The House of Walter Furst.Walter Furst and Arnold von Melchthal enter simultaneously at different sides.
MELCH.
Good Walter Furst.
FURST.
If we should be surprised!
Stay where you are.We are beset with spies.
MELCH.
Have you no news for me from Unterwald?
What of my father? 'Tis not to be borne, Thus to be pent up like a felon here!
What have I done so heinous that I must Skulk here in hiding, like a murderer?
I only laid my staff across the fists Of the pert varlet, when before my eyes, By order of the governor, he tried To drive away my handsome team of oxen.
FURST.
You are too rash by far.He did no more Than what the Governor had ordered him.
You had transgress'd, and therefore should have paid The penalty, however hard, in silence.
MELCH.
Was I to brook the fellow's saucy gibe, "That if the peasant must have bread to eat, Why, let him go and draw the plough himself!"It cut me to the very soul to see My oxen, noble creatures, when the knave Unyoked them from the plough.As though they felt The wrong, they lowed and butted with their horns.
On this I could contain myself no longer, And, overcome by passion, struck him down.
FURST.
O, we old men can scarce command ourselves!
And can we wonder youth breaks out of bounds?
MELCH.
I'm only sorry for my father's sake!
To be away from him, that needs so much My fostering care! The Governor detests him, Because, whene'er occasion served, he has Stood stoutly up for right and liberty.
Therefore they'll bear him hard--the poor old man!
And there is none to shield him from their gripe.
Come what come may, I must go home again.
FURST.
Compose yourself, and wait in patience till We get some tidings o'er from Unterwald.
Away! away! I hear a knock! Perhaps A message from the Viceroy! Get thee in!
You are not safe from Landenberger's[*] arm In Uri, for these tyrants pull together.
[*] Berenger von Landenberg, a man of noble family in Thurgau, and Governor of Unterwald, infamous for his cruelties to the Swiss, and particularly to the venerable Henry of the Halden.He was slain at the battle of Morgarten, in 1315.
MELCH.
They teach us Switzers what we ought to do.
FURST.
Away! I'll call you when the coast is clear.
[Melchthal retires.]
Unhappy youth! I dare not tell him all The evil that my boding heart predicts!
Who's there? The door ne'er opens, but I look For tidings of mishap.Suspicion lurks With darkling treachery in every nook.
Even to our inmost rooms they force their way, These myrmidons of power; and soon we'll need To fasten bolts and bars upon our doors.
[He opens the door, and steps back in surprise as Werner Stauffacher enters.]
What do I see? You, Werner? Now, by Heaven!
A valued guest, indeed.No man e'er set His foot across this threshold, more esteem'd, Welcome! thrice welcome, Werner, to my roof!
What brings you here? What seek you here in Uri?
STAUFF.(shakes Furst by the hand).
The olden times and olden Switzerland.
FURST.
You bring them with you.See how glad I am, My heart leaps at the very sight of you.
Sit down--sit down, and tell me how you left Your charming wife, fair Gertrude? Iberg's child, And clever as her father.Not a man, That wends from Germany, by Meinrad's Cell,[*]
To Italy, but praises far and wide Your house's hospitality.But say, Have you come here direct from Fluelen, And have you noticed nothing on your way, Before you halted at my door?
[*] A cell built in the 9th century, by Meinrad, Count of Hohenzollern, the founder of the Convent of Einsiedeln, subsequently alluded to in the text.
STAUFF.(sits down).
I saw A work in progress, as I came along, I little thought to see--that likes me ill.
FURST.
O friend! you've lighted on my thought at once.
STAUFF.
Such things in Uri ne'er were known before.
Never was prison here in man's remembrance, Nor ever any stronghold but the grave.
FURST.
You name it well.It is the grave of freedom.
STAUFF.
Friend, Walter Furst, I will be plain with you.
No idle curiosity it is That brings me here, but heavy cares.I left Thraldom at home, and thraldom meets me here.
Our wrongs, e'en now, are more than we can bear And who shall tell us where they are to end?
From eldest time the Switzer has been free, Accustom'd only to the mildest rule.
Such things as now we suffer ne'er were known, Since herdsman first drove cattle to the hills.
FURST.
Yes, our oppressions are unparallel'd!
Why, even our own good lord of Attinghaus, Who lived in olden times, himself declares They are no longer to be tamely borne.
STAUFF.
In Unterwalden yonder 'tis the same;
And bloody has the retribution been.
The imperial Seneschal, the Wolfshot, who At Rossberg dwelt, long'd for forbidden fruit--Baumgarten's wife, that lives at Alzellen, He tried to make a victim to his lust, On which the husband slew him with his axe.
FURST.
O, Heaven is just in all its judgments still!
Baumgarten, say you? A most worthy man.
Has he escaped, and is he safely hid?
STAUFF.
Your son-in-law conveyed him o'er the lake, And he lies hidden in my house at Steinen.
He brought the tidings with him of a thing That has been done at Sarnen, worse than all, A thing to make the very heart run blood!
FURST.(attentively).
Say on.What is it?
STAUFF.
There dwells in Melchthal, then, Just as you enter by the road from Kerns, An upright man, named Henry of the Halden, A man of weight and influence in the Diet.
FURST.
Who knows him not? But what of him? Proceed.
STAUFF.
The Landenberg, to punish some offence Committed by the old man's son, it seems, Had given command to take the youth's best pair Of oxen from his plough; on which the lad Struck down the messenger and took to flight.
FURST.
But the old father--tell me, what of him?
STAUFF.
The Landenberg sent for him, and required He should produce his son upon the spot;And when the old man protested, and with truth, That he knew nothing of the fugitive, The tyrant call'd his torturers.
FURST.(springs up and tries to lead him to the other side).
Hush, no more!
STAUFF.(with increasing warmth).
