Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/204

192 poem to his son Astralabius, and by John of Salisbury in his Entheticus. The hexameter also was a favourite measure, used, for instance, by Alanus of Lille in the Anticlaudianus, perhaps the noblest of mediaeval narrative or allegorical poems in Latin. Another excellent composition in hexameter was the Alexandreis of Walter, born, like Alanus, apparently at Lille, but commonly called of Chatillon. As poets and as classical scholars, these two men were worthy contemporaries. Walter's poem follows, or rather enlarges upon the Life of Alexander by Quintus Curtius. He is said to have written it on the challenge of Matthew of Vendome, him of the Ars versificatoria. The Ligurinus of a certain Cistercian Gunther is still another good example of a long narrative poem in hexameters. It sets forth the career of Frederick Barbarossa, and was written shortly after the opening of the thirteenth century. Its author, like Walter and Alanus, shows himself widely read in the Classics.

The sapphic was a third not infrequently attempted metre, of which the De planctu naturae of Alanus contains examples. This work was composed in the form of the De consolatione philosophiae of Boëthius, where lyrics alternate with prose. The general topic was Nature's complaint over man's disobedience to her laws. The author apostrophizes her in the following sapphics: O Dei proles, genitrixque rerum, Vinculum mundi, stabilisque nexus, Gemma terrenis, speculum caducis, Lucifer orbis. Pax, amor, virtus, regimen, potestas, Ordo, lex, finis, via, dux, origo, Vita, lux, splendor, species, figura Regula mundi.