"Ah! very well, my gentle mistresses and lords," answers the minstrel—"you have chosen. And now I pray Queen Venus to inspire me. Here, boy, my harp!" He takes a small lute and touches the strings. His blue mantle floats back in statuesque folds as with clear, deep voice he sings:
South French Troubadour Songs
"Fair to me is April bearing
Winds that o'er me softly blow;
Nightingales their music airing
While the stars serenely glow.
All the birds as they have power
While the dews of morning wait,
Sing of joy in sky and bower,
Each consorting with his mate.
And as all the world is wearing
New delights while new leaves grow,
'Twould be vain to try forswearing
Love which makes my joys o'erflow....
Helen were not worth comparing,
Gardens no such beauty show,
Teeth of pearl, the truth declaring,
Blooming cheeks, a neck of snow,
Tresses like a golden shower,
Courtly charms, for baseness hate.
God, who bade her thus o'ertower
All the rest, her way made straight!"[36]
And so through many similar stanzas. The Baron Orri's eyes are fixed mischievously on a certain countess with whom he had talked intimately all the afternoon. Her husband looks somewhat awkward, but at the end he joins in the warm applause. So the entertainment at the wedding feast ends; and the great secular literature, which is to be the priceless heritage of later civilization, is (despite much crudeness and false sentimentality) being born.
Hitherto we have seen the life of St. Aliquis at peace; now we must gradually turn toward its grimmer aspects and the direct preparations for war.
FOOTNOTES:
[33] If St. Aliquis had been a slightly larger fief, its lord would probably have allowed himself the luxury of a professional minstrel in residence—half musician and half jester.
[34] It was not unknown for jongleurs of this inferior grade to stop at an exciting part of the story they were narrating and say (as in the poem "Gui of Burgundy"): "Whoever wants to hear more of this recital must haste to open his purse; for now it is high time to give me something." The company would thus be straightway held up. Or the entertainer would announce, "It was too near vespers," or "He was too weary to finish that day," the result being that he could claim hospitality at the castle of his hosts another twenty-four hours until he could satisfy the general curiosity.