[59] Tristan was written in verse by Chrestien de Troyes. The prose romance was first printed in 1489.
[60] Parthenopex was written in French in the twelfth century, according to Le Grand; in the thirteenth, according to Roquefort.
[61] Composed—for to call it, with Ellis, Ritson, and others, a translation, would be absurd. How Ellis, who had at least read Le Grand's and Way's Fabliaux, could say of Chestre, that he "seems to have given a faithful as well as spirited version of this old Breton story," is surprising. It is in fact no translation, but a poem on the adventures of Sir Launfal, founded chiefly on the Lais de Lanval and de Graelent, in Marie de France, with considerable additions of Chestre's own invention, or derived from other sources. These Lais will be considered under Brittany.
[62] Thus we ourselves say the Príncess Royal, éxtreme need, etc. This, by the way, is the cause why the Greeks put a grave and not an acute accent on words accented on the last syllable, to show that it is easily moveable.
[63] As this seems to be one of the lost arts, we will here and elsewhere mark the feminine e and the change of accent.
[64] Rode—complexion; from red.
[65] Occient—occident or océan? The Gascon peasantry call the Bay of Biscay La Mer d'Occient. The Spaniards say Mar Oceano.
[66] It is strange to find the English poet changing the Avalon of the Lai de Lanval into the well-known island of Oléron. It is rather strange too, that Mr. Ritson, who has a note on "Oliroun," did not notice this.
[67] The Lai ends thus:
Od (avec) li sen vait en Avalun,
Ceo nus recuntent le Bretun;
En une isle que mut est beaus,
La fut ravi li dameiseaus,
Nul humme nen ot plus parler,
Ne jeo nen sai avant cunter.