The Development Of The Feeling For Nature In The Middle Ages And Modern Times Part 9

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

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

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

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

When night ended and day began.

On the 12th day they quitted the country.

In Maytime. On a cool morning.

This is a little richer:

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

Much more definite and distinct is:

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

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

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

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

Companions are few;

He sprang like a wild lion.

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

Images are few too:

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

Wilhelm Grimm rightly observes:

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

And further:

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

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

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

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

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

The battle scenes, as well as other scenes in this poem, are bold and exaggerated. Armies meet like roaring seas; missiles fly from both sides as thick as snow; after the dreadful bath of blood, sun and moon veil their light and turn away from the murder committed there.

Hartmann von der Aue, too, did not draw real Nature, but only one of his own invention.

For example, the wild forest with the magic spring in _Iwein_:

I turned to the wilds next morning, and found an extensive clearing, hidden in the forest, solitary and without husbandmen.

There, to my distress, I descried a sad delight of the eyes--beasts of every kind that I know the names of, attacking each other.... this spring is cold and very pure; neither rain, sun, or wind reach it; it is screened by a most beautiful lime tree. The tree is excessively tall and thick, so that neither sun nor rain can penetrate its foliage, winter does not injure it, nor lessen its beauty by one hair; 'tis green and blossoming the whole year round.... Over the spring there is a wonderfully fine stone ... the tree was so covered with birds that I could scarcely see the branches, and even the foliage almost disappeared. The sweet songs were pleasant and resounded through the forest, which re-echoed them....

As I poured water upon the ruby, the sun, which had just come out, disappeared, the birds' song round about ceased, a black storm approached, dark heavy storm-clouds came from all four quarters of the vault of heaven. It seemed no longer bright day ... soon a thousand flashes of lightning played round me in the forest ... there came storm, rain, and hail ... the storm became so great that the forest broke down.

He never shews a real love for Nature even in his lyrics, for the wish for flowers in _Winter Complaint_ can hardly be said to imply that:

He who cares for flowers must lament much at this heavy, dismal time; a wife helps to shorten the long nights. In this way I will shorten long winter without the birds' song.

Wolfram von Eschenbach, too, is very sparing of references to Nature: time is given by such phrases as 'when twilight began,' or 'as the day broke,' 'at the bright glow of morning' ... 'as day already turned to evening.'

His interest in real things was driven into the background by love-making and adventures--_Arthur's Round Table_ and the _Holy Grail_; all the romance of knighthood. When he described a forest or a garden, he always decked it out lavishly.

For instance, the garden in Orgeluse:

A garden surrounding a mountain, planted with n.o.ble trees where pomegranates, figs, olives, vines, and other fruits grew richly ... a spring poured from the rock, and (for all this would have been nothing to him without a fair lady) there he found what did not displease him--a lady so beautiful and fair that he was charmed at the sight, the flower of womanly beauty.

Comparisons are few and not very poetic. In _Songs of the Heart_--

The lady of the land watered herself with her heart's tears.

Her eyes rained upon the child.

Her joy was drowned in lamentation.

Gawan and Orgeluse,

Spite their outer sweetness, as disagreeable as a shower of rain in suns.h.i.+ne.

There were many fair flowers, but their colours could not compare with that of Orgeluse.

His heroes are specially fond of birds. Young Parzival

Felt little care while the little birds sang round him; it made his heart swell, he ran weeping into the house.

and Gawan

Found a door open into a garden; he stept in to look round and enjoy the air and the singing of the birds.

So we see that in the _Nibelungenlied_ scarcely a plant grew, and Hartmann and Wolfram's gardens belonged almost entirely to an unreal region; there are no traces of a very deep feeling for Nature in all this.

But Gottfried von Stra.s.sburg, with his vivid, sensuous imagination and keen eye for beauty, shewed a distinct advance both in taste and achievement. He, too, notes time briefly: 'And as it drew towards evening,' 'Now day had broke.' He repeats his comparisons: fair ladies are 'the wonder rose of May,' 'the longing white rose.' The two Isolts are sun and dawn. Brangane is the full moon. The terrified girl is thus described: