THE DANCE TO DEATH.
99
LANDGRAVE.
With what high title
Please you to qualify it ?
PRINCE WILLIAM.
Trae, I love
liebhaid von Orb, but 't b 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 Grerman 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. Fbedebick, in a paroxysm of rage, seizes his sword.
SCHNETZEN.
He is your son !