Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/69

52 answers of the personified Misfortune to whom he addresses his complaint.

Of the author of this very interesting work little is known. His Christian name was Ludvik, and he represents himself as being himself the discarded lover who addresses his complaint to Misfortune. He adopted the name of the Weaver, being, as he writes, "a weaver of learned lines." He was, according to recent research, not a nobleman of the Bohemian court, as had been formerly supposed, but a literary man who was in the service of the Dowager-Queen Elizabeth at Königgrätz, employed as a "writer" in some not clearly defined position. While it thus appears that the Weaver was a man of comparatively humble position, a more thorough study of the book has also proved that the fair Adlička, who had forsaken him to marry another, was not, as has been written, "one of the beauties of the Bohemian court," but that she was (as her lover indeed himself tells us) employed at that court as a "topička" (literally, lighter of fires), a word that we must reluctantly translate by "housemaid." Ludvik is, therefore, yet another instance of the facility with which a literary man idealises his mistress. It has been proved in recent years that the Weaver in many respects resembles a somewhat earlier German book entitled Der Ackermann aus Beheim, which dates from the year 1399. Without entering into the controversy that has arisen on this subject, it will be sufficient to state that the Weaver is not an adaptation, far less a translation of the German work, though there are certainly many resemblances between the two books. It may be interesting to quote part of one of the laments which the Weaver addresses