The 'Gay Goshawk' first appeared in print in the second volume of Scott's Minstrelsy, in 1802. Scott's copy was formed partly from Mrs. Brown's version, A, "and partly from a Manuscript of some antiquity penes Edit.'" This compounded copy is now given, B, with those portions which are contained in the Brown Manuscript printed in smaller type, in order that what is peculiar to the other manuscript may be distinguished. A second copy of A was made for William Tytler under the direction of the reciter in 1783, but has not been recovered. There were 28 stanzas, as in A, and the first stanza has been given by Anderson in Nichols's Illustrations, VII, 176. C was furnished Motherwell by Buchan from a manuscript sent him, and Buchan says that he himself took down from recitation the vilely dilated and debased G: Ballads of the North of Scotland, II, 340.
A ballad widely known in France has the central idea of the Gay Goshawk, a maid's feigning death to escape from a father to a lover whom she is not permitted to marry, but in the development of the story there is no likeness. A version of this ballad, 'Belle Isambourg,' was printed as early as 1607 in a collection with the title Airs de Cour, p. 40, and was republished by Rathery in the Moniteur of August 26, 1853, p. 946, after wards in Haupt's Franzb'sische Volkslieder, p. 92. The king wishes to give Fair Isambourg a husband, but her heart is fixed on a handsome knight, whom she loves more than all her kin together, though he is poor. The king shuts her up in a dark tower, thinking that this treatment will bring about a change, but it does not. Isambourg sees her lover riding towards or by the tower at full speed. She calls to him to stop, and says:
Malade et morte m'y feray, Porter en terre m'y lairray, Pourtant morte je ne seray.
Puis apres je vous prie amy, Qu'a ma chapelle h Sainct-Denis Ne m'y laissez pas enfouir.
Isambourg is now proclaimed to be dead, and is carried to burial by three princes and a knight. Her lover, hearing the knelling and chanting, puts himself in the way and bids the bearers stop. Since she has died for loving him too well, he wishes to say a De profundis. He rips open a little of the shroud, and she darts a loving smile at him. Everybody is astonished.
Other versions, derived from oral tradition, have a more popular stamp: (1.) Poésies populaires de la France, Manuscript, Ill, 54, 'La fille du roi et le Prince de Guise,' learned at Maubeuge, about 1760. (2.) Ill, 47, 'Le beau Déon,' Auvergne. (3.) Ill, 49, 'La princesse de la Grand' Tour,' Berry. (4.) Ill, 50 (the hero being Léon), Berry. (5.) Ill, 53, Caudebec. (6.) Ill, 56, Pamiers, Languedoc. (7.) Ill, 57, and II, 52, Organs. (8.) 'La fille d'un prince,' Buchon, Noëls et chants p. de la Franche-Comte, p. 82, No 16. (9.) 'La fille d'un prince,' Rondes et Chansons p. illustrées, Paris, 1876, p. 286. (10.) 'La princesse,' Guillon, Chansons p. de l'Ain, p. 87. (11.) ' La maîtresse captive,' Puymaigre, Chants p. messins, I, 87. (12.) Le Héricher, Littérature p. de Normandie, p. 153 f. (13.) 'De Dion et de la fille du roi,' Ampere, Instructions, p. 38, the first fourteen stanzas; Auvergne. (14.) G. de Nerval, La Bohème Galante, ed. 1866, p. 70, and Les Faux Saulniers, ed. 1868, p. 346, the story completed in Les Filles du Feu, ed. 1868, p. 132; or, in the collection lately made from his works, Chansons et Ballades p. du Valois, p. 16, VIII. The last two have a false termination, as already remarked under No 4, I, 42.
In these traditional versions, the father pays a visit to the princess after she has been confined seven years, and asks how she is. One side is eaten away by worms, her feet are rotting in the irons. She begs a few sous to give the jailer to loosen her fetters. Millions are at her disposal if she will give up her lover. Rather rot, is her reply. Rot, then, says her father. The lover comes by* and throws a few words of writing into the tower, directing her to counterfeit death. The rest is much the same. In several versions the king yields.
There are many other ballads in which a girl, for one reason or another, feigns death. In 'Les trois capitaines,' or 'La jolie fille de la Garde,' etc., Arbaud, I, 143, Decombe, Ch. p. d'Ille-et-Vilaine, p. 150, No 51, Champfleury, Ch. p. des Provinces, p. 95, Bujeaud, II, 174, 'La Boheme Galante,' ed. 1866, p. 71 f, Chansons du Valois, p. 19, IX, Puy maigre, Vieux Auteurs, II, 478, E. Legrand, Romania, X, 369, No 6, the object is to save her honor;[foot-note] so in Marcoaldi, p. 162, No 10, Ferraro, C. p. monferrini, p. 41, No 31. The well-disposed hostess of an inn administers a sleeping-draught, in Arbaud's ballad and in Decombe's. The object is to avoid becoming a king's mistress, in 'Kvindelist,' Grundtvig, IV, 394, No 235, 'Hertig Hillebrand och hans Syster,' Arwidsson, I, 380 No 61; in a Bohemian ballad, to avoid marrying a Turk, 'Oklamany Turek,' 'The Turk duped,' Celakovsky, III, 11 (translated in Bowring's Cheskian Anthology, p. 129) Erben, p. 485, etc., etc.; to move a lover who is on the point of deserting, Hoffmann, Niederländische Volkslieder, p. 61, No 15, Willems, No 60, Uhland, No 97 B.
In 'Willie's Lyke-Wake,' No 25, I, 247, a man feigns death in order to capture a coy maid, or a maid refused him by her parents.
Birds are not seldom employed as posts in ballads: see 'Sweet William,' Motherwell's Minstrelsy, p. 307, Mild, Romancerillo, No 258; Hartung, Romanceiro, I, 193 (dove). A falcon carries a letter, in Afzelius, III, 116, No 87, and Milá, No 258 K, and Marko Kraljevitch sends a letter by a falcon from his prison, Karadsbitch, II, 383. For a love-message of a general sort, not involving business, the nightingale is usually and rightly selected. On the other hand, a nightingale first orders a ring of a goldsmith, and afterwards delivers it to a lady, in Uhland, No 15.[foot-note] In this ballad the goshawk is endowed with the nightingale's voice. The substitution of a parrot in G, a bird that we all know can talk, testifies to the advances made by reason among the humblest in the later generations,[foot-note] A parrot, says Buchan, "is by far a more likely messenger to carry a love-letter or deliver a verbal message," II, 341. The parrot goes well with the heroine swooning on a sofa (stanza 33) and the step-dame sitting on the sofa's end (stanza 36).
Thieves drop three drops of wax on the breast of a servant-girl who is feigning sleep, and she shows no sign of feeling, in a Catalan ballad, Milá, Romancerillo, p. 104, No 114, vv 13-16, Observaciones, p. 147, No 43, Briz, I, 147.[foot-note]
Translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 32, after E, C, G. After D by Talvj, Versnch, u. s. w., p. 560; Schubart, p. 57; Doenniges, p. 19; Gerhard, p. 37; Lodve-Veimars, p. 264. By Knortz, Lieder Alt-Englands, No 2, after C; by Rosa Warrens, Sehottische Volkslieder, No 38, after C and E, sometimes following Aytonn, 1, 178.
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