We are the strongest. Friends, endure it not, Our countrymen will back us to a man.
We'll help you. What's the matter? Down with them!
[HILDEGARD, MECHTHILD _and_ ELSBETH _return_.]
Go, go, good people, I can help myself. Think you, had I a mind to use my strength, These pikes of theirs should daunt me?
Only try-- Try from our midst to force him, if you dare.
Help, help, I say, the servants of the law!
The Viceroy here! Then we shall smart for this!
[_Enter_ GESSLER _on horseback, with a falcon on his wrist_: RUDOLPH DER HARRAS, BERTHA, _and_ RUDENZ, _and a numerous train of armed attendants, who form a circle of lances round the whole stage_.]
Drive the clowns apart. Why throng the people thus? Who calls for help?
[Illustration: TELL AND GESSLER As performed at the Royal Theatre, Dresden, 1906.]
And who art thou? And why hast thou this man in custody?
Dread sir, I am a soldier of your guard, And station'd sentinel beside the cap; This man I apprehended in the act Of passing it without obeisance due; So as you ordered, I arrested him, Whereupon to rescue him the people tried.
And do you, Tell, so lightly hold your King, And me, who act as his vice-regent here, That you refuse obeisance to the cap, I hung aloft to test your loyalty? I read in this a disaffected spirit.
Pardon me, good my lord! The action sprung From inadvertence--not from disrespect. Were I discreet, I were not William Tell. Forgive me now--I'll not offend again.
I hear, Tell, you're a master with the bow-- From every rival bear the palm away.
That's very truth, sir! At a hundred yards He'll shoot an apple for you off the tree.
And, of the two, which dost thou love the most?
Then, Tell, since at a hundred yards thou canst Bring down the apple from the tree, thou shalt Approve thy skill before me. Take thy bow-- Thou hast it there at hand--make ready, then, To shoot an apple from the stripling's head! But take this counsel--look well to thine aim, See, that thou hit'st the apple at the first, For, shouldst thou miss, thy head shall pay the forfeit.
What monstrous thing, my lord, is this you ask? What I from the head of mine own child!--No, no! It cannot be, kind sir, you meant not that-- God, in His grace, forbid! You could not ask A father seriously to do that thing!