PERFORMANCE 37

Beneath the castle of Beauclair,
they shortly raised large beams in air.
The damsels to the *carole} go,
at jousting squires their prowess show,
and belted knights regard the fair.

The girls of Galicia and Portugal observed this ritual in the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries. Their exquisite 'cossantes' show
how they accompanied their mothers on local pilgrimages, and
while the older women prayed, they danced on the glebe, taking
care to tighten their bodices so that the watching gentlemen could
admire their rounded charms. These 'cossantes' are purely lyrical.
In France, in the thirteenth century, men began to take part in the
women's dances.

These dances raise the curious and intricate question of woman's
contribution to poetry. In extreme decline ballads are to be found
on the lips of grandmothers and nurses, protected by the im-
memorial sameness of house and cradle. The memories of men
are more capricious; they may even show aversion from folk-songs.
While ballads flourish, the more lyrical and domestic poems are the
special concern of the women. This may be acknowledged, as in
the opposition between 'zenske' and 'junacke pesme' in Serbia; or
it may be implicit in the texts. Greek ballads to be danced are
often feminine in sentiment or theme; the Lithuanian 'dainos' are
open to both sexes, but with a feminine bias; the same bias charac-
terizes not only the French 'chanson populaire5, but also, to a great
extent, the whole of French poetry. A distinction may arise, as
in Serbia, between lyrical pieces (whether ballads or not) with
developed melodies and associations with the dance, in which love
is the favourite theme, and chanted narratives of warlike acts,
never danced; the former being feminine, the latter masculine.
But the antithesis is not complete, since there is a considerable
body of non-heroic verse which might be classified either way.
Further, it appears that the women's songs go back to a century
or two in which 'junacke pesme* were unknown.1 Similarly, in the
steps of the dance, where both sexes take part, the traditional round
is the affair of the women in particular, while the men execute the
leaps of Virtuosi'. In France the poetry of the troubadours is
under feminine patronage; doubtless for many reasons. One
which must not be overlooked is that the 'chorese rusticarum
1 D. Subotic, Yugoslav Popular Ballads, Cambridge, 1933, p. 142*