The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac. Weston Jessie Laidlay

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      The theory suggested above is based upon certain recognised peculiarities in the evolution of the Breton lais; but the question whether we are justified in making such use of ascertained facts naturally depends upon whether the story related in the romance in question was in its origin one that we might expect to find related in a lai; if it were not, then, however rational the hypothesis may otherwise appear, we should regard it with suspicion as lacking solid foundation.

      Granting then that a considerable share in the completion of Arthurian romantic tradition was due to the influence of lais originally independent of that tradition, that the process of fusion had already commenced when Chrétien wrote his poems, and that he was himself familiar with such lais, each of the above points having been already proved, our next step must be to examine the character of the stories related by Chrétien.

      Two of the five works we possess (I do not count the Guillaume, which whether it be by Chrétien or not lies outside the scope of our inquiry) must at once be put on one side. Neither Cligés nor the Charrette story (in the form Chrétien tells it) can be based upon lais. But the character of the three more famous poems, Erec, Yvain, and Perceval, is precisely that of a romance composed of traditional and folk-lore themes. In the case of Erec and Perceval this is partially admitted even by the most thoroughgoing advocate of Chrétien's originality, though Professor Foerster would limit the element to the Sparrow-hawk and Joie de la Court adventures in the first, and to Perceval's Enfances as representing a Dümmling folk-tale in the second.69

      On this subject I shall have more to say later on; for the present I will confine my remarks to Yvain, on the construction of which Professor Foerster holds a theory, highly complicated in itself, and excluding, as a necessary consequence, any genuine folk-lore element.70

      According to this view the main idea of the poem is borrowed from the story of The Widow of Ephesus, a tale of world-wide popularity, the oldest version of which appears to be Oriental (Grisebach considered it to be Chinese), and which in Latin form, as told first by Phædrus and then at greater length in the compilation of The Seven Sages of Rome, was well known in mediæval times.71 With this is combined other elements: a Breton local tradition, classical stories (the Ring of Gyges and the Lion of Androcles), and other stories of unspecified origin.

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      1

      Brut, ed. Leroux de Lincy, vol. ii. ll. 10158-10360. These remarks also apply to Layamon.

      2

      Described and illustrated by Zimmerman in Oberitalische Plastik im frühen und hohen Mittelalter: Leipzig, 1897. Cf. also Romania, xxvii. p. 510.

      3

      It is difficult to resist the conclusion that if

1

Brut, ed. Leroux de Lincy, vol. ii. ll. 10158-10360. These remarks also apply to Layamon.

2

Described and illustrated by Zimmerman in Oberitalische Plastik im frühen und hohen Mittelalter: Leipzig, 1897. Cf. also Romania, xxvii. p. 510.

3

It is difficult to resist the conclusion that if the Welsh stories were as late in date and as dependent upon French tradition as some scholars maintain, Lancelot would certainly be mentioned in them.

4

Cf. Erec, Foerster's ed., l. 1694; Hartmann's Erec, l. 1630.

5

Cligés, Foerster's ed., ll. 4765-4798.

6

The advocates of Chrétien as an independent and original genius would do well carefully to consider the meaning of such curious inconsistency. If Chrétien were dealing with matter either of his own invention, or of his own free adaptation, he would surely have been more careful of the unities. If, on the other hand, he simply retold tales belonging to different stages of Arthurian tradition, this is exactly what we might expect to find.

7

In the opening lines of Cligés, Chrétien gives a list of his works. This includes a version of the story of Tristan, and several translations from Ovid. Tristan probably preceded Erec, but there is nothing to indicate the relative order of the other works.

8

Signor Rajna has found the names of Arthur and Gawain in Italian deeds of the first quarter of the twelfth century, and from the nature of some of these deeds it is clear that the persons named therein cannot have been born later than 1080.

9

Charrette, ll. 2347-2362.

10

Romania, vol. x. p. 492.

11

Studies in the Arthurian Legend, chap. vi.

12

The only adventure of the kind I can recall is that of the fiery lance of the Charrette and prose Lancelot, an adventure which is the common property of several knights, and by no means confined to Lancelot.

13

Zeitschrift für französische Sprache und Litteratur, vol. xii. Heft I.

14

Der Karrenritter, herausgegeben von Wendelin Foerster: Halle, 1899.

15

Cf. Anturs of Arthur, where the ghost foretells to Gawain the treason of Mordred, the destruction of the Round Table, and his own death. Lancelot is not mentioned. Nor does he appear in Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knyghte or in The Avowynge of Arthur. In some of the other poems, Galogres and Gawayne, The Carle of Carlile, The Marriage of Sir Gawain, and Sir Libeaus Desconus he is mentioned, but plays no important part. The ballad of Sir Lancelot du Lake in the Percy Collection is a version of an adventure related in the Prose Lancelot.

16

Cf. Karrenritter, Introduction, p. xxxix.

17

The materials for this study had been collected, and my conclusion as to the origin of the Lancelot story arrived at, before the publication of Professor Foerster's book. I am glad to find myself supported in any point by such an authority, but think it well to avoid misconception by stating that my СКАЧАТЬ