PRINCE WILLIAM.

Father, you called me?

LANDGRAVE.

Ay, when were you last In Nordhausen?

PRINCE WILLIAM.

This morning I rode hence.

LANDGRAVE.

Were you at Susskind's house?

PRINCE WILLIAM.

I was, my liege.

LANDGRAVE.

I hear you entertain unseemly love For the Jew's daughter.

PRINCE WILLIAM.

Who has told thee this?

SCHNETZEN.

This I have told him.

PRINCE WILLIAM.

Father, believe him not.

I swear by heaven 't is no unseemly love Leads me to Susskind's house.

LANDGRAVE.

With what high t.i.tle Please you to qualify it?

PRINCE WILLIAM.

True, I love Liebhaid von Orb, but 't is the honest pa.s.sion Wherewith a knight leads home his equal wife.

LANDGRAVE.

Great G.o.d! and thou wilt brag thy shame! Thou speakest Of wife and Jewess in one breath! Wilt make Thy princely name a stench in German nostrils?

PRINCE WILLIAM.

Hold, father, hold! You know her--yes, a Jewess In her domestic piety, her soul Large, simple, splendid like a star, her heart Suffused with Syrian sunshine--but no more-- The aspect of a Princess of Thuringia, Swan-necked, gold-haired, Madonna-eyed. I love her!

If you will quench this pa.s.sion, take my life!

[He falls at his father's feet.

FREDERICK, in a paroxysm of rage, seizes his sword.]

SCHNETZEN.

He is your son!

LANDGRAVE.

Oh that he ne'er were born!

Hola! Halberdiers! Yeomen of the Guard!

Enter Guardsmen.

Bear off this prisoner! Let him sigh out His blasphemous folly in the castle tower, Until his hair be snow, his fingers claws.

[They seize and bear away PRINCE WILLIAM.]

Well, what's your counsel?

SCHNETZEN.

Briefly this, my lord.

The Jews of Nordhausen have brewed the Prince A love-elixir--let them perish all!

[Tumult without. Singing of Hymns and Ringing of Church-bells.

The LANDGRAVE and SCHNETZEN go to the window.]

SONG* (without).

The cruel pestilence arrives, Cuts off a myriad human lives.

See the Flagellants' naked skin!

They scourge themselves for grievous sin.

Trembles the earth beneath G.o.d's breath, The Jews shall all be burned to death.

*A rhyme of the times. See Graetz's "History of the Jews,"

page 374, vol. vii.

LANDGRAVE.

Look, foreign pilgrims! What an endless file!

Naked waist-upward. Blood is trickling down Their lacerated flesh. What do they carry?

SCHNETZEN.

Their scourges--iron-pointed, leathern thongs, Mark how they lash themselves--the strict Flagellants.

The Brothers of the Cross--hark to their cries!

VOICE FROM BELOW.