| Lors pria (i.e., Kay) le chevalier par la foi que il devoit, le roi, qui li déist où il l’avoit prise et si en porroit une autre tele avoir, si il l’aloit querre (p. 457). | Biaus sire, Dites moi, si Dex le vos mire, Si plus en a en vostre terre, Une autèle en iroie querre Si jou le quidoie trover (25,691 etc.). |
These similarities are too great to be accidental. It will be noticed, however, that they bear chiefly upon two adventures: that of the chessboard and stag hunt, and that of the loathly maiden. As to the latter, it is only necessary to allude to Birch-Hirschfeld’s idea that Rosette is the original of the damsel who reproaches Perceval before the court with his conduct at the Grail Castle, a theory to state which is to refute it. The former adventure will be closely examined in the following section. There is no need to suppose direct borrowing on the part of one or the other versions to account for the parallel in these two incidents; a common original closely followed at times by both would meet the requirements of the case. It is difficult to admit that the author of the Didot-Perceval used Gautier’s continuation and not Chrestien’s original, especially when the following fact, strangely overlooked by both Birch-Hirschfeld and Hucher, is taken into account: Perceval on his first arrival at the Grail Castle keeps silence (as will be seen by a reference to the summary, supra, [p. 31]), because, “li souvenoit du prodome qui li avoit deffandu que ne fust trop pallier,” etc. As a matter of fact, the “prodome” had forbidden nothing of the sort, and this casual sentence is the first allusion to the motive upon which Chrestien lays so much stress as explaining his hero’s mysterious conduct at the Grail Castle. Evidently the Didot-Perceval, which, to whoever considers it impartially, is an obvious abridgment and piecing together of material from different sources, found in one of its sources an episode corresponding to that of Gonemans in Chrestien. But its author, influenced probably by the Galahad version of the Quest, substituted for the “childhood” opening of this hypothetical source the one now found in his version, and the Gonemans episode went with the remainder of that part of the story. When the hero comes to the Grail Castle, the author is puzzled; his hero knows beforehand what he has to do, sets out with the distinct purpose of doing it, and yet remains silent. To account for this silence the author uses the motive belonging to a discarded episode, but applies the words to his hermit, forgetting that he had put no such words into his mouth, and that, attributed to him, the injunction to keep silence became simply meaningless. Is the model treated in this way by the Didot-Perceval Chrestien’s poem? Hardly, for this reason. After the Good Friday incident occurs the remarkable passage, quoted (supra, [p. 31]), as to the silence of the trouvères respecting it. Chrestien gives the incident in full, and the author of the Perceval could have had no reason for his stricture, or could not have ventured it had he been using Chrestien’s work. Two hypotheses then remain; the unknown source may have been a version akin to that used by Chrestien and Gautier, or it may have been a summary abridgment of the Conte du Graal, in which, inter alia, the Good Friday incident was left out. In either case the presence of the passage in the Perceval is equally hard of explanation; but the first hypothesis is favoured by the primitive character of the incident of the Ford Perillous, and several other features which will be touched upon in their place. The Didot-Perceval would thus be an attempt to provide an ending for Borron’s poem by adapting to its central donnée a version of the Perceval sage akin to that which forms the groundwork of the Conte du Graal, its author being largely influenced by the Galahad form of the Quest as found in the Queste. If this view be correct, the testimony of Perceval (wherever not influenced by Borron’s poem or the Queste) is of value in determining the original form of the story, the more so from the author’s evident want of skill in piecing together his materials. It will, therefore, be used in the following section, which deals with the relationship of the Conte du Graal and the Mabinogi of Peredur ab Evrawc.
Relationship of the Conte du Graal and the Mabinogi.—As was seen in [Chapter IV], opinion began with Monsieur de Villemarqué by accepting the Mabinogi as the direct source of the Conte du Graal, and has ended with Zarncke and Birch-Hirschfeld in looking upon it as a more or less direct copy. The most competent of living scholars in this matter, M. Gaston Paris, has expressed himself in favour of this opinion in his recent article on the Lancelot story (Romania, 1886).[71] Before dealing with the question as presented in this form, Simrock’s view, differing as it does from that of all other investigators, deserves notice. He, too, looks upon the Mabinogi as derived from Chrestien, and yet bases his interpretation of the myth underlying the romance upon a feature, the bleeding head in the dish, found only in it. But if the Mabinogi have really preserved here the genuine form of the myth, it must represent an older version than Chrestien’s, and if, on the other hand, Chrestien be its only source, the feature in question cannot belong to the earliest form of the story. Simrock’s theory stands then or falls in this respect by the view taken of the relationship between the two versions, and need not be discussed until that view has been stated.
To facilitate comparison, the incidents common to the two stories are tabulated as under, those of the Mabinogi being taken as the standard:—
The sequence is thus exactly the same in the Mabinogi and in Chrestien, with the single exception of the Blanchefleur incident, which, in the French poem precedes, in the Welsh tale follows, the first visit to the Grail Castle. The similarity of order is sufficient of itself to warrant the surmise of a relation such as that of copy to original. If the Mabinogi be examined closely, much will be found to strengthen this surmise. Thus, Birch-Hirschfeld has pointed out that when Peredur first sees the knights, and on asking his mother what they may be, receives the answer, “Angels, my son”; this can only be a distorted reminiscence of Perceval’s own exclamation,
... Ha! sire Dex, Merchi!
Ce sont angle que je voi ci! (1,349-50).
as the hero’s mother would be the last person to describe thus the knights whom she has done her best to guard her son from knowledge of. Again, Simrock has criticised, and with reason, the incident of Peredur’s being acclaimed by the dwarf on his arrival at Arthur’s court as the chief of warriors and flower of knighthood. In the corresponding incident in Chrestien, the hero is told laughingly by a damsel that he should become the best knight in the world, and she had not laughed for ten years, as a fool had been wont to declare. This is an earlier form than that of the Mabinogi, and closer to the folk-tale account. Thus, to take one instance only, in Mr. Kennedy’s Giolla na Chroicean Gobhar (Fellow with the Goat-skin) [Fictions of the Irish Celts, p. 23], the hero comes to the King of Dublin, as Peredur to Arthur, clad in skins and armed with a club. “Now, the King’s daughter was so melancholy that she didn’t laugh for seven years, but when she saw Tom of the Goat-skin knock over all her father’s best champions, then she let a great sweet laugh out of her,” and of course Tom marries her, but not until he has been through all sorts of trials, aye, even to Hell itself and back. In Chrestien, the primitive form is already overlaid; we hear nothing further of the damsel moved to laughter nor of the prophetic fool; and in the Mabinogi it seems obvious that the hailing of the hero, added in Chrestien to the older laughter, has alone subsisted. Birch-Hirschfeld takes exception likewise to the way in which Peredur’s two uncles are brought upon the scene, the first one, corresponding to Gonemans in Chrestien, being found fishing instead of the real Fisher King, the lord of the Castle of the Magic Talismans, whilst at the latter’s, Peredur has to undergo trials of his strength belonging properly to his stay at the first uncle’s. Evidently, says Birch-Hirschfeld, there has been a confusion of the two personages. Again, when Peredur leaves his second uncle on the morrow of seeing the bleeding head and spear, it is said, “he rode forth with his uncle’s permission.” Can these words be a reminiscence of Chrestien’s?
Et trueve le pont abaiscié,
Con li avoit ensi laissié
Por ce que rien nel detenist,
De quele eure qu’il venist
Que il ne passat sans arriest (4,565-69).
We shall see later on that in the most primitive form of the unsuccessful visit to the Castle of the Talismans the hero finds himself on the morrow on the bare earth, the castle itself having vanished utterly. The idea of permission being given to leave is diametrically opposed to this earliest conception, and its presence in the Mabinogi seems only capable of explanation by some misunderstanding of the story-teller’s model.