which Goethe and Chamisso rarely equaled;' and likewise the poet's demonstrable aptitude for rendering Italian snatches and south-German doggerel is little short of marvelous. In these fields no other Romanticist approached him." 3 For the reasons above given, then, it seems worth recording that I recently came upon the source of Müller's Altitalienisches Volkslied while reading D'Ancona's familiar collection of Italian popular songs. The translation, as so often in Müller, is extremely close to its original. Two verses are omitted (13, 14) as offering perhaps but a tiring repetition, a phrase or two is added (as amore=Lieb' und Leiden), but the sure and German reworking has all the lilt and color of the model. For the sake of convenient reference Müller's song is here given: O Tod, du mitleidloser, Was tat ich dir zu Leide? Sie, alle meine Freude! Sie setzte mir den Helm auf. den: 1 Der deutsche Philhellenismus (1896), passim. Lebwohl, mein holdes Mädchen! Nach Avignon ich reite, Da liegt er, den wir meinen; Wie ehren wir die Leiche? Wo soll'n wir ihn begraben? Im Dom zu Sankt-Mareien. Womit soll'n wir ihn decken? Mit Rosen und mit Veilchen. 2 Even the graceful Eichendorff, despite his Zerbrochenes Ringlein, had but ill success in his more concrete copying of popular lyric balladry; testimony of which are his Zigeunerin, Soldat 1 und 2, Glücksritter, Schreckenberger, Lied mit Thränen, Die Kleine. A detailed investigation in the popular sources and technique of Eichendorff undertaken by Mr. J. H. Heinzelman, of the University of Chicago, will elucidate this point. 3 Compare with Müller's adaptation Rückert's translation of the Venetian barcarola ("La biondina in gondoletta") which I find in Egeria, edd. Müller and Wolff (1829), p. 205; or Rückert's Roman ritornelles which he had from Müller (Rom, Römer und Römerinnen (1820), Vol. I, pp. 52 ff.; Egeria, pp. 1, 2). Compare Kopisch's renderings in Agrumi (1838), or Blessig's in Römische Ritornelle (1860), or even Heyse's in Italienisches Liederbuch (1860). However the comparative artistic worth of these different reproductions be adjudged, none of them vies with Müller's in fidelity to its original, in the unexampled ease of transference. 4 Müller's original had evidently E da Vignone, etc., in line 21. Now, who will say, after reading this translation from Italian folk-song, that Müller's appraisal of his original is not more justifiable than D'Ancona's? If there be really seams in the fabric of the Venetian ballata, they mark but the sewing-together of a harmonious whole, None who studies popular balladry that does not know with what an intuitive sympathy the humble artist often knits together new songs out of scarce-remembered remnants. And Wilhelm Müller was ever content to put full faith in the musicality of his ingenuous model. Like ourselves he had doubtless heard his canzone sung from some unseen gondola across the canal, before he met with it in print.' He knew it, that is, before it was stripped of its quavering tenor note of intensity, before it was prepared for division into three parts by D'Ancona. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PHILIP S. ALLEN 1 In comparing Müller's original with its translation and noting the greater metrical smoothness of the latter, it must be remembered that in the one the syllables have been fitted to the song, in the other the song to the syllables. In the ballata, that is, a line with deficiency of syllables means a sostenuto note in the air, whereas an excess of syllables presumably marks a staccato bar. Cf. Busk, Folksongs of Italy (1887), pp. 19 f. GALICIAN G Although Galicia has long been politically a part of Spain, its language is not, as Castilian writers often say, a dialect of Spanish. Its real affinities are readily made clear by a comparison of almost any of the earlier phonetic developments that differ in the two official tongues of the peninsula. 66 hecho el alma ay alma In its later history Galician has followed sometimes one language, sometimes the other. Thus x still retains, as in Portuguese and Catalan, the sound of English sh, Slavonic š (w), while Spanish has altered it to a velar fricative similar to Russian x in пасха Easter." On the other hand ch, reduced to a simple fricative in Portuguese (as in modern French), represents the same sound-group in Galician as in Spanish and English. The distinction of open and close stressed o seems almost entirely lost, probably through the influence of Spanish; but unstressed o has taken the sound of u, as it has in Portuguese. In one case Galician has undergone a peculiar change unknown in the sister-tongues: a surd fricative similar to Andalusian j, intermediate to Castilian j and English h, has developed out of nonpalatalized g, as in xogo "game," chaga “wound," seguer "follow," longo "long," algun "some," negro "black." This remarkable change, apparently contrary to the usual Romance laws of phonetics, reminds one of the High German shifting of sonant occlusives to surd fricatives, as in wissen corresponding to Slovenian videti, Italian vedere; but its development was presumably something quite different. In Spanish the surd fricatives css x were formerly distinguished from the sonants z s j, as they still are in Portuguese. The loss of these sonants Galician shared with Spanish, in which they became surd some centuries ago; and this change was probably connected with that of Galician g into its present h-like sound. In the peninsular tongues there has always been a tendency to weaken the originally occlusive sounds of b d g to fricatives; and supposing this tendency to have been especially strong in the case of early Galician g, it is perfectly natural that this sonant fricative should have become surd when the others did. Against this proposed solution of the question, the objection might be made that of the three consonants b d g, the one that has the least tendency to become fricative, in modern Spanish and Portuguese, is g. But this objection is by no means fatal, for it is not uncommon to find in a language opposite tendencies during different periods of its history or in different portions of its soundsystem. French has gradually gotten rid of all its falling diphthongs, some being changed to rising ones (ie oi ui) and others contracted to simple vowels (ai ei au eu ou); but the modern language seems to be on the point of forming new ones with the help of vowelized palatal 7. In English the tongue is generally drawn back from the teeth; in French there is just the opposite tendency. Notwithstanding this, English keeps unaltered the two dentilingual fricatives written th (Icelandic and þ), while French lost these sounds long ago. The theory of an early Galician fricative g therefore seems an entirely safe assumption; and it is moreover apparently the only one that will account for the modern sound. YALE UNIVERSITY E. H. TUTTLE SOURCES AND ANALOGUES OF "THE FLOWER AND THE LEAF." PART II' CHAPTER III. THE GENERAL SETTING AND MACHINERY Besides the central allegory and its symbolic accessories, the general setting and machinery of F. L.' deserve consideration. Most of the elements of the setting, making up the whole framework of the poem, are conventional. Yet even those that are most conventional require some attention, because many of them have been cited as evidences of indebtedness of the author of F. L. to particular poems. THE ASTRONOMICAL REFERENCE The first point to be noted is the fixing of the time of the poem by reference to the sun's position in the zodiac: When that Phebus his chaire of gold so hy (1) Had whirled up the sterry sky aloft, And in the Bole was entred certainly. This passage calls to mind at once a similar reference near the beginning of the prologue to C. T., in which Chaucer may have been imitating either his Italian models or Boethius and earlier Latin writers. Whatever the source for Chaucer, the French poets do not seem to have cared for this device, as I do not find it in any French poem otherwise resembling F. L. Chaucer, however, used it a great deal, as the following passages show: In the Knight's Tale, on the May morning when Arcite is to "doon his observaunce," fyry Phebus ryseth up so brighte, That al the orient laugheth of the lighte.3 1 For valuable suggestions and assistance, in ways too numerous to mention, I should acknowledge indebtedness to Professor W. E. Mead, of Wesleyan University; Professor W. H. Schofield, of Harvard University; and the following members of the faculties of the University of Chicago: Professors Karl Pietsch, T. A. Jenkins, Philip S. Allen, John M. Manly, F. I. Carpenter, A. H. Tolman, and Dr. Eleanor P. Hammond. My obligation to Professor Manly is particularly great, for he suggested the subject, pointed out much of the material, and assisted with comment and criticism from the beginning to the end of my investigation. 2 For a list of abbreviations used, see Part I of this study, Modern Philology, Vol. IV, p. 122, n. 2. 3 C. T., A, 11. 1493, 1494. |