Languish so nigh to death that Simon's art Be needed to restore your lusty limbs. Good Hugo Schultz--ah! be those blessed tears Remembered unto you in Paradise! Look there, my lords, one of your council weeps, If you be men, why, then an angel sits On yonder bench. You have good cause to weep, You who are Christian, and disgraced in that Whereof you made your boast. I have no tears. A fiery wrath has scorched their source, a voice Shrills through my brain--"Not upon us, on them Fall everlasting woe, if this thing be!" SCHNETZEN. My lords of Nordhausen, shall ye be stunned With sounding words? Behold the serpent's skin, Sleek-shining, clear as sunlight; yet his tooth Holds deadly poison. Even as the Jews Did nail the Lord of heaven on the Cross, So will they murder all his followers, When once they have the might. Beware, beware! SUSSKIND. So YOU are the accuser, my lord Schnetzen? Now I confess, before you I am guilty. You are in all this presence, the one man Whom any Jew hath wronged--and I that Jew. Oh, my offence is grievous; punish me With the utmost rigor of the law, for theft And violence, whom ye deemed an honest man, But leave my tribe unharmed! I yield my hands Unto your chains, my body to your fires; Let one life serve for all. SCHNETZEN. You hear, my lords, How the prevaricating villain shrinks From the absolute truth, yet dares not front his Maker With the full damnable lie hot on his lips. Not thou alone, my private foe, shalt die, But all thy race. Thee had my vengeance reached, Without appeal to Prince or citizen. Silence! my heart is cuirassed as my breast.