Part 8 (2/2)

But, as a fact, no one has ever stood with feet more firmly planted on this earth than the Greek, enjoying life and undeterred by much scruple or concern as to the powers above; and centuries of development pa.s.sed before German literature equalled Greek in love of Nature and expressive representation of her beauty.

To rank the two national epics of Germany, the _Nibelungenlied_ and _Gudrun_, side by side with the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ is to exaggerate their value. And here, as ever, overstraining the comparison is mischievous.

The _Nibelungenlied_ is undeniably charming with its laconic and yet plastic descriptions, its vigorous heroes, and the tragic course of their fate; so is _Gudrun_, that melodious poem of the North Sea. But they never, either in composition, method of representation, or descriptive epithets, reach the perfect art of the Greek epics. What moral beauty and plastic force there is in Homer's comparisons and in his descriptions of times and seasons! what a clear eye and warm heart he has for Nature in all her moods! and what raw and scanty beginnings of such things we have in the _Nibelungenlied_! It is true Homer had not attained to the degree of sympathy which finds in Nature a friend, a sharer of one's joys and sorrows; she is pictured objectively in the form of epic comparisons; but how faithfully, and with what range and variety!

There can scarcely be another epic in the world so poor in descriptions of time and place as the _Nibelungenlied_; it cannot be used to prove German feeling for Nature!

India, Persia, and Greece made natural phenomena the counterparts of human life, weaving into the tale, by way of comparison or environment, charming genre pictures of plant and animal life, each complete in itself; in the _Nibelungenlied_ Nature plays no part at all, not even as framework.

Time is indicated as spa.r.s.ely as possible:

'Upon the 7th day at Worms on the Rhine sh.o.r.e, the gallant hors.e.m.e.n arrived.'

'On a Whitsun morning we saw them all go by'; or 'When it grew towards even, and near the sun's last ray, seeing the air was cooler'; or 'He must hang, till light morning threw its glow through the window.' The last is the most poetic; elsewhere it is 'Day was over, night fell.'

Terseness can be both a beauty and a force; but, in comparison with Greece, how very little feeling for Nature these expressions contain!

It is no better with descriptions of place:

'From the Rhine they rode through Hesse, their warriors as well, towards the Saxon country, where they to fighting fell.'

'He found a fortress placed upon a mountain.'

'Into a wide-roomed palace of fas.h.i.+on excellent, for there, beneath it rus.h.i.+ng, one saw the Danube's flood.'

Even the story of the hunt and the murder of Siegfried is quite matter-of-fact and spa.r.s.e as to scenery: 'By a cold spring he soon lost his life ... then they rode from there into a deep wood ...

there they encamped by the green wood, where they would hunt on the broad mead ... one heard mountain and tree echo.'

'The spring of water was pure and cool and good.' ...

'There fell Chriemhild's husband among the flowers ... all round about the flowers were wetted with his blood.'

One thinks instinctively of Indian and Greek poetry, of Adonis and the death of Baldur in the Northern Saga. But even here, where the subject almost suggests it, there is no trace of Nature's sympathy with man.

References to the animal world too--Chriemhild's dreams of the falcons seized by two eagles, and the two wild boars which attacked Siegfried, the game hunted in the forests by the heroes who run like panthers--all show it to be of no importance.

Even such phrases as rosy-red, snow-white, etc., are rare--'Her lovely face became all rosy-red with pleasure'; but there is a certain tenderness in the comparisons of Chriemhild:

'Then came the lovely maiden, even as morning red from sombre clouds outbreaking,' and, 'just as the moon in brightness excels the brightest stars, and suddenly outs.h.i.+ning, athwart the clouds appears,' so she excelled all other women.

It has been said that one can hear the sighing of the north wind and the roar of the North Sea in _Gudrun_, but this is scarcely more than a pretty phrase. The 'dark tempestuous' sea, 'wild unfathomable'

waves, the sh.o.r.e 'wet from the blood of the slain,' are indeed mentioned, but that is all.

Wat of Sturmland says to the young warriors: 'The air is still and the moon s.h.i.+nes clear ... when the red star yonder in the south dips his head in the brine, I shall blow on my great horn that all the hosts shall hear'; but it is hope of morning, not delight in the starry sky, that he is expressing.

Indications of place too are of the briefest, just 'It was a broad neck of land, called the Wulpensand,' or, 'In a few hours they saw the sh.o.r.es where they would land, a little harbour lay in sight enfolded by low hills clothed with dark fir trees.'

The first trace of sympathy with Nature occurs in the account of the effect of Horand's song.

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