University of Virginia Library

SCENE I.

A Room in the Landgrave's Palace. Frederick the Grave and Henry Schnetzen.
LANDGRAVE.
Who tells thee of my son's love for the Jewess?

SCHNETZEN.
Who tells me? Ask the Judengasse walls,
The garrulous stones publish Prince William's visits
To his fair mistress.

LANDGRAVE.
Mistress? Ah, such sins
The Provost of St. George's will remit
For half a pound of coppers.

SCHNETZEN.
Think it not!
No light amour this, leaving shield unflecked;
He wooes the Jewish damsel as a knight
The lady of his heart.

LANDGRAVE.
Impossible!

SCHNETZEN.
Things more impossible have chanced. Remember
Count Gleichen, doubly wived, who pined in Egypt,
There wed the Pasha's daughter Malachsala,
Nor blushed to bring his heathen paramour
Home to his noble wife Angelica,
Countess of Orlamund. Yea, and the Pope
Sanctioned the filthy sin.

LANDGRAVE.
Himself shall say it.
Ho, Gunther! (Enter a Lackey.)
Bid the Prince of Meissen here.

[Exit Lackey. The Landgrave paces the stage in agitation.
Enter Prince William.
PRINCE WILLIAM.
Father, you called me?

LANDGRAVE.
Ay, when were you last
In Nordhausen?

PRINCE WILLIAM.
This morning I rode hence.

LANDGRAVE.
Were you at Süsskind's house?

PRINCE WILLIAM.
I was, my liege.

LANDGRAVE.
I hear you entertain unseemly love
For the Jew's daughter.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Who has told thee this?

SCHNETZEN.
This I have told him.

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Father, believe him not.
I swear by heaven 't is no unseemly love
Leads me to Süsskind's house.

LANDGRAVE.
With what high title
Please you to qualify it?

PRINCE WILLIAM.
True, I love
Liebhaid von Orb, but 't is the honest passion
Wherewith a knight leads home his equal wife.

LANDGRAVE.
Great God! and thou wilt brag thy shame! Thou speakest
Of wife and Jewess in one breath! Wilt make
Thy princely name a stench in German nostrils?

PRINCE WILLIAM.
Hold, father, hold! You know her—yes, a Jewess
In her domestic piety, her soul
Large, simple, splendid like a star, her heart
Suffused with Syrian sunshine—but no more—
The aspect of a Princess of Thuringia,
Swan-necked, gold-haired, Madonna-eyed. I love her!
If you will quench this passion, take my life!

[He falls at his father's feet. Frederick, in a paroxysm of rage, seizes his sword.
SCHNETZEN.
He is your son!

LANDGRAVE.
Oh that he ne'er were born!
Hola! Halberdiers! Yeomen of the Guard!
Enter Guardsmen.
Bear off this prisoner! Let him sigh out
His blasphemous folly in the castle tower,
Until his hair be snow, his fingers claws.
[They seize and bear away Prince William.
Well, what 's your counsel?

SCHNETZEN.
Briefly this, my lord.
The Jews of Nordhausen have brewed the Prince
A love-elixir—let them perish all!
[Tumult without. Singing of Hymns and Ringing of Church-bells. The Landgrave and Schnetzen go to the window.
SONG (without).

LANDGRAVE.
Look, foreign pilgrims! What an endless file!
Naked waist-upward. Blood is trickling down
Their lacerated flesh. What do they carry?

SCHNETZEN.
Their scourges—iron-pointed, leathern thongs,
Mark how they lash themselves—the strict Flagellants.
The Brothers of the Cross—hark to their cries!

VOICE FROM BELOW.
Atone, ye mighty! God is wroth! Expel
The enemies of heaven—raze their homes!
[Confused cries from below, which gradually die away in the distance.
Woe to God's enemies! Death to the Jews!
They poison all our wells—they bring the plague.
Kill them who killed our Lord! Their homes shall be
A wilderness—drown them in their own blood!

[The Landgrave and Schnetzen withdraw from the window.
SCHNETZEN.
Do not the people ask the same as I?
Is not the people's voice the voice of God?

LANDGRAVE.
I will consider.

SCHNETZEN.
Not too long, my liege.
The moment favors. Later 't were hard to show
Due cause to his Imperial Majesty,
For slaughtering the vassals of the Crown.
Two mighty friends are theirs. His holiness
Clement the Sixth and Kaiser Karl.

LANDGRAVE.
'T were rash
Contending with such odds.

SCHNETZEN.
Courage, my lord.
These battle singly against death and fate.
Your allies are the sense and heart o' the world.
Priests warring for their Christ, nobles for gold,
And peoples for the very breath of life
Spoiled by the poison-mixers. Kaiser Karl
Lifts his lone voice unheard, athwart the roar
Of such a flood; the papal bull is whirled
An unconsidered rag amidst the eddies.

LANDGRAVE.
What credence lend you to the general rumor
Of the river poison?

SCHNETZEN.
Such as mine eyes avouch.
I have seen, yea touched the leathern wallet found
On the body of one from whom the truth was wrenched
By salutary torture. He confessed,
Though but a famulus of the master-wizard,
The horrible old Moses of Mayence,
He had flung such pouches in the Rhine, the Elbe,
The Oder, Danube—in a hundred brooks,
Until the wholesome air reeked pestilence;
'T was an ell long, filled with a dry, fine dust
Of rusty black and red, deftly compounded
Of powdered flesh of basilisks, spiders, frogs,
And lizards, baked with sacramental dough
In Christian blood.

LANDGRAVE.
Such goblin-tales may curdle
The veins of priest-rid women, fools, and children.
They are not for the ears of sober men.

SCHNETZEN.
Pardon me, Sire. I am a simple soldier.
My God, my conscience, and my suzerain,
These are my guides—blindfold I follow them.
If your keen royal wit pierce the gross web
Of common superstition—be not wroth
At your poor vassal's loyal ignorance.
Remember, too, Süsskind retains your bonds.
The old fox will not press you; he would bleed
Against the native instinct of the Jew,
Rather his last gold doit and so possess
Your ease of mind, nag, chafe, and toy with it;
Abide his natural death, and other Jews
Less devilish-cunning, franklier Hebrew-viced,
Will claim redemption of your pledge.

LANDGRAVE.
How know you
That Süsskind holds my bonds?

SCHNETZEN.
You think the Jews
Keep such things secret? Not a Jew but knows
Your debt exact—the sum and date of interest,
And that you visit Süsskind, not for love,
But for his shekels.

LANDGRAVE.
Well, the Jews shall die.
This is the will of God. Whom shall I send
To bear my message to the council?

SCHNETZEN.
I
Am ever at your 'hest. To-morrow morn
Sees me in Nordhausen.

LANDGRAVE.
Come two hours hence.
I will deliver you the letter signed.
Make ready for your ride.

SCHNETZEN
(kisses Frederick's hand).
Farewell, my master.
(Aside.)
Ah, vengeance cometh late, Süsskind von Orb,
But yet it comes! My wife was burned through thee,
Thou and thy children are consumed by me!

[Exit.