But before her death she conjures her parents to grant her and her lover a common grave; and this last wish is fulfilled. One urn encloses their mortal remains, and the Gods perform a miracle on the mulberry-tree which overshadows it; for its fruits, which their blood had sprinkled, hitherto white, are henceforth changed into red.

The coincidence in the further course of the story of Hero and Leander is not so evident. It is true that the older poems which treated on this fable are lost, and the echo of them, in the Heroides of Ovid, and the relation of the grammarian Musæus, is probably not without lacuna. We may refer, for our instruction, to Schiller's representation. An accurate comparison of the various modes of treating this subject may be found in Valentin Schmidt's excellent work, "Ballads and Romances of the German poets Bürger, Stollberg, and Schiller," 269; but the older German ballads on this story are omitted.

In the poem of the two Kings' children, already mentioned, it is not the storm by which Leander perishes, but the extinguishing of the torch which Hero had lighted destroys him.

"Ah! love, if thou canst swim,

So swim across to me,
And I will light three candles,
A guiding mark for thee.

"There sat a nun, false sister,
And made as she did sleep;
But she blew out the tapers-
The boy sank in the deep."

In Musæus and Schiller the two causes concur;

"And the torch, his goal and guide,

Vanished as the wild winds blew :

Terror filled the waters wide

Terror filled the dark shores, too."

The extinguishing of the torch, however, would have been superfluous, if the storm alone had had power to overcome the strength of the lover. This circumstance can assume significance only when we premise that Leander, according to the meaning of the story, would have conquered the storm, if the torch had not been extinguished. It may be that it is to be understood thus-that Leander withstood the power of the storm as long as the torch beamed forth to him the image of his beloved, and raised his courage; and that his strength gave way when the star of Love seemed to be extinguished with the torch. But the extinguishing of the fire which the beloved object tended might, however, have led Leander into the error that she had fallen a sacrifice to the frightful storm which was raging over the head of the lover. According to the last explanation, which has the analogy of the cognate stories in its favour, the idea already mentioned would develop itself here in all its parts; inasmuch as chance, which here appears in the shape of the storm, had no immediate power over the lovers, but must first take the form of an error concerning the beloved object. Even on the first supposition, the same idea comes into action, inasmuch as Leander is subdued, not by the power of the sea, which he had so often overcome, but by his passion; the storm, which in itself could not touch him, must seek an indirect way, through his feelings, by extinguishing the torch which inspired his courage. The suicide of Hero, which closes the history, runs exactly parallel with that of Thisbe. We have another German ballad on this story, wherein the torch also occupies a conspicuous position. The lady affixes the torch to a float of wood, and sends it over the water to her lover, who holds it up in his hand as he swims to her. The accidental disappearance of this excites the idea of his death, as in the story of Hero and Leander.

In a novel of Straparola, (vii., 2) which perhaps we shall give afterwards, it is the maiden who swims over the strait.

Her brothers, who disapprove of the acquaintance, and wish to punish her for it, suffer her to follow a false light, and to travel so long through the waves, that her strength fails her, and she sinks.

In the story of Tristan and Isolde, with which the reader is probably acquainted, the impediment is represented as a moral one; for Isolde is King Mark's wife, or at least passes for such; and Tristan's connexion with her, if not adultery, is at least treason against his friend. On the other hand, the duty of vengeance for blood enjoins upon Isolde to hate Tristan, because he has slain her uncle Morolt. Besides this, the lovers have to encounter a large number of external impediments, which, however, cannot be considered as symbols of moral hinderance. We may, however, discover such a symbol in the naked sword which Tristan has laid between himself and Isolde, when Mark finds them sleeping in the cavern in the forest. This placing of the sword, as is known, recurs in many stories, but every where signifies the duty,

2

1 Here the story of love touches upon that of friendship. The collision of these two passions is handled in three stories, originally identical, namely, those of Tristan, Sigurd, and Amicus and Amelius. In Tristan, the collision is decided in favour of love: in Amicus and Amelius, in favour of friendship. The story of Sigurd and Gunnar halts between the two. All three stories have in common the fight with the dragon, the goblet of love, and the laying down of the sword. The story leaves us in doubt whether Sigurd did not break his faith to Gunnar; the daughter, (Aslaug) who was born from his intimacy with Brunhilda, seems to show that he was not more in earnest with the placing of the sword than Tristram was. In the further course of the story, Gunnar conceives against Sigurd, for this same cause, a suspicion perhaps not wholly groundless; and in consequence of this, Sigurd is betrayed. Here it remains undecided whether he fell a victim to injured friendship, or wounded love. The further consideration of this view is reserved for a treatise on the "friendship-fable.”

2 The incident is familiar to every reader, occurring in the tale of "Aladdin," who lies down by the side of the princess with the sword betwixt them, to show that he deserved to lose his life if he attempted

or the law which separates those who lie side by side. So in the story of Sigurd and Gunnar, of Amicus and Amelius, &c., where it is the duty towards his friend and step-brother which separates Sigurd, &c.; in the shape of a naked sword from Brunhilda, &c. In the friendship-story, this law is regarded; for the sense of this story is, that love itself, otherwise the mightiest of all passions, cannot move the friend to falsehood against his friend. In the love-story, on the contrary, it is set aside, like every other obstacle, and serves only to blind the good-natured Mark, who now trusts fully in their innocence and continence. We are authorized in making this emblematic application of the sword to the separating influence of moral causes, as we have already applied the wall and the stream in the foregoing stories, since the uniting influence, love, appears emblematized in the love potion which Tristan drinks with Isolde. This symbolical application of the obstacle in the sword is supported by the circumstance that Tristan's end is produced by a wound, though, as the story now stands, this has no farther relation with the incident in the cavern; but at his death are found all the peculiarities, answering to the main idea, which we have already noticed in the preceding stories. For Tristan, in a combat, had been struck in the old wound, which Isolde has once healed, and Isolde only can heal again. He sends a messenger to her with a ring, as a token, bidding him hoist a white sail if he brings her back, and a black one, if she remains behind. Isolde follows the messenger; the white sail waves from the ship; but the other Isolde, named the whitehanded, brings to Tristan, through jealousy, the false report that a black sail is mounted. At this news, Tristan sinks back in despair, his heart breaks, and his beloved, who had been hastening to him, falls senseless upon his corpse.1 Both

her chastity. A burlesque allusion to the custom occurs in the old play of the "Jovial Crew."-ED.

See the metrical version of Sir Tristrem, edited by Sir W. Scott, p. 315, and the notes to that curious poem.—ED.

were laid together in one grave, and over Tristan's body was planted a vine, over Isolde's a rose-bush, and these grew one into the other, and could not again be separated. Here, also, love would have conquered all impediments, had not chance or malice had the power to create an error with regard to the beloved object; and hereby the lovers perished, not so much by means of the external world as by means of themselves. The coincidence of this with the preceding stories, already considered, is self-evident: the sail may be compared with the extinguished torch in Hero and Leander; and the whitehanded Isolde with the "lewd nun" who blows out the candles in the German ballad. The story of Tristan and Isolde has also this external resemblance with that of Romeo and Juliet, that Isolde, like Juliet, dies of grief on the body of her lover, while Thisbe and Hero put an end to their existence by suicide. But this is wholly accidental, for, in truth, distress destroys both Thisbe and Hero, as it had already slain the lovers entangled in the unhappy error, Romeo, Tristan, Pyramus, and (if our formerly mentioned theory as to the extinguished torch be tenable) Leander also, though some of them anticipated its effect by suicide.

How popular, also, and universally prevalent is the story which expresses the above thought,' is shown (among other proofs) by a tolerably widely-circulated "people's book," entitled "The remarkable history of the Imperial Austrian officer, Herr von Friesland, and of the Lady Theresa von Hartenstein, which happened at Prague in the year 1819— Berlin, Zürngibel," where the same result is found, without any visible external derivation.

1 This subject might be extended to an indefinite length, and illustrated by references to English stories; but not being quite as enthusiastic as the author, or so well able of bearing in mind the remote connexion between the tales and Shakespeare's drama, perhaps it will be better to pass them over with the remark that English readers will, in general, fail to see the utility of tracing out these very remote resemblances.-ED.