Quintus Claudius, Volume 1. Eckstein Ernst

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СКАЧАТЬ tossed its sparkling jet as high as the tallest trees.

      For some time the party sat chatting in the dusk; then two slaves came in with torches and lighted the lamps of the twelve statues; two others lighted up the arcades so that the painted walls and their purplish backgrounds were visible far across the court-yard. A flute-player from Cumae now played to them in a tender mode; she stood in the entrance, dressed in the Greek fashion, with her abundant hair gathered into a knot and her slender fingers gliding up and down the stops of the instrument. Her features were sweet and pleasing, her manner soft and harmonious; only from time to time a strange expression of weariness and absence of mind passed over her face. When she had done playing, she was conducted by Baucis to the back gate. She took the piece of silver which she received in payment with an air of indifference, and then bent her way down the hill towards Cumae, which already lay in darkness.

      “Allow me to ask,” said Herodianus to Quintus, “what is the name of this tunefully-gifted damsel?”

      “She is called Euterpe, after the muse who presides over her art.”

      “Her name is Arachne,” added Lucilia, “but Euterpe sounds more poetical.”

      “Euterpe!” breathed the worthy Herodianus. “Heavenly consonance! Is she a Greek?”

      “She is from Etruria, and was formerly the slave of Marcus Cocceius Nerva, who freed her. She married in Cumae not long since.”

      “As strictly historical as the annals of Tacitus,” laughed Claudia.

      “I heard it all from Baucis.”

      “Wretched old magpie!” exclaimed Quintus, intentionally raising his voice. “If she could not gossip, she would lose the breath of life.”

      “By all the gods, my lord!” exclaimed Baucis, laying her hands on her heart, “you are calumniating me greatly – do you grudge me a little harmless chat? All-merciful Isis! am I to close my lips with wax? No, by Typhon85 the cruel! Besides, I must instruct the daughters of the house; it is for that that I eat the bitter crust of dependence in my old age. Oh! Baucis knows her duties; have I not taught Claudia to sing and play the cithara? Have I not taught Lucilia more than a dozen Egyptian formulas and charms? and now I add to this a little sprinkling of knowledge of the world and of men – and you call it gossip! You young men of the present day are polite, I must say!”

      "Then you sing to the cithara?"86 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:87

      “Spring returns, and the gnarled quince88

      Fed by purling and playful brooks

      Decks its boughs with its rosy flowers

      Where, beneath in the twilight gloom,

      Nymph-like circles of maidens dance;

      While the sprays of the budding grape

      Hide ’mid shadowy vine leaves.

      Ruthless Eros doth disregard

      Spring’s sweet tokens and hints of peace.

      Down he rushes like winter blasts —

      Thracian storms with their searing flash —

      Aphrodite’s resistless son

      Falls on me in his fury and fire —

      Racks my heart with his torments.”

      Claudia ceased; the accompaniment on the cithara died away in soft full chords. Caius Aurelius sat spellbound. Never had he dreamed of the daughters of the fever-tossed metropolis as so simple, so natural, so genuine and genial. The strain almost resembled, in coy tenderness, those northern love-songs which he had been wont to hear from the lips of Gothic and Ampsivaric maidens. In those, to be sure, a vein of rebellion and melancholy ran through the melody and pierced through the charm, while in this all was perfect harmony, exquisite contentment – an intoxicating concord of joy, youth and love. In this he heard the echo of the smiling waves below, of the glistening leaves, and of heart-stirring spring airs.

      “A second Sappho!” exclaimed Herodianus, as his master sat speechless. “I can but compare the sweetness of that voice with the luscious Falernian we drank at dinner. That was a nectar worthy of the gods! Besides, indeed – the Hispanian wine – out there, what do you call the place – you know, my lord – what is the name of it – that was delicious too – and seen against the light… What was I saying? I had an aunt, she sang too to the cithara – yes she did, why not? – She was free to do that, of course, quite free to do it – and a very good woman too was old Pris – Pris – Priscilla. Only she could not endure, that any one should talk when she blew the cithara…”

      Octavia was frowning; Aurelius had turned crimson and nodded to his Gothic slave, who was standing aside under the arcade. Magus quietly came up to Herodianus and whispered a few words in his ear.

      “That shows a profound, a remarkably profound power of observation!” cried the freedman excitedly. “In fact, what does music prove after all? I play the water-organ,89 and – hold me up, Magus. This floor is remarkably slippery for a respectable cavaedium. It might be paved with eels or polished mirrors!”

      “You are a very good fellow,” muttered the Goth as he led him slowly away, “but you carry it a little too far…”

      “What? Ah! you have no sense of the sublime? You are not a philosopher, but only a – a – a – a man. But, by Pluto! you need not break my arm. I – take care of that, that… Will you let go, you misbegotten villain!”

      But the Goth was not to be got rid of; he held the drunken man like an iron vice and so guided him in a tolerably straight course. When they disappeared in the corridor leading to the atrium, Aurelius was anxious to apologize for him, but Octavia laughed it off.

      “We are at Baiae,"СКАЧАТЬ