to be convoked. Let
us not overlook what this scene is in itself, through the contrasts
presented. It is moreover the chief argument for the correctness of the
opinion I have already expressed concerning the idea of the play. For
the Prince is far from being sensible of the fault committed, and when
Hohenzollern says to him,

"The ordinance demands obedience," he replies bitterly: "So--so,
so, so!"

And later:

"My cousin Frederick hopes to play the Brutus--
By God, in me he shall not find a son
Who shall revere him 'neath the hangman's axe!" etc.

He cannot as yet be just to the Elector, because he is still too
indulgent to himself.

In the first scene of the third act he has come a step nearer the truth.
He calls himself a plant which has burst into bloom too swiftly and
opulently. But he still says,

"Come, was it such a capital offense,
Two little seconds ere the order said,
To have laid low the stoutness of the Swede?"

The dignity of the code of war, upon which the Elector's mode of action
is based, still lies too remote from his comprehension; therefore he is
persuaded that:

"Ere, at a kerchief's fall, he yields this heart,
That loves him truly, to the muskets' fire,
Ere that, I say, he'll lay his own breast bare
And spill his own blood, drop by drop, in dust."

And when Hohenzollern lets fall a word about the mission of the Swedish
ambassador to ask for the hand of the Princess of Orange, the Prince is
even inclined to think _unworthily_ of the Elector. He is capable of
believing that the Elector will let him die because the Princess has be
trothed herself to him. This is genuinely psychological, and here, where
Homburg's character begins to appear in a dubious light, is actually the
real touch-stone of it. That he loves and admires the Elector, he has
already proved, that he has taken great trouble to find a reason for the
latter's conduct that is not unworthy of him, is self-evident; for the
human heart knows no greater pain than to have given admiration where it
should have bestowed contempt. When, therefore, the Prince nevertheless
believes that his betrothal to Nathalie has provoked the Elector's
severity, he shows thereby that he has absolutely no comprehension of
the dignity and necessity of the code of war, that consequently his
violation of the ordinance could not have been caused by boyish
petulancy, but by a grievous error, which, as an error, could be
forgi