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full earnestly go to the church, and plain to God the powerful (Got dem richen) of your sorrow and utmost need; and know of a surety that death for us is nigh." In Etzel's Hall, where the Nibelungen appear at the royal feast in complete armour, the Strife, incited by Chriemhild, begins: the first answer to her provocation is from Hagen, who hews off the head of her own and Etzel's son, making it bound into the mother's bosom :"" then began among the Recken a murder grim and great." Dietrich, with a voice of preternatural power, commands pause; retires with Etzel and Chriemhild; and now the bloody work has free course. We have heard of battles, and massacres, and deadly struggles in siege and storm; but seldom has even the poet's imagination pictured any thing so fierce and terrible as this. Host after host, as they enter that huge vaulted Hall, perish in the conflict with the doomed Nibelungen; and even after the terrific uproar, ensues a still more terrific silence. All night, and through morning it lasts. They throw the dead from the windows; blood runs like water; the Hall is set fire to, they quench it with blood, their own burning thirst they slake with blood. It is a tumult like the Crack of Doom, a thousand voiced, wild stunning hubbub: and, frightful like a Trump of Doom, the Sword-fiddlebow of Volker, who guards the door, makes music to that death-dance. Nor are traits of heroism wanting, and thrilling tones of pity and love; as in that act of Rudiger, Eizel's and Chriemhild's champion, who, bound by oath, "lays his soul in God's hand," and enters that Golgotha to die fighting against his friends; yet first changes shields with Hagen, whose own, also given him by Rudiger in a far other hour, had been shattered in the fight. "When he so lovingly bade give him the shield, there were eyes enough red with hot tears; it was the last gift which Rudiger of Bechelaren gave to any Recke. As grim as Hagen was, and as hard of mind, he wept at this gift which the hero good, so near his last times, had given him; full many a noble Riter began to weep."

At last Volker is slain; they are all slain, save only Hagen and Gunther, faint and wounded, ret still unconquered among the bodies of the dead. Dietrich the wary, though strong and invincible, whose Recken too, except old Hildebrand, he now finds are all killed, though he had charged them strictly not to mix in the quarrel, at last arms himself to finish it. He subdues the two wearied Nibelungen, binds them, delivers them to Chriemhild; "and Herr Dietrich went away with weeping eyes, worthily from the heroes." These never saw each other more. Chriemhild demands of Hagen, Where the Nibelungen Hoard is? But he answers her that he has sworn never to disclose it, while any of her brothers live. "I bring it to an end," said the infuriated woman; orders her brother's head to be struck off, and holds it up to Hagen. "Thou hast it now according to thy will," said Hagen; " of the Hoard knoweth none but God and I; from thee, she-devil, (Vulendinne,) shall it for ever be hid." She kills him with his own sword, once her husband's; and is herself struck dead by Hilde

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We have now finished our slight analysis of this Poem; and hope that readers, who are curious in this matter, and ask themselves, What is the Nibelungen? may have here found some outlines of an answer, some help towards farther researches of their own. To such readers another question will suggest itself: Whence this singular production comes to us, When and How it originated? On which point also, what little light our investigation has yielded may be summarily given.

The worthy Von der Hagen, who may well understand the Nibelungen better than any other man, having rendered it into the modern tongue, and twice edited it in the original, not without collating some eleven manuscripts, and travelling several thousands of miles to make the last edition perfect,-writes a Book some years ago, rather boldly denominated The Nibelungen, its meaning for the present and for ever; wherein, not coutent with any measurable antiquity of centuries, he would fain claim an antiquity beyond all bounds of dated time. Working his way with feeble mine-lamps of etymology and the like, he traces back the rudiments of his beloved Nibelungen, "to which the flower of his whole life has been consecrated," into the thick darkness of the Scandinavian Niflheim und Muspelheim, and the Hindoo Cosmogony; connecting it farther (as already in part we have incidentally pointed out) with the Ship Argo, with Jupiter's goatskin Ægis, the fire-creed of Zerdusht, and even with the heavenly Constellations. His reasoning is somewhat abstruse; yet an honest zeal, very considerable learning and intellectual force bring him tolerably through. So much he renders plausible or probable: that in the Nibelungen, under more or less defacement, lie fragments, scattered like mysterious Runes, yet still in part decipherable, of the earliest Thoughts of men; that the fiction of the Nibelungen was at first a religious or philosophical Mythus; and only in later ages, incorporating itself more or less completely with vague traditions of real events, took the form of a story, or mere Narrative of earthly transactions; in which last form, moreover, our actual Nibelungen Lied is nowise the original Narrative, but the second, or even third redaction of one much earlier.

At what particular era the primeval fiction

some

Account of his embassy to Attila. Moreover, it is on his second marriage, which had in fact so mysterious and tragical a character, that the whole catastrophe of the Nibelungen turns. It is true, the "Scourge of God" plays but a tame part here; however, his great acts, though all past, are still visible in their fruits: besides, it is on the Northern or German personages that the tradition chiefly dwells.

of the Nibelungen passed from its Mythological cal events and persons which our primeval into its Historical shape; and the obscure Mythuses have here united with, and so spiritual elements of it wedded themselves strangely metamorphosed? the answer is unto the obscure remembrances of the Northern satisfactory enough. The great Northern ImImmigrations; and the Twelve Signs of the migrations, unspeakably momentous and gloriZodiac became Twelve Champions of Attila's ous as they were for the Germans, have well Wife, there is no fixing with the smallest nigh faded away utterly from all vernacular certainty. It is known from history that Egin- records. Some traces, nevertheless, hart, the secretary of Charlemagne, compiled, names, and dim shadows of occurrences in by order of that monarch, a collection of the that grand movement, still linger here: which, ancient German Songs; among which, it is in such circumstances, we gather with avidity. fondly believed by antiquaries, this Nibelungen, There can be no doubt, for example, but this (not indeed our actual Nibelungen Lied, yet an "Etzel, king of Hunland," is the Attila of older one of similar purport,) and the main history; several of whose real achievements traditions of the Heldenbuch connected there- and relations are faintly, yet still recognisably with, may have had honourable place. Un- pictured forth in these Poems. Thus his first luckily Eginhart's Collection has quite per- queen is named Halke, and in the Scandinavian ished; and only his Life of the Great Charles, versions, Herka; which last (Erca) is also the in which this circumstance stands noted, sur-name that Priscus gives her, in the well-known vives to provoke curiosity. One thing is certain, Fulco, Archbishop of Rheims, in the year 885, is introduced as "citing certain German books," to enforce some argument of his by instance of "King Ermerich's crime towards his relations;" which King Ermerich and his crime are at this day part and parcel of the "Cycle of German Fiction," and presupposed in the Nibelungen. Later notices, of a more decisive sort, occur in abundance. Saxo Grammaticus, who flourished in the twelfth century, relates that about the year 1130, a Saxon minstrel being sent to Seeland, with a treacherous invitation from one royal Dane to another; and not daring to violate his oath, yet compassionating the victim, sang to him by way of indirect warning "the Song of Chriemhild's Treachery to her Brothers;" that is to say, the latter portion of the Story which we still read at greater length in the existing Nibelungen Lied. To which direct evidence, that these traditions were universally known in the twelfth century, nay, had been in some shape committed to writing, as "German Books," in the ninth or rather in the eighth,we have still to add the probability of their being "ancient songs," even at that earliest date; all which may perhaps carry us back into the seventh or even sixth century; yet not farther, inasmuch as certain of the poetic personages that figure in them belong historically

to the fifth.

Other and more open proof of antiquity lies in the fact, that these Traditions are so universally diffused. There are Danish and Icelandic versions of them, externally more or less altered and distorted, yet substantially real copies, professing indeed to be borrowed from the German; in particular we have the Niflinga and the Wilkina Saga, composed in the thirteenth century, which still in many ways illustrate the German original. Innumerable other songs and sagas point more remotely in the same direction. Nay, as Von der Hagen informs us, certain rhymed tales, founded on these old adventures, have been recovered from popular recitation, in the Faroe Islands, within these few years.

If we ask now, what lineaments of Fact still exist in these Traditions; what are the Histori

Von der Hagen's Nibelungen, Einleitung, vii.

Taking farther into account the general "Cycle" or System of Northern Tradition, whereof this Nibelungen is the centre and keystone, there is, as indeed we saw in the Heldenbuch, a certain Kaiser Ottnit and a Dietrich of Bern; to whom also it seems unreasonable to deny historical existence. This Bern, (Verona,) as well as the Rabenschlacht, (Battle of Ravenna,) is continually figuring in these Fictions; though whether under Ottnit we are to understand Odoacer the vanquished, and under Dietrich of Bern, Theodoricus Veronensis, the victor both at Verona and Ravenna, is by no means so indubitable. Chronological difficulties stand much in the way. For our Dietrich of Bern, as we saw in the Nibelungen, is represented as one of Etzel's Champions: now Attila died about the year 450; and this Ostrogoth Theodoric did not fight his great Battle at Verona till 489; that of Ravenna, which was followed by a three years' siege, beginning next year. So that before Dietrich could become Dietrich of Bern, Etzel had been gone almost half a century from the scene. Startled by this anachronism, some commentators have fished out another Theodoric, eighty years prior to him of Verona, and who actually served in Attila's hosts, with a retinue of Goths and Germans; with which New Theodoric, however, the old Ottnit, or Odoacer, of the Heldenbuch, must, in his turn, part company; whereby the case is in no whit mended. Certain it seems, in the mean time, that Dietrich, which signifies Rich in People, is the same name which in Greek becomes Theodoricus; for, at first, (as in Procopius,) this very Theodoricus is always written d which almost exactly corresponds with the German sound. But such are the inconsistencies involved in both hypotheses, that we are forced to conclude one of two things: either that the singers of those old lays were little versed in the niceties of History, and unambitions of passing for authorities therein,

which seems a remarkably easy conclusion; | ballad-mongers of that Swabian Era have or else, with Lessing, that they meant some transmitted us their names, so total an oblivion, quite other series of persons and transactions, in this infinitely more important case, may Some Kaiser Otto, and his two Anti-Kaisers, (in the twelfth century:) which, from what has come to light since Lessing's day, seems now an untenable position.

seem surprising. But those Minnelieder (Lovesongs) and Provençal Madrigals were the Court Poetry of that time, and gained honour in high places; while the old National Traditions were common property and plebeian, and to sing them an unrewarded labour.

However, as concerns the Nibelungen, the most remarkable coincidence, if genuine, remains yet to be mentioned. "Thwortz," a Whoever he may be, let him have our gratiHungarian Chronicler, (or perhaps chronicle,) tude, our love. Looking back with a farewell of we know not what authority, relates, "that glance, over that wondrous old Tale, with its Attila left his kingdom to his two sons Chaba many-coloured texture" of joyances and highand Aladar, the former by a Grecian mother, tides, of weeping and of wo," so skilfully the latter by Kremheilch, (Chriemhild,) a yet artlessly knit up into a whole, we cannot German; that Theodoric, one of his followers, but repeat that a true epic spirit lives in it; sowed dissension between them; and along that in many ways, it has meaning and charms with the Teutonic hosts took part with his for us. Not only as the oldest Tradition of half-countryman, the younger son; whereupon Modern Europe, does it possess a high antirose a great slaughter, which lasted for fifteen quarian interest; but farther, and even in the days, and terminated in the defeat of Chaba, shape we now see it under, unless the "Epics (the Greek,) and his flight into Asia."* Could of the Son of Fingal" had some sort of auwe but put faith in this Thwortz, we might thenticity, it is our oldest Poem also; the earfancy that some vague rumour of that Krem-liest product of these New Ages, which on its heilch tragedy, swoln by the way, had reached the German ear and imagination; where, gathering round older Ideas and Mythuses, as Matter round its Spirit, the first rude form of Chriemhilde's Revenge and the Wreck of the Nibelungen bodied itself forth in Song.

own merits, both in form and essence, can be named Poetical. Considering its chivalrous, romantic tone, it may rank as a piece of literary composition, perhaps considerably higher than the Spanish Cid; taking in its historical significance, and deep ramifications into the remote Time, it ranks indubitably and greatly

Thus any historical light, emitted by these old Fictions, is little better than darkness visi-higher. ble; sufficient at most to indicate that great Northern Immigrations, and wars and rumours of wars, have been; but nowise how and what they have been. Scarcely clearer is the special history of the Fictions themselves: where they were first put together, who have been their successive redactors and new-modellers. Von der Hagen, as we said, supposes that there may have been three several series of such. Two, at all events, are clearly indicated. In their present shape, we have internal evidence that none of these Poems can be older than the twelfth century; indeed great part of the HeroPook can be proved to be considerably later. With this last it is understood that Wolfram von Eschenbach and Heinrich von Ofterdingen, two singers, otherwise noted in that era, were largely concerned; but neither is there any demonstration of this vague belief: while again, in regard to the Author of our actual Nibelungen not so much as a plausible conjecture can be formed.

It has been called a Northern Iliad; but except in the fact that both poems have a narrative character, and both sing "the destructive rage" of men, the two have scarcely any similarity. The Singer of the Nibelungen is a far different person from Homer; far inferior both in culture and in genius. Nothing of the glowing imagery, of the fierce bursting energy, of the mingled fire and gloom, that dwell in the old Greek, makes its appearance here. The German Singer is comparatively a simple nature; has never penetrated deep into life; never "questioned Fate," or struggled with fearful mysteries; of all which we find traces in Homer, still more in Shakspeare; but with meek believing submission, has taken the Universe as he found it represented to him; and rejoices with a fine childlike gladness in the mere outward shows of things. He has little power of delineating character; perhaps he had no decisive vision thereof. His persons are superficially distinguished, and not altoSome vote for a certain Conrad von Würz-gether without generic difference; but the porburg; others for the above-named Eschenbach traiture is imperfectly brought out; there lay and Ofterdingen; others again for Klingsohr no true living original within him. He has of Ungerland, a minstrel who once passed for little Fancy; we find scarcely one or two simia magician. Against all and each of which litudes in his whole Poem; and these one or hypotheses there are objections; and for none two, which, moreover, are repeated, betoken of them the smallest conclusive evidence. no special faculty that way. He speaks of the Who this gifted Singer may have been, only in "moon among stars;" says often, of sparks so far as his Work itself proves that there struck from steel armour in battle, and so forth, was but one, and the style points to the latter that they were wie es wehte der wind, "as if the half of the twelfth century,―remains altogether wind were blowing them." We have mendark the unwearied Von der Hagen himself, tioned Tasso along with him; yet neither in after fullest investigation, gives for verdict, this case is there any close resemblance; the we know it not." Considering the high worth of the Nibelungen, and how many feeble

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• Weber, (Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, p. 39,) who cites Görres (Zeitung für Einsiedler) as his authority.

light playful grace, still more, the Italian pomp and sunny luxuriance of Tasso are wanting in the other. His are humble, wood-notes wild; and no nightingale's, but yet a sweet

sky-hidden lark's. In all the rhetorical gifts, to say nothing of rhetorical attainments, we should pronounce him even poor.

cle he dwelt in, the very ashes remain not: like a fair heavenly Apparition, which indeed he was, he has melted into air, and only the Voice he uttered, in virtue of its inspired gift, yet lives and will live.

To the Germans this Nibelungen Song is naturally an object of no common love; neither if they sometimes overvalue it, and vague antiquarian wonder is more common than just criticism, should the fault be too heavily visited. After long ages of concealment, they have found it in the remote wilderness, still standing like the trunk of some almost antediluvian oak; nay with boughs on it still green, after all the wind and weather of twelve hundred years. To many a patriotic feeling, which lingers fondly in solitary places of the Past, it may well be a rallying-point, and "Lovers' Trysting-Tree."

Nevertheless, a noble soul he must have been, and furnished with far more essential requisites for Poetry, than these are: namely, with the heart and feeling of a Poet. He has a clear eye for the Beautiful and True; all unites itself gracefully and compactly in his imagination: it is strange with what careless felicity he winds his way in that complex narrative, and be the subject what it will, comes through it unsullied, and with a smile. His great strength is an unconscious instinctive strength; wherein truly lies its highest merit. The whole spirit of Chivalry, of Love, and heroic Valour, must have lived in him, and inspired him. Everywhere he shows a noble Sensibility; the sad accents of parting friends, the lamentings of women, the high daring of For us also it has its worth. A creation men, all that is worthy and lovely prolongs it- from the old ages, still bright and balmy, if we self in melodious echoes through his heart. A visit it; and opening into the first History of true old Singer, and taught of Nature herself! Europe, of Mankind. Thus all is not oblivion; Neither let us call him an inglorious Milton, but on the edge of the abyss, that separates the since now he is no longer a mute one. What Old world from the New, there hangs a fair good were it that the four or five Letters com- rainbow-land; which also in (three) curious posing his Name could be printed, and pro- repetitions, as it were, in a secondary, and nounced, with absolute certainty? All that even a ternary reflex, sheds some feeble was mortal in him is gone utterly; of his life, twilight far into the deeps of the primeval and its environment, as of the bodily taberna-Time.

GERMAN LITERATURE OF THE FOURTEENTH
AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.*

[FOREIGN QUARTERLY REVIEW, 1831.]

IT is not with Herr Soltau's work, and its | doubtedly among the most remarkable Books, merits or demerits, that we here purpose to concern ourselves. The old Low-German Apologue was already familiar under many shapes; its versions into Latin, English, and all modern tongues: if it now comes before our German friends under a new shape, and they can read it not only in Gottsched's prosaic Prose, and Goethe's poetic Hexameters, but also "in the metre of the original," namely, in Doggerel; and this, as would appear, not without comfort, for it is "the second edition ;"doubtless the Germans themselves will look to it, will direct Herr Soltau aright in his praiseworthy labours, and, with all suitable speed, forward him from his second edition into a third. To us strangers the fact is chiefly interesting, as another little memento of the indestructible vitality there is in worth, however rude; and to stranger Reviewers, as it brings that wondrous old Fiction, with so much else that holds of it, once more specifically into view.

The Apologue of Reynard the Fox ranks un

not only as a German, but, in all senses, as a European one; and yet for us perhaps its extrinsic, historical character, is even more noteworthy than its intrinsic. In Literary History it forms, so to speak, the culminating point, or highest manifestation of a Tendency which had ruled the two prior centuries: ever downwards from the last of the Hohenstauffen Emperors, and the end of their Swabian Era, to the borders of the Reformation, rudiments and fibres of this singular Fable are seen, among innumerable kindred things, fashioning themselves together; and now, after three other centuries of actual existence, it still stands visible and entire, venerable in itself, and the enduring memorial of much that has proved more perishable. Thus, naturally enough, it figures as the representative of a whole group that historically cluster round it; in studying its significance, we study that of a whole intellectual period.

As this section of German Literature closely connects itself with the corresponding section *Reinecke der Fuchs, übersetzt von D. W. Soltau. (Rey-expressive, characteristic epitome thereof, some of European Literature, and indeed offers an nard the Fox, translated by D. W. Soltau.) 2d edition, 8vo. Lüneburg, 1830. insight into it, were such easily procurable,

might not be without profit. No Literary Historian that we know of, least of all any in England, having looked much in this direction, either as concerned Germany or other countries, whereby a long space of time, once busy enough, and full of life, now lies barren and void in men's memories,-we shall here endeavour to present, in such clearness as first attempts may admit, the result of some slight researches of our own in regard to it.

The Troubadour Period in general Literature, to which the Swabian Era in German answers, has, especially within the last generation, attracted inquiry enough; the French have their Raynouards, we our Webers, the Germans their Haugs, Gräters, Langs, and numerous other Collectors and Translators of Minnelieder; among whom Ludwig Tieck, the foremost in far other provinces, has not disdained to take the lead. We shall suppose that this Literary Period is partially known to all readers. Let each recall whatever he has learned or figured regarding it; represent to himself that brave young heyday of Chivalry and Minstrelsy, when a stern Barbarossa, a stern Lion-heart, sang sirventes, and with the hand that could wield the sword and sceptre twanged the melodious strings; when knights-errant tilted, and ladies' eyes rained bright influences; and suddenly, as at some sunrise, the whole Earth had grown vocal and musical. Then truly was the time of singing come; for princes and prelates, emperors and squires, the wise and the simple, men, women, and children, all sang and rhymed, or delighted in hearing it done. It was a universal noise of Song; as if the Spring of Manhood had arrived, and warblings from every spray, not indeed without infinite twitterings also, which, except their gladness, had no music, were bidding it welcome. This was the Swabian Era; justly reckoned not only superior to all preceding eras, but properly the First Era of German Literature. Poetry had at length found a home in the life of men; and every pure soul was inspired by it; and in words, or still better, in actions, strove to give it utterance.

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Believers," says Tieck, "sang of Faith; Lovers of Love; Knights described knightly actions and battles; and loving believing knights were their chief audience. The Spring, Beauty, Gayety, were objects that could never tire; great duels and deeds of arms carried away every hearer, the more surely the stronger they were painted; and as the pillars and dome of the Church encircled the flock, so did Religion, as the Highest, encircle Poetry and Reality; and every heart, in equal love humbled itself before her."*

Let the reader, we say, fancy all this, and moreover that, as earthly things do, it is all passing away. And now, from this extreme verge of the Swabian Era, let us look forward into the inane of the next two centuries, and see whether there also some shadows and dim forms, significaut in their kind, may not begin to grow visible. Already, as above indicated, Reinecke de Fos rises clear in the distance, as the goal of our survey: let us now, restricting

* Minnelieder aus dem Schwäbischen Zeitalter. rede, x.)

ourselves to the German aspects of the matter, examine what may lie between.

Conrad the Fourth, who died in 1254, was the last of the Swabian Emperors: and Conradin his son, grasping too early at a Southern Crown, perished on the scaffold at Naples in 1268; with which stripling, more fortunate in song than in war, and whose death, or murder, with fourteen years of other cruelty, the Sicilian Vespers so frightfully avenged, the imperial line of the Hohenstauffen came to an end. Their House, as we have seen, gives name to a Literary Era; and truly, if dates alone were regarded, we might reckon it much more than a name. For with this change of dynasty, a great change in German Literature begins to indicate itself; the fall of the Hohenstauffen is close followed by the decay of Poetry; as if that fair flowerage and umbrage, which blossomed far and wide round the Swabian Family, had in very deed depended on it for growth and life; and now, the stem being felled, the leaves also were languishing, and soon to wither and drop away. Conradin, as his father and his grandfather had been, was a singer; some lines of his, though he died in his sixteenth year, have even come down to us; but henceforth no crowned poet, except, long afterwards, some few with cheap laurel crowns, is to be met with: the Gay Science was visibly declining. In such times as now came, the court and the great could no longer patronize it; the polity of the Empire was, by one convulsion after another, all but utterly dismembered; ambitious nobles, a sovereign without power; contention, violence, distress, everywhere prevailing. Richard of Cornwall, who could not so much as keep hold of his sceptre, not to speak of swaying it wisely; or even the brave Rudolf of Hapsburg, who manfully accomplished both these duties, had other work to do than sweet singing. Gay Wars of the Wartburg were now changed to stern Battles of the Marchfield; in his leisure hours, a good Emperor, instead of twanging harps, must hammer from his helmet the dints it had got in his working and fighting hours. Amid such rude tumults the Minne-Song could not but change its scene and tone; if, indeed, it continued at all, which, however, it scarcely did; for now, no longer united in courtly choir, it seemed to lose both its sweetness and its force, gradually became mute, or in remote obscure corners lived on, feeble and inaudible, till after several centuries, when, under a new title, and with far inferior claims, it again solicits some notice from us.

Doubtless, in this posture of affairs political, the progress of Literature could be little forwarded from without; in some directions, as in that of Court-Poetry, we may admit that it was

* It was on this famous plain of the Marchfield that in 1260; and was himself, in 1278, conquered and slain Ottocar, King of Bohemia, conquered Bela of Hungary, by Rudolf of Hapsburg, at that time much left to his own resources; whose talent for mending helmets, however, it was here again, after more than five centuries, that is perhaps but a poetical tradition. Curious, moreover: the House of Hapsburg received its worst overthrow, and from a new and greater Rudolf, namely, from Na(Vor-poleon, at Wagram, which lies in the middle of this same Marchfield.

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