Wine, Women, and Song Part 1

Wine, Women, and Song.

by Various.

I.

When we try to picture to ourselves the intellectual and moral state of Europe in the Middle Ages, some fixed and almost stereotyped ideas immediately suggest themselves. We think of the nations immersed in a gross mental lethargy; pa.s.sively witnessing the gradual extinction of arts and sciences which Greece and Rome had splendidly inaugurated; allowing libraries and monuments of antique civilisation to crumble into dust; while they trembled under a dull and brooding terror of coming judgment, shrank from natural enjoyment as from deadly sin, or yielded themselves with brutal eagerness to the satisfaction of vulgar appet.i.tes. Preoccupation with the other world in this long period weakens man's hold upon the things that make his life desirable.

Philosophy is sunk in the slough of ignorant, perversely subtle disputation upon subjects dest.i.tute of actuality. Theological fanaticism has extinguished liberal studies and the gropings of the reason after truth in positive experience. Society lies prostrate under the heel of tyrannous orthodoxy. We discern men in ma.s.ses, aggregations, cla.s.ses, guilds--everywhere the genus and the species of humanity, rarely and by luminous exception individuals and persons.

Universal ideals of Church and Empire clog and confuse the nascent nationalities. Prolonged habits, of extra-mundane contemplation, combined with the decay of real knowledge, volatilise the thoughts and aspirations of the best and wisest into dreamy unrealities, giving a false air of mysticism to love, shrouding art in allegory, reducing the interpretation of texts to an exercise of idle ingenuity, and the study of Nature (in Bestiaries, Lapidaries, and the like) to an insane system of grotesque and pious quibbling. The conception of man's fall and of the incurable badness of this world bears poisonous fruit of cynicism and asceticism, that twofold bitter almond, hidden in the harsh monastic sh.e.l.l. The devil has become G.o.d upon this earth, and G.o.d's eternal jailer in the next world. Nature is regarded with suspicion and aversion; the flesh, with shame and loathing, broken by spasmodic outbursts of lawless self-indulgence. For human life there is one formula:--

"Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?

Sin their conception, their birth weeping, Their life a general mist of error, Their death a hideous storm of terror."

The contempt of the world is the chief theme of edification. A charnel filled with festering corpses, snakes, and worms points the preacher's moral. Before the eyes of all, in terror-stricken vision or in nightmares of uneasy conscience, leap the inextinguishable flames of h.e.l.l. Salvation, meanwhile, is being sought through amulets, relics, pilgrimages to holy places, fetishes of divers sorts and different degrees of potency. The faculties of the heart and head, defrauded of wholesome sustenance, have recourse to delirious debauches of the fancy, dreams of magic, compacts with the evil one, insanities of desire, inept.i.tudes of discipline. s.e.xual pa.s.sion, ignoring the true place of woman in society, treats her on the one hand like a servile instrument, on the other exalts her to sainthood or execrates her as the chief impediment to holiness. Common sense, sanity of judgment, acceptance of things as they are, resolution to ameliorate the evils and to utilise the goods of life, seem everywhere deficient. Men are obstinate in misconception of their proper aims, wasting their energies upon shadows instead of holding fast by realities, waiting for a future whereof they know nothing, in lieu of mastering and economising the present. The largest and most serious undertakings of united Europe in this period--the Crusades--are based upon a radical mistake. "Why seek ye the living among the dead? Behold, He is not here, but risen!" With these words ringing in their ears, the nations flock to Palestine and pour their blood forth for an empty sepulchre.

The one Emperor who attains the object of Christendom by rational means is excommunicated for his success. Frederick II. returns from the Holy Land a ruined man because he made a compact useful to his Christian subjects with the Chief of Islam.

II.

Such are some of the stereotyped ideas which crowd our mind when we reflect upon the Middle Ages. They are certainly one-sided. Drawn for the most part from the study of monastic literature, exaggerated by that reaction against medievalism which the Renaissance initiated, they must be regarded as inadequate to represent the whole truth. At no one period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the close of the thirteenth century was the mental atmosphere of Europe so unnaturally clouded. Yet there is sufficient substance in them to justify their formulation. The earlier Middle Ages did, in fact, extinguish antique civility. The later Middle Ages did create, to use a phrase of Michelet, an army of dunces for the maintenance of orthodoxy. The intellect and the conscience became used to moving paralytically among visions, dreams, and mystic terrors, weighed down with torpor, abusing virile faculties for the suppression of truth and the perpetuation of revered error.

It is, therefore, with a sense of surprise, with something like a shock to preconceived opinions, that we first become acquainted with the medieval literature which it is my object in the present treatise to make better known to English readers. That so bold, so fresh, so natural, so pagan a view of human life as the Latin songs of the Wandering Students exhibit, should have found clear and artistic utterance in the epoch of the Crusades, is indeed enough to bid us pause and reconsider the justice of our stereotyped ideas about that period. This literature makes it manifest that the ineradicable appet.i.tes and natural instincts of men and women were no less vigorous in fact, though less articulate and self-a.s.sertive, than they had been in the age of Greece and Rome, and than they afterwards displayed themselves in what is known as the Renaissance.

With something of the same kind we have long been familiar in the Troubadour poetry of Provence. But Provencal literature has a strong chivalrous tincture, and every one is aware with what relentless fury the civilisation which produced it was stamped out by the Church. The literature of the Wandering Students, on the other hand, owes nothing to chivalry, and emanates from a cla.s.s which formed a subordinate part of the ecclesiastical militia. It is almost vulgar in its presentment of common human impulses; it bears the mark of the proletariate, though adorned with flourishes betokening the neighbourhood of Church and University.

III.

Much has recently been written upon the subject of an abortive Renaissance within the Middle Ages. The centre of it was France, and its period of brilliancy may be roughly defined as the middle and end of the twelfth century. Much, again, has been said about the religious movement in England, which spread to Eastern Europe, and antic.i.p.ated the Reformation by two centuries before the date of Luther. The songs of the Wandering Students, composed for the most part in the twelfth century, ill.u.s.trate both of these early efforts after self-emanc.i.p.ation. Uttering the unrestrained emotions of men attached by a slender tie to the dominant clerical cla.s.s and diffused over all countries, they bring us face to face with a body of opinion which finds in studied chronicle or laboured dissertation of the period no echo. On the one side, they express that delight in life and physical enjoyment which was a main characteristic of the Renaissance; on the other, they proclaim that revolt against the corruption of Papal Rome which was the motive-force of the Reformation.

Our knowledge of this poetry is derived from two chief sources. One is a MS. of the thirteenth century, which was long preserved in the monastery of Benedictbeuern in Upper Bavaria, and is now at Munich.

Richly illuminated with rare and curious ill.u.s.trations of contemporary manners, it seems to have been compiled for the use of some ecclesiastical prince. This fine codex was edited in 1847 at Stuttgart. The t.i.tle of the publication is _Carmina Burana_, and under that designation I shall refer to it. The other is a Harleian MS., written before 1264, which Mr. Thomas Wright collated with other English MSS., and published in 1841 under the name of _Latin Poems commonly attributed to Walter Mapes_.

These two sources have to some extent a common stock of poems, which proves the wide diffusion of the songs in question before the date a.s.signable to the earlier of the two MS. authorities. But while this is so, it must be observed that the _Carmina Burana_ are richer in compositions which form a prelude to the Renaissance; the English collections, on the other hand, contain a larger number of serious and satirical pieces antic.i.p.ating the Reformation.

Another important set of doc.u.ments for the study of the subject are the three large works of Edelstand du Meril upon popular Latin poetry; while the stores at our disposal have been otherwise augmented by occasional publications of German and English scholars, bringing to light numerous scattered specimens of a like description. Of late it has been the fas.h.i.+on in Germany to multiply anthologies of medieval student-songs, intended for companion volumes to the _Commersbuch_.

Among these, one ent.i.tled _Gaudeamus_ (Teubner, 2d edition, 1879) deserves honourable mention.

It is my purpose to give a short account of what is known about the authors of these verses, to a.n.a.lyse the general characteristics of their art, and to ill.u.s.trate the theme by copious translations. So far as I am aware, the songs of Wandering Students offer almost absolutely untrodden ground to the English translator; and this fact may be pleaded in excuse for the large number which I have laid under contribution.

In carrying out my plan, I shall confine myself princ.i.p.ally, but not strictly, to the _Carmina Burana_. I wish to keep in view the antic.i.p.ation of the Renaissance rather than to dwell upon those elements which indicate an early desire for ecclesiastical reform.

IV.

We have reason to conjecture that the Romans, even during the cla.s.sical period of their literature, used accentual rhythms for popular poetry, while quant.i.tative metres formed upon Greek models were the artificial modes employed by cultivated writers. However this may be, there is no doubt that, together with the decline of antique civilisation, accent and rhythm began to displace quant.i.ty and metre in Latin versification. Quant.i.tative measures, like the Sapphic and Hexameter, were composed accentually. The services and music of the Church introduced new systems of prosody. Rhymes, both single and double, were added to the verse; and the extraordinary flexibility of medieval Latin--that sonorous instrument of varied rhetoric used by Augustine in the prose of the _Confessions_, and gifted with poetic inspiration in such hymns as the _Dies Irae_ or the _Stabat Mater_--rendered this new vehicle of literary utterance adequate to all the tasks imposed on it by piety and metaphysic. The language of the _Confessions_ and the _Dies Irae_ is not, in fact, a decadent form of Cicero's prose or Virgil's verse, but a development of the Roman speech in accordance with the new conditions introduced by Christianity. It remained comparatively sterile in the department of prose composition, but it attained to high qualities of art in the verse and rhythms of men like Thomas of Celano, Thomas of Aquino, Adam of St. Victor, Bernard of Morlais, and Bernard of Clairvaux. At the same time, cla.s.sical Latin literature continued to be languidly studied in the cloisters and the schools of grammar. The metres of the ancients were practised with uncouth and patient a.s.siduity, strenuous efforts being made to keep alive an art which was no longer rightly understood. Rhyme invaded the hexameter, and the best verses of the medieval period in that measure were leonine.

The hymns of the Church and the secular songs composed for music in this base Latin took a great variety of rhythmic forms. It is clear that vocal melody controlled their movement; and one fixed element in all these compositions was rhyme--rhyme often intricate and complex beyond hope of imitation in our language. Elision came to be disregarded; and even the accentual values, which may at first have formed a subst.i.tute for quant.i.ty, yielded to musical notation. The epithet of popular belongs to these songs in a very real sense, since they were intended for the people's use, and sprang from popular emotion. Poems of this cla.s.s were technically known as _moduli_--a name which points significantly to the importance of music in their structure. Imitations of Ovid's elegiacs or of Virgil's hexameters obtained the name of _versus_. Thus Walter of Lille, the author of a regular epic poem on Alexander, one of the best medieval writers of _versus_, celebrates his skill in the other department of popular poetry thus--

"Perstrepuit _modulis_ Gallia tota meis."

(All France rang with my songs.)

We might compare the _versus_ of the Middle Ages with the stiff sculptures on a Romanesque font, lifelessly reminiscent of decadent cla.s.sical art; while the _moduli_, in their freshness, elasticity, and vigour of invention, resemble the floral scrolls, foliated cusps, and grotesque basreliefs of Gothic or Lombard architecture.

V.

Even in the half-light of what used to be called emphatically the Dark Ages, there pierce gleams which may be reflections from the past evening of paganism, or may intimate the earliest dawn of modern times. One of these is a song, partly popular, partly scholastic, addressed to a beautiful boy.[1] It begins thus--

"O admirabile veneris idolum"--

and continues in this strain, upon the same rhythm, blending reminiscences of cla.s.sical mythology and medieval metaphysic, and winding up with a reference to the Horatian _Vitas hinnuleo me similis Chloe_. This poem was composed in the seventh century, probably at Verona, for mention is made in it of the river Adige. The metre can perhaps be regarded as a barbarous treatment of the long Asclepiad; but each line seems to work out into two bars, divided by a marked rest, with two accents to each bar, and shows by what sort of transition the modern French Alexandrine may have been developed.

The oddly archaic phraseology of this love-song rendered it unfit for translation; but I have tried my hand at a kind of hymn in praise of Rome, which is written in the same peculiar rhythm:[2]--

"O Rome ill.u.s.trious, of the world emperess!

Over all cities thou queen in thy goodliness!

Red with the roseate blood of the martyrs, and White with the lilies of virgins at G.o.d's right hand!

Welcome we sing to thee; ever we bring to thee Blessings, and pay to thee praise for eternity.

"Peter, thou praepotent warder of Paradise, Hear thou with mildness the prayer of thy votaries; When thou art seated to judge the twelve tribes, O then Show thyself merciful; be thou benign to men; And when we call to thee now in the world's distress, Take thou our suffrages, master, with gentleness.

"Paul, to our litanies lend an indulgent ear, Who the philosophers vanquished with zeal severe: Thou that art steward now in the Lord's heavenly house, Give us to taste of the meat of grace bounteous; So that the wisdom which filled thee and nourished thee May be our sustenance through the truths taught by thee."

A curious secular piece of the tenth century deserves more than pa.s.sing mention. It shows how wine, women, and song, even in an age which is supposed to have trembled for the coming destruction of the world, still formed the attraction of some natures. What is more, there is a certain modern, as distinguished from cla.s.sical, tone of tenderness in the sentiment. It is the invitation of a young man to his mistress, bidding her to a little supper in his rooms:[3]--

"Come therefore now, my gentle fere, Whom as my heart I hold full dear; Enter my little room, which is Adorned with quaintest rarities: There are the seats with cus.h.i.+ons spread, The roof with curtains overhead; The house with flowers of sweetest scent And scattered herbs is redolent: A table there is deftly dight With meats and drinks of rare delight; There too the wine flows, sparkling, free; And all, my love, to pleasure thee.

There sound enchanting symphonies; The clear high notes of flutes arise; A singing girl and artful boy Are chanting for thee strains of joy; He touches with his quill the wire, She tunes her note unto the lyre: The servants carry to and fro Dishes and cups of ruddy glow; But these delights, I will confess, Than pleasant converse charm me less; Nor is the feast so sweet to me As dear familiarity.

"Then come now, sister of my heart, That dearer than all others art, Unto mine eyes thou s.h.i.+ning sun, Soul of my soul, thou only one!

I dwelt alone in the wild woods, And loved all secret solitudes; Oft would I fly from tumults far, And shunned where crowds of people are.

O dearest, do not longer stay!

Seek we to live and love to-day!

I cannot live without thee, sweet!

Time bids us now our love complete.

Why should we then defer, my own, What must be done or late or soon?