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Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow SCENE XVIII.—: A Hall. - Goethe's Works, vol. 3 (Goetz von Berlichingen, Iphigenia in Tauris, Tarquato Tasso, etc)

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SCENE XVIII.—: A Hall. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Goethe’s Works, vol. 3 (Goetz von Berlichingen, Iphigenia in Tauris, Tarquato Tasso, etc) [1885]

Edition used:

Goethe’s Works, illustrated by the best German artists, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: G. Barrie, 1885). Vol. 3.

Part of: Goethe’s Works, 5 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


SCENE XVIII.—

A Hall.

Goetz, Elizabeth, GeorgeandTroopersat table.

Goetz.

Danger unites us, my friends! Be of good cheer; don’t forget the bottle! The flask is empty. Come, another, dear wife! (Elizabethshakes her head.) Is there no more?

Elizabeth.

(Aside.) Only one, which I have set apart for you.

Goetz.

Not so, my love! Bring it out; they need strengthening more than I, for it is my quarrel.

Elizabeth.

Fetch it from the cupboard.

Goetz.

It is the last, and I feel as if we need not spare it. It is long since I have been so merry. (They fill.) To the health of the emperor!

All.

Long live the emperor!

Goetz.

Be it our last word when we die! I love him, for our fate is similar; but I am happier than he. To please the princes, he must direct his imperial squadrons against mice, while the rats gnaw his possessions.—I know he often wishes himself dead, rather than to be any longer the soul of such a crippled body. (They fill.) It will just go once more round. And when our blood runs low, like this flask—when we pour out its last ebbing drop (empties the wine drop by drop into his goblet)—what then shall be our cry?

George.

Freedom forever!

Goetz.

Freedom forever!

All.

Freedom forever!

Goetz.

And if that survive us we can die happy; for our spirits shall see our children’s children and their emperor happy! Did the servants of princes show the same filial attachment to their masters as you to me—did their masters serve the emperor as I would serve him—

George.

Things would be widely different.

Goetz.

Not so much so as it would appear. Have I not known worthy men among the princes? And can the race be extinct? Men, happy in their own minds and in their subjects, who could bear a free, noble brother in their neighborhood without harboring either fear or envy; whose hearts expanded when they saw their table surrounded by their free equals, and who did not think the knights unfit companions till they had degraded themselves by courtly homage.

George.

Have you known such princes?

Goetz.

Ay, truly. As long as I live I shall recollect how the Landgrave of Hanau made a grand hunting-party, and the princes and free feudatories dined under the open heaven, and the country-people all thronged to see them; it was no selfish masquerade instituted for his own private pleasure or vanity. To see the great round-headed peasant lads and the pretty brown girls, the sturdy hinds, and the venerable old men, a crowd of happy faces, all as merry as if they rejoiced in the splendor of their master, which he shared with them under God’s free sky!

George.

He must have been as good a master as you.

Goetz.

And may we not hope that many such will rule together some future day, to whom reverence to the emperor, peace and friendship with their neighbors, and the love of their vassals, shall be the best and dearest family treasure handed down to their children’s children? Every one will then keep and improve his own, instead of reckoning nothing as gain that is not stolen from his neighbors.

George.

And should we have no more forays?

Goetz.

Would to God there were no restless spirits in all Germany!—we should still have enough to do! We would clear the mountains of wolves, and bring our peaceable laborious neighbor a dish of game from the wood, and eat it together. Were that not full employment, we would join our brethren, and, like cherubims with flaming swords, defend the frontiers of the empire against those wolves the Turks, and those foxes the French, and guard for our beloved emperor both extremities of his extensive empire. That would be a life, George! To risk one’s head for the safety of all Germany. (Georgesprings up.) Whither away?

George.

Alas! I forgot we were besieged—besieged by the very emperor; and before we can expose our lives in his defence, we must risk them for our liberty.

Goetz.

Be of good cheer.

EnterLerse.

Lerse.

Freedom! freedom! The cowardly poltroons—the hesitating, irresolute asses! You are to depart with men, weapons, horses and armor; provisions you are to leave behind.

Goetz.

They will hardly find enough to exercise their jaws.

Lerse.

(Aside toGoetz.) Have you hidden the plate and money?

Goetz.

No! Wife, go with Lerse; he has something to tell thee.

[Exeunt.