The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 10

Her rosy mouth paled; the fair colour, which was her ornament, died out of her skin; her bright eyes grew dim like night after day.

Another comparison is:

Like the siren's song, drawing a bark to the reef as by a magnet, so the sweet young queen attracted many hearts.

Love is a usurious plant, whose sun never goes down; a romance sweetens the mood as May dew sweetens the blood.

Constant friends.h.i.+p is one which takes the pleasure with the pain, the thorn with the rose. The last comparisons shew more thought, and still more is seen in the beginning of the poem, _Riwalin and Blancheflur_, which has a charming description of Spring.

Now the festival was agreed upon and arranged For the four flowering weeks When sweet May attracts, till he flies off again.

At Tinkapol upon a green plain High up on a wonderful meadow with spring colour Such as no eye has seen before or since. Soft sweet May Had dressed it with his own charming extravagance.

There were little wood birds, a joy to the ear, Flowers and gra.s.s and green plants and summer meads That were a delight to eye and heart.

One found there whatever one would, whatever May should bring-- Shade from the sun, limes by the brook, A gentle breeze which brought the prattle Of Mark's court people. May's friend, the green turf, Had made herself a charming costume of flowers, In which she shone back at the guests with a festival of her own; The blossoming trees smiled so sweetly at every one, That heart and mind smiled back again.

The pure notes of the birds, blessed and beautiful, Touched heart and senses, filling hill and dale with joy.

The dear nightingale, Sweet bird, may it ever be blessed!

Sang so l.u.s.tily upon the bough That many a heart was filled with joy and good humour.

There the company pitched itself With great delight on the green gra.s.s.

The limes gave enough shade, And many covered their tent roofs with green boughs.

There is a heartfelt ring in this. We see that even this early period of German mediaeval poetry was not entirely lacking in clear voices to sing of Nature with real sympathy.

The description of the Minne grotto is famous, with its magical accessories, its limes and other trees, birds, songs, and flowers, so that 'eye and ear alike found solace'; but the romantic love episode, interwoven as it is by the poet with the life of Nature, is more interesting for our purpose.

They had a court, they had a council which brought them nought but joy. Their courtiers were the green trees, the shade and the sunlight, the streamlet and the spring; flowers, gra.s.s, leaf, and blossom, which refreshed their eyes. Their service was the song of the birds, the little brown nightingales, the throstlets and the merles and other wood birds. The siskin and the ringdove vied with each other to do them pleasure, all day long their music rejoiced ear and soul. Their love was their high feast.... The man was with the woman, and the woman with the man; they had the fellows.h.i.+p they most desired, and were where they fain would be....

In the dewy morning they gat them forth to the meadow where gra.s.s and flowers alike had been refreshed. The glade was their pleasure-ground; they wandered hither and thither hearkening each other's speech, and waking the song of the birds by their footsteps. Then they turned them to where the cool clear spring rippled forth, and sat beside its stream and watched its flow till the sun grew high in the heaven, and they felt its shade.

Then they betook them to the linden, its branches offered them a welcome shelter, the breezes were sweet and soft beneath its shade, and the couch at its feet was decked with the fairest gra.s.s and flowers.

With these lovers, love of Nature is only second to love of each other. So in the following:

That same morning had Tristan and his lady-love stolen forth hand in hand and come full early, through the morning dew, to the flowery meadow and the lovely vale. Dove and nightingale saluted them sweetly, greeting their friends Tristan and Iseult. The wild wood birds bade them welcome in their own tongue ... it was as if they had conspired among themselves to give the lovers a morning greeting. They sang from the leafy branches in changeful wise, answering each other in song and refrain. The spring that charmed their eye and ear whispered a welcome, even as did the linden with its rustling leaves. The blossoming trees, the fair meadow, the flowers, and the green gra.s.s--all that bloomed laughed at their coming; the dew which cooled their feet and refreshed their heart offered a silent greeting.

The amorous pa.s.sion was the soil in which, in its early narrow stages, sympathy for Nature grew up. Was it the thirteenth-century lyrics, the love-songs of the Minnesingers, which unfolded the germ?

For the lyric is the form in which the deepest expression can be given to feeling for Nature, and in which she either appears as background, frame, or ornament, or, by borrowing a soul or symbolizing thought and feeling, blends with the inner life.

As the German court epics took their material from France, so the German love-songs were inspired by the Provencal troubadours. The national differences stand out clear to view: the vivid glowing Provencal is fresher, more vehement, and mettlesome; the dreamy German more monotonous, tame, and melancholy. The one is given to proud daring, wooing, battle, and the triumph of victory; the other to musing, loving, and brooding enthusiasm. The stamp of the occasional, of improvisation, is upon all Provencal work; while with the German Minnesingers, everything--Nature as well as love--tends to be stereotyped, monotonous.

The scanty remains of Troubadour songs[7] often shew mind and Nature very strikingly brought together, either in harmony or contrast. For example, Bernard von Ventadour (1195):

It may annoy others to see the foliage fall from the trees, but it pleases me greatly; one cannot fancy I should long for leaves and flowers when she, my dear one, is haughty to me.

Cold and snow become flowers and greenery under her charming glance.

As I slumber at night, I am waked by the sweet song of the nightingale; nothing but love in my mind quite thrilled by shudders of delight.

G.o.d! could I be a swallow and sweep through the air, I would go at midnight to her little chamber.

When I behold the lark up spring To meet the bright sun joyfully, How he forgets to poise his wing In his gay spirit's revelry.

Alas! that mournful thoughts should spring E'en from that happy songster's glee!

Strange that such gladdening sight should bring Not joy but pining care to me.

A very modern thought which calls to mind Theodore Storm's touching lines after the death of his wife:

But this I cannot endure, that the sun smiles as before, clocks strike and bells ring as in thy lifetime, and day and night still follow each other.

He connects spring with love:

When gra.s.s grows green and fresh leaves spring And flowers are budding on the plain, When nightingales so sweetly sing And through the greenwood swells the strain, Then joy I in the song and in the flower, Joy in myself but in my lady more; All objects round my spirit turns to joy, But most from her my rapture rises high.

Arnold von Mareuil (about 1200) sings in the same way:

O! how sweet the breeze of April Breathing soft, as May draws near, While through nights serene and gentle Songs of gladness meet the ear.

Every bird his well-known language Warbling in the morning's pride, Revelling on in joy and gladness By his happy partner's side....

With such sounds of bliss around me, Who could wear a saddened heart?

He calls his lady-love

The fairest creature which Nature has produced here below, fairer than I can express and faker than a beautiful May day, than suns.h.i.+ne in March, shade in summer, than May roses, April rain, the flower of beauty, mirror of love, the key of Fame.

Bertran de Born too sings:

The beautiful spring delights me well When flowers and leaves are growing, And it pleases my heart to hear the swell Of the bird's sweet chorus flowing In the echoing wood, etc.

The Greek lyrists up to Alexandrian times contented themselves with implying indirectly that nothing delighted them so much as May and its delights; but these singers implicitly state it. The German Minnesingers too[8] are loud in praise of spring, as in that anonymous song:

I think nothing so good nor worthy of praise As a fair rose and my good man's love; The song of the little birds in the woods is clear to many a heart.

and summer is greeted with:

The good are glad that summer comes. See what a benefit it is to many hearts.

The Troubadour motive is here too:

Winter and snow seem as beautiful flowers and clover to me, when I have embraced her.

and Kurenberg makes a lady sing:

When I stand there alone in my s.h.i.+ft and think of thee, n.o.ble knight, I blush like a rose on its thorn.

Delight in summer, complaint of winter--this is the fundamental chord struck again and again; there is scarcely any trace of blending the feelings of the lover with those of Nature. It is a monotonous repet.i.tion of a few themes, of flowers and little birds as messengers of love, and lady-loves who are brighter than the sun, whose presence brings spring in winter or cheers a grey and snowy day.

Deitmar von Eist greets spring with:

Ah! now the time of the little birds' singing is coming for us, the great lime is greening, the long winter is past, one sees well-shaped flowers spread their glory over the heath. 'Tis a joy to many hearts, and a comfort too to mine.

In another song the birds and roses remind him of a happy past and of the lady of his heart.

A little bird sang on the lime o'erhead, Its song resounded through the wood And turned my heart back to another place; And once again I saw the roses blow, And they brought back the many thoughts I cherish of a lady.