William Tell, among others, refuses to bow the knee, and is condemned by Gessler to shoot an apple from off his (Tell’s) son’s head:—
“Thou shalt shoot or perish—
Ay, instantly—and thy Son perish with thee”.
Tell comes successfully through the ordeal, but has a second arrow hidden in his tunic. The Governor sees it and forces Tell to confess—
“If with the first I’d chanc’d to slay my Child—
This second shaft would I have shot at thee”.
Gessler thereupon has Tell seized and bound, and declares:—
“Some Dungeon’s depth must be thy habitation.
. . . . . .
—Convey him to the Bark! I’ll follow quickly.
I will myself conduct him o’er to Küssnacht.”
A violent storm springs up; the bark is likely to be wrecked. Gessler, in fear and trembling for his own safety, and knowing Tell to be an adept steersman, has him released and orders him to take the helm. Tell directs the bark to the Axenberg, springs upon a little shelf of rock and,
“sending back
The stagger’d Boat into the whirl of waters,”
escapes up the wooded cliff. Making for Küssnacht, Tell awaits the Governor in the Hollow Way and shoots him through the heart.
“Whilst Austria’s Tyrant sinks forlorn,
The Parent’s curse, the Infant’s scorn,
The Hate of Human-kind;
Blest with the meed, which Virtue gives,
Lo! Tell’s pure name to ages lives,
In every nobler heart enshrin’d.”