3. III.
This was a bliss too great for slumber. It was a bliss too
precious to lose at waking. Rudel necessarily awakened with
the excess of rapture. He started to his feet with a new impulse.
The birds sang, but vainly, from his trees. The flowers
in vain stretched forth to his hand. He heeded not the endearments
of his greyhound, who staarted up at the same moment
with his master, and whined, and lifted his paws to receive the
accustomed caresses. He saw these things no longer. The old
temptations and pleasures were discarded or forgotten. A new
soul seemed to inform his spirit. A new hope was embodied in
his heart. He had received in that dream an inspiration. What
was tenderness simply in his heart before, was now passion. His
dream was reality. He no longer sighed — he felt. He lived,
at last; for, until one loves, he can not be said to live. The
life of humanity is love. The new passion prompted new energies.
Geoffrey Rudel was still at Blaye, but he might soon be
at Tripoli. He made his preparations for Tripoli accordingly.
Once more his good steed was put in exercise. His shield was
taken from the wall. His lance was cleansed of its rust, and
glittered gayly in the sunbeams, as if rejoicing in its resumed
employments. The proud spirit of knighthood was once more
rekindled in the bosom of our hero. He was again a living man,
with all the tenderness which inspires bravery to seek adventure.
It was easy now to feel all the enthusiasm at which it
was his wont to smile; and he could now look with regret and
mortification at those days of apathy which kept him in repose
when St. Bernard went through the land, preaching his mission
of power. He could now understand the virtue of leaving home
and family, friends and fortune, to fight for the Holy Sepulchre.
The spirit of the crusade suddenly impregnated his soul. Solemnly
he took up the cross — literally, in the figure upon his
garments — and made his preparations for embarking for the
East. Never had a change so sudden been wrought in human
bosom. Nor did he conceal the true occasion of the miracle.
When did troubadour ever withhold the secret of his passion?
It was his pride to reveal. Geoffrey Rudel loved at last. He,
too, could be made to yield to the spells of beauty. His lyre
was not silent. He unfolded himself in the most exquisite improvvisations,
which we should but coldly render in our harsh
language of the North. He who had been all apathy before,
was now all excitement. His limbs trembled with the wild fever
in his veins. A deep spot of red grew suddenly apparent on
his faded cheek. A tone of nervous impatience now distinguished
the utterance which had hitherto been gentle and forbearing
always. His muse spoke more frequently, and with
a spasmodic energy, which had not been her usual characteristic.
We preserve another of his sonnets, feebly rendered into
our dialect, which he penned just before leaving Provence for
the East:—
“She I adore, whom, save in nightly dreams,
These eyes have ne'er beheld, yet am I sure
She is no other than the thing she seems,
A thing for love and worship evermore.
Oh! not your dark-eyed beauties of the East,
Jewish or Saracen — nor yet the fair,
Your bright-cheeked maids of Christendom, the best,
For saintly virtues and endowments rare —
May rank with her whom yet I do not see,
To whom I may not speak — who does not know
My homage, yet who nightly comes to me,
And bids my hopes revive, my passion glow.
With day she disappears, and then alone,
I know that she is distant: — I will fly;
Pierce the deep space between that foreign sky,
And bare to her the heart so much her own.
The seas will not betray me, when they know
Love is my guide and bids me death defy.”
His preparations were not long delayed. His soul was too
eager in its new passion to permit of any unnecessary waste of
time. His flame had become a frenzy — the leading idea of his
mind, which reason had ceased to resist, and which friends no
longer ventured to combat. His preparations completed, and
the bark ready, his pen records one of the usual vows of knight-errantry.
In the following sonnet, he professes that humility
which was commonly set forth quite too ostentatiously to be sincere
always; but which, in his case, the sequal of our story will
show to have been deeply seated in his soul. We shall not find
it necessary to call the attention particularly to the delicacy of
the sentiments contained in these selections — a delicacy, we
may add, which speaks more certainly for the particular instance
before us, than it ordinarily did, at that period, for the general
character of chivalry:—
“'Tis sworn that I depart — and clad in wool
With pilgrim staff before her eyes I go —
Glad, if with pity for my love and wo,
She suffers me within her palace rule.
But this were too much joy. Enough to be
Near the blest city which she keeps, though there,
The triumph of the Saracen I see,
And fall a captive to his bow and spear.
Heaven grant me the sweet blessing in the prayer! —
Transport me thither — let me, in her sight,
The rapture, born of her sweet presence, share,
And live so long within her happy light,
The love that fills my soul, to pour into her ear.”
The sentiment that touched the soul of Geoffrey Rudel, was
certainly no common one. It may have been a fanaticism, but
it was such a fanaticism as could only happen to a poet. In inferior
degree, however, the frenzy was not an unusual one. It
belonged to the age and to his profession, if the performances of
the troubadour, at any time, could properly deserve this title!
Common to his order, it was heightened as well as refined by
the peculiar temper of his individual mind, and by that contemplative,
inner or spiritual life which he had lived so long.
Though spoken aloud, and fondly and frequently reiterated, it
was no momentary ebullition. The passion had fastened upon
his mind and his affections equally, and was fixed there by the
grateful image that informed his dreams. These, repeated
nightly, according to the tradition, gave him no time to cool.
Their visitation was periodical. Their exhortation was pressing.
They preyed upon his strength, and his physical powers
declined in due degree with the wondrous increase of his mental
energies. He set sail for Palestine with all the fervor of his
enthusiasm upon him, as warm and urgent as when it had seized
upon him first. The voyage was protracted, and the disease of
our pilgrim underwent increase from its annoyances. But, if his
frame suffered, the energies of his soul were unimpaired. His
muse was never in better wing or vigor. Still he sung, and
with all the new-born exultation of a lover. The one hope of
his heart, the one dream of his fancy, gave vitality to every utterance.
The image of the beautiful and noble Countess of
Tripoli was reflected from, and through, all his sonnets, as
through a mirror of magic. Of their usual burden, a single
specimen will suffice:—
“When my foot presses on those sacred shores —
To me thrice sacred, as they bear the sign,
That, lifted high, all Christendom adores —
And the proud beauty I have loved as mine —
My song shall speak my passion — she shall hear
How much I love — how powerful is the sway,
Her charms maintain o'er heart so far away,
That, until now, no other chains could wear.
Ah, sure, she will not let me sing in vain —
Such deep devotion, such abiding trust,
Love, so wholly born of her own beauty, must
Touch her sweet spirit with a pleasing pain!
Should she prove ruthless — no, it can not be
My god-sire gave such evil fate to me.”
The last allusion in this poem may not be so readily understood
in our times. It is still a subject of some discussion. It
is thought by some to have reference to the old tradition of gifts
bestowed by fairies upon persons in their infancy. Our own notion
is, that it is taken from one of the institutions of chivalry.
A knight was said to be born only when he had received the
honors of knighthood. At this ceremony he had a god-father or
sponsor. This person was usually chosen by the novice in consideration
of his high renown, his bravery and good fortune. A
certain portion of these good qualities were naturally supposed
capable of transmission. The sponsor answered for the good
qualities of the youthful squire, and bestowed on him his blessing
with his counsel. The allusion in the verses quoted is not
obscure, if we remember the relationship between the parties.
