CHAPTER I. THE HERO.

 In John Lyly's Endymion, Sir Topas is made to say; "Dost thou know what a Poet is? Why, fool, a Poet is as much as one should say,--a Poet!" And thou, reader, dost thou know what a hero is? Why, a hero is as much as one should say,--a hero! Some romance-writers, however, say much more than this. Nay¹, the old Lombard, Matteo Maria Bojardo, set all the church-bells in Scandiano ringing, merely because he had found a name for one of his heroes. Here, also, shall church-bells be rung, but more solemnly.

 

The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun. The brightness of our life is gone. Shadows of evening fall around us, and the world seems but a dim reflection,--itself a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming, lonely night. The soul withdraws into itself. Then stars arise, and the night is holy.

 

Paul Flemming had experienced this, though still young. The friend of his youth was dead. The bough² had broken "under the burden of the unripe³ fruit." And when, after a season, he looked up again from the blindness of his sorrow, all things seemed unreal. Like the man, whose sight had been restored by miracle, he beheld⁴ men, as trees, walking. His household gods were broken. He had no home. His sympathies cried aloud from his desolate⁵ soul, and there came no answer from the busy, turbulent world around him. He did not willingly give way to grief. He struggled to be cheerful,--to be strong. But he could no longer look into the familiar faces of his friends. He could no longer live alone, where he had lived with her. He went abroad, that the sea might be between him and the grave. Alas⁶! betweenhim and his sorrow there could be no sea, but that of time.

 

He had already passed many months in lonely wandering, and was now pursuing his way along the Rhine, to the south of Germany. He had journeyed the same way before, in brighter days and a brighter season of the year, in the May of life and in the month of May. He knew the beauteous river all by heart;--every rock and ruin, every echo, every legend. The ancient castles, grim and hoar, that had taken root as it were on the cliffs,--they were all his; for his thoughts dwelt in them, and the wind told him tales.

 

He had passed a sleepless⁷ night at Rolandseck, and had risen before daybreak. He opened the window of the balcony to hear the rushing of the Rhine. It was a damp December morning; and clouds were passing over the sky,--thin, vapory clouds, whose snow-white skirts were "often spotted⁹ with golden tears, which men call stars." The day dawned slowly; and, in the mingling¹⁰ of daylightand starlight, the island and cloister¹¹ of Nonnenwerth made together but one broad, dark shadow on the silver breast of the river. Beyond, rose the summits of the Siebengebirg. Solemn and dark, like a monk¹², stood the Drachenfels, in his hood¹³ of mist, and rearward extended the Curtain of Mountains, back to the Wolkenburg,--the Castle of the Clouds.

 

But Flemming thought not of the scene before him. Sorrow unspeakable was upon his spirit in that lonely hour; and, hiding his face in his hands, he exclaimed aloud;

 

"Spirit of the past! look not so mournfully at me with thy great, tearful eyes! Touch me not with thy cold hand! Breathe not upon me with the icy breath of the grave! Chant no more that dirge¹⁴ of sorrow, through the long and silent watches of the night!"

 

Mournful voices from afar seemed to answer, "Treuenfels!" and he remembered how others had suffered, and his heart grew still.

 

Slowly the landscape brightened. Down therushing stream came a boat, with its white wings spread, and darted¹⁵ like a swallow through the narrow pass of God's-Help. The boatmen were singing, but not the song of Roland the Brave, which was heard of old by the weeping Hildegund, as she sat within the walls of that cloister, which now looked forth¹⁶ in the pale morning from amid the leafless linden trees. The dim traditions of those gray old times rose in the traveller's memory; for the ruined tower of Rolandseck was still looking down upon the Kloster Nonnenwerth, as if the sound of the funeral bell had changed the faithful Paladin to stone, and he were watching still to see the form of his beloved one come forth, not from her cloister, but from her grave. Thus the brazen¹⁷ clasps of the book of legends were opened, and, on the page illuminated¹⁸ by the misty¹⁹ rays of the rising sun, he read again the tales of Liba, and the mournful bride of Argenfels, and Siegfried, the mighty²⁰ slayer²¹ of the dragon. Meanwhile the mists had risen from the Rhine, and the whole air was filled with golden vapor⁸, through which hebeheld the sun, hanging in heaven like a drop of blood. Even thus shone the sun within him, amid the wintry vapors²², uprising from the valley of the shadow of death, through which flowed the stream of his life,--sighing, sighing!

1 nay   

adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者

参考例句：

• He was grateful for and proud of his son's remarkable,nay,unique performance.他为儿子出色的，不，应该是独一无二的表演心怀感激和骄傲。
• Long essays,nay,whole books have been written on this.许多长篇大论的文章，不，应该说是整部整部的书都是关于这件事的。

2 bough   

n.大树枝，主枝

参考例句：

• I rested my fishing rod against a pine bough.我把钓鱼竿靠在一棵松树的大树枝上。
• Every bough was swinging in the wind.每条树枝都在风里摇摆。

3 unripe   

adj.未成熟的；n.未成熟

参考例句：

• I was only ill once and that came of eating an unripe pear.我唯一一次生病是因为吃了未熟的梨。
• Half of the apples are unripe.一半的苹果不熟。

4 beheld   

v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟

参考例句：

• His eyes had never beheld such opulence. 他从未见过这样的财富。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soul beheld its features in the mirror of the passing moment. 灵魂在逝去的瞬间的镜子中看到了自己的模样。 来自英汉文学 - 红字

5 desolate   

adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂

参考例句：

• The city was burned into a desolate waste.那座城市被烧成一片废墟。
• We all felt absolutely desolate when she left.她走后，我们都觉得万分孤寂。

6 alas   

int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等)

参考例句：

• Alas!The window is broken!哎呀！窗子破了！
• Alas,the truth is less romantic.然而，真理很少带有浪漫色彩。

7 sleepless   

adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的

参考例句：

• The situation gave her many sleepless nights.这种情况害她一连好多天睡不好觉。
• One evening I heard a tale that rendered me sleepless for nights.一天晚上，我听说了一个传闻，把我搞得一连几夜都不能入睡。

8 vapor   

n.蒸汽，雾气

参考例句：

• The cold wind condenses vapor into rain.冷风使水蒸气凝结成雨。
• This new machine sometimes transpires a lot of hot vapor.这部机器有时排出大量的热气。

9 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

10 mingling   

adj.混合的

参考例句：

• There was a spring of bitterness mingling with that fountain of sweets. 在这个甜蜜的源泉中间，已经掺和进苦涩的山水了。
• The mingling of inconsequence belongs to us all. 这场矛盾混和物是我们大家所共有的。

11 cloister   

n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝

参考例句：

• They went out into the stil,shadowy cloister garden.他们出了房间，走到那个寂静阴沉的修道院的园子里去。
• The ancient cloister was a structure of red brick picked out with white stone.古老的修道院是一座白石衬托着的红砖建筑物。

12 monk   

n.和尚，僧侣，修道士

参考例句：

• The man was a monk from Emei Mountain.那人是峨眉山下来的和尚。
• Buddhist monk sat with folded palms.和尚合掌打坐。

13 hood   

n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖

参考例句：

• She is wearing a red cloak with a hood.她穿着一件红色带兜帽的披风。
• The car hood was dented in.汽车的发动机罩已凹了进去。

14 dirge   

n.哀乐，挽歌，庄重悲哀的乐曲

参考例句：

• She threw down her basket and intoned a peasant dirge.她撂下菜篮，唱起庄稼人的哀歌。
• The stranger,after listening for a moment,joined in the mournful dirge.听了一会儿后这个陌生人也跟著唱起了悲哀的挽歌。

15 darted   

v.投掷，投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 )；向前冲，飞奔

参考例句：

• The lizard darted out its tongue at the insect. 蜥蜴伸出舌头去吃小昆虫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The old man was displeased and darted an angry look at me. 老人不高兴了，瞪了我一眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

17 brazen   

adj.厚脸皮的，无耻的，坚硬的

参考例句：

• The brazen woman laughed loudly at the judge who sentenced her.那无耻的女子冲着给她判刑的法官高声大笑。
• Some people prefer to brazen a thing out rather than admit defeat.有的人不愿承认失败，而是宁肯厚着脸皮干下去。

18 illuminated   

adj.被照明的；受启迪的

参考例句：

• Floodlights illuminated the stadium. 泛光灯照亮了体育场。
• the illuminated city at night 夜幕中万家灯火的城市

19 misty   

adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的

参考例句：

• He crossed over to the window to see if it was still misty.他走到窗户那儿，看看是不是还有雾霭。
• The misty scene had a dreamy quality about it.雾景给人以梦幻般的感觉。

20 mighty   

adj.强有力的；巨大的

参考例句：

• A mighty force was about to break loose.一股巨大的力量即将迸发而出。
• The mighty iceberg came into view.巨大的冰山出现在眼前。

21 slayer   

n. 杀人者，凶手

参考例句：

• The young man was Oedipus, who thus unknowingly became the slayer of his own father. 这位青年就是俄狄浦斯。他在不明真相的情况下杀死了自己的父亲。
• May I depend on you to stand by me and my daughters, then, deer-slayer? 如此说来，我可以指望你照料我和女儿了，杀鹿人？

22 vapors   

n.水汽，水蒸气，无实质之物( vapor的名词复数 )；自夸者；幻想 [药]吸入剂 [古]忧郁（症）v.自夸，（使）蒸发( vapor的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• His emotions became vague and shifted about like vapors. 他的心情则如同一团雾气，变幻无常，捉摸不定。 来自辞典例句
• They have hysterics, they weep, they have the vapors. 他们歇斯底里，他们哭泣，他们精神忧郁。 来自辞典例句