On a priori grounds (so misleading in questions of this kind) one would scarcely expect the most disturbed period in the history of the European people to have produced a Venantius Fortunatus, the greatest and most celebrated poet of the sixth century. His whole personality, as well as his poetry, shewed the blending of heathenism and Christianity, of Germanism and Romanism, and it is only now and then among the Roman elegists and later epic poets that we meet a feeling for Nature which can be compared to his. Like all the poets of this late period, his verse lacks form, is rugged and pompous, moving upon the stilts of classic reminiscences, and coining monstrous new expressions for itself; but its feeling is always sincere. It was the last gleam of a setting sun of literature that fell upon this one beneficent figure. He was born in the district of Treviso near Venice, and crossed the Alps a little before the great Lombard invasion, while the Merovingians, following in the steps of Chlodwig, were outdoing each other in bloodshed and cruelty. In the midst of this hard time Fortunatus stood out alone among the poets by virtue of his talent and purity of character. His poems are often disfigured by bombast, prolixity, and misplaced learning; but his keen eye for men and things is undeniable, and his feeling for Nature shews not only in dealing with scenery, but in linking it with the inner life.
The lover's wish in On Virginity,[[34]] one of his longer poems, suggests the Volkslieder:
O that I too might go, if my hurrying foot could poise amid the lights of heaven and hold on its starry course. But now, without thee, night comes drearily with its dark wings, and the day itself and the glittering sunshine is darkness to me. Lily, narcissus, violet, rose, nard, amomum, bring me no joy--nay, no flower delights my heart. That I may see thee, I pass hovering through each cloud, and my love teaches my wandering eyes to pierce the mist, and lo! in dread fear I ask the stormy winds what they have to tell me of my lord. Before thy feet I long to wash the pavement, and with my hair to sweep thy temples. Whatever it be, I will bear it; all hard things are sweet; if only I see thee, this penalty is my joy. But be thou mindful, for thy vows do I yearn; I have thee in my heart, have me in thy heart too.
This is more tender in feeling than any poem by Catullus or Tibullus. We can only explain it by two facts--the deepening of the inner life through Christianity (we almost hear Christ's words about the 'great sinner'), and the intimate friendship which Fortunatus enjoyed with a German lady, who may justly be called the noblest and purest figure of her time in Franconia.
This was Radegunde, the unhappy daughter of a Thuringian king, who first saw her father's kingdom lost, and then, fleeing from the cruelty of her husband, the bloodstained Chlotaire, took the veil in Poitiers and founded a convent, of which she made Agnes, a noble Franconian lady, the abbess. When Fortunatus visited the place, these ladies became his devoted friends, and he remained there as a priest until the death of Radegunde. His poems to them, which were often letters and notes written off-hand, are full of affection and gratitude (he was, by the way, a gourmet, and the ladies made allowance for this weakness in dainty gifts), and form an enduring witness of a pure and most touching friendship. They contain many pretty sketches of Nature and delicate offerings of flowers. In one he said: 'If the season brought white lilies or blossomed in red roses, I would send them to you, but now you must be content with purple violets for a greeting'; and in another, because gold and purple are not allowable, he sends her flowers, that she may have 'her gold in crocuses, her purple in violets, and they may adorn her hair with even greater delight than she draws from their fragrance.' Once, when following pious custom, she had withdrawn into her cell, his 'straying thoughts go in search of her':
How quickly dost thou hide the light from mine eyes! for without thee I am o'erweighted by the clouds that bear me down, and though thou flee and hide thyself here but for a few short days, that month is longer than the whole hurrying year. Prithee, let the joys of Easter bring thee back in safety, and so may a two-fold light return to us at once.
And when she comes out, he cries:
Thou hadst robbed me of my happiness; now it returns to me with thee, thou makest me doubly celebrate this solemn festival.... Though the seedlings are only just beginning to shoot up from the furrows, yet I to-day will reap my harvest in seeing thee once more. To-day do I gather in the fruit and lay the peaceful sheaves together. Though the field is bare, nor decked with ears of corn, yet all, through thy return, is radiant fulness.
The comparison is tedious and spun out; but the idea is poetic. We find it in the classics: for instance, in Theocritus, when he praises Nais, whose beauty draws even Nature under her sway, and whose coming makes spring everywhere: