Page:The whole familiar colloquies of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam.djvu/252

 leering at us. Pointing at us with their fingers, they advance to us, retreat, run backward and forward, nod as if they would fain have said something to us, if they had had courage enough to have done it. Me. And was not you afraid then? Og. No, not at all; but I looked them full in the face very cheerfully, as who should say speak and welcome. At length one of them comes up to me and asked my name. I told it him. He asked me if I was the person that a matter of two years ago set up a votive table in Hebrew letters'? I told him I was. Me. Can you write Hebrew then? Og. No; but they call everything Hebrew that they cannot understand. But by and by, upon calling, as I suppose, came the πρῶτος ὕστερος of the college.

Me. What title of dignity is that? Have they not an abbot? Og. No. Me. Why so? Og. Because they do not understand Hebrew. Me. Have they no bishop? Og. None at all. Me. Why so? Og. Because the Virgin is so poor that she has not wherewith to buy a staff and mitre. Me. Have they not so much as a president? Og. No, nor that neither. Me. What hinders? Og. Because a president is a name of dignity and not of holiness, and therefore the colleges of canons reject the name of an abbot, but they willingly allow the name of a president. Me. But this πρῶτον ὕστερον is what I never heard of before. Og. In truth you are but an indifferent grammarian then. Me. I know what Ὑστερόπρωτον is in rhetoric. Og. Why, that is it. He that is next the prior is posterior-prior. You mean a sub-prior.

Og. He saluted me very courteously. He told me what great pains had been taken to read those verses; what wiping of spectacles there had been to no purpose; how often one grave doctor of divinity, and another of law, had been brought thither to expound the table. One said the letters were Arabic, another said they were fictitious ones; but at last they found one that made a shift to read the title. It was written in Latin words and Latin capitals. The verses were Greek in Greek capitals, which at first sigh t looked like Roman capitals. Being requested, I turned the verses into Latin, word for word. They would have given me a reward for this small service, but I positively refused it, affirming that there was nothing so difficult that I would not, with all the readiness in the world, undertake for the sake of the holy Virgin, even if she should command me to carry a letter for her from thence to Jerusalem. Me. What occasion can she have for you to be her letter-carrier that has so many angels for her secretaries and pages?

Og. He pulled out of his pouch a little piece of wood, cut off from the beam on which the Virgin mother stood. The admirable fragrancy of it shewed it to be a thing that was highly sacred. I having received this present in the lowest posture of humility and bare headed, and having kissed it over and over, put it in my pocket. Me. May a person see it? Og. I will let you see it if you will. But if you have eaten or drank to-day, or have had to do with your wife last night, I would not advise you to look upon it. Me. Let me see it; there is no danger. Og. Here it is for you. Me. O happy man art thou that hast such a present! Og. Whether you know it or no, I would not exchange this little fragment for all the gold in Tagus. I will set it in gold, and put it in a crystal case so that it may be seen through it.