Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Egmont Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Book Excerpt: ...to Buyck). That means your Majesty, of course, Buyck. My hearty thanks, if it be so. Soest. Assuredly! A Netherlander does not find it easy to drink the health of his Spanish majesty from his heart. Ruysum. Who?Soest (aloud). Philip the Second, King of Spain. Ruysum. Our most gracious king and master! Long life to him. Soest. Did you not like his father, Charles the Fifth, better?Ruysum. God bless him! He was a king indeed! His hand reached over the whole earth, and he was all in all. Yet, when he met you, he'd greet you just as one neighbour greets another, --and if you were frightened, he knew so well how to put you at your ease--ay, you understand me--he walked out, rode out, just as it came into his head, with very few followers. We all wept when he resigned the government here to his son. You understand me--he is another sort of man, he's more majestic. Jetter. When he was here, he never appeared in public, except in pomp and royal state. He speaks little, they say..