Page:Gummere (1909) The Oldest English Epic.djvu/194

 

F the Beowulf and the Waldere were epic poems composed by that more deliberate process in vogue in the scriptorium, there are lays like the Hildebrand and Finnsburg, material of the epics, which seem to demand the living voice, the banquet in hall, the excited band of warriors who listen and shout applause to the singer. A minstrel of this type had in memory a store of favorite lays, old and new. He had, too, the technique of his art, and could on occasion improvise upon new material, using of course the traditional and conventional phrases which made a good half of all his songs. He was a striking figure. In two happy rescues from the wreckage of our old poetry, he not only tells the story of his life, but indicates the range of the material at his command.

 

On the face of it, this distinctly charming lyric is a kind of “Ode to Himself” in Ben Jonson’s vein. The aging minstrel has ceased to please the public, particularly the king; his place as court poet, even his home and lands, are given to a successful rival. Well, he has sung in his day of many a man and woman of the heroic time who knew fortune’s frown at its blackest, and yet came 