f whom are of the first
importance, being of Goethe's own invention. The plot may be briefly
told. Adelbert von Weislingen, a Knight of the Empire, had been the
early friend of Gottfried, but under the influence of the Bishop of
Bamberg and others he had taken a line which led him into direct
conflict with Gottfried. While the latter, identifying himself with
the lesser German nobles, was for supporting the power of the Emperor,
Weislingen had identified himself with the princes whose object was to
cripple it. Gottfried seizes Weislingen while on his way to the Bishop
of Bamberg, and bears him off to his castle at Jaxthausen. The
contrasted characters of the two chief personages in the play are now
brought before us--Gottfried the rough soldier, honest, resolute, and
Weislingen, more of a courtier than a soldier, weak and unstable.
Overborne by the stronger nature of Gottfried, Weislingen agrees to
break his alliance with the Bishop, and, as a pledge for his future
conduct, betroths himself to Gottfried's sister Marie, who, weakly
devout, is a counterpart to Gottfried's wife Elizabeth, who is
depicted as a Spartan mother.[104] To square accounts with the Bishop,
Weislingen finds it necessary to proceed to Bamberg, and the second
act tells the tale of his second apostacy. At Bamberg he comes under
the spell of an enchantress in the shape of a beautiful woman,
Adelheid von Walldorf, a widow, whose physical charms are represented
as irresistible. Weislingen becomes her creature, forswears his bond
with Gottfried, and rejoins the ranks of his enemies--news which
Gottfried is reluctantly brought to credit. In the third act we find
Gottfried in a coil of troubles. He has robbed a band of merchants on
their way from the Frankfort Fair, and, at the prompting of
Weislingen, the Emperor puts him under the ban of the Empire, and
dispatches an armed force against him. Beaten in the field and
besieged in his own castle, he is at length forced to surrender. In
the fourth act he is a prisoner in Heilbronn, but is rescued by Franz
von Sickingen, a knight of the same stamp and with the same political
sympathies as himself. Sickingen, who is on friendly terms with the
Emperor, does him the still further service of securing his relief
from the ban, whereupon Gottfried settles down to a peaceful life in
his own castle, and to relieve its monotony betakes himself to the
uncongenial task of writing his own memoirs. In the fifth act we sup
wi