Читать книгу A Struggle for Rome, Vol. III - Felix Dahn - Страница 11

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Lovely—famed far and wide for its beauty—is the valley in which the Passara flows from the north into the rapid Athesis, which hurries from the west to the south-east.

Like a bending figure, which leans longingly towards the beautiful Southland, the lofty Mendola rises at a distance from the right bank of the river.

Here, above the junction of the two streams, once lay the Roman settlement of Mansio Majæ.

A little farther up the river, on a dominating rock, stood the Castle of Teriolis.

Now—from a mountain-"muhr" or "mar" (landslip)—the town is called Meran.

The Castle has given its name to the Tyrol.

"Mansio Majæ" is heard even now in the name of the place "Mais," rich in pleasant villas.

But at the time of which we speak an East Gothic garrison lay in the Castle of Teriolis, as was the case in all the old Rhætian rock-nests on the Athesis, the Isarcus, and the Oenus, in order to keep down the only half-subjected Suevi, Alamanni, and Markomanni, or, as they were already named, the Bajuvars, who dwelt in Rhætia, on the Licus, and on the lower course of the Oenus.

But, besides the garrisons of the castles, East-Gothic families had settled in larger numbers in the mild and fruitful valley and on the willow-covered slopes of the mountains.

Even now a singular, noble, and grave beauty distinguishes the peasants of the valleys of Meran, Ultner, and Sarn. These reticent people are much more refined, pensive, and aristocratic than the Bajuvar type on the Inn, the Lech, and the Isar.

Their dialect and legends support the supposition that here some few remains of the Goths continued to flourish; for the legends of the Amelungs, Dietrich of Bern, and the Rose-garden, still live in the names of the places and the traditions of the people.

Upon one of the highest mountains on the left shore of the Athesis, a Goth named Iffa had before-times settled; his descendants continued the settlement.

The mountain is named the "Iffinger" to this day. Upon the southern slope, half-way up, the simple settlement was fixed. The Gothic emigrants had found it already cultivated. The Rhætian alpine-house, which Druses had met with when he conquered the Rasenian mountain-people, had suffered no change in its characteristic and commodious form through the Roman conquerors, who built their villas in the valley, and their watch-towers on dominating rocks.

All the Romanised inhabitants of the Eltsch valley had, after the East-Gothic invasion, remained in quiet possession of their property.

For not here, but farther east, from the Save and over the Isonzo, had the Goths pressed forward into the peninsula; and only when Ravenna and Odoacer had fallen, did Theodoric spread his hosts in a peaceful and regular manner over North Italy and the Etschland.

Thus Iffa and his people had peacefully shared the soil with the Roman settlers whom they found upon the mountain, which at that time still possessed its Rasenian name.

A third of the arable land, the meadows and woods; a third part of the house, slaves, and animals, was, here as everywhere, claimed by the Gothic settler from the Roman farmer.

In the course of years, however, the Roman hospes had found this close and involuntary vicinity to the barbarians inconvenient. He therefore left the rest of his property on the mountains to the Goths, in exchange for thirty yoke of the splendid oxen which the Germans had brought with them from Pannonia—and which they so well understood how to breed—and went southwards, where the Romans dwelt in greater numbers.

And so the "Iffinger" had become completely Germanic, for the present master had suddenly sold the few Roman slaves which he possessed, and had replaced them by men and maids of Germanic race: Gepidians taken in war. This master was again named "Iffa," like his ancestor. He lived alone, a silver-haired man. A brother, and his wife and daughter-in-law, had, many years ago, been buried under a landslip.

A son, a younger brother, and a son of the latter, had obeyed the call of King Witichis to arms, and had never returned from the siege of Rome.

So no one was left to the old man but his two grandchildren, the boy and girl of the son who had fallen.

The sun had set gloriously behind the mountains which bordered the incomparable Etsch valley in the blue distance to the south and west.

A warm golden lustre lay upon the tender porphyry colouring of the "Iffinger," making it glow like red wine.

Up the mountain slope, upon the top of which stood a dwelling-house with a row of stalls a little apart, climbed slowly, step by step, resting ever and again, and holding her hands over her eyes as she looked at the sunset, a child—or was it already a maiden?—who was driving a flock of lambs before her.

She now and then gave her protégées time to crop with dainty tooth the aromatic Alpine herbs which grew in their path, and beat time with the hazel stick which she carried to an ancient and simple melody, the words of which she was softly singing:

"Little lambkins, Follow freely; By your shepherd's Hand led heedful; Like the heaven's Lovely lambkins, Like the quiet Steady stars, that Shining, sparkling, Obey ever Their bright shepherd, Mustered by the Mild moon ever, Without trouble, Without pause."

She ceased, and bent forward to look over into a deep ravine on her left hand, which had been hollowed out in the steep slope by a rapid mountain brook. Now, being summer, the water was very shallow. On the opposite side the hill again rose steeply upward.

"Where can he be?" the girl said; "usually his goats are already descending the hill when the sun has turned to gold. My flowers will fade soon!"

She seated herself upon a stone near the path, let the lambs graze, laid the hazel stick beside her, and allowed the apron of sheepskin, which, till now, she had held up carefully, to fall. A shower of the loveliest Alpine flowers fell to the ground.

She began to wind a wreath.

"The blue speik will suit his brown hair the best," she said as she worked busily. "I get much more tired when I drive the flock alone than when he is with me. And yet then we climb much higher. I wonder how it is! How my naked feet burn! I might go down to the brook and cool them. And then I should see him sooner when he comes along the height. The sun does not scorch any more."

She took off the large broad pumpkin leaf which she wore instead of a hat; and now was seen the shining colour of her pale golden hair—so fair it was!—which, stroked back from the temples, was tied together at the back of the head with a red ribbon. Like a flood of sunbeams it rippled over her neck, which was only covered by a white woollen kirtle, that, confined at the waist with a leather girdle, reached a little above the knees.

She measured the size of her wreath on her own head.

"Certainly," she said, "his head is larger. I will add these Alpine roses."

Then she tied the two ends of the wreath together with delicate grasses, sprang up, shook the remaining flowers from her lap, took the wreath in her left hand, and turned to descend the steep declivity, at the foot of which the brook gurgled amid the stones.

"No! stop up here and wait! Thou, too, darling White Elf! I will come back directly."

And she drove back the lambs, which had tried to follow, and which now, bleating, looked wistfully after their mistress.

With great agility the practised girl sprang down the ravine; now holding fast to the tough shrubs, spurge-olives, and yellow willow; now boldly leaping from rock to rock.

The loose stones broke and the fragments came rattling after her. As she merrily jumped after the rolling pebbles, she suddenly heard a sharp and threatening hiss from below.

Before she could turn, a great copper-brown snake, which had no doubt been disturbed from sunning itself on a stone, coiled itself up, ready to dart at her naked feet.

The child was alarmed; her knees trembled, and screaming loudly, she called:

"Adalgoth, help! help!"

A clear voice immediately replied to this cry of fear with the words, "Alaric! Alaric!" which sounded like a battle-cry.

The bushes on the right creaked and cracked; stones rolled down the slope, and, swift as an arrow, a slender boy in a rough wolf-skin flew between the hissing snake and the affrighted maiden.

He hurled his strong Alpine stick like a spear, and with so true an aim that the small head of the snake was transfixed to the ground. Its long body twined convulsively round the deadly shaft.

"Gotho, thou art not wounded?"

"No, thanks to thee, thou hero!"

"Then let me say the snake-charm before the viper ceases to struggle; it will ban all its fellows for three leagues around."

And lifting the three first fingers of his right hand, the boy repeated the ancient saying:

"Woe! thou wolf-worm, Wriggle wildly! Bite the bushes, Poisonous panting: Men and maidens, Hurt thou shalt not. Down, black devil, Venomous viper, Down and die now! High o'er the heads Of scaly-bright serpents Steppeth the race of the glorious Goths!"