XV.
A separate Section can be devoted to songs in the manner of the early French pastoral. These were fashionable at a remote period in all parts of Europe; and I have already had occasion, in another piece of literary history, to call attention to the Italian madrigals of the fourteenth century composed in this species.[30] Their point is mainly this: A man of birth and education, generally a dweller in the town, goes abroad into the fields, lured by fair spring weather, and makes love among trees to a country wench.
The Vagi turn the pastoral to their own purpose, and always represent the greenwood lover as a clericus. One of these rural nieces has a pretty opening stanza:—
"When the sweet Spring was ascending,
Not yet May, at April's ending,
While the sun was heavenward wending,
Stood a girl of grace transcending
Underneath the green bough, sending
Songs aloft with pipings."
Another gives a slightly comic turn to the chief incident.
FOOTNOTES:
[30] See Renaissance in Italy, vol. iv. p. 156.