[Footnote 14: The translator adheres to the original, in forsaking the rhyme in these lines and some others.]
[Footnote 15: Written in the time of the French war.]
[Footnote 16: That is--the settled political question--the balance of power.]
[Footnote 18: "Everywhere," says Hoffmeister truly, "Schiller exalts Ideal Belief over real wisdom;--everywhere this modern Apostle of Christianity advocates that Ideal, which exists in Faith and emotion, against the wisdom of worldly intellect, the barren experience of life," etc.--TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 19: The office, at the coronation feast, of the Count Palatine of the Rhine (Grand Sewer of the Empire and one of the Seven Electors) was to bear the Imperial Globe and set the dishes on the board; that of the King of Bohemia was cup-bearer. The latter was not, however, present, as Schiller himself observed in a note (omitted in the editions of his collected works), at the coronation of Rudolf.]
[Footnote 20: Literally, "_A. judge (ein Richter_) was again upon the earth." The word substituted in the translation is introduced in order to recall to the reader the sublime name given, not without justice, to Rudolf of Hapsburg, viz., "THE LIVING LAW."--TRANSLATOR.]
[Footnote 21: At the coronation of Rudolf was celebrated the marriage-feast of three of his daughters--to Ludwig of Bavaria, Otto of Brandenburg, and Albrecht of Saxony. His other three daughters married afterward Otto, nephew of Ludwig of Bavaria, Charles Martell, son of Charles of Anjou, and Wenceslaus, son of Ottocar of Bohemia. The royal house of England numbers Rudolf of Hapsburg amongst its ancestors.--TRANSLATOR.]
Professor of Comparative Literature, Leland Stanford University
Schiller wrote in rapid succession, during his Storm and Stress period, _The Robbers, Fiesco, Cabal and Love_, and the beginning of _Don Carlos_ (finished in 1787). Between this time and his last period, which opens with _Wallenstein_, he devoted himself assiduously to the study of philosophy, history, and esthetic theory. Even in writing _Don Carlos_ he had felt that he needed to give more care to artistic form and to the deeper questions of dramatic unity. His own dissatisfaction with the results achieved was one of several reasons why for nearly ten years he dropped dramatic composition. He felt, too, that he needed more experience of life. He himself said of the greatest of his Storm and Stress dramas that he had attempted to portray humanity before he really knew humanity.