Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan Source:
http://www.archive.org/details/specimensofgerma01soaniala
2. Footnotes are at the end of the book.
From the German of
It was in the year 1568, on the 17th of May, old style, thatAlthea,the widow of Netz of Bogendorf, sate in her apartments at Schweidnitz.The mourning veil still flowed about her pale beautiful face, while herblue eyes gazed through their tears with melancholy tenderness on theonly pledge of a brief yet happy union, the four years' old Henry, whosate upon her knees, and in childish sport was trying to pull thegolden locks of his mother from under her widows' cap. Before her stoodher old uncle, Seifried von Schindel, and, while he held the fullgoblet in his hand, exhausted himself in consolations to lessen theanguish of his beloved niece. With good-humoured rebuke he exclaimed,"It is, no doubt, praise-worthy in your zeal to grieve for the loss ofyour husband; I myself can't bear those widows, who, like green wood,weep at one end, and burn at the other; but even good may be carried toexcess, and this utter surrender of yourself to grief is as contrary toreason as it is to the word of God."
"How can I help it?" said Althea, with calm; and patientsorrow: "Howcan I help it, when all that surrounds me is an inexhaustible source oftears? Do I see my husband's sword hanging against the wall, I mustweep--do I hear his war-horse neighing in the stable, I must weep--doesmy sight fall upon this fatherless child alas!"--tears stifled herwords.
"A child who will soon be motherless too," exclaimed heruncle, "if yougo on thus destroying your health by such unchristian want offortitude. Every thing has its season; your year of widowhood is past,and as you are no longer entitled to wear black, so your mind too mustcast off the mourning in which it has been too closely enveloped, andyou must begin again to live for the world, to which, after all, youbelong. If you were a papist, you might bury your grief in a cloister,for ought I should care; but that won't do now; and, besides, you haveimportant and sacred duties upon you. The property that you have topreserve for the son of a beloved husband requires a stout protector inthese stormy times. A woman's bringing up, too, will not be sufficientfor him, and you'll not like to let him go from you so soon; thereforeyou must give him a father who, with all love and earnestness, willmake an honourable knight out of him. In a word, you must marry again."
"Spare me such language, uncle," cried Althea, rising andputting downthe child.
But with gentle violence he forced her back into the chairagain,saying, "It becomes youth to listen to the well-meant admonitions ofage, even though it should not happen to relish them: I keep to myposition. You least of all have occasion to complain of the want ofwooers. There is Hans Hund of Ingersdorf, Adam von Schweinic