Jaufry the Knight and the Fair Brunissende: A Tale of the Times of King Arthur

CONTENTS


The description given by one of the authors of Jauvfry about the origin of the romance, and the evidence afforded by the French adapter concerning the Mss. wherein it is contained, make it unnecessary for me to dwell upon these particulars.
The veneration in which King Arthur's name is held by all lovers of the early romantic history of Britain will give the tale a strong recommendation in such eyes; while the personages with which it deals render the appearance of its characters in an English dress the more pleasing and appropriate.
As answerable for the fashion and material of the costume, I may be permitted to say a few words concerning the rule which has guided me in producing it. Keeping in view that the original romance is a poem in form and composition, I have endeavoured, in my translation, still to preserve the poetic character; and though compelled to base my work upon a prose version, I have tried, within certain limits, rather to restore its original shape, than allow it, by the second ordeal to which it is thus subjected, to lose it altogether. Whether such attempt, however honestly conceived, has been properly carried out, must be determined by my readers.
King's Arms,
Moorgate Street, London.

The literary world of France scarce knows the extent of its own riches. In the catacombs of its libraries and archives there is a heap of unknown jewels which would give a new and brighter lustre to its poetic wreath. The “great age” did not even suspect their existence; the eighteenth century passed over without bestowing on them, a glance; and if, in our days, a few of our learned brethren have conceived the idea of drawing them to light, the rumour of their labours, which moreover were both superficial and incomplete, never got beyond the doors of the Institute.
There still remains, then, more especially as regards the south, to open up the lode of this mine of gold,—a virgin mine as yet, inasmuch as Sainte-Palaye, Rochegude, Raynouard, and Fauriel, have but scraped Upon its surface,—and reanimate, in a poetic point of view, the middle ages, too easily sacrificed at the period of the renaissance , too severely proscribed by the University. Fed, in truth, from our entry into college with the literature of Greece and Rome, which, however admirable in form, is but sober in invention, we can have no conception of those works wherein the imagination of France, youthful, vigorous, and gay, blossomed in full freshness like a rose in spring. Some judgment may be formed of the value of the poems rhymed by the troubadours in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries by the romance which is now presented to the public. Dragged from the dust beneath which it has lain buried for six hundred years, the romance of Jaufry is translated for the first time; and when we consider the merit of the story, we may add, without fear of contradiction, that it deserved such honour long ago.