Rudolph—What do you say, Max?
Max— I say stay and live.
They cannot kill us.
Rudolph— How so?
Max— If they do,
They must kill Oswald, too. Then where's the child?
(Fritz and Rudolph exchange glances.)
Where then's Val-father's promised child?
Fritz— Max—
Rudolph— No.
Canzler— (Returning to the stump.)
The question, Hartzel, is not what they've done;
It's what they think they have a right to do.
They own, they think, our bodies and our brains.
There is no thing or thought or word or deed
Can take its way, but must report to them
And square itself and do a bondman's work.
They have a right, they think, to chop the North,
Lop off her great green boughs and graft instead
The South's pale branches.
Fritz— To bear bastard fruit.