Frederic Manning

“ While the priest watched her silent agony.
Then once again raised up her head and spake:
“What canst thou know of love, O loveless priest?
How comfort me for all which I have lost?
Nay then, bend not nor blush; my bitterness
Has made my tongue a whip, I see, to score
The poor weak body which is consecrate,
Yet sometimes turns from heaven, desiring earth.”
She ended, and the priest spake unto her,
Turning on her his melancholy eyes:
“Brunhild, I blame thee not for bitterness, [34]
Nor that thy words have vexed my quiet soul
With passions that I thought asleep at last. ”

“ Swifter than birds may fly, from tongue to tongue
Came laden with the news of violence wrought
In Rouen, by command of Fredegonde
On Praetextatus, the poor kindly priest,
Who took the ring from Merow for my hand,
And blessed the union that had been so brief.
Then there awoke in me that sense which feels
Strange intuitions of approaching doom,
And Fear crept through my dreams on stealthy feet, [49]
Or crouched beside me, and the darkness seemed
Alive with evil; but I steeled my heart
To wait on time and all that time might bring
Of good or evil. ”

“ There is peace in God,
If we might find him; but the way is far
And difficult of travel for our feet, [5]
Leading through all the sounding ways of life
And silent ways of death, through whose domain
Each blind soul voyages in loneliness:
Nor ever has a man with undimmed eyes,
Save he whom ravens fed, and he whose voice
Sounded the note of triumph, even in Hell,
While the dead flocked unto him, and the gates
Were lifted up for gladness, travelled it.
Wide regions filled with spirits numberless——”
But Brunhild turned on him: “I see them now,
Though Death has not yet claimed me, in that flame ”

“ Till a priest’s hand was strong to strike me down.”
He bent before her, swayed by grief and shame; [3]
Then spoke: “Brunhild, they sent me not to thee;
But I came willingly, nor feared their wrath.
Arnulf and Pippin feast their warriors
In the high-raftered hall, and cheer the bards,
Who sing of how they smote thee: so I crept
Forth from the tumult. At the height of noon
To-morrow they will tie thee to a horse
That never has known bridle, to be dragged
Over the stony ways till thou art dead;
And I am come to shrive thee”: and he stayed
His tongue; but sorrow filled his frightened eyes. ”

“ Came Gregory, and spoke reproving me:
‘Brunhild, I know not whether temperate
The heart of woman ever is, but thine
Is all too quick, too passionate, untamed,
Too rash in the pursuit of its desire,
Too heedless of the motion of thy friends. ”

“ That we judge others and judge not ourselves
By a stern measure; and therefore we fail
Of perfect justice, which is charity.”
“Ye, who are sheltered from the world, O priest,”
Spake Brunhild, mocking him, “have time to pause
Ere your minds fix the measure of pure truth
And perfect justice; but our windy life
Loses no time on niceties: for me,
I gave such justice as I look for now;
I swung a hammer on mine enemies,
To forge the world anew unto my mind ”

“ Le roi Sigebert avait des mœurs plus douces que ses frères; il n’avait point contracté comme eux d’union avec des servantes; il rêvait de se marier avec une fille de roi. La cour des Wisigoths d’Espagne jetait à ce moment un vif éclat.... Sigebert envoya une ambassade auprès du roi Athanagilde et demanda la main de sa fille Brunehaut. Elle lui fut accordée.... Le manage fut célébré dans la ville de Metz.... Ce mariage valut à Sigebert un grand renom, et Chilpéric fut jaloux de son frère. Il avait épousé Andovère, dont il avait eu trois fils: Théodebert, Mérovée et Clovis ”

“ In a note at the end of the volume I have given some extracts from the Histoire de France, edited by M. Ernest Lavisse, which show the principal events of her life.
F. M.
[1]
THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD
Brunhild, with worn face framed in withered hands,
Sate in her wounded royalty; and seemed
Like an old eagle, taken in the toils,
And fallen from the wide extended sway
Of her dominion, whence the eye looks down
On mountains shrunk to nothing, and the sea
Fretting in vain against its boundaries. ”

“ By ruinous chance to nothing in an hour.”
“Brunhild, not chance it was, but punishment:
The retribution followed on thy pride;
And on thy lust, and hunger for revenge.”
But Brunhild turned on him: “Would God destroy
A nation newly wakened into life,
Because of my one sin ”

“ On l’assit en signe d’opprobre sur un chameau et on la livra aux outrages de l’armée. Enfin on l’attacha par les cheveux, un bras et un pied à la queue d’un cheval, que des coups de fouet entraînèrent en une course rapide, et bientôt son corps ne fut plus qu’ ‘une loque informe.’” Her age, according to Guizot, was eighty.
“Brunehaut en somme a été conduite toute sa vie par une idée, et non pas exclusivement, comme la plupart des barbares mérovingiens, par des caprices et des passions. Elle a voulu maintenir, avec l’absolutisme royal, les principes d’ordre et de bonne administration.” ”

“ Two souls in unison, as when two flames [35]
Meet, and are one, and have a common life.
Yea, my desire at last is one with God:
And children are his messengers on earth.”
Then Brunhild answered him: “In the frail light,
I see so many children whom I bore:
But there are none of Merow’s children there ”

“ Shouted to me: ‘Brunhild, awake and fly!
For Sigebert is slain by treachery.
Even as we raised him on the kingly shield,
Fredegonde’s pages smote on either side
With poisoned daggers: all our strength dissolves
Into small companies of plunderers
Laden with spoil, their horses homeward turned.’
“The harsh voice shuddered through the darkened room
Ere torches came, and in their ruddy light
I saw the angry eyes of Gondovald
Blazing before me with their baffled hate. [20]
I trembled by the bed, but mine eyes too
Mirrored the angry torches. ‘Take the boy,’
I said to him: ‘I should but hinder you ”

“ I preferred to show her at the moment of complete renunciation, a prisoner in her own castle of Orbe on the banks of the lake of Neuchâtel, after she had been betrayed by her own army, and had become the prey of her own rebellious nobles; and the poem is but a series of visions that come to her in the stress of her final degradation, while she is awaiting the brutal death which the victors reserved for her. ”

“ Chilpéric renonça à la possession des territoires qui formaient le douaire de Galswinthe et les livra à Sigebert. La guerre civile fut ainsi évitée; elle n’éclatera que six années plus tard, en 573.
“Sigebert finit par être victorieux. Il entre à Paris au mépris de la convention de 567 et y fait venir sa femme Brunehaut, ses filles et son jeune fils Childebert; puis il poursuit Chilpéric jusqu’à Tournai. Chilpéric est abandonné par les grands qui proclament Sigebert leur roi et l’élèvent sur le pavois dans la villa de Vitry. ”

“ With the innumerable stars, the moon, [22]
Who sometimes like a blown sail in the sky,
Voyages, or enchants with gentle beams
Woodlands, and winding rivers, and still lakes.
“And I have loved the seasons in their turn:
Spring with her fragile flowers, virginal,
Laughing beneath her coverlet of snow;
Green Summer with her flocks of singing-birds,
Cuckoos, and nightingales, and shrill-voiced lark,
And swallows clamorous in crowded nests ”

“ Mais après le mariage de Sigebert, il renvoya la servante, et demanda à Athanagilde la main de sa fille aînée, Galswinthe. Le roi de Wisigoths consentit.
“Un matin, on trouva Galswinthe étranglée dans son lit. Peu de jours après le roi épousa Frédégonde.... Sigebert, pour venger sa belle-sœur, prépara la guerre. Mais Gontran imposa sa médiation et l’on traita.... ”

“ Such events and processes, however, [iv] belong properly to dramatic art; narrative poetry, being of a smoother and easier texture allowing more scope to the subjective play of ideas: in short, it is more spiritual than real. The Queen of Austrasia and Burgundy, whom I have made the subject of my poem, is essentially a figure of tragedy. ”

“ Mais, pendant la cérémonie, deux esclaves réussissent à s’approcher du triomphateur et le frappent de deux coups de scramasax; dans la rainure des poignards Frédégonde avait fait couler du poison (575) .
“À la mort de son rival, Chilpéric retourna vers Paris.... Le duc Gondovald réussit à sauver le fils de Sigebert, un enfant de cinq ans: il le conduisit à Metz, où il le fit reconnaître roi le jour de Noël; mais [61] Brunehaut, et ses filles demeurèrent prisonnières; les filles furent détenues à Meaux, Brunehaut emmenée a Rouen.
“Sa beauté avait vivement frappée le fils de Chilpéric, Mérovée ”

“ BRUNHILD
A NARRATIVE POEM
BY FREDERIC MANNING
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1907
[ii]
PRINTED BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
[iii]
INTRODUCTION Brunhild, died A.D. 613
The intervention of women in the course of the world’s history has nearly always been attended by those events upon which poets delight to meditate: events of sinister and tragic significance, the chief value of which is to show in rude collision the ideals and the realities of life; the common humanity of the central figures in direct conflict with the inhuman march of circumstance ”