TUSSI.

If you've a trouble, dash it from your heart!
Take what Heaven sends! The times are heavy now,
And we must snatch at pleasure as it flies.
Here 'tis a bridal, there a burial.

TELL.

And oft the one close on the other treads.

STUSSI.

So runs the world we live in. Everywhere
Mischance befalls and misery enough.
In Glarus there has been a landslip, and
A whole side of the Glaernisch has fallen in.

TELL.

How! Do the very hills begin to quake?
There is stability for naught on earth.

STUSSI.

Of strange things, too, we hear from other parts.
I spoke with one but now, from Baden come,
Who said a knight was on his way to court,
And, as he rode along, a swarm of wasps
Surrounded him, and settling on his horse,
So fiercely stung the beast, that it fell dead,
And he proceeded to the court on foot.

TELL.

The weak are also furnish'd with a sting.

ARMGART (_enters with several children, and places herself
at the entrance of the pass_).

STUSSI.

'Tis thought to bode disaster to the land--
Some horrid deeds against the course of nature.

TELL.

Why, every day brings forth such fearful deeds;
There needs no prodigy to herald them.

STUSSI.

Ay, happy he, who tills his field in peace,
And sits at home untroubled with his kin.

TELL.

The very meekest cannot be at peace
If his ill neighbor will not let him rest.

[TELL _looks frequently with restless expectation toward the
top of the pass_.]

STUSSI.

So fare you well! You're waiting someone here?

TELL.

I am.

STUSSI.

God speed you safely to your home!
You are from Uri, are you not? His grace
The governor's expected thence today.

TRAVELER (_entering_).

Look not to see the governor today.
The streams are flooded by the heavy rains,
And all the bridges have been swept away.

[TELL _rises_.]

ARMGART (_coming forward_).

Gessler not coming?

STUSSI.

Want you aught with him?

ARMGART.

Alas, I do!

STUSSI.

Why then, thus place yourself
Where you obstruct his passage down the pass?

ARMGART.

Here he cannot escape me. He _must_ hear me.

FRIESSHARDT (_coming hastily down the pass and calls upon
the stage_).

Make way, make way! My lord, the governor,
Is close behind me, riding down the pass.

[_Exit_ TELL.]

ARMGART (_excitedly_).

The Viceroy comes!

[_She goes toward the pass with her children_. GESSLER _and_
RUDOLPH DER HARRAS _app