giant Ecke and his its subject Dietrich's conflicts with the Tod. The noblest epic of the Dietrich cycle is Alpharts Tod; Alpharts no other poem of this group shows so much of the tragic dignity of the Nibelungenlied. Although probably written in the second half of the thirteenth century, we may think of it as an episode in the great unwritten Dietrich epic. Alphart is a young hero in Dietrich's army who, in spite of warnings, sets out from Verona to watch Ermanarich's movements. After much brave fighting against unfair odds, he falls by reason of his own generosity, being killed by the treachery of Witege, whose life he has spared. In Dietrichs Flucht, again, Dietrichs we have what might have formed the beginning of the Dietrich Flucht. epic. Unfortunately, however, this beginning was made too late. The Austrian Spielmann-he calls himself Heinrich der Vogler who wrote Dietrichs Flucht and the romance of the Rabenschlacht (ie., "Ravenna-Schlacht"), which immediately The Raben. follows it, lived at the close of the thirteenth century, when schlacht. the best period of the popular epic was over. The subject of these epics is Dietrich's feud with Ermanarich, and the treason of his own vassals Witege and Heime. Dietrich is compelled to seek help from Etzel; he marries Etzel's niece, and, with the help of the Huns, makes repeated inroads into Ermanarich's kingdom. At the battle of Ravenna, Dietrich's combat with the traitor Witege stands in the foreground of events. The latter has slain Etzel's two young sons, and Dietrich is in pursuit of him. They reach the shore of the sea; Witege seems lost, when suddenly a nixe of his own kin appears and carries him beneath the waves, beyond the reach 1 Goldemar is one of the few poems of its class to which the author's name is attached, Albrecht von Kemenaten. Whether Albrecht also wrote other poems of this group it is impossible to determine, as only a few short fragments of Goldemar have been preserved. Ortnit. Wolfdietrich. of Dietrich's vengeance. The style of both these poems is wearisome and diffuse, and shows all the faults of the decaying epic. Besides the cycle of romances centring in Dietrich, the Heldenbuch contains two stories, those of Ortnit and Wolfdietrich, which, although not immediately connected with the Dietrich cycle, have certain points of contact with it. Ortnit is a characteristic Spielmann's romance of the best period, the earlier years of the thirteenth century. The hero is King of Lamparten (Lombardy), and resides at Garten (Garda). Like King Rother and so many other heroes of this class of epic, he resolves to marry a foreign princess, and with the help of his dwarf, Alberich, he succeeds in carrying her off. His father-in-law takes a peculiar revenge by sending a brood of dragons into Ortnit's country, Ortnit himself being killed by one of these animals. The same Spielmann who wrote Ortnit was also probably the author of the version of Wolfdietrich which follows it in the MSS. King Hugdietrich of Constantinople-with whom there may possibly be blended the tradition of a Merovingian king, Theodorich-has two sons; a third is born while he is away from home, and shows such strength that the devil is rumoured to have been his father. Hugdietrich, whose suspicions are aroused by his vassal Sabene, intrusts the faithful Duke Berchtung of Meran with the task of killing the child. Berchtung has not the heart to take its life, but leaves it by a pool of water in the forest, in the hope that it will try to pluck the water-lilies growing in the pool and fall in. But the child plays happily all day long, and when the beasts of the forest come down to drink in the moonlight they leave it unmolested, a group of wolves even sitting round it in a circle. Next day Berchtung gives the child, whom he calls Wolfdietrich, to a peasant to bring up. The king repents, Wolfdietrich is brought back, and the evil councillor is banished; but the king has already divided his kingdom among his sons, and Wolfdietrich, who is placed under Berchtung's care, goes emptyhanded. After Hugdietrich's death the banished vassal Sabene returns, and again raises the rumour of Wolfdietrich's supernatural origin. Hugdietrich's queen is in consequence exiled, and finds refuge with Berchtung, who, with his sixteen sons, stands on Wolfdietrich's side in his feud with his brothers. A and his great battle takes place in which the brothers are defeated but escape, while on Wolfdietrich's side none is left but Wolfdietrich himself, Duke Berchtung, and ten of his sons. The Duke enemy returns with a fresh army and hems them in; the hero Berchtung himself, however, succeeds in making his escape to the sons. Court of King Ortnit, from whom he hopes to gain assistance. But Ortnit is already dead, and it falls to Wolfdietrich to take up the conflict with the dragons. Here the oldest version of the story of Wolfdietrich breaks off. It is told with the fresh vigour which characterises the work of the earlier thirteenth century, but in the continuation, written by a much later poet, the degeneration of the Spielmann's art is plainly visible. Wolfdietrich succeeds in killing the dragons, and becomes King of Lamparten. Then he goes out in quest of his faithful vassals. Berchtung has in the mean time died, and his ten sons are prisoners in Constantinople. These Wolfdietrich rescues; he takes revenge upon his enemies, and ultimately retires to a monastery. Of three other versions of the Wolfdietrich saga which have been preserved either complete or in fragments, none can be compared with the oldest. In one of these versions there is a long introduction, relating Hugdietrich's love-adventures with Hildburg, who is Hugdietkept prisoner by her father in a tower. To this tower Hugdietrich gains access in the disguise of a woman. The poetic kernel of the epics of Wolfdietrich is the relation of Berchtung and his sons to the hero. Clearer here than ever shines the old Germanic conception of unswerving loyalty. Berchtung is the incorporation of this loyalty, which, more than anything else, gives the tone to the whole "Volksepos." If we look back on the motives that have actuated all these heroes and heroines of the sagas, Siegfried as well as Hagen, Kriemhild as well as Gudrun, Dietrich, and Berchtung, it will be found that the first and highest place always belongs to diu triuwe. rich. 82 THE COURT EPIC: CHAPTER V. HEINRICH VON VELDEKE, HARTMAN, The Court epic. A NOTEWORTHY feature of the two great epochs of German literary history is the shortness of their duration : events of the first magnitude crowded with confusing rapidity upon one another, and, within the narrow limits of a decade, masterpieces were produced such as, in other literatures, are spread over generations. In Italy, for instance, Dante was dead before Petrarch and Boccaccio began to write sixty years lay between the Orlando furioso and the Gerusalemme liberata. But in Germany, all that is greatest in Middle High German poetry was written at the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, within the space of thirty years; when Goethe was born, the Blütezeit of New High German literature had only begun, when he died it was already over. The shortness, or rather concentration, of the earlier period is less easy to account for than that of the modern classical period; no law can explain why great popular epics like the Nibelungenlied and Gudrun, masterpieces of the Court epic like Parzival and Tristan, and the finest lyrics in the whole range of medieval literature, should have originated, if not simultaneously, at least within a very few years of one another. Compared with this, French medieval literature seems to have a long and steady record behind it, and it cannot be said that the conditions in Germany from the eleventh to the fourteenth century were more unfavourable to literary production than in France. The beginnings of the Court epic in Germany have already been traced in the clerical poetry of Lamprecht and Konrad, and in the half-popular, half-courtly Tristrant of Eilhart von Oberge. The traditions of the thirteenth century, ignoring these beginnings, point unanimously to Heinrich von Veldeke Heinrich as the founder of this class of epic: Gottfried von Strassburg says of him "er impete das erste rîs in tiutescher zungen: dâ von sît este ersprungen, von den die bluomen kamen." Although this may not be strictly in accordance with facts, Heinrich von Veldeke must at least be recognised as the first of the Court poets to attain a technical perfection in his art. Like the unknown authors of Rother and Herzog Ernst, Heinrich von Veldeke came from the Lower Rhineland; his family belonged to the neighbourhood of Maestricht. Edu von Veldeke. cated probably for the Church, he was not without learning, and about 1170 translated into German verses the legend Servatius, of Servatius, the patron saint of Maestricht. Heinrich's ca. 1170. Servatius does not, however, rise above the level of the legendary poetry of the time. His fame as an epic poet rests exclusively upon his romance of Æneas, the Eneit. Not Eneit, ca. Virgil, but the French Roman d'Eneas, is the source of Hein- 1175-86. rich's epic. In the hands of the French author, the Æneid had already been converted into an epic of chivalry; the scenery, the costumes, and the whole atmosphere of the poem are of the twelfth century; the loves of Æneas and Dido, of Turnus and Lavinia, these are the themes on which the gallantry of the French poet loves to linger in other words, the calm, classical spirit of Virgil has disappeared behind the brilliant. phantasmagoria of medieval society. Out of this many-coloured French romance, Heinrich von Veldeke formed his Eneit. Like all the Court poets, he is anything but a faithful translator; he curtails or extends his original as seems good to him, and his alterations are generally improvements. The Germanic spirit shows itself in the endeavour to deepen the psychology of the original, to lay more emphasis upon the motives which actuate the characters. Most important of all, Heinrich has succeeded in completely transplanting the French 1"Er impfte das erste Reis in deutscher Zunge; davon entsprangen dann Äste, von welchen die Blumen kamen" (Tristan, 4736-39). 1 Ed. P. Piper in Die höfische Epik, 1 (D.N.L., 4, 1 [1892]), 81 ff. Ed. O. Behagel, Heilbronn, 1882; also D.N.L., .c., 241 ff. |