CHAPTER VII.
[Virgilius on the Hohentwiel.]
After one has got over the trouble and fatigue of a migration to a new residence, it is very pleasant work, to make everything around cozy and comfortable.
No one ought to think it a matter of indifference, in what place he lives, and what his surroundings are. He whose windows for instance, look out on a high-way, where carts and carriages are constantly passing, and on which stones are being ground to pieces, is certainly oftener visited by gray, dusty thoughts, than by gay many-coloured fancies.
With regard to situation, Ekkehard might well be contented; for the ducal castle on the Hohentwiel, was high, airy and lonely enough;--but still he was not quite satisfied, when on the day after his arrival, Dame Hadwig showed him his domicile.
It was a spacious chamber, with arched windows supported on pillars, and was entered by the same passage, which also led to the Duchess's hall and chambers. Now the impressions which a man takes with him, from his lonely cloister-cell, are not to be shaken off in one single night, and Ekkehard reflected how often he might be disturbed in his meditations, if the tread of armour-clad men, or the softer footstep of serving maids, were to pass his door; where he might even hear the mistress of the castle, passing up and down, in her chambers. So he simply addressed himself to the Duchess saying: "I have a favour to ask of you, my liege lady."
"Speak," said she mildly.
"Could you not give me besides this grand room, a more distant and solitary little chamber, no matter whether it be high up under the roof, or in one of the watch-towers? One great requirement for the study of science, as well as the exercise of prayer, is perfect quiet, according to the rules of the cloister!"
On hearing this, a slight frown overshadowed Dame Hadwig's fair brow. It was not a cloud,--only a cloudlet. "If you wish to be often quite alone," said she with a satirical smile, "why did you not stay at St. Gall?"
Ekkehard bowed his head and remained silent.
"Stay," cried Dame Hadwig, "your wish shall be fulfilled. You can look at the room in which Vincentius, our chaplain lived till his blessed end. He also had the taste of a bird of prey, and preferred being the highest on the Hohentwiel, to being the most comfortable. Praxedis, get the large bunch of keys and accompany our guest."
Praxedis obeyed. The chamber of the late chaplain, was high in the square tower of the castle. Slowly she ascended the winding staircase, followed by Ekkehard. The key grated in the long unused lock, and creaking on its hinges the heavy door swung back. They entered,--but what a sight was before them!
Where a learned man has lived, it takes some time to destroy all traces of him. The room in question, of moderate size and with white-washed walls, contained but little furniture; dust and cobwebs covering everything. On the oak table in the middle stood a small pot, that had once served as an inkstand, but the ink had long been dried up. In one corner stood a stone jug, which in former times had probably held the sparkling wine. On a rough book-shelf were some books, and close by, some open parchments;--but oh misery!--a storm had broken the little window; so Vincentius's room, after his death, had been open to sunshine and rain, to insects and birds. A flock of pigeons taking undisputed possession, had snugly settled down, among all the book-wisdom. On the epistles of St. Paul and Julius Cæsar's Gallic wars, they had built their nests, and now looked with surprise at the intruders.
Opposite the door, was written with charcoal on the wall: "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things."--Ekkehard read it and then asked his lovely guide, "was that the late chaplain's last will?"
Praxedis laughed merrily. "He was a pleasant and peace-loving man the late Master Vincentius. 'Comfort and rest are better than many a pound of silver,' was what he often said. But my lady the Duchess, worried him a good deal with her questions; one day she was wanting to know about the stars; the next about herbs and medicine; the day after, about the Holy Bible and the traditions of the church.--'What have you studied for, if you cannot tell me anything?'--she would say, and Master Vincentius's patience was often sorely tried."
Praxedis pointed archly to her forehead.
"'In the middle of Asia,' he often replied, 'there is a black marble stone; and he who can lift it, knows everything and need not ask any more questions.' He was from Bavaria, Master Vincentius, and I suppose that he wrote down, the quotation from Scripture, to console himself."
"Does the Duchess ask so many questions'?" said Ekkehard absently.
"That you will soon find out for yourself," replied Praxedis.
Ekkehard examined the books on the shelves. "I am sorry for the pigeons, but they will have to go."
"Why?"
"They have spoilt the whole of the first book on the Gallic wars; and the epistle to the Corinthians is hopelessly and irreparably damaged."
"Is that a great loss?" asked Praxedis.
"A very great loss!"
"Oh, you naughty doves," said Praxedis jestingly. "Come to me, before yonder pious man drives you out, amongst the hawks and falcons," and she called the birds which had quietly remained in their niche; and when they did not come, she threw a ball of white worsted on the table; the male dove flew towards it, believing that it were a new dove. With stately steps he approached the white ball, greeting it with a gentle cooing; and when Praxedis snatched it up, the bird flew on her head.
Then she began to sing softly a Greek melody. It was the song of the old, yet ever young singer of Teus.
"Tell me, thou pretty birdie,
Tell me, from whence thou comest,
And whence the balmy fragrance
Which from thy snowy pinions
Drips down upon the meadow;
Who art thou? and what wilt thou?"
Ekkehard started up with surprise from the codex, in which he was reading, and threw an almost frightened look on the young girl. If his eye had been more accustomed to see natural grace and beauty, it would probably have rested somewhat longer on the Greek maid. The dove had hopped upon her hand, and she lifted it up with a bended arm. Anacreon's old countryman, who out of a block of Parian marble, created the Venus of Knidos, would have fixed the picture in his memory, if he had witnessed it.
"What are you singing," asked Ekkehard, "it sounds like a foreign language."
"Why should it not be foreign?"
"Greek?"--
"And why should I not sing Greek," pertly rejoined Praxedis.
"By the lyre of Homer," exclaimed Ekkehard, full of surprise, "where in the name of wonder did you learn that; the highest aim of our scholars?"
"At home," quietly replied Praxedis.
Ekkehard cast another look, full of shy respect and admiration at her. While reading Aristotle and Plato he had hardly remembered, that any living persons still spoke the Greek tongue. The idea now dawned upon him, that something was here embodied before him, that in spite of all his spiritual and wordly wisdom, was beyond his reach and understanding.
"I thought I had come as a teacher to the Hohentwiel," said he almost humbly, "and I find my master here. Would you not now and then deign to bestow a grain of your mother-tongue on me?"
"On condition that you will not drive away the doves," replied Praxedis. "You can easily have a grating put up before the niche, so that they do not fly about your head."
"For the sake of pure Greek"--Ekkehard was beginning to say, when the door opened, and the sharp voice of Dame Hadwig was heard.
"What are you talking here about doves and pure Greek? Does it take so much time to look at four walls?--Well, Master Ekkehard, does the den suit your taste?"
He bowed in the affirmative.
"Then it shall be cleaned and put in order," continued Dame Hadwig. "Be quick, Praxedis, and see about it,--and to begin with, let us drive away these doves!"
Ekkehard ventured to put in a word on their behalf.
"Indeed!" said the Duchess, "you desire to be alone, and yet wish to keep doves! Shall we perhaps hang a lute on the wall, and strew rose-leaves into your wine? Well, they shall not be driven out; but they shall appear roasted on our supper-table, this evening."
Praxedis appeared, as if she heard nothing of all this.
"And what was that about the pure Greek?" enquired the Duchess. And Ekkehard simply told her the favour, he had asked of Praxedis. Upon this, the frown returned to Dame Hadwig's forehead. "If you are so very anxious to learn," said she, "you can ask me; for I also speak that language." Ekkehard made no objection, for in her speech there was a certain sharpness, which cut off all replies. The Duchess was strict and punctual in everything. A day or two, after Ekkehard's arrival, she worked out a plan, for learning the Latin language, and so it was settled that they should devote one hour each day to the grammar, and another to the reading of Virgil. This latter was looked forward to with great pleasure by Ekkehard. He intended to apply the whole of his faculties to the new study and to summon up all his erudition and knowledge, in order to make the task easy to the Duchess.
"It is certainly no useless work which the old poets have left behind," he said. "How difficult it would be to learn a language, if it were bequeathed to us, merely through a dictionary, like corn in a sack, which we should first have to grind into flour, and then to make into bread. Now the poet puts everything in its right place, and the whole is clothed in harmonious forms; so that what otherwise would prove a hard and tough matter for our teeth, we can now drink in like honey-dew."
To mitigate the bitterness of the grammar, Ekkehard could find no means. Every day he wrote a task for the Duchess on parchment, and she proved a very eager and industrious pupil; for each morning when the sun rose over the Bodensee, and cast its early rays on the Hohentwiel, she stood already at her window, learning her task; silently or loud as might be. Once her montonous reciting of amo, amas, amat, amamus etc. reached even Ekkehard's ear in his chamber.
Poor Praxedis was heavily afflicted, as the Duchess to heighten her own zeal, ordered her to learn always the same task with her, which she considered a great nuisance. Dame Hadwig, only a beginner herself, delighted in correcting her handmaiden, and was never so pleased, as when Praxedis took a substantive for an adjective, or conjugated an irregular verb as a regular one.
In the evening the Duchess came over to Ekkehard's room, where everything had to be ready for the reading of Virgil. Praxedis accompanied her, and as no dictionary was found amongst the books which Master Vincentius had left behind, Praxedis who was well-versed in the art of writing, was ordered to begin to make one, as Dame Hadwig did not know so much of that. "What would be the use of priests and monks," said she, "if everybody knew the art belonging to their profession? Let the blacksmiths wield the hammer, the soldiers the sword, and the scriveners the pen, and everyone stick to his own business." She had however well practised writing her name, in capital letters, artistically entwined; so that she could affix it, to all documents to which she put her seal, as sovereign of the land.
Praxedis cut up a big roll of parchment, into small leaves; drawing two lines on each, to make three divisions. After each lesson she wrote down the Latin words they had learned in one, the German in the next, and the Greek equivalent in the third column. This last was done by the Duchess's desire, in order to prove to Ekkehard, that they had acquired some knowledge, already before he came. Thus the lessons had fairly begun.
The door of Ekkehard's room, leading into the passage, was left wide open by Praxedis. He rose and was about to shut it, when the Duchess prevented him, by saying: "Do you not yet know the world?"
Ekkehard could not understand the meaning of this. He now began to read and translate the first book of Virgil's great epic poem. Æneas the Trojan rose before their eyes; how he had wandered about for seven years on the Tyrian sea, and what unspeakable pains it had cost him to become the founder of the Roman people. Then came the recital of Juno's anger, when she went to entreat Aeolus to do her bidding; promising the fairest of her nymphs to the God of the winds, if he would destroy the Trojan ships.--Thunder-storms, tempests, and dire ship-wrecks;--the turbulent waves scattering weapons and armour, beams and rafters, of what had once been the stately fleet of the Trojans. And the roar of the excited waves, reach the ears of Neptune himself, who rising from his watery depths, beholds the dire confusion. The winds of Aeolus are ignominiously sent home; the rebellious waves settle down; and the remaining ships, anchor on the Lybian shores ...
So far Ekkehard had read and translated. His voice was full and sonorous, and vibrating with emotion; for he perfectly understood what he had read. It was getting late; the lamp was flickering in its socket, and Dame Hadwig rose from her seat to go.
"How does my gracious mistress like the tale of the heathen poet?" asked Ekkehard.
"I will tell you to-morrow," was the reply.
To be sure, she might have said it there and then; for the impression of what she had heard, was already fixed in her mind; but she refrained from doing so, not liking to hurt his feelings.
"May you have pleasant dreams," she called out as he was departing.
Ekkehard went up to Vincentius's room in the tower, which had been restored to perfect order; all traces of the doves having been removed. He wanted to pray and meditate, as he was wont to do in the monastery, but his head began to burn and before his soul stood the lofty figure of the Duchess; and when he looked straight at her, then Praxedis's black eyes, also peeped at him from over her mistress's shoulders.--What was to become of all this?--He went to the window where the fresh autumn air cooled his forehead, and looked out at the dark vast sky, stretching out over the silent earth. The stars twinkled brightly, some nearer, some farther off, more or less brilliant. He had never before enjoyed such an extensive view of the starry firmament; for on the top of the mountains, the appearance and size of things change much. For a long time he stood thus, until he began to shiver; and he felt as if the stars were attracting him upwards, and that he must rise towards them as on wings ... He closed the window, crossed himself, and went to seek his resting place.
On the next day, Dame Hadwig came with Praxedis to take her grammar lesson. She had learnt many words and declensions, and knew her task well; but she was absent withal.
"Did you dream anything?" she asked her teacher when the lesson was over.
"No."
"Nor yesterday?"
"Neither."
"Tis a pity, for it is said, that, what we dream the first night in a new domicile comes true. Now confess, are you not a very awkward young man?" she continued after a short pause.
"I?" asked Ekkehard greatly surprised.
"As you hold constant intercourse with the poets, why did you not invent some graceful dream, and tell it me? Poetry and dreams,--'tis all the same, and it would have given me pleasure."
"If such is your command," said Ekkehard, "I will do so the next time you ask me; even if I have dreamt nothing."
Such conversations were entirely new and mystical for Ekkehard. "You still owe me your opinion of Virgil," said he.
"Well," returned Dame Hadwig, "if I had been a queen in Roman lands, I do not know whether I should not have burnt the poem, and imposed eternal silence on the man ..."
Ekkehard stared at her, full of amazement.
"I am perfectly serious about it," continued she, "and do you wish to know why?--because he reviles the Gods of his country. I paid great attention, when you recited the speeches of Juno yesterday. That she, the wife of the chief of all the Gods, feels a rankling in her mind, because a Trojan shepherd boy, does not declare her to be the most beautiful,--and being powerless to call up a tempest at her will, to destroy a few miserable ships, must first bribe Aeolus by the offer of a nymph! And then Neptune, who calls himself the king of the seas, and allows strange winds to cause a tempest in his realms; and only notices this transgression, when it is well nigh over!--What is the upshot of all that?--I can tell you, that in a country whose Gods are thus abased and defamed, I should not like to wield the sceptre!"
Ekkehard could not very readily find an answer. All the manuscripts of the ancients, were for him stable and immovable as the mountains; and he was content to read and admire, what lay before him and now such doubts!
"Pardon me, gracious lady," he said, "we have not read very far as yet, and it is to be hoped, that the human beings of the Æneid will find greater favour in your eyes. Please to remember, that at the time when the Emperor Augustus, had his subjects counted, the light of the world began to dawn at Bethlehem. The legend says, that a ray of that light had also fallen on Virgil, which explains why the old Gods could not appear so great in his eyes."
Dame Hadwig had spoken according to her first impression, but she did not intend to argue with her teacher.
"Praxedis," said she in a jesting tone, "what may thy opinion be?"
"My powers of thought are not so great," said the Greek maid. "Everything appeared to me to be so very natural; and that made me like it. And what has pleased me most, was that Mistress Juno gave Aeolus to one of her nymphs for a husband; for though he was somewhat elderly, he was after all, king of the winds, and she must certainly have been well provided for."
"Certainly,"--said Dame Hadwig, making a sign to her to be silent. "'Tis well that we have learnt in what way waiting-women can appreciate Virgil."
Ekkehard was only provoked into 'greater zeal, by the Duchess's contradiction. With enthusiasm he read, on the following evening, how the pious Æneas goes out to seek the Lybian land; and how he meets his mother Venus, dressed in the habit and armour of a Spartan maid; the light bow hanging over her shoulder, and her fair heaving bosom, scarcely hidden by the looped-up garment; and how she directs her son's steps, towards the Lybian princess. Further he read, how Æneas recognized his Divine mother but too late,--calling after her in vain; but how she wrapped him up in a mist, so that he could reach the new town unseen, where the Tyrian queen is building a splendid temple in honour of Juno. There he stands transfixed with admiration, gazing at the representation of the battles before Troy; painted by the hand of the artist; and his soul is refreshed by the recollections of past battles.
And now Dido, the mistress of the land, herself approaches, urging on the workmen, and performing her sovereign's duties.
"And at the gate of the temple, in Juno's honour erected, There on her throne sat the queen, surrounded by arms-bearing warriors, Dealing out justice to all, and dividing the labours amongst them, With an impartial hand, allotting his share to each one ..."
"Read that over again," said the Duchess. Ekkehard complied with her wish.
"Is it written thus in the book?" asked she. "I should not have objected if you had put in these lines yourself; for I almost fancied I heard a description of my own government. Yes, with the human beings of your poet, I am well satisfied."
"It was no doubt easier to describe them, than the Gods," said Ekkehard. "There are so many men in this world ..."
She made him a sign to continue. So he read on, how the companions of Æneas came, to implore her protection, and how they sung their leader's praise; who, hidden by a cloud, stood close by. And Dido opens her town to the helpless ones; and the wish arises in her, that Æneas their king, might also be thrown by the raging waves on her shores; so that the hero feels a great longing to break through the cloud that is veiling him.
But when Ekkehard began with:
"Scarce had she uttered this wish, when the veiling cloud, floated backwards ..."
a heavy tread was heard, and the next moment, in came Master Spazzo the chamberlain; wanting to have a look at the Duchess, taking her lesson. Most likely he had been sitting with the wine-jug before him, for his eyes were staring vacantly, and the salutation-speech died on his lips. It was not his fault though; for quite early in the morning, he had felt his nose burn and itch dreadfully, and that is an unmistakeable sign, of a tipsy evening to come.
"Stop there," cried the Duchess, "and you Ekkehard continue!"
He read on with his clear expressive voice.
"Showing Æneas himself, in all the bloom of his beauty, High and lofty withal; godlike, for the heavenly mother, Having with soft flowing locks, and glorious features endowed him, Breathing, into his eyes, sereneness and radiance for ever. Like, as the ivory may, by dexterous hands be embellished, Or as the Parian stone, encircled by red, golden fillets. Then he, addressing the queen, to the wonder of all the surrounders, Suddenly turnéd, and said: Behold then, him you were seeking, Me, the Trojan Æneas, escaped from the Lybian breakers."
Master Spazzo stood there, in utter confusion; whilst an arch smile played around the lips of Praxedis.
"When you honour us next with your presence," called out the Duchess, "please to choose a more suitable moment for your entrance; so that we are not tempted to imagine you to be, 'Æneas the Trojan escaped from the Lybian breakers!'"
Master Spazzo quickly withdrew, muttering: "Æneas the Trojan? has another Rhinelandish adventurer forged some mythical pedigree for himself? Troy?!--and clouds floating backwards?... Wait Æneas the Trojan; when we two meet, we shall break a lance together! Death and damnation!"