GERMANY AND THE LOW COUNTRIES         271
That is better thrift than poetry, and there is a good deal of it. But
there is also much bathos in English balladry, as Matthew Arnold
knew too well As against these we must place many ballads fairly
conducted in Dutch, and some fine beginnings like
The day it springs from eastward,
it lightens over all,
and possibly, though with a German hint, the spendthrift hyper-
bole:
If every mountain was of gold
and all the waters wine,
yet far more full of joy I'd be,
fair maiden, wert thou mine.
Dutch ballads sometimes represent traditions which have been
submerged in Germany as High German has overflowed the Low
German area. Those of Flanders contain original traditions, as in
Genoveva (Erk-Bohme 82) and Roland and Godelinde. They also
show French influence more clearly than in Germany. The French
'vivandiere' type of ballad appears to be well represented in The
Captain's Daughter (Hoffmann von Fallersleben 41). It has the
right amoral touch. The girl wants to join his company, but he will
not allow her. She disguises herself, and when he proceeds to make
love to her she is able to threaten him with pains and penalties at
home; and so she joins the troop:
40 maiden, pretty maiden,
an you with me will go,
then all the clothes you carry
with thread of silk 111 sew.'
"0 captain, great commander,
such thing can never be!
Bethink you of your wedded wife,
how angry she would be.'
'Now would indeed my wife at home
here at my feet lay dead,
and you and I, my pretty maid,
were plucking roses red P
And then he gave her wine to drink,
cool wine out of a glass,
'twas then he first began to think
his daughter that she was!