our own.

FURST.
Schwytz, then, must share the honor of the sword;
For she's the honored ancestor of all.

ROSSELMANN.
Let me arrange this generous controversy.
Uri shall lead in battle--Schwytz in council.

FURST (gives STAUFFACHER his hand).
Then take your place.

STAUFFACHER.
Not I. Some older man.

HOFE.
Ulrich, the smith, is the most aged here.

MAUER.
A worthy man, but he is not a freeman;
No bondman can be judge in Switzerland.

STAUFFACHER.
Is not Herr Reding here, our old Landamman?
Where can we find a worthier man than he?

FURST.
Let him be Amman and the Diet's chief?
You that agree with me hold up your hands!

[All hold up their right hands.

REDING (stepping into the centre).
I cannot lay my hands upon the books;
But by yon everlasting stars I swear
Never to swerve from justice and the right.

[The two swords are placed before him, and a circle formed;
Schwytz in the centre, Uri on his right, Unterwald on his left.

REDING (resting on his battle-sword).
Why, at the hour when spirits walk the earth,
Meet the three Cantons of the mountains here,
Upon the lake's inhospitable shore?
And what the purport of the new alliance
We here contract beneath the starry heaven?

STAUFFACHER (entering the circle).
No new alliance do we now contract,
But one our fathers framed, in ancient times,
We purpose to renew! For know, confederates,
Though mountain ridge and lake divide our bounds,
And every Canton's ruled by its own laws,
Yet are we but one race, born of one blood,
And all are children of one common home.

WINKELRIED.
Then is the burden of our legends true,
That we came hither from a distant land?
Oh, tell us what you know, that our new league
May reap fresh vigor from the leagues of old.

STAUFFACHER.
Hear, then, what aged herdsmen tell. There dwelt
A mighty people in the land that lies
Back to the north. The scourge of famine came;
And in this strait 'twas publicly resolved,
That each tenth man, on whom the lot might fall
Should leave the country. They obeyed--and forth,
With loud lamentings, men and women went,
A mighty host; and to the south moved on,
Cutting their way through Germany by the sword,
Until they gained that pine-clad hills of ours;
Nor stopped they ever on their forward course,
Till at the shaggy dell they halted, where
The Mueta flows through its luxuriant meads.
No trace of human creature met their eye,
Save one poor hut upon the desert