Chapter VIII: The Triumph of the Artist (3)

_Mind_, N. S., IV. (1895), 28 ff., “On the Difference of Time and
Rhythm in Music,” supplementing researches in his _Primitive Music_.

Footnote 227:

_Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 104.

Footnote 228:

See his _Primitive Music_, pp. 239, 236, note; and Grosse, _Anfänge_,
p. 213.

Footnote 229:

The theory of breath-lengths, often noted, comes here into play. Under
high excitement breathing grows abnormally loud, and the recurring
pauses are regular. Play-excitement, festal shouting and leaping,
would of course bring this about; but the individual must be studied.
Strongly accented verses result from such a process, as any one can
see who undertakes to recite poetry during violent but regular
exercise,—say, in swinging Indian clubs. Here, too, one learns how
rhythm preceded pitch and quantity; the jerked-out accents leave
little room for measuring either height or length of tones. But the
throng and its consent brought out this rhythm, not oratory; and one
must keep in mind the remark of Hamann, after his famous phrase about
poetry as the mother-tongue of man, “wie Gesang älter als
Declamation.”

Footnote 230:

The ethnological evidence for this statement is given in Wallaschek’s
_Primitive Music_ on nearly every page. Many good things on the origin
of rhythm could be quoted from older writers. A. W. Schlegel undertook
a physiological and genetic study of rhythm, but, at Schiller’s
prompting, offered more attractive metal to the Kantlings with “das
Beharrliche im Wechsel.” One notes, however, the modern tone of
passages in the Berlin Lectures; _e.g._ I. 242 ff. Now and then he
almost anticipates Bücher’s _Arbeit und Rhythmus_. Sulzer’s article in
the _Allgemeine Theorie_ is very interesting. For early material, see
Blankenburg’s invaluable _Litterarische Zusätze_, 3 vols., 1796-1798.
A good recent discussion is found in the third book of Guyau’s
_Problèmes_.

Footnote 231:

Unless it is a succession of inarticulate sounds. See Groos, _Spiele
der Menschen_, Jena, 1899, p. 42.

Footnote 232:

Compare the “meaningless” words so common in savage poetry. The art of
combining with exact rhythm a series of syntactic sentences which give
a connected story, or express a logical series of thoughts, is no
primitive process. Earliest poetry is repetition of sounds,—not
meaningless, for they were connected with the occasion,—of words, of
sentences, with a diminishing use of the refrain, a diminishing
frequency of repetition.

Footnote 233:

In his “Art of the Future,” _Gesammelte Schriften_, III. 82 ff., he
tells how dance, song, and poem were at first inseparable. Dance has
as artistic material “the whole man from top to toe”; but it becomes
an art only through rhythm, which is also the very skeleton of music:
“without rhythm no dance, no song.” Rhythm is “the soul of dancing and
the brain of music.” With the human voice comes poetry, all three
being woven in one: out of this union of the three “is born the single
art of lyric,” but they get their highest expression in the drama.

Footnote 234:

_Primitive Music_, pp. 174, 187.

Footnote 235:

_Psychology of the Emotions_, pp. 335 f.

Footnote 236:

In an article so entitled, in _Mind_, XVI. (1891), 498 ff., and N. S.,
I. (1892), 325 ff.

Footnote 237:

The tendency to use hands as well as feet in keeping rhythm is
illustrated by the Ba-Ronga of Delagoa Bay (Junod, _Les Chantes et les
Contes des Ba-Ronga_, Lausanne, 1897), where the use of sticks may
help to explain Donovan’s “rhythmic beating.” With these people “tout
s’y chante et ... tous ou presque tous les chants s’y dansent” (p.
21). Refrains are sung “ten, twenty, fifty times in succession”; the
songs have two elements, the solo and the refrain _en tutti_. A circle
is formed, the men holding sticks in their hands; the solo singer
leaps into the middle and sings a few words; then all the dancers sing
a refrain, raising and dropping their sticks in cadence, though the
rhythm is primarily given by their stamping feet. Then the soloist
again, only slightly varying his theme; and again the long refrain
(pp. 32 f.). The war-songs are almost entirely refrain, sung by all
the warriors as they dance, “antique et grandiose choral,” says Junod.

Footnote 238:

_From Lyre to Muse, a History of the Aboriginal Union of Music and
Poetry_, London, 1890; Chap. V., “Fusion of Tones and Words.”

Footnote 239:

“It is said that if it is known that anybody in particular composed a
song, the people in some of these places will not sing it,” _Ibid._,
pp. 138 f. For this vexed question, see below, chapter on Communal
Poetry.

Footnote 240:

Of course Horace (IV. ii. 10 ff.) is thinking of Pindar’s “new”
compounds and fresh expressions; but the quotation agrees as well with
the history of the dithyrambic poem.

Footnote 241:

“Arbeit und Rhythmus,” reprinted from the _Abhandlungen d. kgl.
sächsischen Gesellschaft d. Wissenschaften, philol. histor. Classe_,
XVII. 5, Leipzig, 1896. According to Groos, _Spiele der Menschen_, pp.
57 ff., some of these statements have been modified. In the second
edition of the _Entstehung der Volkswirthschaft_, pp. 32 f., a book
which the present writer could not consult, Bücher concedes the
priority of play, and sees in it the starting-point of labour. This,
however, does not change the validity of Bücher’s main argument for
the connection of labour and rhythm, so far as they concern the
beginnings of poetry.

Footnote 242:

A. W. Schlegel here and there hints at this origin of rhythm in
labour; so does Sulzer. See note above, p. 101. See also the Abbé
Batteux, “Sur les Nombres Poëtiques et Oratoires,” _Mém. Acad.
Inscript._, XXXV. 415: “le marteau du forgeron tombe en cadence, la
faulx du moissonneur va et revient avec nombre ... le rhythme soutient
nos forces dans les travaux pénibles.”

Footnote 243:

Bücher, p. 101.

Footnote 244:

_Ibid._, p. 52.

Footnote 245:

“Grundelement dieser Dreieinheit,” _Ibid._, p. 78. Of course, he
admits elsewhere similar functions of the dance, which was, after all,
a kind of labour, even when not an imitation of labour. Hence Bücher
gives priority to labour in its large sense. For primitive man the
line between work and play was not too sharply drawn.

Footnote 246:

A strong support for this social foundation of song is found in
observations such as Böckel has made among the peasants of Hesse.
“Their song,” he says (work quoted, p. cv.), “is nearly all choral;
the countryman, when sober, seldom sings alone. It is remarkable,”
Böckel goes on to say, “how these people, who singly show little
capacity for music, can make such an artistic effect in chorus.”

Footnote 247:

Several men, as a rule, trod the grapes with naked feet. Songs
directly sprung from this labour survived for long ages. The material
is indicated by Bücher, pp. 88 f. The later festal songs, of course,
were symbolical and reminiscent.

Footnote 248:

The famous Greek song, preserved by Plutarch, is matched by recent
songs of the Africans, as well as by those of European traditions.

Footnote 249:

“La sympathie pour les choses,” says M. de Vogüé, _Histoire et
Poésie_, p. 190, is the “principe et raison de l’art d’écrire.”

Footnote 250:

Bastian, in his book _Der Völkergedanke im Aufbau einer Wissenschaft
vom Menschen_, Berlin, 1881, pp. 8 f., notes that in a modern work of
art one looks for traits of the genius that brought it forth, while in
the beginnings of society, of institutions, one looks “for the
unconscious stirrings, in the organism, of the average man who has
realized himself in them.” And in an address (same book, p. 172) on
the aims of ethnology, he declares that for this science man is not
the individual _anthropos_, but the social being, the _zoon politikon_
of Aristotle, which demands the social state as condition of his
existence. “_Das Primäre ist also der Völkergedanke._”

Footnote 251:

_Œuvres_, Paris, 1790, III. 165 ff., from the _Mercure_ of January,
1678.

Footnote 252:

Nowhere better discussed and settled than in Goethe’s sonnet, “_Natur
und Kunst, sie scheinen sich zu fliehen_,” with its concluding lines:—

In der Beschränkung zeigt sich erst der Meister,
Und das Gesetz nur kann uns Freiheit geben.

Footnote 253:

_Theatrum Poetarum_, first published 1675, ed. Brydges, Canterbury,
1800 (who limits it to English poets, so changing the title), p.
xxxvi.

Footnote 254:

_Ueber Ursprung und Verbreitung des Reimes_, Dorpat, 1866, p. 18.
“Anschauung” and “Empfindung” are the terms.

Footnote 255:

_Nature and Elements of Poetry_, pp. 76 f.

Footnote 256:

_Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen_, Bd. III., three essays, “Die
Kunst und die Revolution” (1849); “Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft,” a more
important work, dithyrambic, but highly interesting and full of the
“folk,” as against “Ihr Intelligenten”; and thirdly, “Kunst und Klima”
(1850).

Footnote 257:

_Ibid._, pp. 255 f., 261, 268.

Footnote 258:

See especially _ibid._, pp. 133-207.

Footnote 259:

Preface to _Cromwell_, p. 16: “La société, en effet, commence par
chanter ce qu’elle rêve, puis raconte ce qu’elle fait, et enfin se met
à peindre ce qu’elle pense,” Hugo’s well-known sequence of lyric,
epic, drama.

Footnote 260:

_L’Art au Point de Vue Sociologique_, p. 26.

Footnote 261:

This doctrine is in line with modern psychological notions of the part
played by intelligent mental selection upon the instinctive material
of consciousness. See Lloyd Morgan, _Habit and Instinct_, pp. 323 f.

Footnote 262:

See _Shepheard’s Calender_, October, Argument,—a specimen of the
doctrine in that never-published _English Poete_.

Footnote 263:

“Abbregé de l’Art Poetique,” in _Works_, ed. Blanchemain, VII. 318.

Footnote 264:

_Ibid._, VII. 340. “Aussi les divines fureurs de Musique, de Poësie,
et de paincture, ne viennent pas par degrés en perfection _comme les
autres sciences_, mais par boutées et comme esclairs de feu, qui deçu
qui dela apparoissent en divers pays, puis tout en un coup
s’esvanouissent.”

Footnote 265:

For writers in the vulgar tongue, Dante reverses the rule of more
matter and less art. They are too facile. “Pudeat ergo, pudeat idiotas
tantum audere deinceps, ut ad cantiones prorumpant,” _de vulgar.
Eloq._, Cap. vi. The _canzone_ must not be content with the speech of
common life; let it essay an exalted style.

Footnote 266:

Cap. iv., _Pastoralia_, p. 6.

Footnote 267:

G. J. Vossius, _de artis poeticæ natura_, 1647, Cap. iii. Many
subsequent writers followed Scaliger’s account of origins.

Footnote 268:

_Critische Dichtkunst_, 1737, pp. 86, 72.

Footnote 269:

_Unterricht von der teutschen Sprache und Poesie, deren Ursprung,
Fortgang und Lehrsätzen_, Kiel, 1682. This book has been called the
first attempt at a history of German, and, indeed, of collective
European, poetry. Morhof gives a historic account of rime, compares
German verse with verse of other nations, and is the first writer in
Germany to name Shakspere.

Footnote 270:

“De la Poésie Naturelle ou de la Langue Poétique” and “De la Poésie
Artificielle,” in _Mém. Acad. Inscript._, XV. 192 ff., 207 ff. (1739).
The only interest lies in the titles, the text is all verbal
quibbling. In _Mém._, XXIII. 85 ff., is a plan for a general history
of poetry. But Racine Junior is negligible.

Footnote 271:

_Ibid._, IX. 320 f. (1731-1733), in a paper on the songs of ancient
Greece. He repeats the idea that art comes out of nature, but lays
stress on a development of special singers, a sort of guild, as
contrasted with earlier universality of song. This is the contrast
made afterward by Wilhelm Grimm (_Heldensage_, 2d ed., pp. 382 f.)
between “free” and professional song.

Footnote 272:

_Augustini Calmet dissertatio de poesi veterum Hebraeorum_, ...
Helmstadii, 1723. A French version is in the _Dissertationes qui
peuvent servir de Prologomenes de l’Ecriture Sainte_, ... Paris, 1720,
3 vols., I. 128 ff. See particularly 15 ff. of the Latin: “Duo
habentur Poeseos genera: naturale et artificiale,” etc.

Footnote 273:

“Non incommode ergo dicimus, Poesin methodicam artem esse, accurate et
studiose exprimendi passiones, naturalem vero, quae sine arte, sine
meditatione praevia, eas sistit. Omnis populus, omnis terra, omne
temperamentum, omnis affectus sua non destituitur rhetorica aut poesi
naturali.... _Natura semper producit rudius aliquid, quod ars
perficere conatur._”

Footnote 274:

See Barth, _Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie_, Leipzig,
1897, I. 202.

Footnote 275:

“Sur les progrès successifs de l’esprit humain,” _Œuvres_, II. 597 ff.

Footnote 276:

On this change in poetic criticism, see Von Stein, _Entstehung der
neueren Aesthetik_, p. 97. It must be remembered, however, that while
Turgot clung to the individual in this sense, his search for laws of
progress, movements, tendencies, was really preparing ruin for
individualism, and making Condorcet’s and Herder’s task more easy.

Footnote 277:

_Characteristics_, 5th ed., Birmingham, 1765, I. 22.

Footnote 278:

_Stimmen der Völker_, Dedication: _Euch weih’ ich die Stimme des Volks
der zerstreueten Menschheit._

Footnote 279:

Leslie Stephen, _History of English Thought in the Eighteenth
Century_, II. Chap. XII. § vii., divides the general course of thought
into sentimental, romantic, and rationalistic tendencies.

Footnote 280:

_Essais_, I. liv., near the end: “La poësie populere et purement
naturelle a des naifvetez et graces par où elle se compare à la
principale beauté de la poësie parfaicte selon l’art: comme il se voit
ès villanelles de Gascoigne, et aus Chançons qu’on nous raporte des
nations qui n’ont conoissance d’aucun sciance ny mesmes d’escriture.
La poësie mediocre qui s’arrete entre deus est desdeignée, sans honur
et sans pris.”

Footnote 281:

On Cannibals, I. xxx. “Ce premier couplet, c’est le refrain de la
chanson.... Toute la journée se passe à dancer.”

Footnote 282:

Fresenius, _Deutsche Litteraturzeitung_, 1892, col. 769 ff.

Footnote 283:

Or whoever wrote the book. See Arber’s ed., pp. 26, 53.

Footnote 284:

So says Ferdinand Wolf in his famous essay on Spanish ballads.

Footnote 285:

_Stimmen der Völker_ and _Volkslieder_. _Volkslied_ is original with
Herder. See note, p. xxvi., of the author’s _Old English Ballads_.

Footnote 286:

“Nicht jeder versteht Poesie zu wittern,” is a remark of his still in
some need of emphasis, _Lectures_ (_Neudruck_), III. 141.

Footnote 287:

“We shall treat first the poetry of nature, and then the poetry of
art. We shall follow this development historically.”... _Lectures_
(_Neudruck_, etc.), I. 25 f.

Footnote 288:

_Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues_, a part of the
introduction to his researches on the Kawi language, § 20, _Werke_,
VI. 249.

Footnote 289:

See the introduction to the author’s _Old English Ballads_.

Footnote 290:

A. W. Schlegel, _Werke_, ed. Böcking, VIII. 64 ff., written in 1800.
See particularly pp. 79 f.

Footnote 291:

“Deren Dichter gewissermassen das Volk im ganzen war.”

Footnote 292:

Reprinted, _Werke_, XII. 383 ff., from the _Heidelberger Jahrbücher_
of 1815.

Footnote 293:

Oral and communal literature, it is almost superfluous to point out,
are not one and the same thing. See Max Müller on “Literature before
Letters,” _Nineteenth Century_, November, 1899, pp. 798 f.

Footnote 294:

Such an assumption takes most of the value from Berger’s detailed
account of the controversy over popular song, “Volksdichtung und
Kunstdichtung,” _Nord and Süd_, LXVIII. (1894), 76 ff., an account
which is often inaccurate and quite incomplete. Berger’s conclusion
that there is no essential difference between poetry of the people and
poetry of art confuses, as is usual in this school of Germans, the
poetic impulse with the poetic product.

Footnote 295:

As direct, unqualified fact. One is dealing here with no phrases, no
illustrations, such as the editor of Brantôme employs when he says
(preface to the _Vie des Dames Galantes_, p. x), “dans un siècle, il y
a deux choses, l’histoire et la comédie: l’histoire, c’est le peuple,
la comédie, c’est l’homme.”

Footnote 296:

_La Vie Littéraire_, II. 173.

Footnote 297:

Work quoted, p. 340.

Footnote 298:

For the psychological study of individuality in art and letters,
see Dilthey, “Beiträge zum Studium der Individualität,”
_Sitzungsberichte_, Berlin Academy, 1896, I. 295 ff. For a
historical study, with sociological leanings, see the admirable
work of Burckhardt, _Cultur der Renaissance in Italien_, ed. 1898,
I. 143 ff. (“der Mensch wird geistiges Individuum”), 154 f., 178;
II. 29 f., 48; and Brunetière, _Évolution des Genres_, pp. 39, 167
(Rousseau and individualism), and _Nouveaux Essais_, pp. 66, 150,
194.

Footnote 299:

If one had the materials, a similar emancipation of the poet could be
noted in Latin, beginning, perhaps, with Ennius—_volito vivus per ora
virum_—and Naevius, down to Horace, his fountain made famous _me
dicente_, and the _non omnis moriar_.

Footnote 300:

Vossler, _Poetische Theorien in der italienischen Frührenaissance_,
Berlin, 1900, p. 3: “Im Mittelalter hatte jede Gesellschaftsklasse
ihren eigenen zünftigen Sänger (_rimatore_ oder _dicitore per rima_),
der nur von ihr verstanden und anerkannt wurde.”

Footnote 301:

Lounsbury, _Chaucer_, III. 14.

Footnote 302:

Nyrop, _Den oldfranske Heltedigtning_, p. 288.

Footnote 303:

On the individual poet as mouthpiece of the clan, see Posnett, _Comp.
Lit._, pp. 130 ff., and Letourneau, _Évolution Littéraire_, p. 78.

Footnote 304:

_Purgat._, xxiv. 52 ff.:—

Io mi son un che quando
Amor mi spira, noto, ed a quel modo
Che ditta dentro, vo significando.

But it must be read with what precedes and what follows.

Footnote 305:

It is almost impertinent to remind the reader of Dante’s famous
verses, _Purgat._, viii. 1 ff. Perhaps Hugo remembers his Dante here.
Compare Section iv. of this same _Chant_.

Footnote 306:

The emancipation of woman as an individual begins here in Italy. See
M. de Vogüé’s study of the Sforza (in _Histoire et Poésie_), and the
general statement of Burckhardt, _Cult. Ital. Ren._, I. 144, note 3.

Footnote 307:

“Ego velut in confinio duorum populorum constitutus simul ante
retroque prospicio,” a saying of Petrarch, would apply better to
Dante. The _Vita Nuova_ has psychological analysis enough for ten
moderns; but the mediæval in it all conquers the modern, as one feels
the moment one turns to Petrarch’s correspondence. Perhaps Norden,
_Antike Kunstprosa_, II. 732, lays too much stress on Petrarch’s
backward gaze; he did look backward to the classics, but he was not
mediæval. See the charming extracts given in Robinson and Rolfe’s
_Petrarca_.

Footnote 308:

Hardly borrowed from the classics, as Gautier hints in general, and
asserts for Old French epic. See Benezé, _Das Traummotiv in der mhd.
Dichtung bis 1250, und in alten deutschen Volksliedern_, Halle, 1897,
pp. 53 ff.

Footnote 309:

_Development of English Thought_, pp. 81 f.

Footnote 310:

Déor’s song, first in point of time of English lyrics, is a _vox
clamantis in deserto_. The breezy personality of it, the individual
confidence, the appeal to great names and great things to prop Master
Déor’s own hope that something good will turn up,—all this is
discouragement to the critic who likes to go about pasting labels on
various epochs of literature. But there is Déor’s rival, Wîdsîð, the
typical singer lost in the guild, or rather a dozen singers rolled
into one,—communal triumph.

Footnote 311:

_Causeries du Lundi_, XIV. 296 f. Learned research on the _ubi sunt_
formula is noted by Professor Bright, _Modern Language Notes_, 1893,
Col. 187.

Footnote 312:

Classical parallels go for little here; changes rung upon the _memento
mori_, like Horace’s _quo pater Æneas_, a statement, are not in line
with these mediæval queries.

Footnote 313:

Chaucer, _Troilus_, V. 1174 ff.:—

From hazel-wode, ther Ioly Robin pleyde,
Shal come al that that thou abydest here;
Ye, farewel al the snow of ferne yere!

Boccaccio has instead an allusion to the “wind of Etna.” Chaucer’s
phrase is “a reference to some popular song or saying,” in Skeat’s
opinion.

Footnote 314:

Printed by Morris, _Old English Miscellany_, pp. 90 ff.

Footnote 315:

Not, of course, merely in this ballade. Among other examples of the
quality, see stanzas 28, 29, 38 ff. of the _Grand Testament_. See
other ballades; passages in the _Petit Testament_:—

“Au fort, je meurs amant martir,”

and of course the _Regrets de la Belle Heaulmiere_.

Footnote 316:

About 1300; modernized, of course. Compare the sweep and firm
individual control of Wordsworth’s _Loud is the Vale_,—lines on the
expected death of Fox.

Footnote 317:

M. Gaston Paris, _Poésie du Moyen Age_, II. 232, contrasts Villon with
Charles of Orleans, the “dernier chanteur du moyen age,” while the
other is “premier poète moderne,” and that “par le libre essor de
l’individualisme.” See the rest of this admirable summary.

Footnote 318:

The Lorelei legend would once have been given for its own sake; now it
is merely a reason, which the poet imparts to his reader, “dass ich so
traurig bin.”

Footnote 319:

_Lament for the Makaris_ (dead poets for dead ladies), _quhen he wes
Seik_,—a significant situation, like Tom Nash—again with dead lords
and ladies—and his “I am sick, I must die: Lord have mercy on us!” For
the imitation of Villon by Dunbar, see the notes by Dr. Gregor in
Small’s edition of Dunbar’s _Works_.

Footnote 320:

Mr. Sidney Lee has surely gone too far in divorcing sentiment from
Elizabethan sonnets; as in the case of dance and ballad, literary
bookkeeping can be overdone, and borrowing may too easily obscure
production.

Footnote 321:

See Ribot, _Psychol. Emot._, p. 267, on arrested development of
emotion. He allows, by the way, p. vi., not only a physiological basis
of emotion, but, pp. 7, 12, gives autonomy to the emotional states,
and allows them to exist independently of intellectual conditions.

Footnote 322:

The tyranny of terms mars some of the conclusions in Professor
Francke’s valuable book on _Social Forces in German Literature_, and
the “individualism” to which he often refers has divers meanings.

Footnote 323:

See next chapter.

Footnote 324:

Becker, _Ursprung der romanischen Versmasse_, Strassburg, 1890, pp. 6
f., notes that a mediæval hymn by no means expressed mediæval life; it
was an individual affair, as was proved at length by Wolf, _Lais_, pp.
86 ff., who calls the hymns “kunstmässige Gedichte (_carmina_)” by
known and named churchmen. These often had classical models in mind.
Later the hymns were suited to congregational purposes.

Footnote 325:

See p. 172; and cf. the passage about the solitary way of the poet, p.
175: “Les animaux lâches vont en troupes. Le lion marche seul dans le
désert. Qu’ainsi marche toujours le poëte.”

Footnote 326:

Gervinus thinks that the individual came to his rights in the
crusades, when Christian ideals were substituted for ancient ideals.
But the classical traditions of authorship, if not of wider issues,
were one with the individual spirit of Christianity. The struggle was
against communal conditions of life in general.

Footnote 327:

“To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow....”

Footnote 328:

A pretty study in communal feeling, as compared with artistic and
individual sentiment, could treat the use of a supernatural element in
the ballad _Clerk Saunders_ and in Keats’s _La Belle Dame sans Merci_.

Footnote 329:

See Texte, _Rousseau_, pp. 330 ff.

Footnote 330:

_Cult. Ren. in Ital._, II. 72.

Footnote 331:

Even Icelandic sagas, which show considerable artistic skill, make the
diction of their heroes anything but pathetic, whatever the situation.
See Heinzel, “Beschreibung d. isländ. Saga,” _Sitzungsberichte Wiener
Akad._, XCVII. 119.

Footnote 332:

Work quoted, I. 167.

Footnote 333:

Northall, _English Folk-Rhymes_, prints a number of these; for
example, p. 34, in Lancashire, Gorton lads sing:—

The Abbey Hey bulldogs drest i’ rags,
Dar’ no com’ out to the Gorton lads.

One thinks, too, of the Scottish feuds, and a favourite tune like that
of Liddesdale:—

O wha dare meddle wi’ me?
O wha dare meddle wi’ me?
My name it is little Jock Elliot,
And wha dare meddle wi’ me?

See Chambers’s _Book of Days_, I. 200.

Footnote 334:

Vilmar, in his little _Handbüchlein_, p. 5, is full of righteous
enthusiasm for an old cutthroat ballad, and full of righteous scorn
for Heine’s cynical lines, “Spitzbübin war sie, er war ein Dieb;” the
modern reader, for his sins, prefers Heine and chances the moral
turpitude involved in his choice.

Footnote 335:

Interest even in the great tragedies has come to be duty rather than
inclination. In the Abbé Dubos’s day tragedy was still preferred; but
he says that whereas he read Racine with keenest delight at thirty
(“lorsqu’il etoit occupé des passions que ces pièces nous
dépeignent”), at sixty it was Molière.

Footnote 336:

_Der Scheidende._ Sentiment naturally turns to the cadence of rhythm,
while humour feels at home in prose; hence it is easy to see that
humour in verse, as with Heine, is ancillary to sentiment, while
sentiment in prose, as with Sterne and even Lamb, is ancillary to
humour.

Footnote 337:

See below, Chap. VII.

Footnote 338:

See the author’s _Old English Ballads_, p. xxx, and reference to
Wordsworth’s famous preface. See also Gray’s letter to R. West, April,
1742, “The language of the age is never the language of poetry,” and
what follows.

Footnote 339:

See the author’s _Old English Ballads_, Boston, 1894, Introduction (on
terminology, origins, criticism), and Appendix I. (_The Ballads of
Europe_). For collections, see, of course, the material in the tenth
volume of Child’s great work. On the relations of this communal ballad
to the other kind of ballads, see Holtzhausen, _Ballade und Romanze_,
Halle, 1882, and Chevalier, _Zur Poetik der Ballade_, Programme of the
Prague _Obergymnasium_, in four parts, Prague, 1891-1895.

Footnote 340:

“Volkslied und Kunstlied in Deutschland,” Beilage zur _Allgemeinen
Zeitung_, Munich, Nos. 53, 54, March, 1898,—a paper first read in
October, 1897.

Footnote 341:

Only the narrative song is here considered; for popular lyric see
below.

Footnote 342:

“Volksdichtung und Kunstdichtung,” in _Nord und Süd_, LXVIII. (1894),
76 ff. It may be noted here that the temptation to take this easy
attitude toward poetry of the people, as toward a fictitious and
fanciful affair, is largely due to a misunderstanding of the
evolutionary side of the case. The distinction is not one of
coexistent forms of poetry so much as of successive stages of
evolution. It is no hard matter to take so-called popular poetry of
the day and reduce it to terms of art—the lowest terms, of course; but
with poetry of the people treated as a closed or closing account, and
with historical evidence about it in former times, a very different
problem is presented. An important hint to this effect was given by
Dr. Eugen Wolff in his paper “über den Stil des Nibelungenliedes,”
_Verhandlungen der vierzigsten Versammlung deutscher Philologen_,
etc., Leipzig, 1890, pp. 259 ff.

Footnote 343:

_Norske Folkeviser_, Christiania, 1853, pp. iii f.

Footnote 344:

_Chants et Chansons Populaires des Provinces de l’Ouest_, Niort, 1895,
I. 12. For the authorship, Le Braz, remarks, _Soniou-Breiz-Izel,
Chansons Pop. d. l. Basse-Bretagne_, Introd., p. xxv, “à mesure que
les productions populaires deviennent plus médiocres, leurs auteurs se
font un devoir de conscience de les contresigner.”

Footnote 345:

_Songs of the Russian People_, p. 40.

Footnote 346:

Krohn, “La Chanson Populaire en Finlande,” Proceedings Internat.
Folk-Lore Congress, 1891, pp. 134 ff., a valuable paper. “La poésie
s’est refugiée dans la pensée, mais elle n’a pu se maintenir intacte
de trivialité.” See also Comparetti, _Kalewala_, pp. 16 f.

Footnote 347:

E. H. Meyer, _Volkskunde_, pp. 327, 331.

Footnote 348:

_James Hogg_ (Famous Scots Series), p. 25.

Footnote 349:

In _Mélusine_, IV, (1888-1889), pp. 49 ff., and continued.

Footnote 350:

It is significant that the vogue of singing-clubs in German rural
districts, which would seem to make for communal ballads, really
drives them out. See Dunger, _Rundâs u. Reimsprüche aus dem
Vogtlande_, Plauen, 1876, p. xxx.

Footnote 351:

The introduction to Rosa Warrens’s _Schwedische Volkslieder_, 1857, is
by Wolf, and Grundtvig did a similar favour for her _Dänische
Volkslieder_, 1858; opposed as regards authorship, the two are agreed
on the source of a ballad in the homogeneous community. This even
Comparetti recognizes: _Kalewala_, p. 21. See, too, Liliencron,
_Deutsches Leben im Volkslied um 1530_, p. xi., and Baring-Gould,
_English Minstrelsie_, Vol. VII. Introduction (“On English
Song-Making”). But it is useless to pile up these references.

Footnote 352:

January 27, 1900.

Footnote 353:

Of course, one community may still sing, while another has forgotten.
Beaurepaire, _Étude sur la Poésie Populaire en Normandie_, 1856, pp.
24 f., notes this, as well as the fact that some kinds of songs linger
while others die. He found no _vocero_ left in Normandy, but old
choral wedding songs still were heard. The dance is going—the old
village dance, the _ronde_: pp. 30 f.

Footnote 354:

Böckel, _Deutsche Volkslieder aus Oberhessen_, Marburg, 1885, has an
introduction of great value, which shows how utterly German folksong
is a closed account. Traditional ballads are still sung, but none are
made; what is now made is mainly “Schmutz und Rohheit.” Factories,
singing-schools, are putting an end to communal song. The process of
decay, he thinks, began as early as 1600. For description of modern
communal songs, see p. cxxviii. Folksong, he says (p. clxxxiii), is
dead throughout civilized Europe.

Footnote 355:

See John Ashton, _Modern Street Ballads_, London, 1888. For the
French, see C. Nisard, _Les Chansons Populaires chez les Anciens et
chez les Français, essai historique suivi d’une étude sur la chanson
des rues contemporaine_, ... Paris, 1867, 2 vols. Vol. II. treats
street songs. This is really a continuation of Nisard’s _Histoire des
Livres Populaires_, 2 vols., 1854, on almanacs, prophecies,
divinations, magic, etc. Nisard’s account of origins is ridiculous,—or
perhaps it is meant to be playful. See I. 69.

Footnote 356:

In addition to the material quoted in the introduction to _Old English
Ballads_, see Nash, Harvey, and the other pamphleteers on nearly every
page. Chettle, _Kind-Harts Dreame_ (Percy Soc., 1841), particularly
pp. 9 ff., has a lively account of ballad making, printing, selling,
singing, in this lower stratum. What is so lewd, he asks, that it has
not been printed “and in every streete abusively chanted”? For the
state of things somewhat later, see a curious publication, _Whimzies,
or a New Cast of Characters_, London, 1631; it describes in
alphabetical order, “almanach-maker,” “ballad-monger,” and so on, down
to “zealous brother”; for ballad-monger, see pp. 8-15.

Footnote 357:

_Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs._

Footnote 358:

_National Ballad and Song: Merry Songs and Ballads Prior to the Year
1800_; 5 vols., privately printed for subscribers only, 1897. The
fourth volume of the Percy Folio teaches a like lesson.

Footnote 359:

_Werke_, ed. Suphan, XXV. 323.

Footnote 360:

See above, p. 121.

Footnote 361:

_Poetik_ (well called _Naturlehre der Dichtung_, and an excellent
piece of work), pp. 99 ff.

Footnote 362:

When folk read and write, they cease to improvise poetry, and the
folksong really ceases; that the æsthetic impulse, however, abides
with them, even in low levels, but has other results, is shown by
Gustav Meyer in an interesting passage of his “Neugriechische
Volkslieder,” _Essays_, p. 309.

Footnote 363:

Sir George Douglas, _Hogg_, pp. 38 f.

Footnote 364:

See the context of it in Lachmann u. Haupt, _Minnesangs Frühling_, pp.
221 ff.

Footnote 365:

Jeanroy, _Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France_, Paris, 1889, Part
III., shows conclusively the origin of these songs in the public
dance.

Footnote 366:

“Balade” of the twelfth century: Bartsch, _Chrestomathie Provençale_,
p. 107. _Alavia_ = “away from us, begone,” the _procul este profani_
of the dancers. See also G. Paris, _Origines de la Poésie Lyrique_,
etc., a review of Jeanroy, Paris, 1892, pp. 12 ff. The rimes in -_ar_
running through this stanza and the rest, and certain touches of art,
show the changes in record; but the refrain and the spirit of the
piece are quite communal.

Footnote 367:

Quellien, _Chansons et Danses des Bretons_, Paris, 1889, p. 11, notes
that one event is not likely to be treated both in the song and in the
tale: “ce qui est tombé dans le domaine de la narrative prosaïque est
par cela même exclu desormais de la chanson.” Communal song must seize
present things; in the tales it was “once upon a time.”

Footnote 368:

Buckle, _Hist. Civ. Engl._, I. Chap. vi., calls ballads “the
groundwork of all historical knowledge,” and says they are “all
strictly true” at the start. The use of writing, he thinks, put an end
to their value.

Footnote 369:

This traditional, narrative song is called ballad throughout the
present book,—unfortunately an equivocal term. The terminology of the
whole subject is notoriously bad, and “ballad” is no exception to the
rule. See _Old English Ballads_, pp. xviii ff.; Blankenburg,
_Litterarische Zusätze u. s. w._, I. 387 ff., under “Dichtkunst”; for
modern “ballad,” Werner in the _Anzeiger für deutsches Alterthum_,
XIV. 165 ff., 190 f., XV. 259; for German names, Erich Schmidt,
_Charakteristiken_, pp. 199 ff.; on _balada_, Jeanroy, _Origines_,
etc., p. 403, who shows the passage of the word from its meaning as a
dance-song to the technical term for a fixed form of verse. In Corsica
a _ballata_ can be a lament (see below under _vocero_), and derives
from the dance round a corpse: J. B. Marcaggi, _Les Chants de la
Mort_, etc., Paris, 1898, p. 121, note on the _caracolu_, “a sort of
pantomime danced about the corpse by the mourning women, with gestures
of grief,” but now fallen out of use. Of course, the only point here
is to separate the ballad from songs like _Greensleeves_, from
journalism (for the so-called “ballad” under Elizabeth shows that her
folk were as anxious to get into print, or to keep out of it, as we
are in days of the newspaper), from occasional poetry, scurrilous
rimes, hymns, and all the rest. “Sonnet” was a word that then not only
meant any short poem, but occasionally made a little competition with
“ballad”; several of the ballads in the Rawlinson Collection, Bodleian
Library, are called “sonnet” either by title or in the text.

Footnote 370:

Work quoted, p. lxviii. Critics look at this narrative and treat it as
the only element in the ballad; but at every turn they should remember
that the original ballad was always property of a throng, was always
sung, was always danced, and was never without a dominant refrain.

Footnote 371:

Even Kleinpaul, sarcastic enough against Grimm, implies this condition
in his nine characteristics of popular poetry: _Von der Volkspoesie_,
published anonymously, 1860, and as supplement to his _Poetik_, 1870.
See p. 29.

Footnote 372:

Introduction to Rosa Warrens’s _Schwedische Volkslieder_, p. xix.

Footnote 373:

_Ancient Danish Ballads_, 1860, I. ix.

Footnote 374:

_Altgermanische Poesie_, p. 118. See also p. 52.

Footnote 375:

Heinzel, “Beschreibung d. isländ. Saga,” _Sitzungsberichte_, Vienna
Acad., phil. hist. class, 1897, p. 117.

Footnote 376:

Said of the Castilian and Aragonese ballads in Wolf’s _Proben portug.
u. catalan. Romanzen_, Vienna, 1856, p. 6. Here, too, he opposes the
idea, presently to be considered, that ballads are degenerate epic or
romance.

Footnote 377:

A broader account of the origin of ballads is given by Comparetti,
_Kalewala_, pp. 282 f. He refers them to the romantic and chivalric
sentiment of the late Middle Ages—beginning, say, with the eleventh
century—which passed from the “Romanic-Germanic centre of Europe” into
various tongues, was delivered to oral tradition as popular verse,
spread and flourished down to the sixteenth century, where it was
collected as _romancero_, _romanze_, _kæmpevise_, ballad. But
Comparetti neglects the communal conditions.

Footnote 378:

Of course it was the revival of learning, the humanistic spirit,
dividing lay society into lettered and unlettered, which really broke
up the communal ballad.

Footnote 379:

_Characters_, “A Franklin.”

Footnote 380:

Brand-Ellis, under Harvest Home. The “mell-supper,” may not derive its
name from _mesler_, as suggested, but the fact is clear enough.

Footnote 381:

Grosse, _Formen der Familie_, pp. 134 f.

Footnote 382:

_Proben_, etc., p. 6, as above, and also p. 31.

Footnote 383:

_Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, new ed., IV. 114 ff.

Footnote 384:

_Proceedings_, Internat. Folk-Lore Congress, 1891, p. 64.

Footnote 385:

Even in the material itself there is a shading from highly artistic
down to communal. _Thomas Rymer_ undoubtedly comes from a romance.
_The Boy and the Mantle_ has the flippancy of its origin in the
_fabliau_; Jeanroy, _Origines_, p. 155, declares such a touch of the
cynical to warrant one in taking the ballad out of that class which he
calls popular. _King Orfeo_ is a distorted tale from the classics.
Plain kin-tragedies, however, like _Babylon_, _Edward_, _The Twa
Brothers_, are simple enough for one to leave them to communal
origins, and not go source-hunting. Even where the motive seems
international, details may be home-made; how much of _Hero and
Leander_ is left in that Westphalian ballad, _Et wasen twei
Kunnigeskinner_? This story of the lovers and the lighted taper is
found in many folksongs. See Reifferscheid, _Westfälische
Volkslieder_, pp. 127 ff. In the classics and modern poetry,—witness
Musæos and Marlowe,—it belongs to art. Comparative mythology laid hold
of it, followed it back to India, and from India to the
skies,—spring-god, sea, stars, autumn storms, and the rest. But this
is needless bewilderment of a plain case; we have only to deal with
the way in which Westphalian peasants sing of prince and princess. In
three stanzas the story is told; all the rest deals with the situation
so given, and here the communal elements (see below, p. 196) come in.
The point is that study of subject-matter in ballads is distinct from
the study of ballad elements. These are constant in good ballads,
whether the subject be borrowed, or be local history, as in _Bessy
Bell and Mary Gray_, and the Border ballads generally. In addition to
the studies of ballad migration (e.g. _Sir Aldingar_) by Grundtvig and
by Child, see a close piece of investigation by Professor Bugge,
“Harpens Kraft,” in the _Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi_, VII. (1891), 97
ff.

Footnote 386:

In his introduction to the _Canti Populari del Piemonte_, p. xviii.

Footnote 387:

On the chasm between ballads of the collections and the recorded
beginnings of national literatures, see _Old English Ballads_, p.
lxxi.

Footnote 388:

See below, under Improvisation.

Footnote 389:

See remarks on “Crow and Pie,” _Ballads_, II. 478.

Footnote 390:

_Essays_, pp. 309 f.

Footnote 391:

See appendix on minstrels in the author’s _Old English Ballads_.

Footnote 392:

_Social Forces in German Literature_, p. 117. Talvj draws similar
conclusions: _Charakter._, etc., pp. 339, 405.

Footnote 393:

_Altdeutsches Liederbuch_, p. xxii. The personal theory is much more
temperately set forth, and with a better idea of throng-conditions, by
Jeanroy, _Origines_, p. 396.

Footnote 394:

This leprous monk has been a godsend to the writers on ballad origins.
But one might as well appeal to the _ego_ in a passage from Thomas
Cantipratensis, written near Cambrai, in 1263, and often quoted: Quod
autem obscoena carmina finguntur a daemonibus et perditorum mentibus
immittuntur, quidam daemon nequissimus qui ... puellam nobilem ...
prosequebatur, manifeste populis audientibus dixit: “Cantum hunc
celebrem de Martino ego cum collega meo composui et per diversas
terras Galliae et Theutoniae promulgavi”.... Here are individual
authorship—or collaboration: “I and a colleague of mine,” says the
demon,—aristocratic origins, and Prior’s lady in the case.

Footnote 395:

Villemarqué, _Barzaz-Breiz_, Paris, 1846, II. 285. _Le Temps Passé_
begins p. 273.

Footnote 396:

Or suppose one should pin the _ego_ folk to a belief in the statement
found in so many ballads that they are written by the person of whom
they sing! This statement is a favourite in Basque songs. See F.
Michel, _Le Pays Basque_, pp. 320 f.

Footnote 397:

Or take the _Schloss in Oesterreich_:—

Wer ist, der uns dies Liedlein sang?
So frei ist es gesungen;
Das haben gethan drei Jungfräulein
Zu Wien in Oesterreiche.

Footnote 398:

Compare the dance and singing of the Botocudos, above, p. 95.

Footnote 399:

No one now pretends that “Expliceth, quod Rychard Sheale,” at the end
of the Ms. of the old Cheviot ballad, makes Sheale the author of it.

Footnote 400:

Work quoted, p. lvii. The implied protest against Grimm, p. lxxxii,
must be read along with the passage just cited.

Footnote 401:

“Una creazione spontanea essenzialmente etnica.”

Footnote 402:

_Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne_, p. 2.

Footnote 403:

_Romania_, XIII. 617.

Footnote 404:

_Ibid._, p. 603.

Footnote 405:

_Hist. Po. Charl._, p. 11.

Footnote 406:

Driver, _Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament_, p. 389,
sums up for a modified acceptance of this theory. It seems clear that
some of the Psalms are distinctly individual in every way, and as
clear that many others are congregational and communal.

Footnote 407:

“Ueber das Ich der Psalmen,” _Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche
Wissenschaft_, VIII. (1888), 49-148. Against him _in toto_ is Dr.
Robertson, _The Poetry and the Religion of the Hebrews_, 1898. See pp.
20 ff., 260 ff.

Footnote 408:

_Religion of Israel to the Exile_, p. 198.

Footnote 409:

Robertson’s objection to this is trivial (work quoted, p. 283), and
shows a total lack of insight into the conditions of old communal
song. “It is becoming more and more plain,” says Donovan, _Lyre to
Muse_, p. 162, “that individuals could have had little to do with
forming the fashions and manner of Hebrew song.” It sprang from the
choral dance of the people, which later times called “idolatrous.”

Footnote 410:

_Vore Folkeviser fra Middelalderen_, Copenhagen, 1891, an admirable
book. See particularly, p. 39; also Talvj, _Charakteristik_, p. 340.

Footnote 411:

Wright and Halliwell, _Reliquiae Antiquae_, I. 248 f.

Footnote 412:

Sc. _fine_,—finish, end?

Footnote 413:

_Zeitschrift f. Völkerpsych._, V. 201. He notes a curious close found
in many ballads.—

Danube! Danube!
Thou shalt sing no more.

Footnote 414:

The opening or close of Germanic epic is often of this “I” character.
So the Hildebrand Lay, the _Béowulf_, the _Nibelungenlied_ at its end.
Later epic shows a poet in the case, who has his own wares to
announce. See R. M. Meyer, _Altgermanische Poesie_, pp. 357 ff., and
his references.

Footnote 415:

Steenstrup, work quoted, pp. 43, 28 f.

Footnote 416:

Often the reciter remarks that it is night; that he is tired, thirsty;
let the hearers come again on the morrow and each one bring a coin
with him,—and so on. See A. Tobler, _Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsych._, IV.
175, quoting from _Huon de Bordeaux_.

Footnote 417:

It was noted that the Botocudos had no legends, no song of the past. A
narrative song in the legendary sense is unknown to primitive folk;
what they sing is the event of the day, an improvised song of
sentences almost contemporary with the facts, cadenced by the communal
dance. The sense of time past is so slender even among North American
Indians (Powell, First Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology to
Smithsonian Inst., 1881, pp. 29 ff.), that while they admit that grass
grows, they “stoutly deny that the forest pines and the great sequoias
were not created as they are.” Now this primitive trait of poetry is
preserved in communal ballads; and from this strictly communal class,
long historical ballads, like those in German collections, should be
excluded. Kögel, _Geschichte der deutschen Litteratur_, I. 111, notes
that “the epic song ... is one of the later kinds of poetry.... It
cannot even be regarded as belonging to the common Germanic stock.”
But the communal narrative song is another matter.

Footnote 418:

“On American Aboriginal Poetry,” _Proc. Numismat. and Antiquar. Soc.
Philadelphia_, 1887, p. 19.

Footnote 419:

See Böckel, work quoted, cxix.

Footnote 420:

Steenstrup has some good remarks on this point, work quoted, pp. 188
ff., 203 ff.

Footnote 421:

Of far earlier date than ballads, this poetry is in a later stage of
evolution. _Wîdsið_, the oldest recorded English poem, shows more art
and more poetic dialect than many a bit of Scottish verse picked up a
century ago.

Footnote 422:

See R. Heinzel, _Ueber den Stil der altgermanischen Poesie_,
Strassburg, 1875; W. Bode, _Die Kenningar in der angelsächsischen
Dichtung_, Darmstadt u. Leipzig, 1886; R. M. Meyer, _Altgermanische
Poesie_. See too Uhland, _Klein. Schrift._, I. 390.

Footnote 423:

A kenning, with many branches in Anglo-Saxon poetry, calls survivors
of battle “the leavings of weapons.” This may once have been literal;
but in its context it looks as deliberate as Lamb’s phrase for a
resuscitated victim of the gallows,—“refuse of the rope, _the leavings
of the cord_” (_Inconveniences Resulting from Being Hanged_).

Footnote 424:

_Pop. Tales_, IV. 152.

Footnote 425:

The general testimony for all ballads. For example, Fauriel, _Chants
Populaires de la Grèce Moderne_, I. cxxix; these, he says, are full of
commonplaces and recurrent phrases; the diction is “simple, nervous,
and direct, that is, it has few figures, almost no inversions, and
progresses in short periodic and nearly equal passages.” Remains of
oldest Greek folk song show the same traits: Usener, _Altgriech.
Versbau_, p. 45.

Footnote 426:

_Wolfram von Eschenbach_, ed. Lachmann, p. 4.

Sîne klâwen
durh die wolken sint geslagen,
er stîget ûf mit grôzer kraft,
ih sih in grâwen ...
den tac ...

Footnote 427:

This may well go back to the summer songs, May-day songs, chorals, and
so on, of festal crowds; so Bielschowsky, _Geschichte der deutschen
Dorfpoesie_, Berlin, 1891, p. 13, concludes for the songs of Neidhart.
So, too, with songs on the conflict of summer and winter. Latin poets
of the Middle Ages led the way in regular description of nature. See
Wilmanns, _Walther_, p. 409. For the general case, Burckhardt, _Cultur
d. Renaissance_, II. 15; Uhland, _Klein. Schrift._, III. 388, 469.

Footnote 428:

_Færøiske Qvaeder_, p. 74.

Footnote 429:

Child, _Ballads_, I. 170.

Footnote 430:

Refrain or burden, not printed with the other stanzas, but sung
throughout.

Footnote 431:

Maid.

Footnote 432:

Of = by.

Footnote 433:

Deprived, parted.

Footnote 434:

The incremental repetition of this ballad could be matched by many
other cases. Typical is the combination of simple and incremental
repetition, also in triads, at the end of a French ballad, “Sur le
Bord de l’Ile,” Crane, _Chansons Populaires_, p. 28. Typical, too, is
the interesting Westphalian ballad, already noted, of the Hero and
Leander story: Reifferscheid, _Westf. Volksl._, pp. 2 f.; see _ibid._,
Nos. 2, 5. “Mother, my _eyes_ hurt me,—may I _walk_ by the sea?”—“Not
alone; take thy youngest brother.” Reasons follow against and for
this. Then repetition: my _eyes_ hurt me, may I not _walk_, etc. “Take
thy youngest sister,”—and incremental repetition of the reasons.
Then:—

“O mother,” said she, “mother,
My _heart_ is sore in me;
Let others go to the churches,—
I will _pray_ by the murmuring sea.”

Usually each increment has a stanza, but now and then compression
takes place, as in Motherwell’s version of _Sir Hugh_:—

She wiled him into ae chamber,
She wiled him into twa,
She wiled him into the third chamber,
And that was warst o’t a’ ...

And first came out the thick, thick blood,
And syne came out the thin,
And syne came out the bonnie heart’s blood ...

So with three horses, and what not. This triad is not necessarily
sprung from the “Dreitheiligkeit in der Lyrik,” of which Veit Valentin
discourses in the _Zeitschr. f. vgl. Lit._ (New Series) II. 9 ff.
“Dreitheiligkeit in der Lyrik,” comes rather from communal iteration
in primitive song and dance.

Footnote 435:

See his letter to Mason, _Works_, ed. Gosse, II. 36.

Footnote 436:

Professor Earle confuses, in a very uncritical way, the garrulity of
romances with the garrulity of epics and of ballads: see his _Deeds of
Béowulf_, p. xlix. A “voluble and rambling loquacity,” he says, is the
“natural character of the lay, and still more of the epic, which is a
compilation of lays.” And presently he says that the romances are “the
nearest extant representative of that unwritten literature which from
the very nature of things was undisciplined and loquacious.” Confusion
could hardly go beyond this.

Footnote 437:

_Ferienschriften_, I. 87.

Footnote 438:

“Das russische Volksepos,” _Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsych._, V. 187.

Footnote 439:

See above, p. 69.

Footnote 440:

See Porthan, _Opera Selecta_, III. 305-381. I quote from the original
dissertations _de Poesi Fennica_ 1778, pp. 57 ff. He begins by
lamenting the decay of old national song near the coast and under
clerical influence; intimates that song was a universal gift and was
improvised, although sundry bards are now eminent. Memorable events
slip into song, now convivial, now satiric; and there is great store
of proverbs. The description of dual singing begins with § XI.

Footnote 441:

“Præcentor, _Laulaja_ ... adjungit sibi alium socium sive adjutorem,
_Puoltaja_ sive _Saistaja_ dictum.”

Footnote 442:

“Quod facile jam ex sensu ipso, atque metri lege, reliquum pedem
conjectando definire licet.”

Footnote 443:

“Rarissimi stantes canunt; et si contingit aliquando, ut musarum
quodam afflatu moti stantes carmen ordiantur, mox tamen, conjunctis
dextris sessum eunt, et ritu solito cantandi continuant operam.” They
observe the rules of the game. Porthan, to be sure, notes the absence
of dancing as a national and pervasive affair; but the statement must
not go unchallenged. Long before this, Olaus Magnus (_Hist. de
gentibus Septentrion._, Romæ, 1555, Cap. VIII. lib. IV. 141) said of
the Lappland and other northern folk that they were often moved to
dance,—“excitentur ad saltum, quem vehementius citharoedo sonante
ducentes, veterumque heroum ac gigantum præclara gesta patrio rhytmate
et carmine canentes, in gemitus et alta suspiria, hinc luctus et
ululatum resoluti, dimisso ordine in terram ruunt,” a parlous state.
Scheffer, to be sure, discredits this statement of the archbishop
(_Lapponia_, 1673, p. 292); but Donner, _Lieder der Lappen_, p. 38,
believes it, and says it is confirmed by the report of a recent
Russian traveller.

Footnote 444:

Castrén, quoted by Comparetti, _Kalewala_, p. 66, note.

Footnote 445:

Talvj, _Charakteristik_, p. 87; Steenstrup, pp. 85 f.

Footnote 446:

_Ibid._, pp. 23 f.

Footnote 447:

Child, _Ballads_, I. 21.

Footnote 448:

See “Hans Michel,” and the notes to it in Reifferscheid, _Westjälische
Volkslieder_, pp. 47, 175. The song “Drüben auf grüner Haid,” pp. 51,
176, is used in the spinning-room, old home of communal minstrelsy, to
stir the women to their work. Further, see Coussemaker, _Chants Pop.
des Flamands de France_, p. 129, for a pious chanson: One is one, One
is God alone, One is God alone, And that we believe. Two is two, Two
Testaments, One God Alone ..., etc. Three is three, Three Patriarchs,
Two Testaments ... and so on, up to the Twelve Apostles. _Ibid._, pp.
333, 336 ff., 353, are comic songs of the kind; and these are highly
important, for they are songs of the dance, and still in vogue for
communal processions. Their main features are repetition—and the
refrain.

Footnote 449:

See Halliwell, _Nursery Rhymes_, p. 197:—

John Ball shot them all.
John Scott made the shot,—
But John Ball shot them all.
John Wyming made the priming,
And John Brammer made the rammer,
And John Scott ..., etc.

This is cumulative. But an old song of the fifteenth century is
incremental, a jolly bit of verse withal: Wright-Halliwell, _Reliquiae
Antiquae_, I. 4 f.—

The fals fox camme into owre croft,
And so owre geese ful fast he sought;
_Refrain_: With how, fox, how, with hey, fox, hey,
Comme no more into oure house to bere owre gese awaye.

The fals fox camme into _oure stye_ ..., etc.

Footnote 450:

E. H. Meyer, _Deutsche Volkskunde_, p. 124.

Footnote 451:

_Proben_, p. 34: “La Mina de Puigcerdá.”

Footnote 452:

K. L. Schröer, “Ein Ausflug nach Gottschee,” in _Sitzungsber._, Vienna
Acad., phil.-hist., LX. (1868), 165-288. See pp. 231 ff. One is
distantly reminded of the cumulative song (Chambers, _Popular Rhymes
of Scotland_, p. 35) of “Katie Beardie,”—for the dance:—

Katie Beardie had a coo,
Black and white about the mou’;
Wasna that a dentie coo?
Dance, Katie Beardie!

Katie Beardie had a hen,—

and cock, “grice,” so on,—probably as many animals as were won by her
distant cousin in Gottschee. See also the “Croodin Doo,” p. 51; “My
Cock, Lily Cock,” p. 31; “The Yule Days,” p. 42; and others.

Footnote 453:

Schröer, p. 274.

Footnote 454:

_Ibid._, p. 277.

Footnote 455:

To the young men invited thus to the wedding.

Footnote 456:

The Armenian bride does the singing herself, combining incremental
repetition with a refrain in which the crowd may join (Alishan,
_Armenian Popular Songs_, Venice, 1852: the third edition, 1888, omits
the name of the translator):

Little threshold, be thou not shaken;
It is for me to be shaken,
To bring lilies.

Little plank, be thou not stirred;
It is for me to be stirred,
To bring lilies.

Footnote 457:

Bladé, _Poésies Populaires de la Gascogne_, II. 220 ff. In the _Chants
Heroiques des Basques_, p. 48, Bladé tells how the Basques use these
songs of number.

Footnote 458:

_Ibid._, same page. Herd, _Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs_, I. 117
(reprint of 1869), among a number of marches more or less artificial,
prints a chorus:

Little wat ye wha’s coming,
Little wat ye wha’s coming,
Little wat ye wha’s coming,
Jock and Tam and a’s coming,

to which an indefinite series of incremental stanzas can be
added,—as:—

Duncan’s coming, Donald’s coming,
Colin’s coming, Ronald’s coming ...

and so the chorus, and again another stanza, and so on. A different
kind of song for the march is “Un wenn nu de Pott en Lock hett,”
printed by Firmenich, _Germaniens Völkerstimmen_, p. 187.

Footnote 459:

See his references, _Arbeit u. Rhythmus_, p. 71.

Footnote 460:

_Primitive Culture_, I. 86.

Footnote 461:

Tacitus, _Germania_, c. 10. Liliencron u. Müllenhoff, _Zur
Runenlehre_, Halle, 1852. Simple iteration, of course, is everywhere
in charms: _ter dices_ is the stage direction.

Footnote 462:

Grein-Wülker, _Bibliothek_, I. 317 ff.

Footnote 463:

D’Annunzio, following Baudelaire, revives repetition with considerable
effect to make up for lack of rimes in his _Elegie Romane_. See p. 69,
“Villa Chigi.”

Footnote 464:

By R. B. Gent. (Barnfield?), London, 1594, a rare book. See
Barnfield’s own _Hellens Rape_, ed. by Grosart for the Roxburgh Club,
1876.

Footnote 465:

A gentle shepherd born in Arcady,
Of gentlest race that ever shepherd bore.

No small influence in introducing this kind of repetition is due to
the imitations of classic verse, and the struggles of the Areopagus to
expel the tyrant Rime. Compare Spenser’s own experiment: _Now doe I
nightly waste_, quoted by Guest, _English Rhythms_, II. 270.

Footnote 466:

A suspicion that R. B. is japing (see his _Amyntas: A-mint-Asse_, in
the 4th of the fourteen “sonnets”), vanishes with careful reading of
these highly interesting “experiments.”

Footnote 467:

_Carm._ lxii. 39 ff.

Footnote 468:

Recorded as a fifteenth-century carol in the Sloane Ms.

Footnote 469: