The Evolution of Love Part 8

What's she whose coming rivets all men's eyes, Who makes the air so tremble with delight, And thrills so every heart that no man might Find tongue for words but vents his soul in sighs?

(_Transl. by_ SIR THEODORE MARTIN.)

The sentiment which pervades these verses has lifted us into the higher sphere which will henceforth be our main theme. The beloved was more and more extolled; in her presence the lover became more and more convinced of his insignificance; she was wors.h.i.+pped, deified. The overwhelming emotion, the longing for metaphysical values which dominated the whole epoch, had reached its highest characteristic, had reached perfection.

It proved the eternal quality of human emotion: the impossibility of finding satisfaction, the striving towards the infinite; it soared above its apparent object and sought its consummation in metaphysic. The love of woman and the mystical love of G.o.d were blended in a profounder devotion; love had become the sole giver of the eternal value and consolation, yearned for by mortal man. Christianity had taught man to look up; now his upward gaze lost its rigidity and beheld living beauty--metaphysical eroticism had been evolved--the canonisation and deification of woman. The ideal of the troubadours to love the adored mistress chastely and devoutly from a distance in the hope of receiving a word of greeting, no longer satisfied the lover; she must become a divine being, must be enthroned above human joy and sorrow, queen of the world. Traditional religion was transformed so that a place might be found in it for a woman.

The reason for the recognition of spiritual love from the moment of its inception as something supernatural and divine, is obvious. The heart of man was filled with an emotion hitherto unknown, an emotion which pointed direct to heaven. The soul, the core of profound Christian consciousness, had received a new, glad content, rousing a feeling of such intensity that it could only be compared to the religious ecstasy of the mystic; man divined that it was the mother of new and great things--was it not fitting to regard it as divine and proclaim it the supreme value? The troubadours had known it. Bernart of Ventadour had sung:

I stand in my lady's sight In deep devotion; Approach her with folded hands In sweet emotion; Dumbly adoring her, Humbly imploring her.

Peire Raimon of Toulouse:

I would approach thee on my knees, Lowly and meek, I would fare far o'er lands and seas Thy ruth to seek.

And come to thee--a slave to his lord-- I'd pay thee homage with eyes that mourn, Until thy mercy I'd implored, Heedless of laughter, heedless of scorn.

Raimon of Miraval had said, "I am no lover, I am a wors.h.i.+pper," and Cavalcanti:

My lady's virtue has my blindness riven, A secret sighing thrills my humbled heart: When favoured with a sight of her thou art, Thy soul will spread its wings and soar to heaven.

Peire Vidal:

G.o.d called the women close to Him, Because he saw all good in them.

And:

The G.o.d of righteousness endowed So well thy body and thy mind That His own radiancy grew blind.

And many a soul that has not bowed To Him for years in sin enmeshed, Is by thy grace and charm refreshed.

The beauty of the adored was divine. Bernart of Ventadour wrote:

Her glorious beauty sheds a brilliant ray On darkest night and dims the brightest day.

Guilhem of Cabestaing:

G.o.d has created her without a blemish Of His own beauty.

Gaucelm Faidit:

The beauty which is G.o.d Himself He poured into a single being.

And Montanhagol, antic.i.p.ating Dante:

Wherefore I tell you, and my words are true, From heaven came her beauty, rare and tender, Her loveliness was wrought in Paradise, Men's dazzled eyes can scarce support her splendour.

Folquet of Romans:

When I behold her beauty rare, I'm so confused and startled by her worth, I ween I am no longer on this earth.

A canzone which has been attributed to Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia and Dante, reads as follows:

My lady comes and ev'ry lip is silent; So perfect is her beauty's high estate That mortal spirit swoons and falls prostrate Before her glory. And she is so n.o.ble: If I uplift to her my inward eye, My soul is startled as if death were nigh.

Cavalcanti says:

Round you are flowers, is the tender green, The sun is not as bright as your dear face, All nature in her glorious summer-sheen Has not so fair and beautiful a place, It pales beside you. Earth has never seen A thing so full of loveliness and grace.

The perfection which the mere presence of the beloved was supposed to bestow on the lover, is here conceived more broadly and freely; not only the lover, but all men are touched and transfigured by her appearance.

The sentiment of the lover aspired to become objective truth. This was an important stage on the road from the spiritual to the deifying love, which I have called metaphysical eroticism. Another rung of the ladder of evolution had been climbed--the mistress had become queen of the world and G.o.ddess, a being enthroned by the side of G.o.d. I will again quote Guinicelli:

Ever as she walks she has a sober grace, Making bold men abashed and good men glad, If she delight thee not, thy heart must err, No man dare look on her, his thoughts being base; Nay, let me say even more than I have said, No man could think base thoughts who looked on her.

(D.G. ROSSETTI.)

The same poet in his canzone, _Al Cor Gentil_ says:

"She s.h.i.+nes on us as G.o.d s.h.i.+nes on His angels."

When madonna dies the angels receive her, rejoicing that she has joined them. The Provencal, Pons of Capduelh, antic.i.p.ated Dante:

And now we know that the celestial choir Sings songs of jubilee at her release From this dull earth; I heard and am at rest; Who praise His hosts, praise the Eternal Sire.

I know she is in Heaven with the blest, 'Midst flow'rs whose glory time can never dim Singing G.o.d's praise, and blest by seraphim.

Nought but the truth from my glad lips shall fall, In Heaven she is, enthroned above all.

Folquet of Romans wrote a letter to his beloved, in which he said amongst other things:

Kneeling in church before G.o.d's face, --A sinner to beseech His grace,-- And for my sins to make amends,-- 'Twas you to whom I raised my hands; Your loveliness alone was there, My soul knew only of one pray'r.

I fancied "Our Father" framed My trembling lips, when they exclaimed Exultant at His sacred shrine: Oh! Lady! All my soul is thine!

Lady, you have bewitched me with your beauty, That G.o.d I have forgotten and myself.

Cino da Pistoia wrote the following commendatory prayer:

Into thy hands, sweet lady of my soul, The spirit that is dying I commend; And which departs so sorrowful that Love Views it with pity, while dismissing it.

By you to His dominion it was bound, So firmly, that it since hath had no power To call on Him but thus: Oh, mighty Lord, Whate'er thou wilt of me, Thy will is mine.

(_Transl. by_ C. LYELL.)

Lancelot, one of the great mediaeval lovers, possessed a lock of Guinevere's hair, which he prized above all the relics of the saints.

When he parted from his mistress (whom he had loved not only spiritually) he fell on his knees before the door of her chamber and prayed as if "he were kneeling before the altar."

Spiritual love was obviously acquiring a religious tinge. The mistress took the place of G.o.d; her grace was the source of all joy and consolation; she led the souls of the dying to eternal life. G.o.d had yielded His position to her, she had stepped to His side, nay, above Him. With the curse of the Church still clinging to her, she had been remoulded by man's emotion into a perfect, a celestial being. The G.o.d of Christianity was in danger--would the new religion of cultured minds, the religion of woman (unwilling to tolerate any other G.o.d beside her) replace the religion of the ma.s.ses? Was a reformation imminent? Would the traditional religion be transformed into metaphysical eroticism, dethroning G.o.d, enthroning a G.o.ddess? It is impossible to say in what direction the spiritual history of Europe would have developed if Dante had been merely a metaphysical lover, and not also an orthodox theologian; if instead of penetrating to the vision of the divine secret, he had fainted before the face of Beatrice....

The religion of woman and the dominant religion came to terms. This compromise was possible because the Christian pantheon included a female deity who, although she had not hitherto played a prominent part, held an exceptional position: this was Mary, the Mother of the Redeemer. From A.D. 400 to A.D. 1200, her rank had been on a level with the rank of the antique G.o.ddesses; now the new emotion enveloped and revivified her. The rigid, soulless image with the golden circle round the head slowly melted into sweet womanhood. In Italy this sentiment inspired wonderful paintings of the Madonna, and was responsible for the development of portraiture in general. The hold of the overwhelming tradition was broken. Rejecting the universal conviction that the historical Mary had resembled the Mary of Byzantine art, the artist, under the dominion of his woman-wors.h.i.+p--which surpa.s.sed and re-valued all things--drew his inspiration from the fulness of life. I do not agree with Thode that we are indebted to the legend of St. Francis for the modern soulful and highly individualised art. Its source must have been the strongest feeling of the most cultured minds, and that was undoubtedly spiritual love. The Jesuit Beissel wrote with deep regret: "Every master almost formed his own conception of Mary, but in such a way that the hieratic severity of earlier times disappeared but slowly." And he continued: "It is true, the artists' models were the n.o.ble ladies of their period; not only on account of their kindly smiling faces, but also on account of the charming coquetry with which their hands drew their cloaks across the bosom." And the art-historian, Male, says: "It is a remarkable fact that in the thirteenth century the legend, or the story, of the Virgin Mary was depicted on the doors of all our (_i.e._, French) cathedrals."

The difference between the Catholic and the Protestant world-principles is strongly marked in this connection. Catholicism with its striving for absolute uniformity, acknowledging no individual differences, but eager to shape all life and all doctrines in harmony with one definite ideal, very consistently p.r.o.nounced one single, historical woman to be divine, and made her the object of universal wors.h.i.+p. This dogma had to be rigid, immutable, and almost meaningless. Again, the historic and pagan principle of Catholicism was maintained; a unique event in the history of the world was immortalised and systematised and all new religious conceptions were excluded. Catholicism invariably places all really important events in the past, even in a quite definite period of the past, a period una.s.sailable by historical criticism. But with the commencement of individual intellectual life the uniform, ecclesiastical image of the Madonna gradually gained life and individuality. Just as according to Protestant teaching every soul must establish its individual relations.h.i.+p with G.o.d (which is subject to change because individuality is not excluded as it is in Catholicism), so the imaginative emotionalist created his own Queen of Heaven. Frequently he was still under the impression--this was especially the case with monks--that he was wors.h.i.+pping the ecclesiastical deity, when he had long been praying to a metaphysical conception of his own. The great Italian art since the fourteenth century, as well as the Neo-Latin and German cults of the Virgin Mary were, though apparently still orthodox, in their innermost essence the outcome of a personal desire for love, and had therefore abandoned the teaching of the Church and become Protestant. The fact that the so-called Protestant Church looked askance at Mary, and that the rather coa.r.s.e-minded Luther said, in his annoyance: "Popery has made a G.o.ddess of Mary, and is therefore guilty of idolatry," does not contradict my statement. The true Queen of Heaven was a conception of the artist and lover, incomprehensible to those who were only thinkers and moralists.

Through the legitimation of a divine woman open enmity between the religion of woman and the religion of the Church was avoided. A woman had stepped between G.o.d and humanity as mediator, intercessor and redeemer. Every metaphysically-loving soul could conceive her as it pleased, could love her and pray to her without being a heretic and wors.h.i.+pper of the devil. Matfre had complained that men