Wine, Women, and Song | Page 8

in nearly all the _Carmina
Vagorum_. Instead of a poet with a name, we find a type; and the verse
is put into the mouth of Golias himself, or the Archipoeta, or the

Primate of the order. This merging of the individual in the class of
which he forms a part is eminently characteristic of popular literature,
and separates the Goliardic songs from those of the Provençal
Troubadours. The emotions to which popular poetry gives expression
are generic rather than personal. They are such that all the world,
granted common sympathies and common proclivities, can feel them
and adopt the mode of utterance invented for them by the singer. If
there be any bar to their universal acceptance, it is only such as may
belong to the peculiar conditions of the social class from which they
have emanated. The Rispetti of Tuscany imply a certain form of
peasant life. The Carmina Vagorum are coloured to some extent by the
prejudices and proclivities of vagabond existence.
Trenchantly true as the inspiration of a popular lyric may be, inevitable
as may be the justice of its sentiment, unerring as may be its touch
upon reality, still it lacks the note which marks it out for one man's
utterance among a thousand. Composing it, the one has made himself
the mouthpiece of the thousand. What the Volkslied gains in
universality it loses in individuality of character. Its applicability to
human nature at large is obtained at the sacrifice of that interest which
belongs to special circumstances. It suits every one who grieves or
loves or triumphs. It does not indicate the love, the grief, the triumph of
this man and no other. It possesses the pathos and the beauty of
countless human lives prolonged through inarticulate generations,
finding utterance at last in it. It is deficient in that particular intonation
which makes a Shelley's voice differ from a Leopardi's, Petrarch's
sonnets for Laura differ from Sidney's sonnets for Stella. It has always
less of perceptible artistic effect, more enduring human quality. Some
few of its lines are so well found, so rightly said, that they possess the
certainty of natural things--a quality rare in the works of all but the
greatest known poets. But these phrases with the accent of truest truth
are often embedded in mere generalities and repetitions.
These characteristics of popular poetry help to explain the frequent
recurrence of the same ideas, the same expressions, the same stanzas
even, in the lyrics of the Goliardi. A Volkslied, once created, becomes
common property. It flies abroad like thistledown; settles and sows its

seed; is maimed and mutilated; is improved or altered for the worse; is
curtailed, expanded, adapted to divers purposes at different times and in
very different relations.
We may dismiss the problem of authorship partly as insoluble, partly as
of slight importance for a literature which is manifestly popular. With
even greater brevity may the problem of nationality be disposed of.
Some critics have claimed an Italian, some an English, some a French,
and some a German origin for the Carmina Vagorum. The truth is that,
just as the Clerici Vagi were themselves of all nations, so were their
songs; and the use of a Latin common to all Europe in the Middle Ages
renders it difficult even to conjecture the soil from which any particular
lyric may have sprung. As is natural, a German codex contains more
songs of Teutonic origin; an English displays greater abundance of
English compositions. I have already observed that our two chief
sources of Goliardic literature have many elements in common; but the
treasures of the Benedictbeuern MS. differ in complexion from those of
the Harleian in important minor details; and it is probable that if French
and Italian stores were properly ransacked--which has not yet been
done--we should note in them similar characteristic divergences.
The Carmina Burana, by their frequent references to linden-trees and
nightingales, and their numerous German refrains, indicate a German
home for the poems on spring and love, in which they are specially
rich.[14] The collections of our own land have an English turn of
political thought; the names Anglia and Anglus not unfrequently occur;
and the use of the word "Schellinck" in one of the Carmina Burana
may point, perhaps, to an English origin. France claims her own, not
only in the acknowledged pieces of Walter de Lille, but also in a few
which exhibit old French refrains. To Italian conditions, if not to Italian
poets, we may refer those that introduce spreading pines or olive-trees
into their pictures, and one which yields the refrain Bela mia_. The
most important lyric of the series, Golias' Confession_, was
undoubtedly written at Pavia, but whether by an Italian or not we do
not know. The probability is rather, perhaps, in favour of