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One of the most important, characteristic, and artistically charming categories of mediæval love lyrics is that comprising the Provençal serena and alba, with their counterparts in the langue d'oil, and the so-called Wachtlieder of the minnesingers; and this category of love poetry may be defined as the drama, in four acts, of illicit love.
Or, rather, let us say that this mere loose love of the albas and Wachtlieder and "Flamenca," is the substratum, nay, is the very flesh and blood, of the spiritual passion to which, in later days, we owe the book of Beatrice. The poets of the Middle Ages strove after the criminal possession of another man's wife.
The German Wachtlieder are even more explicit. "He must away at once and without delay," sings the watchman in a poem of Wolfram, the austere singer of Parzifal and the Grail Quest; "let him go, sweet lady; let him away from thy love so that he keep his honour and life.
"The lady is gracious and pleasant, and many look upon her for her beauty, and her heart Is all in loving loyally; alas, alas, the dawn! how soon it: comes! " "Oi deus, oi deus; de l'alba, tan tost ve!" The real alba is the same as the German Wachtlieder, the song of the squire or friend posted at the garden gate or outside the castle wall, warning the lovers to separate.
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