[FROM KÖNIGSMARCK TO SOPHIA DOROTHEA]
[Hanover, _latter part of 1693_.][253]
I perceive the pleasure that I had taken in embracing you vanishes
entirely since the Troublesome One has appeared so suddenly. I
confess to you that this countenance displeased me very much so
soon as I perceived it; a thunderclap could not have surprised me
more. But it is fated that there should always be disagreeable
faces to prevent a tender meeting like that which all appearances
allowed us to think ours was to be. Yes, my idea of it was so full
of joy that I could not sleep all the night; but alas! all is
vanished, and I have to pass a second night without sleeping, and
with grief instead of the joy with which the first filled me; it
is certain that, unless you are so kind as to console me, I shall
bathe in my tears. Console me then, divine beauty, and comfort a
man who is dying for you, and who is so set upon your charms that
his head turns:
For a toy [?] of charming beauty
Such flame me doth consume,
That to love her is reason and duty,
Till I am laid in my tomb.
Such is my maxim, and you shall see me carry it out exactly; my
greatest satisfaction shall be to prove to you that only death is
alone capable of extinguishing my love. But, for the love of God,
think of the motto, ‘Nothing impure inflames me’;[254] adieu!
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Footnote 253:
This and the following letter ought possibly to be dated in the
spring of 1692; but I think the date assigned the more probable
one.
Footnote 254:
The seal on some of Königsmarck’s letters in the Lund
Correspondence represents a flaming heart on an altar, the sun
shining down upon it, with the circumscription, _Rien d’impure
m’allume_. Wilkins, p. 123.
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