An Early "Tagelied"

An Early "Tagelied"Author(s): A. T. HattoSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Jan., 1951), pp. 66-69Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3719544 .

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66 Miscellaneous Notes

suggesting twisting and turning movements' and finally Rand cognate with rinnen and signifying flow and quick progression.2 Since, however, subtlety implies twists and quick movements, the words may have been associated with one another. I must admit, however, that this is only a guess.

(3) There is a strong tendency in man to associate physical features with traits of character. It can be found in all I.E. languages, in dialects, in proverbs,3 educated speech and, above all, in literature. Red hair, thin lips, a 'weak' chin are all supposed to enlighten us about the character of their owner. Shakespeare's lines put into the mouth of Caesar:

Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights; Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous (I. ii. 191)

are the most obvious example. The public accepted such equations as 'fat = harmless, good-natured' or 'lean = ambitious, dangerous' as readily as it approved of proverbs on the stupidity of tall people4 and helped to promote the semantic change from rund to geschickt.5 I have therefore no hesitation in putting the change of ran= 'slim' to ran or rahn =' cunning', 'subtle' into the same category.

In summing up, I would suggest that the psychological factor mentioned under (3) assisted by the linguistic phenomenon described under (1) brought about the

temporary and locally confined extension of meaning preserved for us in Lehman's

proverb. KEITH SPALDING

SWANSEA

AN EARLY 'TAGELIED'

'Ich sich den morgensteme brehen- nu, helt, la dich niht gere sehen. uil liebe, dest min rat. swer tovgenlichen minnet, wie tugentlich daz stat, da frivntschaft hute hat.'

(THE LADY) 'I see the morning-star shining!-now, knight, don't let yourself be seen. Dear love, that's my advice. When they love in secret how right it is that lovers should take care.'

The translation offered here will seem strange to most readers since for some ninety years past this strophe from the Carmina Burana6 has been taken as the utterance

1 Cf. D.Wb. vm, 98; Hirt, Etym. 41; Kluge- by S. Singer, Sprichw6rter des Mittelalters (Bern, Gotze, Etym. Wb. 467 (llth ed.). 1947), m, 45-6, where an English example is

2 Cf. D. Wb. vmi, 87-8; Fick, I, 19 (3rd ed.) and added: Duff Cooper, David (Ljus Engl. Libr. 19, II, 251. Stockholm, 1943), p. 16: 'he had also noticed

3 Cf. German proverbs such as Kleiner Mann, that very tall men were usually slow-witted'. grojfes Herz or Schdne Haut, afjliche Gedanken. 5 Cf. my 'Note on (g)rundgescheit' in M.L.R.,

4 Cf. Freidank, 80, 26 and 85, 21 which have XLV, 67. their counterpart in the French proverb Quand la 6 No. 183a in the numeration of Hilka's and maison est trop haute, il n'y a rien au grenier, Schumann's edition (1930-41), , 2, p. 308; No. 144 discussed with all its parallels in other languages in that of Schmeller.

66 Miscellaneous Notes

suggesting twisting and turning movements' and finally Rand cognate with rinnen and signifying flow and quick progression.2 Since, however, subtlety implies twists and quick movements, the words may have been associated with one another. I must admit, however, that this is only a guess.

(3) There is a strong tendency in man to associate physical features with traits of character. It can be found in all I.E. languages, in dialects, in proverbs,3 educated speech and, above all, in literature. Red hair, thin lips, a 'weak' chin are all supposed to enlighten us about the character of their owner. Shakespeare's lines put into the mouth of Caesar:

Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights; Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous (I. ii. 191)

are the most obvious example. The public accepted such equations as 'fat = harmless, good-natured' or 'lean = ambitious, dangerous' as readily as it approved of proverbs on the stupidity of tall people4 and helped to promote the semantic change from rund to geschickt.5 I have therefore no hesitation in putting the change of ran= 'slim' to ran or rahn =' cunning', 'subtle' into the same category.

In summing up, I would suggest that the psychological factor mentioned under (3) assisted by the linguistic phenomenon described under (1) brought about the

temporary and locally confined extension of meaning preserved for us in Lehman's

proverb. KEITH SPALDING

SWANSEA

AN EARLY 'TAGELIED'

'Ich sich den morgensteme brehen- nu, helt, la dich niht gere sehen. uil liebe, dest min rat. swer tovgenlichen minnet, wie tugentlich daz stat, da frivntschaft hute hat.'

(THE LADY) 'I see the morning-star shining!-now, knight, don't let yourself be seen. Dear love, that's my advice. When they love in secret how right it is that lovers should take care.'

The translation offered here will seem strange to most readers since for some ninety years past this strophe from the Carmina Burana6 has been taken as the utterance

1 Cf. D.Wb. vm, 98; Hirt, Etym. 41; Kluge- by S. Singer, Sprichw6rter des Mittelalters (Bern, Gotze, Etym. Wb. 467 (llth ed.). 1947), m, 45-6, where an English example is

2 Cf. D. Wb. vmi, 87-8; Fick, I, 19 (3rd ed.) and added: Duff Cooper, David (Ljus Engl. Libr. 19, II, 251. Stockholm, 1943), p. 16: 'he had also noticed

3 Cf. German proverbs such as Kleiner Mann, that very tall men were usually slow-witted'. grojfes Herz or Schdne Haut, afjliche Gedanken. 5 Cf. my 'Note on (g)rundgescheit' in M.L.R.,

4 Cf. Freidank, 80, 26 and 85, 21 which have XLV, 67. their counterpart in the French proverb Quand la 6 No. 183a in the numeration of Hilka's and maison est trop haute, il n'y a rien au grenier, Schumann's edition (1930-41), , 2, p. 308; No. 144 discussed with all its parallels in other languages in that of Schmeller.



Miscellaneous Notes 67

not of a lady but of a watchman or friend.1 Even Scherer, who stands alone in having discerned some of the poem's early affinities, remains undecided whether we are to conceive the words as spoken by a watchman or (as in the famous alba of Guiraut de Bornelh) by a loyal friend of the lover standing guard.2

To those who read the poem in the traditional way it no doubt means: (Watch- man) 'I see the morning-star shining! Now knight, don't let yourself be seen. Dear friend, that's my advice. When a man loves in secret, how fine it is that a friend should stand sentinel ! But such a reading goes back to the prejudice in favour of Romance origins that caused Bartsch to suspect a 'watchman and waker' in the little bird on the linden in the other early Tagelied, that of pseudo-Dietmar (M.F. 39, 18).3 For in a footnote to his edition of our poem he says: 'Der Wachter, der aber hier noch Freund der Liebenden ist (daher die Anrede vil liebe), spricht... es ist die erste Strophe eines verlornen Tageliedes, wie die meisten der Miinchener Hs. nur einzelne Strophen verlorner Lieder sind'.4

Apart from the continued absence of the 'remainder' of the alleged polystrophie song, the following can be urged against Bartsch's and all related interpretations, on textual and aesthetic grounds.

The single strophe is intelligible as a self-contained whole, and its technique and language can be shown to be those of pre-Troubadour Minnesang. In detail:

In 1. 2 the address helt belongs to the lady of the early lyric, cf. wan, helt, die solt du miden (pseudo-Dietmar, M.F. 37, 25).5 The address vil liebe in 1. 3 recalls mQn vil liebez lip (Kiirenberg, M.F. 7, 11) and lieber man (pseudo-Dietmar, M.F. 37, 29), both uttered by ladies. The naive commendation of clandestine love in 11. 4-5 swer tougenlichen minnet... recurs in tougen minne diu ist guot (M.F. 3, 11). In this same period, as later, friuntschaft can mean 'love', 'love affair', and not just 'friendship', cf. unstetiu friuntschaft machet wankelen muot (Meinloh, M.F. 12, 18).6 The phrase huote hdn does not occur in Minnesangs Friihling, but I have found it as an alter- native to huote halten, huote nemen in the sense of 'take care', 'exercise circum- spection' in texts from the mid-thirteenth century until Luther, though with a dependent genitive. E.g.

1 Thus Bartsch, Deutsche Liederdichter des 12ten bis 14ten Jahrhunderts and by implication following him Golther in his edition of 1900, Namenlose Lieder, xcviii, 275 n.; De Gruyter, Das Deutsche Tagelied (1887), pp. 9ff.; Nicklas, Untersuchung iiber Stil und Geschichte des deutschen Tageliedes (Germanische Studien, Heft 72; 1929), p. 34. The very useful Texte zur Geschichte des deutschen Tageliedes of Scheune- mann-Ranke does not include our poem. By the atomistic accumulation of parallel lines from other and later Tagelieder De Gruyter attempts to brush aside Scherer's opinion as to its early date without asking himself whether perhaps the tradition which they betoken did not descend from early Minnesang. (It is^quite possible that our poem was misunderstood as a Wdchterlied by later generations of Minnesinger: but a similar thing happened to the Kirenberg Falcon Song, owing to the vital change in technique at the end of the twelfth century, as Ittenbach has shown.)

2 Deutsche Studien (18912), p. 107. 3 Tagelieder, p. 18.

4 Deutsche Liederdichter, loc. cit. 5 In Tagelieder of the period of transition,

towards the end of the Middle Ages, the word helt was revived. But in the writer's opinion it is as little possible, stylistically, to cite such songs together with Carmina Burana, No. 183a as it would be to cite those (often the same songs) which revivewerder gast, together with Wolfram's, from whom this expression derives.

6 Scherer, op. cit., had noted all of these parallels but the last. Needless to say they are not 'very general and inconclusive' as De Gruyter maintained, but of decisive stylistic import. De Gruyter might have added that in several Tagelieder (e.g. the Marner's =Scheunemann- Ranke, No. 13 and von Lienz's=ibid. No. 15) the Watchman refers to the knight in the third person as der helt. But what weight has that? The decisive point is that the only parallel in the vocative in poetry of the same style and technique places the address in the mouth of a lady. If helt became traditional in Tagelieder it was surely due to such early examples as the present one.

5-2



Miscellaneous Notes

dines eygens des habe hute.1 Als der arm oder die hant merre hit hant dis h6btes oder dis herzen oder dis ogen denne irs selbes.2 (dasz) man desselben jamers noch hut noch acht hat.3

Reassured on linguistic and stylistic grounds that this text is of a piece with the early tradition of Minnesang one can proceed to analyse it as a whole.

The poem falls into two parts. The first three lines characterize the situation dramatically; the last three reflect on that situation and in so doing draw what might be called a transparent veil over it. The two parts are held together by the 'b' rhymes rdt, and stdt, hdt. The reflective ending is to be compared with the far from impersonal generalization got sende si zesamene die gerne geliep wellen sen! uttered by the lady in the Kiirenberg song of the falcon when she has identified her lover's feathered messenger,4 and many other apparently subdued endings in strophes of this period.

Scherer pointed out that the pure rich rhymes sterne brehen: gerne sehen and the alliterative echo tougenlichen tugentlich were reminiscent of von Rietenburg's and Meinloh's technique.5 This is rather over-precise, yet the song must surely belong towards the end of the early native tradition, say A.D. 1170-80.

The metrical form accords with these affinities. In the convenient transcription of Heusler it is:

4v a 4v a 4s b 4k w+4s b 4s b

This is a not inartistic structure of 'full' masculine lines (4v); masculine lines with a bar's rest at the end (4s) such as are found in the second half line of the Kiirenberg strophes; and one long line of Kiirenberg type containing a 'strong feminine' cadence at the caesura (4k) plus a line of the 'short' or 'stumpf' type already mentioned (4s) =4k+4s. The amplification of short 4-bar lines by a long 8-bar line with caesura can be seen in M.F. 3, 11 (tougen minne, diu ist guot) which was quoted above as related to our poem in sentiment:

4v a 4v a 4k b 4k w+4k b

Such amplification of short couplets by long lines, of course, presents the opposite technique to the embellishment of long couplets by the addition of short 4-bar lines, as in the second Kiirenberg type:

1 Der Tugendspiegel, 1. 72. Ed. G. Rosenhagen, could be strengthened by quoting treatises on Deutsche Texte des Mittelalters, xvII (1909), No. 36. falconry. It does not take more than a year to

2 Die Predigten Taulers, ed. Vetter, Deutsche train a falcon: only a few months. Thus the lover Texte des Mittelalters, xi (1910), p. 159, 4. who speaks the 'masculine' strophe was training 3 Deutsches Worterbuch, sub. Hut, quoting the bird for a special mission-to act as a mes- Luther. senger to his lady, as Ittenbach has argued. 4 Adopting Ittenbach's interpretation in Der 5 Op cit. fruhe deutsche Minnesang (1939), p. 43. His case

68




4k+4s a 4k+4s a 4k w 4k+4s b 4k+4v b

It seems, then, that if we allow this strophe to speak for itself it is a complete poem of the early period, as Scherer saw. But over and above that it is a Tagelied in the form of a 'Frauenstrophe', a simple and delightful achievement. As such it should be firmly established as a second Tagelied of the pre-Proven9al period, after that of pseudo-Dietmar. Like the latter it does not introduce the Watchman,' so that the case for a native genre of Tagelied without Watchman would, if these arguments are accepted, rest on firm ground.2

A. T. HATTO LONDON

THE DEATH OF EMILIA GALOTTI

In the excellent Introduction to his edition of Erilia Galotti3 Dr E. L. Stahl gives a complete and up-to-date account of the aesthetic problems which the drama presents, and discusses with learning and acumen the relation of the conclusion to Lessing's theory of Tragedy. Dr Stahl is concerned, as commentators must be, to establish Lessing's reasons for ending the drama in a way which has given such dissatisfaction to the critics. He attaches great importance to the character of Odoardo, and holds that Odoardo and Emilia are, like Romeo and Juliet, jointly hero and heroine.4 It is the purpose of this article to suggest another line of approach which allots more responsibility to Emilia herself and justifies the use of her name as the title of the drama.

The interpreter should bear in mind that Lessing has been extremely brief, which does not imply that he has omitted anything, or that the explanation of difficulties must be sought outside the text. In the seventh book of Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe states that at that time aspiring German authors were striving to develop a new and genuinely national style, and that clarity and brevity in expression were most important factors in this effort.5 Lessing has certainly been brief in Emilia Galotti, but the continuance of controversies about his intentions, especially concerning the justification for the death of Emilia and concerning her claim to be the heroine of the drama, indicates that he has been less successful in achieving clarity. It is this extreme brevity which has made the drama difficult. A nineteenth- century psychological dramatist would have found material here for at least four plays: 'The Prince', 'Orsina', 'Odoardo' as well as 'Emilia'. It is suggested here that Lessing was concerned to depict not merely the character and fate of Emilia, but a day in the existence of a small self-contained community, the whole of which is brought on to the stage by means of certain representative types. Lessing parades

1 Though in pseudo-Dietmar the girl infers 3 Lessing, Emilia Galotti (Oxford: Basil from the imminence of morning that they will be Blackwell, 1946). roused before long. 4 Op. cit. p. xxviii.

2 I have tried to draw the appropriate conclu- 5 'Lessing... wurde nach und nach.. .knapp sions in the introduction to the German section in der" Minna ", lakonischin " Emilia Galotti. . of an Anthology of Dawn Poems and Songs which (? 30). I am editing.


4k+4s a 4k+4s a 4k w 4k+4s b 4k+4v b

It seems, then, that if we allow this strophe to speak for itself it is a complete poem of the early period, as Scherer saw. But over and above that it is a Tagelied in the form of a 'Frauenstrophe', a simple and delightful achievement. As such it should be firmly established as a second Tagelied of the pre-Proven9al period, after that of pseudo-Dietmar. Like the latter it does not introduce the Watchman,' so that the case for a native genre of Tagelied without Watchman would, if these arguments are accepted, rest on firm ground.2

A. T. HATTO LONDON

THE DEATH OF EMILIA GALOTTI

In the excellent Introduction to his edition of Erilia Galotti3 Dr E. L. Stahl gives a complete and up-to-date account of the aesthetic problems which the drama presents, and discusses with learning and acumen the relation of the conclusion to Lessing's theory of Tragedy. Dr Stahl is concerned, as commentators must be, to establish Lessing's reasons for ending the drama in a way which has given such dissatisfaction to the critics. He attaches great importance to the character of Odoardo, and holds that Odoardo and Emilia are, like Romeo and Juliet, jointly hero and heroine.4 It is the purpose of this article to suggest another line of approach which allots more responsibility to Emilia herself and justifies the use of her name as the title of the drama.

The interpreter should bear in mind that Lessing has been extremely brief, which does not imply that he has omitted anything, or that the explanation of difficulties must be sought outside the text. In the seventh book of Dichtung und Wahrheit Goethe states that at that time aspiring German authors were striving to develop a new and genuinely national style, and that clarity and brevity in expression were most important factors in this effort.5 Lessing has certainly been brief in Emilia Galotti, but the continuance of controversies about his intentions, especially concerning the justification for the death of Emilia and concerning her claim to be the heroine of the drama, indicates that he has been less successful in achieving clarity. It is this extreme brevity which has made the drama difficult. A nineteenth- century psychological dramatist would have found material here for at least four plays: 'The Prince', 'Orsina', 'Odoardo' as well as 'Emilia'. It is suggested here that Lessing was concerned to depict not merely the character and fate of Emilia, but a day in the existence of a small self-contained community, the whole of which is brought on to the stage by means of certain representative types. Lessing parades

1 Though in pseudo-Dietmar the girl infers 3 Lessing, Emilia Galotti (Oxford: Basil from the imminence of morning that they will be Blackwell, 1946). roused before long. 4 Op. cit. p. xxviii.

2 I have tried to draw the appropriate conclu- 5 'Lessing... wurde nach und nach.. .knapp sions in the introduction to the German section in der" Minna ", lakonischin " Emilia Galotti. . of an Anthology of Dawn Poems and Songs which (? 30). I am editing.



Documents

An Early "Tagelied"