Hear me!
I will not brook a human voice--scarce dare
Listen to my own (if that be human still)--
Hear me! you do not know this man--I do.[179]
He's mean, deceitful, avaricious. You
Deem yourself safe, as young and brave; but learn
None are secure from desperation, few
From subtilty. My worst foe, Stralenheim, 130
Housed in a Prince's palace, couched within
A Prince's chamber, lay below my knife!
An instant--a mere motion--the least impulse--
Had swept him and all fears of mine from earth.
He was within my power--my knife was raised--
Withdrawn--and I'm in his:--are you not so?
Who tells you that he knows you _not?_ Who says
He hath not lured you here to end you? or
To plunge you, with your parents, in a dungeon?
[_He pauses_.

_Ulr._ Proceed--proceed!

_Wer._ _Me_ he hath ever known, 140
And hunted through each change of time--name--fortune--
And why not _you?_ Are you more versed in men?
He wound snares round me; flung along my path
Reptiles, whom, in my youth, I would have spurned
Even from my presence; but, in spurning now,
Fill only with fresh venom. Will you be
More patient? Ulric!--Ulric!--there are crimes
Made venial by the occasion, and temptations
Which nature cannot master or forbear.[180]

_Ulr._ (_who looks first at him and then at_ JOSEPHINE).
My mother!

_Wer._ Ah! I thought so: you have now 150
Only one parent. I have lost alike
Father and son, and stand alone.

_Ulr._ But stay!
[WERNER _rushes out of the chamber_.

_Jos._ (_to_ ULRIC). Follow him not, until this storm of passion
Abates. Think'st thou, that were it well for him,
I had not followed?

_Ulr._ I obey you, mother,
Although reluctantly. My first act shall not
Be one of disobedience.

_Jos._ Oh! he is good!
Condemn him not from his own mouth, but trust
To me, who have borne so much with him, and for him,
That this is but the surface of his soul, 160
And that the depth is rich in better things.

_Ulr._ These then are but my father's principles[181]?
My mother thinks not with