Four Arthurian Romances by active 12th century de Troyes Chrétien (book club books txt) 📕

13 (return)
[ Chretien nowhere gives any description of the nature of the Round Table. With him, it is an institution. Layamon in "Brut" and Wace in "Le Roman de Brut" are more specific in their accounts of this remarkable piece of furniture. From their descriptions, and from other sources in Welsh and Irish literature, it is reasonable to suppose that the Round Table had a place in primitive Celtic folk-lore. Cf. L.F. Mott, "The Round Table" in "Pub. of the Modern Language Association of America", XX. 231-264; A.C.L. Brown, "The Round Table before Wace" in "Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature", vii. 183-205 (Boston, 1900); Miss J.L Weston, "A Hitherto Unconsidered Aspect of the Round Table" in "Melanges de philologie romane offerts a M. Wilmotte", ii. 883-894, 2 vols. (Paris, 1910).]

14 (return)
[ There exists a romance devoted to Yder, of which G. Paris printed a resume in "Hist. Litt. de la France", XXX., and which has been recently edited by Heinrich Gelzer: "Der altfranzosische Yderroman" (Dresden, 1913). There are apparently three different knight of this name in the old French romances (F.).]

15 (return)
[ The word "chastel" (from "castellum") is usually to be translated as "town" or strong place within fortifications. Only where it plainly refers to a detached building will the word "castle" be used.]

16 (return)
[ A "tercel" is a species of falcon, of which the male bird is one-third smaller than the female.]

17 (return)
[ A "vavasor" (from "vassus vassallorum") was a low order of vassal, but a freeman. The vavasors are spoken of with respect in the old French romances, as being of honourable character, though not of high birth.]

18 (return)
[ The numerous references to the story of King Mark, Tristan, and Iseut in the extant poems of Chretien support his own statement, made at the outset of "Cliges", that he himself composed a poem on the nephew and wife of the King of Cornwall. We have fragments of poems on Tristan by the Anglo-Norman poets Beroul and Thomas, who were contemporaries of Chretien. Foerster's hypothesis that the lost "Tristan" of Chretien antedated "Erec" is doubtless correct. That the poet later treated of the love of Cliges and Fenice as a sort of literary atonement for the inevitable moral laxity of Tristan and Iseut has been held by some, and the theory is acceptable in view of the references to be met later in "Cliges". For the contrary opinion of Gaston Paris see "Journal des Savants" (1902), p. 297 f.]

19 (return)
[ In the Mabinogi "Geraint the Son of Erbin", the host explains that he had wrongfully deprived his nephew of his possessions, and that in revenge the nephew had later taken all his uncle's property, including an earldom and this town. See Guest, "The Mabinogion".]

110 (return)
[ The hauberk was a long shirt of mail reaching to the knees, worn by knights in combat. The helmet, and the "coiffe" beneath it, protected the head; the "ventail" of linked meshes was worn across the lower part of the face, and was attached on each side of the neck to the "coiffe", so that it protected the throat; the greaves covered the legs. The body of the knight was thus well protected against blow of sword or lance. Cf. Vv.711 f.]

111 (return)
[ This passage seems to imply that charms and enchantments were sometimes used when a knight was armed (F.).]

112 (return)
[ The "loges", so often mentioned in old French romances, were either window-balconies or architectural points of vantage commanding some pleasing prospect. The conventional translation in the old English romances is "bower".]

113 (return)
[ Tristan killed Morholt, the uncle of Iseut, when he came to claim tribute form King Mark (cf. Bedier, "Le Roman de Tristan", etc., i. 85 f., 2 vols., Paris, 1902). The combat took place on an island, unnamed in the original text (id. i. 84), but later identified with St. Samson's Isle, one of the Scilly Isles.]

114 (return)
[ The same act of feeding a hunting-bird with a plover's wing is mentioned in "Le Roman de Thebes", 3857-58 (ed. "Anciens Textes").]

115 (return)
[ For such figurative expressions used to complement the negative, cf. Gustav Dreyling, "Die Ausdruckweise der ubertriebenen Verkleinerung im altfranzosischen Karlsepos", in Stengel's "Ausgaben und Abhandlungen", No. 82 (Marsburg, 1888); W.W. Comfort in "Modern Language Notes" (Baltimore, February 1908).]

116 (return)
[ Chretien in his later romances will avoid compiling such a prosaic blue-book as is found in this passage, though similar lists of knights occur in the old English romances as late as Malory, though of some of them but little is known. Unfortunately, we have for the old French romances no such complete work as that furnished for the epic poems by E. Langois, "Table des noms propres de toute nature compris dans les chansons de geste" (Paris, 1904).]

117 (return)
[ The only mention by Chretien of this son of Arthur, whose role is absolutely insignificant in the Arthurian romances.]

118 (return)
[ What was this drinking-cup, and who sent it to Arthur? We have "Le Lai du cor" (ed. Wulff, Lund, 1888), which tells how a certain King Mangount of Moraine sent a magic drinking-cup to Arthur. No one could drink of this cup without spilling the contents if he were a cuckold. Drinking from this cup was, then, one of the many current tests of chastity. Further light may be thrown on the passage in our text by the English poem "The Cokwold's Daunce" (in C.H. Hartshorne's "Ancient Metrical Ballads", London, 1829), where Arthur is described as a cuckold himself and as having always by him a horn (cup) which he delights in trying on his knights as a test of their ladies' chastity. For bibliography see T.P. Cross, "Notes on the Chastity-Testing Horns and Mantle" in "Modern Philology", x. 289-299.]