donez dont len note ·|· lai.[78]
Professor Foerster's critical edition.
Veant toz ses barons se done
La dame a mon seignor Yvain.
Par la main d'un suen chapelain
Prise a Laudine de Landuc
La dame qui fu fille au duc
Laudunet don an note un lai.
—Yvain, ed. 1891, ll. 2148-53.
(Translation.)
All the barons beholding, gives herself
The lady to my lord Yvain.
By the hand of her chaplain
Thus the lady of lenduc,
The lady who was daughter to the duke,
They have given to him of which (whom) one notes a lay.
All her barons beholding, gives herself
The lady to my lord Yvain.
By the hand of one her chaplain
He has taken Laudine de Landuc,
The lady who was daughter to the duke,
Laudunet of whom (which) one notes a lay.
It will be observed that, grammatically, the phrase 'don an note un lai' may refer to the wedding quite as well as to the supposed Laudunet, while in no other passage in the entire poem is the lady's name or that of her father mentioned.
The MS. which offers the interesting variant quoted above is, Professor Foerster tells us, in the dialect of Champagne (Chrétien was a Champenois) of the thirteenth century, and stands in close relation to the source of Hartmann von Aue's translation.[79]