“They only do it to annoy, because they know it teases”

“They only do it to annoy, because they know it teases” is the narrator’s concise diagnosis of Hermann Gessler’s rule: annoyance is not an accidental consequence of government but a deliberate method. The expression links his taxes, prohibitions, and demand for homage, while its return near the end punctures any easy assumption that political change has erased every burden.

Wording and Narrative Voice

The phrase appears as a short rhyming couplet in the account of Gessler’s amusements: “only do it to annoy,” followed by “Because they know it teases.” It is not presented as a declaration by Gessler. Instead, the narrator supplies a jaunty summary of the governor’s conduct, making a pattern of coercion sound like a nursery-rhyme rule. The comic compression is pointed: what might be described as arbitrary exercises of power is rendered as a habit pursued for the pleasure of provoking its subjects.

The Conduct It Names

The expression first clarifies the logic behind Gessler’s taxation. Appointed by the Emperor of Austria to govern Switzerland, he taxes sheep and then charges more when a farmer sells them and buys cows. He also imposes taxes on ordinary goods, including bread, biscuits, jam, buns, and lemonade. The Swiss people object and appoint Walter Furst, Werner Stauffacher, and Arnold of Melchthal to complain. In this context, the couplet’s emphasis on deliberate irritation fits a system in which even familiar necessities become occasions for extracting money and asserting authority.

The same impulse becomes especially visible in Gessler’s prohibitions. He seeks out what people enjoy and orders it stopped: dancing, singing, musical instruments, most foods, and games are all forbidden on pretexts that they disturb work, cause illness, or waste time. When he has prohibited everything he can think of, he is left puzzled over what else to ban. The comic impasse exposes the emptiness of the policy: prohibition is treated as an end in itself, not as a response to a practical problem.

The Hat as a Public Test

Gessler’s order that everyone bow to his cap extends this behavior from private pleasures to public conduct. He sets the cap on a pole in the meadow outside the city gates, insists that the people respect it as they would respect him, and threatens arrest for anyone who crosses without bowing. His speech imagines extravagant punishments for dissenters, even as the crowd’s silence and heckling contradict his claim that everyone loves him and longs to pay reverence.

The demand turns a piece of clothing into a test of submission. When Tell later passes without bowing, Friesshardt reports that he struck Tell with his pike to remind him of the order; the crowd then fought the guards, and Tell shot through the hat. The episode gives the expression a concrete political consequence: a deliberately provoking rule creates the confrontation that it purports merely to police.

The Closing Reversal

The expression’s comic diagnosis also resonates with the epilogue’s refusal of a wholly tidy ending. After the Emperor’s death, the revolution in Switzerland proceeds without check, and the Swiss become free; Tell returns home to live with Hedwig and their two sons. Yet the epilogue observes that, whatever may be said about the Governor’s demolition, taxes are not abolished. That final qualification echoes the couplet’s unsentimental view of power: the removal of one ruler does not by itself remove every irritation or burden associated with rule.