"Yes," said Burkhard.
"Then repeat after me, '[Greek: Thalassi kai potami, eulogite ton kurion.]'"
The boy repeated it.
"Now sing it!" He did so.
Ekkehard looked over reproachfully at them. The Duchess interpreted the look aright.
"So, now thou hast learnt six words already," she said to Burkhard, "and as soon as thou wilt ask for it in hexametres, thou shalt be taught some more. For the present, sit down there at my feet, and listen attentively. We will read Virgil now."
Then, Ekkehard began the fourth canto of the Æneïd; and read of the sorrows of Dido, who is ever beset by thoughts of the noble Trojan guest, whose words and looks are all deeply engraven on her inmost heart. And she speaks out her grief thus to her sister:
"If it were not decreed, in the depth of my soul, that I never,
Wedlock again would contract, with any man that is living,
If I, the torches of Hymen, and bridal room not detested,
Might be so weak perhaps, to give way to this present temptation.
Anna, to thee confess, that since my beloved Sichæus,
Fell with the wound in his heart, at the feet of the blood-dripping Lares,
He alone, has succeeded in touching my heart, and disturbing.
All the peace of my soul, that is changed into strife and contention."
But Dame Hadwig had not much sympathy with the sorrows of the Carthaginian widowed queen. She leaned back in her arm-chair and looked up at the ceiling. She found no longer any similarity between herself and the desolate woman in the book.
"Stop a moment," cried she. "How very clear it is, that this is written by a man. He wants to humiliate women! It is all false! Who on earth would fall so madly in love with an utter stranger?"