"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: "You would not speak thus, mother mine, if death Had ever terribly encompassed you As it doth me. With potencies of heaven, You and my lady, these who serve you, all The world that rings me round, seem blest to save The very stable-boy, the meanest, least, That tends your horses, pleading I could hang About his neck crying: Oh, save me, thou!" Even that is, in my opinion, fine and human, for it is the first ebullition of emotion; and when is the feeling of painful loss ever separated from the lively desire to preserve the endangered possession? I do not make this statement because I believe I am saying something new, but because I think it is something old which has not been sufficiently taken to heart. For the rest, this fifth scene is very beautiful and produces a deep effect. Who does not feel annihilated with the Prince when he exclaims: "Since I beheld my grave, life, life, I want, And do not ask if it be kept with honor." And farther on, "And tell him this, forget it not, that I Desire Nathalie no more, for her All tenderness within my heart is quenched."