THE PRINCE.  Oh, let me clasp your knees, oh, mother mine!

ELECTRESS (with suppressed emotion). 
  You are a prisoner, Prince, and you come hither? 
  Why will you heap new guilt upon the old?

THE PRINCE (urgently). 
  Oh, do you know what they have done?

ELECTRESS.  Yes, all. 
  But what can I do, helpless I, for you?

THE PRINCE.  You would not speak thus, mother mine, if death
  Had ever terribly encompassed you
  As it doth me.  With potencies of heaven,
  You and my lady, these who serve you, all
  The world that rings me round, seem blest to save. 
  The very stable-boy, the meanest, least,
  That tends your horses, pleading I could hang
  About his neck, crying:  Oh, save me, thou! 
  I, only I, alone on God’s wide earth
  Am helpless, desolate, and impotent.

ELECTRESS.  You are beside yourself!  What has occurred?

THE PRINCE.  Oh, on the way that led me to your side,
  I saw in torchlight where they dug the grave
  That on the morrow shall receive my bones! 
  Look, Aunt, these eyes that gaze upon you now,
  These eyes they would eclipse with night, this breast
  Pierce and transpierce with murderous musketry. 
  The windows on the Market that shall close
  Upon the weary show are all reserved;
  And one who, standing on life’s pinnacle,
  Today beholds the future like a realm
  Of faery spread afar, tomorrow lies
  Stinking within the compass of two boards,
  And over him a stone recounts:  He was.

[The PRINCESS, who until now has stood in the background supporting herself on the shoulder of one of the ladies-in-waiting, sinks into a chair, deeply moved at his words, and begins to weep.]

ELECTRESS.  My son, if such should be the will of heaven,
  You will go forth with courage and calm soul.

THE PRINCE.  God’s world, O mother, is so beautiful! 
  Oh, let me not, before my hour strike,
  Descend, I plead, to those black shadow-forms! 
  Why, why can it be nothing but the bullet? 
  Let him depose me from my offices,
  With rank cashierment, if the law demands,
  Dismiss me from the army.  God of heaven! 
  Since I beheld my grave, life, life, I want,
  And do not ask if it be kept with honor.

ELECTRESS.  Arise, my son, arise!  What were those words? 
  You are too deeply moved.  Control yourself!

THE PRINCE.  Oh, Aunt, not ere you promise on your soul,
  With a prostration that shall save my life
  Pleading to go before the sovereign presence. 
  Hedwig, your childhood friend, gave me to you,
  Dying at Homburg, saying as she died: 
  Be you his mother when I am no more. 
  Moved to the depths, kneeling beside her bed,
  Over her spent hand bending, you replied: 
  Yea, he shall be to me as mine own child. 
  Now, I remind you of the vow you made! 
  Go to him, go, as though I were your child,
  Crying, I plead for mercy!  Set him free! 
  Oh, and return to me, and say:  ’Tis so!