Translations from the German · Thomas Carlyle
MELECHSALA.
Father Gregory, the ninth of the name who sat upon St. Peter's chair, had once, in a sleepless night, an inspiration from the spirit, not of prophecy, but of political chicane, to clip the wings of the German Eagle, lest it rose above the head of his own haughty Rome. No sooner had the first sunbeam enlightened the venerable Vatican, than his Holiness summoned his attendant chamberlain, and ordered him to call a meeting of the Sacred College; where Father Gregory, in his pontifical apparel, celebrated high mass, and after its conclusion moved a new Crusade; to which all his cardinals, readily surmising the wise objects of this armament for God's glory and the common weal of Christendom, gave prompt and cordial assent.
Thereupon, a cunning Nuncio started instantly for Naples, where the Emperor Frederick of Swabia had his Court; and took with him in his travelling-bag two boxes, one of which was filled with the sweet honey of persuasion; the other with tinder, steel and flint, to light the fire of excommunication, should the mutinous son of the Church hesitate to pay the Holy Father due obedience. On arriving at Court, the Legate opened his sweet box, and copiously gave out its smooth confectionery. But the Emperor Frederick was a man delicate in palate; he soon smacked the taste of the physic hidden in this sweetness, and he knew too well its effects on the alimentary canal; so he turned away from the treacherous mess, and declined having any more of it. Then the Legate opened his other box, and made it spit some sparks, which singed the Imperial beard, and stung the skin like nettles; whereby the Emperor discovered that the Holy Father's finger might, ere long, be heavier on him than the Legate's loins; therefore plied himself to the purpose, engaged to lead the armies of the Lord against the Unbelievers in the East, and appointed his Princes to assemble for an expedition to the Holy Land. The Princes communicated the Imperial order to the Counts, the Counts summoned out their vassals, the Knights and Nobles; the Knights equipped their Squires and Horsemen; all mounted, and collected, each under his proper banner.
Except the night of St. Bartholomew, no night has ever caused such sorrow and tribulation in the world, as this, which God's Vicegerent upon Earth had employed in watching to produce a ruinous Crusade. Ah, how many warm tears flowed, as knight and squire pricked off, and blessed their dears! A glorious race of German heroes never saw the light, because of this departure; but languished in embryo, as the germs of plants in the Syrian desert, when the hot Sirocco has passed over them. The ties of a thousand happy marriages were violently torn asunder; ten thousand brides in sorrow hung their garlands, like the daughters of Jerusalem, upon the Babylonian willow-trees, and sat and wept; and a hundred thousand lovely maidens grew up for the bridegroom in vain, and blossomed like a rose-bed in a solitary cloister garden, for there was no hand to pluck them, and they withered away unenjoyed. Among the sighing spouses, whom this sleepless night of his Holiness deprived of their husbands, were St. Elizabeth, the Landgraf of Thuringia's lady, and Ottilia, Countess of Gleichen; a wife not standing, it is true, in the odour of sanctity, yet in respect of personal endowments, and virtuous conduct, inferior to none of her contemporaries.
Landgraf Ludwig, a trusty feudatory of the Emperor, had issued general orders for his vassals to collect, and attend him to the camp. But most of them sought pretexts for politely declining this honour. One was tormented by the gout, another by the stone; one had got his horses foundered, another's armoury had been destroyed by fire. Count Ernst of Gleichen, however, with a little troop of stout retainers, who were free and unencumbered, and took pleasure in the prospect of distant adventures, equipped their squires and followers, obeyed the orders of the Landgraf, and led their people to the place of rendezvous. The Count had been wedded for two years; and in this period his lovely consort had presented him with two children, a little master and a little miss, which, according to the custom of those stalwart ages, had been born without the aid of science, fair and softly as the dew from the Twilight. A third pledge, which she carried under her heart, was, by virtue of the Pope's insomnolency, destined, when it saw the light, to forego the embraces of its father.
Although Count Ernst put on the rugged aspect of a man, Nature maintained her rights in him, and he could not hide his strong feelings of tenderness, when at parting he quitted the embraces of his weeping spouse. As in dumb sorrow he was leaving her, she turned hastily to the cradle of her children; plucked out of it her sleeping boy; pressed it softly to her breast, and held it with tearful eyes to the father, to imprint a parting kiss on its unconscious cheek. With her little girl she did the same. This gave the Count a sharp twinge about the heart: his lips began to quiver, his mouth visibly increased in breadth; and sobbing aloud, he pressed the infants to his steel cuirass, under which there beat a very soft and feeling heart; kissed them from their sleep, and recommended them, together with their much loved mother, to the keeping of God and all the Saints. As he winded down along the castle road with his harnessed troop from the high fortress of Gleichen, she looked after him with desolate sadness, till his banner, upon which she herself had wrought the Red-cross with fine purple silk, no longer floated in her vision.
Landgraf Ludwig was exceedingly contented as he saw his stately vassal, and his knights and squires, advancing with their flag unfurled; but on viewing him more narrowly, and noticing his trouble, he grew wroth; for he thought the Count was faint of heart, and out of humour with the expedition, and following it against his will. Therefore his brow wrinkled down into frowns, and the landgraphic nostrils sniffed displeasure. Count Ernst had a fine pathognomic eye; he soon observed what ailed his lord, and going boldly up, disclosed to him the reason of his cloudy mood. His words were as oil on the vinegar of discontent; the Landgraf, with honest frankness, seized his vassal's hand, and said: "Ah, is it so, good cousin? Then the shoe pinches both of us in one place; Elizabeth's good-b'ye has given me a sore heart too. But be of good cheer! While we are fighting abroad, our wives will be praying at home, that we may return with renown and glory." Such was the custom of the country in those days: while the husband took the field, the wife continued in her chamber, solitary and still, fasting and praying, and making vows without end, for his prosperous return. This old usage is not universal in the land at present; as the last crusade of our German warriors to the distant West,[17] by the rich increase of families during the absence of their heroic heads, has sufficiently made manifest.
The pious lady, to the great dissatisfaction of her courtiers and lip-licking pages, had the custom of reserving from the Landgraf's table the most savoury dishes for certain hungry beggars, who incessantly beleaguered the castle; and she used to give herself the satisfaction, when the court dinner was concluded, of distributing this kind donation to the poor with her own hands. According to the courtly system, whereby thrift on the small scale is always to make up for wastefulness on the great, the meritorious cook-department every now and then complained of this as earnestly as if the whole dominions of Thuringia had run the risk of being eaten up by these lank-sided guests; and the Landgraf, who dabbled somewhat in economy, regarded it as so important an affair, that, in all seriousness, he strictly forbade his consort this labour of love, which had through time become her spiritual hobby. Nevertheless, one day the impulse of benevolence, and the temptation to break through her husband's orders in pursuit of it, became too strong to be resisted. She beckoned to her women, who were then uncovering the table, to take off some untouched dishes, with a few rolls of wheaten bread, and keep them as smuggled goods. These she packed into a little basket, and stole out with it by a postern gate.
But the watchers had got wind of it, and betrayed it to the Landgraf, who gave instant orders for a strict guard upon all the outlets of the castle. Being told that his lady had been seen gliding with a heavy load through the postern, he proceeded with majestic strides across the court-yard, and stept out upon the drawbridge, as if to take a mouthful of fresh air. Alas! The pious lady heard the jingling of his golden spurs; and fear and terror came upon her, till her knees trembled, and she could not move another footstep. She concealed the victual-basket under her apron, that modest covering of female charms and roguery; but whatever privileges this inviolable asylum may enjoy against excisemen and officers of customs, it is no wall of brass for a husband. The Landgraf, smelling mischief, hastened to the place; his sunburnt cheeks were reddened with indignation, and the veins swelled fearfully upon his brow. "Wife," said he, in a hasty tone, "what hast thou in the basket thou art hiding from me? Is it victuals from my table, for thy vile crew of vagabonds and beggars?" "Not at all, dear lord," replied Elizabeth, meekly, but with embarrassment, who held herself entitled, without prejudice to her sanctity, to make a little slip in the present critical position of affairs: "it is nothing but a few roses that I gathered in the garden."
Had the Landgraf been one of our contemporaries, he must have believed his lady on her word of honour, and desisted from farther search; but in those wild times the minds of men were not so polished. "Let us see," said the imperious husband, and sharply pulled the apron to a side. The tender wife had no defence against this violence but by recoiling: "O! softly, softly, my dear husband!" said she, and blushed for shame at being detected in a falsehood, in presence of her servants. But, O wonder upon wonder! the _corpus delicti_ was in very deed transformed into the fairest blooming roses; the rolls had changed to white roses, the sausages to red, the omelets to yellow ones! With joyful amazement the saintly dame observed this metamorphosis, and knew not whether to believe her eyes; for she had never given credit to her Guardian Angel for such delicate politeness, as to work a miracle in favour of a lady, when the point was to cajole a rigorous husband, and make good a female affirmation.
So visible a proof of innocence allayed the fierceness of the Lion. He now turned his tremendous looks on the down-stricken serving-men, who, as it was apparent, had been groundlessly calumniating his angelic wife; he scornfully rated them, and swore a deep oath, that the first eaves-dropping pickthank who again accused his virtuous wife to him, he would cast into the dungeon, and there let him lie and rot. This done, he took a rose from the basket, and stuck it in his hat, in triumph for his lady's innocence. History has not certified us, whether, on the following day, he found a withered rose or a cold sausage there: in the mean time it assures us, that the saintly wife, when her lord had left her with the kiss of peace, and she herself had recovered from her fright, stept down the hill, much comforted in heart, to the meadow where her nurslings, the lame and blind, the naked and the hungry, were awaiting her, to dole out among them her intended bounty. For she well knew that the miraculous deception would again vanish were she there, as in reality it did; for, on opening her victual-magazine she found no roses at all, but in their stead the nutritious crumbs which she had snatched from the teeth of the castle bone-polishers.
Though now, by the departure of her husband, she was to be freed from his rigorous superintendence, and obtain free scope to execute her labours of love in secret or openly, when and where it pleased her, yet she loved her imperious husband so faithfully and sincerely, that she could not part from him without the deepest sorrow. Ah! she foreboded but too well, that in this world she should not see him any more. And for the enjoyment of him in the other, the aspect of affairs was little better. A canonised Saint has such preferment there, that all other Saints compared with her are but a heavenly mob. High as the Landgraf had been stationed in this sublunary world, it was a question whether, in the courts of Heaven, he might be found worthy to kneel on the footstool of her throne, and raise his eyes to his former bedmate. Yet, many vows as she made, many good works as she did, much as her prayers in other cases had availed with all the Saints, her credit in the upper world was not sufficient to stretch out her husband's term a span. He died on this march, in the bloom of life, of a malignant fever, at Otranto, before he had acquired the knightly merit of chining a single Saracen. While he was preparing for departure, and the time was come for him to give the world his blessing, he called Count Ernst from among his other servants and vassals to his bedside; appointed him commander of the troops which he himself had led thus far, and made him swear that he would not return till he had thrice drawn his sword against the Infidel. Then he took the holy viaticum from the hands of his marching chaplain; and ordering as many masses for his soul, as might have brought himself and all his followers triumphantly into the New Jerusalem, he breathed his last. Count Ernst had the corpse of his lord embalmed: he enclosed it in a silver coffin, and sent it to the widowed lady, who wore mourning for her husband like a Roman Empress, for she never laid her weeds aside while she continued in this world.
Count Ernst of Gleichen forwarded the pilgrimage as much as possible, and arrived in safety with his people in the camp at Ptolemais. Here, it was rather a theatrical emblem of war than a serious campaign that met his view. For as on our stages, when they represent a camp or field of battle, there are merely a few tents erected in the foreground, and a little handful of players scuffling together; but in the distance many painted tents and squadrons to assist the illusion, and cheat the eye, the whole being merely intended for an artificial deception of the senses; so also was the crusading army a mixture of fiction and reality. Of the numerous heroic hosts that left their native country, it was always the smallest part that reached the boundaries of the land they had gone forth to conquer. But few were devoured by the swords of the Saracens. These Infidels had powerful allies, whom they sent beyond their frontiers, and who made brisk work among their enemies, though getting neither wages nor thanks for their good service. These allies were, Hunger and Nakedness, Perils by land and water and among bad brethren, Frost and Heat, Pestilence and malignant Boils; and the grinding Home-sickness also fell at times like a heavy Incubus upon the steel harness, and crushed it together like soft pasteboard, and spurred the steed to a quick return. Under these circumstances, Count Ernst had little hope of speedily fulfilling his oath, and thrice dyeing his knightly sword in unbelieving blood, as must be done before he thought of returning. For three days' journey round the camp, no Arab archer was to be seen; the weakness of the Christian host lay concealed behind its bulwarks and entrenchments; they did not venture out to seek the distant enemy, but waited for the slow help of his slumbering Holiness, who, since the wakeful night that gave rise to this Crusade, had enjoyed unbroken sleep, and about the issue of the Holy War had troubled himself very little.
In this inaction, as inglorious to the Christian army, as of old that loitering was to the Greeks before the walls of bloody but courageous Troy, where the godlike Achilles, with his confederates, moped so long about his fair Briseis,--the chivalry of Christendom kept up much jollity and recreation in their camp, to kill lazy time, and scare away the blue devils; the Italians, with song and harping, to which the nimble-footed Frenchmen danced; the solemn Spaniards with chess; the English with cock-fighting; the Germans with feasting and wassail. Count Ernst, taking small delight in any of these pastimes, amused himself with hunting; made war on the foxes in the dry wildernesses, and pursued the shy chamois into the barren mountains. The knights of his train "disagreed" with the glowing sun by day, and the damp evening air under the open sky, and sneaked to a side when their lord called for his horses; therefore, in his hunting expeditions, he was generally attended only by his faithful Squire, named the mettled Kurt, and a single groom. Once, his eagerness in clambering after the chamois, had carried him to such a distance, that the sun was dipping in the Mid-sea wave before he thought of returning; and, fast as he hastened homewards, night came upon him at a distance from the camp. The appearance of some treacherous _ignes fatui_, which he mistook for the watch-fires, led him off still farther. On discovering his error, he resolved to rest beneath a tree till daybreak. The trusty Squire prepared a bed of soft moss for his lord, who, wearied by the heat of the day, fell asleep before he could lift his hand to bless himself, according to custom, with the sign of the cross.
But to the mettled Kurt there came no wink of sleep, for he was by nature watchful like a bird of darkness; and though this gift had not belonged to him, his faithful care for his lord would have kept him waking. The night, as usual in the climate of Asia, was serene and still; the stars twinkled in pure diamond light; and solemn silence, as in the Valley of Death, reigned over the wide desert. No breath of air was stirring, yet the nocturnal coolness poured life and refreshment over herb and living thing. But about the third watch, when the morning star had begun to announce the coming day, there arose a din in the dusky remoteness, like the voice of a forest stream rushing over some steep precipice. The watchful squire listened eagerly, and sent his other senses also out for tidings, as his sharp eye could not pierce the veil of darkness. He hearkened, and snuffed at the same time, like a bloodhound, for a scent came towards him as of sweet-smelling herbs and trodden grass, and the strange noise appeared to be approaching. He laid his ear to the ground, and heard a trampling as of horses' hoofs, which led him to conclude that the Infernal Chase was hunting in these parts. A cold shudder passed over him, and his terror grew extreme. He shook his master from sleep; and the latter, having roused himself, soon saw that here another than a spectral host was to be fronted. Whilst his groom girded up the horses, the Count had his harness buckled on in all haste.
The dim shadows gradually withdrew, and the advancing morning tinted the eastern hem of the horizon with purple light. The Count now discovered, what he had anticipated, a host of Saracens approaching, all equipped for fight, to snatch some booty from the Christians. To escape their hands was hopeless, and the hospitable tree in the wide solitary plain gave no shelter to conceal horse and man behind it. Unluckily the massy steed was not a Hippogryph, but a heavy-bodied Frieslander, to which, by reason of its make, the happy talent of bearing off its master on the wings of the wind had not been allotted; therefore the gallant hero gave his soul to the keeping of God and the Holy Virgin, and resolved on dying like a knight. He bade his servants follow him, and sell their lives as dear as might be. Thereupon he pricked the Frieslander boldly forward, and dashed right into the middle of the hostile squadron, who had been expecting no such sudden onset from a single knight. The Pagans started in astonishment, and flew asunder like light chaff when scattered by the wind. But seeing that the enemy was only three men strong, their courage rose, and there began an unequal battle, in which valour was surpassed by number.
The Count meanwhile kept plunging yarely through the ranks; the point of his lance gleamed death and destruction to the Infidel; and when it found its man, he flew inevitably from his saddle. Their Captain himself, who ran at him with grim fury, his manly arm laid low, and with his victorious spear transfixed him writhing in the dust, as St. George of England did the Dragon. The mettled Kurt went on with no less briskness; though availing little for attack, he was a master in the science of dispatching, and sent all to pot who did not make resistance; as a modern critic butchers the defenceless rabble of the lame and halt, who venture with such courage in our days into the literary tilt-yard: and if now and then some fainting invalid, with furious aim, like an exasperated Reviewer-hunter, did hurl a stone at him with enfeebled fist, he heeded it little; for he knew well that his basnet and iron jack would turn a moderate thump. The groom, too, did his best to make clear ground about him, and kept his master's back unharmed.
But as nine gad-flies will beat the strongest horse; four Caffre bulls an African lion; and, by the common tale, one troop of mice an archbishop, as the _Maeusethurm_, or Mouse-tower, on the Rhine, by Huebner's account, gives open testimony; so the Count of Gleichen, after doing knightly battle, was at length overpowered by the number of his enemies. His arm grew weary, his lance was shivered into splinters, his sword became blunt, and his Friesland horse at last staggered down upon the gory battle-field. The Knight's fall was the watch-word of victory; a hundred valiant arms stormed in on him to wrench away his sword, and his hand had no longer any strength for resistance. As the mettled Kurt observed the Knight come down, his own courage sank also, and along with it the pole-axe, wherewith he had so magnanimously hammered in the Saracenic skulls. He surrendered at discretion, and pressingly entreated quarter. The groom stood in blank rumination; bore himself enduringly; and awaited with oxlike equanimity the stroke of some mace upon his basnet, which should crush him to the ground.
But the Saracens were less inhuman victors than the conquered could have expected; they disarmed their three prisoners of war, and did them no bodily harm whatever. This mild usage took its rise not in any movement of philanthropy, but in mere spy's-mercy: from a dead enemy there is nothing to be learnt, and the special object of this roaming troop had been to get correct intelligence about the state of matters in the Christian host at Ptolemais. The captives, being questioned and heard, were next, according to the Asiatic fashion, furnished with slave-fetters; and as a ship was just then lying ready to set sail for Alexandria, the Bey of Asdod sent them off with it as a present to the Sultan of Egypt, to confirm at Court their description of the Christian resources and position. The rumour of the bold Frank's valour had arrived before him at the gates of Grand Cairo; and so pugnacious a prisoner might, on entering the hostile metropolis, have merited as pompous a reception as the Twelfth of April saw bestowed upon the Comte de Grasse in London, where the merry capital emulously strove to let the conquered sea-hero feel the honour which their victory had done him: but Moslem self-conceit allows no justice to foreign merit. Count Ernst, in the garb of a felon, loaded with heavy chains, was quietly locked into the Grated Tower, where the Sultan's slaves were wont to be kept.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.