Has not Herr Walther,[6] good-humouredly turning the laugh against
himself, advised all those who suffer from earache to stay away from the
Court of Thuringia? For my part I can never read his “Spruch”:—“Swer
in den ôren siech von ungesûhte sî,” without feeling a most realistic
discomfort at the din, made even in the poetry (and at 700 years’
distance!) by the alternating trains of “coming and parting guests,” for
whom Landgraf Hermann’s undiscriminating hospitality had equal “welcome
and speeding”; and without endorsing Herr Wolfram’s[7] regret that no
Kaye, the boorish Seneschal of King Arthur’s Court, held office in the
Wartburg, to keep the “good and bad” in their respective places.
How intolerable the ceaseless din could be, even to one who was born
in the midst of it, a little boy was dolorously feeling on a certain
summer’s evening of the year 1211. The noise seemed worse than usual
from the impression he had (which nobody took the slightest trouble,
alas! to remove), that he was hopelessly “out of it.” When, braving the
dragon which kept terrible guard over King Ortnit, murdered in his sleep
(a warning, in high relief over the tower gate, to watchmen too fond of
sleep), he had climbed the rough spiral staircase to the keep, he had
found no welcome from the warder, intent on scanning the horizon for
an eagerly expected messenger. Shouts, that sounded not all too sober,
from the House of the Muleteers, warned him off _their_ premises. As for
the kitchen—with the roaring of fires, and the creaking of spits, and
the cursing of cooks and scullions, and the wailing of imprisoned fowl,
awaiting execution under the huge table—that was Inferno! As the little
boy passed the great stone steps that led to the entrance of the Palas,
he put his hands in his ears; for the door of the Saal stood open, and
amidst the gambols of gleemen, and the notes of every musical instrument
known to the period—flageolet, guitar, organistrum, bagpipe, psaltery,
tabor, lute, sackbut, rebeck and gigue—Landgraf Hermann was reminding
guests (who needed small reminder) that, if ever there was an excuse for
emptying flagons, it was to-day, when the little Hungarian Princess, the
betrothed of his son and heir, Hermann, was due to arrive at her German
home.
In the Armourers’ House our little boy had been frankly snubbed; and
big brother, Hermann, whom he found in it (made much of as the hero of
the day), being measured, if you please, for a suit of armour (which he
supposed he would need _very_ soon now), had given him the brutal advice
to go back to Agnes, and Heinrich, and Conrad in the nursery—and not be
forcing his company on his elders.
And then, suddenly, things had changed. As he turned out of the
Armourers’ smithy, with Hermann’s mocking laugh in his ears, he heard his
own name called once or twice. His mother had sent one of her women in
search of him, and he was to come at once to the women’s apartments.
It certainly was a comfort to be wanted somewhere, and young Ludwig made
about two steps of the staircase which led to the long open gallery on
the side of the great courtyard. He lingered a little, though, on the
gallery, for the sense of beauty and comfort which one had to starve
somewhat in mediæval castles found satisfaction here. Sweet-scented
flowers grew in boxes in the spaces between the charming double columns,
which even to-day are the Wartburg’s chief architectural beauty. In
gilded cages beneath the open arches were the little song-birds his
mother loved. On the inside wall were painted tender domestic scenes from
the Bible. He had a dim but very pleasant consciousness, as he passed
them by, that the figures were smiling out on him the welcome of old
friends. And as he paused for a moment at the door of his mother’s room,
and looked back along the gallery, he noticed that the last rays of the
sun were filling it, and the birds were singing, and some of the flowers,
that had gone to sleep, had wakened up again.
But all this did not prepare him for what he found when he pushed open
the door, and stood on the threshold of the great vaulted chamber, where
his mother awaited him.
A feast of colour and light! Instead of the golden evening rays, here
was the soft radiance of hundreds of waxen tapers. The hinged wooden
shutters had been let down over the unglazed window spaces, and night was
summoned hither before her time. From the quartered arches of the painted
roof hung chandeliers of enamelled bronze, of the admirable workmanship
of the period, and each of them was laden with lights. In long rows
between the columns on which the roof rested stood tall candle-sticks
with great “king-candles” burning in them. On the hearth flamed a fire of
scented wood, and the light of candles and leaping fire made wonderful
play with the glowing colours of the painted ceilings, and the splendid
tapestry on the walls.
“Come hither, fair son.”
Young Ludwig came over the flower-strewn floor, between columns of
coloured marble and “king-candles,” his handsome, fair head held high.
In his page’s dress of crimson, he fitted in well with the rest of the
scene. So did his mother, standing in the midst of her maidens, stately
and beautiful in her mantle, with its shimmering embroideries, its long
train, and breast fastening of regal pearls. She held out a little white
hand to him, and he kissed it, kneeling on one knee. Then, with a sudden
impulse, as if the mother claimed her rights as well as the princess, she
stooped down to him, moved aside her wimple, and laid his firm young
cheek against her own. She left her hand in his, while he rose from his
knees, and led him with it to the top of the chamber.
“Look, fair son, and tell me what you see.”
For a moment Ludwig was so astonished at what he saw that he could not
speak. Then he turned to his mother with a question: “Who worked the
tapestry? And how do _I_ come to be standing in the Landgraf’s robes,
high on the Wartburg, with the valley and the town of Eisenach far
beneath me, and a great star hanging low from the sky above my head?”
His mother answered one part of his question: “The ‘Wise Nun’ in thy
Father’s Convent of Eisenach has wrought it,” she said, and then stopped
suddenly, and led him to the lateral wall.
“This, too, hath the wise nun wrought?” he asked in growing astonishment.
For the tapestry on this wall depicted a scene which had occurred in the
Wartburg four years previously, with a fidelity which seemed impossible
to anyone but an eye-witness.
It was the celebrated “War of the Poets” on the Wartburg—the
“Wartburgkrieg”—the memory of which is as fresh to-day as when young
Ludwig looked on the “Wise Nun’s” tapestry, and saw it pictured in
glowing colours and wealth of detail on the canvas.
There on the “Minstrels’ Gallery” were the seats of Duke Hermann and
Duchess Sophia. The Landgräfin had risen from hers, and with the folds of
her mantle was covering a terror-stricken suppliant. In the Minstrel’s
Hall, a step or two beneath the Gallery, were the other contestants.
Ludwig recognises each of the angry faces that are turned towards the
fugitive—Wolfram von Eschenbach, Walther von der Vogelweide, Heinrich
von Zweten, and Heinrich Schreiber. A man, with the instruments of the
executioner in his hand to label him for the spectator, is starting
forward, but the quick movement is arrested by someone he sees in the
opening door—a white-haired, venerable man, with a long beard.
“It is Klingsohr, the Wise Man from Hungary, who has come just in time to
save the life of Heinrich von Ofterdingen,” says Ludwig, while his mother
nodded confirmation. Young Ludwig passed on.
Here was the white-haired man again—in a garden this time before one of
the little tables which have been in German inn-gardens since first such
things were, and will be, until they are no more. He has risen from the
table and is scanning the skies—and, behold! very low in them is hanging
the star which shines about Ludwig’s own head in the piece of tapestry
opposite. From the other tables, men in the knightly garb of peace, have
risen likewise, neglecting their chess, and draughts, and dice, and
drinking flagons, to follow the direction of the old man’s pointing arm.
On the left wall another many-figured scene. A king and queen on their
thrones in the midst of a full and splendid court. Between them, the
wonderful star is poised; and at their feet are kneeling ambassadors,
whom Ludwig recognises as those sent from his father’s court, to ask the
hand of the little Hungarian Princess (whose birth had been announced to
him by Klingsohr) for his eldest son, Hermann.
“How wonderful it is,” said Ludwig, “but why did the ‘Wise Nun,’ so exact
in all else, make the mistake of clothing me in the Landgraf’s robes,
instead of Hermann?”
Nobody answered, for a peal from the Berchfrid,[8] that rang through
every corner of the huge enclosure on the Wartburg, made its way into
the women’s apartments, and told those who waited there that they need
wait no more. The serving women were busy with their lady’s mantle, and
presently the hum of a merry little song, and the ring of a martial (and
not quite steady) step was heard along the gallery, and Duke Hermann,
somewhat flushed from his mighty potations, but excellently-humoured,
came into the “kemenate.”
“Art ready to meet thy daughter-in-law, Frau Landgräfin?” he said,
jocularly. “If so, there is no time to be lost. What, Ludwig, still at
thy mother’s girdle? It fears me much that we shall never make a sturdy
drinker and fighter of thee, to keep thy father in countenance.”
Over Duchess Sophia’s fine face a shadow fell. She loved this passionate
Lord of hers, with all his faults and all his weaknesses. But it was
the dearest prayer of her soul to preserve her sons from following the
path he trod. As much as lay in her power, she strove to keep them
away from the motley company which held revel in the hall of the main
building. But Hermann had speedily emancipated himself. “The lust of
the eyes, the delight of the flesh, and the pride of life,” had put
their fascination on him as soon as he had got clear of the women’s
apartments. Ludwig was different. A certain asceticism, answering her
own, had early revealed itself in his character. A strength of purpose, a
force of self-restraint, a natural attitude of noble aloofness from all
that seemed unworthy, made her build high hopes on Ludwig. And as for
Hermann, who knew what blessings might be brought him by this child-bride
from Hungary, whose birth had been accompanied by such wonders, who had
already won the gladness of peace for her own land?
Joyfully, then, she went forth to meet her. Outside on the gallery
torches burned. The great courtyard was full of light and movement,
the stamping of horses, the shouting of orders, snatches of laughter
and song. She heard a whisper from Ludwig: “May I be your escort, Lady
Mother?” and answered with a pressure of the hand. A groom brought her
horse, and Ludwig lifted her from the mounting-stone at the bottom of
the staircase, on to the bench-like seat, which, for the ladies of the
thirteenth century, took the place of a saddle. Her husband and Hermann
were already mounted; Ludwig, as his mother’s chosen squire, was at her
horse’s head. So they rode, with a long train of knights, and ladies,
and squires, and pages, behind them, out of the great court into the
Vorburg, and then through the triple gates of the entrance tower, out
over the lowered drawbridge, and so to the narrow and dangerous path
which led to the plain below. So narrow was the path that they could but
ride in single file with a torch-bearer beside each rider to light the
way for them. In the depths below them, Eisenach lay, a great blazing
jewel in the dark valley. All sorts of summer-night scents came to them
from the sloping woods on either side. There was no darkness in the sky,
only a deep blue, cut by exquisite star-forms. In the west was a thin
curve of a very young moon. Landgraf Hermann began to hum a “Lied” of
Walther’s, the “Praise of Summer”—“Swie wol der heide ir manicvaltiu
varwe stât,” “How well the painted heath becomes its wealth of summer
bloom”—and presently a boy’s soprano took it up, and to wood, and heath,
and meadow were being revealed their own sweet loveliness, under the
tender light of a poet’s longing, wistful yet passionless, like that of
the thin young moon herself!
So those rode down from the Wartburg, who went forth from it to meet the
King’s Daughter.
The gates of Eisenach opened to their trumpeter, and through the
torch-lit streets they rode to the inn beside Saint George’s Gate, where
Michael Hellgreff had had Klingsohr to guest, what time he saw the Star
hang low in the mystic East. On their way, they passed groups of burghers
and their dames, all in their Sunday best, sitting on benches under
the overhanging stories of their gabled, wooden houses, who left off
gossiping to cheer their Sovereigns and the handsome young bridegroom.
Under the linden on the green, country lads and lasses, in the fine
clothes which raised Neidhart’s bile, were dancing a merry “Springtanz,”
to the infinite delight of the Court Pages and the dainty scorn of the
Court Ladies. They shouted their “Heil” as the Ducal pair passed, but
never lost a step. The market-place was almost impassable, so dense were
the throngs that crowded round the roasting ox, and the fountain that
played wine.
There were two people in the ducal procession who were not sorry to leave
the uproar of the streets, and seek the quiet of Master Hellgreff’s
garden. These were the Landgräfin and her second son. As for the
Landgraf and Hermann, they and the Knights, and Squires, and Pages were
out in the street again directly, and the ladies showed so evident a
desire to follow them, and see all the gay doings, that the Landgräfin
summoned back the Squires and put her ladies in their charge, and sent
them forth.
But Ludwig and his mother had their own joy, sitting in the scented, dark
garden, into which the gay noises of the streets came, robbed of their
harshness, with the stars shining down on them, and the young moon over
the woods, while they waited for the trumpet to sound at the gate.
It came at last, and Duchess Sophia hastened to the door of the inn, to
be joined there by her Lord and Hermann, as had been agreed. As the Ducal
tableau arranged itself, there was a moment’s silence, as if a whole
people were holding its breath in expectation. It was broken by the noise
of wheels, and a carriage passed through the towered gate, and stopped
before the Hellgreff Inn. Two Knights, who rode on either side of it,
dismounted, amid the frantic cheers of the by-standers, and knelt to kiss
in turn the hand of the Landgraf and the Landgräfin. Then they turned to
the carriage, wherein a lady was standing up, with a little sleeping
girl in her arms. But the Landgräfin could wait no longer. Over the muddy
street she went, in defiance of all etiquette, and took the little maid,
warm and lovely with sleep, from the hands of Frau Bertha, and carried
her to her Lord.
Then the joy of the people got beyond all bounds. And it was their shouts
of welcome that made the little four-year-old bride open her eyes at
last—on her German home.