"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?"