,,euphorion3 ,,being ,,studies ,,of     
,,the ,,antique ,,and ,,the ,,medieval  
,,in ,,the ,,renaissance  ,,by  ,,vernon
 ,,lee  ,author of ,studies of the #ahth
 ,century in ,italy1 ,belcaro1 etc4     
,,vol4 ,,ii4    ,,table ,,of ,,contents4
   ,,the ,,portrait ,,art  ,,the        
,,school ,,of ,,boiardo  ,,medi,,val    
,,love  ,,epilogue  ,,appendix          
99       99       99       99       99  
,,the ,,portrait ,,art   ,i4  ,real and 
,ideal--these are the handy terms1      
admiring or disapproving1 which         
criticism claps with random facility on 
to every imaginable school4 ,this artist
 or group of artists goes in for the    
real--the upright1 noble1 trumpery1     
filthy real2 that other artist or group 
of artists seeks after the ideal--the   
ideal which may mean sublimity or       
platitude4 ,we summon every living      
artist to state whether he is a realist 
or an idealist2 we classify all dead    
artists as realists or idealists2 we    
treat the matter as if it were one of   

almost moral importance4 ,now the fact  
of the case is that the question of     
realism and idealism1 which we calmly   
assume as already settled or easy to    
settle by our own sense of right and    
wrong1 is one of the tangled questions  
of art-philosophy2 and one1 moreover1   
which no amount of theory1 but only     
historic fact1 can ever set right4 ,for1
 to begin with1 we find realism and     
idealism coming before us in different  
ways and with different meaning and     
importance4 ,all art which is not       
addressing 7as decrepit art is forced to
 do7 faculties to which it does not     
spontaneously and properly appeal--all  
art is decorative1 ornamental1          
idealistic therefore1 since it          
consciously or unconsciously aims1 not  
merely at reproducing the already       
existing1 but at producing something    
which shall repay the looking at it1    
something which shall ornament1 if not a
 place1 at least our lives2 and such    
making of the ornamental1 of the worth  

looking at1 necessarily implies         
selection and arrangement--that is to   
say idealism4 ,at the same time1 while  
art aims definitely at being in this    
sense decorative1 art may very possibly 
aim more immediately at merely          
reproducing1 without1 selection or      
arrangement1 the actually existing      
things of the world2 and this in order  
to obtain the mere power of             
representation4 ,in short1 art which is 
idealistic as a master will yet be      
realistic as a scholar3 it decorates    
when it achieves1 it copies when it     
studies4 ,but this is only half the     
question4 ,certain whole schools may be 
described as idealistic1 others as      
realistic1 in tendency2 and this1 not in
 their study1 but in their achievement4 
,one school will obviously be contented 
with forms the most unselected and      
vulgar2 others will go but little out of
 their way in search of                 
form-superiority2 while yet others1 and 
these we must emphatically call         

idealistic1 are squeamish to the last   
degree in the choice and adaptation of  
form1 anxious1 to get the very best1 and
 make the very best of it4 ,yet1 on     
thinking over it1 we shall find that    
realistic and idealistic schools are    
all1 in their achievements1 equally     
striving after something which is not   
the mere reproduction of the already    
existing as such--striving1 in short1   
after decoration4 ,the pupil of         
,perugino will1 indeed1 wait patiently  
to begin his work until he can find a   
model fit for a god or goddess2 while   
the fellow-craftsman of ,rembrandt will 
be satisfied with the first dirty old   
,jew or besotten barmaid that comes to  
hand4 ,but the realistic ,dutchman is   
not1 therefore1 any the less smitten    
with beauty1 any the less eager to be   
ornamental1 than the idealistic         
,italian3 his man and woman he takes    
indeed with off-hand indifference1 but  
he places them in that of which the     
,italian shall perhaps never have       

dreamed1 in that on which he has        
expended all his science1 his skill1 his
 fancy1 in that which he gives as his   
addition to the beautiful things of     
art--in atmosphere1 in light1 which are 
to the everyday atmosphere and light    
what the patiently sought for1 carefully
 perfected god or goddess model of      
,raphael is to the everyday ,jew1 to the
 everyday barmaid1 of ,rembrandt4  ,the 
ideal1 for the man who is quite coarsely
 realistic in his figures1 exists in the
 air1 light1 colour2 and in saying this 
,i have1 so to speak1 turned over the   
page too quickly1 forestalled the       
expression of what ,i can prove only    
later3 the disconnection of such        
comparative realism and idealism as this
 7the only kind of realism1 let us      
remember1 which can exist in great art7 
with any personal bias of the artist1   
its intimate dependence upon the        
constitution and tendency of art1 upon  
its preoccupations about form1 or       
colour1 or light1 in a given country and

 at a given moment4 ,and now ,i should  
wish to resume the more orderly         
treatment of the subject1 which will    
lead us in time to the second half of   
the question respecting realism and     
idealism4 ,these considerations have    
come to me in connection with the       
portrait art of the ,renaissance2 and   
this very simply4 ,for portrait is a    
curious bastard of art1 sprung on the   
one side from a desire which is not     
artistic1 nay1 if anything1 opposed to  
the whole nature and function of art3   
the desire for the mere likeness of an  
individual4 ,the union with this        
interloping tendency1 so foreign to the 
whole aristocratic temper of art1 has   
produced portrait2 and by the position  
of this hybrid1 or at least far from    
regularly bred creature2 by the amount  
of the real artistic quality of beauty  
which it is permitted to retain by the  
various schools of art1 we can1 even as 
by the treatment of similar social      
interlopers we can estimate the         

necessities and tendencies of various   
states of society1 judge what are the   
conditions in which the various schools 
of art struggle for the object of their 
lives1 which is the beautiful4  ,i have 
said that art is realistic in its       
periods or moments of study2 and this is
 essentially the case even with the     
school which in many respects was the   
most unmistakably decorative and        
idealistic in intention3 the school of  
,giotto4 ,the ,giottesques are more than
 decorative artists1 they are decorators
 in the most literal sense4 ,painting   
with them is merely one of the several  
arts and crafts enslaved by medival     
architecture and subservient to         
architectural effects4 ,their art is the
 only one which is really and           
successfully architecturally decorative2
 and to appreciate this we must contrast
 their fresco-work with that of the     
fifteenth century and all subsequent    
times4 ,masaccio1 ,ghirlandajo1         
,signorelli1 turn the wall into a mere  

badly made frame2 a gigantic piece of   
cardboard would do as well1 and better2 
the colours melt into one another1 the  
figures detach themselves at various    
degrees of relief2 those upon the       
ceiling and pendentives are frequently  
upside down2 yet these figures1 which   
are so difficult to see1 are worth      
seeing only in themselves1 and not in   
relation to their position4 ,the masonry
 is no longer covered1 but carved1      
rendered uneven with the cavities and   
protrusions of perspective4 ,in         
,mantegna's frescoes the wall becomes a 
slanting theatre scene1 cunningly       
perspectived like ,palladio's ,teatro   
,olimpico2 with ,correggio1 wall1       
masonry1 everything1 is dissolved1 the  
side or cupola of a church becomes a    
rent in the clouds1 streaming with      
light4  ,not so with the ,giottesque    
frescoes3 the wall1 the vault1 the      
triumphant masonry is always present and
 felt1 beneath the straight1 flat bands 
of uniform colour2 the symmetrical      

compartments1 the pentacles1 triangles1 
and segments1 and borders of histories1 
whose figures never project1 whose      
colours are separate as those in a      
mosaic4 ,the ,giottesque frescoes1 with 
their tiers and compartments of dark    
blue1 their vague figures dressed in    
simple ultramarines1 greens1 dull reds1 
and purples2 their geometrical borders  
and pearlings and dog-tooths2 cover the 
walls1 the ribbed and arched ceilings1  
the pointed raftering almost like some  
beautiful brown1 blue1 and tarnished    
gold leather-hangings2 the figures1     
outlined in dark paint1 have almost the 
appearance of being stencilled1 or even 
stamped on the wall4 ,such is           
,giottesque painting3 an art which is   
not merely essentially decorative1 but  
which is1 moreover1 what painting and   
sculpture remained throughout the       
,gothic period1 subservient to the      
decorative effect of another art2 an art
 in which all is subordinated to        
architectural effect1 in which form1    

colour1 figures1 houses1 the most       
dramatic scenes of the most awful of all
 dramas1 everything is turned into a    
kind of colossal and sublime wall-paper2
 and such an art as this would lead us  
to expect but little realism1 little    
deliberate and slavish imitation of the 
existing4 ,yet wherever there is life in
 this ,gothic art 7which has a horrible 
tendency1 piously unobserved by critics1
 to stagnate into blundering repetition 
of the same thing71 wherever there is   
progress1 there is1 in the details of   
that grandiose1 idealistic decoration1  
realism of the crudest kind4 ,those     
,giottesque workers1 who were not       
content with a kind of ,gothic          
,byzantinism2 those who really handed   
over something vital to their successors
 of the fifteenth century1 while        
repeating the old idealistical          
decorations2 were studying with         
extraordinary crudeness of realism4     
,everything that was not conventional   
ornament or type was portrait2 and      

portrait in which the scanty technical  
means of the artist1 every meagre line  
and thin dab of colour1 every timid     
stroke of brush or of pencil1 went      
towards the merciless delineation not   
merely of a body but of a soul4 ,and the
 greater the artist1 the more cruel the 
portrait3 cruellest in representation of
 utter spiritual baseness in the two    
greatest of these idealistic decorators2
 ,giotto1 and his latest disciple1 ,fra 
,angelico4 ,of this ,i should like to   
give a couple of examples4  ,in         
,giotto's frescoes at ,santa ,croce--one
 of the most lovely pieces of mere      
architectural decoration                
conceivable--there are around the dying 
and the dead ,st4 ,francis two groups of
 monks1 which are astoundingly          
realistic4 ,the solemn ending of the    
ideally beautiful life of sanctity which
 was so fresh in the memory of ,giotto's
 contemporaries1 is nothing beyond a set
 of portraits of the most absolutely    
mediocre creatures1 moral and           

intellectual1 of creatures the most     
utterly incapable of religious          
enthusiasm that ever made religion a    
livelihood4 ,they gather round the dying
 and the dead ,st4 ,francis1 a noble    
figure1 not at all ecstatic or seraphic1
 but pure1 strong1 worn out with wise   
and righteous labour1 a man of thought  
and action1 upon whose hands and feet   
the stigmata of supernatural rapture are
 a mere absurdity4 ,the monks are       
presumably his immediate disciples1     
those fervent and delicate poetic       
natures of whom we read in the ,fioretti
 di ,san ,francesco4 ,to represent them 
,giotto has painted the likeness of the 
first half-dozen friars he may have met 
in the streets near ,santa ,croce3 not  
caricatures1 nor ideals1 but portraits  
,giotto has attempted neither to exalt  
nor to degrade them into any sort of    
bodily or spiritual interestingness4    
,they are not low nor bestial nor       
extremely stupid4 ,they are in various  
degrees dull1 sly1 routinist1 prosaic1  

pedantic2 their most noteworthy         
characteristic is that they are         
certainly the men who are not called by 
,god4 ,they are no scandal to the       
,church1 but no honour2 they are sloth1 
stupidity1 sensualism1 and cunning not  
yet risen to the dignity of a vice4     
,they look upon the dying and the dead  
saint with indifference1 want of        
understanding1 at most a gape or a      
bright look of stupid miscomprehension  
at the stigmata3 they do not even       
perceive that a saint is a different    
being from themselves4 ,with these      
frescoes of ,giotto ,i should wish to   
compare ,fra ,angelico's great          
ceremonial crucifixion in the cloister  
chapel of ,san ,marco of ,florence2 for 
it displays to an extraordinary degree  
that juxtaposition of the most          
conventionally idealistic1 pious        
decorativeness with the realism         
straightforward1 unreflecting1 and      
heartless to the point of becoming      
perfectly grotesque4 ,the fresco is     

divided into two scenes3 on the one side
 the crucifixion1 the mystic actors of  
the drama1 on the other the holy men    
admitted to its contemplation4 ,a sense 
that holy things ought to be            
old-fashioned1 a respect for ,byzantine 
inanity which invariable haunted the    
,giottesques in their capacity of       
idealistic decorators1 of men who       
replaced with frescoes the solemn       
lifeless splendours of mosaic2 this kind
 of artistico-religious prudery has made
 ,angelico1 who was able to foreshorten 
powerfully the brawny crucified thieves1
 represent the ,saviour dangling from   
the cross bleached1 boneless1 and       
shapeless1 a thing that is not dead     
because it has never been alive4 ,the   
holy persons around stand rigid1 vacant1
 against their blue nowhere of          
background1 with vague expanses of pink 
face looking neither one way nor the    
other2 mere modernized copies of the    
strange1 goggle-eyed1 vapid beings on   
the old ,italian mosaics4 ,this is not a

 representation of the actual reality of
 the crucifixion1 like ,tintoret's      
superb picture at ,s4 ,rocco1 or ,drer's
 print1 or so many others1 which show   
the hill1 the people1 the hangman1 the  
ladders and ropes and hammers and       
tweezers3 it is a sort of mystic        
repetition of it2 subjective1 if ,i may 
say so2 existing only in the            
contemplation of the saints on the      
opposite side1 who are spectators only  
in the sense that a contemplative       
,christian may be said to be the mystic 
spectator of the ,passion4 ,the thing   
for the painter to represent is fervent 
contemplation1 ecstatic realization of  
the past by the force of ardent love and
 belief2 the condition of mind of ,st4  
,francis1 ,st4 ,catherine of ,siena1    
,madame ,guyon3 it is the revelation of 
the great tragedy of heaven to the soul 
of the mystic4 ,now1 how does ,fra      
,angelico represent this8 ,a row of     
saints1 founders of orders1 kneel one   
behind the other1 and by their side     

stand apostles and doctors of the       
,church2 admitting them to the sight of 
the super-human1 with the gesture1 the  
bland1 indifferent vacuity of the       
,cameriere ,segreto or ,monsignore who  
introduces a troop of pilgrims to the   
,pope2 they are privileged persons1 they
 respect1 they keep up decorum1 they    
raise their eyes and compress their lips
 with ceremonious reverence2 but1 ,lord6
 they have gone through it all so often1
 they are so familiar with it1 they     
don't look at it any longer2 they gaze  
about listlessly1 they would yawn if    
they were not too well bred for that4   
,the others1 meanwhile1 the sainted     
pilgrims1 the men whose journey over the
 sharp stones and among the pricking    
brambles of life's wilderness finds its 
final reward in this admission into the 
presence of the ,holiest1 kneel one by  
one1 with various expressions3 one with 
the stupid delight of a religious       
sightseer2 his vanity is satisfied1 he  
will next draw a rosary from his pocket 

and get it blessed by ,christ ,himself2 
he will recount it all to his friends at
 home4 ,another is dull and gaping1 a   
clown who has walked barefoot from      
,valencia to ,rome1 and got imbecile by 
the way2 yet another1 prim and dapper2  
the rest indifferent looking restlessly 
about them1 at each other1 at their feet
 and hands1 perhaps exchanging mute     
remarks about the length of time they   
are kept waiting2 those at the end of   
the kneeling procession1 ,st4 ,peter    
,martyr and ,st4 ,giovanni ,gualberto   
especially1 have the bored1 listless1   
devout look of the priestlets in the    
train of a bishop4 ,all these figures1  
the standing ones who introduce and the 
kneeling ones who are being introduced1 
are the most perfect types of various   
states of dull1 commonplace1 mediocre   
routinist superstition2 so many         
,camerlenghi on the one hand1 so many   
,passionist or ,propagandists on the    
other3 the first aristocratic1 bland and
 bored2 the second1 dull1 listless1     

mumbling1 chewing ,latin ,prayers which 
never meant much to their minds1 and now
 mean nothing2 both perfectly           
reverential and proper in behaviour1    
with no more possibility of individual  
fervour of belief than of individual    
levity of disbelief3 the ,church1 as it 
exists in well-regulated decrepitude4   
,and thus does the last of the          
,giottesques1 the painter of glorified  
,madonnas and dancing angels1 the saint1
 represent the saints admitted to behold
 the supreme tragedy of the ,redemption4
  ,thus much for the ,giottesques4 ,the 
,tuscans of the early ,renaissance      
developed up to the utmost1 assisted by 
the goldsmiths and sculptors1 who taught
 them modelling and anatomy1 that       
realistic element of ,giottesque        
painting4 ,its ideal decorative part had
 become impossible4 ,painting could no  
longer be a decoration of architecture1 
and it had not yet the means of being   
ornamental in itself2 it was an art     
which did not achieve1 but merely       

studied4 ,among its exercises in        
anatomy1 modelling1 perspective1 and so 
forth1 always laborious and frequently  
abortive1 its only spontaneous1         
satisfactory1 mature production was its 
portrait work1 ,portraits of burghers in
 black robes and hoods2 of square-jawed 
youths with red caps stuck on to their  
fuzzy heads1 of bald and wrinkled       
scholars and magnificoes2 of thinly     
bearded artizans2 people who stand round
 the preaching ,baptist or crucified    
,saviour1 look on at miracle or         
martyrdom1 stolid1 self-complacent1     
heedless1 against their background of   
towered1 walled1 and cypressed city--of 
buttressed square and street2 ugly but  
real1 interesting1 powerful among the   
grotesque agglomerations of bag-of-bones
 nudities1 bunched and taped-up         
draperies and out-of-joint architecture 
of the early ,renaissance frescoes2 at  
best among its picture-book and         
,noah's-ark prettinesses of toy-box     
cypresses1 vine trellises1 inlaid house 

fronts1 rabbits in the grass1 and       
peacocks on the roofs2 for the early    
,renaissance1 with the one exception of 
,masaccio1 is in reality a childish time
 of art1 giving us the horrors of       
school-hour blunders and abortions      
varied with the delights of nursery     
wonderland3 maturity1 the power of      
achieving1 the perception of something  
worthy of perception1 comes only with   
the later generation1 the one           
immediately preceding the age of        
,raphael and ,michael ,angelo2 with     
,ghirlandajo1 ,signorelli1 ,filippino1  
,botticelli1 ,perugino1 and their       
contemporaries4  ,but this period is not
 childish1 is not immature in           
everything4 ,or1 rather1 the various    
arts which exist together at this period
 are not all in the same stage of       
development4 ,while painting is in this 
immature ugliness1 and ideal sculpture1 
in works like ,verrocchio's and         
,donatello's ,david1 only a cleverer1   
more experienced1 but less legitimate   

kind of painting1 painting more         
successful in the present1 but with no  
possible future2 the almost separate art
 of portrait-sculpture arises again     
where it was left by ,grco-,roman       
masters1 and1 developing to yet greater 
perfection1 gives in marble the         
equivalent of what painting will be able
 to produce only much later3 realistic  
art which is decorative2 beautiful works
 made out of ugly materials4  ,the      
vicissitudes of ,renaissance sculpture  
are strange3 its life1 its power1 depend
 upon death2 it is an art developed in  
the burying vault and cloister cemetery4
 ,during the ,middle ,ages sculpture had
 had its reason1 its vital possibility1 
its something to influence1 nay1 to keep
 it alive1 in architecture2 but with the
 disappearance of ,gothic building      
disappears also the possibility of the  
sculpture which covers the portals of   
,chartres and the belfry of ,florence4  
,the pseudo-classic colonnades1         
entablatures1 all the thin bastard      

,ionic and ,corinthian of ,aberti and   
,bramante1 did not require sculpture1 or
 had their own little supply of         
unfleshed ox-skulls1 greengrocer's      
garlands1 scallopings and wave-linings1 
which1 with a stray siren and one or two
 bloated emperors' heads1 amply         
sufficed4 ,on the other hand1 medival   
civilization and ,christian dogma did   
not encourage the production of naked of
 draped ideal statues like those which  
,antiquity stuck on countless temple    
fronts1 and erected at every corner of  
square1 street1 or garden4 ,the people  
of the ,middle ,ages were too grievously
 ill grown1 distorted1 hideous1 to be   
otherwise than indecent in nudity2 they 
may have had an instinct of the kind1   
and1 ugly as they knew themselves to be1
 they must yet have found in forms like 
those of ,verrocchio's ,david           
insufficient beauty to give much        
pleasure4 ,besides1 if the ,middle ,ages
 had left no moral room for ideal       
sculpture once freed from the service of

 architecture2 they had still less      
provided it with a physical place4 ,such
 things could not be set up in churches1
 and only a very moderate number of     
statues could be wanted as open-air     
monuments in the narrow space of a still
 ,gothic city2 and1 in fact1 ideal      
heroic statues of the early ,renaissance
 are fortunately not only ugly1 but     
comparatively few in number4 ,there     
remained1 therefore1 for sculpture1     
unless contented to dwindle down into   
brass and gold miniature work1 no       
regular employment save that connected  
with sepulchral monuments4 ,during the  
real ,middle ,ages1 and in the still    
,gothic north1 the ornamentation of a   
tomb belonged to architecture3 from the 
superb miniature minsters1 pillared and 
pinnacled and sculptured1 cathedrals    
within the cathedral1 to the humbler    
foliated arched canopy1 protecting a    
simple sarcophagus at the corner of many
 a street in ,lombardy4 ,the sculptor's 
work was but the low relief on the      

church flags1 the timidly carved1       
outlined1 cross-legged knight or praying
 priest1 flattened down on his pillow as
 if ashamed even of that amount of      
prominence1 and in a hurry to be trodden
 down and obliterated into a few ghostly
 outlines4 ,but to this humiliated      
prostrate image1 to this flat thing     
doomed to obliteration1 came the        
sculptor of the ,renaissance1 and bade  
the wafer-like simulacrum fill up1      
expand1 raise itself1 lift itself on its
 elbow1 arise and take possession of the
 bed of state1 the catafalque raised    
high above the crowd1 draped with       
brocade1 carved with rich devices of    
leaves and beasts of heraldry1 roofed   
over with a das1 which is almost a      
triumphal arch1 garlanded with fruits   
and flowers1 upon which the illustrious 
dead were shown to the people2 but made 
eternal1 and of eternal magnificence1 by
 the stone-cutter1 and guarded1 not for 
an hour by the liveried pages or        
chaunting monks1 but by winged genii for

 all eternity4 ,some people1 ,i know1   
call this a degradation1 and say that it
 was the result of corrupt pride1 this  
refusal to have the dear or illustrious 
dead scraped out any longer by the      
shoe-nails of every ruffian1 rubbed out 
by the knees of every kitchen wench2 but
 to me it seems that it was due merely  
to the fact that sculpture had lost its 
former employment1 and that a great art 
cannot 7thank ,heaven67 be pietistically
 self-humiliating4 ,be this as it may1  
the sculpture of the ,renaissance had   
found a new and singularly noble line of
 work1 the one in which it was great1   
unique1 unsurpassed1 because untutored4 
,it worked here without models1 to suit 
modern requirements1 with modern spirit2
 it was emphatically-modern sculpture2  
the only modern sculpture which can be  
talked of as something original1        
genuine1 valuable1 by the side of       
antique sculpture4 ,greek ,antiquity had
 evaded death1 and neglected the dead2 a
 garland of mnads and fauns among ivy   

leaves1 a battle of amazons or centaurs2
 in the late semi-,christian1 platonic  
days1 some ,orphic emblem1 or genius2 at
 most1 as in the exquisite tombs of the 
,keramikos of ,athens1 a figure1 a youth
 on a prancing steed1 like the ,phidian 
monument of ,dexileus2 a maiden1 draped 
and bearing an urn2 but neither the     
youth nor the maiden is the inmate of   
the tomb3 they are types1 living types1 
no portraits4 ,nay1 even where          
,antiquity shows us ,death or ,hermes1  
gently leading away the beloved2 the    
spirit1 the ghost1 the dead one1 is     
unindividual4 ,sarkophagen und ,urnen   
bekrnzte der ,heide mit ,leben1 said    
,goethe2 but it was the life which was  
everlasting because it was typical3 the 
life not which had been relinquished by 
the one buried there1 but the life which
 the world danced on1 forgetful1 round  
his ashes4 ,the ,romans1 on the         
contrary1 graver and more retentive folk
 than the ,greeks1 as well as more      
domestic1 less coffee-house living1     

appear to have inherited from the       
,etruscans a desire to preserve the     
effigy of the dead1 a desire unknown to 
the ,greeks4 ,but the ,etrusco-,roman   
monuments1 where husband and wife stare 
forth togaed and stolaed1 half reduced  
to a conventional crop-headedness1 grim 
and stiff as if sitting unwillingly for 
their portrait2 or reclining on the     
sarcophagus-lid1 neither dead1 nor      
asleep1 nor yet alive and awake1 but    
with a hieratic mummy stare1 have little
 of sthetic or sympathetic value4 ,the  
early ,renaissance1 then1 first         
bethought it of representing the real   
individual in the real death slumber4   
,and ,i question whether anything more  
fitting could be placed on a tomb than  
the effigy of the dead as we saw them   
just before the coffin-lid closed down2 
as we would give our all to see them but
 one little moment longer2 as they      
continue to exist for our fancy within  
the grave2 for to any but morbid        
feelings the beloved can never suffer   

decay4 ,whereas a portrait of the man in
 life1 as the throning popes in ,st4    
,peter's1 seems heartless and derisive2 
such monuments striking us as conceived 
and ordered by their inmates while      
alive1 like ,michael ,angelo's ,pope    
,julius1 and ,browning's ,bishop1 who   
was so preoccupied about his tomb in    
,st4 ,praxed's ,church4 ,the            
,renaissance1 the late ,middle ,ages1   
felt better than this3 on the extreme   
pinnacle1 high on the roof1 they might  
indeed place against the russet brick or
 the blue sky1 amid the hum of life and 
the movement of the air1 the living man1
 like the ,scaligers1 the mailed knight 
on his charger1 lance in rest3 but in   
the church below1 under the funereal    
pall1 they could place only the body    
such as it may have lain on the bier4   
,and that figure on the bier was the    
great work of ,renaissance sculpture4   
,inanimate and vulgar when in heroic    
figures they tried to emulate the       
ancients1 the sculptors of the fifteenth

 century have found their own line4 ,the
 modesty1 the simplicity1 the awful and 
beautiful repose of the dead2 the       
individual character cleared of all its 
conflicting meannesses by death1        
simplified1 idealized as it is in the   
memory of the survivors--all these are  
things which belong to the ,renaissance4
 ,as the ,greeks gave the strong1 smooth
 life-current circulating through their 
heroes2 so did these men of the         
fifteenth century give the gentle and   
harmonious ebbing after-life of death in
 their sepulchral monuments4 ,things    
difficult to describe1 and which must be
 seen and remembered4 ,there is the     
monument1 now in the museum at ,ravenna1
 by a sculptor whose name1 were it      
known1 would surely be among the        
greatest1 of the condottiere1           
,braccioforte3 the body prone in its    
heavy case of armour1 not yet laid out  
in state1 but such as he may have been  
found in the evening1 when the battle   
was over1 under a tree where they had   

carried him to die while they themselves
 went back to fight2 the head has fallen
 back1 side-ways1 weighed down by the   
helmet1 which has not even been         
unbuckled1 only the face1 the clear-cut1
 austere features1 visible beneath the  
withdrawn vizor2 the eyes have not been 
closed2 and there are few things more   
exquisite and solemn at once in all     
sculpture1 than the indication of those 
no longer seeing eyes1 of that broken   
glance1 beneath the half-closed lids4   
,there is ,rossellino's ,cardinal of    
,portugal at ,s4 ,miniato a ,monte3 the 
slight body1 draped in episcopal robes1 
lying with delicate folded hands1 in    
gracious decorum of youthful sanctity2  
the strong delicate head1 of clear      
feature and gentle furrow of suffering  
and thought1 a face of infinite purity  
of strength1 strength still ungnarled by
 action3 a young priest1 who in his     
virginal dignity is almost a noble      
woman4 ,and there is the ,ilaria        
,guinigi of ,jacopo della ,quercia 7the 

man who had most natural affinity with  
the antique of all these sculptors1 as  
one may see from the shattered remains  
of the ,fonte ,gaia of ,siena71 the lady
 stretched out on the rose-garlanded bed
 of state in a corner of ,lucca         
,cathedral1 her feet upon her sleeping  
dog1 her sweet1 girlish head1 with wavy 
plaits of hair encircled by a           
rose-wreathed1 turban-like diadem1 lying
 low on round cushions2 the bed gently  
giving way beneath the beautiful1       
ample-bosomed body1 round which the soft
 robe is chastely gathered1 and across  
which the long-sleeved arms are demurely
 folded2 the most beautiful lady 7whose 
majestic tread through the palace rooms 
we can well imagine7 that the art of the
 fifteenth century has recorded4 ,there 
is1 above all1 the ,carlo ,marsuppini of
 ,desiderio da ,settignano1 the humanist
 ,secretary of the ,commonwealth1 lying 
on the sarcophagus1 superb with shell   
fretwork and curling acanthus1 in ,santa
 ,croce of ,florence4 ,for the youthful 

beauty of the ,cardinal of ,portugal and
 of the ,lady ,ilaria are commonplace   
compared with the refinement of this    
worn old face1 with scant wavy hair and 
thin1 gently furrowed1 but by no means  
ploughed-up features4 ,the slight figure
 looks as if in life it must have seemed
 almost transparent2 and the hands are  
very pathetic3 noble1 firm hands1 subtle
 of vein and wrist1 crossed simply1     
neither in prayer nor in agony1 but in  
gentle weariness1 over the book on his  
breast4 ,that book is certainly no      
prayer-book2 rather a volume of ,plato  
or ,cicero3 in his last moments the     
noble old man has longed for a glance   
over the familiar pages2 they have      
placed the book on his breast1 but it   
has been too late2 the drowsiness of    
death has overtaken him1 and with his   
last sigh he has gently folded his hands
 over the volume1 with the faint1 last  
clinging to the things beloved in this  
world4  ,such is that portrait sculpture
 of the early ,renaissance1 its only    

sculpture1 if we except the exquisite   
work in babies and angels just out of   
the nursery of the ,robbias1 which is a 
real achievement4 ,but how achieved8    
,this art is great just by the things   
which ,antiquity did not4 ,and what are 
those things8 ,shall we say that it is  
sentiment8 ,but all fine art has tact1  
antique art most certainly2 and as to   
pathos1 why1 any quiet figure of a dead 
man or woman1 however rudely carved1 has
 pathos2 nay1 there is pathos in the    
poor puling hysterical art which makes  
angels draw the curtains of fine ladies'
 bedchambers1 and fine ladies1 in hoop  
or limp ,grecian dress1 faint 7the      
smelling bottle1 ,betty67 over their    
lord's coffin2 there is pathos1 to a    
decently constituted human being1       
wherever 7despite all absurdities7 we   
can imagine that there lies some one    
whom it was bitter to see departing1 to 
whom it was bitter to depart4 ,pathos1  
therefore1 is not the question2 and1 if 
you choose to call it sentiment1 it is  

in reality a sentiment for line and     
curve1 for stone and light4 ,the great  
question is1 ,how did these men of the  
,renaissance make their dead people look
 beautiful8 ,for they were not all      
beautiful in life1 and ugly folk do not 
grow beautiful merely because they are  
dead4 ,the ,cardinal of ,portugal1 the  
beautiful ,ilaria herself1 were you to  
sketch their profile and place it by the
 side of no matter what ordinary        
antique1 would greatly fall short of    
what we call sculpturesque beauty2 and  
many of the others1 old humanists and   
priests and lawyers1 are emphatically   
ugly3 snub or absurdly hooked noses1    
retreating or deformedly overhanging    
foreheads1 fleshy noses1 and flabby     
cheeks1 blear eyes and sunk-in mouths2  
and a perfect network of wrinkles and   
creases1 which1 hard as it is to say1   
have been scooped out not merely by age1
 but by low mind1 fretting and          
triumphant animalism4 ,now1 by what     
means did the sculptor--the sculptor1   

too unacquainted with sculptural beauty 
7witness his ugly ideal statues71 to be 
able1 like the man who turned the       
successors of ,alexander into a race of 
leonine though crazy demi-gods--to      
insidiously idealize these ugly and     
insignificant features2 by what means   
did he turn these dead men into things  
beautiful to see8 ,i have said that he  
took up art where ,grco-,roman          
,antiquity had left it4 ,remark that ,i 
say ,grco-,roman1 and ,i ought to add   
much more ,roman than ,greek4 ,for      
,greek sculpture1 nurtured in the habit 
of perfect form1 art to whom beauty was 
a cheap necessity1 invariably idealized 
portrait1 idealized it into beauty or   
inanity4 ,but when ,greek art had run   
its course2 when beauty of form had     
well-nigh been exhausted or begun to    
pall2 certain artists1 presumably       
,greeks1 but working for ,romans1 began 
to produce portrait work of quite a new 
and wonderful sort3 the beautiful       
portraits of ugly old men1 of snub      

little boys1 work which was clearly     
before its right time1 and was swamped  
by idealized portraits1 insipid1 nay1   
inane1 from the elegant revivalist busts
 of ,hadrian and ,marcus ,aurelius down 
to the bonnet blocks of the lower       
empire4 ,of this ,roman portrait art1 of
 certain heads of half-idiotic little   
,csar brats1 of sly and wrinkled old    
men1 things which ought to be so ugly   
and yet are so beautiful1 we say1 at    
least1 perhaps unformulated1 we think1  
,how ,renaissance6 ,and the secret of   
the beauty of these few ,grco-,roman    
busts1 which is also that of            
,renaissance portrait sculpture1 is that
 the beauty is quite different in kind  
from the beauty of ,greek ideal         
sculpture1 and obtained by quite        
different means4  ,it is1 essentially1  
that kind of beauty which ,i began by   
saying belonged to realistic art1 to the
 art which is not squeamish about the   
object which it represents1 but is      
squeamish about the manner and medium in

 which that indifferent object is       
represented2 it is a kind of beauty1    
therefore1 more akin to that of         
,rembrandt and ,velasquez than to that  
of ,michael ,angelo or ,raphael4 ,it is 
the beauty1 not of large lines and      
harmonies1 beauty residing in the real  
model's forms1 beauty real1 wholesale1  
which would be the same if the man were 
not marble but flesh1 not in a given    
position but moving2 but it is a beauty 
of combinations of light and surface1 a 
beauty of texture opposed to texture1   
which would probably be unperceived in  
the presence of the more regal beauty of
 line and colour harmonies1 and which   
those who could obtain this latter would
 employ only as much as they were       
conducive to such larger beauties4 ,and 
this beauty of texture opposed to       
texture and light combined with surface 
is a very real thing2 it is the great   
reality of ,renaissance sculpture3 this 
beauty1 resulting from the combination1 
for instance1 in a commonplace face1 of 

the roughness and coarser pore of the   
close shaven lips and chin with the     
smoothness of the waxy hanging cheeks2  
the one catching the light1 the other   
breaking it into a ribbed and forked    
penumbra4 ,the very perfection of this  
kind of work is ,benedetto da ,maiano's 
bust of ,pietro ,mellini in the         
,bargello at ,florence4 ,the elderly    
head is of strongly marked osseous      
structure1 yet fleshed with abundant and
 flaccid flesh1 hanging in folds or     
creases round the mouth and chin1 yet   
not flobbery and floppy1 but solid1     
though yielding1 creased1 wrinkled1     
crevassed rather as a sandy hillside is 
crevassed by the trickling waters2      
semi-solid1 promising slight resistance1
 waxy1 yielding to the touch4 ,but all  
the flesh has1 as it were1 gravitated to
 the lower part of the face1            
conglomerated1 or rather draped itself1 
about the mouth1 firmer for sunken teeth
 and shaving2 and the skin has remained 
alone across the head1 wrinkled1 yet    

drawn in tight folds across the         
dome-shaped skull1 as if1 while the     
flesh disappeared1 the bone also had    
enlarged4 ,and on the temples the flesh 
has once been thick1 the bone           
7seemingly7 slight2 and now the skin is 
being drawn1 recently1 and we feel more 
and more every day1 into a radiation of 
minute creases1 as if the bone and flesh
 were having a last struggle4 ,now in   
this head there is little beauty of line
 7the man has never been good-looking71 
and there is not much character in the  
sense of strongly marked mental or moral
 personality4 ,i do not know1 nor care1 
what manner of man this may have been4  
,the individuality is one1 not of the   
mind but of the flesh4 ,what interests1 
attaches1 is not the character or       
temperament1 but the bone and skin1 the 
creases and folds of flesh4 ,and herein 
also lies the beauty of the work4 ,i do 
not mean its interest or mere technical 
skill1 ,i mean distinctly visible and   
artistic beauty4  ,thus does the        

sculptor of the ,renaissance get beauty1
 visible beauty1 not psychologic        
interest1 out of a plain human being2   
but the beauty 7and this is the         
distinguishing point of what ,i must    
call realistic decorative art7 does not 
exist necessarily in the plain human    
being3 he merely affords the beginning  
of a pattern which the artist may be    
able to carry out4 ,a person may have in
 him the making of a really beautiful   
bust and yet be ugly2 just as the same  
person may afford a subject for a       
splendid painting and for an execrable  
piece of sculpture4 ,the wrinkles and   
creases in a face like that of          
,benedetto da ,maiano's ,mellini would  
probably be ugly and perhaps disgusting 
in the real reddish1 flaccid1           
discoloured flesh2 while they are       
admirable in the solid and              
supple-looking marble1 in its warm and  
delicate bistre and yellow4 ,material   
has an extraordinary effect upon form2  
colour1 though not a positive element in

 sculpture1 has immense negative power  
in accentuating or obliterating the mere
 line4 ,all form becomes vague and soft 
in the dairy flaccidness of modern      
ivory2 and clear and powerful in the    
dark terra cotta1 which can ennoble even
 the fattest and flattest faces with its
 wonderful faculty for making mere      
surface markings1 mere crowsfeet1       
interesting4 ,thus also with bronze3 the
 polished1 worked bronze1 of fine       
chocolate burnish and reddish           
reflections1 mars all beauty of line2   
how different the unchased1 merely rough
 cast1 greenish1 with infinite delicate 
greys and browns1 making1 for instance1 
the head of an old woman like an        
exquisite withered1 shrivelled1 veined  
autumnal leaf4 ,it is moreover1 as ,i   
have said1 a question of combination of 
surface and light1 this art which makes 
beautiful busts of ugly men4 ,the ideal 
statue of the ,greeks intended for the  
open air2 fit to be looked at under any 
light1 high or low1 brilliant or veiled1

 had indeed to be prepared to look well 
under any light2 but to look well under 
any light means not to use any one      
particular relation of light as an ally2
 the surface was kept modestly          
subordinated to the features1 the       
features which must needs look well at  
all moments and from all points of view4
 ,but the ,renaissance sculptor knew    
where his work would be placed2 he could
 calculate the effect of the light      
falling invariably through this or that 
window2 he could make a fellow-workman  
of that light1 present for it to draw or
 to obliterate what features he liked1  
bid it sweep away such or such surfaces 
with a broad stream1 cut them with a    
deep shadow1 caress their smooth        
chiselling or their rough grainings1    
mark as with a nail the few large       
strokes of the point which gave the     
firmness to the strained muscle or      
stretched skin4 ,out of this model of   
his1 this plain old burgess1 he and his 
docile friend the light1 could make     

quite a new thing2 a new pattern of     
bosses and cavities1 of smooth sweeps   
and tracked lines1 of creases and folds 
of flesh1 of pliable linen and rough    
brocade of dress3 something new1        
something which1 without a single       
feature being straightened or shortened1
 yet changed completely the value of the
 whole assemblage of features2 something
 undreamed of by nature in moulding that
 ugly old merchant or humanist4 ,with   
this art which produced works like      
,desiderio da ,settignano's ,carlo      
,marsuppini and ,benedetto da ,maiano's 
,pietro ,mellini1 is intimately         
connected the art of the great          
medallists of the ,renaissance--,pasti1 
,guacialotti1 ,niccol ,fiorentino1 and1 
greatest of all1 ,pisanello4 ,its       
excellence depends precisely upon its   
independence of the ideal work of       
,antiquity2 nay1 even upon the fact     
that1 while the ancients1 striking their
 coins in chased metal dies1 obtained an
 astonishing minuteness and clearness of

 every separate little stroke and dint1 
and were therefore forced into an almost
 more than sculptural perfection of mere
 line1 of mere profile and throat and   
elaborately composed hair1 a sort of    
sublime abstraction of the possible     
beauty of a human face1 as in the coins 
of ,syracuse and also of ,alexander2 the
 men of the fifteenth century employed  
the process of casting the bronze in a  
concave mould obtained by the melting   
away of a medallion in wax2 in wax1     
which taking the living impress of the  
artist's finger1 and recalling in its   
firm and yet soft texture the real      
substance of the human face1 insensibly 
led the medallist to seek1 not sharp and
 abstract lines1 but simple1 strongly   
moulded bosses2 not ideal beauty1 but   
the real appearance of life4 ,it is1    
moreover1 a significant fact that while 
the men who1 half a century or so later1
 made fine1 characterless die-stamped   
medals in imitation of the antique1     
,caradossi and ,benvenuto for instance1 

were goldsmiths and sculptors1 workers  
with the chisel1 artists seeking        
essentially for abstract elegance of    
line2 the two greatest medallists of the
 early ,renaissance1 ,vittore ,pisano   
and ,matteo di ,pasti1 were both of them
 painters2 and painters of the ,northern
 ,italian school1 to whom colour and    
texture were all important1 and linear  
form a matter of indifference4 ,and     
indeed1 if we look at the best work of  
what ,i may call the wax mould          
medallists of the fifteenth century1    
even at the magnificent marble          
medallions of the laurel-wreathed head  
of ,sigismund ,malatesta on the pillars 
of his church at ,rimini1 modelled by   
,pasti1 we shall see that these men were
 preoccupied almost exclusively with the
 almost pictorial effect of the flesh in
 its various degrees of boss and of     
reaction of the light2 and that the     
character1 the beauty even1 which they  
attained1 is essentially due to a       
skilful manipulation of texture1 and    

surface1 and light--one might almost say
 of colour4 ,we all know ,pisanello's   
famous heads of the ,malatesti of       
,rimini3 the saturnine ,sigismund1 the  
delicate dapper ,novello1 the powerful  
yet beautiful ,isotta2 but there are    
other ,renaissance medals which         
illustrate my meaning even better1 and  
connect my feelings on the subject of   
this branch of art more clearly with my 
feelings towards such work as           
,benedetto's ,pietro ,mellini4 ,foremost
 among these is the perhaps somewhat    
imperfect and decidedly grotesque1 but  
astonishingly powerful1 naf and         
characteristic ,lorenzo dei ,medici by  
,niccol real grandeur of whose          
conception of this coarse yet           
imaginative head may be profitably      
contrasted with the classicizing efforts
 after the demi-god or successor of     
,alexander in ,pollaiolo's famous medal 
of the ,pazzi conspiracy4 ,next to this 
,i would place a medal by ,guacialotti  
of ,bishop ,niccol ,palmieri1 with the  

motto1 ,nudus egressus sic              
redibo--singularly appropriate to the   
shameless fleshliness of the personage1 
with his naked fat chest and shoulders1 
his fat1 pig-like cheeks and            
greasy-looking bald head2 a hideous     
beast1 yet magnificent in his bestiality
 like some huge fattened porker4 ,these 
medals give us1 as does the bust of     
,pietro ,mellini1 beauty of the portrait
 despite ugliness of the original4 ,but 
there are two other medals1 this time by
 ,pisanello1 and1 as it seems to me1    
perhaps his masterpieces1 which show the
 quite peculiar way in which this homely
 charm of portraiture amalgamates1 so as
 to form a homogeneous and most         
seemingly simple whole1 with the homely 
charm of certain kinds of pure and      
simple youthful types4 ,one of these    
7the reverse of which fantastically     
represents the four elements1 the wooded
 earth1 the starry sky1 the rippled sea1
 the sun1 all in one sphere7 is the     
portrait of ,don ,inigo d',avalos2 the  

other that of ,cecilia ,gonzaga4 ,this  
slender beardless boy in the ,spanish   
shovel hat and wisp of scarf twisted    
round the throat2 and this tall1        
long-necked girl1 with sloping shoulders
 and still half-developed bosom2 are1 so
 to speak1 brother and sister in art1 in
 ,pisanello's wonderful genius4 ,the    
relief of the two medals is extremely   
low1 so that in certain lights the      
effigies vanish almost completely1 sink 
into the pale green surface of the      
bronze2 the portraits are a mere film1 a
 sort of haze which has arisen on the   
bronze and gathered into human likeness2
 but in this film1 this scarce          
perceptible relief1 we are made to      
perceive the slender osseous structure1 
the smooth1 sleek1 childish blond flesh 
and hair1 the delicate1 undecided pallor
 of extreme youth and purity1 even as we
 might in some elaborate portrait by    
,velasquez1 but with a spring-like      
healthiness which ,velasquez1 painting  
his lymphatic ,hapsburgs1 rarely has4   

,such is this ,renaissance art of       
medals1 this side branch of the great   
realistic portraiture in stone of the   
,benedettos1 ,desiderios1 and           
,rossellinos2 a perfect thing in itself2
 and one which1 if we muse over it in   
connection with the more important works
 of fifteenth century sculpture1 will   
perhaps lead us to think that1 as the   
sculpture of ,antiquity1 in its superb  
idealism1 its devotion to the perfect   
line and curve of beauty1 achieved the  
highest that mere colourless art can    
achieve--thanks to the very purity1     
sternness1 and narrowness of its        
sculpturesque feeling--so also1 perhaps1
 modern sculpture1 should it ever       
re-arise1 must be a continuation of the 
tendencies of the ,renaissance1 must be 
the humbler sister of painting1 must    
seek for the realistic portrait and     
begin1 perhaps1 with the realistic      
medal4     ,,ii4   ,this kind of        
realism1 where only the model is ugly1  
while the portrait is beautiful2 which  

seeks decorative value by other means   
than the intrinsic excellence of form in
 the object represented1 this kind of   
realism is quite different in sort from 
the realisms of immature art1 which1    
aiming at nothing beyond a faithful     
copy1 is content with producing an ugly 
picture of an ugly thing4 ,now this     
latter kind of realism endured in       
painting some time after decorative     
realism such as ,i have described had   
reached perfection in sculpture4 ,nor   
was it till later1 and when the crude   
scholastic realism had completely come  
to an end1 that there became even       
partially possible in painting          
decorative realism analogous to what we 
have noticed in sculpture2 while it was 
not till after the close of the ,italian
 ,renaissance period that the painters  
arose in ,spain and the ,netherlands who
 were able to treat their subjects with 
the uncompromising decorative realism of
 ,desiderio or ,rosellino or ,benedetto 
da ,maiano4 ,for the purely imitative   

realism of the painters of the early    
,renaissance was succeeded in ,italy by 
idealism1 which matured in the great art
 of intrinsically beautiful linear form 
of ,michael ,angelo and ,raphael1 and   
the great art of intrinsically beautiful
 colour form of ,giorgione and ,titian4 
,these two schools were bound to be1    
each in its degree1 idealistic4         
,complete power of mere representation  
in tint and colour having been obtained 
through the realistic drudgery of the   
early ,renaissance1 selection in the    
objects thus to be represented had      
naturally arisen2 and the study of the  
antique had further hastened and        
directed this movement of art no longer 
to study but to achieve1 to be          
decorative once more1 decorative no     
longer in subservience to architecture1 
but as the separate and self-sufficing  
art of painting4 ,selection1 therefore1 
which is the only practical kind of     
idealism1 had begun as soon as painting 
was possessed of the power of           

representing objects in their relations 
of line and colour1 with that amount of 
light and shadow requisite to the just  
appreciation of the relations of form   
and the just relations of colour4 ,now  
art which stops short at this point of  
representation must inevitably be1 if   
decorative at all1 idealistically       
decorative2 it must be squeamish        
respecting the objects represented1     
respecting their real structure1 colour1
 position1 and grouping4 ,for1 of the   
visible impressions received from an    
object1 some are far more intrinsic than
 others4 ,suppose we see a woman1       
beautiful in the structure of her body1 
and beautiful in the colour of her      
person and her draperies1 standing under
 a light which is such as we should call
 beautiful and interesting3 of these    
three qualities one will be intrinsic in
 the woman1 the second very considerably
 so1 the third not at all4 ,for1 let us 
call that woman away and replace her    
immediately by another woman chosen at  

random4 ,we shall immediately perceive  
that we have lost one pleasurable       
impression1 that of beautiful bodily    
structure3 the woman has taken away her 
well-shapen body4 ,next we shall        
perceive a notable diminution in the    
second pleasurable impression3 the woman
 has taken with her1 not indeed her     
well-tinted garments1 which we may have 
bestowed on her successor1 but her      
beautifully coloured skin and hair1 so  
that of the pleasing colour-impression  
will remain only as much as was due to1 
and may have been retained with1 the    
original woman's clothes4 ,but if we    
look for our third pleasurable          
impression1 our beautiful light1 we     
shall find that unchanged1 whether it   
fall upon a magnificently arrayed       
goddess or upon a sordid slut ,and1     
conversely1 the beautiful woman1 when   
withdrawn from that light and placed in 
any other1 will be equally lovely in    
form1 even if we cast her in plaster1   
and lose the colour of her skin and     

hair2 or if we leave her not only the   
beautiful tints of her flesh and hair1  
but her own splendidly coloured         
garments1 we shall still have1 in       
whatsoever light1 a magnificent piece of
 colour4 ,but if we recall the poor ugly
 creature who has succeeded her from out
 of that fine effect of light1 we shall 
have nothing but a hideous form invested
 in hideous colour4  ,this rough diagram
 will be sufficient to explain my       
thought respecting the relative degree  
to which the art dealing with linear    
form1 that dealing with colour and that 
dealing with light1 with the medium in  
which form and colour are perceived2 is 
each respectively bound to be           
idealistically or realistically         
decorative4 ,now painting was           
sthetically mature1 possessed the means 
to achieve great beauty1 at a time when 
of the three modes of representation    
there had as yet developed only those of
 linear form and colour2 and the very   
possibility and necessity of immediately

 achieving all that could be achieved by
 these means delayed for a long time the
 development of the third mode of       
representation3 the representation of   
objects as they appear with reference to
 the light through which they are seen4 
,a beginning had indeed been made4      
,certain of ,correggio's effects of     
light1 even more an occasional manner of
 treating the flesh and hair1 reducing  
both form and colour to a kind of vague 
boss and vague sheen1 such as they      
really present in given effects of      
light1 a something which we define      
roughly as eminently modern in the      
painting of his clustered cherubs2 all  
this is certainly a beginning of the    
school of ,velasquez4 ,still more so is 
it the case with ,andrea del ,sarto1 the
 man of genius whom critics love to     
despatch as a mediocrity1 because his   
art1 which is art altogether for the    
eyes1 and in which he innovated more    
than any of his contemporaries1 does not
 afford any excuse for the irrelevancies

 of ornamental criticism2 with him the  
appearance of form and colour1 acted    
upon by light1 the relative values of   
which flesh and draperies consist with  
reference to the surrounding medium1 all
 this becomes so evident a preoccupation
 and a basis for decorative effects1 as 
to give certain of his works an almost  
startling air of being modern4 ,but this
 tendency comes to nothing3 the men of  
the sixteenth century appear scarcely to
 have perceived wherein lay the true    
excellence of this ,andrea senza errori1
 deeming him essentially the artist of  
linear perfection2 while the innovations
 of ,correggio in the way of showing the
 relations of flesh tones and light     
ended in the mere coarse gala           
illuminations in which his successors   
made their seraphs plunge and sprawl4   
,there was too much to be done1 good and
 bad1 in the way of mere linear form and
 mere colour2 and as art of mere linear 
form and colour1 indifferent of all     
else1 did the art of the ,italian       

,renaissance run to seed4  ,i said at   
the beginning of this paper that the    
degree to which any art is strictly     
idealistic1 can be measured by the terms
 which it will make with portrait4 ,for 
as portrait is due to the desire to     
represent a person quite apart from that
 person affording material for          
decoration1 it is evident that only the 
art which can call in the assistance of 
decorative materials1 independent of the
 represented individual1 can possibly   
make a beautiful picture out of an ugly 
man2 while the art which deals only with
 such visible peculiarities as are      
inherent in the individual1 has no kind 
of outlet1 is cornered1 and can make of 
a repulsive original only a repulsive   
picture4 ,the analogy to this we have   
already noticed in sculpture3 antique   
sculpture1 considering only the linear  
bosses which existed equally in the     
living man and in the statue1 could not 
afford to represent plain people2 while 
,renaissance sculpture1 extracting a    

large amount of beauty out of           
combinations of surface and light1 was  
able1 as long as it could arrange such  
an artificial combination1 to dispense  
with great perfection in the model4     
,nay1 if we except ,renaissance statuary
 as a kind of separate art1 we may say  
that this independence of the object    
portrayed is a kind of analytic test1   
enabling us to judge at a glance1 and by
 the degree of independence from the    
model1 the degree to which any art is   
removed from the mere line and boss of  
antique sculpture4 ,in the statue       
standing free in any light that may     
chance to come1 every form must be      
beautiful from every point2 but in      
proportion as the new elements of       
painting enter1 in proportion as the    
actual linear form and boss is marked   
and helped out by grouping1 colour1 and 
light and shade1 does the actual        
perfection of the model become less     
important2 until1 under the reign of    
light as the chief factor1 it becomes   

altogether indifferent4 ,in this fact   
lies the only rational foundation for   
the notion1 made popular by ,hegel1 that
 painting is an art in which beauty is  
of much less account than in sculpture2 
failing to understand that the sum total
 of beauty remained the same1 whether   
dependent upon the concentration of a   
single element or obtained by the       
co-operation of several consequently    
less singly important elements4  ,but to
 return to the question of portrait art4
 ,from what we have seen1 it is clear   
that art which requires perfection of   
form will be reduced to ugliness if     
cramped in the obtaining of such        
perfection1 whereas art which can obtain
 beauty by other means will still have a
 chance when reduced to imitate ugly    
object8 ,hence it is that while the     
realistically decorative art of the     
seventeenth century can make actually   
beautiful things of the portraits of    
ugly people1 the idealistically         
decorative art of the ,renaissance      

produces portraits which are cruelly    
ugly in proportion as the art is purely 
idealistic4 ,yet even in idealism there 
are degrees3 the more the art is        
confined to mere linear form1 to the    
exclusion of colour1 the uglier will be 
the portraits4 ,with ,michael ,angelo   
the difficulty was simplified to        
impossibility3 he could not paint       
portrait at all2 and in his sculptured  
portraits of the two ,medicean dukes at 
,s4 ,lorenzo he evaded all attempt at   
likeness1 making those two men into     
scarcely more than two architectural    
monsters1 half-human cousins of the     
fantastic creatures who keep watch on   
the belfries and gurgoyles of a ,gothic 
cathedral4 ,it is almost impossible to  
think of ,michael ,angelo attempting    
portrait3 the man's genius cannot be    
constrained to it1 and what ought to be 
mere ugliness would come out idealized  
into grandiose monstrosity4 ,men like   
,titian and ,tintoret are at the other  
end of the scale of ideal decoration3   

they are bordering upon the domain of   
realism4 ,hence they can raise into     
interest1 by the mere power of colour1  
many an insignificant type2 yet even    
they are incapable of dealing with      
absolute ugliness1 with absence of fine 
colour1 or1 if they do deal with it1    
there is an immediate improvement upon  
the model1 and the appearance of        
truthfulness goes4 ,between the absolute
 incapacity for dealing with ugliness of
 ,michael ,angelo1 and the power of     
compromising with it of ,titian and     
,tintoret1 ,raphael stands half-way3 he 
can call in the assistance of colour    
just sufficiently to create a setting of
 carefully harmonized draperies and     
accessories1 beautiful enough to allow  
of his filling it up with the most      
cruelly ugly likeness which any painter 
ever painted4 ,far too much has been    
written about ,raphael in general1 but  
not half enough about ,raphael as a     
portrait-painter2 for by the side of the
 eclectic idealist1 who combined and    

balanced beauty almost into insipidity1 
is the most terribly1 inflexibly        
veracious portrait-painter that ever    
was4 ,compared with those sternly       
straightforward portraits of his        
,florentine and ,roman time1 where      
ugliness and baseness are never         
attenuated by one tittle1 and alloyed   
nobility or amiability1 as with his     
finer models1 like the two ,donis1      
husband and wife1 and ,bibbiena1 is     
never purified of its troubling element2
 compared with them the ,venetian       
portraits are mere insincere1 enormously
 idealized pieces of colour-harmony2    
nay1 the portraits of ,velasquez are    
mere hints--given rapidly by a sickened 
painter striving to make those          
scrofulous ,hapsburgs no longer mere    
men1 but keynotes of harmonies of       
light--of what the people really are4   
,for ,velasquez seems to show us the    
temperament1 the potentiality of his    
people1 and to leave us1 with a kind of 
dignified and melancholy silence as to  

all further1 to find out what life1 what
 feelings and actions1 such a           
temperament implies4 ,but ,raphael shows
 us all3 the temperament and the        
character1 the real active creature1    
with all the marks of his present temper
 and habits1 with all the indications of
 his immediate actions upon him3        
completely without humour or bitterness1
 without the smallest tendency to twist 
the reality into caricature or          
monstrosity1 nay1 perhaps without much  
psychologic analysis to tell him the    
exact meaning of what he is painting1   
going straight to the point1 and utterly
 ruthless from sheer absence of all     
alternative of doing otherwise than he  
does4 ,there is nothing more cruelly    
realistic in the world1 cruel not only  
to the base originals but to the        
feelings of the spectator1 than the     
harmony of villainies1 of various       
combinations of black and hog-like      
bestiality1 and fox and wolf-like       
cunning and ferocity with wicked human  

thought and self-command1 which ,raphael
 has enshrined in that splendid harmony 
of scarlet silk and crimson satin1 and  
purple velvet and dull white brocade1 as
 the portraits of ,leo ,x4 and his      
cardinals ,rossi and ,dei ,medici4  ,the
 idealistic painter1 accustomed to rely 
upon the intrinsic beauty which he has  
hitherto been able to select or create2 
accustomed also to think of form as     
something quite independent of the      
medium through which it is seen1        
scarcely conscious of the existence of  
light and air in his habit of           
concentrating all attention upon a      
figure placed1 as it were1 in a sort of 
vacuum of indifference2--this idealistic
 artist is left without any resources   
when bid to paint an ugly man or woman4 
,with the realistic artist1 to whom the 
man or woman is utterly indifferent1 to 
whom the medium in which they are seen  
is everything1 the case ,is just        
reversed3 let him arrange his light1 his
 atmospheric effect1 and he will work   

into their pattern no matter what plain 
or repulsive wretch4 ,to ,velasquez the 
flaccid yellowish fair flesh1 with its  
grey downy shadows1 the limp pale drab  
hair1 which is grey in the light and    
scarcely perceptibly blond in the shade1
 all this unhealthy1 bloodless1 feebly  
living1 effete mass of humanity called  
,philip ,,iv4 of ,spain1 shivering in   
moral anmia like some dog thorough bred 
into nothingness1 becomes merely the    
foundation for a splendid harmony of    
pale tints4 ,again1 the poor little baby
 princess1 with scarce visible features1
 seemingly kneaded 7but not sufficiently
 pinched and modelled7 out of the wet   
ashes of an auto da f1 in her           
black-and-white frock 7how different    
from the dresses painted by ,raphael and
 ,titian671 dingy and gloomy enough for 
an abbess or a cameriera major1 this    
childish personification of courtly     
dreariness1 certainly born on an ,ash   
,wednesday1 becomes the principal       
strands for a marvellous tissue of      

silvery and ashy light1 tinged yellowish
 in the hair1 bluish in the eyes and    
downy cheeks1 pale red in the lips and  
the rose in the hair2 something to match
 which in beauty you must think of some 
rarely seen veined and jaspered rainy   
twilight1 or opal-tinted hazy winter    
morning4 ,ugliness1 nay1 repulsiveness1 
vanish1 subdued into beauty1 even as    
noxious gases may be subdued into       
health-giving substances by some cunning
 chemist4 ,the difference between such  
portraits as these and the portraits by 
,raphael does not however consist merely
 in the beauty3 there is also the fact  
that if you take one of ,velasquez's    
portraits out of their frame1           
reconstitute the living individual1 and 
bid him walk forth in whatsoever light  
may fall upon him1 you will have        
something infinitely different from the 
portrait1 and of which your only        
distinct feeling will be that a fine    
portrait might be made of the creature2 
whereas it is a matter of complete      

indifference whether you see ,raphael's 
,leo ,x4 in the flesh or in his gilded  
frame4  ,whatever may fairly be said    
respecting the relative value of        
idealistic and realistic decorative art 
is really also connected with this      
latter point4 ,considering that         
realistic art is merely obtaining beauty
 by attention to other factors than     
those which preoccupy idealistic art1   
that the one fulfils what the other     
neglects--taking the matter from this   
point of view1 it would seem as if the  
two kinds of arts were1 so to speak1    
morally equal2 and that any vague sense 
of mysterious superior dignity clinging 
to idealistic art was a mere shred of   
long discarded pedantry4 ,but it is not 
so4 ,for realistic art does more than   
merely bring into play powers unknown to
 idealistic art3 it becomes1 by the     
possession of these powers1 utterly     
indifferent to the intrinsic value of   
the forms represented3 it is so certain 
of making everything lovely by its      

harmonies of light and atmosphere that  
it almost prefers to choose inferior    
things for this purpose4 ,i am thinking 
at present of a picture by ,i forget    
what ,dutchman in our ,national         
,gallery1 representing in separate      
compartments five besotten-looking      
creatures1 symbolical of the five       
senses3 they are ugly1 brutish1 with ,i 
know not what suggestion of detestable  
temperament in their bloodshot flesh and
 vermilion lips1 as if the whole man    
were saturated with his appetite4 ,yet  
the ,dutchman has found the means of    
making these degraded types into        
something which we care to look at1 and 
to look at on account of its beauty2    
even as1 in lesser degree1 ,rubens has  
always managed to make us feel towards  
his flaccid1 veal-complexioned1         
fish-eyed women1 something of what we   
feel towards the goddesses of the       
,parthenon2 towards the white-robed1    
long-gloved ladies1 with meditative face
 beneath their crimped auburn hair1 of  

,titian4  ,viewed in one way1 there is a
 kind of nobility in the very fact that 
such realistic art can make us pardon1  
can redeem1 nay almost sanctify1 so     
much4 ,but is it right thus to pardon1  
redeem1 and sanctify2 thus to bring the 
inferior on to the level of the         
superior8 ,nay1 is it not rather wrong  
to teach us to endure so much meanness  
and ugliness in creatures1 on account of
 the nobility with which they are       
represented8 ,is this not vitiating our 
feelings1 blunting our desire for the   
better1 our repugnance for the worse8   
,a great and charitable art1 this       
realistic art of the seventeenth        
century1 and to be respected for its    
very tenderness towards the scorned and 
castaway things of reality2 but         
accustoming us1 perhaps too much1 like  
all charitable and reclaiming impulses1 
to certain unworthy contacts3 in strange
 contrast herein with that narrow but   
ascetic and aristocratic art of         
idealism1 which1 isolated and           

impoverished though it may be1 has      
always the dignity of its immaculate    
purity1 of its unswerving judgment1 of  
its obstinate determination to deal only
 with the best4 ,a hard task to judge   
between them4 ,but be this as it may1 it
 is one of the singular richnesses of   
the ,italian ,renaissance that it knew  
of both tendencies2 that while in       
painting it gave the equivalent of that 
rigid idealism of the ,greeks which can 
make no compromise with ugliness2 in    
sculpture it possessed the equivalent of
 the realism of ,velasquez1 which can   
make beauty out of ugly things1 even as 
the chemist can make sugar out of       
vitriol4          99       99       99  
99       99   ,,the ,,school ,,of       
,,boiardo4  ,le donne1 i cavalieri1 l'  
armi1 gli amori4    ,i4  ,throughout the
 tales of ,charlemagne and his warriors1
 overtopping by far the crowd of        
paladins and knights1 move two colossal 
mailed and vizored figures--,roland1    
whom the ,italians call ,orlando and the

 ,spaniards ,roldan1 the son of ,milon  
d',angers and of ,charlemagne's sister2 
and ,renaud or ,rinaldo1 the lord of    
,montauban1 and eldest of the famous    
four sons of ,aymon4 ,these are the two 
representative heroes1 equal but        
opposed1 the ,achilles and ,odysseus1   
the ,siegfried and ,dietrich1 of the    
,carolingian epic2 and in each is       
personified1 by the unconscious genius  
of the early ,middle ,ages1 one of the  
great political movements1 of the heroic
 struggles1 of feudalism4 ,for there    
existed in feudalism two forces1 a      
centripetal and a centrifugal--a force  
which made for the supremacy of the     
kingly overlordship1 and a force which  
made for the independence of the great  
vassals4 ,hence1 in the poetry which is 
the poetry of feudalism1 two distinct   
currents of feeling1 two distinct       
epics---the epic of the devoted loyalty 
of all the heroes of ,france to their   
wise and mighty emperor ,charlemagne1   
triumphant even in misfortune2 and the  

epic of the hopeless resistance against 
a craven and capricious despot ,charles 
of the most righteous and whole-hearted 
among his feudatories3 the epic of      
,roland1 and the epic of ,renaud4 ,of   
the first there remains to us1 in its   
inflexible and iron solemnity1 an       
original rhymed narrative1 ,the ,chanson
 de ,roland1 which we may read perhaps  
almost in the self-same words in which  
it was sung by the ,normans of ,william 
in their night watch before the great   
battle4 ,the centripetal force of       
feudalism gained the upper hand1 and the
 song of the great empire1 of the great 
deeds of loyal prowess1 was consecrated 
in the feudal monarchy4 ,the case was   
different with the tale of resistance   
and rebellion4 ,the story of ,renaud    
soon became a dangerous lesson for the  
great barons2 it fell from the hands of 
the nobles to those of humbler folk2 and
 it is preserved to us no longer in     
medival verse1 but in a prose version1  
doubtless of the fifteenth century1     

under the name1 familiar on the stalls  
of village fairs1 of ,the ,quatre ,fils 
,aymon4 ,but1 as ,renaud is the equal of
 ,roland1 so is this humble prose tale  
nevertheless the equal of the great song
 of ,roncevaux2 and even now1 it would  
be a difficult task to decide which were
 the grander1 the tale of loyalty or the
 tale of resistance4  ,in each of these 
tales1,the ,chanson de ,roland and ,the 
,quatre ,fils ,aymon1 there is contained
 a picture of its respective hero1 which
 sums up1 as it were1 the whole noble   
character of the book2 and which1 the   
picture of the dying ,roland and the    
picture of the dying ,renaud1 ,i would  
fain bring before you before speaking of
 the other ,roland and the other        
,renaud1 the ,orlando of ,ariosto and   
the ,rinaldo of ,boiardo4 ,the traitor  
,ganelon has enabled ,king ,marsile to  
overtake with all his heathenness the   
rear-guard of ,charlemagne between the  
granite walls of ,roncevaux2 the ,franks
 have been massacred1 but the ,saracens 

have been routed2 ,roland has at last   
ceded to the prayers of ,oliver and of  
,archbishop ,turpin2 three times has he 
put to his mouth his oliphant and blown 
a blast to call back ,charlemagne to    
vengeance1 till the blood has foamed    
round his lips and his temple has burst4
 ,oliver is dead1 the archbishop is     
dying1 ,roland himself is slowly        
bleeding to death4 ,he goes down into   
the defile1 heaped with corpses1 and    
seeks for the bodies of the principal   
paladins1 ,ivon and ,ivaire1 the ,gascon
 ,engelier1 ,grier and ,grin1 ,brenger  
and ,otho1 ,anseis and ,salamon1 and the
 old ,gerard of ,rousillon2 and one by  
one drags them to where the archbishop  
lies dying4 ,and then1 when to these    
knights ,roland has at last added his   
own beloved comrade ,oliver1 he bids the
 archbishop bless all the dead1 before  
he die himself4 ,then1 when he has      
reverently crossed ,turpin's beautiful  
priestly hands over his breast1 he goes 
forth to shatter his sword ,durendal    

against the rocks2 but the good sword   
has cut the rock without shivering2 and 
the coldness of death steals1 over      
,roland4 ,he stretches himself upon a   
hillock looking towards ,spain1 and     
prays for the forgiveness of his sins2  
then1 with ,durendal and his ivory horn 
by his side1 he stretches out the glove 
of his right hand to ,god4 ,he has      
stretched forth to ,god the glove of his
 right hand2 ,st4 ,gabriel has received 
it444 ,then his head has sunk on his    
arm2 he has gone1 with clasped hands1 to
 his end4 ,god sends him one of his     
cherubim and ,st4 ,michael of ,peril4   
,st4 ,gabriel has come with them4 ,they 
carry the soul of the ,count3 up to     
paradise4  ,more solitary1 and solemn   
and sad even1 is the end of the other   
hero1 of the great rebel ,renaud of     
,montauban4 ,at length1 after a lifetime
 wasted in fruitless1 attempts to resist
 the iniquity of the emperor1 to baffle 
his power1 to shame him by magnanimity  
into1 justice1 the four sons of ,aymon1 

who have given up their youth1 their    
manhood1 the dearest things to their    
heart1 respect to their father and      
loyalty to their sovereign1 rather than 
countenance the injustice of            
,charlemagne to their kinsman1 have at  
last obtained to be pardoned2 to be     
pardoned1 they1 heroes1 by this1        
dastardly tyrant1 and to quietly sink1  
broken-hearted into nothingness4 ,the   
eldest1 ,renaud1 returning from his     
exile and the ,holy ,land1 finds that   
his wife ,clarisse has pined for him and
 died2 and then1 putting away his armour
 from him1 and dressing in a pilgrim's  
frock made of the purple serge of the   
dead lady's robe1 he goes forth to      
wander through the world2 not very old  
in years1 but broken-spirited2 at peace1
 but in solitude of heart4 ,and one     
evening he arrives at ,cologne4 ,we can 
imagine the old knight1 only half aware 
of the sunshine of the evening1 the     
noise of the streets1 the looks of the  
crowd1 the great minster rising         

half-finished in the midst of the town  
by the ,rhine1 the cries and noise and  
chipping of the masons2 unconscious of  
all this1 half away3 with his brothers  
hiding in the ,ardennes1 living on roots
 and berries1 at bay before             
,charlemagne2 or wandering ragged and   
famishing through ,france2 with ,king   
,yon brilliant at ,toulouse1 seeing     
perhaps for the first time his bride    
,clarisse1 or the towers of ,montauban  
rising under the workmen's hands2       
thinking perhaps of the frightful siege1
 when all1 all had been eaten in the    
fortress1 and his children ,aymonnet and
 ,yonnet1 all thin and white1 knelt down
 and begged him to slaughter his horse  
,bayard that they might eat2 perhaps of 
that journey1 when he and his brothers1 
all in red-furred robes with roses in   
their hands1 rode prisoners of ,king    
,charles across the plain of            
,vaucouleurs2 perhaps of when he        
galloped up to the gallows at           
,montfaucon1 and cut loose his brother  

,richard2 or of that daring ride to     
,paris1 where he and his horse won the  
race1 snatched the prize from before    
,charlemagne and sped off crying out    
that the winner was ,renaud of          
,montauban2 or1 perhaps1 seeing once    
more the sad1 sweet face of the ,lady   
,clarisse1 when she had burned all her  
precious stuffs and tires in the        
castle-yard1 and lay dead without him to
 kiss her cold mouth2 of seeing once    
more his good horse ,bayard1 when he    
kissed him in his stall before giving   
him to be killed by ,charlemagne4       
,thinking of all that past1 seeing it   
all within his mind1 and seeing but     
little of the present2 as1 in the low   
yellow light1 he helped1 for his bread1 
the workmen to heave the great beams1 to
 carry the great stones of the          
cathedral1 to split the huge marble     
masses while they stared in astonished  
envy2 as he sat1 unconscious of their   
mutterings1 eating his dry bread and    
porridge in the building docks by the   

river4 ,and then1 when wearied1 he had  
sunk to sleep in the hay-loft1 dreaming 
perchance that all this evil life was   
but a dream and the awakening therefrom 
to happiness and strength2 the jealous  
workmen came and killed him with their  
base tools1 and cast him into the       
,rhine4 ,they say that the huge body    
floated on the water1 surrounded by a   
great halo2 and that when the men of the
 banks1 seeing this1 reverently fished  
it out1 they found that the noble corpse
 was untouched by decay1 and still      
surrounded by a light of glory4 ,and    
thus1 it seems to me1 this ,renaud1 this
 rebel baron of whose reality we know   
nothing1 has floated surrounded by a    
halo of poetry down the black flood of  
the ,middle ,ages 7in which so much has 
sunk72 and when we look upon his face1  
and see its beauty and strength and     
solemness1 we feel1 like the people of  
the ,rhine bank1 inclined to weep1 and  
to say of this mysterious corpse1       
,surely this is some great saint4  ,of  

each of these heroes thus shown us by   
the ,middle ,ages1 the ,italian         
,renaissance also1 by the hand of two of
 her greatest poets1 has given us a     
picture4 ,and first1 of ,roland4 ,of    
him1 of ,count ,orlando1 we are told by 
,messer ,lodovico ,ariosto1 that in     
consequence of his having discovered1 in
 a certain pleasant grotto among the    
ferns and maidenhair1 words graven on   
the rock 7interrupted1 doubtless1 by the
 lover's kisses7 which revealed that the
 ,princess ,angelica of ,cathay had     
disdained him for ,medoro1 the          
fair-haired page of the ,king of the    
,moors2 ,count ,orlando went straightway
 out of his mind1 and hanging up his    
armour and stripping off his clothes1   
galloped about on his bare-backed horse1
 slaughtering cows and sheep instead of 
,saracens2 until it pleased ,god1 moved 
by the danger of ,christendom and the   
prayers of ,charlemagne1 to permit      
,astolfo to ride on the hippogriffs back
 up to the moon1 and bring back thence  

the wits of the great paladin contained 
in a small phial4 ,we all know that     
merry tale4 ,what the ,renaissance has  
to say of ,renaud of ,montauban is even 
stranger and more fantastic4 ,one day1  
says ,matteo ,boiardo1 in the fifteenth 
canto of the second part of his ,orlando
 ,innamorato1 as ,rinaldo of            
,montalbano1 the contemner of love1 was 
riding in the ,ardennes1 he came to a   
clearing in the forest1 where1 close to 
the fountain of ,merlin1 a wonderful    
sight met his eyes4 ,on a flowery meadow
 were dancing three naked damsels1 and  
singing with them danced also a naked   
youth1 dark of eyes and fair of hair1   
the first down on his lips1 so that some
 might have said it was and others that 
it was not there4 ,on ,rinaldo's        
approach they broke through their       
singing and dancing1 and rushed upon    
him1 pelting him with roses and         
hyacinths and violets from their        
baskets1 and beating him with great     
sheaves of lilies1 which burnt like     

flames through the plates of his armour 
to the very marrow of his bones4 ,then  
when they had dragged him1 tied with    
garlands1 by the feet round and round   
the meadow2 wings1 eyed not with the    
eyes of a peacock but with the eyes of  
lovely damsels1 suddenly sprouted out of
 their shoulders1 and they flew off1    
leaving the poor baron1 bruised on the  
grass1 to meditate upon the vanity of   
all future resistance to love4  ,such   
are the things which the ,middle ,ages  
and the ,renaissance found to tell us of
 the two great heroes of ,carolingian   
poetry4 ,and the explanation of how it  
came to pass1 that for the ,roland of   
the song of ,roncevaux was substituted  
the ,orlando of ,ariosto1 and for the   
,renaud of ,the ,quatre ,fils ,aymon the
 ,rinaldo of ,matteo ,boiardo--means    
simply that which ,i desire here to     
study3 the metamorphoses of medival     
romance stuffs1 and1 more especially1   
the vicissitudes of the cycle of        
,charlemagne4     ,,ii4   ,we are apt to

 think of the ,middle ,ages as if they  
were the companion-piece to ,antiquity2 
but no such ideal correspondence exists 
between the two periods4 ,antiquity is  
all of a piece1 and the ,middle ,ages1  
on the contrary1 are heterogeneous and  
chaotic4 ,for ,antiquity is the steady  
and uniform development of civilization 
in one direction and with one meaning2  
there are great differences between its 
various epochs1 but they are as the     
differences between the budding1 the    
blossoming1 and the fading stages of one
 plant3 life varies1 but is one4 ,the   
,middle ,ages1 on the other hand1 are a 
series of false starts1 of interruptions
 and of new departures2 a perpetual     
confusion4 ,for1 if we think over them1 
we shall see that these centuries called
 medival are occupied by the effort of  
one people1 or one generation1 to put to
 rights and settle down among as much as
 it can save of the civilization of     
,antiquity4 ,and the sudden overwhelming
 of this people or this generation by   

another1 which puts all the elaborate   
arrangements into disarray1 adds to the 
ruins of ,antiquity the ruins of more   
recent times2 and then this destroying  
generation tries to put things straight1
 to settle down1 and is in its turn     
interrupted by the advent of some new   
comer who begins the game afresh4  ,as  
it is with peoples1 so also is it with  
ideas2 scarcely has a scheme of life or 
of philosophy or of art taken shape and 
consistence before1 from out of the     
inexhaustible chaos of medival thought  
and feeling1 there issue new            
necessities1 new aspirations1 which put 
into confusion all previous ones4 ,the  
,middle ,ages were like some financial  
crisis3 a little time1 a little credit1 
money will fructify1 wealth will        
reappear1 the difficult moment will be  
tided over2 and so with civilization4   
,but unfortunately the wealth of ideas  
began to accumulate in the storehouse   
only just long enough to bring down a   
rout of creditors1 people who rifled the

 bank1 and went home to consume or      
invest their money in order to be       
succeeded by others4 ,hence1 in the     
matter of civilization1 the ,middle     
,ages ended in an extraordinary slow    
ruin1 a bankruptcy like that which      
overtook ,france before '#hi1 and from  
which1 as ,france was restored by the   
bold seizure and breaking up of property
 of the revolution1 the world was       
restored by the bold breaking of feudal 
and spiritual mortmain1 the restoring of
 wasted energies to utility1 of that    
great double revolution1 the            
,renaissance and the ,reformation4 ,be  
this as it may1 mankind throughout the  
,middle ,ages appears to have been in a 
chronic condition of packing up and     
unpacking1 and packing up again2 one    
after another a nation1 a race1 a       
philosophy1 a political system came to  
the front and was pushed back again into
 limbo3 ,germans and ,kelts and ,latins1
 ,french civilization of the day of     
,ablard1 ,provenal civilization of the  

days of the ,raymonds1 brilliant and    
evanescent ,hohenstauffen supremacy1    
papacy at ,canossa and at ,avignon1     
,templars triumphant and ,templars      
persecuted2 scholasticism1 mysticism1   
feudalism1 democracy1 communism3        
influences all these perpetually rising 
up and being trodden down1 till they all
 rotted away in the great stagnation of 
the fifteenth century2 and only in one  
part of the world1 where the conflict   
was more speedily ended1 where one set  
of tendencies early triumphed1 where    
stability was temporarily obtained1 in  
,italy alone did civilization continue  
to be nurtured and developed for the    
benefit of all mankind4 ,in such a state
 of affairs only such things could      
flourish and mature as were safe from   
what ,i have called1 for want of a      
better expression1 the perpetual        
unpacking and repacking1 the perpetual  
being on the move1 of the ,middle ,ages2
 and among such things foremost was art1
 the essential art of the times1        

architecture1 which1 belonging to the   
small towns1 to the infinite minority of
 the democracy1 who worked and made     
money and let the great changes pass    
over their heads1 thrived almost as     
something too insignificant for notice4 
,but it was different with literature4  
,cathedrals once built cannot so easily 
be changed2 new peoples1 new ideas1 must
 accept them4 ,but poetry--the thing    
which every nation insists upon having  
to suit its own taste1 the thing which  
every nation and every generation       
carries about with it hither and        
thither1 the thing which can be altered 
to suit every passing whim--poetry was1 
of all the fluctuating things of the    
,middle ,ages1 perhaps the most         
fluctuating4 ,and fluctuating also      
because1 as none of these various       
nations1 tendencies1 aspirations1       
dominated sufficiently long to produce  
any highly organized art1 there remained
 no standard works1 nothing recognizedly
 perfect1 which would be kept for its   

perfection and gather round it          
imitations1 so as to form the nucleus of
 any homogeneous tradition4 ,the ,middle
 ,ages1 so full of fashions in literary 
matters1 possessed no classics2 the     
minnesingers knew nothing of the stern  
old ,teutonic war songs2 the            
meistersngers had forgotten the         
minnesingers2 the trouvres and          
troubadours knew nothing of ,the        
,chanson de ,roland1 and ,villon knew   
nothing of them2 only in ,italy1 where  
the ,middle ,ages came to an end and the
 ,renaissance began with the ,lombard   
league1 was there established a         
tradition of excellence1 with men like  
,dante1 ,petrarch1 and ,boccaccio1      
handed down from generation to          
generation2 even as1 while in the north 
there came about the strange            
modification which substituted the      
,french of ,rabelais for the ,french of 
,chrestien de ,troyes1 the ,german of   
,luther for the ,german of ,wolfram von 
,eschenbach1 the ,italian language1 from

 ,ciullo d',alcamo almost to ,boiardo   
and ,lorenzo dei ,medici1 remained      
virtually identical4 ,the result of     
this1 which ,i may call the             
heterogeneousness and instability of the
 ,middle ,ages was that not merely      
literary forms were for ever arising and
 being superseded1 but literary subject 
matter was continually undergoing a     
process of transformation4 ,while in    
,antiquity the great epic and tragic    
stuffs remained well-nigh unaltered1 and
 the stories of ,valerius ,flaccus and  
,apollonius ,rhodius were merely the    
stories which had been current since the
 days of ,homer1 during the course of   
the ,middle ,ages every epic cycle1 and 
every tale belonging thereunto1 was     
gradually adulterated1 mingled with1    
swamped by1 some other cycle or tale2   
nay1 rather1 every other1 cycle and     
every other tale1 the older ones trying 
to save their popularity by admixture   
with the more recent1 till at last all  
mythical significance1 all historical   

meaning1 all national character1 all    
psychological reality1 were lost in the 
chaotic result4 ,and meanwhile1 in the  
absence of any stable language1 of any  
durable literary fashion1 the ,middle   
,ages were unable to give to these epic 
stuffs1 at any one period of their life 
of metamorphose1 a form sufficiently    
artistically valuable to secure anything
 beyond momentary vogue1 to secure for  
them the immortality of the great ,greek
 tales of adventure and warfare and     
love4 ,thus it came about that the epic 
cycle of ,charlemagne1 after supplanting
 in men's minds the grand sagas of the  
pagan ,north1 was itself supplanted by  
the ,arthurian cycle2 that the ,frankish
 stories absorbed the wholly discrepant 
elements of their more fortunate ,keltic
 rivals2 that both cycles1 having lost  
all character through fusion and through
 obliteration by time1 became more      
meaningless generation by generation and
 year by year1 until when the ,middle   
,ages had come to an end1 and the great 

poets of the ,renaissance were ready to 
give this old medival epic stuff a      
definitive and durable artistic shape1  
there came to the hands of ,boiardo and 
,ariosto1 of ,tasso and ,spenser1 only a
 strange1 trumpery material1 muddled by 
jongleurs and romance writers1 and      
reduced to mere fairy stuff1 taken      
seriously only by ,don ,quixote1 and by 
the authors of the volumes of insane    
twaddle called after ,amadis of ,gaul   
and all his kinsmen4  ,such a condition 
of perpetual change as explains1 in my  
belief1 why the medival epic subjects   
were wanted1 can be made clear only by  
examples4 ,i shall therefore try to show
 the transformations which were         
undergone by one or two principal       
medival epic subjects as a result of a  
mixture with other epic cycles2 of a    
gradual adaptation to a new state of    
civilization2 and finally of their      
gradual separation from all kind of     
reality and real interests4  ,first of  
all1 let us look at the epic cycle1     

which1 although known to us only in     
poems no older than those of the        
trouvres and minnesingers who sang of   
,charlemagne and ,arthur1 is in reality 
far more ancient1 and on account of its 
antiquity and its consequent            
disconnection with medival religious and
 political interests1 was thrown aside  
even by the nations to which it         
belonged1 by the ,scandinavians who took
 to writing sagas about the wars of     
,charlemagne against ,saracens1 and by  
the ,germans who preferred to hear the  
adventures of ,welsh and ,briton1       
,launcelots and ,tristrams4 ,i am       
alluding to the stories connected with  
the family and life of the hero called  
,sigurd by the ,scandinavians1 and      
,siegfried by the ,germans4 ,of these we
 possess a ,norse version called the    
,volsunga ,saga1 magnificently done into
 ,english by ,mr4 ,william ,morris2     
which1 although written down at the end 
of the twelfth century1 in the very time
 therefore of ,chrestien de ,troyes1    

,wolfram von ,eschenbach1 and ,gottfried
 von ,strassburg1 and subsequently to   
the presumed writing of ,the ,chanson de
 ,roland and the ,nibelungenlied1 shows 
us in reality the product of a people1  
the distant ,scandinavians of ,iceland1 
who were five or six hundred years      
behind the ,french1 ,germans1 and       
,english of the twelfth century4 ,in the
 ,volsunga ,saga1 neither ,christianity 
nor feudalism is yet dreamed of2 and it 
is for this reason that ,i wish to      
compare it with the ,nibelungenlied1 in 
order to show how enormously the old    
epic stuff was altered by the new       
civilization4 ,the whole social and     
moral condition of the two versions is  
different4 ,in the old ,scandinavian    
civilization1 where the ,viking is      
surrounded and served by clansmen1 the  
feeling of blood relationship is the    
strongest in people's hearts2 strangely 
and fearfully shown in the introductory 
tale of ,signy1 who1 in order to avenge 
her father ,volsung1 killed by her      

husband1 murders her children by the    
latter1 and then1 altered in face by    
magic arts1 goes forth to the woods to  
her brother ,sigmund1 that1             
un-wittingly1 he may beget with her the 
only man fit to avenge the ,volsungs4   
,and then she sends the boy ,sinfjotli  
to the man he has hitherto considered   
merely as his uncle1 bidding the latter 
kill him if he prove unworthy of his    
incestuous birth1 or train him to       
vengeance4 ,the three together murder   
the husband and legitimate children of  
,signy1 and set the palace on fire2     
which1 being done1 the queen1 having    
accomplished her duty to her kin1       
accomplishes that towards her husband1  
and calmly returns to die in the burning
 hall4 ,here 7and apparently again in   
the case of the children of ,sigurd and 
,brynhilt7 incest becomes a family      
virtue4 ,this being the frightful       
preponderance of the feeling of blood   
relationship1 it is quite natural that  
the ,scandinavian ,chriemhilt 7called in

 the ,volsunga ,saga1 ,gudrun7 should   
not resent the murder of her husband    
,siegfried or ,sigurd by her brothers at
 the instigation of the jealous         
,brynhilt 7who has in a manner been     
,sigurd's wife before he made her over  
to ,chriemhilt's eldest brother72 and   
that1 so far from seeking any revenge   
against them1 she should1 when her      
second husband ,atli sends for her      
brothers in order to rob and murder     
them1 first vainly warn them of the     
plot1 and then1 when they have been     
massacred1 kill ,atli and her children  
by him in order to avenge her brothers4 
,the slackening of the tribal feeling1  
the idea of fidelity in love and        
sanctity of marriage belonging to       
,christianity and feudalism1 rendered   
such a story unintelligible to the      
,germans of the ,othos and ,henrys4 ,in 
the ,nibelungenlied1 the whole story of 
the massacre of the brothers is changed4
 ,chriemhilt never forgives the murder  
of ,siegfried1 and it is not            

,etzel--,atli for the sake of plunder1  
but she herself for the sake of revenge1
 who decoys her brothers and murders    
them2 it is she who with her own hand   
cuts off the head of ,gunther to expiate
 his murder of ,siegfried4 ,to our      
feelings1 more akin to those of the     
feudal ,christians of ,franconia than to
 those of the tribal ,scandinavians of  
the ,edda1 the second version is far    
more intelligible and interesting--the  
story of this once gentle and loving    
,chriemhilt1 turned by the murder of her
 beloved into a fury1 and plotting to   
avenge his death by the death of all his
 kinsfolk1 must be much grander and more
 pathetic than the story of this strange
 ,gudrun1 who sits down patiently       
beneath the injury done to her by her   
brothers1 but savagely avenges them on  
her new husband1 and her own and his    
innocent children2 to us this           
persistence of tribal feeling1          
destroying all indignation and love1 is 
merely unnatural1 confusing1 and        

repulsive4 ,but this alteration for the 
better in one of the incidents of the   
tale is a mere fluke2 and the whole main
 plot of the originally central figures 
are completely obliterated by the new   
state of civilization1 and rendered     
merely trivial and grotesque4 ,in the   
,volsunga ,saga ,sigurd1 overcome by    
enchantments1 has forgotten his wife 7or
 mistress1 a vague mythical             
relationship72 and1 with all sense of   
the past obliterated1 has made her over 
to the brother of his new wife ,gudrun2 
and ,brynhilt kills her faithless love  
to dissolve the second marriage and be  
reunited with him in death4 ,in the     
,nibelungenlied ,siegfried1 although the
 flower of knighthood1 conquers by foul 
play the ,amazon ,brunhilt to reward    
,gunther for the hand of his sister2    
nay1 in a comic and loathsome scene he  
forces her into the embraces of the     
craven ,gunther2 and then he gets killed
 by ,brunhilt's machinations2 when1     
after most unqueenly bickerings1 the    

proud ,amazon is brutally told by       
,siegfried's wife of the dirty trick    
which has given her to ,gunther4 ,after 
this1 it is impossible to realize1 when 
,siegfried is murdered and all our      
sympathies called on to his side1 the   
utterly out-of-character1 blackguardly  
behaviour which has brought the hero to 
his death4 ,similarly the conception of 
the character and position of ,brynhilt 
is entirely disfigured and rendered     
inane in the ,nibelungenlied3 of that   
superb demi-goddess of the              
,scandinavians1 burnt on the pyre with  
her falcons and dogs and horses and     
slaves1 by the side of the demi-god     
,sigurd1 whom she has loved and killed1 
lest the door of ,valhalla1 swinging    
after him1 should shut her out from his 
presence2 of her there remains in the   
,german medival poem only a virago 7more
 like the giantesses of the ,amadis     
romances7 enraged at having been        
defeated and grotesquely and grossly    
pummelled into wedlock by a man not her 

husband1 and then slanged like a        
fishwife by her envious sister-in-law4  
,the old1 consistent1 grandly tragic    
tale of the mysterious incests and      
revenges of a race of demi-gods has lost
 its sense1 its point in the attempt to 
arrange it to suit ,christian and feudal
 ideas4 ,the really fine portions of the
 ,nibelungenlied are exactly those which
 have no real connection with the       
original story1 gratuitous additions by 
medival poets4 ,the delicately indicated
 falling in love of ,siegfried and      
,chriemhilt1 the struggles of ,markgraf 
,rdger between obedience to his feudal  
superior and fidelity towards his       
friends and guests2 and1 above all1 the 
canto of the death of ,siegfried4 ,this 
last is different1 intensely different1 
from the rugged and dreary monotony of  
the rest2 this most poetical1 almost    
,spenserian or ,ariostesque realization 
of the scene2 this beautiful picture    
7though worked with the needle of the   
arras-worker rather than with pencil or 

brush7 of the wood1 the hunt1 the       
solitary fountain in the ,odenwald1     
where1 with his spear leaned against the
 lime-tree1 ,siegfried was struck down  
into the clover and flowers1 and writhed
 with ,hagen's steel through his back4  
,this canto is certainly interpolated by
 some first-rate poet1 at least a       
,gottfried or a ,walther1 to whom that  
passage of the savage old droning song  
of death had suggested a piece of new   
art2 it is like the fragments of        
exquisitely chiselled leafage and       
figures which you sometimes find        
encrusted--by whom8 wherefore8--quite   
isolated in the midst of the rough and  
lichen-stained stones of some rude      
,lombard church4 ,all the rest of the   
,nibelungenlied gives an impression of  
effeteness2 there is no definiteness of 
idea such as that of the ,volsunga      
,saga2 the battles are mere vague       
slaughter1 no action1 no realized       
movement1 or 7excepting ,rdger7 no      
realized motive of conduct4 ,shape and  

colour would seem to have been          
obliterated by repetition and           
alteration4 ,yet even these alterations 
could not make the tale of ,siegfried   
survive among the ,germans of the       
,middle ,ages2 nay1 the more the        
alterations the less the interest2 the  
want of consistency and colour due to   
rearrangement merely accelerated the    
throwing aside of a subject which1      
dating from pagan and tribal times1 had 
become repugnant to the new generations4
 ,all the mutilations in the world could
 not make the old ,scandinavian tales of
 betrayed trust1 of revenge and         
triumphant bloodshed1 at all sympathetic
 to men whose religious and social      
ideals were those of forgiveness and    
fidelity2 even stripped of its          
incestuous mysteries and of its fearful 
tribal love1 the tale of ,sigurd and    
,brynhilt1 reduced to the tale of       
,chriemhilt's revenge1 was unpalatable3 
no more attempts were made at re-writing
 it1 and the poems of ,walther1 of      

,gottfried1 of ,wolfram1 of ,ulrich1 and
 of ,tannhuser1 full as they are of     
references to stories of the            
,carolingian and ,arthurian cycles1 nay1
 to ,antique and ,oriental tales1       
contain no allusion to the personages of
 the ,nibelungenlied4 ,the old epic of  
the ,gothic races had been pushed aside 
by the triumphant epic of the obscure   
and conquered ,kelts4  ,there are few   
phenomena in the history of ideas and   
forms more singular than that of the    
sudden conquest of the poetry of        
dominant or distant nations by the      
poetic subjects of a comparatively small
 race1 sheared of all political         
importance1 restricted to a trifling    
territory1 and well-nigh deprived of    
their language2 and of this there can be
 found no more striking example than the
 sudden ousting of the ,carolingian epic
 by the cycle of ,arthur4  ,the ,kelts  
of ,britain and ,ireland possessed an   
epic cycle of their own1 which came to  
notice only when they were dispossessed 

of their last strongholds by ,saxons and
 ,normans1 and which immediately spread 
with astounding rapidity all over       
,europe4 ,the vanquished race became    
fashionable2 themselves1 their art and  
their poetry1 began to be sought for as 
a precious and war-enhanced loot4 ,the  
heroic tales of the ,kelts were         
transcribed in ,welsh1 and translated   
into ,latin1 by order of the ,norman and
 ,angevine kings1 glad1 it would seem1  
to oppose the ,old ,briton to the ,saxon
 element4 ,the ,keltic songs were       
carried all over ,france by ,breton     
bards1 to whose music and rhymes1 with  
only a general idea of the subjects1 the
 neo-,latin-speaking ,franks listened   
with the sort of stolid satisfaction    
with which ,english or ,germans of a    
hundred years ago listened to ,italians 
singing ,metastasio's verses4 ,but soon 
the songs and tales were translated2 and
 ,french poets imitated in their        
language1 northern and southern1 the    
graceful metres of the ,keltic lays1 and

 altered and arranged their subjects4   
,so that1 in a very short time1 ,france1
 and through it ,germany1 was inundated 
with ,keltic stories4 ,this triumph of  
the vanquished race was not without     
reason4 ,the ,kelts1 early civilized by 
,rome and ,christianity1 had a set of   
stories and a set of heroes extremely in
 accordance with medival ideas1 and     
requiring but very little alteration4   
,the considerable age of their          
civilization had long obliterated all   
traces of pagan and tribal feeling in   
their tales4 ,their heroes1 originally1 
like those of all other people1         
divinities intimately connected with    
natural phenomena1 had long lost all    
cosmic characteristics1 long ceased to  
be gods1 and1 manipulated by the fancy  
of a race whose greatness was quite a   
thing of the past1 had become a sort of 
golden age ideals--the men of a distant 
period of glory1 which was adorned with 
every kind of perfection1 till it became
 as unreal as fairyland4 ,fairyland1 in 

good sooth1 was this country of the     
,keltic tales2 and there is a sort of   
symbolical significance in the fact of  
its lawgiver ,merlin1 and its emperor   
,arthur1 being both of them not dead1   
like ,sigurd1 like ,dietrich1 like      
,charlemagne and ,roland1 but lying in  
enchanted sleep4 ,long inaction and the 
day-dreaming of idleness had refined and
 idealized the heroes of this ,keltic   
race--a race of brilliant fancy and     
almost southern mobility1 and softened  
for a long time by contact with ,roman  
colonists and ,christian priests4 ,they 
were not the brutal combatants of an    
active fighting age1 like the heroes of 
the ,edda and of the ,carolingian       
cycles2 nor had they any particular     
military work to do1 belonging as they  
did to a people huddled away into       
inactivity4 ,their sole occupation was  
to extend abroad that ideal happiness   
which reigned in the ideal court of     
,arthur2 to go forth on the loose and   
see what ill-conditioned folk there     

might yet be who required being subdued 
or taught manners in the happy kingdom1 
which the poor insignificant ,kelts     
connected with some princelet of theirs 
who centuries before may have           
momentarily repelled the pagan ,saxons4 
,hence in the ,keltic stories1 such as  
they exist in the versions previous to  
the conquest by the ,norman kings1 and  
previous also to any communications with
 other peoples1 the distinct beginning  
of what was later to be called          
knight-errantry2 of heroes1 creations of
 an inactive nation1 having no special  
military duties1 going forth to do what 
good they may at random1 unforced by any
 necessity1 and following a mere        
sthetico-romantic plan of perfecting    
themselves by deeds of valour to become 
more worthy of their ,god1 their ,king1 
and their ,lady3 religion1 loyalty1 and 
love1 all three of them mere sthetic    
abstractions1 becoming the goal of an   
essentially sthetic1 unpractical system 
of self-improvement1 such as was utterly

 incompatible with any real and serious 
business in life4 ,idle poetic fancies  
of an inert people1 the ,knights of the 
,round ,table have no mission save that 
of being poetically perfect4 ,such was  
the spirit of ,keltic poetry2 and1 as it
 happened1 this spirit satisfied the    
imaginative wants of medival society    
just at the moment when political events
 diffused in other countries the        
knowledge of the ,arthurian legends4    
,the old ,teutonic tales of ,sigurd1    
,gudrun1 and ,dietrich1 had long ceased 
to appeal1 in their mutilated and       
obliterated condition1 to a society to  
whom tribal feeling and pagan heroism   
were odious1 and whose religion         
distinctly reproved revenge4 ,these     
semi-mythological tales had been        
replaced by another cycle3 the purely   
realistic epic1 which had arisen during 
the struggles between the ,christian    
west against the pagan north-east and   
the ,mohammedan south1 and which1       
originating in the short battle-songs   

narrating the exploits of the           
predecessors and help-mates of          
,charlemagne1 had constituted itself    
into large narratives of which the ,song
 of ,roland represents artistic         
culmination4 ,these narratives of mere  
military exploits1 of the battles of a  
strong feudal aristocracy animated by   
feudal loyalty and half-religious1      
half-patriotic fury against invading    
heathenness1 had perfectly satisfied the
 men of the earliest ,middle ,ages1 of  
the times when feudalism was being      
established and the church being        
reformed2 when the strong military      
princelets of the ,north were embarking 
with their barons to conquer new        
kingdoms in ,england and in ,italy and  
,greece2 when the whole of feudal       
,europe hurled itself against ,asia in  
the first ,crusades4 ,but the condition 
of things soon altered3 the feudal      
hierarchy was broken up into a number of
 semi-independent little kingdoms or    
principalities1 struggling1 with the    

assistance of industrial and mercantile 
classes1 to become absolute monarchies2 
princes who had been mere generals      
became stay-at-home diplomatists1       
studious of taxation and intrigue1      
surrounded no longer by armed vassals1  
but by an essentially urban court1 in   
constant communication with the         
money-making burghers4 ,religion1 also1 
instead of being a matter of fighting   
with infidel invaders1 turned to        
fantastic sectarianism and emotional    
mysticism4 ,with the sense of futility1 
of disappointment1 attendant on the     
later ,crusades1 came also a habit of   
roaming in strange countries1 of        
isolated adventure in search of wealth  
or information1 a love of the distant1  
the half-understood1 the equivocal2     
perhaps even a hankering after a        
mysterious compromise between the       
religion of ,europe and the religions of
 the ,east1 such as appears to have     
existed among the ,templars and other   
,franks settled in ,asia4  ,there was1  

throughout feudal society1 a sort of    
enervated languor1 a morbid longing for 
something new1 now that the old had     
ceased to be possible or had proved     
futile2 after the great excitement of   
the ,crusades it was impossible to be   
either sedately idle or quietly active1 
even as it is with all of us during the 
days of weariness and restlessness after
 some long journey4 ,to such a society  
the strongly realistic ,carolingian epic
 had ceased to appeal3 the tales of the 
,welsh and ,breton bards1 repeated by   
trouvre and jongleur1 troubadour and    
minnesinger1 came as a revelation4 ,the 
fatigued1 disappointed1 morbid1         
imaginative society of the later        
,crusades recognized in this fairyland  
epic of a long refined1 long idle1 nay1 
effete race1 the realization of their   
own ideal3 of activity unhampered by aim
 or organization1 of sentiment and      
emotion and action quite useless and    
unnecessary1 purely subservient to      
imaginative gratification4 ,these       

,arthurs1 ,launcelots1 ,tristrams1      
,kays1 and ,gawains1 fantastic phantoms1
 were also far more artistically        
malleable than the iron ,rolands1       
,olivers1 and ,renauds of earlier days2 
that unknown kingdom of ,britain could  
much more easily be made the impossible 
ideal1 in longing for which squeamish   
and lazy minds might refuse all coarser 
reality4 ,moreover1 those who listened  
to the tales of chivalry were different 
from those who had listened to the      
,carolingian stories2 and1 therefore1   
required something different4 ,they were
 courtiers1 and one half of them were   
women4 ,now the ,carolingian tales1     
originally battle-songs1 sung in camps  
and castles to mere soldiers1 had at    
first possessed no female characters at 
all2 and when gradually they were       
introduced1 it was in the coarsest      
barrack or tap-room style4 ,the ,keltic 
tales1 on the contrary1 whether from    
national tradition1 or rather from      
longer familiarity with ,christian      

culture and greater idleness of life1   
naturally made women and women's love   
the goal of a great many adventures     
which an effete nation could no longer  
ascribe to patriotic movements4 ,but    
this was not all4 ,the religious feeling
 of the day was extremely inclined to   
mysticism1 in which sthetic1 erotic1 and
 all kinds of morbid and ill-defined    
tendencies were united1 which was more  
than anything else tinged with a        
semi-,asiatic quietism1 a longing for   
the passive ecstasy of ,nirvna4 ,this   
religious side of medival life was also 
gratified by the ,arthurian romances4   
,oddly enough1 there existed an old     
,welsh or ,breton tale about the boy    
,peredur1 who from a complete simpleton 
became the prince of chivalry1 and his  
many adventures connected with a certain
 mysterious blood-dripping lance1 and a 
still more mysterious basin or grail 7an
 allusion to which is said by ,m4 de la 
,villemarqu to be contained in the      
originally ,keltic name of ,percival71  

which possessed magic properties akin to
 those of the purse of ,fortunatus1 or  
the pipkin in the story of ,little pot1 
boil6 ,the story1 whose original        
mythical meaning had been lost in the   
several centuries of ,christianity1 was 
very decayed and obscure2 and the fact  
of the blood on the lance being that of 
a murdered kinsman of ,peredur1 and of  
the basin containing the head of the    
same person cut off by ,gloucester      
witches1 was evidently insufficient to  
account for all the mystery with which  
these objects were surrounded4 ,the     
,french poets of the ,middle ,ages1     
strongly imbued with ,oriental legends  
brought back by the ,crusaders1 saw at a
 glance the meaning of the whole story3 
the lance was the lance with which      
,longinus had pierced the ,saviour's    
side2 the ,grail was the cup which had  
received ,his blood1 nay1 it was the cup
 of the ,last ,supper4 ,a tale about the
 preservation of these precious relics  
by ,joseph of ,arimatha1 was immediately

 connected therewith2 a theory was set  
up 7doubtless with the aid of quite     
unchristian1 ,oriental legends7 of a    
kind of kingdom of the keepers of the   
,grail1 of a vague half-material1       
half-spiritual state of bliss connected 
with the service of the ,grail1 which   
fed its knights 7and here the ,templars 
and their semi-oriental mysteries1 for  
which they were later so frightfully    
misused1 certainly come into play7 with 
food which is at once of the body and of
 the soul4 ,thus the ,keltic ,peredur1  
bent upon massacring the ,gloucester    
witches to avenge his uncle1 was turned 
into a saintly knight1 seeking          
throughout a more and more perfect life 
for the kingdom of the ,grail3 the      
,perceval of ,chrestien de ,troyes1 the 
,parzifal of ,wolfram von ,eschenbach1  
whom later romance writers 7wishing to  
connect everything more closely with    
,arthur's court7 replaced by the ,sir   
,galahad of the ,morte d',arthur1 while 
the guest of the ,grail became a sort of

 general mission of several knights1 a  
sort of spiritual crusade to whose      
successful champions ,percival1 ,bors1  
and ,galahad1 the ,middle ,ages did not 
hesitate to add the arch-adulterer      
,launcelot4  ,thus did the ,arthurian   
tales answer the requirements of the    
languid1 dreamy1 courtly1 lady-serving  
and religiously mystic sons and         
grandsons of those earlier ,crusaders   
whose aspirations had been expressed by 
the rough and solemn heroes of          
,carolingian tales4 ,the ,carolingian   
tales were thrown aside1 or were kept by
 the noble medival poets only on        
condition of their original meaning     
being completely defaced by wholesale   
admixture of the manners and adventures 
belonging to the ,arthurian cycles4 ,the
 paladins were forced to disport        
themselves in the same fairyland as the 
,knights of the ,round ,table2 and many 
medival poems the heroes of which1 like 
,ogier of ,denmark and ,huon of         
,bordeaux1 already existed in the       

,carolingian tales1 are in reality1 with
 their romantic loves1 their useless    
adventures1 their ,morgana's castles and
 ,oberon's horns1 offshoots of the      
,keltic stories1 which were as rich in  
every kind of supernatural 7being1 in   
fact1 pagan myths turned into fairy     
tales7 as the genuine ,carolingian      
subjects1 whose origin was entirely     
historical1 were completely devoid of   
such things4 ,arthur and his ladies and 
knights3 ,guenevere1 ,elaine1 ,enid1    
,yseult1 ,launcelot1 ,geraint1 ,kay1    
,gawain1 ,tristram1 and                 
,percival-,galahad1 were the real heroes
 and heroines of the courtly nobles and 
the courtly poets of this second phase  
of medival life4 ,the ,teuton           
,charlemagne1 ,roland and ,oliver were  
as completely forgotten of the poets who
 met in that memorable combat of the    
,wartburg1 as were the ,teuton ,sigurd  
and ,dietrich4 ,and if the ,carolingian 
cycle survived1 however much altered1 ,i
 think it must have been thanks to the  

burghers and artizans of the            
,netherlands and of ,provence1 to whom  
the bluff1 matter-of-fact heroism1 the  
simple1 gross1 but not illegitimate     
amours of ,carolingian heroes1 were more
 satisfactory than any mystic quest of  
the ,grail1 any refined adultery of     
,guenevere or ,yseult4  ,but the        
inevitable fate of all medival epics    
awaited this triumphant ,arthurian      
cycle3 the fate of being obliterated by 
passing from one nation and civilization
 to another1 long before the existence  
of any poetic art adequate to its       
treatment4 ,of this ,i will take as an  
example one of the medival poems which  
has the greatest reputation the         
masterpiece 7according to most critics1 
with whom ,i find it difficult1 in the  
presence of a poet like ,gottfried von  
,strassburg1 to agree7 of probably the  
most really poetical and earnest school 
of poetry which the pre-,dantesque      
,middle ,ages possessed--the ,parzifal  
of ,wolfram von ,eschenbach4  ,the      

paramount impression 7,i cannot say the 
strongest1 for strong impressions are   
incompatible with such work as this7    
left by the masterpiece of ,wolfram von 
,eschenbach1 is that of the most        
astonishing vagueness1 fluidity1        
haziness1 vaporousness4 ,in reading it  
one looks back to that rudely hewn and  
extremely obliterated ,nibelungenlied1  
as to something quite astonishingly     
clear1 detailed and strongly marked as  
to something distinctly artistic4       
,indeed by the side of ,parzifal        
everything seems artistic2 ,hartmann von
 ,aue reads like ,chaucer1 ,aucassin et 
,nicolette is as living as ,cymbeline1  
,chevy ,chase seems as good as the      
battles of ,homer4 ,it is not a         
narrative1 but a vague mooning2 a knight
 illiterate1 not merely like his fellow 
minnesingers1 in the way of reading and 
writing1 but in the sense of complete   
absence of all habit of literary form2  
extremely noble and pure of mind1       
chaste1 gentle1 with a funny1 puzzled   

sense of humour1 reminding one distantly
 of ,jean ,paul in his drowsy moments2 a
 hanger-on of courts1 but perfectly     
simple-hearted and childlike2 very poor 
and easily pleased3 such is1 for good   
and for bad1 ,herr ,wolfram von         
,eschenbach1 the only real personality  
in his poem4 ,and he narrates1 in a     
mooning1 digressive1 good-natured1      
drowsy tone1 with only a rare awaking of
 interest1 a story which he has heard   
from some one else1 and that some one   
else from a series of other some one    
elses 7,chrestien de ,troyes1 a         
legendary ,provenal ,chiot or ,guyot1   
perhaps even the original ,welsh bard72 
all muddled1 monotonous1 and droning2   
events and persons ill-defined1 without 
any sense of the relative importance of 
anything1 without clear perception of   
what it is all about1 or at least       
without the power of keeping the matter 
straight before the reader4 ,a story1 in
 point of fact1 which is no story at    
all1 but a mere series of rambling      

adventures 7adventures which are        
scarcely adventures1 having no point or 
plot7 of various people with not much   
connection and no                       
individuality--,gachmuret1 ,parzifal1   
,gawain1 ,loherangrein1 ,anfortas1      
,feirefis--pale ghosts of beings1 moving
 in a country of ,kennaqwhere1          
,aquitaine1 ,anjou1 ,brittany1 ,wales1  
,spain1 and heaven knows what wondrous  
,oriental places2 a misty country with  
woods and towns and castles which are   
infinitely far apart and yet quite near 
each other2 which seem to sail about    
like cloud castles round the only solid 
place in the book1 ,plimizl1 where      
,arthur's court1 with round table       
constantly spread1 is for ever          
established4 ,a no place1 nowhere2 yet  
full of details2 minute inventories of  
the splendid furniture of castles       
7castles where8 how reached872          
infinitely inferior in this matter even 
to the ,nibelungenlied1 where you are   
made to feel so vividly 7one of the few 

modern and therefore clear things       
therein7 the long1 dreary road from     
,worms to ,bechlarn1 and thence to      
,etzelburg1 though of none of them is   
there anything beyond a name4 ,for the  
,nibelungen story had been localized in 
what to narrator and audience was a     
reality1 the country in which themselves
 lived1 where themselves might seek out 
the abbey in which ,siegfried was       
buried1 the well in the ,odenwald near  
which he was stabbed2 where they knew   
from merchant and pilgrim the road taken
 by the ,nibelungs from ,santen to      
,worms1 by the ,burgundians from ,worms 
to ,hungary4 ,but here in ,parzifal we  
are in a mere vague world of anywhere1  
the world of ,keltic and ,oriental      
romance become mere cloudland to the    
,thuringian knight4 ,and similarly have 
the heroes of other nations1 the        
,arthurs1 ,gawains1 ,gachmurets1 of     
,wales and ,anjou1 become mere vague    
names2 they have become liquified1 lost 
all shape and local habitation4 ,they   

are mere names1 these ladies and knights
 of ,herr ,wolfram1 names with fair pink
 and white faces1 names magnificently   
draped in bejewelled ,oriental stuffs   
and embossed armour2 they have no home1 
no work1 nothing to do4 ,this is the    
most remarkable characteristic of       
,parzifal1 and what makes it so typical 
of the process of growing inane through 
overmuch alteration1 which prevented the
 medival epics ever turning into an     
,iliad or an ,odyssey2 this that it is  
essentially idle and all about nothing4 
,the feudal relations strongly marked in
 the ,german ,nibelungenlied have melted
 away like the distinctions of race3    
every knight is independent1 not a      
vassal nor a captain1 a ,volker or      
,hagen1 or ,roland or ,renaud followed  
by his men2 but an isolated individual1 
without even a squire1 wandering about  
alone through this hazy land of nowhere4
 ,knight-errantry1 in the time of the   
great ,guelph and ,ghibelline struggles1
 every bit as ideal as that of ,spenser 

or ,cervantes2 and with the difference  
that ,sir ,calidore and ,sir ,artegal   
have an appointed task1 some ,blatant   
,beast or other nuisance to overcome2   
and that ,don ,quixote has the general  
rescuing of all the oppressed ,princesse
 ,micomiconas1 and the destruction of   
all windmills1 and the capturing of all 
helmets of ,mambrino1 and the           
establishing all over the world of the  
worship of ,dulcinea4 ,but these knights
 of ,wolfram von ,eschenbach have no    
more this mission than they have the    
politico-military missions1 missions of 
a ,rdger or a ,roland4 ,they are all    
riding about at random1 without any     
particular pagans1 necromancers1 or     
dragons to pursue4 ,the very service of 
the ,holy ,grail1 which is the main     
interest of the poem1 consists in       
nothing apparently except living        
virtuously at the ,castle of            
,montselvsche1 and virtuously eating and
 drinking the victuals provided         
miraculously4 ,to be admitted to this   

service1 no initiation1 no mission1     
nothing preliminary seems required4     
,parzifal himself merely wanders about  
vaguely1 without doing any specified    
thing4 ,the fact is that in this poem   
all has become purely ideal2 ideal to   
the point of utter vacuity3 there is no 
connection with any human business4 ,of 
all the heroes and heroines we hear that
 they are perfectly chaste1 truthful1   
upright2 and they are never put into any
 situation to test these qualities3 they
 are never placed in the way of         
temptation1 never made to fight with    
evil1 or to decide between it and good4 
,the very religion of the ,holy ,grail  
consists in doing nothing3 not a word   
about relieving the poor or oppressed1  
of tending the sick1 of delivering the  
,holy ,sepulchre1 of defending that     
great injured ,one1 ,christ4 ,to be     
,grail ,knight or even ,grail ,king     
means to be exactly the same as before4 
,where in this vague dreamland of       
passive purity and heroism1 of untempted

 chastity and untried honour1 where are 
the earthly trials of ,tristram1 of     
,guenevere1 of ,rdger1 of ,renaud8      
,where the moral struggles of the       
,middle ,ages8 ,where is ,godfrey1 or   
,francis1 or ,dominick8 ,nowhere4 ,all  
has disappeared1 melted away2           
,christianity and ,paganism themselves  
have melted away or into each other1 as 
in the easy meeting of the ,pagan       
,feirefis and the ,christian ,parzifal1 
and in the double marriage of ,gachmuret
 with the ,indian ,belakane and the     
,welsh ,herzeloid2 there remains only a 
kind of ,buddhistic ,nirvna of vague    
passive perfection1 but without any     
renunciation2 and in a world devoid of  
evil and full of excellent brocade and  
armour and eatables1 and lovely maidens 
who dress and undress you1 and chastely 
kiss you on the mouth2 a world without  
desire1 aspiration1 or combat1 vacantly 
happy and virtuous4 ,a world purely     
ideal1 divorced from all reality1       
unsubstantial like the kingdom of       

,gloriana1 but1 unlike ,spenser's1 quite
 unshadowed by any puritan sadness1 by  
any sense of evil1 untroubled by        
allegorical vices2 cheerful1 serene1    
filled with flowers and song of birds1  
but as unreal as the illuminated        
arabesques of a missal4 ,in truth1      
perhaps more to be compared with an     
eighteenth century pastoral1 an ideal   
created almost in opposition to reality2
 a dream of passiveness and liberty 7as 
of light leaves blown about7 as the     
ideal of the fiercely troubled1         
struggling1 tightly fettered feudal     
world4 ,the ideal1 perhaps1 of only one 
moment1 scarcely of a whole             
civilization2 or rather 7how express my 
feeling87 an accidental combination of  
an instant1 as of spectre vapour arisen 
from the mixture of ,kelt and ,teuton1  
of ,frank and ,moslem4 ,is it           
,christian1 ,pagan1 ,mohammedan8 ,none  
of all these4 ,a simple-looking vaporous
 chaos of incongruous1 but not          
conflicting1 elements3 a poem of virtue 

without object1 of knighthood without   
work1 of religion without belief2 in    
this like its central interest1 the     
,grail3 a mystery1 a cup1 a stone2 a    
thing which heals1 feeds1 speaks2       
animate or inanimate8 ,stone of the     
,caaba or chalice of the ,sacrament8    
,merely a mysterious holy of holies and 
good of goods1 which does everything and
 nothings means nothing and requires    
nothing--is nothing4     ,,iii4   ,thus 
was obliterated1 in all its national and
 traditional meaning1 the heroic cycle  
of ,arthur2 and by the same process of  
slow adaptation to new intellectual     
requirements which had completely wiped 
out of men's memory the heroic tales of 
,siegfried1 which had entirely altered  
the originally realistic character of   
the epic of ,charlemagne4 ,but unreal   
and ideal as had become the tales of the
 ,round ,table1 and disconnected with   
any national tradition1 the time came   
when even these were not sufficiently   
independent of reality to satisfy the   

capricious imagination of the later     
,middle ,ages4 ,at the end of the       
fourteenth century was written1 most    
probably in ,portuguese by ,vasco de    
,lobeira1 the tale of ,amadis de ,gaula1
 which was followed by some forty or    
fifty similar books telling the         
adventures of all the brothers1 nephews1
 sons1 grandsons sons1 and              
great-grandsons1 an infinite succession1
 of the original ,amadis2 which1        
translated into all languages and       
presently multiplied by the press1 seem 
to have usurped the place of the        
,arthurian stories in feudal countries  
until well-nigh the middle of the       
sixteenth century2 and which were       
succeeded by no more stories of heroes1 
but by the realistic comic novels of the
 type of ,lazarillo de ,tormes1 and the 
buffoon philosophic extravaganzas of    
,gargantua4 ,further indeed it was      
impossible to go than did medival       
idealism in the ,amadises4 ,compared    
with them the most fairy-tale-like      

,arthurian stories are perfect          
historical documents4 ,there remains no 
longer any connection whatsoever with   
reality1 historical or geographical3 the
 whole world seems to have been         
expeditiously emptied of all its        
contents1 to make room for kingdoms of  
,gaul1 of ,rome1 of the ,firm ,island1  
of ,sobradisa1 etc41 which are less like
 the ,land ,west of the ,moon and ,east 
of the ,sun than they are like ,sancho  
,panza's island4 ,all real mankind1     
past1 present1 and future1 has similarly
 been swept away and replaced by a      
miraculous race of ,amadises1 ,lisvarts1
 ,galaors1 ,gradasilias1 ,orianas1      
,pintiquinestras1 ,fradalons1 and so    
forth1 who flit across our vision1 in   
company with the indispensable          
necromancers1 fairies1 dwarfs1 giants1  
and duennas1 like some huge ballet3     
things without character1 passions1     
pathos2 knights who are never wounded or
 killed1 princesses who always end with 
marrying the right man1 enchanters whose

 heads are always chopped off1          
foundlings who are always reinstated in 
their kingdom1 inane paper puppets      
bespangled with impossible sentiment1   
tinsel and rags which are driven about  
like chaff by the wind-puffs of romance4
 ,the advent of the ,amadises is the    
coming of the ,kingdom of ,nonsense1 the
 sign that the last days of chivalric   
romance have come2 a little more1 and   
the ,licentiate ,alonzo ,perez will take
 his seat in ,don ,quixote's library1   
and ,nicholas the ,barber light his     
faggots in the yard4  ,but1 as if in    
compensation of the usurpation of which 
they had been the victims1 the          
,carolingian tales1 pushed out of the   
way by the ,arthurian cycle1 were not   
destined to perish4 ,thrown aside with  
contempt by the upper classes1 engrossed
 with the ,round ,table and the ,holy   
,grail1 the tales of ,charlemagne and   
his paladins1 largely adulterated with  
,arthurian elements1 were apparently    
cherished by a lower class of society3  

burgesses1 artizans1 and such-like1 for 
whom that ,arthurian world was far too  
etherial and too delicately immoral2 and
 to this circumstance is due the fact   
that the humiliated ,carolingian tales  
eventually received an artistic         
embodiment which was not given to the   
,arthurian stories4 ,while troubadours  
and minnesingers were busy with the     
court of ,arthur1 and grave ,latinists  
like ,rusticiano of ,pisa wrote of      
,launcelot and ,guenevere2 the          
,carolingian epics seem to have been    
mainly sung about by illiterate         
jongleurs1 and to have busied the pens  
of prose hackwriters for the benefit of 
townsfolk4 ,the free towns of the       
,netherlands and of ,germany appear to  
have been full of this unfashionable    
literature3 the ,carolingian cycle had  
become democratic4 ,and1 inasmuch as it 
was literature no longer for knights and
 courtiers1 but for artizans and        
shopkeepers1 it went1 of course1 to the 
pre-eminently democratic country of the 

,middle ,ages--,italy4 ,this was at a   
time when ,italian was not yet a        
recognized language1 and when the men   
and women who talked in ,tuscan1        
,lombard1 or ,venetian dialects1 wrote  
in ,latin and in ,french2 and while     
,francesca and ,paolo read the story of 
,launcelot most probably in good medival
 langue d'oil1 as befitted people of    
high birth2 the jongleurs1 who collected
 crowds so large as to bar the streets  
and require the interference of the     
,bolognese magistrates1 sang of ,roland 
and ,oliver in a sort of lingua ,franca 
of ,french ,lombard4 ,french jongleurs  
singing in impossible ,french-,italian2 
,italian jongleurs singing in impossible
 ,french2 ,paduan penny-a-liners writing
 ,carolingian cyclical novels in        
,french1 not of ,paris1 assuredly1 but  
of ,padua--a comical and most hideous   
jabber of hybrid languages--this was how
 the ,carolingian stories became popular
 in ,italy4 ,meanwhile1 the day came    
when the romantic ,arthurian tales had  

to dislodge in ,italy before the        
invasion of the classic epic4 ,troy1    
,rome1 and ,thebes had replaced         
,tintagil and ,crleon in the interest of
 the cultured classes long before the   
beginning of the fifteenth century2 when
 ,poggio1 in the very midst of the      
classic revival1 still told of the      
comically engrossed audience which      
surrounded the vagabonds singing of     
,orlando and ,rinaldo4 ,the effete      
,arthurian cycle1 superseded in ,spain  
and ,france by the ,amadis romances1 was
 speedily forgotten in ,italy2 but the  
,carolingian stories remained2 and when 
,italian poetry arose once more after   
the long interregnum between ,petrarch  
and ,lorenzo dei ,medici1 and looked    
about for subjects1 it laid its hand    
upon them4 ,but when1 in the second half
 of the fifteenth century1 those old    
tales of ,charlemagne received1 after so
 many centuries of alterations and      
ephemeral embodiments1 that artistic    
form which the ,middle ,ages had been   

unable to give them1 the stories        
themselves1 and the way in which they   
were regarded1 were totally different   
from what they had been in the time of  
,theroulde1 or of the anonymous author  
of ,the ,quatre ,fils ,aymon2 the       
,renaissance1 with its keen artistic    
sense1 made out of the ,carolingian     
tales real works of art1 but works of   
art which were playthings4 ,to begin    
with1 the ,carolingian stories had been 
saturated with ,arthurian colour3 they  
had been furnished with all the         
knight-rrantry1 all the gallantry1 all  
the enchantments1 the fairies1 giants1  
and necromancers of the ,keltic legends2
 and1 moreover1 they had lost1 by       
infinite repetition1 all the political  
realism and meaning so striking in ,the 
,chanson de ,roland and ,the ,quatre    
,fils ,aymon2 a confusion and unreality 
further increased by the fact that the  
,italians had no original connection    
with those tales1 that to them real men 
and plans were no better than imaginary 

ones1 and that the minstrels who sang in
 the market-place1 and the laborious    
prose-writers who compiled such         
collections as that called of the ,reali
 di ,francia1 were equally free in their
 alterations and adaptations1 creating  
unknown relationships1 inventing new    
adventures1 suppressing essential       
historical points1 with no object save  
amusing their audience or readers with  
new stories about familiar heroes4 ,such
 was the condition of the stories       
themselves4 ,the attitude of the public 
towards them was1 by the middle of the  
fifteenth century1 one of complete      
incredulity and frivolous amusement2 the
 paladins were as unreal as the heroes  
of any granny's fairy tale4 ,the people 
wanted to hear of wonderful battles and 
adventures1 of enchantments and         
love-makings2 but they wanted also to   
laugh2 and1 sceptical1 practical1       
democratic1 the artizans and shopkeepers
 of ,florence--to whom1 paying1 as they 
did1 expensive mercenaries who stole    

poultry and never got wounded on any    
account1 all chivalry or real military  
honour was the veriest nursery          
rubbish--such people as crowded round   
the cantastoria of mercato vecchio1 must
 indeed have found much to amuse them in
 these tales of so different an age4    
,and into such crowds there penetrated  
to listen and watch 7even as the        
,magnificent ,lorenzo had elbowed among 
the carnival ragamuffins of ,florence1  
and had slid in among the holiday-making
 peasants of ,poggio a ,caiano7 a       
learned man1 a poet1 an intimate of the 
,medicis1 of ,politian1 ,ficino1 and    
,pico della ,mirandola1 ,messer ,luigi  
,pulci1 the same who had written the    
semi-allegorical1 semi-realistic poem   
about ,lorenzo dei ,medici's gala       
tournament4 ,there was a taste in the   
house of the ,medici1 together with     
those for platonic philosophy1 classical
 erudition1 religious hymns1 and ,hebrew
 kabbala1 for a certain kind of realism1
 for the language and mode of thinking  

of the lower classes1 as a reaction from
 ,petrarchesque conventionality4 ,as the
 ,magnificent ,lorenzo had had the fancy
 to string together in more artistic    
shape the quaint and graceful love      
poems1 hyperbolical1 realistic1 tender1 
and abusive1 of the ,tuscan peasantry2  
so also ,messer ,luigi ,pulci appears to
 have been smitten with the notion of   
trying his hand at a chivalric poem like
 those to which he and his friends had  
listened among the butchers and         
pork-shops1 the fishmongers and frying  
booths of the market1 and giving an     
impression1 in its ideas and language1  
of the people to whom such strains were 
sung4 ,but ,luigi ,pulci was vastly less
 gifted as a poet than ,lorenzo dei     
,medici2 ,florentine prentices are less 
sthetically pleasing than ,tuscan       
peasants1 and the ,morgante ,maggiore is
 a piece of work of a sort utterly      
inferior to the ,nencia da ,barberino4  
,still the ,morgante ,maggiore remains1 
and will remain1 as a very remarkable   

production of grotesque art4 ,just as   
,lorenzo dei ,medici was certainly not  
without a deliberate purpose of         
selecting the quaintness and            
gracefulness of peasant life2 even so1  
and perhaps more1 ,luigi ,pulci must    
have had a deliberate intention of      
producing a ludicrous effect2 in both   
cases the deliberate attempt is very    
little perceptible1 in the ,nencia da   
,barberino from the genius of ,lorenzo1 
in the ,morgante ,maggiore from the     
stolidity of ,pulci4 ,the ,morgante1 of 
which parts were probably written as a  
mere sample to amuse a supper party1    
became interesting to ,pulci1 in the    
mere matter of inventing and stringing  
together new incidents2 and despite its 
ludicrous passages1 it must have been   
more seriously written by him1 and more 
seriously listened to by his friends1   
than would a similar production         
now-a-days4 ,for the men of the         
,renaissance1 no matter how             
philosophized and cultured1 retained the

 pleasure in mere incident1 which we    
moderns seem to have given over to      
children and savages2 and ,lorenzo1     
,ficino1 and ,politian probably listened
 to the adventures of ,luigi ,pulci's   
paladins and giants with much the same  
interest1 and only a little more        
conscious sense of grotesqueness1 with  
which the crowd in the market listened  
to ,cristofano dell' ,altissimo and     
similar story-tellers4 ,the ,morgante   
,maggiore1 therefore1 is neither really 
comic nor really serious4 ,it is not a  
piece of realistic grotesqueness like   
,gargantua or ,pantagruel1 any more than
 it is a serious ideal work like ,amadis
 de ,gaula3 the proportion of           
deliberately sought effects is small2   
the great bulk1 serious or comic1 seems 
to have come quite at random4 ,it is not
 a caricatured reproduction of the poems
 of chivalry sung in the market1 for    
they were probably serious1 stately1 and
 bald1 with at most an occasional joke2 
it is the reproduction of the joint     

impression received from the absurd1    
harum-scarum1 unpractical world of      
chivalry of the poet1 and the real world
 of prose1 of good-humoured buffoonish  
coarseness with which the itinerant poet
 was surrounded4 ,the paladins are no   
,don ,quixotes1 the princesses no       
,dulcineas1 the battles are real        
battles2 but the language is that of    
,florentine wool-workers1 housewives1   
cheese-sellers1 and ragamuffins1 crammed
 with the slang of the market-place1 its
 heavy jokes and perpetual sententious  
aphorism4 ,moreover the prominence given
 to food and eating is unrivalled except
 by ,rabelais3 the poet must have       
lounged with delight through the narrow 
medival lanes1 crowded with booths and  
barrows1 sniffing with rapture the      
mingled scents of cheese1 pork1 fish1   
spices1 and a hundred strange           
concomitant market smells4 ,and the     
market1 that classic mercato vecchio    
7alas1 finally condemned and destroyed  
by modern sanitary prudishness1 and     

which only those who have seen can      
conceive in its full barbarous1 nay1    
barbaric ,pantagruelian splendour of    
food1 blood1 and stenches7 of ,florence1
 is what we think of throughout the     
poem4 ,and1 when ,messer ,luigi comes to
 narrate1 with real gravity and after   
the due invocation of the ,virgin1 the  
,trinity1 and the saints1 the tremendous
 disaster of ,roncevaux1 he uses such   
words and such similes1 that above the  
neighing of horses and the clash of     
hurtling armour and the yells of the    
combatants we suddenly hear the nasal   
sing-song of ,florentine tripe-vendors  
and pumpkin-pod-sellers1 the chaffer and
 oaths and laughter of the gluttonous   
crowd pouring through the lanes of      
,calimala and ,pellicceria2 nay         
7horrible and grotesque miracle71 there 
seems to rise out of the confused       
darkness of the battle-filled valley1   
there seems to disengage itself 7as out 
of a mist7 from the chaos of heaped     
bodies1 and the flash of steel among the

 whirlwinds of dust1 a vision1 more and 
more distinct and familiar1 of the      
crowded square with its black           
rough-hewn1 smoke-stained houses1       
ornamented with ,robbia-ware angels and 
lilies or painted madonnas2 of its black
 butchers dens1 outside which hang the  
ghastly disembowelled sheep with        
blood-stained fleeces1 the huge         
red-veined hearts and livers2 of the    
piles of cabbage and cauli-flowers1 the 
rows of tin ware and copper saucepans1  
the heaps of maccaroni and pastes1 of   
spices and drugs2 the garlands of onions
 and red peppers and piles of apples2   
the fetid sliminess of the fish         
tressels2 the rough pavement oozy and   
black1 slippery with cabbage-stalks1    
puddled with bullock's blood1 strewn    
with plucked feathers--all under the    
bright blue sky1 with ,giotto's         
dove-coloured belfry soaring high above2
 a vision1 finally1 of one of those deep
 dens1 with walls1 all covered with     
majolica plates and dishes and flashing 

brass-embossed trenchers1 in the dark   
depths of which crackles perennially a  
ruddy fire1 while a huge spit revolves1 
offering to the flames now one now the  
other side of scores of legs of mutton1 
rounds of beef1 and larded chickens1    
trickling with the butter unceasingly   
ladled by the white-dressed cooks4      
,roncisvalle1 ,charlemagne1 the         
paladins1 paganism1 ,christendom--what  
of them8 ,i believe in capon1 roast or  
boiled1 and sometimes done in butter2 in
 mead and in must2 and ,i believe in the
 pasty and the pastykins1 mother and    
children2 but above all things ,i       
believe in good wine --as ,margutte     
snuffles out in his catechism2 and as to
 ,saracens and paladins1 past1 present1 
and future1 a fig for them6  ,but       
meanwhile1 for all that ,florentine     
burgesses1 artizans1 and humorists may  
think1 there is in this ,italy of the   
,renaissance something besides          
,florence2 there is a school of poetry1 
disconnected with the realisms of       

,lorenzo and ,pulci1 with the ,ovidian  
,petrarchisms of ,politian4 ,there is   
,ferrara4 ,lying1 as they do1 between   
the ,northern ,apennine slopes of       
,modena and the ,euganean hills1 the    
dominions of the ,house of ,este appear 
at first sight merely as part and parcel
 of ,lombardy1 and we should expect from
 them nothing very different from that  
which we expect from ,milan or ,bologna 
or ,padua4 ,but the truth is different2 
all round ,ferrara1 indeed1 stretches   
the fertile flatness of ,lombard        
cornfields1 and they produce1 as        
infallibly as they produce their sacks  
of grain and tuns of wine and heaps of  
silk cocoon1 the intellectual and social
 equivalents of such things in          
,renaissance ,italy3 industry1 wealth1  
comfort1 scepticism1 art4 ,but on either
 side1 into the defiles of the ,euganean
 hills to the north1 into the widening  
torrent valleys of the ,modenese        
,apennines to the south1 the ,marquisate
 of ,este stretches up into feudalism1  

into chivalry1 into the imaginative     
kingdom of the ,middle ,ages4           
,medivalism1 feudalism1 chivalry1       
indeed1 of a very modified sort2 and as 
different from that of ,france and      
,germany as differ from the             
poverty-stricken plains and forests and 
and moors of the north these ,italian   
mountain slopes1 along which the vines  
crawl in long trellises1 and the        
chestnuts rise in endlessly superposed  
tiers of terraces1 cultivated by a      
peasant who is not the serf1 but the    
equal sharer in profits with the master 
of the soil4 ,and on one of those       
fertile hill-sides1 looking down upon a 
narrow valley all a green-blue shimmer  
with corn and vine-bearing elms1 was    
born1 in the year #adcd1 ,matteo ,maria 
,boiardo1 in the village which gave him 
the title1 one of the highest in the    
,estensian dominions1 of ,count of      
,scandiano4 ,here1 in the ,apennines1   
,scandiano is a fortified village1 also 
a castle1 doubtless half turned into a  

,renaissance villa1 but medival and     
feudal nevertheless2 but the name of    
,scandiano belongs also1 ,i know not for
 what reason1 to a certain little       
red-brick palace on the outskirts of    
,ferrara1 beautifully painted with      
half-allegorical1 half-realistic pageant
 frescoes by ,cosimo ,tura1 and         
enclosing a sweet tangled               
orchard-garden2 to all of which1 being  
the place to which ,duke ,borso and     
,duke ,ercole were wont to retire for   
amusement1 the ,ferrarese have given the
 further name of ,schifanoia1 which     
means1 fly from cares4 ,this little     
coincidence of ,scandiano the feudal    
castle in the ,apennines1 and ,scandiano
 the little pleasure palace at ,ferrara1
 seems to give1 by accidental allegory1 
a fair idea of the double nature of     
,matteo ,boiardo1 of the ,ferrarese     
court to which he belonged1 and of the  
school of poetry 7including the more    
notable but less original work of       
,ariosto7 which the genius of the man   

and the character of the court succeeded
 together in producing4  ,to understand 
,boiardo we must compare him with       
,ariosto2 and to understand ,ariosto we 
must compare him with ,boiardo2 both    
belong to the same school1 and are men  
of very similar genius1 and where the   
one leaves off the other begins4 ,but   
first1 in order to understand the       
character of this poetry which1 in the  
main1 is identical in ,boiardo and in   
his more successful but less fascinating
 pupil ,ariosto1 let us understand      
,ferrara4 ,it was1 in the late fifteenth
 and early sixteenth centuries1 a       
chivalric town of ,ariostesque chivalry3
 feudalism turned courtly and elegant1  
and moreover1 very liberal and          
comfortable by preponderance of         
democratic and industrial habits2 a     
military court1 of brave mercenary      
captains full of dash and adventure1 not
 mere brigands and marauders having     
studied strategy1 like the little       
,umbrian chieftains2 a court orderly1   

elegant1 and brilliant3 a prince not    
risen from behind a counter like        
,medicis and ,petruccis1 nor out of     
blood like ,baglionis and ,sforzas1 but 
of a noble old house whose beginnings   
are lost in the mist of real chivalry   
and real paladinism2 a duke with a      
pretence of feudal honour and decorum1  
at whose court men were all brave and   
ladies all chaste--with the little      
licenses of baseness and gallantry      
admitted by ,renaissance chivalry4 ,a   
bright1 brilliant court at the close of 
the fifteenth century2 and more stable  
than the only one which might have      
rivalled it1 the ,feltrian court of     
,urbino1 too small and lost among the   
,umbrian bandits4 ,a bright1 brilliant  
town1 also1 this ,ferrara3 not          
mercantile like ,florence1 not mere     
barracks like ,perugia2 a capital1      
essentially1 in its rich green plain by 
the widened ,po1 with its broad handsome
 streets 7so different from the medival 
exchanges of ,bologna1 and the feudal   

alleys of ,perugia71 its well-built     
houses1 so safe and modern1 needing     
neither bravi nor iron window bars1     
protected 7except against some stray    
murder by one of the ,estensi           
themselves71 by the duke's              
well-organized police2 houses with      
well-trimmed gardens1 like so many      
,paris htels2 and with the grand russet 
brick castle1 military with its moat and
 towers1 urban with its belvederes and  
balconies1 in the middle1 well placed to
 sweep away with its guns 7the wonderful
 guns of the duke's own making7 any     
riot1 tidily1 cleanly1 without a nasty  
heap of bodies and slop of blood as in  
the narrow streets of other towns       
,imagine this bright capital1 placed1   
moreover1 in the richest centre of      
,lombardy1 with glitter of chivalry from
 the ,euganean hills and ,apennines     
7castellated with ,este1 ,monselice1    
,canossa1 and ,boiardo's own            
,scandiano72 with gorgeous rarities of  
commerce from ,venice and ,milan--a     

central1 unique spot4 ,it is the natural
 home of the chivalrous poets of the    
,renaissance1 ,boiardo1 ,ariosto1       
,tasso2 as ,florence is of the          
,politians and ,pulcis 7,hellenism and  
back-shopery72 and ,venice of the       
literature of lust1 jests1 cynicism1 and
 adventure1 ,aretine1 ,beolco1 ,calmo1  
and ,poliphilo-,colonna4 ,in that       
garden1 where the white butterflies     
crowd among the fruit trees bowed down  
to the tall grass of the palace of      
,schifanoia--a garden neither grand nor 
classic1 but elegiac and charming--we   
can imagine ,boiardo or ,ariosto reading
 their poems to just such a goodly      
company as ,giraldi ,cinthio 7a         
,ferrarese1 and fond of romance1 too7   
describes in the prologue of his        
,ecatomiti3 gentle and sprightful       
ladies1 with the splendid brocaded      
robes1 and the gold-filleted golden hair
 of ,dosso ,dossi's wonderful ,alcina   
,circe2 graceful youths like the        
princely ,st4 ,john of ,benvenuto       

,garofalo2 jesters like ,dosso's at     
,modena2 brilliant captains like his    
,st4 ,george and ,st4 ,michael2 and a   
little crowd of pages with doublets and 
sleeves laced with gold tags1 of sedate 
magistrates in fur robes and scarlet    
caps1 of white-dressed maids with       
instruments of music and embroidery     
frames and hand looms1 like those which 
,cosimo ,tura painted for ,duke ,borso  
on the walls of this same ,schifanoia   
palace4 ,such is the audience2 now for  
the poems4  ,the stuff of ,boiardo and  
,ariosto is the same3 that old medival  
stuff of the ,carolingian poems1        
coloured1 scented with ,arthurian       
chivalry and wonder4 ,the               
knight-errantry of the ,keltic tales is 
cleverly blended with the               
pseudo-historical military organization 
of the ,carolingian cycle4 ,paladins and
 ,saracens are ingeniously manoeuvred   
about1 now scattered in little groups of
 twos and threes1 to encounter          
adventures in the style of ,sir         

,launcelot or ,amadis2 now gathered into
 a compact army to crash upon each other
 as at ,roncevaux2 or else wildly flung 
up by the poet to alight in fairyland1  
to find themselves in the caverns of    
,jamschid1 in the isles where ,oberon's 
mother kept ,csar1 and ,morgana kept    
,ogier1 in the boats1 entering          
subterranean channels1 of ,sindbad and  
,huon of ,bordeaux2 a constant          
alternation of individual adventure and 
wholesale organized campaigns1 conceived
 and carried out with admirable         
ingenuity4 ,so much for the deeds of    
arms4 ,the deeds of love are also       
compounded of ,carolingian and          
,arthurian1 but flavoured with special  
,renaissance feeling4 ,there is a great 
deal of rapid love-making between too   
gallant knights and too impressionable  
ladies2 licentious amours which we      
moderns lay at the door of ,boiardo and 
,ariosto1 not knowing that the          
licentiousness of the ,olivers and      
,ogiers and ,guerins and ,huons of      

medival poetry1 of the sentimental      
,amadises1 ,galaors1 and ,lisvarts of   
the fourteenth century1 whom the        
,renaissance has toned down in ,rogers  
and ,rinaldos and ,ricciardettos1 is by 
many degrees worse4 ,a moral improvement
 also 7for all the immorality of the    
,renaissance7 in the eschewing of the   
never-failing adultery of the ,arthurian
 romances1 and the appropriation to     
legitimately faithful love of the       
poetical devotion which ,tristram and   
,launcelot bear to other men's wives4   
,to this are added1 and more by ,ariosto
 than by ,boiardo1 two essentially      
,italian elements3 something of the     
nobility of passion of the ,platonic    
sonneteers2 and a good dose of the      
ironical1 scurrilous1 moralizing immoral
 anecdote gossiping of ,boccaccio and   
,sacchetti4 ,such is the stuff4 ,the    
conception1 though rarely comic1 and    
sometimes bond fide serious1 is never   
earnest4 ,all this is a purely artistic 
world1 a world of decorative arabesque  

incident1 intended to please1 scarcely  
ever to move1 or to move1 at most1 like 
some ,decameronian tale of ,isabella and
 the ,basil ,plant1 or ,constance and   
,martuccio4 ,on the other hand1 there is
 none of the grotesque irreverence of   
,pulci4 ,boiardo and ,ariosto are not in
 earnest2 they are well aware that their
 heroes and heroines are mere modern men
 and women tricked out in pretty        
chivalric trappings1 driven wildly about
 from ,paris to ,cathay1 and from ,spain
 to the ,orkneys--on ,tony ,lumpkin's   
principle of driving his mother round   
and round the garden plot till she      
thought herself on a heath six miles    
off--without ever really changing place4
 ,but they do not1 like ,pulci1 make fun
 of their characters4 ,they write       
chivalry romances not for ,florentine   
pork-butchers and wool-carders1 but for 
gallant ladies and gentlemen1 to whom1  
with duels1 tournaments1 serenades1 and 
fine speeches1 chivalry is an admired   
name1 though no longer a respected      

reality4  ,the heroes of ,boiardo and of
 ,ariosto are always bold and gallant   
and glittering1 the spirit of romance is
 in them2 a giant ,sancho ,panza like   
,morgante1 redolent of sausage and      
cheese1 would never be admitted into the
 society of a ,ferrarese ,orlando4 ,the 
art of ,boiardo and of ,ariosto is      
eminently pageant art1 in which         
sentiment and heroism are but as one    
element among many2 there is no pretence
 at reality 7although there is a good   
deal of incidental realism71 and no     
thought of the interest in subject and  
persons which goes with reality4 ,it is 
a masquerade1 and one whose men and     
women must1 ,i think1 be imagined in a  
kind of artistic fancy costume3 a       
mixture of the ,renaissance dress and of
 the antique1 as we see it in the prints
 of contemporary pageants1 and in       
,venetian and ,ferrarese pictures2 that 
,circe of ,dosso's1 in the ,borghese    
gallery of ,rome1 seated in her stately 
wine-lees and gold half-heraldically and

 half-cabalistically patterned brocade1 
before the rose-bushes of the little    
mysterious wood1 is the very ideal of   
the ,falerinas and ,alcinas1 of the     
enchantresses of ,boiardo and ,ariosto4 
,pageant people1 these of the ,ferrarese
 poets2 they only play at being in      
forests and deserts1 as children play at
 being on volcanoes or in ,green-land by
 the nursery fire4 ,it is a kind of     
dressing up1 a masquerading of the      
fancy2 not disguising in order to       
deceive1 but rather laying hold of any  
pretty or brilliant impressive garb that
 comes to hand1 and putting that on in  
conjunction with many odds and ends1 as 
an artist's guests might do with the    
silks and velvets and ,oriental         
properties of a studio4 ,these knights  
and ladies1 for ever tearing about from 
,scotland to ,india1 never1 in point of 
fact1 get any further than the ,apennine
 slopes where ,boiardo was born1 where  
,ariosto governed the ,garfagnana4 ,they
 ride for ever 7while supposed to be in 

the ,ardennes or in ,egypt7 across the  
velvet moss turf1 all patterned with    
minute starry clovers and the fallen    
white ropy chestnut blossom1 amidst the 
bracken beneath the slender chestnut    
trees1 the pale blue sky looking in     
between their spreading branches2 at    
most they lose their way in the         
intricacies of some seaside pineta1     
where the feet slip on the fallen       
needles1 and the sun slants along the   
vistas of serried1 red1 scaly trunks1   
among the juniper and gorse and dry     
grass and flowers growing in the sea    
sand4 ,into the vast medival forests of 
,germany and ,france1 ,boiardo and      
,ariosto's fancy never penetrated4      
,such is the school3 a school           
represented in its typical character    
only by ,boiardo and ,ariosto1 but to   
which belong1 nevertheless1 with        
whatever differences1 ,tasso1 ,spenser1 
,camoens1 all the poets of ,renaissance 
romance4 ,now of the two leaders        
thereof4 ,here ,i feel that ,i can speak

 only personally2 tell only of my own   
personal impressions and preferences4   
,comparing together ,boiardo and        
,ariosto1 ,i am1 of course1 aware of the
 infinite advantages of the latter4     
,ariosto is a man of far more varied    
genius2 he is an artist1 while ,boiardo 
is an amateur2 he is learned in         
arranging and ornamenting2 he knows how 
to alternate various styles1 how to     
begin and how to end4 ,moreover1 he is a
 scholarly person of a more scholarly   
time3 he is familiar with the classics1 
and1 what is more important1 he is      
familiar with the language in which he  
is writing4 ,he writes exquisitely      
harmonious1 supple1 and brilliant       
,tuscan verse1 with an infinite richness
 of diction2 while poor ,boiardo jogs   
along in a language which is not the    
,lombard dialect in which he speaks1 and
 which is very uncouth and awkward1 as  
is every pure language for a provincial2
 indeed1 so much so1 that the pedantic  
,tuscans require ,berni to make ,tuscan1

 elegant1 to ingentilire1 with infinite 
loss to quaintness and charm1 the       
,orlando ,innamorato of poor ,ferrarese 
,boiardo4 ,moreover1 ,ariosto has many  
qualities unknown to ,boiardo2 wit1     
malice1 stateliness1 decided eloquence  
and power of simile and apostrophe2 he  
is a symphony for full orchestra1 and   
,boiardo a mere melody played on a      
single fiddle1 which good authorities   
7and no one dare contest with ,italians 
when they condemn anything not ,tuscan  
as jargon7 pronounce to be no ,cremona4 
,all these advantages ,ariosto certainly
 has2 and ,i do not quarrel with those  
who prefer him for them4 ,but many of   
them distinctly take away from my       
pleasure4 ,i confess that ,i am bored by
 the beautifully written moral and      
allegorical preludes of ,ariosto's      
cantos2 ,i would willingly give all his 
aphorism and all his mythology to get   
quickly to the story4 ,also1 ,i resent  
his admirable rhetorical flourishes     
about his patrons1 his ,ercoles1        

,ippolitos1 and ,isabellas they ring    
false1 dreadfully false and studied2 and
 ,boiardo's quickly despatched friendly 
greeting of his friends1 his courteous  
knights and gentle ladies1 pleases me   
much better4 ,moreover1 the             
all-pervading consciousness of the      
existence of ,homer1 ,virgil1 nay1      
,statius and ,lucan1 every trumpery     
antique epic-monger1 annoys me1 giving  
an uncomfortable doubt as to whether    
,ariosto did not try to make all this   
nonsense serious1 and this romance into 
an epic2 all this occasional ,virgilian 
stateliness1 alternated with a kind of  
polished ,decameronian gossipy cynicism1
 diverts my attention1 turns paladins   
and princesses too much into            
tutor-educated gentlemen1 into ,bandello
 and ,cinthio-reading ladies of the     
sixteenth century4 ,the picture painted 
by ,ariosto is finer1 but you see too   
much of the painter2 he and his patrons 
take up nearly the whole foreground1 and
 they have affected1 idealized faces and

 would-be dignified and senatorial      
poses4 ,for these and many other        
reasons1 ,i personally prefer ,boiardo2 
and perhaps the best reason for my      
preference is the irrational one that he
 gives me more pleasure4 ,my            
preferences1 my impressions1 ,i have    
said1 are in this matter1 much less     
critical than personal4 ,hence ,i can   
speak of ,boiardo only as he affects me4
  ,when first ,i read ,boiardo1 ,i was  
conscious of a curious phenomenon in    
myself4 ,i must confess to reading books
 usually in a very ardent or rather     
weary manner1 either way in a hurry to  
finish them4 ,as it happened1 when ,i   
borrowed ,boiardo1 ,i had a great many  
other things on hand which required my  
time and attention2 yet ,i could not    
make up my mind to return the book until
 ,i had finished it1 though my intention
 had been merely to satisfy my curiosity
 by a dip into it4 ,i went on1 without  
that eager desire to know what follows  
which one has in a novel2 drowsily with 

absolute reluctance to leave off1 like  
the reluctance to rise from the grass   
beneath the trees with only butterflies 
and shadows to watch1 or the reluctance 
to put aside some fairy book of ,walter 
,crane's4 ,it was like strolling in some
 quaint1 ill-trimmed1 old garden1       
finding fresh flowers1 fresh bits of    
lichened walls1 fresh fragments of      
broken earthenware ornaments2 or1       
rather1 more like a morning in the      
,cathedral ,library at ,siena1 the place
 where the gorgeous choir books are     
kept1 itself illuminated like missal    
pages by ,pinturicchio3 amused1         
delighted1 not moved nor fascinated2    
finding every moment something new1 some
 charming piece of gilding1 some sweet  
plumed head1 some quaint little tree or 
town2 making a journey of lazy discovery
 in a sort of world of ,prince          
,charmings1 the real realm of the ,fry  
,queen1 quite different in enchantment  
from the country of ,spenser's          
,gloriana1 with its pale allegoric      

ladies and knights1 half-human1         
half-metaphysical1 and its make-believe 
allegorical ogres and giants4 ,this is  
the real ,fairyland1 this of ,boiardo3  
no mere outskirts of ,ferrara1 with     
real1 playfully cynical ,ferrarese men  
and women tricked out as paladins and   
,amazons1 and making fun of their       
disguise1 as in ,ariosto2 no wonderland 
of ,tasso1 with enchanted gardens copied
 out of ,bolognese pictures and         
miraculous forests learned from theatre 
mechanicians1 wonders imitated by a     
great poet from the cardboard and       
firework wonders of ,bianca ,cappello's 
wedding feasts4 ,this is the real       
fairyland1 the wonderland of medival    
romance and of ,persian and ,arabian    
tales1 no longer solemn or awful1 but   
brilliant1 sunny1 only half believed in2
 the fairyland of the ,renaissance1     
superficially artistic1 with its        
lightest1 brightest fancies1 and its    
charming realities2 its cloistered and  
painted courts with plashing fountains1 

its tapestried and inlaid rooms1 its    
towered and belvedered villas1 its      
quaint clipped gardens full of strange  
,oriental plants and beasts2 and all    
this transported into a country of      
wonders1 where are the gardens of the   
,hesperides1 the fountain of ,merlin1   
the tomb of ,narcissus1 the castle of   
,morgan-le-,fay2 every quaint and       
beautiful fancy1 antique and medival1   
mixed up together1 as in some           
,renaissance picture of ,botticelli or  
,rosselli or ,filippino1 where knights  
in armour descend from ,pegasus before  
,roman temples1 where swarthy           
white-turbaned ,turks1 with oddly       
bunched-up trousers and jewelled        
caftans1 and half-naked1 oak-crowned    
youths1 like genii descended1 pensive   
and wondering1 from some antique        
sarcophagus1 and dapper princelets and  
stalwart knights1 and citizens and      
monks1 all crowd round the altar of some
 wonder-working ,macone or ,apolline or 
,trevigante2 some comic1 dreadful1 apish

 figure1 mummed up in half-antique1     
half-oriental garb4 ,or else we are led 
into some dainty1 pale-tinted panel of  
,botticelli1 where the maidens dance in 
white clinging clothes1 strewing flowers
 on to the flower-freaked turf2 or into 
some of ,poliphilo's vignettes1 where   
the gentle ladies1 seated with lute and 
viol under vine-trellises1 welcome the  
young gallant1 or poet1 or knight4      
,such is the world of ,boiardo4 ,spenser
 has once or twice peeped in1 painted   
it1 and given us exquisite little       
pictures1 as that of ,malecasta's       
castle1 all hung with mythological      
tapestries1 that of the enchanted       
chamber of ,britomart1 and those of ,sir
 ,calidore meeting the ,graces and of   
,hellenore dancing with the ,satyrs2 but
 ,spenser has done it rarely1 trembling 
to return to his dreary allegories4     
,equal to these single pictures by      
,spenser1 ,boiardo has only one or two1 
but he keeps us permanently in the world
 where such pictures are painted4       

,boiardo is not a great artist like     
,spenser3 but he is a wizard1 which is  
better4 ,he leads us1 unceasingly1      
through the little dreamy laurelwoods1  
where we meet crisp-haired damsels tied 
to pine-trees1 or terrible dragons1 or  
enchanted wells1 through whose          
translucent green waters we see brocaded
 rooms full of fair ladies2 he ferries  
us ever and anon across shallow streams1
 to the castles where gentil donzelle   
wave their kerchiefs from the pillared  
belvedere2 he slips us unseen into the  
camps and council-rooms of the          
splendidly trapped ,saracens1 like so   
many figures out of ,filippino's        
frescoes2 he conducts us across the     
bridges where giants stand warders1 to  
the mysterious carved tombs whence issue
 green and crested snakes1 who1 kissed  
by a paladin1 turn into lovely          
enchantresses2 he takes us beneath the  
beds of rivers and through the bowels of
 the earth where kings and knights      
turned into statues of gold1 sit round  

tables covered with jewels1 illumined by
 carbuncles more wonderful than that of 
,jamschid2 or through the mazes of fairy
 gardens1 where every ear of corn1 cut  
off1 turns into a wild beast1 and every 
fallen leaf into a bird1 where hydras   
watch in the waters and lamias rear     
themselves in the grass1 where ,orlando 
must fill his helmet with roses lest he 
hear the voice of the sirens2 where all 
the wonders of ,antiquity--the          
snake-women1 the ,circes1 the sirens1   
the hydras and fauns live1 strangely    
changed into something infinitely quaint
 and graceful1 still half-antique1 yet  
already half-,arabian or ,keltic1 in the
 midst of the fairyland of ,merlin and  
of ,oberon--live1 move1 transform       
themselves afresh2 where the            
golden-haired damsels and the stripling 
knights1 delicate like ,pinturicchio's  
,prince ,charmings1 gallop for ever on  
their enchanted coursers1 within        
enchanted armour1 invincible1           
invulnerable1 under a sky always blue1  

and through an unceasing spring1 ever   
onwards to new adventures4 ,adventures  
which the noble1 gentle ,castellan of   
,scandiano1 poet and knight and         
humorist1 philanthropical philosopher   
almost from sheer goodness of heart1 yet
 a little crazy1 and capable of setting 
all the church bells ringing in honour  
of the invention of the name of         
,rodomonte relates not to some dully    
ungrateful ,alfonso or ,ippolito1 but to
 his own guests1 his own brilliant      
knights and ladies1 with ever and anon  
an effort to make them feel1 through his
 verse1 some of those joyous spring-tide
 feelings which bubble up in himself2 as
 when he remembers how1 ,once did ,i    
wander on a ,may morning in a fair      
flower-adorned field on a hillside      
overlooking the sea1 which was all      
tremulous with light2 and there1 among  
the roses of a green thorn-brake1 a     
damsel was singing of love2 singing so  
sweetly that the sweetness still touches
 my heart2 touches my heart1 and makes  

me think of the great delight it was to 
listen2 and how he would fain repeat    
that song1 and indeed an echo of its    
sweetness runs through his verse4       
,meanwhile1 stanza pours out after      
stanza1 adventure grows out of          
adventure1 each more wonderful1 more    
gorgeous than its predecessor4 ,to which
 listen the ladies1 with their white1   
girdled dresses and crimped golden      
locks2 the youths1 with their soft      
beardless faces framed in combed-out    
hair1 with their daggers on their hips  
and their plumed hats between their     
fingers2 and the serious bearded men1 in
 silken robes2 drawing nearer the poet1 
letting go lute or violin or music-book 
as they listen on the villa terrace or  
in some darkened room1 where the sunset 
sky turns green-blue behind the pillared
 window1 and the roses hang over the    
trellise of the cloister4 ,and as they  
did four hundred years ago1 so do we    
now1 rejoice4 ,the great stalwart naked 
forms of ,greece no longer leap and     

wrestle or carry their well-poised      
baskets of washed linen before us2 the  
mailed and vizored knights of the       
,nibelungen no longer clash their armour
 to the sound of ,volker's red          
fiddle-bow2 the glorified souls of      
,dante no longer move in mystic mazes of
 light before the eyes of our fancy4    
,all that is gone4 ,but here is the     
fairyland of the ,renaissance4 ,and thus
 ,matteo ,boiardo1 ,count of ,scandiano1
 goes on1 adding adventure to adventure1
 stanza to stanza1 in his castle villa1 
or his palace at ,ferrara4 ,but suddenly
 he stops and his bright fiddle and lute
 music jars and ends3 ,while ,i am      
singing1 ,o ,redeeming ,god1 ,i see all 
,italy set on fire by these ,gauls1     
coming to ravage ,i know not what fresh 
place4  ,and thus1 with the earlier and 
more hopeful ,renaissance of the        
fifteenth century1 ,matteo ,boiardo     
broke off with his ,orlando ,innamorato4
 ,the perfect light-heartedness1 the    
delight in play of a gentle1 serious1   

eminently kindly nature1 which gives    
half the charm to ,boiardo's work1 seems
 to have become impossible after the    
ruin of ,italian liberty and prosperity 
the frightful showing up of ,italy's    
moral and social and political          
insignificance at the beginning of the  
sixteenth century4 ,lombardy especially 
became a permanent battle-field1 and its
 towns mere garrison places of ,french1 
,german1 ,spanish1 and ,swiss           
barbarians1 whose presence meant        
slaughter and pillage and every foulest 
outrage2 and then1 between the horrors  
of the unresisted invasions and the     
unresisted exactions1 came plague and   
famine1 and industry and commerce       
gradually died out4 ,a few princes1     
subsidised and guarded by ,french or    
,imperialists1 kept up an appearance of 
cheerfulness1 but the courts even grew  
more gloomy as the people grew more     
miserable4 ,there is more joking1 more  
resonant laughter in ,ariosto than in   
,boiardo1 but there is very much less   

serenity and cheerfulness2 ever and anon
 a sort of bitterness1 a dreary         
moralizing tendency1 a still more dreary
 fit of prophesying future good in which
 he has no belief1 comes over ,ariosto4 
,berni1 who rewrote the ,orlando        
,innamorato in choice ,tuscan1 and who  
underlined every faintly marked jest of 
,boiardo's1 with evident preoccupation  
of the ludicrous effects of the         
,morgante ,maggiore--,berni even could  
not keep up his spirits2 into the middle
 of ,boiardo's serene fairyland         
adventures he inserted a description of 
the sack of ,rome which is simply       
harrowing4 ,all real cheerfulness       
departed from the people1 to be replaced
 only by pleasure in the debaucheries of
 the buffoonish obscenity of ,aretino1  
,bandello1 and so forth1 to which the   
men of the dying ,italy of the          
,renaissance listened as the roysterers 
of the plague of ,florence1 with the    
mortal sickness almost upon them1 may   
have listened to the filthy songs which 

they trolled out in their drunkenness4  
,or at best1 the poor starved1 bruised1 
battered1 humiliated nation may have    
tried to be cheerful on the principle of
 its harlequin playwright ,beolco1 who1 
more honest than the ,ariostos and      
,bibbienas1 and ,aretines1 came forward 
on his stage of planks at ,padua1 and   
after describing the ruin and           
wretchedness of the country1 the sense  
of dreariness and desolation1 which made
 young folk careless of marriage1 and   
the very nightingales 7he thought7      
careless of song1 recommended his       
audience1 since they could not even cry 
thoroughly and to feel any the better   
for it1 to laugh1 if they still were    
able4 ,boiardo was forgotten2 his spirit
 was unsuited to the depression1 gloomy 
brutality1 gloomy sentimentality1 which 
grew every day as ,italy settled down   
after its ,renaissance-,shrovetide in   
the cinders and fasting of the long     
,lent of ,spanish and ,jesuit rule4     
,still the style of ,boiardo was not yet

 exhausted2 the peculiar kind of fairy  
epic1 the peculiar combination of       
chivalric and classic elements of which 
the ,orlando ,innamorato and the        
,orlando ,furioso1 had been the great   
examples1 still fascinated poets and    
public4 ,the ,renaissance1 or what      
remained of it1 was now no longer       
confined to ,italy2 it had spread1      
paler1 more diluted1 shallower1 over the
 rest of ,europe4 ,to follow the        
filiation of schools1 to understand the 
intellectual relationships of           
individuals1 of the latter half of the  
sixteenth century1 it becomes necessary 
to move from one country to another4    
,and thus the two brother poets of the  
family of ,boiardo1 its two last and    
much saddened representatives1 came to  
write in very different languages and   
under very different circumstances4     
,these two are ,tasso and our own       
,spenser4 ,they are both poets of the   
school of the ,orlando ,innamorato1 both
 poets of a reaction1 of a kind of      

purified ,renaissance3 the one of the   
late ,italian ,renaissance emasculated  
by the ,council of ,trent and by ,spain2
 the other of the ,english ,renaissance1
 in its youth truly1 but1 in the        
individual case of ,spenser1 timidly    
drawn aside from the excesses of buoyant
 life around4 ,in the days of the       
semi-atheist dramatists1 all flesh and  
blood and democracy1 ,spenser steeps    
himself in ,christianity and chivalry1  
even as ,tasso does1 following on the   
fleshly levity and scepticism of        
,boiardo1 ,berni1 and ,ariosto4 ,there  
is in both poets a paleness1 a certain  
diaphanous weakness1 an absence of      
strong tint or fibre or perfume2 in     
,tasso the pallor of autumn1 in ,spenser
 the paleness of spring3 autumn left sad
 and leafless by the too voluptuous heat
 and fruitfulness of summer2 spring     
still pale and pinched by winter1 with  
timid nipped grass and unripe stiff buds
 and catkins1 which never suggest the   
tangle of bush1 grasses1 and magnificent

 flowers and fruits1 sweet1 splendid1 or
 poisonous1 which the sun will make out 
of them4 ,the ,renaissance1 in the past 
for ,tasso1 in the proximate and very   
visible future for ,spenser1 has        
frightened both2 the cynicism and       
bestiality of men like ,machiavelli and 
,aretino2 the godless1 muscular         
lustiness of ,marlowe1 ,greene1 and     
,peele1 seen in a glimpse by ,tasso and 
,spenser1 have given a shock to their   
sensitive nature1 have made them turn   
away and hide themselves from a second  
sight of it4 ,they both take refuge in a
 land of fiction1 of romance1 from the  
realities into which they dread to      
splash2 a world unsubstantial1          
diaphanous1 faint-hued1 almost          
passionless1 which they make out of     
beauty and heroism and purity1 which    
they alembicize and refine1 but into    
which there never enters any vital      
element1 anything to give it flesh and  
bone and pulsing life3 it is a mere soap
 bubble4 ,and beautiful as is this world

 of their own making1 it is too negative
 even for them2 they move in it only in 
imagination1 calm1 serene1 vacant1      
almost sad4 ,there is in it1 and in     
themselves1 a something wanting2 and the
 remembrance of that unholy-life of     
reality which jostled and splashed their
 delicate souls1 comes back and haunts  
them with its evil thought4 ,there is no
 laugh--what is worse1 no smile --in    
these men4 ,incipient puritanism1 not   
yet the terrible brawny reality of      
,bunyan1 but a vague1 grey spectre1     
haunts ,spenser2 and the puritanism of  
,don ,quixote1 the vague1 melancholy1   
fantastic reverting from the evil world 
of to-day to an impossible world of     
chivalry1 is troubling the sight of     
,tasso4 ,he cannot go crazy like ,don   
,quixote1 and instead he grows          
melancholy2 he cannot believe in his own
 ideals2 he cannot give them life1 any  
more than can ,spenser give life to his 
allegoric knights and ladies1 because   
the life would have to be fetched by    

,tasso out of the flesh of ,ariosto1 and
 by ,spenser out of the blood of        
,marlowe2 and both ,tasso and ,spenser  
shrink at the thought of what might with
 it be inoculated or transfused2 and    
they rest satisfied with phantoms4 ,the 
phantoms of ,spenser are more shadowy   
much more utterly devoid of human       
character2 they are almost metaphysical 
abstractions1 and they do not therefore 
sadden us3 they are too unlike living   
things to seem very lifeless4 ,but the  
phantoms of ,tasso1 he would fain make  
realities2 he works at every detail of  
character1 history1 or geography1 which 
may make his people real2 they are not1 
as with ,spenser1 elves and wizards     
flitting about in a nameless fairyland1 
characterless and passionless2 they are 
historical creatures1 captains and      
soldiers in a country mapped out by the 
geographer2 but they are phantoms all   
the more melancholy1 these beautiful and
 heroic ,clorindas and ,erminias and    
,tancreds and ,godfreys--why8 because   

the real world around ,tasso is peopled 
with ,brachianos and ,corombonas1 and   
,annabellas and ,giovannis1 creatures   
for ,webster and ,ford2 and because this
 world of chivalry is1 in his ,italy1 as
 false as the world of ,amadis and      
,esplandian in ,toboso and ,barcelona   
for poor ,don ,quixote4 ,melancholy     
therefore1 and dreamy1 both ,tasso and  
,spenser1 with nothing they can fully   
love in reality1 because they see it    
tainted with reality and evil2 without  
the cheerful falling back upon everyday 
life of ,ariosto and ,shakespeare1 and  
with a strange fancy for fairyland1 for 
the distant1 for the ,happy ,islands1   
the ,st4 ,brandan's ,isles1 the country 
of the fountain of youth1 the country of
 which vague reports have come back with
 the ships of ,raleigh and ,ponce de    
,leon4 ,tasso and ,spenser are happiest1
 in their calm1 melancholy way1 when    
they can let themselves go in           
day-dreams1 and talk of things in which 
they do not believe1 of diamond shields 

which stun monsters of ointments which  
cure all ills of body and of soul of    
enchanted groves whose trees sound with 
voices1 and lutes1 of boats in which1   
steered by fairies1 we can glide across 
the scarcely rippled summer sea1 and    
watching the ruins of the past1 time and
 reality left behind1 set sail for some 
strange land of bliss4 ,and there is in 
the very sensuousness and love of       
beauty-of these men a vagueness and     
melancholy1 a constant3 sense of the    
fleeting and of the eternal1 as in that 
passage1 translated from the languidly  
sweet ,italian perfection of ,tasso into
 the timid1 almost scentless1 ,english  
of ,spenser--,cosi trapassa al trapassar
 d'un giorno4        ,so passeth1 in the
 passing of a day1       ,of mortall    
life the leafe1 the bud1 the flowre     
,no more doth florish after first decay1
      ,that earst was sought to deck    
both bed and bowre      ,of many a lady1
 and many a ,paramowre4      ,gather    
therefore the ,rose whilest yet is      

prime1      ,for soone comes age that   
will her pride deflowre2      ,gather   
the ,rose of love whitest yet is time1  
,whitest loving thou mayest loved be    
withe equall crime4   ,a sense of       
evanescence1 of dreamlikeness1 quite    
different from the thoughtless enjoyment
 of ,boiardo1 from the bold and manly   
facing of the future1 the solemn1 strong
 sense of life and death as of waking   
realities1 of the ,elizabethan          
dramatists1 even of weaklings like      
,massinger and ,beaumont4 ,in ,tasso and
 in ,spenser there is no such           
joyousness1 no such solemnity2 only a   
dreamy watching1 a regret which is      
scarcely a regret1 at the evanescence of
 pale beauty and pale life1 of joys     
feebly felt and evils meekly borne4     
,with ,tasso and ,spenser comes to a    
close the school of ,boiardo1 the small 
number of real artists who finally gave 
an enduring and beautiful shape to that 
strangely mixed and altered material of 
romantic epic left behind by the ,middle

 ,ages2 comes to an end at least till   
our own day of appreciative and         
deliberate imitation and selection and  
rearrangement of the artistic forms of  
the past4 ,until the revival 7after much
 study and criticism7 by our own poets  
of ,arthur and ,gudrun and the          
,fortunate ,isles1 the world had had    
enough of medival romance4 ,chivalry had
 avowedly ended in chamberlainry2 the   
devotion to women in the official       
routine of the cicisbeo2 the last       
romance to which the late ,renaissance  
had clung1 which made it sympathize with
 ,huon1 ,ogier1 ,orlando1 and ,rinaldo1 
which had made it take delight still in 
the fairyland of ,oberon1 of ,fallerina1
 of ,alcina1 of ,armida1 of ,acrasia1   
the romance of the new world1 had also  
turned into prose1 prose of             
blood-stained filth4 ,the humanistic and
 rationalistic men of the ,renaissance  
had doubtless early begun to turn up    
their noses in dainty dilettantism or   
scientific contempt1 at what were later 

to be called by ,montaigne1 ,ces        
,lancelots du ,lac1 ces ,amadis1 ces    
,huons et tels fatras di livres  quoy   
l'enfance s'amuse2 and by ,ben ,jonson3 
,public nothings1      ,abortives of the
 fabulous dark cloister1      ,sent out 
to poison courts1 and infect manners--  
the public at large was more constant1  
and still retained a love for medival   
romance4 ,but more than humanities1 more
 than scientific scepticism and         
religious puritanism1 did the slow      
dispelling of the illusion of ,eldorado 
and the ,fortunate ,isles4 ,mankind set 
sail for ,america in brilliant and      
knightly gear1 believing in fountains of
 youth and ,st4 ,brandan's ,isles1 with 
,ariosto1 ,tasso1 and ,spenser still in 
its pockets4 ,it returns from ,america  
either as the tattered fever-stricken   
ruffian1 or as the vulgar1 fat upstart  
of ,spanish comedy1 returns without     
honour or shame1 holding money 7and next
 to money1 negroes7 of greater account  
than any insignia of paladinship or the 

,round ,table2 it is brutal1 vulgar1    
cynical2 at best very sad1 and it gets  
written for its delectation the         
comic-tragic novels of rapscallions1    
panders1 prostitutes1 and card-sharpers1
 which from ,lazarillo de ,tormes to    
,gil ,blas1 and from ,gil ,blas to ,tom 
,jones1 finally replace the romances of 
the ,launcelots1 ,galahads1 ,rinaldos1  
and ,orlandos4    ,thus did the medival 
romantic-epic stuffs suffer alteration1 
adulteration1 and loss of character1    
throughout the long period of the       
,middle ,ages1 without ever receiving an
 artistic shape1 such as should make all
 men preserve and cherish them for the  
only thing which makes men preserve and 
cherish such things--that never to be   
wasted quality1 beauty4 ,the ,middle    
,ages were powerless to endow therewith 
their own subjects2 so the subjects had 
to wait1 altering more and more with    
every passing day1 till the coming of   
the ,renaissance4 ,and by that time     
these subjects had ceased to have any   

serious meaning whatever2 the ,roland of
 the song of ,roncevaux had become the  
crazy ,orlando of ,ariosto2 the ,renaud 
of ,the ,quatre ,fils ,aymon1 had become
 the ,rinaldo1 thrashed with sheaves of 
lilies by ,cupid1 of ,matteo ,boiardo4  
,the ,renaissance took up the old       
epic-romantic materials and made out of 
them works of art2 but works of art     
which1 as ,i said before1 were          
playthings gets written for its         
delectation the comic-tragic novels of  
rapscallions1 panders1 prostitutes1 and 
card-sharpers1 which1 from ,lazarillo de
 ,tormes to ,gil ,bias1 and from ,gil   
,bias to ,tom ,jones1 finally replace   
the romances of the ,launcelots1        
,galahads1 ,rinaldos1 and ,orlandos4    
99       99       99       99       99  
,,medieval ,,love4   ,on laying down the
 ,vita ,nuova our soul is at first      
filled and resounding with the love of  
,beatrice4 ,whatever habits or          
capacities of noble loving may lurk     
within ourselves1 have been awakened by 

the solemn music of this book1 and have 
sung in unison with ,dante's love till  
we have ceased to hear the voice of his 
passion and have heard only the voice of
 our own4 ,when the excitement has      
diminished1 when we have grown able to  
separate from our own feelings the      
feelings of the man dead these five     
centuries and a half1 and to realize the
 strangeness1 the obsoleteness of this  
love which for a moment had seemed our  
love2 then a new phase of impressions   
has set in1 and the ,vita ,nuova        
inspires us with mere passionate awe3   
awe before this passion which we feel to
 be no longer our own1 but far above and
 distant from us1 as in some rarer      
stratum of atmosphere2 awe before this  
woman who creates it1 or rather who is  
its creation4 ,even as ,dante fancied   
that the people of ,florence did when   
the bodily presence of this lady came   
across their path1 so do we cast down   
our glance as the image of ,beatrice    
passes across our mind4 ,nay1 the glory 

of her1 felt so really while reading the
 few1 meagre words in the book1 is      
stored away in our heart1 and clothes   
with a faint aureole the lady--if ever  
in our life we chance to meet her--in   
whom1 though ,dante tells us nothing of 
stature1 features1 eyes or hair1 we seem
 to recognize a likeness to her on whose
 passage ogni lingua divien tremando    
muta1 e gli occhi non ardiscon di       
guardare4 ,passion like this1 to        
paraphrase a line of ,rossetti's1 is    
genius2 and it arouses in such as look  
upon it the peculiar sense of wonder and
 love1 of awe-stricken raising up of him
 who contemplates1 which accompanies the
 contemplation of genius4  ,but it may  
be that one day we feel1 instead of     
this1 wonder indeed1 but wonder mingled 
with doubt4 ,this ideal love1 which     
craves for no union with its object2    
which seeks merely to see1 nay1 which is
 satisfied with mere thinking on the    
beloved one1 will strike us with the    
cold and barren glitter of the          

miraculous4 ,this ,beatrice1 as we gaze 
on her1 will prove to be no reality of  
flesh and blood like ourselves2 she is a
 form modelled in the semblance of that 
real1 living woman who died six         
centuries ago1 but the substance of     
which is the white fire of ,dante's     
love4 ,and the thought will arise that  
this purely intellectual love of a      
scarce-noticed youth for a scarce-known 
woman is a thing which does not belong  
to life1 neither sweetening nor         
ennobling any of its real relations2    
that it is1 in its dazzling purity and  
whiteness1 in fact a mere strange and   
sterile death light1 such as could not  
and should not1 in this world of ours1  
exist twice over4 ,and1 lest we should  
ever be tempted to think of this ideal  
love for ,beatrice as of a wonderful and
 beautiful1 but scarcely natural or     
useful phenomenon1 ,i would wish to     
study the story of its origin and its   
influence4 ,i would wish to show that   
had it not burned thus strangely        

concentrated and pure1 the poets of     
succeeding ages could not have taken    
from that white flame of love which     
,dante set alight upon the grave of     
,beatrice1 the spark of ideal passion   
which has1 in the noblest of our        
literature1 made the desire of man for  
woman and of woman for man burn clear   
towards heaven1 leaving behind the      
noisome ashes and soul-enervating       
vapours of earthly lust4   ,i4  ,the    
centuries have made us2 forcing us into 
new practices1 teaching us new habits1  
creating for us new capacities and      
wants2 adding1 ever and anon1 to the    
soul organism of mankind features which 
at first were but accidental            
peculiarities1 which became little by   
little qualities deliberately sought for
 and at lengths inborn and hereditary   
characteristics4 ,and thus1 in1 what we 
call the ,middle ,ages1 there was       
invented by the stress of circumstances1
 elaborated by half-conscious effort and
 bequeathed as an unalienable habit1 a  

new manner of loving4  ,the women of    
classical ,antiquity appear to us in    
poetry and imaginative literature as one
 of two things3 the wife or the         
mistress4 ,the wife1 ,penelope1         
,andromache1 ,alkestis1 nay1 even the   
charming young bride in ,xenophon's     
,oeconomics1 is1 while excluded from    
many concerns1 distinctly reverenced and
 loved in her own household capacity2   
but the reverence is of the sort which  
the man feels for his parents and his   
household gods1 and the affection is    
calm and gently rebuking like that for  
his children4 ,the mistress1 on the     
other hand1 is the object of passion    
which is often very vehement1 but which 
is always either simply fleshly or      
merely fancifully sthetic or both1 and  
which entirely precludes any save a     
degrading influence upon the sensual and
 suspicious lover4 ,even ,tibullus1 in  
love matters one of the most modern     
among the ancients1 and capable of      
painting many charming and delicate     

little domestic idyls even in connection
 with a mere bought mistress1 is        
perpetually accusing his ,delia of      
selling herself to a higher bidder1 and 
sighing at the high probability of her  
abandoning him for the ,illyrian prtor  
or some other rich amateur of pretty    
women4 ,the barbarous ,north--whose     
songs have come down to us either1 like 
the ,volsunga ,saga translated by ,mr4  
,morris1 in an original pagan version1  
or else1 as the ,nibelungenlied1 recast 
during the early ,middle ,ages--the     
,north tells us nothing of the venal    
paramour1 but knows nothing also beyond 
the wedded wife2 more independent and   
mighty perhaps than her counterpart of  
classical ,antiquity1 but although often
 bought1 like ,brynhilt or ,gudrun1 at  
the expense of tremendous adventures1   
cherished scarcely more passionately    
than the wives of ,odysseus and ,hector4
 ,thus1 before the ,middle ,ages1 there 
existed as a rule only a holy1 but      
indifferent and utterly unlyrical1 love 

for the women1 the equals of their      
husbands1 wooed usually of the family   
and solemnly given in marriage without  
much consultation of their wishes2 and a
 highly passionate and singing1 but     
completely profligate and debasing1     
desire for mercenary though cultivated  
creatures like the ,delias and ,cynthlas
 of ,tibullus and ,propertius1 or       
highborn women1 descended1 like         
,catullus' ,lesbia1 in brazen dishonour 
to their level1 women towards whom there
 could not possibly exist on the part of
 their lovers any sense of equality1    
much less of inferiority4 ,to these two 
kinds of love1 chaste but cold1 and     
passionate but unchaste1 the ,middle    
,ages added1 or rather opposed1 a new   
manner of loving1 which1 although a mere
 passing phenomenon1 has left the       
clearest traces throughout our whole    
mode of feeling and writing4  ,to       
describe medival love is a difficult    
matter1 and to describe it except in    
negations is next to impossibility4 ,i  

conceive it to consist in a certain     
sentimental1 romantic1 idealistic       
attitude towards women1 not by any means
 incompatible however with the grossest 
animalism2 an attitude presupposing a   
complete moral1 sthetical1 and social   
superiority on the part of the whole    
sex1 inspiring the very highest respect 
and admiration independently of the     
individual's qualities2 and reaching the
 point of actual worship1 varying from  
the adoration of a queen by a courtier  
to the adoration of a shrine by a       
pilgrim1 in the case of the one         
particular lady who happens to be the   
beloved2 an attitude in the relations of
 the sexes which results in love        
becoming an indispensable part of a     
noble life1 and the devoted attachment  
to one individual woman1 a necessary    
requisite of a gentlemanly training4    
,medival love is not merely a passion1 a
 desire1 an affection1 a habit2 it is a 
perfect occupation4 ,it absorbs1 or is  
supposed to absorb1 the ,individual2 it 

permeates his life like a religion4 ,it 
is not one of the interests of life1 or1
 rather1 one of life's phases2 it is the
 whole of life1 all other interests and 
actions either sinking into an          
unsingable region below it1 or merely   
embroidering a variegated pattern upon  
its golden background4 ,medival love1   
therefore1 never obtains its object1    
however much it may obtain the woman2   
for the object of medival love1 as of   
medival religious mysticism1 is not one 
particular act or series of acts1 but is
 its own exercise1 of which the various 
incidents of the drama between man and  
woman are merely so many results4 ,it   
has not its definite stages1 like the   
love of the men of classical ,antiquity 
or the heroic time of the ,north3 its   
stages of seeking1 obtaining1           
cherishing1 guarding2 it is always at   
the same point1 always in the same      
condition of half-religious1            
half-courtier-like adoration1 whether it
 be triumphantly successful or sighingly

 despairing4 ,the man and the woman--or 
rather1 ,i should say1 the knight and   
the lady1 for medival love is an        
aristocratic privilege1 and the love of 
lower folk is not a theme for song--the 
knight and the lady1 therefore1 seem    
always1 however knit together by habit1 
nay1 by inextricable meshes of guilt1   
somehow at the same distance from one   
another4 ,once they have seen and loved 
each other1 their passion burns on      
always evenly1 burns on 7at least       
theoretically7 to all eternity4 ,it     
seems almost as if the woman were a mere
 shrine1 a mysterious receptacle of the 
ineffable1 a grail cup1 a consecrated   
wafer1 but not the ineffable itself4    
,for there is always in medival love1   
however fleshly the incidents which it  
produces1 a certain ,platonic element2  
that is to say1 a craving for1 a pursuit
 of1 something which is an abstraction2 
an abstraction impossible to define in  
its constant shifting and shimmering1   
and which seems at one moment a social  

standard1 a religious ideal1 or both1   
and which merges for ever in the        
dazzling1 vague sheen of the ,eternal   
,feminine4 ,hence1 one of the most      
distinctive features of medival love1 an
 extraordinary sameness of intonation1  
making it difficult to distinguish      
between the bon fide passion for which a
 man risks life and honour1 and the mere
 conventional gallantry of the knight   
who sticks a lady's glove on his helmet 
as a compliment to her rank2 nay1       
between the impure adoration of an      
adulterous lamia like ,yseult1 and the  
mystical adoration of a glorified       
,mother of ,god2 for both are women1    
both are ladies1 and therefore the      
greatest poet of the early ,middle      
,ages1 ,gottfried von ,strassburg1 sings
 them both with the same religious      
respect1 and the same hysterical        
rapture4 ,this medival love is          
furthermore a deliberately expected1    
sought-for1 and received necessity in a 
man's life2 it is not an accident1 much 

less an incidental occurrence to be     
lightly taken or possibly avoided3 it is
 absolutely indispensable to man's      
social training1 to his moral and       
sthetical self-improvement2 it is part  
and parcel of manhood and knighthood4   
,hence1 where it does not arise of      
itself 7and where a man is full of the  
notion of such love1 it is rare that it 
does not come but too soon7 it has to be
 sought for4 ,ulrich von ,liechtenstein1
 in his curious autobiography written   
late in the twelfth century1 relates how
 ever since his childhood he had been   
aware of the necessity of the loyal love
 service of a lady for the              
accomplishment of knightly duties2 and  
how1 as soon as he was old enough to    
love1 he looked around him for a lady   
whom he might serve2 a proceeding       
renewed in more prosaic days and with a 
curious pedantic smack1 by ,lorenzo dei 
,medici2 and then again1 perhaps for the
 last time1 by the ,knight of ,la       
,mancha1 in that memorable discussion   

which ended in the enthronement as his  
heart's queen of the unrivalled         
,dulcinea of ,toboso4 ,frowendienst1    
lady's service1 is the name given by    
,ulrich von ,liechtenstein1 a medival   
,quixote1 outshining by far the mad     
,provenals ,rudel and ,vidal1 to the    
memoirs very delightfully done into     
modern ,german by ,ludwig ,tieck2 and   
lady's service is the highest occupation
 of knightly leisure1 the subject of the
 immense bulk of medival poetry4 ,lady's
 service in deeds of arms and song1 in  
constant praise and defence of the      
beloved1 in heroic enterprise and madcap
 mummery1 in submission and terror to   
the wondrous creature whom the humble   
servant1 the lover1 never calls by her  
sacred name1 speaking of her in words   
unknown to ,antiquity1 dompna1 dame1    
frowe1 madonna--words of which the      
original sense has almost been          
forgotten1 although there cleave to them
 even now ideas higher than those       
associated with the puella of the       

ancients1 the wib of the heroic         
days--lady1 mistress--the titles of the 
,mother of ,god1 who is1 after all1 only
 the mystical ,soul's ,paramour of the  
medival world4 ,lady's service--the     
almost technical word1 expressing the   
position1 half-serf-like1               
half-religious1 the bonds of complete   
humility and never-ending faithfulness1 
the hopes of reward1 the patience under 
displeasure1 the pride in the livery of 
servitude1 the utter absorption of the  
life of one individual in the life of   
another2 which constitute in ,provence1 
in ,france1 in ,germany1 in ,england1 in
 ,italy1 in the fabulous kingdoms of    
,arthur and ,charlemagne1 the strange   
new thing which ,i have named ,medival  
,love4  ,has such a thing really        
existed8 ,are not these medival poets   
leagued together in a huge conspiracy to
 deceive us8 ,is it possible that strong
 men have wept and fainted at a mere    
woman's name1 like the ,count of ,nevers
 in ,flamenca1 or that their mind has   

swooned away in months of reverie like  
that of ,parzifal in ,eschenbach's poem2
 that worldly wise and witty men have   
shipped off and died on sea for love of 
an unseen woman like ,jaufre ,rudel2 or 
dressed in wolf's hide and lurked and   
fled before the huntsmen-like ,peire    
,vidal2 or mangled their face and cut   
off their finger1 and1 clothing         
themselves in rags more frightful than  
,nessus' robe1 mixed in the untouchable 
band of lepers like ,ulrich von         
,liechtenstein8 ,is it possible to      
believe that the insane enterprises of  
the ,amadises1 ,lisvarts and            
,felixmartes of late medival romance1   
that the behaviour of ,don ,quixote in  
the ,sierra ,morena1 ever had any       
serious models in reality8 ,nay1 more   
difficult still to believe--because the 
whole madness of individuals is more    
credible than the half-madness of the   
whole world--is it possible to believe  
that1 as the poems of innumerable       
trouvres and troubadours1 minnesingers  

and ,italian poets1 as the legion of    
medival romances of the cycles of       
,charlemagne1 ,arthur1 and ,amadis would
 have it1 that during so long a period  
of time society could have been         
enthralled by this hysterical1          
visionary1 artificial1 incredible       
religion of medival love8 ,it is at once
 too grotesque and too beautiful1 too   
high and too low1 to be credible2 and   
our first impulse1 on closing the       
catechisms and breviaries1 the          
legendaries and hymn-books of this      
strange new creed1 is to protest that   
the love poems must be allegories1 the  
love romances solar myths1 the ,courts  
of ,love historical bungles2 that all   
this medival world of love is a figment1
 a misinterpretation1 a falsehood4  ,but
 if we seek more than a mere casual     
impression2 if1 instead of feeling      
sceptical over one or two fragments of  
evidence1 we attempt to collect the     
largest possible number of facts        
together2 if we read not one medival    

love story1 but twenty--not half a dozen
 medival love poems1 but several scores2
 if we really investigate into the      
origin of the apparent myth1 the case   
speedily alters4 ,little by little this 
which had been inconceivable becomes not
 merely intelligible1 but inevitable2   
the myth becomes an historical          
phenomenon of the most obvious and      
necessary sort4 ,medival love1 which had
 seemed to us a poetic fiction1 is      
turned into a reality2 and a reality1   
alas1 which is prosaic4 ,let us look at 
it4  ,medival love is first revealed in 
the sudden and almost simultaneous burst
 of song which1 like the twitter and    
trill so dear to trouvres1 troubadours1 
and minnesingers1 fills the woods that  
yesterday were silent and dead1 and     
greeted the earliest sunshine1 the      
earliest faint green after the long     
winter numbness of the dark ages1 after 
the boisterous gales of the earliest    
,crusade4 ,the ,french and ,provenals   
sang first1 the ,germans later1 the     

,sicilians last2 but although we may say
 after deliberate analysis1 such or such
 a form1 or such or such a story1 was   
known in this country before it appeared
 in that one1 such imitation or         
suggestion was so rapid that with regard
 to the ,french1 the ,provenals1 and the
 ,germans at least1 the impression is   
simultaneous2 only the ,sicilians       
beginning distinctly later1 forerunners 
of the new love lyric1 wholly different 
from that of trouvres1 troubadours1 and 
minnesingers1 of the ,italians of the   
latter thirteenth century4 ,and this    
simultaneous revelation of medival love 
takes place in the last quarter of the  
twelfth century1 when ,northern ,france 
had already consolidated into a powerful
 monarchy1 and ,paris1 after the        
teachings of ,ablard1 was recognized as 
the intellectual metropolis of ,europe2 
when south of the ,loire the brilliant  
,angevine kings held the overlordship of
 the cultured ,raymonds of ,toulouse and
 of the reviving ,latin municipalities  

of ,provence  when ,germany was welded  
as a compact feudal mass by the most    
powerful of the ,stauffens2 and the     
papacy had been built up by ,gregory and
 ,alexander into a political wall       
against which ,frederick and ,henry     
vainly battered2 when the ,italian      
commonwealths grew slowly but surely1 as
 yet still far from guessing that the   
day would come when their democracy     
should produce a new civilization to    
supersede this triumphant medival       
civilization of the early ,capetiens1   
the ,angevines1 and the ,hohenstauffens4
 ,europe was setting forth once more for
 the ,east2 but no longer as the        
ignorant and enthusiastic hordes of     
,peter the ,hermit3 ,asia was the great 
field for adventure1 the great teacher  
of new luxuries1 at once the ,eldorado  
and the grand tour of all the brilliant 
and inquisitive and unscrupulous        
chivalry of the day4 ,and1 while into   
the ,west were insidiously entering     
habits and modes of thought of the      

,east2 throughout ,germany and          
,provence1 and throughout the still     
obscure free burghs of ,italy1 was      
spreading the first indication of that  
emotional mysticism which1 twenty or    
thirty years later1 was to burst out in 
the frenzy of spiritual love of ,st4    
,francis and his followers4 ,the moment 
is one of the most remarkable in all    
history3 the premature promise in the   
twelfth century of that intellectual    
revival which was delayed throughout    
,northern ,europe until the sixteenth4  
,it is the moment when society settled  
down1 after the anarchy of eight hundred
 years1 on its feudal basis2 a basis    
fallaciously solid1 and in whose        
presence no one might guess that the    
true and definitive ,renaissance would  
arise out of the democratic civilization
 of ,italy4  ,such is the moment when we
 first hear the almost universal song of
 medival love4 ,this song comes from the
 triumphantly reorganized portion of    
society1 not from the part which is     

slowly working its way to               
reorganization2 not from the timidly    
encroaching burghers1 but from the      
nobles4 ,the reign of town poetry1 of   
fabliaux and meistersang1 comes later2  
the poets of the early ,middle ,ages1   
trouvres1 troubadours1 and minnesingers 
are1 with barely one or two exceptions1 
all knights4 ,and their song comes from 
the castle4 ,now1 in order to understand
 medival love1 we must reflect for a    
moment upon this feudal castle1 and upon
 the kind of life which the love poets  
of the late twelfth and early thirteenth
 century--whether lords like ,bertram de
 ,born1 and ,guillaume de ,poitiers1    
among the troubadours2 the ,vidame de   
,chartres1 ,meurisses de ,craon1 and the
 ,duke of ,brabant among the trouvres of
 ,northern ,france2 like ,ulrich von    
,liechtenstein among the minnesingers2  
or retainers and hangers-on like        
,bernard de ,ventadour and ,armand de   
,mareulh1 like ,chrestiens de ,troyes1  
,gaisses ,brulez1 or ,quienes de        

,bthune1 like ,walther1 ,wolfram1 and   
,tannhuser--great or small1 good or bad1
 saw before them and mixed with in that 
castle4 ,the castle of a great feudatory
 of the early ,middle ,ages1 whether    
north or south of the ,loire1 in        
,austria or in ,franconia1 is like a    
miniature copy of some garrison town in 
barbarous countries3 there is an        
enormous numerical preponderance of men 
over women2 for only the chiefs in      
command1 the overlord1 and perhaps one  
or two of his principal kinsmen or      
adjutants1 are permitted the luxury of a
 wife2 the rest of the gentlemen are    
subalterns1 younger sons without means1 
youths sent to learn their military duty
 and the ways of the world3 a whole pack
 of men without wives1 without homes1   
and usually without fortune4 ,high above
 all this deferential male crowd1 moves 
the lady of the castle3 highborn1 proud1
 having brought her husband a dower of  
fiefs often equal to his own1 and of    
vassals devoted to her race4 ,about her 

she has no equals2 her daughters1       
scarcely out of the nurse's hands1 are  
given away in marriage2 and her         
companions1 if companions they may be   
called1 are the waiting ladies1 poor    
gentlewomen situated between the maid of
 honour and the ladies' maid1 like that 
,brangwaine whom ,yseult sacrifices to  
her intrigue with ,tristram1 or those   
damsels whom ,flamenca gives over to the
 squires of her lover ,guillems2 at     
best1 the wife of one of her husband's  
subalterns1 or some sister or aunt or   
widow kept by charity4 ,round this      
lady--the stately1 proud lady           
perpetually described by medival        
poets--flutters the swarm of young men1 
all day long1 in her path3 serving her  
at meals1 guarding her apartments1 nay1 
as pages1 admitted even into her most   
secret chamber2 meeting her for ever in 
the narrowness of that castle life1     
where every unnecessary woman is a      
burden usurping the place of a soldier1 
and1 if possible1 replaced by a man4    

,servants1 lacqueys1 and enjoying the   
privileges of ubiquity of lacqueys1 yet1
 at the same time1 men of good birth and
 high breeding1 good at the sword and at
 the lute2 bound to amuse this highborn 
woman1 fading away in the monotony of   
feudal life1 with few books to read or  
unable to read them1 and far above all  
the household concerns which devolve on 
the butler1 the cellarer1 the steward1  
the gentleman1 honourably employed as a 
servant4 ,to them1 to these young men1  
with few or no young women of their own 
age to associate1 and absolutely no     
unmarried girls who could be a desirable
 match1 the lady of the castle speedily 
becomes a goddess1 the impersonation at 
once of that feudal superiority before  
which they bow1 of that social          
perfection which they are commanded to  
seek1 and of that womankind of which the
 castle affords so few examples4 ,to    
please her1 this lazy1 bored1 highbred  
woman1 with all the squeamishness and   
caprice of high birth and laziness about

 her1 becomes their ideal2 to be        
favourably noticed1 their highest glory2
 to be loved1 these wretched mortals1 by
 this divinity--that thought must often 
pass through their brain and terrify    
them with its delicious audacity2 oh no1
 such a thing is not possible4 ,but it  
is4 ,the lady at first1 perhaps most    
often1 singles out as a pastime some    
young knight1 some squire1 some page2   
and1 in a half-queenly1 half-motherly   
way1 corrects1 rebukes his deficiencies1
 undertakes to teach him his duty as a  
servant4 ,the romance of the ,petit     
,jehan de ,saintre1 written in the      
fifteenth century1 but telling1 with a  
delicacy of cynicism worthy of ,balzac1 
what must have been the old1 old story  
of the whole feudal ,middle ,ages1 shows
 the manner in which1 while feeling that
 he is being trained to knightly        
courtesy and honour1 the young man in   
the service of a great feudal lady is   
gradually taught dissimulation1 lying1  
intrigue2 is initiated by the woman who 

looms above him like a saint into all   
the foulness of adultery4 ,adultery2 a  
very ugly word1 which must strike almost
 like a handful of mud in the face      
whosoever has approached this subject of
 medival love in admiration of its      
strange delicacy and enthusiasm4 ,yet it
 is a word which must be spoken1 for in 
it is the explanation of the whole      
origin and character of this passion    
which burst into song in the early      
,middle ,ages4 ,this almost religious   
love1 this love which conceives no      
higher honour than the service of the   
beloved1 no higher virtue than eternal  
fidelity--this love is the love for     
another man's wife4 ,between unmarried  
young men and young women1 kept         
carefully apart by the system which     
gives away a girl without her consent   
and only to a rich suitor1 there is no  
possibility of love in these early      
feudal courts2 the amours1 however      
licentious1 between kings' daughters and
 brave knights1 of the ,carolingian     

tales1 belong to a different rank of    
society1 to the prose romances made up  
in the fourteenth century for the       
burgesses of cities2 the intrigues1     
ending in marriage1 of the princes and  
princesses of the cycle of ,amadis1     
belong to a different period1 to the    
fifteenth century1 and to courts where  
feudal society scarcely exists2 the     
squires1 the young knights who hang     
about a great baronial establishment of 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries1   
have still to make their fortune1 and do
 not dream of marriage4 ,the husband1 on
 the other hand1 the great lord or      
successful knightly adventurer1 married 
late in life1 and married from the      
necessity1 for ever pressing upon the   
feudal proprietor1 of adding on new     
fiefs and new immunities1 of increasing 
his importance and independence in      
proportion to the hourly increasing     
strength and claims of the overlord1 the
 king1 who casts covetous eyes upon     
him--the husband has not married for    

love2 he has had his love affairs with  
the wives of other men in his day1 or   
may still have them2 this lady is a mere
 feudal necessity1 she is required to   
give him a dower and give him an heir1  
that is all4 ,if the husband does not   
love1 how much less can the wife2       
married1 as she is1 scarce knowing what 
marriage is1 to a man much older than   
herself1 whom most probably she has     
never seen1 to whom she is a mere       
investment4 ,nay1 there is not even the 
after-marriage love of the ancients3    
this wife is not the housekeeper1 the   
woman who works that the man's house may
 be rich and decorous2 not even the     
nurse of his children1 for the children 
are speedily given over to the squires  
and duennas2 she is the woman of another
 family who has come into his1 the      
stranger who must be respected 7as that 
most typical medival wife1 ,eleanor of  
,guienne1 was respected by her husbands7
 on account of her fiefs1 her vassals1  
her kinsfolk2 but who cannot be loved4  

,can there be love between man and wife8
 ,there cannot be love between man and  
wife4 ,this is no answer of mine1       
fantastically deduced from medival      
poetry4 ,it is the answer solemnly made 
to the solemnly asked question by the   
,court of ,love held by the ,countess of
 ,champagne in #aagd1 and registered by 
,master ,andrew the ,king of ,france's  
chaplain3 ,dicimus enim et stabilito    
tenore firmamus amorem non posse inter  
duos jugales suas extendere vires4 ,and 
the reason alleged for this judgment    
brings us back to the whole conception  
of medival love as a respectful service 
humbly waiting for a reward3 ,for1      
pursues the decision published by ,andr 
le ,chapelain1 whereas lovers grant to  
each other favours freely and from no   
legal necessity1 married people have the
 duty of obeying each other's wishes and
 of refusing nothing to one another4 ,no
 love is possible between man and wife1 
repeat the ,courts of ,love which1      
consisting of all the highborn ladies of

 the province and presided by some      
mighty queen or princess1 represent the 
social opinions of the day4 ,but this   
lady1 says a knight 7,miles7 before the 
love tribunal of ,queen ,eleanor1       
promised to me that if ever she should  
lose the love of her lover1 she would   
take me in his place4 ,she has wedded   
the man who was her lover1 and ,i have  
come to claim fulfilment of her promise4
 ,the court discusses for awhile4 ,we   
cannot1 answers ,queen ,eleanor1 go     
against the ,countess of ,champagne's   
decision that love cannot exist between 
man and wife4 ,we therefore desire this 
lady to fulfil her promise and give you 
her love4 ,again1 there come to the     
,court of ,love of the ,viscountess of  
,narbonne a knight and a lady1 who      
desire to know whether1 having been once
 married1 but since divorced1 a love    
engagement between them would be        
honourable4 ,the viscountess decides    
that ,love between those who have been  
married together1 but who have since    

been divorced from one another1 is not  
to be deemed reprehensible2 nay1 that it
 is to be considered as honourable4 ,and
 these ,courts of ,love1 be it remarked1
 were frequently held on occasion of the
 marriage of great personages2 as1 for  
instance1 of that between ,louis ,,vii4 
and ,eleanor of ,poitiers in #aacg4 ,the
 poetry of the early ,middle ,ages      
follows implicitly the decisions of     
these tribunals1 which reveal a state of
 society to which the nearest modern    
approach is that of ,italy in the       
eighteenth century1 when1 as ,goldoni   
and ,parini show us1 as ,stendhal 7whose
 ,de l',amour may be taken as the modern
 ,breviari d',amor7 expounds1 there was 
no impropriety possible as long as a    
lady was beloved by any one except her  
own husband4 ,no love1 therefore1       
between unmarried people 7the cyclical  
romances1 as before stated1 and the     
,amadises1 belong to another time of    
social condition1 and the only real     
exception to my rule of which ,i can    

think is the lovely ,french tale of     
,aucassin et ,nicolette72 and no love   
between man and wife4 ,but love there   
must be2 and love there consequently is2
 love for the married woman from the man
 who is not her husband4 ,the feudal    
lady1 married without being consulted   
and without having had a chance of      
knowing what love is1 yet lives to know 
love2 lives to be taught it by one of   
these many bachelors bound to flutter   
about her in military service or social 
duty2 lives to teach it herself4 ,and   
she is too powerful in her fiefs and    
kinsmen1 too powerful in the public     
opinion which approves and supports her1
 to be hampered by her husband4 ,the    
husband1 indeed1 has grown up in the    
same habits1 has known1 before marrying1
 the customs sanctioned by the ,courts  
of ,love2 he has been the knight of some
 other man's wife in his day1 what right
 has he to object8 ,as in the days of   
,italian cecisbei1 the early medival    
lover might say with ,goldoni's ,don    

,alfonso or ,don ,roberto1 ,i serve your
 wife--such or such another serves mine1
 what harm can there be in it8 7,io     
servo vostra moglie1 ,don ,eugenio      
favorisce la mia2 che male c' e8 ,i am  
quoting from memory47 ,and as a fact1 we
 hear little of jealousy2 the amusement 
of ,en ,barral when ,peire ,vidal came  
in and kissed his sleeping wife2 and the
 indignation of all ,provence for the   
murder of ,guillems de ,cabestanh       
7buried in the same tomb with the lady  
who had been made to eat of his         
heart7--showing from opposite sides how 
the society accustomed to ,courts of    
,love looked upon the duties of         
husbands4  ,such was the social life in 
those feudal courts whence first arises 
the song of medival love1 and that this 
is the case is proved by the whole huge 
body of early medival poetry4 ,we must  
not judge1 as ,i have said1 either by   
poems of much earlier date1 like the    
,nibelungen and the ,carolingian        
chansons de geste1 which merely received

 a new form in the early ,middle ,ages2 
still less from the prose romances of   
,mlusine1 ,milles et ,amys1 ,palemon and
 ,arcite1 and a host of others which    
were elaborated only later and under the
 influence of the quite unfeudal habits 
of the great cities2 and least of all   
from that strange late southern cycle of
 the ,amadises1 from which1 odd as it   
seems1 many of our notions of chivalric 
love have1 through our ancestors1       
through the satirists or burlesque poets
 of the sixteenth and seventeenth       
centuries1 been inherited4 ,we must look
 at the tales which1 as we are          
constantly being told by trouvres1      
troubadours1 and minnesingers1 were the 
fashionable reading of the feudal       
classes of the twelfth and thirteenth   
centuries3 the tales best known to us in
 the colourless respectability of the   
collection made in the reign of ,edward 
,,iv4 by ,sir ,thomas ,malory1 and      
called by him the ,morte d',arthur--of  
the ladies and knights of ,arthur's     

court2 of the quest of the ,grail by    
spotless knights who were bastards and  
fathers of bastards2 of the intrigues of
 ,tristram of ,lyoness and ,queen       
,yseult2 of ,launcelot and ,guenevere2  
the tales which ,francesca and ,paolo   
read together4 ,we must look1 above all1
 at the lyric poetry of ,france1        
,provence1 ,germany1 and ,sicily in the 
early ,middle ,ages4        ,vos qui trs
 bien ameis i petit mentendeis      ,por
 l'amor de ,ihesu les pucelles ameis4   
,nos trouvons en escris de sainte       
auctoriteis      ,ke pucelle est la     
fleur de loyaulment ameir4   ,this      
strange entreaty to love the maidens for
 the sake of ,christ's love1 this       
protest of a nameless northern ,french  
poet 7,wackernagel1 ,altfranzsische     
,lieder and ,leiche ,,ix47 against the  
adulterous passion of his               
contemporaries1 comes to us1            
pathetically enough1 solitary1 faint1   
unnoticed in the vast chorus1 boundless 
like the spring song of birds or the    

sound of the waves1 of poets singing the
 love of other men's wives4 ,but1 it may
 be objected--how can we tell that these
 love songs1 so carefully avoiding all  
mention of names1 are not addressed to  
the desired bride1 to the legitimate    
wife of the poet8 ,for several reasons2 
and mainly1 for the crushing evidence of
 an undefinable something which tells us
 that they are not4 ,the other reasons  
are easily stated4 ,we know that feudal 
habits would never have allowed to      
unmarried women 7and women were married 
when scarcely out of their childhood7   
the opportunities for the relations     
which obviously exist between the poet  
and his lady2 and that1 if by some      
accident a young knight might fall in   
love with a girl1 he would address not  
her but her parents1 since the ,middle  
,ages1 who were indifferent to adultery1
 were1 like the southern nations among  
whom the married woman is not expected  
to be virtuous1 extreme sticklers for   
the purity of their unmarried womankind4

 ,further1 we have no instance of an    
unmarried woman being ever addressed    
during the early ,middle ,ages1 in those
 terms of social respect--madame1 domna1
 frowe1 madonna--which essentially      
belong to the mistress of a household2  
nor do these stately names fit in with  
any theory which would make us believe  
that the lady addressed by the poet is  
the jealously guarded daughter of the   
house with whom he is plotting a secret 
marriage1 or an elopement to end off in 
marriage4 ,this is not the way that     
,romeo speaks to ,juliet1 nor even that 
the princesses in the cyclical romances 
and in the ,amadises are wooed by their 
bridegrooms4 ,this is not the language  
of a lover who is broaching his love1   
and who hopes1 however timidly1 to      
consummate it before all the world by   
marriage4 ,it is obviously the language 
of a man either towards a woman who is  
taking a pleasure in keeping him        
dangling without favours which she has  
implicitly or explicitly promised2 or   

towards a woman who is momentarily      
withholding favours which her lover has 
habitually enjoyed4 ,and in a large     
proportion of cases the poems of        
trouvres1 troubadours1 and minnesingers 
are the expression of fortunate love1   
the fond recollection or eager          
expectation of meetings with the        
beloved4 ,all this can evidently not be 
connected with the wooing1 however      
stealthy1 however                       
,romeo-and-,juliet-like of a bride2     
still less can it be explained in       
reference to love within wedlock4 ,a man
 does not1 however loving1 worship his  
wife as his social superior2 he does not
 address her in titles of stiff respect2
 he does not sigh and weep and          
supplicate for love which is his due1   
and remind his wife that she owes it him
 in return for loyal1 humble1 discreet  
service4 ,above all1 a man 7except in   
some absurd comedy perhaps1 where the   
husband1 in an age of cicisbeos1 is in  
love with his own wife and dares not    

admit it before the society which holds 
that there can be no love between       
married folk 7--a husband1 ,i repeat1   
does not beg for1 arrange1 look forward 
to1 and recall with triumph or sadness1 
secret meetings with his own wife4 ,now 
the secret meeting is1 in nearly every  
aristocratic poet of the early poetry1  
the inevitable result of the humble     
praises and humble requests for         
kindness2 it is1 most obviously1 the    
reward for which the poet is always     
importuning4 ,medival love poetry1      
compared with the love poetry of        
,antiquity and the love poetry of the   
revival of letters1 is1 in its lyric    
form1 decidedly chaste2 but it is       
perfectly explicit2 and1 for all its    
metaphysical tendencies and its absence 
of clearly painted pictures1 the        
furthest possible removed from being    
,platonic4 ,one of the most important1  
characteristic1 and artistically        
charming categories of medival love     
lyrics is that comprising the ,provenal 

serena and alba1 with their counterparts
 in the langue d'oil1 and the so-called 
,wachtlieder of the minnesingers2 and   
this category of love poetry may be     
defined as the drama1 in four acts1 of  
illicit love4 ,the faithful lover has   
received from his lady an answer to his 
love1 the place and hour are appointed2 
all the day of which the evening is to  
bring him this honour1 he goes heavy    
hearted and sighing3 ,day1 much do you  
grow for my grief1 and the evening1 the 
evening and the long hope kills me4     
,thus far the serena1 the evening song1 
of ,guiraut ,riquier4 ,a lovely         
anonymous alba1 whose refrain1 ,oi deus1
 oi deus2 de l' alba1 tan tost ve6 is   
familiar to every smatterer of          
,provenal1 shows us the lady and her    
knight in an orchard beneath the        
hawthorn1 giving and taking the last    
kisses while the birds sing and the sky 
whitens with dawn4 ,the lady is gracious
 and pleasant1 and many look upon her   
for her beauty1 and her heart ,is all in

 loving loyally2 alas1 alas1 the dawn6  
how soon it3 comes6-- ,oi deus1 oi deus2
 de l'alba1 tan tost ve6 ,the real alba 
is the same as the ,german ,wachtlieder1
 the song of the squire or friend posted
 at the garden gate or outside the      
castle wall1 warning the lovers to      
separate4 ,fair comrade 7,bel           
,companho71 ,i call to you singing4     
',sleep no more1 for ,i hear the birds  
announcing the day in the trees1 and ,i 
fear that the jealous one may find you2'
 and in a moment it will be day1 ',bel  
,companho1 come to the window and look  
at the signs in the sky6 you will know  
me a faithful messenger2 if you do it   
not1 it will be to your harm and in a   
moment it will be dawn 7et ades sera l' 
alba7444 ,bel ,companho1 since ,i left  
you ,i have not slept nor raised myself 
from my knees2 for ,i have prayed to    
,god the ,son of ,saint ,mary1 that he  
should send me3 back my faithful        
comrade1 and in a moment it will be dawn
 ,in this alba of ,guiraut de ,borneulh1

 the lover comes at last to the window1 
and cries to his watching comrade that  
he is too happy to care either for the  
dawn or for the jealous one4 ,the       
,german ,wachtlieder are even more      
explicit4 ,he must away at once and     
without delay1 sings the watchman in a  
poem of ,wolfram1 the austere singer of 
,parzifal and the ,grail ,quest2 let him
 go1 sweet lady2 let him away from thy  
love so that he keep his honour and     
life4 ,he trusted himself to me that ,i 
should bring him safely hence2 it is day
 444 ,sing what thou wilt1 watchman1    
answers the lady1 but leave him here4   
,in a far superior1 but also far less   
chaste poem of ,heinrich von ,morungen1 
the lady1 alone and melancholy1 wakes up
 remembering the sad white light of     
morning1 the sad cry of the watchman1   
which separated her from her knight4    
,still more frankly1 and in a poem which
 is one of the few real masterpieces of 
,minnesang1 the lady in ,walther von der
 ,vogelweide's ,under der linden an der 

,heide narrates a meeting in the wood4  
,what passed between us shall never be  
known by any6 never by any1 save him and
 me--yes1 and by the little nightingale 
that sang ,tandaradei6 ,the little bird 
will surely be discreet4  ,the songs of 
light love for another's wife of        
troubadour1 trouvre1 and minnesinger1   
seem to have been squeezed together1 so 
that all their sweet and acrid perfume  
is1 so to speak1 sublimated1 in the     
recently discovered early ,provenal     
narrative poem called ,flamenca4 ,like  
the ,tristram of ,gottfried von         
,strassburg1 like all these light       
medival love lyrics1 of which ,i have   
been speaking1 the rhymed story of      
,flamenca1 a pale and simple1 but       
perfect petalled daisy1 has come up in a
 sort of moral and intellectual dell in 
the winter of the ,middle ,ages--a dell 
such as you meet in hollows of even the 
most wind-swept southern hills1 where1  
while all round the earth is frozen and 
the short grass nibbled away by the     

frost1 may be found even at ,christmas a
 bright sheen of budding wheat beneath  
the olives on the slope1 a yellow haze  
of sun upon the grass in which the      
little aromatic shoots of fennel and    
mint and marigold pattern with greenness
 the sere brown1 the frost-burnt2 where 
the very leafless fruit trees have a    
spring-like rosy tinge against the blue 
sky1 and the tufted little osiers flame 
a joyous orange against the greenness of
 the hill4  ,such spots there are--and  
many--in the winter of the ,middle      
,ages2 though it is not in them1 but    
where the rain beats1 and the snow and  
the wind tugs1 that grow1 struggling    
with bitterness1 the great things of the
 day3 the philosophy of ,ablard1 the    
love of man of ,st4 ,francis1 the       
patriotism of the ,lombard communes2 nor
 that lie dormant1 fertilized in the    
cold earth1 the great things of art and 
thought1 the great things to come4 ,but 
in them arise the delicate winter       
flowers which we prize3 tender1 pale    

things1 without much life1 things either
 come too soon or stayed too late1 among
 which is ,flamenca2 one of those roses1
 nipped and wrinkled1 but stained a     
brighter red by the frost1 which we     
pluck in ,december or in ,march2        
beautiful1 bright1 scentless roses1     
which1 scarce in bud1 already fall to   
pieces in our hand4 ,flamenca is simply 
the narrative of the loves of the       
beautiful wife of the bearish and       
jealous ,count ,archambautz1 and of     
,guillems de ,nevers1 a brilliant young 
knight who hears of the lady's sore     
captivity1 is enamoured before he sees  
her1 dresses up as the priest's clerk1  
and speaks one word with her while      
presenting the mass book to be kissed1  
every holiday2 and finally deceives the 
vigilance of the husband by means of a  
subterranean corridor1 which he gets    
built between his inn and the bath-room 
of the lady at the famous waters of     
,bourbon-les-,bains4 ,in this world of  
,flamenca1 which is in truth the same   

world as that of the ,romaunt of the    
,rose1 the ,morte d',arthur1 and of the 
love poets of early ,france and         
,germany1 conjugal morality and         
responsibility simply do not exist4 ,it 
seems an unreal pleasure-garden1 with a 
shadowy guardian--impalpable to us gross
 moderns--called ,honour1 but where1 as 
it seems1 ,love only reigns4 ,love1 not 
the mystic and melancholy god of the    
,vita ,nuova1 but a foppish young deity1
 sentimental at once and sensual1 of    
fashionable feudal life3 the god of     
people with no apparent duties towards  
others1 unconscious of any restraints   
save those of this vague thing called   
honour2 whose highest mission for the   
knight1 as put in our ,english ,romaunt 
of the ,rose is to--           ,set thy 
might and alle thy witte      ,wymmen   
and ladies for to plese1      ,and to do
 thyng that may hem ese2  while1 for the
 lady1 it is expressed with perfect     
simplicity of shamelessness by ,flamenca
 herself to her damsels1 teaching them  

that the woman must yield to the        
pleasure of her lover4 ,now love1 when  
young1 when1 so to speak1 but just born 
and able to feed 7as a newborn child on 
milk1 without hungering for more solid  
food7 on looks and words and sighs2 love
 thus young1 is a fair-seeming godhead1 
and the devotion to him a pretty and    
delicate piece of stheticism4 ,and such 
it is here in ,flamenca1 where there    
certainly exists neither ,god nor       
,christ1 both complete absentees1 whose 
priest becomes a courteous lover's      
valet1 whose church the place for       
amorous rendezvous1 whose sacrifice of  
mass and prayer becomes a means of      
amorous correspondence3 ,cupid1 in the  
shape of his slave ,guillems de         
,nevers--become patarin7zealot7 for     
love--peeping with shaven golden head   
from behind the missal1 touching the    
lady's hand and whispering with the     
words of spiritual peace the declaration
 of love1 the appointment for meeting4  
,god and ,christ1 ,i repeat1 are        

absentees4 ,where they are ,i know not2 
perhaps over the ,rhine with the        
,lollards in their weavers' dens1 or    
over the ,alps in the cell of ,st4      
,francis2 not here1 certainly1 or if    
here1 themselves become the mere slaves 
of love4 ,but this ,king ,love1 as long 
as a mere infant1 is a sweet and        
gracious divinity1 surrounded by        
somewhat of the freshness and hawthorn  
sweetness of spring which seem to       
accompany his favourite ,guillems4      
,guillems de ,nevers1 who could still   
grow1 this brilliant knight and         
troubadour1 in his white silken and     
crimson and purple garments and         
soundless shoes embroidered with        
flowers1 this prince of tournaments and 
tensos1 who hearing the sorrows of the  
beautiful ,flamenca1 loves her unseen1  
sits sighing in sight of her prison     
bower1 and faints like a hero of the    
,arabian ,nights at her name1 and has   
visions of her as ,st4 ,francis has of  
,christ2 this younger and brighter ,sir 

,launcelot1 is an ideal little figure1  
whom you might mistake for ,love himself
 as described in the ,romaunt of the    
,rose2 ,love's avatar or incarnation1 on
 whose appearance the year blooms into  
spring1 the fruit trees blossom1 the    
birds sing1 the girls dance at eve round
 the maypoles2 behind whom1 while       
reading this poem1 we seem to see the   
corn shine green beneath the olives1 the
 white-blossomed branches slant across  
the blue sky4 ,for is he not the very   
incarnation of chivalry1 of beauty1 and 
of love8 ,so much for this ,king ,love  
while but quite young4 ,unfortunately he
 is speedily weaned of his baby food of 
mere blushing glances and sighed-out    
names2 and then his aspect1 his         
kingdom's aspect1 the aspect of his     
votaries1 undergoes a change4 ,the      
profane but charming game of the loving 
clerk and the missal is exchanged for   
the more coarse hide-and-seek of hidden 
causeways and tightened bolts1 with     
jealous husbands guarding the useless   

door2 ,guillems becomes but an ordinary 
,don ,juan or ,lovelace1 ,flamenca but a
 sorry1 sneaking adulteress1 and the    
gracious damsels mere common sluts1     
curtseying at the loan 7during the      
interview of nobler folk7 of the        
gallant's squires4 ,for the scent of    
,may1 of fresh leaves and fallen        
blossoms1 we get the nauseous vapours of
 the bath-room2 and1 alas1 ,king ,love  
has lost his aureole and his wings and  
turned keeper of the hot springs1 sought
 out by the gouty and lepers1 of        
,bourbon-les-,bains2 and in closing this
 book1 so delightfully begun1 we sicken 
at the whiff of hot and fetid moral air 
as we should sicken in passing over the 
outlet of the polluted hot water4  ,but 
where is the use of telling us all this8
 the reader will ask2 every one knows   
that illicit passion existed and exists1
 and has its chroniclers1 its singers in
 prose and in verse4 ,but what has all  
this poetry of common adultery to do    
with a book like the ',vita ,nuova1'    

with that strange new thing1 that       
lifelong worship of a woman1 which you  
call medival love8 ,this much3 that out 
of this illicit love1 and out of it1    
gross as it looks1 alone arises the     
possibility of the ,vita ,nuova2 arises 
the possibility of the romantic and     
semi-religious love of the ,middle      
,ages4 ,or1 rather1 let us say that this
 mere loose love of the albas and       
,wachtlieder and ,flamenca1 is the      
substratum1 nay1 is the very flesh and  
blood1 of the spiritual passion to      
which1 in later days1 we owe the book of
 ,beatrice4  ,it is a harsh thing to    
say1 but one which all sociology teaches
 us1 that as there exists no sensual    
relation which cannot produce for its   
ennoblement a certain amount of passion1
 so also does there exist no passion    
7and ,phdrus is there to prove it7 so   
vile and loathsome as to be unable to   
weave about itself a glamour of ideal   
sentiment4 ,the poets of the ,middle    
,ages strove after the criminal         

possession of another man's wife4 ,this1
 however veiled with fine and delicate  
poetic expressions1 is the thing for    
which they wait and sigh and implore2   
this is the reward1 the supremely       
honouring and almost sanctifying reward 
which the lady cannot refuse to the     
knight who has faithfully and humbly    
served her4 ,the whole bulk of the love 
lyrics of the early ,middle ,ages are   
there to prove it2 and if the allusions 
in them are not sufficiently clear1     
those who would be enlightened may study
 the discussions of the allegorical     
persons even in the ,english 7and later7
 version of ,guillaume de ,lorris'      
,roman de la ,rose2 and turn to what1   
were it in langue d'oc1 we should call a
 tenso of ,guillaume li ,viniers among  
,mtzner's ,altfranzsische               
,lieder-dichter4 ,the catastrophe of    
,ulrich von ,liechtenstein's            
,frowendienst1 where the lady1 the      
virtuous1 the pure1 as he is pleased to 
call her1 after making him cut off his  

finger1 dress in leper's clothes1 chop  
off part of his upper lip1 and go       
through the most marvellous ,quixotic   
antics dressed in satin and pearls and  
false hair as ,queen ,venus1 and        
jousting in this costume with every     
knight between ,venice and ,styria1 all 
for her honour and glory2 pulls the     
gallant in a basket up to her window1   
and then lets him drop down into the    
moat which is no better than a sewer2   
this grotesque and tragically resented  
end of ,ulrich's first love service     
speaks volumes on the point4 ,the stones
 in ,nostradamus' ,lives of the         
,troubadours1 the incidents in          
,gottfried's ,tristan und ,isolde1 nay1 
the adventures even in our expunged     
,english ,morte d',arthur1 relating to  
the birth of ,sir ,galahad1 are as      
explicit as anything in ,brantme or the 
,queen of ,navarre2 the most delicate   
love songs of ,provence and ,germany are
 cobwebs spun round ,decameronian       
situations4 ,and all this is permitted1 

admitted1 sanctioned by feudal society  
even as the cecisbeos of the noble      
,italian ladies were sanctioned by the  
society of the seventeenth and          
eighteenth centuries4 ,in the medival   
castle1 where1 as we have seen1 the     
lady1 separated from her own sex1 is    
surrounded by a swarm of young men      
without a chance of marriage1 and bound 
to make themselves agreeable to the wife
 of a military superior2 the woman soon 
ceases to be the exclusive property of  
her husband1 and the husband speedily   
discovers that the majority1 hence      
public ridicule1 are against any attempt
 at monopolizing her4 ,thus adultery    
becomes1 as we have seen1 accepted as an
 institution under the name of service2 
and1 like all other social institutions1
 developes a morality of its own--a     
morality within immorality1 of          
faithfulness within infidelity4 ,the    
lady must be true to her knight1 and the
 knight must be true to his lady3 the   
,courts of ,love solemnly banish from   

society any woman who is known to have  
more than one lover4 ,faithfulness is   
the first and most essential virtue of  
medival love2 a virtue unknown to the   
erotic poets of ,antiquity1 and which   
modern times have inherited from the    
,middle ,ages as a requisite1 even 7as  
the reproaches of poets of the ,alfred  
de ,musset school teach us7 in the most 
completely illicit love4 ,tristram and  
,launcelot1 the two paragons of         
knighthood1 are inviolably constant to  
their mistress3 the husband may and must
 be deceived1 but not the wife who helps
 to deceive him4 ,yseult of ,brittany   
and ,elaine1 the mother of ,galahad1 do 
not succeed in breaking the vows made to
 ,yseult the ,fair and to ,queen        
,guenevere4 ,the beautiful lady in the  
hawthorn alba a son cor en amar         
lejalmens4 ,but this loyal loving is for
 the knight who is warned to depart1    
certainly not for the husband1 the      
gilos1 in whose despite 7,bels dous     
amios1 baizem nos eu e vos--,aval els   

pratzon chantols auzellos--,tot ,o      
fassam en despeit del gilos7 they are   
meeting4 ,the ladies of the minnesingers
 are pure1 good1 faithful 7and each and 
all are pure1 good1 and faithful1 as    
long as they do not resist7 from the    
point of view of the lover1 not of the  
husband1 if indeed a husband be         
permitted to have any point of view at  
all4 ,and as fidelity is the essential  
virtue in these adulterous connections1 
so infidelity is the greatest crime that
 a woman 7and even a man7 can commit1   
the greatest misfortune which fate can  
send to an unhappy knight4 ,that he     
leaves a faithful mistress behind him is
 the one hope of the knight who1 taking 
the cross1 departs to meet the scimitars
 of ,saladin's followers1 the fevers1   
the plagues1 the many miserable deaths  
of the unknown ,east4 ,if any lady be   
unfaithful1 says ,quienes de ,bthune1   
she will have to be unfaithful with some
 base wretch4        ,et les dames ki   
castement vivront      ,se loiaut font a

 ceus qui iront2      ,et seles font par
 mal conseil folaje1      ,a lasques    
gens et mauvais le feront1      ,car    
tout li bon iront en cest voiage4   ,i  
have taken the cross on account of my   
sins1 sings ,albrecht von ,johansdorf1  
one of the most earnest of the          
minnesingers2 now let ,god help1 till my
 return1 the woman who has great sorrow 
on my account1 in order that ,i may find
 her possessed of her honour2 let ,him  
grant me this prayer4 ,but if she change
 her life 7i4e41 take to bad courses71  
then may ,god forbid my ever returning4 
,the lady is bound 7the ,courts of ,love
 decide this point of honour7 to reward 
her faithful lover4 ,a knight1 says a   
lady1 in an anonymous ,german song      
published by ,bartsch1 has served me    
according to my will4 ,before too much  
time elapse1 ,i must reward him2 nay1 if
 all the world were to object1 he must  
have his way with me 7und waerez al der 
,werlte leit1 so muoz sn wille an mir   
ergn74 ,but1 on the other hand1 the     

favoured knight is bound to protect his 
lady's good fame4        ,se jai mamie  
en tel point mis1      ,que tout motroit
 7m'octroit7 sans esformer1      ,tant  
doi je miex sonnor gaiter--   thus one  
of the interlocutors in a ,french       
jeu-parti1 published by ,mtzner2 a rule 
which1 if we may judge from the         
behaviour of ,tristram and ,launcelot1  
and from the last remnants of medival   
love lore in modern ,french novels1     
means simply that the more completely a 
man has induced a woman to deceive her  
husband1 the more stoutly is he bound to
 deny1 with lies1 rows1 and blows1 that 
she has ever done anything of the sort4 
,here1 then1 we find established1 as a  
very fundamental necessity of this      
socially recognized adultery1 a         
reciprocity of fidelity between lover   
and mistress which ,antiquity never     
dreamed of even between husband and wife
 7,agamemnon has a perfect right to     
,briseis or ,chryseis1 but ,clytmnestra 
has no right to ,aegisthus72 and which  

indeed could scarcely arise as a moral  
obligation except where the woman was   
not bound to love the man 7which the    
wife is7 and where her behaviour towards
 him depended wholly upon her pleasure1 
that is to say1 upon her satisfaction   
with his behaviour towards her4 ,this1  
which seems to us so obvious1 and of    
which every day furnishes us an example 
in the relations of the modern suitor   
and his hoped-for wife1 could not1 at a 
time when women were married by family  
arrangement1 arise except as a result of
 illegitimate love4 ,horrible as it     
seems1 the more we examine into this    
subject of medival love1 the more shall 
we see that our whole code of           
,grandisonian chivalry between lovers   
who intend marriage is derived from the 
practice of the ,launcelots and         
,gueneveres1 not from that of the       
married people 7we may remember the     
manner in which ,gunther woos his wife  
,brunhilt in the ,nibelungenlied7 of    
former ages2 nay1 the more we shall have

 to recognize that the very feeling     
which constitutes the virtuous love of  
modern poets is derived from the        
illegitimate loves of the ,middle ,ages4
  ,let us examine what are the habits of
 feeling and thinking which grow out of 
this reciprocal fidelity due to the     
absence of all one-sided legal pressure 
in this illegitimate1 but socially      
legitimated1 love of the early ,middle  
,ages2 which are added on to it by the  
very necessities of illicit connection4 
,the lover1 having no right to the      
favours of his mistress1 is obliged1 in 
order to win and to keep them1 to please
 her by humility1 fidelity1 and such    
knightly qualities as are the ideal     
plumage of a man3 he must bring home to 
her1 by showing the world her colours   
victorious in serious warfare1 in the   
scarcely less dangerous play of         
tournaments1 and by making her beauty   
and virtues more illustrious in his song
 than are those of other women in the   
songs of their lovers--he must bring    

home to her that she has a more worthy  
servant than her rivals2 he must        
determine her to select him and to      
adhere to her selection4 ,now medival   
husbands select their wives1 instead of 
being selected2 and once the woman and  
the dowry are in their hands1 trouble   
themselves but little whether they are  
approved of or not4 ,on the other hand1 
the mistress appears to her lover       
invested with imaginative1 ideal        
advantages such as cannot surround her  
in the eyes of her husband3 she is1 in  
nearly every case1 his superior in      
station and the desired of many         
beholders2 she is bound to him by no tie
 which may grow prosaic and wearisome2  
she appears to him in no domestic       
capacity1 can never descend to be the   
female drudge2 her possession is        
prevented from growing stale1 her       
personality from becoming commonplace1  
by the difficulty1 rareness1 mystery1   
adventure1 danger1 which even in the    
days of ,courts of ,love attach to      

illicit amours2 above all1 being for    
this man neither the housewife nor the  
mother1 she remains essentially and     
continually the mistress1 the beloved4  
,similarly the relations between the    
knight and the lady1 untroubled by      
domestic worries1 pecuniary             
difficulties1 and squabbles about       
children1 remain1 exist merely as love  
relations1 relations of people whose    
highest and sole desire is to please one
 another4 ,moreover1 and this is an     
important consideration1 the lady1 who  
is a mere inexperienced1 immature girl  
when she first meets her husband1 is a  
mature woman1 with character and        
passions developed by the independence  
of conjugal and social life4 ,when she  
meets her lover1 whatever power or      
dignity of character she may possess is 
ripe2 whatever intensity of aspiration  
and passion may be latent is ready to   
come forth2 for the first time there is 
equality in love4 ,equality8 ,ah1 no4   
,this woman who is the wife of his      

feudal superior1 this woman surrounded  
by all the state of feudal sovereignty1 
this woman who1 however young1 has      
already known so much of life1 this     
woman whose love is a free1 gift of     
grace to the obscure1 trembling vassal  
who has a right not even to be noticed2 
this lady of medival love must always   
remain immeasurably above her lover4    
,and1 in the long day-dreams while      
watching her1 as he thinks unseen1 while
 singing of her1 as he thinks unheard1  
there cluster round her figure1 mistily 
seen in his fancy1 those vague          
and-mystic splendours which surround the
 new sovereign of the ,middle ,ages1 the
 ,queen of ,heaven2 there mingles in the
 half-terrified raptures of the first   
kind glance1 the first encouraging word1
 the ineffable passion stored up in the 
,christian's heart for the immortal     
beings who1 in the days of ,bernard and 
,francis1 descend cloud-like on earth   
and fill the cells of the saints with   
unendurable glory4  ,and thus1 out of   

the baseness of habitual adultery1      
arises incense-like1 in the early       
medival poetry1 a new kind of           
love--subtler1 more imaginative1 more   
passionate1 a love of the fancy and the 
heart1 a love stimulating to the        
perfection of the individual as is any  
religion2 nay1 a religion1 and one      
appealing more completely to the        
complete man1 flesh and soul1 than even 
the mystical beliefs of the ,middle     
,ages4 ,and as1 in the fantastic song of
 ,ritter ,tannhuser1 whose liege lady1  
so legend tells1 was ,dame ,venus       
herself1 the lady bids the knight go    
forth and fetch her green water which   
has washed the setting sun1 salamanders 
snatched from the flame1 the stars out  
of heaven2 so would it seem as if this  
new power in the world1 this poetically 
worshipped woman1 had sent forth mankind
 to seek wonderful new virtues1 never   
before seen on earth4 ,nay1 rather1 as  
the snowflakes became green leaves1 the 
frost blossoms red and blue flowers1 the

 winter wind a spring-scented breeze1   
when ,bernard de ,ventadorn was greeted 
by his mistress2 so also does it seem as
 if1 at the first greeting of the world 
by this new love1 the medival winter had
 turned to summer1 and there had budded 
forth and flowered a new ideal of manly 
virtue1 a new ideal of womanly grace4   
,but evil is evil1 and evil is its      
fruit4 ,out of circumstances hitherto   
unknown1 circumstances come about for   
the first time owing to the necessities 
of illegitimate passion1 have arisen    
certain new and nobler characters of    
sexual love1 certain new and beautiful  
conceptions of manly and womanly nature4
 ,the circumstances to which these are  
owed are pure in themselves1 they are   
circumstances which in more modern times
 have characterized the perfectly       
legitimate passion of lovers held       
asunder by no social law1 but by mere   
accidental barriers--from ,romeo and    
,juliet to the ,master of ,ravenswood   
and ,lucy ,ashton2 and pure so far have 

been the spiritual results4 ,but these  
circumstances were due1 in the early    
,middle ,ages1 to the fact of adultery2 
and to the new ideal of love has clung1 
even in its purity1 in its superior     
nobility1 an element of corruption as   
unknown to gross and corrupt ,antiquity 
as was the delicacy and nobility of     
medival love4 ,the most poetical and    
pathetic of all medival love stories1   
the very incarnation of all that is most
 lyric at once and most tragic in the   
new kind of passion1 is the story1 told 
and retold by a score of poets and prose
 writers1 of the loves of ,yseult of    
,ireland and of ,sir ,tristram who1 as  
the knight was bringing the princess to 
his uncle and her affianced1 ,king ,mark
 of ,cornwall drank together by a fatal 
mistake a philter which made all such as
 partook of it in common inseparable    
lovers even unto death4 ,every one knows
 the result r3 how ,yseult came to her  
husband already the paramour of         
,tristram2 how ,brangwaine1 her damsel1 

feeling that this unhallowed passion was
 due to her having left-within reach the
 potion intended for the ,king and      
,queen of ,cornwall1 devoted herself1 at
 the price of her maidenhood1 to connive
 in the amours of the lovers whom she   
had made2 how ,king ,mark was deceived1 
and doubted1 and was deceived again2 how
 ,tristram fled to ,brittany1 but how1  
despite his seeming marriage with       
another and equally lovely ,yseult1 he  
remained faithful to the ,queen of      
,cornwall4 ,one version tells that ,mark
 slew his nephew while he sat harping to
 ,queen ,yseult2 another that ,tristram 
died of grief because his scorned though
 wedded wife told him that the          
white-sailed ship1 bearing his mistress 
to meet him1 bore the black sail which  
meant that she was not on board2 but all
 versions1 ,i think1 agree in ending    
with the fact1 that the briar-rose      
growing on the tomb of the one1 slowly  
trailed its flowers and thorns along    
till it had reached also the grave of   

the other1 and knit together1 as love   
had knit together with its sweet        
blossoms and sharp spines1 the two fated
 lovers4 ,the ,middle ,ages were        
enthralled by this tale2 but they were  
also1 occasionally1 a little shocked by 
it4 ,poets and prose writers tampered   
every now and then with incidents and   
characters1 seeking to make it appear   
that1 owing to the substitution of the  
waiting-maid1 and the neglect of the    
wedded princess of ,brittany1 ,yseult   
had never belonged to any man save      
,tristram1 nor ,tristram to any woman   
save ,yseult2 or that ,king ,mark had   
sent his nephew to woo the ,irish       
queen's daughter merely in hopes of his 
perishing in the attempt1 and that his  
whole subsequent conduct was due to a   
mere unnatural hatred of a better knight
 than himself2 touching up here and     
there with a view to justifying and     
excusing to some degree the long series 
of deceits which constituted the whole  
story4 ,thus the more timid and less    

gifted4 ,but when1 in the very first    
years 7#abaj7 of the thirteenth century1
 the greatest medival poet that preceded
 ,dante1 the greatest ,german poet that 
preceded ,goethe1 ,meister ,gottfried   
von ,strassburg1 took in hand the old   
threadbare story of ,tristan und        
,isolde1 he despised all alterations of 
this sort1 and accepted the original    
tale in its complete crudeness4  ,for1  
consciously or unconsciously1 ,gottfried
 had conceived this story as a thing    
wholly unknown in his time1 and no      
longer subject to any of those          
necessities of constant rearrangement   
which tormented medival poets3 he had   
conceived it not as a tale1 but as a    
novel4 ,gottfried himself was probably  
but little aware of what he was doing2  
the poem that he was writing probably   
fell for him into the very same category
 as the poems of other men2 but to us1  
with our experience of so many different
 forms of narrative1 it must be evident 
that ,tristan und ,isolde is a new      

departure1 inasmuch as it is not the    
story of deeds and the people who did   
them1 like the true epic from ,homer to 
the ,nibelungen2 nor the story of people
 and the adventures which happened to   
them1 like all romance poetry from      
,palemon and ,arcite1 to the ,orlando   
,furioso2 but1 on the contrary1 the     
story of the psychological relations1   
the gradual metamorphosis of soul by    
soul1 between two persons4 ,the long    
introductory story of ,tristram's youth 
must not mislead us1 nor all the minute 
narrations of the killing of dragons and
 the drinking of love philters3         
,gottfried1 we must remember1 was       
certainly no deliberate innovator1 and  
these thing's are the mere inevitable   
externalities of medival poetry1        
preserved with dull slavish care by the 
re-writer of a well-known tale1 but     
enclosing in reality something          
essentially and startlingly modern3 the 
history of a passion and of the         
spiritual changes which it brings about 

in those who are its victims4  ,to meet 
again this purely psychological interest
 we must skip the whole rest of the     
,middle ,ages1 nay1 skip even the great 
period of dramatic literature1 not      
stopping till we come to the end of the 
seventeenth and beginning of the        
eighteenth century1 to the ,princesse de
 ,clves1 to ,clarissa ,harlowe1 nay1    
really1 to ,the ,nouvelle ,heloise4 ,for
 even in ,shakespeare there is always   
interest and importance in the action   
and reaction of subsidiary characters1  
in the event1 in the accidental2 there  
is intrigue1 chance1 misunderstanding1  
fate--active agencies of which ,othello 
and ,hamlet1 ,king ,lear and ,romeo1 are
 helpless victims2 there is1 even in    
this psychological ,english drama of the
 ,elizabethans1 fate in the shape of    
,iago1 in the shape of the ,ghost1 in   
the shape of the brothers of ,webster's 
duchess2 fate in the shape of a ring1 a 
letter1 a drug1 but fate always4 ,and in
 this ,tristan und ,isolde of ,gottfried

 von ,strassburg is there not fate also 
in the love potion intended for ,king   
,mark1 and given by the mistake of      
,brangwaine to ,mark's bride and his    
nephew8 ,to this objection1 which will  
naturally occur to any reader who is not
 acquainted with the poem of ,gottfried1
 ,i simply answer1 there is not4 ,the   
love potion there is1 but it does not   
play the same part as do1 for instance1 
the drugs of ,friar ,laurence and his   
intercepted letter4 ,suppose the friar's
 narcotic to have been less enduring in 
its action1 or his message to have      
reached in safety1 why then ,juliet     
would have been awake instead of asleep1
 or ,romeo would not have supposed her  
to be dead1 and instead of the suicide  
of the two lovers1 we should have had   
the successful carying off of ,juliet by
 ,romeo4 ,not so with ,gottfried4 ,the  
philter is there1 and a great deal is   
talked about it2 but it is merely one of
 the old1 threadbare trappings of the   
original story1 which he has been too   

lazy to suppress2 it is merely1 for the 
reader1 the allegorical signal for an   
outburst of passion which all our       
subsequent knowledge of ,tristram and   
,yseult shows us to be absolutely       
inevitable4 ,in ,gottfried's poem1 the  
drinking of the potion signifies merely 
that all the rambling1 medival prelude1 
not to be distinguished from the stories
 of ,morte d',arthur1 and of half the   
romances of the ,middle ,ages1 has come 
to a close and may be forgotten2 and    
that the real work of the great poet1   
the real1 matchless tragedy of the four 
actors--,tristram1 ,yseult1 ,mark1 and  
,brangwaine--has begun4  ,yet if we seek
 again to account to ourselves for this 
astonishing impression of modernness    
which we receive from ,gottfried's poem1
 we recognize that it is due to         
something far more important than the   
mere precocious psychological interest2 
nay1 rather1 that this psychological    
interest is itself dependent upon the   
fact which makes ,tristan und ,isolde1  

so modern to our feelings4 ,this fact is
 simply that the poem of ,gottfried is  
the earliest1 and yet perhaps almost the
 completest1 example of a literary      
anomaly which ,antiquity1 for all its   
abominations1 did not know3 the         
glorification of fidelity in adultery1  
the glorification of excellence within  
the compass of guilt4 ,older times      
--more distant from our own in spirit1  
though not necessarily in years--have   
presented us with many themes of guilt3 
the guilt which exists according to our 
own moral standard1 but not according to
 that of the narrator1 as the           
magnificently tragic ,icelandic incest  
story of ,sigmund and ,signy2 the guilt 
which has come about no one well knows  
how1 an unfortunate circumstance leaving
 the sinner virtually stainless1 in his 
or her own eyes and the eyes of others1 
like the ,homeric ,helen2 the heroic    
guilt1 where the very heroism seems due 
to the self-sacrifice of the sinner's   
innocence1 of ,judith2 the struggling1  

remorseful guilt1 hopelessly overcome by
 fate and nature1 of ,phdra2 the dull   
and dogged guilt1 making the sinner     
scarce more than a mere physical        
stumbling-block for others1 of the      
murderer ,hagen in the ,nibelungenlied2 
and1 finally1 the perverse guilt1       
delighting in the consciousness of      
itself1 of demons like ,richard and     
,iago1 of libidinous furies like the    
heroines of ,tourneur and ,marston4 ,the
 guilt theme of ,tristan und ,isolde    
falls into none of these special        
categories4 ,this theme1 unguessed even 
by ,shakespeare1 is that of the virtuous
 behaviour towards one another of two   
individuals united in sinning against   
every one else4 ,gottfried von          
,strassburg narrates with the greatest  
detail how ,tristram leads to the       
unsuspecting king the unblushing1       
unremorseful woman polluted by his own  
embraces2 how ,yseult substitutes on the
 wedding night her spotless damsel      
,brangwaine for her own sullied self2   

then1 terrified lest the poor victim of 
her dishonour should ever reveal it1    
attempts to have her barbarously        
murdered1 and1 finally1 seeing that     
nothing can shake the heroic creature's 
faith1 admits her once more to be the   
remorseful go-between in her amours4 ,he
 narrates how ,tristram dresses as a    
pilgrim and carries the queen from a    
ship to the shore1 in order that ,yseult
 may call on ,christ to bear witness by 
a miracle that she is innocent of       
adultery1 never having been touched save
 by that pilgrim and her own husband2   
and how1 when the followers of ,king    
,mark have surrounded the grotto in the 
wood1 ,tristram places the drawn sword  
between himself and the sleeping queen1 
as a symbol of their chastity which the 
king is too honest to suspect4 ,he      
draws1 with a psychological power truly 
extraordinary in the beginning of the   
thirteenth century1 the two other       
figures in this love drama3 ,king ,mark1
 cheated1 dishonoured1 oscillating      

between horrible doubt1 ignominious     
suspicion and more ignominious          
credulity1 his love for his wife1 his   
trust in his nephew1 his incapacity for 
conceiving ill-faith and fraud1 the very
 gentleness and generosity of his       
nature1 made the pander of guilt in     
which he cannot believe2 and1 on the    
other side1 ,brangwaine1 the melancholy1
 mute victim of her fidelity to ,yseult1
 the weak1 heroic soul1 rewarded only   
with cruel ingratitude1 and condemned to
 screen and help the sin which she      
loathes and for which she assumes the   
awful responsibility4 ,all this does    
,gottfried do1 yet without ever seeming 
to perceive the baseness and wickedness 
of this tissue of lies1 equivocations1  
and perjuries in which his lovers hide  
their passion2 without ever seeming to  
guess at the pathos and nobility of the 
man and the woman who are the mere      
trumpery obstacles or trumpery aids to  
their amours4 ,he heaps upon ,tristram  
and ,yseult the most extravagant        

praises3 he is the flower of all        
knighthood1 and she1 the kindest1       
gentlest1 purest1 and noblest of women2 
he insists upon the wickedness of the   
world which is for ever waging war upon 
their passion1 and holds up to          
execration all those who seek to spy out
 their secret4 ,gottfried is most       
genuinely overcome by the ideal beauty  
of this inextinguishable devotion1 by   
the sublimity of this love which holds  
the whole world as dross2 the crimes of 
the lovers are for him the mere         
culminating point of their moral        
grandeur1 which has ceased to know any  
guilt save absence of love1 any virtue  
save loving4 ,and so serene is the old  
minnesinger's persuasion1 that it       
obscures the judgment and troubles the  
heart even of his reader2 and we are    
tempted to ask ourselves1 on laying down
 the book1 whether indeed this could    
have been sinful1 this love of ,tristram
 and ,yseult which triumphed over       
everything in the world1 and could be   

quenched only by death4 ,that circle of 
hell where all those who had sinfully   
loved were whirled incessantly in the   
perse1 dark1 stormy air1 appeared in the
 eyes even of ,dante as a place less of 
punishment than of glory2 and1          
especially since the ,middle ,ages1 all 
mankind looks upon that particular      
hell-pit with admiration rather than    
with loathing4 ,and herein consists1    
more even than in any deceptions        
practised upon ,king ,mark or any       
ingratitude manifested towards          
,brangwaine1 the sinfulness of ,tristram
 and ,yseult3 sinfulness which is not   
finite like the individual lives which  
it offends1 but infinite and immortal as
 the heart and the judgment which it    
perverts4 ,for such a tale1 and so told1
 as the tale of ,gottfried von          
,strassburg1 makes us sympathize with   
this fidelity and devotion of a man and 
woman who care for nothing in the world 
save for each other1 who are dragged and
 glued together by the desire and habit 

of mutual pleasure2 it makes us admire  
their readiness to die rather than be   
parted1 when their whole life is        
concentrated in their reciprocal sin1   
when their miserable natures enjoy1 care
 for1 know1 only this miserable love4   
,it makes us wink with leniency at the  
dishonour1 the baseness1 the cruelty1 to
 which all this easy virtue is due4 ,and
 such sympathy1 such admiration1 such   
leniency1 for howsoever short a time    
they may remain in our soul1 leave it1  
if they ever leave it completely and    
utterly less strong1 less clean than it 
was before4 ,we have all of us a lazy   
tendency to approve of the virtue which 
costs no trouble2 to contemplate in     
ourselves or others1 with a spurious    
moral satisfaction1 the development of  
this or that virtuous quality in souls  
which are deteriorating in undoubted    
criminal self-indulgence4 ,we have all  
of us1 at the bottom of our hearts1 a   
fellow feeling for all human affection2 
and the sinfulness of sinners like      

,tristram and ,yseult lies largely in   
the fact that they pervert this         
legitimate and holy sympathy into a     
dangerous leniency for any strong and   
consistent love1 into a morbid          
admiration for any irresistible mutual  
passion1 making us forget that love has 
in itself no moral value1 and that while
 self-indulgence may often be innocent1 
only self-abnegation can ever be holy4  
,the great medival ,german poem of      
,tristram and ,yseult remained for      
centuries a unique phenomenon2 only     
,john ,ford perhaps1 that grander and   
darker twin spirit of ,gottfried von    
,strassburg1 reviving1 even among the   
morbidly psychological and              
crime-fascinated followers of           
,shakespeare1 that new theme of         
evil--the heroism of unlawful love4 ,but
 ,gottfried had merely manipulated with 
precocious analytical power a mode of   
feeling and thinking which was universal
 in the feudal ,middle ,ages2 the great 
epic of adultery was forgotten1 but the 

sympathetic and admiring interest in    
illegitimate passion remained2 and was  
transmitted1 wherever the ,renaissance  
or the ,reformation did not break       
through such transmission of medival    
habits1 as an almost inborn instinct    
from father to son1 from mother to      
daughter4 ,and we may doubt whether the 
important class of men and women who    
write and read the novels of illicit    
love1 could ever have existed1 had not  
the psychological artists of modern     
times1 from ,rousseau to ,george ,sand1 
and from ,stendhal to ,octave ,feuillet1
 found ready prepared for them in the   
countries not re-tempered by            
,protestantism1 an assoiation of        
romance1 heroism1 and ideality with mere
 adulterous passion1 which was unknown  
to the corruption of ,antiquity and to  
the lawlessness of the ,dark ,ages1 and 
which remained as a fatal alloy to that 
legacy of mere spiritual love which was 
left to the world by the love poets of  
early feudalism4   ,,ii4  ,the love of  

the troubadours and minnesingers1 of the
 ,arthurian tales1 which show that love 
in narrative form1 was1 as we have seen1
 polluted by the selfishness1 the       
deceitfulness1 the many unclean         
necessities of adulterous passion4      
,elevated and exquisite though it was1  
it could not really purify the relations
 of man and woman1 since it was impure4 
,nay1 we see that through its influence 
the grave and simple married love of the
 earlier tales of chivalry1 the love of 
,siegfried for ,chriemhilt1 of ,roland  
for his bride ,belle ,aude1 of ,renaud  
for his wife ,clarisse1 is gradually    
replaced in later fiction by the        
irregular love-makings of ,huon of      
,bordeaux1 ,ogier the ,dane1 and ,artus 
of ,brittany2 until we come at last to  
the extraordinary series of the ,amadis 
romances1 where every hero without      
exception is the bastard of virtuous    
parents1 who subsequently marry and     
discover their foundling3 a state of    
things which1 even in the corrupt       

,renaissance1 ,boiardo and ,ariosto     
found it necessary to reform in their   
romantic poems4 ,with idealizing        
refinement1 the chivalric love of the   
,french1 ,provenal1 and ,german poets   
brings also a kind of demoralization    
which1 from one point of view1 makes the
 spotless songs of ,bernard de          
,ventadour and ,armaud de ,mareulh1 of  
,ulrich von ,liechtenstein and          
,frauenlob1 less pure than the          
licentious poems addressed by the       
,greeks and ,romans to women who1 at    
least1 were not the wives of other men4 
,shall all this idealizing refinement1  
this almost religious fervour1 this new 
poetic element of chivalric love remain 
useless2 or serve only to subtly pollute
 while pretending to purify the great   
singing passion8 ,not so4 ,but to       
prevent such waste of what in itself is 
pure and precious1 is the mission of    
another country1 of another             
civilization2 of a wholly different     
cycle of poets who1 receiving the new   

element of medival love after it has    
passed through and been sifted by a     
number of hands1 shall cleanse and      
recreate it in the fire of intellectual 
and almost abstract passion1 producing  
that wonderful essence of love which1 as
 the juices squeezed by alchemists out  
of jewels purified the body from all its
 ills1 shall purify away all the        
diseases of the human soul4  ,while the 
troubadours and minnesingers had been   
singing at the courts of ,angevine kings
 and ,hohenstauffen emperors1 of counts 
of ,toulouse and dukes of ,austria2 a   
new civilization1 a new political and   
social system1 had gradually been       
developing in the free burghs of ,italy2
 a new life entirely the reverse of the 
life of feudal countries4 ,the ,italian 
cities were communities of manufacturers
 and merchants1 into which only         
gradually1 and at the sacrifice of every
 aristocratic privilege and habit1 a    
certain number of originally foreign    
feudatories were gradually absorbed4    

,each community consisted of a number of
 mercantile families1 equal before the  
law1 and illustrious or obscure         
according to their talents or riches1   
whose members1 instead of being         
scattered over a wide area like the     
members of the feudal nobility1 were    
most often gathered together under one  
roof--sons1 brothers1 nephews1          
daughters1 sisters and daughters-in-law1
 forming a hierarchy attending to the   
business of factory or counting-house   
under the orders of the father of the   
family1 and to the economy of the       
house-under the superintendence of the  
mother2 a manner of living at once      
business-like and patriarchal1 expounded
 pounded by the interlocutors in        
,alberti's ,governo della ,famiglia1 and
 which lasted until the dissolution of  
the commonwealths and almost to our own 
times4 ,such habits imply a social      
organization1 an intercourse between men
 and women1 and a code of domestic      
morality the exact opposite to those of 

feudal countries4 ,here1 in the ,italian
 cities1 there are no young men bound to
 loiter1 far from their homes1 round the
 wife of a military superior1 to whom   
her rank and her isolation from all     
neighbours give idleness and solitude4  
,the young men are all of them in       
business1 usually with their own        
kinsfolk2 not in their employer's house1
 but in his office2 they have no        
opportunity of seeing a woman from dawn 
till sunset4 ,the women1 on their side1 
are mainly employed at home3 the whole  
domestic arrangement depends upon them1 
and keeps their hands constantly full2  
working1 and working in the company of  
their female relatives and friends4 ,men
 and women are free comparatively       
little1 and then they are free all      
together in the same places2 hence no   
opportunities for tte--tte4 ,early      
,italian poetry is fond of showing us   
the young poet reading his verses or    
explaining his passion to those gentle1 
compassionate women learned in love1 of 

whom we meet a troop1 beautiful1 vague1 
half-arch1 half-melancholy faces1       
consoling ,dante in the ,vita ,nuova1   
and reminding ,guido ,cavalcanti of his 
lady far off at ,toulouse4 ,but such    
women almost invariably form a group2   
they cannot be approached singly4 ,such 
a state of society inevitably produces a
 high and strict morality4 ,in these    
early ,italian cities a case of in'     
fidelity is punished ruthlessly2 the    
lover banished or killed2 the wife for  
ever lost to the world1 perhaps         
condemned to solitude and a lingering   
death in the fever tracts1 like ,pia dei
 ,tolomei4 ,a complacent deceived       
husband is even more ridiculous 7the    
deceived husband is notoriously the     
chief laughing stock of all medival free
 towns7 than is a jealous husband among 
the authorized and recognized cicisbeos 
of a feudal court4 ,indeed the respect  
for marriage vows inevitable in this    
busy democratic medival life is so      
strong1 that long after the             

commonwealths have turned into          
despotisms1 and every social tie has    
been dissolved in the ,renaissance1 the 
wives and daughters of men stained with 
every libidinous vice1 nay1 of the very 
despots themselves --,tiberiuses and    
,neros on a smaller scale--remain       
spotless in the midst of evil2 and      
authorized adultery begins in ,italy    
only under the ,spanish rule in the late
 sixteenth century4  ,such were the     
manners and morals of the ,italian      
commonwealths when1 about the middle of 
the thirteenth century1 the men of      
,tuscany1 now free and prosperous1      
suddenly awoke to the consciousness that
 they had a soul which desired song1 and
 a language which was spontaneously     
singing4 ,it was the moment when        
painting was beginning to claim for the 
figures of real men and women the walls 
and vaulted spaces whence had hitherto  
glowered1 with vacant faces and huge    
ghostlike eyes1 mosaic figures1 from    
their shimmering golden ground2 the     

moment when the ,pisan artists had      
sculptured solemnly draped madonnas and 
kings not quite unworthy of the carved  
sarcophagi which stood around them2 the 
moment when1 merging together old       
,byzantine traditions and ,northern     
examples1 the architects of ,florence1  
,siena1 and ,orvieto conceived a style  
which made cathedrals into marvellous   
and huge reliquaries of marble1 jasper1 
alabaster1 and mosaics4 ,the medival    
flowering time had come late1 very late1
 in ,italy2 but the atmosphere was only 
the warmer1 the soil the richer1 and    
,italy put forth a succession of        
exquisite and superb immortal flowers of
 art when the artistic sap of other     
countries had begun to be exhausted4    
,but the ,italians1 the ,tuscans1       
audacious in the other arts1 were       
diffident of themselves with regard to  
poetry4 ,architecture1 painting1        
sculpture1 had been the undisputed field
 for plebeian craftsmen1 belonging      
exclusively to the free burghs and      

disdained by the feudal castles2 but    
poetry was essentially the aristocratic1
 the feudal art1 cultivated by knights  
and cultivated for kings and barons4 ,it
 was probably an unspoken sense of this 
fact which caused the early ,tuscan     
poets to misgive their own powers and to
 turn wistfully and shyly towards the   
poets of ,provence and of ,sicily4      
,there1 beyond the seas1 under the last 
lords of ,toulouse and the brilliant    
mongrel ,hohenstauffen princes1 were    
courts1 knights1 and ladies2 there was  
the tradition of this courtly art of    
poetry2 and there only could the sons of
 ,florentine or ,sienese merchants1     
clodhoppers in gallantry and song1 hope 
to learn the correct style of thing4    
,hence the history of the ,italian lyric
 before ,dante is the history of a      
series of transformations which connect 
a style of poetry absolutely feudal and 
feudally immoral1 with the hitherto     
unheard-of platonic love subtleties of  
the ,vita ,nuova4 ,and it is curious1 in

 looking over the collections of early  
,italian lyrists1 to note the alteration
 in tone as ,sicily and the feudal      
courts are left further and further     
behind4 ,ciullo d' ,alcamo1 flourishing 
about #aaij1 is the only                
,italian-writing poet absolutely        
contemporaneous with the earlier and    
better trouvres1 troubadours1 and       
minnesingers2 and he is also the only   
one who resembles them very closely4    
,his famous tenso1 beginning ,rosa      
fresca aulentissima 7a tolerably        
faithful translation heads the beautiful
 collection of the late ,mr4 ,d4,g4     
,rossetti71 is indeed more explicitly   
gross and immoral than the majority of  
,provenal and ,german love-songs3 loose 
as are many of the albas1 serenas1      
wachtlieder1 and even many of the less  
special forms of ,german and ,provenal  
poetry1 ,i am acquainted with none of   
them which comes up to this singular    
dialogue1 in which a man1 refusing to   
marry a woman1 little by little wins her

 over to his wishes and makes her       
brazenly invite him to her dishonour4   
,between ,ciullo d' ,alcamo and his     
successors there is some gap of time1   
and a corresponding want of gradation4  
,yet the ,sicilian poets of the courts  
of ,hohenstauffen and ,anjou1           
recognizable by their name or the name  
of their town1 ,inghilfredi1 ,manfredi1 
,ranieri and ,ruggierone da ,palermo1   
,tommaso and ,matteo da ,messina1       
,guglielmotto d' ,otranto1 ,rinaldo     
d',aquino1 ,peir delle ,vigne1 either   
maintain altogether unchanged the tone  
of the troubadours1 or only gradually1  
as in the remarkable case of the ,notary
 of ,lentino1 approximate to the        
platonic poets of ,tuscany4 ,the songs  
of the archetype of ,sicilian singers1  
the ,emperor ,frederick ,,ii41 are      
completely ,provenal in feeling as in   
form1 though infinitely inferior in     
execution4 ,with him it is always the   
pleasure which he hopes from his lady1  
or the pleasure which he has            

had--,quando ambidue stavamo in         
allegranza alla dolce fera2 ,pregovi    
donna mia--,per vostra cortesia--,e     
pregovi che sia--,quello che lo core    
disia4 ,again3 ,sospiro e sto in        
rancura--,ch' io son si disioso--,e     
pauroso--,mi fate penare--,ma tanto m'  
assicura--,lo suo viso amoroso--,e lo   
gioioso--,riso e lo sguardare--,e lo    
parlare--,di questa criatura--,che per  
paura--,mi fate penare--,e di           
morare--,tant'  fina e pura--,tanto     
saggia e cortese--,non credo che        
pensasse--,n distornasse--,di ci he m'  
impromise4 ,it is1 this earliest        
,italian poetry1 like the more refined  
poetry of troubadours and minnesingers1 
eminently an importuning of highborn but
 loosely living women4 ,from ,sicily and
 ,apulia poetry goes first1 as might be 
expected 7and as probably sculpture     
went7 to the seaport ,pisa1 thence to   
the neighbouring ,lucca1 considerably   
before reaching ,florence4 ,and as it   
becomes more ,italian and urban1 it     

becomes also1 under the strict vigilance
 of burgher husbands1 considerably more 
platonic4 ,in ,bologna1 the city of     
jurists1 it acquires 7the remark is not 
mine merely1 but belongs also to        
,carducci7 the very strong flavour of   
legal quibbling which distinguishes the 
otherwise charming ,guido ,guinicelli2  
and once in ,florence1 among the most   
subtle of all subtle ,tuscans1 it       
becomes at once what it remained even   
for ,dante1 saturated with metaphysics3 
the woman is no longer paramount1 she is
 subordinated to ,love himself2 to that 
personified abstraction ,amor1 the      
serious and melancholy son of pagan     
philosophy and ,christian mysticism4    
,the ,tuscans had imported from         
,provence and ,sicily the new element of
 medival love1 of life devotion1 soul   
absorption in loving2 if they would     
sing1 they must sing of this2 any other 
kind of love1 at a time when ,italy     
still read and relished her would-be    
,provenals1 ,lanfranc ,cicala and       

,sordel of ,mantua1 would have been     
unfashionable and unendurable4 ,but in  
these ,italian commonwealths1 as we have
 seen1 poets are forced1 nilly-willy1 to
 be platonic2 an importuning poem found 
in her work-basket may send a ,tuscan   
lady into a convent1 or1 like ,pia1 into
 the ,maremma2 an alba or a serena      
interrupted by a wool-weaver of         
,calimara or a silk spinner of ,lucca1  
may mean that the imprudent poet be     
found weltering in blood under some     
archway the next morning4 ,the chivalric
 sentimentality of feudalism must be    
restrained2 and little by little1 under 
the pressure of such very different     
social habits1 it grows into a veritable
 platonic passion4 ,poets must sing1 and
 in order that they sing1 they must     
adore2 so men actually begin to seek    
out1 and adore and make themselves happy
 and wretched about women from whom they
 can hope only social distinctions2 and 
this purely sthetic passion goes on by  
the side nay1 rather on the top1 of     

their humdrum1 conjugal life or loosest 
libertinage4 ,petrarch's bastards were  
born during the reign of ,madonna       
,laura2 and that they should have been1 
was no more a slight or infidelity to   
her than to the other ,madonna1 the one 
in heaven4 ,laura had a right to only   
ideal sentiments ideal relations2 the   
poet was at liberty to carry more       
material preferences elsewhere4  ,but   
could such love as this exist1 could it 
be genuine8 ,to my mind1 indubitably4   
,for there is1 in all our perceptions   
and desires of physical and moral       
beauty1 an element of passion which is  
akin to love2 and there is1 in all love 
that is not mere lust1 a perception of1 
a craving for1 beauty1 real or imaginary
 which is identical with our merely     
sthetic perceptions and cravings2 hence 
the possibility1 once the wish for such 
a passion present1 of a kind of love    
which is mainly sthetic1 which views the
 beloved as gratifying merely to the    
wish for physical or spiritual          

loveliness1 and concentrates upon one   
exquisite reality all dreams of ideal   
perfection4 ,moreover there comes1 to   
all nobler natures1 a love dawning3 a   
brightening and delicate flushing of the
 soul before the actual appearance of   
the beloved one above the horizon1 which
 is as beautiful and fascinating in its 
very clearness1 pallor1 and coldness1 as
 the unearthly purity of the pale amber 
and green and ashy rose which streaks   
the heavens before sunrise4 ,the love of
 the early ,tuscan poets 7for we must   
count ,guinicelli1 in virtue of his     
language1 as a ,tuscan7 had been        
restrained1 by social necessities first1
 then by habit and deliberate sthetic   
choice1 within the limits of this       
dawning state2 and in this state1 it had
 fed itself off mere spiritual food1 and
 acquired the strange intensity of mere 
intellectual passions4 ,we give         
excessive weight1 in our days1 to       
spontaneity in all things1 apt to think 
that only the accidental1 the unsought1 

can be vital2 but it is true in many    
things1 and truest in all matters of the
 imagination and the heart1 that the    
desire to experience any sentiment will 
powerfully conduce to its production1   
and even give it a strength due to the  
long incubation of the wish4 ,thus the  
ideal love of the ,tuscan poets was     
probably none the weaker1 but rather the
 stronger1 for the desire which they    
felt to sing such passion2 nay1 rather  
to hear it singing in themselves4 ,the  
love of man and wife1 of bride and      
bridegroom1 was still of the domain of  
prose2 adulterous love forbidden2 and   
the tradition of1 the fervent wish for1 
the romantic passion of the troubadours 
consumed them as a strong artistic      
craving4 ,platonic love was possible1   
doubly possible in souls tense with     
poetic wants2 it became a reality       
through the strength of the wish for it4
  ,nor was this all4 ,in all imaginative
 passions1 intellectual motives are so  
much fuel2 and in this case the         

necessity of logically explaining the   
bodiless passion for a platonic lady1 of
 understanding why they felt in a manner
 so hitherto unknown to gross mankind1  
tended greatly to increase the love of  
these ,tuscans1 and to bring it in its  
chastity to the pitch of fervour of more
 fleshly passions1 by mingling with the 
sthetic emotions already in their souls 
the mystical theorizings of             
transcendental metaphysics1 and the     
half-human1 half-supernatural ecstasy of
 medival religion4 ,for we must remember
 that ,italy was a country not merely of
 manufacturers and bankers1 but of      
philosophers also and of saints4  ,among
 the ,italians of the thirteenth century
 the revival of antique literature was  
already in full swing2 while in ,france1
 ,germany1 and ,provence there had been1
 in lyric poetry at least1 no trace of  
classic lore4 ,whereas the trouvres and 
troubadours had possessed but the light 
intellectual luggage of a military      
aristocracy2 and the minnesingers had1  

for the most part1 been absolutely      
ignorant of reading and writing         
7,wolfram says so of himself1 and       
,ulrich von ,liechtenstein relates how  
he carried about his lady's letter for  
days unread until the return of his     
secretary72 the poets of ,italy1 from   
,brunetto ,latini to ,petrarch1 were    
eminently scholars2 men to whom1 however
 much they might be politicians and     
ringleaders1 like ,cavalcanti1 ,donati1 
and ,dante1 whatever existed of antique 
learning was thoroughly well known4     
,such men were familiar with whatever   
yet survived of the transcendental      
theories of ,plato and ,plotinus2 and   
they seized at once upon the mythic     
metaphysics of an antenatal condition1  
of typical ideas1 of the divine essence 
of beauty1 on all the mystic discussions
 on love and on the soul1 as a          
philosophical explanation of their      
seemingly inexplicable passion for an   
unapproachable woman4 ,the lady upon    
whom the poetic fervour1 the medival    

love1 inherited from ,provence and      
,france1 was now expended1 and whom     
social reasons placed quite beyond the  
reach of anything save the poet's soul  
and words1 was evidently beloved for the
 sake of that much of the divine essence
 contained in her nature2 she was loved 
for purely spiritual reasons1 loved as a
 visible and living embodiment of virtue
 and beauty1 as a human piece of the    
godhead4 ,so far1 therefore1 from such  
an attachment being absurd1 as absurd it
 would have seemed to troubadours and   
minnesingers1 who never served a lady   
save for what they called a reward2 it  
became1 in the eyes of these platonizing
 ,italians1 the triumph of the well-bred
 soul2 and as such1 soon after1 a       
necessary complement to dignities1      
talents1 and wealth1 the very highest   
occupation of a liberal mind4 ,thus did 
their smattering of platonic and        
neo-platonic philosophy supply the      
,tuscan poets with a logical reality for
 this otherwise unreal passion4  ,but   

there was something more4 ,in this      
democratic and philosophizing ,italy1   
there was not the gulf which separated  
the chivalric poets1 men of the sword   
and not of books1 from the great world  
of religious mysticism2 for1 though the 
minnesingers especially were extremely  
devout and sang many a strange love-song
 to the ,virgin2 they knew1 they could  
know1 nothing of the contemplative      
religion of ,eckhardt and his           
disciples--humble and transcendental    
spirits1 whose words were treasured by  
the sedentary1 dreamy townsfolk of the  
,rhine1 but would have conveyed no      
meaning even to the poet of the ,grail  
epic1 with its battles and feasts1 its  
booted and spurred slapdash morality1   
,wolfram von ,eschenbach4 ,in the great 
manufacturing cities of ,italy1 such    
religious mysticism spread as it could  
never spread in feudal courts2 it became
 familiar1 both in the mere passionate  
sermons and songs of the wandering      
friars1 and in the subtle dialectics of 

the divines2 above all1 it became       
familiar to the poets4 ,now the essence 
of this contemplative theology of the   
,middle ,ages1 which triumphantly held  
its own against the cut-and-dry         
argumentation of scholastic rationalism1
 was love4 ,love which assuredly meant  
different things to different minds2 a  
passionate benevolence towards man and  
beast to godlike simpletons like        
,francis of ,assisi2 a mere creative and
 impassive activity of the divinity to  
deep-seeing 7so deep as to see only     
their own strange passionate eyes and   
lips reflected in the dark well of      
knowledge7 and almost pantheistic       
thinkers like ,master ,eckhardt2 but    
love nevertheless1 love4 ,amor1 amore1  
ardo d' amore1 ,st4 ,francis had sung in
 a wild rhapsody1 a sort of mystic      
dance1 a kind of furious malaguea of    
divine love2 and that he who would wish 
to know ,god1 let him love--,qui vult   
habere notitiam ,dei1 amet1 had been    
written by ,hugo of ,st4 ,victor1 one of

 the subtlest of all the mystics4 ,amor 
oculus est1 said ,master ,eckhardt2     
love1 love--was not love then the       
highest of all human faculties1 and must
 not the act of loving1 of perceiving   
,god's essence in some creature which   
had virtue1 the soul's beauty1 and      
beauty1 the body's virtue1 be the       
noblest business of a noble life8 ,thus 
argued the poets2 and their argument1   
half-passionate1 half-scholastic1 mixing
 ,phdrus and ,bonaventura1 the ,schools 
of ,alexandria and the ,courts of ,love 
of ,provence1 resulted in adding all the
 fervid reality of philosophical and    
religious aspiration to their clear and 
cold phantom of disembodied love of     
woman4  ,little by little therefore1    
together with the carnal desires of     
,provenals and ,sicilians1 the ,tuscan  
poets put behind them those little      
coquetries of style and manner1         
complications of metre and rhythm       
learned and fantastic as a woman's      
plaited and braided hair2 those         

metaphors and similes1 like bright      
flowers or shining golden ribbons       
dropped from the lady's bosom and head  
and eagerly snatched by the lover1 which
 we still find1 curiously transformed   
and scented with the rosemary and thyme 
of country lanes1 in the peasant poetry 
of modern ,tuscany4 ,little by little   
does the love poetry of the ,italians   
reject such ornaments2 and cloth itself 
in that pale garment1 pale and stately  
in heavy folds like a nun's or friar's  
weeds1 but pure and radiant and solemn  
as the garment of some painted angel1   
which we have all learned to know from  
the ,vita ,nuova4  ,to describe this    
poetry of the immediate precursors and  
contemporaries of ,dante is to the last 
degree difficult3 it can be described   
only by symbols1 and symbols can but    
mislead us4 ,dante ,rossetti himself1   
after translating with exquisite beauty 
the finest poems of this school1 showed 
how he had read into them his own       
spirit1 when he drew the beautiful      

design for the frontispiece of his      
collection4 ,these two lovers--the youth
 kneeling in his cloth of silver robe1  
lifting his long throbbing neck towards 
the beloved2 the lady stooping down     
towards him1 raising him up and kissing 
him2 the mingled cloud of waving hair1  
the four tight-clasped hands1 the four  
tightly glued lips1 the profile hidden  
by the profile1 the passion and the     
pathos1 the eager1 wistful faces1 nay1  
the very splendour of brocade robes and 
jewels1 the very sweetness of blooming  
rose spaliers2 all this is suitable to  
illustrate this group of sonnets or that
 of the ,house of ,life2 but it is      
false1 false in efflorescence and       
luxuriance of passion1 splendour and    
colour of accessory1 to the poetry of   
these early ,tuscans4 ,imaginative their
 poetry certainly is1 and passionate2   
indeed the very concentration of        
imaginative passion2 but imagination and
 passion unlike those of all other      
poets2 perhaps because more rigorously  

reduced to their elements3 imagination  
purely of the heart1 passion purely of  
the intellect1 neither of the senses3   
love in its most essential condition1   
but1 just because an essence1 purged of 
earthly alloys1 rarefied1 sublimated    
into a cultus or a philosophy4  ,these  
poems might nearly all have been written
 by one man1 were it possible for one   
man to vary from absolute platitude to  
something like genius1 so homogeneous is
 their tone3 everywhere do we meet the  
same simplicity of diction struggling   
with the same complication and subtlety 
of thought1 the same abstract           
speculation strangely mingled with most 
individual and personal pathos4 ,the    
mode of thinking and feeling1 the       
conception of all the large             
characteristics of love1 and of all its 
small incidents are1 in this cycle of   
poets1 constantly the same2 and they are
 the same in the ,vita ,nuova2 ,dante   
having1 it would seem1 invented and felt
 nothing unknown to his immediate       

predecessors and contemporaries1 but    
merely concentrated their thoughts and  
feelings by the greater intenseness of  
his genius4 ,this platonic love of      
,dante's days is1 as ,i have said1 a    
passion sublimated into a philosophy and
 a cultus4 ,the philosophy of love      
engages much of these poets' attention2 
all have treated of it1 but ,guido      
,cavalcanti1 ,dante's elder brother in  
poetry1 is love's chief theologian4 ,he 
explains1 as ,eckhardt or ,bonaventura  
might explain the mysteries of ,god's   
being and will1 the nature and operation
 of love4 ,love1 which enamours us of   
excellence1 arises out of pure virtue of
 the soul1 and equals us to ,god1 he    
tells us2 and subtly developes his      
theme4 ,this being the case1 nothing can
 be more mistaken than to suppose1 as do
 those of little sense1 that ,love is   
blind1 and goes blindly about 7,da      
sentir poco1 e da credenza vana--,si    
move il dir di cotal grossa gente--,ch' 
amor fa cieco andar per lo suo regno74  

,love is omniscient1 since love is born 
of the knowledge and recognition of     
excellence4 ,such love as this is the   
only true source of happiness1 since it 
alone raises man to the level of the    
divinity4 ,cavalcanti has in him not    
merely the subtlety but the scornfulness
 of a great divine4 ,his wrath against  
all those who worship or defend a       
different god of ,love knows no bounds4 
,i know not what to say of him who      
adores the goddess born of ,saturn and  
sea-foam4 ,his love is fire3 it seems   
sweet1 but its result is bitter and     
evil4 ,he may indeed call himself happy2
 but in such delights he mingles himself
 with much baseness4 ,such is this god  
of ,love1 who1 when he descended into   
,dante's heart1 caused the spirit of    
life to tremble terribly in his secret  
chamber1 and trembling to cry1 ,lo1 here
 is a god stronger than myself1 who     
coming will rule over me4 ,ecce ,deus   
fortior me1 qui veniens dominabitur     
mihi6  ,the god1 this chaste and        

formidable archangel ,amor1 is the true 
subject of these poets' adoration2 the  
woman into whom he descends by a mystic 
miracle of beauty and of virtue becomes 
henceforward invested with somewhat of  
his awful radiance4 ,she is a gentle1   
gracious lady2 a lovable and loving     
woman1 in describing whose grey-green   
eyes and colour as of snow tinted with  
pomegranate1 the older ,tuscans would   
fain linger1 comparing her to the       
new-budded rose1 to the morning star1 to
 the golden summer air1 to the purity of
 snowflakes falling silently in a serene
 sky2 but the sense of the divinity     
residing within her becomes too strong4 
,from her eyes dart spirits who strike  
awe into the heart2 from her lips come  
words which make men sigh2 on her       
passage the poet casts down his eyes2   
notions1 all these1 with which we are   
familiar from the ,vita ,nuova2 but     
which belong to ,cavalcanti1 ,lapo      
,gianni1 nay1 even to ,guinicelli1 quite
 as much as to ,dante4 ,the poet bids   

his verse go forth to her1 but softly2  
and stand before her with bended head1  
as before the ,mother of ,god4 ,she is a
 miracle herself1 a thing sent from     
heaven1 a spirit1 as ,dante says in that
 most beautiful of all his sonnets1 the 
summing up of all that the poets of his 
circle had said of their lady--,tanto   
gentile e tanto onesta pare4  ,she      
passes along the street so beautiful and
 gracious1 says ,guinicelli1 that she   
humbles pride in all whom she greets1   
and makes him of our faith if he does   
not yet believe4 ,and no base man can   
come into her presence4 ,and ,i will    
tell you another virtue of her3 no man  
can think ought of evil as long as he   
looks upon her4 ,the noble mind which ,i
 feel1 on account of this youthful lady 
who has appeared1 makes me despise      
baseness and vileness1 says ,lapo       
,gianni4 ,the women who surround her are
 glorified in her glory1 glorified in   
their womanhood and companionship with  
her4 ,the ladies around you1 says       

,cavalcanti1 are dear to me for the sake
 of your love2 and ,i pray them as they 
are courteous1 that they should do you  
all honour4 ,she is1 indeed1 scarcely a 
woman1 and something more than a saint3 
an avatar1 an incarnation of that ,amor 
who is born of virtue and beauty1 and   
raises men's minds to heaven2 and when  
,cavalcanti speaks of his lady's        
portrait behind the blazing tapers of   
,orsanmichele1 it seems but natural that
 she should be on an altar1 in the      
,madonna's place4 ,the idea of a        
mysterious incarnation of love in the   
lady1 or of a mystic relationship       
between her and love1 returns to these  
poets4 ,lapo ,gianni tells us first that
 she is ,amor's sister1 then speaks of  
her as ,amor's bride2 nay1 in this love 
theology of the thirteenth century1     
arises the same kind of confusion as in 
the mystic disputes of the nature of the
 ,godhead4 ,a ,sienese poet1 ,ugo da    
,massa1 goes so far as to say1 ,amor and
 ,i are all one thing2 and we have one  

will and one heart2 and if ,i were not1 
,amor were not2 mind you1 do not think  
,i am saying these things from subtlety 
7'e non pensate ch' io 'l dica per      
arte'72 for certainly it is true that ,i
 am love1 and he who should slay me     
would slay love4  ,together with the    
knowledge of public life and of         
scholastic theories1 together with the  
love of occult and cabalistic science1  
and the craft of ,provenal poetry1      
,dante received from his ,florence of   
the thirteenth century the knowledge of 
this new1 this exotic and esoteric      
intellectual love4 ,and1 as it is the   
mission of genius to gather into an     
undying whole1 to model into a perfect  
form1 the thoughts and feelings and     
perceptions of the less highly endowed  
men who surround it1 so ,dante moulded  
out of the love passion and love        
philosophy of his day the ,vita ,nuova4 
,whether the story narrated in this book
 is fact2 whether a real woman whom he  
called ,beatrice ever existed2 some of  

those praiseworthy persons1 who prowl in
 the charnel-house of the past1 and put 
its poor fleshless bones into the acids 
and sublimates of their laboratory1 have
 gravely doubted4 ,but such doubts      
cannot affect us4 ,for if the story of  
the ,vita ,nuova be a romance1 and if   
,beatrice be a mere romance heroine1 the
 real meaning and value of the book does
 not change in our eyes2 since1 to      
concoct such a tale1 ,dante must have   
had a number of real experiences which  
are fully the tale's equivalent2 and to 
conceive and create such a figure as    
,beatrice1 and such a passion as she    
inspires her poet1 he must have felt as 
a poignant reality the desire for such a
 lady1 the capacity for such a love4 ,a 
tale merely of the soul1 and of the     
soul's movements and actions1 this ,vita
 ,nuova2 so why should it matter if that
 which could never exist save in the    
spirit1 should have been but the        
spirit's creation8 ,it is1 in its very  
intensity1 a vision of love2 what if it 

be a vision merely conceived and never  
realized8 ,hence the futility of all    
those who wish to destroy our faith and 
pleasure by saying all this never took  
place4 ,fools1 can you tell what did or 
did not take place in a poet's mind8 ,be
 this as it may1 the ,vita ,nuova1 thank
 heaven1 exists2 and1 thank heaven1     
exists as a reality to our feelings4    
,the longed-for ideal1 the perfection   
whose love1 said ,cavalcanti1 raises us 
up to ,god1 has seemed to gather itself 
into a human shape2 and a real being has
 been surrounded by the halo of         
perfection emanated from the poet's own 
soul4 ,the vague visions of glory have  
suddenly taken body in this woman1 seen 
rarely1 at a distance2 the woman whom1  
as a child1 the poet1 himself a child1  
had already looked at with the strange1 
ideal fascination which we sometimes    
experience in our childhood4 ,people are
 apt to smile at this opening of the    
,vita ,nuova2 to put aside this         
narrative of childish love together with

 the pathetic little pedantries of      
learned poetry and ,kabbala1 of the long
 gloses to each poem1 and the elaborate 
calculations of the recurrence and      
combination of the number nine 7and that
 curious little bit of encyclopdic      
display about the ,syrian month ,tismin7
 as so much pretty local colouring or   
obsolete silliness4 ,but there is       
nothing at which to laugh in such       
childish fascinations2 the wonderful1   
the perfect1 is more open to us as      
children than it is afterwards3 a word1 
a picture1 a snatch of music will have  
for us an ineffable1 mysterious meaning2
 and how much more so some human being1 
often some other1 more brilliant child  
from whose immediate contact we are     
severed by some circumstance1 perhaps by
 our own consciousness of inferiority1  
which makes that other appear strangely 
distant1 above us1 moving in a world of 
glory which we scarcely hope to         
approach2 a child sometimes1 or         
sometimes some grown person1 beautiful1 

brilliant1 who sings or talks or looks  
at us1 the child1 with ways which we do 
not understand1 like some fairy or      
goddess4 ,no indeed1 there is nothing to
 laugh at in this1 in this first        
blossoming of that love for higher and  
more beautiful things1 which in most of 
us is trodden down1 left to wither1 by  
our maturer selves2 nothing to make us  
laugh2 nay1 rather to make us sigh that 
later on we see too well1 see others too
 much on their real level1 scrutinize   
too much2 too much1 alas1 for what at   
best is but an imperfect creature4 ,and 
in this state of fascination does the   
child ,dante see the child ,beatrice1 as
 a strange1 glorious little vision from 
a childish sphere quite above him2      
treasuring up that vision1 till with his
 growth it expands and grows more       
beautiful and noble1 but none the less  
fascinating and full of awfulness4      
,when1 therefore1 the grave young poet1 
full of the yearning for ,paradise 7but 
,paradise vaguer1 sweeter1 less         

metaphysic and theological than the     
,paradise of his manhood72 as yet but a 
gracious1 learned youth1 his terrible   
moral muscle still undeveloped by       
struggle1 the noble and delicate dreamer
 of ,giotto's fresco1 with the long1    
thin1 almost womanish face1 marked only 
by dreamy eyes and lips1 wandering      
through this young ,florence of the     
,middle ,ages--when1 ,i say1 he meets   
after long years1 the noble and gentle  
woman1 serious and cheerful and candid2 
and is told that she is that same child 
who was the queen and goddess of his    
childish fancies2 then the vague glory  
with which his soul is filled expands   
and enwraps the beloved figure1 so      
familiar and yet so new4 ,and the blood 
retreats from his veins1 and he         
trembles2 and a vague god within him1   
half allegory1 half reality1 cries out  
to him that a new life for him has      
begun4 ,beatrice has become the ideal2  
,beatrice1 the real woman1 has ceased to
 exist2 the ,beatrice of his imagination

 only remains1 a piece of his own soul  
embodied in a gracious and beautiful    
reality1 which he follows1 seeks1 but   
never tries to approach4 ,of the real   
woman he asks nothing2 no word          
throughout the ,vita ,nuova of entreaty 
or complaint1 no shadow of desire1 not a
 syllable of those reproaches of cruelty
 which ,petrarch is for ever showering  
upon ,laura4 ,he desires nothing of     
,beatrice1 and ,beatrice cannot act     
wrongly2 she is perfection1 and         
perfection makes him who contemplates   
humble at once and proud1 glorifying his
 spirit4 ,once1 indeed1 he would wish   
that she might listen to him2 he has    
reason to think that he has fallen in   
her esteem1 has seemed base and         
uncourteous in her eyes1 and he would   
explain4 ,but he does not wish to       
address her2 it never occurs to him that
 she can ever feel in any way towards   
him2 it is enough that he feels towards 
her4 ,let her go by and smile and       
graciously salute her friends3 the sight

 of her grave and pure regalness1 nay1  
rather divinity1 of womanhood1 suffices 
for his joy2 nay1 later the             
consciousness comes upon him that it is 
sufficient to know of her existence and 
of his love even without seeing her4    
,and1 as must be the case in such ideal 
passion1 where the action is wholly in  
the mind of the lover1 he is at first   
ashamed1 afraid2 he feels a terror lest 
his love1 if known to her1 should excite
 her scorn2 a horror lest it be         
misunderstood and befouled by the jests 
of those around him1 even of those same 
gentle women to whom he afterwards      
addresses his praise of ,beatrice4 ,he  
is afraid of exposing to the air of     
reality this ideal flower of passion4   
,but the moment comes when he can hide  
it no longer2 and1 behold1 the passion  
flower of his soul opens out more       
gloriously in the sunlight of the world4
 ,he is proud of his passion1 of his    
worship2 he feels the dignity and glory 
of being the priest of such a love4 ,the

 women all round1 the beautiful1        
courteous women1 of whom1 only just now1
 he was so dreadfully afraid1 become his
 friends and confidants2 they are quite 
astonished 7half in love1 perhaps1 with 
the young poet7 at this strange way of  
loving2 they sympathize1 admire1 are in 
love with his love for ,beatrice4 ,and  
to them he speaks of her rather than to 
men1 for the womanhood which they share 
with his lady consecrates them in his   
eyes2 and they1 without jealousy towards
 this ideal woman1 though perhaps not   
without longing for this ideal love1    
listen as they might listen to some new 
and unaccountably sweet music1 touched  
and honoured1 and feeling towards ,dante
 as towards some beautiful1 half-mad    
thing4 ,he talks of her1 sings of her1  
and is happy2 the strangest thing in    
this intensely real narrative of real   
love is this complete satisfaction of   
the passion in its own existence1 this  
complete absence of all desire or hope4 
,but this happiness is interrupted by   

the sudden1 terrible thought that one   
day all this must cease2 the horrible1  
logical necessity coming straight home  
to him1 that one day she must die--,di  
necessit conviene che la gentilissima   
,beatrice alcuna volta si muoia4 ,there 
is nothing truer1 more intensely        
pathetic1 in all literature1 than this  
frightful pang of evil1 not real1 but   
first imagined2 this frightful nightmare
 vision of the end coming when reality  
is still happy4 ,have we not all of us  
at one time felt the horrible shudder of
 that sudden perception that happiness  
must end2 that the beloved1 the living1 
must die2 that this thing the present1  
which we clasp tight with our arms1     
which throbs against our breast1 will in
 but few moments be gone1 vanished1     
leaving us to grasp mere phantom        
recollections8 ,compared with this the  
blow of the actual death of ,beatrice is
 gentle4 ,and then1 the truthfulness of 
his narration how1 with yearning1 empty 
heart1 hungering after those poor lost  

realities of happiness1 after that      
occasional glimpse of his lady1 that    
rare catching of her voice1 that blessed
 consciousness of her existence1 he     
little by little lets himself be        
consoled1 cradled to sleep like a child 
which has sobbed itself out1 in the     
sympathy1 the vague love1 of            
another--the ,donna della               
,finestra--with whom he speaks of       
,beatrice2 and the sudden1 terrified1   
starting up and shaking off of any such 
base consolation1 the wrath at any such 
mental infidelity to the dead one1 the  
indignant impatience with his own       
weakness1 with his baseness in not      
understanding that it is enough that    
,beatrice has lived and that he has     
loved her1 in not feeling that the glory
 and joy of the ineffaceable past is    
sufficient for all present and future4  
,a revolution in himself which gradually
 merges in that grave final resolve1    
that sudden seeing how ,beatrice can be 
glorified by him1 that solemn1 quiet1   

brief determination not to say any more 
of her as yet2 not till he can show her 
transfigured in ,paradise4 ,after this  
sonnet there appeared unto me a         
marvellous vision1 in which ,i beheld   
things that made me propose unto myself 
to speak no more of this blessed one1   
until the time when ,i might more       
worthily treat of her4 ,and that this   
may come to pass1 ,i strive with all my 
endeavour1 even as she truly knows it4  
,thus1 if it should please ,him1 through
 whom all things do live1 that my life  
continue for several more years1 ,i hope
 to say of her such things as have never
 been said of any lady4 ,and then may it
 please ,him1 who is the lord of all    
courtesy1 that my soul shall go forth to
 see the glory of its lady1 that is to  
say1 of that blessed ,beatrice1 who     
gloriously looks up into the face of    
,him1 qui est per omnia scula benedictus
  ,thus ends the ,vita ,nuova2 a book1  
to find any equivalent for whose reality
 and completeness of passion1 though it 

is passion for a woman whom the poet    
scarcely knows and of whom he desires   
nothing1 we must go back to the merest  
fleshly love of ,antiquity1 of ,sappho  
or ,catullus2 for modern times are too  
hesitating and weak4 ,so at least it    
seems2 but in fact1 if we only think    
over the matter1 we shall find that in  
no earthly love can we find this reality
 and completeness3 it is possible only  
in love like ,dante's4 ,for there can be
 no unreality in it3 it is a reality of 
the imagination1 and leaves1 with all   
its mysticism and idealism1 no room for 
falsehood4 ,any other kind of love may  
be set aside1 silenced1 by the activity 
of the mind2 this love of ,dante's      
constitutes that very activity4 ,and1   
after reading that last page which ,i   
have above transcribed1 as those closing
 ,latin words echo through our mind like
 the benediction from an altar1 we feel 
as if we were rising from our knees in  
some secret chapel1 bright with tapers  
and dim with incense2 among a crowd     

kneeling like ourselves2 yet solitary1  
conscious of only the glory we have seen
 and tasted1 of that love qui est per   
omnia scecula benedictus4   ,,iii4  ,but
 is it right that we should feel thus8  
,is it right that love1 containing      
within itself the potentialities of so  
many things so sadly needed in this cold
 real world1 as patience1 tenderness1   
devotion1 and loving-kindness--is it    
right that love should thus be carried  
away out of ordinary life and enclosed1 
a sacred thing for contemplation1 in the
 shrine or chapel of an imaginary       
,beatrice8 ,and1 on the other hand1 is  
it right that into the holy places of   
our soul1 the places where we should    
come face to face with the unattainable 
ideal of our own conduct that we may    
strive after something nobler than mere 
present pleasure and profit--is it right
 that into such holy places1 destined   
but for an abstract perfection1 there   
should be placed a mere half-unknown1   
vaguely seen woman8 ,in short1 is not   

this ,vita ,nuova a mere false ideal1   
one of those works of art which1 because
 they are beautiful1 get worshipped as  
holy8  ,this question is a grave one1   
and worthy to make us pause4 ,the world 
is full of instances of the fatal waste 
of feelings misapplied3 of human        
affections1 human sympathy and          
compassion1 so terribly necessary to    
man1 wasted in various religious        
systems1 upon ,christ and ,god3 of      
religious aspirations1 contemplation1   
worship1 and absorption1 necessary to   
the improvement of the soul1 wasted in  
various artistic or poetic crazes upon  
mere pleasant works1 or pleasant        
fancies1 of man2 wastefulness of        
emotions1 wastefulness of time1 which   
constitute two-thirds of mankind's      
history and explain the vast amount of  
evil in past and present4 ,the present  
question therefore becomes1 is not this 
,vita ,nuova merely another instance of 
this lamentable carrying off of precious
 feelings in channels where they result 

no longer in fertilization1 but in      
corruption8 ,the ,middle ,ages1         
especially1 in its religion1 its        
philosophy1 nay1 in that very love of   
which ,i am writing1 are one succession 
of such acts of wastefulness4 ,this     
question has come to me many a time1 and
 has left me in much doubt and trouble4 
,but on reflection ,i am prepared to    
answer that such doubts as these may    
safely be cast behind us1 and that we   
may trust that instinct which1 whenever 
we lay down the ,vita ,nuova1 tells us  
that to have felt and loved this book is
 one of those spiritual gains in our    
life which1 come what may1 can never be 
lost entirely4  ,the ,vita ,nuova       
represents the most exceptional of      
exceptional moral and intellectual      
conditions4 ,dante's love for ,beatrice 
is1 in great measure1 to be regarded as 
an extraordinary and exquisite work of  
art1 produced not by the volition of    
man1 but by the accidental combination  
of circumstances4 ,it is no more suited 

to ordinary life than would a golden and
 ivory goddess of ,phidias be suited to 
be the wife of a mortal man4 ,but it may
 not therefore be useless2 nay1 it may  
be of the highest utility4 ,it may serve
 that high utilitarian mission of all   
art1 to correct the real by the ideal1  
to mould the thing as it is in the      
semblance of the thing as it should be4 
,herein1 let it be remembered1 consists 
the value1 the necessity of the abstract
 and the ideal4 ,in the long history of 
evolution we have now reached the stage 
where selection is no longer in the mere
 hands of unconscious nature1 but of    
conscious or half-conscious man2 who    
makes himself1 or is made by mankind1   
according to not merely physical        
necessities1 but to the intellectual    
necessity of realizing the ideal1 of    
pursuing the object1 of imitating the   
model1 before him4 ,no man will ever    
find the living counterpart of that     
chryselephantine goddess of the ,greeks2
 ivory and gold1 nay1 marble1 fashioned 

by an artist1 are one thing2 flesh is   
another1 and flesh fashioned by mere    
blind accident4 ,but the man who should 
have beheld that ,phidian goddess1 who  
should have felt her full perfection1   
would not have been as easily satisfied 
as any other with a mere commonplace    
living woman2 he would have sought--and 
seeking1 would have had more likelihood 
of finding--the woman of flesh and blood
 who nearest approached to that ivory   
and gold perfection4 ,the case is       
similar with the ,vita ,nuova4 ,no      
earthly affection1 no natural love of   
man for woman1 of an entire human being1
 body and soul1 for another entire human
 being1 can ever be the counterpart of  
this passion for ,beatrice1 the passion 
of a mere mind for a mere mental ideal4 
,but if the old lust-fattened evil of   
the world is to diminish rather than to 
increase1 why then every love of man for
 woman and of woman for man should tend1
 to the utmost possibility1 to resemble 
that love of the ,vita ,nuova4 ,for     

mankind has gradually separated from    
brute kind merely by the development of 
those possibilities of intellectual and 
moral passion which the animal has not  
got2 an animal man will never cease to  
be1 but a man he can daily more and more
 become1 until from the obscene         
goat-legged and goat-faced creature     
which we commonly see1 he has turned    
into something like certain antique     
fauns3 a beautiful creature1 not        
noticeably a beast1 a beast in only the 
smallest portion of his nature4 ,in     
order that this may come to pass--and   
its coming to pass means1 let us        
remember1 the enormous increase of      
happiness and diminution of misery upon 
earth--it is necessary that day by day  
and year by year there should enter into
 man's feelings1 emotions1 and habits1  
into his whole life1 a greater          
proportion of that which is his own1 and
 is not shared by the animal2 that his  
actions1 preferences1 the great bulk of 
his conscious existence1 should be      

busied with things of the soul1 truth1  
good1 and beauty1 and not with things of
 the body4 ,hence the love of such a    
gradually improving and humanizing man  
for a gradually improving and humanizing
 woman1 should become1 as much as is    
possible1 a connection of the higher and
 more human1 rather than of the lower   
and more bestial1 portions of their     
nature2 it should tend1 in its          
reciprocal stimulation1 to make the man 
more a man1 the woman more a woman1 to  
make both less of the mere male and     
female animals that they were4 ,in      
brief1 love should increase1 instead1   
like that which oftenest profanes love's
 name1 of diminishing1 the power of     
aspiration1 of self-direction1 of       
self-restraint1 which may exist within  
us4 ,now to tend to this is to tend     
towards the love of the ,vita ,nuova2 to
 tend towards the love of the ,vita     
,nuova is to tend towards this4 ,say    
what you will of the irresistible force 
of original constitution1 it remains    

certain1 and all history is there as    
witness1 that mankind--that is to say1  
the only mankind in whom lies the       
initiative of good1 mankind which can   
judge and select--possesses the faculty 
of feeling and acting in accordance with
 its standard of feeling and action2 the
 faculty in great measure of becoming   
that which it thinks desirable to       
become4 ,now to have perceived the even 
imaginary existence of such a passion as
 that of ,dante for ,beatrice1 must be1 
for all who can perceive it1 the first  
step towards attempting to bring into   
reality a something of that passion3 the
 real passion conceived while the       
remembrance of that ideal passion be    
still in the mind will bear to it a     
certain resemblance1 even as1 according 
to the ancients1 the children born of   
mothers whose rooms contained some image
 of ,apollo or ,adonis would have in    
them a reflex1 however faint1 of that   
beauty in whose presence they came into 
existence4 ,in short1 it seems to me1   

that as the ,vita ,nuova embodies the   
utmost ideal of absolutely spiritual    
love1 and as to spiritualize love must  
long remain one of the chief moral      
necessities of the world1 there exists  
in this book a moral force1 a moral     
value1 a power in its unearthly passion 
and purity1 which1 as much as anything  
more deliberately unselfish1 more       
self-consciously ethical1 we must       
acknowledge and honour as holy4  ,as the
 love of him who has read and felt the  
,vita ,nuova cannot but strive towards a
 purer nature1 so also the love of which
 poets sang became also nobler as the   
influence of the strange ,tuscan school 
of platonic lyrists spread throughout   
literature1 bringing to men the         
knowledge of a kind of love born of that
 idealizing and worshipping passion of  
the ,middle ,ages2 but of medival love  
chastened by the manners of stern       
democracy and passed through the sieve  
of ,christian mysticism and pagan       
philosophy4 ,of this influence of the   

,vita ,nuova--for the ,vita ,nuova had  
concentrated in itself all the intensest
 characteristics of ,dante's immediate  
predecessors and contemporaries1 causing
 them to become useless and             
forgotten--of this influence of the     
,vita ,nuova1 there is perhaps no more  
striking example than that of the poet  
who1 constituted by nature to be the    
mere continuator of the romantically    
gallant tradition of the troubadours1   
became1 and hence his importance and    
glory1 the mediator between ,dante and  
the centuries which followed him2 the   
man who gave to mankind1 incapable as   
yet of appreciating or enduring the     
spiritual essence of the ,vita ,nuova1  
that self-same essence of intellectual  
love in an immortal dilution4 ,i speak1 
of course1 of ,petrarch4 ,his passion is
 neither ideal nor strong4 ,the man is  
in love1 or has been in love1 existing  
on a borderland of loving and not       
loving1 with the beautiful woman4 ,his  
elegant1 refined1 half-knightly1        

half-scholarly1 and altogether courtly  
mind is delighted with her2 with her    
curly yellow hair1 her good red and     
white beauty 7we are never even told    
that ,dante's ,beatrice is beautiful1   
yet how much lovelier is she not than   
this ,laura1 descended from all the     
golden-haired bright-eyed ladies of the 
troubadours671 with her manner1 her     
amiability1 her purity and dignity in   
this ecclesiastical ,babylon called     
,avignon4 ,he maintains a               
semi-artificial love2 frequenting her   
house1 writing sonnet after sonnet1     
rhetorical exercises1 studies from the  
antique and the ,provenal1 for the most 
part2 he1 who was born to be a mere     
troubadour like ,ventadour or ,folquet1 
becomes1 through the influence of       
,dante1 the type of the poet ,abate1 of 
the poetic cavaliere servente2 a good1  
weak man with aspirations1 who1 failing 
to get the better of ,laura's virtue1   
doubtless consoles himself elsewhere1   
but returns to an habitual contemplation

 of it4 ,he is1 being constitutionally a
 troubadour1 an ,italian priest turned  
partly ,provenal1 vexed at her not      
becoming his mistress2 then 7having made
 up his mind1 which was but little set  
upon her71 quite pleased at her refusal3
 it turns her into a kind of ,beatrice1 
and him1 poor man1 heaven help him6 into
 a kind of ,dante--a ,dante for the use 
of the world at large4 ,he goes on      
visiting ,laura1 and writing to her a   
sonnet regularly so many times a week1  
and the best1 carefully selected1 we    
feel distinctly persuaded1 at regular   
intervals4 ,it is a determined cultus1 a
 sort of half-real affectation1         
something equivalent to lighting a lamp 
before a very well-painted and very     
conspicuous shrine4 ,all his humanities1
 all his ,provenal lore go into these   
poems--written for whom8 ,for her8      
,decidedly2 for she has no reason not to
 read the effusions of this amiable1    
weak priestlet2 she feels nothing for   
him4 ,for her2 but doubtless also to be 

handed round in society2 a new sonnet or
 canzone by that charming and learned   
man1 the ,abate ,petrarch4 ,there is    
considerable emptiness in all this3 he  
praises ,laura's chastity1 then grows   
impatient1 then praises her again2      
adores her1 calls her cruel1 his        
goddess1 his joy1 his torment2 he does  
not really want her1 but in the vacuity 
of his feeling1 thinks he does2 calls   
her alternately the flat1 abusive1 and  
eulogistic names which mean nothing4 ,he
 plays loud and soft with this absence  
of desire2 he fiddle faddles in         
descriptions of her1 not passionate or  
burning1 but delicately undressed3 he   
sees her 7but with chaste eyes7 in her  
bath2 he envies her veil1 c42 he neither
 violently intellectually embraces1 nor 
humbly bows down in imagination before  
her2 he trifles gracefully1 modestly1   
half-familiarly1 with her finger tips1  
with the locks of her hair1 and so      
forth4 ,fancy ,dante abusing ,beatrice2 
fancy ,dante talking of ,beatrice in her

 bath2 the mere idea of his indignation 
and shame makes one shameful and        
indignant at the thought4 ,but this     
perfect ,laura is no ,beatrice1 or only 
a half-and-half sham one4 ,she is no    
ideal figure1 merely a figure idealized2
 this is no imaginative passion1 merely 
an unreal one4 ,compare1 for instance1  
the suggestion of ,laura's possible     
death with the suggestion of the        
possible death of ,beatrice4 ,petrarch  
does not love sufficiently to guess what
 such a loss would be4 ,then ,laura does
 die4 ,here ,petrarch rises4 ,the       
severing of the dear old habits1 the    
absence of the sweet reality1 the       
terrible sense that all is over1 ,death1
 the great poetizer and giver of love   
philters1 all this makes him love ,laura
 as he never loved her before4 ,the poor
 weak creature1 who cannot1 like a      
troubadour1 go seek a new mistress when 
the old one fails him1 feels dreadfully 
alone1 the world dreadfully dreary      
around him2 he sits down and cries1 and 

his crying is genuine1 making the tears 
come also into our eyes4 ,and ,laura1 as
 she becomes a more distant ideal1      
becomes nobler1 though noble with only a
 faint earthly graciousness not         
comparable to the glory of the living   
,beatrice4 ,and1 as he goes on1 growing 
older and weaker and more desolate1 the 
thought of a glorified ,laura 7as all   
are glorified1 even in the eyes of the  
weakest1 by death7 begins to haunt him  
as ,dante was haunted by the thought of 
,beatrice alive4 ,yet1 even at this very
 time1 come doubts of the lawfulness of 
having thus adored 7or thought he had   
adored7 a mortal woman2 he does not know
 whether all this may not have been     
vanity and folly2 he tries to turn his  
thoughts away from ,laura and up to     
,god4 ,perhaps he may be called on to   
account for having given too much of his
 life to a mere earthly love4 ,then1    
again1 ,laura reappears beautified in   
his memory1 and is again tremblingly    
half-conjured away4 ,he is weak1 and    

sad1 and helpless1 and alone2 and his   
heart is empty2 he knows not what to    
think nor how to feel2 he sobs1 and we  
cry with him4 ,nowhere could there be   
found a stranger contrast than this     
nostalgic craving after the dead ,laura1
 vacillating and troubled by fear of sin
 and doubt of unworthiness of object1   
with that solemn ending of the ,vita    
,nuova1 where the name of ,beatrice is  
pronounced for the last time before it  
be glorified in ,paradise1 where ,dante 
devotes his life to becoming worthy of  
saying such words as have never been    
said of any lady4 ,the ideal woman is   
one and unchangeable in glory1 and      
unchangeable is the passion of her      
lover2 but of this sweet dead ,laura1   
whose purity and beauty and cruelty he  
had sung1 without a tremor of           
self-unworthiness all her life1 of her  
the poor weak ,petrarch begins to doubt1
 of her and her worthiness of all this  
love2 and when8 when she is dead and    
himself is dying4  ,such a man is       

,petrarch2 and yet1 by the irresistible 
purifying and elevating power of the    
,vita ,nuova1' this man came to write   
not other albas and serenas1 not other  
love-songs to be added to the love-songs
 of ,provence1 but those sonnets and    
canzoni which for four centuries taught 
the world1 too coarse as yet to receive 
,dante's passion at first hand1 a nobler
 and more spiritual love4 ,after        
,petrarch a gradual change takes place  
in the poetic conception of love3 except
 in learned revivalisms or in loose     
buffooneries1 the mere fleshly love of  
,antiquity disappears out of literature2
 and equally so1 though by a slower     
process of gradual transformation1      
vanishes also the adoring1 but          
undisguisedly adulterous love of the    
troubadours and minnesingers4 ,into the 
love ,instincts of mankind have been    
mingled1 however much diluted1 some     
drops of the more spiritual passion of  
,dante4 ,the puella of ,antiquity1 the  
noble dame of feudal days1 is succeeded 

in ,latin countries1 in ,italy1 and     
,france1 and ,spain1 and ,portugal1 by  
the gloriosa donna imitated from4       
,petrarch1 and imitated by ,petrarch    
from ,dante2 a long-line of shadowy     
figures1 veiled in the veil of ,madonna 
,laura1 ladies beloved of ,lorenzo and  
,michael ,angelo1 of ,ariosto1 and      
,tasso1 and ,camoens1 and ,cervantes1   
passes through the world2 nay1 even the 
sprightly-mistress of ,ronsard1         
half-bred pagan and troubadour has airs 
of dignity and mystery which make us    
almost think that in this dainty        
coquettish ,french body1 of ,marie or   
,helene or ,cassandrette1 there really  
may be an immortal soul4 ,but with the  
,renaissance--that movement half of     
medival democratic progress1 and half of
 antique revivalism1 and to which in    
reality belongs not merely ,petrarch1   
but ,dante1 and every one of the ,tuscan
 poets1 ,guinicelli1 ,lapo ,gianni1     
,cavalcanti1 who broke with the feudal  
poetry of ,provence and ,sicily--with   

the ,renaissance1 or rather with its    
long-drawn-out end1 comes the close1 for
 the moment1 of the really creative     
activity of the ,latin peoples in the   
domain of poetry4 ,all the things for   
two centuries which ,italy and ,france  
and ,spain and ,portugal 7which we must 
remember for the sake of ,camoens7      
continue to produce1 are but            
developments of parts left untouched2 or
 refinements of extreme detail1 as in   
the case1 particularly1 of the ,french  
poets of the sixteenth century2 but     
poetry receives from these races nothing
 new or vital1 no fresh ideal or        
fruitful marriage of ideals4 ,and here  
begins1 uniting in itself all the       
scattered and long-dormant powers of    
,northern poetry1 the great and         
unexpected action of ,england4 ,it had  
slept through the singing period of the 
,middle ,ages1 and was awakened1 not by 
,germany or ,provence1 but by ,italy3   
,boccaccio and ,petrarch spoke1 and1 as 
through dreams1 ,england in ,chaucer's  

voice1 made answer4 ,again1 when the    
,renaissance had drawn to a close1 far  
on in the sixteenth century1 ,english   
poetry was reawakened2 and again by     
,italy4 ,this time it was completely    
wakened1 and arose and slept no more4   
,and one of the great and fruitful      
things achieved by ,english poetry in   
this its final awakening was to give to 
the world the new1 the modern1 perhaps  
the definitive1 the final ideal of love4
 ,england drank a deep draught--how deep
 we see from ,sidney's and ,spenser's   
sonnets--of ,petrarch2 and in this      
pleasant dilution1 tasted and felt the  
burning essence of the ,vita ,nuova2 for
 though ,dante remained as the poet1 the
 poet of heaven and hell1 this happy    
half-and-half ,petrarch had for full two
 centuries completely driven into       
oblivion the young ,dante who had loved 
,beatrice4 ,for ,england1 for this      
magnificent and marvellous outburst of  
all the manifold poetic energy stored up
 and quintupled during that long period 

of inertness1 there could however be no 
foreign imported ideal of love2 there   
was no possibility of a new series of   
spectral ,lauras1 shadows projected by a
 shadow4 ,already1 long ago1 at the     
first call of ,petrarch1 ,chaucer1 by   
the side of the merely medival love     
types--of brutish lust and doglike      
devotion--of the ,wife of ,bath and of  
,griseldis1 had rough-sketched a kind of
 modern love1 the love which is to      
become that of ,romeo and ,hamlet1 in   
his story of ,palemon and ,arcite4      
,among the poetic material which existed
 in ,england at the close of the        
sixteenth century was the old1          
long-neglected1 domestic love1 quiet1   
undemonstrative1 essentially unsinging1 
of the early ,northern 7as indeed also  
of the ,greek and ,hindoo7 epics2 a     
domestic love which1 in a social        
condition more closely resembling our   
own than any other1 even than that of   
the ,italian democracies1 which had     
preceded it2 among a people who         

permitted a woman to choose her own     
husband1 and forbade a man wooing       
another man's wife1 had already1 in     
ballads and folk poetry1 begun a        
faint-twitter of song4 ,to this love of 
the man and the woman who hope to marry1
 strong and tender1 but still 7as       
,coleridge remarked of several of the   
lesser ,elizabethan playwrights7 most   
outspokenly carnal1 was united by the   
pure spirit of ,spenser1 by the unerring
 genius of ,shakespeare1 that vivifying 
drop of burning1 spiritual love taken   
from out of the ,vita ,nuova1 which had 
floated1 like some sovereign essential  
oil1 on the top of ,petrarch's          
rose-water4 ,henceforward the world     
possesses a new kind of love3 the love  
of ,romeo1 of ,hamlet1 of ,bassanio1 of 
,viola1 and of ,juliet2 the love of the 
love poems of ,shelley1 of ,tennyson1 of
 ,browning and ,browning's wife4 ,a love
 whose blindness1 exaggeration of       
passion1 all that might have made it    
foolish and impracticable1 leads no     

longer to folly and sin1 but to an      
intenser activity of mankind's          
imagination of the good and beautiful1  
to a momentary realization in our fancy 
of all our vague dreams of perfection2 a
 love which1 though it may cool down    
imperceptibly and pale in its           
intenseness1 like the sunrise fires into
 a serene sky1 has left some glory round
 the head of the wife1 some glory in the
 heart of the husband1 has been1 however
 fleeting1 a vision of beauty which has 
made beauty more real4 ,and all this    
owing to the creation1 the storing up1  
the purification by the ,platonic poets 
of ,tuscany1 of that strange and        
seemingly so artificial and unreal      
thing1 medival love2 the very forms and 
themes of whose poetry1 the serena and  
the alba1 which had been indignantly put
 aside by the early ,italian lyrists1   
being unconsciously revived1 and        
purified and consecrated in the two     
loveliest love poems of ,elizabethan    
poetry3 the serena1 the evening song of 

impatient expectation in ,spenser's     
,epithalamium2 the alba1 the dawn song  
of hurried parting1 in the balcony scene
 of ,romeo and ,juliet4  ,let us        
recapitulate4 ,the feudal ,middle ,ages 
gave to mankind a more refined and      
spiritual love1 a love all chivalry1    
fidelity1 and adoration1 but a love     
steeped in the poison of adultery2 and  
to save the pure and noble portions of  
this medival love became the mission of 
the ,tuscan poets of that strange school
 of ,platonic love which in its very    
loveliness may sometimes seem so        
unnatural and sterile4 ,for1 by reducing
 this medival love to a mere            
intellectual passion1 seeking in woman  
merely a self-made embodiment of        
cravings after perfection1 they cleansed
 away that deep stain of adultery2 they 
quadrupled the intensity of the ideal   
element2 they distilled the very        
essential spirit of poetic passion1 of  
which but a few drops1 even as diluted  
by ,petrarch1 precipitated1 when mingled

 with the earthly passion of future     
poets1 to the bottom1 no longer to be   
seen or tasted1 all baser ingredients4  
,and1 while the poems of minnesingers   
and troubadours have ceased to appeal to
 us1 and remain merely for their charm  
of verse and of graceful conceit2 the   
poetry written by the ,italians of the  
thirteenth century for women1 whose love
 was but an imaginative fervour1 remains
 concentrated in the ,vita ,nuova2 and  
will remain for all time the sovereign  
purifier to which the world must have   
recourse whenever that precipitate of   
baser instincts1 which thickened like   
slime the love poetry of ,antiquity1    
shall rise again and sully the purity of
 the love poetry of to-day4             
,,epilogue4  ,more than a year has      
elapsed since the moment when1 fancying 
that this series of studies must be     
well-nigh complete1 ,i attempted to     
explain in an introductory chapter what 
the nature of this book of mine is1 or  
would fain be4 ,i had hoped that each of

 these studies would complete its       
companions2 and that1 without need for  
explicit explanation1 my whole idea     
would have become more plain to others  
than it was at that time even to myself4
 ,but instead1 it has become obvious    
that the more carefully ,i had sought to
 reduce each question to unity1 the more
 that question-subdivided and connected 
itself with other questions2 and that1  
with the solution of each separate      
problem1 had arisen a new set of        
problems which infinitely complicated   
the main lessons to be deduced from a   
study of that many-sided civilization to
 which1 remembering the brilliant and   
mysterious offspring of ,faustus and    
,helena1 ,i have given the name of      
,euphorion4 ,hence1 as it seems1 the    
necessity for a few further words of    
explanation4  ,in those introductory    
pages written some fifteen months ago1  
,i tried to bring home to the reader a  
sense which has haunted me throughout   
the writing of this volume2 namely1 that

 instead of having deliberately made up 
my mind to study the ,renaissance1 as   
one makes up one's mind to visit ,greece
 or ,egypt or the ,holy ,land2 ,i have1 
on the contrary1 quite accidentally and 
unconsciously1 found myself wandering   
about in spirit among the monuments of  
this particular historic region1 even as
 ,i might wander about in the streets of
 ,siena where ,i wrote last year1 of    
,florence whence ,i write at present2   
wandering about among these things1 and 
little by little feeling a particular   
interest in one1 then in another1       
according as each happened to catch my  
fancy or to recall some already known   
thing4 ,now these1 which for want of a  
better word ,i have just called         
monuments1 and just now1 less clearly1  
but also less foolishly1 merely         
things--these things were in reality not
 merely individual and really existing  
buildings1 books1 pictures1 or statues1 
individual and really registered men1   
women1 and events2 they were the mental 

conceptions which ,i had extracted out  
of these realities2 the intellectual    
types made up 7as the medival symbols of
 justice are made up of the visible     
paraphernalia1 robe1 scales and sword1  
for judging and weighing and punishing7 
of the impressions left on the mind by  
all those buildings1 or books1 or       
pictures1 or statues1 or men1 women1 and
 events4 ,they were not the iniquities  
of this particular despot nor the       
scandalous sayings of that particular   
humanist1 but the general moral chaos of
 the ,italian fifteenth and sixteenth   
centuries2 not the poem of ,pulci1 of   
,boiardo1 of ,ariosto in especial1 but a
 vast imaginary poem made up of them    
all2 not the medival saints of ,angelico
 and the pagan demi-gods of ,michael    
,angelo1 but the two tremendous         
abstractions3 the spirit of ,medivalism 
in art1 and the spirit of ,antiquity2   
the interest in the distressed soul1 and
 the interest in the flourishing body4  
,and1 as my thoughts have gone back to  

,antiquity and onwards to our own times1
 their starting-point has nevertheless  
been the ,tuscan art of the fifteenth   
century1 their nucleus some notes on    
busts by ,benedetto da ,maiano and      
portraits by ,raphael4  ,my dramatis    
persona have been modes of feeling and  
forms of art4 ,i have tried to explain  
the life and character1 not of any man  
or woman1 but of the moral scepticism of
 ,italy1 of the tragic spirit of our    
,elizabethan dramatists2 ,i have tried  
to write the biography of the romance   
poetry of the ,middle ,ages1 of the     
realism of the great portrait painters  
and sculptors of the ,renaissance4 ,but 
these1 my dramatis persona1 are1 let me 
repeat it1 abstractions3 they exist only
 in my mind and in the minds of those   
who think like myself4 ,hence1 like all 
abstractions1 they represent the essence
 of a question1 but not its             
completeness1 its many-sidedness as we  
may see it in reality4 ,hence it is that
 ,i have frequently passed over         

exceptions to the rule which ,i was     
stating1 because the explanation of     
these exceptions would have involved the
 formulating of a number of apparently  
irrelevant propositions2 so that any one
 who please may accuse me of            
inexactness2 and1 to give an instance1  
cover the margins of my essay on        
,medival ,love with a whole list of     
virtuous love stories of the ,middle    
,ages2 or else ferret out of ,raynouard 
and ,von der ,hagen a dozen pages of    
medival poems in praise of rustic life4 
,these objections will be perfectly     
correct1 and 7so far as my knowledge    
permitted me7 ,i might have puzzled the 
reader with them myself2 but it remains 
none the less certain that1 in the main1
 medival love was not virtuous1 and     
medival peasantry not admired by poets2 
and none the less certain1 ,i think1    
also1 that in describing the            
characteristics and origin of an        
abstract thing1 such as medival love1 or
 medival feeling towards the country and

 country folk1 it was my business to    
state the rule and let alone the        
exceptions4  ,there is another matter   
which gives me far greater concern4 ,in 
creating and dealing with an            
abstraction1 one is frequently forced1  
if ,i may use the expression1 to cut a  
subject in two1 to bring one of its     
sides into full light and leave the     
other in darkness2 nay1 to speak harshly
 of one side of an art or of a man      
without being able to speak admiringly  
of another side4  ,this one-sidedness1  
this apparent injustice of judgment1 has
 in some cases been remedied by the fact
 that ,i have treated in one study those
 things which ,i was forced to omit in  
another study2 as1 in two separate      
essays1 ,i have pointed out first the   
extreme inferiority of ,renaissance     
sculpture to the sculpture of ,antiquity
 with regard to absolute beauty of form2
 and then the immeasurable superiority  
of ,renaissance over antique sculpture  
in the matter of that beauty and        

interest dependent upon mere arrangement
 and handling1 wherein lies the         
beauty-creating power of realistic      
schools4 ,but most often ,i have shown  
one side1 not merely of an artist or an 
art1 but of my own feeling1 without     
showing the other2 and in one case this 
inevitable one-sidedness has weighed    
upon me almost like personal guilt1 and 
has almost made me postpone the         
publication of this book to the ,greek  
,kalends1 in hopes of being able to     
explain and to atone4 ,i am alluding to 
,fra ,angelico4 ,i spoke of him in a    
study of the progress of mere beautiful 
form1 the naked human form moreover1 in 
the art of the ,renaissance2 ,i looked  
at his work with my mind full of the    
unapproachable superiority of antique   
form2 ,i judged and condemned the artist
 with reference to that superb movement 
towards nature and form and bodily      
beauty which was the universal movement 
of the fifteenth century2 ,i lost       
patience with this saint because he     

would not turn pagan2 ,i pushed aside1  
because he did not seek for a classic   
,olympus1 his exquisite dreams of a     
medival ,paradise4 ,i had taken part1 as
 its chronicler1 with the art which     
seeks mere plastic perfection1 the art  
to which ,angelico said1 ,retro me      
,sathana4 ,it was my intention to close 
even this volume with a study of the    
poetical conception of early            
,renaissance painting1 of that strange  
kind of painting in which a thing but   
imperfect in itself1 a mere symbol of   
lovely ideas1 brings home to our mind1  
with a rush of associations1 a sense of 
beauty and wonder greater perhaps than  
any which we receive from the sober     
reality of perfect form4 ,again1 there  
are the ,german masters--the great      
engravers1 ,kranach1 ,altdorfer1        
,aldegrever1 especially2 of whom1 for   
their absolute pleasure in ugly women1  
for their filthy delight in horrors1 ,i 
have said an immense amount of ill2 and 
of whom1 for their wonderful intuition  

of dramatic situation1 their instinct of
 the poetry of common things1 and their 
magnificently imaginative rendering of  
landscape1 ,i hope some day to say an   
equal amount of good4  ,i have spoken of
 the lesson which may be derived from   
studies even as humble as these studies 
of mine2 since1 in my opinion1 we cannot
 treat history as a mere art--though    
history alone can gives us now-a-days   
tragedy which has ceased to exist on our
 stage1 and wonder which has ceased to  
exist in our poetry--we cannot seek in  
it mere selfish enjoyment of imagination
 and emotion1 without doing our soul the
 great injury of cheating it of some of 
those great indignations1 some of those 
great lessons which make it stronger and
 more supple in the practical affairs of
 life4 ,each of these studies of mine   
brings its own lesson1 artistic or      
ethical1 important or unimportant2 its  
lesson of seeking certainty in our moral
 opinions1 beauty in all and whatever   
our forms of art1 spirituality in our   

love4 ,but besides these ,i seem to     
perceive another deduction1 an          
historical fact with a practical        
application2 to see it as the result not
 merely perhaps of the studies of which 
this book is the fruit1 but of those    
further studies1 of the subtler sides of
 ,medival and ,renaissance life and art 
which at present occupy my mind and may 
some day add another series of essays to
 this3 a lesson still vague to myself1  
but which1 satisfactorily or            
unsatisfactorily1 ,i shall nevertheless 
attempt to explain2 if indeed it        
requires to be brought home to the      
reader4  ,of the few forms of feeling   
and imagination which ,i have           
treated--things so different from one   
another as the feeling for nature and   
the chivalric poem1 as modern art1 with 
its idealism and realism1 and modern    
love--of these forms1 emotional and     
artistic1 which ,antiquity did not know1
 or knew but little1 the reader may have
 observed that ,i have almost invariably

 traced the origin deep into that       
fruitful cosmopolitan chaos1 due to the 
mingling of all that was still unused of
 the remains of ,antiquity with all that
 was untouched of the intellectual and  
moral riches of the barbarous nations1  
to which we give the name of ,middle    
,ages2 and that ,i have1 as invariably1 
followed the development of these       
precious forms1 and their definitive    
efflorescence and fruit-bearing1 into   
that particular country where certain   
medival conditions had ceased to exist1 
namely ,italy4 ,in other words1 it has  
seemed to me that the things which ,i   
have studied were originally produced   
during the ,middle ,ages1 and           
consequently in the medival countries1  
,france1 ,germany1 ,provence2 but did   
not attain maturity except in that      
portion of the ,middle ,ages which is   
medival no longer1 but already more than
 half modern1 the ,renaissance1 which   
began in ,italy not with the            
establishment of despotisms and the     

coming of ,greek humanists1 but with the
 independence of the free towns and with
 the revival of ,roman tradition4  ,why 
so8 ,because1 it appears to me1 after   
watching the lines of my thought        
converging to this point1 because1 with 
a few exceptions1 the ,middle ,ages were
 rich in great beginnings 7indeed a good
 half of all that makes up our present  
civilization seems to issue from them73 
but they were poor in complete          
achievements2 full of the seeds of      
modern institutions1 arts1 thoughts1 and
 feelings1 they yet show us but rarely  
the complete growth of any one of them3 
a fruitful ,nile flood1 but which must  
cease to drown and to wash away1 which  
must subside before the germs that it   
has brought can shoot forth and mature4 
,the sense of this comes home to me most
 powerfully whenever ,i think of medival
 poetry and medival painting4  ,the     
songs of the troubadours and            
minnesingers1 what are they to our      
feelings8 ,they are pleasant1 even      

occasionally beautiful1 but they are    
empty1 lamentably empty1 charming       
arrangements of words2 poetry which     
fills our mind or touches our heart     
comes only with the ,tuscan lyrists of  
the thirteenth century4 ,the same       
applies to medival narrative-verse3 it  
is1 with one or two exceptions or half  
exceptions1 such as ,the ,chanson de    
,roland and ,gottfried's ,tristan und   
,isolde1 decidedly wearisome2 a thing to
 study1 but scarcely a thing to delight 
in4 ,i do not mean to say that the old  
legends of ,wales and ,scandinavia1     
subsequently embodied by the ,french and
 ,german poets of the ,middle ,ages1 are
 without imaginative or emotional       
interest2 nothing can be further from my
 thoughts4 ,the ,nibelung story         
possesses1 both in the ,norse and in the
 ,middle ,high ,german version1 a tragic
 fascination2 and a quaint fairy-tale   
interest1 every now and then rising to  
the charm of a ,decameronian novella1 is
 possessed by many of the ,keltic tales1

 whether briefly told in the ,mabinogion
 or lengthily detailed by ,chrestien de 
,troyes and ,wolfram von ,eschenbach4   
,but all this is the interest of the    
mere story1 and you would enjoy it      
almost as much if that story were       
related not by a poet but by a peasant2 
it is the fascination of the mere theme1
 with the added fascination of our own  
unconscious filling up and colouring of 
details4 ,and the poem itself1 whence we
 extract this theme1 remains1 for the   
most part1 uninteresting4 ,the figures  
are vague1 almost shapeless and         
colourless2 they have no well-understood
 mental and moral anatomy1 so that when 
they speak and act the writer seems to  
have no clear conception of the motives 
or tempers which make them do so2 even  
as in a child's pictures1 the horses    
gallop1 the men run1 the houses stand1  
but without any indication of the       
muscles which move the horse1 of the    
muscles which hold up the man1 of the   
solid ground upon which is built1 nay   

rather1 into which is planted1 the      
house4 ,hatred of ,hagen1 devotion of   
,rdger1 passionate piety of             
,parzival--all these are things of which
 we do not particularly see the how or  
why2 we do not follow the reasons1 in   
event or character1 which make these men
 sacrifice themselves or others1 weep1  
storm1 and so forth2 nay1 even when     
these reasons are clear from the        
circumstances1 we are not shown the     
action of the mechanism1 we do not see  
how ,brunhilt is wroth1 how ,chriemhilt 
is revengeful1 how ,herzeloid is devoted
 to ,parzival4 ,there is1 in the vast   
majority of this medival poetry1 no     
clear conception of the construction and
 functions of people's character1 and   
hence no conception either of those     
actions and reactions of various moral  
organs which1 after all1 are at the     
bottom of the events related4 ,herein   
lies the difference between the forms of
 the ,middle ,ages and those of         
,antiquity2 for how perfectly felt1     

understood1 is not every feeling and    
every action of the ,homeric heroes1 how
 perfectly indicated6 ,we can see the   
manner and reason of the conflict of    
,achilles and ,agamemnon1 of the        
behaviour of the returned ,odysseus1 as 
clearly as we see the manner and reason 
of the movements of the fighting        
,centaurs and ,lapith1 or the ,amazons2 
nay1 even the minute mood of            
comparatively unimportant figures1 as   
,helen1 ,brisei's1 and ,nausicaa1 is    
indicated in its moral anatomy and      
attitude as distinctly as is the manner 
in which the maidens of the ,parthenon  
frieze slowly restrain their steps1 the 
boys curb their steeds1 or the old men  
balance their oil jars4 ,nothing of this
 in medival literature1 except perhaps  
in ,flamenca and ,tristan1 where the    
motive of action1 mere imaginative      
desire1 is all-permeating and explains  
everything4 ,these people clearly had no
 interest1 no perception1 connected with
 character3 a valorous woman1 a         

chivalrous knight1 an insolent steward1 
a jealous husband1 a faithful retainer2 
things recognized only in outline1 made 
to speak and act only according to a    
fixed tradition1 without knowledge of   
the internal mechanism of motive2 these 
sufficed4 ,hence it is that medival     
poetry is always like medival painting  
7for painting continued to be medival   
with ,giotto's pupils long after poetry 
had ceased to be medival with ,dante and
 his school71 where the ,virgin sits and
 holds the child without body wherewith 
to sit or arms wherewith to hold2 where 
angels flutter forward and kneel in     
conventional greeting1 with obviously no
 bended knees beneath their robes1 nay1 
with knees1 waist1 armpits1 all         
anywhere2 where men ride upon horses    
without flat to their back2 where       
processions of the blessed come forth1  
guided by fiddling seraphs1 vague1 faint
 faces1 sweet or grand1 heads which     
might wave like pieces of cut-out paper 
upon their necks1 arms and legs here and

 there1 not clearly belonging to any    
one2 creatures marching1 soaring1       
flying1 singing1 fiddling1 without a    
bone or a muscle wherewith to do it all4
 ,and meanwhile1 in this medival poetry1
 as in this medival painting1 there are 
yards and yards of elaborate            
preciousness3 all the embossed velvets1 
all the white-and-gold-shot brocades1   
all the silks and satins1 and           
jewel-embroidered stuffs of the universe
 cast stiffly about these phantom men   
and women1 these phantom horses and     
horsemen4 ,it is not until we turn to   
,italy1 and to the ,northern man1       
,chaucer1 entirely under ,italian       
influence1 that we obtain an approach to
 the antique clearness of perception and
 comprehension2 that we obtain not only 
in ,dante something akin to the         
muscularities of ,signorelli and        
,michael ,angelo2 but in ,boccaccio and 
,chaucer1 in ,cavalca and ,petrarch1 the
 equivalent of the well-understood      
movement1 the well-indicated situation  

of the simple1 realistic or poetic1     
sketches of ,filippino and ,botticelli4 
,this1 you will say1 is a mere          
impression2 it is no explanation1 still 
less such an explanation as may afford a
 lesson4 ,not so4 ,this strange         
inconclusiveness in all medival things1 
till the moment comes when they cease to
 be medival2 this richness in germs and 
poverty in mature fruit1 cannot be      
without its reason4 ,and this reason1 to
 my mind1 lies in one word1 the most    
terrible word of any1 since it means    
suffering and hopelessness2 a word which
 has haunted my mind ever since ,i have 
looked into medival things3 the word    
,wastefulness4 ,wastefulness2 the       
frightful characteristic of times at    
once so rich and so poor1 the           
explanation of the long starvation and  
sickness that mankind1 that all         
mankind's concerns--art1 poetry1        
science1 life--endured while the very   
things which would have fed and revived 
and nurtured1 existed close at hand1 and

 in profusion4 ,wastefulness1 in this   
great period of confusion1 of the most  
precious things that we possess3 time1  
thought1 and feeling refused to the     
realities of the world1 and lavished on 
the figments of the imagination4 ,why   
this vagueness1 this imperfection in all
 medival representations of life8       
,because even as men's eyes were        
withdrawn1 by the temporal institutions 
of those days1 from the sight of the    
fields and meadows which were left to   
the blind and dumb thing called serf2 so
 also the thoughts of mankind1 its      
sympathy and intentions1 were withdrawn 
from the mere earthly souls1 the mere   
earthly wrongs and woes of men by the   
great self-organized institution of     
medival religion4 ,pity of the body of  
,christ held in bondage by the ,infidel2
 love of ,god2 study of the unknowable  
things of ,heaven3 such are the noblest 
employments of the medival soul2 how    
much of pity1 of love1 may remain for   
man2 how much of study for the knowable8

 ,to ,wastefulness like this--to        
misapplication of mind ending almost in 
palsy--must we ascribe1 ,i think1 the   
strange sterility of such medival art as
 deals not merely with pattern1 but with
 the reality of man's body and soul4    
,and we might be thankful1 if1 during   
our wanderings among medival things1 we 
had seen the starving of only art and   
artistic instincts2 but the soul of man 
has lain starving also2 starving for the
 knowledge which was sought only of     
,divine things1 starving for the love   
which was given only to ,god4  ,the     
explanation1 therefore1 and its lesson1 
may thus be summed up in the one word   
,wastefulness4 ,and the fruitfulness of 
the ,renaissance1 all that it has given 
to us of art1 of thought1 of feeling    
7for the ,vita ,nuova is its fruit71 is 
due1 as it seems to me1 to the fact that
 the ,renaissance is simply the         
condition of civilization when1 thanks  
to the civil liberty and the spiritual  
liberty inherited from ,rome and        

inherited from ,greece1 man's energies  
of thought and feeling were withdrawn   
from the unknowable to the knowable1    
from ,heaven to ,earth2 and were devoted
 to the developing of those marvellous  
new things which ,antiquity had not     
known1 and which had lain neglected and 
wasted during the ,middle ,ages4        
,,florence1 ,january1#ahhd4             
,,appendix4  ,i have seen the pictures  
and statues and towns which ,i have     
described1 and ,i have read the books of
 which ,i attempt to give an impression2
 but here my original research1 if such 
it may be called1 comes to an end4 ,i   
have trusted only to myself for my      
impressions2 but ,i have taken from     
others everything that may be called    
historical fact1 as distinguished from  
the history of this or that form of     
thought or of art which ,i have tried to
 elaborate4 ,my references are therefore
 only to standard historical works1 and 
to such editions of poets and prose     
writers as have come into my hands4 ,how

 much ,i am endebted to the genius of   
,michelet2 nay1 rather1 how much ,i am1 
however unimportant1 the thing made by  
him1 every one will see and judge4 ,with
 regard to positive information ,i must 
express my great obligations to the     
works of ,jacob ,burckhardt1 of ,prof4  
,villari1 and of ,mr4 ,j4,a4 ,symonds in
 everything that concerns the political 
history and social condition of the     
,renaissance4 ,mr4 ,symonds' name ,i    
have placed last1 although this is by no
 means the order of importance in which 
the three writers appear in my mind1    
because vanity compels me to state that 
,i have deprived myself of the pleasure 
and profit of reading his volumes on    
,italian literature1 from a fear that   
finding myself doubtless forestalled by 
him in various appreciations1 ,i might  
deprive my essays of what ,i feel to be 
their principal merit1 namely1 the      
spontaneity and wholeness of personal   
impression4 ,with regard to philological
 lore1 ,i may refer1 among a number of  

other works1 to ,m4 ,gaston ,paris' work
 on the ,cycle of ,charlemagne1 ,m4 de  
la ,villemarqu's companion volume on    
,keltic romances1 and ,professor        
,rajna's ,fonti dell' ,ariosto4 ,my     
knowledge of troubadours1 trouvres1 and 
minnesingers is obtained mainly from the
 great collections of ,raynouard1       
,wackernagel1 ,mtzner1 ,bartsch1 and    
,von der ,hagen1 and from ,bartsch's and
 ,simrock's editions and versions of    
,gottfried von ,strassburg1 ,hartmann   
von ,aue1 and ,wolfram von ,eschenbach4 
,flamenca ,i have read in ,professor    
,paul ,meyer's beautiful edition1 text  
and translation2 ,aucassin et           
,nicolette1 in an edition published1 if 
,i remember rightly1 by ,janet2 and also
 in a very happy translation contained  
in ,delvau's huge collection of ,romans 
de ,chevalerie1 which contains1         
unfortunately sometimes garbled1 as many
 of the prose stories of the            
,carolingian and ,amadis cycle as ,i1 at
 all events1 could endure to read4 ,for 

the early ,italian poets1 excepting     
,carducci's ,cino da ,pistoia1 my       
references are the same as those in     
,rossetti's ,dante and his ,cycle1      
especially the ,rime ,antiche and the   
,poeti del ,primo ,secolo4 ,professor   
d',ancona's pleasant volume has greatly 
helped me in the history of the         
transformation of the courtly poetry of 
the early ,middle ,ages into the folk   
poetry of ,tuscany4 ,i owe a good deal  
also1 with regard to this same essay    
,the ,outdoor ,poetry1 to ,roskoff's    
famous ,geschichte des ,teufels1 and to 
,signor ,novati's recently published    
,carmina ,medii vi4 ,the ,italian       
novellieri1 ,bandello1 ,cinthio1 and    
their set1 ,i have used in the          
,florentine editions of #ahbj or #ahbe2 
,masuccio edited by ,de ,sanctis4 ,for  
the essay on the ,italian ,renaissance  
on the ,elizabethan ,stage1 ,i have had 
recourse1 chiefly1 to the fifteenth     
century chronicles in the ,archivio     
,storico ,italiano1 and to ,dyce's      

,webster1 ,hartley ,coleridge's         
,massinger and ,ford1 ,churton ,collins'
 ,cyril ,tourneur1 and ,j4,o4           
,halliwell's ,marston4  ,the essays on  
art have naturally profited by the now  
inevitable ,crowe and ,cavalcaselle2 but
 in this part of my work1 while ,i have 
relied very little on books1 ,i have    
received more than the equivalent of the
 information to be obtained from any    
writers in the suggestions and          
explanations of my friend ,mr4 ,t4      
,nelson ,mac,lean1 who has made it      
possible for a mere creature of pens and
 ink to follow the differences of       
technique of the sculptors and          
medallists of the fifteenth century2 a  
word of thanks also1 for various such   
suggestions as can come only from a     
painter1 to my old friend ,mr4 ,john ,s4
 ,sargent1 of ,paris4  ,i must conclude 
these acknowledgments by thanking the   
,editors of the ,contemporary1 ,british 
,quarterly1 and ,national ,reviews1 and 
of the ,cornhill ,magazine1 for         

permission to republish such of the     
essays or fragments of essays as have   
already appeared in those periodicals4  
,,the ,,end4