LITTERATEUR AND BOOK-HUNTER
To the verse above mentioned I select another to be included in this narrative. The Haslibacher hymn written in the sixteenth century and published in the Ausbund, a hymn book of the Mennonites which has gone through eight editions in America and is still used among the Amish of Lancaster County, always made a strong impression upon me because of its dramatic power and simplicity. It has many of the features of the ballad literature and of the Nibelungenlied. I translated it from the German when at Harrisburg, in the midst of my first session of the legislature, as a sort of relief from the onerous pressure of new and difficult official duties. The translation preserves the rhyme, meter and versification, and to a certain extent maintains the spirit of the original:
Xanthippe[1]
(Sola)
| The tea of yarbs that cured my mother must |
| Have lost its virtue, opodeldoc don't |
| Appear to do no good, and what betwixt |
| The rheumatiz and Socrates I feel |
| A-worried nigh to death. He is the most |
| Provoking man alive I do believe. |
| While I am down upon my knees, and me |
| All stiff and crippled, scrubbing off the floor |
| And trying hard to keep things neat and clean |
| He's gone with Alcibiades and them |
| Old loafers wandering around the streets |
| To talk about Philosophy. There's lots |
| Of work to do in Athens he might get. |
| If he would only try, and give up these |
| Ridiculous notions. Then we might live just |
| As nice as other folks. There has not been |
| A carpet on this floor for seven years, |
| And when I tell him, as I sometimes do, |
| He says, “The Gods require no carpet and |
| Xanthippe we but imitate the Gods.” |
| As if that consolation were to me! |
- ↑ Written by request in early life for a public entertainment given at Phœnixville at which were represented a number of historic women.
