ACCOUNT OF THE GERMAN ROMANCES ON THE STORY OF SIR TRISTREM. THE tale of Sir Tristrem has in no country obtained more popularity than in Germany.* There are no less than three metrical romances upon the subject extant at this day, of which the first and most celebrated is the composition of Gottfried von Strasburg. This shall be more particularly noticed after mentioning the others, which I have not had an opportunity of inspecting. From the following passage in Halfdani Einari filii Sciagraphia historia literariæ Islandicæ (Havniæ, 1777-8), it appears that Tristrem was translated into the Icelandic tongue as early as the thirteenth century: "Tristrami et Isodda (historia) per Robertum Monachum in linguam Islandicam translata jussu Haquiní Norvegia Regis." Among the Heidelberg MSS., preserved in the library of the Vatican, another Tristran has been discovered, which is said to coincide with the story as contained in the French folio romance, and is the work of an unknown poet, named Segehart von Babenberg, (i. e. Bamberg in Franconia). The date of the MS. is 1403; but the poem is said to be far more ancient. The third romance, containing 7699 lines, is the work of Eylhard von Hobergen, and is preserved among the numerous MSS. of the Dresden library. It is probably the same with a romance in the Munich library, which is introduced by the following annotation in another hand: "Of this history has first written Thomas of Britannie, and he afterwards lent his book to one named Dilhard von Oberet, who from that rewrote it in rhymes." This Oberet is most probably the identical Eylhart von Hobergen just mentioned. The romance was very soon turned into prose, not by a prosaic version from the ancient metrical copies, but by direct translation from the French folio. The first edition was printed at Augsburg, in the year 1498, in folio. It was afterwards reprinted, probably with many omissions, in a collection of prose romances printed at Frankfort in the year 1587, and entitled the Book of Love, a reprint of which has lately been commenced at Berlin, (1809, 8vo.*) * The 53d chapter of this prose romance contains the adventure narrated in the Second Fragment in Mr Douce's possession, but very considerably shortened. In the Cento Novelle Antiche, the greatest part of which collection is supposed to have been The metrical romance of Gottfried von Strasburg is preserved in six different manuscripts, one of which, in the Munich library, was transcribed in the thirteenth century. From another, in the Magliabecchian collection at Florence, the poem was printed in the second volume of Myller's extensive collection of German poems of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, (Berlin, 1785, 4to.) The poet appears, from various circumstances, to have lived in the first half of the thirteenth century. In a digression respecting the troubadours of his age, he deplores the death of Heinrich von Veldeck, (who composed a very romantic poem on the basis of Virgil's Æneid, in the year 1180, according to his own account,*) and, among his contemporaries, he mentions Hartman von Ouwe, author of Ywaine, and other poems, which he composed towards the end of the twelfth century; and Walther von der Vogelweide, who wrote a great number of amorous lays between the years 1190 and 1230. Gottfried's poem, though very diffuse, has many passages of considerable merit. He did not live to finish his projected work, which was completed by a poet of the name of Vribert ; but the continuation is in every respect greatly inferior to the original. Both parts of the work comprise no less produced in the age of Dante, a novel occurs, in which the madness of Tristrem is related, which, however, is not assumed, but real. The story is evidently extracted from the French ro mances. In one of the chansons of this poet, Sir Tristrem and Ysolt are mentioned, which is one of the earliest allusions to the ro mance. |