This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
Translated from the German by Mary J. Safford
In the Art-Palace on green Isar's strand,
Before one picture long I kept my seat,
It held me spellbound by some magic band,
Nor when my home I sought, could I forget.
A year elapsed, came winter's frost and snow,
'Twas rarely now we saw the bright sun shine,
I plucked up courage and cried: "Be it so!"
Then southward wandered with those I call mine.
Like birds of passage built we there a nest
On a palm-shaded shore, all steeped in light,
Life was a holiday, enjoyed with zest
And grateful hearts, the while it winged its flight.
Oft on the sea's wide purplish-blue expanse,
With ever new delight I fixed my eyes,
Alma Tadema's picture, at each glance
Recalled to mind, a thousand times would rise.
Once a day dawned, glad as a bride's fair face,
Perfume, and light, and joy it did enfold,
Then-without search, flitted from out of space
Words for the tale that my friend's picture told.
"Salt sea-water or oil, it's all the same to you! Haven't I put my lampout long ago? Doesn't the fire on the hearth give light enough? Areyour eyes so drowsy that they don't see the dawn shining in upon us moreand more brightly? The olives are not yet pressed, and the old oil isgetting toward the dregs. Besides, you know how much fruit thoseabominable thieves have stolen. But sparrows will carry grain into thebarn before you'll try to save your master's property!"
So Semestre, the ancient house-keeper of Lysander of Syracuse, scoldedthe two maids, Chloris and Dorippe, who, unheeding the smoking wicks oftheir lamps, were wearily turning the hand-mills.
Dorippe, the younger of the two, grasped her disordered black tresses,over which thousands of rebellious little hairs seemed to weave a veil ofmist, drew from the mass of curls falling on her neck a bronze arrow,with which she extinguished the feeble light of both lamps, and, turningto the house-keeper, said:
"There, then! We can't yet tell a black thread from a white one, and Imust put out the lamps, as if this rich house were a beggar's hut. Twohundred jars of shining oil were standing in the storehouses a week ago.Why did the master let them be put on the ship and taken to Messina byhis brother and Mopsus?"
"And why isn't the fruit gathered yet?" asked Chloris. "The olives areoverripe, and the thieves have an easy task, now the watchmen have goneto Messina as rowers. We must save by drops, while we own more gnarledolive-trees than there are days in the year. How many jars of oil mightbe had from the fruit that has dropped on the ground alone! The harvestat neighbor Protarch's was over long ago, and if I were like Lysander—"
"There would probably be an end of saving," cried the house-keeper,interrup