LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. 



169 



teen lines, and ran chiefly upon three rhymes. 

 The name is also applied to the music for a 

 simple song sung in a rich, artistic style but 

 without musical accompaniment. 



Minnesingers, The, were love poets, 

 contemporary in Germany with the House of 

 llonenstauft'en. Though called love singers, 

 some of their poems were national ballads, 

 and some were extended romances. Walter of 

 Vogelweide was by far the best of the lyrists ; 

 lleinrich of Veldig was the most naive and 

 ingenuous ; Hartman the most classical ; Wol- 

 fram the most sublime, and Gottfried the 

 most licentious. 



Iliad, The, is the tale of the siege of Troy, 

 an epic poem in 24 books by Homer. Mene- 

 laus, King of Sparta, received as a guest, Paris, 

 a son of Priam, King of Troy. Paris eloped 

 with Helen, his host's wife, and Menelaus in- 

 duced the Greeks to lay siege to Troy to avenge 

 the perfidy. The siege lasted ten years, when 

 Troy was taken and burned to the ground. 

 Homer's poem is confined to the last year of 

 the siege. 



Lorelei, famed in song and story, is a rock 

 which rises perpendicularly from the Rhine to 

 the height of 427 feet, near St. Goar. It was 

 formerly dangerous to boatmen, and has a 

 celebrated echo. The name is best known 

 from Heine's "Song of the Siren,"* who sits 

 on the rock, combing her long tresses, and 

 singing so ravishingly, that the boatmen, en- 

 chanted by the music of her voice, forget their 

 duty, and are drawn upon the rock and perish. 



Beauty and the Beast. This venerable 

 story, fi'om Les Contes Marines, of Mme. Ville- 

 neuve (1740), is, perhaps, the most beautiful 

 of all nursery tales. A young and lovely 

 woman saved her father by putting herself in 

 the power of a frightful but kind-hearted 

 monster, whose respectful affection and melan- 

 choly overcame her aversion to his ugliness, 

 and she consented to become his bride. Being 

 thus freed from enchantment the monster as- 

 sumed his proper form and became a young 

 and handsome prince. 



.SSneid, The, Virgil's epic poem, is con- 

 tained in twelve books. When Troy was taken 

 by the Greeks and set on fire, yEneas, with his 

 father, son, and wife, took flight, with the in- 

 tention of going to Italy, the original birth- 

 place of the family. The wife was lost, and 

 the old man died on the way ; but, after nu- 

 merous perils by sea and land, ^Eneas and his 

 son Ascanius reached Italy. Here Latinus, 

 the reigning king, received the exiles hospita- 

 bly, and promised his daughter Lavinia in 

 marriage to ^Eneas ; but she had been already 

 betrothed by her mother to Prince Turnus, son 

 of Valmus, king of Rutuli, and Turnus would 



not forego his claim. Latinus, in this dilemma, 

 said the rivals must settle the dispute by an 

 appeal to arms. Turnus being slain, ^Eneas 

 married Lavinia, and ere long succeeded his 

 father-in-law in the throne. 



Gesta Romanorum, the deeds of the 

 Romans, is the title of a collection of short 

 stories and legends in the Latin tongue, widely 

 spread during the Middle Ages, but of the 

 authorship of which little is known save that 

 it took its present form most likely in England, 

 about the end of the thirteen! h or the begin- 

 ning of the fourteenth century. The stories 

 are invariably moralized, and, indeed, this 

 edifying purpose throughout is the sole unify- 

 ing element of the collection. The title is 

 only so far descriptive as the nucleus of the 

 collection consists of stories from Roman his- 

 tory, or rather pieces from Roman writers, not 

 necessarily of any gi-eater historical value than 

 that of Androcles and the Lion from Allus 

 Gallius. Moralized, mystical, and religious 

 tales, as well as other pieces, many of ultimate 

 oriental origin, were afterwards added, and 

 upon them edifying conclusions hung, bring- 

 ing the whole up to about 180 chapters. 



Bluebeard is the hero of the well-known 

 nursery tale, and is so named from the color 

 of his beard. The story is widely known in 

 Western Europe, but the form in which it has 

 become familiar is a free translation of that 

 given by Perrault in 1697. In this story 

 Bluebeard is a Signeur of great wealth, who 

 marries the daughter of a neighbor in the 

 country and a month after the w r edding goes 

 from home on a journey leaving his wife .the 

 keys of his castle, but forbidding her to enter 

 one room. She cannot resist her curiosity, 

 opens the door, to find the bodies of all Blue- 

 beard's former wives, and at once sees the fate 

 to which she herself is doomed. Bluebeard, 

 on his return, discovers from a spot of blood 

 upon the key which could not be cleaned off, 

 that his wife had broken his command and 

 tells her that she must d'ie. She begs for a 

 short respite to commend herself to God, sends 

 her sister Anne to the top of the tower to 

 seek for help and finally is just on the point of 

 having her head cut off, when her two brothers 

 burst in and dispatch Bluebeard. There are 

 many versions of the story, all agreeing in es- 

 sential details. It is found in the German, 

 French, Greek, Tuscan, Icelandic, Esthonian, 

 Gaelic, and Basque folklore. 



Sagas, The, belong to the Norse literature 

 and are generally books in the form of a tale, 

 like a Welch " mahinogi." " Edda " was the 

 name of the Bible of the ancient Scandinavi- 

 ans. In the Edda there are numerous Sagas. 

 AS our Bible contains the history of the Jews, 



