The Minnesinger of Germany

Front matter

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Contents

—e— CHAP. PAGE I. THE MINNESINGER AND THE MINNESONG . . I II. THe MINNELAY : : : ; ‘ : oS Ill. THE DIVINE MINNESONG . : : : 0 75 IV. WALTHER VON DER VOGELWEIDE . 4 : . 129 V. ULRICH VON LICHTENSTEIN : : : 3 163

VI. THE METRICAL ROMANCES OF THE MINNESINGER AND GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG’S “ TRISTAN AND ISOLDE” . : ; : , : . 189

THE MINNESINGER OF GERMANY.

II

— Above all wonders of the world remark a mickle wonder ; How soul and flesh one body are, And how the soul’s a spirit, and how it lives forever. — And how God’s word is man and Christ, Christ God’s child here and yonder ; God’s three names, too, do thou declare ; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; three names that none can sever.

— See how God one in one doth flow, And cunningly doth render The one in two ; say yea, not no, If thou wouldst life engender ; Part one in three, three in one show, Tripled and joined if thou thee wouldst unto Christ surrender.

STANZA IN REGENBOGEN’S SONG FROM HIS HYMN TO THE VIRGIN.

— How spake Isaiah in the dearth? “Ye heavens, bend down to earth, and clouds pour forth your waters !

Earth, ope thou thy wounds most wide, And bring to us a God with power of saving!”

— Maria, Virgin, thou’rt the earth: Thou’rt blessed, O wife and mother ’bove all earth’s blessed daughters. ; God’s Son oped thy heart, sweet bride; Then came the dew the prophet erst was craving ;

— And likewise in her breast the sword, When from the Holy Spirit she received The heavenly, the quickening word, And the new wondrous mystery perceived. Maria! Thou the earth, I wot, Art of Isaiah’s. word : Thou bringest us the true Christ Jesus, Lord. Ye dews and ye sweet rains from heaven, And clouds, bore then the Holy Spirit down, By the blest word to Gabriel given, Who then from heaven brought down her crown. O, bless¢d dew of earth and heaven forever blooms what you to bloom restored.

O Jew, damnation is thy lot That thy belief with ours does not accord.

STANZA IN FRAUENLOB’S LONG TONE FROM HIS HYMN TO THE VIRGIN. +

— Maria, God’s own Mother, Daughter, Bride most sweet, Let me repeat To thee the angel’s greeting, When thou God cam’st meeting,

Then taking Him into thy life ; also thy repeating: “T am the handmaid of the Lord; his will be done unto me.”

— O Lady, let me linger on the grace so rare, When thou didst bare To Simeon’s sword thy tender Breast in the temple’s splendor.

Let me recall his sufferings too, the life He did surrender, Mother, before thy very eyes, thy lifeless heart ; ah, woe me!

— Life hallowed in all thoughts of mine. Let me recall the grace divine Of that Child thine ; Thy joy benign, When his ascension saw thine eyen; And God the same did thee assign ; Thou, source of all man’s blessedness, O, from all sin renew me!

STANZA IN MARNER’S LONG TONE FROM HIS HYMN TO THE VIRGIN.

Maria, blooming almond-tree, The heavenly manna’s shrine, From sin’s grim death-frost set us free, For thou art helper all divine: Thou the royal glorious throne of the wise king Solomon,

Thou Judith, who mad’st valiantly The prize of victory thine ; Thou Esther, queen by king’s decree, Who, when in need thy people pine, Dar’st interpose thy pleading tone, and front the death-doom for thine own.

Thou, pure Jael, now hast slain Sisera, haughty king ; Thou art she who from the serpent took his venomed sting : Thou glorious pilot-star !

Thou art the wise wife Abigail ; and sinners thee approach from far.

Thou wert beloved by David, king, who slew proud Goliath, (Craftily, in faith !) And cleft his head in wrath, Whence wisdom smoothed e’er his path. O Mother, pure and chaste, sweet Maid, turn from ‘us sin’s hateful breath, ‘So that we gladly thee may worship, and thy great honor ever own!

While the Minnesong thus on the one hand was frozen into pure mechanical versifying, it on the other hand and from another school received, if possible, a still greater injury by being dragged down into the region of vulgarity and obscenity. Nithart, though certainly one of the most gifted of the Minnesinger, was the chief leader in this downward movement, and the vast number of his songs transmitted to us to substantiate, as it were, his popularity, turn chiefly upon vulgar descriptions of village brawls, and amorous dialogues. His great genius and illimitable command over language appear chiefly in his Lays. He was indeed the knight-minstrel turned into the minstrel-vagabond and tavern-house loafer. Songs that would characterize his peculiar genre, it would be almost impossible to give. The following two show him in his better mood : —

FAREWELL TO THE WORLD.

— All that in the Summer full of glory was, Now begins to sorrow at the Winter’s long and heavy time, And the birdlets’ warblings now have vanished eyerywhere.

— Altogether perished are the flowers and grass, And behold how cold and grim snow-coverings o’er the forests climb ; Whilst the meadow and the heath are stretched out waste and bare.

— Hence I raise this lamentation : I no more enjoy me, And I fear this tribulation Never will pass by me.

— Perhaps you may wonder what my plaint can be, Which I in repentant spirit did unto my friends disclose.

I will tell you, and you shall acknowledge’t must be truth ;

— Alas, never is a man of sins here free, And, moreo’er, the longer’t stays the worse in Christendom it grows.

This reflection darks my days and kills off all my youth.

— Shall I then to joys resign me My heart does not cherish?

And not rather round Him twine me Who'll not let me perish?

— If I, sinner, try to bathe me in repentance, Then my lady asks me quick to sing a song unto her child; Do I then try to withdraw me from her urging e’er, — She does threaten me to cut off my acquaintance. Her immodesty has thus fore’er my thoughts from her beguiled ; I am in that mood wherein my soul from sin I’d clear, — Which I from God have led astray By my voluptuous measures ; God’s angel must guide me the way To heaven’s soothing treasures.

— Woman without honor, what wouldst have of me? Thousand young ones ready are hereafter to stand in my place ; I’m resolved to serve a Lord, who me for Him has won.

— From this time I will no more your singer be. Woe me that I ever did myself unto your court abase?

This my soul’s salvation has for a long time undone.

— That I did not fly from you

Makes my sorrow greater, And to God my soul withdrew,

Whose reward is better.

— My lady, she is older than a thousand years, And still is stupider than is a little ungrown sevenyears child.

So weak-minded unto me was ne’er a woman known, — — She has ever led me stray ; and I have fears She hopes still I may by her again be captured and . beguiled, — For this to a messenger, sent by me, she did own. — She made offer openly Of her great affection.

But I replied: Away with thee!

And prompt me no defection.

— Now since the wise are always God’s own children named, Could I be wise I also should be one of his own children’s choir ; But their abode, alas! too far removed is from me, —For all the fools by love of world are ever claimed.

O Lord of heav’n! guide thou me, and my soul with Thy great love inspire!

Strength above all the Christians I, God, hope to gain from Thee.

— Thus I my soul’s salvation may, O Lord, from Thee recover !

And evermore in thy sweet way Remain thy pray’rful lover.

SPRING-SONG.

— The wood that looked so grisly — With snow and ice lifelessly, — Is now with glorious colors blest. O, children, haste _ TPenjoy its treat, And where gay flowers grow swing your feet.

— On many a green branch swinging, — Little birdlets singing — Warble sweet notes in the air.

Flowers fair There I found Green spread the meadow all around.

—TIam a friend of Maytime,

— ’Twas then I saw in daytime

My love dance in the linden’s shade ; The leaves all play’d To turn away

From her the heat of the sunny day.

A Dance-song by Tanhuser must conclude this selection of Minnesongs ; it illustrates moreover the Nithart style of Minnelied, just alluded to. Whether this knight-poet Tanhuser is the prototype of the legendary Tannhauser of the Venus-mountain, is uncertain ; though his poems are vividly amorous enough to justify the suspicion. Most of those poems are in the form of lays. Tanhuser was a much admired poet of his time, and this Dance-song of his is certainly an admirable production, calling up the scenes of the village dance with dramatic truthfulness.

DANCE-SONG.

— In Christmas times so cheery

We should remove all thoughts that make us dreary. Too long we’ve lived in dolor ;

Now follow me, for I your hearts will cheer ye. — I'll sing for you some dances.

Look! on your flower-crowned fair one cast your

glances,

Her cheeks of rosy color —

Ah, how your hearts would laugh if they were near ye! — Whensoe’er the fairest

Bends forward, rapture thrills me, O the rarest ! And her bosom’s sinking

Keepeth my mind on love forever thinking.

— She is so sweet, so pretty, I’ll sing her praise in my readiest ditty : Her hands so shapely standing, Her fingers as queen’s tapering so slowly, — — Thus is she formed and shapen.

Moreo’er so well timed all her speeches happen, Without false praises spending, I well may say she looks an empress wholly ; — Aye, I do pledge my favor With all of you, that in this land I never

Beheld so fair a creature : Perfect in form and pure in every feature.

— Aye, dance away and clatter,

So you no dust upon my fair one scatter. Look not at her often,

For if you do I fear you’ll lose your senses. — Her laugh so beguiling —

Ah, thousand hearts must break when she is smiling. Her moist glances soften,

And in my heart awaken love’s sweet trances. — Stand back, ye boys and lasses!

Make for the fairest room whene’er she passes. This is but your duty:

IT hold no other land holds such a beauty.

— Ah, laugh now at my folly:

I tremble when her toes peep out so jolly, They are so shapely standing !

Ah comely form and dear belovéd sweetheart ! — Dance, my love! ye follow !

O ne’er were feet so rounded, small and hollow. If thee please not their ending

Know thou, my friend, that thou no judge of feet art. — White are her legs and curved ;

Her curled hair’s waves have made me all unnerved ; Her shape perfectly moulded!

All women ought to be in her is well unfolded.

— Thou dearly loved, good creature, Move here, stand there, perfect in ev’ry feature!

No beauty like’t in story : Thy mouth so red, thy eyen so sweetly calling, — Thy cheeks, that glow so rosy ! White thy throat, its necklace there so cozy, Thou dear summer glory !

Thy hair as full as I could wish it falling. — Thy breasts, so sweetly heaving, — Dance, love, O, dance, love sweet past all believing ! Let thy gentle glances Linger on me, sweet love, and stir my senses!

yh,

CHAPTER. iI. THE MINNELAY

Gi HE Minnelay 1 is distinguished from the Min- » oe nesong in this, that it lacks the triplicity of SSE4)] the strophe-form and the sameness of the strophes. Hence the ‘strophe itself in its own con- “struction is completely independent, and each strophe of a Lay is is again also completely independent in Tegard to the others. At Teast, so far as known, there was no regular law on this matter. From the descriptions given by Lichtenstein and Gottfried von Strassburg, as well as from the form of the Lay itself, it would appear as if its 3 singing had usually required a quicker time movement and f more Violent. modulations and musical. transitions from low to high notes than the commonsong. At any até, being invariably rendered with the accompaniment of some stringed instrument, the music was a necessary element. for the perception of its full rhythmical beauty. Not a very large number of “Lays have~been™ preserved. Most of these have for their subject the general one of all Minne-poetry : love, the seasons, and the state of society. Several Lays of Tanhuser also bring in matters of geographical and historical lore in an odd, comical way, whilst Nithart shows his power over language, wherein he is excelled only by the great German humorist of the sixteenth century, Johann Fischart, nowhere so astonishingly and with such felicitous effect as in his Lays. In a number of the Lays the last line recounts the breaking of the fiddle-bow or strings, whereby both . the singing of the Lay and the dance, which it generally excited, were put to an end. Ulrich von Lichtenstein has some excellent Lays, but we here give two by the good knight Ulrich von Wintersteten, who seems to have had a preference for this form of Minne-poetry. Of the poet’s life little or nothing is known except that he lived about in the very bloom of Minne-poetry, under the Emperor Frederick II. Both of these Lays seem to be somewhat connected ;- and an exact metrical correspondence appears also between the several strophes ; for instance, between strophes I, 2, 3, 4, and strophes 9, 10, 11, 12; also between the 5th and 6th, the 7th and the 8th, and the 13th and 14th in the first Lay. In the second Lay the 1st and 2d, and the 3d and 4th, and the 5th and 6th strophes have identical rhythmical arrangements.

HN, LEANN,

I.

Ah, love, mark how thy glances Awake

And shake

My senses

With sweet love trances ;

And yet how full joy still mischances.

The Minnelay.

2

Fool J, I borrow Sorrow Forever ; Sever From me all gladness and pleasure, Love, keep sending, Kindly lending, Befriending Help to my heart without measure.

, 3.

If with the dear, I — believe me! — Could dally

And rally

From grief me:

Sorrow would have to leave me

And joy come at once and reprieve me.

Sweet one, let me not languish!

Quiet

The riot

Of my great anguish !

Let love me not vanguish / Protect me, O love, from that anguish !

The Minnelay.