download PDF version: 38.1MB - Global Grey

MARRIAGE OF CHRISTIAN ROSENCREUTZ. 151
that thy high office makes thee not proud, wherefore if by
thy permission we might by lot part the Lords here present,
thou shouldst, with our goodwill, have such a preroga-
tive." We let this pass for a jest, and began again to dis-
course together, but our Virgin could not leave tormenting
us, and continued: "My lords, how if we should permit
fourtune to decide which of us must be together to-night 1 " una dormientium.
"Well," said I, "if it may be no otherwise, we cannot
refuse such a proffer." Now because it was concluded to
make this trial after meat, we resolved to sit no longer at
table, so we arose and each walked up and down with his
Virgin.
"
Nay," said the president,
"
it shall not be so
yet, but let us see how fortune will couple us," upon which
we were separated. Now first arose a dispute how the
business should be carried out, but this was only a pre-
meditated device, for the Virgin instantly proposed that
we should mix ourselves in a ring, and that she beginning
to count from herself, the seventh was to be content with
the following seventh, were it a virgin or man. We were
not aware of any craft, and therefore permitted it so to be ;
but when we thought we had very well mingled ourselves,
the Virgins were so subtil that each knew her station
before-hand. The president began to reckon, the seventh
next her was a Virgin, the third seventh a Virgin likewise,
and this continued till, to our amazement, all the Virgins
came forth and none of us was hit. Thus we poor wretches
remained standing alone, and were forced to confess that
we had been handsomely couzened, albeit, whoever had
seen us in our order might sooner have expected the sky to
fall then that it should never have come to our turn.
Herewith our sport was abandoned. In the interim the
little wanton Cupid came also in unto us, but because he