A Selection from the Poems of William Morris

by William Morris

For a critical discussion or a detailed analysis of Morris's work this is not the place. It must be sufficient to indicate briefly the ideas which underlie that work and give it its literary cachet. Two main currents, derivable perhaps from a common source but running in different directions can be easily discerned. The subjects of his tales are almost without exception derived either from Greek myth or from mediæval folklore. After all that has been said and written of the gulf that divides the classic from the romantic feeling—"Barbaren und Hellenen", as Heine puts it, such a conjunction might appear incongruous. But the connecting link has here been found in the poet's mind. He looks upon his classical subject-matter through a mediæval atmosphere, in other words he writes about Venus and Cupid and Psyche and Medea as a poet of Chaucer's age might have done, barring of course the differences of language, although in this respect also it may be noted that the archaisms of expression affected by the modern poet appear indifferently in the Greek and the mediæval tales. The phenomenon is by no means unique in literature. Let the reader compare Chapman's Homer with Pope's, or let him open Morris's Jason where the bells of Colchis "melodiously begin to ring", and the meaning of the afore-mentioned "mediæval atmosphere" will at once be as palpable to him as it was to Keats when, reading Chapman's rude verse, after Pope's polished stanzas, he felt

like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken.

It was the romantic chord of Keats's nature, that chord which vibrates in La belle Dame sans Merci, which was harmoniously struck and made the great master of form overlook the formal imperfection of the earlier poet. To the same element such stories as Jason, or The Love of Alcestis and the Bellerophon in The Earthly Paradise owe their charm.

Morris's position towards mediæval subjects did not at first essentially differ from that of other poets of similar tendency. In his first volume English and French knights and damsels figure prominently, and the beautiful and frail wife of King Arthur is the heroine of the chief poem and has given her name to the book. But in the interval which elapsed between that volume and the Earthly Paradise a considerable change had come over the poet's dream. By the aid of Mr. Magnusson he had become acquainted with the treasure of northern folklore hidden in the Icelandic sagas, the two Eddas, the story of the Volsungs (of which a masterly translation is due to the two friends), the Laxdæla saga and other tales of more or less remote antiquity.

In the Earthly Paradise the double current of the poet's fancy above alluded to is most strikingly apparent. The very framework in which the various tales are set seems to have been designed with that view. Guided probably by a vague tradition of a pre-Columbian discovery of America by the Vikings, the prologue relates how during a terrible pestilence certain mariners leave their northern home in search of the land where old age and death are not and where life is rounded by unbroken pleasure. Sailing west they come to a fair country. They gaze on southern sunshine and virgin forest and fertile champaign, but death meets them at every step, and happiness is farthest from their grasp when the people worship them as gods and sacrifice at their shrine. Escaping from this golden thraldom they regain their ship, and after many dangers and privations are driven by the wind to an island inhabited by descendants of the ancient Greeks, who have preserved their old worship and their old freedom. Here the weary wanderers of the main are hospitably received, and here they resolve to dwell in peace, forgetful of their vain search for the earthly paradise. At the beginning and the middle of every month the elders of the people and their guests meet together to while away the time with song and friendly converse. The islanders relate the traditions of their Grecian home, the mariners relate the sagas of the North, and Laurence, a Swabian priest who had joined the Norsemen in their quest, contributes the legends of Tannhäuser and of the ring given to Venus by the Roman youth. Here then there is full scope for the quaint beauty of romantic classicism and for the weird glamour of northern myth. Without encroaching upon the field of criticism proper the writer may state that, in his opinion, amongst the classic tales none is more graceful and finished than "The Golden Apples", and amongst the northern none more grandly developed and more epical in the strict sense of the word than The Lovers of Gudrun based upon the Icelandic Laxdæla saga. The latter, unfortunately, cannot find a place in this volume for reasons of space.

Every student of old northern literature is aware that amongst its remains none are more interesting as literary monuments, none more characteristic of the people from which they sprang than the two Eddas and the Volsunga Saga. Next to the Siege of Troy and the Arthurian legends perhaps no story or agglomeration of stories has left so many and so important traces in international fiction as the tale of Sigurd or Siegfried and his race, the heroic god-born Volsungs. Considering indeed the political insignificance and remoteness in which that story took its earliest surviving form this enormous success—if the modern term may be applied—seems at first singularly out of proportion. But it must be remembered that Iceland was little more than the storehouse of these old traditions which were the common property of the Teuto-Scandinavian race long before the Norsemen set foot on the northern isle. Of the two modern versions of the tale which are most thoroughly inspired by the ancient myth one, that of Wagner in his tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen, is dramatic in form, the other, Morris's The Story of Sigurd the Volsung, bears all the characteristics of the epic. To this difference of artistic aim, the difference of shape which the tale takes in the hands of the two poets may be traced. In one point however they agree. Both Wagner and Morris go back to the old Icelandic sources in preference to the mediæval German version of the tale embodied in the Nibelungenlied. From this the German poet borrows little more than the localization of his drama on the banks of the river Rhine, the English poet scarcely anything but his metre—the Langzeile or long-line with six hightoned, and any number of unaccentuated syllables.

The ordinary modern reader taking up the Volsunga Saga or either of the Eddas without preparation would probably see in them little more than a confused accumulation of impossible adventures and deeds of prowess with an admixture of incest, fratricide and other horrors. But on looking closer one discovers a certain plan in this entanglement, a plan much obscured by the unbridled fancy of the old narrators, and hardly realised by themselves, but which, if properly sifted, amounts to what we should call a moral or idea. To "point this moral," to consistently develop this idea, is the task of the modern poet courageous enough to grapple with such a subject. Two ways are open to him. Either he may wholly abandon the sequence of the old tale, and group its disjecta membra round a leading idea as a centre, or else he may adhere to the order and essence of the legend as originally told, only emphasising such points as are essential to the significance of the story, and omitting or throwing into comparative shade those incidents which by their nature betray themselves to be arbitrary additions of later date. Wagner has chosen the former way, Morris the latter. This fact, and the divergent requirements of the drama and the epic, sufficiently account for their difference of treatment. The leading idea in both cases remains the same; it is the fatal curse which attaches to the gold or, which is the same in a moral sense, to the desire for gold—auri sacra fames.

At first sight the tale of Sigurd, Fafnir's bane, seems to have little connection with this idea. It is briefly this. Sigurd, the son of Sigmund the Volsung, is brought up at the court of King Elf, the second husband of his mother, after Sigmund has been slain in battle. With a sword, fashioned from the shards of his father's weapon, he slays Fafnir, a huge worm or dragon, and possesses himself of the treasure watched by the monster, including a ring and the "helm of aweing," the latter in the Nibelungenlied, converted into the "Tarnkappe", a magic cap which makes the bearer invisible and endows him with supernatural strength. Tasting of the blood of the dragon, he understands the language of birds, and an eagle tells him of a beautiful maiden lying asleep on a rock called Hindfell, surrounded by a wall of wavering fire. Through it Sigurd rides and awakes Brynhild the sword maiden, or Valkyrie, from her magic slumber. Love naturally follows. The pair live together on Hindfell for a season and Brynhild teaches the youth the runes of her wisdom, a conception of woman's refining and civilising mission frequently met with in old Germanic tales. When Sigurd leaves her to seek new adventures they plight the troth of eternal love, and

Then he set the ring on her finger, and once if ne'er again They kissed and clung together, and their hearts were full and fain.

From Brynhild's rock Sigurd journeys to a realm "south of the Rhine" where dwell the kingly brothers, Gunnar, Hogni, and Guttorm, the Niblungs, together with their sister Gudrun, "the fairest of maidens", and their mother Grimhild, "a wise wife" and a fierce-hearted woman, as the Volsunga Saga alternately describes her. It is through a love-philter brewed by her that Sigurd forgets the vows exchanged with Brynhild, and becomes enamoured of Gudrun, whom he soon after weds. So powerful is the charm that the very name of his former love has been wiped from Sigurd's memory, and he willingly undertakes the task to woo and win Brynhild for his brother Gunnar. For that purpose he, by means of his magic cap, assumes Gunnar's semblance, and after having once more crossed the wall of wavering flame compels Brynhild to become his bride. But, faithful to his promise, he places a drawn sword between himself and the maid "as they lie on one bed together." On parting from her he receives back from Brynhild his own ring given to her at Hindfell in the days of their bliss. Sigurd then returns to Gunnar and resumes his own form, and all return home, the King leading his unwilling bride in triumph.