Arthurian Literature XIX: Comedy in Arthurian Literature

Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen ARTHURIAN LITERATURE XIX D:\Elaine\ArtLit19\Artli...

Author: Keith Busby | Keith Busby | Roger Dalrymple

305 downloads 2723 Views 10MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

Color profile: Generic CMYK printer profile Composite Default screen

ARTHURIAN LITERATURE XIX

D:\Elaine\ArtLit19\Artlit19.vp 17 September 2002 09:43:21


ARTHURIAN LITERATURE Incorporating Arthurian Yearbook ISSN 0261–9946 Editor: Keith Busby, University of Wisconsin, Madison Assistant Editor: Roger Dalrymple, University of St Andrews Editorial Board James Carley, York University Julia Crick, University of Exeter Tony Hunt, University of Oxford Marianne Kalinke, Illinois University Norris Lacy, Pennsylvania State University Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan, National Library of Wales Felicity Riddy, University of York Alison Stones, University of Pittsburgh Toshiyuki Takamiya, University of Keio Raymond H. Thompson, Acadia University Arthurian Literature is an interdisciplinary publication devoted to the scholarly and critical study of all aspects of the Arthurian legend in Europe in the medieval and early modern periods. Articles on writings from later periods are included if they relate very directly to medieval and early modern sources, although the editors welcome bibliographical studies of all periods. Articles may be up to 20,000 words in length; short items, of under 5,000 words, are published as Notes. Updates on earlier articles are also welcomed. Material for consideration can be sent to the addresses below, or directly to Boydell & Brewer: contributors should follow the style sheet printed at the end of volume XII of the series. Professor Keith Busby Department of French and Italian University of Wisconsin-Madison 618 Van Hise Hall Madison, WI 53706 USA

Dr Roger Dalrymple St Hugh’s College Oxford OX2 6LE

The contents of previous volumes are listed at the back of this book.



A r th ur i a n L i te r a t ur e XIX Comedy in Arthurian Literature

EDITED BY KEITH BUSBY General Editor with ROGER DALRYMPLE Associate Editor

D. S. BREWER



© Contributors 2003 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2003 D. S. Brewer, Cambridge ISBN 0 85991 745 2

D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. PO Box 41026, Rochester, NY 14604–4126, USA website: www.boydell.co.uk

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 83–640196

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk



CONTENTS General Editor’s Foreword

vii

I

Comedy and Tragedy in Some Arthurian Recognition Scenes Elizabeth Archibald

1

II

Merveilleux et comique dans les romans arthuriens français (XIIe–XVe siècles) Christine Ferlampin-Acher

17

III

La bande dessinée virtuelle du lion d’Yvain: sur le sens de l’humour de Chrétien de Troyes Angelica Rieger

49

IV

Convention, Comedy and the Form of La Vengeance Raguidel Norris J. Lacy

65

V

Le comique dans Les Merveilles de Rigomer et Hunbaut Peter S. Noble

77

VI

Humour in the Roman de Silence Karen Pratt

87

VII

La pratique de la ‘disconvenance’ comique dans le Lancelot en prose: les mésaventures amoureuses de Guerrehet Bénédicte Milland-Bove

105

VIII Lancelot Part 3 Frank Brandsma

117

IX

Comic Functions of the Parrot as Minstrel in Le Chevalier du Papegau Marilyn Lawrence

135

X

Dinadan en Italie Francesco Zambon

153

XI

A Comical Villain: Arthur’s Seneschal in a Section of the Middle 165 Dutch Lancelot Compilation Marjolein Hogenbirk

XII

Malory and the English Comic Tradition Donald L. Hoffman


177


XIII ‘Laughyng and Smylyng’: Comic Modalities in Malory’s Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake Elizabeth S. Sklar

189

XIV The Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir as a Response to the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes Linda Gowans

199



GENERAL EDITOR’S FOREWORD There can be little doubt that humour is a fundamental characteristic of the genre of Arthurian romance. Indeed, the comic treatment of conventional themes and motifs appears to be not only an attribute of later romance (say, the Chrétien epigones or the prose Tristan) as is sometimes assumed, but an essential element of the genre from the earliest stages of its development. The range of texts examined in the essays included in Vol. XIX of Arthurian Literature once more underlines the wide dissemination of the Arthurian story in medieval and post-medieval Europe, from Ireland to Italy, while the various analyses of the manifestations of comedy put to rest once and for all any notions of romance as a humourless genre. Authors of Arthurian romance, from Chrétien de Troyes to Malory, writing in French, Italian, Middle Dutch, and Middle English, and the creator of a late Irish prose tale, all question the fundamental assumptions of romance and romance values through the medium of comedy.These essays clearly demonstrate that Cervantes and Rabelais were not the first to see the ridicule inherent in the romance world. In the opening essay, Elizabeth Archibald shows the potential, comic and tragic, in the tradition of recognition scenes in some French and Middle English romances. Christine Ferlampin-Acher argues in her study of a selection of French texts that comedy is closely related to the merveilleux and often proceeds from it. Angelica Rieger draws interesting parallels between Chrétien’s Yvain and the modern comic-strip, showing not only how the episodes featuring the lion would be susceptible of such treatment but also that medieval illuminators already sensed something of the sort. The next three contributions all deal with the relationship of later verse romances to Chrétien de Troyes and earlier convention: that convention is both mined and undermined humourously by the author of La Vengeance Raguidel, as Norris Lacy demostrates; Peter Noble points to the differences between the irreverent comedy of Les Merveilles de Rigomer and the more severe treatment of Arthurian tradition by the author of Hunbaut; and Karen Pratt reveals the comic side of Heldris de Cornuälle, whose humour in Le Roman de Silence derives from his response, not only to Chrétien’s œuvre, but also to other contemporary genres, such as didactic poetry and the fabliaux. Bénédicte Milland-Bove examines the amorous misadventures of Gauvain’s brother, Guerrehés, in the Prose Lancelot to illustrate the author’s technique of ‘comic counterpoint’, which employs secondary characters to contrast and question the actions of the major figures. While not directly concerned with comedy in the Lancelot-Graal cycle, Frank Brandsma’s reconsideration of its genesis, based on a careful reading of the manuscript evidence, will be of consequence for any further studies of humour in the trilogy Lancelot-Queste-Mort Artu. vii



Marilyn Lawrence’s reading of Le Chevalier du Papegau concentrates on the role of the parrot itself in the romance’s comic plot, concluding that the bird essentially mimics the kind of professional performer who might have read aloud, without singing, the text itself. Italy proved especially receptive to the figure of Dinadan from the Prose Tristan, as Francesco Zambon shows. However, rather than mocking Arthurian society from inside, as he does in the French texts, in the Italian Tavola Ritonda in particular, Dinadan attacks it from the outside, hardly sharing its values at all. Marjolein Hogenbirk examines the fortunes of the French Keu, Arthur’s seneschal, in some of the inserted romances of the Middle Dutch Lancelot-Compilatie, where his villainy is tempered by a certain comic blundering. Two essays recognize the comedy of Malory’s Morte Darthur. Donald Hoffman argues that even within Malory’s fundamentally tragic scheme, there is a real variety of comedy and comic techniques, and that later humourous versions of the Arthurian legend, such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, may have rediscovered this aspect of his work; Elizabeth Sklar, in a detailed study of The Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake, points to its humour at the same time as she suggests it is ultimately hollow in nature. Finally, Linda Gowans discusses the late sixteenth- to early seventeenth-century Irish prose Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir as a comic response to Chrétien’s Perceval, of which the Irish author shows considerable knowledge. It is also interesting to observe that the particular romances discussed here reflect renewed interest in areas of scholarship largely neglected, say, twenty years ago. Basic studies of the epigonal romances and new editions of the French prose cycles in particular, as well as a concerted effort to bring Middle Dutch literature to the forefront, have changed the landscape of Arthurian studies for good. Many of the articles in this collection were originally presented as papers at the nineteenth International Congress of the International Arthurian Society in Toulouse, France, 25–31 July, 1999, where one of the chosen themes was that of comedy in Arthurian romance. The Society continues to play an important role in encouraging scholarly endeavours and its meetings remain essential to the health of our collegial discipline. Keith Busby Madison, Wisconsin

viii



COMEDY AND TRAGEDY IN SOME RECOGNITION SCENES

I

COMEDY AND TRAGEDY IN SOME ARTHURIAN RECOGNITION SCENES Elizabeth Archibald Recognition scenes were a staple of classical drama, as Aristotle’s famous comments on Oedipus and other plays bear witness.1 Towards the end of one of Menander’s comedies, The Arbitrants, a character remarks ‘And now they have had a recognition scene, and all is well.’2 Recognition scenes are also a common feature of Arthurian and other medieval romances and narratives of love and adventure, and often provide comic closure to an episode or to a complete narrative. Sometimes the recognition involves the abandoning of a disguise or pseudonym adopted by the Fair Unknown, but sometimes he himself has been unaware of his own identity and lineage.3 The suspense is usually less great for the reader than for the fictional characters. Whether or not the narrator has made the truth clear at the beginning of the narrative, the reader, well read in romance motifs, has often seen this revelation coming long before the characters have, and there can be a comic sense of déjà lu. But some of the characters do show an awareness of the narrative patterns associ-

1

2 3

See Poetics, ch. 16. The standard study is T. Cave, Recognitions: A Study in Poetics (Oxford, 1988), but he has very little to say about the Middle Ages. One of the few medievalists to study this theme is Piero Boitani: see ‘A Spark of Love: Medieval Recognitions’, in Boitani, The Tragic and the Sublime in Medieval Literature (Cambridge, 1989), 115–41. Menander, Epitrepontes/The Arbitrants, lines 1121–2, ed. and trans. W. G. Arnott, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Ma., and London, 1979); the translation here is my own. Dhira Mahoney categorizes the hero who is ignorant of his noble lineage as Type 1, and the hero who deliberately conceals his true lineage as Type 2, in ‘Malory’s Tale of Gareth: The Comedy of Class’, in Arthurian Yearbook I, ed. Keith Busby (New York, 1991), pp. 165–89 (see p. 166). On the Fair Unknown theme see R. H. Wilson, ‘The “Fair Unknown” in Malory’, PMLA 58 (1943), 1–21; Maldwyn Mills, ‘The Story of the Fair Unknown in Medieval Literature’, in the introduction to his edition of Lybeaus Desconus, EETS o.s. 261 (London, 1969), pp. 42–68; Claude Luttrell, The Creation of the First Arthurian Romance: A Quest (London, 1974), pp. 80–104; Elspeth Kennedy, Lancelot and the Grail: A Study of the Prose Lancelot (Oxford, 1986), pp. 10–47, and ‘The Quest for Identity and the Importance of Lineage in Thirteenth-Century French Prose Romance’, in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood II, ed. Christopher Harper-Bill and Ruth Harvey (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 70–86. I have also found useful Donald Maddox, ‘Specular Stories, Family Romance, and the Fictions of Courtly Culture’, Exemplaria 3.2 (1991), 301–26; and Sarah Kay’s chapter on ‘Patriarchy’ in The Chansons de geste in the Age of Romance: Political Fictions (Oxford, 1995), pp. 79–115.

1



ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

ated with the arrival of a Fair Unknown. When La Cote Male Tayle comes to Arthur and asks to be knighted in the Prose Tristan, Lamerok urges the king to grant the request, predicting that he will be a good knight, and comparing him to the young Lancelot: ‘ “Soveigne vos de Lancelot dou Lac, qui est li mieudres chevaliers dou monde, en quel maniere il vint a cort. Vos ne seüstes mie qui il estoit, et totevoies le feïstes vos chevalier. Dites vos or que chevalerie ne soit mie bien emploiee en li?” ’ (‘Remember how Lancelot du Lac, who is the best knight in the world, came to court. You had no idea who he was, and all the same you made him a knight. Are you saying now that he is not an excellent representative of chivalry?’).4 Malory includes the speech too: ‘ “evyn suche one was sir Launcelot whan he cam fyrst into this courte, and full fewe of us knew from whens he cam. And now is he preved the man of moste worshyp in the worlde . . .” ’5 La Cote Male Tayle himself is invoked in the same way in Malory’s Tale of Sir Gareth, when Lancelot warns Kay not to be unkind to the Fair Unknown who has just arrived at court (p. 295.15–18; VII/2). Even if we do not know exactly who the Fair Unknown is, we can be sure that he will turn out to be well born; he is also very likely to be the son of a known hero, and so not an outsider at all, but one of the dominant élite. Paternal lineage is crucial in the chivalric world. Often the recognition scene is unproblematic and comic, both in making the reader or listener laugh, and in bringing about a happy ending. No doubt aristocratic medieval readers were amused by the story of Tor related in the Suite du Merlin, the first part of the thirteenth-century Post-Vulgate cycle, and in Malory’s Tale of King Arthur (where he is called Torre), though modern readers are likely to be disturbed by the revelation that the promising young knight is the product of a casual rape.6 When Arès the cowherd brings his son Tor to Arthur’s court and complains to the king that the boy will not do agricultural work, the knights find it funny. ‘Et quans enfans as tu?’ dist le rois. ‘Jou en ai treize; li onze7 labeurent pour lour vivre et se tienent a ma maniere, mais icil ne s’il veult acorder en nule guise, ains dist qu’il ne sera se chevaliers non. Ne sai dont chis corages li puet venir.’ Et lors commenchent tout a rire li baron dou palais qui ceste parole entendirent. Et li rois, qui moult estoit sages, ne tient mie ceste chose a gas . . . (Suite, 2, 70) 4 5

6

7

Le Roman de Tristan en prose, vol. 2, ed. R. Curtis (Leiden, 1976), p. 217; my translation. Malory, Works, ed. Eugène Vinaver, rev. P. J. C. Field, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1990), pp. 459.31–460.1 (IX/1). This edition will be cited as Malory, by page and line number (pagination is continuous through the three volumes); Caxton’s book and chapter numbers follow each page reference, for the convenience of those using other editions. Merlin: Roman en prose du XIIIe siècle, ed. G. Paris and J. Ulrich, 2 vols., SATF (Paris, 1886), cited hereafter as Suite; see 2, 69–136. It is translated under the title The Merlin Continuation in Lancelot-Grail, ed. Norris J. Lacy, 5 vols. (New York, 1992–6), cited hereafter as L-G; see 5, 224–45. For Malory’s version see 99.15–101.34 (III.3–4). This seems to be a mistake; Asher notes in the L-G translation that the correct number is given in a fragmentary text published by Micha.

2




‘How many children do you have?’ asked the king. ‘I have thirteen; twelve work for their living and conduct themselves as I do, but this one won’t agree to it under any conditions but says he will only be a knight. I don’t know where he gets this disposition.’ Then all the barons, hearing this speech, began to laugh. The king, who was very wise, did not take the matter lightly . . . (L-G, 4, 225)

The text indicates that the laughter of the barons is prompted by the presumption of the farmboy who wants to be a knight, but we may wonder if they are also laughing at Arès because they can see what is coming; the boy turns out to be the son of King Pellinor, who impregnated the cowherd’s wife the very week that she was married. In this first scene, Merlin declares that Tor is not the son of Arès and that he is of noble birth, but refrains from naming the father, at Tor’s own request – he is worried about his mother being shamed. Arthur duly knights Tor, and he sets off on his first quest. His true parentage is whispered privately by Merlin to Arthur (Suite, p. 114; L-G, pp. 237–8). Later, when Tor has completed his test, his mother is brought to court to confront Pellinor, and is greatly ashamed at the public revelation of her seduction (Suite, pp. 131–6; L-G, pp. 242–4). Tor and his biological father are delighted with one another, but the mother makes a farewell speech warning Tor that God can cast him down, just as he has raised him up. Malory concentrates all these scenes into one brief episode, and has the wife brought to court to tell her story while Aryes is still there, before Torre’s first quest. When the story of the seduction comes out, Torre tells Merlin ‘ “Dishonoure nat my modir” ’, but Merlin points out that it is to his advantage to be the son of a good knight and a king, and that Pellinor may well be able to help both Torre and his mother (p. 101.20–25). He also notes that she was not married when Torre was conceived, and both husband and wife seem to find this encouraging: when she says ‘ “That ys trouthe” ’, Aryes comments ‘ “Hit ys the lesse gryff unto me” ’ (p. 101.26–27). No doubt medieval readers, like the barons in the French text, laughed at the cowherd’s complaint that his son ‘ “woll nat laboure for nothynge that my wyff and I may do, but allwey he woll be shotynge, or castynge dartes, and glad for to se batayles and to beholde knyghtes. And allwayes day and night he desyrith of me to be made knyght” ’ (Malory, p. 100.6–10). They would have seen only comedy in the happy discovery that the would-be knight is in fact of noble birth; they would not have been disturbed by the low status of his shepherdess mother, or her pastourelle-style rape, or indeed by her embarrassment when the truth comes out. The cowherd and his wife are of no significance in Camelot society. But some recognition scenes can be problematic, even tragic, in their implications if they reveal a sexual transgression by a much admired character, as in the cases of Galahad and Arthur, or a failure on the part of the hero, as in the case of Percival. In this essay I want to consider the comic aspects of some Arthurian recognition scenes involving major characters; then I shall show how these comic conventions can also be reversed, shadowed or over-shadowed by tragedy. 3



ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

Almost every major Arthurian hero is described somewhere as arriving at court as a Fair Unknown. This motif is not present in the seminal twelfth-century ‘historical’ texts: in Geoffrey of Monmouth and in Wace there is no mystery about the parentage of Arthur or of Gawain. Perhaps it was the introduction of Lancelot that started the fashion for creating a mystery around the identity of the Arthurian hero which is resolved in an eventual recognition scene: this is an important motif in Chrétien’s Charrete, in the Lanzelet, and in the French prose Lancelot. At any rate, the Fair Unknown theme seems to have burgeoned in late twelfth- and thirteenth-century Arthurian narratives, and became attached even to some heroes who had been celebrated for centuries already, Gawain and Arthur himself, as well as to newer heroes such as Percival and Galahad.8 There are a number of variables in these stories, and in the examples that follow I will describe some contrasting patterns. Important details include whether the Fair Unknown does in fact know who he is throughout his adventures; if not, at what point the revelation occurs, and how it affects his subsequent progress; whether there is a reunion with his father; the point at which Arthur learns of the young hero’s identity; and whether the recognition scene leads to a wedding or some other form of happy ending, or to tragedy. Since I have to be highly selective, I shall largely ignore texts in which little is made of the recognition scene. This means excluding what might seem obvious choices, the Bel Inconnu and its analogues, except for Malory’s tale of Gareth, with which I begin.9 This tale, for which no direct source is known, is clearly designed to evoke laughter, and does end happily with family reunion and wedding.10 Gareth is

8

See for instance two brief and unexpected passages in Perlesvaus, IX. 6570–6614 and X. 7288–7337, ed. W. A. Nitze and T. A. Jenkins as Le Haut Livre du Graal: Perlesvaus, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1932–7), 2, 280–2 and 307–8. During a pilgrimage Arthur and Gawain each learn for the first time the circumstances of their births; these revelations come as a great surprise to them, but play no further part in the plot, and are not mentioned again. 9 I am struck by the fact that so little is made of Guinglain’s parentage in the Bel Inconnu; he discovers his identity halfway through the narrative when he achieves the Fier Baiser, but does not meet Gawain till the very end, and then it is a pretty cursory meeting. Some of the analogues make more of the potential of the unrecognized father-son encounter: in Wigalois and in Lybeaus Desconus, when the Fair Unknown first arrives at Arthur’s court, he is given Gawain as a teacher, though neither knows of their true relationship. But in Lybeaus Desconus the recognition scenes with both father and mother survive only in variant versions. In the Italian Carduino the conventions are altered even more drastically, since Gawain turns out to be the murderer of the hero’s father, and Carduino actually kills one of Gawain’s brothers. Being Gawain’s son seems not to be at all important once the Bel Inconnu has discovered his name and established his heroic credentials – though perhaps Renaut de Beaujeu’s ambivalent ending, with the offer to his own lady that if she is nice to him, he will reunite the now married Guinglain with his real love, the fairy Blances Mains, is a way of showing that Guinglain really is a chip off the old block! 10 For discussion of this tale and its relationship to other versions of the Fair Unknown story, see Wilson, ‘The Fair Unknown in Malory’; Mills, ‘The Story of the Fair Unknown’; Mahoney, ‘Malory’s Tale of Gareth’; P. J. C. Field, ‘The Source of Malory’s “Tale of Gareth” ’, in Aspects of Malory, ed. T. Takamiya and D. S. Brewer (Cambridge, 1981), pp. 57–70, repr. in Field, Malory: Texts and Contexts (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 246–60; and Barbara Nolan, ‘The Tale of Sir Gareth and The Tale of Sir Lancelot’, in A Companion to Malory, ed. Elizabeth Archibald and A. S. G. Edwards (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 153–181 (esp. pp. 156–169).

4




aware of his true identity from the beginning of the narrative, and his recognition by various members of his family and the court is spread over a number of scenes, so that some suspense is maintained to the very end. In fact the reader is aware of the truth before most of the characters are: comedy is created by the discrepancy between the snobbish behaviour of various knights and our knowledge of Gareth’s parentage and distinction. As Mahoney points out, we see here not only ‘the comedy of frustrated expectations’ (those of the characters who mistrust the disguised Gareth), but also ‘the comedy of satisfied expectations’ (those of the reader), which operate both at the level of the main plot and also at the level of structural and verbal repetition.11 Gareth’s first appearance at court is explicitly presented as comic: he is much larger than his two companions, yet leans heavily on them as if unable to walk alone. Arthur feels drawn at once to this Fair Unknown, but Kay makes a fool of himself, in our eyes, by his hostile response (pp. 294.36–295.3; VII/1): ‘ “. . . for I undirtake he is a vylayne borne, and never woll make man, for and he had be com of jantyllmen, he wolde have axed horse and armour, but as he is, so he askyth” ’. Gareth has asked Arthur only for food and drink for a year, and then two more as yet unspecified gifts in a year’s time. Kay finds this very ignoble, and jokes that the youth must have been raised in an abbey where he did not get enough to eat. It is Kay who nicknames him Beaumains, sends him to work in the kitchen, and makes fun of him. Clearly Kay is not well read in chivalric romances, or has not been paying enough attention to major plot motifs! As I mentioned before, Lancelot reproaches him for his rudeness, reminding him how wrong he was about La Cote Male Tayle. Malory hints that the youth will turn out to be related to Gawain – his son, we might guess, as in the Bel Inconnu. In fact the stranger is Gawain’s younger brother, as he soon confesses to Lancelot when he is knighted (p. 299.27–28; VII/5). Gareth also reveals his true identity to Sir Persaunt (p. 317.6–9; VII/13), and a dwarf takes the news that he is a prince of Orkney to the besieged Lyonesse, the damsel in distress, though he does not tell her Gareth’s actual name till later (pp. 317.20–21 and 329.24–29; VII/14 and 20). So Arthur and the court are the last to know Gareth’s identity, and it is revealed to them in a way that is both embarrassing and comic when the Queen of Orkney arrives and asks after her youngest son. She criticizes them roundly for having used him as a kitchenboy for twelve months (pp. 338.35–340.25; VII/25–6). When Gawain and Arthur apologize for not having recognized Gareth, she says ‘ “ye dud yourself grete shame whan ye amonyst you kepte my son in the kychyn and fedde hym lyke an hogge” ’. She notes that she sent Gareth to court with fine armour and plenty of money; clearly he has set up his own

11 Mahoney, ‘Malory’s Tale of Gareth’, pp. 173–4. Nolan makes a similar point in ‘The Tale of Gareth’

(p. 158): ‘The entire tale, then, turns on the interplay between Beaumains’ many demonstrations of his prowess and the largely comedic difficulties surrounding his refusal to say who he is. This refusal introduces a delightful dramatic irony for the audience. It also issues in several “romantic” recognition scenes . . .’

5



ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

scenario of disguise and revelation. The moment of family reunion is put off even longer when Gareth asks Lyonesse to give a tournament, with her hand in marriage as the prize. Sir Ironside tells Sir Tristram who the champion is, but Arthur is still in the dark, till finally a herald sees the answer to the mystery written around Gareth’s helmet in letters of gold: ‘ “This helme is sir Garethis of Orkeney” ’ (p. 351.11–16; VII/31). Gawain is unhorsed by Gareth and follows him into the forest, but loses him, though they do fight later when Gareth has defeated several more opponents. Gareth marries his Lyonesse – but he avoids Gawain ever after, as a vengeful murderer (p. 360.32–6; VII/35). So here the conventional parent-child recognition scene is fragmented into a much more complex story. Gareth’s father is long dead. He seeks recognition from his famous uncle, and from the court that every young knight aspires to join; but almost everyone else in the story knows who Gareth is before Arthur finally finds out. When Gareth does return to court at the end, Arthur is overwhelmed by emotion, fainting and weeping; his reaction is mirrored by that of Gareth’s mother, though she has not been in any doubt about his identity, but only about his immediate whereabouts (p. 358.11–26; VII/34).12 Lancelot seems to act as a substitute brother/father, knighting Gareth and becoming his devoted friend and ally. Gareth fights Gawain in a version of the traditional fight between unrecognized father and son; but this does not lead to reconciliation and a happy family reunion, since Gareth concludes that his brother is a bad knight, and avoids him. Comedy is achieved here in various ways: the kitchenboy joke which rebounds on Kay, Morgause’s rebukes to Arthur and to Gawain about their treatment of her son, and the continued bafflement of Arthur and Gawain when most of the other characters know who Gareth is. Although recognition and acceptance by the king are clearly crucial to the happy ending in this type of story, it often seems that the watchword here is in fact ‘Don’t tell Arthur!’ Some shadows darken the ending, however. The alliance with Lancelot is part of the happy comedy resolution of the story, but it leads to tragedy much later when Lancelot kills Gareth by mistake while rescuing the queen from the stake. Gareth’s failure to bond with Gawain is also an ominous foreshadowing of later tragedy, and of the family divisions that help to destroy Camelot.13 The source of Malory’s story of Gareth is unknown. In a group of earlier texts including the De Ortu Waluuanii, the Perlesvaus, and the fragmentary 12 There is a grim irony in the pairing of Arthur and Morgause here. Arthur responds as a father might; he

does indeed have a son by Morgause, the fatal Mordred, but we are never shown Mordred’s arrival at court or discovery of his own parentage (see my comments at the end of this essay). Morgause’s role here is an exception to Sarah Kay’s argument that in stories of separated families ‘the privileged position tends to be that of the father’, and that in courtly texts the mother tends to be killed or forgotten, whereas in chansons de geste she is more likely to have ‘a far more permanent presence’; see ‘The Chansons de geste’, pp. 104–5, and also Doris Desclais Berkvam, Enfance et maternité dans la littérature française des XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Paris, 1981). 13 On the roles of Gawain and Lancelot see Field, ‘The Source of Malory’s Tale of Gareth’, and Nolan, ‘The Tale of Sir Gareth’, esp. pp. 164–9.

6




Enfances Gauvain, it is Gawain himself who is the Fair Unknown, secretly sent away at birth because he is illegitimate and raised in Rome by the Pope or the Emperor.14 In the De Ortu there is a strong element of comedy in the final recognition episode, again largely at Arthur’s expense, though here the watchword is not so much ‘Don’t tell Arthur’ as ‘Don’t tell Gawain.’ When Arthur is informed by his psychic queen that an unbeatable knight has arrived from Rome, he hurries off in the middle of the night and attacks the stranger at a ford (pp. 100–106). Arthur is out of his depth here; he is ignominiously knocked off into the water and has to go back to bed with Guendoloena sopping wet, pretending (unsuccessfully) that he was out in the rain to stop a fight among his men. Here Arthur finds out who Gawain is before Gawain himself knows: documents identifying both him and his parents were left with the infant Gawain when he was abandoned by his mother, and later at Rome were passed by his dying fosterfather to the Emperor, who ordered Gawain to give them to Arthur without reading them himself (Aristotle would have disapproved of all this – he thought recognition through tokens very unartistic). Arthur is so surprised by the existence of this unsuspected nephew that he summons Gawain’s parents, now a respectable married couple, and they confirm the story (p. 110). But no one tells Gawain anything. He asks politely to be accepted as one of Arthur’s knights, and is understandably upset when the king refuses, saying he must first prove himself. Gawain does this most impressively in the final episode of the story, and thus creates more embarrassment for Arthur; he and his men are easily routed by the pagan king besieging the lady of the Castle of Maidens, but Gawain singlehandedly kills the enemy king and rescues the lady (pp. 112–20). Although Arthur may be helpless in battle, however, he is in control of the recognition scene, which is extremely short and brisk, as if the writer were not interested in this motif at all in spite of the very long buildup. Arthur enthusiastically greets the returning hero, offering him special honours and asking him his name and where he was brought up. When Gawain replies that he is the Knight of the Surcoat from Rome, Arthur says ‘ “Plane falleris” ’ (p. 120: ‘You are plainly mistaken’). He sends for the letter written by the Emperor of Rome and publicly acknowledges Gawain as his nephew. Gawain’s parents are present, but there is no account of his reunion with them, except for the brief statement that he is acknowledged by his father; his mother’s reaction is not mentioned at all (p. 122). In this text Arthur is presented as inferior in fighting skill and courage, but superior in his knowledge of who Gawain really is, and in his

14 De Ortu Waluuanii, ed. and trans. Mildred Leake Day as The Rise of Gawain, Nephew of Arthur (De

Ortu Waluuanii Nepotis Arturi) (New York, 1984); Perlesvaus, ed. Nitze and Jenkins (see n. 8 above); ‘Les Enfances Gauvain: fragments d’un poème perdu’, ed. P. Meyer, Romania 39 (1910), 1–32. In Geoffrey of Monmouth Gawain is raised in Rome, but is not an illegitimate foundling; there is no account of his return to England and to Arthur’s court. On the French Gauvain tradition generally see K. Busby, Gauvain in Old French Literature (Amsterdam, 1980); on the English Gawain see T. Hahn’s introduction to his edition Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales (Kalamazoo, 1995), pp. 1–7.

7



ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

manipulation of that information to present the young hero to best advantage. And for Gawain the end of his quest is acceptance at Arthur’s court, rather than reunion with his parents.15 In the De Ortu, Gawain is kept in the dark about his own identity till the very last page, while performing more and more magnificent adventures. Lancelot is also ignorant of his own identity at the beginning of his story, but the revelation, and his acknowledgement by Arthur, are very different, and occur far apart. As in the case of Gawain, the opening account in the Middle High German Lanzelet and in the French prose Lancelots (non-cyclic and Vulgate) of Lancelot’s birth and his upbringing by the Lady of the Lake puts the reader ahead of all the other characters.16 In the Lanzelet his name is not revealed to us till he himself learns it, but it is announced in the very first paragraph of both the French versions, though for a long time he knows himself only as King’s Son. When he finally does discover his name in the French texts by lifting the tombstone destined for him, he pretends not to have read the name and lineage engraved there, and swears the damsel with him to secrecy (Micha, 7, 332; L-G, 2, 80). It is a long time before the maiden reveals his name to Gawain (Micha, 7, 425–9; L-G, 2, 105), who then carries the news to court – but Lancelot is not there to be celebrated and welcomed into Arthur’s élite circle. He continues to maintain his incognito through many more battles and encounters, and admits his identity only to Guinevere, after a long conversation in which he gradually acknowledges more and more adventures and victories of which news has reached the court (Micha, 8, 104–109; L-G, 2, 143–5). This ought to be a climactic moment, since he has been in love with her since they first met, and he is now so distinguished in prowess. Her first reaction is to tell him that the court will be thrilled, since Gawain had long since told them Lancelot’s name. This is what one would have expected from one of the Round Table Knights; it is striking that she focuses on the reactions of the public world, the court, rather than her own private emotions, though she does go on to interrogate him about what – or who – inspires his great deeds, thus leading him to admit his love for her. As for Arthur, although he too has heard much of Lancelot’s exploits, they do not actually meet till very late on in the narrative when Lancelot frees Arthur from prison and is finally made a knight of the Round Table (Micha, 8, 15 Siân Echard argues that there is potential for further conflict in this ending, where the reappearance of

Gawain’s parents reminds us of the clandestine love affair that prompted his exposure at the beginning: see Arthurian Narrative in the Latin Tradition (Cambridge, 1998), p. 156. But I see no indication of this in the text: Gawain’s parents have long been married, apparently, and there is no hint of future problems to be caused by Gawain’s reunion with them. 16 Ulrich von Zatzikhoven, Lanzelet, ed. K. A. Hahn (Frankfurt, 1845), trans. K. G. T. Webster (New York, 1951); Lancelot do Lac: the non-cyclic Old French romance, ed. Elspeth Kennedy, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1980), trans. Corin Corley as Lancelot of the Lake (Oxford, 1989); Lancelot: roman en prose du XIII siècle, ed. A. Micha, 9 vols., TLF (Geneva, 1978–83), cited here as Micha by volume and page number, with translation from vols. 2–3 of L-G. See also Elspeth Kennedy’s useful comments on the non-cyclic version of the story (details are given in n. 3 above). Unless otherwise stated, I refer to the Vulgate Cycle version.

8




478–9; L-G, 2, 236). Again it is not Lancelot who names himself, but Gawain. Arthur falls at Lancelot’s feet and does homage to his saviour; Lancelot says nothing, but is clearly embarrassed. By this time Lancelot has achieved so many outstanding adventures, and is so famous, that he hardly qualifies as a Fair Unknown any more. His name is known to all; it is his face that is not recognized, and Arthur is absolutely the last to put face to name, with Gawain’s help (it takes the whole of the non-cyclic version for Arthur to discover who Lancelot is and recruit him for the Round Table). Not only does everyone else know who Lancelot is, but indeed he and Guinevere have been lovers for some time. So when Arthur sends for Guinevere to introduce her to the great hero, she immediately embraces Lancelot and makes a disingenuous but elegant speech, saying that she does not know who he is, but that for the love of her husband and for her own honour she must owe him her love. Arthur is touched and impressed by this apparently spontaneous and noble gesture, which is in fact a cunning strategy to preserve the secret of their love (Micha, 8, 484–5; L-G, 2, 237). The king is the last to know the identity of the mysterious champion to whom he is greatly indebted and by whom he has been repeatedly cuckolded; this makes him look ridiculous, as he also does (though for different reasons) in Malory’s tale of Gareth.17 We might wonder why Lancelot is presented as so obsessed with anonymity after he has discovered his own name. According to both the non-cyclic and the Vulgate versions, he is following the orders of the Lady of the Lake, who has planned or at least foreseen the moment of revelation. She commands him through a maiden not to settle down at Arthur’s court or anywhere else, but rather to do as many deeds of valour as possible, and make himself famous (Micha, 7, 321; L-G, 2, 77). He is not the only chivalric hero to maintain extended anonymity. John Burrow comments on the Middle English Ipomedon that ‘it would seem that the story assumes that the chief use of incognito is precisely to accumulate “pryce” in its purest and most unquestionable form’. Susan Crane, in a more general discussion, argues similarly that chivalric disguise is ‘a language of self-presentation rather than a means of self-concealment’.18 Lancelot certainly succeeds as far as his ‘worship’ is concerned – but we might question whether his recognition is ultimately comic or tragic. Though he discovers his name and parentage, his parents are 17 C. Stephen Jaeger, describing what he calls ‘the courtier narrative’, notes that in many Fair Unknown

stories which serve to criticize court life, ‘a stranger appears at court, dazzles the king and his court with his charm and talents, rises swiftly to favor and power, inspires envy, and becomes entangled in romantic complications with a woman close to the ruler’; see The Origins of Courtliness: Civilizing Trends and the Formation of Courtly Ideals 939–1210 (Philadelphia, 1985), pp. 237–8. His examples are Walter Map’s tale of the King of Portugal, Siegfried in the Nibelungenlied, and Tristan, but Lancelot clearly fits this pattern as well. 18 John Burrow, ‘The Uses of Incognito in Ipomedon A’, in Readings in Middle English Romance, ed. Carol. M. Meale (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 25–34 (see p. 28); Susan Crane, ‘Knights in Disguise’, in The Stranger in Medieval Society, ed. F. R. P. Akehurst and Stephanie Cain van d’Elden (Minneapolis, 1997), pp. 63–79 (see p. 70). See also the comments of Elspeth Kennedy in Lancelot and the Grail (n. 3 above).

9



ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

both dead, so there can be no family reunion with them. He does not claim his kingdom till much later in the story, as a last resort when everything in his life is falling apart and he is no longer welcome at Camelot. Acknowledgement of his prowess by Arthur, a surrogate father, and admission to the Round Table élite are in one sense a happy ending, but of course greatly complicate his illicit relations with Guinevere. Luttrell ends his list of the stages in the Fair Unknown narrative (based on the Bel Inconnu) with ‘Wedding to a Queen’, but there can be no happy ending in terms of marriage for Lancelot.19 The queen he loves is not available as a bride; after this recognition scene he will not see her again for a long time, and then only in secret. In one way, his reception by Arthur does of course mark his achievement of chivalric glory; but it can also be argued that the fall of Camelot is Lancelot’s fault. In that sense his initial knighting at Camelot, when the queen gives him his sword and he falls hopelessly in love with her, and his eventual recognition by both Arthur and Guinevere as a hero and a valued member of their court, can be seen as having nothing but tragic consequences. In view of Lancelot’s devotion to the queen, it is hardly surprising that the arrival at court of Galahad, his son by Elaine of Corbenic, at the beginning of the Grail Quest should also be problematic; it is also highly unconventional in relation to other Arthurian recognition scenes.20 Lancelot is summoned away from the court to a convent where the nuns ask him to knight an unknown boy they have raised. In the French Queste Lionel and Bors, who are also present, guess that the youth is Lancelot’s son, but are unable to draw Lancelot out on the subject (Queste, p. 3; L-G, 4, 4; Malory omits this conversation). So Galahad arrives at court already knighted, and is presented to Arthur not by Lancelot but by a mysterious old man. In one sense there is no doubt about his identity: the old man introduces Galahad as being of the lineage of David and Joseph of Arimathea, as if his actual parentage were quite irrelevant (Queste, pp. 7–8; L-G, p. 5; Malory, p. 859.11–15 [XXX/3]). He is not marginal or an outsider, since the Siege Perilous has his name on it, by right of religious destiny rather than chivalric prowess. Many notice his likeness to Lancelot, not least the queen – this is a very rare case of recognition by physical resemblance – but there is no formal acknowledgement of him as the son of Camelot’s top knight, and no contact between father and son. The one private conversation Galahad has about his own identity is the most surprising one possible – with Guinevere, who tries to make him admit that Lancelot is his father (Queste, pp. 19–20; L-G, p. 9; Malory, pp. 863.10–864.4 [XXX/5]); he acknowledges it tacitly. Recognition here includes Guinevere’s encounter with the visible proof that Lancelot has been unfaithful to her. As for

19 Luttrell, The Creation of the First Arthurian Romance, pp. 80–104 (see p. 84). 20 References are to La Queste del Saint Graal, ed. A. Pauphilet (Paris, 1978), cited as Queste by page

number, and to the translation in vol. 4 of L-G. Malory’s version is very similar, though somewhat briefer (pp. 853ff.; XIII.1).

10




Lancelot, the arrival of his unacknowledged son leads to public humiliation when a damsel announces that Lancelot is no longer the best knight in the world, as proved by Galahad’s success in drawing the sword from the stone (Queste, pp. 12–13; L-G, p. 7; Malory, pp. 870–4 [XIII/8]). At an early stage of the quest, Galahad defeats Lancelot in battle. Usually the father-son encounter in battle comes near the end of the story and leads to a final recognition scene, but in this case Lancelot does not recognize him, and Galahad immediately rides away (Queste, p. 56; L-G, pp. 19–20; Malory, pp. 892.30–893.16 [XIII/17]). It is not till considerably later on that Lancelot learns that Galahad is his son, and it seems to come as a total surprise to him; this revelation is swiftly followed by Lancelot’s first acknowledgement of his own sinfulness (Queste, pp. 137–8; L-G, pp. 44–5; Malory, p. 930.11–14 [XV/4]). Galahad’s existence is a continual reproach to Lancelot, in courtly terms because of his betrayal of Guinevere and his behaviour to Elaine, and also in spiritual terms, as it becomes clear that Lancelot cannot achieve the Grail Quest but his perfect son can. For the characters in the story and for the reader, Galahad’s identity is never in doubt from the beginning of the narrative; rather it is his Christlike status that is gradually revealed in the course of the quest. Though Lancelot may be his biological father, the only important fatherfigure for Galahad is God. Even though he is not a Fair Unknown for more than a page or two, he remains an enigmatic figure throughout, and most unlike the other young heroes of Fair Unknown narratives. Arthur’s acknowledgement and approval are more or less irrelevant to him, since his place at the Round Table is already reserved for him; he does not need to prove his prowess through a series of adventures. And his arrival at court coincides with the beginning of the Grail Quest, which is regarded as a disaster by Arthur and Guinevere; it is the first fragmenting of the Round Table fellowship, and the first occasion for criticism of chivalric ideology. As a virgin Grail Knight, Galahad has no interest in marriage or worldly power; he never returns to Arthur’s court to be congratulated, or to be married, or to claim a kingdom. His story is a happy one in Christian terms, since he sees the beatific vision and is then taken up to heaven; but for Camelot it could be seen as a tragedy. His perfection shows up the imperfections of his father and everyone else in the Arthurian world. Galahad is one example of the fact that the discovery and public acknowledgement of an Arthurian hero’s parentage are not always unproblematic causes for celebration. This is even more true in Arthur’s own case: in some French and English texts the recognition scene which makes public his parentage is itself far from comic, and though it ends happily, it has tragic consequences, both long-term and short-term. This scene is a late addition to the story of Arthur. In Geoffrey and his immediate followers Arthur is always known to be Uther’s son, so when he becomes king there is no need for a recognition scene (the problem here is the timing of his conception and his legitimacy). The first elaboration of the identity theme appears in the Vulgate 11



ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

Estoire de Merlin.21 When the barons complain about the low birth of the unknown young man who has become their king, Merlin simply explains to them how Arthur was conceived and taken at birth to be raised by Antor. Antor confirms the story; Arthur says nothing, and his mother does not appear. In Merlin’s account here, she is represented as being slandered by her own husband, without any subsequent redress or comfort. When Uther discovers that she is pregnant, he claims that it cannot be either his child or Gorlois’s, and she admits that she conceived on the very night that Gorlois died. Uther is pleased by her honesty, but does not bother to tell her that he himself was her mystery partner. He demands that the child should be handed over to him to be disposed of, since it is not his, and she agrees. There is no reference to any further conversation on the subject; it appears that Ygraine never knew she had borne Uther’s son. Although Merlin had said at the beginning of this account that Arthur is indeed Uther’s son, the barons reject him as a bastard, and a war ensues. Once Arthur has won, Merlin tells the story again, just for the king and Ulfin, prefacing it with an account of his own birth and his dealings with Vortigern.22 Arthur makes no comment, and Ygraine is not present. This recognition scene is not well constructed; perhaps it is a cobbling together of two different versions, in one of which Arthur hears his own story in private (as in the Perlesvaus episode mentioned above). A more elaborate and problematic version appears in the Suite du Merlin and was adapted by Malory: here the recognition scene is immediately preceded by Arthur’s fatal tryst with his unrecognized sister Morgause, when Mordred is conceived.23 Although Mordred is identified as Arthur’s son in some earlier French texts, there is no coherent account of the circumstances of his conception before this scene in the Suite.24 After Arthur has had his prophetic dream of the griffins and serpents which ravage both him and the kingdom, Merlin appears to him first as a child and then as an old man, with the unexpected and unwelcome news that he is Uther’s and Ygraine’s son, and therefore Morgause’s half-brother. Merlin goes on to explain, in Malory’s version: ‘ “. . . ye have done a thyng late that God ys displesed with you, for ye have lyene by youre 21 This episode does not appear in the text of the Prose Merlin attributed to Robert de Boron; I cite the

edition of H. O. Sommer, The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, 8 vols. (Washington, DC, 1908–16, repr. 1983), 2, 90–1, trans. in L-G, 1, 216–17. 22 Sommer, 2, 96; L-G, 1, 220. Immediately after this story Merlin describes Lot’s sons, among whom he numbers Mordred; either the story of Mordred’s incestuous conception had not yet been invented, or the writer did not wish to use it (for further comment on Mordred, see below). 23 See Suite, 1, 147–73, trans. L-G, 4, 167–74; and Malory, pp. 41.11–46.15 (I/19–21). In the Suite the barons are so hostile that Arthur leaves Carlion, where they are gathered; after Merlin’s explanation they still reject Arthur, and fight against him. In Malory the barons first challenge Arthur’s right to the throne, and are told by Merlin of his parentage, at pp. 17–18; then there is a long war before the recognition scene takes place. 24 See Archibald, ‘Arthur and Mordred: Variations on an Incest Theme’, in Arthurian Literature VIII (1989), pp. 1–27. For the argument that the story of Mordred’s incestuous birth was in fact known much earlier, by Geoffrey’s time, see M. Victoria Guerin, The Fall of Kings and Princes: Structure and Destruction in Arthurian Tragedy (Stanford, 1995), esp. pp. 1–17.

12




syster and on hir ye have gotyn a child that shall destroy you and all the knyghtes of youre realme” ’ (p. 44.16–19; I/20). Arthur begs Merlin to help him conceal this sin. Merlin replies that if he did so, he himself would commit a mortal sin; but he volunteers to prove to the people, to Arthur himself, and also to the queen that he is indeed Uther’s son and heir. This creates a considerable shift of context and tone for the recognition scene. The first issue is Arthur’s moral standing as a Christian and a sinner, which is then displaced and replaced by the problem of his social and political status, his worthiness as king.25 Arthur finds this story that Uther is his father incredible, and so summons his barons (who are unhappy about his accession) and also Ygraine. In both the Suite and Malory, the crucial recognition scene begins with a vicious slander against the queen; this is perhaps derived from Uther’s reported conversation with her in the Estoire de Merlin version described above. She is already anxious when she comes to court that she will be dispossessed of her lands, but it is even worse than she fears. Ulfin comes in and opens the attack: ‘Rois Artus, moult m’esmerveil de chou que tu sueffres que dame desloiaus et tele que elle ne deveroit pas tenir terre mengue a [ta] table. Et qui vaurroit la chose mener si haut comme la verités mousterroit, il trouveroit tout apertement qu’il a en li murdre et traison.’ (Suite, 1, 166) ‘King Arthur, I marvel greatly that you permit a lady so false that she should not hold land to eat at your table. Whoever wanted to pursue the matter in order to discover the truth would find clearly that there is murder and treason in her.’ (L-G, 4, 172–3)

He accuses her abruptly and very harshly of infanticide: he claims that she was pregnant by Uther, but destroyed the child because she was not interested in the honour of the kingdom, thus jeopardizing its stability. This unpleasant charade is acted out with the greatest sincerity and venom. For a knight these would be fighting words; all the poor queen can do is deny the charges. Arthur pretends to be shocked but interested, and Ulfin continues to embroider the story and to expand his accusations (he calls her an unnatural mother too). The horrified queen reproaches Merlin for his accusation, and demands that he return the child she entrusted to him, threatening to have him tortured if he denies receiving the baby. Merlin in turn asks Ector to verify the story of the fostering of Arthur, and demands that the child be returned to him. Ector says that he cannot return the child as he was, and identifies the king as his foster-son; his neighbours bear witness that he speaks the truth. All is speedily clarified: Merlin declares himself cleared of all charges, the barons are delighted that their king is in fact of royal blood, Arthur and his mother embrace, weeping with joy, and there are many days of national celebration. 25 This moral concern is in keeping with the tenor of the whole Post-Vulgate Cycle, which puts much

more emphasis than most other versions on Arthur’s sin of incest; see Fanni Bogdanow, The Romance of the Grail (Manchester, 1966), esp. ch. 6.

13



ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

Here the recognition scene is more painful (at least for Ygraine) than in the Estoire, but is followed by celebration and peace, not by civil war. It is elegantly constructed, with a series of parallel demands and responses from the various adults involved in Arthur’s birth and upbringing. There is also a doubling of the recognition motif, since Merlin is disguised for the first part of the scene, and speaks of himself in the third person till the queen orders him to identify himself. Malory’s version is much shorter, with a smaller cast of characters. Ulphuns begins with the same sudden and violent accusation – ‘ “Ye ar the falsyst lady of the worlde, and the moste tratoures unto the kynges person” ’ – but this time he accuses Ygraine of causing great bloodshed by failing to disclose that she had borne a son to Uther or to acknowledge Arthur, which would have averted the present tension between king and barons (p. 45.10–27; I/21). He ends his speech by offering to fight anyone who denies that she is false to both God and England. The queen’s first reaction is typically Malorian in its concern with ‘worship’ and good name: ‘ “I am a woman and I may nat fyght; but rather than I sholde be dishonoured, there wolde som good man take my quarrel” ’ (p. 45.28–30).26 When she describes how she gave up her baby to Merlin, Ulphuns reproaches the enchanter: ‘ “Ye ar more to blame than the queene” ’ (p. 46.4). Without further ado, Arthur effects his own recognition, asking Merlin ‘ “Ys this my modir?” ’ (p. 46.9). We hear this question in direct speech; we do not hear Ector’s explanation, which is summed up in two lines of narrative, immediately followed by the embrace of mother and son, and eight days of feasting. The confrontation here begins just as nastily as in the Suite, but is much briefer, and the tone soon shifts from the hostile to the emotional. We are spared the repeated explanations of what we already know, and Merlin has a much smaller role here than in the Suite, where he draws out the recognition scene with long speeches like an all-powerful Master of Ceremonies, demanding applause and appreciation from his audience at the end. Both versions end with rejoicing and feasting, followed not by more wars but by the knighting and first adventure of the squire Girflet (Gryfflet in Malory). But the recognition that Uther and Ygraine are Arthur’s parents also confirms that Morgause is his half-sister, though this is not explicitly stated at this point either in the Suite or in Malory. Without much delay, however, both versions return to the consequences of their incest, Arthur’s attempt at a Massacre of the Innocents and Mordred’s miraculous – or fatal – survival (Suite, 1, 203–12; L-G, 4, 183–5; Malory, pp. 55–6 [I/27]). Though the recognition scene itself ends happily with Arthur embracing his mother, the discovery of his parentage is thus framed by disastrous events; it is in fact the beginning of a very unhappy ending to the larger story of Arthur’s life and reign. Here, as in some of the other recognition scenes discussed in this essay, 26 It is also an ominous precursor of the various episodes in the final books where Guinevere is accused of

a crime, and needs a champion to fight for her or rescue her.

14




the conventions of the Fair Unknown story are turned upside down. Arthur is already established as king when the recognition scene occurs, though there is doubt about his social status and opposition to his rule. The father he thinks he knows, Ector, turns out to be merely a foster-father. His biological father is dead, so there can be no reunion with him, and there is no other authoritative male figure to acknowledge him (besides Merlin, who has known his true identity all along). His mother is presented as terribly vulnerable, and Arthur is complicit in a brutal plot to accuse her falsely, in order to bring about the recognition scene. The discovery of his parentage comes immediately after his unwitting incest, and his ominous dream of disaster to come; knowledge of his true identity does not launch him on a new career path or raise him to a new status, but confirms his terrible destiny, already prophesied by Merlin, and induces him to act as brutally as Herod, with equal lack of success. Fair Unknown stories sometimes end with the hero marrying a queen or heiress; Arthur’s marriage takes place a little later, but it does not really matter much whom he marries. The proof that he is the legitimate king, Uther’s son, is also the proof that he has already committed incest (though of course it is also very clear that when Arthur slept with Morgause he could not possibly have known their true relationship). Thus the revelation of his parentage also seals his tragic fate, as in the Oedipus story; his line is destined to end when Mordred and he kill each other. So what about Mordred’s recognition scene? As many critics have noted, at the end of a brief account of Arthur’s attempt to destroy Mordred along with all the other children born around May Day Malory mentions an account of how Mordred grew up and came to court: And so by fortune the shyppe drove unto a castelle, and was all to-ryven and destroyed the moste party, save that Mordred was cast up, and a good man founde hym, and fostird hym tylle he was fourtene yere of age, and than brought hym to the courte, as hit rehersith aftirward and toward the ende of the MORTE ARTHURE. (p. 55.28–33; I/27)

It is not entirely clear if Malory is promising to describe this scene himself, as most critics assume, or referring to his source. Morte Arthure might be his own work, the Alliterative Morte, or some French version; he regularly uses the verb rehersen to refer both to his own text and to his sources. But no comparable passage exists in the Suite, his immediate source here, nor does the scene of Mordred’s arrival at court appear in any extant Arthurian text. Peter Field has recently argued that Malory may have been referring to a now lost version of the Alliterative Morte Arthure which did contain this scene.27 This is an ingenious suggestion, but unless such a text is discovered, it must remain merely a hypothesis, and not one that I find persuasive. Writers in the 27 Field, ‘Malory’s Mordred’ (see note 9 above). There are some casual, brief references to Mordred’s

fostering in the Suite, which suggest that a more developed account of Mordred’s youth may have existed in some form in the early thirteenth century: see 1, 275 (L-G, 4, 202), and 2, 139 (L-G, 4, 245).

15



ELIZABETH ARCHIBALD

Middle Ages felt quite free to expand and adapt their sources, to add new characters, and to invent scenes which clearly needed inventing, such as the first kiss of Lancelot and Guinevere. The authors of the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate versions made many additions to the twelfth-century versions of the Arthurian legend, filling in gaps, developing existing characters, and inventing new ones. As we have seen, numerous Arthurian writers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries did add recognition scenes to their versions. Why did they not include the scene of Mordred’s arrival at court, and/or his discovery of his true parentage? It would seem very surprising if the author of the Alliterative Morte alone of all medieval Arthurians chose to describe Mordred’s arrival at court, and equally strange if such an important scene was added and then subsequently omitted. In my view, Mordred’s recognition scene was just too problematic for medieval authors. They seem to have taken considerable pains to avoid humiliating Lancelot too much when Galahad comes to court; in the face of considerable provocation, Lancelot never actually acknowledges his own status as Galahad’s father, the name of the boy’s mother, or the circumstances of his conception. How much more awkward would it have been for Arthur to welcome Mordred to his court and make him a knight – not to mention for Guinevere! Modern Arthurian authors do not flinch from the challenge of describing the hopes and fears and expectations of father and son, Mordred’s emotions at confronting his father at last, Arthur’s desire to make amends or to muzzle this potential monster, and Guinevere’s behaviour towards her stepson.28 But I think that in spite of their passion for recognition scenes, medieval writers recognized that this one was better left out.29

28 See for instance Mary Stewart’s The Wicked Day (London, 1986), which focuses on Mordred and

devotes much space – and imagination – to his early life in Scotland, his thoughts about his parentage, and his life at Arthur’s court before everything goes wrong. 29 I am grateful to the Arthurians who heard an earlier version of this essay at the International Congress at Toulouse for their helpful comments, and especially to Ad Putter for his help with the final draft.

16



MERVEILLEUX ET COMIQUE DANS LES ROMANS FRANÇAIS

II

MERVEILLEUX ET COMIQUE DANS LES ROMANS ARTHURIENS FRANÇAIS (XIIe–XVe SIECLES) Christine Ferlampin-Acher Au terme d’une synthèse sur ‘merveilleux et roman (XIIe–XVe siècles)’,1 j’ai pu mettre en évidence une formulation caractéristique du merveilleux, présente, nonobstant des variations, dans l’ensemble de la production romanesque de cette époque: le merveilleux est inscrit dans le texte à travers la présence de merveille, relayé par un ou plusieurs termes de la même famille, par un verbe de vision, par un ou plusieurs termes correspondant à une tentative d’élucidation (magique, féerique, chrétienne . . .). Indépendamment des croyances du lecteur grâce à la présence d’un ‘lecteur inscrit’ qui dicte ses réactions au lecteur réel (par le biais des indéfinis où le lecteur doit se projeter, des interpellations du narrateur ou du jeu des focalisations), le merveilleux se caractérise par un schéma narratif où s’enchaînent un regard entravé et donc problématique, une polyphonie où se font entendre les voix divergentes des personnages et celles du narrateur et de ses avatars souvent démultipliés et une polysémie proposant, à travers ces voix plurielles, diverses lectures de la merveille, le sens restant finalement suspendu au niveau de l’explicite même si Dieu est présupposé et réduit in fine toute incertitude ontologique douloureuse.2 De l’analyse diachronique de la production romanesque entre le XIIe et le XVe siècle il apparaît par ailleurs que le merveilleux évolue: si au XIIe et au XIIIe siècles, le processus merveilleux (regard entravé, jeux polyphoniques et 1

2

Il s’agit d’une synthèse de 704 pages, présentée le 4 janvier 2000 dans le cadre d’une habilitation à diriger des recherches soutenue en Sorbonne (Paris IV). Il ne saurait être question ici de donner des indications bibliographiques exhaustives: je me contenterai de renvoyer à D. Poirion, Le merveilleux dans la littérature française du Moyen Age (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France 1982), F. Dubost, Aspects fantastiques de la littérature narrative médiévale (XIIe–XIIIe siècles) (Paris, Champion 1991), 2 tomes, et aux deux tomes de la Revue des Langues Romanes, t. C, 1996–2, et t. CI, 1997–2, sur ‘Merveilleux et fantastique au Moyen Age’. On trouvera une approche poétique du merveilleux dans le Lancelot en prose très convaincante dans J. R. Valette, La Poétique du merveilleux dans le Lancelot en prose (Paris, Champion 1998). Pour un résumé de cette approche, voir C. Ferlampin-Acher, introduction à Fées, bestes et luitons. Croyances et merveilles dans les romans français en prose (XIIIe–XIVe siècles) (Paris, Presses Universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne 2002).

17



CHRISTINE FERLAMPIN-ACHER

polysémiques, suspension du sens) est clairement inscrit dans le texte à travers une topique aisément identifiable par le lecteur, peu à peu, les échos intertextuels tendent à se substituer à cette topique: le roman se nourrissant de récritures, la merveille trouve son épaisseur, non dans la mention développée d’une hésitation, par exemple, entre la fée, la sainte, la noble dame, l’illusion, mais dans des associations, plus ou moins explicites, avec les figures de la tradition, avec Melior ou Laudine, Guenièvre ou Iseult . . . L’inscription topique est alors de moins en moins marquée: la merveille tend à se réduire à une formulation de plus en plus sèche, cliché stérile pour le lecteur moderne, mais pour le lecteur médiéval, apte à une telle lecture, invitation à l’invocation des voix plurielles et dissonantes de la tradition littéraire. Le comique quant à lui est une notion qui n’est certes pas aisée à définir, et qui pose, a priori, le même problème que le merveilleux: n’y a-t-il pas risques d’anachronismes, ce qui étonne ou ce qui fait rire un lecteur aujourd’hui ne surprenant et n’amusant pas un lecteur médiéval (et inversement)? Certes de nombreux épisodes semblent susciter le même sourire hier et maintenant.3 Plus encore, en partant de cette topique merveilleuse, il est possible de mettre en évidence des effets comiques qui ne semblent pas dépendre de la relativité des mentalités: le regard perturbé, associé au thème de l’illusion,4 provoque des écarts par rapport à la norme chevaleresque, écarts qui amusent toujours (même s’ils peuvent aussi inquiéter); de la polyphonie et de la polysémie découlent des divergences entre les regards et les opinions dont les discordances sont plaisantes. Ces écarts pourraient susciter l’angoisse, ou du moins l’inquiétude du lecteur: le caractère ludique du merveilleux, qui fait que le lecteur est invité à jouer avec le sens incertain tout en ayant toujours à l’horizon l’assurance divine, est tel que l’angoisse est peut-être plus le fait d’un lecteur moderne, volontiers oublieux de cette sécurité ontologique, que d’un lecteur médiéval qui frissonnera le temps de franchir l’aitre perilleus mais saura retrouver le sourire sans tarder, grâce à Dieu, suprême garant. Par ailleurs à travers les récritures qui gonflent le genre romanesque si la merveille trouve une épaisseur du fait des rapprochements, souvent ambigus, avec des modèles antérieurs, le merveilleux peut prendre une dimension comique dans le cadre d’un jeu parodique.5 3

4

5

Voir Ph. Ménard, Le rire et le sourire dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen Age (1150–1250) (Genève, Droz 1969). Les pages 376–416 sont consacrées aux rires et aux sourires associés au merveilleux et à l’étrange. Sur cet aspect essentiel du merveilleux voir l’exemple particulièrement explicite de Perceforest: C. Ferlampin-Acher, ‘Les deceptions dans Perceforest: du fantosme au fantasme’, dans Félonie, trahison, reniements au Moyen Age. Actes du troisième colloque international de Montpellier. Université Paul Valéry (24–26 novembre 1995), Les Cahiers du CRISIMA 3 (1997), pp. 413–430. Je prends le terme ‘parodie’ dans son sens le plus large, en le vidant de toute connotation négative. La parodie est une récriture qui peut n’être que très partielle: plus que dans les revendications et les indices explicites donnés par un auteur qui reprend un texte, elle est perceptible au niveau de la réception, le lecteur percevant un écho, parfois ténu, parfois puissant. Cette parodie, liée à la lecture du texte, dépend donc de la culture du lecteur. Elle n’est pas un procédé que l’auteur choisit de privilégier: elle est inscrite au coeur même de l’invention médiévale, qui se conçoit comme reprise et elle est par conséquent une des modalités essentielles de la réception du texte romanesque au Moyen Age.

18




La merveille ne se laisse jamais voir pleinement: le degré ultime de cet empêchement visuel apparaît lorsque la merveille, invisible, n’est qu’audible, et que des sons, souvent inharmonieux, brait ou glat, glacent les sangs.6 Ces bruits débouchent cependant en général sur une vision partielle (et partiale) qui ne garantit pas l’adéquation entre ce qui est perçu et ce qui est. Le regard merveilleux est déformé par des conditions particulières et il est placé sous le signe du soupçon et de la crainte de l’illusion, souvent exprimé à travers les expressions sembler et estre avis. Tantôt le doute résulte de l’état du sujet confronté à la merveille: il est somnolant, endormi, ivre, voire amoureux, pensif. Tantôt l’incertitude provient des conditions extérieures (nuit, clairobscur entre chien et loup, lumière confuse de la lune, conditions météorologiques particulières, avec des bruines et des brouillards, souvent associés aux espaces aquatiques de la merveille . . .). Prenons quelques exemples. Dans Le Chevalier au Lion de Chrétien de Troyes,7 c’est à la tombée de la nuit (v. 5107) que le héros arrive à Pesme Aventure, alors qu’il est destabilisé par l’étrange accueil qu’il a reçu et que lui-même s’estime faus (‘fous’ v. 5172): ses conditions, tant objectives que subjectives, rendent sa perception douteuse. Par ailleurs la vue qu’il a des demoiselles occupées à la merveilleuse besogne imposée par les féroces fils de diable est entravée: il ne les voit que dans les intervalles laissés libres par les pieux épais (vv. 5188ss.) et le portrait qui est donné, focalisé, ne retient que le haut du corps des demoiselles, seul visible puisqu’elles sont assises (vv. 5190ss.). Incomplet, ce portait rend bien compte du regard partiel et insuffisant8 que le héros porte sur la merveille. Dans la première Continuation de Perceval, Gauvain a vu le Graal: ce n’est peut-être qu’un rêve car il s’était endormi (vv. 1485ss.),9 et comme il se trouve dans un marois (v. 1493), il n’est pas impossible que des brumes trompeuses l’aient induit en erreur (v. 1493). Dans le livre II de Perceforest,10 Estonné rencontre un valet, qui n’est autre que Zéphir, le luiton surnaturel, qui le conduit à un étrange sabbat:11 le chevalier est alors soucieux, à la fois amoureux de Priande et préoccupé à l’idée de pouvoir encore être piégé par le facétieux follet (‘en tel penser / ainsi aloit tout le chemin soy delictant en ses pensees tout ainsi comme celui qui fait chasteaulx en Espaigne gisant en son lit en Angleterre’); c’est le soir (‘a soleil esconsant’); il 6 7 8

Voir Cl. Lecouteux, ‘Ces bruits de l’au-delà’, Revue des Langues Romanes CI (1997–2), pp. 113–124. Ed. D. Hult, Paris, Livre de Poche, coll. ‘Lettres Gothiques’ (1994). Ce topos du regard entravé explique une apparente incohérence du texte: sous l’effet du regard porté par Yvain les demoiselles restent une grant pieche sans rien faire (v. 5204), alors que le héros ne les regarde qu’un poi (v. 5208). On pourrait certes supposer que le chevalier cesse de les regarder alors même qu’elles continuent à fixer honteusement le sol sans pouvoir travailler, mais l’ensemble de la scène étant placé clairement sous le regard du héros, il est possible que un poi ne renvoie pas à la durée du regard d’Yvain mais à sa qualité: c’est un regard entravé, incomplet. 9 The Continuations of the Old French Perceval of Chretien de Troyes, éd. W. Roach, Philadelphie, Première Continuation (ou Continuation Gauvain), t. I (1949) (version mixte). 10 Ed. G. Roussineau (Genève, Droz 1999), pp. 212ss. 11 Sur cet épisode, voir la préface de G. Roussineau à son édition du livre II, pp. XXIVss. et notre article ‘Le sabbat de vielles barbues dans Perceforest’, Le Moyen Age IC (1993), 471–504, ainsi que les compléments apportés dans notre livre Fées, bestes et luitons, op. cit., chap. IV.

19




se retrouve dans une salle obscure où brille une lumière incertaine12 et assiste alors au sabbat. Cette vue perturbée peut être comique car elle déforme les perspectives. Dans les Merveilles de Rigomer,13 le chevalier Macrob Dicrac, envoyé par Lancelot, arrive à Carduel. Vu de loin, il ressemble pour la cour attroupée à ‘uns petis clochiers’ mouvant (vv. 6738ss.), et tous le prennent pour une des nombreuses merveilles qui arrivent dans le royaume d’Arthur. Gauvain est le premier à le voir: Si vit isir fors des foriés A demie löee pres Une chose qu’il esgarda Dont mout forment se mervilla. S’il fust seus quant il l’ot veue, Ce dist, paour eust eue. (vv. 6720ss.)

La merveille et le comique sont d’emblée liés: le point de vue de Gauvain se dédouble dans la mesure où se trouvent opposés l’avis d’un Gauvain entouré et celui d’un Gauvain hypothétique et vraisemblable, seul. Cette alternative nourrit l’incertitude merveilleuse entre une merveille inquiétante ou bienveillante, et éveille un sourire chez le lecteur devant ce héros hésitant. Les compagnons de Gauvain prennent le relais et leur opinion démultiplie les hésitations du neveu du roi, puisque que le nouveau venu semble d’abord être un petit clocher (v. 6735), puis un chevalier sur un grand cheval, puis un géant, puis un chevalier hardi. La reine, dont le point de vue vient ensuite (vv. 6806ss.) ne voit qu’un chevalier qui dépasse les autres d’une tête. On glisse du regard du narrateur à celui de Gauvain, puis à celui de la reine. On passe de la peur de Gauvain et de ses compagnons au rire de Guenièvre. Les différents regards, déformés par l’éloignement, font sourire le lecteur, qui depuis le début sait précisément à quoi s’en tenir et ne sera jamais effrayé par l’évocation, la relativité des points de vue permettant par ailleurs de jouer sur des inversions plaisantes: selon la reine ce n’est pas Macrob qui est grand mais les autres chevaliers de la cour qui sont petits, la dévalorisation héroïque, par le biais de la transposition de l’opposition ‘chevalier normal / géant’ en opposition ‘nain / chevalier normal’ étant burlesque. Passant par un regard déformé, les merveilles sont souvent l’objet de descriptions ou de portraits qui tiennent de la caricature ou qui sont tronqués, laissant le lecteur sur sa faim et suscitant son sourire du fait de l’écart entre ce qui était attendu (par rapport à la topique du portrait en particulier) et ce qui est proposé à sa curiosité. Les portraits découlant du regard perturbé porté sur la merveille peuvent donc être comiques, soit parce qu’ils sont marqués par une ellipse qui joue sur la déception plaisante du lecteur, soit parce qu’ils sont caricaturaux. 12 Ed. cit., p. 216. 13 Ed. W. Foerster et H. Breuer (Dresden, 1908–15), 2 tomes.

20




La fée dans Le Bel Inconnu de Renaut de Beaujeu illustre ce que le portrait merveilleux, incomplet, peut avoir de plaisamment déceptif. Les fées correspondent à l’idéal féminin, elles ressemblent aux princesses et leur portrait s’inscrit dans la tradition du portrait féminin.14 Chez Renaut de Beaujeu,15 quatre femmes sont décrites selon la topique médiévale: Hélie, une messagère (vv. 135ss.), Margerie, la soeur du roi Agolant (vv. 1525ss.), la Pucelle aux Blanches Mains, la fée (vv. 2217ss. et 3949ss.), et Blonde Esmerée, la princesse (vv. 3261ss.). Dans tous ces portraits, l’hyperbole est fortement présente, et l’on retrouve en commun la lumière, les comparaisons valorisantes du teint avec les fleurs, le jeu sur l’opposition entre le blanc et le vermeil, les yeux vairs, la bouche riante, les mains blanches, la blondeur, le corps bien fait, le vêtement somptueux. Cependant l’auteur joue avec ces portraits: tout d’abord le lecteur s’attend à chaque portrait à ce que la demoiselle célébrée soit l’épouse destinée au héros, mais la première, Hélie, n’est qu’un personnage très secondaire, tout comme Margerie, et l’effet d’attente déçue est tel que le portrait de la fée et celui de la princesse qu’épousera le héros perdent de leur solennité et sont lus avec une certaine distanciation d’autant que la surenchère répétée tient de la caricature. D’autre part, le portrait de la fée, la plus belle (v. 2218), comme Hélie (v. 138) et Margerie (v. 1528),16 est placé sous la dépendance du regard pour le moins troublé du héros, ébloui par l’éclat lumineux qui semble naître de la demoiselle au point qu’il tombe par terre (vv. 2221ss.). La description qui suit, commençant conformément à la tradition par le haut du corps, mentionne d’abord le visage, suivant le regard en contre-plongée du héros à terre (et atterré). Cependant l’énumération ordonnée ne se retrouve pas: du visage, on passe au corps, pour revenir aux lèvres et aux dents . . .: le trouble du héros et sa position expliquent cette dispersion qui fait sourire le lecteur. Par ailleurs, le corps érotique, caché sous le vêtement (luxe des fourrures, des tissus, de l’or . . .) échappe au regard du héros et si le portrait s’ouvre sur la perception et le trouble de celui-ci, il se clôt sur une large assistance et une généralisation qui ne concerne plus directement le héros: ‘Onques nus hom ne vit tant biele’ (v. 2258), avant que la dame ne s’avance vers le chevalier dont le regard a cessé d’être le vecteur textuel. Dans ce portrait l’apparence de la fée se trouve comme dissoute à la fois dans la généralité de la topique et dans le halo lumineux qui provoque l’éblouissement et le malaise interdisant toute perception précise au héros. Celui-ci, comme le lecteur, reste sur sa faim et son désir. L’incertitude merveilleuse est renforcée par cette évocation en même temps que la surenchère et l’écriture déceptive font naître des sourires. Cette dimension déceptive du portrait de la merveille se retrouve dans celui de Blonde Esmerée, ci-devant guivre hideuse, merveilleuse car d’une nature 14 Voir M. Colby, The Portrait in Twelfth-Century French Literature: an Example of the Stylistic Origi-

nality of Chrétien de Troyes (Genève, Droz 1965). 15 Ed. G. P. Williams (Paris, Champion 1978). 16 On notera la similitude des vers 138, 1528, 2218: Si biele riens ne fu veüe.

21




incertaine du fait de l’étrange métamorphose qui lui a été imposée. Résumant les ‘clichés’ imposés par la topique, l’auteur énumère sèchement: Tant le sot bien Nature ouvrer C’onques si biele n’ot el mont De bouce, d’iols, de vis, de front, De cors, de bras, de piés, de mains Fors sel celi as Blanches Mains. (vv. 3268ss.)

Si la familiarité du lecteur avec le topos dispense l’auteur de développer, ce qui prime ici, c’est l’effet déceptif et l’intervention plaisante du narrateur qui souligne cette écriture de l’ellipse: Tant estoit fresse et coloree Que clers ne le saroit descrire Ne boce ne le poroit dire Ne nus ne le poroit conter. (vv. 3264ss.)

Au portrait se substitue alors un long commentaire sur le vêtement (vv. 3279ss.), voile opaque entre le regard du chevalier et le corps de la dame, qui se confond avec la fée et reste un mystère. Le troisième portrait est à nouveau consacré à la fée, la Pucelle aux Blanches Mains (vv. 3949ss.). La suprématie de celle-ci est d’emblée signalée par le fait qu’elle est la seule à avoir droit à deux portraits. Pourtant la fée ne se laisse pas encore voir: priorité est donnée à son vêtement et à son cheval. Une tendance apparaît dans la succession des portraits, indice de ce regard empêché, toujours insatisfait, porté sur la merveille: au fil du texte, le corps de la femme / fée devient de plus en plus insaisissable, il se cache derrière le tissu ou la monture. Lors de sa dernière apparition, Blonde Esmerée n’est pas décrite, l’auteur se consacrant plutôt à la superbe tenue qu’elle porte (vv. 5143ss.). Lorsqu’à la fin du roman, la fée rejoint son ami dans le verger, elle n’est pas plus décrite: sa personnalité propre s’estompe derrière les références à des modèles mythologiques (vv. 4344ss.), derrière des hyperboles sans originalité, et la description d’ornements luxueux, comme le lorain de son cheval et sa selle. Le corps disparaît sous les voiles: mis à part les bras et les mains qui dépassent, il est escamoté en un vers (v. 3983). Quand la fée invite enfin le héros à passer la nuit auprès d’elle, la chambre, avec son luxe oriental, sera l’occasion d’une longue description à la manière des romans antiques (vv. 4731ss.), mais le portrait de la dame sera éludé: La dame se geist en son lit, Onques nus hom plus cier ne vit; Bien vos diroie le façon, Sans mentir et sans mesproisson, Mais por sa grant joie coitier, Que molt en avoit grant mestier, Ne le vuel entendre a descrire Que trop me costeroit a dire. (vv. 4769ss.) 22




Cette pirouette qui joue sur la confusion entre le personnage et le lecteur annonce l’ellipse: Je ne sai s’il le fist s’amie Car n’i fui pas, ne n’en vi mie, Mais non de pucele perdi La dame dalés son ami. (vv. 4815ss.)

La merveille, nécessairement extrême, donne lieu à des descriptions paradoxales, fondées à la fois sur la surenchère et l’ellipse qui traduit le trouble du spectateur et qui nourrit le mystère: le sourire naît de cette inflation qu’une longue tradition romanesque banalise, ainsi que des ellipses qui trompent l’attente. Dans Le Bel Inconnu, les portraits féminins, potentiellement féeriques, illustrent de façon exemplaire comment le trouble du spectateur, ébloui, est à la base d’un traitement distancé de la topique du portrait, jouant à la fois sur une beauté outrée, caricaturale, et sur l’ellipse malicieuse, qui souvent joue avec le désir du personnage et celui du lecteur, à travers son incarnation, le lecteur inscrit, masculin. Cette caractéristique, grossie dans ce roman qui joue sur le mode humoristique avec le roman arthurien,17 se retrouve à travers l’ensemble de la production romanesque médiévale. Ne retenons ici qu’un exemple, dans un texte en prose du XIVe siècle: la fée Proserpine dans Artus de Bretagne apparaît d’abord au héros dans un rêve nocturne: la perception est perturbée. Ensuite en trois lignes, la dame paraît (elle est comme de bien entendu la plus belle et porte une couronne), et elle disparaît aussitôt18 (f. 40v). Il en va de même pour les portraits de la laideur. Ils amusent lorsqu’ils prennent le contre-pied des portraits idéaux tout en faisant frissonner parce qu’ils introduisent un soupçon surnaturel, souvent diabolique. L’écart par rapport à la norme inquiète et amuse:19 Caron et Cerbère dans Eneas (vv. 2442ss., vv. 2563ss.), le vilain dans Le Chevalier au Lion (vv. 292–311), mais aussi les monstres difformes, comme la guivre du Bel Inconnu en témoignent. Il n’est pas aisé de reconstituer la réaction d’un lecteur médiéval, mais le fait que le portrait constitue une unité close, disjointe du récit, permet que le temps de la description la créature inquiétante soit immobilisée, réduite à une image que l’on contemple: même si elle est potentiellement un adversaire dangereux, elle est neutralisée provisoirement par la description. La 17 Voir notre étude La fée et la guivre: le Bel Inconnu de Renaut de Beaujeu, suivie d’un concordancier

établi par Monique Léonard (Paris, Champion 1996); M. Bruckner, ‘Intertextuality’, dans The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, éd. N. Lacy, D. Kelly et K. Busby, t. I (Rodopi, 1987), 231ss.; E. Baumgartner, ‘Féerie-fiction: le Bel Inconnu de Renaut de Beaugeu’, dans Le Chevalier et la Merveille dans le Bel Inconnu ou le Beau Jeu de Renaut, études recueillies par J. Dufournet (Paris, Champion 1996), pp. 7ss. 18 Ce roman est inédit. Nous donnons le texte du manuscrit BNF fr. 761. Il est possible de lire une version extrêmement proche de celle qui est donnée par ce manuscrit (excepté pour la fin et pour la belle et savante déclaration d’amour que le clerc Estienne fait à Marguerite) dans le fac-similé annoté (présentant des corrections à partir des manuscrits) de l’édition de 1584, donné par N. Cazauran et C. Ferlampin-Acher (Paris, Presses de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure 1996). 19 Sur le comique des portraits de la laideur, voir Ph . Ménard, op. cit., pp. 529ss.

23




parenthèse que constitue le portrait met la menace à l’écart, introduit dans le texte une respiration qui permet parfois au sourire de se dessiner à partir de la surenchère. L’hybridation, constitutive des monstres,20 quoiqu’inquiétante, peut alors être plaisante du fait des associations surprenantes et inesthétiques qu’elle provoque, qu’elle soit effective (la créature est à la fois lion et cerf) ou métaphorique (la créature a un cou comme celui d’un lion et des pattes comme celles d’un cerf). La Laide Demoiselle du Conte du Graal tient du rat, du singe, du chat, de l’âne, du boeuf . . . (vv. 4586ss.), on la croirait venue d’Enfer, et son caractère composite est amusant. Dans Le Bel Inconnu, les descriptions de la guivre et de Rose Espanie dont la laideur n’est en rien annoncée par un nom charmant, associent aussi le merveilleux et le comique. Dans les deux cas laideur et beauté se trouvent confondues: en dépit de sa laideur, Rose Espanie porte le nom d’une belle demoiselle et elle est aimée comme telle par le chevalier qui la sert et dont Amour a tourné les sens; la guivre hideuse n’est autre qu’une belle princesse métamorphosée. Dans les deux cas, la magie, d’un enchanteur ou d’Amour qui ‘Tant set de guille et d’encanter’ (v. 1735), a mêlé la beauté et la laideur. Les regards troublés hésitent, l’apparence ou le nom trompent. Le merveilleux naît de cette incertitude et le sourire de la surprise résultant de l’attente trompée. Si le comique associé à Rose Espanie, métamorphosée par Amour, est évident, celui de la guivre l’est moins: et pourtant il est provoqué par quelques indices comme la comparaison avec le cierge (v. 3130),21 l’hybridation entre une bouche presque humaine et un corps animal, le caractère hétéroclite des références aux objets les plus quotidiens (comme le ‘vaissaus d’un mui’ v. 3138) et au diable (v. 3150), entretenant le merveilleux et provoquant un effet de discordance amusante, le contraste entre les hyperboles vagues et absolues (v. 3133, v. 3145) et les mesures et dénombrements précis (v. 3138, v. 3143 . . .). Le merveilleux dans ce portrait promène le lecteur entre l’impossible et l’extrême d’une part, et le possible, inscrit dans des références précises et concrètes d’autre part: le sourire naît de ce jeu de balance. Dans le Livre d’Artus,22 le portrait de Merlin, qui reprend celui du vilain dans Le Chevalier au Lion, est une caricature particulièrement plaisante (pp. 20 Sur cette hybridation, voir Cl. Kappler, Monstres, démons et merveilles à la fin du Moyen Age (Paris,

Payot, nouvelle édition 1999), p. 147, et C. Ferlampin-Acher, ‘Le monstre dans les romans des XIIIème et XIVème siècles’, dans Ecriture et modes de pensée au Moyen Age (VIIIème–XVème siècles), études rassemblées par D. Boutet et L. Harf-Lancner (Paris, Presses de l’Ecole Normale Supérieure 1993), pp. 69–90. 21 La guivre est très lumineuse, ‘con un cierge bien enbrasé’ (v. 3130): la comparaison surprend et amuse, car peu avant dans le texte, il a été question d’un très grand nombre de cierges qui illuminaient la salle (vv. 2884ss., vv. 2916ss., vv. 2972ss., vv. 3081ss.) et Mabon était associé à une lumière très vive. Cet unique cierge, moins de cent vers plus loin, pâlit singulièrement devant surenchère lumineuse précédente. 22 Ed. O. Sommer, dans The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances (Washington, t. 7, 1913).

24




124ss.). Jeu sur les sons (allitération en p dans ‘unes granz piaus dont li pels estoit plus lons que li espanz de la plus grosse main que l’en sache’), accumulation adjectivale (‘il estoit granz et corbes et noirs et maigres et veluz et vielz’), comparaisons inhabituelles (ses yeux sont comme des liches, des chandeliers), jurant à côté d’images banales (il a des cheveux noirs comme arremenz), multiplication des coordinations (34 et en 17 lignes imprimées): les indices stylistiques qui attirent l’attention du lecteur sont nombreux. Le jeu sur les comparaisons est plaisant: si les yeux sont noirs comme une chandelle, la bosse dans le dos a la taille d’un mortier (c’est-à-dire d’un morceau de cire d’éclairage), comme si le personnage portait sur son dos une réserve pour faire brûler ses yeux. La posture de Merlin est décrite avec précision et par sa disgracieuse désinvolture elle prête à sourire. Il est au bord d’un fossé, appuyé à la fois à un vieil arbre et sur sa massue qui touche le fond du fossé: il doit être bizarrement penché, d’autant qu’il est précisé qu’il est très long et très maigre – à moins que la massue ne soit démesurément longue. D’autre part, le portrait combine des éléments hétérogènes et fait de Merlin un être divers: homme sauvage qui tient de la bête avec sa peau de loup à poils longs et sa massue, monstre tout droit venu des encyclopédies avec ses oreilles de Panotéens, comparées, comme le veut la tradition à uns vans,23 et avec ses pieds et ses mains à l’envers,24 monstre plus romanesque avec sa bouche de dragon, vieil homme mal vêtu plus banalement . . . L’organisation du portrait reprend en les détournant des éléments traditionnels (le vêtement, l’allure générale, les parties du corps détaillées du haut vers le bas), et l’impression qui résulte est celle d’un grand désordre, d’un monstre composite où rien ne serait à sa place. La peur d’un hypothétique spectateur n’est évoquée que tardivement, et le sourire qui n’a pu que naître en amont rend cette réaction amusante, car elle est décalée. La frustration du personnage dont le regard est perturbé face à la merveille est elle aussi souvent comique. Scapiol, dans le livre VI de Perceforest (ff. 326ss.),25 suit un cerf merveilleux. C’est ‘sur le jour faillant’ qu’il parvient au verger où une demoiselle féerique se baigne, et son regard est gêné par une haie douloureusement épineuse: ‘celluy vergier estoit encloz de grans rosiers et de englentiers poindans’. Peu après il a une vision et à nouveau l’auteur joue avec le regard entravé: ‘rien ne voioit fors les arbres du vergier car le lieu estoit encloz de espés air par conjurations parquoy le roy ne povoit veoir la chose ainsi qu’elle estoit. Toutteffois aucune heure venoit car ainsi comme en plain esté la nuit obscurcist le soleil et puis se part la nue et le soleil appert par 23 Chez Chrétien, les oreilles sont ‘mossues et granz / Autiex com a uns olifans’ (vv. 297–8). 24 Sur les Panotéens, voir Cl. Kappler, op. cit., p. 123; Cl. Lecouteux, ‘Les Panotéens: sources, diffusion,

emploi’, Etudes germaniques 34 (1979), 1–21; Ph. Ménard, ‘Tradition antique et tradition celtique dans une plaisanterie du Dit de l’Herberie’, Bulletin Bibliographique de la Société Internationale Arthurienne 17 (1965), 103–112, et notre compte-rendu de l’édition du Chevalier au Lion de Sala par P. Servet, dans Romance Philology t. 52 (1998), p. 175 où l’on trouve une attestation de la comparaison des grandes oreilles avec les vans. 25 Les références données sont celles du manuscrit de la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal de Paris fr. 3494.

25




la subtille raiere et puis reclot et le soleil se retrait. En autelle maniere le roy qui regardoit entour soy voioit par eures ung chastel apparoir par l’espés air.’ Il voit alors une très belle demoiselle mais sa vue le laisse insatisfait: ‘si tost se restraindoit la nue que ancoires n’estoit advisé de son fait et touteffoiz estoit il aguillié’. Ce regard empêché est douloureux pour l’amoureux, mais la désolidarisation des points de vue du lecteur et du personnage permet que cette souffrance, liée à une impuissance dont les codifications du genre font qu’elle ne peut être que provisoire, soit comique, en raison de la disproportion entre les efforts fournis et les piètres résultats obtenus. Si le merveilleux peut être comique du fait du regard entravé, il peut aussi l’être à cause du jeu sur la pluralité des points de vue (à la fois regards, questionnements et suppositions divers). La merveille n’est jamais présentée de façon univoque; toujours sont en jeu au minimum le point de vue de l’auteur (ou du narrateur, ou d’un substitut) et celui d’un personnage. Le plus souvent les regards divergents de plusieurs personnages sont confrontés et plusieurs points de vue sont placés en concurrence pour la même merveille. Dans Le Chevalier au Lion le vilain a vu un bassin en fer (v. 384), tandis que Calogrenant racontera l’avoir vu en or (v. 418). Lorsqu’ensuite Keu et Yvain viendront à la fontaine, il ne sera pas question de la matière du bassin: ce point restera en suspens, merveilleusement incertain. Calogrenant a-t-il embelli la scène pour séduire un auditoire curial avide de faste? Le rustre, ne connaissant que le fer, est-il incapable d’identifier l’or? Rejetant l’idée d’une erreur des copistes (à cause de la rime qui garantit fer et de la relative du vers 418 qui impose or) ou d’une ‘faute’ de l’auteur,26 il me semble que cette diversité correspond aux deux points de vue qui coexistent, fondant l’ambiguïté de la merveille: ‘The marvelous is [also] a matter of insight’.27 Il n’empêche que cette contradiction est plaisante, que l’illusion soit du côté de Calogrenant ou du vilain: le lecteur sourit de se sentir supérieur à ces deux victimes de leurs sens (même si finalement il n’en sait pas plus que ces personnages). Dans Le Livre d’Artus, la Laide Semblance est présentée par la messagère comme ‘un cors formez petit aussi come uns enfés de troiz ans [. . .] et en semblance de fame’ (p. 150). Dans la suite du texte, les regards des personnages varient et l’on apprend, à travers Calogrenant, que le monstre est haut ‘com uns donjons, de la color a charree’, qu’il a ‘une trece autresinc grosse de chevols come ses braz et estoit si longue que ele li batoit jusqu’au jarrez trestote rosse et voit la teste grose et le vis plat et les elz gros et noirs et le visage si hydeus qu’il n’estoit si hardiz hom en cest siecle a cui granz paors n’en poist prendre’ (p. 152). A ce moment-là, seule la partie supérieure du corps est évoquée, ce qui s’explique à la fois par le jeu sur le portrait topique28

26 A supposer qu’il y ait une inadvertance de la part de Chrétien de Troyes, elle participe au processus

merveilleux. 27 D. Kelly The Art of Medieval French Romance (Madison et Londres, 1992), p. 153. 28 Pour peindre le monstre, le texte reprend le topos du portrait. De même que dans les portraits

traditionnels les auteurs se concentrent souvent sur le visage (voir Ph. Ménard, Le rire et le sourire dans

26




et par le regard d’un Calogrenant qui fuit avant que le monstre n’émerge complètement de l’eau. Quand, peu après, Grex affronte à son tour cette créature, ‘la figure si se redemostre trestote hors de l’iaue si qu’il vit les piez apertement qui plus estoient noirs que poivre’ (p. 153). Le héros cependant n’en verra pas plus: il est submergé par les eaux. Enfin, la dernière tentative ne donnera lieu à aucune description: sur les conseils de la dame, Grex jette un drap sur le monstre et lui met la tête dans un baril de telle sorte qu’il le neutralise sans le voir. Chacune des focalisations permet de donner un aperçu de la créature sans qu’une vision globale ne coordonne les morceaux entre la tête (vue par Calogrenant) et les pieds (vus par Grex). Chaque description correspond à un regard, qui en soi n’est pas spécialement plaisant (si ce n’est qu’il est incomplet et pique la curiosité en jouant sur la frustration du lecteur qui, toujours, voudrait en savoir plus sur la merveille ): la superposition des différentes visions en revanche aboutit à une créature impossible, enfant de trois ans et femme de grande taille, corps entier ou tête démesurée, et le comique naît de cette diversité qui nourrit par ailleurs l’incertitude merveilleuse. Le caractère métamorphique de cette créature des eaux fluides motive le jeu merveilleux et plaisant sur la variation des apparences.29 Dans Perceforest, la pluralité des points de vue sur la merveille est souvent associée à une illusion que tous les personnages ne partagent pas. Dans le livre III,30 Gadifer, Perceforest et une demoiselle arrivent devant le Chastel Desvoyé que le lignage félon a ‘muché d’espés aers par force d’enchantemens’ (l. III, t. I, p. 206). Les enchanteurs maléfiques ont fait apparaître une rivière illusoire qui dérobe aux passants la vue de la demeure. Gadifer, qu’un anneau donné par sa mère protège des sortilèges, ne voit pas la rivière et le château lui apparaît, tandis que ses compagnons ont devant les yeux un cours d’eau impétueux. Un dialogue assez vif joue sur l’opposition entre le point de vue de Gadifer, imperméable aux maléfices, et celui des deux autres personnages, dont la vue est troublée. Parmi ces derniers, le roi, que le jeune chevalier hésite à contredire: ‘Beaulx nieps, dist le roy, ne sçay comment il vous en prent, mais nous voyons bien que c’est, et pour ce soiez content, car il est ainsi.’ Et lors respondy Gadiffer: ‘Chier sire, vostre bon plaisir soit tant icy comme autre part. Je dis cecy pour ce que roy ne doit estre desdit.’ Et lors regarda devant lui et vey assez pres d’illecq un chastel, le plus beau que jamais il eut veu. Sy dit: ‘Par ma foy, sire, je suis moult esmerveillé de vous, qui me voulez faire acroire que icy cuert une riviere. Or me dittes, veez vous point cy devant un chastel assez prez de nous? – Mon nepveu, dist le roy, je ne sçay que poez voir, mais nous ne veons quelque chose au dela de ceste riviere. – Certes, sire, dist Gadiffer, je ne veul le roman courtois en France au Moyen Age (1150–1250) (Genève, Droz 1969), p. 534), c’est ici la partie supérieure du corps qui intéresse. 29 Sur cette belle créature, voir notre livre Fées, bestes et luitons, chap. VII, et L. Harf-Lancner et M. N. Polino, ‘Le gouffre de Satalie: survivances médiévales du mythe de Méduse’, Moyen Age 94 (1988), pp. 72–103. 30 Ed. G. Roussineau (Genève, Droz, t. I 1988, t. II 1991, t. III 1993).

27




point encores aller contre vostre parolle, mais je voy maintenant auprés d’icy ung moult puissant chastel.’

Gadifer finit par se lancer vers le château, et le roi, le voyant s’enfoncer dans la rivière, le retient, à son grand étonnement, par la bride du cheval. Il lui échappe cependant et disparaît de sa vue. Le texte est particulièrement plaisant: Gadifer ne demanderait qu’à être convaincu par son oncle, haut personnage dont il a du mal à mettre la parole en doute, et dont un autre témoin, la demoiselle, partage l’avis. Si à aucun moment il n’est dit que le roi a la vue troublée (ce qui est pourtant le cas), en revanche, au sujet de Gadifer, les hypothèses dans ce sens sont nombreuses: lui-même pense qu’on le croit ivre, qu’il est ‘desvoyé de (s)on entendement’, le roi suggère qu’il a ‘la veue troublee’. Le narrateur nous a d’ailleurs rappelé au début du passage (p. 208) qu’il ‘estoit moult pensif a la damoiselle qui le devoit mener au royaume de la Roste Montaigne’: il marche ‘le chief cliné, pensant a ces besongnes’ et il apparaît comme une victime idéale du dérèglement de la vue qui déclenche la perception merveilleuse. L’auteur combine donc habilement un jeu sur la focalisation et un traitement subtil du topos merveilleux en appliquant au seul personnage qui échappe à l’enchantement les formules exprimant une perception troublée que l’on attendrait plutôt du côté du roi et de la demoiselle, victimes de la magie. Le comique tient à la vivacité des échanges verbaux entre les personnages et à l’application des formules de la vue perturbée au seul personnage dont justement la vue est dégagée de tout enchantement. Un autre épisode du livre III joue plaisamment sur les points de vue (t. II, pp. 181ss.). Liriopé et Flamine, s’attendant à voir leurs amis, Lyonnel et Gadifer, sont victimes de l’art facétieux de la Reine Fée et aperçoivent à leur place deux vieillards, tandis que Lyonnel voit deux vieilles femmes, et non les deux charmantes demoiselles qui sont devant lui. Gadifer, quant à lui, échappe à nouveau à l’illusion grâce à l’anneau maternel: il se précipite pour étreindre son amie qui, croyant avoir été embrassée par un vieillard, se met à le blasonner: ‘Lyonnel s’esmerveilloit moult des contenances de Gadiffer et de ses parolles [. . .] et de fait il disoit en soy mesmes que elle [celle qu’il voit comme une femme âgée] avoit enchanté Gadiffer.’ La pluralité des points de vue, répartie sur différents personnages, peut aussi être déclinée dans le temps dans le cas des métamorphoses. L’instabilité due au jeu métamorphique est souvent comique. Dans la Suite du Merlin donnée par la version de la Vulgate31 Gauvain, transformé en nain, conserve ses armes qui sont devenus beaucoup trop grandes, tandis que ses pieds ne touchent plus ses étriers où seules demeurent des chausses démesurées (p. 460). Le jeu sur les points de vue divergents prend de plus fréquemment la forme d’une confrontation du point de vue du sujet sur la merveille et du point de vue de la merveille qui accuse l’humain d’avoir partie liée avec une surnature. 31 Ed. O. Sommer, dans The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances (Washington, t. II 1908).

28




Yvain paraît surnaturel aux habitants plus ou moins fées du château de Laudine (‘Ch’est merveilles et diablie’ v. 1202);32 les fées n’hésitent pas à se dire enchantee par les humains qu’elles rencontrent. Dans Cristal et Clarie33 la fée reproche au héros, simple mortel, d’avoir pénétré dans son château par ‘enchantement’ (v. 2309). Dans Brun de la Montagne, à la fin de l’épisode des dons merveilleux accordés par les fées à la naissance du héros, la mestresse, s’étonnant de la bienveillance de la troisième dame à l’égard du nourrisson, dit à celle-ci: ‘Il vous a enchanté’ (v. 1110), transformant l’humble nouveau-né en créature surnaturelle. Dans Le Chevalier au Lion nous attendons jusqu’aux vers 1130–1131 le vocabulaire de l’enchantement, de la magie. C’est à ce moment seulement, alors que nous avons déjà lu un sixième du roman qu’enfin nous trouvons les termes espérés, mais ce n’est pas Yvain qui se demande s’il est enchanté ou s’il est victime des diables: ce sont les habitants du château de Laudine qui, ne trouvant pas l’assassin de leur seigneur, supposent: ‘Ou nos somes anchanté tuit, / ou tolu le nos ont maufés.’ Si ce jeu sur les points de vue de la merveille et du héros ne donne lieu en général qu’à un trait humoristique et rapide, il arrive qu’il soit plus développé. Quand le héros dans Florimont d’Aimon de Varennes se fait fabriquer pour combattre un monstre un armement constitué de rasoirs et de broches collés par de la glu, ce n’est pas l’étonnement du chevalier devant le moustre qui est évoqué, mais la stupeur de la gargouille devant l’équipement pour le moins bizarre du héros (vv. 2165ss.).34 Pourtant le monstre est présenté au début de l’épisode dans toute son horreur traditionnelle et diabolique (‘dyables’ v. 1995), tenant du léopard, de la guivre, du dragon et du poisson (vv. 1969ss.). Mais cette description n’est qu’une rumeur publique (v. 1976) et lorsque le chevalier arrive près du monstre, il ne voit rien car celui-ci est dans une ‘fosse’ (v. 2161). Quand l’affreuse créature se dresse enfin, le texte glisse sur ce que voit le chevalier et adopte le point de vue du monstre qui devient le centre d’un développement merveilleux. C’est en effet lui qui, affamé, ‘irié’ (v. 2164), est dans des conditions psychologiques telles que sa vue risque d’être perturbée. C’est lui qui regarde et s’interroge sur le mode merveilleux: La teste lieve, et quant il voit Florimont que vers lui venoit, Mout en ait eüt grant mervelle, Qu’ainz tel beste ne sa paraille Ne vit en terre ne en mer. En son cuer comence a penser: Beste ne vet pas en estant Et d’om n’en ait nul semblant; 32 Dans l’épisode de la cruentation, le seul terme associé au vocabulaire de la merveille concerne le pauvre

Yvain, et non l’étrange manifestation, ou Laudine et ses gens que l’on peut soupçonner d’être féeriques. 33 Ed. Hermann Breuer (Dresden, 1915). 34 Ed. Joseph Gildea, 3 tomes (Villanova University Press, t. I 1967, t. II, 1, 1968 et t. II, 2, 1970).

29




Cuidet que fust oisiaus savaiges Que fust venus en ses boscaiges . . . (vv. 2165ss.)

Le jeu sur la perversion des points de vue face à la merveille est ici particulièrement habile et plaisant. Le procédé est amplifié par une répétition dans les Merveilles de Rigomer. Lorsque le héros parvient à Rigomer, au lieu que ce soit lui qui s’émerveille, ce sont les habitants de cette terre de féerie qui s’étonnent (en le voyant, ‘mout s’esmervellierent forment’ v. 12689) et ils s’interrogent sur le mode merveilleux: C’est, font il, par encantement Ou c’est aucune diaublie, Encantemens ou faerie, Ou cil est venus, qui fera A Rigomer, quanqu’i vora. (vv. 12690ss.)

Plus loin, lorsque le chevalier retrouve Lancelot victime d’un enchantement dans les cuisines de Rigomer, le même jeu est repris. C’est l’amant de Guenièvre, victime de la magie, qui quoique ‘bestïaus / et ausi fols comme une bieste’, s’interroge sur le caractère peut-être surnaturel de Gauvain:35 De coi, fait il, connisteroie Cose que veüe n’avroie? Ains, que jou sace, ne vos vi, Ausi ne fesistes vos mi. Estes vos escapés d’infier? Vos me samblés trestout de fier, Bras et ganbes et cors et tieste; Ains mais ne vi si faite bieste, Car vous estes de fier trecié. Dïauble vos ont adrecié En me cuisine ça dedens. (vv. 14021ss.).

Par ailleurs, le jeu sur les points de vue implique des perceptions déformées de la réalité et le merveilleux peut déboucher sur des transpositions burlesques ou héroï-comiques. Dans le livre I de Perceforest,36 Gadifer et ses compagnons sont victimes des enchantements des félons du lignage de Darnant: les bons chevaliers sont ‘bestournez de leur veue’ (p. 232) et c’est à travers un dialogue très enlevé que nous apprenons qu’Alexandre se prend 35 Il est une caricature du jeune Perceval du Conte du Graal, qui s’étonne du haubert que portent les

chevaliers qu’il rencontre dans la forêt et qui pense qu’ils sont nés avec (éd. F. Lecoy (Paris, Champion 1973), vv. 260ss.), et dont l’origine galloise est commentée en des termes qui seront repris pour caractériser la folie de Lancelot dans les Merveilles de Rigomer: ‘[que] Galois sont tuit par nature / plus fol que bestes en pasture’ (vv. 241–242). N’est-ce pas par ailleurs savoureux de transposer le jeune Perceval, toujours affamé (comme en témoigne l’épisode de la demoiselle de la tente), sous la forme d’un cuisinier? 36 Ed. J. Taylor (Genève, Droz 1979).

30




pour un meunier, Le Tor pour un charbonnier, que leurs chevaux sont devenus des ânes, que Gadifer transporte du beurre, Porrus de la cervoise, Estonné du pain: Porrus prend la queue de son cheval pour la cheville d’un tonneau. Le comique vient du traitement burlesque de ces nobles chevaliers transformés en marchands; la queue de l’âne, carnavalesque, joue un rôle important; la cervoise attendue par le marchand qui tire la queue de l’âne risque fort de n’être que de décevantes déjections animales. Le comique vient aussi des dialogues, rapides, jouant sur les reprises de ‘par ma foy’, tournant au coq-à-l’âne (‘Dieu vous maine a bonne feste’). Des jeux de mots implicites renforcent la saveur (et témoignent de la rigueur de la construction de ce roman). En effet, la Selve Carbonniere (le Brabant et le Hainaut) est donnée dans le livre I par Alexandre à son amie Liriopé, et dans le livre II c’est Le Tor qui est chargé de la reconquérir pour la lui livrer: il est plaisant que le conquérant de la Selve Charbonnière prenne ici l’apparence d’un charbonnier. Par ailleurs le texte juxtapose ‘la cervelle esmeue’ et la ‘cervoise’ (p. 233), tandis que Porrus demande un ‘pot’. Quand tout redevient normal, ‘adont se prindrent les compaignons tous a rire et Porrus a estre courroucié’ (p. 234): la réaction des personnages correspond bien au fait que le rire dans les épisodes merveilleux n’est jamais unanime, univoque et sans grincement ou incertitude. Les aventures des chevaliers victimes des facéties de Zéphir dans Perceforest sont burlesques et certains épisodes merveilleux, comme le sabbat des vieilles barbues sont carnavalesques.37 Le motif du héros aux cuisines sous l’effet d’un enchantement allie merveilleux et burlesque dans Les Merveilles de Rigomer (14021ss.).38 Certaines créatures comme les animaux ou les nains, a priori plus ‘naturelles’ que merveilleuses, accèdent au statut de merveilles lorsque leur comportement, en partie humain, les différencie de leurs homologues, ce qui donne lieu à des épisodes héroïques: le lion d’Yvain qui rend hommage au chevalier (vv. 3392ss.),39 l’oiseau du Chevalier au Papegau ou le nain Tronc d’Ysaïe le Triste en témoignent. Le lion d’Yvain se dresse tantôt sur ses pattes comme un homme (v. 3398), tantôt se révèle un cruel prédateur (vv. 3420ss.): le doute merveilleux sur sa nature se double d’un jeu comique sur l’instabilité de son comportement surprenant. Les enchantements, qui modifient les apparences, sont par ailleurs souvent subversifs et plaisants dans la mesure où ils menacent, un instant, l’ordre du monde comme le montrent les facéties de Zéphir dans Perceforest et les enchantements du clerc Estienne dans Artus de Bretagne.40 37 Voir notre article cit. ‘Le sabbat de vielles barbues dans Perceforest’, et sur Zéphir le chapitre VI de

notre Fees, bestes et luitons. 38 Le modèle est Rainouart: sur cet épisode d’Aliscans, voir G. Gros, ‘Rainouart aux cuisines, ou les

enfances d’un héros’, dans Burlesque et dérision dans les épopées de l’Occident médiéval, actes du colloque des Rencontres Européennes de Strasbourg, publiés par B. Guidot (Paris, Belles Lettres 1995), pp. 111ss. 39 Sur le comique dans ce roman, voir T. Hunt, Chrétien de Troyes, Yvain (London, 1986), et P. Haidu, Lion-queue-coupée: L’écart symbolique chez Chrétien de Troyes (Genève, 1972). 40 Voir C. Ferlampin-Acher, ‘Grandeur et décadence du clerc Estienne dans Artus de Bretagne’, dans Le clerc au Moyen Age, Senefiance, t. 37 (Aix-en-Provence, 1995), pp. 167–195.

31




D’autre part, la motivation pseudo-étymologique, très prisée au Moyen Age, permet souvent d’amplifier la pluralité des réseaux de sens associés à la merveille polysémique.41 La signification du mot (et souvent du nom propre) propose fréquemment une lecture de la merveille qui se superpose aux diverses hypothèses émises par les personnages ou par le narrateur et ses substituts. Le comique merveilleux prend alors la forme du jeu de mots (comme le montrait précédemment l’exemple du conquérant de la Selve Charbonnière transformé en charbonnier). Dans les Merveilles de Rigomer, Macrob Dicrac est pris pour un petit clociers quand il se profile au loin. La comparaison avec le clocher signale certes l’illusion optique et correspond donc à une interprétation erronée de cette merveille, mais l’expression utilisée par Gauvain trouve une vérité inattendue lorsque l’on se souvient que le chevalier a eu le pied coupé par Lancelot, et qu’il doit certainement boiter, clochier, le commentaire de la reine qui dit que les plus grands de la cour sont plus petits que lui ‘.I. grant pié plus cort’ (v. 6808) relançant par ailleurs l’image d’une claudication. Regards empêchés et diversités des points de vue au service de la polyphonie et de la polysémie merveilleuses peuvent donc être comiques. Cependant à côté de ce processus inscrit dans le texte, le merveilleux joue aussi sur des ambiguïtés découlant des rapprochements intertextuels: le comique vient alors souvent d’un jeu de type parodique,42 où l’écart par rapport au texte premier fait sourire. Dans le Livre d’Artus par exemple, l’épisode de la fontaine du Chevalier au Lion ainsi que celui de la Joie de la Cour d’Erec et Enide sont repris dans un épisode merveilleux (pp. 124ss.). Le personnage de Calogrenant et la métamorphose de Merlin en pastor rappelant le vilain du roman en vers sont les indices les plus évidents de la récriture de Chrétien. Le portrait de Merlin est plaisant parce qu’il est, comme nous l’avons vu plus haut, caricatural, mais aussi parce qu’il repose sur une reprise du vilain du Chevalier au Lion caractérisée par des décalages: on passe de la bouche de loup chez Chrétien (v. 301) à la peau de loup dans le texte en vers, de dix-sept pieds (v. 320) à dix-huit. De nombreux détails suggèrent une récriture: Merlin use de ces pouvoirs pour faire apparaître un troupeau, qui n’est donc qu’illusion, contrairement à celui qui est gardé chez Chrétien de Troyes; si dans le texte en vers le vilain explique à Calogrenant comment il maîtrise par la force, tel Hercule, son bétail (vv. 342ss.), Merlin se contente de hausser le ton de sa voix de boisine pour le soumettre. Au-delà du personnage de Merlin, c’est l’ensemble de l’épisode de la fontaine qui est repris. Dans Le Chevalier au Lion, la pluie est déclenchée par magie sympathique quand l’eau touche le

41 Sur cette valeur de l’étymologie, telle que les voces renseignent sur les res, voir R. Klinck, Die

lateinische Etymologie des Mittelalters (Munich, 1970); P. Guiraud, ‘Etymologie et ethymologia’, Poétique 11 (1972), pp. 405–413, et P. Zumthor, ‘Fr. étymologie (essai d’histoire sémantique)’, dans Mélanges von Wartburg (Tübingen, 1958), pp. 873–893. 42 A nouveau je vide le terme de toute connotation négative.

32




perron de la fontaine: dans le texte en prose, dès avant l’arrivée de Calogrenant, il pleut, et au lieu de la tempête surnaturelle, nous avons une scène amusante où Merlin, le panotéen, se protège de l’ondée avec ses grandes oreilles. Le jeu parodique se lit aussi dans l’atténuation: de la tempête on est passé à un crachin, breton bien sûr car arthurien (‘il pluiuoit un petitet’). Le dialogue entre Calogrenant et Merlin reprend en le transposant au style indirect (et donc en introduisant une distance) le début de celui du texte en vers.43 Dans le texte en prose, Merlin se présente comme l’ami et le parent du gardien de la fontaine, la fontaine qui bout du roman en vers n’est pas reprise, il est simplement question d’une interdiction de boire, d’un perron et d’un bassin qui ne sont pas décrits, l’arbre étant identifié avec un sycomore. Le chevalier qui boit de l’eau doit affronter le gardien de la fontaine, au risque de perdre son cheval. S’il est vainqueur, il prendra possession à la fois du château et de ‘Lunete, cosine germaine Niniane’. Laudine disparaît du récit en prose, seule Lunete, plus proche de la féerie, est retenue, et elle est intégrée à l’univers merlinesque, dans une structure consolidée, puisque l’aventure de la fontaine suit la mention des amours de Merlin et Niniane. L’enchanteur décrit ensuite la tempête qui se déclenche quand un chevalier jette de l’eau sur la fontaine et le chant des oiseaux qui se fait entendre quand le calme est revenu. Cette deuxième mention de la fontaine est moins réaliste que la première et suit de plus près le texte de Chrétien: l’incertitude merveilleuse est renforcée par ce doublet qui fait se succéder une reprise parodique et une récriture plus fidèle. Calogrenant interroge le gardien, appelé à plusieurs reprises ‘li hom sauvages’, ce qui n’apparaît pas chez Chrétien, et apprend qu’il ne mange que ‘herbes et racines de bois ausi come ces autres bestes’ et qu’il dort dans un chêne creux. Merlin envoie Calogrenant passer la nuit dans un ermitage près de la fontaine: le texte ouvre alors sur une double digression concernant l’origine de l’aventure et le rôle de Merlin (‘mais or se taist ici un petit li contes de Kalogrenanz et dit porquoi li hom sauvages li envoia et qui la fontaine estora et la costume et porquoi et comment’). La polysémie est renforcée par ces jeux analeptiques, d’autant qu’un pont vers Erec et Enide est jeté. Lunete est en effet présentée comme la cousine tendrement aimée de Niniane, à laquelle celle-ci apprend tout ce que Merlin lui enseigne. Lunete, grâce à un conjurement, a instauré l’épreuve de la fontaine pour mieux retenir son ami (qui reste anonyme), un cousin de Brandus des Yles. La digression à son terme est justifiée: ‘einsi fist la dame a cele fontaine itel costume qui jamais a nul jor ne faudra qu’il ne plueve si tost com en aura l’aiue gitee sus le perron, et c’est veritez provee que bien est esprovee maintes foiz. Mais or se taist le contes d’iceste chose plus retraire qui el conte se fiert car autrement en vausist pis l’estoire se ele ne clarifiast toutes ices choses covertes et retorne a parler de Branduz de Nueve Ferte sor le Hombre’ (p. 126). Cette prétendue 43 ‘Et li demande quex hom il est [. . .] Ge sui itelx hom vous veez que autres ne sui nule foiz et gart les

bestes de ces bois’ reprend: ‘Quiex hom ies tu? – Tex con tu voiz; / Si ne sui autres nule foiz/ – Que fez tu ci? – Ge m’i estoit, / Et gart les bestes de cest bois’ (vv. 329ss.).

33




clarification enrichit le potentiel surnaturel associé à la fontaine et la parodie permet de faire entendre la voix de Chrétien derrière celle du texte en prose et d’épaissir l’ambiguïté de celui-ci en intégrant les incertitudes du roman en vers. Une seconde digression, renforçant les échos, expose le rôle de Merlin et enrichit encore la polysémie. On apprend que Brandus est frère de Mabon (ce qui est une façon de renforcer le lien avec Erec et Enide et de donner du poids au motif de la fée qui retient un mortel qu’elle aime44). Niniane, à qui Lunete l’a présenté, tombe amoureuse de lui et lui apprend ‘maintes merveilles que Merlins li ot aprises’ (p. 126): ‘ensi menerent longuement molt bone vie li dui cosin avec les deux cosines’. C’est parce que Merlin veut les séparer qu’il envoie Calogrenant à la Fontaine. La digression se termine par une longue intervention du narrateur qui multiplie les proverbes au sujet de la folie de l’enchanteur,45 et qui dérive vers un développement faisant référence à la Sainte Escriture et à Gautier Map (p. 127). Voix de la sagesse populaire, voix de l’Ecriture Sainte, voix romanesque, la polyphonie se trouve mise en oeuvre explicitement grâce à ce jeu de références, auquel manque seul le nom de Chrétien. Le mystère de l’enchanteur se trouve épaissi par l’ampleur du jeu de reprises suggérées et par la profusion des modèles ostensiblement revendiqués et pourtant peu présents: le lecteur ne peut que sourire de ces voix diverses, trompeuses, souvent dissonantes. Le merveilleux, se nourrissant de jeux intertextuels qui permettent d’intégrer en la gauchissant la voix de textes préalables et de nourrir l’incertitude, pourrait bien entretenir des relations fortes avec la parodie. Etymologiquement, le terme ‘parodie’ trouve un écho dans cette polyphonie problématique que nous avons trouvée au coeur du merveilleux: ‘ôdè, c’est le chant; para: “le long de”, “à côté”; parôdein, d’où parôdia, ce serait [. . .] le fait de chanter à côté, donc de chanter faux, ou dans une autre voix’.46 Pourtant Ph. Ménard ne partage pas l’avis de P. Lehman, selon lequel la parodie est répandue au Moyen Age:47 s’il admet l’existence de la satire, il précise que la littérature courtoise n’use guère de parodie, dans la mesure où au XIIe siècle, elle n’est pas encore suffisamment fixée pour donner prise à ce genre de récriture, et où les imitateurs du XIIIème, respectant l’auctoritas, ne prennent pas de recul par rapport à leur modèle: ‘loin d’être une imitation

44 Le lien de cousinage entre les dames rappelle celui qui unit Enide et la compagne de Mabon. 45 ‘Et por ce dit li sages en reprovier que tels quelst la verge a ses mains dont il est puis batuz, et tex ne velt

croire sa bone mere qui croit sa fole marrastre [. . .], et por ce dit li sages: servez le chien et donez hui et demain et toutes voies chien que chien.’ Voir J. Morawski, Proverbes français antérieurs au XIVème siècle (Paris, Champion 1925): no 1154 ‘Meint home cuillent la verge dont il sunt batu’; no 1040 ‘Lavez chen, peignez chen, toutesvoies n’est chien que chen’. 46 Ibid., p. 20. 47 P. Lehman, Die Parodie im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1963), en particulier pp. 183ss.; Ph. Ménard, Le rire et le sourire, op. cit., pp. 513–520.

34




caustique et critique, elle48 semble plutôt une allusion malicieuse, une transposition amusée et souriante’ (p. 515). Ces remarques nous invitent à vider le terme ‘parodie’ de toute référence à un regard négatif porté sur le modèle, et à l’associer à la présence (identifiée, fictivement ou non, ou bien simplement allusive) d’un autre texte: la perspective se trouve déplacée de la création (visée parodique), qui, si les objectifs de l’auteur nous sont parfois clairs, reste souvent, vu en particulier les problèmes d’attribution, de datation et d’instabilité du texte, un champ incertain, vers la réception, toute approche du texte étant une expérience indéniable qui trouve une validité (même limitée) dans son existence même. La dimension parodique dans le roman médiéval est certes souvent considérée comme le signe d’une décadence d’un genre qui aurait atteint son apogée avec Chrétien: la parodie critique et la réduction ‘clichéique’ en témoigneraient. Le corpus, homogène, formé par les romans arthuriens qui se placent dans le sillage de Chrétien, semble se caractériser effectivement par un usage fréquent de la parodie au sens négatif du terme. Gauvain joue alors souvent un rôle important: héros dévalorisé, il induit dans les romans qui lui sont consacrés un écart par rapport aux modèles littéraires. Cette fonction se retrouve, déplacée du père vers le fils, dans Le Bel Inconnu,49 où l’on peut mettre en évidence des inversions, des décalages par rapport à Chrétien de Troyes, tant au niveau de la macro que de la microstructure.50 Cette visée peut aller jusqu’au burlesque ou à l’héroï-comique, comme en témoignent Fergus qui tient de la parodie du Conte du Graal51 ou Les Merveilles de Rigomer dans l’épisode de Lancelot à la cuisine (vv. 13985ss.). La parodie dans ce cas s’accompagnerait d’une suspension de l’adhésion aux valeurs chevaleresques et d’une mise à distance du genre romanesque, accentuée dans un roman comme Jaufré52 par l’usage d’une langue inhabituelle. Pourtant il ne semble pas que la parodie corresponde à une mise en cause du genre romanesque et d’une certaine forme de merveilleux qui peu à peu en devint le signe distinctif, de même que Gauvain n’illustre pas une dégradation de l’idéal chevaleresque, mais une réorientation de celui-ci (qui tenterait de se redéfinir indépendamment des sortilèges du Graal).53 Le retour avec Gauvain 48 Il s’agit de la parodie. 49 Voir F. Dubost, ‘Tel cuide bien faire qui faut: le “Beau jeu” de Renaut avec le merveilleux’, dans Le

Chevalier et la merveille, éd. J. Dufournet (Paris, Champion 1996), pp. 23–56. 50 Voir notre introduction dans La fée et la guivre, op. cit., pp. XXXVIss. (sur le nom, le nain, la robe, le

verger, la chasse à l’animal blanc, l’épreuve de l’épervier, la Joie de la Cour, la liste de chevaliers). 51 Voir M. A. Freeman, ‘Fergus: Parody and the Arthurian Tradition’, French Forum 8 (1983), pp.

197–215, et D. D. R. Owen, ‘The Craft of Guillaume Le Clerc’s Fergus’, dans The Craft of Fiction: Essays in Medieval Poetics, éd. L. A. Arrathoon (Rochester, 1984), pp. 47–82; K. L. Gravdal, Vilain and courtois: Transgressive Parody in French Literature of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Lincoln et Londres, 1989), pp. 20–30. 52 Voir A. Limentani, ‘Due studi di narrativa provenzale II: Il problema dell’umorismo nel Jaufré e una contraffazione del Perceval’, Atti dell’Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti 121 (1962–1963), 102–112, et S. Fleischmann, ‘Jaufré or Chivalry Askew: Social Overtones of Parody in Arthurian Romance’, Viator 12 (1981), 101–129. 53 Voir, sur cette réhabilitation de Gauvain, F. Wolfzettel, ‘Arthurian Adventure or Quixotic “Struggle for

35




à une chevalerie séculière, moins ambitieuse, va de pair avec la mise en oeuvre d’un roman, qui conscient de ne pouvoir rivaliser avec le Livre, s’accommode désormais de la pluralité des livres mondains sur lesquels il se fonde, et en joue sur le mode parodique. Le texte en vers s’oppose alors au texte en prose qui le concurrence et où Gauvain n’est qu’une figure effacée, incompétente dans la sphère du Graal: le goût pour le vers n’est pas tant le signe d’un lectorat conservateur que celui d’une redéfinition profane du chevalier et d’une acceptation de la suspension et de l’incomplétude du texte qui ne prétend plus à la sacralité. Le traitement parodique du merveilleux n’est alors pas à mettre en relation avec une dénonciation de l’invraisemblance de celui-ci, mais avec la prise en compte consciente du caractère essentiellement littéraire d’un merveilleux indépendant de toute croyance:54 il ne s’agit ni de plagiat, l’écart étant sciemment recherché, ni de parodie critique, mais de reprise intertextuelle enrichissant la polyphonie merveilleuse. Le Bel Inconnu est exemplaire sur ce plan. L’épisode de l’Ile d’Or (vv. 1870ss.) reprend l’aventure de la Joie de la Cour d’Erec et Enide (vv. 5319ss.). Certes, à la suite d’A. Philipot, il est possible d’éclairer cette parenté par un prototype commun,55 que l’on retrouverait aussi dans les oeuvres étrangères apparentées, Wigalois, Carduino et Lybeaus Desconus. Cependant le nombre et la précision des points communs sont tels que l’hypothèse d’un emprunt littéraire est vraisemblable. Par ailleurs, pour le lecteur moderne, la familiarité que l’on peut prêter au lecteur médiéval avec les archétypes supposés, peut-être encore présents dans les traditions orales, a disparu, tandis que le texte de Chrétien, écrit, est accessible et suscite des rapprochements. Certes il est risqué de décentrer les problèmes en fonction des incompétences du lecteur moderne, et une telle approche conduirait aussi bien à lire Erec et Enide à la lumière du roman de Renaut, qu’à l’inverse. Pourtant la fréquence des rapprochements avec Chrétien de Troyes ailleurs que dans cet épisode de l’Ile d’Or valide la démarche. Si Chrétien a travaillé à partir d’un modèle folklorique, potentiellement merveilleux du fait de la mutilation du substrat mythologique, les romans postérieurs ont écrit à partir du texte de l’auteur champenois, même si leur accès personnel au folklore a aussi orienté leur

Life”? A Reading of Some Gauvain Romances in the First Half of the Thirteenth Century’, dans An Arthurian Tapestry: Mélanges L. Thorpe, éd. K. Varty (Glasgow, 1981), pp. 260–274, et H. Klüppelholz, ‘Die Idealisierung des Protagonisten in den altfranzösischen Gauvain-Romanen’, Germanisch-romanische Monatsschrift 64 (1994), 18–36. Sur le traitement parodique de Gauvain, voir L. Morin, ‘Etude du personnage de Gauvain dans six récits médiévaux’, Le Moyen Age 100 (1994), 333–351, et R. H. Thompson, ‘Fors del sens : Humour and Irony in Raoul de Houdenc’s La Vengeance Raguidel’, Thalia 2 (1979), 25–29. 54 Il semble bien en effet qu’on ne croie plus guère aux fées et aux luitons et que le merveilleux justement puisse s’épanouir dans ce scepticisme relatif. 55 Voir A. Philipot, ‘Un épisode d’Erec et Enide: la Joie de la Cour, Mabon l’Enchanteur’, Romania 25 (1896), 240–305, ainsi que W. H. Schofield, Studies on the Li Beaus Desconus (Harvard, 1895), et A. Mennung, ‘Der Bel Inconnu des Renaut de Beaujeu in seinem Verhältnis zum Ly Beaus Desconus, Carduino und Wigalois: eine literarhistorische Studie’ (thèse, Halle, 1890).

36




récriture. Dans l’épisode de l’Ile d’Or, nous reconnaissons, comme chez Chrétien, la mention du public (BI vv. 2107ss.; EE vv. 5470ss.), les pieux (‘pex aguz’ à la rime dans EE v. 5730; ‘pels agus’ à la rime dans BI v. 1957), les heaumes et les têtes coupées sur ces pieux, l’explication de la coutume par un tiers (Evrain dans EE; Hélie dans BI), l’arrivée du chevalier dont les armes sont décrites et qui défie le héros (EE vv. 5847ss.; BI vv. 1965ss.), les deux phases du combat (à la lance et à l’épée), l’existence d’une coutume au terme de laquelle le chevalier épousera la demoiselle, la victoire du héros, qui ne prend pas la place du vaincu contrairement à ce que prévoyait la coutume, la mention de la joie finale (BI vv. 2187–90; EE vv. 6098ss.). Certains éléments, comme les deux phases du combat, sont suffisamment généraux pour qu’on ne puisse parler d’emprunt. D’autres (comme le motif des pieux et des têtes coupées, nourris vraisemblablement aussi bien par des traditions mythologiques que par les supplices dont ont été témoins les croisés en Orient et par le motif des saints céphalophores) correspondent à des images récurrentes dans la littérature contemporaine, si ce n’est à des représentations iconographiques. Néanmoins les rencontres textuelles ponctuelles, la conjonction des motifs, et la densité des rapprochements possibles soutiennent l’hypothèse d’un emprunt, caractérisé par des écarts. Chez Chrétien, l’aventure est annoncée depuis longtemps, elle est attendue, et, ultime épreuve, elle marque l’accomplissement du héros. Chez Renaut, elle est au contraire un point de départ: avec elle commence le jeu de balance entre la princesse et la fée. Et surtout la récriture se fait par l’omission de l’élément dramatique essentiel pour Chrétien: le cor. Dans le nom énigmatique la Joie de la Cort s’entend chez l’auteur champenois une rationalisation du cor, objet magique très fréquent dans la mythologie celtique, principe organisateur de tout l’épisode. Renaut le supprime, tout en donnant des indices clairs de l’intertextualité avec Erec et Enide: il intègre par le jeu des réminiscences la polysémie mise en oeuvre par Chrétien autour de cette épreuve merveilleuse et en même temps il renforce la suspension du sens en privant l’épisode du centre autour duquel s’organise le sens, le cor. Parallèlement, Renaut crée un ‘effet de mythe’ artificiel, en introduisant les nombres 7 et 12,56 absents du modèle, effet de mythe qui joue ici sur une impression de cohérence liée aux nombres supposés symboliques. Ces reprises, qui jouent avec les attentes du lecteur, ne sont pas sans humour. Par ailleurs Renaut a décomposé l’épisode: Evrain (roi de Brandigant – dont le nom pourrait trouver un écho dans Galigan, la cité de Lanpart –, la cité où se trouve l’épreuve dans Erec et Enide), donne son nom à l’enchanteur de l’épisode de la guivre, de même que Mabonagrain, adversaire d’Erec dans la Joie de la Cour se retrouve dans le Mabon du Bel Inconnu. De nombreux éléments de la Joie de la Cour sont déplacés: certains ne sont repris qu’à l’occasion de la deuxième visite à la fée, comme la description du verger, ou 56 Le mariage est fixé à sept ans et il est question de 143 têtes, et donc de 144 pieux (douze fois douze)

puisque l’un d’eux attend encore son trophée.

37




l’évocation abrégée du lit, voire même l’intervention du narrateur souhaitant accélérer le récit. Outre ces déplacements, on note des transpositions: la demoiselle hait Malgier, tandis que chez Chrétien de Troyes elle aime Mabonagrain; Malgier est tué, Mabonagrain reste en vie. Ces inversions, qui trouvent un écho lorsque les spectateurs prient pour le Bel Inconnu et que Malgier croit que leurs oraisons lui sont favorables (vv. 2165ss.) ne vont pas sans un certain humour. Cette déconstruction et cette reconstruction de la conjointure s’accompagnent d’un travail comparable sur le sens. Renaut procède d’une part à un évidement de la coutume: si la référence au cor donnait au nom de l’épreuve un centre, si l’amour excessif de la demoiselle et de Mabonagrain conduisait à la mise en cause des excès de la fin’amors, dans Le Bel Inconnu l’attitude de Malgier ne s’explique guère que parce qu’il est ‘felon’ (v. 2035): les enjeux matériel (le cor) et courtois (l’amour excessif) ont disparu. La prouesse se trouve vidée de son sens: la fée, après la victoire du héros, n’a qu’une hâte, se donner à lui, sans lui faire attendre les sept ans que la coutume impose (vv. 2265ss.). D’ailleurs au moment où, après l’évanouissement dramatique des deux combattants et la reprise des hostilités, on attendrait de nouveaux faits d’armes, la réaction des spectateurs et la méprise comique de Malgier (vv. 2165ss.) associées à une sentence à valeur générale, pleine de recul, tiennent la prouesse à l’écart (vv. 2169ss.). Cependant, la récriture que fait Renaut de la Joie de la Cour, si elle suspend les sens induits par le modèle, contribue à enrichir la polysémie de la figure de la fée, alors que chez Chrétien la cousine d’Enide restait une figure secondaire et falote. Renaut établit en effet une corrélation forte entre la reprise de la Joie de la Cour et la rencontre du héros avec la fée et il renforce l’incertitude autour de cette figure. La demoiselle n’est pas encore appelée fee (elle ne le sera qu’à partir du songe qui relancera la passion du chevalier v. 3699, l’hypothèse féerique étant – ce qui confirme l’une de nos hypothèses – clairement associée à une perception subjective et onirique): elle est présentée ici de façon ambiguë comme une bonne chrétienne (v. 2200, v. 2213, v. 2167, v. 2188), ayant acquis un savoir comparable aux sept arts libéraux (vv. 1933ss.); elle est étrangère (on trouve des notations exotiques vv. 2280ss., vv. 1886ss.), magicienne (sont employés ‘encanter’ v. 1933, ‘engiens et ars’ v. 2284). Par la suite, elle tiendra de la fée mélusinienne (elle prononce un interdit v. 2455; le rêve érotique du héros, qui précède son départ, peut se lire comme le châtiment sanctionnant la transgression), mais aussi de Morgue. Son ambiguïté se retrouve dans son nom, qui brouille l’opposition traditionnelle entre la fée et la princesse: ici la ‘Pucelle aux Blanches Mains’ (v. 1941), figure féerique, porte un nom qui évoque Iseult aux Blanches Mains (la princesse), tandis que Blonde Esmerée (la princesse) rappelle Iseult la Blonde (marquée par la féerie, ne serait-ce qu’à cause de ses talents de guérisseuse). La reprise de la Joie de la Cour, tout en enrichissant la polyphonie et la polyphonie merveilleuses, fait donc sourire le lecteur dans la mesure où les décalages sont nombreux avec la tradition. Fergus, comme Le Bel Inconnu, a systématisé cette dimension 38




merveilleuse et parodique, même s’il n’est pas aisé de mesurer celle-ci sans anachronisme. Dans ce roman, que l’on date du premier tiers du XIIIème siècle,57 l’intention parodique58 de Guillaume le Clerc est nette sans qu’il y ait mise en cause des valeurs traditionnelles du roman arthurien.59 Si le héros est un néo-Perceval60 (le vers 1328 établit un rapprochement explicite et Fergus porte au vers 4894 le ‘bon branc qui fu Percheval’),61 le traitement de l’intertextualité se caractérise par des écarts qui réinjectent du merveilleux dans des reprises qui pouvaient devenir banales. La rencontre avec les chevaliers, source d’émerveillement pour Perceval chez Chrétien, est ici traitée sur le mode burlesque. Les inversions et les reprises sont systématiques: c’est le père et non la mère du héros qui veut le retenir, le jeu sur la luminosité des armes se déplace des armes des chevaliers rencontrés dans la forêt, étincelantes chez Chrétien, vers les armes rouillées que Fergus trouve chez son père (vv. 537ss.). Le héros est un ‘nice’ (vv. 1112ss.) qui fait sans cesse référence à son père et ne veut pas laisser ses vieux vêtements (vv. 1165–67), comme Perceval qui ne veut pas abandonner sa grosse chemise de chanvre (vv. 1159ss.) et qui ne jure que par sa mère. Héros glouton qui réussit à prendre leur broche et un de leurs chapons à quinze voleurs (vv. 3282ss.), Fergus, affamé comme le jeune Perceval, est apte au burlesque. Le motif du héros pensif, fondamental dans la mise en oeuvre merveilleuse, est traité lui aussi sur le mode parodique: Fergus est en permanence dans un état de dorveille. Lorsqu’il quitte la cour et part à l’aventure sous la pluie, il se met à l’abri et s’appuie sur sa lance: ‘Illuec au vent et a la pluie / Si commenche a soumiller’. Il s’arrête à nouveau plus loin sous un pin: ‘Un petit si est soumilliés’ (v. 3387). Ce n’est donc pas un hasard si son père se nomme ‘Soumilloit’ (v. 37). La luminosité merveilleuse et le jeu des regards sont de même subvertis. Quand la demoiselle assiégée voit arriver Fergus avec son armure éclatante: [. . .] ele voit la clarté Dont le jor voit enluminé: 57 A. Micha le situe aux environs de 1225 (dans Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, éd. R. S. Loomis

(Oxford, 1959), p. 377). 58 Voir K. Gravdal, Vilain and Courtois: Transgressive Parody in French Literature of the Twelfth and

Thirteenth Centuries (Lincoln et Londres, 1989). 59 Voir D. Legge, ‘Sur la genèse du roman de Fergus’, dans Mélanges M. Delbouille, éd. J. Duculot

(Gembloux, 1964), t. II, 399ss. Il est possible que le roman ait été composé pour un seigneur écossais ou pour sa fille et que l’auteur ait voulu représenter un espoir dynastique. Voir aussi B. Schmolke-Hasselmann, ‘Le roman de Fergus: Technique narrative et intention politique’, dans Mélanges L. Thorpe (Glasgow, 1981), pp. 342–353. Pour D. D. R. Owen, ce serait un roman à clef (‘The Fergus-Poet’, dans Medieval Codicology, Iconography, Literature and Translation: Studies for Keith Val Sinclair, éd. P. R. Monks et D. D. R. Owen (Leiden, New York, Köln, 1994), pp. 233–239). 60 Il tient à la fois du héros de Chrétien et du Perceval des deux premières continuations (et en particulier de la deuxième): voir D. D. R. Owen, ‘The Craft of Fergus: Supplementary Notes’, French Studies Bulletin, Oxford, t. 25 (1987–1988), 1–15. On peut d’ailleurs se demander si le nom de Galiene n’est pas motivé par un écho du surnom de Perceval (le Gallois). 61 Les références données sont celles de l’édition E. Martin (Halle, 1872). Nous n’avons pu consulter celle de W. Frescoln (Philadelphie, 1983).

39




Ne ne set que estre pooit. Molt volentiers l’esgarde et voit Et tot i metoit sa pensee, Et dist que c’est cose faee Qui’st venue por lui aider. Ensi le cuide et doit cuidier: Tot ausi dient sus et jus. Vers lui ne s’ose aprocier nus: Ains furent ensi esbahis Comme sont coardes brebis. (vv. 4924ss.)

La comparaison ovine dénonce la parodie de la topique de l’éblouissement merveilleux, ce qui est repris plus loin avec une intervention du narrateur qui signale l’écart amusé: La pucele le regarda Et vit ausi enluminee La forest, con fust embrasee. Plus garde, plus enluminoit Cil ki la clarté aportoit. Et se aucuns m’en reprendoit, Por coi si esbahie estoit La pucele de cel escu, Quant autre fois l’avoit veu, Ausi cler et ausi luissant, Je li mosteroie briemant C’onques mais veu ne l’avoit En la biauté u il estoit. Co est la verités provee Que en icele matinee Avoit un petit rouselie S’en fu l’escus un pou moillie: Et li solaus tot a droiture Fice ses rais en la painture Et resplendist et reflamboie. Tel costume avoit tote voie Li escus: quant on le moilloit, Asés plus cler reflanboioit, Si estoit plus biel et plus gent. (vv. 5746ss.)

Parallèlement le jeu sur les récritures s’accompagne d’une accélération qui tend à rendre problématique le réseau de sens et qui fait du texte un patchwork où la polyphonie a du mal à se mettre en place, tant la merveille empruntée tend à se substituer au merveilleux inscrit. Cependant pour de nombreux motifs, l’auteur ajoute un sens nouveau, souvent comique car décalé par rapport au modèle, ce qui nourrit la polysémie. Le motif du blanc cerf (vv. 20ss.) que le roi veut chasser reprend l’ouverture d’Erec et Enide (vv. 29ss.): mais cette bête, qui a peur (v. 119), qui court ‘geule baee’ (v. 138) et qui ne traverse pas des terres de féerie mais des contrées caractérisées par une 40




géographie réaliste (vv. 186ss.) est tuée par Perceval dans une scène de vénerie tout à fait banale. La quête de la guimpe et du cor, annoncée par le sot, remplace celle du Graal. La distanciation parodique se lit alors dans le questionnement de Fergus qui n’a rien de la grave épreuve à laquelle aurait dû se soumettre Perceval: Fergus veut interroger le vilain, qui ne lui répond pas; furieux, il l’abat, avant de comprendre avec honte qu’il s’est battu contre une statue et d’espérer que cela ne se saura pas à la cour. Finalement c’est sans aucune difficulté qu’il s’empare des objets convoités, le lion qui les garde ne bougeant pas (vv. 2212ss.). Comme en témoigne Fergus, le merveilleux, jouant autant sur les points de vue, les écarts, que sur les reprises intertextuelles, favorise une lecture plaisante et ludique. Une perspective diachronique permet de mettre en évidence, parallèlement à une ‘évolution’ d’un merveilleux fortement inscrit vers un merveilleux fondé plus largement sur les jeux intertextuels, un comique de plus en plus nettement parodique qui nécessite de fortes compétences de la part du lecteur, surtout, si, comme le lecteur moderne, il est peu habitué à ce que le texte lui laisse autant d’autonomie et le guide aussi peu dans l’identification des récritures. Dans les textes en vers du XIIe, le merveilleux passe par une inscription textuelle explicite et très visible, soutenue par la présence d’une topique facilement reconnaissable, puis le jeu des récritures se développant, en particulier du fait de la mode des romans féeriques (il semble indéniable que Partonopeu de Blois a joué un rôle essentiel dans l’évolution du merveilleux en généralisant une possible lecture féerique du monde) et du succès rencontré par Chrétien de Troyes, on a alors un merveilleux passant à la fois par une inscription textuelle et une polyphonie intertextuelle: c’est le cas en particulier dans les textes en vers du XIIIe siècle. Cependant au XIIIe siècle, dans les textes en prose, la dimension féerique se trouve réduite: les cycles (Vulgate et Post Vulgate en particulier) contribuent à entretenir le merveilleux en conjurant, par leurs voix plurielles, le risque de clôture du sens. Le Graal, si fécond au XIIIe siècle, tend alors à scléroser le roman: les différents textes s’imbriquant les uns dans les autres, se contenant, se répondant, empruntant, se présupposant, formant un même récit pris et repris, perdent de leur lisiblité. Même s’il continue à exercer longtemps ses prestiges sur les compilateurs, comme en témoigne le manuscrit BNF fr. 112,62 le Graal en arrive à n’être qu’un horizon fédérateur pour ces multiples merveilles de Bretagne qui se multiplient à sa périphérie et qui constituent la trame foisonnante de romans, en vers ou en prose, qui se présentent comme des sommes, des anthologies, récrivant de nombreux épisodes merveilleux supposés connus du lecteur, déchargés des exigences d’un sens définitif. Libérés du Graal, de la gravité de sa signification spirituelle, du péché, de la Rédemption, de la fascination pour les corps dépecés, du Diable et de la

62 Voir C. E. Pickford, L’évolution du roman arthurien à la fin du Moyen Age (Paris, 1960).

41




damnation dernière, de cette gravité qui risquait de nuire au jeu merveilleux, des romans, revendiquant une vérité plus littéraire que spirituelle, permettent alors un renouvellement du merveilleux en redonnant la parole aux fées, comme en témoignent Claris et Laris, Les Merveilles de Rigomer, Perceforest ou Artus de Bretagne. Un certain nombre de critiques ont cependant dénoncé la faillite de ce roman féerique ‘tardif’. Les exemples de Claris et Laris, Perceforest ou Artus de Bretagne, montrent qu’il n’en est rien. Plus encore décrié, le roman féerique du XVe, triste vestige, est souvent malmené, qu’il s’agisse d’Ysaïe le Triste,63 des versions longues d’Artus de Bretagne,64 ou de Charles de Hongrie65 . . . La disparition du topos merveilleux qui n’est plus inscrit dans le texte fait que celui-ci donne l’impression d’enchaîner rapidement les merveilles avec désinvolture et arbitraire, ne cédant qu’à une mode superficielle et désormais populaire. Et pourtant plus que de décadence, il faut parler d’aboutissement d’une évolution de plusieurs siècles: le jeu intertextuel n’a cessé de prendre de l’ampleur depuis le XIIe siècle, tandis que l’inscription textuelle se réduisait de plus en plus, rendue inutile par la compétence des lecteurs, familiers du merveilleux, à décrypter les épisodes et à les nourrir des voix plurielles de la tradition. L’écriture dans ces textes tardifs se fait fluette, délicate, mais le merveilleux n’en est pas plus exclu que le sourire qui tient à de discrets échos et à des clins d’oeil supposant un lecteur averti. La triste opinion que le lecteur moderne peut avoir de ces textes résulte peut-être surtout de sa surdité à entendre les voix plurielles de la tradition. L’exemple des versions longues d’Artus de Bretagne en témoigne. Dans un premier temps, le ‘lecteur moderne’ est déçu par cette succession de clichés et de merveilles de pacotille. Dans ce texte, les lieux de la merveille se démultiplient, Château d’Acier, Château d’Arondel, Tour de Nigromance, Fontaine de Beauté, Château de la Desertine . . . L’éparpillement permet d’enchaîner les aventures et de jouer sur le différé, et le texte semble ne jamais devoir épuiser cette succession, faute d’une aventure fédératrice. Les fées sont nombreuses, et le clerc Estienne, qui assurait la cohérence de la version première, dévalorisé, ne joue plus son rôle d’instance poétique régulatrice. Le merveilleux instrumental des pierres, horloges et chevilles, est fréquent et semble réduire la polyphonie. L’intérêt pour les mécanismes est net: à la pluralité des questionnements et au feuilleté de sens merveilleux, est préférée

63 Ysaÿe le Triste, éd. A. Giacchetti, Publications de l’Université de Rouen 142 (Rouen, 1989). 64 Ces versions sont inédites: BNF fr. 12549, BNF Nouv. Acq. 20000 et en deux volumes BNF fr. 1432 et

19163. Sur ces versions voir nos articles, ‘Grandeur et décadence du clerc Estienne dans Artus de Bretagne’, dans Le clerc au Moyen Age, Senefiance, t. 37 (Aix-en-Provence, 1995), pp. 167–195; ‘Les différentes versions d’Artus de Bretagne: le problème de la clôture’, dans Clore le récit: recherche sur les dénouements romanesques II, PRIS-MA (1999), pp. 53–68; ‘L’essoufflement du merveilleux dans les suites d’Artus de Bretagne au XVème siècle’, dans Devis d’amitié. Mèlanges de littérature en l’honneur de Nicole Cazauran, éd. J. Lecointe et alii (Paris, Champion, 2002), 87–102. 65 Ed. M. L. Chênerie (Toulouse, Presses Universitaires du Mirail 1992).

42




une enquête unique autour de la cause efficiente.66 A un pilier est attaché un cor d’or et d’argent, et au pied de ce pilier il y a ‘ung grant soufflet dont les ais estoient toute d’ivoire et avoit ce soufflet ung buhot bien ausi gros comme la cuisse d’un homme, et [Lancelot] regarde entour le buhot du soufflet letres d’or que devisent que qui metteroit le buhot du souflet dedens le cor puis levast on l’aix des fevre anssi que si on voulsist soufler, touz les quatre ventz descenderoient ou cor et sonneroit si hault que la reigne Proserpine, Morgue et Oriande la Faee orroient le cor sonner qui tenoient court a la tour Blanche’ (f. 211). Le soufflet laisse l’auteur sans voix: ‘je ne vous en scaroy pas diviser la centisme part’. La merveille ne tient ici souvent qu’à un fil et n’est qu’une cheville . . . Tout aussi fluet, le merveilleux attaché à l’onomastique tente de profiter du succès de personnages traditionnels, comme Malabron, Morgue, Oriande. Le lecteur jouit alors à la fois du plaisir de la reconnaissance et de la surprise que suscitent les écarts discrets. Aucune cohérence ne se dégage de la juxtaposition d’allégories qui évoquent la ‘Queste’ (f. 190) et du Grand Cornu de l’Aimant (ff. 201ss.), fils d’une licorne, qui associant les motifs de la licorne et du château de l’aimant, et bénéficiant de l’aura onomastique de Magis et Catharius, laisse pourtant le lecteur moderne bien déçu.67 Les merveilles ne sont que transitoires: les adversaires sont rapidement abattus, et sans cesse des informateurs annoncent de plus grandes épreuves. L’impasse liée à la merveille qui échappe et à la nécessaire surenchère entretient certes l’attente du lecteur mais renforce aussi sa déception. Dans ce merveilleux sans épaisseur, la merveille est fréquemment réduite à un nom: l’auteur rêve volontiers sur les finales en -aire, pseudo-savantes et sources d’exotisme. A côté du ‘Lucidaire’ (f. 205v) et du ’Chastel Lunaire’ (f. 209v),68 le Sagittaire apparaît deux fois, signe d’un merveilleux qui ne parvient pas à se renouveler.

66 Les références données sont celles du manuscrit BNF fr. 12549. Une cheville et un mécanisme de porte

se retrouvent f. 232. Une pierre guérit quand on s’en frotte les yeux (f. 232v). Artus pour aller au château d’Arondel entre ‘en ung engeign [. . .] fait par faerie’ (f. 232v). ‘Estache de cuivre’ (f. 235) et chevilles sont nombreuses. A la Tour Dorée, le héros doit, pour entrer, ôter la cheville d’or attachée à un pilier d’albâtre. Le Chastel de Cuivre ‘seoit sur une seule estache et avoit bien sanz mentir le chastel .IIII. arbalestres d’entrepresure et si ne seoit sen plus que sus une estache de plom que moult estoit grande et n’y avoit que une entree ou chastel et estoit le cuyvre aussi luisant comme fin or’ (f. 237). Si l’on ôte la cheville de cuivre qui se trouve dans la cour, le château se met à tourner à vive allure, ‘plus tost cent foiz que meulle de moulin ne tourne’: Artus se croit mort et fait ses adieux à Florence, à son fils Alexandre, à Marguerite, à Estienne . . . Un comique léger naît de cette erreur et l’impossibilité où se trouve le narrateur de faire mourir son héros apparaît nettement. Au Chastel de la Deserte les merveilles sont nombreuses, mais seule l’une est évoquée avec précision, un pilier où une inscription conseille de lever ‘ung engin’: tout alors semble brûler, la mer se met à monter et s’en va par le pilier, un autre ‘engeing’ permettant de faire revenir les flots (f. 242v). Le terme engin est souvent une facilité qui évite de préciser: dans une chambre de la tour Saturnin, un ‘engin’ permet à Artus, Governal et au lion qui les accompagne, de se déplacer instantanément; il n’est pas décrit, plus peut-être par manque d’imagination de l’auteur que pour nourrir une énigme merveilleuse (f. 247v). 67 Il n’intervient que pour être rapidement vaincu par Governau et le conduire, en lui promettant des merveilles, au Château de la Folie. 68 Le Chastel Lunaire s’intègre dans le roman à la série des merveilles dont le nom est suffixé en -aire, mais il est aussi lié à la Lune et à Lunette, puisqu’au bas du f. 211, il devient la Tour de Lunete.

43




En fait, à la merveille autour de laquelle l’ensemble du texte s’organise et dont le sen s’approfondit (le Graal ou le château de Rigomer, par exemple), s’est substituée une multiplicité de merveilles, toutes plus ou moins enracinées dans la tradition, mais jamais réunies, et la polyphonie et la polysémie résultent de cette diversité. On devine Maugis à côté de Lunette. On suppose le Pont de l’Epée au voisinage de l’Ile d’Aimant. Surprise et sourire naissent de ces rapprochements fugitifs. Un chevalier précise que quand Artus sera mort, Alexandre le retrouvera ‘en ung chastel qui est en faerie qu’on appelle Meriou’, l’entrée de ce lieu étant sous le Mont du Chat en Savoie, près du ‘lac de Lozanne dont vos estes’: le lecteur reconnaît le Chat monstrueux du Lac de Lausanne du Merlin de la Vulgate et sourit de cette façon gracieuse d’établir un pont entre ce nouveau Lancelot du Lac et le Lac de Lausanne. Le goût pour les rapprochements syncrétiques est net et l’aventure mène Artus à ‘une caverne’ qui ‘va tout par dessoulz les gouffres de Satornie et par dessoulz la forest d’Oriande’ (f. 248v): où se rejoignent Oriande et la Laide Semblance. Le château Melion (f. 250v) évoque la figure du loup-garou des lais, tandis que le texte le rapproche du roi Méliadus. Outre ces effets de sens qui le satisfont, le lecteur sera sensible à l’humour des associations inédites et des détails incongrus. Si les géants sont en général nombreux et peu variés avec leurs deux ou trois têtes, certains amuseront. L’un ‘estoit de telle faczon comme vous orrés: premierement il avoit la teste plus noire que ne soit arriement en une moittiez et l’autre mettié estoit plus luisant que ne soit le plus fin or du monde. Et avoit ung des yeux plus noir que ne soit ung escureul et l’autre plus vert que nul faucons. Et si avoit l’une des parties des narines grosse et l’une des parties lait et camus. Et l’autre narine du nez si estoit haingrette et l’autre partie de nez long et traitiz et gracieuse. Si si avoit l’une des mains plus grosse atout le bras plus grosse que ne soit la cuisse d’un homme et l’autre des mains moult belle et gracieuse.’ Lancelot est ‘merveillé’ (f. 216v). Le comique vient par ailleurs de l’extrême banalisation de la merveille et de l’inversion qui en résulte et l’on retrouve le jeu sur les points de vue que nous avons vu plus haut, lorsque les fées accusaient les mortels de pratiquer des enchantements: dans cet univers où la merveille est devenue extrêmement banale, c’est tout à fait logiquement le monde ‘normal’ des héros qui surprend. Un géant conduit Artus dans une ‘salle toute ouvree d’ouvrage de faerie’ (f. 219), qui n’est pas décrite. Des dames dansent, et au lieu que ce soit Lancelot qui s’émerveille devant ces charmantes créatures, ce sont elles qui le voyant mener ‘une moult noble dance a la guise de champion [. . .] se esmerveillent moult’. Le lecteur moderne, soucieux de l’ ‘intégrité’ de l’oeuvre, réfrène son imagination et s’interdit la rêverie, ce qui condamne un texte comme cette suite d’Artus, qui n’est finalement rien d’autre qu’un canevas à partir duquel on doit broder le texte et qui, supposant connu le substrat merveilleux, trouve son épaisseur dans l’invention du lecteur qui saura nouer des fils. Faillite d’un auteur en mal d’invention, ou oeuvre ouverte qui trouve son souffle dans la réception qui en est faite, il n’est certes pas aisé de trancher au niveau des 44




motivations de l’auteur. Plus le texte avance, plus celui-ci souligne l’impossibilité de terminer son texte: dans la forêt (f. 241v), Artus ‘trouve moult de diverses choses dont nous n’en ferons pas mencion’; dans la ‘Forest Griffaigne’, se trouvent ‘serpens, grifons, singes, tigres, ours cameulx, sagittaires [. . .] et plusieurs aultres bestes dont je ne vous fais pas mencion’ (f. 245v); des figures au nom aussi prometteur que le ‘roy des Sathans’ ne sont pas décrites et ne font que passer (f. 248); des indices rapides ne sont pas développés, comme cette Forêt Ronde, où ‘furent faees et celle forest est ou propre lieu la ou la reigne Proserpine fut premierement couronnee et le firent les faees pour faire la feste a la reigne quant elle fut premierement couronnee’ (f. 248v). Signes de lassitude d’un auteur qui ne peut conclure69 . . . certes, mais aussi aubaine pour le lecteur dont le rôle actif dans le processus merveilleux à la fin du Moyen Age prend ici toute sa valeur. Dans les versions longues d’Artus de Bretagne, comme dans Isaïe le Triste, le merveilleux repose sur l’investissement d’un lecteur apte à jouer avec les échos intertextuels. Rarement pris à parti, laissé libre par des indices très peu nombreux, celui-ci peut mener son jeu, et ce type de textes, compilatoires, énumératifs, avares en réseaux de sens explicites, présuppose une lecture où le lecteur invente le texte en grande partie à partir de la tradition, lecture hautement dénoncée à l’époque moderne, mais qui doit être reconquise si l’on veut reconstituer, sur instruments anciens, ces oeuvres tardives, décriées pour avoir été jouées sur des instruments anachroniques. Ainsi, même les textes tardifs, le merveilleux est susceptible de faire sourire le lecteur. Plus largement, le merveilleux est peut-être inséparable, tout au long du Moyen Age, d’une certaine forme de comique lié à une distanciation plaisante. Plus que le rire franc, c’est un sourire en demi-teinte qui serait alors provoqué. Les réactions des personnages face à la merveille peuvent d’ailleurs nous renseigner sur les réactions du lecteur réel, puisque, souvent, celui-ci, dans le jeu des points de vue et des voix et par la présence objective du lecteur inscrit, est invité à suivre tel ou tel personnage. Dans Claris et Laris, arrivant à un château merveilleux, Laris ‘commença a sorrire’ (v. 3621).70 Dans la deuxième Continuation de Perceval, voyant la Laide Demoiselle, ‘Percevaux an sorrit un poi’ (v. 23220).71 Le rire n’est pas franc, cette créature étant ambiguë et ne laissant pas de soulever des interrogations inquiétantes. Plus loin, face à l’étrange lumière surgie dans la nuit et à la disparition soudaine et inexpliquée de la demoiselle qui l’accompagne, 69 Au folio 254v, le texte propose une relecture du roman d’Alexandre: les chevaliers parviennent à la

montagne où Alexandre a enfermé deux géants, Gos et Magos. Au milieu de la montagne se trouve une pierre. En la levant on découvre une porte de fer avec trente-six verrous de fer ‘qui sont plus gros que ne soit une estache de moulin a vent’. Hector lit une inscription: si on ouvre, ‘tout le pais de Gos et de Magos ysteroit hors par la et mettroit tout le monde a destruction’ (f. 254). Le récit s’interrompt alors, pour reprendre (dans le même cahier) f. 255 par la mention des Bécus qui ont des becs et des bateaux entièrement faits sans métal. 70 Claris et Laris, éd. J. Alton (Tübingen, 1884). 71 The Continuations of the Old French Perceval of Chretien de Troyes, éd. W. Roach, Philadelphie, Deuxième Continuation (Continuation Perceval), t. IV (1971).

45




Percevaux pas ne s’an aïre, Ainçois an a sorris un poi Et ne fu mie en grant esfroi Ne n’ot peor de nule rien. (vv. 25634ss.)

Pourtant un grand vent se lève, la pluie se met à tomber avec violence à un point tel Qu’il sambloit que terre fondist Et que la grant forest chaïst. Percevaux molt s’an esbaï, De son escu son chief covri

et il passe, apeuré, un fort mauvais moment (vv. 25649ss.). Ces réactions sont le signe d’une interprétation précoce de la merveille. Celle-ci restant incertaine, on voit souvent les héros hésiter: dans Les Merveilles de Rigomer, Gauvain, voyant Lancelot ensorcelé et se prenant pour un cuisinier, est pris entre le rire et les larmes (vv. 14052–72). Cette vingtaine de vers joue sur l’ambivalence du sentiment, tout en soulignant la gravité de la situation puisqu’on rappelle que jamais auparavant Gauvain n’avait pleuré. Tantôt l’ambivalence est simultanée, tantôt divers états se succèdent dans le temps. Dans le Perceval en prose du pseudo-Robert de Boron, face à la Laide demoiselle, le héros se signe tant il a peur puis il éclate de rire: Quant Percevaus le vit, si s’aresta et se signa a mervelles et commença a rire molt durement. Et quant li cevaliers le vit rire de s’amie si en ot molt grant duel et vint a Perceval et li demanda que il avoit a rire et por quoi il s’estoit ensi segniés trois fois. Et Percevaus li respondi: ‘Je le vous dirai. Quant je vi cel diable cevauchier avuec vos, saciés que je en euç paor et por çou me segnai; et quant je vi que ele vos acoloit et baisoit si en commençai a rire por le maleurté acomplir.’ (p. 188)72

L’ambivalence des réactions des personnages est à l’image du rire merveilleux, fissuré par l’inquiétude, suivi de larmes et d’angoisses. Au terme de cette étude, qui ne saurait bien évidemment être exhaustive, il apparaît que merveilleux et comique sont liés. Le merveilleux passant par un regard perturbé et une polysémie en suspens, des effets plaisants peuvent être tirés des points de vue confrontés et faussés, des contemplations frustrées, des erreurs de perspectives, des opinions opposées. L’illusion merveilleuse ouvre sur le burlesque ou l’héroï-comique, le jeu de mots, l’humour subtil ou les plaisanteries carnavalesques. L’ambiguïté des créatures, leur diversité, introduisent des discordances, des contradictions, qui amusent (tout autant qu’elles inquiètent). Le merveilleux cependant est avant tout un jeu, puisque 72 Ed. W. Roach (Philadelphie, 1941).

46




le texte médiéval repose, en dépit du rôle croissant du diable au XIIIe et surtout au XIVe siècle sur une confiance essentielle en Dieu: plus que dans des croyances auxquelles une adhésion ferme serait supposée, le merveilleux joue sur le soupçon d’une surnature possible mais incertaine et repose sur la mise entre parenthèses provisoire du dogme chrétien rassurant pour jouer avec la peur et le plaisir. Plus que le rire franc le merveilleux est associé au sourire, ambigu, incertain, de même qu’il ne fait jamais véritablement peur, même dans Perlesvaus. Cependant l’évolution du merveilleux, d’un merveilleux inscrit à un merveilleux intertextuel, fait que l’appréciation par le lecteur moderne devient plus difficile et qu’il est rare aujourd’hui de sourire en lisant Artus de Bretagne dans ses versions longues. Pourtant une bonne mémoire et un rejet de modes de lecture anachroniques qui laissent trop peu d’autonomie au lecteur devraient permettre de retrouver dans un tel roman et le merveilleux et le comique.

47





LA BANDE DESSINEE VIRTUELLE DU LION D’YVAIN

III

LA BANDE DESSINEE VIRTUELLE DU LION D’YVAIN: SUR LE SENS DE L’HUMOUR DE CHRETIEN DE TROYES Angelica Rieger Les effets comiques des interventions du lion dans le roman d’Yvain, n’ont-ils pas été commentés à satiété? Ne suffit-il pas de relire Peter Haidu et Charles Méla et de citer leurs formules-clés du comique ‘absurde’ du Lionqueue-coupée et de l’‘héroï-comique’1 pour se convaincre que, en matière du comique léonin, tout est dit depuis longtemps? Pourquoi donc reprendre la discussion en cette fin de millénaire? Il faut, en effet, une bonne raison à cela – et la voilà: elle tend à prendre Chrétien trop au sérieux. Les interprétations récentes du quatrième roman de Chrétien de Troyes ont tendance à oublier ses côtés comiques; ou bien ils disparaissent derrière ceux de ‘l’humanisation du lion’, de la valeur symbolique du lion-porteur des qualités chevaleresques ou de sa fonction comme double d’Yvain.2 Or, il suffit de lire une partie de l’histoire du ‘Chevalier au lion’ comme ‘histoire du lion’ pour s’apercevoir du comique irrésistible du ‘personnage du lion’. Une relecture des six épisodes marqués par sa présence révèlera le caractère de ce comique très voisin de la bande dessinée et dévoilera la proximité du procédé de déclenchement du rire médiéval et du rire d’aujourd’hui.3 Cette visualisation du texte est moins éloignée de l’esprit du

1

2

3

Haidu (1972), 65s.; Méla (1983), 79. Il est inutile d’entreprendre ici le résumé des multiples tentatives d’interprétation du lion dans Yvain: un tour d’horizon complet de la recherche se trouve chez D. Rieger (1994), 257–273. V. aussi A. Rieger (1994), 425, n. 13, ainsi que M. Rousse dans sa traduction d’Yvain (1990), 332, nn. 76s.; je regrette de n’avoir pu consulter Watanabe (1993/94, en japonais). V. p. ex. Dubuis (1995). Cette dernière interprétation ne contredit d’ailleurs nullement celle du lion comme héros de bande dessinée, car ‘les comics sont lieu d’une “mise en abîme” ’ (Fresnault-Deruelle 1986, 76). Par contre, je m’inscris en faux contre l’avis d’Edeline (1999) que, pour sa ‘sémiotique visuelle’, ‘Les illustrations et enluminures se sont révélées d’un faible secours’ (208). Pour cette distinction v. p. ex. Teuber (1999): ‘Vom mittelalterlichen zum frühneuzeitlichen Lachen’, avec de plus amples références bibliographiques de Bergson à Bachtin (249); et Komische Gegenwelten (1999), surtout Kellermann, 29–46; ainsi que Röcke (1998) et Gaunt (1989), 5–38: ‘Irony: medieval and modern’; et, sur Chrétien de Troyes en particulier, Haidu (1968). Sur l’emploi ironique du lion dans la perspective de l’historien, v. – à propos des différentes fonctions médiévales du lion – Althoff (1994), 134: ‘Überraschender [. . .] aber war für mich die Entdeckung, daß man die Löwen-Bezeichnung auch augenzwinkernd ironisch verwenden konnte. Die Bezeichnung “Löwe” für

49



ANGELICA RIEGER

Fig. 1. Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs (The World Encyclopedia of Comics, 1976, 61) 50




public médiéval qu’il ne semble: D’une part, de nombreuses ‘bandes dessinées’ véritables en marge des manuscrits médiévaux en témoignent;4 et d’autre part, le lion apparaît fréquemment dans les enluminures des manuscrits d’Yvain, ainsi que dans bien d’autres manuscrits illuminés.5 Aussi bien l’enlumineur du manuscrit conservé à la Bibliothèque Universitaire de Princeton, Garrett 125, du dernier quart du XIIIe siècle, que celui du manuscrit parisien BN fr. 1433, du premier du XIVe, pour ne citer que les plus suggestifs,6 semblent déjà avoir concu leurs lions comme des héros de bande dessinée:7 — Le premier a consacré au lion quatre des six miniatures ornant l’Yvain.8 La première scène illustrée est celle de la libération du lion aux prises avec le serpent9 par Yvain; s’ensuivent les trois interventions successives du lion aux combats d’Yvain contre Harpin de la Montaigne, les faux accusateurs de Lunete et les deux géants. Si la première miniature montre un lion hurlant de douleur, la seconde un lion attaquant toutes griffes dehors à un géant, la troisième représente un animal en état d’attente impatiente aux côtés de son maître, prêt à entrer dans le combat et la quatrième un lion arrivant en pleine course sur le lieu du combat, sur le point de s’élancer contre les adversaires de celui-ci. — Dans les huit enluminures de l’Yvain – presque toutes à plusieurs compartiments – du second mansucrit, le lion est presque toujours présent:10 au début, il n’apparaît que dans les armoiries d’Yvain, sur la couverture de son cheval ou son écu; la suite le montre également aux prises avec le serpent (f. 85), rendant hommage à son nouveau seigneur (ibid.), secourant son seigneur – devant les coulisses d’un bûcher déjà allumé – dans la défense de Lunete (f. 90), participant au combat contre les deux géants (f. 104), accompagnant Yvain et Lunete sur le chemin de retour chez Laudine et couché aux pieds du lit conjugal, la tête tournée – Otto den Großen akzentuierte andere Eigenschaften seines Trägers als Stärke und Mut, nämlich ein ausgeprägtes Ruhebedürfnis, um nicht zu sagen eine ausgeprägte Trägheit.’ 4 V. p. ex. U. Nilgen (1998); et A. Rieger (1985). 5 V. p. ex. Les Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes (1993), vol. 2, 463s., figs. 240–243 (Princeton, UL, Garrett, 125, ff. 26v, 37, 56v et 58v); ainsi que 502–507, figs. 311 et 315–318 (Paris BN fr. 1433, ff. 67v, 85, 90, 104 et 118). Dans la partie Gauvain de Perceval, celui-ci en affronte un spécimen particulièrement effrayant dans l’épisode du lit de la merveille (ibid., 511, fig. 326, Paris, BNF fr. 12577, f. 45). 6 Pour la description et la datation de ces manuscrits v. ibid., cat. 27 (56s.) et cat. 38 (73–75). 7 V. p. ex., en comparaison avec les manuscrits médiévaux notamment Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes (1993) II, fig. 243 (Princeton, UL, Garrett 125, f. 26v, et fig. 317 (Paris, BNF, fr. 1433, f. 104)), le lion figurant dans une page extraite de Tarzan, d’Edgar Rice Burroughs (fig. 1). 8 Ce sont, sur ff. 26v, 37, 38, 52, 56v et 58v: ff. 26v, 37, 56v et 58v – ici Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes (1993) II, fig. 243 (Princeton, UL, Garrett 125, f. 26v), fig. 240 (Princeton, UL, Garrett 125, f. 37), fig. 241 (Princeton, UL, Garrett 125, f. 56v) et fig. 242 (Princeton, UL, Garrett 125, f. 58v). 9 Il s’agit évidemment d’une espèce de dragon, mais je préfère – comme la plupart des traducteurs – garder le terme voisin de l’ancien français. 10 Ce sont, sur ff. 61, 67v, 72v, 80v, 85, 90, 104 et 118: ff. 85, 90, 104 et 118 – ici Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes (1993) II, fig. 315 (Paris, BNF, fr. 1433, f. 85), fig. 316 (Paris, BNF, fr. 1433, f. 90), fig. 317 (Paris, BNF, fr. 1433, f. 104) et fig. 318 (Paris, BNF, fr. 1433, f. 118).

51



ANGELICA RIEGER

comme pour un dernier clin d’œil – vers le spectateur de la scène (f. 118). Les scènes les plus captivantes que cet artiste ait su créer sont sans aucun doute celle de l’hommage vassalique du lion à Yvain, qui ne reproduit pas le lion debout joignant les deux pattes de devant, mais un animal agenouillé – tant bien que mal, il est vrai – et levant sa tête plein d’humilité vers son nouveau seigneur; ainsi que celle de l’accompagnateur fidèle d’Yvain – trottant comme un chien à côté d’Yvain et de Lunete – et qui semble conduire son seigneur directement au pardon de Laudine – et dans le lit de celle-ci – à la fin du récit. Ces premières tentatives d’une mise en image de la bande dessinée virtuelle crée par Chrétien de Troyes, si poignantes soient-elles, omettent pourtant une scène cruciale, la plus extraordinaire de toutes: celle de la tentative de suicide du lion croyant son seigneur mort. Mais elles me semblent néanmoins révélatrices de la force et du dynamisme du personnage du lion en quelque sorte innés dans les épisodes imaginés par Chrétien. Arrivé à ce point, il est légitime de se poser la question de savoir pourquoi Chrétien aurait-il dû créér cette bande dessinée virtuelle? A mon avis, la clé de la réponse se trouve dans le concept de la ‘contextualisation’ du lion esquissé par Dietmar Rieger: Der Löwe in Chrétiens Yvain ist keine allegorische Figur, doch lernt Yvain ihn kennen, erkennt Yvain ihn durch seine Kontextualisierung in seinem eigenen – kulturell vermittelten – allegorischen Wissen. Ist dieser Prozeß der Kontextualisirung beendet, tritt der Löwe Yvain als handelnde literarische Person mit individuellen Besonderheiten entgegen, an denen sich alle simplifizierend allegorischen Deutungen der Rezipienten immer wieder stoßen und die mit Chrétiens Humor eng verknüpft sind.11

Ceci est tout aussi valable pour le public de Chrétien. Ce dernier savait parfaitement qu’il avait affaire à un public qui, dans sa grande majorité, n’avait jamais vu de lions. Or, il fallait faire appel à son imagination et à son indéniable culture visuelle. Ses connaissances iconographiques – complétées par celles d’autres espèces d’animaux, chats et chiens par exemple – et littéraires – surtout des bestiaires – lui permettait, aidé de la bande dessinée virtuelle que Chrétien lui propose, d’imaginer les actions du lion sur la base de son propre imaginaire léonin.12 Quoi de plus logique pour Chrétien que de

11 D. Rieger (1994), 284. 12 La ‘mise en parole’ d’une bande dessinée, impliquant la possibilité de l’opération inverse de la mise en

images du texte de Chrétien, confirme ce procédé: ‘Avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, lors d’une grève des journaux new-yorkais, le maire de la ville, F. La Guardia, qui soignait sa popularité, lut et commenta à la radio les comics qui paraissaient habituellement dans les journaux. Les nécessités du temps faisaient ainsi ressortir qu’un feuilleton pouvait connaître temporairement une version “métalinguistique” pourvu que la fonction phatique fût préservée. Le référent iconique présent à l’esprit, les auditeurs pouvaient embrayer sur l’émission sans trop de déperdition fantasmatique’ (Fresnault-Deruelle, 1976, 7).

52




transformer cet imaginaire en ‘dessins animés’ et d’en profiter pour ‘donner vie’ à son personnage léonin dans des ‘miniatures animées’? Avant de soumettre par la suite ces épisodes du lion à une lecture comme bande dessinée virtuelle, un petit détour par le monde de de la bande dessinée – rassemblant des ‘genres aussi diversifiés que le dessin humoristique (et la caricature), l’illustration, la narrration figurative ou son paronyme la figuration narrative’ – est inévitable.13 Il me permettra de souligner les nombreux parallèles entre le fonctionnement d’une bande dessinée moderne et de celle, purement virtuelle, que Chrétien esquisse pour son lion. 1. Au niveau structurel, le parallèle avec la bande dessinée le plus évident est le suivant: ‘La bande dessinée a pour vocation de raconter les instants privilégiés de l’existence d’un personnage imaginaire condamné à vivre un éternel présent.’14 C’est précisément le cas du lion d’Yvain qui, lui, remplit aussi la condition d’appartenir à l’espèce des héros ‘à caractère fantastique’ (ibid.): Vouée à une éternelle et inébrantable gratitude à son maître dès le premier ‘instant privilégié de son existence’ (ibid.) narré, celui de son entrée en jeu dans son combat existentiel – au sens strict du terme – avec le serpent, il ne vieillit pas, n’évolue pas, ne mûrit pas. 2. Un second parallèle concerne ‘la technique spécifique de la bande dessinée’ qui ‘se caractérise par un découpage du récit visuel en plans exprimant une durée très courte’ (ibid.) et les épisodes du lion dans Yvain. Il suffit de supprimer le mot ‘visuel’ pour obtenir la définition exacte de la technique narrative employée par Chrétien de Troyes montrant le lion d’Yvain en action: A chaque fois, il entre en scène d’une manière inattendue, voire inespérée et pour une action précise de très courte durée. 3. Il suffit d’y ajouter un troisième élément caractéristique de la bande dessinée, et qui concerne la vélocité de cette entrée en scène et de l’action déterminée qui s’ensuit pour arriver à une description exacte du fonctionnement des épisodes du lion dans Yvain. 4. Cette vélocité, doublée de l’invraisemblance totale des prouesses du héros de bande dessinée, crée des effets comiques renforcés encore par la violence, voire la brutalité au-delà de l’imaginable de ces actions dont le héros se relève néanmoins bientôt sain et sauf pour se replonger dans de nouvelles aventures tout à fait semblables. A l’issue quasi surnaturelle de ces aventures, le rire a une fonction libératrice pour un public traumatisé. Ainsi, le comique des actions du lion l’aide à supporter des situations apparemment intenables commes celles où le ‘héros de roman’, Yvain, semble être sur le point d’être vaincu et même de mourir. 13 Fresnault-Deruelle (1976), 7. Pour la définition de la bande dessinée comme témoignage de la culture

visuelle de ses ‘lecteurs’, je me base sur les articles de Pierre Fresnault-Deruelle (1976 et 1986). De plus amples références bibilographiques s’y trouvent surtout (1986), 77, n. 8; v. aussi Groensteen (1998). 14 La Grande Encyclopédie Larousse (1972), s.v. ‘bande dessinée’, 1445–1450; ici 1445. V. aussi The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1994), s.v. ‘comic strip’, 484; et surtout World Encyclopedia of Comics (1976) 1, 1–61.

53



ANGELICA RIEGER

Avec le lion d’Yvain, Chrétien de Troyes semble avoir créé non seulement un héros de bande dessinée, mais encore avoir intégré, dans son récit des aventures du Chevalier au lion, une bande dessinée virtuelle ‘à suivre’ et en six épisodes dont ce lion est le héros et dont je vous propose une relecture. Ces six épisodes évoquées forment pour ainsi dire une trame comique sous-jacente à l’histoire du Chevalier au lion:15 1. La première rencontre d’Yvain et du lion: l’intervention d’Yvain dans la lutte du lion et du serpent en faveur du lion, la gratitude du lion-lige et l’asservissement absolu du lion-chasseur (vv. 3337–3483) 2. Le retour d’Yvain et du lion à la fontaine magique, l’émotion et la blessure d’Yvain et la tentative de suicide du lion (vv. 3484–3547) 3. La première intervention du lion dans un combat, celui d’Yvain contre Harpin de la Montaigne et la création du surnom de ‘chevalier au lion’ (vv. 3764–3796 et 4213–4286) 4. La deuxième intervention du lion: le secours porté à Lunete et le lion blessé (vv. 4443–4559 et 4646–4696) 5. La troisième intervention du lion: le combat contre les deux géants (vv. 5520–5687); et: 6. Le retour du Chevalier au lion en compagnie du lion à la cour du roi Arthur (vv. 6449–6522). Parallèlement, je me propose d’y étudier les principes récurrents du fonctionnement du comique arthurien à l’exemple du lion-héros de bande dessinée doublée du lion-personnage comique. 1. La première rencontre d’Yvain et du lion Dès la première rencontre d’Yvain et du lion, ce comique l’accompagne. Yvain chevauche ‘pansis’ (102, v. 3337) à travers une forêt profonde lorsqu’il entend ‘un cri molt dolereus et haut’ (ibid., v. 3340). Il suit le bruit et vit un lÿon, en un essart, et un serpant qui le tenoit par la coe, et si li ardoit trestoz les rains de flame ardant.16

Le premier regard d’Yvain aurait pu se poser sur mille autres instants de ce combat. Mais, en dépit de toute vraisemblance – un animal d’une telle force qui n’est pris que par la queue serait très bien en état de se défendre tout seul17 – Chrétien de Troyes a choisi celui-ci. Visiblement, la gravité de la situation et 15 Éd. citée: (1978); trad. citée: (1990). 16 Éd., 102, vv. 3344–47: ‘Il vit, dans une clairière, un lion aux prises avec un serpent qui le tenait par la

queue et qui lui brûlait les flancs d’une flamme ardente’ (199). 17 Et les miniaturistes médiévaux offrent, en effet, d’autres prises de vue, comme celle où le serpent

s’enroule autour du corps du lion pour l’empêcher de se défendre lui-même, v. supra et Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes (1993) II, fig. 315 (Paris, BNF, fr. 1433, f. 85).

54




la double lutte entre le Bien et le Mal qui se livre non seulement sur les lieux du combat, mais encore à l’intérieur d’Yvain, est atténuée par ce clin d’œil ironique qui introduit le lion comme un lutteur passablement maladroit et comme paralysé par cet adversaire diabolique qui crache du feu. Je ne veux nullement mettre en question la portée hautement symbolique de cette scène, mais souligner que – du moins à un premier niveau de lecture – ce lion pris par la queue à un côté indéniablement ridicule. Cet effet comique est renforcé par les vers suivants, où Yvain, qui a bien entendu opté pour la défense du Bien représenté par ‘la beste gentil et franche’ (103, v. 3371), se voit forcé, pour séparer les deux lutteurs, de couper une partie de la queue du lion: Mes il li covient une piece tranchier de la coe au lïon por la teste au serpant felon qui par la coe le tenoit; tant con tranchier an covenoit en trancha, c’onques moins ne pot.18

Surtout la fin du dernier vers cité, ‘onques moins ne pot’, nullement nécessaire à la compréhension de l’action, crée de nouveau une ambiance de soulagement comique. Même la scène de vasselage qui s’ensuit n’est pas exempte de tels éléments: quittant une nouvelle fois le domaine de la vraisemblance – Chrétien et son public, pour approximatives que soient leurs connaissances biologiques en matière léonine,19 savaient très bien qu’un lion ne pouvait joindre ses pattes de devant et s’agenouiller et que les animaux ne pleurent pas. L’effet parodique de cette scène de soumission pseudo-féodale d’un animal à un chevalier en quête de sa dignité perdue ne lui a certainement pas échappé: que ses piez joinz li estandoit et vers terre encline sa chiere; si s’estut sor ses piez derriere et puis si se ragenoilloit, et tote sa face moilloit de lermes, par humilité.20

Une troisième étincelle comique du même genre luit dans le récit de la chasse 18 Éd. 103, vv. 3378–3383: ‘Mais il fut obligé de couper un bout de la queue du lion parce que la tête du

serpent perfide y était accrochée. Il en trancha donc ce qu’il fallut: il lui était impossible d’en prendre moins’ (200). 19 V. surtout A. von den Driesch et Gerd Althoff in Die Romane von dem Ritter mit dem Löwen (1994); ainsi que M. Rousse, dans sa traduction d’Yvain (1990), figs. 1–3, après 224. 20 Éd. 103s., vv. 3392–3397: ‘Il tendait vers lui ses pattes jointes, et inclinait à terre son visage. Il se dressait sur ses pattes arrière, et s’agenouillait ensuite, tout en baignant humblement sa face de larmes’ (201).

55



ANGELICA RIEGER

au chevreuil, lorsque le lion, après avoir sagement attendu l’autorisation de son seigneur pour poursuivre et tuer sa proie, se charge d’elle comme un braconnier: Qant ocis l’ot, si le gita sor son dos, et si l’en porta tant que devant son seignor vint.21

2. La tentative de suicide du lion Penchons-nous maintenant sur la scène du suicide manqué et les réactions du lion croyant son seigneur mort, alors que celui-ci s’est seulement blessé au cou: Li lÿons cuide mort veoir son conpaignon et son seignor; einz de rien n’ot ire graignor qu’il comança tel duel a fere, n’oï tel conter ne retrere, qu’il se detuert et grate et crie.22

Tout en offrant les signes extérieurs d’un deuil conventionnel, le lion s’empare de l’objet apparemment coupable de la mort de son seigneur pour l’employer à suivre celui-ci dans la mort: et s’a talant que il s’ocie de l’espee, qu’il li est vis qui ait son boen seignor ocis.23

Et maintenant, il faut voir comment le lion, qui auparavant n’avait aucune difficulté pour joindre ses deux pattes de devant, est incapable de s’en servir pour retirer cette épée du cou d’Yvain et obligé de se servir de ses dents pour cette opération délicate, ‘A ses danz l’espee li oste’ (ibid., v. 3509). Un spectateur non initié au spectacle pourrait bien conclure de cette position de bête sauvage juchée sur sa proie que le lion s’apprête à dépécer son seigneur plutôt que de le suivre dans la mort.24 En conjurant la peur ressentie face à cette bête sauvage, ce parallélisme grotesque a dû avoir un effet de détente semblable que l’Yvain-coupe-queue de l‘épisode précédent. La description de la tentative de suicide qui s’ensuit, prendra 21 Éd. 105, vv. 3445–3447: ‘Quand il l’eut tué, il le jeta sur son dos et alla le porter aux pieds de son

maître’ (203). 22 Éd. 107, vv. 3500–3505: ‘Le lion crut voir mort son compagnon et son maître. Jamais vous n’avez

entendu retracer une douleur plus grande que celle qu’il commença à manifester. Il se tord de désespoir, se griffe, crie’ (206). 23 Éd. 107, vv. 3506–3508: ‘Il veut se tuer de l’épée même qui, croit-il, a causé la mort de son bon maître’ (206). 24 V. p. ex. le lion en action à la défense de Lunete, Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes (1993) II, fig. 316 (Paris, BNF, fr. 1433, f. 90).

56




définitivement des allures de bande dessinée ou, plus exactement, de dessin animé: le lion coince l’épée sous un tronc d’arbre et prend son élan pour s’y jeter en pleine course ‘comme un sanglier furieux’: et sor un fust gisant l’acoste et derriers a un tronc l’apuie qu’il a peor qu’el ne s’an fuie qant il i hurtera del piz. Ja fust ses voloirs aconpliz quant cil de pasmeisons revint; et li lÿons son cors retint qui a la mort toz escorsez coroit come pors forsenez qui ne prant garde ou il se fiere.25

Personne ne niera le comique de ce ‘galop de cochon’ et du brusque freinage du lion qui s’aperçoit au dernier moment que son seigneur est encore en vie. Mais tout lecteur d’Yvain a dû aussi buter contre la collision violente du tragique et du comique dans cette scène du suicide manqué. Évidemment, la scène, tragique en son fond, peut être lue comme le dédoublement et renforcement du désespoir d’Yvain par celui du lion; de même, la tentative de suicide du lion dédouble et préfigure les projets de suicide (également avortés) d’Yvain qui se réfère explicitement à son compagnon: Donc n’ai je ce lÿon veü qui por moi a si grant duel fet qu’il se volt m’espee antreset par mi le cors el piz boter?26

Par contre, pour apprécier sa dimension comique, il suffit de se la représenter en bande dessinée ou dessin animé, avec le lion désespéré accourant à toute vitesse et freinant, les pattes en avant, à quelques millimètres de la pointe de l’épée, dans un tourbillon de poussière. Cette double lecture révèle une nouvelle fois le sens de l’humour de Chrétien de Troyes très particulier évoqué au début: souvent lié au tragique, c’est un humour macabre où le rire ne sert souvent que de soulagement – provisoire – à un désespoir autrement insoutenable.

25 Éd. 107, vv. 3510–3519: ‘[Il] l’appuie sur un tronc qui était couché là; il cale l’autre bout contre un

arbre pour l’empêcher de dévier ou de glisser quand sa poitirne le heurtera. Il était sur le point d’accomplir son dessein, quand Yvain sortit de son évanouissement. Le lion arrêta sa course, au moment même où, en plein élan, il se lançait vers la mort, tel un sanglier furieux qui ne prend garde où il fonce’ (206). 26 Éd. 108, vv. 3542–3545: ‘N’ai-je pas vu ce lion plongé à cause de moi dans un si profond désespoir qu’il voulait sans délai se planter l’épée dans le corps?’ (207s.).

57



ANGELICA RIEGER

3. L’intervention du lion dans le combat d’Yvain contre Harpin de la Montaigne Il est possible que le parallélisme qui lie les trois interventions successives du lion dans les combats d’Yvain avec les interventions d’Énide dans Erec – sûrement goûté par le public de Chrétien de Troyes comme preuve de raffinement suprême27 – ait suffi à lui seul à faire sourire. Mais l’auteur d’Yvain n’en reste pas là: Il fait de ces interventions de brusques irruptions qui surprennent et désarment telles les apparitions de Superman dans une bande dessinée moderne. Le lion, mué en bête redoutable, hérissée et grandie outre mesure, entrave la défense d’intervention de son seigneur et se jette dans le combat pour déchiqueter son adversaire: A ce cop, li lÿons se creste, de son seignor eidier s’apreste, et saut par ire, et par grant force s’aert, et fant con une escorce, sor le jaiant, la pel velue, si que desoz li a tolue une grant piece de la hanche.28

Le géant blessé, cherchant à se défendre, se trouve tout d’un coup dans un tour de slapstick authentique: et li jaianz li est estors, si bret et crie come tors, que molt l’a li lÿons grevé; le pel a a deus mains levé et cuide ferir, mes il faut, car li lÿons en travers saut, si pert son cop et cheit en vain par delez mon seignor Yvain que l’un ne l’autre n’adesa.29

Tombé aux pieds d’Yvain, celui-ci n’a plus qu’à lui administrer le coup de grâce: Et mes sire Yvains antesa si a deus cos entrelardez. Einz que cil se fust regardez 27 V. D. Rieger (1994), 264s., et A. Gier (1985). 28 Éd. 128s., vv. 4213–4219: ‘A ce coup le lion se hérisse et se prépare à venir au secours de son maître;

emporté par la fureur, il bondit, s’accroche au géant et fend comme il le ferait d’une écorce la peau velue qu’il porte sur lui; sous la peau, il arrache un grand moreau de la hanche’ (239). 29 Éd. 129, vv. 4221–4229: ‘Le géant se dégage vivement; il mugit et crie comme un taureau, car le lion l’a sérieusement blessé. Il lève à deux mains son épieu et veut frapper, mais il manque son coup: le lion a fait un bond en arrière. Le coup se perd et tombe près de Monseigneur Yvain, sans atteindre personne’ (240).

58




li ot, au tranchant de s’espee, l’espaule del bu dessevree; a l’autre cop, soz la memele, li bota tote l’alemele de s’espee par mi le foie; li jaianz chiet, la morz l’asproie.30

Cette prouesse le poussera à se choisir son surnom: li Chevaliers au lÿon vos dis que je avoie non.31

4. Le lion blessé lors du combat pour Lunete La deuxième intervention du lion se déroule de manière presque identique que la première, les combattants se mettent d’accord pour exclure le lion du combat, mais lorsque celui-ci voit son seigneur menacé, il accourt pour le secourir: Et li lÿons qui ce esgarde de lui aidier plus ne se tarde, que mestiers li est, ce li sanble.32

Et avec la même rapidité que la première fois, il met l’armure de son adversaire en pièces en faisant voleter les mailles: Et li lÿons li fet aïe tel qu’a la premiere envaïe a de si grant aïr feru le seneschal, qui a pié fu; ausi con se ce fussent pailles fet del hauberc voler les mailles, et contre val si fort le sache que de l’espaule li arache le tanrun a tot le costé.33

La seule différence est que cette fois-ci, le lion est blessé et doit quitter le lieu du combat couché dans l’écu de son maître:

30 Éd. 129, vv. 4229–4241: ‘Monseigneur Yvain leva son épée et lui fourra deux coups au corps. Avant

que l’autre ait pu se mettre en garde, il lui avait du tranchant de l’épée séparé l’épaule du buste. Au second coup, il l’atteignit sous la mamelle droite et lui plongea toute la lame de l’épée dans le foie. Le géant s’effondre en proie aux affres de la mort’ (240). 31 Éd. 131, vv. 4285s.: ‘Je vous ai dit que mon nom était le Chevalier au Lion’ (242). 32 Éd. 137, vv. 4503–4505: ‘Le lion qui observe le combat, n’attend plus pour venir à l’aide de son maître, qui, lui semble-t-il, en a bien besoin’ (253). 33 Éd. 138, vv. 4515–4523: ‘Le lion court à son aide et se jette avec tant d’impétuosité sur le sénéchal, qui était à pied, qu’il fait voler comme fétus de paille, les mailles de son haubert. Il s’agrippe et tire si fort qu’il lui disloque l’épaule et lui emporte le cartilage avec les muscles’ (254).

59



ANGELICA RIEGER

Si s’an vet pansis et destroiz por son lÿon qu’il li estuet porter que siudre ne le puet. En son escu li fet litiere de la mosse et de la fouchiere; quant il li ot feite sa couche au plus soef qu’il puet le couche, si l’en porte tot estandu dedanz l’envers de son escu.34

Ainsi, avec ces précautions touchantes d’Yvain pour son lion, ils repartent, de même que la première fois, en laissant leur ‘carte de visite’: ja del Chevalier au lÿon n’orroiz parler se de moi non: par cest non vuel que l’en m’apiaut.35

5. Le combat contre les deux ‘fils de diable’ A la troisième intervention, le lion se transforme, encore plus que les deux premières fois, en monstre terrifiant: Le lyeons comance a fremir tot maintenant que il les voit, qu’il set molt bien et aparçoit que a ces armes que il tienent conbatre a son seignor se vienent; si se herice et creste ansanble, de hardemant et d’ire tranble et bat la terre de sa coe.36

Mais, enfermé dans sa prison improvisée, le lion, battant la terre – autre détail comique en rapport avec la queue du lion si maltraitée dans sa première aventure – de sa queue comme un chien de chasse avant d’être relâché pour bondir sur sa proie, est condamné à la passivité jusqu’au moment où il trouve un moyen de s’en échapper: comme un chien37 – ou plutôt un lapin – il creuse le sol en-dessous de la porte:

34 Éd. 141s., vv. 4646–4554: ‘[Il] s’en va triste et inquiet à cause de son lion qu’il lui faut porter, car il est

incapable de le suivre. Dans son écu, il lui fait un lit de mousse et de fougère. La couche faite, il l’y dépose le plus doucement possible, et l’emporte tout étendu au creux de son écu’ (260s.). 35 Éd. 140, vv. 4607–4609: ‘Toutes les fois que vous entendrez parler du Chevalier au Lion, il s’agira de moi. C’est ainsi que je veux être appelé’ (258). 36 Éd. 168, vv. 5520–5527: ‘Dès qu’il les aperçoit, le lion commence à frémir, car à voir les armes qu’ils brandissent, il comprend fort bien qu’ils viennent attaquer son maître. Son poil se hérisse, sa crinière se dresse, le désir de combattre et la fureur le font trembler; il bat la terre de sa queue’ (301). 37 Il n’est pas certain que ce double renvoi à un comportement typiquement canin ait fait sourire le public médiéval; le comique de la situation se révèle davantage au lecteur moderne instruit des différences de comportement entre les espèces féline et canine.

60




Bien ot les cos de la bataille, qui perilleuse est et vilainne, et por ce si grant duel demainne qu’il anrage vis et forsene. Tant vet cerchant que il asene au suil, qui porrisoit pres terre, et tant qu’il l’arache et s’i serre et fiche jusque pres des rains.38

Une fois en liberté, le lion reprend sa course forcénée des deux premières interventions vers le lieu du combat pour y semer la terreur, tuer le premier des deux adversaires de son maître et livrer le second à la mort par l’épée d‘Yvain: [. . .] li lÿons oltre s’an vint, tant ot desoz le suel graté [. . .] Et si avoit graignor peor del lyeon que de son seignor.39

Cette peur est pleinement justifiée et à la fin du combat – véritable miracle de teamwork d’Yvain et de son lion, digne d’un de ces grands numéros de cascadeurs si chers au dessin animé –, le géant survivant n’a plus qu’à se rendre en suppliant Yvain: ‘Ostez vostre lyeon, biax sire’ (173, v. 5670). 6. L’introduction du lion à la cour du roi Arthur La dernière aventure du lion d’Yvain, son arrivée à la cour du roi Arthur, est certes, la récompense et le couronnement de leurs aventures communes, mais, une fois de plus, le comique, lui aussi, a sa place dans cette apothéose. A sa vue, les meilleurs chevaliers du monde prennent la fuite en hurlant et s’exposent ainsi au ridicule: Et que que il s’antrebeisoient, le lÿon corrant venir voient qui son seignor querant aloit. Tot maintenant que il le voit, si comance grant joie a feire; lors veïssiez genz arriers treire; trestoz li plus hardiz s’an fuit.40 38 Éd. 170s., vv. 5600–5607: ‘Il entend les coups qui s’échangent dans ce combat périlleux et déloyal. Il

en éprouve une telle douleur qu’une colère folle l’envahit et le fait enrager vif. A force de fouiller, il avise le seuil que la pourriture gagnait près du sol. Il fait tant de ses griffes qu’il peut s’y glisser et passer le corps jusqu’aux reins’ (304s.). 39 Éd. 171, vv. 5622s. et 172, vv. 5641s.: ‘Le lion à force de gratter sous le seuil, réussit à passer. [. . .] [le géant survivant] craignait encore plus le lion que son maître’ (305s.). 40 Éd. 196, vv. 6449–6455: ‘Tandis qu’ils se désarmaient, ils virent arriver en courant le lion qui était à la recherche de son maître. Aussitôt qu’il l’aperçoit, il commence à lui faire fête. Alors vous auriez vu tous les gens refluer; même les plus hardis prennent la fuite’ (345).

61



ANGELICA RIEGER

Il est peu probable qu’un public médiéval, admirateur des prouesses de cette élite de chevaliers accomplis – ‘li boen chevalier esleü’ (2, v. 40), comme Chrétien les appelle lui-même au début du roman – et parfaitement au courant de la docilité de l’animal ait pu s’empêcher de se moquer – ne serait-ce qu’un peu – de ses héros que le ridicule rend aussi plus humains et qu’Yvain doit rassurer du mot célèbre: de ce, s’il vos plest, me creez, qu’il est a moi, et je a lui; si somes conpaignon andui.41

Et comme notre héros de bande dessinée ne peut pas avoir le dernier mot, il a droit à une derniere course: et li lyeons ne vint pas lant vers son seignor la ou il sist. Quant devant lui vint, si li fist grant joie, come beste mue.42

Cette course folle m’ayant amenée à ma conclusion, je tiens à souligner encore une fois qu’il faut considérer cette lecture volontairement partielle et partiale de l’histoire du lion d’Yvain comme bande dessinée avec précaution. Que l’on ne s’y méprenne surtout pas: cette lecture sélective qui vise uniquement les ‘paillettes de comique’ dont Chrétien de Troyes parsème son récit et les parallèles entre ce dernier et les techniques de la bande dessinée, ne cherche nullement à réduire l’œuvre entière à ce niveau-là. Elle veut seulement montrer que, de même qu’un public médiéval pouvait trouver des côtés comiques aux aventures et mésaventures d’Yvain et de son lion, il est tout à fait permis au lecteur moderne d’en découvrir lui aussi (même si ce ne sont peut-être pas tout à fait les mêmes): Chrétien fournissant les instructions pour la mise en images de l’histoire du lion, il lui suffira de laisser ces images passer en revue devant son oeil intérieur pour se créer sa propre bande dessinée.

OUVRAGES CITÉS

A. Textes Chrétien de Troyes, Le chevalier au lion (Yvain), intr. et trad. par Mario Roques (Les romans de Chrétien de Troyes 4), Les Classiques du Moyen Age 89, Paris: Honoré Champion 1978. Chrestien de Troyes, Yvain, trad. et intr. par Ilse Nolting-Hauff, Klassische 41 Éd. 196s., vv. 6460–6462: ‘Faites-moi confiance, s’il vous plaît; car il m’appartient et je lui appartiens:

nous sommes compagnons tous deux’ (345). 42 Éd. 197, vv. 6484–6487: ‘Et le lion s’élance vers son maître, là où il était assis. Une fois devant lui, il lui

fit toutes les démonstrations de joie auxquelles une bête privée de parole peut se livrer’ (346).

62




Texte des Romanischen Mittelalters in zweisprachigen Ausgaben 2, München: Wilhelm Fink 1983. Chrétien de Troyes, Le chevalier au lion, trad. et intr. par Michel Rousse, Paris: GF – Flammarion 1990. Chrétien de Troyes, El caballero del León, trad. et intr. par Isabel de Riquer, Madrid: El libro de Bolsillo/ Alianza Editorial 1988.

B. Critique Althoff, Gerd, ‘Löwen als Begleitung und Bezeichnung des Herrschers im Mittelalter’, in Die Romane von dem Ritter mit dem Löwen 1994, 119–134. Dreisch, Angela von den, ‘Das Verhältnis Mensch-Löwe aus der Sicht einer Archäozoologin’, in Die Romane von dem Ritter mit dem Löwen 1994, 5–20. Dubuis, Roger, ‘Du bon usage du “double” et du “dédoublement” dans Le chevalier au lion de Chrétien de Troyes’, in Doubles et dédoublement en littérature, éd. par Gabriel-A. Pérouse, Saint-Étienne: Publications de l’Unversité de Saint-Étienne/ Groupe Renaissance – Université Lumière – Lyon 2 1995, 15–25. Edeline, Francis, ‘Le Roi Arthur et la sémiotique visuelle’, in Text and Visuality. Word & Image Interactions 3, éd. par Martin Heusser et al., Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi 1999, 207–217. Fresnault-Deruelle, Pierre, ‘Aspects de la Bande Dessinée en France’, in Comics and Visual Culture. Research Studies from ten Countries/ La Bande Dessinée et la culture visuelle. Traveaux de recherche réalisés dans dix pays, éd. par Alphons Silbermann et H.-D. Dyroff, München et al.: K.G. Saur 1986, 62–78. Fresnault-Deruelle, Pierre, ‘Du linéaire au tabulaire’, Communications 24 (La bande dessinée et son discours) (1976), 7–23. Gaunt, Simon, Troubadours and Irony, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1989. Gier, Albert, ‘Leo est femina. Yvain, Enide und der Löwe’, in Mittelalterbilder aus neuer Perspektive. Diskussionsanstöße zu ‘amour courtois’, Subjektivität in der Dichtung und Strategien des Erzählens, éd. par Ernstpeter Ruhe und Rudolf Behrens, Beiträge zur romanischen Philologie des Mittelalters 14, München: Finck 1985, 269–288. La Grande Encyclopédie Larousse, vol. 3, Paris: Libraire Larousse 1972. Groensteen, Thierry, La bande dessinée en France. Considérations sur un art populaire et méconnu, Paris: Ministère des Affaires étrangères – adpf/CNBDI 1998. Haidu, Peter, Aesthetic Distance in Chrétien de Troyes: Irony and Comedy in ‘Cligès’ and ‘Perceval’, Genève: Droz 1968. Haidu, Peter, Lion-queue-coupée, Genève: Droz 1972. 63



ANGELICA RIEGER

Hofer, Stefan, Chrétien de Troyes. Leben und Werke des altfranzösischen Epikers, Graz/Köln: Hermann Böhlau 1954. Kellermann, Karina, ‘Verkehrte Rituale. Subversion, Irritation und Lachen im höfischen Kontext’, in Komische Gegenwelten (1999), 29–46. Komische Gegenwelten. Lachen und Literatur in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit, éd. par Werner Röcke et Helga Neumann, Paderborn et al.: Schöningh 1999. Les Manuscrits de Chrétien de Troyes: The Manuscripts of Chrétien de Troyes (2 vols.), éd. par Keith Busby, Terry Nixon, Alison Stones et Lori Walters, Amsterdam/Atlanta GA: Rodopi 1993 [1994]. Méla, Charles, La reine et le Graal, Paris: Seuil 1983. The New Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 3, Chicago et al: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 1994. Nilgen, Ursula, ‘Historischer Schriftsinn und ironische Weltbetrachtung. Buchmalerei im frühen Cîteaux und der Stein des Anstoßes’, in Bernhard von Clairvaux. Rezeption und Wirkung im Mittelalter und in der Neuzeit, éd. par Kaspar Elm, Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien 6, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1994, 67–140. Die Romane von dem Ritter mit dem Löwen, éd. par Xenja von Ertzdorff, Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi 1994. Rieger, Angelica, ‘ “En esto sigo la antigua usanza de los andantes caballeros”. Zur Rezeption der Geschichte des Ritters mit dem Löwen bei Cervantes’, in Die Romane von dem Ritter mit dem Löwen, 1994, 419–449. Rieger, Angelica, ‘Ins e·l cor port, dona, vostra faisso – Image et imaginaire de la femme à travers l’enluminure dans les chansonniers de troubadours’, Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 28 (1985), 385–415. Rieger, Dietmar, ‘ “Il est à moi et je a lui”. Yvains Löwe – ein Zeichen und seine Deutung’, in Die Romane von dem Ritter mit dem Löwen, 1994, 245–285. Röcke, Werner, ‘Inszenierungen des Lachens in Literatur und Kultur des Mittelalters’, in Paragrana. Internationale Zeitschrift für historische Anthropologie 7 (Kulturen des Performativen, éd. par Erika Fischer-Lichte et Doris Kolesch) (1998), 73–93. Teuber, Bernhard, ‘Vom mittelalterlichen zum frühneuzeitlichen Lachen? Das Fabliau des französischen Mittelalters und Rabelais’ komischer Roman’, in Komische Gegenwelten (1999), 237–249. Watanabe, Kôji, ‘La structure du Chevalier au lion (Yvain) et l’ironie de Chrétien de Troyes’, Nagoya Studies in Humanities 22 (1993), 51–73 et 23 (1994), 55–76 (en japonais). The World Encyclopedia of Comics, éd. par Maurice Horn, 2 vols., New York: Chelsea House Publishers 1976.

64



CONVENTION, COMEDY AND LA VENGEANCE RAGUIDEL

IV

CONVENTION, COMEDY, AND THE FORM OF LA VENGEANCE RAGUIDEL Norris J. Lacy La Vengeance Raguidel, by Raoul,1 is doubtless remembered best – by readers who know it at all – for its inclusion of a fabliau-like scene that, as Beate Schmolke-Hasselmann points out, ‘is generally regarded as the most improper in the whole of French Arthurian literature.’2 That the romance is otherwise not widely known may be due in part to dismissive judgments from past generations of scholars. Micha, for example, suggested that it lacks unity,3 and long before that Bruce had found it a ‘rambling’ composition, inferior in interest to Meraugis de Portlesguez – no mild criticism since he considered Meraugis poorly constructed, extravagant, and often insipid.4 Fortunately arrayed against these condemnations are the views of a number of more recent scholars (e.g., Schmolke-Hasselmann, Busby, Pallemans, Thompson, and others5) who have praised La Vengeance Raguidel as a fasci1

2

3

4

5

The edition is Mathias Friedwagner, ed., La Vengeance Raguidel (Halle: Niemeyer, 1909). A later critical edition was prepared by Edward Wilson as a 1967 doctoral dissertation (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), but it apparently remains unpublished. Gilles Roussineau is currently re-editing the romance. The question of authorship – that is, whether the Raoul who names himself in the text is the same as Raoul de Houdenc (author of Meraugis de Portlesguez) – is not entirely settled. I earlier expressed reasonable confidence that they were the same; I am no longer so sure. However, both views are highly speculative. See my ‘Meraugis de Portlesguez: Narrative Method and Female Presence,’ in Miscellanea Mediaevalia: Mélanges offerts à Philippe Ménard, ed. J. Claude Faucon, Alain Labbé and Danielle Quéruel (Paris: Champion, 1998), II, 817–25, here citing 817. Beate Schmolke-Hasselmann, Der arthurische Versroman von Chrestien bis Froissart (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1980), p. 113, n. 337. The English citation is from the translation of her book by Margaret and Roger Middleton, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance: The Verse Tradition from Chrétien to Froissart (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), p. 138, n. 41. Alexandre Micha, ‘Miscellaneous French Romances in Verse,’ in Roger Sherman Loomis, ed., Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1959), p. 365. Micha adds that the author ‘. . . introduces details which slow down the action, repeats what has already been said . . ., and overworks the motif of an incognito.’ James Douglas Bruce, The Evolution of Arthurian Romance (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1923; 2nd edn 1928), II, 208, 214. Oddly, though, Bruce goes on to suggest that Meraugis is nonetheless ‘one of the best of the Arthurian romances, outside of Chrétien’ (II, 208). Schmolke-Hasselmann, pp. 106–15; Keith Busby, Gauvain in Old French Literature (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1980), pp. 272–94; Geert Steven Pallemans, ‘Parody and Renewal in “La Vengeance

65



NORRIS J. LACY

nating study of Gauvain and/or as an appealing parody of romance themes and motifs. In fact, the composition is distinguished by the author’s unremitting manipulation of familiar Arthurian motifs, which he regularly transforms in novel ways, often for humorous effect. The most innovative of these changes occurs near the midpoint of the text, when the character of the protagonist, Gauvain, is abruptly inverted and he becomes everything that experienced readers of French Arthurian romance expect him not to be. As the subjects of the preceding paragraphs suggest, the present essay has to some extent a dual focus, dealing both with character and humor on one hand and with narrative form on the other. Whereas some scholars have criticized the structure of the romance and others have defended its themes and its narrator’s intent, I will argue that those subjects, though ostensibly distinct, are in fact very closely linked in La Vengeance Raguidel. Indeed, theme and form are intimately connected in most, perhaps all, romances,6 and I would suggest that condemnations of literary structure very often have their origin in misapprehensions of thematic content and meaning.7 In the case of the Raguidel, a proper redefinition of the text’s humor and of the narrator’s distinctive treatment of character and convention is essential, not only to an understanding of the spirit of the work, but also to an appraisal of its composition. As we will see, the presumed interpolations into the romance are far from ‘miscellaneous’ and pointless. That is not to deny that they are in fact distractions that defer the accomplishment of Gauvain’s quest, but, as Schmolke-Hasselmann remarks (p. 107), deferral seems to be precisely what he seeks. Moreover, these episodes offer some of the Raguidel’s most appealing illustrations of character and examples of humor. Their presence, their content, and their function are thus justified as further elaborations of themes crucial to the romancer’s conception and the reader’s comprehension. It is clear from the very first scene that this composition is likely to prove ‘recht ungewöhnlich’ (Schmolke-Hasselmann, p. 106), peculiar in various ways. We have no time to settle into the text before encountering the first of many narrative shocks. The opening lines, like those of many another romance, note that it is custom in Arthur’s court that no one will sit down at

6

7

Raguidel” ’ (diss. Florida State U, 1993). Raymond H. Thompson, ‘ “Fors del sens”: Humour and Irony in Raoul de Houdenc’s La Vengeance Raguidel,’ Thalia: Studies in Literary Humor (1979), 25–29. The notion that form and theme are interconnected is of course hardly new. I myself have implicitly developed the same contention in previous articles, including one with a title that bears an intentional resemblance to that of the present study. See my ‘Jealousy, Fidelity, and Form in the Livre de Caradoc,’ in Philologies Old and New: Essays in Honor of Peter Florian Dembowski, ed. Joan Tasker Grimbert and Carol J. Chase (Princeton, 2001), 281–89. I do not intend these remarks as a condemnation of Bruce or of any other scholar. It is both easy and misguided – and a temptation not resisted by everyone – to express ‘indignation at the foolishness of our predecessors,’ as Peter Dembowski puts it (‘The Philological Legacy of Erich Auerbach,’ RPh 52.1 [Fall 1998], 90). If we criticize Bruce for not perceiving the balance, beauty, and appeal of a good many romances (see Bruce I, v and passim), scholars of future generations will doubtless condemn us for ascribing those qualities to many texts in which they do not locate them.

66




table until some adventure or marvel occurs (vss. 20–21). Writing previously about this ubiquitous custom, I suggested that ‘. . . it is in a complex but precise sense the convention that generates the event, the knights’ expectation of an adventure that provokes the adventure. In the world of romance, waiting produces Godot.’8 In other words, we routinely expect a text that invokes this custom to turn promptly to the narration of an ensuing adventure. But the Vengeance Raguidel offers one of the rare and striking exceptions to that rule. Here, nothing happens. Yet, his custom requires that the king abstain from eating, and he will not violate custom or romance tradition. He urges the other knights to begin their dinner without him, but they all refuse. This static situation persists until Gauvain enters the hall and the king asks him to begin eating. No slave to custom, Gauvain replies, ‘Sire, mult volentiers’ (vs. 73) and obeys without hesitation.9 The others, except Arthur, then follow his lead. This passage provokes several observations. Gauvain’s response is of course significant as an initial elucidation of his character, recognizable from other French texts but carried to often humorous extremes in this romance. In addition, the opening establishes one of the recurring themes of the romance, a preoccupation with food. And especially, the passage sets the course for this text’s unconventional treatment of convention.10 Gauvain is instantly obedient to his sovereign even as he contravenes a venerable custom of the king’s court. Arthur, on the other hand, fasts in order to preserve his dignity, we are told (vss. 42–48), and well into the night he remains sleepless and tormented (not to mention hungry). The notions of delay and postponement, along with their opposite, impetuous haste, will be crafted into a major theme and structure of the romance and refracted through a variety of narrative prisms. In particular, the narrator will develop the contrast between eagerness and frivolity in chivalric terms and between constancy and faithlessness in love – on the part of other characters, of women in general, and of Gauvain in particular. During the night, the adventure finally begins, when a ship arrives carrying 8

‘On Customs in Medieval French Romance,’ forthcoming in Dix siècles de littérature française (Liège: Marche Romane). 9 The fact that fasting produces nothing may imply – correctly, as it turns out – that food will play a significant role in this text. It is notable that, in Chrétien’s last romance, when Gauvain himself is ‘victim’ of the Custom of the Castle (prevented from leaving until he is defeated by another knight), he expresses his dissatisfaction with this custom by refusing to eat. The relation of food to chivalric and other crises merits more detailed investigation than it has received, particularly since food appears, in the thirteenth century, to assume an importance beyond its role in feasting and social intercourse. I have previously written about the Middle Dutch Walewein, in which the eponymous hero (= Gauvain), preparing to meet an entire army, pauses first simply to eat a full breakfast, for reasons unexplained. (See my ‘Convention and Innovation in the Middle Dutch Walewein,’ Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse taal- en letterkunde 111, no. 4 [1995], 318–19.) The importance of food may be linked most closely to Gauvain, but by no means exclusively to him: Perceval himself may offer the most dramatic example of the connection of eating with chivalry and (non)courtliness, when, in the Tent Episode of Perceval, he not only steals a kiss but devours pastries that are not his. See Chrétien de Troyes, Le Roman de Perceval ou le Conte du Graal, ed. Keith Busby (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1993), vss. 635ff. 10 In addition, the scene is notable because, by inverting or contravening custom, Gauvain appears to open the way for further adventures.

67



NORRIS J. LACY

Raguidel’s corpse, with rings on its fingers and with the stump of a lance still piercing it. There follows an odd reflection of the Sword in the Stone motif. With the body is a letter announcing that the piece of lance is magical and that only the knight who can withdraw it will be able to avenge Raguidel’s death; furthermore, the murderer can be killed only with his own weapon. Kay, predictably, tries his hand at this – and also his foot, which he places on the corpse for greater leverage – and then other knights take their turn (vss. 208–70) before Gauvain finally succeeds. But this episode incorporates a double test and identifies dual heroes: vengeance will require both Gauvain’s efforts and those of a knight who can remove the rings from the corpse’s fingers. The latter task is accomplished by Yder, who then leaves without being recognized or named. Gauvain, throughout the romance, appears to be largely intent on playing the role of Gauvain, frequently even outdoing the character we know from other French texts. Here, given the opportunity to accomplish a task for which he has been chosen, he charges off with typically reckless abandon, even though (1) he has no idea where the corpse came from, (2) he does not know who Yder is or how to find him, and, especially, (3) his haste has made him forget the lance that he needs in order to complete his mission (see 534–49). The beginning, in other words, is not auspicious. It is, however, quintessentially ‘gauvainesque.’ His impetuousness is matched only by his inconstancy: of the Round Table knights, Gauvain demonstrates the greatest valor but possesses the shortest attention span. He quickly embraces causes – and women – and promptly forgets both. Thus, although Gauvain sets out without delay, once on his way his impatience disappears, and he even appears (as noted above) to seek delay, taking lodging where he can expect to linger. He has a great many adventures before finally, some 3000 lines later, realizing that he has forgotten to bring along the lance he will need to defeat the killer.11 He eventually returns to court and eventually departs again, this time taking the lance with him, but he encounters other distracting adventures before he has the opportunity to exact vengeance. When that opportunity finally comes, he meets Raguidel’s mistress, who has taken the romance’s inversion of motifs to its logical and literal conclusion, wearing her clothing inside out and riding backward on her horse (vss. 4982–6003). She describes this conspicuous practice as her penance: she has chosen to dress and ride that way until her former lover is avenged by Gauvain. Without recognizing the knight before her, she adds that this

11 Keu plays a prominent role in this work. He is his traditional taunting self, and he fails at both chivalric

and amorous endeavors. (It will be noted later that his lady failed the chastity test more miserably than any other.) Pure comedy resides in the fact that on one occasion Gauvain assumes the identity of Keu; see below, n. 17.

68




penance has lasted far too long, since Gauvain is exceedingly slow to do his duty (vss. 5312–13).12 In fact, Yder, whose help Gauvain was to require in order to defeat the murderer, has been waiting there for some time. Yder, though an essential participant in the events recounted, is paradoxically an exceedingly minor figure in the narration itself. We see him briefly at the beginning and for a somewhat longer time at the end, but we never hear of his progress from court to the land where vengeance will be taken. We must suppose that he makes his way quickly, directly, and uneventfully to his destination and that he simply waits there. Here may be a subtle and unusual reflection of Chrétien de Troyes’s predilection for pairing heroes, using one as a model, positive or negative, against which the comportment of the other can be measured. Yder’s single-minded purposefulness is ideal but narratively unproductive. Ostensibly, Gauvain should have behaved similarly, seeking to do his duty promptly, resisting distraction and thereby shortening the lady’s penance. Had he done so, the resulting text would have been orderly and exceedingly brief, but it would also be lacking in the complications and the diversity of detail that enliven it and make it into a remarkable study of Gauvain’s character. Doubtless stung by the remonstrance of Raguidel’s former mistress, Gauvain reverts to his initial behavior, impulsively attacking the enemy with the help neither of the requisite broken lance nor of Yder (vss. 5418ff.). There is cutting irony (and satisfying symmetry) in Gauvain’s forgetting the lance in the first place and then rushing into battle without it when it is at hand. Wounded and with his horse killed, he finally decides to make use of the broken lance, and the irony is compounded when, contrary to textual prediction, he cannot defeat his opponent even with that. Eventually, they do battle again, his adversary having suggested that they both use conventional, not magical, weapons. Only then is Gauvain victorious. In other words, he succeeds only when things are done on his own customary terms, when the game is played by his rules. Framed between Gauvain’s decision to avenge Raguidel’s death and the eventual accomplishment of that vengeance, there stand the ‘interpolated’ episodes, occupying almost two-thirds of the entire romance, that sponsored some of the objections, from Bruce, Micha, and others, concerning the apparent disunity of the Vengeance Raguidel. One portion of this large section consists of paired episodes that mirror each other and that involve characters who seek Gauvain’s death. These episodes are, in fact, two parts of the same story, told from different points of view. Both develop the themes of feminine inconstancy, masculine frivolity, and the treachery of both sexes; and most remarkably, both of them trace the

12 She remarks further that, as has been noted on two previous occasions, ‘. . . il va tant et ci et la / Par tot le

mont querre aventure . . .’ (vss. 5200–01).

69



NORRIS J. LACY

connections of these characteristics to love, which the narrator presents as a largely destructive force.13 In the first of the paired episodes, when Gauvain arrives at a castle, the narration strongly evokes Perceval approaching the Grail Castle.14 Although the castle appears empty,15 the table is richly set, with an abundance of fish, pork, venison, peacock, wine, bread, etc. (vss. 730–41). Never one to let such an opportunity pass, Gauvain devours the food (‘come .i. hon qui ot juné,’ vs. 755). Then he witnesses a wonderful procession reminiscent of that of the Grail Castle (vss. 758–59), though with a significant difference. From another room come three squires, the first bearing a rich and beautiful cup (vs. 763) – containing not a mass wafer, as in Chrétien’s Grail procession, but spiced wine. The other two carry dishes or trays of food, which they place before him. And Raoul, who can only have been thinking of Chrétien’s final romance, notes that ‘N’i a celui qui mot li die, / Et il nes resalua mie’ (vss. 773–74). Instead, Gauvain behaves in a fashion already established as typical: although he has just feasted sumptuously, he eats again. His actions recall the romance’s opening scene but go a step farther, for he requires no invitation or urging: ‘. . . mesire Gavains del prendre / Les mes ne se fist pas proier’ (vss. 776–77). His feast is interrupted by the arrival of a man, Maduc, who explains that his custom is to kill every knight who passes that way. Gauvain curses that custom (vs. 810) – he seems to have little patience with customs in general, and indeed he can hardly be blamed for taking exception to this one – and asks for enough delay to permit him simply to take three more bites of his food. In this instance, food is not merely a major preoccupation for Gauvain, but also an effective (and amusing) military tactic: with the delay granted, he chews each bite so slowly and deliberately that he is able to arm himself fully in preparation for the battle. Maduc’s animosity is explained only after the combat, when he reveals that he detests Gauvain, who once defeated him in a tourney, but that, having seen him only in armor, he would be unable to recognize Gauvain if he met him. His solution to this dilemma – his desire to kill an enemy he cannot identify – is simply to kill every knight he encounters, in case one of them happens to be the man he seeks.16 13 The only positive examples of amorous fidelity in the romance are Raguidel’s lady, met near the end of

the text, and Caradoc’s lady, mentioned in a narrative within the narrative (see below). There is also a favorable presentation of a young woman, a canberiere named Marot, who assists and advises Gauvain in the second of the ‘paired episodes’ discussed here (vss. 1754ff.). Her motivation is respect and concern for him, and not romantic love, but she is nonetheless conspicuous for her goodness in a text that features unfaithful or treacherous characters on all sides. See n. 17. 14 For example, ‘il voit / La tor naistre parmi la lande’ (vss. 682–83); cf. Perceval, who ‘Lors vit devant lui en un val / Le chief d’une tor qui parut.’ See Chrétien’s Perceval, vss. 3050–51. 15 His arrival at an empty castle offers another inversion, since the Grail Castle had been deserted when Perceval left, not when he arrived. 16 The most familiar setting of this motif, according to which someone who wants to kill a particular

70




We then learn that he hates Gauvain less because the latter defeated him than because that defeat cost him the affection of a lady, the Pucele del Gaut Destroit, who immediately gave her love to the victor. Gauvain and the woman, according to Maduc, are equally responsible for his loss. (This woman’s fickle transfer of her love from Maduc to Gauvain constitutes a direct foreshadowing of the later episode, discussed below, in which a woman will reject Gauvain for another man.) The Maduc episode is structurally and thematically paired with the following one, in which Gauvain encounters the Pucele del Gaut Destroit herself. She still loves the hero desperately but intends to demonstrate it in an unusual way – by killing him. She, like Maduc, and for the same reason, cannot recognize him,17 for after the tourney, he had immediately (and typically) left, with neither a word nor a second thought for her (vss. 1386–87).18 Without knowing that she is speaking with Gauvain, she gives a perceptive analysis of him: if Gauvain had married her, ‘Demain en .i. autre contree / Iroit chevaleries querre, / Si troveroit en .i. terre / La fille d’un conte u d’un roi / Qui serroit plus bele de moi: / Por l’amor de li me harroit!’ (vss. 2346–50). In other words, Gauvain is faithless and inconstant – not, incidentally, unlike her – and is in her view more attracted to adventure than to women. Knowing that she cannot win his heart, she wishes only to kill him and then herself (vs. 2299), so that the two might be united in death if not in life.19 Although Gauvain never shrinks from arduous battles with knights, he pales in fear (vss. 2312–13) at the woman’s plan. Aghast, he explains that she certainly has an odd way of demonstrating her love and that ‘Gauvain’ is wise indeed to avoid the place. Indeed, his unaccustomed fear and shock apparently make him take to heart the woman’s lessons about love and the dire consequences of a failure to love. He seems to reform in the next major episode, which constitutes the romance’s most drastic inversion of convention. This is also one of its most memorable episodes, dramatizing a surprising and amusing Gauvain – hopelessly consumed by love, absolutely devoted to his beloved, and destined for one of the rudest awakenings conceivable. Gauvain rescues a young woman named Ydain and instantly falls head person but cannot recognize that person chooses instead to kill everyone just to be sure, is in La Queste del Saint Graal. There the blood of Perceval’s sister is required to heal a leprous lady, and all young women are killed in case one of them happens to be the woman in question. See Albert Pauphilet, ed., La Queste del Saint Graal (Paris: Champion, 1921), pp. 240–43. 17 A young woman in her court, Marot (vss. 1754ff.) does however recognize him and warns him not to identify himself. She contributes to the humor of the episode by suggesting that he introduce himself instead as the ‘preus et vasals’ seneschal, Keu (vss. 1940–43). Her lady, however, cannot believe that such an excellent knight could possibly be Keu. Marot must use considerable time and skill to establish his identity, which she does by insisting that Keu is a fine man – ‘Qu’il ait en Ke tant de bontés,’ vs. 2005 – who has been widely misjudged. Considering the character of the woman with whom Gauvain will soon fall in love, the humor inherent in his assumption of that identity is redoubled when we learn, as we soon will, that of all the knights at court Keu is the one most unlucky in love. 18 Either he was uninterested in amorous conquest – an unlikely development for Gauvain – or, more likely, there is simply no need to linger once he knows he is loved. 19 She intends to have the two bodies placed in the same casket, ‘bouce a bouce et vis a vis’ (vs. 2302).

71



NORRIS J. LACY

over heels in love with her (vss. 3568ff.). Readers already familiar with Gauvain doubtless expect him to be easily infatuated and attracted to any pretty face, but the author here plays on those inclinations by exaggerating them hugely and remaking his character, however briefly, into the very epitome of the courtly lover. Overusing anaphora to convey the bliss of nascent love, the narrator abruptly transforms the traditional gigolo of French Arthurian legend into a lovesick romantic: Or l’ainme, or dist qu’amer le veut, Or l’ainme il plus quë il ne seut, Or l’ainme .i. poi, or l’ainme il mieus, Or l’ainme autant c’un de ses iols, Or l’ainme il bien, ce vuelt qu’il l’aint, Or l’ainme, or l’a amors ataint, Or l’ainme molt, or l’ainme asés, Or l’ainme trop, ja n’iert lasés . . . (vss. 3627–34)

And this exaggerated anaphoric rapture continues for nearly ten lines more; see vss. 3635–43. This would surely be a remarkable passage in regard to most knights; it is positively astonishing when the hopelessly smitten man is Gauvain.20 And it is all the more amusing because, as Keith Busby notes (p. 284), he has known her for only a few minutes. Here, comically, as if he were an adolescent experiencing his first infatuation, he transforms his emotion into a profound and blissful romantic love. He accordingly transforms this woman into the lady of his dreams. Unfortunately, he will learn all too soon that the lady is a tramp. After spending the night with her, his love for her, we are told, is six times that of the preceding day (vss. 3820–22), and he is practically swooning with lovesickness (vss. 3806–27), when they meet a young man who tells them about a recent and embarrassing event at court. The episode in question is a setting of the famous chastity test involving the ill-fitting mantle. The mantle would fit no woman who has been unfaithful, and of all the ladies at court, only Caradeul’s (i.e., Caradoc’s) passes the test (vs. 3949).21 The queen and all the others fail miserably, and Keu’s lady is of all of them the most abject failure. The placement of the recounted episode cannot be an accident. This is a cautionary tale that is, or ought to be, directly applicable to Gauvain’s own situation. However, blinded by love, he sees it merely as a lost opportunity, wishing devoutly that he and his lady had been at court, for he is confident that she would have been honored for her fidelity and constancy (‘Car il croit molt bien sans mentir / Que s’amie en fust honeree,’ vss. 3973–74). He has no 20 This is, after all, the Gauvain who, mutatis mutandis, spoke passionately, in Chrétien de Troyes’s

Yvain, of the need to leave one’s lady in order to seek adventure and fame. See Le Chevalier au lion (Yvain), ed. Mario Roques (Paris: Champion, 1971), vss. 2486ff. 21 This event was recounted earlier in the so-called Livre de Caradoc inserted into the First Continuation, though the mantle test and analogous ones occur in a good many medieval texts.

72




premonition that what is true of all ladies at court (save one) is about to be proved dramatically true of Ydain, and his blindness provides a delicious preparation for what is to come. Clearly, in his mind, Ydain is no ordinary woman. Having fallen in love with her, he attributes to her the qualities he would desire in a woman; foremost among them is constancy. Following a visit to court (during which Keu taunts him for having forgotten the broken lance, and a hunchback dwarf named Druïdain makes arrangements to fight Gauvain later for possession of the woman),22 Gauvain and Ydain leave again. What follows is the episode that Schmolke-Hasselmann characterized as ‘the most improper in the whole of French Arthurian literature.’ The event is indeed memorable, but less, I suggest, for its indecency than for its broadly comic, even burlesque, inversion of Gauvain’s character. The couple pass a man who is urinating beside the road. The narrator feigns either ignorance or discretion, noting coyly that he is not sure whether she saw what the man has in his hand (‘Ne ço qu’il tin[t], s’ele le vit,’ vs. 4498). But in fact, given what is about to occur, there can be little doubt that she has indeed seen it and has moreover found it most impressive. Thus, when the man claims her as his own and Gauvain, confident that she is as devoted to him as he is to her, proposes that she choose between them, she chooses the other man without hesitation (vss. 4555–73) and accuses Gauvain of not loving her. The usual and quite correct reaction is that this is both a kind of fabliau, in its ribald insinuation of erotic temptation, and a misogynistic condemnation of women (‘Honies fuissent eles [women] totes,’ vs. 4629). It is certainly rendered either more shocking or more humorous (or no doubt both) by the contrast between Ydain’s brazen faithlessness and Gauvain’s thoroughly uncharacteristic idealization of a woman and of love itself. Moreover, this episode resonates strongly with that of the Pucele del Gaut Destroit: the Pucele had rejected Maduc on account of Gauvain’s unsurpassed chivalric skills; now, in a kind of burlesque duplication of that situation, another woman rejects Gauvain (the consummate knight and, for once, the devoted lover) for a man of apparently superior sexual endowment. Ydain’s rejection of him brings to an abrupt end Gauvain’s brief role as a romantic woman-worshiper, and he reverts to traditional form. When she sends her newfound lover back for her dogs (vss. 4660–81), Gauvain, having learned a lesson, demands a battle, rejecting the suggestion that the animals,

22 See vss. 4203–310. Although I say little about the Druïdain episode in this essay, it is extremely impor-

tant for the elucidation of both theme and character. Later, when Gauvain appears to have lost Ydain, he seems concerned primarily because he had promised to return to court with Ydain and to do battle against Druïdain, who had claimed her. Now, disillusioned with love, he reverts to his customary concern for his honor; the woman is less important to him than is his commitment to fight over her. (The dwarf points out that his name, Druïdain [= Dru Ydain] indicates that he is destined for her [vss. 4392–96], and given the usual character of dwarfs in Arthurian romance, Gauvain should have understood – but of course did not – something of the character of the woman as well.)

73



NORRIS J. LACY

like Ydain, be allowed to choose.23 (There is no indication that he is conscious of the irony inherent in his insistence on fighting for dogs when he had not done so for the woman he loved so desperately.) His victory in this battle for the dogs causes the faithless Ydain to lose interest in the other man, and she contends, rather lamely, that she was only testing Gauvain and that she loves him more than ever. But Gauvain is no fool – or, more precisely, no longer a fool. He says nothing at that time, but he later gives Ydain to the dwarf Druïdain (vss. 4844–47) before going on, finally, to avenge the death of Raguidel. In scene after scene of this work, the author has made effective use of familiar characters (Gauvain, Keu, and others) placed often in humorous situations. Moreover, his text, which offers unmistakable citations of a number of romances, including especially Chrétien’s, is practically a catalogue of established romance motifs. A very incomplete list of recycled romance motifs would include not only the winning and losing of a lady, but human heads on spikes, as well as Gauvain’s insistence (comically reminiscent of Erec’s statement about Enide) that the slut Ydain is both his ‘dame’ and his ‘amie’ (vs. 4009). There is also the burlesque reflection of the Grail Castle and its procession, the recollection of the sword in the stone episode, and various customs that are familiar to us but irksome to Gauvain. There is a chastity test, narrated through a secondary account. There is even, for good measure, an account of the White Stag, from Erec and elsewhere; here, though, it is hunted not as some element of an important social ritual, nor in order to maintain custom, as in Erec. Instead, its purpose is simply – and by now unsurprisingly – to provide food. Raoul is systematically accumulating and manipulating familiar motifs, exaggerating them, often inverting them in amusing fashion. Most of all, he plays on the character of Gauvain. Already at that early date (perhaps c. 122024), Gauvain’s traits were obviously fixed, at least in gallic tradition. The audience could thus be expected to recognize in him the figure of a knight always eager to seek adventure and never able to resist distraction from it. And having recognized him, that audience could scarcely have missed the humor inherent in the presentation of Gauvain, the Arthurian Don Juan, as smitten and devoted lover. To the objection that most of the romance is composed of apparent digressions and miscellaneous episodes, I would respond that those episodes contribute materially (and quite uniformly) to the exposition of character, the development of theme, and the generation of humor. Specifically, the suppos23 It is also an analogue, though with significant differences, of events in Le Chevalier à l’épée, composed

close to the same time as the Raguidel. See R. C. Johnston and R. C. Owen, eds., Two Old French Gauvain Romances: ‘Le Chevalier a l’epee’ and ‘La Mule sans frein’ (New York: Harper & Row, 1973), vss. 864–1109. 24 Douglas Kelly has suggested that the romance may date from about 1210; see his Medieval French Romance (New York: Twayne, 1993), p. xviii. Schmolke-Hasselmann assigns it to the period 1220–30 (p. 16), which I think more likely.

74




edly interposed episodes are constructed so as to offer multiple examples of inconstancy, underlined and illustrated with cruel irony by the hero’s brief, atypical, and ill-fated flirtation with romantic love. The narrator of the Raguidel knows his romance tradition well and mines it thoroughly, with reverence reserved for virtually no part of it. The resultant creation must surely be counted as one of the most fascinating and innovative of the French Gauvain romances.

75





LE COMIQUE DANS LES MERVEILLES DE RIGOMER ET HUNBAUT

V

LE COMIQUE DANS LES MERVEILLES DE RIGOMER ET HUNBAUT Peter S. Noble Le roman des Merveilles de Rigomer date, d’après Thomas Vesce, son éditeur et traducteur,1 de la fin du douzième siècle, probablement après 1187, date de la publication du Topographica Hibernica et Expugnatio Hibernica de Giraldus Cambrensis, d’où selon Vesce il se peut que l’auteur de Rigomer ait tiré les détails irlandais de son roman (p. XV). Hunbaut aurait été composé entre 1250 et 1275 selon Margaret Winters, qui a édité le texte, mais elle estime que la date de 1250 est une réelle possibilité (p. XXVIII).2 Les deux romans ont le même personnage principal, c’est à dire Gauvain,3 et tous les deux subissent clairement l’influence de Chrétien de Troyes à un tel degré que 1

2

3

[Jehan] The Marvels of Rigomer (Les Merveilles de Rigomer), trans. Thomas E. Vesce, vol. 60 series B, Garland Library of Medieval Literature (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1988). Jehan, Les mervelles de Rigomer I: Der altfranzösischer Artusroman des 13. Jahrhunderts, ed. W. Foerster (Dresden: Gedruckt für die Gesellschaft für romanische Literatur, Band 19, 1908). Jehan, Les mervelles de Rigomer II: Vorwort, Einleitung, Anmerkungen, Glossar, Namenverzeichnis, Sprichworter, ed. W. Foerster and H. Breuer (Dresden: Gedruckt für die Gesellschaft für romanische Literatur, Band 39, 1915). Toutes les citations sont de cette édition. Jehan, Les mervelles de Rigomer, Chantilly, Musée Condé MS 472 (626), ed. Thomas E. Vesce (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, 1969). Diss. Fordham University, 1967. Margaret Winters, The Romance of Hunbaut: an Arthurian Poem of the Thirteenth Century, Davis Medieval Texts and Studies 4, Lugduni Batavorum (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1984). Beate Schmolke-Hasselmann, Der arthurische Versroman von Chrestien bis Froissart, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 177 (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1980), p. 16, croit que Hunbaut date des années 1230–50 et que Rigomer date des années 1250–68. Douglas Kelly semble penser que Hunbaut est plus important que Gauvain ou que les deux chevaliers ont la même importance dans Hunbaut. ‘. . . the multiple quest is the double quest like those we find in the Charrette and Perceval. Double quests were imitated in other romances, and Gauvain is often the second knight: Meraugis and Gorvain in Meraugis de Portlesguez, Meriadoc and Gauvain in the Chevalier as deus espees, and Hunbaut and Gauvain in Hunbaut’: D. Kelly, ‘Multiple Quests in French Verse Romances: Mervelles de Rigomer and Claris et Laris’, L’Esprit Créateur IX, 4 (Winter, 1969), p. 260. Les rôles des deux personnages sont nettement différents, cependant. Gauvain est le protagoniste principal dont les aventures sont décrites en détail, tandis que Hunbaut semble représenter le point de vue du poète à travers les yeux duquel le lecteur observe ce que fait Gauvain. Le poète semble se contenter de faire mention des aventures de Hunbaut au lieu de les suivre. Schmolke-Hasselmann, p. 41, suggère que nous n’avons qu’un fragment du roman. Dans la partie perdue Hunbaut aurait été le héro.

77



PETER S. NOBLE

l’auteur de Hunbaut essaie de se défendre contre l’accusation de plagiat en disant: Ne dira nus hon que je robe Les bons dis Crestien de Troies. (186–7)

Winters démontre qu’il fait exactement ce qu’il nie avoir fait, mais une chose qu’il n’emprunte pas à son maître est son humour (p. XXII). L’auteur de Rigomer, par contre, qui est reconnu par tous les critiques comme disciple de Raoul de Houdenc et de Chrétien de Troyes – Vesce dit qu’il a fait des emprunts importants (‘heavy borrowings’, p. XVII) de celui-ci – partage sans aucun doute le goût de Chrétien pour l’ironie et même pour des scènes de farce et de burlesque. Ce goût du comique se voit dès le début du poème dans la description sarcastique de la cour du roi Artus où seuls le roi et Gauvain ont plus de sens que de stupidité. Del roi Artu et de ses houmes Est cis roumans que nous lisoumes . . . Si est tels chevaliers le roi, U plus ot sens et mains desroi. Quant plus ot sens, de desroi mains, Dont fu ço mesire Gawains. (7–12)

Voilà une impression qui est confirmée par le comportement assez naif des autres chevaliers à l’arrivée de la demoiselle inconnue. Li uns le moustre l’autre au doit Tout ausi con faire le doit Et dîent tuit; ‘Cele pucele Nos apporte aucune noviele.’ Puis en avalent contre val Li chevalier et li vassal. (51–6)

Malgré le fait qu’elle est très courtoise, elle dénonce la paresse et l’oisiveté des chevaliers et les défie de chercher les aventures qui les attendent en Irlande. On ne vos doit mie prisier Ne que la flor d’un cerisier, Tuit iestes torné a pereche. N’avés mais cure de proueche Fors seul que vos encraissier. Avriés vos paour d’enraissier, Se vos aliés en autre terre, Por pris et por hounor conquerre? (77–84)

Elle quitte la cour avant que les chevaliers puissent lui demander plus de détails et les chevaliers reconnaissent eux-mêmes qu’ils ont été stupides. 78




Cil remainent en grant esfroi, Qu’il ne furent mie si saige, Qu’il demandaissent al mesaige De sa dame ne de sa terre, Par quel non il le porront querre, Que son recet aient trouvé; Lors s’en tienent por fol prové. (112–18)

La moquerie de la cour arthurienne est suivie de deux scènes de farce quand Yvain et Sagremors, l’un après l’autre, poursuivent la demoiselle pour apprendre les détails de la quête dont elle a parlé. Tous les deux sont reçus avec dédain par la pucele. Ensuite ils sont attaqués par un beau chevalier qui réussit à blesser Yvain. Celui-ci doit abandonner la bataille quand sa lance se brise parce qu’il a oublié d’apporter son épée, tandis que la fille interrompt le combat de Sagremors et du chevalier en s’interposant entre les épées. Les deux combats ne font rien donc pour la réputation de deux des plus célèbres chevaliers de la Table Ronde, et tout le début du poème suggère que la cour est pleine de chevaliers à l’esprit lent quoique bien intentionné, ce qui ne fait rien pour la réputation du roi Artus et de sa cour. Après ce prologue Lancelot assume le rôle principal mais malgré son excellence guerrière incontestable son comportement est de temps en temps risible. Peu après son débarquement en Irlande il se lamente d’être jamais venu dans ce malheureux pays, mais sa situation ne fait qu’empirer. Mauvaise terre a en Irlande, A cent diables le commande Mil fois ains que li vespres viegne. (423–5)

Il est accueilli, puis trompé par des chevaliers-larrons qu’il ne peut pas attaquer parceque leurs écuyers l’ont désarmé. Lancelot se trouve seul et sans dignité dans un pays désert. Sans son cheval et ses armes, symboles de son statut, il ressemble à Calogrenant dans Le Chevalier au lion et il ne peut qu’espérer que Dieu ne punira pas ces larrons avant qu’il ait pu se venger. Peu après il est découvert par des chevaliers ivres qui, comme les chevaliers-larrons d’Erec et Enide, divisent le butin avant de l’avoir conquis. Lancelot est très lent à comprendre les intentions du premier des chevaliers et la conversation entre les deux hommes ne manque pas de faire rire. Et cil droit au cheval s’en va, Le frain en la tieste le met, De grant folie s’entremet, Puis li retraist la siele al dos. “Biaus sire”, ço dist Lanselos “Que ferés vos de mon destrier?” “Amis, tu n’as nul escuier, Si le te voel mener au gués.” “Biaus sires’, fait il, “non ferés! Il ne bevera devant none, 79



PETER S. NOBLE

Car ne manga anuit d’avone, Mais la fresche herbe raverdie, Jou n’en voel ore abevrer mie.” Lanselos le castoie et donte, Et li vassaus el cheval monte. Et quant ço vient au parmonter Lanselos le va encontrer D’une forte lance aceree, Que la broigne li a fausee Et par mi li cors li enbat, Et del cheval jus mort l’abat. (1966–86)

L’auteur semble être choqué quand les deux autres chevaliers attaquent Lancelot ensemble, mais le combat qui s’ensuit avec les trois hommes roulant par terre, l’un sur l’autre, ressemble plus à un mêlée de rugby qu’à une joute entre chevaliers. Restes les vos tous trois ensamble A le bataille, ço me samble. Co que j’en sai, dire vos doi; Seure li keurent ambedoi, Li uns desous, l’autres deseure, Si commenchierent a cele eure Une luite qui mout dura. (2029–35)

Ensuite il rencontre un centenaire dont les paroles confuses sont à la fois pathétiques et ridicules. Lancelot ne se montre pas très poli en refusant son offre sincère d’une hospitalité, qui est en fait peu attirante, et le laisse en larmes. Lanselos dist; ‘N’en prendrai mie, Ains m’en irai a l’abëie. Mais de ceste terre me di!’ (2365–7)

Ce soir-là Lancelot s’engage encore une fois dans un combat peu chevaleresque et assez comique contre des chats sauvages pour la possession de leur maison (2447–82). Une fois dans la terre de Tuesmome Lancelot provoque la colère d’un chevalier orgueilleux qu’il surprend faisant l’amour avec son amie (3155–61). Les deux chevaliers s’insultent l’un l’autre, mais le combat est de courte durée et à la fin le chevalier vaincu se déclare ravi de l’arrivée de Lancelot, qui néanmoins refuse d’attendre la guérison de sa victime qui veut l’accompagner. Il passe la nuit dans la maison d’un berger et de sa famille qui sont attaqués par des voleurs. La famille et Lancelot, tous nus, sautent de leur lit pour défendre leurs biens, et Lancelot armé d’une grosse bûche poursuit et tue les voleurs audacieux. Le moyen de combattre est peu chevaleresque et l’image de tous ces gens nus courant ci et là est réellement comique 80




(3377–444). La nuit suivante il rencontre la vieille dame laide qui dénonce tous les chevaliers comme étant des tueurs sans pitié et qui terrifie Lancelot. Mil ans a que j’ai öi dire Que li armé chevalier sunt Les plus males coses del mont, Ne ja chevaliers haubergiés Par moi ne sera herbergiés; Car il ne se doutent ne duelent, Ains ocïent quanques il voelent. (3520–26)

La ressemblance entre cette dame et le géant hideux dans Le Chevalier au lion est manifeste (3535–50). Toute la scène satirise les chevaliers qui semblent avoir une réputation infâme et c’est Lancelot, leur représentant, qui est visé. La visite de Lancelot à la cour du roi Frion semble aussi être un épisode comique, car le roi n’a d’autre but que de persuader Lancelot d’épouser sa fille, ce que la fille elle-même semble vouloir ardemment, tandis que Lancelot ne s’y intéresse pas du tout. ‘Sire,’ fait il, ‘jo ne voel mie Femme ne terre maintenir.’ (4562–3)

Tout comme Yvain au château de Pesme Aventure il promet qu’il est prêt à retourner à la cour s’il peut, mais il laisse derrière lui une demoiselle désespérée en pleurs qui se pâme au milieu de la cour et dont la détresse est partagée par tous ses suivants (4648–53). L’auteur satirise à la fois les conventions romanesques, la sentimentalité des jeunes filles et l’égoisme aveugle des chevaliers. Il fait de même quand Lancelot doit faire la course avec le Chevalier blanc et remporte la victoire en décapitant le cheval de son rival, solution peu héroïque mais certainement efficace. A tant a trait l’espee nue, Qui plus estoit clere que nue, Si fiert le cheval par devant, La tieste en fait voler avant. Li destriers chiet et li vassaus, Et Lanselos s’en vait les saus A la lancë et si le prent. (5151–7)

Une fois arrivé à Rigomer Lancelot est vite pris au piège de la demoiselle perfide qui sait le tenter en lui montrant des armes magnifiques qui sont un leurre. La lance est empoisonnée avec un poison qui rend incapable celui qui le porte; Lancelot devient ainsi une victime facile du chevalier spectral qui l’attaque et le fait prisonnier. Après qu’il a perdu la lance enchantée, Lancelot retrouve ses esprits mais sans armes et sans défense il devient la proie d’une autre jeune fille. Elle le persuade de prendre un anneau d’or qui lui fait tout oublier. 81



PETER S. NOBLE

Quant ou doit fu li aniaus mis, Dont fu Lanselos si sopris, Ne li menbre de nule rien, D’armes porter ne d’autre bien, Ains fu ausi comm’une beste. (6327–31)

Il est mené à la cuisine où il doit faire des tâches humiliantes avec les autres chevaliers qui ont été capturés de la même manière. Au cours de l’année qu’il y passe il devient gros et bestial. Mais tot i estoit bestïaus Et ausi fols comme une bieste. (14002–3)

Gauvain qui le cherche fond en larmes quand il le voit (14053–8). Le contraste entre le cuisinier et le chevalier, celui qui a échoué dans sa quête et celui qui est sur le point de réussir, est délibéré et vise à faire rire le lecteur, qui appréciera la farce et la satire de la scène. Le spectacle de ce chevalier valeureux mais borné qui parle de l’excellence de son poulet et de son pain et qui est devenu gros et obèse prouve l’intention moqueuse de l’écrivain. Dist Lanselos; ‘Jou vos donroie A mangier d’une crase molle. Encor ai jou une tel poille Qui orains fu rostie a poivre; Jel vos donra et vin a boivre Et une piece de fouace. Miex vos ferai, que jou ne face Les autres, por la ramembrance Que jou vos vi en vostre enfance.’

(14094–102)

Les autres épisodes comiques dans un desquels figure Gauvain sont rares dans la deuxième partie du poème,4 puisque l’intention de l’auteur y est clairement de magnifier les faits de Gauvain en se moquant de ceux de Lancelot. Il y a certainement du comique dans l’épisode du château de Fors Graviers où habite Gaudionés, un ennemi acharné de Gauvain. Seul et entouré par ses ennemis Gauvain est capturé par sa propre courtoisie car Gaudionés défend à ses hommes de l’attaquer et à leur place envoie ses dames et ses demoiselles qui entourent Gauvain, l’amadouent, le châtouillent et le caressent jusqu’à ce qu’elles puissent le dépouiller de ses armes. Gaudionés sait que Gauvain ne se résoudrait pas à opposer une résistance à des dames et le prend donc sans problème grâce à sa courtoisie excessive. D’après le poète les dames caressent chaque partie de son corps de sorte que Gauvain ne se

4

Kelly, Multiple Quests, souligne la division du poème dans deux parties qui est très importante à la structure du poème où le poète se force à manipuler des quêtes doubles et multiples à la fois.

82




rend pas compte qu’il est dans le château de ses ennemis mais croit qu’il participe à un jeu quelconque. ‘Mais les dames le prenderont Et les pucieles qui chi sunt, Et il est tant frans et cortoïs, Ja vers eles n’aura defois.’ Or ne set dont Gavains qui face Il ne cuide pas qu’on le hace. A tant sont les dames venues Et les pucieles d’armes nues, Et de totes pars l’ont saisi, Ainc Gavains ne se desfendi. Tant le desacent et detirent Que des armes le deviestirent Et a Gaudionet le rendent. (7371–83)

Les dernières scènes comique concernent Kai qui, après avoir accueilli Midomidas de Galvège à la cour du roi Artus et soutenu sa requête, perd son calme et le dénonce devant toute la cour, avec une violence verbale qui est à la fois choquante et amusante. Artus a fort à faire pour rétablir le calme et réaffirmer son autorité, mais la diatribe de Kai contre Midomidas fait rire par son exaggération même et suggère une déterioration dans l’image du personnage de Kai un processus déjà entamé dans les oeuvres de Chrétien de Troyes. ‘Ahi!’ dist il, ‘musart, musart! Miex dëussiés iestre en .i. sart, Que venir entre les preudomes, La ou jou et li autre somes. Con fous avés le roi gabé! Lors vos ferai venir l’abé: Se vos poés estre confiés, Par tans serés moines profiés! Car encore n’iestes asalis, Si vos est ja li cuers falis. Vos averiés mestier del prestre, Qui vos mesist en le main diestre Le candeler et le süaire Comme a mort home doit hom faire. Vos i pöés bien foliier, Fates vos tempre enoliier; Car j’entent bien a vo latin, Vos ne verés ja le matin, Et vostre fose est pieç’a faite Et li laine est pieç’a atraite, C’on vos metera sor les iex; On ne le puet emploiier miex. Jou vos avoie ore donee 83



PETER S. NOBLE

Grant honor et abandonee: Mes or le vos desdonerai, N’en ferés mie, ains le ferai; Car bien sevent tote la gent Qu’encor en a mil et .v. cens En ceste place plus prisiés Et plus preus que vos ne soiiés.’

(15427–56)

Plus tôt il avait déclenché un torrent d’insultes en voyant l’arrivée des moines noirs, et encore une fois l’exagération de la violence verbale de Kai incite le lecteur à rire. ‘Mout sieent lait sor le cevax, Bien resanle moine infernax. Miux lor venist ou puis d’enfer Canter sur les autex d’infier, Que il fuisent ça for venu.’ (10277–81)

Tandis que la comédie dans Rigomer s’attache surtout à Lancelot, l’auteur de Hunbaut s’intéresse peu au comique. Toutefois comme le note Margaret Winters (p. XXI) ‘There are, however, occasional flashes of humor . . .’ et elle cite l’exemple de la réponse de Gauvain quand Hunbaut critique son flirt avec la fille de l’hôte irascible. Hunbaut avait averti Gauvain de ne pas courtiser cette fille et il n’est pas du tout content de voir que Gauvain n’a pas suivi ses conseils. Gauvain n’est point confus. ‘Hunbaut, je ne sui pas de fust, Ce li dist Gauvains, ne de fer.’ (882–3)

Pour une assistance qui connaît bien la réputation de Gauvain comme le Don Juan du monde arthurien ces vers ne peuvent être qu’amusants. Mais Hunbaut lui-même qui semble la plupart du temps assez sobre devient parfois le véhicule de l’humour du poète. Pendant que Gauvain conte fleurette à la jeune fille contre les instructions expresses de son compagnon, Hunbaut, exaspéré, le regarde et craint la réaction du père. Hunbaus qui l’ot mis a escole L’amast asés mius a Nicole Lui et la damoisele ensanble . . . (721–3)

Le poète exprime ici une réaction que tout le monde aura connue et peut comprendre, l’irritation contre un ami qui court des risques inutiles et se conduit bêtement. On peut aussi voir l’humour de l’auteur dans sa déscription de la réaction de Hunbaut à la décision d’Artus de choisir la soeur de Gauvain pour l’ambassade auprès du Roi des Isles. Elle sera la compagne de Gauvain au lieu d’un des chevaliers. Quant Hunbaus l’ot, si s’esmervelle Que li rois a dit tel mervelle . . . (177–8) 84




Le voyage sera dangereux, et la surprise de Hunbaut se comprend.5 Parfois Gauvain devient l’objet de la moquerie des autres personnages. Quand il est pris par les chevaliers de son hôte après avoir donné trop de baisers à la fille, les chevaliers s’expriment ironiquement à l’égard des deux chevaliers de la Table Ronde. Hunbaus ne vient mie despendre Caiens les ielx au niés le roi. On le tenroit a grant desroi S’il paioit si cier escot. (790–3)

Encore une fois on reconnaît le réalisme psychologique de l’auteur qui reproduit ici l’humour assez brutal d’un milieu masculin. Le même ton réaliste réapparaît dans les remarques du chevalier déloyal, qui rencontre Gauvain après que celui-ci a dû passer la nuit à la belle étoile. ‘Si n’eüstes mie de soie Kiutepointe qui vostre fust, Ne orillier fors de cel fust, Trop fustes anuit mal logié, Mais totes voie vos lo je Que ja mais tel ostel n’amés. Cil fu autres, u ersoir mes, Que une canbre mirolee. Et je voi que cele rosee Vos a mollié et enpleü; Molt vos a ore mains pleü Li vostre ostels que n’ait li miens.’

(1910–21)

Plus tard Gauvain devient la victime de la fureur de Kai, quand il croit avoir vu Gauvain caché dans la chambre de la châtelaine chez qui Artus et ses chevaliers passent la nuit. Kai explose. N’a chevalier dusques a Sens, Tant soit mauvais ne recreans, Ne hon qui en Diu soit creans, S’il eüst enpris cest afaire, Cui tenist de tel cose fair[e]. Or a la sa vengance prisse Molt est fols mauvais qui lui prise, Ce vos vel bien entreconter, Se n’est de ses putains torser; De cel mestier est il tot baut. (3174–83)

Ici le comique réside dans le fait que tout le monde sait que Kai a tort et que l’extravagance de ses dénonciations sera certainement réfutée. 5

Voir Schmolke-Hasselmann, p. 54 où elle fait une critique pénétrante du comportement du roi.

85



PETER S. NOBLE

Les deux derniers exemples de comique concernent le comportement de Gauvain qui se montre à la fois brutal et rusé quand il le faut. Il est vainqueur dans un jeu parti avec un vilain où les deux adversaires doivent se décapiter l’un l’autre. Gauvain frappe le premier et tout de suite saisit les vêtements du vilain pour qu’il ne puisse poursuivre sa tête. Ainsi le vilain reste décapité et meurt ne pouvant pas reclamer son droit de décapiter Gauvain. Tactique intelligent mais inattendue. L’auteur ironise un peu sur le comportement de Gauvain quand il n’échange pas d’insultes avec un nain mais le tue tout de suite après que le nain l’a insulté. Gauvain, qui vient de refuser de participer à un combat verbal d’ordre rhétorique, est décrit par l’auteur comme ‘Gauvains qui bien set parler . . .’ (1617), malgré le fait qu’il n’a justement pas démontré sa prouesse verbale. Les auteurs de ces deux romans figurant Gauvain emploient donc le comique dans des buts très différents. Dans Rigomer le poète se moque de la plupart des chevaliers arthuriens qui sont facilement dupés par les demoiselles rusées. Utilisant sans vergogne les oeuvres de son prédécesseur Chrétien de Troyes il semble partager et même développer son attitude ironique envers Lancelot qui est en butte au ridicule. L’échec de Lancelot et des autres membres de la Table Ronde magnifie la supériorité de Gauvain par rapport aux chevaliers célèbres qui ne bénéficient pas de l’aide de la belle Lorie, la plus puissante des fées, qui ne permettra pas la défaite de son amant. Dans les aventures de Gauvain la farce et la satire sont liées aux apparitions de Lancelot, minant le rôle de celui-ci de sorte qu’il ne devienne jamais le rival de Gauvain. Par contre le poète de Hunbaut n’utilise que rarement l’humour et quand il l’emploie, il n’essaie pas de satiriser la cour arthurienne ou le monde des chevaliers. Ses rares moments d’humour nous laissent voir les tensions et les moyens de communication dans une société masculine. Quelquefois il utilise son rôle de narrateur pour nous faire voir les réactions comiques de ses personnages ou pour nous démontrer que même les chevaliers les plus célèbres savent adopter des tactiques peu chevaleresques pour gagner dans des situations difficiles. De tels moments sont peu fréquents cependant ce qui a pour conséquence que son poème, bien que concis et bien construit, n’a pas l’éclat et la passion de Rigomer où le poète a su mélanger l’humour, la satire, l’aventure et le féerique. Même Gaston Paris a dû conclure que Rigomer ‘se laisse lire . . . malgré sa longueur et sa prolixité’ (HLF, xxx, p. 95). A mon avis on peut être un peu plus positif. Jehan a su introduire le comique dans sa conception du monde arthurien, et son roman est satirique autant que chevaleresque.6

6

J’ai présenté au congrès international arthurien à Toulouse en 1998 une conférence qui a formé la base de cet article. Je tiens à remercier les congressistes qui ont assisté à cette conférence de leur soutien et, surtout, ma collègue, Françoise le Saux, et ma femme qui ont lu toutes les deux tout l’article. La responsabilité de ses imperfections reste la mienne. Je remercie aussi l’Université de Reading d’une bourse qui m’a permis d’assister au congrès.

86



HUMOUR IN THE ROMAN DE SILENCE

VI

HUMOUR IN THE ROMAN DE SILENCE Karen Pratt Heldris de Cornuälle’s Roman de Silence has in recent years received the attention from scholars this fascinating romance deserves, and has in particular provided rich pickings for gender and post-structuralist criticism.1 At last the modern exordial topos of the silence surrounding Silence can be dispensed with.2 However, most studies have concentrated on the text’s treatment of gender politics, sexual orientation and the relationship between sexuality and textuality: weighty topics which allow little space for a consideration of the work’s comic potential. To redress the balance, this essay sets out to demonstrate that humour contributes to the meaning of the Roman de Silence.3 In the following study, several interrelated topics will be considered. After reassessing the Roman de Silence’s Arthurian pedigree and generic classification, we shall examine Heldris’s fruitful and often amusing response to an important Arthurian intertext: the oeuvre of Chrétien de Troyes. Reading against Chrétien’s romances will highlight the sexual, grammatical and narrative incongruities which are fundamental to the Roman de Silence’s comic effect. This intertexual humour is accompanied, moreover, by intergeneric play. For interwoven throughout the romance plot centring on an exemplary female ‘hero’ is a misogynist commentary (supplied by the narrator and several male characters) which recalls contemporary didactic poetry and the fabliau, two genres known to exploit the ‘woman question’ humorously. In this essay the analysis of intertextual and intergeneric comedy will be supported by a more traditional exploration of the verbal, structural and situational humour which is found at every level of the narrative. Repetition, exaggeration, incongruity and the breaking of taboos are all techniques exploited by Heldris to amuse his audience. Finally, we shall consider whether the

1 2

3

See, for example, the articles in Arthuriana 7, a special issue dedicated to the Roman de Silence in 1997. See R. H. Bloch, ‘Silence and Holes: the Roman de Silence and the Art of the Trouvère’, Yale French Studies 67 (1986), 81–99 (p. 81), and Silence: A Thirteenth-Century French Romance, ed. S. Roche-Mahdi (East Lansing, 1992), p. xi. See E. J. Gallagher, ‘The Modernity of Le Roman de Silence’, University of Dayton Review 21 (1992), 31–9, p. 36, for a different reading.

87



KAREN PRATT

misogynistic jokes in the Roman de Silence have the more serious function of disguising male anxiety about women and their potential for equality. When Lewis Thorpe published his editio princeps of the Roman de Silence in book form in 1972 he called it a thirteenth-century Arthurian verse romance.4 This classification was based on rather flimsy criteria: three references to King Arthur (lines 109, 6154, 6156)5 and a certain similarity between the Grisandole episode in the Estoire de Merlin and the final episode of Heldris’s romance, which narrates Silence’s capture of Merlin. Heldris also drew on Geoffrey of Monmouth and Wace in constructing an Arthurian pedigree for Silence, who claims to be a descendant of Gorlois of Cornwall (line 6145). However, the allusions to Arthurian characters locate them in the narrative past; Silence’s story is not contemporary with Arthur’s and only the chronologically mobile Merlin interacts with her. Moreover, according to Lecoy, the tale of his capture may be derived from a common source, not directly from the Estoire de Merlin, although Heldris’s familiarity with Arthurian literature is not questioned.6 Further peculiarities of the Roman de Silence have also led critics to challenge Thorpe’s generic classification. Beate Schmolke-Hasselmann decided not to include the work in her 1980 study of Arthurian verse romance, for she found few Arthurian connections in it and furthermore she argued: ‘the eponymous heroine, Silence, is a woman. This too is un-Arthurian, since the Arthurian romance remains throughout its history a romance of chivalry and must therefore inevitably revolve around a male hero.’7 While the Roman de Silence will always be generically problematic, resisting simplistic labelling, its Arthurian credentials are strengthened by the recognition that it was written partly as a response to traditional Arthurian romance and that it alludes frequently to the works of Chrétien de Troyes. Regina Psaki, one of the few critics sensitive to its comic overtones, has commented on the text’s ‘overt inversion’ (p. xvii) of the norms of Arthurian romance and on the humour which pervades the work (pp. xxiv–xxv).8 In fact,

4

5

6

7

8

See Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence: a Thirteenth-Century Arthurian Verse Romance, ed. L. Thorpe (Cambridge, 1972), first published in Nottingham Medieval Studies 5–8 (1961–64) and 10–11 (1966–67). Reference is made here to the edition by Roche-Mahdi, which has the virtue of having incorporated most of the numerous corrections Félix Lecoy proposed to Lewis Thorpe’s edition (F. Lecoy, ‘Le Roman de Silence d’Heldris de Cornualle’, Romania 99 (1978), 109–25). Since the romance has survived in only one manuscript, there is no discrepancy between line numbers in any published edition or translation of the text. See Lecoy, ‘Le Roman de Silence’, pp. 110–12. If Heldris did know the Estoire de Merlin, he deliberately changed the name of Silence’s ancestor, for Igerne’s first husband is there called Hoel, not Gorlois (as in Geoffrey, Wace and Silence). See B. Schmolke-Hasselmann, Der arthurische Versroman von Chrestien bis Froissart (Tübingen, 1980), p. 4. The English quotation is taken from B. Schmolke-Hasselmann, The Evolution of the Arthurian Romance: the Verse Tradition from Chrétien to Froissart, trans. Margaret and Roger Middleton (Cambridge, 1998), p. 4. See Heldris de Cornuälle, le Roman de Silence, trans. F. R. Psaki, Garland Library of Medieval Literature 63B (New York and London, 1991), pp. xvii and xxiv–xxv, and also Jewers’s analysis of the role

88




it is precisely because Heldris has substituted a chivalric heroine for the usual Arthurian hero that the Roman de Silence is comic, for in this romance gender- and genre-bending go hand-in-hand. Moreover, the audience’s pleasure is enhanced by recognising not only allusions to Chrétien, but also the clever and thought-provoking modifications Heldris has made to his Arthurian intertexts. The first example of intertextuality to be discussed here is found in the narrative of Silence’s parents’ love affair. Parallels have already been noted between the courtship of Cador and Eufemie and the legend of Tristan.9 However, more obvious antecedents for lovers struck almost dumb by love are Alexandre and Soredamors in Chrétien’s Cligés.10 In both romances the Ovidian presentation of love as an illness, brought on by Cupid’s dart and producing horrible symptoms, is conventional (compare Cligés, 435–1038; Silence, 630–878).11 More unusual is the hero’s opportunity to claim his beloved as a reward for service and his reluctance to do so (compare Cligés, 2180–97; Silence, 555–74).12 Heldris develops this motif further than Chrétien, however, by granting his heroine the same possibility, creating an equally disturbing psychological conflict for her (lines 797–811). Thus Cador is invited to name his bride as a reward for killing a marauding dragon, while Eufemie is granted a similar marital privilege after curing Cador. In this way, Heldris presents her as a less passive potential prize than Soredamors. Yet in both texts the parents are characterised by timidity, the verb oser (in negative or hypothetical constructions) occurring frequently in the narratorial commentary (compare Cligés, 575–9; Silence, 405, 551, 558). Cador perfectly illustrates the paradox elaborated upon by the narrator of Cligés (admittedly in the context of Cligés’s love for Fénice)13 that the presence of a weak young woman can render a brave young man a coward (Cligés, 3799–801; Silence, 648–51). Chrétien’s narrator concludes after an extended adynaton: ‘Si vont les choses a envers’ (line 3812), thus invoking the world upside-down topos which, as we shall see, is relevant not only to Silence’s father as lover, but also to Silence herself when disguised as a man. Chrétien and Heldris both exploit the comedy inherent in the lovers’ situa-

9 10 11 12

13

of adventure in the Roman de Silence, which contains perceptive remarks on the humorous aspects of the romance: C. A. Jewers, ‘The Non-Existent Knight: Adventure in Le Roman de Silence’, Arthuriana 7 (1997), 87–110. See Roche-Mahdi, Silence, p. xii, and S. Kinoshita, ‘Heldris de Cornuälle’s Roman de Silence and the Feudal Politics of Lineage’, PMLA 110.3 (1995), 397–409 (p. 407, note 8). Kinoshita (‘Feudal Politics’, p. 407, note 10) and J. Frappier (Grundriss, III, 467–74, p. 473) mention Cligés as a possible intertext, but elaborate no further. Cligés is quoted from Chrétien de Troyes: Cligés, ed. A. Micha, Classiques français du Moyen Age (Paris, 1975). See H. Lloyd, ‘The Triumph of Pragmatism – Reward and Punishment in Le Roman de Silence’, in Rewards and Punishments in the Arthurian Romances and Lyric Poetry of Medieval France, ed. P. Davies and A. Kennedy (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 77–88 (pp. 77–8). Heldris at times conflates material from both parts of Chrétien’s romance: the story of the parents and of their son. A striking example is the use of the distinctive rhyme word parçonier in Fénice’s and Eufemie’s speech (Cligés, line 3122; Silence, line 811).

89



KAREN PRATT

tions. There is irony in their mutual yet undeclared love and in their rhetorically elaborate ratiocinations which lead to passivity rather than action.14 The torments of love are exacerbated in the case of both sets of parents by too great an awareness of potential linguistic ambiguity. Chrétien presents with gentle humour the conflict in Soredamors’s mind when, having noticed the shirt with the golden hair she gave to Alexandre, she wonders whether or not to address him as ‘ami’: ‘Apelerai le par son non Ou par ami? Ami? Je non. Comant dons? Par son non l’apele! Dex, ja est la parole bele Et tant dolce ami a nomer! Se je l’osasse ami clamer . . .’ (Cligés, 1373–8) (‘Shall I call him by his name or call him ami. Ami? Not I. How then? Call him by his name! Oh God, the word is already wonderful and it is so sweet to call him ami. If only I dared to call him ami.’)15

Soredamors deliberates so long over the possible implications of calling Alexandre ‘ami’ that the opportunity passes with the arrival of Guinevere, who ironically utters the portentous word totally innocently on seeing Alexandre (line 1406). By repeating the key term ‘ami’ and by employing aural punning Heldris alludes to Soredamors’s dilemma in the scene when Eufemie is betrayed by language into revealing her love for Cador prematurely, against her will (lines 879–92). Showing a little more initiative than Soredamors, Eufemie visits her beloved, but instead of saying, ‘Amis, parlés a mi’ (‘Friend, speak to me’) she utters the words: ‘Amis, parlés, haymmi’ (lines 885–6) (‘friend, speak, oh woe is me’), thereby betraying the distress caused by love. Heldris elaborates amusingly (with exaggerated rhetoric: extended expolitio) on this verbal betrayal (lines 882–900), then echoes the uncertainties of Chrétien’s lovers in Cador’s reaction. For, aware of the pitfalls of linguistic ambiguity (line 908), Cador ruminates on the possible connotations of the term ‘amis’, which Eufemie has at least managed to utter: Mais que li parole est covierte, Car ja soit cho qu’ami le claimme N’est pas provance qu’ele l’ainme, Car tels hom est “amis” clamés Ki de fin cuer n’est pas amés. (Silence, 908–12) (Unless the word is ambiguous, for just because she calls him ‘ami’ does not prove that she loves him, for a man can be called ‘ami’ without being loved with a pure heart.) 14 See P. Haidu, Aesthetic Distance in Chrétien de Troyes: Irony and Comedy in ‘Cligés’ and ‘Perceval’

(Geneva, 1968). 15 Translations of all texts in this article are my own.

90




In his hesitation Cador evokes Fénice, who, quite happy to call Cligés ‘amis’ (line 4261), is nevertheless left to ponder what her lover’s parting words ‘Je sui toz vostres’ (line 4367) (‘I am all yours’) really meant. However, not to be outdone by Cador, Eufemie also suffers doubt, as the narrator points out on her behalf the ambiguity of Cador’s declaration: ‘Mais el roiame n’en a trois Dont la mellor presisse mie S’une m’en faut, bele Eufemie.’ Biele Eufemie, cho est l’une A cui li cuers Cador s’aüne! De l’une est Eufemie gloze, Mais que sor li prendre ne l’oze, Qu’en li n’en a pas tant d’ozer Qu’ele sor li l’oze glozer. Doute qu’il ait dit altrement . . . (Silence, 982–91) (‘Yet I would not take the best of the top three women in the kingdom, if I could not have one, fair Eufemie.’ Fair Eufemie was the ‘one’ to whom Cador’s heart was drawn. Eufemie was the gloss for ‘one’, but she dared not attribute this word to herself, nor did she have enough courage to dare to gloss it as meaning herself. She feared he had said something quite different . . .)

Despite their hesitations, Silence’s parents do manage to declare their mutual love (lines 919–1089), more in the manner of Fénice and Cligés than of the latter’s parents (Cligés, lines 5112ff.). Yet Heldris’s protagonists, in their role as timorous lovers, are treated with the same humour and irony as Chrétien’s protagonists, even though Eufemie sometimes resembles Fénice rather than Soredamors for her greater confidence and courage.16 Although the humorous presentation of Cador and Eufemie owes much to Chrétien, Heldris adds several comic details of his own. The lovers seal their declaration with a feudal kiss, its description comprising litotes (lines 1099–1100), mock discretion (lines 1103–6), exaggeration (line 1111) and a jocular comparison to a very pleasant meal (lines 1101–19). Meanwhile, King Ebain is presented as sharing the same doubts which afflicted the lovers. For, keen that the couple should marry to solve an inheritance problem of his own making, the king believes erroneously that he will need to put pressure on his nephew and Eufemie to marry each other (lines 1258–74).17 The count of Chester, sent to carry out the king’s plan (lines 1321–34) soon realises that they are in love, and has to cough loudly to warn them of his presence (line 1405). Each character in turn is the subject of dramatic irony as they fear failure while the narrator assures us that their hopes and inclinations will be 16 These qualities, along with her learning, make some critics read her as a proto-feminist character,

although her acquiescence to Cador’s wishes once married tends to negate this view. 17 This is a union that will ultimately be in Ebain’s own interests, as Kinoshita shows (‘Feudal Politics’,

pp. 400–1).

91



KAREN PRATT

realised. Yet it is the king who ends up being the butt of the only deliberate joke when the count dupes him into thinking that it was hard work convincing the lovers to accept each other in marriage (lines 1490–4).18 Throughout their courtship, Eufemie, wise and educated in the seven liberal arts (line 403), is treated as an equal to Cador, Heldris thereby preparing the way for her active, wise daughter to don successfully the mantle of romance ‘hero’. Yet, at the same time, Silence has inherited some of her parents’ less positive characteristics. Their inability to express sexual desire is transposed in her story onto the paternal prohibition against expressing her natural (female) sexuality in return for the cultural benefits of inheriting wealth as a male (lines 6592–602, 6614). It is appropriate, therefore, that a man who fears to express his love and a woman whose name invokes euphemistic verbal indirectness should give birth to a child called Silence. Silence, when disguised as a man, proves to be an expert in both prowess and engin, thus becoming the female equivalent of the likes of Cligés. However, as a child brought up against her nature Silence also recalls another of Chrétien’s protagonists, Perceval, and another Arthurian intertext: the Conte del Graal. The parallel with Perceval is evoked fairly explicitly by the narrator when he applauds Silence’s nurture in the forest: Onques d’enfant norri en bois Ne vos pot on si grans biens dire. (2354–5) (Never could such great and worthy things be told about any child raised in the woods.)

Furthermore, there is probably a humorous echo of the form of address favoured by Perceval’s mother when Cador repeats the appellation ‘bials fils’ (lines 2445, 2448, 2453) in his speech to Silence, now nurtured as a boy.19 The humour is, of course, created not just by repetition, but by the incongruity of a girl being called ‘son’ (incongruity being the main source of comedy in the romance). A more significant parallel, however, linking the two romances on the thematic and structural levels, is their treatment of the nature/nurture opposition. Although Simon Gaunt, in his incisive and rich discussion of the significance of Silence, is right to show how Heldris has transposed the nature/nurture debate in Guillaume d’Angleterre from class to gender, it is worth noting that Chrétien de Troyes had already produced a gendered 18 King Ebain’s behaviour as monarch leaves much to be desired, as several critics show (Kinoshita,

‘Feudal Politics’, pp. 398–402; L. Stock, ‘The Importance of Being Gender “Stable”: Masculinity and Feminine Empowerment in Le Roman de Silence’, Arthuriana 7 (1997), 7–34). Although humour is often benign, winning the audience’s sympathy rather than censure (as in the case of Silence’s parents), Ebain’s lack of perspicacity adds to the somewhat negative portrayal of him. 19 See Jewers, ‘The Non-Existent Knight’, p. 102. There may also be an echo here of the vieille’s speech to the ambiguously gendered Bel Acueil in the Roman de la Rose.

92




version in his Conte del Graal.20 For Perceval is not only a noble youth brought up in the forest like a peasant in ignorance of chivalry, his class destiny. He is also a boy brought up by his mother in ignorance of masculine pursuits. As King Arthur observes, his education has been deficient: ‘Por che, se li vallés est niches, S’est il, puet c’estre, gentix hom, Que il li vient d’aprision, Qu’il a esté a malvais mestre; Encore puet preus vassax estre.’ (1012–16)21 (‘Even if the young man is naive, it is quite possible that he is of noble birth, and this comes from his upbringing, for he has had a bad teacher. He may still become a worthy knight.’)

Perceval’s maternal education is corrected later (not entirely successfully) by a series of masculine influences and male relatives acting as teachers. The question of the gendering of the nature/culture opposition, which exercises modern anthropologists, is given complex treatment in Perceval, because of the polysemy of the term ‘nature’.22 This polysemy (a cultural product, of course) generates a series of opposites which tend to deconstruct the gendered binary. Thus nature (the forest, the wild, the body, natural activities) is gendered feminine through association with the mother, while culture (the court, chivalry, the church, the mind, cultural activities) is gendered masculine through association with King Arthur, knights and clerics. Yet nature, in the sense of innate characteristics or genetic destiny, and defined in opposition to nurture, is gendered according to biological sex; thus Perceval, with his masculine, aristocratic nature is destined, despite his feminine nurturing, to become cultured, civilised, a knight. His male nature obliges him to leave the maternal imaginary and enter the paternal symbolic order, with its emphasis on language. Perceval seems, however, to be caught between the two orders, his silence and consequent failure at the Grail castle being attributed both to guilt over his mother’s death (lines 3593–5), and to an imperfect understanding of Gornemant’s teaching on speech (lines 3243–7). Whereas the forest is gendered feminine in Perceval, it is masculine in the Roman de Silence. Silence, once weaned, is nurtured away from court society in the forest by a nurse, supervised by a seneschal and Cador (lines 2469ff.). Their aim is to gender her masculine by teaching her all the skills required by male nobles. She is brought up against her nature to adopt masculine culture, 20 S. Gaunt, ‘The Significance of Silence’, Paragraph 13 (1990), 202–16. 21 The Conte del Graal is quoted from Chrétien de Troyes: Le Roman de Perceval ou le Conte du Graal,

ed. W. Roach, Textes Littéraires français (Geneva, 1959). 22 See C. P. MacCormack, ‘Nature, Culture and Gender: a Critique’, in Nature, Culture, and Gender, ed.

C. P. MacCormack and M. Strathern (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 1–24; S. Ortner, ‘Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?’, in Woman, Culture and Society, ed. M. Z. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere (Stanford, 1974), pp. 67–88; and R. L. Krueger, Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in the Old French Verse Romance (Cambridge, 1993), p. 117.

93



KAREN PRATT

though paradoxically in a setting usually associated with nature and the wild. However, her true female nature, expressed through her body and sexuality, will out in the end, and is finally revealed when she captures Merlin. In this episode too the Roman de Silence employs the anthropological oppositions nature/culture, the raw and the cooked, and nature/nurture in a sophisticated way (lines 5929–6136). Merlin’s state as wild man of the woods, preferring grass and roots to man-made, domesticated food, is presented as the result of unnatural nurture, a regression to the animal state (line 5955). Like Perceval, Merlin’s true nature is to be a civilised man, hence his taming using cooked meat, honey, milk and wine.23 In capturing Merlin through appealing to his true nature as a cultural man, Silence is trapped by her true nature and most natural attribute, her female body. For only biological females can catch Merlin. At the end of the romance Silence accepts the naturalised roles assigned to women by medieval society and closely linked to their bodies; she becomes the king’s wife and presumably a source of legitimate heirs. In fulfilling her female nature she must abandon the cultural roles of knight and jongleur which she performs expertly while masquerading as a man. Perceval’s unnatural upbringing, which produces much of the humour at the beginning of the Conte del Graal, is not narrated at length, the romance concentrating on Perceval’s rehabilitation. In contrast, three quarters of the Roman de Silence is taken up with the amusing consequences of disguising Silence’s true nature. The conflict within her is made explicit in the speeches given to the two allegorical figures nature and norreture. Their respective influences on Silence are also expressed grammatically through the masculine and feminine endings attached to the Latin version of her name: Scilencia is her female nature, the ‘a’ ending conveying what she possesses intrinsically.24 Scilenscius, on the other hand, is her masculine persona, the result of norreture or ‘us’, Heldris here punning on the Old French term for habits, customs, usage (lines 2074–82).25 However, this neat opposition is deconstructed when Heldris implies that a habit may be either by or against nature: Car cis -us est contre nature, Mais l’altres seroit par nature. (2081–2)26 (For this custom is against nature, but the other would be natural.)

23 It is questionable that Heldris viewed Silence’s preparation of food for Merlin as one of the feminine

activities that Silence will later practise when she reverts to being female (Stock, ‘The Importance of Being Gender “Stable” ’, p. 25). Indeed, medieval queens are rarely portrayed in kitchens and there is evidence in Old French literature that cooking is gendered masculine (see, for example, the cooks in the Chanson de Roland, Rainouart in the Chanson de Guillaume and Governal’s culinary skills in Beroul’s Tristran). 24 Interestingly, these grammatical distinctions are possible only in Latin. In Old French, the common noun silence is masculine, but derives from the Latin neuter noun silentium (though the form silentia existed in Medieval Latin too). Thus Silence’s name in Old French is ambiguously gendered. 25 See M. Perret, ‘Travesties et transsexuelles: Yde, Silence, Grisandole, Blanchandine’, Romance Notes 25 (1985), 328–40 (p. 335). 26 Cf. ‘de nature li us’ (line 2529).

94




Furthermore Heldris’s distinction between the sexes seems to be based not on innate characteristics but on social convention, or to quote Krueger ‘ “nature” is the justification of how “culture” constructs women’ (Women Readers, p. 117). So, in the romance, women are associated with sewing, while men wear different clothes, enjoy outdoor pursuits and have tanned and weather-beaten complexions – a distinguishing feature underlined by the frequent repetition of the rhyme malle/halle (lines 1979–80; 2051–2; 2473–4; 2503–4; 5162–3).27 The fact that Silence becomes a very successful male, her prowess in battle helping King Ebain to defeat his foes, implies controversially that gender is a social construct and has little to do with biology. In fact Gaunt (‘The Significance’, p. 213) argues that although the narrator’s commentary and the dénouement of the story suggest that Heldris promoted a typically medieval essentialism, as summarised in the proverb ‘Mieuz vaut nature que nourreture’, the narrative proper problematises this view, thus revealing an anxiety on the part of the author about the biological justification for woman’s inferior role in medieval society. It is certainly true that narrative inconsistencies reveal authorial unease about serious gender issues. However, the narratorial voice and narrative tone are often comic and influence the way we interpret Silence’s actions as a man.28 Just as Perceval’s innocence of chivalric matters is humorous, so Silence’s denial of her true nature can place her in amusingly compromising situations. Scenes which involve undressing raise a smile at her discomfiture, and Heldris offers a humorous twist to the Potiphar’s wife motif when the queen attempts to seduce Silence and then accuses her of homosexuality, which is ironic given Eufeme’s attraction to a woman in drag (lines 3935–49). The comedy of character and situation is further enhanced by the verbal humour in the narrator’s commentary. There is frequent innuendo of a sexual nature, which reminds us constantly of Silence’s female anatomy (line 2829) and highlights through contrast the unnaturalness of her masculine behaviour. Thus, the narrator’s mocking attitude towards Silence’s ‘artificial masculinity’ is a device employed by Heldris to persuade his audience of the essentialism of gender. The author even uses Silence as his mouthpiece when, fearing that the truth will be disclosed by Merlin, she is forced to admit that she has betrayed woman’s custom, which she presents as a product of female nature: ‘Car il fera descoverture De quanque ai fait contre nature. Jo cuidai Merlin engignier,

27 Unlike P. McCracken, ‘ “The Boy who was a Girl”: Reading Gender in the Roman de Silence’,

Romanic Review 85.4 (1995), 517–36 (p. 532), I do not think one needs to speculate that nature removes anything more essentially male than these surface indicators of gender when she works on Silence for three days before her marriage (lines 6669–73). 28 See Jewers, ‘The Non-Existent Knight’, p. 98.

95



KAREN PRATT

Si m’ai engignié. Forlignier Cuidai a tols jors us de feme.’

(6455–9)29

(‘For he will reveal all that I have done against my nature. I thought to deceive Merlin, but I have deceived myself. I thought to betray/deny forever woman’s custom.’)

Heldris portrays Silence’s activities and her success as a man as an extended world-upside-down topos. By treating his heroine and her exploits with humour, he is promoting a normative attitude towards Silence’s unnatural situation. As the next example illustrates, Heldris, while seeming to admire the efficacy of Silence’s masculine performance, never allows us to forget who she really is, and how strangely she is behaving:30 Il a us d’ome tant usé Et cel de feme refusé Que poi en falt que il n’est malles: Quanque on en voit est trestolt malles. El a en tine que ferine: Il est desos les dras mescine. (2475–80) (He has behaved in a masculine way for so long, rejecting feminine custom that it would take very little/he lacks just one small thing to make him a male. All that is visible is completely masculine, [but] he has something else in his barrel than flour: under his clothing he is a girl.)

In this passage the allusion to Silence’s lack of a penis as ‘poi en falt’ is humorously belittling of phallic pride. The narrator’s citation of the traditional proverb, ‘El a en tine, dit le suriz, que farine’, is also suggestive.31 He seems to be saying that s/he has something different in her/his barrel from flour, and since Latin tina was a container for wine, the implication is that s/he has something stronger and more interesting. Besides, Old French tine may well be a metaphor for the female genitals, as Gaunt shows for its Occitan cognate (‘The Significance’, p. 216, note 15). Not only are we here, as elsewhere, explicitly reminded of what Silence’s clothing thinly disguises, but her true gender is also invoked through the punning on ‘el’ and ‘il’ in lines 2479–80 (even though ‘el’ means ‘something else’ rather than ‘she’).32 The

29 ‘Forlignier’ is a very strong feudal term, normally associated with the betrayal of one’s whole family or

lineage, but here applied to gender. 30 In this view I differ from McCracken (‘ “The Boy who was a Girl” ’, p. 529), who claims that the

author’s portrayal of his female hero reveals ‘a confused perception of the relation between Silence’s clothes and the features they cover’. 31 See Proverbes français antérieurs au XVe siècle, ed. J. Morawski (Paris, 1925), no. 627. 32 Although some of the puns identified by deconstructionist critics are merely virtual, as they do violence to Old French phonology and syntax (for examples, see K. M. Cooper, ‘Elle and L: Sexualized Textuality in the Roman de Silence’, Romance Notes 25 (1985), 341–60, and G. T. Gilmore, ‘Le Roman de Silence: Allegory in Ruin or Womb of Irony?’, Arthuriana 7 (1997), 111–23), this is a genuine aural pun, for el + a and ele + a would be indistinguishable to a listening audience, creating initial ambiguity.

96




disturbing possibility of a female being a convincing male is thus made safe by a risqué joke. Silence is again the object of sexual humour just as she reaches the heights of chivalric success. Although the joke is mainly on the men who are defeated by her, her status too suffers from the indelicate nature of the narrator’s comments (especially lines 5157–9):33 Tels chevaliers par li i vierse Que se il le tenist envierse34 Et il peüst la fin savoir Que grant honte en peüst avoir Que feme tendre, fainte et malle, Ki rien n’a d’ome fors le halle, Et fors les dras et contenance, L’eüst abatu de sa lance. (5157–64) (Any knight unhorsed by her, if he had turned her upside-down and could have known the truth of it/got to the bottom of it, would have been very ashamed that a tender, gentle, frail woman, whose only masculine characteristics were her weather-beaten face, clothes and bearing, had knocked him down with her lance.)35

A more explicit example of Heldris’s comic treatment of his heroine is to be found when Nurture, aided by Reason, convinces the young girl that it is socially advantageous to remain a man. Silence’s description of her superior 33 The popular medieval theme of appearances being deceptive is exploited for comic effect throughout

the romance and many of its characters are the victims of dramatic irony, mildly ridiculed because of their inability to perceive the truth. 34 R. Psaki, ‘The Modern Editor and Medieval “Misogyny”: Text Editing and Le Roman de Silence’, Arthuriana 7 (1997), 78–86, argues interestingly that the Roman de Silence has suffered from at least one editor (Thorpe) whose interventions have intensified the misogyny of the text. More serious though, to my mind, has been the violence done to the text by the translation attempts of modern critics. Psaki and Roche-Mahdi are generally honourable exceptions, but neither Psaki, Roche-Mahdi nor Stock (L. K. Stock, ‘ “Arms and the (Wo)man” in Medieval Romance: the Gendered Arming of Female Warriors in the Roman d’Enéas and Heldris’s Roman de Silence’, Arthuriana 5:4 (1995), 56–83 (p. 70)) translates line 5158 correctly; Gaunt does, yet inexplicably misunderstands halle in lines 5162–3. In other important passages to be discussed later McCracken ‘ “The Boy who was a Girl” ’, p. 530, not helped by Psaki, misinterprets ‘afoler’ in line 2648; Gaunt, ‘The Significance’, p. 213, Bloch, ‘Silence and Holes’, p. 93, Gilmore, ‘Allegory in Ruin’, p. 119, and E. A. Waters, ‘The Third Path: Alternative Sex, Alternative Gender in Le Roman de Silence’, Arthuriana 7 (1997), 35–46 (p. 36) all mistranslate line 6627, with Jewers, ‘The Non-Existent Knight’, p. 93, citing Gaunt as her authority; finally Psaki’s rendering of line 6129 totally misses the point. It is worrying to see certain misreadings being repeated, witness Bloch’s translation of ‘haymmi’ in line 886 as ‘hate me’ resurfacing in L. Ringer, ‘Exchange, Identity and Transvestism in Le roman de Silence’, Dalhousie French Studies 28 (1994), 3–13. Yet Roche-Mahdi (Silence, p. xxiv) is right to allude to the many interpretative difficulties which still remain, despite the efforts of Thorpe, Lecoy and herself to elucidate this challenging single-manuscript text. 35 Heldris frequently indulges in gender ambiguity when portraying Silence, the ambiguity enhanced by the Picard tendency to substitute masculine definite article and pronouns for the feminine (see Thorpe, Le Roman de Silence, p. 51). In this passage, however, given the feminine form of the adjective in line 5158, Heldris is drawing our attention to Silence’s female nature, ironically at the very moment when she is most successful as a male. I have therefore employed feminine pronouns in my translation.

97



KAREN PRATT

social position cannot fail to remind us of the traditional sexual position for men, a detail Heldris elaborates upon with rhetorical gusto: ‘Voire,’ fait il, ‘a la male eure Irai desos, quant sui deseure. Deseure sui, s’irai desos?’ (2639–41) (‘Indeed’, he said, ‘in an evil hour will I go underneath when I’m on top. I’m on top, shall I go underneath?’)

No doubt to poke fun at the absurdity of his/her words, Heldris has Silence add that she is now too rough to pass for a woman and would soon be unmasked ‘al giu c’on fait desos gordine’ (line 2649) (‘at the game one plays behind the curtains’).36 The irony is, of course, that it is precisely on a curtained bed that the game would be up for the girl who would be a man. When Silence is first presented as a boy Heldris employs either the neutral term enfant or mainly masculine pronouns and articles to designate Cador’s engendreüre (line 1657), but because these can also be feminine in the Picard dialect, Silence’s gender is ambiguous. In the seduction episode, however, she is frequently referred to as ‘le vallet ki ert meschine’ (line 3704).37 Heldris thus emphasises her true nature and the ridiculousness of her situation. Yet the joke is also on Eufeme, who, the narrator comments, will obtain no more satisfaction from Silence than that provided by a kiss:38 Cel pora plus mesaäsier Quant al sorplus volra entendre39 Qu’ele falra del tolt al prendre. (3740–2) (And this will upset her even more if she tries to get the rest, for she will fail miserably to get it.)

The scene which ensues, depicting the queen’s enthusiastic love-making and Silence’s embarrassment (lines 3743–895) is worthy of any farce. Thus Heldris combines situational comedy with amused narratorial commentary to convey the idea that the heroine’s role in the Roman de Silence is not entirely heroic and at times comically absurd.40

36 I interpret ‘afoler’ (line 2648) as ‘to be made a fool of’, ‘to be undone’, hence ‘unmasked’. 37 See lines 3763, 3785, 3871, 3954 for variations on this designation. 38 Note also in lines 3700–4 the comic comparison between Tristan and Iseut’s mutual love and Eufeme’s

illicit passion for a young man who is really a girl. 39 ‘Li sorplus’ frequently has sexual connotations in Old French lyric and romance. 40 Critics have compared the absurdity of Silence’s behaviour with that of the queen of Torelore in

Aucassin et Nicolette (see Jewers, ‘The Non-Existent Knight’, p. 97). Yet although Heldris’s knightly heroine is presented as an anomaly, she is allowed to indulge in proper warfare, unlike the queen of Torelore. Besides, she shares many positive characteristics with the enterprising (but nevertheless feminine) Nicolette. Silence is thus both a comic inversion of the traditional male chivalric hero and a more serious epitome of the ingenious heroine who disguises herself as a jongleur, travels extensively and defeats her opponents by force of intellect and verbal dexterity.

98




Silence and Eufeme are not the only characters to be treated with humour. The capture of Merlin is described with comic exaggeration: Nature, triumphing over his rustic, almost bestial, nurture, takes him by the scruff of the neck: ‘Si l’a enpoint deviers le col’ (line 6092) and forces him to eat the roast meat. The audience’s amusement at his overindulgence is anticipated as the narrator conjures up (with excessive enumeration) the comic scene before our very eyes: Ki donc veïst ventre eslargir, Estendre, et tezir, et bargir, Ne lairoit qu’il n’en resist tost! (6127–9) (Whoever saw his belly swell, bloat, inflate and expand could not fail to burst out laughing at it.)

Thus Heldris builds on the humour present in Perceval’s unnatural upbringing and transfers it onto the figures of Silence and Merlin, to make, it would seem, important points about nature and nurture in an entertaining way. The third Chrétien intertext evoked by the Roman de Silence is Erec et Enide. The most obvious parallel between the two works is the linking of the themes of speech and pleasure, or rather female silence and male pleasure. The rhyme pair taisir/plaisir occurs in Chrétien’s prologue (lines 7–8), thereby announcing an important narrative leitmotif, developed later when Enide speaks out in bed. Her female parole disturbs Erec’s marital bliss and undermines his masculinity. This explains his prohibition on her speech and the suspension of conjugal relations during their adventures. Although there is much overt criticism of her parole by Erec and by Enide herself, the narrative nevertheless demonstrates the benefits of speaking out, a conclusion Chrétien anticipates in his prologue, where he censures inappropriate silence.41 Heldris uses the rhyme pair taisir/plaisir twelve times (lines 675–6, 1669–70, 2071–2, 3157–8, 3311–12, 4433–4, 4697–8, 4929–30, 6281–2, 6309–10, 6397–8, 6627–8), a juxtaposition which seems to suggest approval of silence. Yet like Erec et Enide, the Roman de Silence is a narrative which ultimately proves the virtue of speaking out for both men and women, despite the fact that the overtly misogynistic King Ebain equates ideal femininity with silence: ‘Car femes n’ont sens que mais un, C’est taisirs. (6401–2) (‘Women are good for only one thing/ can do only one sensible thing, to keep quiet.’)42 41 For a fuller discussion, see K. Pratt, ‘Adapting Enide: Chrétien, Hartmann and the Female Reader’, in

Chrétien de Troyes and the German Middle Ages, ed. M. Jones and R. Wisbey (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 67–84. 42 Ebain goes on to equate female silence with his own pleasure in a speech containing the rhyme pair taisir/plaisir (lines 6397–8).

99



KAREN PRATT

Indeed, the key to the romance’s meaning is to be found in Merlin’s role, for it is his speech at the end, after a period of tantalising silence, that restores order by revealing the sexual unorthodoxies of Silence and of the queen’s male lover dressed as a nun (lines 6525–52). Moreover, Merlin’s revelations are accompanied by laughter (lines 6413–32, 6552), mirroring the normalising laughter which Heldris’s narrative was, in my view, designed to provoke from his audience. Although characters within the Roman de Silence repeat the traditional view that silence is a positive quality in a woman, Heldris’s treatment of the plaisir/taisir pair implies criticism of the way that Silence denies her sexuality, her plaisir, by remaining silent about, and repressing, her true nature. Silence, pace Gaunt (‘The Significance’, p. 202) and McCracken (‘ “The Boy who was a Girl” ’, p. 526), is not an ‘inability to signify’, but a refusal to speak, an active choice which signifies. In Heldris’s terms, his heroine’s masculine silence is a metaphorical refusal to use language to express the authentic female self. It is associated in the romance with concealment and self control,43 hence the reference to Sainte Paciensce (line 2068) at the child’s baptism.44 Ironically, Cador sees silence as removing anxiety (‘Por cho que silensce tolt ance’, line 2069), but in relieving his inheritance worries, he has imposed on his daughter potentially greater cares. Heldris, on the other hand, shows that ultimately this silence, being unnatural, has to be broken. This is done when Silence speaks as a woman for the first time and tells the truth about her nature, for, as she says, she no longer cares to lie, wishes no longer to remain silent: ‘La vertés nel puet consentir Que jo vos puissce rien mentir, Ne jo n’ai soig mais de taisir. Faites de moi vostre plaisir.’ (6625–8) (Truth will not allow me to lie to you in any way, nor do I wish to remain silent any longer. Do with me what you will.)

Although at this point Silence condemns herself to a sort of social silence, by agreeing to adopt the role medieval society imposed on queens, she does not, as Gaunt argues (‘The Significance’, p. 213), silence herself at the end.45 43 The topic of concealment is represented by the terms celer (line 2071) and covrir/coverture (lines 2191,

2462, note especially the rhyme pair coverture/noreture in lines 2179–80) and their opposite (lines 2656, 6455). Self control or denial is expressed by the term abstinence (lines 2616, 2659, 2674). 44 Interestingly R. E. Latham, Revised Medieval Latin Word List (Oxford, 1965), p. 349, cites the verb ‘silenteo ab’, ‘to refrain from’, as being in use from the late twelfth century onwards. 45 Gaunt’s reading of line 6627: ‘Ne jo n’ai soig mais de taisir’ as ‘I only care to be silent’ takes it out of context and misconstrues its meaning. Silence’s words here echo the narrator in line 1669: ‘Car la verté ne doi taisir’ (‘for I must not keep silent about the truth’), the syntax being parallel to line 6353 ‘N’ai soig encore de fuïr’ (‘I do not care to flee yet’). Gaunt interprets Heldris’s use of ‘mais’ in the restrictive sense, as in line 324 (‘Mais cil qui n’a mais une fille’ – ‘but he who has only a daughter’). However, in those cases where ‘mais’ means ‘except for’ or ‘only’ it is always followed by a noun. There are no examples of ‘mais’ plus a verb to convey the meaning ‘außer, ausgenommen’ in Tobler Lommatzsch;

100




Indeed, within the metaphoric system privileged by the romance, Silence acquires sexual liberation through speaking out and embracing her true nature.46 Thus the Roman de Silence provides a mirror image of the thematic of speech in Erec et Enide. Silence’s adoption of masculine, measured, public speech receives general approval from the protagonists, yet in the narrator’s view (supported by the Arthurian authority Merlin) this silencing of her nature is wrong. Enide’s parole is condemned by Chrétien’s eponymous hero and heroine, yet the narrative shows that she was right to speak. Both texts agree that silence is not always golden. The Roman de Silence does not end on an unambiguously positive note, however, for Ebain’s praise of his future wife invokes the antifeminist adage going back to Solomon that a good woman, being so rare, is a precious thing:47 ‘Il n’est si preciose gemme, Ne tels tresors com bone feme.’

(6633–4)

(‘There is no more precious jewel nor greater treasure than a good woman.’)

Moreover, the narrator argues that one should praise a good woman more than criticise an evil one, for given woman’s nature it is hard for her to be good (lines 6684–701). Misogynistic comments such as these are sprinkled throughout the romance, and although often provoked by the behaviour of Eufeme, the narrator generalises unashamedly about woman’s fickleness and excesses (lines 3901–24), her ability to deceive by weeping at will (lines 4157–8; 5233–5) and her vengeful speech (4266–8).48 These generalisations are commonplaces of didactic literature, as are the ‘excusasions’ made supposedly to the ladies in the audience by first-person narrators from Jean de

‘mais’ has to be immediately preceded by ‘ne’ as in ‘Unc nen out volenté Ne mais de servir Dé, Ph. Taon Comp. 1698’ (‘He had no desire to do it except to serve God’); see A. Tobler and E. Lommatzsch, Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch (Berlin, 1925– ), V, 865. It is a pity that so many scholars have followed Gaunt’s and before him Bloch’s reading of this key moment in the romance. 46 The link between lying and denying one’s nature has already been made earlier, see lines 3871–4 and 4169–73. 47 See Jean LeFèvre, Les Lamentations de Matheolus, II, lines 2589–614, where the authority of Solomon is invoked to suggest that no good woman ever lived, and III, lines 2157–63, where the rarity of a good woman is compared to that of rare birds. Jean Le Fèvre, Les Lamentations de Matheolus et le Livre de Leësce, ed. A.-G. van Hamel, 2 vols. (Paris, 1892 and 1905). For the tradition lying behind Ebain’s remarks, see K. Pratt, ‘Translating Misogamy: the Authority of the Intertext in the Lamentationes Matheoluli and its Middle French Translation by Jean LeFèvre’, Forum for Modern Language Studies 35 (1999), 421–35 (pp. 425–6). Le Fèvre’s thirteenth-century Latin source closely resembles Heldris’s formulation: ‘Sed mala ne videar tibi dicere de muliere, / Dico, quod bona fit omni preciosior ere.’ (lines 3228–9) (‘But lest I might appear to speak ill of women to you, I say that a good woman should be more precious than any precious metal.’) 48 The fictional characters also indulge in misogyny: Ebain blames the twin sisters for his barons’ deaths (lines 309–18); Cador claims that women do not always do what is best for them and are often capricious (lines 667–75); Silence is convinced by Nurture that it is better and more honourable to be male (lines 2632–56) and Ebain claims that woman’s skill at dissimulating can deceive even the wisest man (lines 5001–5).

101



KAREN PRATT

Meun to Jean LeFèvre.49 Extreme antifeminism, followed by exaggerated apologies, contributed to these male poets’ comic portrayal of the woman question. Heldris also shares with didactic literature the view that female power and success in a masculine world are against the natural order, as is the behaviour of Phyllis when she rides Aristotle in the well-known comic exemplum made popular by the Lai d’Aristote.50 It may, moreover, be significant that the Roman de Silence is found in a manuscript which also contains comic and risqué fabliaux.51 For this is a genre that offers similarly comic treatments of apparent female success or superiority, which their epilogues often present as contravening the laws of nature. Berengier au lonc cul is in many ways as humorously unnatural as Silence, and both show that appearances created by females can be deceptive.52 However, whereas male transvestism was a potential source of great anxiety for androcentric medieval society, the female transvestite, far from threatening the social order, was a safe joke. For despite Silence’s triumphs as minstrel and knight, the audience, gendered masculine, is constantly encouraged to penetrate her disguise and laugh at her phallic inadequacy.53 If the Roman de Silence is read in the context of twelfth- and thirteenth-century French literature, it becomes apparent that the romance was in dialogue with various genres, not just Arthurian romance. The identification of connections with antifeminist comic genres, however, leads one to question whether the discourse of misogyny and the humorous portrayal of a unnatural woman undermine the proto-feminist portrayal of the exemplary ‘masculine’ heroine or whether the narrative demonstrating the temporary success of nurture ironically undermines the authority of the essentialist narrator and mysogynous characters.54 In other words, does the invocation of humorous and often antifeminist genres such as the fabliau or the didactic 49 See Pratt, ‘Translating Misogamy’, pp. 424–5, for the comic tradition of the mock apology. No one has

50

51

52

53

54

been able to advance a more precise dating for the Roman de Silence than Thorpe’s ‘second half of the thirteenth century’ (Le Roman de Silence, p. 17); it seems, however, that Heldris’s romance was contemporaneous with Jean de Meun’s Roman de la Rose and the Latin source of LeFèvre’s Lamentations de Matheolus. LeFèvre and his Latin source also cite this example of woman on top, which, as we have seen, is a position Silence is loath to give up (lines 2639–41); see Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: an Anthology of Medieval Texts, ed. Alcuin Blamires with Karen Pratt and C. W. Marx (Oxford, 1992), p. 180, note 102. This type of evidence is problematic though, first because the folios on which Silence appears may not originally have been bound with the rest of the texts, and second, because medieval works could be copied together not to create a thematically coherent whole, but to produce a varied anthology for the owner of the codex. See Perret, ‘Travesties’, pp. 333–4, for a discussion of this fabliau. While the joke is mainly on Berengier’s husband and his gullibility, she is a comic figure too, the narrative focusing on her genitalia just as Heldris does on his heroine’s. Laughter is enhanced by the breaking of taboos. See Ad Putter, ‘Transvestite Knights in Medieval Life and Literature’, in Becoming Male in the Middle Ages, ed. J. J. Cohen and B. Wheeler (New York, 1997), pp. 279–302 (pp. 296–8). I am grateful to Dr Putter for his useful questions and comments on an earlier version of this paper delivered at the International Arthurian Society Congress in Toulouse 1999. Psaki, Silence, pp. xxx–xxxi, noting the discrepancy between commentary and narrative, concludes that the narrator is unreliable.

102




literature on women negate the positive image of female heroism which this romance makes possible? Clearly Heldris has left space for the individual reader to decide, though I suspect that the reader who resists the narrator’s pronouncements and the weight of thirteenth-century clerical tradition is largely a modern phenomenon. However, no reading of the Roman de Silence would be complete without a consideration of its sexual, grammatical and narrative incongruities, its verbal, structural and situational comedy, and its clever dialogue with the work of the greatest exponent of Arthurian romance, Chrétien de Troyes.

103





LA ‘DISCONVENANCE’ COMIQUE DANS LE LANCELOT EN PROSE

VII

LA PRATIQUE DE LA ‘DISCONVENANCE’ COMIQUE DANS LE LANCELOT EN PROSE: LES MESAVENTURES AMOUREUSES DE GUERREHET Bénédicte Milland-Bove Les mésaventures amoureuses de Guerrehet, qui, après avoir essuyé une longue série de refus de la part de diverses demoiselles, finit par forcer une jeune femme à l’accompagner dans son errance, font, selon P. Ménard ‘penser aux aventures burlesques de certains fabliaux’.1 Méprises, quiproquos, paroles et actions indignes de héros romanesques, tout ceci évoque indubitablement l’univers des fabliaux. Cependant, au fur et à mesure qu’on progresse dans le récit de l’errance de Guerrehet, soit disant en quête de Lancelot mais pris à plusieurs reprises en flagrant délit de vagabondage sexuel, on sort peu à peu du domaine du plaisant. La peinture de ces déséquilibres sexuels se double en effet de la dénonciation de déséquilibres sociaux. Que se passe-t-il lorsque les pauvres demoiselles n’écoutent plus les chevaliers de haut lignage, lorsque les filles de comte sont obligées d’épouser des chevaliers ‘issus de vilains’, lorsque Guerrehet viole et force à le suivre une dame qui se révélera fille de roi et du lignage de Lancelot? Loin de rester cantonnée dans le domaine de la farce, la peinture de ces déviances menace alors de glisser vers une autre tonalité, édifiante ou tragique. L’épisode, dans sa construction même, s’attache à montrer les dysfonctionnements du système courtois mis en place par le Lancelot lui-même. Ce sont ces ruptures de ton que l’on voudrait ici mettre en valeur pour éclairer le fonctionnement et la fonction critique de ces ‘éclats burlesques’ au sein du roman courtois. Une dizaine de quêteurs sont partis à la recherche de Lancelot, retenu par la promesse qu’il a faite à la Demoiselle Chenue. Après avoir interrompu le cours du récit pour faire le portrait de Gauvain et de ses frères, pratique inhabituelle chez le prosateur, celui-ci nous relate les aventures des membres de ce lignage en ordre de mérite croissant, de Mordret à Gaheriet. Il nous 1

Le Rire et le Sourire dans le roman courtois au Moyen Age (1150–1250) (Genève, Droz, 1969), p. 277.

105



BÉNÉDICTE MILLAND-BOVE

donne donc à lire la geste contrastée d’un lignage dont certains membres se distinguent par leur manque de courtoisie. A Guerrehet, le troisième des six frères, est consacrée une assez longue séquence narrative qui se développe en continu au tome IV du Lancelot en prose.2 Ses aventures sont un curieux mélange d’exploits chevaleresques et de comportements nettement moins glorieux. Guerrehet délivre un vieux chevalier assailli par ses dix neveux, passe la nuit chez lui et l’aide à soutenir une autre attaque nocturne. Fort de ce succès, il sollicite l’amour de sa fille. Celle-ci repousse ses avances et déclare sa nette préférence envers Lancelot. Econduit ici, Guerrehet poursuit son chemin et va tenter sa chance ailleurs. Il accepte de délivrer une jeune fille que sa mère, liée par une promesse forcée, doit céder à un chevalier cruel et félon. Alors qu’il la raccompagne chez sa mère, Guerrehet lui demande de devenir son amie, d’abord courtoisement, puis de manière plus brutale. La jeune fille se sort de cette situation délicate par une habile argumentation et le chevalier poursuit sa route. Il vient en aide à une jeune dame, fille du seigneur de la Bretesche, maltraitée par son mari, et provoque chez elle, en compagnie de Saigremor, un véritable carnage dû à une série de quiproquos. Enfin, et il s’agit là du point culminant de la séquence, où les procédés comiques atteignent leur paroxysme avant de s’annuler, Guerrehet parvient de nuit dans un pavillon. Sans plus de manières, il se couche dans le lit d’une demoiselle qui, le prenant pour son ami endormi à côté d’elle mais que Guerrehet n’a pas vu, lui fait le meilleur accueil. Lorsque l’autre chevalier, éveillé, veut venger l’affront que lui a fait subir Guerrehet dans son propre lit, le neveu d’Arthur le tue et force la demoiselle à le suivre. Partout où il passe, il oblige la demoiselle à partager sa couche.3 Celle-ci, malgré tous ses efforts, ne lui échappera que grâce à une ruse, qui lui permettra de trouver refuge dans un couvent.4 L’auteur, tout au long de cette séquence, use donc d’un certain nombre de procédés comiques bien connus. Comique de répétition, d’abord, car l’errance chevaleresque de Guerrehet se double, partout où il passe, d’une requête amoureuse formulée plus ou moins courtoisement et toujours mal accueillie par les demoiselles. L’obsession amoureuse de Guerrehet le rend ridicule et en fait l’antithèse comique de Lancelot, le héros bien-aimé des dames. Un autre procédé tout aussi répétitif est le refus qu’opposent les demoiselles à Guerrehet lorsqu’elles apprennent son identité. La première se déclare effrayée par le haut rang du frère de Gauvain.5 La deuxième a la même 2 3 4

5

Lancelot, éd. A. Micha (Genève, Droz, 1979), tome IV, pp. 13–62 (LXXI). IV, pp. 54, 56, 58. La dame prononce un serment ambigu qui lui permet, lors d’une étape dans un couvent, de prendre le voile: ‘Ge vos ferai les couvenanz, fait ele, que puis que je vos lairai, ne tandrai compaignie a home’ (IV, p. 55). ‘Voire, fet ele, donc seroie je molt fole, se je m’amor metoie en vos, car ja n’en joïroie, car trop estes riches hom a amer si povre damoisele com je sui’ (IV, p. 17). Cette remarque est un leitmotiv du roman. Déjà, la Dame de Malohaut déplorait la haute position de Galehaut (tome VIII, p. 63). Cette idée est

106




réaction. Elle est de plus indignée car elle sait fort bien que le neveu d’Arthur a déjà en ce pays une amie, la demoiselle de la Blanche Lande, beaucoup plus belle et plus noble qu’elle. La demoiselle feint de croire que Guerrehet ne l’a sollicitée que pour se moquer d’elle ou l’éprouver. Guerrehet a beau jurer qu’il n’aime plus son ancienne amie, l’effet n’en est pas moins désastreux. La demoiselle ne lui ménage pas les propos peu flatteurs et lui reproche sa légèreté et son inconstance. Dans les deux cas, les rebuffades essuyées par Guerrehet sont d’autant plus étonnantes que les jeunes filles lui sont toutes deux redevables. En bonne logique arthurienne, elles devraient lui tomber dans les bras. Le texte joue d’ailleurs constamment des retournements de situation. Le lecteur peut par exemple s’étonner de voir Guerrehet, champion du bon droit, s’apprêter à faire subir à la fille de la Vieille Dame précisément le même outrage dont il était supposé l’avoir délivrée, avant de se rendre finalement à ses raisons. Si lors de ses premières tentatives, Guerrehet apparaît comme un personnage ridicule et un peu pitoyable, mais qui ne déroge pas vraiment à sa qualité de chevalier et qui reçoit dignement les refus des jeunes femmes, il est montré sous un jour nettement plus défavorable lors de l’épisode de la tente. Avec la scène du pavillon, la progression est double: on assiste à la fois à un grossissement des procédés comiques et à un retournement qui fait sortir la séquence du champ du plaisant et change le regard du lecteur sur le héros. On a ici un jeu intertextuel, qui propose une relecture de la scène de la demoiselle à la tente, scène courtoise derrière laquelle on reconnaît le schéma dit du géant et de la fée,6 à travers le prisme déformant du fabliau, le tout transposé dans l’univers pessimiste et sombre de la fin du Lancelot en prose. La scène, au début, réunit tous les éléments du motif de la ‘demoiselle à la tente’, situation aventureuse par excellence, promesse de prouesse chevaleresque et de récompense amoureuse.7 Tout le personnel habituel (un nain, deux suivantes, une très belle demoiselle) est réuni pour rejouer le schéma attaché à ce lieu: l’hospitalité périlleuse. En échange du gîte et du couvert, le chevalier devra combattre le propriétaire du pavillon, il gagnera ainsi l’amour de la demoiselle. La première occurrence de ce motif dans la

6

7

reprise également juste après le départ de Guerrehet et Saigremor de l’ostel du chevalier jaloux. Les deux chevaliers rencontrent la sœur d’Agloval, en quête de son frère, et Saigremor lui conseille de le choisir pour l’aider, de préférence à Guerrehet: ‘vos porriez mielz de moi faire vostre volenté que de cest mien compaignon qui trop est gentilz hom. Et je sui .I. povres chevaliers et de bas parenté, si vos servirai plus de cuer qu’il ne feroit’ (IV, p. 49). L. Harf-Lancner, Les fées au Moyen Age (Paris, Champion, 1984), p. 348: ‘le héros doit conquérir l’entrée dans l’Autre Monde et l’amour de la fée en combattant un guerrier surnaturel’. Voir aussi l’Index des Motifs narratifs dans les romans arthuriens en vers des XIIe–XIIIe siècles (Genève, Droz, 1982), d’A. Guerreau-Jalabert, motifs F226(B) ‘Pavilion built by fairies’ et F775 ‘Extraordinary tent’. Voir par exemple l’arrivée de Gauvain au pavillon de la Pucelle de Lis et les combats contre le père et le frère de la jeune fille qui s’ensuivent dans la Première Continuation de Perceval, texte du ms. L édité par W. Roach, traduction et présentation par C. A. Van Coolput-Storms (Paris, Le Livre de Poche, 1993) (Lettres Gothiques), vv. 1566–1956.

107




littérature arthurienne est déjà une réécriture marquée par l’ironie: il s’agit de l’épisode du Conte du Graal où Perceval se conduit comme un rustre et provoque le malheur de la Demoiselle de la Tente. Chez Chrétien, cette rencontre est d’autant plus comique qu’elle est dissociée de la mise en scène de ses conséquences désastreuses. De même, par bien des aspects, cet épisode du Lancelot est une scène que l’on jurerait venue tout droit de l’univers des fabliaux, comme si, pour faire rire, le prosateur en retrouvait tout naturellement la thématique et le langage. On reconnaît en effet le triangle érotique traditionnel de la femme, de l’amant et du mari, dans sa version triviale, comique.8 Habituellement, dans les romans courtois, les demoiselles ne sont pas les épouses mais seulement les amies des chevaliers dont elles partagent le pavillon. Il n’est donc pas innocent que le Lancelot en prose précise, au prix d’une irrégularité de vocabulaire, que le chevalier est bien le mari de la demoiselle (en effet, dans les romans en prose, les femmes mariées ne sont qu’exceptionnellement appelées ‘demoiselles’). Tout le sel de la scène tient en la gageure que constitue l’exploit érotique de Guerrehet: le mari est trompé dans son propre lit et en sa présence. C’est une situation que l’on retrouve dans nombre de ‘contes à rires’ du Moyen Age, ainsi dans ‘Gombert et les Deux Clercs’9 de Jean Bodel, l’un des premiers auteurs de fabliaux, et que reprendra encore Marguerite de Navarre dans l’Heptaméron.10 Le réveil du mari et la façon dont il s’aperçoit qu’il a été trompé sont décrits avec des termes voisins dans le Lancelot en prose et le fabliau ‘Les Tresces’: A chief de piece s’esvailla li chevaliers qui avec ax gisoit, qui mariz estoit a la damoisele, si taste cele delez lui et il gete sa main par desus aux et sant Guerrehet qui tenoit sa fame embracie. (Lancelot en prose, IV, p. 51) Li borjois s’esveilla premiers, com cil qu’an iere costumiers; devers sa fame se torna, son braz par desor li gita, si sent la teste d’autre part de celui qui ot el li part. (‘Les tresces’, vv. 35–4011)

8

Voir P. Nykrog, Les Fabliaux. Etude d’histoire littéraire et de stylistique médiévale (Copenhagen, Munksgaard, 1957), p. 69. 9 J. Bodel, ‘Gombert et les deux clercs’, dans Nouveau recueil complet des fabliaux, éd. W. Noomen et N. van den Boogaard (Assen, Maastricht, Van Gorcum, 1982), t. IV, pp. 296–301. Dans ce fabliau, le clerc s’arrange pour que Gombert dorme dans le lit qu’il a réservé à ses hôtes, et prend sa place auprès de sa femme. 10 On pourrait également citer le Tristan de Béroul, mais le roi n’est pas directement présent dans la chambre lorsque Tristan rejoint son amie dans le lit royal. De plus, cette scène a souvent été elle-même analysée en vertu d’analogies avec l’univers des fabliaux. 11 Les Tresces, version I, qu’on appelle parfois ‘La dame qui fist entendant son mari qu’il songeoit’, pour réserver le titre Les Tresces à la version aristocratique de ce fabliau, version II selon W. Noomen (Nouveau Recueil complet des fabliaux, tome VI (Assen, 1991), pp. 209–258).

108




Le mari, dans les deux textes, réagit bien évidemment de la même façon. Il se lève et se saisit de l’intrus: si saut sus et prent Guerrehet a .II. mains par les temples, si le saiche fors del lit si que a poi qu’il ne li a le col brisié et prant la damoisele par les tresces et dist que mar a amené avec li son lecheor gesir (Lancelot, IV, p. 51) Lors sailli sus par son esfors; com cil qui fu et granz et forz: celui qui lez sa fame jut print, que eschaper ne li lut. (‘Les tresces’, vv. 43–46)

Autre détail comique (quoique cruel) de cet épisode: la demoiselle, que Guerrehet a trouvée ‘gisant nu a nu avec son ami’,12 est si affectée de la mort de son mari qu’elle entame les lamentations d’usage en oubliant de se rhabiller. Selon Ernst Curtius, ‘l’homme du Moyen Age ne trouve rien de plus comique que la nudité involontaire’.13 L’intention burlesque, qui rabaisse le motif noble de ‘l’éloge funèbre’ prononcé par une veuve en le confrontant à un détail trivial et incongru, est donc claire. De plus, d’autres éléments appartenant à l’ensemble de la séquence depuis son début confortent l’idée d’une allusion globale à l’univers du fabliau. A cet égard, la rencontre de Guerrehet et du vilain qui, effrayé à la vue du chevalier, laisse échapper son âne, fonctionne peut-être comme un signe inaugural.14 On trouve trois autres vilains dans le Lancelot en prose,15 mais celui-ci est le seul qui n’ait pas un rôle bien précis à jouer dans une aventure propre au héros. C’est le seul dont l’histoire soit en quelque sorte mentionnée pour elle-même, comme un tout auto-suffisant. La silhouette du vilain accompagné de son âne, ses mésaventures (comment sa monture est mangée par les loups et comment il sera dédommagé de cette perte) évoquent celles de certains fabliaux, par exemple ‘Le Vilain Asnier’ ou ‘Le Pauvre Mercier’. De manière peut-être plus directe, la scène semble également procéder du Conte du Graal de Chrétien de Troyes et rappelle la rencontre de Perceval avec le charbonnier qui le renseigne sur la cour arthurienne. Dans le Lancelot, le vilain craint pour sa vie en voyant Guerrehet, qui voulait pourtant simplement lui demander un renseignement, et c’est pourquoi il s’enfuit en oubliant son âne. Cette méprise est peut-être encore une discrète allusion au début de l’histoire du vallet gallois: la dénonciation de la violence chevaleresque s’y cristallise autour des interrogations de Perceval sur les chevaliers ‘diables ou anges’, interrogations que la Veuve Dame résout en un oxymore révélateur puisqu’elle voit en eux les ‘enges don la gent se plaignent, / Qui ocient quan qu’il ataignent’.16 Tout se passe donc comme si, arrivé à un moment de sa réécriture où l’auteur se 12 13 14 15 16

IV, p. 50. La littérature européenne et le Moyen Age latin (Paris, PUF, 1956), p. 679. IV, pp. 13–19. Voir l’index d’A. Micha, tome IX, p. 147. Le Conte du Graal, édition de F. Lecoy (Paris, Champion, 1990) (CFMA), vv. 396–398.

109




prépare à opérer la substitution de Galaad à Perceval comme futur élu du Graal,17 et faute de pouvoir consacrer des aventures trop développées ni trop marquantes au héros évincé, l’auteur du Lancelot se résolvait à transférer sur d’autres figures plus secondaires le matériel légué par Chrétien. On aurait là un nouvel exemple de la manière dont le prosateur disqualifie subtilement le récit ancien en en transposant la matière sur de nouveaux personnages.18 L’auteur attribue à un comparse des motifs liés jadis à une figure de premier plan, et les transpose sur un mode négatif en les attachant à Guerrehet, personnage qui va se trouver singulièrement noirci. C’est sans doute une des raisons pour lesquelles il réactive la référence au fabliau, qui n’était que secondaire dans le Perceval. Ensuite, l’aventure de la jeune dame qui veut punir son mari jaloux est une autre allusion à une situation bien souvent exploitée par les fabliaux. La réaction du mari devant la courtoisie de la jeune femme, qui fait don à Saigremor d’une couronne de rose,19 les coups qu’il lui donne et les insultes qu’il profère conviendraient plus au registre ‘comique’, ‘bas’, des fabliaux, qu’au style ‘noble’ du roman courtois. Et quant li sires voit ce, si hauce la paume et li donne si grant cop qu’il le fait voler a terre et li dist: ‘Pute, tenez vostre loier de la honte que vos faites en mon ostel meismes. Certes trop fustes hardie, qui vostre lecherie feistes devant moi.’ (IV, p. 45)

Le combat qui s’ensuit avec les sergents du mari, où Guerrehet est armé d’une hache, n’a rien non plus de très héroïque. On note, concernant ce mari jaloux et le chevalier félon qui a réclamé la jeune fille à l’habile discours, une précision intéressante: ce sont tous deux des vilains qui ont été récemment anoblis. La référence au fabliau s’intègre donc dans une réflexion plus large, propre au Lancelot, sur la convenance et la disconvenance sociales entre homme et femme, sur la part respective du mérite et de la naissance dans l’évaluation des personnages.20 17 Elle aura lieu à la fin du tome IV, avec le récit de la ruse de la fille du Roi Pêcheur et de la conception de

Galaad (IV, pp. 209–211). Un autre indice que l’auteur est, à ce point précis de son roman, préoccupé du renouvellement de la ‘matière percevalienne’ est l’insertion d’une rencontre entre Guerrehet, Saigremor et la sœur d’Agloval, à la recherche de son frère (IV, pp. 48–49). Cette rencontre n’a d’autre utilité narrative que de justifier la séparation des deux chevaliers. 18 Le prosateur fait par exemple de Lionel, lui-même double de Lancelot, le nouveau et véritable Chevalier au Lion. Sur le personnage d’Yvain et sur cette ‘intériorisation du discours hérité’, voir l’article d’E. Baumgartner, ‘Le lion et sa peau, ou les aventures d’Yvain dans le Lancelot en prose’, PRIS-MA III/2 (1987), pp. 93–102. 19 Peut-être est-il exagéré de voir dans ces ‘chapels de rose’ un rappel parodique du ‘capel de roses freches et vermeilles’ que Lancelot enfant trouvait à son réveil, sans qu’il puisse jamais en découvrir la provenance (tome VII, p. 188). Ce cadeau offert chaque matin au protégé des fées devient ici une pomme de discorde entre une femme un peu étourdie qui ne pense pas à la signification amoureuse que peut avoir ce présent et un mari jaloux trop prompt à interpréter les faits et gestes de sa femme. 20 Voir l’article d’E. Kennedy ‘The Quest for Identity and the Importance of Lineage in Thirteenth Century French Prose Romance’, Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood II, éd. C. Harper-Bill et R. Harvey (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 1986), pp. 70–86.

110




De plus, très vite, la violence fait basculer ces scènes. Là où les bourgeois des fabliaux s’en sortent avec quelques claques et des coups de bâton, les chevaliers tirent leur épée et se livrent à un véritable carnage. Ecriture du haut degré, le roman favorise en quelque sorte le basculement rapide de certaines actions du sublime vers le tragique, ou, lorsqu’il s’y mêle quelque détail dissonant, vers le burlesque. Sergents, maris, frères et neveux: c’est toute la maisnie des dames que Guerrehet rencontre qui se trouve décimée, en vertu des excès de zèle ou des débordements du désir du chevalier. Pourquoi ces aventures surprenantes, qui métamorphosent un héros sympathique en un chevalier cruel, véritable figure de tyran amoureux? Dans l’économie du roman, il semble tout d’abord que l’épisode ait pour fonction de préparer discrètement l’antagonisme entre les lignages de Lancelot et de Gauvain. Non seulement Guerrehet marche partout sur les brisées de Lancelot, ce qui a toutes les chances de le ranger parmi ces chevaliers jaloux de Lancelot que le conte mentionne à la fin du tome IV,21 mais de plus, avec l’épisode du pavillon, il est assimilé aux pires ennemis du lignage du héros. Une fois qu’elle est entrée en religion, la dame se plaint à Guerrehet des mauvais traitements qu’il lui a fait endurer et révèle qu’elle est fille de roi et cousine ‘presque germaine’ de Lancelot, Bohort et Lionel. Guerrehet, tout en étant apparemment en fonction d’adjuvant par rapport à Lancelot puisqu’il est parti à sa recherche, se révèle donc, dans les faits, comme un opposant. De plus, la solution que trouve la jeune veuve pour lui échapper, la retraite au couvent, rappelle la destinée de la mère et de la tante de Lancelot, qui n’ont d’autre choix pour se protéger de Claudas que d’entrer dans les ordres. Elle annonce également peut-être le sort de Guenièvre, qui, dans La Mort le roi Artu, n’échappera à Mordret qu’en trouvant la protection des nonnes. Le comportement de Guerrehet s’inscrit dans la suite de comportements discourtois de certains de ses frères vis-à-vis des demoiselles.22 Si on se borne à évoquer les aventures qui prennent place autour d’un pavillon, le motif est introduit de manière assez badine avec la tentative de séduction de Gauvain sur la suivante de la fille du roi de Norgales. Avec le personnage de Mordret, les choses se gâtent et la scène est l’objet d’un jugement moral nettement défavorable de la part du narrateur.23 Au contraire, le lignage de Lancelot, du moins jusqu’à ce stade du roman, est toujours montré comme l’irréprochable 21 ‘De cele parole que li rois Artus dist furent si atorné cil de la Table Reonde que il en haïrent puis touz dis

Lancelot de mortel haine, ne onques samblant n’en voldrent faire devant que li mesfez de lui et de la roine fu prouvez, quant il furent trové nu a nu par Agravain qui espiez les avoit’ (IV, p. 399). 22 Se dessine donc au sein du lignage de Loth un clivage qui sépare les deux figures qui restent globalement positives, celles de Gauvain et de Gaheriet, des deux figures négatives, Agravain et Mordret, Guerrehet occupant une position médiane. 23 Voir respectivement, pour Gauvain le tome VIII, pp. 344–345 et pour Mordret, le tome II, pp. 414–419. Pour une étude plus détaillée de ces variations autour du motif de la ‘Demoiselle à la Tente’, nous nous permettons de renvoyer à notre thèse ‘Figures de l’aventure, figures du récit: les demoiselles dans les romans en prose du XIIIe siècle’, Université de Paris III, Sorbonne Nouvelle, 2001, à paraître chez Champion.

111




soutien des demoiselles.24 A la différence de celui des frères de Gauvain, ce soutien s’effectue sans contrepartie sexuelle. A court terme, ces différences préparent donc l’affrontement entre les deux lignages lors de la guerre du duc Kalès. A plus long terme, c’est la fracture de la Queste et de la Mort Artu qui est ici en germe. De plus, à travers cette mise en opposition de deux séries de personnages antithétiques, le Lancelot orchestre une réflexion sur l’amour. Il ne s’agit pas d’un discours théorique, dont l’absence est d’ailleurs remarquable tout au long du roman, mais d’une mise en débat à travers des situations concrètes. Les quelques bribes de discours amoureux qui s’y trouvent suffisent à mettre en question la rhétorique courtoise. Le statut de la parole, et tout particulièrement de la parole amoureuse, est, dans cette suite d’épisodes, très ambigu. En son absence, il semble que la force règne en maître. Ainsi, les demoiselles sont forcées de se marier (la fille du sire de la Bretesche), enlevées (la fille de la vieille dame), violées (c’est le sort qui menace cette dernière demoiselle et que Guerrehet fait subir à la dame du pavillon), ou même tuées (la fille du comte de Valdon, pendue par son mari25). Lorsque les hommes sont adeptes du ‘beau parler’,26 c’est pour mieux tromper leurs victimes. En revanche, chaque fois que l’un des personnages féminins réussit à se délivrer des poursuites intempestives d’un chevalier, c’est grâce à une bonne maîtrise du langage. La première jeune fille évoque Lancelot et son nom semble suffire à Guerrehet pour ne pas pousser plus loin ses avances. La seconde est obligée de déployer toutes les ressources d’une logique amoureuse sans faille pour obliger Guerrehet à reconnaître qu’il ne peut lui faire violence. A la fin de l’entretien, il s’avoue vaincu et félicite la jeune fille: ‘Si vos estes vos si bien resqueusse par parole que jamais ne vos requerrai chose qui vos doie grever.’ (IV, p. 38)

Mais cette victoire n’a qu’une portée limitée. En effet, lors de l’épisode du pavillon, alors que la jeune femme est endormie et à demi consciente, puis lorsqu’elle lui a exprimé clairement son refus, Guerrehet fait exactement tout ce qu’il a reconnu comme condamnable lors de sa discussion avec l’autre demoiselle.27 Guerrehet se justifie en deux phrases brèves où le langage de la fin’amor sert de paravent au pur désir sexuel qu’il éprouve pour la dame: il n’est coupable de rien, puisqu’il se contente d’obéir à la ‘force d’amour’ à laquelle nul n’est capable de résister.28 Lorsqu’elle le menace des représailles 24 Lorsqu’on retrouve Bohort dans un pavillon, il y délivre une jeune fille bandée de fer (tome II, p. 170). 25 IV, p. 30. 26 La deuxième demoiselle déclare à Guerrehet qu’elle ne connaît pas de trahison plus grave ‘que de

decevoir fame par biau parler’ (IV, p. 37). 27 L’absence de mémoire, l’incapacité à tirer profit des échecs passés est d’ailleurs une des

caractéristiques des personnages des romans médiévaux, y compris des héros de premier plan. Même lorsque le roman s’efforce de construire une durée comme c’est le cas du Lancelot, les personnages sont perçus à travers une succession d’instants qui ne sont jamais reliés entre eux par la continuité d’une expérience. 28 ‘Dame, escondit n’i vaut rien, car trop vos aim, si que de vos ne me porroie consirrer, nes se je le voloie

112




de ses frères, il n’est nullement effrayé et déclare: ‘se je estoie nuz, si me seroit ce que tant vos aim escuz’.29 On a donc ici un usage parodique du langage amoureux et une dénonciation violemment ironique de son hypocrisie. Qu’est-ce donc que la parole amoureuse, si ce n’est un moyen de dire non pour les femmes et un leurre pour déguiser la force brute du désir sexuel pour les hommes? Les procédés employés dans toute cette séquence, s’ils provoquent un sourire amusé au début, sont donc de plus en plus grinçants. Dans un roman, les actions répréhensibles d’un personnage donné dès le départ comme négatif ne sont guère inquiétantes. Mais Guerrehet, au début, n’est pas rangé parmi les ‘méchants’. Il est présenté comme le frère préféré de Gauvain, bon chevalier, aimé et amateur de femmes . . . Ce n’est pas non plus un nice comme Perceval, qui est brutal mais qui peut changer. C’est un chevalier expérimenté, qui représente le chevalier arthurien moyen (sa troisième place dans la fratrie est sans doute révélatrice). Il n’y a donc plus correspondance entre un héros moyen, représentatif du monde arthurien, et les exigences éthiques auxquelles nous avait habitué le roman. En rappelant la doctrine chrétienne du mariage, en entrant dans les ordres, la dame réussit en apparence et in extremis à transformer la farce de mauvais goût en récit édifiant. C’est du moins ce que nous promet le prosateur: par li fu puis li leus moult essauciez, car moult ert sainte chose et religieuse, si come li contes devisera en mains leux (IV, p. 57)

Mais cette annonce est un leurre car le conte ne reviendra jamais sur cette mystérieuse cousine de Lancelot. En révélant après coup que la dame, que Guerrehet a traitée comme une vulgaire ‘sodiere’, une ‘femme publique’,30 est de naissance royale, il veut souligner la disconvenance entre la qualité de ses personnages, qui devrait en faire les acteurs d’une action noble, élevée, et le schéma narratif qui appartient à un registre trivial sinon vulgaire dans lequel il les a engagés. On manque d’un vocabulaire adapté aux pratiques intertextuelles médiévales; mais il est clair que l’on a ici un procédé qui s’apparente au burlesque, à la fois dans son sens large de ‘comique outré et trivial’, marqué par une dissonance parfois si forte qu’il sort des limites du plaisant ou de ce qui peut provoquer le rire; mais aussi dans l’emploi plus spécialisé où il renvoie à des pratiques intertextuelles.31 Deux précisions sont cependant ici nécessaires. bien: si vos pri qu’il ne vos am poist, car bien sachiez que force d’amors le me fait faire’ (IV, p. 53). Pour un exemple d’emploi plus sérieux de l’expression ‘force d’amors’ dans le roman, voir tome VIII, p. 462. La Dame du Lac, venue soigner Lancelot fou, déclare qu’elle ne peut demeurer plus longtemps loin de son ami: ‘Et sachiés que la graindre force qui soit m’enmaine, c’est la force d’amors.’ 29 IV, p. 55. 30 ‘je ne sui pas de si bas lignage que je deusse aler commme sodiere. [. . .] Mes peres fu rois et ma mere roine, et de millors chevaliers ai je en mon lignage que vos n’avez nus’ (IV, p. 58). 31 Pour cette distinction entre les deux emplois du terme ‘burlesque’, voir D. Bertrand ‘Poétiques du burlesque’, présentation générale de l’ouvrage du même nom, Actes du Colloque du Centre de

113




Tout d’abord, cette transposition burlesque n’affecte pas l’ensemble du texte: le style du Lancelot en prose reste, à part quelques écarts, et ce même dans la séquence étudiée, la ‘koiné’ littéraire que partagent toutes les œuvres de cette époque. Il y a des ‘éclats’ burlesques, des détails qui évoquent un autre univers textuel, un autre registre. Il est d’ailleurs parfois difficile de faire la différence entre le burlesque et l’héroï-comique, entre ‘un burlesque ascendant ou descendant’.32 Part-on d’un sujet noble pour arriver à un style vulgaire, ou l’inverse? Les personnages sont nobles, leurs actions possèdent donc toujours une certaine grandeur. Mais ils combattent parfois pour des motifs futiles, comme Yvain qui se bat pour le brachet d’une demoiselle, ou masquent leur désir sous le vocabulaire courtois, comme Guerrehet, ou comme Gauvain avec la suivante de la fille du roi de Norgales. Le terme qui rendrait peut-être le mieux compte de cette pratique du roman médiéval, qui se plaît aux contrastes entre style et sujet sans que l’on puisse parler strictement de travestissement burlesque ou de pastiche héroï-comique (sans qu’un texte ou un style précis soit transposé) est peut être celui de ‘disconvenance’, repris par G. Genette à Charles Perrault.33 Le texte joue de ces disconvenances pour créer un effet de distance par rapport à des conventions littéraires, pour signaler que le narrateur n’est pas dupe de sa matière. Ici, elles lui permettent de stigmatiser les excès, les limites, les défauts de l’amour arthurien. De plus, il ne s’agit nullement de la transposition d’un texte ou d’un genre précis, mais bien d’un ‘processus parodique polymorphe, détournant les codes et frontières esthétiques’34 de manière plus générale. Ce jeu de connivence intertextuelle fonctionne ici à différents niveaux: le Lancelot reprend un scénario intégré par les romans courtois, celui de la demoiselle au pavillon, pour en dévoiler toutes les ambiguïtés. D’où l’utilité du détour par le fabliau, l’univers littéraire antithétique, et la référence qui s’impose au Conte du Graal, autre texte à avoir intégré une réécriture ludique de ce motif. Enfin, c’est par rapport à l’univers textuel du Lancelot en prose lui-même que fonctionne avant tout cette transposition burlesque, et la réécriture acquiert sans doute ici une dimension plus critique. On peut en effet se demander si Lancelot reste le modèle chevaleresque idéal, l’anti-Guerrehet ou si ses aventures ne sont pas, en quelque sorte, contaminées par celles du frère de Gauvain, par cette réécriture irrévérencieuse, cette transposition burlesque de la force d’amour en obses-

Recherche sur les Littératures Modernes et Contemporaines de l’Université Blaise Pascal, 22–24 février 1998, édités par D. Bertrand (Paris, Champion, 1998), p. 9. 32 D. Bertrand, op. cit., p. 15. 33 IIIe Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes, [Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes en ce qui concerne les arts et les sciences, 4e dialogue, t. III, Faksimiledruck der vierbändigen Originalausgabe Paris, 1688–1697, intro. de H. R. Jausse, Eidos Verlag, München, 1964, pp. 356–362], cité par G. Genette dans Palimpsestes. La littérature au second degré (Paris, Editions du Seuil, 1982), p. 69 et pp. 151–153. 34 D. Bertrand, op. cit., p. 9.

114




sion sexuelle. Le motif de la tente, sans cesse repris tout au long du roman, à des moments stratégiques, doit être mis en perspective pour tenter d’interpréter une évolution. Au début du livre, ce schéma était déjà discrètement mis à distance, mais dans le sens d’un renforcement du caractère exclusif de l’amour du chevalier pour sa dame.35 Repris avec Guerrehet et les autres membres de son lignage, mais cette fois sans indulgence, sans mise en scène ludique, le schéma, transformé, poussé jusqu’aux outrances burlesques, est mis au service d’une condamnation morale. La fin du roman met en cause directement Lancelot, victime de ‘mescheances’ tragi-comiques. Le héros lui-même est pris pour une demoiselle dans un pavillon,36 Lancelot à son tour force une demoiselle à l’héberger.37 Dans les deux cas, il tue le propriétaire du pavillon. Et, plus tard encore, lorsque, banni par la reine, il sombre dans la folie, le texte mentionne, certes sans s’étendre, qu’il fait violence à toutes les femmes qu’il rencontre38 . . . Dans le Lancelot en prose, l’art de la ‘disconvenance’ comique, art du contrepoint qui, principalement à travers les figures secondaires, explore d’autres registres, d’autres tonalités, voire des comportements déviants, est aussi un art de l’harmonie.39 Un écho, une résonance se créent entre ces différentes figures et le personnage principal dont elles sont le miroir déformant. Si outrancière que soit la métaphore, elle ne peut manquer de contaminer le sens premier qu’elle image, moins pour le troubler que pour lui offrir la complexité sans laquelle le héros ne serait pas un héros romanesque. Ainsi, paradoxalement, les ruptures de ton, le burlesque lui-même, se révèlent au service du projet d’ensemble du Lancelot-Graal, en montrant à la fois les splendeurs et les misères de l’amour, en isolant le héros de la foule des ‘faux courtois’ tout en l’éclaboussant parfois de leur indignité.

35 Tome VII, pp. 288–305. Lancelot, alors tout jeune chevalier, veut absolument voir la belle jeune fille du

36 37 38 39

pavillon, et, pour cela, combattre le grand chevalier qui la garde. Une fois la pucelle conquise, Lancelot s’en désintéresse. On apprend ensuite que tout cela n’était qu’une mise en scène de la dame de Nohaut pour éprouver le jeune héros. Ainsi, derrière la demoiselle se dessinait doublement l’image de la Dame toute-puissante, manipulatrice et seul objet du désir. Tome IV, pp. 183–184. Le chevalier prend successivement Lancelot pour sa femme, puis pour l’amant de sa femme. Lancelot, quant à lui, croit au début qu’il a à subir les ardeurs d’une demoiselle. Tome V, pp. 274–276. Tome VI, p. 177. Nous reprenons au domaine musical les termes ‘contrepoint’ et ‘harmonie’, qui désignent deux modes d’écriture différents, l’un ‘superposant et enchevêtrant entre elles des lignes mélodiques aussi différentes et indépendantes que possible les unes des autres’, l’autre s’intéressant non plus à la succession horizontale des sons mais à la création verticale d’accords consonants ou dissonants, à entendre en simultanéité (voir l’article ‘Harmonie’ de l’Encyclopédie Universalis, tome IX, p. 119).

115





LANCELOT PART 3

VIII

LANCELOT

PART 31

Frank Brandsma It is amazing how little is known with any amount of certainty about the actual making of the prose Lancelot and the Vulgate Cycle.2 In this article some issues will be raised concerning the cycle’s genesis, especially with regard to the making of the Lancelot from the prose Charrette onwards. Jean Frappier dates the composition of the Vulgate Cycle between 1215 and 1235 and describes it as a process of composition and growth, under the supervision of an architect. He compares it to the building of a cathedral. The narrative develops in phases: from just Lancelot’s tale to a trilogy with the Queste del Saint Graal and Mort le roi Artu, and from there to a fivefold cycle: Estoire dou Saint Graal – Estoire de Merlin plus Suite-Vulgate du Merlin – Lancelot – Queste – Mort Artu.3 1

2

3

A slightly more eccentric version of this article was presented as a paper at the XIXth Triennial Conference of the International Arthurian Society, Toulouse, 1999. The research was facilitated by a travel grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS). I would like to express my gratitude towards these organizations for their ‘largesse’, towards the libraries consulted (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; British Library, London; and Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, Amsterdam) for their hospitality, and towards Bart Besamusca, who critically read an earlier version of this article. Special thanks to Martine Meuwese, who consulted her database and kindly provided a more reliable date for many of the manuscripts (see also the Appendix). In this article I will refer to the following editions: Lancelot do Lac: The Non-cyclic Old French Prose Romance, ed. E. Kennedy, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1980), abbreviated K; The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, edited from manuscripts in the British Museum by H. O. Sommer, 7 vols., 2nd edn (New York, 1979), abbreviated S; Lancelot. Roman en prose du XIIIe siècle, édition critique par A. Micha, 9 vols. (Genève/Paris, 1978–1983), abbreviated M; Le roman en prose de Lancelot du Lac: Le conte de la Charrette, ed. G. Hutchings, 2nd edn (Genève, 1974), abbreviated H. Cf. J. Frappier, ‘Playdoyer pour “l’architecte”: Contre une opinion d’Albert Pauphilet sur le Lancelot en prose’, Romance Philology 8 (1954–55), 27–33; A. Micha, Essais sur le cycle du Lancelot-Graal (Genève, 1987), pp. 11–12, where a more specific terminus ante quem for the prose Lancelot is suggested: ‘Pour le Lancelot propre une indication est peut-être donnée au chap. CIII, 5, le roi de France qui est mort. Ne serait-ce pas Philippe-Auguste, mort en 1223, à moins qui ce ne soit Louis VIII, mort en 1226.’ See also K II, pp. 41–4, and J. Frappier, Etude sur la Mort le Roi Artu: Roman du XIIIe siècle, 3rd edn (Genève, 1972), pp. 132–46: ‘Les dates qui encadrent la composition générale du corpus restent donc floues, mais tout permet de croire qu’elle a exigé, depuis le tome I du Lancelot jusqu’a La Mort Artu, une vingtaine d’années, approximativement de 1215 à 1235, le tome I du Lancelot correspondant à peu près à la période 1220–1225, les Suites du Lancelot et l’Agravain à la période 1220–1225, la Queste à la période 1225–1230, la Mort Artu à la période 1230–1235.’ (p. 138).

117



FRANK BRANDSMA

A chronological survey of the manuscript tradition, however, reveals no sequence of manuscripts dating from the first half of the thirteenth century that demonstrates the growth from one to five texts. The chronological diagram in the appendix shows that, in fact, one of the oldest manuscripts – Rennes 255 – already has the Estoire dou Saint Graal and Estoire de Merlin, which are generally considered later additions.4 The Lancelot–Queste–Mort Artu trilogy does exist separately in at least eight manuscripts, and in the diagram this configuration is predominant in the upper quarter (from the top to the Bonn 526 manuscript). This corroborates the impression coming from the narrative contents that the three tales of Lancelot’s life can do without the two Estoires. Continuing along this line of reasoning, which works from the assumption that the manuscript tradition as a whole is representative of the different configurations in which the texts functioned and were transmitted, Diagram 2 in the Appendix was made. It gives the same manuscripts, but now in a sequence based on what they contain. The sequence works from the Lancelot onwards and ends with the manuscripts of the full cycle. It is noteworthy that there are at least thirty-eight manuscripts which contain only (sections of) the Lancelot.5 This may indicate a separate role for the Lancelot in the manuscript tradition. On account of its contents, this would be rather surprising, especially given the nature of the so-called ‘Préparation à la Queste’ section. It would seem that the full version of the Lancelot only functions properly when the Queste and Mort Artu follow, since especially this final section of the romance features numerous references forward to these texts, for instance with regard to Galahad’s role in the Grail quest and to Mordred’s perfidious behaviour. There is the possibility that the first part of the Lancelot existed separately and formed a separate unit in the formation of the Lancelot tale. Elspeth Kennedy has defended the hypothesis of a non-cyclic version of the Lancelot, 4

5

These texts are based on two works by Robert de Boron, Joseph d’Arimathie and Merlin, which may have been the first two components of an earlier cycle that also contained a Perceval story and an account of Arthur’s demise. For this cycle, sometimes called Didot-Perceval or Perceval en prose, see P. le Gentil, ‘The Work of Robert de Boron and the Didot Perceval’, in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages: A Collaborative History, ed. R. Sh. Loomis (Oxford, 1959), pp. 251–62; F. Bogdanow, ‘La trilogie de Robert de Boron: Le Perceval en Prose’, in Grundriss der romanischen Literaturen des Mittelalters, ed. H. R. Jauss, E. Köhler, J. Frappier, vol. IV: Le roman jusqu’à la fin du XIII siècle, 2 parts (Heidelberg, 1978), part IV, 1, pp. 513–35; and L. Struss, ‘Le Didot-Perceval’, in Grundriss IV, II, pp. 21–41. For Rennes 255, see A. Stones, ‘The Earliest Illustrated Prose Lancelot Manuscript?’, Reading Medieval Studies III (1977), 3–44. Extrapolating from the fragments, Richard Trachsler comes to fifty-three manuscripts containing just (parts of) the Lancelot, see his Clôtures du Cycle Arthurien: Etudes et textes (Genève, 1996), p. 564. With regard to ‘my’ group of thirty-eight manuscripts (see the diagrams in the Appendix), further analysis shows that eighteen manuscripts contain only (parts of) the first half of the Lancelot (up to S IV, p. 222), whereas sixteen contain (parts of) both the first and second half and four only have (parts of) the second half. Six manuscripts stop at a point corresponding with the exact beginning of S V: this is where a division would lie if a manuscript containing the trilogy were divided solely on the basis of numbers of folia into two volumes (see F. Lot, Etude sur le Lancelot en prose, 3rd edn (Paris, 1984), pp. 11–12, and A. Micha, ‘Les manuscrits du Lancelot en prose’, Romania LXXXI (1960), 145–187, and LXXXIII (1963), 28–60 and 478–99, esp. pp. 497–9). These six manuscripts perhaps were the first volumes in two-volume sets containing the trilogy and thus lose their strength as arguments for a separate Lancelot.

118



LANCELOT PART 3

corresponding more or less with the cyclic sections up to the Charrette.6 My interest, however, lies in the part after the Charrette and especially in the units of the making of the cyclic version. Kennedy has explained elegantly that the longer version of the ‘Journey to Sorelois’ and ‘False Guenevere’ episodes can be interpreted as a rewriting, made in order to prepare for things to come in the cycle. The rewritten version of these episodes leads into the prose Charrette. As a recasting in prose of Chrétien’s Lancelot romance, the prose Charrette must have formed a separate unit in the composition of the prose Lancelot. It contains a number of new elements. Lancelot is, right at the beginning of the Charrette, told to be near Camelot on Ascension Day and thus the audience knows straightaway that he is the knight who will follow and eventually rescue the queen when she is abducted by Méléagant. Chrétien does not reveal the knight’s identity until he is recognized by the queen in Gorre. The damsel who asks Lancelot for a knight’s head is now immediately presented as Méléagant’s sister, whereas in Chrétien this becomes clear later in the romance.7 Some of these new elements connect the Charrette to what is to follow, the prime example being the second tomb in the ‘sainte cimetiere’ where Lancelot is warned by Symeu that his ‘luxure’ will disqualify him when it comes to the Grail quest. A transitional passage, in which Méléagant’s sister frees Lancelot from the tower, enabling him to come to court and kill her brother, smoothly links the Charrette to the rest of the cyclic Lancelot. The compositional unity of the prose Charrette implies that the subsequent 6

7

The cyclic and non-cyclic versions diverge only after the end of S III, in the eighty-seven pages of S IV up to Galehot’s death. This version ends with the death of Lancelot’s friend Galehot, just before the beginning of the Charrette (K I, p. 612; S IV, 87 and 154–155; M I, XXXV, 3; and M III, XXXV, 2; S and M give two versions of this section (describing the ‘voyage en Sorelois’ and the ‘fausse Guenièvre’), one after the other). Cf. A. Micha, ‘Etudes sur le Lancelot en prose I: Les épisodes du voyage en Sorelois et de la fausse Guénièvre’, Romania LXXVI (1955), 334–41; E. Kennedy, ‘The Two Versions of the False Guinevere Episode in the Old French Prose Lancelot’, Romania LXXVII (1956), 94–104; A. Micha, ‘Le départ en Sorelois: Réflexions sur deux versions’, Mélanges Delbouille, vol. II, 495–507; the introduction to K; Kennedy, Lancelot and the Grail, pp. 253–73; and Micha, Essais, pp. 57–83. Three manuscripts give just this text – one of them (Paris, BN 768) is the oldest preserved prose Lancelot manuscript according to Kennedy – and twelve more manuscripts first follow the non-cyclic version and then transfer to the cyclic (Kennedy, Lancelot and the Grail, p. 5). Thus the manuscript tradition seems to support Kennedy’s thesis. Micha (Essais, p. 82), on the other hand, points out that MS BN 768 ends in the middle of a phrase: it may have contained more than just the final leaf that Kennedy supposes and it is not inconceivable (given the evidence of another manuscript) that it would have continued into the Vulgate text. Galehot’s death does bring the story to a rather abrupt end, its non-cyclic beginning does mention that Lancelot is baptized ‘Galaaz’, and there are references to the Grail (presenting, however, Perceval instead of Galahad as the Grail knight). Kennedy, Lancelot and the Grail, discusses the Grail allusions in a separate chapter (pp. 143–155); see for Lancelot’s baptismal name: K I: 1, line 8. These disconcerting elements show how complicated the issue is and cast some doubts on the existence and independence of Kennedy’s non-cyclic version. The discussion, although somewhat abated, has not come to a completely convincing conclusion yet and perhaps it never will. See also Carol Dover, ‘From Non-Cyclic to Cyclic Lancelot: Recycling the Heart’, in Transtextualities: of Cycles and Cyclicity in Medieval French Literature, ed. Sara Sturm-Maddox and Donald Maddox (Binghamton, 1996), pp. 53–70. Cf. Chrétien’s Le chevalier de la charrete (ed. Ch. Méla, in Chrétien de Troyes, Romans, ed. M. Zink (Paris, 1994)), lines 2779–941 where the damsel requesting the knight’s head has no name or background, and lines 6243–5 where Méléagant’s sister is mentioned, who decides (lines 6377–91) to go look for Lancelot; for the prose Charrette, see S IV, p. 198, lines 29–30; M II, XXXVIII, 42; H, p. 75.

119



FRANK BRANDSMA

rest of the Lancelot consists of one or more compositional units. Diagram 2 in the appendix shows that there seems to be a kind of compositional borderline or watershed after the Charrette. There are three manuscripts that go no further than or break off at its end (Méléagant’s death), and two that begin right after the Charrette.8 Some manuscripts indicate the end of a ‘Galehot’ section after the Charrette, some do so just before its beginning.9 Since the information of the manuscript tradition regarding the Charrette as a compositional unit seems to make sense, it may be worthwhile to look for similar borderlines in the rest of the Lancelot. However, the one boundary that does jump out of diagram 2 – that is, the line between Sommer’s volumes IV and V – immediately reveals the problematic nature of this kind of observation. This is the arithmetically justified point where a new volume starts in a number of two-volume manuscripts of the trilogy and three-volume manuscripts of the whole cycle.10 This practice in the manuscripts has led to the traditional labelling – in the manuscripts as well as in modern scholarship – of this part of the text as the ‘Agravain’-section and to that of the preceding part as the ‘Suites de la Charrette’. As Micha’s description of the manuscripts shows, this is an arbitrary, technical borderline. At the beginning of the ‘Agravain’, when it comes to the story, a quest is in full swing and that makes it unwise to consider this borderline as an indication for a unit of composition, even though it may have been a unit in the production of the manuscripts. The quest structure of the prose Lancelot has led to the assumption of a 8

BN 752 (which breaks off just after the beginning of the ‘Méléagant avoit une seror’-episode), Aberystwyth 445 D and BN 1466 go no further than S IV, 222–223; BN 123 (‘Méléagant avoit . . .’) and BN 354 (text begins just before the fight between Lancelot and Méléagant) begin at the end of the Charrette. In the ‘checked’ manuscripts the end of the Charrette (stating ‘Meleagant avoit une seror . . .’) is indicated by means of the manuscript’s standard indication for a new ‘paragraph’ in the interlace (e.g. BN 98, BN 752), by means of an initial (e.g. BN 344, BN 1430, BL Harley 4419, BL Royal 19 B VII, BL Royal 19 C XIII, BL Royal 20 D IV, Cambridge Corpus Christi 45), a miniature (e.g. Amsterdam BPH 1 vol. III, Arsenal 3481, BN 96, BN 110, BN 111, BN 114, BN 122, BN 339 (historiated initial), BN 344 (historiated initial), Bonn 526, BL Add. 10293) or white (e.g. Oxford, Bodl., Rawlinson Q b 6; BL Harley 6341). Exceptions are discussed above. 9 Micha, ‘Les manuscrits’, pp. 496–7. Sometimes the section after the Charrette is called ‘Meleagant’. This may seem rather bizarre since this character’s death has just been described, but is easily explained as a catchword taken from the first word of what is to follow: ‘Meleagant avoit une seror’ (‘Meleagant had a sister’, M II, XLII, 1; S IV, 222/22). The Bonn manuscript has a division into nine parts; it gives in the margin of the leaf stating ‘Meleagant avoit une seror’ (the beginning of the transitional episode between the Charrette and the rest of the Lancelot): ‘Ici fenist de Galahot – Si commence la premiere partie de la queste lancelot’ (f. 307r). 10 Cf. Diagram 2 in the Appendix. At the end of its volume III, Amsterdam, BPH 1, f. 104v states ‘Chi commenche li livres de la branque Agravain.’ The ‘Agravain’ of this manuscript is found in Manchester, Rylands fr. 1. There are even manuscripts that indicate the beginning of the ‘Agravain’ quite clearly even though it does not form the beginning of a new volume. In BN 751, the text states just before the beginning of the ‘Agravain’: ‘Explicit la premerainne partie de ce romant’; BN 111 has an illustration covering more than the top half of the folium at the ‘Agravain’-start (f. 159r), which lies within the volume. The beginning of the Queste is marked in a similar way in this manuscript, whereas the beginnings of the Charrette et cetera are more subdued. BN 114 (belonging to the cycle BN 113–116) signals the ‘Agravain’ in a similar way. In BN 339, most of f. 145v is left blank, and then on f. 146r the ‘Agravain’ begins with a miniature that is slightly larger than usual. The special attention given to the ‘Agravain’, even though no new volume begins at this point, is explained by the idea that in the manuscripts on which these copies are based a new volume did begin here.

120



LANCELOT PART 3

section called the ‘Préparation a la Queste’, beginning a little before the ‘Agravain’, at p. 301 of Sommer’s volume IV.11 The text seems to make a new start here, stating “En ceste partie dist li contes que .j. an apres la mort de Meleagant’’ et cetera.12 A year has passed, it is the start of a new quest, a new divergence of the narrative threads in the interlace. Thus the ‘Préparation’ avoids the awkwardness of the ‘Agravain’ label. The question is: was “ceste partie” a unit in the composition of the romance? I will argue that the ‘Préparation’ as defined until now – Sommer IV from p. 301 onwards plus Sommer V – was not by itself a unit of composition, but rather a component of a larger unit that consisted of the text from the Charrette onwards to the end of the Lancelot. Since the Charrette is a text rather than just a hinge connecting this unit to the beginning of the Lancelot story, this means that the Lancelot has three parts: Part 1, the Enfances/ Galehaut-sections, corresponding to Kennedy’s non-cyclic text and found in Sommer volume III and the beginning of IV; Part 2, the prose Charrette as found in the middle of Sommer volume IV;13 and Part 3, the rest of Sommer IV and volume V. My arguments will be derived first from the manuscript tradition and then from the contents of the story. Diagram 2 reveals the Charrette and ‘Agravain’ boundaries, but there seems to be no distinctive borderline at the point where the ‘Préparation’ begins, at Sommer volume IV, p. 301. None of the preserved manuscripts begins or ends at this point and that makes it less likely that a clearly defined and recognized new section began here. The only manuscript that ends nearby, Arsenal 3481 which breaks off at Sommer’s p. 302, even corroborates this interpretation, since it still contains (F. 289 R) the beginning of the ‘Préparation’, indicated by a miniature, rubrics and initial, and stops abruptly in the middle of the description of Bohort’s attempt to abduct the queen. The manuscript does not end here on purpose, but no doubt suffered an accidental loss of leaves. In Micha’s description I have found not a single manuscript that pays special attention by means of larger miniatures or phrases like ‘Cy fenist . . .’ to the supposed ‘Préparation’ boundary. Within the manuscripts this ‘beginning’ does not seem to have been highlighted as more than a new ‘chapter’ in the book.14 Furthermore, I have checked thirty-three – of the forty-two that contain the relevant sections – manuscripts (these thirty-three are indicated by an asterisk in the date column in both diagrams) to see whether they show any indication of a special boundary here, but none of them do: the texts just run on, giving a capital letter and sometimes a miniature that in no way stands out 11 Cf. Lot, Etude, pp. 76 and 323; J. Frappier, ‘Le cycle de la Vulgate (Lancelot en prose et

Lancelot-Graal)’, in Grundriss (see note 3) IV, I, pp. 536–89, esp. p. 550; A. A. Rutledge, ‘Narrative Structures in the Old French Prose “Lancelot” ’ (Ph.D. thesis, Yale, 1974); F. Brandsma, ‘Interlace and the Implied Audience of the “Préparation à la Queste” ’, in Arturus rex, volumen II: Acta conventus Lovaniensis 1987, ed. W. van Hoecke, G. Tournoy and W. Verbeke (Leuven, 1991), pp. 269–77. 12 S IV, p. 301, line 11; M II, LIII, p. 267, see also note 15. 13 S IV, pp. 155(157)–222 (M II, XXXVI, 1–XLII, 1). 14 Cf. Micha, ‘Les manuscrits’ (note 5).

121



FRANK BRANDSMA

against the manuscript context. The wording of the beginning often has the standard, inconspicuous ‘Or dist li contes’ formula instead of the “En ceste partie” phrase in Sommer’s edition.15 Most manuscripts have a given system for the indication of the chapters in the interlace (e.g. an initial, a miniature of a given size with or without rubrics, a historiated initial) and use these at the beginning and end of the Charrette and the beginning of the ‘Préparation’ as well. Thus neither the Charrette nor the ‘Préparation’ section clearly stands out from the context in many of the manuscripts.16 Under the manuscripts I have checked, there were however, four exceptions to the rule. The first is a manuscript Micha did not describe. This is ‘ancien Phillipps 1279’, now Berkeley UCB 107. At the supposed start of the ‘Préparation’, the text says “Or dist le contes que bien .i. an etc.” and there is an initial, six lines high. This seems remarkable, but a look at the context shows that in this manuscript each new paragraph of the interlaced story is indicated by a similar initial. There is no indication whatsoever that a big new section of the tale begins here. The end of the Charrette, however, is signalled by two miniatures (and the first of them is a large one giving two scenes), which make this boundary jump right off the page. In BN 119, the relevant volume of the cycle BN 117–120, the chapters in the interlace structure are generally indicated by an initial (six lines high), but there also are quite large miniatures. The final episode of the Charrette (F. 333 R, a) has one of these miniatures, depicting two knights fighting in front of a tower from which Lancelot climbs into a little boat by means of a rope, as well as a larger initial (nine lines). The ‘Préparation’, on the other hand, is indicated only by a five-line initial (F. 351 R, b), although there is a miniature on the reverse side of the leaf. Arsenal 3479–3480 has in volume 3480 a nine-line initial at the beginning (p. 54) of the Charrette and a nine-line initial as well as a miniature at its end 15 S IV, p. 301, line 11; in some of the manuscripts the wording is more standardized: ‘Or dist li contes

que’ (e.g. M II, part LIII, p. 267; BN 122; BN 123; BN 339; BN 1430; Cambridge Corpus Christi 45; BL Royal 19 B VII; BL Royal 19 C XIII; BL Royal 20 D IV; BL Harley 4419; BL Harley 6341; Bonn 526; Berkeley UCB 107). The phrase ‘En ceste partie’ turned out to be less exclusive than one might suppose. In many manuscripts it is used as an alternative for the ‘Or dist le contes’ standard phrase in the ‘formal switch’. The Amsterdam BPH 1 manuscript, for instance, also uses the phrase quite indiscriminately, also at places where no larger unit could be indicated (ff. 4r, 25r, 65r, 89r). The ‘partie’ should not be taken as indicating a textual unit larger than the interlace chapter which follows the phrase. 16 The manuscripts compared show a great variance of systems. In some the framework of the interlace seems almost disconnected from the illumination; in the Charrette this framework itself shows many different forms, due to textual variants and other factors, which require further research. The variance in some cases is due to a phenomenon also encountered in Middle Dutch romances in the Lancelot Compilation: the text gives a formal switch but there is no actual change from one narrative thread to another. The prose Charrette is based on Chrétien’s romance, which lacks such explicit transitions, and that may explain these non-functional ‘formal switches’. Cf. Lanceloet: De Middelnederlandse vertaling van de Lancelot en prose overgeleverd in de Lancelotcompilatie. Pars 3 (vs. 10741–16263), met een inleidende studie over de entrelacement-vertelwijze, ed. F. Brandsma (Assen/Maastricht, 1992), pp. 191–4.

122



LANCELOT PART 3

(p. 101), depicting Lancelot climbing a rope down a tower into the boat of Meleagant’s sister.17 The ‘Préparation’ begins with a five-line initial, just like the interlace chapters in its immediate context. In the relevant section of BN 112 the miniatures have not been executed. Still, the space reserved shows that a miniature was to illustrate the episode of Lancelot’s escape from the tower, signalling the end of the Charrette. No room for a miniature was reserved at the beginning of the ‘Préparation’. These four manuscripts give a special status to the end of the Charrette, whereas the beginning of the ‘Préparation’ is treated like any other chapter in the interlace. The coincidences of scribal transmission and the obvious practical reasons for certain configurations (especially with regard to the ‘Agravain’) make it unwise to draw any firm conclusions from (the diagrams of) the textual tradition, but the four examples discussed above do lead to the suspicion that no new unit of composition began at Sommer IV, p. 301. This idea finds further support in the story itself. I will first give a brief general impression of the contents of Part 3 of the Lancelot and then discuss examples that demonstrate its cohesion and support the argument that the ‘Préparation’ was no separate unit of composition. Lancelot Part 3 describes, in a way, the best years of Lancelot’s life: he is the best knight of the world, successful in tournaments and adventures. His relationship with Guenevere has its stormy patches, but it remains undiscovered and still is an inspiration for great deeds. Lancelot is one of the chosen few to see the Grail procession and to taste the wondrous food the Grail provides. His nephews Lionel and Bohort turn out to be fine knights, and Lancelot even learns that Hector is his half brother. The ancestral lands that Claudas took from Lancelot’s father are recovered, so that even when Lancelot and his nephews do not want to be kings, they no longer are disinherited knights. Arthur reigns unchallenged and conquers vast lands on the continent. His knights prove to be outstanding fighters in the confrontation with Claudas’s men. Internal conflicts in the knighthood of the Round Table are easily – but not for ever and ever – quenched by Lancelot’s outstanding prowess and by the friendship between Lancelot and the main man of the opposing clan, Gawain. There is of course a flip side to this success story and that makes for interesting thematic developments. Next to the familiar, connected themes of ‘Identity’ and ‘Love’, a third theme comes forward, ‘the Grail’, and this sheds new light on the other two.18 Lancelot’s love for Guenevere still makes him the best knight in the world, but it also provides the means used to trick him into sleeping with Pelles’ daughter and fathering the Grail knight. Furthermore, it disqualifies him from success in the dawning Grail quest. The three thematic lines are presented in an interlaced tale that contains 17 Instead of numbering the folia, this manuscript has numbered each side of the leaf separately and thus

has no indication of the recto or verso. 18 See Kennedy, Lancelot and the Grail, pp. 10–78.

123



FRANK BRANDSMA

more narrative threads than ever before in the Lancelot. These threads are alternated in a most intricate way, without ever leading the audience astray however and without breaking the illusion of the simultaneity of the events. The suggestion that the story presented is based on eyewitness accounts, given by the knights themselves and written down by Arthur’s clerks, is upheld, maintaining the illusion that the Lancelot gives a full and true chronicle of Arthur’s reign. The fact that the Charrette, like Chrétien’s romance, ends with all important characters present at Arthur’s court enables a fresh start for the interlace. Until the beginning of the Queste, there will be no similarly complete gathering of the narrative threads.19 The usual divisions of Part 3 into smaller units do not correspond to a gathering of all threads. I have already mentioned that the ‘Agravain’ starts when a Lancelot quest is in progress. At the beginning of the ‘Préparation’ (and thus at the end of the ‘Suites de la Charrette’), one of the main characters of both sections, Bohort, is not present at Arthur’s court.20 Bohort is in fact the strongest binding thread in Part 3. In the prose Charrette – Part 2 – he has returned to the forefront of the story and will remain there for the rest of the trilogy.21 The episodes right after the Charrette show an alternation of Lancelot’s and Bohort’s threads that starts off the juxtaposition of these two knights, which will find its climax in the ‘Tertre Devée’ episode, where Bohort shows himself to be Lancelot’s equal in knightly prowess. The fight between them stops when Lancelot recognizes Bohort’s sword as that of Galehot, which he himself sent to his nephew.22 Since the sending of the sword lies in the part traditionally labelled ‘Suites’ and its recognition takes place close to the end of the ‘Préparation’, it seems logical to suppose that these two sections were conceived as a whole and thus form a single conceptual and compositional unit. The author must have had the later episode in mind when describing how Lancelot sent a damsel with the sword to Bohort. Further examples point in the same direction. The seduction of Bohort by the daughter of King Brangoire in the ‘Suites’ prefigures that of Lancelot by King Pelles’ daughter in the ‘Préparation’. Under similar circumstances – confused by a magical ring and potion respectively – both father children who will perform great deeds. Near the end of the ‘Préparation’ Bohort and Lancelot even meet each other’s little sons, Galahad and Helain le Blanc. In the context of this seduction, Bohort promises to kidnap Queen Guenevere. His attempt to do this forms the transition from the ‘Suites’ to the 19 The only narrative thread that is – unobtrusively – absent from the general gathering is that of Lionel

who, as the story tells us later, was off in search of Lancelot. Cf. F. Brandsma, ‘Gathering the Narrative Threads: The Function of the Court Scenes in the Narrative Technique of Interlace and in the Insertion of New Romances in the Lancelot Compilation’, Queeste 7 (2000), 1–18. 20 Brandsma, ‘Gathering’. 21 See for the Cart-scene: M II, XL, 9–23; S IV, pp. 215–218. 22 See for the sword sent by Lancelot: M II, LIX, 25; S IV, p. 279, lines 33–41; Bohort receives the sword: M II, LI, 13; S IV, p. 298, lines 23–33; Lancelot recognizes the sword: M II, CVI, 16; S V, p. 239, line 25.

124



LANCELOT PART 3

‘Préparation’ and thus the two supposedly separate sections almost flow together. Two promises made by Lancelot in the ‘Suites’ turn out to have unsuspected consequences in the first episode of the ‘Préparation’ and this further stresses the continuity of the narrative.23 In exchange for information, he promises an elderly damsel to follow her whenever she wants wherever she wants to take him. He also obtains a suit of armour from a knight in exchange for the promise to give his arms to that knight when requested to do so. When Lancelot prepares to fight Bohort and thus to keep him from abducting the queen, the elderly lady suddenly appears and urges him to accompany her. Reluctantly, she allows him to finish the duel in which Lancelot and Bohort wound each other severely. Still Lancelot is able to ride away with the lady. They meet the knight to whom Lancelot owes a suit of armour and he requests Lancelot’s arms. He is carrying the head of a newly defeated opponent at his saddle bow. When, dressed in Lancelot’s armour, he passes in sight of the queen, this causes her great distress and eventually will make her urge King Arthur to start the Lancelot quest which will keep Arthur’s knights quite busy for hundreds of pages. Thus, in the pages that precede the actual beginning of the ‘Préparation’, the start of this quest is elaborately prepared by Bohort’s boast and by Lancelot’s promises. As the report of a quest, the ‘Préparation’ has a certain separate status as a unit in the tale, but the more I look at the ‘Suites’ and ‘Préparation’, the more I become convinced that what I saw as two units, is in fact one whole, conceptually and therefore, in my opinion, also compositionally. The more I look at the ‘Préparation’ as a compositional boundary, the more it disappears. Thus, in conclusion, I feel like a magician who has made his lovely assistant – the ‘Préparation’ – disappear into thin air and, somewhat to his own surprise, realizes that he does not want her back. The ‘Préparation’ turns out to have no distinctive status in the manuscripts, and only a lesser one in the interlace and in the narrative. The Lancelot between the story of the cart and the Grail quest is best conceived as a whole, composed in one creative go as a bridge between the prose Charrette, on the one hand, and the Queste and Mort Artu, on the other. Part 3 of the Lancelot essentially is a preparation for things to come. It describes the conception of the Grail knight Galahad, the rise of his companion-to-be Bohort, and even the coming to court of Perceval. It reveals that Mordred is Arthur’s son and announces the lessening of Lancelot’s status as the best knight in the world since his love for the queen will disqualify him in the Grail quest. It shows the flaws inherent in the Arthurian world and the dangers that threaten it. I will give one brief and final example. Halfway through the ‘Préparation’ Lancelot ends up in Morgain’s prison 23 Cf. M II, L, 5–6/S IV, p. 284, lines 3–23 and M II, LIII, 8–13/S IV, p. 302, line 38 – p. 303, line 39

(promise to the lady; Lancelot accompanies her); M II, L, 2–4/S IV, p. 283, lines 22–41 and M II, LVI, 1–7/S IV, p. 316, line 1 – p. 317, line 8 (promise to the knight; the handing over of the arms; the queen sees the knight in Lancelot’s armour and believes the head on his saddlebow to be Lancelot’s).

125



FRANK BRANDSMA

and paints the story of his love for the queen on the walls of the room where he is kept.24 Morgain appreciates Lancelot’s paintings as works of art, inspired by a courtly love that makes even knights artists, and especially as a means to inform Arthur of the illicit relationship. Her plan only makes sense in view of the Mort Artu, where she will succeed in showing the king these images.25 There is no evidence of rewriting here, no reason to assume that Morgain’s plan is a later addition. Whoever wrote this part of the Lancelot had the Mort Artu or its outline in mind when creating this kind of forward connection. This brings up the question of whether the Queste and Mort Artu already existed in their present form when the text was created that connects these components of the trilogy to the first part of the Lancelot and the Charrette. Both Frappier’s theory of the architect and Micha’s idea of the single author allow for the option of finished texts as well as for that of outlines of the two texts being present at the outset of the making of the textual bridge.26 It is my impression that the rewriting of the last part of the non-cyclic Lancelot, the making of the prose Charrette and that of Part 3 of the Lancelot, as well as the writing of the Queste and Mort Artu, all belong to the same creative phase in the architect’s or single author’s work. This idea, of course, requires further investigation of both texts and manuscripts, but one of the advantages of looking at the cycle’s genesis this way would be that it removes the old and persistent problem of the ‘double esprit’ in the Lancelot:27 the idealization of courtly love belongs to the first, non-cyclic, phase, whereas the second phase would almost from the beginning (cf. the Symeu episode in the Charrette) represent a different ideology, showing the ambivalence of worldly love as seen from the perspective of the Grail and in view of the disastrous effects that Lancelot’s love for the queen will have when the Arthurian era comes to its end.

APPENDIX Diagram 1 gives a chronological survey of the manuscripts containing the prose Lancelot (or parts of this text) or Lancelot propre, with the exception of the smaller fragments. The diagram is based on Micha’s articles and the, rather rough, dates he provides, and on Elspeth Kennedy’s introduction to her

24 25 26 27

See M V, LXXXVI, 14–23; S V, 215/3–219/2. La Mort le roi Artu: Roman du XIIIe siècle, ed. J. Frappier, 2nd edn (Genève/Lille, 1954), parts 48–54. See note 3. Cf. M. Lot-Borodine, ‘Le double esprit et l’unité du Lancelot en prose’, in Lot, Etude, pp. 443–56; Micha, Essais, pp. 167–206; and H.-H. Steinhoff, ‘Artusritter und Gralsheld: Zur Bewertung des höfischen Rittertums im Prosa-Lancelot’, in The Epic in Medieval Society: Aesthetic and Moral Values, ed. H. Scholler (Tübingen, 1977), pp. 271–89.

126



LANCELOT PART 3

edition.1 The material has been compared with the lists Woledge provides.2 The diagram shows all the manuscripts containing a Lancelot that Woledge lists, except for Turin *1688 (L-V-30) and Darmstadt 2534, since I was unable to ascertain the exact contents of these manuscripts. The contents of the manuscripts are what counts in this article. The configurations are studied independent of the date of the manuscripts. For the argument set up here, it is not so important whether a manuscript dates from the fourteenth or fifteenth century or whether it came from Amiens or Italy. Giving a date for the manuscripts is hazardous, anyway. Micha’s dates are often far from specific and sometimes wrong. When additional information with regard to the date of a given manuscripts was available, Micha’s date has been replaced by a date in italics, giving usually a more specific date (and sometimes location).3 Further research may provide new dates for other manuscripts as well and thus new positions for those manuscripts in this chronological survey. It seems unlikely that these corrections will dramatically change the general pattern, as described and used in the article. On top, in bold the diagram gives the usual components of the cycle, with the central Lancelot divided, as in Micha’s description, into three parts corresponding to the three volumes of Sommer’s edition. By means of the little blocks, the diagram shows what each manuscript contains; three blocks means: all of the text corresponding to that Sommer volume is found in this manuscript. The numbers before or after a set of blocks refer to the page in Sommer’s edition where a manuscript begins or breaks off. The prose Charrette is represented by a diamond. It divides the cyclic Lancelot into two roughly equal parts. Manuscripts that have an asterisk on the rightmost side of the diagram have been checked in manuscript or on microfilm. Notes regarding the manuscripts are given separately after diagram 2. BL stands for British Library (London), BN for Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris), for A’dam+Ryl, see the remarks on p. 132. Diagram 2 follows the format of diagram 1. The sequence here, however, is based on what the manuscripts contain. If two or more manuscripts have exactly the same components they are given in chronological order.4

1 2 3

4

For descriptions and dates of the manuscripts, Micha, ‘Les manuscrits’; H, pp. ix–xxv; and K, pp. 1–9. B. Woledge, Bibliographie des romans et nouvelles en prose française antérieurs à 1500 (Genève/Lille, 1954), pp. 71–9, 2nd edn Supplément 1954–1973 (Genève, 1975), pp. 50–5. The alternative dates come from the works of Alison Stones (e.g. Stones, ‘The Earliest Illustrated Prose Lancelot Manuscript?’ and especially her ‘Seeing the Grail: Prolegomena to a Study of Grail Imagery in Arthurian Manuscripts’, in The Grail: A Casebook, ed. Dhira B. Mahoney (New York/London, 2000), pp. 301–366, esp. 364–366) and the work of the multidisciplinary group of the Lancelot-Graal project (http: //www.sis.pitt.edu/~sochats/lance.html). Martine Meuwese kindly provided me with the dates that are commonly used within this working-group. See also the diagrams in Trachsler, Clôtures, pp. 557–564.

127




Diagram 1. Chronological survey of prose Lancelot manuscripts





Diagram 2. Prose Lancelot manuscripts: configurations




FRANK BRANDSMA

Remarks #

The fragments, mentioned by Micha, not included in the two diagrams are: BN Nouv. Acq. fr. 5237; Bibliothèque de la Sorbonne 1558; Archives de Trémoïlle; Bern, Bibl. munic. 228; Bern, Bibl. munic. A 95. 9; Brussels, Archiv. génér. 1411 I; Brussels, Arch. Gén. 1411 C; Chicago, Library of the University 712; Göttingen, Bibl. univ. Morbio 17; BL (British Library) Add. 5474; BL Royal 15 A XI; BL Royal 20 A II; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Douce 215. # A’dam+Ryl: this stands for Amsterdam, BPH 1 and Manchester Rylands Fr. 1. The Amsterdam volumes I–III are the first volumes of a cyclic manuscript to which the Oxford Douce 215-fragment and Manchester Rylands Fr. 1, also belong. Therefore Amsterdam BPH 1 and Manchester Rylands Fr. 1 were put together in the diagrams. This manuscript and BL Additional 10292–10294 and BL Royal 14 E III (containing the Estoire, Queste and Mort Artu) were probably made in the same workshop. # Aberystwyth 445 D breaks off at the point where Meleagant’s sister is introduced (‘ainçois retourne a la seur de Meleagrant. Cy fine Gallehoz.’). # Arsenal 3479 stops at S IV, p. 92. Hutchings (p. XIV) states: ‘Il est probable que les deux manuscrits [BN 117–120 and Arsenal 3479–80, FB] proviennent de l’atelier de Jean, duc de Berry.’ # Arsenal 3481 contains a ‘Table des matières’ on the first folium. # Bonn 526 is divided into nine sections (see Micha, ‘Les manuscrits II’, p. 38); S IV, 222 forms the borderline between sections ‘V. Galahot’ and ‘VI. La première partie de la queste Lancelot’. # BN 110 was perhaps made in Thérouanne or Cambrai. # BN 112 is divided into three volumes. The second volume begins with the Charrette (S IV, p. 155). H, p. XVII: ‘Le texte du Lancelot dans ce manuscrit contient de nombreuses additions tirées du roman en prose de Tristan et de Palamèdes.’ # BN 113–116 The end of BN 114 lies shortly after the beginning of the Charrette (Lancelot is invited to get in the cart); BN 115 begins with an miniature and continues the story of the cart. The text of the Lancelot is amplified with Tristan-adventures. # BN 117–120 H, p. XVIII says: ‘Les enluminures sont nombreuses et très fines, et semblent avoit été exécutées dans les ateliers de Jean, duc de Berry, ancien possesseur de ce manuscrit.’ # BN 121 stops right at Lancelot’s encounter with Symeu’s tomb (S IV, p. 178, line 28). # BN 122 begins when Lancelot has left the Holy Cemetery with the damsel; this corresponds with S IV, 177/33, but has a different reading (e.g., a formal switch absent in S). # BN 123 starts with Lancelot’s deliverance by Meleagant’s sister (S IV, p. 222, line 22); Micha says: ‘Le Lancelot commence à la fin de la Charrette.’ # BN 344 Kennedy’s date (p. 3): ‘Second half of 13th century.’ # BN 752 misses a passage (S IV, 152–153) and stops ‘à l’avant-dernière page de la Charrette’ (S IV, p. 223, line 17). # BN 1466 misses the beginning of S IV (up to p. 18) and stops ‘au combat de Lancelot contre Méléagant à la fin de la Charrette’ (p. 222, line 21). The text says (f. 104rb): ‘Icy fenist Galehot. Meleagran avoit une seror.’ # BN 16998: many leaves are missing from this manuscript.

132



LANCELOT PART 3 #

Cambridge, Corpus Christi 45 See G. Hutchings, ‘Two Hitherto Unnoticed Manuscripts of the French Prose Lancelot’, Medium Aevum III (1934), 189–94. # Grenoble 378 Micha states: ‘Contient une partie du tome IV’, but he does not indicate where in S IV the manuscript begins. # New York, Pierpont Morgan 805–6 has a gap (S III, pp. 118–162). # Oxford, Rawlinson Q b 6 H, p. XIII: ‘Le copiste de ce manuscrit se nomme Ernoul d’Amiens. Il travaillait en Picardie, et peut-être à Amiens même.’ K I, p. 2: ‘First half of 14th century.’ See also Hutchings, ‘Two Hitherto Unnoticed Manuscripts’, pp. 189–94. # Rennes 255 There is a large gap in S IV, from p. 27 to p. 217. After this the text has a small section of the Charrette, pp. 217–20, line 33. See Stones, ‘The Earliest Illustrated Prose Lancelot Manuscript?’ # Rouen 1054 (O 5) contains S III and IV and states on the last leaf ‘Explicit Meleagant’, after the formal switch which introduces the ‘Agravain’-thread that is the beginning of S V. # Yale 229 was perhaps made in Thérouanne or St Omer.

133





THE PARROT IN LE CHEVALIER DU PAPEGAU

IX

COMIC FUNCTIONS OF THE PARROT AS MINSTREL IN LE CHEVALIER DU PAPEGAU1 Marilyn Lawrence Le Chevalier du Papegau (The Knight of the Parrot) is an anonymous French prose romance from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century (possibly the dérimage of a lost verse version) in which a young King Arthur takes as his emblem an extraordinary performing parrot and becomes the ‘Chevalier du Papegau’. A skilled singer and storyteller who provides others with immense pleasure, the papegau is introduced into the narrative as: ‘le meilleur oysel du monde pour chanter doulx champ amoureux plaisant et pour parler mieulx et adroit ce que vient a plaisir a cuer d’omme et a cuer de femme.’ (‘the best bird in the world for singing the sweet, pleasant song of love and for speaking well and cleverly about matters which please the hearts of men and women.’*) (5; 5)2 The bird both fosters in the narrative a general sense of cheer and helps the plot progress towards a happy end. In so doing, the parrot functions as the primary purveyor of the comic in Le Chevalier du Papegau. 1

2

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Dix-Neuvième Congrès International de la Société Arthurienne, Toulouse, France, July 1999, and at the Thirty-Second International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 1997. I would like to thank Kimberlee Campbell, Nancy Freeman Regalado and Evelyn Birge Vitz for their comments and suggestions. ‘Le Chevalier du Papegau’ nach der einzigen pariser Handschrift zum ersten Mal herausgegeben, ed. F. Heuckenkamp (Halle, 1896). All references to and citations from this romance are taken from this edition. For convenience, I have used Thomas Vesce’s translation The Knight of the Parrot (Le Chevalier du Papegau), trans. T. E. Vesce, Garland Library of Medieval Literature Series B 55 (New York and London, 1986). On several occasions, however, I have found it necessary to stay closer to the exact wording of the original and have altered Vesce’s translation. I have marked these instances with an asterisk (*) and indicate the corresponding pages in Vesce’s work. D. Régnier-Bohler has also published a Modern French translation: ‘Le Chevalier au Papegau’, in La Légende arthurienne: le graal et la table ronde, ed. D. Régnier-Bohler (Paris, 1989), pp. 1079–162. Patricia Victorin is presently preparing an edition of the romance for publication by Champion. Although I use the title Le Chevalier du Papegau to be consistent with current usage, I prefer the title indicated in the explicit of the romance’s single surviving manuscript, the fifteenth-century Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds Français 2154: ‘Cy finit le conte du papegaulx’ (fol. 74v). This title, Le Conte du papegaulx, is also written at the beginning of the manuscript by a more modern hand (fol. A). In 1896, Ferdinand Heuckenkamp published an edition of the romance under the title Le Chevalier du Papegau. For the most part, critics have subsequently used this title which downplays the importance of the parrot in the romance.

135

D:\Elaine\ArtLit19\Artlit19b.vp 17 September 2002 11:58:25


MARILYN LAWRENCE

In defining ‘comic’ I follow the lead of Marcel Gutwirth who, in Laughing Matter: An Essay on the Comic, employs ‘comic’ as the ‘general term for the range of events, willed or unwilled, aimed at bringing amusement (or simply having that effect)’.3 Accordingly, that which diverts, pleases or brings joy may be considered comic. Gutwirth’s definition is valuable for considering medieval literature in its historical context, that is as entertainment, and for understanding how the comic functions in much of medieval narrative. Genres such as romance, epic and hagiography are all in this sense comedies: they aim towards a happy ending in which characters’ desires are satisfied. In romance this comic ending goes hand in hand with, and is a suitable conclusion to, an atmosphere of pleasure that generally permeates the entire narrative. As Philippe Ménard writes: ‘Le dénouement heureux est l’issue naturelle des histoires courtoises. Nul hasard en cela. Nos textes expriment pour la plupart une joie de vivre’ (‘The happy conclusion is the natural outcome of courtly stories. This is no coincidence. For the most part our texts express joie de vivre’).4 Le Chevalier du Papegau is no exception. In addition to striving towards a comic conclusion, the romance is coloured throughout by terms such as ‘desport’, ‘desduit’, ‘delit’, ‘liësse’, ‘solas’, ‘joye’, ‘aise’ and ‘feste’, all of which fall under the general rubric of amusement, joy and pleasure. Le Chevalier du Papegau therefore follows the romance tradition where, according to Ménard, ‘sourires en demi-teintes’ (‘half-tone smiles’) and ‘fines pointes d’humour’ (‘subtle touches of humour’) predominate over the ‘rire vigoureux et franc’ (‘open and robust laughter’) found in epics or, I might add, in fabliaux.5 Indeed, there are few, if any, representations of straight-out laughter in Le Chevalier du Papegau. The verb ‘rire’ appears a mere four times in the entire romance and only once or twice does it seem to follow the narrow definition of ‘to laugh’.6 Otherwise, the verb is used more broadly to connote a general sense of pleasure. The parrot is the character principally responsible for producing this comic effect of merriment and delight. He does so by playing two principal comic roles: that of entertainer and that of adjuvant (helper) in a comic plot. As an entertainer, the parrot provides pleasure and amusement to courts in general and to his patron, King Arthur, in particular. As an adjuvant, a helper, the parrot ensures that his patron’s quest will arrive at a successful ending and, consequently, that the narrative will reach a comic, that is happy, conclusion. At the close of the romance, these two comic functions merge when the parrot entertains Arthur’s court and guarantees Arthur’s glory by recounting the pleasing story of the quest that the bird helped make a success. I propose that the parrot performs both these comic functions by fulfilling 3 4 5 6

M. Gutwirth, Laughing Matter: An Essay on the Comic (Ithaca and London, 1993), p. 6. P. Ménard, Le Rire et le sourire dans le roman courtois en France au moyen âge (1150–1250), Publications romanes et françaises 105 (Geneva, 1969), 750. Ménard, Le Rire, pp. 750 and 747. The verb occurs on pp. 15, 16, 28 and 61. On pp. 15 and 16 it could be interpreted as ‘to laugh’.

136




the role of a minstrel, that is of a professional performer who serves the interests of a particular patron.7 Though he is never actually called a minstrel in the text (he is consistently referred to as the ‘papegau’, except for twice when he is called a ‘bird’,8) the parrot is precisely this: a professional performer who serves Arthur and who entertains the courts he visits and, eventually, Arthur’s own court. This double comic function is thus, in the words of Gutwirth, ‘willed’: it is the parrot’s job as minstrel to make his patron happy through performances that provide pleasure and that help lead to, and then advertise, the successful completion of his goals. In so doing, the parrot resembles minstrel characters that appear in earlier French romances such as Jouglet in Jean Renart’s Roman de la rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, from the first third of the thirteenth century, or Pinçonnet in Cleomadés, composed c. 1285 by Adenet le Roi.9 In these narratives the minstrel character both provides delightful entertainment and helps his patron realize his objectives, enabling the plot to arrive at a happy end. Like Jouglet and Pinçonnet, the parrot purposefully – ‘wilfully’ – creates amusement in keeping with his role as minstrel. He is not the unwitting butt of others’ laughter; he is not funny ‘in spite of’ himself. Nor do other characters consider him a humorous figure because he is an animal. Whether or not the medieval or modern auditor/reader of the romance did or does, however, is a different question. Granted, the fact that Arthur’s minstrel is a bird blatantly differentiates him from his fellow characters, reflecting a conscious and complex authorial statement about the performer and performance. Among the effects of casting a caged parrot – that is an animal restricted physically but distinguished and empowered by its capacity for human speech – in the role of the minstrel is an emphasis on the vocal talent by which the minstrel fulfils his double comic function. Yet from the vantage-point of characters within the spatio-temporal universe of the romance, that is from the intradiegetic perspective which is that of this paper, the parrot is not comic because he is a parrot. Characters in the romance find the parrot’s performances amusing, but not the bird himself. Rather, the papegau is viewed as an exotic and valuable prize-performer of whom only King Arthur is worthy. As the parrot himself tells Arthur: ‘ “Je suis vostre par raison; car vous estez le meilleur chevalier du monde” ’ (‘ “I am rightfully yours; for you are the best knight in the world” ’*) (11; 10).10 7

My definition of the minstrel is inspired by that which Edmond Faral provides in his classic study Les Jongleurs en France au moyen âge. Faral distinguishes minstrels (‘ménestrels’), performers permanently attached to a court, from ‘jongleurs errants’, who wander from master to master (E. Faral, Les Jongleurs en France au moyen âge, Bibliothèque de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes 187 [Paris, 1964], pp. 103–4. On minstrels, see especially pp. 103–18). 8 Pp. 5 and 51. 9 Jean Renart, Le Roman de la rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, ed. F. Lecoy, CFMA 91 (Paris, 1979); Adenet le Roi, Les Oeuvres d’Adenet le Roi: ‘Cleomadés’, ed. A. Henry, 5 vols. (Brussels, 1951–71), V. 10 See on pp. 15 and 78 references to the great honour the parrot has brought his servant-dwarf over the years. On the prestige of the parrot as exotic pet in the later Middle Ages see B. Ribémont, ‘Histoires de

137



MARILYN LAWRENCE

The Prize-Parrot The late medieval Chevalier du Papegau is unusual in the Arthurian corpus in that the happiness at stake in the romance and the satisfaction towards which the narrative progresses regard King Arthur himself. Rather than structure its plot around the aspirations of Lancelot, Gauvain, Yvain, Perceval or other knights of the Round Table, as is common in Arthurian literature, Le Chevalier du Papegau is an ‘enfances Artu’ that casts as its protagonist a young, newly crowned Arthur who undertakes a quest for glory and renown as the ‘Chevalier du Papegau’.11 The narrative opens at Pentecost with Camelot’s grand celebration of Arthur’s coronation. During the festivities, a damsel arrives and begs Arthur to send aid to the Dame aux Cheveux Blons (Lady of the Blonde Hair) whose lands and people are being destroyed by the fearsome Poisson Chevalier (Fish Knight). Rather than choose one of his knights to satisfy the maiden’s request, the first addressed to his court, the young king – wishing to prove himself worthy of his new title – personally takes up the damsel’s cause and sets out alone to rescue the lady. Arthur thus begins a year-long journey, replete with harrowing adventures, during which time he strives to merit his crown. Soon after his departure, Arthur participates in the contest in which he will acquire his parrot. Reminiscent of the competition in Chrétien’s Erec et Enide in which Erec wins a sparrow-hawk, this contest rules that ‘celluy qui avra la plus belle amye et le pourra monstrer pour armes, si avra ung papegault’ (‘he who shall claim to have the most beautiful friend and proves this by exercise of arms, shall thereby gain a parrot’*) (5; 5). Like Erec, Arthur, accompanied by the aptly named Belle sans Villenie (Beauty without Villainy), vanquishes the ferocious knight, Lion sans Mercy (Merciless Lion), and wins his bird. However unlike Erec’s quickly-forgotten sparrow-hawk, Arthur’s parrot becomes an essential figure in the young knight’s quest for glory. Arthur adopts the bird as his badge and, in the tradition of the unknown knight,

perroquets: petit itinéraire zoologique et poétique’, Reinardus: Yearbook of the International Reynard Society 3 (1990), 155–71 (especially pp. 158, 160 and 169–70). According to Ribémont, starting in the fifteenth century it becomes fashionable in princely courts to possess exotic animals, such as the parrot. Often kept in a gold cage, the parrot is valued highly because of its rarity and the beauty of its plumage. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the parrot loses its prestige and becomes trivialized; see B. Boehrer, ‘ “Men, Monkeys, Lap-dogs, Parrots, Perish All!”: Psittacine Articulacy in Early Modern Writing’, Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History 59.2 (1998), 171–93. 11 On this subject see: A. Berthelot, ‘Le Roman arthurien tardif dans le domaine français’ and ‘Arthur, ou le Chevalier du Papegault: décadence d’une fonction, décadence d’un genre’, in König Artus und der heilige Graal: Studien zum spätarturischen Roman und zum Graals-Roman im europäischen Mittelalter, Greifswalder Beiträge zum Mittelalter 32 (Greifswald, 1994), 1–15 and 17–25; M. Malfait-Dohet, ‘La Fonction épique d’Arthur dans Le Chevalier du Papegau, voyage pseudoinitiatique du moyen âge finissant’, Ollodagos: actes de la Société belge d’études celtiques 5.2 (1993), 183–226; D. Régnier-Bohler, ‘Arthur en enfances (Le Chevalier au Papegau)’, PRIS-MA 13.1 (1997), 91–106.

138




conceals his royal identity under the assumed name of the ‘Chevalier du Papegau’. Henceforth he pursues his quest incognito, accompanied by his prize-parrot.12

The Parrot as Comic Entertainer This prize-parrot is also a prize-performer who enthusiastically entertains his patron and the courts he visits, thus fulfilling the most fundamental function of the medieval minstrel. Watriquet de Couvin, a minstrel active c. 1319–29, celebrates this primary comic function in his ‘Dis des trois vertus’: ‘Car Diex sens leur donne et savoir / Des gentilz homes soulacier, / Pour les vices d’entr’eus chacier / Et pour les bons noncier leur fais: / Pour ce sont li menestrel fais, / Que partout font joie et deduit / Du jeu dont science les duit.’ (‘For God gives them the wit and knowledge to comfort noble men, to chase vice from amongst them, and to proclaim the acts of good men: for this minstrels are made, that they may everywhere give joy and pleasure by their training in the art of play.’)13 God has therefore created minstrels to amuse nobles with performances that delight. Arthur’s papegau is just such a comic performer. From the beginning of the romance, the parrot is represented as a talented entertainer whose identity is strongly linked to joy-inspiring musical and oral performance. Even before he has the opportunity to exercise his great talent, the parrot is depicted as surrounded by musical merriment. Prior to the contest between Arthur and Lion sans Mercy, the prize-parrot enters the arena preceded by a revelling retinue of maidens and music: ‘Si venoyent environ soy dames et damoiselles a son d’arpez et de viëlles moult joyeusement, et

12 The sparrow-hawk plays a negligible role in Chrétien’s romance: Chrétien de Troyes, Les Romans de

Chrétien de Troyes: ‘Erec et Enide’, ed. M. Roques, CFMA 80, 6 vols. (Paris, 1978–82), I, 17–34, vv. 547–1084. On the apparent influence of Chrétien’s works on Le Chevalier du Papegau see N. Lacy, ‘Convention and Innovation in Le Chevalier du Papegau’, in Studies in Honor of Hans-Erich Keller: Medieval French and Occitan Literature and Romance Linguistics, ed. R. T. Pickens (Kalamazoo, Michigan; 1993), pp. 237–46, and ‘Motif Transfer in Arthurian Romance’, in The Medieval Opus: Imitation, Rewriting, and Transmission in the French Tradition. Proceedings of the Symposium Held at the Institute for Research in the Humanities, October 5–7 1995, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, ed. D. Kelly, Faux Titre 116 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1996), pp. 157–68; J. H. M. Taylor, ‘The Fourteenth Century: Context, Text and Intertext’, in The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. N. J. Lacy, D. Kelly and K. Busby, Faux Titre 31, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1987–8), I, 267–332, and ‘The Parrot, the Knight and the Decline of Chivalry’, in Conjunctures: Medieval Studies in Honor of Douglas Kelly, ed. K. Busby and N. J. Lacy, Faux Titre 83 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1994), pp. 529–44; L. Thorpe, ‘L’Yvain de Chrétien de Troyes et le jeu des topoi’, Oeuvres et critiques 5.2 (1980–1), 73–80; T. E. Vesce, ‘The Return of the Chevalier du Papegau’, Romance Notes 17.3 (1977), 320–7; L. Walters, ‘Parody and the Parrot: Lancelot References in the Chevalier du Papegau’, in Translatio Studii: Essays by his Students in Honor of Karl D. Uitti for his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. R. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, K. Brownlee, M. B. Speer and L. J. Walters, Faux Titre 179 (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1999), pp. 331–44. 13 Watriquet de Couvin, ‘Dits’ de Watriquet de Couvin publiés pour la première fois d’après les manuscrits de Paris et de Bruxelles et accompagnés de variantes et de notes explicatives, ed. A. Scheler (Brussels, 1868), p. 346, lines 147–53. See also Faral, Jongleurs, p. 103.

139



MARILYN LAWRENCE

aprés eulx venoit ung nain qui estoit vestus d’escarlate fouree de vair, qui chassoit devant luy ung pallefroy qui pourtoit une cage la ou estoit dedens le papegau’ (‘Ladies and maidens came most joyously to the sound of harps and vielles; and these were followed by a dwarf, dressed in scarlet lined with vair, who drove before him a palfrey which carried a cage within which was the parrot’*) (7; 7). When the parrot and Arthur set off on their adventures after the contest, the pleasing sound of instruments accompanies them then, too: ‘Et chevauchent a moult grant joye a son de viëles et d’arpes.’ (‘With much great joy they set forth to the sound of vielles and harps.’*) (12; 11) Introduced into the romance with merry musical accompaniment, the parrot-minstrel is himself a great lover of music and an eager entertainer. The following scene typifies the wonderful sense of carefree play and boundless mirth associated with the parrot and his performances. Indeed, the noun ‘joye’ is repeated five times in this short passage, in addition to the noun ‘liësse’ and the adjective ‘liez’ (in ‘n’em est pas liez’ [‘is not happy’] to describe the parrot’s reaction to the termination of the amusement). We also find in this context the verb ‘rire’ used to signify a general atmosphere of rejoicing into which the parrot enters and becomes the vortex: Et montent au palais a si grant joye que des le temps au roy Belnain n’y fu si grant joye demenee. Et l’ont desarmé [Arthur] les damoiselles mesmes qui toutes estoient d’un eage, et ne mectent a riens leur entente fors que a rire et a jouer et a luy monstrer bel semblant. Et le papegau, quant il vit les damoiselles, qui sont toutes de l’eage de .xv. ans, demener tel liësse de son seigneur, commença a chanter des chevaleries qu’i avoit faites son seigneur. Et quant il ot une piece chanté de son seigneur, il commença a chanter des damoiselles en tel maniere: “Je seroie plus voulentiers deux mois entiers avec vous que en nul lieu du monde.” Et puis commença ung lay d’amour si adroit et si doulcement que toutes les damoiselles prirent a chanter encontre luy; et avoient commencié a mener la plus grant joye du monde, quant elles ont veu la roÿne, la mere Flor de Mont, menant tel semblant com il convient a tel dame qui avoit perdu son mari et qui estoit emprisonnee a tel tort. Quant les damoiselles virent la roÿne venir, si ont laissié leur chant et leur joye, mais le papagau n’em est pas liez, car il ne vouldroit mais oÿr ne voir ne faire autre chose se chanter non et karoler et demener joye. (So they went up into the palace with such great joy that its like had not been seen since the time of King Belnain. The damsels themselves, who were all of the same age, unarmed Arthur, and they desired nothing but to laugh and play and to make themselves delightful to him. And the parrot, when he saw the damsels, who were all fifteen years old, show such pleasure in his lord, began to sing of the chivalric feats that his lord had performed. After he had sung for a while about his lord, he began to sing about the damsels in this manner: “I would rather be two whole months with you than anywhere else in the world.” And then he began to sing a lay of love, so cleverly and so sweetly, that all the damsels begged to sing with him; they had begun the greatest rejoicing in the world when they beheld the queen, mother of Flor de Mont, whose appearance befit a lady who had lost her husband and who was so wrongfully imprisoned. 140




When the damsels saw the queen approach, they abandoned their song and their joy, but the parrot was not pleased about this, for he did not want to hear, nor see nor do anything other than sing, dance and make merry.*) (61; 64–65)

In the romance as a whole, as in this passage, the parrot’s performances focus primarily on two subjects: Arthur’s chivalric feats and love. The precise content of these songs and stories is never described in detail, and there are no lyric interpolations anywhere in the romance. However occasionally, as in this passage (underlined in the above citation), a single line of prose is inserted into the text. It is not clear if we are to consider this line an excerpt from or summary of the performance, or whether it represents the entirety of the text performed. In any case, the parrot most often performs these songs and stories alone. Nonetheless, he is introduced into the romance in conjunction with a group of performers and does on occasion perform with others – including his patron.14 In this scene the parrot’s song inspires others’ performance; the maidens cheerfully clamour to chime in. Delightful and delighting, the parrot is depicted as the polar opposite of death, sorrow and suffering, represented here by the queen. The parrot serves to drive away unhappy sentiments and threats to joie de vivre. And although the queen’s gloom succeeds in squelching the group’s gaiety in this particular passage, the minstrel-parrot’s comic spirit nevertheless is reaffirmed and will win out at the end of the romance. Though the parrot brings pleasure to many, the most important audience for a minstrel is always his patron. The papegau entertains Arthur on countless occasions. The bird sings the knight awake in the morning: ‘Au matin, quant l’aube fut esclarie, le papegau commença a parler a son chevalier en chantant et a dire [. . .]’ (‘In the morning, at break of day, the parrot began to speak to his knight in song, saying [. . .]’) (14; 13). And at night he gently lulls Arthur to sleep with bedtime stories: ‘Et quant il fut couchié, son papegau luy commença a conter une ystoire d’une aventure qu’il sçavoit moult belle [. . .] En tel maniere s’endormy et reposa le Chevalier du Papegau toute la nuyt.’ (‘Once he got into bed, his parrot began to tell him a story of very beautiful adventure that he knew [. . .] In such fashion, the Knight of the Parrot fell asleep and rested all night long.’*) (23; 23) As a professional entertainer, the parrot is constantly focused on driving sadness and boredom away from his patron. Many of his performances take place ‘on the road’ during the long and uneventful journeys between Arthur’s adventures: ‘et vont a si grant joye et si grans solas, et le papegau leur chantoit le mieulx du monde’ (‘and thus they went off, in such great joy and such great pleasure, and the parrot sang to them as well as could be imagined.’*) (78; 83). Sometimes these are pleasing love songs: ‘Et le papegau leur va chantant et comptant chançons plaisans et amoureuses’ (‘And the parrot accompanied them all the while by singing and telling pleasant and amorous songs’) (14; 14 Page 15.

141



MARILYN LAWRENCE

14). On other occasions, the parrot sings of Arthur’s own deeds: ‘Et le papegau luy va tousjours chantant moult doulcement des chevaleries qu’il avoit faites’ (‘The parrot continued to sing to him very sweetly of the chivalries he had done’) (52; 54). Gifted with a remarkable memory, the papegau also diverts Arthur with such stories as that of the bird’s first encounter with Belle sans Villenie: ‘Estrangement fu liez le Chevalier du Papegaux des paroles qu’il a entendues de la damoiselle et de son parage, et chevaucha, luy et sa compaignie, liez et joyans de cy au vespre.’ (‘The Knight of the Parrot was made wondrously happy by the words that he heard about the damsel and her lineage, and rode onward, he and his company, happy and joyful up until vespers.’*) (13; 12) When the knight’s travels separate him from his lady love, the Dame aux Cheveux Blons, the parrot distracts the melancholy knight with sweet songs: ‘Et le Chevalier du Papegau chevauche, luy et sa compaignie, pensant a la dame moult; mais le papegau l’en oste du penser, car il luy va chantant les meilleurs chançons du monde et les plus doulces a oÿr.’ (‘So the Knight of the Parrot rides off with his party, thinking much about the lady; but the parrot takes him from such thoughts by singing to him the best and sweetest songs to be heard anywhere the world over.’*) (44; 46) The papegau character is thus constructed as a talented entertainer who fulfils the minstrel’s primary purpose of providing, as Watriquet states, ‘joie et deduit’ (‘joy and delight’).15 The parrot accomplishes this aim through a variety of performances that pepper the romance. Yet the papegau’s performances do more than just season or garnish the narrative. They also fulfil an important comic function on the level of the plot as a whole. As Arthur’s adjuvant, the minstrel-parrot works to guarantee that the quest – and thus the entire narrative – will come to a happy, that is comic, conclusion.

The Parrot as Adjuvant in a Comic Plot In the Greimasian actantial system, an adjuvant helps someone else (a ‘subject’) arrive at his desired goal (at his ‘object’). An adjuvant is thus defined in relation to a ‘subject’ and that subject’s desire.16 According to this model, the parrot may be considered an adjuvant who aids Arthur (a subject) attain glory (Arthur’s object). Though in many ways Greimas’s system turns out to be disappointingly deficient when applied to medieval narrative, certain aspects of it can nonetheless facilitate our analysis of the parrot’s comic functions. Evelyn Birge Vitz remarks in Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects and Objects of Desire: ‘the actantial system, when carefully refined, has enough usefulness to make it worth retaining. In particular it allows us to 15 Watriquet, ‘Dits’, p. 346, line 152. 16 A. J. Greimas, Sémantique structurale: recherche de méthode, Langue et langage (Paris, 1966). See in

particular pp. 178–80.

142




highlight one of the most extraordinary features of medieval narrative: its glorification of the role of the Helper – especially the divine Helper – at once Adjuvant and Subject.’17 Le Chevalier du Papegau does indeed valorize Arthur’s helper. Both coach and catalyst, the parrot plays an essential role in the king’s quest. The romance’s ornithological adjuvant works towards an objective in tune with, yet subsumed to, that of the subject: Arthur wants glory and the parrot wants to help him attain it. The parrot therefore has a stake in the events that occur in the romance. This intense involvement in and concern for the successful completion of Arthur’s quest is made strikingly clear when, at one point in the narrative, Arthur briefly leaves the bird in order to face a formidable foe alone. In so doing, Arthur temporarily shuts the papegau out of the quest for glory. Deprived of his adjuvant function, the parrot is described as being ‘en prison’ (‘in prison’) where he helplessly – and unhelpfully – worries about the knight’s welfare and the outcome of his adventure: ‘il avoit grant paour de son seigneur, pour ce qu’il ne savoit l’aventure qui luy estoit avenue puis qu’il se departi de luy’ (‘he was much afraid for his lord, inasmuch as he did not know what adventure had befallen him since the time he was separated from him’*) (77; 82). This image of imprisonment is used in a similar fashion when the Dame aux Cheveux Blons obliges Arthur to fight as the worst knight at her tournament. Rendered incapable of performing his function as subject, Arthur is also described as being in ‘prison’ (32) until he is able to resume his narrative function, at which point he is deemed to be no longer ‘en prison’ (39). Likewise, the parrot is released from ‘prison’ – where ‘il avoit trop esté’ (‘he had been too long’*) (77; 81–2) – when he sees his patron return safely, having defeated his adversary. The bird rejoices and displays, through song, delight at Arthur’s success: ‘il commença une melodie si tres doulce qu’il ne fu nul en la place qui ne s’arratast pour la doulceur du champ.’ (‘he began such a sweet melody that there were none there present who did not stop to tarry because of the sweetness of the song.’) (77; 82) The apprehension the bird feels when Arthur abandons him to pursue his ‘object’ without him, and the elation he experiences when Arthur returns successful, so overwhelm the 17 E. B. Vitz, Medieval Narrative and Modern Narratology: Subjects and Objects of Desire (New York

and London, 1989), pp. 5–6. Vitz sums up some of the weaknesses of Greimas’s system on pp. 4–5 of her Introduction. Although in laying out his system Greimas compares the adjuvant to the guardian angel in medieval Christian drama (Greimas, Sémantique, p. 179.), the ‘divine helper’ whom the parrot more closely resembles is the saint in medieval hagiography. The saint acts as both subject and adjuvant: he or she is a subject whose entire will is to serve – to be an adjuvant of – God (see Vitz, Medieval Narrative, pp. 126–48). The parrot serves a similar double function: he is a subject whose principal desire is to aid – to be an adjuvant of – Arthur. The representation of two subjects – God and the saint in hagiography or Arthur and the parrot in Le Chevalier du Papegau – presents no conflict in the narrative for, as Vitz observes: ‘These two wills are compatible because one of them has voluntarily aligned itself with, and subordinated itself to, the other. [The saint] wills to do God’s will. We can therefore follow, narratively, [the saint] and God at the same time; we see what God wants by watching what [the saint] does.’ (Vitz, Medieval Narrative, p. 137). The parrot’s wants are similarly subsumed to Arthur’s, and, like the saint whose actions reveal God’s wishes, the parrot serves as a sort of barometer by which we can track Arthur’s needs and monitor the status of his quest.

143



MARILYN LAWRENCE

parrot that he physically collapses, appearing to have died: ‘il se laissa cheoir envers sa cage, et cuida chascun qu’il fust mors’ (‘he fell down in his cage, and all thought that he was dead’*) (77; 82). Only when Arthur begs him not to abandon him (and his quest) so soon does the bird regain consciousness. In other words, only when Arthur asks the parrot to resume his function as adjuvant does the bird (seemingly) come back to life: ‘son seigneur vint a luy, qui luy dist: “Ha, beau papegau, je vous prie, se il puet estre, que vous ne me laissiés si tost!” ’ (‘his lord went up to him and said: “Ha, good parrot, I beg you, if it is at all possible, not to leave me so soon!” ’*) (77; 82) Resuscitated with a request to continue serving Arthur, who has not yet attained his final object, the parrot rises up and begins to sing merrily: ‘Et si tost comme le papegau l’oÿ parler, il se leva sus et commença a chanter trop liëment.’ (‘As soon as the parrot heard him speak, he got up and began to sing all the more gaily.’) (77; 82) Deeply dedicated to Arthur and his quest, the bird lives to aid Arthur, to whom he provides a wide range of services. The full comic function of the parrot’s performances is not always immediately apparent: performances that initially seem simply to entertain may also fulfil an adjuvant function in the comic plot. In several passages the parrot does more than just amuse Arthur; he also guarantees him a reason to be happy: that is, he furthers the success of the knight. The parrot predicts adventures and prepares Arthur Such is the case with the bedtime story that the parrot recites to Arthur. The parrot’s protagonist, ‘une dame qui estoit emprisonnee a moult grant tort’ (‘a lady who was imprisoned most wrongly’*) (23; 23), inspires Arthur’s sympathy: ‘et si luy contoit si tres doulcement que au chevalier en preist moult grant pitié.’ (‘and he told the tale so very sweetly that it moved the knight to great pity.’) (23; 23) The following day, this sympathy will be called upon when a maiden requests that Arthur rescue the very lady who figures in the parrot’s story, the daughter of King Beauvoisin de l’Ille Fort, Flors de Mont, who is in fact ‘emprisonnee a moult grant tort.’ (‘imprisoned most wrongly.’*) (25; 26) Although the parrot’s performance at first appears to function solely as amusement, it in fact predicts Arthur’s exploits and prepares the knight for what will prove to be the final great achievement of Arthur’s quest. The performance with which the parrot wakes Arthur also has a double comic function. In addition to entertaining Arthur, it too predicts adventures to come and readies the knight for his difficult day ahead. The parrot sings: ‘ “Sire, si vous levez, car le jour est venus ou vous devez recevoir moult grant honneur!” ’ (‘ “Sire, wake up now for the day has come in which you are to receive very high honour!” ’*) (14; 13) The knight does not fail to heed the prophetic parrot: ‘Et le Chevalier du Papegaux, si tost comme il l’ot oÿ, si se leva’ (‘As soon as he heard it, the Knight of the Parrot got up’) (14; 13). The 144




parrot’s song prepares his patron for what will prove to be a crucial day: the day Arthur will vanquish the Chevalier Poisson and thus accomplish the initial challenge of his quest. Those in the court who overhear the parrot do not fail to appreciate both the bird’s entertaining and adjuvant functions. They marvel not just at his delightful voice ‘si doulce et si clere’ (‘so sweet and clear’*), but also that the papegau ‘parloit droitement.’ (‘spoke so truly.’) (14; 13) The parrot thus possesses a keen understanding of Arthur and his quest. From the very beginning of the romance the parrot manifests a magical omniscience akin to that of Merlin – to whom the parrot refers the very first time he speaks. After Arthur defeats Lion sans Mercy in the initial contest, the parrot astonishes all by announcing the identity of the heretofore unknown victor. Recalling Merlin’s prophecy, the parrot reveals: ‘ “C’est celuy de qui Merlin parla tant en sa prophecie qu’il dist que le filz de la brebis devoit soubzmectre le Lion sans Mercy plain d’orgueil et de felonie et d’ire.” ’ (‘ “It is he about whom Merlin spoke so much in his prophecy when he said that the son of the ewe would subdue the Merciless Lion full of pride, felony, and anger.” ’) (11; 10). Upon seeing Arthur for the first time, the parrot amazingly recounts the entirety of the king’s history, beginning with Merlin’s time: ‘il commença a dire si doulcement toutes les choses qui sont avenues du temps Merlin jusques a celle heure’ (‘he began to relate sweetly all the events which had come to pass from the time of Merlin up to the present moment’) (11; 10). Therefore, in addition to predictions that indicate an extraordinary understanding of Arthur’s future, the parrot impresses others with his knowledge of the past, a double omniscience resembling that of Merlin. In Lestoire de Merlin – a narrative in which Merlin himself briefly becomes a minstrel – Merlin explains: ‘ “sai les coses qui sont faites & dites & alees [. . .] ie sai les choses que a uenir sont” ’ (‘ “I know the things that are done and said, and that have happened [. . .] I know the things that are to come” ’).18 As Merlin does in narratives from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae onwards, the parrot employs his prophetic powers to aid Arthur, and particularly to help him establish his reign. The parrot encourages and emboldens Arthur When the adventures foreseen do come about, the parrot assists Arthur, encouraging and strengthening him with his performances. While Arthur’s 18 The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances Edited from Manuscripts in the British Museum:

‘Lestoire de Merlin’, ed. H. O. Sommer, 8 vols. (Washington, 1908–16), II, 17. R. T. Pickens has published an English translation of this work: ‘The Story of Merlin’, in Lancelot-Grail: The Old French Arthurian Vulgate and Post-Vulgate in Translation, ed. N. Lacy, 5 vols. (New York and London, 1993–6), I, 165–424. The protean Merlin adopts the identity of a minstrel on pp. 408–9 and 413–14 of Sommer’s edition. Another reference to Merlin appears later in Le Chevalier du Papegau when the ghost of King Belnain explains that he will stay in his current otherwordly abode ‘ “tant que sera la prophecie Merlin achevee” ’ (‘ “until Merlin’s prophecy is fulfilled” ’*) (65; 69).

145



MARILYN LAWRENCE

other companions cower, the adjuvant parrot serves to augment the power and courage of his patron at critical moments: ‘Si s’en esmaya moult la damoiselle et le nain, mais le papegau le commença a reconforter en chantant si que son chevalier print force et hardement’ (‘The damsel and the dwarf became greatly alarmed, but the parrot began to comfort them by singing so that his knight was renewed in strength and daring’*) (58; 61).19 Likewise during Arthur’s battle with the redoubtable Poisson Chevalier, when the Knight of the Parrot cuts off the Fish Knight’s right arm: ‘le papegaux commença tantost a chanter et a dire au plus plaisant: “Qui m’a deslivré de la paour que j’avoye?” ’ (‘Immediately, the parrot began to sing and say most pleasantly: “Who is it who has delivered me from the fear I have known?” ’) (16; 16) The double comic function of the performance is seen in Arthur’s response: ‘Et quant le Chevalier du Papegaulx l’oÿ, si commença a rire et prist cuer et hardement’ (‘When the Knight of the Parrot heard him, he began to laugh and gained courage and boldness’*) (16; 16). Amused by the entertaining nature of the song, Arthur laughs. Yet the performance also empowers Arthur and drives him towards success. Emboldened by the song, Arthur goes on to vanquish the monstrous giant, a feat which wins him the recognition of the people of the Amoureuse Cité – as well as the love of its Dame aux Cheveux Blons.20 The parrot is an adjuvant in Arthur’s amorous adventures The parrot also serves as a catalyst in his patron’s love affair with the Dame aux Cheveux Blons. Le Chevalier du Papegau thus follows an established literary tradition, harking back to Ovid’s Amores (II, 6), in which the parrot is associated with love. The parrot serves as a messenger of love in troubadour poetry, as well as in Arnaut de Carcasses’s Las Novas del papagai, an Occitan nouvelle from the first half of the thirteenth century. He figures in Venus’s retinue in Jean de Condé’s Messe des oiseaux from the first half of the fourteenth century, and plays Marguerite d’Autriche’s lover in Jean Lemaire de Belge’s Les Epîtres de l’amant vert of 1505. And in René d’Anjou’s Livre du cuer d’amours espris from 1457, the god of love is nourished by feasting on parrot hearts.21 Acting as an adjuvant in love is also a principal function of 19 It must be said that the parrot is known to cower at times, too. This cowardice can be attributed to the

bird’s physical powerlessness. Incarcerated in his cage, he remains immobile and physically dependent on others. His strength rests completely on his vocal capacities. When the parrot’s voice alone fails to protect him from bodily harm, Arthur inevitably steps in and saves his bird. 20 On the part-human, part-animal Poisson Chevalier, see N. Smith, ‘The Man on a Horse and the Horse-Man: Constructions of Human and Animal in The Knight of the Parrot’, in Literary Aspects of Courtly Culture: Seventh Triennial Congress, Select Papers, ed. D. Maddox and S. Sturm-Maddox (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 241–8. 21 See M. T. McMunn, ‘Parrots and Poets in Late Medieval Literature’, Anthrozoös 12.2 (1999), 68–75, and Ribémont, ‘Histoires de perroquets’, pp. 160, 167 and 170–1. Although the parrot is linked to love in such medieval works, he is generally devoid of symbolic meaning in medieval literature – in part because the bestiary tradition fails to endow the rare bird with symbolic or moral value.

146




minstrel characters such as Jouglet and Pinçonnet, and harks back to the minstrels – indicated in the envoy of poems – who delivered songs from troubadours to their beloved. The parrot of Le Chevalier du Papegau is introduced into the romance as the unrivalled performer of a repertory of songs and discourses on love which inspire amorous sentiments in men and women.22 An indefatigable matchmaker and expert in affairs of the heart, the parrot effectively intervenes in Arthur’s love life. When the keen bird discerns Arthur’s appreciation of and attraction to Belle sans Villenie (before the knight meets the Dame aux Cheveux Blons), he cannot refrain from speaking: ‘Mais quant le papegaulx apperceut les regards que l’un faisoit a l’autre, il ne se pot taire qu’il ne dist: “Vous seriés,” dist il, “entre vous deux la plus belle compaignie du monde” ’ (‘But when the parrot noticed the glances each of them were exchanging, he could not help saying: “You would be,” he exclaimed, “the two of you, the most beautiful couple in the world” ’) (12; 12). He proceeds to tell Arthur the flattering story of the maiden, cited above, whom the parrot has previously met at court.23 Later in the romance, when Arthur meets the Dame aux Cheveux Blons and falls in love, the seasoned parrot easily recognizes his patron’s desire: ‘le papegau vist bien et apperceut la voulenté de son seigneur, come cil qui estoit acoustumé de toutes choses’ (‘the parrot observed well and understood his lord’s wish, like one who is used to all things’*) (22; 23) The bird immediately comes to Arthur’s aid by singing a love song, a lai, that attracts the attention – and heart – of the lady: ‘et commença a chanter un lay d’amours si doulcement, que la dame laissa le parler au chevalier et escouta et nota en son cueur ce que le papegaulx dist.’ (‘and so he began to sing a lay of love so sweetly, that the lady broke off speaking to the knight to listen and note in her heart what the parrot was recounting.’) (22–23; 23) The parrot verbally defends Arthur’s honour The parrot always acts in Arthur’s interest and when the Dame aux Cheveux Blons later endeavours to damage the reputation that the knight has been striving to establish, the parrot defends his patron’s honour. Testing the extent of the knight’s love for her, the lady tricks Arthur into promising to fight in her upcoming tournament as ‘ “le plus maulvais chevalier d’armes qui soit en tout le monde” ’ (‘ “the worst knight at arms to be found in all the world” ’) because, she says: ‘ “je veux que vostre maulvais pris coure par tout le monde contre le bon pris que vous avez orez.” ’ (‘ “I wish your bad reputation to be known throughout the world as balance against the high esteem you have now.” ’*) (29; 30) Arthur’s honour and renown are put at risk. The goal of his quest – and the comic outcome of the romance – are jeopardized. 22 Page 5. 23 Page 13.

147



MARILYN LAWRENCE

Moreover, the lady’s scheme threatens the happy atmosphere of the romance. She robs Arthur of the satisfaction and pleasure he derives from succeeding in combat. He tells her: ‘ “mieulx me feriez plaisir servir pour le meilleur chevalier que pour le pire.” ’ (‘ “it would give me more pleasure to serve you as the best, rather than the worst, knight.” ’*) (30; 31) Her refusal to alter her request not only causes Arthur tremendous anger and anguish, but also brings grief to much of the court: ‘Et les pluseurs de la court en sont dolans’ (‘Much of the court is saddened’*) (31; 32). It eventually even causes the lady herself pain and sorrow, for after the tournament she begins to regret her action and laments to Love: ‘ “je seray triste et doulante tant que je vivray.” ’ (‘ “I shall be sad and sorrowful for as long as I live” ’.) (34; 35) The Dame aux Cheveux Blons’s plan to strip Arthur ‘de proësse et d’onneur’ (‘of reputation and honour’*) (35; 36) thus threatens both the romance’s agreeable atmosphere and its eventual comic conclusion. Fulfilling his comic function, the parrot helps Arthur regain the satisfaction of success (which also brings pleasure to his admirers at court), and ensures that his quest continues towards a happy end. Therefore, after the tournament, the parrot stands up for his patron and verbally defends him against the lady’s malice. In an extended apology, the bird tells the lady that she is a ‘ “male personne” ’ (‘ “bad person” ’) (32; 34), and makes it known to her that Arthur, constrained by his promise, was not ‘really’ on the tournament field, but rather (as noted above) ‘in prison’.24 However, the parrot predicts – accurately – that the knight will demonstrate his true worth and vanquish the Count Doldois, winner of the day’s tournament, in a post-tournament combat. After Doldois’s defeat, the papegau provides the lady with a final chastising lesson, declaring: ‘ “ne nul ne devroyt demener trop grant joye se il ne sçavoit pour quoy. Car trop grant joye seult tourner souvent a moult grant tristesse, se il n’est dont ainsi que on ait raison de faire joye.” ’ (‘ “no one should display too great a joy unless he knows why. For too great a joy often turns into a very great sadness, and if this is not so, then one may have the right to be joyous.” ’*) (39; 41) The parrot thus denounces the lady and the count, displaying skilful knowledge in his area of expertise: joy and pleasure. The parrot comforts and consoles This expertise also enables the parrot to console his dejected patron. After Arthur, tricked, makes his promise to fight as the worst knight, he leaves the Dame aux Cheveux Blons’s chamber and enters the great hall. There he disguises his rage from the entire court under a joyous façade: ‘Et toutesvoyes monstra il semblant de joye, qu’il ne fust d’aucun apparceu.’ (‘And despite everything, he put on such a display of good cheer that no one noticed anything.’*) (30; 31) The perspicacious parrot alone can tell the difference between genuine delight and Arthur’s feigned happiness. The bird under24 This long defense is found on pp. 32–33 and 39.

148




stands the knight’s true state of mind and foresees the outcome of the current circumstance. Immediately he sets out to cheer and comfort his patron: ‘Et le papegau commença a chanter moult doulcement contre son seigneur, et a dire: “Vous osterés l’ire que vous avez a grant honneur, si que nul ne le savra.” ’ (‘Then the parrot began to sing very sweetly to his lord, saying: “You will cast off the anger you are feeling with such great honour that no one will ever know about it.” ’*) (30; 31) Arthur has complete faith in the parrot’s words. He is consoled and rests well that night: ‘Et de ce se merveilla moult chascun de ceulx qui l’oïrent, fors le chevalier mesmes qui cuidoit estre certain de tout ce qu’il disoit; si se reconforta de ce qu’ainsi ot dit le papegau, si en reposa mieulx toute la nuyt.’ (‘All those within hearing of these words were greatly amazed, except the knight himself who felt reassured by what the parrot said; and taking heart from the parrot’s words, he rested the better for them the whole night through.’) (30; 31) The next day, after Arthur performs poorly in the tournament, the parrot distracts his despondent patron and eases his distress by singing pleasing songs: ‘Le Chevalier du Papegau avoit moult grant honte [. . .] Et son papegau luy va tousjours chantant chançons bonnes et plaisans a oïr, pour luy reconforter.’ (‘The Knight of the Parrot was greatly shamed [. . .] And his parrot continued singing good and pleasant songs to him in order to encourage him.’) (33; 34) The parrot also comforts Arthur at other points in his quest, helping him persevere when things go awry. When the ship in which Arthur travels is hit by a terrible tempest, the papegau’s songs reassure an anxious Arthur and his shipmates: ‘Et quant le papegau vist ce, sy commmença a chanter et a conforter son seigneur et les aultres qui la estoient, en chantant si bien et si bel qu’ilz orent aussi tost oblié la douleur ou ilz avoient esté.’ (‘When the parrot saw this, he began to sing and to comfort his lord and the others who were there by singing so well and beautifully that they soon had forgotten the grief they had just suffered.’*) (79; 84) A sort of comic coach, the parrot heals and rejuvenates the knight for the next round in his quest. His pleasant performances restore to the romance a sense of pleasure and help keep the plot on its comic track. The parrot as intermediary to God; the parrot as adviser However when it is beyond the parrot’s power to gratify the knight’s needs himself, he addresses his performance to God, singing and praying that He see to Arthur’s well being. When the knight sets forth after a long and arduous combat with the Chevalier Jayans (Giant Knight), the bird ‘chantoit moult doulcement, priant dieu par sa grace qu’il doint anuit bon ostel au chevalier.’ (‘sang most sweetly, praying God for the grace that would bring a good night’s lodging to the knight.’) (50; 53) Evidently God heeds the parrot’s song, because four maidens soon appear and offer Arthur accommodations in a nearby castle. After deliberating the invitation, Arthur listens to and follows the bird’s judicious counsel: ‘Et lors commença a dire le papegau a son cheva149



MARILYN LAWRENCE

lier: “Sire, je vous conseille bien et pry que vous faictes ce que vous priënt les damoiselles.” Et le chevalier le feist voulentiers’ (‘Then the parrot began to tell his knight: “Sire, I well advise and pray you to do what the damsels entreat you to do.” The knight did so willingly’*) (51; 54). Arthur does well to accept the recommendation of this clairvoyant counsellor, for in giving guidance concerning the future, no one can rival the prophetic parrot.

Conclusion: The Merging of the Parrot’s Two Comic Functions Yet it is not enough that Arthur triumph; his triumph must be made known. The parrot, fulfilling one of the minstrel’s most important roles, thus performs laudatory stories in order to extend the renown of the knight and guarantee that his quest for glory was not pursued in vain. Therefore, at the end of Le Chevalier du Papegau, the minstrel-parrot’s two comic functions, those of entertainer and of adjuvant in a comic plot, merge. Ultimately the parrot ensures Arthur’s glory by entertaining Arthur’s court with the story of the king’s quest, which the bird himself helped make successful: ‘si chanta le papegau si doulcement toutes les aventures qui estoient avenues au roy Artus’ (‘the parrot sang so sweetly about all the adventures that had befallen King Arthur’) (89; 95). The parrot makes Arthur the comic hero of his final performance and corroborates the romance’s happy ending with his pleasing narration of Arthur’s success. His final story unifies the episodic narrative of adventures and draws the entire romance together into a conclusive whole with a decidedly comic conclusion. The papegau thus satisfies the purpose of Le Chevalier du Papegau itself as put forth by the romance’s narrator: to bring joy to others with the happy story of young Arthur. The romance’s incipit is a call to all who want to enjoy a pleasing story: ‘Cil qui se delite a oÿr belles aventures et proësses de chevaleries, entende et oye les premieres aventures qui avindrent au bon roy Artus quant il porta coronne premierement’ (‘He who delights in hearing of beautiful adventures and deeds of chivalry, listen and hear about the first adventures that befell good King Arthur in the early days of his reign’*) (1; 1). The concluding mise en abyme of the romance, performed by the parrot, thus realizes the goal of the narrative itself. Upon hearing the parrot’s story of Arthur’s first adventures and deeds: ‘tous ceulx qui la furent s’esmerveillerent plus que de riens qu’ilz oÿssent oncques et en laisserent le boire et le mangier.’ (‘all there were so amazed by them – more than by anything else they had ever heard – that they left off eating and drinking.’*) (89; 95) The response of the parrot’s enraptured audience would have surely gratified the narrator of Le Chevalier du Papegau, a storyteller who conscientiously avoids what ‘ennuis seroit du dire et du raconter et de l’escouter.’ (‘would be boring to tell, to retell and to hear.’*) (21; 21) The parrot’s performances as a minstrel adjuvant ensure a comic conclusion to the romance, an ending in which all characters are satisfied. When Le 150




Chevalier du Papegau draws to its close, the king’s entire court is happy: ‘Et s’en va chascun en sa contree joyeux et liez’ (‘Everyone then left, joyful and happy, for his own land’*) (90; 96). Moreover Arthur, the parrot’s patron, is left the happiest of them all: ‘et le roy demoura encorez plus liez. Cy fine le conte du papegaulx.’ (‘and thus the king remained even more happy. So ends the tale of the parrot.’*) (90; 96) Le Chevalier du Papegau thus ‘establishes’ the reputation and renown of Arthur, around whose court the diverse stories of Arthurian literature unfold. In so doing, the romance attributes a significant role to the knight’s minstrel. From the start of the romance, the parrot is the official teller (within the narrative) of the king’s stories. As we have seen, the romance begins with the parrot’s complete history of Arthur from the time of Merlin, and closes with the bird’s narration of all subsequent events. The performances of the parrot-minstrel enable Arthur to realize his various exploits, in arms and in love, and to continue, complete and advertise his quest, therefore ensuring a happy ending to the romance. Painting a strongly positive portrait of the minstrel, Le Chevalier du Papegau suggests that the even greatest of lords needs a minstrel to help him succeed and to publicize his deeds. The author’s decision to substitute a parrot for the human minstrel character is a choice ripe with potential significance. In addition to being a possible comic parody, this replacement may be read as a commentary on the minstrel’s impressive ability to metamorphosize, on his ambiguous social status, his alterity, his vocal talent or his relationship to his patron. No matter how we interpret this displacement, cloaking the minstrel in an exotic ornithological costume undeniably draws our attention to the role of the professional performer. In making the minstrel a parrot, the author consciously highlights the function of the singer – and of the storyteller. Because Le Chevalier du Papegau, a prose romance with no lyric insertions, would have been recited or read out-loud and not sung, the choice of a parrot – that is of a bird that speaks as opposed to an animal such as the nightingale which sings sweetly but is unable to talk – underlines precisely those talents necessary to perform the romance itself. Indeed, without storytellers like the talkative parrot, or the narrator of Le Chevalier du Papegau, that young Briton knight would have never become the glorious figure of legend, the great King Arthur.

151





DINADAN EN ITALIE

X

DINADAN EN ITALIE Francesco Zambon Le personnage de Dinadan dans le Tristan en prose (et notamment dans sa ‘deuxième version’) a fait l’objet de plusieurs études (Vinaver, Ménard, Adler, Baumgartner, Payen, Busby, Faucon, Lalande, Berthelot),1 qui en ont éclairé les diverses facettes psychologiques et idéologiques, et montré toute l’originalité par rapport aux figures classiques du roman arthurien. Dans son article de 1964, Eugène Vinaver remarquait que l’évolution successive du personnage – figurant dans le Roman d’Escanor ainsi que dans certaines versions des Prophecies Merlin – est marquée par une forte banalisation, voire une déformation grossière, Dinadan devenant désormais un chevalier brutalement misogyne et adonné uniquement à son profit.2 Son histoire hors de France est beaucoup plus intéressante: on connaît bien le rôle de ce personnage dans la Morte Darthur de Thomas Malory (rôle qui a été étudié par Vinaver lui-même et, plus récemment, par Hoffman, Glowka et d’autres).3 Au contraire, on n’a pas encore mis assez en valeur sa fortune dans la littérature italienne du moyen âge et notamment dans son chef-d’oeuvre arthurien, la Tavola Ritonda: à ce sujet, on ne dispose que des remarques

1

2 3

Voir E. Vinaver, ‘Un chevalier errant à la recherche du sens du monde: quelques remarques sur le caractère de Dinadan dans le “Tristan en prose” ’, dans Mélanges Maurice Delbouille (Gembloux, Duculot 1964), pp. 766–786 [ensuite dans le volume A la recherche d’une poétique médiévale (Paris, Nizet 1970), pp. 163–177]; Ph. Ménard, Le rire et le sourire dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen Age (1150–1250) (Genève, Droz 1969), pp. 459–461; A. Adler, Dinadan, inquiétant ou rassurant, dans Mélanges Rita Lejeune (Gembloux, Duculot, 1969), II, pp. 935–943; E. Baumgartner, Le ‘Tristan en prose’: Essai d’interprétation d’un roman médiéval (Genève, Droz 1975); J.-Ch. Payen et H. Legros, ‘Le “Tristan en prose”, manuel de l’amitié: le cas Dinadan’, dans Der alfranzösische Prosaroman (München, Wilhelm Fink 1979), pp. 104–130; K. Busby, ‘The Likes of Dinadan: the Role of the Misfit in Arthurian Literature’, Neophilologus 67 (1983), 161–174; J.-C. Faucon, Introduction au Roman de Tristan en prose, publié sous la dir. de Ph. Ménard, IV (Genève, Droz 1991), pp. 28–47; D. Lalande, Introduction au Roman de Tristan en prose, V (Genève, Droz 1992), pp. 42–70; A. Berthelot, ‘Dynadam, le chevalier non-conformiste’, dans Conformités et déviance au Moyen Age, Cahiers du CRESIMA 2, pp. 33–41. Voir Vinaver, ‘Un chevalier errant’, art. cit., p. 682, note 3. Voir D. L. Hoffman, ‘Dinadan: The Excluded Middle’, Tristania 10 (1–2) (1984–1985), 3–16; A. W. Glowka, ‘Malory’s Sense of Humor’, Arthurian Interpretations I (1986), 39–46; T. D. Hanks Jr., ‘Foil and Forecast: Dinadan in “The Book of Sir Tristram” ’, Arthurian Yearbook I (1991), 149–163.

153



FRANCESCO ZAMBON

occasionnelles – bien que subtiles – de Daniela Branca, Christopher Kleinhenz et Marie-José Heijkant.4 En Italie, en effet, Dinadan n’a pas seulement trouvé une ambiance culturelle et sociale particulièrement favorable à l’essor de sa personnalité; il y a aussi rencontré – si j’ose dire – des ‘frères’ ou des ‘cousins’ littéraires, en concourant ainsi à l’élaboration d’un nouveau ‘type’ romanesque, dont l’aboutissement artistique est représenté par l’Astolfo de Boiardo et de l’Arioste. Mon propos sera ici d’analyser cette transformation du personnage et d’en mettre en lumière les traits qui en font une création typique du génie littéraire italien des XIIIe et XIVe siècles. Dans le Tristan en prose, Dinadan a certes ‘le rôle – comme l’a écrit Vinaver – de véritable adversaire et critique de l’idéologie arthurienne’,5 dont il conteste à plusieurs reprises les institutions et les usages, et dont il flétrit surtout la violence gratuite et la folie d’amour. Dans cette critique des règles chevaleresques, ses positions coïncident au fond avec celles d’un autre chevalier, Kaherdin, qui les avait déjà exposées dans ses entrevues avec Palamidès et Keu. Mais les propos occasionnels de Kaherdin deviennent une véritable Weltanschauung dans les nombreuses interventions de Dinadan, caractérisées en outre par leur finesse et leur ironie tranchante. Ses qualités de ‘bon parleur’, ses boines ou ses merveilleuses paroles, sont louées d’un bout à l’autre du roman, notamment par Tristan qui déclare plusieurs fois qu’il veut rester à côté de lui pour les entendre. Ce n’est pas à dire, pour autant, que Dinadan se présente ouvertement comme un ‘anti-chevalier’ ou un couard, même s’il a tendance à se dérober ou à tenter de se dérober aux combats en revendiquant son droit à la couardise. En réalité, il apparaît parfaitement intégré à la chevalerie arthurienne, au sein de laquelle il occupe l’un des rangs les plus élevés, ne serait-ce qu’en raison de l’amitié privilégiée qui le lie à Tristan, le meilleur des chevaliers;6 et quand des valeurs qu’il juge fondamentales sont en jeu, il sait même se conduire en héros: ainsi, lorsqu’il affronte Breus San Pitié, qui tenait avec lui une jeune fille contre sa volonté, après en avoir tué le frère.7 Ennemi de la grossièreté et de la force brute, Dinadan s’oppose plutôt aux excès et aux caricatures de l’idéal chevaleresque, se réclamant de la raison contre la folie, de la mesure et de l’équilibre contre la démesure qui menace l’univers arthurien et risque constamment de le détruire. Ainsi, lorsqu’il refuse de combattre avec Tristan contre trente chevaliers à la fois:8 4

5 6 7 8

Voir D. Branca, I romanzi italiani di Tristano e la Tavola Ritonda (Firenze, Olschki 1968), pp. 81–84 et 145–147; Ch. Kleinhenz, ‘Tristan in Italy: the Death and Rebirth of a Legend’, Studies in Medieval Culture 5 (1975), 145–158; M.-J. Heijkant, Introduzione à La Tavola Ritonda (Milano, Luni 1997), pp. 16–17. Vinaver, ‘Un chevalier errant’, art. cit., p. 678. Sur ce point, voir Payen et Legros, ‘Le “Tristan en prose”, manuel de l’amitié: le cas Dinadan’, art. cit., surtout pp. 107–112. Tristan en prose, III, §§ 159–164. Le Tristan en prose est cité d’après l’édition publiée sous la direction de Ph. Ménard, 9 tomes (Genève, Droz 1987–1997). Ibid., II, § 28, 52–56.

154



DINADAN EN ITALIE

Se vous me vausissiés metre combatre encontre un cevalier u encontre deus, si m’aït Dieus, bien le feïsse pour vostre amour, mais de metre mon corps en aventure encontre .xv. cevaliers ne feroie je mie!

Comme l’a très bien remarqué Emmanuèle Baumgartner, ‘[Dinadan] s’efforce de faire prendre conscience à ses semblables du caractère dangereux ou inconséquent de leur conduite. Ce n’est donc ni par lâcheté ni même par égoïsme que Dinadan revendique avec éclat ou humour le droit de ne pas se battre sans motif ou de ne pas céder à la force d’amour. Idéaliste à sa manière, Dinadan croit à la vertu persuasive de la parole. Il juge urgent et nécessaire de dénoncer l’absurdité de la vie chevaleresque, les dangers de l’amour-passion, et d’empêcher ses compagnons, les meilleurs d’entre eux surtout, de s’entre-tuer en d’inutiles combats ou de succomber aux illusions destructives de l’amour.’9 Son attitude à l’égard de l’amour est étroitement liée à sa critique des règles de la chevalerie arthurienne. Ce qu’il rejette – qu’on pense par exemple à l’épisode de la farce que lui joue Iseut à la Joyeuse Garde – c’est la folie des combats et des meurtres provoqués par le désir de plaire aux belles dames, qui s’amusent cyniquement à contempler ce jeu mortel sans y participer. Voici ce qu’il riposte à Iseut lui ayant demandé de la défendre contre trois chevaliers:10 Vous me requerés que je me combate pour vous et pour vostre querele encontre trois cevaliers et freres! Dame, or saciés certainnement que li requerres est legiers, il ne vous grieve se poi non requerre, mais li fais en est mout greveus! Cil n’a mie petit a faire, se Dieus me saut, qui il couvient combatre encontre trois cevaliers et freres! Dame! dame! se Diex vous doint bone aventure, u vous ai je tant mesfait que vous me doiiés voloir mal de mort?

La conviction fondamentale de Dinadan est en effet que l’amour excessif, la fole amour, conduit inéluctablement à la souffrance et à la mort, bien qu’elle puisse parfois inspirer les plus grandes prouesses: Tristan, Kaherdin, Palamidès en sont les exemples tragiques. Le principe qu’il conteste est celui que Tristan expose à l’occasion de leur débat sur l’amour: ‘Amour est de si grant pooir qu’ele donne force et hardement a tous chieus en qui cuers ele se met.’11 Cependant, la ‘philosophie’ de Dinadan n’aboutit pas à un rejet radical de l’idéologie courtoise; au contraire, il avoue plusieurs fois qu’il a bien aimé, mais avec modération, sans viser trop haut, sans perdre la tête. C’est à Palamidès, qui, se croyant seul, s’était longuement plaint de ses chagrins d’amour, qu’il illustre clairement sont point de vue:12 D’amours ki si vait tourmentant et metant son sergant a mort me gart ore Dieus, et de tele amour me desfende! Je ai trouvé en autre part autre merchi et autre 9 10 11 12

Baumgartner, Le ‘Tristan en prose’, op. cit., p. 255. Tristan en prose, V, § 56,21–28. Ibid., V, § 35,20–22. Ibid., IV, § 82,20–23 et 30–41.

155



FRANCESCO ZAMBON

douçor en amours que tu n’as fait [. . .]. De l’amour ki au cuer me tient sui je rians, gais, envoisiés. Et tout autretant m’est, se Dieus me saut, se cele que je tieng pour amie pleure come s’ele cante, et tout autretant m’est se ele a froit come se ele a caut. Si je la truis par aventure une eure plus lie que l’autre, il m’en poise moult chierement, car tout maintenant ai je esperanche qu’ele m’ait laissié pour un autre. Onques pour amour ne plourai ne trop grant joie n’en fis; onques n’y pensai, se poi non; n’onques n’en perdi mon sens, se trop petit non. Je n’aim mie d’amours pesant, ains aim d’une amours si legiere que je ne sent ne froit ne caut. Onques Amours ne me menti, car onques ne li requis qu’ele me deïst verité.

Partisan d’une ‘légèreté’ amoureuse reniant les lourds rituels courtois, Dinadan propose à ses interlocuteurs attardés un libertinage désenchanté et joyeux; sachant que les femmes sont inconstantes comme le vent, il se fait le théoricien de cette inconstance, en élaborant, comme l’écrit Vinaver, une sorte de ‘philosophie du bonheur’.13 Son rôle n’est pas seulement celui d’un ‘opposant’ confronté didactiquement, dans le Tristan en prose, aux héros positifs – Tristan, Palamidès, Lancelot – pour montrer en quelque sorte le côté négatif de leurs sublimes idéaux. Le ‘discours’ de Dinadan – qui pourrait être vraiment, comme l’a suggéré Jean-Charles Payen, ‘un porte-parole de l’auteur’14 – ouvre de vastes fissures dans l’édifice bien structuré de l’idéologie chevaleresque et courtoise: chevalier très sensible aux problèmes concrets de la vie (la faim, la fatigue, la peur), il rejette les absurdités du monde arthurien au nom du bon sens et de la modération: de cette sagesse pratique qui avait tant d’importance dans la nouvelle vision du monde, laïque et rationnelle, de la bourgeoisie naissante. Certes, dans la fiction romanesque, son idéologie n’est pas gagnante: Cassandre souriante du monde arthurien, Dinadan ne pourra pas éviter la consommation des tragédies qu’il annonce, en particulier la mort de Tristan. Personnage original et complexe, il erre parmi les aventures de la chevalerie arthurienne avec une admiration sincère mais lucide: il en approuve les nobles idéaux, mais en conteste les contradictions et les excès. Et s’il est constamment décrit comme étant à la recherche de Tristan, un jour il déclare solennellement à Agravain qui lui avait reproché son manque de courage: ‘Je suis uns cevaliers errans, ki cascun jour vois querant sens, ne point n’em puis a mon oes retenir.’15 Dinadan incarne donc au niveau de la fiction romanesque le non-sens d’une idéologie désormais perçue par l’auteur comme périmée et anachronistique. Le personnage de Dinadan réapparaît dans divers romans italiens, pour la plupart des traductions ou des remaniements du Tristan en prose, tels le Tristano Veneto ou le Tristano Panciatichiano 33. Mais c’est dans la Tavola 13 Vinaver, ‘Un chevalier errant’, art. cit., p. 681. 14 Payen et Legros, ‘Le “Tristan en prose”, manuel de l’amitié: le cas Dinadan’, art. cit., p. 119. 15 Tristan en prose, IV, § 153,22–24.

156



DINADAN EN ITALIE

Ritonda16 que ce personnage joue un rôle de premier plan et prend un caractère en partie nouveau par rapport à son modèle français. Tout d’abord, l’auteur toscan anonyme opère (selon sa méthode habituelle) un choix entre les nombreux épisodes du Tristan en prose où Dinadan apparaît, les concentrant dans une seule section de la Tavola ritonda, placée entre le ban de Tristan des Cornouailles et le tournois de Loverzep: c’est une section présentant de nombreuses trouvailles burlesques, parmi lesquelles le savoureux épisode de Burletta della Diserta. Ce petit ‘roman de Dinadan’ est formé par une suite d’aventures regroupées en deux ou trois blocs: débat sur l’amour avec Tristan et Alcardo (ch. LXXIII), combat avec Lucano lo Grande (ch. LXXIV), séjour au château de Spinogres et farce jouée par sa fille (ch. LXXV), séjour chez Oris l’Aspro (ch. LXXVI), amour pour Losanna et combat contre Tristan (ch. LXXVII), nouveau débat sur l’amour avec Tristan et farce jouée par Iseut à la Joyeuse Garde (ch. XCIII), duels à cause du heaume donné par Iseut (ch. XCIV), reproches aux chevaliers après le duel entre Tristan et Lancelot (ch. CI). Après ce dernier épisode, Dinadan ne reapparaît qu’à la fin du roman en tant que vengeur du héros (ch. CXXXVII). Mais, si d’un côté plusieurs épisodes du Tristan en prose sont ainsi éliminés, de l’autre le romancier toscan remanie profondément ceux qu’il conserve et en invente à son tour de nouveaux, tel celui de la farce au château de Spinogres. Quant à la personnalité de Dinadan, enfin, il opère une simplification énergique: le chevalier problématique, rassurant et inquiétant à la fois, souvent contradictoire, du Tristan en prose devient dans la Tavola Ritonda un drôle de type aux contours très nets et au comportement tellement prévisible qu’il se retrouve toujours la cible prédestinée des plaisanteries et des tours des autres personnages, notamment de Tristan. La plupart des traits caractérisant le personnage de Dinadan dans le roman français sont conservés dans la Tavola Ritonda: son amitié pour Tristan, ses qualités de bon parleur, son opposition à l’amour fou et aux combats sans raison, son bon sens et sa mesure. Mais c’est surtout son rejet de l’amour qui prend ici un grand relief, devenant comme un ressort comique au sein du développement narratif: lorsqu’il apparaît pour la première fois sur scène – au chapître LXXIII de l’édition Polidori – Dinadan est immédiatement nommé ‘il savio disamorato’ (p. 297), et cette définition est plusieurs fois reprise par la suite (parfois associée à l’éloge de sa faconde: ‘cavaliere di molte parole e non sentiva niente d’amore’).17 Ce rejet de l’amour qui le caractérise est solidement argumenté dans les deux débats qu’il soutient sur ce sujet avec d’autres chevaliers, respectivement avec Tristan et Alcardo (ch. LXIII) et avec Tristan lui-même avant la farce de la Joyeuse Garde (ch. XCIII). Ces 16 Le texte est cité d’après l’édition critique de F. L. Polidori (1864–1866) reéditée par M.-J. Heijkant

(voir la note 4); les numéros de pages se réfèrent à cette dernière édition. L’édition de Polidori a été reprise également dans Tavola Ritonda, a cura di E. Trevi (Milano, Rizzoli 1999). 17 Au ch. LXXV, par exemple, Tristan l’appelle ‘lo più disamorato cavaliere del mondo’ (p. 305), et plus loin Dinadan repousse les avances de la fille de Spinogres en déclarant: ‘Io non sono amante, nè fui mai nè voglio essere, nè amico d’amore’ (p. 306).

157



FRANCESCO ZAMBON

débats sont empruntés au Tristan en prose, mais avec une grande liberté. D’abord, dans le modèle français il y a un seul débat, placé avant la farce jouée par Iseut à la Joyeuse Garde; l’auteur toscan, ayant ajouté d’autres épisodes après ce débat, jugea bon – comme l’a remarqué Daniela Branca – de ‘far precedere da un nuovo dialogo tra i due, sempre sullo stesso argomento, l’episodio tradizionale di Isotta che si burla di Dinadano’.18 Même le contenu des argumentations est considérablement modifié. En particulier, dans la Tavola Ritonda Dinadan commence par développer une interprétation allégorico-morale très savante de la figuration traditionnelle d’Amour comme un dieu chevauchant nu, le visage voilé et décochant des flèches: ce n’est pas la seule trace de culture cléricale que l’on peut relever dans le roman. En même temps, les expressions populaires et proverbiales qui figuraient déjà dans le Tristan en prose se multiplient, avec de nombreux échos des activités économiques et de la réalité quotidienne de la Toscane du XIVe siècle:19 Ma non ne foe forza – riposte-t-il aux affirmations d’Alcardo –; imperò che la volontà passa e toglie la ragione, e lode sì come quegli che lodano lo mercato: chè se voi non foste amante, non lodereste tanto l’amore. E veggio che tu se’ grande di volontà e picciolo se’ di senno; ché voi per essere cavaliere errante avete così parlato; ma a me pare che tu se’ impazzato quando d’amore t’impacci. Ma non fa forza; ché a tale carne tale coltello; chè lo amore fa per te e per ogni disperato che diventa povero, ond’egli muore.

Pour saisir la personnalité de Dinadan dans la Tavola Ritonda, il n’y a qu’à établir une comparaison entre les épisodes de la farce d’Iseut dans les deux romans. Dans le Tristan en prose, le chevalier – qui s’était logé chez un vavasseur à proximité de la Joyeuse Garde – est invité avec tous les honneurs au château par un valet d’Iseut et, après une faible résistance, accepte de s’y rendre. La scène est complètement différente dans la Tavola Ritonda: Dinadan, dont Tristan incognito venait de se moquer cruellement, se présente à la porte de la Joyeuse Garde en prétendant entrer; et, comme le rapporte un valet, ‘perchè non gli fue tantosto aperto a suo volere, disse che arso fosse lo castello e chi lo manteneva’.20 Alors Tristan monte la farce avec Iseut; celle-ci l’invite et commence à le provoquer (comme d’ailleurs dans le Tristan en prose) au sujet de l’amour. Mais ses propos ainsi que les réactions de Dinadan sont très différents dans les deux textes. Dans le Tristan en prose, Iseut lui demande de combattre seul, pour amour d’elle, contre trois chevaliers à la fois, et frères de surcroît; Dinadan réplique – comme on l’a déjà vu – au nom de sa mesure et de son réalisme, dénonçant les excès de la règle chevaleresque:21

18 19 20 21

D. Branca, I romanzi italiani di Tristano, op. cit., p. 83. La Tavola Ritonda, ch. LXXIII, p. 301; c’est moi qui souligne. Ibid., ch. XCIII, p. 383. Tristan en prose, V, § 56,31–38.

158



DINADAN EN ITALIE

Porriés vous en nule maniere du monde ma mort plus durement haster ne pourcacier que de faire moi entrer en un camp pour combatre encontre trois cevaliers, et meïsmement freres? Ma proiere de cascun jor si est tele que je proi a Dieu qu’il me doinst force et pooir de mon cors deffendre encontre un cevalier tant seulement, et souvent m’est ja avenu que ne pooie mie mon cors deffendre encontre un seul cevalier [. . .]

Dans la Tavola Ritonda, au contraire, la reine lui demande simplement de la défendre d’un ‘cavaliere molto pro’ ’; Dinadan, qui venait d’ailleurs de faire le fanfaron en se vantant de ne connaître ‘niuno cavaliere a cui io per paura voltassi lo scudo’, fait aussitôt marche arrière répliquant avec un bon sens qui frôle la lâcheté: ‘Dama, certo, delle parole egli n’èe buono mercato, e ’l combattere è molto pericoloso.’22 Parler, c’est très facile, mais quand il s’agit vraiment de combattre . . . Même sa prière du matin est bien différente de celle de son modèle français, si sage et raisonnable: ‘Il primo priego ch’io faccia la mattina si è, che Iddio non mi apparecchi innanzi cavaliere di troppo grande prodezza; chè pur di tali derrate, io sì n’òe spesse volte vergogna. Chè io sono troppo caro costato a chi m’àe allevato in questo mondo: sicchè di me non vorrei fare tale mercato, che mi tornasse danno.’23 Remarquons ici le langage de marchand ainsi que l’allusion si peu héroïque (et peut-être si ‘italienne’) à sa mère qui a eu tant de peine à l’élever . . . Mais c’est peut-être la conclusion de cet épisode qui lui donne son vrai ton. Dans le Tristan en prose, après le refus de Dinadan, Iseut le prie de porter un heaume en son honneur au tournoi de Louveserp et, l’ayant hébergé dans une belle chambre, rapporte à Tristan toute la conversation précédente. Il en va tout autrement dans la Tavola Ritonda. Pour mieux convaincre Dinadan de défendre son heaume des autres chevaliers, Iseut lui propose de l’accompagner dans sa chambre; Dinadan refuse horrifié, déclarant qu’il est décidé à ‘non comperare briga’. Alors la reine, après l’avoir congédié, fait fermer la porte à clé. Le lendemain matin Dinadan, s’étant aperçu qu’il est prisonnier, couvre Iseut des pires injures; et lorsque Tristan, un instant plus tard, arrive au château avec ses compagnons, il invoque son secours et le prie de le délivrer de cette ‘falsa meretrice’. Iseut qualifiée de ‘putain’! Ce n’est pas fini: une fois libre, il brandit son épée et fait le geste de la frapper. Lorsqu’elle lui dévoile enfin son identité, il ne lui reste que de s’excuser, tout en jurant vengeance à Tristan. Et la scène s’achève bien sûr par un éclat de rire général, ‘le maggiori risa del mondo’.24 Cette tendance de la Tavola Ritonda vers le comique et l’humour – que l’on peut rattacher à la tradition des fabliaux et qui fait songer aux ‘beffe’ du Boccacce ou de Franco Sacchetti – atteint peut-être son sommet dans l’épisode du château de Spinogres,25 qui n’a pas de correspondance dans le 22 23 24 25

La Tavola Ritonda, ch. XCIII, p. 385. Ibid., p. 385. Ibid., pp. 387–388. Ibid., ch. LXXV.

159



FRANCESCO ZAMBON

Tristan en prose. Après le premier débat sur l’amour et le combat avec Lucano lo Grande, Dinadan arrive avec Tristan et Alcardo au château de Spinogres; celui-ci, une fois accomplies les formalités des joutes de routine, héberge les chevaliers avec tous les honneurs. Tristan rapporte alors à son hôte la discussion précédente avec Dinadan au sujet de l’amour et lui décrit la ‘matteria’, la folie de celui-ci. On décide alors de lui jouer la farce: Spinogres a une fille qui, conseillée à l’avance, fait semblant de vouloir séduire Dinadan pendant le dîner offert au château, pour voir quelle va être sa réaction. Mais Dinadan ne se laisse charmer ni par les coups d’oeil malins et les tendres mots de la jeune fille, ni par les propositions encore plus explicites de son père, qui la lui offre en épouse; à la fin du dîner, il se retire dans sa chambre pour aller se coucher. C’est à ce moment-là qu’intervient Tristan: il se glisse dans le lit de Dinadan et, feignant d’être la jeune fille, lui déclare son amour. Alors Dinadan, exaspéré, se lève brusquement, en proie à la colère et court se plaindre chez Spinogres: mais lorsqu’il revient avec celui-ci dans sa chambre, il n’y trouve évidemment que Tristan, et la farce finit là aussi par un éclat de rire. C’est dans cet épisode original, mieux encore que dans la farce de la Joyeuse Garde, que se dessine la véritable personnalité du Dinadan italien. Sa réaction contre la fille de Spinogres, qu’il croit dans son lit, l’amène à proférer de graves injures, pareilles à celles qu’il va adresser à Iseut. D’abord, il saute du lit en s’écriant: ‘Per mala ventura, e che puttanaggio è questo? Che mala perda aggia tale oste e tale albergo e chi mi ci condusse!’; ensuite, il répond sans ménager ses termes au père qui lui demande ce qui s’est passé: ‘Egli èe la malvagia bagascia di vostra figliuola, la quale m’àe assalito al letto.’26 Mais surtout il emploie, en réagissant pendant le dîner aux tentatives de séduction de la jeune fille, des arguments propres au répertoire anti-féministe et clérical, telle la référence à la tentation d’Eve:27 Io sì sono fermo che voi non facciate a me sì come fece Eva a Adamo, che gli donòe tal mangiare, che sempre mai fu tristo. E cosìe potreste voi fare a me per lo vostro ben servire che voi mi fate: mi potreste fare cadere in tale laccio, che sempre mai io sarei tristo.

Même son bond hors du lit fait songer à la réaction horrifiée d’un moine ou d’un ermite tenté par le diable. C’est ainsi qu’apparaît toute la diversité de ce personnage par rapport à son homologue français: si le Dinadan du Tristan en prose est une sorte de libertin avant la lettre, un théoricien des amours légers et insouciants, le Dinadan de la Tavola Ritonda est un misogyne déclaré, imbu de culture cléricale et obsédé par l’idée de la tentation diabolique. A vrai dire, il n’est pas invulnérable aux traits de l’amour: c’est ce que démontre sa courte passion pour Losanna, qui l’amènera même à se battre en duel avec Tristan. Mais, après avoir été honteusement abattu par son ami, Dinadan ne pourra que s’affermir dans ses convictions: ‘E Dinadano quivi rimane dolente e tristo, e 26 Ibid., p. 308. 27 Ibid., p. 307.

160



DINADAN EN ITALIE

sìe giura di non portare già mai amore nè a dama nè a donzella, e di non difenderne giammai niuna, nè a torto nè a ragione.’28 Et, comme l’a fait remarquer Daniela Branca, ‘questo amore per Losanna, anche se di breve durata, non sarà dimenticato, come nel romanzo francese, ma diventerà per Tristano un motivo di beffa nei riguardi del suo amico’.29 Cette ‘réduction’ comique de Dinadan s’étend à d’autres aspects de son caractère. La prudence et le réalisme du personnage français – qui ne sont d’ailleurs pas dépourvus de nuances humoristiques – deviennent dans la Tavola Ritonda de véritables manifestations de couardise: il n’est plus question ici de critique aux excès des coutumes chevaleresques, mais de poltronnerie tout court. Un exemple très éloquent à cet égard est l’épisode du combat avec Lucano lo Grande, d’autant plus que nous pouvons le comparer au Tristano Panciatichiano 33, qui suit fidèlement la version du roman français. Dans celui-ci, Dinadan déclare à Tristan qu’il entend affronter le premier le géant, car il est arrivé le premier dans son pays; mais Lucanor (c’est la forme du nom dans le Tristan en prose), après le premier choc, le saisit par les bras et l’enlève en croupe, provoquant ainsi l’intervention victorieuse de Tristan lui-même.30 Dans la Tavola Ritonda, au contraire, Dinadan supplie en vain son ami de ne pas sonner à la forteresse du géant et de passer son chemin ‘a grandi salti’; entretemps Lucano s’arme et, rencontrant d’abord Dinadan, le ravit d’une manière encore plus comique, sans le moindre combat: ‘lo prende per lo nasale dell’elmo, e lievalo dal suo cavallo, e leggiermente lo ne porta in verso la rôcca’.31 Le thème de la couardise de Dinadan, qui apparaît déjà – comme nous l’avons vu – dans ses répliques à Iseut à la Joyeuse Garde, est largement développé, d’une manière originale par rapport au Tristan en prose, dans l’épisode immédiatement successif, celui des duels que le ‘savio disamorato’ doit affronter à cause du heaume que lui avait donné Iseut. Ayant été abattu par le ‘re di Cento Cavalieri’, Dinadan le lui offre sans opposer la moindre résistence pour ne pas avoir d’autres ennuis, et riposte ensuite à son adversaire, qui par un geste de courtoisie voudrait le lui rendre: ‘Cotesta cortesia non farete voi a me [. . .]; però che, cosìe com’egli èe piaciuto a voi, cosìe potrebbe piacere ancora a un altro, che mi farebbe per avventura peggio che voi fatto non mi avete.’32 Et il oppose un ultérieur refus à Tristan qui, ayant repris le heaume au ‘re di Cento Cavalieri’, le lui offre à son tour. La scène suivante, elle aussi en grande partie originale par rapport au roman français, définit parfaitement le rôle de Dinadan dans la Tavola Ritonda. Réprimandé par Tristan pour ne pas avoir tenu la promesse faite à Iseut, il maudit celle-ci et l’heure où elle est arrivée en Cornouailles, provoquant des ennuis à tout le monde et notamment, par son adultère, à

28 29 30 31 32

Ibid., ch. LXXVII, p. 317. D. Branca, I romanzi italiani di Tristano, op. cit., pp. 81–82. Voir Tristan en prose, IX, § 74. La Tavola Ritonda, ch. LXXIV, p. 303. Ibid., ch. XCIV, p. 390.

161



FRANCESCO ZAMBON

Tristan lui-même. Celui-ci, touché, se tait. Les autres personnages présents alors interviennent: tour à tour ils blâment Dinadan de ses propos désagréables, mais sont obligés de se taire l’un après l’autre à cause de ses répliques mordantes, qui mettent à nu les fautes ou les bassesses commises par chacun d’eux: la fausse amitié de Palamides, amoureux lui aussi d’Iseut, pour Tristan; un viol tenté par Gariet; l’adultère d’Iseut elle-même (venant d’un pays, les Cornouailles où, dit-il, ‘le dame sono bevitrici, menzonieri e meretrici’); l’erreur fatale de Brangien, qui fit boire le philtre d’amour à Tristan. Il fait même à Lantris, chevalier nouveau, l’affront de lui refuser une réponse.33 Les réponses du tac au tac qui suivent le duel entre Tristan et Lancelot à la Joyeuse Garde sont très semblables;34 les cibles des mots d’esprit venimeux de Dinadan sont d’abord Palamidès lui-même, ensuite Brunoro, Lancelot, Bordo, Astore, Briobris et enfin, encore une fois, Iseut. Ce que vise Dinadan, bien qu’en plaisantant, c’est bien la matière de Bretagne dans son ensemble, réduite au fil de ses propos à un amas de faussetés, de trahisons, de tromperies, de lâchetés et de débauches. La satire s’attaque bien sûr, avant tout, à l’amour adultère de Tristan et Iseut; mais elle n’épargne pas non plus l’esprit belliqueux de Lancelot ou la chasteté douteuse d’un des chevaliers en quête du Graal, Bordo, auquel Dinadan, s’il était Tristan, ne confierait jamais sa maîtresse (‘Non per tanto ch’io consigliassi Tristano, che a voi fidasse la reina Isotta; chè perchè tu dichi che se’ casto, non per tanto però non se’ tu castrato.’).35 C’est que le Dinadan de la Tavola Ritonda, à la différence de son modèle, n’est plus intégré au monde chevaleresque qui l’entoure. Au milieu des joutes et des passions folles, il a vraiment l’air d’un corps étranger, d’un poisson hors de l’eau: son discours satirique n’est plus solidaire de ce monde, comme c’était le cas – bien qu’avec un esprit critique – du Dinadan français, mais l’attaque de l’extérieur, à partir d’une position désormais tout à fait étrangère aux idéaux qui l’animent. ‘Porte-parole du bon sens bourgeois’, comme l’a défini Marie-José Heijkant,36 et peut-être lui aussi voix de l’auteur même, comme l’a suggéré Ch. Kleinhenz,37 le personnage de Dinadan exprime à la fois l’intérêt des nouvelles classes marchandes de la Toscane et d’Italie pour les ambages pulcherrime des chevaliers du roi Arthur et leur désenchantement face à des idéaux et à des comportements qui apparaissaient sans doute comme éloignés de la réalité, comme des exagérations ou de simples fictions romanesques. Toute performance – verbale ou autre – de Dinadan finit par les éclats de rire de tous les personnages présents sur scène. Il en allait de même dans le Tristan en prose: mais, tandis qu’il s’agissait là le plus souvent d’une expression de gaieté pour la finesse ou la bizzarrerie des

33 34 35 36 37

Voir ibid., pp. 391–393. Voir ibid., ch. CI, pp. 420–421. Ibid., ch. CI, p. 421. M.-J. Heijkant, Introduzione à La Tavola Ritonda, op. cit., p. 17. Cfr. Ch. Kleinhenz, ‘Tristan in Italy’, art. cit.

162



DINADAN EN ITALIE

propos de Dinadan, dans la Tavola Ritonda on a l’impression d’assister aux gros éclats de rire d’une bande s’amusant aux dépens d’une victime désignée. De la sorte, tous les traits caractéristiques de Dinadan – rejet de l’amour, couardise, mordacité verbale – sont portés à un excès caricatural, humoristique. En réalité, ces chevaliers et ces dames qui rient comme des bossus aux moqueries de Dinadan sont les vraies cibles de la dérision: leurs éclats de rire ont la fonction de déclencher ceux du public bourgeois, qui se reconnaît auto-ironiquement dans le ‘cavaliere disamorato’, dans son bon sens, dans ses expressions pittoresques et populaires. Une nouvelle réalité apparaît entre les plis d’un monde de fiction, fondée sur des idéaux de practicité, de rationnalité, de moralité: celle de la bourgeoisie communale. A cet égard, il est significatif de voir apparaître au sein d’autres genres littéraires italiens de cette période (et notamment de l’épique) des personnages présentant de remarquables affinités avec Dinadan, tel le charbonnier Varocher de la Geste Francor et surtout l’Estout de l’Entrée d’Espagne et de sa continuation par Niccolò da Verona, la Prise de Pampelune.38 Les traits essentiels du personnage d’Estout correspondent en effet d’une manière frappante à ceux de Dinadan: ami fraternel du protagoniste, Roland, il se caractérise en même temps par sa couardise et sa poltronnerie; surtout, c’est un fanfaron et un persifleur spirituel qui fait souvent éclater de rire ses compagnons, exprimant ainsi au niveau de la fiction l’intention comique des auteurs. Mais il offre également, par sa ruse et sa practicité, un modèle positif opposé à l’idéalisme abstrait de Roland et des autres Pairs: ainsi, lorsque, dans la Prise de Pampelune, il réussit à conquérir par un stratagème le château de Toletele, tandis qu’au dehors des murs la bataille entre les Chrétiens et les Païens fait rage.39 Estout recueille donc l’héritage de Dinadan, en faisant ressortir ses traits ‘anti-féodaux’ et ‘proto-bourgeois’ et les consignant à la tradition chevaleresque successive, où ils trouveront leur incarnation la plus achevée dans le personnage d’Astolfo. Dans l’A. D. N. d’Astolfo, dont le nom est une variante d’Estout, il reste encore quelques gènes de Dinadan: ce n’est pas par hasard qu’il est chargé, dans le Roland furieux de l’Arioste, de se rendre sur la lune pour récupérer la raison de Roland lui-même, le chevalier parfait qui avait sombré – comme Tristan – dans la folie amoureuse.

38 Sur ce personnage – ancêtre de l’Astolfo des poèmes chevaleresques de Pulci, de Boiardo et de

l’Arioste – voir G. G. Ferrero, ‘Astolfo (Storia di un personaggio)’, Convivium (1961), 513–530, et A. Limentani, L’‘Entrée d’Espagne’ e i Signori d’Italia (Padova, Antenore 1992), pp. 117–119. 39 Voir La Prise de Pampelune, vv. 4862 et ss.

163





A COMICAL VILLAIN

XI

A COMICAL VILLAIN: ARTHUR’S SENESCHAL IN A SECTION OF THE MIDDLE DUTCH LANCELOT COMPILATION1 Marjolein Hogenbirk In most Arthurian verse romances, it doesn’t take long before Arthur’s seneschal Keu comes into action. He usually appears as the static character that we have met in the romances of Chrétien de Troyes: a man of ancient nobility, devoted to his official duties. Yet he is irascible and grudging, suffering from what Ménard has called an ‘incontinence verbale’.2 It is no surprise at all that his appearance almost invariably triggers a conflictual episode in which he readily uses his sarcastic rhetoric to slander his fellow knights.3 Although his criticism is very sharp, in his mockery often an element of truth is found. Therefore, the humiliated heroes have to establish, or recover, their stained reputations in a series of adventures, which form the content of a lot of Arthurian romances. The characterization of Keu in most romances (except for the Old French Yder and Perlesvaus) has comical overtones, especially when it comes to his insufficient achievements as far as knightly performance is concerned. Because of his official duties, he is tied to the Arthurian court, but when he sets off for an adventure in the outside world, he usually demonstrates his 1

2

3

This article is a reworked version of a presentation at the 1999 Conference of the International Arthurian Society held in Toulouse (France). I am grateful to Wim Gerritsen, Lori Walters, and Roel Zemel for their comments on the paper. Ph. Ménard, Le rire et le sourire dans le roman courtois en France au Moyen Age (1150–1250) (Genève, 1969), p. 457. On the character of Keu, see, among others, H. J. Herman, ‘Sir Kay: A Study of the Character of King Arthur’s Court’ (Diss., Philadelphia, 1960); J. Haupt, Der Truchsess Keie im Artusroman, Philologische Studien und Quellen 57 (Berlin, 1971); P. Noble, ‘Kay the Seneschal in Chrétien de Troyes and his Predecessors’, Reading Medieval Studies 1 (1975), 55–70; M. Huby, ‘Le sénéschal du roi Arthur’, Etudes Germaniques 31 (1976), 433–437; L. Gowans, Cei and the Arthurian Legend (Cambridge, 1988); M-L. Chênerie, Le chevalier errant dans les romans arthuriens en vers des XIIe et XIIIe siècles, Publications romanes et françaises CLXXII (Genève, 1986), pp. 99–106; J. E. Merceron, ‘De la “mauvaise humeur” du sénéchal Keu: Chrétien de Troyes, littérature et physiologie’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale Xe–XIIe siècles 41 (1998), 17–43. According to Jacques Merceron (1988), see note 1, Keu’s anger and sarcasm comes from his choleric temperament, which is caused by the milk of a wet nurse of a lower social class.

165



MARJOLEIN HOGENBIRK

inadequacy in one or more monumental mesaventures, in which he is comically unhorsed, usually by the first stroke of the spear of his opponent. In his actions he serves as a faire-valoir for the knights with a better reputation, especially Gauvain. Where the latter succeeds, Keu must fail. The seneschal’s misfortune must have formed a source of malicious delight to the audience of Arthurian romances, that, together with the comical aspects, was frequently dished up with a didactic message: this course of action should not be adopted. Raoul, the talented author of the Old French La Vengeance Raguidel, dating from the first quarter of the thirteenth century, has combined the different aspects of the seneschal’s character into a portrait in which humour and irony reign supreme.4 Just like in Chretien’s Charrette the seneschal of La Vengeance Raguidel is keen on having the first opportunity for the main adventure of the romance. He gets the king’s permission to remove a spear from the dead body of a knight that has arrived on a boat at Arthur’s court. After having tried a couple of times, he furiously puts his foot on the heavily bleeding corpse and starts tugging with all his strength at the spear, which to his frustration doesn’t move an inch. Rebuked by Arthur, he walks away, grumbling. Later on in the romance, with the same brutality, he punches a servant in the face when the latter wants to disturb the king with a message of adventure while he is having dinner. Keu secretly takes up the adventure himself and, of course, it is bound to end up in a complete disaster. A knight to whom he had offered protection is killed and the seneschal himself is severely wounded. Although these events lead to prison, later on Keu appears to be in court, playing a traditional role by slandering Gauvain, the hero of the romance. His mockery is sharp, but on the other hand very well formulated, and what is more, true, since Gauvain is a highly ironised hero in the Vengeance and criticism, even coming from someone like Keu, is in fact not unfounded.5 After this, the seneschal’s part in the Old French romance is over, and he disappears into the background of the court. This is not the case in the Middle Dutch adaptation of this romance, known as Die Wrake van Ragisel, that was inserted in the Lancelot Compilation, an early fourteenth-century collection of Middle Dutch Arthurian romances.6 On the next page a diagram shows the contents of this compilation. 4

5

6

See The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, ed. N. J. Lacy (New York and London, 1996), pp. 487–88. I used the edition of Mathias Friedwagner: Raoul von Houdenc, Sämtliche Werke II, La vengeance Raguidel, Altfranzösischer Abenteuerroman (Halle, 1909). See Keith Busby’s, Gauvain in Old French Literature (Amsterdam, 1980), pp. 272–294; and his ‘Diverging Traditions of Gauvain in Some of the Later Old French Verse Romances’, in The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes, ed. N. J. Lacy, D. Kelly and K. Busby, 2 vols. (Amsterdam, 1988), II, 93–109; F. Wolfzettel, ‘Arthurian Adventure or Quixotic “Struggle for Life”?: A Reading of Some Gauvain Romances in the First Half of the Thirteenth Century’, in An Arthurian Tapestry: Essays in memory of Lewis Thorpe, ed. K. Varty (Glasgow, 1981), pp. 260–74; H. Klüppelholz, ‘Die Idealisierung und Ironisierung des Protagonisten in den altfranzösischen Gauvain-Romanen’, Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 44 (1994), 18–36; M. Hogenbirk, ‘Gauvain, the Lady, and her Lover: The Middle Dutch Walewein ende Keye and Old French Romance’, Bibliographical Bulletin of the International Arthurian Society vol. XLVIII (1996), 257–270. For an English introduction to the Lancelot Compilation, see B. Besamusca, ‘Cyclification in Middle

166



A COMICAL VILLAIN

The Contents of the Lancelot Compilation, MS The Hague, KB. 129 A 10 A A. Lanceloet: verse translation of the last section of the Lancelot en prose (the Préparation à la Queste).

1

1. Perchevael: adaptation of an existing translation of the Conte du Graal and several episodes of the First Continuation.

2

2. Moriaen: adaptation of an existing original Middle Dutch romance.

B B. Queeste van den Grale: verse translation of the Queste del Saint Graal. 3

3. Die Wrake van Ragisel: adaptation of an existing Middle Dutch translation of the Vengeance Raguidel.

4

4. Die Riddere metter Mouwen (the Knight with the Sleeve): adaptation of an existing Middle Dutch romance. Probably inserted later than the other romances.

5

5. Walewein ende Keye: adaptation of an original Middle Dutch romance?

6

6. Lanceloet en het Hert met de Witte Voet (Lancelot and the Stag with the White Foot): adaptation of a Middle Dutch original? Influenced by the Lai de Tyolet.

7

7. Torec: adaptation of a translation of a lost Old French romance?

C

C. Arturs Doet: verse translation of La Mort le Roi Artu, a part of which has been replaced by a fragment from the world chronicle of Jacob van Maerlant, the Spiegel Historiael.

167



MARJOLEIN HOGENBIRK

The Compilation, kept in The Royal Library of The Hague under the signature 129 A 10, contains a verse translation of the last section of the Old French Lancelot en prose, of the Queste del Saint-Graal and of the Mort le roi Artu. Between these three parts of the Lancelot cycle, seven independent romances (some of them reworkings of Old French originals, others indigenous Middle Dutch texts) have been inserted. Two of these romances, the Perchevael and the Moriaen, were inserted before the Queeste, and the other five, among which is Die Wrake van Ragisel, were placed after this romance, as shown in the diagram on the previous page. By means of transitional passages and the insertion of complete episodes the compiler of the Lancelot Compilation tried to combine ten existing romances into a comprehensive structure. Therefore the Compilation is a striking example of a narrative cycle.7 Several studies show how the process of cyclification is often related to the development of a character. I only mention here Lori Walters’s important articles on the character of Gauvain in MS Chantilly 472 and Paris, BN 1433, and also Elspeth Kennedy’s article in Cyclification on the conflicting presentations of Merlin in the different stages of the Lancelot-Graal cycle.8 Kennedy shows that in constructing cycles problematic inconsistencies and discrepancies in characterization may appear when more texts are added to the original concept. Scribes or compilers have to rework texts in order to establish consistency in the description of the characters. In this article the character of the seneschal Keu is studied in some of the inserted romances in the Lancelot Compilation. It seems that the compiler of the codex had a substantial share in the characterization of this Arthurian stock-character. The first romance to talk about is the already mentioned: Die Wrake van Ragisel, a reworked version of a Middle Dutch translation of the Old French Vengeance. The romance has a crucial position in the Lancelot Compilation. Here we have a chance to look over the shoulder of the compiler. Compared to the original French romance (of the earlier Middle Dutch translation of the Old French text on which the version in the Compilation is based only circa nine hundred verses exist) he has added entire episodes and reworked

7 8

Dutch Literature: The Case of the Lancelot Compilation’, in Cyclification: The Development of Narrative Cycles in the Chansons de Geste and the Arthurian Romances. Proceedings of the Colloquium, Amsterdam, 17–18 December, 1992, ed. B. Besamusca, W. P. Gerritsen, C. Hogetoorn and O. S. H. Lie (Amsterdam etc., 1994), pp. 82–91; and B. Besamusca, ‘Lancelot and Guinevere in the Middle Dutch Lancelot Compilation’, in Lancelot and Guinevere: A Casebook, ed. and introd. L. J. Walters (New York and London, 1996), pp. 105–24 (pp. 105–7). J. W. Klein, ‘De genese van de Lancelotcompilatie’, in Lanceloet: De Middelnederlandse vertaling van de Lancelot en prose overgeleverd in de Lancelotcompilatie. Pars 1 (vs. 1–5530, voorafgegaan door de verzen van het Brusselse fragment), ed. B. Besamusca and A. Postma (Hilversum, 1997), pp. 94–110. An English monography by B. Besamusca on the entire Compilation is forthcoming. See B. Besamusca, ‘Cyclification in Middle Dutch Literature’, p. 84. L. Walters, ‘The Creation of a “Super Romance”, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français, MS 1433’, The Arthurian Yearbook 1 (1991), 3–25, and ‘The Formation of a Gauvain Cycle in Chantilly Manuscript 472’, Neophilologus 78 (1994), 29–43. E. Kennedy, ‘Conflicting Presentations of the Same Character within a Cycle’, in Cyclification, pp. 155–57.

168



A COMICAL VILLAIN

substantial parts. Some major changes are in the characterization of Keu, Keye in Middle Dutch. It is striking that in Die Wrake van Ragisel the role of Arthur’s seneschal is much larger, and more negative than in the Old French original, and what is more, Keye’s actions are highly comical. Unlike in the Vengeance, where he disappears into the background of the romance, the seneschal even has his own adventure, which of course is a disaster. Therefore, at the end of the romance he is the object of snide remarks by the entire court. As a result the audience’s attention is focussed on Keye’s failure. One might therefore say that the seneschal has come out of the court’s background and has become a major character. He also has a substantial share in Gauvain’s famous adventure with the terrifying Pucele de Gautdestroit, ‘die Joncvrouwe van Galestroet’ in Dutch, who is obsessed with love for Gauvain. In the Old French Vengeance the storylines of Maduc, a black knight who is in love with the Pucele, and therefore hates Gauvain, the obsessed lady herself, and her sympathetic maid-servant, who helped Gauvain and his brother escape from the Pucele’s ‘love-guillotine’ and torture, are abandoned when Gauvain and Gariët have reached Arthur’s court in safety after their escape. The ironic illusion in the French romance is that Maduc as well as the lady keep on longing for their beloved forever.9 In the Middle Dutch adaptation, however, the story of these unfortunate lovers ends in marriage. It is Keye who is responsible for this happy ending, although in a different way than you might expect. In the Middle Dutch text a very hilarious episode is inserted.10 In an Yvain-like episode the maid-servant of the Joncvrouwe van Galestroet, who helped Gauvain and his brother escape from the Pucele, goes to Arthur’s court to request the help of Walewein, Gauvain’s Dutch counterpart. He is to fight the champion of the duped Pucele who seeks revenge. Unfortunately, the ‘father of adventures’, as he is called in a lot of Dutch romances, is busy elsewhere, involved in the main quest of the romance.11 His brother Gariët, who also has a bone to pick with her, agrees to take his place. Since the lady has announced that she will marry the victor of the fight (probably speculating on a relationship with Walewein), Gariët allows Maduc, who is called Maurus in Dutch, to seize the opportunity. Keye, also attracted by the lady’s proposition, 9

See Hogenbirk, 1996 (see note 5), pp. 265–270. On the French Romance see: B. Schmolke-Hasselmann, Der arthurische Versroman von Crestien bis Froissart: Zur Geschichte einer Gattung (Tübingen, 1980), pp. 106–15, and W. Baird, ‘The Three Women of the Vengeance Raguidel’, MLR 75 (1980), 269–74. 10 An edition of the Middle Dutch adaptation is found in W. P. Gerritsen’s, Die Wrake van Ragisel, Onderzoekingen over de Middelnederlandse bewerkingen van de Vengeance Raguidel, gevolgd door een uitgave van de Wrake-teksten, 2 vols. (Assen, 1963). The episode is analysed on pp. 193–201 (vol. 1), and has in the edition verses 2025–2426 (vol. 2). 11 On the epithet ‘the father of adventures’, see J. D. Janssens, ‘Oude en nieuwe wegen in “het woud zonder genade”. (Terreinverkenning voor verder onderzoek van de Mnl. niet-historische Arturroman)’, de Nieuwe Taalgids 75 (1982), 291–312 (pp. 299–303) and Douglas Kelly, ‘The Pledge Motif in the Roman van Walewein: Original Variant and Rewritten Quest’, in Arthurian Literature XVI. Originality and Tradition in the Middle Dutch Roman van Walewein. Ed. Bart Besamusca and Eric Kooper (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 29–46.

169



MARJOLEIN HOGENBIRK

puts himself shamelessly forward as her champion, under the false name of Lord Bayneel of (or is it ‘on’) the Rocks from Scotland. The following, rather Monty Python-like fight between Maurus and Lord Bayneel is remarkable: the two champions let go at each other with an enormous clash of arms. However, they merely succeed in inflicting little scratches on each other. When the Lord of the Rocks finally surrenders to Maurus, his bravura has vanished completely, and anxiously he reveals his true identity, saying: ‘it’s me, Keye!’ Although Gariët surprisingly wants the treacherous seneschal to be killed, the now gentle Maurus is merciful. The scene is full of irony if you recollect that the latter once was the cruel knight who decapitated a lot of knights and impaled their heads on stakes. Eventually, in the Middle Dutch romance all is well that ends well: Maurus, being the victor, gains the hand of the lady he is in love with, the once terrifying Joncvrouwe van Galestroet. Back at court at the end of the romance Gariët, who reports to Arthur and the rest of the household, surprisingly focussus entirely on the seneschal’s failure, instead of on the marriage. As a result the suggestion is made that Die Wrake van Ragisel is an anti-Keye story. In his dissertation on the Middle Dutch adaptations of the Vengeance Raguidel Gerritsen, in 1963, already described the changes in Die Wrake van Ragisel in relation to the French original.12 He held the compiler of the Lancelot Compilation responsible. Gerritsen suggests that the compiler inserted Keye’s failure in order to prepare the audience for an even more disagreeable portrait of the seneschal in another romance of the Compilation, namely Walewein ende Keye.13 Gerritsen’s conclusions are far too interesting to be neglected, especially since they can lead to new questions about the mise en cycle of the Compilation and the intentions of its composer. The character of Keye might be considered as a guiding thread through large parts of this complex manuscript. The main questions concerning the seneschal are: how is Keye depicted in the other texts of the Compilation? Are we able to distinguish the same striking features, that is to say Keye’s hilarious mesaventure, as in Die Wrake? And, secondly, is it possible to determine certain characteristics as adaptations on the part of the compiler? Of course it is impossible to consider the Compilation as a whole in this article.14 But a momentary observation shows that the last group of inserted romances, after the Queeste and before Arturs Doet, offers the most interesting description of Arthur’s seneschal. For in the tripartite core of the compilation, the seneschal’s character is not much divergent from the Old French original, that is to say, quite positive, and in the Perchevael, inserted before the Queeste, he is just a brave knight among the others. In the Moriaen, 12 See note 9. 13 Gerritsen, Wrake, pp. 236–250. The only edition of Walewein ende Keye is the one by Jonckbloet of the

entire Compilation: Roman van Lancelot (XIIIe eeuw), ed. W. J. A. Jonckbloet, 2 vols. (’s-Gravenhage, 1846–49). Walewein ende Keye takes up lines 18603–22270 of the third book. 14 In my dissertation in progress on Walewein ende Keye, I will elaborate on this topic.

170



A COMICAL VILLAIN

an original Middle Dutch romance, which was inserted right after the Perchevael, he has only a very small role. His request to leave the court for the romance’s main adventure is rejected by Arthur because it would certainly prove a fiasco. Presumably, the author had the Conte du Graal in mind here. The five romances that were inserted after the Queeste vanden Grale, however, offer a different picture: it is remarkable that Keye plays an extraordinarily important part here. His role is less than usually bound to traditional scenes and he comes out of the background more than ever, even though he never is a major figure. It is striking that he is a very negative character, whose escapades outside the court are extremely comical. The most divergent seneschal we find in Walewein ende Keye. No other versions of this romance are known, but it is probably a shortened version, or at least an adaptation, of an earlier Middle Dutch romance. Although the nineteenth-century title suggests that Keye’s role is in balance with Walewein’s, the latter is the main character. However, Keye’s role is extremely important: in everything he is the antithesis of Walewein.15 Let us take a look at the description of the seneschal in this romance. The story starts in quite an unusual way. In most initial episodes of Arthurian romance, an adventure from the autre-monde appears at Arthur’s court. In Walewein ende Keye, however, the only reason for the hero’s departure is Keye’s bad behaviour. Supported by a group of twenty friends, Keye accuses the innocent Walewein of haughtiness. He is alleged to have said that in one year he would have more adventures than all of the other knights of the Round Table together. The reason for Keye’s accusation is envy, for Arthur had appointed Walewein governor, and Keye, on account of his function as seneschal, considers himself to be the most likely candidate for that position. By his treacherous accusation he tries to provoke Walewein’s fall from Arthur’s favour. Keye seems successful, since Walewein reproaches Arthur for believing the seneschal and furiously leaves the court, in order to prove himself as the ‘father of adventures’. Keye’s role in this episode is, compared to the tradition, very original: he doesn’t use his well known sharp mockery here, but he is a jealous intriguer who wants to harm Walewein’s reputation just like the traitors in the chansons de geste do.16 This initial episode does not show the comical seneschal that we have met in Die Wrake van Ragisel. However, Keye’s part is not over yet in Walewein ende Keye. Just like in Die Wrake, the seneschal has his own adventure later on in the romance.17 This adventure is highly comical, because several well-known conventions of Arthurian tradition are adopted in the opposite way. For instance, the starting principle of Keye and twenty of his companions is the exclamation: ‘Laet ons

15 See M. Hogenbirk, ‘Walewein ende Keye: hoogmoed ten val gebracht’, in De kunst van het zoeken:

Studies over ‘avontuur’ en ‘queeste’ in de middeleeuwse literatuur, ed. B. Besamusca and F. Brandsma (Amsterdam and Münster, 1996), pp. 89–111. 16 In my dissertation, references to this genre will be studied. 17 Jonckbloet, Roman van Lancelot, lines 19689–20436.

171



MARJOLEIN HOGENBIRK

te gadere varen, ende niemanne die wi vinden sparen’18 (Let’s stick together, and spare nobody we’ll meet), a violent and destructive principle. After a week of roaming, Keye at last meets his adventure. That is to say, he makes sure that something happens. The seneschal comes into conflict – how on earth is this possible? – with a so-called bon vavasseur.19 Keye, however, acts as if the vavasseur is another Arthurian stock character – the opposite, namely a lord with a bad coutume – and creates an adventure.20 With his traditional temper he abuses a squire in a very rude manner instead of being courteous, and proposes a combat with his lord, because he does not want to lower himself by fighting the squire. To his disgrace, however, he is easily unhorsed by the boy, who poses as his lord by wearing the latter’s armour. Similarly to Die Wrake, the description of the fight in Walewein ende Keye is hilarious: because he is impeded in his movements by the spear of his opponent that has penetrated his hauberk right under his armpit, Keye has some fearful moments before he is knocked off his horse. Finally, Keye and his friends manage to escape, by means of a dirty trick, but at the end of the romance the unfortunate seneschal cannot look to Arthur any more for assistance. The king surprisingly curses him with all his heart. He exclaims: ‘he has done so many evil things, let him go to hell!’21 Gerritsen argues that the compiler of the Lancelot Compilation reworked Keye’s part in Die Wrake van Ragisel because of the evil deeds committed by Keye in Walewein ende Keye. He changed Die Wrake into an anti-Keye story, and thus prepared his audience for the treacherous seneschal who appears in the initial episode of Walewein ende Keye.22 In doing so the compiler adapted the cyclic context of this romance in order to avoid major discrepancies in Keye’s characterization. The humorous atmosphere of Keye’s fight against Maurus in Die Wrake can be compared to the description of the comical interference with Brandesioen and Brandesier, the lord and his squire, in Walewein ende Keye, which is not coherent with the serious atmosphere in the initial episode of this romance. Are we on the compiler’s track here? Did he write this comical episode, and did he use Keye as a vehicle of humour, not only in Die Wrake but also in Walewein ende Keye? To go even furthur: is there even a clue for adaptation as far as Keye is concerned in all of the romances of the last section of the Compilation? As I have stated earlier, all of these romances show a negative seneschal whose escapades are extremely comical. 18 Jonckbloet, Roman van Lancelot, lines 19709–10. 19 See B. Woledge, ‘Bons Vavasseurs et Mauvais Sénéchaux’, in Mélanges Rita Lejeune (Gembloux,

1969), II, pp. 1263–77; K. Busby, ‘The Characters and the Setting’, in The Legacy of Chrétien de Troyes I, 57–89 (pp. 76–77). 20 See E. Köhler, ‘Le rôle de la coutume dans les romans de Chrétien de Troyes’, Romania 81 (1969), 386–97; and Ph. Ménard, ‘Réflexions sur les coutumes dans les romans arthuriens’, in “Por le soie amisté”: Essays in Honor of Norris J. Lacy, ed. Keith Busby and Catherine M. Jones (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 2000), pp. 357–370. On traditional hospitality sequences see M. Bruckner, The Convention of Hospitality (1160–1200) (Lexington, KY, 1980). 21 Jonckbloet, ll, 22257–58: ‘Hi heeft menege quaetheit gedaen, Laettene ten duvelvolen gaen.’ 22 Gerritsen, pp. 248–49.

172



A COMICAL VILLAIN

We have no solid ground on which to base answers to these questions, since Die Wrake van Ragisel is the only romance that we can fully compare to the original, that is the Old French Vengeance. Of the version on which the Compilation text is based only nine hundred verses have remained. Earlier, separate, Middle Dutch versions of Die Riddere metter mouwen and Moriaen have only survived fragmentarily, and for the other romances, Walewein ende Keye, Witte Voet and Torec, we can only form hypotheses and speculate about the compiler’s activities, since there are no other versions of these romances.23 However, there is one clear trace through this last section of the Lancelot Compilation concerning the seneschal that we might follow. What happens to Keye after he is punished and cursed by Arthur in Walewein ende Keye? The last thing we hear at the end of this romance is that he takes shelter with a hermit in the woods. In the initial court episode of the next romance in the Compilation, namely Lanceloet en het hert met de Witte Voet, the seneschal appears again in his traditional role, despite his disappearance at the end of Walewein ende Keye. He is the first to claim the adventure that a lady announces at court. Of course the compiler must have felt uneasy about this, all the more so since he endeavoured to create a comprehensive overall structure out of separate romances. At the beginning of Witte Voet the compiler therefore inserted an explanation for Keye’s presence, an explanation that had already been announced, probably by himself, in Walewein ende Keye.24 There we can read that Keye hopes that the queen can reconcile him with Walewein and Arthur so that he may return to court.25 In Witte Voet this is exactly what happens. Des ander dages vele vroe (Eer die joncfrouwe daer quam alsoe), Soe was Keye te hove comen, Want gi hebt wel hier vore vernomen Dar hi qualike te hove was. Nu was hi versoent, sijt seker das, Want sijn vrouwe die coninginne Haddem gemaect pays ende minne Jegen den coninc ende Waleweine. (The day before, very early, before the lady had arrived, Keye came to the court. After all, you have heard earlier that he was out of favour at court. Now he was reconciled, be sure of that, because his lady, the queen, took

23 Roel Zemel speculates about the compiler’s activities in Witte Voet in R. Zemel, ‘ “Hoe Walewein

Lanceloet bescudde ende enen camp vor hem vacht”: Over Lanceloet en het hert met de vitte voet’, in De onghevalliche Lanceloet. Studies over de Lancelocompilatie, ed. B. Besamusca and F. Brandsma (Hilversum, 1992), pp. 77–97. 24 Frank Brandsma also mentions this episode: F. Brandsma, ‘Gathering the Narrative Threads: The Function of the Court Scenes in the Narrative Technique of Interlace and in the Insertion af New Romances in the Lancelot Compilation’, Queeste 7 (2000), 1–18. 25 Jonckbloet, lines 20430–34.

173



MARJOLEIN HOGENBIRK

care of restoring peace and friendship for him with the king and Walewein.)26

All problems are solved, one might think. However, here we come across a discrepancy that is caused by connecting and reworking the separate romances to create a cycle. In other words, we can look over the compiler’s shoulder here. In the initial episode of Walewein ende Keye the queen is extremely hostile towards Keye and she curses him.27 This seems to be an original passage, which, however, is not in accordance with the reconciliation Keye has in mind in Walewein ende Keye and that was established by the compiler in the opening sequence of Witte Voet. Therefore the question is, why would the queen bother to reconcile Keye with Arthur and Walewein? It is definitely the compiler himself who gives the explanation, however not in Witte Voet or Walewein ende Keye, but much earlier in the Compilation, in the Wrake after the incognito fight with Maurus that was discussed earlier in this article. This episode was certainly written by the compiler, since it was not part of the Old French Vengeance. In this passage Keye asks for mercy in the name of the queen, who appears to be his cousin.28 Also in Die Riddere metter mouwen, the same family relationship is mentioned in an episode that might have been manipulated by the compiler: Keye appears to be the queen’s uncle, and therefore she has to help him.29 This original idea gives us the clue to one of the compiler’s intentions in relation to Keye, throughout the Compilation as a whole. By making Keye a relative of the queen, he brings to mind another family connection in the Compilation, namely that of the king and Walewein. Keye, just like Walewein, is closely related to the royal couple, but is in many ways Walewein’s opposite. It is striking that the contrast between these two knights is elaborated as a major theme in the group of five inserted romances. Furthermore, Walewein appears to be the idealized favourite of the compiler in every inserted romance, except for Die Riddere metter mouwen, in which he doesn’t play a role at all. In Die Wrake he even changed whole episodes and inserted an entire chapter to make Walewein, in contrast to the French original, look like a true hero.30 In the context of the rehabilitation of Arthur’s nephew the compiler could make very good use of Walewein’s traditional opponent Keye: by underlining the seneschal’s negative characteristics and by presenting him as Walewein’s immediate opposite, Walewein comes off all 26 Vs. 79–87 in the edition of R. Zemel and B. Besamusca, ‘Lanceloet en het hert met de witte voet’, in 27 28 29

30

Jeesten van rouwen ende van feesten: Een bloemlezing uit de Lancelotcompilatie, ed. B. Besamusca (Hilversum, 1999), pp. 181–210 (p. 183). Jonckbloet, line 18781: ‘Si vloecte Keyen utermaten’ (She cursed Keye intensely). Gerritsen, 1963, vol. 2, p. 429, vs. 2356 ‘Dore der coninginnen wille sire vrouwen/ Jenoveren die sijn nichte was’ (By the mercy of his lady Jenovere, who was his cousin). In Roman van den Riddere metter Mouwen: Opnieuw naar de bewaarde bronnen uitgegeven, ed. M. J. M. de Haan et al. (Utrecht, 1983), line 1578, p. 100: ‘Die coninginne, dies oem hi was’ (The queen, whose uncle he was). See Gerritsen, 1963, vol. 1, pp. 217–233.

174



A COMICAL VILLAIN

the more positive. The idealization of Walewein in the Lancelot Compilation was especially necessary after the Queeste, that is to say, in the last section of the Compilation. After all, in view of Walewein’s stained reputation in that romance, he could certainly use a little rehabilitation! Perhaps this is the reason why the seneschal doesn’t play an extraordinarily important part in the Perchevael and Moriaen, which were inserted before the Queeste. Walewein ende Keye is, of all the romances after the Queeste, the most extreme in idealizing Walewein and, correspondingly, we find here the most disagreeable seneschal in Middle Dutch literature. In Die Wrake van Ragisel the compiler made Keye more negative, and it is striking that in this romance Walewein is much more positive than in the French original. The other romances also show us this disagreeable seneschal and, as far as Witte Voet and Torec are concerned, also an extremely positive Walewein. Is it possible that the compiler also had a part in this?31 Did he darken the description of the seneschal in all of the five romances in order to underline Walewein’s superb qualities?32 Within the scope of this article I must leave it at this suggestion. Yet, although we are only sure about the compiler’s contribution to the Wrake van Ragisel, there is one last thing we can conclude with regard to the characterization of Keye in the group of inserted romances between the Queeste and Arturs Doet. If it is true that the compiler had a share in all of the portraits of the seneschal, it is evident that it was not just as an anti-Walewein that Keye was useful for him. In that case the compiler could easily have made the seneschal as mean and cruel as he is in the Old French Yder and Perlesvaus. However, he did not. In every description of the seneschal an unmistakable amount of Arthurian comedy is involved. In Die Wrake and Walewein ende Keye his hilarious defeat is described; however, not only in these romances, but also in die Ridder metter Mouwen, Witte Voet and Torec, extremely original examples of Keye’s failures can be found. In Witte Voet, for instance, he is a coward who felt ill, and therefore had to cease his quest. This all means that the compiler – if he had a share in all of the descriptions of Arthur’s seneschal in this last section of the Lancelot Compilation – must also have had great pleasure in the escapades of the seneschal. As a result Keye is depicted as the opposite of the ideal knight Walewein. The seneschal is a villain indeed, yet he is a blundering and funny one.

31 Zemel, 1992 (see note 21), has already suggested this. 32 Like the manuscripts Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fonds français 1433, and Chantilly 472, the

Compilation can in a way, at least as far as the inserted romances are concerned, be considered as a ‘Gauvain-manuscript’. See note 7 for the publications of Lori Walters on these French manuscripts.

175





MALORY AND THE ENGLISH COMIC TRADITION

XII

MALORY AND THE ENGLISH COMIC TRADITION Donald L. Hoffman Malory’s work is not usually considered one of the comic masterpieces of English literature; nevertheless, between the celebrations at the beginning and the elegies at the end, there are more comic moments than are usually recognized.1 There is, however, a sufficient number of such moments that allow us to read Malory as a key figure in the transmission of English comedy harking from the epic humor of Beowulf, to the wit and intricacy of eighteenth-century sentimental comedies, and even on to twentieth-century experiments in comic absurdity. The immediate problem is the difficulty of determining Malory’s sense of humor. Does he mean to be funny when we are amused? And why are we not amused by bits that seem to have made him giggle? As an example of the first difficulty, consider the elaborate quest in the form of a masque, the ‘straunge and [. . .] mervailous adventure’ (63), Merlin prepares for Arthur’s wedding feast. A white hart runs into the hall, followed by a ‘brachet’ and ‘thirty couple of blacke rennynge houndis’; the hart knocks over a knight who picks it up and leaves. Then a lady arrives on a white palfrey crying to Arthur to get her brachet back. Then a knight rides in and carries the lady away, although ‘ever she cryed and made grete dole’. And, then, Malory adds, ‘[s]o whan she was gone the kynge was gladde, for she made such a noyse’ (63). Is this a funny line? Does Malory intend Arthur’s irritation with the clamoring damsel to disrupt the structure of the quest, and suggest that all these adventures are merely an intrusion on Arthur’s desire to eat his dinner in peace and be rid of these demanding damsels and their inconvenient requests. The line makes me smile, but I could not guarantee that Malory meant me to. On the other hand, if Malory did not mean it to be funny, what did he mean it to be? On the other hand, there are moments when Malory says things are funny 1

A significant attempt to recognize the comic spirit in Malory’s work has been made by Celia M. Lewis in her essay, ‘ “Lawghyng and Smylyng Amonge Them”: Humor in Malory’s Morte Darthur,’ Poetica 51 (1999), 11–29. In addition to her own skillful readings of several episodes, she provides a useful, if necessarily slim, bibliography of studies in Malory’s humor. Usually, as she points out, these studies of humor have tended to produce negative results.

177



DONALD L. HOFFMAN

but we are generally obliged to take his word for it. Consider, for example, the conclusion of the Tournament at Surluse when Dinadan is brought in in women’s clothes, and ‘Gwenyver lowghe, that she fell downe; and so dede all that there was’ (410). Dinadan in drag might be amusing, but the image of Guinevere and the flower of chivalry rolling on the floor in a fit of the giggles is a lot funnier than Dinadan’s costume.2 Finding and assessing humor in Malory is not an easy task, and we are not on particularly safe ground even if we let someone who ought to know, like the queen of Camelot, be our guide. We are safer seeking other guides, like precedents and models. The first surely comic episode in Malory is grimly comic indeed. The giant of St Michael’s Mount, while hardly witty in himself or in his effects, has the kind of grossness that evokes a certain kind of carnivalesque comedy, the sort of comedy associated with mythic monsters and medieval devils, the grossness of Mankind’s Titivullus and Dante’s Satan and the horde of little demons with horns and pitchforks flying about in his so-called ‘gargoyle cantos.’ It is the comedy of the forbidden, and the monster represents the horror of the unthinkable (as in the Giant’s barbecue of spit-roasted babies), and the comedy of the gross, immense, and physical (as in his prodigious sexual appetite for the duchess, whom ‘he forced [. . .] by fylth of hymself, and so after slit hir unto the navyll’ [120]).3 In so far as the episode narrates a sacral comedy of cleansing and purification of the same nature as the far more famous episode of ‘The Cleansing of Heorot’ in Beowulf, while neither episode is mirthful, the change from evil to good, from pollution to purification, from the haunts of demons to the home of angels represents a comic trajectory from sorrow to joy, from mourning to mirth. There are, nevertheless, examples of verbal wit in both narratives. There is, for example, the wit of the Beowulf-poet, who engages in irony when he refers to Grendel’s ‘song of ill-success, the sobs of the damned one / bewailing his pain’ (c. line 775). More than simple litotes, the phrase points to the corruption of song that underlies Grendel’s pollution of the idea of human community memorialized in Heorot. Similarly, Malory refers to the Giant of St Michael’s Mount as a saint, as in Arthur’s boast, ‘this corseynte have I clegged oute of the yondie clowys’ (122). Malory echoes the humor of the Alliterative Morte, which intentionally reconnects later Middle English prose with early Old English poetic styles and subjects. It is Malory, however, who chooses to translate and adapt this work in his compilation of Arthurian texts and preserve the tradition of epic humor. Despite the fact that his originality is often contested and his reliance on sources incontrovertible, there remains a controlling intelligence to his 2 3

More complicated readings of this episode are provided in the essay by Celia Lewis and in my own essay, ‘Dinadan: The Excluded Middle,’ Tristania, 10 (1984–1985), 3 –16. Malory’s syntax may be a bit peculiar, but the forcing and the slitting do seem to have been accomplished by the same instrument, calling attention to the vile giant’s gross and dangerous corporeality.

178




work. His intention in choosing the Morte as his source for the war with the Emperor Lucius may not have been primarily to preserve a self-consciously archaic text, but his work, nevertheless, maintains a tradition of Old English battle humor and archaic modes of comedy in word play and narrative structures. While ‘Arthur and Lucius’ looks backward, ‘The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney That Was Called Bewmaynes’ looks forward to more sophisticated forms of comedy. If the episode of the giant of St Michael’s Mount exemplifies a pattern of ritual cleansing, ‘The Tale of Sir Gareth’ represents a more familiar form of festival comedy, a comic form with its roots in the New Comedy of Menander that also anticipates the sentimental comedy of the eighteenth century and even the rowdy road comedies of Fielding. It is, indeed, a remarkably joyous work. On the border of fairy tale and romance, the tale opens with Gareth’s request for a month’s lodging and Kay’s rude promise to fatten him up so that ‘he shall be as fatte at the twelve-month ende as a porke hog’ (178). Kay as kitchen-warden and his promise (threat?) to fatten up the boy yields intimations of pantomime cooks and fairy tale witches, but his guardianship is essentially benign, if not without its attempts to repress and infantilize the kitchen boy with chivalric aspirations. The plot really begins, however, with the boy’s entry into his chivalric career when he accepts the Whitsunday adventure. Things do not go smoothly, however. As opposed to the usual pattern, the petitioning damsel does not gratefully accept the knight assigned to succor her, but rather begins her sequence of shrewish complaints that do not cease until a near battalion of opponents lie vanquished. The essence of her objection is the disparity in rank, her inability to accept the fact that the knight she has been assigned has apparently spent his formative years, years that should have been spent hawking and hunting and tilting at the quintain, in stirring pots and washing dishes. ‘Shall I have none but one that is your kychyn knave,’ she whines as she jumps on her horse and rides away. Having anticipated a knight, she is unwilling to settle for a busboy. The comedy of manners continues when Gareth is secretly knighted by Lancelot, and we learn that he is, in fact, of noble birth, brother to Gawain, and kin to Arthur himself. Ignorant of his birth, however, the damsel continues to abuse him for his presumed low birth and ignoble occupation. ‘What doste thou here?’ [She asks.] ‘Thou stynkest all of the kychyn, they clothis bene bawdy of the grece and talow. What wenyste thou?’ seyde the lady, ‘that I wol alow the for yondir knyght that thou kylde? Nay, truly, for thou slewest hym unhappyly and cowardly. Therefore turne agayne, thou bawdy kychyn knave! I know the well, for Sir Kay named the Beawmaynes. What art thou but a luske, and a turner of brochis and a ladyll-washer?’ (182)

Her gift for invective rarely deserts her and her relentless tongue spices up the journey. Gareth and Lyonette may not discuss the range of topics or display 179



DONALD L. HOFFMAN

the tonal variations of Sancho and Don Quixote, but this wittily bickering couple, with all due credit to their origins in the Damsel Maledisante and La Cote Male Tayle of the prose Tristan, are precursors of those endlessly errant knights. Malory enthusiastically develops the damsel’s elitist malice and takes pleasure in her invention, her seemingly endless variations on the kitchen knave theme. There is a comic energy in her inventiveness, a wry comedy in the pairing of the shrewish maiden and the reticent knight, and a sly irony in the fact that the reader knows what the lady does not, that the knight is Gawain’s brother. This pairing of opposites compelled to accompany each other on a necessary journey anticipates the far more complex comic pairing of Quixote and Sancho. Malory, if he does not invent, enables a transition from (possibly French) sources into mainstream English literature that establishes the ill-matched-couple-on-the-road genre that anticipates, if it does not influence, Fielding’s comic masterpiece, Tom Jones, and directly influences a much later work, Twain’s Connecticut Yankee; the romantic comedy of the mismatched travelers, Sandy and Hank, is undoubtedly a variation on the adventure of Gareth and Lyonette. Although Malory, at least at this point, resists the bawdiness of Fielding, the passivity of Gareth participates in the comedy of the male virgin, Joseph Andrews. Malory avoids the simplicity of stereotypes, however, for the comedy of Gareth is subtler and more profoundly ethical, as can be seen from his response to Lyonette’s first rant. Damesell,’ seyde sir Beawmaynes, ‘sey to me what ye woll, yet woll nat I go from you whatsomever ye say, for I have undirtake to kynge Arthure for to encheve your adventure, and so shall I fynyssh hit to the ende, other ellys I shall dye therefore.’ (182)

With Gareth’s response(s), the tone of the comedy shifts from the simple feminization of the berated hero to the comedy of the maliciously spiteful damsel and the knight, who is long-suffering and faithful. Having sworn an oath to Arthur, he accepts his duty to the adventure whatever the difficulties of serving this unusually unpleasant lady. Her response to Gareth introduces the third feature of this exchange. ‘Fye on the, kychyn knave! Wolt thou fynyssh myne adventure? Thou shalt anone be mette withall, that thou wodyst nat for all the broth that ever thou souped onys to look hym in the face.’ (182)

The comedy of these Gareth-Lyonette episodes is a bit repetitious, but, at the same time, inventive and varied. The pattern of insult, response, and threat recurs on several occasions. There is an ethical component to the repetition, however, for with each repetition, as the lady becomes more and more abusive and more and more convinced that Gareth is a coward, the evidence becomes clearer and clearer that (1) he is a paragon of ‘jantylness’ (Malory’s primary 180




chivalric virtue), and (2) that despite her conviction that he will fail, he is eminently successful in his battles. The comedy is subtler still, however, and depends, as sentimental comedy must, on a complete understanding of the rules. In the episode cited, Gareth demonstrates his understanding of the theory and practice of chivalry with respect to ladies and knights, and the need to be meek to the one and fierce to the other. Gareth’s tale lets us know that sometimes courtesy takes more courage than combat. As the journey continues, however, he demonstrates that he is not merely subject to the rules of chivalry, but has sufficient mastery of the system to use it to his advantage. While the lady establishes the basic structure of insult and threat, Gareth, after the defeat of the Green Knight, adds a final component: the knight begs a favor of the lady. And then the Grene Knyght cryed hym mercy and yelded hym unto Bewmaynes and prayed hym nat to sle hym. ‘All is in vayne,’ seyde Bewmaynes, ‘for thou shalt dye but yf this damesell that cam with me pray me to save thy lyff,’ and therewithall he unlaced his helme lyke as he wolde sle hym. ‘Fye uppon the, false kychyn payge! I woll never pray the tosave his lyff, for I woll nat be so muche in thy daunger.’ ‘Than shall he dye,’ seyde Beawmaynes. ‘Nat so hardy, thou bawdy kychyn knave!’ seyde the damesell, ‘that thou sle hym.’ ‘Alas!’ seyde the Grene Knyght, ‘suffir me nat to dye for a fayre worde spekyng. Fayre knight,’ seyde the Grene Knyght, ‘save my lyfe and I woll forgyff the the deth of my brothir, and for ever to becom thy man, and thirty knyghtes that hold of me for ever shall do you servyse.’ ‘In the devyls name,’ seyde the damesell, ‘that such a bawdy kychyn knave sholde have thirty knyghtes servyse and thyne!’ ‘Sir knyght,’ seyde Beawmaynes, ‘all this avaylyth the nought but yf my damesell speke to me for thy lyff,’ and therewithall he made a semblaunte to sle hym. ‘Lat be,’ seyde the damesell, ‘thou bawdy kychyn knave! Sle hym nat, for and thou do thou shalt repente hit.’ ‘Damesell,’ seyde Beawmaynes, ‘your charge is to me a plesure, and at youre commaundemente his lyff shall be saved, and ellis nat.’ Than he sayde, ‘Sir knyght with the grene armys, I releyse the quyte at this damesels requeste, for I woll nat make hir wroth, for I woll fulfylle all that she chargeth me.’ (186–187)

In this exchange, Gareth (and, of course, Malory) demonstrates a mastery of chivalric etiquette and courtly discourse that allows him to achieve a victory over the damsel without ever violating the proprieties. Although similar scenes will follow, this is the first in which Gareth achieves sufficient mastery over himself to respond to the lady and wrest control from her. He emerges from a mere ‘jantylness’ that allows him to endure the damsel’s insults to manipulating rules of language and behavior that enable him to gain power over her, to gain, indeed, what she precisely indicates she intends to resist; she is, by the end of the exchange, in his ‘daunger.’ 181



DONALD L. HOFFMAN

This is a social comedy of manners and manipulation that anticipate the style of Restoration comedy, but without its bawdy, without its meanness. There is, however, a chivalric dialectic that Gareth enacts that almost anticipates a Freudian theory of drives. The aggression aroused by the nagging damsel is channeled into the attacks on the enemies. Thus, female provocation (here, intriguingly, and perhaps uniquely Malorian, irascible rather than concupiscent) is redirected into male aggression. This structure serves as a prologue to the introduction of desire into the equation. When Lyonette brings Gareth to the battle for Lyonesse, Gareth fights well inspired by the sight of the lady he is destined to marry. Once again, Gareth shows himself to be an expert in the vocabulary of courtesy and a full understanding of coventional expectations. He knows, in other words, that he is expected to fall in love with the beautiful woman in the castle window. ‘. . . she besemyth afarre the fayryst lady that ever I lokyd uppon, and truly,’ he seyde, ‘I aske no better quarell than now for to do batayle, for truly she shall be my lady and for hir woll I fyght.’ (197)

This episode does not, however, play itself out with expected simplicity. There is, first of all, the hijacked dwarf, which (who?) almost reduces the comedy of manners to pure farce. Lyonesse hijacks the dwarf, however, in order to elicit information about Gareth’s identity. The lady, while she plays the stereotypical role of the lady in the window takes an active, if unobtrusive, role in determining that the man who fights for her is, in fact, of good character and lineage. She plays the game all right, but makes sure she has a winning hand before she agrees to fold. On Gareth’s part, the lady in the window convention is exposed as artifice when he sees the lady close up but does not know she is actually the lady he swore from a distance to love. Not knowing the two ladies are the same, he comes close to the sin of infidelity when, seeing a lovely lady at Gryngamoure’s, he whispers the heartfelt prayer, ‘Jesu, wolde that the lady of the Castell Perelus were so fayre as she is’ (204). In that moment, Malory plays wittily with generic expectations and the absurdity of falling in love with a nearly invisible lady. On the other hand, despite the wit, he reinforces the ethic of love as destiny, since the attractive lady in Gryngamoure’s castle and the lady of the Castle Perilous are, after all, the same, and the conventional decision made in total accord with generic expectations turns out to be the right one. Love at first sight and at a distance is endorsed, after all, as the only proper way to fall in love. There remains, however, a subtle residue of the roadside dialectic. Just as while travelling, the lady who questions (or pretends to question) the propriety of a kitchen knave being provided to her as her champion is replaced by a lady who in addition to posing at the window, wisely snatches dwarves to find out what is really going on. Both ladies, sisters after all, are essentially practical. Gareth, on the other hand, remains courteous, naïve, innocent, and, above all, right. Malory, reinforcing generic expectations, reinforces as well an optimistic ethic, which lies 182




at the heart of English comedy, however much it undercuts the eventual spirit of the conclusion of Malory’s work. In the meantime, however, while waiting for the end, ‘The Tale of Gareth’ is a brilliant compendium of comic styles carried out with a virtuoso mastery of tone and a complex understanding of social codes. There is even a moment or two of bedroom comedy, in which Malory slyly undercuts the traditional notion of the chastity considered an essential element of courtly love. Gareth, for a time, remains chaste, but Malory does not avoid letting us know the struggle involved. After his first sight of the lady at Gryngamour’s castle, ‘he brenned in love, that he passed hymself farre in his reson. And forth towardys nyght they yode unto souper, and sir Gareth myght nat ete, for his love was so hoote that he wyst nat where he was’ (204). Lest we be misled into thinking this is purely a ‘male thing,’ the lady Lyonesse is equally willing, and troth is plighted and an assignation arranged, once, that is, Gareth has been assured that the two ladies he desires are the same. ‘And so they brente both in hoote love that they were acorded to abate their lustys secretly’ (205). They do, in fact, remain chaste until marriage, but only because Lyonesse’s sister, Lyonette, is concerned for her sister’s reputation. She sends an armed knight into the bedroom when Gareth, rather like the perfect steak, is à point (or, perhaps, like a dancer, en pointe). He must reluctantly leave off pleasuring the lady to decapitate a knight. Distracted and a little tired when this is done, and, of course, a little put off by the fact that the room is full of people by then, his erotic plans for the evening are foiled. Demonstrating his understanding of the comic technique of repetition, Malory has the two lovers, even hotter and more eager, trying again the next night and Lyonette sending in more knights as a distraction and Gareth in frustration chopping them into bits, instead of just cutting off their heads. It is comedy; it is farce; it also, through the laws of comic narrative, reinforces conventional morality. Thus, the tale ends, as it should, with marriage, indeed multiple marriages, returning it to the essential structure of the ancient New Comedy, but also allying it with the festival tradition of English comedy leading to Shakespeare’s lighter comedies, such as Twelfth Night, the happier comedies of Congreve and Wycherly and Goldsmith, and on to the cynical merriment of Wilde and Orton. Malory may not be remembered as a comic genius, but ‘The Tale of Gareth’ is a comic masterpiece. This masterpiece, poised as it is just before the collapse into madness represented by the ‘Tale of Sir Tristram,’ also represents Malory’s farewell to comedy. Farewell, at least, to successful comedy, to comedy that obeys the rules. But although there are few laughs in ‘The Book of Sir Tristram,’ there are comic devices. There are, for example, the tales that echo Gareth, ‘La Cote Male Tayle’ and ‘Alisaunder the Orphan.’ ‘La Cote Male Tayle’ seems almost a rip-off of the Gareth, although in reality the tale as an episode in the Tristan en prose was written before ‘Gareth’ and was probably one of its sources. Could Malory have been a sufficiently self-reflexive artist to have considered this as one of his jokes? Could he consciously have places these 183



DONALD L. HOFFMAN

works so that source comes to appear as the imitation? Could Malory, indeed, have been something of a Borges avant la lettre? Probably not. But it placed the ‘Gareth’ and the ‘Tristram’ in a relationship of text and counter-text analogous to the relationship of Lancelot and Tristram as hero and counter-hero. This doubtful joke aside, the tale of La Cote represents a kind of comedy that has not really been defined for the Middle Ages, but that is demonstrated, for example, by Chaucer’s ‘Cook’s Tale,’ the comedy of deflated expectations, fragments, and disappointments, a ‘shaggy dog’ sort of comedy. La Cote echoes Gareth, but, instead of marrying the lady in the window, he settles for the shrewish road lady. It is an efficient choice, perhaps, and occurs only after the lady has been pacified; nevertheless, it still suggests a narrative truncation and a loss of direction that echoes the pattern of adventure in the ‘Tristram’ itself, a book of tempests and Forests Perilous, where the path, if ever found, is easily lost. The shaggiest part of the story may, however, be what happens to the dramatic incident that gives the tale its name. La Cote appears at court dressed in an ill-fitting coat, because it is the shredded, bloodied coat worn by his father when he was murdered. The dramatic entry seems the point of the story, but, after a number of adventures and a lesson in chivalry from Mordred, he marries the messenger and the story ends. There is the final almost parenthetical remark that ‘as the Freynshe booke makith mencion, sir La Cote Male Tayle revenged the deth of his fadir’ (294), but this is a footnote, not an ending, and suggests the kind of fragmented, incomplete structures that are repeated regularly throughout the ‘Tristram.’ It is a world that is rarely amusing, but is comic in its refusal of closure, its defeat of expectations, and its subversion of the generic proprieties, a subversion, in effect, of all the narrative and moral rectitude of the ‘Tale of Gareth.’ A similar sort of subversion occurs in the tale of ‘Alexander the Orphan,’ in which the importance of the oath is both honored and, it would seem, critiqued. Morgan asks Alexander to swear that ‘this twelve-monthe and a day ye shall nat passe the compasse of this castell’ (395). Alexander remains true to this oath, even though the castle is razed soon after his promise, and he spends the next year absurdly defending a pile of rubble on a vacant lot. There is honor here, indeed. But there is also a, literally, quixotic effect in the image of the knight devoting himself to such a blatantly worthless task. There is, in addition, the romantic sex comedy of the ‘fast forward’ courtship of Alexander and Alice, which can be pretty much summed up as ‘I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours,’ followed sometime after with a ‘by the way, what’s your name?’ There is, to be sure, an echo of the joyfully unproblematic, if thwarted, sexuality of Gareth and Lyonesse, but it is transposed into a situation where the basic context is absurd, the context of a vow kept long past its usefulness and the knight’s vow eventually supplanted by his interest in the passing pilgrim, Alice. Gareth’s charm is echoed by the impetuous Alexander, but it becomes less comforting in this world where narrative and moral rectitude no longer cohere. The problematic absurdity of the Tristram world represents a peculiar sort 184




of comedy that is not necessarily funny. It is the comedy of human imperfection, failed plots and crossed destinies. This sort of comedy occurs in a world of moral uncertainty. It anticipates the complications, if admittedly not the subtlety, of Shakespeare’s problem plays and even the incoherent world of twentieth-century absurdist comedies. There is a vast difference, perhaps even an unbridgeable gap, between the worlds of Malory and, to choose an example, N. F. Simpson’s A Resounding Tinkle, or the more ominous œuvre of Harold Pinter. In both worlds, however, there are problems of miscommunication, veiled and uncertain threats, danger mixed with incoherence, and the ultimate feeling that there are crucial elements of plot, significant elements of motivation, that we will never learn. In both, we are thrust into worlds without a key to interpretation and share some of the uncertainties of the characters trapped in that world. Whether we laugh at that discord or not is pretty much a matter of taste and pretty much irrelevant. Within the Tristram world, however, there are moments when the dark absurd comedy is lightened by moments of celebration and festivity. In many ways, the Tristram world, the most incoherent in Malory’s book, is also the most social. The festive comedy focuses primarily on the occasion of tournaments, especially the great events of Lonezep and Surluse, and on the characters of Dagonet and Dinadan. It is difficult to identify the nature of Dagonet, who although called Arthur’s fool, does not quite seem to fit the categories we recognize from Shakespeare’s plays, for example. He does not quite seem the garrulous punster and verbal comedian we think of as the ‘witty fool,’ but neither does he seem to be a grotesque, a dwarf or hunchback, whose deformity, by Early Modern standards, turns him, unwittingly and unwittily, into a permanent physical joke. Dagonet, in other words, does not seem particularly witty in himself, nor to have wit thrust upon him. His most effective joke is one that is, in effect, played upon him. When Dinadan acquires the task of accompanying King Mark into Logres, he is obliged to fulfill his duty, but also eager to get rid of the odious monarch. He convinces Mark that Dagonet is Lancelot, and all hugely enjoy the sight of the coward king fleeing the fool he thinks is a hero. It is one of the few jokes in the ‘Tristram’ that a reader with a fairly active visual sense can appreciate, an appreciation depending in part on the reader’s disgust with the vile conduct of Mark, who often gets away with it because of the power he wields corruptly and stupidly, but often successfully, because of his position. We can appreciate, even applaud, his discomfiture. Most of Dinadan’s other jokes are less a laughing matter than a matter of record. We are told he is witty, but we are rarely amused. There seems, then, in the functions of Dinadan and Dagonet something of an early working out of the Shakespearean model of the natural and the witty fool, but Malory’s text only hints at such a schematic formulation, and it is largely by reading backwards we can see this configuration presaged in the ‘Tristram.’ Nevertheless, a line, however tenuous, can be drawn from Dagonet and Dinadan to, for example, Feste and Jacques. In the final festival of the ‘Tristram,’ however, folly is praised and exor185



DONALD L. HOFFMAN

cised. Dagonet simply vanishes from the text, ignored at the end as he was generally overlooked from the beginning, a not particularly funny fool whose nature is never clear. Dinadan, however, who has represented wit (in the modern sense) and reason, is publicly humiliated by Lancelot on the last day of the tournament of Lonezep. His witty critiques of chivalry are, thus, neutralized, as he is neutered, forcibly dressed in female clothes forced, in effect, to move from being a wit to being a fool. He becomes a cross-dressing clown, representing a subversive spirit, his power as critic being recognized in a thoroughly carnivalesque sort of way. The mocker is mocked, the tables are turned, and the humiliation of Dinadan provides an occasion of public laughter that, as carnival is meant to, restores public laughter and allows the celebrants to return to the comfort of the norm. The elimination of Dinadan as a visible critic only silences his critiques of the excesses of love and violence. (It also re-establishes the homosocial order through the ‘exorcism’ of Dinadan’s threat to lovers.) Nevertheless, the evils and follies he perceived remain unchecked until the ideological devastation wreaked by the quest of the Grail, and the actual devastation that destroys the Round Table at the end. Ambiguous as its sense of comedy may be, the ‘Book of Sir Tristram’ marks the end of comedy in the Morte. This is hardly surprising. The Quest of the Sankgreal is not only devoid of humor, but creates a world in which comedy would be indecorous at best. There may be an irony in Gawain’s inability to find adventures in a world where the nature of adventure changes beyond his understanding. There is even, perhaps, a gentle humor in Perceval’s rescue from intercourse by the fortuitous sight of his cruciform sword. The Grail world itself, however, is decidedly not humorous. A hint of a Divine Comedy perhaps in the salvation and success of the Grail heroes, but this is balanced by the painful tragedy of Lancelot’s discovery of his own unworthiness. The last two books are equally devoid of comedy for the world now has become too sad and too dangerous. There is, however, an autumnal comedy that does not depend on wit, but on the absurd and miscognition, crossed purposes and missed meaning, the gap between the sender and the receiver in which the message molders. Malory rarely makes use of this misperception for merely comic purposes, but it is a comic device he uses often enough that it is worth noting in this context. Love may be the most obvious condition in which the desires of the beloved create a context in which the message is given greater force than it speaker intended. To limit the discussion to a single example, notice the exchange between Lancelot and the Fair Maid of Astolat. So thus as she came to and fro, she was so hote in love that [she] besought sir Launcelot to were uppon hym at the justis a tokyn of hers. ‘Damesell,’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘and if I graunte you that, ye may sey that I do more for youre love than ever y ded for lady or jantillwoman.’ Than he remembird himselff that he wolde go to the justis disgysed, and because he had never aforne borne no maner of tokyn of no damesell, he bethought hym to bere a tokyn of hers, that none of hys bloode thereby myght 186




know hym. And than he seyde, ‘Fayre maydyn, I woll graunte you to were a tokyn of youres uppon myne helmet. And therefore what ys hit? Shewe ye hit me.’ ‘Sir,’ she seyde, ‘hit ys a rede sleve of myne, of scarlet, well embrowdered with grete perelles.’ And so she brought hit hym. So sir Launcelot resseyved hit and seyde, ‘Never dud I erste so much for no damesell.’ (623)

In this passage, Malory expects the reader to pay attention to what Lancelot says, but also calls our attention to what Elaine hears. We know, because we are given privileged access into Lancelot’s mind, that his intent is to deceive his relatives. Elaine, however, has no way of knowing this and what she hears is Lancelot saying, ‘[. . .] if I graunte you that ye may sey that I do more for youre love than ever y ded for lady or jantillwoman. [. . .] Fayre mayden, I woll graunte you to were a tokyn of youres [. . .]’ The consequences of this miscommunication are by no means comic, but the fact of miscommunication, the gap between speaker and hearer, is an essentially comic device. This sense of audience also surfaces in other contexts which are comic only in their appreciation of social proprieties and an awareness of what can and cannot be said. The conclusion of the tale of Lancelot and Elaine provides the best example of this sense of context, a sense of mise en scène. Perceval and Ector tell of Lancelot’s recovery from madness and his adventures as Le Shyvalere Mafete. As she heard these tales, ‘quene Gwenyver wepte as she shulde have dyed. Than the quene made hym grete chere. ‘A, Jesu!’ seyde kynge Arthure, ‘I mervayle for what cause ye, sir Launcelot, wente oute of youre mynde. For I and many othir deme hyt was for the love of faire Elayne, the doughtir of kynge Pelles, by whom ye ar noysed that ye have gotyn a chylde, and hys name ys Galahad. And men sey that he shall do many mervaylous thyngys.’ ‘My lorde,’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘yf I ded ony foly I have that I sought.’ And therewythall the kynge spake no more. (506)

The complex relationships implicit in these lines reveal a social awareness that may not be particularly amusing, but depends on manners and customs and, to invent a term, may be called comèdie courtoise. Here the complex sex quadrangle involving Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, and Elaine is resolved in Lancelot’s return. His past absence, particularly his madness, requires an explanation. It is possible that Malory chooses this occasion merely to sum up the Lancelot and Elaine episode before moving on to the ‘Conclusion’ of the ‘Tristram.’ His summing up, however, is both selective and suggestive for Arthur does not tell us the whole story of Lancelot’s madness, he tells us the story as he knows it and, even more carefully, he tells the story as the court is meant to know it. He is, in other words, a ‘spin doctor,’ deflecting suspicion from the adultery of Lancelot and his wife to the story of Lancelot’s more legitimate affair with the lady from Pont de Corbin. Even better from Arthur’s 187



DONALD L. HOFFMAN

point of view is the living proof of their relationship, the marvelous baby Galahad. Arthur’s agenda seems clear. Lancelot’s reponse is stunning in its multiple levels of meaning. Without teasing out all the possibilities of the evocative ‘I have that I sought,’ there is a simultaneous public and private meaning to the message. Publicly, the message can be interpreted as Lancelot’s relief at his recovery from madness and his return to court and Arthur’s service; privately, it can interpreted as a reference to Lancelot’s recovery from the madness caused by Guinevere and his pleasure at being returned to her. The private meaning is surely the predominant one in the minds of most readers and Guinevere (which lets us know just how privy we think we have become to the inner working of the Camelot triangle). In his response, the public Lancelot comes perilously close to revealing his private desire. There is a line that is almost, but not quite, crossed, but the danger seems to have been recognized by the king, who retreats into a pointed silence. Effective ‘spin’ also involves a mastery of the ‘no comment’ strategy. In this passage, Malory experiments with a technique that allows for multi-layered communication demonstrating a complex awareness of social hierarchy and etiquette. One does not, to be sure, read Malory’s Works for the jokes, and the world it presents is undeniably tragic. Within that overarching structure of the fall of the Round Table, however, there are surprising moments of humor and an almost universally overlooked variety of comedic forms. The epic humor which harks back to Beowulf and Maldon, preserved in the ‘Tale of Lucius’ and the romantic comedy of the ‘Tale of Gareth’ are, perhaps, the most obvious examples of English humor and these two books link Malory with the grim wit of the past and the livelier social comedies of the future. There is, in the end, a kind of comedic amnesia effected by the dark structure of Malory’s work. The lingering impression of heroic elegy and the sad failure of noble ideals overwhelms the lighter moments. From the festive to the furtive, from farce to delicate comedy of manners, Malory is, however, a versatile master of comic styles and structures. It may well be, in fact, Mark Twain, T. H. White, and even Monty Python, might not, then, have invented comic deconstructions of Malory’s work. They may instead have recovered the comic foundations of this essentially tragic work.

188



‘LAUGHYNG AND SMYLYNG’

XIII

‘LAUGHYNG AND SMYLYNG’: COMIC MODALITIES IN MALORY’S TALE OF SIR LAUNCELOT DU LAKE Elizabeth S. Sklar [T]he final tales of the Morte Darthur can be read both as the tragedy of Arthur and his knights . . . and as a ‘comic’ affirmation of their ‘worshipful’ lives and values. (Larry Benson, Malory’s Morte Darthur, 209) Than there was laughying and smylyng amonge them . . . (Malory, Tale of Sir Launcelot, 208)

Benson’s reading of the Morte Darthur as Christian comedy notwithstanding, there is no question but that Malory’s narrative, with its grim account of the disintegration of a once-ideal kingdom, is, in the end, a tragedy, a profoundly pessimistic commentary on the frailty of human nature. From the Book of Sir Tristram through the final explicit, light moments are few and far between; all the major figures are to be taken in dead earnest, for good or for ill. The tenor of the Morte as a whole, however, is by no means unremittingly dismal. Throughout the narrative there are flashes of optimism in human potential, of confidence that good can triumph over evil, and while these tend to concentrate in the first third of the book during the formative years of the kingdom, the thread of hope still faintly gleams in the increasingly somber tapestry of the final portions: Trystram succeeds in his quest to become a member of the Round Table fellowship, Palomydes experiences conversion, Lancelot miraculously heals Sir Urry. The Grail does prove enchevable, even if by only a precious few, and Guinevere, after all was said and done, ‘had a good ende’ (791). And, embedded here and there amidst the deadpan historicism of Malory’s generally sedate rhetoric, are nuggets of wit and even low humor.1 At the heart of these tonal modulations, as of everything else in the Morte, perhaps, is the figure of Sir Lancelot, who functions as an ethical touchstone 1

For treatment of the tale as a whole, see Benson, Lumiansky, Nolan, and B. Kennedy. Although a few readers note in passing the occasional comic moment in the tale – McCarthy speaks of a ‘gentle comedy’ (21) and Benson adduces ‘an amusing touch of realism’ (90) – none of these authors address in detail the comedic elements in The Tale of Sir Launcelot as a whole; the majority of these accounts foreground the relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere.

189



ELIZABETH S. SKLAR

for and index to the moral and emotional temper of ‘the hole book’. Nowhere is this more evident than in his eponymous tale, Book III of the Morte Darthur. The Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake has been described as ‘a more or less self-contained roman d’aventure’ (Nolan, Companion p. 170), and insofar as it comprises an episodic sequence of events centering on a single aristocratic protagonist testing his mettle against a variety of adversaries and adversarial situations this is surely an accurate descriptor. And yet the Tale of Sir Launcelot is actually not quite as prototypical as it might at first seem: it works variations on both patterning and registration that lend it a decidedly lopsided air.2 It is a romance, and yet both less and more than a romance. It is a serious exemplum on ideal knighthood punctuated by surprising and sometimes inappropriate comic moments. It runs the generic gamut from chivalric romance through morality and Christian comedia, with nods along the way to hagiographical narrative on the one hand and fabliau on the other. Generically ambiguous and tonally unstable, it forces Lancelot to participate in a dialectic that simultaneously complicates and illuminates the narrative at large.

I As a chivalric romance, The Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot strays from the beaten track in some interesting ways. Because Malory omits all account of Lancelot’s enfance and jeunesse, the expected enactments of the typical romance narrative are deflected into something more closely resembling the pattern of romantic comedy: a ritualized performance of cultural desiderata involving separation and return which, through the systematic purging of dissonant elements and transgressive behaviors, re-creates the social order thereby affirming and valorizing the ideologies of the target culture. Whereas normally the romance protagonist, of noble birth but still green in the arena of chivalric achievement, participates in a sequence of events that contribute to his maturation and enhance his worth, Malory’s Lancelot rides into our field of vision having already established his superiority and his primacy amongst the knights of the Round Table fellowship, ‘for in all turnementes, justys, and dedys of armys . . . he passed all other knyghtes’ (189); we enter his chivalric biography in medias res, as it were. Unlike the protagonist of this narrative’s companion piece, The Tale of Sir Gareth, Lancelot is not an unknown (at least in the opening passes), fair or otherwise. Indeed, much of this tale consists in a stylized, almost incantatory, rhetorical affirmation of Lancelot’s alreadyestablished worth. He proceeds through his fictive environment collecting 2

Felicity Riddy’s finely-tuned reading of this tale is particularly strong with respect to the instability of genre and tonality here; she notes the fundamental surrealism of the narrative texture of this tale, Malory’s creation of a world ‘both familiar and strange,’ peopled by ‘figures who seem to walk through Lancelot’s dreams’ (47).

190




testimonials, as a spider collects flies, from friend and foe alike. He is successively praised as ‘the noblest kynght lyvyng’ (183), ‘the floure of kynghtes’ (184) or the ‘floure of all knyghtes’ (205), the ‘worshypfullyest knyght of the worlde’ (207), and ‘the curteyst knyght . . . and mekyste unto all ladies and jantylwomen’ (194). He is capable of unique accomplishments, far surpassing the achievements of even the best of his contemporaries: a bevy of ladies whom he rescues from ignoble captivity aver in unison that he has ‘done the most worshyp that ever ded knyght in this worlde’ (196), and the maiden who sets him on the route towards the Chapel Perelus adventure claims that she knows ‘no knyght lyvynge that may encheve that adventure’ (203) aside from Lancelot himself. Even when his identity is unknown to his adversaries or when he is traveling incognito, he garners praise at every turn: ‘a good man’ (186), ‘a man of myght makeles’ (197), ‘a man of grete myght,’ and ‘the beste knyght in the worlde’ (192). The evil Sir Tarquyn himself, shortly before Lancelot dispatches him to his just reward, grudgingly admits that Lancelot is ‘the byggyst man that I ever mette . . . and the best brethed’ (191). Thus from the very start of this narrative Lancelot’s superior prowess, his reputation for honor and courtesy, are givens – the foundation upon which the remainder of the tale is constructed. And constructed it is. For despite the apparently random series of events that constitute this tale, the sequence is rigorously patterned to prod Lancelot to ever greater achievements, an adult rite de passage that leads from the mundane through the transcendental, as Lancelot moves beyond the normative aspects of chivalric behavior to more ethically resonant postures as liberator and, ultimately, as healer. Thematically, the narrative falls into four parts of unequal length.The tale opens with a double kidnapping: Lancelot’s travelling companions, Ector and Lyonel, are captured by the paradigmatic antitype Sir Tarquyn, whilst more or less simultaneously Lancelot is abducted by Morgan le Fey. Imprisoned by Morgan and three other enchantresses, and threatened with permanent incarceration if he does not cede to Morgan’s outrageous demand that he forthwith choose one of them as ‘peramour’, Lancelot utters one of his best-known apothegms, ‘I had lever dye in this preson with worshyp than to have one of you to my peramour’ (184), and he proceeds to negotiate his way out of prison by promising an attendant damsel to fight on behalf of her father, King Bagdemagus, ‘on Tewsday next commynge.’ Lancelot fulfills his promise, and at the tournament single-handedly fells a total of thirty-three knights. While Lancelot’s victory here hints at physical prowess of near-mythic proportions, the nature of his successes is not extraordinary: he resists a not-very-enticing sexual proposition, keeps a promise to a maiden, and excels in feats of arms. The next sequence, however, proves somewhat more challenging, and the results are of greater consequence, as he defeats a succession of four adversaries (two human and an anonymous duo of giants) all of whom in one way or another programmatically violate the chivalric code and repudiate the social compact. Sir Tarquyn, from whom Lancelot rescues not only Ector and Lyonel, but the newly-captured Gaheris as well, has dedicated his 191



ELIZABETH S. SKLAR

very existence to obsessively destroying the Round Table fellowship, putatively in revenge for Lancelot’s slaying of Tarquyn’s brother. ‘For sir Launcelottis sake I have slayne an hondred good kynghtes,’ he boasts, ‘and as many I have maymed all uttirly . . . and many have dyed in preson’ (191). After smiting Tarquin’s ‘necke in sundir,’ Lancelot resumes his wandering, and encounters an anonymous ‘damesell’ who enlists Lancelot’s services in ridding the countryside of one Sir Perys de Foreste Savage, who ‘distressis all ladyes and jantylwomen, and at the leste he robbyth them other lyeth by hem’ (193). In short order, Lancelot fights, defeats, and executes the dastardly Sir Perys (194). His final achievement in this pass is to deliver ‘three score of ladyes and damesels’ from wretched servitude to ‘two grete gyauntis’ (195). All four of these adversaries, none of whom is deemed worthy of mercy, are oppressors. All are antitypes. All violate specific clauses in the Round Table code: Tarquyn blatantly flouts the first commandment ‘never to do outerage nothir morthir, and allwayes to fle treson, and to gyff mercy unto hym that askith mercy’; Sir Perys, who both robs and rapes women, and the giants who enslave them, are in clear violation of the second injunction, ‘allwayes to do ladyes, damesels, and jantilwomen and wydowes succour: strengthe hem in hir ryghtes, and never to enforce them’ (91). By defeating and slaying these antitypes, Lancelot, then, not only functions as liberator of the oppressed, but rids the social unit of unregenerate misfits whose transgressive behaviors seriously disrupt the machinery of the culture at large. It is at this stage that the narrative should achieve end-game, with the protagonist returning to his home square.3 But Malory’s object-lesson in chivalric virtue is not yet complete. The subsequent interludes see Lancelot affirming the more abstract aspects of the value system and the code that protects it. In the penultimate thematic module, Lancelot rescues Sir Kay from a triad of knights who have, for no discernible reason, decided to trouce their unfortunate victim. After easily defeating the recreants, Lancelot forces them to yield, not to himself, but to Sir Kay. Further, he stipulates that they publicly acknowledge Kay as their collective nemesis: ‘[O]n Whytsonday nexte comynge go unto the courte of kynge Arthure, and there shall ye yelde you unto quene Gwenyvere . . . and say that sir Kay sente you thydir to be her presoners’ (197–198). Riding off in Kay’s armor, Lancelot continues to rack up vicarious victories for his brother-in-arms (200, 201), sending the knights he thus collects to Arthur’s court, again enjoining them to credit their presence to Sir Kay. This surprising combination of generosity, modesty, and charity, so at odds with the ‘bobbaunce and pryde’ of which Lancelot is accused in the Grail narrative (678), introduces a quasi-religious thematic that prepares for his final chivalric adventure in Book III. The climactic episode of this tale is the Chapel Perelus adventure, in which Lancelot, again at the behest of a damsel, is required to enter an ensorceled

3

Benson also draws attention to the false cadences in this narrative (84–85).

192




sanctuary to obtain the objects – a sword and a piece of the ‘blody cloth’ from a knight’s corpse – necessary to heal the damsel’s brother, sir Melyot de Logyrs (202).This adventure is fraught with the supernatural; in its dénouement it forcasts the healing of Sir Urry, and in its accoutrements presages the type of adventure characteristic of The Tale of the Sankgreall.4 Thirty knights ominously ‘armed all in blak harneyse’ (203) threaten Lancelot in the deserted churchyard, then mysteriously vanish when he ignores them; as Lancelot retrieves the quest objects from the chapel, a disembodied voice intones ‘[L]ay that swerde frome the or thou shalt dye’ – another empty threat, issued, it seems, to test Lancelot’s dedication to his mission. Upon his departure from the chapel he encounters a false damsel, Hallewes the Sorseres, a sexually over-determined enchantress who first attempts to force him to relinquish the sword and then requires him to kiss her ‘but onys’ (204). Resisting both her threats and her sexual demands – the one of which would have deprived him forever of further sight of Guinevere, the other of which would have deprived him of his life – Lancelot heals the moribund Sir Melyot, and sends him to Arthur’s court as yet another recruit for the Round Table fellowship. Lancelot has passed the tests of courage, dedication, and chastity with flying colors. His spiritual potency is in full bloom: where in the opening episode with Morgan and her henchwomen Lancelot was able only to evade bad magic, here he decisively defeats it, for the sorceress Hallewes, who perversely hankered after Lancelot’s corpse, ‘toke such sorrow that she deyde within a fourtenyte’ (204). Above all, he has served as healer. This is the stuff of saints. It implies God’s grace and places Lancelot amongst the elect: the best, the very best, of all earthly knights.5

II The didactic thrust of this tale is more than obvious. Lancelot becomes a walking anthology of valorized behaviors and principles: he exemplifies all the chivalric virtues and more besides. He models prowess and strength, generosity and modesty, proper service to women – he aids the worthy and rejects the unworthy – reciprocity, fraternity, chastity, and above all truth and fidelity: fidelity to his principles, to the chivalric code, to his king, and to his queen – Morgan and the damsel of the Chapel Perelus, amongst others, rather petulantly articulate their awareness of his devotion to the queen (‘there may no woman have thy love but quene Gwenyver’ [183, 204]), and Lancelot requires all of the knights he has conquered to yield themselves to Guenivere,

4 5

The foreshadowing or predictive elements here and elsewhere in the tale are noted by Goyne (40), Brewer (17), E. Kennedy (176) and Nolan (178). Cherewatuk (67) explicitly addresses the hagiographic tenor of this episode, as does B. Kennedy implicitly in her identification of Lancelot at this stage of his career as a ‘chaste and pious knight’ (419).

193



ELIZABETH S. SKLAR

to become the queen’s knights.6 Lancelot not only embodies and enacts chivalric virtues, but bespeaks them as well. He scolds Sir Perys for his unseemly behavior – ‘A false knyght and traytoure unto knyghthode, who dud lerne the to distress ladyes, damesels and jantylwomen?’ [194] – and sternly chides Sir Tarquyn: ‘For, as hit is enfourmed me, thou doyste and haste done me grete despyte, and shame unto knyghtes of the Rounde Table’ (190). His famous (and poignantly ironic) encomium on chastity epitomizes Lancelot’s exemplary function in this tale: ‘Fair damesell,’ seyde sir Launcelot, ‘I may nat warne people to speke of me what hit pleasyth hem. But for to be a weddyd man I thynke hit nat, for than I must couche with hir and leve armys and turnamentis, batellys and adventures . . . [F]or kynghtes that bene adventures sholde nat be advoutrers nothir lecherous, for than they be nat happy nother fortunate unto the werrys . . . And so who that usyth peramours shall be unhappy, and all thynge unhappy that is aboute them.’ (194–95)7

In keeping with the protocols of romantic comedy, all this modelling, bespeaking, and virtuous activity results in the amelioration of Lancelot’s society. In his defeat of Sir Tarquyn, Sir Perys, and the giants he symbolically eliminates subversive anti-fellowship and anti-code forces. In his wholesale rejection of sexuality he decisively repudiates and temporarily redeems the primal design flaw in human nature: lust has already emerged in the narrative at large as a potent threat to the survival and perpetuation of the structure – witness the conceptions of Arthur and of Mordred, the humiliation of Pelleas with Gawain’s attendant sexual betrayal, and the demise of Merlin, all of which have taken place in the portions of the Morte that precede the Tale of Sir Launcelot. Finally, he literally reinforces the brotherhood by collecting and delivering to Arthur’s court future knights of the Round Table; at least eight warm bodies are added to the fellowship, conscripted into the ranks of the right-thinking through Lancelot’s recruitment campaign.The tale ends on a note of socio-cultural harmony worthy of any Shakespearian comedy, as Lancelot’s recruits come pouring in. Even Mador de la Porte and Mordred raise their voices in the chorus of praise for Lancelot’s superhuman achievements. And all was ‘lawghyng and smylyng amongst them . . .’ (208).

III Is all this too good to be true? Perhaps. For rudely interposed between the crypto-hagiographical climax of Lancelot’s tale and the inevitable high-comic integrative closure is another type of comedy altogether. Immedi-

6 7

Lancelot’s exemplarity is a point of consensus amongst most scholars who have written about this tale. See Brewer’s discussion of this speech, 17–21.

194




ately following Lancelot’s healing of Sir Melyot, two brief episodes, smacking more of the fabliau than of either chivalric romance or Christian comedia, suddenly erupt to shatter the reverential mood and derail the otherwise comfortably predictable progress of this narrative towards its harmonious resolution. In both of these little interludes Lancelot unwittingly plays the fool, all in the name of pursuing his chivalric forte: giving succor to distressed ladies and gentlewomen. The first finds Lancelot, clad only in his undergarments, literally up a tree, whither he has ascended (despite his protestations that he is ‘an evyll clymber’) to retrieve the falcon of a lady who claims that, should her short-tempered husband discover the bird entangled in the branches, he will certainly slay her (205). In actuality, this is an ambush designed by said husband, one Sir Phelot, perhaps the most loutish of the numerous antitypes in this tale, who suddenly appears brandishing ‘his naked swerde.’ Ignoring Lancelot’s repeated invocation of the rules of fair fighting, Sir Phelot stubbornly refuses to give Lancelot any weapon, enjoining him to ‘helpe thyself and thou can.’ Ultimately our hero is constrained to bludgeon his adversary into submission with a ‘bygge [tree] bowghe’ (206), after which, fearing reprisal from Sir Phelot’s retinue, he beats a hasty retreat, thanking God that ‘he had escaped that harde adventure.’ Close on the heels of this humiliation follows another, as Lancelot attempts to intervene in a violent marital spat. He espies ‘a knyght chasyng a lady with a naked swerde to have slayne hir’ (206–7), and at her behest interposes himself between the lady and her pursuer, who suspects his wife of infidelity with her ‘cousyn jarmayne.’ The knight in question, Sir Pedyvere, slyly agrees to be ruled by Lancelot, but shortly thereafter successfully subjects him to the oldest trick in the book: ‘Sir,’ he cries, ‘yondir come men of armys aftir us rydynge,’ and as Lancelot turns to look, his deceiver unceremoniously ‘swap[s] of the ladyes hede.’ Oddly, instead of dealing the coup-de-grace to this transgressor, as he has to all others in the tale, Lancelot merely instructs his adversary to adorn himself with the lady’s head and decapitated corpse and bear his grisly burden to Queen Guinevere (208). I shall ponder the implications of these unsettling episodes shortly. But first I want to note that the low-comic situational humor here is not entirely without precedent in the earlier portions of the tale. Lancelot’s encounter with Sir Belleus, with its homoerotic overtones, is a case in point: exhusted after a long ride in the wilderness with nary a lodging in sight, Lancelot comes across an unoccupied but well-appointed pavilion, and upon discovering a bed within, he ‘layde hym therein, and fell on slepe’ (185). Unfortunately, the bed had been prepared by the pavilion’s owner, Sir Belleus, for his leman; arriving in due course and noting that his bed has an occupant, Belleus makes the natural assumption that the occupant is his mistress, and so he ‘leyde hym downe by sir Launcelot and toke hym in his armys and began to kysse hym.’ Lancelot, needless to say, is more than a little taken aback to feel ‘a rough berde kyssyng him,’ giving Belleus a thorough drubbing before ascertaining the truth of the situation and graciously apologizing for the little misunder195



ELIZABETH S. SKLAR

standing.8 A similar moment of physical humor transpires in the episode of Lancelot’s protecting Sir Kay from his three attackers, when Lancelot rappels via a bedsheet from the upper-floor window of the inn where he lodges, dropping like an owl on his prey rather than riding to the rescue in a more seemly and dignified manner. Verbal humor is deployed in this episode as well, as the bemused landlord confusedly re-admits Lancelot to his premises muttering ‘I wente ye had bene in your bed’ (198). Nor is this the only instance of verbal humor in The Tale of Sir Launcelot. Indeed, Lancelot himself proves master of the one-liner on more than one occasion. For example, as he innocently rides across a random bridge he is challenged by a ‘foule carle’ who hits his unfortunate horse on the nose and demands to know ‘why he rode over that bridge withoute lycence.’ Lancelot replies laconically, ‘Why sholde I nat ryde this way? . . . I may not ryde besyde’ (195). His verbal interactions with some of his adversaries may also fall into this category. In reply to Tarquyn’s hyperbolic blustering, for example, Lancelot wryly observes ‘That is overmuche seyde . . . of the at thys tyme’ (190), and his aforementioned chiding of the misogynist Sir Perys – ‘who dud lerne the to distresse ladyes, damesels and jantyllwomen?’ – carries a similar tinge of ironic wit. His riposte, ‘Ye sey well,’ to the damsel at the Chapel Perelus (204), when she reveals necrophiliac fantasies entailing the performance of erotic acts upon Lancelot’s embalmed corpse, might be included in this roster as well.

IV It is difficult to know how to read these generic aberrations, particularly in the case of the two episodes that comprise the unnerving coda to this fundamentally didactic, often straitlaced narrative.9 While the comic moments in the portions of the tale that precede the Chapel Perelous adventure are sufficiently scattered and sufficiently brief to be subsumed in the general exuberance of this paeon to derring-do, the final pair of ‘adventures’ is distinctly and disturbingly at odds with the remainder of the tale, as much by virtue of positioning as of content and register; in effect, these episodes succeed in turning the typical romance pattern inside-out, as the protagonist devolves, as it were, from superior worth to embarrassing failure, making the colophon (‘Explicit a Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot Du Lake’) as discomfiting as the narrative content of the tale proper. Moreover, in addition to violating our ‘horizon of expectation,’ these episodes are internally self-disruptive: the fabliau-like situational comedy – tricksters, low-life antics, husbands and wives in 8 9

For a different reading of the Belleus episode, see Kelly (60). These episodes are sufficiently disruptive that many commentators on the tale choose to mention them only in passing or to ignore them altogether. Amongst those who do confront the troubled closure of this tale are E. Kennedy (129) and Riddy (48–49).

196




cahoots or at odds – grates disconcertingly against the all-too serious outcomes of those scenarios, for we are left not only with a tarnished hero, but with two corpses as well, not to mention a widow so bereaved that ‘she sowned as though she wolde dey’ (206). This astigmatic effect extends to the relationship between these episodes and the remainder of the tale: they are reciprocally subversive. The context of the high ideals and optimism limned by the majority of the narrative here foregrounds the crudeness of the low-comic episodes: they are not permitted to fully realize their comic potential. Conversely, the representation of Lancelot as a victim, subject to bouts of poor judgment and dishabille, sabotages the cumulative image of the ‘beste knyght of the worlde’ towards which the tale has been purportedly striving: indeed, it makes a mockery of the very notion of perfection. The attendant misanthropy unmasks the misplaced idealism of the chivalric code, exposing the depressing frailties of human nature – the indelible selfishness, venality, and lack of self-restraint that dooms this grand experiment in governance to inevitable failure. Above all, these episodes reveal Lancelot’s paradoxical character flaw: the terrible innocence at his core, his fatally naive trust in the essential goodness of others, or at least in their capacity for ethical comportment; the innocence that is to lead, in a grimmer future, to madness, after he has been twice-duped into Elaine of Corbyn’s bed, and thence, ultimately, into the queen’s chamber, to be treed, unarmed, by Aggrevayne and Mordred and thus play out his sad role in the demise of Arthur’s kingdom. All this I take to be Malory’s gloss on his matière, a commentary on the immediate narrative that looks both backward to the tale at hand and forward to a somber future as yet in only its germinal stage. The destabilization that results from the uneasy interplay of high seriousness and low comedy in this tale replicates the ambivalent valences of the narrative at large, the palpable tensions between the wish for individual and structural perfectability on the one hand, and the inescapable conclusion, on the other, that social order is but a temporary way-station on the road to chaos. To the extent that The Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake crucially forwards the positive thematics of the larger narrative, the joy and celebration in which it culminates are to be taken at face value. And yet, in the end, the ‘smylyng’ seems a little strained, and the ‘laughyng’ sounds, perhaps, a hollow note. WORKS CONSULTED Benson, Larry D, Malory’s Morte Darthur, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP 1976, ch. 4. Brewer, Derek, ‘The Presentation of the Character of Lancelot: Chretien to Malory,’ in Lancelot and Guinevere: A Casebook, ed. Lori J. Walters, New York: Garland 1996, pp. 3–27. Reprinted from Arthurian Literature III, ed. Richard Barber, Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble 1983, 26–52. 197



ELIZABETH S. SKLAR

Cherewatuk, Karen, ‘The Saint’s Life of Sir Launcelot: Hagiography and the Conclusion of Malory’s Morte Darthur,’ Arthuriana 5.1 (Spring 1995), 62–77. Goyne, Jo, ‘Parataxis and Causality in the Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake,’ QetF 2.4 (1992), 36–48. Kelly, Kathleen Coyne, ‘Malory’s Body Chivalric,’ Arthuriana 6.4 (Winter 1996), 52–71. Kennedy, Beverley, ‘Malory’s Lancelot: “Trewest Lover, of a Synful Man”,’ Viator 12 (1981), 409–96. Kennedy, Edward Donald, ‘Malory’s “Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake”, the Vulgate Lancelot, and the Post-Vulgate Roman du Graal,’ in Arthurian and Other Studies Presented to Shunichi Noguchi, ed. Takashi Suzuki and Tsuyoshi Mukai, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer 1993, pp. 107–29. Lumiansky, R. M, ‘The Tale of Lanceot: Prelude to Adultery,’ in Malory’s Originality, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins 1964, pp. 91–98. McCarthy, Terence, An Introduction to Malory, Cambridge: D. S. Brewer 1988. Nolan, Barbara, ‘The Tale of Sir Gareth and the Tale of Sir Lancelot,’ in A Companion to Malory, ed. Elizabeth Archibald and A. S. G. Edwards, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer 1996, pp. 153–181. Riddy, Felicity, Sir Thomas Malory, Leiden: E. J. Brill 1987. Vinaver, Eugene (ed.), The Works of Thomas Malory, London: OUP 1964.

198



THE EACHTRA AN AMADÁIN MHÓIR

XIV

THE EACHTRA AN AMADÁIN MHÓIR AS A RESPONSE TO THE PERCEVAL OF CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES Linda Gowans Probably the least studied of the group of texts ultimately indebted to Chrétien de Troyes’ Perceval is an Irish prose tale, Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir (The Story of the Great Fool). The Arthurian content of its opening section has undoubted links to the work of Chrétien, and in this article I hope to demonstrate that the overall relationship of the two stories is closer than may previously have been appreciated; also that the perceptive and witty response of the Irish work to its celebrated predecessor well repays careful attention. Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir survives in four dated and closely related manuscripts, all of them in Dublin: Trinity College, Dublin 1297 (formerly H.2.6), fols. 223r–241v (1716) National Library of Ireland G137, pp. 125–64 (1730) National Library of Ireland G145, pp. 108–76 (1766) (a copy of Trinity College 1297) Royal Irish Academy 24 P 16, pp. 49–97 (a nineteenth-century transcript of National Library of Ireland G137) There are also oral versions from Scotland and Ireland,1 fragmentary notes from Scotland among the papers of J. F. Campbell,2 plus a literary adaptation – what Alan Bruford has called ‘a sort of attempt at a Gaelic novel’ – with an expanded, three-volume English version.3 These, and Campbell’s papers, are

I would like to thank Professor William Gillies for helping to develop my interest in the Amadán Mór texts over a number of years, and for his encouragement to present my own ideas on the prose tale and its relationship to the Laoidh. 1 For references, see Alan Bruford, Gaelic Folktales and Mediaeval Romances: A Study of the Early Modern Irish ‘Romantic Tales’ and their Oral Derivatives, Béaloideas 34 (1966), and The Folklore of Ireland Society (Dublin, 1969), p. 251. The Scottish and Irish oral versions differ widely. 2 Discussion and references in Linda Gowans, ‘Arthurian Survivals in Scottish Gaelic’, The Arthurian Yearbook 2, ed. Keith Busby (New York and London, 1992), pp. 27–76 (pp. 37–38, 61–62). 3 See Bruford, Gaelic Folktales, pp. 149, 155. The National Library of Scotland references given by

199



LINDA GOWANS

in the National Library of Scotland. There is a great deal of comparative work to be done, but this article will concentrate on the Irish prose tale and its Arthurian pedigree. A composite edition based on the Trinity College and Royal Irish Academy manuscripts was published by T. Ó Rabhartaigh and Douglas Hyde in 1927.4 A translation into English formed part of Connor P. Hartnett’s doctoral dissertation,5 and I am grateful to Dr Hartnett for permission to quote from it here. How much older the story is than the surviving manuscripts has not been established: William Gillies tentatively suggests ‘that the text attained its present form in the later sixteenth or early seventeenth century’.6 The limited study to date has consisted largely of investigations of relationships between the prose tale and the verse Laoidh an Amadáin Mhóir (Lay of the Great Fool) – which tells in greatly expanded form the closing part of the prose account – and discussion of the variants of the tale which occur in oral tradition, as well as the plot summary necessary to the introductory discussion of a comparatively little-known tale.7 More than a decade ago, the late Gordon Mac Gill-Fhinnein pointed out that the entertainment value of the text has been overlooked;8 its comedy, farce and parody submerged in the complexities of comparative study and attempts to sift its Arthurian matter from the native Irish influences which pervade the nature of the storytelling itself. I hope to show that it is, in fact, appreciation of the comedy which makes possible a fresh interpretation of the text itself, its purpose and its Arthurian associations. The Irish story begins chronologically, rather than with the retrospective explanations which follow Chrétien’s opening scene.9 We are immediately

4

5

6 7

8

9

Bruford have been changed: the Gaelic manuscript is now ADV.MS.73.2.4, and the English version ADV.MS.73.2.5. ‘An t-Amadán Mór’, ed. T. Ó Rabhartaigh and Douglas Hyde, Lia Fáil 2 (1927), 191–228, with foreword (in Irish) by ‘An Craoibhín’ (Douglas Hyde). (Hereafter AM.) Although a composite edition, the manuscripts are sufficiently close for it to serve the purpose of this article. Connor P. Hartnett, ‘Irish Arthurian Literature’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, New York University, 1973) 2 vols. (a two-volume printout was produced by University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan). The translation of Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir is in vol. II, pp. 445–516. William Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition, Part II’ (see n. 7 below), 49. Hartnett, ‘Irish Arthurian Literature’, vol. I, pp. 108–57, is the most extensive survey of versions of the verse and prose texts, and of critical work up to 1973. Since then, see Glenys Goetinck, Peredur: A Study of Welsh Tradition in the Grail Legends (Cardiff, 1975), pp. 122–28, 254; William Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition, Part I: Folktales and Ballads’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 2 (1981), 47–72; ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition, Part II: Romances and Learned Lore’, Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies 3 (1982), 41–75, passim; Gowans, ‘Arthurian Survivals’, pp. 31–39, 60–62, and the article cited at n. 8 below. Gordon Mac Gill-Fhinnein (MacLennan), ‘Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Iris an dá chultúr 4 (1989), 75–81. Article in Irish with English summary. It is much to be regretted that Professor MacLennan was not able to carry out his proposed new edition of the text. Claude Luttrell notes that Chrétien’s ‘dramatic procedure was so innovatory that later accounts of the Perceval hero’s upbringing in the wilds relapsed into the direct and successive method of narration, telling first of the circumstances that had brought it about’: ‘The Upbringing of Perceval Heroes’, Arthurian Literature 16 (1998), 131–69 (p. 131).

200




given an account of the protagonist’s parentage, complete with a typically Gaelic display of virtuoso adjectival dexterity: Ridire neartmhar nós-oirdhearc cródha céillíghe cuimhnech menmach maisech mallrosgach díoghuin déidghel fosaidh foisdionach fír-ghlic badh dhearbhráthair do Rígh an Domhuin. (AM, 194) (The brother of the King of the World was a strong, illustrious, splendid, brave, wise, thoughtful, magnanimous, handsome, languid-eyed, forceful, brighttoothed, calm, serious, extremely clever knight.) (Hartnett, 445)

He is called ‘Ridire an Fhearainn Áluinn ó ttáid Innsi Bretan’ (AM, 194) (‘the Knight of the Beautiful Country in the north of the Island of Britain’ [Hartnett, 445]), and his wife is the daughter of the Earl of ‘Cornubas do Bhrethnachuibh’ (‘Cornubas of the Welsh’).10 He is also the brother of King Arthur (here given his Gaelic title ‘King of the World’, but named as Arthur once he begins to feature in the story).11 It is this relationship which leads to strife, for Arthur has one son and the Knight has three, and the Irish story leads quickly into the theme of royal status. The Knight’s three sons, wishing to make their father king for the sake of their own position, take service with Arthur, challenge him when they find him alone, and are killed by him: ‘mar badh chóir’ (AM, 195) (‘as was right’ [Hartnett, 447]), adds the narrator. Their father is captured by Arthur’s men, but the king spares him and sends him home. Hartnett (446), has an important note on the Irish cultural background which links the concern for the status and terminology of royalty to the late Elizabethan period: precisely that suggested by Gillies for the tale. From an Arthurian point of view, it can be recalled that in Chrétien’s work dissent follows the death of Arthur’s father, and the potential is created for a redactor to restructure events in terms of a disputed kingship: ‘Apovri et deshireté Et escillié furent a tort Li gentil home aprés la mort Utherpandragon qui rois fu Et peres le bon roi Artu.’ (442–46)12 (‘After the death of Utherpendragon, who was king and father of good King Arthur, noble men were impoverished, disinherited and wrongfully brought to destitution.’) (Owen, 380)13 10 Hartnett (p. 445) translates thus, noting that ‘Cornubas appears to refer to Cornwall. In Irish, Cornwall

is called An Corn or Corn-Bhreatain (“Cornwall of the Britons”)’. 11 Whereas other royal names use the Gaelic ‘Rígh’, when Arthur is named personally, the form ‘Cing

Artúr’ is most frequently given. On the naming of Arthur in Gaelic texts see Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition’, I, 49–51; II, 49–50. 12 All line references to Perceval are from Chrétien de Troyes: Le Roman de Perceval ou Le Conte du Graal, ed. Keith Busby (Tübingen, 1993). 13 Translations from Perceval are from Chrétien de Troyes: Arthurian Romances, trans. D. D. R. Owen, Everyman’s Library (London, 1987).

201



LINDA GOWANS

The Knight of the Beautiful Country is deeply troubled, for his wife is expecting another child, and he fears that a son will vow to avenge his brothers and will in turn be killed. He suggests to his people that his wife and another woman should be sent to his forest (a wonderful one, which will always provide food and drink). If the child should be a son: ‘Bheith dá oileamhain mar nach dtiocfadh ar an (t)talamh, mar nach bhfaicfeadh slóg nó sochuidhe é, agus mar nach bhféadfadh lúth nó lámhach nó clesa goile no gaisge d’imirt nó d’fhóghluim, nó go ndéntar amadán droich-cheillíghe díothchoisgthe dhe.’ (AM, 195–96) (‘He must be brought up as if he had never come into the world, where no hosts or multitudes should see him and where he might not be able to practice or learn the activity, dexterity, or feats of valor and bravery, so that he will be made a senseless and complete fool.’) (Hartnett, 448)

Thus the Fool receives his title, in a gently amusing explanation for the situation which is already in place at the opening of Chrétien’s romance. The people’s reaction, ‘Ní chúalamar ríamh comhairle badh fhearr ‘ná sin’ (EAM, 196) (‘Never have we heard a better decision than that’ [Hartnett, 448]), recalls the portentous, if already tongue-in-cheek consultations of earlier Irish literature, satirised in an Irish social context in the seventeenth-century Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis, where phrases such as ‘Everyone said that that was fitting’, and ‘That advice was greatly praised by Clan Thomas’ are used by a gathering of quite exceptionally uncouth rustics instead of by an assembly of heroes.14 A son is duly born, and after seven years his nurse expresses her sorrow at having to leave her own son behind. In a rather confused passage, the Big Fool apparently follows her when she goes to the castle to fetch him, and as soon as he meets his new companion is immediately locked in what is described as a strong embrace, but may well be more like mortal combat. It is no coincidence that the Fool has reached the age of seven years, for this is also the age at which CuChulainn is acknowledged as a force to be reckoned with.15 In the Bliocadran prologue to Chrétien’s poem, Perceval’s mother has been in the forest for fourteen years, in circumstances which recall the Fool’s father’s injunction to his people: [Q]uartorse ans a la dame est[é] En la forest et conversé C’om de mere né ne savoit Le leu ou ele conversoit.16 14 Pairlement Chloinne Tomáis, ed. and trans. N. J. A. Williams (Dublin, 1981), see pp. 68, 75. 15 CuChulainn proves himself by, among other feats, catching two wild stags. See Táin Bó Cúalnge from

the Book of Leinster, ed. and trans. Cecile O’Rahilly (Dublin, 1984), pp. 21–33 (text), 158–71 (trans.). 16 Bliocadran, ed. Lenora D. Wolfgang (Tübingen, 1976), vv. 731–34. (It might also be noted that the

tournament in which Perceval’s father Bliocadran is killed associates the men of Wales and Cornwall (vv. 119–23), recalling, though perhaps fortuitously, the title ‘Earl Cornubas of the Welsh’ given to the Fool’s maternal grandfather.)

202




(The lady had been living in the forest for fourteen years, so that no man born of woman knew where she was staying.)

Having now supplied the Fool with a foster-brother, the Irish story uses the newcomer to provide instruction in (and a narrative explanation for) three areas where Chrétien’s Perceval is already competent. Back in the forest, the Fool sees the nurse’s son with a handful of holly darts: ‘Créd do níthear díobh sin?’ ar an t-A.M. ‘Do níthear a tteilgen ré chéile,’ar mac na banaltrann. (AM, 196) (‘What are those used for?’ the Big Fool asked. ‘Men throw them at one another,’ the nurse’s son said.) (Hartnett, 450)

The ensuing tuition results in the Fool accidentally inflicting on his new foster-brother a thigh wound that keeps him in bed for two weeks and a month (the dart passes through the unfortunate youth’s thighs and out into the forest, understandably causing him to scream and yell). In Chrétien’s account it is not only the Fisher King but also Perceval’s father who had a thigh wound, and the latter is mentioned precisely in the early part of the story, when the as yet unnamed hero is hearing from his mother something of his own background: ‘Vostre peres, si nel savez, Fu parmi les jambes navrez Si que il mehaigna del cors.’

(435–37).

(‘Your father, though you don’t know this, was wounded through the thigh and physically maimed.’) (Owen, p. 380)

When the nurse’s son recovers, the two return to the forest and the Fool’s inquisitive nature again comes to the fore. The reason for the forest being a wonderful, food-providing one now becomes apparent: the Fool has not yet been required by the narrative to stock his mother’s larder with venison. This is a sign that a love of magic and marvel has been made to serve a practical narrative purpose, alerting the reader that there may be more to this text than has hitherto met the critical eye. Perceval is already familiar with deer for eating and horses for riding, but the Fool sees a herd of his father’s deer and has to ask what they are and what is done with them. The nurse’s son tells him, and the Fool proceeds to kill one with his bare hands (darts are, we have heard him told, for man-to-man fighting). Next, he sees his father’s herd of horses and observes that they are large deer. Being told that they are for riding, not for eating, he throws one to the ground in order to mount it, and rides off with a handful of ‘wands of office’: perhaps the ‘holly darts’ mentioned earlier,17 though it may be recalled that Chrétien had already provided Perceval with both gavelos (79) and une roorte (612), a riding-switch. 17 Hartnett, p. 452, has a linguistic discussion of the terms used.

203



LINDA GOWANS

Without either the Fool or the horse having received prior instruction, they ride straight to the Plain of Britain and to the royal court, here located at ‘dúnadh Chathrach an Chuill’ (EAM, 198) (‘The Fortress of the Court of the Hazel-Tree’ [Hartnett, 452]), a site otherwise unattested in Irish Arthurian literature.18 The Fool does not, apparently, meet Arthur on this first visit (though the king’s name is now quoted), but present are Sir Gawain, here given his Irish name Sir Bhalbhuadh Dé Cornubas,19 Arthur’s daughter, and Arthur’s fool, who wears deerskin clothing and is being ridiculed as the Fool arrives. It is he to whom the Fool makes the first approach. Chrétien’s Perceval effectively summarises the limits of his world when he names himself to the knights he meets in the forest as ‘Biax Filz’, ‘Biau Frere’ and ‘Biau Sire’ (347, 350, 354). The Fool in the Irish story similarly encapsulates his own background when he names himself to Arthur’s fool: ‘Misi A.M. na Foraoisi, mac mhná an Ridire, dalta na banaltrann, agus dearbhchomhalta mic na banaltrann.’ (AM, 198) (‘I am the Big Fool of the Forest, son of the knight’s wife, fosterson of the nurse, and true foster-brother to the nurse’s son.’) (Hartnett, 453)

He asks if Arthur’s fool is the best man there, and takes seriously the teasing reply by the court that he certainly is, asking: ‘Dá mbheith a leithéid súd do bheirt umamsa . . . an badh fearr mar amadán mé ioná é?’ (AM, 198) (‘If I wore clothing like that . . . would I be a better fool than he?’) (Hartnett, 453)

It is Gawain who assures him that he would, causing Arthur’s daughter to laugh and Gawain to administer a slap that reduces her to tears: Agus adubhairt gur ghell nách déanfadh gáire nó magadh acht fá’n duine badh feárr ar an láthair. ‘Agus anois do rinnis gáire fa’n duine is measa ar an láthair.’ (AM, 198) (And he said that she had promised that she would only laugh at or ridicule the best person there. ‘And you have now laughed at the worst person here.’) (Hartnett, 453)

On being assured by Gawain that he is indeed the worst person present, the Fool seizes him and strikes him against a rock. (He does not avenge Arthur’s 18 However, Arthur and his knights have a very eventful visit to the Plain of the Purple Hazels in the Irish

story Céilidhe Iosgaide Léithe. The Irish text is in Dhá Sgéal Artúraíochta, mar atá Eachtra Mhelóra agus Orlando agus Céilidhe Iosgaide Léithe, ed. Máire Mhac an tSaoi (Dublin, 1946, reprinted 1984); English translation (as ‘The Visit of Gray-Ham’), in Hartnett, vol. II, pp. 337–80. Bruford (pp. 157, 163) refers to a lost tale, Tóraidheacht an Chuill Chorcaire (‘The Search for the Purple Hazel’). 19 On Gawain’s Gaelic name, see ‘Sir Uallabh O Còrn: A Hebridean Tale of Sir Gawain’, ed. and trans. Linda Gowans, Scottish Gaelic Studies 18 (1998), 23–55 (pp. 39, 42 and refs. there cited).

204




daughter so much as the insult to himself, and this is not the only occasion in the story when his apparent self-centredness achieves results on behalf of others.) Trying unsuccessfully to sit his adversary up, the Fool declares: ‘Is dóigh liom go mbíaidh tú coicídhes ar mhí ad luíghe mar do bhí mac an banaltrann.’ (AM, 198) (‘I suppose you will be two weeks and a month in bed just as the nurse’s son was.’) (Hartnett, 454)20

He jumps onto his father’s horse and rides back to tell his story to his mother and the nurse, saying that he has met twenty fools, but that the best of all had superior clothing. He kills fifty deer and asks the nurse to make him such clothes. Perceval’s mother’s advice when her son leaves home is absent from the Irish, and logically so, for the manner of the Fool’s upbringing has been solemnly agreed by his father and the people. He has been impressed by the clothing of a fool, showing that his father’s plan has worked – and if the Irish story leaves us wondering what the Fool wore before he was given such clothing, we are reminded that this situation dates back to Chrétien. The Fool’s first visit to Arthur’s court has sufficed not only to respond to Perceval’s mother having dressed her son in deerskins (without involving the satire on the Welsh present in the French text), but also to dispose in one concise episode of the laughing maiden, her attacker, and the physical revenge taken. Chrétien’s scene involved the reactions of Arthur and Kay to the arrival of Perceval, with no mention of Gawain until a later stage of the story, and the Irish tale inadvertently undermines the latter’s reputation for courtesy while restoring him to what was evidently considered his rightful prominence at court. The Fool’s second encounter with the Arthurian world extracts a separate episode from Chrétien’s account of Perceval’s one visit to court, but here the result is more than narrative simplification. As the Fool once again approaches Arthur’s castle he finds at least two thousand knights dead on the green, and a splendidly appointed tent. Chrétien’s wounded knights had been involved in Arthur’s war with Rion, which is now conflated with the challenge of the Chevalier Vermeil to bring the scene of devastation home to Chrétien’s pensive king. The Fool seizes the doorposts of the tent and looks inside, to find not a Tent Maiden but a fully armed knight, the Irish counter-

20 Bruford (Gaelic Folktales, p. 155 n. 5), is mistaken in thinking there is a ‘grim joke’ here and that

Gawain has been killed, for he appears later in the story. However, the next time the Fool makes the statement it does indeed have this function. The oral Scottish tale brutalises the narrative, having the Fool kill both his foster-brother and the son of the unnamed king, who in this version has killed the Fool’s father. See John Francis Campbell, ed. and trans., Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol. III (Edinburgh, 1862; new edition Paisley and London, 1892, reprinted Hounslow, 1984), for ‘The Story of the Lay of the Great Fool’ from Angus MacDonald of South Uist (Gaelic text pp. 192–93, translation and discussion pp. 160–67).

205



LINDA GOWANS

part of Perceval’s famous victim. The Fool speaks first, his words setting the tone for a theme which will run through much of the story: ‘Is caomh-thaithnemhac an t-ádhbhar amadáin thú,’ ar sé. ‘Ní hamadán misi,’ ar an ridire. ‘Créad óile tú no cia thú féin?’ ar an t-A.M. (AM, 199) (‘You are splendid material for a fool.’ ‘I am not a fool,’ the knight said. ‘What are you then or who are you?’ the Big Fool asked.) (Hartnett, 456)

The knight identifies himself: here he becomes Ridire Corcra, the Purple Knight,21 son of the King of Norway and (thus far) invincible in combat. The slaughter he has perpetrated he explains by telling the story of how Arthur has borrowed his cup of many virtues, acquired from the King of India, and has refused to hand it back at the end of the agreed year. However doubtful the light in which Arthur is now shown, the cup episode is thus remotivated for an audience or readership more used to tales of Norway and India than to the vicissitudes of Arthur’s queen and any symbolism that may or may not have been encoded in Chrétien’s account. As the Fool approaches the castle, Gawain (having personal experience of his prowess) wishes to enlist his help and warns Arthur not to speak to him. (It is Kay, not Arthur, who has been the cause of trouble in Chrétien’s work, but the reduction in characters results in it being Arthur with whom Gawain is taking no chances.) The Fool is even less overawed by Arthur’s presence than is Chrétien’s sceptical hero, but he does at least have the sense to pass on the Purple Knight’s message, for his first words are to demand the return of the latter’s cup. Arthur denies possession of it, and apparently thinking on his feet gives his own explanation of the havoc wreaked by the Purple Knight below his castle walls: ‘Misi adubhairt gur bh’fheárr an t-amadán thusa ná eision,’ ar Cing Artúr, ‘agus dob fheárr liom go mbíadh a leithéid súd do bheirt agad-sa.’ ‘Dá mbíaidh sin agam-sa,’ ar an t-A.M., ‘an badh fearr mar amadán mé ioná é?’ ‘Badh fearr thusa go mór,’ ar an Rígh. ‘Maiseadh,’ ar an t-A.M., ‘caithfidh sé an chulaith atá uime féin do thabhairt dam ar áis nó ar éigin.’ (AM, 200) (‘I said that you are a better fool than he,’ King Arthur replied, ‘and that I should prefer that you should have such clothing.’ ‘If I had it,’ the Big Fool said, ‘would I be a better fool than he?’ ‘You would be much better,’ the King answered. ‘If so,’ the Big Fool said, ‘whether he like it or not, he will have to give me the clothing he has on himself.’) (Hartnett, 458) 21 Chrétien’s knight is Vermeil, not Rouge, and the Irish author has used the word Corcra, which today has

the primary meaning of purple, but in older texts can cover a wider range of shades. See, for example, Eachtra Uilliam: An Irish Version of William of Palerne, ed. and trans. Cecile O’Rahilly (Dublin, 1984), where corcra is used for cloth and flowers (p. 49), fruits (p. 55) and blushing (p. 112), and is translated as purple (p. 167), crimson (p. 171) and scarlet (p. 211). We may, therefore, have nothing more exotic than yet another Red Knight, or perhaps most accurately a Crimson one – but the Purple Knight (with his Purple Colt) is so firmly entrenched in critical work on the Amadán Mór texts that it would be a pity to displace him.

206




Arthur, of course, has a hidden agenda: he has instilled in the Fool a desire for the Purple Knight’s clothing, while at the same time arranging for his enemy to be confronted by someone who has already left his mark on Gawain. Effectively, the same result has been achieved as that managed in a different way by Chrétien’s Kay, and the Arthur-Kay confrontation has been dropped in favour of an image of Arthur which tempers his martial vulnerability with a talent for witty verbal response in a crisis. The Fool returns to the Purple Knight, and states his refusal to return a cup which had not been taken by him in the first place: another example of the way in which the character of the Fool is made to fit the demands of the story. The first physical move in the confrontation is not (as in Chrétien) made by the hero’s adversary: instead the Fool, his blunt request for the knight’s clothing and his Purple Colt refused quite politely, makes a lunge for the horse. It is the Purple Knight who strikes the Fool with his spear, and the Fool overcomes him without weapons, wrestling him to the ground and suffocating him. On trying unsuccessfully to sit him up, as earlier Sir Gawain, the Fool repeats the assertion that he will be in his sick bed for two weeks and a month like the nurse’s son – but this time the knight is dead.22 As the Fool brings back his spoils, Arthur is initially incredulous: ‘Ag súd an t-oineach is fearr dá ndeárnadh san domhan ríamh . . . óir do thíodhlaic a ech agus a earradh agus a éide don A.M.’ (AM, 201) (‘That is the greatest generosity the world has ever seen . . . for he gave his steed, his equipment, and his clothing to the Big Fool.’) (Hartnett, 459)

and we are reminded of his words to Yvonet after Perceval’s success: ‘Et ma colpe, comment ot il? Aime le tant et prise cil Qu’il li ait de son gre rendue?’

(1225–27)

(‘And how did he get my cup? Does that man love and respect him so much that he gave it up to him of his own free will?’) (Owen, 390)

‘Ní tré oineach fúaras íad uaidh’ (AM, 201) (‘It is not through generosity that I got them from him’ [Hartnett, 459]), is the Fool’s blunt reply. Arthur realises what must have happened, and makes enquiries appropriate to an Irish public, not by means of Yvonet but through ‘aos ciuil agus eladhna’ (‘musicians and learned men’), who report to him the death of the Purple Knight, who is given a tombstone with an ogham inscription ‘mar badh ghnáthach san aimsir sin’ (‘as was the custom in those days’). The Fool addresses a by now particularly wide awake King Arthur: As annsin do fhiafruigh an t-A.M. do’n Rígh an raibh ní bhus mó d’ádhbharaibh amadán aige. ‘Atá,’ ar an Rígh, ‘óir is beg a bhfuil annso a bhfarradh an 22 See note 20 above. Having been used three times, the theme is duly dropped from the story.

207



LINDA GOWANS

domhain.’ ‘An bhfuil amadán is fearr ná misi ann?’ ar an t-A.M. ‘Ní bhfuil,’ ar Artúr, ‘óir ní bhfuil leithéid do bheirte ag amadán san domhan acht thú féin.’ ‘Maiseadh,’ ar an t-A.M., ‘bí-si agus á bhfuil annso bhur n-amadáin agam-sa.’ ‘Bíamaoid go deimhin,’ ar Artúr. ‘Maiseadh, taisgidh si an Searrrach Corcra go ndechuinnse fán domhan do dhénamh amadán dá bhfuil ann.’ Do ghluais roimhe annsin do dhénamh amadán ar fédh an domhain d’á bhfuair ann. (AM, 201) (And then the Big Fool asked the King if he had others who were material for fools. ‘Yes,’ the King replied, ‘but there are few here as compared to the world at large.’ ‘Is there a better fool than myself?’ the Big Fool asked. ‘No,’ Arthur answered, ‘for no fool in the world save yourself has such accoutrements.’ ‘If so,’ the Big Fool said, ‘I’ll have you and those here as my fools.’ ‘Indeed, we will be,’ Arthur said. ‘Then keep the purple colt while I go throughout the world making fools of those in it.’ He set out then making fools of all he met throughout the world.) (Hartnett, 460)

Arthur, like Kay before him, has managed to remove the Fool from court, in this case an alliance with one so naive being likely to present its own problems. Though the Irish tale lacks the onion-skinned irony of Chrétien’s work; the many-layered subtleties of the discourse of Arthur and Kay and its relationship to Perceval’s thoughts and actions,23 Arthur’s wit has an entertainment value of its own, and can be widely appreciated: the king is still vulnerable, but we do not find him visually moping. Chrétien’s Arthur had rebuked Kay, but had made no attempt to prevent Perceval’s departure and provide the improved tuition of which he had just spoken: ‘Qui assené et adrecié Le vallet as armes eüst Tant c’un poi aidier s’en seüst Et de l’escu et de la lance, Bons chevaliers fust sanz doutance; Mais il ne set ne peu ne bien D’armes ne de nule autre rien, Que neïs traire ne saroit L’espee se besoing avoit.’ (1284–92) (‘If anyone had instructed and trained the young man in the use of arms so that he had some idea how to handle a shield and lance, he would certainly have made a good knight. But he doesn’t know the slightest thing about arms or anything else, so that he couldn’t even draw his sword if he needed to.’) (Owen, 391)

Arthur’s attitude is changing, but his assumption of Kay’s mantle is not yet complete. Meanwhile, the Fool, like his French counterpart, has now taken on the visual appearance of a knight. Throughout the story no actual ceremony is 23 On Chrétien’s complex use of the figure of Kay in the court scene in Perceval, see Linda Gowans, Cei

and the Arthurian Legend, Arthurian Studies 18 (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 80–82.

208




apparently considered necessary, but it seems likely that someone will have to disabuse him of the notion that being a successful knight is equivalent to being a fool – though this, too, will not happen immediately. The Fool’s next encounter is with the Ridire Dearg – an unambiguously Red Knight this time – son of the King of Jerusalem. We are told that he was coming from Arthur’s fortress, Óir as ag Cing Artúr do níthí ridireadha do oirneadh san am sin, agus gibé ainm do bhíodh ar ridire dhíobh ní úaidh sin do sloinntidhe é, acht as dath a arm agus a eich. (AM, 201–02) (For at that time it was King Arthur who dubbed knights. And no matter what the surname of one of those knights might be, he was not called by it but named for the color of his equipment and his horse.) (Hartnett, 461)

At this stage in the French text Perceval has himself acquired the arms of the Chevalier vermeil (and his title, at, for example, v. 2596), and will soon win knighthood, not at the hands of Arthur as he had anticipated, but from the shortly-to-be-encountered Gormemant. The Irish account has differentiated between the Purple and the Red Knight and created an extra character, who is now greeted as further material for a fool. On being verbally rebuffed, the Fool again attacks the horse first, throwing it down and also its rider, who, like Arthur, finds it prudent to humour the powerful simpleton: ‘Léig amach mé agus biaidh mé am’ amadán agad agus do ghnáith ar do chómhairle.’ (AM, 202) (‘Release me and I shall be your fool and always subject to your direction.’) (Hartnett, 461)

The narrator comments, ‘Ró léig amach é gur éirigh go hurmeisneach’ (AM, 202) (‘He released him and he became very courageous’ [Hartnett, 461]): in fact this Red Knight, who has only newly received knighthood from Arthur, is suggestive of Perceval as he might have been had he succeeded in his original mission to Arthur’s court. The two companions soon acquire a third as they meet the Speckled Knight, son of the King of Sicily, who is greeted in the by now familiar manner: ‘As maith an t-ádhbhar amadáin an Ridire Breac’ (AM, 202) (‘The Speckled Knight is good material for a fool’ [Hartnett, 462]). The knight’s protest is met by the rapid death of his horse by a blow from the Fool’s fist, upon which he, too, agrees to add to his conqueror’s following of fools. However, he is to receive his reward: Is amhlaidh do bhí an Ridire Brec agus grádh dílios do-fhaisnéisi aige ar inghín Rígh Coirbhretan,24 agus iseadh ró ráidh ris an A.M. go raib an bhen sin a ngar dóibh, agus go ndubhairt sí nách bíadh sí na hamadán ‘agadsa ná ag duine eile.’ 24 Not the ‘Cornubas’ of the Fool’s mother’s and Gawain’s personal titles, perhaps confirming that the

latter form has been adopted into Irish literature from an Arthurian source (see n. 10 above).

209



LINDA GOWANS

‘Ní heól damhsa amadán mná do dhéanamh,’ ar an t-A.M., ‘agus caithfidh sí beith na h-amadán agad-sa.’ (AM, 202–03) (And it so happened that the Speckled Knight was indescribably and passionately in love with the daughter of the King of Cornwall. And he told the Big Fool that the woman was not far away from them, and he said she would not be his fool or anyone else’s. ‘I do not know how to make a fool of a woman,’ the Big Fool said, ‘but she will have to be your fool.’) (Hartnett, 462–63)

The desired woman will only have a man who will leap the high gate of her summer room, a feat to which the Speckled Knight has more than once proved unequal though the Fool – being a Gaelic hero and therefore no stranger to the mighty leap, though not always with the aim of reaching a lady’s private apartment – manages it at the first attempt, his two companions tucked under his arms. He then unceremoniously presents the woman to her would-be lover, who in due course responds to his enquiry in the spirit of the occasion: ‘An ullamh í sin fós?’ ar an t-A. M. ‘Ní headh,’ ar an Ridire Breac, ‘óir is faide bhíos aon amadán amháin mná dá deanamh na céad amadán fir.’ ‘Maiseadh,’ ar an t-A.M., ‘fan-sa ann so nó go madh h-ullamh í súd agus len misi íarsin go dían.’ (AM, 203) (‘Is she ready yet?’ ‘No,’ the Speckled Knight replied, ‘for it takes longer to make a fool of one woman than a hundred men.’ ‘If that is so,’ the Big Fool said, ‘stay with her until she is finished and follow me immediately after that.’) (Hartnett, 463–64)

The Speckled Knight is apparently happy (and makes no further appearance in the story). As for the Fool, he is, as yet, as innocent as Perceval in bed at Blancheflor’s castle. The Fool and the Red Knight continue their travels: their parting is not recounted, but the Red Knight is heard of no more. The Fool comes to a splendid castle beside a stream, with opposing sides encamped: King Arthur; and the Black Knight, son of the King of Gascony. The present dispute centres on the outward trappings of royalty: the Black Knight will not submit to Arthur, and wishes the size and armour of his retinue to reflect his own elevated status.25 Arthur employs a variation on a successful formula, this time providing judicious reassurance to the Fool of his continuing support which has the effect of again enlisting the youth’s assistance: Agus aseadh adubhairt Artúr go raibh sé féin ar siubhal ar feadh am domhuin ag déanamh amadán dó-san, agus go ndubhairt an Ridire Dubh, mac Rígh na Gascuinne, ‘atá annsúd thall’ nach bíadh sé na amadán ‘agad-sa ná ag duine eile go bráith.’ ‘An annsúd anonn do rachad-sa chuige,’? ar an t-A. M. ‘Aseadh,’ ar an Rígh, ‘agus cengail é.’ ‘Ní heól damh-sa duine do chengal,’ ar an t-A. M. (AM, 204) 25 An obsession with the outward signs of status is a recurring theme of the three-volume English version

of the ‘Gaelic novel’ (see n. 3 above).

210




(And Arthur said that he was going throughout the world making fools for him and that the Black Knight, the son of the King of Gascony, ‘who is over there, said he would never be your fool nor anyone else’s.’ ‘Should I then go over there to him?’ the Big Fool asked. ‘Yes,’ the King replied, ‘and bind him.’ ‘I do not know how to bind a person,’ the Big Fool said.) (Hartnett, 465)

Arthur then carries out instruction in the essential art of binding an enemy: Gaelic tales supply the impression that a hero must regularly have travelled with a prodigious amount of rope; in the present context, a defeated enemy is now not necessarily trusted to proceed quietly and honourably unsupervised to court.26 This basic tuition represents the limit of the martial instruction supplied by Arthur: the Fool has not yet met his mentor. As the Fool confronts the Black Knight he replies to a demand for his name by giving the same one he has already told to Arthur’s fool. Having made a fool of the Black Knight, he binds and chains him and slaughters his followers; though not, on this occasion, any horses: the author has an eye for a triadic structure and the Fool has already attacked the horses of the Purple, Red and Speckled Knights with ascending degrees of violence. Again overcoming his enemies by the strength of his hands, the Fool takes the Black Knight to Arthur – only to find that the king and his followers have themselves been bound and their horses taken away, including the Purple Colt which the Fool had earlier won. Arthur explains that all this has been achieved by a single magnificent knight, who came from the mouth of a cave on the mountainside. The Fool has only one question, on a matter that not only pertains to his own honour rather than to Arthur’s parlous situation (a reminder of his earlier attacks on Gawain and on the Purple Knight), but also explains from a narrative point of view why the Colt had earlier been left with Arthur: ‘An raibh fhios aige gurabh liomsa an Searrach Corcra ó do rug leis é?’ ‘Do bhí go deimhin,’ ar Artúr. (AM, 205) (‘And did he know that the purple colt was mine when he took it with him?’ ‘Indeed he did,’ Arthur answered.) (Hartnett, 467)

The Fool is determined that the Colt must be returned, but equally sure that he will not be the one to untie Arthur, as he was not the one who bound him; nor will he free the Black Knight, apparently considering that both sides are safest out of action until his return. We have now seen the king in three sets of desperate circumstances from which he has to be rescued by the Fool: menaced by the Purple Knight, the Black Knight, and now reduced to an ignominy which recalls the binding of Arthur and his men in Eachtra an Mhadra Mhaoil (‘The Story of the Crop-Eared Dog’),27 an Irish Arthurian story which 26 See Bruford, Gaelic Folktales, pp. 27–29, on the material culture of Irish texts which draw on chivalric

romance. 27 Eachtra an Mhadra Mhaoil/Eachtra Mhacaoimh-an-Iolair (The Story of the Crop-Eared Dog/The

Story of Eagle-Boy): Two Irish Arthurian Romances, ed. and trans. R. A. Stewart Macalister, Irish

211



LINDA GOWANS

goes back at least to the early sixteenth century and which also contains the concept that only the one who carries out the binding shall effect the release. Interestingly, it is found in the two National Library of Ireland manuscripts which contain the Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir. Entering the cave, the Fool finds a beautiful and luxuriant countryside, and soon encounters a young knight on a hill with Arthur’s horses and the Purple Colt. On learning of the Fool’s ownership of the latter, the knight promptly offers him all the horses back, but refuses to accompany the Fool to release Arthur as that would be geis for him. However, the Fool has no more respect for this long-established Irish institution than he has for kingship, and fights the youth until he obtains agreement to do whatever he says. In a changing environment, the Rash Boon has still not entirely exhausted its usefulness. The Fool and his new adversary-turned-companion sit on the hillside and talk: and it is now that he will meet his equivalent of Perceval’s Gornemant de Gohort, as the Irish text picks up Perceval’s earlier encounter with knighthood and weaponry and merges it with his later instruction. On being given the usual form of the Fool’s name, the knight both queries and explains: ‘Is mór an sgél do leithéid bheith ’na amadán, óir ní duine amaidech thú, agus dúil aithis bhíos ag cách is na hamadánaibh, agus ní mar sin duitsi acht cathmhíleadh cómhraig cómhláidir thú, darab cóir an uile mhaith do dhénamh.’ (AM, 206) (‘It is an extraordinary thing that someone like you is a fool, for you are not a foolish person and fools and all others have a strong desire for fun. But it is not so with you. But rather you are a very strong soldier in battle for whom it is fitting to do all good things.’) (Hartnett, 469)

The Fool starts to ask questions, first enquiring if it is a good thing to call everyone a knight. ‘Ní headh,’ ar an ridire, ‘acht duine do réir a uaisle agus a atharrdhachta.’ (AM, 206) (‘No,’ the knight said, ‘but only a man according to his nobility and his ancestry.’) (Hartnett, 469)

The knight answers other enquiries about kings and his own royal ancestry. Having thus received some initial information, the Fool asks his companion’s name. Perceval’s request to Gornemant is in keeping with the naive character Chrétien is establishing:

Texts Society 10 (London, 1908, reprinted London, 1998 with new introduction by Joseph Falaky Nagy) (note: the translator’s ‘Sir Galahad’ should be read as ‘Sir Gawain’). See also Bernadette Smelik, ‘Eachtra an Mhadra Mhaoil: Ein richtiger Artusroman?’ in Festschrift für Gearóid Mac Eoin – Übersetzung, Adaptation und Akkulturation im Insularen Mittelalter, ed. Hildegard L. C. Tristram and Erich Poppe (Münster, 1999), pp. 145–59.

212




‘Sire, ma mere m’ensaigna Qu’avec home n’alaisse ja, Ne compaignie a lui n’eüsse Gramment, que son non ne seüsse. Et s’ele m’ensaigna savoir, Je weil le vostre non savoir.’ (1541–46) (‘Sir, my mother told me that I should never be with a man or keep his company for long without getting to know his name. And if what she taught me was good sense, I’d like to know your name.’) (Owen, 395)

The Fool’s simpler enquiry, ‘Cía hé hathair nó cá h-ainm thú féin?’ (AM, 206) (‘Who is your father and what is your name?’ [Hartnett, 469]), adapts the episode to the cultural concerns of the Irish text. The knight names himself as: ‘Gaoi Gormshúileach mac Doilbh .i. Rígh na bhfear bhFionn, agus isé is cómhachtuidhe agus is mó conách san domhan.’ (AM, 206) (‘Blue-eyed Gaoi, son of Dolbh, the King of the Fair-haired Men, who is the most powerful and prosperous in the world.’) (Hartnett, 469)

His father’s castle has 150 doors, with 150 chariots to go out through each.28 A giant pirate, possessed of a terrifying battle-club, has attacked his land: ‘Agus atá trian na tíre-si na fásach uaidh, agus is éigion duine d’fhághail do chómhrag leis gach laoi.’ (AM, 206) (‘And he has turned a third of the country into a wasteland, and everyday a man must be found to fight him.’) (Hartnett, 470)

On this day the turn has fallen to Gaoi, who feels he could have succeeded had he not been weakened from his combat with the Fool. It is not now Blancheflor who faces a long-drawn-out challenge, once more adapted to a changed cultural setting, but the Gornemant-figure, as the situation is used to restructure an important stage of the protagonist’s development. The Fool has until now fought with his hands, and we are reminded that Perceval, too, has told Gornemant that should his lance break he would have to use his fists. The way is opened for the Fool to receive further instruction when he asks Gaoi how, were his own strength not now undermined, his opponent would fall. He is told: ‘Leis an gcloídheamh-sa agus ré neart mo láimhe agus re méad mo bhuille.’ (AM, 206) (‘With this sword and with the strength of my arm and the extent of my fury.’) (Hartnett, 470)

28 There are 150 seats at Arthur’s Gaelic court in a seventeenth-century Scottish poem, as well as at the

Round Table (see Gowans, ‘Arthurian Survivals’, pp. 28–30, 60 and refs. there cited).

213



LINDA GOWANS

As a result, the Fool wants to know what is done with a sword, and Gaoi shows him, cutting down a large tree with one stroke, the Fool then felling seven to his one. The tree itself has an instructional purpose, for Gaoi specifically points out that he is showing the Fool how to kill a human opponent. (Somewhat tardily, Gornemant’s instruction to Perceval on swordmanship is followed the next day by an injunction to mercy: the omission of this detail in the Fool’s tuition should not be misconstrued, as he has already begun to spare opponents as soon as they submit.) Grateful, and anxious to assist, the Fool has a precociously Pythonesque offer to make: ‘Do bhéar-sa luach do shaothair duit-si, agus do theagaisg . . . ar son an mhéid dod’ neart agus dod’ chalmacht do bhainios díot, óir bainfiod a dhá láimh do’n Fhear Mhór,’ ar sé. ‘Is maith an luach sin,’ arsa Gaoi Gormshuileach, ‘óir do bhéinn-si ionchomhrac ré gach neach d’fhearaibh dhomhuin dá mbiadh a n-éaghmais a dhá lámh.’ (AM, 207) (‘I shall give a reward for your work and your teaching . . . because of the extent of your strength and your courage, and in requital for whatever strength and courage I took from you. For I will cut off the Big Man’s two arms,’ he said. ‘That is a good compensation,’ Blue-eyed Gaoi said, ‘for I would be able to combat all the men of the world if they were lacking their two arms.’) (Hartnett, 471)

The subsequent confrontation with the giant is presented in popular terms: the Fool jumps aside when he sees the giant’s club being swung towards him, with the result that the blow goes deep into the earth. Using his new-found skill in swordsmanship, before the giant can strike again he cuts off his arms and the Big Man goes meekly with him to Gaoi to be beheaded. Following this, Gaoi and the Fool, taking the horses and the Purple Colt with them, return to Arthur, whose tone indicates that irony has now given way to genuine respect: ‘Dar mo bhréithir,’ ar an Rígh, ‘ní bhfuil fear a ghníomhara nó a ghaisge ar feadh an domhuin acht é féin amháin.’ (AM, 207) (‘Upon my word,’ the King said, ‘there is not a man capable of his deeds or his bravery throughout the world, but he himself only.’) (Hartnett, 472)

Arthur and his people, and the Black Knight, are duly released. This will be the Fool’s last meeting with Arthur and his court – but there are no blood-drops on the snow, and there is no discomfiture of Kay coupled with elevation of the courteous Gawain. Kay’s character has to some extent been subsumed into that of Arthur, whereas his name, backed by Chrétien’s description at vv. 2793–99 of the fair-haired seneschal, may have influenced that of Gornemant’s replacement. Though the Fool has already taken his physical revenge, someone will still be in for an unpleasant shock. In Chrétien’s reunion episode Arthur’s sene214




schal gives the king a piece of his mind; now, as the newly freed company sits down with its rescuers, it is the Fool who confronts him with the wisdom newly acquired from Gaoi: ‘Créd fá a dtugais ríoghacht mhagaidh nó fhochaidmhe dhamh-sa a Artúir?’ (AM, 208) (‘Why, Arthur, did you give me a guise of ridicule and mockery?’) (Hartnett, 473)

Arthur is seized with terror, and promptly presents the Fool with his entire kingdom. Gaoi advises his erstwhile pupil to accept the offer, but the Fool is now learning quicker than anyone: ‘Maiseadh,’ ar an t-A. M., ‘giodh maith libh-si sin, ní maith liom-sa é, óir ní thréigfinn m’amadánacht féin ar mhaitheas an domhuin go hiomlán, óir is lé do fuaras gach ní d’á bhfuaires ríamh, agus is lé do ghabhas gach neart dár ghabhas.’ (AM, 208) (‘Well,’ the Big Fool said, ‘although you think it good, I do not consider it good, for I will not abandon my foolship for all the riches of the world, for it is through it that I got everything that I ever got, and through it I conquered whatever I conquered.’) (Hartnett, 473)

The Fool and his two former opponents Gaoi and the Black Knight part company with Arthur and his people, and return to Gaoi’s beautiful land inside the mountain, now delivered from the giant’s devastation and from the imposition of a daily fight: an evil custom has been broken, and an incipient Waste Land restored. The first castle they see is splendid enough for the Fool to think it the royal residence, but it is, in fact, that of the country’s smith, who has a daughter Greis who is not only queenly but clever and learned. She and the Fool are seated side by side in silence, but events work out very differently from the arrangements made by Chrétien for Perceval and Blancheflor. Gaoi is the first to speak: ‘An dtaitníghenn an bhean sin let, a A. Mh.?’ ar sé. ‘Taithnighenn,’ ar an t-A. M. ‘Maiseadh do b’áill lé bheith ad’ fharradh-sa anocht.’ ‘Is maith liom-sa sin, dá raibh tusa agus an Ridire Dub am fharradh.’ ‘Ní háill léi-si sin,’ ar G. G., ‘act í féin is tusa.’ ‘Ní heól damh-sa,’ ar an t-A. M., ‘amadán mná do dhéanamh, acht dob’ eól do’n Ridire Breac dá mbiadh sé annso againn anois.’ (AM, 209) (‘Do you like that woman, Big Fool?’ he asked. ‘I do,’ the Big Fool answered. ‘Then she would like to be with you tonight.’ ‘I should like that if you and the Black Knight are with me.’ ‘She would not like that,’ Blue-Eyed Gaoi said, ‘but only herself and you.’ ‘I do not know how to make a fool of a woman,’ the Big Fool said, ‘but the Speckled Knight would know how, if we had him here with us now.’) (Hartnett, 475)

The Fool asks the Black Knight if he knows how to make a fool of a woman, and is enthusiastically assured that he does. He spends the night with 215



LINDA GOWANS

the smith’s daughter, and, as the Fool comments, is not yet finished on the following morning ‘óir is faide bhíos aon amadán amháin mná dá déanamh ná céad amadán fir’ (AM, 209) (‘for it takes longer to make a fool of one woman than a hundred men’ [Hartnett, 475]). The Fool is, at last, learning: like Perceval, he is repeating what he has been told, though the advice has been provided not by his mother but by the Speckled Knight. The lesson is completed when he reaches the castle of Gaoi’s father, where the patient Gaoi finally provides the Fool with his sister, Maedhbh Yellow-hair, and (unspecified) instructions including the admonition: ‘Tú féin amháin gan neach ar bith do bheith aguibh acht tusa do dhéanamh amadáin di-si.’ (AM, 210) (‘You alone and unaccompanied and you only to make a fool of her.’) (Hartnett, 477)

– adding that ‘Ní fhóghnann rígh nách dénann amadán mná’ (AM, 210) (‘Worthless is the king who does not make a fool of a woman’ [Hartnett, 477]). Like the Speckled Knight and the Black Knight, the Fool is not finished by morning, responding to Gaoi’s enquiry by telling him that: ‘Is fada go madh headh, óir is sáimhe liom-sa an t-aon amadán amháin mná-sa gá déanamh ioná céad amadán fir.’ (AM, 210) (‘It will be a long time yet, for I find it more enjoyable to make a fool of one woman than a hundred male fools.’) (Hartnett, 478)

After much festivity at the castle, the Fool eventually declares that he is, indeed, finished, and is ready to go and make more female fools for himself. His two earlier companions are not subsequently linked with any other woman than the one they meet during their adventures with the Fool, but he is himself beginning to take on the characteristics of his counterparts in other languages. Gaoi, too, would like to make a fool of a woman, and he has one in mind – in the Iron City, beside Athens. Many have tried to carry her off, but none has survived. He and the Black Knight set off by the long route, but the Fool takes a short cut through the Valley of the One-Eyed Cat, which no one has dared to visit for a long time because of its alarming denizens, of which the Cat is the most fearsome. The inevitable meeting duly takes place – and the Cat’s naming of the Fool at first sight indicates that this hero, like his predecessors, is going to be a prophesied one. The encounter, however, proves to be a delightful battle of wits turning on the finer points of honour and hospitality. The Fool evidently knows more about both subjects than does Perceval in the maiden’s tent, while at the same time making statements that only a fool could get away with as the Cat requests some of the food which he finds the Fool cooking: ‘Is córa dhuit bíadh do thabhairt damh ioná a iarraidh orm,’ ar an t-A. M., ‘óir is let féin an Gleann agus is úaith hainmnighthear é, agus is misi an t-aoidheadh 216




ann.’ ‘Bheag orm duine maith aighniosach do cheann a choda,’ ar an Cat Caoch. ‘Ní duine maith thusa,’ ar an t-A. M., ‘óir is tú do ní an t-aighnios ris an aoidheadh, agus caithfiod-sa mo sháith do’n fheóil do mharbhas féin, agus má bhíonn fuigheall agam ní fearr liom duine gá gcaithfidh é ioná thusa.’ (AM, 211–12) (‘It is more fitting for you to give me food than to ask me for it,’ the Big Fool said, ‘for the valley belongs to you and it is named for you and I am the guest here.’ ‘I despise a person who is very quarrelsome about his food,’ the One-Eyed Cat said. ‘You are not a good person,’ the Big Fool said, ‘for it is you who are making a quarrel with the guest. And I would eat my fill of the meat I killed myself, and if there is any left I’d rather have you eat it than anyone else.’) (Hartnett, 481–82)

The Fool does, indeed, allow the Cat to eat, but there is not enough, and he has to fight some of the wild beasts of the forest who attack him when he refuses the Cat leave to eat the Purple Colt. The Cat seizes him, but once again he talks himself out of a tight situation and goes with the Cat to the latter’s beautiful mansion in the forest, which turns out to be a place of explanation rather than of mystery. The Cat can transform himself at will, and he is really a powerful knight. The Fool’s coming has been foretold; he will obtain domination over the valley and its inhabitants, and at last the Cat reveals to him that his father is brother to the King of the World (i.e. King Arthur) and his mother is the daughter of the Earl Cornubas of the Welsh. Perceval’s distraught mother has not been forgotten, and the Irish scenario does not require her demise: ‘Agus atá sí san bhforaois, agus ní chluin sí do sgéala, agus ní léigionn an eagla di féin nó dod’ bhuime an fhoraois d’fágbháil ar eagla an Ridire. Do chluin an Ridire do sgéla agus ní bhfuil fhios aige an tusa a mhac féin.’ (AM, 213) (‘And she is in the forest and she has no news of you and because of fear of the Knight she and the nurse are afraid to leave the forest. The knight has heard about you, but he does not know that you are his own son.’) (Hartnett, 485)

The erstwhile Cat then reveals his own background: he is Eochaidh Donnmharach, one of the Tuatha Dé Danaan.29 Exiled from Ireland by the Milesians, ‘ró sreathnuigheadh agus ró sgaradh fó síothbhróghuibh Iartair Eórpa, agus ar chríochaibh an domhuin, iad, ar leith’ (AM, 214) (‘they were spread apart and scattered in the fairy palaces of Western Europe and in the ends of the earth’ [Hartnett, 486]). The fact that the Fool learns his identity, and the fate of his mother, not from a distraught but informative cousin and from a hermit uncle respectively, but from a transformed cat who is really one of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, serves 29 For references to a group of late medieval Irish stories which have members of the Tuatha Dé Danann

take on alarming forms and interact with characters from other cycles of tales, see J. E. Caerwyn Williams and Patrick K. Ford, eds., The Irish Literary Tradition (Cardiff, 1992, reprinted 1997), p. 134.

217



LINDA GOWANS

perhaps more than anything else to illustrate the skill with which Chrétien’s account has been reworked in an Irish cultural setting to produce something unique in Arthurian literature. This skill should be kept in mind as the rest of the Fool’s story is explored. Eochaidh Donnmharach tells him of the prophecy: ‘Go mbiadh Meadhbh Mhongbhuídhe na mnaoi agad, agus go mbéaradh sí mac maith duit, agus go madh cúmhachtach é maille ré tíghearnas mór do ghabháil dó.’ (AM, 214) (‘That Maedhbh Yellow-hair would be your wife and that she would bear you a son, that he would be powerful and would assume a great lordship.’) (Hartnett, 487)

As might be anticipated, this does not prevent the Fool from accepting the accommodation provided for him for the next three nights: a bed with Aoife, Eochaidh’s daughter. The prophecy of a child for a Perceval-figure is not the only similarity between the work of Gerbert de Montreuil and later Gaelic material, yet none of the resemblances is sufficiently close to indicate direct influence, the prophecy in Gerbert’s case concerning a daughter and her descendants.30 The Fool also accepts treasures presented to him for his yet-tobe-born son: an expertly fashioned sword, invisibility-conferring invulnerable armour, and a mantle which will carry the wearer to any place in the world. The Purple Colt now left behind (and, the reader will be relieved to know, safely stabled and taken care of), the mantle serves to carry the Fool to Greece for his next adventure. When his two friends Blue-eyed Gaoi and the Black Knight join him in the Iron City they are delighted to learn of his newly discovered identity and implied superior strength and power, especially when Gaoi sees the heads of kings and nobles set on spikes around the city (to which a magical ship has brought them),31 evidence of his predecessors’ failure in their quest for the King of Greece’s daughter. She, too, is to be found in a summer room, which the Fool enters without opposition. He sits on a luxurious couch and is lulled to sleep by the music of a beautiful bird from Africa, which, inconsistently but perhaps more realistically, also utters a dreadful screech that warns the princess and her women. The latter are overcome with love for the Fool, and persuade their mistress to awaken him before having him put to death. The Fool now introduces himself even more wordily: 30 Gerbert de Montreuil: la Continuation de Perceval, ed. Mary Williams, vol. I (Paris, 1922), vv.

6906–33, trans. Nigel Bryant in Perceval: The Story of the Grail. Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Studies 5 (Cambridge, 1982), p. 236. See also Sir Uallabh O Còrn, ed. Gowans (see n. 19 above), pp. 41–42 and refs. there cited. 31 It appears that the Fool also travels on the ship, and Hartnett’s summary (pp. 120–21) carries the suggestion that an alternative version of the story has been added. However, an elaborate description of a lively sea voyage is so popular a feature of Gaelic tales that author or scribe might well have felt that a journey to Greece would represent a wasted opportunity were such a passage not introduced at this stage.

218




‘Misi Amadán Mór na Foraoise, mac mhná an Ridire, dalta na banaltrann agus dearbhchomhalta mic na banaltram, agus do chúala a nGleann an Chait Chaoich gurab mac dearbhráthar do Rígh an Domhuin mé agus gurab í inghíon Sir Bhalbhuadh Dé Cornubas de Bhreathnachuibh mo mháthair.’ (AM, 217) (‘I am the Big Fool of the Forest, son of the knight’s wife, fosterson of the nurse, and fosterbrother of the nurse’s son. And I heard in the Valley of the One-eyed Cat that I am the son of the brother of the King of the World and that my mother is a daughter of Sir Gawain of Cornubas.’) (Hartnett, 494)32

Once the Fool has told his story, the king’s daughter’s only stated objection to accompanying him is that she thinks the household troops will behead him, but in due course he overcomes them and slaughters the inhabitants of the city. News comes to the king of Greece: ‘Ní bhíam leis,’ ar an Rígh, ‘óir cloinmíd nár gabhadh ris a n-aoin ríoghacht san domhan nár úmhlaigh dó.’ (AM, 217) (‘Let us not contend against him,’ the king said, ‘for we hear he did not go into any kingdom in the world that did not submit to him.’) (Hartnett, 496)

This hints at the ‘idiot to whom hosts yield’ concept found in some versions of the Laoidh: a point to be considered later. Having secured for Blue-eyed Gaoi, not only the king’s daughter to be his female fool, but the submission of the king himself, the Fool takes leave of his companions: ‘Maiseadh, a Ghaoi Ghormshúiligh, fan-sa, agus an Ridire Dubh, annso, go ndeachuinn-si do dhéanamh amadán fá’n domhan dom féin.’ (AM, 218) (‘Well, Blue-eyed Gaoi, you and the Black Knight stay here and I’ll go about the world making fools for myself.’) (Hartnett, 496)

The Fool is now on his own. He has proved his prowess to Arthur and his court, to individual opponents and to an overseas nation; and in a satisfyingly triadic achievement he has rescued Arthur from three enemies and provided female fools for three of his erstwhile companions. The disappearance from the story of the Red Knight, one of the three companions named for the colour of their arms, has a reason, for Gaoi is to be the third person for whom the Fool provides a lady, and the Red Knight, having served his purpose in the triple structure, is not allowed to remain on the scene long enough to upset it.33 The Fool has also learned his own identity, though not his personal name: another example of what may seem to be a ‘loose end’ proving more likely to be a 32 The Cat has not mentioned Gawain to the Fool by name, and the conflation of the titles of Gawain and

of the Fool’s maternal grandfather at this point may be scribal. Any family relationship between Gawain and the Fool is not made a feature of the narrative. 33 The provision of women is a way for the Fool to shed his surplus male companions; something of a reversal of the situation discussed by Rosemary Morris in ‘The Knight and the Superfluous Lady: a Problem of Disposal’, Reading Medieval Studies 14 (1988), 111–24.

219



LINDA GOWANS

conscious authorial decision, for in the Irish story the Fool has himself decided to stay a fool. The last point has significant implications for the dénouement of the work – which at this stage undergoes a sudden change in atmosphere. The first episode after the Fool’s departure from Greece involves yet another scene of slaughter, but this time the detail is not glossed over with brief reference to dead knights on the green. He enters a castle where he finds bodies cooking in a cauldron and piled up on the floor, with one the finest of all: Do bhí corp áluinn sneachtuídhe ann, do b’áilne agus do b’fhíorghloine do chorpaibh an domhain agus do bhí bior fada reamhair trés an ccorp sin, tar san. Agus an tan adchonnairc an t-Amadán Mór an míleadh macánta deighdhealbhach sin ro-líon dá sheirc agus dá shíor-ghrádh, agus adubhairt: ‘A Chruthuightheóir Nimhe agus Naomh-Thalmhan, is trúagh liom nách beó do rugas ort, óir dá madh eadh, ní sgarfamaois ré chéile an feadh do mhairfeamaois.’ (AM, 218) (There was a beautiful snow-white body there that was more beautiful and whiter than all the bodies of the world. And there was a long, flat skewer through that body, however. And when the Big Fool saw that gentle and nobly formed soldier, he was filled with love and lasting affection for him. And he said, ‘Creator of Heaven and Sacred Earth, I think it a pity that I did not find you alive, for if it were so, we would not part from each other as long as we live.’) (Hartnett, 497)34

For the first time, the Fool acknowledges an awareness of God which was instilled into Perceval from the start. The youth proves able to speak and, when the skewer is withdrawn and he is given a drink, to tell his story. He is Glinne, son of the King of Islinn. His father’s lands have been destroyed by ‘Clann Cain Colnaidh Mic Ádhaimh’ (AM, 219) (‘the sons of Cain the Carnal, son of Adam’ [Hartnett, 498]), and he and his foster-brothers made prisoner, to be eaten by giants. Four giants are indeed approaching, and the Fool, determined to avenge Glinne despite being urged to flee, kills three of them while Glinne and the other die fighting. The Fool, sadly observing that ‘ní bhfuair bás ariamh duine is measa liom ioná Glinne’ (AM, 219) (‘no one ever died that I respected more than Glinne’ [Hartnett, 500]35), buries the young man, erects a gravestone, and carries out funeral rites for him. How much an episode in which a man from whom a skewer has just been withdrawn can converse, then fight a giant, and subsequently have a one-man funeral staged for him, is out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the story, is problematic. Perhaps the humour has simply taken on a grimmer tone while depicting an example of the male bonding, with its avowal of lifelong 34 The words after ‘alive’ are omitted from Hartnett’s translation and have been added here. 35 Hartnett translates thus, but an alternative reading could offer the sense of never deploring more the

death of a man: the implication would still be one of intense regret.

220




companionship, not unknown in Arthurian romance36 – but Mac Ghill-Fhinnein offers an interpretation to which we will return: Unlike other heroes, the Great Fool does not fall in love with a beautiful heroine. On the other hand he falls in love at first sight with a handsome man. We thus encounter what is probably the first reference to homosexual love in Gaelic literature. Of course this is just the author’s joke – the Great Fool is such a great fool that he can’t get the relationship between men and women straight.37

The next scene seems on a first reading to be particularly inconsequential, but we are back, though momentarily, to the atmosphere of the earlier episodes. The Fool comes to another beautiful castle, the biggest he has ever seen, and announces not only his name in all its ramifications but also his intention to make fools of the inhabitants. The lord has heard of his exploits as far as Greece, and promptly submits. He is the king of ‘Dreóluinn an Ghaisge’ (AM, 220) (‘Dreóluinn of the Feats of Valour’ [Hartnett, 501]), and nearby is the ‘Beirbhe Lochlannúidhe’, which, again, can be reached by a dangerous short cut, the ‘Ghíodhrainn Lochlannáidhe’,38 from which no one has ever been known to return. The king and his men are apparently prepared to go there with the Fool at their side, and they undertake the journey without mishap. The Fool has now crowned his martial achievements by securing the submission of the king of the biggest castle he has seen (though, as we have seen, success as a fighter is not his only ambition) and has survived another visit to a ‘place of no return’. Even the earlier abandonment of Medbh Yellow-Hair may have its part to play in the Fool’s career, for he is about to encounter his own woman without any outside assistance. We now find the Fool exploring on his own again, in the unknown territories of the perilous ‘Ghíodhrainn Lochlannáidhe’, though exactly where he has parted from his travelling companions is unclear. He comes upon yet another scene of slaughter, amid which sits a superlatively beautiful woman, as lovely as Blancheflor but in an even worse situation than the distressed cousin of Perceval, for she cradles in her arms not one but two dead knights. One is her first husband; the second had abducted her twenty years previously, and the area’s reputation of a place of no return had arisen because everyone who came there had remained in their company (once again, the author deflates the concept of mystery for its own sake). Her first husband had eventually found her, and both had been killed in the ensuing battle on her account: unusually in Irish Arthurian romance, she is given a short discourse comparing her love for them both. 36 For examples see Richard W. Kaeuper, Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 1999), pp.

215–19. 37 Mac Gill-Fhinnein, ‘Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir’, p. 76. 38 Hartnett, p. 501, notes that the first reference may be to Bergen, but that the vagueness of the geography

does not allow for a proven identification. ‘Lochlann’ can specify Norway, but is also used to indicate Scandinavia in general.

221



LINDA GOWANS

The woman is the daughter of the King of Asia, and had already imposed as a condition of her first marriage that suitors should have in their following four thousand warriors to provide suitable husbands for her retinue of the same number of women. Now, she is pleased to discover (being regaled with the extended version of his name) that the Fool is Arthur’s nephew and therefore worthy of her, and they go to the palace where she used to live with her abductor. Having instructed her new partner to bury the two earlier men in her life, she and the Fool spend a cheerful time together. Finally comes the episode which also forms the subject matter of the verse Laoidh. A young warrior comes to them, offering food and a cup of drink and greeting the Fool as his chief and lord before leaving. The woman warns the Fool about the perils of eating food of supernatural provenance: ‘Ná caith a bhíadh, a Amadáin Mhóir,’ ar sí, ‘óir is cumhachtach na daoine a bhíos annso, agus cuirid draoidheacht a mbiadh agus a ndigh.’ (AM, 223) (‘Do not eat his food, Big Fool,’ she said, ‘for the people who are here are powerful, and they put magic on their food and drink.’) (Hartnett, 509)

– but to no avail. The Fool drinks from the cup, eats some of the food, and when he wants to stand up his legs fall off from the knees down. Such a fate is not unique to the Fool,39 but it will soon be seen that it is not simply a bizarre detail introduced for its own sake, and that the magic mantle, in causing the Purple Colt to be abandoned, has also had its narrative purpose. The woman’s regret for her own sake is profound, and she delivers another surprisingly long speech stressing her status as a princess and her need of the Fool’s support: something she reiterates the next day when she weeps bitterly, wondering where food, clothing and wealth will now come from. At the Fool’s suggestion, they go to a nearby hill. The narrator comments that ‘Ní fheadar-sa créd an módh ar a ndeachaidh an t-Amadán ann munab í an inghíon do rug ar a mium lé é’ (AM, 224) (‘I do not know how the Big Fool went unless the girl carried him on her back’ [Hartnett, 510]) – but a hill is the appropriate setting for a hunt and they soon hear the barking of a dog and see a deer approaching swiftly. The Fool kills the deer with a throwing-spear and seizes the dog, but soon meets its owner, splendidly dressed for hunting and carrying a horn. He (like the Cat before him) greets the Fool by name, and asks for the dog back – though the Fool, no fool at this stage, would prefer to keep the dog and return the deer in view of his inability to move around. The huntsman, now identified as a gruagach (a warrior or champion, sometimes as here with the implication of an enchanter), changes the offer to one of food and drink forever, which the Fool accepts. The three go to the gruagach’s mansion, where his wife appears singularly unimpressed by her visitors and

39 See J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol. IV, p. 270, for a broadly similar, though

not closely related, incident.

222




by the promise her husband has made. Her speech belies her beauty and queenly demeanour: ‘Olc agus úrbháthadh ort,’ ar an inghion. ‘Is minic do chúadhais a tturas nách budh maith agus ní dhearnais ríamh turas badh mheasa ioná sin.’ (AM, 225) (‘Evil and utter drowning befall you!’ the girl said. ‘Often you have gone on a journey that was not good, but you never made a journey worse than this.’) (Hartnett, 513)

Such a reaction distresses the Fool more than the loss of his legs: he can still, as on his first visit to Arthur’s court, be verbally wounded, but there is now no question of instant retaliation. Next day the gruagach goes hunting, and asks the Fool to promise to guard his wife until he comes back, telling him not to be upset by her words. The Fool agrees. As soon as her husband has left, the wife in turn approaches the Fool, offering him choice food, drink, armour and clothes if he will carry out her own wishes: ‘Dá bhfaictheá fear agam-sa, ná h-innis do’n Ghruagach é agus déana rún maith air.’ Do gheall an t-Amadán Mór go ndéanadh sin. (AM, 226) (‘If you should see a man with me, do not tell it to the gruagach and keep it quite secret.’ The Big Fool promised he would do that.) (Hartnett, 514)

A man duly arrives, gets into bed with her, and: Ba lúthgháireach an fear sin agus bean an Ghrúagaigh ré aroile, nó gur chaill sí a h-ionnracas. (AM, 226) (That man and the gruagach’s wife were merry together until she lost her chastity.) (Hartnett, 514)

The Fool is greatly distressed, and asks his own lady to carry him to the door of the room, where he takes up his sword ready to confront the youth. The gruagach’s wife points out that he had promised to keep her secret; but, in fact, he does not propose to tell the husband anything: ‘Do-dhéan-sa rún ort,’ ar an t-Amadán Mór, ‘acht caithfidh an t-óglách an aithnidh sin maille riot anmhuin ris an ngrúagach.’ (AM, 226) (‘I’ll keep your secret,’ the Big Fool said, ‘but that unknown youth with you will have to wait for the gruagach.’) (Hartnett, 515)

The youth is prepared to ransom himself, first offering the Fool one of his legs back. The Fool accepts, but points out that his strength is now greater for restraining the intruder, who offers him the other leg ‘agus leig amach mé’ (AM, 227) (‘if you let me out’ [Hartnett, 515]). Still not to be outwitted, the Fool again accepts but, with his two legs now restored, declares that he has given his word not to release him until the gruagach returns. Fear prompts the undignified rapidity of the closure: afraid that the Fool 223



LINDA GOWANS

will kill him, the youth rushes to the gruagach’s wife for safety, and the story ends with the explanation: Agus is é do bhí an[n]sin Gruagach an dúnadh féin do chuaidh isin riocht sin. (AM, 227) (And it was none other than the gruagach of the Castle himself who took on that disguise.) (Hartnett, 316)

The abrupt ending is not generically out of keeping,40 though there has been a reluctance to accept it, dating from the ‘ending imperfect’ note in the 1921 catalogue of Trinity College Dublin manuscripts.41 In fact, the comment is more value judgement than manuscript description, for in MS 1297 the second half of fol. 241v is blank, but it is the final page of the manuscript. The indication may simply be that the scribe had no further work to enter. The scribe of National Library of Ireland MS G137 has left two pages blank (five in its copy Royal Irish Academy MS 24 P 16),42 and in this case it may be that space was deliberately left for the insertion of the Laoidh, which was known by the time the surviving manuscripts of the Eachtra were written.43 The situation has a bearing on the question of the relationship between the prose tale and the verse Lay. Bruford considered that: The author, or an early scribe, of the prose tale has simply incorporated a prose version of the lay at the end. In the prose the hero is usually treated as a comic character; in the lay he is a simple but honourable man who refuses to break his word in circumstances which recall the Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.44

It is precisely this contrast that now enables us to view the overall picture more clearly. We have seen the Fool achieve successes on behalf of Arthur

40 See Siân Echard, ‘Of Parody and Perceval: Middle Welsh and Middle English Manipulations of the

41 42

43

44

Perceval Story’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 40 (1996), 63–79 (p. 73), ‘In the case of Peredur . . . the rather prosaic ending of the piece seems entirely appropriate.’ She also comments (p. 79) on the conventional ending of the English Sir Perceval of Gales. T. K. Abbott and E. J. Gwynn, Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (Dublin, 1921), p. 78. Nessa Ní Shéaghdha, Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the National Library of Ireland, Fasc. IV (Dublin, 1977), p. 83; T. F. O’Rahilly, Kathleen Mulchrone et al., Catalogue of Irish Manuscripts in the Royal Irish Academy, vol. V (Dublin, 1970), p. 2977. Ní Shéaghdha notes that the Trinity College manuscript ‘also ends imperfectly at this point’; Hartnett (p. 515) follows an ambiguous note by the editors of AM (p. 226) which wrongly creates an impression that the manuscripts end at different points. Hartnett, pp. 112–13, notes that the earliest dated Irish manuscript of the Laoidh is from 1701, and that information from early informants in Scotland indicate that it was probably also known there by that time. See Hartnett, pp. 115–16, on the great popularity of the Laoidh; also Hugh Shields, Narrative Singing in Ireland: Lays, Ballads, Come-all-yes and Other Songs (Blackrock, Co. Dublin, 1993), ch. 2, ‘Lays’, pp. 10–33, esp. pp. 29–31 (notes pp. 192–95). Bruford, Gaelic Folktales, p. 147. See also Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition’, I, 69–72, for a more detailed survey of the questions that arise when comparing the prose and verse. With at least seventy manuscripts of the verse, on which much work remains to be done, my own observations in this article can only be tentative.

224




and his companions, find his own identity, and undertake adventures on his own, avenging cruel deeds and eventually finding a partner without the help of prophecy or of male companions. He then undergoes a final test. This is certainly not of his martial prowess, for this has been well proved, and at the outset of the test the Fool is without legs or horse. Nor can it strictly be seen primarily as a test of his honesty and integrity. Rather, he must perfect the talent that has already stood him in good stead with the Cat: not to react physically on impulse, but to use his wits in a challenging situation. It has probably not been appreciated before just how fittingly the test has been tailored by both the gruagach and his wife, for the Great Fool, having acquired a verbal dexterity at least equal to that of King Arthur, has now qualified in precisely the skills vital to his chosen profession: he has achieved his aim of becoming supreme fool.45 Some versions of the Laoidh indicate knowledge of the prose tale: for example, the tester can name himself as ‘Ridire Curand’ or similar,46 a name which brings to mind the Ridire Corcra of the prose but suggests distortion during oral transmission, and the phrase ‘Air òinid dh’an geill na sloigh’ (‘Of the idiot to whom hosts yield’)47 recalls the submission to the Fool of the King of Greece. Such details are not in themselves proof of the priority of the prose, when we have seen above that both prose and verse were known in the early eighteenth century, but stronger evidence comes from the stories introduced into the Laoidh to explain how the Fool received his name.48 These can be seen as becoming necessary once the account of the Fool’s upbringing became detached. Some versions of the Laoidh provide an elaborated ending, in which the tester turns out to be the Fool’s brother and together they kill five giants,49 perhaps suggested by the multiple giant-killing of the Glinne episode. Even more to the point, though, is the nature of the test itself, for the Laoidh (in which the ‘bedroom scene’ consists of no more than a kiss) can have the Fool fall asleep. He may also react physically, even if it is only the

45 Echard observes (‘Of Parody and Perceval’, p. 78) that ‘without the grail castle disaster there are no

46 47 48

49

serious consequences to the young savage’s approach to his calling’. Like his Welsh and English predecessors, the Great Fool is no failure. His folly is developed in ways that differ from many of the examples given by Alan Harrison, The Irish Trickster, The Folklore Society Mistletoe Series 20 (Sheffield, 1989), a situation which serves to indicate the controlling influence of Chrétien on the Irish composition. For references see Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition’, I, 67 n. 66. J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, vol. III, pp. 168–69. It should be noted that some published versions of the Laoidh cited in this article, including Campbell’s, are composite editions. In the Laoidh the name is given because of the Fool’s insistence on fighting with his fists instead of with weapons. See, for example, John O’Daly, ed. and trans., Laoithe Fiannuigheachta; or, Fenian Poems, Second Series, Transactions of the Ossianic Society 6 (1861), which includes a very full composite text and translation of ‘Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir,’ 160–207 (pp. 174–77) (despite the title, the text is that of the verse Laoidh). In the literary Scottish ‘Gaelic novel’ the naming is part of a plot by his enemies to undermine his reputation – a long way from the father’s considered decision at the beginning of the Irish tale, but perhaps ultimately suggested by it, and therefore the result of adaptation rather than loss of text. See O’Daly’s version, pp. 200–7.

225



LINDA GOWANS

doorpost that he strikes.50 These features clearly distance the verse from the unique reason for the test that becomes apparent from a careful reading of the prose. Discussion of sources for the testing section, particularly as it appears in the Laoidh, have cited a number of Arthurian parallels, though McHugh in particular rightly stresses that an Irish literary background needs also to be considered. She cites in particular the story of Finn’s fool Lomna, who is torn between his duty to his master and Finn’s wife’s pleas to conceal the infidelity in which he has discovered her.51 The hunting scene has been related to that in the ‘Fair Unknown’ stories, where the dog is taken by or on behalf of the hero’s female companion and there is a subsequent dispute over its custody, rather than to the situation in the Second Continuation, the Didot-Perceval, and Historia Peredur vab Efrawc, in which the dog is given to the hero to help him kill a stag and in the first two texts both the dog and the stag’s severed head are then stolen from him.52 So far as the test in the castle is concerned, it can readily be seen that there is a major difference from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in that the hero is not alone. Curiously, after the killing of the stag both Peredur and the Great Fool proceed respectively to a Castle of Wonders and to the castle of the Gruagach,53 where a shape-shifter reveals his true identity; and there is another general thematic resemblance, though again not a close parallel, in an adventure of Peredur’s which is part of a plan for him to meet once more the empress who has asked him to seek for her towards India. This is the episode in which Peredur meets the miller and his wife, and it is noticeable that the 50 The Fool falls asleep in both Campbell’s version (pp. 182–83), and O’Daly’s (pp. 178–79); for his

striking a blow, see Campbell, pp. 182–83. 51 Sheila Joyce McHugh, ‘The Lay of the Big Fool: Its Irish and Arthurian Sources’, Modern Philology 42

(1945), 197–211 (pp. 200–1), and ‘Sir Percyvelle’: Its Irish Connections (Ann Arbor, 1946), pp. 54–55. The story of Lomna is edited and translated in Thomas Owen Clancy, ‘Fools and Adultery in Some Early Irish Texts’, Ériu 44 (1993), 105–24 (pp. 110–11). Gerard Murphy pointed out that relationships in the two stories are very different, and felt that McHugh made too much of the proposed derivation: see his review of McHugh, ‘Sir Percyvelle’, in Studies 37 (1948), 368–71 (pp. 369–70). Further discussion of the Irish material which needs to be considered in a full study of the Great Fool texts is found in McHugh, ‘Sir Percyvelle’, with (pp. 27–39) a comparison between the Irish stories of the upbringing of Finn, the French and English accounts of Perceval, and the story of the Big Fool. In addition, the implications of the story of Murchadh mac Briain need to be investigated: see, for example, Alan Bruford, Gaelic Folktales, pp. 136–40 and passim, and Maartje Draak, ‘Duncan Macdonald of South Uist’, Fabula 1 (1957), 47–58. 52 McHugh, ‘The Lay of the Big Fool’, pp. 204–5, and ‘Sir Percyvelle’, pp. 59–62, gives a comparative table of episodes in Pwyll, Libeaus desconus, Le Bel Inconnu, and the Laoidh. See also Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition’, I, 68–69, and Claude Luttrell, ‘The Arthurian Hunt with a White Bratchet’, Arthurian Literature 9 (1989), 57–80. The gadhar of the Irish text is a hunting-hound, and in the prose the Fool wishes to keep the dog for practical reasons, not simply to please his lady. Nuances of motivation and reaction at this point suggest a useful text-critical focus for future work on the Laoidh and its relation to the prose. 53 Though the colwyn of Historia Peredur vab Efrawc, ed. Glenys Witchard Goetinck (Cardiff, 1976), p. 68, translated as ‘lapdog’ in ‘Peredur son of Efrawg’, The Mabinogion, trans. Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, Everyman’s Library (London, 1949), pp. 183–227 (p. 225), is of unspecified colour, whereas in most other accounts it is white, including the Irish text’s gadhar gléigeal (AM, 224) (‘brilliant white’, Hartnett, 511): see McHugh, ‘Sir Percyvelle’, p. 60.

226




latter is, like the gruagach’s wife, unimpressed by the bargain made with the hero by her husband, which this time involves the loan of money.54 There are other resonances of Historia Peredur vab Efrawc. Some, such as the chronological rather than retrospective nature of the opening, can be seen as stylistic rather than narrative; others, such as Perceval’s and the Fool’s ability to overcome deer without weapons, Gaoi’s ‘tree’ test and the pillar which Peredur is required to strike, and the occurrence in both texts of a ‘daily fight’, prove not to be as close in concept as first appears. The Black Oppressor, too, provides Peredur with a great deal of useful detail, but the episode differs widely from that of the Fool and the informative transformed Cat. However, ‘holly darts’ are definitely provided for both Peredur and the Fool’s foster-brother,55 and the Irish story’s location of the Fool’s father’s country recalls Peredur’s father’s Northern earldom. In addition the Fool, despite his own episodic amours, has, like Peredur, the habit of refusing the women offered to him – though even the latter may, as we have seen, result simply from the Irish author’s wish for a triadic structure. In particular, Goetinck has noted the episode of Edlym Red-Sword and the Lady of the Feats. Peredur overcomes the lady’s war-band and wins her for Edlym, whom she already loves unseen, whereas Gaoi loves the lady of the Iron City, won for him by the Fool against overwhelming odds.56 It is, in fact, when Peredur sets off alone after parting from Edlym that he meets the miller and his wife in the episode referred to above. Whether we are dealing with stylistic resemblances, shared cultural concepts, or with intertextuality, the Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir is not the only example in Gaelic Arthurian literature of a story which appears to preserve ideas from Chrétien’s Perceval together with hints of Peredur.57 54 Historia Peredur vab Efrawc, ed. Goetinck, pp. 47–70, for the episodes covered in this paragraph;

translation ‘Peredur son of Efrawg’, Jones and Jones, pp. 211–27. Peredur spends three days gazing at a maiden in a beautiful pavilion, to be brought to his senses not by an attack from Kay, but by the miller, who strikes him between the shoulder and neck with an axe-haft. Such a blow, delivered on the third day and connected with a forthcoming triple challenge involving each time the offer of a goblet of wine (here a direct challenge to combat, identified and accepted by Peredur as such) and the subsequent gift of the goblet by Peredur to the miller’s wife (although it is her husband who had provided the loan), and resulting in a meeting with the empress who has already given Peredur a gift with magical protective properties, has startling resonances only hinted at by Goetinck (Peredur: A Study of Welsh Tradition, pp. 254–56, where the Carle of Carlisle is also brought into the picture). The relationship between the delicate balance of the Fool’s relationship with the gruagach, his wife and the presumed intruder; the experiences of Sir Gawain at the castle of the Green Knight, and those of Peredur as his career is directed by a variety of outside forces, would seem to invite further comparative study which is beyond the purpose of this article. 55 Though here, too, the fool with holly sticks may be no more than a conventional figure: see Harrison, The Irish Trickster, p. 76. 56 Goetinck, Peredur: A Study of Welsh Tradition, pp. 126–27. 57 See Gowans, ‘Arthurian Survivals’, pp. 39–44, esp. p. 42. McHugh has also noted resemblances between the Irish and English accounts: see ‘Sir Percyvelle’, pp. 27–35, though once again there may well be coincidental use of descriptive and stylistic convention, especially in the fight with the giant (McHugh, p. 33). For the latter, see Maldwyn Mills, ed., Ywain and Gawain, Sir Percyvell of Gales, The Anturs of Arther, Everyman’s Library (London, 1992), pp. 153–55. However, in the English work Percyvell is Arthur’s nephew (Mills, p. 103); in this case a sister’s son. The occurrence in Welsh poetry

227



LINDA GOWANS

Linked to the question of sources is that of how closely our surviving manuscripts reflect the Irish prose story as it was first composed. Many of the variations in later versions are probably due to oral development, including the situation in the Scottish account from South Uist in which, after the Fool has killed his son, the king exclaims that he, too, has been made a fool ‘an lath, a mharbh mi t’athair nach do mharbh do mhathair’ (‘on the day that I slew thy father, and did not slay thy mother’).58 We are reminded that in the Irish account Arthur never discovers the Fool’s identity, but this may not be the careless oversight that it might appear, for Chrétien’s Perceval names himself to Arthur (‘J’ai non Perchevax li Galois’, v. 4562), in the scene corresponding to that in which the Fool refuses the offer of Arthur’s kingdom and declares his intention to remain a fool, and in Chrétien’s unfinished text Arthur does not learn of Perceval’s family and Grail relationships. So far as the later part of the story is concerned, the Scottish oral version is in prose only as far as the Fool’s departure from court (to which he makes only one visit), and the reciter then proceeded with the Laoidh – but a prose fragment from the neighbouring island of Benbecula has part of the Cat episode, indicating that more of the prose tale was once known in Scotland.59 However, there is one particularly striking detail pointed out by Gillies in the South Uist oral tale: the name ‘Creud Orm’ (‘Creed on me’) given to the Fool by his nurse and adopted by him when naming himself at court.60 This strongly hints at Perceval’s recitation of his ‘creance’ (v. 156) early in Chrétien’s work, and in particular Gillies notes that the Bliocadran prologue contains the word ‘credo’.61 For all their similarity, therefore, the four Dublin prose manuscripts do not appear to preserve the Irish story quite as originally composed, though it is really only the ‘Creed’ detail that presents a serious obstacle to viewing the oral folk process at work in the later versions. It could tentatively be suggested

58

59

60 61

of references to Peredur as Arthur’s nephew supports the suggestion of additional traditional material, now lost. (See W. Gerallt Harries, ‘Peredur, “Nai Arthur” ’, Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 26 (1975), 311–14. I am grateful to Dr Ian Lovecy for help with this note.) John Francis Campbell, Popular Tales, III, pp. 163, 193. In the Irish story the Fool’s father has been spared, and the oral development is part of the added violence referred to at n. 20 above. On other changes in the Scottish oral versions, see Gowans, ‘Arthurian Survivals’, pp. 36–38. McHugh, ‘Sir Percyvelle’, pp. 36–37, compares features of the story of Finn’s upbringing which are paralleled in the literary and oral versions of the story of the Great Fool. See Bruford, Gaelic Folktales, pp. 148–49. The fragment was collected by Alexander Carmichael in 1871 from Donald Maclellan, see Gowans, ‘Arthurian Survivals’, p. 37. Bruford also (p. 149) notes how the ‘Gaelic novel’ provides a conventional ending with the Great Fool’s discovery of who his father was, and his succession to the throne. Jeremiah Curtin, ed., Hero-Tales of Ireland (London, 1894), includes a translation of a prose tale, ‘The Amadan Mor and the Gruagach of the Castle of Gold’ (pp. 140–62), from Maurice Fitzgerald of Co. Kerry, in which a version of the Laoidh (where the ‘Castle of Gold’ is the home of the gruagach and his wife) has been retold in prose to conclude the story. Campbell, Popular Tales, III, pp. 162–63, 193; Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition’, I, 52. Gillies, ‘Arthur in Gaelic Tradition’, I, 52. See Bliocadran, ed. Wolfgang, v. 765. Busby’s edition of Chrétien’s Perceval notes no variant manuscript departures from creance. Luttrell, ‘The Upbringing of Perceval Heroes’, passim, has shown that the Bliocadran was more widely used than may previously have been realised.

228




that the detail has been removed by the scribe of an ancestor of the surviving Irish manuscripts, perhaps on grounds of irreverence, which would in turn explain the Fool’s previously unhinted-at knowledge of the Creator in the Glinne episode. In this article I have concentrated on showing that the primary inspiration for the composition of Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir was the Perceval of Chrétien de Troyes – though we do not know in precisely what form it was available to the Irish author. In 1928, Mühlhausen proposed that the prose Perceval published in 1530 may form a bridge between the twelfth-century text and the Irish one,62 but there are difficulties involved in viewing the 1530 version as a direct influence.63 In fact, so effectively has both the spirit and the matière of Chrétien’s work been responded to that it is as though the intervening centuries had never been. There is much to be gained by incorporating the Amadán Mór into comparative studies of the Perceval heroes. The Irish story can now be considered in its entirety, and an attempt made to set in context the episode in which the Fool meets, avenges and buries Glinne. It is unique in that not only does the Fool arrive alone and leave alone, but there is no one left alive of the other participants to reveal events to any other character: nor are there any narrative links to the rest of the story. The Fool’s brief and emotional encounter with a young man who has not long to live remains his own secret. The subsequent episode at the castle of the king of Dreóluinn, in which the Fool reverts to his former declared intention of making fools of those he meets, now fits into place, for it provides a breathing space between the intensity of the scene with Glinne and the meeting with the daughter of the king of Asia and the final testing of the Fool. Can Mac Gill-Fhinnein’s interpretation be taken further? Are the Fool’s feelings for Glinne simply to be read as part of the comedy, if a particularly bleak comedy at this stage? On one level, perhaps they are – but if we look back over the story we see the Fool at first wreaking havoc in the Arthurian world and beyond, leaving in his wake fooled and abandoned women as expendable as any in the stories of his predecessors. We feel that he may not be able to part so easily from the one with whom we find him in the closing scenes, whose declared concern is for his status and what he can provide for her. But in between his early philanderings and his ultimate involvement, and

62 L. Mühlhausen, ‘Neue Beiträge zum Perceval-Thema’, Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie 17 (1928),

1–30 (p. 30) (the article includes a German translation of the opening section of Eachtra an Amadáin Mhóir, pp. 15–26). The part of the 1530 text which corresponds to Chrétien’s work was published in Der Percevalroman (Li Contes del Graal) von Christian von Troyes, ed. Alfons Hilka (Halle, 1932), pp. 481–614, together with the chapter headings for the rest of the book, consisting of material from the Continuations. 63 Gillies’s suggestion (n. 61 above) provides an argument against its use, for although the 1530 Prose Perceval draws on the Bliocadran, the word ‘credo’ is not present (nor is the detail of time or the reference to Cornwall; see n. 16 above). The book includes the story of the hunting dog and stag’s head from the Second Continuation, but the Irish work does not appear to reflect knowledge of the many other post-Chrétien episodes covered by the volume.

229



LINDA GOWANS

known only to himself, there has been an event as unexpected to the reader as Perceval’s sobering Good Friday encounter with his hermit uncle.64 Is there an element of homosexual tragedy at the core of this otherwise robustly heterosexual comedy, and has the Great Fool, too, had his moment of truth?

64 So unexpected that D. D. R. Owen has argued for it being an interpolation: see his The Evolution of the

Grail Legend, St Andrews University Publications 58 (Edinburgh and London, 1968), pp. 154–58.

230



CONTENTS OF PREVIOUS VOLUMES Details of earlier titles are available from the publishers X A. H. W. Smith Armel Diverres Christine Poulson

Gildas the Poet The Grail and the Third Crusade: Thoughts on Le Conte del Graal by Chrétien de Troyes Arthurian Legend in Fine and Applied Art of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: A Subject Index XI

Janet Grayson Richard Wright

Felicity Riddy Bonnie Wheeler Richard Barber

Claude Luttrell Lesley Johnson James P. Carley and Julia Crick Corinne J. Saunders

The Heart’s Mirror in Cligés Return to Albion Constructing Albion’s Past: an Annotated Edition of De Origine Gigantum Women Displaced: Rape and Romance in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale

Lisa Jefferson Aelred Watkin Jeanne Krochalis


(1996)

Alexander and the Conte du Graal Robert de Boron’s Vision of Arthurian History Gerbert and Manessier: The Case for a Connection Tournaments, Heraldry and the Knights of the Round Table: a Fifteenth-Century Armorial with Two Accompanying Texts XV

Sarah Kay Nick Corbyn

(1993)

Profiting from the Past: History as Symbolic Capital in the Historia Regum Britanniae Gawain’s Rationalist Pentangle The Awntyrs off Arthure: Structure and Meaning. A Reassessment John Hardyng’s Chronicle and the Wars of the Roses Romance and Parataxis and Malory: the Case of Sir Gawain’s Reputation Malory’s Le Morte Darthur and Court Culture under Edward IV XIII (1995)

XIV Barbara N. Sargent-Baur Fanni Bogdanow Louise D. Stephens Lisa Jefferson

(1992)

In Quest of Jessie Weston Index to Arthurian Literature, volumes I–X XII

Martin B. Shichtman and Laurie A. Finke N. M. Davis Helen Phillips

(1990)

(1997)

Who was Chrétien de Troyes? Irony and Gender Performance in Le Chevalier de la Charrete A New Fragment of the First Continuation of the Perceval (London, PRO, E122/100/13B) The Glastonbury Legends Magna Tabula: The Glastonbury Tablets (Part 1)


David Allan Karen Cherewatuk

‘Arthur Redivivus’: Politics and Patriotism in Reformation Scotland ‘Gentyl’ Audiences and ‘Grete Bookes’: Chivalric Manuals and the Morte Darthur XVI

Christopher Young Charles T. Wood Jeanne Krochalis James P. Carley and Martin Howley Claude Luttrell David Starkey Ruth Evans

The Character of the Individual in Hartmann von Aue’s Erec Guenevere at Glastonbury: a Problem in Translation(s) Magna Tabula: The Glastonbury Tablets (Part 2) Relics at Glastonbury in the Fourteenth Century: an Annotated Edition of British Library, Cotton Titus D.vii, fols. 2r–13v The Upbringing of Perceval Heroes King Henry and King Arthur Gigantic Origins: an Annotated Translation of De Origine Gigantum XVII

Bart Besamusca and Erik Kooper Walter Haug Douglas Kelly Norris J. Lacy Matthias Meyer Ad Putter Felicity Riddy Thea Summerfield Jane H. M. Taylor Bart Veldhoen Norbert Voorwinden Lori J. Walters

Carleton W. Carroll and Maria Colombo Timelli Raluca Radulescu Julia Marvin Norris J. Lacy and Raymond H. Thompson


(1999)

The Study of the Roman van Walewein The Roman van Walewein as a Postclassical Literary Experiment The Pledge Motif in the Roman van Walewein: Original Variant and Rewritten Quest Convention and Innovation in the Middle Dutch Roman van Walewein It’s Hard to Be Me, or Walewein/Gawan as Hero Walewein in the Otherworld and the Land of Prester John Giving and Receiving: Exchange in the Roman van Walewein and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Reading a Motion Picture: Why Steven Spielberg Should Read the Roman van Walewein The Roman van Walewein: Man into Fox, Fox into Man The Roman van Walewein Laced with Castles Fight Description in the Roman van Walewein and in Two Middle High German Romances. A Comparison Making Bread from Stone: The Roman van Walewein and the Transformation of Old French Romance XVIII

† Richard N. Illingworth Jane H. M. Taylor

(1998)

(2001)

The Composition of the Tristran of Beroul The Lure of the Hybrid: Tristan de Nanteuil, chanson de Geste Arthurien? L’Extrait du Roman d’Erec et Enide de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye ‘Talkyng of cronycles of kinges and of other polycyez’: Fifteenth-Century Miscellanies, the Brut and the Readership of Le Morte Darthur Albine and Isabelle: Regicidal Queens and the Historical Imagination of the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicles Arthurian Literature, Art, and Film, 1995–1999

Arthurian Literature XIX: Comedy in Arthurian Literature

Arthurian Literature XVIII (Arthurian Literature)

Arthurian Literature XXIII (v. 23)

A Companion To Arthurian Literature

Arthurian Literature XXI: Celtic Arthurian Material (v. 21)

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction (Blackwell Introductions to Literature)

Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia (Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures)

Four Arthurian Romances

Four Arthurian Romances

Four Arthurian Romances

The Arthurian Tradition

[G] Four Arthurian Romances

Four Arthurian Romances

New Directions in Arthurian Studies

The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend (Arthurian Studies)

Four Arthurian Romances

Culinary Comedy in Medieval French Literature

The Changing Face of Arthurian Romance: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in memory of Cedric E. Pickford (Arthurian Studies)

Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut

Arthurian Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia

Paganism in Arthurian Romance (Religion & Mythology)

Arthurian Studies in Honour of P.J.C. Field

Beyond Arthurian Romances: The Reach of Victorian Medievalism (Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures)

The Arthur of the North: The Arthurian Legend in the Norse and Rus' Realms (University of Wales Press - Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages)

John Updike's Human Comedy (Modern American Literature)

The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend (Oxford Paperback Reference)

The Arthurian Saga 02 - The Hollow Hills

Arthurian Literature XIX: Comedy in Arthurian Literature

Arthurian Literature XVIII (Arthurian Literature)

Arthurian Literature XXIII (v. 23)

A Companion To Arthurian Literature

Arthurian Literature XXI: Celtic Arthurian Material (v. 21)

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romances

Arthurian Romance: A Short Introduction (Blackwell Introductions to Literature)

Adapting the Arthurian Legends for Children: Essays on Arthurian Juvenilia (Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures)

Four Arthurian Romances

Four Arthurian Romances

Four Arthurian Romances

The Arthurian Tradition

[G] Four Arthurian Romances

Four Arthurian Romances

New Directions in Arthurian Studies

The Scots and Medieval Arthurian Legend (Arthurian Studies)

Four Arthurian Romances

Culinary Comedy in Medieval French Literature

The Changing Face of Arthurian Romance: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in memory of Cedric E. Pickford (Arthurian Studies)

Arthurian Chronicles: Roman de Brut

Arthurian Writers: A Biographical Encyclopedia

Paganism in Arthurian Romance (Religion & Mythology)

Arthurian Studies in Honour of P.J.C. Field

Beyond Arthurian Romances: The Reach of Victorian Medievalism (Studies in Arthurian and Courtly Cultures)

The Arthur of the North: The Arthurian Legend in the Norse and Rus' Realms (University of Wales Press - Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages)

John Updike's Human Comedy (Modern American Literature)

The Oxford Guide to Arthurian Literature and Legend (Oxford Paperback Reference)

The Arthurian Saga 02 - The Hollow Hills

Recommend Documents