Taylor, Edgar [Editor]; Austin, Sarah [Editor]: Lays of the minnesingers or German troubadours of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: Illustr. by specimens of the contemporary lyric poetry of Provence and other parts of Europe ; With histor. and crit. notes, and engravings from the ms. of the minnesingers in the king's library at Paris, and from other sources (London, 1825)

WALTER VOGELWEIDE. 201

Other singers were there : he complains that he was
misunderstood, or perhaps parodied (verkehrt), by
them ; and he very soon returned to Vienna. Leo-
pold was engaging in a crusade destined against the
Moors in Spain; but afterwards, in 1217, set out for
the Holy Land, and appeared at the siege of Dami-
etta. He returned home before the siege was finish-
ed ; and this return is the subject of congratulation
in one of the poet's songs, which, to say the truth
however, is somewhat susceptible, and perhaps de-
signedly so, of that double construction of which he
complained in Carinthia.

Ir sit wol wert das wir die glogen gegen iu luten,
Dringen und schowen, als ein wunder komen si, &c.

Worthy art thou, returning home, the bell

For thee should ring, and crowds come gathering round

To gaze, how as a gladdening miracle

Thou com'st, of sin or shame all blameless found.

Man's praise and woman's love shall thus abound;

And this thy glorious welcome shall dispel

The slanderous words which some have breathed

around,
That honour bade thee still at distance dwell.

The devastation, intestine disturbances, and cala-
mities that followed the death of Leopold are histori-
cal facts ; and they fix the period of a song of lamen-