Page [199], line 124—'Obie and Obilot.' Bartsch considers that both these names are derived from a French source, Obie, from the verb obier, signifying excitable, passionate; Obilot, from the French belot, a fair child. In Chrêtien the sisters are unnamed, but the younger is called La pucièle as mances petites.
Page [199], line 136—'Galoes and Annora.' Here we learn, for the first time, the name of Galoes' love, cf. Book II. p. 46 and note. Annora is the same name as Eleanor.
Page [200], line 168—'Lisavander.' The French has several variations of this name, Teudaves, Travezdates, Trahedavet.
Page [205], line 318, and p. [219], line 781—'A charger the king bestrode.' This is an allusion to the captivity of Queen Guinevere and her rescue by Lancelot. Kay was among her would-be liberators, and was smitten by Meljakanz: 'enbor ûs dem satele hin, daz in ein ast der helm gevienc, und bi der gurgelen hienc.' This incident is related in Hartmann's Iwein; but the subsequent freeing of the queen by Lancelot, referred to on p. 219, is taken from Chrêtien's Chevalier de la Charrette. The adventure is again alluded to in Book XII.
Page [210], line 493—'Gawain and Obilot.' Though Chrêtien and Wolfram agree here in the main outline of the story, yet the details differ completely, and the episode as related by the German poet is far more graceful and poetical in treatment. In Chrêtien the elder sister strikes the younger in the face, and it is in order to avenge this insult that the child begs Gawain to fight for her. It is the father, and not the child herself, who suggests presenting the knight with a token; he bids Gawain at first pay no attention to her request, and there is no trace of the pride and affection with which Lippaut evidently regards both his daughters, or of the confidence between father and child which is so charming a feature in Wolfram's poem. Gawain, according to Chrêtien, does not present his little lady with the captured monarch, but only with his steed, a compliment she shares too with his hostess and her daughters. In the French poet we have nothing of the amusing assumption of maiden dignity by the child Obilot, or of the graceful courtesy, half serious, half laughing, with which Gawain falls in with her whim, and sustains his part in the pretty play. Critics have bestowed much praise on this book, and on the character of the child Obilot, and some have thought that, in the picture of father and child, and in the words put into Lippaut's mouth, we have a glimpse of the home life of the poet, and an expression of personal feeling. In Willehalm, Wolfram refers to his daughter's dolls, and throughout his poems he frequently alludes to children, their ways, and their amusements. However that may be, nowhere else in the poem does Gawain appear to so much advantage as in this episode.
Page [211], line 522—'Parzival.' Cf. Book VI. p. 188, line 941.
Page [216], line 668—'Even now shall the Erfurt vineyards.' etc. An allusion to the siege of Erfurt by the Landgrave Herman in 1203. As the poet speaks of the traces of strife as being yet visible, this book of the Parzival must have been written not long after that date.
Page [217], line 715, and seq.—'The captive Breton knights.' It is doubtful to what romance Wolfram here makes allusion. Chrêtien, in his Chevalier la Charrette, relates the capture of some of Arthur's knights by King Bagdemagus-Poidikonjonz, when Meljakanz carried off Guinevere, but they were released by Lancelot. Wolfram seems to have known another version of the story, as he evidently did know a romance dealing with the fate of Arthur's son, Ilinot, of whom we know nothing. He refers to this at length in Book XII. Cluse seems to betoken an enclosed space, a ravine, Chrêtien calls it Le passage des pierres—The Gampilon was a fabulous beast of the dragon type, also mentioned in the Gudrun.
Page [218], line 733—'The Red Knight.' It is worth noticing that, throughout the Gawain episodes, Wolfram never loses sight of his principal hero; if Parzival does not appear personally, as he does in this book, he is always alluded to in direct connection with the development of the story, e.g., Book VIII. pp. 242, 243. This is not the case in Chrêtien, where the Gawain episodes are entirely independent. Some critics have evolved an elaborate theory to account for the importance assigned to Gawain in this and following books, and maintain that Wolfram felt that while Parzival was a prey to spiritual doubt and despair, it was more artistic to keep him in the background than to make him the hero of a series of chivalrous adventures. The more probable solution seems to be exactly the opposite, viz., that the Gawain episodes were already introduced into the legend, that Wolfram, or his source, felt it a flaw that they should have so little connection with the main thread of the story, and therefore conceived the idea of introducing the principal hero, and, by keeping him always more or less en évidence, making it possible to weave the Gawain adventures into the fabric of the legend, instead of leaving them an excrescence on its surface—a conception which was finally perfected by the connection of Orgeluse, Gawain's lady-love, with both Parzival and Anfortas, thereby bringing all the different elements of the tale into touch each with the other.