the grandeur of his line had birth--
When Duke John plunged a dagger in his throat,
Palm ran him through the body with his lance,
Eschenbach cleft his skull at one fell blow,
And down he sank, all weltering in his blood,
On his own soil, by his own kinsmen slain.
Those on the opposite bank, who saw the deed,
Being parted by the stream, could only raise
An unavailing cry of loud lament.
But a poor woman, sitting by the way,
Raised him, and on her breast he bled to death.

MELCHTHAL.
Thus has he dug his own untimely grave,
Who sought insatiably to grasp at all.

STAUFFACHER.
The country round is filled with dire alarm.
The mountain passes are blockaded all,
And sentinels on every frontier set;
E'en ancient Zurich barricades her gates,
That for these thirty years have open stood,
Dreading the murderers, and the avengers more,
For cruel Agnes comes, the Hungarian queen,
To all her sex's tenderness a stranger,
Armed with the thunders of the church to wreak
Dire vengeance for her parent's royal blood,
On the whole race of those that murdered him,--
Upon their servants, children, children's children,--
Nay on the stones that build their castle walls.
Deep has she sworn a vow to immolate
Whole generations on her father's tomb,
And bathe in blood as in the dew of May.

MELCHTHAL.
Know you which way the murderers have fled?

STAUFFACHER.
No sooner had they done the deed than they
Took flight, each following a different route,
And parted, ne'er to see each other more.
Duke John must still be wandering in the mountains.

FURST.
And thus their crime has yielded them no fruits.
Revenge is barren. Of itself it makes
The dreadful food it feeds on; its delight
Is murder--its satiety despair.

STAUFFACHER.
The assassins reap no profit by their crime;
But we shall pluck with unpolluted hands
The teeming fruits of their most bloody deed,
For we are ransomed from our heaviest fear;
The direst foe of liberty has fallen,
And, 'tis reported, that the crown will pass
From Hapsburg's house into another line.
The empire is determined to assert
Its old prerogative of choice, I hear.

FURST and several others.
Has any one been named to you?

STAUFFACHER.
The Count
Of Luxembourg is widely named already.

FURST.
'Tis well we stood so stanchly by the empire!
Now we may hope for justice, and with cause.

STAUFFACHER.
The emperor will need some valiant friends,
And he will shelter us from Austria's v