Lays of the Minnesingers Or German Troubadours of the Twelfth and Thirteenth ...

SWEET nightingale! I hear thee sing,-
Thy music makes my heart upspring;
O quickly come, sweet bird, to me,
And teach me to rejoice like thee.

Sweet nightingale! to the cool wave
I see thee haste, thy limbs to lave,
And quaff it with thy little bill,
As 'twere the daintiest beverage still.

Sweet bird! where'er thy dwelling be
Upon the linden's lofty tree
Beside thy beauteous partner, there
O greet a thousand times my fair!

Our last specimen is from Eschenburg's Denk

mäler, p. 455.

Nächten, da ich bey ihr was,

Schwatzten wir dann diess, dann das,
Auch sehr freundlich zu mir sass,

Sagt', sie liebt' mich ohn' all maass. &c.

LAST evening by my fair I sat,

And now on this we talk'd-now that;
Freely she sat by me, and said

She loved with love unlimited.

Last evening, when from her I parted,
In dearest friendship, faithful-hearted,
Her sacred vow she plighted me,
In joy or sorrow, mine to be.

Last eve, at leaving her, she clung
Close to my side, and on me hung;
And far along she went with me,
And oh how kind and dear was she!
Today, when to her side I came,
How cool, how alter'd that proud dame!
All was reversed ;-and back I turn'd,
By her, who was my true love, spurn'd.

CONTENTS.

PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION.

SECT. I.-Introductory remarks. PROVENCE.-Imperfect knowledge of the works of the Troubadours.-Writers on the subject.-M. Raynouard. -Early monuments of Provençal poetry.-Its cultivation.-Decline of the art in the South.Ascendancy of the North-French dialect or Romance. Character of the Troubadours to be sought in their works.-Remarks on the question, whether the Troubadours confined themselves to lyric poetry, or like the Northern poets also composed Romances and Tales.-Remains of Provençal Romances and Tales.-Real extent of the literary productions of the Troubadours now uncertain

SECT. II.-CATALONIA.-Connexion between the courts of Barcelona and Provence.-Catalan language.-Remains of its poetry.--Ascendancy of the Castilian tongue.- Mosen Jordi de Sant Jordi. -Mosen Jayme Febrer.-Jayme Roig.-Ausias March. CASTILLE.-Supposed Hispano-Arabic origin of Troubadour poetry controverted.-The different classes of early Castilian poetry.-The Spanish Trobadors.-Alexandro Magno