The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - novelonlinefull.com
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We'll help you. What's the matter? Down with them!
[HILDEGARD, MECHTHILD _and_ ELSBETH _return_.]
TELL.
Go, go, good people, I can help myself.
Think you, had I a mind to use my strength, These pikes of theirs should daunt me?
MELCHTHAL (_to_ FRIESSHARDT).
Only try-- Try from our midst to force him, if you dare.
FuRST _and_ STAUFFACHER.
Peace, peace, friends!
FRIESSHARDT (_loudly_).
Riot! Insurrection, ho!
[_Hunting-horns without_.]
WOMEN.
The Governor!
FRIESSHARDT _(raising his voice_).
Rebellion! Mutiny!
STAUFF.
Roar till you burst, knave!
RoSSELMANN _and_ MELCHTHAL.
Will you hold your tongue?
FRIESSHARDT (_calling still louder_).
Help, help, I say, the servants of the law!
FuRST.
The Viceroy here! Then we shall smart for this!
[_Enter_ GESSLER _on horseback, with a falcon on his wrist_: RUDOLPH DER HARRAS, BERTHA, _and_ RUDENZ, _and a numerous train of armed attendants, who form a circle of lances round the whole stage_.]
HARRAS.
Room for the Viceroy!
GESSLER.
Drive the clowns apart.
Why throng the people thus? Who calls for help?
[_General silence_.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: TELL AND GESSLER As performed at the Royal Theatre, Dresden, 1906.]
Who was it? I _will_ know.
[FRIESSHARDT _steps forward_.]
And who art thou?
And why hast thou this man in custody?
[_Gives his falcon to an attendant_.]
FRIESS.
Dread sir, I am a soldier of your guard, And station'd sentinel beside the cap; This man I apprehended in the act Of pa.s.sing it without obeisance due; So as you ordered, I arrested him, Whereupon to rescue him the people tried.
GESSLER (_after a pause_).
And do you, Tell, so lightly hold your King, And me, who act as his vice-regent here, That you refuse obeisance to the cap, I hung aloft to test your loyalty?
I read in this a disaffected spirit.
TELL.
Pardon me, good my lord! The action sprung From inadvertence--not from disrespect.
Were I discreet, I were not William Tell.
Forgive me now--I'll not offend again.
GESSLER (_after a pause_).
I hear, Tell, you're a master with the bow-- From every rival bear the palm away.
WALTER.
That's very truth, sir! At a hundred yards He'll shoot an apple for you off the tree.
GESSLER.
Is that boy thine, Tell?
TELL.
