Wilhelm Tell by Friedrich Schiller (best books for students to read .txt) 📕

power; They draw my whole heart to them. Every day I look upon them with increased esteem. But you, whom nature and your knightly vow, Have given them as their natural protector, Yet who desert them and abet their foes, In forging shackles for your native land, You - you it is, that deeply grieve and wound me. I must constrain my heart, or I shall hate you.

RUDENZ. Is not my country's welfare all my wish? What seek I for her but to purchase peace 'Neath Austria's potent sceptre?

BERTHA.
Bondage, rather! You would drive freedom from the last stronghold That yet remains for her upon the earth. The people know their own true interests better: Their simple natures are not warped by show, But round your head a tangling net is wound.

RUDENZ. Bertha, you hate me - you despise me!

BERTHA. Nay! And if I did, 'twere better for my peace. But to see him despised and despicable, - The man whom one might love.

RUDENZ.
Oh, Bertha! You Show me the pinnacle of heavenly bliss, Then, in a moment, hurl me to despair!

BERTHA. No, no! the noble is not all extinct Within you. It but slumbers, - I will rouse it. It must have cost you many a fiery struggle To crush the virtues of your race within you. But, heaven be praised, 'tis mightier than yourself, And you are noble in your own despite!

RUDENZ. You trust me, then? Oh, Bertha, with thy love What might I not become?

BERTHA.
Be only that For which your own high nature destined you. Fill the position you were born to fill; - Stand by your people and your native land. And battle for your sacred rights!

RUDENZ. Alas! How can I hope to win you - to possess you, If I take arms against the emperor? Will not your potent kinsman interpose, To dictate the disposal of your hand?

BERTHA. All my estates lie in the Forest Cantons; And I am free, when Switzerland is free.

RUDENZ. Oh! what a prospect, Bertha, hast thou shown me!

BERTHA. Hope not to win my hand by Austria's favor; Fain would they lay their grasp on my estates, To swell the vast domains which now they hold. The selfsame lust of conquest that would rob You of your liberty endangers mine. Oh, friend, I'm marked for sacrifice; - to be The guerdon of some parasite, perchance! They'll drag me hence to the imperial court That hateful haunt of falsehood and intrigue; There do detested marriage bonds await me. Love, love alone, - your love can rescue me.

RUDENZ. And thou could'st be content, love, to live here, In my own native land to be my own? Oh, Bertha, all the yearnings of my soul For this great world and its tumultuous strife, What were they, but a yearning after thee? In glory's path I sought for thee alone And all my thirst of fame was only love. But if in this calm vale thou canst abide With me, and bid earth's pomps and pride adieu, Then is the goal of my ambition won; And the rough tide of the tempestuous world May dash and rave around these firm-set hills! No wandering wishes more have I to send Forth to the busy scene that stirs beyond. Then may these rocks that girdle us extend Their giants walls impenetrably round, And this sequestered happy vale alone Look up to heaven, and be my paradise!

BERTHA. Now art thou all my fancy dreamed of thee. My trust has not been given to thee in vain.

RUDENZ. Away, ye idle phantoms of my folly! In mine own home I'll find my happiness. Here where the gladsome boy to manhood grew, Where every brook, and tree, and mountain peak, Teems with remembrances of happy hours, In mine own native land thou wilt be mine. Ah, I have ever loved it well, I feel How poor without it were all earthly joys.

BERTHA. Where should we look for happiness on earth, If not in this dear land of innocence? Here, where old truth hath its familiar home, Where fraud and guile are strangers, envy ne'er Shall dim the sparkling fountain of our bliss, And ever bright the hours shall o'er us glide. There do I see thee, in true manly worth, The foremost of the free and of thy peers, Revered with homage pure and unconstrained, Wielding a power that kings might envy thee.

RUDENZ. And thee I see, thy sex's crowning gem, With thy sweet woman grace and wakeful love, Building a heaven for me within my home, And, as the springtime scatters forth her flowers, Adorning with thy charms my path of life, And spreading joy and sunshine all around.

BERTHA. And this it was, dear friend, that caused my grief, To see thee blast this life's supremest bliss, With thine own hand. Ah! what had been my fate, Had I been forced to follow some proud lord, Some ruthless despot, to his gloomy castle! Here are no castles, here no bastioned walls Divide me from a people I can bless.

RUDENZ. Yet, how to free myself; to loose the coils Which I have madly twined around my head?

BERTHA. Tear them asunder with a man's resolve. Whatever the event, stand by the people. It is thy post by birth.

[Hunting horns are heard in the distance.

But bark! The chase! Farewell, - 'tis needful we should part - away! Fight for thy land; thou lightest for thy love. One foe fills all our souls with dread; the blow That makes one free emancipates us all.

[Exeunt severally.


SCENE III.

A meadow near Altdorf. Trees in the foreground. At the back
of the stage a cap upon a pole. The prospect is bounded by
the Bannberg, which is surmounted by a snow-capped mountain.

FRIESSHARDT and LEUTHOLD on guard.

FRIESSHARDT. We keep our watch in vain. There's not a soul Will pass and do obeisance to the cap. But yesterday the place swarmed like a fair; Now the whole green looks like a very desert, Since yonder scarecrow hung upon the pole.

LEUTHHOLD. Only the vilest rabble show themselves, And wave their tattered caps in mockery at us. All honest citizens would sooner make A tedious circuit over half the town Than bend their backs before our master's cap.

FRIESSHARDT. They were obliged to pass this way at noon, As they were coming from the council house. I counted then upon a famous catch, For no one thought of bowing to the cap. But Rosselmann, the priest, was even with me: Coming just then from some sick penitent, He stands before the pole - raises the Host - The Sacrist, too, must tinkle with his bell - When down they dropped on knee - myself and all In reverence to the Host, but not the cap.

LEUTHOLD. Hark ye, companion, I've a shrewd suspicion, Our post's no better than the pillory. It is a burning shame, a trooper should Stand sentinel before an empty cap, And every honest fellow must despise us, To do obeisance to a cap, too! Faith, I never heard an order so absurd!

FRIESSHARDT. Why not, an't please thee, to an empty cap. Thou'st ducked, I'm sure, to many an empty sconce.

[HILDEGARD, MECHTHILD, and ELSBETH enter with their children
and station themselves around the pole.

LEUTHOLD. And thou art an officious sneaking knave, That's fond of bringing honest folks to trouble. For my part, he that likes may pass the cap I'll shut my eyes and take no note of him.

MECHTHILD. There hangs the viceroy! Your obeisance, children!

ELSBETH. I would to God he'd go, and leave his cap! The country would be none the worse for it.

FRIESSHARDT (driving them away). Out of the way! Confounded pack of gossips! Who sent for you? Go, send your husbands here, If they have courage to defy the order.

[TELL enters with his crossbow, leading his son WALTER
by the hand. They pass the hat without noticing it, and
advance to the front of the stage.

WALTER (pointing to the Bannberg). Father, is't true, that on the mountain there, The trees, if wounded with a hatchet, bleed?

TELL. Who says so, boy?

WALTER.
The master herdsman, father! He tells us there's a charm upon the trees, And if a man shall injure them, the hand That struck the blow will grow from out the grave.

TELL. There is a charm about them, that's the truth. Dost see those glaciers yonder, those white horns, That seem to melt away into the sky?

WALTER. They are the peaks that thunder so at night, And send the avalanches down upon us.

TELL. They are; and Altdorf long ago had been Submerged beneath these avalanches' weight, Did not the forest there above the town Stand like a bulwark to arrest their fall.

WALTER (after musing a little). And are there countries with no mountains, father?

TELL. Yes, if we travel downwards from our heights, And keep descending in the rivers' courses, We reach a wide and level country, where Our mountain torrents brawl and foam no more, And fair, large rivers glide serenely on. All quarters of the heaven may there be scanned Without impediment. The corn grows there In broad and lovely fields, and all the land Is fair as any garden to the view.

WALTER. But, father, tell me, wherefore haste we not Away to this delightful land, instead Of toiling here, and struggling as we do?

TELL. The land is fair and bountiful as Heaven; But they who till it never may enjoy The fruits of what they sow.

WALTER.
Live they not free, As you do, on the land their fathers left them?

TELL. The fields are all the bishop's or the king's.

WALTER. But they may freely hunt among the woods?

TELL. The game is all the monarch's - bird and beast.

WALTER. But they, at least, may surely fish the streams?

TELL. Stream, lake, and sea, all to the king belong.

WALTER. Who is this king, of whom they're so afraid?

TELL. He is the man who fosters and protects them.

WALTER. Have they not courage to protect themselves?

TELL. The neighbor there dare not his neighbor trust.

WALTER. I should want breathing room in such a land, I'd rather dwell beneath the avalanches.

TELL. 'Tis better, child, to have these glacier peaks Behind one's back than evil-minded men!

[They are about to pass on.

WALTER. See, father, see the cap on yonder pole!

TELL. What is the cap to us? Come, let's be gone.

[As he is going, FRIESSHARDT, presenting his pike, stops him.

FRIESSHARDT. Stand, I command you, in the emperor's name.

TELL (seizing