“It is excellent to have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant”
William Tell (P. G. Wodehouse Edition)The expression “It is excellent, as an English poet will say in a few hundred years, to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant” appears as Walter Furst’s plea to Hermann Gessler on William Tell’s behalf. Its distinction between power and its abuse gives moral language to a scene in which the Governor presents coercion as mercy and a forced test as a free choice.
The Plea Before the Governor
Hermann Gessler has accused William Tell of defying his authority and stirring discontent, threatened that he could have him executed, and then described the imposed test as a chance to place his fate in his own hands. Against that framing, Walter Furst flings himself to his knees and asks the Governor to temper power with mercy. He offers half his possessions in exchange for sparing his son-in-law, making the family stakes explicit rather than treating the ordeal as an abstract contest of skill.
The Contrast Between Strength and Tyranny
Walter Furst’s words distinguish having power from choosing how to exercise it. The image of a giant makes the disparity between ruler and subject legible: strength alone is not condemned, but using it to dominate those with less power is. The balanced contrast between what is excellent and what is tyrannous gives the appeal its force, answering Hermann Gessler’s self-description as kind-hearted with a standard that judges conduct rather than claims.
The Speech’s Dramatic Tension
The speech is both a plea and an accusation. Walter Furst acknowledges the Governor’s power, but asks that it be joined with mercy; his kneeling embodies the submission that his argument seeks to restrain. His reference to what an English poet will say centuries later also briefly places the immediate confrontation in a wider moral frame. The plea does not settle the danger: Walter Tell impatiently urges his grandfather to rise and refuse to kneel to a tyrant, while the test imposed on William Tell remains before them.
