Danae, Cupid and the Graces, Paris and Helen, follow in her train. All
the current classical mythology is laid under cheap contribution. Yet
the central emotion, the young man's heart's desire, is so vividly
portrayed, that we seem to be overhearing the triumphant ebullition or
the melancholy love-lament of a real soul.




X.


The sentiment of love is so important in the songs of the Wandering
Students, that it may not be superfluous at this point to cull a few
emphatic phrases which illustrate the core of their emotion, and to
present these in the original Latin.

I may first observe to what a large extent the ideas of spring and of
female society were connected at that epoch. Winter was a dreary
period, during which a man bore his fate and suffered. He emerged from
it into sunshine, brightened by the intercourse with women, which was
then made possible. This is how the winter is described:[15]--

"In omni loco congruo
Sermonis oblectatio
Cum sexu femineo
Evanuit omni modo."

Of the true love-songs, only one refers expressly to the winter
season. That, however, is the lyric upon Flora, which contains a