FRANOE AND GERMANY. In Southern France the pastoral love song goes back to the twelfth century. At the outset this kind of poetry be longed to the country folk. who sang it especially in Slay. hut as early as Marcabru the pastoral is already an artistic form and becomes stereo typed. knigbt. happening to come where a shepherdess is. makes love to her. but lie is usual ly dismissed. This is the theme of all. No pas torals of genuinely popular design have sur vived. The pastoral soon appeared in Northern France. From the beginning of the thirteenth century the French pa.storele strongly influenced that of Provence. The shepherd 'Boffin or Robert was adopted in the South. and :Marion. too. The old theme blooms charmingly in the den de Robin rt de Marion (c. 12S31 by Adam de In Halle. Though the song fable of .1 ficaRkia r t (e.1225) contains delightful rustic scenes. it is hardly a true pastoral. During the sixteenth century the pastoral disguise was sometimes employed by the poets. Chnment
Marot (d. i544) addressed an eclogue to the King. in which he described the course of his life under the symbol of the four seasons. The pastoral ideal, enforced by translations of the Italian Arcadia, the Spanish Diana, and the Greek Daphnis UM! ChlUI , culminated in the Astrt'e 0610-25) of Honor, an prose romance. Here the bucolic life reached its extreme idealization, the appear in gilded buskins, adorned with bracelet-, and head. covered with garland, of From th .18frie the pastoral made way into 1.erniam. where it flourished for 1119I'e than a century. the German pastorals may he cited the //-;eynni of Opitz t 1622), the Daphnis (1754) and the /4.0/ca (1756) of I fes-ner. the Lai-, Voss, and (10ethe•s Herniann awl Duro thr ( in which the iu131 returned to the trait • fulness and simplicity of Theuferitus.