Page - 149 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

9 Water andUrbanstructures inCourtlyNovels 149 Thisbathing-sceneis theclimaxofErnst’ssuccumbingtothetemptationof theaesthetically perfect city. Besides theobvioushomoerotic allusions, thepleasure in the luxuriousbathhouse leads tohis failure to flee thecity in timebefore theGrippian’s return.Theentire secondcourse throughthecity refers to theAugustiniandiscourseofvanacuriositas,29 the lustof theeyes that contradictsspiritualself-knowledgeandtheknowledgeofGod.Theheavenly-seemingcity turns out tobeprofoundlyworldly, it is amasterworkofworldly technical skills designed forworldly pleasures, and there isnothingspiritualabout it at all: ‘It is acitydesigned, it seems, forphysi- cal pleasure, of which Ernst andWetzel partake. The un-spiritual nature of the city is further stressed by the emphasis on the fact it isman-made and displays the utmost inwhat appears tobehumanmechanical skill’.30With thebathing-sceneat the latest,Ernst is finally captivated byhisworldly desires, evokedby the extraordinary attractionof the city. It is certainly not the water of life that springs from Grippia’s center and the bath in no way refers to any kind of spiritual purification,31 Grippia’swater only serves thepurposeof physical enjoyment. The city of Grippia, in contrast to the Christian allusion, turns out to be an epitomenot of divine glory, but of profoundly earthly splendour misleading the protagonist and distracting himfromhis restitution.Theartfulwater supplyand the luxurybathhousearecentral elements in thedisplayofsplendourataheathenplace that isdiametricallyopposedtothesacredJerusa- lemasaplaceof salvation This strong semantic and also aesthetic opposition becomes even more apparent when Ernst, as the storyprogresses, finally reaches Jerusalemas the original goal of his journey and the earthly symbol for the eternal divine grace to be fulfilled in theHeavenly City. The city of Jerusalem isdescribedonly ina fewversesmentioningErnstmaking sacrifices at theChristian sanctuaries.Comparedto theoverwhelmingbeautyandsensuous temptation in thecityofGrip- pia, Jerusalemasaplaceof salvation is completely restricted to its spiritual significance,while itsmaterial, aesthetic, and spatial qualities arenotmentionedat all. But even though thevisual and sensuous enjoyments of thebeautiful city and its splendid waterworksare called intoquestion,Grippia’s attraction is intenselyunfoldedbefore it isnega- ted.Thepresentationof the initiallyemptycitywith its impressivearchitecture,preciousmateri- als and its water supply creates an almost utopian aesthetic sphere. The urban site offers the protagonist an intense aesthetic perception for which there is neither time nor space in any other part of the entirenovel. Waterworksasasignumof sovereignty– theBabylonian tower in ‘FloreundBlanscheflur’ Another extensive description of water technology in connectionwith urban architecture can be found in Konrad Fleck’s courtly novel ‘Flore und Blanscheflur’, written around 1220. The storyof ‘FloreundBlanscheflur’wasapopularnarrativewhichwaswidespreadintheEuropean literature of the 12th and 13thcenturies.32 29 This is, for example, pointedout byBaisch 2012, 77. 30 Bowden2012, 21. 31 On this pointM. Stock differs,who considers the bath as a symbolical purification that prepares the protago- nist’s restitutionand re-integration,which takeplace in a later episode (cf. Stock 2002, 203–205). 32 TheMiddleHighGerman ‘FloreundBlanscheflur’ isbasedonaFrenchnovel, even though theconcreteunder- lying version is unknown (cf. Putzo 2015, 2–11). KonradFleck expanded the French text substantially, fromabout 3,000 tomore than8,000verses,wherebya largepart of theseextensions is attributable to extensivedescriptions of several works of art and splendid buildings. These complex ekphrastic text passages have enjoyed increasing interest in recent research, because they play a significant role for the discussion of courtly love as unfolded in thenovel; see, for example,Dahm-Kruse 2016; Egidi 2005;Waltenberger 2003;Wandhoff 2006.