SUSSKIND.
We are trapped, the springe is set. Not ignorantly
I offered counsel in the Synagogue,
Quelled panic with authoritative calm,
But knowing, having weighed the opposing risks.
Our friends in Strasburg have been overmastered,
The imperial voice is drowned, the papal arm
Drops paralyzed—both, lifted for the truth;
We can but front with brave eyes, brow erect,
As is our wont, the fullness of our doom.
PRINCE WILLIAM.
Then Meissen's sword champions your desperate cause.
I take my stand here where my heart is fixed.
I love your daughter—if her love consent,
I pray you, give me her to wife.
LIEBHAID.
Ah!
SUSSKIND.
Prince,
Let not this Saxon skin, this hair's gold fleece,
These Rhine-blue eyes mislead thee—she is alien.
To the heart's core a Jewess—prop of my house,
Soul of my soul—and I? a despised Jew.
PRINCE WILLIAM.
Thy propped house crumbles; let my arm sustain
Its tottering base—thy light is on the wane,
Let me relume it. Give thy star to me,
Or ever pitch-black night engulf us all—
Lend me your voice, Liebhaid, entreat for me.
Shall this prayer be your first that he denies?
LIEBHAID.
Father, my heart's desire is one with his.
SUSSKIND.
Is this the will of God? Amen! My children,
Be patient with me, I am full of trouble.
For you, heroic Prince, could aught enhance
Your love's incomparable nobility,
'T were the foreboding horror of this hour,
Wherein you dare flash forth its lightning-sword.
You reckon not, in the hot, splendid moment
Of great resolve, the cold insidious breath
Wherewith the outer world shall blast and freeze—
But hark! I own a mystic amulet,
Which you delivering to your gracious father,
Shall calm his rage withal, and change his scorn
Of the Jew's daughter into pure affection.
I will go fetch it—though I drain my heart
Of its red blood, to yield this sacrifice.
[Exit SUSSKIND.]
PRINCE WILLIAM.
Have you no smile to welcome love with, Liebhaid?
Why should you tremble?
LIEBHAID.
Prince, I am afraid!
Afraid of my own heart, my unfathomed joy,
A blasphemy against my father's grief,
My people's agony. I dare be happy—
So happy! in the instant's lull betwixt
The dazzle and the crash of doom.
PRINCE WILLIAM.
You read
The omen falsely; rather is your joy
The thrilling harbinger of general dawn.
Did you not tell me scarce a month agone,
When I chanced in on you at feast and prayer,
The holy time's bright legend? of the queen,
Strong, beautiful, resolute, who denied her race
To save her race, who cast upon the die
Of her divine and simple loveliness,
Her life, her soul,—and so redeemed her tribe.
You are my Esther—but I, no second tyrant,
Worship whom you adore, love whom you love!