While his companions bent over
him in consternation and raised him from the ground, Kohlhaas turned
toward the scaffold, where his head fell under the axe of the
executioner.

Here ends the story of Kohlhaas. Amid the general lamentations of the
people his body was placed in a coffin, and while the bearers raised
it from the ground and bore it away to the graveyard in the suburbs
for decent burial, the Elector of Brandenburg called to him the sons
of the dead man and dubbed them knights, telling the Arch-Chancellor
that he wished them to be educated in his school for pages.

The Elector of Saxony, shattered in body and mind, returned shortly
afterward to Dresden; details of his subsequent career there must be
sought in history.

Some hale and happy descendants of Kohlhaas, however, were still
living in Mecklenburg in the last century.

THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

FREDERICK WILLIAM, _Elector of Brandenburg_.

THE ELECTRESS.

PRINCESS NATALIE OF ORANGE, _his niece,
Honorary Colonel of a regiment of Dragoons_.

FIELD-MARSHAL DOeRFLING.

PRINCE FREDERICK ARTHUR OF HOMBURG,
_General of cavalry_.

COLONEL KOTTWITZ, of the regiment
of the Princess of Orange.

HENNINGS
COUNT TRUCHSZ _Infantry Colonels_.

COUNT HOHENZOLLERN, _of the Elector's suite_.

VON DER GOLZ }
COUNT GEORGE VON SPARREN STRANZ }
SIEGFRIED VON MOeRNER } _Captains of Cavalry_
COUNT REUSS }
A SERGEANT }

_Officers. Corporals and troopers.
Ladies- and Gentlemen-in-waiting.
Pages. Lackeys. Servants. People
of both sexes, young and old_.

_Time_: 1675.

THE PRINCE OF HOMBURG (1810)

By HEINRICH VON KLEIST

TRANSLATED BY HERMANN HAGEDORN, A.B.

Author of _A Troop of the Guard and Other Poems_

ACT I

_Scene: Fehrbellin. A garden laid out in the old French style. In the
background, a palace with a terrace from which a broad stair descends.
It is night._

SCENE I

_The_ PRINCE OF HOMBURG _sits with head bare and shirt unbuttoned,
half-sleeping, half waking, under an oak, binding a wreath. The_
ELECTOR, ELECTRESS, PRINCESS NATALIE, COUNT HOHENZOLLERN, CAPTAIN GOLZ
_and others come stealthily out of the palace and look down upon him
from the balustrade of the terrace. Pages with torches._

HOHENZOLLERN. The Prince of Homburg, our most valiant cousin,
Who these three days ha