And so it was the breaking of the nobles' front began With hewing and with sticking,--it was God's holy plan: Hei! if this He had not done, It would have cost the Federates many an honest one.
The poem proceeds now with chaffing and slaughtering the broken enemy, enjoining them to run home to their fine ladies with little credit or comfort, and shouting after them an inventory of the armor and banners which they leave behind. [7]
[Footnote 7: It is proper to state that an attack has lately been made in Germany upon the authenticity of the story of Winkelried, on the ground that it is mentioned in no contemporaneous document or chronicle which has yet come to light, and that a poem in fifteen verses composed before this of Halbsuter's does not mention it. Also it is shown that Halbsuter incorporated the previous poem into his own. It is furthermore denied that Halbsuter was a citizen of Lucerne. In short, there was no Winkelried! Perhaps we can afford to "rehabilitate" villains of every description, but need therefore the heroic be reduced to _déshabillé_? That we cannot so well afford. We can give up William Tell's apple as easily as we can the one in Genesis, but Winkelreid's "sheaf of Austrian spears" is an essential argument against original sin, being an altogether original act of virtue.]
Veit Weber, a Swiss of Freiburg, also wrote war-verses, but they are pitched on a lower key. He fought against Charles the Bold, and described the Battle of Murten, (Morat,) June 22, 1476. His facetiousness is of the grimmest kind. He exults without poetry. Two or three verses will be quite sufficient to designate his style and temper. Of the moment when the Burgundian line breaks, and the rout commences, he says,--
One hither fled, another there, With good intent to disappear, Some hid them in the bushes: I never saw so great a pinch,-- A crowd that had no thirst to quench Into the water pushes.
They waded in up to the chin, Still we our shot kept pouring in, As if for ducks a-fowling: In boats we went and struck them dead, The lake with all their blood was red,-- What begging and what howling!
Up in the trees did many hide, There hoping not to be espied; But like the crows we shot them: The rest on spears did we impale, Their feathers were of no avail, The wind would not transport them.