History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 02Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 02
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
On the other hand, Kaiser Friedrich had his Tourneys, his gleams of
bright joyances now and then; one great gathering of all the chivalries
at Mainz, which lasted for three weeks long, the grandest Tourney
ever seen in this world. Gelnhausen, in the Wetterau (ruin still worth
seeing, on its Island in the Kinzig river), is understood to have been
one of his Houses; Kaiserslautern (Kaiser's LIMPID, from its clear
spring-water) in the Pfalz (what we call PALATINATE), another. He went
on the Crusade in his seventieth year; [1189, A.D.; Saladin having, to
the universal sorrow, taken Jerusalem.] thinking to himself, "Let us
end with one clear act of piety:"--he cut his way through the dangerous
Greek attorneyisms, through the hungry mountain passes, furious Turk
fanaticisms, like a gray old hero: "Woe is me, my son has perished,
then?" said he once, tears wetting the beard now white enough; "My son
is slain!--But Christ still lives; let us on, my men!" And gained great
victories, and even found his son; but never returned home;--died, some
unknown sudden death, "in the river Cydnus," say the most. [Kohler (p.
188), and the Authorities cited by him. Bunau's _Deutsche Kaiser-und
Reichs-Historie_ (Leipzig, 1728-1743), i., is the express Book of
Barbarossa: an elaborate, instructive Volume.] Nay German Tradition
thinks he is not yet dead; but only sleeping, till the bad world reach
its worst, when he will reappear. He sits within the Hill near Salzburg
yonder,--says German Tradition, its fancy kindled by the strange noises
in that Hill (limestone Hill) from hidden waters, and by the grand rocky
look of the place:--A peasant once, stumbling into the interior, saw the
Kaiser in his stone cavern; Kaiser sat at a marble table, leaning on his
elbow; winking, only half asleep; beard had grown through the table, and
streamed out on the floor; he looked at the peasant one moment; asked
him something about the time it was; then dropped his eyelids again: Not
yet time, but will be soon! [Riesebeck's _Travels_ (English Translation,
London, 1787), i. 140, Busching, _Volks-Sagen,_ &c. (Leipzig, 1820), i.
333, &c. &x.] He is winking as if to awake. To awake, and set his
shield aloft by the Roncalic Fields again, with: Ho, every one that is
suffering wrong;--or that has strayed guideless, devil-ward, and done
wrong, which is far fataler!
CONRAD HAS BECOME BURGGRAF OF NURNBERG (A.D. 1170).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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