MELCH.

What drove him to so dire a parricide?

STAUFF.

The Emp’ror kept his patrimony back,
Despite his urgent importunities;
’Twas said, he meant to keep it for himself,
And with a mitre to appease the duke. 
However this may be, the duke gave ear
To the ill counsel of his friends in arms;
And with the noble lords, Von Eschenbach,
Von Tegerfeld, Von Wart and Palm, resolved,
Since his demands for justice were despised,
With his own hands to take revenge at least.

FUeRST.

But say—­the dreadful deed, how was it done?

STAUFF.

The king was riding down from Stein to Baden. 
Upon his way to join the court at Rheinfeld—­
With him a train of high-born gentlemen,
And the young Princes John and Leopold;
And when they’d reach’d the ferry of the Reuss,
The assassins forced their way into the boat,
To separate the Emperor from his suite. 
His highness landed, and was riding on
Across a fresh plough’d field—­where once, they say,
A mighty city stood in Pagan times—­
With Habsburg’s ancient turrets full in sight,
That was the cradle of his princely race. 
When Duke John plunged a dagger in his throat,
Palm ran him thro’ the body with his lance,
And Eschenbach, to end him, clove his skull;
So down he sank, all weltering in his blood,
On his own soil, by his own kinsmen slain. 
Those on the opposite bank beheld the deed,
But, parted by the stream, could only raise
An unavailing cry of loud lament. 
A poor old woman, sitting by the way,
Raised him, and on her breast he bled to death.

MELCH.

Thus has he dug his own untimely grave,
Who sought insatiably to grasp at all.

STAUFF.

The country round is fill’d with dire alarm,
The passes are blockaded everywhere,
And sentinels on ev’ry frontier set;
E’en ancient Zurich barricades her gates,
That have stood open for these thirty years,
Dreading the murd’rers and th’ avengers more. 
For cruel Agnes comes, the Hungarian queen,
By all her sex’s tenderness untouch’d,
Arm’d with the thunders of the ban, to wreak
Dire vengeance for her parent’s royal blood
On the whole race of those that murder’d him—­
Their servants, children, children’s children—­yea,
Upon the stones that built their castle walls. 
Deep has she sworn a vow to immolate
Whole generations on her father’s tomb,
And bathe in blood as in the dew of May.

MELCH.

Is’t known which way the murderers have fled?

STAUFF.

No sooner had they done the deed, than they
Took flight each following a different route,
And parted ne’er to see each other more. 
Duke John must still be wand’ring in the mountains.

FUeRST.

And thus their crime has borne no fruit for them. 
Revenge bears never fruit.  Itself, it is
The dreadful food it feeds on; its delight
Is murder—­its satiety despair.