Part 9 (2/2)

Alas, for lips past joy of wine, That find no blessing in G.o.d's dew!

From dawning summits crystalline Thou lookest down; thou makest sign Toward this bleak vale I wander through.

I cannot answer; that pure shrine Of childhood, though my love be true, Is hidden from my dim confine: I must not hope for clearer view.

The sky, the earth, the wrinkled brine Would wear to me a fresher hue, And all once more be half-divine, Could I answer love like thine.”

The spiritual subtlety of such a mood certainly is beyond the mediaeval poets, yet we find pleasant proofs of sensibility to the tender, unselfish nature of a loving child. Nowhere in such detail, perhaps, as in the most familiar of Middle High German poems, the _Poor Henry_, of Hartmann von Aue. The story is known in Longfellow's _Golden Legend_.

This is not the place to discuss that poem, which contains some charming pa.s.sages. The poet's treatment may be far from satisfactory, yet when he calls his original the most beautiful of mediaeval legends, he certainly shows a more satisfactory side of extreme estimate than does Goethe, in his curious fling at the poem (which we may notice he read in a modernized form). He says it gave him a ”physico-aesthetic pain,” and adds that the notion of a fine girl sacrificing herself for a leper, affected him so that he felt himself poisoned by the book. This judgment was p.r.o.nounced in Goethe's later life, and is consistent with his habitual want of sympathy with mediaeval romantic literature. It shows, moreover, a lack of historical adjustment, for the dreadful disease was so common in the twelfth century that its repulsiveness was blurred for Hartmann; yet he mentions it with the greatest reserve, though a description of its appearance could hardly be more painful than the famous conclusion of the _De Rerum Natura_. We are reminded of Goethe's visit to a.s.sisi, interesting to him only as the situation of some remains of cla.s.sical architecture.[10]

Hartmann von Aue ranks below his two great companions in German narrative poetry, for he is more of a translator than either Gottfried or Wolfram. His distinction is in his style; he has a very agreeable way of telling a story, and there is a quiet charm about his diction. ”How clear and pure his crystal words are and always must be,” is Gottfried's tribute. We come to feel a personal liking for him, through his unaffected interest in his characters, his una.s.suming ways and the tact by which he lightens or deepens his accentuation. We feel that he was a gentleman, and we do not wonder at the kind regard in which all his fellow poets held him. We like his refined moral seriousness and that calm temperament of which he speaks in _Gregorius_. The original for the _Arme Heinrich_ is lost, but though his introduction claims for himself no merit beyond a careful selection out of the many books that he takes pains to tell us he was learned enough to read for himself, we are probably justified in feeling that he took his heart into partners.h.i.+p when he made the version, receiving from it touches that he did not find in the earlier treatment. To appreciate the poem we have to put ourselves into harmony with the wonder-loving, credulous, and mystically religious world of seven hundred years ago. Hartmann's simple earnestness and un.o.btrusive tenderness and piety const.i.tute an ideal manner for the legend, and that ease of his soul which he hoped would come through the prayers of those who read the poem after his death, is perhaps equally well secured if he knows how some of his verses touch the sophisticated sense of to-day. He said that he was actuated in writing by the desire to soften hard hours in a way that would be to the honor of G.o.d, and by which he might make himself dear to others. He has succeeded. It is to the honor of G.o.d, and it wins the affection of others, when a poet leads his readers to a little well of pure unselfish love, hedged about by a child's religious faith.

The hero of the legend is a gentleman of position and feudal possessions, whose free and generous career is cut short by an incurable leprosy. It is in vain that he consults masters at Montpelier and Salerno, the famous seats of medicine; and the honor and affection in which a genial life had established him among his friends cannot save him from becoming a social outcast. He disposes of his wealth between the poor and the church, and retires to a fief whose tenant is willing to receive his suzerain as a guest. Here, on a little estate, away from all contact with the world, the gay lord resigns himself to the companions.h.i.+p of the farmer and his wife, whose grat.i.tude for his kindness in the past distinguishes them among the mult.i.tude to whom his amiable disposition had made him a benefactor and friend. There were children in the family, the eldest a girl eight years old, when Henry came. It was because their hearts were loyal that her parents were kind, but she kept close by him because she loved to be there. She was always to be found at his feet, and his affectionate nature liked her companions.h.i.+p. He bought her a hand mirror, a riband for her hair, a belt and finger ring, and whatever children care for. These gifts attached her to him, yet the main secret of her love was the sweet spirit that G.o.d had given her. After three years, as the family were sitting together one day with their high-born guest, the farmer asked him why it was that he had given himself up so hopelessly to his disease, and Henry laid aside his reserve, and told for the first time about his visit to the great physician at Salerno. The only remedy was an impossible one. He might indeed be healed, but not unless a virgin made a voluntary offering of her life. Alas, G.o.d was his only physician.

The little girl, who was so inseparable a companion that he jestingly called her his bride, listened as she was holding her sick lord's feet in her lap. She could not get it out of her head (the old German idiom is better, ”out of her heart”) the rest of the day, and when at night she lay in her usual place at her father's and mother's feet, she felt so sorry for her dear lord that she cried, and the warm tears fell on her parents' feet, and woke them. When they asked her what was the matter, she said that she thought they ought to be sorry, too; for what would happen to them all if their lord should die? Some one else would own the farm, and no one could ever be as kind to them as he had been.

They told her that was all true, but it could do no good to lament.

”Dear child, do not grieve. We feel as badly as you do, but alas, we cannot help him.” So they hushed her, but all the night and the next day she continued to be unhappy, and whatever else she was doing, she kept thinking of this. When she went to bed, she cried again, till finally she resolved to herself that if she lived till morning she would surely give her life for her lord. Straightway from that thought, she became light-hearted and happy, and felt free of all her cares, until it occurred to her that perhaps Henry and her parents would not permit her to make the sacrifice; whereupon the poor little girl burst out crying again, and wakened her parents, as she had done the night before. It was only with difficulty that they drew from her this simple speech: ”My lord might get well in the way that he told us, and if you will only let me, I am what he needs for being cured. I am a maid, and rather than see him pa.s.s away, I will die for him.” A long dialogue follows, in which the parents remonstrate with the daughter, who replies in a strain of spiritual elation. She appeals not only to her parents' worldly dependence on their master's goodness, but also to their desire for her own highest welfare. How much better for her to pa.s.s to eternal life in unstained childhood, only antic.i.p.ating the death that must come some time, no less unwelcome late than soon. Her parents ceased to remonstrate, for they felt that the Holy Ghost was speaking through her, as they listened to the visionary cry. Instead of taking, two or three years hence, some neighbor for her husband, she will choose

”the Franklin, who is wooing me to a home where the plough runs easily, where there is all abundance, where horses and cattle never are lost, where no wailing children suffer, where it is neither too warm nor too cold, where the old will grow young, where is nor frost nor hunger, no kind of pain, but all joy without toil; thither will I haste me, and forsake a farm whose tillage, fire, hail, and flood destroy, so that one half-day ruins the labor of a year. Then let me go to our Lord Jesus Christ, whose grace is sure, and who loves me, poor as I am, like a queen.”

Unlike our modern a.n.a.lysts of character, Hartmann does not stop to comment on the art of his delineation, and it is possible to miss the tact with which he keeps his heroine's renunciation consistent with a child's nature. Hartmann is not treating this character inartistically, as a mere instrument for religious culture. Earnest speech of a thoughtful parish priest; or phrases caught from the conversation of her lord touched by his sorrows, with the age's feeling _de contemptu mundi_, might have supplied her with some sentiments that seem beyond a child's invention, and children's emotions are sometimes precocious, especially in what seems a morbid religious development.

Those are the years of faith, credulous belief that burns with the white light of knowledge; a child's faith is a man's superst.i.tion. The peasant maid's imagination sees heaven and salvation a fact so infinitely desirable, that all dread of death was eliminated from the path of her love. The joyousness of her sacrifice, too, instead of being a romantic exaggeration, is far truer to life than a willingness touched with pain and hesitation could have been. In a n.o.ble dread, austerely controlled, lies Calvary's dignity and pathos. But her grat.i.tude and impetuous love for what seems to her simple mind a superior and infinitely deserving object, reached that finest pitch of selfishness, where self-sacrifice becomes the demand of impulsive egotism. To an enthusiastic temperament love's pa.s.sionate altruism may be consummate self-will. As the little maid came away from her deliverance, though she was happy in her lord's restoration, she was less happy than as she went.

For she did not have to die. In the tyranny of undeniable love, she broke down the opposition of her parents, and although Henry indeed hesitated, she pleaded so anxiously and drew such an eloquent sketch of the advantage and gladness death would be to her, and the value of his life compared with hers, that at last, genial and affectionate as he was, the temptation to live by the sacrifice of a mere child's life (and the feudal sense of possession ought not to be overlooked) was too strong to be resisted. Compare the scene with the one in _Philaster_, where Bellario wishes to offer herself for the man whom she loves with a hopeless earthly sentiment:

”'Tis not a life, 'Tis but a piece of childhood thrown away.”

For her, continuance of life is only ”a game that must be lost.” But for the nameless German girl there is no pathos in living, beyond the thought of her master's death, and her sentiment was as childlike as when it began, while she was only eight years old. Her love is a flame that burns impatiently away from the taper that feeds it; for her generous pa.s.sion is after all a beautiful devoted wilfulness. When her parents wept to lose her, and her lord wept at his own weak hesitation, she wept above them all and her tears won the day. She rode with Henry to Salerno, and was unhappy only because the journey was so long. The great physician took her hand, and led her alone into a barred and bolted room. Then he tried to frighten her and induce her to retract her consent, but she only laughed until she became afraid that he would not do his part, whereupon she broke out into an indignant scorn for his unmanly weakness. When he bade her undress, she did so without a blush; he bound her to his table, and took up his knife. He wished to render death easy (so he told himself), and taking a whetstone to make the knife sharper, he slowly whetted it--only as a pretext for delaying. The gentleman outside found himself restless. He listened, then he tried to look in and at last through a crevice in the wall he saw that ”little bride” who had been his main companion and comfort during those three wretched years. By a fine touch of nature, the poet makes the sight of her perfect loveliness as she lay waiting for her celestial bridal, the force that broke the selfish charm which had enchained his manliness. He beat on the door, he called, and when no response came, he burst his way in. ”The child is too lovely to die. For myself, G.o.d's will be done.”

It was now that her trial came, as she wailed and beat wildly at her body, to force on him the life he was unwilling to take. She talked bitterly and peevishly, as if she had been cheated of heaven through his cruelty. But it was in vain, he dressed her again in the rich garments which he had procured for the sacrificial journey, and they set out on their return to their distant home, the sobbing girl and the leper. But as they rode along, the divine might that seemed so near to mediaeval faith was their companion, and touching the incurable disease, fulfilled love's miracle. Henry took their daughter back to the peasants, and gave her rich gifts, while he presented them with the land which they had farmed, and all its serfs and chattels. Then he went back to his estates, and to the welcome that the world was waiting to give him. By and by, when his people insisted that he should marry, he called an old-time conference about whom he should choose. There were numerous suggestions, but the advisers did not agree. He listened, and then telling them that unless they would approve his own choice, he should never marry, he stepped to the side of ”the dear little wife” who had loved him as a leper.

The romance of _Fleur et Blanchefleur_, which goes back, though not in its present form, to the twelfth century, enjoyed such popularity that it was translated into almost every European tongue. Indeed, in some languages it is found in more than one version. The story tells of a Saracen prince, whose royal father interrupts the smooth course of his true love for a Christian girl. She was the daughter of a captive lady in the palace of the Queen, and the royal boy and the bond girl had been born on the same day. From his birth, the mother of Blanchefleur became Fleur's nurse; the pagan law required that he must be suckled by a heathen, but in all other ways the infants were treated like twins. They slept in one cradle, and when they could eat and drink they were given the same food. Thus they grew up together, until they were five years old, when the King, seeing his child as fine and promising a boy as could be found in any land, decided that it was time for him to begin his education. He selected a master, but Fleur, when he was bidden to study, burst into tears and cried, ”Sire, what will Blanchefleur do? Who will teach her? I never can learn without her.” The King answered that since he loved her so, Blanchefleur should go with him to school.

”So they went and came together, and the joy of their love was still uninterrupted. It was a wonder to see how each of the two studied for each; neither learned anything without straightway telling the other. At nature's earliest, all their concern was love; they were quick in learning and well they remembered. Pagan books that spake of love they read together with delight; these hastened them along in the understanding and joy of love. On their way home from school, they would put their arms about each other, and kiss. In the King's garden, bright with all plants and flowers of various hues, they went to play every morning, and to eat their dinner; and after they had eaten, they listened to the birds singing in the trees above them, and then they went their way back to school, and a happy walk they found it. When they were again at school they took their ivory tablets, and you might have seen them writing letters and verses of love, in the wax. Deftly with their gold and silver styles they made letters and greeting of love, of the songs of birds and of flowers. This was all they cared for. In five years and fifteen days, they both had learned to write neatly on parchment, and to talk in Latin so well that no one could understand.”

When we follow the poem along, we find in the different versions many familiar romance expedients, conventional incidents of the pathetic, exciting, and marvellous, but the charm is in the unwavering love of these twins, who from the hour of birth breathed together, even in their sleep, yet no kin to each other, and blending brotherhood and sisterhood with the other love of man and woman in perfection, since for neither they knew the beginning. In this way the mediaeval romance is even more ideal than Beaumont's _Triumph of Love_, where Gerard and Violante pa.s.sed from the sentiment of childhood ”as innocently as the first lovers ere they fell.”

”Gerard's and my affection began,” the heroine tells Ferdinand,

”In infancy: my uncle brought him oft In long clothes. .h.i.ther; you were such another.

The little boy would kiss me, being a child, And say he loved me: give me all his toys, Bracelets, rings, sweetmeats, all his rosy smiles; I then would stand and stare upon his eyes, Play with his locks, and swear I loved him too.

For sure, methought he was a little Love, He wooed so prettily in innocence That then he warmed my fancy; for I felt A glimmering beam of love kindle my blood Both which time since hath made a flame and flood.”

In the early stages of Fleur's love-trials his parents attempted to persuade him that Blanchefleur was dead, and to give confirmation to their a.s.sertions they caused a superb tomb to be constructed, in a style that is of considerable interest in the study of literary origins from its obviously Oriental tone. Without delaying for its rich and curious Eastern details, we may yet notice the sentiment in the figures of the boy and girl that were placed upon it. ”Never were seen images of fairer children, or more like to the lovers. The image of Blanchefleur holds a flower before Fleur, before her lover holds the fair one a rose of fine bright gold; and before her, Fleur holds a blanched golden fleur-de-lis.

Close by each other they sit, a sweet look on their faces.” A mechanical device is so contrived that when the wind blew and touched the children they embraced and kissed, and by necromancy they spoke to each other as in their childhood, and thus said Fleur to Blanchefleur: ”Kiss me, sweet,” and kissing him, she replied: ”I love you more than all the world.”

The story of Fleur and Blanchefleur was so popular that they became identified with the characters of another romance, and were sung of as the parents of Berte-as-graus-pies, the heroine of an attractive legend, and the mythical mother of Charlemagne. In the poem that relates her misfortunes after she has been sent from Hungary to France as the wife of Pepin, we find a suggestion of the depth of sentiment that was always a.s.sociated with her legendary parents. She has been in France almost nine years without their having heard from her, and Blanchefleur determines to undertake a journey to see her child again before she dies. The King, without opposing her desire, expresses a half remonstrance that we may add to the other proofs in mediaeval poetry, that true love in our modern sense was familiar throughout those eras: ”Oh, my lady, how shall we be able to live so long without each other?”

Let us believe that in the Utopia where these lovers who loved from their birth resided, they found, after their own sharp trials and the trials of their daughter were safely over, a serene old age, out of which they pa.s.sed unconsciously some night, sleeping themselves away in each other's arms.

<script>