"If you do not care to read any longer," she said with an apparently indifferent expression, "there are still other ways and means to pass one's time. What say you, if I were to ask you to tell us some graceful tale,--you might choose whatever you liked. There are still many grand and beautiful things, besides your Virgil. Or, you might invent something yourself. I see that you are oppressed by some care. You neither like to read, nor to go out into the country. Everything hurts your eyes, as you say. I think that your mind lacks some great task which we will now give you."
"What could I invent?" replied Ekkehard. "Is it not enough happiness to be the echo of a master, like Virgil?" He looked with a veiled eye at the Duchess. "I should only be able to chant elegies very sad ones too."
"Nothing else?" said Dame Hadwig reproachfully. "Have our ancestors not gone out to war, and let their bugles sound the alarum through the world, and have they not fought battles as grand as those of Æneas? Do you believe that the great Emperor Charles would have had all the old national songs collected and sung, if they had been nothing but chaff? Must you then, take everything out of your Latin books?"
"I know nothing," repeated Ekkehard.
"But you must know something," persisted the Duchess. "If we, who live here in this castle, were to sit together of an evening and talk of old tales and legends, I shouldn't wonder, if we should produce something more than the whole of the Æneïd contains? 'Tis true that the pious son of the Emperor Charles, did not care any more for the old heroic songs, and preferred listening to whining psalms; until he died, diseased in body and mind; but we still cling to those old tales. Do tell us such a story, Master Ekkehard, and we will gladly spare you your Virgil with his love-sick queen."
But Ekkehard's thoughts were quite differently occupied. He shook his head like one who is dreaming.
"I see that you want some stimulant," said the Duchess. "Above all, a good example will inspire you. Praxedis, prepare thyself, and likewise tell our chamberlain, that we are going to entertain ourselves to-morrow, with the telling of old legends. Let everybody be well prepared."
She took up Virgil and threw it under the table, as a sign that a new aera was to begin forthwith.
Her idea was certainly good, and well conceived. Only the cloister-pupil who had rested his head on Praxedis's lap, whilst the Duchess spoke, had not quite taken in her meaning.
"When may I learn some more Greek, gracious mistress?" asked he. [Greek: "Thalassi kai potami." ...]