Part 9 (1/2)

Like Orpheus, he charms the little birds and other creatures: 'He sang with such a splendid voice, that the little birds ceased their song.'

'And as he began to sing again, all the birds in the copse round ceased their sweet songs.'

'The very cattle left their green pastures to hearken, the little gold beetles stopped running among the gra.s.s, the fishes ceased to shoot about in the brooks. He sang long hours, and it seemed but a brief moment. The very church bells sounded sweet no longer; the folk left the choir songs of the priests and ran to hear him. All who heard his voice were heart-sick after the singer, so grand and sweet was the strain.'

Indications of time are rarely found more short and concise than here:

When night ended and day began.

On the 12th day they quitted the country.

In Maytime. On a cool morning.

This is a little richer:

It was the time when leaves spring up delightfully and birds of all sorts sing their best in the woods.

Much more definite and distinct is:

It was about that time of the year when departing winter sheds his last terrors upon the earth; a sharp breeze was blowing and the sea was covered with broken up ice; but there were gleams of suns.h.i.+ne upon the hills, and the little birds began to tune their throats tremulously, that they might be ready to sing their lay when the March weather was past.

Gudrun trembled with cold; her wet garment clung close to her white limbs; the wind dashed her golden hair about her face.

And later, when the morning of Gudrun's deliverance breaks, the indications of time, though short, are plastic enough:

After the s.p.a.ce of an hour the red star went down upon the edge of the sea, and Wat of Sturmland, standing upon the hill, blew a great blast on his horn, which was heard in the land for miles round.... The sound of Wat's horn ... wakened a young maid, who, stealing on tiptoe to the window, looked over the bay and beheld the glimmering of spears and helms upon the sands.... 'Awake, mistress,' she cried, 'the host of the Hegelings is at hand.'

Companions are few;

He sprang like a wild lion.

The shower of stones flung down upon Wat 'is but an April shower.'

Images are few too:

This flower of hope, to find repose here on the sh.o.r.e, Hartmouth and his friends did not bring to blossom.

Wilhelm Grimm rightly observes:

At this epoch the poetry of the Fatherland gave no separate descriptions of Nature--descriptions, that is, whose only object was to paint the impression of the landscape in glowing colours upon the mind. The old German masters certainly did not lack feeling for Nature, but they have left us no other expression of it than such as its connection with historical events demanded.

And further:

The question, whether contact with Southern Italy, or, through the Crusades, with Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, did not enrich German poetry with new pictures of Nature, can only, as a general rule, be answered in the negative.

In the courtly epics of chivalry, the place of real Nature was taken by a fabulous wonderworld, full of the most fantastic and romantic scenery, in which wood, field, plants, and animals were all distorted. For instance, in the Alexander saga (of Pfaffen Lamprecht) Alexander the Great describes to his teacher Aristotle the wonders he has seen, and how one day he came with his army to a dark forest, where the interlacing boughs of tall trees completely shut out the sunlight. Clear, cool streams ran through it down to the valley, and birds' songs echoed in the shade. The ground was covered by an enormous quant.i.ty of flower buds of wondrous size, which looked like great b.a.l.l.s, snow-white and rose-coloured, closely folded up.

Presently, the fragrant goblets opened, and out of all these wonder-flowers stepped lovely maidens, rosy as dawn and white as day, and about twelve years old. All these thousands of charming beings raised their voices together and competed with the birds in song, swaying up and down in charming lines, singing and laughing in the cool shade. They were dressed in red and white, like the flowers from which they were born; but if sun rays fell on them, they would fade and die. They were only children of the woodland shade and the summer, and lived no longer than the flowers, which May brings to life and Autumn kills. In this wood Alexander and his host pitched their tents, and lived through the summer with the little maids. But their happiness only lasted three months and twelve days:

When the time came to an end, our joy pa.s.sed away too; the flowers faded, and the pretty girls died; trees lost their leaves, springs their flow, and the birds their song; all pleasure pa.s.sed away. Discomfort began to touch my heart with many sorrows, as day by day I saw the beautiful maidens die, the flowers fade: with a heavy heart, I departed with my men.

This fairy-like tale, with its blending of human and plant life, is very poetically conceived; but it is only a play of fancy, one of the early steps towards the modern feeling.