Thee, the beloved and the unerring God
Within thy heart, I question. What's at stake?
Not whether diadem of royalty
Be to be won or not--that mightest thou think on.
Thy friend, and his soul's quiet are at stake:
The fortune of a thousand gallant men,
Who will all follow me; shall I forswear
My oath and duty to the emperor?
Say, shall I send into Octavio's camp
The parricidal ball? For when the ball
Has left its cannon, and is on its flight,
It is no longer a dead instrument!
It lives, a spirit passes into it;
The avenging furies seize possession of it,
And with sure malice, guide it the worst way.

THEKLA.
Oh! Max.----

MAX. (interrupting her).
Nay, not precipitately either, Thekla.
I understand thee. To thy noble heart
The hardest duty might appear the highest.
The human, not the great part, would I act.
Even from my childhood to this present hour,
Think what the duke has done for me, how loved me
And think, too, how my father has repaid him.
Oh likewise the free lovely impulses
Of hospitality, the pious friend's
Faithful attachment, these, too, are a holy