Hey down, down!”
This ditty is reminiscent of the descent to the cave, but the next moment the memory of that is gone and only the consciousness of her loss remains:
“I sang that song while Lod’wick slept with me:”
But at length, gradually and before our eyes, she recovers her lost reason. Her speech to the Duchess of Luneberg shews what seems to be the wandering of her still distraught mind. She displays the rich clothes of Otho:
“A poor maiden, mistress, has a suit to you,
And ’tis a good suit, very good apparel.”
And she breaks into song again. But shortly afterwards she recognises the two corpses, and as Lorick unfolds the ghastly story of Hoffman’s crime the princess comes to her right mind again. At the end of the scene she declares her complete sanity:
“Nay I will come; my wits are mine agen,
Now faith grows firm to punish faithless men.”[99:1]
For a moment now we may look at the madness of Cardenes, which enters into the plot