"Then you sing to the cithara?"[85] said Aurelius, turning to Claudia. “Oh, let me, I beg of you, hear one of your songs!”
“With pleasure,” said the girl coloring slightly. “With your permission, dear mother...?”
“You know my weakness,” replied Octavia. “I am always only too glad to hear you sing. If our noble guest’s request is not merely politeness....”
“It is a most heartfelt wish,” cried Aurelius. “Your daughter’s voice is music when she only speaks—in singing it must be enchanting.”
“I think so too, indeed,” added Herodianus. “Oh, we Northmen are connoisseurs in music. The Camenae visit other spots than Helicon and the seven hills of Rome; they have taken Trajectum too under their protection. Had I but been born in Hellas, where Zeus so lavishly decked the cornucopia of the arts with such pure and ideal perfection....”
“Herodianus, you are talking nonsense!” interrupted the young Batavian. “I am afraid that the old Falernian we drank at dinner, was too strong for your brain.”
“I beg your pardon! that would be very unlike me. Since Apollo first laid me in my cradle, temperance has been my most conspicuous virtue....”
A slave girl had meanwhile brought in the nine-stringed cithara and the ivory plectrum; Claudia took them from her with some eagerness, put the ribbon of the lute round her neck and sat upright on her easy-chair. She turned the pegs here and there to put the instrument in tune, struck a few chords and runs as a prelude, and began a Greek song—the delightful Spring-greeting of Ibycus the Sicilian:[86]
“Spring returns, and the gnarled quince[87]
Fed by purling and playful brooks