<h1>X <br/> THE CID, THE HOLY GRAIL, THE NIBELUNGEN.</h1>
<p>Anyone who has studied even perfunctorily the Books of the Arts and of
the Deeds of the Thirteenth Century, who has realized its
accomplishments in enduring artistic creations, sublime and exemplary
models and inspirations for all after time, who has appreciated what
it succeeded in doing for the education of the classes and of the
masses, the higher education being provided for at least as large a
proportion of the people as in our present century, while the creation
of what were practically great technical schools that culled out of
the masses the latent geniuses who could accomplish supreme artistic
results in the arts and crafts and did more and better for the masses
than any subsequent generation, can scarcely help but turn with
interest to read the Book of the Words of the period and to find out
what forms of literature interested this surprising people. One is
almost sure to think at the first moment of consideration that the
literature will not be found worthy of the other achievements of the
times. In most men's minds the Thirteenth Century does not readily
call up the idea of a series of great works in literature, whose
influence has been at all as profound and enduring as that of the
universities in the educational order, or of the Cathedrals in the
artistic order.</p>
<p>This false impression, however, is due only to the fact that the
literary creations of the Thirteenth Century are so diverse in subject
and in origin, that they are very seldom associated with each other,
unless there has been actual recognition of their contemporaneousness
from deliberate calling to mind of the dates at which certain basic
works in our modern literatures were composed. It is not the least
surprise that comes to the student of the Thirteenth Century, to find
that the great origins of what well deserves the name of classic
modern literature, comprising a series of immortal works in prose and
poetry, were initiated by the contemporaries of the makers of the
universities and the builders of the Cathedrals. If we stop to
think for a moment it must be realized, that generations who succeeded
in expressing themselves so effectively in other departments of
esthetics could scarcely be expected to fail in literature alone, and
they did not. From the Cid in Spain, through the Arthur Legends in
England, the Nibelungen in Germany, the Minnesingers and the
Meistersingers in the southern part of what is now the German Empire,
the Trouvères in North France, the Troubadours in South France and in
Italy, down to Dante, who was 35 before the century closed, there has
never been such a mass of undying literature written within a little
more than a single hundred years, as came during the period from
shortly before 1200 down to 1300. Great as was the Fifth Century
before Christ in this matter it did not surpass the Thirteenth Century
after Christ in its influence on subsequent generations.</p>
<p>We have already pointed out in discussing the Cathedrals that one of
the most characteristic features of the Gothic architecture was the
marvelous ease with which it lent itself to the expression of national
peculiarities. Norman Gothic is something quite distinct from German
Gothic which arose in almost contiguous provinces, but so it is also
from English Gothic; these two were very closely related in origin and
undoubtedly the English Cathedrals owe much to the Norman influence so
prevalent in England at the end of the Twelfth Century, and the
beginning of the Thirteenth Century. Italian Gothic has the principal
characteristic peculiarities of the architectural style which passes
under the name developed to a remarkable degree, and yet its finished
product is far distant from any of the three other national forms that
have been mentioned, yet is not lacking in a similar interest. Spanish
Gothic has an identity of its own that has always had a special appeal
for the traveler. Any one who has ever visited the shores of the
Baltic sea and has seen what was accomplished in such places as
Stralsund, Greifswald, Lübeck, and others of the old Hansa towns, will
appreciate still more the power of Gothic to lend itself to the
feelings of the people and to the materials that they had at hand.
Here in the distant North they were far away from any sources of the
stone that would ordinarily be deemed absolutely necessary for
Gothic construction. How effectively they used brick for
ecclesiastical edifices can only be realized by those who have seen
the remains of the Gothic monuments of this portion of Europe.</p>
<p>The distinguishing mark of all these different styles is the eminent
opportunity for the expression of nationality which, they afford. It
might be expected that since they were all Gothic, most of them would
be little better than servile copies, or at best scarce more than good
imitations of the great originals of the North of France. As a matter
of fact, the assertion of national characteristics, far from
destroying the effectiveness of Gothic, rather added new beauties to
this style of architecture. This was true even occasionally when
mistakes were made by architects and designers. As Ferguson has said
in his History of Architecture, St. Stephen's at Vienna is full of
architectural errors and yet the attractiveness of the Cathedral
remains. It was a poet who designed it and something of his poetic
soul gleams out of the material structure after the lapse of
centuries.</p>
<p>In nearly this same way the literatures of the different countries
during the Thirteenth Century are eminently national and mirror with
quite wonderful appropriateness the characteristics of the various
people. This is true even when similar subjects, as for instance the
Graal stories, are treated from nearly the same standpoint by the two
Teutonic nations, the Germans and the English. Parsifal and Galahad
are national as well as poetic heroes with a distinction of character
all their own. As we shall see, practically every nation finds in this
century some fundamental expression of its national feeling that has
been among its most cherished classics ever since.</p>
<SPAN name="opp168">{opp168}</SPAN>
<p class="image">
<ANTIMG alt="" src="images/i_opp168.jpg" border=1><br/>
SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA (ROME'S GOTHIC CATHEDRAL)</p>
<p>The first of these in time is the Cid, which was written in Spain
during the latter half of the Twelfth Century, but probably took its
definite form just about the beginning of the Thirteenth. It might
well be considered that this old-fashioned Spanish ballad would have
very little of interest for modern readers, and yet there are very few
scholars of the past century who have not been interested in this
literary treasure. Critics of all nations have been unstinted in their
praise of it. Since the Schlegels recalled world attention to Spanish
literature, it has been considered almost as unpardonable for
anyone who pretended to literary culture not to have read the Cid, as
it would be not to have read Don Quixote.</p>
<p>As is true of all the national epics founded upon a series of ballads
which had been collecting in the mouth of the people for several
centuries before a great poetic genius came to give them their supreme
expression, there has been some doubt expressed as to the single
authorship of Cid. We shall find the same problem to be considered
when we come to discuss the Nibelungen Lied. A half a century ago or
more the fashion of the critics for insisting on the divided
authorship of such poems was much more prevalent than it is at
present. At that time a great many scholars, following the initiative
of Wolf and the German separatist critics, declared even that the
Homeric poems were due to more than one mind. There are still some who
cling to this idea with regard to many of these primal national epics,
but at the present time most literary men are quite content to accept
the idea of a single authorship. With regard to the Cid in this matter
Mr. Fitzmaurice Kelly, in his Short History of Spanish Literature in
the Literatures of the World Series, says very simply:</p>
<p class="cite">
"There is a unity of conception and of language which forbids our
accepting the Poema (del Cid) as the work of several hands; and the
division of the poem into several cantares is managed with a
discretion which argues a single artistic intelligence. The first
part closes with the marriage of the hero's daughters; the second
with the shame of the Infantes de Carrion, and the proud
announcement that the Kings of Spain are sprung from the Cid's
loins. In both the singer rises to the level of his subject, but his
chiefest gust is in the recital of some brilliant deed of arms."</p>
<p>The Spanish ballad epic is a characteristic example of the epics
formed by the earliest poetic genius of a country, on the basis of the
patriotic stories of national origin that had been accumulating for
centuries. Of course the Cid had to be the Christian hero who did most
in his time against the Moslem in Spain. So interesting has his story
been made, and so glorious have been his deeds as recorded by the
poets, that there has been even some doubt of his existence expressed,
but that he was a genuine historical character seems to be
clear. Many people will recall the Canons' argument in the forty-ninth
chapter of Don Quixote in which Cervantes, evidently speaking for
himself, says: "That there was a Cid no one will deny and likewise a
Bernardo Del Carpio, but that they performed all the exploits ascribed
to them, I believe there is good reason to doubt." The Cid derives his
name from the Arabic Seid which means Lord and owes his usual epithet.
El Campeador (champion), to the fact that he was the actual champion
of the Christians against the Moors at the end of the Eleventh
Century. How gloriously his warlike exploits have been described may
be best appreciated from the following description of his charge at
Alcocer:</p>
<p class="cite">
"With bucklers braced before their breasts, with lances pointing low.<br/>
With stooping crests and heads bent down above the saddle-bow.<br/>
All firm of hand and high of heart they roll upon the foe.<br/>
And he that in good hour was born, his clarion voice rings out,<br/>
And clear above the clang of arms is heard his battle-shout,<br/>
'Among them, gentlemen! Strike home for the love of charity!<br/>
The Champion of Bivar is here—Ruy Diaz—I am he!'<br/>
Then bearing where Bermuez still maintains unequal fight.<br/>
Three hundred lances down they come, their pennons flickering white;<br/>
Down go three hundred Moors to earth, a man to every blow;<br/>
And, when they wheel, three hundred more, as charging back they go.<br/>
It was a sight to see the lances rise and fall that day;<br/>
The shivered shields and riven mail, to see how thick they lay;<br/>
The pennons that went in snow-white come out a gory red;<br/>
The horses running riderless, the riders lying dead;<br/>
While Moors call on Muhamed, and 'St. James!' the Christians cry."<br/></p>
<p>While the martial interest of such early poems would be generally
conceded, it would usually be considered that they would be little
likely to have significant domestic, and even what might be
called romantic, interests. The Cid's marriage is the result of not
what would exactly be called a romance nowadays, though in ruder times
there may have been a certain sense of sentimental reparation in it at
least. He had killed in fair fight the father of a young woman, who
being thus left without a protector appealed to the king to appoint
one for her. In the troublous Middle Ages an heiress was as likely to
be snapped up by some unsuitable suitor, more literally but with quite
as much haste, as in a more cultured epoch. The king knew no one whom
he could trust so well with the guardianship of the rich and fair
young orphan than the Cid, of whose bravery and honor he had had many
proofs. Accordingly he suggested him as a protector and the Cid
himself generously realizing how much the fair Jimena had lost by the
death of her father consented, and in a famous passage of the poem, a
little shocking to modern ideas, it must be confessed, frankly states
his feelings in the matter:</p>
<p class="cite">
"And now before the altar the bride and bridegroom stand,<br/>
And when to fair Jimena the Cid stretched forth his hand,<br/>
He spake in great confusion: 'Thy father have I slain<br/>
Not treacherously, but face to face, my just revenge to gain<br/>
For cruel wrong; a man I slew, a man I give to thee;<br/>
In place of thy dead father, a husband find in me.'<br/>
And all who heard well liked the man, approving what he said;<br/>
Thus Rodrigo the Castilian his stately bride did wed."</p>
<p>There are tender domestic scenes between the Cid and his wife and his
daughters, which serve to show how sincere was his affection and with
what sympathetic humanity a great poet knew how to depict the tender
natural relations which have an interest for all times. Some of these
domestic scenes are not unworthy to be placed beside Homer's picture
of the parting of Hector and Andromache, though there is more naive
self-consciousness in the work of the Spanish bard, than in that of
his more artistic colleague of the Grecian olden times. There is
particularly a famous picture of the duties of noble ladies in Spain
of this time and of the tender solicitude of a father for his
daughters' innocence, that is quite beyond expectation at the
hands of a poet whose forte was evidently war and its alarms, rather
than the expression of the ethical qualities of home life. The
following passage, descriptive of the Cid's parting from his wife,
will give some idea of these qualities better than could be conveyed
in any other way:</p>
<p class="cite">
"Thou knowest well, señora, he said before he went,<br/>
To parting from each other our love doth not consent;<br/>
But love and joyance never may stand in duty's way,<br/>
And when the king commandeth the noble must obey.<br/>
Now let discretion guide thee, thou art of worthy name;<br/>
While I am parted from thee, let none in thee find blame.<br/>
Employ thy hours full wisely, and tend thy household well,<br/>
Be never slothful, woe and death with idleness do dwell.<br/>
Lay by thy costly dresses until I come again.<br/>
For in the husband's absence let wives in dress be plain;<br/>
And look well to thy daughters, nor let them be aware.<br/>
<i>Lest they comprehend the danger because they see thy care,<br/>
And lose unconscious innocence. At home they must abide,<br/>
For the safety of the daughter is at the mother's side</i>.<br/>
Be serious with thy servants, with strangers on thy guard,<br/>
With friends be kind and friendly, and well thy household ward,<br/>
To no one show my letters, thy best friends may not see.<br/>
Lest reading them they also may guess of thine to me.<br/>
And if good news they bring thee, and woman-like dost seek<br/>
The sympathy of others, with thy daughters only speak.<br/>
<br/>
* * *<br/>
<br/>
Farewell, farewell, Jimena, the trumpet's call I hear!<br/>
One last embrace, and then he mounts the steed without a peer."</p>
<p>The touch of paternal solicitude and prudence in the passage we have
put in italics is so apparently modern, that it can scarcely fail to
be a source of surprise, coming as it does from that crude period at
the end of the Twelfth Century when such minute psychological
observation as to young folks' ways would be little expected, and
least of all in the rough warrior hero or his poet creator,
whose notions of right and wrong are, to judge from many passages of
the poem, so much coarser than those of our time.</p>
<p>After the Cid in point of time, the next enduring poetic work that was
destined to have an influence on all succeeding generations, was the
series of the Arthur Legends as completed in England. As in the case
of the Cid these stories of King Arthur's Court, his Knights and his
Round Table, had been for a long time the favorite subject of ballad
poets among the English people. Just where they originated is not very
clear, though it seems most likely that the original inspiration came
from Celtic sources. These old ballads, however, had very little of
literary form and it was not until the end of the Twelfth and the
beginning of the Thirteenth Century that they were cast in their
present mold, after having passed through the alembic of the mind of a
great poetic and literary genius, which refined away the dross and
left only the pure gold of supremely sympathetic human stories. To
whom we owe this transformation is not known with absolute certainty,
though the literary and historical criticism of the last quarter of a
century seems to have made it clear that the work must be attributed
to Walter Map or Mapes, an English clergyman who died during the first
decade of the Thirteenth Century.</p>
<p>His claims to the authorship of the Graal legend in its artistic
completeness and to the invention of the character of Lancelot, which
is one of the great triumphs of the Arthur legends as they were told
at this time, have been much discussed by French and English critics.
This discussion has perhaps been best summarized by Mr. Henry Morley,
the late Professor of Literature at the University of London, whose
third volume of English writers contains an immense amount of valuable
information with regard to the literary history, not alone of England
at this time but practically of all the countries of Europe. Mr.
Morley's plan was conceived with a breath of view that makes his work
a very interesting and authoritative guide in the literary matters of
the time. His summation of the position of critical opinion with
regard to the authorship of the Arthur Legends deserves to be quoted
in its entirety:</p>
<p class="cite">
"The Arthurian Romances were, according to this opinion. all
perfectly detached tales, till in the Twelfth Century Robert de
Borron (let us add, at Map's suggestion) translated the first
Romance of the St. Graal as an introduction to the series, and
shortly afterwards Walter Map added his Quest of the Graal,
Lancelot, and Mort Artus. The way for such work had been prepared by
Geoffrey of Monmouth's bold setting forward of King Arthur as a
personage of history, in a book that was much sought and discussed,
and that made the Arthurian Romances a fresh subject of interest to
educated men.
<br/><br/>
"But M. Paulin Paris, whose opinions, founded upon a wide
acquaintance with the contents of old MSS. I am now sketching, and
in part adopting, looked upon Walter Map as the soul of this work of
Christian spiritualisation. Was the romance of the St. Graal Latin,
before it was French? He does not doubt that it was. He sees in it
the mysticism of the subtlest theologian. It was not a knight or a
jongleur who was so well read in the apocryphal gospels, the legends
of the first Christian centuries, rabbinical fancies, and old Greek
mythology; and there is all this in the St. Graal. There is a
theory, too, of the sacrifice of the mass, an explanation of the
Saviour's presence in the Eucharist, that is the work, he says, of
the loftiest and the most brilliant imagination. These were not
matters that a knight of the Twelfth Century would dare to touch.
They came from an ecclesiastic and a man of genius. But if so, why
should we refuse credit to the assertion, repeated in every MS. that
they were first written in Latin? The earliest MSS. are of a date
not long subsequent to the death of Walter Map, Latinist,
theologian, wit, and Chaplain to King Henry II., who himself took
the liveliest interest in Breton legends. King Henry, M. Paris
supposes, wished them to be collected, but how? Some would prefer
one method, some another; Map reconciled all. He satisfied the
clergy, pleased the scholar, filled the chasms in the popular tales,
reconciled contradictions, or rejected inconsistencies, and by him
also the introductory tale of the Graal was first written in Latin
for Robert de Borron to translate into French."</p>
<p>The best literary appreciation of Map's genius, apart, of course, from
the fact that all generations ever since have acknowledged the supreme
human interest and eminently sympathetic quality of his work, is
perhaps to be found in certain remarks of the modern critics who have
made special studies in these earlier literary periods. Prof. George
Saintsbury, of the University of Edinburgh, for instance, in the
second volume of Periods of English Literature, [Footnote 18] has
been quite unstinted in his praise of this early English writer. He
has not hesitated even to say in a striking passage that Map, or at
least the original author of the Launcelot story, was one of the
greatest of literary men and deserves a place only next to Dante in
this century so preciously full of artistic initiative.</p>
<p class="footnote">
[Footnote 18: The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory, by
George Saintsbury, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in
the University of Edinburgh (New York, Charles Scribner & Sons,
1897).]</p>
<p class="cite">
"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. Whoever did
it, if he did it by himself, was a great man indeed—a man second 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 other's
efforts, the result shows a marvelous 'wind of the spirit' abroad
and blowing on that company."</p>
<p>Prof. Saintsbury then proceeds to show how much even readers of
Mallory miss of the greatness and especially of the sympathetic
humanity of the original poem, and in a further passage states his
firm conviction that the man who created Lancelot was one of the
greatest literary inventors and sympathetic geniuses of all times, and
that his work is destined, because the wellsprings of its action are
so deep down in the human heart, to be of interest to generations of
men for as long as our present form of civilization lasts.</p>
<p class="cite">
"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</p>
<p class="cite2">
'Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave,'</p>
<p class="cite">
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 (or Map), then
Walter Mapes is one of the great novelists of the world, 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 unequaled valor 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,
felt by all the elect to be, in both senses, one of the first of all
extant pieces of perfect English prose."</p>
<p>To appreciate fully how much Walter Map accomplished by his series of
stories with regard to King Arthur's Court, it should be remembered
that poets and painters have in many generations ever since found
subjects for their inspiration within the bounds of the work which he
created. After all, the main interest of succeeding poets who have put
the legends into later forms, has centered more in the depth of
humanity that there is in the stories, than in the poetic details for
which they themselves have been responsible. In succeeding generations
poets have often felt that these stories were so beautiful that they
deserved to be retold in terms readily comprehensible to their own
generation. Hence Malory wrote his Morte D'Arthur for the Fifteenth
Century, Spenser used certain portions of the old myths for the
Sixteenth, and the late Poet-laureate set himself once more to retell
the Idyls of the King for the Nineteenth Century. Each of these was
adding little but new literary form, to a work that genius had drawn
from sources so close to the heart of human nature, that the stories
were always to remain of enduring interest.</p>
<p>For the treasure of poesy with which humanity was enriched when he
conceived the idea of setting the old ballads of King Arthur into
literary form, more must be considered as due to the literary original
writer than to any of his great successors. This is precisely the
merit of Walter Map. Of some of his less ambitious literary work we
have many examples that show us how thoroughly interested he was in
all the details of human existence, even the most trivial. He had his
likes and dislikes, he seems to have had some disappointed ambition
that made him rather bitter towards ecclesiastics, he seems to have
had some unfortunate experiences, especially with the Cistercians,
though how much of this is assumed rather than genuine, is hard to
determine at this modern day. Many of the extremely bitter things he
says with regard to the Cistercians might well be considered as
examples of that exaggeration, which in certain minds constitutes one
modality of humor, rather than as serious expressions of actual
thought. It is hard, for instance, to take such an expression as the
following as more than an example of this form of jesting by
exaggeration. Map heard that a Cistercian had become a Jew. His
comment was: "If he wanted to get far from the Cistercians why didn't
he become a Christian."</p>
<p>From England the transition to Germany is easy. Exactly contemporary
with the rise of the Arthur Legends in England to that standard of
literary excellence that was to give them their enduring poetic value,
there came also the definite arrangement and literary transformation
of the old ballads of the German people, into that form in which they
were to exert a lasting influence upon the German language and
national feeling. The date of the Nibelungen Lied has been set down
somewhat indefinitely as between 1190 and 1220. Most of the work was
undoubtedly accomplished after the beginning of the Thirteenth Century
and in the form in which we have it at present, there seems to be no
doubt that much was done after the famous meeting of the
Meistersingers on the Wartburg—the subject of song and story and
music drama ever since, which took place very probably in the year
1207. With regard to the Nibelungen Lied, as in the case of the other
great literary arrangements of folk-ballads, there has been question
as to the singleness of authorship. Here, however, as with
regard to Homer and the Cid, the trend of modern criticism has all
been towards the attribution of the poem to one writer, and the
internal evidence of similarity of expression constantly maintained, a
certain simplicity of feeling and naïveté of repetition seems to leave
no doubt in the matter.</p>
<p>As regards the merits of the Nibelungen Lied as a great work of
literature, there has been very little doubt in the English-speaking
world at least, because of the enthusiastic recognition accorded it by
German critics and the influence of German criticism in all branches
of literature over the whole Teutonic race during the Nineteenth
Century. English admiration for the poem began after Carlyle's
introduction of it to the English reading public in his essays. Since
this time it has come to be very well known and yet, notwithstanding
all that has been said about it no English critic has expressed more
fully the place of the great German poem in world literature, than did
this enthusiastic pro-German of the first half of the Nineteenth
Century.</p>
<p>For those for whom Carlyle's Essays are a sealed book because of loss
of interest in him with the passage of time, the citation of some of
his appreciative critical expressions may be necessary.</p>
<p class="cite">
"Here in the old Frankish (Oberdeutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen,
we have a clear decisive utterance, and in a real system of verse,
not without essential regularity, great liveliness and now and then
even harmony of rhythm. Doubtless we must often call it a diffuse
diluted utterance; at the same time it is genuine, with a certain
antique garrulous heartiness, and has a rhythm in the thoughts as
well as the words. The simplicity is never silly; even in that
perpetual recurrence of epithets, sometimes of rhymes, as where two
words, for instance lip (body), lif (leib) and wip (woman), weib
(wife) are indissolubly wedded together, and the one never shows
itself without the other following—there is something which reminds
us not so much of poverty, as of trustfulness and childlike
innocence. Indeed a strange charm lies in those old tones, where, in
gay dancing melodies, the sternest tidings are sung to us; and deep
floods of sadness and strife play lightly in little purling
billows, like seas in summer. It is as a meek smile, in whose still,
thoughtful depths a whole infinitude of patience, and love, and
heroic strength lie revealed. But in other cases too, we have seen
this outward sport and inward earnestness offer grateful contrasts,
and cunning excitement; for example, in Tasso; of whom, though
otherwise different enough, this old Northern Singer has more than
once reminded us. There too, as here, we have a dark solemn meaning
in light guise; deeds of high temper, harsh self-denial, daring and
death, stand embodied in that soft, quick-flowing joyfully-modulated
verse. Nay farther, as if the implement, much more than we might
fancy, had influenced the work done, these two poems, could we trust
our individual feeling, have in one respect the same poetical result
for us; in the Nibelungen as in the Gerusalemme, the persons and
their story are indeed brought vividly before us, yet not near and
palpably present; it is rather as if we looked on that scene through
an inverted telescope, whereby the whole was carried far away into
the distance, the life-large figures compressed into brilliant
miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny, elf-like and beautiful as
well as lessened, their colors being now closer and brighter, the
shadows and trivial features no longer visible. This, as we partly
apprehend, comes of singing epic poems; most part of which only
pretend to be sung. Tasso's rich melody still lives among the
Italian people; the Nibelungen also is what it professes to be, a
song."</p>
<p>The story of the Nibelungen would ordinarily be supposed to be so
distant from the interests of modern life, as scarcely to hold the
attention of a reader unless he were interested in it from a scholarly
or more or less antiquarian standpoint. For those who think thus,
however, there is only one thing that will correct such a false
impression and that is to read the Nibelungen itself. It has a depth
of simplicity and a sympathetic human interest all its own but that
reminds one more of Homer than of anything else in literature, and
Homer has faults but lack of interest is not one of them. From the
very beginning the story of the young man who does not think he will
marry, and whose mother does not think that any one is good enough for
him, and of the young woman who is sure that no one will come that
will attract enough of her attention so as to compel her to
subject herself to the yoke of marriage, are types of what is so
permanent in humanity, that the readers' attention is at once caught.
After this the fighting parts of the story become the center of
interest and hold the attention in spite of the refining influences
that later centuries are supposed to have brought to humanity.</p>
<p>Hence it is that Prof. Saintsbury in the second volume of his Periods
of European Literature, already quoted from, is able to say much of
the modern interest in the story. "There may be," as he says, "too
many episodic personages—Deitrich 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 Nibelungen Lied 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 epics with which the literary story of the great European
literary nations most appropriately begins. In bulk, dramatic
completeness, and a certain furia, the Nibelungen Lied, though the
youngest and probably the least original is the greatest of the four."</p>
<p>Less need be said of the Nibelungen than of the Cid or Walter Map's
work because it is much more familiar, and even ordinary readers of
literature have been brought more closely in touch with it because of
its relation to the Wagnerian operas. Even those who know the fine old
German poems only passingly, will yet realize the supreme genius of
their author, and those who need to have the opinions of distinguished
critics to back them before they form an estimate for themselves, will
not need to seek far in our modern literature to find lofty praises of
the old German epic.</p>
<p>With even this brief treatment no reader will doubt that there is in
these three epics, typical products of the literary spirit of three
great European nations whose literatures rising high above these deep
firm substructures, were to be of the greatest influence in the
development of the human mind, and yet were to remain practically
always within the limits of thought and feeling that had been traced
by these old founders of literature of the early Thirteenth Century,
whose work, like that of their contemporaries in every other form of
artistic expression, was to be the model and the source of inspiration
for future generations.</p>
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CROZIER (OBVERSE AND REVERSE)</p>
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