Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/46

 "DALIMIL"

29

I have not specially noticed, were greatly deficient in the technique of versification; nor did they adhere with sufficient care to the Western metres and forms of song

which they endeavoured to adopt. These verses, therefore, lose little by translation. Bohemian writers have attributed the absence of polish and finish which we find in these early writings to the fact that, while in France, Provence, and Germany the different courts were the centres of knights' poetry, the Bohemian court at all periods had a distinctly German character, and favoured poetry in the national language but httle. The poems of a chivalrous character which I have noticed above have little distinctly national except occasional invectives against the Germans. That poetry was indeed, as noticed before, international in its very essence. With the decline of this manner of poetry (which in Bohemia took place about the middle of the fourteenth century) a different style of poetry arose, which dealt mainly with national subjects from a national point of It was attempted to acquaint the Bohemians with view. the earliest legends and traditions of their race; the satirical verses which now become numerous have a distinctly local flavour and deal principally with the faults and shortcomings of the Bohemian people. The most important writer of this period is the author of the so-called Dalimil, 2^ rhym.QA chronicle of the events of Bohemian history, which, beginning with the deluge, ends with the close of the reign of Henry of Carinthia (13 10). The book was mostly written during the reign of John of Luxemburg, Henry's successor. In no prince was the cosmopolitan element inherent in chivalry so thoroughly developed as in King John. The conduct of a prince who considered that Paris was the