especially II, 214-16, vv 15,577-638. "The Rev. Evan Evans," says Percy,
Reliques, III, 349, ed. 1794, "affirmed that the story of the Boy and
the Mantle is taken from what is related in some of the old Welsh MSS of
Tegan Earfron, _one of King Arthur's mistresses_." This aspersion, which
is even absurd, must have arisen from a misunderstanding on the part of
the Bishop: no Welshman could so err.
[239] Myvyrian Archæology, III, 247^a, No 10, pointed out to me by
Professor Evans. The story of the 'Boy and the Mantle,' says Warton, "is
recorded in many manuscript Welsh chronicles, as I learn from original
letters of Llwyd, in the Ashmolean Museum:" History of English Poetry,
ed. 1871, I, 97, note 1.
[240] The horn is No 4 in Jones's list, and No 3 in a manuscript of
Justice Bosanquet; the knife is 13th in Jones and 6th in the other; the
mantle of invisibility is 13th in the Bosanquet series, and, under the
title of Arthur's veil or mask, 1st in Jones. The mantle of Tegau
Eurvron does not occur in the Bosanquet MS. Jones says, "The original
Welsh account of the above regalia was transcribed from a transcript of
Mr Edward Llwyd, the antiquary, who informs me that he copied it from an
old parchment MS. I have collated this with two other MSS." Not a word
of dates. Jones's Welsh Bards, II, 47-49; Lady Charlotte Guest's
Mabinogion, II, 353-55.
Lady Charlotte Guest remarks that a boar's head in some form appears as
the armorial bearing of all of Caradawc's name. Though most anxious to
believe all that is said of Caradawc, I am compelled to doubt whether
this goes far to prove that he owned the knife celebrated in the ballad.
[241] Heinrich seeks to put his wearisome invention off on Chrestien de
Troyes. Warnatsch argues with force against any authorship but
Heinrich's, pp 116 ff.
[242] Gawain had failed in the earlier trial, though he had no fault in
mind or body, except that he rated his favor with women too high:
1996-2000.
In the first two probations a false heart is the corpus delicti;
something is said of carnal offences, but not very distinctly.
The scope of the glove is of the widest. It takes cognizance of _rede
und gedanc_ in maids, _werc und gedanc_ in wives, _tugent und manheit,
unzuht und zageheit_, in men. One must have known as little what one was
convicted of as if one had been in the hands of the Holy Office.
[243] Fastnachtspiele aus dem fünfzehnten Jahrhundert, Zweiter Theil, p.
654, No 80.
[244] From Vulpius's Curiositäten, II, 463, in Erlach, I, 132, after a
printed copy of the beginning of the 16th century: Wolff, Halle der
Völker, II, 243, from a Fliegendes Blatt of the 16th century. Two copies
are cited by title in Mone's Anzeiger, VIII, 354 b, No 1; 378, No 165.
Wolff prints Asion.
[245] A man must be "clear as beryl." One of the knights is tumbled into
the water for having kissed a lady; but this is according to the code,
for he had done it without leave. We learn from Perceval that kissing is
permissible; marry, not without the lady be willing. 'Die bruck zu
Karidol' is alluded to in 'Der Spiegel,' Meister Alswert, ed. Holland u.
Keller, p. 179, vv 10-13. (Goedeke.) A man who has transferred his
devotion from an earlier love to the image of a lady shown him in a
mirror says the bridge would have thrown him over.
[246] Florimel's girdle is a poor contrivance every way, and most of all
for practical purposes; for we are told in stanza 3 that it _gives_ the
virtue of chaste love to all who wear it, and then that whosoever
contrary doth prove cannot keep it on. But what could one expect from a
cast-off girdle of Venus?
[247] Nightingales in Grundtvig, No 274, #A#, #B#: see p. 64. See, also,
Uhland, Zur Geschichte der Dichtung, III, 121 f.
[248] Neither the Sanskrit Shukasaptati nor Nakshabi's Persian version,
made early in the fourteenth century, has been published. The Turkish
version is said to have been made in the second half of the next
century, for Bajazet II. Kadiri's is probably of the seventeenth
century. An English and Persian version (Kadiri's), 1801, has the tale
at p. 43; Small's English, from a Hindustani version of Kadiri, 1875, at
p. 40.
[249] In the Contes à rire, p. 89, a sylph who loves a prince gives him
a flower and a vase which will blacken upon his wife's proving
unfaithful: Legrand, 1779, I, 78. I have not seen this edition of the
book, but presume that this tale is entirely akin with the above.
[250] Cf. the King of Spain, at pp. 261, 263. The agreement may, or may
not, be accidental.
[251] All these examples of the probation by flowers, shirt, or picture
are noticed in Loiseleur Deslongchamps, Essai sur les Fables Indiennes,
p. 107 ff; or in Von der Hagen's Gesammtabenteuer, III, lxxxiv ff; or in
an article by Reinhold Köhler, of his usual excellence, in Jahrbuch für
romanische und englische Literatur, VIII, 44 ff.
[252] Köhler, as above, p. 60 f.
[253] There is a stone in the Danish Vigoleis with the Gold Wheel which
no one could approach "who was not as clean as when he came from his
mother's body." Gawain could touch it with his hand, Arthur often sat
upon it, and Vigoleis was found sitting on it. Nyerup, Almindelig
Morskabslæsning i Danmark og Norge, p. 129, a chap-book of 1732. The
stone is not quite so strict in the German Volksbuch, Marbach, No 18, p.
13 f, Simrock, III, 432 f. In the German romance no man less than
immaculate in all respects can touch it: Wigalois, ed. Benecke, p. 57,
vv 1485-88.
[254] Georgii Codini Excerpta de antiquitatibus Constantinopolitanis, in
Corpus Scriptorum Historiæ Byzantinæ, XLV, 50 f, cited by Liebrecht,
Germania, I, 264; De Originibus Constantinopolitanis, cited by Lütcke,
Von der Hagen's Germania, I, 252, referred to by Liebrecht: both
anecdotes in Banduri, Imperium Orientale, Anonymus de Ant. Const. p. 35,
96, p. 57, 162. The statue again in a note of Nic. Alemannus to
Procopius, Arcana, 1623, p. 83: cited by Mr Wright, Archæologia
Cambrensis, as above, p. 17. Mr Wright also makes mention, p. 16, of the
blind dog that quidam Andreas (evidently a merry one) was exhibiting in
the seventeenth year of Justinian, which, among other clever
performances, ostendebat in utero habentes et fornicarios et adulteros
et avaros et magnanimos--omnes cum veritate: Historia Miscella,
Eyssenhardt, p. 377 f, l. 18, c. 23; Cedrenus, in the Byzantine Corpus,
XXXIII, 657, Theophanes, in XXXVIII, 347 f.
[255] The Meisterlieder and the Indian tale are cited by Warnatsch.
Virgil's statue was circumvented by an artifice which is employed in
this tale of the Shukasaptati, and in other oriental stories presumably
derived from it; and so was the well-known Bocca della Verità,
Kaiserchronik, Massmann, pp 448 f. The Bocca della Verità bit off the
fingers of perjurers, but took no particular cognizance of the unchaste.
A barley-corn [grain of wheat], again, which stood on end when _any_
false oath was sworn over it, Jülg, Mongolische Märchensammlung, Die
Geschichte des Ardschi-Bordschi Chan, pp 250-52, cited by Benfey,
Pantschatantra, I, 458, and referred to by Warnatsch, does not belong
with special tests of chastity.
[256] The phrase looks more malicious than _naïf_, whether Austrian or
Spanish, and implies, I fear, an exsufflicate and blown surmise about
female virtue; and so of the Indian 'Volksglaube.' The candle-test is
said to be in use for men in Silesia: Warnatsch, citing Weinhold, p. 58.
[257] These are all noted in Liebrecht's Dunlop, pp 11, 16, 33. The
spring, says the author of Hysmine, served as good a purpose for
Artycomis as the Rhine did for the Celts; referring to a test of the
legitimacy of children by swinging or dipping them in the Rhine, which
the "Celts" practiced, according to a poem in the Anthology: Jacobs, II,
42 f, No 125; Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 935 (Warnatsch).
[258] Besides sources specially referred to, there may be mentioned, as
particularly useful for the history of these tests. Legrand, Fabliaux,
1779, I, 60, 76-78; Dunlop's History of Fiction, 1814, in many places,
with Liebrecht's notes, 1851; Grässe, Sagenkreise, 1842, pp 185-87; Von
der Hagen's Gesammtabenteuer, 1850, III, lxxxiv-xc, cxxxv f.
30
KING ARTHUR AND KING CORNWALL
Percy MS., p. 24. Hales & Furnivall, I, 61; Madden's Syr
Gawayne, p. 275.
The mutilation of the earlier pages of the Percy manuscript leaves us in
possession of only one half of this ballad, and that half in eight
fragments, so that even the outline of the story cannot be fully made
out.[259] We have, to be sure, the whole of a French poem which must be
regarded as the probable source of the ballad, and, in view of the
recklessness of the destroyer Time, may take comfort; for there are few
things in this kind that the Middle Ages have bequeathed which we could
not better spare. But the losses from the English ballad are still very
regrettable, since from what is in our hands we can see that the story
was treated in an original way, and so much so that comparison does not
stead us materially.
'King Arthur and King Cornwall' is apparently an imitation, or a
traditional variation, of Charlemagne's Journey to Jerusalem and
Constantinople, a _chanson de geste_ of complete individuality and of
remarkable interest. This all but incomparable relic exists in only a
single manuscript,[260] and that ill written and not older than the end
of the thirteenth century, while the poem itself may be assigned to the
beginning of the twelfth, if not to the latter part of the
eleventh.[261] Subsequently, the story, with modifications, was
introduced into the romance of Galien, and in this setting it occurs in
three forms, two manuscript of the fifteenth century, and the third a
printed edition of the date 1500. These are all in prose, but betray by
metrical remains imbedded in them their descent from a romance in verse,
which there are reasons for putting at least as early as the beginning
of the fourteenth century.[262]
A very little of the story, and this little much changed, is found in
Italian romances of Charles's Journey to Spain and of Ogier the Dane.
The derivation from Galien is patent.[263]
The Journey of Charlemagne achieved great popularity, as it needs must.
It forms a section of the Karlamagnus Saga, a prose translation into
Norse of _gestes_ of Charles and his peers, made in the thirteenth
century, and probably for King Hákon the Old, though this is not
expressly said, as in the case of the 'Mantle.' Through the Norwegian
version the story of Charles's journey passed into the other
Scandinavian dialects. There is a Swedish version, slightly defective,
existing in a manuscript earlier than 1450, and known to be older than
the manuscript, and a Danish abridgment, thought to have been made from
the Swedish version, is preserved in a manuscript dated 1480, which
again is probably derived from an elder. Like the 'Mantle,' the Journey
of Charlemagne is treated in Icelandic Rímur, the oldest manuscript
being put at about 1500. These Rhymes (Geiplur, Gabs, Japes), though
their basis is the Norwegian saga, present variations from the existing
manuscripts of this saga. There is also a Färöe traditional ballad upon
this theme, 'Geipa-táttur.' This ballad has much that is peculiar to
itself.[264]
Charlemagne's Journey was also turned into Welsh in the thirteenth
century. Three versions are known, of which the best is in the Red Book
of Hergest.[265]
Let us now see what is narrated in the French poem.
One day when Charlemagne was at St Denis he had put on his crown and
sword, and his wife had on a most beautiful crown, too. Charles took her
by the hand, under an olive-tree, and asked her if she had ever seen a
king to whom crown and sword were so becoming. The empress was so unwise
as to reply that possibly he thought too well of himself: she knew of a
king who appeared to even better advantage when he wore his crown.
Charles angrily demanded where this king was to be found: they would
wear their crowns together, and if the French sided with her, well; but
if she had not spoken truth, he would cut off her head. The empress
endeavored to explain away what she had said: the other king was simply
richer, but not so good a knight, etc. Charles bade her name him, on her
head. There being no escape, the empress said she had heard much of
Hugo, the emperor of Greece and Constantinople. "By my faith," said
Charles, "you have made me angry and lost my love, and are in a fair way
to lose your head, too. I will never rest till I have seen this king."
The emperor, having made his offering at St Denis, returned to Paris,
taking with him his twelve peers and some thousand of knights. To these
he announced that they were to accompany him to Jerusalem, to adore the
cross and the sepulchre, and that he would incidentally look up a king
that he had heard of. They were to take with them seven hundred camels,
laden with gold and silver, and be prepared for an absence of seven
years.
Charlemagne gave his people a handsome equipment, but not of arms. They
left behind them their lances and swords, and took the pilgrim's staff
and scrip. When they came to a great plain it appeared that the number
was not less than eighty thousand: but we do not have to drag this host
through the story, which concerns itself only with Charles and his
peers. They arrived at Jerusalem one fine day, selected their inns, and
went to the minster. Here Jesus and his apostles had sung mass, and the
chairs which they had occupied were still there. Charles seated himself
in the middle one, his peers on either side. A Jew came in, and, seeing
Charles, fell to trembling; so fierce was the countenance of the emperor
that he dared not look at it, but fled from the church to the patriarch,
and begged to be baptized, for God himself and the twelve apostles were
come. The patriarch went to the church, in procession, with his clergy.
Charles rose and made a profound salutation, the priest and the monarch
embraced, and the patriarch inquired who it was that had assumed to
enter that church as he had done. "Charles is my name," was the answer.
"Twelve kings have I conquered, and I am seeking a thirteenth whom I
have heard of. I have come to Jerusalem to adore the cross and the
sepulchre." The patriarch proving gracious, Charles went on to ask for
relics to take home with him. "A plentet en avrez," says the patriarch;
"St Simeon's arm, St Lazarus's head, St Stephen's--" "Thanks!" "The
sudarium, one of the nails, the crown of thorns, the cup, the dish, the
knife, some of St Peter's beard, some hairs from his head--" "Thanks!"
"Some of Mary's milk, of the holy shift--" And all these Charles
received.[266] He stayed four months in Jerusalem, and began the church
of St Mary. He presented the patriarch with a hundred mule-loads of gold
and silver, and asked "his leave and pardon" to return to France: but
first he would find out the king whom his wife had praised. They take
the way through Jericho to gather palms. The relics are so strong that
every stream they come to divides before them, every blind man receives
sight, the crooked are made straight, and the dumb speak.[267] On
reaching Constantinople they have ample reason to be impressed with the
magnificence of the place. Passing twenty thousand knights, who are
playing at chess and tables, dressed in pall and ermine, with fur cloaks
training at their feet, and three thousand damsels in equally sumptuous
attire, who are disporting with their lovers, they come to the king, who
is at that moment taking his day at the plough, not on foot, goad in
hand, but seated most splendidly in a chair drawn by mules, and holding
a gold wand, the plough all gold, too; none of this elegance, however,
impairing the straightness of his majesty's furrow. The kings exchange
greetings. Charles tells Hugo that he is last from Jerusalem, and should
be glad to see him and his knights. Hugo makes him free to stay a year,
if he likes, unyokes the oxen, and conducts his guests to the palace.
The palace is gorgeous in the extreme, and, omitting other architectural
details, it is circular, and so constructed as to turn like a wheel when
the wind strikes it from the west. Charles thinks his own wealth not
worth a glove in comparison, and remembers how he had threatened his
wife. "Lordings," he says, "many a palace have I seen, but none like
this had even Alexander, Constantine, or Cæsar." At that moment a strong
wind arose which set the palace in lively motion; the emperor was fain
to sit down on the floor; the twelve peers were all upset, and as they
lay on their backs, with faces covered, said one to the other, "This is
a bad business: the doors are open, and yet we can't get out!" But as
evening approached the wind subsided; the Franks recovered their legs,
and went to supper. At the table they saw the queen and the princess, a
beautiful blonde, of whom Oliver became at once enamored. After a most
royal repast, the king conducted Charles and the twelve to a
bed-chamber, in which there were thirteen beds. It is doubtful whether
modern luxury can vie with the appointments in any respect, and certain
that we are hopelessly behind in one, for this room was lighted by a
carbuncle. But, again, there was one luxury which Hugo did not allow
them, and this was privacy, even so much privacy as thirteen can have.
He had put a man in a hollow place under a marble stair, to watch them
through a little hole.
The Franks, as it appears later, had drunk heavily at supper, and this
must be their excuse for giving themselves over, when in a foreign
country, to a usage or propensity which they had no doubt indulged in at
home, and which is familiar in northern poetry and saga, that of making
brags (gabs, Anglo-Saxon beót, gilp[268]). Charles began: Let Hugo arm
his best man in two hauberks and two helms, and set him on a charger:
then, if he will lend me his sword, I will with a blow cut through
helms, hauberks, and saddle, and if I let it have its course, the blade
shall never be recovered but by digging a spear's depth in the ground.
"Perdy," says the man in hiding, "what a fool King Hugo was when he gave
you lodging!"
Roland followed: Tell Hugo to lend me his horn, and I will go into yon
plain and blow such a blast that not a gate or a door in all the city
shall be left standing, and a good man Hugo will be, if he faces me, not
to have his beard burned from his face and his fur robe carried away.
Again said the man under the stair, "What a fool was King Hugo!"
The emperor next called upon Oliver, whose gab was:
'Prenget li reis sa fille qui tant at bloi le peil,
En sa chambre nos metet en un lit en requeit;
Se jo n'ai testimoigne de li anuit cent feiz,
Demain perde la teste, par covent li otrei.'
"You will stop before that," said the spy; "great shame have you
spoken."
Archbishop Turpin's brag was next in order: it would have been more in
keeping for Turpin of Hounslow Heath, and we have all seen it performed
in the travelling circus. While three of the king's best horses are
running at full speed on the plain, he will overtake and mount the
foremost, passing the others, and will keep four big apples in constant
motion from one hand to the other; if he lets one fall, put out his
eyes.[269] "A good brag this," is the comment of the simple scout
(_l'escolte_), "and no shame to my lord."
William of Orange will take in one hand a metal ball which thirty men
have never been able to stir, and will hurl it at the palace wall and
bring down more than forty toises of it. "The king is a knave if he does
not make you try," says _l'escolte_.
The other eight gabs may be passed over, save one. Bernard de Brusban
says, "You see that roaring stream? To-morrow I will make it leave its
bed, cover the fields, fill the cellars of the city, drench the people,
and drive King Hugo into his highest tower, from which he shall never
come down without my leave." "The man is mad," says the spy. "What a
fool King Hugo was! As soon as morning dawns they shall all pack."
The spy carries his report to his master without a moment's delay. Hugo
swears that if the brags are not accomplished as made, his guests shall
lose their heads, and orders out a hundred thousand men-at-arms to
enforce his resolution.
When the devout emperor of the west came from mass the next morning
(Hugo was evidently not in a state of mind to go), he advanced to meet
his brother of Constantinople, olive branch in hand; but Hugo called out
from far off, "Charles, why did you make me the butt of your brags and
your scorns?" and repeated that all must be done, or thirteen heads
would fall. Charles replied that they had drunk a good deal of wine the
night before, and that it was the custom for the French when they had
gone to bed to allow themselves in jesting. He desired to speak with his
knights. When they were together, the emperor said that they had drunk
too much, and had uttered what they ought not. He caused the relics to
be brought, and they all fell to praying and beating their breasts, that
they might be saved from Hugo's wrath, when lo, an angel appeared, who
bade them not be afraid; they had committed a great folly yesterday, and
must never brag again, but for this time, "Go, begin, not one of them
shall fail."[270]
Charles returned to Hugo master of the situation. He repeated that they
had drunk too much wine the night before, and went on to say that it was
an outrage on Hugo's part to set a spy in the room, and that they knew a
land where such an act would be accounted villainy: "but all shall be
carried out; choose who shall begin." Hugo said, Oliver; and let him not
fall short of his boast, or I will cut off his head, and the other
twelve shall share his fate. The next morning, in pursuance of an
arrangement made between Oliver and the princess, the king was informed
that what had been undertaken had been precisely discharged. "The first
has saved himself," says Hugo; "by magic, I believe; now I wish to know
about the rest." "What next?" says Charlemagne. William of Orange was
called for, threw off his furs, lifted the huge ball with one hand,
hurled it at the wall, and threw down more than forty toises. "They are
enchanters," said the king to his men. "Now I should like to see if the
rest will do as much. If one of them fails, I will hang them all
to-morrow." "Do you want any more of the gabs?" asked Charles. Hugo
called upon Bernard to do what he had threatened. Bernard asked the
prayers of the emperor, ran down to the water, and made the sign of the
cross. All the water left its bed, spread over the fields, came into the
city, filled the cellars, drenched the people, and drove King Hugo into
his highest tower; Charles and the peers being the while ensconced in an
old pine-tree, all praying for God's pity.
Charles in the tree heard Hugo in the tower making his moan: he would
give the emperor all his treasure, would become his man and hold his
kingdom of him. The emperor was moved, and prayed that the flood might
stop, and at once the water began to ebb. Hugo was able to descend from
his tower, and he came to Charles, under an "ympe tree," and repeated
what he had uttered in the moment of extremity. "Do you want the rest of
the gabs?" asked Charles. "Ne de ceste semaine," replied Hugo. "Then,
since you are my man," said the emperor, "we will make a holiday and
wear our crowns together." When the French saw the two monarchs walking
together, and Charles overtopping Hugo by fifteen inches, they said the
queen was a fool to compare anybody with him.
After this promenade there was mass, at which Turpin officiated, and
then a grand dinner. Hugo once more proffered all his treasures to
Charles, but Charles would not take a denier. "We must be going," he
said. The French mounted their mules, and went off in high spirits. Very
happy was Charles to have conquered such a king without a battle.
Charles went directly to St Denis, and performed his devotions. The nail
and the crown he deposited on the altar, distributed the other relics
over the kingdom, and for the love of the sepulchre he gave up his anger
against the queen.