It will be observed that even the central theme of the primitive French Tristan, as outlined above, is a much more complex affair than the Irish Aitheda (Diarmaid und Grainne etc.), from which we have derived it. We have, in addition to the motifs of the Aitheda, the combat with Morholt, the two voyages to Ireland, the first of which involves the hero's healing at the hands of an enemy and the second his quest for the princess of the beautiful hair, the part played by Bringvain, besides the series of incidents, in which the lovers evade detection. Now, the combat with the Irish champion, Morholt, and the voyage for healing manifestly belong together, and, inasmuch as the name of this strange champion seeins Celtic,66 we may accept both combat 67 and voyage as of Celtic origin, although the idea of a wound which can be disputes Bédier's conclusion. He cites especially (pp. 132 ff.) a Gaelic parallel (a tale written down by J. G. Campbell) as proving the Celtic origin of the incident. But the Gaelic story is not recorded before the nineteenth century and may very well be, itself, derived from the Theseus legend. Miss Schoepperle, Revue Celtique, XXXII, 185 f., and in her Tristan book, II, 437f. (1913) is more cautious than Brugger. The fact that the white and black sail motif is here combined with a classical motif (that of Paris and Oenone) points strongly, in my judgment, to the conclusion that it, too, is of classical origin. The question one must acknowledge, is doubtful, since the name is not found in Celtic, nor in exactly this form, indeed, anywhere outside of the Tristan poems. Mor, however, means "sea" in the Celtic languages, and Loth, Revue Celtique, XXXII, 420, note 1, (1011) has derived Morholt tentatively from an hypothetical Old Celtic morispolto="sea-splitter". Miss Schoepperle, II, 331, note 1, seems to me to have misunderstood Muret, Romania, XVII, 606 (1888) when she imputes to him the idea (which is really Golther's, p. 17) that Morholt's name was connected with that of the Fomori (giants or marine monsters in Irish saga). Muret merely means that originally Morholt was one of these Celtic giants. Like Miss Schoepperle, loc. cit., I cannot regard the story from the Cuchullin saga (Cuchullin frees a princess who has been offered as a tribute to the Fomorians) which Deutschbein, Beiblatt zu Anglia, XV, 16ff. (1904) and Studien zur Sagengeschichte Englands, 172f. (Cöthen, 1906) cites, as having any historical connection with the Morholt episode. 66 Morhold occurs as a Germanic name in eighth century documents (Cp. E. Foerstemann, Altdeutsches Namenbuch, col. 1118), but the similarity is probably accidental. healed only by an enemy is by no means confined to the Celts.68 It has been suggested that this episode reflects early historical conditions, when the Pictish population of Scotland were being subjugated by Irish invaders.69 This would seem to be a plausible conjecture, and if Tristan was, indeed, in the beginning, a Pictish hero, no incident is so likely to have belonged to him in that character as that of this combat and its sequel. The second voyage in which Tristan goes forth on his indeterminate search. for the unknown golden-haired princess, owes its suggestion, too, no doubt, to a favorite class of Celtic tales-the Imrama (tales of fantastic voyages)," one of which in its Christianized form, the legend of St. Brendan, enjoyed a wide-spread popularity in the Middle Ages throughout Western Europe. In the episode of the Tristan under consideration, however, the object of the voyage has no parallel in these Celtic tales," and the imram motif seems plainly combined with that of a hero's quest of a bride for a king," and in a specific form which is apparently unknown to the Celts the search for the girl, the strands of whose hair have been brought to the king by a bird. A distinguished scholar, indeed, once regarded this adaptation of the well-known fairy-tale of the Fair Maid with the Golden Locks as the fundamental theme of the 67 That the combat should take place on an island was once regarded as a Scandinavian (Viking) feature of the story, another example of the holmgang. Cp. Golther, p. 16. Miss Schoepperle, however, has shown that island-combats were stock features of the Old French romances and that the combat in the Tristan does not conform to the rules of the holmgang. Cp. her paper in the Radcliffe College Monographs, No. 15, (1910) and her Tristan and Isolt, II, 338 ff. 68 * For examples from different parts of the world see Schoepperle, II, 377 ff. Golther, Tristan und Isolde, pp. 15f. (1907). For a discussion of the Imrama see A. C. L. Brown, Iwain, 26 (1912). 71 72 Cp. Schoepperle, I, 188 ff. Miss Schoepperle, I, 188, note 3, gives a very full list of such stories in the various literatures. 73 Miss Schoepperle's list, just cited, contains no Celtic tale with this particular feature. 74 Tristan legend, but the fairy tale in question, beautiful as it is, is too gossamerlike ever to have suggested the most passionate lovestory in literature, and, since the publication of Miss Schoepperle's researches, we may safely regard this adaptation as merely a later embellishment introduced, no doubt, by a French poet of what is, in itself, a secondary element in the legend, the second voyage to Ireland.75 74 Cp. W. Golther, "Die Jungfrau mit den goldenen Haaren", Studien zur Litteraturgeschichte, Michael Bernays gewidmet von Schülern und Freunden, p. 173 (Hamburg and Leipzig, 1893) also, Reinhold Köhler, "Tristan und Isolde und das Märchen von der goldhaarigen Jungfrau und von den Wassern des Todes und des Lebens", Germania, XI, 389 ff. (1866) -- reprinted in Köhler, Kleinere Schriften, II, 328ff. (Berlin, 1900). For additional notes on the theme cp. Felix Liebrecht, Germania, XII (1867), and Köhlers Kleinere Schriften, I, 511. 75 This ends our discussion of the Tristan romances; for the endeavor of Zenker to connect the saga of this hero with the Persian epic of Wis and Ramin has been generally pronounced a failure. Cp. his Die Tristansage und das persische Epos von Wis und Ramin (Erlangen, 1910) also, Zs. f. rom. Ph., XXXV, 715ff. (1912). Zenker, p. 326, cites Hermann Ethe, Die höfische und romantische Poesie der Perser, p. 38 (Hamburg, 1887), as the first to call attention to the resemblance of the stories. So, too, W. Hertz, Tristan und Isolde von Gottfried von Strassburg, p. 478 (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1907). On other Tristans, besides the famous hero, see W. Hertz, ibid. pp. 482 ff. Of most interest, perhaps, is the "Tristanz qui onques ne rist," who figures in a number of romances, cited, loc. cit., by Hertz first of all, in Chrétien's Erec, 1, 1713, in the well-known list of Arthur's knights. It has been customary to regard this character as drawn from oral tradition, but he was, unquestionably, the invention of a Frenchman no doubt, a French poet to whom the similarity of Tristan and triste suggested the nickname. It occurred to the author of L'Atre Perillos to make him play the part of a host (cp. 1. 5392) in a brief episode of that poem otherwise (in Chrétien and the other romancers), he is a mere name. My own belief is that the character is an invention for the nonce of Chrétien's, who was put to it to make out the long list of knights in the above-mentioned passage and who, consequently, fabricated this new character, like some other characters in the list. He derived the name primarily, of course, from the renowned lover of Iseult, and the accompanying nickname was supplied to him, partly, by an obvious play on words, and, partly, by the necessity of finding a rhyme to sist. mance. Chapter VI. With no character of the Arthurian cycle, except Arthur and Guinevere, is the modern reader so familiar as with Lancelot. He does not appear, however, in the earliest Arthurian texts and he is in everything but name purely a literary creation - more clearly so, perhaps, than any other character of Arthurian roHe is not mentioned in Welsh literature or in Geoffrey of Monmouth and his derivatives; he does not figure in the basreliefs of the cathedral at Modena. Indeed, the first we hear of him is in Chrétien's Erec, (1. 1694) in the well-known list of Round Table knights. As is always the case in the verse-romances, Chrétien in this passage gives Gawain the first place. The second place he awards to Erec, because that character is the hero of this particular romance. The third he gives to Lancelot del Lac. Now we have not a trace of Lancelot in Celtic saga or earlier Arthurian texts, and Chrétien himself does not allude to the character again in this poem, so that it seems surprising that he should in this off-hand way assign Lancelot so high a place among Arthurian heroes. In view of the circumstances just mentioned, however, this Erec passage would hardly seem to justify the inference that Lancelot really occupied any very high place in Celtic tradition. In fact, when Welshmen came to translate the Arthurian romances, they thought that in Perceval they recognized their native Peredur and they accordingly substituted the latter's name for Perceval; similarly they substituted Gwalchmei for Gawain, Llacheu for Lohot, etc. But they knew nothing of Lancelot, and consequently, they kept the French form of his name in Welsh orthography: Lawnselot. As a matter of fact, there is no ground for believing that Cp. Foerster, Lancelot, pp. XXXIX f. 1 the name is Welsh; more likely, it is a mere French adaptation of Breton Lancelin, which is, itself, ultimately of Germanic origin. The most probable explanation of the character's prominence in the above-mentioned list is that Chrétien was already planning to make him the hero of a poem: the name had taken his fancy or he was influenced by some chance circumstance in this determination. In any event, a few years later he did make him the hero of his well-known poem, Lancelot. In the Cliges, which comes immediately after Erec in order of composition, Lancelot still holds (by implication) the third place, but Perceval, who was not mentioned in the Erec list, now holds the second place for the same reason, perhaps, as that which has just been suggested in the case of Lancelot; for Perceval, too, was later on made the hero of one of Chrétien's romances. In the passage of the Cliges just referred to Lancelot is overcome by Cliges in a tournament otherwise he does not appear in the romance. He is, however, the hero of the next poem composed by Chrétien the Conte de la Charrette, or Lancelot and it was this romance which ultimately established his fame. Now the main theme of this poem is the abduction of Guinevere by an evil prince named Meleagant and her rescue by Lancelot. We may summarize it briefly as follows: Meleagant appears at Arthur's court and boasts that he holds many of the king's subjects in captivity. Arthur, however, can free them if he will commit Guinevere to the care of a knight who will fight a single combat with him. If Meleagant loses, the prisoners are to be freed; if he is victorious, Guinevere will remain his captive. Just then Kay, the seneschal, threatens to leave the court and Arthur can only keep him by the inconsiderate pro 2 3 4 Cp. H. Zimmer, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Litt., XIII', 43ff. (1891). Chrétien, 11. 24f. says: "Del Chevalier de la Charrete comance Crestiiens son livre," but, for convenience' sake, recent scholars have been accustomed to cite the romance after its hero's name, and I shall follow their example. Hesperia, Ergänzungsreihe: 8. 13 |