Ah, her sweetness! Free from turning
Is her true and constant heart;
Till possession banish yearning,
Let my dear hope not depart.
Only this her grace I'll pray:
Wake me from my tears, and after
Sighs let comfort come and laughter;
Let my joy not slip away.
Blissful May, the whole world's anguish
Finds in thee its single weal;
Yet the pain whereof I languish,
Thou, nor all the world, canst heal.
What least joy may ye impart,
She so dear and good denied me?
In her comforts ever hide me,
All my life her loving heart.
But elegant and tender as in the original these verses are, their object returned a slighting answer, and added that the messenger must not be sent again. People would come to have suspicions. Ulrich made another set of verses, and went off to another joust. There one of his fingers was seriously wounded, and in his anxiety to save it he offered a surgeon a thousand pounds for a cure. The treatment was unsuccessful, and, after showing a good deal of temper, he went to a new surgeon, on the way beguiling himself of his pain by composing another poem upon the old theme. But a shock was at hand; a friend divulged to him his closely kept secret. "This lady [still unnamed to us] is the May-time of your heart." What though this friend believed that the lady cared for him? "My head sank down, my heart sighed, my mouth was dumb," in terror lest it might be through his fault that the object of his devotion had been discovered. For secrecy was the first of a chivalric lover's virtues, even about the object of his passion. Yet the pain was not without compensation, inasmuch as this gentleman, who declared that he had already kept the secret for two years and a half, volunteered to make another appeal. So off to the home of the inexorable went anew the story of unflinching devotion, the loss of a finger in a tournament for her glory not unmentioned. Ulrich's cause was pleaded with fervor, and in winning style. The lover was praised and prayed for. The song he had sent was even sung, instead of being formally delivered. A faithful and versatile legate was this proxy wooer, but it was all to no purpose. The lady declared that she would grow old in entire ignorance of any love but her husband's. She warned the messenger that Ulrich would find himself in trouble if he should persist in annoying her with such sentimental folly; she would not receive such attentions from the highest-born—not even from a king.
The news saddened, but did not cast down. "What if she refuses me?" cried Ulrich; "that shall not disturb me. If she hates me to-day, I will serve her so that later she shall like me. Were I to give up for a cold greeting, could a little word drive me away from my high hope, I should have no sound mind or manly mood. Whatever the true, sweet one does to me, for that I must be grateful." But now another summer was over, and he diverted himself by a pilgrimage to Rome. After Easter he returned, on his way composing this sweetly conceived and rather pretty lyric:
Ah, see, the touch of spring
Hath graced the wood with green;
And see, o'er the wide plain
Sweet flowers on every spray.
The birds in rapture sing;
Such joy was never seen:
Departed all their pain,
Comfort has come with May.
May comforts all that lives,
Except me, love-sick man;
Love-stricken is my heart,
This drives all joys away.
When life some pleasure gives,
In tears my heart will scan
My face, and tell its smart;
How then can pleasure stay?
Vowed constantly to woo
High love am I; that good
While I pursue, I see
No promise of success.
Pure lady, constant, true,
The crown of womanhood,
Think graciously of me,
Through thy high worthiness.
The knight passed his summer in Steierland under arms, and after pleasant experiences he sent his messenger again, only to have his suit repelled with the same coldness and decision as before. The report was even more discouraging, for the lady, who had been told of his losing a finger in her service, had now learned that he still had it; nor was she moved by the assurance that it was almost useless. The desire to keep the wounded member had led him to large expense of money and time, but he cared for it no longer. He set about the composition of another long elegy, which explains how his heart loves her, and weeps for her favor, as a poor and orphaned child weeps after comfort; so ardently he loves her, that he gladly sacrifices anything, and as a pledge of his constant fidelity, he sends her one of his fingers, lost in that service for which it was born.
After the poem was ready, he directed a goldsmith to make a fine case, in which he enclosed it. But he put in something more; he had the convalescent finger amputated, and sent it to the chiding critic as a proof that he had not lied in saying that he had lost it for her. Yet even this failed to please so unsympathetic a mistress. She said she wondered how any one could be so foolish as to cut off his finger: he would have been able to serve ladies better by keeping it. However, she would retain the token of his consideration, but a thousand years of his service would be lost on her. Ulrich was jubilant, for he was confident that with this memento, she would always think of him.[6]
Now a large idea visits this sanguine gentleman. Gone to Rome on a pilgrimage, that is what he will pretend; he rigs himself out with a wallet and staff which he obtains from a priest, and trudges off. But something more novel and magnificent is haunting his ingenious mind. It is to Venice that he goes—cautiously, so as not to be observed. Upon his arrival, he takes lodgings in an out-of-the-way inn, so that no one may hear of him. There he spends the winter, making a liberal expenditure for costumes for himself and a retinue. He dresses himself as Queen Venus, in complete feminine attire, even to the long braids of hair which figure so prominently in the descriptions of the ladies of that age.