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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of
+Allegory, by George Saintsbury
+
+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: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory
+       (Periods of European Literature, vol. II)
+
+Author: George Saintsbury
+
+Release Date: May 24, 2007 [EBook #21600]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLOURISHING OF ROMANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Linda Cantoni, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's Notes: To improve readability, dashes between entries
+in the Table of Contents and in chapter subheadings have been
+converted to periods. The Anglo-Saxon yogh symbol is here represented
+by [y].]
+
+
+
+
+Periods of European Literature
+
+
+EDITED BY
+
+PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY
+
+
+II.
+
+THE TWELFTH AND THIRTEENTH CENTURIES
+
+
+
+
+PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE.
+
+EDITED BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY.
+
+
+     "_The criticism which alone can much help us for the future
+     is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for
+     intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great
+     confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a
+     common result._"
+
+     --MATTHEW ARNOLD.
+
+
+In 12 Crown 8vo Volumes. Price 5s. net each.
+
+The DARK AGES                         Professor W.P. KER.
+The FLOURISHING OF ROMANCE
+  AND THE RISE OF ALLEGORY            THE EDITOR.
+The FOURTEENTH CENTURY                F.J. SNELL.
+The TRANSITION PERIOD
+The EARLIER RENAISSANCE
+The LATER RENAISSANCE                 DAVID HANNAY.
+The FIRST HALF OF 17TH CENTURY
+The AUGUSTAN AGES                     OLIVER ELTON.
+The MID-EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
+The ROMANTIC REVOLT                   EDMUND GOSSE.
+The ROMANTIC TRIUMPH                  WALTER H. POLLOCK.
+The LATER NINETEENTH CENTURY          THE EDITOR.
+
+WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+THE
+
+FLOURISHING OF ROMANCE
+
+AND THE
+
+RISE OF ALLEGORY
+
+
+BY
+
+GEORGE SAINTSBURY, M.A.
+
+PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF
+EDINBURGH
+
+
+WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
+EDINBURGH AND LONDON
+MDCCCXCVII
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+As this volume, although not the first in chronological order, is
+likely to be the first to appear in the Series of which it forms part,
+and of which the author has the honour to be editor, it may be well to
+say a few words here as to the scheme of this Series generally. When
+that scheme was first sketched, it was necessarily objected that it
+would be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain contributors who
+could boast intimate and equal knowledge of all the branches of
+European literature at any given time. To meet this by a simple denial
+was, of course, not to be thought of. Even universal linguists, though
+not unknown, are not very common; and universal linguists have not
+usually been good critics of any, much less of all, literature. But it
+could be answered that if the main principle of the scheme was
+sound--that is to say, if it was really desirable not to supplant but
+to supplement the histories of separate literatures, such as now exist
+in great numbers, by something like a new "Hallam," which should take
+account of all the simultaneous and contemporary developments and
+their interaction--some sacrifice in point of specialist knowledge of
+individual literatures not only must be made, but might be made with
+little damage. And it could be further urged that this sacrifice might
+be reduced to a minimum by selecting in each case writers thoroughly
+acquainted with the literature which happened to be of greatest
+prominence in the special period, provided always that their general
+literary knowledge and critical habits were such as to render them
+capable of giving a fit account of the rest.
+
+In the carrying out of such a scheme occasional deficiencies of
+specialist dealing, or even of specialist knowledge, must be held to
+be compensated by range of handling and width of view. And though it
+is in all such cases hopeless to appease what has been called "the
+rage of the specialist" himself--though a Mezzofanti doubled with a
+Sainte-Beuve could never, in any general history of European
+literature, hope to satisfy the special devotees of Roumansch or of
+Platt-Deutsch, not to mention those of the greater languages--yet
+there may, I hope, be a sufficient public who, recognising the
+advantage of the end, will make a fair allowance for necessary
+shortcomings in the means.
+
+As, however, it is quite certain that there will be some critics, if
+not some readers, who will not make this allowance, it seemed only
+just that the Editor should bear the brunt in this new Passage
+Perilous. I shall state very frankly the qualifications which I think
+I may advance in regard to this volume. I believe I have read most of
+the French and English literature proper of the period that is in
+print, and much, if not most, of the German. I know somewhat less of
+Icelandic and Provencal; less still of Spanish and Italian as regards
+this period, but something also of them: Welsh and Irish I know only
+in translations. Now it so happens that--for the period--French is,
+more than at any other time, the capital literature of Europe. Very
+much of the rest is directly translated from it; still more is
+imitated in form. All the great subjects, the great _matieres_, are
+French in their early treatment, with the exception of the national
+work of Spain, Iceland, and in part Germany. All the forms, except
+those of the prose saga and its kinsman the German verse folk-epic,
+are found first in French. Whosoever knows the French literature of
+the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, knows not merely the best
+literature in form, and all but the best in matter, of the time, but
+that which all the time was imitating, or shortly about to imitate,
+both in form and matter.
+
+Again, England presents during this time, though no great English work
+written "in the English tongue for English men," yet the spectacle,
+unique in history, of a language and a literature undergoing a
+sea-change from which it was to emerge with incomparably greater
+beauty and strength than it had before, and in condition to vie
+with--some would say to outstrip--all actual or possible rivals.
+German, if not quite supreme in any way, gives an interesting and
+fairly representative example of a chapter of national literary
+history, less brilliant and original in performance than the French,
+less momentous and unique in promise than the English, but more normal
+than either, and furnishing in the epics, of which the _Nibelungenlied_
+and _Kudrun_ are the chief examples, and in the best work of the
+Minnesingers, things not only of historical but of intrinsic value in
+all but the highest degree.
+
+Provencal and Icelandic literature at this time are both of them of
+far greater intrinsic interest than English, if not than German, and
+they are infinitely more original. But it so happens that the
+prominent qualities of form in the first, of matter and spirit in the
+second, though intense and delightful, are not very complicated,
+various, or wide-ranging. If monotony were not by association a
+question-begging word, it might be applied with much justice to both:
+and it is consequently not necessary to have read every Icelandic saga
+in the original, every Provencal lyric with a strictly philological
+competence, in order to appreciate the literary value of the
+contributions which these two charming isolations made to European
+history.
+
+Yet again, the production of Spain during this time is of the
+smallest, containing, perhaps, nothing save the _Poem of the Cid_,
+which is at once certain in point of time and distinguished in point
+of merit; while that of Italy is not merely dependent to a great
+extent on Provencal, but can be better handled in connection with
+Dante, who falls to the province of the writer of the next volume. The
+Celtic tongues were either past or not come to their chief
+performance; and it so happens that, by the confession of the most
+ardent Celticists who speak as scholars, no Welsh or Irish _texts_
+affecting the capital question of the Arthurian legends can be
+certainly attributed to the twelfth or early thirteenth centuries. It
+seemed to me, therefore, that I might, without presumption, undertake
+the volume. Of the execution as apart from the undertaking others must
+judge. I will only mention (to show that the book is not a mere
+compilation) that the chapter on the Arthurian Romances summarises,
+for the first time in print, the result of twenty years' independent
+study of the subject, and that the views on prosody given in chapter
+v. are not borrowed from any one.
+
+I have dwelt on this less as a matter of personal explanation, which
+is generally superfluous to friends and never disarms foes, than in
+order to explain and illustrate the principle of the Series. All its
+volumes have been or will be allotted on the same principle--that of
+occasionally postponing or antedating detailed attention to the
+literary production of countries which were not at the moment of the
+first consequence, while giving greater prominence to those that were:
+but at the same time never losing sight of the _general_ literary
+drift of the whole of Europe during the whole period in each case. It
+is to guard against such loss of sight that the plan of committing
+each period to a single writer, instead of strapping together bundles
+of independent essays by specialists, has been adopted. For a survey
+of each time is what is aimed at, and a survey is not to be
+satisfactorily made but by one pair of eyes. As the individual study
+of different literatures deepens and widens, these surveys may be more
+and more difficult: they may have to be made more and more "by
+allowance." But they are also more and more useful, not to say more
+and more necessary, lest a deeper and wider ignorance should accompany
+the deeper and wider knowledge.
+
+The dangers of this ignorance will hardly be denied, and it would be
+invidious to produce examples of them from writings of the present
+day. But there can be nothing ungenerous in referring--_honoris_, not
+_invidiae causa_--to one of the very best literary histories of this or
+any century, Mr Ticknor's _Spanish Literature_. There was perhaps no
+man of his time who was more widely read, or who used his reading with
+a steadier industry and a better judgment, than Mr Ticknor. Yet the
+remarks on assonance, and on long mono-rhymed or single-assonanced
+tirades, in his note on Berceo (_History of Spanish Literature_, vol.
+i. p. 27), show almost entire ignorance of the whole prosody of the
+_chansons de geste_, which give such an indispensable light in
+reference to the subject, and which, even at the time of his first
+edition (1849), if not quite so well known as they are to-day,
+existed in print in fair numbers, and had been repeatedly handled by
+scholars. It is against such mishaps as this that we are here doing
+our best to supply a guard.[1]
+
+[Footnote 1: One of the most difficult points to decide concerned the
+allowance of notes, bibliographical or other. It seemed, on the whole,
+better not to overload such a Series as this with them; but an attempt
+has been made to supply the reader, who desires to carry his studies
+further, with references to the best editions of the principal texts
+and the best monographs on the subjects of the different chapters. I
+have scarcely in these notes mentioned a single book that I have not
+myself used; but I have not mentioned a tithe of those that I have
+used.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FUNCTION OF LATIN.
+
+Reasons for not noticing the bulk of mediaeval Latin literature.
+Excepted divisions. Comic Latin literature. Examples of its verbal
+influence. The value of burlesque. Hymns. The _Dies Irae_. The rhythm
+of Bernard. Literary perfection of the Hymns. Scholastic Philosophy.
+Its influence on phrase and method. The great Scholastics            1
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHANSONS DE GESTE.
+
+European literature in 1100. Late discovery of the _chansons_. Their
+age and history. Their distinguishing character. Mistakes about them.
+Their isolation and origin. Their metrical form. Their scheme of
+matter. The character of Charlemagne. Other characters and
+characteristics. Realist quality. Volume and age of the _chansons_.
+Twelfth century. Thirteenth century. Fourteenth, and later. _Chansons_
+in print. Language: _oc_ and _oil_. Italian. Diffusion of the
+_chansons_. Their authorship and publication. Their performance.
+Hearing, not reading, the object. Effect on prosody. The _jongleurs_.
+_Jongleresses_, &c. Singularity of the _chansons_. Their charm.
+Peculiarity of the _geste_ system. Instances. Summary of the _geste_
+of William of Orange. And first of the _Couronnement Loys_. Comments
+on the _Couronnement_. William of Orange. The earlier poems of the
+cycle. The _Charroi de Nimes_. The _Prise d'Orange_. The story of
+Vivien. _Aliscans._ The end of the story. Renouart. Some other
+_chansons_. Final remarks on them                                   22
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE MATTER OF BRITAIN.
+
+Attractions of the Arthurian Legend. Discussions on their sources. The
+personality of Arthur. The four witnesses. Their testimony. The
+version of Geoffrey. Its _lacunae_. How the Legend grew. Wace. Layamon.
+The Romances proper. Walter Map. Robert de Borron. Chrestien de
+Troyes. Prose or verse first? A Latin Graal-book. The Mabinogion. The
+Legend itself. The story of Joseph of Arimathea. Merlin. Lancelot. The
+Legend becomes dramatic. Stories of Gawain and other knights. Sir
+Tristram. His story almost certainly Celtic. Sir Lancelot. The minor
+knights. Arthur. Guinevere. The Graal. How it perfects the story.
+Nature of this perfection. No sequel possible. Latin episodes. The
+Legend as a whole. The theories of its origin. Celtic. French.
+English. Literary. The Celtic theory. The French claims. The theory of
+general literary growth. The English or Anglo-Norman pretensions.
+Attempted hypothesis                                                86
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ANTIQUITY IN ROMANCE.
+
+Oddity of the Classical Romance. Its importance. The Troy story. The
+Alexandreid. Callisthenes. Latin versions. Their story. Its
+developments. Alberic of Besancon. The decasyllabic poem. The great
+_Roman d'Alixandre_. Form, &c. Continuations. _King Alexander._
+Characteristics. The Tale of Troy. Dictys and Dares. The Dares story.
+Its absurdity. Its capabilities. Troilus and Briseida. The _Roman de
+Troie_. The phases of Cressid. The _Historia Trojana_. Meaning of the
+classical romance                                                  148
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE MAKING OF ENGLISH AND THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPEAN PROSODY.
+
+Special interest of Early Middle English. Decay of Anglo-Saxon. Early
+Middle English Literature. Scantiness of its constituents. Layamon.
+The form of the _Brut_. Its substance. The _Ormulum_: Its metre, its
+spelling. The _Ancren Riwle_. The _Owl and the Nightingale_. Proverbs.
+Robert of Gloucester. Romances. _Havelok the Dane._ _King Horn._ The
+prosody of the modern languages. Historical retrospect. Anglo-Saxon
+prosody. Romance prosody. English prosody. The later alliteration. The
+new verse. Rhyme and syllabic equivalence. Accent and quantity. The
+gain of form. The "accent" theory. Initial fallacies, and final
+perversities thereof                                               187
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN POETRY.
+
+Position of Germany. Merit of its poetry. Folk-epics: The
+_Nibelungenlied_. The _Volsunga saga_. The German version. Metres.
+Rhyme and language. _Kudrun._ Shorter national epics. Literary poetry.
+Its four chief masters. Excellence, both natural and acquired, of
+German verse. Originality of its adaptation. The Pioneers: Heinrich
+von Veldeke. Gottfried of Strasburg. Hartmann von Aue. _Erec der
+Wanderaere_ and _Iwein_. Lyrics. The "booklets." _Der Arme Heinrich._
+Wolfram von Eschenbach. _Titurel._ _Willehalm._ _Parzival._ Walther
+von der Vogelweide. Personality of the poets. The Minnesingers
+generally                                                          225
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE 'FOX,' THE 'ROSE,' AND THE MINOR CONTRIBUTIONS OF FRANCE.
+
+The predominance of France. The rise of Allegory. Lyric. The _Romance_
+and the _Pastourelle_. The _Fabliaux_. Their origin. Their licence.
+Their wit. Definition and subjects. Effect of the _fabliaux_ on
+language. And on narrative. Conditions of _fabliau_-writing. The
+appearance of irony. Fables proper. _Reynard the Fox._ Order of texts.
+Place of origin. The French form. Its complications. Unity of spirit.
+The Rise of Allegory. The satire of _Renart_. The Fox himself. His
+circle. The burial of Renart. The _Romance of the Rose_. William of
+Lorris and Jean de Meung. The first part. Its capital value. The
+rose-garden. "Danger." "Reason." "Shame" and "Scandal." The later
+poem. "False-Seeming." Contrast of the parts. Value of both, and charm
+of the first. Marie de France and Ruteboeuf. Drama. Adam de la
+Halle. _Robin et Marion._ The _Jeu de la Feuillie_. Comparison of
+them. Early French prose. Laws and sermons. Villehardouin. William of
+Tyre. Joinville. Fiction. _Aucassin et Nicolette_                  265
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ICELANDIC AND PROVENCAL.
+
+Resemblances. Contrasts. Icelandic literature of this time mainly
+prose. Difficulties with it. The Saga. Its insularity of manner. Of
+scenery and character. Fact and fiction in the sagas. Classes and
+authorship of them. The five greater sagas. _Njala._ _Laxdaela._
+_Eyrbyggja._ _Egla._ _Grettla._ Its critics. Merits of it. The parting
+of Asdis and her sons. Great passages of the sagas. Style. Provencal
+mainly lyric. Origin of this lyric. Forms. Many men, one mind. Example
+of rhyme-schemes. Provencal poetry not great. But extraordinarily
+pedagogic. Though not directly on English. Some troubadours. Criticism
+of Provencal                                                       333
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE LITERATURE OF THE PENINSULAS.
+
+Limitations of this chapter. Late Greek romance. Its difficulties as a
+subject. Anna Comnena, &c. _Hysminias and Hysmine._ Its style. Its
+story. Its handling. Its "decadence." Lateness of Italian. The
+"Saracen" theory. The "folk-song" theory. Ciullo d'Alcamo. Heavy debt
+to France. Yet form and spirit both original. Love-lyric in different
+European countries. Position of Spanish. Catalan-Provencal.
+Galician-Portuguese. Castilian. Ballads? The _Poema del Cid_. A
+Spanish _chanson de geste_. In scheme and spirit. Difficulties of its
+prosody. Ballad-metre theory. Irregularity of line. Other poems.
+Apollonius and Mary of Egypt. Berceo. Alfonso el Sabio             375
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CONCLUSION                                                         412
+
+
+INDEX                                                              427
+
+
+
+
+THE FLOURISHING OF ROMANCE
+
+AND THE
+
+RISE OF ALLEGORY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FUNCTION OF LATIN.
+
+     REASONS FOR NOT NOTICING THE BULK OF MEDIAEVAL LATIN
+     LITERATURE. EXCEPTED DIVISIONS. COMIC LATIN LITERATURE.
+     EXAMPLES OF ITS VERBAL INFLUENCE. THE VALUE OF BURLESQUE.
+     HYMNS. THE "DIES IRAE." THE RHYTHM OF BERNARD. LITERARY
+     PERFECTION OF THE HYMNS. SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY. ITS
+     INFLUENCE ON PHRASE AND METHOD. THE GREAT SCHOLASTICS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Reasons for not noticing the bulk of mediaeval Latin
+literature._]
+
+This series is intended to survey and illustrate the development of
+the vernacular literatures of mediaeval and Europe; and for that
+purpose it is unnecessary to busy ourselves with more than a part of
+the Latin writing which, in a steadily decreasing but--until the end
+of the last century--an always considerable proportion, served as the
+vehicle of literary expression. But with a part of it we are as
+necessarily concerned as we are necessarily compelled to decline the
+whole. For not only was Latin for centuries the universal means of
+communication between educated men of different languages, the medium
+through which such men received their education, the court-language,
+so to speak, of religion, and the vehicle of all the literature of
+knowledge which did not directly stoop to the comprehension of the
+unlearned; but it was indirectly as well as directly, unconsciously as
+well as consciously, a schoolmaster to bring the vernacular languages
+to literary accomplishment. They could not have helped imitating it,
+if they would; and they did not think of avoiding imitation of it, if
+they could. It modified, to a very large extent, their grammar; it
+influenced, to an extent almost impossible to overestimate, the
+prosody of their finished literature; it supplied their vocabulary; it
+furnished models for all their first conscious literary efforts of the
+more deliberate kind, and it conditioned those which were more or less
+spontaneous.
+
+But, even if we had room, it would profit us little to busy ourselves
+with diplomatic Latin or with the Latin of chronicles, with the Latin
+of such scientific treatises as were written or with the Latin of
+theology. All these except, for obvious reasons, the first, tended
+away from Latin into the vernaculars as time went on, and were but of
+lesser literary moment, even while they continued to be written in
+Latin. Nor in _belles lettres_ proper were such serious performances
+as continued to be written well into our period of capital
+importance. Such a book, for instance, as the well-known _Trojan War_
+of Joseph of Exeter,[2] though it really deserves much of the praise
+which it used to receive,[3] can never be anything much better than a
+large prize poem, such as those which still receive and sometimes
+deserve the medals and the gift-books of schools and universities.
+Every now and then a man of irrepressible literary talent, having no
+vernacular or no public in the vernacular ready to his hand, will
+write in Latin a book like the _De Nugis Curialium_,[4] which is good
+literature though bad Latin. But on the whole it is a fatal law of
+such things that the better the Latin the worse must the literature
+be.
+
+[Footnote 2: Included with Dictys and Dares in a volume of Valpy's
+Delphin Classics.]
+
+[Footnote 3: Cf. Warton, _History of English Poetry_. Ed. Hazlitt, i.
+226-292.]
+
+[Footnote 4: Gualteri Mapes, _De Nugis Curialium Distinctiones
+Quinque_. Ed. T. Wright: Camden Society, 1850.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Excepted divisions._]
+
+We may, however, with advantage select three divisions of the Latin
+literature of our section of the Middle Ages, which have in all cases
+no small literary importance and interest, and in some not a little
+literary achievement. And these are the comic and burlesque Latin
+writings, especially in verse; the Hymns; and the great body of
+philosophical writing which goes by the general title of Scholastic
+Philosophy, and which was at its palmiest time in the later portion of
+our own special period.
+
+[Sidenote: _Comic Latin literature._]
+
+It may not be absolutely obvious, but it does not require much thought
+to discover, why the comic and burlesque Latin writing, especially in
+verse, of the earlier Middle Ages holds such a position. But if we
+compare such things as the _Carmina Burana_, or as the Goliardic poems
+attributed to or connected with Walter Map,[5] with the early
+_fabliaux_, we shall perceive that while the latter, excellently
+written as they sometimes are, depend for their comedy chiefly on
+matter and incident, not indulging much in play on words or subtle
+adjustment of phrase and cadence, the reverse is the case with the
+former. A language must have reached some considerable pitch of
+development, must have been used for a great length of time seriously,
+and on a large variety of serious subjects, before it is possible for
+anything short of supreme genius to use it well for comic purposes.
+Much indeed of this comic use turns on the existence and degradation
+of recognised serious writing. There was little or no opportunity for
+any such use or misuse in the infant vernaculars; there was abundant
+opportunity in literary Latin. Accordingly we find, and should expect
+to find, very early parodies of the offices and documents of the
+Church,--things not unnaturally shocking to piety, but not perhaps to
+be justly set down to any profane, much less to any specifically
+blasphemous, intention. When the quarrel arose between Reformers and
+"Papists," intentional ribaldry no doubt began. But such a thing as,
+for example, the "Missa de Potatoribus"[6] is much more significant of
+an unquestioning familiarity than of deliberate insult. It is an
+instance of the same bent of the human mind which has made very
+learned and conscientious lawyers burlesque law, and which induces
+schoolboys and undergraduates to parody the classics, not at all
+because they hate them, but because they are their most familiar
+literature.
+
+[Footnote 5: _Carmina Burana_, Stuttgart, 1847; _Political Songs of
+England_ (1839), and _Latin Poems attributed to Walter Mapes_ (1841),
+both edited for the Camden Society by T. Wright.]
+
+[Footnote 6: Wright and Halliwell's _Reliquiae Antiquae_ (London, 1845),
+ii. 208.]
+
+At the same time this comic degradation, as may be seen in its
+earliest and perhaps its greatest practitioner Aristophanes--no bad
+citizen or innovating misbeliever--leads naturally to elaborate and
+ingenious exercises in style, to a thorough familiarity with the
+capacities of language, metre, rhyme. And expertness in all these
+things, acquired in the Latin, was certain sooner or later to be
+transferred to the vernacular. No one can read the Latin poems which
+cluster in Germany round the name of the "Arch-Poet,"[7] in England
+round that of Map, without seeing how much freer of hand is the Latin
+rhymer in comparison with him who finds it "hard only not to stumble"
+in the vernacular. We feel what a gusto there is in this graceless
+catachresis of solemn phrase and traditionally serious literature; we
+perceive how the language, colloquially familiar, taught from infancy
+in the schools, provided with plentiful literary examples, and having
+already received perfect licence of accommodation to vernacular
+rhythms and the poetical ornaments of the hour, puts its stammering
+rivals, fated though they were to oust it, out of court for the time
+by its audacious compound of experience and experiment.
+
+[Footnote 7: On this Arch-Poet see Scherer, _History of German
+Literature_ (Engl. ed., Oxford, 1886), i. 68.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Examples of its verbal influence._]
+
+The first impression of any one who reads that exceedingly delightful
+volume the Camden Society's _Poems attributed to Walter Mapes_ may be
+one of mere amusement, of which there are few books fuller. The
+agreeable effrontery with which the question "whether to kiss Rose or
+Agnes" is put side by side with that "whether it is better to eat
+flesh cooked in the cauldron or little fishes driven into the net;"
+the intense solemnity and sorrow for self with which Golias discourses
+in trochaic mono-rhymed _laisses_ of irregular length, _De suo
+Infortunio_; the galloping dactylics of the "Apocalypse"; the
+concentrated scandal against a venerated sex of the _De Conjuge non
+Ducenda_, are jocund enough in themselves, if not invariably edifying.
+But the good-for-nothing who wrote
+
+    "Fumus et mulier et stillicidia
+    Expellunt hominem a domo propria,"
+
+was not merely cracking jokes, he was exercising himself, or his
+countrymen, or at farthest his successors, in the use of the
+vernacular tongues with the same lightness and brightness. When he
+insinuated that
+
+    "Dulcis erit mihi status
+    Si prebenda muneratus,
+      Reditu vel alio,
+    Vivam, licet non habunde,
+    Saltem mihi detur unde
+      Studeam de proprio,"--
+
+he was showing how things could be put slyly, how the stiffness and
+awkwardness of native speech could be suppled and decorated, how the
+innuendo, the turn of words, the _nuance_, could be imparted to
+dog-Latin. And if to dog-Latin, why not to genuine French, or English,
+or German?
+
+[Sidenote: _The value of burlesque._]
+
+And he was showing at the same time how to make verse flexible, how to
+suit rhythm to meaning, how to give freedom, elasticity, swing. No
+doubt this had in part been done by the great serious poetry to which
+we shall come presently, and which he and his kind often directly
+burlesqued. But in the very nature of things comic verse must supple
+language to a degree impossible, or very seldom possible, to serious
+poetry: and in any case the mere tricks with language which the
+parodist has to play, familiarise him with the use of it. Even in
+these days of multifarious writing, it is not absolutely uncommon to
+find men of education and not devoid of talent who confess that they
+have no notion how to put things, that they cannot express themselves.
+We can see this tying of the tongue, this inability to use words, far
+more reasonably prevalent in the infancy of the vernacular tongues;
+as, for instance, in the constant presence of what the French call
+_chevilles_, expletive phrases such as the "sikerly," and the "I will
+not lie," the "verament," and the "everidel," which brought a whole
+class of not undeserving work, the English verse romances of a later
+time, into discredit. Latin, with its wide range of already
+consecrated expressions, and with the practice in it which every
+scholar had, made recourse to constantly repeated stock phrases at
+least less necessary, if necessary at all; and the writer's set
+purpose to amuse made it incumbent on him not to be tedious. A good
+deal of this comic writing may be graceless: some of it may, to
+delicate tastes, be shocking or disgusting. But it was at any rate an
+obvious and excellent school of word-fence, a gymnasium and
+exercising-ground for style.
+
+[Sidenote: _Hymns._]
+
+And if the beneficial effect in the literary sense of these light
+songs is not to be overlooked, how much greater in every way is that
+of the magnificent compositions of which they were in some cases the
+parody! It will be more convenient to postpone to a later chapter of
+this volume a consideration of the exact way in which Latin sacred
+poetry affected the prosody of the vernacular; but it is well here to
+point out that almost all the finest and most famous examples of the
+mediaeval hymn, with perhaps the sole exception of _Veni, Sancte
+Spiritus_, date from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.[8] Ours are
+the stately rhythms of Adam of St Victor, and the softer ones of St
+Bernard the Greater. It was at this time that Jacopone da Todi, in the
+intervals of his eccentric vernacular exercises, was inspired to write
+the _Stabat Mater_. From this time comes that glorious descant of
+Bernard of Morlaix, in which, the more its famous and very elegant
+English paraphrase is read beside it, the more does the greatness and
+the beauty of the original appear. And from this time comes the
+greatest of all hymns, and one of the greatest of all poems, the _Dies
+Irae_. There have been attempts--more than one of them--to make out
+that the _Dies Irae_ is no such wonderful thing after all: attempts
+which are, perhaps, the extreme examples of that cheap and despicable
+paradox which thinks to escape the charge of blind docility by the
+affectation of heterodox independence. The judgment of the greatest
+(and not always of the most pious) men of letters of modern times may
+confirm those who are uncomfortable without authority in a different
+opinion. Fortunately there is not likely ever to be lack of those who,
+authority or no authority, in youth and in age, after much reading or
+without much, in all time of their tribulation and in all time of
+their wealth, will hold these wonderful triplets, be they Thomas of
+Celano's or another's, as nearly or quite the most perfect wedding of
+sound to sense that they know.
+
+[Footnote 8: A few more precise dates may be useful. St Bernard,
+1091-1153; Bernard of Morlaix, exact years uncertain, but twelfth
+century; Adam of St Victor, _ob. cir._ 1190; Jacopone da Todi, _ob._
+1306; St Bonaventura, 1221-1274; Thomas of Celano, _fl. c._ 1226. The
+two great storehouses of Latin hymn-texts are the well-known books of
+Daniel, _Thesaurus Hymnologicus_, and Mone, _Hymni Latini Medii AEvi_.
+And on this, as on all matters connected with hymns, the exhaustive
+_Dictionary of Hymnology_ (London, 1892) of the Rev. John Julian will
+be found most valuable.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Dies Irae.]
+
+It would be possible, indeed, to illustrate a complete dissertation on
+the methods of expression in serious poetry from the fifty-one lines
+of the _Dies Irae_. Rhyme, alliteration, cadence, and adjustment of
+vowel and consonant values,--all these things receive perfect
+expression in it, or, at least, in the first thirteen stanzas, for the
+last four are a little inferior. It is quite astonishing to reflect
+upon the careful art or the felicitous accident of such a line as
+
+    "Tuba mirum spargens sonum,"
+
+with the thud of the trochee[9] falling in each instance in a
+different vowel; and still more on the continuous sequence of five
+stanzas, from _Judex ergo_ to _non sit cassus_, in which not a word
+could be displaced or replaced by another without loss. The climax of
+verbal harmony, corresponding to and expressing religious passion and
+religious awe, is reached in the last--
+
+    "Quaerens me sedisti lassus,
+    Redemisti crucem passus:
+    Tantus labor non sit cassus!"--
+
+where the sudden change from the dominant _e_ sounds (except in the
+rhyme foot) of the first two lines to the _a_'s of the last is simply
+miraculous, and miraculously assisted by what may be called the
+internal sub-rhyme of _sedisti_ and _redemisti_. This latter effect
+can rarely be attempted without a jingle: there is no jingle here,
+only an ineffable melody. After the _Dies Irae_, no poet could say that
+any effect of poetry was, as far as sound goes, unattainable, though
+few could have hoped to equal it, and perhaps no one except Dante and
+Shakespeare has fully done so.
+
+[Footnote 9: Of course no one of the four is a pure classical trochee;
+but all obey the trochaic _rhythm_.]
+
+Beside the grace and the grandeur, the passion and the art, of this
+wonderful composition, even the best remaining examples of mediaeval
+hymn-writing may look a little pale. It is possible for criticism,
+which is not hypercriticism, to object to the pathos of the _Stabat_,
+that it is a trifle luscious, to find fault with the rhyme-scheme of
+_Jesu dulcis memoria_, that it is a little faint and frittered; while,
+of course, those who do not like conceits and far-fetched
+interpretations can always quarrel with the substance of Adam of St
+Victor. But those who care for merits rather than for defects will
+never be weary of admiring the best of these hymns, or of noticing
+and, as far as possible, understanding their perfection. Although the
+language they use is old, and their subjects are those which very
+competent and not at all irreligious critics have denounced as
+unfavourable to poetry, the special poetical charm, as we conceive it
+in modern days, is not merely present in them, but is present in a
+manner of which few traces can be found in classical times. And some
+such students, at least, will probably go on to examine the details of
+the hymn-writers' method, with the result of finding more such things
+as have been pointed out above.
+
+[Sidenote: _The rhythm of Bernard._]
+
+Let us, for instance, take the rhythm of Bernard the Englishman (as he
+was really, though called of Morlaix). "Jerusalem the Golden" has made
+some of its merits common property, while its practical discoverer,
+Archbishop Trench, has set those of the original forth with a
+judicious enthusiasm which cannot be bettered.[10] The point is, how
+these merits, these effects, are produced. The piece is a crucial one,
+because, grotesque as its arrangement would probably have seemed to
+an Augustan, its peculiarities are superadded to, not substituted
+for, the requirements of classical prosody. The writer does not avail
+himself of the new accentual quantification, and his other licences
+are but few. If we examine the poem, however, we shall find that,
+besides the abundant use of rhyme--interior as well as final--he
+avails himself of all those artifices of what may be called
+word-music, suggesting beauty by a running accompaniment of sound,
+which are the main secret of modern verse. He is not satisfied, ample
+as it may seem, with his double-rhyme harmony. He confines himself to
+it, indeed, in the famous overture-couplet--
+
+    "Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt, vigilemus!
+    Ecce! minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus."
+
+[Footnote 10: _Sacred Latin Poetry_ (2d ed., London, 1864), p. 304.
+This admirable book has not been, and from its mixture of taste and
+learning is never likely to be, superseded as an introduction to, and
+chrestomathy of, the subject. Indeed, if a little touch of orthodox
+prudery had not made the Archbishop exclude the _Stabat_, hardly a
+hymn of the very first class could be said to be missing in it.]
+
+But immediately afterwards, and more or loss throughout, he redoubles
+and redoubles again every possible artifice--sound-repetition in the
+_imminet, imminet_, of the third line, alliteration in the _recta
+remuneret_ of the fourth, and everywhere trills and _roulades_, not
+limited to the actually rhyming syllables of the same vowel--
+
+    "Tunc nova gloria pectora sobria clarificabit...
+    Candida lilia, viva monilia, sunt tibi Sponsa...
+    Te peto, te colo, te flagro, te volo, canto, saluto."
+
+He has instinctively discovered the necessity of varying as much as
+possible the cadence and composition of the last third of his verse,
+and carefully avoids anything like a monotonous use of his only
+spondee; in a batch of eighteen lines taken at random, there are only
+six end-words of two syllables, and these only once rhyme together.
+The consequence of these and other devices is that the whole poem is
+accompanied by a sort of swirl and eddy of sound and cadence,
+constantly varying, constantly shifting its centres and systems, but
+always assisting the sense with grateful clash or murmur, according as
+it is loud or soft, of word-music.
+
+[Sidenote: _Literary perfection of the Hymns._]
+
+The vernacular languages were not as yet in case to produce anything
+so complicated as this, and some of them have never been quite able to
+produce it to this day. But it must be obvious at once what a standard
+was held up before poets, almost every one of whom, even if he had but
+small Latin in a general way, heard these hymns constantly sung, and
+what means of producing like effects were suggested to them. The most
+varied and charming lyric of the Middle Ages, that of the German
+Minnesingers, shows the effect of this Latin practice side by side, or
+rather inextricably mingled, with the effects of the preciser French
+and Provencal verse-scheme, and the still looser but equally musical,
+though half-inarticulate, suggestions of indigenous song. That English
+prosody--the prosody of Shakespeare and Coleridge, of Shelley and
+Keats--owes its origin to a similar admixture the present writer at
+least has no doubt at all, while even those who deny this can hardly
+deny the positive literary achievement of the best mediaeval hymns.
+They stand by themselves. Latin--which, despite its constant
+colloquial life, still even in the Middle Ages had in profane use many
+of the drawbacks of a dead language, being either slipshod or
+stiff,--here, owing to the millennium and more during which it had
+been throughout Western Europe the living language and the sole living
+language of the Church Universal, shakes off at once all artificial
+and all doggerel character. It is thoroughly alive: it comes from the
+writers' hearts as easily as from their pens. They have in the fullest
+sense proved it; they know exactly what they can do, and in this
+particular sphere there is hardly anything that they cannot do.
+
+[Sidenote: _Scholastic Philosophy._]
+
+The far-famed and almost more abused than famed Scholastic
+Philosophy[11] cannot be said to have added to positive literature any
+such masterpieces in prose as the hymn-writers (who were very commonly
+themselves Scholastics) produced in verse. With the exception of
+Abelard, whose interest is rather biographical than strictly literary,
+and perhaps Anselm, the heroes of mediaeval dialectic, the Doctors
+Subtle and Invincible, Irrefragable and Angelic, have left nothing
+which even on the widest interpretation of pure literature can be
+included within it, or even any names that figure in any but the
+least select of literary histories. Yet they cannot but receive some
+notice here in a history, however condensed, of the literature of the
+period of their chief flourishing. This is not because of their
+philosophical importance, although at last, after much bandying of not
+always well-informed argument, that importance is pretty generally
+allowed by the competent. It has, fortunately, ceased to be
+fashionable to regard the dispute about Universals as proper only to
+amuse childhood or beguile dotage, and the quarrels of Scotists and
+Thomists as mere reductions of barren logomachy to the flatly absurd.
+Still, this importance, though real, though great, is not directly
+literary. The claim which makes it impossible to pass them over here
+is that excellently put in the two passages from Condorcet and
+Hamilton which John Stuart Mill (not often a scholastically minded
+philosopher) set in the forefront of his _Logic_, that, in the
+Scottish philosopher's words, "it is to the schoolmen that the vulgar
+languages are indebted for what precision and analytical subtlety they
+possess;" and that, as the Frenchman, going still further, but hardly
+exaggerating, lays it down, "logic, ethics, and metaphysics itself owe
+to Scholasticism a precision unknown to the ancients themselves."
+
+[Footnote 11: I should feel even more diffidence than I do feel in
+approaching this proverbially thorny subject if it were not that many
+years ago, before I was called off to other matters, I paid
+considerable attention to it. And I am informed by experts that though
+the later (chiefly German) Histories of Philosophy, by Ueberweg,
+Erdmann, Windelband, &c., may be consulted with advantage, and though
+some monographs may be added, there are still no better guides than
+Haureau, _De la Philosophie Scolastique_ (revised edition) and Prantl,
+_Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande_, who were our masters
+five-and-twenty years ago. The last-named book in especial may be
+recommended with absolute confidence to any one who experiences the
+famous desire for "something craggy to break his mind upon."]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its influence on phrase and method._]
+
+There can be no reasonable or well-informed denial of the fact of
+this: and the reason of it is not hard to understand. That constant
+usage, the effect of which has been noted in theological verse, had
+the same effect in philosophico-theological prose. Latin is before all
+things a precise language, and the one qualification which it lacked
+in classical times for philosophic use, the presence of a full and
+exact terminology, was supplied in the Middle Ages by the fearless
+barbarism (as pedants call it) which made it possible and easy first
+to fashion such words as _aseitas_ and _quodlibetalis_, and then,
+after, as it were, lodging a specification of their meaning, to use
+them ever afterwards as current coin. All the peculiarities which
+ignorance or sciolism used to ridicule or reproach in the
+Scholastics--their wiredrawnness, their lingering over special points
+of verbal wrangling, their neglect of plain fact in comparison with
+endless and unbridled dialectic--all these things did no harm but much
+positive good from the point of view which we are now taking. When a
+man defended theses against lynx-eyed opponents or expounded them
+before perhaps more lynx-eyed pupils, according to rules familiar to
+all, it was necessary for him, if he were to avoid certain and
+immediate discomfiture, to be precise in his terms and exact in his
+use of them. That it was possible to be childishly as well as
+barbarously scholastic nobody would deny, and the famous sarcasms of
+the _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, two centuries after our time, had
+been anticipated long before by satirists. But even the logical
+fribble, even the logical jargonist, was bound to be exact. Now
+exactness was the very thing which languages, mostly young in actual
+age, and in all cases what we may call uneducated, unpractised in
+literary exercises, wanted most of all. And it was impossible that
+they should have better teachers in it than the few famous, and even
+than most of the numerous unknown or almost unknown, philosophers of
+the Scholastic period.
+
+[Sidenote: _The great Scholastics._]
+
+It has been said that of those most famous almost all belong specially
+to this our period. Before it there is, till its very latest eve,
+hardly one except John Scotus Erigena; after it none, except Occam, of
+the very greatest. But during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
+there is scarcely a decade without its illustration. The first
+champions of the great Realist and Nominalist controversy, Roscellinus
+and William of Champeaux, belong to the eleventh century in part, as
+does their still more famous follower, Abelard, by the first twenty
+years of his life, while almost the whole of that of Anselm may be
+claimed by it.[12] But it was not till the extreme end of that century
+that the great controversy in which these men were the front-fighters
+became active (the date of the Council of Soissons, which condemned
+the Nominalism of Roscellinus as tritheistic is 1092), and the
+controversy itself was at its hottest in the earlier part of the
+succeeding age. The Master of the Sentences, Peter Lombard, belongs
+wholly to the twelfth, and the book which gives him his scholastic
+title dates from its very middle. John of Salisbury, one of the
+clearest-headed as well as most scholarly of the whole body, died in
+1180. The fuller knowledge of Aristotle, through the Arabian writers,
+coincided with the latter part of the twelfth century: and the curious
+outburst of Pantheism which connects itself on the one hand with the
+little-known teaching of Amaury de Bene and David of Dinant, on the
+other with the almost legendary "Eternal Gospel" of Joachim of Flora,
+occurred almost exactly at the junction of the twelfth and thirteenth.
+As for the writers of the thirteenth century itself, that great period
+holds in this as in other departments the position of palmiest time of
+the Middle Ages. To it belong Alexander Hales, who disputes with
+Aquinas the prize for the best example of the Summa Theologiae;
+Bonaventura, the mystic; Roger Bacon, the natural philosopher; Vincent
+of Beauvais, the encyclopaedist. If, of the four greatest of all,
+Albert of Bolstadt, Albertus Magnus, the "Dumb Ox of Cologne," was
+born seven years before its opening, his life lasted over four-fifths
+of it; that of Aquinas covered its second and third quarters; Occam
+himself, though his main exertions lie beyond us, was probably born
+before Aquinas died; while John Duns Scotus hardly outlived the
+century's close by a decade. Raymond Lully (one of the most
+characteristic figures of Scholasticism and of the mediaeval period,
+with his "Great Art" of automatic philosophy), who died in 1315, was
+born as early as 1235. Peter the Spaniard, Pope and author of the
+_Summulae Logicales_, the grammar of formal logic for ages, died in
+1277.
+
+[Footnote 12: Some exacter dates may be useful. Anselm, 1033-1109;
+Roscellin, 1050?-1125; William of Champeaux, ?-1121; Abelard,
+1079-1142; Peter Lombard, _ob._ 1164; John of Salisbury, ?-1180;
+Alexander of Hales, ?-1245; Vincent of Beauvais, ?-1265?; Bonaventura,
+1221-1274; Albertus Magnus, 1195-1280; Thomas Aquinas, 1225?-1274;
+Duns Scotus, 1270?-1308?; William of Occam, ?-1347; Roger Bacon,
+1214-1292; Petrus Hispanus, ?-1277; Raymond Lully, 1235-1315.]
+
+Of the matter which these and others by hundreds put in forgotten
+wealth of exposition, no account will be expected here. Even yet it is
+comparatively unexplored, or else the results of the exploration exist
+only in books brilliant, but necessarily summary, like that of
+Haureau, in books thorough, but almost as formidable as the original,
+like that of Prantl. Even the latest historians of philosophy complain
+that there is up to the present day no "ingoing" (as the Germans say)
+monograph about Scotus and none about Occam.[13] The whole works of
+the latter have never been collected at all: the twelve mighty volumes
+which represent the compositions of the former contain probably not
+the whole work of a man who died before he was forty. The greater part
+of the enormous mass of writing which was produced, from Scotus
+Erigena in the ninth century to Gabriel Biel in the fifteenth, is only
+accessible to persons with ample leisure and living close to large and
+ancient libraries. Except Erigena himself, Anselm in a few of his
+works, Abelard, and a part of Aquinas, hardly anything can be found in
+modern editions, and even the zealous efforts of the present Pope have
+been less effectual in divulging Aquinas than those of his
+predecessors were in making Amaury of Bena a mystery.[14] Yet there
+has always, in generous souls who have some tincture of philosophy,
+subsisted a curious kind of sympathy and yearning over the work of
+these generations of mainly disinterested scholars who, whatever they
+were, were thorough, and whatever they could not do, could think. And
+there have even, in these latter days, been some graceless ones who
+have asked whether the Science of the nineteenth century, after an
+equal interval, will be of any more positive value--whether it will
+not have even less comparative interest than that which appertains to
+the Scholasticism of the thirteenth.
+
+[Footnote 13: Remusat on Anselm and Cousin on Abelard long ago
+smoothed the way as far as these two masters are concerned, and Dean
+Church on Anselm is also something of a classic. But I know no other
+recent monograph of any importance by an Englishman on Scholasticism
+except Mr R.L. Poole's _Erigena_. Indeed the "Erin-born" has not had
+the ill-luck of his country, for with the Migne edition accessible to
+everybody, he is in much better case than most of his followers two,
+three, and four centuries later.]
+
+[Footnote 14: The Amalricans, as the followers of Amaury de Bene were
+termed, were not only condemned by the Lateran Council of 1215, but
+sharply persecuted; and we know nothing of the doctrines of Amaury,
+David, and the other northern Averroists or Pantheists, except from
+later and hostile notices.]
+
+However this may be, the claim, modest and even meagre as it may seem
+to some, which has been here once more put forward for this
+Scholasticism--the claim of a far-reaching educative influence in mere
+language, in mere system of arrangement and expression, will remain
+valid. If, at the outset of the career of modern languages, men had
+thought with the looseness of modern thought, had indulged in the
+haphazard slovenliness of modern logic, had popularised theology and
+vulgarised rhetoric, as we have seen both popularised and vulgarised
+since, we should indeed have been in evil case. It used to be thought
+clever to moralise and to felicitate mankind over the rejection of the
+stays, the fetters, the prison in which its thought was mediaevally
+kept. The justice or the injustice, the taste or the vulgarity, of
+these moralisings, of these felicitations, may not concern us here.
+But in expression, as distinguished from thought, the value of the
+discipline to which these youthful languages were subjected is not
+likely now to be denied by any scholar who has paid attention to the
+subject. It would have been perhaps a pity if thought had not gone
+through other phases; it would certainly have been a pity if the
+tongues had all been subjected to the fullest influence of Latin
+constraint. But that the more lawless of them benefited by that
+constraint there can be no doubt whatever. The influence of form which
+the best Latin hymns of the Middle Ages exercised in poetry, the
+influence in vocabulary and in logical arrangement which Scholasticism
+exercised in prose, are beyond dispute: and even those who will not
+pardon literature, whatever its historical and educating importance
+be, for being something less than masterly in itself, will find it
+difficult to maintain the exclusion of the _Cur Deus Homo_, and
+impossible to refuse admission to the _Dies Irae_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+CHANSONS DE GESTE.[15]
+
+[Footnote 15: I prefer, as more logical, the plural form _chansons de
+gestes_, and have so written it in my _Short History of French
+Literature_ (Oxford, 4th ed., 1892), to which I may not improperly
+refer the reader on the general subject. But of late years the fashion
+of dropping the _s_ has prevailed, and, therefore, in a book meant for
+general reading, I follow it here. Those who prefer native authorities
+will find a recent and excellent one on the whole subject of French
+literature in M. Lanson, _Histoire de la Litterature Francaise_,
+Paris, 1895. For the mediaeval period generally M. Gaston Paris, _La
+Litterature Francaise au Moyen Age_ (Paris, 1888), speaks with
+unapproached competence; and, still narrowing the range, the subject
+of the present chapter has been dealt with by M. Leon Gautier, _Les
+Epopees Francaises_ (Paris, 4 vols., 1878-92), in a manner equally
+learned and loving. M. Gautier has also been intrusted with the
+section on the _Chansons_ in the new and splendidly illustrated
+collection of monographs (Paris: Colin) which M. Petit de Julleville
+is editing under the title _Histoire de la Langue et de la Litterature
+Francaise_. Mr Paget Toynbee's _Specimens of Old French_ (Oxford,
+1892) will illustrate this and the following chapters.]
+
+     EUROPEAN LITERATURE IN 1100. LATE DISCOVERY OF THE
+     "CHANSONS." THEIR AGE AND HISTORY. THEIR DISTINGUISHING
+     CHARACTER. MISTAKES ABOUT THEM. THEIR ISOLATION AND ORIGIN.
+     THEIR METRICAL FORM. THEIR SCHEME OF MATTER. THE CHARACTER
+     OF CHARLEMAGNE. OTHER CHARACTERS AND CHARACTERISTICS.
+     REALIST QUALITY. VOLUME AND AGE OF THE "CHANSONS." TWELFTH
+     CENTURY. THIRTEENTH CENTURY. FOURTEENTH, AND LATER.
+     "CHANSONS" IN PRINT. LANGUAGE: "OC" AND "OIL." ITALIAN.
+     DIFFUSION OF THE "CHANSONS." THEIR AUTHORSHIP AND
+     PUBLICATION. THEIR PERFORMANCE. HEARING, NOT READING, THE
+     OBJECT. EFFECT ON PROSODY. THE "JONGLEURS." "JONGLERESSES,"
+     ETC. SINGULARITY OF THE "CHANSONS." THEIR CHARM. PECULIARITY
+     OF THE "GESTE" SYSTEM. INSTANCES. SUMMARY OF THE "GESTE" OF
+     WILLIAM OF ORANGE. AND FIRST OF THE "COURONNEMENT LOYS."
+     COMMENTS ON THE "COURONNEMENT." WILLIAM OF ORANGE. THE
+     EARLIER POEMS OF THE CYCLE. THE "CHARROI DE NIMES." THE
+     "PRISE D'ORANGE." THE STORY OF VIVIEN. "ALISCANS." THE END
+     OF THE STORY. RENOUART. SOME OTHER "CHANSONS." FINAL REMARKS
+     ON THEM.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _European literature in 1100._]
+
+When we turn from Latin and consider the condition of the vernacular
+tongues in the year 1100, there is hardly more than one country in
+Europe where we find them producing anything that can be called
+literature. In England Anglo-Saxon, if not exactly dead, is dying, and
+has for more than a century ceased to produce anything of distinctly
+literary attraction; and English, even the earliest "middle" English,
+is scarcely yet born, is certainly far from being in a condition for
+literary use. The last echoes of the older and more original Icelandic
+poetry are dying away, and the great product of Icelandic prose, the
+Saga, still _volitat per ora virum_, without taking a concrete
+literary form. It is in the highest degree uncertain whether anything
+properly to be called Spanish or Italian exists at all--anything but
+dialects of the _lingua rustica_ showing traces of what Spanish and
+Italian are to be; though the originals of the great _Poema del Cid_
+cannot be far off. German is in something the same trance between its
+"Old" and its "Middle" state as is English. Only in France, and in
+both the great divisions of French speech, is vernacular literature
+active. The northern tongue, the _langue d'oil_, shows us--in actually
+known existence, or by reasonable inference that it existed--the
+national epic or _chanson de geste_; the southern, or _langue d'oc_,
+gives us the Provencal lyric. The latter will receive treatment later,
+the former must be dealt with at once.
+
+It is rather curious that while the _chansons de geste_ are, after
+Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic poetry, the oldest elaborate example of
+verse in the modern vernaculars; while they exhibit a character, not
+indeed one of the widest in range or most engaging in quality, but
+individual, interesting, intense as few others; while they are
+entirely the property of one nation, and that a nation specially proud
+of its literary achievements,--they were almost the last division of
+European literature to become in any degree properly known. In so far
+as they were known at all, until within the present century, the
+knowledge was based almost entirely on later adaptations in verse, and
+still later in prose; while--the most curious point of all--they were
+not warmly welcomed by the French even after their discovery, and
+cannot yet be said to have been taken to the heart of the nation, even
+to the limited extent to which the Arthurian romances have been taken
+to the heart of England, much less to that in which the old, but much
+less old, ballads of England, Scotland, Germany, and Spain have for
+periods of varying length been welcomed in their respective countries.
+To discuss the reason of this at length would lead us out of our
+present subject; but it is a fact, and a very curious fact.
+
+[Sidenote: _Late discovery of the_ chansons.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their age and history._]
+
+The romances of Charlemagne, or, to employ their more technical
+designation, the _chansons de geste_, form a large, a remarkably
+homogeneous, and a well-separated body of compositions. These, as far
+as can be decided, date in time from the eleventh to the thirteenth
+century, with a few belated representatives in the fourteenth; but
+scarcely, as far as probability shows, with any older members in the
+tenth. Very little attention of any kind was paid to them, till some
+seventy years ago, an English scholar, Conybeare, known for his
+services to our own early literature, following the example of another
+scholar, Tyrwhitt, still earlier and more distinguished, had drawn
+attention to the merit and interest of, as it happens, the oldest and
+most remarkable of all. This was the _Chanson de Roland_, which, in
+this oldest form, exists only in one of the MSS. of the Bodleian
+Library at Oxford. But they very soon received the care of M. Paulin
+Paris, the most indefatigable student that in a century of examination
+of the older European literature any European country has produced,
+and after more than half a century of enthusiastic resuscitation by M.
+Paris, by his son M. Gaston, and by others, the whole body of them has
+been thoroughly overhauled and put at the disposal of those who do not
+care to read the original, in the four volumes of the remodelled
+edition of M. Leon Gautier's _Epopees Francaises_, while perhaps a
+majority of the actual texts are in print. This is as well, for though
+a certain monotony is always charged against the _chansons de
+geste_[16] by those who do not love them, and may be admitted to some
+extent even by those who do, there are few which have not a more or
+less distinct character of their own; and even the generic character
+is not properly to be perceived until a considerable number have been
+studied.
+
+[Footnote 16: This monotony almost follows from the title. For _geste_
+in the French is not merely the equivalent of _gesta_, "deeds." It is
+used for the record of those deeds, and then for the whole class or
+family of performances and records of them. In this last sense the
+_gestes_ are in chief three--those of the king, of Doon de Mayence,
+and of Garin de Montglane--besides smaller ones.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their distinguishing character._]
+
+The old habit of reading this division of romance in late and
+travestied versions naturally and necessarily obscured the curious
+traits of community in form and matter that belong to it, and indeed
+distinguish it from almost all other departments of literature of the
+imaginative kind. Its members are frequently spoken of as "the
+Charlemagne Romances"; and, as a matter of fact, most of them do come
+into connection with the great prince of the second race in one way or
+another. Yet Bodel's phrase of _matiere de France_[17] is happier. For
+they are all still more directly connected with French history, seen
+through a romantic lens; and even the late and half-burlesque _Hugues
+Capet_, even the extremely interesting and partly contemporary set on
+the Crusades, as well as such "little _gestes_" as that of the
+Lorrainers, _Garin le Loherain_ and the rest, and the three "great
+_gestes_" of the king, of the southern hero William of Orange
+(sometimes called the _geste_ of Montglane), and of the family of Doon
+de Mayence, arrange themselves with no difficulty under this more
+general heading. And the _chanson de geste_ proper, as Frenchmen are
+entitled to boast, never quite deserts this _matiere de France_. It is
+always the _Gesta Francorum_ at home, or the _Gesta Dei per Francos_
+in the East, that supply the themes. When this subject or group of
+subjects palled, the very form of the _chanson de geste_ was lost. It
+was not applied to other things;[18] it grew obsolete with that which
+it had helped to make popular. Some of the material--_Huon of
+Bordeaux_, the _Four Sons of Aymon_, and others--retained a certain
+vogue in forms quite different, and gave later ages the inexact and
+bastard notion of "Charlemagne Romance" which has been referred to.
+But the _chanson de geste_ itself was never, so to speak,
+"half-known"--except to a very few antiquaries. After its three
+centuries of flourishing, first alone, then with the other two
+"matters," it retired altogether, and made its reappearance only after
+four centuries had passed away.
+
+[Footnote 17: Jean Bodel, a _trouvere_ of the thirteenth century,
+furnished literary history with a valuable stock-quotation in the
+opening of his _Chanson des Saisnes_ for the three great divisions of
+Romance:--
+
+    "Ne sont que trois matieres a nul home attendant,
+    De France et de Bretaigne et de Rome la grant."
+      --_Chanson des Saxons_, ed. Michel, Paris, 1839, vol. i. p. 1.
+
+The lines following, less often quoted, are an interesting early
+_locus_ for French literary patriotism.]
+
+[Footnote 18: Or only in rare cases to later French history itself--Du
+Guesclin, and the _Combat des Trente_.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Mistakes about them._]
+
+This fact or set of facts has made the actual nature of the original
+Charlemagne Romances the subject of much mistake and misstatement on
+the part of general historians of literature. The widely read and
+generally accurate Dunlop knew nothing whatever about them, except in
+early printed versions representing their very latest form, and in the
+hopelessly travestied eighteenth-century _Bibliotheque des Romans_ of
+the Comte de Tressan. He therefore assigned to them[19] a position
+altogether inferior to their real importance, and actually apologised
+for the writers, in that, coming _after_ the Arthurian historians,
+they were compelled to imitation. As a matter of fact, it is probable
+that all the most striking and original _chansons de geste_, certainly
+all those of the best period, were in existence before a single one of
+the great Arthurian romances was written; and as both the French and
+English, and even the German, writers of these latter were certainly
+acquainted with the _chansons_, the imitation, if there were any, must
+lie on their side. As a matter of fact, however, there is little or
+none. The later and less genuine _chansons_ borrow to some extent the
+methods and incidents in the romances; but the romances at no time
+exhibit much resemblance to the _chansons_ proper, which have an
+extremely distinct, racy, and original character of their own. Hallam,
+writing later than Dunlop, and if with a less wide knowledge of
+Romance, with a much greater proficiency in general literary history,
+practically passes the _chansons de geste_ over altogether in the
+introduction to his _Literature of Europe_, which purports to
+summarise all that is important in the _History of the Middle Ages_,
+and to supplement and correct that book itself.
+
+[Footnote 19: Dunlop, _History of Prose Fiction_ (ed. Wilson, London,
+1888), i. 274-351. Had Dunlop rigidly confined himself to _prose_
+fiction, the censure in the text might not be quite fair. As a matter
+of fact, however, he does not, and it would have been impossible for
+him to do so.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their isolation and origin._]
+
+The only excuse (besides mere unavoidable ignorance, which, no doubt,
+is a sufficient one) for this neglect is the curious fact, in itself
+adding to their interest, that these _chansons_, though a very
+important chapter in the histories both of poetry and of fiction, form
+one which is strangely marked off at both ends from all connection,
+save in point of subject, with literature precedent or subsequent. As
+to their own origin, the usual abundant, warm, and if it may be said
+without impertinence, rather futile controversies have prevailed.
+Practically speaking, we know nothing whatever about the matter. There
+used to be a theory that the Charlemagne Romances owed their origin
+more or less directly to the fabulous _Chronicle_ of Tilpin or Turpin,
+the warrior-Archbishop of Rheims. It has now been made tolerably
+certain that the Latin chronicle on the subject is not anterior even
+to our existing _Chanson de Roland_, and very probable that it is a
+good deal later. On the other hand, of actual historical basis we have
+next to nothing except the mere fact of the death of Roland
+("Hruotlandus comes Britanniae") at the skirmish of Roncesvalles. There
+are, however, early mentions of certain _cantilenae_ or ballads; and it
+has been assumed by some scholars that the earliest _chansons_ were
+compounded out of precedent ballads of the kind. It is unnecessary to
+inform those who know something of general literary history, that this
+theory (that the corruption of the ballad is the generation of the
+epic) is not confined to the present subject, but is one of the
+favourite fighting-grounds of a certain school of critics. It has been
+applied to Homer, to _Beowulf_, to the Old and Middle German Romances,
+and it would be very odd indeed if it had not been applied to the
+_Chansons de geste_. But it may be said with some confidence that not
+one tittle of evidence has ever been produced for the existence of any
+such ballads containing the matter of any of the _chansons_ which do
+exist. The song of Roland which Taillefer sang at Hastings may have
+been such a ballad: it may have been part of the actual _chanson_; it
+may have been something quite different. But these "mays" are not
+evidence; and it cannot but be thought a real misfortune that, instead
+of confining themselves to an abundant and indeed inexhaustible
+subject, the proper literary study of what does exist, critics should
+persist in dealing with what certainly does not, and perhaps never
+did. On the general point it might be observed that there is rather
+more positive evidence for the breaking up of the epic into ballads
+than for the conglomeration of ballads into the epic. But on that
+point it is not necessary to take sides. The matter of real importance
+is, to lay it down distinctly that we _have_ nothing anterior to the
+earliest _chansons de geste_; and that we have not even any
+satisfactory reason for presuming that there ever was anything.
+
+[Sidenote: _Their metrical form._]
+
+One of the reasons, however, which no doubt has been most apt to
+suggest anterior compositions is the singular completeness of form
+exhibited by these poems. It is now practically agreed that--scraps
+and fragments themselves excepted--we have no monument of French in
+accomplished profane literature more ancient than the _Chanson de
+Roland_.[20] And the form of this, though from one point of view it
+may be called rude and simple, is of remarkable perfection in its own
+way. The poem is written in decasyllabic iambic lines with a caesura at
+the second foot, these lines being written with a precision which
+French indeed never afterwards lost, but which English did not attain
+till Chaucer's day, and then lost again for more than another century.
+Further, the grouping and finishing of these lines is not less
+remarkable, and is even more distinctive than their internal
+construction. They are not blank; they are not in couplets; they are
+not in equal stanzas; and they are not (in the earliest examples, such
+as _Roland_) regularly rhymed. But they are arranged in batches
+(called in French _laisses_ or _tirades_) of no certain number, but
+varying from one to several score, each of which derives unity from an
+_assonance_--that is to say, a vowel-rhyme, the consonants of the
+final syllable varying at discretion. This assonance, which appears to
+have been common to all Romance tongues in their early stages,
+disappeared before very long from French, though it continued in
+Spanish, and is indeed the most distinguishing point of the prosody of
+that language. Very early in the _chansons_ themselves we find it
+replaced by rhyme, which, however, remains the same for the whole of
+the _laisse_, no matter how long it is. By degrees, also, the
+ten-syllabled line (which in some examples has an octosyllabic
+tail-line not assonanced at the end of every _laisse_) gave way in its
+turn to the victorious Alexandrine. But the mechanism of the _chanson_
+admitted no further extensions than the substitution of rhyme for
+assonance, and of twelve-syllabled lines for ten-syllabled. In all
+other respects it remained rigidly the same from the eleventh century
+to the fourteenth, and in the very latest examples of such poems, as
+_Hugues Capet_ and _Baudouin de Seboure_--full as enthusiasts like M.
+Gautier complain that they are of a spirit very different from that of
+the older _chansons_--there is not the slightest change in form; while
+certain peculiarities of stock phrase and "epic repetition" are
+jealously preserved. The immense single-rhymed _laisses_, sometimes
+extending to several pages of verse, still roll rhyme after rhyme with
+the same sound upon the ear. The common form generally remains; and
+though the adventures are considerably varied, they still retain a
+certain general impress of the earlier scheme.
+
+[Footnote 20: _Editio princeps_ by Fr. Michel, 1837. Since that time
+it has been frequently reprinted, translated, and commented. Those who
+wish for an exact reproduction of the oldest MS. will find it given by
+Stengel (Heilbronn, 1878).]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their scheme of matter._]
+
+[Sidenote: _The character of Charlemagne._]
+
+That scheme is, in the majority of the _chansons_, curiously uniform.
+It has, since the earliest studies of them, been remarked as odd that
+Charlemagne, though almost omnipresent (except of course in the
+Crusading cycle and a few others), and though such a necessary figure
+that he is in some cases evidently confounded both with his ancestor
+Charles Martel and his successor Charles the Bald, plays a part that
+is very dubiously heroic. He is, indeed, presented with great pomp and
+circumstance as _li empereres a la barbe florie_, with a gorgeous
+court, a wide realm, a numerous and brilliant baronage. But his
+character is far from tenderly treated. In _Roland_ itself he appears
+so little that critics who are not acquainted with many other poems
+sometimes deny the characteristic we are now discussing. But elsewhere
+he is much less leniently handled. Indeed the plot of very many
+_chansons_ turns entirely on the ease with which he lends an ear to
+traitors (treason of various kinds plays an almost ubiquitous part,
+and the famous "trahis!" is heard in the very dawn of French
+literature), on his readiness to be biassed by bribes, and on the
+singular ferocity with which, on the slightest and most unsupported
+accusation, he is ready to doom any one, from his own family
+downwards, to block, stake, gallows, or living grave. This
+combination, indeed, of the irascible and the gullible tempers in the
+king defrays the plot of a very large number of the _chansons_, in
+which we see his best knights, and (except that they are as intolerant
+of injustice as he is prone to it) his most faithful servants, forced
+into rebellion against him, and almost overwhelmed by his own violence
+following on the machinations of their and his worst enemies.
+
+[Sidenote: _Other characters and characteristics._]
+
+Nevertheless, Charlemagne is always the defender of the Cross, and
+the antagonist of the Saracens, and the part which these latter play
+is as ubiquitous as his own, and on the whole more considerable. A
+very large part of the earlier _chansons_ is occupied with direct
+fighting against the heathen; and from an early period (at least if
+the _Voyage a Constantinoble_ is, as is supposed, of the early twelfth
+century, if not the eleventh) a most important element, bringing the
+class more into contact with romance generally than some others which
+have been noticed, is introduced in the love of a Saracen princess,
+daughter of emperor or "admiral" (emir), for one of the Christian
+heroes. Here again _Roland_ stands alone, and though the mention of
+Aude, Oliver's sister and Roland's betrothed, who dies when she hears
+of his death, is touching, it is extremely meagre. There is
+practically nothing but the clash of arms in this remarkable poem. But
+elsewhere there is, in rather narrow and usual limits, a good deal
+else. Charlemagne's daughter, and the daughters of peers and paladins,
+figure: and their characteristics are not very different from those of
+the pagan damsels. It is, indeed, unnecessary to convert them,--a
+process to which their miscreant sisters usually submit with great
+goodwill,--and they are also relieved from the necessity of showing
+the extreme undutifulness to their more religiously constant sires,
+which is something of a blot on Paynim princesses like Floripas in
+_Fierabras_. This heroine exclaims in reference to her father, "He is
+an old devil, why do you not kill him? little I care for him provided
+you give me Guy," though it is fair to say that Fierabras himself
+rebukes her with a "Moult grant tort aves." All these ladies, however,
+Christian as well as heathen, are as tender to their lovers as they
+are hard-hearted to their relations; and the relaxation of morality,
+sometimes complained of in the later _chansons_, is perhaps more
+technical than real, even remembering the doctrine of the mediaeval
+Church as to the identity, for practical purposes, of betrothal and
+marriage. On the other hand, the courtesy of the _chansons_ is
+distinctly in a more rudimentary state than that of the succeeding
+romances. Not only is the harshest language used by knights to
+ladies,[21] but blows are by no means uncommon; and of what is
+commonly understood by romantic love there is on the knights' side
+hardly a trace, unless it be in stories such as that of _Ogier le
+Danois_, which are obviously late enough to have come under Arthurian
+influence. The piety, again, which has been so much praised in these
+_chansons_, is of a curious and rather elementary type. The knights
+are ready enough to fight to the last gasp, and the last drop of
+blood, for the Cross; and their faith is as free from flaw as their
+zeal. _Li Apostoiles de Rome_--the Pope--is recognised without the
+slightest hesitation as supreme in all religious and most temporal
+matters. But there is much less reference than in the Arthurian
+romances, not merely to the mysteries of the Creed, but even to the
+simple facts of the birth and death of Christ. Except in a few
+places--such as, for instance, the exquisite and widely popular story
+of _Amis and Amiles_ (the earliest vernacular form of which is a true
+_chanson de geste_ of the twelfth century)--there are not many
+indications of any higher or finer notion of Christianity than that
+which is confined to the obedient reception of the sacraments, and the
+cutting off Saracens' heads whensoever they present themselves.[22]
+
+[Footnote 21: _V. infra_ on the scene in _Aliscans_ between William of
+Orange and his sister Queen Blanchefleur.]
+
+[Footnote 22: Even the famous and very admirable death-scene of Vivien
+(again _v. infra_) will not disprove these remarks.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Realist quality._]
+
+In manners, as in theology and ethics, there is the same simplicity,
+which some have called almost barbarous. Architecture and dress
+receive considerable attention; but in other ways the arts do not seem
+to be far advanced, and living is still conducted nearly, if not
+quite, as much in public as in the _Odyssey_ or in _Beowulf_. The hall
+is still the common resort of both sexes by day and of the men at
+night. Although gold and furs, silk and jewels, are lavished with the
+usual cheap magnificence of fiction, very few details are given of the
+minor _supellex_ or of ways of living generally. From the _Chanson de
+Roland_ in particular (which, though it is a pity to confine the
+attention to it as has sometimes been done, is undoubtedly the type of
+the class in its simplest and purest form) we should learn next to
+nothing about the state of society depicted, except that its heroes
+were religious in their fashion, and terrible fighters. But it ought
+to be added that the perusal of a large number of these _chansons_
+leaves on the mind a much more genuine belief in their world (if it
+may so be called) as having for a time actually existed, than that
+which is created by the reading of Arthurian romance. That fair
+vision we know (hardly knowing why or how we know it) to have been a
+creation of its own Fata Morgana, a structure built of the wishes, the
+dreams, the ideals of men, but far removed from their actual
+experience. This is not due to miracles--there are miracles enough in
+the _chansons de geste_ most undoubtingly related: nor to the strange
+history, geography, and chronology, for the two divisions are very
+much on a par there also. But strong as the fantastic element is in
+them, the _chansons de geste_ possess a realistic quality which is
+entirely absent from the gracious idealism of the Romances. The
+emperors and the admirals, perhaps even their fair and obliging
+daughters, were not personages unknown to the contemporaries of the
+Norman conquerors of Italy and Sicily, or to the first Crusaders. The
+faithful and ferocious, covetous and indomitable, pious and lawless
+spirit, which hardly dropped the sword except to take up the torch,
+was, poetic presentation and dressing apart, not so very different
+from the general temper of man after the break up of the Roman peace
+till the more or less definite mapping out of Europe into modern
+divisions. More than one Vivien and one William of Orange listened to
+Peter the Hermit. In the very isolation of the atmosphere of these
+romances, in its distance from modern thought and feeling, in its lack
+(as some have held) of universal quality and transcendent human
+interest, there is a certain element of strength. It was not above its
+time, and it therefore does not reach the highest forms of literature.
+But it was intensely _of_ its time; and thus it far exceeds the
+lowest kinds, and retains an abiding value even apart from the
+distinct, the high, and the very curious perfection, within narrow
+limits, of its peculiar form.
+
+[Sidenote: _Volume and age of the_ chansons.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Twelfth century._]
+
+It is probable that very few persons who are not specially acquainted
+with the subject are at all aware of the enormous bulk and number of
+these poems, even if their later _remaniements_ (as they are called)
+both in verse and prose--fourteenth and fifteenth century
+refashionings, which in every case meant a large extension--be left
+out of consideration. The most complete list published, that of M.
+Leon Gautier, enumerates 110. Of these he himself places only the
+_Chanson de Roland_ in the eleventh century, perhaps as early as the
+Norman Conquest of England, certainly not later than 1095. To the
+twelfth he assigns (and it may be observed that, enthusiastic as M.
+Gautier is on the literary side, he shows on all questions of age,
+&c., a wariness not always exhibited by scholars more exclusively
+philological) _Acquin_, _Aliscans_, _Amis et Amiles_, _Antioche
+Aspremont_, _Auberi le Bourgoing_, _Aye d'Avignon_, the _Bataille
+Loquifer_, the oldest (now only known in Italian) form of _Berte aus
+grans Pies_, _Beuves d'Hanstone_ (with another Italian form more or
+less independent), the _Charroi de Nimes_, _Les Chetifs_, the
+_Chevalerie Ogier de Danemarche_, the _Chevalerie Vivien_ (otherwise
+known as _Covenant Vivien_), the major part (also known by separate
+titles) of the _Chevalier au Cygne_, _La Conquete de la Petite
+Bretagne_ (another form of _Acquin_), the _Couronnement Loys_, _Doon
+de la Roche_, _Doon de Nanteuil_, the _Enfances Charlemagne_, the
+_Enfances Godefroi_, the _Enfances Roland_, the _Enfances Ogier_,
+_Floovant_, _Garin le Loherain_, _Garnier de Nanteuil_, _Giratz de
+Rossilho_, _Girbert de Metz_, _Gui de Bourgogne_, _Gui de Nanteuil_,
+_Helias_, _Hervis de Metz_, the oldest form of _Huon de Bordeaux_,
+_Jerusalem_, _Jourdains de Blaivies_, the Lorraine cycle, including
+_Garin_, &c., _Macaire_, _Mainet_, the _Moniage Guillaume_, the
+_Moniage Rainoart_, _Orson de Beauvais_, _Rainoart_, _Raoul de
+Cambrai_, _Les Saisnes_, the _Siege de Barbastre_, _Syracon_, and the
+_Voyage de Charlemagne_. In other words, nearly half the total number
+date from the twelfth century, if not even earlier.
+
+[Sidenote: _Thirteenth century._]
+
+By far the larger number of the rest are not later than the
+thirteenth. They include--_Aimeri de Narbonne_, _Aiol_, _Anseis de
+Carthage_, _Anseis Fils de Gerbert_, _Auberon_, _Berte aus grans Pies_
+in its present French form, _Beton et Daurel_, _Beuves de Commarchis_,
+the _Departement des Enfans Aimeri_, the _Destruction de Rome_, _Doon
+de Mayence_, _Elie de Saint Gilles_, the _Enfances Doon de Mayence_,
+the _Enfances Guillaume_, the _Enfances Vivien_, the _Entree en
+Espagne_, _Fierabras_, _Foulques de Candie_, _Gaydon_, _Garin de
+Montglane_, _Gaufrey_, _Gerard de Viane_, _Guibert d'Andrenas_, _Jehan
+de Lanson_, _Maugis d'Aigremont_, the _Mort Aimeri de Narbonne_,
+_Otinel_, _Parise la Duchesse_, the _Prise de Cordres_, the _Prise de
+Pampelune_, the _Quatre Fils d'Aymon_, _Renaud de Montauban_ (a
+variant of the same), _Renier_, the later forms of the _Chanson de
+Roland_, to which the name of _Roncevaux_ is sometimes given for the
+sake of distinction, the _Siege de Narbonne_, _Simon de Pouille_,
+_Vivien l'Amachour de Montbranc_, and _Yon_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fourteenth, and later._]
+
+By this the list is almost exhausted. The fourteenth century, though
+fruitful in _remaniements_, sometimes in mono-rhymed tirades, but
+often in Alexandrine couplets and other changed shapes, contributes
+hardly anything original except the very interesting and rather
+brilliant last branches of the _Chevalier au Cygne_--_Baudouin de
+Seboure_, and the _Bastart de Bouillon_; _Hugues Capet_, a very lively
+and readable but slightly vulgar thing, exhibiting an almost
+undisguised tone of parody; and some fragments known by the names of
+_Hernaut de Beaulande_, _Renier de Gennes_, &c. As for fifteenth and
+sixteenth century work, though some pieces of it, especially the very
+long and unprinted poem of _Lion de Bourges_, are included in the
+canon, all the _chanson_-production of this time is properly
+apocryphal, and has little or nothing left of the _chanson_ spirit,
+and only the shell of the _chanson_ form.
+
+[Sidenote: Chansons _in print._]
+
+It must further be remembered that, with the exception of a very few
+in fragmentary condition, all these poems are of great length. Only
+the later or less genuine, indeed, run to the preposterous extent of
+twenty, thirty, or (it is said in the case of _Lion de Bourges_) sixty
+thousand lines. But _Roland_ itself, one of the shortest, has four
+thousand; _Aliscans_, which is certainly old, eight thousand; the
+oldest known form of _Huon_, ten thousand. It is probably not
+excessive to put the average length of the older _chansons_ at six
+thousand lines; while if the more recent be thrown in, the average of
+the whole hundred would probably be doubled.
+
+This immense body of verse, which for many reasons it is very
+desirable to study as a whole, is still, after the best part of a
+century, to a great extent unprinted, and (as was unavoidable) such of
+its constituents as have been sent to press have been dealt with on no
+very uniform principles. It was less inevitable, and is more to be
+regretted, that the dissensions of scholars on minute philological
+points have caused the repeated printing of certain texts, while
+others have remained inaccessible; and it cannot but be regarded as a
+kind of petty treason to literature thus to put the satisfaction of
+private crotchets before the "unlocking of the word-hoard" to the
+utmost possible extent. The earliest _chansons_ printed[23] were, I
+believe, M. Paulin Paris's _Berte aus grans Pies_, M. Francisque
+Michel's _Roland_; and thereafter these two scholars and others edited
+for M. Techener a very handsome set of "Romances des Douze Pairs," as
+they were called, including _Les Saisnes_, _Ogier_, _Raoul de
+Cambrai_, _Garin_, and the two great crusading _chansons_, _Antioche_
+and _Jerusalem_. Other scattered efforts were made, such as the
+publication of a beautiful edition of _Baudouin de Seboure_ at
+Valenciennes as early as 1841; while a Belgian scholar, M. de
+Reiffenberg, published _Le Chevalier au Cygne_, and a Dutch one, Dr
+Jonckbloet, gave a large part of the later numbers of the Garin de
+Montglane cycle in his _Guillaume d'Orange_ (2 vols., The Hague,
+1854). But the great opportunity came soon after the accession of
+Napoleon III., when a Minister favourable to literature, M. de
+Fourtou, gave, in a moment of enthusiasm, permission to publish the
+entire body of the _chansons_. Perfect wisdom would probably have
+decreed the acceptance of the godsend by issuing the whole, with a
+minimum of editorial apparatus, in some such form as that of our
+Chalmers's Poets, the bulk of which need probably not have been
+exceeded in order to give the oldest forms of every real _chanson_
+from _Roland_ to the _Bastart de Bouillon_. But perfect wisdom is not
+invariably present in the councils of men, and the actual result took
+the form of ten agreeable little volumes, in the type, shape, and
+paper of the "Bibliotheque Elzevirienne" with abundant editorial
+matter, paraphrases in modern French, and the like. _Les Anciens
+Poetes de la France_, as this series was called, appeared between
+1858, which saw the first volume, and 1870, which fatal year saw the
+last, for the Republic had no money to spare for such monarchical
+glories as the _chansons_. They are no contemptible possession; for
+the ten volumes give fourteen _chansons_ of very different ages, and
+rather interestingly representative of different kinds. But they are a
+very small portion of the whole, and in at least one instance,
+_Aliscans_, they double on a former edition. Since then the Societe
+des Anciens Textes Francais has edited some _chansons_, and
+independent German and French scholars have given some more; but no
+systematic attempt has been made to fill the gaps, and the pernicious
+system of re-editing, on pretext of wrong selection of MSS. or the
+like, has continued. Nevertheless, the number of _chansons_ actually
+available is so large that no general characteristic is likely to have
+escaped notice; while from the accounts of the remaining MSS., it
+would not appear that any of those unprinted can rank with the very
+best of those already known. Among these very best I should rank in
+alphabetical order--_Aliscans_, _Amis et Amiles_, _Antioche_,
+_Baudouin de Seboure_ (though in a mixed kind), _Berte aus grans
+Pies_, _Fierabras_, _Garin le Loherain_, _Gerard de Roussillon_, _Huon
+de Bordeaux_, _Ogier de Danemarche_, _Raoul de Cambrai_, _Roland_, and
+the _Voyage de Charlemagne a Constantinoble_. The almost solitary
+eminence assigned by some critics to _Roland_ is not, I think,
+justified, and comes chiefly from their not being acquainted with many
+others; though the poem has undoubtedly the merit of being the oldest,
+and perhaps that of presenting the _chanson_ spirit in its best and
+most unadulterated, as well as the _chanson_ form at its simplest,
+sharpest, and first state. Nor is there anywhere a finer passage than
+the death of Roland, though there are many not less fine.
+
+[Footnote 23: Immanuel Bekker had printed the Provencal _Fierabras_ as
+early as 1829.]
+
+It may, however, seem proper, if not even positively indispensable, to
+give some more general particulars about these _chansons_ before
+analysing specimens or giving arguments of one or more; for they are
+full of curiosities.
+
+[Sidenote: _Language._ Oc _and_ oil.]
+
+In the first place, it will be noticed by careful readers of the list
+above given, that these compositions are not limited to French proper
+or to the _langue d'oil_, though infinitely the greater part of them
+are in that tongue. Indeed, for some time after attention had been
+drawn to them, and before their actual natures and contents had been
+thoroughly examined, there was a theory that they were Provencal in
+origin. This, though it was chiefly due to the fact that Raynouard,
+Fauriel, and other early students of old French had a strong southern
+leaning, had some other excuses. It is a fact that Provencal was
+earlier in its development than French; and whether by irregular
+tradition of this fact, or owing to ignorance, or from anti-French
+prejudice (which, however, would not apply in France itself), the part
+of the _langue d'oc_ in the early literature of Europe was for
+centuries largely overvalued. Then came the usual reaction, and some
+fifty years ago or so one of the most capable of literary students
+declared roundly that the Provencal epic had "le defaut d'etre perdu."
+That is not quite true. There is, as noted above, a Provencal
+_Fierabras_, though it is beyond doubt an adaptation of the French;
+_Betonnet d'Hanstone_ or _Beton et Daurel_ only exists in Provencal,
+though there is again no doubt of its being borrowed; and, lastly, the
+oldest existing, and probably the original, form of _Gerard de
+Roussillon_, _Giratz de Rossilho_, is, as its title implies,
+Provencal, though it is in a dialect more approaching to the _langue
+d'oil_ than any form of _oc_, and even presents the curious
+peculiarity of existing in two forms, one leaning to Provencal, the
+other to French. But these very facts, though they show the statement
+that "the Provencal epic is lost" to be excessive, yet go almost
+farther than a total deficiency in proving that the _chanson de geste_
+was not originally Provencal. Had it been otherwise, there can be no
+possible reason why a bare three per cent of the existing examples
+should be in the southern tongue, while two of these are evidently
+translations, and the third was as evidently written on the very
+northern borders of the "Limousin" district.
+
+[Sidenote: _Italian._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Diffusion of the_ chansons.]
+
+The next fact--one almost more interesting, inasmuch as it bears on
+that community of Romance tongues of which we have evidence in
+Dante,[24] and perhaps also makes for the antiquity of the Charlemagne
+story in its primitive form--is the existence of _chansons_ in
+Italian, and, it may be added, in a most curious bastard speech which
+is neither French, nor Provencal, nor Italian, but French Italicised
+in part.[25] The substance, moreover, of the Charlemagne stories was
+very early naturalised in Italy in the form of a sort of abstract or
+compilation called the _Reali di Francia_,[26] which in various forms
+maintained popularity through mediaeval and early modern times, and
+undoubtedly exercised much influence on the great Italian poets of the
+Renaissance. They were also diffused throughout Europe, the
+_Carlamagnus Saga_ in Iceland marking their farthest actual as well as
+possible limit, though they never in Germany attained anything like
+the popularity of the Arthurian legend, and though the Spaniards,
+patriotically resenting the frequent forays into Spain to which the
+_chansons_ bear witness, and availing themselves of the confession of
+disaster at Roncesvalles, set up a counter-story in which Roland is
+personally worsted by Bernardo del Carpio, and the quarrels of the
+paynims are taken up by Spain herself. In England the imitations,
+though fairly numerous, are rather late. They have been completely
+edited for the Early English Text Society, and consist (for Bevis of
+Hampton has little relation with its _chanson_ namesake save the name)
+of _Sir Ferumbras_ (_Fierabras_), _The Siege of Milan_, _Sir Otuel_
+(two forms), the _Life of Charles the Great_, _The Soudone of
+Babylone_, _Huon of Bordeaux_, and _The Four Sons of Aymon_, besides a
+very curious semi-original entitled _Rauf Coilzear_ (Collier), in
+which the well-known romance-_donnee_ of the king visiting some
+obscure person is applied to Charlemagne. Of these, one, the version
+of _Huon of Bordeaux_,[27] is literature of no mean kind; but this is
+because it was executed by Lord Berners, long after our present
+period. Also, being of that date, it represents the latest French form
+of the story, which was a very popular one, and incorporated very
+large borrowings from other sources (the loadstone rock, the
+punishment of Cain, and so forth) which are foreign to the subject and
+substance of the _chansons_ proper.
+
+[Footnote 24: _V._ the famous and all-important ninth chapter of the
+first book of the _De Vulgari Eloquio_.]
+
+[Footnote 25: See especially _Macaire_, ed. Guessard, Paris, 1860.]
+
+[Footnote 26: So also the _geste_ of Montglane became the
+_Nerbonesi_.]
+
+[Footnote 27: Ed. S. Lee, London, 1883-86.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their authorship and publication._]
+
+Very great pains have been spent on the question of the authorship,
+publication, or performance of these compositions. As is the case with
+so much mediaeval work, the great mass of them is entirely anonymous.
+A line which concludes, or rather supplements, _Roland_--
+
+    "Ci falt la geste que Turoldus declinet"--
+
+has been the occasion of the shedding of a very great deal of ink. The
+enthusiastic inquisitiveness of some has ferreted about in all
+directions for Turolds, Thorolds, or Therouldes, in the eleventh
+century, and discovering them even among the companions of the
+Conqueror himself, has started the question whether Taillefer was or
+was not violating the copyright of his comrade at Hastings. The fact
+is, however, that the best authorities are very much at sea as to the
+meaning of _declinet_, which, though it must signify "go over," "tell
+like a bead-roll," in some way or other, might be susceptible of
+application to authorship, recitation, or even copying. In some other
+cases, however, we have more positive testimony, though they are in a
+great minority. Graindor of Douai refashioned the work of Richard the
+Pilgrim, an actual partaker of the first Crusade, into the present
+_Antioche_, _Jerusalem_, and perhaps _Les Chetifs_. Either Richard or
+Graindor must have been one of the very best poets of the whole cycle.
+Jehan de Flagy wrote the spirited _Garin le Loherain_; and Jehan Bodel
+of Arras _Les Saisnes_. Adenes le Roi, a _trouvere_, of whose actual
+position in the world we know a little, wrote or refashioned three or
+four _chansons_ of the thirteenth century, including _Berte aus grans
+Pies_, and one of the forms of part of _Ogier_. Other names--Bertrand
+of Bar sur Aube, Pierre de Rieu, Gerard d'Amiens, Raimbert de Paris,
+Brianchon (almost a character of Balzac!), Gautier of Douai, Nicolas
+of Padua (an interesting person who was warned in a dream to save his
+soul by compiling a _chanson_), Herbert of Dammartin, Guillaume de
+Bapaume, Huon de Villeneuve--are mere shadows of names to which in
+nearly all cases no personality attaches, and which may be as often
+those of mere _jongleurs_ as of actual poets.
+
+[Sidenote: _Their performance._]
+
+No subject, however, in connection with these _chansons de geste_ has
+occupied more attention than the precise mode of what has been called
+above their "authorship, publication, or performance." They are called
+_chansons_, and there is no doubt at all that in their inception, and
+during the earlier and better part of their history, they strictly
+deserved the name, having been written not to be read but to be sung
+or recited. To a certain extent, of course, this was the case with all
+the lighter literature of mediaeval times. Far later than our present
+period the English metrical romances almost invariably begin with the
+minstrel's invocation, "Listen, lordings," varied according to his
+taste, fancy, and metre; and what was then partly a tradition, was two
+or three hundred years earlier the simple record of a universal
+practice. Since the early days of the Romantic revival, even to the
+present time, the minutest details of this singing and recitation have
+been the subject of endless wrangling; and even the point whether it
+was "singing" or "recitation" has been argued. In a wider and calmer
+view these things become of very small interest. Singing and
+recitation--as the very word recitative should be enough to remind
+any one--pass into each other by degrees imperceptible to any but a
+technical ear; and the instruments, if any, which accompanied the
+performance of the _chansons_, the extent of that accompaniment, and
+the rest, concern, if they concern history at all, the history of
+music, not that of literature.
+
+[Sidenote: _Hearing, not reading, the object._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Effect on prosody._]
+
+But it is a matter of quite other importance that, as has been said,
+lighter mediaeval literature generally, and the _chansons_ in
+particular, were meant for the ear, not the eye--to be heard, not to
+be read. For this intention very closely concerns some of their most
+important literary characteristics. It is certain as a matter of fact,
+though it might not be very easy to account for it as a matter of
+argument, that repetitions, stock phrases, identity of scheme and
+form, which are apt to be felt as disagreeable in reading, are far
+less irksome, and even have a certain attraction, in matter orally
+delivered. Whether that slower irritation of the mind through the ear
+of which Horace speaks supplies the explanation may be left
+undiscussed. But it is certain that, especially for uneducated hearers
+(who in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, if not in the thirteenth,
+must have been the enormous majority), not merely the phraseological
+but the rhythmical peculiarities of the _chansons_ would be specially
+suitable. In particular, the long maintenance of the mono-rhymed, or
+even the single-assonanced, _tirade_ depends almost entirely upon its
+being delivered _viva voce_. Only then does that wave-clash which has
+been spoken of produce its effect, while the unbroken uniformity of
+rhyme on the printed page, and the apparent absence of uniformity in
+the printed assonances, are almost equally annoying to the eye. Nor is
+it important or superfluous to note that this oral literature had, in
+the Teutonic countries and in England more especially, an immense
+influence (hitherto not nearly enough allowed for by literary
+historians) in the great change from a stressed and alliterative to a
+quantitative and rhymed prosody, which took place, with us, from about
+1200 A.D. Accustomed as were the ears of all to quantitative (though
+very licentiously quantitative) and rhymed measures in the hymns and
+services of the Church--the one literary exercise to which gentle and
+simple, learned and unlearned, were constantly and regularly
+addicted--it was almost impossible that they should not demand a
+similar prosody in the profaner compositions addressed to them. That
+this would not affect the _chansons_ themselves is true enough; for
+there are no relics of any alliterative prosody in French, and its
+accentual scanning is only the naturally "crumbled" quantity of Latin.
+But it is extremely important to note that the metre of these
+_chansons_ themselves, single-rhyme and all, directly influenced
+English writers. Of this, however, more will be found in the chapter
+on the rise of English literature proper.
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ jongleurs.]
+
+Another, and for literature a hardly less important, consequence of
+this intention of being heard, was that probably from the very first,
+and certainly from an early period, a distinction, not very different
+from that afterwards occasioned by the drama, took place between the
+_trouvere_ who invented the _chanson_ and the _jongleur_ or minstrel
+who introduced it. At first these parts may, for better or worse, have
+been doubled. But it would seldom happen that the poet who had the
+wits to indite would have the skill to perform; and it would happen
+still seldomer that those whose gifts lay in the direction of
+interpretation would have the poetical spirit. Nor is it wonderful
+that, in the poems themselves, we find considerably more about the
+performer than about the author. In the cases where they were
+identical, the author would evidently be merged in the actor; in cases
+where they were not, the actor would take care of himself.
+Accordingly, though we know if possible even less of the names of the
+_jongleurs_ than of those of the _trouveres_, we know a good deal
+about their methods. Very rarely does an author like Nicolas of Padua
+(_v. supra_) tell us so much as his motive for composing the poems.
+But the patient study of critics, eked out it may be by a little
+imagination here and there, has succeeded in elaborating a fairly
+complete account of the ways and fortunes of the _jongleur_, who also
+not improbably, even where he was not the author, adjusted to the
+_chansons_ which were his copyright, extempore _codas_, episodes,
+tags, and gags of different kinds. Immense pains have been spent upon
+the _jongleur_. It has been asserted, and it is not improbable, that
+during the palmiest days--say the eleventh and twelfth centuries--of
+the _chansons_ a special order of the _jongleur_ or minstrel hierarchy
+concerned itself with them,--it is at least certain that the phrase
+_chanter de geste_ occurs several times in a manner, and with a
+context, which seem to justify its being regarded as a special term of
+art. And the authors at least present their heroes as deliberately
+expecting that they will be sung about, and fearing the chance of a
+dishonourable mention; a fact which, though we must not base any
+calculations upon it as to the actual sentiments of Roland or Ogier,
+Raoul or Huon, is a fact in itself. And it is also a fact that in the
+_fabliaux_ and other light verse of the time we find _jongleurs_
+presented as boasting of the particular _chansons_ they can sing.
+
+[Sidenote: Jongleresses, _&c._]
+
+But the enumeration of the kinds of _jongleurs_--those itinerant,
+those attached to courts and great families, &c.--would lead us too
+far. They were not all of one sex, and we hear of _jongleresses_ and
+_chanteresses_, such as Adeline who figures in the history of the
+Norman Conquest, Aiglantine who sang before the Duke of Burgundy,
+Gracieuse d'Espagne, and so forth--pretty names, as even M. Gautier,
+who is inclined to be suspicious of them, admits. These suspicions, it
+is fair to say, were felt at the time. Don Jayme of Aragon forbade
+noble ladies to kiss _jongleresses_ or share bed and board with them;
+while the Church, which never loved the _jongleur_ much, decided that
+the duty of a wife to follow her husband ceased if he took to
+jongling, which was a _vita turpis et inhonesta_. Further, the pains
+above referred to, bestowed by scholars of all sorts, from Percy
+downwards, have discovered or guessed at the clothes which the
+_jongleur_ and his mate wore, and the instruments with which they
+accompanied their songs. It is more germane to our purpose to know, as
+we do in one instance on positive testimony, the principles (easily to
+be guessed, by the way) on which the introduction of names into these
+poems were arranged. It appears, on the authority of the historian of
+Guisnes and Ardres, that Arnold the Old, Count of Ardres, would
+actually have had his name in the _Chanson d'Antioche_ had he not
+refused a pair of scarlet boots or breeches to the poet or performer
+thereof. Nor is it more surprising to find, on the still more
+indisputable authority of passages in the _chansons_ themselves, that
+the _jongleur_ would stop singing at an interesting point to make a
+collection, and would even sometimes explicitly protest against the
+contribution of too small coins--_poitevines_, _mailles_, and the
+like.
+
+It is impossible not to regard with a mixture of respect and pity the
+labour which has been spent on collecting details of the kind whereof,
+in the last paragraph or two, a few examples have been given. But they
+really have very little, if anything, to do with literature; and what
+they have to do with it is common to all times and subjects. The
+excessive prodigality to minstrels of which we have record parallels
+itself in other times in regard to actors, jockeys, musicians, and
+other classes of mechanical pleasure-makers whose craft happens to be
+popular for the moment. And it was never more likely to be shown than
+in the Middle Ages, when generosity was a profane virtue; when the
+Church had set the example--an example the too free extension of
+which she resented highly--of putting reckless giving above almost all
+other good deeds; and when the system of private war, of ransoms and
+other things of the same kind, made "light come, light go," a maxim
+almost more applicable than in the days of confiscations, in those of
+pensions on this or that list, or in those of stock-jobbing. Moreover,
+inquirers into this matter have certainly not escaped the besetting
+sin of all but strictly political historians--a sin which even the
+political historian has not always avoided--the sin of mixing up times
+and epochs.
+
+It is the great advantage of that purely literary criticism, which is
+so little practised and to some extent so unpopular, that it is able
+to preserve accuracy in this matter. When with the assistance (always
+to be gratefully received) of philologists and historians in the
+strict sense the date of a literary work is ascertained with
+sufficient--it is only in a few cases that it can be ascertained with
+absolute--exactness, the historian of literature places it in that
+position for literary purposes only, and neither mixes it with other
+things nor endeavours to use it for purposes other than literary. To
+recur to an example mentioned above, Adeline in the eleventh century
+and Gracieuse d'Espagne in the fifteenth are agreeable objects of
+contemplation and ornaments of discourse; but, once more, neither has
+much, if anything, to do with literature.
+
+[Sidenote: _Singularity of the_ chansons.]
+
+We may therefore with advantage, having made this digression to comply
+a little with prevalent fashions, return to the _chansons_ themselves,
+to the half-million or million verses of majestic cadence written in
+one of the noblest languages, for at least first effect, to be found
+in the history of the world, possessing that character of distinction,
+of separate and unique peculiarity in matter and form, which has such
+extraordinary charm, and endowed besides, more perhaps than any other
+division, with the attraction of presenting an utterly vanished Past.
+The late Mr Froude found in church-bells--the echo of the Middle
+Ages--suggestion of such a vanishing. To some of us there is nothing
+dead in church-bells; there is only in them, as in the Arthurian
+legends, for instance, a perennial thing still presented in
+associations, all the more charming for being slightly antique. But
+the _chansons de geste_, living by the poetry of their best examples,
+by the fire of their sentiment, by the clash and clang of their music,
+are still in thought, in connection with manners, hopes, aims, almost
+more dead than any of the classics. The literary misjudgment of them
+which was possible in quite recent times, to two such critics--very
+different, but each of the first class--as Mr Matthew Arnold and M.
+Ferdinand Brunetiere, is half excused by this curious feature in their
+own literary character. More than mummies or catacombs, more than
+Herculaneum and Pompeii, they bring us face to face with something so
+remote and afar that we can hardly realise it at all. It may be that
+that peculiarity of the French genius, which, despite its unsurpassed
+and almost unmatched literary faculty, has prevented it from
+contributing any of the very greatest masterpieces to the literature
+of the world, has communicated to them this aloofness, this, as it may
+almost be called, provincialism. But some such note there is in them,
+and it may be that the immense stretch of time during which they were
+worse than unknown--misknown--has brought it about.
+
+[Sidenote: _Their charm._]
+
+Yet their interest is not the less; it is perhaps even the more. It is
+nearly twenty years since I began to read them, and during that period
+I have also been reading masses of other literature from other times,
+nations, and languages; yet I cannot at this moment take up one
+without being carried away by the stately language, as precise and
+well proportioned as modern French, yet with much of the grandeur
+which modern French lacks, the statelier metre, the noble phrase, the
+noble incident and passion. Take, for instance, one of the crowning
+moments, for there are several, of the death-scene of Roland, that
+where the hero discovers the dead archbishop, with his hands--"the
+white, the beautiful"--crossed on his breast:--
+
+    "Li quenz Rollanz revient de pasmeisuns,
+    Sur piez se drecet, mais il ad grant dulur;
+    Guardet aval e si guardet amunt;
+    Sur l'erbe verte, ultre ses cumpaignuns,
+    La veit gesir le nobile barun:
+    C'est l'arcevesque que deus mist en sun num,
+    Claimet sa culpe, si regardet amunt,
+    Cuntre le ciel ainsdoux ses mains ad juinz,
+    Si priet deu que pareis li duinst.
+    Morz est Turpin le guerrier Charlun.
+    Par granz batailles e par mult bels sermuns
+    Contre paiens fut tuz tens campiuns.
+    Deus li otreit seinte beneicun.
+                Aoi!"[28]
+
+[Footnote 28: _Roland_, ll. 2233-2246.]
+
+Then turn to, perhaps, the very last poem which can be called a
+_chanson de geste_ proper in style, _Le Bastart de Bouillon_, and open
+on these lines:--
+
+    "Pardevant la chite qui Miekes[29] fut clamee
+    Fu grande la bataille, et fiere la mellee,
+    Enchois car on eust nulle tente levee,
+    Commencha li debas a chelle matinee.
+    Li cinc frere paien i mainent grant huee,
+    Il keurent par accort, chascuns tenoit l'espee,
+    Et une forte targe a son col acolee.
+    Esclamars va ferir sans nulle demoree,
+    Un gentil crestien de France l'onneree--
+    Armeire n'i vault une pomme pelee;
+    Sus le senestre espaulle fu la chars atamee,
+    Le branc li embati par dedans la coree,[30]
+    Mort l'abat du cheval; son ame soit sauvee!"[31]
+
+[Footnote 29: _I.e._, Mecca.]
+
+[Footnote 30: _Coree_ is not merely = _coeur_, but heart, liver, and
+all the upper "inwards."]
+
+[Footnote 31: _Li Bastars de Bouillon_ (ed. Scheler, Brussels, 1877).]
+
+This is in no way a specially fine passage, it is the very "padding"
+of the average _chanson_, but what padding it is! Compare the mere
+sound, the clash and clang of the verse, with the ordinary English
+romance in _Sir Thopas_ metre, or even with the Italian poets. How
+alert, how succinct, how finished it is beside the slip-shodness of
+the first, in too many instances;[32] how manly, how intense, beside
+the mere sweetness of the second! The very ring of the lines brings
+mail-shirt and flat-topped helmet before us.
+
+[Footnote 32: Not always; for the English romance of the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries has on the whole been too harshly dealt with.
+But its _average_ is far below that of the _chansons_.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Peculiarity of the_ geste _system._]
+
+But in order to the proper comprehension of this section of
+literature, it is necessary that something more should be said as well
+of the matter at large as of the construction and contents of separate
+poems; and, most of all, of the singular process of adjustment of
+these separate poems by which the _geste_ proper (that is to say, the
+subdivision of the whole which deals more or less distinctly with a
+single subject) is constituted. Here again we find a "difference" of
+the poems in the strict logical sense. The total mass of the Arthurian
+story may be, though more probably it is not, as large as that of the
+Charlemagne romances, and it may well seem to some of superior
+literary interest. But from its very nature, perhaps from the very
+nature of its excellence, it lacks this special feature of the
+_chansons de geste_. Arthur may or may not be a greater figure in
+himself than Charlemagne; but when the genius of Map (or of some one
+else) had hit upon the real knotting and unknotting of the story--the
+connection of the frailty of Guinevere with the Quest for the
+Grail--complete developments of the fates of minor heroes, elaborate
+closings of minor incidents, became futile. Endless stories could be
+keyed or geared on to different parts of the main legend: there might
+be a Tristan-saga, a Palomides-saga, a Gawain-saga, episodes of Balin
+or of Beaumains, incidents of the fate of the damsel of Astolat or the
+resipiscence of Geraint. But the central interest was too artistically
+complete to allow any of these to occupy very much independent space.
+
+[Sidenote: _Instances._]
+
+In our present subject, on the other hand, even Charlemagne's life is
+less the object of the story than the history of France; and enormous
+as the falsification of that history may seem to modern criticism, the
+writers always in a certain sense remembered that they were
+historians. When an interesting and important personality presented
+itself, it was their duty to follow it out to the end, to fill up the
+gaps of forerunners, to round it off and shade it in.[33] Thus it
+happens that the _geste_ or saga of _Guillaume d'Orange_--which is
+itself not the whole of the great _geste_ of Garin de Montglane--occupies
+eighteen separate poems, some of them of great length; that the
+crusading series, beginning no doubt in a simple historical poem,
+which was extended and "cycled," has seven, the Lorraine group five;
+while in the extraordinary monument of industry and enthusiasm which
+for some eight hundred pages M. Leon Gautier has devoted to the king's
+_geste_, twenty-seven different _chansons_ are more or less
+abstracted. Several others might have been added here if M. Gautier
+had laid down less strict rules of exclusion against mere _romans
+d'aventures_ subsequently tied on, like the above-mentioned outlying
+romances of the Arthurian group, to the main subject.
+
+[Footnote 33: This will explain the frequent recurrence of the title
+"_Enfances ----_" in the list given above. A hero had become
+interesting in some exploit of his manhood: so they harked back to his
+childhood.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Summary of the_ geste _of William of Orange._]
+
+It seems necessary, therefore, or at least desirable, especially as
+these poems are still far too little known to English readers, to give
+in the first place a more or less detailed account of one of the
+groups; in the second, a still more detailed account of a particular
+_chanson_, which to be fully illustrative should probably be a member
+of this group; and lastly, some remarks on the more noteworthy and
+accessible (for it is ill speaking at second-hand from accounts of
+manuscripts) of the remaining poems. For the first purpose nothing can
+be better than _Guillaume d'Orange_, many, though not all, of the
+constituents of which are in print, and which has had the great
+advantage of being systematically treated by more than one or two of
+the most competent scholars of the century on the subject--Dr
+Jonckbloet, MM. Guessard and A. de Montaiglon, and M. Gautier himself.
+Of this group the short, very old, and very characteristic
+_Couronnement Loys_ will supply a good subject for more particular
+treatment, a subject all the more desirable that _Roland_ may be said
+to be comparatively familiar, and is accessible in English
+translations.
+
+[Sidenote: _And first of the_ Couronnement Loys.]
+
+The poem as we have it[34] begins with a double exordium, from which
+the _jongleur_ might perhaps choose as from alternative collects in a
+liturgy. Each is ten lines long, and while the first rhymes
+throughout, the second has only a very imperfect assonance. Each
+bespeaks attention and promises satisfaction in the usual manner,
+though in different terms--
+
+    "Oez seignor que Dex vos soit aidant;"
+
+    "Seignor baron, pleroit vos d'un exemple!"
+
+[Footnote 34: Ed. Jonckbloet, _op. cit._, i. 1-71.]
+
+A much less commonplace note is struck immediately afterwards in what
+may be excusably taken to be the real beginning of the poem:--
+
+    "A king who wears our France's crown of gold
+    Worthy must be, and of his body bold;
+    What man soe'er to him do evil wold,
+    He may not quit in any manner hold
+    Till he be dead or to his mercy yold.
+    Else France shall lose her praise she hath of old.
+    Falsely he's crowned: so hath our story told."
+
+Then the story itself is plunged into in right style. When the chapel
+was blessed at Aix and the minster dedicated and made, there was a
+mighty court held. Poor and rich received justice; eighteen bishops,
+as many archbishops, twenty-six abbots, and four crowned kings
+attended; the Pope of Rome himself said mass; and Louis, son of
+Charlemagne, was brought up to the high altar where the crown was
+laid. At this moment the people are informed that Charles feels his
+death approaching, and must hand over his kingdom to his son. They
+thank God that no strange king is to come on them. But when the
+emperor, after good advice as to life and policy, bids him not dare to
+take the crown unless he is prepared for a clean and valiant life, the
+infant (_li enfes_) does not dare. The people weep, and the king
+storms, declaring that the prince is no son of his and shall be made a
+monk. But Hernaut of Orleans, a great noble, strikes in, and
+pretending to plead for Louis on the score of his extreme youth,
+offers to take the regency for three years, when, if the prince has
+become a good knight, he shall have the kingdom back, and in increased
+good condition. Charlemagne, with the singular proneness to be victim
+of any kind of "confidence trick" which he shows throughout the
+_chansons_, is turning a willing ear to this proposition when William
+of Orange enters, and, wroth at the notion, thinks of striking off
+Hernaut's head. But remembering
+
+    "Que d'ome occire est trop mortex pechies,"
+
+he changes his plan and only pummels him to death with his fists, a
+distinction which seems indifferential. Then he takes the crown
+himself, places it on the boy's head, and Charles accommodates himself
+to this proceeding as easily as to the other proposal.
+
+Five years pass: and it is a question, not of the mere choice of a
+successor or assessor, but of actual death. He repeats his counsels to
+his son, with the additional and very natural warning to rely on
+William. Unluckily this chief, who is in the earlier part of the
+_chanson_ surnamed Firebrace (not to be confounded with the converted
+Saracen of that name), is not at the actual time of the king's death
+at Aix, but has gone on pilgrimage, in fulfilment of a vow, to Rome.
+He comes at a good time, for the Saracens have just invaded Italy,
+have overthrown the King of Apulia with great slaughter, and are close
+to Rome. The Pope (the "Apostle") hears of William, and implores his
+succour, which, though he has but forty knights and the Saracens are
+in their usual thousands, he consents to give. The Pope promises him
+as a reward that he may eat meat all the days of his life, and take as
+many wives as he chooses,--a method of guerdon which shocks M.
+Gautier, the most orthodox as well as not the least scholarly of
+scholars. However, the Holy Father also wishes to buy off the heathen,
+thereby showing a truly apostolic ignorance of the world. Galafre, the
+"admiral," however has a point of honour. He will not be bought off.
+He informs the Pope, calling him "Sir with the big hat,"[35] that he
+is a descendant of Romulus and Julius Caesar, and for that reason feels
+it necessary to destroy Rome and its clerks who serve God. He relents,
+however, so far as to propose to decide the matter by single combat,
+to which the Pope, according to all but nineteenth century sentiment,
+very properly consents. William is, of course, the Christian champion;
+the Saracen is a giant named Corsolt, very hideous, very violent, and
+a sort of Mahometan Capaneus in his language. The Pope does not
+entirely trust in William's valour, but rubs him all over with St
+Peter's arm, which confers invulnerability. Unfortunately the
+"promontory of the face" is omitted. The battle is fierce, but not
+long. Corsolt cuts off the uncharmed tip of William's nose (whence his
+epic surname of Guillaume au Court Nez), but William cuts off
+Corsolt's head. The Saracens fly: William (he has joked rather
+ruefully with the Pope on his misadventure, which, as being a
+recognised form of punishment, was almost a disgrace even when
+honourably incurred) pursues them, captures Galafre, converts him at
+point of sword, and receives from him the offer of his beautiful
+daughter. The marriage is about to be celebrated, William and the
+Saracen princess are actually at the altar, when a messenger from
+Louis arrives claiming the champion's help against the traitors who
+already wish to wrest the sceptre from his hand. William asks the Pope
+what he is to do, and the Pope says "Go":
+
+    "Guillaumes bese la dame o le vis cler,
+    Et ele lui; ne cesse deplorer.
+    Par tel covent ensi sont dessevre,
+    Puis ne se virent en trestot leur ae."
+
+[Footnote 35: "Parlez a moi, sire au chaperon large."--_C.L._, l.
+468.]
+
+Promptly as he acts, however, he is only in time to repair, not to
+prevent, the mischief. The rebels have already dethroned Louis and
+imprisoned him at St Martins in Tours, making Acelin of Rouen, son of
+Richard, Emperor. William makes straight for Tours, prevails on the
+castellan of the gate-fortress to let him in, kicks--literally
+kicks--the monks out of their abbey, and rescues Louis. He then kills
+Acelin, violently maltreats his father, and rapidly traverses the
+whole of France, reducing the malcontents.
+
+Peace having been for the time restored at home, William returns to
+Rome, where many things have happened. The Pope and Galafre are dead,
+the princess, though she is faithful to William, has other suitors,
+and there is a fresh invasion, not this time of heathen Asiatics, but
+led by Guy of Germany. The Count of Orange forces Louis (who behaves
+in a manner justifying the rebels) to accompany him with a great army
+to Rome, defeats the Germans, takes his _faineant_ emperor's part in a
+single combat with Guy, and is again victorious. Nor, though he has
+to treat his pusillanimous sovereign in an exceedingly cavalier
+fashion, does he fail to have Louis crowned again as Emperor of Rome.
+A fresh rebellion breaking out in France, he again subdues it; and
+strengthens the tottering house of Charles Martel by giving his own
+sister Blanchefleur to the chicken-hearted king.
+
+    "En grant barnage fu Looys entrez;
+    Quant il fu riche, Guillaume n'en sot gre,"
+
+ends the poem with its usual laconism.
+
+[Sidenote: _Comments on the_ Couronnement.]
+
+There is, of course, in this story an element of rough comedy,
+approaching horse-play, which may not please all tastes. This element,
+however, is very largely present in the _chansons_ (though it so
+happens, yet once more, that _Roland_ is accidentally free from it),
+and it is especially obvious in the particular branch or _geste_ of
+William with the Short Nose, appearing even in the finest and longest
+of the subdivisions, _Aliscans_, which some have put at the head of
+the whole. In fact, as we might expect, the _esprit gaulois_ can
+seldom refrain altogether from pleasantry, and its pleasantry at this
+time is distinctly "the humour of the stick." But still the poem is a
+very fine one. Its ethical opening is really noble: the picture of the
+Court at Aix has grandeur, for all its touches of simplicity; the
+fighting is good; the marriage scene and its fatal interruption (for
+we hear nothing of the princess on William's second visit to Rome)
+give a dramatic turn: and though there is no fine writing, there is a
+refreshing directness. The shortness, too (it has less than three
+thousand lines), is undoubtedly in its favour, for these pieces are
+apt to be rather too long than too short. And if the pusillanimity and
+_faineantise_ of Louis seem at first sight exaggerated, it must be
+remembered that, very awkward as was the position of a Henry III. of
+England in the thirteenth century, and a James III. of Scotland in the
+fifteenth, kings of similar character must have cut even worse figures
+in the tenth or eleventh, when the story was probably first
+elaborated, and worse still in the days of the supposed occurrence of
+its facts. Indeed, one of the best passages as poetry, and one of the
+most valuable as matter, is that in which the old king warns his
+trembling son how he must not only do judgment and justice, must not
+only avoid luxury and avarice, protect the orphan and do the widow no
+wrong, but must be ready at any moment to cross the water of Gironde
+with a hundred thousand men in order to _craventer et confondre_ the
+pagan host,--how he must be towards his own proud vassals "like a
+man-eating leopard," and if any dare levy war against him, must summon
+his knights, besiege the traitor's castle, waste and spoil all his
+land, and when he is taken show him no mercy, but lop him limb from
+limb, burn him in fire, or drown him in the sea.[36] It is not
+precisely an amiable spirit, this spirit of the _chansons_: but there
+is this to be said in its favour, there is no mistake about it.
+
+[Footnote 36: _C.L._, ll. 72-79, 172-196.]
+
+[Sidenote: _William of Orange._]
+
+It may be perhaps expected that before, in the second place, summing
+the other branches of the saga of this William of Orange, it should be
+said who he was. But it is better to refer to the authorities already
+given on this, after all, not strictly literary point. Enormous pains
+have been spent on the identification or distinction of William
+Short-nose, Saint William of Gellona, William Tow-head of Poitiers,
+William Longsword of Normandy, as well as several other Williams. It
+may not be superfluous, and is certainly not improper, for those who
+undertake the elaborate editing of a particular poem to enter into
+such details. But for us, who are considering the literary development
+of Europe, it would be scarcely germane. It is enough that certain
+_trouveres_ found in tradition, in history freely treated, or in their
+own imaginations, the material which they worked into this great
+series of poems, of which those concerning William directly amount to
+eighteen, while the entire _geste_ of Garin de Montglane runs to
+twenty-four.
+
+[Sidenote: _The earlier poems of the cycle._]
+
+For the purposes of the _chansons_, William of the Strong Arm or the
+Short Nose is Count, or rather Marquis, of Orange, one of
+Charlemagne's peers, a special bulwark of France and Christendom
+towards the south-east, and a man of approved valour, loyalty, and
+piety, but of somewhat rough manners. Also (which is for the _chanson
+de geste_ of even greater importance) he is grandson of Garin de
+Montglane and the son of Aimeri de Narbonne, heroes both, and
+possessors of the same good qualities which extend to all the family.
+For it is a cardinal point of the _chansons_ that not only _bon sang
+chasse de race_, but evil blood likewise. And the House of Narbonne,
+or Montglane, or Orange, is as uniformly distinguished for loyalty as
+the Normans and part of the house of Mayence for "treachery." To
+illustrate its qualities, twenty-four _chansons_, as has been said,
+are devoted, six of which tell the story before William, and the
+remaining eighteen that of his life. The first in M. Gautier's
+order[37] is _Les Enfances Garin de Montglane_. Garin de Montglane,
+the son of Duke Savary of Aquitaine and a mother persecuted by false
+accusations, like so many heroines of the middle ages, fights first in
+Sicily, procures atonement for his mother's wrongs, and then goes to
+the Court of Charlemagne, who, according to the general story, is his
+exact equal in age, as is also Doon de Mayence, the special hero of
+the third great _geste_. He conquers Montglane, and marries the Lady
+Mabille, his marriage and its preliminaries filling the second
+romance, or _Garin de Montglane_ proper. He has by Mabille four
+sons--Hernaut de Beaulande, Girart de Viane, Renier de Gennes, and
+Milles de Pouille. Each of the three first is the subject of an
+existing _chanson_, and doubtless the fourth was similarly honoured.
+_Girart de Viane_ is one of the most striking of the _chansons_ in
+matter. The hero quarrels with Charlemagne owing to the bad offices of
+the empress, and a great barons' war follows, in which Roland and
+Oliver have their famous fight, and Roland is betrothed to Oliver's
+sister Aude. _Hernaut de Beaulande_ tells how the hero conquers
+Aquitaine, marries Fregonde, and becomes the father of Aimeri de
+Narbonne; and _Renier de Gennes_ in like fashion the success of its
+eponym at Genoa, and his becoming the father of Oliver and Aude. Then
+we pass to the third generation (Charlemagne reigning all the time)
+with the above-named _Aimeri de Narbonne_. The events of this come
+after Roncesvalles, and it is on the return thence that, Narbonne
+being in Paynim hands, Aimeri, after others have refused, takes the
+adventure, the town, and his surname. He marries Hermengart, sister of
+the king of the Lombards, repulses the Saracens, who endeavour to
+recover Narbonne, and begets twelve children, of whom the future
+William of Orange is one. These _chansons_, with the exception of
+_Girart de Viane_, which was printed early, remained much longer in
+MS. than their successors, and the texts are not accessible in any
+such convenient _corpus_ as De Jonckbloet's though some have been
+edited recently.
+
+[Footnote 37: M. Jonckbloet, who takes a less wide range, begins his
+selection or collection of the William saga with the _Couronnement
+Loys_.]
+
+Three poems intervene between _Aimeri de Narbonne_ and the
+_Couronnement Loys_, but they do not seem to have been always kept
+apart. The first, the _Enfances Guillaume_, tells how when William
+himself had left Narbonne for Charlemagne's Court, and his father was
+also absent, the Saracens under Thibaut, King of Arabia, laid siege to
+the town, laying at the same time siege to the heart of the beautiful
+Saracen Princess Orable, who lives in the enchanted palace of
+Gloriette at Orange, itself then, as Narbonne had been, a pagan
+possession. William, going with his brothers to succour their mother,
+captures Baucent, a horse sent by the princess to Thibaut, and falls
+in love with her, his love being returned. She is forced to marry
+Thibaut, but preserves herself by witchcraft as a wife only in name.
+Orange does not fall into the hand of the Christians, though they
+succeed in relieving Narbonne. William meanwhile has returned to
+Court, and has been solemnly dubbed knight, his _enfances_ then
+technically ceasing.
+
+This is followed by the _Departement des Enfans Aimeri_, in which
+William's brothers, following his example, leave Narbonne and their
+father for different parts of France, and achieve adventures and
+possessions. One of them, Bernart of Brabant, is often specially
+mentioned in the latter branches of the cycle as the most valiant of
+the clan next to Guillaume, and it is not improbable that he had a
+_chanson_ to himself. The youngest, Guibelin, remains, and in the
+third _Siege of Narbonne_, which has a poem to itself, he shows
+prowess against the Saracens, but is taken prisoner. He is rescued
+from crucifixion by his aged father, who cuts his way through the
+Saracens and carries off his son. But the number of the heathen is too
+great, and the city must have surrendered if an embassy sent to
+Charlemagne had not brought help, headed by William himself, in time.
+He is as victorious as usual, but after his victory again returns to
+Aix.
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Charroi de Nimes.]
+
+Now begins the _Couronnement Loys_, of which the more detailed
+abstract given above may serve, not merely to make the individual
+piece known, but to indicate the general course, incidents, language,
+and so forth of all these poems. It will be remembered that it ends by
+a declaration that the king was not grateful to the King-maker. He
+forgets William in the distribution of fiefs, says M. Gautier; we may
+say, perhaps, that he remembers rather too vividly the rough
+instruction he has received from his brother-in-law. On protest
+William receives Spain, Orange, and Nimes, a sufficiently magnificent
+dotation, were it not that all three are in the power of the infidels.
+William, however, loses no time in putting himself in possession, and
+begins with Nimes. This he carries, as told in the _Charroi de
+Nimes_,[38] by the Douglas-like stratagem (indeed it is not at all
+impossible that the Good Lord James was acquainted with the poem) of
+hiding his knights in casks, supposed to contain salt and other
+merchandise, which are piled on cars and drawn by oxen. William
+himself and Bertrand his nephew conduct the caravan, dressed in rough
+boots (which hurt Bertrand's feet), blue hose, and coarse cloth
+frocks. The innocent paynims give them friendly welcome, though
+William is nearly discovered by his tell-tale disfigurement. A
+squabble, however, arises; but William, having effected his entrance,
+does not lose time. He blows his horn, and the knights springing from
+their casks, the town is taken. This _Charroi de Nimes_ is one of the
+most spirited, but one of the roughest, of the group. The catalogue of
+his services with which William overwhelms the king, each item
+ushered by the phrase "Rois, quar te membre" ("King, bethink thee
+then"), and to which the unfortunate Louis can only answer in various
+forms, "You are very ill-tempered" ("Pleins es de mautalent";
+"Mautalent avez moult"), is curiously full of uncultivated eloquence;
+while his refusal to accept the heritage of Auberi le Bourgoing, and
+thereby wrong Auberi's little son, even though "sa marrastre
+Hermengant de Tori" is also offered by the generous monarch with the
+odd commendation--
+
+    "La meiller feme qui onc beust de vin,"
+
+is justly praised. But when the venerable Aymon not unnaturally
+protests against almost the whole army accompanying William, and the
+wrathful peer breaks his jaw with his fist, when the peasants who
+grumble at their casks and their oxen being seized are hanged or have
+their eyes put out--then the less amiable side of the matter certainly
+makes its appearance.
+
+[Footnote 38: Jonckbloet, i. 73-111.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Prise d'Orange.]
+
+William has thus entered on part, though the least part, of the king's
+gift to him--a gift which it is fair to Louis to say that the hero had
+himself demanded, after refusing the rather vague offer of a fourth of
+the lands and revenues of all France. The _Prise d'Orange_[39] follows
+in time and as a subject of _chanson_, the _Charroi de Nimes_. The
+earlier poem had been all sheer fighting with no softer side. In this
+William is reminded of the beautiful Orable (wife, if only in name, of
+King Thibaut), who lives there, though her husband, finding a wife
+who bewitches the nuptial chamber unsatisfactory, has left her and
+Orange to the care of his son Arragon. The reminder is a certain
+Gilbert of Vermandois who has been prisoner at Orange, and who, after
+some hesitation, joins William himself and his brother Guibelin in a
+hazardous expedition to the pagan city. They blacken themselves with
+ink, and are not ill received by Arragon: but a Saracen who knows the
+"Marquis au Court Nez" informs against him (getting his brains beaten
+out for his pains), and the three, forcing a way with bludgeons
+through the heathen, take refuge in Gloriette, receive arms from
+Orable, who has never ceased to love the Marquis, and drive their
+enemies off. But a subterranean passage (this probably shows the
+_chanson_ to be a late one in this form) lets the heathen in: and all
+three champions are seized, bound, and condemned to the flames. Orable
+demands them, not to release but to put in her own dungeons,
+conveniently furnished with vipers; and for a time they think
+themselves betrayed. But Orable soon appears, offers them liberty if
+William will marry her, and discloses a second underground passage.
+They do not, however, fly by this, but only send Gilbert to Nimes to
+fetch succour: and as Orable's conduct is revealed to Arragon, a third
+crisis occurs. It is happily averted, and Bertrand soon arriving with
+thirteen thousand men from Nimes, the Saracens are cut to pieces and
+Orange won. Orable is quickly baptised, her name being changed to
+Guibourc, and married without further delay. William is William of
+Orange at length in good earnest, and the double sacrament reconciles
+M. Gautier (who is constantly distressed by the forward conduct of his
+heroines) to Guibourc ever afterwards. It is only fair to say that in
+the text published by M. Jonckbloet (and M. Gautier gives references
+to no other) "la curtoise Orable" does not seem to deserve his hard
+words. There is nothing improper in her conduct, and her words do not
+come to much more than--
+
+    "I am your wife if you will marry me."
+
+[Footnote 39: Jonckbloet, i. 112-162.]
+
+_La Prise d'Orange_ ends with the couplet--
+
+    "Puis estut il tiex xxx ans en Orenge
+    Mes ainc un jor n'i estut sanz chalenge."
+
+[Sidenote: _The story of Vivien._]
+
+Orange, in short, was a kind of Garde Douloureuse against the infidel:
+and William well earned his title of "Marchis." The story of his
+exploits diverges a little--a loop rather than an episode--in two
+specially heroic _chansons_, the _Enfances Vivien_ and the _Covenant
+Vivien_,[40] which tell the story of one of his nephews, a story
+finished by Vivien's glorious death at the opening of the great
+_chanson_ of _Aliscans_. Vivien is the son of Garin d'Ansene, one of
+those "children of Aimeri" who have sought fortune away from Narbonne,
+and one of the captives of Roncesvalles. Garin is only to be delivered
+at the cost of his son's life, which Vivien cheerfully offers. He is
+actually on the pyre, which is kindled, when the pagan hold Luiserne
+is stormed by a pirate king, and Vivien is rescued, but sold as a
+slave. An amiable paynim woman buys him and adopts him; but he is a
+born knight, and when grown up, with a few allies surprises Luiserne
+itself, and holds it till a French army arrives, and Garin recovers
+his son, whom he had thought dead. After these _Enfances_, promising
+enough, comes the _Covenant_ or vow, never to retreat before the
+Saracens. Vivien is as savage as he is heroic; and on one occasion
+sends five hundred prisoners, miserably mutilated, to the great
+Admiral Desrame. The admiral assembles all the forces of the East as
+well as of Spain, and invades France. Vivien, overpowered by numbers,
+applies to his uncle William for help, and the battle of Aliscans is
+already half fought and more than half lost before the actual
+_chanson_ of the name begins. _Aliscans_[41] itself opens with a
+triplet in which the "steel clash" of the _chanson_ measure is more
+than ever in place:--
+
+    "A icel jor ke la dolor fu grans,
+    Et la bataille orible en Aliscans:
+    Li quens Guillaumes i soufri grans ahans."
+
+[Footnote 40: _Enfances Vivien_, ed. Wahlen and v. Feilitzer, Paris,
+1886; _Covenant Vivien_, Jonckbloet, i. 163-213.]
+
+[Footnote 41: Jonckbloet, i. 215 to end; separately, as noted above,
+by Guessard and de Montaignon, Paris, 1870.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Aliscans._]
+
+And it continues in the same key. The commentators declare that the
+story refers to an actual historical battle of Villedaigne. This may
+be a fact: the literary excellence of _Aliscans_ is one. The scale of
+the battle is represented as being enormous: and the poet is not
+unworthy of his subject. Neither is William _impar sibi_: but his day
+of unbroken victory is over. No one can resist him personally; but
+the vast numbers of the Saracens make personal valour useless. Vivien,
+already hopelessly wounded, fights on, and receives a final blow from
+a giant. He is able, however, to drag himself to a tree where a
+fountain flows, and there makes his confession, and prays for his
+uncle's safety. As for William himself, his army is entirely cut to
+pieces, and it is only a question whether he can possibly escape. He
+comes to Vivien's side just as his nephew is dying, bewails him in a
+very noble passage, receives his last breath, and is able before it
+passes to administer the holy wafer which he carries with him. It is
+Vivien's first communion as well as his last.
+
+After this really great scene, one of the finest in all the
+_chansons_, William puts the corpse of Vivien on the wounded but still
+generous Baucent, and endeavours to make his way through the ring of
+enemies who have held aloof but are determined not to let him go.
+Night saves him: and though he has to abandon the body, he cuts his
+way through a weak part of the line, gains another horse (for Baucent
+can carry him no longer), and just reaches Orange. But he has taken
+the arms as well as the horse of a pagan to get through his foes: and
+in this guise he is refused entrance to his own city. Guibourc herself
+rejects him, and only recognises her husband from the prowess which he
+shows against the pursuers, who soon catch him up. The gates are
+opened and he is saved, but Orange is surrounded by the heathen. There
+is no room to tell the full heroism of Guibourc, and, besides,
+_Aliscans_ is one of the best known of the _chansons_, and has been
+twice printed.
+
+[Sidenote: _The end of the story._]
+
+From this point the general interest of the saga, which has culminated
+in the battle of Aliscans, though it can hardly be said to disappear,
+declines somewhat, and is diverted to other persons than William
+himself. It is decided that Guibourc shall hold Orange, while he goes
+to the Court of Louis to seek aid. This personal suit is necessary
+lest the fulness of the overthrow be not believed; and the pair part
+after a scene less rugged than the usual course of the _chansons_, in
+which Guibourc expresses her fear of the "damsels bright of blee," the
+ladies of high lineage that her husband will meet at Laon; and William
+swears in return to drink no wine, eat no flesh, kiss no mouth, sleep
+on his saddle-cloth, and never change his garments till he meets her
+again.
+
+[Sidenote: _Renouart._]
+
+His reception is not cordial. Louis thinks him merely a nuisance, and
+the courtiers mock his poverty, distress, and loneliness. He meets
+with no hospitality save from a citizen. But the chance arrival of his
+father and mother from Narbonne prevents him from doing anything rash.
+They have a great train with them, and it is no longer possible simply
+to ignore William; but from the king downwards, there is great
+disinclination to grant him succour, and Queen Blanchefleur is
+especially hostile. William is going to cut her head off--his usual
+course of action when annoyed--after actually addressing her in a
+speech of extreme directness, somewhat resembling Hamlet's to
+Gertrude, but much ruder. Their mother saves Blanchefleur, and after
+she has fled in terror to her chamber, the fair Aelis, her daughter, a
+gracious apparition, begs and obtains forgiveness from William, short
+of temper as of nose, but also not rancorous. Reconciliation takes
+place all round, and an expedition is arranged for the relief of
+Orange. It is successful, but chiefly owing to the prowess, not of
+William, but of a certain Renouart, who is the special hero, not
+merely of the last half of _Aliscans_, but of nearly all the later
+_chansons_ of the _geste_ of Garin de Montglane. This Renouart or
+Rainouart is an example, and one of the earliest, perhaps the very
+earliest, of the type of hero, so dear to the middle ages, who begins
+by service in the kitchen or elsewhere, of no very dignified
+character, and ends by being discovered to be of noble or royal birth.
+Rainouart is thus the ancestor, and perhaps the direct ancestor, of
+Havelok, whom he especially resembles; of Beaumains, in a hitherto
+untraced episode of the Arthurian story, and of others. His early
+feats against the Saracens, in defence of Orange first, and then when
+William arrives, are made with no knightly weapon, but with a
+_tinel_--huge bludgeon, beam, "caber"--but he afterwards turns out to
+be Guibourc's, or rather Orable's, own brother. There are very strong
+comic touches in all this part of the poem, such as the difficulty
+Rainouart finds in remounting his comrades, the seven nephews of
+William, because his _tinel_ blows are so swashing that they simply
+smash horse and man--a difficulty overcome by the ingenious
+suggestion of Bertrand that he shall hit with the small end. And these
+comic touches have a little disturbed those who wish to find in the
+pure _chanson de geste_ nothing but war and religion, honour and
+generosity. But, as has been already hinted, this is to be over-nice.
+No doubt the oldest existing, or at least the oldest yet discovered,
+MS. of _Aliscans_ is not the original, for it is rhymed, not
+assonanced, a practically infallible test. But there is no reason to
+suppose that the comic touches are all new, though they may have been
+a little amplified in the later version. Once more, it is false
+argument to evolve the idea of a _chanson_ from _Roland_ only, and
+then to insist that all _chansons_ shall conform to it.
+
+After the defeat of Desrame, and the relief of half-ruined Orange, the
+troubles of that city and its Count are not over. The admiral returns
+to the charge, and the next _chanson_, the _Bataille Loquifer_, is
+ranked by good judges as ancient, and describes fresh prowess of
+Rainouart. Then comes the _Moniage_ ["Monking" of] _Rainouart_, in
+which the hero, like so many other heroes, takes the cowl. This,
+again, is followed by a series describing chiefly the reprisals in
+Spain and elsewhere of the Christians--_Foulques de Candie_, the
+_Siege de Barbastre_, the _Prise de Cordres_, and _Gilbert
+d'Andrenas_. And at last the whole _geste_ is wound up by the _Mort
+Aimeri de Narbonne_, _Renier_, and the _Moniage Guillaume_, the poem
+which unites the profane history of the _Marquis au Court Nez_ to the
+legend of St William of the Desert, though in a fashion sometimes
+odd. M. Gautier will not allow any of these poems (except the
+_Bataille Loquifer_ and the two _Moniages_) great age; and even if it
+were otherwise, and more of them were directly accessible,[42] there
+could be no space to say much of them here. The sketch given should be
+sufficient to show the general characteristics of the _chansons_ as
+each is in itself, and also the curious and ingenious way in which
+their successive authors have dovetailed and pieced them together into
+continuous family chronicles.
+
+[Footnote 42: _Foulques de Candie_ (ed. Tarbe, Reims, 1860) is the
+only one of this batch which I possess, or have read _in extenso_.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Some other_ chansons.]
+
+If these delights can move any one, they may be found almost
+universally distributed about the _chansons_. Of the minor groups the
+most interesting and considerable are the crusading cycle, late as it
+is in part, and that of the Lorrainers, which is, in the main, very
+early. Of the former the _Chansons d'Antioche_ and _de Jerusalem_ are
+almost historical, and are pretty certainly based on the account of an
+actual partaker. _Antioche_ in particular has few superiors in the
+whole hundred and more poems of the kind. _Helias_ ties this historic
+matter on to legend proper by introducing the story of the Knight of
+the Swan; while _Les Chetifs_ (_The Captives_) combines history and
+legend very interestingly, starting as it does with a probably
+historical capture of certain Christians, who are then plunged in
+dreamland of romance for the rest of it. The concluding poems of this
+cycle, _Baudouin de Sebourc_ and the _Bastart de Bouillon_, have been
+already more than once mentioned. They show, as has been said, the
+latest form of the _chanson_, and are almost pure fiction, though they
+have a sort of framework or outline in the wars in Northern Arabia, at
+and round the city of Jof, whose crusading towers still, according to
+travellers, look down on the _hadj_ route through the desert. _Garin
+le Loherain_, on the other hand, and its successors, are pure early
+feudal fighting, as is also the early, excellent, and very
+characteristic _Raoul de Cambrai_. These are instances, and no doubt
+not the only ones, of what may be called district or provincial
+_gestes_, applying the principles of the _chansons_ generally to local
+quarrels and fortunes.
+
+Of what purists call the sophisticated _chansons_, those in which
+general romance-motives of different kinds are embroidered on the
+strictly _chanson_ canvas, there are probably none more interesting
+than the later forms of _Huon de Bordeaux_ and _Ogier de Danemarche_.
+The former, since the fortunate reprinting of Lord Berners's version
+by the Early English Text Society, is open to every one, though, of
+course, the last vestiges of _chanson_ form have departed, and those
+who can should read it as edited in M. Guessard's series. The still
+more gracious legend, in which the ferocious champion Ogier, after his
+early triumphs over the giant Caraheu and against the paladins of
+Charles, is, like Huon, brought to the loadstone rock, is then
+subjected to the enchantments--loving, and now not baneful--of
+Arthur's sister Morgane, and tears himself from fairyland to come to
+the rescue of France, is by far the most delightful of the attempts
+to "cross" the Arthurian and Carlovingian cycles. And of this we
+fortunately have in English a poetical version from the great
+_trouvere_ among the poets of our day, the late Mr William Morris. Of
+yet others, the often-mentioned _Voyage a Constantinoble_, with its
+rather unseemly _gabz_ (boasting jests of the peers, which are
+overheard by the heathen emperor with results which seem like at one
+time to be awkward), is among the oldest, and is a warning against the
+tendency to take the presence of comic elements as a necessary
+evidence of late date. _Les Saisnes_, dealing with the war against the
+Saxons, is a little loose in its morals, but vigorous and interesting.
+The pleasant pair of _Aiol_ and _Elie de St Gilles_; the touching
+history of Charlemagne's mother, _Berte aus grans Pies_; _Acquin_, one
+of the rare _chansons_ dealing with Brittany (though Roland was
+historically count thereof); _Gerard de Roussillon_, which has more
+than merely philological interest; _Macaire_, already mentioned; the
+famous _Quatre Fils d'Aymon_, longest and most widely popular, must be
+added to the list, and are not all that should be added to it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Final remarks on them._]
+
+On the whole, I must repeat that the _chansons de geste_, which as we
+have them are the work of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the
+main, form the second division in point of literary value of early
+mediaeval literature, while they possess, in a certain "sincerity and
+strength," qualities not to be found even in the Arthurian story
+itself. Despite the ardour with which they have been philologically
+studied for nearly three-quarters of a century, despite (or perhaps
+because of) the enthusiasm which one or two devotees have shown for
+their literary qualities, it does not seem to me that fair justice, or
+anything like it, has yet been generally done. German critics care
+little for literary merit, and are perhaps not often trained to
+appreciate it; in England the _chansons_ have been strangely little
+read. But the most singular thing is the cold reception, slightly if
+at all thawed recently, which they have met in France itself. It may
+give serious pause to the very high estimate generally entertained of
+French criticism by foreigners to consider this coldness, which once
+reached something like positive hostility in M. Ferdinand Brunetiere,
+the chief French literary critic of our generation. I regret to see
+that M. Lanson, the latest historian of French literature, has not
+dared to separate himself from the academic _grex_. "On ne saurait
+nier," he says, "que quelques uns aient eu du talent;" but he
+evidently feels that this generous concession is in need of guards and
+caveats. There is no "beaute formelle" in them, he says--no formal
+beauty in those magnificently sweeping _laisses_, of which the ear
+that has once learnt their music can no more tire thereafter than of
+the sound of the sea itself. The style (and if it be objected that his
+previous words have been directly addressed to the later _chansons_
+and _chanson_ writers, here he expressly says that this style "est le
+meme style que dans le _Roland_," though "moins sobre, moins plein,
+moins sur") has "no beauty by itself," and finally he thinks that the
+best thing to do is "to let nine-tenths of the _chansons_ follow
+nine-tenths of our tragedies." I have read many _chansons_ and many
+tragedies; but I have never read a _chanson_ that has not more poetry
+in it than ninety-nine French tragedies out of a hundred.
+
+The fact is that it is precisely the _beaute formelle_, assisted as it
+is by the peculiar spirit of which so much has been said already,
+which constitutes the beauty of these poems: and that these
+characteristics are present, not of course in uniform measure, but
+certainly in the great majority of the _chansons_ from _Roland_ to the
+_Bastard_. Of course if a man sits down with a preconceived idea of an
+epic poem, it is more likely than not that his preconceived idea will
+be of something very different from a _chanson de geste_. And if,
+refusing to depart from his preconceived idea, and making that idea up
+of certain things taken from the _Iliad_, certain from the _AEneid_,
+certain from the _Divina Commedia_, certain from _Paradise Lost_,--if
+he runs over the list and says to the _chanson_, "Are you like Homer
+in this point? Can you match me Virgil in that?" the result will be
+that the _chanson_ will fail to pass its examination.
+
+But if, with some knowledge of literature in the wide sense, and some
+love for it, he sits down to take the _chansons_ as they are, and
+judge them on their merits and by the law of their own poetical state,
+then I think he will come to a very different conclusion. He will say
+that their kind is a real kind, a thing by itself, something of which
+if it were not, nothing else in literature could precisely supply the
+want. And he will decide further that while the best of them are
+remarkably good of their kind, few of them can be called positively
+bad in it. And yet again, if he has been fortunately gifted by nature
+with that appreciation of form which saves the critic from mere
+prejudice and crotchet, from mere partiality, he will, I believe, go
+further still, and say that while owing something to spirit, they owe
+most to form itself, to the form of the single-assonanced or
+mono-rhymed _tirade_, assisted as it is by the singular beauty of Old
+French in sound, and more particularly by the sonorous recurring
+phrases of the _chanson_ dialect. No doubt much instruction and some
+amusement can be got out of these poems as to matters of fact: no
+doubt some passages in _Roland_, in _Aliscans_, in the _Couronnement
+Loys_, have a stern beauty of thought and sentiment which deserves
+every recognition. But these things are not all-pervading, and they
+can be found elsewhere: the clash and clang of the _tirade_ are
+everywhere here, and can be found nowhere else.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE MATTER OF BRITAIN.
+
+     ATTRACTIONS OF THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND. DISCUSSIONS ON THEIR
+     SOURCES. THE PERSONALITY OF ARTHUR. THE FOUR WITNESSES.
+     THEIR TESTIMONY. THE VERSION OF GEOFFREY. ITS LACUNAE. HOW
+     THE LEGEND GREW. WACE. LAYAMON. THE ROMANCES PROPER. WALTER
+     MAP. ROBERT DE BORRON. CHRESTIEN DE TROYES. PROSE OR VERSE
+     FIRST? A LATIN GRAAL-BOOK. THE MABINOGION. THE LEGEND
+     ITSELF. THE STORY OF JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA. MERLIN. LANCELOT.
+     THE LEGEND BECOMES DRAMATIC. STORIES OF GAWAIN AND OTHER
+     KNIGHTS. SIR TRISTRAM. HIS STORY ALMOST CERTAINLY CELTIC.
+     SIR LANCELOT. THE MINOR KNIGHTS. ARTHUR. GUINEVERE. THE
+     GRAAL. HOW IT PERFECTS THE STORY. NATURE OF THIS PERFECTION.
+     NO SEQUEL POSSIBLE. LATIN EPISODES. THE LEGEND AS A WHOLE.
+     THE THEORIES OF ITS ORIGIN. CELTIC. FRENCH. ENGLISH.
+     LITERARY. THE CELTIC THEORY. THE FRENCH CLAIMS. THE THEORY
+     OF GENERAL LITERARY GROWTH. THE ENGLISH OR ANGLO-NORMAN
+     PRETENSIONS. ATTEMPTED HYPOTHESIS.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Attractions of the Arthurian Legend._]
+
+To English readers, and perhaps not to English readers only, the
+middle division of the three great romance-subjects[43] ought to be of
+far higher interest than the others; and that not merely, even in the
+English case, for reasons of local patriotism. The mediaeval versions
+of classical story, though attractive to the highest degree as
+evidence of the extraordinary plastic power of the period, which could
+transform all art to its own image and guise, and though not destitute
+of individual charm here and there, must always be mainly curiosities.
+The cycle of Charlemagne, a genuine growth and not merely an
+incrustation or transformation, illustrated, moreover, by particular
+examples of the highest merit, is exposed on the one hand to the
+charge of a certain monotony, and on the other to the objection that,
+beautiful as it is, it is dead. For centuries, except in a few
+deliberate literary exercises, the king _a la barbe florie_ has
+inspired no modern singer--his _geste_ is extinct. But the Legend of
+Arthur, the latest to take definite form of the three, has shown by
+far the greatest vitality. From generation to generation it has taken
+new forms, inspired new poetries. The very latest of the centuries has
+been the most prolific in contributions of any since the end of the
+Middle Ages; and there is no sufficient reason why the lineage should
+ever stop. For while the romance of antiquity is a mere "sport," an
+accident of time and circumstance, the _chanson de geste_, majestic
+and interesting as it is, representative as it is to a certain extent
+of a nation and a language, has the capital defect of not being
+adaptable. Having little or no allegorical capacity, little "soul," so
+to speak, it was left by the tide of time on the shores thereof
+without much hope of floating and living again. The Arthurian Legend,
+if not from the very first, yet from the first moment when it assumed
+vernacular forms, lent itself to that double meaning which, though it
+is open to abuse, and was terribly abused in these very ages, is after
+all the salvation of things literary, since every age adopting the
+first and outer meaning can suit the second and inner to its own taste
+and need.
+
+[Footnote 43: See the quotation from Jean Bodel, p. 26, note. The
+literature of the Arthurian question is very large; and besides the
+drawbacks referred to in the text, much of it is scattered in
+periodicals. The most useful recent things in English are Mr Nutt's
+_Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail_ (London, 1888); Professor
+Rhys's _Arthurian Legend_ (Oxford, 1891); and the extensive
+introduction to Dr Sommer's _Malory_ (London, 1890). In French the
+elaborate papers on different parts which M. Gaston Paris brings out
+at intervals in _Romania_ cannot be neglected; and M. Loth's surveys
+of the subject there and in the _Revue Celtique_ (October 1892) are
+valuable. Naturally, there has been a great deal in German, the best
+being, perhaps, Dr Koelbing's long introduction to his reprint of
+_Arthour and Merlin_ (Leipzig, 1890). Other books will be mentioned in
+subsequent notes; but a complete and impartial history of the whole
+subject, giving the contents, with strictly literary criticism only,
+of all the texts, and merely summarising theories as to origin, &c.,
+is still wanting, and sorely wanted. Probably there is still no
+better, as there is certainly no more delightful, book on the matter
+than M. Paulin Paris's _Romans de la Table Ronde_ (5 vols., Paris,
+1868-77). The monograph by M. Cledat on the subject in M. Petit de
+Julleville's new _History_ (_v. supra_, p. 23, note) is unfortunately
+not by any means one of the best of these studies.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Discussions on their sources._]
+
+That the vitality of the Legend is in part, if not wholly, due to the
+strange crossing and blending of its sources, I at least have no
+doubt. To discuss these sources at all, much more to express any
+definite opinion on the proportions and order of their blending, is a
+difficult matter for any literary student, and dangerous withal; but
+the adventure is of course not to be wholly shirked here. The matter
+has, both in England and abroad, been quite recently the subject of
+that rather acrimonious debating by which scholars in modern tongues
+seem to think it a point of honour to rival the scholars of a former
+day in the classics, though the vocabulary used is less picturesque. A
+great deal of this debate, too, turns on matters of sheer opinion, in
+regard to which language only appropriate to matters of sheer
+knowledge is too often used. The candid inquirer, informed that Mr, or
+M., or Herr So-and-so, has "proved" such and such a thing in such and
+such a book or dissertation, turns to the text, to find to his
+grievous disappointment that nothing is "proved"--but that more or
+less probable arguments are advanced with less or more temper against
+or in favour of this or that hypothesis. Even the dates of MSS., which
+in all such cases must be regarded as the primary data, are very
+rarely _data_ at all, but only (to coin, or rather adapt, a
+much-needed term) _speculata_. And the matter is further complicated
+by the facts that extremely few scholars possess equal and adequate
+knowledge of Celtic, English, French, German, and Latin, and that the
+best palaeographers are by no means always the best literary critics.
+
+Where every one who has handled the subject has had to confess, or
+should have confessed, imperfect equipment in one or more respects,
+there is no shame in confessing one's own shortcomings. I cannot speak
+as a Celtic scholar; and I do not pretend to have examined MSS. But
+for a good many years I have been familiar with the printed texts and
+documents in Latin, English, French, and German, and I believe that I
+have not neglected any important modern discussions of the subject.
+To have no Celtic is the less disqualification in that all the most
+qualified Celtic scholars themselves admit, however highly they may
+rate the presence of the Celtic element in spirit, that no texts of
+the legend in its romantic form at present existing in the Celtic
+tongues are really ancient. And it is understood that there is now
+very little left unprinted that can throw much light on the general
+question. I shall therefore endeavour, without entering into
+discussions on minor points which would be unsuitable to the book, to
+give what seems to me the most probable view of the case, corrected by
+(though not by any means adjusted in a hopeless zigzag of deference
+to) the various authorities, from Ritson to Professor Rhys, from
+Paulin Paris to M. Loth, and from San Marte to Drs Foerster and Zimmer.
+
+The first and the most important thing--a thing which has been by no
+means always or often done--is to keep the question of Arthur apart
+from the question of the Arthurian Legend.
+
+[Sidenote: _The personality of Arthur._]
+
+That there was no such a person as Arthur in reality was at one time a
+not very uncommon opinion among men who could call themselves
+scholars, though of late it has yielded to probable if not certain
+arguments. The two most damaging facts are the entire silence of Bede
+and that of Gildas in regard to him. The silence of Bede might be
+accidental, and he wrote _ex hypothesi_ nearly two centuries after
+Arthur's day. Yet his collections were extremely careful, and the
+neighbourhood of his own Northumbria was certainly not that in which
+traditions of Arthur should have been least rife. That Gildas should
+say nothing is more surprising and more difficult of explanation. For
+putting aside altogether the positive testimony of the _Vita Gildae_,
+to which we shall come presently, Gildas was, again _ex hypothesi_, a
+contemporary of Arthur's, and must have known all about him. If the
+compound of scolding and lamentation known as _De Excidio Britanniae_
+is late and a forgery, we should expect it to contain some reference
+to the king; if it is early and genuine, it is difficult to see how
+such reference could possibly be omitted.
+
+[Sidenote: _The four witnesses._]
+
+At the same time, mere silence can never establish anything but a
+presumption; and the presumption is in this case rebutted by far
+stronger probabilities on the other side. The evidence is here drawn
+from four main sources, which we may range in the order of their
+chronological bearing. First, there are the Arthurian place-names, and
+the traditions respecting them; secondly, the fragments of genuine
+early Welsh reference to Arthur; thirdly, the famous passage of
+Nennius, which introduces him for the first time to probably dated
+literature; fourthly, the curious references in the above-referred-to
+_Vita Gildae_ of, or attributed to, Caradoc of Lancarvan. After this
+last, or at a time contemporary with it, we come to the comparatively
+detailed account of Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the beginning of the
+Legend proper.
+
+[Sidenote: _Their testimony._]
+
+To summarise this evidence as carefully but as briefly as possible, we
+find, in almost all parts of Britain beyond the range of the first
+Saxon conquests, but especially in West Wales, Strathclyde, and
+Lothian, certain place-names connecting themselves either with Arthur
+himself or with the early catalogue of his battles.[44] We find
+allusions to him in Welsh poetry which may be as old as the sixth
+century--allusions, it is true, of the vaguest and most meagre kind,
+and touching no point of his received story except his mysterious
+death or no-death, but fairly corroborative of his actual existence.
+Nennius--the much-debated Nennius, whom general opinion attributes to
+the ninth century, but who _may_ be as early as the eighth, and cannot
+well be later than the tenth--gives us the catalogue of the twelve
+battles, and the exploits of Arthur against the Saxons, in a single
+paragraph containing no reference to any but military matters, and
+speaking of Arthur not as king but as a _dux bellorum_ commanding
+kings, many of whom were more noble than himself.
+
+[Footnote 44: The late Mr Skene, with great learning and ingenuity,
+endeavoured in his _Four Ancient Books of Wales_ to claim all or
+almost all these place-names for Scotland in the wide sense. This can
+hardly be admitted: but impartial students of the historical
+references and the romances together will observe the constant
+introduction of northern localities in the latter, and the express
+testimony in the former to the effect that Arthur was general of _all_
+the British forces. We need not rob Cornwall to pay Lothian. For the
+really old references in Welsh poetry see, besides Skene, Professor
+Rhys, _op. cit._ Gildas and Nennius (but not the _Vita Gildae_) will be
+found conveniently translated, with Geoffrey himself, in a volume of
+Bohn's Historical Library, _Six Old English Chronicles_. The E.E.T.S.
+edition of _Merlin_ contains a very long _excursus_ by Mr
+Stuart-Glennie on the place-name question.]
+
+The first authority from whom we get any _personal_ account of Arthur
+is Caradoc, if Caradoc it be. The biographer makes his hero St Gildas
+(I put minor and irrelevant discrepancies aside) contemporary with
+Arthur, whom he loved, and who was king of all Greater Britain. But
+his brother kings did not admit this sovereignty quietly, and often
+put him to flight. At last Arthur overthrew and slew Hoel, who was his
+_major natu_, and became unquestioned _rex universalis Britanniae_, but
+incurred the censure of the Church for killing Hoel. From this sin
+Gildas himself at length absolved him. But King Melvas carried off
+King Arthur's queen, and it was only after a year that Arthur found
+her at Glastonbury and laid siege to that place. Gildas and the abbot,
+however, arranged matters, and the queen was given up. It is most
+proper to add in this place that probably at much the same time as the
+writings of Caradoc and of Geoffrey (_v. infra_), or at a time not
+very distant, William of Malmesbury and Giraldus Cambrensis give us
+Glastonbury traditions as to the tomb of Arthur, &c., which show that
+by the middle of the twelfth century such traditions were clustering
+thickly about the Isle of Avalon. All this time, however, it is very
+important to notice that there is hardly the germ, and, except in
+Caradoc, not even the germ, of what makes the Arthurian Legend
+interesting to us, even of what we call the Arthurian Legend. Although
+the fighting with the Saxons plays an important part in the _Merlin_
+branches of the story, it has extremely little to do with the local
+traditions, and was continually reduced in importance by the men of
+real genius, especially Mapes, Chrestien, and, long afterwards,
+Malory, who handled them. The escapade of Melvas communicates a touch
+rather nearer to the perfect form, but only a little nearer to it. In
+fact, there is hardly more in the story at this point than in hundreds
+of other references in early history or fiction to obscure kinglets
+who fought against invaders.
+
+[Sidenote: _The version of Geoffrey._]
+
+And it is again very important to observe that, though under the hands
+of Geoffrey of Monmouth the story at once acquires more romantic
+proportions, it is still not in the least, or only in the least, the
+story that we know. The advance is indeed great. The wonder-working of
+Merlin is brought in to help the patriotism of Arthur. The story of
+Uther's love for Igraine at once alters the mere chronicle into a
+romance. Arthur, the fruit of this passion, succeeds his father,
+carries on victorious war at home and abroad, is crowned with
+magnificence at Caerleon, is challenged by and defeats the Romans, is
+about to pass the Alps when he hears that his nephew Mordred, left in
+charge of the kingdom, has assumed the crown, and that Guinevere
+(Guanhumara, of whom we have only heard before as "of a noble Roman
+family, and surpassing in beauty all the women of the island") has
+wickedly married him. Arthur returns, defeats Mordred at Rutupiae
+(after this battle Guinevere takes the veil), and, at Winchester,
+drives him to the extremity of Cornwall, and there overthrows and
+kills him. But the renowned King Arthur himself was mortally wounded,
+and "being carried thence to the Isle of Avallon to be cured of his
+wounds, he gave up the crown to his kinsman Constantine." And so
+Arthur passes out of Geoffrey's story, in obedience to one of the
+oldest, and certainly the most interesting, of what seem to be the
+genuine Welsh notices of the king--"Not wise is it to seek the grave
+of Arthur."
+
+[Sidenote: _Its_ lacunae.]
+
+A few people, perhaps, who read this little book will need to be told
+that Geoffrey attributed the new and striking facts which he sprung
+upon his contemporaries to a British book which Walter, Archdeacon of
+Oxford, had brought out of Armorica: and that not the slightest trace
+of this most interesting and important work has ever been found. It is
+a thousand pities that it has not survived, inasmuch as it was not
+only "a very ancient book in the British tongue," but contained "a
+continuous story in an elegant style." However, the inquiry whether
+Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, did or did not belong to the ancient
+British family of Harris may be left to historians proper. To the
+specially literary historian the chief point of interest is first to
+notice how little, if Geoffrey really did take his book from "British"
+sources, those sources apparently contained of the Arthurian Legend
+proper as we now know it. An extension of the fighting with Saxons at
+home, and the addition of that with Romans abroad, the Igraine
+episode, or rather overture, the doubtless valuable introduction of
+Merlin, the treason of Mordred and Guinevere, and the retirement to
+Avalon--that is practically all. No Round Table; no knights (though
+"Walgan, the king's nephew," is, of course, an early appearance of
+Gawain); none of the interesting difficulties about Arthur's
+succession: an entire absence of personal characteristics about
+Guinevere (even that peculiarity of hers which a French critic has
+politely described as her being "very subject to be carried off," and
+which already appears in Caradoc, being changed to a commonplace act
+of ambitious infidelity with Mordred): and, most remarkable of all, no
+Lancelot, and no Holy Grail.
+
+Nevertheless Geoffrey had, as it has been the fashion to say of late
+years, "set the heather on fire," and perhaps in no literary instance
+on record did the blaze spread and heighten itself with such
+extraordinary speed and intensity. His book must have been written a
+little before the middle of the twelfth century: by the end thereof
+the legend was, except for the embellishments and amplifications which
+the Middle Age was always giving, complete.
+
+[Sidenote: _How the Legend grew._]
+
+In the account of its probable origins and growth which follows
+nothing can be further from the writer's wish than to emulate the
+confident dogmatism of those who claim to have proved or disproved
+this or that fact or hypothesis. In the nature of the case proof is
+impossible; we cannot go further than probability. It is unfortunate
+that some of the disputants on this, as on other kindred subjects,
+have not more frequently remembered the admirable words of the
+greatest modern practitioner and though he lacked some more recent
+information, the shrewdest modern critic of romance itself.[45] I
+need only say that though I have not in the least borrowed from
+either, and though I make neither responsible for my views, these
+latter, as they are about to be stated, will be found most to resemble
+those of Sir Frederic Madden in England and M. Paulin Paris in
+France--the two critics who, coming after the age of wild guesswork
+and imperfect reading, and before that of a scholarship which,
+sometimes at least, endeavours to vindicate itself by innovation for
+the sake of innovation, certainly equalled, and perhaps exceeded, any
+others in their familiarity with the actual texts. With that
+familiarity, so far as MSS. go, I repeat that I do not pretend to vie.
+But long and diligent reading of the printed material, assisted by
+such critical lights as critical practice in more literatures than one
+or two for many years may give, has led me to the belief that when
+they agreed they were pretty sure to be right, and that when they
+differed, the authority of either was at least equal, as authority, to
+anything subsequent.
+
+[Footnote 45: "Both these subjects of discussion [authorship and
+performance of Romances] have been the source of great controversy
+among antiquaries--a class of men who, be it said with their
+forgiveness, are apt to be both positive and polemical upon the very
+points which are least susceptible of proof, and least valuable, if
+the truth could be ascertained."--Sir Walter Scott, "Essay on
+Romance," _Prose Works_, vi. 154.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Wace._]
+
+The known or reasonably inferred historical procession of the Legend
+is as follows. Before the middle of the twelfth century we have
+nothing that can be called a story. At almost that exact point (the
+subject of the dedication of the _Historia Britonum_ died in 1146)
+Geoffrey supplies the outlines of such a story. They were at once
+seized upon for filling in. Before many years two well-known writers
+had translated Geoffrey's Latin into French, another Geoffrey, Gaimar,
+and Wace of Jersey. Gaimar's _Brut_ (a title which in a short time
+became generic) has not come down to us: Wace's (written in 1155) has,
+and though there is, as yet, no special attention bestowed upon
+Arthur, the Arthurian part of the story shares the process of
+dilatation and amplification usual in the Middle Ages. The most
+important of these additions is the appearance of the Round Table.
+
+[Sidenote: _Layamon._]
+
+As Geoffrey fell into the hands of Wace, so did Wace fall into those
+of Layamon; but here the result is far more interesting, both for the
+history of the legend itself and for its connection with England. Not
+only did the priest of Ernley or Arley-on-Severn do the English tongue
+the inestimable service of introducing Arthur to it, not only did he
+write the most important book by far, both in size, in form, and in
+matter, that was written in English between the Conquest and the
+fourteenth century, but he added immensely to the actual legend. It is
+true that these additions still do not exactly give us the Arthur whom
+we know, for they still concern the wars with the Saxons and Romans
+chiefly. But if it were only that we find first[46] in Layamon the
+introduction of "elves" at Arthur's birth, and his conveyance by them
+at death in a magic boat to Queen "Argante" at Avalon, it would be
+almost enough. But there is much more. The Uther story is enlarged,
+and with it the appearances of Merlin; the foundation of the Round
+Table receives added attention; the voluntary yielding of Guinevere,
+here called Wenhaver, is insisted upon, and Gawain (Walwain) and
+Bedivere (Beduer) make their appearance. But there is still no
+Lancelot, and still no Grail.
+
+[Footnote 46: A caution may be necessary as to this word "first."
+Nearly all the dates are extremely uncertain, and it is highly
+probable that intermediate texts of great importance are lost, or not
+yet found. But Layamon gives us Wace as an authority, and this is not
+in Wace. See Madden's edition (London, 1847).]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Romances proper._]
+
+These additions, which on the one side gave the greatest part of the
+secular interest, on the other almost the whole of the mystical
+attraction, to the complete story, had, however, it seems probable,
+been actually added before Layamon wrote. For the date of the earlier
+version of his _Brut_ is put by the best authorities at not earlier
+than 1200, and it is also, according to such authorities, almost
+certain that the great French romances (which contain the whole legend
+with the exception of part of the Tristram story, and of hitherto
+untraced excursions like Malory's Beaumains) had been thrown into
+shape. But the origin, the authorship, and the order of _Merlin_ in
+its various forms, of the _Saint Graal_ and the _Quest_ for it, of
+_Lancelot_ and the _Mort Artus_,--these things are the centre of
+nearly all the disputes upon the subject.
+
+[Sidenote: _Walter Map._]
+
+A consensus of MS. authority ascribes the best and largest part of
+the _prose_ romances,[47] especially those dealing with Lancelot and
+the later fortunes of the Graal and the Round Table company, to no
+less a person than the famous Englishman Walter Mapes, or Map, the
+author of _De Nugis Curialium_, the reputed author (_v._ chap. i.) of
+divers ingenious Latin poems, friend of Becket, Archdeacon of Oxford,
+churchman, statesman, and wit. No valid reason whatever has yet been
+shown for questioning this attribution, especially considering the
+number, antiquity, and strength of the documents by which it is
+attested. Map's date (1137-96) is the right one; his abilities were
+equal to any literary performance; his evident familiarity with things
+Welsh (he seems to have been a Herefordshire man) would have informed
+him of Welsh tradition, if there was any, and the _De Nugis Curialium_
+shows us in him, side by side with a satirical and humorous bent, the
+leaning to romance and to the marvellous which only extremely shallow
+people believe to be alien from humour. But it is necessary for
+scholarship of the kind just referred to to be always devising some
+new thing. Frenchmen, Germans, and Celticising partisans have grudged
+an Englishman the glory of the exploit; and there has been of late a
+tendency to deny or slight Map's claims. His deposition, however,
+rests upon no solid argument, and though it would be exceedingly rash,
+considering the levity with which the copyists in mediaeval MSS.
+attributed authorship, to assert positively that Map wrote _Lancelot_,
+or the _Quest of the Saint Graal_, it may be asserted with the utmost
+confidence that it has not been proved that he did not.
+
+[Footnote 47: These, both Map's and Borron's (_v. infra_), with some
+of the verse forms connected with them, are in a very puzzling
+condition for study. M. Paulin Paris's book, above referred to,
+abstracts most of them; the actual texts, as far as published, are
+chiefly to be found in Hucher, _Le Saint Graal_ (3 vols., Le Mans,
+1875-78); in Michel's _Petit Saint Graal_ (Paris, 1841); in the
+_Merlin_ of MM. G. Paris and Ulrich (Paris, 1886). But _Lancelot_ and
+the later parts are practically inaccessible in any modern edition.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Robert de Borron._]
+
+The other claimant for the authorship of a main part of the story--in
+this case the Merlin part, and the long history of the Graal from the
+days of Joseph of Arimathea downwards--is a much more shadowy person,
+a certain Robert de Borron, a knight of the north of France. Nobody
+has much interest in disturbing Borron's claims, though they also have
+been attacked; and it is only necessary to say that there is not the
+slightest ground for supposing that he was an ancestor of Lord Byron,
+as was once very gratuitously done, the time when he was first heard
+of happening to coincide with the popularity of that poet.
+
+[Sidenote: _Chrestien de Troyes._]
+
+The third personage who is certainly or uncertainly connected by name
+with the original framework of the legend is again more substantial
+than Robert de Borron, though less so than Walter Map. As his surname,
+derived from his birthplace, indicates, Chrestien de Troyes was of
+Champenois extraction, thus belonging to the province which, with
+Normandy, contributed most to early French literature. And he seems to
+have been attached not merely to the court of his native prince, the
+Count of Champagne, but to those of the neighbouring Walloon lordships
+or principalities of Flanders and Hainault. Of his considerable work
+(all of it done, it would seem, before the end of the twelfth century)
+by far the larger part is Arthurian--the immense romance of _Percevale
+le Gallois_,[48] much of which, however, is the work of continuators;
+the interesting episode of the Lancelot saga, called _Le Chevalier a
+la Charette_; _Erec et Enide_, the story known to every one from Lord
+Tennyson's idyll; the _Chevalier au Lyon_, a Gawain legend; and
+_Cliges_, which is quite on the outside of the Arthurian group. All
+these works are written in octosyllabic couplets, particularly light
+and skipping, somewhat destitute of force and grip, but full of grace
+and charm. Of their contents more presently.
+
+[Footnote 48: Ed. Potvin, 6 vols., Mons, 1866-70. Dr Foerster has
+undertaken a complete Chrestien, of which the 2d and 3d vols. are
+_Yvain_ ("Le Chevalier au Lyon") and _Erec_ (Halle, 1887-90). _Le
+Chevalier a la Charette_ should be read in Dr Jonckbloet's invaluable
+parallel edition with the prose of _Lancelot_ (The Hague, 1850). On
+this last see M. G. Paris, _Romania_, xii. 459--an admirable paper,
+though I do not agree with it.]
+
+Next to the questions of authorship and of origin in point of
+difficulty come two others--"Which are the older: the prose or the
+verse romances?" and, "Was there a Latin original of the Graal story?"
+
+[Sidenote: _Prose or verse first?_]
+
+With regard to the first, it has long been laid down as a general
+axiom, and it is no doubt as a rule true, that prose is always later
+than verse, and that in mediaeval times especially the order is almost
+invariable. Verse; unrhymed and half-disrhythmed prose; prose pure and
+simple: that is what we find. For many reasons, however, drawn partly
+from the presumed age of the MSS. and partly from internal evidence,
+the earlier scholars who considered the Arthurian matter, especially
+M. Paulin Paris, came to the conclusion that here the prose romances
+were, if not universally, yet for the most part, the earlier. And
+this, though it is denied by M. Paris's equally learned son, still
+seems the more probable opinion. For, in the first place, by this time
+prose, though not in a very advanced condition, was advanced enough
+not to make it absolutely necessary for it to lag behind verse, as had
+been the case with the _chansons de geste_. And in the second place,
+while the prose romances are far more comprehensive than the verse,
+the age of the former seems to be beyond question such that there
+could be no need, time, or likelihood for the reduction to a general
+prose summary of separate verse originals, while the separate verse
+episodes are very easily intelligible as developed from parts of the
+prose original.[49]
+
+[Footnote 49: The parallel edition, above referred to, of the
+_Chevalier a la Charette_ and the corresponding prose settled this in
+my mind long ago; and though I have been open to unsettlement since, I
+have not been unsettled. The most unlucky instance of that
+over-positiveness to which I have referred above is M. Cledat's
+statement that "nous savons" that the prose romances are later than
+the verse. We certainly do not "know" this any more than we know the
+contrary. There is important authority both ways; there is fair
+argument both ways; but the positive evidence which alone can turn
+opinion into knowledge has not been produced, and probably does not
+exist.]
+
+[Sidenote: _A Latin Graal-book._]
+
+With regard to the Latin Graal-book, the testimony of the romances
+themselves is formal enough as to its existence. But no trace of it
+has been found, and its loss, if it existed, is contrary to all
+probability. For _ex hypothesi_ (and if we take one part of the
+statement we must take the rest) it was not a recent composition, but
+a document, whether of miraculous origin or not, of considerable age.
+Why it should only at this time have come to light, why it should have
+immediately perished, and why none of the persons who took interest
+enough in it to turn it into the vernacular should have transmitted
+his copy to posterity, are questions difficult, or rather impossible,
+to answer. But here, again, the wise critic will not peremptorily
+deny. He will say that there _may_ be a Latin Graal-book, and that
+when that book is produced, and stands the test of examination, he
+will believe in it; but that until it appears he will be contented
+with the French originals of the end of the twelfth century. Of the
+characteristic and probable origins of the Graal story itself, as of
+those of the larger Legend of which it forms a part, it will be time
+enough to speak when we have first given an account of the general
+history as it took shape, probably before the twelfth century had
+closed, certainly very soon after the thirteenth had opened. For the
+whole Legend--even excluding the numerous ramifications into
+independent or semi-independent _romans d'aventures_--is not found in
+any single book or compilation. The most extensive, and by far the
+best, that of our own Malory, is very late, extremely though far from
+unwisely eclectic, and adjusted to the presumed demands of readers,
+and to the certain existence in the writer of a fine literary sense of
+fitness. It would be trespassing on the rights of a future contributor
+to say much directly of Malory; but it must be said here that in what
+he omits, as well as in his treatment of what he inserts, he shows
+nothing short of genius. Those who call him a mere, or even a bad,
+compiler, either have not duly considered the matter or speak
+unhappily.
+
+But before we go further it may be well also to say a word on the
+Welsh stories, which, though now admitted to be in their present form
+later than the Romances, are still regarded as possible originals by
+some.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Mabinogion._]
+
+It would hardly be rash to rest the question of the Celtic origin, in
+any but the most remote and partial sense, of the Arthurian Romances
+on the _Mabinogion_[50] alone. The posteriority of these as we have
+them need not be too much dwelt upon. We need not even lay great
+stress on what I believe to be a fact not likely to be disputed by
+good critics, that the reading of the French and the Welsh-English
+versions one after the other, no matter in what order they be taken,
+will leave something more than an impression that the French is the
+direct original of the Welsh, and that the Welsh, in anything at all
+like its present form, could not by any possibility be the original of
+the French. The test to which I refer is this. Let any one read, with
+as open a mind as he can procure, the three Welsh-French or
+French-Welsh romances of _Yvain-Owain_, _Erec-Geraint_, and
+_Percivale-Peredur_, and then turn to those that are certainly and
+purely Celtic, _Kilhwch and Olwen_, the _Dream of Rhiabwy_ (both of
+these Arthurian after a fashion, though quite apart from our Arthurian
+Legend), and the fourfold _Mabinogi_, which tells the adventures of
+Rhiannon and those of Math ap Matholwy. I cannot conceive this being
+done by any one without his feeling that he has passed from one world
+into another entirely different,--that the two classes of story simply
+_cannot_ by any possibility be, in any more than the remotest
+suggestion, the work of the same people, or have been produced under
+the same literary covenant.
+
+[Footnote 50: Translated by Lady Charlotte Guest, 2d ed., London,
+1877.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Legend itself._]
+
+Let us now turn to the Legend itself. The story which ends in Avalon
+begins in Jerusalem. For though the Graal-legends are undoubtedly
+later additions to whatever may have been the original Arthurian
+saga--seeing that we find nothing of them in the early Welsh
+traditions, nothing in Nennius, nothing in Geoffrey, nothing even in
+Wace or Layamon--yet such is the skill with which the unknown or
+uncertain authors have worked them into the legend that the whole
+makes one indivisible romance. Yet (as the untaught genius of Malory
+instinctively perceived) when the Graal-story on the one hand, and the
+loves of Lancelot and Guinevere with which it is connected on the
+other, came in, they made comparatively otiose and uninteresting the
+wars with Saxons and Romans, which in the earlier Legend had occupied
+almost the whole room. And accordingly these wars, which still hold a
+very large part of the field in the _Merlin_, drop out to some extent
+later. The whole cycle consists practically of five parts, each of
+which in almost all cases exists in divers forms, and more than one of
+which overlaps and is overlapped by one or more of the others. These
+five are _Merlin_, the _Saint-Graal_, _Lancelot_, the _Quest of the
+Saint-Graal_, and the _Death of Arthur_. Each of the first two pairs
+intertwines with the other: the last, _Mort Artus_, completes them
+all, and thus its title was not improperly used in later times to
+designate the whole Legend.
+
+[Sidenote: _The story of Joseph of Arimathea._]
+
+The starting-point of the whole, in time and incident, is the supposed
+revenge of the Jews on Joseph of Arimathea for the part he has taken
+in the burial of our Lord. He is thrown into prison and remains there
+(miraculously comforted, so that the time seems to him but as a day or
+two) till delivered by Titus. Then he and certain more or less
+faithful Christians set out in charge of the Holy Graal, which has
+served for the Last Supper, which holds Christ's blood, and which is
+specially under the guardianship of Joseph's son, the Bishop
+"Josephes," to seek foreign lands, and a home for the Holy Vessel.
+After a long series of the wildest adventures, in which the
+personages, whose names are known rather mistily to readers of Malory
+only--King Evelake, Naciens, and others--appear fully, and in which
+many marvels take place, the company, or the holier survivors of them,
+are finally settled in Britain. Here the imprudence of Evelake (or
+Mordrains) causes him to receive the "dolorous stroke," from which
+none but his last descendant, Galahad, is to recover him fully. The
+most striking of all these adventures, related in various forms in
+other parts of the Legend, is the sojourn of Naciens on a desert
+island, where he is tempted of the devil; while a very great part is
+played throughout by the Legend of the Three Trees, which in
+successive ages play their part in the Fall, in the first origin of
+mankind according to natural birth, not creation, in the building of
+the Temple, and in the Passion. This later legend, a wild but very
+beautiful one, dominated the imagination of English mediaeval writers
+very particularly, and is fully developed, apart from its Arthurian
+use, in the vast and interesting miscellany of the _Cursor Mundi_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Merlin._]
+
+But when the Graal and its guardians have been safely established upon
+English soil, the connection of the legend with the older and, so to
+speak, historical Arthurian traditions, is effected by means of
+Merlin, in a manner at least ingenious if not very direct. The results
+of the Passion, and especially the establishment on earth of a
+Christian monarchy with a sort of palladium in the Saint-Graal,
+greatly disturb the equanimity of the infernal regions; and a council
+is held to devise counter-policy. It occurs apparently that as this
+discomfiture has come by means of the union of divine and human
+natures, it can be best opposed by a union of human and diabolic: and
+after some minor proceedings a seductive devil is despatched to play
+incubus to the last and chastest daughter of a _prud'homme_, who has
+been driven to despair and death by previous satanic attacks. The
+attempt is successful in a way; but as the victim keeps her chastity
+of intention and mind, not only is she herself saved from the legal
+consequences of the matter, but her child when born is the celebrated
+Merlin, a being endowed with supernatural power and knowledge, and not
+always scrupulous in the use of them, but always on the side of the
+angels rather than of his paternal kinsfolk. A further and more
+strictly literary connection is effected by attributing the knowledge
+of the Graal history to his information, conveyed to his master and
+pupil Blaise, who writes it (as well as the earlier adventures at
+least of the Arthurian era proper) from Merlin's dictation or report.
+
+For some time the various Merlin stories follow Geoffrey in recounting
+the adventures of the prophetic child in his youth, with King
+Vortigern and others. But he is soon brought (again in accordance with
+Geoffrey) into direct responsibility for Arthur, by his share in the
+wooing of Igraine. For it is to be observed that--and not in this
+instance only--though there is usually some excuse for him, Merlin is
+in these affairs more commonly occupied in making two lovers happy
+than in attending to the strict dictates of morality. And
+thenceforward till his inclusion in his enchanted prison (an affair in
+which it is proper to say that the earliest versions give a much more
+favourable account of the conduct and motives of the heroine than that
+which Malory adopted, and which Tennyson for purposes of poetic
+contrast blackened yet further) he plays the part of adviser,
+assistant, and good enchanter generally to Arthur and Arthur's
+knights. He in some stories directly procures, and in all confirms,
+the seating of Arthur on his father's throne; he brings the king's
+nephews, Gawain and the rest, to assist their uncle, in some cases
+against their own fathers; he presides over the foundation of the
+Round Table, and brings about the marriage of Guinevere and Arthur; he
+assists, sometimes by actual force of arms, sometimes as head of the
+intelligence department, sometimes by simple gramarye, in the
+discomfiture not merely of the rival and rebel kinglets, but of the
+Saxons and Romans. As has been said, Malory later thought proper to
+drop the greater part of this latter business (including the
+interminable fights round the _Roche aux Saisnes_ or Saxon rock). And
+he also discarded a curious episode which makes a great figure in the
+original _Merlin_, the tale of the "false Guinevere," a foster-sister,
+namesake, and counterpart of the true princess, who is nearly
+substituted for Guinevere herself on her bridal night, and who later
+usurps for a considerable time the place and rights of the queen. For
+it cannot be too often repeated that Arthur, not even in Malory a
+"blameless king" by any means, is in the earlier and original versions
+still less blameless, especially in the article of faithfulness to his
+wife.
+
+We do not, however, in the _Merlin_ group proper get any tidings of
+Lancelot, though Lucan, Kay, Bedivere, and others, as well as Gawain
+and the other sons of Lot, make their appearance, and the Arthurian
+court and _regime_, as we imagine it with the Round Table, is already
+constituted. It is to be observed that in the earlier versions there
+is even a sharp rivalry between the "Round Table" proper and the
+"Queen's" or younger knights. But this subsides, and the whole is
+centred at Camelot, with the realm (until Mordred's treachery) well
+under control, and with a constant succession of adventures,
+culminating in the greatest of all, the Quest of the Graal or Sangreal
+itself. Although there are passages of great beauty, the excessive
+mysticism, the straggling conduct of the story, and the extravagant
+praise of virginity in and for itself, in the early Graal history,
+have offended some readers. In the _Merlin_ proper the incompleteness,
+the disproportionate space given to mere kite-and-crow fighting, and
+the defect of love-interest, undoubtedly show themselves. Although
+Merlin was neither by extraction nor taste likely to emulate the
+almost ferocious horror of human affection entertained by Robert de
+Borron (if Robert de Borron it was), the authors of his history,
+except in the version of his own fatal passion, above referred to,
+have touched the subject with little grace or charm. And while the
+great and capital tragedies of Lancelot and Guinevere, of Tristram and
+Iseult, are wholly lacking, there is an equal lack of such minor
+things as the episodes of Lancelot and the two Elaines, of Pelleas and
+the Lady of the Lake, and many others. Nor is this lack compensated by
+the stories of the incestuous (though on neither side consciously
+incestuous, and on the queen's quite innocent) adventure of Arthur
+with his sister Margause, of the exceedingly unromantic wooing of
+Morgane le Fee, and of the warlock-planned intercourse of King Ban
+and the mother of Lancelot.
+
+[Sidenote: _Lancelot._]
+
+Whether it was Walter Map, or Chrestien de Troyes, or both, or
+neither, to whom the glory of at once completing and exalting the
+story is due, I at least have no pretension to decide. Whosoever did
+it, if he did it by himself, was a very great man indeed--a man second
+only to Dante among the men of the Middle Age. Even if it was done by
+an irregular company of men, each patching and piecing the others'
+efforts, the result shows a marvellous "wind of the spirit" abroad and
+blowing on that company. As before, the reader of Malory only, though
+he has nearly all the best things, has not quite all even of those,
+and is without a considerable number of things not quite the best, but
+good. The most difficult to justify of the omissions of Sir Thomas is
+the early history of the loves of Guinevere and Lancelot, when the
+knight was introduced to the queen by Galahault the haughty
+prince--"Galeotto," as he appears in the most universally known
+passage of Dante himself. Not merely that unforgettable association,
+but the charm and grace of the original passage, as well as the
+dramatic and ethical justification, so to speak, of the fatal passion
+which wrecked at once Lancelot's quest and Arthur's kingdom, combine
+to make us regret this exclusion. But Malory's genius was evidently
+rather an unconscious than a definitely critical one. And though the
+exquisite felicity of his touch in detail is established once for all
+by comparing his prose narratives of the Passing of Arthur and the
+parting of Lancelot and the queen with the verse[51] from which he
+almost beyond question directly took both, he must sometimes have been
+bewildered by the mass of material from which he had to select, and
+may not always have included or excluded with equally unerring
+judgment.
+
+[Footnote 51: _Le Morte Arthur_ (ed. Furnivall, London, 1864), l. 3400
+_sqq._]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Legend becomes dramatic._]
+
+We have seen that in the original story of Geoffrey the treason of
+Mordred and the final scenes take place while Arthur is warring
+against the Romans, very shortly after he has established his
+sovereignty in the Isle of Britain. Walter, or Chrestien, or whoever
+it was, saw that such a waste of good romantic material could never be
+tolerated. The romance is never--it has not been even in the hands of
+its most punctilious modern practitioners--very observant of miserable
+_minutiae_ of chronology; and after all, it was reasonable that
+Arthur's successes should give him some considerable enjoyment of his
+kingdom. It will not do to scrutinise too narrowly, or we should have
+to make Arthur a very old man at his death, and Guinevere a lady too
+elderly to leave any excuse for her proceedings, in order to
+accommodate the birth of Lancelot (which happened, according to the
+_Merlin_, after the king came to the throne), the birth of Lancelot's
+son Galahad, Galahad's life till even the early age of fifteen, when
+knighthood was then given, the Quest of the Sangreal itself, and the
+subsequent breaking out of Mordred's rebellion, consequent upon the
+war between Lancelot and Arthur after the deaths of Agravain and
+Gareth. But the allowance of a golden age of comparatively quiet
+sovereignty, of feasts and joustings at Camelot, and Caerleon, and
+Carlisle, of adventures major and minor, and of the great Graal-quest,
+is but a moderate demand for any romancer to make. At any rate, he or
+they made it, and justified the demand amply by the result. The
+contents of the central Arthurian story thus elaborated may be divided
+into four parts: 1. The miscellaneous adventures of the several
+knights, the king himself sometimes taking share in them. 2. Those of
+Sir Tristram, of which more presently. 3. The Quest of the Sangreal.
+4. The Death of Arthur.
+
+[Sidenote: _Stories of Gawain and other knights._]
+
+Taking these in order, the first, which is the largest in bulk, is
+also, and necessarily, the most difficult to summarise in short space.
+It is sometimes said that the prominent figure in the earlier stories
+is Gawain, who is afterwards by some spite or caprice dethroned in
+favour of Lancelot. This is not quite exact, for the bulk of the
+Lancelot legends being, as has been said, anterior to the end of the
+twelfth century, is much older than the bulk of the Gawain romances,
+which, owing their origin to English, and especially to northern,
+patriotism, do not seem to date earlier than the thirteenth or even
+the fourteenth. But it is true that Gawain, as we have seen, makes an
+appearance, though no very elaborate one, in the most ancient forms of
+the legend itself, where we hear nothing of Lancelot; and also that
+his appearances in _Merlin_ do not bear anything like the contrast
+(similar to that afterwards developed in the Iberian romance-cycle as
+between Galaor and Amadis) which other authorities make between him
+and Lancelot.[52] Generally speaking, the knights are divisible into
+three classes. First there are the older knights, from Ulfius (who had
+even taken part in the expedition which cheated Igraine) and Antor,
+down to Bedivere, Lucan, and the most famous of this group, Sir Kay,
+who, alike in older and in later versions, bears the uniform character
+of a disagreeable person, not indeed a coward, though of prowess not
+equal to his attempts and needs; but a boaster, envious, spiteful, and
+constantly provoking by his tongue incidents in which his hands do not
+help him out quite sufficiently.[53] Then there is the younger and
+main body, of whom Lancelot and Gawain (still keeping Tristram apart)
+are the chiefs; and lastly the outsiders, whether the "felon" knights
+who are at internecine, or the mere foreigners who are in friendly,
+antagonism with the knights of the "Rowntabull."
+
+[Footnote 52: Since I wrote this passage I have learnt with pleasure
+that there is a good chance of the whole of the Gawain romances,
+English and foreign, being examined together by a very competent hand,
+that of Mr I. Gollancz of Christ's College, Cambridge.]
+
+[Footnote 53: The Welsh passages relating to Kay seem to be older than
+most others.]
+
+Of these the chief are Sir Palomides or Palamedes (a gallant Saracen,
+who is Tristram's unlucky rival for the affections of Iseult, while
+his special task is the pursuit of the Questing Beast, a symbol of
+Slander), and Tristram himself.
+
+[Sidenote: _Sir Tristram._]
+
+The appearance of this last personage in the Legend is one of the most
+curious and interesting points in it. Although on this, as on every
+one of such points, the widest diversity of opinion prevails, an
+impartial examination of the texts perhaps enables us to obtain some
+tolerably clear views on the subject--views which are helpful not
+merely with reference to the "Tristan-saga" itself, but with reference
+to the origins and character of the whole Legend.[54] There cannot, I
+think, be a doubt that the Tristram story originally was quite
+separate from that of Arthur. In the first place, Tristram has nothing
+whatever to do with that patriotic and national resistance to the
+Saxon invader which, though it died out in the later legend, was the
+centre, and indeed almost reached the circumference, of the earlier.
+In the second, except when he is directly brought to Arthur's court,
+all Tristram's connections are with Cornwall, Brittany, Ireland, not
+with that more integral and vaster part of _la bloie Bretagne_ which
+extends from Somerset and Dorset to the Lothians. When he appears
+abroad, it is as a Varangian at Constantinople, not in the train of
+Arthur fighting against Romans. Again, the religious part of the
+story, which is so important in the developed Arthurian Legend proper,
+is almost entirely absent from the Tristram-tale, and the subject
+which played the fourth part in mediaeval affections and interests
+with love, religion, and fighting--the chase--takes in the Tristram
+romances the place of religion itself.
+
+[Footnote 54: Editions: the French _Tristan_, edited long ago by F.
+Michel, but in need of completion; the English _Sir Tristrem_ in
+Scott's well-known issue, and re-edited (Heilbronn, 1882), with
+excellent taste as well as learning, by Dr Koelbing, who has also given
+the late Icelandic version, as well as for the Scottish Text Society
+(Edinburgh, 1886) by Mr George P. McNeill; Gottfried of Strasburg's
+German (_v._ chap. vi.), ed. Bechstein (Leipzig, 1890). _Romania_, v.
+xv. (1886), contains several essays on the Tristram story.]
+
+[Sidenote: _His story almost certainly Celtic._]
+
+But the most interesting, though the most delicate, part of the
+inquiry concerns the attitude of this episode or branch to love, and
+the conclusion to be drawn as well from that attitude as from the
+local peculiarities above noticed, as to the national origin of
+Tristram on the one hand, and of the Arthur story on the other. It has
+been said that Tristram's connections with what may be roughly called
+Britain at large--_i.e._, the British Islands _plus_ Brittany--are,
+except in his visits to Arthur's court, entirely with the Celtic
+parts--Cornwall, Ireland, Armorica--less with Wales, which plays a
+strangely small part in the Arthurian romances generally. This would
+of itself give a fair presumption that the Tristram story is more
+purely, or at any rate more directly, Celtic than the rest. But it so
+happens that in the love of Tristram and Iseult, and the revenge and
+general character of Mark, there is also a suffusion of colour and
+tone which is distinctly Celtic. The more recent advocates for the
+Celtic origin of romance in general, and the Arthurian legend in
+particular, have relied very strongly upon the character of the love
+adventures in these compositions as being different from those of
+classical story, different from those of Frankish, Teutonic, and
+Scandinavian romance; but, as it seems to them, like what has been
+observed of the early native poetry of Wales, and still more (seeing
+that the indisputable texts are older) of Ireland.
+
+A discussion of this kind is perhaps more than any other _periculosae
+plenum opus aleae_; but it is too important to be neglected. Taking the
+character of the early Celtic, and especially the Irish, heroine as it
+is given by her champions--a process which obviates all accusations of
+misunderstanding that might be based on the present writer's
+confession that of the Celtic texts alone he has to speak at
+second-hand--it seems to me beyond question that both the Iseults,
+Iseult of Ireland and Iseult of Brittany, approach much nearer to this
+type than does Guinevere, or the Lady of the Lake, or the damsel
+Lunete, or any of Arthur's sisters, even Morgane, or, to take earlier
+examples, Igraine and Merlin's love. So too the peculiar spitefulness
+of Mark, and his singular mixture of tolerance and murderous purpose
+towards Tristram[55] are much more Celtic than Anglo-French: as indeed
+is the curious absence of religiosity before noted, which extends to
+Iseult as well as to Tristram. We have no trace in Mark's queen of the
+fact or likelihood of any such final repentance as is shown by
+Arthur's: and though the complete and headlong self-abandonment of
+Iseult is excused to some extent by the magic potion, it is of an
+"all-for-love-and-the-world-well-lost" kind which finds no exact
+parallel elsewhere in the legend. So too, whether it seem more or less
+amiable, the half-coquettish jealousy of Guinevere in regard to
+Lancelot is not Celtic: while the profligate vindictiveness
+attributed to her in _Sir Launfal_, and only in _Sir Launfal_, an
+almost undoubtedly Celtic offshoot of the Arthurian Legend, is equally
+alien from her character. We see Iseult planning the murder of
+Brengwain with equal savagery and ingratitude, and we feel that it is
+no libel. On the other hand, though Tristram's faithfulness is
+proverbial, it is an entirely different kind of faithfulness from that
+of Lancelot--flightier, more passionate perhaps in a way, but of a
+less steady passion. Lancelot would never have married Iseult the
+White-handed.
+
+[Footnote 55: It is fair to say that Mark, like Gawain, appears to
+have gone through a certain process of blackening at the hands of the
+late romancers; but the earliest story invited this.]
+
+It is, however, quite easy to understand how, this Tristram legend
+existing by hypothesis already or being created at the same time, the
+curious centripetal and agglutinative tendency of mediaeval romance
+should have brought it into connection with that of Arthur. The mere
+fact of Mark's being a vassal-king of Greater Britain would have been
+reason enough; but the parallel between the prowess of Lancelot and
+Tristram, and between their loves for the two queens, was altogether
+too tempting to be resisted. So Tristram makes his appearance in
+Arthur's court, and as a knight of the Round Table, but as not exactly
+at home there,--as a visitor, an "honorary member" rather than
+otherwise, and only an occasional partaker of the home tournaments and
+the adventures abroad which occupy Arthur's knights proper.
+
+[Sidenote: _Sir Lancelot._]
+
+The origin of the greatest of these, of Lancelot himself, is less
+distinct. Since the audacious imaginativeness of the late M. de la
+Villemarque, which once, I am told, brought upon him the epithet
+"_Faussaire!_" uttered in full conclave of Breton antiquaries, has
+ceased to be taken seriously by Arthurian students, the old fancies
+about some Breton "Ancel" or "Ancelot" have been quietly dropped. But
+the Celticisers still cling fondly to the supposed possibility of
+derivation from King Melvas, or King Maelgon, one or other of whom
+does seem to have been connected, as above mentioned, by early Welsh
+tradition with the abduction of the queen. It is, however, evident to
+any reader of the _Charette_ episode, whether in the original French
+prose and verse or in Malory, that Meleagraunce the ravisher and
+Lancelot the avenger cannot have the same original. I should myself
+suppose Lancelot to have been a directly and naturally spontaneous
+literary growth. The necessity of a love-interest for the Arthurian
+story being felt, and, according to the manner of the time, it being
+felt with equal strength that the lover must not be the husband, it
+was needful to look about for some one else. The merely business-like
+self-surrender to Mordred as the king _de facto_, to the "lips that
+were near," of Geoffrey's Guanhumara and Layamon's Wenhaver, was out
+of the question; and the part of Gawain as a faithful nephew was too
+well settled already by tradition for it to be possible to make him
+the lover. Perhaps the great artistic stroke in the whole Legend, and
+one of the greatest in all literature, is the concoction of a hero who
+should be not only
+
+    "Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave,"
+
+but more heroic than Paris and more interesting than Hector,--not only
+a "greatest knight," but at once the sinful lover of his queen and the
+champion who should himself all but achieve, and in the person of his
+son actually achieve, the sacred adventure of the Holy Graal. If, as
+there seems no valid reason to disbelieve, the hitting upon this idea,
+and the invention or adoption of Lancelot to carry it out, be the work
+of Walter Mapes, then Walter Mapes is one of the great novelists of
+the word, and one of the greatest of them. If it was some unknown
+person (it could hardly be Chrestien, for in Chrestien's form the
+Graal interest belongs to Percevale, not to Lancelot or Galahad), then
+the same compliment must be paid to that person unknown. Meanwhile the
+conception and execution of Lancelot, to whomsoever they may be due,
+are things most happy. Entirely free from the faultlessness which is
+the curse of the classical hero; his unequalled valour not seldom
+rewarded only by reverses; his merits redeemed from mawkishness by his
+one great fault, yet including all virtues that are themselves most
+amiable, and deformed by no vice that is actually loathsome; the soul
+of goodness in him always warring with his human frailty;--Sir
+Lancelot fully deserves the noble funeral eulogy pronounced over his
+grave, and felt by all the elect to be, in both senses, one of the
+first of all extant pieces of perfect English prose.
+
+[Sidenote: _The minor knights._]
+
+But the virtues which are found in Lancelot eminently are found in all
+but the "felon" knights, differing only in degree. It is true that the
+later romances and compilations, feeling perhaps the necessity of
+shade, extend to all the sons of Lot and Margause, except Gareth, and
+to some extent Gawain, the unamiable character which Mordred enjoys
+throughout, and which even in the _Merlin_ is found showing itself in
+Agravaine. But Sir Lamoracke, their victim, is almost Lancelot's
+equal: and the best of Lancelot's kin, especially Sir Bors, come not
+far behind. It is entirely untrue that, as the easy epigram has it,
+they all "hate their neighbour and love their neighbour's wife." On
+the contrary, except in the bad subjects--ranging from the mere
+ruffianism of Breuse-sans-Pitie to the misconduct of Meleagraunce--there
+is no hatred of your neighbour anywhere. It is not hatred of your
+neighbour to be prepared to take and give hard blows from and to him,
+and to forgather in faith and friendship before and after. And as to
+the other and more delicate point, a large majority of the knights can
+at worst claim the benefit of the law laid down by a very pious but
+indulgent mediaeval writer,[56] who says that if men will only not
+meddle with "spouse or sib" (married women or connections within the
+prohibited degrees), it need be no such deadly matter.
+
+[Footnote 56: _Cursor Mundi_, l. 2898.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Arthur._]
+
+It may be desirable, as it was in reference to Charlemagne, to say a
+few words as to Arthur himself. In both cases there is noticeable
+(though less in the case of Arthur than in that of Charlemagne) the
+tendency _not_ to make the king blameless, or a paragon of prowess:
+and in both cases, as we should expect, this tendency is even more
+noticeable in the later versions than in the earlier. This may have
+been partly due to the aristocratic spirit of at least idealised
+feudalism, which gave the king no semi-divine character, but merely a
+human primacy _inter pares_; partly also to the literary instinct of
+the Middle Ages, which had discovered that the "biggest" personage of
+a story is by no means that one who is most interesting. In Arthur's
+very first literary appearance, the Nennius passage, his personal
+prowess is specially dwelt upon: and in those parts of the _Merlin_
+group which probably represent the first step from Geoffrey to the
+complete legend, he slays Saxons and Romans, wrests the sword
+single-handed from King Ryaunce, and so forth, as valiantly as Gawain
+himself. It is, however, curious that at this time the writers are
+much less careful than at a later to represent him as faithful to
+Guinevere, and blameless before marriage, with the exception of the
+early affair with Margause. He accepts the false Guinevere and the
+Saxon enchantress very readily; and there is other scandal in which
+the complaisant Merlin as usual figures. But in the accepted Arthuriad
+(I do not of course speak of modern writers) this is rather kept in
+the background, while his prowess is also less prominent, except in a
+few cases, such as his great fight with his sister's lover, Sir
+Accolon. Even here he never becomes the complaisant wittol, which late
+and rather ignoble works like the _Cokwold's Daunce_[57] represent him
+as being: and he never exhibits the slightest approach to the
+outbursts of almost imbecile wrath which characterise Charlemagne.
+
+[Footnote 57: Printed by Hartshorne, _Ancient Metrical Tales_ (London,
+1829), p. 209; and Hazlitt, _Early Popular Poetry_ (London, 1864), i.
+38.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Guinevere._]
+
+Something has been said of Guinevere already. It is perhaps hard to
+look, as any English reader of our time must, backward through the
+coloured window of the greatest of the _Idylls of the King_ without
+our thoughts of the queen being somewhat affected by it. But those who
+knew their Malory before the _Idylls_ appeared escape that danger. Mr
+Morris's Guinevere in her _Defence_ is perhaps a little truer than
+Lord Tennyson's to the original conception--indeed, much of the
+delightful volume in which she first appeared is pure _Extrait
+Arthurien_. But the Tennysonian glosses on Guinevere's character are
+not ill justified: though perhaps, if less magnificent, it would have
+been truer, both to the story and to human nature, to attribute her
+fall rather to the knowledge that Arthur himself was by no means
+immaculate than to a despairing sense of his immaculateness. The
+Guinevere of the original romances is the first perfectly human woman
+in English literature. They have ennobled her unfaithfulness to Arthur
+by her constancy to Lancelot, they have saved her constancy to
+Lancelot from being insipid by interspersing the gusts of jealousy in
+the matter of the two Elaines which play so great a part in the story.
+And it is curious that, coarse as both the manners and the speech of
+the Middle Ages are supposed to have been, the majority of these
+romances are curiously free from coarseness. The ideas might shock
+Ascham's prudery, but the expression is, with the rarest exceptions,
+scrupulously adapted to polite society. There are one or two coarse
+passages in the _Merlin_ and the older _Saint Graal_, and I remember
+others in outside branches like the _Chevalier as Deux Espees_. But
+though a French critic has detected something shocking in _Le
+Chevalier a la Charette_, it requires curious consideration to follow
+him.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Graal._]
+
+The part which the Holy Graal plays in the legend generally is not the
+least curious or interesting feature of the whole. As has been already
+said more than once, it makes no figure at all in the earliest
+versions: and it is consistent with this, as well as with the general
+theory and procedure of romance, that when it does appear the
+development of the part played by it is conducted on two more or less
+independent lines, which, however, the later compilers at least do not
+seem to think mutually exclusive. With the usual reserves as to the
+impossibility of pronouncing with certainty on the exact order of the
+additions to this wonderful structure of legend, it may be said to be
+probable, on all available considerations of literary probability,
+that of the two versions of the Graal story--that in which Percival is
+the hero of the Quest, and that in which Galahad occupies that
+place--the former is the earlier. According to this, which commended
+itself especially to the French and German handlers of the story,[58]
+the Graal Quest lies very much outside the more intimate concerns of
+the Arthurian court and the realm of Britain. Indeed, in the latest
+and perhaps greatest of this school, Wolfram von Eschenbach (_v._
+chap. vi.), the story wanders off into uttermost isles of fancy, quite
+remote from the proper Arthurian centres. It may perhaps be conceded
+that this development is in more strict accordance with what we may
+suppose and can partly perceive to have been the original and almost
+purely mystical conception of the Graal as entertained by Robert de
+Borron, or another--the conception in which all earthly, even wedded,
+love is of the nature of sin, and according to which the perfect
+knight is only an armed monk, converting the heathen and resisting the
+temptations of the devil, the world, and more particularly the flesh;
+diversifying his wars and preachings only or mainly by long mystical
+visions of sacred history as it presented itself to mediaeval
+imagination. It is true that the genius of Wolfram has not a little
+coloured and warmed this chilly ideal: but the story is still
+conducted rather afar from general human interest, and very far off
+indeed from the special interests of Arthur.
+
+[Footnote 58: And contrariwise the Welsh _Peredur_ (_Mabinogion_, _ed.
+cit._, 81) has only a possible allusion to the Graal story, while the
+English _Sir Percivale_ (_Thornton Romances_, ed. Halliwell, Camden
+Society, 1844) omits even this.]
+
+[Sidenote: _How it perfects the story._]
+
+Another genius, that of Walter Map (by hypothesis, as before),
+described and worked out different capabilities in the story. By the
+idea, simple, like most ideas of genius, of making Lancelot, the
+father, at once the greatest knight of the Arimathean lineage, and
+unable perfectly to achieve the Quest by reason of his sin, and
+Galahad the son, inheritor of his prowess but not of his weakness, he
+has at once secured the success of the Quest in sufficient accordance
+with the original idea and the presence of abundant purely romantic
+interest as well. And at the same time by connecting the sin which
+disqualifies Lancelot with the catastrophe of Arthur, and the
+achieving of the Quest itself with the weakening and breaking up of
+the Round Table (an idea insisted upon no doubt, by Tennyson, but
+existent in the originals), a dramatic and romantic completeness has
+been given to the whole cycle which no other collection of mediaeval
+romances possesses, and which equals, if it does not exceed, that of
+any of the far more apparently regular epics of literary history. It
+appears, indeed, to have been left for Malory to adjust and bring out
+the full epic completeness of the legend: but the materials, as it was
+almost superfluous for Dr Sommer to show by chapter and verse, were
+all ready to his hand. And if (as that learned if not invariably
+judicious scholar thinks) there is or once was somewhere a _Suite_ of
+Lancelot corresponding to the _Suite de Merlin_ of which Sir Thomas
+made such good use, it is not improbable that we should find the
+adjustment, though not the expression, to some extent anticipated.
+
+[Sidenote: _Nature of this perfection._]
+
+At any rate, the idea is already to hand in the original romances of
+our present period; and a wonderfully great and perfect idea it is.
+Not the much and justly praised arrangement and poetical justice of
+the Oresteia or of the story of Oedipus excel the Arthuriad in what
+used to be called "propriety" (which has nothing to do with
+prudishness), while both are, as at least it seems to me, far
+inferior in varied and poignant interest. That the attainment of the
+Graal, the healing of the maimed king, and the fulfilling of the other
+"weirds" which have lain upon the race of Joseph, should practically
+coincide with the termination of that glorious reign, with which fate
+and metaphysical aid had connected them, is one felicity. The
+"dolorous death and departing out of this world" in Lyonnesse and
+elsewhere corresponds to and completes the triumph of Sarras. From yet
+another point of view, the bringing into judgment of all the
+characters and their deeds is equally complete, equally natural and
+unforced. It is astonishing that men like Ascham,[59] unless blinded
+by a survival of mediaeval or a foreshadowing of Puritan prudery,
+should have failed to see that the morality of the _Morte d'Arthur_ is
+as rigorous as it is unsqueamish. Guinevere in her cloister and
+Lancelot in his hermitage, Arthur falling by (or at any rate in battle
+against) the fruit of his incestuous intercourse--these are not
+exactly encouragements to vice: while at the same time the earlier
+history may be admitted to have nothing of a crabbed and jejune
+virtue.
+
+[Footnote 59: This curious outburst, referred to before, may be found
+in the _Schoolmaster_, ed. Arber, p. 80, or ed. Giles, _Works of
+Ascham_, iii. 159.]
+
+But this conclusion, with the minor events which lead up to it, is
+scarcely less remarkable as exhibiting in the original author, whoever
+he was, a sense of art, a sense of finality, the absence of which is
+the great blot on Romance at large, owing to the natural, the human,
+but the very inartistic, craving for sequels. As is well known, it was
+the most difficult thing in the world for a mediaeval romancer to let
+his subject go. He must needs take it up from generation to
+generation; and the interminable series of Amadis and Esplandian
+stories, which, as the last example, looks almost like a designed
+caricature, is only an exaggeration of the habit which we can trace
+back through _Huon of Bordeaux_ and _Guy of Warwick_ almost to the
+earliest _chansons de geste_.
+
+[Sidenote: _No sequel possible._]
+
+But the intelligent genius who shaped the Arthuriad has escaped this
+danger, and that not merely by the simple process which Dryden, with
+his placid irony, somewhere describes as "leaving scarce three of the
+characters alive." We have reached, and feel that we have reached, the
+conclusion of the whole matter when the Graal has been taken to
+Heaven, and Arthur has gone to Avalon. Nobody wants to hear anything
+of the doubtless excellent Duke and King Constantine. Sir Ector
+himself could not leave the stage with more grace than with his great
+discourse on his dead comrade and kinsman. Lancelot's only son has
+gone with the Graal. The end is not violent or factitious, it is
+necessary and inevitable. It were even less unwise to seek the grave
+of Arthur than to attempt to take up the story of the Arthurians after
+king and queen and Lancelot are gone each to his and her own place,
+after the Graal is attained, after the Round Table is dissolved.
+
+It is creditable to the intelligence and taste of the average mediaeval
+romance-writer that even he did not yield to his besetting sin in this
+particular instance. With the exception of _Ysaie le Triste_, which
+deals with the fortunes of a supposed son of Tristan and Yseult, and
+thus connects itself with the most outlying part of the legend--a part
+which, as has been shown, is only hinged on to it--I cannot remember a
+single romance which purports to deal with affairs subsequent to the
+battle in Lyonesse. The two latest that can be in any way regarded as
+Arthurian, _Arthur of Little Britain_ and _Cleriodus_, avowedly take
+up the story long subsequently, and only claim for their heroes the
+glory of distant descent from Arthur and his heroes. _Meliadus de
+Lyonnois_ ascends from Tristram, and endeavours to connect the matter
+of Britain with that of France. _Giron le Courtois_ deals with
+Palamedes and the earlier Arthurian story; while _Perceforest_, though
+based on the _Brut_, selects periods anterior to Arthur.[60]
+
+[Footnote 60: I have a much less direct acquaintance with the romances
+mentioned in this paragraph than with most of the works referred to in
+this book. I am obliged to speak of them at second-hand (chiefly from
+Dunlop and Mr Ward's invaluable _Catalogue of Romances_, vol. i. 1883;
+vol. ii. 1893). It is one of the results of the unlucky fancy of
+scholars for re-editing already accessible texts instead of devoting
+themselves to _anecdota_, that work of the first interest, like
+_Perceforest_, for instance, is left to black-letter, which, not to
+mention its costliness, is impossible to weak eyes; even where it is
+not left to manuscript, which is more impossible still.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Latin episodes._]
+
+There was, however, no such artistic constraint as regards episodes of
+the main story, or _romans d'aventures_ celebrating the exploits of
+single knights, and connected with that story by a sort of stock
+overture and _denoument_, in the first of which an adventure is
+usually started at Arthur's court, while the successful knight is also
+accustomed to send his captives to give testimony to his prowess in
+the same place. As has been said above,[61] there is a whole cluster
+of such episodes--most, it would seem, owing their origin to England
+or Scotland--which have Sir Gawain for their chief hero, and which, at
+least in such forms as survive, would appear to be later than the
+great central romances which have been just noticed. Some of these are
+of much local interest--there being a Scottish group, a group which
+seems to centre about Cumbria, and so forth--but they fall rather to
+the portion of my successor in this series, who will take as his
+province _Gawaine and the Green Knight_, _Lancelot of the Laik_, the
+quaint alliterative Thornton _Morte Arthur_, and not a few others. The
+most interesting of all is that hitherto untraced romance of Beaumains
+or Gareth (he, as Gawain's brother, brings the thing into the class
+referred to), of which Malory has made an entire book, and which is
+one of the most completely and perfectly turned-out episodes existing.
+It has points in common with _Yvain_,[62] and others in common with
+_Ipomydon_,[63] but at the same time quite enough of its own. But we
+have no French text for it. On the other hand, we have long verse
+romances like _Durmart le Gallois_[64] (which both from the title and
+from certain mystical Graal passages rather connects itself with the
+Percevale sub-section); and the _Chevalier as Deux Espees_,[65] which
+belongs to the Gawain class. But all these, as well as the German
+romances to be noticed in chap. vi., distinguish themselves from the
+main stories analysed above not merely by their obvious and almost
+avowed dependence, but by a family likeness in incident, turn, and
+phrase from which those main stories are free. In fact the general
+fault of the _Romans d'Aventures_ is that neither the unsophisticated
+freshness of the _chanson de geste_, nor the variety and commanding
+breadth of the Arthurian legend, appears in them to the full. The kind
+of "balaam," the stock repetitions and expletives at which Chaucer
+laughs in "Sir Thopas"--a laugh which has been rather unjustly
+received as condemning the whole class of English romances--is very
+evident even in the French texts. We have left the great and gracious
+ways, the inspiring central ideas, of the larger romance.
+
+[Footnote 61: See pp. 114, 115 note.]
+
+[Footnote 62: See above, p. 102.]
+
+[Footnote 63: Ed. Weber, _Metrical Romances_, Edinburgh, 1810, ii.
+279.]
+
+[Footnote 64: Ed. Stengel. Tuebingen, 1873.]
+
+[Footnote 65: Ed. Foerster. Halle, 1877.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The legend as a whole._]
+
+It may perhaps seem to some readers that too much praise has been
+given to that romance itself. Far as we are, not merely from Ascham's
+days, but from those in which the excellent Dunlop was bound to
+confess that "they [the romances of the Round Table] will be found
+extremely defective in those points which have been laid down as
+constituting excellence in fictitious narrative," that they are
+"improbable," full of "glaring anachronisms and geographical
+blunders," "not well shaded and distinguished in character,"
+possessing heroines such as "the mistresses of Tristan and Lancelot"
+[may God assoil Dunlop!] who are "women of abandoned character,"
+"highly reprehensible in their moral tendency," "equalled by the most
+insipid romance of the present day as a fund of amusement." In those
+days even Scott thought it prudent to limit his praise of Malory's
+book to the statement that "it is written in pure old English, and
+many of the wild adventures which it contains are told with a
+simplicity bordering on the sublime." Of Malory--thanks to the charms
+of his own book in the editions of Southey, of the two editors in
+12mo, of Wright and of Sir Edward Strachey, not to mention the recent
+and stately issues given by Dr Sommer and Professor Rhys--a better
+idea has long prevailed, though there are some gainsayers. But of the
+originals, and of the Legend as a whole, the knowledge is too much
+limited to those who see in that legend only an opportunity for
+discussing texts and dates, origins and national claims. Its
+extraordinary beauty, and the genius which at some time or other, in
+one brain or in many, developed it from the extremely meagre materials
+which are all that can be certainly traced, too often escape attention
+altogether, and have hardly, I think, in a single instance obtained
+full recognition.
+
+[Sidenote: _The theories of its origin._]
+
+Yet however exaggerated the attention to the _Quellen_ may have been,
+however inadequate the attention to the actual literary result, it
+would be a failure in duty towards the reader, and disrespectful to
+those scholars who, if not always in the most excellent way, have
+contributed vastly to our knowledge of the subject, to finish this
+chapter without giving something on the question of origins itself. I
+shall therefore conclude it with a brief sketch of the chief opinions
+on the subject, and with an indication of those to which many years'
+reading have inclined myself.
+
+The theories, not to give them one by one as set forth by individual
+writers, are in the main as follows:--
+
+[Sidenote: _Celtic._]
+
+I. That the Legend is, not merely in its first inception, but in main
+bulk, Celtic, either (_a_) Welsh or (_b_) Armorican.
+
+[Sidenote: _French._]
+
+II. That it is, except in the mere names and the vaguest outline,
+French.
+
+[Sidenote: _English._]
+
+III. That it is English, or at least Anglo-Norman.
+
+[Sidenote: _Literary._]
+
+IV. That it is very mainly a "literary" growth, owing something to the
+Greek romances, and not to be regarded without error as a new
+development unconnected, or almost unconnected, with traditional
+sources of any kind.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Celtic theory._]
+
+The first explanation is the oldest. After being for nearly half a
+century discredited, it has again found ardent defenders, and it may
+seem at first sight to be the most natural and reasonable. Arthur, if
+he existed at all, was undoubtedly a British hero; the British Celts,
+especially the Welsh, possess beyond all question strong literary
+affinities and a great literary performance, and Geoffrey of Monmouth,
+the father of the whole story, expressly declares that he took it from
+a book written in the British tongue. It was natural that in
+comparatively uncritical ages no quarrel should be made with this
+account. There were, even up to the last century, I believe,
+enthusiastic antiquaries who affirmed, and perhaps believed, that
+they had come across the very documents to which Geoffrey refers, or
+at worst later Welsh transcripts of them. But when the study of the
+matter grew, and especially when Welsh literature itself began to be
+critically examined, uncomfortable doubts began to arise. It was found
+impossible to assign to the existing Welsh romances on the subject,
+such as those published in the _Mabinogion_, a date even approaching
+in antiquity that which can certainly be claimed by the oldest French
+texts: and in more than one case the Welsh bore unmistakable
+indications of having been directly imitated from the French itself.
+Further, in undoubtedly old Welsh literature, though there were (_v.
+supra_) references to Arthur, they were few, they were very meagre,
+and except as regards the mystery of his final disappearance rather
+than death, they had little if anything to do with the received
+Arthurian story. On the other hand, as far as Brittany was concerned,
+after a period of confident assertion, and of attempts, in at least
+doubtful honesty, to supply what could not be found, it had to be
+acknowledged that Brittany could supply no ancient texts whatever, and
+hardly any ancient tradition. These facts, when once established (and
+they have never since been denied by competent criticism), staggered
+the Celtic claim very seriously. Of late years, however, it has found
+advocates (who, as usual, adopt arguments rather mutually destructive
+than mutually confirmatory) both in France (M. Gaston Paris) and in
+Germany (Herr Zimmer), while it has been passionately defended in
+England by Mr Nutt, and with a more cautious, but perhaps at least
+equally firm, support by Professor Rhys. As has been said, these
+Neo-Celticists do not, when they are wise, attempt to revive the older
+form of the claims. They rest theirs on the scattered references in
+undoubtedly old Welsh literature above referred to, on the place-names
+which play such an undoubtedly remarkable part in the local
+nomenclature of the West-Welsh border in the south-west of England and
+in Cornwall, of Wales less frequently, of Strathclyde and Lothian
+eminently, and not at all, or hardly at all, of that portion of
+England which was early and thoroughly subjected to Saxon and Angle
+sway. And the bolder of them, taking advantage of the admitted
+superiority in age of Irish to Welsh literature as far as texts go,
+have had recourse to this, not for direct originals (it is admitted
+that there are none, even of parts of the Legend such as those
+relating to Tristram and Iseult, which are not only avowedly Irish in
+place but Irish in tone), but for evidences of differential origin in
+comparison with classical and Teutonic literature. Unfortunately this
+last point is one not of technical "scholarship," but of general
+literary criticism, and it is certain that the Celticists have not
+converted all or most students in that subject to their view. I should
+myself give my opinion, for whatever it may be worth, to the effect
+that the tone and tendency of the Celtic, and especially the Irish,
+literature of very early days, as declared by its own modern
+champions, are quite different from those of the romances in general
+and the Arthurian Legend in particular. Again, though the other two
+classes of evidence cannot be so ruled out of court as a whole, it
+must be evident that they go but a very little way, and are asked to
+go much further. If any one will consult Professor Rhys's careful
+though most friendly abstract of the testimony of early Welsh
+literature, he will see how very great the interval is. When we are
+asked to accept a magic caldron which fed people at discretion as the
+special original of the Holy Grail, the experienced critic knows the
+state of the case pretty well.[66] While as to the place-names, though
+they give undoubted and valuable support of a kind to the historical
+existence of Arthur, and support still more valuable to the theory of
+the early and wide distribution of legends respecting him, it is
+noticeable that they have hardly anything to do with _our_ Arthurian
+Legend at all. They concern--as indeed we should expect--the fights
+with the Saxons, and some of them reflect (very vaguely and thinly) a
+tradition of conjugal difficulties between Arthur and his queen. But
+unfortunately these last are not confined to Arthurian experience;
+and, as we have seen, Arthur's fights with the Saxons, except the last
+when they joined Mordred, are of ever-dwindling importance for the
+Romance.
+
+[Footnote 66: For these magical provisions of food are commonplaces of
+general popular belief, and, as readers of Major Wingate's book on the
+Soudan will remember, it was within the last few years an article of
+faith there that one of the original Mahdi's rivals had a magic tent
+which would supply rations for an army.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The French claims._]
+
+Like the Celtic theory, the French has an engaging appearance of
+justice and probability, and it has over the Celtic the overwhelming
+advantage as regards texts. That all, without exception, of the
+oldest texts in which the complete romantic story of Arthur appears
+are in the French language is a fact entirely indisputable, and at
+first blench conclusive. We may even put it more strongly still and
+say that, taking positive evidence as apart from mere assertion (as in
+the case of the Latin Graal-book), there is nothing to show that any
+part of the full romantic story of Arthur, as distinguished from the
+meagre quasi-historical outline of Geoffrey, ever appeared in any
+language before it appeared in French. The most certain of the three
+personal claimants for the origination of these early texts, Chrestien
+de Troyes, was undoubtedly a Frenchman in the wide sense; so (if he
+existed) was Robert de Borron, another of them. The very phrase so
+familiar to readers of Malory, "the French book," comes to the
+assistance of the claim.
+
+And yet, as is the case with some other claims which look irresistible
+at first sight, the strength of this shrinks and dwindles remarkably
+when it comes to be examined. One consideration is by itself
+sufficient, not indeed totally to destroy it, but to make a terrible
+abatement in its cogency; and this is, that if the great Arthurian
+romances, written between the middle and end of the twelfth century,
+were written in French, it was chiefly because they could not have
+been written in any other tongue. Not only was no other language
+generally intelligible to that public of knights and ladies to which
+they were addressed; not only was no other vernacular language
+generally known to European men of letters, but no such vernacular,
+except Provencal, had attained to anything like the perfection
+necessary to make it a convenient vehicle. Whatever the nationality of
+the writer or writers, it was more likely that he or they would write
+in French than in any other language. And as a matter of fact we see
+that the third of the great national claimants was an Englishman,
+while it is not certain that Robert de Borron was not an English
+subject. Nor is it yet formally determined whether Chrestien himself,
+in those parts of his work which are specially Arthurian, had not Map
+or some one else before him as an authority.
+
+[Sidenote: _The theory of general literary growth._]
+
+The last theory, that the Legend may be almost if not quite
+sufficiently accounted for as a legitimate descendant of previous
+literature, classical and other (including Oriental sources), has been
+the least general favourite. As originally started, or at least
+introduced into English literary history, by Warton, it suffered
+rather unfairly from some defects of its author. Warton's _History of
+English Poetry_ marks, and to some extent helped to produce, an
+immense change for the better in the study of English literature: and
+he deserved the contemptuous remarks of some later critics as little
+as he did the savage attacks of the half-lunatic Ritson. But he was
+rather indolent; his knowledge, though wide, was very desultory and
+full of scraps and gaps; and, like others in his century, he was much
+too fond of hypothesis without hypostasis, of supposition without
+substance. He was very excusably but very unluckily ignorant of what
+may be called the comparative panorama of English and European
+literature during the Middle Ages, and was apt to assign to direct
+borrowing or imitation those fresh workings up of the eternal
+_donnees_ of all literary art which presented themselves. As the
+theory has been more recently presented with far exacter learning and
+greater judgment by his successor, Mr Courthope,[67] it is much
+relieved from most of its disabilities. I have myself no doubt that
+the Greek romances (see chap. ix.) _do_ represent at the least a stage
+directly connecting classical with romantic literature; and that the
+later of them (which, it must be remembered, were composed in this
+very twelfth century, and must have come under the notice of the
+crusaders), _may_ have exercised a direct effect upon mediaeval Romance
+proper. I formed this opinion more than twenty years ago, when I first
+read _Hysminias and Hysmine_; and I have never seen reason to change
+it since. But these influences, though not to be left out of the
+question, are perhaps in one respect too general, and in another too
+partial, to explain the precise matter. That the Arthurian Romances,
+in common with all the romances, and with mediaeval literature
+generally, were much more influenced by the traditional classical
+culture than used at one time to be thought, I have believed ever
+since I began to study the subject, and am more and more convinced of
+it. The classics both of Europe and the East played a part, and no
+small part, in bringing about the new literature; but it was only a
+part.
+
+[Footnote 67: In his _History of English Poetry_, vol. i., London,
+1895, and in a subsequent controversy with Mr Nutt, which was carried
+on in the _Athenaeum_.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The English or Anglo-Norman pretensions._]
+
+If, as I think may fairly be done, the glory of the Legend be chiefly
+claimed for none of these, but for English or Anglo-Norman, it can be
+done in no spirit of national _pleonexia_, but on a sober
+consideration of all the facts of the case, and allowing all other
+claimants their fair share in the matter as subsidiaries. From the
+merely _a priori_ point of view the claims of England--that is to say,
+the Anglo-Norman realm--are strong. The matter is "the matter of
+Britain," and it was as natural that Arthur should be sung in Britain
+as that Charlemagne should be celebrated in France. But this could
+weigh nothing against positive balance of argument from the facts on
+the other side. The balance, however, does not lie against us. The
+personal claim of Walter Map, even if disproved, would not carry the
+English claim with it in its fall. But it has never been disproved.
+The positive, the repeated, attribution of the MSS. may not be final,
+but requires a very serious body of counter-argument to upset it. And
+there is none such. The time suits; the man's general ability is not
+denied; his familiarity with Welshmen and Welsh tradition as a
+Herefordshire Marcher is pretty certain; and his one indisputable book
+of general literature, the _De Nugis Curialium_, exhibits
+many--perhaps all--of the qualifications required: a sharp judgment
+united with a distinct predilection for the marvellous, an
+unquestionable piety combined with man-of-the-worldliness, and a
+toleration of human infirmities. It is hardly necessary to point out
+the critical incompetence of those who say that a satirist like Map
+could not have written the _Quest_ and the _Mort_. Such critics would
+make two Peacocks as the simultaneous authors of _Nightmare Abbey_ and
+_Rhododaphne_--nay, two Shakespeares to father the _Sonnets_ and the
+_Merry Wives_. If any one will turn to the stories of Gerbert and
+Meridiana, of Galo, Sadius, and the evil queen in the _Nugae_, he will,
+making allowance for Walter's awkward Latin in comparison with the
+exquisite French of the twelfth century, find reasons for thinking the
+author of that odd book quite equal to the authorship of part--not
+necessarily the whole--of the Arthurian story in its co-ordinated
+form.
+
+Again, it is distinctly noticeable that the farther the story goes
+from England and the English Continental possessions, the more does it
+lose of that peculiar blended character, that mixture of the purely
+mystical and purely romantic, of sacred and profane, which has been
+noted as characteristic of its perfect bloom. In the _Percevale_ of
+Chrestien and his continuators, and still more in Wolfram von
+Eschenbach, as it proceeds eastwards, and into more and more purely
+Teutonic regions, it absorbs itself in the _Graal_ and the moonshiny
+mysticism thereto appertaining. When it has fared southwards to Italy,
+the lawlessness of the loves of Guinevere and Iseult preoccupies
+Southern attention. As for Welsh, it is sufficient to quote the
+statement of the most competent of Welsh authorities, Professor Rhys,
+to the effect that "the passion of Lancelot for Guinevere is unknown
+to Welsh literature." Now, as I have tried to point out, the passion
+of Lancelot for Guinevere, blended as it is with the quasi-historic
+interest of Arthur's conquests and the religious-mystical interest of
+the Graal story, is the heart, the life, the source of all charm and
+beauty in the perfect Arthur-story.
+
+I should think, therefore, that the most reasonable account of the
+whole matter may be somewhat as follows, using imagination as little
+as possible, and limiting hypothesis rigidly to what is necessary to
+connect, explain, and render generally intelligible the historical
+facts which have been already summarised. And I may add that while
+this account is not very different from the views of the earliest of
+really learned modern authorities, Sir Frederic Madden and M. Paulin
+Paris, I was surprised to find how much it agrees with that of one of
+the very latest, M. Loth.
+
+[Sidenote: _Attempted hypothesis._]
+
+In so far as the probable personality and exploits, and the almost
+certain tradition of such exploits and such a personality, goes, there
+is no reason for, and much reason against, denying a Celtic origin to
+this Legend of Arthur. The best authorities have differed as to the
+amount of really ancient testimony in Welsh as to him, and it seems to
+be agreed by the best authorities that there is no ancient tradition
+in any other branch of Celtic literature. But if we take the mentions
+allowed as ancient by such a careful critic as Professor Rhys, if we
+combine them with the place-name evidence, and if we add the really
+important fact, that of the earliest literary dealers, certain or
+probable, with the legend, Geoffrey, Layamon, and Walter Map were
+neighbours of Wales, and Wace a neighbour of Brittany, to suppose that
+Arthur as a subject for romantic treatment was a figment of some
+non-Celtic brain, Saxon or Norman, French or English, is not only
+gratuitous but excessively unreasonable. Again, there can be no
+reasonable doubt that the Merlin legends, in at least their inception,
+were Celtic likewise. The attempt once made to identify Merlin with
+the well-known "Marcolf," who serves as Solomon's interlocutor in a
+mass of early literature more or less Eastern in origin, is one of
+those critical freaks which betray an utterly uncritical temperament.
+Yet further, I should be inclined to allow no small portion of Celtic
+ingredient in the spirit, the tendency, the essence of the Arthurian
+Legend. We want something to account for this, which is not Saxon, not
+Norman, not French, not Teutonic generally, not Latin, not Eastern;
+and I at least am unable to discover where this something comes from
+if it is not from the Celtic fringe of England and of Normandy.
+
+But when we come to the Legend proper, and to its most important and
+most interesting characteristics, to its working up, to that
+extraordinary development which in a bare half-century (and half a
+century, though a long time now, was a very short one seven hundred
+years ago) evolved almost a whole library of romance from the scanty
+_faits et gestes_ of Arthur as given by Geoffrey,--then I must confess
+that I can see no evidence of Celtic forces or sources having played
+any great part in the matter. If Caradoc of Lancarvan wrote the _Vita
+Gildae_--and it is pretty certainly not later than his day, while if it
+was not written by him it must have been written by some one equally
+well acquainted with traditions, British and Armorican, of St
+Gildas--if he or any one else gave us what he has given about Arthur
+and Gildas himself, about Arthur's wife and Melvas, and if traditions
+existed of Galahad or even Percivale and the Graal, of the Round
+Table, most of all of Lancelot,--why in the name of all that is
+critical and probable did he not give us more? His hero could not have
+been ignorant of the matter, the legends of his hero could hardly have
+been silent about them. It is hard to believe that anybody can read
+the famous conclusion of Geoffrey's history without seeing a
+deliberate impishness in it, without being certain that the tale of
+the Book and the Archdeacon is a tale of a Cock and a Bull. But if it
+be taken seriously, how could the "British book" have failed to
+contain something more like our Legend of Arthur than Geoffrey has
+given us, and how, if it existed and gave more, could Geoffrey have
+failed to impart it? Why should the Welsh, the proudest in their way
+of all peoples, and not the least gifted in literature, when they came
+to give Arthurian legends of the kind which we recognise, either
+translate them from the French or at least adapt and adjust them
+thereto?
+
+On the other hand, the supposition that the fashioning, partly out of
+vague tradition, partly it may be out of more definite Celtic tales
+like that of Tristram, partly from classical, Eastern, and other
+sources, belongs to the English in the wide sense--that is to say, the
+nation or nations partly under English rule proper, partly under
+Scottish, partly under that of the feudatories or allies of the
+English kings as Dukes of Normandy--has to support it not merely the
+arguments stated above as to the concentration of the legend proper
+between Troyes and Herefordshire, between Broceliande and Northumbria,
+as to MS. authority, as to the inveteracy of the legend in
+English,--not only those negative ones as to the certainty that if it
+were written by Englishmen it would be written in French,--but
+another, which to the comparative student of literary history may seem
+strongest of all.
+
+Here first, here eminently, and here just at the time when we should
+expect it, do we see that strange faculty for exhibiting a blend, a
+union, a cross of characteristics diverse in themselves, and giving
+when blended a result different from any of the parts, which is more
+than anything else the characteristic of the English language, of
+English literature, of English politics, of everything that is
+English. Classical rhetoric, French gallantry, Saxon religiosity and
+intense realisation of the other world, Oriental extravagance to some
+extent, the "Celtic vague"--all these things are there. But they are
+all co-ordinated, dominated, fashioned anew by some thing which is
+none of them, but which is the English genius, that curious,
+anomalous, many-sided genius, which to those who look at only one side
+of it seems insular, provincial, limited, and which yet has given us
+Shakespeare, the one writer of the world to whom the world allows an
+absolute universality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ANTIQUITY IN ROMANCE.
+
+     ODDITY OF THE CLASSICAL ROMANCE. ITS IMPORTANCE. THE TROY
+     STORY. THE ALEXANDREID. CALLISTHENES. LATIN VERSIONS. THEIR
+     STORY. ITS DEVELOPMENTS. ALBERIC OF BESANCON. THE
+     DECASYLLABIC POEM. THE GREAT "ROMAN D'ALIXANDRE." FORM, ETC.
+     CONTINUATIONS. "KING ALEXANDER." CHARACTERISTICS. THE TALE
+     OF TROY. DICTYS AND DARES. THE DARES STORY. ITS ABSURDITY.
+     ITS CAPABILITIES. TROILUS AND BRISEIDA. THE 'ROMAN DE
+     TROIE.' THE PHASES OF CRESSID. THE 'HISTORIA TROJANA.'
+     MEANING OF THE CLASSICAL ROMANCE.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Oddity of the Classical Romance._]
+
+As the interest of Jean Bodel's first two divisions[68] differs
+strikingly, and yet represents, in each case intimately and
+indispensably, certain sides of the mediaeval character, so also does
+that of his third. This has perhaps more purely an interest of
+curiosity than either of the others. It neither constitutes a capital
+division of general literature like the Arthurian story, nor embodies
+and preserves a single long-past phase in national spirit and
+character, like the _chansons de geste_. From certain standpoints of
+the drier and more rigid criticism it is exposed to the charge of
+being trifling, almost puerile. We cannot understand--or, to speak
+with extremer correctness, it would seem that some of us cannot
+understand--the frame of mind which puts Dictys and Dares on the one
+hand, Homer on the other, as authorities to be weighed on equal terms,
+and gravely sets Homer aside as a very inferior and prejudiced person;
+which, even after taking its Dictys and Dares, proceeds to supplement
+them with entire inventions of its own; which, after in the same way
+taking the Pseudo-Callisthenes as the authoritative biographer of
+Alexander, elaborates the legend with a wild luxuriance that makes the
+treatment of the Tale of Troy seem positively modest and sober; which
+makes Thebes, Julius Caesar, anything and anybody in fabulous and
+historical antiquity alike, the centre, or at least the nucleus, of
+successive accretions of romantic fiction.
+
+[Footnote 68: See note 2, p. 26.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its importance--the Troy story._]
+
+Nevertheless, the attractions, intrinsic and extrinsic, of the
+division are neither few nor small. This very confusion, as it seems
+nowadays, this extraordinary and almost monstrous blending of
+uncritical history and unbridled romance, shows one of the most
+characteristic sides of the whole matter, and exhibits, as do few
+other things, that condition of mediaeval thought in regard to all
+critical questions which has so constantly to be insisted on. As in
+the case of the Arthurian story, the matter thus presented caught hold
+of the mediaeval imagination with a remarkable grip, and some of the
+most interesting literary successions of all history date from it.
+Among them it is almost enough to mention the chain of names--Benoit
+de Sainte-More, Guido Colonna, Boccaccio, Chaucer, Henryson--which
+reaches Shakespeare, and does not cease with him, all successively
+elaborating the history of Troilus and Cressida. The lively story,
+first formed, like so many others, by the French genius, and well, if
+rather impudently, copied by Colonna; Boccaccio's vivid Italian
+Cressida; Chaucer's inimitable Pandarus, the first pleasing example of
+the English talent for humorous portrayal in fiction; the wonderful
+passage, culminating in a more wonderful single line,[69] of that
+Dunfermline schoolmaster whom some inconceivable person has declared
+to be only a poet to "Scotch patriotism"; the great gnomic verses of
+Shakespeare's Ulysses, and the various, unequal, sometimes almost
+repulsive, never otherwise than powerful, pageantry of that play,
+which has been perhaps more misjudged than any other of
+Shakespeare's,--all these spring from the Tale of Troy, not in the
+least as handed down by the ancients, but tricked and frounced as the
+Middle Age was wont. Nor is this half-borrowed interest by any means
+the only one. The Cressid story, indeed, does not reach its full
+attraction as a direct subject of literary treatment till the
+fourteenth century. But the great Alexander cycle gives us work which
+merely as poetry equals all but the very best mediaeval work, and its
+importance in connection with the famous metre named from it is of
+itself capital.
+
+[Footnote 69:
+
+    "Than upon him scho kest up baith her ene,
+      And with ane blunk it came in to his thocht,
+    That he sumtyme hir face before had sene.
+
+           *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Ane sparke of lufe than till his hart culd spring,
+      And kendlit all his bodie in ane fyre
+    With heit fevir, ane sweit and trimbilling
+      Him tuik quhile he was readie to expire;
+      To beir his scheild his breast began to tyre:
+    Within ane quhyle he changit mony hew,
+    _And nevertheles not ane ane uther knew_."
+
+Laing's _Poems of Henryson_ (Edinburgh, 1865), p. 93. This volume is
+unfortunately not too common; but 'The Testament and Complaint of
+Cressid' may also be found under Chaucer in Chalmers's Poets (i. 298
+for this passage).]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Alexandreid._]
+
+In interest, bulk, and importance these two stories--the Story of the
+Destruction of Troy and the Alexandreid--far outstrip all the other
+romances of antiquity; they are more accessible than the rest, and
+have been the subject of far more careful investigation by modern
+students. Little has been added, or is likely to be added, in regard
+to the Troy-books generally, since M. Joly's introduction to Benoit's
+_Roman de Troie_ six-and-twenty years ago,[70] and it is at least
+improbable that much will be added to M. Paul Meyer's handling of the
+old French treatments of the Alexandreid in his _Alexandre le Grand
+dans la Litterature Francaise au Moyen Age_.[71] For it must once more
+be said that the pre-eminence of French over other literatures in this
+volume is not due to any crotchet of the writer, or to any desire to
+speak of what he has known pretty thoroughly, long, and at first-hand,
+in preference to that which he knows less thoroughly, less of old,
+and in parts at second-hand. It is the simplest truth to say that in
+the twelfth and thirteenth centuries France kept the literary school
+of Europe, and that, with the single exception of Iceland, during a
+part, and only a part, of the time, all the nations of Europe were
+content to do, each in its own tongue, and sometimes even in hers, the
+lessons which she taught, the exercises which she set them. That the
+scholars sometimes far surpassed their masters is quite true, and is
+nothing unusual; that they were scholars is simple fact.
+
+[Footnote 70: _Le Roman de Troie._ Par Benoit de Sainte-More. Ed.
+Joly. Paris, 1870.]
+
+[Footnote 71: Paris, 1886. The number of monographs on this subject
+is, however, very large, and I should like at least to add Mr Wallis
+Budge's _Alexander the Great_ (the Syriac version of Callisthenes),
+Cambridge, 1889, and his subsequent _Life and Exploits of Alexander_.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Callisthenes._]
+
+The Alexander story, which Mr Wallis Budge, our chief authority (and
+perhaps _the_ chief authority) on the Oriental versions of it, speaks
+of as "a book which has had more readers than any other, the Bible
+alone excepted," is of an antiquity impossible to determine in any
+manner at all certain. Nor is the exact place of its origin, or the
+language in which it was originally written, to be pronounced upon
+with anything like confidence. What does seem reasonably sure is that
+what is called "the Pseudo-Callisthenes"--that is to say, the fabulous
+biography of the great king, which is certainly the basis of all
+Western, and perhaps that of most Eastern, versions of the legend--was
+put into Greek at least as early as the third century after Christ,
+and thence into Latin (by "Julius Valerius" or another) before the
+middle of the fourth. And it appears probable that some of the Eastern
+versions, if not themselves the original (and a strong fight has been
+made for the AEthiopic or Old-Egyptian origin of nearly the whole),
+represent Greek texts older than those we have, as well as in some
+cases other Eastern texts which may be older still. Before any modern
+Western vernacular handled the subject, there were Alexander legends,
+not merely in Greek and Latin, not merely in AEthiopic or Coptic, but
+in Armenian and Syriac, in Hebrew and Arabic, in Persian and perhaps
+in Turkish: and it is possible that, either indirectly before the
+Crusades, or directly through and after them, the legend as told in
+the West received additions from the East.
+
+As a whole, however, the Pseudo-Callisthenes, or rather his Latin
+interpreter Julius Valerius,[72] was the main source of the mediaeval
+legend of Alexander. And it is not at all impossible (though the old
+vague assertions that this or that mediaeval characteristic or
+development was derived from the East were rarely based on any solid
+foundation so far as their authors knew) that this Alexander legend
+did, at second-hand, and by suggesting imitation of its contents and
+methods, give to some of the most noteworthy parts of mediaeval
+literature itself an Eastern colouring, perhaps to some extent even an
+Eastern substance.
+
+[Footnote 72: Most conveniently accessible in the Teubner collection,
+ed. Kuebler, Leipzig, 1888.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Latin versions._]
+
+Still the direct sources of knowledge in the West were undoubtedly
+Latin versions of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, one of which, that ascribed
+to Julius Valerius, appears, as has been said, to have existed before
+the middle of the fourth century, while the other, sometimes called
+the _Historia de Proeliis_, is later by a good deal. Later still,
+and representing traditions necessarily different from and later than
+those of the Callisthenes book, was the source of the most marvellous
+elements in the Alexandreids of the twelfth and subsequent centuries,
+the _Iter ad Paradisum_, in which the conquerer was represented as
+having journeyed to the Earthly Paradise itself. After this, connected
+as it was with dim Oriental fables as to his approach to the unknown
+regions north-east of the Caucasus, and his making gates to shut out
+Gog, there could be no further difficulty, and all accretions as to
+his descent into the sea in a glass cage and so forth came easily.
+
+[Sidenote: _Their story._]
+
+Nor could they, indeed, be said to be so very different in nature from
+at least the opening part of the Callisthenes version itself. This
+starts with what seems to be the capital and oldest part of the whole
+fabulous story, a very circumstantial account of the fictitious
+circumstances of the birth of Alexander. According to this, which is
+pretty constantly preserved in all the fabulous versions of the legend
+(a proof of its age), Nectanabus, an Egyptian king and magician,
+having ascertained by sortilege (a sort of _kriegs-spiel_ on a basin
+of water with wax ships) that his throne is doomed, quits the country
+and goes to Macedonia. There he falls in love with Olympias, and
+during the absence of her husband succeeds by magic arts not only in
+persuading her that the god Ammon is her lover, but to some extent in
+persuading King Philip to believe this, and to accept the
+consequences, the part of Ammon having been played of course by
+Nectanabus himself. Bucephalus makes a considerable figure in the
+story, and Nectanabus devotes much attention to Alexander's
+education--care which the Prince repays (for no very discernible
+reason) by pushing his father and tutor into a pit, where the sorcerer
+dies after revealing the relationship. The rest of the story is mainly
+occupied by the wars with Darius and Porus (the former a good deal
+travestied), and two important parts, or rather appendices, of it are
+epistolary communications between Aristotle and Alexander on the one
+hand, Alexander and Dindymus (Dandamis, &c.), King of the Brahmins, on
+the other. After his Indian adventures the king is poisoned by
+Cassander or at his instigation.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its developments._]
+
+Into a framework of this kind fables of the sort above mentioned had,
+it will be seen, not the remotest difficulty in fitting themselves;
+and it was not even a very long step onward to make Alexander a
+Christian, equip him with twelve peers, and the like. But it has been
+well demonstrated by M. Paul Meyer that though the fictitious
+narrative obtained wide acceptance, and even admission into their
+historical compilations by Vincent of Beauvais, Ekkehard, and others,
+a more sober tradition as to the hero obtained likewise. If we were
+more certain than we are as to the exact age of Quintus Curtius, it
+would be easier to be certain likewise how far he represents and how
+far he is the source of this more sober tradition. It seems clear that
+the Latin _Alexandreis_ of Walter of Chatillon is derived from him, or
+from a common source, rather than from Valerius-Callisthenes: while M.
+Meyer has dwelt upon a Latin compilation perhaps as old as the great
+outburst of vernacular romance on Alexander, preserved only in English
+MSS. at Oxford and Cambridge, and probably of English composition,
+which is a perfectly common-sense account based upon historians, of
+various dates and values, indeed, ranging from Trogus to Isidore of
+Seville, but all historians and not romancers.
+
+In this path, however, comparatively few cared to tread. The
+attraction for the twelfth century lay elsewhere. Sometimes a little
+of the more authentic matter was combined with the fabulous, and at
+least one instance occurs where the author, probably in the thirteenth
+century, simply combined, with a frank audacity which is altogether
+charming, the popular epitome of Valerius and the sober compilation
+just referred to. The better, more famous, and earlier romantic work
+is taken straight from, though it by no means confines itself to,
+Valerius, the _Historia de Proeliis_, and the _Iter ad Paradisum_.
+The results of this handling are enormous in bulk, and in minor
+varieties; but they are for general purposes sufficiently represented
+by the great _Roman d'Alixandre_[73] in French, the long and
+interesting English _King Alisaunder_,[74] and perhaps the German of
+Lamprecht. The Icelandic Alexander-Saga, though of the thirteenth
+century, is derived from Walter of Chatillon, and so reflects the
+comparatively sober side of the story. Of all the others the _Roman
+d'Alixandre_ is the most immediate parent.
+
+[Footnote 73: Ed. Michelant, Stuttgart, 1846.]
+
+[Footnote 74: Ed. Weber, _op. cit. sup._, i. 1-327.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Alberic of Besancon._]
+
+There was, indeed, an older French poem than this--perhaps two
+such--and till the discovery of a fragment of it six years after the
+publication in 1846 of the great _Roman d'Alixandre_ itself by
+Michelant, it was supposed that this poem was the original of
+Lamprecht's German (or of the German by whomsoever it be, for some
+will have it that Lamprecht is simply Lambert li Tors, _v. infra_).
+This, however, seems not to be the case. The Alberic fragment[75]
+(respecting which the philologists, as usual, fight whether it was
+written by a Besancon man or a Briancon one, or somebody else) is
+extremely interesting in some ways. For, in the first place, it is
+written in octosyllabic _tirades_ of single assonance or rhyme, a very
+rare form; in the second, it is in a dialect of Provencal; and in the
+third, the author not only does not follow, but distinctly and rather
+indignantly rejects, the story of Nectanabus:--
+
+    "Dicunt alquant estrobatour
+    Quel reys fud filz d'encantatour:
+    Mentent fellon losengetour;
+    Mai en credreyz nec un de lour."[76]
+
+[Footnote 75: Ed. Meyer, _op. cit._, i. 1-9.]
+
+[Footnote 76: Ll. 27-30.]
+
+But the fragment is unluckily so short (105 lines only) that it is
+impossible to say much of its matter.
+
+[Sidenote: _The decasyllabic poem._]
+
+Between this and the Alexandrine poem there is another version,[77]
+curiously intermediate in form, date, and substance. This is in the
+ordinary form of the older, but not oldest, _chansons de geste_,
+decasyllabic rhymed _tirades_. There are only about eight hundred
+lines of it, which have been eked out, by about ten thousand
+Alexandrines from the later and better known poem, in the MSS. which
+remain. The decasyllabic part deals with the youth of Alexander, and
+though the author does not seem, any more than Alberic, to have
+admitted the scandal about Nectanabus, the death of that person is
+introduced, and altogether we see a Callisthenic influence. The piece
+has been very highly praised for literary merit; it seems to me
+certainly not below, but not surprisingly above, the average of the
+older _chansons_ in this respect. But in so much of the poem as
+remains to us no very interesting part of the subject is attacked.
+
+[Footnote 77: Meyer, i. 25-59.]
+
+The great romance is in more fortunate conditions. We have it not
+indeed complete (for it does not go to the death of the hero) but in
+ample measure: and fortunately it has for full half a century been
+accessible to the student. When M. Paul Meyer says that this edition
+"ne saurait fournir une base suffisante a une etude critique sur le
+roman d'Alixandre," he is of course using the word _critique_ with the
+somewhat arbitrary limitations of the philological specialist. The
+reader who cares for literature first of all--for the book as a book
+to read--will find it now complete for his criticism in the Stuttgart
+version of the _Alixandre_, though he cannot be too grateful to M.
+Meyer for his second volume as a whole, and for the printing in the
+first of Alberic, and the decasyllabic poem, and for the extracts from
+that of Thomas of Kent, who, unlike the authors of the great Romance,
+admitted the Nectanabus marvels and intrigues.
+
+[Sidenote: _The great_ Roman d'Alixandre.]
+
+The story is of such importance in mediaeval literature that some
+account of the chief English and French embodiments of it may be
+desirable. The French version, attributed in shares, which have as
+usual exercised the adventurous ingenuity of critics, to two authors,
+Lambert li Tors, the Crooked (the older designation "Li Cors," the
+Short, seems to be erroneous), and Alexander of Bernay or Paris,
+occupies in the standard edition of Michelant 550 pages, holding, when
+full and with no blanks or notes, 38 lines each. It must, therefore,
+though the lines are not continuously numbered, extend to over 20,000.
+It begins with Alexander's childhood, and though the paternity of
+Nectanabus is rejected here as in the decasyllabic version, which was
+evidently under the eyes of the authors, yet the enchanter is admitted
+as having a great influence on the Prince's education. This portion,
+filling about fifteen pages, is followed by another of double the
+length, describing a war with Nicolas, King of Cesarea, an
+unhistorical monarch, who in the Callisthenic fiction insults
+Alexander. He is conquered and his kingdom given to Ptolemy. Next
+Alexander threatens Athens, but is turned from his wrath by Aristotle;
+and coming home, prevents his father's marriage with Cleopatra, who is
+sent away in disgrace. And then, omitting the poisoning of Philip by
+Olympias and her paramour, which generally figures, the Romance goes
+straight to the war with Darius. This is introduced (in a manner which
+made a great impression on the Middle Ages, as appears in a famous
+passage of our wars with France[78]) by an insulting message and
+present of childish gifts from the Persian king. Alexander marches to
+battle, bathes in the Cydnus, crosses "Lube" and "Lutis," and passing
+by a miraculous knoll which made cowards brave and brave men fearful,
+arrives at Tarsus, which he takes. The siege of Tyre comes next, and
+holds a large place; but a very much larger is occupied by the
+_Fuerres de Gadres_ ("Foray of Gaza"), where the story of the
+obstinate resistance of the Philistine city is expanded into a kind of
+separate _chanson de geste_, occupying 120 pages and some five
+thousand lines.
+
+[Footnote 78: See _Henry V._ for the tennis-ball incident.]
+
+In contradistinction to this prolixity, the visit to Jerusalem, and
+the two battles of Arbela and Issus mixed into one, are very rapidly
+passed over, though the murder of Darius and Alexander's vengeance for
+it are duly mentioned. Something like a new beginning (thought by some
+to coincide with a change of authors) then occurs, and the more
+marvellous part of the narrative opens. After passing the desert and
+(for no very clear object) visiting the bottom of the sea in a glass
+case, Alexander begins his campaign with Porus, whom Darius had
+summoned to his aid. The actual fighting does not take very long; but
+there is an elaborate description of the strange tribes and other
+wonders of India. Porus fights again in Bactria and is again beaten,
+after which Alexander pursues his allies Gog and Magog and shuts them
+off by his famous wall. An arrangement with Porus and a visit to the
+Pillars of Hercules follow. The return is begun, and marvels come
+thicker and thicker. Strange beasts and amphibious men attack the
+Greeks. The "Valley from which None Return" presents itself, and
+Alexander can only obtain passage for his army by devoting himself,
+though he manages to escape by the aid of a grateful devil whom he
+sets free from bondage. At the sea-shore sirens beset the host, and
+numbers perish; after which hairy horned old men tell them of the
+three magic fountains--the Fountain of Youth, the Fountain (visible
+only once a-year) of Immortality, and the Fountain of Resurrection.
+Many monstrous tribes of enemies supervene; also a Forest of Maidens,
+kind but of hamadryad nature--"flower-women," as they have been
+poetically called. It is only after this experience that they come to
+the Fountain of Youth--the Fontaine de Jouvence--which has left such
+an indelible impression on tradition. Treachery had deprived Alexander
+of access to that of Immortality; and that of Resurrection has done
+nothing but restore two cooked fish to life. But after suffering
+intense cold, and passing through a rain of blood, the army arrives at
+the Jouvence, bathes therein, and all become as men thirty years old.
+The fountain is a branch of the Euphrates, the river of Paradise.
+After this they come to the Trees of the Sun and Moon--speaking trees
+which foretell Alexander's death. Porus hears of this, and when the
+army returns to India he picks a quarrel, and the two kings fight.
+Bucephalus is mortally wounded; but Porus is killed. The beginnings
+of treason, plots against Alexander, and the episode of Queen Candace
+(who has, however, been mentioned before) follow. The king marches on
+Babylon and soars into the air in a car drawn by griffins. At Babylon
+there is much fighting; indeed, except the Foray of Gaza, this is the
+chief part of the book devoted to that subject, the Persian and Indian
+wars having been, as we saw, but lightly treated. The Amazons are
+brought in next; but fighting recommences with the siege of "Defur."
+An enchanted river, which whosoever drinks he becomes guilty of
+cowardice or treachery, follows; and then we return to Tarsus and
+Candace, that courteous queen. Meanwhile the traitors Antipater and
+"Divinuspater" continue plotting, and though Alexander is warned
+against them by his mother Olympias, they succeed in poisoning him.
+The death of the king and the regret of his Twelve Peers, to whom he
+has distributed his dominions, finish the poem.
+
+[Sidenote: _Form, &c._]
+
+In form this poem resembles in all respects the _chansons de geste_.
+It is written in mono-rhymed _laisses_ of the famous metre which owes
+its name and perhaps its popularity to the use of it in this romance.
+Part of it at least cannot be later than the twelfth century; and
+though in so long a poem, certainly written by more than one, and in
+all likelihood by more than two, there must be inequality, this
+inequality is by no means very great. The best parts of the poem are
+the marvels. The fighting is not quite so good as in the _chansons de
+geste_ proper; but the marvels are excellent, the poet relating them
+with an admirable mixture of gravity and complaisance, in spirited
+style and language, and though with extremely little attention to
+coherence and verisimilitude, yet with no small power of what may be
+called fabulous attraction.
+
+[Sidenote: _Continuations._]
+
+It is also characteristic in having been freely continued. Two
+authors, Guy of Cambray and Jean le Nevelois, composed a _Vengeance
+Alexandre_. The _Voeux du Paon_, which develop some of the episodes
+of the main poem, were almost as famous at the time as _Alixandre_
+itself. Here appears the popular personage of Gadiffer, and hence was
+in part derived the great prose romance of Perceforest. Less
+interesting in itself, but curious as illustrating the tendency to
+branch up and down to all parts of a hero's pedigree, is _Florimont_,
+a very long octosyllabic poem, perhaps as old as the twelfth century,
+dealing with Alexander's grandfather.[79]
+
+[Footnote 79: In this paragraph I again speak at second-hand, for
+neither the _Voeux_ nor _Florimont_ is to my knowledge yet in print.
+The former seems to have supplied most of the material of the poem in
+fifteenth-century Scots, printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1831, and to
+be reprinted, in another version, by the Scottish Text Society.]
+
+[Sidenote: King Alexander.]
+
+The principal and earliest version of the English _Alexander_ is
+accessible without much difficulty in Weber's _Metrical Romances of
+the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries_. Its differences
+from the French original are, however, very well worth noting. That it
+only extends to about eight thousand octosyllabic lines instead of
+some twenty thousand Alexandrines is enough to show that a good deal
+is omitted; and an indication in some little detail of its contents
+may therefore not be without interest. It should be observed that
+besides this and the Scots _Alexander_ (see note above) an
+alliterative _Romance of Alexander and Dindymus_[80] exists, and
+perhaps others. But until some one supplements Mr Ward's admirable
+_Catalogue of Romances in the British Museum_ with a similar catalogue
+for the minor libraries of the United Kingdom, it will be very
+difficult to give complete accounts of matters of this kind.
+
+[Footnote 80: E.E.T.S., 1878, edited by Professor Skeat.]
+
+Our present poem may be of the thirteenth century, and is pretty
+certainly not long posterior to it. It begins, after the system of
+English romances, with a kind of moral prologue on the various lives
+and states of men of "Middelerd." Those who care for good literature
+and good learning are invited to hear a noble _geste_ of Alisaundre,
+Darye, and Pore, with wonders of worm and beast. After a geographical
+prologue the story of Nectanabus, "Neptanabus," is opened, and his
+determination to revenge himself on Philip of Macedon explained by the
+fact of that king having headed the combination against Egypt. The
+design on Olympias, and its success, are very fully expounded.
+Nectanabus tells the queen, in his first interview with her, "a high
+master in Egypt I was"; and about eight hundred lines carry us to the
+death of Nectanabus and the breaking of "Bursifal" (Bucephalus) by the
+Prince. The episodes of Nicolas (who is here King of Carthage) and of
+Cleopatra follow; but when the expedition against Darius is reached,
+the mention of "Lube" in the French text seems to have induced the
+English poet to carry his man by Tripoli, instead of Cilicia, and
+bring him to the oracle of Ammon--indeed in all the later versions of
+the story the crossing of the purely fantastic Callisthenic romance
+with more or less historical matter is noticeable. The "Bishop" of
+Ammon, by the way, assures him that Philip is really his father. The
+insulting presents follow the siege of Tyre; the fighting with Darius,
+though of course much mediaevalised, is brought somewhat more into
+accordance with the historic account, though still the Granicus does
+not appear; the return to Greece and the capture of Thebes have their
+place; and the Athens-Aristotle business is also to some extent
+critically treated. Then the last battle with Darius comes in: and his
+death concludes the first part of the piece in about five thousand
+lines. It is noticeable that the "Foray of Gaza" is entirely omitted;
+and indeed, as above remarked, it bears every sign of being a separate
+poem.
+
+The second part deals with "Pore"--in other words, with the Indian
+expedition and its wonders. These are copied from the French, but by
+no means slavishly. The army is, on the whole, even worse treated by
+savage beasts and men on its way to India than in the original; but
+the handling, including the Candace episodes, follows the French more
+closely than in the first part. The fighting at "Defur," however, like
+that at Gaza, is omitted; and the wilder and more mystical and
+luxuriant parts of the story--the three Fountains, the Sirens, the
+flower-maidens, and the like--are either omitted likewise or handled
+more prosaically.[81]
+
+[Footnote 81: Dr Koelbing, who in combination of philological and
+literary capacity is second among Continental students of romance only
+to M. Gaston Paris, appears to have convinced himself of the existence
+of a great unknown English poet who wrote not only _Alisaundre_, but
+_Arthour and Merlin_, _Richard Coeur de Lion_, and other pieces. I
+should much like to believe this.]
+
+One of the most curious things about this poem is that every
+division--divisions of which Weber made chapters--begins by a short
+gnomic piece in the following style:--
+
+    "Day spryng is jolyf tide.
+    He that can his tyme abyde,
+    Oft he schal his wille bytyde.
+    Loth is grater man to chyde."
+
+[Sidenote: _Characteristics._]
+
+The treatment of the Alexander story thus well illustrates one way of
+the mediaeval mind with such things--the way of combining at will
+incongruous stories, of accepting with no, or with little, criticism
+any tale of wonder that it happened to find in books, of using its own
+language, applying its own manners, supposing its own clothing,
+weapons, and so forth to have prevailed at any period of history. And
+further, it shows how the _geste_ theory--the theory of working out
+family connections and stories of ancestors and successors--could not
+fail to be applied to any subject that at all lent itself to such
+treatment. But, on the other hand, this division of the romances of
+antiquity does not exhibit the more fertile, the more inventive, the
+more poetical, and generally the nobler traits of Middle-Age
+literature. As will have been noted, there was little invention in the
+later versions, the Callisthenic fictions and the _Iter ad Paradisum_
+being, with a few Oriental accretions, almost slavishly relied upon
+for furnishing out the main story, though the "Foray of Gaza," the
+"Vows of the Peacock," and _Florimont_ exhibit greater independence.
+Yet again no character, no taking and lively story, is elaborated.
+Nectanabus has a certain personal interest: but he was given to, not
+invented by, the Romance writers. Olympias has very little character
+in more senses than one: Candace is not worked out: and Alexander
+himself is entirely colourless. The fantastic story, and the wonders
+with which it was bespread, seem to have absorbed the attention of
+writers and hearers; and nobody seems to have thought of any more.
+Perhaps this was merely due to the fact that none of the more original
+genius of the time was directed on it: perhaps to the fact that the
+historical element in the story, small as it was, cramped the
+inventive powers, and prevented the romancers from doing their best.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Tale of Troy._]
+
+In this respect the Tale of Troy presents a remarkable contrast to its
+great companion--a contrast pervading, and almost too remarkable to be
+accidental. Inasmuch as this part of mediaeval dealings with antiquity
+connects itself with the literary history of two of the very greatest
+writers of our own country, Chaucer and Shakespeare; with that of one
+of the greatest writers of Italy, Boccaccio; and with some of the most
+noteworthy work in Old French, it has been thoroughly and repeatedly
+investigated.[82] But it is so important, and so characteristic of
+the time with which we are dealing, that it cannot be passed over
+here, though the later developments must only be referred to in so far
+as they help us to understand the real originality, which was so long,
+and still is sometimes, denied to mediaeval writers. In this case, as
+in the other, the first striking point is the fact that the Middle
+Ages, having before them what may be called, _mutatis mutandis_,
+canonical and apocryphal, authentic and unauthentic, ancient and not
+ancient, accounts of a great literary matter, chose, by an instinct
+which was not probably so wrong as it has sometimes seemed, the
+apocryphal in preference to the canonical, the unauthentic in
+preference to the authentic, the modern in preference to the ancient.
+
+[Footnote 82: It would be unfair not to mention, as having preceded
+that of M. Joly by some years, and having practically founded study on
+the right lines, the handling of MM. Moland and d'Hericault,
+_Nouvelles Francaises du Quatorzieme Siecle_ (Bibliotheque
+Elzevirienne. Paris, 1856).]
+
+[Sidenote: _Dictys and Dares._]
+
+As in the case of the Alexander-Saga, their origins were the
+Pseudo-Callisthenes and the _Iter ad Paradisum_, so in the Tale of
+Troy they were the works of two persons whose literary offspring has
+obtained for them an amount of attention transcending to a quite
+ludicrous extent their literary merit--Dictys Cretensis and Dares
+Phrygius, to whom may perhaps be added the less shadowy personage of
+the grammarian John Tzetzes. But, as in the other case also, they were
+by no means confined to such authorities. If they did not know Homer
+very well at first-hand, they did know him: they knew Ovid (who of
+course represents Homer, though not Homer only) extremely well: and
+they knew Virgil. But partly from the instinct above referred to, of
+which more presently, partly from the craze for tracing Western Europe
+back to the "thrice-beaten Trojans," it pleased them to regard Homer
+as a late and unhistorical calumniator, whose Greek prejudices made
+him bear false witness; and to accept the pretensions of Dictys and
+Dares to be contemporaries and eyewitnesses of fact. Dictys, a
+companion of Idomeneus, was supposed to represent the Greek side, but
+more fairly than Homer; and Dares, priest of Hephaestus, the Trojan.
+
+The works of these two worthies, which are both of small
+compass,--Dictys occupies rather more than a hundred, Dares rather
+more than fifty, pages of the ordinary Teubner classics,[83]--exist at
+present only in Latin prose, though, as the Greeks were more expert
+and inventive forgers than the Romans, it is possible, if not even
+highly probable, that both were, and nearly certain that Dictys was,
+originally Greek at least in language. Dictys, the older pretty
+certainly, is introduced by a letter to a certain Quintus Aradius from
+Lucius Septimius, who informs "his Rufinus" and the world, with a
+great deal of authority and learning, that the book had been written
+by Dictys in Punic letters, which Cadmus and Agenor had then made of
+common use in Greece; that some shepherds found the manuscript written
+on linden-bark paper in a tin case at his tomb at Gnossus; that their
+landlord turning the Punic letters into Greek (which had always been
+the language), gave it to Nero the Emperor, who rewarded him richly;
+and that he, Septimius, having by chance got the book into his hands,
+thought it worth while to translate it into Latin, both for the sake
+of making the true history known and "ut otiosi animi desidiam
+discuteremus." The Dares volume is more ambitious, and purports to be
+introduced by no less a person than Cornelius Nepos to no less a
+person than Sallustius Crispus, and to have been "faithfully
+translated" by the former from MS. in the very hand of Dares, which he
+found at Athens, in order to correct the late and fabulous authority
+of Homer, who actually makes gods fight with men!
+
+[Footnote 83: Ed. Meister. Leipzig, 1872-73.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Dares story._]
+
+It will be, of course, obvious to the merest tyro in criticism that
+these prefaces bear "forgery" on the very face of them. The first is
+only one of those innumerable variants of the genesis of a fiction
+which Sir Walter Scott has so pleasantly summarised in one of his
+introductions; and the phrase quoted about _animi otiosi desidiam_ is
+a commonplace of mediaeval bookmaking. The second, more cleverly
+arranged, exposes itself to the question how far, putting the
+difficulty about writing aside, an ancient Greek MS. of the kind could
+possibly have escaped the literary activity of many centuries of
+Athenian wits and scholars, to fall into the hands of Cornelius Nepos.
+The actual age and origin of the two have, of course, occupied many
+modern scholars; and the favourite opinion seems to be that Dictys may
+have been originally written by some Greek about the time of Nero (the
+Latin translation cannot well be earlier than the fourth century and
+may be much later), while Dares may possibly be as late as the
+twelfth. Neither book is of the very slightest interest intrinsically.
+Dictys (the full title of whose book is _Ephemeris Belli Trojani_) is
+not only the longer but the better written of the two. It contains no
+direct "set" at Homer; and may possibly preserve traits of some value
+from the lost cyclic writers. But it was not anything like such a
+favourite with the Middle Ages as Dares. Dictys had contented himself
+with beginning at the abduction of Helen; Dares starts his _De Excidio
+Trojae_ with the Golden Fleece, and excuses the act of Paris as mere
+reprisals for the carrying off of Hesione by Telamon. Antenor having
+been sent to Greece to demand reparation and rudely treated, Paris
+makes a regular raid in vengeance, and so the war begins with a sort
+of balance of cause for it on the Trojan side. Before the actual
+fighting, some personal descriptions of the chief heroes and heroines
+are given, curiously feeble and strongly tinged with mediaeval
+peculiarities, but thought to be possibly derived from some similar
+things attributed to the rhetorician Philostratus at the end of the
+third century. And among these a great place is given to Troilus and
+"Briseida."
+
+Nearly half the book is filled with these preliminaries, with an
+account of the fruitless embassy of Ulysses and Diomed to Troy, and
+with enumerating the forces and allies of the two parties. But when
+Dares gets to work he proceeds with a rapidity which may be partly
+due to the desire to contradict Homer. The landing and death of
+Protesilaus, avenged to some extent by Achilles, the battle in which
+Hector slays Patroclus (to whom Dares adds Meriones), and that at the
+ships, are all lumped together; and the funerals of Protesilaus and
+Patroclus are simultaneously celebrated. Palamedes begins to plot
+against Agamemnon. The fighting generally goes much against the
+Greeks; and Agamemnon sues for a three years' truce, which is granted
+despite Hector's very natural suspicion of such an uncommonly long
+time. It is skipped in a line; and then, the fighting having gone
+against the Trojans, they beg for a six months' truce in their turn.
+This is followed by a twelve days' fight and a thirty days' truce
+asked by the Greeks. Then comes Andromache's dream, the fruitless
+attempt to prevent Hector fighting, and his death at the hands of
+Achilles. After more truces, Palamedes supplants Agamemnon, and
+conducts the war with pretty good success. Achilles sees Polyxena at
+the tomb of Hector, falls in love with her, demands her hand, and is
+promised it if he can bring about peace. In the next batch of
+fighting, Palamedes kills Deiphobus and Sarpedon, but is killed by
+Paris; and in consequence a fresh battle at the ships and the firing
+of them takes place, Achilles abstaining, but Ajax keeping up the
+battle till (natural) night. Troilus then becomes the hero of a seven
+days' battle followed by the usual truce, during which Agamemnon tries
+to coax Achilles out of the sulks, and on his refusal holds a great
+council of war. When next _tempus pugnae supervenit_ (a stock phrase
+of the book) Troilus is again the hero, wounds everybody, including
+Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Diomed, and very reasonably opposes a six
+months' armistice which his father grants. At its end he again bears
+all before him; but, killing too many Myrmidons, he at last excites
+Achilles, who, though at first wounded, kills him at last by wounding
+his horse, which throws him. Memnon recovers the body of Troilus, but
+is himself killed. The death of Achilles in the temple of Apollo (by
+ambush, but, of course, with no mention of the unenchanted heel), and
+of Ajax and Paris in single fight, leads to the appearance of the
+Amazons, who beat the Greeks, till Penthesilea is killed by
+Neoptolemus. Antenor, AEneas, and others urge peace, and on failing to
+prevail with Priam, begin to parley with the Greeks. There is no
+Trojan horse, but the besiegers are treacherously introduced at a gate
+_ubi extrinsecus portam equi sculptum caput erat_. Antenor and AEneas
+receive their reward; but the latter is banished because he has
+concealed Polyxena, who is massacred when discovered by Neoptolemus.
+Helenus, Cassandra, and Andromache go free: and the book ends with the
+beautifully precise statements that the war, truces and all, lasted
+ten years, six months, and twelve days; that 886,000 men fell on the
+Greek side, and 676,000 on the Trojan; that AEneas set out in
+twenty-two ships ("the same with which Paris had gone to Greece," says
+the careful Dares), and 3400 men, while 2500 followed Antenor, and
+1200 Helenus and Andromache.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its absurdity._]
+
+This bald summary is scarcely balder than the book itself, which also,
+as can be seen from the summary, and would be more fully seen from the
+book, has no literary merit of any kind. It reads more like an
+excessively uninspired _precis_ of a larger work than like anything
+else--a _precis_ in which all the literary merit has, with unvarying
+infelicity, been omitted. Nothing can be more childish than the
+punctilious euhemerism by which all the miraculous elements of the
+Homeric story are blinked or explained away, unless it be the
+painstaking endeavour simply to say something different from Homer, or
+the absurd alternation of fighting and truces, in which each party
+invariably gives up its chance of finishing the war at the precise
+time at which that chance is most flourishing, and which reads like a
+humorous travesty of the warfare of some historic periods with all the
+humour left out.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its capabilities._]
+
+Nevertheless it is not really disgraceful to the Romantic period that
+it fastened so eagerly on this sorriest of illegitimate epitomes.[84]
+Very few persons at that time were in case to compare the literary
+merit of Homer--even that of Ovid and Virgil--with the literary merit
+of these bald pieces of bad Latin prose. Moreover, the supernatural
+elements in the Homeric story, though very congenial to the temper of
+the Middle Age itself, were presented and ascribed in such a fashion
+that it was almost impossible for that age to adopt them. Putting
+aside a certain sentimental cult of "Venus la deesse d'amors," there
+was nothing of which the mediaeval mind was more tranquilly convinced
+than that "Jubiter," "Appollin," and the rest were not mere fond
+things vainly invented, but actual devils who had got themselves
+worshipped in the pagan times. It was impossible for a devout
+Christian man, whatever pranks he might play with his own religion, to
+represent devils as playing the part of saints and of the Virgin,
+helping the best heroes, and obtaining their triumph. Nor, audacious
+as was the faculty of "transfer" possessed by the mediaeval genius, was
+it easy to Christianise the story in any other way. It is perhaps
+almost surprising that, so far as I know or remember, no version
+exists representing Cassandra as a holy and injured nun, making Our
+Lady play the part of Venus to AEneas, and even punishing the
+sacrilegious Diomed for wounding her. But I do not think I have heard
+of such a version (though Sir Walter has gone near to representing
+something parallel in _Ivanhoe_), and it would have been a somewhat
+violent escapade for even a mediaeval fancy.
+
+[Footnote 84: The British Museum alone (see Mr Ward's _Catalogue of
+Romances_, vol. i.) contains some seventeen separate MSS. of Dares.]
+
+So, with that customary and restless ability to which we owe so much,
+and which has been as a rule so much slighted, it seized on the
+negative capacities of the story. Dares gives a wretched painting, but
+a tolerable canvas and frame. Each section of his meagre narrative is
+capable of being worked out by sufficiently busy and imaginative
+operators into a complete _roman d'aventures_: his facts, if meagre
+and jejune, are numerous. The raids and reprisals in the cases of
+Hesione and Helen suited the demands of the time; and, as has been
+hinted, the singular interlardings of truce and war, and the shutting
+up of the latter into so many days' hand-to-hand fighting,--with no
+strategy, no care for communications, no scientific nonsense of any
+kind,--were exactly to mediaeval taste.
+
+[Sidenote: _Troilus and Briseida._]
+
+Above all, the prominence of new heroes and heroines, about whom not
+very much was said, and whose _gestes_ the mediaeval writer could
+accordingly fill up at his own will, with the presentation of others
+in a light different from that of the classical accounts, was a
+godsend. Achilles, as the principal author of the "Excidium Trojae"
+(the title of the Dares book, and after it of others), must be
+blackened; and though Dares himself does not contain the worst
+accusations of the mediaeval writers against the unshorn son of the
+sea-goddess, it clears the way for them by taking away the excuse of
+the unjust deprivation of Briseis. From this to making him not merely
+a factious partisan, but an unfair fighter, who mobs his enemies half
+to death with Myrmidons before he engages them himself, is not far. On
+the other hand, Troilus, a mere name in the older stories, offers
+himself as a hero. And for a heroine, the casual mention of the charms
+of Briseida in Dares started the required game. Helen was too
+puzzling, as well as too Greek; Andromache only a faithful wife;
+Cassandra a scolding sorceress; Polyxena a victim. Briseida had almost
+a clear record, as after the confusion with Chryseis (to be altered in
+name afterwards) there was very little personality left in her, and
+she could for that very reason be dealt with as the romancers pleased.
+
+In the subsequent and vernacular handling of the story the same
+difference of alternation is at first perceived as that which appears
+in the Alexander legend. The sobriety of Gautier of Chatillon's
+_Alexandreis_ is matched and its Latinity surpassed by the _Bellum
+Trojanum_ of our countryman Joseph of Exeter, who was long and justly
+praised as about the best mediaeval writer of classical Latin verse.
+But this neighbourhood of the streams of history and fiction ceases
+much earlier in the Trojan case, and for very obvious reasons. The
+temperament of mediaeval poets urged them to fill in and fill out: the
+structure of the Daretic epitome invited them to do so: and they very
+shortly did it.
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Roman de Troie.]
+
+After some controversy, the credit of first "romancing" the Tale of
+Troy has been, it would seem justly and finally, assigned to Benoit de
+Sainte-More. Benoit, whose flourishing time was about 1160, who was a
+contemporary and rival of Wace, and who wrote a chronicle of Normandy
+even longer than his Troy-book, composed the latter in more than
+thirty thousand octosyllabic lines, an expansion of the fifty pages of
+Dares, which stands perhaps almost alone even among the numerous
+similar feats of mediaeval bards. He has helped himself freely with
+matter from Dictys towards the end of his work; but, as we have seen,
+even this reinforcement could not be great in bulk. Expansion,
+however, so difficult to some writers, was never in the least a
+stumbling-block to the _trouvere_. It was rather a bottomless pit into
+which he fell, traversing in his fall lines and pages with endless
+alacrity of sinning.
+
+Not that Benoit is by any means a person to be contemptuously spoken
+of. In the first place, as we shall see presently, he was for many
+hundred years completely and rather impudently robbed of his fame; in
+the second, he is the literary ancestor of far greater men than
+himself; and in the third, his verse, though not free from the
+besetting sin of its kind, and especially of the octosyllabic
+variety--the sin of smooth but insignificant fluency--is always
+pleasant, and sometimes picturesque. Still there is no doubt that at
+present the second claim is the strongest with us; and that if Benoit
+de Sainte-More had not, through his plagiarist Colonna, been the
+original of Boccaccio and Chaucer and Shakespeare, he would require
+little more than a bare mention here.
+
+[Sidenote: _The phases of Cressid._]
+
+Dares, as we have seen, mentions Briseida, and extols her beauty and
+charm: she was, he says, "beautiful, not of lofty stature, fair, her
+hair yellow and silky, her eyebrows joined, her eyes lively, her body
+well proportioned, kind, affable, modest, of a simple mind, and
+pious." He also mightily extols Troilus; but he does not intimate any
+special connection between the two, or tell the story of "Cressid,"
+which indeed his followers elaborated in terms not altogether
+consistent with some of the above laudatory epithets. Tzetzes, who
+with some others gives her the alternative name of Hippodamia, alters
+her considerably, and assigns to her tall stature, a white complexion,
+black hair, as well as specially comely breasts, cheeks, and nose,
+skill in dress, a pleasant smile, but a distinct tendency to
+"arrogance." Both these writers, however, with Joseph of Exeter and
+others, seem to be thinking merely of the Briseis whom we know from
+Homer as the mistress of Achilles, and do not connect her with
+Calchas, much less with Troilus. What may be said with some confidence
+is that the confusion of Briseida with the daughter of Calchas and the
+assignment of her to Troilus as his love originated with Benoit de
+Sainte-More. But we must perhaps hesitate a little before assigning to
+him quite so much credit as has sometimes been allowed him. Long
+before Shakespeare received the story in its full development (for
+though he does not carry it to the bitter end in _Troilus and
+Cressida_ itself, the allusion to the "lazar kite of Cressid's kind"
+in _Henry V._ shows that he knew it) it had reached that completeness
+through the hands of Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Henryson, the least of
+whom was capable of turning a comparatively barren _donnee_ into a
+rich possession, and who as a matter of fact each added much. We do
+not find in the Norman _trouvere_, and it would be rather wonderful if
+we did find, the gay variety of the _Filostrato_ and its vivid picture
+of Cressid as merely passionate, Chaucer's admirable Pandarus and his
+skilfully blended heroine, or the infinite pathos of Henryson's final
+interview. Still, all this great and moving romance would have been
+impossible without the idea of Cressid's successive sojourn in Troy
+and the Greek camp, and of her successive courtship by Troilus and by
+Diomed. And this Benoit really seems to have thought of first. His
+motives for devising it have been rather idly inquired into. For us it
+shall be sufficient that he did devise it.
+
+By an easy confusion with Chryses and Chryseis--half set right
+afterwards in the change from Briseida to Griseida in Boccaccio and
+Creseide in Chaucer--he made his heroine the daughter of Calchas. The
+priest, a traitor to Troy but powerful with the Greeks, has left his
+daughter in the city and demands her--a demand which, with the usual
+complacency noticed above as characterising the Trojans in Dares
+himself, is granted, though they are very angry with Calchas. But
+Troilus is already the damsel's lover; and a bitter parting takes
+place between them. She is sent, gorgeously equipped, to the Greeks;
+and it happens to be Diomed who receives her. He at once makes the
+fullest declarations--for in nothing did the Middle Age believe more
+fervently than in the sentiment,
+
+    "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"
+
+But Briseida, with a rather excessive politeness, and leaving him a
+good deal of hope, informs him that she has already a fair friend
+yonder. Whereat, as is reasonable, he is not too much discouraged. It
+must be supposed that this is related to Troilus, for in the next
+fight he, after Diomed has been wounded, reproaches Briseida pretty
+openly. He is not wrong, for Briseida weeps at Diomed's wound, and (to
+the regret and reproof of her historian, and indeed against her own
+conscience) gives herself to the Greek, or determines to do so, on the
+philosophical principle that Troilus is lost to her. Achilles then
+kills Troilus himself, and we hear no more of the lady.
+
+The volubility of Benoit assigns divers long speeches to Briseida, in
+which favourable interpreters have seen the germ of the future
+Cressid; and in which any fair critic may see the suggestion of her.
+But it is little more than a suggestion. Of the full and masterly
+conception of Cressid as a type of woman which was afterwards reached,
+Troilus, and Diomed, and Pandarus, and the wrath of the gods were
+essential features. Here Troilus is a shadow, Diomed not much more,
+Pandarus non-existent, the vengeance of Love on a false lover
+unthought of. Briseida, though she has changed her name, and
+parentage, and status, is still, as even the patriotic enthusiasm of
+MM. Moland and d'Hericault (the first who did Benoit justice)
+perceives, the Briseis of Homer, a slave-girl who changes masters, and
+for her own pleasure as well as her own safety is chiefly anxious to
+please the master that is near. The vivifying touch was brought by
+Boccaccio, and Boccaccio falls out of our story.
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Historia Trojana.]
+
+But between Benoit and Boccaccio there is another personage who
+concerns us very distinctly. Never was there such a case, even in the
+Middle Ages, when the absence of printing, of public libraries, and of
+general knowledge of literature made such things easy, of _sic vos non
+vobis_ as the _Historia Trojana_ of Guido de Columnis, otherwise Guido
+delle Colonne, or Guido Colonna, of Messina. This person appears to
+have spent some time in England rather late in the thirteenth century;
+and there, no doubt, he fell in with the _Roman de Troie_. He
+wrote--in Latin, and thereby appealing to a larger audience than even
+French could appeal to--a Troy-book which almost at once became widely
+popular. The MSS. of it occur by scores in the principal libraries of
+Europe; it was the direct source of Boccaccio, and with that writer's
+_Filostrato_ of Chaucer, and it formed the foundation of almost all
+the known Troy-books of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Benoit
+being completely forgotten. Yet recent investigation has shown that
+Guido not merely adapted Benoit in the usual mediaeval fashion, but
+followed him so closely that his work might rather be called
+translation than adaptation. At any rate, beyond a few details he has
+added nothing to the story of Troilus and Cressida as Benoit left it,
+and as, in default of all evidence to the contrary, it is only fair to
+conclude that he made it.
+
+From the date, 1287, of Guido delle Colonne's version, it follows
+necessarily that all the vernacular Troy-books--our own _Destruction
+of Troy_,[85] the French prose romance of _Troilus_,[86] &c., not to
+mention Lydgate and others--fall like Boccaccio and Chaucer out of the
+limits of this volume. Nor can it be necessary to enter into detail as
+to the other classical French romances, the _Roman de Thebes_, the
+_Roman d'Eneas_, the _Roman de Jules Cesar_, _Athis and Profilias_,
+and the rest;[87] while something will be said of the German AEneid of
+H. von Veldeke in a future chapter. The capital examples of the
+Alexandreid and the Iliad, as understood by the Middle Ages, not only
+must but actually do suffice for our purpose.
+
+[Footnote 85: Ed. Panton and Donaldson, E.E.T.S. London, 1869-74.]
+
+[Footnote 86: Ed. Moland and d'Hericault, _op. cit._]
+
+[Footnote 87: The section on "L'Epopee Antique" in M. Petit de
+Julleville's book, more than once referred to, is by M. Leopold
+Constans, editor of the _Roman de Thebes_, and will be found useful.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Meaning of the classical romance._]
+
+And we see from them very well not merely in what light the Middle
+Ages regarded the classical stories, but also to what extent the
+classical stories affected the Middle Ages. This latter point is of
+the more importance in that even yet the exact bearing and meaning of
+the Renaissance in this respect is by no means universally
+comprehended. It may be hoped, if not very certainly trusted, that
+most educated persons have now got rid of the eighteenth-century
+notion of mediaeval times as being almost totally ignorant of the
+classics themselves, a notion which careful reading of Chaucer alone
+should be quite sufficient to dispel. The fact of course is, that all
+through the Middle Ages the Latin classics were known, unequally but
+very fairly in most cases, while the earlier Middle Ages at least were
+by no means ignorant of Greek.
+
+But although there was by no means total ignorance, there was what is
+to us a scarcely comprehensible want of understanding. To the average
+mediaeval student, perhaps to any mediaeval student, it seems seldom or
+never to have occurred that the men of whom he was reading had lived
+under a dispensation so different from his own in law and in
+religion, in politics and in philosophy, in literature and in science,
+that an elaborate process of readjustment was necessary in order to
+get at anything like a real comprehension of them. Nor was he, as a
+rule, able--men of transcendent genius being rather rare, amid a more
+than respectable abundance of men of talent--to take them, as Chaucer
+did to a great extent, Dante more intensely though less widely, and
+Shakespeare (but Shakespeare had already felt the Renaissance spirit)
+fully and perfectly, on the broad ground of humanity, so that
+anachronisms, and faults of costume, matter not one jot to any one but
+a pedant or a fool. When he came to something in the story--something
+in sentiment, manners, religion, what not--which was out of the range
+of his own experience, he changed it into something within the range
+of his own experience. When the whole story did not lend itself to the
+treatment which he wished to apply, he changed it, added to it, left
+out from it, without the slightest scruple. He had no more difficulty
+in transforming the disciplined tactic of the Macedonian phalanx into
+a series of random _chevauchees_ than in adjusting the much more
+congenial front-fighting of Greeks and Trojans to his own ideas; and
+it cost him little more to engraft a whole brand-new romantic
+love-story on the Tale of Troy than to change the historical siege of
+Gaza into a _Fuerres de Gadres_, of which Aimeri of Narbonne or Raoul
+de Cambrai would have been the appropriate hero. Sometimes, indeed, he
+simply confounded Persians and Saracens, just as elsewhere he
+confounded Saracens and Vikings; and he introduced high priests of
+heathen divinities as bishops, with the same _sang froid_ with which
+long afterwards the translators of the Bible founded an order of
+"dukes" in Edom.
+
+A study of antiquity conducted in such a fashion could hardly have
+coloured mediaeval thought with any real classicism, even if it had
+been devoted to much more genuine specimens of antiquity than the
+semi-Oriental medley of the Pseudo-Callisthenes and the bit of bald
+euhemerism which had better have been devoted to Hephaestus than
+ascribed to his priest. But, by another very curious fact, the two
+great and commanding examples of the Romance of Antiquity were
+executed each under the influence of the flourishing of one of the two
+mightiest branches of mediaeval poetry proper. When Alberic and the
+decasyllabist (whoever he was) wrote, the _chanson de geste_ was in
+the very prime of its most vigorous manhood, and the _Roman
+d'Alixandre_ accordingly took not merely the outward form, but the
+whole spirit of the _chanson de geste_ itself. And when Benoit de
+Sainte-More gave the first shapings of the great story of Troilus and
+Cressida out of the lifeless rubbish-heap of Dares, it was at the
+precise minute when also, in hands known or unknown, the greater story
+of Arthur and Gawain, of Lancelot and Guinevere, was shaping itself
+from materials probably even scantier. Even Guido of the Columns, much
+more Boccaccio, had this story fully before them; and Cressida, when
+at last she becomes herself, has, if nothing of the majesty of
+Guinevere, a good deal of Iseult--an Iseult more faithless to love,
+but equally indifferent to anything except love. As Candace in
+_Alexander_ has the crude though not unamiable naturalism of a
+_chanson_ heroine, so Cressid--so even Briseida to some extent--has
+the characteristic of the frail angels of Arthurian legend. The cup
+would have spilled wofully in her husband's hand, the mantle would
+scarcely have covered an inch of her; but though of coarser make, she
+is of the same mould with the ladies of the Round Table,--she is of
+the first creation of the order of romantic womanhood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE MAKING OF ENGLISH AND THE SETTLEMENT OF EUROPEAN PROSODY.
+
+     SPECIAL INTEREST OF EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH. DECAY OF
+     ANGLO-SAXON. EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH LITERATURE. SCANTINESS OF
+     ITS CONSTITUENTS. LAYAMON. THE FORM OF THE 'BRUT.' ITS
+     SUBSTANCE. THE 'ORMULUM': ITS METRE, ITS SPELLING. THE
+     'ANCREN RIWLE.' THE 'OWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE.' PROVERBS.
+     ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER. ROMANCES. 'HAVELOK THE DANE.' 'KING
+     HORN.' THE PROSODY OF THE MODERN LANGUAGES. HISTORICAL
+     RETROSPECT. ANGLO-SAXON PROSODY. ROMANCE PROSODY. ENGLISH
+     PROSODY. THE LATER ALLITERATION. THE NEW VERSE. RHYME AND
+     SYLLABIC EQUIVALENCE. ACCENT AND QUANTITY. THE GAIN OF FORM.
+     THE "ACCENT" THEORY. INITIAL FALLACIES, AND FINAL
+     PERVERSITIES THEREOF.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Special interest of Early Middle English._]
+
+The positive achievements of English literature, during the period
+with which this volume deals, are not at first sight great; and all
+the more finished literary production of the time, till the extreme
+end of it, was in French and Latin. But the work done during this time
+in getting the English language ready for its future duties, in
+equipping it with grammar and prosody, in preparing, so to speak, for
+Chaucer, is not only of the first importance intrinsically, but has a
+value which is almost unique in general literary history as an
+example. Nowhere else have we the opportunity of seeing a language and
+a literature in the process of gestation, or at least of a reformation
+so great as to be almost equal to new birth. Of the stages which
+turned Latin through the Romanic vulgar tongues into Spanish, Italian,
+Portuguese, Provencal, French, we have the very scantiest remains; and
+though the Strasburg oaths and the Eulalia hymn are no doubt
+inestimable in their way, they supply exceedingly minute and
+precarious stepping-stones by which to cross from Ausonius to the
+_Chanson de Roland_. From the earliest literary stages of the Teutonic
+tongues we have, except in the case of Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic, very
+little wreckage of time; and Anglo-Saxon at least presents the
+puzzling characteristic that its earliest remains are, _coeteris
+paribus_, nearly as complete and developed as the earliest remains of
+Greek. In German itself, whether High or Low, the change from oldest
+to youngest is nothing like the change from the English of _Beowulf_
+to the English of Browning. And though the same process of primordial
+change as that which we have seen in English took place certainly in
+German, and possibly in the Romance tongues, it is nowhere traceable
+with anything like the same clearness or with such gradual
+development. By the eleventh century at latest in France, by the end
+of the twelfth in Germany, verse had taken, in the first case fully,
+in the second almost fully, a modern form. In England it was, during
+the two hundred years from 1150 to 1350, working itself steadily, and
+with ample examples, from pure accent to accentual quantity, and from
+alliteration to rhyme. Of this process, and those similar to it in
+other countries, we shall give an account which will serve for the
+whole in the latter part of this chapter; the actual production and
+gradual transformation of English language and literature generally
+may occupy us in the earlier part.
+
+It is to be hoped that by this time a middle way, tolerably free from
+molestation, may be taken between those historians of English who
+would have a great gulf fixed before Chaucer, and those who insist
+upon absolute continuity from Caedmon to Tennyson. There must surely be
+something between dismissing (as did the best historian of the subject
+in the last generation) Anglo-Saxon as "that nocturnal portion of our
+literature," between calling it "impossible to pronounce with
+certainty whether anything in it is artistically good or bad,"[88] and
+thinking it proper, as it has sometimes been thought, in an
+examination in English literature, to give four papers to Caedmon,
+AElfric, and Wulfstan, and one to the combined works of Addison, Pope,
+Johnson, and Burke. Extravagances of the latter kind have still, their
+heyday of reaction not being quite past, a better chance than
+extravagances of the former. But both may surely be avoided.
+
+[Footnote 88: See Craik, _History of English Literature_, 3d ed.
+(London, 1866), i. 55.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Decay of Anglo-Saxon._]
+
+The evidence is rendered more easy in the present connection by the
+fact, recognised by the most competent authorities in First English or
+Anglo-Saxon itself, that for some time before the arbitrary line of
+the Conquest the productive powers of the literature had been failing,
+and the language itself was showing signs of change. No poetry of the
+first class seems to have been written in it much after the end of the
+ninth century, little prose of a very good class after the beginning
+of the eleventh; and its inflexions must in time have given way--were,
+it is said by some, actually giving way--before the results of the
+invasion and assimilation of French and Latin. The Conquest helped;
+but it did not wholly cause.
+
+This, however, is no doubt open to argument, and the argument would
+have to be conducted mainly if not wholly on philological
+considerations, with which we do not here meddle. The indisputable
+literary facts are that the canon of pure Anglo-Saxon or Old-English
+literature closes with the end of the Saxon Chronicle in 1154, and
+that the "Semi-Saxon," the "First Middle English," which then makes
+its appearance, approximates, almost decade by decade, almost year by
+year, nearer and nearer to the modern type. And for our purpose,
+though not for the purpose of a history of English Literature proper,
+the contemporary French and Latin writing has to be taken side by side
+with it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Early Middle English Literature._]
+
+It is not surprising that, although the Latin literary production of
+the time, especially in history, was at least equal to that of any
+other European country, and though it is at least probable that some
+of the greatest achievements of literature, French in language, are
+English in nationality, the vernacular should for long have been a
+little scanty and a little undistinguished in its yield. Periods of
+moulting, of putting on new skins, and the like, are never periods of
+extreme physical vigour. And besides, this Anglo-Saxon itself had (as
+has been said) been distinctly on the wane as a literary language for
+more than a century, while (as has not yet been said) it had never
+been very fertile in varieties of profane literature. This infertility
+is not surprising. Except at rare periods literature without literary
+competition and comparison is impossible; and the Anglo-Saxons had
+absolutely no modern literature to compare and compete with. If any
+existed, their own was far ahead of it. On the other hand, though the
+supposed ignorance of Latin and even Greek in the "dark" ages has long
+been known to be a figment of ignorance itself, circumstances
+connected with, though not confined to, the concentration of learning
+and teaching in the clergy brought about a disproportionate attention
+to theology. The result was that the completest Anglo-Saxon library of
+which we can form any well-based conception would have contained about
+ten cases of religious to one of non-religious books, and would have
+held in that eleventh but little poetry, and hardly any prose with an
+object other than information or practical use.
+
+[Sidenote: _Scantiness of its constituents._]
+
+It could not be expected that the slowly changing language should at
+once change its habits in this respect. And so, as the century
+immediately before the Conquest had seen little but chronicles and
+homilies, leechdoms and laws, that which came immediately afterwards
+gave at first no very different products, except that the laws were
+wanting, for obvious reasons. Nay, the first, the largest, and almost
+the sole work of _belles lettres_ during the first three-fourths of
+our period, the _Brut_ of Layamon, is a work of _belles lettres_
+without knowing it, and imagines itself to be a sober history, while
+its most considerable contemporaries, the _Ormulum_ and the _Ancren
+Riwle_, the former in verse, the latter in prose, are both purely
+religious. At the extreme end of the period the most important and
+most certain work, Robert of Gloucester's, is, again, a history in
+verse. About the same time we have, indeed, the romances of _Havelok_
+and _Horn_; but they are, like most of the other work of the time,
+translations from the French. The interesting _Poema Morale_, or
+"Moral Ode," which we have in two forms--one of the meeting-point of
+the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, one fifty years later--is almost
+certainly older than its earliest extant version, and was very likely
+pure Saxon. Only in Nicholas of Guilford's _Owl and Nightingale_,
+about 1250, and perhaps some of the charming _Specimens of Lyric
+Poetry_, printed more than fifty years ago by Mr Wright, with a very
+few other things, do we find pure literature--not the literature of
+education or edification, but the literature of art and form.
+
+[Sidenote: _Layamon._]
+
+Yet the whole is, for the true student of literature, full enough of
+interest, while the best things are not in need of praising by
+allowance. Of Layamon mention has already been made in the chapter on
+the Arthurian Legend. But his work covers very much more than the
+Arthurian matter, and has interests entirely separate from it.
+Layamon, as he tells us,[89] derived his information from Bede, Wace,
+and a certain Albinus who has not been clearly identified. But he must
+have added a great deal of his own, and if it could be decided exactly
+_how_ he added it, the most difficult problem of mediaeval literature
+would be solved. Thus in the Arthurian part, just as we find additions
+in Wace to Geoffrey, so we find additions to Wace in Layamon. Where
+did he get these additions? Was it from the uncertain "Albinus"? Was
+it, as Celtic enthusiasts hold, that, living as he did on Severn bank,
+he was a neighbour of Wales, and gathered Welsh tradition? Or was it
+from deliberate invention? We cannot tell.
+
+[Footnote 89: Ed. Madden, i. 2.]
+
+Again, we have two distinct versions of his _Brut_, the later of which
+is fifty years or thereabouts younger than the earlier. It may be said
+that almost all mediaeval work is in similar case. But then the great
+body of mediaeval work is anonymous; and even the most scrupulous ages
+have not been squeamish in taking liberties with the text of Mr Anon.
+But the author is named in both these versions, and named differently.
+In the elder he is Layamon the son of Leovenath, in the younger
+Laweman the son of Leuca; and though Laweman is a mere variant or
+translation of Layamon, as much can hardly be said of Leovenath and
+Leuca. Further, the later version, besides the changes of language
+which were in the circumstances inevitable, omits many passages,
+besides those in which it is injured or mutilated, and alters proper
+names entirely at discretion.
+
+The only explanation of this, though it is an explanation which leaves
+a good deal unexplained, is, of course, that the sense both of
+historical criticism and of the duty of one writer to another was
+hardly born. The curiosity of the Middle Ages was great; their
+literary faculty, though somewhat incult and infantine, was great
+likewise: and there were such enormous gaps in their positive
+knowledge that the sharp sense of division between the certain, the
+uncertain, and the demonstrably false, which has grown up later, could
+hardly exist. It seems to have been every man's desire to leave each
+tale a little richer, fuller, handsomer, than he found it: and in
+doing this he hesitated neither at the accumulation of separate and
+sometimes incongruous stories, nor at the insertion of bits and scraps
+from various sources, nor, it would appear, at the addition of what
+seemed to him possible or desirable, without troubling himself to
+examine whether there was any ground for considering it actual.
+
+[Sidenote: _The form of the_ Brut.]
+
+Secondly, Layamon has no small interest of form. The language in which
+the _Brut_ is written has an exceedingly small admixture of French
+words; but it has made a step, and a long one, from Anglo-Saxon
+towards English. The verse is still alliterative, still destitute of
+any fixed number of syllables or syllabic equivalents. But the
+alliteration is weak and sometimes not present at all, the lines are
+of less extreme lawlessness in point of length than their older Saxon
+representatives, and, above all, there is a creeping in of rhyme. It
+is feeble, tentative, and obvious, confined to ostentatious pairs like
+"brother" and "other," "might" and "right," "fare" and "care." But it
+is a beginning: and we know that it will spread.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its substance._]
+
+In the last comparison, that of matter, Layamon will not come out ill
+even if he be tried high. The most obvious trial is with the work of
+Chrestien de Troyes, his earlier, though not much earlier,
+contemporary. Here the Frenchman has enormous advantages--the
+advantage of an infinitely more accomplished scheme of language and
+metre, that of some two centuries of finished poetical work before
+him, that of an evidently wider knowledge of literature generally, and
+perhaps that of a more distinctly poetical genius. And yet Layamon can
+survive the test. He is less, not more, subject to the _cliche_, the
+stereotyped and stock poetical form, than Chrestien. If he is far less
+smooth, he has not the monotony which accompanies and, so to speak,
+dogs the "skipping octosyllable"; and if he cannot, as Chrestien can,
+frame a set passage or show-piece, he manages to keep up a diffused
+interest, and in certain instances--the story of Rouwenne (Rowena),
+the Tintagel passage, the speech of Walwain to the Emperor of
+Rome--has a directness and simple appeal which cannot be slighted. We
+feel that he is at the beginning, while the other in respect of his
+own division is nearly at the end: that he has future, capabilities,
+opportunities of development. When one reads Chrestien or another
+earlier contemporary, Benoit de Sainte-More, the question is, "What
+can come after this?" When one reads Layamon the happier question is,
+"What will come after this?"
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Ormulum. _Its metre._]
+
+The _Ormulum_ and the _Ancren Riwle_ appear to be--the former exactly
+and the latter nearly of the same date as Layamon, all being near to
+1200. But though they were "good books," their interest is by no means
+merely one of edification. That of the _Ormulum_[90] is, indeed,
+almost entirely confined to its form and language; but it so happens
+that this interest is of the kind that touches literature most nearly.
+Orm or Ormin, who gives us his name, but of whom nothing else is
+known, has left in ten thousand long lines or twenty thousand short
+couplets a part only of a vast scheme of paraphrase and homiletic
+commentary on the Four Gospels (the "four-in-hand of Aminadab," as he
+calls them, taking up an earlier conceit), on the plan of taking a
+text for each day from its gospel in the calendar. As we have only
+thirty-two of these divisions, it is clear that the work, if
+completed, was much larger than this. Orm addresses it to Walter, his
+brother in the flesh as well as spiritually: the book seems to be
+written in an Anglian or East Anglian dialect, and it is at least an
+odd coincidence that the names Orm and Walter occur together in a
+Durham MS. But whoever Orm or Ormin was, he did two very remarkable
+things. In the first place, he broke entirely with alliteration and
+with any-length lines, composing his poem in a metre which is either a
+fifteen-syllabled iambic tetrameter catalectic, or else, as the reader
+pleases, a series of distichs in iambic dimeters, alternately
+acatalectic and catalectic. He does not rhyme, but his work, in the
+couplet form which shows it best, exhibits occasionally the
+alternation of masculine and feminine endings. This latter peculiarity
+was not to take hold in the language; but the quantified or mainly
+syllabic arrangement was. It was natural that Ormin, greatly daring,
+and being almost the first to dare, should neither allow himself the
+principle of equivalence shortly to distinguish English prosody from
+the French, which, with Latin, he imitated, nor should further hamper
+his already difficult task with rhyme. But his innovation was great
+enough, and his name deserves--little positive poetry as there is in
+his own book--high rank in the hierarchy of British poets. But for him
+and others like him that magnificent mixed harmony, which English
+almost alone of languages possesses, which distinguishes it as much
+from the rigid syllabic bondage of French as from the loose jangle of
+merely alliterative and accentual verse, would not have come in, or
+would have come in later. We might have had Langland, but we should
+not have had Chaucer: we should have had to console ourselves for the
+loss of Surrey and Wyatt with ingenious extravagances like Gawain
+Douglas's Eighth Prologue; and it is even possible that when the
+reaction did come, as it must have come sooner or later, we might have
+been bound like the French by the rigid syllable which Orm himself
+adopted, but which in those early days only served to guide and not to
+fetter.
+
+[Footnote 90: Ed. White and Holt, 2 vols. Oxford, 1878.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its spelling._]
+
+His second important peculiarity shows that he must have been an odd
+and crotchety creature, but one with sense in his crotchets. He seems
+to have been annoyed by mispronunciation of his own and other work:
+and accordingly he adopts (with full warning and explanation) the plan
+of invariably doubling the consonant after every _short_ vowel without
+exception. This gives a most grotesque air to his pages, which are
+studded with words like "nemmnedd" (named), "forrwerrpenn" (to
+despise), "tunderrstanndenn" (to understand), and so forth. But, in
+the first place, it fixes for all time, in a most invaluable manner,
+the pronunciation of English at that time; and in the second, it shows
+that Orm had a sound understanding of that principle of English which
+has been set at nought by those who would spell "traveller"
+"traveler." He knew that the tendency, and the, if not warned,
+excusable tendency, of an English tongue would be to pronounce this
+trav_ee_ler. It is a pity that knowledge which existed in the twelfth
+century should apparently have become partial ignorance close to the
+beginning of the twentieth.
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Ancren Riwle.]
+
+The _Ancren Riwle_[91] has no oddities of this kind, and nothing
+particularly noticeable in its form, though its easy pleasant prose
+would have been wonderful at the time in any other European nation.
+Even French prose was only just beginning to take such form, and had
+not yet severed itself from poetic peculiarities to anything like the
+same extent. But then the unknown author of the _Ancren Riwle_ had
+certainly four or five, and perhaps more, centuries of good sound
+Saxon prose before him: while St Bernard (if he wrote French prose),
+and even Villehardouin, had little or nothing but Latin. I have called
+him unknown, and he neither names himself nor is authoritatively named
+by any one; while of the guesses respecting him, that which identifies
+him with Simon of Ghent is refuted by the language of the book, while
+that which assigns it to Bishop Poore has no foundation. But if we do
+not know who wrote the book, we know for whom it was written--to wit,
+for the three "anchoresses" or irregular nuns of a private convent or
+sisterhood at Tarrant Keynes in Dorsetshire.
+
+[Footnote 91: Ed. Morton, for the Camden Society. London, 1853. This
+edition is, I believe, not regarded as quite satisfactory by
+philology: it is amply adequate for literature.]
+
+Later this nunnery, which lasted till the dissolution, was taken under
+the Cistercian rule; but at first, and at the time of the book, it was
+free, the author advising the inmates, if anybody asked, to say that
+they were under "the rule of St James"--_i.e._, the famous definition,
+by that apostle, of pure religion and undefiled. The treatise, which
+describes itself, or is described in one of its MSS., as "one book
+to-dealed into eight books," is of some length, but singularly
+pleasing to read, and gives evidence of a very amiable and sensible
+spirit in its author, as well as of a pretty talent for writing easy
+prose. If he never rises to the more mystical and poetical beauties of
+mediaeval religion, so he never descends to its ferocities and its
+puerilities. The rule, the "lady-rule," he says, is the inward; the
+outward is only adopted in order to assist and help the inward:
+therefore it may and should vary according to the individual, while
+the inward cannot. The outward rule of the anchoresses of Tarrant
+Keynes was by no means rigorous. They were three in number; they had
+lay sisters (practically lady's-maids) as well as inferior servants.
+They are not to reduce themselves to bread-and-water fasting without
+special direction; they are not to be ostentatious in alms-giving;
+they may have a pet cat; haircloth and hedgehog-skins are not for
+them; and they are not to flog themselves with briars or leaded
+thongs. Ornaments are not to be worn; but a note says that this is not
+a positive command, all such things belonging merely to the external
+rule. Also they may wash just as often as it is necessary, or as they
+like!--an item which, absurd as is the popular notion of the dirt of
+the Middle Ages, speaks volumes for the sense and taste of this
+excellent anonym.
+
+This part is the last or eighth "dole," as the sections are termed;
+the remaining seven deal with religious service, private devotion, the
+_Wesen_ or nature of anchorites, temptation, confession, penance,
+penitence, and the love of God. Although some may think it out of
+fashion, it is astonishing how much sense, kindliness, true religion,
+and useful learning there is in this monitor of the anchoresses of
+Tarrant Keynes, which place a man might well visit in pilgrimage to
+do him honour. Every now and then, rough as is his vehicle of
+speech--a transition medium, endowed neither with the oak-and-rock
+strength of Anglo-Saxon nor with the varied gifts of modern
+English--he can rise to real and true eloquence, as where he speaks of
+the soul and "the heavy flesh that draweth her downwards, yet through
+the highship [nobleness] of her, it [the flesh] shall become full
+light--yea, lighter than the wind is, and brighter than the sun is, if
+only it follow her and draw her not too hard to its own low kind." But
+though such passages, good in phrase and rhythm, as well as noble in
+sense, are not rare, the pleasant humanity of the whole book is the
+best thing in it. M. Renan oddly enough pronounced _Ecclesiastes_,
+that voice of the doom of life, to be "le seul livre aimable" which
+Judaism had produced. The ages of St Francis and of the _Imitation_ do
+not compel us to look about for a _seul livre aimable_, but it may
+safely be said that there is none more amiable in a cheerful human way
+than the _Ancren Riwle_.
+
+It would serve no purpose here to discuss in detail most of the other
+vernacular productions of the first half of the thirteenth century in
+English.[92] They are almost without exception either religious--the
+constant rehandling of the time cannot be better exemplified than by
+the fact that at least two paraphrases, one in prose, one in verse, of
+one of the "doles" of the _Ancren Riwle_ itself exist--or else
+moral-scientific, such as the _Bestiary_,[93] so often printed. One of
+the constantly recurring version-paraphrases of the Scriptures,
+however--the so-called _Story of Genesis and Exodus_,[94] supposed to
+date from about the middle--has great interest, because here we find
+(whether for the first time or not he would be a rash man who should
+say, but certainly for almost, if not quite, the first) the famous
+"Christabel" metre--iambic dimeter, rhymed with a wide licence of
+trisyllabic equivalence. This was to be twice revived by great poets,
+with immense consequences to English poetry--first by Spenser in the
+_Kalendar_, and then by Coleridge himself--and was to become one of
+the most powerful, varied, and charming of English rhythms. That this
+metre, the chief battle-ground of fighting between the accent-men and
+the quantity-men, never arose till after rhymed quantitative metre had
+met accentual alliteration, and had to a great extent overcome it, is
+a tell-tale fact, of which more hereafter. And it is to be observed
+also that in this same poem it is possible to discover not a few very
+complete and handsome decasyllables which would do no discredit to
+Chaucer himself.
+
+[Footnote 92: Substantial portions of all the work mentioned in this
+chapter will be found in Messrs Morris and Skeat's invaluable
+_Specimens of Early English_ (Oxford, Part i. ed. 2, 1887; Part ii.
+ed. 3, 1894). These include the whole of the _Moral Ode_ and of _King
+Horn_. Separate complete editions of some are noted below.]
+
+[Footnote 93: Wright, _Reliquiae Antiquae_, i. 208-227.]
+
+[Footnote 94: Ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., London, 1865.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Owl and the Nightingale.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Proverbs._]
+
+But the _Owl and the Nightingale_[95] is another kind of thing. In
+the first place, it appears to be (though it would be rash to affirm
+this positively of anything in a form so popular with the French
+_trouveres_ as the _debat_) original and not translated. It bears a
+name, that of Nicholas of Guildford, who seems to be the author, and
+assigns himself a local habitation at Portesham in Dorsetshire.
+Although of considerable length (nearly two thousand lines), and
+written in very pure English with few French words, it manages the
+rhymed octosyllabic couplet (which by this time had become the
+standing metre of France for everything but historical poems, and for
+some of these) with remarkable precision, lightness, and harmony.
+Moreover, the Owl and the Nightingale conduct their debate with plenty
+of mother-wit, expressed not unfrequently in proverbial form. Indeed
+proverbs, a favourite form of expression with Englishmen at all times,
+appear to have been specially in favour just then; and the "Proverbs
+of Alfred"[96] (supposed to date from this very time), the "Proverbs
+of Hendyng"[97] a little later, are not likely to have been the only
+collections of the kind. The Alfred Proverbs are in a rude popular
+metre like the old alliteration much broken down; those of Hendyng in
+a six-line stanza (soon to become the famous ballad stanza) syllabled,
+though sometimes catalectically, 8 8 6 8 8 6, and rhymed _a a b c c
+b_, the proverb and the _coda_ "quod Hendyng" being added to each.
+The _Owl and the Nightingale_ is, however, as we might expect,
+superior to both of these in poetical merit, as well as to the
+so-called _Moral Ode_ which, printed by Hickes in 1705, was one of the
+first Middle English poems to gain modern recognition.
+
+[Footnote 95: About 600 lines of this are given by Morris and Skeat.
+Completely edited by (among others) F.H. Stratmann. Krefeld, 1868.]
+
+[Footnote 96: Ed. Morris, _An Old English Miscellany_. London, 1872.]
+
+[Footnote 97: See _Reliquiae Antiquae_, i. 109-116.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Robert of Gloucester._]
+
+As the dividing-point of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
+approaches, the interest of literary work increases, and requires less
+and less allowance of historical and accidental value. This allowance,
+indeed, is still necessary with the verse chronicle of Robert of
+Gloucester,[98] the date of which is fixed with sufficient certainty
+at 1298. This book has been somewhat undervalued, in point of strict
+literary merit, from a cause rather ludicrous but still real. It will
+almost invariably be found that those mediaeval books which happen to
+have been made known before the formal beginning of scholarship in the
+modern languages, are underrated by modern scholars, who not
+unnaturally put a perhaps excessive price upon their own discoveries
+or fosterlings. Robert of Gloucester's work, with the later but
+companion Englishing of Peter of Langtoft by Robert Manning of Brunne,
+was published by Hearne in the early part of the last century. The
+contemporaries of that publication thought him rude, unkempt,
+"Gothick": the moderns have usually passed him by for more direct
+_proteges_ of their own. Yet there is not a little attraction in
+Robert. To begin with, he is the first in English, if not the first in
+any modern language, to attempt in the vernacular a general history,
+old as well as new, new as well as old. And the opening of him is not
+to be despised--
+
+    "Engeland is a well good land, I ween of each land the best,
+    Yset in the end of the world, as all in the West:
+    The sea goeth him all about, he stands as an isle,
+    His foes he dares the less doubt but it be through guile
+    Of folk of the self land, as men hath y-seen while."
+
+[Footnote 98: Edited with Langtoft, in 4 vols., by Hearne, Oxford,
+1724; and reprinted, London, 1810. Also more lately in the Rolls
+Series.]
+
+And in the same good swinging metre he goes on describing the land,
+praising its gifts, and telling its story in a downright fashion which
+is very agreeable to right tastes. Like almost everybody else, he drew
+upon Geoffrey of Monmouth for his early history: but from at least the
+time of the Conqueror (he is strongly prejudiced in the matter of
+Harold) he represents, if not what we should call solid historical
+knowledge, at any rate direct, and for the time tolerably fresh,
+historical tradition, while as he approaches his own time he becomes
+positively historical, and, as in the case of the Oxford town-and-gown
+row of 1263, the first Barons' Wars, the death of the Earl-Marshal,
+and such things, is a vigorous as well as a tolerably authoritative
+chronicler. In the history of English prosody he, too, is of great
+importance, being another landmark in the process of consolidating
+accent and quantity, alliteration and rhyme. His swinging verses still
+have the older tendency to a trochaic rather than the later to an
+anapaestic rhythm; but they are, so to speak, on the move, and
+approaching the later form. He is still rather prone to group his
+rhymes instead of keeping the couplets separate: but as he is not
+translating from _chanson de geste_ form, he does not, as Robert of
+Brunne sometimes does, fall into complete _laisses_. I have counted as
+many as twenty continuous rhymes in Manning, and there may be more:
+but there is nothing of that extent in the earlier Robert.
+
+[Sidenote: _Romances._]
+
+Verse history, however, must always be an awkward and unnatural form
+at the best. The end of the thirteenth century had something better to
+show in the appearance of romance proper and of epic. When the study
+of any department of old literature begins, there is a natural and
+almost invariable tendency to regard it as older than it really is;
+and when, at the end of the last century, the English verse romances
+began to be read, this tendency prevailed at least as much as usual.
+Later investigation, besides showing that, almost without exception,
+they are adaptations of French originals, has, partly as a consequence
+of this, shown that scarcely any that we have are earlier than the
+extreme end of the thirteenth century. Among these few that are,
+however, three of exceptional interest (perhaps the best three except
+_Gawaine and the Green Knight_ and _Sir Launfal_) may probably be
+classed--to wit, _Horn_, _Havelok_, and the famous _Sir Tristram_. As
+to the last and best known of these, which from its inclusion among
+Sir Walter Scott's works has received attention denied to the rest, it
+may or may not be the work of Thomas the Rhymer. But whether it is or
+not, it can by no possibility be later than the first quarter of the
+fourteenth century, while the most cautious critics pronounce both
+_Havelok the Dane_ and _King Horn_ to be older than 1300.[99]
+
+[Footnote 99: _Tristram_, for editions _v._ p. 116: _Havelok_, edited
+by Madden, 1828, and again by Prof. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868. _King Horn_
+has been repeatedly printed--first by Ritson, _Ancient English
+Metrical Romances_ (London, 1802), ii. 91, and Appendix; last by Prof.
+Skeat in the _Specimens_ above mentioned.]
+
+[Sidenote: Havelok the Dane.]
+
+It is, moreover, not a mere accident that these three, though the
+authors pretty certainly had French originals before them, seem most
+likely to have had yet older English or Anglo-Saxon originals of the
+French in the case of _Horn_ and _Havelok_, while the Tristram story,
+as is pointed out in the chapter on the Arthurian Legend, is the most
+British in tone of all the divisions of that Legend. _Havelok_ and
+_Horn_ have yet further interest because of the curious contrast
+between their oldest forms in more ways than one. _Havelok_ is an
+English equivalent, with extremely strong local connections and
+identifications, of the homelier passages of the French _chansons de
+geste_. The hero, born in Denmark, and orphan heir to a kingdom, is to
+be put away by his treacherous guardian, who commits him to Grim the
+fisherman to be drowned. Havelok's treatment is hard enough even on
+his way to the drowning; but as supernatural signs show his kingship
+to Grim's wife, and as the fisherman, feigning to have performed his
+task, meets with very scant gratitude from his employer, he resolves
+to escape from the latter's power, puts to sea, and lands in England
+at the place afterwards to be called from him Grimsby. Havelok is
+brought up simply as a rough fisher-boy; but he obtains employment in
+Lincoln Castle as porter to the kitchen, and much rough horse-play of
+the _chanson_ kind occurs. Now it so happens that the heiress of
+England, Goldborough, has been treated by her guardian with as much
+injustice though with less ferocity; and the traitor seeks to crown
+his exclusion of her from her rights by marrying her to the sturdy
+scullion. When the two rights are thus joined, they of course prevail,
+and the two traitors, after a due amount of hard fighting, receive
+their doom, Godard the Dane being hanged, and Godric the Englishman
+burnt at the stake. This rough and vigorous story is told in rough and
+vigorous verse--octosyllabic couplets, with full licence in
+shortening, but with no additional syllables except an occasional
+double rhyme--in very sterling English, and with some, though slight,
+traces of alliteration.
+
+[Sidenote: King Horn.]
+
+_Horn_ (_King Horn_, _Horn-Child and Maiden Rimnilde_, &c.) is
+somewhat more courtly in its general outlines, and has less of the
+folk-tale about it; but it also has connections with Denmark, and it
+turns upon treachery, as indeed do nearly all the romances. Horn, son
+of a certain King Murray, is, in consequence of a raid of heathen in
+ships, orphaned and exiled in his childhood across the sea, where he
+finds an asylum in the house of King Aylmer of Westerness. His love
+for Aylmer's daughter Rimenhild and hers for him (he is the most
+beautiful of men), the faithfulness of his friend Athulf (who has to
+undergo the very trying experience of being made violent love to by
+Rimenhild under the impression that he is Horn), and the treachery of
+his friend Fikenild (who nearly succeeds in making the princess his
+own), defray the chief interest of the story, which is not very long.
+The good steward Athelbrus also plays a great part, which is
+noticeable, because the stewards of Romances are generally bad. The
+rhymed couplets of this poem are composed of shorter lines than those
+of _Havelok_. They allow themselves the syllabic licence of
+alliterative verse proper, though there is even less alliteration than
+in _Havelok_, and they vary from five to eight syllables, though five
+and six are the commonest. The poem, indeed, in this respect occupies
+a rather peculiar position. Yet it is all the more valuable as showing
+yet another phase of the change.
+
+The first really charming literature in English has, however, still to
+be mentioned: and this is to be found in the volume--little more than
+a pamphlet--edited fifty years ago for the Percy Society (March 1,
+1842) by Thomas Wright, under the title of _Specimens of Lyric Poetry
+composed in England in the Reign of Edward the First_, from MS. 2253
+Harl. in the British Museum. The first three poems are in French, of
+the well-known and by this time far from novel _trouvere_ character,
+of which those of Thibaut of Champagne are the best specimens. The
+fourth--
+
+    "Middel-erd for mon wes mad,"
+
+is English, and is interesting as copying not the least intricate of
+the _trouvere_ measures--an eleven-line stanza of eight sevens or
+sixes, rhymed _ab, ab, ab, ab, c, b, c_; but moral-religious in tone
+and much alliterated. The fifth, also English, is anapaestic tetrameter
+heavily alliterated, and mono-rhymed for eight verses, with the stanza
+made up to ten by a couplet on another rhyme. It is not very
+interesting. But with VI. the chorus of sweet sounds begins, and
+therefore, small as is the room for extract here, it must be given in
+full:--
+
+    "Bytuene Mershe and Avoril
+      When spray beginneth to springe,
+    The little foul hath hire wyl
+      On hyre lud to synge:
+    Ich libbe in love-longinge
+    For semlokest of alle thynge,
+    He may me blisse bringe
+      Icham in hire banndoun.
+    An hendy hap ichabbe y-hent,
+    Ichot from hevine it is me sent,
+    From alle wymmen my love is lent
+      Ant lyht on Alisoun.
+
+    On hew hire her is fayr ynoh
+      Hire browe bronne, hire eye blake;
+    With lovsom chere he on me loh;
+      With middel small ant wel y-make;
+    Bott he me wille to hire take,
+    For to buen hire owen make,
+    Long to lyven ichulle forsake,
+      Ant feye fallen a-doun.
+        An hendy hap, &c.
+
+    Nihtes when I wenke ant wake,
+      For-thi myn wonges waxeth won;
+    Levedi, al for thine sake
+      Longinge is ylent me on.
+    In world is non so wytor mon
+    That al hire bounte telle con;
+    Heir swyre is whittere than the swon
+      Ant fayrest may in toune.
+        An hendy hap, &c.
+
+    Icham for wouyng al for-wake,
+      Wery so water in wore
+    Lest any reve me my make
+      Ychabbe y-[y]yrned [y]ore.
+    Betere is tholien whyle sore
+    Then mournen evermore.
+      Geynest under gore,
+        Herkene to my roune.
+          An hendy hap, &c."
+
+The next, "With longyng y am lad," is pretty, though less so: and is
+in ten-line stanzas of sixes, rhymed _a a b, a a b, b a a b_. Those of
+VIII. are twelve-lined in eights, rhymed _ab, ab, ab, ab, c, d, c, d_;
+but it is observable that there is some assonance here instead of pure
+rhyme. IX. is in the famous romance stanza of six or rather twelve
+lines, _a la_ _Sir Thopas_; X. in octaves of eights alternately rhymed
+with an envoy quatrain; XI. (a very pretty one) in a new metre, rhymed
+_a a a b a, b_. And this variety continues after a fashion which it
+would be tedious to particularise further. But it must be said that
+the charm of "Alison" is fully caught up by--
+
+    "Lenten ys come with love to toune,
+    With blosmen ant with bryddes roune,
+      That al this blisse bringeth;
+    Dayes-eyes in this dales,
+    Notes suete of nytengales,
+      Ilk foul song singeth;"
+
+by a sturdy Praise of Women which charges gallantly against the usual
+mediaeval slanders; and by a piece which, with "Alison," is the flower
+of the whole, and has the exquisite refrain--
+
+    "Blow, northerne wynd,
+    Send thou me my suetyng,
+    Blow, northerne wynd, blou, blou, blou"--
+
+Here is Tennysonian verse five hundred years before Tennyson. The
+"cry" of English lyric is on this northern wind at last; and it shall
+never fail afterwards.
+
+[Sidenote: _The prosody of the modern languages._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Historical retrospect._]
+
+This seems to be the best place to deal, not merely with the form of
+English lyric in itself, but with the general subject of the prosody
+as well of English as of the other modern literary languages. A very
+great[100] deal has been written, with more and with less learning,
+with ingenuity greater or smaller, on the origins of rhyme, on the
+source of the decasyllabic and other staple lines and stanzas; and,
+lastly, on the general system of modern as opposed to ancient
+scansion. Much of this has been the result of really careful study,
+and not a little of it the result of distinct acuteness; but it has
+suffered on the whole from the supposed need of some new theory, and
+from an unwillingness to accept plain and obvious facts. These facts,
+or the most important of them, may be summarised as follows: The
+prosody of a language will necessarily vary according to the
+pronunciation and composition of that language; but there are certain
+general principles of prosody which govern all languages possessing a
+certain kinship. These general principles were, for the Western
+branches of the Aryan tongues, very early discovered and formulated by
+the Greeks, being later adjusted to somewhat stiffer rules--to
+compensate for less force of poetic genius, or perhaps merely because
+licence was not required--by the Latins. Towards the end of the
+classical literary period, however, partly the increasing importance
+of the Germanic and other non-Greek and non-Latin elements in the
+Empire, partly those inexplicable organic changes which come from time
+to time, broke up this system. Rhyme appeared, no one knows quite how,
+or why, or whence, and at the same time, though the general structure
+of metres was not very much altered, the quantity of individual
+syllables appears to have undergone a complete change. Although metres
+quantitative in scheme continued to be written, they were written, as
+a rule, with more or less laxity; and though rhyme was sometimes
+adapted to them in Latin, it was more frequently used with a looser
+syllabic arrangement, retaining the divisional characteristics of the
+older prosody, but neglecting quantity, the strict rules of elision,
+and so forth.
+
+[Footnote 100: It is sufficient to mention here Guest's famous
+_English Rhythms_ (ed. Skeat, 1882), a book which at its first
+appearance in 1838 was no doubt a revelation, but which carries things
+too far; Dr Schipper's _Grundriss der Englischen Metrik_ (Wien, 1895),
+and for foreign matters M. Gaston Paris's chapter in his _Litterature
+Francaise au Moyen Age_. I do not agree with any of them, but I have a
+profound respect for all.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Anglo-Saxon prosody._]
+
+On the other hand, some of the new Teutonic tongues which were thus
+brought into contact with Latin, and with which Latin was brought into
+contact, had systems of prosody of their own, based on entirely
+different principles. The most elaborate of these probably, and the
+only one from which we have distinct remains of undoubtedly old matter
+in considerable quantities, is Anglo-Saxon, though Icelandic runs it
+close. A detailed account of the peculiarities of this belongs to the
+previous volume: it is sufficient to say here that its great
+characteristic was alliteration, and that accent played a large part,
+to the exclusion both of definite quantity and of syllabic identity or
+equivalence.
+
+[Sidenote: _Romance prosody._]
+
+While these were the states of things with regard to Latin on the one
+hand, and to the tongues most separated from Latin on the other, the
+Romance languages, or daughters of Latin, had elaborated or were
+elaborating, by stages which are almost entirely hidden from us,
+middle systems, of which the earliest, and in a way the most perfect,
+is that of Provencal, followed by Northern French and Italian, the
+dialects of the Spanish Peninsula being a little behindhand in
+elaborate verse. The three first-named tongues seem to have hit upon
+the verse of ten or eleven syllables, which later crystallised itself
+into ten for French and eleven for Italian, as their staple
+measure.[101] Efforts have been made to father this directly on some
+classical original, and some authorities have even been uncritical
+enough to speak of the connection--this or that--having been "proved"
+for these verses or others. No such proof has been given, and none is
+possible. What is certain, and alone certain, is that whereas the
+chief literary metre of the last five centuries of Latin had been
+dactylic and trisyllabic, this, the chief metre of the daughter
+tongues, and by-and-by almost their only one, was disyllabic--iambic,
+or trochaic, as the case may be, but generally iambic. Rhyme became by
+degrees an invariable or almost invariable accompaniment, and while
+quantity, strictly speaking, almost disappeared (some will have it
+that it quite disappeared from French), a syllabic uniformity more
+rigid than any which had prevailed, except in the case of lyric
+measures like the Alcaic, became the rule. Even elision was very
+greatly restricted, though caesura was pretty strictly retained, and an
+additional servitude was imposed by the early adoption in French of
+the fixed alternation of "masculine" and "feminine" rhymes--that is to
+say, of rhymes with, and rhymes without, the mute _e_.
+
+[Footnote 101: _Vide_ Dante, _De Vulgari Eloquio_.]
+
+[Sidenote: _English prosody._]
+
+[Sidenote: _The later alliteration._]
+
+But the prosody of the Romance tongues is perfectly simple and
+intelligible, except in the one crux of the question how it came into
+being, and what part "popular" poetry played in it. We find it, almost
+from the first, full-blown: and only minor refinements or improvements
+are introduced afterwards. With English prosody it is very
+different.[102] As has been said, the older prosody itself, with the
+older verse, seems to have to a great extent died out even before the
+Conquest, and what verse was written in the alliterative measures
+afterwards was of a feeble and halting kind. Even when, as the authors
+of later volumes of this series will have to show, alliterative verse
+was taken up with something like a set purpose during the fourteenth
+and fifteenth centuries, its character was wholly changed, and though
+some very good work was written in it, it was practically all literary
+exercise. It frequently assumed regular stanza-forms, the lines also
+frequently fell into regular quantitative shapes, such as the heroic,
+the Alexandrine, and the tetrameter. Above all, the old strict and
+accurate combination of a limited amount of alliteration, jealously
+adjusted to words important in sense and rhythm, was exchanged for a
+profusion of alliterated syllables, often with no direct rhythmical
+duty to pay, and constantly leading to mere senseless and tasteless
+jingle, if not to the positive coining of fantastic or improper
+locutions to get the "artful aid."
+
+[Footnote 102: What is said here of English applies with certain
+modifications to German, though the almost entire loss of Old German
+poetry and the comparatively late date of Middle make the process less
+striking and more obscure, and the greater talent of the individual
+imitators of French interferes more with the process of insensible
+shaping and growth. German prosody, despite the charm of its lyric
+measures, has never acquired the perfect combination of freedom and
+order which we find in English, as may be seen by comparing the best
+blank verse of the two.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The new verse._]
+
+Meanwhile the real prosody of English had been elaborated, in the
+usual blending fashion of the race, by an intricate, yet, as it
+happens, an easily traceable series of compromises and naturalisations.
+By the end of the twelfth century, as we have seen, rhyme was
+creeping in to supersede alliteration, and a regular arrangement of
+elastic syllabic equivalents or strict syllabic values was taking the
+place of the irregular accented lengths. It does not appear that the
+study of the classics had anything directly to do with this: it is
+practically certain that the influence on the one hand of Latin hymns
+and the Church services, and on the other of French poetry, had very
+much.
+
+[Sidenote: _Rhyme and syllabic equivalence._]
+
+Rhyme is to the modern European ear so agreeable, if not so
+indispensable, an ornament of verse, that, once heard, it is sure to
+creep in, and can only be expelled by deliberate and unnatural
+crotchet from any but narrative and dramatic poetry. On the other
+hand, it is almost inevitable that when rhyme is expected, the lines
+which it tips should be reduced to an equal or at any rate an
+equivalent length. Otherwise the expectation of the ear--that the
+final ring should be led up to by regular and equable rhythm--is
+baulked. If this is not done, as in what we call doggerel rhyme, an
+effect of grotesque is universally produced, to the ruin of serious
+poetic effect. With these desiderata present, though unconsciously
+present, before them, with the Latin hymn-writers and the French poets
+for models, and with Church music perpetually starting in their
+memories cadences, iambic or trochaic, dactylic or anapaestic, to which
+to set their own verse, it is not surprising that English poets should
+have accompanied the rapid changes of their language itself with
+parallel rapidity of metrical innovation. Quantity they observed
+loosely--quantity in modern languages is always loose: but it does
+not follow that they ignored it altogether.
+
+[Sidenote: _Accent and quantity._]
+
+Those who insist that they did ignore it, and who painfully search for
+verses of so many "accents," for "sections," for "pauses," and what
+not, are confronted with difficulties throughout the whole course of
+English poetry: there is hardly a page of that brilliant, learned,
+instructive, invaluable piece of wrong-headedness, Dr Guest's _English
+Rhythms_, which does not bristle with them. But at no time are these
+difficulties so great as during our present period, and especially at
+the close of it. Let any man who has no "prize to fight," no thesis to
+defend, take any characteristic piece of Anglo-Saxon poetry and
+"Alison," place them side by side, read them aloud together, scan them
+carefully with the eye, compare each separately and both together with
+as many other examples of poetic arrangement as he likes. He must, I
+think, be hopelessly blinded by prejudice if he does not come to the
+conclusion that there is a gulf between the systems of which these two
+poems are examples--that if the first is "accentual," "sectional," and
+what not, then these same words are exactly _not_ the words which
+ought to be applied to the second.[103] And he will further see that
+with "Alison" there is not the slightest difficulty whatever, but
+that, on the contrary, it is the natural and all but inevitable thing
+to do to scan the piece according to classical laws, allowing only
+much more licence of "common" syllables--common in themselves and by
+position--than in Latin, and rather more than in Greek.
+
+[Footnote 103: Of course there is plenty of alliteration in "Alison."
+That ornament is too grateful to the English ear ever to have ceased
+or to be likely to cease out of English poetry. But it has ceased to
+possess any _metrical_ value; it has absolutely nothing to do with the
+_structure_ of the line.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The gain of form._]
+
+Yet another conclusion may perhaps be risked, and that is that this
+change of prosody was either directly caused by, or in singular
+coincidence was associated with, a great enlargement of the range and
+no slight improvement of the quality of poetry. Anglo-Saxon verse at
+its best has grandeur, mystery, force, a certain kind of pathos. But
+it is almost entirely devoid of sweetness, of all the lighter artistic
+attractions, of power to represent other than religious passion, of
+adaptability to the varied uses of lyric. All these additional gifts,
+and in no slight measure, have now been given; and there is surely an
+almost fanatical hatred of form in the refusal to connect the gain
+with those changes, in vocabulary first, in prosody secondly, which
+have been noted. For there is not only the fact, but there is a more
+than plausible reason for the fact. The alliterative accentual verse
+of indefinite length is obviously unsuited for all the lighter, and
+for some of the more serious, purposes of verse. Unless it is at
+really heroic height (and at this height not even Shakespeare can keep
+poetry invariably) it must necessarily be flat, awkward, prosaic,
+heavy, all which qualities are the worst foes of the Muses. The new
+equipments may not have been indispensable to the poet's soaring--they
+may not be the greater wings of his song, the mighty pinions that take
+him beyond Space and Time into Eternity and the Infinite. But they
+are most admirable _talaria_, ankle-winglets enabling him to skim and
+scud, to direct his flight this way and that, to hover as well as to
+tower, even to run at need as well as to fly.
+
+That a danger was at hand, the danger of too great restriction in the
+syllabic direction, has been admitted. The greatest poet of the
+fourteenth century in England--the greatest, for the matter of that,
+from the beginning till the sixteenth--went some way in this path, and
+if Chaucer's English followers had been men of genius we might have
+been sorely trammelled. Fortunately Lydgate and Occleve and Hawes
+showed the dangers rather than the attractions of strictness, and the
+contemporary practice of alliterative irregulars kept alive the
+appetite for liberty. But at this time--at our time--it was
+restriction, regulation, quantification, metrical arrangement, that
+English needed; and it received them.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: _The "accent" theory._]
+
+These remarks are of course not presented as a complete account, even
+in summary, of English, much less of European prosody. They are barely
+more than the heads of such a summary, or than indications of the line
+which the inquiry might, and in the author's view should, take.
+Perhaps they may be worked out--or rather the working out of them may
+be published--more fully hereafter. But for the present they may
+possibly be useful as a protest against the "accent" and "stress"
+theories which have been so common of late years in regard to English
+poetry, and which, though not capable of being applied in quite the
+same fashion to the Romance languages, have had their counterparts in
+attempts to decry the application of classical prosody (which has
+never been very well understood on the Continent) to modern tongues.
+No one can speak otherwise than respectfully of Dr Guest, whose book
+is certainly one of the most patient and ingenious studies of the kind
+to be found in any literature, and whose erudition, at a time when
+such erudition needed far greater efforts than now, cannot be too
+highly praised. But it is a besetting sin or disease of Englishmen in
+all matters, after pooh-poohing innovation, to go blindly in for it;
+and I cannot but think that Dr Guest's accentual theory, after being
+for years mainly neglected, has, for years again, been altogether too
+greedily swallowed. It is not of course a case necessarily of want of
+scholarship, or want of ear, for there are few better scholars or
+poets than Mr Robert Bridges, who, though not a mere Guestite, holds
+theories of prosody which seem to me even less defensible than
+Guest's. But it is, I think, a case of rather misguided patriotism,
+which thinks it necessary to invent an English prosody for English
+poems.
+
+[Sidenote: _Initial fallacies._]
+
+This is surely a mistake. Allowances in degree, in shade, in local
+colour, there must of course be in prosody as in other things. The
+developments, typical and special, of English prosody in the
+nineteenth century cannot be quite the same as those of Greek two
+thousand years ago, or of French to-day. But if, as I see not the
+slightest reason for doubting, prosody is not an artificially acquired
+art but a natural result of the natural desires, the universal organs
+of humanity, it is excessively improbable that the prosodic results of
+nations so nearly allied to each other, and so constantly studying
+each other's work, as Greeks, Romans, and modern Europeans, should be
+in any great degree different. If quantity, if syllabic equivalence
+and so forth, do not display themselves in Anglo-Saxon or in
+Icelandic, it must be remembered that the poetry of these nations was
+after all comparatively small, rather isolated, and in the conditions
+of extremely early development--a childish thing to which there is not
+the slightest rhyme or reason for straining ourselves to assimilate
+the things of manhood. That accent modified English prosody nobody
+need deny; there is no doubt that the very great freedom of
+equivalence--which makes it, for instance, at least theoretically
+possible to compose an English heroic line of five tribrachs--and the
+immense predominance of common syllables in the language, are due in
+some degree to a continuance of accentual influence.
+
+[Sidenote: _And final perversities thereof._]
+
+But to go on from this, as Dr Guest and some of his followers have
+done, to the subjection of the whole invaluable vocabulary of
+classical prosody to a sort of _praemunire_, to hold up the hands in
+horror at the very name of a tribrach, and exhibit symptoms of
+catalepsy at the word catalectic--to ransack the dictionary for
+unnatural words or uses of words like "catch," and "stop," and
+"pause," where a perfectly clear and perfectly flexible terminology is
+ready to your hand--this does seem to me in another sense a very
+childish thing indeed, and one that cannot be too soon put away. It is
+no exaggeration to say that the extravagances, the unnatural
+contortions of scansion, the imputations of irregularity and
+impropriety on the very greatest poets with which Dr Guest's book
+swarms, must force themselves on any one who studies that book
+thoroughly and impartially. When theory leads to the magisterial
+indorsement of "gross fault" on some of the finest passages of
+Shakespeare and Milton, because they "violate" Dr Guest's privy law of
+"the final pause"; when we are told that "section 9," as Dr Guest is
+pleased to call that admirable form of "sixes," the anapaest followed
+by two iambs,[104] one of the great sources of music in the ballad
+metre, is "a verse which has very little to recommend it"; when one of
+Shakespeare's secrets, the majestic full stop before the last word of
+the line, is black-marked as "opposed to every principle of accentual
+rhythm," then the thing becomes not so much outrageous as absurd.
+Prosody respectfully and intelligently attempting to explain how the
+poets produce their best things is useful and agreeable: when it makes
+an arbitrary theory beforehand, and dismisses the best things as bad
+because they do not agree therewith, it becomes a futile nuisance. And
+I believe that there is no period of our literature which, when
+studied, will do more to prevent or correct such fatuity than this
+very period of Early Middle English.
+
+[Footnote 104: His instance is Burns's--
+
+    "Like a rogue | for for | gerie."
+
+It is a pity he did not reinforce it with many of the finest lines in
+_The Ancient Mariner_.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+MIDDLE HIGH GERMAN POETRY.
+
+     POSITION OF GERMANY. MERIT OF ITS POETRY. FOLK-EPICS: THE
+     'NIBELUNGENLIED.' THE 'VOLSUNGA SAGA.' THE GERMAN VERSION.
+     METRES. RHYME AND LANGUAGE. 'KUDRUN.' SHORTER NATIONAL
+     EPICS. LITERARY POETRY. ITS FOUR CHIEF MASTERS. EXCELLENCE,
+     BOTH NATURAL AND ACQUIRED, OF GERMAN VERSE. ORIGINALITY OF
+     ITS ADAPTATION. THE PIONEERS: HEINRICH VON VELDEKE.
+     GOTTFRIED OF STRASBURG. HARTMANN VON AUE. 'EREC DER
+     WANDERAERE' AND 'IWEIN.' LYRICS. THE "BOOKLETS." 'DER ARME
+     HEINRICH.' WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH. 'TITUREL.' 'WILLEHALM.'
+     'PARZIVAL.' WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE. PERSONALITY OF THE
+     POETS. THE MINNESINGERS GENERALLY.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Position of Germany._]
+
+It must have been already noticed that one main reason for the
+unsurpassed literary interest of this present period is that almost
+all the principal European nations contribute, in their different
+ways, elements to that interest. The contribution is not in all cases
+one of positive literary production, of so much matter of the first
+value actually added to the world's library. But in some cases it is;
+and in the instance to which we come at present it is so in a measure
+approached by no other country except France and perhaps Iceland. Nor
+is Germany,[105] as every other country except Iceland may be said to
+be, wholly a debtor or vassal to France herself. Partly she is so; of
+the three chief divisions of Middle High German poetry (for prose here
+practically does not count), the folk-epic, the "art-epic," as the
+Germans themselves not very happily call it, and the lyric--the second
+is always, and the third to no small extent, what might punningly be
+called in copyhold of France. But even the borrowed material is
+treated with such intense individuality of spirit that it almost
+acquires independence; and part of the matter, as has been said, is
+not borrowed at all.
+
+[Footnote 105: The most accessible _History of German Literature_ is
+that of Scherer (English translation, 2 vols., Oxford, 1886), a book
+of fair information and with an excellent bibliography, but not very
+well arranged, and too full of extra-literary matter. Carlyle's great
+_Nibelungenlied_ Essay (_Essays_, vol. iii.) can never be obsolete
+save in unimportant matters; that which follows on _Early German
+Literature_ is good, but less good. Mr Gosse's _Northern Studies_
+(1879) contains a very agreeable paper on Walther von der Vogelweide.
+The Wagnerites have naturally of late years dealt much with Wolfram
+von Eschenbach, but seldom from a literary point of view.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Merit of its poetry._]
+
+It has been pointed out that for some curious reason French literary
+critics, not usually remarkable for lack of national vanity, have been
+by no means excessive in their laudations of the earlier literature of
+their country. The opposite is the case with those of Germany, and the
+rather extravagant patriotism of some of their expressions may perhaps
+have had a bad effect on some foreign readers. It cannot, for
+instance, be otherwise than disgusting to even rudimentary critical
+feeling to be told in the same breath that the first period of German
+literature was "richer in inventive genius than any that followed it,"
+and that "nothing but fragments of a single song[106] remain to us"
+from this first period--fragments, it may be added, which, though
+interesting enough, can, in no possible judgment that can be called
+judgment, rank as in any way first-rate poetry. So, too, the habit of
+comparing the _Nibelungenlied_ to the _Iliad_ and _Kudrun_ to the
+_Odyssey_ (parallels not far removed from the Thucydides-and-Tennyson
+order) may excite resentment. But the Middle High German verse of the
+twelfth and thirteenth centuries is in itself of such interest, such
+variety, such charm, that if only it be approached in itself, and not
+through the medium of its too officious ushers, its effect on any real
+taste for poetry is undoubted.
+
+[Footnote 106: _Hildebrand and Hadubrand._]
+
+The three divisions above sketched may very well be taken in the order
+given. The great folk-epics just mentioned, with some smaller poems,
+such as _Koenig Rother_, are almost invariably anonymous; the
+translators or adaptors from the French--Gottfried von Strasburg,
+Hartmann von Aue, Wolfram von Eschenbach, and others--are at least
+known by name, if we do not know much else about them; and this is
+also the case with the Lyric poets, especially the best of them, the
+exquisite singer known as Walter of the Bird-Meadow.
+
+[Sidenote: _Folk-epics_--_The_ Nibelungenlied.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Volsunga Saga.]
+
+It was inevitable that the whole literary energy of a nation which is
+commentatorial or nothing, should be flung on such a subject as the
+_Nibelungenlied_;[107] the amount of work expended on the subject by
+Germans during the century in which the poem has been known is
+enormous, and might cause despair, if happily it were not for the most
+part negligible. The poem served as a principal ground in the
+battle--not yet at an end, but now in a more or less languid
+condition--between the believers in conglomerate epic, the upholders
+of the theory that long early poems are always a congeries of still
+earlier ballads or shorter chants, and the advocates of their integral
+condition. The authorship of the poem, its date, and its relation to
+previous work or tradition, with all possible excursions and alarums
+as to sun-myths and so forth, have been discussed _ad nauseam_.
+Literary history, as here understood, need not concern itself much
+about such things. It is sufficient to say that the authorship of the
+_Lied_ in its present condition is quite unknown; that its date would
+appear to be about the centre of our period, or, in other words, not
+earlier than the middle of the twelfth century or later than the
+middle of the thirteenth, and that, as far as the subject goes, we
+undoubtedly have handlings of it in Icelandic (the so-called _Volsunga
+Saga_), and still earlier verse-dealings in the Elder Edda, which are
+older, and probably much older, than the German poem.[108] They are
+not only older, but they are different. As a Volsung story, the
+interest is centred on the ancestor of Sigurd (Sigfried in the later
+poem), on his acquisition of the hoard of the dwarf Andvari by slaying
+the dragon Fafnir, its guardian, and on the tale of his love for the
+Amazon Brynhild; how by witchcraft he is beguiled to wed instead
+Gudrun the daughter of Giuki, while Gunnar, Gudrun's brother, marries
+Brynhild by the assistance of Sigurd himself; how the sisters-in-law
+quarrel, with the result that Gudrun's brothers slay Sigurd, on whose
+funeral-pyre Brynhild (having never ceased to love him and wounded
+herself mortally), is by her own will burnt; and how Gudrun, having
+married King Atli, Brynhild's brother, achieves vengeance on her own
+brethren by his means. A sort of _coda_ of the story tells of the
+third marriage of Gudrun to King Jonakr, of the cruel fate of
+Swanhild, her daughter by Sigurd (who was so fair that when she gazed
+on the wild horses that were to tread her to death they would not harm
+her, and her head had to be covered ere they would do their work), of
+the further fate of Swanhild's half-brothers in their effort to avenge
+her, and of the final _threnos_ and death of Gudrun herself.
+
+[Footnote 107: Ed. Bartsch. 6th ed. Leipzig, 1886.]
+
+[Footnote 108: For the verse originals see Vigfusson and Powell's
+_Corpus Poeticum Boreale_ (Oxford, 1883), vol. i. The verse and prose
+alike will be found conveniently translated in a cheap little volume
+of the "Camelot Library," _The Volsunga Saga_, by W. Morris and E.
+Magnusson (London, 1888).]
+
+The author of the _Nibelungenlied_ (or rather the "Nibelungen-_Noth_,"
+for this is the older title of the poem, which has a very inferior
+sequel called _Die Klage_) has dealt with the story very differently.
+He pays no attention to the ancestry of Sifrit (Sigurd), and little to
+his acquisition of the hoard, diminishes the part of Brynhild,
+stripping it of all romantic interest as regards Sifrit, and very
+largely increases the importance of the revenge of Gudrun, now called
+Kriemhild. Only sixteen of the thirty-nine "aventiuren" or "fyttes"
+(into which the poem in the edition here used is divided) are allotted
+to the part up to and including the murder of Sifrit; the remaining
+twenty-three deal with the vengeance of Kriemhild, who is herself
+slain just when this vengeance is complete, the after-piece of her
+third marriage and the fate of Swanhild being thus rendered
+impossible.
+
+Among the idler parts of Nibelungen discussions perhaps the idlest are
+the attempts made by partisans of Icelandic and German literature
+respectively to exalt or depress these two handlings, each in
+comparison with the other. There is no real question of superiority or
+inferiority, but only one of difference. The older handling, in the
+_Volsunga Saga_ to some extent, but still more in the Eddaic songs,
+has perhaps the finer touches of pure clear poetry in single passages
+and phrases; the story of Sigurd and Brynhild has a passion which is
+not found in the German version; the defeat of Fafnir and the
+treacherous Regin is excellent; and the wild and ferocious story of
+Sinfioetli, with which the saga opens, has unmatched intensity, well
+brought out in Mr Morris's splendid verse-rendering, _The Story of
+Sigurd the Volsung_.[109]
+
+[Footnote 109: 4th edition. London, 1887.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The German version._]
+
+But every poet has a perfect right to deal with any story as he
+chooses, if he makes good poetry of it; and the poet of the
+_Nibelungenlied_ is more than justified in this respect. By curtailing
+the beginning, cutting off the _coda_ above mentioned altogether, and
+lessening the part and interest of Brynhild, he has lifted Kriemhild
+to a higher, a more thoroughly expounded, and a more poetical
+position, and has made her one of the greatest heroines of epic, if
+not the greatest in all literature. The Gudrun of the Norse story is
+found supplying the loss of one husband with the gain of another to an
+extent perfectly consonant with Icelandic ideas, but according to less
+insular standards distinctly damaging to her interest as a heroine;
+and in revenging her brothers on Atli, after revenging Sigurd on her
+brothers by means of Atli, she completely alienates all sympathy
+except on a ferocious and pedantic theory of blood-revenge. The
+Kriemhild of the German is quite free from this drawback; and her own
+death comes just when and as it should--not so much a punishment for
+the undue bloodthirstiness of her revenge as an artistic close to the
+situation. There may be too many episodic personages--Dietrich of
+Bern, for instance, has extremely little to do in this galley. But the
+strength, thoroughness, and in its own savage way charm of Kriemhild's
+character, and the incomparable series of battles between the
+Burgundian princes and Etzel's men in the later cantos--cantos which
+contain the very best poetical fighting in the history of the
+world--far more than redeem this. The _Nibelungenlied_ is a very great
+poem; and with _Beowulf_ (the oldest, but the least interesting on the
+whole), _Roland_ (the most artistically finished in form), and the
+_Poem of the Cid_ (the cheerfullest and perhaps the fullest of
+character), composes a quartette of epic with which the literary
+story of the great European literary nations most appropriately
+begins. In bulk, dramatic completeness, and a certain _furia_, the
+_Nibelungenlied_, though the youngest and probably the least original,
+is the greatest of the four.
+
+[Sidenote: _Metres._]
+
+The form, though not finished with the perfection of the French
+decasyllabic, is by no means of a very uncouth description. The poem
+is written in quatrains, rhymed couplet and couplet, not alternately,
+but evidently intended for quatrains, inasmuch as the sense frequently
+runs on at the second line, but regularly stops at the fourth. The
+normal line of which these quatrains are composed is a thirteen-syllabled
+one divided by a central pause, so that the first half is an iambic
+dimeter catalectic, and the second an iambic dimeter hypercatalectic.
+
+    "Von einer isenstangen: des gie dem helde not."
+
+The first half sometimes varies from this norm, though not very often,
+the alteration usually taking the form of the loss of the first
+syllable, so that the half-line consists of three trochees. The second
+half is much more variable. Sometimes, in the same way as with the
+first, a syllable is dropped at the opening, and the half-line becomes
+similarly trochaic. Sometimes there is a double rhyme instead of a
+single, making seven syllables, though not altering the rhythm; and
+sometimes this is extended to a full octosyllable. But this variety by
+no means results in cacophony or confusion; the general swing of the
+metre is well maintained, and maintains itself in turn on the ear.
+
+[Sidenote: _Rhyme and language._]
+
+In the rhymes, as in those of all early rhymed poems, there is a
+certain monotony. Just as in the probably contemporary Layamon the
+poet is tempted into rhyme chiefly by such easy opportunities as
+"other" and "brother," "king" and "thing," so here, though rhyme is
+the rule, and not, as there, the exception, certain pairs, especially
+"wip" and "lip" ("wife" and "body"), "sach" and "sprach," "geben" and
+"geleben," "tot" and "not," recur perhaps a little too often for the
+ear's perfect comfort. But this is natural and extremely pardonable.
+The language is exceedingly clear and easy--far nearer to German of
+the present day than Layamon's own verse, or the prose of the _Ancren
+Riwle_, is to English prose and verse of the nineteenth century; the
+differences being, as a rule, rather matters of spelling or phrase
+than of actual vocabulary. It is very well suited both to the poet's
+needs and to the subject; there being little or nothing of that
+stammer--as it may be called--which is not uncommon in mediaeval work,
+as if the writer were trying to find words that he cannot find for a
+thought which he cannot fully shape even to himself. In short, there
+is in the particular kind, stage, and degree that accomplishment which
+distinguishes the greater from the lesser achievements of literature.
+
+[Sidenote: Kudrun.]
+
+_Kudrun_[110] or _Gudrun_--it is a little curious that this should be
+the name of the original joint-heroine of the _Nibelungenlied_, of the
+heroine of one of the finest and most varied of the Icelandic sagas,
+the _Laxdaela_, and of the present poem--is far less known to general
+students of literature than its companion. Nor can it be said that
+this comparative neglect is wholly undeserved. It is an interesting
+poem enough; but neither in story nor in character-interest, in
+arrangement nor in execution, can it vie with the _Nibelungen_, of
+which in formal points it has been thought to be a direct imitation.
+The stanza is much the same, except that there is a much more general
+tendency to arrange the first couplet in single masculine rhyme and
+the second in feminine, while the second half of the fourth line is
+curiously prolonged to either ten or eleven syllables. The first
+refinement may be an improvement: the second certainly is not, and
+makes it very difficult to a modern ear to get a satisfactory swing on
+the verse. The language, moreover (though this is a point on which I
+speak with some diffidence), has a slightly more archaic cast, as of
+intended archaism, than is the case with the _Nibelungen_.
+
+[Footnote 110: Ed. Bartsch. 4th ed. Leipzig, 1880.]
+
+As for matter, the poem has the interest, always considerable to
+English readers, of dealing with the sea, and the shores of the sea;
+and, like the _Nibelungenlied_, it seems to have had older forms, of
+which some remains exist in the Norse. But there is less coincidence
+of story: and the most striking incident in the Norse--an unending
+battle, where the combatants, killed every night, come alive again
+every day--is in the German a merely ordinary "battle of Wulpensand,"
+where one side has the worst, and cloisters are founded for the repose
+of the dead. On the other hand, _Kudrun_, while rationalised in some
+respects and Christianised in others, has the extravagance, not so
+much primitive as carelessly artificial, of the later romances.
+Romance has a special charter to neglect chronology; but the
+chronology here is exceptionally wanton. After the above-mentioned
+Battle of Wulpensand, the beaten side resigns itself quite comfortably
+to wait till the sons of the slain grow up: and to suit this
+arrangement the heroine remains in ill-treated captivity--washing
+clothes by the sea-shore--for fifteen years or so. And even thus the
+climax is not reached; for Gudrun's companion in this unpleasant task,
+and apparently (since they are married at the same time) her equal, or
+nearly so, in age, has in the exordium of the poem also been the
+companion of Gudrun's grandmother in durance to some griffins, from
+whom they were rescued by Gudrun's grandfather.
+
+One does not make peddling criticisms of this kind on any legend that
+has the true poetic character of power--of sweeping the reader along
+with it; but this I, at least, can hardly find in _Kudrun_. It
+consists of three or perhaps four parts: the initial adventures of
+Child Hagen of Ireland with the griffins who carry him off; the wooing
+of his daughter Hilde by King Hetel, whose ambassadors, Wate, Morunc,
+and Horant, play a great part throughout the poem; the subsequent
+wooing of _her_ daughter Gudrun, and her imprisonment and ill-usage by
+Gerlind, her wooer's mother; her rescue by her lover Herwig after many
+years, and the slaughter of her tyrants, especially Gerlind, which
+"Wate der alte" makes. There is also a generally happy ending, which,
+rather contrary to the somewhat ferocious use and wont of these
+poems, is made to include Hartmuth, Gudrun's unsuccessful wooer, and
+his sister Ortrun. The most noteworthy character, perhaps, is the
+above-mentioned Wate (or _Wade_), who is something like Hagen in the
+_Nibelungenlied_ as far as valour and ferocity go, but is more of a
+subordinate. Gudrun herself has good touches--especially where in her
+joy at the appearance of her rescuers she flings the hated "wash" into
+the sea, and in one or two other passages. But she is nothing like
+such a _person_ as Brynhild in the Volsung story or Kriemhild in the
+_Nibelungenlied_. Even the "wash" incident and the state which, in the
+teeth of her enemies, she takes upon her afterwards--the finest thing
+in the poem, though it frightens some German critics who see beauties
+elsewhere that are not very clear to eyes not native--fail to give her
+this personality. A better touch of nature still, though a slight one,
+is her lover Herwig's fear, when he meets with a slight mishap before
+the castle of her prison, that she may see it and reproach him with it
+after they are married. But on the whole, _Kudrun_, though an
+excellent story of adventure, is not a great poem in the sense in
+which the _Nibelungenlied_ is one.
+
+[Sidenote: _Shorter national epics._]
+
+Besides these two long poems (the greater of which, the
+_Nibelungenlied_, connects itself indirectly with others through the
+personage of Dietrich[111]) there is a group of shorter and rather
+older pieces, attributed in their present forms to the twelfth
+century, and not much later than the German translation of the
+_Chanson de Roland_ by a priest named Conrad, which is sometimes put
+as early as 1130, and the German translation (see chapter iv.) of the
+_Alixandre_ by Lamprecht, which may be even older. Among these smaller
+epics, poems on the favourite mediaeval subjects of Solomon and
+Marcolf, St Brandan, &c., are often classed, but somewhat wrongly, as
+they belong to a different school. Properly of the group are _Koenig
+Rother_, _Herzog Ernst_, and _Orendel_. All these suggest distinct
+imitation of the _chansons_, _Orendel_ inclining rather to the
+legendary and travelling kind of _Jourdains de Blaivies_ or _Huon_,
+_Herzog Ernst_ to the more feudal variety. _Koenig Rother_,[112] the
+most important of the batch, is a poem of a little more than five
+thousand lines, of rather irregular length and rhythm, but mostly very
+short, rhymed, but with a leaning towards assonance. The strong
+connection of these poems with the _chansons_ is also shown by the
+fact that Rother is made grandfather of Charlemagne and King of Rome.
+Whether he had anything to do with the actual Lombard King Rother of
+the seventh century is only a speculative question; the poem itself
+seems to be Bavarian, and to date from about 1150. The story is one of
+wooing under considerable difficulties, and thus in some respects at
+least nearer to a _roman d'aventures_ than a _chanson_.
+
+[Footnote 111: The very name of this remarkable personage seems to
+have exercised a fascination over the early German mind, and appears
+as given to others (Wolfdietrich, Hugdietrich) who have nothing to do
+with him of Verona.]
+
+[Footnote 112: Ed. Von Bahder. Halle, 1884.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Literary poetry._]
+
+It will depend on individual taste whether the reader prefers the
+so-called "art-poetry" which broke out in Germany, almost wholly on a
+French impulse, but with astonishing individuality and colour of
+national and personal character, towards the end of the twelfth
+century, to the folk-poetry, of which the greater examples have been
+mentioned hitherto, whether he reverses the preference, or whether, in
+the mood of the literary student proper, he declines to regard either
+with preference, but admires and delights in both.[113] On either side
+there are compensations for whatever loss may be urged by the
+partisans of the other. It may or may not be an accident that the sons
+of adoption are more numerous than the sons of the house: it is not so
+certain that the one group is to be on any true reckoning preferred to
+the other.
+
+[Footnote 113: The subjects of the last paragraph form, it will be
+seen, a link between the two, being at least probably based on German
+traditions, but influenced in form by French.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its four chief masters._]
+
+In any case the German literary poetry (a much better phrase than
+_kunst-poesie_, for there is plenty of art on both sides) forms a
+part, and, next to its French originals, perhaps the greatest part, of
+that extraordinary and almost unparalleled blossoming of literature
+which, starting from France, overspread the whole of Europe at one
+time, the last half or quarter of the twelfth century, and the first
+quarter of the thirteenth. Four names, great and all but of the
+greatest--Hartmann von Aue, Gottfried of Strasburg, Wolfram von
+Eschenbach, and Walther von der Vogelweide--illustrate it as far as
+Germany is concerned. Another, somewhat earlier than these, and in a
+way their master, Eilhart von Oberge, is supposed or rather known to
+have dealt with the Tristram story before Gottfried; and Heinrich von
+Veldeke, in handling the AEneid, communicated to Germany something of a
+directly classical, though more of a French, touch. We have spoken of
+the still earlier work of Conrad and Lamprecht, while in passing must
+be mentioned other things fashioned after French patterns, such as the
+_Kaiserchronik_, which is attributed to Bavarian hands. The period of
+flourishing of the literary poetry proper was not long--1150 to 1350
+would cover very nearly the whole of it, and, here, as elsewhere, it
+is impossible to deal with every individual, or even with the majority
+of individuals. But some remarks in detail, though not in great
+detail, on the four principals above referred to, will put the German
+literary "state" of the time almost as well as if all the battalions
+and squadrons were enumerated. Hartmann, Gottfried, and Wolfram, even
+in what we have of them, lyric writers in part, were chiefly writers
+of epic or romance; Walther is a song-writer pure and simple.
+
+[Sidenote: _Excellence, both natural and acquired, of German verse._]
+
+One thing may be said with great certainty of the division of
+literature to which we have come, that none shows more clearly the
+natural aptitude of the people who produced it for poetry. It is a
+familiar observation from beginners in German who have any literary
+taste, that German poetry reads naturally, German prose does not. In
+verse the German disencumbers himself of that gruesome clumsiness
+which almost always besets him in the art he learnt so late, and never
+learnt to any perfection. To "say" is a trouble to him, a trouble too
+often unconquerable; to sing is easy enough. And this truth, true of
+all centuries of German literature, is never truer than here.
+Translated or adapted verse is not usually the most cheerful
+department of poetry. The English romances, translated or adapted from
+the French, at times on the whole later than these, have been unduly
+abused; but they are certainly not the portion of the literature of
+his country on which an Englishman would most pride himself. Even the
+home-grown and, as I would fain believe, home-made legend of Arthur,
+had to wait till the fifteenth century before it met, and then in
+prose, a worthy master in English.
+
+[Sidenote: _Originality of its adaptation._]
+
+But the German adapters of French at the meeting of the twelfth and
+thirteenth centuries are persons of very different calibre from the
+translators of _Alexander_ and the other English-French romances, even
+from those who with far more native talent Englished _Havelok_ and
+_Horn_. If I have spoken harshly of German admiration of _Kudrun_, I
+am glad to make this amends and to admit that Gottfried's _Tristan_ is
+by far the best of all the numerous rehandlings of the story which
+have come down to us. If we must rest Hartmann von Aue's chief claims
+on the two _Buechlein_, on the songs, and on the delightful _Armer
+Heinrich_, yet his _Iwein_ and his _Erec_ can hold their own even with
+two of the freshest and most varied of Chrestien's original poems. No
+one except the merest pedant of originality would hesitate to put
+_Parzival_ above _Percevale le Gallois_, though Wolfram von Eschenbach
+may be thought to have been less fortunate with _Willehalm_. And
+though in the lyric, the debt due to both troubadour and _trouvere_ is
+unmistakable, it is equally unmistakable what mighty usury the
+minnesingers have paid for the capital they borrowed. The skill both
+of Northern and Southern Frenchmen is seldom to seek in lyric: we
+cannot give them too high praise as fashioners of instruments for
+other men to use. The cheerful bird-voice of the _trouvere_, the half
+artificial but not wholly insincere intensity of his brethren of the
+_langue d'oc_, will never miss their meed. But for real "cry," for the
+diviner elements of lyric, we somehow wait till we hear it in
+
+    "Under der linden
+      An der heide,
+    da unser zweier bette was,
+    da muget ir vinden
+      schone beide
+    gebrochen bluomen unde gras.
+      Vor dem walde in einem tal,
+    tandaradei!
+      schone sanc diu nahtegal."[114]
+
+[Footnote 114: Walther's ninth _Lied_, opening stanza.]
+
+At last we are free from the tyranny of the iambic, and have variety
+beyond the comparative freedom of the trochee. The blessed liberty of
+trisyllabic feet not merely comes like music, but is for the first
+time complete music, to the ear.
+
+[Sidenote: _The pioneers. Heinrich von Veldeke._]
+
+Historians arrange the process of borrowing from the French and
+adjusting prosody to the loans in, roughly speaking, three stages. The
+first of these is represented by Lamprecht's _Alexander_ and Conrad's
+_Roland_; while the second and far more important has for chief
+exponents an anonymous rendering of the universally popular _Flore et
+Blanchefleur_,[115] the capital example of a pure love-story in which
+love triumphs over luck and fate, and differences of nation and
+religion. Of this only fragments survive, and the before-mentioned
+first German version of the Tristan story by Eilhart von Oberge exists
+only in a much altered form of the fifteenth century. But both, as
+well as the work in lyric and narrative of Heinrich von Veldeke, date
+well within the twelfth century, and the earliest of them may not be
+much younger than its middle. It was Heinrich who seems to have been
+the chief master in form of the greater poets mentioned above, and now
+to be noticed as far as it is possible to us. We do not know,
+personally speaking, very much about them, though the endless industry
+of their commentators, availing itself of not a little sheer
+guesswork, has succeeded in spinning various stories concerning them;
+and the curious incident of the _Wartburg-krieg_ or minstrels'
+tournament, though reported much later, very likely has sound
+traditional foundations. But it is not very necessary to believe, for
+instance, that Gottfried von Strasburg makes an attack on Wolfram von
+Eschenbach. And generally the best attitude is that of an editor of
+the said Gottfried (who himself rather fails to reck his own salutary
+rede by proceeding to redistribute the ordinary attribution of poems),
+"Ich bekenne dass ich in diesen Dingen skeptischer Natur bin."
+
+[Footnote 115: Found in every language, but _originally_ French.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Gottfried of Strasburg._]
+
+If, however, even Gottfried's own authorship of the _Tristan_[116] is
+rather a matter of extremely probable inference than of certain
+knowledge, and if the lives of most of the poets are very little
+known, the poems themselves are fortunately there, for every one who
+chooses to read and to form his own opinion about them. The palm for
+work of magnitude in every sense belongs to Gottfried's _Tristan_ and
+to Wolfram's _Parzival_, and as it happens--as it so often
+happens--the contrasts of these two works are of the most striking and
+interesting character. The Tristram story, as has been said above,
+despite its extreme popularity and the abiding hold which it has
+exercised on poets as well as readers, is on the whole of a lower and
+coarser kind than the great central Arthurian legend. The philtre,
+though it supplies a certain excuse for the lovers, degrades the
+purely romantic character of their affection in more than compensating
+measure; the conduct of Iseult to the faithful Brengwain, if by no
+means unfeminine, is exceedingly detestable; and if Tristram was
+nearly as good a knight as Lancelot, he certainly was not nearly so
+good a lover or nearly so thorough a gentleman. But the attractions of
+the story were and are all the greater, we need not say to the vulgar,
+but to the general; and Gottfried seems to have been quite admirably
+and almost ideally qualified to treat them. His French original is not
+known, for the earlier French versions of this story have perished or
+only survive in fragments; and there is an almost inextricable coil
+about the "Thomas" to whom Gottfried refers, and who used to be
+(though this has now been given up) identified with no less a person
+than Thomas the Rhymer, Thomas of Erceldoune himself. But we can see,
+as clearly as if we had parallel texts, that Gottfried treated his
+original as all real and sensible poets do treat their originals--that
+is to say, that he took what he wanted, added what he chose, and
+discarded what he pleased. In his handling of the French octosyllable
+he at once displays that impatience of the rigidly syllabic system of
+prosody which Teutonic poetry of the best kind always shows sooner or
+later. At first the octosyllables are arranged in a curious and not
+particularly charming scheme of quatrains, not only mono-rhymed, but
+so arranged that the very same words occur in alternate places, or in
+1, 4, and 2, 3--"Man," "kan," "man," "kan"; "list," "ist," "ist,"
+"list,"--the latter order being in this interesting, that it suggests
+the very first appearance of the _In Memoriam_ stanza. But Gottfried
+was much too sensible a poet to think of writing a long poem--his,
+which is not complete, and was continued by Ulrich von Turheim, by an
+Anon, and by Heinrich von Freiberg, extends to some twenty thousand
+lines--in such a measure as this. He soon takes up the simple
+octosyllabic couplet, treated, however, with great freedom. The
+rhymes are sometimes single, sometimes double, occasionally even
+triple. The syllables constantly sink to seven, and sometimes even to
+six, or extend themselves, by the admission of trisyllabic feet, to
+ten, eleven, if not even twelve. Thus, once more, the famous
+"Christabel" metre is here, not indeed in the extremely mobile
+completeness which Coleridge gave it, nor even with quite such an
+indulgence in anapaests as Spenser allows himself in "The Oak and the
+Brere," but to all intents and purposes fully constituted, if not
+fully developed.
+
+[Footnote 116: Ed. Bechstein. 3d ed., 2 vols. Leipzig, 1891.]
+
+And Gottfried is quite equal to his form. One may feel, indeed, and it
+is not unpleasant to feel, that evidence of the "young hand," which
+consists in digressions from the text, of excursus and ambages,
+essays, as it were, to show, "Here I am speaking quite for myself, and
+not merely reading off book." But he tells the story very
+well--compare, for instance, the crucial point of the substitution of
+Brengwain for Iseult in him and in the English _Sir Tristrem_, or the
+charming account of the "Minnegrotte" in the twenty-seventh song, with
+the many other things of the kind in French, English, and German of
+the time. Also he has constant little bursts, little spurts, of
+half-lyrical cry, which lighten the narrative charmingly.
+
+    "Diu wise Isot, diu schoene Isot,
+    Diu liuhtet alse der morgenrot,"
+
+is the very thing the want of which mars the pleasantly flowing but
+somewhat featureless octosyllables of his French models. In the
+famous passage[117] where he has been thought to reflect on Wolfram,
+he certainly praises other poets without stint, and shows himself a
+generous as well as a judicious critic. How Hartmann von Aue hits the
+meaning of a story! how loud and clear rings the crystal of his words!
+Did not Heinrich von Veldeke "imp the first shoot on Teutish tongues"
+(graft French on German poetry)? With what a lofty voice does the
+nightingale of the Bird-Meadow (Walther) warble across the heath! Nor
+is it unpleasant to come shortly afterwards to our old friends Apollo
+and the Camoenae, the nine "Sirens of the ears"--a slightly mixed
+reminiscence, but characteristic of the union of classical and
+romantic material which communicates to the Middle Ages so much of
+their charm. Indeed nowhere in this Pisgah sight of literature would
+it be pleasanter to come down and expatiate on the particular subject
+than in the case of these Middle High German poets.
+
+[Footnote 117: _Tristan_, 8th song, l. 4619 and onwards. The crucial
+passage is a sharp rebuke of "finders [_vindaere_, _trouveres_] of wild
+tales," or one particular such who plays tricks on his readers and
+utters unintelligible things. It _may_ be Wolfram: it also may not
+be.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Hartmann von Aue._]
+
+Hartmann von Aue,[118] the subject of Gottfried's highest eulogy, has
+left a bulkier--at least a more varied--poetical baggage than his
+eulogist, whose own legacy is not small. It will depend a good deal on
+individual taste whether his actual poetical powers be put lower or
+higher. We have of his, or attributed to him, two long romances of
+adventure, translations or adaptations of the _Chevalier au Lyon_ and
+the _Erec et Enide_ of Chrestien de Troyes; a certain number of songs,
+partly amatory, partly religious, two curious pieces entitled _Die
+Klage_ and _Buechlein_, a verse-rendering of a subject which was much a
+favourite, the involuntary incest and atonement of St Gregory of the
+Rock; and lastly, his masterpiece, _Der Arme Heinrich_.
+
+[Footnote 118: Ed. Bech. 3d ed., 3 vols. Leipzig, 1893.]
+
+[Sidenote: Erec der Wanderaere _and_ Iwein.]
+
+In considering the two Arthurian adventure-stories, it is fair to
+remember that in Gottfried's case we have not the original, while in
+Hartmann's we have, and that the originals here are two of the very
+best examples in their kind and language. That Hartmann did not escape
+the besetting sin of all adapters, and especially of all mediaeval
+adapters, the sin of amplification and watering down, is quite true.
+It is shown by the fact that while Chrestien contents himself in each
+case with less than seven thousand lines (and he has never been
+thought a laconic poet), Hartmann extends both in practically the same
+measure (though the licences above referred to make the lines often
+much shorter than the French, while Hartmann himself does not often
+make them much longer)--in the one case to over eight thousand lines,
+in the other to over ten. But it would not be fair to deny very
+considerable merits to his versions. They are readable with interest
+after the French itself: and in the case of _Erec_ after the
+_Mabinogion_ and the _Idylls of the King_ also. It cannot be said,
+however, that in either piece the poet handles his subject with the
+same appearance of mastery which belongs to Gottfried: and this is not
+to be altogether accounted for by the fact that the stories
+themselves are less interesting. Or rather it may be said that his
+selection of these stories, good as they are in their way, when
+greater were at his option, somewhat "speaks him" as a poet.
+
+[Sidenote: _Lyrics._]
+
+The next or lyrical division shows Hartmann more favourably, though
+still not exactly as a great poet. The "Frauenminne," or profane
+division, of these has something of the artificial character which
+used very unjustly to be charged against the whole love-poetry of the
+Middle Ages, and which certainly does affect some of it. There is
+nowhere the "cry" that we find in the best of Gottfried's
+"nightingales"--the lyric poets as opposed to the epic. He does not
+seem to have much command of trisyllabic measures, and is perhaps
+happiest in the above-mentioned mono-rhymed quatrain, apparently a
+favourite measure then, which he uses sometimes in octosyllables, but
+often also in decasyllables. I do not know, and it would probably be
+difficult to say, what was the first appearance of the decasyllable,
+which in German, as in English, was to become on the whole the staple
+measure of non-lyrical poetry and the not infrequent medium of
+lyrical. But this must be fairly early, and certainly is a good
+example. The "Gottesminne," or, as our own old word has it, the
+"Divine" Poems, are very much better. Hartmann himself was a crusader,
+and there is nothing merely conventional in his few lays from the
+crusading and pilgrim standpoint. Indeed the very first words,
+expressing his determination after his lord's death to leave the world
+to itself, have a better ring than anything in his love-poetry; and
+the echo is kept up in such simple but true sayings as this about
+"Christ's flowers" (the badge of the cross):--
+
+    "Min froude wart nie sorgelos
+      Unz an die tage
+    Daz ich mir Krystes bluomon kos
+      Die ich hie trage."
+
+[Sidenote: _The "booklets."_]
+
+The two curious booklets or complaints (for each bore the title of
+_Buechlein_ in its own day, and each is a _Klage_) and the _Gregorius_
+touch the lyric on one side and the adventure poems on the other.
+_Gregorius_, indeed, is simply a _roman d'aventures_ of pious
+tendency; and there cannot be very much doubt that it had a French
+original. It extends to some four thousand lines, and does not show
+any poetical characteristics very different from those of _Erec_ and
+_Iwein_, though they are applied to different matter. In size the two
+"booklets" stand in a curiously diminishing ratio to _Erec_ with its
+ten thousand verses, _Iwein_ with its eight, and _Gregorius_ with its
+four; for _Die Klage_ has a little under two thousand, and the
+_Buechlein_ proper a little under one. _Die Klage_ is of varied
+structure, beginning with octosyllables, of which the first--
+
+    "Minne waltet grozer kraft"--
+
+has a pleasant trochaic cadence: continuing after some sixteen hundred
+lines (if indeed it be a continuation and not a new poem) in curious
+long _laisses_, rather than stanzas, of eights and sevens rhymed on
+one continuous pair of single and double rhymes, _cit unde: ant
+ende_, &c. The _Buechlein_ proper is all couplets, and ends less
+deplorably than its beginning--
+
+    "Owe, Owe, unde owe!"--
+
+might suggest. It is, however, more serious than the _Klage_, which is
+really a _debat_ (as the technical term in French poetry then went)
+between Body and Soul, and of no unusual kind.
+
+[Sidenote: Der Arme Heinrich.]
+
+Fortunately for Hartmann, he has left another work, _Der Arme
+Heinrich_, which is thought to be his last, and is certainly his most
+perfect. It is almost a pity that Longfellow, in his adaptation of it,
+did not stick closer to the original; for pleasant as _The Golden
+Legend_ is, it is more of a pastiche and mosaic than _Der Arme
+Heinrich_, one of the simplest, most direct, and most touching of
+mediaeval poems. Heinrich (also Von Aue) is a noble who, like Sir
+Isumbras and other examples of the no less pious than wise belief of
+the Middle Ages in Nemesis, forgets God and is stricken for his sin
+with leprosy. He can only recover by the blood of a pure maiden; and
+half despairing of, half revolting at, such a cure, he gives away all
+his property but one farm, and lives there in misery. The farmer's
+daughter learns his doom and devotes herself. Heinrich refuses for a
+time, but yields: and they travel to Salerno, where, as the sacrifice
+is on the point of completion, Heinrich sees the maiden's face through
+a crack in the doctor's room-wall, feels the impossibility of allowing
+her to die, and stops the crime. He is rewarded by a cure as
+miraculous as was his harm; recovers his fortune, and marries the
+maiden. A later termination separates them again; but this is simply
+the folly and bad taste of a certain, and only a certain, perversion
+of mediaeval sentiment, the crowning instance of which is found in _Guy
+of Warwick_. Hartmann himself was no such simpleton; and (with only an
+infinitesimal change of a famous sentence) we may be sure that as he
+was a good lover so he made a good end to his story.
+
+[Sidenote: _Wolfram von Eschenbach._]
+
+[Sidenote: Titurel.]
+
+Although German writers may sometimes have mispraised or over-praised
+their greatest mediaeval poet, it certain that we find in Wolfram von
+Eschenbach[119] qualities which, in the thousand years between the
+Fall and the Renaissance of classical literature, can be found to
+anything like the same extent in only two known writers, the Italian
+Dante and the Englishman Langland; while if he is immensely Dante's
+inferior in poetical quality, he has at least one gift, humour, which
+Dante had not, and is far Langland's superior in variety and in
+romantic charm. He displays, moreover, a really curious contrast to
+the poets already mentioned, and to most of the far greater number not
+mentioned. It is in Wolfram first that we come across, in anything
+like noticeable measure, that mastery of poetical mysticism which is
+the pride, and justly the pride, of the German Muse. Gottfried and
+Hartmann are rather practical folk. Hartmann has at best a pious and
+Gottfried a profane fancy; of the higher qualities of imagination
+there is little or nothing in them; and not much in the vast crowd of
+the Minnesingers, from the chief "nightingale" Walther downwards.
+Wolfram, himself a Minnesinger (indeed the term is loosely applied to
+all the poets of this time, and may be very properly claimed by
+Gottfried and Hartmann, though the former has left no lyric), has left
+us few but very remarkable _aubades_, in which the commonplace of the
+morning-song, with its disturbance of lovers, is treated in no
+commonplace way. But his fame rests on the three epics, _Parzival_,
+_Titurel_, and _Willehalm_. It is practically agreed that _Parzival_
+represents the flourishing time, and _Willehalm_ the evening, of his
+work; there is more critical disagreement about the time of
+composition of _Titurel_, which, though it was afterwards continued
+and worked up by another hand, exists only in fragments, and presents
+a very curious difference of structure as compared both with
+_Parzival_ (with which in subject it is connected) and with
+_Willehalm_. Both these are in octosyllables: _Titurel_ is in a
+singular and far from felicitous stanza, which stands to that of
+_Kudrun_ much as the _Kudrun_ stanza does to that of the _Nibelungen_.
+Here there are none but double rhymes; and not merely the second half
+of the fourth, but the second half of the second line "tails out" in
+the manner formerly described. The consequence is, that while in
+_Kudrun_ it is, as was remarked, difficult to get any swing on the
+metre, in _Titurel_ it is simply impossible; and it has been thought
+without any improbability that the fragmentary condition of the piece
+is due to the poet's reasonable discontent with the shackles he had
+imposed on himself. The substance is good enough, and would have made
+an interesting chapter in the vast working up of the Percevale story
+which Wolfram probably had in his mind.
+
+[Footnote 119: Complete works. Ed. Lachmann. Berlin, 1838. _Parzival
+und Titurel._ 2 vols. Ed. Bartsch. Leipzig, 1870.]
+
+[Sidenote: Willehalm.]
+
+_Willehalm_, on the other hand, is not only in form but in substance a
+following of the French, and of no less a French poem than the _Battle
+of Aliscans_, which has been so fully dealt with above. It is
+interesting to compare advocates of the two, and see how German
+critics usually extol the improvements made by the German poet, while
+the French sneer at his preachments and waterings-down. But we need
+say nothing more than that if Wolfram's fame rested on _Willehalm_,
+the notice of him here would probably not go beyond a couple of lines.
+
+[Sidenote: Parzival.]
+
+_Parzival_, however, is a very different matter. It has of late years
+received adventitious note from the fact of its selection by Wagner as
+a libretto; but it did not need this, and it was the admiration of
+every fit reader long before the opera appeared. The Percevale story,
+it may be remembered, lies somewhat outside of the main Arthurian
+legend, which, however, had hardly taken full form when Wolfram wrote.
+It has been strongly fought for by the Celticists as traceable
+originally to the Welsh legend of Peredur; but it is to be observed
+that neither in this form nor in the English version (which figures
+among the Thornton Romances) does the Graal make any figure. In the
+huge poem, made huger by continuators, of Chrestien de Troyes,
+Percival becomes a Graal-seeker; and on the whole it would appear
+that, as observed before, he in point of time anticipates Galahad and
+the story which works the Graal thoroughly into the main Arthurian
+tale. According to Wolfram (but this is a romantic commonplace),
+Chrestien was culpably remiss in telling the story, and his
+deficiencies had to be made up by a certain Provencal named Kyot.
+Unfortunately there are no traces elsewhere of any such person, or of
+any version, in Provencal or otherwise, between Chrestien's and
+Wolfram's. The two, however, stand far enough apart to have admitted
+of more than one intermediary; or rather no number of intermediaries
+could really have bridged the chasm, which is one of spirit rather
+than of matter. In _Percevale le Gallois_, though the Graal exists,
+and though the adventures are rather more on the outside of the
+strictly Arthurian cycle than usual, we are still in close relations
+with that cycle, and the general tone and handling are similar (except
+in so far as Chrestien is a better _trouvere_ than most) to those of
+fifty other poems. In _Parzival_ we are translated into another
+country altogether. Arthur appears but seldom, and though the link
+with the Round Table is maintained by the appearances of Gawain, who
+as often, though not always, plays to Percevale the part of light to
+serious hero, here almost only, and here not always, are we in among
+"kenned folk." The Graal mountain, Montsalvatsch, is even more in
+fairyland than the "enchanted towers of Carbonek"; the magician
+Klingschor is a more shadowy person far than Merlin.
+
+    "Cundrie la Sorziere
+    Diu unsueze und doch diu fiere"
+
+is a much more weird personage than Morgane or Nimue, though she may
+also be more "unsweet." Part of this unfamiliar effect is no doubt due
+to Wolfram's singular fancy for mutilating and torturing his French
+names, to his admixture of new characters and adventures, and
+especially to the almost entirely new genealogy which he introduces.
+In the pedigree, containing nearly seventy names, which will be found
+at the end of Bartsch's edition, not a tithe will be familiar to the
+reader of the English and French romances; and that reader will
+generally find those whom he does know provided with new fathers and
+mothers, daughters and wives.
+
+But these would be very small matters if it were not for other
+differences, not of administration but of spirit. There may have been
+something too much of the attempt to credit Wolfram with anti-dogmatic
+views, and with a certain Protestant preference of simple repentance
+and amendment to the performance of stated rites and penances. What is
+unmistakable is the way in which he lifts the story, now by phrase,
+now by verse effect, now by the indefinable magic of sheer poetic
+handling, out of ordinary ways into ways that are not ordinary. There
+may perhaps be allowed to be a certain want of "architectonic" in him.
+He has not made of Parzival and Condwiramurs, of Gawain and Orgeluse,
+anything like the complete drama which we find (brought out by the
+genius of Malory, but existing before) in the French-English Arthurian
+legend. But any one who knows the origins of that legend from _Erec et
+Enide_ to _Durmart le Gallois_, and from the _Chevalier au Lyon_ to
+the _Chevalier as Deux Espees_, must recognise in him something higher
+and larger than can be found in any of them, as well as something more
+human, if even in the best sense more fairy-tale like, than the
+earlier and more Western legends of the Graal as we have them in
+_Merlin_ and the other French books. Here again, not so much for the
+form as for the spirit, we find ourselves driven to the word
+"great"--a great word, and one not to be misused as it so often is.
+
+[Sidenote: _Walther von der Vogelweide._]
+
+Yet it may be applied in a different sense, though without hesitation,
+to our fourth selected name, Walther von der Vogelweide,[120] a name
+in itself so agreeable that one really has to take care lest it raise
+an undue prejudice in his favour. Perhaps a part of his greatness
+belongs to him as the chief representative of a class, not, as in
+Wolfram's case, because of individual merit,--a part also to his
+excellence of form, which is a claim always regarded with doubt and
+dislike by some, though not all. It is nearly a quarter of a century
+since the present writer first possessed himself of and first read the
+delectable volume in which Franz Pfeiffer opened his series of German
+Classics of the Middle Ages with this singer; and every subsequent
+reading, in whole or in part, has only increased his attraction.
+There are some writers--not many--who seem to defy criticism by a sort
+of native charm, and of these Walther is one. If we listen to some
+grave persons, it is a childish thing to write a poem, as he does his
+second _Lied_, in stanzas every one of which is mono-rhymed on a
+different vowel. But as one reads
+
+    "Diu werlt was gelf, roet unde bla,"[121]
+
+one only prays for more such childishness. Is there a better song of
+May and maidens than
+
+    "So diu bluomen uz dem grase dringent"?
+
+where the very phrase is romance and nature itself, and could never be
+indulged in by a "classical" poet, who would say (very justly),
+"flowers grow in beds, not grass; and if in the latter, they ought to
+be promptly mown and rolled down." How intoxicating, after deserts of
+iambs, is the dactylic swell of
+
+    "Wol mich der stunde, daz ich sie erkande"!
+
+how endearing the drooping cadence of
+
+            "Bin ich dir unmaere
+    Des enweiz ich niht; ich minne dich"!
+
+how small the change which makes a jewel out of a commonplace in
+
+    "Si hat ein _kussen_ daz ist rot"!
+
+[Footnote 120: Ed. Bartsch. 4th ed. Leipzig, 1873.]
+
+[Footnote 121:
+
+    "Diu werlt was gelf, roet unde bla,
+    grueen, in dem walde und anderswa
+    kleine vogele sungen da.
+    nu schriet aber den nebelkra.
+    pfligt s'iht ander varwe? ja,
+    s'ist worden bleich und uebergra:
+    des rimpfet sich vil manic bra."
+
+Similar stanzas in _e_, _i_, _o_, _u_ follow in order.]
+
+But to go through the nearly two hundred pieces of Walther's lyric
+would be here impossible. His _Leich_, his only example of that
+elaborate kind, the most complicated of the early German lyrical
+forms, is not perhaps his happiest effort; and his _Sprueche_, a name
+given to short lyrical pieces in which the Minnesingers particularly
+delighted, and which correspond pretty nearly, though not exactly, to
+the older sense of "epigram," seldom, though sometimes, possess the
+charm of the _Lieder_ themselves. But these _Lieder_ are, for probable
+freedom from indebtedness and intrinsic exquisiteness of phrase and
+rhythm, unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled. To compare Walther to
+Petrarch, and to talk of the one being superior or inferior to the
+other, is to betray hopeless insensibility to the very rudiments of
+criticism. They are absolutely different,--the one the embodiment of
+stately form and laboured intellectual effort--of the Classical
+spirit; the other the mouthpiece of the half-inarticulate,
+all-suggesting music that is at once the very soul and the very
+inseparable garment of Romance. Some may like one better, others the
+other; the more fortunate may enjoy both. But the greatest of all
+gulfs is the gulf fixed between the Classical and the Romantic; and
+few there are, it seems, who can cross it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Personality of the poets._]
+
+Perhaps something may be expected as to the personality of these
+poets, a matter which has had too great a place assigned to it in
+literary history. Luckily, unless he delights in unbridled guessing,
+the historian of mediaeval literature is better entitled to abstain
+from it than any other. But something may perhaps be said of the men
+whose work has just been discussed, for there are not uninteresting
+shades of difference between them. In Germany, as in France, the
+_trouvere-jongleur_ class existed; the greater part of the poetry of
+the twelfth century, including the so-called small epics, _Koenig
+Rother_ and the rest, is attributed to them, and they were the objects
+of a good deal of patronage from the innumerable nobles, small and
+great, of the Empire. On the other hand, though some men of
+consequence were poets, the proportion of these is, on the whole,
+considerably less than in France proper or in Provence. The German
+noble was not so much literary as a patron of literature, like that
+Landgrave Hermann of Thuringia, whose court saw the fabulous or
+semi-fabulous "War of the Wartburg," with Wolfram von Eschenbach and
+Heinrich von Ofterdingen as chief champions. Indeed this court was the
+main resort of German poets and minstrels till Saint Elizabeth of
+Hungary in the next generation proved herself a rather "sair sanct"
+for literature, which has since returned her good for evil.
+
+To return to our four selected poets. Gottfried is supposed to have
+been neither noble, nor even directly attached to a noble household,
+nor a professional minstrel, but a burgher of the town which gives him
+his name--indeed a caution is necessary to the effect that the _von_
+of these early designations, like the _de_ of their French originals,
+is by no means, as a rule, a sign of nobility. Hartmann von Aue,
+though rather attached to than a member of the noble family of the
+same name from which he has taken the hero of _Der Arme Heinrich_,
+seems to have been admitted to knightly society, was a crusader, and
+appears to have been of somewhat higher rank than Gottfried, whom,
+however, he resembled in this point, that both were evidently men of
+considerable education. We rise again in status, though probably not
+in wealth, and certainly not in education, when we come to Wolfram von
+Eschenbach. He was of a family of Northern Bavaria or Middle
+Franconia; he bore (for there are diversities on this heraldic point)
+two axe-blades argent on a field gules, or a bunch of five flowers
+argent springing from a water-bouget gules; and he is said by
+witnesses in 1608 to have been described on his tombstone as a knight.
+But he was certainly poor, had not received much education, and he was
+attached in the usual guest-dependant fashion of the time to the
+Margrave of Vohburg (whose wife, Elizabeth of Bavaria, received his
+poetical declarations) and to Hermann of Thuringia. He was a married
+man, and had a daughter.
+
+Lastly, Walther von der Vogelweide appears to have been actually a
+"working poet," as we may say--a _trouvere_, who sang his own poems as
+he wandered about, and whose surname was purely a decorative one. He
+lived, no doubt, by gifts; indeed, the historians are proud to record
+that a bishop gave him a fur coat precisely on the 12th of November
+1203. He was probably born in Austria, lived at Vienna with Duke
+Frederic of Babenberg for some time, and held poetical offices in the
+households of several other princes, including the Emperor Frederick
+II., who gave him an estate at last. It should be said that there are
+those who insist that he also was of knightly position, and was
+Vogelweide of that ilk, inasmuch as we find him called "herr," the
+supposed mark of distinction of a gentleman at the time. Such
+questions are of importance in their general bearing on the question
+of literature at given dates, not in respect of individual persons. It
+must be evident that no word which, like "herr," is susceptible of
+general as well as technical meanings, can be absolutely decisive in
+such a case, unless we find it in formal documents. Also, after
+Frederick's gift Walther would have been entitled to it, though he was
+not before. At any rate, the entirely wandering life, and the constant
+relationship to different protectors, which are in fact the only
+things we know about him, are more in accordance with the notion of a
+professional minstrel than with that of a man who, like Wolfram, even
+if he had no estate and was not independent of patronage, yet had a
+settled home of his own, and was buried where he was born.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Minnesingers generally._]
+
+The introduction of what may be called a representative system into
+literary history has been here rendered necessary by the fact that the
+school-resemblance so common in mediaeval writers is nowhere more
+common than among the Minnesingers,[122] and that the latter are
+extraordinarily numerous, if not also extraordinarily monotonous. One
+famous collection contains specimens of 160 poets, and even this is
+not likely to include the whole of those who composed poetry of the
+kind before Minnesong changed (somewhere in the thirteenth century or
+at the beginning of the fourteenth, but at times and in manners which
+cannot be very precisely fixed) into Meistersong. The chief lyric
+poets before Walther were Heinrich von Veldeke, his contemporary and
+namesake Heinrich von Morungen, and Reinmar von Hagenau, whom
+Gottfried selects as Walther's immediate predecessor in
+"nightingaleship": the chief later ones, Neidhart von Regenthal,
+famous for dance-songs; Tannhaeuser, whose actual work, however, is of
+a mostly burlesque character, as different as possible from, and
+perhaps giving rise by very contrast to, the beautiful and terrible
+legend which connects his name with the Venus-berg (though Heine has
+managed in his version to combine the two elements); Ulrich von
+Lichtenstein, half an apostle, half a caricaturist of _Frauendienst_
+on the Provencal model; and, finally, Frauenlob or Heinrich von
+Meissen, who wrote at the end of our period and the beginning of the
+next for nearly fifty years, and may be said to be the link between
+Minnesong and Meistersong.
+
+[Footnote 122: The standard edition or _corpus_ of their work is that
+of Von der Hagen, in three large vols. Leipzig, 1838.]
+
+So also in the other departments of poetry, harbingers,
+contemporaries, and continuators, some of whom have been mentioned,
+most of whom it would be impossible to mention, group round the
+greater masters, and as in France, so here, the departments themselves
+branch out in an almost bewildering manner. Germany, as may be
+supposed, had its full share of that "poetry of information" which
+constitutes so large a part of mediaeval verse, though here even more
+than elsewhere such verse is rarely, except by courtesy, poetry.
+Families of later handlings, both of the folk epic and the literary
+romances, exist, such as the _Rosengarten_, the _Horny Siegfried_, and
+the story of Wolfdietrich in the one class; _Wigalois_ and _Wigamur_,
+and a whole menagerie of poems deriving from the _Chevalier au Lyon_,
+on the other. With the general growth, half epidemic, half directly
+borrowed from France, of abstraction and allegory (_vide_ next
+chapter), Satire made its way, and historians generally dwell on the
+"Frau Welt" of Konrad von Wurzburg in the middle of the thirteenth
+century, in which Wirent von Grafenburg (a well-known poet among the
+literary school, the author of _Wigalois_) is brought face to face
+with an incarnation of the World and its vanity. Volumes on volumes of
+moral poetry date from the thirteenth century, and culminate in the
+somewhat well-known _Renner_[123] of Hugo von Trimberg, dating from
+the very last year of our period: perhaps the most noteworthy is the
+_Bescheidenheit_ of Freidank, a crusader _trouvere_ who accompanied
+Frederick II. to the East. But in all this Germany is only following
+the general habit of the age, and to a great extent copying directly.
+Even in those greater writers who have been here noticed there is, as
+we have seen, not a little imitation; but the national and individual
+peculiarities more than excuse this. The national epics, with the
+_Nibelungenlied_ at their head, the Arthurian stories transformed, of
+which in different ways _Tristan_ and _Parzival_, but especially the
+latter, are the chief, and the Minnesong,--these are the great
+contributions of Germany during the period, and they are great indeed.
+
+[Footnote 123: On this see the last passage, except the conclusion on
+_Reynard the Fox_, of Carlyle's Essay on "Early German Literature"
+noted above. Of the great romances, as distinguished from the
+_Nibelungen_, Carlyle did not know much, and he was not quite in
+sympathy either with their writers or with the Minnesingers proper.
+But the life-philosopher of _Reynard_ and the _Renner_ attracted
+him.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE 'FOX,' THE 'ROSE,' AND THE MINOR CONTRIBUTIONS OF FRANCE.
+
+     THE PREDOMINANCE OF FRANCE. THE RISE OF ALLEGORY. LYRIC. THE
+     "ROMANCE" AND THE "PASTOURELLE." THE "FABLIAUX." THEIR
+     ORIGIN. THEIR LICENCE. THEIR WIT. DEFINITION AND SUBJECTS.
+     EFFECT OF THE "FABLIAUX" ON LANGUAGE. AND ON NARRATIVE.
+     CONDITIONS OF "FABLIAU"-WRITING. THE APPEARANCE OF IRONY.
+     FABLES PROPER. 'REYNARD THE FOX.' ORDER OF TEXTS. PLACE OF
+     ORIGIN. THE FRENCH FORM. ITS COMPLICATIONS. UNITY OF SPIRIT.
+     THE RISE OF ALLEGORY. THE SATIRE OF 'RENART.' THE FOX
+     HIMSELF. HIS CIRCLE. THE BURIAL OF RENART. THE 'ROMANCE OF
+     THE ROSE.' WILLIAM OF LORRIS AND JEAN DE MEUNG. THE FIRST
+     PART. ITS CAPITAL VALUE. THE ROSE-GARDEN. "DANGER."
+     "REASON." "SHAME" AND "SCANDAL." THE LATER POEM.
+     "FALSE-SEEMING." CONTRAST OF THE PARTS. VALUE OF BOTH, AND
+     CHARM OF THE FIRST. MARIE DE FRANCE AND RUTEBOEUF. DRAMA.
+     ADAM DE LA HALLE. "ROBIN ET MARION." THE "JEU DE LA
+     FEUILLIE." COMPARISON OF THEM. EARLY FRENCH PROSE. LAWS AND
+     SERMONS. VILLEHARDOUIN. WILLIAM OF TYRE. JOINVILLE. FICTION.
+     'AUCASSIN ET NICOLETTE.'
+
+
+[Sidenote: _The predominance of France._]
+
+The contributions of France to European literature mentioned in the
+three chapters (II.-IV.) which deal with the three main sections of
+Romance, great as we have seen them to be, by no means exhausted the
+debt which literature owes to her during this period. It is indeed not
+a little curious that the productions of this time, long almost
+totally ignored in France itself, and even now rather grudgingly
+acknowledged there, are the only periodic set of productions that
+justify the claim, so often advanced by Frenchmen, that their country
+is at the head of the literary development of Europe. It was not so in
+the fourteenth century, when not only Chaucer in England, but Dante,
+Petrarch, and Boccaccio in Italy, attained literary heights to which
+none of their French contemporaries even approached. It was not so in
+the fifteenth, when France, despite Villon and others, was the very
+School of Dulness, and even England, with the help of the Scottish
+poets and Malory, had a slight advantage over her, while she was far
+outstripped by Italy. It was not so in the sixteenth, when Italy
+hardly yet fell behind, and Spain and England far outwent her: nor,
+according to any just estimate, in the seventeenth. In the eighteenth
+her pale correctness looks faint enough, not merely beside the massive
+strength of England, but beside the gathering force of Germany: and if
+she is the equal of the best in the nineteenth, it is at the very most
+a bare equality. But in the twelfth and thirteenth France, if not
+Paris, was in reality the eye and brain of Europe, the place of origin
+of almost every literary form, the place of finishing and polishing,
+even for those forms which she did not originate. She not merely
+taught, she wrought--and wrought consummately. She revived and
+transformed the fable; perfected, if she did not invent, the
+beast-epic; brought the short prose tale to an exquisite completeness;
+enlarged, suppled, chequered, the somewhat stiff and monotonous forms
+of Provencal lyric into myriad-noted variety; devised the
+prose-memoir, and left capital examples of it; made attempts at the
+prose history; ventured upon much and performed no little in the
+vernacular drama; besides the vast performance, sometimes inspired
+from elsewhere but never as literature copied, which we have already
+seen, in her fostering if not mothering of Romance. When a learned and
+enthusiastic Icelander speaks of his patrimony in letters as "a native
+literature which, in originality, richness, historical and artistic
+worth, stands unrivalled in modern Europe," we can admire the patriot
+but must shake our heads at the critic. For by Dr Vigfusson's own
+confession the strength of Icelandic literature consists in the sagas,
+and the sagas are the product of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
+At that very time France, besides the _chansons de geste_--as native,
+as original, as the sagas, and if less rich, far more artistic in
+form--France has to show the great romances proper, which Iceland
+herself, like all the world, copied, a lyric of wonderful charm and
+abundance, the vast comic wealth of the _fabliaux_, and the
+_Fox_-epic, prose not merely of laws and homilies and rudimentary
+educational subjects, but of every variety, drama, history,
+philosophy, allegory, dream.
+
+[Sidenote: _The rise of Allegory._]
+
+To give an account of these various things in great detail would not
+merely be impossible here, but would injure the scheme and thwart the
+purpose of this history. We must survey them in the gross, or with a
+few examples--showing the lessons taught and the results achieved,
+from the lyric, which was probably the earliest, to the drama and the
+prose story, which were pretty certainly the latest of the French
+experiments. But we must give largest space to the singular growth of
+Allegory. This, to some extent in the beast-epic, to a far greater in
+one of the most epoch-making of European books, the _Romance of the
+Rose_, set a fashion in Europe which had hardly passed away in three
+hundred years, and which, latterly rather for the worse, but in the
+earlier date not a little for the better, coloured not merely the work
+directly composed in imitation of the great originals, but all
+literary stuff of every kind, from lyric to drama, and from sermons to
+prose tales.
+
+[Sidenote: _Lyric._]
+
+It has been said elsewhere that the shaping of a prosody suitable for
+lyric was the great debt which Europe owes to the language of
+Provence. And this is not at all inconsistent with the undoubted
+critical fact that in a _Corpus Lyricorum_ the best songs of the
+northern tongues would undoubtedly rank higher, according to all sound
+canons of poetical criticism, than the best lyrics of the southern.
+For, as it happens, we have lyrics in at least two most vigorous
+northern tongues before they had gone to school to southern prosody,
+and we can see at once the defects in them. The scanty remains of
+Anglo-Saxon lyric and the more copious remains of Icelandic display,
+with no little power and pathos, and plenty of ill-organised "cry," an
+almost total lack of ability to sing. Every now and then their natural
+genius enables them to hit, clumsily and laboriously, on
+something--the refrain of the _Complaint of Deor_, the stepped stanzas
+of the _Lesson of Loddfafni_--resembling the more accomplished methods
+of more educated and long-descended literatures. But the poets are
+always in a Robinson Crusoe condition, and worse: for Robinson had at
+least seen the tools and utensils he needed, if he did not know how to
+make them. The scops and scalds were groping for the very pattern of
+the tools themselves.
+
+The _langue d'oc_, first of all vernacular tongues, borrowed from
+Latin, as Latin had borrowed from Greek, such of the practical
+outcomes of the laws of lyric harmony in Aryan speech as were suitable
+to itself; and passed the lesson on to the _trouveres_ of the north of
+France--if indeed these did not work out the transfer for themselves
+almost independently. And as there was much more northern admixture,
+and in particular a less tyrannous softness of vowel-ending in the
+_langue d'oil_, this second stage saw a great increase of suppleness,
+a great emancipation from monotony, a wonderful freshness and wealth
+of colour and form. It has been said, and I see no reason to alter the
+saying, that the French tongue in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
+was actually better suited for lyrical poetry, and did actually
+produce lyrical poetry, as far as prosody is concerned, of a fresher,
+freer, more spontaneous kind, from the twelfth century to the
+beginning of the fifteenth than has ever been the case since.[124]
+
+[Footnote 124: This is not inconsistent with allowing that no single
+French lyric poet is the equal of Walther von der Vogelweide, and that
+the exercises of all are hampered by the lack--after the earliest
+examples--of trisyllabic metres.]
+
+M. Alfred Jeanroy has written a learned and extensive monograph on
+_Les Origines de la Poesie Lyrique en France_, which with M. Gaston
+Raynaud's _Bibliographie des Chansonniers Francais_, and his
+collection of _Motets_ of our present period, is indispensable to the
+thorough student of the subject.[125] But for general literary
+purposes the two classics of the matter are, and are long likely to
+be, the charming _Romancero Francais_[126] which M. Paulin Paris
+published in the very dawn of the study of mediaeval literature in
+France, and the admirable _Romanzen und Pastourellen_[127] which Herr
+Karl Bartsch collected and issued a quarter of a century ago. Here as
+elsewhere the piecemeal system of publication which has been the bane
+of the whole subject is to be regretted, for with a little effort and
+a little division of labour the entire _corpus_ of French lyric from
+the tenth to the fourteenth century might have been easily set before
+the public. But the two volumes above mentioned will enable the reader
+to judge its general characteristics with pretty absolute sureness;
+and if he desires to supplement them with the work of a single author,
+that of Thibaut of Champagne or Navarre,[128] which is easily
+accessible, will form an excellent third.
+
+[Footnote 125: M. Jeanroy, as is also the case with other writers of
+monographs mentioned in this chapter, has contributed to M. Petit de
+Julleville's _Histoire_ (_v._ p. 23) on his subject.]
+
+[Footnote 126: Paris, 1833.]
+
+[Footnote 127: Leipzig, 1870.]
+
+[Footnote 128: Rheims, 1851.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Romance _and the_ Pastourelle.]
+
+In this northern lyric--that is to say, northern as compared with
+Provencal[129]--we find all or almost all the artificial forms which
+are characteristic of Provencal itself, some of them no doubt rather
+sisters than daughters of their analogues in the _langue d'oc_.
+Indeed, at the end of our present period, and still more later, the
+ingenuity of the _trouveres_ seems to have pushed the strictly formal,
+strictly artificial part of the poetry of the troubadours to almost
+its furthest possible limits in varieties of _triolet_ and _rondeau_,
+_ballade_ and _chant royal_. But the _Romances_ and the _Pastourelles_
+stand apart from these, and both are recognised by authorities among
+the troubadours themselves as specially northern forms. The
+differentia of each is in subject rather than in form, the "romance"
+in this sense being a short love-story, with little more than a single
+incident in it sometimes, but still always possessing an incident; the
+_Pastourelle_, a special variety of love-story of the kind so
+curiously popular in all mediaeval languages, and so curiously alien
+from modern experience, where a passing knight sees a damsel of low
+degree, and woos her at once, with or without success, or where two
+personages of the shepherd kind sue and are sued with evil hap or
+good. In other words, the "romance" is supremely presented in English,
+and in the much-abused fifteenth century, by the _Nut-Browne Maid_,
+the "pastourelle" by Henryson's _Robene and Makyne_. Perhaps there is
+nothing quite so good as either in the French originals of both;
+certainly there is nothing like the union of metrical felicity,
+romantic conduct, sweet but not mawkish sentiment, and never-flagging
+interest in the anonymous masterpiece which the ever-blessed Arnold
+preserved for us in his _Chronicle_. But the diffused merits--the
+so-to-speak "class-merits"--of the poems in general are very high
+indeed: and when the best of the other lyrics--_aubades_, _debats_,
+and what not--are joined to them, they supply the materials of an
+anthology of hardly surpassed interest, as well for the bubbling music
+of their refrains and the trill of their metre, as for the fresh mirth
+and joy of living in their matter. The "German paste in our
+composition," as another Arnold had it, and not only that, may make us
+prefer the German examples; but it must never be forgotten that but
+for these it is at least not improbable that those would never have
+existed.
+
+[Footnote 129: This for convenience' sake is postponed to chap. viii.]
+
+To select capital examples from so large a body is no easy task. One
+or two, indeed, have "made fortune," the most famous of them being the
+great _aubade_ (chief among its kind, as "En un vergier sotz folha
+d'albespi" is among the Provencal albas), which begins--
+
+    "Gaite de la tor,
+         Gardez entor
+         Les murs, si Deus vos voie;"[130]
+
+and where the _gaite_ (watcher) answers (like a Cornish watcher of the
+pilchards)--
+
+    "Hu! et hu! et hu! et hu!"
+
+[Footnote 130: _Romancero Francais_, p. 66.]
+
+Then there is the group, among the oldest and the best of all,
+assigned to Audefroy le Batard--a most delectable garland, which tells
+how the loves of Gerard and Fair Isabel are delayed (with the refrain
+"et joie atent Gerars"), and how the joy comes at last; of "belle
+Ydoine" and her at first ill-starred passion for "li cuens [the Count]
+Garsiles"; of Beatrix and Guy; of Argentine, whose husband better
+loved another; of Guy the second, who _aima Emmelot de foi_--all
+charming pieces of early verse. And then there are hundreds of others,
+assigned or anonymous, in every tone, from the rather unreasonable
+request of the lady who demands--
+
+    "Por coi me bast mes maris?
+                laysette!"
+
+immediately answering her own question by confessing that he has found
+her embracing her lover, and threatening further justification;
+through the less impudent but still not exactly correct morality of
+"Henri and Aiglentine," to the blameless loves of Roland and "Bele
+Erembors" and the _moniage_ of "Bele Doette" after her lover's death,
+with the words--
+
+    "Tant mar i fustes, cuens Do, frans de nature,
+    por vostre aor vestrai je la haire
+    ne sur mon cors n'arai pelice vaire."
+
+This conduct differs sufficiently from that of the unnamed heroine of
+another song, who in the sweetest and smoothest of verse bids her
+husband never to mind if she stays with her lover that night, for the
+night is very short, and he, the husband, shall have her back
+to-morrow!
+
+And besides the morality, perverse or touching, the quaint manners,
+the charming unusual names or forms of names, Oriour, Oriolanz,
+Ysabiaus, Aigline,--there are delightful fancies, borrowed often
+since:--
+
+    "Li rossignox est mon pere,
+      Qui chante sur la ramee
+    el plus haut boscage;
+      La seraine ele est ma mere,
+    qui chante en la mer salee
+      el plus haut rivage."
+
+Something in the very sound of the language keeps for us the freshness
+of the imagery--the sweet-briar and the hawthorn, the mavis and the
+oriole--which has so long become _publica materies_. It is not
+withered and hackneyed by time and tongues as, save when genius
+touches it, it is now. The dew is still on all of it; and, thanks to
+the dead language, the dead manners, it will always be on. All is just
+near enough to us for it to be enjoyed, as we cannot enjoy antiquity
+or the East; and yet the "wall of glass" which seven centuries
+interpose, while hiding nothing, keeps all intact, unhackneyed,
+strange, _fresh_. There may be better poetry in the world than these
+twelfth and thirteenth century French lyrics: there is certainly
+higher, grander, more respectable. But I doubt whether there is any
+sweeter or, in a certain sense, more poignant. The nightingale and
+the mermaid were justified of their children.
+
+It is little wonder that all Europe soon tried to imitate notes so
+charming, and in some cases, though other languages were far behind
+French in development, tried successfully. Our own "Alison,"[131] the
+first note of true English lyric, is a "romance" of the most genuine
+kind; the songs of Walther von der Vogelweide, of which we have also
+spoken, though they may rise higher, yet owe their French originals
+service, hold of them, would either never or much later have come into
+existence but for them. An astonishing privilege for a single nation
+to have enjoyed, if only for a short time; a privilege almost more
+astonishing in its reception than even in itself. France could point
+to the _chansons_ and to the _romances_, to Audefroy le Bastard and
+Chrestien of Troyes, to Villehardouin and Thibaut, to William of
+Lorris and John of Meung, to the _fabliaux_ writers and the cyclists
+of _Renart_, in justification of her claims. She shut them up; she
+forgot them; she sneered at them whenever they were remembered; and
+she appointed as her attorneys in the court of Parnassus Nicolas
+Boileau-Despreaux and Francois Arouet de Voltaire!
+
+[Footnote 131: See p. 210.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Fabliaux.]
+
+No more curious contrast, but also none which could more clearly show
+the enormous vigour and the unique variety of the French genius at
+this time, can be imagined than that which is presented by the next
+division to which we come--the division occupied by the celebrated
+poems, or at least verse-compositions, known as _fabliaux_. These,
+for reasons into which it is perhaps better not to inquire too
+closely, have been longer and better known than any other division of
+old French poetry. They were first collected and published a hundred
+and forty years ago by Barbazan; they were much commented on by Le
+Grand d'Aussy in the last years of the last century, were again
+published in the earlier years of the present by Meon, and recently
+have been re-collected, divested of some companions not strictly of
+their kind, and published in an edition desirable in every respect by
+M. Anatole de Montaiglon and M. Gaston Raynaud.[132] Since this
+collection M. Bedier has executed a monograph upon them which stands
+to the subject much as that of M. Jeanroy does to the Lyrics. But a
+great deal of it is occupied by speculations, more interesting to the
+folk-lorist than to the student of literature, as to the origin of the
+stories themselves. This, though a question of apparently
+inexhaustible attraction to some people, must not occupy us very long
+here. It shall be enough to say that many of these subjects are hardy
+perennials which meet us in all literatures, and the existence of
+which is more rationally to be accounted for by the supposition of a
+certain common form of story, resulting partly from the conditions of
+human life and character, partly from the conformation of the human
+intellect, than by supposing deliberate transmission and copying from
+one nation to another. For this latter explanation is one of those
+which, as has been said, only push ignorance further back; and in
+fact, leave us at the last with no alternative except that which we
+might have adopted at the first.
+
+[Footnote 132: 6 vols. Paris, 1872-90.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their origin._]
+
+That, however, some assistance may have been given to the general
+tendency to produce the same forms by the literary knowledge of
+earlier, especially Eastern, collections of tales is no extravagant
+supposition, and is helped by the undoubted fact that actual
+translations of such collections--_Dolopathos_, the _Seven Sages of
+Rome_,[133] and so forth--are found early in French, and chiefly at
+second-hand from the French in other languages. But the general
+tendency of mankind, reinforced and organised by a certain specially
+literary faculty and adaptability in the French genius, is on the
+whole sufficient to account for the _fabliau_.
+
+[Footnote 133: For these see the texts and editorial matter of
+_Dolopathos_, ed. Brunet and De Montaiglon (Bibliotheque
+Elzevirienne), Paris, 1856; and of _Le Roman des Sept Sages_, ed. G.
+Paris (_Soc. des Anc. Textes_), Paris, 1875. The English _Seven Sages_
+(in Weber, vol. iii.) has been thought to be of the thirteenth
+century. The _Gesta Romanorum_ in any of its numerous forms is
+probably later.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Their licence._]
+
+It presents, as we have said, the most striking and singular contrast
+to the Lyric poems which we have just noticed. The technical morality
+of these is extremely accommodating, indeed (in its conventional and
+normal form) very low. But it is redeemed by an exquisite grace and
+charm, by true passion, and also by a great decency and accomplishment
+of actual diction. Coarse language--very rare in the romances, though
+there are a few examples of it--is rarer still in the elaborate formal
+lyric of the twelfth and thirteenth century in French. In the
+_fabliaux_, which are only a very little later, and which seem not to
+have been a favourite form of composition very long after the
+fourteenth century had reached its prime, coarseness of diction,
+though not quite invariable, is the rule. Not merely are the subjects,
+in the majority of cases, distinctly "broad," but the treatment of
+them is broader still. In a few instances it is very hard to discern
+any wit at all, except a kind similar to that known much later in
+England as "selling bargains"; and almost everywhere the words which,
+according to a famous classical French tag, _bravent l'honnetete_, in
+Latin, the use of which a Roman poet has vaunted as _Romana
+simplicitas_, and which for some centuries have been left alone by
+regular literature in all European languages till very recently,--appear
+to be introduced on purpose as part of the game. In fact, it is in the
+_fabliau_ that the characteristic which Mr Matthew Arnold selected as
+the opprobrium of the French in life and literature practically makes
+its first appearance. And though the "lubricity" of these poems is
+free from some ugly features which appear after the Italian wars of
+the late fifteenth century, it has never been more frankly destitute
+of shamefacedness.
+
+[Sidenote: _Their wit._]
+
+It would, however, be extremely unfair to let it be supposed that the
+_fabliaux_ contain nothing but obscenity, or that they can offer
+attractions to no one save those whom obscenity attracts. As in those
+famous English followings of them, where Chaucer considerably reduced
+the licence of language, and still more considerably increased the
+dose of wit--the Reeve's and Miller's sections of the _Canterbury
+Tales_--the lack of decency is very often accompanied by no lack of
+sense. And a certain proportion, including some of the very best in a
+literary point of view, are not exposed to the charge of any
+impropriety either of language or of subject.
+
+[Sidenote: _Definition and subjects._]
+
+There is, indeed, no special reason why the _fabliau_ should be
+"improper" (except for the greater ease of getting a laugh) according
+to its definition, which is capable of being drawn rather more sharply
+than is always the case with literary kinds. It is a short tale in
+verse--almost invariably octosyllabic couplets--dealing, for the most
+part from the comic point of view, with incidents of ordinary life.
+This naturally admits of the widest possible diversity of subject:
+indeed it is only by sticking to the condition of "ordinary life" that
+the _fabliau_ can be differentiated from the short romance on one side
+and the allegoric beast-fable on the other. Even as it is, its most
+recent editors have admitted among their 157 examples not a few which
+are simple _jeux d'esprit_ on the things of humanity, and others which
+are in effect short romances and nothing else. Of these last is the
+best known of all the non-Rabelaisian _fabliaux_, "Le Vair Palefroi,"
+which has been Englished by Leigh Hunt and shortly paraphrased by
+Peacock, while examples of the former may be found without turning
+very long over even one of M. M. de Montaiglon and Raynaud's pretty
+and learned volumes. A very large proportion, as might be expected,
+draw their comic interest from satire on priests, on women, or on
+both together; and this very general character of the _fabliaux_
+(which, it must be remembered, were performed or recited by the very
+same _jongleurs_ who conducted the publication of the _chansons de
+geste_ and the romances) was no doubt partly the result and partly the
+cause of the persistent dislike and disfavour with which the Church
+regarded the profession of jonglerie. It is, indeed, from the
+_fabliaux_ themselves that we learn much of what we know about the
+_jongleurs_; and one of not the least amusing[134] deals with the
+half-clumsy, half-satiric boasts of two members of the order, who
+misquote the titles of their _repertoire_, make by accident or
+intention ironic comments on its contents, and in short do _not_
+magnify their office in a very modern spirit of humorous writing.
+
+[Footnote 134: "Les Deux Bordeors [bourders, jesters] Ribaux."]
+
+Every now and then, too, we find, in the half-random and wholly
+scurrile slander of womankind, a touch of real humour, of the humour
+that has feeling behind it, as here, where a sufficiently ribald
+variation on the theme of the "Ephesian matron" ends--
+
+    "Por ce teng-je celui a fol
+    Qui trop met en fame sa cure;
+    Fame est de trop foible nature,
+    De noient rit, de noient pleure,
+    Fame aime et het en trop poi d'eure:
+    Tost est ses talenz remuez,
+    Qui fame croit, si est desves."
+
+So too, again, in "La Housse Partie," a piece which perhaps ranks next
+to the "Vair Palefroi" in general estimation, there is neither purely
+romantic interest, as in the Palfrey, nor the interest of "the pity of
+it," as in the piece just quoted; but an ethical purpose, showing out
+of the mouth of babes and sucklings the danger of filial ingratitude.
+
+But, as a general rule, there is little that is serious in these
+frequently graceless but generally amusing compositions. There is a
+curious variety about them, and incidentally a crowd of lively touches
+of common life. The fisherman of the Seine starts for his day's work
+or sport with oar and tackle; the smith plies the forge; the bath
+plays a considerable part in the stories, and we learn that it was not
+an unknown habit to eat when bathing, which seems to be an unwise
+attempt to double luxuries. A short sketch of mediaeval catering might
+be got out of the _fabliaux_, where figure not merely the usual
+dainties--capons, partridges, pies well peppered--but eels salted,
+dried, and then roasted, or more probably grilled, as we grill
+kippered salmon. Here we have a somewhat less grimy original--perhaps
+it was actually the original--of Skelton's "Tunning of Elinor
+Rumming"; and in many places other patterns, the later reproductions
+of which are well known to readers of Boccaccio and the _Cent
+Nouvelles Nouvelles_ of La Fontaine and his followers. Title after
+title--"Du Prestre Crucifie," "Du Prestre et d'Alison," &c.--tells us
+that the clergy are going to be lampooned. Sometimes, where the fun is
+no worse than childish, it is childish enough--plays on words, jokes
+on English mispronunciation of French, and so forth. But it very
+seldom, though it is sometimes intolerably nasty, approaches the
+sheer drivel which appears in some English would-be comic writing of
+the Middle Ages, or the very early Renaissance--such, for instance, as
+most of that in the prose "Pleasant Historie of Thomas of
+Reading,"[135] which the late Mr Thoms was pleased to call a romance.
+Yet the actual stuff of "Thomas of Reading" is very much of the nature
+of the _fabliaux_ (except of course the tragical part, which happens
+to be the only good part), and so the difference of the handling is
+noteworthy. So it is also in English verse-work of the kind--the
+"Hunting of the Hare"[136] and the like--to take examples necessarily
+a little later than our time.
+
+[Footnote 135: _Early English Prose Romances_ (2d ed., London, 1858),
+i. 71. The text of this is only Deloney's and sixteenth century, but
+much of the matter must be far earlier.]
+
+[Footnote 136: Weber, iii. 177.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Effect of the_ fabliaux _on language._]
+
+For in these curious compositions the _esprit Gaulois_ found itself
+completely at home; indeed some have held that here it hit upon its
+most characteristic and peculiar development. The wonderful faculty
+for expression--for giving, if not the supreme, yet the adequate and
+technically masterly dress to any kind of literary production--which
+has been the note of French literature throughout, and which was never
+more its note than at this time, enabled the language, as we have seen
+and shall see, to keep as by an easy sculling movement far ahead of
+all its competitors. But in other departments, with one or two
+exceptions, the union of temper and craft, of inspiration and
+execution, was not quite perfect. Here there was no misalliance. As
+the language lost the rougher, fresher music which gives such peculiar
+attraction to the _chansons_, as it disused itself to the varied
+trills, the half-inarticulate warblings which constitute the charm of
+the lyrics, so it acquired the precision, the flexibility, the
+_nettete_, which satiric treatment of the follies and evil chances of
+life, the oddities of manners and morals, require. It became bright,
+if a little hard, easy, if a little undistinguished, capable of
+slyness, of innuendo, of "malice," but not quite so capable as it had
+been of the finer and vaguer suggestions and aspirations.
+
+[Sidenote: _And on narrative._]
+
+Above all, these _fabliaux_ served as an exercise-ground for the
+practice in which French was to become almost if not quite supreme,
+the practice of narrative. In the longer romances, which for a century
+or a century and a half preceded the _fabliaux_, the art of narration,
+as has been more than once noticed, was little attended to, and indeed
+had little scope. The _chansons_ had a common form, or something very
+like it, which almost dispensed the _trouvere_ from devoting much
+pains to the individual conduct of the story. The most abrupt
+transitions were accustomed, indeed expected; minor incidents received
+very little attention; the incessant fighting secured the attention of
+the probable hearers by itself; the more grandiose and striking
+incidents--the crowning of Prince Louis and the indignation of William
+at his sister's ingratitude, for instance--were not "engineered" or
+led up to in any way, but left to act in mass and by assault.
+
+[Sidenote: _Conditions of_ fabliau-_writing._]
+
+The smaller range and more delicate--however indelicate--argument of
+the _fabliaux_ not only invited but almost necessitated a different
+kind of handling. The story had to draw to point in (on an average)
+two or three hundred lines at most--there are _fabliaux_ of a thousand
+lines, and _fabliaux_ of thirty or forty, but the average is as just
+stated. The incidents had to be adjusted for best effect, neither too
+many nor too few. The treatment had to be mainly provocative--an
+appeal in some cases by very coarse means indeed to very coarse
+nerves, in others by finer devices addressed to senses more tickle o'
+the sere. And so grew up that unsurpassed and hardly matched product
+the French short story, where, if it is in perfection, hardly a word
+is thrown away, and not a word missed that is really wanted.
+
+[Sidenote: _The appearance of irony._]
+
+The great means for doing this in literature is irony; and irony
+appears in the _fabliaux_ as it had hardly done since Lucian. Take,
+for instance, this opening of a piece, the rest of which is at least
+as irreverent, considerably less quotable, but not much less
+pointed:--
+
+    "Quant Dieus ot estore lo monde,
+    Si con il est a la reonde,
+    Et quanque il convit dedans,
+    Trois ordres establir de genz,
+    Et fist el siecle demoranz
+    Chevalers, clers et laboranz.
+    Les chevalers toz asena
+    As terres, et as clers dona
+    Les aumosnes et les dimages;
+    Puis asena les laborages
+    As laborenz, por laborer.
+    Qant ce ot fet, sanz demeler
+    D'iluec parti, et s'en ala."
+
+What two orders were left, and how the difficulty of there being
+nothing left for them was got over, may be found by the curious in the
+seventy-sixth _fabliau_ of the third volume of the collection so often
+quoted. But the citation given will show that there is nothing
+surprising in the eighteenth-century history, literary or poetical, of
+a country which could produce such a piece, certainly not later than
+the thirteenth. Even Voltaire could not put the thing more neatly or
+with a more complete freedom from superfluous words.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fables proper._]
+
+It will doubtless have been observed that the _fabliau_--though the
+word is simply _fabula_ in one of its regular Romance metamorphoses,
+and though the method is sufficiently AEsopic--is not a "fable" in the
+sense more especially assigned to the term. Yet the mediaeval
+languages, especially French and Latin, were by no means destitute of
+fables properly so called. On the contrary, it would appear that it
+was precisely during our present period that the rather meagre
+AEsopisings of Phaedrus and Babrius were expanded into the fuller
+collection of beast-stories which exists in various forms, the chief
+of them being the _Ysopet_ (the name generally given to the class in
+Romance) of _Marie de France_, the somewhat later _Lyoner Ysopet_ (as
+its editor, Dr Foerster, calls it), and the original of this latter,
+the Latin elegiacs of the so-called _Anonymus Neveleti_.[137] The
+collection of Marie is interesting, at least, because of the author,
+whose more famous Lais, composed, it would seem, at the Court of Henry
+III. of England about the meeting of the twelfth and thirteenth
+centuries, and forming a sort of offshoot less of the substance of the
+Arthurian story than of its spirit, are among the most delightful
+relics of mediaeval poetry. But the Lyons book perhaps exhibits more of
+the characteristic which, evident enough in the _fabliau_ proper,
+discovers, after passing as by a channel through the beast-fable, its
+fullest and most famous form in the world-renowned _Romance of Reynard
+the Fox_, one of the capital works of the Middle Ages, and with the
+sister but contrasted _Romance of the Rose_, as much the
+distinguishing literary product of the thirteenth century as the
+romances proper--Carlovingian, Arthurian, and Classical--are of the
+twelfth.
+
+[Footnote 137: Works of Marie; ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1820; or ed.
+Warnke, Halle, 1885. The _Lyoner Ysopet_, with the _Anonymus_; ed.
+Foerster, Heilbronn, 1882.]
+
+[Sidenote: Reynard the Fox.]
+
+Not, of course, that the antiquity of the Reynard story itself[138]
+does not mount far higher than the thirteenth century. No two things
+are more remarkable as results of that comparative and simultaneous
+study of literature, to which this series hopes to give some little
+assistance, than the way in which, on the one hand, a hundred years
+seem to be in the Middle Ages but a day, in the growth of certain
+kinds, and on the other a day sometimes appears to do the work of a
+hundred years. We have seen how in the last two or three decades of
+the twelfth century the great Arthurian legend seems suddenly to fill
+the whole literary scene, after being previously but a meagre
+chronicler's record or invention. The growth of the Reynard story,
+though to some extent contemporaneous, was slower; but it was really
+the older of the two. Before the middle of this century, as we have
+seen, there was really no Arthurian story worthy the name; it would
+seem that by that time the Reynard legend had already taken not full
+but definite form in Latin, and there is no reasonable reason for
+scepticism as to its existence in vernacular tradition, though perhaps
+not in vernacular writing, for many years, perhaps for more than one
+century, earlier.
+
+[Footnote 138: _Roman du_ (should be _de_) _Renart_: ed. Meon and
+Chabaille, 5 vols., Paris, 1826-35; ed. Martin, 3 vols. text and 1
+critical observations, Strasburg, 1882-87. _Reincke de Vos_, ed.
+Prien, Halle, 1887, with a valuable bibliography. _Reinaert_, ed.
+Martin, Paderborn, 1874. _Reinardus Vulpes_, ed. Mone, Stuttgart,
+1834. _Reinhart Fuchs_, ed. Grimm, Berlin, 1832. On the _story_ there
+is perhaps nothing better than Carlyle, as quoted _supra_.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Order of texts._]
+
+It was not to be expected but that so strange, so interesting, and so
+universally popular a story as that of King Noble and his not always
+loving subjects, should have been made, as usual, the battle-ground of
+literary fancy and of that general tendency of mankind to ferocity,
+which, unluckily, the study of _belles lettres_ does not seem very
+appreciably to soften. Assisted by the usual fallacy of antedating
+MSS. in the early days of palaeographic study, and by their
+prepossessions as Germans, some early students of the Reynard story
+made out much too exclusive and too early claims, as to possession by
+right of invention, for the country in which Reynard has no doubt, for
+the last four centuries or so, been much more of a really popular hero
+than anywhere else. Investigation and comparison, however, have had
+more healing effects here than in other cases; and since the
+acknowledgment of the fact that the very early Middle High German
+version of Henry the Glichezare, itself of the end of the twelfth
+century, is a translation from the French, there has not been much
+serious dispute about the order of the Reynard romances as we actually
+have them. That is to say, if the Latin _Isengrimus_--the oldest
+_Reinardus Vulpes_--of 1150 or thereabouts is actually the oldest
+_text_, the older branches of the French _Renart_ pretty certainly
+come next, with the High German following a little later, and the Low
+German _Reincke de Vos_ and the Flemish _Reinaert_ a little later
+still. The Southern Romance nations do not seem--indeed the humour is
+essentially Northern--to have adopted Reynard with as much enthusiasm
+as they showed towards the Romances; and our English forms were
+undoubtedly late adaptations from foreign originals.
+
+[Sidenote: _Place of origin._]
+
+If, however, this account of the texts may be said to be fairly
+settled, the same cannot of course be said as to the origin of the
+story. Here there are still champions of the German claim, whose
+number is increased by those who stickle for a definite "Low" German
+origin. Some French patriots, with a stronger case than they generally
+have, still maintain the story to be purely French in inception. I
+have not myself seen any reason to change the opinion I formed some
+fifteen years ago, to the effect that it seems likely that the
+original language of the epic is French, but French of a Walloon or
+Picard dialect, and that it was written somewhere between the Seine
+and the Rhine.
+
+The character and accomplishment of the story, however, are matters of
+much more purely literary interest than the rather barren question of
+the probable--it is not likely that it will ever be the proved--date
+or place of origin of this famous thing. The fable in general, and the
+beast-fable in particular, are among the very oldest and most
+universal of the known forms of literature. A fresh and special
+development of it might have taken place in any country at any time.
+It did, as a matter of fact, take place somewhere about the twelfth
+century or earlier, and somewhere in the central part of the northern
+coast district of the old Frankish empire.
+
+[Sidenote: _The French form._]
+
+As usual with mediaeval work, when it once took hold on the imagination
+of writers and hearers, the bulk is very great, especially in the
+French forms, which, taking them altogether, cannot fall much short of
+a hundred thousand lines. This total, however, includes
+developments--_Le Couronnement Renart_, _Renart le Nouvel_, and, later
+than our present period, a huge and still not very well-known thing
+called _Renart le Contrefait_, which are distinct additions to the
+first conception of the story. Yet even that first conception is not a
+story in the single sense. Its thirty thousand lines or thereabouts
+are divided into a considerable number of what are called _branches_,
+attributed to authors sometimes anonymous, sometimes named, but never,
+except in the one case of _Renart le Bestourne_, known.[139] And it is
+always difficult and sometimes impossible to determine in what
+relation these branches stand to the main trunk, or which of them _is_
+the main trunk. The two editors of the _Roman_, Meon and Herr Martin,
+arrange them in different orders; and I do not think it would be in
+the least difficult to make out a good case for an order, or even a
+large number of orders, different still.[140]
+
+[Footnote 139: This, which is not so much a branch as an independent
+_fabliau_, is attributed to Ruteboeuf, _v. infra_.]
+
+[Footnote 140: The Teutonic versions are consolidated into a more
+continuous story. But of the oldest High German version, that of the
+Glichezare, we have but part, and _Reincke de Vos_ does not reach
+seven thousand verses. The French forms are therefore certainly to be
+preferred.]
+
+By comparison, however, with the versions in other languages, it seems
+not very doubtful that the complaint of Isengrim the Wolf as to the
+outrages committed by Reynard on the complainant's personal comfort,
+and the honour of Hersent his wife--a complaint laid formally before
+King Noble the Lion--forms, so far as any single thing can be said to
+form it, the basis and beginning of the Reynard story. The
+multiplication of complaints by other beasts, the sufferings inflicted
+by Reynard on the messengers sent to summon him to Court, and his
+escapes, by mixture of fraud and force, when he is no longer able to
+avoid putting in an appearance, supply the natural continuation.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its complications._]
+
+But from this, at least in the French versions, the branches diverge,
+cross, and repeat or contradict each other with an altogether
+bewildering freedom. Sometimes, for long passages together, as in the
+interesting fytte, "How Reynard hid himself among the Skins,"[141] the
+author seems to forget the general purpose altogether, and to devote
+himself to something quite different--in this case the description of
+the daily life and pursuits of a thirteenth-century sportsman of easy
+means. Often the connection with the general story is kept only by the
+introduction of the most obvious and perfunctory devices--an intrigue
+with Dame Hersent, a passing trick played on Isengrim, and so forth.
+
+[Footnote 141: Meon, iii. 82; Martin, ii. 43.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Unity of spirit._]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Rise of Allegory._]
+
+Nevertheless the whole is knit together, to a degree altogether
+unusual in a work of such magnitude, due to many different hands, by
+an extraordinary unity of tone and temper. This tone and this temper
+are to some extent conditioned by the Rise of Allegory, the great
+feature, in succession to the outburst of Romance, of our present
+period. We do not find in the original _Renart_ branches the
+abstracting of qualities and the personification of abstractions which
+appear in later developments, and which are due to the popularity of
+the _Romance of the Rose_, if it be not more strictly correct to say
+that the popularity of the _Romance of the Rose_ was due to the taste
+for allegory. Jacquemart Gielee, the author of _Renart le Nouvel_,
+might personify _Renardie_ and work his beast-personages into knights
+of tourney; the clerk of Troyes, who later wrote _Renart le
+Contrefait_, might weave a sort of encyclopaedia into his piece. But
+the authors of the "Ancien Renart" knew better. With rare lapses, they
+exhibit wonderful art in keeping their characters beasts, while
+assigning to them human arts; or rather, to put the matter with more
+correctness, they pass over the not strictly beast-like performances
+of Renart and the others with such entire unconcern, with such a
+perfect freedom from tedious after-thought of explanation, that no
+sense of incongruity occurs. The illustrations of Meon's _Renart_,
+which show us the fox painfully clasping in his forelegs a stick four
+times his own length, show the inferiority of the nineteenth century.
+Renart may beat _le vilain_ (everybody beats the poor _vilain_) as
+hard as he likes in the old French text; it comes all naturally. A
+neat copper-plate engraving, in the best style of sixty or seventy
+years ago, awakes distrust.
+
+[Sidenote: _The satire of_ Renart.]
+
+The general fable is so familiar that not much need be said about it.
+But it is, I think, not unfair to say that the German and Flemish
+versions, from the latter of which Caxton's and all later English
+forms seem to be copied, are, if better adjusted to a continuous
+story, less saturated with the quintessence of satiric criticism of
+life than the French _Renart_. The fault of excessive coarseness of
+thought and expression, which has been commented on in the _fabliaux_,
+recurs here to the fullest extent; but it is atoned for and sweetened
+by an even greater measure of irony. As to the definite purposes of
+this irony it would not be well to be too sure. The passage quoted on
+a former page will show with what completely fearless satire the
+_trouveres_ treated Church and State, God and Man. It is certain that
+they had no love of any kind for the clergy, who were not merely their
+rivals but their enemies; and it is not probable they had much for the
+knightly order, who were their patrons. But it is never in the very
+least degree safe to conclude, in a mediaeval writer, from that satire
+of abuses, which is so frequent, to the distinct desire of reform or
+revolution, which is so rare. The satire of the _Renart_--and it is
+all the more delightful--is scarcely in the smallest degree political,
+is only in an interesting archaeological way of the time ecclesiastical
+or religious; but it is human, perennial, contemptuous of mere time
+and circumstance, throughout.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Fox himself._]
+
+It cannot, no doubt, be called kindly satire--French satire very
+rarely is. Renart, the only hero, though a hero sometimes uncommonly
+hard bested, is a furred and four-footed Jonathan Wild. He appears to
+have a creditable paternal affection for Masters Rovel, Percehaie, and
+the other cubs; and despite his own extreme licence of conjugal
+conduct, only one or two branches make Dame Hermeline, his wife,
+either false to him or ill-treated by him. In these respects, as in
+the other that he is scarcely ever outwitted, he has the advantage of
+Jonathan. But otherwise I think our great eighteenth-century _maufes_
+was a better fellow than Renart, because he was much less purely
+malignant. I do not think that Jonathan often said his prayers; but he
+probably never went to bed, as Reynard did upon the hay-mow, after
+performing his devotions in a series of elaborate curses upon all his
+enemies. The fox is so clever that one never dislikes him, and
+generally admires him; but he is entirely compact of all that is
+worst, not merely in beast-nature but in humanity. And it is a triumph
+of the writers that, this being so, we at once can refrain from
+disliking him, and are not tempted to like him illegitimately.
+
+[Sidenote: _His circle._]
+
+The _trouveres_ did not trouble themselves to work out any complete
+character among the many whom they grouped round this great personage;
+but they left none without touches of vivification and verisimilitude.
+The female beasts--Dame Fiere or Orgueilleuse, the lioness, Hersent,
+the she-wolf, Hermeline, the vixen, and the rest--are too much tinged
+with that stock slander of feminine character which was so common in
+the Middle Ages. And each is rather too much of a type, a fault which
+may be also found with their lords. Yet all of these--Bruin and
+Brichemer, Coart and Chanticleer, Tybert and Primaut, Hubert and
+Roonel--have the liveliest touches, not merely of the coarsely
+labelling kind, but of the kind that makes a character alive. And,
+save as concerns the unfortunate capons and _gelines_ whom Renart
+consumes, so steadily and with such immunity, it cannot be said that
+their various misfortunes are ever incurred without a valid excuse in
+poetical justice. Isengrim, the chief of them all, is an especial case
+in point. Although he is Chief Constable, he is just as much of a
+rascal and a malefactor as Renart himself, with the additional crime
+of stupidity. One is disposed to believe that, if domiciliary visits
+were made to their various abodes, Malpertuis would by no means stand
+alone as a bad example of a baronial abode. Renart is indeed
+constantly spoken of as Noble's "baron." Yet it would be a great
+mistake to take this epic, as it has been sometimes taken, for a
+protest against baronial suppression. A sense of this, no doubt,
+counts--as do senses of many other oppressions that are done under the
+sun. But it is the satire on life as a whole that is uppermost; and
+that is what makes the poem, or collection of poems, so remarkable. It
+is hard, coarse, prosaic except for the range and power of its fancy,
+libellous enough on humanity from behind its stalking-brutes. But it
+is true, if an exaggeration of the truth; and its constant hugging of
+the facts of life supplies the strangest possible contrast to the
+graceful but shadowy land of romance which we have left in former
+chapters. We all know the burial-scene of Launcelot--later, no doubt,
+in its finest form, but in suggestion and spirit of the time with
+which we are dealing. Let us now consider briefly the burial-scene of
+Renart.
+
+[Sidenote: _The burial of Renart._]
+
+When Meon, the excellent first editor of the collection, put, as was
+reason, the branch entitled "La Mort Renart" last, he was a little
+troubled by the consideration that several of the beasts whom in
+former branches Renart himself has brought to evil ends reappear and
+take part in his funeral. But this scarcely argued a sufficient
+appreciation of the true spirit of the cycle. The beasts, though
+perfectly lively abstractions, are, after all, abstractions in a way,
+and you cannot kill an abstraction. Nay, the author, with a really
+grand final touch of the pervading satire which is the key of the
+whole, gives us to understand at the last that Renart (though he has
+died not once, but twice, in the course of the _fytte_) is not really
+dead at all, and that when Dame Hermeline persuades the complaisant
+ambassadors to report to the Lion-King that they have seen the tomb
+with Renart inscribed upon it, the fact was indeed true but the
+meaning false, inasmuch as it was another Renart altogether. Indeed
+the true Renart is clearly immortal.
+
+Nevertheless, as it is his mission, and that of his poets, to satirise
+all the things of Life, so must Death also be satirised in his person
+and with his aid. The branch, though it is probably not a very early
+one, is of an admirable humour, and an uncompromising truth after a
+fashion, which makes the elaborate realism and pessimism of some other
+periods look singularly poor, thin, and conventional. The author, for
+the keeping of his story, begins by showing the doomed fox more than a
+little "failed"--the shadow of fate dwelling coldly beforehand on him.
+He is badly mauled at the opening (though, it is true, he takes
+vengeance for it) by monks whose hen-roost he is robbing, and when he
+meets Coart the hare, _sur son destrier_, with a _vilain_ whom he has
+captured (this is a mark of lateness, some of the verisimilitude of
+the early time having been dropped), he plays him no tricks. Nay, when
+Isengrim and he begin to play chess he is completely worsted by his
+ancient butt, who at last takes, in consequence of an imprudent stake
+of the penniless Fox, a cruel but appropriate vengeance for his former
+wrongs. Renart is comforted to some extent by his old love, Queen
+Fiere the lioness; but pain, and wounds, and defeat have brought him
+near death, and he craves a priest. Bernard the Ass, Court-Archpriest,
+is ready, and admonishes the penitent with the most becoming gravity
+and unction. The confession, as might be expected, is something
+impudent; and the penitent very frankly stipulates that if he gets
+well his oath of repentance is not to stand good. But it looks as if
+he were to be taken at the worse side of his word, and he falls into a
+swoon which is mistaken for death. The Queen laments him with perfect
+openness; but the excellent Noble is a philosophic husband as well as
+a good king, and sets about the funeral of Renart
+
+    ("Jamais si bon baron n'avai,"
+
+says he) with great earnestness. Hermeline and her orphans are fetched
+from Malpertuis, and the widow makes heartrending moan, as does Cousin
+Grimbart when the news is brought to him. The vigils of the dead are
+sung, and all the beasts who have hated Renart, and whom he has
+affronted in his lifetime, assemble in decent mourning and perform the
+service, with the ceremony of the most well-trained choir. Afterwards
+they "wake" the corpse through the night a little noisily; but on the
+morrow the obsequies are resumed "in the best and most orgilous
+manner," with a series of grave-side speeches which read like a
+designed satire on those common in France at the present day. A
+considerable part of the good Archpriest's own sermon is unfortunately
+not reproducible in sophisticated times; but every one can appreciate
+his tender reference to the deceased's prowess in daring all dangers--
+
+    "Pur avoir vostre ventre plaine,
+    Et pour porter a Hermeline
+    Vostre fame, coc ou geline
+    Chapon, ou oie, ou gras oison"--
+
+for, as he observes in a sorrowful parenthesis, "anything was in
+season if _you_ could only get hold of it." Brichemer the Stag notes
+how Reynard had induced the monks to observe their vows by making them
+go to bed late and get up early to watch their fowls. But when Bruin
+the Bear has dug his grave, and holy water has been thrown on him, and
+Bruin is just going to shovel the earth--behold! Reynard wakes up,
+catches Chanticleer (who is holding the censer) by the neck, and bolts
+into a thick pleached plantation. Still, despite this resurrection,
+his good day is over, and a levee _en masse_ of the Lion's people soon
+surrounds him, catches him up, and forces him to release Chanticleer,
+who, nothing afraid, challenges him to mortal combat on fair terms,
+beats him, and leaves him for dead in the lists. And though he manages
+to pay Rohart the Raven and his wife (who think to strip his body) in
+kind, he reaches Malpertuis dead-beat; and we feel that even his last
+shift and the faithful complaisance of Grimbart will never leave him
+quite the same Fox again.
+
+The defects which distinguish almost all mediaeval poetry are no doubt
+discoverable here. There is some sophistication of the keeping in the
+episodes of Coart and Chanticleer, and the termination is almost too
+audacious in the sort of choice of happy or unhappy ending, triumph or
+defeat for the hero, which it leaves us. Yet this very audacity suits
+the whole scheme; and the part dealing with the death (or swoon) and
+burial is assuredly one of the best things of its kind in French,
+almost one of the best things in or out of it. The contrast between
+the evident delight of the beasts at getting rid of Renart and their
+punctilious discharge of ceremonial duties, the grave parody of rites
+and conventions, remind us more of Swift or Lucian than of any French
+writer, even Rabelais or Voltaire. It happened that some ten or twelve
+years had passed between the time when the present writer had last
+opened _Renart_ (except for mere reference now and then) and the time
+when he refreshed his memory of it for the purposes of the present
+volume. It is not always in such cases that the second judgment
+exactly confirms the first; but here, not merely in the instance of
+this particular branch but almost throughout, I can honestly say that
+I put down the _Roman de Renart_ with even a higher idea of its
+literary merit than that with which I had taken it up.
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Romance of the Rose.]
+
+The second great romance which distinguishes the thirteenth century in
+France stands, as we may say, to one side of the _Roman de Renart_ as
+the _fabliaux_ do to the other side. But, though complex in fewer
+pieces, the _Roman de la Rose_[142] is, like the _Roman de Renart_, a
+complex, not a single work; and its two component parts are
+distinguished from one another by a singular change of tone and
+temper. It is the later and larger part of the _Rose_ which brings it
+close to _Renart_: the smaller and earlier is conceived in a spirit
+entirely different, though not entirely alien, and one which,
+reinforcing the satiric drift of the _fabliaux_ and _Renart_ itself,
+influenced almost the entire literary production in _belles lettres_
+at least, and sometimes out of them, for more than two centuries
+throughout Europe.
+
+[Footnote 142: Ed. Michel. Paris, 1864. One of the younger French
+scholars, who, under the teaching of M. Gaston Paris, have taken in
+hand various sections of mediaeval literature, M. Langlois, has
+bestowed much attention on the _Rose_, and has produced a monograph on
+it, _Origines et Sources du Roman de la Rose_. Paris, 1890.]
+
+At no time probably except in the Middle Ages would Jean de Meung, who
+towards the end of the thirteenth century took up the scheme which
+William of Lorris had left unfinished forty years earlier, have
+thought of continuing the older poem instead of beginning a fresh one
+for himself. And at no other time probably would any one, choosing to
+make a continuation, have carried it out by putting such entirely
+different wine into the same bottle. Of William himself little is
+known, or rather nothing, except that he must have been, as his
+continuator certainly was, a native of the Loire district; so that the
+_Rose_ is a product of Central, not, like _Renart_, of Northern
+France, and exhibits, especially in the Lorris portion, an
+approximation to Provencal spirit and form.
+
+The use of personification and abstraction, especially in relation to
+love-matters, had not been unknown in the troubadour poetry itself and
+in the northern verse, lyrical and other, which grew up beside or in
+succession to it. It rose no doubt partly, if not wholly, from the
+constant habit in sermons and theological treatises of treating the
+Seven Deadly Sins and other abstractions as entities. Every devout or
+undevout frequenter of the Church in those times knew "Accidia"[143]
+and Avarice, Anger and Pride, as bodily rather than ghostly enemies,
+furnished with a regular uniform, appearing in recognised
+circumstances and companies, acting like human beings. And these were
+by no means the only sacred uses of allegory.
+
+[Footnote 143: "Sloth" is a rather unhappy substitute for _Accidia_
+([Greek: akedeia]), the gloomy and impious despair and indifference to
+good living and even life, of which sloth itself is but a partial
+result.]
+
+[Sidenote: _William of Lorris and Jean de Meung._]
+
+When William of Lorris, probably at some time in the fourth decade of
+the thirteenth century, set to work to write the _Romance of the
+Rose_, he adjusted this allegorical handling to the purposes of
+love-poetry with an ingenious intricacy never before attained. It has
+been the fashion almost ever since the famous Romance was rescued from
+the ignorant and contemptuous oblivion into which it had fallen, to
+praise Jean de Meung's part at the expense of that due to William of
+Lorris. But this is hard to justify either on directly aesthetic or on
+historical principles of criticism. In the first place, there can be
+no question that, vitally as he changed the spirit, Jean de Meung was
+wholly indebted to his predecessor for the form--the form of
+half-pictorial, half-poetic allegory, which is the great
+characteristic of the poem, and which gave it the enormous attraction
+and authority that it so long possessed. In the second place, clever
+as Jean de Meung is, and more thoroughly in harmony as he may be with
+the _esprit gaulois_, his work is on a much lower literary level than
+that of his predecessor. Jean de Meung in the latter and larger part
+of the poem simply stuffs into it stock satire on women, stock
+learning, stock semi-pagan morality. He is, it is true, tolerably
+actual; he shares with the _fabliau_-writers and the authors of
+_Renart_ a firm grasp on the perennial rascalities and meannesses of
+human nature. The negative commendation that he is "no fool" may be
+very heartily bestowed upon him. But he is a little commonplace and
+more than a little prosaic. There is amusement in him, but no charm:
+and where (that is to say, in large spaces) there is no amusement,
+there is very little left. Nor, except for the inappropriate
+exhibition of learning and the strange misuse of poetical (at least of
+verse) allegory, can he be said to be eminently characteristic of his
+own time. His very truth to general nature prevents that; while his
+literary ability, considerable as it is, is hardly sufficient to
+clothe his universally true reflections in a universally acceptable
+form.
+
+[Sidenote: _The first part._]
+
+The first four thousand and odd lines of the Romance, on the other
+hand--for beyond them it is known that the work of William of Lorris
+does not go--contain matter which may seem but little connected with
+criticism of life, arranged in a form completely out of fashion. But
+they, beyond all question, contain also the first complete
+presentation of a scheme, a mode, an atmosphere, which for centuries
+enchained, because they expressed, the poetical thought of the time,
+and which, for those who can reach the right point of view, can
+develop the right organs of appreciation, possess an extraordinary,
+indeed a unique charm. I should rank this first part of the _Roman de
+la Rose_ high among the books which if a man does not appreciate he
+cannot even distantly understand the Middle Ages; indeed there is
+perhaps no single one which on the serious side contains such a
+master-key to their inmost recesses.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its capital value._]
+
+To comprehend a Gothic cathedral the _Rose_ should be as familiar as
+the _Dies Irae_. For the spirit of it is indeed, though faintly
+"decadent," even more the mediaeval spirit than that of the Arthurian
+legend, precisely for the reason that it is less universal, less of
+humanity generally, more of this particular phase of humanity. And as
+it is opposed to, rather than complementary of, the religious side of
+the matter in one direction, so it opposes and completes the satirical
+side, of which we have heard so much in this chapter, and the purely
+fighting and adventurous part, which we have dealt with in others, not
+excluding by any means in this half-reflective, half-contrasting
+office, the philosophical side also. Yet when men pray and fight, when
+they sneer and speculate, they are constrained to be very like
+themselves and each other. They are much freer in their dreams: and
+the _Romance of the Rose_, if it has not much else of life, is like it
+in this way--that it too is a dream.
+
+As such it quite honestly holds itself out. The author lays it down,
+supporting himself with the opinion of another "qui ot nom macrobes,"
+that dreams are quite serious things. At any rate he will tell a dream
+of his own, a dream which befell him in his twentieth year, a dream
+wherein was nothing
+
+    "Qui avenu trestout ne soit
+    Si com le songes racantoit."
+
+And if any one wishes to know how the romance telling this dream shall
+be called--
+
+    "Ce est li Rommanz de la Rose,
+    Ou l'ars d'amorz est tote enclose."
+
+[Sidenote: _The rose-garden._]
+
+The poem itself opens with a description of a dewy morn in May, a
+description then not so hackneyed as, chiefly from this very instance,
+it afterwards became, and in itself at once "setting," so to speak,
+the frame of gracious decorative imagery in which the poet works. He
+"threaded a silver needle" (an odd but not unusual mediaeval pastime
+was sewing stitches in the sleeve) and strolled, _cousant ses
+manches_, towards a river-bank. Then, after bathing his face and
+seeing the bright gravel flashing through the water, he continued his
+stroll down-stream, till he saw in front of him a great park (for this
+translates the mediaeval _verger_ much better than "orchard"), on the
+wall of which were portrayed certain images[144]--Hatred, Felony,
+Villainy, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Sadness, Old Age, Hypocrisy,
+and Poverty. These personages, who strike the allegoric and
+personifying note of the poem, are described at varying length, the
+last three being perhaps the best. Despite these uninviting figures,
+the Lover (as he is soon called) desires violently to enter the park;
+but for a long time he can find no way in, till at length Dame Oyseuse
+(Idleness) admits him at a postern. She is a very attractive damsel
+herself; and she tells the Lover that Delight and all his Court haunt
+the park, and that he has had the ugly images made, apparently as
+skeletons at the feast, to heighten, not to dash, enjoyment. Entering,
+the Lover thinks he is in the Earthly Paradise, and after a time he
+finds the fair company listening to the singing of Dame Lyesse
+(Pleasure), with much dancing, music, and entertainment of _jongleurs_
+and _jongleresses_ to help pass the time.
+
+[Footnote 144: "Seven" says the verse chapter-heading, which is a
+feature of the poem; but the actual text does not mention the number,
+and it will be seen that there were in fact _ten_. The author of the
+headings was no doubt thinking of the Seven Deadly Sins.]
+
+Courtesy asks him to join in the _karole_ (dance), and he does so,
+giving full description of her, of Lyesse, of Delight, and of the God
+of Love himself, with his bow-bearer Sweet-Glances, who carries in
+each hand five arrows--in the right Beauty, Simpleness, Frankness,
+Companionship, Fair-Seeming; in the left Pride, Villainy,[145] Shame,
+Despair, and "New-Thought"--_i.e._, Fickleness. Other personages--sometimes
+with the same names, sometimes with different--follow in the train;
+Cupid watches the Lover that he may take shot at him, and the tale is
+interrupted by an episode giving the story of Narcissus. Meanwhile the
+Lover has seen among the flowers of the garden one rose-bud on which
+he fixes special desires. The thorns keep him off; and Love, having
+him at vantage, empties the right-hand quiver on him. He yields
+himself prisoner, and a dialogue between captive and captor follows.
+Love locks his heart with a gold key; and after giving him a long
+sermon on his duties, illustrated from the Round Table romances and
+elsewhere, vanishes, leaving him in no little pain, and still unable
+to get at the Rose. Suddenly in his distress there appears to him
+
+    "Un valet buen et avenant
+    Bel-Acueil se faisoit clamer,"
+
+and it seems that he was the son of Courtesy.
+
+[Footnote 145: _Vilenie_ is never an easy word to translate: it means
+general misconduct and disagreeable behaviour.]
+
+[Sidenote: _"Danger."_]
+
+Bialacoil (to give him his Chaucerian[146] Englishing) is most
+obliging, and through his help the Lover has nearly reached the Rose,
+when an ugly personage named Danger in turn makes his appearance. Up
+to this time there is no very important difficulty in the
+interpretation of the allegory; but the learned are not at one as to
+what "Danger" means. The older explanation, and the one to which I
+myself still incline as most natural and best suiting what follows, is
+that Danger is the representative of the beloved one's masculine and
+other guardians--her husband, father, brother, mother, and so forth.
+Others, however, see in him only subjective obstacles--the coyness, or
+caprice, or coquettishness of the Beloved herself. But these never
+troubled a true lover to any great extent; and besides they seem to
+have been provided for by the arrows in the left hand of Love's
+bow-bearer, and by Shame (_v. infra_). At any rate Danger's
+proceedings are of a most kill-joy nature. He starts from his
+hiding-place--
+
+    "Grans fu, et noirs et hericies,
+    S'ot les iex rouges comme feus,
+    Le nes froncie, le vis hideus,
+    Et s'escrie comme forcenes."
+
+[Footnote 146: I am well aware of everything that has been said about
+and against the Chaucerian authorship of the English _Rose_. But until
+the learned philologists who deny that authorship in whole or in part
+agree a little better among themselves, they must allow literary
+critics at least to suspend their judgment.]
+
+He abuses Bialacoil for bringing the Lover to the Rose, and turns the
+Lover out of the park, while Bialacoil flies.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Reason."_]
+
+To the disconsolate suitor appears Reason, and does not speak
+comfortable words. She is described as a middle-aged lady of a comely
+and dignified appearance, crowned, and made specially in God's image
+and likeness. She tells him that if he had not put himself under the
+guidance of Idleness, Love would not have wounded him; that besides
+Danger, he has made her own daughter Shame his foe, and also
+Male-Bouche (Scandal, Gossip, Evil-Speaking), the third and most
+formidable guardian of the Rose. He ought never to have surrendered
+to Love. In the service of that power
+
+               "il a plus poine
+    Que n'ont hermite ne blanc moine;
+    La poine en est demesuree,
+    Et la joie a courte duree."
+
+The Lover does not take this sermon well. He is Love's: she may go
+about her business, which she does. He bethinks him that he has a
+companion, Amis (the Friend), who has always been faithful; and he
+will go to him in his trouble. Indeed Love had bidden him do so. The
+Friend is obliging and consoling, and says that he knows Danger. His
+bark is worse than his bite, and if he is spoken softly to he will
+relent. The Lover takes the advice with only partial success. Danger,
+at first robustious, softens so far as to say that he has no objection
+to the Lover loving, only he had better keep clear of his roses. The
+Friend represents this as an important point gained; and as the next
+step Pity and Frankness go as his ambassadresses to Danger, who allows
+Bialacoil to return to him and take him once more to see the Rose,
+more beautiful than ever. He even, assisted by Venus, is allowed to
+kiss his love.
+
+[Sidenote: _"Shame" and "Scandal."_]
+
+This is very agreeable: but it arouses the two other guardians of whom
+Reason has vainly warned him, Shame and Evil-Speaking, or Scandal. The
+latter wakes Jealousy, Fear follows, and Fear and Shame stir up
+Danger. He keeps closer watch, Jealousy digs a trench round the
+rose-bush and builds a tower where Bialacoil is immured: and the
+Lover, his case only made worse by the remembered savour of the Rose
+on his lips,[147] is left helpless outside. But as the rubric of the
+poem has it--
+
+    "Cyendroit trespassa Guillaume
+    De Lorris, et n'en fist plus pseaulme."
+
+[Footnote 147:
+
+    "Car ge suis a greignor meschief
+    Por la joie que j'ai perdue.
+    Que s'onques ne l'eussi eue."
+
+Dante undoubtedly had this in his mind when he wrote the immortal
+_Nessun maggior dolore_. All this famous passage, l. 4557 _sq._, is
+admirable.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The later poem._]
+
+[Sidenote: _"False-Seeming."_]
+
+The work which forty years later Jean de Meung (some say at royal
+suggestion) added to the piece, so as to make it five times its former
+length, has been spoken of generally already, and needs less notice in
+detail. Jean de Meung takes up the theme by once more introducing
+Reason, whose remonstrances, with the Lover's answers, take nearly
+half as much room as the whole story hitherto. Then reappears the
+Friend, who is twice as long-winded as Reason, and brings the tale up
+to more than ten thousand lines already. At last Love himself takes
+some pity of his despairing vassal, and besieges the tower where
+Bialacoil is confined. This leads to the introduction of the most
+striking and characteristic figure of the second part, _Faux-Semblant_,
+a variety of Reynard. Bialacoil is freed: but Danger still guards the
+Rose. Love, beaten, invokes the help of his mother, who sends Nature
+and Genius to his aid. They talk more than anybody else. But Venus has
+to come herself before Danger is vanquished and the Lover plucks the
+Rose.
+
+[Sidenote: _Contrast of the parts._]
+
+The appeal of this famous poem is thus twofold, though the allegorical
+form in which the appeal is conveyed is the same. In the first part
+all the love-poetry of troubadour and _trouvere_ is gathered up and
+presented under the guise of a graceful dreamy symbolism, a little
+though not much sicklied o'er with learning. In the second the satiric
+tendency of the _Fabliaux_ and _Renart_ is carried still further, with
+an admixture of not often apposite learning to a much greater extent.
+Narcissus was superfluous where William of Lorris introduced him, but
+Pygmalion and his image, inserted at great length by Jean de Meung,
+when after twenty thousand lines the catastrophe is at length
+approaching, are felt to be far greater intruders.
+
+[Sidenote: _Value of both, and charm of the first._]
+
+The completeness of the representation of the time given by the poem
+is of course enormously increased by this second part, and the
+individual touches, though rather lost in the wilderness of "skipping
+octosyllables," are wonderfully sharp and true at times. Yet to some
+judgments at any rate the charm of the piece will seem mostly to have
+vanished when Bialacoil is once shut up in his tower. In mere poetry
+Jean de Meung is almost infinitely the inferior of William of Lorris:
+and though the latter may receive but contemptuous treatment from
+persons who demand "messages," "meanings," and so forth, others will
+find message and meaning enough in his allegorical presentation of the
+perennial quest, of "the way of a man with a maid," and more than
+enough beauty in the pictures with which he has adorned it. He is
+indeed the first great word-painter of the Middle Ages, and for
+long--almost to the close of them--most poets simply copied him, while
+even the greatest used him as a starting-point and source of
+hints.[148] Also besides pictures he has music--music not very
+brilliant or varied, but admirably matching his painting, soft,
+dreamy, not so much monotonous as uniform with a soothing uniformity.
+Few poets deserve better than William of Lorris the famous hyperbole
+which Greek furnished in turn to Latin and to English. He is indeed
+"softer than sleep," and, as soft sleep is, laden with gracious and
+various visions.
+
+[Footnote 148: The following of the Rose would take a volume, even
+treated as the poem itself is here. The English version has been
+referred to: Italian naturalised it early in a sonnet cycle, _Il
+Fiore_. Every country welcomed it, but the actual versions are as
+nothing to the imitations and the influence.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Marie de France and Ruteboeuf._]
+
+The great riches of French literature at this time, and the necessity
+of arranging this history rather with a view to "epoch-making" kinds
+and books than to interesting individual authors, make attention to
+many of these latter impossible here. Thus Marie de France[149] yields
+to few authors of our two centuries in charm and interest for the
+reader; yet for us she must be regarded chiefly as one of the
+practitioners of the fable, and as the chief practitioner of the
+_Lai_, which in her hands is merely a subdivision of the general
+romance on a smaller scale. So, again, the _trouvere_ Ruteboeuf, who
+has been the subject of critical attention, a little disproportionate
+perhaps, considering the vast amount of work as good as his which has
+hardly any critical notice, but still not undeserved, must serve us
+rather as an introducer of the subject of dramatic poetry than as an
+individual, though his work is in the bulk of it non-dramatic, and
+though almost all of it is full of interest in itself.
+
+[Footnote 149: See note above, p. 286.]
+
+Ruteboeuf[150] (a name which seems to be a professional _nom de
+guerre_ rather than a patronymic) was married in 1260, and has devoted
+one of his characteristic poems, half "complaints," half satires, to
+this not very auspicious event. For the rest, it is rather conjectured
+than known that his life must have filled the greater part, if not the
+whole, of the last two-thirds of the thirteenth century, thus
+including the dates of both parts of the _Rose_ within it. The
+tendencies of the second part of the great poem appear in Ruteboeuf
+more distinctly than those of the earlier, though, like both, his work
+shows the firm grip which allegory was exercising on all poetry, and
+indeed on all literature. He has been already referred to as having
+written an outlying "branch" of _Renart_; and not a few of his other
+poems--_Le Dit des Cordeliers_, _Frere Denise_, and others--are of the
+class of the _Fabliaux_: indeed Ruteboeuf may be taken as the type
+and chief figure to us of the whole body of _fabliau_-writing
+_trouveres_. Besides the marriage poem, we have others on his personal
+affairs, the chief of which is speakingly entitled "La Pauvrete
+Ruteboeuf." But he has been even more, and even more justly, prized
+as having left us no small number of historical or political poems,
+not a few of which are occupied with the decay of the crusading
+spirit. The "Complainte d'Outremer," the "Complainte de
+Constantinoble," the "Debat du Croise et du Decroise" tell their own
+tale, and contain generous, if perhaps not very long-sighted or
+practical, laments and indignation over the decadence of adventurous
+piety. Others are less religious; but, on the whole, Ruteboeuf, even
+in his wilder days, seems to have been (except for that dislike of the
+friars, in which he was not alone) a religiously minded person, and we
+have a large body of poems, assigned to his later years, which are
+distinctly devotional. These deal with his repentance, with his
+approaching death, with divers Lives of Saints, &c. But the most
+noteworthy of them, as a fresh strand in the rope we are here weaving,
+is the Miracle-play of _Theophile_. It will serve as a text or
+starting-point on which to take up the subject of the drama itself,
+with no more about Ruteboeuf except the observation that the varied
+character of his work is no doubt typical of that of at least the
+later _trouveres_ generally. They were practically men of letters, not
+to say journalists, of all work that was likely to pay; and must have
+shifted from romance to drama, from satire to lyric, just as their
+audience or their patrons might happen to demand, as their
+circumstances or their needs might happen to dictate.
+
+[Footnote 150: Ed. Jubinal, 2d ed., Paris, 1874; or ed. Kressner,
+Wolfenbuettel, 1885.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Drama._]
+
+The obscure but not uninteresting subject of the links between the
+latest stages of classical drama and the earliest stages of mediaeval
+belong to the first volume of this series; indeed by the eleventh
+century (or before the period, properly speaking, of this book opens)
+the vernacular drama, as far as the sacred side of it is concerned,
+was certainly established in France, although not in any other
+country. But it is not quite certain whether we actually possess
+anything earlier than the twelfth century, even in French, and it is
+exceedingly doubtful whether what we have in any other vernacular is
+older than the fourteenth. The three oldest mystery plays wherein any
+modern language makes its appearance are those of _The Ten
+Virgins_,[151] mainly in Latin, but partly in a dialect which is
+neither quite French nor quite Provencal; the Mystery of _Daniel_,
+partly Latin and partly French; and the Mystery of _Adam_,[152] which
+is all French. The two latter, when first discovered, were as usual
+put too early by their discoverers; but it is certain that they are
+not younger than the twelfth century, while it is all but certain that
+the _Ten Virgins_ dates from the eleventh, if not even the tenth. In
+the thirteenth we find, besides Ruteboeuf's _Theophile_, a _Saint
+Nicolas_ by another very well-known _trouvere_, Jean Bodel of Arras,
+author of many late and probably rehandled _chansons_, and of the
+famous classification of romance which has been adopted above.
+
+[Footnote 151: Ed. Monmerque et Michel, _Theatre Francais au Moyen
+Age_. Paris, 1874. This also contains _Theophile_, _Saint Nicolas_,
+and the plays of Adam de la Halle.]
+
+[Footnote 152: Ed. Luzarches, Tours, 1854; ed. Palustre, Paris, 1877.]
+
+It was probably on the well-known principle of "not letting the devil
+have all the best tunes" that the Church, which had in the patristic
+ages so violently denounced the stage, and which has never wholly
+relaxed her condemnation of its secular use, attempted at once to
+gratify and sanctify the taste for dramatic performances by adopting
+the form, and if possible confining it to pious uses. But there is a
+school of literary historians who hold that there was no direct
+adoption of a form intentionally dramatic, and that the modern sacred
+drama--the only drama for centuries--was simply an expansion of or
+excrescence from the services of the Church herself, which in their
+antiphonal character, and in the alternation of monologue and chorus,
+were distinctly dramatic in form. This, however, is one of those
+numerous questions which are only good to be argued, and can never
+reach a conclusion; nor need it greatly trouble those who believe that
+all literary forms are more or less natural to man, and that man's
+nature will therefore, example or no example, find them out and
+practise them, in measure and degree according to circumstances,
+sooner or later.
+
+At any rate, if there was any hope in the mind of any ecclesiastical
+person at any time of confining dramatic performances to sacred
+subjects, that hope was doomed to disappointment, and in France at
+least to very speedy disappointment. The examples of Mystery or
+Miracle plays which we have of a date older than the beginning of the
+fourteenth century are not numerous, but it is quite clear that at an
+early time the necessity for interspersing comic interludes was
+recognised; and it is needless to say to any one who has ever looked
+even slightly at the subject that these interludes soon became a
+regular part of the performance, and exhibited what to modern ideas
+seems a very indecorous disregard of the respect due to the company in
+which they found themselves. The great Bible mysteries, no less and no
+more than the miracle plays of the Virgin[153] and the Saints, show
+this characteristic throughout, and the Fool's remark which pleased
+Lamb, "Hazy weather, Master Noah!" was a strictly legitimate and very
+much softened descendant of the kind of pleasantries which diversify
+the sacred drama of the Middle Ages in all but its very earliest
+examples.
+
+[Footnote 153: Several of these miracles of the Virgin will be found
+in the volume by Monmerque and Michel referred to above: the whole
+collection has been printed by the Societe des Anciens Textes. The MS.
+is of the fourteenth century, but some of its contents may date from
+the thirteenth.]
+
+It was certain, at any rate in France, that from comic interludes in
+sacred plays to sheer profane comedy in ordinary life the step would
+not be far nor the interval of time long. The _fabliaux_ more
+particularly were farces already in the state of _scenario_, and some
+of them actually contained dialogue. To break them up and shape them
+into actual plays required much less than the innate love for drama
+which characterises the French people, and the keen literary sense and
+craft which characterised the French _trouveres_ of the thirteenth
+century.
+
+[Sidenote: _Adam de la Halle._]
+
+The honour of producing the first examples known to us is assigned to
+Adam de la Halle, a _trouvere_ of Arras, who must have been a pretty
+exact contemporary of Ruteboeuf, and who besides some lyrical work
+has left us two plays, _Li Jus de la Feuillie_ and _Robin et
+Marion_.[154] The latter, as its title almost sufficiently indicates,
+is a dramatised _pastourelle_; the former is less easy to classify,
+but it stands in something like the same relation to the personal
+poems, of which, as has just been mentioned in the case of Ruteboeuf
+himself, the _trouveres_ were so fond. For it introduces himself, his
+wife (at least she is referred to), his father, and divers of his
+Arras friends. And though rough in construction, it is by no means a
+very far-off ancestor of the comedy of manners in its most developed
+form.
+
+[Footnote 154: Besides the issue above noted these have been
+separately edited by A. Rambeau. Marburg, 1886.]
+
+[Sidenote: Robin et Marion.]
+
+It may be more interesting to give some account here of these two
+productions, the parents of so numerous and famous a family, than to
+dwell on the early miracle plays, which reached their fullest
+development in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and then for
+the most part died away. The play (_Jeu_ is the general term, and the
+exact, though now in French obsolete, equivalent of the English word)
+of _Robin et Marion_ combines the general theme of the earlier lyric
+_pastourelle_, as explained above, with the more general pastoral
+theme of the love of shepherd and shepherdess. The scene opens on
+Marion singing to the burden "Robins m'a demandee, si m'ara." To her
+the Knight, who inquires the meaning of her song, whereupon she avows
+her love for Robin. Nevertheless he woos her, in a fashion rather
+clumsy than cavalier, but receives no encouragement. Robin comes up
+after the Knight's departure. He is, to use Steerforth's words in
+_David Copperfield_, "rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl,"
+but is apparently welcome. They eat rustic fare together and then
+dance; but more company is desired, and Robin goes to fetch it. He
+tells the friends he asks that some one has been courting Marion, and
+they prudently resolve to bring, one his great pitchfork and another
+his good blackthorn. Meanwhile the Knight returns, and though Marion
+replies to his accost--
+
+    "Pour Dieu, sire, alez vo chemin,
+    Si feres moult grant courtoisie,"
+
+he renews his suit, but is again rejected. Returning in a bad temper
+he meets Robin and cuffs him soundly, a correction which Robin does
+not take in the heroic manner. Marion runs to rescue him, and the
+Knight threatens to carry her off--which Robin, even though his
+friends have come up, is too cowardly to prevent. She, however, is
+constant and escapes; the piece finishing by a long and rather tedious
+festival of the clowns. Its drawbacks are obvious, and are those
+natural to an experiment which has no patterns before it; but the
+figure of Marion is exceedingly graceful and pleasing, and the whole
+has promise. It is essentially a comic opera; but that a _trouvere_ of
+the thirteenth century should by himself, so far as we can see, have
+founded comic opera is not a small thing.
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Jeu de la Feuillie.]
+
+The _Jus de la Feuillie_ ("the booths"), otherwise _Li Jus Adam_, or
+Adam's play, is more ambitious and more complicated, but also more
+chaotic. It is, as has been said, an early sketch of a comedy of
+manners; but upon this is grafted in the most curious way a fairy
+interlude, or rather after-piece. Adam himself opens the piece and
+informs his friends with much coolness that he has tried married life,
+but intends to go back to "clergy" and then set out for Paris, leaving
+his father to take care of his wife. He even replies to the
+neighbours' remonstrances by enlarging in the most glowing terms on
+the passion he has felt for his wife and on her beauty, adding, with a
+crude brutality which has hardly a ghost of atoning fun in it, that
+this is all over--
+
+    "Car mes fains en est apaies."
+
+His father then appears, and Adam shows himself not more dutiful as a
+son than he is grateful as a husband. But old Henri de la Halle, an
+easy-going father, has not much reproach for him. The piece, however,
+has hardly begun before it goes off into a medley of unconnected
+scenes, though each has a sort of _fabliau_ interest of its own. A
+doctor is consulted by his clients; a monk demands alms and offerings
+in the name of Monseigneur Saint Acaire, promising miracles; a madman
+succeeds him; and in the midst enters the _Mainie Hellequin_, "troop
+of Hellequin" (a sort of Oberon or fairy king), with Morgue la fee
+among them. The fairies end with a song, and the miscellaneous
+conversation of the men of Arras resumes and continues for some time,
+reaching, in fact, no formal termination.
+
+[Sidenote: _Comparison of them._]
+
+In this odd piece, which, except the description of Marie the
+deserted wife, has little poetical merit, we see drama of the
+particular kind in a much ruder and vaguer condition than in the
+parallel instance of _Robin et Marion_. There the very form of the
+_pastourelle_ was in a manner dramatic--it wanted little adjustment to
+be quite so; and though the _coda_ of the rustic merry-making is
+rather artless, it is conceivably admissible. Here we are not far out
+of Chaos as far as dramatic arrangement goes. Adam's announced
+desertion of his wife and intended journey to Paris lead to nothing:
+the episodes or scenes of the doctor and the monk are connected with
+nothing; the fool or madman and his father are equally independent;
+and the "meyney of Hellequin" simply play within the play, not without
+rhyme, but certainly with very little reason. Nevertheless the piece
+is almost more interesting than the comparatively regular farces (into
+which rather later the _fabliaux_ necessarily developed themselves)
+and than the miracle plays (which were in the same way dramatic
+versions of the Lives of the Saints), precisely because of this
+irregular and pillar-to-post character. We see that the author is
+trying a new kind, that he is endeavouring to create for himself. He
+is not copying anything in form; he is borrowing very little from any
+one in material. He has endeavoured to represent, and has not entirely
+failed in representing, the comings and goings, the ways and says, of
+his townsmen at fair and market. The curiously desultory character of
+this early drama--the character hit off most happily in modern times
+by _Wallenstein's Lager_--naturally appears here in an exaggerated
+form. But the root of the matter--the construction of drama, not on
+the model of Terence or of anybody, but on the model of life--is here.
+
+It will be for my successor to show the wide extension of this
+dramatic form in the succeeding period. Here it takes rank rather as
+having the interest of origins, and as helping to fill out the picture
+of the marvellously various ability of Frenchmen of letters in the
+thirteenth century, than for the positive bulk or importance of its
+constituents. And it is important to repeat that it connects itself in
+the general literary survey both with _fabliau_ and with allegory. The
+personifying taste, which bred or was bred from allegory, is very
+close akin to the dramatic taste, and the _fabliau_, as has been said
+more than once, is a farce in the making, and sometimes far advanced
+towards being completely made.
+
+[Sidenote: _Early French prose._]
+
+All the matter hitherto discussed in this chapter, as well as all that
+of previous chapters as far as French is concerned, with the probable
+if not certain exception of the Arthurian romances, has been in verse.
+Indeed--still with this exception, and with the further and more
+certain exceptions of a few laws, a few sermons, &c.--there was no
+French prose, or none that has come down to us, until the thirteenth
+century. The Romance tongues, as contradistinguished from Anglo-Saxon
+and Icelandic, were slow to develop vernacular prose; the reason,
+perhaps, being that Latin, of one kind or another, was still so
+familiar to all persons of any education that, for purposes of
+instruction and use, vernacular prose was not required, while verse
+was more agreeable to the vulgar.
+
+[Sidenote: _Laws and sermons._]
+
+Yet it was inevitable that prose should, sooner or later, make its
+appearance; and it was equally inevitable that spoken prose sermons
+should be of the utmost antiquity. Indeed such sermons form, by
+reasonable inference, the subject of the very earliest reference[155]
+to that practically lost _lingua romana rustica_ which formed the
+bridge between Latin and the Romance tongues. But they do not seem to
+have been written down, and were no doubt extempore addresses rather
+than regular discourses. Law appears to have had the start of divinity
+in the way of providing formal written prose; and the law-fever of the
+Northmen, which had already shaped, or was soon to shape, the
+"Gray-goose" code of their northernmost home in Iceland, expressed
+itself early in Normandy and England--hardly less early in the famous
+_Lettres du Sepulcre_ or _Assises de Jerusalem_, the code of the
+Crusading kingdom, which was drawn up almost immediately after its
+establishment, and which exists, though not in the very oldest form.
+Much uncertainty prevails on the question when the first sermons in
+French vernacular were formally composed, and by whom. It has been
+maintained, and denied, that the French sermons of St Bernard which
+exist are original, in which case the practice must have come in
+pretty early in the twelfth century. There is, at any rate, no doubt
+that Maurice de Sully, who was Archbishop of Paris for more than
+thirty years, from 1160 onwards, composed sermons in French; or at
+least that sermons of his, which may have been written in Latin, were
+translated into French. For this whole point of early prose,
+especially on theological subjects, is complicated by the uncertainty
+whether the French forms are original or not. There is no doubt that
+the feeling expressed by Ascham in England nearly four centuries
+later, that it would have been for himself much easier and pleasanter
+to write in Latin, must at the earlier date have prevailed far more
+extensively.
+
+[Footnote 155: The often-quoted statement that in 659 Mummolinus or
+Momolenus was made Bishop of Noyon because of his double skill in
+"Teutonic" and "Roman" (_not_ "Latin") speech.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Villehardouin._]
+
+Still prose made its way: it must have received an immense accession
+of vogue if the prose Arthurian romances really date from the end of
+the twelfth century; and by the beginning of the thirteenth it found a
+fresh channel in which to flow, the channel of historical narrative.
+The earliest French chronicles of the ordinary compiling kind date
+from this time; and (which is of infinitely greater importance) it is
+from this time (_cir._ 1210) that the first great French prose book,
+from the literary point, appears--that is to say, the _Conquete de
+Constantinoble_,[156] or history of the Fourth Crusade, by Geoffroy de
+Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne and Romanie, who was born about
+1160 in the first-named province, and died at Messinople in Greece
+about 1213.
+
+[Footnote 156: Ed. Natalis de Wailly. Paris, 1872.]
+
+This deservedly famous and thoroughly delightful book, which has more
+than one contemporary or slightly younger parallel, though none of
+these approaches it in literary interest, presents the most striking
+resemblance to a _chanson de geste_--in conduct, arrangement (the
+paragraphs representing _laisses_), and phraseology. But it is not, as
+some other early prose is, merely verse without rhyme, and with broken
+rhythm; and it is impossible to read it without astonished admiration
+at the excellence of the medium which the writer, apparently by
+instinct, has attained. The list of the crusaders; their embassy to
+"li dux de Venise qui ot a nom Henris Dandolo et etait mult sages et
+mult prouz"; their bargain, in which the business-like Venetian, after
+stipulating for 85,000 marks of transport-money, agrees to add fifty
+armed galleys without hire, for the love of God _and_ on the terms of
+half-conquests; the death of the Count of Champagne (much wept by
+Geoffroy his marshal); and the substitution after difficulties of
+Boniface, Marquis of Montserrat;--these things form the prologue. When
+the army is actually got together the transport-money is unfortunately
+lacking, and the Venetians, still with the main chance steadily before
+them, propose that the crusaders shall recover for them, from the King
+of Hungary, Zara, "Jadres en Esclavonie, qui est une des plus forz
+citez du monde." Then we are told how Dandolo and his host take the
+cross; how Alexius Comnenus, the younger son of Isaac, arrives and
+begs aid; how the fleet set out ("Ha! Dex, tant bon destrier i ot
+mis!"); how Zara is besieged and taken; of the pact made with Alexius
+to divert the host to Constantinople; of the voyage thither after the
+Pope's absolution for the slightly piratical and not in the least
+crusading _prise de Jadres_ has been obtained; of the dissensions and
+desertions at Corfu, and the arrival at the "Bras St Georges," the Sea
+of Marmora. This is what may be called the second part.
+
+The third part opens with debates at San Stefano as to the conduct of
+the attack. The emperor sends soft words to "la meillor gens qui soent
+sanz corone" (this is the description of the chiefs), but they reject
+them, arrange themselves in seven battles, storm the port, take the
+castle of Galata, and then assault the city itself. The fighting
+having gone wholly against him, the emperor retires by the open side
+of the city, and the Latins triumph. Some show is made of resuming, or
+rather beginning, a real crusade; but the young Emperor Alexius, to
+whom his blind father Isaac has handed over the throne, bids them
+stay, and they do so. Soon dissensions arise, war breaks out, a
+conspiracy is formed against Isaac and his son by Mourzufle, "et
+Murchufles chauca les houses vermoilles," quickly putting the former
+owners of the scarlet boots to death. A second siege and capture of
+the city follows, and Baldwin of Flanders is crowned emperor, while
+Boniface marries the widow of Isaac, and receives the kingdom of
+Salonica.
+
+It has seemed worth while to give this abstract of the book up to a
+certain point (there is a good deal more of confused fighting in
+"Romanie" before, at the death of Boniface, Villehardouin gives up
+the pen to Henri of Valenciennes), because even such a bare argument
+may show the masterly fashion in which this first of modern vernacular
+historians of the great literary line handles his subject. The parts
+are planned with judgment and adjusted with skill; the length allotted
+to each incident is just enough; the speeches, though not omitted, are
+not inserted at the tyrannous length in which later mediaeval and even
+Renaissance historians indulged from corrupt following of the
+ancients. But no abstract could show--though the few scraps of actual
+phrase purposely inserted may convey glimpses of it--the vigour and
+picturesqueness of the recital. That Villehardouin was an eyewitness
+explains a little, but very little: we have, unfortunately, libraries
+full of eyewitness-histories which are duller than any ditch-water.
+Nor, though he is by no means shy of mentioning his own performances,
+does he communicate to the story that slightly egotistic interest of
+gossip and personal detail of which his next great successor is
+perhaps the first example. It is because, while writing a rather
+rugged but completely genuine and unmetrical though rhythmical prose,
+Villehardouin has the poet's eye and grasp that he sees, and therefore
+makes us see, the events that he relates. These events do not form
+exactly the most creditable chapter of modern history; for they simply
+come to this, that an army assembling for a crusade against the
+infidel, allows itself to be bribed or wheedled into two successive
+attacks on two Christian princes who have given it not the slightest
+provocation, never attacks the infidel at all, and ends by a
+filibustering seizure of already Christian territory. Nor does
+Villehardouin make any elaborate disguise of this; but he tells the
+tale with such a gust, such a _furia_, that we are really as much
+interested in the success of this private piracy as if it had been the
+true crusade of Godfrey of Bouillon himself.
+
+[Sidenote: _William of Tyre._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Joinville._]
+
+The earlier and more legitimate crusades did not lack fitting
+chroniclers in the same style, though none of them had the genius of
+Villehardouin. The _Roman d'Eracles_ (as the early vernacular
+version[157] of the Latin chronicle of William of Tyre used to be
+called, for no better reason than that the first line runs, "Les
+anciennes histoires dient qu'Eracles [Heraclius] qui fu mout bons
+crestiens gouverna l'empire de Rome") is a chronicle the earlier part
+of which is assigned to a certain Bernard, treasurer of the Abbey of
+Corbie. It is a very extensive relation, carrying the history of Latin
+Palestine from Peter the Hermit's pilgrimage to about the year 1190,
+composed probably within ten or fifteen years after this later date,
+and written, though not with Villehardouin's epic spirit, in a very
+agreeable and readable fashion. Not much later, vernacular chronicles
+of profane history in France became common, and the celebrated
+_Grandes Chroniques_ of St Denis began to be composed in French. But
+the only production of this thirteenth century which has taken rank in
+general literary knowledge with the work of the Marshal of Champagne
+is that[158] of Jean de Joinville, also a Champenois and Seneschal of
+the province, who was born about ten years after Villehardouin's
+death, and who died, after a life prolonged to not many short of a
+hundred years, in 1319. Joinville's historical work seems to have been
+the occupation of his old age; but its subject, the Life and Crusading
+misfortunes of Saint Louis, belongs to the experiences of his youth
+and early middle life. Besides the _Histoire de Saint Louis_, we have
+from him a long _Credo_ or profession of religious faith.
+
+[Footnote 157: Ed. Paulin Paris. Paris, 1879.]
+
+[Footnote 158: Ed. Natalis de Wailly. Paris, 1874.]
+
+There is no reason at all to question the sincerity of this faith. But
+Joinville was a shrewd and practical man, and when the kings of France
+and Navarre pressed him to take the cross a second time, he answered
+that their majesties' servants had during his first absence done him
+and his people so much harm that he thought he had better not go away
+again. Indeed it would be displeasing to God, "qui mit son corps pour
+son peuple sauver," if he, Joinville, abandoned _his_ people. And he
+reports only in the briefest abstract the luckless "voie de Tunes," or
+expedition to Tunis. But of the earlier and not much less unlucky
+Damietta crusade, in which he took part, as well as of his hero's life
+till all but the last, he has written very fully, and in a fashion
+which is very interesting, though unluckily we have no manuscript
+representing the original text, or even near to it in point of time.
+The book, which has been thought to have been written in pieces at
+long intervals, has nothing of the antique vigour of Villehardouin.
+Joinville is something of a gossip, and though he evidently writes
+with a definite literary purpose, is not master of very great
+argumentative powers. But for this same reason he abounds in anecdote,
+and in the personal detail which, though it may easily be overdone, is
+undoubtedly now and then precious for the purpose of enabling us to
+conjure up the things and men of old time more fully and correctly.
+And there is a Pepysian garrulity as well as a Pepysian shrewdness
+about Joinville; so that, on the whole, he fills the position of
+ancestor in the second group of historians, the group of lively
+_raconteurs_, as well as Villehardouin leads that of inspired
+describers. For an instance of the third kind, the philosophical
+historian, France, if not Europe, had to wait two centuries, when such
+a one came in Comines.
+
+It is almost unnecessary to say that when the secret of producing
+prose and its advantages over verse for certain purposes had been
+discovered, it was freely employed for all such purposes, scientific
+as science was understood, devotional, instructive, business (the
+_Livre des Mestiers_, or book of the guilds of Paris, is of the
+thirteenth century), and miscellaneous. But few of these things
+concern literature proper. It is otherwise with the application of
+prose to fiction.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fiction._]
+
+This, as we have seen, had probably taken place in the case of the
+Arthurian romances as early as the middle of our period, and
+throughout the thirteenth century prose romances of length were not
+unknown, though it was later that all the three classes--Carlovingian,
+Arthurian, and Antique--were thrown indiscriminately into prose, and
+lengthened even beyond the huge length of their later representatives
+in verse. But for this reason or that, romance in prose was with rare
+exceptions unfavourable to the production of the best literature. It
+encouraged the prolixity which was the great curse of the Middle Ages,
+and the deficient sense of form and scanty presence of models
+prevented the observance of anything like a proper scheme.
+
+[Sidenote: Aucassin et Nicolette.]
+
+But among the numerous origins of this wonderful time the origin of
+the short prose tale, in which France was to hold almost if not quite
+the highest rank among European countries, was also included. It would
+not seem that the kind was as yet very frequently attempted--the fact
+that the verse _fabliau_ was still in the very height of its
+flourishing-time, made this unlikely; nor was it till that
+flourishing-time was over that farces on the one hand, and prose tales
+on the other, succeeded as fruit the _fabliau_-flower. But it is from
+the thirteenth century that (with some others) we have _Aucassin et
+Nicolette_.[159] If it was for a short time rather too much of a
+fashion to praise (it cannot be over-praised) this exquisite story, no
+wise man will allow himself to be disgusted any more than he will
+allow himself to be attracted by fashion. This work of "the old
+caitiff," as the author calls himself with a rather Hibernian
+coaxingness, is what has been called a _cantefable_--that is to say,
+it is not only obviously written, like verse romances and _fabliaux_,
+for recitation, but it consists partly of prose, partly of verse, the
+music for the latter being also given. Mr Swinburne, Mr Pater, and,
+most of all, Mr Lang, have made it unnecessary to tell in any detailed
+form the story how Aucassin, the son of Count Garin of Beaucaire, fell
+in love with Nicolette, a Saracen captive, who has been bought by the
+Viscount of the place and brought up as his daughter; how Nicolette
+was shut up in a tower to keep her from Aucassin; how Count Bongars of
+Valence assailed Beaucaire and was captured by Aucassin on the faith
+of a promise from his father that Nicolette shall be restored to him;
+how the Count broke his word, and Aucassin, setting his prisoner free,
+was put in prison himself; how Nicolette escaped, and by her device
+Aucassin also; how the lovers were united; and how, after a comic
+interlude in the country of "Torelore," which could be spared by all
+but folk-lorists, the damsel is discovered to be daughter of the King
+of Carthage, and all ends in bowers of bliss.
+
+[Footnote 159: Frequently edited: not least satisfactorily in the
+_Nouvelles Francaises du XIIIme. Siecle_, referred to above. In 1887
+two English translations, by Mr Lang and Mr Bourdillon, the latter
+with the text and much apparatus, appeared: and Mr Bourdillon has
+recently edited a facsimile of the unique MS. (Oxford, 1896).]
+
+But even the enthusiasm and the art of three of the best writers of
+English and lovers of literature in this half-century have not
+exhausted the wonderful charm of this little piece. The famous
+description of Nicolette, as she escapes from her prison and walks
+through the daisies that look black against her white feet, is
+certainly the most beautiful thing of the kind in mediaeval
+prose-work, and the equal of anything of the kind anywhere. And for
+original audacity few things surpass Aucassin's equally famous
+inquiry, "En Paradis qu'ai-je a faire?" with the words with which he
+follows it up to the Viscount. But these show passages only
+concentrate the charm which is spread all over the novelette, at least
+until its real conclusion, the union and escape of the lovers. Here,
+as in the earlier part of the _Rose_--to which it is closely akin--is
+the full dreamy beauty, a little faint, a little shadowy, but all the
+more attractive, of mediaeval art; and here it has managed to convey
+itself in prose no less happily and with more concentrated happiness
+than there in verse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ICELANDIC AND PROVENCAL.
+
+     RESEMBLANCES. CONTRASTS. ICELANDIC LITERATURE OF THIS TIME
+     MAINLY PROSE. DIFFICULTIES WITH IT. THE SAGA. ITS INSULARITY
+     OF MANNER. OF SCENERY AND CHARACTER. FACT AND FICTION IN THE
+     SAGAS. CLASSES AND AUTHORSHIP OF THEM. THE FIVE GREATER
+     SAGAS. 'NJALA.' 'LAXDAELA.' 'EYRBYGGJA.' 'EGLA.' 'GRETTLA.'
+     ITS CRITICS. MERITS OF IT. THE PARTING OF ASDIS AND HER
+     SONS. GREAT PASSAGES OF THE SAGAS. STYLE. PROVENCAL MAINLY
+     LYRIC. ORIGIN OF THIS LYRIC. FORMS. MANY MEN, ONE MIND.
+     EXAMPLE OF RHYME-SCHEMES. PROVENCAL POETRY NOT GREAT. BUT
+     EXTRAORDINARILY PEDAGOGIC. THOUGH NOT DIRECTLY ON ENGLISH.
+     SOME TROUBADOURS. CRITICISM OF PROVENCAL.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Resemblances._]
+
+These may seem at first to be no sufficient reason for treating
+together two such literatures as those named in the title of this
+chapter. But the connection, both of likeness and unlikeness, between
+them is too tempting to the student of comparative literature, and too
+useful in such a comparative survey of literature as that which we are
+here undertaking, to be mistaken or refused. Both attaining, thanks to
+very different causes, an extraordinarily early maturity, completely
+worked themselves out in an extraordinarily short time. Neither had,
+so far as we know, the least assistance from antecedent vernacular
+models. Each achieved an extraordinary perfection and intensity,
+Icelandic in spirit, Provencal in form.
+
+[Sidenote: _Contrasts._]
+
+And their differences are no less fascinating, since they start from
+this very diversity of similar perfection. Icelandic, after a brief
+period of copying French and other languages, practically died out as
+a language producing literature; and, perhaps for that very reason,
+maintained itself in all the more continuity as a spoken language.
+Even its daughter--or at least successor--Norse tongues produced
+nothing worthy to take up the tradition of the Sagas and the Poems. It
+influenced (till the late and purely literary revival of it biassed to
+some extent the beginnings of the later Romantic revival in Western
+Europe, a hundred and fifty years ago) nothing and nobody. It was as
+isolated as its own island. To Provencal, on the other hand, though
+its own actual producing-time was about as brief, belongs the
+schooling, to no small extent, of the whole literature of Europe.
+Directly, it taught the _trouveres_ of Northern France and the poets
+of Spain and Italy prosody, and a certain amount of poetical style and
+tone; indirectly, or directly through France, it influenced England
+and Germany. It started, indeed, none of the greater poetical kinds
+except lyric, and lyric is the true _grass_ of Parnassus--it springs
+up naturally everywhere; but it started the form of all, or at least
+was the first to adapt from Latin a prosody suitable to all.
+
+The most obvious, though not the least interesting, points of
+likeness in unlikeness have been left to the last. The contrasts
+between the hawthorn and nightingale of Provence, her "winds heavy
+with the rose," and the grey firths, the ice- and foam-fretted
+skerries of Iceland; between the remains of Roman luxury pushed to
+more than Roman effeminacy in the one, and the rough Germanic virtue
+exasperated to sheer ferocity in the other,--are almost too glaring
+for anything but a schoolboy's or a rhetorician's essay. Yet they are
+reproduced with an incredible--a "copy-book"--fidelity in the
+literatures. The insistence of experts and enthusiasts on the
+law-abiding character of the sagas has naturally met with some
+surprise from readers of these endless private wars, and burnings, and
+"heath-slayings," these feuds where blood flows like water, to be
+compensated by fines as regular as a water-rate, these methodical
+assassinations, in which it is not in the least discreditable to
+heroes to mob heroes as brave as themselves to death by numbers, in
+which nobody dreams of measuring swords, or avoiding vantage of any
+kind. Yet the enthusiastic experts are not wrong. Whatever outrages
+the Icelander may commit, he always has the law--an eccentric,
+unmodern, conventional law, but a real and recognised one--before his
+eyes, and respects it in principle, however much he may sometimes
+violate it in practice. To the Provencal, on the other hand, law, as
+such, is a nuisance. He will violate it, so to speak, on
+principle--less because the particular violation has a particular
+temptation for him than because the thing is forbidden. The Icelander
+may covet and take another man's wife, but it is to make her his own.
+The Provencal will hardly fall, and will never stay, in love with any
+one who is not another's. In savagery there is not so very much to
+choose: it requires a calculus, not of morals but of manners, to
+distinguish accurately between carving the blood-eagle on your enemy
+and serving up your rival's heart as a dish to his mistress. In
+passion also there may be less difference than the extreme advocates
+of both sides would maintain. But in all things external the contrast,
+the hackneyed contrast, of South and North never could have been
+exhibited with a more artistic completeness, never has been exhibited
+with a completeness so artistic. And these two contrasting parts were
+played at the very same time at the two ends of Europe. In the very
+same years when the domestic histories and tragedies (there were few
+comedies) of Iceland were being spun into the five great sagas and the
+fifty smaller ones, the fainter, the more formal, but the not less
+peculiar music of the gracious long-drawn Provencal love-song was
+sounding under the vines and olives of Languedoc. The very Icelanders
+who sailed to Constantinople in the intervals of making the subjects
+of these sagas, and sometimes of composing them, must not seldom have
+passed or landed on the coasts where _cansos_ and _tensos_, _lai_ and
+_sirvente_, were being woven, and have listened to them as the
+Ulyssean mariners listened to the songs of the sirens.
+
+[Sidenote: _Icelandic literature of this time mainly prose._]
+
+It is not, of course, true that Provencal only sings of love and
+Icelandic only of war. There is a fair amount of love in the Northern
+literature and a fair amount of fighting in the Southern. And it is
+not true that Icelandic literature is wholly prose, Provencal wholly
+poetry. But it is true that Provencal prose plays an extremely small
+part in Provencal literature, and that Icelandic poetry plays, in
+larger minority, yet still a minor part in Icelandic. It so happens,
+too, that in this volume we are almost wholly concerned with Icelandic
+prose, and that we shall not find it necessary to say much, if
+anything, about Provencal that is not in verse. It is distinctly
+curious how much later, _coeteris paribus_, the Romance tongues are
+than the Teutonic in attaining facilities of prose expression. But
+there is no reason for believing that even the Teutonic tongues
+falsified the general law that poetry comes before prose. And
+certainly this was the case with Icelandic--so much so that, uncertain
+as are the actual dates, it seems better to relinquish the Iceland of
+poetry to the first volume of this series, where it can be handled in
+connection with that Anglo-Saxon verse which it so much resembles. The
+more characteristic Eddaic poems--that is to say, the most
+characteristic parts of Icelandic poetry--must date from Heathen
+times, or from the first conflicts of Christianity with Heathenism in
+Iceland; and this leaves them far behind us.[160] On the other hand,
+the work which we have in Provencal before the extreme end of the
+eleventh century is not finished literature. It has linguistic
+interest, the interest of origins, but no more.
+
+[Footnote 160: Iceland began to be Christian in 1000.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Difficulties with it._]
+
+Although there is practically as little doubt about the antiquity of
+Icelandic literature[161] as about its interest, there is unusual room
+for guesswork as to the exact dates of the documents which compose it.
+Writing seems to have been introduced into Iceland late; and it is not
+the opinion of scholars who combine learning with patriotism that
+many, if any, of the actual MSS. date further back than the thirteenth
+century; while the actual composition of the oldest that we have is
+not put earlier than the twelfth, and rather its later than its
+earlier part. Moreover, though Icelanders were during this period, and
+indeed from the very first settlement of the island, constantly in
+foreign countries and at foreign courts--though as Vikings or
+Varangians, as merchants or merely travelling adventurers, they were
+to be found all over Europe, from Dublin to Constantinople--yet, on
+the other hand, few or no foreigners visited Iceland, and it figures
+hardly at all in the literary and historical records of the Continent
+or even of the British Isles, with which it naturally had most
+correspondence. We are therefore almost entirely devoid of those
+side-lights which are so invaluable in general literary history, while
+yet again we have no borrowings from Icelandic literature by any other
+to tell us the date of the borrowed matter. At the end of our present
+time, and still more a little later, Charlemagne and Arthur and the
+romances of antiquity make their appearance in Icelandic; but nothing
+Icelandic makes its appearance elsewhere. For it is not to be supposed
+for one moment that the _Nibelungenlied_, for instance, is the work of
+men who wrote with the _Volsunga-Saga_ or the Gudrun lays before them,
+any more than the _Grettis Saga_ is made up out of _Beowulf_. These
+things are mere examples of the successive refashionings of traditions
+and stories common to the race in different centuries, manners, and
+tongues. Except as to the bare fact of community of origin they help
+us little or not at all.
+
+[Footnote 161: It is almost superfluous to insert, but would be
+disagreeable to omit, a reference to the _Sturlunga Saga_ (2 vols.,
+Oxford, 1879) and the _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_ (2 vols., Oxford,
+1883) of the late Dr Vigfusson and Professor York Powell. The first
+contains an invaluable sketch, or rather history, of Icelandic
+literature: the second (though one may think its arrangement a little
+arbitrary) is a book of unique value and interest. Had these two been
+followed up according to Dr Vigfusson's plan, practically the whole of
+Icelandic literature that has real interest would have been accessible
+once for all. As it is, one is divided between satisfaction that
+England should have done such a service to one of the great mediaeval
+literatures, and regret that she has not done as much for others.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Saga._]
+
+The reasons why Icelandic literature, in its most peculiar and
+interesting form of the saga, did not penetrate abroad are clear
+enough; and the remoteness and want of school-education in the island
+itself are by no means the most powerful of them. The very thing which
+is most characteristic of them, and which in these later times
+constitutes their greatest charm, must have been against them in their
+own time. For the stories which ran like an epidemic through Europe in
+the years immediately before and immediately after 1200, though they
+might be in some cases concerned directly with national heroes,
+appealed without exception to international and generally human
+interests. The slightest education, or the slightest hearing of
+persons educated, sufficed to teach every one that Alexander and Caesar
+were great conquerors, that the Story of Troy (the exact truth of
+which was never doubted) had been famous for hundreds and almost
+thousands of years. Charlemagne had had directly to do with the
+greater part of Europe in peace or war, and the struggle with the
+Saracens was of old and universal interest, freshened by the Crusades.
+The Arthurian story received from fiction, if not from history, an
+almost equally wide bearing; and was, besides, knitted to
+religion--the one universal interest of the time--by its connection
+with the Graal. All Europe, yet again, had joined in the Crusades, and
+the stories brought by the crusaders directly or indirectly from the
+East were in the same way common property.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its insularity of manner._]
+
+But saga-literature had nothing of this appeal. It was as
+indifferently and almost superciliously insular as the English
+country-house novel itself, and may have produced in some of the very
+few foreigners who can ever have known it originally, something of the
+same feelings of wrath which we have seen excited by the English
+country-house novel in our own day. The heroes were not, according to
+the general ideas of mediaeval Europe, either great chiefs or
+accomplished knights; the heroines were the very reverse of those
+damsels "with mild mood" (as the catch-word in the English romances
+has it) whom the general Middle Age liked or thought it liked. An
+intricate, intensely local, and (away from the locality) not seldom
+shocking system of law and public morality pervaded the whole. The
+supernatural element, though in itself it might have been an
+attraction, was of a cast quite different from the superstitions of
+the South, or even of the Centre; and the Christian element, which was
+to the Middle Ages the very air they breathed, was either absent
+altogether or present in an artificial, uneasy, and scanty fashion.
+
+[Sidenote: _Of scenery and character._]
+
+Yet all these things were of less importance than another, which is,
+after all, the great _differentia_, the abiding quality, of the sagas.
+In the literature of the rest of Europe, and especially in the central
+and everywhere radiating literature of France, there were sometimes
+local and almost parochial touches--sometimes unimportant heroes, not
+seldom savage heroines, frequently quaint bits of exotic
+supernaturalism. But all this was subdued to a kind of common literary
+handling, a "dis-realising" process which made them universally
+acceptable. The personal element, too, was conspicuously absent--the
+generic character is always uppermost. Charlemagne was a real person,
+and not a few of the incidents with which he was connected in the
+_chansons_ were real events; but he and they have become mere stuff of
+romance as we see them in these poems. Whether Arthur was a real
+person or not, the same to an even greater extent is true of him. The
+kings and their knights appealed to Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans,
+Italians alike, because they were not obtrusively English, German,
+Italian, or French. But the sagas are from the first and to the (at
+least genuine) last nothing if not national, domestic, and personal.
+The grim country of ice and fire, of joekul and skerry, the massive
+timber homesteads, the horse-fights and the Viking voyages, the
+spinning-wheel and the salting-tub, are with us everywhere; and yet
+there is an almost startling individuality, for all the sameness of
+massacre and chicanery, of wedding and divorce, which characterises
+the circumstances. Gunnar is not distinguished from Grettir merely by
+their adventures; there is no need of labels on the lovers of Gudrun;
+Steingerd in Kormak's Saga and Hallgerd in Njal's, are each something
+much more than types of the woman with bad blood and the woman with
+blood that is only light and hot. And to the unsophisticated reader
+and hearer, as many examples might be adduced to show, this
+personality, the highest excellence of literature to the sophisticated
+scholar, is rather a hindrance than a help. He has not proved the ways
+and the persons; and he likes what he has proved.
+
+To us, on the contrary, the characteristics of saga-work, at which a
+glance has been made in the foregoing paragraphs, form its principal
+charm, a charm reinforced by the fact of its extraordinary difference
+from almost all other literature except (in some points) that of the
+Homeric poems. Although there is a good deal of common form in the
+sagas, though outlawry and divorce, the quibbles of the Thing and the
+violence of ambush or holmgang, recur to and beyond the utmost limits
+of permitted repetition, the unfamiliarity of the setting atones for
+its monotony, and the individuality of the personages themselves very
+generally prevents that monotony from being even felt. The stories are
+never tame; and, what is more remarkable, they seldom or never have
+the mere extravagance which in mediaeval, at least as often as in
+other, writing, plays Scylla to the Charybdis of tameness. Moreover,
+they have, as no other division of mediaeval romance has in anything
+like the same measure, the advantage of the presence of _interesting_
+characters of both sexes. Only the Arthurian story can approach them
+here, and that leaves still an element of gracious shadowiness about
+the heroines, if not the heroes. The Icelandic heroine has nothing
+shadowy about her. Her weakest point is the want of delicacy--not in a
+finicking sense by any means--which a rough promiscuous life to begin
+with, and the extreme facility and frequency of divorce on the other,
+necessarily brought about. But she is always, as the French have it, a
+"person"--when she is good, a person altogether of the best; even when
+she is bad, a person seldom other than striking and often charming.
+
+[Sidenote: _Fact and fiction in the sagas._]
+
+There is, of course, Icelandic literature in prose outside of the
+sagas--the great law code (_Gragas_ or _Greygoose_), religious books
+in the usual plenty, scientific books of a kind, and others. But the
+saga, the story, was so emphatically the natural mould into which
+Icelandic literary impulse threw itself, that it is even more
+difficult here than elsewhere at the time to separate story and
+history, fiction and fact. Indeed the stricter critics would, I
+believe, maintain that every saga which deserves the name is actually
+founded on fact: the _Laxdaela_ no less than the _Heimskringla_,[162]
+the story of Kormak no less than that of Jarl Rognwald. A merely and
+wholly invented story (they hold, and perhaps rightly) would have been
+repugnant to that extraordinarily business-like spirit which has left
+us, by the side of the earlier songs and later sagas, containing not a
+little of the most poetical matter of the whole world, the _Landnama
+Bok_ of Ari Frodi, a Domesday-book turned into literature, which is
+indeed older than our time, but which forms a sort of commentary and
+companion to the whole of the sagas by anticipation or otherwise.
+
+[Footnote 162: Dr Vigfusson is exceedingly severe on the
+_Heimskringla_, which he will have to be only a late, weak, and
+rationalised compilation from originals like the oddly termed "Great
+O.T. Saga." But it is hard for a man to think hardly of the book in
+which, though only a translation, he first read how Queen Sigrid the
+Haughty got rid of her troublesome lovers by the effectual process of
+burning them _en masse_ in a barn, and how King Olaf died the greatest
+sea-death--greater even than Grenville's--of any defeated hero, in
+history or literature.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Classes and authorship of them._]
+
+Difficult as it may be to draw the line between intended history,
+which was always strongly "romanced" in form, if not intentionally in
+fact, and that very peculiar product of Icelandic genius the saga
+proper, in which the original domestic record has been, so to speak,
+"super-romanced" into a work of art, it is still possible to see it,
+if not to draw it, between the _Heimskringla_, the story of the Kings
+of Norway (made English after some earlier versions by Messrs
+Magnusson and Morris, and abstracted, as genius can abstract, by
+Carlyle), the _Orkneyinga_ and _Faereyinga_ Sagas (the tales of these
+outlying islands before the former came under Norwegian rule), the
+curious conglomerate known as the _Sturlunga Saga_ on the one hand,
+and the greater and lesser sagas proper on the other. The former are
+set down to the two great writers Snorri and Sturla, the one the chief
+literary light of Iceland in the first half of the thirteenth century,
+the other the chief light in the second, both of the same family, and
+with Ari Frodi the three greatest of the certainly known men of
+letters of the island. Conjecture has naturally run riot as to the
+part which either Snorri or Sturla may have taken in the sagas not
+directly attributed to either, but most probably dating from their
+time, as well as with the personalities of the unknown or little known
+poets and prosemen who shaped the older stories at about the same
+period. But to the historian who takes delight in literature, and does
+not care very much who made it provided it is made well, what has been
+called "the singular silence" as to authorship which runs through the
+whole of the early Icelandic literature is rather a blessing than
+otherwise. It frees him from those biographical inquiries which always
+run the risk of drawing nigh to gossip, and it enables him to
+concentrate attention on the literature itself.
+
+This literature is undoubtedly best exemplified, as we should expect,
+in the wholly anonymous and only indirectly historical sagas of the
+second division, though it is fair to say that there is nothing here
+much finer than such things as the famous last fight of King Olaf in
+the _Heimskringla_, or as many other incidents and episodes in the
+history-books. Only the hands of the writers were freer in the others:
+and complete freedom--at least from all but the laws of art--is never
+a more "nobil thing" than it is to the literary artist.
+
+[Sidenote: _The five greater sagas._]
+
+There seems no reason to quarrel with the classification which divides
+the sagas proper into two classes, greater and lesser, and assigns
+position in the first to five only--the Saga of Burnt Njal, that of
+the dwellers in Laxdale, the _Eyrbyggja_, Egil's Saga, and the Saga of
+Grettir the Strong. It is very unlucky that the reception extended by
+the English public to the publications of Mr Vigfusson and Professor
+York Powell, mentioned in a note above, did not encourage the editors
+to proceed to an edition at least of these five sagas together, which
+might, according to estimate, have been done in three volumes, two
+more containing all the small ones. Meanwhile _Njala_--the great sagas
+are all known by familiar diminutives of this kind--is accessible in
+English in the late Sir G.W. Dasent's well-known translation;[163] the
+_Eyrbyggja_ and _Egla_ in abstracts by Sir Walter Scott[164] and Mr
+Gosse;[165] _Laxdaela_ has been treated as it deserves in the longest
+and nearly the finest section of Mr Morris's _Earthly Paradise_;[166]
+and the same writer with Dr Magnusson has given a literal translation
+of _Grettla_.[167]
+
+[Footnote 163: _The Story of Burnt Njal._ Edinburgh, 1861.]
+
+[Footnote 164: Included in the Bohn edition of Mallet's _Northern
+Antiquities_.]
+
+[Footnote 165: _Cornhill Magazine_, July 1879.]
+
+[Footnote 166: "The Lovers of Gudrun;" _November_, part iii. p. 337,
+original edition. London, 1870.]
+
+[Footnote 167: London, 1869.]
+
+The lesser sagas of the same group are some thirty in number, the best
+known or the most accessible being those of Gunnlaug Serpent's-Tongue,
+often printed in the original,[168] very short, very characteristic,
+and translated by the same hands as _Grettla_;[169] _Viga Glum_,
+translated by Sir Edmund Head;[170] _Gisli the Outlaw_ (Dasent);[171]
+_Howard_ or _Havard the Halt_, _The Banded Men_, and _Hen Thorir_
+(Morris and Magnusson)[172]; _Kormak_, said to be the oldest, and
+certainly one of the most interesting.[173]
+
+[Footnote 168: _Gunnlaug's Saga Ormstungu_. Ed. Mogk. Halle, 1886.]
+
+[Footnote 169: In _Three Northern Love-Stories_. London, 1875.]
+
+[Footnote 170: London, 1866.]
+
+[Footnote 171: Edinburgh, 1866.]
+
+[Footnote 172: In one volume. London, 1891.]
+
+[Footnote 173: Not translated, and said to require re-editing in the
+original, but very fully abstracted in _Northern Antiquities_, as
+above, pp. 321-339. The verse is in the _Corpus Poeticum Boreale_.]
+
+So much of the interest of a saga depends on small points constantly
+varied and renewed, that only pretty full abstracts of the contents of
+one can give much idea of them. On the other hand, the attentive
+reader of a single saga can usually give a very good guess at the
+general nature of any other from a brief description of it, though he
+must of course miss the individual touches of poetry and of character.
+And though I speak with the humility of one who does not pretend to
+Icelandic scholarship, I think that translations are here less
+inadequate than in almost any other language, the attraction of the
+matter being so much greater than that of the form. For those who will
+not take the slight trouble to read Dasent's _Njala_, or Morris and
+Magnusson's _Grettla_, the next best idea attainable is perhaps from
+Sir Walter Scott's abstract of the _Eyrbyggja_ or Mr Blackwell's of
+the Kormak's Saga, or Mr Gosse's of _Egla_. Njal's Saga deals with the
+friendship between the warrior Gunnar and the lawyer Njal, which,
+principally owing to the black-heartedness of Gunnar's wife Hallgerd,
+brings destruction on both, Njal and almost his whole family being
+burnt as the crowning point, but by no means the end, of an intricate
+series of reciprocal murders. For the blood-feuds of Iceland were as
+merciless as those of Corsica, with the complication--thoroughly
+Northern and not in the least Southern--of a most elaborate, though
+not entirely impartial, system of judicial inquiries and
+compensations, either by fine or exile. To be outlawed for murder,
+either in casual affray or in deliberate attack, was almost as regular
+a part of an Icelandic gentleman's avocations from his home and daily
+life as a journey on viking or trading intent, and was often combined
+with one or both. But outlawry and fine by no means closed the
+incident invariably, though they sometimes did so far as the feud was
+concerned: and there is hardly one saga which does not mainly or
+partly turn on a tangle of outrages and inquests.
+
+[Sidenote: Njala.]
+
+[Sidenote: Laxdaela.]
+
+As _Njala_ is the most complete and dramatic of the sagas where love
+has no very prominent part except in the Helen-like dangerousness, if
+not exactly Helen-like charm, of Hallgerd, of whom it might certainly
+be said that
+
+    "Where'er she came,
+    She brought Calamity";
+
+so _Laxdaela_ is the chief of those in which love figures, though on
+the male side at least there is no lover that interests us as much as
+the hapless, reckless poet Kormak, or as Gunnlaug Serpent's-Tongue.
+The _Earthly Paradise_ should have made familiar to all the quarrel
+or, if hardly quarrel, feud between the cousins Kiartan and Bodli, or
+Bolli, owing to the fatal fascinations of Gudrun. Gudrun is less
+repulsive than Hallgerd, but she cannot be said to be entirely free
+from the drawbacks which, as above suggested, are apt to be found in
+the Icelandic heroine. It is more difficult to sentiment, if not to
+morality, to pardon four husbands than many times four lovers, and the
+only persons with whom Gudrun's relations are wholly agreeable is
+Kiartan, who was not her husband. But the pathos of the story, its
+artful unwinding, and the famous utterance of the aged heroine--
+
+    "I did the worst to him I loved the most,"
+
+which is almost literally from the Icelandic, redeem anything
+unsympathetic in the narrative: and the figure of Bodli, a strange
+mixture of honour and faithlessness to the friend he loves and
+murders, is one of the most striking among the thralls of Venus in
+literature.
+
+[Sidenote: Eyrbyggja.]
+
+The defect of the _Eyrbyggja Saga_ is its want of any central
+interest; for it is the history not of a person, nor even of one
+single family, but of a whole Icelandic district with its inhabitants
+from the settlement onwards. Its attraction, therefore, lies rather in
+episodes--the rivalry of the sorceresses Katla and Geirrid; the
+circumventing of the (in this case rather sinned against than sinning)
+bersarks Hall and Leikner; the very curious ghost-stories; and the
+artful ambition of Snorri the Godi. Still, to make an attractive
+legend of a sort of "county history" may be regarded as a rare
+triumph, and the saga is all the more important because it shows,
+almost better than any other, the real motive of nearly all these
+stories--that they are real _chansons de geste_, family legends, with
+a greater vividness and individuality than the French genius could
+then impart, though presented more roughly.
+
+[Sidenote: Egla.]
+
+The Saga of Egil Skallagrimsson, again, shifts its special points of
+attraction. It is the history partly of the family of Skallagrim, but
+chiefly of his son Egil, in opposition to Harald Harfagr and his son
+Eric Blood-axe, of Egil's wars and exploits in England and elsewhere,
+of his service to King Athelstan at Brunanburh, of the faithfulness of
+his friend Arinbiorn, and the hero's consequent rescue from the danger
+in which he had thrust himself by seeking his enemy King Eric at York,
+of his son's shipwreck and Egil's sad old age, and of many other
+moving events. This has the most historic interest of any of the great
+sagas, and not least of the personal appeal. Perhaps, indeed, it is
+more like a really good historical novel than any other.
+
+[Sidenote: Grettla.]
+
+If, however, it were not for the deficiency of feminine character (a
+deficiency which rehandlers evidently felt and endeavoured to remedy
+by the expedient of tacking on an obvious plagiarism from _Tristan_ as
+an appendix, ostensibly dealing with the avenging of the hero), the
+fifth, Grettis Saga or _Grettla_, would perhaps be the best of all.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its critics._]
+
+It is true that some experts have found fault with this as late in
+parts, and bolstered out with extraneous matter in other respects
+beside the finale just referred to. The same critics denounce its
+poetical interludes (see _infra_) as spurious, object to some traits
+in it as coarse, and otherwise pick it to pieces. Nevertheless there
+are few sagas, if there are any, which produce so distinct and
+individual an effect, which remind us so constantly that we are in
+Iceland and not elsewhere. In pathos and variety of interest it cannot
+touch _Njala_ or _Laxdaela_: in what is called "weirdness," in wild
+vigour, it surpasses, I think, all others; and the supernatural
+element, which is very strong, contrasts, I think, advantageously with
+the more business-like ghostliness of _Eyrbyggja_.
+
+After an overture about the hero's forebears, which in any other
+country would be as certainly spurious as the epilogue, but to which
+the peculiar character of saga-writing gives a rather different claim
+here, the story proper begins with a description of the youth of
+Grettir the Strong, second son to Asmund the Grey-haired of Biarg, who
+had made much money by sea-faring, and Asdis, a great heiress and of
+great kin. The sagaman consults poetical justice very well at first,
+and prepares us for an unfortunate end by depicting Grettir as, though
+valiant and in a way not ungenerous, yet not merely an incorrigible
+scapegrace, but somewhat unamiable and even distinctly ferocious.
+That, being made gooseherd, and finding the birds troublesome, he
+knocks them about, killing some goslings, may not be an unpardonable
+atrocity. And even when, being set to scratch his father's back, he
+employs a wool-comb for that purpose, much to the detriment of the
+paternal skin and temper, it does not very greatly go beyond the
+impishness of a naughty boy. But when, being promoted to mind the
+horses, and having a grudge against a certain "wise" mare named
+Keingala, because she stays out at graze longer than suits his
+laziness, he flays the unhappy beast alive in a broad strip from
+shoulder to tail, the thing goes beyond a joke. Also he is
+represented, throughout the saga, as invariably capping his pranks or
+crimes with one of the jeering enigmatic epigrams in which one finds
+considerable excuse for the Icelandic proneness to murder. However, in
+his boyhood, he does not go beyond cruelty to animals and fighting
+with his equals; and his first homicide, on his way with a friend of
+his father's to the Thing-Parliament, is in self-defence. Still,
+having no witnesses, he is, though powerfully backed (an all-important
+matter), fined and outlawed for three years. There is little love
+lost between him and his father, and he is badly fitted out for the
+grand tour, which usually occupies a young Icelandic gentleman's first
+outlawry; but his mother gives him a famous sword. On the voyage he
+does nothing but flirt with the mate's wife: and only after strong
+provocation and in the worst weather consents to bale, which he does
+against eight men.
+
+They are, however, wrecked off the island of Haramsey, and Grettir,
+lodging with the chief Thorfinn, at first disgusts folk here as
+elsewhere with his sulky, lazy ways. He acquires consideration,
+however, by breaking open the barrow of Thorfinn's father, and not
+only bringing out treasures (which go to Thorfinn), but fighting with
+and overcoming the "barrow-wight" (ghost) itself, the first of the
+many supernatural incidents in the story. The most precious part of
+the booty is a peculiar "short-sword." Also when Thorfinn's wife and
+house are left, weakly guarded, to the mercy of a crew of unusually
+ruffianly bersarks, Grettir by a mixture of craft and sheer valour
+succeeds in overcoming and slaying the twelve bersarks single-handed.
+Thorfinn on his return presents him with the short-sword and becomes
+his fast friend. He has plenty of opportunity: for Grettir, as usual,
+neither entirely by his own fault nor entirely without it, owing to
+his sulky temper and sour tongue, successively slays three brothers,
+being in the last instance saved only with the greatest difficulty by
+Thorfinn, his own half-brother Thorstein Dromond, and others, from the
+wrath of Swein, Jarl of the district. So that by the time when he can
+return to Iceland, he has made Norway too hot to hold him; and he
+lands in his native island with a great repute for strength, valour,
+and, it must be added, quarrelsomeness. For some time he searches
+about "to see if there might be anywhere somewhat with which he might
+contend." He finds it at a distant farm, which is haunted by the ghost
+of a certain godless shepherd named Glam, who was himself killed by
+Evil Ones, and now molests both stock and farm-servants. Grettir dares
+the ghost, overcomes him after a tremendous conflict, which certainly
+resembles that in _Beowulf_ most strikingly,[174] and slays him (for
+Icelandic ghosts are mortal); but not before Glam has spoken and
+pronounced a curse upon Grettir, that his strength, though remaining
+great, shall never grow, that all his luck shall cease, and, finally,
+that the eyes of Glam himself shall haunt him to the death.
+
+[Footnote 174: It seems almost incredible that the resemblances
+between _Beowulf_ and the _Grettis Saga_ should never have struck any
+one till Dr Vigfusson noticed them less than twenty years ago. But the
+fact seems to be so; and nothing could better prove the rarity of that
+comparative study of literature to which this series aims at being a
+modest contribution and incentive.]
+
+Grettir at first cares little for this; but the last part of the curse
+comes on almost at once and makes him afraid to be alone after dark,
+while the second is not long delayed. On the eve of setting out once
+more for Norway, he quarrels with and slays a braggart named
+Thorbiorn; during the voyage itself he is the unintentional cause of a
+whole household of men being burnt to death; and lastly, by his own
+quarrelsome temper, and some "metaphysical aid," he misses the chance
+of clearing himself by "bearing iron" (ordeal) before King Olaf at
+Drontheim. Olaf, his own kinsman, tells him with all frankness that
+he, Grettir, is much too "unlucky" for himself to countenance; and
+that though he shall have no harm in Norway, he must pack to Iceland
+as soon as the sea is open. He accordingly stays during the winter, in
+a peace only broken by the slaying of another bersark bully, and
+partly passed with his brother Thorstein Dromond.
+
+Meanwhile Asmund has died, his eldest son Atli has succeeded him, and
+has been waylaid by men suborned by Thorbiorn Oxmain, kinsman of the
+Thorbiorn whom Grettir slew before leaving Iceland the second time.
+Atli escapes and slays his foes. Then Thorbiorn Oxmain himself visits
+Biarg and slays the unarmed Atli, who is not avenged because it was
+Grettir's business to look after the matter when he came home. But
+Glam's curse so works that, though plaintiff in this case, he is
+outlawed in his absence for the burning of the house above referred
+to, in which he was quite guiltless; and when he lands in Iceland it
+is to find himself deprived of all legal rights, and in such case that
+no friend can harbour him except under penalty.
+
+Grettir, as we might expect, is not much daunted by this complication
+of evils, but he lies hid for a time at his mother's house and
+elsewhere, not so much to escape his own dangers as to avenge Atli on
+Thorbiorn Oxmain at the right moment. At last he finds it; and
+Thorbiorn, as well as his sixteen-year-old son Arnor, who rather
+disloyally helps him, is slain by Grettir single-handed. His plight
+at first is not much worsened by this; for though the simple plan of
+setting off Thorbiorn against Atli is not adopted, Grettir's case is
+backed directly by his kinsmen and indirectly by the two craftiest men
+in Iceland, Snorri the Godi and Skapti the Lawman, and the latter
+points out that as Grettir had been outlawed _before_ it was decreed
+that the onus of avenging Atli lay on him, a fatal flaw had been made
+in the latter proceeding, and no notice could be taken of the death of
+Thorbiorn at all, though his kin must pay for Atli. This fine would
+have been set off against Grettir's outlawry, and he would have become
+a freeman, had not Thorir of Garth, the father of the men he had
+accidentally killed in the burning house, refused; and so the
+well-meant efforts of Grettir's kin and friends fall through.
+
+From this time till the end of his life he is a houseless outlaw,
+abiding in all the most remote parts of the island--"Grettir's lairs,"
+as they are called, it would seem, to this day--sometimes countenanced
+for a short time by well-willing men of position, sometimes dwelling
+with supernatural creatures,--Hallmund, a kindly spirit or
+cave-dweller with a hospitable daughter, or the half-troll giant
+Thorir, a person of daughters likewise. But his case grows steadily
+worse. Partly owing to sheer ill-luck and Glam's curse, partly, as the
+saga-writer very candidly tells us, because he "was not an easy man to
+live withal," his tale of slayings and the feuds thereto appertaining
+grows steadily. For the most part he lives by simple cattle-lifting
+and the like, which naturally does not make him popular; twice other
+outlaws come to abide with him, and, after longer or shorter time, try
+for his richly priced head, and though they lose their own lives,
+naturally make him more and more desperate. Once he is beset by his
+enemy Thorir with eighty men; and only comes off through the backing
+of his ghostly friend Hallmund, who not long after meets his fate by
+no ignoble hand, and Grettir cannot avenge him. Again, Grettir is
+warmly welcomed by a widow, Steinvor of Sand-heaps, at whose dwelling,
+in the oddest way, he takes up the full _Beowulf_ adventure and slays
+a troll-wife in a cave just as his forerunner slew Grendel's mother.
+But in the end the hue and cry is too strong, and by advice of friends
+he flies to the steep holm of Drangey in Holmfirth--a place where the
+top can only be won by ladders--with his younger brother Illugi and a
+single thrall or slave. Illugi is young, but true as steel: the slave
+is a fool, if not actually a traitor. After the bonders of Drangey
+have done what they could to rid themselves of this very damaging and
+redoubtable intruder, they give up their shares to a certain Thorbiorn
+Angle. Thorbiorn at first fares ill against Grettir, whose outlawry is
+on the point of coming to an end, as none might last longer than
+twenty years. With the help of a wound, witch-caused to Grettir, and
+the slave's treacherous laziness, Thorbiorn and his crew climb the
+ladders and beset the brethren--Grettir already half dead with his
+gangrened wound. The hero is slain with his own short-sword; the brave
+Illugi is overwhelmed with the shields of the eighteen assailants, and
+then slaughtered in cold blood. But Thorbiorn reaps little good, for
+his traffickings with witchcraft deprive him of his blood-money; the
+deaths of his men, of whom Illugi and Grettir had slain not a few, are
+set against Illugi's own; and Thorbiorn himself, after escaping to
+Micklegarth (Constantinople) and joining the Varangians, is slain by
+Thorstein Dromond, who has followed him thither and joined the same
+Guard on purpose, and who is made the hero of the appendix above
+spoken of.
+
+[Sidenote: _Merits of it._]
+
+The defects of this are obvious, and may be probably enough accounted
+for in part by the supposition of the experts above referred to--that
+the saga as we have it is rather later than the other great sagas, and
+is a patchwork of divers hands. It may perhaps be added, as a more
+purely literary criticism, that no one of these hands can have been
+quite a master, or that his work, if it existed, must have been
+mutilated or disfigured by others. For the most is nowhere made,
+except in the Glam fight and the last scenes on Drangey, of the
+admirable situations provided by the story; and the presentation of
+Grettir as a man almost everywhere lacks the last touches, while the
+sagaman has simply thrown away the opportunities afforded him by the
+insinuated amourettes with Steinvor and the daughters of the friendly
+spirits, and has made a mere _fabliau_ episode of another thing of the
+kind. Nevertheless the attractions of _Grettla_ are unique as regards
+the mixture of the natural and supernatural; not inferior to any other
+as illustrating the quaintly blended life of Iceland; and of the
+highest kind as regards the conception of the hero--a not ungenerous
+Strength, guided by no intellectual greatness and by hardly any
+overmastering passion, marred by an unsocial and overbearing temper,
+and so hardly needing the ill luck, which yet gives poetical finish
+and dramatic force to the story, to cast itself utterly away. For in
+stories, as in other games, play without luck is fatiguing and jejune,
+luck without play childish. It is curious how touching is the figure
+of the ill-fated hero, not wholly amiable, yet over-matched by
+Fortune, wandering in waste places of a country the fairest spots of
+which are little better than a desert, forced by his terror of
+"Glam-sight" to harbour criminals far worse than himself, and well
+knowing that they seek his life, grudgingly and fearfully helped by
+his few friends, a public nuisance where he should have been a public
+champion, only befriended heartily by mysterious shadowy personages of
+whom little is positively told, and when, after twenty years of
+wild-beast life, his deliverance is at hand, perishing by a
+combination of foul play on the part of his foes and neglect on that
+of his slave. At least once, too, in that parting of Asdis with
+Grettir and Illugi, which ranks not far below the matchless epitaph of
+Sir Ector on Lancelot, there is not only suggestion, but expression of
+the highest quality:--
+
+[Sidenote: _The parting of Asdis and her sons._]
+
+"'Ah! my sons twain, there ye depart from me, and one death ye shall
+have together, for no man may flee from that which is wrought for him.
+On no day now shall I see either of you once again. Let one fate,
+then, be over you both; for I know not what weal ye go to get for
+yourselves in Drangey, but there ye shall both lay your bones, and
+many shall grudge you that abiding-place. Keep ye heedfully from
+wiles, for marvellously have my dreams gone. Be well ware of sorcery;
+yet none the less shall ye be bitten with the edge of the sword, for
+nothing can cope with the cunning of eld.' And when she had thus
+spoken she wept right sore. Then said Grettir, 'Weep not, mother; for
+if we be set upon by weapons it shall be said of thee that thou hast
+had sons and not daughters.' And therewith they parted."
+
+[Sidenote: _Great passages of the sagas._]
+
+These moments, whether of incident or expression, are indeed frequent
+enough in the sagas, though the main attraction may consist, as has
+been said, in the wild interest of the story and the vivid
+individuality of the characters. The slaying of Gunnar of Lithend in
+_Njala_, when his false wife refuses him a tress of hair to twist for
+his stringless bow, has rightly attracted the admiration of the best
+critics; as has the dauntless resignation of Njal himself and
+Bergthora, when both might have escaped their fiery fate. Of the
+touches of which the Egil's Saga is full, few are better perhaps than
+the picture in a dozen words of King Eric Blood-axe "sitting bolt
+upright and glaring" at the son of Skallagrim as he delivers the
+panegyric which is to save his life, and the composition of which had
+been so nearly baulked by the twittering of the witch-swallow under
+his eaves. The "long" kisses of Kormak and Steingerd, and the poet's
+unconscious translation of AEschylus[175] as he says, "Eager to find
+my lady, I have scoured the whole house with the glances of my
+eyes--in vain," dwell in the memory as softer touches. And for the
+sterner, nothing can beat the last fight of Olaf Trygveson, where with
+the crack of Einar Tamberskelvir's bow Norway breaks from Olaf's
+hands, and the king himself, the last man with Kolbiorn his marshal to
+fight on the deck of the Long Serpent, springs, gold-helmed,
+mail-coated, and scarlet-kirtled, into the waves, and sinks with
+shield held up edgeways[176] to weight him through the deep green
+water.
+
+[Footnote 175: Compare, _mutatis mutandis_, _Agam._, 410 _sq._, and
+Kormak's "Stray verses," ll. 41-44, in the _Corpus_, ii. 65.]
+
+[Footnote 176: _Heimskringla_ does not _say_ "edgeways," but this is
+the clear meaning. Kolbiorn held his shield flat and below him, so
+that it acted as a float, and he was taken. Olaf sank.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Style._]
+
+The saga prose is straightforward and business-like, the dialogue
+short and pithy, with considerable interspersion of proverbial phrase,
+but with, except in case of bad texts, very little obscurity. It is,
+however, much interspersed also with verses which, like Icelandic
+verse in general, are alliterative in prosody, and often of the
+extremest euphuism and extravagance in phrase. All who have even a
+slight acquaintance with sagas know the extraordinary periphrases for
+common objects, for men and maidens, for ships and swords, that
+bestrew them. There is, I believe, a theory, not in itself improbable,
+that the more elaborate and far-fetched the style of this imagery, the
+later and less genuine is likely to be the poem, if not the saga; but
+it is certain that the germs of the style are to be found in the
+_Havamal_ and the other earliest and most certainly genuine examples.
+
+It is perhaps well to add that very small sagas are called _thaettir_
+("scraps"), the same word as "tait" in the Scots phrase "tait of
+wool." But it is admitted that it is not particularly easy to draw the
+line between the two, and that there is no difference in real
+character. In fact short sagas might be called _thaettir_ and _vice
+versa_. Also, as hinted before, there is exceedingly little comedy in
+the sagas. The roughest horse-play in practical joking, the most
+insolent lampoons in verbal satire, form, as a rule, the lighter
+element; and pieces like the _Bandamanna Saga_, which with tragic
+touches is really comic in the main, are admittedly rare.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Sidenote: _Provencal mainly lyric._]
+
+In regard to the second, and contrasted, division of the subject of
+the present chapter, it has been already noted that, just as Icelandic
+at this period presents to the purview of the comparative literary
+historian one main subject, if not one only--the saga--so Provencal
+presents one main subject, and almost one only--the formal lyric. The
+other products of the Muse in _langue d'oc_, whether verse or prose,
+are so scanty, and in comparison[177] so unimportant, that even
+special historians of the subject have found but little to say about
+them. The earliest monument of all, perhaps the earliest finished
+monument of literature in any Romance language, the short poem on
+Boethius, in assonanced decasyllabic _laisses_,--even in its present
+form probably older than our starting-point, and, it may be, two
+centuries older in its first form,--is indeed not lyrical; nor is the
+famous and vigorous verse-history of the Albigensian War in _chanson_
+style; nor the scanty remnants of other _chansons_, _Girart de
+Rossilho_, _Daurel et Beton_, _Aigar et Maurin_, which exist; nor the
+later _romans d'aventure_ of _Jaufre_, _Flamenca_, _Blandin of
+Cornwall_. But in this short list almost everything of interest in our
+period--the flourishing period of the literature--has been mentioned
+which is not lyrical.[178] And if these things, and others like them
+in much larger number, had existed alone, it is certain that Provencal
+literature would not hold the place which it now holds in the
+comparative literary history of Europe.
+
+[Footnote 177: Of course this is only in comparison. For instance, in
+Dr Suchier's _Denkmaeler_ (Halle, 1883), which contains nearly 500
+large pages of Provencal _anecdota_, about four-fifths is devotional
+matter of various kinds and in various forms, prose and verse. But
+such matter, which is common to all mediaeval languages, is hardly
+literature at all, being usually translated, with scarcely any expense
+of literary originality, from the Latin, or each other.]
+
+[Footnote 178: Alberic's _Alexander_ (_v._ chap. iv.) is of course
+Provencal in a way, and there was probably a Provencal intermediary
+between the _Chanson d'Antioche_ and the Spanish _Gran Conquesta de
+Ultramar_. But we have only a few lines of the first and nothing of
+the second.]
+
+That place is due to its lyric, construing that term in a wide sense
+such as that (but indeed a little wider) in which it has been already
+used with reference to the kindred and nearly contemporary lyric of
+France proper. It is best to say "nearly contemporary," because it
+would appear that Provencal actually had the start of French in this
+respect, though no great start: and it is best to say "kindred" and
+not "daughter," because though some forms and more names are common to
+the two, their developments are much more parallel than on the same
+lines, and they are much more sisters than mother and daughter.
+
+[Sidenote: _Origin of this lyric._]
+
+It would appear, though such things can never be quite certain, that,
+as we should indeed expect, the first developments of Provencal lyric
+were of the hymn kind, and perhaps originally mixtures of Romance and
+Latin. This mixture of the vernacular and the learned tongues, both
+spoken in all probability with almost equal facility by the writer, is
+naturally not uncommon in the Middle Ages: and it helps to explain the
+rapid transference of the Latin hymn-rhythms to vernacular verse. Thus
+we have a _Noel_ or Christmas poem not only written to the tune and in
+the measure of a Latin hymn, _In hoc anni circulo_, not only crowning
+the Provencal six-syllable triplets with a Latin refrain, "De virgine
+Maria," and other variations on the Virgin's title and name, but with
+Latin verses alternate to the Provencal ones. This same arrangement
+occurs with a Provencal fourth rhyme, which seems to have been a
+favourite one. It is arranged with a variety which shows its
+earliness, for the fourth line is sometimes "in the air" rhyming to
+nothing, sometimes rhymes with the other three, and sometimes forces
+its sound on the last of them, so that the quatrain becomes a pair of
+couplets.
+
+[Sidenote: _Forms._]
+
+The earliest purely secular lyrics, however, are attributed to William
+IX., Count of Poitiers, who was a crusader in the very first year of
+the twelfth century, and is said to have written an account of his
+journey which is lost. His lyrics survive to the number of some dozen,
+and show that the art had by his time received very considerable
+development. For their form, it may suffice to say that of those given
+by Bartsch[179] the first is in seven-lined stanzas, rhymed _aaaabab_,
+the _a_-rhyme lines being iambic dimeters, and the _b_'s monometers.
+Number two has five six-lined stanzas, all dimeters, rhymed _aaabab_:
+and a four-lined finale, rhymed _ab, ab_. The third is mono-rhymed
+throughout, the lines being disyllabic with licence to extend. And the
+fourth is in the quatrain _aaab_, but with the _b_ rhyme identical
+throughout, capped with a couplet _ab_. If these systems be compared
+with the exact accounts of early French, English, and German lyric in
+chapters v.-vii., it will be seen that Provencal probably, if not
+certainly, led the way in thus combining rhythmic arrangement and
+syllabic proportion with a cunning variation of rhyme-sound. It was
+also the first language to classify poetry, as it may be called, by
+assigning special forms to certain kinds of subject or--if not quite
+this--to constitute classes of poems themselves according to their
+arrangement in line, stanza, and rhyme. A complete prosody of the
+language of _canso_ and _sirvente_, of _vers_ and _cobla_, of _planh_,
+_tenso_, _tornejamens_, _balada_, _retroensa_, and the rest, would
+take more room than can be spared here, and would hardly be in place
+if it were otherwise. All such prosodies tend rather to the childish,
+as when, for instance, the _pastorela_, or shepherdess poem in
+general, was divided into _porquiera_, _cabreira_, _auqueira_, and
+other things, according as the damsel's special wards were pigs or
+goats or geese. Perhaps the most famous, peculiar, and representative
+of Provencal forms are the _alba_, or poem of morning parting, and the
+_sirvente_, or poem _not_ of love. The _sestina_, a very elaborate
+canzonet, was invented in Provence and borrowed by the Italians. But
+it is curious to find that the sonnet, the crown and flower of all
+artificial poetry, though certainly invented long before the decadence
+of Provencal, was only used in Provencal by Italian experimenters. The
+poets proper of the _langue d'oc_ were probably too proud to admit any
+form that they had not invented themselves.
+
+[Footnote 179: The _Grundriss zur Geschichte der Provenzalischen
+Literatur_ (Elberfeld, 1872) and the _Chrestomathie Provencale_ (3d
+ed., Elberfeld, 1875) of this excellent scholar will not soon be
+obsolete, and may, in the peculiar conditions of the case, suffice all
+but special students in a degree hardly possible in any other
+literature. Mahn's _Troubadours_ and the older works of Raynouard and
+Fauriel are the chief storehouses of wider information, and separate
+editions of the works of the chief poets are being accumulated by
+modern, chiefly German, scholars. An interesting and valuable addition
+to the _English_ literature of the subject has been made, since the
+text was written, by Miss Ida Farnell's _Lives of the Troubadours_, a
+translation with added specimens of the poets and other editorial
+matter.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Many men, one mind._]
+
+Next in noteworthiness to the variety of form of the Provencal poets
+is their number. Even the multitude of _trouveres_ and Minnesingers
+dwindles beside the list of four hundred and sixty named poets, for
+the twelfth and thirteenth centuries only, which Bartsch's list
+contains; some, it is true, credited with only a single piece, but
+others with ten, twenty, fifty, or even close to a hundred, not to
+mention an anonymous appendix of over two hundred and fifty poems
+more. Great, however, as is the bulk of this division of literature,
+hardly any has more distinct and uniform--its enemies may say more
+monotonous--characteristics. It is not entirely composed of
+love-poetry; but the part devoted to this is so very much the largest,
+and so very much the most characteristic, that popular and almost
+traditional opinion is scarcely wrong in considering love-poetry and
+Provencal poetry to be almost, and with the due limitation in the
+first case, convertible terms.
+
+[Sidenote: _Example of rhyme-schemes._]
+
+The spirit of this poetry is nowhere better shown than in the refrain
+of an anonymous _alba_, which begins--
+
+    "En un verger sotz folha d'albespi,"
+
+and which has for burden--
+
+    "Oi deus! oi deus, de l'alba, tant tost ve!"
+
+of which an adaptation by Mr Swinburne is well known. "In the
+Orchard," however, is not only a much longer poem than the _alba_ from
+which it borrows its burden, but is couched in a form much more
+elaborate, and has a spirit rather early Italian than Provencal. It
+is, indeed, not very easy to define the Provencal spirit itself, which
+has sometimes been mistaken, and oftener exaggerated. Although the
+average troubadour poem--whether of love, or of satire, or, more
+rarely, of war--is much less simple in tone than the Northern lyric
+already commented on, it cannot be said to be very complex; and, on
+the whole, the ease, accomplishment, and, within certain strict
+limits, variety of the form are more remarkable than any intensity or
+volume of passion or of thought. The musical character (less
+inarticulate and more regular), which has also been noted in the poems
+of the _trouveres_, is here eminent: though the woodnote wild of the
+Minnesinger is quite absent or very rarely present. The facility of
+double rhymes, with a full vowel sound in each syllable, has a
+singular and very pleasing effect, as in the piece by Marcabrun
+beginning--
+
+    "L'autrier jost una sebissa,"
+
+"the other day by a hedge," the curiously complicated construction of
+which is worth dwelling on as a specimen. It consists of six double
+stanzas, of fourteen lines or two septets each, finished by a sestet,
+_aabaab_. The septets are rhymed _aaabaab_; and though the _a_ rhymes
+vary in each set of fourteen, the _b_ rhymes are the same throughout;
+and the first of them in each septet is the same word, _vilana_
+(peasant girl), throughout. Thus we have as the rhymes of the first
+twenty-eight lines _sebissa_, _mestissa_, _massissa_, _vilana_,
+_pelissa_, _treslissa_, _lana_; _planissa_, _faitissa_, _fissa_,
+_vilana_, _noirissa_, _m'erissa_, _sana_; _pia_, _via_, _companhia_,
+_vilana_, _paria_, _bestia_, _soldana_; _sia_, _folia_, _parelharia_,
+_vilana_, _s'estia_, _bailia_, _l'ufana_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Provencal poetry not great._]
+
+Such a _carillon_ of rhymes as this is sometimes held to be likely to
+concentrate the attention of both writer and reader too much on the
+accompaniment, and to leave the former little time to convey, and the
+latter little chance of receiving, any very particularly choice
+sense. This most certainly cannot be laid down as a universal law;
+there are too many examples to the contrary, even in our own language,
+not to go further. But it may be admitted that when the styles of
+literature are both fashionable and limited, and when a very large
+number of persons endeavour to achieve distinction in them, there is
+some danger of something of the sort coming about. No nation has ever
+been able, in the course of less than two centuries, to provide four
+hundred and sixty named poets and an indefinitely strong reinforcement
+of anonyms, all of whom have native power enough to produce verse at
+once elaborate in form and sovereign in spirit; and the peoples of the
+_langue d'oc_, who hardly together formed a nation, were no exception
+to the rule. That rule is a rule of "minor poetry," accomplished,
+scholarly, agreeable, but rarely rising out of minority.
+
+[Sidenote: _But extraordinarily pedagogic._]
+
+Yet their educating influence was undoubtedly strong, and their actual
+production not to be scorned. In the capacity of teachers they were
+not without strong influence on their Northern countrymen; they
+certainly and positively acted as direct masters to the literary lyric
+both of Italy and Spain; they at least shared with the _trouveres_ the
+position of models to the Minnesingers. It is at first sight rather
+surprising that, considering the intimate relations between England
+and Aquitaine during the period--considering that at least one famous
+troubadour, Bertran de Born, is known to have been concerned in the
+disputes between Henry II. and his sons--Provencal should not have
+exercised more direct influence over English literature. It was a
+partly excusable mistake which made some English critics, who knew
+that Richard Coeur de Lion, for instance, was himself not unversed
+in the "manner of _trobar_," assert or assume, until within the
+present century, that it did exercise such influence. But, as a matter
+of fact, it did not; and the reason is sufficiently simple, or at
+least (for it is double rather than simple) sufficiently clear.
+
+[Sidenote: _Though not directly on English._]
+
+In the first place, English was not, until quite the end of the
+flourishing period of Provencal poetry, and specially at the period
+above referred to, in a condition to profit by Provencal models; while
+in the fourteenth century, when English connection with the south of
+France was closer still, Provencal was in its decadence. And, in the
+second place, the structure and spirit of the two tongues almost
+forbade imitation of the one in the other. It was Northern, not
+Southern, French that helped to make English proper out of
+Anglo-Saxon; and the gap between Northern French and Southern French
+themselves was far wider than between Provencal and the Peninsular
+tongues. To which things, if any one pleases, he may add the
+difference of the spirit of the two races; but this is always vague
+and uncertain ground, and is best avoided when we can tread on the
+firm land of history and literature proper. Such a rhyme-arrangement
+as that above set forth is probably impossible in English; even now it
+will be observed that Mr Swinburne, the greatest master of double and
+treble rhymes that we have ever had, rarely succeeds in giving even
+the former with a full spondaic effect of vowel such as is easy in
+Provencal. In "The Garden of Proserpine" itself, as in the double
+rhymes, where they occur, of "The Triumph of Time" (the greatest thing
+ever written in the Provencal manner, and greater than anything in
+Provencal), the second vowels of the rhymes are never full. And there
+too, as I think invariably in English, the poet shows his feeling of
+the intolerableness of continued double rhyme by making the odd verses
+rhyme plump and with single sound.
+
+Of poetry so little remarkable in individual manner or matter it is
+impossible to give abstracts, such as those which have been easy, and
+it may be hoped profitable, in some of the foregoing chapters; and
+prolonged analyses of form are tedious, except to the expert and the
+enthusiast. With some brief account, therefore, of the persons who
+chiefly composed this remarkable mass of lyric we may close a notice
+of the subject which is superficially inadequate to its importance,
+but which, perhaps, will not seem so to those who are content not
+merely to count pages but to weigh moments. The moment which Provencal
+added to the general body of force in European literature was that of
+a limited, somewhat artificial, but at the same time exquisitely
+artful and finished lyrical form, so adapted to the most inviting of
+the perennial motives of literature that it was sure to lead to
+imitation and development. It gave means and held up models to those
+who were able to produce greater effects than are to be found in its
+own accomplishment: yet was not its accomplishment, despite what is
+called its monotony, despite its limits and its defects, other than
+admirable and precious.
+
+[Sidenote: _Some troubadours._]
+
+The "first warbler," Count William IX. of Poitiers, has already been
+mentioned, and his date fixed at exactly the first year of our period.
+His chief immediate successors or contemporaries were Cercamon
+("Cherchemonde," _Cursor Mundi_); the above quoted Marcabrun, who is
+said to have accompanied Cercamon in his wanderings, and who has left
+much more work; and Bertrand de Ventadorn or Ventadour, perhaps the
+best of the group, a farmer's son of the place from which he takes his
+noble-sounding name, and a professional lover of the lady thereof. Of
+Jaufre (Geoffrey) Rudel of Blaye, whose love for the lady of Tripoli,
+never yet seen by him, and his death at first sight of her, supply,
+with the tragedy of Cabestanh and the cannibal banquet, the two most
+famous pieces of Troubadour anecdotic history, we have half-a-dozen
+pieces. In succession to these, Count Rambaut of Orange and Countess
+Beatrice of Die keep up the reputation of the _gai saber_ as an
+aristocratic employment, and the former's poem--
+
+    "Escoutatz mas no sai que s'es"
+
+(in six-lined stanzas, rhymed _ababab_, with prose "tags" to each,
+something in the manner of the modern comic song), is at least a
+curiosity. The primacy of the whole school in its most flourishing
+time, between 1150 and 1250, is disputed by Arnaut Daniel (a great
+master of form, and as such venerated by his greater Italian pupils)
+and Giraut de Bornelh, who is more fully represented in extant work
+than most of his fellows, as we have more than fourscore pieces of
+his. Peire or Peter Vidal, another typical troubadour, who was a
+crusader, an exceedingly ingenious verse-smith, a great lover, and a
+proficient in the fantastic pranks which rather brought the school
+into discredit, inasmuch as he is said to have run about on all fours
+in a wolfskin in honour of his mistress Loba (Lupa); Gaucelm Faidit
+and Arnaut de Maroilh, Folquet of Marseilles, and Rambaut of Vaqueras;
+the Monk of Montaudon and Bertrand de Born himself, who with Peire
+Cardinal is the chief satirist (though the satire of the two takes
+different forms); Guillem Figueira, the author of a long invective
+against Rome, and Sordello of mysterious and contingent fame,--are
+other chief members, and of some of them we have early, perhaps
+contemporary, _Lives_, or at least anecdotes. For instance, the
+Cabestanh or Cabestaing story comes from these. The last name of
+importance in our period, if not the last of the right troubadours, is
+usually taken to be that of Guiraut Riquier.
+
+[Sidenote: _Criticism of Provencal._]
+
+It would scarcely be fair to say that the exploit attributed to
+Rambaut of Vaqueras, a poet of the very palmiest time, at the juncture
+of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries--that of composing a poem in
+lines written successively in three different forms of Provencal
+(_langue d'oc_ proper, Gascon, and Catalan), in _langue d'oil_, and in
+Italian, with a _coda_ line jumbled up of all five--is a final
+criticism at once of the merits and the defects of this literature.
+But it at least indicates the lines of such a criticism. By its
+marvellous suppleness, sweetness, and adaptation to the verbal and
+metrical needs of poetry, Provencal served--in a fashion probably
+impossible to the stiffer if more virile tongues--as an example in
+point of form to these tongues themselves: and it achieved, at the
+same time with a good deal of mere gymnastic, exercises in form of the
+most real and abiding beauty. But it had as a language too little
+character of its own, and was too fatally apt to shade into the other
+languages--French on the one hand, Spanish and Italian on the
+other--with which it was surrounded, and to which it was akin. And
+coming to perfection at a time when no modern thought was distinctly
+formed, when positive knowledge was at a low ebb, and when it had
+neither the stimulus of vigorous national life nor the healthy
+occupation of what may be called varied literary business, it tended
+to become, on the whole, too much of a plaything merely. Now, schools
+and playgrounds are both admirable things, and necessary to man; but
+what is done in both is only an exercise or a relaxation from
+exercise. Neither man nor literature can stay either in class-room or
+playing-field for ever, and Provencal had scarcely any other places of
+abode to offer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE LITERATURE OF THE PENINSULAS.
+
+     LIMITATIONS OF THIS CHAPTER. LATE GREEK ROMANCE. ITS
+     DIFFICULTIES AS A SUBJECT. ANNA COMNENA, ETC. 'HYSMINIAS AND
+     HYSMINE.' ITS STYLE. ITS STORY. ITS HANDLING. ITS
+     "DECADENCE." LATENESS OF ITALIAN. THE "SARACEN" THEORY. THE
+     "FOLK-SONG" THEORY. CIULLO D'ALCAMO. HEAVY DEBT TO FRANCE.
+     YET FORM AND SPIRIT BOTH ORIGINAL. LOVE-LYRIC IN DIFFERENT
+     EUROPEAN COUNTRIES. POSITION OF SPANISH. CATALAN-PROVENCAL.
+     GALICIAN-PORTUGUESE. CASTILIAN. BALLADS? THE 'POEMA DEL
+     CID.' A SPANISH "CHANSON DE GESTE." IN SCHEME AND SPIRIT.
+     DIFFICULTIES OF ITS PROSODY. BALLAD-METRE THEORY.
+     IRREGULARITY OF LINE. OTHER POEMS. APOLLONIUS AND MARY OF
+     EGYPT. BERCEO. ALFONSO EL SABIO.
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Limitations of this chapter._]
+
+There is something more than a freak, or a mere geographical
+adaptation, in taking together, and at the last, the contributions of
+the three peninsulas which form the extreme south of Europe. For in
+the present scheme they form, as it were, but an appendix to the
+present book. The dying literature of Greece--if indeed it be not more
+proper to describe this phase of Byzantine writing as ghostly rather
+than moribund--presents at most but one point of interest, and that
+rather a _Frage_, a thesis, than a solid literary contribution. The
+literature of Italy prior to the fourteenth century is such a daughter
+of Provencal on the one hand, and is so much more appropriately to be
+taken in connection with Dante than by itself on the other, that it
+can claim admission only to be, as it were, "laid on the table." And
+that of Spain, though full of attraction, had also but just begun, and
+yields but one certain work of really high importance, the _Poema del
+Cid_, for serious comment in our pages. In the case of Spain, and
+still more in that of Italy, the scanty honour apparently paid here
+will be amply made up in other volumes of the series. As much can
+hardly be said of Greece. Conscientious chroniclers of books may,
+indeed, up to the sixteenth century find something which, though
+scarcely literature, is at any rate written matter. And at the very
+last there is the attempt, rather respectable than successful, to
+re-create at once the language and the literature, for the use of
+Greeks who are at least questionably Hellenic, in relation to forms
+and subjects separated by more than a millennium--by nearly two
+millennia--from the forms and the subjects in regard to which Greek
+was once a living speech. But Greek literature, the living literary
+contribution of Greek to Europe, almost ceases with the latest poets
+of the Anthology.
+
+[Sidenote: _Late Greek romance._]
+
+In what has been called the "ghost" time, however, in that portion of
+it which belongs to our present period, there is one shadow that
+flutters with a nearer approach to substance than most. Some glance
+has been made above at the question, "What was the exact relation
+between western romance and that later form of Greek novel-writing of
+which the chief relic is the _Hysminias and Hysmine_[180] of
+Eustathius Macrembolita?" Were these stories, many of which must be
+lost, or have not yet been recovered, direct, and in their measure
+original and independent, continuations of the earlier school of Greek
+romance proper? Did they in that case, through the Crusades or
+otherwise, come under the notice of the West, and serve as stimulants,
+if not even directly as patterns, to the far greater achievements of
+Western romance itself? Do they, on the other hand, owe something to
+models still farther East? Or are they, as has sometimes been hinted,
+copies of Western romance itself? Had the still ingenious, though
+hopelessly effeminate, Byzantine mind caught up the literary style of
+the visitors it feared but could not keep out?
+
+[Footnote 180: Ed. Hercher, _Erotici Scriptores Graeci_ (2 vols.,
+Leipzig, 1858), ii. 161-286.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its difficulties as a subject._]
+
+All these questions are questions exceedingly proper to be stated in a
+book of this kind; not quite so proper to be worked out in it, even if
+the working out were possible. But it is impossible for two
+causes--want of room, which might not be fatal; and want of
+ascertained fact, which cannot but be so. Despite the vigorous work of
+recent generations on all literary and historical subjects, no one has
+yet succeeded, and until some one more patient of investigation than
+fertile in theory arises, no one is likely to succeed, in laying down
+the exact connection between Eastern, Western, and, as go-between,
+Byzantine literature. Even in matters which are the proper domain of
+history itself, such as those of the Trojan and Alexandrine
+Apocryphas, much is still in the vague. In the case of Western
+Romance, of the later Greek stories, and of such Eastern matter as,
+for instance, the story of Sharkan and that of Zumurrud and her master
+in the _Arabian Nights_, the vague rules supreme. There were, perhaps,
+_trouvere_-knights in the garrisons of Edessa or of Jof who could have
+told us all about it. But nobody did tell: or if anybody did, the tale
+has not survived.
+
+[Sidenote: _Anna Comnena, &c._]
+
+But this interest of problem is not the only one that attaches to the
+"drama," as he calls it, of Eustathius or Eumathius "the philosopher,"
+who flourished at some time between the twelfth and the fourteenth
+century, and is therefore pretty certainly ours. For the purposes of
+literary history the book deserves to be taken as the typical
+contribution of Greek during the period, much better than the famous
+_Alexiad_ of Anna Comnena[181] in history, or the verse romances of
+Eustathius's probable contemporaries Theodorus Prodromus and Nicetas
+Eugenianus.[182] The princess's book, though historically important,
+and by no means disagreeable to read, is, as literature, chiefly
+remarkable as exhibiting the ease and the comparative success with
+which Greek lent itself to the formation of an artificial _style
+noble_, more like the writing of the average (not the better)
+Frenchman of the eighteenth century than it is like anything else. It
+is this peculiarity which has facilitated the construction of the
+literary _pastiche_ called Modern Greek, and perhaps it is this which
+will long prevent the production of real literature in that language
+or pseudo-language. On the other hand, the books of Theodorus and
+Nicetas, devoted, according to rule, to the loves respectively of
+Rhodanthe and Dosicles, of Charicles and Drosilla, are written in
+iambic trimeters of the very worst and most wooden description. It is
+doubtful whether even the great Tragic poets could have made the
+trimeter tolerable as the vehicle of a long story. In the hands of
+Theodorus and Nicetas its monotony becomes utterly sickening, while
+the level of the composition of neither is much above that of a by no
+means gifted schoolboy, even if we make full allowance for the changes
+in prosody, and especially in quantity, which had set in for Greek as
+they had for other languages. The question whether these iambics are
+more or less terrible than the "political verses"[183] of the Wise
+Manasses,[184] which usually accompany them in editions, and which
+were apparently inserted in what must have been the inconceivably
+dreary romance of "Aristander and Callithea," must be left to
+individual taste to decide. Manasses also wrote a History of the World
+in the same rhythm, and it is possible that he may have occasionally
+forgotten which of the two books he was writing at any given time.
+
+[Footnote 181: Ed. Reifferscheid. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1884.]
+
+[Footnote 182: Following Eustathius in Hercher, _op. cit._]
+
+[Footnote 183: These political verses are fifteen-syllabled, with a
+caesura at the eighth, and in a rhythm ostensibly accentual.]
+
+[Footnote 184: _Erotici Scriptores_, ii. 555.]
+
+[Sidenote: Hysminias and Hysmine.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its style._]
+
+But _Hysminias and Hysmine_[185] has interests of character which
+distinguish its author and itself, not merely from the herd of
+chroniclers and commentators who make up the bulk of Byzantine
+literature so-called, but even from such more respectable but somewhat
+featureless work as Anna Comnena's. It is not a good book; but it is
+by no means so extremely bad as the traditional judgment (not always,
+perhaps, based on or buttressed by direct acquaintance with the
+original) is wont to give out. On one at least of the sides of this
+interest it is quite useless to read it except in the original, for
+the attraction is one of style. Neither Lyly nor any of our late
+nineteenth-century "stylists" has outgone, perhaps none has touched,
+Eustathius in euphuism. It is needless to say that while the
+simplicity of the best Greek style usually prefers the most direct and
+natural order, its suppleness lends itself to almost any gymnastic,
+and its lucidity prevents total confusion from arising. Eustathius has
+availed himself of these opportunities for "raising his mother tongue
+to a higher power" to the very utmost. No translation can do justice
+to the elaborate foppery of even the first sentence,[186] with its
+coquetry of arrangement, its tormented structure of phrase, its
+jingle of sound-repetition, its desperate rejection of simplicity in
+every shape and form. To describe precisely the means resorted to
+would take a chapter at least. They are astonishingly modern--the
+present tense, the use of catchwords like [Greek: holos], the
+repetitions and jingles above referred to. Excessively elaborate
+description of word-painting, though modern too, can hardly be said to
+be a novelty: it had distinguished most of the earlier Greek
+novelists, especially Achilles Tatius. But there is something in the
+descriptions of _Hysminias and Hysmine_ more mediaeval than those of
+Achilles, more like the _Romance of the Rose_, to which, indeed, there
+is a curious resemblance of atmosphere in the book. Triplets of
+epithet--"a man athirst, and parched, and boiling"--meet us. There is
+a frequent economy of conjunctions. There is the resort to
+personification--for instance, in the battle of Love and Shame, which
+serves as climax to the elaborate description of the lovers' kissing.
+In short, all our old friends--the devices which every generation of
+seekers after style parades with such a touching conviction that they
+are quite new, and which every literary student knows to be as old as
+literature--are to be found here. The language is in its decadence:
+the writer has not much to say. But it is surprising how much, with
+all his drawbacks, he accomplishes.
+
+[Footnote 185: Sometimes spelt _Ismenias and Ismene_. I believe it was
+first published in an Italian translation of the late Renaissance, and
+it has appeared in other languages since. But it is only worth reading
+in its own.]
+
+[Footnote 186: [Greek: Polis Eurykomis kai talla men agathe, hoti kai
+thalatte stephanoutai kai poilmois katarreitai kai leimosi koma kai
+tryphais eutheneitai pantodapais, ta d' eis theous eusebes, kai hyper
+tas chrysas Athenas hole bomos, hole thyma, theois anathema.]]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its story._]
+
+Whether the book, either as an individual composition, or more
+probably as a member of an extinct class, is as important in matter
+and in tone as it is in style is more doubtful. The style itself, as
+to which there is no doubt, may perhaps colour the matter too much.
+All that can be safely said is that it reads with distinctly modern
+effect after Heliodorus and Achilles, Longus and Xenophon. The story
+is not much. Hysminias, a beautiful youth of the city of Eurycomis, is
+chosen for a religious embassy or _kerukeia_ to the neighbouring town
+of Aulicomis. The task of acting as host to him falls on one
+Sosthenes, whose daughter Hysmine strikes Hysminias with love at first
+sight. The progress of their passion is facilitated by the pretty old
+habit of girls acting as cupbearers, and favoured by accident to no
+small degree, the details of the courtship being sometimes luscious,
+but adjusted to less fearless old fashions than the wooings of Chloe
+or of Melitta. Adventures by land and sea follow; and, of course, a
+happy ending.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its handling._]
+
+But what is really important is the way in which these things are
+handled. It has as mere story-telling little merit: the question is
+whether the spirit, the conduct, the details, do not show a temper
+much more akin to mediaeval than to classical treatment. I think they
+do. Hysminias is rather a silly, and more than rather a
+chicken-hearted, fellow; his conduct on board ship when his beloved
+incurs the fate of Jonah is eminently despicable: but then he was
+countryman _ex hypothesi_ of Mourzoufle, not of Villehardouin. The
+"battailous" spirit of the West is not to be expected in a Byzantine
+sophist. Whether something of its artistic and literary spirit is not
+to be detected in him is a more doubtful question. For my part, I
+cannot read of Hysmine without being reminded of Nicolette, as I am
+never reminded in other parts of the _Scriptores Erotici_.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its "decadence."_]
+
+Yet, experiment or remainder, imitation or original, one cannot but
+feel that the book, like all the literature to which it belongs, has
+more of the marks of death than of life in it. Its very elegances are
+"rose-coloured curtains for the doctors"--the masque of a moribund
+art. Some of them may have been borrowed by, rather than from, younger
+and hopefuller craftsmanship, but the general effect is the same. We
+are here face to face with those phenomena of "decadence," which,
+though they have often been exaggerated and wrongly interpreted, yet
+surely exist and reappear at intervals--the contortions of style that
+cannot afford to be natural, the tricks of word borrowed from literary
+reminiscence ([Greek: holos] itself in this way is at least as old as
+Lucian), the tormented effort at detail of description, at "analysis"
+of thought and feeling, of incident and moral. The cant phrase about
+being "_ne trop tard dans un monde trop vieux_" has been true of many
+persons, while more still have affected to believe it true of
+themselves, since Eustathius: it is not much truer of any one than of
+him.
+
+Curious as such specimens of a dying literature may be, it cannot but
+be refreshing to go westward from it to the nascent literatures of
+Italy and of Spain, literatures which have a future instead of merely
+a past, and which, independently of that somewhat illegitimate
+advantage, have characteristics not unable to bear comparison with
+those of the past, even had it existed.
+
+[Sidenote: _Lateness of Italian._]
+
+Between the earliest Italian and the earliest Spanish literature,
+however, there are striking differences to be noted. Persons ignorant
+of the usual course of literary history might expect in Italian a
+regular and unbroken development, literary as well as linguistic, of
+Latin. But, as a matter of fact, the earliest vernacular literature in
+Italy shows very little trace of classical influence[187]: and though
+that influence appears strongly in the age immediately succeeding
+ours, and helps to produce the greatest achievements of the language,
+it may be questioned whether its results were wholly beneficial. In
+the earliest Italian, or rather Sicilian, poetry quite different
+influences are perceptible. One of them--the influence of the
+literatures of France, both Southern and Northern--is quite certain
+and incontestable. The intercourse between the various Romance-speaking
+nations surrounding the western Mediterranean was always close; and
+the development of Provencal literature far anticipated, both in date
+and form, that of any other. Moreover, some northern influence was
+undoubtedly communicated by the Norman conquests of the eleventh
+century. But two other strains--one of which has long been asserted
+with the utmost positiveness, while the latter has been a favourite
+subject of Italian patriotism since the political unification of the
+country--are much more dubious. Because it is tolerably certain that
+Italian poetry in the modern literary sense arose in Sicily, and
+because Sicily was beyond all doubt almost more Saracen than Frank up
+to the twelfth century, it was long, and has not quite ceased to be,
+the fashion to assign a great, if not the greatest, part to Arabian
+literature. Not merely the sonnet (which seems to have arisen in the
+two Sicilies), but even the entire system of rhymed lyrical verse,
+common in the modern languages, has been thus referred to the East by
+some.
+
+[Footnote 187: I have not thought it proper, considering the system of
+excluding mere hypothesis which I have adopted, to give much place
+here to that interesting theory of modern "Romanists" which will have
+it that Latin classical literature was never much more than a literary
+artifice, and that the modern Romance tongues and literatures connect
+directly, through that famous _lingua romana rustica_ and earlier
+forms of it, vigorous though inarticulate, in classical times
+themselves, with primitive poetry--"Saturnian," "Fescennine," and what
+not. All this is interesting, and it cannot be said, in the face of
+inscriptions, of the scraps of popular speech in the classics, &c., to
+be entirely guesswork. But a great deal of it is.]
+
+[Sidenote: _The "Saracen" theory._]
+
+This matter can probably never be pronounced upon, with complete
+satisfaction to readers, except by a literary critic who is equally
+competent in Eastern and Western history and literature, a person who
+certainly has not shown himself as yet. What can be said with some
+confidence is, that the Saracen theory of Literature, like the Saracen
+theory of Architecture, so soon as it is carried beyond the advancing
+of a possible but slight and very indeterminate influence and
+colouring, has scarcely the slightest foundation in known facts, and
+is very difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with facts that are
+known, while it is intrinsically improbable to the very highest
+degree. As has been pointed out above, the modern prosody of Europe is
+quite easily and logically explicable as the result of the
+juxtaposition of the Latin rhythms of the Church service, and the
+verse systems indigenous in the different barbaric nations. That the
+peculiar cast and colour of early Italian poetry may owe something of
+that difference which it exhibits, even in comparison with Provencal,
+much more with French, most of all with Teutonic poetry, to contact
+with Arabian literature, is not merely possible but probable. Anything
+more must be regarded as not proven, and not even likely.
+
+[Sidenote: _The "folk-song" theory._]
+
+[Sidenote: _Ciullo d'Alcamo._]
+
+Of late, however, attempts have been made to assign the greater part
+of the matter to no foreign influence whatever, but to native
+folk-songs, in which at the present time, and no doubt for a long time
+back, Italy is beyond all question rich above the wont of European
+countries. But this attempt, however interesting and patriotic,
+labours under the same fatal difficulties which beset similar attempts
+in other languages. It may be regarded as perfectly certain that we do
+not possess any Italian popular poem in any form which can have
+existed prior to the thirteenth century; and only such poems would be
+of any use. To argue, as is always argued in such cases, that existing
+examples show, by this or that characteristic, that in other forms
+they must have existed in the twelfth century or even earlier, is only
+an instance of that learned childishness which unfortunately rules so
+widely in literary, though it has been partly expelled from general,
+history. "May have been" and "must have been" are phrases of no
+account to a sound literary criticism, which insists upon "was." And
+in reference to this particular subject of Early Italian Poetry the
+reader may be referred to the very learned dissertation[188] of
+Signor Alessandro d'Ancona on the _Contrasto_ of Ciullo d'Alcamo,
+which has been commonly regarded as the first specimen of Italian
+poetry, and has been claimed for the beginning of the thirteenth
+century, if not the end of the twelfth. He will, if the gods have made
+him in the least critical, rise from the perusal with the pretty clear
+notion that whether Ciullo d'Alcamo was "such a person," or whether he
+was Cielo dal Camo; whether the _Contrasto_ was written on the bridge
+of the twelfth and thirteenth century, or fifty years later; whether
+the poet was a warrior of high degree or an obscure folk-singer;
+whether his dialect has been Tuscanised or is still Sicilian with
+French admixture,--these are things not to be found out, things of
+mere opinion and hypothesis, things good to write programmes and
+theses on, but only to be touched in the most gingerly manner by sober
+history.
+
+[Footnote 188: See _Studj sulla Letteratura Italiana dei Primi
+Secoli_. 2d ed. Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1891. Pp. 241-458.]
+
+To the critic, then, who deals with Dante--and especially to him,
+inasmuch as he has the privilege of dealing with that priceless
+document, the _De Vulgari Eloquio_,[189]--may be left Ciullo, or
+Cielo, and his successors the Frederician set, from the Emperor
+himself and Piero delle Vigne downwards. More especially to him
+belong the poets of the late thirteenth century, Dante's own immediate
+predecessors, contemporaries, and in a way masters--Guinicelli,
+Cavalcanti, Sinibaldi, and Guittone d'Arezzo (to whom the canonical
+form of the sonnet used at one time to be attributed, and may be
+again); Brunetto Latini, of fiery memory; Fra Jacopone,[190] great in
+Latin, eccentric in Italian, and others. It will be not merely
+sufficient, but in every way desirable, here to content ourselves with
+an account of the general characteristics of this poetry (contemporary
+prose, though existent, is of little importance), and to preface this
+by some remarks on the general influences and contributions of
+material with which Italian literature started.
+
+[Footnote 189: Obtainable in many forms, separately and with Dante's
+works. The Latin is easy enough, but there is a good English
+translation by A.G. Ferrers Howell (London, 1890). Those who like
+facsimiles may find one of the Grenoble MS., with a learned
+introduction, edited by MM. Maignien and Prompt (Venice, 1892).]
+
+[Footnote 190: Authorities differ oddly on Jacopone da Todi (_v._ p.
+8) in his Italian work. Professor d'Andrea's book, cited above, opens
+with an excellent essay on him.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Heavy debt to France._]
+
+There is no valid reason for doubting that these influences and
+materials were mainly French. As has been partly noted in a former
+chapter, the French _chansons de geste_ made an early and secure
+conquest of the Italian ear in the north, partly in translation,
+partly in the still more unmistakable form of macaronic Italianised
+French. It has indeed been pointed out that the Sicilian school was to
+some extent preceded by that of the Trevisan March, the most famous
+member of which was Sordello. It would appear, however, that this
+school was even more distinctly and exclusively a branch of Provencal
+than the Sicilian; and that the special characteristic of the latter
+did not appear in it. The Carlovingian poems (and to some, though a
+much less, extent the Arthurian) made a deep impression both on
+popular and on cultivated Italian taste as a matter of subject; but
+their form, after its first results in variation and translation, was
+not perpetuated; and when Italian epic made its appearance some
+centuries later, it inclined for the most part to burlesque, or at
+least to the tragi-comic, until the serious genius of Tasso gave it a
+new, but perhaps a not wholly natural, direction.
+
+[Sidenote: _Yet form and spirit both original._]
+
+In that earliest, really national, and vernacular school, however,
+which has been the chief subject of discourse, the direction was
+mainly and almost wholly towards lyric; and the supremacy of the
+sonnet and the _canzone_ is the less surprising because their rivals
+were for the most part less accomplished examples of the same kind.
+The _Contrasto_[191] of Ciullo itself is a poem in lyric stanzas of
+five lines--three of sixteen syllables, rhymed _a_, and two
+hendecasyllabics, rhymed _b_. The rhymes are fairly exact, though
+sometimes loose, _o_ and _u_, _e_ and _i_, being permitted to pair.
+The poem, a simple discourse or dispute between two lovers, something
+in the style of some French _pastourelles_, displays however, with
+some of the exaggeration and stock phrase of Provencal (perhaps we
+might say of all) love-poetry, little or nothing of that peculiar
+mystical tone which we have been accustomed to associate with early
+Italian verse, chiefly represented, as it is to most readers, by the
+_Vita Nuova_, where the spirit is slightly altered in itself, and
+speaks in the mouth of a poet greater in his weakest moments than the
+whole generation from Ciullo to Guittone in their strongest. This
+spirit, showing itself in the finer and more masculine form in Dante
+himself, in the more feminine and weaker in Petrarch, not merely gives
+us sublime or exquisite poetry in the fourteenth century, but in the
+sixteenth contributes very largely to launch, on fresh careers of
+achievement, the whole poetry of France and of England. But it is fair
+to acknowledge its presence in Dante's predecessors, and at the same
+time to confess that they themselves do not seem to have learned it
+from any one, or at least from any single master or group of masters.
+The Provencal poets deify passion, and concentrate themselves wholly
+upon it; but it is seldom, indeed, that we find the "metaphysical"
+touch in the Provencals proper. And it is this--this blending of love
+and religion, of scholasticism and _minnedienst_ (to borrow a word
+wanted in other languages than that in which it exists)--that is
+attributed by the partisans of the East to Arabian influence, or at
+least to Arabian contact. Some stress has been laid on the testimony
+of Ibn Zobeir about the end of the twelfth century, and consequently
+not long before even the latest date assigned to Ciullo, that Alcamo
+itself was entirely Mussulman in belief.
+
+[Footnote 191: The text with comment, stanza by stanza, is to be found
+in the book cited above.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Love-lyric in different European countries._]
+
+On these points it is not possible to decide: the point on which to
+lay the finger for our present purpose is that the contribution of
+Italy at this time was, on the one hand, the further refinement of the
+Provencal attention to form, and the production of one capital
+instrument of European poetry--the sonnet; on the other, the
+conveyance, by means of this instrument and others, of a further, and
+in one way almost final, variation of the poetic expression of love.
+It is of the first importance to note the characteristics, in
+different nations at nearly the same time, of this rise of lyrical
+love-poetry. We find it in Northern and Southern France, probably at
+about the same time; in Germany and Italy somewhat later, and almost
+certainly in a state of pupilship to the French. All, in different
+ways, display a curious and delightful metrical variety, as if the
+poet were trying to express the eternal novelty, combined with the
+eternal oneness, of passion by variations of metrical form. In each
+language these variations reflect national peculiarities--in Northern
+French and German irregular bursts with a multiplicity of inarticulate
+refrain, in Provencal and Italian a statelier and more graceful but
+somewhat more monotonous arrangement and proportion.
+
+And the differences of spirit are equally noticeable, though one must,
+as always, be careful against generalising too rashly as to their
+identity with supposed national characteristics. The innumerable
+love-poems of the _trouveres_, pathetic sometimes, and sometimes
+impassioned, are yet, as a rule, cheerful, not very deep, verging not
+seldom on pure comedy. The so-called monotonous enthusiasm of the
+troubadour, his stock-images, his musical form, sublime to a certain
+extent the sensual side of love, but confine themselves to that side
+merely, as a rule, or leave it only to indulge in the purely
+fantastic.
+
+Of those who borrowed from them, the Germans, as we should expect,
+lean rather to the Northern type, but vary it with touches of purity,
+and other touches of religion; the Italians to the Southern, exalting
+it into a mysticism which can hardly be called devotional, though it
+at times wears the garb of devotion.[192] Among those collections for
+which the student of letters pines, not the least desirable would be a
+_corpus_ of the lyric poets of Europe during the twelfth and
+thirteenth centuries. We should then see--after a fashion difficult if
+not impossible in the sporadic study of texts edited piecemeal, and
+often overlaid with comment not of the purely literary kind--at once
+the general similarity and the local or individual exceptions, the
+filiation of form, the diffusion of spirit. No division of literature,
+perhaps, would serve better as a kind of chrestomathy for illustrating
+the positions on which the scheme of this series is based. And though
+it is overshadowed by the achievements of its own pupils; though it
+has a double portion of the mediaeval defect of "school"-work--of the
+almost tedious similarity of different men's manner--the Italian
+poetry, which is practically the Italian literature, of the
+thirteenth century would be not the least interesting part of such a
+_corpus_.
+
+[Footnote 192: "Sacro erotismo," "baccanale cristiano," are phrases of
+Professor d'Andrea's.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Position of Spanish._]
+
+The Spanish literature[193] with which we have to do is probably
+inferior in bulk even to that of Italy; it is certainly far less rich
+in named and more or less known authors, while it is a mere drop as
+compared with the Dead Sea of Byzantine writing. But by virtue of at
+least one really great composition, the famous _Poema del Cid_, it
+ranks higher than either of these groups in sheer literary estimation,
+while from the point of view of literary history it is perhaps more
+interesting than the Italian, and certainly far more interesting than
+the Greek. It does not rank with French as an instance of real
+literary preponderance and chieftainship; or with German as an example
+of the sudden if short blossoming of a particular period and dialect
+into great if not wholly original literary prominence; much less with
+Icelandic and Provencal, as containing a "smooth and round" expression
+of certain definite characteristics of literature and life once for
+all embodied. It has to give way not merely to Provencal, but to
+Italian itself as an example of early scholarship in literary form.
+But it makes a most interesting pair to English as an instance of
+vigorous and genuine national literary development; while, if it is
+inferior to English, as showing that fatal departmental or provincial
+separation, that "particularism" which has in many ways been so
+disastrous to the Peninsula, it once more, by virtue of the _Poema_,
+far excels our own production of the period in positive achievement,
+and foretells the masterpieces of the national poetry in a way very
+different from any that can be said to be shown in Layamon or the
+_Ancren Riwle_, even in the Arthurian romances and the early lyrics.
+
+[Footnote 193: Spanish can scarcely be said to have shared, to an
+extent commensurate with its interest, in the benefit of recent study
+of the older forms of modern languages. There is, at any rate in
+English, and I think elsewhere, still nothing better than Ticknor's
+_History of Spanish Literature_ (3 vols., London, 1849, and reprinted
+since), in the early part of which he had the invaluable assistance of
+the late Don Pascual de Gayangos. Some scattered papers may be found
+in _Romania_. Fortunately, almost all the known literary materials for
+our period are to be found in Sanchez' _Poesias Castellanas Anteriores
+al Siglo XV._, the Paris (1842) reprint of which by Ochoa, with a few
+valuable additions, I have used. The _Poema del Cid_ is, except in
+this old edition, rather discreditably inaccessible--Vollmoeller's
+German edition (Halle, 1879), the only modern or critical one, being,
+I understand, out of print. It would be a good deed if the Clarendon
+Press would furnish students with this, the only rival of _Beowulf_
+and the _Chanson de Roland_ in the combination of antiquity and
+interest.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Catalan-Provencal._]
+
+The earliest literature which, in the wide sense, can be called
+Spanish divides itself into three heads--Provencal-Catalan;
+Galician-Portuguese; and Castilian or Spanish proper. Not merely
+Catalonia itself, but Aragon, Navarre, and even Valencia, were
+linguistically for centuries mere outlying provinces of the _langue
+d'oc_. The political circumstances which attended the dying-out of the
+Provencal school at home, for a time even encouraged the continuance
+of Provencal literature in Spain: and to a certain extent Spanish and
+Provencal appear to have been written, if not spoken, bilingually by
+the same authors. But for the general purpose of this book the fact of
+the persistence of the "Limousin" tongue in Catalonia and (strongly
+dialected) in Valencia having been once noted, not much further notice
+need be taken of this division.
+
+[Sidenote: _Galician-Portuguese._]
+
+So also we may, with a brief distinctive notice, pass by the Galician
+dialects which found their perfected literary form later in
+Portuguese. No important early literature remains in Galician, and of
+Portuguese itself there does not seem to be anything certainly dating
+before the fourteenth century, or anything even probably attributed to
+an earlier time except a certain number of ballads, as to the real
+antiquity of which a sane literary criticism has always to reiterate
+the deepest and most irremovable doubts. The fact of the existence of
+this dialect, and of its development later into the language of
+Camoens, is of high interest: the positive documents which at this
+time it offers for comment are very scanty indeed.
+
+[Sidenote: _Castilian._]
+
+With Castilian--that is to say, Spanish proper--the case is very
+different. It cannot claim any great antiquity: and as is the case
+with Italian, and to a less degree with French also, the processes by
+which it came into existence out of Latin are hid from us to a degree
+surprising, even when we remember the political and social welter in
+which Europe lay between the fifth and the eleventh centuries. It is,
+of course, a most natural and constant consideration that the
+formation of literary languages was delayed in the Romance-speaking
+countries by the fact that everybody of any education at all had Latin
+ready to his hands. And the exceptional circumstances of Spain,
+which, after hardly settling down under the Visigothic conquest, was
+whelmed afresh by the Moorish invasion, have not been excessively
+insisted upon by the authorities who have dealt with the subject. But
+still it cannot but strike us as peculiar that the document--the
+famous Charter of Aviles,[194] which plays in the history of Spanish
+something like the same part which the Eulalia hymn and the Strasburg
+Oaths play in French--dates only from the middle of the twelfth
+century, more than three hundred years after the Strasburg
+interchange, and at a time when French was not merely a regularly
+constituted language, but already had no inconsiderable literature. It
+is true that the Aviles document is not quite so jargonish as the
+Strasburg, but the same mark--the presence of undigested
+Latin--appears in both.
+
+[Footnote 194: Extracts of this appear in Ticknor, Appendix A., iii.
+352, note.]
+
+It is, however, fair to remember that prose is almost invariably later
+than poetry, and that official prose of all periods has a tendency to
+the barbarous. If the Aviles charter be genuine, and of its assigned
+date, it does not follow that at the very same time poetry of a much
+less uncouth character was not being composed in Spanish. And as a
+matter of fact we have, independently of the ballads, the great _Poema
+del Cid_, which has sometimes been supposed to be of antiquity equal
+to this, and which can hardly be more than some fifty years later.
+
+[Sidenote: _Ballads?_]
+
+As to the ballads, what has been said about those in Portuguese must
+be repeated at somewhat greater length. There is no doubt at all that
+these ballads (which are well known even to English readers by the
+masterly paraphrases of Lockhart) are among the finest of their kind.
+They rank with, and perhaps above, the best of the Scottish poems of
+the same class. But we have practically, it would seem, no earlier
+authority for them than the great _Cancioneros_ of the sixteenth
+century. It is, of course, said that the _Cronica General_ (see
+_post_), which is three centuries earlier, was in part compiled from
+these ballads. But, in the first place, we do not know that this was
+the fact, or that the ballads were not compiled from the Chronicles,
+or from traditions which the Chronicles embodied. And in the second
+place, if the Chronicles were compiled from ballads, we do not know
+that these ballads, as pieces of finished literature and apart from
+their subjects, were anything at all like the ballads that we possess.
+This last consideration--an uncomfortable one, but one which the
+critic is bound to urge--at once disposes of, or reduces to a minimum,
+the value of the much-vaunted testimony of a Latin poem, said to date
+before the middle of the eleventh century, that "Roderic, called _Mio
+Cid_," was sung about. No doubt he was; and no doubt, as the
+expression _Mio Cid_ is not a translation from the Arabic, but a quite
+evidently genuine vernacularity, he was sung of in those terms. But
+the testimony leaves us as much in doubt as ever about the age of the
+_existing_ Cid ballads. And if this be the case about the Cid ballads,
+the subject of which did not die till hard upon the opening of the
+twelfth century itself, or about those concerning the Infantes of
+Lara, how much more must it be so with those that deal with such
+subjects as Bernardo del Carpio and the Charlemagne invasion, three
+hundred years earlier, when it is tolerably certain that there was
+nothing at all resembling what we now call Spanish? It seems sometimes
+to be thought that the antiquity of the subject of a ballad comports
+in some strange fashion the antiquity of the ballad itself; than which
+nothing can be much more disputable. Indeed the very metre of the
+ballads themselves--which, though simple, is by no means of a very
+primitive character, and represents the "rubbing down" of popular
+dialect and unscholarly prosody for a long time against the regular
+structure of Latin--disproves the extreme earliness of the poems in
+anything like their present form. The comparatively uncouth, though
+not lawless metres of early Teutonic poetry are in themselves warrants
+of their antiquity: the regularity, not strait-laced but unmistakable,
+of the Spanish ballads is at least a strong suggestion that they are
+not very early.
+
+[Sidenote: _The_ Poema del Cid.]
+
+At any rate there is no sort of proof that they _are_ early; and in
+this history it has been made a rule to demand proof, or at least the
+very strongest probability. If there be any force in the argument at
+the end of the last paragraph, it tells (unless, indeed, the latest
+critical hypothesis be adopted, of which more presently) as much in
+favour of the antiquity of the _Poema del Cid_ as it tells against
+that of the ballads. This piece, which has come down to us in a
+mutilated condition, though it does not seem likely that its present
+length (3744 lines) has been very greatly affected by the mutilations,
+has been regarded as dating not earlier than the middle of the twelfth
+or later than the middle of the thirteenth century--that is to say, in
+the first case, within a lifetime of the events it professes to deal
+with; in the second, at scarcely more than two lifetimes from them.
+The historical personality of Ruy Diaz de Bivar, el Cid Campeador
+(?1040-1099), does not concern us, though it is perfectly well
+established in general by the testimony of his enemies, as well as by
+that of his countrymen, and is indeed almost unique in history as that
+of a national hero at once of history and of romance. The Roderic who
+regained what a Roderic had lost may have been--must have been,
+indeed--presented with many facts and achievements which he never
+performed, and there may be no small admixture of these in the _Poema_
+itself; but that does not matter at all to literature. It would not,
+strictly speaking, matter to literature if he had never existed. But
+not every one can live up to this severe standard in things literary;
+and it is undoubtedly a comfort to the natural man to know that the
+Cid certainly did exist, and that, to all but certainty, his blood
+runs in the veins of the Queen of England and of the Emperor of
+Austria, not to mention the King of Spain, to-day.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Spanish_ chanson de geste.]
+
+But in the criticism of his poetical history this is in strictness
+irrelevant. It is unlucky for that criticism that Southey and
+Ticknor--the two best critics, not merely in English but in any
+language, who have dealt with Spanish literature--were quite
+unacquainted with the French _chansons de geste_; while of late,
+discussion of the _Poema_, as of other early Spanish literature, has
+been chiefly abandoned to philologists. No one familiar with these
+_chansons_ (the greatest and oldest of which, the _Chanson de Roland_,
+was to all but a certainty in existence when Ruy Diaz was in his
+cradle, and a hundred years before the _Poema_ was written) can fail
+to see in a moment that this latter is itself a _chanson de geste_. It
+was written much nearer to the facts than any one of its French
+analogues, except those of the Crusading cycle, and it therefore had
+at least the chance of sticking much closer to those facts. Nor is
+there much doubt that it does. We may give up as many as we please of
+its details; we may even, if, not pleasing, we choose to obey the
+historians, give up that famous and delightful episode of the Counts
+of Carrion, which indeed is not so much an episode as the main subject
+of the greater part of the poem. But--partly because of its nearness
+to the subject, partly because of the more intense national belief in
+the hero, most of all, perhaps, because the countrymen of Cervantes
+already possessed that faculty of individual, not merely of typical,
+characterisation which has been, as a rule, denied to the countrymen
+of Corneille--the poem is far more _alive_ than the not less heroic
+histories of Roncesvaux or of Aliscans. Even in the _Nibelungenlied_,
+to which it has been so often compared, the men (not the women--there
+the Teutonic genius bears its usual bell) are, with the exception,
+perhaps, of Hagen, shadowy, compared not merely to Rodrigo himself,
+but to Bermuez and Muno Gustioz, to Asur Gonzalez and Minaya.
+
+[Sidenote: _In scheme and spirit._]
+
+Still the _chanson_ stamp is unmistakably on it from the very
+beginning, where the Cid, like three-fourths of the _chanson_ heroes
+themselves, has experienced royal ingratitude, through the vaunts and
+the fighting, and the stock phrases (_abaxan las lanzas_ following
+_abrazan los escudos_, and the like), to that second marriage
+connecting the Cid afresh with royalty, which is almost as common in
+the _chansons_ as the initial ingratitude. It would be altogether
+astonishing if the _chansons_ had not made their way, when French
+literature was making it everywhere, into the country nearest to
+France. In face of the _Poema del Cid_, it is quite certain that they
+had done so, and that here as elsewhere French literature performed
+its vigorous, and in a way self-sacrificing, function of teaching
+other nations to do better than their teacher.
+
+[Sidenote: _Difficulties of its prosody._]
+
+When we pass from comparisons of general scheme and spirit to those of
+metrical form, the matter presents greater puzzles. As observed above,
+the earliest French _chansons_ known to us are written in a strict
+syllabic metre, with a regular caesura, and arranged in distinct though
+not uniformly long _laisses_, each tipped with an identical
+assonance. Further, it so happens that this very assonance is one of
+the best known characteristics of Spanish poetry, which is the only
+body of verse except old French to show it in any great volume or
+variety. The Spanish ballads are uniformly written in trochaic
+octosyllables (capable of reduction or extension to six, seven, or
+nine), regularly assonanced in the second and fourth line, but not
+necessarily showing either rhyme or assonance in the first and third.
+This measure became so popular that the great dramatists adopted it,
+and as it thus figures in the two most excellent productions of the
+literature, ballad and drama, it has become practically identified in
+the general mind with Spanish poetry, and not so very long ago might
+have been described by persons, not exactly ignorant, as peculiar to
+it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Ballad-metre theory._]
+
+But when we turn to the _Poema del Cid_ we find nothing like this. It
+is true that its latest and most learned student, Professor Cornu of
+Prague,[195] has, I believe, persuaded himself that he has discovered
+the basis of its metre to be the ballad octosyllables, full or
+catalectic, arranged as hemistichs of a longer line, and that he has
+been able to point out some hundreds of tolerably perfect verses of
+the kind. But this hypothesis necessitates our granting that it was
+possible for the copyists, or the line of copyists, of the unique MS.
+in the vast majority of cases to mistake a measure so simple, so
+universally natural, and, as history shows, so peculiarly grateful to
+the Spanish ear, and to change it into something quite different.
+
+[Footnote 195: I have not seen Professor Cornu's paper itself, but
+only a notice of it by M. G. Paris in _Romania_, xxii. 153, and some
+additional annotations by the Professor himself at p. 531 of the same
+volume.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Irregularity of line._]
+
+For there is no question but that at first sight, and not at first
+sight only, the _Poema del Cid_ seems to be the most irregular
+production of its kind that can claim high rank in the poetry of
+Europe. It is not merely that it is "rough," as its great northern
+congener the _Nibelungenlied_ is usually said to be, or that its lines
+vary in length from ten syllables to over twenty, as some lines of
+Anglo-Saxon verse do. It is that there is nothing like the regular
+cadence of the one, or (at least as yet discovered) the combined
+system of accent and alliteration which accounts for the other. Almost
+the only single feature which is invariable is the break in the middle
+of the line, which is much more than a mere caesura, and coincides not
+merely with the end of a word, but with a distinct stop or at least
+pause in sense. Beyond this, except by the rather violent hypothesis
+of copyist misdeeds above referred to,[196] nobody has been able to
+get further in a generalisation of the metre than that the normal form
+is an eight and six (better a seven and seven) "fourteener,"
+trochaically cadenced, but admitting contraction and extension with a
+liberality elsewhere unparalleled.
+
+[Footnote 196: It is perhaps fair to Professor Cornu to admit some
+weight in his argument that where proper names predominate--_i.e._,
+where the copyist was least likely to alter--his basis suggests itself
+most easily.]
+
+And the ends of the verses are as troublesome as their bodies. Not
+only is there no absolute system either of assonance or of rhyme; not
+only does the consideration that at a certain stage assonance and
+consonance[197] meet and blend help us little; but it is almost or
+quite impossible to discern any one system on which the one or the
+other, or both, can be thought to have been used. Sometimes, indeed
+frequently, something like the French _laisses_ or continuous blocks
+of end-sound appear: sometimes the eye feels inclined to see
+quatrains--a form, as we shall see, agreeable to early Spain, and very
+common in all European nations at this stage of their development. But
+it is very seldom that either is clearly demonstrable except in parts,
+while neither maintains itself for long. Generally the pages present
+the spectacle of an intensely irregular mosaic, or rather
+conglomerate, of small blocks of assonance or consonance put together
+on no discoverable system whatever. It is, of course, fair to remember
+that Anglo-Saxon verse--now, according to the orthodox, to be ranked
+among the strictest prosodic kinds--was long thought to be as formless
+as this. But after the thorough ransacking and overhauling which
+almost all mediaeval literature has had during the last century, it is
+certainly strange that the underlying system in the Spanish case, if
+it exists, should not have been discovered, or should have been
+discovered only by such an Alexandrine cutting of the knot as the
+supposition that the copyist has made "pie" of about seventy per cent
+at least of the whole.
+
+[Footnote 197: Some writers very inconveniently, and by a false
+transference from "consonant," use "consonance" as if equivalent to
+"alliteration." It is much better kept for full rhyme, in which vowels
+and consonants both "sound with" each other.]
+
+Still the form, puzzling as it is, is extremely interesting, and very
+satisfactory to those who can be content with unsystematic enjoyment.
+The recurrent wave-sound which has been noted in the _chansons_ is at
+least as noticeable, though less regular, here. Let us, for instance,
+open the poem in the double-columned edition of 1842 at random, and
+take the passage on the opening, pp. 66, 67, giving the best part of
+two hundred lines, from 3491 to 3641. The eye is first struck with the
+constant repetition of catch-endings--"Infantes de Carrion," "los del
+Campeador"--each of which occurs at a line-end some dozen times in the
+two pages. The second and still more striking thing is that almost all
+this long stretch of verse, though not in one single _laisse_, is
+carried upon an assonance in _o_, either plump (_Infanzon_, _cort_,
+_Carrion_, &c.), which continues with a break or two for at least
+fifty lines, or with another vowel in double assonance (_taiadores_,
+_tendones_, _varones_). But this sequence is broken incomprehensibly
+by such end-words as _tomar_; and the length of the lines defies all
+classification, though one suspects some confusion of arrangement. For
+instance, it is not clear why
+
+    "Colada e Tizon que non lidiasen con ellas los del Campeador"
+
+should be printed as one line, and
+
+    "Hybalos ver el Rey Alfonso.
+    Dixieron los del Campeador,"
+
+as two.
+
+If we then turn to the earlier part, that which comes before the
+Carrion story, we shall find the irregularity greater still. It is
+possible, no doubt, by making rules sufficiently elastic, to devise
+some sort of a system for five consecutive lines which end _folgar_,
+_comer_, _acordar_, _grandes_, and _pan_; but it will be a system so
+exceedingly elastic that it seems a superfluity of trouble to make it.
+On a general survey it may, I think, be said that either in double or
+single assonance _a_ and _o_ play a much larger part than the other
+vowels, whereas in the French analogues there is no predominance of
+this kind, or at least nothing like so much. And lastly, to
+conclude[198] these rather desultory remarks on a subject which
+deserves much more attention than it has yet had, it may be worth
+observing that by an odd coincidence the _Poema del Cid_ concludes
+with a delusive personal mention very similar to, though even more
+precise than, that about "Turoldus" in the _Chanson de Roland_. For it
+ends--
+
+    "Per Abbat le escribio en el mes de maio
+    En era de mill e CC ... XLV. anos,"
+
+there being, perhaps, something dropped between the second C and the
+X. Peter Abbat, however, has been less fortunate than Turoldus, in
+that no one, it seems, has asserted his authorship, though he may have
+been the copyist-malefactor of theory. And it may perhaps be added
+that if MCCXLV. is the correct date, this would correspond to 1207 of
+our chronology, the Spanish mediaeval era starting thirty-eight years
+too early.
+
+[Footnote 198: I have not thought it necessary to give an abstract of
+the contents of the poem, because Southey's _Chronicle of the Cid_ is
+accessible to everybody, and because no wise man will ever attempt to
+do over again what Southey has once done.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Other poems._]
+
+The remaining literature before the end of the thirteenth century
+(immediately after that date there is a good deal, but most of it is
+imitated from France) may be dismissed more briefly. It is not very
+bulky, but it is noteworthy that it is collected in a manner by no
+means usual at the time, under two known names, those of Gonzalo
+Berceo, priest of St Elianus at Callahorra, and of King Alfonso X. For
+the Spanish _Alexander_ of Juan Lorenzo Segura, though written before
+1300, is clearly but one of the numerous family of the French and
+French-Latin _Alexandreids_ and _Romans d'Alixandre_. And certain
+poems on Apollonius of Tyre, St Mary of Egypt, and the Three Kings,
+while their date is rather uncertain, are also evidently "school
+poems" of the same kind.
+
+[Sidenote: _Apollonius and Mary of Egypt._]
+
+The Spanish Apollonius,[199] however, is noteworthy, because it is
+written in a form which is also used by Berceo, and which has
+sometimes been thought to be spoken of in the poem itself as _nueva
+maestria_. This measure is the old fourteener, which struggles to
+appear in the _Cid_, regularly divided into hephthemimers, and now
+regularly arranged also in mono-rhymed quatrains. The "Life of St Mary
+of Egypt,"[200] on the other hand, is in octosyllabic couplets,
+treated with the same freedom that we find in contemporary German
+handlings of that metre, and varying from five syllables to at least
+eleven. The rhymes are good, with very rare lapses into assonance; one
+might suspect a pretty close adherence to a probably Provencal
+original, and perhaps not a very early date. Ticknor, whose
+Protestantism or whose prudery seems to have been shocked by this
+"coarse and indecent history"--he might surely have found politer
+language for a variant of the Magdalene story, which is beautiful in
+itself and has received especial ornament from art--thought it
+composed of "meagre monkish verse," and "hardly of importance" except
+as a monument of language. I should myself venture--with infinitely
+less competence in the particular language, but some knowledge of
+other things of the same kind and time--to call it a rather lively and
+accomplished performance of its class. The third piece[201] of those
+published, not by Sanchez himself, but as an appendix to the Paris
+edition, is the _Adoracion de Los Santos Reyes_, a poem shorter than
+the _Santa Maria Egipciaca_, but very similar in manner as well as in
+subject. I observe that Ticknor, in a note, seems himself to be of the
+opinion that these two pieces are not so old as the Apollonius; though
+his remarks about "the French _fabliaux_" are not to the point. The
+_fabliaux_, it is true, are in octosyllabic verse; but octosyllabic
+verse is certainly older than the _fabliaux_, which have nothing to do
+with the Lives of the Saints. But he could hardly have known this when
+he wrote.
+
+[Footnote 199: Sanchez-Ochoa, _op. cit._, pp. 525-561.]
+
+[Footnote 200: Ibid., pp. 561-576.]
+
+[Footnote 201: Sanchez-Ochoa, _op. cit._, pp. 577-579.]
+
+[Sidenote: _Berceo._]
+
+Berceo, who appears to have written more than thirteen thousand
+lines, wrote nothing secular; and though the religious poetry of the
+Middle Ages is occasionally of the highest order, yet when it is of
+that rank it is almost invariably Latin, not vernacular, while its
+vernacular expression, even where not despicable, is apt to be very
+much of a piece, and to present very few features of literary as
+distinguished from philological interest. Historians have, however,
+very properly noted in him the occurrence of a short lyrical fragment
+in irregular octosyllabics, each rhymed in couplets and interspersed
+after every line with a refrain. The only certain fact of his life
+seems to be his ordination as deacon in 1221.
+
+[Sidenote: _Alfonso el Sabio._]
+
+Of King Alfonso the Learned (for he does not seem to have been by any
+means very wise) much more is of course known, though the saying about
+the blessedness of having no history is not falsified in his case. But
+his titular enjoyment of the empire, his difficulties with his sons,
+his death, practically dethroned, and the rest, do not concern us: nor
+does even his famous and rather wickedly wrested saying (a favourite
+with Carlyle) about the creation of the world and the possibility of
+improvement therein had the Creator taken advice. Even the far more
+deservedly famous _Siete Partidas_, with that _Fuero Juzgo_ in which,
+though it was issued in his father's time, he is supposed to have had
+a hand, are merely noteworthy here as early, curious, and, especially
+in the case of the _Partidas_, excellent specimens of Spanish prose in
+its earliest form. He could not have executed these or any great part
+of them himself: and the great bulk of the other work attributed to
+him must also have been really that of collaborators or secretaries.
+The verse part of this is not extensive, consisting of a collection of
+_Cantigas_ or hymns, Provencal in style and (to the puzzlement of
+historians) Galician rather than Castilian in dialect, and an
+alchemical medley of verse and prose called the _Tesoro_. These, if
+they be his, he may have written for himself and by himself. But for
+his _Astronomical Tables_, a not unimportant _point de repere_ in
+astronomical history, he must, as for the legal works already
+mentioned and others, have been largely indebted. There seems to be
+much doubt about a prose _Tresor_, which is or is not a translation of
+the famous work of Brunetto Latini (dates would here seem awkward).
+But the _Cronica General de Espana_, the Spanish Bible, the Universal
+History, and the _Gran Conquesta de Ultramar_ (this last a History of
+the Crusades, based partly on William of Tyre, partly on the _chanson_
+cycle of the Crusades, fables and all) must necessarily be his only in
+the sense that he very likely commissioned, and not improbably
+assisted in them. The width and variety of the attributions, whether
+contestable in parts or not, prove quite sufficiently for our purpose
+this fact, that by his time (he died in 1284) literature of nearly all
+kinds was being pretty busily cultivated in the Spanish vernaculars,
+though in this case as in others it might chiefly occupy itself with
+translations or adaptations of Latin or of French.
+
+This fact in general, and the capital and interesting phenomenon of
+the _Poema del Cid_ in particular, are the noticeable points in this
+division of our subject. It will be observed that Spain is at this
+time content, like Goethe's scholar, _sich ueben_. Her one great
+literary achievement--admirable in some respects, incomparable in
+itself--is not a novelty in kind; she has no lessons in form to give,
+which, like some of Italy's, have not been improved upon to this day;
+she cannot, like Germany, boast a great quantity of work of equal
+accomplishment and inspiration; least of all has she the astonishing
+fertility and the unceasing _maestria_ of France. But she has practice
+and promise, she is doing something more than "going to begin," and
+her one great achievement has (it cannot well be too often repeated)
+the inestimable and unmistakable quality of being itself and not
+something else, in spirit if not in scheme, in character if not quite
+in form. It would be no consolation for the loss of the _Cid_ that we
+have _Beowulf_ and _Roland_ and the _Nibelungen_--they would not fill
+its place, they do not speak with its voice. The much-abused and
+nearly meaningless adjective "Homeric" is here, in so far as it has
+any meaning, once more appropriate. Of the form of Homer there is
+little: of the vigour, the freshness, the poetry, there is much.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+It is now time to sum up, as may best be done, the results of this
+attempt to survey the Literature of Europe during one, if not of its
+most accomplished, most enlightened, or most generally admired
+periods, yet assuredly one of the most momentous, the most
+interesting, the fullest of problem and of promise. Audacious as the
+attempt itself may seem to some, inadequate as the performance may be
+pronounced by others, it is needless to spend much more argument in
+urging its claim to be at least tried on the merits. All varieties of
+literary history have drawbacks almost inseparable from their schemes.
+The elaborate monograph, which is somewhat in favour just now, is
+exposed to the criticism, not quite carping, that it is practically
+useless without independent study of its subject, and practically
+superfluous with it. The history of separate literatures, whether in
+portion or in whole, is always liable to be charged with omissions or
+with disproportionate treatment within its subject, with want of
+perspective, with "blinking," as regards matters without. And so such
+a survey as this is liable to the charge of being superficial, or of
+attempting more than it can possibly cover, or of not keeping the due
+balance between its various provinces and compartments.
+
+It must be for others to say how such a charge, in the present case,
+is helped by _laches_ or incompetence on the part of the surveyor. But
+enough has, I hope, been said to clear the scheme itself from the
+objection of uselessness or of impracticability. In one sense, no
+doubt, far more room than this volume, or a much larger, could
+provide, may seem to be required for the discussion and arrangement of
+so great and interesting a matter as the Literature of the Twelfth and
+Thirteenth Centuries. But to say this, is only saying that no such
+account in such a space could be exhaustive: and it so happens that an
+exhaustive account is for the purpose not required--would indeed go
+pretty far towards the defeat of that purpose. What is wanted is to
+secure that the reader, whether he pursues his studies in more detail
+with regard to any of these literatures or not, shall at any rate have
+in his head a fair general notion of what they were simultaneously or
+in succession, of the relation in which they stood to each other, of
+the division of literary labour between them.
+
+If, on the other hand, it be said, "You propose to give, according to
+your scheme, a volume apiece to the fourteenth and even the fifteenth
+centuries, the work of which was far less original and interesting
+than the work of these two! Why do you couple these?" the answer is
+not difficult. In the first place, the work of these two
+centuries--which is mainly though not wholly the work of the hundred
+years that form their centre period--is curiously inseparable. In only
+a few cases do we know precise dates, and in many the _circa_ is of
+such a circuitous character that we can hardly tell whether the
+twelfth or the thirteenth century deserves the credit. In almost all
+the adoption of any intermediate date of severance would leave an
+awkward, raw, unreal division. We should leave off while the best of
+the _chansons de geste_ were still being produced, in the very middle
+of the development of the Arthurian legend, with half the _fabliaux_
+yet to come and half the sagas unwritten, with the Minnesingers in
+full voice, with the tale of the Rose half told, with the Fox not yet
+broken up.
+
+And, in the second place, the singular combination of anonymity and
+school-character in the most characteristic mediaeval literature makes
+it easier, vast as is its mass and in some cases conspicuous as is its
+merit, to handle in small space than later work. Only by a wild
+indulgence in guessing or a tedious minuteness of attention to
+_Lautlehre_ and rhyme-lists is it possible to make a treatment of even
+a named person like Chrestien de Troyes on the scale of a notice of
+Dante or even Froissart, and this without reference to the comparative
+literary importance of the three. The million lines of the _chansons
+de geste_ do not demand discussion in anything like direct proportion
+to their bulk. One _fabliau_, much more one minnesong or troubadour
+lyric, has a far greater resemblance of kind to its fellows than even
+one modern novel, even one nineteenth-century minor poem, to another.
+As the men write in schools, so they can be handled in them.
+
+Yet I should hope that it must have been already made apparent how
+very far the present writer is from undervaluing the period with which
+he has essayed to deal. He might perhaps be regarded as overvaluing it
+with more apparent reason--not, I think, with any reason that is more
+than apparent.
+
+For this was the time, if not of the Birth--the exact times and
+seasons of literary births no man knoweth--at any rate of the first
+appearance, full-blown or full-fledged, of Romance. Many praiseworthy
+folk have made many efforts to show that Romance was after all no such
+new thing--that there is Romance in the _Odyssey_, Romance in the
+choruses of AEschylus, Romance East and West, North and South, before
+the Middle Ages. They are only less unwise than the other good folk
+who endeavour to tie Romance down to a Teutonic origin, or a Celtic,
+or in the other sense a Romance one, to Chivalry (which was in truth
+rather its offspring than its parent), to this, and that, and the
+other. "All the best things in literature," it has been said, "are
+returns"; and this is perfectly true, just as it is perfectly true in
+another sense that all the best things in literature are novelties. In
+this particular growth, being as it was a product of the unchanging
+human mind, there were notes, doubtless, of Homer and of AEschylus, of
+Solomon the son of David and of Jesus the son of Sirach. But the
+constituents of the mixture were newly grouped; elements which had in
+the past been inconspicuous or dormant assumed prominence and
+activity; and the whole was new.
+
+It was even one of the few, the very few, permutations and
+combinations of the elements of literature, which are of such
+excellence, volume, durability, and charm, that they rank above all
+minor changes and groupings. An _amabilis insania_ of the same general
+kind with those above noted has endeavoured again and again to mark
+off and define the chief constituents of the fact. The happiest
+result, if only a partial one, of such attempts has been the
+opposition between Classical precision and proportion and the Romantic
+vague; but no one would hold this out as a final or sufficient account
+of the matter. It may, indeed, be noted that that peculiar blended
+character which has been observed in the genesis of perhaps the
+greatest and most characteristic bloom of the whole garden--the
+Arthurian Legend--is to be found elsewhere also. The Greeks, if they
+owed part of the intensity, had undoubtedly owed nearly all the gaps
+and flaws of their production, as well as its extraordinarily
+short-lived character, to their lack alike of instructors and of
+fellow-pupils--to the defect in Comparison. Roman Literature, always
+more or less _in statu pupillari_, had wanted the fellow-pupils, if
+not the tutor. But the national divisions of mediaeval Europe--saved
+from individual isolation by the great bond of the Church, saved from
+mutual lack of understanding by the other great bond of the Latin
+_quasi_-vernacular, shaken together by wars holy and profane, and
+while each exhibiting the fresh characteristics of national infancy,
+none of them case-hardened into national insularity--enjoyed a unique
+opportunity, an opportunity never likely to be again presented, of
+producing a literature common in essential characteristic, but richly
+coloured and fancifully shaded in each division by the genius of race
+and soil. And this literature was developed in the two centuries which
+have been the subject of our survey. It is true that not all the
+nations were equally contributors to the positive literary production
+of the time. England was apparently paying a heavy penalty for her
+unique early accomplishments, was making a large sacrifice for the
+better things to come. Between 1100 and 1300 no single book that can
+be called great was produced in the English tongue, and hardly any
+single writer distinctly deserving the same adjective was an
+Englishman. But how mighty were the compensations! The language itself
+was undergoing a process of "inarching," of blending, crossing, which
+left it the richest, both in positive vocabulary and in capacity for
+increasing that vocabulary at need, of any European speech; the
+possessor of a double prosody, quantitative and alliterative, which
+secured it from the slightest chance of poetic poverty or
+hide-boundness; relieved from the cumbrousness of synthetic accidence
+to all but the smallest extent, and in case to elaborate a syntax
+equally suitable for verse and prose, for exposition and narrative,
+for oratory and for argument. Moreover it was, as I have at least
+endeavoured to show, probably England which provided the groundwork
+and first literary treatment, it was certainly England that provided
+the subject, of the largest, the most enduring, the most varied single
+division of mediaeval work; while the Isle of Britain furnished at
+least its quota to the general literature of Europe other than
+vernacular.
+
+Other countries, though their languages were not conquering their
+conqueror as English was doing with French, also displayed sufficient
+individuality in dealing with the models and the materials with which
+French activity supplied them. The best poetical work of Icelandic,
+like the best work of its cousin Anglo-Saxon, was indeed over before
+the period began, and the best prose work was done before it ended,
+the rapid and never fully explained exhaustion of Norse energy and
+enterprise preventing the literature which had been produced from
+having effect on other nations. The children of the _vates_ of Grettir
+and Njal contented themselves, like others, with adapting French
+romances, and, unlike others, they did not make this adaptation the
+groundwork of new and original effort. But meanwhile they had made in
+the Sagas, greater and lesser, such a contribution as no literature
+has excelled in intensity and character, comparatively small as it is
+in bulk and comparatively undistinguished in form.
+
+"Unlike others," it has been said; for there can be no doubt that the
+Charlemagne Cycle from Northern, the troubadour lyric from Southern,
+France exercised upon Italy the same effect that was exercised in
+Germany by the romances of Arthur and of Antiquity, and by the
+_trouvere_ poetry generally. But in these two countries, as also more
+doubtfully, but still with fair certainty, in Spain, the French models
+found, as they did also in England, literary capacities and tastes not
+jaded and outworn, but full of idiosyncrasy, and ready to develop each
+in its own way. Here however, by that extraordinary law of
+compensation which seems to be the most general law of the universe,
+the effects differed as much in quantity and time as in character--a
+remarkable efflorescence of literature in Germany being at once
+produced, to relapse shortly into a long sterility, a tardier but more
+constant growth following in England and Italy, while the effect in
+Spain was the most partial and obscure of all. The great names of
+Wolfram von Eschenbach and Walther von der Vogelweide hardly meet with
+any others in these literatures representing writers who are known
+abroad as well as at home. Only philologists out of England (and I
+fear not too many besides philologists in it) read _Alisaunder_ and
+_Richard Coeur de Lion_, _Arthour and Merlin_, or the _Brut_; the
+early Italian poets shine but in the reflected light of Dante; and if
+any one knows the Cid, it is usually from Corneille, or Herder, or
+Southey, rather than from his own noble _Poem_. But no one who does
+study these forgotten if not disdained ones, no one who with a love
+for literature bestows even the most casual attention on them, can
+fail to see their meaning and their promise, their merit and their
+charm.
+
+That languages of such power should have remained without literatures
+is of course inconceivable; that any of them even needed the
+instruction they received from France cannot be said positively; but
+what is certain is that they all received it. In most cases the
+acknowledgment is direct, express, not capable of being evaded or
+misconstrued: in all it is incapable of being mistaken by those who
+have eyes, and who have trained them. To inquire into the cause were
+rather idle. The central position of France; the early notoriety and
+vogue of the schools of Paris; the curious position of the language,
+midway between the extremer Romance and the purely Teutonic tongues,
+which made it a sort of natural interpreter between them; perhaps most
+of all that inexplicable but undeniable formal talent of the French
+for literature, which is as undeniable and as inexplicable as the less
+formal genius of the English,--all these things, except the central
+position, only push the problem farther back, and are in need of being
+explained themselves. But the fact, the solid and certain fact,
+remains. And so it is that the greater part of this book has
+necessarily been occupied in expounding, first the different forms
+which the lessons of France took, and then the different ways in which
+other countries learnt those lessons and turned them to account.
+
+It is thus difficult to overestimate the importance of that wonderful
+literature which rises dominant among all these, imparting to all,
+borrowing from none, or borrowing only subjects, exhibiting finish of
+structure when all the rest were merely barbarian novices, exploring
+every literary form from history to drama, and from epic to song,
+while others were stammering their exercises, mostly learnt from her.
+The exact and just proportions of the share due to Southern and
+Northern France respectively none can now determine, and scholarship
+oscillates between extremes as usual. What is certain (perhaps it is
+the only thing that is certain) is that to Provencal belongs the
+credit of establishing for the first time a modern prosody of such a
+kind as to turn out verse of perfect form. Whether, if Pallas in her
+warlike capacity had been kinder to the Provencals, she could or would
+have inspired them with more varied kinds of literature than the
+exquisite lyric which as a fact is almost their sole title to fame, we
+cannot say. As a matter of fact, the kinds other than lyric, and some
+of the lyrical kinds themselves--the short tale, the epic, the
+romance, the play, the history, the sermon--all find their early home,
+if not their actual birthplace, north, not south, of the Limousin
+line. It was from Normandy and Poitou, from Anjou and the Orleannais,
+from the Isle of France and Champagne, that in language at least the
+patterns which were used by all Europe, the specifications, so to
+speak, which all Europe adapted and filled up, went forth, sometimes
+not to return.
+
+Yet it is not in the actual literature of France itself, except in
+those contributions to the Arthurian story which, as it has been
+pointed out, were importations, not indigenous growths, and in some
+touches of the _Rose_, that the spirit of Romance is most evident--the
+spirit which, to those who have come thoroughly to appreciate it,
+makes classical grace and finish seem thin and tame, Oriental
+exuberance tasteless and vulgar, modern scientific precision
+inexpressibly charmless and jejune.
+
+Different sides of this spirit display themselves, of course, in
+different productions of the time. There is the spirit of combat, in
+which the _Chansons de geste_ show the way, anticipating in time, if
+not quite equalling in intensity, the Sagas and the _Nibelungenlied_.
+There is sometimes faintly mingled with this (as in the _gabz_ of the
+_Voyage a Constantinoble_, and the exploits of Rainoart with the
+_tinel_) the spirit, half rough, half sly, of jesting, which by-and-by
+takes shape in the _fabliaux_. There is the immense and restless
+spirit of curiosity, which explores and refashions, to its own guise
+and fancy, the relics of the old world, the treasures of the East, the
+lessons of Scripture itself. Side by side with these there is that
+singular form of the religious spirit which has been so constantly
+misunderstood, and which, except in a very few persons, seems so rare
+nowadays--the faith which is implicit without being imbecile,
+childlike without being childish, devout with a fearless familiarity,
+the spirit to which the _Dies Irae_ and the sermons of St Francis were
+equally natural expressions, and which, if it could sometimes
+exasperate itself into the practices of the Inquisition, found a far
+commoner and more genuine expression in the kindly humanities of the
+_Ancren Riwle_. There is no lack of knowledge and none of inquiry;
+though in embarking on the enormous ocean of ignorance, it is inquiry
+not cabined and cribbed by our limits. In particular, there is an
+almost unparalleled, a certainly unsurpassed, activity in metaphysical
+speculation, a fence-play of thought astonishing in its accuracy and
+style. As Poetry slowly disintegrates and exfoliates itself into
+Prose, literary gifts for which verse was unsuited develop themselves
+in the vernaculars; and the chronicle--itself so lately an
+epic--becomes a history, or at least a memoir; the orator, sacred or
+profane, quits the school rhetoric and its familiar Latin vehicle for
+more direct means of persuasion; the jurist gives these vernaculars
+precision by adopting them.
+
+But with and through and above all these various spirits there is most
+of all that abstract spirit of poetry, which, though not possessed by
+the Middle Ages or by Romance alone, seems somehow to be a more
+inseparable and pervading familiar of Romance and of the Middle Ages
+than of any other time and any other kind of literature. The sense of
+mystery, which had rarely troubled the keen intellect of the Greek and
+the sturdy common-sense of the Roman, which was even a little degraded
+and impoverished (except in the Jewish prophets and in a few other
+places) by the busy activity of Oriental imagination, which we
+ourselves have banished, or think we have banished, to a few "poets'
+scrolls," was always present to the mediaeval mind. In its broadest and
+coarsest jests, in its most laborious and (as we are pleased to call
+them) dullest expansions of stories, in its most wire-drawn and most
+lifeless allegory, in its most irritating admixture of science and
+fable, there is always hard by, always ready to break in, the sense of
+the great and wonderful things of Life, and Love, and Death, of the
+half-known God and the unknown Hereafter. It is this which gives to
+Romance, and to mediaeval work generally, that "high seriousness," the
+want of which was so strangely cast at it in reproach by a critic who,
+I cannot but think, was less intimately acquainted with its literature
+than with that either of classical or of modern times. Constantly in
+mediaeval poetry, very commonly in mediaeval prose, the great things
+appear greatly. There is in English verse romance perhaps no less
+felicitous sample of the kind as it stands, none which has received
+greater vituperation for dulness and commonplace, than _Sir Amadas_.
+Yet who could much better the two simple lines, when the hero is
+holding revel after his ghastly meeting with the unburied corse in the
+roadside chapel?--
+
+    "But the dead corse that lay on bier
+      Full mickle his thought was on."
+
+In Homer's Greek or Dante's Italian such a couplet (which, be it
+observed, is as good in rhythm and vowel contrast as in simple
+presentation of thought) could hardly lack general admiration. In the
+English poetry of the Middle Ages it is dismissed as a commonplace.
+
+Yet such things, and far better things, are to be met everywhere in
+the literature which, during the period we have had under review, took
+definite form and shape. It produced, indeed, none of the greatest
+men of letters--no Chaucer nor Dante, no Froissart even, at best for
+certainties a Villehardouin and a William of Lorris, a Wolfram and a
+Walther, with shadowy creatures of speculation like the authors of the
+great romances. But it produced some of the greatest matter, and some
+of not the least delightful handlings of matter, in book-history. And
+it is everywhere distinguished, first, by the adventurous fecundity of
+its experiments in form and kind, secondly, by the presence of that
+spirit which has been adumbrated in the last paragraph. In this last,
+we must own, the pupil countries far outdid their master or mistress.
+France was stronger relatively in the spirit of poetry during the
+Middle Ages than she has been since; but she was still weaker than
+others. She gave them expression, patterns, form: they found passion
+and spirit, with not seldom positive story-subject as well. When we
+come upon some _nueva maestria_, as the old Spanish poet called it,
+some cunning trick of form, some craftsman-like adjustment of style
+and kind to literary purposes, we shall generally find that it was
+invented in France. But we know that no Frenchman could have written
+the _Dies Irae_; and though we recognise French as at home in the
+Rose-Garden, and not out of place in the fatal meeting of Lancelot and
+Guinevere, it sounds but as a foreign language in the towers of
+Carbonek or of Montsalvatsch.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX.
+
+
+Abbat, Peter, 406.
+
+Abelard, 14, 17.
+
+Adam de la Halle, 316-321.
+
+Adam of St Victor, 8, 10.
+
+Alberic of Besancon, 157.
+
+Albertus Magnus, 18.
+
+Alcamo, Ciullo d', 387.
+
+Alexander Hales, 18.
+
+_Alexander_, romances of, chap. iv. _passim_.
+
+Alfonso X., 409, 410.
+
+_Aliscans_, 75 _sq._
+
+"Alison," 210, 211.
+
+Amalricans, the, 20 note.
+
+Amaury de Bene, 18.
+
+Ancona, Professor d', 387.
+
+_Ancren Riwle_, the, 198-201.
+
+Anna Comnena, 378.
+
+Anselm, 14, 17.
+
+_Apollonius_, the Spanish, 407.
+
+Aquinas, Thomas, 18.
+
+"Arch-poet," the, 5.
+
+Arnold, Matthew, 55, 278.
+
+Ascham, 128.
+
+_Aucassin et Nicolette_, 330-332.
+
+Audefroy le Bastard, 275.
+
+Aue, Hartmann von, 246-251.
+
+
+Bacon, Roger, 18.
+
+Bartsch, Herr K., 270.
+
+_Bastart de Bouillon, le_, 57.
+
+_Baudouin de Sebourc_, 32 _sq._
+
+Beauvais, Vincent of, 18.
+
+Bede, 90.
+
+Bedier, M., 276.
+
+Benoit de Sainte-More, 177 _sq._
+
+_Beowulf_, 30, 36, 188.
+
+Berceo, G., 407.
+
+Bernard of Morlaix, 8, 11-13.
+
+Bernard, St, 8, 322.
+
+Bodel, Jean, 26 note, 148.
+
+Bonaventura, 18.
+
+Borron, Robert de, 138.
+
+Brunetiere, M. F., 55, 83.
+
+_Brut._ See Geoffrey of Monmouth, Layamon, and Wace.
+
+Budge, Mr Wallis, 152.
+
+
+Callisthenes, the Pseudo-, 152 _sq._
+
+Caradoc of Lancarvan, 91.
+
+_Carmina Burana_, 4.
+
+Celano, Thomas of, 9.
+
+Champeaux, William of, 17.
+
+Chrestien de Troyes, 101 _sq._, 195.
+
+_Cid, Poema del_, 23, 376, 393, 398 _sq._
+
+Ciullo d'Alcamo, 387.
+
+Colonna, or delle Colonne, or de Columnis, Guido, 181 _sq._
+
+Condorcet, 15.
+
+_Conquete de Constantinoble_, 323.
+
+_Contrasto_, 387, 389.
+
+Conybeare, 25.
+
+Cornu, Professor, 402.
+
+_Couronnement Loys, le_, 60 _sq._
+
+Courthope, Mr, 140.
+
+_Cronica, General_, 410.
+
+_Curialium, De Nugis_, 141.
+
+
+Dares Phrygius, 171 _sq._ and chap. iv. _passim_.
+
+David of Dinant, 18.
+
+Dictys Cretensis, 169 _sq._ and chap. iv. _passim_.
+
+_Dies Irae_, the, 9, 10.
+
+Dunlop, 28, 132.
+
+
+_Egil's Saga_, 350, 360.
+
+_Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, 16.
+
+_Epopees Francaises, les_, 25 _sq._
+
+Erigena, John Scotus, 17.
+
+Eschenbach, Wolfram von, 126, 251-256.
+
+"Eternal Gospel," the, 18.
+
+Exeter, Joseph of, 3.
+
+_Eyrbyggja Saga_, 350.
+
+
+Flora, Joachim of, 18.
+
+Froude, Mr J.A., 55.
+
+
+Gautier, M. Leon, 25.
+
+_Genesis and Exodus_, 202.
+
+Geoffrey, Gaimar, 98.
+
+Geoffrey of Monmouth, 94 _sq._ and chap. iii. _passim_.
+
+Geoffroy de Villehardouin, 323 _sq._
+
+_Gerard de Roussillon_, 44.
+
+Gielee, Jacquemart, 291.
+
+Gildas, 91.
+
+Gloucester, Robert of, 204 _sq._
+
+_Golias_ and Goliardic Poems, 4 _sq._
+
+Gottfried von Strasburg, 242-246.
+
+_Gran Conquesta de Ultramar_, 410.
+
+_Grandes Chroniques_ of St Denis, 327.
+
+_Grettis Saga_, 351-360.
+
+Guest, Dr, 218 _sq._
+
+_Guillaume d'Orange_, 59 _sq._
+
+
+Hallam, 28.
+
+Hamilton, Sir W., 15.
+
+Hartmann von Aue, 246-251.
+
+_Havelok the Dane_, 207, 208.
+
+Haureau, _De la Philosophie Scolastique_, 14 note, 19.
+
+_Heimskringla_, 344, 361.
+
+Heinrich von Veldeke, 242.
+
+Henryson, 150, 272.
+
+_Historia de Proeliis_, 153.
+
+_Horn (King)_, 208, 209.
+
+Hunt, Leigh, 279.
+
+_Hysminias and Hysmine_, 140, 377 _sq._
+
+
+_Iter ad Paradisum_, 154.
+
+
+Jacopone da Todi, 8.
+
+Jeanroy, M. A., 270.
+
+Joachim of Flora, 18.
+
+John of Salisbury, 17.
+
+John Scotus Erigena, 17.
+
+Joinville, Jean de, 328, 329.
+
+Joly, M., 151.
+
+Joseph of Exeter, 3.
+
+_Jus de la Feuillie_, 318-321.
+
+
+Koelbing, Dr, 166 note.
+
+Koenig Rother, 237.
+
+_Kormak's Saga_, 347, 360.
+
+Kudrun, 233-236.
+
+
+Lambert li Tors, 157 _sq._
+
+Lamprecht, 156.
+
+Lang, Mr, 331.
+
+Lanson, M., 83.
+
+_Laxdaela Saga_, 349.
+
+Layamon, 98, 99, 192-196.
+
+Lombard, Peter, 17.
+
+Lorris, William of, 300 _sq._
+
+Loth, M., 143.
+
+
+_Mabinogion, the_, 105.
+
+Madden, Sir Frederic, 97.
+
+Malory, Sir T., 104 and chap. iii. _passim_.
+
+Manasses, 379.
+
+Map or Mapes, Walter, 4 _sq._, 58, 100 _sq._
+
+Marcabrun, 368
+
+Marie de France, 285, 286, 311.
+
+Martin, Herr, 290.
+
+Meon, 276.
+
+Meung, Jean de, 300 _sq._
+
+Meyer, M. Paul, 151 _sq._
+
+Michelant, M., 159.
+
+Mill, J.S., 15.
+
+Minnesingers, the minor, 261-264.
+
+_Missa de Potatoribus_, 4.
+
+
+Nennius, 91, 92.
+
+_Nibelungenlied_, 227 _sq._
+
+Nicetas, 379.
+
+_Njal's Saga_, 348.
+
+_Nut-Browne Maid, the_, 271.
+
+Nutt, Mr, 135.
+
+
+Occam, William of, 17, 18.
+
+Orange, William of, 59 _sq._
+
+Orm and the _Ormulum_, 196-198.
+
+_Owl and the Nightingale, the_, 203.
+
+
+Paris, M. Gaston, 25, 102 note, 212 note.
+
+Paris, M. Paulin, 25, 97, 270.
+
+Pater, Mr, 331.
+
+Peacock, 142, 279.
+
+Peter Lombard, 17.
+
+Peter the Spaniard, 18.
+
+Prantl, _Geschichte der Logik_, 14 note, 19.
+
+_Proverbs_, early English, 203.
+
+
+Quintus Curtius, 155.
+
+
+Raymond Lully, 18.
+
+Raynaud, M. G., 270.
+
+Renan, M., 201.
+
+_Reynard the Fox_, 286 _sq._
+
+Rhys, Professor, 136 _sq._
+
+Robert of Gloucester, 204 _sq._
+
+_Robin et Marion_, 317, 318.
+
+_Roland, Chanson de_, 29 _sq._
+
+Romance of the Rose, the, 299 _sq._
+
+_Romancero Francais_, 27.
+
+_Romanzen und Pastourellen_, 270.
+
+Roscellin, 17.
+
+Ruteboeuf, 312, 313.
+
+
+Sagas, 339 _sq._
+
+_Santa Maria Egipciaca_, 407, 408.
+
+Scotus Erigena, 17.
+
+Scotus, John Duns, 18.
+
+_Siete Partidas_, 409.
+
+_Specimens of Lyric Poetry_, 209 _sq._
+
+Strasburg, Gottfried von, 243-246.
+
+St Victor, Adam of, 8.
+
+Sully, Maurice de, 323.
+
+Swinburne, Mr, 331, 367, 370.
+
+
+Theodorus Prodromus, 379.
+
+Thomas of Celano, 9.
+
+Thomas of Kent, 158.
+
+Thoms, Mr, 282.
+
+Ticknor, Mr, 393 _sq._
+
+Todi, Jacopone da, 8.
+
+Tressan, Comte de, 28.
+
+_Tristram, Sir_, 116.
+
+Troubadours, the, 362 _sq._
+
+Troy, the Tale of, 167 _sq._
+
+Troyes, Chrestien de, 101 _sq._
+
+Turpin, Archbishop, 29.
+
+Tyre, William of, 327.
+
+Tyrwhitt, 25.
+
+
+Valerius, Julius, 152 _sq._
+
+Veldeke, H. von, 242.
+
+Vigfusson, Dr, 267.
+
+Villehardouin, G. de, 323 _sq._
+
+Vincent of Beauvais, 18.
+
+Vogelweide, Walther von der, 256-261.
+
+_Volsunga Saga_, 228, 229.
+
+
+Wace, 98.
+
+Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford. See Geoffrey of Monmouth.
+
+Walter of Chatillon, 155.
+
+Walther von der Vogelweide, 256-261.
+
+Ward, Mr, 164.
+
+Warton's _History of Poetry_, 139.
+
+Weber, 163.
+
+William IX., of Poitiers, 364.
+
+William of Tyre, 327.
+
+Wolfram von Eschenbach, 126, 251-256.
+
+Wright, Thomas, 209.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
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