It certainly is a genial phase of those old times, this out-of-door companionship of lads and lassies, gathering flowers and "dancing in the chequered shade." The custom has in a manner survived to our own day; in England, for example, Mr. Thomas Hardy has introduced such scenes very pleasantly in some of his novels, but the zest and universality of it have not descended. Even in Elizabeth's England the hobby-horse was forgot; and back in the thirteenth century the May-time amusements were being frowned away. For preachers and moralists saw much evil in these summer gaieties. It is the old story: Nature is such a puritanical stage-manager that she likes to bring on a tragedy for the after-piece to her pleasant comedy, and she is best satisfied when we take warning from the practice and stay away from the play.
The insane frenzies into which meadow dancing was carried on some occasions, especially at the riotous midsummer festival, do not belong to our subject. Neidhart assumes a flippant tone about matters of conduct, but his treatment of the summer merrymakings is usually innocent and agreeable. He comes as an artist, to the rude material provided in the traditional village songs for these occasions, and transfers to the polished verse of Germany's already highly trained lyrical school, that fresh and gay subject-matter that is so remote from the formal phrases of most of his courtly predecessors. His songs are lyric in their introduction, but almost invariably epic or dramatic in the later stanzas, scarcely ever overstepping closely drawn lines. Whereas, Walther von der Vogelweide's work in the popular poetry retains the lyrical mood throughout, and is far less realistic, never, I believe, treating a peasant element as such. Those lyrical preludes attest Neidhart's deep sentiment for nature; we feel that, in spite of the conventionality in them. He has the rare merit of an occasional specific note, and he touches even the hackneyed expressions about birds and flowers with a contagious buoyancy. Look at a few of these introductions:
"Hedges green as gold; the heath dressed in bright roses. Come on, you fine girls: May is in the land. The linden is well hung with rich attire; now hearken, how the nightingale draws near."
"The time is here: for many a year I have not seen a fairer. The cold winter is over, and many hearts rejoice that felt its chill. The woods are in leaf. Come then with me to the linden, dear."
"Summer, a thousand welcomes! Whatever heart was wounded by the long winter is healed, its pain all gone. Thou comest welcome to the world in all lands. Through thee, rich and poor lose their sorrows, when winter has to go."
And another, which loses its effect if we neglect the long, swinging metre:
The forest for new foliage its grey dress has forsaken;
And therefore now full many hearts to pleasure must awaken.
The birds to whom the winter brought dismay,
Have never sung so well as now the praises of the May.
The winter from the lovely heath at last has turned aside,
And there the blossoms stand, arrayed in colors gaily pied.
Above them May's sweet dews are lightly shed;
Ah, how I wish I had a wreath, dear friend, a lady said.
This stanza moves more quickly:
Forth from your houses, children fair!
Out to the street! No wind is there,
Sharp wind, cold snow.
The birds were dreary,
They're singing cheerily;
Forth to the woodland go.
After such opening stanzas comes the action of the song, almost always an expression of a girl's longing to go to the dance, and her mother's unwillingness. The burden of the remonstrances is that of the song in Much Ado, "Men were deceivers ever"; and though some of the conversations are amiable, often the two come to high words, and even to blows. The girl cannot think of going without her best costume, and this, in the prudent old domestic management, was always carefully folded up, and kept under lock and key. "Who gave you the right to lock up my gown?" a daughter demands. "You did not spin a thread of it. Where's the key? now open the room for me." Finally, she obtained it by stealth. "She took from the chest the gown that was laid in many small folds. To the knight of Reuenthal she threw her colored ball." But Neidhart grimly brings in her mother at the close.
Another cries: "Bring me my fine gown. The gentleman from Reuenthal has sung us a new song. I hear him singing there to the children. I must dance with him at the linden." Her mother warns her of what happened to her playmate Jiute last year, "just as her mother said." But the gentleman had sent her a lovely garland of roses, and had brought her a pair of red stockings from over the Rhine, which she was wearing then; and she had promised to let him teach her the dance. Another song represents two girls talking of the same knight from Reuenthal: "All know him, and his songs are heard everywhere. He loves me, and to please him I will lace myself trimly, and go."