Tasso's rich melody still lives among the Itali-
an people; the Nibelungen also is what it professes to be, a Song.
an people; the Nibelungen also is what it professes to be, a Song.
Thomas Carlyle
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? HELDENBUCH
53
able, furnishing the Poet Wieland, 169 six Centuries afterward,
with the chief incident in his Ober on. As for the young lady her-
self, we cannot but admit she was well worth sailing to Heathen-
dom for; and shall here as our sole Specimen of that old German,
give the description of her, as she first appeared on the battle-
ments during the fight; subjoining a version as verbal and literal
as the plainest phrase can make it. As a detached passage it is
the finest I have met with in the Heldenbuch: 170
'Dir Herz brann also schone
Recht als ein rot Rubein,
Gleich dem vollen Mone
Gaben ihr Auglein schein.
Sich helt die Magt reine
Mit Rosen wohl bekleid
Und auch mit Berlin kleine
Niemand da tro? st die Meid
Sie war schSn an dem Leibe
Und zu dem Seiten schmal,
Recht als ein Kerlze Scheibe
Wohlgeschaffen u? berall
Ihr beiden Hand gemeine
Pass ihr gantz nichts
gebrach
Ihr Na? glein schon und reine
Dass man sich darinn besach
Her heart burnt (with anxiety)
as beautiful
Just as a red ruby,
Like the full moon
Her eyes (eylings, pretty eyes)
gave shine.
Herself held the maiden pure
Well adorned with roses,
And also with pearls small:
No one there comforted the Maid.
She was fair of body,
And in the waist slender,
Right as a (golden) candlestick
Well-fashioned everywhere:
Her two hands proper
So that she wanted nothing;
Her little nails fair and pure,
That you could see yourself
therein.
Her hair was beautifully girt
Ihr Har war scho? n umb-
fangen
Mit edler Seiden fein
Das liess sie nieder hangen
Das hu? bsche. Magedlein
Sie trug ein Kro? n mit Steinen She wore a crown with jewels
Sie war von Gold so rot It was of gold so red:
Elberich dem viel Kleinen For Elberich the very (much)
small
With noble silk (band) fine;
She let it flow down,
The lovely Maidling.
1
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? 54
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
War zu der Magic not
Da vornen in der Kronen
Lag ein Karfunkelstein
Der in dem Pallast schone
Recht als ein Kerlzerschein
Auf jrem Haupt das Hare
War lauter und auch fein
Es leuchtet also klare
Recht als der Sonnenschein
Die Magt die stand alleine
Gar traurig war jr mut
Ihr Farb und die war reine
Lieblich we fsicj Milch und
Blut
Her durch jr zoppfe reinen
Schien jr Halss als der
Schnee
Elberich dem viel kleinen
That der Maget Jammer
weh
The Maid had need (to console
her).
There in front of the crown
Lay a carbuncle-stone,
Which in the Palace fair
Even as a taper seemed;
On her head the hair
Was glossy and also fine
It shone as bright
Even as the Sun's sheen.
The maid she stood alone
Right sad was her mind;
Her colour it was pure
Lovely as milk and blood,
Out thro' her pure locks
Shone her neck like the snow:
Elberich the very little
Was touched with the maiden's
sorrow.
Happy man was Kaiser Ottnit blessed with such a wife after all
his travail; had not the Turk Machabol cunningly sent him, in
revenge, a box of young Dragons, or Dragon-eggs, by the hands
of a caitiff Infidel, contriver of that mischief, by whom in due
course of time they were hatched and nursed; to the infinite woe
of all Lampartei, and ultimately to the death of Kaiser Ottnit
himself, whom they swallowed, and attempted to digest, once
without effect, but the next time too fatally, crown and all.
'Second Part announceth (meldet) of Herr Hugdietrich and
his son Wolffdietrich; how they, for justice' sake, oft, by
their doughty cuts, succoured distressed persons; with other
bold Heroes that stood by them in extremity. '
Concerning which Hugdietrich, Emperor of Greece, and his
son Wolfdietrich, one day the renowned Dietrich of Bern, we can
here say little more than that the first trained himself to semp-
stress work, and for many weeks plied his needle, in female at-
tire, before he could get wedded, and produce Wolfdietrich; who
com -into f/sicj the world in this clandestine manner was let down
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? HELDENBUCH
55
into the Castle-ditch, and like Romulus and Remus, nursed by
a Wolf, whence his name. However, after never-imagined ad-
ventures, with enchanters and enchantresses, Pagans, and Gi-
ants in all quarters of the world, he finally, with an utmost ef-
fort, slaughtered those Lombardy Dragons; then married Kai-
ser Ottnit's Widow, whom he had rather flirted with before;
and lived universally venerated in his new Empire, performing
yet other notable achievements. One strange property he had,
sometimes useful to him, sometimes hurtful, that his breath
when he became angry, grew flame, redhot, and would take the
temper out of swords. We find him again in the Nibelungen,
among King Etzel's followers; a staid, cautious, yet still in-
vincible man; where, tho' with great reluctance, he is forced
to interfere in that Tragedy and finish it. He is the favourite
Hero of all those Southern Romances; and well acknowledged in
the Northern also, where the chief man, however, as we shall
find, is not he but Siegfried.
'Third Part showeth of the Rose-garden (Rosengarten) at
Worms, which was planted by Chrimhilte, King Gibich's
Daughter; whereby afterwards most part of those Heroes and
Giants came to destruction, and were slain. '
In this Third Part, the Southern or Lombard Heroes come
in contact with another as notable Northern class, who however
in this rencounter come off second best. Chrimhilte, whose ul-
terior history makes such a figure in the Nibelungen, had, near
the ancient city of Worms, a Rose-garden, some seven English
miles in circuit, fenced only by a silk thread; wherein, how-
ever, she maintained Twelve stout fighting men; several of whom,
as Hagen, Folker, her three Brothers, above all the gallant
Siegfried, her Betrothed, we shall meet with again: these, so
unspeakable was their prowess, sufficed to defend the silk-thread
Garden, against all mortals. Our good Antiquarian, Von der
Hagen, imagines that this Rose-garden glances obliquely at Jupi-
ter's fight with the Titans, and we know not what confused skir-
mishing in the Utgard, or Asgard, or Midgard, of the Scandina-
vians. But however that may be, Chrimhilte, as we here learn,
being very beautiful and very wilful, boasts in the pride of her
heart that no Heroes on Earth are to be compared with hers; and
hearing accidentally that Dietrich of Bern has a high character in
that line, forthwith challenges him to visit Worms, and with eleven
picked men to do battle there, against these other Twelve Champ-
ions of Christendom that watch her Rose-garden. Dietrich, in a
towering passion, at the style of the Message, which was 'surly
and stout, ' instantly pitches upon his eleven seconds, who also
are to be principals, and with a retinue of other sixty thousand,
by quick stages, in which obstacles are to be overcome, reaches
Worms, and declares himself ready. Among these Eleven Lom-
bard Heroes of his are likewise several, whom we meet with again
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? 56
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
in the Nibelungen: besides himself, we have the old Duke Hilde-
brand, Wolfhart, Ortwin. Notable among them in another way,
is Monk Ilsan, a truculent graybeard fellow, equal to any Friar
Tuck in Robin Hood. The conditions of fight are soon agreed on:
there are to be twelve successive duels, each challenger being
expected to find his match; and the prize of victory is a Rose-
garland from Crimhilte, and ein Helssen und ein KUssen, that is
to say virtually, one kiss from her fair lips, to each. But here,
as it ever should do, Pride gets a fall; for Chrimhilte's bully-
hectors are, in divers ways, all successively felled to the ground,
and discomfited by the Berners; some of whom, as old Hildebrand,
will not take her kiss when it is due; even Siegfried himself, most
reluctantly engaged with by Dietrich, and for a while victorious,
is at last forced to seek shelter in her lap. Nay, Monk Ilsan, af-
ter the regular fight is over, and his own part in it well perform-
ed, calls out, in succession, fifty-two other idle Champions of
the Garden, part of them Giants, and routs the whole fraternity;
thereby earning, besides his regular allowance, fifty-two spare
garlands, and fifty-two kisses, in the course of which last, Chrim-
hilte's cheek, a just punishment as seemed, was scratched to the
drawing of blood by his rough beard. It only remains to be added
that King Gibich, Chrimhilte's father, is now fain to do homage
for his kingdom to Dietrich; who returns triumphant to his own
country; where also, Monk Ilsan, according to promise, distri-
butes those fifty-two rose-garlands among his fellow Friars,
crushing a garland on the bare crown of each, till 'the red blood
ran down over their ears. ' Under which hard, but not undeserved
treatment, they all agreed to pray for remission of Ilsan's sins:
indeed such as continued refractory, he tied together by the beards,
and hung pair-wise over poles; whereby the stoutest soon gave in.
So endeth here this ditty
Of strife from women's pride:
God on our griefs take pity,
Mary still by us abide. *
'In the Fourth Part is announced (gemelt) of the little King
Laurin, the Dwarf; how encompassed his Rosegarden, with so
great manhood and art-magic till at last he was vanquished by
the Heroes, and forced to become their Juggler (with sundry
other entertaining Histories, told in the other Part of this Hero-
Book, which also hath, into its several descriptions, hathfsicl
been separately ordered). '
Of which Fourth and happily last Part we shall here say no-
* Also nam das streiten ein ende
Das von der Frawen kam;
Gott unsern Kummer wende
Und Maria lobesan. 1 <<1
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? HELDENBUCH
57
thing; inasmuch as, except that certain of our old Heroes again
figure there, it has no coherence or connexion with the rest of
the Heldenbuch; and is simply a new Tale, which, by way of epi-
sode, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, as we learn from his own words,
had subsequently appended thereto. He says:
'Heinrich von Ofterdingen
This story hath been singing,
To the joy of Princes bold,
They gave him silver and gold,
Moreover pennies and garments rich:
Here endeth this Book the which
Doth of our chosen Heroes tell,
God keep us all for ever well. '172
Such is some outline of the famous Heldenbuch: on which it
will not be necessary to add any criticism. The fact that it has
so long been popular betokens a certain worth in it; the kind and
degree of which is now also in some measure apparent. In Po-
etry, 'the rude man, ' it has been said, 'requires only to see
something going on; the man of more refinement wishes to feel;
the truly refined man must be made to reflect. ' For the first of
these classes, our Hero-Book, as has been apparent enough, pro-
vides in abundance; for the other two scantily, indeed for the
second not at all. Nevertheless our estimate of that work, which
as a series of antique Traditions may have much meaning, is apt
rather to be too low. Let us remember that this is not the true
original Heldenbuch which we now see; but only a version of it
into the Knight-errant dialect of the thirteenth, indeed partly of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with all the fantastic mon-
strosities, now so trivial, pertaining to that style; under which
disguises, the really antique earnest groundwork, interesting as
old thought, if not as old Poetry, is all but quite obscured from
us. But antiquarian Diligence is now busy with the Heldenbuch
also; from which what light is in it will doubtless be elicited; and
here and there a deformity removed. Tho' the Ethiop cannot
change his skin, there is no need that even he should be unwashed
and gagged. *
* My inconsiderable knowledge of the Heldenbuch is derived
from various secondary sources, chiefly from Lessing's
Werke (B. XIII); where the reader will find an epitome of the
whole Poem, with Extracts, by Herr Fulleborn, from which
the above are taken. A still more accessible and larger ab-
stract, with long Specimens translated in verse, stands in the
Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (p. 45-167). Von der
Hagen has since been employed specially on the Heldenbuch,
with what result I yet know only by report. 173
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? 58
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
Caspar von Roen, or whoever was the ultimate redactor of
the Heldenbuch whom Lessing designates 'a highly ill-informed
man, ' 1 74 would have done better had he quite omitted that 'little
King Laurin, ' and his 'little Rosegarden, ' which properly is no
Rosegarden at all; and instead thereof, introduced the Gehornte
Siegfried (Behorned Siegfried), whose History lies at the heart
of the whole Northern Traditions; and under a rude prose dress,
is to this day a real child's-book and people's-book among the Ger-
mans. Of this Siegfried we have already seen somewhat in the
Rosegarden at Worms; and shall ere long see much more elsewhere;
for he is the chief hero of the Nibelungen: indeed nowhere can we
dip into those old Fictions, whether in Scandinavia or Saxon-land,
but under one figure or another whether as Dragon-killer and
Prince-royal, or as Blacksmith and Horse-subduer, as Sigurd,
Sivrit, Siegfried, we are sure to light on him. As his early ad-
ventures belong to the strange sort, and will afterwards concern
us not a little, we shall here endeavour to piece together some
consistent outline of them; so far indeed as that may be possible,
for his biographers, agreeing in the main points, differ widely
in the details.
First, then, let no one, from the title Gehornte (Horned, Be-
horned), fancy that our brave Siegfried, who was the loveliest
as well as the bravest of men, was actually cornuted, and had
horns on his brow, tho' like Michael Angelo's Moses; or even
that his skin, to which the epithet Behorned refers, was hard
like a crocodile's, and not softer than the softest kid: for the
truth is, his Hornedness means only an Invulnerability, like that
of Achilles, which he came by in the following manner. All men
agree that Siegfried was a King's son; he was born, as we have
the best reason to believe 'at Santen in Netherland, ' of Siemund
and the fair Sigelinde: yet by some family misfortune or discord,
of which the accounts are very various, he came into singular
straits during boyhood, having passed that happy period of life,
not under canopies of costly state, but by the sooty stithy in one
Mimer, a Blacksmith's shop. Here, however, he was not in his
right place; ever quarrelling with his fellow apprentices; nay, as
some say, breaking the hardest anvils into shivers, by his too
stout hammering; so that Mimer, otherwise a first-rate Smith,
could in no wise do with him there. He sends him accordingly
to the neighbouring forest, to fetch charcoal; well aware that a
monstrous Dragon, one Regin, the Smith's own Brother, would
meet him and devour him. But far otherwise it proved: Siegfried,
by main force, slew this Dragon, or rather dragonized Smith's-
Br other; made broth of him, and warned by some significant phe-
nomena, bathed therein; or as others assert, bathed directly in
the monster's blood, without cookery; and hereby attained that
Invulnerability, complete in all respects, save that between his
shoulders, where a limetree-leaf chanced to pitch and stick dur-
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? HELDENBUCH
59
ing the process, there was one little spot, a fatal spot as it by
and by turned out, left in its natural state. Siegfried, now see-
ing thro' the craft of the Smith, returned home and slew him;
then set forth on adventures the bare catalogue of which were
long to recite. We mention only two, as subsequently of moment
both for him and for us. He is by some said to have courted and
then jilted the fair and proud Queen Brunhilde of Isenland; nay to
have thrown down the seven gates of her Castle, and then ridden
off with her wild-horse Gana, having mounted him in the mejajdow,
and instantly broken him. Some cross passages between him and
Queen Brunhilde, who understood no jesting, there must clearly
have been; so angry is her recognition of him, at first sight, in
the Nibelungen Lied: nay she bears a lasting grudge against him
there; as he, and indeed she also, one day too sorely felt.
His other grand adventure is with the two Sons of the deceased
King Nibelung, in Nibelungen-land: these two youths, whom their
father had left a Hoard, or Treasure, beyond all price or com-
putation, Siegfried, 'riding by alone, ' found on the side of a moun-
tain, in a state of great perplexity. They had brought out the Trea-
sure from the Cave where it usually lay; but how to part it was
the difficulty; for, not to speak of gold, there were as many jew-
els alone 'as twelve waggons in four 175 days and nights, each go-
ing three journeys could carry away'; nay 'however much you took
from it, there was no diminution': besides, in real property, a
'Sword Balmung' of great potency, a 'Divfinjing- rod which gave
power over every one, ' and a 'Tarnkappe' (or Cloak of Darkness)
which rendered the wearer invisible, and gave him twelve men's
strength. So that the two Princes Royal, without counsel save
from their Twelve stupid Giants, knew not how to fall upon any
amicable arrangement; and seeing Siegfried ride by so opportunely,
requested him to be arbiter; offering also the Sword Balmung for
his trouble. Siegfried, who readily undertook the impossible prob-
lem, did his best to accomplish it, but of course without effect;
nay the two Nibelungen Princes, being of choleric temper, grew
impatient, and provoked him; whereupon with the Sword Balmung
he slew them both, and their twelve Giants to boot. Thus did the
famous Nibelungen Hort (Hoard), and indeed the whole Nibelungen
Land come into his possession: wearing the Sword Balmung, and
and [sic] having slain the two Princes and their Champions, what
was there farther to oppose him? Vainly did the Dwarf Alberich,
known to us already from the Hero-Book, who was special Keeper
of this Hoard, attempt some resistance with a Dwarf army: he was
driven back into the Cave; plundered of his Tarnkappe; and obliged
with all his myrmidons to swear fealty to the conqueror, whom in-
deed thenceforth he and they punctually obeyed. Whereby Siegfried
might now farther style himself King of the Nibelungen; Master of
the infinite Nibelungen Hoard (collected doubtless by art-magic,
in the beginning of Time, in the deep bowels of the universe), with
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HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
the WHnschelruthe (Wishing or Divining Rod) pertaining thereto;
Owner of the Tarnkappe, which he ever after kept by him, to
put on at will; and tho' last not least, Bearer and Wielder of the
Sword Balmung, * by the keen edge of which all this gain had
come to him. To which last acquisitions, adding his previously
acquired Invulnerability, and his natural dignities as Prince of
Netherland, he might well show himself, before the foremost,
at Worms or elsewhere, and attempt any the highest adventure
that Fortune could cut out for him. However, his subsequent
History belongs all to the Nibelungen Song; at which fair Garden
of Poesy we are now, thro' all these shaggy wildernesses and
enchanted woods, finally arrived.
* By this Sword Balmung also hangs a tale. Doubtless it was
one of those invaluable weapons, sometimes fabricated by the
old Northern Smiths, compared with which our modern Foxes,
and Ferraras, and Toledos are mere leaden tools. Von der
Hagen seems to think, it was simply the Sword Mimung, under
another name; in which case, Siegfried's old master, Mimer,
had been the fabricator of it, and called it after himself, as if
it had been his son. In Scandinavian chronicles, veridical or
not, we have the following account of that transaction. Mimer
(or, as some have it, surely without ground, one Velint an
apprentice of his) was challenged by another craftsman, named
Amilias, who boasted that he had made a suit of armour which
no stroke could dint, --to equal that feat, or own himself the
second Smith then extant. This last the stout Mimer would in
no case do; but proceeded to forge the sword Mimung, with
which, when it was finished, he 'in presence of the King' cut
asunder 'a thread of wool floating on water'. This would have
seemed a fair fire-edge to most Smiths: not so to Mimer; he
sawed the blade in pieces, welded it in a 'redhot fire for three
days', tempered it 'with milk and oatmeal, ' and by much other
cunning, brought out a sword that severed 'a ball of wool float-
ing on water. ' But neither would this suffice him; he returned
to his smithy, and by means known only to himself, produced
in the course of seven weeks, a third and final edition of Mi-
mung, which split asunder a whole floating pack of wool. The
comparative trial now took place forthwith. Amilias, cased
in his impenetrable coat of mail, sat down on a bench, in pres-
ence of assembled thousands, and bade Mimer strike him. Mi-
mer fetched of course his best blow; on which Amilias observed
that there was a strange feeling of cold iron in his inwards.
'Shake thyself, ' said Mimer: the luckless wight did so, and fell
in two halves; being cleft from the nave to the chops, never
more to swing hammer in this world. So perish, by so easy
and complete a death, all envious caitiffs, who, as dogs do with
the Moon, cannot worship Excellence, but only bay at it, --if in-
deed their life is_ a burden to them! --See Northern Antiquities
(p. 31) by Weber.
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? Chapter
[The Second of the Monuments, The Nibelungen Lied: Critical
Estimate of Its Unifying Principle of Imaginative Truth, Its
Form and Organization, Its Use of the Supernatural, and Its
Use of Tragic Forecast. Running Account of Its Plotting and
Characters . .
A GARDEN we may well name that noble Song; which is not only
by far the finest monument of Old German art, and such a monu-
ment as no other nation can exhibit in that era, but intrinsically,
and for its own sake, a work of true excellence; still worthy, in
some measure, to be regarded even as a Poem, in the strictest
sense of that word. For it is not without a certain unity of in-
terest and purport; an internal coherence and completeness: it
is a Whole, and some spirit of Music dwells in it, and informs
it. Considering farther its external history, and the environ-
ment we now find it in, it is doubly to be prized and wondered at;
for it differs from those Hero-Books, as molten or carved metal
does from rude ore; almost as some Shakspeare from his fellow
Dramatists, whose Tamburlaines 177 and Island Princesses, 178
themselves not without merit, first show us clearly in what pure
loftiness and loneliness the Hamlets and Tempests have their
abode.
The unknown Singer of the Nibelungen, tho' no Shakspeare,
must have had a deep, genial, poetic soul; wherein things dis-
continuous and inanimate shaped themselves together, and took
life: and the Universe and its wondrous purport stood signifi-
cantly pictured, overarching as with heavenly Firmaments, and
infinite Spaces, and eternal Harmonies, the little scene where
men strut and fret their hour. 179 His Poem, unlike so many old
and new usurpers of that name, has a basis and structure of its
own; a beginning, middle, and end; there is one great principle
and idea set forth in it, round which all its multifarious parts
consistently unite themselves; it is, if we rightly consider it,
One Work. Such excellence^,] singular as it may seem, a fair
interpretation will more and more disclose to us here; not in-
deed as we find it in a Homer or Shakspeare, yet still, under its
own rude fashion, distinctly discernible. Remarkable it is, more-
over, how along with this essence and primary condition of all po-
etic virtue, the minor, external virtues of what we call Taste and
so forth are, as it were, presupposed; and the living soul of Po-
etry being there, its body of incidents, its garment of language,
come of their own accord, and can be seen in their beauty even
by such as have no vision for that far deeper beauty they arise
from. Thus too in the case of Shakspeare: his feeling of propri-
ety, as compared with that of the Marlowes and Fletchers, his
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? 62
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
quick sure sense of what is fit and unfit, either in act or word,
might astonish us, had he no other superiority. But true In-
spiration, as it may well do, includes that same Taste, in all
its bearings, with many far higher things: let us see but the
Herald Mercury actually descend from his Heaven, and the
bright wings, and graceful flight, will not be wanting.
It is singular with what instinctive Art, far different from
acquired Artifice, this Poet of the Nibelungen, working in the
same province with his contemporaries of the Heldenbuch, and
with the same material of Tradition, has possessed himself of
what they could only strive after; and yet, with his clear feeling
of 'fictitious Truth, ' avoided as false the errors and monstrous
perplexities in which they vainly struggled. He is of another
species than they. His very style, in its antique, garrulous
simplicity, is and must always have been of a quite superior
kind to theirs: for example, in place of doggrel, which as mat-
ters stand is the metre of the Heldenbuch, we have here a real
system of verse, not without essential regularity, and now and
then considerable harmony, at all events liveliness, of rhythm.
True, we must often call it a diffuse, even watery dialect that
of his; yet it is genuine, from the heart, with a rhythm in the
thoughts as well as in the words. His simplicity is never silly;
even in that perpetual recurrence of epithets; sometimes of
rhymes, as where two words, for instance Leib (or rather Lip,
Body, Life) and Weib (or Wip, Woman, 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 child-like 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 curling billows, like
seas in summer. It is as a meek smile, in whose still, thought-
ful depths a whole infinitude of Patience, and Love, and heroic
Strength lay revealed. But in other cases too, we have seen this
outward sport and inward earnestness, those 'light movements
for the grave matter, ' offer grateful contrast, and cunningly ex-
cite us: for example, in Tasso; of whom tho' otherwise different
enough, this old Northern Singer has more than once reminded
us. There too, as well 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 had, far
more than we might fancy, influenced and modified the work done,
those two Poems 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
thro' some inverted telescope, whereby the whole was carried
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63
far away into the distance, the life-large figures compressed
into brilliant miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny, elflike,
and beautified as well as lessened, their hues being now closer
and brighter, the shadows and trivial features no longer visible.
This comes of singing Epic Poems; most part of which only pre-
tend to be sung.
Tasso's rich melody still lives among the Itali-
an people; the Nibelungen also is what it professes to be, a Song.
No less striking than the verse and language is the fable, or
narrative material, of the Nibelungen; so daintily yet firmly is
it put together; with such felicitous selection of the beautiful,
the essential, and no less felicitous rejection of whatever was
unbeautiful, or even extraneous. The reader is no longer af-
flicted with that chaotic brood of Firedrakes, Giants, and mali-
cious turbaned Turks, so fatally rife in the Heldenbuch; all this
is swept away, or only hovers, in faint fragments, afar off; and
free field is opened for legitimate and perennial interests. Yet
neither is the Nibelungen without its wonders; for it is Poetry
and not Prose: here too a supernatural world encompasses the
natural, and tho' at rare intervals, and in calm manner, mani-
fests itself therein. 180 Wonderful it is how skilfully this Poet
deals with the marvellous; admitting it without reluctance or
criticism, yet precisely in that degree and shape that will best
avail him. Here, if in no other respect, we should say that he
has a decided superiority to Homer himself. The whole Story
of the Nibelungen is fateful, mysterious, guided on by unseen
influences; yet the actual marvels are few; and done in the far
distance: those Dwarfs, and Cloaks of Darkness, and charmed
Treasure-caves are heard of rather than beheld; the tidings of
them seem to issue from unknown Space. Vain were it to in-
quire where that Nibelungen-land specially is: its very name is
Nebel-land, or Nifl-land, the land of Darkness, of Invisibility.
The Nibelungen Heroes that muster in thousands and tens of
thousands, tho' they march to the Rhine or Donau, and we see
their strong limbs and shining armour, we could almost fancy
to be children of air. Far beyond the firm horizon, that won-
derbearing region swims on the infinite waters; invisible to the
bodily eye, or at most discerned as a faint cloudy streak, hang-
ing in the blue depths, in mid-heaven. And thus the Nibelungen
Song, tho' based on the bottomless foundations of Spirit, and
not unvisited of skyey Messengers, is a real, rounded habitable
Earth; where we find firm footing, and the wondrous and the
common lie amicably together. Perhaps it would be difficult to
find any Poet of ancient or modern times who in this difficult
problem had steered his way with greater delicacy and success.
The Nibelungen has been called the Northern Epos, yet it
has in great part a dramatic character: those Thirty-nine Aven-
tiuren (Adventures) it consists of might be so many scenes in a
real Tragedy. The catastrophe is dimly prophecied from the
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HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
beginning; and at every fresh step, rises more and more clear-
ly into view. A shadow of coming Fate, as it were a low, in-
articulate voice of Doom, falls, from the first, out of that
charmed Nibelungen-Land: the discord of two women is as a
little spark of evil passion, that ere long enlarges itself into a
crime; foul murder is done; and now the Sin rolls on like a de-
vouring fire, till the guilty and the innocent are alike encircled
with it, and a whole land is ashes, and a whole race is swept
away.
In this simple wise, the Poem opens:181
Uns ist in alten moeren wunders vil geseit,
von helden lobeboeren, von grozer chiinheit,
von vrouden und' hoch-geziten von weinen und von chlagen
von chuner rechen striten muget ir nu wunder horen sagen.
We find in ancient story Wonders many told
Of heroes in great glory With spirit free and bold;
Of joyances and high-tides Of weeping and of woe
Of noble Recken striving Mote ye now wonders know.
Which promise we shall see is faithfully performed; as indeed
in the theme here chosen there lay materials enough. For, as
we directly thereupon learn,
Es wilhs in Burgonden ein vil edel magedin,
daz in allen landen vihl schoners mohte sin,
Chriemhild was si geheizen, si wart ein schone wip:
dar-umbe musen degene vil verliesen den lip.
A right noble Maiden Did grow in Burgandyl82
That in all lands of Earth Nought fairer mote there be,
Chriemhild, of Worms, she hight, She was a fairest Wife:
For the which must warriors Amany lose their Life. *
Chriemhild, this world's-wonder, a king's daughter andking's
sister, and no less coy and proud than fair, dreams one night
that 'she had petted a Falcon, strong, beautiful and wild; which
two Eagles snatched away from her: this she was forced to see:
* This is the first of a thousand instances, in which the two
inseparables Wip and Lip, or in the modern tongue Weib and
Leib, as mentioned above, appear together. From these two
opening stanzas of the Nibelungen Lied, the reader may ob-
tain some idea of the versification: it runs on in more or less
irregular alexandrines, with a caesural pause in each, where
the break occurs; indeed the lines seem originally to have
been divided in two at that point; for sometimes as in the first
Stanza, the middle words (moeren, lobeboeran; geziten, striten)
also rhyme; but this is rather a rare case. -- The word Rechen
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? NIBELUNGEN LIED
65
greater sorrow felt she never in the world. ' Her Mother Ute,
to whom she related the vision, soon read it for her: the Fal-
con was a noble Husband; whom, God keep him, she must sud-
denly lose. Chriemhild declares warmly for the single state;
as indeed, living there at the Court of Worms, with her Bro-
thers, Gunther, Gemot, Geiselher, 'three Kings noble and rich, '
in such pomp and renown, the pride of Burgonden-land and the
Earth might readily enough have changed for the worse. How-
ever, Dame Ute bids her not be too emphatical; for 'if ever she
have heartfelt joy in life, it will be from man's love, and she
shall be a fair Wife (Weib), when God sends-her a right-worthy
Ritter's Leib. ' Chriemhild is more in earnest, than maidens
usually are when they talk thus; it appears, she guarded against
love for many a lief-long day: nevertheless she too must yield
to the general destiny. 'Honourably she was to become a most
noble Ritter's wife': 'this, ' adds the old Singer, 'was that same
Falcon she dreamed of: how sorely she since revenged him on
her nearest kindred! For that one death died full many a mother's
son. '
It may be observed that the Poet here, and at all times, shows
a marked partiality for Chriemhild; ever striving, unlike other
Signers fsicj, to magnify her worth, her faithfulness and loveliness;
and softening, as much as may be, whatever makes against her.
No less a favourite with him is Siegfried, the prompt, gay, peace-
able, peerless hero; to whom, in the Second Aventiure, we are
here suddenly introduced, at Santen (Xante n)[J the Court of Nether -
land, whither to his glad Parents, after achievements 'of which
one might sing and tell forever, ' that noble Prince has returned.
Much as he has done and conquered, he is but just arrived at
man's years: it is on occasion of this joyful event, that a High-
tide (Hoch-gezit) is now held there; with infinite jousting, min-
strelsy, largesses, and other chivalrous doings; all which is
sung with utmost heartiness. The old King, Siegmund, offers to
resign his crown to him: but Siegfried has other game afield; the
unparalleled beauty of Chriemhild has reached his ear and fancy;
and he will now to Worms and woo her, at least, 'see how it stands
with her. ' Fruitless is it for Siegmund and the good Mother Siege-
lind, to represent the perils of that enterprize, the pride of those
Burgundiaft Gunthers and Gemots, the fierce temper of their Uncle
Hagen. Siegfried is as obstinate as young men are in these cases,
and can hear no counsel. Nay he will not accept a much more
liberal proposition, To take an army with him, and conquer the
or Recken used in the First Stanza, is the constant designa-
tion for bold fighters; and has the same root with Rich (thus
in old French, hommes riches; in Spanish, ricos hombres)
which last also is here synonymous with Powerful, and ap-
plied to Kings, and even to the Almighty: Got dem richen.
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? 66
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
country, if it must be so: he will ride forth, ,like himself, with
twelve companions only, and so defy the future. Whereupon the
old people, finding that there is no other course, proceed to
make him clothes, *--at least the good Queen with 'her fair wo-
men sitting night and day' and sewing, does so, the father fur-
nishing noblest battle and riding gear; and so dismiss him with
many blessings and lamentations. 'For him wept sore the King
and his Wife, but he comforted lovingly both their bodies (Leib);
he said, You must not weep; for my body ever shall ye be with-
out care. '
Sad was it to the Recken, Stood weeping also many a maid,
I ween, their heart had then The tidings true foresaid
That of their friends so many Death thereby should find
Cause had they of lamenting Such boding in their mind. 183
Nevertheless, on the seventh morning, that adventurous com-
pany 'ride up the sand' (on the Rhine-beach) to Worms, in high
temper, in dress and trappings, aspect and bearing, more than
kingly.
Siegfried's reception at King Gunther's court, and his brave
sayings and doings there for sometime, we must omit. One
fine trait of chivalrous delicacy it is that for a whole year, he
never hints at his errand, never once sees or speaks of Chriem-
hilde, whom nevertheless he is longing day and night to meet.
She on her side has often thro' her window noticed the gallant
stranger, victorious inall tiltings and knightlyexercises; where-
by, it would seem, in spite of her rigorous predeterminations,
some kindness for him is already gliding in. Meanwhile mighty
wars and threats of invasion arise, and Siegfried does the state
good service. Returning victorious, both as a general andsoldier,
from Hessen (Hessia) where he had captured a Danish king, and
utterly discomfited a Saxon one, he can now show himself be-
fore Chriemhilde without other blushes than those of timid love.
Nay the maiden has herself inquired pointedly of the messengers
touching his exploits, and 'her fair face grewrose-red when she
heard them. ' A gay High-tide, by way of triumph is appointed;
where several Kings, and two-and-thirty Princes, and Knights
with'gold-red saddles,' come to joust; and better than whole in-
finitudes of Kings and Princes with their saddles, the fair Chriem-
hilde herself, under guidance of her mother, chiefly too in honour
of the victor, is to grace that sport. 'Ute the full rich' fails not
to set her needle-women to work, and 'clothes of price are taken
from their presses,' for the love of her child, 'wherewith to deck
many women and many maids. ' 'On the Whitsun-morning, ' all
is ready, and glorious as heart could desire it; brave Ritters,
* This is a never-failing preparation for all expeditions; and
always specified and insisted on with a simple, loving, almost
female impressiveness.
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? NIBELUNGEN LIED
67
'five thousand or more, ' all glancing in the lists; but grander
still, Chriemhilde herself is advancing, beside her mother,
with a hundred body-guards, all sword-in-hand, and many a
noble maid 'wearing rich raiment' in her train! 184
'Now issued forth the Lovely one (minnechliche), as the
red morning doth from troubled clouds: much care fled away
from him who bore her in his heart and long had done; he saw
the Lovely one stand in her beauty.
There gleaned from her garments full many precious
stones; her rose-red colour shone full lovely: try what he
might, each man must confess that he in this "world had not
seen aught so fair.
Like as the light Moon stands before the Stars, and its
sheen so clear goes over the clouds, even so stood she now
before many fair women: whereat cheered was the mind of
the hero.
The rich chamberlains you saw go before her; the high-
spirited Recken would not forbear, but pressed on where they
saw the lovely maiden; Siegfried the lord was both glad and sad.
He thought in his mind: How could this be, that I should
woo thee ? That is a foolish dream: yet must I always be a
stranger, I were rather (sanfter, softer) dead. He became,
from these thoughts, in quick changes, pale and red.
Thus stood so lovely the son of Sigemund (Siegfried) as if
he were limned on Parchment by a Master's art; for all grant-
ed that hero so beautiful they had never seen. '*
Such a pair are clearly made for one another. Nay, on the
motion of young Herr Gemot, fair Chriemhilde is bid specially
salute Siegfried, she who had never before saluted man; which
unparalleled grace the Lovely one, in all courtliness,
[a gap in the manuscript occurs from this point, at the
bottom of manuscript p. 68, to the top of manuscript p. 89,
where the manuscript resumes with Chapter VI. For brief
discussion of Carlyle's use of the twenty missing pages from
Chapter V inhis printed essay "The Nibelungen Lied, " see
Note 176. ]
* Avent. V. l^nej 1136-60, translated with utmost possible
closeness. This last comparison, of Siegfried to a Figure
on some illuminated Manuscript, is graceful in itself; and
unspeakably so to Antiquarians, seldom honoured, in their
Blackletter stubbing & grubbingf] with such a poetic wind-
fall. 185 "
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? Chapter Vl]
{consideration of Poetry Written by Identified Authors. Chival-
ry, which Represents the Highest Developments of Medieval
Europe. From Charlemagne on, no Dark Age: Variety of Liter-
ary Productions. The Swabian Era: Its Minnesingers; Charac-
teristics of Minnelieder, or Songs of Chivalrous Love
HERE THEN, after long wanderings in the circumambient ocean
with its Isles, and distant lookings into many a high-towered
Cloudland, we at length set foot on the firm region, where Lit-
erature henceforth meets us in distinct, abiding monuments; in
written Books, of which we can give date and author.
Those Northern Immigrations, with their five fierce centur-
ies of universal convulsion and collision, had rolled stormfully
away into the Past, 186 and our World, the ruins and attrited
materials of a world, again began to show signs of peaceful co-
alition. Charlemagne rises to view, on the confines of modern
Time, like a lofty pillar; on the one side lighted by the first clear
rays of History, on the other by the wizard splendour of Romance;
on the one side inscribed with fabulous Runes, on the other with
legible authentic writing. Under this great man, great in him-
self, and placed in a great arena, Europe again saw itself, spon-
taneously or forcibly, united; not indeed into one community,
yet into a kindred aggregate, wherein dim rudiments of a com-
mon interest were becoming visible. In regard to one deep in-
terest, to that of Religion, the union might already be reckoned
complete: for now after thirty years of stout resistance, the
Saxons also had become Christian; the last remains of Heathen-
dom were driven back to the shores of the Baltic, or extirpated
with fire and sword. The noble genius of Charlemagne adapts
itself with a wonderful readiness and universality to the wants
of his time: political Institutions founded or improved. Schools
everywhere established, utmost furtherances in the practical
Arts, all this betokens a new era, and strongly accelerates its
favourable tendencies. Under his successors, it is true, the
heterogeneous fabric partially fell asunder; not without new
struggles and revulsions was such fusion to be completed: never-
theless, the grand Deluge had abated, 'the discordant seeds of
things' now lay in final contact and solution; and, like fair fruits,
the Arts, the Power, the Moral Character of new Europe were
to spring from them.
Long ages of quiet continuous effort, while forests are felled
and marshes dried; and the warlike Burg swells out into the in-
dustrious Burough; and the dwelling places of the Boar and Bi-
son ring with the voice and the implement of man, -- are carelessly
passed over by what we name History; but stand recorded without
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? POETRY OF IDENTIFIED AUTHORS
69
her aid, indelibly enough, on the face of the Earth itself. Iron
is now forged not into swords only, but into axes and plough-
shares; other Law than that of the stronger secures to Toil its
reward;187 and a better pleasure than that of destroying and
consuming, the pleasure of creating and producing, becomes
known. Spiritual culture is at work also: from the abodes of
horrid cruelty, a small still Voice of Worship arises; in calm
Cloisters the purer soul can set itself apart for Contemplation,
for study of intellectual and moral things; and Convent Bells
sound nightly thro' the wilderness, inviting the belated wayfarer,
and carry far and wide, in their tones, the new tidings of Peace
on Earth and Good-will towards men. 188 The human family is
once more finding its true destination; the strength of brother
no longer turned against brother, all are combined against the
common enemy; struggling to conquer outward and inward Na-
ture; fighting the good fight against Necessity and Evil. Such,
with vicissitudes and local obscurations enough, is the general
aspect of Europe from the age of Charles the Great; or in feeb-
ler manifestations, even from the settlement of the Lombards,
two centuries earlier.
Among the first decisive products of this new time, we must
reckon the establishment 61 Chivalry; a singular institution,
which long virtually existing in the habits of the victorious North-
men, 189 comes forth embodied in a practical shape, in the lat-
ter half of the eleventh century. It seems to have arisen in
France; but soon attaining new consistency in the Crusades,
spread, doubtless the faster on their account, over all the
Christian world; and for several ages represented under its
customs and practices whatever was highest in the spirit of
Europe. Before the end of the twelfth century. Chivalry had
reached its golden age, and might well be said to reign trium-
phant: for the greatest sovereigns, as Philippe Auguste of France,
Friedrich Barbarossa of Germany, above all, our own Richard
Lionheart, were also the most perfect Knightes fsicl and prouder
of that dignity perhaps than of their crowns. In all lower ranks,
down to the lowest reckoned noble, it had become the household
principle, and public and private law; the whole business of life
took form and colour from it.
'Every boy of family, as Custom ordered, had to be
transferred, in his seventh year, from the hands of the wo-
men, and his father's castle, to the residence of some other
Knight; that here, in the character of Page, withdrawn from
maternal tenderness, and placed under strict masculine
discipline, he might be trained, by precept and example, to
devotion towards God, to reverence for the spirit of Chival-
ry, submissive respect for women, to dignity of manners, to
courteousness, and obedience. In his fourteenth year, came
the solemnity of Arming: he was attended by his parents to
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? 70
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
the altar, on which lay a sword prepared for him: the Priest
took up the weapon, consecrated it with his blessing, girt it
round the youth; who now, decorated with this symbol of a
new rank, entered on his service as Squire. Here began the
course of his higher education. The duties of a warrior he
learnt from the elder Squires: the rest was acquired by in-
tercourse with Knights, whom he might meet visiting his
master's Castle, or on missions of his own to theirs. In his
twenty-first year he became capable of Knighthood; and when
that honour was conferred, he first swore on the altar always
to speak the Truth, always to assert the Right, to defend
Religion, its servants and temples; the weak and helpless,
widows and orphans, women and their good name. '*
Considered as a social institution, at that age of the world,
the benefits of Chivalry were manifold. Here, for the first
time, the grand principles of order, of subjection to rule, were
tniversally inculcated, and the maintenance of them made a ha-
it and a sacred duty. Thus Strength had harnessed itself in
the yoke of Reason: into the roughest business of Life, into
war itself, there is even! 92 introduced a certain softness, and
grace. Besides, in these Knightly Orders, more especially as
springing up in the Crusades, men learn to act in large com-
bination; and not only the outward force, but the knowledge, the
culture and accomplishment of each becomes available for all. 193
The Castle of the Knight is a centre of refinement far and wide:
nobleness of feeling and of bearing is the rule for its inmates;
travellers, warlike adventurers, from all regions of the world,
meet there, and from their discourse, what insight into nations
and individuals, and the general business of the world, is to be
had, communicates and combines itself and man's knowledge of
man grows clearer and wider. Nay simply as a thing established,
and so generally accepted, Chivalry asserts its worth for that
era. It was a translation into Practice of whatever was noblest
in the Sentiments of mankind; whereby in Action and daily Habit
these were fitly represented, and fostered towards farther de-
velopment. With a singular rapidity it everywhere found welcome;
the minds of men were ready, were eager for it. Europe was
'as water already cooled below the freezing point, ' the slightest
touch, a little stroke from some Hermit Peter, instantly unites
it into one strange, brilliant, many-shaped mass -- of Crusaders
and Chevaliers.
Here at last were old German Valour and Christian Humility
harmoniously blended; and the new European man stood forth
all points a Man. In that system of Chivalry, if, rightly inter-
* Eichhorn Geschichte der Litteratur (II. 44). 190 The Mem-
oires of De Sainte Palaye on this subject (Paris, 1753; 3d edit.
1 783) are known as the best authority. 191
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? POETRY OF IDENTIFIED AUTHORS
71
preting the circumstances of those ages, we read its essential
meaning, we shall find that there lay a spirit which is peren-
nially true. Chivalry once more set up an Ideal Excellence in
practical forms; once more brought the light from Heaven to
shine on our earthly path. That solemn vow to fight for the
widow and orphan, to defend Holy Church and Truth, everywhere
to stand in the breach where Might was threatening Right, what
was it but a recognition of the infinite celestial nature of Virtue,
of moral Beauty; and a joyful devoting of life and faculty, thro'
all pains and hazards, to its service? That reverence for the
Lovely, for the Weak, is a practical worship paid to the spirit
of Beauty and Mercy under these its earthly manifestations.
The moral philosophy of the twelfth century might put that of
the eighteenth to shame; 194 for the one knew and practically as-
serted what the other had well nigh forgotten, that beyond the
sphere of Sense there is an Invisible Kingdom in man, whence
and not from Sense are the issues of spiritual Life for him; that
Duty means not Profit and Loss, but something altogether un-
measurable by these, something by its nature Infinite, Divine,
and which is fitly called the Voice of God. The strong steel
warrior boasted himself superior to Matter, to the things of
Sense; the rage of multitudes, the wreck of worlds, are only
death, and cannot move his firm heart: but to the faintest whis-
per of that other, unseen Monitor he is pliant as a little child.
Thus man has something greater than Self to worship; or rather,
we may say, in that chivalrous purity and nobleness of act and
word there was the true feeling, different enough from pride and
presumption, with which the Sanctuary in our Self ought ever to
be regarded and reverenced. In a word, the perfect knight, as
we have said, was the Ideal Man of those centuries, which even
in this were fortunate that they had any open practical Ideal to
strive after: and by this sublime union and interfusion of Strength
with Love; offering to the buffetings of Fortune an iron panoply
without and within, and to the meek Heavenly influences a clear
eye and soft, devout heart, he claims to be regarded as a genu-
ine Ideal, and true in some measure for us likewise. It was the
first fair coherent figure and representation of Manhoodl95 for
these modern ages; of such Manhood as modern circumstances
shape out and admit for us: and tho' a young, simple figure, yet
also not without the vigour, the completeness, and graceful bloom
of youth.
Thus Man's being, the heavenly and the earthly element in it
rightly adjusted, was in unison with itself; and soon, as indeed
it ever does, that inward harmony expressed itself in the out-
ward harmony of Poetry, of Song. From Provence, in the twelfth
century, came a soft new tone, in singular accordance with the
feeling of that age; everywhere awakening unknown pleasure, ad-
miration, emulation. We in these days form but a faint notion of
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HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
the charm which then lay in Poetry: to men of high, enthusias-
tic temper, this melodious echo of their own finest feelings was
strange, unexpected, almost like a miracle, the gift of some
new sense. The 'joyful science' spread abroad as rapidly as
Chivalry, from which it sprang, had done; for, on the whole,
Europe was now become, if not one Commonwealth, one great
Confederation, with that quick sympathy between its parts, which
ever since, in all revolutions of opinion, of manners, even of
transitory modes, has more and more displayed itself. It was
but in the year 1126 that Raymond de Beranger obtained the
sovereignty of Provence; under whom the Troubadour Poetry
acquired its first polish: and before the middle of that century,
the Norman Trouve'res, in their Langue d'oui, were rivalling
those Southern singers in their Langue d'oc; the new Art had
spread into England, into Italy, still earlier into Spain; and thro'
all the obstacles of distance, and a total difference of language,
into Germany.
Prior to that era, the Germans had not been without their
Literature and literary furtherances. Their language, growing
from a native soil, had received what culture the times could
give it, in more than the average proportion; for while the other
languages were yet so many rustic jargons, German was the
Court-speech; spoken even by such men as Papin and Charle-
magne. It seems to be agreed on that the Frankish dialect,
which afterwards with slight natural variation, became the Swa-
bian or Upper-German (Ober-Deutsch) continued vernacular and
habitual to the Frankish Kings and Nobles, who naturally dis-
dained the Gaulish or Latin of their serfs and subjects, long af-
ter their establishment in France;* and even after the separation
of that country from the German Empire. It is expressly re-
corded of Louis the Pious that he 'spoke Latin and German with
equal readiness. ' Not till the treaty of Verdun, in 843, does the
French language make its appearance; on which occasion Lewis
the German is stated to have 'sworn, before the multitude, in
the Romanic or new French tongue, and Charles the Bald, King
of France, in the German'; doubtless, that the subjects of each
might understand clearly to what the neighbouring sovereign
bound himself.
Neither, since Ulfila's time, was the art of writing lost among
the Germans; on the contrary, memorials of it, in increasing
abundance and importance, from those centuries, still survive
for us.
? HELDENBUCH
53
able, furnishing the Poet Wieland, 169 six Centuries afterward,
with the chief incident in his Ober on. As for the young lady her-
self, we cannot but admit she was well worth sailing to Heathen-
dom for; and shall here as our sole Specimen of that old German,
give the description of her, as she first appeared on the battle-
ments during the fight; subjoining a version as verbal and literal
as the plainest phrase can make it. As a detached passage it is
the finest I have met with in the Heldenbuch: 170
'Dir Herz brann also schone
Recht als ein rot Rubein,
Gleich dem vollen Mone
Gaben ihr Auglein schein.
Sich helt die Magt reine
Mit Rosen wohl bekleid
Und auch mit Berlin kleine
Niemand da tro? st die Meid
Sie war schSn an dem Leibe
Und zu dem Seiten schmal,
Recht als ein Kerlze Scheibe
Wohlgeschaffen u? berall
Ihr beiden Hand gemeine
Pass ihr gantz nichts
gebrach
Ihr Na? glein schon und reine
Dass man sich darinn besach
Her heart burnt (with anxiety)
as beautiful
Just as a red ruby,
Like the full moon
Her eyes (eylings, pretty eyes)
gave shine.
Herself held the maiden pure
Well adorned with roses,
And also with pearls small:
No one there comforted the Maid.
She was fair of body,
And in the waist slender,
Right as a (golden) candlestick
Well-fashioned everywhere:
Her two hands proper
So that she wanted nothing;
Her little nails fair and pure,
That you could see yourself
therein.
Her hair was beautifully girt
Ihr Har war scho? n umb-
fangen
Mit edler Seiden fein
Das liess sie nieder hangen
Das hu? bsche. Magedlein
Sie trug ein Kro? n mit Steinen She wore a crown with jewels
Sie war von Gold so rot It was of gold so red:
Elberich dem viel Kleinen For Elberich the very (much)
small
With noble silk (band) fine;
She let it flow down,
The lovely Maidling.
1
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? 54
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
War zu der Magic not
Da vornen in der Kronen
Lag ein Karfunkelstein
Der in dem Pallast schone
Recht als ein Kerlzerschein
Auf jrem Haupt das Hare
War lauter und auch fein
Es leuchtet also klare
Recht als der Sonnenschein
Die Magt die stand alleine
Gar traurig war jr mut
Ihr Farb und die war reine
Lieblich we fsicj Milch und
Blut
Her durch jr zoppfe reinen
Schien jr Halss als der
Schnee
Elberich dem viel kleinen
That der Maget Jammer
weh
The Maid had need (to console
her).
There in front of the crown
Lay a carbuncle-stone,
Which in the Palace fair
Even as a taper seemed;
On her head the hair
Was glossy and also fine
It shone as bright
Even as the Sun's sheen.
The maid she stood alone
Right sad was her mind;
Her colour it was pure
Lovely as milk and blood,
Out thro' her pure locks
Shone her neck like the snow:
Elberich the very little
Was touched with the maiden's
sorrow.
Happy man was Kaiser Ottnit blessed with such a wife after all
his travail; had not the Turk Machabol cunningly sent him, in
revenge, a box of young Dragons, or Dragon-eggs, by the hands
of a caitiff Infidel, contriver of that mischief, by whom in due
course of time they were hatched and nursed; to the infinite woe
of all Lampartei, and ultimately to the death of Kaiser Ottnit
himself, whom they swallowed, and attempted to digest, once
without effect, but the next time too fatally, crown and all.
'Second Part announceth (meldet) of Herr Hugdietrich and
his son Wolffdietrich; how they, for justice' sake, oft, by
their doughty cuts, succoured distressed persons; with other
bold Heroes that stood by them in extremity. '
Concerning which Hugdietrich, Emperor of Greece, and his
son Wolfdietrich, one day the renowned Dietrich of Bern, we can
here say little more than that the first trained himself to semp-
stress work, and for many weeks plied his needle, in female at-
tire, before he could get wedded, and produce Wolfdietrich; who
com -into f/sicj the world in this clandestine manner was let down
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? HELDENBUCH
55
into the Castle-ditch, and like Romulus and Remus, nursed by
a Wolf, whence his name. However, after never-imagined ad-
ventures, with enchanters and enchantresses, Pagans, and Gi-
ants in all quarters of the world, he finally, with an utmost ef-
fort, slaughtered those Lombardy Dragons; then married Kai-
ser Ottnit's Widow, whom he had rather flirted with before;
and lived universally venerated in his new Empire, performing
yet other notable achievements. One strange property he had,
sometimes useful to him, sometimes hurtful, that his breath
when he became angry, grew flame, redhot, and would take the
temper out of swords. We find him again in the Nibelungen,
among King Etzel's followers; a staid, cautious, yet still in-
vincible man; where, tho' with great reluctance, he is forced
to interfere in that Tragedy and finish it. He is the favourite
Hero of all those Southern Romances; and well acknowledged in
the Northern also, where the chief man, however, as we shall
find, is not he but Siegfried.
'Third Part showeth of the Rose-garden (Rosengarten) at
Worms, which was planted by Chrimhilte, King Gibich's
Daughter; whereby afterwards most part of those Heroes and
Giants came to destruction, and were slain. '
In this Third Part, the Southern or Lombard Heroes come
in contact with another as notable Northern class, who however
in this rencounter come off second best. Chrimhilte, whose ul-
terior history makes such a figure in the Nibelungen, had, near
the ancient city of Worms, a Rose-garden, some seven English
miles in circuit, fenced only by a silk thread; wherein, how-
ever, she maintained Twelve stout fighting men; several of whom,
as Hagen, Folker, her three Brothers, above all the gallant
Siegfried, her Betrothed, we shall meet with again: these, so
unspeakable was their prowess, sufficed to defend the silk-thread
Garden, against all mortals. Our good Antiquarian, Von der
Hagen, imagines that this Rose-garden glances obliquely at Jupi-
ter's fight with the Titans, and we know not what confused skir-
mishing in the Utgard, or Asgard, or Midgard, of the Scandina-
vians. But however that may be, Chrimhilte, as we here learn,
being very beautiful and very wilful, boasts in the pride of her
heart that no Heroes on Earth are to be compared with hers; and
hearing accidentally that Dietrich of Bern has a high character in
that line, forthwith challenges him to visit Worms, and with eleven
picked men to do battle there, against these other Twelve Champ-
ions of Christendom that watch her Rose-garden. Dietrich, in a
towering passion, at the style of the Message, which was 'surly
and stout, ' instantly pitches upon his eleven seconds, who also
are to be principals, and with a retinue of other sixty thousand,
by quick stages, in which obstacles are to be overcome, reaches
Worms, and declares himself ready. Among these Eleven Lom-
bard Heroes of his are likewise several, whom we meet with again
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? 56
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
in the Nibelungen: besides himself, we have the old Duke Hilde-
brand, Wolfhart, Ortwin. Notable among them in another way,
is Monk Ilsan, a truculent graybeard fellow, equal to any Friar
Tuck in Robin Hood. The conditions of fight are soon agreed on:
there are to be twelve successive duels, each challenger being
expected to find his match; and the prize of victory is a Rose-
garland from Crimhilte, and ein Helssen und ein KUssen, that is
to say virtually, one kiss from her fair lips, to each. But here,
as it ever should do, Pride gets a fall; for Chrimhilte's bully-
hectors are, in divers ways, all successively felled to the ground,
and discomfited by the Berners; some of whom, as old Hildebrand,
will not take her kiss when it is due; even Siegfried himself, most
reluctantly engaged with by Dietrich, and for a while victorious,
is at last forced to seek shelter in her lap. Nay, Monk Ilsan, af-
ter the regular fight is over, and his own part in it well perform-
ed, calls out, in succession, fifty-two other idle Champions of
the Garden, part of them Giants, and routs the whole fraternity;
thereby earning, besides his regular allowance, fifty-two spare
garlands, and fifty-two kisses, in the course of which last, Chrim-
hilte's cheek, a just punishment as seemed, was scratched to the
drawing of blood by his rough beard. It only remains to be added
that King Gibich, Chrimhilte's father, is now fain to do homage
for his kingdom to Dietrich; who returns triumphant to his own
country; where also, Monk Ilsan, according to promise, distri-
butes those fifty-two rose-garlands among his fellow Friars,
crushing a garland on the bare crown of each, till 'the red blood
ran down over their ears. ' Under which hard, but not undeserved
treatment, they all agreed to pray for remission of Ilsan's sins:
indeed such as continued refractory, he tied together by the beards,
and hung pair-wise over poles; whereby the stoutest soon gave in.
So endeth here this ditty
Of strife from women's pride:
God on our griefs take pity,
Mary still by us abide. *
'In the Fourth Part is announced (gemelt) of the little King
Laurin, the Dwarf; how encompassed his Rosegarden, with so
great manhood and art-magic till at last he was vanquished by
the Heroes, and forced to become their Juggler (with sundry
other entertaining Histories, told in the other Part of this Hero-
Book, which also hath, into its several descriptions, hathfsicl
been separately ordered). '
Of which Fourth and happily last Part we shall here say no-
* Also nam das streiten ein ende
Das von der Frawen kam;
Gott unsern Kummer wende
Und Maria lobesan. 1 <<1
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? HELDENBUCH
57
thing; inasmuch as, except that certain of our old Heroes again
figure there, it has no coherence or connexion with the rest of
the Heldenbuch; and is simply a new Tale, which, by way of epi-
sode, Heinrich von Ofterdingen, as we learn from his own words,
had subsequently appended thereto. He says:
'Heinrich von Ofterdingen
This story hath been singing,
To the joy of Princes bold,
They gave him silver and gold,
Moreover pennies and garments rich:
Here endeth this Book the which
Doth of our chosen Heroes tell,
God keep us all for ever well. '172
Such is some outline of the famous Heldenbuch: on which it
will not be necessary to add any criticism. The fact that it has
so long been popular betokens a certain worth in it; the kind and
degree of which is now also in some measure apparent. In Po-
etry, 'the rude man, ' it has been said, 'requires only to see
something going on; the man of more refinement wishes to feel;
the truly refined man must be made to reflect. ' For the first of
these classes, our Hero-Book, as has been apparent enough, pro-
vides in abundance; for the other two scantily, indeed for the
second not at all. Nevertheless our estimate of that work, which
as a series of antique Traditions may have much meaning, is apt
rather to be too low. Let us remember that this is not the true
original Heldenbuch which we now see; but only a version of it
into the Knight-errant dialect of the thirteenth, indeed partly of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with all the fantastic mon-
strosities, now so trivial, pertaining to that style; under which
disguises, the really antique earnest groundwork, interesting as
old thought, if not as old Poetry, is all but quite obscured from
us. But antiquarian Diligence is now busy with the Heldenbuch
also; from which what light is in it will doubtless be elicited; and
here and there a deformity removed. Tho' the Ethiop cannot
change his skin, there is no need that even he should be unwashed
and gagged. *
* My inconsiderable knowledge of the Heldenbuch is derived
from various secondary sources, chiefly from Lessing's
Werke (B. XIII); where the reader will find an epitome of the
whole Poem, with Extracts, by Herr Fulleborn, from which
the above are taken. A still more accessible and larger ab-
stract, with long Specimens translated in verse, stands in the
Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (p. 45-167). Von der
Hagen has since been employed specially on the Heldenbuch,
with what result I yet know only by report. 173
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? 58
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
Caspar von Roen, or whoever was the ultimate redactor of
the Heldenbuch whom Lessing designates 'a highly ill-informed
man, ' 1 74 would have done better had he quite omitted that 'little
King Laurin, ' and his 'little Rosegarden, ' which properly is no
Rosegarden at all; and instead thereof, introduced the Gehornte
Siegfried (Behorned Siegfried), whose History lies at the heart
of the whole Northern Traditions; and under a rude prose dress,
is to this day a real child's-book and people's-book among the Ger-
mans. Of this Siegfried we have already seen somewhat in the
Rosegarden at Worms; and shall ere long see much more elsewhere;
for he is the chief hero of the Nibelungen: indeed nowhere can we
dip into those old Fictions, whether in Scandinavia or Saxon-land,
but under one figure or another whether as Dragon-killer and
Prince-royal, or as Blacksmith and Horse-subduer, as Sigurd,
Sivrit, Siegfried, we are sure to light on him. As his early ad-
ventures belong to the strange sort, and will afterwards concern
us not a little, we shall here endeavour to piece together some
consistent outline of them; so far indeed as that may be possible,
for his biographers, agreeing in the main points, differ widely
in the details.
First, then, let no one, from the title Gehornte (Horned, Be-
horned), fancy that our brave Siegfried, who was the loveliest
as well as the bravest of men, was actually cornuted, and had
horns on his brow, tho' like Michael Angelo's Moses; or even
that his skin, to which the epithet Behorned refers, was hard
like a crocodile's, and not softer than the softest kid: for the
truth is, his Hornedness means only an Invulnerability, like that
of Achilles, which he came by in the following manner. All men
agree that Siegfried was a King's son; he was born, as we have
the best reason to believe 'at Santen in Netherland, ' of Siemund
and the fair Sigelinde: yet by some family misfortune or discord,
of which the accounts are very various, he came into singular
straits during boyhood, having passed that happy period of life,
not under canopies of costly state, but by the sooty stithy in one
Mimer, a Blacksmith's shop. Here, however, he was not in his
right place; ever quarrelling with his fellow apprentices; nay, as
some say, breaking the hardest anvils into shivers, by his too
stout hammering; so that Mimer, otherwise a first-rate Smith,
could in no wise do with him there. He sends him accordingly
to the neighbouring forest, to fetch charcoal; well aware that a
monstrous Dragon, one Regin, the Smith's own Brother, would
meet him and devour him. But far otherwise it proved: Siegfried,
by main force, slew this Dragon, or rather dragonized Smith's-
Br other; made broth of him, and warned by some significant phe-
nomena, bathed therein; or as others assert, bathed directly in
the monster's blood, without cookery; and hereby attained that
Invulnerability, complete in all respects, save that between his
shoulders, where a limetree-leaf chanced to pitch and stick dur-
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? HELDENBUCH
59
ing the process, there was one little spot, a fatal spot as it by
and by turned out, left in its natural state. Siegfried, now see-
ing thro' the craft of the Smith, returned home and slew him;
then set forth on adventures the bare catalogue of which were
long to recite. We mention only two, as subsequently of moment
both for him and for us. He is by some said to have courted and
then jilted the fair and proud Queen Brunhilde of Isenland; nay to
have thrown down the seven gates of her Castle, and then ridden
off with her wild-horse Gana, having mounted him in the mejajdow,
and instantly broken him. Some cross passages between him and
Queen Brunhilde, who understood no jesting, there must clearly
have been; so angry is her recognition of him, at first sight, in
the Nibelungen Lied: nay she bears a lasting grudge against him
there; as he, and indeed she also, one day too sorely felt.
His other grand adventure is with the two Sons of the deceased
King Nibelung, in Nibelungen-land: these two youths, whom their
father had left a Hoard, or Treasure, beyond all price or com-
putation, Siegfried, 'riding by alone, ' found on the side of a moun-
tain, in a state of great perplexity. They had brought out the Trea-
sure from the Cave where it usually lay; but how to part it was
the difficulty; for, not to speak of gold, there were as many jew-
els alone 'as twelve waggons in four 175 days and nights, each go-
ing three journeys could carry away'; nay 'however much you took
from it, there was no diminution': besides, in real property, a
'Sword Balmung' of great potency, a 'Divfinjing- rod which gave
power over every one, ' and a 'Tarnkappe' (or Cloak of Darkness)
which rendered the wearer invisible, and gave him twelve men's
strength. So that the two Princes Royal, without counsel save
from their Twelve stupid Giants, knew not how to fall upon any
amicable arrangement; and seeing Siegfried ride by so opportunely,
requested him to be arbiter; offering also the Sword Balmung for
his trouble. Siegfried, who readily undertook the impossible prob-
lem, did his best to accomplish it, but of course without effect;
nay the two Nibelungen Princes, being of choleric temper, grew
impatient, and provoked him; whereupon with the Sword Balmung
he slew them both, and their twelve Giants to boot. Thus did the
famous Nibelungen Hort (Hoard), and indeed the whole Nibelungen
Land come into his possession: wearing the Sword Balmung, and
and [sic] having slain the two Princes and their Champions, what
was there farther to oppose him? Vainly did the Dwarf Alberich,
known to us already from the Hero-Book, who was special Keeper
of this Hoard, attempt some resistance with a Dwarf army: he was
driven back into the Cave; plundered of his Tarnkappe; and obliged
with all his myrmidons to swear fealty to the conqueror, whom in-
deed thenceforth he and they punctually obeyed. Whereby Siegfried
might now farther style himself King of the Nibelungen; Master of
the infinite Nibelungen Hoard (collected doubtless by art-magic,
in the beginning of Time, in the deep bowels of the universe), with
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? 60
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
the WHnschelruthe (Wishing or Divining Rod) pertaining thereto;
Owner of the Tarnkappe, which he ever after kept by him, to
put on at will; and tho' last not least, Bearer and Wielder of the
Sword Balmung, * by the keen edge of which all this gain had
come to him. To which last acquisitions, adding his previously
acquired Invulnerability, and his natural dignities as Prince of
Netherland, he might well show himself, before the foremost,
at Worms or elsewhere, and attempt any the highest adventure
that Fortune could cut out for him. However, his subsequent
History belongs all to the Nibelungen Song; at which fair Garden
of Poesy we are now, thro' all these shaggy wildernesses and
enchanted woods, finally arrived.
* By this Sword Balmung also hangs a tale. Doubtless it was
one of those invaluable weapons, sometimes fabricated by the
old Northern Smiths, compared with which our modern Foxes,
and Ferraras, and Toledos are mere leaden tools. Von der
Hagen seems to think, it was simply the Sword Mimung, under
another name; in which case, Siegfried's old master, Mimer,
had been the fabricator of it, and called it after himself, as if
it had been his son. In Scandinavian chronicles, veridical or
not, we have the following account of that transaction. Mimer
(or, as some have it, surely without ground, one Velint an
apprentice of his) was challenged by another craftsman, named
Amilias, who boasted that he had made a suit of armour which
no stroke could dint, --to equal that feat, or own himself the
second Smith then extant. This last the stout Mimer would in
no case do; but proceeded to forge the sword Mimung, with
which, when it was finished, he 'in presence of the King' cut
asunder 'a thread of wool floating on water'. This would have
seemed a fair fire-edge to most Smiths: not so to Mimer; he
sawed the blade in pieces, welded it in a 'redhot fire for three
days', tempered it 'with milk and oatmeal, ' and by much other
cunning, brought out a sword that severed 'a ball of wool float-
ing on water. ' But neither would this suffice him; he returned
to his smithy, and by means known only to himself, produced
in the course of seven weeks, a third and final edition of Mi-
mung, which split asunder a whole floating pack of wool. The
comparative trial now took place forthwith. Amilias, cased
in his impenetrable coat of mail, sat down on a bench, in pres-
ence of assembled thousands, and bade Mimer strike him. Mi-
mer fetched of course his best blow; on which Amilias observed
that there was a strange feeling of cold iron in his inwards.
'Shake thyself, ' said Mimer: the luckless wight did so, and fell
in two halves; being cleft from the nave to the chops, never
more to swing hammer in this world. So perish, by so easy
and complete a death, all envious caitiffs, who, as dogs do with
the Moon, cannot worship Excellence, but only bay at it, --if in-
deed their life is_ a burden to them! --See Northern Antiquities
(p. 31) by Weber.
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? Chapter
[The Second of the Monuments, The Nibelungen Lied: Critical
Estimate of Its Unifying Principle of Imaginative Truth, Its
Form and Organization, Its Use of the Supernatural, and Its
Use of Tragic Forecast. Running Account of Its Plotting and
Characters . .
A GARDEN we may well name that noble Song; which is not only
by far the finest monument of Old German art, and such a monu-
ment as no other nation can exhibit in that era, but intrinsically,
and for its own sake, a work of true excellence; still worthy, in
some measure, to be regarded even as a Poem, in the strictest
sense of that word. For it is not without a certain unity of in-
terest and purport; an internal coherence and completeness: it
is a Whole, and some spirit of Music dwells in it, and informs
it. Considering farther its external history, and the environ-
ment we now find it in, it is doubly to be prized and wondered at;
for it differs from those Hero-Books, as molten or carved metal
does from rude ore; almost as some Shakspeare from his fellow
Dramatists, whose Tamburlaines 177 and Island Princesses, 178
themselves not without merit, first show us clearly in what pure
loftiness and loneliness the Hamlets and Tempests have their
abode.
The unknown Singer of the Nibelungen, tho' no Shakspeare,
must have had a deep, genial, poetic soul; wherein things dis-
continuous and inanimate shaped themselves together, and took
life: and the Universe and its wondrous purport stood signifi-
cantly pictured, overarching as with heavenly Firmaments, and
infinite Spaces, and eternal Harmonies, the little scene where
men strut and fret their hour. 179 His Poem, unlike so many old
and new usurpers of that name, has a basis and structure of its
own; a beginning, middle, and end; there is one great principle
and idea set forth in it, round which all its multifarious parts
consistently unite themselves; it is, if we rightly consider it,
One Work. Such excellence^,] singular as it may seem, a fair
interpretation will more and more disclose to us here; not in-
deed as we find it in a Homer or Shakspeare, yet still, under its
own rude fashion, distinctly discernible. Remarkable it is, more-
over, how along with this essence and primary condition of all po-
etic virtue, the minor, external virtues of what we call Taste and
so forth are, as it were, presupposed; and the living soul of Po-
etry being there, its body of incidents, its garment of language,
come of their own accord, and can be seen in their beauty even
by such as have no vision for that far deeper beauty they arise
from. Thus too in the case of Shakspeare: his feeling of propri-
ety, as compared with that of the Marlowes and Fletchers, his
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? 62
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
quick sure sense of what is fit and unfit, either in act or word,
might astonish us, had he no other superiority. But true In-
spiration, as it may well do, includes that same Taste, in all
its bearings, with many far higher things: let us see but the
Herald Mercury actually descend from his Heaven, and the
bright wings, and graceful flight, will not be wanting.
It is singular with what instinctive Art, far different from
acquired Artifice, this Poet of the Nibelungen, working in the
same province with his contemporaries of the Heldenbuch, and
with the same material of Tradition, has possessed himself of
what they could only strive after; and yet, with his clear feeling
of 'fictitious Truth, ' avoided as false the errors and monstrous
perplexities in which they vainly struggled. He is of another
species than they. His very style, in its antique, garrulous
simplicity, is and must always have been of a quite superior
kind to theirs: for example, in place of doggrel, which as mat-
ters stand is the metre of the Heldenbuch, we have here a real
system of verse, not without essential regularity, and now and
then considerable harmony, at all events liveliness, of rhythm.
True, we must often call it a diffuse, even watery dialect that
of his; yet it is genuine, from the heart, with a rhythm in the
thoughts as well as in the words. His simplicity is never silly;
even in that perpetual recurrence of epithets; sometimes of
rhymes, as where two words, for instance Leib (or rather Lip,
Body, Life) and Weib (or Wip, Woman, 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 child-like 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 curling billows, like
seas in summer. It is as a meek smile, in whose still, thought-
ful depths a whole infinitude of Patience, and Love, and heroic
Strength lay revealed. But in other cases too, we have seen this
outward sport and inward earnestness, those 'light movements
for the grave matter, ' offer grateful contrast, and cunningly ex-
cite us: for example, in Tasso; of whom tho' otherwise different
enough, this old Northern Singer has more than once reminded
us. There too, as well 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 had, far
more than we might fancy, influenced and modified the work done,
those two Poems 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
thro' some inverted telescope, whereby the whole was carried
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63
far away into the distance, the life-large figures compressed
into brilliant miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny, elflike,
and beautified as well as lessened, their hues being now closer
and brighter, the shadows and trivial features no longer visible.
This comes of singing Epic Poems; most part of which only pre-
tend to be sung.
Tasso's rich melody still lives among the Itali-
an people; the Nibelungen also is what it professes to be, a Song.
No less striking than the verse and language is the fable, or
narrative material, of the Nibelungen; so daintily yet firmly is
it put together; with such felicitous selection of the beautiful,
the essential, and no less felicitous rejection of whatever was
unbeautiful, or even extraneous. The reader is no longer af-
flicted with that chaotic brood of Firedrakes, Giants, and mali-
cious turbaned Turks, so fatally rife in the Heldenbuch; all this
is swept away, or only hovers, in faint fragments, afar off; and
free field is opened for legitimate and perennial interests. Yet
neither is the Nibelungen without its wonders; for it is Poetry
and not Prose: here too a supernatural world encompasses the
natural, and tho' at rare intervals, and in calm manner, mani-
fests itself therein. 180 Wonderful it is how skilfully this Poet
deals with the marvellous; admitting it without reluctance or
criticism, yet precisely in that degree and shape that will best
avail him. Here, if in no other respect, we should say that he
has a decided superiority to Homer himself. The whole Story
of the Nibelungen is fateful, mysterious, guided on by unseen
influences; yet the actual marvels are few; and done in the far
distance: those Dwarfs, and Cloaks of Darkness, and charmed
Treasure-caves are heard of rather than beheld; the tidings of
them seem to issue from unknown Space. Vain were it to in-
quire where that Nibelungen-land specially is: its very name is
Nebel-land, or Nifl-land, the land of Darkness, of Invisibility.
The Nibelungen Heroes that muster in thousands and tens of
thousands, tho' they march to the Rhine or Donau, and we see
their strong limbs and shining armour, we could almost fancy
to be children of air. Far beyond the firm horizon, that won-
derbearing region swims on the infinite waters; invisible to the
bodily eye, or at most discerned as a faint cloudy streak, hang-
ing in the blue depths, in mid-heaven. And thus the Nibelungen
Song, tho' based on the bottomless foundations of Spirit, and
not unvisited of skyey Messengers, is a real, rounded habitable
Earth; where we find firm footing, and the wondrous and the
common lie amicably together. Perhaps it would be difficult to
find any Poet of ancient or modern times who in this difficult
problem had steered his way with greater delicacy and success.
The Nibelungen has been called the Northern Epos, yet it
has in great part a dramatic character: those Thirty-nine Aven-
tiuren (Adventures) it consists of might be so many scenes in a
real Tragedy. The catastrophe is dimly prophecied from the
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? 64
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
beginning; and at every fresh step, rises more and more clear-
ly into view. A shadow of coming Fate, as it were a low, in-
articulate voice of Doom, falls, from the first, out of that
charmed Nibelungen-Land: the discord of two women is as a
little spark of evil passion, that ere long enlarges itself into a
crime; foul murder is done; and now the Sin rolls on like a de-
vouring fire, till the guilty and the innocent are alike encircled
with it, and a whole land is ashes, and a whole race is swept
away.
In this simple wise, the Poem opens:181
Uns ist in alten moeren wunders vil geseit,
von helden lobeboeren, von grozer chiinheit,
von vrouden und' hoch-geziten von weinen und von chlagen
von chuner rechen striten muget ir nu wunder horen sagen.
We find in ancient story Wonders many told
Of heroes in great glory With spirit free and bold;
Of joyances and high-tides Of weeping and of woe
Of noble Recken striving Mote ye now wonders know.
Which promise we shall see is faithfully performed; as indeed
in the theme here chosen there lay materials enough. For, as
we directly thereupon learn,
Es wilhs in Burgonden ein vil edel magedin,
daz in allen landen vihl schoners mohte sin,
Chriemhild was si geheizen, si wart ein schone wip:
dar-umbe musen degene vil verliesen den lip.
A right noble Maiden Did grow in Burgandyl82
That in all lands of Earth Nought fairer mote there be,
Chriemhild, of Worms, she hight, She was a fairest Wife:
For the which must warriors Amany lose their Life. *
Chriemhild, this world's-wonder, a king's daughter andking's
sister, and no less coy and proud than fair, dreams one night
that 'she had petted a Falcon, strong, beautiful and wild; which
two Eagles snatched away from her: this she was forced to see:
* This is the first of a thousand instances, in which the two
inseparables Wip and Lip, or in the modern tongue Weib and
Leib, as mentioned above, appear together. From these two
opening stanzas of the Nibelungen Lied, the reader may ob-
tain some idea of the versification: it runs on in more or less
irregular alexandrines, with a caesural pause in each, where
the break occurs; indeed the lines seem originally to have
been divided in two at that point; for sometimes as in the first
Stanza, the middle words (moeren, lobeboeran; geziten, striten)
also rhyme; but this is rather a rare case. -- The word Rechen
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? NIBELUNGEN LIED
65
greater sorrow felt she never in the world. ' Her Mother Ute,
to whom she related the vision, soon read it for her: the Fal-
con was a noble Husband; whom, God keep him, she must sud-
denly lose. Chriemhild declares warmly for the single state;
as indeed, living there at the Court of Worms, with her Bro-
thers, Gunther, Gemot, Geiselher, 'three Kings noble and rich, '
in such pomp and renown, the pride of Burgonden-land and the
Earth might readily enough have changed for the worse. How-
ever, Dame Ute bids her not be too emphatical; for 'if ever she
have heartfelt joy in life, it will be from man's love, and she
shall be a fair Wife (Weib), when God sends-her a right-worthy
Ritter's Leib. ' Chriemhild is more in earnest, than maidens
usually are when they talk thus; it appears, she guarded against
love for many a lief-long day: nevertheless she too must yield
to the general destiny. 'Honourably she was to become a most
noble Ritter's wife': 'this, ' adds the old Singer, 'was that same
Falcon she dreamed of: how sorely she since revenged him on
her nearest kindred! For that one death died full many a mother's
son. '
It may be observed that the Poet here, and at all times, shows
a marked partiality for Chriemhild; ever striving, unlike other
Signers fsicj, to magnify her worth, her faithfulness and loveliness;
and softening, as much as may be, whatever makes against her.
No less a favourite with him is Siegfried, the prompt, gay, peace-
able, peerless hero; to whom, in the Second Aventiure, we are
here suddenly introduced, at Santen (Xante n)[J the Court of Nether -
land, whither to his glad Parents, after achievements 'of which
one might sing and tell forever, ' that noble Prince has returned.
Much as he has done and conquered, he is but just arrived at
man's years: it is on occasion of this joyful event, that a High-
tide (Hoch-gezit) is now held there; with infinite jousting, min-
strelsy, largesses, and other chivalrous doings; all which is
sung with utmost heartiness. The old King, Siegmund, offers to
resign his crown to him: but Siegfried has other game afield; the
unparalleled beauty of Chriemhild has reached his ear and fancy;
and he will now to Worms and woo her, at least, 'see how it stands
with her. ' Fruitless is it for Siegmund and the good Mother Siege-
lind, to represent the perils of that enterprize, the pride of those
Burgundiaft Gunthers and Gemots, the fierce temper of their Uncle
Hagen. Siegfried is as obstinate as young men are in these cases,
and can hear no counsel. Nay he will not accept a much more
liberal proposition, To take an army with him, and conquer the
or Recken used in the First Stanza, is the constant designa-
tion for bold fighters; and has the same root with Rich (thus
in old French, hommes riches; in Spanish, ricos hombres)
which last also is here synonymous with Powerful, and ap-
plied to Kings, and even to the Almighty: Got dem richen.
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? 66
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
country, if it must be so: he will ride forth, ,like himself, with
twelve companions only, and so defy the future. Whereupon the
old people, finding that there is no other course, proceed to
make him clothes, *--at least the good Queen with 'her fair wo-
men sitting night and day' and sewing, does so, the father fur-
nishing noblest battle and riding gear; and so dismiss him with
many blessings and lamentations. 'For him wept sore the King
and his Wife, but he comforted lovingly both their bodies (Leib);
he said, You must not weep; for my body ever shall ye be with-
out care. '
Sad was it to the Recken, Stood weeping also many a maid,
I ween, their heart had then The tidings true foresaid
That of their friends so many Death thereby should find
Cause had they of lamenting Such boding in their mind. 183
Nevertheless, on the seventh morning, that adventurous com-
pany 'ride up the sand' (on the Rhine-beach) to Worms, in high
temper, in dress and trappings, aspect and bearing, more than
kingly.
Siegfried's reception at King Gunther's court, and his brave
sayings and doings there for sometime, we must omit. One
fine trait of chivalrous delicacy it is that for a whole year, he
never hints at his errand, never once sees or speaks of Chriem-
hilde, whom nevertheless he is longing day and night to meet.
She on her side has often thro' her window noticed the gallant
stranger, victorious inall tiltings and knightlyexercises; where-
by, it would seem, in spite of her rigorous predeterminations,
some kindness for him is already gliding in. Meanwhile mighty
wars and threats of invasion arise, and Siegfried does the state
good service. Returning victorious, both as a general andsoldier,
from Hessen (Hessia) where he had captured a Danish king, and
utterly discomfited a Saxon one, he can now show himself be-
fore Chriemhilde without other blushes than those of timid love.
Nay the maiden has herself inquired pointedly of the messengers
touching his exploits, and 'her fair face grewrose-red when she
heard them. ' A gay High-tide, by way of triumph is appointed;
where several Kings, and two-and-thirty Princes, and Knights
with'gold-red saddles,' come to joust; and better than whole in-
finitudes of Kings and Princes with their saddles, the fair Chriem-
hilde herself, under guidance of her mother, chiefly too in honour
of the victor, is to grace that sport. 'Ute the full rich' fails not
to set her needle-women to work, and 'clothes of price are taken
from their presses,' for the love of her child, 'wherewith to deck
many women and many maids. ' 'On the Whitsun-morning, ' all
is ready, and glorious as heart could desire it; brave Ritters,
* This is a never-failing preparation for all expeditions; and
always specified and insisted on with a simple, loving, almost
female impressiveness.
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? NIBELUNGEN LIED
67
'five thousand or more, ' all glancing in the lists; but grander
still, Chriemhilde herself is advancing, beside her mother,
with a hundred body-guards, all sword-in-hand, and many a
noble maid 'wearing rich raiment' in her train! 184
'Now issued forth the Lovely one (minnechliche), as the
red morning doth from troubled clouds: much care fled away
from him who bore her in his heart and long had done; he saw
the Lovely one stand in her beauty.
There gleaned from her garments full many precious
stones; her rose-red colour shone full lovely: try what he
might, each man must confess that he in this "world had not
seen aught so fair.
Like as the light Moon stands before the Stars, and its
sheen so clear goes over the clouds, even so stood she now
before many fair women: whereat cheered was the mind of
the hero.
The rich chamberlains you saw go before her; the high-
spirited Recken would not forbear, but pressed on where they
saw the lovely maiden; Siegfried the lord was both glad and sad.
He thought in his mind: How could this be, that I should
woo thee ? That is a foolish dream: yet must I always be a
stranger, I were rather (sanfter, softer) dead. He became,
from these thoughts, in quick changes, pale and red.
Thus stood so lovely the son of Sigemund (Siegfried) as if
he were limned on Parchment by a Master's art; for all grant-
ed that hero so beautiful they had never seen. '*
Such a pair are clearly made for one another. Nay, on the
motion of young Herr Gemot, fair Chriemhilde is bid specially
salute Siegfried, she who had never before saluted man; which
unparalleled grace the Lovely one, in all courtliness,
[a gap in the manuscript occurs from this point, at the
bottom of manuscript p. 68, to the top of manuscript p. 89,
where the manuscript resumes with Chapter VI. For brief
discussion of Carlyle's use of the twenty missing pages from
Chapter V inhis printed essay "The Nibelungen Lied, " see
Note 176. ]
* Avent. V. l^nej 1136-60, translated with utmost possible
closeness. This last comparison, of Siegfried to a Figure
on some illuminated Manuscript, is graceful in itself; and
unspeakably so to Antiquarians, seldom honoured, in their
Blackletter stubbing & grubbingf] with such a poetic wind-
fall. 185 "
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? Chapter Vl]
{consideration of Poetry Written by Identified Authors. Chival-
ry, which Represents the Highest Developments of Medieval
Europe. From Charlemagne on, no Dark Age: Variety of Liter-
ary Productions. The Swabian Era: Its Minnesingers; Charac-
teristics of Minnelieder, or Songs of Chivalrous Love
HERE THEN, after long wanderings in the circumambient ocean
with its Isles, and distant lookings into many a high-towered
Cloudland, we at length set foot on the firm region, where Lit-
erature henceforth meets us in distinct, abiding monuments; in
written Books, of which we can give date and author.
Those Northern Immigrations, with their five fierce centur-
ies of universal convulsion and collision, had rolled stormfully
away into the Past, 186 and our World, the ruins and attrited
materials of a world, again began to show signs of peaceful co-
alition. Charlemagne rises to view, on the confines of modern
Time, like a lofty pillar; on the one side lighted by the first clear
rays of History, on the other by the wizard splendour of Romance;
on the one side inscribed with fabulous Runes, on the other with
legible authentic writing. Under this great man, great in him-
self, and placed in a great arena, Europe again saw itself, spon-
taneously or forcibly, united; not indeed into one community,
yet into a kindred aggregate, wherein dim rudiments of a com-
mon interest were becoming visible. In regard to one deep in-
terest, to that of Religion, the union might already be reckoned
complete: for now after thirty years of stout resistance, the
Saxons also had become Christian; the last remains of Heathen-
dom were driven back to the shores of the Baltic, or extirpated
with fire and sword. The noble genius of Charlemagne adapts
itself with a wonderful readiness and universality to the wants
of his time: political Institutions founded or improved. Schools
everywhere established, utmost furtherances in the practical
Arts, all this betokens a new era, and strongly accelerates its
favourable tendencies. Under his successors, it is true, the
heterogeneous fabric partially fell asunder; not without new
struggles and revulsions was such fusion to be completed: never-
theless, the grand Deluge had abated, 'the discordant seeds of
things' now lay in final contact and solution; and, like fair fruits,
the Arts, the Power, the Moral Character of new Europe were
to spring from them.
Long ages of quiet continuous effort, while forests are felled
and marshes dried; and the warlike Burg swells out into the in-
dustrious Burough; and the dwelling places of the Boar and Bi-
son ring with the voice and the implement of man, -- are carelessly
passed over by what we name History; but stand recorded without
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? POETRY OF IDENTIFIED AUTHORS
69
her aid, indelibly enough, on the face of the Earth itself. Iron
is now forged not into swords only, but into axes and plough-
shares; other Law than that of the stronger secures to Toil its
reward;187 and a better pleasure than that of destroying and
consuming, the pleasure of creating and producing, becomes
known. Spiritual culture is at work also: from the abodes of
horrid cruelty, a small still Voice of Worship arises; in calm
Cloisters the purer soul can set itself apart for Contemplation,
for study of intellectual and moral things; and Convent Bells
sound nightly thro' the wilderness, inviting the belated wayfarer,
and carry far and wide, in their tones, the new tidings of Peace
on Earth and Good-will towards men. 188 The human family is
once more finding its true destination; the strength of brother
no longer turned against brother, all are combined against the
common enemy; struggling to conquer outward and inward Na-
ture; fighting the good fight against Necessity and Evil. Such,
with vicissitudes and local obscurations enough, is the general
aspect of Europe from the age of Charles the Great; or in feeb-
ler manifestations, even from the settlement of the Lombards,
two centuries earlier.
Among the first decisive products of this new time, we must
reckon the establishment 61 Chivalry; a singular institution,
which long virtually existing in the habits of the victorious North-
men, 189 comes forth embodied in a practical shape, in the lat-
ter half of the eleventh century. It seems to have arisen in
France; but soon attaining new consistency in the Crusades,
spread, doubtless the faster on their account, over all the
Christian world; and for several ages represented under its
customs and practices whatever was highest in the spirit of
Europe. Before the end of the twelfth century. Chivalry had
reached its golden age, and might well be said to reign trium-
phant: for the greatest sovereigns, as Philippe Auguste of France,
Friedrich Barbarossa of Germany, above all, our own Richard
Lionheart, were also the most perfect Knightes fsicl and prouder
of that dignity perhaps than of their crowns. In all lower ranks,
down to the lowest reckoned noble, it had become the household
principle, and public and private law; the whole business of life
took form and colour from it.
'Every boy of family, as Custom ordered, had to be
transferred, in his seventh year, from the hands of the wo-
men, and his father's castle, to the residence of some other
Knight; that here, in the character of Page, withdrawn from
maternal tenderness, and placed under strict masculine
discipline, he might be trained, by precept and example, to
devotion towards God, to reverence for the spirit of Chival-
ry, submissive respect for women, to dignity of manners, to
courteousness, and obedience. In his fourteenth year, came
the solemnity of Arming: he was attended by his parents to
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? 70
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
the altar, on which lay a sword prepared for him: the Priest
took up the weapon, consecrated it with his blessing, girt it
round the youth; who now, decorated with this symbol of a
new rank, entered on his service as Squire. Here began the
course of his higher education. The duties of a warrior he
learnt from the elder Squires: the rest was acquired by in-
tercourse with Knights, whom he might meet visiting his
master's Castle, or on missions of his own to theirs. In his
twenty-first year he became capable of Knighthood; and when
that honour was conferred, he first swore on the altar always
to speak the Truth, always to assert the Right, to defend
Religion, its servants and temples; the weak and helpless,
widows and orphans, women and their good name. '*
Considered as a social institution, at that age of the world,
the benefits of Chivalry were manifold. Here, for the first
time, the grand principles of order, of subjection to rule, were
tniversally inculcated, and the maintenance of them made a ha-
it and a sacred duty. Thus Strength had harnessed itself in
the yoke of Reason: into the roughest business of Life, into
war itself, there is even! 92 introduced a certain softness, and
grace. Besides, in these Knightly Orders, more especially as
springing up in the Crusades, men learn to act in large com-
bination; and not only the outward force, but the knowledge, the
culture and accomplishment of each becomes available for all. 193
The Castle of the Knight is a centre of refinement far and wide:
nobleness of feeling and of bearing is the rule for its inmates;
travellers, warlike adventurers, from all regions of the world,
meet there, and from their discourse, what insight into nations
and individuals, and the general business of the world, is to be
had, communicates and combines itself and man's knowledge of
man grows clearer and wider. Nay simply as a thing established,
and so generally accepted, Chivalry asserts its worth for that
era. It was a translation into Practice of whatever was noblest
in the Sentiments of mankind; whereby in Action and daily Habit
these were fitly represented, and fostered towards farther de-
velopment. With a singular rapidity it everywhere found welcome;
the minds of men were ready, were eager for it. Europe was
'as water already cooled below the freezing point, ' the slightest
touch, a little stroke from some Hermit Peter, instantly unites
it into one strange, brilliant, many-shaped mass -- of Crusaders
and Chevaliers.
Here at last were old German Valour and Christian Humility
harmoniously blended; and the new European man stood forth
all points a Man. In that system of Chivalry, if, rightly inter-
* Eichhorn Geschichte der Litteratur (II. 44). 190 The Mem-
oires of De Sainte Palaye on this subject (Paris, 1753; 3d edit.
1 783) are known as the best authority. 191
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? POETRY OF IDENTIFIED AUTHORS
71
preting the circumstances of those ages, we read its essential
meaning, we shall find that there lay a spirit which is peren-
nially true. Chivalry once more set up an Ideal Excellence in
practical forms; once more brought the light from Heaven to
shine on our earthly path. That solemn vow to fight for the
widow and orphan, to defend Holy Church and Truth, everywhere
to stand in the breach where Might was threatening Right, what
was it but a recognition of the infinite celestial nature of Virtue,
of moral Beauty; and a joyful devoting of life and faculty, thro'
all pains and hazards, to its service? That reverence for the
Lovely, for the Weak, is a practical worship paid to the spirit
of Beauty and Mercy under these its earthly manifestations.
The moral philosophy of the twelfth century might put that of
the eighteenth to shame; 194 for the one knew and practically as-
serted what the other had well nigh forgotten, that beyond the
sphere of Sense there is an Invisible Kingdom in man, whence
and not from Sense are the issues of spiritual Life for him; that
Duty means not Profit and Loss, but something altogether un-
measurable by these, something by its nature Infinite, Divine,
and which is fitly called the Voice of God. The strong steel
warrior boasted himself superior to Matter, to the things of
Sense; the rage of multitudes, the wreck of worlds, are only
death, and cannot move his firm heart: but to the faintest whis-
per of that other, unseen Monitor he is pliant as a little child.
Thus man has something greater than Self to worship; or rather,
we may say, in that chivalrous purity and nobleness of act and
word there was the true feeling, different enough from pride and
presumption, with which the Sanctuary in our Self ought ever to
be regarded and reverenced. In a word, the perfect knight, as
we have said, was the Ideal Man of those centuries, which even
in this were fortunate that they had any open practical Ideal to
strive after: and by this sublime union and interfusion of Strength
with Love; offering to the buffetings of Fortune an iron panoply
without and within, and to the meek Heavenly influences a clear
eye and soft, devout heart, he claims to be regarded as a genu-
ine Ideal, and true in some measure for us likewise. It was the
first fair coherent figure and representation of Manhoodl95 for
these modern ages; of such Manhood as modern circumstances
shape out and admit for us: and tho' a young, simple figure, yet
also not without the vigour, the completeness, and graceful bloom
of youth.
Thus Man's being, the heavenly and the earthly element in it
rightly adjusted, was in unison with itself; and soon, as indeed
it ever does, that inward harmony expressed itself in the out-
ward harmony of Poetry, of Song. From Provence, in the twelfth
century, came a soft new tone, in singular accordance with the
feeling of that age; everywhere awakening unknown pleasure, ad-
miration, emulation. We in these days form but a faint notion of
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:12 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. $b781466 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 72
HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE
the charm which then lay in Poetry: to men of high, enthusias-
tic temper, this melodious echo of their own finest feelings was
strange, unexpected, almost like a miracle, the gift of some
new sense. The 'joyful science' spread abroad as rapidly as
Chivalry, from which it sprang, had done; for, on the whole,
Europe was now become, if not one Commonwealth, one great
Confederation, with that quick sympathy between its parts, which
ever since, in all revolutions of opinion, of manners, even of
transitory modes, has more and more displayed itself. It was
but in the year 1126 that Raymond de Beranger obtained the
sovereignty of Provence; under whom the Troubadour Poetry
acquired its first polish: and before the middle of that century,
the Norman Trouve'res, in their Langue d'oui, were rivalling
those Southern singers in their Langue d'oc; the new Art had
spread into England, into Italy, still earlier into Spain; and thro'
all the obstacles of distance, and a total difference of language,
into Germany.
Prior to that era, the Germans had not been without their
Literature and literary furtherances. Their language, growing
from a native soil, had received what culture the times could
give it, in more than the average proportion; for while the other
languages were yet so many rustic jargons, German was the
Court-speech; spoken even by such men as Papin and Charle-
magne. It seems to be agreed on that the Frankish dialect,
which afterwards with slight natural variation, became the Swa-
bian or Upper-German (Ober-Deutsch) continued vernacular and
habitual to the Frankish Kings and Nobles, who naturally dis-
dained the Gaulish or Latin of their serfs and subjects, long af-
ter their establishment in France;* and even after the separation
of that country from the German Empire. It is expressly re-
corded of Louis the Pious that he 'spoke Latin and German with
equal readiness. ' Not till the treaty of Verdun, in 843, does the
French language make its appearance; on which occasion Lewis
the German is stated to have 'sworn, before the multitude, in
the Romanic or new French tongue, and Charles the Bald, King
of France, in the German'; doubtless, that the subjects of each
might understand clearly to what the neighbouring sovereign
bound himself.
Neither, since Ulfila's time, was the art of writing lost among
the Germans; on the contrary, memorials of it, in increasing
abundance and importance, from those centuries, still survive
for us.
