Prince. I saw her, yes.
Cölestin. And yet thou thinkest of departure? Art thou made of stone that thou hast not felt a thrust of pity like a knife, at the mere sight of that pious grace, that spring-like mildness?
Duke. Who speaks of pity, when I myself protect her with my shield? Pity?--how--wherefore? Have a care!
Cölestin. Thy threat hath no meaning today. Yet all the same I know that wert thou king, thou wouldst lay my gray head at thy feet.
Duke. Perhaps. And again perhaps, if this braggart who was sent hither and now crawls away again, did not quite take off that weak old head of thine, he would just have thee hanged, out of pure pity.
Cölestin. Thou listenest in silence to this unmeasured raving? I ask not now upon what throne thy father sat, I only ask the weakling: Art thou a man? Is this body that glows in prideful youth, only a hardly fed up paunch? Is the angry red painted upon thy brow, and yet canst thou endure and not wipe out the insult thou hast received?
Hans [aside]. Master, be stronger now than I have strength myself. I have naught to say, not I. Only say to me: "Hans, we will go"--and I will gulp down my rage; and never to the last day of my life shall a look, a word, a motion of an eye-lash, remind thee of what befell today.
Prince. Your eyes all hang in hopeful question on my broad-edged sword; and yet I may not tell you why I wear it, but must endure what ever you think. Still, know one thing; all the shame which he has heaped today upon my dulled heart I will add to the need by which he shattered my young days. I will reckon with him for those thirsting nights wherein I drank the poison of renunciation,--when my trust in mankind sank to ruin with my blood-defiled rights,--when in despair I reckoned my coming manhood by my growing beard,--when my fate became a lot of powerless shame,--and I will grope along the path where my desires once ranged themselves when the rousing voice of hope rang out of abyssmal blankness.... And thus the scorn I have received to-day glides past my closed ears like unwelcome flattery; and silently I go from hence.
[The Queen with the young Prince. Anna Goldhair and her other women come from the cathedral during the last words.]
Queen. O go not, stranger!