Wilhelm Tell (Act 5 Scene 1)

A common near Altdorf. In the background to the right the keep
of Uri, with the scaffold still standing, as in the third scene
of the first act. To the left the view opens upon numerous
mountains, on all of which signal fires are burning. Day is
breaking, and bells are heard ringing from various distances.

RUODI, KUONI, WERNI, MASTER MASON, and many other country people,
also women and children.

RUODI.
Look at the fiery signals on the mountains!

MASTER MASON.
Hark to the bells above the forest there!

RUODI.
The enemy's expelled.

MASTER MASON.
The forts are taken.

RUODI.
And we of Uri, do we still endure
Upon our native soil the tyrant's keep?
Are we the last to strike for liberty?

MASTER MASON.
Shall the yoke stand that was to bow our necks?
Up! Tear it to the ground!

ALL.
Down, down with it!

RUODI.
Where is the Stier of Uri?

URI.
Here. What would ye?

RUODI.
Up to your tower, and wind us such a blast,
As shall resound afar, from hill to hill;
Rousing the echoes of each peak and glen,
And call the mountain men in haste together!

[Exit STIER OF URI—enter WALTER FURST.

FURST.
Stay, stay, my friends! As yet we have not learned
What has been done in Unterwald and Schwytz.
Let's wait till we receive intelligence!

RUODI.
Wait, wait for what? The accursed tyrant's dead,
And the bright day of liberty has dawned!

MASTER MASON.
How! Do these flaming signals not suffice,
That blaze on every mountain top around?

RUODI.
Come all, fall to—come, men and women, all!
Destroy the scaffold! Tear the arches down!
Down with the walls; let not a stone remain.

MASTER MASON.
Come, comrades, come! We built it, and we know
How best to hurl it down.

ALL.
Come! Down with it!

[They fall upon the building at every side.

FURST.
The floodgate's burst. They're not to be restrained.

[Enter MELCHTHAL and BAUMGARTEN.

MELCHTHAL.
What! Stands the fortress still, when Sarnen lies
In ashes, and when Rossberg is a ruin?

FURST.
You, Melchthal, here? D'ye bring us liberty?
Say, have you freed the country of the foe?

MELCHTHAL.
We've swept them from the soil. Rejoice, my friend;
Now, at this very moment, while we speak,
There's not a tyrant left in Switzerland!

FURST.
How did you get the forts into your power?

MELCHTHAL.
Rudenz it was who with a gallant arm,
And manly daring, took the keep at Sarnen.
The Rossberg I had stormed the night before.
But hear what chanced. Scarce had we driven the foe
Forth from the keep, and given it to the flames,
That now rose crackling upwards to the skies,
When from the blaze rushed Diethelm, Gessler's page,
Exclaiming, "Lady Bertha will be burnt!"

FURST.
Good heavens!

[The beams of the scaffold are heard falling.

MELCHTHAL.
'Twas she herself. Here had she been
Immured in secret by the viceroy's orders.
Rudenz sprang up in frenzy. For we heard
The beams and massive pillars crashing down,
And through the volumed smoke the piteous shrieks
Of the unhappy lady.

FURST.
Is she saved?

MELCHTHAL.
Here was a time for promptness and decision!
Had he been nothing but our baron, then
We should have been most chary of our lives;
But he was our confederate, and Bertha
Honored the people. So without a thought,
We risked the worst, and rushed into the flames.

FURST.
But is she saved?

MELCHTHAL.
She is. Rudenz and I
Bore her between us from the blazing pile,
With crashing timbers toppling all around.
And when she had revived, the danger past,
And raised her eyes to meet the light of heaven,
The baron fell upon my breast; and then
A silent vow of friendship passed between us—
A vow that, tempered in yon furnace heat,
Will last through every shock of time and fate.

FURST.
Where is the Landenberg?

MELCHTHAL.
Across the Bruenig.
No fault of mine it was, that he, who quenched
My father's eyesight, should go hence unharmed.
He fled—I followed—overtook and seized him,
And dragged him to my father's feet. The sword
Already quivered o'er the caitiff's head,
When at the entreaty of the blind old man,
I spared the life for which he basely prayed.
He swore Urphede 26, never to return:
He'll keep his oath, for he has felt our arm.

FURST.
Thank God, our victory's unstained by blood!

CHILDREN
(running across the stage with fragments of wood).
Liberty! Liberty! Hurrah, we're free!

FURST.
Oh! what a joyous scene! These children will,
E'en to their latest day, remember it.

[Girls bring in the cap upon a pole. The whole stage
is filled with people.

RUODI.
Here is the cap, to which we were to bow!

BAUMGARTEN.
Command us, how we shall dispose of it.

FURST.
Heavens! 'Twas beneath this cap my grandson stood!

SEVERAL VOICES.
Destroy the emblem of the tyrant's power!
Let it burn!

FURST.
No. Rather be preserved!
'Twas once the instrument of despots—now
'Twill be a lasting symbol of our freedom.

[Peasants, men, women, and children, some standing,
others sitting upon the beams of the shattered scaffold,
all picturesquely grouped, in a large semicircle.

MELCHTHAL.
Thus now, my friends, with light and merry hearts,
We stand upon the wreck of tyranny;
And gallantly have we fulfilled the oath,
Which we at Rootli swore, confederates!

FURST.
The work is but begun. We must be firm.
For, be assured, the king will make all speed,
To avenge his viceroy's death, and reinstate,
By force of arms, the tyrant we've expelled.

MELCHTHAL.
Why, let him come, with all his armaments!
The foe within has fled before our arms;
We'll give him welcome warmly from without!

RUODI.
The passes to the country are but few;
And these we'll boldly cover with our bodies.

BAUMGARTEN.
We are bound by an indissoluble league,
And all his armies shall not make us quail.

[Enter ROSSELMANN and STAUFFACHER.

ROSSELMANN
(speaking as he enters).
These are the awful judgments of the lord!

PEASANT.
What is the matter?

ROSSELMANN.
In what times we live!

FURST.
Say on, what is't? Ha, Werner, is it you?
What tidings?

PEASANT.
What's the matter?

ROSSELMANN.
Hear and wonder.

STAUFFACHER.
We are released from one great cause of dread.

ROSSELMANN.
The emperor is murdered.

FURST.
Gracious heaven!

[PEASANTS rise up and throng round STAUFFACHER.

ALL.
Murdered! the emperor? What! The emperor! Hear!

MELCHTHAL.
Impossible! How came you by the news?

STAUFFACHER.
'Tis true! Near Bruck, by the assassin's hand,
King Albert fell. A most trustworthy man,
John Mueller, from Schaffhausen, brought the news.

FURST.
Who dared commit so horrible a deed?

STAUFFACHER.
The doer makes the deed more dreadful still;
It was his nephew, his own brother's child,
Duke John of Austria, who struck the blow.

MELCHTHAL.
What drove him to so dire a parricide?

STAUFFACHER.
The emperor kept his patrimony back,
Despite his urgent importunities;
'Twas said, indeed, he never meant to give it,
But with a mitre to appease the duke.
However this may be, the duke gave ear,
To the ill counsel of his friends in arms;
And with the noble lords, von Eschenbach,
Von Tegerfeld, von Wart, and Palm, resolved,
Since his demands for justice were despised,
With his own hands to take revenge at least.

FURST.
But say, how compassed he the dreadful deed?

STAUFFACHER.
The king was riding down from Stein to Baden,
Upon his way to join the court at Rheinfeld,—
With him a train of high-born gentlemen,
And the young princes, John and Leopold.
And when they reached the ferry of the Reuss,
The assassins forced their way into the boat,
To separate the emperor from his suite.
His highness landed, and was riding on
Across a fresh-ploughed field—where once, they say,
A mighty city stood in Pagan times—
With Hapsburg's ancient turrets full in sight,
Where all 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 vengeance.

[The peasantry embrace. Enter SACRIST, with imperial messenger.

SACRIST.
Here are the worthy chiefs of Switzerland!

ROSSELMANN and several others.
Sacrist, what news?

SACRISTAN.
A courier brings this letter.

ALL
(to WALTER FURST).
Open and read it.

FURST
(reading).
"To the worthy men
Of Uri, Schwytz, and Unterwald, the Queen
Elizabeth sends grace and all good wishes!"

MANY VOICES.
What wants the queen with us? Her reign is done.

FURST
(reads).
"In the great grief and doleful widowhood,
In which the bloody exit of her lord
Has plunged her majesty, she still remembers
The ancient faith and love of Switzerland."

MELCHTHAL.
She ne'er did that in her prosperity.

ROSSELMANN.
Hush, let us hear.

FURST
(reads).
"And she is well assured,
Her people will in due abhorrence hold
The perpetrators of this damned deed.
On the three Cantons, therefore, she relies,
That they in nowise lend the murderers aid;
But rather, that they loyally assist
To give them up to the avenger's hand,
Remembering the love and grace which they
Of old received from Rudolph's princely house."

[Symptoms of dissatisfaction among the peasantry.

MANY VOICES.
The love and grace!

STAUFFACHER.
Grace from the father we, indeed, received,
But what have we to boast of from the son?
Did he confirm the charter of our freedom,
As all preceding emperors had done?
Did he judge righteous judgment, or afford
Shelter or stay to innocence oppressed?
Nay, did he e'en give audience to the envoys
We sent to lay our grievances before him?
Not one of all these things e'er did the king.
And had we not ourselves achieved our rights
By resolute valor our necessities
Had never touched him. Gratitude to him!
Within these vales he sowed not gratitude.
He stood upon an eminence—he might
Have been a very father to his people,
But all his aim and pleasure was to raise
Himself and his own house: and now may those
Whom he has aggrandized lament for him!

FURST.
We will not triumph in his fall, nor now
Recall to mind the wrongs we have endured.
Far be't from us! Yet, that we should avenge
The sovereign's death, who never did us good,
And hunt down those who ne'er molested us,
Becomes us not, nor is our duty. Love
Must bring its offerings free and unconstrained;
From all enforced duties death absolves—
And unto him we are no longer bound.

MELCHTHAL.
And if the queen laments within her bower,
Accusing heaven in sorrow's wild despair;
Here see a people from its anguish freed.
To that same heaven send up its thankful praise,
For who would reap regrets must sow affection.

[Exit the imperial courier.

STAUFFACHER
(to the people).
But where is Tell? Shall he, our freedom's founder,
Alone be absent from our festival?
He did the most—endured the worst of all.
Come—to his dwelling let us all repair,
And bid the savior of our country hail!

[Exeunt omnes.

Footnotes

26 The Urphede was an oath of peculiar force. When a man who was at
feud with another, invaded his lands and was worsted, he often made terms
with his enemy by swearing the Urphede, by which he bound himself to
depart and never to return with a hostile intention;