
 
 Elector. 'Tis he. A sudden freak — the Prince de- 
 sired it 
 And the Electress, therefore I gave permission. 
 He goes with the Prince. 
 Madame Platen. He accompanies his Highness 
 
 To the coast ? 
 
 Elector. He sails with him for the Morea. 
 
 Madame Platen. For the Morea ? KOnigsmarck ? 
 
 Impossible ! 
 Elector. I say the Morea. He is young, adven- 
 turous — 
 Yielded awhile perhaps to women's tears, 
 Now takes the key of the fields. \Taking snuff. 
 Upon my soul, 
 I admire him for't. 
 Madame Platen, I tell you it is senseless, 
 
 Incomprehensible, mad ! 
 Give me my mantle ! 
 Here's cold that freezes to the marrow. 
 
 \Returns to the room and draws the 
 Princess aside. 
 
 You! 
 Your doing ! You send KOnigsmarck to the 
 
 war. 
 Without one word, one farewell, you remorselessly 
 Doom him to die, to punish me 
 
sc. V THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 59 
 
 Princess. Peace, Madam. 
 
 For shame ! What influence have I on your 
 
 friends ? 
 Your loves do not concern me. 
 
 Silence ! The Elector 
 Observes your conduct. 
 
ACT II 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 The Hall of Knights in the Leine Palais. A large 
 fireplace with a chimney-piece supported by carved 
 figures of Knights. A door opening into a cor- 
 ridor which leads to the Princess of Hanover's 
 apartments. The Electress sitting beside the fire, 
 Baroness v. Heineburg in attendance. Enter 
 Leonora v. Knesebeck. 
 
 Electress. The Princess is awake ? 
 
 Leonora. Madam, her slumber 
 
 Is deep as death. For many months her bed 
 Has been a place of tears, of moaning dreams 
 Nothing might dispossess. Now some three hours 
 She has lain in a motionless slumber, unprepared. 
 Fallen upon her couch. I dare not waken her 
 And could not if I would. 
 
 Electress. Let her sleep, Knesebeck. 
 
 [Leonora goes out. 
 Ah, youth, youth, youth ! Such is thy privilege. 
 Poignant and long the anguish, but in the end 
 The physician finds thee. All our consolations, 
 Our anxious care, our pity are for thee. 
 Not for incurable, aged woe, irretrievable. 
 Naked loss. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 6i 
 
 wisdom of the world, blinder than justice, 
 More to be praised, thou verily judgest well. 
 Leaving things remediless where Life and Nature 
 Leave them, to the obliteration of slow time 
 
 And quiet cure of Death. 
 
 Baroness. Your Highness' malady 
 
 Creeps from the body to the spirit. Madam, 
 Though you have lost a son, yet excellent princes 
 Remain to serve you and your country. 
 
 Eledress. Mine ? 
 
 My country is that England whose high throne 
 My blood, having no lower spring, aspired to 
 And must no more aspire. The child of Denmark 
 Lives to inherit folly 
 
 Baroness. And a throne 
 
 Bloody and perilous. The Electoral diadem 
 Well won, well worn, outshines the flawed splendour 
 Of England's crown. 
 
 Eledress. Peace, my poor Heineburg, 
 
 You chatter ignorantly. 
 
 Baroness. A score of years 
 
 1 have served your Highness, nor have been found 
 
 unfaithful 
 Or any way unworthy ; but the Princess of Hanover 
 Whom once you did abhor, is the sole creature 
 Whose comfort now pleases you. 
 Eledress. 'Tis her sorrow 
 
 Pleases me. We have much endured together 
 In long suspensive months, when others easily 
 Hoped, having little on the die. The anguish 
 Of the alternating news, he lives — he lives not ! 
 
62 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Baroness. And still may be a prisoner. 
 Electress. I believe 
 
 My son is dead. 
 
 Enter Prince Ernest. 
 
 Ernest. Where is the Electress ? 
 
 Electress. Here. 
 
 Son, you bear news — 'tis of your brother. Speak it 
 Immediately. 
 Ernest. My dearest, honoured mother, 
 
 Call up your resolution. 
 Electress. Charles is dead. 
 
 Ernest. Fallen in the front of battle, as became him, 
 Him and our illustrious House. I pray of Heaven 
 To die no worse. 
 Electress. Ay, thus it was reported, 
 
 And then another rumour. I'll have no rumours, 
 But certainty. 
 Ernest. Madam, a broken remnant 
 
 Of our destroyed army, landing at Venice, 
 Despatched a courier ; but out-posting him 
 A gentleman, one that our Charles affectioned, 
 Konigsmarck, has arrived. 
 Electress. So I Let him enter. 
 
 [Leonora von Knesebeck enters while 
 Prince Ernest is speaking. He goes 
 out and returns immediately with 
 Konigsmarck, who is in a riding- 
 dress. He kneels and kisses the 
 Electress's hand. 
 Kdnigsmarck. Your pardon, Highness I 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 63 
 
 Eledress. For what offence, my lord ? 
 
 Konigsmarck. That I unworthy live, while one so 
 noble 
 On earth is seen no more. 
 
 Eledress. You were his friend ; 
 
 'Tis to be well esteemed. 
 
 Some have reported 
 He was a prisoner. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. There were no prisoners. 
 
 Fierce, overwhelming, sudden was the onslaught, 
 I saw our amazed van reel, smitten backward, 
 Bear backward in a bloody wild confusion 
 Our deep arrayed host, until one leader. 
 One man appeared to arrest, bear up and onward 
 Our stream of war : the Prince. 
 
 Impetuous rivers 
 Thus for an hour dispute with waves of the sea 
 The barren empery of the blown sand 
 And long rock-edges white with rage of waters 
 Roaring right up to heaven. So I beheld 
 The tossed front of battle, smoke and steel. 
 Banner and turban of the infidel. 
 
 And still our leader ; 
 Then one huge billow of wrath, 
 One roar out-bellowing tumult — and the end. 
 The Prince had fallen. 
 
 Eledress. You — you found his body ? 
 
 Konigsmarck. Myself had perished there, but a 
 faithful trooper 
 Swung me across his steed, bloody and senseless. 
 And bore me among shepherds. Christian folk 
 
64 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Hidden among the hills. They stealing down 
 To the battle-field, brought back the Prince's 
 
 body 
 And there interred it. Madam, he sleeps well. 
 A priest hath blest his bed, holier in nakedness 
 Than robed prelates, the broader benediction 
 Of the watching hills that wait the gradual 
 
 stars, 
 Holding their silence all the day, is o'er him, 
 
 And the sweet spare grey thyme. 
 For sentry in that mountain solitude 
 The brown shepherd stands leaning on his staff, 
 A motionless bronze : nothing appears to live 
 Except the climbing sheep. Thus I beheld it 
 Under the broad clear eye of the March morn, 
 And bade his rest farewell. 
 Ekctress. You have brought nothing 
 
 That was my son's ? 
 KOnigsmarck. Highness, a lock of hair. 
 
 [He draws out a folded handkerchief 
 containing a lock of Prince 
 Charles's hair and gives it to the 
 Electress. 
 Leonora, Alas, dear Prince ! 
 Electress. Ever the dearest and the best are taken. 
 Baroness. A prince beloved by all that looked on 
 
 him ! 
 Electress. [To Konigsmarck.J You have our thanks 
 for these last offices. 
 Pardon me. Sir, I cannot think of much — 
 I would say more — but I am ill. Your arm, 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 65 
 
 Ernest. \_She rises unsteadily.'] Attend me to my 
 chamber, Baroness, 
 
 You also, Knesebeck 
 
 [The Electress goes out supported by 
 Prince Ernest and attended by the 
 two ladies. . Konigsmarck leans by 
 the hearth, in the shadow of the 
 chimney-piece. Twilight is falling. 
 The Princess of Hanover enters 
 hastily. 
 Princess. Where is the Electress ? 
 
 [_She advances, looking round her. 
 Leonora ! — What, all dark ? 
 How long you have let me sleep ! 
 Kdnigsmarck. [To himself] Dear God ! Herself! 
 
 [He steps out from the shadow of the 
 chimney-piece. The Princess ^a^es 
 at him in silence, pressing her hand 
 to her forehead. 
 Princess. No, it is not a dream, neither is it madness. 
 I have demanded this with incantations 
 Of deep heart-stirring groans and urgent whispers 
 In the black void of midnight. 
 Shall I now be afraid ? 
 [To Kdnigsmard}.] Yea, I have summoned thee, I 
 
 have obtained thee. 
 Dragged thee at length out of the abyss, perchance 
 Disturbed thy rest — but O I had no rest ! 
 I longed so much to say, " I pardon thee," 
 To say, " I — " but what art thou, Konigsmarck ? 
 Do I dream ? Art thou yet living ? 
 
 E 
 
66 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. [Falling on his knee^ My — my 
 
 Princess ! 
 Princess. Thou livest — thou yet livest ? 
 Kdnigsmarck. [Rising.'] And Charles is dead. 
 Princess. They told me Charles and all his officers 
 Were dead. Forgive me, I am mad with grief — 
 I take you for Count KOnigsmarck. 
 Kdnigsmarck. I am he, 
 
 Touch me, I am a living man. 
 Why do you tremble 
 And fear this flesh who did not fear to summon 
 The unbodied ghost ? I am he thou didst demand. 
 Compel from the vague bound and portal of Death 
 Back to the unquiet world. 
 Ay, it was thou I 
 What wouldst thou of me? Speak to the re- 
 turned spirit 
 Here, in a narrow space, 'twixt life and death 
 Where we are poised a moment, unabiding 
 As thistle-down, as foam that winds of the sea 
 Drive ineluctably on. 
 
 Utter what is in thy heart, or being silent 
 Never again either in flesh or spirit. 
 Living or dead, in the false antic day 
 Or true obscure night, call thou on Konigsmarck, 
 For never will he come. 
 Princess. Ill didst thou do, O thou didst pierce my 
 heart ! 
 But I have pardoned thee a million times 
 And washed thee white with tears. 
 Konigsmarck. My blood should pay them. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 6; 
 
 Drop after drop. Yet hast thou more to say — 
 
 " I pardon thee, I " ? 
 
 Princess. Love thee, KCnigsmarck. 
 
 KOnigsmarck. Child, thou adored child ! 
 Is it possible ? Dost thou indeed love me ? 
 Some day thou wilt be sorry. 
 Princess. Now I defy my fate, I have spoken this 
 once — 
 Philip, I love thee. 
 It bursts out of my dark and hidden heart 
 More sudden, dear and fresh than the first flowers 
 Break from the wintry earth — 
 How I do love thee ! 
 Surely 'tis sweet to hear, being to utter 
 Immeasurably sweet. 
 Kenigsmarck. So dear a word, so wonderful and rich 
 Past all imagined utterance, so angelical 
 Thou dost appear an angel speaking it ; 
 Yet here devils will answer 
 And tongues of Hell echo it about the world. 
 
 Princess. I did believe you loved me 
 
 KSnigsmarck. Do my pulses 
 
 Beat in the accustomed places ? Do I breathe ? 
 I have loved you all my life, so dearly well. 
 So much that were your words each mortal daggers 
 I'd take them in my heart and die rejoicing. 
 
 My blood singing your beauty. 
 Were we a dream, canopied by dim night, 
 I should go mad with rapture hearing you 
 And wake myself with weeping ; but all's true 
 And a frosty fear 
 
68 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Princess. How, KOnigsmarck.?^a fear? 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Because I cannot fear or man or devil 
 
 I am afraid, Love, I shall be your ruin. 
 Princess. Ah no, no, no ! Only this once 
 Shall I talk with you of love ; never again 
 In all the lapse of time. We have much to say. 
 We who have waited so long, we who have wasted 
 Inestimable hours. One perilous moment 
 Wherein all must be told or pass unuttered, 
 Unguessed, unmourned down the deep gulf of 
 
 Time ! — 
 Yet I say nothing, and thou'lt never know 
 How well I could have loved thee had my stars 
 Been pitiful. 
 Kdnigsmarck. Give me your hands, your eyes — ■ 
 What need of utterance ? 
 I drink deep draughts of shining love. 
 Come hither, 
 
 \_Drawing her before the hearth. 
 Where I may feast my heart upon that face 
 And on the stuff of my mortality 
 Grave it too deep for death. 
 How beautiful thou art ! 
 Princess. Love, I am glad. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. When didst thou love me first ? 
 Princess. I cannot tell, 
 
 Sure a long while. 
 Kdnigsmarck. Thou didst forbear to love me 
 
 A weary while, hard wert thou in the winning. 
 But when thou givest thyself 'tis done right royally, 
 Even as the prize is royal. When did thy soul. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 69 
 
 Thy stubborn soul first own the mastery 
 Of sovreign Love ? , 
 
 Princess. 'Twas on a certain night 
 
 I am fain not to remember. 
 K6nigsmarck. That same night 
 
 You frowned on me ? 
 Princess. Hush ! There are many thoughts 
 
 Which slumber lightly here — do not awaken them, 
 For I would pack my recollection full 
 Of this one perfect hour, of this one moment. 
 
 And make it all my life. 
 I never was alive till now, and afterwards 
 I shall be dead, but in my sepulchre 
 Let me be hymning joy because I lived 
 Once, thus in thine arms. 
 Konigsmarck. Live happily and longer than thou 
 bodest. 
 Here will I charm away unhappy thoughts 
 With one touch of my magic on thy brow. 
 Thus with a little rain of tender charms 
 Forbid these eyes to tears. 
 
 [Sounds without the door. Konigsmarck 
 stands away from the Princess. 
 Konigsmarck. I know you, Madam, 
 
 Eager to hear the last sad history 
 
 Of our renowned Prince 
 
 [Enter lacqueys carrying lighted candles 
 
 tn heavy silver candelabra. They 
 
 are followed by a Major-domo and 
 
 Leonora v. Knesebeck. 
 
 Leonora. Count Konigsmarck I 
 
^o THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 The garden at Herrenhausen, as before. It is dusk on 
 a warm summer evening. A large moon is rising; 
 the terrace and gardens are illuminated with 
 coloured lamps, and there is a distant sound of 
 music. Bands of maskers in dominos, some 
 carrying torches, come along the terrace, descend 
 the steps and pass out of sight in the garden. 
 They sing. 
 
 First band of maskers. 
 
 In the cool young dawn of the summer morn 
 Fresh buds open fairest — 
 Come away ! — 
 But every scent that yields content 
 At eventide is rarest. 
 Come away ! 
 Now the evening closes. 
 Second band. 
 
 Under the moon over petals strewn 
 
 Wander souls of roses, 
 In the alleys dim where the fountains brim 
 Softly they are sighing. 
 Come away ! 
 Now the dusk is dying. 
 Third band. 
 
 Under the moon in a night of June 
 
 — Such a night as this is — 
 They are fluttering free from the red rose tree 
 And falling there in kisses. 
 
 Come away ! Come away ! 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER ^\ 
 
 [Leonora von Knesebeck, in mask 
 and domino, detaches herself from 
 the last band of maskers as they pass 
 and waits under the terrace. A band 
 of revellers, without dominos, come 
 in dancing. They bring music with 
 them and sing as they dance. 
 Viol and flute 
 No more be mute, 
 Come dancing, dancing, dancing ! 
 Fa la la ! 
 Mark the measure ! 
 Here is pleasure I 
 Praise no longer love and wine 
 Cupid's bow or Bacchus' vine, 
 
 I'd give them both for dancing ! 
 
 Fa la la ! 
 Topers you 
 Join not our crew. 
 Who trip and fleet 
 On airy feet 
 And wings of music dancing. 
 Fa la la ! 
 Lovers who 
 Two and two 
 Wander lost in charmed gazing, 
 Not for you the flute is phrasing 
 
 Fairy calls across the dew. 
 Here no sighing fancy fools us. 
 Only merry music rules us. 
 Flying here and there pursuing, 
 
72 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act n 
 
 Only true to music's wooing, 
 Side by side 
 We sway and glide, 
 Now we link and now divide, 
 We smiling serve. 
 And gaily swerve 
 . From fair to fair in dancing. 
 Fa la la ! 
 Lightly trip, 
 Hand on hip. 
 She who's featest 
 Shall be sweetest 
 Beauty's brows out-shining. 
 Now again 
 Link the chain 
 One with other swiftly twining. 
 Ring on ring 
 Wind and swing. 
 Slower now, round around, 
 Till our woven maze unwound. 
 Hand in hand 
 We revellers stand 
 And sing the praise of dancing. 
 Fa la la ! 
 [KoNiGSMARCK ts amofig the dancers. 
 As they pass out he detaches himself 
 from them and remains behind. 
 When all are gone except Konigs- 
 MARCK, Leonora steps forward, 
 removing her mask. 
 Leonora, Count KOnigsmarck. 
 
sc. 11 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 73 
 
 Konigsmarck. It is you, dear Confidante ? 
 
 Leonora. Whom else might you suppose ? 
 Kdnigsmarck. My dearer lady. 
 
 Leonora. The Princess ? 
 
 KSntgsmarck. Hush ! Her name is L^onisse. 
 
 Leonora. How poorly do you think of Leonisse, 
 
 Who imagine her creeping disguised in the dark 
 
 To meet a midnight lover ! 
 KOntgsmarck. She repents 
 
 That ever she did love me. 
 Leonora. She repent ? 
 
 Ah, no, no, no ! Unweariedly 
 
 As the nightingale echoes her own long cry. 
 
 Her everlasting passionate appeal 
 
 To enveloping night and the removed stars, 
 
 Thus would your Leonisse reiterate 
 
 Her dear denial. 
 Konigsmarck. Tell her who yet loves me 
 
 Four words with her, only four little words 
 
 I supplicate, dream of as famishing men 
 
 Who dream of banqueting. 
 Leonora. A worthy lover 
 
 Of Ldonisse would find in sheer obedience 
 
 And recollection feasts. 
 Konigsmarck. A worthy lover ? 
 
 The armed angels, Heaven's bright counsellors, 
 
 Michael and Gabriel are forbid to woo her ; 
 
 Therefore her lover must be man. By God, 
 
 He were much less who'd bear these prohibitions. 
 
 These childish blank evasions I 
 
 Madame la Princesse 
 
74 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Plays at the princely tables ; Kcnigsmarck 
 
 Must every night be there, to bow and pass, 
 
 And pace the corridor, tearing his ruffles 
 
 For very rage — the Venice point ones, Madam. 
 
 Nay, but this passes jesting. 
 
 She talks with God knows whom, but not with 
 
 me. 
 Smiles on the universe, but not on me, 
 Plunges those lovely looks in other eyes, 
 But not in mine. 
 
 Leonora. How answers L^onisse ? 
 
 At morning she awakes, and hears the day 
 Beginning and is glad. 
 
 Your Ldonisse 
 Says to her love : " How fair is the green earth 
 Because it holds thy heart ! " Says to her love, 
 
 " How triumphingly the hours 
 Clamour from tower to tower, because they lead 
 In glad procession again the bridal hour 
 We meet, only we two in all the crowd ! " 
 
 Kenigsmarck. Meet ! Unendurable torture ! 
 
 Leonora. Ldonisse 
 
 Says to her love, " How beautiful is the world, 
 Because it holds our hearts ! " 
 Have you no happy word for Leonisse ? 
 
 KOnigsmarck. Tell her — your chains are cruel, Leo- 
 nisse, 
 Heavy, cutting the flesh, say that I wear them 
 In mortal anguish, and unspeakable joy. 
 Stay, stay, Leonora ! Tell, if one dare tell her, 
 Nightly I watch her window, blind and blank 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 75 
 
 And hopeless as my heart. But once in a dream 
 
 I saw a curtain suddenly drawn, I saw 
 
 A lamp in the window. Then with winged feet 
 
 I flew alone the way I went with Charles, 
 
 Up through the postern door, by the Hall of 
 
 Knights, 
 And found the Princess. This was but a dream, 
 Yet should she need me — then remember it. 
 I am there and have the means to enter. 
 
 Say 
 
 Leonora. {Replacing her maskJ] 
 
 Dominos on the terrace ! Let me hence ! 
 
 Farewell, Count KSnigsmarck — I shall remember. 
 
 [KoNiGSMARCK and Leonora go away 
 
 in opposite directions. While they 
 
 have been talking Madame Platen 
 
 has approached along the terrace 
 
 above, followed by Mesbach. Both 
 
 are in dominos. 
 
 Madame Platen. Hush ! Who is the domino yonder ? 
 
 Mesbach. Who ? 
 
 Dear Madame Plafen, I am no magician ! 
 Madame Platen. 'Tis not the Princess, Mesbach ? 
 Mesbach. No, that's certain, 
 
 I'll swear to that. 
 
 Madam, you are obeyed. 
 I have easily obtained her Highness' domino 
 And gloves, thrown off, and left just where she 
 flung them. 
 Madame Platen. A careless fool ! I half suspected 
 her 
 
^6 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Of some deep plan. Ay, there's her domino ! 
 
 Blue with a scarlet brpidery, unmistakable 
 
 Even in the dusk. Her gloves, richly embroidered 
 
 With the arms of Hanover, the Prince's present 
 
 To his dear spouse. Fortune, my deity, 
 
 Be favourable now to thy rash votress 
 
 But half an hour ! So may we make innocuous 
 
 For all her days the insolent Frenchwoman, 
 
 The brat of Zell ! 
 
 Mesbach. And this unmannered Swede, 
 This Kanigsmarck ? 
 
 Madame Platen. Will be well caught. 
 
 Speed, Mesbach ! 
 
 The Prince is yonder, drinking in the pavilion, 
 Konigsmarck's near, walking alone. Deliver him 
 A message in a feigned voice, this glove 
 
 [Giving Mesbach the Princess's glove. 
 Give him for token. Say a lady sent it 
 Who awaits him eagerly on the marble seat 
 Under the terrace. Then haste to the Prince, 
 Persuade him presently by some device 
 To walk with others on the terrace. There 
 I warrant they'll see sport, if you'll but care- 
 lessly 
 Rap with your cane upon the balustrade 
 When near enough to mark the scarlet broidery 
 On this loving lady's domino. 
 
 Mesbach. And if 
 
 Our KOnigsmarck swallow the bait. 
 
 Madame Platen. Begone 
 
 And do your part featly, as I'll do mine. 
 
sc, II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 77 
 
 [Mesbach ^oes out. Madame Platen 
 takes off her domino and replaces it 
 by that of the Princess of Hanover. 
 She comes down from the terrace and 
 seats herself on the marble bench 
 below it and puts on her mask. 
 HiLDEBRAND, who has observed her, 
 himself unobserved, passes in a 
 domino, playing on the viol. 
 
 Hildebrand \Singing.'\ 
 
 At eve the spinners tell beside the doorway 
 Of evil spirits and their accursed love, 
 Fiercer than hate. Close well the curtains, 
 For the moon — and what beside ? — is awake. 
 
 [He goes out singing in the direction 
 whenceKoNiGSMARCKpresently enters, 
 holding the Princess's glove in his 
 hand. 
 Kdnigsmarck. You bave summoned me, Madam, and 
 with all speed 
 I have obeyed 
 
 [Madame Platen sighs and remains 
 silent. 
 
 With what commands ? 
 
 Madame Platen. [Holding out the fellow glove to that 
 he has in his hand and speaking in a whisper.'^ 
 
 You know it not, 
 The token ? 
 KOnigsmarck. On the Electress' honoured hand 
 I have seen a glove 
 
78 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Madame Platen. The Electress, KOnigsmarck ! 
 
 You must be mad I 
 KOnigsmarck. Clearly mistaken, Madam. 
 Madame Platen. Some three-score years of frozen 
 majesty 
 
 You flew to embrace ! 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Heaven be my witness 
 
 Madame Platen. Hardly ! 
 
 Is there no younger lovelier lady, Konigsmarck, 
 May wear the arms of Hanover ? 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. I know one 
 
 That has adorned the arms of Hanover, 
 Whose white hand wields the power of Hanover, 
 Who therefore well might wear on that white hand 
 The coat of Hanover — Clara von Platen, 
 
 Madame Platen. Philip, you have guessed well. O 
 my fond heart, 
 My vainly kind, empassioned, faithful heart ! 
 Surely not exigent, but questioning solely 
 In the humility of entire love 
 Whether my Philip, he who was my Philip 
 Once for a little while, had it in remembrance ; 
 Or whether war and the great wandering sea 
 And fever-fires, wasting the blood, have wasted 
 And blotted out even to the recollection — 
 Ah, Konigsmarck I 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Madam, you have been too gene- 
 rous 
 
 Madame Platen. To an unthankful man 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. For your own fortunes. 
 
 Consider and recall your wonted wisdom 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 79 
 
 And famed prudence. Let no imagined rivalry 
 Fanning to fire some cooled embers, cause you 
 Forget your real interests. How ? Shall we 
 Who have learned love's commerce in the exchange 
 
 of courts, 
 Affect to think an oath when lovers swear it 
 Better than empty air, Cupid's bright bonds 
 A web stronger than morning gossamer 
 Woven o'er the shepherd's path ? 
 
 Why do I speak ? 
 I am your jest, accomplished friend. You have heard 
 Calumnious men accuse me of some passion 
 Such as old poets feigned in ignorant days, 
 And duped the world. You by an artifice 
 Thought to discover me in folly, Madam, 
 Arid read me a friend's lesson. Well, I thank you. 
 Although I need it not. 
 
 Madame Platen. You judge me rightly. 
 
 Rumour affirms you have refused obedience 
 To a royal summons, bidding you return 
 To Sweden and your estate, or else stand forfeit 
 Of all your lands — this for a woman's sake : 
 The Princess of Hanover. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Do they say that ? 
 
 True, I will not yield to the King and sacrifice 
 My liberty, light, and the whole dear world 
 To be mewed up in dark at his good pleasure, 
 Among mere savages. But — for a woman ? 
 Madam, we of the court, surely the top 
 And flower of the modern time, can we believe 
 There lives or man or woman whose possession 
 
8o THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Is worth to us prosperity and power, 
 Ambition, ease, riches and whole estate ? 
 Is worth our fame, is worth our hopes of heaven, 
 Our tears, our blood, life, everything — I mean, 
 We fall not in such error. 
 
 Platen. Do we not ? 
 
 KSnigsmarck. I have ever deemed 
 
 One hazardous hour, a mad night of adventure. 
 The sparkle of love and foam of its swift wine. 
 Which is not for enduring — and so prized it. 
 And thus did you, who yet would not for love 
 Sacrifice power. Did we not put a period 
 To our old brief amour when the Elector 
 Conceived but a suspicion ? 
 
 Madame Platen. Nay, not I ! 
 
 Were you afraid ? O not my founded fortunes, 
 Which I with my own hand know to defend 
 Against all challengers, you so considered, 
 But for yourself you feared ! Count Konigsmarck, 
 You yet may find basely to have betrayed 
 A heart like mine more perilous to your fortunes 
 Than to outbrave the Elector. 
 
 Konigsmarck. Be it so ; 
 
 Yet I will not believe Clara von Platen 
 Will like a country girl or play actor, 
 Become high-tragical for love, for love 
 Invoke ruin and revenge. Lady, you are angry 
 And talk beneath yourself. 
 
 Platen. O this hushed heat. 
 
 This brooding thunder ! It plays upon the 
 nerves — I 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 8i 
 
 You have surprised me with far other faults 
 Than those men blame in you. You are not 
 
 rash, 
 Generous and ardent, no, but calculating. 
 Cold, measured past the mean. 
 
 I am undeceived. 
 You are indeed in nothing different 
 From other men. We women of the world. 
 
 \Listening she hears footsteps approach- 
 ing along the terrace above, and a 
 light rapping on the balustrade. 
 Accept and leave like partners in the dance 
 Our lovers, yet like partners in the dance. 
 Not without courtesies. The courtesies 
 Of love are kisses, Konigsmarck, and thus, 
 
 [Flinging her arms round his neck. 
 For the last time and for remembrance sake 
 I kiss a mouth once dear. 
 
 \The Prince of Hanover, Platen and 
 Mesbach have approached along the 
 terrace and look down upon' the 
 pair. 
 Prince. So ! Here's your pair ! 
 
 [Madame Platen, dropping the 
 Princess's glove on the ground, 
 hastens away down an alley. 
 Prince. After the lady, Mesbach ! 
 
 \He climbs over the balustrade and 
 drops on his feet in front of Y^mios- 
 marck. 
 
 Ha ! Milk diables ! 
 
82 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 We have caught you, Konigsmarck, ay, and caught 
 her, 
 
 Though she bolted like a rabbit. 
 Konigsmarck. I assure your Highness 
 
 You are most opportune, though sudden, by 
 Bacchus, 
 
 In your arrival. 
 Prince. Curse your impudence ! 
 
 She was in your arms. 
 Konigsmarck. Would she had been in yours. 
 
 Electoral Highness ! 
 Prince. Hell and damnation, Sir ! 
 
 Platen, I say ! Listen to him, friend Platen ! 
 
 [Count von Platen having descended 
 from the terrace by the steps, 
 approaches the Prince. 
 
 He holds my wife in his arms, under my eyes, 
 
 I say he holds the Princess 
 
 Konigsmarck. How ? The Princess ? 
 
 Pardon me, Highness, that extreme of honour 
 
 Has not been mine. The Princess ! Well, to- 
 morrow 
 
 Your Highness will be sorry — or have forgotten 
 
 This freak of your French wine. 
 Prince. Insolent foreigner ! 
 
 Platen, he denies it was the Princess. 
 Kdnigsmarck. Diantre ! 
 
 I do deny it. 
 Count V. Platen. Very naturally. 
 
 Inevitably, I may say — Be calm 
 
 Highness, I implore. But, Sir, the domino 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 83 
 
 Was unmistakable. What lady of the court 
 Wears such another ? Who would dare to take 
 Her Highness' domino ? 
 Kdnigsmarck. That, Sir's, a riddle 
 
 To which yourself may know the answer, I — 
 Do not. 
 
 \The Prince haspickedup the Princess's 
 glove, thrown down by Madame 
 Platen, and examined it by a lamp. 
 He holds it out to Konigsmarck. 
 Prince. Here is proof positive. Look at this glove. 
 Your domino, your masked bona roba 
 Dropped it. 
 Konigsmarck. A glove with the arms of Hanover, 
 Such as the Prince uses to give. Why, then 
 'Tis like some bona roba had it, which 
 Your Highness may decide. 
 Prince. Out, damned liar ! 
 
 This glove I gave the Princess. 
 
 [Drawing his sword. 
 Konigsmarck. Didst thou so ? 
 
 Then did the Princess from a hand too white 
 To wear such soilure, thus contemptuously 
 [Flinging the scabbard from his sword.^ Dismiss it. 
 Prince. I have done with words. On guard ! 
 
 [The Prince and Konigsmarck begin 
 
 to fight. Count Platen endeavours 
 
 to intervene without coming within 
 
 reach of their swords. 
 
 Count V. Platen. Electoral Highness ! Prince ! Now 
 
 in God's name 
 
84 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Down with your sword, cursed traitor ! 
 Murderer ! Help ! 
 Prince. Peace, fool ! I want no help. 
 
 [Mesbach comes in and throws himself 
 
 upon KONIGSMARCK. 
 
 Prince. [Lowering his sword.'] Mesbach, let go ! 
 Count V. Platen. [Holding the Prince.] 
 
 Pardon my violence, Highness ! 
 
 [To Mesbach.J You have found the lady ? 
 Prince. Ay, what of the lady ? 
 
 You overtook her ? 
 Mesbach. No, she has disappeared 
 
 Utterly, Highness. 
 Prince. Disappeared ! The domino 
 
 Has disappeared, Mesbach, but here's the lady, 
 
 The unabashed lady ! I know her ! 
 
 Darkness and dominos are no disguise 
 
 To me, and a mask may hide her from the sun> 
 
 But not from my discernment. 
 
 Enter the Princess of Hanover and Prince Ernest, 
 without masks or dominos. 
 
 Konigsmarck. [Laughing scornfully.] 
 
 Your discernment ! 
 Prince. [To the Princess.] 
 
 Madam, you are bold ; or else you are uncertain 
 Whether you were detected. Yes, we saw 
 
 you, 
 Three of us recognised you plainly. Caught, 
 Madame la Princesse I 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 85 
 
 Princess. [7b Prince Ernest.] 
 
 What does his Highness say ? 
 Methinks his wine babbles. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Madam, let me answer. 
 
 A woman foolish or confederate 
 With your Highness' enemies, dared to assume 
 Your domino. Princess, upon my soul. 
 Not for one moment could I misconceive 
 Your mind so much, so much mistake your per- 
 son, 
 As to believe this woman, this ambiguous 
 Piece of gallantry, you. After some compliments 
 As though in jest, she embraced me suddenly 
 And fled ; just as by a most singular hazard, 
 The Prince and these obsequious gentlemen 
 Appeared to witness our endearments. 
 
 Prince. So ! 
 
 You've got your story. Madam. Swear to it, 
 Or do not swear — 'tis of no consequence. 
 Three of us marked you hanging on his neck. 
 Did we not. Platen ? Mesbach ? 
 
 Count V. Platen. Most unhappily. 
 
 And to our amazed grief. 
 
 Mesbach. It was the Princess. 
 
 I'll stake my honour on that. 
 
 Princess. M. de Mesbach 
 
 Has staked his honour ! Do you not stand to 
 
 win 
 Something more worth the having than your 
 
 honour ? 
 A court place or a pension ? 
 
86 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Prince Ernest. When did this happen ? 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Not fifteen minutes ago. 
 
 Prince Ernest. The Princess of Hanover 
 
 Has been unmasked, undominoed in my company 
 
 An hour by the clock. 
 Prince. A brave boy ! Be her witness, 
 
 Perjure thy soul to spite thy brother ! 
 
 Enter the Elector and Madame Platen. 
 Elector. Quarrelling ! 
 
 On this delightful evening ! Shame, young 
 people ! 
 Prince Ernest. Highness and honoured Father, here's 
 a conspiracy 
 Against our Sophie. The Prince dares to affirm 
 He and his hirelings saw her with Count Konigs- 
 marck. 
 Prince, We saw her in a domino, kissing KOnigsmarck 
 
 Here where I stand. 
 Elector. George, you are troublesome. 
 
 A kiss 1 To-night's a carnival of kisses. 
 And some one sure's kissing your Schulenburg 
 While you neglect her for the ungrateful business 
 Of spying on your wife. 
 Prince. Do I understand 
 
 Your Highness winks at infidelities ? 
 
 Princess. No, but he smiles to hear your lame inven- 
 tions. 
 Grandfather, I have been in Ernest's company 
 Since we rose from table. 
 Elector. Yes, yes, daughterling. 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 87 
 
 Prince. Madam, whose glove is this ? A glove from 
 Flanders. 
 
 I gave it you and you carelessly flung it 
 
 At the feet of your inamorato. 
 Princess. This ? 
 
 I left it in the orangery. Ernest, 
 
 Did I not leave my gloves and domino 
 
 In the orangery ? 
 Prince Ernest. You did. A score of witnesses 
 
 Can vouch that we were there. 
 Mesbach. I saw their Highnesses 
 
 In the orangery. I also saw them leave it 
 
 Half an hour since. 
 Prince. Ay, there 'tis ! Half an hour 
 
 You'll not account for ! 
 Prince Ernest. Every moment of it. 
 
 We were at the great fountain to see the fireworks. 
 Prince. In the dark — unrecognised, of course. 
 Prince Ernest. I know not, 
 
 Nor care, by God. You have my word for it, brother, 
 
 And shall accept the same. 
 Prince. How if I will not, 
 
 Jackanapes ? Do you touch your sword ? 
 Elector. Peace, princes ! 
 
 Sophie, when gentlemen begin to jar 
 
 Ladies had best begone. Leave us, my daughter, 
 
 And leave in peace. Ernest defends your cause 
 
 And I am judge. 
 Princess. I obey, honoured Elector, 
 
 With a tranquil mind, knowing that I am innocent 
 
 As you are just. 
 
88 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 {_She goes away. Schulenburg draws 
 near. 
 
 Prince Ernest. I say we were by the fountain 
 
 Prince. You say and cannot prove. Who was at the 
 fountain 
 
 Beside yourself ? 
 Schulenburg. I was, for one, my Prince. 
 
 I waited for you there. 
 Prince. Peste ! I had forgotten. 
 
 Elector. Fair nymph, had you no other occupation 
 
 But waiting for a lag o' love ? 
 Schulenburg. Yes, Highness. 
 
 I was eating caramels. 
 Elector. What ! All the while ? 
 
 Schulenburg. No, for I ate them all — [7b the Prince] 
 — my silver box. 
 
 You gave me — full, and still you never came. 
 
 Prince Ernest came and helped me eat your 
 caramels. 
 
 Did you not, Sir ? [7b Prince Ernest. J 
 Prince. Then the Princess of Hanover 
 
 Was not in his company. 
 Schulenburg. Yes, but she was. 
 
 She was close behind. But for all that Prince 
 Ernest 
 
 Chatted with me. 
 Elector. George, here is a witness 
 
 Not to be traversed. 
 Prince. Nay, 'twas not for long. 
 
 Cannot have been for long 
 
 Schulenburg. It was all the time 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 89 
 
 I waited— that was hours. 
 
 What ! are you jealous ? 
 'Tis too much wine makes you so quarrelsome, 
 Besides forgetful. 
 Elector. Well, this matter's settled ! 
 
 I pronounce judgment. The Princess of Hanover 
 Is proved not guilty. George, thou swinish fellow, 
 Thou shalt make ample apology to this lady 
 And to the Princess. Nay, thou owest excuse 
 To me for spoiling such an evening. Lord ! 
 We were growing young again, were we not, 
 
 Clara ? 
 Here comes the dancers. Tune up ! Join them, 
 all I 
 
 [Dancers rush in, with music. The 
 Elector offers his hand to Madame 
 Platen, Prince Ernest to Ermin- 
 
 GARDA VON ScHULENBURG, and all 
 
 join the dance except the Electoral 
 Prince. 
 The dancers. [Singing.'] 
 
 Viol and flute 
 No more be mute. 
 Come dancing, dancing, dancing ! 
 Fa la la 1 
 Mark the measure. 
 Here is pleasure, 
 A fig for love, a fleer for wine I 
 Cupid's bow and Bacchus' vine ! 
 I d give them both for dancing ! 
 Fa la la ! 
 
90 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Topers yoii 
 Join not our crew, 
 Who trip and fleet 
 On nimble feet 
 And wings of music dancing. 
 Fa la la ! 
 [All dance off, leaving the Electoral 
 Prince alone. 
 
 SCENE III 
 
 \Night. The Princess of Hanover's apartment. The 
 Electress standing wrapped in a hood and cloak, 
 the Princess still in the same dress as in the 
 preceding scene, her domino and mask thrown off 
 on a chair. Leonora von Knesebeck in the 
 background. 
 
 Princess. Your justice, Madam ? The Prince of 
 Hanover 
 Unpardonably insults — more, he conspires 
 With hireling knaves to ruin and defame 
 One whom he should protect, even with his life, 
 From shadow of defamation. He conspires 
 To blacken me, his wife 
 
 Electress. Pshaw I You are fanciful. 
 
 George is a boor, dull, destitute of feeling. 
 But for your conspiracy ! I say 'tis folly, 
 And so does the Elector. 
 
 Princess. Ay, even the Elector. 
 
 Electress. Mere childish invention ! 
 
sc. m THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 91 
 
 Princess. Is it an invention 
 
 That the Prince insulted me grossly, and you, 
 You and the Elector, Madam, are content 
 When he refuses all apology ? 
 
 Electress. Content ! Am I a fool to be content 
 
 With the Prince of Hanover ? I have abandoned 
 The hope to mend his manners : so must you. 
 Shall we imprison him for that he denies 
 A due apology ? Proclaim a scandal 
 Engendered by your indiscretion ? 
 
 Princess. Mine ? 
 
 Electress. Assuredly. What caused this amorous lady. 
 One of the Swede's so easy conquests, choose 
 Your domino for disguise ? 
 
 Princess. What have I done ? 
 
 Ekctress. Nothing almost; and yet a world too 
 much 
 For one that wears your name. A month ago 
 In the palace garden, walking with your daughter, 
 You took her in your arms — with a score of 
 
 women 
 To wait upon the Princess, you must carry her ! 
 
 Princess. A mortal sin ! 
 
 Electress. No, merely ridiculous. 
 
 The scandal follows. Konigsmarck was observed 
 To approach your Highness with an obsequious 
 
 haste. 
 And take the child ; carry her princely Highness, 
 Walking beside you, up the steps of the palace. 
 
 Princess. Thus did Count Konigsmarck ? O 
 horrible ! 
 
92 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act ii 
 
 Electress. Do you laugh, unstaid girl ? Does 
 dignity 
 
 And the religious forms which rampart round 
 
 The power of Princes, move you but to laughter ? 
 
 Let fear control you then. You have enemies ; 
 
 Your husband's one. Suppose you have done 
 nothing, 
 
 That's not enough : you should say, smile, look 
 nothing 
 
 Which hate or love might construe to a meaning 
 
 Beyond your thought. 
 Princess. So must you re-create me. 
 
 I am not such a thing, cold, calculating, 
 
 A mere machine of State, I am alive, 
 
 Young, and a woman. 
 Elector. There are many women 
 
 In the world;: you are the Princess of Hanover. 
 Princess. Who dared to make me so ? My enemies. 
 
 I was a child then — now I'd kill myself 
 
 Before I'd be your Princess. 
 Electress. Sophie of Zell, 
 
 Remember who you were, raised to what height 
 
 From dubious birth and obscure ancestry, 
 
 Made equal to what lineage, made the mother 
 
 Of princes, even of monarchs — you to spurn 
 
 The illustrious House of Hanover ? 
 
 Thou bastard ! 
 Princess. 'Tis a false name ! My mother is more 
 honourable. 
 
 More dear to me than all the crowns of the earth 
 
 And all their pompous wearers. 
 
sc. Ill THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 93 
 
 Electress. The stroke of midnight ! 
 
 And like a fool I rob my bed to wrangle 
 With a high-tempered chit. 
 Madam, good night — 
 
 And may your good night bring consideration 
 And due respect. 
 
 [7%e Electress goes out. 
 Princess. Consideration I Thou darest enjoin me 
 Consider ! I will consider thee, thou enemy 
 Of my mother's honour, fraudulent bargainer 
 And robber of my life, my mortal only 
 Inestimable life, for what mean price 
 Bought, for what mockery sold ! 
 
 Away, Electress ! 
 Chide at your daughter of Prussia, bid her exercise 
 Discretion, count her lovers if you can 
 And mulct her if you may. 
 And thou, Discretion, 
 Thou slant-eyed sister of young Virtue, never 
 Twinned in your birth, come, I will entertain thee 
 To-morrow. But to-night. Madam and Highness, 
 Shall be a holiday. You have sent packing — 
 I thank you for 't — the sharp unslaked Virtue 
 Whose fangs were in my heart, making me sacri- 
 fice 
 My sweet sole friend, put out irrevocably 
 The one light of dim life and quite abandon 
 My hope of human joy. 
 Extreme honour, 
 Indulgence and mild courtesy were nothing 
 To compensate that loss, but calumny. 
 
94 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act n 
 
 Insult and scorn — ! I thank you, House of 
 
 Hanover ! 
 My debt is paid, I am free. 
 Leonora. Weeping, dear lady, 
 
 Will balm our misery better than laughter. 
 Princess. Misery ? I am mad with all the joy 
 Of all my years, my youth-consuming years' 
 Hoarded, unspent delight. 
 Say, Leonora, 
 Where are my wings? Do they not shoot up 
 
 radiant, 
 A splendour of snowy vans, swimming the air 
 Just ere the rush of rapture ? 
 
 \Without, returning revellers are passing 
 by with music and laughter. 
 Hark ! They know 
 And clamour out our joy. Look up, my Philip, 
 And see thy young star shine ! 
 The lamp, Leonora ! 
 Leonora. Highness ! Honoured lady ! 
 
 Consider — wait awhile. 
 Princess. O, I have waited 
 
 More years than now shall fiery moments fleet 
 Ere I embrace my joy ! 
 
 \She seizes a lamp, and approaches the 
 window. Leonora endeavours to 
 restrain her. 
 How ? Wouldst thou venture ? 
 Nay, girl, but I am mistress. 
 Leonora. Madam, to-night 
 
 He is at Herrenhausen 
 
sc. Ill THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 95 
 
 Princess. Or at Monplaisir ? 
 
 No, he is there. A fire runs from his presence 
 And leaps into my blood, I need no question 
 Of eye or ear. 
 
 [She draws back the curtain, and places 
 the lamp in the window. 
 Do now as I command thee. 
 Haste to the postern door, for though thou speed 
 He will outrun thee. Bring Count Konigsmarck. 
 
 [Leonora goes out. 
 Now shall the long, mad hunger of my heart 
 Be satisfied, now do I dare to look 
 On the face of Life before I look on Death. 
 And I wait for him here. Can it be I, 
 The poor sad prisoned girl, the soul shut out 
 For ever and ever from her heritage 
 Of love and happiness ? Who could have guessed 
 That I should be so happy, I should love 
 And be beloved again ? 
 
 [Presently Konigsmarck comes in alone. 
 He pauses as though in doubt for 
 what reason he has been summoned. 
 The Princess flies to meet him. 
 My Konigsmarck ! 
 
ACT III 
 SCENE I 
 
 A camp. Konigsmarck's tent. A tahk with the remains 
 of a supper upon it. Mesbach, Lindhof, Baron 
 V. BoHL, and other Hanoverian officers drinking 
 round it. KQnigsmarck with a glass in his hand, 
 singing. 
 
 When Cupid fell from golden hell 
 
 To earth, sweet earth, 
 Mid April blooms he tossed his plumes, 
 And robbed the tongue of every bird 
 
 In vain, in vain to tell 
 The rapture Heaven has never heard. 
 
 To tell the wondering earth 
 
 His happy heavenly mirth. 
 
 The airy flight of blossoms white. 
 
 Pale, pale, and frail. 
 He first pursued, he gently wooed, 
 And flying, sighing, let them go. 
 
 Weary for some delight 
 That may not in their beauty grow, 
 
 Their petals argent pale 
 
 That heavenward, earthward sail. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 97 
 
 When Cupid knew how roses blew, 
 
 Red, rose red, 
 How deep in June they steep the noon 
 In orient odours, triumphing dyes — 
 
 When Love the wanderer knew. 
 He stooped his wing, and yonder lies. 
 Choosing a royal bed 
 Of roses, roses red. 
 Mesbach. A bumper to his mistress ! 
 All. To his fair mistress ! 
 
 KOnigsmarck. [Kneeling.'] Drink it on your knees ! 
 Mesbach. Here's to the beauteous Sophie, 
 
 The incomparable Dorothea ! 
 Kontgsmarck. [Rising.] To Caroline, 
 
 To Eleanore, Giovanna, Beatrix, 
 To all the ladies who have loved and left me. 
 The adorable ladies I have loved and left. 
 Drink and have done ! Then, drink to Bellona, 
 Our Lady of War, drink to the dark Bellona, 
 My now divinity and only mistress. 
 Several Officers. Bellona ! Ha, ha, ha ! His only 
 
 mistress ! 
 First Officer. Look at his chin ! Clean shaven, on 
 my honour ! 
 Bellona comes to-night. 
 Lindhof. When a four days' beard 
 
 Blackened it, Lindhof swore it mourned my love. 
 There are men here that when my liver ails 
 Accuse my heart and if I cough at night, 
 Will swear I sigh for some long absent lady — - 
 Which one I have forgot. 
 
 G 
 
98 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act hi 
 
 Second Officer. Enough of healths ! 
 
 [7b First and Third Officers.^ 
 Gentlemen, to the watch ! I trust you still walk 
 
 straight 
 And know the countersign. 
 
 [7b K6nigsmarck.'\ My thanks, Sir Count, 
 
 For your right good wine, I have drunk none so 
 
 good 
 Since we left Hanover. You must to the watch 
 At three o'clock. Good night. Sleep while you 
 may. 
 
 [All rise and prepare to go out. Enter 
 Conrad. 
 Conrad. My lord, a lady would speak with your 
 
 lordship. 
 Kdnigsmarck. What dost thou say ? A lady ? 
 Conrad. A fine lady 
 
 And in a fine coach. 
 Konigsmarck. Man, thou art mistaken. 
 
 Doubtless she would see the Marshal. 
 Conrad. 'Tis Count Konigsmarck 
 
 She wants ; and has ridden through a power of 
 
 dirt 
 And the damndest weather, as the postillion told 
 
 me, 
 But for a word with you. 
 First Officer. Bellona, Konigsmarck ? 
 
 Konigsmarck. More like a certain tedious dowager, 
 A beggar for commissions, posted from Hanover 
 
 To plague me 
 
 Conrad. Nay, from Zell, quoth the postillion. 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 99 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Fellow, thou liest I 
 
 Mesbach. [To Conrad.] Is she a pretty lady ? 
 Thy master fears she's not. 
 
 Conrad. That is she, tho' I saw her in the dark. A 
 young lady 
 With a brave black eye and a fair hand, your 
 Honour. 
 
 Mesbach. A black eye and fair hand ! Fortunate 
 Konigsmarck. 
 Sirs, we'll make room for the lady. 
 
 Third Officer. Count, adieu. 
 
 We'll drink her health to-morrow. 
 
 [Mesbach and all the other Officers 
 take leave and go out. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. [To Conrad.] Thou accursed hound. 
 Now could I kill thee with my naked hands, 
 And beat thee to a pulp ! 
 
 Conrad. Softly, good Master ! 
 
 Mind you, I saved your life in the Morea. 
 
 Konigsmarck. Ay, that thou didst 
 
 But now thy devilish tongue hath done a murder 
 Not to be named. Man, what is thy concern 
 With noble ladies ? How dare'st thou to know 
 Or even conjecture whether they be fair 
 And young or otherwise, and on what errand 
 They travel to thy master ? Who has bought 
 
 thee? 
 Who bade thee, fellow, with a trumpet mouth 
 To blare thy master's business to the crowd, 
 His secret business, villain ? 
 
 Conrad. Softly, sir ! 
 
lOO THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act hi 
 
 I am no villain, but a plain honest man. 
 
 I sell your secrets, I ? For shame, my lord ! 
 
 That you have a mistress, why, I know it, God's 
 
 death ! 
 Not being so ignorant as I cannot read 
 A lady's hand in the knot of a green ribbon 
 Tying a letter, or the amorous kiss 
 Of a fine seal on delicate wax. A mistress 
 You have, my lord, and one so beautiful 
 I boast for you any of these gentlemen 
 That made so merry on 't, would burst with pride 
 To be loved by a lady half so fair as this one. 
 
 Konigsmarck. I see thou art already her servant. 
 Conrad, 
 Thy master is no more. Let us both be secret, 
 And lead me to her. 
 
 Conrad. My lord, she waits without. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Gods! Bring her in. \Co^kad goes out. 
 O thou divine madwoman ! 
 Ldonisse, this is ill done ! My heart's delight. 
 Shall I indeed hold thee ? 
 
 Enter Conrad, showing in Aurora v. Konigsmarck. 
 Konigsmarck, after a moment of bewilderment, 
 bursts into a laitgh. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. My sister Aurora ! Now, by Heaven, 
 fair sister, 
 Thou hast sent my thoughts galloping on a wild- 
 goose chase 1 
 
 Aurora. A disappointment ? My apologies. 
 
 Conrad. Ay, 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER loi 
 
 A disappointment. Yet, now I consider it, 
 I am glad your ladyship is a true sister. 
 Else you might ruin my master. 
 
 Aurora. How so, fellow ? 
 
 Conrad. You have a thievish smile. Nay, be not 
 angry— 
 A smile to steal the wit from a common soldier 
 And, make him empty his hard-hoarded gold 
 To fulfil your least desire. For gentlemen. 
 To whom God of his goodness gave soft head- 
 pieces 
 And leaky purses. — Well, God ha' mercy on 'em 
 When they are not your brothers. 
 
 Aurora. A rude flatterer ! 
 
 Thy wits I have not stolen, and now will show thee 
 I am more apt to enrich a gallant soldier 
 Than to devour his earnings. 
 [Giving him money.'\ So begone. 
 
 [Conrad goes out. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. You are welcome, sister. 
 
 What hazard brings you hither ? 
 
 Aurora. You know my custom — 
 
 To prowl the earth more diligently than Satan. 
 
 KSnigsmarck. But why wrapped in a mystery ? 
 
 Aurora. Sweet brother. 
 
 Look not so solemnly. Must I inform you 
 That I am beautiful ? I know there are women 
 Who far excel me, but your sex, my Philip, 
 Worship by companies and prefer a chorus 
 In love to singing solo. I am the fashion. 
 And such a herd of amorous gentlemen 
 
102 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act hi 
 
 Would gather in your tent were 't known I am 
 
 with you, 
 As would annoy us both. 
 
 KSnigsmarck. Yet am I sorry. 
 
 Thus you afford room for a false conjecture. 
 
 Aurora. For whom may you have taken me ? 
 
 No, surely ! 
 Not for the Princess ? 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Hush ! 
 
 Aurora. Preposterous man ! 
 
 Blush for thine own delirium. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. [Takitig a letter from his bosom and 
 kissing it."] I will not — 
 
 For look, I am the proudest creature alive 
 And think no honour too extravagant 
 Nor joy extreme beyond my expectation, 
 When she, the vaunt of princes, the delight 
 Of the gazing earth, she, my adored lady. 
 Here in her crystal chalice of clear words 
 Pours me love's reddest wine. Thou potent vin- 
 tage 1 
 Methinks my stretched hand could reach the stars 
 And rob a constellation for her crown. 
 Or smite compelling music from heaven's lyre 
 Till all that lived and things inanimate 
 In one mad measure hymned the ecstasy 
 Of our unmatched love. 
 
 Aurora. I would you could, 
 
 So had you spared perhaps to do much madlier, 
 You have your pretexts, brother, but I know 
 'Twas for this passion of yours you sacrificed 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 103 
 
 Estate and privileges and made yourself 
 An exile. 
 Konigsmarck, Yes, an exile and a beggar, 
 
 Save for my sword. In that I triumph, Aurora. 
 
 For all her kisses I with one mere fortune 
 
 Have paid, but she endangers kingdoms for them 
 
 And coasts by imminent ruin to my arms. 
 
 Though she repent of it in years to come, 
 Yet will she pardon me, 
 
 Will pardon me for this poor proof I loved her. 
 Aurora. I have been loved often — not once so well. 
 
 Is it the truth Platen has offered privately 
 
 To pay your debts and afterwards affiance you 
 
 To her daughter, princes woo ? Ah! It is true? 
 
 A vile offer, inevitably refused, 
 
 Yet the refusal dangerous. 
 KGnigsmarck. No, surely. 
 
 It means a passion grown purely political 
 
 And soon to be forgot. 
 
 I waste the time 
 
 Talking of Platen with you who post from Zell. 
 
 Tell me of Ldonisse. Has she recovered 
 
 Entirely from her illness ? 
 Aurora. She is well, 
 
 Well and in beauty. 
 Ksmgsmarck. Have they kept much company 
 
 At Zell ? 
 Aurora. Some Highnesses from Hanover. 
 
 Konigsmarck. What princes have been there ? 
 
 Aurora. Prince Max 
 
 K6nigsmarck. I guessed him 
 
I04 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act hi 
 
 She did not tell me, however. Come Aurora, 
 
 Did she not kiss him at farewell ? 
 Aurora. No, brother, 
 
 Because he is not yet gone. 
 Konigsmarck. Hell and damnation ! 
 
 Aurora. What, art thou there already, who wert in 
 Heaven 
 
 A moment since ? I should believe thee crazed 
 
 Had I not lately talked with one in love 
 
 Even as thou art. She would sing for joy 
 
 One moment, thinking how she had thy heart ; 
 
 Immediately fall in a fierce despair 
 
 Because a gnat hummed in her ear it met thee — 
 
 And thou wert not alone. 
 Kdnigsmarck. O God, Aurora, 
 
 How dreadful is this woman's jealousy 
 
 Wherewith she tortures him whose entire heart 
 
 Is hers for life or death ! 
 You bring no message from her ? 
 Aurora. If I do 
 
 I should not. 
 KSnigsmarck. Nay, stand and deliver. She says ? 
 Aurora. She says — On Thursday night there is a 
 
 moon. 
 KSnigsmarck. Well ? 
 Aurora. And the weather is not so much broken 
 
 But it may mend. 
 Kdnigsmarck. And after ? 
 
 Aurora, If it does, 
 
 She says you know the fountain of the faun 
 
 In the clipped bosquet at Zell. The lime tree alleys 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 105 
 
 Wall it about, but should one chance to walk 
 there 
 
 Singing a certain song, a certain casement 
 
 Will be open to the music. 
 Kdnigsmarck. At what hour ? 
 
 Aurora. At ten o'clock. 
 Kdnigsmarck. And then ? 
 
 Aurora. She will be with you, 
 
 Unless there's danger — if there were the owls 
 
 Would scream most melancholy. 
 Kentgsmarck. Birds of wisdom ! 
 
 Let them away ! Our night is not for them, 
 
 Nor will it need the enamoured tongues of May 
 
 To fill our dark with music. 
 
 [Mesbach enters hastily and addresses 
 
 Aurora, who turns her shoulder to 
 
 him and pulls her hood over her face. 
 
 Mesbach. I know you, Highness. 
 
 Listen ! There are gentlemen standing without 
 
 Have sworn to see your face. As a loyal 
 servant 
 
 Of the House of Hanover, I will protect you, 
 
 And keep your secret. Thirty thousand gulden 
 
 Will be a slight gratuity 
 
 Aurora. '[Throwing back her hood.'\ Thirty thousand ! 
 
 My privacy is dear, but thirty thousand ! 
 
 Not thirty thousand pfennigs, Herr von Mesbach; 
 
 Show in your gentlemen, I will encounter them, 
 
 Though 'twere a crowd compact of every lover 
 
 And sworn admirer in my catalogue. Philip, 
 
 Bid them come on ! 
 
io6 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act in 
 
 Konigsmarck. Sister, I obey, [To Mesbach.] Good 
 sir, 
 We shall search out your reasons afterwards. 
 You understand ? 
 \To those without.'] Gentlemen, you are in the 
 
 rain. 
 Pray you come in ! I have here an errant lady. 
 No stranger to you, Lindhof, nor to you, Baron. 
 [LiNDHOF, Baron von Bohl, and other 
 gentlemen come in one by one. 
 Aurora. [Aside]. Lindhof ! My latest cast off lover ! 
 
 I knew it ! 
 My tedious Baron, again ! 
 Lindhof. [Overcome with emotion.] Ah, fair Aurora, 
 
 What act of grace is this ? 
 Baron von Bohl. [Falling on his knee and kissing her 
 hand.] Divine Aurora, 
 
 A singular favour ! An extraordinary happi- 
 ness ! 
 Would we had expected you ! We are much in 
 
 the rough 
 
 [All adjust their dress, cravatfes and 
 perukes. 
 
 SCENE n 
 
 A bosquet in the garden of the Castle at Zell. A 
 fountain with a statue of a faun. Moonlight. 
 Konigsmarck is heard coming along an alley 
 towards the bosquet, playing and singing. He 
 comes in singing. 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 107 
 
 Cover, O eve, the world with mist 
 Till we two shall have kist and kist ! 
 
 Linger, O moon, in the western skies, 
 Till we have looked in each other's eyes ! 
 
 Whisper, O wind ! We shall not speak. 
 Heart upon heart and cheek to cheek. 
 
 Drown, wild dawn, the stars in fire ! 
 We shall have had our heart's desire ! 
 
 \The Princess hurries into the bosquet. 
 Princess. Philip ! 
 KSnigsmarck. It is thou ! 
 
 Princess. Love ! 
 
 Kenigsmarck. Is it possible ? 
 
 Do I indeed hold thee, my heart's treasure ! 
 Princess. How ? Dare another storm thee so with 
 
 kisses ? 
 Kdnigsmarck. Ah, my sweet Princess ! 
 Princess. Now if delight could kill, should I be 
 
 dead. 
 Kdmgsmarck. Love, wilt thou swoon ? 
 Princess. But I am strong, like a young lioness 
 Leaping upon her prey. Dost thou not fear me ? 
 So, when I hold thee fast, my prisoner ? 
 Kdmgsmarck. Faster, beloved ! 
 
 Princess. Now will I press the soul out of thy 
 mouth ! 
 How little dost thou love me ? 
 Ksnigsmarck. Ldonisse ! 
 
 Princess. Answer me not, for nothing will avail 
 To alter it. I am thine irrecoverably. 
 
io8 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iii 
 
 KSnigsmarck. Loose me a moment, for my hungry 
 eyes 
 Would have thy beauty. 
 Dear, art thou so pale. 
 Or does the envious moon dissemble thee. 
 Laying her lilies o'er the bravery 
 Of my carnations ? 
 
 Princess. Pale ? Ah God, my Philip ! 
 
 Did I not tell thee I was worn with misery, 
 Ugly, and old, and wasted 1 
 , Konigsmarck. Leonisse ! 
 
 Princess. I am mad to love thee ! 
 
 And madly do I love thee, my prince of the 
 
 world. 
 When other eyes admire and tongues discourse 
 Thy beauty, praise a magic thou dost wear 
 Beyond discourse, or tell how thou art high 
 In the esteem of captains and of kings. 
 As of enchanted women, then my pride 
 Runs to illume these windows for my love. 
 And in triumphant scarlet dress my cheeks 
 For the unforgotten kisses. But, O me ! 
 When I reflect in the long, lonely nights 
 How much thou art adored, how fairer women 
 Woo thee, and I absent, and I unworthy, 
 
 So must I weep 
 And waste my little beauty, and with moan 
 And various torment, and incessant fear 
 Post on to ugly age. 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Though all were truth 
 
 Which is, Heaven pardon thee, a wanton lie — 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 109 
 
 Yet do I love thee. Were this delicate sheath 
 Wrinkled, and all the mansion of my heart 
 Robbed of its exquisite ornaments — I love thee. 
 By what shall I swear? By this remembered 
 
 haunt, 
 These verdured walls of ours, and branched roof, 
 By each long alley, by the immortal Loves, 
 The naiads and lithe fauns who listen for them 
 Quietly through the years. I do conjure 
 These whom no transitory seasons touch 
 To charm away Time, which is here illusion, 
 Bidding old suns to warm, old scents revive 
 And the old summer sounds — and two who are 
 
 lovers 
 Now and apart, unhappy, hand in hand, 
 
 Run joyously, children. 
 
 Ldonisse, 
 Child-love and lady-love, star of my youth, 
 And deep and perilous passion of my prime. 
 My ruin and despair, my soul's salvation. 
 The angel of my heart, how could another, 
 A mere beautiful woman be to me 
 
 As thou, beloved ? 
 Princess. Philip, she must be nothing ! 
 
 I claim thee mine, my own to the least shred. 
 Mine by the memory of passionate hours 
 These arms have been thy prison, mine, mine only 
 By sad uncounted vigils, the forlorn bed 
 Where some few letters whisper to me of love 
 Awhile and speak no more. My thronging 
 kisses 
 
no THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iii 
 
 Beat on them and my tears raining implore, 
 
 But they will speak no further. 
 Konigsmarck. Answer her, 
 
 Dumb letters, tell her how her lover lies, 
 
 His midnight lamp hovering upon a face 
 
 Fair to enamour anchorites, and tell 
 
 How he in love is eloquent and crowds 
 
 A million kisses on a lady's lips 
 
 That smiling suffer them — but are more silent 
 
 Than my dumb letters. Child 1 — I mean your 
 portrait. 
 Princess. Philip ! 
 
 KSnigsmarck. Or I sleep and you wander through 
 my dreams 
 
 Till I could curse the world-awakening dawn 
 
 That fleets away my joy. 
 Princess. You dream we are happy ? 
 
 Konigsmarck. Often — and yet — I have another 
 dream. 
 
 Let me not think on't ! 
 Princess. Ah, it is unhappy ! 
 
 Konigsmarck. Horrible. Yet I know not what it is. 
 Princess. It is a dream, a thing less than a shadow. 
 
 The child of memory fathered by a fancy, 
 
 'Tis born and dies in a moment. I will face it 
 
 Boldlier than thou, my soldier, will outface it 
 
 When I have seen its face. 
 Konigsmarck. The face of Platen. 
 
 Princess. Then is it ugly. 
 Konigsmarck. I would laugh at it 
 
 Could I but grasp the vision. When I wake 
 
sen THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER in 
 
 The sweat hangs on my hair and some half know^ 
 
 ledge, 
 Mortal, and of unspeakable calamity 
 Freezes my blood, yet all's lost and forgotten, 
 Save where there drifts dim down the gulf of sleep, 
 That one sinister face. 
 
 Then like a woman 
 I weep and pray like one, battering the gates 
 Of inaccessible God, bidding Him smite 
 Where else He will, but spare, pardon, protect 
 Thee, thou adored child. 
 How much unhappiness 
 I have wrought thee, L^onisse 1 
 'Tis I with my inexorable love 
 Have made thy life wretched and perilous 
 Which else might have been happy. 
 
 Princess. Happy, Philip ? 
 
 Out of a sepulchre of souls still-born. 
 Didst thou deliver me, and I will thank thee 
 Always and even for the memory 
 Of what has been ; for not in circumstance 
 Is love's evil or good, but in itself 
 And its own absoluteness. 
 
 KOnigsmarck. Dare you abandon 
 
 A hoped crown to wear the name of KSnigsmarck ? 
 
 Princess. An empire. 
 
 Konigsmarck. God ! that it were possible 1 
 
 But now are we both alike ruined and robbed. 
 
 Princess. Patience, beloved I My intolerable wrongs 
 
 Have won upon ray mother 
 
 [Leonora comes in hastily. 
 
112 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iii 
 
 Leonora. Madam, I beseech you 
 
 Come to your apartments. Once already the 
 
 Prince 
 
 Konigsmarck. What Prince ? 
 Princess. It is Max, 
 
 Leonora. Has hammered at your door, 
 
 Very importunate. The Duke your father. 
 Your mother and the rest have risen from play 
 And certainly will now visit your Highness. 
 These will take no denial. 
 Princess. Dear, I fly ! 
 
 Konigsmarck. Love, not so suddenly ! 
 Princess. Follow me in a while 
 
 To the postern gate. If it be possible 
 When all our nightly ceremonious courtesies 
 Are done, Leonora shall descend and open — 
 Nay, but you know the private stair. Your 
 
 patience 
 Needs exercise, Sir, and may chance to get it. 
 
 \The Princess and Leonora hasten 
 away. Konigsmarck paces the 
 bosquet until he hears footsteps and 
 voices approaching, when he conceals 
 himself. The Duchess of Zell 
 and Prince Max com^ in. 
 Prince Max. I heard it from the window. Madam, 
 
 distinctly. 
 Duchess. A page practising the lute. 
 
 Prince Max. Then as I told you 
 
 This morning early as I went a-shooting — 
 I'll be shot myself if 'twas not Konigsmarck 
 
sen THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 113 
 
 Rode into the town, his face muffled in his cloak, 
 And Hildebrand behind him. 
 
 Duchess. Dame, good nephew, 
 
 If you are not Sophie's friend you surely should be, 
 Since 'tis her championship of you young princes 
 And your infringed rights has injured her 
 So greatly with the Elector. 
 
 Prince Max. Partly, Madam. 
 
 Do not mistrust my dear and brotherly friendship 
 For the Princess. Oh, I know how perilously 
 She stands and from her pride and indiscretion 
 I would protect her. The adventurer Konigs- 
 
 marck 
 Will be her ruin. 
 
 Duchess. I abhor the fellow, 
 
 Do from my soul regret Sophie's perversity. 
 And anger find in him an instrunisnt 
 To plague her husband with ; yet I half pardon it. 
 His Electoral Highness all but strangled her 
 And beat her blue last month. 
 
 Prince Max. George is a villain. 
 
 And so is Konigsmarck. 
 
 Duchess. A swaggering ape ! 
 
 Sophie is most imprudent, yet she is virtuous. 
 That I will swear. True, she's a born coquette, 
 But cold as January and ever mocking 
 At love and at young gentlemen. What's Konigs- 
 marck 
 To change her disposition ? I have heard her 
 Speak very slightingly of Konigsmarck 
 When other women praised him. 
 
 H 
 
114 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER actiii 
 
 Prince Max. Oh, undoubtedly ! 
 
 It is not love but wrong and indignation 
 Throw her in the arms of Konigsmarck. 
 Duchess. His arms ! 
 
 Never ! She would as soon embrace a scorpion. 
 Prince Max. I am sure of it. I mean make her 
 imperil 
 So much for him. He labours to entangle her 
 Merely to boast a conquest. Were 't achieved 
 He were gone already, vaunting it through 
 Europe. 
 Duchess. Well, well ! There's no one here. 
 Prince Max. Perhaps there has been. 
 
 Duchess. You are more suspicious than a husband. 
 Prince Max. Jealous 
 
 Of the honour of our House — and Sophie's happi- 
 ness. 
 Duchess. 'Tis a chilly night for lovers. Let's within. 
 Prince Max. Willingly, madam. 
 Duchess. I warrant we find my daughter 
 
 In bed by now, waiting our nightly visit. 
 
 \They leave the bosquet. Konigsmarck 
 emerges from his concealment. 
 Kdnigsmarck. My thanks, your Highnesses. Hurry 
 Despatch ! 
 Linger not, lest a lover's maledictions 
 Turn your sound sleep to nightmare. 
 
 Nay, sleep sound, 
 Madame d'Olbreuse and honourable brother 
 Of our Electoral George, would-be consoler 
 Of his fair wife, you that do wish her happiness 
 
sen THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 115 
 
 Sleep sound ! Let the bright world be blotted 
 
 out 
 Under the dim and gradual tide of sleep ; 
 Only the pacing moon be vigilant, 
 Far on the crystal confines of the air, 
 
 And one white lady. 
 Moon of my joyous heart, awake for love, 
 Awake for infinite happiness,, awake 
 In armg"that holding her hold Heaven. 
 
 Good-night ! 
 Good-night ! Fair dreams attend your Highnesses. 
 
 [He leaves the bosquet. 
 
ACT IV 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 An ante-chamber in the Electoral Palace at Hanover. 
 The lights are extinguished except for one which a 
 lacquey carries in his hand. He is in attendance 
 on Madame Platen, who wears a hood and cloak- 
 
 Madame Platen. I say I will see the Elector, 
 Impudent rogue ! 
 Dare'st thou refuse me ? 
 Lacquey. Madam, your ladyship. 
 
 The Elector is asleep. 
 Madame Platen. Then must he waken. 
 
 Wake him I say, rascal ! 
 Lacquey. Your ladyship 
 
 Will tell him 'twas her doing ? 
 Madame Platen. Fellow, knock ! 
 
 \The Lacquey knocks timidly at a door. 
 There is no reply. Madame Platen 
 pushes him aside and knocks loudly. 
 A voice answers angrily and indis- 
 tinctly from within. 
 Madame Platen. Clara von Platen. Let me in imme- 
 diately. 
 
 \_Again an indistinct voice from within. 
 
SCI THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER n; 
 
 I shall not go. I have matters of importance 
 Which will not wait till morning. Open, High- 
 ness ! \To the lacquey. 
 Light me the sconces yonder. So ! Be off ! 
 I must have private conference with his Highness. 
 [The Lacquey obeys her and goes out. 
 Madame Platen waits impatiently 
 until the inner door opens and the 
 Elector emerges in a dressing-gown, 
 with a silk handkerchief tied round 
 his head. 
 Elector. The devil, Madam ! What possesses you 
 To invade my apartments at this hour ? Potz- 
 
 tausend ! 
 I hate such indecorum. At my age 
 
 I'll not be made a laughing-stock and scandal 
 
 Madame Platen. You are a laughing-stock, Sir, and 
 a scandal 
 To all the world. The honour of your House 
 Is openly dragged in the dirt — but you say nothing. 
 You will do nothing. 
 Elector. To your business, Clara. 
 
 I am weary of such talk. 
 Madame Platen. Here is my business, 
 
 Konigsmarck left his house half an hour since 
 
 Elector. Konigsmarck ! The old story. 
 Madame Platen. Konigsmarck 
 
 Is now in the apartment of the Princess. Haste ! 
 
 Yourself be judge and witness 
 
 Elector. May the devil 
 
 Devour all women ! Madam, am I blind 
 
Ii8 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 Or deaf, to be unaware yourself had hankerings 
 After this jackanapes ? The Princess of Hanover 
 Has been perverse, thankless, undutiful, 
 We have our quarrel ; but I'll not insult her. 
 Invade her chamber on the authority 
 Of a jealous woman 
 
 Madame Platen. A trusty gentleman 
 
 Saw him, I say, enter 
 
 Elector. Even that is possible — 
 
 Yet I refuse. For KOnigsmarck and she 
 Being of an old acquaintance, may desire 
 Most honourably to bid a long farewell 
 In privacy, unirked by scandalous tongues 
 And prying eyes. Do you not know the fellow 
 Is made a Marshal by the King of Saxony ? 
 To-morrow he resigns, he leaves our service 
 And Hanover for ever. Understand me. 
 I want no scandal, Clara, and to-morrow 
 Quietly we close the page of Konigsmarck. 
 
 Madame Platen. Do you imagine these lovers then 
 to-night 
 Bidding a long farewell, bathed in their tears, 
 Bidding farewell ? O innocent Elector ! 
 
 Learn now the truth. 
 Locked in each others' arms, with insolent joy, 
 With scorn and mockery they plan defiance, 
 A sounding insult, an unheard-of outrage 
 On the crown of Hanover, the dignity 
 And honour of your House. Look at this letter — 
 I. have more here, I speak not without book. 
 The Princess of Hanover means to escape, 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 119 
 
 To-morrow she will fly, all is prepared. 
 
 Whither will fly ? To the Duke of WolfenbUttel ! 
 
 The man that but for you had been her husband, 
 
 Your Highness' enemy, the enemy 
 
 Of Hanover — the Duke of Wolfenbtlttel ! 
 
 Elector. The Princess fly ? Bah ! that's impossible. 
 She has not a gulden in her purse 
 
 Madame Platen. She will have. 
 
 The sly d'Olbreuse, the scheming Frenchwoman 
 Has conjured a new fortune, God knows whence 
 And means to endow her daughter. Kenigsmarck 
 Not vainly revels with his King of Saxony. 
 Marshal he is, master of lands he will be, 
 And means under the nose of Hanover 
 To have and hold your Princess. 
 
 Elector. Give me the letters, 
 
 I'll see these letters. 
 
 {jReads papers handed to him by Ma- 
 dame Platen. 
 
 Damned audaicious scoundrel ! 
 And Sophie too ! Traitors ! To Wolfenbtlttel ! 
 She dares write to the Duke ? Ungrateful drab ! 
 So we are dirt, we of the House of Hanover, 
 Compared to Konigsmarck ! Ho, ho ! we flatter. 
 Cajole friend Wolfenbtlttel, count the hours 
 Till we can snap our fingers at Electors, 
 Safe with our kings and dukes. To Wolfenbtlttel ? 
 To hell with you ! — Reach me some paper, Clara, 
 Ink, sealing-wax. 
 
 K6nigsmarck is in her chamber 
 To-night, you say ? 
 
I20 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 Madame Platen. He was. You must strike quickly 
 If you would not miss your blow. 
 
 Elector. [Writing and handing her a sealed paper^ 
 
 You will take these orders 
 To the Captain of the Guard-room. Trusty 
 
 soldiers, 
 Four of them, halberdiers, will accompany you, 
 Under your orders, to the Leine Palais — 
 No, Clara, not to the apartment of the Princess, 
 To the Hall of Knights. If Konigsmarck be 
 
 yonder 
 He must needs pass out along the corridor 
 To the private stair, by the door that's opposite 
 The door of the great Hall. Well then, secure him, 
 Quietly — no bloodshed. Nay, the villain's hand- 
 some, 
 You will deal tenderly with him. For the Princess 
 With her you shall not deal, I will follow you 
 When I am ready. Secure your prisoner, 
 And wait until I come to you. 
 
 Madame Platen. Your Highness 
 
 Shall be instantly obeyed. \She goes out. 
 
 Elector. To Wolfenbiittel ! 
 
 Heartless, ungrateful girl ! Sophie, I renounce 
 thee. 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 The Hall of Knights in the Leine Palais, dimly lighted 
 by a lamp. A door is open, leading into a cor- 
 ridor, and showing another door opposite. Four 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 121 
 
 halberdters stand in the hall. Madame Platen 
 is in the corridor engaged in cautiously turning 
 and removing the key of the opposite door. She 
 then comes into the Hall and addresses the halber- 
 diers. 
 Madame Platen. Here, under the great chimney- 
 piece, in the shadow, 
 Await my signal. The man who makes your 
 
 business 
 Will come stealthily along the corridor. 
 He will try that door, wondering to find it 
 
 locked. 
 Which he left open — then, I raise my hand. 
 First Halberdier. Your ladyship would have us strike 
 him down. 
 Or take hjm prisoner, using him with respect ? 
 We are soldiers, Madam, we know how to obey, 
 But we want our orders. 
 Madame Platen. Have I not told you, fellow ? 
 
 You must take him prisoner. If he should resist — 
 And being a gentleman and fully armed, 
 Surely he comes well-armed, he will resist — 
 Why, use your weapons, men, strike to some pur- 
 pose. 
 What's primary is he does not escape. 
 Secure the man unhurt, but should he struggle 
 Be not too scrupulous, strike as you may. 
 First Halberdier. We'll carry out your ladyship's 
 commands. 
 If we have understood them. 
 Madame Platen. Now stand back. 
 
122 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 [The Halberdiers hide themselves 
 under the great chimney-piece, in 
 the shadow of the carved knights, 
 Madame Platen goes to the door 
 and peers cautiously down the 
 corridor. 
 Madame Platen. [Muttering to herself.'] And still he 
 does not come. 
 A long love-tryst, ay and a long farewell, 
 
 Adventurous fool ! 
 How dares he linger ? Nay, her arms are about 
 
 him 
 And will not let him go — yet some few kisses ! 
 
 [She paces the Hall once or twice, then 
 returns to her post of observation. 
 Two o'clock tolls from the bells of 
 the town without. 
 It is two o'clock. Listen ! No, I hear nothing, 
 Nothing except the wind shaking the doors. 
 The nights are short, and soon the stealthy 
 
 dawn 
 Creeps in. Dost thou forget to count the hours. 
 The swift short hours ? Are they so sweet, 
 
 KSnigsmarck ? 
 Hurry those long kisses, for I, I too 
 Would keep a tryst with thee. 
 
 [She approaches the chimney-piece under 
 which the Halberdiers are lurking 
 and speaks to them. 
 
 Should he resist, 
 Fear nothing but to miss your capture — kill him 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 123 
 
 [She returns to the open door and again 
 peers cautiously down the corridor, 
 listening. At length a door is heard 
 opening and closing in the distance. 
 She moves stealthily back into the 
 Hall and speaks to the Soldiers. 
 The man is coming. You have your orders. 
 Kill him. 
 First Halberdier. We shall obey your ladyship's 
 orders. 
 
 [KoNiGSMARCK is heard walking care- 
 lessly along the corridor, humming 
 and singing as he comes. In a 
 minute he is visible through the 
 doorway carrying a light, dressed 
 in a riding-suit and armed only 
 with a very small sword. 
 
 Konigsmarck. \Singing.\ 
 
 When Cupid knew how roses blew 
 
 Red, rose red. 
 How deep in June they steep the noon 
 
 In orient odours, triumphing dyes, 
 When Love the wanderer knew. . . . 
 
 [Finding the door opposite that leading 
 into the Hall locked, he places his 
 light on the ground and kneels to 
 examine the lock. 
 Madame Platen. [To the Soldiers.] Kill him. 
 
 [The Halberdiers rush upon Konigs- 
 marck, who leaps to his feet. 
 
134 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 First Halberdier. Yield yourself prisoner. 
 
 [KQnigsmarck draws his sword and 
 endeavours to defend himself. He 
 is struck down by the Halber- 
 diers. 
 Madame Platen. Hold ! O, Jesus, Jesus ! 
 
 KOnigsmarck. Cursed assassins ! 
 Madame Platen. God ! You have murdered him. 
 
 See, see ! He bleeds ! 
 First Halberdier. Yes, we have killed the man. 
 
 According to your ladyship's orders. 
 Madame Platen. Is he dead ? 
 
 First Halberdier. No, but he will be presently. 
 Madame Platen. Bring him in. 
 
 {The Halberdiers /^ifw/KoNiGSMARCK 
 and bring him into the Hall. 
 Lay him here on the ground. 
 
 Now Heaven be thanked, he breathes ! 
 
 'Tis a small wound 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Killed like a rat in a trap ! 
 
 My God, the Princess ! 
 
 Madame Platen. She brought you to this. 
 
 Why were you false to me ? Philip, my Philip, 
 I hate thee not, wilt thou not look on me ? 
 'Twas but a moment's anger — it is the Princess 
 Has been thy ruin. Philip ! O look up ! 
 Merciful God, he is dying ! Courage, love, 
 'Tis but a little wound, it cannot kill thee ; 
 No, I'll not let thee die. 
 Fetch a physician I 
 Run for some help I 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 125 
 
 First Halberdier. Lady, the man's past help. 
 
 We have done his business. 
 
 [KoNiGSMARCK Opens his eyes, raises 
 himself somewhat, and without ob- 
 serving Madame Platen, addresses 
 the Halberdiers. 
 Kdnigsmarck. Men, I charge you solemnly. 
 
 You that have murdered me, do no worse 
 
 murder. 
 Kill not my testimony, but bear witness, 
 I, Philip of KOnigsmarck, here dying, 
 Declare the Princess innocent. The Princess 
 Of Hanover, I say, is innocent. 
 Remember — she is innocent. 
 Madame Platen. The Princess ! 
 
 She who has brought thee to this bloody end, 
 
 Lured thee, fond wretch 
 
 Kdnigsmarck. Platen I Is it thou ? She-devil ! 
 I would my heart held such a river of blood 
 As through this broken bound, rushing on thee. 
 Might wash thee red to hell. O my poor lady, 
 Left to this monster's mercy ! My dying curse. 
 
 Platen, my dying curse 
 
 Madame Platen. I will not hear it ! 
 
 \_She stops her ears and stamps upon 
 Konigsmarck's mouth. He drops 
 back with a groan. 
 First Halberdier. She-devil, said he I 
 Other Halberdiers. Now God pardon us ! 
 
 A devil's dam ! 
 Madame Platen. Fellows, I slipped in his blood — 
 
126 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 And trod by accident — God, how he groans ! 
 Merciful God, he groans ! 
 
 First Halberdier. Rattles in his throat. 
 
 Second Halberdier. He is all but dead. 
 
 Third Halberdier. Would he were buried. 
 
 Madame Platen. Dead ? 
 
 Philip, I never meant it — No, not dead ! 
 Howcouldst thou dream I hated thee ? I loved thee, 
 I love thee to despair, to madness, Philip, 
 Look up, adored, beloved, speak, pardon me — 
 Nay, torture if thou wilt, reproach, revile. 
 Swear that thou lovest her, only come back — 
 Not dead — dead — dead I 
 
 Enter the Elector in his usual dress. 
 
 Elector. Eh ! What's all this ? 
 
 What's wrong with him ? 
 First Halberdier. He is dead — if that be wrong. 
 Elector. Hell and damnation ! Dead ! You blunder- 
 ing fools, 
 I said, secure the man. 
 First Halberdier. We had our orders 
 And have obeyed them. Let your Highness ask 
 the lady. 
 Elector. Come, Madam, come ! Stand up and stop 
 your snivelling, 
 Though you may well be grieved. A sorry busi- 
 ness ! 
 Madame Platen. I never meant — Dear God, how 
 could I mean 
 To kill him ? Hear me swear 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 127 
 
 Elector. You knew my wishes ; 
 
 To avoid scandal, noise and violence. 
 And you murder me a man here on the threshold 
 Of the Princess's apartment. Man, say I ! 
 Kill me a Marshal of Saxony. 
 
 God be with us ! 
 Here is a foul deed and a foolish. 
 Madame Platen. Sir, 
 
 Pardon me, do not reprimand these men, 
 These honest men, whose zeal has made their 
 
 error. 
 They would have seized him, but he fought ; your 
 
 Highness 
 Knows him not easily overmatched, a fighter 
 Fierce and impetuous, thus it chanced in the 
 
 struggle. 
 It happened he was hurt, mortally hurt. 
 An evil chance ! Oh, I call Christ to witness, 
 If but these heavy tears were my heart's blood. 
 These barren tears could weep out all my life 
 Drop after burning drop, into the veins 
 Of this, this cold incredible effigy 
 Of God's most gallant creature — could they do 
 
 so, 
 I'd weep myself long before day to death 
 And yield the living sun to Konigsmarck. 
 Elector. Yes, you are bitter sorry ; but whether you 
 
 meant it. 
 And why you should have meant it — that God 
 
 knows, 
 And you perhaps. For Konigsmarck himself 
 
128 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 I am not so much concerned. He had outrun 
 A long lease of indulgence, and cold steel 
 
 Was all in his trade. 
 
 Ay, thou fine piece of flesh. 
 What wouldst thou with this woman's ware of 
 beauty ? 
 
 Thou had' else been a good soldier. 
 
 'Twas ill done 
 For him, for me whom all my enemies 
 And his too powerful friends will hold account- 
 able 
 
 For your so bloody deed. 
 [7b the Halberdiers,] Listen, you men, 
 All you have done and seen and what you shall 
 
 • do 
 This night is silence. There's no penalty 
 So hard, not even death, but I'll inflict it 
 On the man who breathes a syllable. For the 
 
 rest 
 A well-lined purse is better satisfaction 
 To men than gabble. 
 
 'Tis an awkward business. 
 This of the corpse. Folks will be stirring 
 
 shortly 
 Outside the palace. Diantre ! I think I have it. 
 There's a disused stairway, a blind entrance 
 Near this, under an arras. There we'll hide it 
 Till further counsel. 
 First Halberdier. May it please your Highness, 
 
 The weather's hot. Some noses would scent 
 blood 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 129 
 
 Long before noon to-morrow. There be masons 
 Working about the palace and their stuff 
 Stands just without. This fellow and myself 
 Have been of the trade ; I warrant in an hour 
 We build yon carrion up past all discovery, 
 If so it please your Highness. 
 Elector. What ? You can ? 
 
 Fellow, thou bear'st a brain. Take up the body 
 And follow me. Some of you before morning 
 Must wash this blood away. Though it be little, 
 It will tell tales. 
 
 \The Halberdiers take up the corpse 
 
 of KoNiGSMARCK and follow the 
 
 Elector out of the Hall. 
 
 Madame Platen. This corpse they carry 
 
 Is Konigsmarck; I have looked my last upon 
 
 him 
 For ever and a day. Soon wilt thou know it, 
 Soon wilt thou suffer, Clara : not to-night. 
 This blood is the heart's blood of Konigsmarck, 
 And I have willed it so. Nay, that's extravagant 
 Beyond the edge of nightmare, laughable 
 For the madness^ of it. I kill Konigsmarck ? 
 Yet will I shift the light, I'll see it no more 
 
 For fear of recollections. 
 [Looking down the corridor.^ 
 
 Princess of Hanover, 
 'Tis thou hast murdered him, not I, 'tis thou 
 Hast damned my soul to everlasting torment, 
 
 Thou and thy mad kisses. 
 
 Shall I suffer alone ? 
 
130 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 I have made all smooth for thee, thou'Ut weep 
 
 awhile 
 And then walk virtuously and wear a crown ; 
 But I shall suffer. No, there shall be some woe, 
 Some punishment, vengeance shall overtake thee. 
 
 [The Elector returns. 
 
 Elector. A dark, ill-omened room ! 
 Come with me, Madam, 
 Seek your apartment, we must make pretence 
 To sleep. Pray God this matter go no further ! 
 
 Madame Platen. What of — the corpse ? 
 
 Elector. There we are fortunate. 
 
 Tools are to hand, bricks, mortar, handy fellows, 
 And the blind stairway. If there be none wakeful 
 To note the noise they make building him in, 
 By morning that your bloody handiwork 
 Will lie concealed for ever. 
 
 Madame Platen. Thus ? No burial ? 
 
 Some will surmise 
 
 Elector. The Princess — yet she dare not. 
 
 Madame Platen. What of the Princess ? 
 
 Elector. Let her enemies 
 
 Deal with the Princess. I'll not stand her friend. 
 A curse on her and you ! A curse on women ! 
 There's Death and Silence yonder, say Amen. 
 God ! what a tumbled heap of grinning death 
 Stares at them yet awhile ! An hour ago 
 This was a man, and full of insolent life. 
 Amorous and brave, courted, a friend of kings j 
 Now like a dead rat mouldering in a wainscote. 
 He's left till Judgment Day. 
 
sc. in THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 131 
 
 Madame Platen. Till Judgment Day. 
 
 \They go out. The lamp flickers and 
 dies down. 
 
 SCENE HI 
 
 The same. The Hall is in darkness. The Princess 
 comes in carrying a candle, and followed by Leo- 
 nora, who is laden with papers. As they talk the 
 grey light of dawn begins to steal into the Hall. 
 
 Leonora. See, there is wood on the hearth, good dry 
 wood, 
 Ready for kindling. 
 
 [She kindles the fire. 
 If your Highness will sit here 
 And choose out what's to burn, we'll make a bon- 
 fire 
 To celebrate the end of your captivity, 
 Though it be some hours too soon. 
 Princess. No, not a moment. 
 
 Already I am air, they might as easily 
 Hold a white mist-wreath which the mounting 
 
 sun 
 Spirits away up the unceiled blue, 
 As hold from liberty, and from my love 
 This sublimated me. 
 
 [She seats herself, and while they talk 
 she sorts out papers which Leonora 
 burns. 
 Leonora. I am glad your Highness 
 
132 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 Is of so good a courage. Yesterday 
 You were otherwise. 
 
 Princess. Yesterday, Leonora, 
 
 Was a blank day, mere blank. I had not seen him, 
 Seen how fair Fortune and high courage sit 
 Throned on his face and Love that will be lord 
 Looks dominance from his eyes and all his body, 
 Which is as proudly borne as princes' should be. 
 Speaks victory and that which wins the stars 
 Out of their promised courses. I am unfortunate. 
 Here like a shadow in the moon's eclipse. 
 My fate has blotted his, obscured its brightness, 
 Which else had been conspicuous. In a moment. 
 See, it shines out full orb, my star as well. 
 For Kflnigsmarck is mine and all he has, 
 And I am nothing save the soul of Konigsmarck. 
 
 Leonora. This time to-morrow morning 
 
 We should be jogging through the dark to Wolfen- 
 
 biittel, 
 I would all were well over. 
 
 Princess. So it will be 
 
 This time to-morrow morning. 
 
 Leonora. I pray God ! 
 
 Hush ! Do you hear that noise ? 
 
 Princess. Poor Leonora ! 
 
 You are grown so fearful that a rat in the wall 
 Can make you shudder. Faithful and dear friend. 
 One day you shall be recompensed for all, 
 Meantime be not afraid. In this adventure 
 Is not more peril than we have encountered 
 Often before, as when my love was ill 
 
sc. in THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 133 
 
 And I would visit him, then at Brockhausen 
 That night in June — at Zell — we were mad to 
 
 risk it. 
 But here all is arranged, the King of Saxony, 
 The Duke of Wolfenbiittel sworn to protect us. 
 Once out of Hanover. There's not a point 
 Is unprepared for us in all the journey, 
 And you know well how easily we two 
 May slip away unnoticed. 
 
 Leonora. Forgive me. Madam. 
 
 I am overwrought. Listen ! Those sounds again. 
 I marvel what they mean. 
 
 Princess. Builders at work. 
 
 Leonora. At dead of night ? 
 
 Princess. The night is almost over, 
 
 Soon will the topmost towers discern the day. 
 The day ! The day ! O last of all the days 
 I have spent in extreme penury of joy. 
 In garish misery, unhelped wrong, 
 And in unpardonable dishonour. God, 
 Who never granted me so much of happiness 
 As thy least bird in May, grant to our love 
 This final brave escape, let us cut loose. 
 Loose from the tangling years, the coil of circum- 
 stance, 
 And stand free before Thee, free to each other ; 
 Grant it and we have sworn by no transgression 
 Again to offend, to serve Thee all our lives — 
 Only grant us to-morrow ! 
 
 \A slight crash without, as of a brick falling. 
 
 Leonora. Hush ! What was that ? 
 
134 ■ THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act iv 
 
 Princess. 'Twas here he held me first upon his heart, 
 With little kisses lighter than a child's, 
 He kissed me here, who with far other kisses 
 Has bound me since to him ; and sweet was love 
 But ah, how new I And yet more strange than 
 
 sweet. 
 And I who all that night woke and remembered 
 And singing at heart for joy, esteemed myself 
 Happy — what did I know of happiness. 
 As now |I know it, of long, intimate love ? 
 
 Leonora ! 
 Shall I say that also in the time to come. 
 When this to-morrow is the yesterday 
 Of our new life, when we, husband and wife, 
 Under what stars I know not nor consider, 
 Spend our unprisoned days, shall I not say it ? 
 Revisiting in memory these halls 
 Accursed but for one presence, one event. 
 Shall I not wonder how these two poor lovers 
 Who snatched a brief delight from peril, a proud 
 Joy from the edge of shame, how they imagined 
 Themselves to have known happiness ? We shall 
 
 know it, 
 Calm, perfect happiness. 
 
 Up, lingering dawn ! 
 Why dost thou creep so pale, like one afraid ? 
 1 want the sun ! I want to-morrow ! 
 Leonora. Madam, 
 
 There was a hand on the door. What can these 
 
 builders 
 Be doing here at this hour ? 
 
sc. Ill THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 135 
 
 Princess. Why, they're building. 
 
 What does it matter ? Let them build all night. 
 
 I warrant they'll not build a wall so high 
 
 Love cannot overleap it. 
 Leonora. May Heaven prosper us ! 
 
 Let us to bed and sleep and never dream. 
 
 \They prepare to leave the Hall. 
 Princess. Leonora, bring the light. Do you see ? 
 A stain 
 
 Here on the floor, here on my dress, dark red. 
 Leonora. What can it mean ? 
 Princess. O God ! What can it be ? 
 
 Answer me, girl. 
 Leonora. Blood, Madam. 
 
 Princess. Blood ! — Whose blood ? 
 
ACT V 
 
 SCENE I 
 
 Thirty-three years have elapsed since the murder of 
 KoNiGSMARCK. The Inn-Keeper's Wife and her 
 little daughter Gretel are standing outside the inn 
 at Ahlden. Leonora v. Knesebeck, who is in a 
 travelling dress and under an assumed name, 
 comes out of the housS. 
 
 Leonora. Th^ messenger is not returned yet ? 
 
 Inn-Keeper's Wife. Madam ? 
 
 What messenger ? 
 
 Leonora. I sent one to the Governor 
 
 Of the castle of Ahlden. He should be returned. 
 
 Inn-Keeper's Wife. I warrant the Governor has other 
 matters 
 To busy him. There's the poor lady yonder, 
 Her that was once Princess of Hanover 
 And is a Queen, they say. We call her Duchess, 
 Duchess of Ahlden, here. Alas, poor lady ! 
 
 Leonora. You have news of her ? 
 
 Inn-Keeper's Wife. She's very near to death. 
 
 I'd not be Duchess, no, nor Princess either. 
 No, nor a Queen, to lead her life. 
 
 Leonora. You have seen her ? 
 
sc. I THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 137 
 
 Inn-Keeper's Wife. These thirty years. I was a 
 maiden, younger 
 Than Gretel here, the first time that I saw her. 
 There was a Princess for you and no mistake ! 
 Beautiful as a picture, and in her hair 
 Jewels that sparkled as the wintry stars 
 When the frost bites, glitter, strewn on the dark. 
 In thirty years she is changed, yet every day, 
 Year after year, we have seen her do the same — 
 Drive her two leagues to the bridge and back again, 
 Backwards and forwards, driving furiously 
 As the foul fiend rode after. 
 
 Leonora. The same road ? 
 
 Always the same ? 
 
 Inn-Keeper's Wife. Look you, the King her husband 
 Will not allow her out, save these two leagues 
 To Hayden Bridge and back. Soldiers go with her 
 Galloping with drawn swords. 
 
 Leonora. You have spoken with her. 
 
 Inn-Keeper's Wife. Not I, Madam, but Gretel was at 
 the castle 
 Only last summer. 'Tis a generous lady. 
 Good to the poor, and nothing she loves better 
 Than to give presents to the school-children. 
 Gretel's a scholar. What did the lady give thee, 
 Gretel ? 
 
 Gretel. A thimble all pure silver, mother. 
 
 She's a good lady, very kind but sad, 
 I'm sure she's sad. Lottie and I creep out 
 Sometimes to see her standing at her window 
 Looking across the river. There she'll stand 
 
138 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act v 
 
 Looking for hours, quietly, like an image, 
 Till twilight falls, and then I fancy her 
 Still staring at the dark. I'm very glad 
 Father is not a king. 
 
 Inn-Keeper's Wife. Why, so am I. 
 
 I trust I'm honest, nobody in the village 
 Would gainsay that, yet faith of honest woman. 
 We'd take it cruel hard if common husbands 
 Could treat us wives that way for a slip of youth. 
 Imprisoned all her days like a malefactor ! 
 Yet they do say if there was murder done 
 It was not she did it. 
 Poor soul ! Her mother 
 Was used to visit her, but years ago 
 She died. Friends would come once, but they 
 
 are dead 
 Or they forget, and seldom any come. 
 It must be sad alone in the old castle. 
 
 Leonora. I am sent to visit her by the Queen of Prussia, 
 Who is daughter of your Duchess. 
 
 Inn-Keeper's Wife. Ay, her daughter ! 
 
 A pretty daughter ! Can't she come herself. 
 Not when her mother's dying ? Mind you, Gretel, 
 I want no daughter like this Queen of Prussia, 
 But a pious girl, minding her Ten Commandments. 
 [A messenger comes in with a ktter. 
 
 Messenger. A letter from the Governor of Ahlden 
 To the lady from Berlin. 
 
 Leonora. [Opens the letter.^ He gives permission,, 
 Right ! Bring me my carriage. I will go 
 At once to the Princess — to the Castle of Ahlden. 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 139 
 
 SCENE II 
 
 A room in the castle of Ahlden. The Princess 
 lying on a couch, her head and face muffled in 
 a light wrap; a Gentleman in Attendance 
 shows in Leonara. 
 
 Gentleman, The lady from her Majesty of Prussia 
 
 To visit your Grace. \He retires. 
 
 [The Princess remains perfectly motion- 
 less. Leonora kneels at her side. 
 Leonora. Highness ! My Princess ! 
 Princess. You call me that ? Why, you must be a 
 
 friend. 
 Leonora. A friend ! A friend that did you long ago 
 
 True service and ill service. 
 Princess. I forget, 
 
 I have forgotten everything. I am dying. 
 
 So you will pardon me. 
 Leonora. Madam ! My Princess ! 
 
 Live but a little 
 
 Princess. Live ? And thou a friend ? 
 
 Leonora. Only to look on these time-wearied eyes 
 
 And rest your soul on their fidelity. 
 Princess. O hush ! It rests on the smooth river of 
 death, 
 
 It is borne outward, onward, far away. 
 Leonora. Rest also on my heart. I am Leonora. 
 Princess. Leonora has escaped — escaped. Ah me ! 
 Leonora. Never had she escaped if but her prison 
 
 Had been her dear lady's — never alone. 
 
HO THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act v 
 
 Princess. The Queen of Prussia sends ? Then she 
 wants money. 
 Tell her she will have all soon. 
 
 Leonora. I am Leonora. 
 
 Princess. Art thou indeed faithful ? 
 
 Leonora. Let us remember 
 
 Our dear youth, for we were young together. 
 I never had a life separate from yours, 
 I was but made to be the moon of you, 
 And since my sun, fallen from her radiant course, 
 Lay darkling here, darkling I too have wandered. 
 More brightly for the shadow shines afar 
 Our sunlit past, and in my long dreams 
 I live it over. Who else now would recall 
 Your every smile, details, the dress you wore, 
 White, branched with red roses, when fifteen 
 And fresh as May, you drove through the city of 
 
 Zell, 
 And the common people crowding, left their wares 
 To cry, "God save our Princess." 
 That was your Mother's day. 
 
 What triumph or misery 
 Endured at Hanover but I was through it. 
 Always with you ? 1 have now the Amadis 
 We read at Brockhausen, our favourite flowers 
 Placed fancifully, to mark the passages. 
 
 Princess. The nightingale sang all night in the wood, 
 And half the day. He was at Brockhausen, 
 He lay hid in my chamber there. O madness ! 
 Both inconceivably mad ! 
 No wonder we were despised. 
 
sc. II THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER 141 
 
 Leonora. Who dared despise you ? 
 
 Let little passions pause and creep about 
 Eyeing the means. The great ones walk up- 
 right, 
 But cognisant of the end. When you two loVed 
 The populous earth seemed as the naked round 
 Of the unvisited sea about one sail, 
 And all the eyes of the world indifferent 
 As heaven's unheeding stars. 
 
 Princess. Did we so love, 
 
 Ages ago ? " Only a court intrigue," 
 My mother said, "but Sophie's a born blun- 
 derer. 
 And had such enemies." 
 Ah, poor, poor girl ! 
 Did he not really love her ? 
 
 Leonora. He ? Remember ! 
 
 Princess. All's unremembered in that secret place 
 Where he lies sepultured. We are both buried, 
 Our hearts are dust, and all the rest a shadow. 
 
 Leonora. You were his life, and when he let it go 
 It passed sighing your name. He was no better 
 Than others are, and yet in this was better — 
 He loved beyond the others. 
 
 Princess. We were punished 
 
 Greatly as we had loved. God would disdain 
 To pluck and gather with a dreadful hand 
 Moths from the mouth of Hell. 
 
 \The Gentleman in Attendance comes in. 
 
 Gentleman. The court physicians 
 
 Have come from Hanover to attend your Grace. 
 
142 THE PRINCESS OF HANOVER act v 
 
 Princess. Let them be well refreshed, repose their 
 horses ; 
 And back to Hanover ! I will not see them. 
 
 [He goes out. 
 Come, let us talk a little ere I go, 
 Pass from my living grave to the profound 
 Delightful peace of death. I would recall 
 The long days we have lived, we two, Leonora, 
 Children together. How much happiness 
 God gave us in the old castle of Zell, 
 When we were children ! You remember Philip ? 
 Were we not friends ? Even then we loved each 
 
 other. 
 So joyously, so innocently loved. 
 Dear, let me take your hand, lead me along 
 By sweet familiar ways to the unknown, 
 The still portal of death. 
 May God requite thee. 
 My earliest friend, Leonora. 
 
 [The Governor of the Castle of Ahlden 
 comes in, bringing the Court 
 Physicians _/9'ow Hanover, and ac- 
 companied by gentlemen in attend- 
 ance. 
 Governor. Your Grace will pardon me a forced in- 
 trusion ? 
 The King commands these great physicians visit 
 
 you, 
 
 Whom, being so commanded, I may not hinder. 
 Although your Grace denied them. 
 First Physician. Noble Duchess, 
 
sc. II IHK FRIMCESS OF HANOVEK 143 
 
 Please you recline. Ah ! We have black humours, 
 The vital spirits disordered. We should welcome 
 Those who can do us good. The King's own 
 
 Majesty 
 Commissioned us in his deep anxious care 
 For your Grace's welfare, troubled at the news 
 
 Which told him you were suffering 
 
 Princess. Dying. I know 
 
 The King is troubled, for the hour approaches 
 When in the shining volume of the stars 
 Fate has inscribed that as the dead count time, 
 A moment shall elapse ere George of England 
 Must meet his wife, and meet her before God. 
 The King is troubled. You, his emissaries, 
 Come to prevent me in my wished journey. 
 Dreadful to him, where he shortly must follow 
 Naked on winds of death, my eager spirit 
 Rushing with rapture forth. Bid him prepare. 
 The hour, the inexorable hour has come. 
 Though he should silence every sounding tower 
 Whose hollow throat knells it across the world 
 After the travelling sun, that hour will toll 
 In Heaven's high judgment hall. I summon him 
 Who was my judge, to leave his power and great- 
 ness. 
 His gold, his mistresses and sensual ease, 
 His hireling friends and titled sycophants. 
 All to abandon and with me to appear. 
 Who to Eternal Justice do accuse him, 
 Before the throne of God. I summon him 
 And know he must obey. Merciful God, — 
 
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