Part 7 (1/2)
No husband e'er shall rob me of my pleasure, None can resist me, what I wish I gain, All do I love and never will refrain Spite husbands' wrath to rob them of their treasure.
It may seem strange at first sight that this enthusiastic exponent of pure love should have led such a double life. But Sordello's conduct is not in the least paradoxical; in accordance with the tendency of the period, he carefully distinguished in his own heart between s.e.xuality and love; before the one he lay prostrate, unable to find words enough in self-depreciation, so that he might the more exalt his mistress; but with respect to all other women he was a mere sensualist. We read that although he was ”an expert in the treatment of women” in her presence his voice forsook him and he lost all self-control. Petrarch, who--while living with a very earthly woman--extolled all his life long a lofty being whom he called Laura, was akin to Sordello, although he was a far less brutal character. The latter approached the type of the seeker of love, the Don Juan.
In a tenzone between Peirol and the Dauphin of Auvergne, the former maintains that love must die at the moment of its consummation. ”I cannot believe,” he says, ”that a true lover can continue to love after he has received the last favour.” (Otto Weininger agrees with this.) But Peirol winds up with the subtle suggestion that though love be dead, a man should always continue to behave as if he were still in love.
The troubadours never weary of drawing a line between _drudaria_ and _luxuria_, pure love and base desire. _Mezura_, seemliness, is contrasted with _dezmezura_, licentiousness. Pure love is regarded as the creator of all high values, luxuriousness as their destroyer. In the same way the German minnesingers distinguished between ”low” love and ”high” love.
As both cultured minds and the upper cla.s.ses, contemning s.e.xuality, acknowledged spiritual love only, it follows as a matter of course that the avowal of such sentiments became good form; the motif that the honour of the beloved must be carefully s.h.i.+elded, and that no desire must dim her purity, occurs again and again. But it should not be forgotten that a poet may love a sentiment for its own sake, without being in the least influenced by it. Many a troubadour drew inspiration from an emotion which all praised as the supreme value; even if he had no earthly mistress, he adored the sublime sentiment. Not infrequently it happened that a troubadour who had been loud in praise of high love and denunciation of base desire--a trick of his trade--suddenly came to himself and changed his mind. Folquet of Ma.r.s.eilles, for instance, after more than ten years of vain sighing, came to the conclusion that he had been a fool.
Deceitful love beguiles the simple fool And binds with magic thongs the hapless wight; That like a moth lured by the candle-light, He hovers, helpless, round the heartless ghoul.
I cast thee out and follow other stars Full evil was my meed and recompense-- New courage steels my fainting heart, and hence I kneel at shrines which pa.s.sion never mars.
In an interesting poem Garin the Red implores _Mezura_ to teach him the way to love purely and n.o.bly; but he is anything but pleased with his instructress, and comes to the conclusion that her whole wisdom is ”just good form” and nothing else.
But by my merry mood impelled I kiss and dally night and morn And do the things I feel compelled To do--or else, with tonsure shorn, I'd seek a cloister....
Elias of Barjols, finding that his love will never be returned, and having no mind to sigh all his life in vain, renounces love altogether.
”I should be a fool if I served love any longer!”
”All you lovers are fools!” exclaimed another. ”Do you think you can change the nature of women?” This is one of the very rare criticisms of woman; as a rule we hear only of her angelic perfection, wisdom, beauty and aloofness.
The distinguished poet Marcabru was a woman-hater, and enemy of love from the very beginning. He said of himself that he had never loved a woman and that no woman had ever loved him.
The love which is always a lie And deceiver of men, I decry And denounce; I had more than enough.
Can you count all the evil it wrought?
When I think of it I am distraught.
What a madman I was to believe, To sigh, to rejoice and to grieve; But no longer I'll squander my days, We have come to the parting of the ways. Etc.
He was indefatigable in abusing the tender pa.s.sion, and had a great deal to say about the immorality of women. But it is characteristic of the strong public opinion of the time that even this misogynist (who, perhaps, after all was only a disappointed man) praised ”high love.”
The subject also found its theorists, prominent among whom was the court-chaplain Andreas, who wrote a very learned book on love in Latin.
He expressed in propositions and conclusions what the contemporary poets expressed in verse, proving thereby that spiritual love was not merely a poetic fiction but the profoundest belief of the period, supported by the full complement of its philosophical weapons. ”In the whole world there is no good and no courtliness outside the fountain of love.
Therefore love is the beginning and foundation of all good.” He also proved that a n.o.ble-minded man must be a lover, for if he were not, he could not have attained virtue. ”Love disregards all barriers, and makes the man of low origin the equal and superior of the n.o.bleman.”
This conception of spiritual n.o.bility, which was later on perfected in the theory of the _cor gentil_, only existed in Provence and in Italy; it remained unknown in France and Germany.
Andreas drew a distinction between base love, the _amor mixtus sive communis_, and pure love, the _amor purus_. ”Love,” he maintained, fully agreeing with the poets, ”gives to a man the strength of chast.i.ty, for he whose heart is br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with the love of a woman, cannot think of dallying with another, however beautiful she may be.” He proved from substance and form that a man cannot love two women. In the _Leys d'Amors_, a voluminous fourteenth-century Provencal treatise, largely a text-book of grammar and prosody, we read: ”And now lovers must be taught how to love; pa.s.sionate lovers must be restrained, so that they may come to realise their evil and dishonourable desires. No good troubadour, who is at the same time an honest lover, has ever abandoned himself to base sensuality and ign.o.ble desires.” The same author opined that a troubadour who asked his lady for a kiss, was committing an act of indecency. On the other hand, Andreas was very broad-minded in drawing the line between both kinds of love, allowing kisses, and even more, in the case of true love. (The best troubadours disagree with him in this respect.)
A scholasticism of love, modelled on ecclesiastical scholasticism and subst.i.tuting the beloved woman for the Deity, was gradually evolved.
Love, veneration, humility, hope, etc., were the sacrifices offered at her shrine. She was full of grace and compa.s.sion, and was believed in as fervently as was G.o.d. Some of the poets were animated by a curious ambition ”to prove” their feelings with scholastic erudition, and more especially by the later, Italian, school, _amore_, _cor gentil_, _valore_, were conceived as substances, attributes, inherent qualities, etc. The allegories of _amore_ played a prominent part, and spoiled many a masterpiece. The German poets steered clear of these absurdities, which even Dante did not escape.
At the famous courts of love, presided over by princesses, the most extraordinary questions relating to love were discussed and decided with a ceremonial closely following the ceremonial of the petty courts of law. Andreas preserved for us a number of these judgments, some of which prove the really quite obvious fact that love and marriage are two very different things, for if spiritual love be considered the supreme value, matrimony can only be regarded as an inferior condition. And it was a fact that in the higher ranks of society,--the only ones with which we are concerned,--a marriage was nothing but a contract made for political and economical reasons. The baron desired to enlarge his estate, obtain a dowry, or marry into an influential family; no one dreamed of consulting the future bride, whom marriage alone could bring into contact with people outside her own family. To her marriage meant the permission to s.h.i.+ne and be adored by a man who was not her husband. ”It is an undeniable fact,” propounded Andreas as _regula amoris_, ”that there is no room for love between husband and wife,” and Fauriel translated a pa.s.sage as follows: ”A husband who proposed to behave to his wife as a knight would to his lady, would propose to do something contrary to the canons of honour; such a proceeding could neither increase his virtue nor the virtue of his lady, and nothing could come of it but what already properly exists.”--Another judgment maintained ”that a lady lost her admirer as soon as the latter became her husband; and that she was therefore ent.i.tled to take a new lover.” At the court of love of the Viscountess Ermengarde, of Narbonne, the problem whether the love between husband and wife or the love between lovers were the greater, was decided as follows: ”The affection between a married couple and the tender love which unites two lovers are emotions which differ fundamentally and according to custom. It would be folly to attempt a comparison between two subjects which neither resemble each other, nor have any connection.” A husband declared: ”It is true, I have a beautiful wife, and I love her with conjugal love. But because true love is impossible between husband and wife, and because everything good which happens in this world has its origin in love, I am of opinion that I should seek an alliance of love outside my married life.” All this was not frivolity, but the only logical conclusion of dualistic eroticism, incapable of blending sensuality and love. It was equally logical that love between divorced persons was not only regarded as not immoral, but as perfectly right and justifiable; it was even decided that ”a new marriage could never become a drawback to old love.” In the old novel, _Gerard of Roussillon_, the princess, beloved by Gerard, is married to the emperor Charles Martel, and compelled to part from her knight. At their last meeting, before a number of witnesses, she called on the name of Christ and said: ”Know ye all that I give my love to Sir Gerard with this ring and this flower from my chaplet. I love him more than father and husband, and now I must weep tears of bitter sorrow.” After this they parted, but their love continued undiminished though there was nothing between them but tender wishes and secret thoughts.
Matrimony had no advantage over the love-alliance, not even the sanction of the Church. A love-alliance was frequently accompanied by a ceremony in which a priest officiated. Fauriel describes--without mentioning his source--such a ceremony as follows: ”Kneeling before his lady, with his folded hands between hers, he dedicated himself to her service, vowing to be faithful to her until death, and to s.h.i.+eld her from all harm and insults as far as lay within his power. The lady, on her side, declared her willingness to accept his service, promised to devote her loftiest feelings to him, and as a rule gave him a ring as a symbol of their union. Then she raised and kissed him, always for the first, usually for the last time.” The parting of the lovers, too, was a solemn act, resembling in many ways the dissolution of a marriage.
So that our solemn plighted troth When love is dead, we shall not break, We'll to the priest ourselves betake.
You set me free, as I do you, A perfect right then shall we both Enjoy to choose a love anew,
wrote Peire of Barjac.