The tyrant called his torturers.

FURST (springs up and tries to lead him to the other side).
Hush, no more!

STAUFFACHER (with increasing warmth).
"And though thy son," he cried, "Has escaped me now,
I have thee fast, and thou shalt feel my vengeance."
With that they flung the old man to the earth,
And plunged the pointed steel into his eyes.

FURST.
Merciful heavens!

MELCHTHAL (rushing out).
Into his eyes, his eyes?

STAUFFACHER (addresses himself in astonishment to WALTER FURST).
Who is this youth?

MELCHTHAL (grasping him convulsively).
Into his eyes? Speak, speak!

FURST.
Oh, miserable hour!

STAUFFACHER.
Who is it, tell me?

[STAUFFACHER makes a sign to him.

It is his son! All righteous heaven!

MELCHTHAL.
And I
Must be from thence! What! into both his eyes?

FURST.
Be calm, be calm; and bear it like a man!

MELCHTHAL.
And all for me--for my mad wilful folly!
Blind, did you say? Quite blind--and both his eyes?

STAUFFACHER.
Even so. The fountain of his sight's dried up.
He ne'er will see the blessed sunshine more.

FURST.
Oh, spare his anguish!

MELCHTHAL.
Never, never more!

[Presses his hands upon his eyes and is silent for some
moments; then turning from one to the other, speaks in a
subdued tone, broken by sobs.

O the eye's light, of all the gifts of heaven,
The dearest, best! From light all beings live--
Each fair created thing--the very plants
Turn with a joyful transport to the light,
And he--he must drag on through all his days
In endless darkness! Never more for him
The sunny meads shall glow, the flowerets bloom;
Nor shall he more behold the roseate tints
Of the iced mountain top! To die is nothing,
But to have life, and not have sight--oh, that
Is misery indeed! Why do you look
So piteously at me? I have two eyes,
Yet to my poor blind father can give neither!
No, not one gleam of that great sea of light,
That with its dazzling splendor floods my gaze.

STAUFFACHER.
Ah, I must swell the measure of your grief,
Instead of soothing it. The worst, alas!
Remains to tell. They've stripped him of his all;
Naught have they left him, save his staff, on which,
Blind and in rags, he moves from door to door.

MELCHTHAL.
Naught but his staff to the old eyeless man!
Stripped of his all--even of the light of day,
The common blessing of the meanest wretch.
Tell me no more of pa