Leans the boy upon a staff Intertwined with flowers, Scent of nectar from his hair Breathes around the bowers; Hand in hand before him kneel Three celestial Hours, Graces who Love's goblet fill From immortal showers. It would surely be superfluous to point out the fluent elegance of this poem, or to dwell farther upon the astonishing fact that anything so purely Renaissance in tone should have been produced in the twelfth century. Cupid, as was natural, settles the dispute of the two girls by deciding that scholars are more suitable for love than soldiers. This would be the place to introduce another long descriptive poem, if the nature of its theme rendered it fit for translation. It relates the visit of a student to what he calls the _Templum Veneris_; in other words, to the house of a courtesan. Her attendants are sirens; and the whole poem, dealing with a vulgar incident, is conducted in this mock-heroic strain.[31] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 31: _Carmina Burana_, p. 138.] XVII. We pass now to love-poems of a more purely personal kind. One of these, which is too long for translation and in some respects ill-suited to a modern taste, forms the proper transition from the descriptive to the lyrical section. It starts with phrases culled from hymns to the Virgin:-- "Si linguis angelicis Loquar et humanis." "Ave formosissima, Gemma pretiosa; Ave decus virginum, Virgo gloriosa!" These waifs and strays of religious diction are curiously blent with romantic and classical allusions. The girl is addressed in the same breath as-- "Blanziflor et Helena, Venus generosa." Toward the close of the poem, the lover, who at length has reached the object of his heart's desire, breaks into this paean of victorious passion:-- "What more? Around the maiden's neck My arms I flung with yearning; Upon her lips I gave and took A thousand kisses burning: Again and yet again I cried, With whispered vows and sighing, This, this alone, sure, sure it was For which my heart was dying! "Who is the man that does not know The sweets that followed after? My former pains, my sobs and woe, Were changed for love and laughter: The joys of Paradise were ours In overflowing measure; We tasted every shape of bliss And every form of pleasure." The next piece which I shall quote differs in some important respects from the general style adopted by the Goliardi in their love-poetry. It is written in rhyming or leonine hexameters, and is remarkable for its quaint play on names, conceived and executed in a truly medieval taste. FLOS FLORAE. No. 30.