[16] This monotony almost follows from the title. For geste in the French is not merely the equivalent of gesta, "deeds." It is used for the record of those deeds, and then for the whole class or family of performances and records of them. In this last sense the gestes are in chief three—those of the king, of Doon de Mayence, and of Garin de Montglane—besides smaller ones.
[17] Jean Bodel, a trouvère of the thirteenth century, furnished literary history with a valuable stock-quotation in the opening of his Chanson des Saisnes for the three great divisions of Romance:—
The lines following, less often quoted, are an interesting early locus for French literary patriotism.
[18] Or only in rare cases to later French history itself—Du Guesclin, and the Combat des Trente.
[19] Dunlop, History of Prose Fiction (ed. Wilson, London, 1888), i. 274-351. Had Dunlop rigidly confined himself to prose fiction, the censure in the text might not be quite fair. As a matter of fact, however, he does not, and it would have been impossible for him to do so.
[20] Editio princeps by Fr. Michel, 1837. Since that time it has been frequently reprinted, translated, and commented. Those who wish for an exact reproduction of the oldest MS. will find it given by Stengel (Heilbronn, 1878).
[21] V. infra on the scene in Aliscans between William of Orange and his sister Queen Blanchefleur.
[22] Even the famous and very admirable death-scene of Vivien (again v. infra) will not disprove these remarks.
[23] Immanuel Bekker had printed the Provençal Fierabras as early as 1829.
[24] V. the famous and all-important ninth chapter of the first book of the De Vulgari Eloquio.
[25] See especially Macaire, ed. Guessard, Paris, 1860.
[26] So also the geste of Montglane became the Nerbonesi.
[27] Ed. S. Lee, London, 1883-86.
[28] Roland, ll. 2233-2246.
[29] I.e., Mecca.
[30] Corée is not merely = cœur, but heart, liver, and all the upper "inwards."
[31] Li Bastars de Bouillon (ed. Scheler, Brussels, 1877).
[32] Not always; for the English romance of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries has on the whole been too harshly dealt with. But its average is far below that of the chansons.
[33] This will explain the frequent recurrence of the title "Enfances ——" in the list given above. A hero had become interesting in some exploit of his manhood: so they harked back to his childhood.
[34] Ed. Jonckbloët, op. cit., i. 1-71.
[35] "Parlez à moi, sire au chaperon large."—C.L., l. 468.
[36] C.L., ll. 72-79, 172-196.
[37] M. Jonckbloët, who takes a less wide range, begins his selection or collection of the William saga with the Couronnement Loys.
[38] Jonckbloët, i. 73-111.
[39] Jonckbloët, i. 112-162.
[40] Enfances Vivien, ed. Wahlen and v. Feilitzer, Paris, 1886; Covenant Vivien, Jonckbloët, i. 163-213.
[41] Jonckbloët, i. 215 to end; separately, as noted above, by Guessard and de Montaignon, Paris, 1870.
[42] Foulques de Candie (ed. Tarbé, Reims, 1860) is the only one of this batch which I possess, or have read in extenso.
[43] See the quotation from Jean Bodel, p. 26, note. The literature of the Arthurian question is very large; and besides the drawbacks referred to in the text, much of it is scattered in periodicals. The most useful recent things in English are Mr Nutt's Studies on the Legend of the Holy Grail (London, 1888); Professor Rhys's Arthurian Legend (Oxford, 1891); and the extensive introduction to Dr Sommer's Malory (London, 1890). In French the elaborate papers on different parts which M. Gaston Paris brings out at intervals in Romania cannot be neglected; and M. Loth's surveys of the subject there and in the Revue Celtique (October 1892) are valuable. Naturally, there has been a great deal in German, the best being, perhaps, Dr Kölbing's long introduction to his reprint of Arthour and Merlin (Leipzig, 1890). Other books will be mentioned in subsequent notes; but a complete and impartial history of the whole subject, giving the contents, with strictly literary criticism only, of all the texts, and merely summarising theories as to origin, &c., is still wanting, and sorely wanted. Probably there is still no better, as there is certainly no more delightful, book on the matter than M. Paulin Paris's Romans de la Table Ronde (5 vols., Paris, 1868-77). The monograph by M. Clédat on the subject in M. Petit de Julleville's new History (v. supra, p. 23, note) is unfortunately not by any means one of the best of these studies.
[44] The late Mr Skene, with great learning and ingenuity, endeavoured in his Four Ancient Books of Wales to claim all or almost all these place-names for Scotland in the wide sense. This can hardly be admitted: but impartial students of the historical references and the romances together will observe the constant introduction of northern localities in the latter, and the express testimony in the former to the effect that Arthur was general of all the British forces. We need not rob Cornwall to pay Lothian. For the really old references in Welsh poetry see, besides Skene, Professor Rhys, op. cit. Gildas and Nennius (but not the Vita Gildæ) will be found conveniently translated, with Geoffrey himself, in a volume of Bohn's Historical Library, Six Old English Chronicles. The E.E.T.S. edition of Merlin contains a very long excursus by Mr Stuart-Glennie on the place-name question.
[45] "Both these subjects of discussion [authorship and performance of Romances] have been the source of great controversy among antiquaries—a class of men who, be it said with their forgiveness, are apt to be both positive and polemical upon the very points which are least susceptible of proof, and least valuable, if the truth could be ascertained."—Sir Walter Scott, "Essay on Romance," Prose Works, vi. 154.
[46] A caution may be necessary as to this word "first." Nearly all the dates are extremely uncertain, and it is highly probable that intermediate texts of great importance are lost, or not yet found. But Layamon gives us Wace as an authority, and this is not in Wace. See Madden's edition (London, 1847).
[47] These, both Map's and Borron's (v. infra), with some of the verse forms connected with them, are in a very puzzling condition for study. M. Paulin Paris's book, above referred to, abstracts most of them; the actual texts, as far as published, are chiefly to be found in Hucher, Le Saint Graal (3 vols., Le Mans, 1875-78); in Michel's Petit Saint Graal (Paris, 1841); in the Merlin of MM. G. Paris and Ulrich (Paris, 1886). But Lancelot and the later parts are practically inaccessible in any modern edition.
[48] Ed. Potvin, 6 vols., Mons, 1866-70. Dr Förster has undertaken a complete Chrestien, of which the 2d and 3d vols. are Yvain ("Le Chevalier au Lyon") and Erec (Halle, 1887-90). Le Chevalier à la Charette should be read in Dr Jonckbloët's invaluable parallel edition with the prose of Lancelot (The Hague, 1850). On this last see M. G. Paris, Romania, xii. 459—an admirable paper, though I do not agree with it.
[49] The parallel edition, above referred to, of the Chevalier à la Charette and the corresponding prose settled this in my mind long ago; and though I have been open to unsettlement since, I have not been unsettled. The most unlucky instance of that over-positiveness to which I have referred above is M. Clédat's statement that "nous savons" that the prose romances are later than the verse. We certainly do not "know" this any more than we know the contrary. There is important authority both ways; there is fair argument both ways; but the positive evidence which alone can turn opinion into knowledge has not been produced, and probably does not exist.
[50] Translated by Lady Charlotte Guest, 2d ed., London, 1877.
[51] Le Morte Arthur (ed. Furnivall, London, 1864), l. 3400 sqq.
[52] Since I wrote this passage I have learnt with pleasure that there is a good chance of the whole of the Gawain romances, English and foreign, being examined together by a very competent hand, that of Mr I. Gollancz of Christ's College, Cambridge.
[53] The Welsh passages relating to Kay seem to be older than most others.
[54] Editions: the French Tristan, edited long ago by F. Michel, but in need of completion; the English Sir Tristrem in Scott's well-known issue, and re-edited (Heilbronn, 1882), with excellent taste as well as learning, by Dr Kölbing, who has also given the late Icelandic version, as well as for the Scottish Text Society (Edinburgh, 1886) by Mr George P. McNeill; Gottfried of Strasburg's German (v. chap. vi.), ed. Bechstein (Leipzig, 1890). Romania, v. xv. (1886), contains several essays on the Tristram story.
[55] It is fair to say that Mark, like Gawain, appears to have gone through a certain process of blackening at the hands of the late romancers; but the earliest story invited this.
[56] Cursor Mundi, l. 2898.
[57] Printed by Hartshorne, Ancient Metrical Tales (London, 1829), p. 209; and Hazlitt, Early Popular Poetry (London, 1864), i. 38.
[58] And contrariwise the Welsh Peredur (Mabinogion, ed. cit., 81) has only a possible allusion to the Graal story, while the English Sir Percivale (Thornton Romances, ed. Halliwell, Camden Society, 1844) omits even this.
[59] This curious outburst, referred to before, may be found in the Schoolmaster, ed. Arber, p. 80, or ed. Giles, Works of Ascham, iii. 159.
[60] I have a much less direct acquaintance with the romances mentioned in this paragraph than with most of the works referred to in this book. I am obliged to speak of them at second-hand (chiefly from Dunlop and Mr Ward's invaluable Catalogue of Romances, vol. i. 1883; vol. ii. 1893). It is one of the results of the unlucky fancy of scholars for re-editing already accessible texts instead of devoting themselves to anecdota, that work of the first interest, like Perceforest, for instance, is left to black-letter, which, not to mention its costliness, is impossible to weak eyes; even where it is not left to manuscript, which is more impossible still.
[63] Ed. Weber, Metrical Romances, Edinburgh, 1810, ii. 279.
[64] Ed. Stengel. Tübingen, 1873.
[65] Ed. Förster. Halle, 1877.
[66] For these magical provisions of food are commonplaces of general popular belief, and, as readers of Major Wingate's book on the Soudan will remember, it was within the last few years an article of faith there that one of the original Mahdi's rivals had a magic tent which would supply rations for an army.
[67] In his History of English Poetry, vol. i., London, 1895, and in a subsequent controversy with Mr Nutt, which was carried on in the Athenæum.
Laing's Poems of Henryson (Edinburgh, 1865), p. 93. This volume is unfortunately not too common; but 'The Testament and Complaint of Cressid' may also be found under Chaucer in Chalmers's Poets (i. 298 for this passage).
[70] Le Roman de Troie. Par Benoît de Sainte-More. Ed. Joly. Paris, 1870.
[71] Paris, 1886. The number of monographs on this subject is, however, very large, and I should like at least to add Mr Wallis Budge's Alexander the Great (the Syriac version of Callisthenes), Cambridge, 1889, and his subsequent Life and Exploits of Alexander.
[72] Most conveniently accessible in the Teubner collection, ed. Kübler, Leipzig, 1888.
[73] Ed. Michelant, Stuttgart, 1846.
[74] Ed. Weber, op. cit. sup., i. 1-327.
[75] Ed. Meyer, op. cit., i. 1-9.
[76] Ll. 27-30.
[77] Meyer, i. 25-59.
[78] See Henry V. for the tennis-ball incident.
[79] In this paragraph I again speak at second-hand, for neither the Vœux nor Florimont is to my knowledge yet in print. The former seems to have supplied most of the material of the poem in fifteenth-century Scots, printed by the Bannatyne Club in 1831, and to be reprinted, in another version, by the Scottish Text Society.
[80] E.E.T.S., 1878, edited by Professor Skeat.
[81] Dr Kölbing, who in combination of philological and literary capacity is second among Continental students of romance only to M. Gaston Paris, appears to have convinced himself of the existence of a great unknown English poet who wrote not only Alisaundre, but Arthour and Merlin, Richard Cœur de Lion, and other pieces. I should much like to believe this.
[82] It would be unfair not to mention, as having preceded that of M. Joly by some years, and having practically founded study on the right lines, the handling of MM. Moland and d'Héricault, Nouvelles Françaises du Quatorzième Siècle (Bibliothèque Elzévirienne. Paris, 1856).
[83] Ed. Meister. Leipzig, 1872-73.
[84] The British Museum alone (see Mr Ward's Catalogue of Romances, vol. i.) contains some seventeen separate MSS. of Dares.
[85] Ed. Panton and Donaldson, E.E.T.S. London, 1869-74.
[86] Ed. Moland and d'Héricault, op. cit.
[87] The section on "L'Epopée Antique" in M. Petit de Julleville's book, more than once referred to, is by M. Léopold Constans, editor of the Roman de Thèbes, and will be found useful.
[88] See Craik, History of English Literature, 3d ed. (London, 1866), i. 55.
[89] Ed. Madden, i. 2.
[90] Ed. White and Holt, 2 vols. Oxford, 1878.
[91] Ed. Morton, for the Camden Society. London, 1853. This edition is, I believe, not regarded as quite satisfactory by philology: it is amply adequate for literature.
[92] Substantial portions of all the work mentioned in this chapter will be found in Messrs Morris and Skeat's invaluable Specimens of Early English (Oxford, Part i. ed. 2, 1887; Part ii. ed. 3, 1894). These include the whole of the Moral Ode and of King Horn. Separate complete editions of some are noted below.
[93] Wright, Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 208-227.
[94] Ed. Morris, E.E.T.S., London, 1865.
[95] About 600 lines of this are given by Morris and Skeat. Completely edited by (among others) F.H. Stratmann. Krefeld, 1868.
[96] Ed. Morris, An Old English Miscellany. London, 1872.
[97] See Reliquiæ Antiquæ, i. 109-116.
[98] Edited with Langtoft, in 4 vols., by Hearne, Oxford, 1724; and reprinted, London, 1810. Also more lately in the Rolls Series.
[99] Tristram, for editions v. p. 116: Havelok, edited by Madden, 1828, and again by Prof. Skeat, E.E.T.S., 1868. King Horn has been repeatedly printed—first by Ritson, Ancient English Metrical Romances (London, 1802), ii. 91, and Appendix; last by Prof. Skeat in the Specimens above mentioned.
[100] It is sufficient to mention here Guest's famous English Rhythms (ed. Skeat, 1882), a book which at its first appearance in 1838 was no doubt a revelation, but which carries things too far; Dr Schipper's Grundriss der Englischen Metrik (Wien, 1895), and for foreign matters M. Gaston Paris's chapter in his Littérature Française au Moyen Age. I do not agree with any of them, but I have a profound respect for all.
[101] Vide Dante, De Vulgari Eloquio.
[102] What is said here of English applies with certain modifications to German, though the almost entire loss of Old German poetry and the comparatively late date of Middle make the process less striking and more obscure, and the greater talent of the individual imitators of French interferes more with the process of insensible shaping and growth. German prosody, despite the charm of its lyric measures, has never acquired the perfect combination of freedom and order which we find in English, as may be seen by comparing the best blank verse of the two.
[103] Of course there is plenty of alliteration in "Alison." That ornament is too grateful to the English ear ever to have ceased or to be likely to cease out of English poetry. But it has ceased to possess any metrical value; it has absolutely nothing to do with the structure of the line.
[104] His instance is Burns's—
It is a pity he did not reinforce it with many of the finest lines in The Ancient Mariner.
[105] The most accessible History of German Literature is that of Scherer (English translation, 2 vols., Oxford, 1886), a book of fair information and with an excellent bibliography, but not very well arranged, and too full of extra-literary matter. Carlyle's great Nibelungenlied Essay (Essays, vol. iii.) can never be obsolete save in unimportant matters; that which follows on Early German Literature is good, but less good. Mr Gosse's Northern Studies (1879) contains a very agreeable paper on Walther von der Vogelweide. The Wagnerites have naturally of late years dealt much with Wolfram von Eschenbach, but seldom from a literary point of view.
[106] Hildebrand and Hadubrand.
[107] Ed. Bartsch. 6th ed. Leipzig, 1886.
[108] For the verse originals see Vigfusson and Powell's Corpus Poeticum Boreale (Oxford, 1883), vol. i. The verse and prose alike will be found conveniently translated in a cheap little volume of the "Camelot Library," The Volsunga Saga, by W. Morris and E. Magnusson (London, 1888).
[109] 4th edition. London, 1887.
[110] Ed. Bartsch. 4th ed. Leipzig, 1880.
[111] The very name of this remarkable personage seems to have exercised a fascination over the early German mind, and appears as given to others (Wolfdietrich, Hugdietrich) who have nothing to do with him of Verona.
[112] Ed. Von Bahder. Halle, 1884.
[113] The subjects of the last paragraph form, it will be seen, a link between the two, being at least probably based on German traditions, but influenced in form by French.
[114] Walther's ninth Lied, opening stanza.
[115] Found in every language, but originally French.
[116] Ed. Bechstein. 3d ed., 2 vols. Leipzig, 1891.
[117] Tristan, 8th song, l. 4619 and onwards. The crucial passage is a sharp rebuke of "finders [vindære, trouvères] of wild tales," or one particular such who plays tricks on his readers and utters unintelligible things. It may be Wolfram: it also may not be.
[118] Ed. Bech. 3d ed., 3 vols. Leipzig, 1893.
[119] Complete works. Ed. Lachmann. Berlin, 1838. Parzival und Titurel. 2 vols. Ed. Bartsch. Leipzig, 1870.
[120] Ed. Bartsch. 4th ed. Leipzig, 1873.
Similar stanzas in e, i, o, u follow in order.
[122] The standard edition or corpus of their work is that of Von der Hagen, in three large vols. Leipzig, 1838.
[123] On this see the last passage, except the conclusion on Reynard the Fox, of Carlyle's Essay on "Early German Literature" noted above. Of the great romances, as distinguished from the Nibelungen, Carlyle did not know much, and he was not quite in sympathy either with their writers or with the Minnesingers proper. But the life-philosopher of Reynard and the Renner attracted him.
[124] This is not inconsistent with allowing that no single French lyric poet is the equal of Walther von der Vogelweide, and that the exercises of all are hampered by the lack—after the earliest examples—of trisyllabic metres.
[125] M. Jeanroy, as is also the case with other writers of monographs mentioned in this chapter, has contributed to M. Petit de Julleville's Histoire (v. p. 23) on his subject.
[126] Paris, 1833.
[127] Leipzig, 1870.
[128] Rheims, 1851.
[129] This for convenience' sake is postponed to chap. viii.
[130] Romancero Français, p. 66.