KUONI the herdsman comes, with the milkpail on his shoulder. RUODI the fisherman comes out of the hut WERNI the hunter climbs from the rocks. (The landscape is altered, one hears a muffled crack from the mountains, shadows of clouds move across the region. Nor feareth the archer on dizzying ridge,Īnd under the footsteps a mist-covered sea, The heights are athund'ring, now trembles the bridge,

When the fountains flow in the loveliest May.ĪLPINE HUNTER (appears opposite upon the top of the rock): When with flowers the earth itself new doth array, When the cuckoo calls, when the songs are awaking,

We go to the mount, return we'll be making, There waters are washing him round the breast, The boy asleep on the verdant shore falleth,

The lake it doth smile, to hathing it calleth, Even before the curtain rises, one hears the cowherd's dance and the harmonious chime of the cattle bells, which continues for some time even during the opening scene. The right i n the distant hinterground one sees the ice-covered mountains. To the left of the spectator the peaks of the Haken show themselves, surrounded by clouds to Across the lake one sees the green meadows, villages and farms lie in the bright sunshine. The lake makes a cove in the land, a hut is not far from the shore, fisherboy conveys himself in a boat. WALTER FURST and ARNOLD VON MELCHTAL enter simultaneously from different sides. The back side is finished, the front is being built even now, the scaffolding is still standing, on which the workmen are climbing up and down, upon the highest part of the roof hangs the slater. On an eminence in the hinterground one sees a fortress being constructed, which is already so far advanced, that the form of the whole is evident. WERNER STAUFFACHER, PFEIFER VAN LUCERNE enter in conversation. High rocky shore of the Vierwaldstattensee, opposite Schwyz.Ī linden tree in front of STAUFFACHER's house on the country road, near the bridge. It was dedicated, as the title indicates, as a New Year's Gift to the World. The play was first performed in Weimar on March 17, 1804, a nd first put in print in October of that year, by Cotta at Tubingen. Wilhelm Tell, Schiller's last and greatest republican drama, was written at the end of his life, from 1803-4, when Schiller was at the peak of his artistic genius. MANY COUNTRYMEN,MEN AND WOMEN FROM THE FOREST CANTONS MASTER STONEMASON< JOPURNEYMEN AND LABORERS RUDOLPH der HARRAS, Gessler's Horsemaster

Wilhelm Tell by Friedrich Schiller