Page:The Works of J. W. von Goethe, Volume 6.djvu/546

512 princess, accompanied by the rest, followed more slowly after. But the mother and the child, accompanied by the servant, who had armed himself with a rifle, hastened to ascend the mountain.

At the very entrance of the narrow road which led to the castle, they found the hunting attendants busily employed in piling together heaps of dry brushwood, to kindle a large fire.

"There is no necessity for such precaution," observed the woman: "all will yet turn out well."

They perceived Honorio at a little distance from them, sitting upon a fragment of the wall, with his double-barrelled rifle in his lap, prepared as it seemed for every emergency. But he paid little attention to the people who approached: he was absorbed in his own contemplations, and seemed engaged in deepest thought. The woman entreated that he would not permit the fire to be kindled: he, however, paid not the smallest attention to her request. She then raised her voice, and exclaimed, "Thou handsome youth who killed my tiger, I curse thee not; but spare my lion, and I will bless thee!"

But Honorio was looking upon vacancy: his eyes were bent upon the sun, which had finished its daily course, and was now about to set.

"You are looking to the setting sun," cried the woman; "and you are right, for there is yet much to do: but hasten, delay not, and you will conquer. But, first of all, conquer yourself." He seemed to smile at this observation. The woman passed on, but could not avoid looking round to observe him once more. The setting sun had cast a rosy glow upon his countenance; she thought she had never beheld so handsome a youth.

"If your child," said the attendant, "can, as you imagine, with his fluting and his singing, entice and tranquillise the lion, we shall easily succeed in mastering him; for the ferocious animal has lain down to