I believe that during this love-scene, lovers will not be the only ones to find amusement, though this is the case as a rule. The tenth scene of this act is the turning point of the play. The Prince hastens to the Elector with the conquered flags, rejoicing in the victory and in the certitude that the latter still lives. The Elector commands that his sword be taken from him and orders a court martial to be convoked. Let us not overlook what this scene is in itself, through the contrasts presented. It is moreover the chief argument for the correctness of the opinion I have already expressed concerning the idea of the play. For the Prince is far from being sensible of the fault committed, and when Hohenzollern says to him,
"The ordinance demands obedience," he replies bitterly: "So—so, so, so!"
And later:
"My cousin Frederick hopes to play the Brutus—
By God, in me he shall not find a son
Who shall revere him 'neath the hangman's axe!" etc.
He cannot as yet be just to the Elector, because he is still too indulgent to himself.
In the first scene of the third act he has come a step nearer the truth. He calls himself a plant which has burst into bloom too swiftly and opulently. But he still says,
"Come, was it such a capital offense,
Two little seconds ere the order said,
To have laid low the stoutness of the Swede?"
The dignity of the code of war, upon which the Elector's mode of action is based, still lies too remote from his comprehension; therefore he is persuaded that:
"Ere, at a kerchief's fall, he yields this heart,
That loves him truly, to the muskets' fire,
Ere that, I say, he'll lay his own breast bare
And spill his own blood, drop by drop, in dust."
And when Hohenzollern lets fall a word about the mission of the Swedish ambassador to ask for the hand of the Princess of Orange, the Prince is even inclined to think unworthily of the Elector. He is capable of believing that the Elector will let him die because the Princess has be trothed herself to him. This is genuinely psychological, and here, where Homburg's character begins to appear in a dubious light, is actually the real touch-stone of it. That he loves and admires the Elector, he has already proved, that he has taken great trouble to find a reason for the latter's conduct that is not unworthy of him, is self-evident; for the human heart knows no greater pain than to have given admiration where it should have bestowed contempt. When, therefore, the Prince nevertheless believes that his betrothal to Nathalie has provoked the Elector's severity, he shows thereby that he has absolutely no comprehension of the dignity and necessity of the code of war, that consequently his violation of the ordinance could not have been caused by boyish petulancy, but by a grievous error, which, as an error, could be forgiven in a man. But for that very reason it is not inconsistent with his heroic character for him to exclaim "Oh, friend! Then help me! Save me! I am lost!" For a man shows himself as such when he gives up for lost a possession which is lost, not when he, like a madman, renounces everything for the sake of making fine phrases: and the Prince only does his duty when he tries in whatever way he can, to rescue his life from the despotic will of an individual. In the fifth scene, where he implores the Electress to intercede for him, he says: