Arthurian Romances (93 page)

15
. Here the maiden either sews on a detachable sleeve, or laces on a tightly fitted one. I have opted for the latter interpretation as more likely in this context, though there are examples of what appear to be detachable sleeves in
Erec
1. 2102 and
The Story of the Grail
11. 5390ff. [5427]

16
. Chrétien develops an elaborate financial metaphor on the notion of lending, borrowing, and repaying with interest. Cf.
Cligés
11. 4080–87. [6252–68]

17
. Daughters had the right of inheritance in this period, but the laws of succession varied from region to region. ‘In some a law based on primogeniture was in force, in others one based on partition. In the latter case the younger children held their share of the fief as vassals of the eldest, either with or without homage
(parage avec hommage, parage sans hommage
). In the county of Champagne… the law changed from one based on partition to one based on primogeniture in the course of the twelfth century. In this episode, Chrétien strongly supports
parage avec hommage
, by which the younger daughter inherits a part of the estate and recognizes her sister as suzerain.' (Diverres 1973, p. 109) [6444–9]

18
. The ‘game of Truth' is perhaps similar to the well-known courtly game, ‘Le roi qui ne ment' (‘The king who doesn't lie'), in which the player was foresworn to tell the truth before knowing all the consequences of the oath. [6641]

1
. The verse from 2 Corinthians in the opening line (‘He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly', ix.6) was proverbial. Chrétien finds the link between this idea and the Parable of the Sower (Matthew xiii.3–23, Mark iv.3–20, Luke viii.5–15), which he quotes here (Luke viii.8, ‘But some [seed] fell on good soil, grew up, and yielded grain a hundredfold') and which underlies the remainder of the prologue. [4]

2
. Philip of Flanders, a cousin to Marie de Champagne, became Chrétien's patron sometime after the death of Henry the Liberal in 1181. Chrétien finds his Christian patron's largesse superior to that of the pagan Alexander the Great, a medieval model of generosity. Chrétien alludes elsewhere to Alexander's legendary generosity, for example in
Erec et Enide
(11. 2231–2) and in
Cligés
(11. 187–213), when another emperor named Alexander extols the virtue of largesse. [13]

3
. ‘In giving alms you are not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing' (Matthew vi.3). [32]

4
. Cf. 1 Corinthians xiii.4, ‘… [love] does not put on airs, it is not snobbish'. [43–4]

5
. ‘God is love; and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him' (1 John iv.16). Chrétien blunders in attributing John's text to Paul, and the error is made all the more glaring by the special emphasis in line 49. In all events, the attribution functions positively to draw attention once more to the celebrated Pauline encomium in I Corinthians xiii to which Chrétien has just referred. Significantly also, St Paul is a patron of knights. (Cf. note
¹⁸
to
Cligés
). [47–50]

6
. Chrétien makes a pun upon the noun
lance
and the verb
lancer
(‘to throw'); the translation attempts to reproduce the effect with English ‘lance/launch'. [198]

7
. Chrétien alludes here to the widespread stereotype of the
Britones
, the native Celtic inhabitants of Britain (and Brittany), as stupid and uncouth, in order to establish a distinction between courtly and uncourtly behaviour. Naturally, in twelfth-century Britain the former would be associated with the Anglo-French ruling class (a point of view that would have been shared in courtly society across the Channel) although, in terms of his literary origins, Arthur is quintessentially Celtic. [243–4]

8
. Primarily on the basis of the variant in MS
S
, which reads ‘li destroit d'Escandone [or perhaps Escaudone]'. the mountain passes within sight of the Waste Forest have generally been identified as belonging to the Snowdon range in northwest Wales. (The reading is possibly a
lectio difficilior
misread by scribes thinking of the names of the hero,
Perceval
, as Valdone, Vaudone, etc.) On the other hand, R. L. Graeme Ritchie (1952), in
Chrétien de Troyes and Scotland
, considering the most common reading, associates the word with the gorges of the River Doon on the northern border of Galloway; the association with Galloway (the territory in southern Scotland between the Solway Firth and the Firth of Clyde) might explain the proximity of Carlisle (see note
¹³
to
Erec
) and strengthen the bond between Perceval and Gawain. [298]

9
. This Ban of Gomeret is the King Ban de Ganieret who attended the wedding of Erec and Enide
(Erec
1. 1937). [449]

10
. Quinqueroy is perhaps Kyningesburh (modern Conisbrough), or Coniston in Cumbria. The knight's name recurs in full in 11. 4092–3. [930–31]

11
. Each manuscript bears a different version of the mentor's name here and in 1. 1872. The form Gornemant de Goort has been consecrated by Hilka's choice. (Cf.
Erec
1. 1683.) [1528]

12
. The arithmetic is peculiar indeed. Most manuscripts give the number slain or imprisoned as
deus et dis moins de seissante
(‘two and ten less than sixty'), i.e., forty-eight. If there are but fifty knights alive at Biaurepaire (1. 1981), then one could presume that two hundred and sixty of the orginal three hundred and ten are dead or in prison. Bryant, finding both the two and sixty in the line, opts ‘for the clearest solution' (p. 22n), and translates ‘for two hundred and sixty… have been led away and killed or imprisoned by… Engygeron' (pp. 22–3). Foucher and Ortais's translation (1984) for the Gallimard Folio collection skirts the issue and vaguely gives ‘Les autres ont été emmenés par Anguingeron' (p. 70). It is possible to defend the original by having forty-eight led away and slain by Anguingueron and understanding that the rest were lost in some other fashion. [1982]

13
. Disnadaron (‘Disnadaron en Gales', 1. 2719) perhaps derives from Welsh
dinas
plus Old French
d'Aron
, i.e., Aaron's Castle. As St Aaron was the patron of Caerleon (Gwent), this could originally be the name of a fortification within the same city where Arthur's court later receives the Haughty Knight of the Heath and his lady (1. 3969) and where the discrete Perceval section comes to a close in joyful celebration (1. 4572). [2698]

14
. The bleeding lance is never directly connected with the grail in Chrétien's fragment, but very soon among Chrétien's early imitators and continuators (see Appendix) it becomes associated with the legendary lance of Longinus, the name given to the Roman centurion who pierced Christ's side at the Crucifixion; thus, the Lance figures prominently in post-Chrétien associations of the grail with the Last Supper and with the Mass. In Chrétien's text, as it stands in fragmentary form, the bleeding lance has a far more secular – and the grail a somewhat more secular – function. [3158–67]

15
. Although it figures as a spectacular object in a wonderfully mysterious procession, the grail is introduced into the story by Chrétien in a singularly unpretentious way (all the more powerful because of the inverted word
order of the Old French syntax): ‘
A grail
in both her hands did a maiden hold who came in with the youths', etc. Thus Chrétien stresses the object's fundamental ordinariness as a serving dish appropriate for the table of a very rich man. Despite his unsophisticated upbringing and his ignorance generally of courtly manners, the hero instantly recognizes what ‘a grail' is, as is evident when his cousin later questions him in detail about the procession (esp. 11. 3522–3). [3188]

16
. On sleeping arrangements, see note
⁷
to
The Knight of the Cart
. [3286ff.]

17
. This list of exotic delicacies, consisting of unusual words and evoking unknown luxuries, presented copyists with almost insurmountable problems, and no two manuscripts present identical lists. [3291–6]

18
. Cotouatre apparently derives from
Scottewatre
, i.e., the Firth of Forth.

19
. Glanders is a contagious disease in horses characterized by fever, inflammation of the nasal passages, and glandular swelling. [3671]

20
. The reference is to the Whitsunday court at Disnadaron (see 1. 2751) when Clamadeu joins his seneschal to be imprisoned by Arthur. Significantly, the snowy morning occurs two weeks after Whitsunday (the fiftieth day after Easter), which can be no earlier than mid-May; thus the reunion takes place in June, when it might still snow in Arthurian Britain. [4516]

21
. The depiction of the goddess Fortuna as possessing thick hair in front and being bald at the back is a medieval commonplace: you can grab hold of Fortune (by the hair!) as she approaches you rising on her wheel, but not after she has gone by and is descending; that is, if one has sufficient foresight and perspicacity one can take advantage of Fortune but hindsight or wisdom after the fact is useless. [4612–13]

22
. In 1. 4883 Gawain dismounted beneath an oak. However, hornbeam here is assured by the rhyme. [5022]

23
. A mocking allusion to the Lombards for their proverbial cowardice. ‘Snail fighting' – attacking an enemy incapable of defending himself – was the sign of a coward. Other allusions in Old French poems to snails in this context are cited in Tobler-Lommatzsch, vol. 5, pp. 468–9. [5912–13]

24
. Here, for the first (and only) time in Chrétien's poem, the extraordinary character of the grail is revealed to be not so much what it is – a wonderfully beautiful serving dish (see note
¹⁵
) – as what it contains: a life-sustaining consecrated Host. The light emanating from the grail
(11. 3191–5) is doubtless also to be associated with the Host. Thus the grail is ‘holy'
(tant sainte chose
) because of what is conveyed in it, not because, as in Chrétien's successors, of its intrinsic value as prototype of the chalice in the Mass (the wine cup from the Last Supper). [6391]

25
. The hermit's advice to Perceval recapitulates his mother's (11. 492–580) and that of Gornemant (11. 1619–68). Like Gornemant, the hermit both echoes the words of his predecessors and introduces his own elaborations, specifically the details of religious observance. In so doing, he introduces biblical injunctions, in fact mirroring the situation in his source, the Book of Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach), words of wisdom addressed by a father to his son. The details about honouring priests derive from Ecclesiasticus vii.29–31, a passage followed by advice to act charitably towards the poor, the ill, and the defenceless. Significantly, both for the hermit's words and for Chrétien's general theme, the passage on duties towards God's priests is preceded by a reference to the Ten Commandments: ‘With your whole heart honour your father; your mother's birthpangs forget not'. [6425]

26
. The multiplicity of God's names, stemming from His attributes, developed among the Hebrews in response to the taboo against pronouncing God's true name. The names were considered to have special powers and were invoked for magical as well as religious purposes. In Christian times these powers accrued to the name (and names) of Jesus. [6448–52]

27
. Gawain soon learns (11. 8839–41) that Arthur will hold his Whitsuntide court in a week's time, thus the season is late spring or early summer (mid-May to the end of June), when daylight hours reach their maximum. The reference here is to the winter solstice, thought in the Middle Ages to occur at Christmas, when the daylight hours are at their minimum. Chrétien is using a form of paradox by evoking the least of one thing (the amount of daylight around the winter solstice) to describe something else that is very great (about seven hours is a long time to sit at table). [8207]

28
. Orcanie, more readily than the name of Guiromelant's castle (1. 8578), suggests the Orkney Islands; however, in Chrétien's topography it is the name of a city (1. 9113), not a vast territory. King Lot, Gawain's father and husband of the younger queen, ruled over the Orkney Islands first as an adversary of Arthur, then as his ally and vassal. Gawain's wanderings take him from Tintagel in Cornwall northward to the Solway Firth, on to the marches of Galloway and eventually, it might appear, to his father's kingdom in the far North.

29
. Guiot's copy of Chrétien's text (MS
A
) ends with the notation
Explycyt Percevax le viel
(‘Here ends
The Old Perceval'
). The First Continuation follows this notation. MS
L
also has the First Continuation, but originally broke off at precisely the same point as Guiot's copy: the Continuation is marked by a change in hand. MS
B
breaks off at exactly the same verse as Guiot's copy and bears the notation
Explicit li romanz de Perceval
(‘Here ends
The Romance of Perceval'
). The text in both
C
and
H
ends after 1. 9278, that is, six lines earlier than
ABL
. Most of the other MSS, however, show no indication of any change of author. What appears to be the point at which Chrétien stopped writing is thus preserved the most clearly in the MSS associated with Guiot's copy. [9184]

1
. For a description of the MSS of the
Continuations
, see vol. 1 of William Roach,
The Continuations of the Old French
Perceval
of Chrétien de Troyes
, 5 vols (Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1949–83): xvi–xxxiii. Roach publishes all the continuations except that of Gerbert, most of which was published by Mary Williams as Gerbert de Montreuil,
La Continuation de Perceval
, CFMA 28 & 50 (Paris: Champion, 1922–5). Translations of significant parts of all four continuations can be found in
Perceval, The Story of the Grail
, trans. Nigel Bryant (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1982).