His foot across this threshold, more esteem'd,
Welcome! thrice welcome, Werner, to my roof!
What brings you here? What seek you here in Uri?
STAUFF. (shakes Furst by the hand).
The olden times and olden Switzerland.
FURST.
You bring them with you. See how glad I am,
My heart leaps at the very sight of you.
Sit down-sit down, and tell me how you left
Your charming wife, fair Gertrude? Iberg's child,
And clever as her father. Not a man,
That wends from Germany, by Meinrad's Cell,[*]
To Italy, but praises far and wide
Your house's hospitality. But say,
Have you come here direct from Fluelen,
And have you noticed nothing on your way,
Before you halted at my door?
[*] A cell built in the 9th century, by Meinrad, Count of
Hohenzollern, the founder of the Convent of Einsiedeln,
subsequently alluded to in the text.
STAUFF. (sits down).
I saw
A work in progress, as I came along,
I little thought to see-that likes me ill.
FURST.
O friend! you've lighted on my thought at once.
STAUFF.
Such things in Uri ne'er were known before.
Never was prison here in man's remembrance,
Nor ever any stronghold but the grave.
FURST.
You name it well. It is the grave of freedom.
STAUFF.
Friend, Walter Furst, I will be plain with you.
No idle curiosity it is
That brings me here, but heavy cares. I left
Thraldom at home, and thraldom meets me here.
Our wrongs, e'en now, are more than we can bear
And who shall tell us where they are to end?
From eldest time the Switzer has been free,
Accustom'd only to the mildest rule.
Such things as now we suffer ne'er were known,
Since herdsman first drove cattle to the hills.
FURST.
Yes, our oppressions are unparallel'd!
Why, even our own good lord of Attinghaus,
Who lived in olden times, himself declares
They are no longer to be tamely borne.
STAUFF.
In Unterwalden yonder 'tis the same;
And bloody has the retribution been.
The imperial Seneschal, the Wolfshot, who
At Rossberg dwelt, long'd for forbidden fruit-
Baumgarten's wife, that lives at Alzellen,
He tried to make a victim to his lust,
On which the husband slew him with his axe.
FURST.
O, Heaven is just in all its judgments still!
Baumgarten, say you? A most worthy man.
Has he escaped, and is he safely hid?
STAUFF.
Your son-in-law conveyed him o'er the lake,
And he lies hidden in my house at Steinen.
He brought the tidings with him of a thing
That has been done at Sarnen, worse than all,
A thing to make the very heart run blood!
FURST. (attentively).
Say on. What is it?
STAUFF.
There dwells in Melchthal, then,
Just as you enter by the road from Kerns,
An upright man, named Henry of the Halden,
A man of weight and influence in the Diet.
FURST.
Who knows him not? But what of him? Proceed.
STAUFF.
The Landenberg, to punish some offence
Committed by the old man's son, it seems,
Had given command to take the youth's best pair
Of oxen from his plough; on which the lad
Struck down the messenger and took to flight.
FURST.
