Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805). Wilhelm Tell.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.
Act II
Scene IRud.Uncle, I’m here! Your will?
After the ancient custom of our house,
The morning cup, with these my faithful servants![He drinks from a cup, which is then passed round.
Time was, I stood myself in field and wood,
With mine own eyes directing all their toil,
Even as my banner led them in the fight,
Now I am only fit to play the steward:
And, if the genial sun come not to me,
I can no longer seek it on the hills.
Thus slowly, in an ever-narrowing sphere,
I move on to the narrowest and the last,
Where all life’s pulses cease. I now am but
The shadow of my former self, and that
Is fading fast—’twill soon be but a name.
Nay, Sir, drink it off!
One cup, one heart! You know our proverb, Sir?
We’ll meet and talk the country’s business over.[Exeunt servants.
Belted and plumed, and all thy bravery on!
Thou art for Altdorf—for the castle, boy?
Doled in such niggard measure, that thou must
Be chary of them to thy aged uncle?
I am but as a stranger in this house.
To thee has grown so strange! Oh, Uly! Uly!
I scarce do know thee now, thus deck’d in silks,
The peacock’s feather flaunting in thy cap,
And purple mantle round thy shoulders flung;
Thou look’st upon the peasant with disdain;
And tak’st his honest greeting with a blush.
But must deny the right he would usurp.
Upon our land, and every true man’s heart,
Is full of sadness for the grievous wrongs
We suffer from our tyrants. Thou alone
Art all unmoved amid the general grief.
Abandoning thy friends, thou tak’st thy stand
Beside thy country’s foes, and, as in scorn
Of our distress, pursuest giddy joys,
Courting the smiles of princes all the while
Thy country bleeds beneath their cruel scourge.
But why? Who plunged it into this distress?
A word, one little easy word, might buy
Instant deliverance from all our ills,
And win the good will of the Emperor.
Woe unto those who seal the people’s eyes.
And make them adverse to their country’s good—
The men who, for their own vile, selfish ends,
Are seeking to prevent the Forest States
From swearing fealty to Austria’s House,
As all the countries round about have done.
It fits their humour well, to take their seats
Amid the nobles on the Herrenbank;
They’ll have the Kaiser for their lord, forsooth,—
That is to say, they’ll have no lord at all.
What, uncle, is the character you’ve stoop’d
To fill contentedly through life? Have you
No higher pride, than in these lonely wilds
To be the Landamman or Banneret,
The petty chieftain of a shepherd race?
How! Were it not a far more glorious choice,
To bend in homage to our royal lord,
And swell the princely splendours of his court,
Than sit at home, the peer of your own vassals,
And share the judgment-seat with vulgar clowns?
The tempter’s voice has caught thy willing ear,
And pour’d its subtle poison in thy heart.
My inmost soul, to hear the stranger’s gibes,
That taunt us with the name of “Peasant Nobles!”
Think you the heart that’s stirring here can brook,
While all the young nobility around
Are reaping honour under Hapsburg’s banner,
That I should loiter, in inglorious ease,
Here on the heritage my fathers left,
And, in the dull routine of vulgar toil,
Lose all life’s glorious spring? In other lands
Great deeds are done. A world of fair renown
Beyond these mountains stirs in martial pomp.
My helm and shield are rusting in the hall;
The martial trumpet’s spirit-stirring blast,
The herald’s call, inviting to the lists,
Rouse not the echoes of these vales, where nought
Save cowherd’s horn and cattle bell is heard,
In one unvarying dull monotony.
Despise the land that gave thee birth! Ashamed
Of the good ancient customs of thy sires!
The day will come, when thou, with burning tears,
Wilt long for home, and for thy native hills,
And that dear melody of tuneful herds,
Which now, in proud disgust, thou dost despise!
A day when wistful pangs shall shake thy heart,
Hearing their music in a foreign land.
Oh! potent is the spell that binds to home!
No, no, the cold, false world is not for thee.
At the proud court, with thy true heart, thou wilt
For ever feel a stranger among strangers.
The world asks virtues of far other stamp
Than thou hast learned within these simple vales.
But go—go thither,—barter thy free soul,
Take land in fief, be minion to a prince,
Where thou might’st be lord paramount, and prince
Of all thine own unburden’d heritage!
O, Uly, Uly, stay among thy people!
Go not to Altdorf. Oh, abandon not
The sacred cause of thy wrong’d native land!
I am the last of all my race. My name
Ends with me. Yonder hang my helm and shield;
They will be buried with me in the grave.
And must I think, when yielding up my breath,
That thou but wait’st the closing of mine eyes,
To stoop thy knee to this new feudal court,
And take in vassalage from Austria’s hands
The noble lands, which I from God received,
Free and unfetter’d as the mountain air!
The world pertains to him:—shall we alone,
In mad presumptuous obstinacy, strive
To break that mighty chain of lands, which he
Hath drawn around us with his giant grasp?
His are the markets, his the courts,—his, too,
The highways; nay, the very carrier’s horse,
That traffics on the Gotthardt, pays him toll.
By his dominions, as within a net,
We are enclosed, and girded round about.
—And will the Empire shield us? Say, can it
Protect itself ’gainst Austria’s growing power?
To God, and not to emperors must we look!
What store can on their promises be placed,
When they, to meet their own necessities,
Can pawn, and even alienate the towns
That flee for shelter ’neath the Eagle’s wings?
No, uncle! It is wise and wholesome prudence,
In times like these, when faction’s all abroad,
To vow attachment to some mighty chief.
The imperial crown’s transferred from line to line.
It has no memory for faithful service:
But to secure the favour of these great
Hereditary masters, were to sow
Seed for a future harvest.
Wilt thou see clearer than thy noble sires,
Who battled for fair freedom’s priceless gem,
With life, and fortune, and heroic arm?
Sail down the lake to Lucerne, there inquire,
How Austria’s thraldom weighs the Cantons down.
Soon she will come to count our sheep, our cattle,
To portion out the Alps, e’en to their peaks,
And in our own free woods to hinder us
From striking down the eagle or the stag;
To set her tolls on every bridge and gate,
Impoverish us, to swell her lust of sway,
And drain our dearest blood to feed her wars.
No, if our blood must flow, let it be shed
In our own cause! We purchase liberty
More cheaply far than bondage.
A shepherd race, against great Albert’s hosts?
I know them, I have led them on in fight,—
I saw them in the battle at Favenz.
What! Austria try, forsooth, to force on us
A yoke we are determined not to bear!
Oh, learn to feel from what a stock thou’rt sprung;
Cast not, for tinsel trash and idle show,
The precious jewel of thy worth away,
To be the chieftain of a free-born race,
Bound to thee only by their unbought love,
Ready to stand—to fight—to die with thee,
Be that thy pride, be that thy noblest boast!
Knit to thy heart the ties of kindred-home—
Cling to the land, the dear land of thy sires,
Grapple to that with thy whole heart and soul!
Thy power is rooted deep and strongly here,
But in yon stranger world thou’lt stand alone,
A trembling reed beat down by every blast.
Oh come! ’tis long since we have seen thee, Uly!
Tarry but this one day. Only to-day!
Go not to Altdorf. Wilt thou? Not to-day!
For this one day, bestow thee on thy friends.[Takes his hand.
Thou art indeed. But not by word or oath.
’Tis by the silken mesh of love thou’rt bound.[R
Ah, hide thee, as thou wilt. ’Tis she, I know,
Bertha of Bruneck, draws thee to the court;
’Tis she that chains thee to the Emperor’s service.
Thou think’st to win the noble knightly maid
By thy apostasy. Be not deceived.
She is held out before thee as a lure;
But never meant for innocence like thine.
Nor hold him back, nor save him from destruction.
And so the Wolfshot has deserted us;—
Others will follow his example soon.
This foreign witchery, sweeping o’er our hills,
Tears with its potent spell our youth away.
O luckless hour, when men and manners strange
Into these calm and happy valleys came,
To warp our primitive and guileless ways!
The new is pressing on with might. The old,
The good, the simple, all fleet fast away.
New times come on. A race is springing up,
That think not as their fathers thought before!
What do I hear? All, all are in the grave
With whom erewhile I moved, and held converse;
My age has long been laid beneath the sod;
Happy the man, who may not live to see
What shall be done by those that follow me!