NUNC COGNOSCO EX PARTE
THOMAS J. BATA LIBRARY TRENT UNIVERSITY
MEDIEVAL STUDIES
IN MEMORY OF
GERTRUDE SCHOEPPERLE LOOMIS
NUNC COCNOSCO EX PARTE
TRENT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
PRESENTED BY
Rev. Patrick J. Byrne
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation
https://archive.org/details/medievalstudiesi0000unseJ5n0
MEDIEVAL STUDIES
IN MEMORY OF
GERTRUDE SCHOEPPERLE LOOMIS
PARIS
LIBRAIRIE HONORE CHAMPION, EDITEUR
NEW YORK
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
1927
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PREFACE
The editor hopes that the conditions under which this book has been printed will in part excuse the long delays in its publication and the typographical defects it may contain. That it is not even tardier in its appearance is due to the unfailing assistance of Professor Blondheim , who has more than once acted as intermediary between editor and printer Mlle Colette Renie and Mlle M.-L. Arrivot de¬ serve the sincere gratitude of both editor and con¬ tributors for the painstaking care with which they have checked up the proofs and overseen the latter stages of printing.
The editor wishes to thank the contributors for their response to his request, and wishes to mention with equal gratitude Father Andrew O’ Kellelier , who would have contributed if he had been in a posi¬ tion to continue his studies, and Professor H. S. V. Jones , who was obliged to withdraw his paper on account of the repeated postponement of the publi¬ cation of these studies.
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CURRICULUM VITAE
GERTRUDE SCHOEPPERLE LOOMIS
Born: Oil City, Pennsylvania, July 1 5 , 1882. Father, Vin- zens Schoepperle, of Roetenhach, Germany. Mother, Elizabeth Klein, of Kittanning, Pennsylvania.
Education : Oil City High School.
Wellesley College, 1899-1903. Durant Scholar, T. Z. E., Scribblers’ Club. B. A.
Wellesley College, 1904-1905. M. A. Thesis, “ Frie¬ drich Nietzsche, Versuch einer Darstellung und Kri- tik seiner Lebenanschauung. ”
Radcliffe College, 1905-1907 ; June 1909. Edward Aus¬ tin Scholarship. Harvard Annex Scholarship. Paton Prize. Ph. D. Thesis, “ Studies on the Origin of the Tristan Romance.”
University of Munich. Winter semester, 1907-8. Otten- dorfer Memorial Fellowship. Women’s Educational Association Fellowship.
University of Paris, April 1908-April 1909 ; Decem¬ ber 1909-September 19 1 1 . Research on Origins ofTristan Romance under Professors Ferdinand Lot, Joseph Bedier, D’Arbois de Jubainville. Alice Free¬ man Palmer P’ellow, 1909-1910. Eleve titulaire de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes.
Dublin School of Irish Learning, summer 1909.
Munster Training College, summer 1909.
X
CURRICULUM VITAE
Professional Career : University of Illinois, Instructor in English, iQii-1912, 1913-1914. Associate in English, 1914- 1919.
New York University, Instructor in German, 1912-1913.
Vassar College, Assistant Professor of French, 1919- 1921.
Married to Roger Sherman Loomis, August 27, 1919.
Died at Poughkeepsie, N . Y., of peritonitis, December 1 1, 1921.
LIST OF PUBLICATIONS
ARTICLES
Chievrefoil, Romania, XXXVIII, 196-218.
The Love Potion in Tristan and Isolt, Romania, XXXIX, 277-296.
The Island Combat in Tristan, Radcliffe Monographs, XV, 27-50.
Review of A.C.L. Brown’s The Bleeding Lance, Romania, XL, 333-335.
Sur un vers de la Folie Tristan de Berne, Romania, XL, 86-88.
Review of Zenker’s Die Tristansage und das Persische Epos von Wis und Ramin, Romania, XL, 114-119.
Le buguel-noz en Irlande, Revue Celtique, XXXII, 53-58. (In collaboration with A. O’Kelleher).
Finn dans le pays des geants, Revue Celtique, XXXII, 184-193. (In collaboration with A. O’Kelleher).
The Reproach of Diarmaid, Revue Celtique, XXXIII, 41-57. (In collaboration with J. H. Lloyd and O. J. Bergin).
The Death of Diarmaid, Revue Celtique, XXXIII, 157-179. (In collaboration with J. H. Lloyd and O. J. Bergin).
Isolde Weisshand am Sterbebette Tristans, Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Philologie, XLIII, 453-455.
Review of R. Griffith’s Sir Perceval, Revue Critique, June 8, 1912.
CURRICULUM V1TAK
XI
Review of J. Loth’s Contribution a I'etude des romans de la Table Ronde, Romanic Review, III, 431-435.
Review of R. Peebles’ Legend of Longinus, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, XIII, 3 5o-3 5 5 .
Review of S. Jewett’s Folk Ballads of Southern Europe , Romanic Review , V, io5-no.
Haralds Sa'ga Hringsbana and the Tristan and Svan- hild Romances, Publications of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study, II, 264-276.
Review of F. Lot’s Etude sur le Lancelot en Prose, Modern Language Notes, XXXVI, 358-363.
Review of same, Journal of English and Germanic Phi¬ lology, XX, 262-266.
John Synge and his Old French Farce, North Ameri¬ can Review, CGXIV, 5o3-5i3.
The Old French Lai de Nabaret, Romanic Review, XII, 285-291.
Arthur in Avalon and the Banshee, Vassar Mediaeval Studies, i-25.
Pour le commentaire de Villon : note sur la Ballade de menus propos, Romania, XLIX, 113-117.
BOOKS
Tristan and Isolt, A Study of the Sources of the Romance, London and Frankfort a. M., 1913.
Betha Colum Cille, Urbana, Ill., 1916. In collaboration with A. O’Kelleher.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Curriculum Vitae Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis. ix
List of Publications by Gertrude Schoepperle x Loomis.
Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Gertrude Schoepperle Loomis.
A Note on Punjab Legend in Relation to Arthurian Romance 49 « Martha Beckwith.
How the Dagda Got His Magic Staff . 399
O. J. Bergin.
The Birth of Brandub and of Aedan . 38 1
R. I. Best.
Gleanings from the Bible of Alva . 317
D. S. Blondheim.
The Irish Element in King Arthur and the Grail . g5 —
Arthur C. L. Brown.
Mordred’s Incestuous Birth . 197
J. Douglas Bruce.
Bliocadran, the Father of Perceval . 1*47
E. Brugger.
XIV
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Villon et Charles d’Orleans . 355
Lucien Foulet.
The Alleged Matriarchy of the Piets . 4°7
J. Fraser.
Rime and Rhetoric in the Divine Comedy . 5i3
Charles Grandgent.
The Royal Mark of the Merovingians and Kindred Pheno¬ mena . 3oi
George L. Hamilton.
Malory’s Book of Balin . l7->
Laura Hibbard (Loomis).
The Helgi Lay and Irish Literature . 265
Eleanor Hull .
Mediaeval Account of Antichrist . 391
Douglas Hyde.
Is Gibbonssaga a Reflection of Partonopeus ? . 1 1 3
Henry Goddard Leach.
The Greek Studies of Poggio Bracciolini . 489
Louise Ropes Loomis.
The Date of the Arthurian Sculpture at Modena . 209
Roger Sherman Loomis.
De la valeur historique du De Excidio et Conquestu
Britannice de Gildas . 229
Ferdinand Lot.
Tristan et Lancelot . 21
Myrrha Lot-Borodine .
The Identity of Brons in Robert de Borron’s Metrical
Joseph . 1 35
William A. Nitze.
Hymnal from MS. Additional 34193, British Museum . 443
Frank Patterson.
The Children in the Tree . 285
Rose Jeffries Peebles.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
XV
Page
Sono il De Ortu Walwanii e V Historia Meriadoci opera di
un medesimo autore? . i
Pio Rajna.
Isoldes Gottesurteil . 87
Friedrich Ranke.
Gorrespondance de Karl Bartsch et Gaston Paris de i865
a 1 885 . 413
Mario Roques.
Sur une nouvelle etymologie de «Chantepleure » . . 829
Antoine Thomas.
Mellifont fiile de Clairvaux . 277
J. Vendryes.
The Love Potion in the Primitive Tristan Romance . 75
Eugene Vinaver.
Le Lai de I’Oiselet . 3qi
Raymond Weeks.
SONO IL DE ORTU WALWANII E L’HISTORIA MERIADOCI OPERA DI UN MEDESIMO AUTORE ?
PIO RAJNA
J. Douglas Bruce non immaginava certamente di rendere agli studi di storia letteraria un servizio di prim’ ordine col pubblicare due romanzi di materia brettone in veste latina che fin presso al termine del secolo XIX erano rimasti pocomen che negletti : il De ortu Walwanii di un codice Cottoniano del Museo Britannico, e 1’Historia Meriadoci 1 2, pervenutaci, oltre che in esso, in un manoscritto della Bodleiana di
1. De ortu Waluuanii : An Arthurian Romance now first edited from the Cottonian Ms. Faustina B\ VI., of the British Museum, in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. XIII, VI della « Nuova, Serie « (1898), pp. 365-456. — Vita Meriadoci : An Arthurian ecc., ib., vol., rispettivamente, XV e VIII (1900), pp. 326-414. Do in appendice una serie di correzioni ai due testi.
2. Sul Vita Meriadoci, scritto in fronte nel codice di Londra c al quale iP Bruce si attiene deve manifestamente prevalere il titolo che vuol considerarsi come parte integrante del Prologo : « Incipit prologus R. in historia Meriadoci, regis Kambrie. Memoratu dignam » ecc.
2
PIO RAJNA
Oxford, che il Douglas Bruce ignoro, e nel quale e con- tenuta altresi la ben piu breve, ma congenere, Narra- tio de Arthur o Rege Britanniae et Rege Gorlagon lycantropo'. II valore dei due testi fu accresciuto note- volmente dal Bruce medesimo coll’ arretrarne la com- posizione dai primordi del secolo quattordicesimo al secondo quarto del decimoterzo ; ma esso diventa ancora di gran lunga maggiore, se con Margaret Shove Morrissci persuadiamo che siano opera di Roberto di Torigny 1 2, il quale, morto nel 1 1 86, non puo di sicuro aver atteso a composizioni siffatte nell eta senile. Pro- blemaintricato e arduo la relazione cronologica coll Historia Re gum Britanniae di Goffredo di Monmouth. Dal metterci il piede mi astengo qui rigorosamente. Ne discorsi nella seconda di due conferenze sulle Iasi piu arcaiche e recondite del ciclo brettone, lette nel maggio del ip23 davanti a un pubblico parigino.
Divenuti a ogni modo importantissimi i due romanzi, sono divenute importanti le singole questmni che li concernono. Di una di esse intendo qui di occuparmi. Giova porre in sodo, se, come gia il Bruce ritenne indubitato 3 e la Shove Morriss riaffermo 4 , essi siano propriamente dovuti a un autore medesimo. Che 1’ « evidenza » di cui il Bruce parla, non appaiira tale
1. Questa fu edita, con un’amplissima dissertazione illustrativa, da George Lyman Kittredge : Arthur and Gorlagon) nel vol. VIII, p. 149-275, degli Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature della Universita Harvard, Boston, igo3, e in estratto. Nella prima pagina il Kittredge indica anche I’Historia Meria- doci, della quale del resto si sarrebbe potuto conoscere l’esistenza fine dal 1862, consultando il Catalogo a stampa dei codici bod- leiani, e precisamente il primo fascicolo della parte quinta.
2. The Authorship of the « De ortu Waluuanii » and the « Historia Meriadoci » : in Puhl. of the Mod. Lang. Assoc, of Amer., vol. XXIII, XVI, pp. 599-645.
3. Publ. ecc., XV (N. S. VIII), 338.
4. Publ. ecc., XXIII (N. S. XVI), 5gg.
DE ORTU WALWAN1I
3
agli occhi di tutti e Pargomentazione comparativa da cui essa dovrebbe resultare, esaminata attentamente, sembrera difettosa a parecchi. Moviamo da questo esame, e proseguiamo poi per conto nostro il confronto.
C’e realmente affinita fra le descrizioni della prepa- razione del fuoco greco nel De ortu (pp . 41 2-1 5), e la lessatura delle carni senza pentola nel Meriadocus p.35o). L’autore interrompe in ambedue i romanzi la narrazione, la di una battaglia navale, qui della vita nel bosco, per farei una descrizione didattica partico- lareggiata, che saremmo ben lontani dall’ aspettarci. Ma che le due descrizioni manifestino entrambe ten- denza al burlesco, credo ben contestabile. La lessa¬ tura per mezzo di due fosse comunicanti, nella mag- giore e superiore delle quali l’acqua sia riscaldata con pietre roventi, per poi esser fatta passare attraverso a uno stretto condotto nelP altra in cui stiano le carni dacuocere, pare a me un sistema ingegnoso, che real¬ mente possa essere stato in uso per parte di chi era co- stretto a starsene nolle selve. Rilevo un particolare. La fossa minore non e soltanto rivestita di frondi sotto ed intorno, ma e anche coperta d’erba. Essa viene cosi a rassomigliare non poco alle cassette isolanti, tanto largamente e utilmente usate durante la guerra mon¬ diale nelle cucine europee a risparmio di combustibile. Affinita vedo pertanto colla strada-ponte o col ponte- strada, costrutto da Gundebaldo mira arte et indu- stria per passare attraverso a una grande palude ; ma questa strada, o ponte che voglia dirsi, appartiene del pari al Meriadocus (p. 386), non gia al De ortu. Colla preparazione del fuoco greco nel De ortu, ci sarebbe dunque solo a patto che questa pure si ritenga esposta con serieta. Cio a me non pare da escludere, perlomeno in modo assoluto. Sulla composizione e produzione del fuoco greco molto si fantastico 1 ; e ognuno sa
1 . Del fuoco greco ha discorso compendiosamente in maniera
4
PIO RAJNA
come il medioevo abbia creduto a una infinita di cose, che a noi paiono assurde e ridicole. Ma tale idea stride col modo di yedere del Bruce, nell’introduzione al De ortu (p. 384) espressa colie parole « the outrageously burlesque receipt for the preparation of Greek fire », a cui tolgono ogni possibility di frantendimento quelle che le richiamano, e loro fanno riscontro nell altro proemio L
Ancor piu difettoso e il ragguaglio fra le condiziom per essere ammessi al servizio di Artu e a quello di re Gundebaldo. Il Bruce mostra di ritenere che tanto Artu quanto Gundebaldo sperimentino essi stessi il valore degli aspiranti. !Ora, che tale sia il sistema di Gundebaldo, dice a Meriadoc la figliuola dell’ impera- tore di Germania ; egli ebbe finora in costume ut nul¬ lum sibi militare cupientem consorcio sue admiserit milicie, antequam quarum esset virium ipsemet singu- lari congressione fuerit expertus (pp. 385-6). Ma noi vediamo poi che l’effetto di questi cozzi era stato co- stantemente di far sprofondare e sparire nella palude che circonda la sua dimora quanti avevano tentato la prova, dando cosl motivo di designare quel paese come « la terra donde nessuno ritorna » (p. 286). Quanto ad Artu, il combattimento ch’egli ci e detto aver l’abitudine di sostenere contro ogni prode che si presenti alia sua corte (p. 424), intende di essere una dimostrazione di valentia superiore, non gia una prova per l’ammissione al proprio servizio. La dove
da non poter essere piu autorevole Marc. Berthelot nella Grande Encyclopedic francese, XVII, 367-68. La composizione sua usc'i dalle tenebre del mistero nel secolo XIII. Il De ortu appar- tiene al periodo nel quale essa era tenuta gelosamente segreta.
1. P. 338. Scherzo atrocemente sarcastico e nel De ortu, d. 422, lin. 16, il non optabile stomacho antidotum, detto di un colpo che Gaivano, combattendo con Gormondo; fa penetrare usque ad imum pectus.
DE ORTU WALWANII
5
si parla di cio Artii dice semplicemente che Galvano, prima di essere accolto nella compagnia di tanti prodi, dovra mostrarsene degno (p. 428).
Convenienza reale c’e nella condizione delle due principesse, Tuna — nel De ortu — nipote dell’ Impe- ratore di Roma, 1’altra figliuola dell’ Imperatore di Germania, entrambe rapite, entrambe riverite dal rapi- tore e tenute nel piu alto grado, ed entrambe tuttavia desiderosissime di liberazione. Ma le circostanze diver- sificano non poco; e d’altronde le convenienze stesse non hanno valore se non a patto che l’autore sia inven- tore, e non abbia derivato da modelli questi elementi. Poi, nulla vieterebbe che gli autori fossero due, dei quali l’uno avesse conosciuto e messa a profitto l’opera dell’ altro.
Rimangono da considerare due argomenti stilistici ; e ancor essi, guardati da vicino, mi paiono di poca con- sistenza. Io non trovo che ci sia nei due testi un abuso di que congiuntivi, tale da costituire un carattere specifico ; e nulla da potersi dir personale vedo nella collocazione delle parole, sia pure riconoscendola alquanto ricercata in genere, e non gia solo nel caso particolare che il Bruce segnala, della inserzione di parole appartenenti alia proposizione principale « in ablative absolute clauses ». Come cotale inserzione possa da lui essere detta « constant », mal riesco a com- prendere.
Con ragioni fiacche l’editore dei due testi ha nondi- meno affermato cosa che anche per me risponde alia verita.
Un argomento esterno di grande valore e fornito dalla notizia che, indicata da C. F. Brown alia Shove Morriss, fu il punto di partenza di tutta la trat- tazione intorno alia « authorship » dei due romanzi, vale a dire da cio che John Bale, attingendo a una fonte smarrita — « Ex Nordovicensi scriptorum catalogo » — ,
6
PIO RAJNA
pose nel suo Index Britanniae Scriptorum riguardo alle opere di Roberto del Monte S. Michele, o di Tori- gny. « Inter cetera » Roberto scrisse « Gesta Walwani » e « Gesta Muradoci » ; e di entrambe le opere si riferisce un principio concorde col principio nostro.
Quanto sia attendibile la testimonianza, si e adope- rata a mostrare la Morriss. E c’e assai poco luogo a supporla vera solo a mezzo, in quanto Roberto abbia composto uno dei romanzi e sia stato creduto autore anche dell’ altro perche si trovassero trascritti di seguito, come avviene nel codice di Londra. Se cio fosse, i legami colla Historia Regum Britanniae di Goffredo di Monmouth, nota prestissimo a Roberto, vorrebbero che la preferenza fosse data al De ortu; e sta invece che il Meriadocus — non il De ortu — ha in fronte unainiziale R., che, molto ragionevolmente, checche ne pensasse Paul Meyer1, era stata sospettata iniziale del nome dell’ autore, e che e poi apparsa ri- spondente all’ attribu/.ione all’ Abate del Monte S. Mi¬ chele : Incipit prologus R. in historia Meriadoci, regis Kambrie.
Argomenti interni suffragatori possono realmente, come — rimanendo troppo alia superficie — voile fare il Bruce, essere ricavati dalla latinita. Lo stampo ne e certo il medesimo. In entrambi gli scritti e dignitosa, copiosamente cospersa di hori poetici, lessicalmente varia e ricca. Essa ha perfino talora un certo sapore di originalita, legitima, o avventata. Noto nel De ortu, pag. 394, lin. 6-7, ad se amandum extorquebat , « co- stringevaad amarlo»; 3 9 5 , 5 , ubi in virilem etatem pro- ruperit, «giunto che siaalla virilita »; 401, 1. ull.: Innu- merosa, per « innumerevole » ; 402, 3, periciam — se cost e da correggere lo svarione del ms. — non ignorabant, « non erano ignari » ; 403, 1 3 , mos est,
1 . Romania, XXXIV, 144 : « Cela veut dire Rubrica ».
DE ORTU WALWANII
7
« suole accadere » ; ib., 1 5 , incircumspecti, « non veduti», « invisibili » ; 404, 2-3, tua cognicione potiri , « iare la tua conoscenza » ; 414, 9, Iuventus, « un gio- vane 1 ; 421, 5, duelligeri , «i duellatori»; 429, 11, agmina.... inprovisa, « che non stanno in guardia ». — E nel Meriadocus, 341, 3 1 , te consentaneo, « col tuo assenso » ; 345, 16-17, cunctorum in hoc copulatur
assensus, « s’accordano in cio » ; 356, 25, crebri iactus volvebantnr lapidum, « si lanciavano pietre a ogni poco»; 367, ii e, 3go, 19, depeculiari , « spogliar del bestiame » ; 371, 21, alearum iacturis operam dabant , « giocavano a dadi » ; 374, 3o, ingravissime, « gravis- simamente»; 3 77, 22, cum lance dapifera, « con un vassoio carico di vivande ».
La ricchezza permette a ciascuno dei due romanzi, notevolmente vari d’ahronde di materia, di contenere un buon numero di vocaboli che non occorron nell’ al- tro, senza che se ne possan trarre conseguenze di nes- suna specie. Significative all’incontro convenienze non poche. Accade che il cavallo sia chiamato talora cor- nipes ( De or., 424,23,426,18, 430, 5; Mer., 35 1,18, 3 6 1 , 1 5) , piu spesso sonipes (De or., 401,19,424,23, 425,22, 426,13; Mer., 3 5 1 , 1 2 , 361,7, 378 quattro volte, 387 quattro volte, 388 due volte, 396 due volte). — Queste sono raffinatezze ; e altrettanto si dica di apices al plurale, per epistola , « lettere», « lettera » (De or., 423,17, e 427,13 ; Mer., 391,6) ; e di apex, in sin- golare, usato, secondo me, nel senso non punto comune di « corona » (De or., 406, 7 ; Mer., 341, 3i)2. — L’uso
1. Cfr. Chanson de Roland, v. 2916, « Ami Rolland, prozdoem, juvente bele ».
2. De oR.,fatatum erat, quod _ rex regali spoliaretur apice ;
Mer., Cuius [principatus] apicem si te consentaneo assequi non potuerit.... Abbastanza ovvio sarebbe apex per « berreto »; ma non so punto che nelle regioni nordiche trovasse riscontro ii berretto dei dogi veneziani, E si cfr. De or., 423, 1, diademate
s
PIO RAJNA
specifico aggiunge valore a clepsedra' , alterazione di cle¬ psydra, medievalmente ben noto per designare, non altrimenti che l’orologio ad acqua, lo zipolo della botte \ e dai nostri due testi, per anaiogia, ado- perato a indicare, nel Meriadocus, 35o, 22, il tappo che nelle fosse per la cottura delle carni chiude il con- dotto dalla superiore all’ inferiore, e nel De ortii, 415, 10 e 24, 416,12, l’otturatore del piccolo foro dei recipienti in cui si contiene il fuoco greco 3. Da rilevare che la voce occorre in due episodi che abbiamo visto analoghi. — A cjucsts p&rolci grcca mctto acccinto un altro grecismo, ben familiare al latino, ma al quale tuttavia conferisce un certo valore l’abbondanza degli esempi 1 le stanze sono dette volontieri thalami (De or., 403,6,414,11, 426,27; Mer., 343,3o, 349,29,353,10, 376,19 e 28, |377,5 e 33, 384,3o) 4. - Comuni
insigniebatur ; Mer., 344, 10-11 se diademate insigmvit ; luoghi non privi di qualche signiticato neppur come riscontro. — Al senso pin remoto e realmente significativo apex sara venuto attraverso all’ applicazione alle coperture di capo speciali come distintivo delle dignita ecclesiastiche, perpetuatesi in tale ufficio
fino a noi. — Invito una volta per tutte a ricorrere al Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis del Du Cange, mentre per parte mia soglio interrogare altresi le opere medeviali di Uguiccione Pisano e di Giovanni da Genova.
1. Clepsadra, nel De or., 416, 12, se non e errore di stampa, sara certamente dovuto a un trascrittore.
2. In Uguiccione, che Giovanni da Genova trascrive, la definizione e Docillus , qui obdit foramen dolii, colla motivazione quia per ilium quis furatur liquor em. — Il docillus e stato straziato in varie maniere.
3. La prima volta l’autore del De ortu parla con un certo quale ritegno : Fit quoque et virga aenea — non aerea, come porta la stampa — cuius curvata summitas ad modum clepsedre coaptatur.
4. Altri due vocaboli greci, che i lessici del medioevo conoscono ottimamente, riferisco dal De ortu: 422, 1 3 , rumphea, che piu correttamente sarebbe romphea, per spada (sette righi prima gladium ); e 4 1 6, 29, myopacontas — che forse dobbiam conten- tarci correggere in myopar&ntas, invece che nell’ esatto myopa-
DE ORTU WALWANII
9
alle due opere, parole ed espressioni, da cui noi siamo offesi, e che non altrimenti che le poetiche, ebbero a parere eleganze. Tale e pretaxare per « dir prima » : De or., 396,9, pretaxatum equestre certa- men ; 402, 1. ult., ut pretax avimus] Mer., 362,21, que pretaxavimus 366,2-4, ut pretax avimus ; 387,20, una cum pretaxato equo. — Alla medesima specie assegno perhendinare (sempre coll’ indebita h ), « indugiare », « trattenersi» : Deor., 409,25, 423,28 ; Mer., 357,25 e 29-30, 372-8, 384,32-33, 395, 1. ult. — Osservabili anche astipulare, « affermare (De or., 402,9, Mer., 357,34) ; innotescere, quale transitivo, « manifestare » (De or., 405,27; Mer., 353-, 24, 357,18); insinuare, stesso senso (De or.,43i,i6; Mer., 383,24, 38g,23). Col campigenas per « campioni » Mer., 359,6 e 21-22, converra bene esattamente De or., 420,29, in quanto il campigeni , del codice e della stampa sara da correggere in campigene. — Indichero il comune alternarsi nel medesimo senso di nomen e vocabulum De or., 395,9, « Puer sine nomine » vocatus 402,16, Bu- \afarnan nomine ; e 391,25, Viamundus vocabulo, 396,16, hoc illi mansit vocabulum, 417,19, Gormundi vocabulo, 431,20, « Miles cum tunica armature » sor- titum vocabulum ; Mer., 346,9, lvorium nomine , 3 58, 1 3- 1 6, « Niger Miles de Nigro Saltu » ex ipsius Nigri Saltus mihi nomen dirivetur nomine, 372,1-3, Ne mireris... si te tuo vocaverim nomine diu quippe est quod mihi et vultu et nomine haberis cognitus , 384,18, mutato nomine, ib., 26, nomen mentitus ; e
ronas — per una specie di leggiera nave piratica, che Giovanni da Genova dice ex vimine et crudo corio contexta. — Singolare nello stesso De ortu, 41 2,27, la fo?-ma pira, nel significato di it5p, ; ne credo che la singolarita sia tolla dalla determinazione speciale : piram, ignem videlicet grecum. — Nel Meriadocus. 35o,i4, il vocabolo si mostra quale riflesso legittimo dell’etim© greco : piram quam maximum . accendunt.
IO
PIO RAJNA
340.14, Griffinus vocabulo, 353 ,27, suoque prolatus vocabulo. — II gratuito affectu del De ortu, 394, 17, vorra bene essere appaiato col gratuito animo, « con animo grato », dell’altro scritto, 363,3, e ne ricevera una interpretazione non ovvia. — Avus s’incontra tanto nel De ortu (432,4) quanto nel Meriadocus (346,30) applicato a uno zio ; colla differenza nondimeno che nel primo si tratta di zio materno, ossia di chi corret- tamente sarebbe da chiamare avunculus , e nel secondo di zio paterno, designato anche a dovere in un altro luogo come patruus (354,26). — Sebbene poi quanto - cius per quam primum sia una scorrettezza di cui gia occorre qualche esempio nel latino della decadenza, e riuscita a mettere tali radici, che contro di essa dovette ancora insorgere il Vossio, De vitiis sermonis, lib. IV, cap. 35 ', il non essere stata, per quel che mi pare, di uso universale, da motivo di rilevarla nei nostri due scritti : De or., 400,22, quantocius convenire imperat , 416,22, nisi quantocius sucurreretur, 425,10-11, Ni igitur quantocius . .. te mihi ultra tradideris; — Mer., 368,45, iussit quam tocius in unum infra agmen coacervari, 375,29, quam tocius ducere festinaret ,
376.14, Surgite , ait, quam tocius. Non credo che quand’anche la lezione dei codici sia stata resa fedel- mente dall’editore, la grafia, unita nel De ortu, divisa nel Meriadocus, implichi un’idea etimologica diversa. Penso che lo sproposito reso evidente dalla divisione (in realta si risale a quanto ocius) sia supponibile senza ingiusta offesa anche attraverso al congiungimento ; sicche sia caso che solo il Meriadocus (344, 11-12] ci offra un passo come questo : Verum multocius nequi- ciam, quo magis quis tegere nititur , tocius propalatur .
Vi sono convenienze verbali attribuibili alia conve- nienza delle cose ; tale il discopulatis canibus parlan-
j. Di cio mi ha dato notizia Glossario del Du Cange.
DE ORTU WALWANI1
I I
dosi del principle* di una caccia, De ortu, 399, 18, Meriadocus, 343, 7; ma ce ne sono di parole e pensiero, alle quali par bene da attribuire un significato maggiore. Analoghe di certo, come s’e visto, le situazioni della nipote dell’ Imperatore di Roma nel De ortu e della figlia dell’ Imperatore di Germania nel Meriadocus. Tuttavia i passi che qui metto a riscontro portano anche a pensare che la mente da cui quelle situazioni sono considerate sia la medesima. Nel De ortu, p. 404, parla della donna il suo confidente Nabaor: Quamquam nimirum ut huius regina patrie maximo a rege Milocrate honoris et glorie sollimetur fasti gioi tamen, quia se a maritali thoro captam hire predonis mentinonexcidit, semper secaptivitatis remordet obpro- brium , mall etque alias cum pauper e libera quam hie omni rerum pompa suffulta degere captiva. Nel Meriadocus, p. 385, parla la donna medesima : Verum licet mihi pro voto suppetant omnia , meam tamen mihi consci- enciam semper captivitatis remordet iniuria ; unde mihi regnum est pro car cere, diviciarum copiasinopiam
reputo . Nitendum est igitur ut hinc eripiar , quia
gratius est mihi, eciam cum miseriis mori libera, quam cum omnibus deliciis vivere captiva. Non si puo non essere colpiti in modo speciale dalla corrispondenza del tamen semper se captivitatis remordet obprobrium col tamen mihi conscientiam semper captivitatis remordet iniuria. — Alio sconosciuto col quale s’incontra nella notte, Artii, De or., p. 425, grida : Cuias es...l exulne, predo, an insidiator? E a Meriadoco il guardiano della porta della citta in cui e custodita la riglia dell’ Imperatore, Mer., p. 383: Cuiates, ait, estisl pacifi- cine , an exploratores ? — Una stessa riflessione e espressa in luoghi che si corrispondono nel De ortu e nel Meriadocus. De or., p. 403 : Preterea plerisque temporibus industria pocius quam viribus scias uten- dum, quia etiam ex parte virium industria multociens
12
PIO &AJNA
quod, cupitur prospere ejficitur , sine qua ad successum negocii nunquam viribus venitur . Mer., p. 382 .Hoc tamen et per nuncios sepe inculcavii , ut, si ad se veni- ret, cum manuprivata accederet, dicens eum pocius cau- tela quam viribus id negocium ad effectum posse per- ducere. — Termino con un riscontro, che, mentre rafforza il convincimento che 1 autore dei due romanzi sia il medesimo, parrebbe farli discendere entrambi ad altra eta che non sia quella in cui si trovo fiorire Roberto di Torigny. Ritornato dall’ oriente e non osandosi piu da nessuno levare il capo contro Roma, colui che ancora si chiama Miles cum tunica ai mature e che noi sappiamo esser Galvano, pacem fastiditus miliciamque quasua virtus et probitas exerceretur sem per affectans , studiose querere cepit , quenam regio belli tumultibus turbaretur (De or . , p. 423.) — ^ Meria- doc (p. 365-66), vinti e fattisi compagni i tre Cava- lieri della Selva Nera, della Rosea, della Bianca, viam quam animo prefixerat ad inquirendam et exercendam
miliciam accelerabat . Missis... longe lateque nun-
ciis, sciscitatus fuerat quenam terrarum regio bello- rumsubiaceret et legibus... — Identiche le idee : identica l’espressione culminante, exercere miliciam1. Questo ecioche importa per il problema speciale di cui mi sono venuto occupando. Ma non viene qui anche a resultare che si sia gia foggiato il tipo del cavaliere di ventura, del cavaliere errante ? — Adagio. Quando abbia cominciato ad apparire il tipo di cui lo sparuto gentiluomo della Mancha fu l’ultimo rappresentantei io non sto ora a indagare. Maad esso non si puo dire che rispondano ne il Galvano del De ortu, ne Meria- doc. Per renderci conto di loro basta l’esistenza, ben
i. Non dovrebb’ esserci bisogno di avvertire che nell’ uso medievale miles e il «cavaliere», e militia significa « cavalle- ria», non gia « milizia » in genere.
DE ORTU WALWANII
I 3
reale e al di la di precoce, del cavaliere di professione ; di cavalieri che fossero disposti a prestare, pagati, l’aiuto del loro braccio a tutt’ altri che il loro signore feudale. Come tale Galvano e trattato apertamente da Artu, il quale gli dice (De or., p. 427-28) : Magna mihi sat militum extat copia incomparabilis probita- tis... Tui similium etiam absque stipendiis mihi per- maximus sponte militat numerus. Ne altrimenti stanno le cose per Meriadoc : Imperator . .., postquam quis esset et cur ad se venisset audivit , eo quod decuil eum honore suscepit , atque inter primos stipendiaries sui exercitus eum constituit (p. 366).
Ritornando all’ assunto, Ira il De ortu e il Meria- docus resulta propriamente una stretta parentela *. Ed entrambi appaiono opere di una mente colta, ed opere studiate. Che l’autore del De orttj s’ispiri a intendimenti artistici, dice egli stesso colla dichiara- zione finale, che operosius sit composito eloquencie stilo historiam exarare, quam vulgari propalare ser- mone\ e ad una dichiarazione dello stesso genere equi- vale nel Meriadocus l’essere il testo infiorato di orazioni vere e proprie. Tale il discorso con cui malvagi consi- glieri inducono Griffino a farsi reo della morte del
1. Tra le convenienze non do peso, perche riferibile alle fonti, al sentimento conforme, da cui, per causa analoga, sono invasi, nel De ortu Milocrate, nel Meriadocus Gundobaldo, quegli al vedere armato delle sue armi Galvano, questi montato sopra un cavallo suo, fratello di quello su cui sta egli stesso, Meriadoc. De or., p. 407 : Ad quorum [armorum] visum nimis perte[r]- ritus infremuit, quia hoc quod postea evenit sibi nimis vere ratus, expavescebat. E prima e stato detto della regina, a colloquio con Galvano (p. 406) : Ensem regis preterea ac eius anna ei con- tulit aurea , de quibus fatatum erat, quodab eo devictus rex regali spoliaretur apice, qui preter ipsum ea primitus induisset. — Mer., p. 388: verum ubi appropinquaverunt et rex Gundobaldus suum sonipedem advertit , confestim expaluit, omneque robur ipsius emarcuit; in sortibus quippe acceperat se ab illo solo vincendum, qui sibi singulari pungna illo equo vectus occurrisset.
i4
PIO RAJNA
fratello(pp. 341-42); tale quello che Artii tiene a Kaio, imponendogli di essere il giorno appresso campione contro il Cavalier Nero della Selva Nera (pp. 35g-6o); discorso che pare a Kaio ben piu lungo che non occor- resse ; e tale l’altro, addirittura solenne, dell’ Impera- tore di Germania ai patres e principes , per accusare Meriadoc e farlo giudicare meritevole di essere sotto- posto durissimis suppliciis (pp. 392-94).
Una somiglianza voglio ancora additare, terminando il raffronto. Sbadato in qualche caso 1’autore del De ortu ; sbadato l’autore del Meriadocus ; nel De ortu il medesimo personaggio e detto Bu^afarnan, p. 402, 16, e Egesarius, p. 410, 10. Nel Meriadocus, Uriano, marito della sorella di Meriadoc, ne e detto due volte socer, p. 357, 17 e p. 366, 3. O, anziche sbadataggine, sarebbe questo socer da imputare a una conoscenza imperfetta della terminologia dei gradi di parentela, e da associare conseguentemente con I'avus, rilevato piu addietro 1 ? Se cosi fosse, ne verrebbe pur sempre, in altra maniera, un rincalzo per l’identita dell’ autore.
La quale, dalla somma dei dati che sono venuto esponendo, se non resulta dimostrata in modo asso- luto, e resa cosi probabile, da ridurre a ben poca cosa le riserve di cui, per essere prudentissimi, si voglia ancora circondarla. E qui giovera soggiungere unindi- zio, dal quale le ragioni linguistiche ricevono raffor- zamento.
Accenna'i, nel principio di questo scritto, all’ Arturo e Gorlagon : altro composizione latina di materia bret- tone. Questa pure, sopra un esemplare cortesissima- mente donatomi d’all’editore prof. Kittredge, mi parve doveroso di esaminare sotto il rispetto della forme. Che il testo, pur essendo del secolo decimo-
1. V. p. 10.
DE ORTU WALWANII
I 5
quarto la trascrizione in cui ci e pervenuto, possa difficilmente essere ritenuto piu tardo del decimo terzo, pensa con ragione l’editore 1 ; e non credo che egli deva repugnare a una datazione anteriore. Co- stituisce dunque un huon termine di confronto per il De ortu e il Meriadocus.
Ebbene : lo stile del Gorlagon mi pare piu semplice che quello delle altre due narrazioni, sia per cio che spetta ai vocaboli, sia per le frasi, sia per il periodare. Non che vi manchino le ricercatezze 2 ; raa abbondano meno. E mentre c’e luogo a qualche ravvicinamento specifico col De ortu e col Meriadocus 3, appaiono altresi peculiarity che ce ne distaccano, Tale inde nell’ uso pronominale delle sue emanazioni neo-latine 4 ;
1. P. 264.
2. Ci sono qui pure sonipes (non cornipes ), 1 5 1 ,8, 1 56, 20; thalamus, 1 5 3 , 1. penult., 157,24, 158,24 e 33, nei primi tre casi col valore genuino ; lumen, per « occhio », « sguardo » (cfr. De or., 4 r 3 , I. penult., Mer., 353,23, 397,6), nella frase aggravante toxico lumine, i58,r. Meritevoli di segnalazione anche canum immensa numerositate , 1 56, 1 — 2 ; duo proceres quiregis latusval- labant, ib., 8-9 ; Dum... mens nimium sibifluctuaret, i58, 29-60; dapifero carcerali mancipato custodie , 159,19; ignium globistra- ditur, ib., 22; equor aggreditur, « si mette in mare », 160,24.
3. Sara dovuto ad accidente che il Meriadocus non abbia esempi di autumare nel senso attenuato, a mio vedere note- vole, di « stimare ». Il De ortu ci lo da quattro volte: 408, 3, 425,4, 426, 1. ult., 429,12; ed una il Gorlagon, i5i,2g. — Senza il Gorlagon, dove il lupo mannaro trova due conti, fra- telli della perfida moglie che lo ha fatto bestia, in ipsis valvis pirgis ludentes, 1 5 5 , 11-12, non avrei eapito che Mer., 371,20 pirgi, -rcupyoi, fossero gli scacchi. Dal contesto cio non appariva. Dovettero essere chiamati cosi — tra Greci, si penserebbe — da uno dei pezzi : le torri.
4. Si ripete molte volte in una specie di ritornello, che ci da
alio stesso modo replicati esempi dell’ agnoscere per cognoscere : con qualche tenue varieta, Magnum est querns et pauci sunt qui illud agnoscunt, et cum inde tibi retulero parum inde doctior habeberis primanente i52, 3o-32. Ma l’uso non si limita a
i6
PIO RAJNA
tale agnoscere per cognoscere 1 ; tale constipulare ,
1 5 1,2 1, in cambio dell1 astipulare degli altri due testi, tal esibi per ei, e in atteggiamento ordinario 2, e quale ci e dato nello strano costrutto salutatisque sibi invicem ,
1 52,25, « salutatisi scambievolment » ; tale in eius obviam... processit , i 54, 1 6 : roba che dalla penna di chi compose De ortu e Meriadocus non credo sarebbe potuta uscire 3.
Sicche, accanto ad affinita da ricondurre a condi- zioni di tempo, di regione, di tradizione scolastica, simili o non molto dissimili, il Gorlagon, a differenza degli altri due testi, contiene caratteristiche, da cui resulta essere diversi gli autori.
questocaso: 1 5 1,19, e i52,8, quod inde sciero ; i5i,3i quod inde noverit: i53,23, ilium.... inde percuntari proposuit.
1. Oltre che nel ritornello, i56, 33-34 donee quod restat agno- vero.
2. Lasciando da parte gli esempi piu o meno giustificabili, t5a, 1. 6-7 dal basso, nec ipsum sibi illud propalare debere.
3. Obstinaciam, 1 54, 1 , inclino a credere falsa risoluzione di un compendio che intendesse di dire obstinacionem .
[Due to a blunder on the editor’s part the following errata appear in the « Appendice »:p. 17, 1. 7> DfJ forDE;p. 19, 1. 10, luxe for hac ; 1. 14, pere-quitans for per-equitans ; p. 20, 1. 1, cle for e’e; 1. 10, porbabilmente for probabilmente ; 1. 18, toller- rabili for tollerabili .]
APPENDICE 1
Comunico le correzioni e i dubbi che mi si sono affacciati nella lettura e nello studio dei testi quali si leggono nella stampa del Bruce. Di semplici errori di stampa si tratta in mold casi. Per il Meriadocus riu- scira certamente proticua la collazione del codice d’ Oxford.
Db ortu Walwanii.
P. 393, 1. ult. , vorrei riscontrare se la parola « undeci¬ pherable » possaessere sumptuosis. — 397,5 , pacuerunt.
— 3 98, 1 5 , nulli par cerent. — Ib., 18-19, innotuerat.
— 399, 18, vix insequi. — lb., 29, virgola dopo adveni- mus , perche si possa capire che eiusque sta per eius etiam.
— Ib., 3 i-33, Dixerat - minantis, sono versi e dove-
vano essere stampati come tali. Cfr. p. 407. — 400, 7, hostibus. — 401, 1 5 , illis. — 402, 12, dicturos. — Ib., 28, si tolga la virgola dopo aure. — 403, 21, erga se
. prelocutus favorem. — Ib., 26, eo. — 404, 22,
prevalere [possis] efficiat. — Ib., 1. ult., deponere! Profecto, si. — 405, 16-17, aspectancium. — Ib., 34, ad optatum. — 406, 3, horrendum. — Ib., 24, premise- rat. — 407, si tolga et dal secondo verso. — 41 1, 6, ne nos. — Ib., 21-22, in longitudine, prori autem. — Ib., 1. ult., propongo la lettura naves, o rates. — 41 2, 4, confringens. — Ib., 29, At. — 41 3, 23, togliere se
1. V. p. 1 .
2
1 8
APPENDICE
davanti a neceml — lb., 25, invenerint. — 414, 1, tar¬ tar um. — lb., 1 3, sanguinis ? — I b. , 16-17, ingurgi- tatus. — I b. , 23, concreetur. — lb., 1. ult., eius [ cruor ) una. — 4 1 5 , 2, si sopprima il supplemento est. — lb., g, aenea. — lb., n-12, in prioribus. — lb., 21, flamma parrebbe di troppo, e potrebb’essere anticipazione sbadata. — lb., 27, ne exeat , 05 calami clepsedra. — lb., 3o, follium. — 416, 12, dempta clepsedra eius , unam,
— 417, 17, probata. — - I b . , 3 1 , quod. — 418, 8, actum sit, effere mentes. — 419, 3i, nil exclamat, ulterius viribus.— 421, 14, va conservato hanelis. — lb., 19, pacientesl lb., 26, invalidius . — 422, 22, sanctitis non vuol correzione ; ne l’ha avuta, rettamente, sanctita, Mer., 357, 20, e 3 8g , 10.— 423, 3, probitas. — lb,, 12, duceret. — 424, 16, communicarentur , o piuttosto cornu-. — lb., 19, indebito il punto interrogativo . — 425, 2 , moram parumper habuerat. — lb., 3, alueum.
— I b . , 4, armor um. — 426, 3, quidue. — I b. , 10, per- ferre. — 427, 9, quidue. — lb., 20, conuocato. — 428,
1 7, forse piuttosto preponam. — 329, 2, profeccioneque.
— I b . , 21 , anxiabatur. — 431, 9, pugilium.
Historia Meriadoci.
P. 3 3 g , Incipit prologus R. in historia Meriadoci , regis Kambrie. Memoratu dignum. — 340, 1. ult, com- misit. — 341, 17, inisse. — lb., 25, status ? — lb., 11. ultt ., cuius uita nobis tantum perpendimus imminere discrimen. — 342, 4-5, aggredi , tantum. Ib., 1 3 , con- fodere. — Ib., 34, impertitus . — 343, 2, si tolga la virgola dopo nobiles. — 346, 6, postposita . — Ib.. 21, suffulti (Cfr. 3g3, 18). —348, 2, quercus , o roboris , invece di saltusl — 349, 6, te cum. — Ib., 26, nidi- ficent. — 352, 22, alterius . — 353, 17, papiriis. — 354, 1, forse collatis. Cfr. 3 93 , i3 e 25. — Ib., 18, per- pendere. — 3 55, 19, nimium commotus. — 356, 11,
APPENDICF.
l9
feruescere. — lb., 14-15, inspecta , que suimct natura. — 358, ig, parium. — 359, 1 , preualere. — lb., 6, cam- pigenas. — I b. , 11, penso che omnes uno homine excepto sia chiosa di un lettore, passata dal margine al testo. 11 lettore voile con essa riferirsi a Meriadoc. II raddoppiamento incomportabile dell' omnes da valido sostegno alia congettura. — 36 1, 8, hanelus. Cfr. qui appresso 36 7. 6, e De or., 421, 14. — lb. , 1 3 , uolutando.
— 362, 11 , super fluum. — I b . , 3o, inseparabilem. — 365, 7, qui non imp aril qui hae non impart — 366, 21, familiarium. — • lb., 32, Non multum post. — 367, 6, hanelo. — lb., 10, forse piuttosto adscito, od anche accito . — lb., 18-19, ^ doppio p di reppe- riebatur puo essere genuino. — 368, 9, pere-quitans (Cfr. 396, 20). — lb., 11, o Vex-, o il co-, saranno di troppo in excohortationibus . — lb., 23, estuosos.
— 36g, 26, a via certa. — 370, 6, pausaturus. — I b. , 12, magis sompno. — 371, 1, constructa. — 372, 8, Vocatisque . — lb., 12, intendente, esse curie quesiuit , que. — I b . , 34, agis. — 373, 2, aselli. — lb . , 17, insania que. — I b . , 26-27, retenluri. — 374, 5, piu verosimilmente fuerimus... habuerimus. — lb., i3, inundacione. — I b . , 1 7, verosimilmente uicinio, come s’ha, indebitamente voluto correggere, 382, 8. — 3j5, 3 periclitari. — lb., 5, qui iam. — lb., 32-33, ad modicum.
— I b. , 33, ubi ipsi. — 376, 10-11, resumpto auditu. — I b . , 12, tarn immodico pauore. — lb - , 1 6, apponite. —
I b. , 21-23, offendit , ante quam . sufficienti. Meria-
docus.... — lb., 29, domine sue. — 377, 4, audens. — lb., 27, domine mee. — I b . , 3o., cuius ictu, o meno pro- babilmente iactu. E c’e il caso che Villorum del mano- scritto sia giustificato dalla caduta di un multos. — 3 78 , 14, veredario. — lb., 26, insipienter . — I b. , 2 y,nolue- rit. — lb., 29, incedere. — 379,6, l ovvia correzione di letificari in letijicati, puo essere sufficiente a rendere tollerabile cost com’ e la lezione. — I b . , 17, abierant.
20
— Ib., 19, non cle bisogno di supplementi. — lb., 1. ult., uiciniis ? Cfr. 374, 17. — Ib., matutino. — 38o, 7, reliqui. — 38 1 , 18 , donaturum. — Ib., 20, iudicabat.
— Ib., 24, priuato usus consiliol — Ib., 32, al piu si potrebbe supplire et. — Ib., 33, amiciciam. — 382, 8, uicinio. V. 374, 17. — Ib., 9, torse possent. — 383, 7, imperils. — Ib., 19, pate at. — Ib., 21, locuti fueritis .
— 385, 9, uoluerit. — Ib., i3, angustia. — Ib., 19, insi¬ gnia, certa. — 386, 12, Inde est quod quia. — Ib., 23, pedis. — 387, 3, il numerate omesso sara porbabilmente duorum. — Ib., 16, muniaris. — 391, 10, interserebat.
— Ib., 1 3, adducere. — Ib., imo. — 3q3, 2, reliquis.
— Ib., 14, comparere mi e un poco sospetto. — 394, 5 uos. — 395, 3i , uicinio. — 396, 1 7-1 8, omine ; ne ci fu omissione.
Ho rilevato alcune grafie modificate senza bisogno. Altre ancora, stando alle abitudini medievali, erano tollerrabili.
MYRRH A LOT-BORODINE
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
Les deux heros qui portent des noms justement cele- bres dans notre vieille litterature sont les symboles vivants de l’amour concu sous cette double forme : la passion tragique et fatale, le service-culte de la dame.
Le premier de ces heros, Tristan, moins attache a une epoque particuliere, plus profondement humain, seduit davantage le coeur des foules et l’intagination des poetes ; le second, Lancelot du Lac, etroitentent lie au milieu courtois qui l'a fait naitre, en opposition a son emule, deja glorieux, attire surtout les esprits curieux des formes d’art et de sentiment passees. Tous deux posent, sous des aspects divers, le grand probleme qui est au centre de la poesie medievale . comment on aime, comment il faut aimer. Mais tandis que tout ou presque tout — a etc dit sur 1 amant d Iseut la Blonde, et par les artistes qui l’ont adopte, et par les critiques qui l’ont etudie avec soin, l’ami parfait de la reine Guenievre a ete laisse dans 1’ombre, et c’est a peine si
2 9
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
l’interet semble s’eveiller maintenant pour cette merveilleuse « fleur de la chevalerie terrienne ».
Notre intention, a nous, est, au contraire, de mettre en pleine lumiere cette figure purement ideale, nulle- ment conventionnelle, qui realise aux yeux du Moyen- Age feodal son reve le plus cher.
Mais d’abord il nous faudra retracer, dans leurs grandes lignes, les principaux caracteres de la legende du Tristan en insistant tout particulierement sur la vraie nature de ces amours irresponsables, marques au sceau de la fatalite, si dilferenr.es de la claire et forte conception sentimentale du Lancelot. Car, dans un rapprochement de ce genre, ce qui importe, ce ne sont guere les ressemblances generates, vagues ou apparen- tes, ce sont les divergences reelles, les traits psycholo- giques originaux qui aboutissent a la creation de deux types dissemblables, voire antagonistes.
En s elargissant, notre comparaison devra embrasser egalement les oeuvres oil s’incarnent ces types et qui representent chacune un monde a part : les versions 1 ragmentaires du Tristan , refletant toutes, a quelques nuances pres, le monde de la passion dans lesquels 1 ame, tragiquement impuissante, se brise contre lavie t c est 1 amoui fort comme la mort. Et, d’autre part, les romans en vers, et surtout en prose, du Lancelot , qui plonge ses racines dans la chevalerie arthurienne vue sous un jour ideal. Ici, le sentiment individuel, puissant stimulant de faction, s’harmonise avec les forces sociales qui fencadrent avant de s’ecrouler au contact d une puissance spirituelle, superieure a toutes les valeurs d’ici-bas : c’est Dieu, ou l’amoqr sacre plus fort que l’amour profane.
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
2 3
Tristan
Trois themes dominent, a nos yeux, la merveilleuse legende du heros celte. Ce sont : i° La fatalite de l’amour symbolisee par le love-drink , le celebre phil¬ tre ; 2° le drame de conscience, le conflit entre 1 hon- neur et le devoir d’une part et la passion de l'autre; 3° le denouement ineluctable et tragique, ultime triorn- phe de l’amour, qui s’affirme en mourant. Toute l’his- toire, unique en son genre, de 1 ristan et d iseut est liee etroitement au developpement de ces trois themes essentiels, ne peut se concevoir sans 1 un deux.
Ge ne sont pas les trouveres francais qui ont cree ce type de la passion brulante, aveugle, absolue; le souffle troublant qui emane des poemes du 7 ristan ne rappelle guere le doux parfum de la courtoisie. C est bien ce qu’avait deja senti et declare G. Paris en des pages inoubliables auxquelles la critique fine et serree de M . Bedier n’a rien enleve de leur force persuasive. Notre regrettee amie, Gertrude Schoepperle, 1 a tres justement remarque dans son beau livre sur les souices ue la vieille legende L L’un nous parle dit-elle, dans ses con¬ clusions, de l’histoire telle qu’elle f ut, l’autre nous parle de l’histoire telle qu’elle est. Personne ne peut nier en effet que l’histoire des amours de Tristan et d Iseut soit coulee dans un moule francais du xne siecle, mais le metal dont elle a ete faite n est certainement pas d une trempe francaise .
La fatalite dans les amours de Tristan et Iseut, fata¬ lite qui les innocente et les absout, a dans toutes ies versions de la legende pour signe visible, pour embleme le « boire d’amour » . Que celui-ci ait ete dans la prebis- toire de nos heros une espece de geiss irlandais, ainsi
i. Tristan and Isolt, t. II, p- 469.
24
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
que le veui, non sans raison, Gertrude Schoepperle 1 ou bien un veritable philtre, tel que le connaissait l'antiquite greco-romaine et comme nous en trouvons deja dans les premiers romans francais — peu nous importe ici. Mais ce qu’il faut bien retenir et mettre en plein relief c’est son caractere de sort magique des le debut : il reste partout et toujours 1’instrument incons- cient du destin, tantot malediction mysterieuse qu’on deplore et maudit, tantot, au contraire, veritable sceau d’election et source d’apres joies interdites. Des l’ab- sorption de ce poison le couple predestine est arrache a son milieu naturel, a la vie normale, traine hors la loi humaine et plonge dans une atmosphere particu- liere, oil Pair semble rarefie, la chaleur intense. A par- tir de ce moment, Tristan et Iseut deviennent des etres a part : elus de l’Amour, « I’Eros terrible et doux » des anciens, ils se trouvent par la meme £tre les reprouves de la societe dans laquelle tous deux sont appeles a vivre. Et c’est la que se trouve le germe de la tragedie dont les amants periront.
Mais cette conception trop naturiste — done trop magi- 4U6 de 1 amour considere comme un envoutement, repugnait secretement au clair genie de notre Moyen Age, qui lentement elabora dans son sein un ideal sentimental tres different, ideal ou la liberte et la raison revendiquaient hautement leurs droits. Tout en subissant 1 iresistible attrait de ce motif, si riche en effets poetiques, les trouveres des xne et xme siecles en ont compris tres vite le danger ; ils ont vu le cercle se fermer autout d eux et ont essaye de le rompre, quelquefois avec bonheur, quelquefois, il faut l’avouer, maladroite- ment. Il s agissait avant tout pour eux d’attbnuer de leur mieux 1 action du philtre, d’en diminuer l’impor- tance, soit en limitant sa duree (Eilhart et Beroul), soit
1. Tristan, t. II, pp. 401-408 (The love-potion).
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
25
en transformant la nature intime de ce charme (Tho¬ mas et Gottfried).
Nous assistons a tine longue et curieuse evolution de ce theme initial dans la litterature du Tristan qui, mal- heureusement pour nous, ne s’est conserve qu’en frag¬ ments. Cette evolution s’acheve a la fin du xme siecle dans l’enormeet insipide Tristanlen prose, sorte de mosa'ique faite de pieces et de morceaux et d’ou fame des vieux poemes s’est envolee. De cette oeuvre mort-nee, d’un auteur anonyme qui imite visiblement le Lancelot , ne retenons que ce trait : la suppression brutale du mys- tere d’amour qui hante le couple predestine et la pre¬ tention d’imposeraux immortels heros, transformes en marionnettes, d’autres aventures sentimentales que l’unique et incomparable aventure de leur destinee.
Ailleurs nous avons toute une gamme de nuances intermediaires entre l’amour, passion fatale, et l’amour, don libre de deux coeurs. Et dans le chef-d’oeuvre de Gottfried de Strasbourg, qui traduit, ou plutot transpose, le poeme de l’anglo-normand Thomas, le « boire » est eleve 4 la dignite d’un pur symbole, le symbole de la noble Minne. Tristan et Iseut s’aiment parce que c’est lui, parce que c'est elle. C’est bien le haut chant de l’amour terrestre, sans artifice ni fard, de l’amour qui n’est plus un simple instinct, mais un besoin profond de tout l'etre humain
On l’a deja dit a plus d’une reprise, chaque poete apportait sa note personnels a l’interpretation de la legende qui, infiniment souple, prend toutes les formes possibles, s’epure, se complique ou finit parse dessecher. Le fonds cependant reste immuable, gardant a travers toutes les variations d’un theme sentimental l’empreinte du genie celtique qui l’a concu.
La passion de Tristan et Iseut, precisement par ce qu’elle est un coup de foudre irresistible, contrail e et a la volonte de la societe et aux desirs conscients de
26
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
ses victimes, cette passion est une force amorale, hors la loi, une espece de out-law. Dans toutes les versions connues de nous subsistent des traces visibles, des reminiscences vivantes de cet amoralisme inherent a la legende. Mais un delicat travail de remaniement dans le sens d’une mentalite moins farouchement individua- liste se fait sentir et chez Eilhart et chez Beroul etchez Thomas. L’amoura beau se suffirea Iui-meme,s’affirmer avec ivresse parfois, comme superieur a toute loi hu- maine, il ne va jamais jusqu’a nier cette loi qui, au con- traire, l’etouffe lentement et surement. II n’y a pas de revolte veritable chez ces heros de l’amour qui en sont les premieres victimes ; chez eux la passion n’est ni exempte de douleur, ni meme a l’abri du remords. Seu- lement cette douleur est impuissante a conjurer le sort, ce remords reste sterile, sans lendemain ; ils ne font que retomber tous deux d’un poids ecrasant surles epaules condamnees a porter le lourd fardeau.
La est le ver secret qui ronge ce beau fruit, le germe du conflit, de tout le drame naissant. En effet, malgre l’exuberance joyeuse que Ton sent palpiter dans cer- taines pages du Tristan, malgre l’impudeur magnifique de l’adultere nullement conventionnel et mondain, nous n’avons pas, quand mSme, dans cette oeuvre brulante de vie intense la glorification sans scrupule de l’eternel desir. Oil serait alors le pathetique, qui nous saisit aux entrailles, de cette histoire de la volupte, du sang et de la mort ? Les poetes du Moyen age francais, tous plus au moins consciemment moralistes, Font compris les premiers et c'est a eux que nous devons sans doute les accents plus profonds de la conscience en eveil, notes discordantes peut-etre, mais combien emou- vantes ! Tristan et Iseut, tels que nous les voyons de- vant nous, ne nous apparaissent pas toujours comme des etre simples, sourds et aveugles a tout ce qui n’est pas Tappel du plus sacre des instincts. Sont-ils jamais
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT 27
pleinement heureux ? Oui, mais par eclairs. Comment pourraient-ils l’etre en pleine possession d’eux-memes, dechires par des sentiments si cruellement contra- dictoires? Et il ne s’agit pas pour ces enfants de la fata- lite d’une lutte exclusive entre la passion, toujours vic- torieuse, et le devoir toujours en defaite. Non, com me l’a si bien compris et exprime avec tant de force Gertrude Schoepperle, « Tristan and Isolt is the tragedy of out¬ raged friendship. It is man’s love for womun at war with man’s loyalty to man »L II semble bien que l’idee-mai- tresse de ce drame de conscience, devenu la tragedie de l’amitie outragee, revienne a l’espritdes trouveres, al’es- prit medieval, si fin, si nuance dans ses analyses pycho- logiques. Ainsi le personnage du roi Marc qui ne devait etre primitivement dans la prehistoire de notre Tristan que le type du chef brutal, du maitre, du mari qui, trahi par sa femme et par son neveu, ne songe qu’a la vengance, s’est completement transforme : il nous apparait dans les poemes des xne et xme siecles — sauf dans le roman en prose qui deforme tout — comme l’image vivante du souverain feodal, comme un homme juste et noble, cheri de ceux-memes qui le trom- pent, un epoux toujours pret a pardonner un ami sin¬ cere,. genereux. De ce fait la situation des amants devient encore plus douloureuse, plus desesperee, puis- qu’ils ne peuvent s’empecher de faire souffrir celui qu’ils respectentetqu’ils admirent. Alafois innocentset coupa- bles, tous deux sont rives a une chaine qui lie leur volonte autant queleurs corps;ils ne sont plus des etres libreset ils le comprennent.
Voila pourquoi Iseut dit a Tristan, pleine de melan- colie resignee : « nous avons abandonne le monde et le monde nous a abandonnes ». La conscience rf’est pas abo- lie chez elle et pas davantage chez Tristan. Il sent, lui aussi, avec une acuite amere, l’impossibilite pour lui
1. Op. cit. t. p. 456.
28
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
d’echapper a ce dilemme : ou bien traitre et « recreant » mais amant parfait, ou bien chevalier loyal et preux, mais sans amour ! Or l'amour est sa seule raison d’etre depuis l’heure ou il a bu le philtre et il ne le sait quetropbien, ilapaye assez pour le savoir.
Tel est le trait principal qui distingue Tristan de l’« ami » medieval imagine et exalte par la poesie dite courtoise. Loin d’etre une force, un tonique vivi- fiant, l’amour de la femme chez Tristan n’est que faiblesse et renoncement au jeu des nobles energies viri- les : dans la vie il ne construit, ne cree rien, mais au contraire demolit, effrite tout. Get amour isole le cou¬ ple predestine et fait peu a peu le vide autour d’eux. Aussi finissent-ils par ne plus vivre que l’un pour l’au- tre dans le superbe egoisme a deux qui est leur vrai destin ici-bas.
Nulle part cette verite n’eclate avec autant d’evidence que dans le fameux episode, justement repute comme un des joyaux de notre legende : dans la fuite des amants exiles de la cour royale, dans leur vie solitaire au sein de la for£t. Us godtent d’abord avec ivresse dans cette solitude une joie apre et sans melanges. La nature elle-m£me semble complice de leur bonheur secret qui pour la premiere fois est une realite, non un songe vain ou un insaisissable fantome. G’est la le point culminant de toute l’histoire en meme temps que la revelation de ses tendances secretes qui touchent a la substance meme de son ante. Gertrude Schoepperle l’a senti mieux que personne et l’a exprime ainsi dans son chapitre sur la Tradition celtique dans la legende : « In the account of their life in the forest Tristan and Isolt are unique in French romance. The solitude of their forest life is peopled for French poets by no tales of other lovers who have felt and lived as they 1 ». Et
i. Op. at., vol . If, pp. 392-4,
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
29
hauteur nous montre aussitot combien ce them-e etait au coatraire repandu dans la vieille litterature irlan- daise. Ec elle conclut en marquant la place des amants de Cornouailles au milieu de leurs ancetres celtes, dont les plus celebres sont Diarmaid et Grainne. Qu’importe apres cela que les trouveres de l’ecole courtoise, adap- tant ce theme etranger a leur conception de la vie sen- timentale, aient transforme encore une fois, transpose a leur maniere, l’episode unique de son genre dans le roman medieval? Ici comme ailleurs ils ont travaille avec zele chacun selon son gout propre. Ainsi Thomas et Gottfried, d’apres lui sans doute, ont consciemment attenue la rudesse du desert, faisant de la fo ret sauvage un bois enchante, presque un jardin, avec la merveille grotte de l’amour, embaumee de tous les parfums syl- vestres, et ou les exiles coulent des jours heureux... Et cependant il semble bien que dans la pensee de tous ces poetes on ne peut impunement transgresser certaines lois morales ou plutot sociales. C’est dans Eilhart d’Oberg et dans Beroul, plus proches par ailleurs de la tradition archa'ique, que nous trouvons quelque chose comme un blame discretement expripte. L’ermite, qui personnifie la conscience chretienne dans les deux versions, voisines d’inspiration, exhorte les amants exiles a demander le pardon du roi Marc. II leur parle pour la premiere fois de peche et de penitence et ses paroles semblent trouver un echo dans les coeurs ou la lassitude secrete succede aux transports de la lune de miel... N’oublions pas que l'effet du philtre s’attenue aussi d’apres la tradition representee par ces auteurs.
Mais ce qui frappe bien davantage ce sont les senti¬ ments intimes de Tristan lui-meme qui, dans Beroul, avoue en ces termes la faillite de sa vie chevaleresque :
Oublie ai chevalerie A seure cort et baronie.
Ge sui essillie du pais,
Tot m’est falli, et vair et gris,
Ne sui a cort a chevaliers, (v. 2160-9).
3o
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
Voila le grave reproche que devait adresser a 1’ami d’Iseut tout le public courtois qui pourtant subissait comme nous le charme magique de cette passion de plein air, et d’apre liberte. Selon l’idee dominante de Pdpoque, en se soumettant entierement et aveuglement au joug de Pamour, Tristan a trahi l’ideal chevale- resque. Oui, du jour ou il a vide la coupe enchante- resse, la claire vision de la vie digne d’un heros s’est obscurcie en lui. Tristan a cesse de valoir, renoncant a sa gloire passee, reniant son illustre naissance qui le destinait aux plus grands exploits. Maintenant il aura beau par instants, trop brefs d’ailleurs, le regretter : on ne remonte pas le courant qui vous entraine. Et pour¬ tant comment ne pas se rappeler ici les debuts de cette brillante carriere d’armes? A l’origine dans la vieille legende celtique, Tristan etait un guerrier magnilique et il Test encore dans tous les romans connus de nous : il joint a une adresse incomparable, a une force vrai- ment proaigieuse, les dons les plus beaux du chevalier medieval : generosite, noblesse, devouement. Sa premiere victoire, remportee sur le geant Morholt, ne le designe-t-elle pas a Padmiration du monde, ne le consacre-t-elle pas comme le preux des preux ? Une fois gueri de la blessure envenim^e faite par Pennemi ter- rasse de sa main, Tristan devrait trouver d’autres adver- saires redoutables, devenir, en combattant sans cesse, le champion de son oncle, le defenseur du royaume dont il reste Pheritier presomptif. Or un poison, plus subtil et plus perfide que le premier, s’insinuant dans son sang, frappera d’impuissance ce bras, desormais seulement capable de repousser ceux qui osent porter atteinte a ses amours.
Beaucoup plus tard, il est vrai, Tristan, definitive- ment banni, reprendra dans sa nouvelle existence errante les aventures de sa jeunesse solitaire. Mais ce ne sera que desir de s’etourdir, de chercher un
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
3 I
oubli a sa peine. II en va de meme pour ce triste ma¬ nage avec Iseut aux Blanches mains, que Tristan con- tracte en une heure d’egarement, sans jamais le con- sommer.
Les amants ne peuvent que languir loin l’un de l’autre. Tout les pousse au denouement ineluctable qui donne tant de grandeur, tant de beaute a leur adultere tragique. Dans la societe ou ils vivent, il n’y a pas de place pour le libre epanouissement, hors du cadre con- venu, d’un sentiment essentiellement individualiste, voire meme anarchique Ils n’ont done que ce choix : s’incliner devant la vie ou bien — et tel est leur supreme refuge — disparaitre ensemble... Pris dans les mailles d'un reseau qui se resserre de plus en plus, Tristan et Iseut ne peuvent echapper a la contrainte que par la mort.
Dans l'archetype celtique de notre histoire le coup de grace devait etre donne par le mari-vengeur lui-meme. Cette fin nous paraitrait aujourd’hui barbare et offensante pour la pure memoire de nos heros, vic- times elues entre toutes : car la mort est pour eux une delivrance, obscurement appelee par les amants : non pas qu’ils aspirent au non-etre comme les heros nevro- ses de Schopenhauer et de Wagner, mais par desespoir, ne pouvant plus ni vivre ni s’apaiser autrement '.
On ne peut pas dire que Tristan et Iseut incarnent vraiment la these romantique des droits de la passion ; iis ne font que subir leur sort en victimes, jamais en revoltes. Aussi attendons-nous la catastrophe qui plane sur leurs tetes comme la finale d’une symphonie, nous
i. C’est le denouement qui se trouve dans le Tristan en prose bien eloigne pourtant de la tradition primitive, et ou jouent tant d’influences diverses, faisant de ce roman un veritable amalgame d’elements disparates. Peut-etre le motif de la mort donnee aux amants par le roi Marc est-il ici, comme le croyait Gertrude Schoepperle, un emprunt au pre-Tristan celtique.
32
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
l’acceptons presque avec soulagement : elle est Tissue unique d'une sombre impasse, en meme temps qu’une catharsis morale.
Tristan et Iseut reunis dans Tinviolable paix du tombeau, se laissent enfin consumer par la damme qui les a brules si longtemps ; mais de leurs cendres encore chaudes, naitra Toiseau de feu, le phenix de l’eternelle esperance, de Tamour fort comme la mort!
» Lancelot du Lac.
On peut vraiment dire de l’ami de la reine Guenievre qu’il est un anti-Tristan , l’antipode, en meme temps que Temule du heros celtique. Depuis la brillante controverse entre Gaston Paris et Novati, close avec bonheur par M . Bedier on ne discute plus pour savoir lequel des deux heros fut le premier representant de 1 amour courtois : tout le monde est d’accora aujour- d’hui pour reconnaitre que le Chevalier de la Charrette de Chretien de Troyes incarne une forme de sentiment jusqu'ici inconnue dans notre vieux roman. Ce qui n’a pas ete, il nous semble, suffisamment mis en lumiere, c est la difference de ces deux destinees viriles fondees sur des principes inspirateurs divergents.
D abord Lancelot , dont la legende a peu d’attaches folk-loriques, est un type litteraire dont Tidealisme medieval s’oppose nettement au puissant realisme primitif, a l’ardente spontaneite de Tristan. CarLance- lot, lui, a ete cree par 1’esprit rationaliste et moralisateur de notre Moyen Age, tandis que Tristan fut enfante par le genie d'une race aux ecoutes de la nature. Contre 1 intransigeant individualisme de la passion sourde et aveugle a tout ce qui n’est pas elle, se dresse la claire
i. V. Romania, XII, Studj di Filologia Romana II, et le Tristan de Thomas, edite par Bedier, t. II, Introduction.
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
33
conception de 1 amour, force sociale au service de la vie, jamais en opposition avec elle. Et Lancelot, lui, est 1 image vivante de cette idee si chere aux coeurs d antan, si profondement representative de la civilisa¬ tion courtoise.
Le maitre champenois qui conyut le premier cette figure ideale, qui en forma l’ebauche, guide par l’heu- reuse intuition de sa dame , Marie de Champagne, se revela, encore une fois, interprete incomparable des aspirations de sonepoque. Inutile d’insister sur ce fait suffisamment connu : la transmission des influences provencales, leur role important, sinon decisif, dans 1 elaboration du type nouveau de l’ami. Notons seule- ment ici les quelques traits essentiels qui distinguent la conception du Nord, telle que nous la trouvons sous la plume de Chretien, de la conception du Midi poe- tique. Le service d’amour qui n’est chez les trouba¬ dours qu’une pure fiction, un jeu des sens et de l’imagination, prend, pour ainsi dire, de l’etoffe dans le roman franqais, devient un service effectif II ne s’agit plus d encenser la dame d’hommages hyperboliques, de soupirer et de chanter en son honneur : il faut mettre a sa disposition, a sa discretion meme, toutesles forces de l’etre viril, il s’agit, en un mot, de vivre your elle et non pas uniquement par elle. Le serviteur hum- blement epris n’est plus un pauvre poete de cour, mais un chevalier puissant en qui fleuritet murit en meme temps tout l’ideal feodal, affine par l’amour dela femme. Voila done le point de depart de cette magnifique chevauchee a travers les siecles, l’impulsion premiere si vigoureusement donnee a la chevalerie errante ! Lancelot
i . Il serait curieux de comparer le conte de Chretien avec un roman proven?al de mtae nature ; mais nous n’avons malheu- reusement que la Flamenca, espece de fabliau, ou le cynisme triomphe brutalement et ou la courtoisie est inexistante.
3
34
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
annonce deja Amadis, tous les Amadis a venir de l’Europe romanesque et romantique de jadis.
Chretien de T. royes n a pas pu se douter, a coup sur, que son Conte de la Charrette, la moins personnelle et la plus faiblement composee de ses oeuvres, mettrait en braille tant d’esprits, inspirerait tant d’imitations plus ou moins lointaines. Mais c’est justement ce qui cons- titue I’interet vivant de son conte, acheve par une autre main que la sienne, et qui semblait voue a 1 oubli des la fin du xne siecle (ecrit vers i 175).
Une cinquantaine d’annees plus tard, le Conte de la Charrette fut repris, refondu et magistralement deve- loppe dans l’immense Lancelot en prose (vers 1225 au plus tard) qui, meme sous la forme cyclique sous laquelle il nous est parvenu, porte l’empreinte d’une seule volonte creatrice. L’auteur anonyme de cette fresque monumentale a brise le moule ancien trop etroit pour son dessein grandiose. De 1 elegante mais un peu seche silhouette dessinee par Chretien, il a fait une veritable epopee de l’amour profane et sacre; de l’ebauche d’un caractere nouveau, le portrait en pied, compose avec un soin minutieux et delicat, du chevalier au service de l’amour. Il n’y a pas ici solution de continuite, mais seulement evolution interieure. Le second Lancelot, fils du roi Ban et de la « Reine aux grandes douleurs », est bien le frere, par l’esprit et par la chair, du « chevalier de la Charrette », mais plus fort et mieux averti que lui ; un frere qui aurait muri en sagesse humaine, lentement, comme un beau fruit se dorant au soleil de l’amour. Pleinement conscient de la grandeur de sa tache, il ne se laisse pas eblouir, ainsi que le heros de Chretien, par l’eclat d'une vision merveilleuse, mais la fait penetrer en lui, illu- minant de ce rayon de beaute et son coeur et sa raison. Les deux Lancelot s’unissent dans la meme acceptation joyeuse du sort qu'ils se forgent. Le second sait trans-
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
35
fotmer le sentiment dont son ante deborde en un art, 1 art meme de la vie, dont il donne une image parfaite. Car du culte de Feternel feminin il extrait telle Fes- sence d un elixir precieux, toutes les forces latentes qui sommeillent au fond de 1’ame, et les fait servir a une haute vocation humaine, Grandeur et Servitude ! Par le rayonnement de cette vertu qu’est pour lui l’amour, Lancelot realise son propre ideal moral qui est l’ideal de son temps et de son milieu : chaque jour de vie est un effort pour mieux mettre d'accord? pour har- moniser le doux sentiment qui i’inspire avec sa voca¬ tion chevaleresque a laquelle il ne saurait renoncer sans dechoir. D’une emotion intime, centre lumineux Toil part Faction, notre heros fait une veritable mission sociale. Telle est la nouveaute, ddja pressentie par les premiers romanciers francais, que Lancelot du Lac apporte dans le monde courtois.
Tandisque Tristan nous apparait comme Frustration de ce que V amour fait de Vliomme, Lancelot lui, est l’exemple de ce que I’homme fail de son amour. A 1 impuissance tragique de Fun s’oppose victorieusement la forte et lucide volonte de l’autre. Et la coupe enchan- teresse que Tristan vide d’un coup sans le savoir Lan¬ celot la boit librement lui-meme goutte a goutte. ..
Deja Chretien de Troyes, qui s’ecrie danssa fameuse chanson :
Onques del beverage ne bui Dont Tristan fut ampoisone,
Mes plus me fait amer que lui Fin cuer et bone volante !
deja ce poete etranger a la conception fataliste de la vie, se posait en adversaire resolu de l’envoutement dans l'amour. Toute son oeuvre est la pour nous le dire 1 2 :
1. Brakelmann, Les plus anciens chansonniers francais , p. 47.
2. Il serait interessant d’etudier les romans de Chretien a ce
36
MYRRH A LOT-BORODINE
toute la psychologie optimiste claire et aimable, de ses heros, et particulierement celle de son Lancelot, atteste une foi robuste dans le libre arbitre du coeur, foi optimiste, absolument opposee au pessimisme profond et fataliste du Tristan.
Et cela est plus vrai encore pour le heros du roman en prose, pourl’enfant de sang royal eleve par la Dame du Lac avec une souriante sagesse. Avant de laisser le bel adolescent faire son entree dans le monde auquel le destine sa haute naissance, la fee maternelle le prepare par d’excellents conseils a sa future cheva- lerie, considered comme un veritable sacerdoce. Get enseignement que Ton est surpris de trouver sur le levres de Viviane, l’amie perfide de l’enchanteur Merlin, peut etre resume ainsi : pour un chevalier, vivre c’est servir. Mais tout de suite, desle seuil de sa jeunesse, vivre et aimer ne seront plus qu’un pour Lancelot, voire servir et aimer. Et sa protectrice le comprend, le soutient et l’approuve. Elle justifie sa passion ille- gitime, source de tant de prouesses, par des arguments subtils qui fortifient toujours la these de l’amour inspi¬ rant, creant 1’heroisme 2. Voila pourquoi la Dame du Lac veille avec sa sollicitude sur les amours de Lan¬ celot et de la reine Guenievre, le meilleur chevalier et
point de vue, de relever les nombreuses et desobligeantes allusions qui y sont faites au Tristan. On verrait alors qu’il a toujours combattu la conception sentimentale de la legende cel- tique, en dehors meme du Cliges , qui en est, comme on le sait, la brillante refutation. Aux yeux du niaitre du roman medie¬ val, Tristan est anti-social, et a cause de cela meme, anti-franfais.
3. La Dame du Lac qui, invisible, semble dominer toute la partie profane du roman en exprime les tendances essentielles ; a cette sagesse mondaine et sentimentale s’oppose dans la Quete du Graal une morale irreductiblement opposee a celle-ci : celle dc l’ascetisme austere des ermites blancs. Mais l’idee du devoue- ment absolu, du sacrifice librement consenti, est a la base des deux .
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
37
la belle dame de ce monde. L’ecu qu’elle donne a son « nourrisson » et dont les deux moities se rejoignent quand l’inevitable est accompli, est bien le symbole de l’union, de la fusion complete de ces deux forces : la beaute souveraine de la femme, la prouesse chevaleres- que de l’homme.
Le coup de foudre jaillit ici du fond nieme de fame virile en pleine conscience qui accepte l’amour comme un depot sacre, comme un tresor qu’il faut pieusement garder et accroitre par l’epanouissement de tous les dons naturels.
Dans Tristan l’amour n’a pas d’age. Au contraire l’amour de Lancelot parcourt toute la gamme des emotions, passe de l’adolescence a l’age mur et, sans vieillir, ayant suivi la courbe harmonieuse de la vie terrestre, se fixe enfin au faite, telle une etoile d’or au firmament immobile. Que d’humilite et de noble dou¬ ceur dans ce sacrifice total de l’egoisme masculin, et quel rare sentiment de mesure, quel equilibre interieur chez lui ! Jamais il ne songera a soumettre l’univers a sa loi, en meconnaissant les droits de la vie, telle qu’elle existe.
Nulle part la discipline parfaite, trop parfaite sans doute au gre des coeurs sans frein, de ce sentiment heureusement equilibre ne nous apparaitra avec plus d’^vidence que dans l’episode de notre roman qui fait pendant a la vie dans la foret des amants de Cot- nouailles. Guenievre, bannie par traitrise de la cour de son epoux, accepte l’hospitalite de Galehaut, ami de Lancelot et seigneur du Sorelois. Le « fils de la Geante » croit, en assurant au couple exile un refuge oil cacher leurs amours leur donner le bonheur. II n en est rien . cette existence cachee dans l’ombre, sans gloire ni hon neur, repugne a Lancelot, le fait souftrir secretement, surtout pour la reine meconnue. Et tous deux ne seront heureux que le jour ou justice sera faite, oil
38
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
Arthur, convaincu de l’innocence de sa femme, chas- sera la fausse Guenievre et rendra a la vraie sa place a ses cotes, sur le trone de ses ancetres. Quel contraste avec Tristan et Iseut exiles ensemble, goutant la joie parfaite dans la verte solitude des bois, oubliant le monde avec dblices jusqu’au jour oil leur abri est decouvert par un hasard imprevu ! Car si Guenievre est reine avant tout, et Lancelot le serviteur devoue non levassal d Arthur, Iseut, elle, n’est que femme etTristan n’est qu’amant. La difference que nous voyons dans ces deux attitudes semble d’abord tout a l’avantage du couple de Cornouailles. Cependant les meilleurs esprits du xme siecle ne jugeaient surement pas ainsi. Ce qu’ils admiraient par dessus tout dans l’amour, ce n etait ni sa fougue impetueuse, ni son fol orgueil a se suffire lui-meme; au debordement du torrent qui mugit dans un desert ils preferaient le courant plus calme et plus large du fleuve nourricier de la terre. II plaisait a ces clairs esprits franpais, qui reintegraient si volontiers la raison dans le sentiment, que les amours bien ordon- nees de Lancelot et de la reine, epouse du roi Arthur, se deployassent au grand jour de la vie courtoise, de la celebre 1 able Ronde, ecole de toutes les vertus cheva- leresques. La erudite de l’adultere est voilee ici par un rideau de conventions mondaines, dontquelques unes ontun caractere de belle tenue morale. En effet, si nous regardons de plus pres nous verrons que le Lancelot propre,loin d’etre l’interminable histoire des rendez¬ vous du heros avec son amie, n’est que l’ample recit de son « service »; des fugitives rencontres avec Guenievre on parle a peine, et toute l’attention se con¬ centre sur un tout autre objet : sur Taction hero'ique, mue parla passion secrete. Cette passion reste toujours presente a tous les yeux, mais elle ne s’etale pas au premier plan et surtout nest jamais une hn en ell e— meme, comme dans Tristan. La les scenes d’amour,
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
et toutes leurs consequences qui gravitent autour d'elles forment la trame et la matiere du roman ini- maginable sans la volupte qu'il distille. Rien de pared dans notre Lancelot , ou le heros vit volontairement eloigne sur le sage conseil de la Dame du Lac, de la cour royale, contemplant de loin son reve enferme dans la tour d’ivoire. II ne revient que de temps en temps, apres une prouesse ou une aventure exceptionnellement brillante « dont tout le monde parle », apres de longs mois, quelquefois des annees de separation, bien loin sa dame. Mainte fois il disparait mysterieusement, et les « quetes », de Lancelot, si frequentes dans notre ro¬ man, s’eternisent, font desesperer de son retour celle qui l’attend toujours sans jamais l’appeler aupres d’elle. Vis-a-vis de lui-meme notre heros observe une regie de conduite severe, s’impose une discipline de fer, et pourtant la fidelite scrupuleuse qu’il garde a la reine semble ne lui couter aucun effort, faire partie de son etre aussi chaste qu’ardent. Nombreuses et diverses sont les femmes qui s’eprennent de ce heros incompa¬ rable qui sait les aider, les proteger avec tant de force, leur parler avec tant de douceur et de pitie ; c’est l’hom- mage naturel du sexe faible an chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, champion de toute cause juste et bonne. Aucune n’obtient de lui ni le triomphe d’un desir ni la grace d’un regret. II passe a cote de ces fleurs qui par- fument le monde, calme, distant et distrait ’. Rappelons nous ces deux scenes qui se lont pendant, peut-etre intentionnellement, cede de Tristan avec Iseut aux Blanches Mains qu’il vient d epouser pour oublier l’autre, et celle de Lancelot, oblige malgre lui de partager la couche d’une pucelle qui s’offre a lui dans la Char-
i . L’exceplion en faveur de la future mere de Galaad nest qu’apparente, puisqu’il s’agit d’un veritable guet-apens, d une substitution de personnes ...
40
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
rette, Tristan lutte contre la tentation et fi nit par vaincre l’elan qui le porte vers sa jeune femme. Thomas nous dit expressement :
Le desir qu'ad vers la reine Tolt le voleir vers la meschine,
Le desir lui tolt le voleir,
Que nature n'i ad paer .. (V. 649-53).
C’est une belle victoire sans doute pour l’amour. Quant a Lancelot, il n’eprouve qu’une vive repulsion pour sa compagne de hasard et s’en ecarte immedia- tement, sans eprouver le moindre trouble. L’oeuvre de chair ne peut plus le toucher par elle-meme, car chez lui vraiment « fame enveloppe le corps ». Cela nous apparait d’une maniere plus eclatante encore dans son idy lie avec la demoiselle d’Astolat, renouvelee par Tennyson. La vierge qui aime Lancelot jusqu'a en mov.rir est pour l’homme vieillissant et solitaire le dernier espoir d une vie de paisible tendresse, d’une famille possible, l’appelm6me du vrai bonheur ici-bas. Mais avec quelle inexorable fermete il ecarte cet espoir ! Et le r£ve ensoleille s’eloigne, flotte, en palissant, sur la mer qui 1 emporte dans le neant, tandis que les levres blanches de la victime paree semblent murmurer leur melancolique refrain :
« Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away Sweet death that seems to make us loveless clay :
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I !
(• Lancelot and Elaine).
Il y a bien de la melancolie dans ce renoncement de Lancelot aux joies humaines. Ilya aussi de la cruaute comme dans toute force qui s’affirme, et surtout il } a une grandeur reelle qui nous frappe. Peu a peu on est de plus en plus penetre par la conviction qu’il ne s agit nullement pour Lancelot d’etre heureux, mais seulement de vivre son ideal, de realiser sa destinee
a
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
41
hero'ique. Ses exploits sont de vrais travaux d’Hercule, imposes il est vrai par sa propre volonte de ne jamais faillir. L’amour est la source eternellement renais- sante oil il puise ses vertus. Tristan, avant le boire fatal, guerrier redoutable, devient, apres avoir absorb^ ce poison, l’esclave de sa passion destructrice de gloire et d’honneur : Hercule filant aux pieds d’Om- phale !
Et Lancelot qui onques del beverage ne bull Avant d’aimer, il n'etait qu’un noble jouvenceau au sang impetueux, aux aspirations genereuses. Des qu'il aime, des qu’il s’eprend de la reine, il commence rapide- ment l’ascension qui le mene au sommet de la renom- mee. Lui-meme le declare, et avec quelle fierte legi¬ time! — a Guenievre qui se reproche a elle-meme d’empecher l’ami d’accomplir la haute aventure du Graal : « Sachies que je ne fuisse ja venu a si grant hautesce comme je sui, se vous ne fuissies, car ja n’eusse je cuer de ma chevalerie commencher ne d’emprendre les choses que li autres laissoient par defaut de povoir. Mais ce que je baoie a vous et a vostre tres grant biaute mist mon cuer en l’orguel ou il estoit, si que je ne peuse trover nulle aventure que je ne meisse bien a chef. Gar je savoie bien si je ne povoie passer les aven- tures par proece que a vous n’avendroie jou ja. Et il meconvint avenir ou morir! Doncje vous di vraiement que ce estoit la chose qui plus acroissoit mes vertus1)).
Sur le plan terrestre, muni une fois pour toutes de son talisman, fleur de chevalerie, amant, ami admira¬ ble, a toute epreuve Lancelot est invincible. Il se pre¬ sente a nous comme le defenseur du royaume de Logres,
i. (Sommer, t. V, p. 193). La meme profession de foi, moms vibrante, nous la retrouvons dans la bouche de Lancelot, dejacontrit, dans son entretien avec le premier ermite, quand il touche au seuil de la penitence dans la Quite du Graal.
42
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
comme le bras droit du roi Arthur qui a pour lui la plus grande estime et la plus sincere affection. On s’etonne de la dignite si calme de la securite de Lan¬ celot, jamais trouble ou hesitant en face de celui dont il possede la femme. Ce sentiment lui vient sans doute de sa foi en la noblesse d’un amour qui l’attache a tout jamais a la gloire d'Arthur et de la Table Ronde. Sa faute, inconnue de tous, il la rachete par une vie de devouement et d’abnegation. Sur cette conviction qui n’est sans doute qu’un sophisme moral, d'autant plus dangereux que plus seduisant, est construite toute la partie profane de notre roman, eclatante synthese de resprit courtois, cruellement fletri plustard. Le conflit entre le devoir et l’amour qui fait le tragique du Tristan, n’existe pas ici. Mais un autre conflit, plus grave, plus redoutable, se prepare deja au fond des consciences. Il ne s’agit pas, il ne peut pas s’agir d'une incompatibility entre la passion individuelle et la vie sociale, puisque la premiere ali- mente et feconde la seconde ; il s’agit de Tincompatibi- lite de la vie selon la chair et de la vie selon l’esprit. L amour libre n’est plus une infraction aux lois humaines, il devient une violation de la loi divine. Du monde sensible, oil se deroule Taction romanesquc, nous nous elevons d’un coup d’ailes dans une region plus haute, dans le monde celeste oil brille la lumiere pure. Et le probleme moral se transforme en probleme religieux. A la place du drame de conscience, indique dans Tristan , absent du Lancelot propre, nous avons une tragedie metaphysique, la tragedie de Tame chre- tienne.
La these sentimentale de notre roman sembierait inattaquable s’il suffisait de juger Tarbre a ses fruits. Mais Dieu juge autrement : il sen prend aux origines m§mes du mal universel, a ses racines secretes et profondes qui sont Torgueil et la luxure. Substituer a
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
43
l’adoration du Createur l’idolatrie de la creature, ce n’est pas une faute, ou meme un peche, c’est un sacrilege.
La grandeur sombre et majestueuse de la seconde partie du Lancelot , consacree a la quete du Graal, c’est- a-dire de la divinite, reside dans l’antagonisme de deux forces inconciliables : d’une part, 1’exaltation du principe spirituel dans toute son austere nudite, de l’autre l’eternelle glorification de la nature raffinee par l’apport de la civilisation dans toute sa riche plenitude, dans tout ce qu’elle offre d’irresistible aux regards, aux imaginations et aux coeurs. Historiquement parlant, ce sont deja le Moyen-Age et la Renaissance qui s’af- frontent sur la scene de ce roman d’aventure, ou passent, les uns apres les autres, les souffles de la terre et de l'au-dela. La lutte en plein xme siecle ne pouvait etre qu’inegale : elle devait finir par l’ecroulement de tout un monde, le monde de l’enchantement breton, du culte, ephemere en apparence, precurseur en realite, de la Dame. Lentement, sous nosyeux, le monde se decompose, s’effrite. Longtemps le magnifique edi¬ fice semble intact, bien qu'interieurement lezarde; jusqu’a la fin il garde son imposante facade qui ne s’ecroulera que sous le coup de grace du destin. La catastrophe s’annonce deja dans Y Agravain, prologue de la Quete mystique, ou la nature humaine s’incline enfin humblement devant la saintete. La est l’enseigne- ment esoterique de cette oeuvre ou commence, sans s’achever, la redemption d’Adam-Lancelot, symbole de l’humanite dechue et renaissante.
Lancelot aura beau se defendre en de'fendant avec courage et fermete l’idee qu’il a fait sienne; celle de l’amour justifie par les actes de l’amour-service : 1’impitoyable ascetisme des « prudhommes » blancs qui lui indiquent son chemin de penitence s’y opposeront de toute leur autorite. I Is lui precheront, par l’exemple
44
myrrha lot-borodine
et par la parole, le mepris, l’horreur du peche charnel et de l'idolatrie, sacrilege par lui consomme. Et son fils Galaad « fleur de la chevalerie celestienne » lui mon- trera silencieusement l’unique et etroite voie du salut.
Ebranle, bouleverse, Lancelot finira par se rendre, par s’avouer vaincu. Jamais il ne reniera ouvertement son ideal, tout en renonpant pour quelques jours seu- lement a celle qui inspira cet ideal. N’y a-t-il pas, d’ailleurs, quelque chose d’infiniment troublant dans ce fait que le heros de 1’amour profane ait engendre le heros de l’amour sacre, n’y a-t-il pas ici une filiation mystique certaine? Autre observation qui nous frappe en etudiant la Quete : ce n'est pas le crime d'adultere que la kyrielle des ermites, acharnes apres le salut de cette ame d’elite, reproche a Lancelot, non, c’est le peche de concupiscence qui, selon la doctrine de l’Eglise catholique, est le signe meme de la corruption. Impossible d’effacer cette tache qui ternit toute vertu, sans une longue et dure penitence, d’ailleurs toujours incomplete... Cependant, a celui qui a beaucoup aime il sera beaucoup pardonne, et Lancelot sera admis un jour au nombre des rares appeles — non elus — par la grace. Mais il a bu trop longtemps en s’enivrant de volupte, la coupe enchanteresse de l’amour profane, pour gouter pleinement a l’autre, a la coupe du sang divin sur la table de la Vie. La seule qui lui reste encore a vider jusqu’a la lie, c’est le calice de la souf- france sur la table de la Mort.
L’ultime douleur reservee a Lancelot du Lac sera l’ebranlement inavoue de cette foi morale qui lui per- mettait auparavant de marcher la t<§te haute, sans crainte ni remolds. Pour qu il oblique, il fallu.it aussi que s affaiblit en lui, sous le fardeau de l age, des soucis, de l’ingratitude humaine, l'instinct vital, si puissant naguere. Dans la Movt d Arthur, que nous avons deja appelee ailleurs le « Crepuscule des heros », on sent
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
45
des !e debut chez Lancelot une lassitude secrete qui le ronge, et plus encore chez la reine Guenievre elle- meme. Elle a perdu sa belle assurance ancienne, son intangible fierte, et ses defauts, la jalousie, la volonte tyrannique, se sont accentues avec les annees. La Dame est devenue irascible, injuste et dure envers son trop rideie serviteur, peut-etre parce qu’elle doute de sa toute puissance depuis l’aventure du Graal. Et, a tra- vers ses caprices et sa nervosite, on sent palpiter, fre- mir le cceur meurtri, comrne use, de l’ami qui decline. L’invisible armure ne le protege plus contre les coups redoubles du sort menacant son bonheur. Par la fis¬ sure secrete entrera le Destin qui attend toujours pour nous frapper qu’une porte s’entr’ouvre dans notre ame... Lancelot est de taille, il est vrai, a se mesurer contre tous les malheurs, il appartient a la race des heros qui ne peuvent etre vaincus que par eux-memes.
Nous ne pouvons retracer l’une apres l’autre toutes les epreuves de Lancelot, nous ne pouvons qu’indiquer les etapes derniere de son calvaire. Lefond de tableau, sur lequel se detache cette silhouette solitaire et deso- lee, s’assombrit de jour en four. La bataille decisive s’engage entre le heros et la legion de ses ennemis, hier encore ses amis les meilleurs. Une a une, il voit se denouer toutes les attaches qui le retenaient a la vie, crouler toutes ses joies, toutes ses esperances;
L’heure du denouement approche et voici devant nous, toute nue, une ame en detresse, ame coulee dans le plus noble metal, vulnerable pourtant. Lancelot ne peut disparaitre sans comprendre l’erreur tragique de son existence terrestre. Tous les voiles se dechirent : une derniere fois une flamme s’eleve haute et here, la flamme de la passion, jaillie des entrailles memes du coeur viril, avant de s’eteindre dans les cendres grises de la penitence et de la mort. Et puis c’est le deluge final ou s’engloutit le royaume de Logres. Un monde de beaute, de fantaisie et de gloire a vecu.
46
MYRRHA LOT-BORODINE
Des Hots dechaines par la tourmente montent a la surface trois inoubliables figures : celles du Roi, du Heros, de la Dame.
Le premier est mysterieusement emporte dans un asile feerique, a File d’Avalon ; la, perdu dans les songes, Arthur attendra pendant la dure'e des siecles avenir, le jour de son retour legendaire : une main s’agite au- dessus de l’eau pour saisir l’epee royale et le dernier des grands chefs celtiques n’est plus qu’un souvenir au fond des coeurs.
L’autre figure, symbolique et vivante, la Dame, divi- nite tant encensee, se dissout presque entierement dans la brume qui s’epaissit autour d’elle ; a la veille du grand depart, elle s’enferme au couvent, tombe vi¬ vante, d’ou ne s’echappe que le murmure des prieres. Enfin le Heros, dernier survivant de cette triade deve- nue indissoluble, s’enveloppe, lui aussi, du suaire de la penitence et de 1'expiation . Rien n’est plus emouvant que le silencieuxadieu de la Lancelot a l’inspiratrice, deja morte, de ses reves d’adolescent, de jeune cheva¬ lier et d’homme mur, reve dans lequel prend corps toute une conception de la vie, de l’art, de la societe : la terre mensongerement belle abdique devant le ciel immacule. Cette abdication si poignante sonne le glas funebre du Moyen Age romantique et courtois, dont 1’aventure est si merveilleuse qu’elle lui fait par- donner, au nom de l’illusion, creatrice de beaute, la cruelle realite oil il a vecu pendant des siecles d’his- toire.
Toute cette fresque monumentale du Lancelot-Graal, veritable Somme de l’amour sacre et de l’amour pro¬ fane, peut-etre consideree comme la rnise en scene dra- matique de l’eternelle lutte : la lutte entre la matiere, paree de ses seductions les plus subtiles, et entre l’es- prit, exempt de toute souillure charnelle.
Sur le plan de l’amour profane se deroule sous nos
TRISTAN ET LANCELOT
47
yeux une serie de tableaux, choisis avec art, et ces tableaux nous peignent une vision sentimentale de haute beaute, ntais tres differente du vieux Tristan. Dans les poemes d’inspiration celtique qui, sous une forme inconnue de“ nous, remontent bien au de la duxne siecle, se fait entendre le chant de l’immortelle berceuse, de notre mere a tous, la Nature. Le feodalisme, l’esprit medieval, plus ou moins teinte de courtoisie, ne sont ici qu’un vetement qui glisse et qui tombe au premier geste, decouvrant la divine nudite de 1’instinct qu’il recouvre II est vrai que l’amoralisme pa'ien de 1’an- cienne legende est comme estompe dans les oeuvres des xne et xme siecles, mais la note dominante reste tou- jours la mtoe ; Taction, ramassee sur elle-mSme, se ramene toute entiere a un duo d’amour: al’exaltation d’une passion toujours inassouvie, a l’hymme de'sole et triomphant de la volupteet de la mort.
En face de Tristan 1’ « Amoureux » qui a eu notre Moyen Age seulement pour pere adoptif, voici, Lan¬ celot du Lac, l’ami, non 1’amant pur et simple, type nouveau, imagine, cree par les trouveres francais pour incarner un nouvel ideal : Tamour-vertu au service de l’humanite. Ici l’art s’ajoute, se superpose a la nature pour la corriger, pour epurer, ennoblir le sentiment qu’elle fait naitre au plus profond du coeur cheva- leresque.
Tristan represente Famant eternel tel qu'il est, Lancelot c’est l’amant tel qu’il doit etre.
A NOTE
O N
PUNJAB LEGEND
' IN
RELATION TO ARTHURIAN ROMANCE
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
It is the purpose of this paper to point out certain incidents in Punjab legend which suggest direct com¬ parison with similar incidents in Arthurian romance and may therefore throw some light upon their original form.
The legends of the Punjab are recited to-day by illiterate bards to a people no less unlearned. In this form they have been made available to English readers in Sir Richard Temple's edition of fifty-nine legends, with text and translation, and in the published collect¬ ions of the Rev. Charles Swynnerton and of Mrs. Flora Annie Steele ’. The language is that of the folk and follows a conventional form, the songs being composed in couplets of the same language and meter — a rustic dialect of the Punjab « of the purest dialectic verna-
i. Temple, Legends of the Punjab , 3 volumes, London; Swyn¬ nerton, Romantic Tales from the Panjab, Westminster, 1900; Steele, Tales of the Punjab, London, 1894.
•1
5o
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
cular » — and the prose « in the ordinary Urdu language of the day » h
According to Temple, bards in the Punjab take rank according to the kind of legend they relate \ The bard proper, descended from those singers who for¬ merly occupied an honored place in the courts of the grandees, recites the national legends and tales of war¬ like achievement. The priestly class tell sacred legends, often cast in the form of religious plays partly sung and partly acted by the bard and his company especially at the religious festivals held in the Spring and Autumn. Another class of priestly bards tell the legend of some particular saint, Hindoo or Mohammedan, at the fes¬ tival to his honor. A third class of bards sing ballads at weddings and merry-makings. A fourth class belong to the outcasts of India and preserve in legend the objects of their worship. Besides these four classes, there are village bards in the hills who recite local legends, and wandering saints and miracle-workers who tell tales to instruct the people. The material from which these bards draw is always traditional, but does not necessarily represent pure Indian tradition. More than one race has ruled the Punjab and mingled its culture with that of the Aryan immigrant. In the 3rd century, B. C., the Greeks under Alexander found in the upper Punjab a people of wealth and culture. The Scythians followed the Greeks and were absorbed into the Indian civilization of the Punjab. When the Mohammedan invasion overthrew this Hindoo culture, the bards adapted their songs to the Mohammedan doctrines of the conquerors.
An important Punjab cycle of tales centers about
1. Indian Antiquary, XI (1882), 347.
2. Temple, Legends l, preface, viii ; cf. Swynnerton, Romantic Tales , introduction.
PUNJAB LEGEND
5i
the hero Rasalu, son of Salwan (or Sahilvan), the first Scythian king of the Punjab, who reigned about 90 A. D. ! He represents the Saka line of kings who overthrew the Vikramaditya and ruled the Punjab until the 8th century A. D. According to legend, Salwan is the son of an Aryan woman who was wooed by a serpent, that is, by a man of the Scythian or non- Aryan race. Of the hero Rasalu the historical identity is doubtful. The name may mean « lord » and belong to a line of rulers. Temple thinks that the Rasalu legends are « representative of the Hindu, or perhaps Buddhist, opponents of the first Arab invaders of India in the eighth and ninth centuries of our era » and embodied legends drawn from Scythian sources 1 2. However this may be, the stories are told to-day as pure folk-tale localized within the modern Punjab, although not without dispute as to the exact localities involved, and celebrating Punjab families who claim to-day descent from the heroes mentioned in the story 3.
The story of Rasalu and his half brother, Puran, runs briefly as follows :
Puran is the son of Raja Salwan of Sialkot by his first
1. Temple, Legends , I, 1-65, 243-866; II, 375-466; III, 227- 241 ; Indian Antiquary, XI (1882), 347049 ; Swynnerton, Roman¬ tic Tales, 1-325, 409-441 ; The Adventures of the Punjab Hero, Rasalu , Calcutta, 1884 -.Folk-Lore Journal, I (i883), 129-152. P. Abbott, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1854, 123- i63. (See Temple’s note, Indian Antiquary, XII ( 1 883), 3o3- 3o8). Steele, Tales of the Punjab, 234-266.
2. Temple, Indian Antiquary, XIII (1884), 178-183 ; Legends, II, preface ix-x. For the dynastic character of the name see Swynnerton, Romantic Tales , introduction, xl-xlii.
3. I am told that the Rasalu stories are related in India by- Hindoo priests in order to convey to a simple people the teach¬ ings of the Hindoo religion as set down in the Bhagaya gita , but I have had no opportunity to verify this observation.
52
MARTHA WARREN RECK WITH
wife. When the youth is sent to pay his respects to the Rajah's younger wife, she falls in love with him and attempts his seduction. Enraged at her failure, she accuses him to her husband and causes him to be thrown, maimed, into a pit where he is miraculously preserved for twelve years until a holy man restores to him his eyes and limbs. Taking upon himself the service of the jogi, Puran returns to beg at the palace gate. When he enters his own garden, the flowers which have withered since his misfortune revive and flourish. At this miracle, the young wife comes to him to implore a son and heir, and he predicts the birth of a son who will live a stormy life.
Rasalu is born in answer to the prophecy. In most vers¬ ions of the story, he is banished from court because of his destructive tendencies ; in one version (Mrs Steele’s) he leaves home in a rage because when he comes to court his father and mother, intimidated by a prophecy of doom should they look upon his face before he is twelve years old, avert their faces from him. He rides away to Jhilam, now held by a usurper of his kin, and restores it to his own family by means of a bow of steel which none but himself can draw and three invincible arrows « which never failed to hit and which he never failed to recover ».
In an intervietv with a famous fakir, who appears to him first in the form of a hungry tiger which vanishes as soon as Rasalu draws his arrow, it is prophesied to him that he is destined to meet and overcome single-handed « the stone giants of Gandgarh », and he is warned against drawing his sword against the innocent.
Between the prophecy and its fulfilment there intervenes an account of Rasalu’s return to Sialkot, where he is betrothed, but, being publicly mocked by his lady-love, he insults her by fleeing on the day of the marriage. He makes his way to Mecca and incites the Hazrat to a holy war against his father Sahvan because, among other things, he refuses to become a Mohammedan. At the storming of the city, the Hazrat performs many supernatural feats; among others, he achieves the fall of the gates by hurling his own head against them and going on fighting headless.
Other episodes of the cycle follow without any particular
PUNJAB LEGEND
53
coherence. Rasalu appears as a jogi begging before the gate of Rani Sundra, the beautiful. Mishrikari, the sweet lute- player, dies because he fails to observe Rasalu’s warning. With other rajas Rasalu exchanges wise observations.
Finally he is prompted by dream to attack the stone giants of Gandgarh. In this expedition he appears as the predestined hero who is to bring doom to the giants whom all others have feared to attack.
Proceeding on his way, after this predestined achieve¬ ment, he rescues a drowning hedge-hog and allows it to travel with him to some place of safety. When later he tails into the power of a snake and a raven who have sworn to take his life, it is the grateful hedgehog, together with his attendant horse and parrot, who saves Rasalu’s life and kills his two enemies z.
Rasalu now visits the perilous castle of a magician, Raja Sirikap of Sirikot, a very dangerous person who takes off the head of anyone whom he defeats at the game of chaupat. Advised by a corpse whom he meets on the way, Rasalu is able successfully to meet all the obstacles opposed by the wiley magician to his entrance into the castle, and finally to win his host’s head at the famous game of chaupat; but he releases Sirikap in exchange for the life of the’magician’s infant daughter, whom he betroths as his bride in spite of warning prophecies, and who finally brings about his doom.
The last legend of the cycle, which varies scarcely at all in the various versions already recorded, tells how he weds Kokal, the « sweet-cooing dove », when she comes of age, and shuts her up in a castle guarded by mynah-birds, or parrots. One day he takes her out hunting. A blue buck is attracted by her beauty, and the jealous husband cuts off its ears and tail with his hunting-knife. The buck in revenge entices to the lonely castle during the absence of its master a neighboring Raja named Hodi. The two young people love
i . In one version (Temple, I, 45), the snake and the raven attack Rasalu in the garden of Sirikap's castle and are among the obstacles opposed by that magician to Rasalu’s approach.
54
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
each other and are discovered and slain by Rasalu. This deed creates a feud with Raja Hodi’s kinsmen, who storm Rasalu’s castle and kill Rasalu in the battle which follows. Some say, however, that Rasalu did not die but went into the Ganges and will return some day to the Punjab.
The two main incidents ot the Rasalu story are the fight with the « stone giants of Gandgarh » and the match with the head-chopping magician, Raja Sirikap, at the castle of Sirikot. The first of these episodes I take to be a Medusa witch story; the hero encounters giants who have the power of transforming themselves into stone (or, according to one version, the hero him¬ self has the powder of working such transformation upon others). The second episode is a match with a magician at a perilous castle. The first story runs in some detail as follows :
In a desolate city, Rasalu finds a woman baking bread, who tells him that every day the giants of Gandgarh claim from the citizens a toll of bread, an animal and a human victim, until now the city is well-nigh empty and she is sending the last of her seven sons to satisfy the monsters. Rasalu offers himself as the youth’s substitute and accom¬ panies the lad as he goes forth to meet the giants. The first who approaches is the gigantic water-carrier of the giants \ vTho snatches the bread and is about to eat it when Rasalu cuts off his hand and recovers the loaves. The water-carrier escapes, crying out to his brothers to flee, for Rasalu is come who has been foretold to bring doom to their race. One of the giants advances to meet Rasalu. He is bald- headed, and Rasalu brings him down with one of his invinc¬ ible arrows. Some of the giants to whom Rasalu declares his name and that of his mother, « for she was a fairy » are for retreating at once; but the leader of the giants advances and, laying a finger on his right nostril, blows
i. In Abbot’s version the water-carrier stalks up as a column of cloud.
PUNJAB LEGEND
DO
through his left until a storm follows which lasts for forty days. When Rasalu remains unharmed, he blows for eighty days and eighty nights with both nostrils. Still Rasalu remains unmoved, although « no stone or tree or animal was left within a radius of a hundred miles ». The giants now put Rasalu to such tests as shooting an arrow through seven iron griddles at once and eating iron for food, as predicted in their sacred books. These tests being suc¬ cessfully met, in despair the leader turns himself into stone and the others all flee. Rasalu finds the leader’s giant wife in a palace hard by and in return for the promise of mar¬ riage extorts from her the secret of life in the stone in order to slay the giant hidden in the stone. He burns to death another giant who has hidden himself under a pile of brush. Others of the brood he pierces with his arrows. Only the water- carrier escapes, and him Rasalu imprisons within the cave of Gandgarh, where you may hear his roars of terror to this day. Mindful of his promise to the giantess, he pretends the rite of marriage and flings her into the cauldron about which the two are parading in accordance with the Indian mar¬ riage custom '. Thus the race of the giants is destroyed.
The second episode, that of the visit to Sirikap of Sirikot, runs briefly as follows :
On the way to the castle, Rasalu encounters a headless corpse who offers him counsel. He was the Raja’s own
i . 1 follow Swynnerton’s latest version. In another version, Rasalu himself turns the giant into stone. In some versions, the witch is the sole survivor. In Temple (I, 20) she, not the water- carrier, escapes into the cave. In another version, she sinks into the ground uttering a prophecy of Rasalu’s doom. In at least one version, the witch is represented not as enamoured of Rasalu, but as proposing marriage as a blind to get Rasalu into her power. He, however, as in the familiar folk-tale of Hansel and Crete!, sees through the trick and burns the witch in the fire she has prepared for him. In Abbot, she is forced to reveal the spell. In all the versions, the witch appears as the ultimate enemy. So, in the Beowulf story, the hero follows the wounded monster into his mother’s lair.
56 MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
brother, but this did not prevent the Raja from beheading him when he had no other victim at hand. The corpse advises Rasalu of the obstacles at the entrance to the castle. These are, first, a magic storm; second, a gong which dulls the senses of all who strike it; third, a swing in which the daughters of Sirikap enjoy swinging and which takes away the senses of anyone who passes under it. He also advises Rasalu how to overcome the magician’s triclis in the game ol chaupat. Rasalu safely encounters the obstacles of the castle entrance, wins a match at riddling, and by means of the aid given him by the corpse, gains the head of the magi¬ cian at the game of chaupat. Sirikap tries to hide himself, but is dragged out and would have been killed had not Rasalu seen the inlant daughter of the magician being borne out to die because it was thought she had brought bad luck to her father, and offered the magician his life in exchange for his daughter’s.
The two episodes of Sirikap and the stone giants follow somewhat the same pattern. Obstacles are oppos¬ ed to guard the hero's approach . The match with Raja Sirikap also contains a magic storm, although in this case the method of bringing it about is not described. 1 het e are tests of skill and strength. As the giant tries to escape death by hiding in stone, so the magician pre¬ tends that he will take leave of his family and hides in the filth of the stable. A lady acts as the final opponent to the hero’s complete victory.
^ Several of the incidents of the stone giant and the Sirikap episodes here outlined bear a striking resem¬ blance to the adventures of Owain-Iwain in the story of the Lady at the Fountain and of Percival-Peredur in the series of adventures with the Red Knight, the witches of Gloucester, and the grail castle. In the three obstacles at the entrance to Sirikap’s castle, it is not difficult to recognize those so familiar to us in the Anglo-Norman romance of the Knight of the Lion '
i. Mabinogion (Everyman edition), i58.
PUNJAB LEGEND
57
In the Welsh version, Lady at the Fountain, Owain perceives a fountain and a slab beside the fountain with a bowl on it. He throws a bowlful of water upon the slab and « lo, the thunder was heard, and after the thunder came the shower, much more violent than Kvnon had described, and after the shower the sky became bright. And when Owain looked at the tree, there Avas not one leaf upon it. And immediately the birds came, and settled upon the tree, and sang. And when their song was most pleasing to Owain, he beheld a knight coming towards him through the valley, and he prepared to receive him. » The knight, having received a mortal wound, flees, closely followed by Owain. Then « Owain descried a vast and resplendent Castle. And they came to the castle gate. And the black knight was allowed to enter, and the portcullis was let fall upon Owain; and it struck his horse behind the saddle, and cut him in two, and carried away the rowels of the spurs that were upon Owain’s heels. And the portcullis descended to the floor. And the rowels of the spurs and part of the horse remained between the two gates, and the inner gate was closed, so that Owain could not go thence; and Owain was in a perplexing situation. » Thus the hero encounters, first, a magic storm, next, a singing of birds, and last, a draw-bridge which almost shuts down upon him. The singing of birds is not directly motivated in the Arthurian story, but the phrase « when their song was most pleasing to Owain » must imply benumbing of the hero’s senses by the sweetness of the sound, just as, at Sirikap’s castle, the sound of the gongs causes a man to lose his wits. This is exactly the kind of change which a story-teller would make in a story in which a familiar sensation was derived from an unfamiliar cause. He would retain the incident and substitute a familiar cause. In the same way the
58
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
remarkable « swing » of the Punjab episode, which takes away the wits of all who pass under it, is meta¬ morphosed into the portcullis of the Owain story. In other stories, a « perilous passage » of this sort into the « castle of wonders » is described in such detail as to suggest more directly the comparison with the Siri- kap swing. For example, in the Irish romance of the « Wooing of Emer » the description runs 1 2 : « For on this wise was that bridge. It had two low heads and the mid space, and whenever anybody would leap on its one head, the other head would lift itself up and throw him on his back ».
In some Punjab versions of the approach to a peril¬ ous castle, there is also a fight with a champion cor* responding to that with the knight who guards the fountain, but only in the story of the a stone giants » is the storm-making power directly ascribed to such a champion and to one who later conceals himself by turning into stone. In discussions of the source of the Owain-Iwain romance, a good deal has been written about the rain-making feature of the fountain in its relation to Roman cult and peasant superstition, in order to find out exactly what idea lay back of the epi¬ sode of the fight at the fountain \ In this connection Dr. Nitze justly remarks that « what produces the storm is not the fountain but the pouring of water on the stone ». I should like to go one step further and ask whether the stone itself is not meant to be repre¬ sented as a rain-making deity and hence may not be
1. I quote from Miss Dunn in her Drawbridge of the Graal Castle , Mod. Lang. Notes, 33 (1918), 399-405, see page 400.
2. Nitze, W. A., Modern Philology , 3, 267-280 ; 7, 145-164. Morgan, Louise, Modern Philology, 6, 33 1-341 .
Brown, A. C. L., Harvard Studies and Notes, 8 ; Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass., i3, 673-706; Modern Philology , 9, 109-128; 17, 375, Foerster, Ivain (ed. 1902).
PUNJAB LEGEND
5 9
"interpreted as the transformed champion who, in re¬ sponse to the challenge which effects his restoration, rides out to encounter the hero. Is it not possible that the knight of the fountain in his chivalric dress is one with the Punjab giant who summons the storm by placing a finger upon one nostril and blowing through the other, and who escapes into a stone until he is exorcised thence by the predestined hero?
In support of this suggestion I shall cite an instance of a rain-making deity from a locality quite remote indeed from both places under discussion, but one which will serve to prove that such a metamorphosis may seem perfectly natural to the primitive mind. In the dry bed of a certain valley in the mountains of Hawaii there stands a mass of lava rock which the natives still regard with awe as a demi-god transformed by the wrath of the volcano goddess, Pele, and as a rain-god who can be stirred up to send rain over the valley by striking the rock with a peculiarly marked fish or with a plant whose leaves bear similar markings. No water of any kind is connected with the rock, although it is possible that the volcanic eruption which formed the block of lava also choked the springs which once watered the valley and hence gave rise to the story of the rain-making god, Ku-Mauna. 1 here is no idea of the god’s re-transformation into human form at the time the storm takes place. Nevertheless the idea is here of a magic stone, once a demi-god in human form, who has the power to send rain when challenged in a particular way. Certainly the appearance of the mysterious slab beside the fountain suggests some such idea of metamorphosis.
And if this is admitted, may not the mysterious Lady of the Fountain be interpreted as a Medusa witch or Gorgon, who can turn into stone and lestore to life again like the witch in the Gandgarh episode ol the
6o
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
Punjab story? The Gorgons are storm producers; sorceresses and1 2 beautiful like Irish fairy mistresses; they dwell in the remote parts of Earth ; they are both vengeful and beloved; they are also associated with the moon (in the Orphic epithet of « Gorgon-glance » for the moon’s orb); hence such an explanation would satisfy every suggestion already put forth by mediaeval scholars to fix the identity of the enigmatical Lady of the Fountain. Nor is the Rasalu story lacking in those elements which, as in Dr. Foerster’s early analysis, would connect a « Widow of Ephesus » theme with the mediaeval romance. In Swynnerton’s version (already- quoted) of Rasalu’s encounter with the woman in the stone giant’s palace, the lady is represented as enamour¬ ed of the young hero and ready to show him how to kill her giant husband if he will only promise to marry her.
Another episode of the Owain-Iwain romance besides that of the contest at the fountain may possibly be come clearer by comparison with the Rasalu cycle.
I his is the curious episode of Lunet’s imprisonment and release. She is imprisoned because she has boasted of the hero’s strength, and she is tardily released by Owain after he has returned from rescuing a lady from a besieged city. One Punjab version of the match with Sirikap i elates that as Rasalu is walking outside the
1. See the excellent discussion of the Gorgo by Dr. Niese in the Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopddie (Stuttgart, 1902). Escape from an enemy by changing into a stone does not 'often occur in European folk-tale, but it appears in Arthurian romance when Morgan le Fay (perhaps a Gorgon lady) so transforms herself and her company in order to escape Arthur’s revenge after she has failed in her plot of the stolen sword.
2. Swynnerton, Folk-Lore Journal, I, i34-i38. The version was « taken down from the mouth of a peasant of the upper Punjaub, living in a village under the very shadow of the Gan¬ ger ». In Mrs. Steele’s version (op. cit., page 266) Rasalu meets a
PUNJAB LEGEND
61
city of Sialkoi in the evening, he hears a voice and discovers a princess chained by one foot in a cleft of the rock, who gives him directions how to proceed in order to overcome her father. She is daughter to the old magician and has been thus imprisoned because she once looked favorably upon one of her father’s competitors and gave him a magic carpet to sit on in order that he might win the contest with her father. She says, « I knew by my powers of divination that a prince would come from a distant kingdom, strong and young, and that having cut off my father’s head he would release me ». Rasalu forgets all about the girl in the excitement of the encounter, until he is leaving the city and hears her weeping. He then realizes that he has forgotten to stipulate for her release. He breaks her chain, takes her into the castle and forces her lather to provide a suitable match for her. Although the episode occurs in only one recorded version of the Rasalu story, it must be old because it has no motivation as here rehearsed and must have been retained from habit rather than invented for embellishment. In every other version of the Sirikap story. Rasalu is forewarned by a headless corpse who asserts himself to be the brother of Sirikap; whose head-chopping propensity has not spared even his own kin k
Other incidents in the Owain story besides Lunet’s imprisonment may be related to the Sirikap adven-
band of prisoners as he leaves the castle, and they call to him to have their chains loosed. In Temple, he trees « other prisoners ».
i. In Temple (I, 89), Rasalu restores the corpse to life. We have no evidence to connect this corpse of the Sirikap episode with that of the imprisoned lady’s lover, for favoring whom she has lost her liberty. It would perhaps be too ingenious to suggest that the warning voice from the cliff-side and the warning corpse belonged, in earlier versions, to two separate encounters at the perilous castle.
62
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
ture. Ovvain's last adventure is at the « Court of the savage black man » whence he rescues four and twenty ladies « as sorrowful as death » whose lovers have all been slain by the tyrant'. They say, «We are the daugh¬ ters of Earls, and we all came here with our husbands whom we dearly loved. And we were received with honor and rejoicing. And we were thrown into a state of stupor, and while we were thus, the demon who owns this castle slew all our husbands, and took from us our horses, and our raiment, and our gold, and our silver ; and the corpses of our husbands are still in this house, and many others with them ». Owain spares the black tyrant’s life on this plea, « It was foretold that thou shouldst come hither and vanquish me, and thou hast done so. I was a robber here and my house was a house cf spoil; but grant me my life and I will become the keeper of a Hospice, and I will maintain this house as an Hospice for weak and for strong, as long as I live, for the good of thy soul ». May not the Peredur episode of the reproachful lady whom Peredur, when he emerges for the first time from the Castle of Wond¬ ers after witnessing the bleeding lance and the head upon a salver, finds wreeping over her slain husband’s body, be related to that of the warning by a headless corpse and a chained lady in the Sirikap episode1 2 ? The knight has been slain without cause by « the knight that is in the glade by the wood ». Peredur overthrows this knight and forces him to take the lady in marriage whose husband he has slain without cause, although if one were to judge by the pother the Lady of the Fountain makes over such a proposed reparation, the arrangement is not without its sentimental difficulties to the mediaeval mind.
1. Mabinogion,
2. Ibid, 1 85 .
PUNJAB LEGEND
6d
Not to dwell upon other familiar motives of the Owain-Iwain cycle and that of the Peredur-Perceval which suggest comparison with the Rasalu cycle, I should like to note further the possible light to be thrown upon the episode of the Red-Knight- Witch- U tide in the Perceval story, and of the Nine Witches of Gloucester and the Addanc in the Peredur, by compar¬ ison with Rasalu’s adventure with the «stone giants In the Punjab story, a hero, fairy born, is predestined to the destruction of the race of « stone giants ». He avenges the insult offered by the giant « water-carrier » to the lad whom he has promised to protect. In the Perceval romance, the insult is offered to the queen, whose drinking-cup the Red Knight carries away. In Celtic folk-tale it is often a king who suffers shame. Rasalu encounters a group of giants; in the Perceval romance interest is centered upon a single encounter — that with the Red Knight, but that there were origin¬ ally a group of foes is indicated in Peredur by the way the story tails off with the subduing of sixteen other giants (for generous measure), all of whom are sent as pledge to Arthur’s court. In the English Sir Perceval there is a curious coincidence between Perceval s way of disposing of the Red Knight and his mother, and Rasalu’s conflict with the stone giants which can hardly t>e dismissed as matter of chance only. The first giant Rasalu shoots through the head with one of his invinc¬ ible arrows; the second he slays after he has first learned how to unsheath him from his stone hiding; a third he burns under the bush in which he is hiding , finally, he throws into the fire the witch who knows the revivifying spell. If we conceive the Perceval romancer following some such artless tale as this, we shall see in his account of the fight with the Red Knight ail the incident of the three-fold encounter. The Knight bares his head and Perceval sends a shaft through his eye.
04
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
In order to get him out of his armour (in which he may be hiding), Perceval burns the body. He finally burns the witch mother, who might have restored her son to life if his body had not been burned.
Dr. Griffith has shown the relation of this episode of the Red Knight’s witch mother in Sir Perceval of Galles , as well as the Addanc adventure in Peredur and the hag battle detailed in Gerbert’s« Continuation », to the episode of the life-restoring witch on the battle-field which occurs in a large group of Celtic folk-tales '. He thinks that the « Red-knight-witch- uncle » episode of the English Perceval story stood by itself as a separate tale before it got incorporated into the first « frame-tale » of the Perceval story. This first tale he thinks consisted in the story of a youth reared in a forest, who goes to the rescue of a lady. As contributing factors to the incorporated story he notes an insult to be avenged ; relations in the persons of an « uncle », three young men, a foster sister and a supernatural lady who acts as adviser; a hag battle, with revivifying balm and the overthrow of the insulter. But Griffith does not investigate beyond the Celtic field to discover the affiliations of this incorpor¬ ated story. May it not be interpreted as a Medusa witch story? However remote it may seem from the
1. Griffith, Reginald Harvey, Sir Perceval of Galles, Chicago,
1CJII.
2. The plot of the hag battle is as follows : The hero fights by day with antagonists whom he slays, but finds each morning alive again. He remains awake on the battle-field and discovers a witch with a pot of ointment with which she restores the slain champions. He forces the pot from her, slays the revived champ¬ ions, and uses the ointment for his own or his friend’s restora¬ tion to life or health. This plot should be compared with the mumming play of « Golishan» or « St. George and the Turk » or the « Nine Worthies », a parallel long ago suggested bv Mr. Alfred Nutt.
PUNJAB LEGEND
65
classic version in which Perseus smites off the head ot the snaky locked Gorgon, a glance from whose eyes transforms men into stone, it has a parallel in the Medusa witch of folk-tale ' as well as in the life-restoring hag of Celtic folk-tale, both of which aie evidently variations ol the Gorgon myth and as such must be interpreted \ May not Dr. Griffith’s « interpolated story » upon the » framework tale » ol
r. See Grimm. 6, « the I wo Brothers «. Hartland (Legend ot Perseus, i, 17-70) brings together a large number of variants and shows how they are related to the classic Medusa story. Rolte u. Polivka (. Anmerkungen p. d. Kinder- u. Hausmc'ir chart, igia, 1, 534), outlines the story ns follows. Two boys are either mat vellously gifted or marvellously conceived. They wander foiih accompanied by helpful beasts, and part in search of separate adventure, leaving a life token to warn each of the other’s need. One brothet fiees a maiden from a dragon and after outwitting a teigned rescuer weds the lad}', lie goes to hunt in a wood and both he and his beasts arc bewitched by an old hag and turned into stone. The other brother, made aware of his fate by the life token, follows him, is mistaken for her husband by his brother’s wile, visits the hag, outwits her and compels his brother's resto¬ ration and that of the others she has bewitched (that is, turned to stone).
2. Gorgon myths are not remote from Punjab story. The Naga woman who weds a hereditary enemy of her people and tries to protect him from the magicians of the Nags who attempt his life, is in fact one of these life-restoring witches. See Princ¬ ess Newal Dai, Temple, I, 4i8-52cS, where, in lines 3gi-3g6 we read :
The winds blew east and west,
And lifted the veil from her face .
The flash of her eyes fell on him As the lightning’s flash from the clouds.
1 he moment the Princess's gaze fell on the deer,
He starLed back and fell down.
1 he story goes on to tell how the princess recovers the deer by pouring a little of her own blood into its mouth. She fur¬ ther recovers all the slain. For the dead Raja’s recovery she brings « fresh nym leaves ». According to Temple, the story states how afeud arose between the invading Aryans and the
5
(35 MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
Sir Perceval (which latter tale consists, it will be remembered, of a youth reared in a forest who goes to the rescue of a lady), embody a version of the slaying of the Medusa witch, and the framework tale itself re¬ present the Andromeda episode which classic myth has fixed into the same pattern with the Medusa adventure, just as it occurs in the folk-tale of the « Two Brothers », only in different order of event ? In the folk-tale there are two adventurers (or more); the first rescues the lady, the last rescues the first from the Medusa witch. Perhaps this double adventure is reflected in the two visits to the fountain in the Owain romance and in Peredur's two visits to the Castle of Wonders.
Finally, the Punjab story of the stone giants throws light, not only upon the Red Knight and the Addanc episodes, but also upon the episode of the « nine witches of Gloucester ». 1 he natuie of these witches has never been very clearly explained. The contest with them enters in a haphazard way into the romance of Peredur, and yet it is expressly employed as the pivotal plot of the story. It is expressly stated at the close of the story that the object of Peredur’s adventure is the satisfaction of a blood revenge against the nine witches who have slain his « cousin ». Peredur is predestined to this victory ; there is a prophecy tnat he will defeat the witches. The witches appear twice in the story and both times in close connection with Peredur’s visit to the Castle of Wonders, where the bleeding head and the weeping maidens remind Peredur of his duty as an avenger. In detail the plot runs something like this :
pre-Aryan inhabitants of the Punjab (who arc called Snake- people because it was believed that they could turn themselves into snakes), because of the abduction of a Naga princess by an Aryan chiet.
PUNJAB LEGEND
67
The nine witches have slain the « cousin » of Peredur. Peredur is warned by a stately lady against passing the night at the castle, which is harassed each night by the witches, but nevertheless remains. When one of the witches attacks the watch, « he struck her upon the head with his sword, so that he flattened her helmet and her head-piece like a dish upon her head ». She recognizes him as the one from whom it is prophesied that she shall suffer harm, provides him with a horse and armour and carries him with her into the land of the witches in order to learn sorcery of them. Later his horse disappears; he follows it to a castle where he finds not only his own but Gawain's horse as well, and Gawain himself within. Having been informed of the blood-feud with the nine witches, he sum¬ mons Arthur to do battle with them. Again he smites upon the helmet a witch who has slain one of Arthur's men before his face, and « all her head-armour was split in two parts ». She sets up a cry that this is Peredur, « the man who had learnt Chivalry with them, and by whom they were destined to be slain ». Arthur and his men fall upon the witches and slay them all.
What relation has this plot with the Rasalu story? Who is the cousin slain by the nine witches ? What « sorcery » does Peredur learn?
If there is a blood-feud between Rasalu and the « stone giants » it seems to be lost out of the story. The Peredur story is almost equally reticent in regard to Peredur’s blood-feud with the nine witches. But that this is the hero prophesied to slay them all, both stories fully agree \ Nor can one fail to notice, in the encounter with giants and with sorceresses alike, not onlyr the part which the predestined destroyer pla\rs in the story, but also the John the Bear method of attack \ Compare with the account of the alarm and
1. See Woods, George B., A Reclassification of the Perceval Romances , Pub. Mod. Lang. Ass., 20 (1912), 524-567.
2. See Grimm, 91, or Grimm, i66(Bolte u. Polivka, II, 3oo).
68
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
consternation of the giants at Rasalu’s approach, the passage in Peredur that reads : « And with the break of day Peredur heard a dreadful outcry. And he hastily arose, and went forth in his vest and his doublet, with his sword about his neck, and he saw a sorceress overtake one of the watch, who cried out violently. Peredur attacked the sorceress, and struck her upon the head with his sword, so that he flattened her helmet and her headpiece like a dish upon her head. She cried :Thy mercy, goodly Peredur, son ofEvrawc, and the mercy of heaven. — How knowest thou, hag, that I am Peredur? — By foreknowledge that I should suffer harm from thee. And thou shall take a horse and armour of me; and with me shalt thou go to learn chivalry and the use of thy arms » Later in the story — as it would seem, upon Peredur’ s final visit to the castle of wonders — the same scene is repeated : — « And they began lo fight with them (the sorceresses) ; and one of the sorceresses slew one of Arthur’s men before Peredur’s face and Peredur bade her forbear. And the sorceress slew a man before Peredur’s face a second time, and a second time he forbade her. And the third time she slew a man before the face of Peredur; and then Peredur drew his
The John the Bear hero is of marvelous birth and strength, son of a mother stolen away by a bear, dwarf, robber, etc., etc., from whom the son rescues himself and his mother. With two comrades he comes to an empty house in the woods where he overcomes a demon who has mishandled his companions, or he successfully guards a treasure and catches the thief whom his companions have failed to capture. He seeks three maidens guarded by dragons underground ; is let down by his compan¬ ions into a hole, kills the dragons with a magic sword, is betrayed by his companions, who cariy off the maidens and leave him in the hole, and escapes thence with same token to return and expose his betrayers and marry one of the maidens, i. Mabinngion, 19 1 .
PUNJAB LEGEND
6g
sword and smote the sorceress on the helmet; and all her head-armour was split in two parts. And she set up a cry and desired the other sorceresses to flee and told them that this was Peredur, the man who had learnt chivalry with them, and by whom they were destined to be slain » '.
It is to be observed that the troublesome demon in the John the Bear folk-tale generally comes to demand food (or to steal it) and that the demon is disabled rather than actually killed, by striking him upon the head or, as in the Beowulf story, crippling his arm 1 2. He then acts as guide to some underground or magic country where the hero gains treasure, gifts of magic or the release of imprisoned maidens. So in Rasalu, the giant water-carrier snatches the bread which the lad is carrying and Rasalu cuts off his hand. In Peredur, the witch attacks or slays the watch and the hero strikes her a damaging blow on the helmet. The water-carrier escapes into a cavern whither in some versions Rasalu pursues him, in others it is the giantess herself who takes refuge there. In Peredur, the subdued witch carries Peredur away to the land of the witches, a land which seems in some way related to the Castle of Wond¬ ers. In another instance, a lady besieged by the witches is rescued by Peredur. Finally, Rasalu extorts from the giantess the secret of stone transformation; Peredur wins armour and « training in chivalry ».
One might multiply examples of such resemblances between the stock incidents of the Iwain-Owain or the Perceval-Peredur romance and the story of Rasaiu or of some other Punjab hero. Both seem to be following
1. Ibid. 2ig.
2. Friedrich Panzer, in Studien zur Germanischen Sagenge- schichte, I, thinks the Beowulf story of the encounter with the hall-haunting demon and its mother to be a literary version of the John the Bear folk-tale already outlined.
7 O MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
a common thread. But I do not think either Anglo- Norman or Welsh romancer writes as if he were relat¬ ing a native story. The baffling character of these Arthurian romances seems to me to depend upon the fact that the composer is following a tale drawn from a different race and a different religion from his own, threaded also with an Oriental symbolism of which he but half guesses, if at all, the meaning. Just how much of the original story we may be able to reconstruct out of the romances which exist to-day is certainly doubtful, but if my points of comparison have been well taken, these Punjab stories suggest something of the original stuff out of which both Punjab bards and Anslo- Norman romancers have woven their tales. The Rasalu legends sung to-day as folk-tales in the Punjab must have survived out of a period of higher culture when the national bards recited before the grandees possibly at a time of endangered national magnificence. May not these Oriental tales have drifted into Europe and served in the hands of Anglo-Norman poets as a trea¬ sure-house from which to enrich and embellish the legends of Britain ?
For the Punjab songs contain the magic paraphern¬ alia of Arthurian romance — friendly beasts, Gorgon witches, magicians who chop off and restore heads, stone-transformations, hunting-scenes, animals who entice a hero into the power of a witch (or a pretty woman), together with holy men, chess-matches, magic storms and perilous castles, just as they appear in the phantasmagoria of Welsh romances and onlva shade less strangely in Anglo-Norman.
Compare with the English romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the charming Story of Raja Jagdeo in Temple’s collection \ The younger of two
i. Temple, II, 182-203.
PUNJAB LEGEND
Raja's sons having seized the kingdom, the older goes out to seek his fortune. After an adventure with a demon similar to that of Rasalu, he 1 etui ns to court. The witch-wife of the court bard does him reverence and is reproved for it. She makes the reigning Raja swear to give eleven times what Jagdeo will give and then requires of him his head encrusted with jewels. Jagdeo gives it unhesitatingly. The Raja can find not even one follower who will do the same. Then the witchwife restores Jagdeo to life and taunts the Raja.
The whole Rasalu legend follows more closely than any other hero-cycle known to us, the early piotol the legend of Arthur. Rasalu is fairy born. For twelve vears he is brought up by foster patents in stciet because his life is exposed to danger. He goes abroad upon adventure and weds a princess from a foreign land who brings about his ruin ; she entertains another lover during his absence and Rasalu is killed in battle by those who have gathered to avenge his rival. Some say he did not die, but was taken into the water of the Ganges and will come again As in Arthur¬ ian legend, Rasalu brings his doom upon his own head ; it is only when he breaks the jogi’s command to injure none who is innocent that he becomes unfortun¬ ate. Arthurian story exonerates Guinevere, although in early Celtic references, Guinevere is a queen not without reproach '. Certain details of the Rasalu story recall the earliest Arthurian legends. For example, in repairing the walls of Sialkot against the Mohammed¬ an invasion, Salwan finds that one tower cannot be made to stand. The astrologers say: «' Never will the wall stand until the head of a young Mohammedan, who must also be an only son, has been butied under the foundation ». Both Rasalu and Arthur possess a
i, Rhys, John, Studies in the Arthurian legend, chap. Ill,
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
7 2
magic weapon — the one a sword, the other a steel bow and invincible arrows. The Medusa theme which enters the Rasalu story in the episode of the « stone giants of Gandgarh » appears early in the Arthur legend in the description by Nennius of Arthur’s shield. These resemblances, however, belong to the common stock of mediaeval romance and do not in themselves prove a common source .
In conclusion, I should like to cite one instance in which /an Oriental tale sung in the Punjab may be shown to contain the material of a well-known Arthur¬ ian romance. In that curious Middle-English com¬ position which narrates the adventures of Arthur at the Tarn Wadling the most that can be said for its unity is that some versifying moralist has seen in the two episodes of which it is composed — - the punishment meted out to miserliness and the courtly settlement of a dispute over lands — an opportunity to teach right¬ eous conduct to kings. As a story the action has no coherence. There is an elaborate setting and Gawain is represented in both episodes as the model of knight¬ hood. The action runs as follows :
Arthur has come to Carlisle to hunt with his knights. One day when only Gawain is left to serve as her escort, Guine¬ vere is terriSied to see an apparition arise from the Tarn Wadling and glide toward her in the shape of a naked and tortured woman. Guinevere shrieks, but Gawain with great presence of mind addresses the wailing ghost and they learn that she is the spirit of the queen’s mother, once « red as a
i . Awntyrs of Arthur at the Terne Wathely, i38o, (Lubcke) Ediied : Robson, Camden Society, 18, 1842 (Ireland ms.)
Amours, Scottish Text Society, 1897 (Douce & Thornton texts); Hazlitt, Early Popular Poetry of Scotland, 1895, vol. I Madden, Sir Gawavne, Publications of the Bannatyne Club, 1839.
For these data I am indebted to Dr. A. C. L. Brown.
PUNJAB LEGEND
7-1
rose » hut now tormented in hell because she was pitiless to the poor. She beseeches the queen to have masses said for her soul and, with a prophecy against the too rich and covetous kings of Britain, glides away.
That night as the court sits at supper, there enter a player, a lovely lady, and a noble knight, who claims as his lawful inheritance certain lands which Arthur has given to his favorite Gawain. In the tourney that follows, Gawain is victorious ; but a compromise is arranged and the stranger knight becomes a member of the Round Table.
In spite of the excellent didactic coloring of the story, it is hard to conceive why two such unrelated episodes should make up a single story unless the composer were using some original source in which equivalent incidents occurred but out of which the motivation had been lost. The Punjab story of Gul Badshah 1 offers such a parallel. Here the two incidents occur in natural sequence (if we allow for the dropping out of adventures between) and with such motivation as furnishes a reasonable thread upon which to string the adventure. The story is as follows :
The lovely princess Senah demands of all her suitors the achieving of two tasks — to discover and put an end to the cause of the fearful wailings which occur at a certain time outside her palace, and to bring her a message from her sist¬ er who has been spirited away to a perilous castle. Prince Ahmed is the youngest of the Raja’s sons and the only son of his father’s younger wife. His seven brothers all attempt the princess’s suit and fail in the quests. Ahmed watches the place of wailings and learns that ten merchants were here murdered by robbers. Nine of them were kind to the poor, their ghosts receive rice from Heaven ; but the tenth was pitiless and he gets nothing but stones which cause him to wail horribly. Ahmed addresses the ghost and learns where
i. Swynnerton, Romantic Tales, 71-107. The story is « told at Haji Shah, near Attock, by Gholam, a Mohammedan villager »•
74
MARTHA WARREN BECKWITH
the dead merchant buried his treasure ; by distributing this to the poor he stops the wailings. He next achieves the adventure of the message from the princess’s sister. Finally he comes riding home with his bride, and all the brothets see that she is lovelier far than any of their wives. As the only son of his father’s second wife he demands half of his father's lands, and wins against his brothers in a battle fought to determine this right.
In this story the episode of a wailing ghost torment¬ ed in the next life for lack of charity in this, is followed by the incident of a dispute over a land claim. Details of the two stories are strikingly parallel. Gawain, like Ahmed, shows his courage by addressing the torment¬ ed ghost. The relationship of the ghost to the queen, although it may be a mere embellishment ot the romance composer, may also have been suggested by the relationship between Senah and the sistet from whom Ahmed brings the message and who, to judge by the detail of the perilous passage Ahmed under¬ takes, would seem to be safely lodged in Hell. And the picture of the stranger knight s arrival in Arthui s court resembles very closely that drawn in Gul Badshah Oi the arrival of Ahmed and his lovely bride.
If this parallel isaccepted, it may throw light upon the method of the metrical romancer of the period. The same trick of manipulation in more expert hands may have produced a Lady of the Fountain and a Peredur or Sir Perceval out of that oriental cycle of hero-tales which is reflected today in modern legends of the Punjab, or even a romance of Arthur and his knights of Britain out of the national epic which celebrated the Hindoo stand in the Punjab against the encroaching and alien Mohammedan.
THE LOVE POTION
IN THE
PRIMITIVE TRISTAN ROMANCE
EUGENE VINAVER
In his epoch-making introduction to the poem ot Thomas, M. Bedier inserted a reconstruction of the original Tristan poem. He gave there the following version of the episode of the love potion :
« Quand le temps du depart fut venu, la reine d Ir- lande prepara un breuvage puissant, et le confia secie- tement a Brangien qui devait accompagner Iseut en Cornouailles. C'etait un philtre d amoui ... Telle en etait la vertu que ceux qui le boiraient ensemble devaient s'aimer a jamais »‘.
M. Bedier acknowledges that his reconstruction of the last sentence quoted is based on the versions ot Thomas, the French Prose Romance and the Oxford
i . Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas. S. A.T. F., T. II, p. i3j.
EUGENE VINAVER
76
Folie all of which describe the influence of the love potion as unlimited , and is contradicted by the poems of Eilhart and Beroul, in which the influence of the love draught is limited to a certain period. The poet suggests that if the lovers did not see each other for half a day during the first four years they would fall ill; if they did not see each other for a week they would die1. But after four years the influence of the potion would become slightly leess potent and the lovers might part 2. In the extant fragment of the poem of Beroul the scene of the giving of the potion by the Irish Queen is missing, but in the episode of the lovers’ return from the forest Beroul says that after a certain period (three years according to Beroul) the love potion abated 3.
M. Bedier thought that the limitation of the efficacy of the «vin herbe» which occurs in Eilhart and Beroul was due not to the author of the primitive Tristan romance, but to a later imitator whose work was the source of Beroul and Eilhart. In M. Bedier’s view the primitive poet to whom we owe the world’s greatest love story could not have reduced the motif of the love potion to a mere piece of witchcraft devoid of symbolic value. He could not, indeed, have conceived of the Tristan romance as a « story of a triennial intoxication ». In consequence, M. Bedier assumes that Eilhart and Beroul proceed from a common original which is not the primitive romance. « Un poete », he says, « l’auteur de ce roman que devaient imiter Eilhart et Beroul, con- naissait la version selon laquelle le philtre garde un pouvoir indefini... II a voulu affranchir autant que
1. Cf. Eilhart von Oberge, ed. Lichtenstein, lines 2279-2299.
2. Cf. ibid.., 4730-4742 .
3. Le Roman de Tristan par Jieroul et un anonyme , ed. E. Muret, S. A. T. F., pp. 67-68.
THE LOVE POTION IN THE PRIMITIVE TRISTAN ROMANCE
/ i
possible ses heros de ceite sorcellerie. II a observe que dans Vestoire les arnants passent plusieurs annees ensemble se voyant journellement, avant la grande separation. Alors, non sans ingeniosite, il a invente la donnee que reproduit Eilhart d’Oberg : par la force du « boire », Tristan et Iseut s'aimerontde tous leurs sens leur vie durant; pendant les quatre premieres annees, s’ils sont separes une seule demi-journee, tons deux tomberont en langueur ; si la separation dure une semaine, tous deux mourront; mais au bout de quatre ans s’ils s’aiment toujours, ils peuvent pourtant suppor¬ ter d’etre separes » 1 .
Writing in 1907, Professor W. Golther suggested that M. Bedier’s theory was incorrect and that Eilhart and Beroul derived directly from the first romance ot Tristan. « Da nach meiner Ansicht Eilhart und Berol selbstilndig je fiir sich, nicht durch eine gemeinsame Zwischenstufe hindurch aut den alten Roman zuriick- gehen, so mussjeder von ihnen gemeinsam iiherlieferte Zug f ti r s Urgedicht angesprochen werden. So gehort nach meiner Auffassung auch die zwar lebensliingliche, in ihrer unwiderstehlichen Kraft jedoch aufdrei Jahre beschrankte Wirkung des Trankes schon zum alien Roman » a.
The problem of the love potion motif in the primit¬ ive Tristan romance received a new and thorough treatment in the admirable work of the late Miss Gei- trucie Schoepperl® : « Tristan and Isolt. A Study oi The Sources of the Romance))3. Miss Schoepperle dis¬ puted M. Bedier’s reconstruction of the episode of the love potion and insisted, as Prot. Gohher had done, upon the authenticity of the Beroul-Eilhart version.
1 . Op. cit., II, a38.
2 . VV. Gohher, Tristan und Isolde in den Diclitungen des MiiteU alters und dev Neucn Zeit, Leipzig, 1907, p. 59.
?. Frankfurt and London, 1913.
EUGENE VINAVER
78
« It seems unjustifiable », she suggested, « to suppose that Thomas has preserved the version of the estoire in the treatment of the potion when we have evidence that he has altered it in every other important parti¬ cular in which he differs from the other redactors)) 1 .
It is Miss Schoepperle's general contention which she has stated with a fair amount of cogency that the poem of Eilhart von Oberge represents more faithfully than any other extant version (except, perhaps, the fragment of Beroul) the original Tristan romance. The problem of the treatment of the potion in that romance is bound up with the question whether it contained the version of the lovers’ voluntary return from the forest found in Eilhart and Beroul. If the latter represent the original Tristan romance in the treatment of that episode, the explanation ot the lovers’ return from the forest by the abatement of the potion is the version of the a arche¬ type », which would thus appear to be responsible tor the limitation of the influence of the potion.
Miss Schoepperle further contends that Ihomas would not have been in sympathy with a conception which condemned the relation of the lovers as criminal and made their repentance the cause of their return. « It was almost inevitable)), says Miss Schoepperle, « that he should alter such aversion in accordance with his own attitude toward love, an attitude less naive, less ascetic, more impregnated with the courtly ideals of his time. In his version the return from the forest is not due to the abatement of the influence.of the potion and the repentance of the lovers. On the contrary the two lovers give up the life together only when forced by Mark ».
It is to be regretted that Miss Schoepperle con¬ fined herself to the statement of facts without attempting to justify her theory on literary grounds and to answer
1 . Op. cit., I, 76.
THE LOVE POTION IN THE PRIMITIVE TRISTAN ROMANCE 79
the criticisms of her predecessor, M. Bedier. In the following few pages an attempt will he made both to develop Miss Schoepperle’s critical argument and to suggest some account of the literary aspects of the problem .
It cannot be gainsaid that if Thomas ’s source contained anything like the Eilhart-Beroul version of the love potion motif he would certainly alter it. He would do so not only because that version contradicted his attitude toward love in general, but because it did not tit in with his particular presentation of love in the story of Tristan. Indeed, Thomas’s touch in remodelling the story shows itself, first and foremost, in the dimin¬ ishing of the supernatural. The drama has to proceed from a source that is not beyond human knowledge. Consequently, the love potion is merely a means by which a spontaneous, a human bond of love is strength¬ ened. It cannot be resorted to as the ultimate justifica¬
tion of the relationship of the lovers, as is the case in Beroul and Eilhart. This is particularly obvious from the fact that in Thomas the love between Tristan and Iseult is prior to the episode of the love potion. Thomas’s faithful translator, the Norwegian friar
Robert, tells that when « Isond the maid came to Tristran to talk to him she beheld his beautiful lace with enamoured eyes » *. 1 he occurrence of similar traits in Gottfried (9994-I00^7) has led a recent inves¬ tigator, M. Piquet, to conclude : « II est certain que la donnee ancienne qui lait naitre i amour dans le cocut des deux jeunes gens settlement apres le philtie ne parait pas respectee par Thomas chez qui l’eclosion de ce sentiment a lieu avant la tameuse meprise »
But
1. Cf. Tristrams Saga ok Isondar , ed. Kdlbing, ch. XL1II. Ct. ulsoch. XL VI ( . ..En Tristram huggadi hana med miklu blidlaeti).
2. F. Piquet. L'originalite de Gottfried dc Strassburg, p. 208.
8o
EUGENE VINAVER
there is hardly any doubt that having altered his original in this point Thomas was bound to omit the reference to the magic virtues of the potion in the scene of the lovers’ return from the forest.
Two other texts call for attention in consideration of the problem : the French Prose Romance of Tristan and the poem of the Folie Tristan, both of which represent the « unlimited » version of the motif of the love potion ,
It is easy enough, however, to show that the version of the Folie does not in the least affect our argu¬ ment. The Folie of the Douce MS in the Bodleian Library is a derivative of Thomas and has no direct connection with the primitive Tristan poem '. The Folie of Bern alone may be regarded as a derivative of that poem. But in the Bern Folie there is no evidence whatsoever that the author was using a vers¬ ion different from that of Eiihart and Beroul Here is his description of the love philtre (3 1 8-322) :
Cil boivres fu faiz a envers De plusors herbes mout divers,
Je muir por li, ele nel sant N’est pas parti oniemant,
Car je suis Tristanz qui mar fu.
These lines merely indicate that the influence of the love potion did not terminate, but whether it abated partially, as in Eiihart. or remained unchanged throughout, as in Thomas, the Folie does not say.
i. M. Bedier mentions { Les deux poemes de la Folie Tristan . ed.J. Bedier, S. A. T. F., pp. 2-3) that « l’auteur de la Folie Tristan d’Oxford resume le roman de Thomas avec une grande fidelite - 11 le rappelle parfois a s’y meprendre ». The argu¬
ments recently advanced by E. Hoepffner {Ztschr . f. rom. Phil., XXXIX, 698) do not suffice to make out the case for a direct dependence of the Oxford Folie on the « archetype ».
THE LOVE POTION IN THE PRIMITIVE TRISTAN ROMANCE 8 I
As regards the French Prose Romance which, too, may seem to support the theory of the « unlimited » version, two possibilities are open : first, it may have been influenced by the version of Thomas and, second,
« the author may », as Miss Schoepperle thought, « have omitted independently, with his characteristic freedom, the limitation of the influence of ihe potion, the repen¬ tance of the lovers, and the voluntary return from the forest — traits that were no doubt as shocking to him as they were to Thomas » i. The second hypothesis may be correct, but in view of its conjectural character we should prefer to choose as a starting point of the argument the first supposition, namely that the Prose Romance is directly dependent on the poem of Thomas. It may, indeed, be gleaned from the works of previous investigators that there are points of isolated agreement between Thomas and the Prose Romance, which can¬ not be explained by mere coincidence. M. Muret, Pro¬ fessor W. Golther and W. Rottiger have pointed out that the episode of « the harp and the rote » in Thomas Gottfried, 1 3 i o i - x 345 B ; Sir Tristrem, 1809-1925; Saga, XLIX-LI) corresponds to a passage in the Prose Romance (MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. y56, f° 65 ff.) relating to the story of Iseult’s being carried away by Palomides 2.
1. Op. cit., I, 82. Miss Schoepperle also advanced the hypo¬
thesis that « the Prose Romance preserves a version independent ol the esloire ». In my view, which I am compelled by want of space to indicate but briefly, all the four points in the Prose Romance for which Miss Schoepperle claimed an independent origin (Tristan’s childhood, his quest of Iseult, their return from the forest, and their death) derive from aversion common to all the other authorities but altered in accordance with the methods of the prose writer. ,
2. Cf. E. Muret, Eilhart d’Oberg et sa source francaise , Romania, XVI, 3 to ; W. Golther, Die Sage von Tristan und Isolde, Miinchen, 1887, p. 58; W. Rottiger, Der heutige Stand dev Tristanforschung, Hamburg, 1897, p. 3o.
6
82
EUGENE VINAVER
W. Rottiger and E. Ldseth have traced the details about the garden scene in the Prose Romance to Thomas's version of the episode It is not improbable that the explanation of Tristan’s name by the adjective triste was borrowed by the prose writer from Thomas \ Lastly, it would appear that the description of Tristan’s hesitation before his marriage with the second Iseult (« la bataille des deux Yseltes ») which occurs in all the MSS. of the Prose Romance 1 2 3 is traceable to Thomas’s lengthy discourse on the subject 4.
The French Prose Romance, inasmuch as it repre¬ sents the old Tristan tradition, would thus appear to be a derivative of both the « archetype » and the poem of Thomas. But if the prose writer had under his eyes two versions of the story, one which confined the strongest efficacy of the love potion to a certain period, and made the potion actually control the whole story, and the other which assigned to the potion the part of a mere symbol, it was only too natural that he should choose the latter. For, just as in Thomas, in the Prose Romance the love potion is entirely relegated to the background. It has pratically no effect upon the events of the story, since Tristan and Iseult love each other before drinking the potion. Besides, their love being represented as a model of chivalrous « amour », it was impossible for the author to make it abate, even if one of his sources had done so.
For these reasons, it would not seem to be correct to base a reconstruction of the love potion motif either on Thomas, or on the French Prose Romance or indeed
1. Cf. E. Loseth, Le roman cn prose de Tristan, le roman de Palamede et la compilation de Rusiicien de Pise, 1890, §§ 284- 286. W. Rottiger, op. cit., pp. 32-33.
2. Cf. E. Loseth, op. cit., § XX.
3. Ibid., § 58.
4. LI. 447-640.
The love potion in The primitive tristan romance 83
on the Oxford Folie, and it is impossible to escape the conclusion that the Eilhart-Berou! version represents in this point the primitive romance.
Apart from the general problem with which we are concerned here, it might be interesting to remember the manner in which the idea of the limited efficacy of the love potion is introduced in Beroul. In a passage relating to the lovers’ return from the forest the poet says (2 1 33-8) :
Seignors, du vin de qoi il burent Avez oi, por qoi il furent En si grant paine lone tens mis ;
Mais ne save 7, ce iFest a vis ,
A conbien fit determine y Li loucuendris, li vin herbe$.
The last three lines suggest that this is the first announce¬ ment of the limited efficacy of the love potion in Beroul, and that Beroul did not mention that virtue of the potion in the scene of the lovers’ departure from Cornwall. Nor does Eilhart’s description of the potion in the scene of the departure go beyond the statement that during the first four years, if the lovers were separ¬ ated for half a day, they would fall ill; if for a week, they would die :
vir jar sie abir phlegetin
so grozir libe beide,
daz sie sich nicht gescheidin
mochtin einen halbin tag.
swedir daz ander nicht en sach
alle tage, daz wart siech :
von dem tranke haten sie sich lip.
ab sie werin eine wochen
von ein ander ungesprochen,
sie musten beide wesin tot :
der trang was so getemperot,
von also grozir sterke.
daz mogit ir wol gemerkin !
(Eilhart, 2288-2800).
84
EUGENE VINAVER
It is not unlikely that (as the concluding line seems to suggest) all this description is anticipated from a later section of the story which corresponds to Etlhart s lines 4730-4739 and forms a direct continuation ol the passage just c|UOted. T. his is another way of sa.y i n that in the primitive Tristan poem there would be no reference to the limited nature of the influence of the love potion until the episode of the return from the forest. It is there that the author must have explained to his readers for the first time « a combien fu deter- minez » the magic philtre which the lovers drank.
The theory that the Eilhart-Beroul version of the love potion motif represents the original Tristan romance may be substantiated not only on textual but on literary grounds, for it suggests the only adequate interpretation of the general meaning of the story and of the methods of the author.
There is in the romance of Tristan a remarkable simplicity of the tragic conception. It is the tragedy born by the all-powerful love, that is stronger than honour, stronger than blood and stronger than death, and that comes into clash with the immense, vast world of rights and duties, human and divine. But the whole essence and the greatest beauty of the tragedy in Tristan lies in the fact that it is a conflict in which the lovers never refuse to recognize the rightfulness of the law that causes their misfortune.
I f an actual struggle had been possible, if Tristan and Iseult could openly have fought the forcesagainst them, how much simpler the story would have been : there would have been no « vie aspre et dure », no hardships such as those through which they lived in the forest
THE LOVE POTION IN THE PRIMITIVE TRISTAN ROMANCE 83
of Morrois. But they cannot flee from the world of suffering, they cannot openly challenge their rivals and they never think of escaping to a happier land. There is in Beroul a passage which for tragic intensity has no parallel in the story. It is when Tristan begins to feel that he must restore Iseult to king Mark and says: « So now I cry to God the Lord who is the King of the world, and beg him to give me strength to yield back Iseult to King Mark))1.
It is a remarkable feature of the story of Tristan that it is controlled entirely by that fundamental tragic theme, which is so immensurably stronger than the lovers themselves. Like the rudderless boat in which Tristan was set adrift, they never move of their own volition — they obey some supernatural element, which, like the waves, throws them from rock to rock, sends them joys and sorrows and finally releases them from their earthly chains. They are unable not only to control the elemental force which causes their joy and their death, but even to understand it. And it is through the love potion only, through the medium of its magic qualities that the poet could possibly suggest to his heroes a fitting explanation of their story.
In the scene with the hermit Tristan swears: « S’el m’aime, c’est par la poison » 2 3, and Iseult replies . « Por Deu omnipotent, il ne m'aime pas, ne je lui, tors par tin herbe que je bui, et il en but : ce tut pechiez » . The lovers constantly think themselves acting under a spell. And in order to enable them to interpret in that way the whole tragedy, it was essential to make them think that even when they leave the forest of Morrois and submit to the king, they are forced to do so by the
1. Beroul, 2iS5-8.
2. Ibid., 1384.
3. Ibid., 1412-15,
86
EUGENE VINAVER
power ot' magic. This accounts for the idea of the partial abatement of the love potion, a motif which thus appears to be an indispensable element of the tragedy. For where could Tristan find strength to restore Iseult to the king, if he did not believe that the potion which had made him mad released him now from part of its spell? And when the time came to part, and it began to seem to the lovers that they must leave Morrois, they thought it was the love potion that came to abate.
Thus, in the original story the influence of the love potion is not actually limited : its limitation is merely an illusion of the lovers, an instance of the author’s naive method of making them unconscious of their tragedy. The « vin herbe » is a poison in the eyes of the lovers, but it never ceases to be a symbol of unchange¬ able love in those of the poet. Indeed, in the conclud¬ ing lines of the story he restores to the potion its full symbolic value. After the death of the lovers King Mark brought their bodies back to Cornwall and had their tombs built on the right and left of a chantry. But in one night there sprang from the tomb of Tristan a green and leafy briar, strong in its branches and in the scent of its flowers. It climbed the chantry and took root again by Iseult’s tomb. Thrice did king Mark command to cut it down, but thrice it grew again as blooming and as strong. The people told the marvel to the king and he forbade to cut the briar any more. It was the potion, says Eilhart, that did this thing.
i. MS. Bibl. Nat. fr. io3, f° 383a.
ISOLDES GOTTESURTEIL
FRIEDRltH RANKE
Die Episode vom gefalschten Gottesurteil findet sich innerhalb der Tristanuberlieferung bekanntlich nur im Thomaskreis (T) and beim Beroulfortsetzer (B II) ; sie fehlt Eilhard, der franzosischen Prosa und der Berner Folie. Gehorte sie zum Szenenbestand der gemein- samen Quelle von B E F T, der estoire ? — Golther bejaht die Frage, Bedier und Schoepperle lassen sie offen \ Mir scheint die Ueberlieferung von vorn herein eher dagegen zu sprechen als dafiir : wusste Golther schon keinen Grund anzugeben, warum Eilhard die eindrucksvolle Szene tibergangen haben sollte, so wurde es noch mehr befremden, wenn die Folie, in
i. W. Golther, Tristan und Isolde in den Dichtungen des Mit- telalters und der neuen Zeit, Leipzig 1907 S. 5g ff. 77. — J. Bedier, Le Roman de Tristan par Thomas II, p. 265. — G. Schoepperle, Tristan and Isolt p. 106.
88
FRIEDRICH RANKE
dcr Tristan sich der Geliebten dutch Ausplauderung der nur ihr und ihm bekannten Einzelheiten ihres Liebeslebens immer aufs Neue zu erkennen zu geben bemtiht ist, sich dies ganz besonders tief verborgene Geheimnis der beiden hatte entgehen lassen Gehorte die Episode aber nicht der esloire an, wie erkliirt sich dann ihr Erscheinen bsi T und B II ?
I
Betrachten wir den Schwank vom gefalschten Gottes- urteil in der Weltliteratur 1 2, so finden wir ihn immer wieder eingeleitet durch eine Ueberraschung des lie- benden Paares im Garten . ^Entweder wird die junge Frau mit dem Liebhaber zusammen vom Vater des Gatten nachts im Garten angetroffen; der Alte nimmt der schlafenden Schwiegertochter ein Schmuckstuck vom Arm oder Fuss, um es dem Sohn gegeniiber zum Beweis ihres Ehebruchs zu verwenden ; die Frau aber wacht auf, schickt den Liebhaber fort, holt sich den Gatten in den Garten und beklagt sich nachher bei ihm Liber die Unzartheit seines Vaters ; der junge Gatte antwortet am andern Tag dent Vater aufdessen Anklage gegen die Frau : aber das war ich ja selber ! (indisch, tiirkisch, persisch). Oder das Paar wird am friihen Morgen noch schlafend ertappt, gefangen gesetzt und durch eine Verkleidungslist gerettet (mongolisch,kasch- ntirisch, ahnlich auch belutschistanisch) ; oder endlich sie werden von einer Dienerin am Morgen gesehen ;
1. Die T folgende Oxforder Folie spielt, wie zu erwarten war, auf die Episode an : v. 817 ft'.
2. I. Meyer, Isoldes Gottesurteil in seiner erotischen Bedeutung ( Neue Studien \ur Geschichte des menschlichen Geschlechtslebens II) Berl. 1914 s. , 1 1 1 ft'.
ISOLDES GOTTESURTEIL
89
wahrend aber diese ihre Entdeckung dem Konig-Vater meldet, macht sich der Liebhaber, dcr seinerseits die Verraterin erblickt hat, rechtzeitig aus dem Staube, sodass der erziirnt herbeieilende Vater das Miidchen alleiu irn Garten antrifft (rumanisch, zigeunerisch) *.
Eine Szene von einer« Entdeckung im Baumgarten » und zwar mit einem der zuletzt beschriebenen westli- chen Fassung sehr nahe stehenden Verlauf kennen wir auch aus dem Gedicht des Thomas, nur dass sie hier nicht die Szene vom gefalschten Gottesurteil einleitet, sondern die endgtiltige Trennung der Liebenden der estoire gegeniiber neu begriindet J. Dass diese Szene des T nicht eine selbstiindige neue Erhndung des fran- zosischen Dichters sein kann, ergibt sich leicht aus einer genaueren Betrachtung ihrer inneren Struktur : schon das im Garten aufgeschlagene Bett und die Ver- legung der Zusammenkunft auf den hellen Mittag (die entweder diese Szene nur gegen andere Zusammen- kiinfte abheben oder die Entdeckung erleichtern soil) ist entschieden auffallend und wird bekanntlich erst durch Gottfried psychologisch motiviert ; ferner lusst T zwar seinen Konig Marke erstaunlicher Weise gleich bei der ersten Ueberraschung zugegen sein und muss ihn dann notwendig wieder verschwinden lassen (« um Zeugen zu holen »), damit Tristan zum Fliehen Zeit gewinnt, er hat aber auch die Rolle der verraterischen Magd nicht ganz getilgt, sondern sie auf den Zwerg iibertragen ( sorvienl ... It rots que li trains i ameine )
1. Zeitschr. fur vergleichende Literaturgeschichte I (1887) S. 457 f. (fehlt bei Meyer).
2. ed. Bedier, v. 1 ff.
5. vgl. auch Sir Tristrem 2^79 ff. the duerwe hem hath sene , to Mark gan he say : sir king, with outen wene, thi wiifis now oway and thi knigt : wende fast as thou may, oftake hem, gij thou might !
qo
FRIEDRICH RANKE
und sich dadurch bekanntlich in die neue Unwahr- scheinlichkeit verwickelt, dass der zariliche Abschied der Liebenden unter den Augen des zuruckbleibenden (aber nicht 'mehr erwahnten) Zwerges vor sich geht. Diese Unwahrscheinlichkeiten und inneren Wider- spriiche verraten uns, dass die Szene von T nicht neu erfunden sondern mit wenig Sorgfalt irgend einer « Quelle» nachgestaltet worden ist. Da wir nun die gleiche Szene in der volkstumlichen Ueberlieferung fest mit der votn gefalschten Gottesurteil zusammenge- bunden linden, und diese gleichfalls grade bei T er- scheint, so werden wir mit grosser Wahrscheinlichkeit vermuten dtirfen, dass beide Szenen, Gottesurteil und Entdeckung im Baumgarten, wie sie aus der gleichen Quelle stammen, so auch gleichzeitig und von dem gleichen Dichter zum ersten Mai in den Tristanstoff hineingearbeitet worden sind.
Wir konnten zunachst versucht sein, so zu argumen- tieren : « Entdeckung » und « Gottesurteil )) gehoren nach Ausweis der volkstumlichen Fassungen urspriin- glich zusammen ; die Entdeckung fehlt BII, findet sich allein bei T ; also ist T selber der gesuchte Dichter, der mit der Entdeckungsszene auch das Gottesurteil aus der mtindlichen Novellentradition in die Tristandich- rung neu einflocht ; BII hiitte dann das Gottesurteil von T bezogen und es an der einzigen Stelle seines Romans eingefugt, an der er es nach der bereits einge- tretenen Trennung der Liebenden noch bringen konnte : an Stelle der alten Anusszene der esloire Die Chro¬ nologic der Gedichte wiirde einer solchen Argumenta¬ tion nicht widersprechen . Doch stehen ihr zwei andere
r. Vergleichen liesse sich etwa, wie Heinrich von Freiberg als Fortsetzer Gottfrieds die von diesem mit T iibergangenen Szenen aus E : Wolfseisen, Scheiterhaufen und Tristans Sprung, an der ihm geeignet scheinenden Stelle nachholt : v. 1 57 3-3 38o.
ISOLDES GOTTESURTEIL
91
schwere Bedenken entgegen : einmal verrat die kiinst- lerische Art des BII nichts, aber auch garnichts von einer Kenntnis der so viel hoher stehenden hofischen Kunst des T — konnte bei einer MotivCibernahme die feinere Form so spurlos verloren gegangen sein ? Fer- ner ist die Erzahlung bei BII auch inhaltlich in man- chen Ziigen altertiimlicher als bei T.
Da aber der umgekehrte Ansatz BII>T schon aus chronologischen Griinden ausgeschlossen ist, so bleibt nur die Annahme einer gemeinsamen Quelle, einer Tristandichtung, aus der Entdeckung und Gottesurteil von T, das Gottesurteil allein von BII iibernommen wurde. War diese gemeinsame Quelle ein Episoden- gedicht, das sich auf die beiden (oder 3) Scenen Entdek- kung (Tristan als Pilger) und Gottesurteil beschriinkte ?
_ oder war sie ein vollstiindiger Tristanroman, der
unter den andern auch diese Scenen enthielt?1 Auch diese Frage glaube ich noch mit einiger Wahrschein- lichkeit beantworten zu konnen.
II
Im 8. Jahrgang der Romanic Review (p. 196 ft.) hat Mr. Loomis ein jetzt im Eremitage-Museum in St. Petersburg aufbewahrtes Elfenbeinkastchen mit Tris- tandarstellungen besprochen und abgebildet, auf dem folgende Szenen dargestellt sind : Auf der 1. Langseite Liebestrank, erste Uraarmung (?) und Uebergabe Isoldes an Marke; auf der 1. Querseite untergescho- bene Braut; auf dem Deckel belauschtes Stelldichein
1. Dass die gemeinsame Quelle nicht die estoire gewesen sein kann, ist jetzt noch weniger zweifelhaft geworden als vor- her : wir hatten jetzt noch eine weitere Szene, die Entdeckung im Garten, als sowohl von E als von F ubergangen anzunehmen.
92
FRIEDRICH RANKE
und Entdeckung im Walde (mit dem trennenden Schwert): aufder 2. Langseite das Liebespaar im Bett, der verkleidete T ristan triigt Isolt, Gottesurteil; aufder 2. Querseite Tristan und Kaherdin als Pilger verklei- det von der zur Jagd reitenden Isolt beschenkt. — Al- lerdings unterliegen die Seiten des Kastchens (nicht der Deckel) dem Verdacht, moderne (vor 1 83 5 ent- standene) Nachbildungen zu sein \ doch machen die darauf befindlichen Darstellungen nach Inhalt und Linienfiihrung einen so iiberzeugend echten Eindruck, dass sie zum mindesten als recht treue Kopien eines mittelalterlichen Originals anzusprechen sind. Dr. L. hat das Kastchen denn auch trotz dieses Verdachtes als glaubwiirdigen Zeugen eines mittelalterlichen 1 ristan- romans bewertet und mit voilem Recht den Schluss gezogen, dass der mittelalterliche Kunstler, der diese Bilderfolge schuf, nicht, wie noch Golther aut Grund der schlechten Abbildungen und ungenauen Beschrei- bung bei Michel annahm, der Fassung des Thomas gefolgt ist; wean eraberstatt dessen « eher die Beroul- version » als Quelle der Darstellungen vermutet, so mochte ich dahinter doch cin Fragezeichen setzen.
Die fragmentarische Ueberlieferung von Berouls Gedicht 1 a s s t bekanntlich der Rekonstruktion seines Szenenbestandes bedauerlich viel Freiheit; dass aber die Bilderfolge des Kastchens nicht diesem Gedicht entnommen ist, scheint mir eine genaue Betrachtung der Darstellungen auf der zweiten Langseite zu erwei- sen. Bild 2 und 3 sind klar : sie geben in engem sach- lichem Zusammenhang die Episode vom geialschten Gottesurteil wieder und folgen deutlich einer Darstel- lung wie der Berouls, nicht der des T (vgl. Loomis a. a. O.). Was aber stellt das erste Bildchen dar? Wir sehen da das Liebespaar im Bett unter einer Decke;
1. vgl. Loomis a. a. O.
ISOLDES GOTTESURTEIL
93
Isolt, durch die Krone als Konigin gekennzeichnet, scheint zu schlafen, Tristan ist wach und zu i hr gewandt; die Kopfe ruhen je auf einem zierlich mit Eckquasten geschmiickten kleinen Kopfkissen ; durch einen in Falten zusammengerafften Himmel ist das Bett (ahnlich demder Scene von der untergeschobenen Braut auf der ersten Querseite, dem nur die zwei Kopfkissen fehlen) als Prunkbett charakterisiert. Sind das wirklich nur « Tristan and Yseut lying in the bed of love » ohne jede Beziehung auf eine bestimmte Szene des Romans? 1 2 Gewiss enihalt jede Tristandich- tung implicite immer wieder die Liebesvereinigung des Paares; aber entspricht die Zeichnung einer sol- chen « Idealsituation » ohne genau benennbares sze- nisches Equivalent den Stilgewohnheiten mittelalter- ] icher Bildschnitzer? und ware fur eine solche Idealsituation nicht zum allermindesten eine kornposi- torisch bedeutungsvollere Stelle zu erwarten als die, an der wir das Bild auf unserem Kastchen linden, wo es ohne jede Auszeichnung in die Folge der Roman- sceneti auf der hinteren (!) Langseite eingeliigt ist?
Ich meine, auch das Bild der beiden im Bett soli, wie a l ] e andern des Kastc'hens eine bestimmte (dem Gottes- urteil voraufgehende) Szene des Romans darstellen, und es gilt eine solche zu suchen. Die Szene vom Wolfseisen kommt gewiss nicht in Betracht, ua ilu Kennzeichen, die Sensenlalle, fehlt und sie ausserdem nirgends das Gottesurteil einleitet ; auch die Szene von Tristans Bettsprung (the footprint at the floor) kann nicht gemeint sein, denn ihr ist nicht das Zusammen- sein sondern eben der Sprung wesentlich 3. So bleibt
1. Loomis a. a. 0. p. 201 mit dem Zusatz : « There is no hint
as to the particular occasion ».
2. vgl.z. B. die Darstellung der Szene durch den Maler det
Runkelsteiner Freshen.
94
FRIEDRICH RAHKE
nur die Entdeckungsszene, von der wir nach dem Vor- aufgegangenen annehmen, dass sie in einer gemein- samen Quelle von T und BII die Erzahlung voin ge- fiilschten Gottesurteil einleitete, d. h. genau die Stelle einnahm, an der wir das Bild auf dem Kastchen finden. Wollte der BiLdschnitzer diese Scene wiedergeben, so musste er vor allem die Liebenden im Bette zeigen ; er tat das, und wiihlte dabei anscheinend den Augenblick, wo der erwachte "Frisian die schlalende Isolt weckt. Freilich hatte er die Situation durch Andeutung des Gartens oder durch den sich entfernenden Beobachter deutlicher kennzeichnen konnen ; das hat er unter- lassen k Trotzdem scheint mir kein Zweifel : wir haben auf dem Kiistchen die Szenenfolge von Entdeckung und Gottesurteil vor uns, und zwar nicht als Episoden- dichtung, sondern als Gliedstiick in der Szenenkette des Gesammtromans.
i. Die Annahme, dass hier einma! der rnoderne Nachbildner eine Figur seiner Vorlage (vielleicht nur einen Kopf imBildhin- tergrund) ubersehen oder aus Unverstandnis fortgelassen habe, mochte ich doch nicht wagen.
THE IRISH ELEMENT
IN
KING ARTHUR AND THE GRAIL
ARTHUR G.-L. BROW^sf
It is no more a paradox to speak of the Irish element in King Arthur and theGrail than it would be to speak of the English element in Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was not born until the United States had been for more than a quarter of a century independent of England. He never set foot on English soil, and yet it is obvious that nobody can understand the main traits of his char¬ acter except by considering the traditions and the his¬ tory of the English people. King Arthur was a Welsh¬ man. The story of King Arthur and the Grail came to the French and English from the Welsh, and, it is thought, from the Bretons of the northwest corner of France. The scene of Arthur’s exploits was never in Ireland ; and yet it is true that the spirit of the Arthur¬ ian romances is either of Irish origin, or is at least best preserved in Ireland, and that the original idea oi
9°
ARTHUR C.-L. BROWN
the Grail can only be grasped by a knowledge of Irish romantic fiction.
Just how Irish story made its way to Wales is not very clear, but scholarly opinion now favors the idea that a great portion of Irish fable did reach the Welsh. The Welsh and the Bretons spoke a different language from the Irish, but the Four Branches of the Mab- inogi, which are among the oldest Welsh prose tales, although, to be sure, they do not mention Arthur, have been proved to be full of Irish material. Probably Welsh bards were in the habit of serving apprentice¬ ship under Irish teachers, and made it their business to imitate their Irish brethren ; probably they adopted Irish romantic tales inserting Welsh characters and Welsh place-names. Certain it is, to mention but an example or two, that Arthur’s famous sword, Excali- bur, derives both name and character from an Irish fairy sword, Caladbolg, and that the central incident of the English romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight , comes, even to the details of the dialogue, from a similar adventure of Cuchulinn which is known to us in the Irish saga called Fled Bricrend.
Welsh fairy-lore, of course, closely resembled Irish, so that it is usually difficult in the case of a partic¬ ular story to tell whether we are dealing with par¬ allel developments in Irish and Welsh, or whether the latter folk actually borrowed from the former. Since , however , we have very few Welsh and very manv Irish mediaeval documents, we are forced in practice to study the origin of mediaeval romance in Irish story. Some of the elements of the fairy back¬ ground in the Arthurian romances may prove to be genuine Welsh and not Irish, but at least this mytho¬ logical framework cannot be understood except by a study of the Irish material. Without pressing the point of ultimate origin we may, perhaps, speak of the source
KING ARTHUR AND THE GRAIL
97
of mediaeval fairy machinery as to be found in Irish literature.
Fairy incidents and fairy personages, which form the chief Celtic contribution to Arthurian mediaeval romance, were able to engage the attention of men of the twelfth century because of a conception of the fair¬ ies which was peculiar to the Celts. The Irish fairies are of human shape and appearance, and except for being subject to the mysterious rules of fairyland, very much of human passion and behavior. When Connla, as a ninth century document tells us, was en¬ countered by one of the everliving ones, he knew that she was a fairy solely by her « wonderful garments ». When John Connors today meets a fairy king near Kil- larney, he spends several hours in his company before he finds out that he is anvthing other than a a verv well dressed gentleman ».
In their human size and behavior the fairies of the Celts are unlike the humpbacked gnomes, the tiny elves, and gigantic trolls, that people the fancy of the rest of Europe. Because of their quite normal appear¬ ance Irish fairies easily entered Arthurian romances, the men becoming enchanters or magicians, and the women, ladies of ail-compelling beauty who exacted from proud knights abject submission and service. This kind of lady caught the fancy of the French trouveres of the twelfth century. It supplied them with the capricious, independent, and marvelously beautiful heroines whom they sought for their romances of chiv¬ alry. Small change was necessary to make these other- world ladies seem human ; they were almost human¬ ized from the beginning, and, already in ancient Irish story, were confused with the daughters of men. In the sagas, and still more in the chronicles of Ireland, the fairies were tied up with historic people and events, and thus a step was taken toward transforming
7
ARTHUR C.-L. BROWI'l
98
them into men and women. Probably this tationalizing went still further in Wales and suggested the almost complete rationalization of the French Arthurian ro¬ mances.
It is not known whether the Welsh attached to the heroic figure of Arthur many fantastic tales which came from Ireland. They needed only to substitute for the names of unfamiliar Irish heroes those of Arthur and his warriors to give us actual Arthurian fiction such as appears in Kulhivch and Olwen. But Kulhwch and 01 wen stands by itself, and, in the absence of any other genuine Welsh mediaeval Arthurian tales, it is possible to hold that the Welsh went but a little way towards building up a heroic legend about Arthur. Some scholars maintain a sceptical position, and believe that in Wales stories were told about various heroes, and that the authors of the French romances were the first to connect all these tales with Arthur, and thus to create the fabric of Arthurian tomance. In any case, the plots, the patterns, so to speak, of Ar¬ thurian story were of Celtic origin.
Upon these Celtic patterns, French artists embroi¬ dered the rich texture of Arthurian romance. They changed warriors into knights, and fairy women into elegant ladies, and wove round them the fascination of courtly love ; they bespangled the narratives with castles, tournaments, and brilliant armor ; they intro¬ duced something of a deeper spirit of Christianity by picturing a new courtesy on the part of the great toward the oppressed and the poor. After the twelfth century ecclesiastical influences more and more altered many of the romances.
Thus the Arthurian legend consists of Irish and Welsh fairy and heroic tales transformed by French artists. Its most characteristic and striking feature is the fairy element, which has become dimmed or ration-
KING ARTHUR AND THE GRAIL
99
alized.and forms what I have called the background. This fairy background was not the invention of the logical and realistic French genius, but was an heri¬ tage that came to them from the fancy of the Celts, Mediaeval romance is nothing else than a combination of this fairy background with twelfth-century chiv¬ alry. The most characteristic element in French Ar¬ thurian romance is not of French origin at all. The glimpse that French romance gives us of an unearth¬ ly land ; the hints that it affords of men and women of marvelous power and beauty (and without these, romance would not be what it is) had their home not in France but in Ireland.
The Irish conception of the Other World, the Plain of Delight, is easy to grasp. If we undertake to picture an imaginary world, an obvious thing to do is to sup¬ pose that we have got beneath a lake or sea, and there met with a people who are more delightful and splend¬ id than we. These happy folk will of course have golden hair, and marvelous beauty. Their houses will be of snow-white marble, and their furniture of gold and silver. They will drink out of crystal cups, and spend their time in feasting, playing chess, and listen¬ ing to music.
From this imaginary world, all unpleasant things will be excluded. Because the acquisition and prepar¬ ation of daily food is tiresome, these imaginary people will have dishes that supply food of themselves, and never-failing goblets of wine. Their chess-boards will be of glittering bronze, and their chessmen of pure gold. Their music will be of such sweetness as to throw a man into a sleep, or a swoon. Because ordin¬ ary warfare is perilous, and dreadful, these imaginary folk will have magic armor that protects them from wounds, talismanic spears, and swords that never fail to bring victory. When people are very happy, they
10O
ARTHUR C.-L. BROWN
do not note the passage of time ; consequently in this imaginary world many years pass as one day. All ot these characteristics are actually found in a number oi Irish fairy stories which were written down at least a thousand years ago. For example, the details given above are in the Adventures of Loegaire, which is in a manuscript almost eight hundred years old.
The oldest Irish fairy stories consist essentially ot a description of a land like this. In the Adventures of Connla, a supernatural damsel comes in a wonderful ship of glass, and carries the hero away forever to a superbly beautiful land where there is no death or decay. In the Voyage of Bran, the hero visits an island paradise where the inhabitants are beautitu damsels, and where everything in the way of tood, music, and other delight is present. Everyone knows that the Arthurian romances likewise contain pictures of such a fairy land where all is happiness and joy. In the part of the Perceval attributed to Wauchier is an account of the Castle of the Maidens which under the guise of a mediaeval castle with towers and halls, tapestry and furniture, reproduces with but supeiticial transformation such a dream paradise.
Furthermore, in the so-called a Elucidation » attach¬ ed to the Perceval, we read of a time when beautiful damsels dwelt by springs, or in hills, along the high¬ roads, each with a golden goblet, and inexhaustible food, and drink, with which to regale the wayfarer. Britain, or Logres as it is called, was then indeed a land of fairy. The golden cup, which each fairy damsel possessed, was of course a cup of plenty, and as such a kind of prototype of the grail. In origin, perhaps, every fairy palace had its « grail », that is its vessel of abundance. That fairies possess never failing cups is a commonplace of folk-lore. Many stories, not all ol which are of Celtic origin, illustrating this folk-belief
KING ARTHUR AND THE GRAIL
IOI
have been assembled by Hartland in his Science of Fairy-Tales. A good example is the story called « The Luck of Eden Hall », which relates how a butler once stole from a band of dancing fairies a magic cup that is still kept at Eden Hall in Northumberland In calling these fairy cups « grails », I am well aware that the grail became more than a vessel of abundance. My point is simply that in the fairy cup-of-plenty lies the germ idea of the grail, and that, therefore, in a sense, every fairy castle had a grail.
Now the trouble with the kind of story we have been describing is obviously that in it nothing thrill¬ ing happens. A mortal man penetrates to fairyland, and tells us of its delight, but that is all. To make an interesting story, fairyland must be in trouble, and need to be delivered. It must be enchanted by wicked giants, and need to be freed from an evil spell.
Very early we find Irish stories in which fighting is necessary in the other world. In the Serglige Concu- laind Guchulinn is summoned to the other world in order to free it from three hostile giants who are troubl¬ ing the land. As a reward for slaying the giants, Cuchulinn receives the hand of a fairy queen. A famous example of this type of story in French ro¬ mance is I vain, by Chretien de Troyes. I vain, who was one of Arthur’s knights, visits a marvelous land where, after slaying a huge antagonist called Esclados the Red, he marries a queen of supernatural beauty. In this type of story the hero is a well known warrior, and so cannot be left perpetually in tairy-land, like Connla and Bran. Therefore, both Cuchulinn in the Irish Serglige Conculaind, and Ivain in the French romance, after a time, make their way back to earth. In this kind of story, the lady was at first a fairy who controlled the whole plot, and the warrior or warriors whom the mortal hero had to fight, were her creatures
102
ARTHUR C.-L. BROWN
who fought only to test the hero’s valor and strength. But already in both these stories, certainly in the French, the combat has become a real one, and the original fairy is regarded rather as a princess in the power of a giant, and needing to be delivered.
Out of this conception of a princess in the power of a giant, arises by a natural development the notion ot a fairyland as enchanted, or in the power ol one or more giants. A struggle is going on between two super¬ natural races. The kindly race of fairies needs the aid of a particular hero to effect its disenchantment and to gain a victory over its giant foes.
This situation is clearly depicted in The Adventures of Loegaire, a story which has already been referred to. Here a fairy king named Fiachna is in danger from a foe named Goll. Loegaire goes to fairyland, kills Goll, and as a reward receives Fdachna’s daughter. In this story, however, the quest for a fairy bride has dropped into second place. The primary object of Loegaire’s visit is to free fairyland from oppression or enchantment.
This type of plot, namely the delivery of a fairyland from enchantment by giants, manifestly affords plenty of dramatic action, and provokes more interest than the simple visit to fairyland with which we began. Fairy stories of this kind are well known in later Mid¬ dle Irish, and modern Irish, literature. A good example is a story called « The Lad of the Ferule », which has been edited by Dr. Douglas Hyde in the first volume of the Irish Texts Society. The hero, Murough, son of Brian Boru, was enticed down into fairyland in order to slay a giant who was oppressing the country. He slew