DESCRIPTIONS OF NATURE BY THE MINNESINGERS. 39"9 



form a just appreciation of the result of such a disposition of 

 mind, I avail myself of the labours of my valued friends Jacob 

 and Wilhclm Grimm, who have so profoundly investigated the 

 literature of our German middle ages. " Our national poets 

 during that age," writes the latter of the two brother enquirers, 

 " have never devoted themselves to a description of nature, 

 having no object but that of conveying to the imagination a 

 glowing picture of the scene. A love of nature was assuredly 

 not wanting to the ancient German Minnesingers, although 

 they have left us no other expression of the feeling, than 

 what was evolved in lyric poems from their connection with 

 historical events, or from the sentiments appertaining to the 

 subject of which they treated. If we begin with the oldest 

 and most remarkable monuments of the popular epos, we shall 

 find that neither the Niebelungm or Gudrun* contain any 

 description of natural scenery, even where the occasion seems 

 specially to prompt its introduction. In the otherwise cir- 

 cumstantial description of the hunt, (luring which Siegfried 

 was murdered, the flowering heath and the cool spring under 

 the linden, are only casually touched upon. In Gudrun, 

 which evinces to a certain extent a more delicate finish, the 

 feeling for nature is somewhat more apparent. When the 

 king's daughter and her attendants, reduced to a condition of 

 slavery, are carrying the garments of their cruel masters to the 

 sea shore, the time is indicated, when the winter is just melt- 

 ing away, and the song of rival birds has already begun. 

 Snow and rain are falling, and the hair of the maidens is 

 dishevelled by the rough winds of March. As Gudrun, hoping 

 for the arrival of her liberators, is leaving her couch, and the 

 sea begins to shine in the light of the rising morning star, she 

 distinguishes the dark helmets and shields of her friends. This 

 description is conveyed in but few words, but it calls before 

 the mind a visible picture, and heightens the feeling of sus- 

 pense preceding the occurrence of an important historical event. 

 Homer, in a similar manner, depicts the island of the Cyclops 

 and the well-ordered gardens of Alcinous, in order to produce 

 a visible picture of the luxuriant profusion of the wilderness 



* See the comparison 01 the two epics, the poem of the Niebelungen, 

 (describing the vengence of Chriemhild, the wife of Siegfried), and that 

 of Gudrun, the daughter of King Hetel, in Gerrinus, Geschichte der 

 deutschen LiU,, bd, i. s. 354-381. 



