No More Learning

MARIE (_kneeling):_ Merciful God, have pity on him!


SCENE VI. --_A small garden outside the prison_, GOETZ, ELIZABETH,
LERSE, _and prison-keeper_.

GOETZ: Almighty God! How lovely is it beneath Thy heaven! Farewell,
my children! My roots are cut away, my strength totters to the grave.
Let me see George once more, and sun myself in his look. You turn
away and weep? He is dead! Then die, Goetz! How did he die? Alas!
they took him among the incendiaries, and he has been executed?

ELIZABETH: No, he was slain at Miltenberg, fighting like a lion.
GOETZ: God be praised! Now release my soul! My poor wife! I leave
you in a wicked world. Lerse, forsake her not! Blessings upon Marie
and her husband. Selbitz is dead, and the good emperor, and my George.
Give me some water! Heavenly air! Freedom!
[_He dies_.

ELIZABETH: Freedom is only above--with thee; the world is a prison.

LERSE: Noble man! Woe to this age that rejected thee! Woe to the
future that shall misjudge thee!


FOOTNOTES:

[A] The story of "Goetz von Berlichingen" was founded on
the life of a German soldier of fortune who flourished between 1480
and 1562.