“Pour dresser un jeune courrier
Et l’affermir sur l’étrier
Il lui fallait une routière
Laire lan laire.”
“What’s that Zosimus?”
“Zosimus, sir, Zosimus of Panopolis, was a learned Greek, who flourished at Alexandria in the third century of the Christian era, and wrote treatises on the spagyric art.”
“Do you fancy it matters to me? Why do you translate it?
“Battons le fer quand il est chaud
Dit-elle, en faisant sonner haut
Le nom de sultan première
Laire lan laire.”
“Sir,” said my dear tutor, “I quite agree with you; there is no practical utility in it, and by it the course of the world will not be changed in the slightest. But making clearer by annotations and comments this treatise, which that Greek compiled for his sister Theosebia—”
Catherine interrupted him by singing in a high-pitched voice:
“Je veux en dépit des jaloux
Qu’on fasse duc mon epoux
Lasse de le voir secretairev
Laire lan laire.”
And my tutor continued:
“—I contribute to the treasure of knowledge gathered by erudite men, and bring forward one stone of my own for a monument to true history, which is a better one than the chronicles of war and treaties; for, sir, the nobility of man—”