and in still other cases they are as vapid as any in the Lancelot. The writer, it is true, endeavors to invest them with a religious significance by attaching to the narrative of each adventure an allegorical interpretation, just as was done in the contemporary exegesis of the Scriptures. The method, however, is unconvincing, and there is no trouble about discerning through the attempted disguise the essential triviality of the incidents in question. The only advantage of the method, in such cases, is that its regular and rigorous application helps to impart a certain unity to the succession of isolated episodes. In characterization the Queste falls much below the Lancelot. In fact, only in the case of Galahad and Gawain is there anything that even distantly approaches individualization in the romance. For the purpose of exalting the ascetic ideal, as contrasted with the prevailing ideal of worldly chivalry, the author emphasizes the sinfulness of Gawain, the chief type of the latter. According to the first hermit who receives the confession of this character, he is so hardened in sin that the good man gives up the effort to convert him because of its uselessness. 157 According to Nascien, he is lacking in charity, truth, and abstinence.158 Moreover, he is represented as the slayer of the noble Baudemagu, and others.159 Nevertheless, it is mainly in the reproofs of the confessional that Gawain's portrait is painted in these dark colors, and, in general, his character is much the same as elsewhere, only the outlines are fainter. Galahad, of course, represents the antipodes of the Gawain of this romance as depicted by the confessors of that "flower of courtesy". After all, however, he, too, is not a living figure, but, 159 Cp. VI, 37, 109, 184. The actual slaying of Baudemagu is not related in our MSS. of the Queste, though it is referred to at p. 184. It must have stood, however, in the original version. Very likely identical with the original version is the account of the affair in MS. 112, Part III, fol. 97, col. 1, which the present writer pointed out some years ago, Mort Artu, p. 266. References are made to it, too, in the unpublished part of the Portuguese Demanda, Huth I, 273f. (cp. Bruce, loc. cit., including notes and Mort Artu, VI, 204.) in the main, a mere puppet of the ascetic imagination. There is a certain impressiveness about his first appearance at Arthur's court his occupation, as by right, of the Perilous Seat and his drawing from the stone the sword which even the greatest champions had failed to draw and which, indeed, was reserved exclusively for his use in the prosecution of the Grail quest. For a long time after that, however, the adventures which he achieves do not differ from the ordinary adventures of Arthurian romance, except in the fact that they are explained in an allegorical sense, and he, himself, does not develop any individual traits. Only in the final scenes of the romance is the character again lifted out of the common run of Arthurian knights first, at the Grail castle, by the ecstacy of his aspirations for union with the divine spirit, and, later, through the sanctity of his death and the marvels that attend it. There are other religious elements in the Queste, however, besides those which have just been indicated such, for example, as Solomon's ship with the five staves, the Maimed King (Mordrain), whom only Galahad can heal,160 Perceval's sister "a thing enskied and sainted" the allegorical stag and lions. Everywhere, moreover, as we have already seen, even the most commonplace incidents are interpreted in terms of religious allegory, so that the work has been well described as a "forest of allegories".161 The air of the enchanted forests of Arthurian romance thus becomes heavy with symbolism. A religious fanatic has entered them and put them under the spell which was already binding and cramping the minds of the Middle Ages in every other line of effort.162 160 161 These first two belong, of course, to the Estoire, also. 162 If we take the Grail romances as they stand-leaving aside the problems of their evolution the most penetrating appreciation of the two Grail heroes, Perceval and Galahad, that we have is Mme. Lot-Borodine's, "Les deux conquérants du Graal, Perceval et Galaad", Romania, XLVII, 41ff. (1921). I regret that the same writer's Trois essais sur la Queste du Saint Graal (Paris, 1921) did not reach me until this book had gone to press. 5. La Mort Artu. 188 The most widely known of all the traditions concerning Arthur was the one that related to his last battle, the mortal wound which he received in that conflict, and his subsequent translation to Avalon, the Celtic Elysium. This tradition, as we have seen, had been made famous especially by Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia and its derivatives, not to mention the same writer's Vita Merlini, the circulation of which, however, seems to have been limited. The very fact that this phase of the Arthurian story had already received such frequent treatment was, no doubt, in part, responsible for the comparatively late appearance of a prose romance on the subject. Besides, the Grail theme, which, owing to its religious character, exercised an irresistible attraction for the Middle Ages, was now absorbing the main energies of the Arthurian romancers, whether their chosen vehicle of expression was verse or prose. In any event, there is no ground for doubting that the Vulgate Mort Artu was the first prose-romance on the Deathof-Arthur theme 164 and that it was composed later than the Queste, to say nothing of the Lancelot, its dependence upon which is manifest on nearly every page.165 As regards the second of these 163 164 The text has been printed by J. D. Bruce, Mort Artu (Halle a. S., 1910), and by Sommer, VI, 203-391 (1913) in his Vulgate Version. Miss Weston, Legend of Sir Perceval, II, 336 and Lot, Lancelot, 193, both of whom regard the Didot-Perceval as a proserendering of a lost poem by Robert de Boron, take the Mort Arthur section of that romance as the model for the Vulgate Mort Artu. Neither, however, is able to point to any specific borrowings of the latter from the former, so that their assumption of a general influence, one may fairly say, is entirely unsupported by any evidence. As has been observed, pp. 30f., above, the previous Death-of-Arthur narrative, which constituted the source of the Vulgate branch, was Layamon's lost French original. 165 The passages in the Mort Artu which show the influence of the Lancelot, are so numerous that it would be supererogatory to give a list of them. The main ones, with the corresponding passages in the Lancelot, are already recorded in notes to my edition of the Mort Artu e. g. those that relate to the quests for Lancelot, his incognito participation in tournaments, the unrequited love which points, it should be observed that in the Mort Artu, apart from its opening paragraphs, which connect it explicitly with the Queste,166 there are several other allusions to that branch.167 Moreover, in the beautiful passage (VI, 256f.), which describes how a boat bearing the dead body of the Maid of Ascalot (Escalot) 168 drifted down the river to Camelot and how a letter in the hand of the dead girl laid the blame of her death upon Lancelot, who had not requited her love, we have an indisputable imitation of the episode in the Queste (VI, 175) of Perceval's sister, whose dead body, as discovered by Lancelot in Solomon's ship, bore, likewise, in its hand, a scroll relating the manner of her life and death. So, too, with Lancelot's retirement into a hermitage at the end of the present romance (VI, 386ff.) which is modeled maidens cherish for him, his rescue of the queen from burning, his stronghold of Joyous Gard, etc. As I have stated above, p. 418, note 143, the connection between the Mort Artu and the last division of the Lancelot, viz. the so-called Agravain, is particularly close indeed, some episodes in the latter, in all likelihood, are by the author of the Mort Artu. Such episodes were doubtless inserted in that division, to prepare for corresponding episodes in the Mort Artu. 166 Miss Weston, Legend of Sir Lancelot, pp. 137 (note), 145, 184, Folk-Lore, XX, 497f. and Sommer, VI, 204, note 10, maintain that these opening pages of the Mort Artu originally formed a part of the Queste. For a refutation of this assumption see Bruce, RR, III, 173 ff., IV, 458 ff. 167 Galahad is named, Sommer, VI, 219, 390, Bruce, pp. 24, 262. We have, besides, mention of the Perilous Seat of the Queste, Sommer, VI, 293 (souurain lieu) = Bruce, p. 125 (Sieges Perilleus) and of the Sword of the Strange Hangings Sommer, VI, 379 Bruce, p. 247. The former appears already in Robert's Merlin, 11, 56f., but it is called there the "Empty Seat", not the "Perilous Seat." The above-mentioned sword is also found in Chrétien and his continuators, as we have seen. Inasmuch, however, as other passages show that our author knew the Queste, doubtless this allusion, too, is drawn from that romance. 168 As suggested by J. Rhys, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, p. 393, Ascalot is, no doubt, derived from Alclut, the old Welsh name of the Rock of Dumbarton in the Clyde. On this name and its variants see, still further, Bruce, Mort Artu, pp. 269f. on Perceval's similar retirement after Galahad's death at the end of the Queste (VI, 198).169 in On the other hand, in the Queste, there is not a single reference of any kind 170 to the Mort Artu. The former romance, deed, gives us no reason to suppose that the downfall of the Round Table had been connected with the love-affair of Lancelot and Guinevere at the time that it was written. The confession of Lancelot to the hermit afforded the best opportunity possible for some allusion to the tragical consequences which the sin of the lovers was to entail - an opportunity which the author of the Queste with his craze for sermonizing would surely have availed himself of but there is no such allusion. The reason is plain: That conception was the invention of the author of the Mort Artu and the Mort Artu was not yet written. In view of these circumstances, there is obviously no reason for adopting the view, which has been expressed by some scholars, that the Mort Artu is of earlier date than the Queste. The author of the Mort Artu, at the beginning of his romance,172 links it with the Queste, but his interests were secular, 169 The two agree even in detail: Lancelot has a companion (Hector) in his hermitage, just as Perceval had one (Bohort). When Perceval dies, he is buried in Galahad's tomb; so is Lancelot in Galehot's. 170 In my article, "The Development of the Mort Arthur Theme in Mediaeval Romance," RR, IV, 403ff (1913), I have discussed, pp. 458ff., the relative dates of the Queste and Mort Artu. The next three sentences are taken from that discussion, pp. 461f. 171 In This is implied in Miss Weston's Legend of Sir Lancelot, p. 145 (1901) and Folk-Lore, XX, 497f. Cp., too, Brugger, Zs. f. frz. Spr. u. Litt., XXIX, 95 (1905), XXXVI, 207 (1910). the article mentioned in the previous note I have endeavored to show that the views of these two scholars as to the Mort Artu's being a compilation or the result of successive accretions to an original nucleus are without foundation. If we except Geoffrey and his derivatives (including the Mort Arthur section of the Didot-Perceval) every version of the Death-of-Arthur theme in existence is derived from the Vulgate Mort Artu. This is clear from the above-mentioned investigation. 172 Bruce's edition, pp. 1-3, Sommer's edition, VI, 203-205. |