"Min froüde wart nie sorgelos
Unz an die tage
Daz ich mir Kristes bluomen kos
Die ich hie trage.
Die kundent eine sumerzìt,
Die alsô gar
In suezer augenweide lît;
Got helfe uns dar.
"Mich hât diu werlt also gewent (gewöhnt),
Daz mir der muot
Sich z'einer mâze nâch ir sent:
Dêst mir nu guot.
Got hat vil wol ze mir getân,
Als ez nu stât,
Daz ich der sorgen bin erlân
Diu manegen hât
Gebunden an den fuoz,
Daz er beliben muoz
Swenn' ich in Kristes schar
Mit fröuden wünneclichen var."[1]
The secular emotional development was connected with the religious. It was stimulated by the deepening of emotional capacity caused by Christianity, and was not unrelated to the Christian love of God, the place of which was taken, in secular mediaeval passion, by an idealizing, but carnal, love of woman; and instead of the terror-stricken piety which accompanied the Christian's love for his Maker and his Judge, the heart was glad and the temper open to every joy, while also subject to the fears and hates which spring up among men of mortal passions.
In the romantic and utter abandonment required of its votaries, this earthly love may well have drawn suggestion
- ↑ Hartmann belongs to that great group of courtly German poets whose lives surround the year 1200. He was the translator of Chrètien de Troye's Erec and Ivain. See Bech's Hartmann von Aue (Deutsche klassiker). The verses quoted can hardly be rendered; but the meaning is as follows:
"My joys were never free from care until the day which showed me the flowers of Christ which I wear here (i.e. the Crusader's cross). They herald a summer-time leading to sweet pastures of delight. God help us thither! The world has treated me so that my spirit yearns therefor;—well for me! God has been good to me, so that I am released from cares which tie the feet of many, chaining them here, while I in Christ's band with blissful joys fare on."
These lines carry that same yearning of the simple soul for heaven, its home, which was expressed, some centuries before, in Otfried's Evangelienbuch (ante, Chapter IX.). The words and their connotations (augenweide, wünneclich) are utterly German. Yet the author lived in a literary atmosphere of translation from the French.
