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FIESCO, OR THE GENOESE CONSPIRACY.

A TRAGEDY.

By Frederich Schiller

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The chief sources from which I have drawn the history of this conspiracyare Cardinal de Retz's Conjuration du Comte Jean Louis de Fiesque, theHistoire des Genes, and the third volume of Robertson's History ofCharles the Fifth.

The liberties which I have taken with the historical facts will beexcused, if I have succeeded in my attempt; and, if not, it is betterthat my failure should appear in the effusions of fancy, than in thedelineation of truth. Some deviation from the real catastrophe of theconspiracy (according to which the count actually perished [A] when hisschemes were nearly ripe for execution) was rendered necessary by thenature of the drama, which does not allow the interposition either ofchance or of a particular Providence. It would be matter of surpriseto me that this subject has never been adopted by any tragic writer,did not the circumstances of its conclusion, so unfit for dramaticrepresentation, afford a sufficient reason for such neglect. Beings ofa superior nature may discriminate the finest links of that chain whichconnects an individual action with the system of the universe, and may,perhaps, behold them extended to the utmost limits of time, past andfuture; but man seldom sees more than the simple facts, divested of theirvarious relations of cause and effect. The writer, therefore, must adapthis performance to the short-sightedness of human nature, which he wouldenlighten; and not to the penetration of Omniscience, from which allintelligence is derived.

In my Tragedy of the Robbers it was my object to delineate the victim ofan extravagant sensibility; here I endeavor to paint the reverse; avictim of art and intrigue. But, however strongly marked in the page ofhistory the unfortunate project of Fiesco may appear, on the stage it mayprove less interesting. If it be true that sensibility alone awakenssensibility, we may conclude that the political hero is the lesscalculated for dramatic representation, in proportion as it becomesnecessary to lay aside the feelings of a man in order to become apolitical hero.

It was, therefore, impossible for me to breathe into my fable thatglowing life which animates the pure productions of poetical inspiration;but, in order to render the cold and sterile actions of the politiciancapable of affecting the human heart, I was obliged to seek a clue tothose actions in the human heart itself. I was obliged to blend togetherthe man and the politician, and to draw from the refined intrigues ofstate situations interesting to humanity. The relations which I bear tosociety are such as unfold to me more of the heart than of the cabinet;and, perhaps, this very political defect may have become a poeticalexcellence.

[A] Fiesco, after having succeeded in the chief objects of hisundertaking, happened to fall into the sea whilst hastening to quell somedisturbances on board of a vessel in the harbor; the weight of his armorrendered his struggles ineffectual, and he perished. The deviation fromhistory in the tragedy might have been carried farther, and would perhapshave rendered it more suitable to dramatic representation.—Translation.

FIESCO; OR, THE GENOESE CONSPIRACY.

A TRAGEDY.