Herdegen was to be back in Padua before Passion week, and I shall
remember with thankfulness to the day of my death the few months after
worthy Veit Spiesz’s burial and before my brother’s departure. Not a
day passed without our meeting; and after my heart had moved me to tell
Cousin Maud all that had happened, and Herdegen had given his consent,
we were rid once for all of the mystery which had at first weighed on
our souls.
Verily the worthy lady found it no light matter to look kindly on this
early and ill-matched betrothal; yet had she not the heart, nor the
power, to make any resistance. When two young folks who are dear to her
are brimfull of high happiness, the woman who would turn them out of
that Garden of Eden and spoil their present bliss with warnings of
future woe must be of another heart and mind than Cousin Maud. She
indeed foresaw grief to come in many an hour of mistrust by day and many
a sleepless night, more especially by reason of her awe and dread of my
grand-uncle; and indeed, she herself was not bereft of the old pride of
race which dwells in every Nuremberger who is born under a knight’s coat
of arms. That Ann was poor she held of no account; but that she was not
of noble birth was indeed a grief and filled her with doubts. But then,
when her best-beloved Herdegen’s eyes shone so brightly, and she saw Ann
cling to him with maidenly rapture, vexation and care were no more.
If I had sung a loud hymn of praise in the woods over their spring and
autumn beauty--and verily it had welled up from my heart--I was ready to
think winter in the town no less gladsome, in especial under the shelter
of a home so warm and well built as our old Schopper-hof.
In the last century, when, at the time of the Emperor Carolus--[Charles
IV., 1348]--coming to the throne, the guilds, under the leadership of
the Gaisbarts and Pfauentritts, had risen against the noble families and
the worshipful council, they accused the elders of keeping house not as
beseemed plain citizens but after the manner of princes; and they were
not far wrong, for indeed I have heard tell that when certain merchants
from Scandinavia came to our city, they said that the dwelling of a
Nuremberg noble was a match in every way for their king’s palace.
[Gaisbart (goat’s beard) and Pfauentritt (peacock-strut), were
nicknames given to the leaders of the guilds who rebelled against
the patrician families in Nuremberg, from whom alone the aldermen or
town-council could be elected. This patrician class originated in
1198 under the Emperor Henry IV., who ennobled 38 families of the
citizens. They were in some sort comparable with the families
belonging to the Signoria at Venice, from whom, in the same way, the
great council was chosen.]
As touching our house, it was four stories high, and with seven windows
in every story; with well devised oriels at the corners, and pointed
turrets on the roof. The gables were on the street, in three steps; over
the great house door there was our coat of arms, the three links of the
Schopppes and the fool’s head with cap and bells as a crest on the top
of the casque. The middle windows of the first and second stories were
of noble size, and there glittered therein bright and beautiful panes
of Venice glass, whereas the other windows were of small roundels set in
lead.
And while from outside it was a fine, fair house to look upon, I never
hope to behold a warmer or more snug and comfortable dwelling than the
living-rooms within which was our home the winter through; albeit I
found the saloons and chambers in the palaces of the Signori at Venice
loftier and more airy, and greater and grander. Whenever I have been
homesick under the sunny blue sky of Italy, it was for the most part
that I longed after the rich, fresh green foliage and flowing streams
of my own land; but, next to them, after our pleasant chamber in the
Schopper-house, with its warm, green-tiled stove, with the figures of
the Apostles, and the corner window where I had spun so many a hank of
fine yarn, and which was so especially mine own--although I was ever
ready and glad to yield my right to it, when Herdegen required it to sit
in and make love to his sweetheart.
The walls of this fine chamber were hung with Flanders tapestry, and I
can to this day see the pictures which were so skilfully woven into it.
That I loved best, from the time when I was but a small thing, was the
Birth of the Saviour, wherein might be seen the Mother and Child, oxen
and asses, the three Holy Kings from the East--the goodliest of them all
a blackamoor with a great yellow beard flowing down over his robes. On
the other hangings a tournament might be seen; and I mind me to this day
how that, when I was a young child, I would gaze up at the herald who
was blowing the trumpet in fear lest his cheeks should burst, inasmuch
as they were so greatly puffed out and he never ceased blowing so hard.
Between the top of these hangings and the ceiling was a light wood
cornice of oak-timber, on which my father, God rest him, had caused
various posies to be carved of his own devising. You might here read:
“Like a face our life may be
To which love lendeth eyes to see.”
Or again,
“The Lord Almighty hides his glorious face
That so we may not cease to seek his grace.”
Or else,
“The Lord shall rule my life while I sit still,
And rule it rightly by his righteous will.”
And whereas my father had loved mirthful song he had written in another
place:
“If life be likened to a thorny place
Song is the flowery spray that lends it grace.”
Some of these rhymes had been carved there by my grandfather, for
example these lines:
“By horse and wain I’ve journeyed up and down,
Yet found no match for this my native town.”
And under our coat of arms was this posy.
“While the chain on the scutcheon holds firm and fast
The fool on the crest will be game to the last.”
Of the goodly carved seats, and the cushions covered with motley woven
stuffs from the Levant, right pleasant to behold, of all the fine
treasures on the walls, the Venice mirrors, and the metal cage with a
grey parrot therein, which Jordan Kubbelmg, the falconer from Brunswick,
had given to my dear mother, I will say no more; but I would have it
understood that all was clean and bright, well ordered and of good
choice, and above all snug and warm. Nay, and if it had all been far
less costly and good to look at, there was, as it were, a breath of home
which must have gladdened any man’s heart: inasmuch as all these goodly
things were not of yesterday nor of to-day, but had long been a joy to
many an one dear to us; so that our welfare in that dwelling was but
the continuing of the good living which our parents and grandparents had
known before us.
Howbeit, those who will read this writing know what a patrician’s
house in Nuremberg is wont to be; and he who hath lived through a like
childhood himself needs not to be told how well hide and seek may be
played in a great hall, or what various and merry pastime can be devised
in the twilight, in a dining hall where the lights hang from the huge
beams of the ceiling; and we for certain knew every game that was worthy
to be named.
But by this time all this was past and gone; only the love of song would
never die out in the dwelling of the man who had been well-pleased
to hear himself called by his fellows “Schopper the Singer.” Ah! how
marvellous well did their voices sound, Ann’s and my brother’s, when
they sang German songs to the lute or the mandoline, or perchance
Italian airs, as they might choose. But there was one which I could
never weary of hearing and which, meseemed, must work on Herdegen’s
wayward heart as a cordial. The words were those of Master Walther von
der Vogelweirde, and were as follows:
“True love is neither man nor maid,
No body hath nor yet a soul,
Nor any semblance here below,
Its name we hear, itself unknown.
Yet without love no man may win
The grace and favor of the Lord.
Put then thy trust in those who love;
In no false heart may Love abide.”
And when they came to the last lines Kunz would ofttimes join in, taking
the bass part or continuo to the melody. Otherwise he kept modestly in
the background, for since he had come to know that Herdegen and Ann were
of one mind he waited on her as a true and duteous squire, while he was
now more silent than in past time, and in his elder brother’s presence
almost dumb. Yet at this I marvelled not, inasmuch as I many a time
marked that brethren are not wont to say much to each other, and even
between friends the one is ready enough to be silent if the other takes
the word. Moreover at Easter Kunz was likewise to quit home, and go to
Venice at my granduncle’s behest. Herdegen’s love for his brother had,
of a certainty, suffered no breach; but, like many another disciple of
Minerva, he was disposed to look down on the votaries of Mercury.
Nevertheless the links of the Schopper chain, to which Ann had now been
joined as a fourth, held together right bravely, and when we sang not,
but met for friendly talk, our discourse was but seldom of worthless,
vain matters, forasmuch as Herdegen was one of those who are ready and
free of speech to impart what he had himself learned, and it was Ann’s
especial gift to listen keenly and question discreetly.
And what was there that my brother had not learned from the great
Guarino, and the not less great Humanist, his disciple Vittorino da
Feltre, at that time Magistri at Padua? And how he had found the time,
in a right gay and busy life, to study not merely the science of law
but also Greek, and that so diligently that his master was ever ready
to laud him, was to me a matter for wonder. And how gladly we hearkened
while he told us of the great Plato, and gave us to know wherefore
and on what grounds his doctrine seemed to him, Herdegen, sounder and
loftier than that of Aristotle, concerning whom he had learned much
erewhile in Nuremberg. And whereas I was moved to fear lest these works
of the heathen should tempt him to stray from the true faith, my soul
found comfort when he proved to us that so glorious a lamp of the Church
as Saint Augustine had followed them on many points. Also Herdegen had
written out many verses of Homer’s great song from a precious written
book, and had learned to master them well from the teaching of the
doctor of Feltre. They were that portion in which a great hero in the
fight, or ever he goes forth to battle, takes leave of his wife and
little son; and to me and Ann it seemed so fine and withal so touching,
that we could well understand how it should be that Petrarca wrote that
no more than to behold a book of Homer made him glad, and that he longed
above all things to clasp that great man in his arms.
Indeed, the poems and writings of Petrarca yielded us greater delights
than all the Greek and Roman heathen. Master Ulsenius had before now
lent them to Ann, and she like a bee from a flower would daily suck
a drop of honey from their store. Yet was there one testimony of
Petrarca’s--who was, for sure, of all lovers the truest--which she loved
above all else. In the dreadful time of the Black Death which came as a
scourge on all the world, and chiefly on Italy, in the past century, the
lady to whom he had vowed the deepest and purest devotion, appeared
to him in a dream one fair spring morning as an angel of Heaven. And
whereas he inquired of her whether she were in life, she answered him
in these words: “See that thou know me; for I am she who led thee out
of the path of common men, inasmuch as thy young heart clung to me.” And
lo! on that very sixth of April, which brought him that vision, one and
twenty years after that he had first beheld her, Laura had made a pious
end.
With beseeching eyes Ann would repeat to her best beloved, as they sat
together in the oriel bay, how that Laura had led her Petrarca from the
ways of common men; and it went to my heart to hear her entreat him,
with timid and yet fond and heartfelt prayer, to grant to her to be his
Laura and to guide him far from the beaten path, forasmuch as it was
narrow and low for his winged spirit. And while she thus spoke her great
eyes had a marvellous clear and glorious light, and when I looked in her
face wrapped in the veil of her mourning for her father, my spirit
grew solemn, as though I were in church. Herdegen must have felt this
likewise, methinks, for he would bend the knee before her and hide his
face in her lap, and kiss her hands again and again.
But these solemn hours were few.
First and last it was a happy fellowship, free and gay, though mingled
with earnest, that held us together; and when Ann’s father had been
some few weeks dead our old gleefulness came back to us again, and then,
after gazing at her for a while, Herdegen would suddenly strike the lute
and sing the old merry round:
“Come, sweetheart, come to me.
Ah how I pine for thee!
Ah, how I pine for thee
Come, sweetheart, come to me.
Sweet rosy lips to kiss,
Come then and bring me bliss,
Come then and bring me bliss,
Sweet rosy lips to kiss!”
And we would all join in, even Cousin Maud; nay and she would look
another way or quit the chamber, stealing away behind Kunz and holding
up a warning finger, when she perceived how his Ann’s “sweet, rosy lips”
tempted Herdegen’s to kiss them. But there were other many songs, and
ofttimes, when we were in a more than common merry mood, we strange
young things would sing the saddest tales and tunes we knew, such as
that called “Two Waters,” and yet were we only the more gay.
Herdegen could not be excused from his duty of paying his respects from
time to time to the many friends of our honorable family, yet would he
ever keep away from dances and feastings, and when he was compelled
to attend I was ever at his side, and it was a joy to me to see how
courteous, and withal how cold, was his demeanor to all other ladies.
The master’s fiftieth birthday was honored in due course at the Tetzels’
house, and to please my granduncle, Herdegen could not refuse to do
his part in song and in the dance, and likewise to lead out Ursula,
the daughter of the house, in the dances. Nor did he lose his gay but
careless mien, although she would not quit his side and chose him to
dance with her in “The Sulkers,” a dance wherein the man and maid first
turn their backs on each other and then make it up and kiss. But when
it came to this, maiden shame sent the blood into my cheeks; for at the
sound of the music, in the face of all the company she fell into his
arms, as it were by mishap; and it served her right when he would not
kiss her lips, which she was ready enough to offer, but only touched her
brow with his.
Forasmuch as she had danced with him the Dance of Honor or first dance,
it was his part to beg her hand for the last dance--the “grandfather’s
dance;”--[Still a well-known country dance in Germany.]--but she would
fain punish him for the vexation he had caused her and turned her back
upon him. He, however, would have none of this; he grasped her hand
ere she was aware of him, and dragged her after him. It was vain to
struggle, and soon his strong will was a pleasure to her, and her
countenance beamed again full brightly, when as this dance requires, he
had led the way with her, the rest all following, through chamber
and hall, kitchen and courtyard, doors and windows, nay, and even the
stables. In the course of this dance each one seized some utensil or
house-gear, as we do to this day; only never a broom, which would bring
ill-luck. Ursula had snatched up a spoon, and when the mad sport was
ended and he had let go her hand, she rapped him with it smartly on
the arm and cried: “You are still what you ever were, in the dance at
least!”
But my brother only said: “Then will I try to become not the same, even
in that.”
Round the Christmas tree and at the sharing of gifts which Cousin Maud
made ready for Christmas eve, we were all friendly and glad at heart,
and Ann found her way to join us after that she had put the little ones
to bed.
Herdegen said she herself was the dearest gift for which he could thank
the Christ-child, and he had provided for her as a costly token the
great Petrarca’s heroic poem of Africa, in which he sings the deeds of
the noble Scipio, and likewise his smaller poems, all written in a fair
hand. They made three neat books, and on the leathern cover, the binder,
by Herdegen’s orders, had stamped the words, “ANNA-LAURA,” in a wreath
of full-blown roses. Nor was she slow to understand their intent,
and her heart was uplifted with such glad and hopeful joy that the
Christ-child for a certainty found no more blissful or thankful creature
in all Nuremberg that Christmas eve.
The manifold duties which filled up all her days left her but scant time
wherein to work for him she loved; nevertheless she had wrought with her
needle a letter pouch, whereon the Schoppers’ arms were embroidered in
many colored silks, and the words ‘Agape’ and ‘Pistis’--which are in
Greek Love and Faithfulness in Greek letters with gold thread. Cousin
Maud had dipped deep into her purse and likewise into her linen-press,
and on the table under the Christmas-tree lay many a thing fit for
the bride-chest of a maid of good birth; and albeit Ann could not but
rejoice over these gifts for their own sake, she did so all the more
gladly, inasmuch as she guessed that Cousin Maud was well-disposed to
speed her marriage.
We were all, indeed, glad and thankful; all save the Magister, whose
face was ill-content and sour by reason that he had culled many verses
and maxims concerning love, for the most part from the Greek and Latin
poets, and yet all his attempts to repeat them before Ann came to
nothing, inasmuch as she was again and again taken up with Herdegen
and with me, after she had once shaken hands with him and given him her
greetings.
At supper he was as dumb as the carp which were served, and it befell
that for the first time Herdegen took his seat between him and his
heart’s beloved; and verily I was grieved for him when, after supper, he
withdrew downcast to his own chamber. The rest of us went forth to Saint
Sebald’s church, where that night there would be midnight matins, as
there was every year, and a mass called the Christ mass. Cousin Maud and
Kunz were with us, as in the old happy days when we were children and
when we never missed; and in the streets as we went, we met all manner
of folks singing gladly:
Puer natus in Bethlehem,
Sing, rejoice, Jerusalem!
or the carol:
Congaudeat turba fadelium!
Natus est rex, Salvator omnium
In Bethlehem.
and we joined in; and at last all went together to see Ann to her home.
Next evening there were more costly gifts, but albeit Puer natus was
still to be heard in the streets, we no longer were moved to join in.