Der von Kürenberg

Little is known of the first of the Minnesingers, called the Kürenberger (der von Kurenberc) apart from an approximate date (fl. mid-twelfth century) and a general region along the Danube somewhere near Melk and Linz. His work survives only in the fourteenth century Codex Manesse (the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift). Unlike later lyricists, he uses the same strophic form as the Nibelungenlied. He and Dietmar von Aist are often said to be independent of influence from the Occitanian Troubadours, though this judgement rests on a rigid notion of courtly love. To me Kürenberg seems to play with the courtly conventions that some later poets simply reproduced.

I have not attempted to reproduce Kürenberg’s strophes exactly. The caesurae have all but vanished in my effort to make something readable in English, but I am no looser than my author in attention to form. Slant rhymes and errant syllables are not uncommon in the MHG, though of course they would have been less obtrusive, even imperceptible in musical performance. I have used iambic tetrameters and pentameters for the most part, rhyming abcb.


“Wîp vil schœne . . .”

O lovely lady, come with me,
and highs and lows I’ll share with you
my whole life long I’ll love just you
your loving a lesser I won’t allow.


“Aller wîbe wünne . . .”

Most marvelous of ladies, still a maid,
I send in loving notes the praise you’re due.
You know I’d be there, but I am discreet.
I doubt your mind, while mine is fixed on you.


Though the first of these quatrains is pared down to a largely timeless declaration of love with only a hint of rivalry, the second includes some aspects of the common conventions of the love poetry of the times, the extravagant praise of the beloved, the communication by messages, and the nosy figures hostile to love, while maintaining the lover’s total devotion.


“Ich stuont mir nehtint spâte . . .”

“Last night alone I stood upon the tower.
I heard a knight whose voice rang out in song.
A song of Kurenberc’s rose from the crowd –
If he stays here he will be mine ere long!”

“So quick bring me my armor and my horse!
A lady forces me to ride away!
She wants me to submit to her and serve.
Without my love I swear she’ll have to stay.”


The critique of courtly manners is suggested first by the woman’s aggressive desire to dominate a man who has made no gesture in her direction. Seeking independence rather than love-service, he must depart, reversing the ordinary pattern of devotion to the female in conscious self-subordination .


“Jô stuont ich nehtint spâte . . .”

“Last night I stood beside your bed,
but didn’t wish to break your rest.”
“For that may you be cursed!” she said.
“Am I a boar to gore your breast?”


Compare the opening words to those of the previous song. This lyric provides one of the clearest examples of the transformation of convention. In the very dawn-time of vernacular love poetry, the courtly tradition rises not alone but accompanied by a range of variations that may validate, extend, or emphasize the original convention, but also may twist or distort it, most commonly by denial, reversal, inversion, or parody. While the knight is decorous and respectful, as proper at any rate as one can be while slipping up on someone’s bedside, the woman is freer. Using colloquial language and a dramatic image, she expresses what can only be disappointed lust. The effect is surely comic.


“Swenne ich stân aleine . . .”

I stand in nightgown all alone
and think of you, my noble knight.
I blush the shade of rose mid thorns
and muse upon my lonely plight.


The lovely simplicity of this lyric resembles the fragment traditionally attributed to Sappho Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα. One thinks also of the Mughal miniatures showing lone women experiencing love-longing.


“Ich zôch mir einen valken . . .”

I trained my falcon longer than a year.
When I had tamed him well to suit just me
and gilded all his plumage tastefully,
he rose right up and flew to some far tree.

Since then I’ve seen that lovely bird in flight
with silken bonds still on his feet above.
His feathers shone so grand, so red and gold!
May God bring love to those who long to love!


The falcon is an appropriately aristocratic image, but again here, the lover/bird, though trained for a solid year, resists her control and flies away. His absence may be only temporary. Line four, in which I have jettisoned some information to seize a rhyme by translating “in anderiu lant” as “some far tree,” suggests service in war, perhaps a crusade, after which he may return to her. The gilded feathers have much the same implication of the expression “a bird in a gilded cage." The final line reminds me of the hauntingly lovely chorus of the Pervigilium Veneris “Cras amet qui nunquam amavit; quique amavit cras amet” ("Let he who never has loved find love tomorrow, and let the lover love tomorrow").


“Wîp unde vederspil . . .”

All females and all falcons may be trained.
They come to one who knows how to entice.
A handsome knight did thus attract a dame.
My spirit soars with love to paradise.


In this quatrain the falcon has become the woman, a clear example of the early transformation of Minnesang convention.


“Der tunkele sterne . . .”

A faint star knows just how to hide.
Learn how my dear when I am near
to gaze upon another man.
No one must guess you are my dear.


Here the emphasis on “tougen minne” or hidden love allows Kürenberg to play with the widespread figure comparing the lady to a star. Reversing the usual implication that suggests her bright preeminence casting rivals into shadow, here she is advised to seek obscurity to conceal her relationship.