'Tis the best gift I can impart;
But whiter, rosier flow'rs I know,
Upon the distant plain they're springing,
Where beauteously their heads they rear,
And birds their sweetest songs are singing:
Come! let us go and pluck them there.

"She took the beauteous wreath I chose,
And like a child at praises glowing,
Her cheeks blush'd crimson as the rose
When by the snow-white lily growing;
But all from those bright eyes eclipse
Receiv'd; and then, my toil to pay,
Kind, precious words fell from her lips;
What more than this I shall not say."

Minnesong represented at first, and during its growth, purity in love,
and profound respect for noble womanhood. Goethe's word: "Wilt thou in
life know what is seemly, inquire it of noble women," is fully realized.
We like to dwell on this phase of our theme, for soon we shall have to
descend to the very depths of corruption and impurity.

If we had not the chronological records of history, it would be hard to
believe that a nation could be swept by a century of religious wars from
the ideals set forth in minnesong to the degeneracy that characterized
the "Era of Desolation."

But in the early days of minnesong, modesty, chastity, and measure or
moderation (_diu maze_) are concomitants of the ideal of womanhood. Love
is then the extinction of self. Walter von der Vogelweide says: "True
minne never entered false hearts!"

Even Gottfried von Strassburg, the poet of passion and sensual love, in
this respect the very counterpart of Walter von der Vogelweide, sings:

"Of all the things of this our World,
On which the golden sunlight shines,
Not one is blessed as a wife
That vows her life and body sweet
And manners also to measure refined."

Measure, like the Greek _kalokagathia_ of a gentleman, implies the
harmony and the development of all the inner and outer virtues and
charms. The sacredness of the relations between the sexes is originally
almost of a religious nature. The lady of the knight's heart and the
Holy Virgin are strangely blended.

There are among the lyrics of the Minnesingers many which are devoted
entirely to religious topics, especially the glory of the Virgin, a
specimen of which may here be given:

"Maria! Virgin! mother! comforter
Of sinners; queen of saints in heav'n that are!
Thy be