his fingers claws.
[They seize and bear away PRINCE WILLIAM.]
Well, what's your counsel?

SCHNETZEN.
Briefly this, my lord.
The Jews of Nordhausen have brewed the Prince
A love-elixir--let them perish all!
[Tumult without. Singing of Hymns and Ringing of Church-bells.
The LANDGRAVE and SCHNETZEN go to the window.]

SONG* (without).

The cruel pestilence arrives,
Cuts off a myriad human lives.
See the Flagellants' naked skin!
They scourge themselves for grievous sin.
Trembles the earth beneath God's breath,
The Jews shall all be burned to death.

*A rhyme of the times. See Graetz's "History of the Jews,"
page 374, vol. vii.

LANDGRAVE.
Look, foreign pilgrims! What an endless file!
Naked waist-upward. Blood is trickling down
Their lacerated flesh. What do they carry?

SCHNETZEN.
Their scourges--iron-pointed, leathern thongs,
Mark how they lash themselves--the strict Flagellants.
The Brothers of the Cross--hark to their cries!

VOICE FROM BELOW.
Atone, ye mighty! God is wroth! Expel
The enemies of heaven--raze their homes!
[Confused cries from below, which gradually die away in the
distance.]
Woe to God's enemies! Death to the Jews!
They poison all our wells--they bring the plague.
Kill them who killed our Lord! Their homes shall be
A wilderness--drown them in their own blood!
[The LANDGRAVE and SCHNETZEN withdraw from the window.]

SCHNETZEN.
Do not the people ask the same as I?
Is not the people's voice the voice of God?

LANDGRAVE.
I will consider.

SCHNETZEN.
Not too long, my liege.
The moment favors. Later 't were hard to show
Due cause to his Imperial Majesty,
For slaughtering the vassals of the Crown.
Two mighty friends are theirs. His holiness
Clement the Sixth and Kaiser Karl.

LANDGRAVE.
'T were rash
Contending with such odds.

SCHNETZEN.
Courage, my lord.
These battle singly against death and fate.
Your allies are the sense and heart o' the world.
Priests warring for their Christ, nobles for gold,
And peoples for the very breath of life
Spoiled by the poison-mixers. Kaiser Karl
Lifts his lon