PRINCE WILLIAM. You fancy The rancor of a bad heart slow distilled Through venomed years, so at a breath, dissolves. O good old man, i' the world, not of the world! Belike, himself forgets the doubtful core Of this still-curdling, petrifying ooze. Truth? why truth glances from the callous mass, A spear against a rock. He hugs his hate, His bed-fellow, his daily, life-long comrade; Think you he has slept, ate, drank with it this while, Now to forego revenge on such slight cause As the revealed truth? SUSSKIND. You mistake my thought, Great-hearted Prince, and justly--for I speak In riddles, till God's time to make all clear. When His day dawns, the blind shall see. PRINCE WILLIAM. Forgive me, If I, in wit and virtue your disciple, Seem to instruct my master. Accident Lifts me where I survey a broader field Than wise men stationed lower. I spy peril, Fierce flame invisible from the lesser peaks. God's time is now. Delayed truth leaves a lie Triumphant. If you harbor any secret, Potent to force an ear that's locked to mercy, In God's name, now disbosom it. SUSSKIND. Kind Heaven! Would that my people's safety were assured So is my child's! Where shall we turn? Where flee? For all around us the Black Angel broods. We step into the open jaws of death If we go hence. PRINCE WILLIAM. Better to fall beneath The hand of God, than be cut off by man. SUSSKIND. We are trapped, the springe is set. Not ignorantly I offered counsel in the Synagogue, Quelled panic with authoritative calm, But knowing, having weighed the opposing risks. Our friends in Strasburg have been overmastered, The imperial voice is drowned, the papal arm Drops paralyzed--both, lifted for the truth; We can but front with brave eyes, brow erect, As is our wont, the fullness of our doom. PRINCE WILLIAM. Then Meissen's sword champions your desperate cause. I take my stand here where my heart is fixed. I love your daughter--if her love consent, I pray you, give me her to wife. LIEBHAID. Ah! SUSSKIND. Prince, Let not this Saxon skin, this hair's gold fleece, These Rhine-blue eyes mislead thee--she is alien. To the heart's core a Jewess--prop of my house, Soul of my soul--and I? a despised Jew. PRINCE WILLIAM. Thy propped house crumbles; let my arm sustain Its tottering base--thy light is on the wane, Let me relume it. Give thy star to me, Or ever pitch-black night engulf us all-- Lend me your voice, Liebhaid, entreat for me. Shall this prayer be your first that he denies?