for personal
description. The divinity presiding over them is Venus. Jove and
Danae, Cupid and the Graces, Paris and Helen, follow in her train. All
the current classical mythology is laid under cheap contribution. Yet
the central emotion, the young man's heart's desire, is so vividly
portrayed, that we seem to be overhearing the triumphant ebullition or
the melancholy love-lament of a real soul.

X.

The sentiment of love is so important in the songs of the Wandering
Students, that it may not be superfluous at this point to cull a few
emphatic phrases which illustrate the core of their emotion, and to
present these in the original Latin.

I may first observe to what a large extent the ideas of spring and of
female society were connected at that epoch. Winter was a dreary
period, during which a man bore his fate and suffered. He emerged from
it into sunshine, brightened by the intercourse with women, which was
then made possible. This is how the winter is described:[15]--

"In omni loco congruo
Sermonis oblectatio
Cum sexu femineo
Evanuit omni modo."

Of the true love-songs, only one refers expressly to the winter
season. That, however, is the lyric upon Flora, which contains a
detailed study of plastic form in the bold spirit of the Goliardic
style.[16]

The particularity with which the personal charms of women are
described deserves attention. The portrait of Flora, to which I have
just alluded, might be cited as one of the best specimens. But the
slightest shades are discriminated, as in this touch:[17]--

"Labellulis
Castigate tumentibus."

One girl has long tawny tresses: _Caesaries subrubea_. Another is
praised for the masses of her dark hair: _Frons nimirum coronata,
supercilium nigrata_. Roses and lilies vie, of course, upon the cheeks
of all; and sometimes their sweetness surpasses the lily of the
valley. From time to time a touch of truer poetry occurs; as, for
instance[18]--

"O decora super ora
Belli Absalonis!"

Or take again the outburst of passion in this stanza, where both the
rhythm and the ponderous Latin words, together with the abrupt
transition from the third to the fourth line, express a fine
exaltation:[19]--

"Frons et gula, labra, mentum
Dant amoris alimentum;
Crines ejus adamavi,
Quoniam fuere flavi."

The same kind of enthusiasm is more elaborately worked out in the
following comparisons:[20]--

"Matutini sid