Read Ebook: The Chautauquan Vol. 04 March 1884 No. 6 by Chautauqua Institution Chautauqua Literary And Scientific Circle Flood Theodore L Editor

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Translator: Mary J. Safford

FELICITAS

FELICITAS

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY M. A. C. E.

LONDON MACMILLAN AND CO. 1883

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.

FELICITAS.

INTRODUCTION.

Some years ago I was at work in Salzburg: in the library among the old records, and in the Museum of Roman antiquities.

My studies were principally concerned with the fifth century: the time when the Germanic tribes invaded these regions, the Roman garrisons retiring with or without resistance, while many settlers remained in the land. Peasants, trades-people, mechanics, would not forsake their homes, nor give up their lucrative occupations, would not quit their valued, long-cherished plots of ground, but stayed under the rule of the Barbarian; who, when the storm and battle of conquest were over, and the division of the country completed, did not molest them.

The work of the day over, I wandered in the beautiful, long-familiar country of the Salzach valley; the warm June evenings permitted long wanderings up to a late hour. Thought and fancy were filled with the pictures of the life and the changing fate of the latest Romans in these lands. My imagination was excited by the inscriptions, coins, and utensils, by the Roman monuments of every kind which are found in such rich abundance in and around Salzburg; for this town, with its prominent fortress, the "Capitolium," on the rocky hill dominating stream and valley, was for centuries, under the name of "Claudium Juvavum," a chief bulwark of the Roman rule and the seat of a flourishing and brilliant development of the Roman culture. The inscriptions testify to the official rank of many of the citizens, such as Duumvirs, Decurions, AEdiles of the markets and games; to the importance of the town as a place of trade, and to the encouragement given to the arts and manufactures.

That which had occupied me during the labours of the day was pictured by the play of fancy, when in the evening I wandered out through the gate of the town: stream and road, hill and valley, were then peopled for me with forms of the Roman life; and from the distant north-west, like the driving clouds that often arose from the Bavarian plain, approached menacingly the invading Germans.

Most frequently, I preferred to saunter along the banks of the stream in the direction of the great Roman road, which passed the Chiemsee, and crossing its effluent, the Alz, at Siebruck , and the Inn at Pf?nz , led towards the province of Vindelicia and its splendid capital, Augsburg . Many coins, fragments of pottery, urns, gravestones, and household utensils of every kind have been found in the level country which stretches on each side of the old highroad, and is now for the most part covered with forest and brushwood, and in some parts overgrown with thick ivy. It is evident that farms, and also stately villas of the rich citizens, were thickly scattered beyond the outer wall of the fortified town, thus filling and adorning the whole valley. I often wandered in the neighbourhood of this Roman road, the traces of which were still distinctly visible, watching the setting sun, and wondering what were the feelings of the inhabitants of these villas, when, instead of the proud Legions marching by on their way to the Roman town on the Lech, it was the first weak bands of the Germans from the conquered Vindelicia who galloped in, carefully reconnoitring; and soon to be followed by larger masses, more daring, or rather having the well-grounded confidence that they would find the country only weakly defended, and would be able to establish themselves as masters over the defenceless Romans who still remained.

I determined to-day to follow the rivulet till I should reach its source, which I imagined to be under the gentle slope of a moderately high hill; for I knew that the Romans liked to build their quiet villas as well as their military stations by running water.

It was very hot on that summer day, I was tired in body and mind, and it was only slowly, and with difficulty, that I could ascend the course of the brook, forcing my way through the thick and often nearly impassable bushes by the help of my alpenstock, which I carried with, me, as I often climbed the mountains in my wanderings.

I could willingly have stretched myself drowsily on the soft inviting moss; but I resisted the inclination, and determined to press through and up to the goal I had set myself: the source of the stream.

In half an hour the slope was reached; the height is called by the people, "the Pagan mound." Along the latter part of the way I had noticed a striking increase in the number and size of the fragments of stone; among them also were red and gray marble, like that which had been quarried in the neighbourhood for unnumbered centuries; and it was, as I had imagined, close under the crown of the hill the stream trickled out of the ground.

I pulled at the stone, but it was too heavy, either from the load of earth or from its own size.

After some useless efforts, I found that I must clear off the layers of turf and moss before the marble would entrust me with its secret.

I hastily scraped away earth, stones, and moss from the cutting of the letters, for it was quickly getting darker, and I wished to make out at once the long-buried secret. I succeeded; without question, though certainly with difficulty, I read the inscription, in two lines under each other:

Hic habitat Felicit... Nihil mali intret.

The two last letters of the third word alone were missing; the stone was here broken away, and its companion piece was not to be found; but it was self-evident that the missing letters were--as--the inscription meant:

Here dwells happiness; May nothing evil enter in.

Clearly the gray marble slab had formed the threshold of the entrance to the garden or porch of the villa; and the adage expressed the wish that all evil might be kept far from the door.

I sought in vain for yet farther traces, for remains of household utensils.

Pleased and satisfied with the discovery of the pretty proverb, I then rested.

Wiping my heated brow, I sat down on the soft moss by my work, thinking again and again of the words; I supported my back against an old oak, which had grown up out of the rubbish of the house, or, perhaps, out of the good mould of the little garden.

A wondrous quiet reigned over the hill, which was quite separated from the world by trees and bushes.

Only very, very faintly one heard the trickling of the small, scanty vein of water which came out of the earth close by me, and only sometimes, when it found a quicker fall, rippled more strongly. Once, no doubt, when handsomely enclosed in the clear gray marble, it had spoken loader.

In the distance, on the summit of a high beech, the golden oriole sang its flute-like evening song, which told of still deeper forest loneliness, for the listener seldom hears the notes of the "Pirol," except in such a solitude. Bees hummed here and there over the mossy carpet, coming out of the dark thicket and seeking the warmer light, sleepy themselves and lulling to sleep with their humming.

This was my last waking thought, for with the last question I fell asleep.

And long did I slumber; for when the song of the nightingale, loudly exultant, close to my ear, awoke me, it was dark night; a single star shone through the branches of the oak. I sprang up: "Felicitas! Fulvius!" I cried, "Liuthari! Felicitas! where are they?"

"Felicitas!" softly repeated the echo from the hill. All else was still and dark.

So was it a dream?

Felicitas, I hold thee!

Thou shalt not escape me.

Poetical fancy can immortalise thee.

And I hastened home, and the same night noted down the history which I had dreamt among the ruins of the old Roman villa.

It was a beautiful evening in June, The sun threw its golden beams from the west, from Vindelicia, on the Mercurius Hill, and the modest villa which crowned it.

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