Studies in Mediaeval Life and Literature Part 5

Their mutual confidence is so strong that he is quite willing to have her receive any visitors whom she pleases, and she added that her true mind served him better than any safeguard which he could put upon her.

Awkward as such a line of conversation made it, Ulrich began to tell the story of his heart, and entreats her to respond to his devotion. She a.s.sured him that she had no thought of ever loving him; she had consented to this interview only to a.s.sure him of her kindly feeling, and satisfy him from her own lips that he must cherish no romantic hope.

If he continued to ask her to love him, he should lose her favor. "I was horrified," he declares, "and started up at the threat."

At this point in the interview he withdraws to talk to his cousin, who was with other ladies in an adjoining apartment, and who advised him to return and plead again. But an abrupt dismissal sends him into a moody reflection, which culminates in a desperate resolve. Now or never; he sends her word of his determination, and then rushes in and tells her that if she will not say she loves him, he will kill himself then and there. The lady sees that such a suicide would be compromising, and tries to persuade him that perhaps she may some time. Ah, no such coyness; she must confess her love to-night. Finally, as a last resource, she thinks of employing the usual right of a courted woman--putting her lover to a test of his devotion. He has already given her so many that a trifling, a merely formal one will serve now. Let him just get into the clothes-rope again and be lowered part way down, and pulled back; then she will say she loves him. A glimmer of suspicion flits over his mind, but she gives him her hand as a pledge, and he gets into the rope. Now he is hanging outside the window, still holding the dear hand, and such sweet things as she whispers, as she leans out--no knight was ever so dear to her; now comes his contentment, all his troubles are past now! She even coddles his chin with her disengaged hand, and bids him kiss her. Kiss her! In his joy he lets go the hand he was holding, to throw both arms about her neck, when suddenly he is dropped to the ground so swiftly "that he ran great peril of his life."[7]

In the rooms above a score of voices ringing with laughter, on the ground a too credulous child of Mars and Venus, cursing his day. Ulrich spies a deep pool and is about to drown himself, when his companion arrives with a little present sent by the lady. She promises--(the gentleman afterward confesses that this is a falsehood of his own to preserve Ulrich from despair)--that if he will return in three weeks, she will a.s.sure him of her real affection. But now it is near day, and they must hasten off; providentially there is a tournament awaiting them, which will distract his attention. But he sends his friend back to have a talk with the lady, who is in a rather humorous mood, and says that Ulrich made so much noise when he fell that one of the guard thought it was the Devil. But though she laughs, she evidently has had enough of such fun, for she tells the messenger that if his lord wishes her favor he must make the journey over-sea. Ulrich agrees to go, but he is warned against the almost hopeless dangers of that most formidable of pilgrimages; he is reminded that no one ever took such a perilous journey except for G.o.d, and that he would surely sacrifice his soul, if he lost his life thus for a woman.

But one grows tired of the story, which runs on with ups and downs, over the long thirteen years through which Ulrich served this lady. Toward the end of the period he was plainly growing impatient. He wrote more lyrics, which suggest here and there that devotion without love in return is foolish, and that he is contemplating a change. Finally he conceived himself treated shamefully (we are not told what the discourtesy was which he could not idealize), and he made a final break with his old wors.h.i.+p. But now the time pa.s.sed wearily, and he felt that he must still have a lady to serve. "How joyfully once the days went by; alas, no longer have I any service to render. How happy ladies' service makes one." But the knight has learned the lesson of his trials, and this time he arranges for a judicious pa.s.sion. He runs over all his female acquaintance, to see which of them he had best select. Finally he fixes upon one who, of course, is beautiful and good, and wholly free from change; who has finished manners and gentle ways, chast.i.ty and force of character, and to her he offers his service, which she accepts.

From this point in Ulrich's memoirs we have an increasing number of lyrics; he likes them all, but complains that one or two were not appreciated by the public, though whoever was clever enough to understand his poetry, he tells us, did appreciate it. Perhaps we are not clever enough to understand it all; but some of the songs, as he himself says, "are good for dancing and very cheerful; the martial ones were gladly sung when in the jousts fire sprung from helmets," and more than one of his poems is a contribution to the graceful though minor work of the later minnesingers. For example:

Summer-hued, Is the wood, Heath and field; debonair Now is seen White, brown, green, Blue, red, yellow, everywhere.

Everything You see spring Joyously, in full delight; He whose pains Dear love deigns With her favor to requite-- Ah, happy wight.

Whosoe'er Knows love's care, Free from care well may be; Year by year Brightness clear Of the May shall he see.

Blithe and gay All the play Of glad love shall he fulfil; Joyous living Is in the giving Of high love to whom she will, Rich in joys still.

He's a churl Whom a girl Lovingly shall embrace, Who'll not cry "Blest am I"-- Let none such show his face.

This will cure you (I a.s.sure you) Of all sorrows, all alarms; What alloy In his joy On whom white and pretty arms Bestow their charms?

And again:

Sweet, in whom all things behooving, Virtue, brightness, beauty, meet, Little troubles thee this loving, Thou art safe above it, sweet.

My love-trials couldst thou feel From thy dainty lips should steal Sighs like mine, as deep and real.

Sir, what is love? Prithee, answer; Is it maid or is it man?

And explain, too, if you can, sir, How it looks; though I began Long ago, I ask in vain; Everything you know explain, That I may avoid its pain.

Sweet, love is so strong and mighty That all countries own her sway; Who can speak her power rightly?

Yet I'll tell thee what I may.

She is good and she is bad; Makes us happy, makes us sad; Such moods love always had.

Sir, can love from care beguile us And our sorrowing distress?

With fair living reconcile us, Gaiety and worthiness?

If her power hath controlled Everything as I've just told, Sure her grace is manifold.

Sweet, of love there's more to tell thee; Service she with rapture pays; With her joys and honors dwell; we Learn from her dear virtue's ways.

Mirth of heart and bliss of eye Whom she loves shall satisfy; Nor will she higher good deny.

Sir, I fain would win her wages, Her approval I would seek; Yet distress my mind presages; Ah, for that I am too weak.

Pain I never can sustain.

How may I her favors gain?

Sir, the way you must explain.

Sweet, I love thee; be not cruel; Thou to love again must try.

Make a unit of our dual, That we both become an "I."

Be thou mine and I'll be thine.

"Sir, not so; the hope resign.

Be your own, and I'll be mine."

The latter part of this prolix autobiography is occupied by a detailed account of a long tourneying trip, which he contrived as a parallel to his Venus-journey, this time under the disguise of King Arthur. But the narration of that ends at last, and Ulrich becomes reflective upon the seasons and his lady. "Whoever sorrows at winter, and is made glad by summer, lives like the bird which rejoices in sunny May. How distressing is bad weather! Yet whatever the weather, her goodness gives me joy which storms cannot disturb." Presently he tells us his feelings about the life around him, for the social critics of mediaevalism felt the inequalities of fortune and happiness quite as strongly as do the social critics of to-day. Some time earlier Ulrich, in criticising a number of knights whom he met, showed a noteworthily refined feeling for generous qualities, and resistance against hardness and selfish aims. In spite of this love-singer's belief in cheerfulness ("no one does well to be sad except about sins," he wrote), the roughness of the age troubled him, as it had troubled earlier and greater authors of his nation.

"Instead of being good, the rich work one another harm; the only profession is that of plundering, the service of ladies is forsaken. The young men are spendthrifts, and with pillaging consume their youth."

Indeed, the golden hour of chivalry had struck when Ulrich wrote, in his later life, just past the middle of the thirteenth century. But this sentimental absurdity, whose fanciful devotion and melodramatic moonings we find so preposterous, kept a strain of the higher manhood. He was good-hearted; he believed in the refined side of life, so far as he knew it; in a rough time and place he loved gentleness; though born with a large streak of the fool, he had also a pleasant element of the simple-minded gentleman; and as he grew old amid fading ideals, over which he had hung with effeminately romantic faith, the brutal and joyless hardness of men perplexed and saddened him. Yet his simplicity was his trouble's best physician; nature, the beauty and goodness of true womanhood, his sense of inner virtue as opposed to worldly estimates, and his poetry--in these he found comfort.

"Whatever people have done, I have been happy and sung of my love."

After Ulrich has told the story of his worldly and sentimental career, he stops to think over the cause to which that career has been consecrated. Has he made a mistake? Never! "When beauty and goodness unite in woman, she is admirable; one whose goodness is clothed with a n.o.ble spirit wears the best of garments. Even though a woman has little beauty, if she has the raiment of goodness, men yet call her fair. Be sure that no clothes better become a lady than goodness--it is better than beauty, though that is excellent. By goodness a poor woman will become truly a lady, and this the rich cannot be without it; nay, shapely and n.o.ble though she may be, without this she is still no womanly woman." ...

"Whoever loves the sight of pretty women," he goes on, "and will not notice their goodness but only their bright charm, is like one who gathers pretty flowers for their bright beauty's sake, and twines them into a garland; then, finding that they are not fragrant, he is sorry that he gathered them. But whoever understands plants, lets those grow which have no sweet odor, and breaks off fragrant flowers."

For over thirty years he has served ladies, and he knows no truth so certain as this, that nothing equals the mutual happiness of a true woman and a loving man.

Yet sentiment can play only a minor part in life, after all. There are four main objects of exertion, and upon these, as he ends his book, the poet stops to reflect: The grace of G.o.d, honor, ease, and wealth. Some strive for one, some for another, while others aim ineffectively at all, win none, and hate themselves.

And what has this old German gallant to say of himself? In all these revelations of his life, we catch no suggestions of selfishness or meanness, but while fancying himself enacting high chivalric drama, he has been wearing cap, and bells, and motley, lance in his left hand, a bauble in his right. Then, too, he has been so self-satisfied with his role. Well, the play is finished now, and Ulrich is sitting in the green-room, thinking. His coat is flung aside, with one last jingle the bells fall to the floor, he has dropped his bauble, and as he bows his head and in his musing runs his fingers through his hair, the c.o.xcomb falls too. It is here in the green-room that he speaks his epilogue:

"Of this last cla.s.s am I; I have lived my life trying not to give up the three for any one. I desired and even hoped that I might obtain all the four. This hope has still deceived me, and I am made a fool by it. One day I will serve Him who has given me soul, life, thought, whatever I have; the next as a man I will strive for honor; then for wealth; on the fourth day I am for ease. Thus inconstant, I have pa.s.sed my entire life."

Nothing accomplished--nothing even steadily aimed at. Nothing? With characteristic buoyancy the gray-haired poet puts aside this sombre mood of dissatisfaction with his fifty odd years. For in one point, at least, he has been true. In this book, written only because his lady commanded, he has spoken very many sweet words for worthy women, and throughout his life he has been faithful to his love. "And I do believe that the very true sweet G.o.d, through his very high goodness, will think on my fidelity to her, and my constant service."

[Decoration]

FOOTNOTES:

[5]

"A woman is never won by what is in one's thoughts: . . . . . . . .

Of that she can know nothing."

[6] With this extravagant but probably veracious incident, one naturally compares the sacrifice of Guillem de Balaun's finger nail.

[7] These poet lovers seem to have been frequently laughed at. For instance, Pierre Vidal was promised in their amus.e.m.e.nt anything by the ladies whom he loved. Na Alazais was so indignant when he took encouragement to steal his one kiss, that he was compelled to flee, and go with Richard to the East.

[Decoration]

NEIDHART VON REUENTHAL, AND HIS BAVARIAN PEASANTS.

Our liveliest pictures of old German peasantry come, as we should expect, from a singer of the knightly cla.s.s. The ma.s.ses had fewer and of course less accomplished poets, and these would be most likely to please their audiences by touching with the glamour of fas.h.i.+onable life such work as they cared to make contemporary and imitative. Realistic social transcripts usually come from culture. It may be that Neidhart von Reuenthal had been brought up at the ducal court or in a castle, but there is as good reason for conjecturing that his origin was among the scenes of country life that he describes. Most of the courtly poets belonged to the lower cla.s.s of knights, and between this and the better order of peasants there was no wide dividing line; indeed, a farmer with a little land of his own and four free ancestors ("von allen vieren anen ein gebure," as Neidhart says bitterly of his enemy the swaggering Ber), by the old Saxon law stood higher than a knight not of free blood. The agricultural cla.s.s in the thirteenth century was becoming more impatient of the costly conflicts of their military superiors and was also suffering severely from the pillaging domestic raids of lawless knights, who, as they grew bolder, established centres of reckless free-booting to which they attracted wayward youth of the middle cla.s.ses. Cities were also getting larger, and the tradesmen joined with the established gentry in thinking slightingly of the farming population. Accordingly there was jealousy on one side and arrogance on the other, yet there was still a meeting-place between the two cla.s.ses. Depleted n.o.bles would marry daughters of wealthy peasants, and a gentleman whose fief lay among well-to-do farmers might easily meet them in social relations.

A grant from the Bavarian Duke evidently isolated Neidhart from his own companions, and he appears to have mingled freely with the peasantry, though we cannot determine how early the contact began. He was born in the latter part of the twelfth century, we may say about 1185, perhaps, and with the exception of absence on Leopold VII's crusade of 1217-1219, he apparently kept his home in his native Bavaria until about 1230, when he lost the Duke's favor and turned as a homeless wanderer to Austria, where he received welcome and another fief. The last date inferred from his songs is 1236, in connection with the Emperor's coming, and he was dead before the composition of Meier Helmbrecht, which is earlier than 1250.

So far as imitations prove popularity, he was one of the most popular of mediaeval poets. It is easy to understand the pleasure that his verses must have given, striking as they did into a new field, and executed with literary skill, full of verve and humor, and appealing to strong cla.s.s prejudice. We must think of him as a gentleman fond of society, of refined courtly habits, with an aristocratic contempt for pinchbeck upstarts, yet not unwilling now and then to play the good-natured acquaintance with middle-cla.s.s people.

Though he ranks as a knight, his tastes were not military. He was lively, quick-witted, and satirical; clever at musical invention; genuinely interested in poetry. Moreover, he gave early evidence of an independent literary taste, that dared to yawn at the methods practised by the great minnesingers of his youth. By his singing he had obtained sufficient favor with the Duke to receive a fief though away among the peasantry; yet rather than relinquish a home of his own, that constant dream of his profession, he made the merriest and the best of the time he needed to spend on his estate.

The feeling for spring is largely an animal sensation, as the lambs in the pasture, or dogs on the green, or little children remind us. The comparison of loving something "as goats love the spring," goes back to Greek literature. It has also been habitually a.s.sociated with physical sentiment, as the splendid proemium of Lucretius suggests. With this buoyancy of spirits and emotional susceptibility, serious minds touched with poetry have a.s.sociated various deep and beautiful moods. But the moral element that enters into such spring poems as Wordsworth's, is not present in mediaeval literature. There we find poets feeling spring as animals, as children, as lovers. Those were out-of-door generations; hunting, riding, fighting, and enjoying themselves beneath the open sky, were their chief employments. They found winter travel hard, for they had no beaten roads; it caused a dreary interruption to their princ.i.p.al engagements, and to a large extent confined them in narrow quarters, not too comfortably warmed. In spite of all the amus.e.m.e.nts that could be provided, the time must have dragged. If Romans could cry out as Ovid did at the significance of spring, what must the season have meant to the castled sons of central Europe. It is not strange then that their nature-wors.h.i.+p inst.i.tuted in early times a festival to the genial conqueror of frost and snow, and that this ceremony, as the old superst.i.tions died away, was continued in graceful traditions of village customs. The first flowers or the earliest boughs in leaf served as the signal for the ceremonial welcome of April or May. With widely varying details, the youth of the parish would stream out to the fields or woods, and come back singing spring catches, and dancing that long, skipping forward step which they practised out-of-doors, carrying with them trophies of the season. Sometimes they fastened the first violet to a pole, and setting it up danced around it; sometimes they danced about the first linden that appeared in leaf. It is the linden that the poets are continually mentioning, whether in the centre of the courtyard or in the field, and the tree suggests the social life of the old times as happily as the pine under which Charlemagne sat, in the great chanson, suggests the imperial master.