nent of the life of
his time. He is not stimulated by the passions of a Hutten, of a Luther,
or of the latter's bitter foe, Thomas Murner. His soul overflows with
peace and equanimity even where he censures and chides. His censure is
always amiable and gentle. He even describes passions meekly. He
touchingly represents the driving from Paradise of Adam and Eve, who
become more closely attached to each other in misfortune; he delicately
depicts Eve's naive anxiety concerning God, whose visit she apparently
fears. He writes decorously of the priest and his fair housekeeper who
has not yet attained the canonic age of safety: of the old hag who acts
as a procuress and panderer, who is quarrelsome and hideous, and of whom
even the devil is afraid; the faithless, cunning, amorous wife who makes
sport of her deceived, foolish husband; the jealous and the credulous
husband, etc.

In formulating a theory of love, Hans Sachs, who, in his own long life,
had felt love's grief and unrest, decided to employ the examples which
he gathered from his own experience as well as from history and poetry,
especially the Italians Petrarca, Boccaccio, and others. In his carnival
plays, however, he avoids, from the very first, the coarseness and
obscenity of Rosenplut and Hans Folz; but though he no doubt considered
that he had excluded all indecency from his works, they still are, here
and there, grievous to our modern ears.

In his carnival play Vom Venusberg, the goddess speaks: "I am Venus,
protectress of love, many a realm was destroyed through me; I have great
power on earth over rich, poor, young, and old; whom I wound with the
arrow mine, he must forever my servant be. I now draw my bow; he who
will flee shall flee at once." Too late: the knight is struck, so are
all the others, maids and gentlewomen.

In 1518 Sachs wrote the _Complaint of the Exiled Lady Chastity_, a very
bold allegory: Virgin Chastity, daughter of Lady Honor, dwelt with many
virgins in the realm of Virginitas. In the neighborhood lived the
frivolous Queen Venus, who frequently invaded the former's kingdom and
tried to conquer it. In the repeated wars, Queen Venus succeeded in
capturing almost all the virgins, and took them over to the kingdom of
Lady Shame. Only Chastity herself, with her royal retinue, the
allegorized twelve womanly virtues, had been saved from capture; they
fled and wandered long from one country to the other without finding a
hospitable reception