FOOTNOTES:
[211] After I had finished what I had to say in the way of introduction to this ballad, there appeared the study of the Trinkhorn and Mantelsage, by Otto Warnatsch: Der Mantel, Bruchstück eines Lanzeletromans, etc., Breslau, 1883. To this very thorough piece of work, in which the relations of the multiform versions of the double-branched story are investigated with a care that had never before been attempted, I naturally have frequent occasion to refer, and by its help I have supplied some of my deficiencies, indicating always the place by the author's name.
[212] The Bibliothèque des Romans, 1777, Février, pp. 112-115, gives an abstract of a small printed piece in prose, there assigned to the beginning of the sixteenth century, which, as Warnatsch observes, p. 72, must have been a different thing from the tale given by Legrand, inasmuch as it brings in Lancelot and Gawain as suppressing the jests of Kay and Dinadam.
[213] The custom of Arthur not to eat till he had heard of some adventure or strange news was confined to those days when he held full court, according to Perceval le Gallois, II, 217, 15,664-71, and the Roman de Perceval, fol. lxxviii. It is mentioned, with the same limitations, I suppose, in the Roman de Lancelot, III, fol. lxxxii, and we learn from this last romance, I, fol. xxxvi, that Arthur was accustomed to hold a court and wear his crown five times in the year, at Easter, Ascension-day, Pentecost, All Saints, and Christmas. The Roman de Merlin, II, lvib, or, as cited by Southey, II, 48, 49, says that "King Arthur, after his first dinner at Logres, when he brought home his bride, made a vow that while he wore a crown he never would seat himself at table till some adventure had occurred." In Malory's King Arthur, Kay reminds the king that this had been the old custom of his court at Pentecost. Arthur is said to observe this custom on Christmas, "vpon such a dere day," in Sir Gawayn and the Green Knight, Madden, p. 6, vv 90-99. Messire Gauvain says "à feste ne mangast, devant," etc., p. 2, vv 18-21. Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival does not limit the custom to high holidays, ed. Bartsch, I, 331, vv 875-79; and see Riddarasögur, Parcevals Saga, etc., ed. Kölbing, p. 26. Neither does Wigalois, vv 247-51, or a fragment of Daniel von Blühenthal, Symbolæ ad literaturam Teutonicam, p. 465, cited by Benecke, Wigalois, p. 436 f, or the Färöe Galians kvæði, Kölbing, in Germania, XX, 397. See Madden's Syr Gawayne, which has furnished much of this note, pp 310-12; Southey's King Arthur, II, 203, 462. Robin Hood imitates Arthur: see the beginning of the Little Gest.
'Quar je vous aim tant bonement,
Que je ne voudroie savoir
Vostre mesfet por nul avoir.
Miex en veuil je estre en doutance.
Por tot le royaume de France,
N'en voudroie je estre cert;
Quar qui sa bone amie pert
Molt a perdu, ce m'est avis.' 818-25.
[215] See also Brynjúlfsson, Saga af Tristram ok Ísönd, samt Möttuls Saga, Udtog, pp 318-26, Copenhagen, 1878. There is a general presumption that the larger part of the works translated for King Hákon were derived from England. C. & W., p. 47.
[216] That is, the current one. The Samson saga professes to supply the earlier history. Samson's father is another Arthur, king of England. An abstract of so much of the saga as pertains to the Mantle is given by Cederschiöld and Wulff, p. 90f. Warnatsch, p. 73 f, shows that the Rímur and Samson had probably a common source, independent of the Möttulssaga.
[217] By Warnatsch, who gives the text with the corresponding passages of the fabliau in a parallel column, pp 8-54: the argument for Heinrich's authorship, pp 85-105. 'Der Mantel' had been previously printed in Haupt and Hoffmann's Altdeutsche Blätter, II, 217, and by Müllenhoff in his Altdeutsche Sprachproben, p. 125. Of this poem, which Warnatsch, pp 105-110, holds to be a fragment of a lost romance of Lanzelet, written before the 'Crône,' only 994 verses are left. Deducting about a hundred of introduction, there are some 782 German against some 314 French verses, an excess which is owing, no doubt, largely to insertions and expansions on the part of Heinrich, but in some measure to the existing texts of the fabliau having suffered abridgment. The whole matter of the church service, with the going and coming, is dispatched in less than a dozen verses in the French, but occupies more than seventy in German, and just here we read in the French:
Ci ne vueil je plus demorer,
Ni de noient fere lone conte,
Si con l'estoire le raconte.
But possibly the last verse should be taken with what follows.
[218] In Hahn, Griechische Märchen, No 70, II, 60 f, a walnut contains a dress with the earth and its flowers displayed on it, an almond one with the heaven and its stars, a hazel-nut one with the sea and its fishes. No 7, I, 99, a walnut contains a complete costume exhibiting heaven with its stars, a hazel-nut another with the sea and its waves. No 67, II, 33, an almond encloses a woman's dress with heaven and its stars on it, a hazel-nut a suit for her husband. In the Grimms' No 113, three walnuts contain successively each a finer dress than the other, II, 142 f, ed. 1857. There are three similar nuts in Haltrich, No 43, and in Volksmärchen aus Venetien, Jahrbuch für r. u. e. Lit., VII, 249, No 12. Ulrich's mantle is worked with all manner of beasts, birds, and sea monsters, on earth or under, and betwixt earth and heaven: Lanzelet, 5820-27.
[219] I cite the text according to Warnatsch. Warnatsch thinks it worth noticing that it is the queen only, in Mantel 771 f, as in our ballad, st. 14, that curses the maker of the mantle; not, as in the fabliau, the gentlemen whose feelings were so much tried. These, like the queen in the ballad, ont maudit le mantel, et celui qui li aporta.
[220] Not even for Ginovere hübsch unde guot, or Enîte diu reine. The queen has always been heedful of her acts, and has never done anything wrong: doch ist siu an den gedenken missevarn, Heaven knows how. Ulrich is very feeble here.
A remark is here in place which will be still more applicable to some of the tests that are to be spoken of further on. Both the French fabliau and the English ballad give to the mantle the power of detecting the woman that has once done amiss, a de rien messerré. We naturally suppose that we understand what is meant. The trial in the fabliau is so conducted as to confirm our original conception of the nature of the inquest, and so it is, in the case of Arthur's queen, Kay's lady, and the old knight's wife, in the ballad. But when we come to the charmingly pretty passage about Cradock's wife, what are we to think? Is the mantle in a teasing mood, or is it exhibiting its real quality? If once to have kissed Cradock's mouth before marriage is once to have done amiss, Heaven keep our Mirandas and our Perditas, and Heaven forgive our Juliets and our Rosalinds! ("Les dames et demoiselles, pour être baisées devant leur noces, il n'est pas la coutume de France," we know, but this nice custom could hardly have had sway in England. Is then this passage rendered from something in French that is lost?) But the mantle, in the ballad, after indulging its humor or its captiousness for a moment, does Cradock's wife full justice. The mantle, if uncompromising as to acts, at least does not assume to bring thoughts under its jurisdiction. Many of the probations allow themselves this range, and as no definite idea is given of what is charged, no one need be shocked, or perhaps disturbed, by the number of convictions. The satire loses zest, and the moral effect is not improved.
[221] Nul femme que [ne] vouloit lesser sauoir à soun marry soun fet et pensé. T. Wright, in Archæologia Cambrensis, January, 1863, p. 10. Mr Wright gives one of the texts of Cort Mantel, with an English translation. We are further told, in Scalachronica, that this mantle was afterwards made into a chasuble, and that it is "to this day" preserved at Glastonbury. Three versions of the fabliau testify that Carados and his amie deposited the mantle in a Welsh abbey. The Skikkju Rímur say that the lady presented it to the cloister of Cologne; the Möttulssaga has simply a monastery (and, indeed, the mantle, as described by some, must have had a vocation that way from the beginning). "Item, in the castel of Douer ye may see Gauwayn's skull and Cradok's mantel:" Caxton, in his preface to Kyng Arthur, 1485, I, ii, in Southey's ed.; cited by Michel, Tristan, II, 181, and from him by Warnatsch.
[222] For this enchanter see Le Livre de Karados in Perceval le Gallois, ed. Potvin, II, 118 ff. It is not said in the printed copy that he sent the mantle [horn].
[223] Another copy, assigned to the end of the 14th century, from the Kolmar MS., Barisch, p. 373, No LXIX (Warnatsch).
[224] Warnatsch shows, p. 75 f, that the fastnachtspiel must have been made up in part from some version of the Mantle story which was also the source of the meisterlied, and in part from a meisterlied of the Horn, which will be mentioned further on.
[225] The Dean of Lismore's Book, edited by Rev. Thomas M'Lauchlan, p. 72 of the translation, 50/51 of the original. Repeated in Campbell's Heroic Gaelic Ballads, p. 138 f, 'The Maid of the White Mantle.' Mr Campbell remarks: "This ballad, or the story of it, is known in Irish writings. It is not remembered in Scotland now." Mr Wright cites this poem, Archæologia Cambrensis, p. 14 f, 39 f.
[226] Cf. Arthur in the Lai du Corn and Fraw Tristerat Horn, a little further on.
[227] Wolf at first speaks of the lai as being made over into the fabliau, in regular court style, ganz nach höfischer Weise, about the middle of the 13th century; then goes on to say that even if the author of the fabliau followed another version of the story, he must have known the jongleur's poem, because he has repeated some of the introductory lines of the lai. This excellent scholar happened, for once, not to observe that the first fourteen lines of the lai, excepting the fourth, which is questionable, are in a longer metre than the rest of the poem, in eights and sevens, not sixes, and the first three of the lai, which agree with the first three of the fabliau, in the eight-syllable verse of the latter; so that it was not the author of the fabliau that borrowed. Warnatsch (who has also made this last remark) has noted other agreements between lai and fabliau, p. 61. Both of these acknowledge their derivation from an earlier dit, estoire, not having which we shall find it hard to determine by which and from what the borrowing was done.
[228] Montpellier MS.
[229] Perceval exhibits agreements, both as to phrase and matter, now with the lai, now with the fabliau, and this phenomenon will occur again and again. This suggests the likelihood of a source which combined traits of both lai and fabliau: Warnatsch, pp 62-64.
[230] So amended by Zingerle from Syrneyer lant. A third copy is cited as in the Kolmar MS., No 806, Bartsch, Meisterlieder der Kolmarer Handschrift, p. 74 (Warnatsch). A remarkable agreement between the French lai, 94, 97, 99-102, and Wigamur 2623-30 convinces Warnatsch that the source of this meisterlied must have been a Middle High German rendering of some form of the Drinking-horn Test closely resembling the lai. See Warnatsch, p. 66.
[231] The king of Spain, who is again the poorest of all the kings, p. 206, line 32, p. 214, line 22, is addressed by Arthur as his nephew, p. 207, line 11, and p. 193, line 30. Carados is called Arthur's nephew in Perceval (he is son of Arthur's niece), e.g. 15,782, and Carados, his father, is Carados de Vaigne, II, 117. It is said of Kalegras's amie in the 'Mantle Rhymes,' III, 59, that many a lady looked down upon her. This may be a chance expression, or possibly point to the poverty which is attributed to the royal pair of Spain in Fastnachtspiele, Nos 81, 127, and in Frau Tristerat Horn. In Der Lanethen Mantel, Laneth is Arthur's niece, and poor: see p. 261.
The fastnachtspiel has points in common with the fabliau, and the assumption of a source which combined features of both lai and fabliau is warrantable: Warnatsch, pp 66-68.
[232] This is a thoroughly dissolute piece, but not ambiguous. It is also the most humorous of the whole series.
[233] Warnatsch shows that Heinrich cannot have derived any part of his Trinkhornprobe from the Perceval of Chrestien, characteristic agreements with Perceval being entirely wanting. There are agreements with the lai, many more with the fabliau; and Heinrich's poem, so far as it is not of his own invention, he believes to be compounded from his own version of the fabliau and some lost version of the Horn-test: pp 111-114.
[234] The principal variations of this name, of which the Welsh Caradoc is assumed to be the original, are: Craddocke (English ballad); Carados, Caradox (Cort Mantel); Karodes (Scalachronica); Caraduz (Crône, 2309, elsewhere) Karadas; Carigras, Kaligras (Rímur); Karodeus, Caraduel (Perceval, 12,466, 12,457, 12,491, but generally), Carados, -ot, or; Caraduel (Messire Gauvain, 3943); Garadue (Lai du Corn); Karadin (Möttuls Saga). Garadue probably == Caraduel, which, in Percival twice, and once in Messire Gauvain, is used for Carados, through confusion with Arthur's residence, Carduel, Cardoil. So Karadas is twice put in the Crône, 16,726, 16,743, for Karidol == Cardoil. Might not Karadin have been written for Karadiu?
[235] Tristan of Hélie de Borron, I, 73 verso, in Rajna, Fonti dell' Orlando Furioso, p. 498 ff. So in Malory's King Arthur, Southey, I, 297, Wright, II, 64. The Italian Tristan, La Tavola Ritonda, ed. Polidori, XLIII, pp 157-160, makes 686 try, of whom only 13 prove to be innocent, and those in spite of themselves. Another account exempts 2 out of 365: Nannucci, Manuale, II, 168-171.
[236] Un vasello fatto da ber, qual già, per fare accorto il suo fratello del fallo di Ginevra, fe Morgana: XLIII, 28; un bel nappo d'or, di fuor di gamme, XLII, 98. The Orlando concurs with the prose Tristan as to the malice of Morgan, but does not, with the Tristan, depart from prescription in making the women drink. Warnatsch observes that the Orlando agrees with the Horn Fastnachtspiel, and may with it follow some lost version of the story: p. 69.
Before leaving these drinking-tests, mention may be made of Oberon's gold cup, which, upon his passing his right hand three times round it and making the sign of the cross, fills with wine enough for all the living and the dead; but no one can drink s'il n'est preudom, et nes et purs et sans pecié mortel: Huon de Bordeaux, ed. Guessard et Grandmaison, p. 109 f, vv 3652-69.
[237] The Myvyrian Archæology of Wales, II, 13, triad 54 == triad 103, p. 73; p. 17, triad 78 == triad 108, p. 73.
[238] See the story in Le Livre de Carados, Perceval le Gallois, Potvin, especially II, 214-16, vv 15,577-638. "The Rev. Evan Evans," says Percy, Reliques, III, 349, ed. 1794, "affirmed that the story of the Boy and the Mantle is taken from what is related in some of the old Welsh MSS of Tegan Earfron, one of King Arthur's mistresses." This aspersion, which is even absurd, must have arisen from a misunderstanding on the part of the Bishop: no Welshman could so err.
[239] Myvyrian Archæology, III, 247a, No 10, pointed out to me by Professor Evans. The story of the 'Boy and the Mantle,' says Warton, "is recorded in many manuscript Welsh chronicles, as I learn from original letters of Llwyd, in the Ashmolean Museum:" History of English Poetry, ed. 1871, I, 97, note 1.
[240] The horn is No 4 in Jones's list, and No 3 in a manuscript of Justice Bosanquet; the knife is 13th in Jones and 6th in the other; the mantle of invisibility is 13th in the Bosanquet series, and, under the title of Arthur's veil or mask, 1st in Jones. The mantle of Tegau Eurvron does not occur in the Bosanquet MS. Jones says, "The original Welsh account of the above regalia was transcribed from a transcript of Mr Edward Llwyd, the antiquary, who informs me that he copied it from an old parchment MS. I have collated this with two other MSS." Not a word of dates. Jones's Welsh Bards, II, 47-49; Lady Charlotte Guest's Mabinogion, II, 353-55.
Lady Charlotte Guest remarks that a boar's head in some form appears as the armorial bearing of all of Caradawc's name. Though most anxious to believe all that is said of Caradawc, I am compelled to doubt whether this goes far to prove that he owned the knife celebrated in the ballad.
[241] Heinrich seeks to put his wearisome invention off on Chrestien de Troyes. Warnatsch argues with force against any authorship but Heinrich's, pp 116 ff.
[242] Gawain had failed in the earlier trial, though he had no fault in mind or body, except that he rated his favor with women too high: 1996-2000.
In the first two probations a false heart is the corpus delicti; something is said of carnal offences, but not very distinctly.
The scope of the glove is of the widest. It takes cognizance of rede und gedanc in maids, werc und gedanc in wives, tugent und manheit, unzuht und zageheit, in men. One must have known as little what one was convicted of as if one had been in the hands of the Holy Office.
[243] Fastnachtspiele aus dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert, Zweiter Theil, p. 654, No 80.
[244] From Vulpius's Curiositäten, II, 463, in Erlach, I, 132, after a printed copy of the beginning of the 16th century: Wolff, Halle der Völker, II, 243, from a Fliegendes Blatt of the 16th century. Two copies are cited by title in Mone's Anzeiger, VIII, 354 b, No 1; 378, No 165. Wolff prints Asion.
[245] A man must be "clear as beryl." One of the knights is tumbled into the water for having kissed a lady; but this is according to the code, for he had done it without leave. We learn from Perceval that kissing is permissible; marry, not without the lady be willing. 'Die bruck zu Karidol' is alluded to in 'Der Spiegel,' Meister Alswert, ed. Holland u. Keller, p. 179, vv 10-13. (Goedeke.) A man who has transferred his devotion from an earlier love to the image of a lady shown him in a mirror says the bridge would have thrown him over.
[246] Florimel's girdle is a poor contrivance every way, and most of all for practical purposes; for we are told in stanza 3 that it gives the virtue of chaste love to all who wear it, and then that whosoever contrary doth prove cannot keep it on. But what could one expect from a cast-off girdle of Venus?
[247] Nightingales in Grundtvig, No 274, A, B: see p. 64. See, also, Uhland, Zur Geschichte der Dichtung, III, 121 f.
[248] Neither the Sanskrit Shukasaptati nor Nakshabi's Persian version, made early in the fourteenth century, has been published. The Turkish version is said to have been made in the second half of the next century, for Bajazet II. Kadiri's is probably of the seventeenth century. An English and Persian version (Kadiri's), 1801, has the tale at p. 43; Small's English, from a Hindustani version of Kadiri, 1875, at p. 40.
[249] In the Contes à rire, p. 89, a sylph who loves a prince gives him a flower and a vase which will blacken upon his wife's proving unfaithful: Legrand, 1779, I, 78. I have not seen this edition of the book, but presume that this tale is entirely akin with the above.
[250] Cf. the King of Spain, at pp. 261, 263. The agreement may, or may not, be accidental.
[251] All these examples of the probation by flowers, shirt, or picture are noticed in Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai sur les Fables Indiennes, p. 107 ff; or in Von der Hagen's Gesammtabenteuer, III, lxxxiv ff; or in an article by Reinhold Köhler, of his usual excellence, in Jahrbuch für romanische und englische Literatur, VIII, 44 ff.
[252] Köhler, as above, p. 60 f.
[253] There is a stone in the Danish Vigoleis with the Gold Wheel which no one could approach "who was not as clean as when he came from his mother's body." Gawain could touch it with his hand, Arthur often sat upon it, and Vigoleis was found sitting on it. Nyerup, Almindelig Morskabslæsning i Danmark og Norge, p. 129, a chap-book of 1732. The stone is not quite so strict in the German Volksbuch, Marbach, No 18, p. 13 f, Simrock, III, 432 f. In the German romance no man less than immaculate in all respects can touch it: Wigalois, ed. Benecke, p. 57, vv 1485-88.
[254] Georgii Codini Excerpta de antiquitatibus Constantinopolitanis, in Corpus Scriptorum Historiæ Byzantinæ, XLV, 50 f, cited by Liebrecht, Germania, I, 264; De Originibus Constantinopolitanis, cited by Lütcke, Von der Hagen's Germania, I, 252, referred to by Liebrecht: both anecdotes in Banduri, Imperium Orientale, Anonymus de Ant. Const. p. 35, 96, p. 57, 162. The statue again in a note of Nic. Alemannus to Procopius, Arcana, 1623, p. 83: cited by Mr Wright, Archæologia Cambrensis, as above, p. 17. Mr Wright also makes mention, p. 16, of the blind dog that quidam Andreas (evidently a merry one) was exhibiting in the seventeenth year of Justinian, which, among other clever performances, ostendebat in utero habentes et fornicarios et adulteros et avaros et magnanimos—omnes cum veritate: Historia Miscella, Eyssenhardt, p. 377 f, l. 18, c. 23; Cedrenus, in the Byzantine Corpus, XXXIII, 657, Theophanes, in XXXVIII, 347 f.
[255] The Meisterlieder and the Indian tale are cited by Warnatsch. Virgil's statue was circumvented by an artifice which is employed in this tale of the Shukasaptati, and in other oriental stories presumably derived from it; and so was the well-known Bocca della Verità, Kaiserchronik, Massmann, pp 448 f. The Bocca della Verità bit off the fingers of perjurers, but took no particular cognizance of the unchaste. A barley-corn [grain of wheat], again, which stood on end when any false oath was sworn over it, Jülg, Mongolische Märchensammlung, Die Geschichte des Ardschi-Bordschi Chan, pp 250-52, cited by Benfey, Pantschatantra, I, 458, and referred to by Warnatsch, does not belong with special tests of chastity.
[256] The phrase looks more malicious than naïf, whether Austrian or Spanish, and implies, I fear, an exsufflicate and blown surmise about female virtue; and so of the Indian 'Volksglaube.' The candle-test is said to be in use for men in Silesia: Warnatsch, citing Weinhold, p. 58.
[257] These are all noted in Liebrecht's Dunlop, pp 11, 16, 33. The spring, says the author of Hysmine, served as good a purpose for Artycomis as the Rhine did for the Celts; referring to a test of the legitimacy of children by swinging or dipping them in the Rhine, which the "Celts" practiced, according to a poem in the Anthology: Jacobs, II, 42 f, No 125; Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 935 (Warnatsch).
[258] Besides sources specially referred to, there may be mentioned, as particularly useful for the history of these tests. Legrand, Fabliaux, 1779, I, 60, 76-78; Dunlop's History of Fiction, 1814, in many places, with Liebrecht's notes, 1851; Grässe, Sagenkreise, 1842, pp 185-87; Von der Hagen's Gesammtabenteuer, 1850, III, lxxxiv-xc, cxxxv f.
[30]
KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
Percy MS., p. 24. Hales & Furnivall, I, 61; Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 275.
The mutilation of the earlier pages of the Percy manuscript leaves us in possession of only one half of this ballad, and that half in eight fragments, so that even the outline of the story cannot be fully made out.[259] We have, to be sure, the whole of a French poem which must be regarded as the probable source of the ballad, and, in view of the recklessness of the destroyer Time, may take comfort; for there are few things in this kind that the Middle Ages have bequeathed which we could not better spare. But the losses from the English ballad are still very regrettable, since from what is in our hands we can see that the story was treated in an original way, and so much so that comparison does not stead us materially.
'King Arthur and King Cornwall' is apparently an imitation, or a traditional variation, of Charlemagne's Journey to Jerusalem and Constantinople, a chanson de geste of complete individuality and of remarkable interest. This all but incomparable relic exists in only a single manuscript,[260] and that ill written and not older than the end of the thirteenth century, while the poem itself may be assigned to the beginning of the twelfth, if not to the latter part of the eleventh.[261] Subsequently, the story, with modifications, was introduced into the romance of Galien, and in this setting it occurs in three forms, two manuscript of the fifteenth century, and the third a printed edition of the date 1500. These are all in prose, but betray by metrical remains imbedded in them their descent from a romance in verse, which there are reasons for putting at least as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century.[262]
A very little of the story, and this little much changed, is found in Italian romances of Charles's Journey to Spain and of Ogier the Dane. The derivation from Galien is patent.[263]
The Journey of Charlemagne achieved great popularity, as it needs must. It forms a section of the Karlamagnus Saga, a prose translation into Norse of gestes of Charles and his peers, made in the thirteenth century, and probably for King Hákon the Old, though this is not expressly said, as in the case of the 'Mantle.' Through the Norwegian version the story of Charles's journey passed into the other Scandinavian dialects. There is a Swedish version, slightly defective, existing in a manuscript earlier than 1450, and known to be older than the manuscript, and a Danish abridgment, thought to have been made from the Swedish version, is preserved in a manuscript dated 1480, which again is probably derived from an elder. Like the 'Mantle,' the Journey of Charlemagne is treated in Icelandic Rímur, the oldest manuscript being put at about 1500. These Rhymes (Geiplur, Gabs, Japes), though their basis is the Norwegian saga, present variations from the existing manuscripts of this saga. There is also a Färöe traditional ballad upon this theme, 'Geipa-táttur.' This ballad has much that is peculiar to itself.[264]
Charlemagne's Journey was also turned into Welsh in the thirteenth century. Three versions are known, of which the best is in the Red Book of Hergest.[265]
Let us now see what is narrated in the French poem.
One day when Charlemagne was at St Denis he had put on his crown and sword, and his wife had on a most beautiful crown, too. Charles took her by the hand, under an olive-tree, and asked her if she had ever seen a king to whom crown and sword were so becoming. The empress was so unwise as to reply that possibly he thought too well of himself: she knew of a king who appeared to even better advantage when he wore his crown. Charles angrily demanded where this king was to be found: they would wear their crowns together, and if the French sided with her, well; but if she had not spoken truth, he would cut off her head. The empress endeavored to explain away what she had said: the other king was simply richer, but not so good a knight, etc. Charles bade her name him, on her head. There being no escape, the empress said she had heard much of Hugo, the emperor of Greece and Constantinople. "By my faith," said Charles, "you have made me angry and lost my love, and are in a fair way to lose your head, too. I will never rest till I have seen this king."
The emperor, having made his offering at St Denis, returned to Paris, taking with him his twelve peers and some thousand of knights. To these he announced that they were to accompany him to Jerusalem, to adore the cross and the sepulchre, and that he would incidentally look up a king that he had heard of. They were to take with them seven hundred camels, laden with gold and silver, and be prepared for an absence of seven years.
Charlemagne gave his people a handsome equipment, but not of arms. They left behind them their lances and swords, and took the pilgrim's staff and scrip. When they came to a great plain it appeared that the number was not less than eighty thousand: but we do not have to drag this host through the story, which concerns itself only with Charles and his peers. They arrived at Jerusalem one fine day, selected their inns, and went to the minster. Here Jesus and his apostles had sung mass, and the chairs which they had occupied were still there. Charles seated himself in the middle one, his peers on either side. A Jew came in, and, seeing Charles, fell to trembling; so fierce was the countenance of the emperor that he dared not look at it, but fled from the church to the patriarch, and begged to be baptized, for God himself and the twelve apostles were come. The patriarch went to the church, in procession, with his clergy. Charles rose and made a profound salutation, the priest and the monarch embraced, and the patriarch inquired who it was that had assumed to enter that church as he had done. "Charles is my name," was the answer. "Twelve kings have I conquered, and I am seeking a thirteenth whom I have heard of. I have come to Jerusalem to adore the cross and the sepulchre." The patriarch proving gracious, Charles went on to ask for relics to take home with him. "A plentet en avrez," says the patriarch; "St Simeon's arm, St Lazarus's head, St Stephen's—" "Thanks!" "The sudarium, one of the nails, the crown of thorns, the cup, the dish, the knife, some of St Peter's beard, some hairs from his head—" "Thanks!" "Some of Mary's milk, of the holy shift—" And all these Charles received.[266] He stayed four months in Jerusalem, and began the church of St Mary. He presented the patriarch with a hundred mule-loads of gold and silver, and asked "his leave and pardon" to return to France: but first he would find out the king whom his wife had praised. They take the way through Jericho to gather palms. The relics are so strong that every stream they come to divides before them, every blind man receives sight, the crooked are made straight, and the dumb speak.[267] On reaching Constantinople they have ample reason to be impressed with the magnificence of the place. Passing twenty thousand knights, who are playing at chess and tables, dressed in pall and ermine, with fur cloaks training at their feet, and three thousand damsels in equally sumptuous attire, who are disporting with their lovers, they come to the king, who is at that moment taking his day at the plough, not on foot, goad in hand, but seated most splendidly in a chair drawn by mules, and holding a gold wand, the plough all gold, too; none of this elegance, however, impairing the straightness of his majesty's furrow. The kings exchange greetings. Charles tells Hugo that he is last from Jerusalem, and should be glad to see him and his knights. Hugo makes him free to stay a year, if he likes, unyokes the oxen, and conducts his guests to the palace.
The palace is gorgeous in the extreme, and, omitting other architectural details, it is circular, and so constructed as to turn like a wheel when the wind strikes it from the west. Charles thinks his own wealth not worth a glove in comparison, and remembers how he had threatened his wife. "Lordings," he says, "many a palace have I seen, but none like this had even Alexander, Constantine, or Cæsar." At that moment a strong wind arose which set the palace in lively motion; the emperor was fain to sit down on the floor; the twelve peers were all upset, and as they lay on their backs, with faces covered, said one to the other, "This is a bad business: the doors are open, and yet we can't get out!" But as evening approached the wind subsided; the Franks recovered their legs, and went to supper. At the table they saw the queen and the princess, a beautiful blonde, of whom Oliver became at once enamored. After a most royal repast, the king conducted Charles and the twelve to a bed-chamber, in which there were thirteen beds. It is doubtful whether modern luxury can vie with the appointments in any respect, and certain that we are hopelessly behind in one, for this room was lighted by a carbuncle. But, again, there was one luxury which Hugo did not allow them, and this was privacy, even so much privacy as thirteen can have. He had put a man in a hollow place under a marble stair, to watch them through a little hole.
The Franks, as it appears later, had drunk heavily at supper, and this must be their excuse for giving themselves over, when in a foreign country, to a usage or propensity which they had no doubt indulged in at home, and which is familiar in northern poetry and saga, that of making brags (gabs, Anglo-Saxon beót, gilp[268]). Charles began: Let Hugo arm his best man in two hauberks and two helms, and set him on a charger: then, if he will lend me his sword, I will with a blow cut through helms, hauberks, and saddle, and if I let it have its course, the blade shall never be recovered but by digging a spear's depth in the ground. "Perdy," says the man in hiding, "what a fool King Hugo was when he gave you lodging!"
Roland followed: Tell Hugo to lend me his horn, and I will go into yon plain and blow such a blast that not a gate or a door in all the city shall be left standing, and a good man Hugo will be, if he faces me, not to have his beard burned from his face and his fur robe carried away. Again said the man under the stair, "What a fool was King Hugo!"
The emperor next called upon Oliver, whose gab was:
'Prenget li reis sa fille qui tant at bloi le peil,
En sa chambre nos metet en un lit en requeit;
Se jo n'ai testimoigne de li anuit cent feiz,
Demain perde la teste, par covent li otrei.'
"You will stop before that," said the spy; "great shame have you spoken."
Archbishop Turpin's brag was next in order: it would have been more in keeping for Turpin of Hounslow Heath, and we have all seen it performed in the travelling circus. While three of the king's best horses are running at full speed on the plain, he will overtake and mount the foremost, passing the others, and will keep four big apples in constant motion from one hand to the other; if he lets one fall, put out his eyes.[269] "A good brag this," is the comment of the simple scout (l'escolte), "and no shame to my lord."
William of Orange will take in one hand a metal ball which thirty men have never been able to stir, and will hurl it at the palace wall and bring down more than forty toises of it. "The king is a knave if he does not make you try," says l'escolte.
The other eight gabs may be passed over, save one. Bernard de Brusban says, "You see that roaring stream? To-morrow I will make it leave its bed, cover the fields, fill the cellars of the city, drench the people, and drive King Hugo into his highest tower, from which he shall never come down without my leave." "The man is mad," says the spy. "What a fool King Hugo was! As soon as morning dawns they shall all pack."
The spy carries his report to his master without a moment's delay. Hugo swears that if the brags are not accomplished as made, his guests shall lose their heads, and orders out a hundred thousand men-at-arms to enforce his resolution.
When the devout emperor of the west came from mass the next morning (Hugo was evidently not in a state of mind to go), he advanced to meet his brother of Constantinople, olive branch in hand; but Hugo called out from far off, "Charles, why did you make me the butt of your brags and your scorns?" and repeated that all must be done, or thirteen heads would fall. Charles replied that they had drunk a good deal of wine the night before, and that it was the custom for the French when they had gone to bed to allow themselves in jesting. He desired to speak with his knights. When they were together, the emperor said that they had drunk too much, and had uttered what they ought not. He caused the relics to be brought, and they all fell to praying and beating their breasts, that they might be saved from Hugo's wrath, when lo, an angel appeared, who bade them not be afraid; they had committed a great folly yesterday, and must never brag again, but for this time, "Go, begin, not one of them shall fail."[270]
Charles returned to Hugo master of the situation. He repeated that they had drunk too much wine the night before, and went on to say that it was an outrage on Hugo's part to set a spy in the room, and that they knew a land where such an act would be accounted villainy: "but all shall be carried out; choose who shall begin." Hugo said, Oliver; and let him not fall short of his boast, or I will cut off his head, and the other twelve shall share his fate. The next morning, in pursuance of an arrangement made between Oliver and the princess, the king was informed that what had been undertaken had been precisely discharged. "The first has saved himself," says Hugo; "by magic, I believe; now I wish to know about the rest." "What next?" says Charlemagne. William of Orange was called for, threw off his furs, lifted the huge ball with one hand, hurled it at the wall, and threw down more than forty toises. "They are enchanters," said the king to his men. "Now I should like to see if the rest will do as much. If one of them fails, I will hang them all to-morrow." "Do you want any more of the gabs?" asked Charles. Hugo called upon Bernard to do what he had threatened. Bernard asked the prayers of the emperor, ran down to the water, and made the sign of the cross. All the water left its bed, spread over the fields, came into the city, filled the cellars, drenched the people, and drove King Hugo into his highest tower; Charles and the peers being the while ensconced in an old pine-tree, all praying for God's pity.
Charles in the tree heard Hugo in the tower making his moan: he would give the emperor all his treasure, would become his man and hold his kingdom of him. The emperor was moved, and prayed that the flood might stop, and at once the water began to ebb. Hugo was able to descend from his tower, and he came to Charles, under an "ympe tree," and repeated what he had uttered in the moment of extremity. "Do you want the rest of the gabs?" asked Charles. "Ne de ceste semaine," replied Hugo. "Then, since you are my man," said the emperor, "we will make a holiday and wear our crowns together." When the French saw the two monarchs walking together, and Charles overtopping Hugo by fifteen inches, they said the queen was a fool to compare anybody with him.
After this promenade there was mass, at which Turpin officiated, and then a grand dinner. Hugo once more proffered all his treasures to Charles, but Charles would not take a denier. "We must be going," he said. The French mounted their mules, and went off in high spirits. Very happy was Charles to have conquered such a king without a battle. Charles went directly to St Denis, and performed his devotions. The nail and the crown he deposited on the altar, distributed the other relics over the kingdom, and for the love of the sepulchre he gave up his anger against the queen.
The story in the English ballad, so far as it is to be collected from our eight fragments, is that Arthur, represented as King of Little Britain, while boasting to Gawain of his round table, is told by Guenever that she knows of one immeasurably finer; the very trestle is worth his halls and his gold, and the palace it stands in is worth all Little Britain besides; but not a word will she say as to where this table and this goodly building may be. Arthur makes a vow never to sleep two nights in one place till he sees that round table; and, taking for companions Gawain, Tristram, Sir Bredbeddle, and an otherwise unknown Sir Marramiles, sets out on the quest.
The pilgrimage which, to save his dignity, Charles makes a cover for his visit to the rival king forms no part of Arthur's programme.[271] The five assume a palmer's weed simply for disguise, and travel east and west, in many a strange country, only to arrive at Cornwall, so very little a way from home.
The proud porter of Cornwall's gate, a minion swain, befittingly clad in a suit of gold, for his master is the richest king in Christendom, or yet in heathenness, is evidently impressed with Arthur's bearing, as is quite the rule in such cases:[272] he has been porter thirty years and three, but [has never seen the like]. Cornwall would naturally ask the pilgrims some questions. From their mentioning some shrine of Our Lady he infers that they have been in Britain,—Little Britain we must suppose to be meant. Cornwall asks if they ever knew King Arthur, and boasts that he had lived seven years in Little Britain, and had had a daughter by Arthur's wife, now a lady of radiant beauty, and Arthur has none such.[273] He then sends for his steed, which he can ride three times as far in a day as Arthur can any of his, and we may suppose that he also exhibits to his guests a horn and a sword of remarkable properties, and a Bur-low-Beanie, or Billy-Blin, a seven-headed, fire-breathing fiend whom he has in his service. Arthur is then conducted to bed, and the Billy-Blin, shut up, as far as we can make out, in some sort of barrel, or other vessel,[274] is set by Arthur's bed-side to hear and report the talk of the pilgrims. Now, it would seem, the knights make each their vow or brag. Arthur's is that he will be the death of Cornwall King before he sees Little Britain. Gawain, who represents Oliver, will have Cornwall's daughter home with him. Here there is an unlucky gap. Tristram should undertake to carry off the horn, Marramiles the steed, and Sir Bredbeddle the sword. But first it would be necessary to subdue the loathly fiend. Bredbeddle goes to work without dallying, bursts open the rub-chadler with his sword, and fights the fire-breathing monster in a style that is a joy to see; but sword, knife, and axe all break, and he is left without a weapon. Yet he had something better to fall back on, and that was a little book which he had found by the seaside, no doubt in the course of those long travels which conducted the pilgrims from Little Britain to Cornwall. It was probably a book of Evangiles; our Lord had written it with his hands and sealed it with his blood. With this little book, which in a manner takes the place of the relics in the French tale, for the safety of the pilgrims and the accomplishment of their vows are secured through it, Bredbeddle conjures the Burlow-beanie, and shuts him up till wanted in a "wall of stone," which reminds us of the place in which Hugo's spy is concealed. He then reports to Arthur, who has a great desire to see the fiend in all his terrors, and, upon the king's promising to stand firm, Bredbeddle makes the fiend start out again, with his seven heads and the fire flying out of his mouth. The Billy-Blin is now entirely amenable to command: Bredbeddle has only to "conjure" him to do a thing, and it is done. First he fetches down the steed. Marramiles, who perhaps had vowed to bring off the horse, considers that he is the man to ride him, but finds he can do nothing with him, and has to call on Bredbeddle for help. The Billy-Blin is required to tell how the steed is to be ridden, and reveals that three strokes of a gold wand which stands in Cornwall's study-window will make him spring like spark from brand. And so it comes out that Cornwall is a magician. Next the horn has to be fetched, but, when brought, it cannot be sounded. For this a certain powder is required. This the fiend procures, and Tristram blows a blast which rends the horn up to the midst.[275] Finally the Billy-Blin is conjured to fetch the sword, and with this sword Arthur goes and strikes off Cornwall's head. So Arthur keeps his vow, and, so far as we can see, all the rest are in a condition to keep theirs.
The English ballad retains too little of the French story to enable us to say what form of it this little was derived from. The poem of Galien would cover all that is borrowed as well as the Journey of Charlemagne. It may be regarded as an indication of late origin that in this ballad Arthur is king of Little Britain, that Bredbeddle and Marramiles are made the fellows of Gawain and Tristram, Bredbeddle carrying off all the honors, and that Cornwall has had an intrigue with Arthur's queen. The name Bredbeddle is found elsewhere only in the late Percy version of the romance of the Green Knight, Hales and Furnivall, II, 56, which version alludes to a custom of the Knights of the Bath, an order said to have been instituted by Henry IV at his coronation, in 1399.
The Färöe ballad, 'Geipa-táttur,' exists in four versions: A, Svabo's manuscript collection, 1782, III, 1, 85 stanzas; B, Sandøbog, 1822, p. 49, 140 stanzas; C, Fugløbog, c. 1840, p. 9, 120 stanzas; D, Syderø version, obtained by Hammershaimb, 1848, 103 stanzas.[276] It repeats the story of the Norse saga, with a moderate number of traditional accretions and changes. The emperor, from his throne, asks his champions where is his superior [equal]. They all drop their heads; no one ventures to answer but the queen, who better had been silent. "The emperor of Constantinople" (Hákin, D), she says, "is thy superior." "If he is not," answers Karl, "thou shalt burn on bale." In B, when they have already started for Constantinople, Turpin persuades them to go rather to Jerusalem: in the other versions it must be assumed that the holy city was on the route. As Karl enters the church the bells ring and the candles light of themselves, C, D. There are thirteen seats in the choir: Karl takes the one that Jesus had occupied, and the peers those of the apostles. A heathen tells the patriarch[277] that the Lord is come down from heaven, C, D. The patriarch proceeds to the church, with no attendance but his altar-book [singing from his altar-book]; he asks Karl what he has come for, and Karl replies, to see the halidoms, A, C, D. In B the patriarch presents himself to the emperor at his lodging, and inquires his purpose; and, learning that he is on his way to Constantinople, for glory, advises him first to go to the church, where the ways and means of success are to be found. The patriarch gives Karl some of the relics: the napkin on which Jesus had wiped his hands, cups from which he had drunk, etc. Karl, in A, C, now announces that he is on his way to Constantinople; the patriarch begs him not to go, for he will have much to suffer. At the exterior gate of the palace will be twelve white bears, ready to go at him; the sight of his sword [of the holy napkin, B] will cause them to fall stone-dead, or at least harmless, B. At the gate next within there will be twelve wolf-dogs[278] [and further on twelve toads, B], which must be disposed of in like wise: etc. The castle stands on a hundred pillars, A, and is full of ingenious contrivances: the floor goes up to the sky, and the roof comes down to the ground, B. Karl now sets out, with the patriarch's blessing and escort. Before they reach the palace they come upon three hundred knights and ladies dancing, which also had been foretold, and at the portals of the palace they find and vanquish the formidable beasts. The palace is to the full as splendid and as artfully constructed as they had been informed: the floor goes up and the roof comes down, B; there are monstrous figures (?), with horns at their mouths, and upon a wind rising the horns all sound, the building begins to revolve, and the Frenchmen jump up, each clinging to the other, B, C, D. Karl remembers what his wife had said, A, D.
Of the reception by the monarch of Constantinople nothing further is said. We are immediately taken to the bedroom, in which there are twelve beds, with a thirteenth in the middle, and also a stone arch, or vault, inside of which is a man with a candle. Karl proposes that they shall choose feats, make boasts, rouses [skemtar, jests, C]. These would inevitably be more or less deranged and corrupted in the course of tradition. A and C have lost many. Karl's boast, dropped in B, C, is that he will smite King Hákin, so that the sword's point shall stick in the ground, D; hit the emperor on the neck and knock him off his horse, A. Roland, in all, will blow the emperor's hair off his head with the blast of his horn. Oliver's remains as in the French poem. William of Orange's ball is changed to a bolt. The exploit with the horses and apples is assigned to Bernard in D, the only version which preserves it, as in the Norse saga; and, as in the saga again, it is Turpin, and not Bernard, who brings in the river upon the town, and forces the king to take refuge in the tower.
Early in the morning the spy reports in writing, and King Hákin, D, says that Karl and his twelve peers shall burn on the bale, A, C, D, if they cannot make good their boasts, B. Karl's queen appears to him in his sleep, A, and bids him think of last night's words. It is the queen of Constantinople in B, C, D who rouses Karl to a sense of his plight; in B she tells him that the brags have been reported, and that burning will be the penalty unless they be achieved. Karl then sees that his wife knew what she was saying, and vows to give her Hildarheim and a scarlet cloak if he gets home alive. He hastens to church; a dove descends from heaven and sits on his arm [in B a voice comes from heaven]; he is assured that the boasts shall all be performed, but never let such a thing be done again. In A three of the feats are executed, in D four, in C seven, Oliver's in each case strictly, and Turpin's, naturally, last. The king in C does the feat which is proposed by Eimer in the saga. A and C end abruptly with Turpin's exploit. In D Karl falls on his knees and prays, and the water retires; Karl rides out of Constantinople, followed three days on the road by Koronatus, as Hákin is now called, stanza 103: it is Karlamagnús that wears his crown higher. B takes a turn of its own. Roland, Olger and Oliver are called upon to do their brags. Roland blows so that nobody in Constantinople can keep his legs, and the emperor falls into the mud, but he blows not a hair off the emperor's head; Olger slings the gold-bolt over the wall, but breaks off none; Oliver gives a hundred kisses, as in the saga. The emperor remarks each time, I hold him no champion that performs his rouse that way. But Turpin's brag is thoroughly done; the emperor is driven to the tower, and begs Karl to turn off the water; no more feats shall be exacted. Now the two kaisers walk in the hall, conferring about tribute, which Karl takes and rides away. When he reaches home his queen welcomes him, and asks what happened at Constantinople: "Hvat gekk af?" "This," says Karl; "I know the truth now; you shall be queen as before, and shall have a voice in the rule."
It is manifest that Charlemagne's pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the visit to the king of Constantinople, though somewhat intimately combined in the old French geste, were originally distinct narratives. As far as we can judge, nothing of the pilgrimage was retained by the English ballad. We are not certain, even, that it is Charlemagne's visit to Hugo upon which the ballad was formed, though the great popularity of the French poem makes this altogether likely. As M. Gaston Paris has said and shown,[279] the visit to Hugo is one of a cycle of tales of which the framework is this: that a king who regards himself as the richest or most magnificent in the world is told that there is somebody that outstrips him, and undertakes a visit to his rival to determine which surpasses the other, threatening death to the person who has disturbed his self-complacency, in case the rival should turn out to be his inferior. A familiar example is afforded by the tale of Aboulcassem, the first of the Mille et un Jours. Haroun Alraschid was incessantly boasting that no prince in the world was so generous as he.[280] The vizier Giafar humbly exhorted the caliph not to praise himself, but to leave that to others. The caliph, much piqued, demanded, Do you then know anybody who compares with me? Giafar felt compelled to reply that there was a young man at Basra, who, though in a private station, was not inferior even to the caliph in point of generosity. Haroun was very angry, and, on Giafar's persisting in what he had said, had the vizier arrested, and finally resolved to go to Basra to see with his own eyes: if Giafar should have spoken the truth, he should be rewarded, but in the other event he should forfeit his life.[281]
This story, it is true, shows no trace of the gabs which Charlemagne and the peers make, and which Hugo requires to be accomplished on pain of death. The gabs are a well-known North-European custom, and need not be sought for further; but the requiring by one king of certain feats to be executed by another under a heavy penalty is a feature of a large class of Eastern tales of which there has already been occasion to speak: see '[The Elfin Knight],' p. [11]. The demand in these, however, is made not in person, but through an ambassador. The combination of a personal visit with a task to be performed under penalty of death is seen in the Vafþrúðnismál, where Odin, disguised as a traveller, seeks a contest in knowledge with the wisest of the giants.[282]
The story of the gabs has been retold in two modern imitations: very indifferently by Nivelle de la Chaussée, 'Le Roi Hugon,' Œuvres, t. V, supplément, p. 66, ed. 1778, and well by M. J. Chénier, 'Les Miracles,' III, 259, ed. 1824.[283] Uhland treated the subject dramatically in a composition which has not been published: Keller, Altfranzösische Sagen, 1876, Inhalt (Koschwitz).
Percy MS., p. 24. Hales and Furnivall, I, 61; Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 275.
* * * * *
1
[Saies, 'Come here, cuzen Gawaine so gay,]
My sisters sonne be yee;
Ffor you shall see one of the fairest round tables
That euer you see with your eye.'
2
Then bespake Lady Queen Gueneuer,
And these were the words said shee:
'I know where a round table is, thou noble king,
Is worth thy round table and other such three.
3
'The trestle that stands vnder this round table,' she said,
'Lowe downe to the mould,
It is worth thy round table, thou worthy king,
Thy halls, and all thy gold.
4
'The place where this round table stands in,
. . . . . . .
It is worth thy castle, thy gold, thy fee,
And all good Litle Britaine.'
5
'Where may that table be, lady?' quoth hee,
'Or where may all that goodly building be?'
'You shall it seeke,' shee says, 'till you it find,
For you shall neuer gett more of me.'
6
Then bespake him noble King Arthur,
These were the words said hee:
'He make mine avow to God,
And alsoe to the Trinity,
7
'He never sleepe one night there as I doe another,
Till that round table I see:
Sir Marramiles and Sir Tristeram,
Fellowes that ye shall bee.
8
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
'Weele be clad in palmers weede,
Fiue palmers we will bee;
9
'There is noe outlandish man will vs abide,
Nor will vs come nye.'
Then they riued east and thé riued west,
In many a strange country.
10
Then they tranckled a litle further,
They saw a battle new sett:
'Now, by my faith,' saies noble King Arthur,
. . . . . . well .
* * * * *
11
But when he cam to this ... c ...
And to the palace gate,
Soe ready was ther a proud porter,
And met him soone therat.
12
Shooes of gold the porter had on,
And all his other rayment was vnto the same:
'Now, by my faith,' saies noble King Arthur,
'Yonder is a minion swaine.'
13
Then bespake noble King Arthur,
These were the words says hee:
'Come hither, thou proud porter,
I pray thee come hither to me.
14
'I haue two poore rings of my finger,
The better of them Ile giue to thee;
Tell who may be lord of this castle,' he sayes,
'Or who is lord in this cuntry?'
15
'Cornewall King,' the porter sayes,
'There is none soe rich as hee;
Neither in christendome, nor yet in heathen-nest,
None hath soe much gold as he.'
16
And then bespake him noble King Arthur,
These were the words sayes hee:
'I haue two poore rings of my finger,
The better of them Ile giue thee,
If thou wilt greete him well, Cornewall King,
And greete him well from me.
17
'Pray him for one nights lodging and two meales meate,
For his love that dyed vppon a tree;
Of one ghesting and two meales meate,
For his loue that dyed vppon a tree.
18
'Of one ghesting, of two meales meate,
For his love that was of virgin borne,
And in the morning that we may scape away,
Either without scath or scorne.'
19
Then forth is gone this proud porter,
As fast as he cold hye,
And when he came befor Cornewall King,
He kneeled downe on his knee.
20
Sayes, 'I haue beene porter-man, at thy gate,
This thirty winter and three ...
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
* * * * *
21
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
Our Lady was borne; then thought Cornewall King
These palmers had beene in Brittaine.
22
Then bespake him Cornwall King,
These were the words he said there:
'Did you euer know a comely king,
His name was King Arthur?'
23
And then bespake him noble King Arthur,
These were the words said hee:
'I doe not know that comly king,
But once my selfe I did him see.'
Then bespake Cornwall King againe,
These were the words said he:
24
Sayes, 'Seuen yeere I was clad and fed,
In Litle Brittaine, in a bower;
I had a daughter by King Arthurs wife,
That now is called my flower;
For King Arthur, that kindly cockward,
Hath none such in his bower.
25
'For I durst sweare, and saue my othe,
That same lady soe bright,
That a man that were laid on his death bed
Wold open his eyes on her to haue sight.'
'Now, by my faith,' sayes noble King Arthur,
'And that's a full faire wight!'
26
And then bespake Cornewall [King] againe,
And these were the words he said:
'Come hither, fiue or three of my knights,
And feitch me downe my steed;
King Arthur, that foule cockeward,
Hath none such, if he had need.
27
'For I can ryde him as far on a day
As King Arthur can doe any of his on three;
And is it not a pleasure for a king
When he shall ryde forth on his iourney?
28
'For the eyes that beene in his head,
Thé glister as doth the gleed.'
'Now, by my faith,' says noble King Arthur,
'That is a well faire steed.'
* * * * *
29
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
'Nobody say . . . .
But one that's learned to speake.'
30
Then King Arthur to his bed was brought,
A greeiued man was hee;
And soe were all his fellowes with him,
From him thé thought neuer to flee.
31
Then take they did that lodly groome,
And under the rub-chadler closed was hee,
And he was set by King Arthurs bed-side,
To heere theire talke and theire comunye;
32
That he might come forth, and make proclamation,
Long before it was day;
It was more for King Cornwalls pleasure,
Then it was for King Arthurs pay.
33
And when King Arthur in his bed was laid,
These were the words said hee:
'Ile make mine avow to God,
And alsoe to the Trinity,
That Ile be the bane of Cornwall Kinge,
Litle Brittaine or euer I see!'
34
'It is an vnaduised vow,' saies Gawaine the gay,
'As ever king hard make I;
But wee that beene fiue Christian men,
Of the christen faith are wee,
And we shall fight against anoynted king
And all his armorie.'
35
And then bespake him noble Arthur,
And these were the words said he:
'Why, if thou be afraid, Sir Gawaine the gay,
Goe home, and drinke wine in thine owne country.'
36
And then bespake Sir Gawaine the gay,
And these were the words said hee:
'Nay, seeing you have made such a hearty vow,
Heere another vow make will I.
37
'Ile make mine avow to God,
And alsoe to the Trinity,
That I will haue yonder faire lady
To Litle Brittaine with mee.
38
'Ile hose her hourly to my heart,
And with her Ile worke my will;'
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
* * * * *
39
. . . . . . .
These were the words sayd hee:
'Befor I wold wrestle with yonder feend,
It is better be drowned in the sea.'
40
And then, bespake Sir Bredbeddle,
And these were the words said he:
'Why, I will wrestle with yon lodly feend,
God, my gouernor thou wilt bee!'
41
Then bespake him noble Arthur,
And these were the words said he:
'What weapons wilt thou haue, thou gentle knight?
I pray thee tell to me.'
42
He sayes, 'Collen brand Ile haue in my hand,
And a Millaine knife fast by me knee,
And a Danish axe fast in my hands,
That a sure weapon I thinke wilbe.'
43
Then with his Collen brand that he had in his hand
The bunge of that rub-chandler he burst in three;
With that start out a lodly feend,
With seuen heads, and one body.
44
The fyer towards the element flew,
Out of his mouth, where was great plentie;
The knight stoode in the middle and fought,
That it was great ioy to see.
45
Till his Collaine brand brake in his hand,
And his Millaine knife burst on his knee,
And then the Danish axe burst in his hand first,
That a sur weapon he thought shold be.
46
But now is the knight left without any weapons,
And alacke! it was the more pitty;
But a surer weapon then he had one,
Had neuer lord in Christentye;
And all was but one litle booke,
He found it by the side of the sea.
47
He found it at the sea-side,
Wrucked upp in a floode;
Our Lord had written it with his hands,
And sealed it with his bloode.
* * * * *
48
'That thou doe not s ...
But ly still in that wall of stone,
Till I haue beene with noble King Arthur,
And told him what I haue done.'
49
And when he came to the kings chamber,
He cold of his curtesie:
Says, 'Sleepe you, wake you, noble King Arthur?
And euer Iesus waken yee!'
50
'Nay, I am not sleeping, I am waking,'
These were the words said hee;
'Ffor thee I haue card; how hast thou fared?
O gentle knight, let me see.'
51
The knight wrought the king his booke,
Bad him behold, reede and see;
And euer he found it on the backside of the leafe
As noble Arthur wold wish it to be.
52
And then bespake him King Arthur,
'Alas! thow gentle knight, how may this be,
That I might see him in the same licknesse
That he stood vnto thee?'
53
And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said hee:
'If youle stand stifly in the battell stronge,
For I haue won all the victory.'
54
Then bespake him the king againe,
And these were the words said hee:
'If wee stand not stifly in this battell strong,
Wee are worthy to be hanged all on a tree.'
55
Then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said he:
Saies, 'I doe coniure thee, thou fowle feend,
In the same licknesse thou stood vnto me.'
56
With that start out a lodly feend,
With seuen heads, and one body;
The fier towards the element flaugh,
Out of his mouth, where was great plenty.
57
The knight stood in the middle p ...
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
* * * * *
58
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
... they stood the space of an houre,
I know not what they did.
59
And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
And these were the words said he:
Saith, 'I coniure thee, thou fowle feend,
That thou feitch downe the steed that we see.'
60
And then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feitch he did that faire steed,
And came againe by and by.
61
Then bespake him Sir Marramiles,
And these were the words said hee:
'Riding of this steed, brother Bredbeddle,
The mastery belongs to me.'
62
Marramiles tooke the steed to his hand,
To ryd him he was full bold;
He cold noe more make him goe
Then a child of three yeere old.
63
He laid vppon him with heele and hand,
With yard that was soe fell;
'Helpe! brother Bredbeddle,' says Marramile,
'For I thinke he be the devill of hell.
64
'Helpe! brother Bredbeddle,' says Marramile,
'Helpe! for Christs pittye;
Ffor without thy help, brother Bredbeddle,
He will neuer be rydden for me.'
65
Then bespake him Sir Bredbeddle,
These were the words said he:
'I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beane,
Thou tell me how this steed was riddin in his country.'
66
He saith, 'there is a gold wand
Stands in King Cornwalls study windowe;
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
67
'Let him take that wand in that window,
And strike three strokes on that steed;
And then he will spring forth of his hand
As sparke doth out of gleede.'
68
And then bespake him the Greene Knight,
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
* * * * *
69
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
A lowd blast he may blow then.
70
And then bespake Sir Bredebeddle,
To the ffeend these words said hee:
Says, 'I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beanie,
The powder-box thou feitch me.'
71
Then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feich he did the powder-box,
And came againe by and by.
72
Then Sir Tristeram tooke powder forth of that box,
And blent it with warme sweet milke,
And there put it vnto that horne,
And swilled it about in that ilke.
73
Then he tooke the horne in his hand,
And a lowd blast he blew;
He rent the horne vp to the midst,
All his ffellowes this thé knew.
74
Then bespake him the Greene Knight,
These were the words said he:
Saies, 'I coniure thee, thou Burlow-beanie,
That thou feitch me the sword that I see.'
75
Then forth is gone Burlow-beanie,
As fast as he cold hie,
And feitch he did that faire sword,
And came againe by and by.
76
Then bespake him Sir Bredbeddle,
To the king these words said he:
'Take this sword in thy hand, thou noble King Arthur,
For the vowes sake that thou made Ile giue it th[ee,]
And goe strike off King Cornewalls head,
In bed were he doth lye.'
77
Then forth is gone noble King Arthur,
As fast as he cold hye,
And strucken he hath off King Cornwalls head,
And came againe by and by.
78
He put the head vpon a swords point,
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
. . . . . . .
* * * * *
11. The tops of the letters of this line were cut off in binding. Percy thought it had stood previously,
come here Cuzen Gawaine so gay.
Furnivall says "the bottoms of the letters left suit better those in the text" as given. 4 and 5, 8 and 9, are joined in the MS.
104. Half a page is gone from the MS., or about 38 or 40 lines; and so after 202, 284, 382, 474, 571, 681, 781.
142. they better.
173, 181. The first two words are hard to make out, and look like A vne.
182. boirne.
191. his gone.
202. The lower half of the letters is gone.
21. In MS.:
our Lady was borne
then thought cornewall King these palmers had
beene in Brittanie.
284. ? MS. Only the upper part of the letters is left.
312. under thrub chadler.
35. After this stanza is written, in the left margin of the MS., The 3d Part.
381. homly to my hurt. Madden read hourly.
391. The top line is pared away.
412. they words.
432. of the trubchandler.
463. then had he.
64. p', i. e. pro or per, me. Madden.
66. Attached to 65 in MS.
694. ? MS.
765,6. Joined with 77 in MS. & and Arabic numerals have been frequently written out.