upremest 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 of