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diff --git a/18044-0.txt b/18044-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f463b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/18044-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6072 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wine, Women, and Song, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Wine, Women, and Song + Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse + +Author: Various + +Translator: John Addington Symonds + +Release Date: March 24, 2006 [EBook #18044] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINE, WOMEN, AND SONG *** + + + + +Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Sankar Viswanathan, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + WINE, WOMEN, AND SONG + + + "Wer liebt nicht Weib Wein and Gesang + Der bleibt ein Narr sein Lebenslang." + + --_Martin Luther._ + + + _MEDIÆVAL LATIN STUDENTS' SONGS_ + + Now First Translated into English Verse + + WITH AN ESSAY + + + + BY + + JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS + + + + + London + + CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY + + 1884 + + + + +TO + +_ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON._ + + +_Dear Louis,_ + +_To you, in memory of past symposia, when wit (your wit) flowed freer +than our old Forzato, I dedicate this little book, my pastime through +three anxious months._ + +_Yours,_ + +_JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS_ + +_Villa Emily, San Remo,_ + +_May 1884._ + + + + +Wine, Women, and Song. + +I. + + +When we try to picture to ourselves the intellectual and moral state +of Europe in the Middle Ages, some fixed and almost stereotyped ideas +immediately suggest themselves. We think of the nations immersed in a +gross mental lethargy; passively witnessing the gradual extinction of +arts and sciences which Greece and Rome had splendidly inaugurated; +allowing libraries and monuments of antique civilisation to crumble +into dust; while they trembled under a dull and brooding terror of +coming judgment, shrank from natural enjoyment as from deadly sin, or +yielded themselves with brutal eagerness to the satisfaction of vulgar +appetites. Preoccupation with the other world in this long period +weakens man's hold upon the things that make his life desirable. +Philosophy is sunk in the slough of ignorant, perversely subtle +disputation upon subjects destitute of actuality. Theological +fanaticism has extinguished liberal studies and the gropings of the +reason after truth in positive experience. Society lies prostrate +under the heel of tyrannous orthodoxy. We discern men in masses, +aggregations, classes, guilds--everywhere the genus and the species of +humanity, rarely and by luminous exception individuals and persons. +Universal ideals of Church and Empire clog and confuse the nascent +nationalities. Prolonged habits, of extra-mundane contemplation, +combined with the decay of real knowledge, volatilise the thoughts and +aspirations of the best and wisest into dreamy unrealities, giving a +false air of mysticism to love, shrouding art in allegory, reducing +the interpretation of texts to an exercise of idle ingenuity, and the +study of Nature (in Bestiaries, Lapidaries, and the like) to an insane +system of grotesque and pious quibbling. The conception of man's fall +and of the incurable badness of this world bears poisonous fruit of +cynicism and asceticism, that twofold bitter almond, hidden in the +harsh monastic shell. The devil has become God upon this earth, and +God's eternal jailer in the next world. Nature is regarded with +suspicion and aversion; the flesh, with shame and loathing, broken by +spasmodic outbursts of lawless self-indulgence. For human life there +is one formula:-- + + "Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? + Sin their conception, their birth weeping, + Their life a general mist of error, + Their death a hideous storm of terror." + +The contempt of the world is the chief theme of edification. A charnel +filled with festering corpses, snakes, and worms points the preacher's +moral. Before the eyes of all, in terror-stricken vision or in +nightmares of uneasy conscience, leap the inextinguishable flames of +hell. Salvation, meanwhile, is being sought through amulets, relics, +pilgrimages to holy places, fetishes of divers sorts and different +degrees of potency. The faculties of the heart and head, defrauded of +wholesome sustenance, have recourse to delirious debauches of the +fancy, dreams of magic, compacts with the evil one, insanities of +desire, ineptitudes of discipline. Sexual passion, ignoring the true +place of woman in society, treats her on the one hand like a servile +instrument, on the other exalts her to sainthood or execrates her as +the chief impediment to holiness. Common sense, sanity of judgment, +acceptance of things as they are, resolution to ameliorate the evils +and to utilise the goods of life, seem everywhere deficient. Men are +obstinate in misconception of their proper aims, wasting their +energies upon shadows instead of holding fast by realities, waiting +for a future whereof they know nothing, in lieu of mastering and +economising the present. The largest and most serious undertakings of +united Europe in this period--the Crusades--are based upon a radical +mistake. "Why seek ye the living among the dead? Behold, He is not +here, but risen!" With these words ringing in their ears, the nations +flock to Palestine and pour their blood forth for an empty sepulchre. +The one Emperor who attains the object of Christendom by rational +means is excommunicated for his success. Frederick II. returns from +the Holy Land a ruined man because he made a compact useful to his +Christian subjects with the Chief of Islam. + + + + +II. + + +Such are some of the stereotyped ideas which crowd our mind when we +reflect upon the Middle Ages. They are certainly one-sided. Drawn for +the most part from the study of monastic literature, exaggerated by +that reaction against medievalism which the Renaissance initiated, +they must be regarded as inadequate to represent the whole truth. At +no one period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the close of +the thirteenth century was the mental atmosphere of Europe so +unnaturally clouded. Yet there is sufficient substance in them to +justify their formulation. The earlier Middle Ages did, in fact, +extinguish antique civility. The later Middle Ages did create, to use +a phrase of Michelet, an army of dunces for the maintenance of +orthodoxy. The intellect and the conscience became used to moving +paralytically among visions, dreams, and mystic terrors, weighed down +with torpor, abusing virile faculties for the suppression of truth and +the perpetuation of revered error. + +It is, therefore, with a sense of surprise, with something like a +shock to preconceived opinions, that we first become acquainted with +the medieval literature which it is my object in the present treatise +to make better known to English readers. That so bold, so fresh, so +natural, so pagan a view of human life as the Latin songs of the +Wandering Students exhibit, should have found clear and artistic +utterance in the epoch of the Crusades, is indeed enough to bid us +pause and reconsider the justice of our stereotyped ideas about that +period. This literature makes it manifest that the ineradicable +appetites and natural instincts of men and women were no less vigorous +in fact, though less articulate and self-assertive, than they had been +in the age of Greece and Rome, and than they afterwards displayed +themselves in what is known as the Renaissance. + +With something of the same kind we have long been familiar in the +Troubadour poetry of Provence. But Provençal literature has a strong +chivalrous tincture, and every one is aware with what relentless fury +the civilisation which produced it was stamped out by the Church. The +literature of the Wandering Students, on the other hand, owes nothing +to chivalry, and emanates from a class which formed a subordinate part +of the ecclesiastical militia. It is almost vulgar in its presentment +of common human impulses; it bears the mark of the proletariate, +though adorned with flourishes betokening the neighbourhood of Church +and University. + + + + +III. + + +Much has recently been written upon the subject of an abortive +Renaissance within the Middle Ages. The centre of it was France, and its +period of brilliancy may be roughly defined as the middle and end of +the twelfth century. Much, again, has been said about the religious +movement in England, which spread to Eastern Europe, and anticipated the +Reformation by two centuries before the date of Luther. The songs of the +Wandering Students, composed for the most part in the twelfth century, +illustrate both of these early efforts after self-emancipation. Uttering +the unrestrained emotions of men attached by a slender tie to the +dominant clerical class and diffused over all countries, they bring us +face to face with a body of opinion which finds in studied chronicle or +laboured dissertation of the period no echo. On the one side, they +express that delight in life and physical enjoyment which was a main +characteristic of the Renaissance; on the other, they proclaim that +revolt against the corruption of Papal Rome which was the motive-force +of the Reformation. + +Our knowledge of this poetry is derived from two chief sources. One is +a MS. of the thirteenth century, which was long preserved in the +monastery of Benedictbeuern in Upper Bavaria, and is now at Munich. +Richly illuminated with rare and curious illustrations of contemporary +manners, it seems to have been compiled for the use of some +ecclesiastical prince. This fine codex was edited in 1847 at +Stuttgart. The title of the publication is _Carmina Burana_, and under +that designation I shall refer to it. The other is a Harleian MS., +written before 1264, which Mr. Thomas Wright collated with other +English MSS., and published in 1841 under the name of _Latin Poems +commonly attributed to Walter Mapes_. + +These two sources have to some extent a common stock of poems, which +proves the wide diffusion of the songs in question before the date +assignable to the earlier of the two MS. authorities. But while this +is so, it must be observed that the _Carmina Burana_ are richer in +compositions which form a prelude to the Renaissance; the English +collections, on the other hand, contain a larger number of serious and +satirical pieces anticipating the Reformation. + +Another important set of documents for the study of the subject are +the three large works of Edelstand du Méril upon popular Latin poetry; +while the stores at our disposal have been otherwise augmented by +occasional publications of German and English scholars, bringing to +light numerous scattered specimens of a like description. Of late it +has been the fashion in Germany to multiply anthologies of medieval +student-songs, intended for companion volumes to the _Commersbuch_. +Among these, one entitled _Gaudeamus_ (Teubner, 2d edition, 1879) +deserves honourable mention. + +It is my purpose to give a short account of what is known about the +authors of these verses, to analyse the general characteristics of +their art, and to illustrate the theme by copious translations. So far +as I am aware, the songs of Wandering Students offer almost absolutely +untrodden ground to the English translator; and this fact may be +pleaded in excuse for the large number which I have laid under +contribution. + +In carrying out my plan, I shall confine myself principally, but not +strictly, to the _Carmina Burana_. I wish to keep in view the +anticipation of the Renaissance rather than to dwell upon those +elements which indicate an early desire for ecclesiastical reform. + + + + +IV. + + +We have reason to conjecture that the Romans, even during the +classical period of their literature, used accentual rhythms for +popular poetry, while quantitative metres formed upon Greek models +were the artificial modes employed by cultivated writers. However this +may be, there is no doubt that, together with the decline of antique +civilisation, accent and rhythm began to displace quantity and metre +in Latin versification. Quantitative measures, like the Sapphic and +Hexameter, were composed accentually. The services and music of the +Church introduced new systems of prosody. Rhymes, both single and +double, were added to the verse; and the extraordinary flexibility of +medieval Latin--that sonorous instrument of varied rhetoric used by +Augustine in the prose of the _Confessions_, and gifted with poetic +inspiration in such hymns as the _Dies Irae_ or the _Stabat +Mater_--rendered this new vehicle of literary utterance adequate to +all the tasks imposed on it by piety and metaphysic. The language of +the _Confessions_ and the _Dies Irae_ is not, in fact, a decadent form +of Cicero's prose or Virgil's verse, but a development of the Roman +speech in accordance with the new conditions introduced by +Christianity. It remained comparatively sterile in the department of +prose composition, but it attained to high qualities of art in the +verse and rhythms of men like Thomas of Celano, Thomas of Aquino, Adam +of St. Victor, Bernard of Morlais, and Bernard of Clairvaux. At the +same time, classical Latin literature continued to be languidly +studied in the cloisters and the schools of grammar. The metres of the +ancients were practised with uncouth and patient assiduity, strenuous +efforts being made to keep alive an art which was no longer rightly +understood. Rhyme invaded the hexameter, and the best verses of the +medieval period in that measure were leonine. + +The hymns of the Church and the secular songs composed for music in +this base Latin took a great variety of rhythmic forms. It is clear +that vocal melody controlled their movement; and one fixed element in +all these compositions was rhyme--rhyme often intricate and complex +beyond hope of imitation in our language. Elision came to be +disregarded; and even the accentual values, which may at first have +formed a substitute for quantity, yielded to musical notation. The +epithet of popular belongs to these songs in a very real sense, since +they were intended for the people's use, and sprang from popular +emotion. Poems of this class were technically known as _moduli_--a +name which points significantly to the importance of music in their +structure. Imitations of Ovid's elegiacs or of Virgil's hexameters +obtained the name of _versus_. Thus Walter of Lille, the author of a +regular epic poem on Alexander, one of the best medieval writers of +_versus_, celebrates his skill in the other department of popular +poetry thus-- + + "Perstrepuit _modulis_ Gallia tota meis." + (All France rang with my songs.) + +We might compare the _versus_ of the Middle Ages with the stiff +sculptures on a Romanesque font, lifelessly reminiscent of decadent +classical art; while the _moduli_, in their freshness, elasticity, and +vigour of invention, resemble the floral scrolls, foliated cusps, and +grotesque basreliefs of Gothic or Lombard architecture. + + + + +V. + + +Even in the half-light of what used to be called emphatically the Dark +Ages, there pierce gleams which may be reflections from the past +evening of paganism, or may intimate the earliest dawn of modern +times. One of these is a song, partly popular, partly scholastic, +addressed to a beautiful boy.[1] It begins thus-- + + "O admirabile veneris idolum"-- + +and continues in this strain, upon the same rhythm, blending +reminiscences of classical mythology and medieval metaphysic, and +winding up with a reference to the Horatian _Vitas hinnuleo me similis +Chloe_. This poem was composed in the seventh century, probably at +Verona, for mention is made in it of the river Adige. The metre can +perhaps be regarded as a barbarous treatment of the long Asclepiad; +but each line seems to work out into two bars, divided by a marked +rest, with two accents to each bar, and shows by what sort of +transition the modern French Alexandrine may have been developed. + +The oddly archaic phraseology of this love-song rendered it unfit for +translation; but I have tried my hand at a kind of hymn in praise of +Rome, which is written in the same peculiar rhythm:[2]-- + + "O Rome illustrious, of the world emperess! + Over all cities thou queen in thy goodliness! + Red with the roseate blood of the martyrs, and + White with the lilies of virgins at God's right hand! + Welcome we sing to thee; ever we bring to thee + Blessings, and pay to thee praise for eternity. + + "Peter, thou praepotent warder of Paradise, + Hear thou with mildness the prayer of thy votaries; + When thou art seated to judge the twelve tribes, O then + Show thyself merciful; be thou benign to men; + And when we call to thee now in the world's distress, + Take thou our suffrages, master, with gentleness. + + "Paul, to our litanies lend an indulgent ear, + Who the philosophers vanquished with zeal severe: + Thou that art steward now in the Lord's heavenly house, + Give us to taste of the meat of grace bounteous; + So that the wisdom which filled thee and nourished thee + May be our sustenance through the truths taught by thee." + +A curious secular piece of the tenth century deserves more than +passing mention. It shows how wine, women, and song, even in an age +which is supposed to have trembled for the coming destruction of the +world, still formed the attraction of some natures. What is more, +there is a certain modern, as distinguished from classical, tone of +tenderness in the sentiment. It is the invitation of a young man to +his mistress, bidding her to a little supper in his rooms:[3]-- + + "Come therefore now, my gentle fere, + Whom as my heart I hold full dear; + Enter my little room, which is + Adorned with quaintest rarities: + There are the seats with cushions spread, + The roof with curtains overhead; + The house with flowers of sweetest scent + And scattered herbs is redolent: + A table there is deftly dight + With meats and drinks of rare delight; + There too the wine flows, sparkling, free; + And all, my love, to pleasure thee. + There sound enchanting symphonies; + The clear high notes of flutes arise; + A singing girl and artful boy + Are chanting for thee strains of joy; + He touches with his quill the wire, + She tunes her note unto the lyre: + The servants carry to and fro + Dishes and cups of ruddy glow; + But these delights, I will confess, + Than pleasant converse charm me less; + Nor is the feast so sweet to me + As dear familiarity. + + "Then come now, sister of my heart, + That dearer than all others art, + Unto mine eyes thou shining sun, + Soul of my soul, thou only one! + I dwelt alone in the wild woods, + And loved all secret solitudes; + Oft would I fly from tumults far, + And shunned where crowds of people are. + O dearest, do not longer stay! + Seek we to live and love to-day! + I cannot live without thee, sweet! + Time bids us now our love complete. + Why should we then defer, my own, + What must be done or late or soon? + Do quickly what thou canst not shun! + I have no hesitation." + +From Du Méril's collections further specimens of thoroughly secular +poetry might be culled. Such is the panegyric of the nightingale, +which contains the following impassioned lines:[4]-- + + "Implet silvas atque cuncta modulis arbustula, + Gloriosa valde facta veris prae laetitia; + Volitando scandit alta arborum cacumina, + Ac festiva satis gliscit sibilare carmina." + +Such are the sapphics on the spring, which, though they date from the +seventh century, have a truly modern sentiment of Nature. Such, too, +is the medieval legend of the Snow-Child, treated comically in +burlesque Latin verse, and meant to be sung to a German tune of +love-- + +_Modus Liebinc_. To the same category may be referred the horrible, but +singularly striking, series of Latin poems edited from a MS. at Berne, +which set forth the miseries of monastic life with realistic passion +bordering upon delirium, under titles like the following--_Dissuasio +Concubitûs in in Uno tantum Sexu_, or _De Monachi Cruciata_.[5] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: Du Méril, _Poésies Populaires Latines Antérieures au +Deuxième: Siècle_, p. 240.] + +[Footnote 2: Du Méril, _op. cit._, p. 239.] + +[Footnote 3: Du Méril, _Poésies Populaires Latines du Moyen Age_, p. +196.] + +[Footnote 4: Du Méril, _Poésies Pop. Lat. Ant._, pp. 278, 241, 275.] + +[Footnote 5: These extraordinary compositions will be found on pp. +174-182 of a closely-printed book entitled _Carmina Med. Aev. Max. +Part. Inedita. Ed. H. Hagenus. Bernae. Ap. G. Frobenium_. MDCCCLXXVII. +The editor, so far as I can discover, gives but scant indication of +the poet who lurks, with so much style and so terrible emotions, under +the veil of Cod. Bern., 702 s. Any student who desires to cut into the +core of cloister life should read cvii. pp. 178-182, of this little +book.] + + + + +VI. + + +There is little need to dwell upon these crepuscular stirrings of +popular Latin poetry in the earlier Middle Ages. To indicate their +existence was necessary; for they serve to link by a dim and fragile +thread of evolution the decadent art of the base Empire with the +renascence of paganism attempted in the twelfth century, and thus to +connect that dawn of modern feeling with the orient splendours of the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Italy. + +The first point to notice is the dominance of music in this verse, and +the subjugation of the classic metres to its influence. A deeply +significant transition has been effected from the _versus_ to the +_modulus_ by the substitution of accent for quantity, and by the value +given to purely melodic cadences. A long syllable and a short +syllable have almost equal weight in this prosody, for the musical +tone can be prolonged or shortened upon either. So now the +_cantilena_, rather than the _metron_, rules the flow of verse; but, +at the same time, antique forms are still conventionally used, though +violated in the using. In other words, the modern metres of the modern +European races--the Italian Hendecasyllable, the French Alexandrine, +the English Iambic and Trochaic rhythms--have been indicated; and a +moment has been prepared when these measures shall tune themselves by +means of emphasis and accent to song, before they take their place as +literary schemes appealing to the ear in rhetoric. This phase, whereby +the metres of antiquity pass into the rhythms of the modern races, +implies the use of medieval Latin, still not unmindful of classic art, +but governed now by music often of Teutonic origin, and further +modified by affinities of prosody imported from Teutonic sources. + +The next point to note is that, in this process of transition, popular +ecclesiastical poetry takes precedence of secular. The great rhyming +structures of the Middle Ages, which exercised so wide an influence +over early European literature, were invented for the service of the +Church--voluminous systems of recurrent double rhymes, intricate +rhythms moulded upon tunes for chanting, solid melodic fabrics, which, +having once been formed, were used for lighter efforts of the fancy, +or lent their ponderous effects to parody. Thus, in the first half of +the centuries which intervene between the extinction of the genuine +Roman Empire and the year 1300, ecclesiastical poetry took the lead in +creating and popularising new established types of verse, and in +rendering the spoken Latin pliable for various purposes of art. + +A third point worthy of attention is, that a certain breath of +paganism, wafting perfumes from the old mythology, whispering of gods +in exile, encouraging men to accept their life on earth with genial +enjoyment, was never wholly absent during the darkest periods of the +Middle Ages. This inspiration uttered itself in Latin; for we have +little reason to believe that the modern languages had yet attained +plasticity enough for the expression of that specific note which +belongs to the Renaissance--the note of humanity conscious of its +Græco-Roman pagan past. This Latin, meanwhile, which it employed was +fabricated by the Church and used by men of learning. + + + + +VII. + + +The songs of the Wandering Students were in a strict sense _moduli_ as +distinguished from _versus_; popular and not scholastic. They were, +however, composed by men of culture, imbued with classical learning of +some sort, and prepared by scholarship for the deftest and most +delicate manipulation of the Latin language. + +Who were these Wandering Students, so often mentioned, and of whom +nothing has been as yet related? As their name implies, they were men, +and for the most part young men, travelling from university to +university in search of knowledge. Far from their homes, without +responsibilities, light of purse and light of heart, careless and +pleasure-seeking, they ran a free, disreputable course, frequenting +taverns at least as much as lecture-rooms, more capable of pronouncing +judgment upon wine or women than upon a problem of divinity or logic. +The conditions of medieval learning made it necessary to study +different sciences in different parts of Europe; and a fixed habit of +unrest, which seems to have pervaded society after the period of the +Crusades, encouraged vagabondage in all classes. The extent to which +travelling was carried in the Middle Ages for purposes of pilgrimage +and commerce, out of pure curiosity or love of knowledge, for the +bettering of trade in handicrafts or for self-improvement in the +sciences, has only of late years been estimated at a just calculation. +"The scholars," wrote a monk of Froidmont in the twelfth century, "are +wont to roam around the world and visit all its cities, till much +learning makes them mad; for in Paris they seek liberal arts, in +Orleans authors, at Salerno gallipots, at Toledo demons, and in no +place decent manners." + +These pilgrims to the shrines of knowledge formed a class apart. They +were distinguished from the secular and religious clergy, inasmuch as +they had taken no orders, or only minor orders, held no benefice or +cure, and had entered into no conventual community. They were still +more sharply distinguished from the laity, whom they scorned as +brutes, and with whom they seem to have lived on terms of mutual +hostility. One of these vagabond gownsmen would scarcely condescend to +drink with a townsman:[6]-- + + "In aeterno igni + Cruciantur rustici, qui non sunt tam digni + Quod bibisse noverint bonum vinum vini." + + "Aestimetur laicus ut brutus, + Nam ad artem surdus est et mutus." + + "Litteratos convocat decus virginale, + Laicorum execrat pectus bestiale." + +In a parody of the Mass, which is called _Officium Lusorum,_ and in +which the prayers are offered to Bacchus, we find this devout +collect:[7]--"Omnipotens sempiterne deus, qui inter rusticos et +clericos magnam discordiam seminasti, praesta quaesumus de laboribus +eorum vivere, de mulieribus ipsorum vero et de morte deciorum semper +gaudere." + +The English version of this ribald prayer is even more explicit. It +runs thus:--"Deus qui multitudinem rusticorum ad servitium clericorum +venire fecisti et militum et inter nos et ipsos discordiam seminasti." + +It is open to doubt whether the _milites_ or soldiers were included +with the rustics in that laity, for which the students felt so bitter +a contempt. But the tenor of some poems on love, especially the +_Dispute of Phyllis and Flora_, shows that the student claimed a +certain superiority over the soldier. This antagonism between clerk +and rustic was heartily reciprocated. In a song on taverns the student +is warned that he may meet with rough treatment from the +clodhopper:[8]-- + + "O clerici dilecti, + Discite vitare + Tabernam horribilem, + Qui cupitis regnare; + Nec audeant vos rustici + Plagis verberare! + + "Rusticus dum se + Sentit ebriatum, + Clericum non reputat + Militem armatum. + Vere plane consulo + Ut abstineatis, + Nec unquam cum rusticis + Tabernam ineatis." + +The affinities of the Wandering Students were rather with the Church +than with laymen of any degree. They piqued themselves upon their +title of _Clerici_, and added the epithet of _Vagi_. We shall see in +the sequel that they stood in a peculiar relation of dependence upon +ecclesiastical society. + +According to tendencies prevalent in the Middle Ages, they became a +sort of guild, and proclaimed themselves with pride an Order. Nothing +is more clearly marked in their poetry than the _esprit de corps_, +which animates them with a cordial sense of brotherhood.[9] The same +tendencies which prompted their association required that they should +have a patron saint. But as the confraternity was anything but +religious, this saint, or rather this eponymous hero, had to be a +Rabelaisian character. He was called Golias, and his flock received +the generic name of Goliardi. Golias was father and master; the +Goliardi were his family, his sons, and pupils. _Familia Goliae_, +_Magister Golias_, _Pueri Goliae_, _Discipulus Goliae_, are phrases to +be culled from the rubrics of their literature. + +Much has been conjectured regarding these names and titles. Was Golias +a real person? Did he give his own name to the Goliardi; or was he +invented after the Goliardi had already acquired their designation? In +either case, ought we to connect both words with the Latin _gula_, and +so regard the Goliardi as notable gluttons; or with the Provençal +_goliar_, _gualiar_, _gualiardor_, which carry a significance of +deceit? Had Golias anything to do with Goliath of the Bible, the great +Philistine, who in the present day would more properly be chosen as +the hero of those classes which the students held in horror? + +It is not easy to answer these questions. All we know for certain is, +that the term Goliardus was in common medieval use, and was employed +as a synonym for Wandering Scholar in ecclesiastical documents. _Vagi +scholares aut Goliardi--joculatores, goliardi seu bufones--goliardia +vel histrionatus--vagi scholares qui goliardi vel histriones alio +nomine appellantur--clerici ribaudi, maxime qui dicuntur de familia +Goliae_: so run the acts of several Church Councils.[10] The word +passed into modern languages. The _Grandes Chroniques de S. Denis_ +speak of _jugleor, enchanteor, goliardois, et autres manières de +menestrieux_. Chaucer, in his description of the Miller, calls this +merry narrator of fabliaux _a jangler and a goliardeis_. In _Piers +Ploughman_ the _goliardeis_ is further explained to be _a glutton of +words_, and talks in Latin rhyme.[11] + +Giraldus Cambrensis, during whose lifetime the name Golias first came +into vogue, thought that this father of the Goliardic family was a +real person.[12] He writes of him thus:--"A certain parasite called +Golias, who in our time obtained wide notoriety for his gluttony and +lechery, and by addiction to gulosity and debauchery deserved his +surname, being of excellent culture but of bad manners, and of no +moral discipline, uttered oftentimes and in many forms, both of rhythm +and metre, infamous libels against the Pope and Curia of Rome, with no +less impudence than imprudence." This is perhaps the most outspoken +utterance with regard to the eponymous hero of the Goliardic class +which we possess, and it deserves a close inspection. + +In the first place, Giraldus attributes the satiric poems which +passed under the name of Golias to a single author famous in his days, +and says of this poet that he used both modern rhythms and classical +metres. The description would apply to Gualtherus de Insula, Walter of +Lille, or, as he is also called, Walter of Chatillon; for some of this +Walter's satires are composed in a curious mixture of the rhyming +measures of the medieval hymns with classical hexameters.[13] Yet had +Giraldus been pointing at Walter of Lille, a notable personage in his +times, there is no good reason to suppose that he would have +suppressed his real name, or have taken for granted that Golias was a +_bona fide_ surname. On the theory that he knew Golias to be a mere +nickname, and was aware that Walter of Lille was the actual satirist, +we should have to explain his paragraph by the hypothesis that he +chose to sneer at him under his _nom de guerre_ instead of +stigmatising him openly in person. + +His remarks, at any rate, go far toward disposing of the old belief +that the Goliardic satires were the work of Thomas Mapes. Giraldus was +an intimate friend of that worthy, who deserves well of all lovers of +medieval romance as a principal contributor to the Arthurian cycle. It +is hardly possible that Giraldus should have gibbeted such a man under +the sobriquet of Golias. + +But what, it may be asked, if Walter of Lille, without the cognisance +of our English annalist, had in France obtained the chief fame of +these poems? what if they afterwards were attributed in England to +another Walter, his contemporary, himself a satirist of the monastic +orders? The fact that Walter of Lille was known in Latin as Gualtherus +de Insula, or Walter of the Island, may have confirmed the +misapprehension thus suggested. It should be added that the ascription +of the Goliardic satires to Walter Mapes or Map first occurs in MSS. +of the fourteenth century. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 6: See the drinking song printed in _Walter Mapes_, p. xlv., +and _Carm. Bur._, pp. 198, 179.] + +[Footnote 7: _Carm. Bur._, p. 249, note. There is a variation in the +parody printed by Wright, _Rel. Antiq._, ii.] + +[Footnote 8: See A.P. von Bärnstein's little volume, _Ubi sunt qui +ante nos_, p. 46.] + +[Footnote 9: See especially the songs _Ordo Noster_ and _Nos +Vagabunduli_, translated below in Section xiii.] + +[Footnote 10: See Wright's introduction to _Walter Mapes_.] + +[Footnote 11: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 12: Ibid.] + +[Footnote 13: See Müldner, _Die zehn Gedichte des Walther von Lille_. +1859. Walter Mapes (ed. Wright) is credited with five of these +satires, including two which close each stanza with a hexameter from +Juvenal, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Horace.] + + + + +VIII. + + +I do not think there is much probability of arriving at certainty with +regard to the problems indicated in the foregoing section. We must be +content to accept the names Golias and Goliardi as we find them, and +to treat of this literature as the product of a class, from the midst +of which, as it is clear to any critic, more than one poet rose to +eminence. + +One thing appears manifest from the references to the Goliardi which I +have already quoted. That is, that the Wandering Students ranked in +common estimation with jongleurs, buffoons, and minstrels. Both +classes held a similar place in medieval society. Both were parasites +devoted to the entertainment of their superiors in rank. Both were +unattached, except by occasional engagements, to any fixed abode. But +while the minstrels found their temporary homes in the castles of the +nobility, we have reason to believe that the Goliardi haunted abbeys +and amused the leisure of ecclesiastical lords. + +The personality of the writer disappears in nearly all the _Carmina +Vagorum_. Instead of a poet with a name, we find a type; and the verse +is put into the mouth of Golias himself, or the Archipoeta, or the +Primate of the order. This merging of the individual in the class of +which he forms a part is eminently characteristic of popular +literature, and separates the Goliardic songs from those of the +Provençal Troubadours. The emotions to which popular poetry gives +expression are generic rather than personal. They are such that all +the world, granted common sympathies and common proclivities, can feel +them and adopt the mode of utterance invented for them by the singer. +If there be any bar to their universal acceptance, it is only such as +may belong to the peculiar conditions of the social class from which +they have emanated. The _Rispetti_ of Tuscany imply a certain form of +peasant life. The _Carmina Vagorum_ are coloured to some extent by the +prejudices and proclivities of vagabond existence. + +Trenchantly true as the inspiration of a popular lyric may be, +inevitable as may be the justice of its sentiment, unerring as may be +its touch upon reality, still it lacks the note which marks it out for +one man's utterance among a thousand. Composing it, the one has made +himself the mouthpiece of the thousand. What the _Volkslied_ gains in +universality it loses in individuality of character. Its applicability +to human nature at large is obtained at the sacrifice of that +interest which belongs to special circumstances. It suits every one +who grieves or loves or triumphs. It does not indicate the love, the +grief, the triumph of this man and no other. It possesses the pathos +and the beauty of countless human lives prolonged through inarticulate +generations, finding utterance at last in it. It is deficient in that +particular intonation which makes a Shelley's voice differ from a +Leopardi's, Petrarch's sonnets for Laura differ from Sidney's sonnets +for Stella. It has always less of perceptible artistic effect, more +enduring human quality. Some few of its lines are so well found, so +rightly said, that they possess the certainty of natural things--a +quality rare in the works of all but the greatest known poets. But +these phrases with the accent of truest truth are often embedded in +mere generalities and repetitions. + +These characteristics of popular poetry help to explain the frequent +recurrence of the same ideas, the same expressions, the same stanzas +even, in the lyrics of the Goliardi. A _Volkslied_, once created, +becomes common property. It flies abroad like thistledown; settles and +sows its seed; is maimed and mutilated; is improved or altered for the +worse; is curtailed, expanded, adapted to divers purposes at different +times and in very different relations. + +We may dismiss the problem of authorship partly as insoluble, partly +as of slight importance for a literature which is manifestly popular. +With even greater brevity may the problem of nationality be disposed +of. Some critics have claimed an Italian, some an English, some a +French, and some a German origin for the _Carmina Vagorum_. The truth +is that, just as the _Clerici Vagi_ were themselves of all nations, so +were their songs; and the use of a Latin common to all Europe in the +Middle Ages renders it difficult even to conjecture the soil from +which any particular lyric may have sprung. As is natural, a German +codex contains more songs of Teutonic origin; an English displays +greater abundance of English compositions. I have already observed +that our two chief sources of Goliardic literature have many elements +in common; but the treasures of the Benedictbeuern MS. differ in +complexion from those of the Harleian in important minor details; and +it is probable that if French and Italian stores were properly +ransacked--which has not yet been done--we should note in them similar +characteristic divergences. + +The _Carmina Burana_, by their frequent references to linden-trees and +nightingales, and their numerous German refrains, indicate a German +home for the poems on spring and love, in which they are specially +rich.[14] The collections of our own land have an English turn of +political thought; the names Anglia and Anglus not unfrequently occur; +and the use of the word "Schellinck" in one of the _Carmina Burana_ +may point, perhaps, to an English origin. France claims her own, not +only in the acknowledged pieces of Walter de Lille, but also in a few +which exhibit old French refrains. To Italian conditions, if not to +Italian poets, we may refer those that introduce spreading pines or +olive-trees into their pictures, and one which yields the refrain +_Bela mia_. The most important lyric of the series, _Golias' +Confession_, was undoubtedly written at Pavia, but whether by an +Italian or not we do not know. The probability is rather, perhaps, in +favour of Teutonic authorship, since this _Confession_ is addressed to +a German prelate. Here it may be noticed that the proper names of +places and people are frequently altered to suit different countries; +while in some cases they are indicated by an N, sufficiently +suggestive of their generality. Thus the _Confession of Golias_ in the +_Carmina Burana_ mentions _Electe Coloniae_; in an English version, +introduces _Praesul Coventriae_. The prayer for alms, which I have +translated in Section xiii., is addressed to _Decus N----_, thou +honour of Norwich town, or Wittenberg, or wherever the wandering +scholar may have chanced to be. + +With regard to the form and diction of the _Carmina Vagorum_, it is +enough to say two things at the present time. First, a large portion +of these pieces, including a majority of the satires and longer +descriptive poems, are composed in measures borrowed from hymnology, +follow the diction of the Church, and imitate the double-rhyming +rhythms of her sequences. It is not unnatural, this being the case, +that parodies of hymns should be comparatively common. Of these I +shall produce some specimens in the course of this study. Secondly, +those which do not exhibit popular hymn measures are clearly written +for melodies, some of them very complicated in structure, suggesting +part-songs and madrigals, with curious interlacing of long and short +lines, double and single rhymes, recurrent ritournelles, and so forth. + +The ingenuity with which these poets adapted their language to the +exigencies of the tune, taxing the fertility of Latin rhymes, and +setting off the long sonorous words to great advantage, deserves +admiring comment. At their best, it is almost impossible to reproduce +in English the peculiar effects of their melodic artifices. But there +is another side to the matter. At their worst, these Latin lyrics, +moulded on a tune, degenerate into disjointed verbiage, sound and +adaptation to song prevailing over sense and satisfaction to the mind. +It must, however, be remembered that such lyrics, sometimes now almost +unintelligible, have come down to us with a very mutilated text, after +suffering the degradations through frequent oral transmission to which +popular poetry is peculiarly liable. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 14: The more I study the songs of love and wine in this +codex, the more convinced am I that they have their origin for the +most part in South-Western Germany, Bavaria, the Bodensee, and +Elsass.] + + + + +IX. + + +It is easier to say what the Goliardi wrote about than who the writers +were, and what they felt and thought than by what names they were +baptised. The mass of their literature, as it is at present known to +us, divides into two broad classes. The one division includes poems +on the themes of vagabond existence, the truant life of these +capricious students; on spring-time and its rural pleasure; on love in +many phases and for divers kinds of women; lastly, on wine and on the +dice-box. The other division is devoted to graver topics; to satires +on society, touching especially the Roman Court, and criticising +eminent ecclesiastics in all countries; to moral dissertations, and to +discourses on the brevity of life. + +Of the two divisions, the former yields by far the livelier image of +the men we have to deal with. It will therefore form the staple of my +argument. The latter blends at so many points with medieval literature +of the monastic kind, that it is chiefly distinguished by boldness of +censure and sincerity of invective. In these qualities the serious +poems of the Goliardi, emanating from a class of men who moved behind +the scenes and yet were free to speak their thoughts, are unique. +Written with the satirist's eye upon the object of his sarcasm, tinged +with the license of his vagabondage, throbbing with the passionate and +nonchalant afflatus of the wine-cup, they wing their flight like +poisoned arrows or plumed serpents with unerring straightness at +abuses in high places. + +The wide space occupied by Nature in the secular poems of the Goliardi +is remarkable. As a background to their love-songs we always find the +woods and fields of May, abundant flowers and gushing rivulets, +lime-trees and pines and olive-trees, through which soft winds are +blowing. There are rose-bowers and nightingales; fauns, nymphs, and +satyrs dancing on the sward. Choirs of mortal maidens emerge in the +midst of this Claude-landscape. The scene, meanwhile, has been painted +from experience, and felt with the enthusiasm of affection. It +breathes of healthy open air, of life upon the road, of casual joys +and wayside pleasure, snatched with careless heart by men whose tastes +are natural. There is very little of the alcove or the closet in this +verse; and the touch upon the world is so infantine, so tender, that +we are indulgent to the generalities with which the poets deal. + +What has been said about popular poetry applies also to popular +painting. In the landscapes of Goliardic literature there is nothing +specific to a single locality--no name like Vaucluse, no pregnant +touch that indicates one scene selected from a thousand. The landscape +is always a background, more northern or more southern as the case may +be, but penetrated with the feeling of the man who has been happy or +has suffered there. This feeling, broadly, sensuously diffused, as in +a masterpiece of Titian, prepares us for the human element to be +exhibited. + +The foreground of these pictures is occupied by a pair of lovers +meeting after the long winter's separation, a dance upon the village +green, a young man gazing on the mistress he adores, a disconsolate +exile from his home, the courtship of a student and a rustic beauty, +or perhaps the grieved and melancholy figure of one whose sweetheart +has proved faithless. Such actors in the comedy of life are defined +with fervent intensity of touch against the leafy vistas of the +scene. The lyrical cry emerges clear and sharp in all that concerns +their humanity. + +The quality of love expressed is far from being either platonic or +chivalrous. It is love of the sensuous, impulsive, appetitive kind, to +which we give the name of Pagan. The finest outbursts of passion are +emanations from a potent sexual desire. Meanwhile, nothing indicates +the character or moral quality of either man or woman. The student and +the girl are always _vis-à-vis_, fixed characters in this lyrical +love-drama. He calls her Phyllis, Flora, Lydia, Glycerion, Caecilia. +He remains unnamed, his physical emotion sufficing for personal +description. The divinity presiding over them is Venus. Jove and +Danae, Cupid and the Graces, Paris and Helen, follow in her train. All +the current classical mythology is laid under cheap contribution. Yet +the central emotion, the young man's heart's desire, is so vividly +portrayed, that we seem to be overhearing the triumphant ebullition or +the melancholy love-lament of a real soul. + + + + +X. + + +The sentiment of love is so important in the songs of the Wandering +Students, that it may not be superfluous at this point to cull a few +emphatic phrases which illustrate the core of their emotion, and to +present these in the original Latin. + +I may first observe to what a large extent the ideas of spring and of +female society were connected at that epoch. Winter was a dreary +period, during which a man bore his fate and suffered. He emerged from +it into sunshine, brightened by the intercourse with women, which was +then made possible. This is how the winter is described:[15]-- + + "In omni loco congruo + Sermonis oblectatio + Cum sexu femineo + Evanuit omni modo." + +Of the true love-songs, only one refers expressly to the winter +season. That, however, is the lyric upon Flora, which contains a +detailed study of plastic form in the bold spirit of the Goliardic +style.[16] + +The particularity with which the personal charms of women are +described deserves attention. The portrait of Flora, to which I have +just alluded, might be cited as one of the best specimens. But the +slightest shades are discriminated, as in this touch:[17]-- + + "Labellulis + Castigate tumentibus." + +One girl has long tawny tresses: _Caesaries subrubea_. Another is +praised for the masses of her dark hair: _Frons nimirum coronata, +supercilium nigrata_. Roses and lilies vie, of course, upon the cheeks +of all; and sometimes their sweetness surpasses the lily of the +valley. From time to time a touch of truer poetry occurs; as, for +instance[18]-- + + "O decora super ora + Belli Absalonis!" + +Or take again the outburst of passion in this stanza, where both the +rhythm and the ponderous Latin words, together with the abrupt +transition from the third to the fourth line, express a fine +exaltation:[19]-- + + "Frons et gula, labra, mentum + Dant amoris alimentum; + Crines ejus adamavi, + Quoniam fuere flavi." + +The same kind of enthusiasm is more elaborately worked out in the +following comparisons:[20]-- + + "Matutini sideris + Jubar praeis, + Et lilium + Rosaque periere: + Micat ebur dentium + Per labium, + Ut Sirium + Credat quis enitere." + +As might be expected, such lovers were not satisfied with +contemplative pleasures:[21]-- + + "Visu, colloquio, + Contactu, basio, + Frui virgo dederat; + Sed aberat + Linea posterior + Et melior amori, + Quam nisi transiero, + De cetero + Sunt quae dantur alia + Materia furori." + +The conclusion of this song, which, taken in its integrity, deserves +to be regarded as typical of what is pagan in this erotic literature, +may be studied in the Appendix to _Carmina Burana_. + +Occasionally the lover's desire touches a higher point of +spirituality:[22]-- + + "Non tactu sanabor labiorum, + Nisi cor unum fiat duorum + Et idem velle. Vale, flos florum!" + +Occasionally, the sensuous fervour assumes a passionate +intensity:[23]-- + + "Nocte cum ea si dormiero, + Si sua labra semel suxero, + Mortem subire, placenter obire, vitamque finire, + Libens potero." + +Very rarely there is a strong desire expressed for fidelity, as in a +beautiful lyric of absence, which I hope to give translated in full in +my 17th Section. + +But the end to be attained is always such as is summed up in these +brief words placed upon a girl's lips:[24]-- + + "Dulcissime, + Totam tibi subdo me." + +And the motto of both sexes is this:[25]-- + + "Quicquid agant alii, + Juvenes amemus." + +It may be added, in conclusion, that the sweethearts of our students +seem to have been mostly girls of the working and rustic classes, +sometimes women of bad fame, rarely married women. In no case that has +come beneath my notice is there any hint that one of them aspired to +such amours with noble ladies as distinguished the Troubadours. A +democratic tone, a tone of the proletariate, is rather strangely blent +with the display of learning, and with the more than common literary +skill apparent in their work. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 15: _Carm. Bur._, p. 174.] + +[Footnote 16: Ibid., p. 149, translated below in Section xvii.] + +[Footnote 17: Ibid., p. 130.] + +[Footnote 18: _Carm. Bur._, p. 200.] + +[Footnote 19: Ibid., p. 231.] + +[Footnote 20: Ibid., p. 121.] + +[Footnote 21: Ibid., p. 135.] + +[Footnote 22: _Carm. Bur._, p. 145.] + +[Footnote 23: Ibid., p. 230.] + + + + +XI. + + +The drinking-songs are equally spontaneous and fresh. Anacreon pales +before the brilliancy of the Archipoeta when wine is in his veins, and +the fountain of the Bacchic chant swells with gushes of strongly +emphasised bold double rhymes, each throbbing like a man's firm +stroke upon the strings of lyres. A fine audacity breathes through the +praises of the wine-god, sometimes rising to lyric rapture, sometimes +sinking to parody and innuendo, but always carrying the bard on +rolling wheels along the paths of song. The reality of the inspiration +is indubitable. These Bacchanalian choruses have been indited in the +tavern, with a crowd of topers round the poet, with the rattle of the +dice-box ringing in his ears, and with the facile maidens of his +volatile amours draining the wine-cup at his elbow. + +Wine is celebrated as the source of pleasure in social life, +provocative of love, parent of poetry:[26]-- + + "Bacchus forte superans + Pectora virorum + In amorem concitat + Animos eorum. + + "Bacchus saepe visitans + Mulierum genus + Facit eas subditas + Tibi, O tu Venus!" + +From his temple, the tavern, water-drinkers and fastidious persons are +peremptorily warned:[27]-- + + "Qui potare non potestis, + Ite procul ab his festis; + Non est hic locus modestis: + Devitantur plus quam pestis." + +The tavern is loved better than the church, and a bowl of wine than +the sacramental chalice:[28]-- + + "Magis quam ecclesiam + Diligo tabernam." + + "Mihi sapit dulcius + Vinum de taberna, + Quam quod aqua miscuit + Praesulis pincerna." + +As in the love-songs, so in these drinking-songs we find no lack of +mythological allusions. Nor are the grammatical quibbles, which might +also have been indicated as a defect of the erotic poetry, conspicuous +by absence. But both alike are impotent to break the spell of evident +sincerity. We discount them as belonging to the euphuism of a certain +epoch, and are rather surprised than otherwise that they should not be +more apparent. The real and serious defect of Goliardic literature is +not affectation, but something very different, which I shall try to +indicate in the last Section of this treatise. Venus and Helen, Liber +and Lyaeus, are but the current coin of poetic diction common to the +whole student class. These Olympian deities merge without a note of +discord into the dim background of a medieval pothouse or the sylvan +shades of some ephemeral amour, leaving the realism of natural +appetite in either case untouched. + +It is by no means the thin and conventional sprinkling of classical +erudition which makes these poems of the Goliardi pagan, and reminds +the student of Renaissance art. Conversely, the scholastic plays on +words which they contain do not stamp them out as medieval. Both of +these qualities are _rococo_ and superficial rather than essential and +distinctive in their style. After making due allowances for either +element of oddity, a true connoisseur will gratefully appreciate the +spontaneous note of enjoyment, the disengagement from ties and duties +imposed by temporal respectability, the frank animalism, which +connects these vivid hymns to Bacchus and Venus with past Aristophanes +and future Rabelais. They celebrate the eternal presence of +mirth-making powers in hearts of men, apart from time and place and +varying dogmas which do not concern deities of Nature. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 24: _Carm. Bur._, p. 133.] + +[Footnote 25: Ibid., p. 251.] + +[Footnote 26: _Carm. Bur._, p. 238.] + +[Footnote 27: Ibid., p. 240.] + +[Footnote 28: Wright's _Walter Mapes_, p. xlv.; _Carm. Bur._, p. 69.] + + + + +XII. + + +The time has now come for me to introduce my reader to the versions I +have made from the songs of Wandering Students. I must remind him +that, while the majority of these translations aim at literal +exactness and close imitation of the originals in rhyme and structure, +others are more paraphrastic. It has always been my creed that a good +translation should resemble a plaster-cast; the English being _plaquè_ +upon the original, so as to reproduce its exact form, although it +cannot convey the effects of bronze or marble, which belong to the +material of the work of art. But this method has not always seemed to +me the most desirable for rendering poems, an eminent quality of which +is facility and spontaneity. In order to obtain that quality in our +language, the form has occasionally to be sacrificed. + +What Coleridge has reported to have said of Southey may be applied to +a translator. He too "is in some sort like an elegant setter of +jewels; the stones are not his own: he gives them all the advantage of +his art, but not their native brilliancy." I feel even more than this +when I attempt translation, and reflect that, unlike the jeweller, it +is my doom to reduce the lustre of the gems I handle, even if I do not +substitute paste and pebbles. Yet I am frequently enticed to repeat +experiments, which afterwards I regard in the light of failures. What +allures me first is the pleasure of passing into that intimate +familiarity with art which only a copyist or a translator enjoys. I am +next impelled by the desire to fix the attention of readers on things +which I admire, and which are possibly beyond their scope of view. +Lastly comes that _ignis fatuus_ of the hope, for ever renewed, if +also for ever disappointed, that some addition may be made in this way +to the wealth of English poetry. A few exquisite pieces in Latin +literature, the Catullian _Ille mi par_, for example, a few in our +own, such as Jonson's _Drink to me only with thine eyes_, are +translations. Possibly the miracle of such poetic transmutation may be +repeated for me; possibly an English song may come to birth by my +means also. With this hope in view, the translator is strongly tempted +to engraft upon his versions elegances in the spirit of his native +language, or to use the motives of the original for improvisations in +his own manner. I must plead guilty to having here and there yielded +to this temptation, as may appear upon comparison of my English with +the Latin. All translation is a compromise; and while being conscious +of having to sacrifice much, the translator finds himself often +seeking to add something as a makeweight. + +I shall divide my specimens into nine Sections. The first will include +those which deal with the Order of Wandering Students in general, +winding up with the _Confession_ ascribed to Golias, the father of the +family. The second, third, fourth, and fifth are closely connected, +since they contain spring-songs, pastorals, descriptive poems touching +upon love, and erotic lyrics. The sixth Section will be devoted to a +few songs of exile, doubt, and sorrow. In the seventh we shall reach +anacreontics on the theme of wine, passing in the eighth to parodies +and comic pieces. Four or five serious compositions will close the +list in the ninth Section. + +At the end of the book I mean to print a table containing detailed +references to the originals of the songs I have chosen for +translation, together with an index of the principal works that have +been published on this subject. + + + + +XIII. + + +The first song which concerns the Order of Wandering Students in +general has been attributed to the Archipoeta or head-bard of the +guild. Whoever this poet may have been, it is to him that we owe the +_Confession of Golias_, by far the most spirited composition of the +whole Goliardic species. I do not think the style of the poem on the +Order, though it belongs to a good period, justifies our ascribing it +to so inspired and genial a lyrist. + +The argument runs as follows. Just as commission was given to the +Apostles to go forth and preach in the whole world, so have the +Wandering Students a vocation to travel, and to test the hearts of men +wherever they may sojourn. A burlesque turn is given to this function +of the _Vagi_. Yet their consciousness of a satiric mission, their +willingness to pose as critics of society from the independent +vantage-ground of vagabondage, seems seriously hinted at. + +The chief part of the song is devoted to a description of the +comprehensive nature of the Order, which receives all sorts and +conditions of men, and makes no distinction of nationality. The +habitual poverty of its members, their favourite pastimes and vices, +their love of gaming and hatred of early rising, are set forth with +some humour. + + + + +ON THE ORDER OF WANDERING STUDENTS. + +No. 1. + + + At the mandate, Go ye forth, + Through the whole world hurry! + Priests tramp out toward south and north, + Monks and hermits skurry, + Levites smooth the gospel leave, + Bent on ambulation; + Each and all to our sect cleave, + Which is life's salvation. + + In this sect of ours 'tis writ: + Prove all things in season; + Weigh this life and judge of it + By your riper reason; + 'Gainst all evil clerks be you + Steadfast in resistance, + Who refuse large tithe and due + Unto your subsistence. + + Marquesses, Bavarians, + Austrians and Saxons, + Noblemen and chiefs of clans, + Glorious by your actions! + Listen, comrades all, I pray, + To these new decretals: + Misers they must meet decay, + Niggardly gold-beetles. + + We the laws of charity + Found, nor let them crumble; + For into our order we + Take both high and humble; + Rich and poor men we receive, + In our bosom cherish; + Welcome those the shavelings leave + At their doors to perish. + + We receive the tonsured monk, + Let him take his pittance; + And the parson with his punk, + If he craves admittance; + Masters with their bands of boys, + Priests with high dominion; + But the scholar who enjoys + Just one coat's our minion! + + This our sect doth entertain + Just men and unjust ones; + Halt, lame, weak of limb or brain, + Strong men and robust ones; + Those who flourish in their pride, + Those whom age makes stupid; + Frigid folk and hot folk fried + In the fires of Cupid. + + Tranquil souls and bellicose, + Peacemaker and foeman; + Czech and Hun, and mixed with those + German, Slav, and Roman; + Men of middling size and weight, + Dwarfs and giants mighty; + Men of modest heart and state, + Vain men, proud and flighty. + + Of the Wanderers' order I + Tell the Legislature-- + They whose life is free and high, + Gentle too their nature-- + They who'd rather scrape a fat + Dish in gravy swimming, + Than in sooth to marvel at + Barns with barley brimming. + + Now this order, as I ken, + Is called sect or section, + Since its sectaries are men + Divers in complexion; + Therefore _hic_ and _haec_ and _hoc_ + Suit it in declension, + Since so multiform a flock + Here finds comprehension. + + This our order hath decried + Matins with a warning; + For that certain phantoms glide + In the early morning, + Whereby pass into man's brain + Visions of vain folly; + Early risers are insane, + Racked by melancholy. + + This our order doth proscribe + All the year round matins; + When they've left their beds, our tribe + In the tap sing latins; + There they call for wine for all, + Roasted fowl and chicken; + Hazard's threats no hearts appal, + Though his strokes still thicken. + + This our order doth forbid + Double clothes with loathing: + He whose nakedness is hid + With one vest hath clothing: + Soon one throws his cloak aside + At the dice-box calling; + Next his girdle is untied, + While the cards are falling. + + What I've said of upper clothes + To the nether reaches; + They who own a shirt, let those + Think no more of breeches; + If one boasts big boots to use, + Let him leave his gaiters; + They who this firm law refuse + Shall be counted traitors. + + No one, none shall wander forth + Fasting from the table; + If thou'rt poor, from south and north + Beg as thou art able! + Hath it not been often seen + That one coin brings many, + When a gamester on the green + Stakes his lucky penny? + + No one on the road should walk + 'Gainst the wind--'tis madness; + Nor in poverty shall stalk + With a face of sadness; + Let him bear him bravely then, + Hope sustain his spirit; + After heavy trials men + Better luck inherit! + + While throughout the world you rove, + Thus uphold your banners; + Give these reasons why you prove + Hearts of men and manners: + "To reprove the reprobate, + Probity approving, + Improbate from approbate + To remove, I'm moving." + +The next song is a lament for the decay of the Order and the +suppression of its privileges. It was written, to all appearances, at +a later date, and is inferior in style. The Goliardi had already, we +learn from it, exchanged poverty for luxury. Instead of tramping on +the hard hoof, they moved with a retinue of mounted servants. We seem +to trace in the lament a change from habits of simple vagabondage to +professional dependence, as minstrels and secretaries, upon men of +rank in Church and State, which came over the Goliardic class. This +poem, it may be mentioned, does not occur in the _Carmina Burana_, nor +is it included among those which bear the name of Walter Mapes or Map. + + + + +ON THE DECAY OF THE ORDER. + +No. 2. + + + Once (it was in days of yore) + This our order flourished; + Popes, whom Cardinals adore, + It with honours nourished; + Licences desirable + They gave, nought desiring; + While our prayers, the beads we tell, + Served us for our hiring. + + Now this order (so time runs) + Is made tributary; + With the ruck of Adam's sons + We must draw and carry; + Ground by common serfdom down, + By our debts confounded, + Debts to market-place and town + With the Jews compounded. + + Once ('twas when the simple state + Of our order lasted) + All men praised us, no man's hate + Harried us or wasted; + Rates and taxes on our crew + There was none to levy; + But the sect, douce men and true, + Served God in a bevy. + + Now some envious folks, who spy + Sumptuous equipages, + Horses, litters passing by, + And a host of pages, + Say, "Unless their purses were + Quite with wealth o'erflowing, + They could never thus, I swear, + Round about be going!" + + Such men do not think nor own + How with toil we bend us, + Not to feed ourselves alone, + But the folk who tend us: + On all comers, all who come, + We our substance lavish, + Therefore 'tis a trifling sum + For ourselves we ravish. + + On this subject, at this time, + What we've said suffices: + Let us leave it, lead the rhyme + Back to our devices: + We the miseries of this life + Bear with cheerful spirit, + That Heaven's bounty after strife + We may duly merit. + + 'Tis a sign that God the Lord + Will not let us perish, + Since with scourge and rod and sword + He our souls doth cherish; + He amid this vale of woes + Makes us bear the burden, + That true joys in heaven's repose + May be ours for guerdon. + +Next in order to these poems, which display the Wandering Students as +a class, I will produce two that exhibit their mode of life in detail. +The first is a begging petition, addressed by a scholar on the tramp +to the great man of the place where he is staying. The name of the +place, as I have already noticed, is only indicated by an N. The nasal +whine of a suppliant for alms, begging, as Erasmus begged, not in the +name of charity, but of learning, makes itself heard both in the +rhyme and rhythm of the original Latin. I have tried to follow the +sing-song doggerel. + + + + +A WANDERING STUDENT'S PETITION. + +No. 3. + + + I, a wandering scholar lad, + Born for toil and sadness, + Oftentimes am driven by + Poverty to madness. + + Literature and knowledge I + Fain would still be earning, + Were it not that want of pelf + Makes me cease from learning. + + These torn clothes that cover me + Are too thin and rotten; + Oft I have to suffer cold, + By the warmth forgotten. + + Scarce I can attend at church, + Sing God's praises duly; + Mass and vespers both I miss, + Though I love them truly. + + Oh, thou pride of N----, + By thy worth I pray thee + Give the suppliant help in need, + Heaven will sure repay thee. + + Take a mind unto thee now + Like unto St. Martin; + Clothe the pilgrim's nakedness, + Wish him well at parting. + + So may God translate your soul + Into peace eternal, + And the bliss of saints be yours + In His realm supernal. + +The second is a jovial _Song of the Open Road_, throbbing with the +exhilaration of young life and madcap impudence. We must imagine that +two vagabond students are drinking together before they part upon +their several ways. One addresses the other as _frater catholice, vir +apostolice_, vows to befriend him, and expounds the laws of loyalty +which bind the brotherhood together. To the rest of the world they are +a terror and a nuisance. Honest folk are jeeringly forbidden to beware +of the _quadrivium_, which is apt to form a fourfold rogue instead of +a scholar in four branches of knowledge. + +The Latin metre is so light, careless, and airy, that I must admit an +almost complete failure to do it justice in my English version. The +refrain appears intended to imitate a bugle-call. + + + + +A SONG OF THE OPEN ROAD. + +No. 4. + + + We in our wandering, + Blithesome and squandering, + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Eat to satiety, + Drink with propriety; + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Laugh till our sides we split, + Rags on our hides we fit; + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Jesting eternally, + Quaffing infernally: + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Craft's in the bone of us, + Fear 'tis unknown of us: + Tara, tantara, teino! + + When we're in neediness, + Thieve we with greediness: + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Brother catholical, + Man apostolical, + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Say what you will have done, + What you ask 'twill be done! + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Folk, fear the toss of the + Horns of philosophy! + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Here comes a quadruple + Spoiler and prodigal! + Tara, tantara, teino! + + License and vanity + Pamper insanity: + Tara, tantara, teino! + + As the Pope bade us do, + Brother to brother's true: + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Brother, best friend, adieu! + Now, I must part from you! + Tara, tantara, teino! + + When will our meeting be? + Glad shall our greeting be! + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Vows valedictory + Now have the victory; + Tara, tantara, teino! + + Clasped on each other's breast, + Brother to brother pressed, + Tara, tantara, teino! + +In the fourth place I insert the _Confession of Golias_. This +important composition lays bare the inner nature of a Wandering +Student, describing his vagrant habits, his volatile and +indiscriminate amours, his passion for the dice-box, his devotion to +wine, and the poetic inspiration he was wont to draw from it. + +In England this _Confession_ was attributed to Walter Map; and the +famous drinking-song, on which the Archdeacon of Oxford's reputation +principally rests in modern times, was extracted from the stanzas II +_et seq._[29] But, though Wright is unwilling to refuse Map such +honour as may accrue to his fame from the composition, we have little +reason to regard it as his work. The song was clearly written at +Pavia--a point inexplicably overlooked by Wright in the note appended +to stanza 9--and the Archbishop-elect of Cologne, who is appealed to +by name in stanza 24, was Reinald von Dassel, a minister of Frederick +Barbarossa. This circumstance enables us to determine the date of the +poem between 1162 and 1165. When the _Confession_ was manipulated for +English readers, _Praesul Coventrensium, Praesul mibi cognite_, and _O +pastor ecclesiae_ were in several MS. redactions substituted for +_Electe Coloniae_. Instead of _Papiae_, in stanza 8, we read _in +mundo_; but in stanza 9, where the rhyme required it, _Papiae_ was +left standing--a sufficient indication of literary rehandling by a +clumsy scribe. In the text of the _Carmina Burana_, the _Confession_ +winds up with a petition that Reinald von Dassel should employ the +poet as a secretary, or should bestow some mark of his bounty upon +him. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 29: Wright's _Walter Mapes_, p. xlv.] + + + + +THE CONFESSION OF GOLIAS. + +No. 5. + + + Boiling in my spirit's veins + With fierce indignation, + From my bitterness of soul + Springs self-revelation: + Framed am I of flimsy stuff, + Fit for levitation, + Like a thin leaf which the wind + Scatters from its station. + + While it is the wise man's part + With deliberation + On a rock to base his heart's + Permanent foundation, + With a running river I + Find my just equation, + Which beneath the self-same sky + Hath no habitation. + + Carried am I like a ship + Left without a sailor, + Like a bird that through the air + Flies where tempests hale her; + Chains and fetters hold me not, + Naught avails a jailer; + Still I find my fellows out, + Toper, gamester, railer. + + To my mind all gravity + Is a grave subjection; + Sweeter far than honey are + Jokes and free affection. + All that Venus bids me do, + Do I with erection, + For she ne'er in heart of man + Dwelt with dull dejection. + + Down the broad road do I run, + As the way of youth is; + Snare myself in sin, and ne'er + Think where faith and truth is; + Eager far for pleasure more + Than soul's health, the sooth is, + For this flesh of mine I care, + Seek not ruth where ruth is. + + Prelate, most discreet of priests, + Grant me absolution! + Dear's the death whereof I die, + Sweet my dissolution; + For my heart is wounded by + Beauty's soft suffusion; + All the girls I come not nigh, + Mine are in illusion. + + 'Tis most arduous to make + Nature's self surrender; + Seeing girls, to blush and be + Purity's defender! + We young men our longings ne'er + Shall to stern law render, + Or preserve our fancies from + Bodies smooth and tender. + + Who, when into fire he falls, + Keeps himself from burning? + Who within Pavia's walls + Fame of chaste is earning? + Venus with her finger calls + Youths at every turning, + Snares them with her eyes, and thralls + With her amorous yearning. + + If you brought Hippolitus + To Pavia Sunday, + He'd not be Hippolitus + On the following Monday; + Venus there keeps holiday + Every day as one day; + 'Mid these towers in no tower dwells + Venus Verecunda. + + In the second place I own + To the vice of gaming: + Cold indeed outside I seem, + Yet my soul is flaming: + But when once the dice-box hath + Stripped me to my shaming, + Make I songs and verses fit + For the world's acclaiming. + + In the third place, I will speak + Of the tavern's pleasure; + For I never found nor find + There the least displeasure; + Nor shall find it till I greet + Angels without measure, + Singing requiems for the souls + In eternal leisure. + + In the public-house to die + Is my resolution; + Let wine to my lips be nigh + At life's dissolution: + That will make the angels cry, + With glad elocution, + "Grant this toper, God on high, + Grace and absolution!" + + With the cup the soul lights up, + Inspirations flicker; + Nectar lifts the soul on high + With its heavenly ichor: + To my lips a sounder taste + Hath the tavern's liquor + Than the wine a village clerk + Waters for the vicar. + + Nature gives to every man + Some gift serviceable; + Write I never could nor can + Hungry at the table; + Fasting, any stripling to + Vanquish me is able; + Hunger, thirst, I liken to + Death that ends the fable. + + Nature gives to every man + Gifts as she is willing; + I compose my verses when + Good wine I am swilling, + Wine the best for jolly guest + Jolly hosts are filling; + From such wine rare fancies fine + Flow like dews distilling. + + Such my verse is wont to be + As the wine I swallow; + No ripe thoughts enliven me + While my stomach's hollow; + Hungry wits on hungry lips + Like a shadow follow, + But when once I'm in my cups, + I can beat Apollo. + + Never to my spirit yet + Flew poetic vision + Until first my belly had + Plentiful provision; + Let but Bacchus in the brain + Take a strong position, + Then comes Phoebus flowing in + With a fine precision. + + There are poets, worthy men, + Shrink from public places, + And in lurking-hole or den + Hide their pallid faces; + There they study, sweat, and woo + Pallas and the Graces, + But bring nothing forth to view + Worth the girls' embraces. + + Fasting, thirsting, toil the bards, + Swift years flying o'er them; + Shun the strife of open life, + Tumults of the forum; + They, to sing some deathless thing, + Lest the world ignore them, + Die the death, expend their breath, + Drowned in dull decorum. + + Lo! my frailties I've betrayed, + Shown you every token, + Told you what your servitors + Have against me spoken; + But of those men each and all + Leave their sins unspoken, + Though they play, enjoy to-day, + Scorn their pledges broken. + + Now within the audience-room + Of this blessed prelate, + Sent to hunt out vice, and from + Hearts of men expel it; + Let him rise, nor spare the bard, + Cast at him a pellet; + He whose heart knows not crime's smart, + Show my sin and tell it! + + I have uttered openly + All I knew that shamed me, + And have spued the poison forth + That so long defamed me; + Of my old ways I repent, + New life hath reclaimed me; + God beholds the heart--'twas man + Viewed the face and blamed me. + + Goodness now hath won my love, + I am wroth with vices; + Made a new man in my mind, + Lo, my soul arises! + Like a babe new milk I drink-- + Milk for me suffices, + Lest my heart should longer be + Filled with vain devices. + + Thou Elect of fair Cologne, + Listen to my pleading! + Spurn not thou the penitent; + See, his heart is bleeding! + Give me penance! what is due + For my faults exceeding + I will bear with willing cheer, + All thy precepts heeding. + + Lo, the lion, king of beasts, + Spares the meek and lowly; + Toward submissive creatures he + Tames his anger wholly. + Do the like, ye powers of earth, + Temporal and holy! + Bitterness is more than's right + When 'tis bitter solely. + + + + +XIV. + + +Having been introduced to the worshipful order of vagrants both in +their collective and in their personal capacity, we will now follow +them to the woods and fields in spring. It was here that they sought +love-adventures and took pastime after the restraints of winter. + +The spring-songs are all, in the truest sense of the word, +_lieder_--lyrics for music. Their affinities of form and rhythm are +less with ecclesiastical verse than with the poetry of the Minnesinger +and the Troubadour. Sometimes we are reminded of the French +_pastourelle_, sometimes of the rustic ditty, with its monotonous +refrain. + +The exhilaration of the season which they breathe has something of the +freshness of a lark's song, something at times of the richness of the +nightingale's lament. The defect of the species may be indicated in a +single phrase. It is a tedious reiteration of commonplaces in the +opening stanzas. Here, however, is a lark-song. + + + + +WELCOME TO SPRING. + +No. 6. + + + Spring is coming! longed-for spring + Now his joy discloses; + On his fair brow in a ring + Bloom empurpled roses! + Birds are gay; how sweet their lay! + Tuneful is the measure; + The wild wood grows green again, + Songsters change our winter's pain + To a mirthful pleasure. + + Now let young men gather flowers, + On their foreheads bind them, + Maidens pluck them from the bowers, + Then, when they have twined them, + Breathe perfume from bud and bloom, + Where young love reposes, + And into the meadows so + All together laughing go, + Crowned with ruddy roses. + +Here again the nightingale's song, contending with the young man's +heart's lament of love, makes itself heard. + + + + +THE LOVER AND THE NIGHTINGALE. + +No. 7. + + + These hours of spring are jolly; + Maidens, be gay! + Shake off dull melancholy, + Ye lads, to-day! + Oh! all abloom am I! + It is a maiden love that makes me sigh, + A new, new love it is wherewith I die! + + The nightingale is singing + So sweet a lay! + Her glad voice heavenward flinging-- + No check, no stay. + + Flower of girls love-laden + Is my sweetheart; + Of roses red the maiden + For whom I smart. + + The promise that she gives me + Makes my heart bloom; + If she denies, she drives me + Forth to the gloom. + + My maid, to me relenting, + Is fain for play; + Her pure heart, unconsenting, + Saith, "Lover, stay!" + + Hush, Philomel, thy singing, + This little rest! + Let the soul's song rise ringing + Up from the breast! + + In desolate Decembers + Man bides his time: + Spring stirs the slumbering embers; + Love-juices climb. + + Come, mistress, come, my maiden! + Bring joy to me! + Come, come, thou beauty-laden! + I die for thee! + O all abloom am I! + It is a maiden love that makes me sigh, + A new, new love it is wherewith I die! + +There is a very pretty _Invitation to Youth_, the refrain of which, +though partly undecipherable, seems to indicate an Italian origin. I +have thought it well to omit this refrain; but it might be rendered +thus, maintaining the strange and probably corrupt reading of the last +line:-- + + "List, my fair, list, _bela mia_, + To the thousand charms of Venus! + _Da hizevaleria_." + + + + +THE INVITATION TO YOUTH. + +No. 8. + + + Take your pleasure, dance and play, + Each with other while ye may: + Youth is nimble, full of grace; + Age is lame, of tardy pace. + + We the wars of love should wage, + Who are yet of tender age; + 'Neath the tents of Venus dwell + All the joys that youth loves well. + + Young men kindle heart's desire; + You may liken them to fire: + Old men frighten love away + With cold frost and dry decay. + +A roundelay, which might be styled the _Praise of May_ or the +exhortation to be liberal in love by _The Example of the Rose_, shall +follow. + + + + +THE EXAMPLE OF THE ROSE. + +No. 9. + + + Winter's untruth yields at last, + Spring renews old mother earth; + Angry storms are overpast, + Sunbeams fill the air with mirth; + Pregnant, ripening unto birth, + All the world reposes. + + Our delightful month of May, + Not by birth, but by degree, + Took the first place, poets say; + Since the whole year's cycle he, + Youngest, loveliest, leads with glee, + And the cycle closes. + + From the honours of the rose + They decline, the rose abuse, + Who, when roses red unclose, + Seek not their own sweets to use; + 'Tis with largess, liberal dues, + That the rose discloses. + + Taught to wanton, taught to play, + By the young year's wanton flower, + We will take no heed to-day, + Have no thought for thrift this hour; + Thrift, whose uncongenial power + Laws on youth imposes. + +Another song, blending the praises of spring with a little pagan vow +to Cupid, has in the original Latin a distinction and purity of +outline which might be almost called Horatian. + + + + +THE VOW TO CUPID. + +No. 10. + + + Winter, now thy spite is spent, + Frost and ice and branches bent! + Fogs and furious storms are o'er, + Sloth and torpor, sorrow frore, + Pallid wrath, lean discontent. + + Comes the graceful band of May! + Cloudless shines the limpid day, + Shine by night the Pleiades; + While a grateful summer breeze + Makes the season soft and gay. + + Golden Love I shine forth to view! + Souls of stubborn men subdue! + See me bend! what is thy mind? + Make the girl thou givest kind, + And a leaping ram's thy due! + + O the jocund face of earth, + Breathing with young grassy birth! + Every tree with foliage clad, + Singing birds in greenwood glad, + Flowering fields for lovers' mirth! + +Nor is the next far below it in the same qualities of neatness and +artistic brevity. + + + + +A-MAYING. + +No. 11. + + + Now the fields are laughing; now the maids + Take their pastime; laugh the leafy glades: + Now the summer days are blooming, + And the flowers their chaliced lamps for love illuming. + Fruit-trees blossom; woods grow green again; + Winter's rage is past: O ye young men, + With the May-bloom shake off sadness! + Love is luring you to join the maidens' gladness. + + Let us then together sport and play; + Cytherea bids the young be gay: + Laughter soft and happy voices, + Hope and love invite to mirth when May rejoices. + +All the spring is in the lyric next upon my list. + + + + +THE RETURN OF SPRING: + +No. 12. + + + Spring returns, the glad new-comer, + Bringing pleasure, banning pain: + Meadows bloom with early summer, + And the sun shines out again: + All sad thoughts and passions vanish; + Plenteous Summer comes to banish + Winter with his starveling train. + + Hails and snows and frosts together + Melt and thaw like dews away; + While the spring in cloudless weather + Sucks the breast of jocund May; + Sad's the man and born for sorrow + Who can live not, dares not borrow + Gladness from a summer's day. + + Full of joy and jubilation, + Drunk with honey of delight, + Are the lads whose aspiration + Is the palm of Cupid's fight! + Youths, we'll keep the laws of Venus, + And with joy and mirth between us + Live and love like Paris wight! + +The next has the same accent of gladness, though it is tuned to a +somewhat softer and more meditative note of feeling. + + + + +THE SWEETNESS OF THE SPRING. + +No. 13. + + + Vernal hours are sweet as clover, + With love's honey running over; + Every heart on this earth burning + Finds new birth with spring's returning. + + In the spring-time blossoms flourish, + Fields drink moisture, heaven's dews nourish; + Now the griefs of maidens, after + Dark days, turn to love and laughter. + + Whoso love, are loved, together + Seek their pastime in spring weather; + And, with time and place agreeing, + Clasp, kiss, frolic, far from seeing. + +Gradually the form of the one girl whom the lyrist loves emerges from +this wealth of description. + + + + +THE SUIT TO PHYLLIS. + +No. 14. + + + Hail! thou longed-for month of May, + Dear to lovers every day! + Thou that kindlest hour by hour + Life in man and bloom in bower! + O ye crowds of flowers and hues + That with joy the sense confuse, + Hail! and to our bosom bring + Bliss and every jocund thing! + Sweet the concert of the birds; + Lovers listen to their words: + For sad winter hath gone by, + And a soft wind blows on high. + + Earth hath donned her purple vest, + Fields with laughing flowers are dressed, + Shade upon the wild wood spreads, + Trees lift up their leafy heads; + Nature in her joy to-day + Bids all living things be gay; + Glad her face and fair her grace + Underneath the sun's embrace! + Venus stirs the lover's brain, + With life's nectar fills his vein, + Pouring through his limbs the heat + Which makes pulse and passion beat. + + O how happy was the birth + When the loveliest soul on earth + Took the form and life of thee, + Shaped in all felicity! + O how yellow is thy hair! + There is nothing wrong, I swear, + In the whole of thee; thou art + Framed to fill a loving heart! + Lo, thy forehead queenly crowned, + And the eyebrows dark and round, + Curved like Iris at the tips, + Down the dark heavens when she slips! + + Red as rose and white as snow + Are thy cheeks that pale and glow; + 'Mid a thousand maidens thou + Hast no paragon, I vow. + Round thy lips and red as be + Apples on the apple-tree; + Bright thy teeth as any star; + Soft and low thy speeches are; + Long thy hand, and long thy side, + And the throat thy breasts divide; + All thy form beyond compare + Was of God's own art the care. + + Sparks of passion sent from thee + Set on fire the heart of me; + Thee beyond all whom I know + I must love for ever so. + Lo, my heart to dust will burn + Unless thou this flame return; + Still the fire will last, and I, + Living now, at length shall die! + Therefore, Phyllis, hear me pray, + Let us twain together play, + Joining lip to lip and breast + Unto, breast in perfect rest! + +The lover is occasionally bashful, sighing at a distance. + + + + +MODEST LOVE. + +No. 15. + + + Summer sweet is coming in; + Now the pleasant days begin; + Phoebus rules the earth at last; + For sad winter's reign is past. + + Wounded with the love alone + Of one girl, I make my moan: + Grief pursues me till she bend + Unto me and condescend. + + Take thou pity on my plight! + With my heart thy heart unite! + In my love thy own love blending, + Finding thus of life the ending! + +Occasionally his passion assumes a romantic tone, as is the case with +the following _Serenade_ to a girl called Flos-de-spina in the Latin. +Whether that was her real name, or was only used for poetical +purposes, does not admit of debate now. Anyhow, Flos-de-spina, +Fior-di-spina, Fleur-d'epine, and English Flower-o'-the-thorn are all +of them pretty names for a girl. + + + + +THE SERENADE TO FLOWER-O'-THE-THORN. + +No. 16. + + + The blithe young year is upward steering. + Wild winter dwindles, disappearing; + The short, short days are growing longer, + Rough weather yields and warmth is stronger. + Since January dawned, my mind + Waves hither, thither, love-inclined + For one whose will can loose or bind. + + Prudent and very fair the maiden, + Than rose or lily more love-laden; + Stately of stature, lithe and slender, + There's naught so exquisite and tender. + The Queen of France is not so dear; + Death to my life comes very near + If Flower-o'-the-thorn be not my cheer. + + The Queen of Love my heart is killing + With her gold arrow pain-distilling; + The God of Love with torches burning + Lights pyre on pyre of ardent yearning. + She is the girl for whom I'd die; + I want none dearer, far or nigh, + Though grief on grief upon me lie. + + I with her love am thralled and taken, + Whose flower doth flower, bud, bloom, and waken; + Sweet were the labour, light the burden, + Could mouth kiss mouth for wage and guerdon. + No touch of lips my wound can still, + Unless two hearts grow one, one will, + One longing! Flower of flowers, farewell! + +Once at least we find him writing in absence to his mistress, and +imploring her fidelity. This ranks among the most delicate in +sentiment of the whole series. + + + + +THE LOVE-LETTER IN SPRING. + +No. 17. + + + Now the sun is streaming, + Clear and pure his ray; + April's glad face beaming + On our earth to-day. + Unto love returneth + Every gentle mind; + And the boy-god burneth + Jocund hearts to bind. + + All this budding beauty, + Festival array, + Lays on us the duty + To be blithe and gay. + Trodden ways are known, love! + And in this thy youth, + To retain thy own love + Were but faith and truth. + + In faith love me solely, + Mark the faith of me, + From thy whole heart wholly, + From the soul of thee. + At this time of bliss, dear, + I am far away; + Those who love like this, dear, + Suffer every day! + +At one time he seems upon the point of clasping his felicity. + + + + +A SPRING DITTY. + +No. 18. + + + In the spring, ah happy day! + Underneath a leafy spray + With her sister stands my may. + O sweet love! + He who now is reft of thee + Poor is he! + + Ah, the trees, how fair they flower + Birds are singing in the bower; + Maidens feel of love the power. + O sweet love! + + See the lilies, how they blow! + And the maidens row by row + Praise the best of gods below. + O sweet love! + + If I held my sweetheart now, + In the wood beneath the bough, + I would kiss her, lip and brow. + O sweet love! + He who now is reft of thee, + Poor is he! + +At another time he has clasped it, but he trembles lest it should +escape him. + + + + +LOVE-DOUBTS. + +No. 19. + + + With so sweet a promise given + All my bosom burneth; + Hope uplifts my heart to heaven, + Yet the doubt returneth, + Lest perchance that hope should be + Crushed and shattered suddenly. + + On one girl my fancy so, + On one star, reposes; + Her sweet lips with honey flow + And the scent of roses: + In her smile I laugh, and fire + Fills me with her love's desire. + + Love in measure over-much + Strikes man's soul with anguish; + Anxious love's too eager touch + Makes man fret and languish: + Thus in doubt and grief I pine; + Pain more sure was none than mine. + + Burning in love's fiery flood, + Lo, my life is wasted! + Such the fever of my blood + That I scarce have tasted + Mortal bread and wine, but sup + Like a god love's nectar-cup. + +The village dance forms an important element in the pleasures of the +season. Here is a pretty picture in two stanzas of a linden sheltering +some Suabian meadow. + + + + +THE VILLAGE DANCE. + +No. 20. + + + Wide the lime-tree to the air + Spreads her boughs and foliage fair; + Thyme beneath is growing + On the verdant meadow-where + Dancers' feet are going. + + Through the grass a little spring + Runs with jocund murmuring; + All the place rejoices; + Cooling zephyrs breathe and sing + With their summer voices. + +I have freely translated a second, which presents a more elaborate +picture of a similar scene. + + + + +LOVE AMONG THE MAIDENS. + +No. 21. + + + Yonder choir of virgins see + Through the spring advancing, + Where the sun's warmth, fair and free, + From the green leaves glancing, + Weaves a lattice of light gloom + And soft sunbeams o'er us, + 'Neath the linden-trees in bloom, + For the Cyprian chorus. + + In this vale where blossoms blow, + Blooming, summer-scented, + 'Mid the lilies row by row, + Spreads a field flower-painted. + Here the blackbirds through the dale + Each to each are singing, + And the jocund nightingale + Her fresh voice is flinging. + + See the maidens crowned with rose + Sauntering through the grasses! + Who could tell the mirth of those + Laughing, singing lasses? + Or with what a winning grace + They their charms discover, + Charms of form and blushing face, + To the gazing lover? + + Down the flowery greenwood glade + As I chanced to wander, + From bright eyes a serving-maid + Shot Love's arrows yonder; + I for her, 'mid all the crew + Of the girls of Venus, + Wait and yearn until I view + Love spring up between us. + +Another lyric of complicated rhyming structure introduces a not +dissimilar motive, with touches that seem, in like manner, to indicate +its German origin. It may be remarked that the lover's emotion has +here unusual depth, a strain of _sehnsucht_; and the picture of the +mother followed by her daughter in the country-dance suggests the +domesticity of Northern races. + + + + +AT THE VILLAGE DANCE. + +No. 22. + + + Meadows bloom, in Winter's room + Reign the Loves and Graces, + With their gift of buds that lift + Bright and laughing faces; + 'Neath the ray of genial May, + Shining, glowing, blushing, growing, + They the joys of spring are showing + In their manifold array. + + Song-birds sweet the season greet, + Tune their merry voices; + Sound the ways with hymns of praise, + Every lane rejoices. + On the bough in greenwood now + Flowers are springing, perfumes flinging, + While young men and maids are clinging + To the loves they scarce avow. + + O'er the grass together pass + Bands of lads love-laden: + Row by row in bevies go + Bride and blushing maiden. + See with glee 'neath linden-tree, + Where the dancing girls are glancing, + How the matron is advancing! + At her side her daughter see! + + She's my own, for whom alone, + If fate wills, I'll tarry; + Young May-moon, or late or soon, + 'Tis with her I'd marry! + Now with sighs I watch her rise, + She the purely loved, the surely + Chosen, who my heart securely + Turns from grief to Paradise. + + In her sight with heaven's own light + Like the gods I blossom; + Care for nought till she be brought + Yielding to my bosom. + Thirst divine my soul doth pine + To behold her and enfold her, + With clasped arms alone to hold her + In Love's holy hidden shrine. + +But the theme of the dance is worked up with even greater elaboration +and a more studied ingenuity of rhyme and rhythm in the following +characteristic song. This has the true accent of what may be called +the _Musa Vagabundula_, and is one of the best lyrics of the +series:-- + + + + +INVITATION TO THE DANCE. + +No. 23. + + + Cast aside dull books and thought; + Sweet is folly, sweet is play: + Take the pleasure Spring hath brought + In youth's opening holiday! + Right it is old age should ponder + On grave matters fraught with care; + Tender youth is free to wander, + Free to frolic light as air. + Like a dream our prime is flown, + Prisoned in a study: + Sport and folly are youth's own, + Tender youth and ruddy. + + Lo, the Spring of life slips by, + Frozen Winter comes apace; + Strength is 'minished silently, + Care writes wrinkles on our face: + Blood dries up and courage fails us, + Pleasures dwindle, joys decrease, + Till old age at length assails us + With his troop of illnesses. + Like a dream our prime is flown, + Prisoned in a study; + Sport and folly are youth's own, + Tender youth and ruddy. + + Live we like the gods above; + This is wisdom, this is truth: + Chase the joys of tender love + In the leisure of our youth! + Keep the vows we swore together, + Lads, obey that ordinance; + Seek the fields in sunny weather, + Where the laughing maidens dance. + Like a dream our prime is flown, + Prisoned in a study; + Sport and folly are youth's own, + Tender youth and ruddy. + + There the lad who lists may see + Which among the maids is kind: + There young limbs deliciously + Flashing through the dances wind: + While the girls their arms are raising, + Moving, winding o'er the lea, + Still I stand and gaze, and gazing + They have stolen the soul of me! + Like a dream our prime is flown, + Prisoned in a study; + Sport and folly are youth's own, + Tender youth and ruddy. + + + + +XV. + + +A separate Section can be devoted to songs in the manner of the early +French pastoral. These were fashionable at a remote period in all +parts of Europe; and I have already had occasion, in another piece of +literary history, to call attention to the Italian madrigals of the +fourteenth century composed in this species.[30] Their point is mainly +this: A man of birth and education, generally a dweller in the town, +goes abroad into the fields, lured by fair spring weather, and makes +love among trees to a country wench. + +The _Vagi_ turn the pastoral to their own purpose, and always +represent the greenwood lover as a _clericus_. One of these rural +nieces has a pretty opening stanza:-- + + "When the sweet Spring was ascending, + Not yet May, at April's ending, + While the sun was heavenward wending, + Stood a girl of grace transcending + Underneath the green bough, sending + Songs aloft with pipings." + +Another gives a slightly comic turn to the chief incident. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 30: See _Renaissance in Italy_, vol. iv. p. 156.] + + + + +A PASTORAL. + +No. 24. + + + There went out in the dawning light + A little rustic maiden; + Her flock so white, her crook so slight, + With fleecy new wool laden. + + Small is the flock, and there you'll see + The she-ass and the wether; + This goat's a he, and that's a she, + The bull-calf and the heifer. + + She looked upon the green sward, where + A student lay at leisure: + "What do you there, young sir, so fair?" + "Come, play with me, my treasure!" + +A third seems to have been written in the South, perhaps upon the +shores of one of the Italian lakes--Como or Garda. + + + + +THE MULBERRY-GATHERER. + +No. 25. + + + In the summer's burning heat, + When the flowers were blooming sweet, + I had chosen, as 'twas meet, + 'Neath an olive bough my seat; + Languid with the glowing day, + Lazy, careless, apt for play. + + Stood the tree in fields where grew + Painted flowers of every hue, + Grass that flourished with the dew, + Fresh with shade where breezes blew; + Plato, with his style so rare, + Could not paint a spot more fair. + + Runs a babbling brook hard by, + Chants the nightingale on high; + Water-nymphs with song reply. + "Sure, 'tis Paradise," I cry; + For I know not any place + Of a sweeter, fresher grace. + + While I take my solace here, + And in solace find good cheer, + Shade from summer, coolness dear, + Comes a shepherd maiden near-- + Fairer, sure, there breathes not now-- + Plucking mulberries from the bough. + + Seeing her, I loved her there: + Venus did the trick, I'll swear! + "Come, I am no thief, to scare, + Rob, or murder unaware; + I and all I have are thine, + Thou than Flora more divine!" + + But the girl made answer then: + "Never played I yet with men; + Cruel to me are my kin: + My old mother scolds me when + In some little thing I stray:-- + Hold, I prithee, sir, to-day!" + +A fourth, consisting of a short conventional introduction in praise of +Spring, followed by a dialogue between a young man and a girl, in +which the metre changes for the last two stanzas, may be classed among +the pastorals, although it is a somewhat irregular example of the +species. + + + + +THE WOOING. + +No. 26. + + + All the woods are now in flower, + Song-birds sing in field and bower, + Orchards their white blossoms shower: + Lads, make merry in Love's hour! + + Sordid grief hath flown away, + Fervid Love is here to-day; + He will tame without delay + Those who love not while they may. + +_He._ + "Fairest maiden, list to me; + Do not thus disdainful be; + Scorn and anger disagree + With thy youth, and injure thee. + + "I am weaker than thou art; + Mighty Love hath pierced my heart; + Scarce can I endure his dart: + Lest I die, heal, heal my smart!" + +_She._ + "Why d'you coax me, suitor blind? + What you seek you will not find; + I'm too young for love to bind; + Such vain trifles vex my mind. + + "Is't your will with me to toy? + I'll not mate with man or boy: + Like the Phoenix, to enjoy + Single life shall be my joy." + +_He._ + "Yet Love is tyrannous, + Harsh, fierce, imperious! + He who man's heart can thus + Shatter, may make to bow + Maidens as stern as thou!" + +_She._ + "Now by your words I'm 'ware + What you wish, what you are; + You know love well, I swear! + So I'll be loved by you; + Now I'm on fire too!" + + + + +XVI. + + +Some semi-descriptive pieces, which connect the songs of Spring with +lyrics of a more purely personal emotion, can boast of rare beauty in +the original. + +The most striking of these, upon the theme of Sleep and Love, I have +tried to render in trochaic verse, feeling it impossible, without +knowledge of the medieval melody, to reproduce its complicated and now +only half-intelligible rhythms. + + + + +A DESCANT UPON SLEEP AND LOVE. + +No. 27. + + + When the lamp of Cynthia late + Rises in her silver state, + Through her brother's roseate light, + Blushing on the brows of night; + Then the pure ethereal air + Breathes with zephyr blowing fair; + Clouds and vapours disappear. + As with chords of lute or lyre, + Soothed the spirits now respire, + And the heart revives again + Which once more for love is fain. + But the orient evening star + Sheds with influence kindlier far + Dews of sweet sleep on the eye + Of o'er-tired mortality. + + Oh, how blessed to take and keep + Is the antidote of sleep! + Sleep that lulls the storms of care + And of sorrow unaware, + Creeping through the closed doors + Of the eyes, and through the pores + Breathing bliss so pure and rare + That with love it may compare. + + Then the god of dreams doth bring + To the mind some restful thing, + Breezes soft that rippling blow + O'er ripe cornfields row by row, + Murmuring rivers round whose brim + Silvery sands the swallows skim, + Or the drowsy circling sound + Of old mill-wheels going round, + Which with music steal the mind + And the eyes in slumber bind. + + When the deeds of love are done + Which bland Venus had begun, + Languor steals with pleasant strain + Through the chambers of the brain, + Eyes 'neath eyelids gently tired + Swim and seek the rest desired. + How deliriously at last + Into slumber love hath passed! + But how sweeter yet the way + Which leads love again to play! + + From the soothed limbs upward spread + Glides a mist divinely shed, + Which invades the heart and head: + Drowsily it veils the eyes, + Bending toward sleep's paradise, + And with curling vapour round + Fills the lids, the senses swound, + Till the visual ray is bound + By those ministers which make + Life renewed in man awake. + + Underneath the leafy shade + Of a tree in quiet laid, + While the nightingale complains + Singing of her ancient pains, + Sweet it is still hours to pass, + But far sweeter on the grass + With a buxom maid to play + All a summer's holiday. + When the scent of herb and flower + Breathes upon the silent hour, + When the rose with leaf and bloom + Spreads a couch of pure perfume, + Then the grateful boon of sleep + Falls with satisfaction deep, + Showering dews our eyes above, + Tired with honeyed strife of love. + + In how many moods the mind + Of poor lovers, weak and blind, + Wavers like the wavering wind! + As a ship in darkness lost, + Without anchor tempest-tossed, + So with hope and fear imbued + It roams in great incertitude + Love's tempestuous ocean-flood. + +A portion of this descant finds an echo in another lyric of the +_Carmina Burana_:-- + + "With young leaves the wood is new; + Now the nightingale is singing; + And field-flowers of every hue + On the sward their bloom are flinging. + Sweet it is to brush the dew + From wild lawns and woody places! + Sweeter yet to wreathe the rose + With the lily's virgin graces; + But the sweetest sweet man knows, + Is to woo a girl's embraces." + +The most highly wrought of descriptive poems in this species is the +_Dispute of Flora and Phyllis_, which occurs both in the _Carmina +Burana_ and in the English MSS. edited by Wright. The motive of the +composition is as follows:--Two girls wake in the early morning, and +go out to walk together through the fields. Each of them is in love; +but Phyllis loves a soldier, Flora loves a scholar. They interchange +confidences, the one contending with the other for the superiority of +her own sweetheart. + +Having said so much, I will present the first part of the poem in the +English version I have made. + + + + +FLORA AND PHYLLIS. + +PART I. + +No. 28. + + + In the spring-time, when the skies + Cast off winter's mourning, + And bright flowers of every hue + Earth's lap are adorning, + At the hour when Lucifer + Gives the stars their warning, + Phyllis woke, and Flora too, + In the early morning. + + Both the girls were fain to go + Forth in sunny weather, + For love-laden bosoms throw + Sleep off like a feather; + Then with measured steps and slow + To the fields together + Went they, seeking pastime new + 'Mid the flowers and heather. + + Both were virgins, both, I ween, + Were by birth princesses; + Phyllis let her locks flow free, + Flora trained her tresses. + Not like girls they went, but like + Heavenly holinesses; + And their faces shone like dawn + 'Neath the day's caresses. + + Equal beauty, equal birth, + These fair maidens mated; + Youthful were the years of both, + And their minds elated; + Yet they were a pair unpaired, + Mates by strife unmated; + For one loved a clerk, and one + For a knight was fated. + + Naught there was of difference + 'Twixt them to the seeing, + All alike, within without, + Seemed in them agreeing; + With one garb, one cast of mind, + And one mode of being, + Only that they could not love + Save with disagreeing. + + In the tree-tops overhead + A spring breeze was blowing, + And the meadow lawns around + With green grass were growing; + Through the grass a rivulet + From the hill was flowing, + Lively, with a pleasant sound + Garrulously going. + + That the girls might suffer less + From the noon resplendent, + Near the stream a spreading pine + Rose with stem ascendant; + Crowned with boughs and leaves aloft, + O'er the fields impendent; + From all heat on every hand + Airily defendent. + + On the sward the maidens sat, + Naught that seat surpasses; + Phyllis near the rivulet, + Flora 'mid the grasses; + Each into the chamber sweet + Of her own soul passes, + Love divides their thoughts, and wounds + With his shafts the lasses. + + Love within the breast of each, + Hidden, unsuspected, + Lurks and draws forth sighs of grief + From their hearts dejected: + Soon their ruddy cheeks grow pale, + Conscious, love-affected; + Yet their passion tells no tale, + By soft shame protected. + + Phyllis now doth overhear + Flora softly sighing: + Flora with like luck detects + Sigh to sigh replying. + Thus the girls exchange the game, + Each with other vying; + Till the truth leaps out at length, + Plain beyond denying. + + Long this interchange did last + Of mute conversation; + All of love-sighs fond and fast + Was that dissertation. + Love was in their minds, and Love + Made their lips his station; + Phyllis then, while Flora smiled, + Opened her oration. + + "Soldier brave, my love!" she said, + "Where is now my Paris? + Fights he in the field, or where + In the wide word tarries? + Oh, the soldier's life, I swear, + All life's glory carries; + Only valour clothed in arms + With Dame Venus marries!" + +Phyllis thus opens the question whether a soldier or a scholar be the +fitter for love. Flora responds, and for some time they conduct the +dispute in true scholastic fashion. Being unable to settle it between +themselves, they resolve to seek out Love himself, and to refer the +matter to his judgment. One girl mounts a mule, the other a horse; and +these are no ordinary animals, for Neptune reared one beast as a +present to Venus, Vulcan forged the metal-work of bit and saddle, +Minerva embroidered the trappings, and so forth. After a short journey +they reach the Garden of Love, which is described with a truly +luxuriant wealth of imagery. It resembles some of the earlier +Renaissance pictures, especially one of great excellence by a German +artist which I once saw in a dealer's shop at Venice, and which ought +now to grace a public gallery. + + + + +FLORA AND PHYLLIS. + +PART III. + +No. 29. + + + On their steeds the ladies ride, + Two fair girls and slender; + Modest are their eyes and mild, + And their cheeks are tender. + Thus young lilies break the sheath, + Budding roses render + Blushes, and twinned pairs of stars + Climb the heavens with splendour. + + Toward Love's Paradise they fare, + Such, I ween, their will is; + While the strife between the pair + Turns their cheeks to lilies; + Phyllis Flora flouts, and fair + Flora flouteth Phyllis; + Flora's hand a hawk doth bear, + And a goshawk Phyllis. + + After a short space they came + Where a grove was growing; + At the entrance of the same + Rills with murmur flowing; + There the wind with myrrh and spice + Redolent was blowing, + Sounds of timbrel, harp, and lyre + Through the branches going. + + All the music man could make + There they heard in plenty; + Timbrel, psaltery, lyre, and lute, + Harp and viol dainty; + Voices that in part-song meet + Choiring forte, lente; + Sounds the diatesseron, + Sounds the diapente. + + All the tongues of all the birds + With full cry were singing; + There the blackbird's melody + Sweet and true was ringing; + Wood-dove, lark, and thrush on high + Jocund anthems flinging, + With the nightingale, who still + To her grief was clinging. + + When the girls drew nigh the grove, + Some fear came upon them; + Further as they fared, the charm + Of the pleasance won them; + All the birds so sweetly sang + That a spell was on them, + And their bosoms warmed with love + At the welcome shown them. + + Man would be immortal if + He could there be dwelling: + Every branch on every tree + With ripe fruit is swelling; + All the ways with nard and myrrh + And with spice are smelling: + How divine the Master is + All the house is telling. + + Blithesome bands arrest their gaze, + Youths and maidens dancing; + Bodies beauteous as the stars, + Eyes with heaven's light glancing + And the bosoms of the girls, + At the sight entrancing, + Leap to view such marvels new, + Joy with joy enhancing! + + They their horses check, and light, + Moved with sudden pleasure; + Half forget what brought them here, + Thralled by love and leisure; + Till once more the nightingale + Tuned her thrilling measure; + At that cry each girl again + Hugs her hidden treasure. + + Round the middle of the grove + Was a place enchanted, + Which the god for his own rites + Specially had planted; + Fauns and nymphs and satyrs here + Flowery alleys haunted, + And before the face of Love + Played and leaped and chaunted. + + In their hands they carry thyme, + Crowns of fragrant roses; + Bacchus leads the choir divine + And the dance composes; + Nymphs and fauns with feet in tune + Interchange their posies; + But Silenus trips and reels + When the chorus closes. + + On an ass the elder borne + All the mad crew guideth; + Mirth and laughter at the view + Through Love's glad heart glideth. + "Io!" shouts the eld; that sound + In his throat subsideth, + For his voice in wine is drowned, + And his old age chideth. + + 'Mid these pleasant sights appears + Love, the young joy-giver; + Bright as stars his eyes, and wings + On his shoulders shiver; + In his left hand is the bow, + At his side the quiver; + From his state the world may know + He is lord for ever. + + Leans the boy upon a staff + Intertwined with flowers, + Scent of nectar from his hair + Breathes around the bowers; + Hand in hand before him kneel + Three celestial Hours, + Graces who Love's goblet fill + From immortal showers. + +It would surely be superfluous to point out the fluent elegance of +this poem, or to dwell farther upon the astonishing fact that anything +so purely Renaissance in tone should have been produced in the twelfth +century. + +Cupid, as was natural, settles the dispute of the two girls by +deciding that scholars are more suitable for love than soldiers. + +This would be the place to introduce another long descriptive poem, if +the nature of its theme rendered it fit for translation. It relates +the visit of a student to what he calls the _Templum Veneris_; in +other words, to the house of a courtesan. Her attendants are sirens; +and the whole poem, dealing with a vulgar incident, is conducted in +this mock-heroic strain.[31] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 31: _Carmina Burana_, p. 138.] + + + + +XVII. + + +We pass now to love-poems of a more purely personal kind. One of +these, which is too long for translation and in some respects +ill-suited to a modern taste, forms the proper transition from the +descriptive to the lyrical section. It starts with phrases culled from +hymns to the Virgin:-- + + "Si linguis angelicis + Loquar et humanis." + + "Ave formosissima, + Gemma pretiosa; + Ave decus virginum, + Virgo gloriosa!" + +These waifs and strays of religious diction are curiously blent with +romantic and classical allusions. The girl is addressed in the same +breath as-- + + "Blanziflor et Helena, + Venus generosa." + +Toward the close of the poem, the lover, who at length has reached the +object of his heart's desire, breaks into this paean of victorious +passion:-- + + "What more? Around the maiden's neck + My arms I flung with yearning; + Upon her lips I gave and took + A thousand kisses burning: + Again and yet again I cried, + With whispered vows and sighing, + This, this alone, sure, sure it was + For which my heart was dying! + + "Who is the man that does not know + The sweets that followed after? + My former pains, my sobs and woe, + Were changed for love and laughter: + The joys of Paradise were ours + In overflowing measure; + We tasted every shape of bliss + And every form of pleasure." + +The next piece which I shall quote differs in some important respects +from the general style adopted by the Goliardi in their love-poetry. +It is written in rhyming or leonine hexameters, and is remarkable for +its quaint play on names, conceived and executed in a truly medieval +taste. + + + + +FLOS FLORAE. + +No. 30. + + + Take thou this rose, O Rose! the loves in the rose repose: + I with love of the rose am caught at the winter's close: + Take thou this flower, my flower, and cherish it in thy bower: + Thou in thy beauty's power shalt lovelier blow each hour: + Gaze at the rose, and smile, my rose, in mine eyes the while: + To thee the roses belong, thy voice is the nightingale's song: + Give thou the rose a kiss, it blushes like thy mouth's bliss: + Flowers in a picture seem not flowers, but flowers in a dream: + Who paints the rose's bloom, paints not the rose's perfume. + +In complete contrast to this conceited and euphuistic style of +composition stands a slight snatch of rustic melody, consisting of +little but reiteration and refrain. + + + + +A BIRD'S SONG OF LOVE. + +No. 31. + + + Come to me, come, O come! + Let me not die, but come! + Hyria hysria nazaza + Trillirivos. + + Fair is thy face, O fair! + Fair thine eyes, O how fair! + Hyria hysria nazaza + Trillirivos. + + Fair is thy flowing hair! + O fair, O fair, how fair! + Hyria hysria nazaza + Trillirivos. + + Redder than rose art thou, + Whiter than lily thou! + Hyria hysria nazaza + Trillirivos. + + Fairer than all, I vow, + Ever my pride art thou! + Hyria hysria nazaza + Trillirivos. + +The following displays an almost classical intensity of voluptuous +passion, and belongs in all probability to a period later than the +_Carmina Burana_. I have ventured, in translating it, to borrow the +structure of a song which occurs in Fletcher's _Rollo_ (act v. scene +2), the first stanza of which is also found in Shakespeare's _Measure +for Measure_ (act iv. scene 1), and to insert one or two phrases from +Fletcher's version. Whether the composer of that song had ever met +with the Latin lyric to Lydia can scarcely form the subject of +critical conjecture. Yet there is a faint evanescent resemblance +between the two poems. + + + + +TO LYDIA. + +No. 32. + + + Lydia bright, thou girl more white + Than the milk of morning new, + Or young lilies in the light! + Matched with thy rose-whiteness, hue + Of red rose or white rose pales, + And the polished ivory fails, + Ivory fails. + + Spread, O spread, my girl, thy hair, + Amber-hued and heavenly bright, + As fine gold or golden air! + Show, O show thy throat so white, + Throat and neck that marble fine + Over thy white breasts incline, + Breasts incline. + + Lift, O lift thine eyes that are + Underneath those eyelids dark, + Lustrous as the evening star + 'Neath the dark heaven's purple arc! + Bare, O bare thy cheeks of rose, + Dyed with Tyrian red that glows, + Red that glows. + + Give, O give those lips of love + That the coral boughs eclipse; + Give sweet kisses, dove by dove, + Soft descending on my lips. + See my soul how forth she flies! + 'Neath each kiss my pierced heart dies, + Pierced heart dies. + + Wherefore dost thou draw my life, + Drain my heart's blood with thy kiss? + Scarce can I endure the strife + Of this ecstasy of bliss! + Set, O set my poor heart free, + Bound in icy chains by thee, + Chains by thee. + + Hide, O hide those hills of snow, + Twinned upon thy breast that rise, + Where the virgin fountains flow + With fresh milk of Paradise! + Thy bare bosom breathes of myrrh, + From thy whole self pleasures stir, + Pleasures stir. + + Hide, O hide those paps that tire + Sense and spirit with excess + Of snow-whiteness and desire + Of thy breast's deliciousness! + See'st thou, cruel, how I swoon? + Leav'st thou me half lost so soon? + Lost so soon? + +In rendering this lyric to Lydia, I have restored the fifth stanza, +only one line of which, + + "Quid mihi sugis vivum sanguinem," + +remains in the original. This I did because it seemed necessary to +effect the transition from the stanzas beginning _Pande, puella, +pande_, to those beginning _Conde papillas, conde_. + +Among these more direct outpourings of personal passion, place may be +found for a delicate little _Poem of Privacy_, which forms part of the +_Carmina Burana_. Unfortunately, the text of this slight piece is very +defective in the MS., and has had to be conjecturally restored in +several places. + + + + +A POEM OF PRIVACY. + +No. 33. + + + When a young man, passion-laden, + In a chamber meets a maiden, + Then felicitous communion, + By love's strain between the twain, + Grows from forth their union; + For the game, it hath no name, + Of lips, arms, and hidden charms. + +Nor can I here forbear from inserting another _Poem of Privacy_, +bolder in its openness of speech, more glowing in its warmth of +colouring. If excuse should be pleaded or the translation and +reproduction of this distinctly Pagan ditty, it must be found in the +singularity of its motive, which is as unmedieval as could be desired +by the bitterest detractor of medieval sentiment. We seem, while +reading it, to have before our eyes the Venetian picture of a Venus, +while the almost prosaic particularity of description illustrates what +I have said above about the detailed realism of the Goliardic style. + + + + +FLORA. + +No. 34. + + + Rudely blows the winter blast, + Withered leaves are falling fast, + Cold hath hushed the birds at last. + While the heavens were warm and glowing, + Nature's offspring loved in May; + But man's heart no debt is owing + To such change of month or day + As the dumb brute-beasts obey. + Oh, the joys of this possessing! + How unspeakable the blessing + That my Flora yields to-day! + + Labour long I did not rue, + Ere I won my wages due, + And the prize I played for drew. + Flora with her brows of laughter, + Gazing on me, breathing bliss, + Draws my yearning spirit after, + Sucks my soul forth in a kiss: + Where's the pastime matched with this? + Oh, the joys of this possessing! + How unspeakable the blessing + Of my Flora's loveliness! + + Truly mine is no harsh doom, + While in this secluded room + Venus lights for me the gloom! + Flora faultless as a blossom + Bares her smooth limbs for mine eyes; + Softly shines her virgin bosom, + And the breasts that gently rise + Like the hills of Paradise. + Oh, the joys of this possessing! + How unspeakable the blessing + When my Flora is the prize! + + From her tender breasts decline, + In a gradual curving line, + Flanks like swansdown white and fine. + On her skin the touch discerneth + Naught of rough; 'tis soft as snow: + 'Neath the waist her belly turneth + Unto fulness, where below + In Love's garden lilies blow. + Oh, the joys of this possessing! + How unspeakable the blessing! + Sweetest sweets from Flora flow! + + Ah! should Jove but find my fair, + He would fall in love, I swear, + And to his old tricks repair: + In a cloud of gold descending + As on Danae's brazen tower, + Or the sturdy bull's back bending, + Or would veil his godhood's power + In a swan's form for one hour. + Oh, the joys of this possessing! + How unspeakable the blessing! + How divine my Flora's flower! + +A third "poem of privacy" may be employed to temper this too fervid +mood. I conceive it to be meant for the monologue of a lover in the +presence of his sweetheart, and to express the varying lights and +shades of his emotion. + + + + +THE LOVER'S MONOLOGUE. + +No. 35. + + + Love rules everything that is: + Love doth change hearts in a kiss: + Love seeks devious ways of bliss: + Love than honey sweeter, + Love than gall more bitter. + Blind Love hath no modesties. + Love is lukewarm, fiery, cold; + Love is timid, overbold; + Loyal, treacherous, manifold. + + Present time is fit for play: + Let Love find his mate to-day: + Hark, the birds, how sweet their lay! + Love rules young men wholly; + Love lures maidens solely. + Woe to old folk! sad are they. + Sweetest woman ever seen, + Fairest, dearest, is my queen; + And alas! my chiefest teen. + + Let an old man, chill and drear, + Never come thy bosom near; + Oft he sleeps with sorry cheer, + Too cold to delight thee: + Naught could less invite thee. + Youth with youth must mate, my dear. + Blest the union I desire; + Naught I know and naught require, + Better than to be thy squire. + + Love flies all the world around: + Love in wanton wiles is wound: + Therefore youth and maid are bound + In Love's fetters duly. + She is joyless truly + Who no lover yet hath found! + All the night in grief and smart + She must languish, wear her heart; + Bitter is that woman's part. + + Love is simple, Love is sly; + Love is pale, of ruddy dye: + Love is all things, low and high: + Love is serviceable, + Constant and unstable: + Love obeys Art's empery. + In this closed room Love takes flight, + In the silence of the night, + Love made captive, conquered quite. + +The next is singularly, quaintly musical in the original, but for +various reasons I have not been able to adhere exactly to its form. I +imagine that it is the work of the same poet who composed the longer +piece which I shall give immediately after. Both are addressed to +Caecilia; I have used the name Phyllis in my version. + + + + +THE INVITATION TO LOVE. + +No. 36. + + + List, my girl, with words I woo; + Lay not wanton hands on you: + Sit before you, in your face + Gazing, ah! and seeking grace: + Fix mine eyes, nor let them rove + From the mark where shafts of love + Their flight wing. + Try, my girl, O try what bliss + Young men render when they kiss! + Youth is alway sturdy, straight; + Old age totters in its gait. + These delights of love we bring + Have the suppleness of spring, + Softness, sweetness, wantoning; + Clasp, my Phyllis, in their ring + Sweeter sweets than poets sing, + Anything and everything! + + After daytime's heat from heaven + Dews on thirsty fields are given; + After verdant leaf and stem + Shoots the white flower's diadem; + After the white flower's bloom + To the night their faint perfume + Lilies fling. + Try, my girl, etc., _da capo_. + +The poem, _Ludo cum Caecilia_, which comes next in order, is one of +the most perfect specimens of Goliardic writing. To render its fluent, +languid, and yet airy grace, in any language but the Latin, is, I +think, impossible. Who could have imagined that the subtlety, the +refinement, almost the perversity of feeling expressed in it, should +have been proper to a student of the twelfth century? The poem is +spoiled toward its close by astrological and grammatical conceits; and +the text is corrupt. That part I have omitted, together with some +stanzas which offend a modern taste. + + + + +PHYLLIS. + +No. 37. + + + Think no evil, have no fear, + If I play with Phyllis; + I am but the guardian dear + Of her girlhood's lilies, + Lest too soon her bloom should swoon + Like spring's daffodillies. + + All I care for is to play, + Gaze upon my treasure, + Now and then to touch her hand, + Kiss in modest measure; + But the fifth act of love's game, + Dream not of that pleasure! + + For to touch the bloom of youth + Spoils its frail complexion; + Let the young grape gently grow + Till it reach perfection; + Hope within my heart doth glow + Of the girl's affection. + + Sweet above all sweets that are + 'Tis to play with Phyllis; + For her thoughts are white as snow, + In her heart no ill is; + And the kisses that she gives + Sweeter are than lilies. + + Love leads after him the gods + Bound in pliant traces; + Harsh and stubborn hearts he bends, + Breaks with blows of maces; + Nay, the unicorn is tamed + By a girl's embraces. + + Love leads after him the gods, + Jupiter with Juno; + To his waxen measure treads + Masterful Neptune O! + Pluto stern to souls below + Melts to this one tune O! + + Whatsoe'er the rest may do, + Let us then be playing: + Take the pastime that is due + While we're yet a-Maying; + I am young and young are you; + 'Tis the time for playing. + +Up to this time, the happiness of love returned and satisfied has been +portrayed. The following lyric exhibits a lover pining at a distance, +soothing his soul with song, and indulging in visions of happiness +beyond his grasp--εἰδώλοις κάλλευς κῶφα χλιαινόμενος, as Meleager phrased it on a similar +occasion. + + + + +LOVE LONGINGS. + +No. 38. + + + With song I seek my fate to cheer, + As doth the swan when death draws near; + Youth's roses from my cheeks retire, + My heart is worn with fond desire. + Since care and woe increase and grow, while + light burns low, + Poor wretch I die! + Heigho! I die, poor wretch I die! + Constrained to love, unloved; such luck have I! + + If she could love me whom I love, + I would not then exchange with Jove: + Ah! might I clasp her once, and drain + Her lips as thirsty flowers drink rain! + With death to meet, his welcome greet, from + life retreat, + I were full fain! + Heigho! full fain, I were full fain, + Could I such joy, such wealth of pleasure gain! + + When I bethought me of her breast, + Those hills of snow my fancy pressed; + Longing to touch them with my hand, + Love's laws I then did understand. + Rose of the south, blooms on her mouth; I felt + love's drouth + That mouth to kiss! + Heigho! to kiss, that mouth to kiss! + Lost in day-dreams and vain desires of bliss. + +The next is the indignant repudiation by a lover of the calumny that +he has proved unfaithful to his mistress. The strongly marked double +rhymes of the original add peculiar vehemence to his protestations; +while the abundance of cheap mythological allusions is emphatically +Goliardic. + + + + +THE LOVER'S VOW. + +No. 39. + + + False the tongue and foul with slander, + Poisonous treacherous tongue of pander, + Tongue the hangman's knife should sever, + Tongue in flames to burn for ever; + + Which hath called me a deceiver, + Faithless lover, quick to leave her, + Whom I love, and leave her slighted, + For another, unrequited! + + Hear, ye Muses nine! nay, rather, + Jove, of gods and men the father! + Who for Danae and Europa + Changed thy shape, thou bold eloper! + + Hear me, god! ye gods all, hear me! + Such a sin came never near me. + Hear, thou god! and gods all, hear ye! + Thus I sinned not, as I fear ye. + + I by Mars vow, by Apollo, + Both of whom Love's learning follow; + Yea, by Cupid too, the terror + Of whose bow forbids all error! + + By thy bow I vow and quiver, + By the shafts thou dost deliver, + Without fraud, in honour duly + To observe my troth-plight truly. + + I will keep the troth I plighted, + And the reason shall be cited: + 'Tis that 'mid the girls no maiden + Ever met I more love-laden. + + 'Mid the girls thou art beholden + Like a pearl in setting golden; + Yea, thy shoulder, neck, and bosom + Bear of beauty's self the blossom. + + Oh, her throat, lips, forehead, nourish + Love, with food that makes him flourish! + And her curls, I did adore them-- + They were blonde with heaven's light o'er them. + + Therefore, till, for Nature's scorning, + Toil is rest and midnight morning, + Till no trees in woods are growing, + Till fire turns to water flowing; + + Till seas have no ships to sail them, + Till the Parthians' arrows fail them, + I, my girl, will love thee ever, + Unbetrayed, betray thee never! + +In the following poem a lover bids adieu for ever to an unworthy +woman, who has betrayed him. This is a remarkable specimen of the +songs written for a complicated melody. The first eight lines seem set +to one tune; in the next four that tune is slightly accelerated, and a +double rhyme is substituted for a single one in the tenth and twelfth +verses. The five concluding lines go to a different kind of melody, +and express in each stanza a changed mood of feeling. + +I have tried in this instance to adopt the plaster-cast method of +translation, as described above,[32] and have even endeavoured to +obtain the dragging effect of the first eight lines of each strophe, +which are composed neither of exact accentual dactyls nor yet of exact +accentual anapaests, but offer a good example of that laxity of rhythm +permitted in this prosody for music. + +Comparison with the original will show that I was not copying Byron's +_When we Two Parted_; yet the resemblance between that song and the +tone which my translation has naturally assumed from the Latin, is +certainly noticeable. That Byron could have seen the piece before he +wrote his own lines in question is almost impossible, for this portion +of the _Carmina Burana_ had not, so far as I am aware, been edited +before the year 1847. The coincidence of metrical form, so far as it +extends, only establishes the spontaneity of emotion which, in the +case of the medieval and the modern poet, found a similar rhythm for +the utterance of similar feeling. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 32: Page 38.] + + + + +FAREWELL TO THE FAITHLESS. + +No. 40. + + + A mortal anguish + How often woundeth me; + Grieving I languish, + Weighed down with misery; + + Hearing the mournful + Tale of thy fault and fall + Blown by Fame's scornful + Trump to the ears of all! + + Envious rumour + Late or soon will slay thee: + Love with less humour, + Lest thy love betray thee. + + Whate'er thou dost, do secretly, + Far from Fame's curiosity; + Love in the dark delights to be, + His sports are wiles and witchery, + With laugh of lovers greeting. + + Thou wert not slighted, + Stained in thine honour, when + We were united, + Lovers unknown to men; + But when thy passion + Grew like thy bosom cold, + None had compassion, + Then was thy story told. + + Fame, who rejoiceth + New amours to utter, + Now thy shame voiceth, + Wide her pinions flutter. + + The palace home of modesty + Is made a haunt for harlotry; + The virgin lily you may see + Defiled by fingers lewd and free, + With vile embraces meeting. + + I mourn the tender + Flower of the youth of thee, + Brighter in splendour + Than evening's star can be. + Pure were thy kisses, + Dove-like thy smile; + As the snake hisses + Now is thy guile. + + Lovers who pray thee + From thy door are scattered; + Lovers who pay thee + In thy bed are flattered. + + Thou bidst them from thy presence flee + From whom thou canst not take thy fee; + Blind, halt, and lame thy suitors be; + Illustrious men with subtlety + And poisonous honey cheating. + +I may add that a long soliloquy printed in _Carmina Burana_, pp. +119-121, should be compared with the foregoing lyric. It has a similar +motive, though the lover in this case expresses his willingness for +reconciliation. One part of its expostulation with the faithless +woman is beautiful in its simplicity:-- + + "Amaveram prae caeteris + Te, sed amici veteris + Es jam oblita! Superis + Vel inferis + Ream te criminamur." + +I will close this section with the lament written for a medieval +Gretchen whose fault has been discovered, and whose lover has been +forced to leave the country. Its bare realism contrasts with the +lyrical exuberance of the preceding specimens. + + + + +GRETCHEN. + +No. 41. + + + Up to this time, well-away! + I concealed the truth from day, + Went on loving skilfully. + Now my fault at length is clear: + That the hour of need is near, + From my shape all eyes can see. + So my mother gives me blows, + So my father curses throws; + They both treat me savagely. + In the house alone I sit, + Dare not walk about the street, + Nor at play in public be. + + If I walk about the street, + Every one I chance to meet + Scans me like a prodigy: + When they see the load I bear, + All the neighbours nudge and stare, + Gaping while I hasten by; + With their elbows nudge, and so + With their finger point, as though + I were some monstrosity; + Me with nods and winks they spurn, + Judge me fit in flames to burn + For one lapse from honesty. + + Why this tedious tale prolong? + Short, I am become a song, + In all mouths a mockery. + By this am I done to death, + Sorrow kills me, chokes my breath, + Ever weep I bitterly. + One thing makes me still more grieve, + That my friend his home must leave + For the same cause instantly; + Therefore is my sadness so + Multiplied, weighed down with woe, + For he too will part from me. + + + + +XVIII. + + +A separate section should be assigned to poems of exile. They are not +very numerous, but are interesting in connection with the wandering +life of their vagrant authors. The first has all the dreamy pathos +felt by a young German leaving his beloved home in some valley of the +Suabian or Thuringian hills. + + + + +ADIEU TO THE VALLEY. + +No. 42. + + + Oh, of love twin-brother anguish! + In thy pangs I faint and languish, + Cannot find relief from thee! + Nay, no marvel! I must grieve her, + Wander forth in exile, leave her, + Who hath gained the heart of me; + Who of loveliness so rare is + That for her sake Trojan Paris + Would have left his Helenë. + + Smile, thou valley, sweetest, fairest, + Wreathed with roses of the rarest, + Flower of all the vales that be! + Vale of vales, all vales excelling, + Sun and moon thy praise are telling, + With the song-birds' melody; + Nightingales thy praise are singing, + O thou soothing solace-bringing + To the soul's despondency! + +The second was probably intended to be sung at a drinking-party by a +student taking leave of his companions. It is love that forces him to +quit their society and to break with his studies. The long rhyming +lines, followed by a sharp drop at the close of each stanza upon a +short disjointed phrase, seem to indicate discouragement and +melancholy. + + + + +THE LOVER'S PARTING. + +No. 43. + + + Sweet native soil, farewell! dear country of my birth! + Fair chamber of the loves! glad home of joy and mirth! + To-morrow or to-day I leave you, o'er the earth + To wander struck with love, to pine with rage and dearth + In exile! + + Farewell, sweet land, and ye, my comrades dear, adieu! + To whom with kindly heart I have been ever true; + The studies that we loved I may no more pursue; + Weep then for me, who part as though I died to you, + Love-laden! + + As many as the flowers that Hybla's valley cover, + As many as the leaves that on Dodona hover, + As many as the fish that sail the wide seas over, + So many are the pangs that pain a faithful lover, + For ever! + + With the new fire of love my wounded bosom burns; + Love knows not any ruth, all tender pity spurns; + How true the proverb speaks that saith to him that yearns, + "Where love is there is pain; thy pleasure love returns + With anguish!" + + Ah, sorrow! ah, how sad the wages of our bliss! + In lovers' hearts the flame's too hot for happiness; + For Venus still doth send new sighs and new distress + When once the enamoured soul is taken with excess + Of sweetness! + +The third introduces us to a little episode of medieval private life +which must have been frequent enough. It consists of a debate between +a father and his son upon the question whether the young man should +enter into a monastic brotherhood. The youth is lying on a sickbed, +and thinks that he is already at the point of death. It will be +noticed that he is only diverted from his project by the mention of a +student friend (indicated, as usual, by an N), whom he would never be +able to see again if he assumed the cowl. I suspect, however, that the +poem has not been transmitted to us entire. + + + + +IN ARTICULO MORTIS. + +No. 44. + + +_Son_. + Oh, my father! help, I pray! + Death is near my soul to-day; + With your blessing let me be + Made a monk right speedily! + + See the foe my life invade! + Haste, oh haste, to give me aid! + Bring me comfort and heart's ease, + Strengthen me in this disease! + +_Father_. + Oh, my best-belovèd son, + What is this thou wouldst have done? + Weigh it well in heart and brain: + Do not leave me here in pain. + +_Son_. + Father, this thy loving care + Makes me weep full sore, I swear; + For you will be childless when + I have joined those holy men. + +_Father_. + Therefore make a little stay, + Put it off till the third day; + It may be your danger is + Not unto the death, I wis. + +_Son_. + Such the anguish that I feel + Through my inmost entrails steal, + That I bide in doubt lest death + Ere to-morrow end my breath. + +_Father_. + Those strict rules that monks observe, + Well I know them! They must serve + Heaven by fasting every day, + And by keeping watch alway. + +_Son_. + Who for God watch through the night + Shall receive a crown of light; + Who for heaven's sake hungers, he + Shall be fed abundantly. + +_Father_. + Hard and coarse the food they eat, + Beans and pottage-herbs their meat; + After such a banquet, think, + Water is their only drink! + +_Son_. + What's the good of feasts, or bright + Cups of Bacchus, when, in spite + Of all comforts, at the last + This poor flesh to worms is cast? + +_Father_. + Well, then, let thy parent's moan + Move thee in thy soul, my son! + Mourning for thee made a monk, + Dead-alive in darkness sunk. + +_Son_. + They who father, mother love, + And their God neglect, will prove + That they are in error found + When the judgment trump shall sound. + +_Father_. + Logic! would thou ne'er hadst been + Known on earth for mortal teen! + Many a clerk thou mak'st to roam + Wretched, exiled from his home.-- + + Never more thine eyes, my son, + Shall behold thy darling one, + Him, that little clerk so fair, + N., thy friend beyond compare! + +_Son_. + Oh, alas! unhappy me! + What to do I cannot see; + Wandering lost in exile so, + Without guide or light I go!-- + + Dry your tears, my father dear, + Haply there is better cheer; + Now my mind on change is set, + I'll not be a monk, not yet. + + + + +XIX. + + +The order adopted in this essay brings us now to drinking-songs. Next +to spring and love, our students set their affections principally on +the tavern and the winebowl. In the poems on the Order we have seen +how large a space in their vagrant lives was occupied by the tavern +and its jovial company of topers and gamesters. It was there that-- + + "Some are gaming, some are drinking, + Some are living without thinking; + And of those who make the racket, + Some are stripped of coat and jacket; + Some get clothes of finer feather, + Some are cleaned out altogether; + No one there dreads death's invasion, + But all drink in emulation." + +The song from which I have extracted this stanza contains a parody of +S. Thomas Aquinas' hymn on the Eucharist.[33] To translate it seemed +to me impossible; but I will cite the following stanza, which may be +compared with stanzas ix. and x. of _Lauda Sion_:-- + + "Bibit hera, bibit herus, + Bibit miles, bibit clerus, + Bibit ille, bibit illa, + Bibit servus cum ancilla, + Bibit velox, bibit piger, + Bibit albus, bibit niger, + Bibit constans, bibit vagus, + Bibit rudis, bibit magus." + +Several of the best anacreontics of the period are even more +distinctly parodies. The following panegyric of wine, for example, is +modelled upon a hymn to the Virgin:-- + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 33: _In Taberna, Carm. Bur_., p. 235.] + + + + +A SEQUENCE IN PRAISE OF WINE. + +No. 45. + + + Wine the good and bland, thou blessing + Of the good, the bad's distressing, + Sweet of taste by all confessing, + Hail, thou world's felicity! + Hail thy hue, life's gloom dispelling; + Hail thy taste, all tastes excelling; + By thy power, in this thy dwelling + Deign to make us drunk with thee! + + Oh, how blest for bounteous uses + Is the birth of pure vine-juices! + Safe's the table which produces + Wine in goodly quality. + Oh, in colour how auspicious! + Oh, in odour how delicious! + In the mouth how sweet, propitious + To the tongue enthralled by thee! + + Blest the man who first thee planted, + Called thee by thy name enchanted! + He whose cups have ne'er been scanted + Dreads no danger that may be. + Blest the belly where thou bidest! + Blest the tongue where thou residest! + Blest the mouth through which thou glidest, + And the lips thrice blest by thee! + + Therefore let wine's praise be sounded, + Healths to topers all propounded; + We shall never be confounded, + Toping for eternity! + Pray we: here be thou still flowing, + Plenty on our board bestowing, + While with jocund voice we're showing + How we serve thee--Jubilee! + +Another, regarding the date of which I have no information, is an +imitation of a well-known _Christmas Carol_. + + + + +A CAROL OF WINE. + +No. 46. + + + In dulci jubilo + Sing we, make merry so! + Since our heart's pleasure + Latet in poculo, + Drawn from the cask, good measure. + Pro hoc convivio, + Nunc, nunc bibito! + + O crater parvule! + How my soul yearns for thee! + Make me now merry, + O potus optime, + Claret or hock or sherry! + Et vos concinite: + Vivant socii! + + O vini caritas! + O Bacchi lenitas! + We've drained our purses + Per multa pocula: + Yet hope we for new mercies, + Nummoram gaudia: + Would that we had them, ah! + + Ubi sunt gaudia? where, + If that they be not there? + There the lads are singing + Selecta cantica: + There are glasses ringing + In villae curia; + Oh, would that we were there! + +_In Dulci Jubilo_ yields an example of mixed Latin and German. This is +the case too with a comparatively ancient drinking-song quoted by +Geiger in his _Renaissance und Humanismus_, p. 414. It may be +mentioned that the word _Bursae_, for _Burschen_, occurs in stanza v. +This word, to indicate a student, can also be found in _Carm. Bur._, +p. 236, where we are introduced to scholars drinking yellow Rhine wine +out of glasses of a pale pink colour--already in the twelfth century! + + + + +THE STUDENTS' WINE-BOUT. + +No. 47. + + + Ho, all ye jovial brotherhood, + Quos sitis vexat plurima, + I know a host whose wits are good, + Quod vina spectat optima. + + His wine he blends not with the juice + E puteo qui sumitur; + Each kind its virtue doth produce + E botris ut exprimitur. + + Host, bring us forth good wine and strong, + In cella quod est optimum! + We brethren will our sport prolong + Ad noctis usque terminum. + + Whoso to snarl or bite is fain, + Ut canes decet rabidos, + Outside our circle may remain, + Ad porcos eat sordidos, + + Hurrah! my lads, we'll merry make! + Levate sursum pocula! + God's blessing on all wine we take, + In sempiterna saecula! + +Two lyrics of distinguished excellence, which still hold their place +in the _Commersbuch_, cannot claim certain antiquity in their present +form. They are not included in the _Carmina Burana_; yet their style +is so characteristic of the Archipoeta, that I believe we may credit +him with at least a share in their composition. The first starts with +an allusion to the Horatian _tempus edax rerum_. + + + + +TIME'S A-FLYING. + +No. 48. + + + Laurel-crowned Horatius, + True, how true thy saying! + Swift as wind flies over us + Time, devouring, slaying. + Where are, oh! those goblets full + Of wine honey-laden, + Strifes and loves and bountiful + Lips of ruddy maiden? + + Grows the young grape tenderly, + And the maid is growing; + But the thirsty poet, see, + Years on him are snowing! + What's the use on hoary curls + Of the bays undying. + If we may not kiss the girls, + Drink while time's a-flying? + +The second consists of a truly brilliant development of the theme +which our Herrick condensed into one splendid phrase--"There's no lust +like to poetry!" + + + + +THERE'S NO LUST LIKE TO POETRY. + +No. 49. + + + Sweet in goodly fellowship + Tastes red wine and rare O! + But to kiss a girl's ripe lip + Is a gift more fair O! + Yet a gift more sweet, more fine, + Is the lyre of Maro! + While these three good gifts were mine, + I'd not change with Pharaoh. + + Bacchus wakes within my breast + Love and love's desire, + Venus comes and stirs the blessed + Rage of Phoebus' fire; + Deathless honour is our due + From the laurelled sire: + Woe should I turn traitor to + Wine and love and lyre! + + Should a tyrant rise and say, + "Give up wine!" I'd do it; + "Love no girls!" I would obey, + Though my heart should rue it. + "Dash thy lyre!" suppose he saith, + Naught should bring me to it; + "Yield thy lyre or die!" my breath, + Dying, should thrill through it! + +A lyric of the elder period in praise of wine and love, which forcibly +illustrates the contempt felt by the student class for the unlettered +laity and boors, shall be inserted here. It seems to demand a tune. + + + + +WINE AND VENUS. + +No. 50. + + + Ho, comrades mine! + What is your pleasure? + What business fine + Or mirthful measure? + Lo, Venus toward our crew advancing, + A choir of Dryads round her dancing! + + Good fellows you! + The time is jolly! + Earth springs anew, + Bans melancholy; + Bid long farewell to winter weather! + Let lads and maids be blithe together. + + Dame Venus spurns + Her brother Ocean; + To Bacchus turns; + No colder potion + Deserves her godhead's approbation; + On sober souls she pours damnation. + + Let then this band, + Imbued with learning, + By Venus stand, + Her wages earning! + Laymen we spurn from our alliance, + Like brutes to art deaf, dumb to science. + + Two gods alone + We serve and mate with; + One law we own, + Nor hold debate with: + Who lives the goodly student fashion + Must love and win love back with passion! + +Among drinking-songs of the best period in this literature may be +reckoned two disputations between water and wine. In the one, Thetis +defends herself against Lyaeus, and the poet assists in vision at +their contest. The scene is appropriately laid in the third sphere, +the pleasant heaven of Venus. The other, which on the whole appears to +me preferable, and which I have therefore chosen for translation, +begins and ends with the sound axiom that water and wine ought never +to be mixed. It is manifest that the poet reserves the honour of the +day for wine, though his arguments are fair to both sides. The final +point, which breaks the case of water down and determines her utter +confusion, is curious, since it shows that people in the Middle Ages +were fully alive to the perils of sewage-contaminated wells. + + + + +THE CONTEST OF WINE AND WATER. + +No. 51. + + + Laying truth bare, stripped of fable, + Briefly as I may be able, + With good reasons manifold, + I will tell why man should never + Copulate, but rather sever, + Things that strife and hatred hold. + + When one cup in fell confusion + Wine with water blends, the fusion, + Call it by what name you will, + Is no blessing, nor deserveth + Any praise, but rather serveth + For the emblem of all ill. + + Wine perceives the water present, + And with pain exclaims, "What peasant + Dared to mingle thee with me? + Rise, go forth, get out, and leave me! + In the same place, here to grieve me, + Thou hast no just claim to be. + + "Vile and shameless in thy going, + Into cracks thou still art flowing, + That in foul holes thou mayst lie; + O'er the earth thou ought'st to wander, + On the earth thy liquor squander, + And at length in anguish die. + + "How canst thou adorn a table? + No one sings or tells a fable + In thy presence dull and drear; + But the guest who erst was jolly, + Laughing, joking, bent on folly, + Silent sits when thou art near. + + "Should one drink of thee to fulness, + Sound before, he takes an illness; + All his bowels thou dost stir; + Booms the belly, wind ariseth, + Which, enclosed and pent, surpriseth + With a thousand sighs the ear. + + "When the stomach's so inflated, + Blasts are then ejaculated + From both draughts with divers sound; + And that organ thus affected, + All the air is soon infected + By the poison breathed around." + + Water thus wine's home-thrust warded: + "All thy life is foul and sordid, + Sunk in misery, steeped in vice; + Those who drink thee lose their morals, + Waste their time in sloth and quarrels, + Rolling down sin's precipice. + + "Thou dost teach man's tongue to stutter; + He goes reeling in the gutter + Who hath deigned to kiss thy lips; + Hears men speak without discerning, + Sees a hundred tapers burning + When there are but two poor dips. + + "He who feels for thee soul's hunger + Is a murderer or whoremonger, + Davus Geta Birria; + Such are they whom thou dost nourish; + With thy fame and name they flourish + In the tavern's disarray. + + "Thou by reason of thy badness + Art confined in prison sadness, + Cramped and small thy dwellings are: + I am great the whole world over, + Spread myself abroad and cover + Every part of earth afar. + + "Drink I yield to palates burning; + They who for soul's health are yearning, + Need the aid that I have given; + Since all pilgrims, at their praying, + Far or near, I am conveying + To the palaces of heaven." + + Wine replied: "What thou hast vaunted + Proves thee full of fraud; for granted + That thou earnest ships o'er sea, + Yet thou then dost swell and riot; + Till they wreck thou hast no quiet; + Thus they are deceived through thee. + + "He whose strength is insufficient + Thee to slake with heat efficient, + Sunk in mortal peril lies: + Trusting thee the poor wretch waneth, + And through thee at length attaineth + To the joys of Paradise. + + "I'm a god, as that true poet + Naso testifies; men owe it + Unto me that they are sage; + When they do not drink, professors + Lose their wits and lack assessors + Round about the lecture-stage. + + "'Tis impossible to sever + Truth from falsehood if you never + Learn to drink my juices neat. + Thanks to me, dumb speak, deaf listen, + Blind folk see, the senses glisten, + And the lame man finds his feet. + + "Eld through me to youth returneth, + While thine influence o'erturneth + All a young man's lustihead; + By my force the world is laden + With new births, but boy or maiden + Through thy help was never bred." + + Water saith: "A god thou! Just men + By thy craft become unjust men, + Bad, worse, worst, degenerous! + Thanks to thee, their words half uttered + Through the drunken lips are stuttered, + And thy sage is Didymus. + + "I will speak the truth out wholly: + Earth bears fruit by my gift solely, + And the meadows bloom in May; + When it rains not, herbs and grasses + Dry with drought, spring's beauty passes, + Flowers and lilies fade away. + + "Lo, thy crooked mother pining, + On her boughs the grapes declining, + Barren through the dearth of rain; + Mark her tendrils lean and sterile + O'er the parched earth at their peril + Bent in unavailing pain! + + "Famine through all lands prevaileth, + Terror-struck the people waileth, + When I choose to keep away; + Christians kneel to Christ to gain me, + Jews and Pagans to obtain me + Ceaseless vows and offerings pay." + + Wine saith: "To the deaf thou'rt singing, + Those vain self-laudations flinging! + Otherwhere thou hast been shown! + Patent 'tis to all the races + How impure and foul thy place is; + We believe what we have known! + + "Thou of things the scum and rotten + Sewer, where ordures best forgotten + And unmentioned still descend! + Filth and garbage, stench and poison. + Thou dost bear in fetid foison! + Here I stop lest words offend." + + Water rose, the foe invaded, + In her own defence upbraided + Wine for his invective base: + "Now at last we've drawn the curtain! + Who, what god thou art is certain + From thy oracle's disgrace. + + "This thine impudent oration + Hurts not me; 'tis desecration + To a god, and fouls his tongue! + At the utmost at nine paces + Can I suffer filthy places, + Fling far from me dirt and dung!" + + Wine saith: "This repudiation + Of my well-weighed imputation + Doth not clear thyself of crime! + Many a man and oft who swallowed + Thine infected potion, followed + After death in one day's time." + + Hearing this, in stupefaction + Water stood; no words, no action, + Now restrained her sobs of woe. + Wine exclaims, "Why art thou dumb then? + Without answer? Is it come then + To thy complete overthrow?" + + I who heard the whole contention + Now declare my song's intention, + And to all the world proclaim: + They who mix these things shall ever + Henceforth be accursed, and never + In Christ's kingdom portion claim. + +The same precept, "Keep wine and water apart," is conveyed at the +close of a lyric distinguished in other respects for the brutal +passion of its drunken fervour. I have not succeeded in catching the +rollicking swing of the original verse; and I may observe that the +last two stanzas seem to form a separate song, although their metre is +the same as that of the first four. + + + + +BACCHIC FRENZY. + +No. 52. + + + Topers in and out of season! + 'Tis not thirst but better reason + Bids you tope on steadily!-- + Pass the wine-cup, let it be + Filled and filled for bout on bout + Never sleep! + Racy jest and song flash out! + Spirits leap! + + Those who cannot drink their rations, + Go, begone from these ovations! + Here's no place for bashful boys; + Like the plague, they spoil our joys.-- + Bashful eyes bring rustic cheer + When we're drunk, + And a blush betrays a drear + Want of spunk. + + If there's here a fellow lurking + Who his proper share is shirking, + Let the door to him be shown, + From our crew we'll have him thrown;-- + He's more desolate than death, + Mixed with us; + Let him go and end his breath! + Better thus! + + When your heart is set on drinking, + Drink on without stay or thinking, + Till you cannot stand up straight, + Nor one word articulate!-- + But herewith I pledge to you + This fair health: + May the glass no mischief do, + Bring you wealth! + + Wed not you the god and goddess, + For the god doth scorn the goddess; + He whose name is Liber, he + Glories in his liberty. + All her virtue in the cup + Runs to waste, + And wine wedded yieldeth up + Strength and taste. + + Since she is the queen of ocean, + Goddess she may claim devotion; + But she is no mate to kiss + His superior holiness. + Bacchus never deigned to be + Watered, he! + Liber never bore to be + Christened, he! + + + + +XX. + + +Closely allied to drinking-songs are some comic ditties which may have +been sung at wine-parties. Of these I have thought it worth while to +present a few specimens, though their medieval bluntness of humour +does not render them particularly entertaining to a modern reader. + +The first I have chosen is _The Lament of the Roast Swan_. It must be +remembered that this bird was esteemed a delicacy in the Middle Ages, +and also that pepper was highly prized for its rarity. This gives a +certain point to the allusion in the third stanza. + + + + +THE LAMENT OF THE ROAST SWAN. + +No. 53. + + + Time was my wings were my delight, + Time was I made a lovely sight; + 'Twas when I was a swan snow-white. + Woe's me! I vow, + Black am I now, + Burned up, back, beak, and brow! + + The baster turns me on the spit, + The fire I've felt the force of it, + The carver carves me bit by bit. + I'd rather in the water float + Under the bare heavens like a boat, + Than have this pepper down my throat. + + Whiter I was than wool or snow, + Fairer than any bird I know; + Now am I blacker than a crow. + + Now in the gravy-dish I lie, + I cannot swim, I cannot fly, + Nothing but gnashing teeth I spy. + Woe's me! I vow, &c. + +The next is _The Last Will of the Dying Ass_. There is not much to be +said for the wit of this piece. + + + + +THE WILL OF THE DYING ASS. + +No. 54. + + + While a boor, as poets tell, + Whacked his patient ass too well, + On the ground half dead it fell. + La sol fa, + On the ground half dead it fell, + La sol fa mi re ut. + + Then with gesture sad and low, + Streaming eyes and words of woe, + He at length addressed it so: + "Had I known, my gentle ass, + Thou from me so soon wouldst pass, + I'd have swaddled thee, alas! + + "Made for thee a tunic meet, + Shirt and undershirt complete, + Breeches, drawers of linen sweet. + + "Rise awhile, for pity's sake, + That ere life your limbs forsake + You your legacies may make!" + + Soon the ass stood up, and thus, + With a weak voice dolorous, + His last will proclaimed for us: + + "To the magistrates my head, + Eyes to constables," he said, + "Ears to judges, when I'm dead; + + "To old men my teeth shall fall, + Lips to wanton wooers all, + And my tongue to wives that brawl. + + "Let my feet the bailiffs win, + Nostrils the tobacco-men, + And fat canons take my skin. + + "Voice to singing boys I give, + Throat to topers, may they live! + **** to students amative. + + "*** on shepherds I bestow, + Thistles on divines, and lo! + To the law my shade shall go. + + "Elders have my tardy pace, + Boys my rude and rustic grace, + Monks my simple open face." + + He who saith this testament + Will not hold, let him be shent; + He's an ass by all consent. + La sol fa, + He's an ass by all consent, + La sol fa mi re ut. + +As a third specimen I select a little bit of mixed prose and verse +from the _Carmina Burana_, which is curious from its allusion to the +Land of Cockaigne. Goliardic literature, it may be parenthetically +observed, has some strong pieces of prose comedy and satire. Of these, +the _Mass of Topers_ and _Mass of Gamesters_, the _Gospel according to +Marks_, and the description of a fat monk's daily life deserve +quotation.[34] They are for the most part, however, too profane to +bear translation. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 34: Wright's _Rel. Ant._, ii.; _Carm. Bur._, pp. 248 and +22; Wright's _Mapes_, p. xl.] + + + + +THE ABBOT OF COCKAIGNE. + +No. 55. + + + I am the Abbot of Cockaigne, + And this is my counsel with topers; + And in the sect of Decius (gamesters) this is my will; + And whoso shall seek me in taverns before noon; + After evensong shall he go forth naked, + And thus, stripped of raiment, shall lament him: + Wafna! wafna! + O Fate most foul, what hast thou done? + The joys of man beneath the sun + Thou hast stolen, every one! + + + + +XXI. + + +The transition from these trivial and slightly interesting comic songs +to poems of a serious import, which played so important a part in +Goliardic literature, must of necessity be abrupt. It forms no part of +my present purpose to exhibit the Wandering Students in their capacity +as satirists. That belongs more properly to a study of the earlier +Reformation than to such an inquiry as I have undertaken in this +treatise. Satires, especially medieval satires, are apt, besides, to +lose their force and value in translation. I have therefore confined +myself to five specimens, more or less closely connected with the +subjects handled in this study. + +The first has the interest of containing some ideas which Villon +preserved in his ballad of the men of old time. + + + + +DEATH TAKES ALL. + +No. 56. + + + Hear, O thou earth, hear, thou encircling sea, + Yea, all that live beneath the sun, hear ye + How of this world the bravery and the glory + Are but vain forms and shadows transitory, + Even as all things 'neath Time's empire show + By their short durance and swift overthrow! + Nothing avails the dignity of kings, + Naught, naught avail the strength and stuff of things; + The wisdom of the arts no succour brings; + Genus and species help not at death's hour, + No man was saved by gold in that dread stour; + The substance of things fadeth as a flower, + As ice 'neath sunshine melts into a shower. + Where is Plato, where is Porphyrius? + Where is Tullius, where is Virgilius? + Where is Thales, where is Empedocles, + Or illustrious Aristoteles? + Where's Alexander, peerless of might? + Where is Hector, Troy's stoutest knight? + Where is King David, learning's light? + Solomon where, that wisest wight? + Where is Helen, and Paris rose-bright? + They have fallen to the bottom, as a stone rolls: + Who knows if rest be granted to their souls? + But Thou, O God, of faithful men the Lord, + To us Thy favour evermore afford + When on the wicked judgment shall be poured! + +The second marks the passage from those feelings of youth and +spring-time which have been copiously illustrated in Sections +xiv.-xvii., to emotions befitting later manhood and life's autumn. + + + + +AUTUMN YEARS. + +No. 57. + + + While life's April blossom blew, + What I willed I then might do, + Lust and law seemed comrades true. + As I listed, unresisted, + Hither, thither, could I play, + And my wanton flesh obey. + + When life's autumn days decline, + Thus to live, a libertine, + Fancy-free as thoughts incline, + Manhood's older age and colder + Now forbids; removes, destroys + All those ways of wonted joys. + + Age with admonition wise + Thus doth counsel and advise, + While her voice within me cries: + "For repenting and relenting + There is room; forgiveness falls + On all contrite prodigals!" + + I will seek a better mind; + Change, correct, and leave behind + What I did with purpose blind: + From vice sever, with endeavour + Yield my soul to serious things, + Seek the joy that virtue brings. + +The third would find a more appropriate place in a hymn-book than in a +collection of _Carmina Vagorum_. It is, however, written in a lyrical +style so closely allied to the secular songs of the _Carmina Burana_ +(where it occurs) that I have thought it well to quote its grimly +medieval condemnation of human life. + + + + +VANITAS VANITATUM. + +No. 58. + + + This vile world + In madness hurled + Offers but false shadows; + Joys that wane + And waste like vain + Lilies of the meadows. + + Worldly wealth, + Youth, strength, and health, + Cramp the soul's endeavour; + Drive it down + In hell to drown, + Hell that burns for ever. + + What we see, + And what let be, + While on earth we tarry, + We shall cast + Like leaves at last + Which the sere oaks carry. + + Carnal life, + Man's law of strife, + Hath but brief existence; + Passes, fades, + Like wavering shades + Without real subsistence. + + Therefore bind, + Tread down and grind + Fleshly lusts that blight us; + So heaven's bliss + 'Mid saints that kiss + Shall for aye delight us. + +The fourth, in like manner, would have but little to do with a +Commersbuch, were it not for the fact that the most widely famous +modern student-song of Germany has borrowed two passages from its +serious and tragic rhythm. Close inspection of _Gaudeamus Igitur_ +shows that the metrical structure of that song is based on the +principle of quoting one of its long lines and rhyming to it. + + + + +ON CONTEMPT FOR THE WORLD. + +No. 59. + + + "De contemptu mundi:" this is the theme I've taken: + Time it is from sleep to rise, from death's torpor waken: + Gather virtue's grain and leave tares of sin forsaken. + Rise up, rise, be vigilant; trim your lamp, be ready. + + Brief is life, and brevity briefly shall be ended: + Death comes quick, fears no man, none hath his dart suspended: + Death kills all, to no man's prayer hath he condescended. + Rise up, rise, be vigilant; trim your lamp, be ready. + + Where are they who in this world, ere we kept, were keeping? + Come unto the churchyard, thou! see where they are sleeping! + Dust and ashes are they, worms in their flesh are creeping. + Rise up, rise, be vigilant; trim your lamp, be ready. + + Into life each man is born with great teen and trouble: + All through life he drags along; toil on toil is double: + When life's done, the pangs of death take him, break the bubble. + Rise up, rise, be vigilant; trim your lamp, be ready. + + If from sin thou hast been turned, born a new man wholly, + Changed thy life to better things, childlike, simple, holy; + Thus into God's realm shalt thou enter with the lowly. + Rise up, rise, be vigilant; trim your lamp, be ready. + +Having alluded to _Gaudeamus Igitur_, I shall close my translations +with a version of it into English. The dependence of this lyric upon +the rhythm and substance of the poem on _Contempt for the World_, +which I have already indicated, is perhaps the reason why it is sung +by German students after the funeral of a comrade. The Office for the +Dead sounding in their ears, occasions the startling _igitur_ with +which it opens; and their mind reverts to solemn phrases in the midst +of masculine determination to enjoy the present while it is yet +theirs. + + + + +GAUDEAMUS IGITUR. + +No. 60. + + + Let us live then and be glad + While young life's before us! + After youthful pastime had, + After old age hard and sad, + Earth will slumber o'er us. + + Where are they who in this world, + Ere we kept, were keeping? + Go ye to the gods above; + Go to hell; inquire thereof: + They are not; they're sleeping. + + Brief is life, and brevity + Briefly shall be ended: + Death comes like a whirlwind strong, + Bears us with his blast along; + None shall be defended. + + Live this university, + Men that learning nourish; + Live each member of the same, + Long live all that bear its name; + Let them ever flourish! + + Live the commonwealth also, + And the men that guide it! + Live our town in strength and health, + Founders, patrons, by whose wealth + We are here provided! + + Live all girls! A health to you, + Melting maids and beauteous! + Live the wives and women too, + Gentle, loving, tender, true, + Good, industrious, duteous! + + Perish cares that pule and pine! + Perish envious blamers! + Die the Devil, thine and mine! + Die the starch-necked Philistine! + Scoffers and defamers! + + + + +XXII. + + +I have now fulfilled the purpose which I had in view when I began this +study of the _Carmina Vagorum_, and have reproduced in English verse +what seemed to me the most characteristic specimens of that +literature, in so far as it may be considered precursory of the +Renaissance. + +In spite of novelty, in spite of historical interest, in spite of a +certain literary charm, it is not an edifying product of medieval art +with which I have been dealing. When I look back upon my own work, and +formulate the impression left upon my mind by familiarity with the +songs I have translated, the doubt occurs whether some apology be not +required for having dragged these forth from antiquarian obscurity. + +The truth is that there is very little that is elevated in the lyrics +of the Goliardi. They are almost wholly destitute of domestic piety, +of patriotism, of virtuous impulse, of heroic resolve. The greatness +of an epoch which throbbed with the enthusiasms of the Crusades, which +gave birth to a Francis and a Dominic, which witnessed the manly +resistance offered by the Lombard burghs to the Teutonic Emperor, the +formation of Northern France into a solid monarchy, and the victorious +struggle of the Papacy against the Empire, finds but rare expression +in this poetry. From the _Carmina Burana_ we cull one chant indeed on +Saladin, one spirited lament for Richard Coeur de Lion; but their +general tone is egotistic. + +Even the satires, so remarkable for boldness, are directed against +those ecclesiastical abuses which touched the interests of the clerkly +classes--against simony, avarice, venality in the Roman Curia, against +the ambition of prelates and the effort to make princely benefices +hereditary, rather than against the real sins of the Church--her +wilful solidification of popular superstitions for the purposes of +self-aggrandisement, her cruel persecution of free thought, and her +deflection from the spirit of her Founder. + +With regard to women, abundant examples have been adduced to +illustrate the sensual and unromantic spirit of these lettered lovers. +A note of undisguised materialism sounds throughout the large majority +of their erotic songs. Tenderness of feeling is rarely present. The +passion is one-sided, recognised as ephemeral, without a vista on the +sanctities of life in common with the beloved object. Notable +exceptions to the general rule are the lyrics I have printed above on +pp. 75-78. But it would have been easier to confirm the impression of +licentiousness than to multiply specimens of delicate sentiment, had I +chosen to ransack the whole stores of the _Carmina Burana_. + +It is not necessary to censure their lack of so-called chivalrous +woman-worship. That artificial mood of emotion, though glorified by +the literary art of greatest poets, has something pitiably unreal, +incurably morbid, in its mysticism. But, putting this aside, we are +still bound to notice the absence of that far more human self-devotion +of man to woman which forms a conspicuous element in the Arthurian +romances. The love of Tristram for Iseult, of Lancelot for Guinevere, +of Beaumains for his lady, is alien to the Goliardic conception of +intersexual relations. Nowhere do we find a trace of Arthur's vow +imposed upon his knights: "never to do outrage,... and alway to do +ladies, damosels, and gentlewomen succour upon pain of death." This +manly respect for women, which was, if not precisely the purest, yet +certainly the most fruitful social impulse of the Middle Ages, +receives no expression in the _Carmina Vagorum_. + +The reason is not far to seek. The Clerici were a class debarred from +domesticity, devoted in theory to celibacy, in practice incapable of +marriage. They were not so much unsocial or anti-social as +extra-social; and while they gave a loose rein to their appetites, +they respected none of those ties, anticipated none of those home +pleasures, which consecrate the animal desires in everyday existence +as we know it. One of their most popular poems is a brutal monastic +diatribe on matrimony, fouler in its stupid abuse of women, more +unmanly in its sordid imputations, than any satire which emanated from +the corruption of Imperial Rome.[35] The cynicism of this exhortation +against marriage forms a proper supplement to the other kind of +cynicism which emerges in the lyrics of triumphant seducers and light +lovers. + +But why then have I taken the trouble to translate these songs, and +to present them in such profusion to a modern audience? It is because, +after making all allowances for their want of great or noble feeling, +due to the peculiar medium from which they sprang, they are in many +ways realistically beautiful and in a strict sense true to vulgar +human nature. They are the spontaneous expression of careless, wanton, +unreflective youth. And all this they were, too, in an age which we +are apt to regard as incapable of these very qualities. + +The defects I have been at pains to indicate render the Goliardic +poems remarkable as documents for the right understanding of the +brilliant Renaissance epoch which was destined to close the Middle +Ages. To the best of them we may with certainty assign the +seventy-five years between 1150 and 1225. In that period, so fruitful +of great efforts and of great results in the fields of politics and +thought and literature, efforts and results foredoomed to partial +frustration and to perverse misapplication--in that potent space of +time, so varied in its intellectual and social manifestations, so +pregnant with good and evil, so rapid in mutations, so indeterminate +between advance and retrogression--this Goliardic poetry stands +alone. It occupies a position of unique and isolated, if limited, +interest; because it was no outcome of feudalism or ecclesiasticism; +because it has no tincture of chivalrous or mystic piety; because it +implies no metaphysical determination; because it is pagan in the +sense of being natural; because it is devoid of allegory, and, +finally, because it is emphatically humanistic. + +In these respects it detaches itself from the artistic and literary +phenomena of the century which gave it birth. In these respects it +anticipates the real eventual Renaissance. + +There are, indeed, points of contact between the Students' Songs and +other products of the Middle Ages. Scholastic quibblings upon words; +reiterated commonplaces about spring; the brutal contempt for +villeins; the frequent employment of hymn-rhythms and preoccupation +with liturgical phrases--these show that the Wandering Scholars were +creatures of their age. But the qualities which this lyrical +literature shares with that of the court, the temple, or the schools +are mainly superficial; whereas the vital inspiration, the specific +flavour, which render it noteworthy, are distinct and self-evolved. It +is a premature, an unconscious effort made by a limited class to +achieve _per saltum_ what was slowly and laboriously wrought out by +whole nations in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Too +precocious, too complete within too narrow limits, it was doomed to +sterility. Not the least singular fact about it is that though the +_Carmina Vagorum_ continued to be appreciated, they were neither +imitated nor developed to any definite extent after the period which I +have indicated. They fell still-born upon the unreceptive soil of +European culture at that epoch. Yet they foreshadowed the mental and +moral attitude which Europe was destined to assume when Italy through +humanism gave its tone to the Renaissance. + +The Renaissance, in Italy as elsewhere, had far more serious aims and +enthusiasms in the direction of science, refined self-culture, +discoveries, analysis of man and nature, than have always been +ascribed to it. The men of that epoch did more hard work for the +world, conferred more sterling benefits on their posterity, than those +who study it chiefly from the point of view of art are ready to admit. +But the mental atmosphere in which those heroes lived and wrought was +one of carelessness with regard to moral duties and religious +aspirations, of exuberant delight in pleasure as an object of +existence. The glorification of the body and the senses, the +repudiation of an ascetic tyranny which had long in theory imposed +impossible abstentions on the carnal man, was a marked feature in +their conception of the world; and connected with this was a return in +no merely superficial spirit to the antique paganism of Greece and +Rome. + +These characteristics of the Renaissance we find already outlined with +surprising definiteness, and at the same time with an almost childlike +naïveté, a careless, mirth-provoking nonchalance, in the _Carmina +Vagorum_. They remind us of the Italian lyrics which Lorenzo de' +Medici and Poliziano wrote for the Florentine populace; and though in +form and artistic intention they differ from the Latin verse of that +period, their view of life is not dissimilar to that of a Pontano or a +Beccadelli. + +Some folk may regard the things I have presented to their view as ugly +or insignificant, because they lack the higher qualities of sentiment; +others may over-value them for precisely the same reason. They seem to +me noteworthy as the first unmistakable sign of a change in modern +Europe which was inevitable and predestined, as the first literary +effort to restore the moral attitude of antiquity which had been +displaced by medieval Christianity. I also feel the special relation +which they bear to English poetry of the Etizabethan age--a relation +that has facilitated their conversion into our language. + +That Wandering Students of the twelfth century should have transcended +the limitations of their age; that they should have absorbed so many +elements of life into their scheme of natural enjoyment as the artists +and scholars of the fifteenth; that they should have theorised their +appetites and impulses with Valla, have produced masterpieces of +poetry to rival Ariosto's, or criticisms of society in the style of +Rabelais, was not to be expected. What their lyrics prove by +anticipation is the sincerity of the so-called paganism of the +Renaissance. When we read them, we perceive that that quality was +substantially independent of the classical revival; though the +influences of antique literature were eagerly seized upon as useful +means for strengthening and giving tone to an already potent revolt of +nature against hypocritical and palsy-stricken forms of spiritual +despotism. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 35: _Golias de Conjuge non ducenda_, Wright's _Mapes_, p. +77.] + + + + +APPENDIX. + +NOTE ON THE "ORDO VAGORUM" AND THE "ARCHIPOETA." + +_See Section vii. pp. 16-23, above._ + + +It seems desirable that I should enlarge upon some topics which I +treated somewhat summarily in Section vii. I assumed that the +Wandering Scholars regarded themselves as a kind of Guild or Order; +and for this assumption the Songs Nos. 1, 2, 3, translated in Section +xiii. are a sufficient warrant. Yet the case might be considerably +strengthened. In the _Sequentia falsi evangelii secundum marcam +argenti_[36] we read of the _Gens Lusorum_ or Tribe of Gamesters, +which corresponds to the _Secta Decii_,[37] the _Ordo Vagorum_, and +the _Familia Goliae_. Again, in Wright's _Walter Mapes_[38] there is +an epistle written from England by one Richardus Goliardus to _Omnibus +in Gallia Goliae discipulis_, introducing a friend, asking for +information _ordo vester qualis est_, and giving for the reason of +this request _ne magis in ordine indiscrete vivam_. He addresses his +French comrades as _pueri Goliae_, and winds up with good wishes for +the _socios sanctae confratriae_. Proofs might be multiplied that the +Wandering Students in Germany also regarded themselves as a +confraternity, with special rules and ordinances. Of this, the curious +parody of an episcopal letter, issued in 1209 by _Surianus, Praesul et +Archiprimas_, to the _vagi clerici_ of Austria, Styria, Bavaria, and +Moravia is a notable example.[39] + +I have treated Golias as the eponymous hero of this tribe, the chief +of this confraternity. But it ought to be said that the name Golias +occurs principally in English MSS., where the Goliardic poems are +ascribed to _Golias Episcopus._ Elsewhere the same personage is spoken +of as _Primas_, which is a title of dignity applying to a prelate with +jurisdiction superior even to that of an archbishop. Grimm[40] quotes +this phrase from a German chronicle: _Primas vagus multos versus +edidit magistrates_. In the _Sequentia falsi evangelii_[41] we find +twice repeated _Primas autem qui dicitur vilissimus_. The Venetian +codex from which Grimm drew some of his texts[42] attributes the +_Dispute of Thetis and Lyaeus_ and the _Advice against Matrimony_, +both of which passed in England under the name of Golias and +afterwards of Walter Map, to _Primas Presbyter_. + +With regard to this Primas, it is important to mention that Fra +Salimbene in his Chronicle[43] gives a succinct account of him under +the date 1233. It runs as follows: _Fuit his temporibus Primas +canonicus eoloniensis, magnus trutannus et magnus trufator, et maximus +versificator et velox, qui, si dedisset cor suum ad diligendum Deum, +magnus in litteratura divina fuisset, et utilis valde_ _Ecclesiae +Dei. Cujus Apocalypsim, quam fecerat, vidi, et alia scripta plura_. +After this passage follow some anecdotes, with quotations of verses +extemporised by Primas, and lastly the whole of the Confession, +translated by me at p. 55 above. Thus Salimbene, who was almost a +contemporary author, attributes to Primas two of the most important +poems which passed in England under the name of Golias, while the +Venetian MS. ascribes two others of the same class to Primas +Presbyter. It is also very noteworthy that Salimbene expressly calls +this Primas a Canon of Cologne. + +That this poet, whoever he was, had attained to celebrity in Italy (as +well as in Germany) under the title of Primas, appears also from the +following passage of a treatise by Thomas of Capua[44] on the Art of +Writing: _Dictaminum vero tria sunt genera auctoribus diffinita, +prosaicum scilicet, metricum et rithmicum; prosaicum ut Cassiodori, +metricum ut Virgilii, rithmicum ut Primatis_. Boccaccio was in all +probability referring to the same Primas in the tale he told about +_Primasso_,[45] who is described as a man of European reputation, and +a great and rapid versifier. It is curious that just as Giraldus seems +to have accepted _Golias_ as the real name of this poet,[46] so Fra +Salimbene, Thomas of Capua, and Boccaccio appear to use _Primas_ as a +Christian name. + +The matter becomes still more complicated when we find, as we do, some +of the same poems attributed in France to Walter of Lille, in England +to Walter Map, and further current under yet another title of dignity, +that of _Archipoeta_.[47] + +We can hardly avoid the conclusion that by Golias Episcopus, Primas, +and Archipoeta one and the same person, occupying a prominent post in +the Order, was denoted. He was the head of the Goliardic family, the +Primate of the Wandering Students' Order, the Archpoet of these +lettered minstrels. The rare excellence of the compositions ascribed +to him caused them to be spread abroad, multiplied, and imitated in +such fashion that it is now impossible to feel any certainty about the +personality which underlay these titles. + +Though we seem frequently upon the point of touching the real man, he +constantly eludes our grasp. Who he was, whether he was one or many, +remains a mystery. Whether the poems which bear one or other of his +changing titles were really the work of a single writer, is also a +matter for fruitless conjecture. We may take it for granted that he +was not Walter Map; for Map was not a Canon of Cologne, not a follower +of Reinald von Dassel, not a mark for the severe scorn of Giraldus. +Similar reasoning renders it more than improbable that the Golias of +Giraldus, the Primas of Salimbene, and the petitioner to Reinald +should have been Walter of Lille.[48] + +At the same time it is singular that the name of Walter should twice +occur in Goliardic poems of a good period. One of these is the famous +and beautiful lament:-- + + "Versa est in luctum--eithara Waltheri." + +This exists in the MS. of the _Carmina Burana_, but not in the Paris +MS. of Walter's poems edited by Müldner. + +It contains allusions to the poet's ejection from his place in the +Church--a misfortune which actually befell Walter of Lille. Grimm has +printed another poem, _Saepe de miseria,_ in which the name of Walter +occurs.[49] It is introduced thus: + + "Hoc Gualtherus sub-prior + Jubet in decretis." + +Are we to infer from the designation _Sub-prior_ that the Walter of +this poem held a post in the Order inferior to that of the Primas? + +It is of importance in this connection to bear in mind that five of +the poems attributed in English MSS. to Golias and Walter Map, namely, +_Missus sum in vineam_, _Multiformis hominum_, _Fallax est et +mobilis_, _A tauro torrida_, _Heliconis rivulo_, _Tanto viro +locuturi_, among which is the famous Apocalypse ascribed by Salimbene +to Primas, are given to Walter of Lille in the Paris MS. edited by +Müldner.[50] They are distinguished by a marked unity of style; and +what is also significant, a lyric in this Paris MS., _Dum Gualterus +aegrotaret_, introduces the poet's name in the same way as the _Versa +est in luctum_ of the _Carmina Burana_. Therefore, without identifying +Walter of Lille with the Primas, Archipoeta, and Golias, we must allow +that his place in Goliardic literature is very considerable. But I am +inclined to think that the weight of evidence favours chiefly the +ascription of serious and satiric pieces to his pen. It is probable +that the Archipoeta, the follower of Reinald von Dassel, the man who +composed the most vigorous Goliardic poem we possess, and gave the +impulse of his genius to that style of writing, was not the Walter of +the _Versa est in luctum_ or of _Dum Gualterus aegrotaret_. That +Walter must have been somewhat his junior; and it is not unreasonable +to assume that he was Walter of Lille, who may perhaps be further +identified with the _Gualtherus sub-prior_ of the poem on the author's +poverty. This Walter's Latin designation, _Gualtherus de Insula_, +helps, as I have observed above,[51] to explain the attribution of the +Goliardic poems in general to Walter Map by English scribes of the +fifteenth century. + +After all, it is safer to indulge in no constructive speculations +where the matter of inquiry is both vague and meagre. One thing +appears tolerably manifest; that many hands of very various dexterity +contributed to form the whole body of songs which we call Goliardic. +It is also clear that the Clerici Vagi considered themselves a +confraternity, and that they burlesqued the institutions of a +religious order, pretending to honour and obey a primate or bishop, to +whom the nickname of Golias was given at the period in which they +flourished most. Viewed in his literary capacity, this chief was +further designated as the Archpoet. Of his personality we know as +little as we do of that of Homer. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 36: Grimm's _Gedichte des Mittelalters_, p. 232.] + +[Footnote 37: _Carm. Bur._, p. 254.] + +[Footnote 38: Page 69.] + +[Footnote 39: Giesebrecht in _Allg. Monatschrift_. Jan. 1853. p. 35.] + +[Footnote 40: Op. cit., p. 182.] + +[Footnote 41: Ib., p. 232.] + +[Footnote 42: Ib., pp. 238, 239.] + +[Footnote 43: Published at Parma, 1857.] + +[Footnote 44: See Novati, _Carmina Medii Aevi_, p. 8, note.] + +[Footnote 45: _Decameron_, i, 7.] + +[Footnote 46: See above, p. 21.] + +[Footnote 47: Grimm, op. cit., p. 189 et seq.] + +[Footnote 48: Giesebrecht identifies Walter of Lille with the +Archipoeta. But he seems to be unacquainted with Salimbene's +Chronicle, and I agree with Hubatsch that he has not made out his +point.] + +[Footnote 49: Op. cit., p. 235, also in _Carm. Bur._, p. 74.] + +[Footnote 50: Hannover, 1859.] + +[Footnote 51: Page 23.] + + + + +BOOKS ON GOLIARDIC LITERATURE. + + +Carmina Burana. Stuttgart. 1847. + +Thomas Wright. The Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes. + Camden Society. 1841. + ---- Anecdota Literaria. London. 1844. + ---- Early Mysteries, etc. London. 1844. + +Edelstand du Méril. Poésies Populaires Latines Antérieures au Douzième + Siècle. Paris. 1843. + ---- Poésies Populaires Latines du Moyen Age. Paris. 1847. + ---- Poésies Inédites du Moyen Age. Paris. 1854. + +Jacob Grimm. Gedichte des Mittelalters auf König Friedrich I., den + Staufer. Berlin. 1843. + +H. Hagen. Carmina Medii Aevi Max. Part. Inedita. Bern. 1877. + +F. Novati. Carmina Medii Aevi. Firenze. 1883. + +Mone. Anzeiger, vii. + +W. Müldener. Die Zehn Gedichte von Walther von Lille. Hannover. 1859, + +Champollion-Figeac. Hilarii Versus et Ludi. Paris. 1838. + +Gaudeamus. Leipzig. 1879. + +Carmina Clericorum. Heilbronn. 1880. + +A.P. Von Bärnstein. Carmina Burana Selecta. 1880. + ---- Ubi sunt qui ante nos? Würtzburg. 1881. + +Giesebrecht. Die Vaganten. Allg. Monatscrift für W. und K. 1853. + +O. Hubatsch. Die Lateinischen Vagantenlieder. Görlitz. 1870. + +A. Bartoli. I Precursori del Rinascimento, Firenze. 1876. + +Allgemeines Deutsches Commersbuch. + + + + +TABLE OF SONGS TRANSLATED IN THIS VOLUME. + + +N.B.--In order to facilitate the comparison between my translations +and the originals, I have made the following table. The first column +gives the number of the song and the second the page in this book; the +third column gives the beginning of each song in English; the fourth +gives the beginning of each song in Latin. The references in the fifth +column are to the little anthology called _Gaudeamus_ (Leipzig, +Teubner, 1879); those in the sixth column are to the printed edition +of the Benedictbeuern Codex, which goes by the title of _Carmina +Burana_ (Stuttgart, auf Kosten das Literarischen Vereins, Hering & Co. +printers, 1847). + + + +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ + |No.|Page.| English. | Latin. |Gaud.|Car. | + | | | | | |Bur. | + +---+-----+------------------------+--------------------+-----+-----+ + | | | | |Page |Page | + | 1 | 42 | At the mandate | Cum in orbem | 3 | 251 | + | 2 | 47 | Once, it was | Olim nostrum | 6 | .. | + | 3 | 50 | I a wandering | Exul ego | 178 | 50 | + | 4 | 52 | We in our | Nos vagabunduli | 195 | .. | + | 5 | 55 | Boiling in my | Aestuans | 34 | 67 | + | 6 | 63 | Spring is coming | Ver redit | 88 | 178 | + | 7 | 64 | These hours of | Tempus est | 100 | 211 | + | 8 | 66 | Take your pleasure | Congaudentes | 90 | 166 | + | 9 | 67 | Winter's untruth | Vetus error | 86 | .. | + |10 | 68 | Winter, now | Cedit hiems | 85 | 177 | + |11 | 69 | Now the fields | Jam jam virent | 89 | 184 | + |12 | 70 | Spring returns | Ecce gratum | 84 | 83 | + |13 | 71 | Vernal hours | Vernum tempus | 81 | .. | + |14 | 72 | Hail thou | Salve ver | .. | 193 | + |15 | 74 | Summer sweet | Dum aestas | 97 | 196 | + |16 | 75 | The blithe young year | Anni novi | .. | 145 | + |17 | 76 | Now the sun | Omnia sol | 109 | 177 | + |18 | 77 | In the spring | Veris dulcis | .. | 195 | + |19 | 78 | With so sweet | De pollicito | 103 | 206 | + |20 | 79 | Wide the lime-tree | Late pandit | .. | 185 | + |21 | 80 | Yonder choir of | Ecce chorus | .. | 118 | + |22 | 82 | Meadows bloom | Virent prata | 98 | 189 | + |23 | 84 | Cast aside | Omittamus studia | 82 | 137 | + |24 | 87 | There went out | Exiit diluculo | 120 | 155 | + |25 | 87 | In the summer's | Aestivali sub | 125 | 145 | + |26 | 89 | All the woods | Florent omnes | 93 | 182 | + |27 | 91 | When the lamp | Dum Dianae | .. | 124 | + |28 | 95 | In the spring-time | Anni parte | .. | 155 | + |29 | 99 | On their steeds | Equitabant | .. | 162 | + |30 |106 | Take thou | Suscipe Flos | .. | 217 | + |31 |107 | Come to me | Veni veni | 102 | 208 | + |32 |109 | Lydia bright | Lydia bella | 96 | .. | + |33 |111 | When a young man | Si puer cum | 116 | 215 | + |34 |112 | Rudely blows | Saevit aurae | .. | 148 | + |35 |114 | Love rules | Amor tenet | 91 | 150 | + |36 |117 | List, my girl | Non contrecto | 118 | 150 | + |37 |118 | Think no evil | Ludo cum | 104 | 151 | + |38 |120 | With song I | Sic mea fata | 117 | 229 | + |39 |121 | False the tongue | Lingua mendax | 111 | 230 | + |40 |124 | A mortal anguish | Humor letalis | 114 | 169 | + |41 |127 | Up to this time | Huc usque | 119 | .. | + |42 |129 | Oh, of love | O comes | .. | 225 | + |43 |130 | Sweet native | Dulce solum | 110 | 168 | + |44 |132 | Oh, my father | Hecs pater | 175 | 172 | + |45 |136 | Wine the good | Vinum bonum | 17 | .. | + |46 |137 | In dulci jubilo | In dulci jubilo | 201 | .. | +[52]|47 |139 | Ho all ye | .... | .. | .. | + |48 |140 | Laurel-crowned | Lauriger Horatius | 74 | .. | + |49 |141 | Sweet in | Dulce cum | 74 | .. | + |50 |142 | Ho! comrades | O consacii | 87 | 198 | + |51 |144 | Laying truth bare | Denudata | 57 | 232 | + |52 |151 | Topers in and | Potatores | 27 | 240 | + |53 |154 | Time was | Olim latus | 188 | 173 | + |54 |155 | While a boor | Rusticus dum | 189 | .. | + |55 |158 | I am the Abbot | Ego sum Abbas | 73 | 254 | +[53]|56 |159 | Hear, O thou | Audi Tellus | .. | .. | + |57 |161 | While life's | Dum juventus | 135 | 8 | + |58 |162 | This vile world | Iste mundus | .. | 5 | + |59 |164 | De contemptu | Scribere proposni | 129 | .. | + |60 |165 | Let us live then | Gaudeamus igitur | 1 | .. | + +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 52: The original of this song will be found in Geiger, +_Humanismus und Renaissance_, p. 414.] + +[Footnote 53: The original will be found in Moll, _Hymnarium_, p. +138.] + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Wine, Women, and Song, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WINE, WOMEN, AND SONG *** + +***** This file should be named 18044-0.txt or 18044-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/0/4/18044/ + +Produced by Michael Ciesielski, Sankar Viswanathan, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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