It is almost superfluous to mention Gretchen and the recurrent echo of

her wheel in the stanza _Meine Ruh’ ist hin_. But this, of course, is

art.

Footnote 679:

A version of “The Cruel Brother” (Child, I. 147), from Forfarshire,

has along with the common refrain two lines at the end of the stanza

which partly echo the refrain of labour:—

Sing Annet, and Marret, and fair Maisrie,

An’ the dew hangs i’ the wood, gay ladie.

Footnote 680:

Northall, _English Folk-Rhymes_, p. 322. See the interesting notes

from Southey’s _Doctor_, xxiv, about Betty Yewdale and the song she

and her sister had to sing while learning to knit socks. The song kept

time with the work, _and had to bring in the names of all the folk in

the dale_. See on cumulative song above, p. 200.

Footnote 681:

Dyer, _British Popular Customs_, p. 42.

Footnote 682:

_Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs_, London, 1857, pp. 187 f. Greenside

is near Manchester.

Footnote 683:

_Voceri_, pp. 244 f., with a specimen song taken from Viale.

Footnote 684:

E. H. Meyer, _Volkskunde_, p. 236.

Footnote 685:

_Poes. Pop. Gasc._, II. 224 ff. See his references for this

interesting subject.

Footnote 686:

Coussemaker in his section of songs for the dance, work quoted, pp.

338 f., gives a “ronde” sung during the fête at Bailleul:—

Now the salad must be sowed,

Now the salad must be sowed,

Salad, salad, salad, salad, salad,

Now the salad must be sowed.

Now the salad must be cut,—

then plucked, washed, dried, and so on. The list of these songs could

be extended indefinitely; the fact that this of the salad is sung at a

quite alien festivity simply proves the vogue of the thing. One must

refer, however, to the dances of Catalonian peasants and children, the

songs for which are little more than repetition and refrain

descriptive of country toil, as quoted by Wolf, pp. 34 f., of his

_Proben Portugiesischer und Catalanischer Volksromanzen_, Wien, 1856.

Footnote 687:

Ed. 1825, IX. 41. The phrase “to town” at which our editor boggles,

ignorant of its real meaning, is a further proof of the traditional

character of this song.

Footnote 688:

“Is your throat clear for _hooky hooky_?” asks Harvest; and the

reapers sing the refrain again. Later he speaks of weeping out “a

lamentable _hooky hooky_.” Drake connected _hooky_ with _hockey_, the

hock or harvest cart sung by Herrick. But perhaps “hooky” is to be

kept without any such change. Leyden, see _Complaynte of Scotland_, p.

xciii, speaking of ring dances at the _kirn_ or feast of cutting down

the grain, says that reapers who first finished the work danced on an

eminence, in view of other reapers, and began the dance “with three

loud shouts of triumph, and _thrice tossing up their hooks in the

air_.” Cf. the Oxford Dict., s.v. _hook_, the common word for reaping

scythe or sickle from Anglo-Saxon down.

Footnote 689:

In his _Neydhardt mit dem Feyhel_, 1562. See Uhland, _Volkslieder_, I.

58, and notes, _Schriften_, III. 24. Böhme follows the song back to

the fourteenth century. In the play it is sung by the duchess and

repeated by the chorus, as in popular dances of the day.

Footnote 690:

In his edition of the play for Macmillan’s _English Comedies_.

Footnote 691:

The reapers now appear “with women in their hands.”

Footnote 692:

Described to the writer by a Japanese gentleman.

Footnote 693:

Bücher, p. 49.

Footnote 694:

Twelve centuries before Christ, Chinese women gathered plantain with a

song that is particularly rich in repetition and refrain; Bücher

quotes the translation of Strauss, of which a stanza runs thus:—

Pflücket, pflücket Wegerich,

_Eija zu und pflücket ihn_!

Pflücket, pflücket Wegerich,

_Eija zu, ihr rücket ihn_.

The whole song minutely follows the process of picking.

Footnote 695:

Grimm, _Mythologies_,⁴ pp. 1036 f. He notes the frequency of this

shouting, leaping, and singing at the planting of crops. It all goes

back, of course, to communal rites.

Footnote 696:

E. H. Meyer, _Volkskunde_, p. 225.

Footnote 697:

Grein-Wülker, _Bibliothek_, I. 312 ff. To describe the whole ceremony

in this case as original, is highly absurd.

Footnote 698:

Zell, _Ferienschriften_, II. 118, 212; see Plin. _Nat. Hist._, XXVIII.

2: “qui fruges excantasset.” Standard works for the investigation of

these relics of ancient cult are Mannhardt, _Wald-und Feldkulte_, 2

vols., 1875-1877; the same author’s _Mythologische Forschungen_,

already quoted; Pfannenschmid, _Germanische Erntefeste_, Hannover,

1878; and, pioneer of them all, Tylor’s admirable work on _Primitive

Culture_. For children’s games, as last refuge of many of these rites,

see F. M. Böhme, _Deutsches Kinderlied u. Kinderspiel_, Leipzig, 1897,

which could be enlarged by a judicious use of Firmenich, _Germaniens

Völkerstimmen_, in four volumes. Böhme says the _Ringelreihen_ of

these games are “uralte Reste chorischer Aufführungen bei den

Jahres-und Gottesfesten unserer heidnischen Vorfahren,” and gives

cases which support his statement. Processional songs of the old cult

survive in the _Ansingelieder_, _Umzugslieder_, and so forth, of the

children, now mainly begging-rimes like the wren-song in Ireland and

England, parallel to the swallow-song in Rhodes. Again, children have

games which imitate sounds and movements of labour; Böhme gives a few.

See also G. F. Northall, _English Folk-Rhymes_, pp. 360 ff. Halliwell,

of course, includes some of these in his nursery-rimes. See also W. W.

Newell, _Games and Songs of American Children_, N. Y., 1883. These

songs of the children would lead us too far a-field, and we shall

cling to the scanty survivals of the songs and refrains of labour

itself.

Footnote 699:

Grein-Wülker, I. 323 f., especially version C.

Footnote 700:

Cattle.

Footnote 701:

Halliwell, _Nursery-Rhymes_, p. 129.

Footnote 702:

Mannhardt, _Mythol. Forsch._, pp. 228 ff., J. Grimm, _Kl. Schr._, VII.

229, in a paper on the “Nothhalm,” with account of harvest rites.

Footnote 703:

This child of destiny, asleep on a sheaf of grain, is wafted to the

kingless land in a boat,—the Lohengrin parallel. For all the enticing

material see Grimm, _Mythologie_,⁴ III. 399 ff.; Müllenhoff, in

_Zeitschr. f. deutsch. Alth._, VII. 410 ff., and in his _Beowulf_, pp.

5 ff., with strongly established probability that the myth celebrates

the beginnings of agriculture among Germans by the North and Baltic

seas.]

Footnote 704:

Mannhardt, _Myth. Forsch._, pp. 15 ff. That the Greeks sang at

reaping, as at planting (Smythe, _Melic Poets_, p. 498, girls sing a

sowers’ song), is beyond question. See Mannhardt’s note and

references, as above, p. 2. He remarks that the Lityerses song in

Theocritus (Id. X.) is an imitation of a real Greek folksong of

labour, not, however, of the original Lityerses. Mr. Lang notes the

resemblance of this situation to the famous scene in Molière’s

_Misanthrope_.

Footnote 705:

Work quoted, p. 17. See his _Wald-u. Feldkulte_, p. 262.

Footnote 706:

That the Romans had these refrains of harvest and vintage, as well as

their Fescennine flytings and improvised satire, is beyond dispute

(Zell, II. 122 ff.), but nothing of it all has come down to us.

Fortune has been kinder with regard to the songs and refrains sung in

processions about the Roman field.

Footnote 707:

Chappell, II. 580. See his quotation from Tusser. Even here, in the

Eastern states of America, middle-aged men have watched the passing of

the “wealthy farmer,” who now exists only in newspapers, and even

there is kept at long range,—“of Indiana,” “of Texas.” Yet we knew him

in our boyhood. The communal farmer occurs in old English novels, and

in some new ones; but he is passing rapidly into tradition. See a

paper on “England’s Peasantry,” by the Rev. Dr. Jessopp, in the

_Nineteenth Century and After_, January, 1901; he tells of the

communal conditions which once prevailed, of the change to the

present, and is “inclined to doubt seriously whether before another

century has ended there will be any such thing as an agricultural

labourer to know.”

Footnote 708:

On the modern corruption of old refrains, see Pfannenschmid, pp. 207

ff., 468 ff.

Footnote 709:

Compare the song sung on this occasion in Bavaria as the peasants

dance about the fire and leap over it for good luck (Firmenich, II.

703):—

Haliga Sankt Veit,

Schick uns a Scheit;

Haliga Sankt Wendl,

Schick uns an Bengl;

Haliga Sankt Florio,

Kent uns des Fuiar O!

_Kent_ = kindle.

Footnote 710:

Mannhardt, _M. F._, pp. 32 fl., 51.

Footnote 711:

Quoted by Reifferscheid, _Westf. Volksl._, Nos. 49, 50, 51. See the

note, p. 188, and variants. The habit is widespread through Westphalia

and the Rhinelands. A refrain printed by Firmenich, _German.

Völkerstimmen_, III. 175, keeps time with the work (near Iserlohn):—

Dai Klinge dai klank,

Dai Hüppe dai sprank,

Wuol üöwer de Bank,

Wuol niäwen den Pal.

Footnote 712:

Aubrey, _Remains of Gentilisme_. Folk-Lore Soc., IV. (1881), pp. 81

f., under “Rymers.” On p. 169 he says, “when I was a boy, every

gentleman almost kept a harper; and some of them could versifie.”

Footnote 713:

Wallaschek, p. 179.

Footnote 714:

He too heard a girl “singing an Erse song,” as she span; and he had

his jest, “I warrant you, one of the songs of Ossian.” Hill’s Boswell,

V. 133 f.

Footnote 715:

Before this he had been in a boat and heard one Malcolm sing “an Erse

song, the chorus of which was ‘Hatyin foam foam eri,’ _with words of

his own_.... The boatmen and Mr. M’Queen chorused, and all went well.”

_Ibid._, V. 185.

Footnote 716:

_A Journey to the Western Islands_, Dublin, 1775, p. 97.

Footnote 717:

The doctor complaining that he never could get an Erse song explained,

was told “the chorus was generally unmeaning,” which, of course, would

point to a predominance of the refrain; Johnson himself slyly quoted

an unintelligible refrain from an old English ballad. Hill’s Boswell,

V. 274.

Footnote 718:

V. 203; Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_, IV. 307. Pennant tells the same

story in his _Tour in Scotland_.

Footnote 719:

See above, p. 281, quotation from Leyden. See also for Scottish

custom, Chambers, _Book of Days_, II. 376 ff.

Footnote 720:

Note to Passus, IX. 104, ed. of _Piers Plowman_, version C.

Footnote 721:

Above, p. 286.

Footnote 722:

E. H. Meyer, p. 133.

Footnote 723:

Kurschat, _Litth. Gram._, p. 445, quoted by Böckel, p. cxx.

Footnote 724:

Pfannenschmid, p. 392. The song, “Die Ernt’ ist da, es winkt der

Halm,” is clearly an outgrowth of the older refrain. See also p. 92.

An actual refrain at the work is printed by Firmenich, III. 631:—

Ei Hober, Hober, zeitige Hober!

Ei Mädl, kom und schneid den Hober!

Ei dirre Hober, dirre Hober!

Ei Knechtl, kom und benn den Hober!

Footnote 725:

_Étude_, pp. 24 f.

Footnote 726:

In this dying of communal song, its heart, the refrain, beats strong

to the end, despite the other failing powers. See Beaurepaire’s

valuable testimony to this fact, _Étude_, pp. 39 ff., 48 f. “Deux

lignes au plus composent le couplet. Le refrain est vraiment la partie

importante, il supplie à la pauvreté ou à l’absence de la rime.... Au

reste, il ne faudrait pas s’y tromper, la longueur du refrain, et son

retour continuel, que nous serions tenté de considerer comme un

défaut, forme précisement un des plus sûrs moyens du succès de la

Chanson de Filasse. Elle exige, en effet, peu d’efforts de mémoire,

elle permet à tous les laboureurs de prendre part fréquemment au

chant; et avec son allure monotone, elle s’adapte merveilleusement à

la marche lente et reguliere de travaux de la campagne. Aussi

croyons-nous que c’est en partie à la predominance du refrain, que la

chanson cuellissoire doit sa vogue et sa popularité.” He gives another

song with a refrain of planting.

Footnote 727:

Pfannenschmid (on the cries and songs) pp. 404 ff.; Mannhardt, _M.

F._, pp. 167 ff., for the religious significance; J. Grimm, _Kl.

Schr._, VII. 225 f.; _Book of Days_, II. 377 f. Other instances are

presently to be recounted.

Footnote 728:

Firmenich, IV. (_Anhang_), 687. A longer version on p. 693. Keriole =

_Kyrie eleison_,—substituted for an older heathen cry.

Footnote 729:

See Mannhardt’s chapter on “Demeter,” work quoted; also pp. 20 ff.

Footnote 730:

For all this English material, see Brand-Ellis, “Harvest Home,” in the

_Antiquities_.

Footnote 731:

Chappell, I. 120.

Footnote 732:

_Ibid._, II. 745, one version. See for variants, and similar songs, J.

H. Dixon, _Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of

England_, _e.g._ pp. 175 ff., London, Percy Soc., 1846; Broadwood and

Maitland, _English Country Songs_, pp. 150 ff., London, 1893.

Footnote 733:

In the fifth act of Dryden’s opera, _King Arthur_, is a harvest-song

with this chorus:—

Come, boys, come! Come, boys, come!

And merrily roar out Harvest Home!

and the directions are that the actors shall sing this as they dance,

a good communal trait. The words of this song grew popular, were

varied, and became a ballad; it is in order for some one to show that

harvest-home songs, like other popular verse, come from operas, plays,

concerts, and the like.

Footnote 734:

Perhaps “we end,” as Brand suggests; but perhaps and probably not. At

another place in Devonshire they cry “the knack,” and a rime is

repeated:—

Well cut, well bound,

Well shocked, well saved from the ground.

Footnote 735:

_Five Hundred Points of Husbandry_, Eng. Dial. Soc., 1878, p. 126,

under August. Hentzner noted the shouting of the people _in the cart_.

See Furnivall’s Harrison, _Descrip. Eng._, p. lxxxiv. A curious custom

of the largess-shilling in Suffolk is described by Major Moor, note to

Tusser, p. 294. The reapers answer their leader’s “Holla Lar! Holla

Lar! Holla Lar!—jees,” with “o-o-o-o-,” head inclined, and then,

throwing the head up, vociferate “a-a-a-ah.” This is thrice done by

harvesters for a shilling.

Footnote 736:

Brand-Ellis, “Twelfth Day.”

Footnote 737:

See Uhland, _Kl. Schr._, III. 389 f., and note, with references, 467

f., for the “bornfart,” “bronnefart,” with “dantzen, rennen, springen,

jagen,” closely connected with the May feasts. On the whole subject of

processions, see Pfannenschmid’s second chapter along with his notes,

pp. 342 ff.

Footnote 738:

_Georg._, I. 343 ff.

Footnote 739:

Translation of J. Rhoades. The last line—‘det motus incompositos et

carmina dicat’—is suggestive: “spontaneous gestures and steps, with

song,” emphasize a purely communal dance as compared with the ritual

of the Brothers. Tibullus, by the way, has the Lares, not Ceres, in

mind for the dance and song of his rustics: _Eleg._, I. 1, 23 f.

Agna cadet vobis, quam circum rustica pubes

Clamet: _Io! Messes et bona vina date!_

Footnote 740:

A “queen,” accompanied by a guard of brothers and young folk

generally, goes on Whitsuntide in Servia from farm to farm; at each

she stops and her companions form a circle (_kolo_) and sing their

songs. Each line is thrice repeated, and then follows the refrain

_Leljo!_ Then the dancers hold one another by the belt and dance in a

half-circle, led by an exarch. Between the songs any ready young man

cries out a lusty phrase or two, or makes a verse, after the fashion

of the German _schnaderhüpfl_. See A. W. Grube, _Deutsche

Volkslieder_, Iserlohn, 1866, pp. 132 f.

Footnote 741:

_Germania_, xl.

Footnote 742:

The procession of the Phrygian goddess, the _magna deum mater materque

ferarum et nostri genetrix_, described by Lucretius in often-quoted

lines, _Rer. Nat._, II. 598 ff., with its Dionysian features, cannot

be discussed here; Germanic and modern examples must suffice.

Footnote 743:

It is a commonplace in sociology that agricultural communities worship

female deities as representatives of fertility, while the god like Tiw

or Woden springs from warlike and nomadic conditions.

Footnote 744:

For example, the rain-song in Servia, an interesting ceremony, full of

cries and with a refrain sung by dancing maidens. The _dodola_, a girl

otherwise naked, but entirely covered with grass, weeds, and flowers,

goes with a retinue of maidens from house to house; before each house

the girls form a dancing ring with the _dodola_ in the middle. The

woman of the house pours water over the _dodola_, while she dances and

turns about; the other maidens now sing the song for rain, each line

ending with the refrain, _oj dodo oj dodo le!_ See Grimm,

_Mythologie_⁴, p. 494. Similar customs prevail in Greece; the song is

here full of repetitions. See Grimm, _Kl. Schr._, II. 447. In the

_Athenæum_, No. 2857 (1882), G. L. Gomme has some interesting notes on

a survival of these processional rites.

Footnote 745:

E. H. Meyer, p. 223.

Footnote 746:

Grimm, _Mythol._,⁴ I. 52.

Footnote 747:

References _ibid._, I. 214 ff., with similar cases. See also III. 86

f.

Footnote 748:

William of Malmesbury tells a story to show that the church could do

better than condemn. In 1012 fifteen young men and women were dancing

and singing in a churchyard and disturbed Robert the priest. He prayed

at them, and for a whole year they had to dance and sing without

ceasing until they sank to the middle in the earth.

Footnote 749:

Gregor. M. _Dial._, III. 28, quoted by W. Müller, _Geschichte und

System der altdeutschen Religion_, Göttingen, 1844, pp. 74 f. The

first book of this excellent treatise is even now the best summary of

old Germanic rites,—clear, compact, and with all necessary references.

For the boar’s head and the famous Latin song, at Oxford, see Grimm,

_Mythol._⁴, p. 178; for the vows, Grimm, _Rechtsalterthümer_, pp. 900

f.

Footnote 750:

From Du Cange, s.v. _Kalendae_. See too Hampson, _Med. Æv. Kal._, I.

140 ff.

Footnote 751:

Broadwood and Maitland, p. 30. Survivals of procession song

(_Ansingelieder_) are printed by Böhme, _Kinderlied_, 331 ff. The

refrain has some body in a song “’t Godsdeel of den Rommelpot,”

printed by Coussemaker, _Chants Pop. des Flamands_, p. 95, and also

found in different parts of Germany. The begging songs for Martinmas

Eve, found in Flanders, are widespread in Germany; Firmenich, work

quoted, prints a good dozen and more from different places. The steps

of dance and march are best heard in his version from Oldenburg, I.

231.

Footnote 752:

Firmenich, I. 281.

Footnote 753:

_Reuzelied_, pp. 139 ff.:—

Als de groote Klokke luyd

De Reuze komt uyt.

_Keere u e’s om, de Reuze, de Reuze,

Keere u e’s om,

Reuzekom_.

That is, “When the big bell sounds, Reuze (giant?) comes out. _Turn

back, Reuze, Reuze, turn back, good Reuze._” The text is corrupt, and

Reuze is not easy to explain; but one need not appeal with Coussemaker

to the Scandinavians to establish the antiquity of this procession and

this refrain.

Footnote 754:

Hampson, I. 61.

Footnote 755:

For a good description of wakes, see Brand-Ellis, and Song 27 of

Drayton’s _Polyolbion_, where such cheering is recorded of the

villages—

That one high hill was heard to tell it to his brother,

That instantly again to tell it to some other.

Footnote 756:

Besides T. Wright’s _Songs and Carols_, Percy Soc., 1847, see W.

Sandy’s _Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern_, London, 1833, with a

long introduction, and the same editor’s Festive Songs, Percy Soc.,

1848. Sandys (_Carols_) gives the cries or refrains of many Christmas

songs:—

Nowell, nowell, nowell, nowell,—

No—el, el, el, el, el, el, el, el, el, el,—

Noel, Noel—

_à moult granz cris_, the familiar refrain in France.

Footnote 757:

_Remaines Gentil._, pp. 9, 21, 23, 26, 31, 36, 40, 161, 180. “Little

children,” he says here, “have a custome when it raines to sing or

charme away the Raine; thus they all joine in a Chorus, and sing thus,

viz.:—

Raine, raine, goe away,

Come againe a Saterday.

I have a conceit that this childish custome is of great antiquity.”

Footnote 758:

See the Helstone Furry-Day Song, Bell, _Ancient Poems_, pp. 167 f.,

with a refrain of some value.

Footnote 759:

Also cross-week and grass-week. See Dyer, _British Popular Customs_,

pp. 204 ff., for a sympathetic account of the customs still lingering

in England.

Footnote 760:

The standard description of English May-games, of course hostile, is

that of Stubbes in his _Anatomie of Abuses_, ed. New Shaks. Soc., p.

149. See also the diatribe in John Northbrooke’s _Treatise wherein

Dicing, Dancing ... are Reprooved_. London, 1579. He leans to

Chrysostom’s view (that is, Age takes this side against Youth, in the

dialogue) that dancing “came firste from the Diuell”, and p. 68ᵇ (only

one page of the leaf is numbered) he describes the May.

Footnote 761:

Compare the chorus of the Maypole song in _Actæon and Diana_, in

Chappell, I. 126:—

Then to the Maypole come away,

For it is now a holiday.

“Trip and go” was “one of the favourite Morris-dances,” and the words

seem to have become a proverbial expression. See Chappell, I. 126,

302. It was on the basis of some refrain of this sort that the first

part-song in English, the famous Cuckoo Song, was built up. Ten Brink

is surely right in giving it a communal origin, though not communal

making.

Footnote 762:

“We have brought the summer home,” is the spirit of all the May

refrains, as the young folk come back with flowers and boughs. See

Brand, “Maypoles.”

Footnote 763:

Still in vogue in some parts of Germany. See E. H. Meyer, p. 256.

Footnote 764:

_Volkslieder_, I. 23. For the whole subject, see Uhland’s _Abhandlung

über die deutschen Volkslieder_, pp. 17 ff. Suspicion has been

expressed that these flytings are a late echo of the Vergilian eclogue

through such a transmitting element as the mediæval _Conflictus Veris

et Hiemis_ and the song to the cuckoo:—

Salve, dulce decus cuculus per saecula, salve!

Comparison of the fragments, however, shows this suspicion to be

groundless, and it is thoroughly discredited by Uhland, _Kl. Schr._,

III. 24. See also Ebert, _Christ. Lat. Lit._, II. 69.

Footnote 765:

_Love’s Labour’s Lost_, V. 2.

Footnote 766:

Ritson, _Ancient Songs_, 3d ed., pp. 113 ff. The text is a sort of

dramatic description. See also T. Wright, _Songs and Carols_; and

Brand, under “Morris Dancers.” The refrains are unfortunately seldom

recorded, but they are the foundation of the little drama.

Footnote 767:

Used as refrain in ballads; see Child, I. 19 f., _e.g._:—

Sing ivy, sing ivy ...

Sing holly, go whistle, and ivy ...

Sing green bush, holly, and ivy.

Footnote 768:

_Deutsche Volkslieder aus Oberhessen_, p. xi. His list of references

is valuable.

Footnote 769:

At a harvest-home at Selborne, 1836, Bell (pp. 46 ff.) heard two

countrymen recite a “Dialogue between the Husbandman and the

Servingman”; “it was delivered in a sort of chant or recitative,”

though the rhythm is good for such doggerel; what suggests the older

refrain is that the rime (second and fourth lines of each stanza) has

to be either with “husbandman” or with “servingman” throughout. The

odd lines have interior rime.

Footnote 770:

See Jeanroy’s chapter, “Le Debat,” in _Origines de la Poésie Lyrique

en France_, pp. 45 ff.

Footnote 771:

Böhme, _Kinderlied_, pp. 332 ff. See p. 347.

Footnote 772:

See Firmenich, II. 15, where children in the Palatinate on

“Rose-Sunday” go about and sing:—

Ri, ra, ro

Der Summertaagk iss do!

See _ibid._, II. 34.

Footnote 773:

Letourneau, _L’Évolution Littéraire_, p. 21.

Footnote 774:

“Choruses are about all the Indians sing. They have probably four or

five words, then the chorus. ‘They have brought us a fat dog’; then

the chorus goes on for half a minute; then a repetition again of the

above words ‘they have brought us a fat dog.’... Tukensha, a rock, or

grandfather, is often appealed to in the choruses for aid.” Answer to

question about Indian poetry by Rev. Mr. Fletcher, who lived several

years with the Winnebago Indians. He says, too, “there are no Indian

poets in this country.” Schoolcraft, IV. 71.

Footnote 775:

“Account of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations

who once Inhabited Pennsylvania and the Neighbouring States,”

_Transact. Amer. Philos. Soc._, 1819, pp. 200 ff.

Footnote 776:

Quoted above, p. 255, from _Indian Tribes_, V. 563 f.

Footnote 777:

_Die Korndaemonen_, Berlin, 1868. See also his _Roggenwulf und

Roggenhund_, Danzig, 1866.

Footnote 778:

Work quoted, I. 25.

Footnote 779:

_Ibid._, I. 248.

Footnote 780:

_Ibid._, I. 517 ff.; II. 189 f.

Footnote 781:

_Ibid._, I. 525.

Footnote 782:

Jean de Lery, _Histoire_, etc., pp. 268 ff.

Footnote 783:

Opposite p. 274.

Footnote 784:

See above, p. 253.

Footnote 785:

On pp. 25 ff.

Footnote 786:

The name of the brave.

Footnote 787:

One can readily understand that Stevenson heard his islanders sing, in

chorus of perhaps a hundred persons, legendary songs about which not

two of these singers could agree in their translation. _Letters of R.

L. Stevenson_, II. 152.

Footnote 788:

_Lais_, p. 18. Professor Schipper, in his valuable treatise on

_Englische Metrik_, I. 326 ff., follows Wolf in this definition; but

in both cases the analytic purpose excuses this neglect of the

communal origin, and the material presented allows the student to make

his own comparisons and supply the neglected considerations.

Footnote 789:

A. W. Grube, _Deutsche Volkslieder_, Iserlohn, 1866, in his sections

“Der Kehrreim des Volksliedes,” pp. 1-103, and “Der Kehrreim bei

Goethe, Uhland und Rückert,” pp. 187-306, follows Wolf in part,

deriving refrains from the church hymns (p. 112), but adds a plea for

the antiquity of folksong, which is “von Haus aus Chorgesang” (p.

183). So, too, on p. 125, he seems to view the origin of poetry of the

people as a statement of contemporaneous events in one sentence—hence

not “invented”—which is sung by the throng. He notes the increased

power of the refrain with the preponderance of lyric over epic

elements: though he neglects the dance and communal conditions

generally. The close connection of Goethe (as in the _Ach neige, Du

Schmerzensreiche_) and of Rückert (as in the beautiful repetitions of

_Aus der Jugendzeit_) with popular poetry, is admirably treated. See

pp. 189 ff., 284 ff.

Footnote 790:

See a note in the author’s _Old English Ballads_, p. lxxxiv.

Footnote 791:

See Chappell, _Popular Music_, I. 222 ff., 34, 264; II. 426, 457.

Footnote 792:

III. 4. See also the Oxford _Dictionary_, s.v. “burden,” with the

reference to Shakspere’s _Lucrece_, v. 1133.

Footnote 793:

III. 1.

Footnote 794:

_English Rhythms_, II. 290.

Footnote 795:

Child, I. 113.

Footnote 796:

_Nordboernes Aandsliv_, II. 434 ff.; but this evolution is stoutly

denied by Steenstrup, _Vore Folkeviser_, pp. 120 ff., in a study of

the refrain to be considered below.

Footnote 797:

Child, I. 403: printed after the sixth stanza, and so till the

eleventh, when the chorus is slightly changed to suit the story, and

kept so to the end. For the strophic refrain or chorus and its

popularity in Old French, see Schipper, I. 328.

Footnote 798:

Child, I. 209, 214.

Footnote 799:

_Ibid._, I. 126 ff., in F., O. See H.

Footnote 800:

_Studies in the English Ballad Refrain, with a Collection of Ballad

and Early Song Refrains._ Thesis presented by John Henry Boynton in

candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English, May 1,

1897. In 3 vols., Ms., Harvard University Library. The material is

excellently put together; but the genetic and historical elements are

not sufficiently brought out. The comparative work is good, and as a

study of actual refrains this dissertation is of distinct value. The

burden-stem is discussed in section V., pp. 184 ff.

Footnote 801:

_Chronik_, ed. Dahlmann, I. 176 f. See also II. 559 ff.

Footnote 802:

Chappell quoted by Child, _Ballads_, I. 7. “I must avow myself,” says

Professor Child, “to be very much in the dark as to the exact relation

of stem and burden.” See also _Ballads_, II. 204, first note.

Footnote 803:

This technical side of the case is discussed by Valentin, _Studien

über die schwedischen Volksmelodien_, pp. 9 f.

Footnote 804:

_Les Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France au Moyen Age_, Paris,

1889, pp. 102 ff. (see note 2, p. 111), and 387 ff. On the etymology

of _refrain_, see pp. 103 f.

Footnote 805:

_Ibid._, p. 113. Jeanroy will not accept the view of Wackernagel and

Bartsch that the refrains preserved in old French lyric poetry are

actual “popular” songs, or fragments of them; but he willingly accepts

the theory that all refrains were once of a communal kind. These, he

thinks, are hopelessly lost. See pp. 115 ff. A few older refrains can

be found in foreign lyric which imitated the French; pp. 177 ff.

Footnote 806:

_Ibid._, p. 396, note 1. Or, as in old Portuguese song, copied from

the popular manner, one part of the dancers sang one verse, and

another part, like strophe and antistrophe, repeated the verse with a

slight change, usually in the final word which rimes with the other

final word. The connection of this with the _contrasto_ of lover and

sweetheart, imitated in the dance, of debate, flyting, _tenso_, and

the like, would lead too far afield. See p. 207, and below, p. 325.

Footnote 807:

_Ibid._, p. 405. This chapter, where Jeanroy traces the growth of

artificial forms, like the rondel and so on, out of purely popular

refrain and verse, is of distinct value to the student of communal

poetry. It completely refutes the claim of superficial criticism,

common enough of late, that ballad and folksong are merely dregs of an

older art, and that some pretty comparison, say a tramp in an old

dress-coat, solves the communal problem. As jaunty and insufferable a

piece of comment as can be found anywhere in print is Mr. Gregory

Smith’s chapter on “The Problem of the Ballads and Popular Songs” in

his _Transition Period_, pp. 180 ff.

Footnote 808:

See above, p. 174. The refrain is very clearly an actual cry at the

dance.

Footnote 809:

Quoted by Ritson, _Anc. Songs_³, p. xxxv.

Footnote 810:

Difference.

Footnote 811:

It is useless to pile up references; any collection has such refrains

in plenty. This “springewir den reigen” (_Carmina Burana_, ed.

Schmeller, p. 178), however, like Neidhart’s dance-songs, although it

goes with the welcome to May, is conventional already and artistic.

Footnote 812:

Chambers, _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, pp. 132 ff. “Another form of

this game is _only a kind of dance_,” says the editor, without

italics, “in which the girls first join hands in a circle and sing

while moving round to the tune of Nancy Dawson:—

Here we go round the mulberry-bush,

and so on. Then:—

This is the way the ladies walk ...

This is the way they wash the clothes ...

with refrain, or chorus, as before, and imitative actions.”

Footnote 813:

Lucian, in his treatise on the dance, is no authority for primitive

dancing and refrain; but it is noteworthy that he gives such an

exhortation as a kind of refrain. “The song that they sing as they

dance,” he says of the Lacedæmonians, § 11, “is an invitation to Venus

and the loves.... One of these songs is a lesson in dancing (!): ‘On,’

they sing, ‘young people, stretch your legs and dance your best.’”

Footnote 814:

Coussemaker, I. 328; Firmenich, I. 380, IV. 679.

Footnote 815:

In the other version “nonnetje,” “nönneke,” little nun.

Footnote 816:

Bujeaud, _Chants et Chansons ... de l’ouest_, I. 88, from Poitou;

reprinted by Crane, _Chansons Populaires_, pp. 87 ff. See a similar

song, Crane, pp. 162 ff.; many more could be instanced, and some have

been already named.

Footnote 817:

Waitz, _Anthropologie_, VI. 606.

Footnote 818:

_Vore Folkeviser_, pp. 75-112, “Omkvaedet.” Geijer denied that the

refrain is necessary to a ballad, but Steenstrup’s argument is

convincing; out of 502 Scandinavian ballads which he examined, not

more than 20 lacked a refrain. The ballads in Child’s collection point

the same way, at least for the older and shorter ballads; the _Gest_,

of course, and others of that sort, as well as broadside copies, have

passed from the lyrical stage. But even these must go back to an

earlier song with a refrain. Of the two-line ballads, the older form,

there are 31, and of these only 7 lack the refrain in their present

form. Of the 305 ballads in the collection, 106 in at least one

version show evidence of refrain or chorus,—more than a third; while

of some 1250 versions in all, about 300 have the refrain. This count

was made very carefully by Mr. C. H. Carter, of Haverford College. Of

course, Wolf had long since proved that the refrain is characteristic

of all early poetry in the vernacular, and played a leading part in

popular verse everywhere, from its first collection in the fifteenth

century down to the present time. See his _Lais_, pp. 27, 191.

Footnote 819:

“Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft,” _Schriften_, III., pp. 87, 89. See also

Ribot, _Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 334, who calls dancing the

“primordial art,” and shows that here is the transition from mere

movement to æsthetic activity.

Footnote 820:

_Geschichte des Tanzes_, p. 4. This is the best treatise on the

subject, though mainly confined to Germany. _A History of Dancing from

the Earliest Ages ... from the French of Gaston Vuillier, with a

Sketch of Dancing in England_, by Joseph Grego, London, 1898, is of

scant use for the student of origins and development. Dancing “was

probably unknown to the earliest ages of humanity,” a bold assertion,

is followed by another, that “it is certain that dancing was born with

man.” Information of value can be found, however, on special topics;

_e.g._ on the _branle_, p. 100, and its connection with children’s

games.

Footnote 821:

_Sociology_, II. 123.

Footnote 822:

See also Yrjö Hirn, _Förstudier_, pp. 89 f. Dismissing exceptions, he

declares that “dancing in its widest sense is as universal as laughing

and weeping.”

Footnote 823:

No dancing in Iceland, says Kerguelen, who visited there in 1767. See

Pinkerton, _Voyages and Travels_, I. 751. Volumes of proof could be

furnished for refuting this light-hearted assertion.

Footnote 824:

See Bastian, “Masken und Maskereien,” _Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsych._,

XIV. 347.

Footnote 825:

_Anthropologie der Naturvölker_, VI. 78 ff.

Footnote 826:

Wallaschek, p. 189.

Footnote 827:

Letourneau, p. 28.

Footnote 828:

Work quoted, pp. 95 ff. He refers to Hartshorne, “The Weddas,” _Indian

Antiquary_, VIII. 316 f.; E. Tennent, _Ceylon_, II. 437 ff.; and E.

Schmidt, _Globus_, LXV. 15 f.

Footnote 829:

See above, p. 95. It is interesting, however, particularly in

connection with the idea of rhythm as the chief factor in the social

process, that these Veddahs live mainly in pairs; “except on some

extraordinary occasion they never assemble together,” and this dance

is evidently their chief means to express a social union. See Bastian,

_Der Völkergedanke_ ..., p. 72.

Footnote 830:

See also the Brazilian dances noted by Lery, above, p. 312.

Footnote 831:

_Béowulf_, 631 ff., 2631 ff. The _béot_ is the same thing; _Battle of

Maldon_, 213.

Footnote 832:

Pinkerton, _Voyages and Travels_, London, 1808 ff., XI. 535, 543, 648.

Footnote 833:

Pinkerton, _Voyages and Travels_, pp. 652, 723.

Footnote 834:

_Ibid._, p. 667; no italics in the original. So, p. 654, twenty young

women dance to their own singing, and in many other cases; the fact is

beyond dispute. For a dance of more complicated character, but with

chorus and refrain, see pp. 678 f.

Footnote 835:

_Three Years’ Travel_, etc., Phila., 1796; the travels were in

1766-1768. See pp. 171 ff., 220.

Footnote 836:

See Lescarbot, _Histoire de la Nouvelle France_, Paris, 1609, pp. 317

ff., an account of the tribal dances of the Algonquins in honour of a

victory, with interesting particulars. So, too, pp. 691 ff., another

account, with a dance where they “do nothing but sing _Hé_ or _Het_!

like a man cutting wood, with a movement of the arm; and they dance a

‘round’ without holding one another or stirring from one place,

beating their feet upon the earth.” So, says Lescarbot, they make

fires and jump through them, like our French peasants on the eve of

St. John, who shout and dance the whole night. His fifteenth chapter,

pp. 765 ff., is on _Danses el Chansons_, and accents the dance after a

feast. Here, too, he says, “après la panse vient la danse.” Savages,

he says, always sing to their dancing.

Footnote 837:

It is unfortunately not superfluous to suggest that the dances

described by Homer are anything but primitive, though they retain some

primitive traits. The dance pictured on the shield of Achilles (_Il._

XVIII.), youths dancing and fair maids, hand in hand, is a _ronde_, to

be sure, in form, but a society affair as well, with full dress,

complicated figures, and a “divine minstrel” for the music. However,

the vintage dance to the Linos song, described in the preceding

verses, holds, like our harvest refrains, an older fashion.

Footnote 838:

Ten Broeck, in Schoolcraft, IV. 84.

Footnote 839:

Clavigero, _History of Mexico_, trans. Cullen, London, 1787, I. 399

f., a description of the great public dances.

Footnote 840:

_Schoole of Abuse_, p. 34.

Footnote 841:

When M. Gaston Paris, _Les Origines de la Poésie Lyrique en France au

Moyen Age_, p. 42, says he has found no dance among the old Romans

except the professional dance, he overlooks the fact that this rustic

dance in procession about the fields is proof of similar dances for

pleasure. It is no professional affair which Vergil has in mind: _det

motus incompositos et carmina dicat_. Surely the dances were not

danced by slaves.

Footnote 842:

Described by Mr. Arthur Symons in _Harper’s Monthly Magazine_, March,

1901, p. 503.

Footnote 843:

Pfannenschmid, _Germ. Erntef._, p. 400.

Footnote 844:

See above, p. 301.

Footnote 845:

See the suggestive treatment of this subject by Posnett, _Comparative

Literature_, pp. 117 ff., with his references to Réville and Burnouf.

Footnote 846:

Silius Italicus, naming the troops which Hannibal led out of winter

quarters, comes to the Gallician contingent, and describes their

youth—

barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis,

nunc, pedis alterno percussa verbere terra,

ad numerum resonas gaudentem plaudere caetras.

Lemaire (_Bib. Class. Lat._, Sil. Ital. _Punic._, III. 345 ff.),

explains this as a heroic ballad which the soldiers sing, as they

dance and strike their shields, when going into battle. He refers to

the classical passages for this as well as for the Pyrrhic dance; but

see note at the end of this chapter. The perhaps similar custom of the

Germans, noted by Tacitus, is treated in a masterly way by Müllenhoff.

See the next note but one.

Footnote 847:

Pantomime, as early form of dance leading to poetry and drama, was

noted by Adam Smith, _Essays_, p. 151. For older literature, see

Blankenburg, _Zusätze_, I. 153 ff. Erotic dances were exaggerated by

Scherer into the protoplasm of all poetry, _Poetik_, pp. 83, 114; and

are more moderately treated by Hirn, _Förstudier_, pp. 88 ff., and

Grosse, _Anf. d. Kunst_, pp. 21 ff. It is a developed art, of course,

that Lucian has in mind in his treatise on the dance. See, however,

Lucian, §§ 36, 63, 65.

Footnote 848:

Manley, _Specimens of the Pre-Shaksperian Drama_, I. 296 ff., from the

Folk-Lore Journal, VII. 338 ff. The date of the play is 1779. For the

Germanic sword-dance, see Müllenhoff, _Festgabe für G. Homeyer_,

“Ueber den Schwerttanz,” p. 117. A bibliography of this subject is

printed in the _Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsychol._, etc., XIX. 204, 416;

especially see p. 223; and other references may be added from Paul’s

_Grundriss_, II. i. 835, for the German. For the sword-dance in

Shetland noted by Scott, see Lockhart’s _Life_, ed. 1837, III. 162.

For other gymnastic plays, see the two books of Groos, _Spiele der

Thiere_ and _Spiele der Menschen_.

Footnote 849:

See Bruchmann, _Poetik_, p. 212.

Footnote 850:

Skill, of course, and rivalry are early provocatives of art in the

dance. As to ball-playing as a part of it, references could be given

for all times and climes.

Footnote 851:

See _Old English Ballads_, p. lxxvi.

Footnote 852:

Such as the author of the _Complaynt of Scotland_ watched at their

dancing, and noted the songs.

Footnote 853:

See below, Chap. VII.

Footnote 854:

See Uhland, _Kl. Schr._, III. 399 ff., and 484 ff., who gives other

well-known instances of this panic dance, as well as the _tarantella_

of Italy. The shaman, of course, even among a tribe as low as the

Veddahs, dances himself into a fit.

Footnote 855:

See book of this title by Sir J. G. Wilkinson, London, 1848, I. 399.

Footnote 856:

It translates “dance” in Luke xv. 25.

Footnote 857:

See Kögel, _Gesch. d. deutsch. Lit._, pp. 7 ff.

Footnote 858:

_Sigeléoð_ in Anglo-Saxon, sung after a victory, was doubtless the

same thing. Kögel notes that _leikr_, _leik_, in Norwegian dialects

down to this day, means both “war” and “dance”; and he conjectures

that _winelâc_, in Anglo-Saxon, goes back to an originally erotic

dance, as it may go forward to a children’s “kissing-game.”

Footnote 859:

Wolf, _Lais_, pp. 18, 183 f., puts too much stress on the singing of

church music, though he concedes popular origins; p. 22.

Footnote 860:

Work quoted, p. cxvii.

Footnote 861:

Bladé, _Poésies Populaires de la Gascogne_ (Vol. III. is devoted

entirely to songs for the dance), III. i. ff. “En général on ne danse

aux chansons que faute de mieux,” although even now, at times, “they

bid the music cease, and dance to the sound of their own voices.” The

dancing is literally a round, a circle.

Footnote 862:

See Wolf’s note, _Lais_, pp. 185 f. On this _carole_ or _ronde_,

danced mainly by women, but now and then by men and women, see

Jeanroy’s chapter, already quoted, and the additional suggestions of

M. Gaston Paris, _Origines d. l. Poés. Lyr._, pp. 44 ff., really a

review of Jeanroy’s book. “Ce qui caractérisait surtout les caroles,

c’était le chant qui les accompagnait,” says M. Paris. The only use of

instruments, and these very simple, was to mark the rhythm. Dancers

turned to the left.

Footnote 863:

An early reference, from “Ruodlieb,” may be added to show the

connection of dance and song; the passage occurs in a description of

the dancing bears (III. 84 ff., ed. Grimm-Schmeller, _Lat. Ged. des X.

u. XI. Jhrh._, p. 144):—

cum plebs altisonam fecit gyrando choream,

accurrunt et se mulieribus applicuere,

quae gracili voce cecinerunt deliciose,

insertisque suis harum manibus speciosis

erecti calcant....

The bears dance, then, along with the singing and dancing women; Grimm

calls them _spielweiber_, and quotes an ecclesiastical prohibition

(_ibid._, p. xv); but part of the description, witness the _plebs_,

will pass for a communal dance.

Footnote 864:

In the translation ascribed to Chaucer, w. 759 ff., “Tha myghtist thou

karoles sene,” etc.

Footnote 865:

_De vulg. Eloq._, II. iii. See note in Howell’s translation, London,

1890. Crescimbeni, _L’Istoria della volgar Poesia_, Venez., 1731

(written in 1697), quotes, though in disapproval, Minturno for the

primacy of _ballate_ (p. 148): “ballads,” says M., because “si

cantavano ballando,” which is the root of the matter.

Footnote 866:

It has been repeatedly noticed that older English dances are known by

the ballads sung to them. Even some of the tragic ballads were used

for the dance; but one must think of gay little songs and refrains as

staple for the merry rounds; nothing else will fit the seasons when

“maydes daunce in a ring.”

Footnote 867:

3ᵇ, Bodley copy of 1568. See also the refrain for a dance in the _Four

Elements_, above, p. 322.

Footnote 868:

See _Kind-Harts Dreame_, ed. Rimbault, Percy Soc., 1841, p. 38, and

note, p. 79.

Footnote 869:

_English Minstrelsie_, I., p. ix.

Footnote 870:

In 1767 a “young lady from Scotland” sang as she danced, at the royal

theatre in Copenhagen; but there, too, in 1726, a Stockholm

dancing-girl had done the same thing. “Novelty” is not the word. See

Steenstrup, _Vore Folkev._, pp. 8 f.

Footnote 871:

Brand, “New Year’s Day.”

Footnote 872:

Mannhardt, _Baumkultus_, in many places; Pfannenschmid, _Germ.

Erntej._, pp. 271 ff., 580 ff. For love-songs and the dance, Uhland,

III. 391 ff., and notes, 471, with valuable account of the manner of

dancing, and of the leader, the _voresingen_ and the _voretanzen_.

Footnote 873:

See Böhme, _Altd. Liederb._, p. xxxv.

Footnote 874:

_’T Boertje_, Coussemaker, pp. 329 f., and _’t Patertje_, already

quoted.

Footnote 875:

_Pétition pour des Villageois que l’on empêche de danser._ Par

Paul-Louis Courier, Vigneron, ... Paris, 1822, addressed to the

Chamber of Deputies, asking that the folk of Azai may dance on Sundays

“sur le place de leur commune.” Despite the mystification, there is

some serious intent behind this fooling.

Footnote 876:

In Germany itself: cf. Meyer, _Volkskunde_, pp. 158, 160, 163.

Footnote 877:

_Arbeit u. Rhythmus_, pp. 103 f.

Footnote 878:

See note, end of chapter.

Footnote 879:

Grosse, _Anf d. Kunst_, p. 218; Donovan, _Lyre to Muse_, pp. 91, 127

ff.; Jacobowski, _Anfänge d. Poesie_, p. 127. This author’s discussion

of circle and straight line, as of women and of men in the dance, and

of other formations, is a bit fanciful although interesting and

suggestive. See, too, Donovan on the ring of folk (choral) about a

centre of interest,—altar or the like. Work quoted, p. 204.

Footnote 880:

The development of the dance into different kinds of poetry is

foreshadowed by many of the older writers, although the first really

comparative treatment of the subject must be assigned to A. W.

Schlegel in the lectures at Berlin a century ago. Herder has some

valuable remarks on the subject in his early essay _Vom Geist der

ebräischen Poesie_, following, of course, many hints of Lowth. Two

hundred years ago, Burette, a really learned writer, drew up his

“Mémoire pour servir à l’Histoire de la Danse des Anciens,” published

in the _Mém._, Acad. of Inscript., etc., I. 93 ff., Paris, 1717.

Movement and imitation caused the dance, which is “nearly as old as

man,” and sprang from joy. Cadence is the mainspring; avoid, he says,

Lucian’s prattle about the stars. Wedding, festival, vintage,

harvest,—look to these, says Burette, in quite modern spirit, for the

origins of the dance. He traces metres to the rhythm of songs sung by

the dancers. Another article of this writer investigates ball-playing,

often combined with dance and song. Another writer on the dance was

John Spencer, D.D., master of Corpus Christi College (1630-1693), the

founder of the science of comparative religions; his “Dissertatio de

Saltandi Ritu,” is printed in the _Thesaurus Antiquitat. Sacrar.

complectens selectissima clarissimorum Virorum Opuscula in quibus

Veterum Hebraeorum Mores, Leges, etc., illustrantur_, Vol. XXXII.,

Venet., 1767. Spencer studies the dance of the Hebrews, and his

references are valuable; he is comparative, and uses dances of modern

Turks to illustrate his subject. Hebrews got some of their festal

dances from heathen,—the _saltationes promiscuas_; for erotic dances

he thinks to have been early and everywhere. For a man of his date, he

concludes very boldly “probabilius est, sacras choreas agendi morem,

ex antiquissimo gentium usu primitus oriundum,” and so came to the

Hebrews. The festal dances, where Jews bore about branches and sang a

choral full of repetitions and with a constant refrain, he compares

with pagan affairs of the sort; the pæan is compared with refrains

like _Hallel_ and _Hosannah_. In fine, this is sharp, clear,

comparative work, and good reading still. From Joannis Meursi

_Orchestra sive de Saltationibus Veterum_ ... Lugd. Batav., 1618, not

much is to be learned except a list (alphabetical) of the old dances,

with references to the classic passages. Most of the articles are

short, but the Pyrrhic Dance has twelve pages. An early essay on

dancing, with considerable scope for its time, is inserted in Elyot’s

_Governour_, edited by Croft, London, 1880, from the edition of 1531,

I. 202 ff. Elyot seems to be the first Englishman who wrote about the

art.

Footnote 881:

See above, p. 128.

Footnote 882:

_Essai Comparatif sur l’Origine et l’Histoire des Rythmes_, Paris,

1889.

Footnote 883:

Even this may be questioned in a literal sense. “Formen,” says Usener,

_Altgriechischer Versbau_, p. 111, “werden nicht geschaffen, sondern

sie entstehen und wachsen. Der schöpferische Künstler erzeugt sie

nicht, sondern bildet das Ueberkommene veredelnd um.” He is speaking

of the popular four-accent verse found in so many languages.

Footnote 884:

_L’Esthétique du Mouvement_, Paris, 1889, Cap. iv. See pp. 54, 65.

Footnote 885:

In the _First Principles_.

Footnote 886:

_Essai_, pp. 102, 104.

Footnote 887:

_Mélusine_, I. 1 ff. See, too, _Poésie du Moyen Age_, pp. 77, 89.

Footnote 888:

_Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsychol._, XVII. 113 ff.

Footnote 889:

_Kalewala_, p. 38.

Footnote 890:

_Nordboernes Aandsliv_, II. 437 ff.

Footnote 891:

The refrain of two lines, he thinks, was added to the two-line stanza

of narrative ballads; and so resulted the common ballad stanza. This

is denied by Steenstrup.

Footnote 892:

“Proved” by that old primitive-Aryan process now something

discredited: _danz_ is an imported word (meaning both song and dance).

See Vigfusson’s _Icelandic Dictionary_, _s.v._ More formidable, but

far from final, is the silence of the sagas.

Footnote 893:

A similar denial, not only of the original character of recorded

ballads, but of the ballad habit itself, is made for Denmark by

Professor G. Storm in his otherwise valuable book, _Sagnkredsene om

Karl den Store og Didrik af Bern hos de nordiske Folk_, Kristiania,

1874, pp. 174 f.

Footnote 894:

See below on the _schnaderhüpfl_ and _stev._

Footnote 895:

Comparetti, _Kalewala_, 1892. pp. 3, 264 ff. The very name of the

Finnish song is probably borrowed; but its original and native

character is successfully defended by Comparetti, pp. 37, 272, against

the attempt of Ahlqvist to prove alliteration in Finnish verse a loan

from the Scandinavians.

Footnote 896:

Set forth in Tarde’s _Les Lois de l’Imitation_, Paris, 1890; but the

best recent summary of his views is _Les Lois Sociales_, Paris, 1898.

Special problems of the crowd as imitative, dangerous, weak, are

treated in his _Essais et Mélanges Sociologiques_, Lyon-Paris, 1895.

See also “Les deux Éléments de la Sociologie,” in _Études de

Psychologie Sociale_, Paris, 1898, an address delivered in 1894 before

the first international Congress of Sociology.

Footnote 897:

_Les Lois de l’Imitation_, p. 279. So p. 48,—“A l’origine un

anthropoïde a imaginé ... les rudiments d’un langage.”

Footnote 898:

_Of the Origin and Progress of Language_, I. 318 ff.

Footnote 899:

He concedes that a different relation exists when two are working

together at the same thing (_Lois Soc._, p. 129); although here are

“model and copy,” suggestion at least.

Footnote 900:

_Ibid._, p. 159.

Footnote 901:

He sees light ahead for a world now hung in Schopenhauer-black; the

infinitesimal shall cheer us. _Ibid._, pp. 87, 105, 110.

Footnote 902:

_Lois Sociales_, pp. 40 f. This passage will repay close attention.

Footnote 903:

_Critique Scientifique_, pp. 191 ff. Carstanjen made a fierce attack

on the milieu in art, and, by implication, in literature:

_Vierteljahrsschrift f. wissenschaftl. Philosophie_, XX. (1896), 1

ff., 143 ff. He explains the art of the renaissance by the artists of

that time, and not by their environment. For a fine defence of the

_milieu_, however, see the late M. Texte’s book on _Jean-Jacques

Rousseau et les Origines du Cosmopolitisme Littéraire_, pp. xvii. ff.

Footnote 904:

_Outlines of Sociology_, trans. F. W. Moore for the Amer. Acad. Pol.

and Soc. Sci., June, 1899, pp. 45, 88. See the translator’s abstract,

p. 7.

Footnote 905:

_Die Philosophie der Geschichte als Sociologie_, Leipzig, 1897, I.

183, 213 f.

Footnote 906:

_Principles of Sociology_, New York, 1896.

Footnote 907:

“Ueber Ziele und Wege der Völkerpsychologie,” in _Philosophische

Studien_, 1888, IV. 1 ff., particularly pp. 11 ff. and 17.

Footnote 908:

In his _Völkerpsychologie_ (Vol. I., Leipzig, 1900, has appeared), he

undertakes to study the making of these three products, which he calls

a _gemeinsames Erzeugniss_. See pp. 4, 6, 24 f. A sensible plea for

the _volksseele_, “which need not have any mystical connotation,” was

made by Gustav Freytag in the introduction to his _Bilder aus der

deutschen Vergangenheit_, I. 13 ff.

Footnote 909:

_Psychologie des Foules_; and in English translation, _The Crowd_.

Footnote 910:

“Das Wesen des Gesammtgeistes,” _Studien und Aufsätze_, pp. 504 ff.

Footnote 911:

Significant is the change from _Völkerpsychologie_ to _Volkskunde_.

The new journal is edited by Professor Weinhold, and began in 1891.

Footnote 912:

In Paul’s _Grundriss der Philologie_, II. i., 512 ff. See also Ten

Brink’s _Beowulf_, pp. 105 f.

Footnote 913:

_Débute._ See _Lois de l’Imit._, p. 233. He is arguing against

Spencer’s doctrine of the development of the arts, and implies the

same “high initial source” for music, architecture, and the rest.

Footnote 914:

“Enfin ce triple poésie découle de trois grandes sources, la Bible,

Homère, Shakspeare.”

Footnote 915:

_Lois Sociales_, p. 49.

Footnote 916:

The abstract question is foreign to the present purpose; but it may be

urged that one is wise to take neither the extreme position of Buckle,

Gumplowicz, and Bourdeau,—who said that if Napoleon had been shot at

Toulon, Hoche, or Kleber, or some one, would have done what Napoleon

did,—nor yet the equally extreme stand of Tarde and his school. Some

sensible remarks on the whole matter may be found in Bernheim’s

_Lehrbuch d. historischen Methode_, pp. 513 ff. of the second edition,

Leipzig, 1894.

Footnote 917:

See Lloyd Morgan, _Habit and Instinct_, Chap. II. Solitary chicks

hatched in an incubator can be heard chirping, all in the same way,

before they break the shell, and with no chance of imitation in the

case. Weismann, “Gedanken über Musik,” _Rundschau_, LXI. (1889), 63,

remarks that a young finch brought up alone will sing the song of its

kind, “but never so beautifully as when a good singer is put with him

as teacher.” The concession is enough.

Footnote 918:

Morgan, work quoted, p. 90. Even Mr. Witchell, for whom the song of

birds is traditional, grants that call-notes, alarm-notes, and all

such utterances are instinctive. See Morgan, p. 178, and Romanes,

_Mental Evolution in Animals_, pp. 222 f.

Footnote 919:

_Psychology of the Emotions_, p. 265. The part assigned to imitation

in seemingly spontaneous expression of emotion in a child, Baldwin,

_Mental Development in Child and Race_, pp. 260 ff., does not affect

this study of emotion in throngs.

Footnote 920:

_Die Spiele der Thiere_, Jena, 1896, p. 8. See, however, _Spiele der

Menschen_, pp. 4, 365 ff., 431, 446 ff., 511 f.

Footnote 921:

So Noiré explained the case in the section on the development of

language in his book, _Die Welt als Entwicklung des Geistes_, Leipzig,

1874. Like Donovan, too, he assumed that the first words were uttered

under pressure of communal excitement, elation, joy, social sense. He

assumes that social conditions quite overwhelmed the individual, who

hardly existed as such. See pp. 266 f.

Footnote 922:

Quoted, p. 328, by Morgan, from _Lectures on Human and Animal

Psychology_, p. 397.

Footnote 923:

See Wallaschek against this idea, above, p. 100.

Footnote 924:

Work quoted, p. 21.

Footnote 925:

Work quoted, p. 340. Play is thus tabulated:—

════════════════════╤════════════════════╤════════════════════

Selbstdarstellung. │Nachahmung. │Ausschmückung.

────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────────────

Persönliches. │Wahres. │Schönes.

────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────────────

Beim Thier: │ │

Bewerbungskünste. │Nachahmungskünste. │Baukünste.

────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────────────

Beim Menschen: │ │

Erregungstanz. │Nachahmungstanz. │Kunstgewerbe.

Musik. │Mimik. │(Gartenbaukunst.)

Lyrik. │Plastik. │Architectur.

│Malerei. │

│Epik. │

│Drama. │

════════════════════╧════════════════════╧════════════════════

Compare with this the table given in Mr. Baldwin Brown’s useful book

on _The Fine Arts_, p. 36.

Footnote 926:

_Lyre to Muse_, pp. 127 f. Mr. Baldwin Brown, _The Fine Arts_, p. 23,

also regards art in general as an outgrowth of festal celebrations.

Footnote 927:

At the end of his _Lyre to Muse_, p. 209.

Footnote 928:

_Arbeit und Rhythmus_, pp. 17, 25, 82.

Footnote 929:

In Ribot’s _Psychology of the Emotions_, e.g., p. 332, ample justice

is done to spontaneous emotion and expression.

Footnote 930:

See Butcher’s translation, pp. 15 ff.

Footnote 931:

So Butcher explains, p. 252: “a wild religious excitement, a bacchic

ecstasy.”

Footnote 932:

_Kunstlehre des Aristoteles_, Jena, 1876, pp. 83 ff. Gerber, _Die

Sprache als Kunst_, I. 32, follows Aristotle in denying that

improvisations are ever poetry, which is enthusiasm plus deliberation

and selection.

Footnote 933:

_Vorlesungen_, I. 356 ff. Compare I. 340.

Footnote 934:

Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie_, I. (2d. ed.), 345.

Footnote 935:

_Vorlesungen_, II. 117, 119. He calls the Homeric epos an artistic

improvisation as compared with earlier spontaneous, instinctive

improvisation. See also II. 20.

Footnote 936:

_Ibid._, III. 141,—a mere note for his lecture.

Footnote 937:

_Die Geburt der Tragödie_, oder _Griechenthum und Pessimismus_, 3d.

ed. 1894; the immediate title, however, is _Die Geburt der Tragödie

aus dem Geiste der Musik_.

Footnote 938:

_Welt als Wille_, etc., I. 416. Nietzsche, pp. 22, 35 f.

Footnote 939:

Lyric and folksong, according to Nietzsche, p. 48, are outcome of

music. “Diesen Prozess einer Entladung der Musik in Bildern haben wir

uns auf eine jugendfrische, sprachlich schöpferische Volksmenge zu

übertragen, um zur Ahnung zu kommen, wie das strophische Volkslied

entsteht.”

Footnote 940:

The usual references for Bacchic or Dionysian orgies are Livy, IX. 4

ff., where minute particulars are given; Strabo, bk. X.; Athenæus, X.

Footnote 941:

In Nietzsche’s mystic phrase, the chorus “auf seiner primitiven Stufe

in der Urtragödie,” is “eine Selbstspiegelung des dionysischen

Menschen ... eine Vision der dionysischen Masse.”

Footnote 942:

See pp. 60 f. This artistic power is his definition of the poetic

process. Professor Giddings, on hints of Mr. Spencer, has drawn a

picture of solitary, primitive man arguing a spirit from the

phenomenon of his shadow and of the echo of his voice. It may be

pointed out that communal shouts and cries, echoed from the rocks,

would be more likely to rouse a belief in that horde of spirits with

which the primitive human horde thought itself surrounded. Early

religion was social, communal; individual meditation, a process of

individual thought, was utterly subordinate to communal thought. Even

now superstition is a lingering “they say.”

Footnote 943:

“Eine Gemeinde von unbewussten Schauspielern,” p. 61.

Footnote 944:

_Journal d’un Poète_, p. 38.

Footnote 945:

“Das charakteristische Merkmal der Volkspoesie,” _Zeitschr. f.

Völkerpsychol._, XIX. (1889), 115 ff.

Footnote 946:

_Zeitschr. f. Völkerpsychol._, XIX., p. 120.

Footnote 947:

See Schultze, _Der Fetischismus_, pp. 30 ff., with his authorities.

Footnote 948:

Two famous utterances voice this feeling. Swift loved his Peter, Paul,

John, and the rest; he hated the human race at large. This for the

outer circle. As for crowds, Schiller put the antithesis in a

distich:—

Jeder, sieht man ihn einzeln, ist leidlich klug und beständig;

Sind sie _in corpore_, gleich wird euch ein Dummkopf daraus.

Footnote 949:

“Foules et Sectes,” in _Essais et Mélanges Sociol._, p. 4.

Footnote 950:

_Principles of Sociology_, I. 459, 704 f. Tribe to nation, I. 584.

Rise of professions due to “specialization of a relatively homogeneous

mass,” III. 181. See II. 307 ff. In the _First Principles_, §§ 125,

127, he had defined the process as “change from an incoherent

homogeneity to a coherent heterogeneity,” and had applied the idea not

only to the primitive union of poetry, music, and dancing, but within

poetic limits to that undifferentiated song which held in germ the

epic, the lyric, the drama.

Footnote 951:

_Revue des deux Mondes_, 15 Feb., 1898, p. 880; “le passage de

l’homogène à l’heterogène,” that “idée mère, l’idée substantielle de

l’évolution or in Haeckel’s words, “gradual differentiation of matter

originally simple.”

Footnote 952:

_L’Évolution des Peuples_, pp. 37 f. See also pp. 43, 167.

Footnote 953:

_Primitive Folk_, p. 57.

Footnote 954:

So the reviews summarize the doctrine of A. H. Keane, _Man Past and

Present_, 1899.

Footnote 955:

_Critique Scientifique_, pp. 112, 115.

Footnote 956:

In the _Rassenkampf_ and especially in _Outlines of Sociology_, trans.

Moore, pp. 39, 124, 139 note; on p. 142 he names the factors which

made a horde homogeneous.

Footnote 957:

Dr. Richard Mucke, _Horde und Familie in ihrer urgeschichtlichen

Entwicklung_, Stuttgart, 1895.

Footnote 958:

Grosse, _Format der Familie_, pp. 30 ff. See p. 39. He takes as

“representatives of the oldest form of social life” those scattered

tribes which subsist entirely by hunting; we know nothing so

primitive, and while checked in culture, these tribes are probably not

degraded (32 f.). The statements in the text are based on careful

arrangement of the statistics, a very important point. See Mucke,

_Horde und Familie_, pp. 181 ff. Spencer describes the “small, simple

aggregates,” coöperating “with or without a regulating centre, for

certain public ends,” of which the “headless” kind must be regarded as

the primitive type; and gives a list of these not very different from

the list of Grosse. _Prin. Soc._, I. § 257.

Footnote 959:

Grosse refuses to extend this lack of individual power to promiscuity

in sexual relations. That precious theory was doubtless carried to an

absurd point; but the reaction may likewise go too far, and the case

of those Andamanese (p. 43) with their “absolute conjugal fidelity

even unto death,” uncannily suggests Sir Charles Grandison and even

Isaac Walton’s mullet.

Footnote 960:

_Anthropology_, p. 79.

Footnote 961:

_Anthropologie_, I. 74 ff., 349 ff.

Footnote 962:

Waitz, I. 446, answers objections to this view, and disposes of the

idea that civilization levels mankind.

Footnote 963:

See above, p. 372, note 942.

Footnote 964:

_Anfänge der Kunst_, p. 224.

Footnote 965:

_Ibid._, pp. 300 f.

Footnote 966:

_Ibid._, p, 236.

Footnote 967:

_Comparative Literature_, p. 72. See pp. 89 ff., 155 ff., 347 f., and

the whole chapter on “The Principle of Literary Growth.” He glorifies

sympathy as the poetic mainspring; but he fails to study the dualism

in terms of actual throng and actual artist. The spirit and plan of

the book, however, are worthy of the highest praise, whatever its

shortcomings in detail.

Footnote 968:

Catullus, lxiv.

Footnote 969:

_Werke_, VI. 26.

Footnote 970:

_Esthétique de la Tradition_, pp. 69 ff.

Footnote 971:

Spencer, _Sociology_, I. 56 ff., 70 f., II. 271, note; Grosse, _Formen

der Familie_, p. 57, with quotation from Petroff’s book on Alaska;

Schultze, _Fetischismus_, pp. 51 f.

Footnote 972:

_The Theory of Law and Civil Society_, London, 1888, pp. 106 f. See

above, p. 26.

Footnote 973:

Professor Baldwin, _Social and Ethical Interpretations_, p. 214, puts

the beginning of the social period just after man’s release from the

animal. See too his appendix. Ribot, work quoted, p. 281, says the

gregarious life—of animals in hordes, that is—“is founded on the

attraction of like for like, irrespective of sex.” See this whole

chapter on “The Social and Moral Feelings.”

Footnote 974:

See, however, the case of New Zealanders who work in large numbers and

in perfect accord by singing their song _totowaka_. Wallaschek, _Prim.

Mus._, p. 43.

Footnote 975:

Even Mr. Spencer points out that this is no bar to communal consent,

_Sociology_, I. 59; for the variability implies “smaller departure

from primitive reflex action ... lack of the re-representative

emotions which hold the simpler ones in check.” Bastian, too, has

shown that in the formation of society out of individuals, the social

element as such, the social whole, must precede the element of social

individuality or of the individuality within the mass. This is what

one gathers from Bastian’s books in general; in one case, _Die Welt in

ihren Spiegelungen unter dem Wandel des Völkergedankens_, p. 413, he

applies this idea to the priority of social property as compared with

individual property.

Footnote 976:

Perhaps there is some connection between the fervour and merit of

French war-songs like the Marseillaise, the _Ça ira_, and the fact

that French literature as a whole is averse from undue stress upon the

individual and does not suffer, whatever its other defects, from “too

much ego in its cosmos.” Texte points out that Jean-Jacques, Germanic

by nature, noticed this trait in the French. “Le _je_ ... est presque

aussi scrupuleusement banni de la scène française que des écrits de

Port-Royal, _et les passions humaines_ ... _n’y parlent jamais que par

on_.” How contemptuously M. Brunetière, who has no superior in the

appreciation of French literature as a whole, speaks of that new

personal note, set in fashion by Rousseau, “most eloquent of lackeys!”

See “La Littérature Personnelle,” in B.’s _Questions de Critique_, pp.

211 ff., and his review of Hennequin’s book in the same collection,

pp. 305 ff.

Footnote 977:

Boas, _Report Bur. Ethnol._, 1884-1885, pp. 564, 600 ff.

Footnote 978:

_Anf. d. Kunst_, p. 132.

Footnote 979:

On this baffling theme there is good reasoning in a neglected book by

Noiré, _Die Welt als Entwicklung des Geistes_, pp. 240 f. He notes the

mnemonic force of earliest words, which were few and used under strong

emotional excitement; language was a kind of “thinking aloud.”

Footnote 980:

Stated in different terms by W. von Humboldt, _Werke_, VI. 198.

Footnote 981:

Wallaschek, _Prim. Mus._, pp. 70 f.

Footnote 982:

I. von Döllinger, _Beiträge zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters_,

Munich, 1890, II. 623 f., from an old Ms., “de hystrionibus et

officiis inutilibus.” Priests are instructed what professions bar the

granting of absolution,—an interesting passage. “Cum igitur meretrices

ad confessionem venerint, vel hystriones, non est eis danda

poenitentia, nisi ex toto talia relinquant officia,” etc.

Footnote 983:

See Dana’s account of an improvising islander working in California,

_Two Years before the Mast_, Chap. XIX.

Footnote 984:

Wallaschek, quoting Portman, p. 278.

Footnote 985:

J. Darmesteter, _Chants Populaires des Afghans_, Paris, 1888-1890, p.

clxxxvi. The Afghans have got to a Browning level in poetry, if we may

believe Captain Rafferty, _Selections from the Poetry of the Afghans_,

London, 1862. “Shaida’s poetry ...” he says, “is deep and difficult.”

Footnote 986:

Ahlwardt, _über Poesie und Poetik der Araber_, Gotha, 1856, p. 7.

Footnote 987:

F. Michel, _Le Pays Basque_, Paris, 1857, pp. 214 f. The same is true

of the Poles. See Talvj (here spelled Talvi) _Historical View of the

Languages and Literatures of the Slavic Nations_, New York, 1850, Part

IV., pp. 315 ff. Speaking of the Polish ballads, Mrs. Robinson says,

“Their dances were formerly always accompanied by singing. _But these

songs are always extemporized._ Among the country gentry ... the

custom of extemporizing songs ... continued even down to the beginning

of our own century.”

Footnote 988:

“Etwas über William Shakspeare,” _Werke_, VII. 57 f.

Footnote 989:

He refers to the Homeric hymn to Hermes, vv. 54-56: “The god sang to

the playing what came into his mind, quickly, readily, just as at

festal banquets youths tease one another with verses sung in turn.”

Footnote 990:

Quoted by Chappell, II. 623.

Footnote 991:

See the _Greville Memoirs_, III. 122, 202.

Footnote 992:

Spence, _Anecdotes_ (for Italy), pp. 116 ff., 120 note.

Footnote 993:

_Travels in Africa_, reprinted in Pinkerton, XVI. 844.

Footnote 994:

Improvisation of labour songs by women, solitary or in bands, is very

common. See Bücher, _Arbeit u. Rhythmus_, passim, especially, p. 78,

and above, p. 269.

Footnote 995:

Improvisations at dance, funeral, wedding, and the like, among these

Africans, are summed up by Spencer in his unfinished _Descriptive

Sociology_, pp. 24 f.

Footnote 996:

See above, p. 20.

Footnote 997:

_Compendium_, 4th ed., p. 641. Cf. Spencer, _Princ. Social._, II. 151,

American ed.

Footnote 998:

_Mental Evolution in Man_, p. 358, American ed.

Footnote 999:

_Færøiske Quæder om Sigurd_, etc., Randers, 1822. P. E. Müller wrote

the preface and made the extracts from Lyngbye’s journal; so that the

evidence is at first hand and by an exact observer. The remoteness of

the place is equivalent to centuries in point of time. See, too, V. U.

Hammershaimb, _Færøsk Anthologi_, Copenhagen, I. xli ff.

Footnote 1000:

See the author’s _Old English Ballads_, p. xxxiv.

Footnote 1001:

_Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, 2d ed., IV. 164 f.

Footnote 1002:

Described at length by Möbius in the “Ergänzungsband” for Zacher’s

_Zeitschrift f. d. deutsche Philologie_, 1874, p. 54. For the _débat_,

_tenso_, _sirventes_, _jeu-parti_, _conflictos_, and all the rest on

romance ground, see Jeanroy, pp. 48 f., and Greif, _Zst. f. vgl.

Lit._, N. F., I. 289.

Footnote 1003:

For Portugal, see Dr. C. F. Bellermann, _Portug. Volkslieder u.

Romanzen_, Leipzig, 1874, p. viii.

Footnote 1004:

On ease of improvisation among the Finns proper, see Comparetti,

_Kalewala_, p. 17.

Footnote 1005:

Chambers, _Popular Rhymes of Scotland_, pp. 166 f.

Footnote 1006:

Coussemaker, p. 271.

Footnote 1007:

Wallace is thinking of music and song in the nobler sense when he

denies them to primitive races; and Wallaschek’s answer is conclusive,

for it is based on evidence that all goes one way, _Primitive Music_,

pp. 277 f. Another absurd reaction against romantic ideas is to deny

lyric propensity to primitive folk and substitute an acute sense of

“business.” So Norden, work quoted, I. 156, says the prayer of early

man was anything but a “lyrical outpouring”; it was “a contract with

deity, give and take.” But emotional fear and emotional thanks precede

any such shrewd rationalism as this, if psychology is to be regarded,

let alone ethnological evidence.

Footnote 1008:

Schmid, 2d ed., p. 366.

Footnote 1009:

_Romanisches und Keltisches_, pp. 363 f. The four-line stanza, he

says, is easy to compose, and one _pennill_ suggests another; so that

each is half tradition, half improvisation, belonging “to everybody

and nobody.” This description approaches very closely the hypothetical

description given by Ten Brink in his sketch of Old English poetry for

Paul’s _Grundriss_, of the making of ballads in a more primitive day.

Footnote 1010:

Mr. Gregory Smith’s facile explanation, _The Transition Period_, pp.

182 f.

Footnote 1011:

Ep. II. i. 145 f. See Zell, _Ferienschriften_, II. 122 ff. Soldiers

sang in pairs, or in two sections, these alternate mocking verses.

Footnote 1012:

Douglas Hyde, _Love Songs of Connacht_, 1895, pp. 88 ff. The prose

translation has less artificial suggestion than the translation in

verses.

Footnote 1013:

Athenæus and Diodorus are quoted as authorities for the Sicilian

origin of such combats in verse; but Jeanroy disposes of this theory

by an effective use of the argument from comparative literature. See

his _Origines_, pp. 260 ff.

Footnote 1014:

On the meaning and relations of _strambotto_, _stornello_, _rispetto_,

_ritornello_, and the other terms, see Count Nigra’s _Canti Popolari

del Piemonte_, Torino, 1888, pp. xi ff. He corrects Schuchardt’s use

of _ritornell_ for _stornello_. This latter is really an amœbean form

of verse, has but one stanza, and this of three lines; the

_strambotto_ is one stanza, too, but has four, six, ten, or even more

lines. Still, the four-line stanza, as comparison shows, is clearly

the primitive form. Southern Italy is, of course, far richer in these

songs than Piedmont, the home of lyrical narrative or ballad.

Footnote 1015:

Found, too, in India; but here not in the really communal stage. See

Gustav Meyer, _Essays und Studien_, pp. 293 f.

Footnote 1016:

_Bayerisches Wörterbuch_, III. 499, explaining them as

_Schnitterhüpflein_, songs of the reapers.

Footnote 1017:

With references to the literature of these songs, work quoted, pp. 332

ff.

Footnote 1018:

On the form cf. O. Brenner, “Zum Versbau der Schnaderhüpfl,” in

_Festschrift zur 50 jähr. Doktorjubelfeier Karl Weinholds_,

Strassburg, 1896, who gives fresh references for the various subjects

of discussion. He emphasizes the fact that these _schnaderhüpfl_ are

always sung.

Footnote 1019:

Dr. H. Dunger, _Rundâs und Reimsprüche aus dem Vogtlande_, Plauen,

1876. A _rundâ_ is originally “a little song sung while drinking,” but

is made to include the _schnaderhüpfl_; and in the author’s opinion

all these forms go back to songs of reapers during harvest. That,

however, is of no great moment here.

Footnote 1020:

“Ueber Poesie der Alpenländer,” in a reprint from a magazine whose

title does not appear.

Footnote 1021:

Firmenich, _Germaniens Völkerstimmen_, II. 716. I have made these

translations solely to reproduce, if possible, the spirit of the

original, and have tried to keep the false “literary” note at arm’s

length.

Footnote 1022:

_Ibid._, II. 715, 777.

Footnote 1023:

G. Meyer, p. 357, prints a number of such variations on the standing

first verse:—

It is dark in the woods

Because of the crows,—

That my girl will be false,

That every one knows.

It is dark in the woods

Because of the firs,—

and so on.

Footnote 1024:

Firmenich, II. 779.

Footnote 1025:

Firmenich, II. 661.

Footnote 1026:

Of the dance,—the _vorsinger_.

Footnote 1027:

Variants of this are found in many places.

Footnote 1028:

Firmenich, III. 39.

Footnote 1029:

_Ibid._, II. 716.

Footnote 1030:

_Ibid._, II. 737.

Footnote 1031:

“Go from my window,” pp. 140 ff., with variations (as “Come up to my

window”) and parodies.

Footnote 1032:

Firmenich, II. 715.

Footnote 1033:

_Od._, III. X.

Footnote 1034:

It is well to note here that development is one thing and imitation is

another. The authorities agree that a _schnaderhüpfl_ cannot be

imitated. See Gustav Meyer, p. 351.

Footnote 1035:

Firmenich, II. 717.

Footnote 1036:

Firmenich, III. 396.

Footnote 1037:

_Ibid._, II. 280. This is widespread. See Meyer, p. 356.

Footnote 1038:

Meyer, p. 341. The rimes are identical in the original. Meyer gives

seven versions.

Footnote 1039:

Child, III. 236.

Footnote 1040:

On this opening touch from nature in the ballads, exemplified in

English by the beautiful beginning of _Robin Hood and the Monk_, much

has been written; but this use of the same device in a _schnaderhüpfl_

is very significant, and has aroused little comment. See Meyer, pp.

377 ff.

Footnote 1041:

Child, I. 399 ff.

Footnote 1042:

_Essays_, pp. 365 ff.

Footnote 1043:

On p. 358.

Footnote 1044:

When the Greek youth leaves his home, Fauriel says, his family sing

songs of farewell, traditional and improvised, to which he often

improvises a reply. Improvisation, too, and presumably once in the

village throng, lies at the foundation of the German prentice songs of

leave-taking, the eternal note of _scheiden, das thut grämen_, with

culmination in that exquisite poem, probably not improvised,

_Innsprück, ich muss dich lassen_. The ennobling process is

interesting, and is of a piece with the process assumed by A. W.

Schlegel for the ennobling of Greek epic out of rude improvisation.

Footnote 1045:

Uhland, _Volkslieder_, I. 78. In spite of the two melodies, I have put

the refrain at the beginning, and slightly changed, as in Uhland’s B.,

at the end. The actual song is for the dance. See Böhme, _Altd.

Liederb._, p. 268. Only two stanzas are given,—one for the happy girl

and one for the lovelorn, one the _vortanz_, the other the _nachtanz_.

Footnote 1046:

See above, p. 208.

Footnote 1047:

Firmenich, II. 742.

Footnote 1048:

The translation fails to bring out the simplicity of these two

stanzas; they run thus:—

Der Weg ös mer z’wait,

Und der Wold ös mer z’dick,

Bhüat di Gott, main liabs Schotzel,

I wünsch dir viel Glück.

I wünsch dir viel Glück

Und es sull dir guat gian,

Für die Zeit, ols d’mi g’liabt host,

Bedonk i mi schian.

Footnote 1049:

_Essays_, p. 370; and see also Kögel, _Gesch. d. d. Lit._, I. 7, who

thinks that Scandinavian _ljóð_ (plural) meant once a series of these

strophes composed by dancers and so coming to be a _lied_. E. H.

Meyer, _Volkskunde_, p. 317, notes the independent quatrains combined

into an _almlied_.

Footnote 1050:

Also G. Meyer, _Essays_, pp. 370, 375.

Footnote 1051:

_Ibid._, pp. 377 ff.

Footnote 1052:

_Norske Folkeviser_, Christiania, 1853. See especially pp. 365 ff.,

423 ff.

Footnote 1053:

_Ibid._, p. 366.

Footnote 1054:

Lundell, Paul’s _Grundriss_, II. i. 730, says that even now any adult

in Iceland can make verses.

Footnote 1055:

Landstad, pp. 370 ff.

Footnote 1056:

_Ibid._, p. 376.

Footnote 1057:

The _vocero_ is far less individual than this quatrain or stave just

considered, because the former is an outburst rather of public grief

than of private emotion.

Footnote 1058:

See above, p. 269.

Footnote 1059:

Definitions are notoriously unsatisfactory in poetics. Contrast

Schleiermacher’s formula for lyric as poetry plus music, _Aesthetik_,

p. 628, with the laborious definition in R. M. Werner’s _Lyrik und

Lyriker_, Hamburg and Leipzig, 1890, p. 10, based mainly on the

subjective element. Confusion of form and conditions, which makes

lyric poetry one with music (see Döring, _Kunstlehre d. Aristoteles_,

p. 88), with inner meaning and purpose, has caused most of the

trouble. In one sense the old choral was the very foundation of lyric.

The congregational psalm of the Hebrews is lyric, and so is the

solitary cry of the modern poet.

Footnote 1060:

_Uralt_, says Usener, _Altgr. Versbau_, p. 45. See above, p. 95.

Footnote 1061:

As Matthew Arnold reminds us:—

Sophocles, long ago,

Heard it on the Ægean.

For the prevailing tone of lyric is sad, and Euterpe treats her poet

as Genevieve treated Coleridge:—

She loves me best whene’er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

Footnote 1062:

The claim of Usener may be noted (“Der Stoff des griechischen Epos,”

_Sitzungsber. d. Kais. Acad. d. Wiss. zu Wien_, Bd. 137, pp. 18 ff.),

where he puts the ceremonies at the hearthstone, primitive

ancestor-worship, as the real beginning of epic song. The offering to

an ancestor must have been made “with music, prayer, and song.” Hence

the epos. It is true that a lyric of this sort is older than any

epic,—the epic which Hegel pushed forward as earliest form of poetry,

just as the renaissance had put it above the drama in dignity,—and may

well have helped the later epic process. But the evidence of ethnology

shows that rude songs at the tribal dance, which refer to tribal

doings, must be far older than any ceremonies of the primitive

_hausvater_ at his family altar.

Footnote 1063:

A. W. Schlegel said that the Homeric poems were improvised; but he

distinguished between rude communal improvisation and that of

incipient art. _Vorlesungen_, II. 119 f., 243.

Footnote 1064:

Livy, VII. 2, gives an account of this change.

Footnote 1065:

See Maurice Drack, _Le Théâtre de la Foire, la Comédie Italienne, et

l’Opéra-comique_, Paris, 1889. Vol. I. has a sketch of the

movement—from 1678 on—indicated in the title. It began with the _pièce

à couplets_, and passed gradually into modern comic opera. The great

popular fair of St. Lawrence, at Paris, was the scene of part of this

development.

Footnote 1066:

Garnett, _Italian Literature_, p. 306, traces this comedy back through

Tuscan and Neapolitan peasants to the “Greek rustics who smeared their

faces with wine-lees at the Dionysiac festivals, and from whose

improvised songs and gestures Greek comedy was developed.”

Footnote 1067:

Burckhardt, _Cultur der Ren._, II. 40, thinks that such well-known

characters as Pantalone, the Doctor, Arlecchino, may be in some

fashion connected with masked figures in the old Roman plays.

Footnote 1068:

Ticknor, _Spanish Literature_, I. 232 f.

Footnote 1069:

Second Part, Chap. XX.

Footnote 1070:

Malone’s _Shakspere_, 1821, III. 131.

Footnote 1071:

_Tarlton’s Jests_ ... ed. J. O. Halliwell, London, 1844, pp. xviii f.

(Shakspere Society). “As Antipater Sidonius,” says the comparative

Meres, “was famous for extemporall verse in Greeke ... so was our

Tarleton.”

Footnote 1072:

See Bolte, _Die Singspiele der englischen Komödianten und ihrer

Nachfolger_, Hamburg u. Leipzig, 1893, pp. 50 ff. He prints parallel

copies of “Singing Simpkin” and the German “Pickelhering in der

Kiste.”

Footnote 1073:

“Passages were often left for the extempore declamation of the actors.

Sometimes the whole conduct of the piece depended on their powers of

improvisation.” Symonds, _Shakspere’s Predecessors_, p. 66.

Footnote 1074:

_Vorlesungen über Aesthetik_, pp. 84 f.

Footnote 1075:

Ed. Grosart, V. 200.

Footnote 1076:

Hazlitt-Dodsley, V. 149, 151.

Footnote 1077:

As, for example, Schwab takes it: _Das Schauspiel im Schauspiel_, Wien

u. Leipzig, 1896, p. 32.

Footnote 1078:

Bruchmann, _Poetik_, p. 17.

Footnote 1079:

The material has been set forth above in the section on the communal

dance; for early dramatic dances of fight, hunting, and the like, see

especially pp. 336 ff., and the passage on _lâc_, p. 340.

Footnote 1080:

On gesture as common and universally understood expression, see

Darwin, _Descent of Man_, 2d ed., I. 276 f. “Men of all races” have a

“mutual comprehension of gesture-language”; they all have “the same

expression on their features,” and “the same inarticulate cries when

excited by the same emotions.” See also Tylor, _Early History of

Mankind_, chapters on Gesture-Language; and _American Antiquarian_,

II. 219, G. Mallery on Indian Sign Language. This universal validity

of gesture is highly significant for the beginnings of poetry, for the

rude cries which precede language are probably of the same order as

the gestures. See Chap. II., Wundt’s _Völkerpsychologie_.

Footnote 1081:

Bastian, “Masken und Maskereien,” _Zst. f. Völkerpsych._, XIV. 347.

Footnote 1082:

See Grosse on the two “roots” of the drama, _Anf. d. Kunst_, pp. 254

f. On the mimicry of different tribes in the communal dance, see

Bruchmann, _Poetik_, pp. 208 ff.; Wallaschek, _Prim. Music_, Chap.

VIII.

Footnote 1083:

The conspicuous performer,—the “entertainer” or soloist,—grows less

and less prominent as one gets upon lower levels of culture. The

earliest distinction of this sort was probably achieved by the priest,

conjurer, medicine-man, shaman, or whatever his special function.

Footnote 1084:

As Wallaschek recedes from his proposition, the examples have more and

more mention of words and song together with the action; for example,

pp. 217 ff.

Footnote 1085:

This must always be taken into account. As Wallaschek says of an

Australian “corrobberee,” however primitive it may seem, “it is a

well-prepared and elaborated dance, which it takes both time and

practice to excel in.”

Footnote 1086:

Wallaschek, pp. 223 f.

Footnote 1087:

From gesture back to facial expression and other signs now unknown

because speech has taken their place, is an inviting path, but not to

be trodden now. From the _Kansas City Star_, date unfortunately lost,

may be quoted an interview with Hagenbeck, the lion-tamer. “We can’t

see,” he said, “the expression of a lion’s face, except of rage, but

his companions can.... Did you ever see one animal fail to understand

another? I never saw such an instance.... I am inclined to think that

what we call mind-reading is mere survival here and there of the lost

sixth sense, which was probably common to primitive man, and which

animals possess to this day.” Mr. Hagenbeck could furnish an

interesting supplement to Darwin’s book _On the Expression of

Emotions_.

Footnote 1088:

Work quoted, p. 28, speaking of Australian song and dance. See also p.

201.

Footnote 1089:

Sign-language of later date, as studied by Mallery among the American

Indians, cannot be regarded as primitive in this genetic sense. It

comes to be a highly developed art and calls for considerable skill in

the making as well as acuteness in interpretation.

Footnote 1090:

As in dances of the Greeks, now felt to be a lost art. On this matter

of gesture and signs, see an excellent book by Sittl, _Die Gebärden

der Griechen und Römer_, Leipzig, 1890; his accounts of the attempt

“die Völker durch die Zeichensprache zu verbrüdern,” with reference to

Leibnitz and others; of orgiastic ecstasies; and, of course, the study

of Greek gesture in art and poetry, are all instructive. For primitive

relations, Darwin’s book _On the Expressions of Emotions_, etc., 1872,

is still main authority. Gestures, like sounds, are either instinctive

or called out by the will; and any study of progress in the dramatic

art must concern itself with these fundamental elements of acting.

Footnote 1091:

It would be useless to attempt a bibliography of this subject. A. W.

Schlegel’s historical account of the drama and its relations to epic

and lyric is still useful. See especially _Vorles._, I. 124; II. 317,

321, 325. Eugen Wolff’s return to the priority of epic,—_Prolegomena_,

etc., p. 10; “Vorstudien zur Poetik,” _Zst. f. vgl. Litt._, VI.

425,—fails to satisfy the student of ethnological evidence; like most

writers from the æsthetic point of view, Wolff neglects to study the

poetry of the throng, the choral, the dance. Barring this same fault,

there is considerable truth in the view of Burdach (letter to Scherer,

in the latter’s _Poetik_, pp. 296 f.), that epic and drama are wrongly

taken as extreme antithesis in poetry, whereas lyric and drama are

really “die beiden Urphänomene.” Little profit for the historical

student of poetry is to be found in essays like Veit Valentin’s

“Poetische Gattungen,” in _Zst. f. vgl. Litt._, N. F., V. 35 ff.

Footnote 1092:

See Blankenburg’s excellent article on the ballet in his _Zusätze_, I.

154 ff. La Motte, in his ballet of _Europe Galante_, 1697, made the

ballet an object in itself and in its own action; here “entspringt

Tanz und Gesang aus der eigenen Gemüthsstimmung der handelnden

Personen.” This is communal revival.

Footnote 1093:

That is, ὄψις.

Footnote 1094:

“Daudet me dit ... ‘Je crois décidément avoir trouvé la formule; le

livre c’est pour l’individu, le théâtre c’est pour la foule.’”

_Journal des Goncourt_, VIII. (30 Jan., 1890), 129.

Footnote 1095:

_Vorlesungen_, Stuttgart, 1884, I. 329 ff., 342, 344 ff.

Footnote 1096:

_Ibid._, III. 110.

Footnote 1097:

See the present author’s article on “Mythology” in the new edition of

Johnson’s _Cyclopædia_.

Footnote 1098:

A dozen years ago or more, a professor lecturing on this subject in a

German university, after giving all the myths about a certain goddess,

spoke somewhat as follows: “Gentlemen, this goddess is either a star

or the early summer grass, I am not certain which. I am studying the

matter carefully, and hope soon to reach a positive conclusion.”

Footnote 1099:

Compare Lucretius, dealing now lovingly with the Venus of myth—_alma

Venus_, the beloved of Rome’s own god—and now, a few lines below,

scornfully, passionately, with the cruel rites of the worship of Diana

and the sacrifice of Iphigenia at her shrine: “_illa_ Religio,” he

says, with a touch almost of blasphemy.

Footnote 1100:

See the chapters on animism and mythology in Tylor’s _Primitive

Culture_. A. W. Schlegel was on this trail, but let himself be

befogged by Schelling’s philosophy. See the _Vorlesungen_, I. 329,

337.

Footnote 1101:

See his _Germanische Mythen_.

Footnote 1102:

_Mythologische Forschungen_ (_Quellen u. Forschungen_, No. 51,

Strassburg, 1884), Vorrede, p. xxv; the lesson came from Tylor’s book

which Müllenhoff had set Mannhardt reading. This letter was written in

1876. See also Müllenhoff’s own definition of mythology in his

_Deutsche Alterthumskunde_, V. 1, 157.

Footnote 1103:

_Cultur d. Ren. in Ital._, I. 288.

Footnote 1104:

_Zeitschrift f. Gymnasialwesen_, Berlin, Nov., 1861, p. 837.

Footnote 1105:

Mr. Tylor lets animism of this sort have too free a play among quite

primitive men.

Footnote 1106:

Too much stress is laid by some writers on primitive studies of death,

and of dreams about the dead, as productive of myth. Modern peasants,

like savages, often show a heavy and stupid indifference in the

presence of death; and its problem, though it doubtless suggested a

cult of spirits, was far less insistent with early man than the

problem of life. Before he thus worked out a world of dead spirits, he

knew by instinctive, really unconscious inference, a world of living

spirits, not of his own breed, but vaster, subtler, in those

operations of nature which struck into his actual life, interfered

with it, or conspicuously helped it.

Footnote 1107:

“_It_ hurts me; _it_ makes me cry,” says the child, pointing to the

seat of affliction; this “it” corresponds with savage and primitive

animism. It is not personification, as one is often told. Human beings

do not crawl into other human beings and hurt them; not he or she, but

“it” hurts. One remembers the remark of J. Grimm, that the neuter

gender means not lack of sex, but the undeveloped, initial stage.

_Deutsche Grammatik_, III. 315.

Footnote 1108:

Posnett, _Comparative Literature_, pp. 162 ff. The idea, however, is

by no means as new as Posnett thinks it to be.

Footnote 1109:

See above, p. 380.

Footnote 1110:

Vignoli, in his _Myth and Science_, notes that a dog growls or bites

at a stick thrust toward him, a kind of animism; although as Spencer

said,—with quite unwarrantable inference in the denial of nature-myths

among primitive men,—a dog takes no notice of ordinary natural doings,

swaying boughs, sunrise, and all the rest.

Footnote 1111:

Max Müller’s “disease of language” as source of myth is absurd; the

myth does not wait for the misunderstanding of a metaphor, but begins

with the metaphor and lives with its life,—both being, of course,

unconscious at the start.

Footnote 1112:

A child who saw a flash of lightning once said, “God is winking at

me”; and the phrase was seized upon as a fine illustration of

primitive myth-making. But the child had been presented, by the whole

process of human culture and thought, with at least two-thirds of this

“myth,”—the idea of God, of a distinct, supreme personality, and the

reference to God of whatever goes on in the sky.

Footnote 1113:

See E. H. Meyer, _Indogerm. Mythen_, Berlin, 1883, I. 87.

Footnote 1114:

In the reaction from ideas of a golden age one must not go too far,

and “call names” which now mean vice, degeneration, rottenness. It is

possible that even earliest myth touched here and there a chord of

poetry as we now know poetry, and appealed to that constant element

which belongs to our humanity and not to our history.

Footnote 1115:

Or, of course, a tradition; so Prometheus and the origin of fire may

account for the stealing of fire from some neighbouring tribe. See

Gruppe, _Griechische Culte and Mythen_, p. 206.

Footnote 1116:

See above, p. 236.

Footnote 1117:

Comparetti, _Kalewala_, pp. 154 f., in his excellent remarks on

popular myth and popular poetry, has left his analysis incomplete by

leaving throng-poetry quite out of the account.

Footnote 1118:

Grimm’s chapter on gender in the third volume of his _Grammar_ remains

the masterpiece of investigation in this subject; but his theory has

been attacked by Brugmann. See, too, President Wheeler, “Origin of

Grammatical Gender,” _Journal Germanic Philology_, II. 528 ff. Grimm

defines gender, III. 346, “eine in der phantasie der menschlichen

Sprache entsprungene ausdehnung des natürlichen auf alle und jede

gegenstände.”

Footnote 1119:

_Ibid._, III. 354.

Footnote 1120:

Grimm says the Englishman calls “she” whatever is dear to him—the

sailor his ship, the miller his mill; III. 546.

Footnote 1121:

_Reflexions Critiques_, ed. 1770, I. 298. “La Poësie du style fait la

plus grande différence qui soit entre les vers et la prose.... Les

images et les figures doivent être encore plus fréquentes dans la

plupart des genres de la Poësie, que dans les discours oratoires....

C’est donc la Poësie du style qui fait le Poëte, plutôt que la rime et

la césure.... Cette Partie de la Poësie la plus importante.” See also

p. 312, in § xxxv.

Footnote 1122:

_Essay on Poetry with Reference to Aristotle’s Poetics_, ed. Cook, p.

11.

Footnote 1123:

Some representative definitions of this sort are collected and quoted

by Dr. Gertrude Buck in an interesting paper, _The Metaphor: a Study

on the Psychology of Rhetoric_, being No. 5 of the “Contributions to

Rhetorical Theory,” edited by Professor Scott, Ann Arbor,—no date, but

about 1899,—p. 40.

Footnote 1124:

_Poetik_, p. 87 f. See also p. 83. On p. 262 he opens, however, a

dangerous door for the interests of this theory.

Footnote 1125:

_Altgermanische Poesie_, p. 20.

Footnote 1126:

Modern writers on æsthetics make the same error: so Biese, “Das

Metaphorische in der dichterischen Phantasie,” _Zst. f. vgl. Lit._, N.

F. II. 320, makes the primitive process from simile to metaphor.

Footnote 1127:

On pp. 90 ff.

Footnote 1128:

St. Evremond thinks them distracting; in any case he will banish such

things from drama. _Œuvres Meslées_, London, Tonson, 1709, III. 72 f.,

in an essay, “Sur les poëmes des Anciens.”

Footnote 1129:

See above, p. 190.

Footnote 1130:

It is the case with later reaches of poetry. Chaucer, for example,

offers very few figures or metaphors as compared with later poets; “no

other author in our tongue,” says Professor Lounsbury, _Stud._, III.

441, “has clung so persistently to the language of common life.”

Footnote 1131:

_The Anglo-Saxon Metaphor_, Halle, 1881. The theory of the metaphor

there advanced was due to the study of poetical material alone, and

had no help from psychology. The latter, however, is quite favourable

to the theory of poetic evolution as stated in the text. See the

quotations from Taine and others in the essay of Dr. Buck. The false

conclusions of Heinzel in regard to simile and metaphor are of little

moment compared with the general value of the essay which contains

them: _Ueber den Stil der altgermanischen Poesie_, Strassburg, Q. F.,

1875, a stimulating piece of work.

Footnote 1132:

_Modern Language Notes_, I. 83.

Footnote 1133:

Logically Gerber is right, _Die Sprache als Kunst_, I. 256, in putting

interjections at one end of the linguistic process and metaphor at the

other; but chronologically, historically, genetically, the assumption

fails to hold.

Footnote 1134:

The subject is too wide for further treatment, and can be regarded

here only in its relations to the beginnings of poetry. See, however,

for the early stages of a metaphor, J. Grimm’s essay on “Die Fünf

Sinne,” _Kleinere Schriften_, VII. 193 ff.; and F. Bechtel, _Ueber die

Bezeichnungen der sinnlichen Wahrnehmungen in den indogerm Sprachen_,

Weimar, 1879, where he shows how the idea of “bright” underlies so

many of our words,—“glad,” for instance, which even in Anglo-Saxon

meant “gleaming.” See, too, in this book the confusion, or

flexibility, of words for the “bright” and the “loud,” seeing and

hearing; also J. Grimm, “Die Wörter des Leuchtens und Brennens,” _Kl.

Schr._, VIII. 263 ff.

Footnote 1135:

Allegory, now a huge projection of metaphor from the style into the

subject-matter, is a consistent series of personifications not unlike

the later stages of myth; in fact, late myth is allegory.

Footnote 1136:

On the tendency of rhythm and music to suggest images and stir the

powers of language, see the wild but interesting words of Nietzsche,

_Geburt d. Tragödie_, p. 48.

Footnote 1137:

See above, p. 211.

Footnote 1138:

Joshua Poole, _English Parnassus_, London, 1677, like Italians just

before him, and like Vinesauf and others of earlier time, has an array

of kennings whence the poet may pick and choose. Abel, for example

(pp. 221 ff.), you may call “death’s first fruit,” or “death’s

handsel.” Then there are “forms of invocating Muses” (p. 630),

followed, alas, by “forms of concluding letters”—in prose.

Footnote 1139:

“The language of the age,” wrote Gray to West, April, 1742, “is never

the language of poetry.”

Footnote 1140:

Kennings often read like riddles: so in Finnish, “contents of

Wainamoinen’s milk-bowl,”—the sunshine. See, moreover, Scherer,

_Geschichte d. deutsch. Lit._, pp. 7, 15; and R. M. Meyer, _Altgerm.

Poesie_, p. 160.

Footnote 1141:

In this sketch of differentiation in poetic style only outlines are

essayed. The subject is uncommonly attractive, and a book on the

history of metaphor would be welcomed by all students of style.

Nothing has been said here of symbolic metaphor from animals and the

like. See Brinkmann’s study of “Thierbilder in der Sprache,” _Die

Metaphern_, Bd. I. Bonn, 1878. His researches in German, English,

French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, Greek, should be extended to half

civilized and savage conditions, and should take a historical and

genetic range. Of course, the æsthetic side of this whole subject is

treated in Gerber’s well known book, quoted several times on preceding

pages, _Die Sprache als Kunst_.

Footnote 1142:

It is noteworthy that Aristotle excludes improvisation from poetry;

and in modern times Gerber (_Die Sprache als Kunst_) finds this rude

kind of verse so opposed to his definition of poetry (“die Kunst des

Gedankens,” _ibid._, I. 50; “enthusiasm plus deliberation,” I. 77),

that he too rules it out, and says it belongs simply to “the art of

language.” It is not well to drag such a ball-and-chain by way of

definition when one is dealing with primitive poetry.

Footnote 1143:

See above, p. 215. There is a lively if exaggerated account of the

rhapsode in Blackwell’s _Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer_,

pp. 104 ff. Limits already transgressed forbid the author to add any

material on the minstrel in his relations to the making of poetry. See

a brief account, with a few references, in _Old English Ballads_, pp.

310 ff. Further, see Piper, _Spielmannsdichtung_ (Vol. 2 of the

_Deutsche National-Litteratur_); Scherer, _Gesch. d. deutsch. Dichtung

im 11 u. 12 Jhrh._ (_Quellen. u. Forschungen_, XII.); Wilmanns,

_Walther v. d. Vogelweide_, especially pp. 39 ff.; the general account

in Axel Olrik’s _Middelalderens Vandrende Spillemaend_ (_Opuscula

Philologica_), Copenhagen, 1887; Freymond, _Jongleurs und Menestrels_,

Halle, 1883 (for the Romance side of the question); and portions of

many other works, such as Jusserand, _Théatre en Angleterre_, p. 23,

note; F. Vogt, _Salman und Morolf_, pp. cxxiii f.; notes here and

there on Widsith and Déor, the earliest types of English minstrel; and

so on.

Footnote 1144:

There were pedants before paper, however, in the days of great

mnemonic feats. See Max Müller, in the _Nineteenth Century_, November,

1899, pp. 798 ff.

Footnote 1145:

This evolution of the solitary and deliberate poet has been outlined

in Chap. IV.

Footnote 1146:

Burckhardt, _Ren._, I. 172. See also p. 250.

Footnote 1147:

_Della Storia e della Ragione d’ogni Poesia_, Vol. I., Bologna, 1739,

pp. 155 ff.

Footnote 1148:

“Tutta volta bisogna ancor confessare, che questo fu il primo genere

di Poesia, che fosse al Mondo.” There is a long account of

improvisation in Crescimbeni, _L’Istoria della Volgar Poesia_, Venice,

1731 (written in 1697), pp. 219 ff. An old and very interesting

_gradus ad Parnassum_ is Ruscelli, _Del Modo di Comporre in Versi

nella Lingua Italiana_, Venice, 1582 (a new edition), “nel quale va

compreso un pieno ordinatissimo Rimario,” and there are directions for

using the voice both for prose and for verse. The seventh chapter is

on the “stanze d’ottava Rima,” and treats of improvisation, mentioning

even an infant phenomenon in this art (“essendo ancor fanciullo ...

non arrivava ai sedici anni”), who made verses off-hand on any subject

which was given to him.

Footnote 1149:

From two books, one Italian, _Saggi di Poesie parte dette all’

improvviso e parte scritte dal Cavaliere Perfetti patrizio Sanese ed

insigne Poeta estemporaneo coronato di laurea in Campidoglio_ ... dal

Dottor Domenico Cianfogni, 2 vols., Florence, 1748 (Vol. II. has the

account of the crowning); and a Latin pamphlet of 56 pp., _Josephi

Mariani Parthenii S. J. de Vita et Studiis Bernadini Perfetti Senensis

Poetae Laureati_, Rome, 1771. They are interesting in many ways.

Footnote 1150:

Latin, xix.

Footnote 1151:

The pious father tells elsewhere of mitigating contrivances: “Frigida

inter canendum uti solebat, ad fauces nimirum recreandas et ad nimium

fervorem, quo incendebatur, restringuendum!”

Footnote 1152:

Along with Perfetti’s moribund art of individual improvisation dies as

well the improvised flyting, even in its more complicated and artistic

phases. Through sundry references made above (pp. 208, note, 325, 416

f.) in regard to the interlaced stanzas of ballad and song. I have

come into a bit of unintentional and quite explicable confusion. These

_serranas_ were called artificial, and yet were cited in the proof of

communal origins. Artistic and even artificial these _serranas_

undoubtedly become; and yet so does the refrain. They are very common;

as Professor Lang points out in his _Liederbuch des Königs Denis von

Portugal_, Halle, 1894, pp. xlvii, lxiii, they make “die Norm des

altportugiesischen Kunstgedichtes,” and are found alike in songs of

love and in the various kinds of flyting. Here, in the public

song-duel, one crosses into communal territory; and the _serranas_ go

back to that rivalry of variation based upon a refrain or a repeated

traditional verse.

Footnote 1153:

See above, p. 349.

Footnote 1154:

I regret that all references to Bücher’s _Arbeit und Rhythmus_ have

been made from the first edition, and not from the second, which came

to my hands after the foregoing chapters were printed. In bulk the

book has more than doubled, increase lying mainly in new songs and

refrains of labour, particularly of _Bittarbeit_ and _Frohnarbeit_.

Neither this new edition, however, nor the new edition of Bücher’s

_Entstehung der Volkswirthschaft_ (see my note above, p. 107) changes

materially his theory as quoted in defence of communal poetry. Not so

much the priority of play is conceded as the early lack of a definite

boundary between play and work. Again, references have been made above

to Yrjö Hirn’s book, _Förstudier till en Konstfilosofi_; this

material, and much more of the sort, are now to be found in the same

author’s _Origins of Art_, London and New York, 1900. Possibly some

modification, due to the chapter on “Erotic Art,” should be made in

the statements of ethnologists with regard to the lack of this motive

in savage poetry.

Footnote 1155:

The science of poetry has had its share of wild theories meant to

establish “laws” of progress. See Tarde, _Les Lois Sociales_, pp. 24

ff. But the play of collective and individual forces is too evident,

too reasonable, to be classed with Vico’s _Ricorsi_ and with Plato’s

or Bacon’s cycles.

Footnote 1156:

In Chapters III and VII.

Footnote 1157:

See the brilliant description of this epoch in the opening chapter of

Pellissier’s _Mouvement Littéraire au XIXᵉ Siècle_, 5th ed., Paris,

1898.

Footnote 1158:

Notably Bücher, _Entstehung der Volkswirthschaft_,² Tübingen, 1898,

“Der Urzustand.”

Footnote 1159:

See Professor Keasbey, _International Monthly_, April, 1900: “The

Institution of Society.”

Footnote 1160:

_Arbeit u. Rhythmus_, 2nd ed., p. 340.

Footnote 1161:

In dances, of course, as well. To references scattered through the

preceding pages, add Mommsen on the Camenae, _Hist. Rome_, trans.

Dickson, 2d ed. London, 1864, I. 240.

Footnote 1162:

See above, p. 155.

Footnote 1163:

You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand ...

—_Merch. Ven._ III. 2.

Footnote 1164:

See above, pp. 140, 155.

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Transcriber's Notes

_Italic_ words in the original text have been marked in this version

with underscores.

In addition to a few minor typographical errors which have been silently

corrected, the following changes were made:

Missing footnote anchor added on page 158.

Missing page numbers added to the entry “Lithuania, songs of,” in the

index.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Beginnings of Poetry, by Francis Barton Gummere