FRITZ-- Then feed it hilt and all.
RUDOLPH--It eats our swords and they come out in claws.
As Canzler says, a thousand spears have but
Peeled off its poisonous scales, and where they fall
A deadly fire burns and the elves die.
FRITZ--We will call Wittikind.
RUDOLPH-- From out the grave?
FRITZ--His spirit will hear.
RUDOLPH-- Wittikind was baptized.
FRITZ--His head was baptized, but his heart was not.
A few drops here could not put out a fire
That scarred and seamed the dragon till it lashed,
Maddened and bleeding, all the tribes away.
A spark of him is in this forest.
RUDOLPH-- Oswald.
FRITZ-- Yes.
RUDOLPH--Silent and shy.
FRITZ-- Their fate whom Woden loves.
He homes the lightning in the silent cloud.
RUDOLPH--Weak.
FRITZ-- In himself, but strong by prophesy.
RUDOLPH--Can you or I or chief hasten the day
Wherein Val-father's voice shall wake the North?
What man can say unto the lightning, "Leap"?
Of Woden's race, a million summer leaves,
We are, as it were, the winter mistletoe,
A lone green sprig with barren woods all round.
Can we shake off the snow and say, "Appear,"
To the young race asleep within the trees?
Cry out above the dragon winter, "Die"?
You cannot hurry in its growth one leaf.
Yet you would thrust a sword in Oswald's hands,
Thinking to hurry Prophesy along.
If naked strength can save us, why not chief's?
Why Oswald, if the battle is to be now?
Without the aid of Woden, he is naught.
FRITZ--Without it, naught, and with it, everything.
RUDOLPH--Val-father calls to-day then?
FRITZ-- Wiglaf's ears
Are where the whispers of the dead go by.
RUDOLPH--Heard he the word, "to-day"?
FRITZ-- And Wiglaf's eyes
Blazed glee-fire and his lips spake Woden's word:
"In him shall be the strength of all your dead."
RUDOLPH--In Oswald?
FRITZ-- In the seed of Wittikind.
"The seed of Wittikind shall put forth a sprout
Shall make the whole North green."
RUDOLPH-- The "seed" of.
FRITZ-- Yes.
RUDOLPH--There, Fritz, is where the whole great purpose turns.
FRITZ--Eh?
RUDOLPH--Prophesy, you see, walks in the air.
No man can say on whom it will lay its hand.
FRITZ--Why?
RUDOLPH--Would not Oswald's seed be Wittikind's?
Do you not see that some child still unborn,
The issue of Oswald's loins, may be the one
To take the sword that Woden will hand down?
Meanwhile, suppose the Christians hear of this.
Their spies are all about us.
(_Dropping his voice and pointing to the bridge._)
Who knows?
FRITZ--(_After looking under it._) No.
RUDOLPH--Suppose they once get rumor of it. Then
Suppose they torture Wiglaf for the rest.
Will not a thousand trumpets sound the chase?
Will they not beat the forest through and through,
Set fire to it, and when the stag appears
Shall breed the fawn shall grow the golden horns--
(_As though drawing back a bow-string and letting
spring the arrow._)
Then what? What then?