Читать книгу History of English Literature from "Beowulf" to Swinburne - Andrew Lang, Robert Kirk - Страница 10

This complaint is also rueful, but it is manly. The poet calk to mind old heroes and heroines, such as Weland (remembered still as Wayland Smith, in Scott's "Kenilworth"), who suffered many misfortunes, but endured them bravely. The poem is in stanzas; each ending with the burden or refrain,

That evil he overcame, So may I this!

It is like the often repeated word of Odysseus in Homer:—

Endure my heart, Worse hast thou endured!

One sorrow of the poet is that his lord has taken from him the land which he held as a minstrel, and given it to another singer. Now he is in new trouble.

That I surmounted, So may I this!

Probably there were many other poems with refrains, or recurring lines at the end of each stanza; this is a very old poetic device; originally the refrains were sung in chorus by the listeners as they danced to the music of the minstrels.