قراءة كتاب The Three Days' Tournament A Study in Romance and Folk-Lore. Being an Appendix to the Author's 'Legend of Sir Lancelot'
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The Three Days' Tournament A Study in Romance and Folk-Lore. Being an Appendix to the Author's 'Legend of Sir Lancelot'
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Lancelot first appears at Arthur’s court in white armour: he is known as ‘le Blanc Chevalier.’ On his first absence after receiving knighthood he is taken prisoner by the Lady of Malehaut, who detains him in her castle. A tournament, of a very warlike nature, taking place between Arthur and Galehault, the lady releases Lancelot, who, disguised in red armour, performs deeds of surpassing valour. He returns to prison, and on the encounter between the kings being renewed, again appears, this time in black. Finally, he reveals himself to the queen, and tells her that all the feats of arms he has achieved in the characters of white, red, and black knight were undertaken in her honour.
The general resemblance is, as Mr. Ward remarks, too striking to be overlooked; though, as he does not remark, there are certain differences which seem to indicate that the version of the Prose Lancelot has undergone some modification. Thus, there are not three consecutive days, but Lancelot’s appearance in the three characters occurs at widely separated intervals. Further, Mr. Ward does not seem to be aware that this is but one instance out of three in which the same, or a similar, adventure is attributed to Lancelot.
In the latter part of the Prose Lancelot, the section represented by the Dutch translation, we find Arthur holding a tournament, which has been suggested by Guinevere with the view of recalling Lancelot, who has long been absent, to court, and heightening his fame. Lancelot returns secretly, unknown to all but the queen, who sends him a message to come and discomfit the knights who are jealous of him. Lancelot appears in red armour and overthrows them all. The queen demands another tournament in three days’ time, when Lancelot appears as a white knight, with the same result. After this he reveals himself to Arthur.[15]
But the best parallel is that contained in the Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven. Here Lanzelet makes his first appearance at court at a three days’ tournament; the first day dressed in green, the second in white, the third in red; overthrows all opposed to him, including Kay,[16] and takes his departure, without revealing himself.
With these repeated parallels before us, it seems impossible to doubt that when Hue de Rotelande referred to Walter Map, in connection with the tournament episode of Ipomedon, he had in his mind a version of the Lancelot, which also contained such a story, and which was attributed to the latter writer.
But what could this version have been? Certainly not the Prose Lancelot in its present form. As we remarked before, this romance is the result of slow growth and successive redactions, and the two parallels contained in it bear marks of modification and dislocation. In my recent studies on the Lancelot legend[17] I have pointed out that in the process of evolution it certainly passed through a stage in which it was closely connected with, and affected by, the Perceval story. Gradually the popularity of the hero of the younger tale obscured that of the elder; and in the Lancelot, as we now have it, the traces of Perceval influence have almost disappeared from the majority of the printed versions, though interesting survivals are still to be found in certain manuscripts and in the Dutch translation. Now one of the best known adventures attributed to Perceval is that in which the sight of blood-drops on new-fallen snow—caused by a bird having been wounded, or slain, by a hawk—recalls to his mind the lady of his love, and plunges him into a trance; in which he is rudely attacked by Kay, who would bring him by force to court. He retaliates by unhorsing the seneschal with such force that he breaks, in one version both arms, in others, an arm and a leg.[18] It should also be noted that in the Peredur a raven has alighted on the slain bird, and we have the three colours, black, red, and white, recalling the lady’s raven hair, white skin, and crimson lips and cheeks.[19]
Taking into consideration the proved connection existing between the Perceval and the earlier forms of the Lancelot, it would seem most probable that a version of the tournament which included a similar discomfiture of the seneschal would belong to an earlier stage of evolution than one in which Kay did not appear. As I have pointed out above,[20] the Lanzelet version not only includes Kay’s overthrow, but recounts it in words that forcibly recall the Perceval episode.
It also seems probable that it was such a form which was known to the author of the Ipomedon, as he makes the discomfiture of the seneschal Cananeus, whose resemblance to Kay has already been pointed out, follow immediately upon the tournament episode.
So far, then, as the priority of existing versions is concerned, we must, I think, give a verdict in favour of the Lanzelet, though with the reservation that even here there has been, as we shall presently see, a certain modification of the story as known to Hue.
What now do we know of the source of the Lanzelet? From the statement of the author,[21] we learn that the original of this poem was a French book, ‘daz welsche buoch von Lanzelete,’ brought to Germany by Hugo de Morville, one of the hostages who, in 1194, replaced Richard Cœur de Lion in the prison of Leopold of Austria. Thus we know that the French book must have been prior to that date, but so far no one has detected any reference that would enable us to fix the period of composition more accurately. But the character of the romance as we possess it—a collection of episodes, many of them of marked folk-lore character, loosely strung together, and harmonising but ill with each other—makes it highly probable that the constituent parts of the romance had possessed an independent existence prior to being strung together on the slender thread of the hero’s personality. It is therefore perfectly possible that the French source of the Lanzelet was in existence before Hue de Rotelande wrote the Ipomedon; it is more than possible, indeed, as we shall see, a fact of almost certain demonstration—that the adventure of the Three Days’ Tournament had been ascribed to Lancelot, certainly by 1160, and most probably before that date.
In the Didot Perceval, a romance which probably formed part of a very early cyclic redaction of the Arthurian legend, and one in which Lancelot plays a very subordinate rôle, we find an