Arthurian Romances (91 page)

3
. This is the first example in Chrétien's romances of a motif which was to enjoy great favour with him and romancers who followed: the ‘rash boon'. Typically, someone agrees to grant a request before it is formulated. The boon to be granted often goes against the grantor's deepest wishes, or even his moral principles, but to fail to grant it would involve a loss of honour, though in this instance the vavasour, who has agreed to grant the boon, is delighted when he discovers what he has agreed to. [631–8]

4
. Perceval the Welshman will become the central hero of Chrétien's
The Story of the Grail
. [1514]

5
. Lancelot, of course, is the hero of Chrétien's later romance,
The Knight of the Cart
, and Go[r]nemant of Gohort is the mentor of the young Perceval in
The Story of the Grail
. The Yvain in 1. 1693 will become the hero of
The Knight with the Lion
. Other knights in this listing reappear in minor roles in later romances, by both Chrétien and his emulators. [1682–3]

6
. This list of ‘unnumbered' knights varies according to the manuscript used. In Guiot's MS (the base MS used for all translations in this volume except
Cligés
) there are twenty-one knights over twenty-two lines. In MS
B
(Foerster's text) there are forty-two knights in forty-six lines, while in H (the shortest list), there are twenty-one names in eighteen lines. [1693–1714]

7
. Much has been written concerning the meaning of
premiers vers
in this line, which we translate ‘first movement'. Frappier
(Chrétien de Troyes: L'homme et l'æuvre
) refers to this first portion of the romance as the ‘prélude', while René Louis translates ‘le premier couplet'. Comfort and Owen both translate simply ‘first part'. (Cf. Kelly 1970: 189–90, 195–6.) [1808]

8
. Morgan (le Fay) was Arthur's sister. Chrétien alludes in
Erec
1. 4172 and in
The Knight with the Lion
1. 2957 to her healing powers, but gives no hint of the malevolent side of her character, which was to come to the fore in the
Lancelot-Graal
. [1921]

9
. On the night of Iseut's marriage to Tristan's uncle King Mark of Cornwall, Brangain, Isolde's maid, took the place of her mistress in the marriage bed.

10
. In the twelfth century tournaments had little of the spectacle and elegance traditionally associated with them in the popular imagination today. They were not much more than pre-arranged battles with fixed time and space limitations, ‘crude and bloody affairs, forbidden by the Church and sternly suppressed by any central authority powerful enough to enforce its ban' (Benson 1980: 23). The objective was to capture opposing knights and hold them for ransom. They might be preceded by jousts between individual champions, one on one, but the tournament itself was a clash of two large opposing forces of knights in a great mêlée or pitched battle. They are evoked by Chrétien as a part of the everyday reality of noble life as it was lived in his time. [2097ff.]

11
. A popular old French proverb, also used by Villon as the opening line to his ‘Ballade des proverbes'. This is one of many used by Chrétien in his romances. [2550]

12
. The art of decorating shields with individual coats of arms (blazons) apparently originated in the twelfth century, so Chrétien here evokes a relatively recent phenomenon. [2843]

13
. These lines have been variously interpreted. Our translation is taken, with minor modifications, from Z. P. Zaddy,
Chrétien Studies
(Glasgow, 1973) pp. 12–14, 184–9. She maintains that
esprover
(1. 5091) is used in the sense of: ‘assessing or recognizing someone's character or worth' rather than with its other meaning of subjecting someone or something to a deliberate test, and that to argue from this line ‘that Erec set out to test his wife' is to mistake result for cause. [5090–92]

14
. For the first city, the MSS read
Quarrois
(Guiot),
Robais
(H),
Rohais
(PBVE). R. S. Loomis (1949, p. 490) claims the castle might be Roadan, the one Erec gave to Enide's father (II. 1323, 1846), which he identifies as Rhuddlan in North Wales, but it seems strange that King Arthur would hold court there. The second location is also the setting for the opening of
The Knight with the Lion
, where its location is specified as
Carduel en Gales
(‘Carduel in Wales'). Carduel has been identified with Carlisle in Cumbria, one of Arthur's principal residences in later romances. Gales (‘Wales') might be a case of mistaken geography, or it might refer more generally to land occupied by the Cymri, including modern Cumbria. [5236]

15
. A green line on a horse is both surprising and puzzling, but the agreement of the MSS and the comparison to a vine-leaf lend credence to this interpretation. Foerster speculated that the term referred to some shade or tone, but Burgess (1984) and Buckbee (in Kelly 1985) see in this an allusion to the description of Camille's palfrey in the Old French
Eneas
, an even more extraordinary animal, combining not only a dazzling array of colours but also physical features of several different animals. [5282]

16
. Thibaut, Ospinel, and Fernagu are traditional heroes of Old French epic poetry. [5732–3]

17
. Lavinia of Laurentum was wife of Aeneas.

18
. The reference is presumably to the city on the Rhône, south of Lyon. [5918]

19
. The vielle and fiddle were stringed instruments played with bows. The psaltery was a medieval stringed instrument played by plucking the strings with the fingers or with a plectrum or pick. Symphonia were large hurdy-gurdies, stringed instruments capable of producing melody and drone by means of a hand-cranked wheel. [6337–8]

20
. This puzzling line has provided much commentary on the part of editors
and critics. Some have suggested a sexual image, whereas others see a less explicit expression of contagious joy. [6422]

21
. Macrobius was a fifth-century Latin grammarian and writer from whose
Commentary on the Dream of Scipio
Chrétien may have derived the notions of the liberal arts depicted on Erec's robe. [6692]

22
.
Berbïoletes
have recently been plausibly identified by Glyn Burgess and John Curry (1989) as the multicoloured douc langur monkey of the Asian subcontinent. [6755]

In translating
Cligés
, I have preferred the reading of other MSS (usually Guiot) to Foerster's edited text at the following lines: 499, 1043, 1286, 1287, 1906, 1966, 2135, 2374, 2627–8, 2668, 3308, 3554, 3611, 3804, 3807, 4154, 4594, 4661, 5422–3, 5491, 5529–30, 5675. 5800, 6249.

1
. Ovid's
Commandments
is generally identified with his
Remedia amoris, and the Art of Love
with his
Ars amatoria
. ‘The Shoulder Bite' is the Pelops story in Ovid's
Metamorphoses
, Book 6; and ‘the metamorphosis of the hoopoe, swallow, and nightingale' is the Philomela story in
Metamorphoses
, Book 6. Chrétien's Old French translations of these have all been lost, with the possible exception of the latter, which might be preserved as the ‘Philomena' story in the late thirteenth-century
Ovide moralisé
. Also lost is any version of the Tristan legend by Chrétien, to which he also alludes here. [2–7]

2
. The church of St Peter in Beauvais burned in 1180 and was replaced in the thirteenth century with the present High Gothic structure. [23]

3
. This is the most famous medieval French statement of the Classical theme of
translatio studii
, by which learning passed from Greece to Rome, and thence to France. [30–39]

4
. In this passage Chrétien engages in an extended and celebrated wordplay on
la mers
(‘the sea'),
l'amer
(‘bitter pain'), and
amer
(‘to love'), which regrettably cannot be captured in English. He appears to be imitating a similar passage in Thomas's
Tristan
. [545–57]

5
. Etymological interpretation of names was popular in the Middle Ages. The impetus was given in the seventh century by Isidore of Seville's encyclopaedic work,
The Etymologies
. Soredamors's name means, literally, ‘she who is gilded by Love'
(sororee d'amors
). [962ff.]

6
. Ganelon is the archetypal traitor in Old French literature, responsible for betraying Roland and the rearguard in the
Song of Roland
. [1076]

7
. Polynices and Eteocles were the sons of Oedipus and brothers of Antigone. Following Oedipus' abdication, his two sons agreed to reign in alternate years, but after the first year Eteocles refused to step aside. In the famous ‘Seven Against Thebes' expedition, Polynices led the Argive chiefs against his elder brother. All the allies died and Oedipus' sons killed one another. Chrétien probably knew the legend from the Old French
Roman de Thèbes
, composed in the 1150s by an anonymous Norman poet. [2537–8]

8
. The heroine's name Fenice (‘Phoenix') is significant, as will be seen, since the phoenix was believed to rise from its ashes and became therefore, in the Middle Ages, the symbol of resurrection. [2725]

9
. In
Metamorphoses
, Book 3, Ovid recounts how Narcissus rejected the love of the nymph Echo and became enamoured of his own image, which he saw reflected in a fountain. Pining away because he was unable to possess his own image, he was transformed into the yellow flower with white petals that still bears his name. An Old French version of this legend was circulating in Chrétien's day. [2767]

10
. King Mark of Cornwall's nephew Tristan is here evoked positively for his skills in fighting and hunting, but on three subsequent occasions (11. 3147, 5260, 5313) he is mentioned unfavourably in the context of his illicit love for Mark's wife Isolde the Blonde. These direct allusions, as well as a number of contrasting features in the two tales, have led many critics to view Chrétien's
Cligés
as an ‘Anti-Tristan' or as a recasting of the Tristan story in a comic mode. The influence of the Tristan story is evident in other of Chrétien's romances as well, notably
Erec and Enide
and
The Knight with the Lion
. [2790]

11
. Medea, the wife of Jason, was a legendary Greek sorceress. In Ovid's
Metamorphoses
7, the country associated with her enchantments is Thessaly. [3031]

12
. In this topsy-turvy world, the pursuers are the pursued. The Middle Ages thought beavers ate fish, though today we know they are vegetarian. Most MSS and Foerster give
tortre, turtre
(‘turtledove') which makes no sense, but MS
R
gives
troite
(‘trout'). [3850]

13
. Chrétien develops an elaborate financial metaphor on the notion of lending, borrowing, and repaying with interest. Cf.
The Knight with the Lion
11. 6252–68. [4080–87]

14
. The idea seems to be that the flatterer must be by his lord's side night and day, ready even to remove the feathers that have lodged in his master's hair while he was sleeping upon a feather bed. [4529ff.]

15
. Cæsarea (Palestine), Toledo (Spain) and Candia (Crete) are evoked as distant exotic sites. [4746–7]

16
. At the Oxford tournament Cligés defeats two knights destined to become the principal heroes of two later romances by Chrétien: Lancelot of the Lake
(The Knight of the Cart
) and Perceval the Welshman
(The Story of the Grait
). Sagremor, whom he had defeated on the first day of the tournament, reappears briefly in
Erec and Enide
and
The Knight with the Lion
, before playing a prominent role in the Manessier
Continuation
of
The Story of the Grail
and the thirteenth-century
Prose Vulgate
. Gawain is the Arthurian knight who shares adventures with Lancelot, Yvain and Perceval in later romances, and who is the knight against whom all others' worth is measured. [4759ff.]

17
. Pavia and Piacenza were wealthy commercial centres in twelfth-century Lombardy. [5200]

18
. As Foerster first noted, this unusual moral teaching is not to be found in St Paul. It may be a liberal interpretation of 1 Corinthians vii.8–9, ‘To those not married and to widows I have this to say: it would be well if they remain as they are, even as I do myself; but if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. It is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.' Interestingly, Chrétien also misquotes Scripture in his prologue to
The Story of the Grail
, where he attributes a verse by John to Paul (see note
⁵
to
The Story of the Grail
).

19
. The most important medical schools in the Middle Ages were at Salerno in Italy and Montpellier in France. Doctors from Montpellier are alluded to in Chrétien's
Knight of the Cart
, 1. 3485. [5818]

20
. The legend of King Solomon, deceived by his wife so she could enjoy her lover, was the subject of a popular
fabliau
in Chrétien's day and an important part of the medieval misogynist arsenal. [5876ff.]

21
. Almería and Tudela were cities in Moorish-occupied Spain reputed for their great wealth. [6332–4]

22
. The precise type of bird (OF
machet
) that, along with the lark (OF
aloe
), is hunted by the tiny sparrow-hawk is unclear. It may be a type of owl or a gannet, but Comfort's ‘brown-thrush' or Owens's thrush-like ‘wheatear' seem more plausible. [6432]