The Ram Rebellion(154)

"Oh. Nice." Anita grinned at her private vision of the redoubtable Veleda Riddle sprouting a nice crinkled white fleece on her cheeks and neck to match the carefully tended white curls on the top of her head. .





"Then, here," Meyfarth continued, picking up a different broadside that Stewart Hawker had sent over from Bamberg. "This one has the lines not quite the same. I think that means that they aren't all coming from one source. There must be different versions springing up in many markets and villages. The first two lines are the same, but the second two are different.





"Und Du, gut' deutscher Bauer,

sei nun der Bock, der brave Ram.'





"That is, more or less . . .





"But you, good German farmer,

Now be the buck, the valiant ram.'"





"Look, Herr Meyfarth," Johnnie F. interrupted. "Up there, if I'm following you, you translated `brave' as `sturdy.' Here, I think, you translated it as `valiant.'"





Meyfarth, who had been leaning over the table, stood up straight, once more silently thanking God that he was a poet as well as a pastor and had a feel for languages. "It's both, really, depending on where the author uses it. The German `brav' isn't quite like the English `brave'—which, I think, means, `not cowardly.' It means really one who does not give in. One who stands his ground firmly. He persists. He endures much to defend that which he protects. Stubborn. Sometimes, even, `worthy.' Or, maybe, more like in the language of English writers of this day. The `sturdy yeoman.' Not—how would you say it?—not a flash in the pan."





He raised his hand and recited:





" `By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flags to April's breeze unfurl'd.

'Twas there th'embattled farmers stood,

And fired the shot heard 'round the world.'





" `Brav' would work there, too. For `embattled.' The farmers were standing their ground. That's `embattled.' But if they were not `brav,' they would not have stood to fight. So it is implied in the word that the poet used."





"Okay," Johnnie F. answered. "Got it. I think."





The sad state of twentieth-century public education was demonstrated by the fact that of all the NUS administrators in the room, only the seventeenth-century German had committed the "Concord Hymn" to memory. There were at least two uptimers who did not have the vaguest idea what Meyfarth had quoted, which did not keep them from nodding in solemn approval.





"Then," Meyfarth said, "another paragraph in German, with the story of your Brillo and how he overcame the Merino aristocrat."





"Brillo," David Petrini protested, "is not ours."





"He is a down-time ram, that is true. To some extent, that is the point. But you, you uptimers from Grantville, that is, have made him yours. So . . ."





Meyfarth paused. "So he is ours. And he is theirs—he also belongs to the farmers of Franconia, now. This broadsheet—"





Meyfarth pulled another from the stack in front of him. "—has instructions on how to make a Ram banner. With a German motto. Perhaps, from the ram's story, it began as your English, `Don't fence me in.' But the German, somewhat, is different. `Mich nicht bedruecken.' That is, `Don't hold me down.'"





"Is that the same as `Don't tread on me?'" Johnnie F. asked.





Meyfarth shook his head. "They're using that on banners up around Suhl. `Tritt nicht auf mich,' with a Schlange, a serpent. But it hasn't become popular down here in Franconia proper."





Steve Salatto then asked the question that gladdened the heart of any Lutheran pastor. "What does this mean?"





Meyfarth was delighted to explain. From the perspective of tradition, he produced a long lament on the topic of just how rare it was to find anyone at the bottom of the social pyramid who had a due appreciation of the fact that this was where he was properly placed in the Great Chain of Being and this is where he should be happy to remain, performing his duty in the station to which God had called him. He managed to bring in his observation that the Grantvillers, with rare exceptions among those who had uptime military experience, also appeared to have extraordinary difficulty in realizing that God created the world with a hierarchy, in which some give orders and others take them.





"Fine," Scott Blackwell said, "but what's with the sheep?"





Johnnie F. groaned. "It's a ram."





"It is the revolution that your Committees of Correspondence want. It is starting here in Franconia. With these broadsides. Under the banner of this ram. Not the ram for the children, with the little toys for sale. Even Franconian Catholic peasants, as benighted a group as exists within God's creation, appear to have noticed that the people of Grantville do not care for hierarchies. Nor does this ram. Also, while Franconian farmers are certainly most hard-hearted and stubborn, they lack a certain élan when it comes to choosing their revolutionary symbols. No torches held high. No swords. No daggers. No chariots of fire. No rattlesnakes."