And under our coat of arms was this posy.

“While the chain on the scutcheon holds firm and fast
The fool on the crest will be game to the last.”

Of the goodly carved seats, and the cushions covered with motley woven stuffs from the Levant, right pleasant to behold, of all the fine treasures on the walls, the Venice mirrors, and the metal cage with a grey parrot therein, which Jordan Kubbelmg, the falconer from Brunswick, had given to my dear mother, I will say no more; but I would have it understood that all was clean and bright, well ordered and of good choice, and above all snug and warm.  Nay, and if it had all been far less costly and good to look at, there was, as it were, a breath of home which must have gladdened any man’s heart:  inasmuch as all these goodly things were not of yesterday nor of to-day, but had long been a joy to many an one dear to us; so that our welfare in that dwelling was but the continuing of the good living which our parents and grandparents had known before us.

Howbeit, those who will read this writing know what a patrician’s house in Nuremberg is wont to be; and he who hath lived through a like childhood himself needs not to be told how well hide and seek may be played in a great hall, or what various and merry pastime can be devised in the twilight, in a dining hall where the lights hang from the huge beams of the ceiling; and we for certain knew every game that was worthy to be named.

But by this time all this was past and gone; only the love of song would never die out in the dwelling of the man who had been well-pleased to hear himself called by his fellows “Schopper the Singer.”  Ah! how marvellous well did their voices sound, Ann’s and my brother’s, when they sang German songs to the lute or the mandoline, or perchance Italian airs, as they might choose.  But there was one which I could never weary of hearing and which, meseemed, must work on Herdegen’s wayward heart as a cordial.  The words were those of Master Walther von der Vogelweirde, and were as follows: 

                   “True love is neither man nor maid,
                    No body hath nor yet a soul,
                    Nor any semblance here below,
                    Its name we hear, itself unknown. 
                    Yet without love no man may win
                    The grace and favor of the Lord. 
                    Put then thy trust in those who love;
                    In no false heart may Love abide.”

And when they came to the last lines Kunz would ofttimes join in, taking the bass part or continuo to the melody.  Otherwise he kept modestly in the background, for since he had come to know that Herdegen and Ann were of one mind he waited on her as a true and duteous squire, while he was now more silent than in past time, and in his elder brother’s presence almost dumb.  Yet at this I marvelled not, inasmuch as I many a time marked that brethren are not wont to say much to each other, and even between friends the one is ready enough to be silent if the other takes the word.  Moreover at Easter Kunz was likewise to quit home, and go to Venice at my granduncle’s behest.  Herdegen’s love for his brother had, of a certainty, suffered no breach; but, like many another disciple of Minerva, he was disposed to look down on the votaries of Mercury.