En sa chambre se set un jor,
E fait un lai pitus d'am[o]r:
Coment dan Guirun fu surpris,
Pur l'amur de sa dame ocis....
La reine chante dulcement,
La voiz acorde el estrument;
Les mainz sunt bels, li lais b[o]ns
Dulce la voiz [et] bas li tons.
Francisque Michel, ut supra, vol. iii. p. 39.
[189] On this incident, the earliest version of which is as old as the fourteenth century b.c., having been found in an Egyptian papyrus of that date, see the article by Gaston Paris's, Part I.
[190] Swinburne, "Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems."
[191] Bosert, pp. 62, 68, 72, 82.
[192] "Et vous deistes, ales a Dieu, beau doulx amis. Ne oncques puis du cueur ne me pot issir; ce fut li moz qui preudomme me fera si je jamais le suis; car oncques puis ne fus à si grant meschief qui de ce mot ne me souvenist; cilz moz me conforte en tous mes anuys; cilz moz m'a tousjours garanti et gardé de tous périlz; cilz moz m'a saoulé en toutes mes faims; cilz moz me fait riche en toutes mes pouretés. Par foi fait la royne cilz moz fut de bonne heure dit, et benois soit dieux qui dire le me fist. Mais je ne le pris pas si acertes comme vous feistes. A maint chevalier l'ay je dit là où oncques je n'y pensay fors du dire seulement." MS. fr. 118 in the National Library, Paris, fol. 219; fourteenth century. The history of Lancelot was told in verse and prose in almost all the languages of Europe, from the twelfth century. One of the oldest versions (twelfth century) was the work of an Anglo-Norman. The most famous of the Lancelot poems is the "Conte de la Charrette," by Chrestien de Troyes, written between 1164 and 1172 (G. Paris, "Romania," vol. xii. p. 463).
[193] "Omnis consuevit amans in coamantis aspectu pallescere," &c. Rules supposed to have been discovered by a knight at the court of Arthur, and transcribed in the "Flos Amoris," or "De Arte honeste amandi," of André le Chapelain, thirteenth century; "Romania," vol. xii. p. 532.
[194] On these romances, see, in "Histoire Littéraire de la France," vol. xxx., a notice by Gaston Paris. On the MSS. of them preserved in the British Museum, see Ward, "Catalogue of MS. Romances," 1883 (on Merlin, pp. 278 ff.; on other prophecies, and especially those by Thomas of Erceldoune, p. 328; these last have been edited by Alois Brandl, "Thomas of Erceldoune," Berlin, 1880, 8vo, "Sammlung Englischer Denkmäler," and by the Early English Text Society, 1875).
[195] On legends of Hindu origin and for a long time wrongly attributed to the Arabs, see Gaston Paris, "le Lai de l'Oiselet," Paris, 1884, 8vo. See also the important work of M. Bédier, "les Fabliaux," Paris, 1893, 8vo, in which the evidence concerning the Eastern origin of tales is carefully sifted and restricted within the narrowest limits: very few come from the East, not the bulk of them, as was generally admitted.
[196] For Amis, very popular in England, see Kölbing, "Amis and Amiloun," Heilbronn, 1884 (cf. below, p. 229), and "Nouvelles françoises en prose du treizième siècle," edited by Moland and d'Héricault, Paris, 1856, 16mo; these "Nouvelles" include: "l'Empereur Constant," "les Amitiés de Ami et Amile," "le roi Flore et la belle Jehanne," "la Comtesse de Ponthieu," "Aucassin et Nicolette."—The French text of "Floire et Blanceflor" is to be found in Edelstand du Méril, "Poèmes du treizième siècle," Paris, 1856, 16mo.—For Marie de France, see H. Suchier, "Die Lais der Marie de France," Halle, Bibliotheca, Normannica, 1885, 8vo; her fables are in vol. ii. of "Poésies de Marie de France," ed. Roquefort, Paris, 1819, 2 vols. 8vo. See also Bédier's article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct. 15, 1891, also the chapter on Marie in Hervieux, "Fabulistes Latins," 1883-4, 2nd part, chap. i.