Act V

Scene I.—Forest. Goetz and George.

Goetz: No further! Another step and I should have broken my oath. What is that dust beyond? And that wild mob moving towards us?

Lerse (entering): The rebel peasants. Back to the castle! They have dealt horribly with the noblest men!

Goetz: On my own soil I shall not try to evade the rabble.

[Enter Stumpf, Kohl, Sievers, and armed peasants.

Stumpf: We come to ask you, brave Goetz, to be our captain.

Goetz: What! Me? To break my oath? Stumpf, I thought you were a friend! Even if I were free, and you wanted to carry on as you did at Weinsberg, raving and burning, and murdering, I'd rather be killed than be your captain!

Stumpf: If we had a leader of authority, such things would not happen. The princes and all Germany would thank you.

Sievers: You must be our captain, or you will have to defend your own skin. We give you two hours to consider it.

Goetz: Why consider? I can decide now as well as later. Will you desist from your misdeeds, and act like decent folk who know what they want? Then I shall help you with your claims, and be your captain for four weeks. Now, come!

[Exeunt.

Scene II.—Landscape, with village and castle in distance. Goetz and George.

George: I beseech you, leave this infamous mob of robbers and incendiaries.

Goetz: We have done some good and saved many a convent, many a life.

George: Oh, sir, I beg you to leave them at once, before they drag you away with them as prisoner, instead of following you as captain! (Flames are seen rising from the distant village.) See there! A new crime!

Goetz: That is Miltenberg. Quick, George! Prevent the burning of the castle. I'll have nothing further to do with the scoundrels.

George: I shall save Miltenberg, or you will not see me again.

[Exit.

Goetz: Everybody blames me for the mischief, and nobody gives me credit for having prevented so much evil. Would I were thousands of miles away!

[Enter Sievers, Link, Metzler, peasants.

Link: Rouse yourself, captain; the enemy is near and in great force!

Goetz: Who burnt Miltenberg?

Metzler: If you want to make a fuss, we'll soon teach you!

Goetz: You threaten? Scoundrel! [He knocks him down with a blow of his fist.

Kohl: You are mad! The enemy is coming, and you quarrel.

[Tumult, battle, and rout of the peasants. Then the stage gradually fills with gypsies. Goetz returns wounded, is recognised by the gypsies, who bandage him, help him on to his horse, and ask him to lead them. Soldiers enter and level their halberds at Goetz.

Scene III.—Adelheid's room. Night. Adelheid. Franz.

Franz: Oh, let me stay yet a little while—here, where I live. Without is death!

Adelheid: Already you hesitate? Then give me back the phial. You played the hero, but you are only a boy; A man who wooes a noble woman stakes his life, honour, virtue, happiness! Boy, leave me!

Franz: No, you are mine. And if I get your freedom I get my own. With a firm hand I shall pour the poison into my master's cup. Farewell.

[He embraces her and hurries away.

Scene IV.—Rustic garden. Marie sleeping in an arbour. Lerse.

Lerse: Gracious lady, awake! We must away. Goetz captured as a rebel and thrown into a dungeon! His age! His wounds!

Marie: We must hurry to Weislingen. Only dire necessity can drive me to this step. Saving my brother's life I go to death. I shall kneel to him, weep before him.

[Exit.

Scene V.—Weislingen's hall.

Weislingen: A wretched fever has dried my very marrow. No rest for me, day or night! Goetz haunts my very dreams. He is a prisoner, and yet I tremble before him. (Enter Marie.) Oh, heaven! Marie's spirit, to tell me of her death!

Marie: Weislingen, I am no spirit. I have come to beg of you my brother's life.

Weislingen: Marie! You, angel of heaven, bring with you the tortures of hell. The breath of death is upon me, and you come to throw me into despair!

Marie: My brother is ill in prison. His wounds—his age——

Weislingen: Enough. Franz! (Enter Franz in great excitement.) The papers there! (Franz hands him a sealed packet.) Here is your brother's death-warrant; and thus I tear it. He lives. Do not weep, Franz; there's hope for the living.

Franz: You cannot, you must die! Poison from your wife. [Rushes to the window, and throws himself out into the river.

Weislingen: Woe to me! Poison from my wife! Franz seduced by the infamous woman! I am dying; and in my agony throb the tortures of hell.

Marie (kneeling): Merciful God, have pity on him!

Scene VI.—A small garden outside the prison, Goetz, Elizabeth, Lerse, and prison-keeper.

Goetz: Almighty God! How lovely is it beneath Thy heaven! Farewell, my children! My roots are cut away, my strength totters to the grave. Let me see George once more, and sun myself in his look. You turn away and weep? He is dead! Then die, Goetz! How did he die? Alas! they took him among the incendiaries, and he has been executed?

Elizabeth: No, he was slain at Miltenberg, fighting like a lion.

Goetz: God be praised! Now release my soul! My poor wife! I leave you in a wicked world. Lerse, forsake her not! Blessings upon Marie and her husband. Selbitz is dead, and the good emperor, and my George. Give me some water! Heavenly air! Freedom!

[He dies.

Elizabeth: Freedom is only above—with thee; the world is a prison.

Lerse: Noble man! Woe to this age that rejected thee! Woe to the future that shall misjudge thee!

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