Chapter VI: Act V: SCENE I.--Forest. GOETZ and GEORGE

GOETZ: No further! Another step and I should have broken my oath.
What is that dust beyond? And that wild mob moving towards us?

LERSE (_entering_): The rebel peasants. Back to the castle! They
have dealt horribly with the noblest men!

GOETZ: On my own soil I shall not try to evade the rabble.

[_Enter_ STUMPF, KOHL, SIEVERS, _and armed peasants_.

STUMPF: We come to ask you, brave Goetz, to be our captain.

GOETZ: What! Me? To break my oath? Stumpf, I thought you were a
friend! Even if I were free, and you wanted to carry on as you did at
Weinsberg, raving and burning, and murdering, I'd rather be killed
than be your captain!

STUMPF: If we had a leader of authority, such things would not
happen. The princes and all Germany would thank you.

SIEVERS: You must be our captain, or you will have to defend your
own skin. We give you two hours to consider it.

GOETZ: Why consider? I can decide now as well as later. Will you
desist from your misdeeds, and act like decent folk who know what
they want? Then I shall help you with your claims, and be your captain
for four weeks. Now, come! [_Exeunt._

SCENE II.--_Landscape, with village and castle in distance_. GOETZ
_and_ GEORGE.

GEORGE: I beseech you, leave this infamous mob of robbers and
incendiaries.

GOETZ: We have done some good and saved many a convent, many a life.

GEORGE: Oh, sir, I beg you to leave them at once, before they drag
you away with them as prisoner, instead of following you as captain!
(_Flames are seen rising from the distant village_.) See there! A new
crime!

GOETZ: That is Miltenberg. Quick, George! Prevent the burning of the
castle. I'll have nothing further to do with the scoundrels.

GEORGE: I shall save Miltenberg, or you will not see me again.
[_Exit._

GOETZ: Everybody blames me for the mischief, and nobody gives me
credit for having prevented so much evil. Would I were thousands of
miles away!

[_Enter_ SIEVERS, LINK, METZLER, _peasants_.

LINK: Rouse yourself, captain; the enemy is near and in great force!

GOETZ: Who burnt Miltenberg?

METZLER: If you want to make a fuss, we'll soon teach you!

GOETZ: You threaten? Scoundrel! [_He knocks him down with a blow of
his fist_.

KOHL: You are mad! The enemy is coming, and you quarrel.

[_Tumult, battle, and rout of the peasants. Then the
stage gradually fills with gypsies_. GOETZ _returns
wounded, is recognised by the gypsies, who bandage
him, help him on to his horse, and ask him to lead
them. Soldiers enter and level their halberds at_
GOETZ.

SCENE III.--ADELHEID'S _room. Night_. ADELHEID. FRANZ.

FRANZ: Oh, let me stay yet a little while--here, where I live.
Without is death!

ADELHEID: Already you hesitate? Then give me back the phial. You
played the hero, but you are only a boy; A man who wooes a noble woman
stakes his life, honour, virtue, happiness! Boy, leave me!

FRANZ: No, you are mine. And if I get your freedom I get my own.
With a firm hand I shall pour the poison into my master's cup.
Farewell.
[_He embraces her and hurries away_.

SCENE IV.--_Rustic garden_. MARIE _sleeping in an arbour._ LERSE.

LERSE: Gracious lady, awake! We must away. Goetz captured as a rebel
and thrown into a dungeon! His age! His wounds!

MARIE: We must hurry to Weislingen. Only dire necessity can drive
me to this step. Saving my brother's life I go to death. I shall kneel
to him, weep before him.
[_Exit._

SCENE V.--WEISLINGEN'S _hall_.

WEISLINGEN: A wretched fever has dried my very marrow. No rest for
me, day or night! Goetz haunts my very dreams. He is a prisoner, and
yet I tremble before him. (_Enter_ MARIE.) Oh, heaven! Marie's spirit,
to tell me of her death!

MARIE: Weislingen, I am no spirit. I have come to beg of you my
brother's life.

WEISLINGEN: Marie! You, angel of heaven, bring with you the tortures
of hell. The breath of death is upon me, and you come to throw me into
despair!

MARIE: My brother is ill in prison. His wounds--his age----

WEISLINGEN: Enough. Franz! (_Enter_ FRANZ _in great excitement_.)
The papers there! (FRANZ _hands him a sealed packet_.) Here is your
brother's death-warrant; and thus I tear it. He lives. Do not weep,
Franz; there's hope for the living.

FRANZ: You cannot, you must die! Poison from your wife. [_Rushes
to the window, and throws himself out into the river_.

WEISLINGEN: Woe to me! Poison from my wife! Franz seduced by the
infamous woman! I am dying; and in my agony throb the tortures of hell.

MARIE (_kneeling):_ Merciful God, have pity on him!

SCENE VI.--_A small garden outside the prison_, GOETZ, ELIZABETH,
LERSE, _and prison-keeper_.

GOETZ: Almighty God! How lovely is it beneath Thy heaven! Farewell,
my children! My roots are cut away, my strength totters to the grave.
Let me see George once more, and sun myself in his look. You turn
away and weep? He is dead! Then die, Goetz! How did he die? Alas!
they took him among the incendiaries, and he has been executed?

ELIZABETH: No, he was slain at Miltenberg, fighting like a lion.

GOETZ: God be praised! Now release my soul! My poor wife! I leave
you in a wicked world. Lerse, forsake her not! Blessings upon Marie
and her husband. Selbitz is dead, and the good emperor, and my George.
Give me some water! Heavenly air! Freedom!
[_He dies_.

ELIZABETH: Freedom is only above--with thee; the world is a prison.

LERSE: Noble man! Woe to this age that rejected thee! Woe to the
future that shall misjudge thee!

FOOTNOTES:

[A] The story of "Goetz von Berlichingen" was founded on the life of a German soldier of fortune who flourished between 1480 and 1562. The possibilities of his biography inspired Goethe (Vol. IV, p. 253) with the idea of doing for Germany what Shakespeare had done for mediæval England. In a few weeks he had turned the life into a series of vivid dramatic pictures, which so engrossed him that he "forgot Homer, Shakespeare, and everything." For the next two years the manuscript lay untouched. In 1773 he made a careful revision and published it anonymously under the title of "Goetz von Berlichingen of the Iron Hand"; it is in this form we possess the work now. At a still later period, in 1804, Goethe prepared another version of the play for the stage. The subject-matter of "Goetz" is purely revolutionary. Goetz, the hero himself, is a champion of a good cause--the cause of freedom and self-reliance. He is the embodiment of sturdy German virtues, the Empire and the Church playing the unenviable role of intrigue and oppression. As a stage play, "Goetz" is ill-constructed, but otherwise it stands a veritable literary triumph, and a worthy predecessor to "Faust." This epitome has been prepared from the German text.

Iphigenia in Tauris[B]

_Persons in the Drama_

IPHIGENIA ORESTES
THOAS, _King of Tauris_
PYLADES ARKAS

_The scene throughout is laid in a grove before_ DIANA'S _temple in Tauris_.