PRIOR. What is it to wanton with a Christ-cursed Jewess, Defy thy father and pollute thy name, And fling to the ordures thine immortal soul? PRINCE WILLIAM. Forbear! thy cowl's a helmet, thy serge frock Invulnerable as brass--yet I am human, Thou, priest, art still a man. PRIOR. Pity him, Heaven! To what a pass their draughts have brought the mildest, Noblest of princes! Softly, my son; be ruled By me, thy spiritual friend and father. Thou hast been drugged with sense-deranging potions, Thy blood set boiling and thy brain askew; When these thick fumes subside, thou shalt awake To bless the friend who gave thy madness bounds. PRINCE WILLIAM. Madness! Yea, as the sane world goes, I am mad. What else to help the helpless, to uplift The low, to adore the good, the beautiful, To live, battle, suffer, die for truth, for love! But that is wide of the question. Let me hear What you are charged to impart--my father's will. PRIOR. Heart-cleft by his dear offspring's shame, he prays Your reason be restored, your wayward sense Renew its due allegiance. For his son He, the good parent, weeps--hot drops of gall, Wrung from a spirit seldom eased by tears. But for his honor pricked, the Landgrave takes More just and general vengeance. PRINCE WILLIAM. In the name of God, What has he done to HER? PRIOR. Naught, naught,--as yet. Sweet Prince, be calm; you leap like flax to flame. You nest within your heart a cockatrice, Pluck it from out your bosom and breathe pure Of the filthy egg. The Landgrave brooks no more The abomination that infects his town. The Jews of Nordhausen are doomed. PRINCE WILLIAM. Alack! Who and how many of that harmless tribe, Those meek and pious men, have been elected To glut with innocent blood the oppressor's wrath? PRIOR. Who should go free where equal guilt is shared? Frederick is just--they perish all at once, Generous moreover--for in their mode of death He grants them choice. PRINCE WILLIAM. My father had not lost The human semblance when I saw him last. Nor can he be divorced in this short space From his shrewd wit. How shall he make provision For the vast widowed, orphaned host this deed Burdens the state withal?