Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/671

Rh ROMANCE 647 infringed a vow, and the labour is achieved by one even purer than himself among the Round Table heroes, namely, Galaad, the son of Lancelot. All this is of Map's own invention, and much of it must have been posterior to Chrestien's poem, in which (although, based partly on Map and partly on Robert de Borron) Perceval remained the achiever of the quest. 1 The Borrouesque view of Perceval as one of a line of successive Grail-custodians or Grail-kings impressed the imagination of Guyot de Provins, and led him to regard with contempt the pleasant episodes of Perceval's youth as told by Chrestien. In Wolfram von Eschenbach's poem there is a long succession of Grail-kings, beginning with Titurel, and ending with Partzifal (Perceval) 2 ; the scene of their rule is shifted to Anjou and Spain ; the story is said to draw its origin from a book found at Toledo ; several Moorish and Catalan names are found in it ; and finally the Grail-kings and their people are confounded with the Templars, struggling against the heathens. The romance of Perceval le Gallois, such as we have it since its first appearance in print in 1530, is a prose compilation derived from the poem begun by Chrestien de Troyes about 1180 and finished by Manessier about 1230. jancelot. III. Lancelot. This hero, like Perceval, has furnished an addi- tion to European nomenclature. In this romance, which there is so much evidence for ascribing to the celebrated Walter Map (see above), the substance of Geoffrey's Arthur, Guinevere, and Merlin was used as the introduction to a powerful fiction in winch a new hero, Lancelot of the Lake, carries on an adulterous amour with Queen Guinevere, while at the same time he reveres and loves King Arthur and performs deeds of heroic daring under the influ- ence of the most generous feelings. The tale, although lengthy and overladen with a crowd of adventures which have no bearing on the direct development of the plot, and notwithstanding the unpleasant nature of the chief subject, is one of extraordinary interest. The character of Lancelot remains unaltered throughout the course of the story, and is drawn with a masterly hand. Although his love is criminal, and he frequently does pious penance for his sins, yet his utter self-sacrificing devotion to the queen weakens by its exquisite fidelity the reader's sense of his treachery towards the king, whom he never ceases to regard with a feeling of the deepest affection and reverence. His faults are such that he recognizes his own incompetence to become the achiever of the quest ; but he begets, upon Elaine, the daughter of King Pelles, a son Galaad, to whom the glory of winning the Grail and redeeming his father's sins is reserved. Even here the romancer takes care to show that he was not untrue to Guinevere, his senses having been deceived by a spell (used by Elaine's maid to gratify her mistress's longing), which makes him imagine that his bedfellow is the queen. Nemesis begins to work when, upon a second use of the spell, Guinevere, after having waited for him in vain, finds him in the arms of King Pelles's daughter. She reproaches him bitterly and drives him from her presence with such cruel words that he becomes insane and wanders about tlie woods and fields like Nebuchadnezzar. Some years elapse before he is recognized by Elaine, when chance takes him to the castle of Corbin, in which King Pelles has custody of the Grail. She cures him by means of the sacred vessel ; but it is not long before he quits her again and finds his way to Camelot. Arthur and the queen and his fellow-knights are rejoiced to see the lost Lancelot again, and the usual round of tournaments begins. We now come to the episode of Galaad. On the eve of Pentecost an old man dressed in white brings a youth to Arthur's court. When all the knights are assembled at the ensuing banquet every seat is filled save that which was always left vacant for the Holy Grail, so that there is no place for young Galaad. Certain wondrous signs are pointed out by the old man which indicate that the "seat perilous" is meant to be filled by the young hero, who at once accomplishes another test which has foiled Gavvain and Perceval. The Grail appears, and light and perfume fill the hall ; it passes away again, and the next day the knights depart upon the quest of the holy vessel, Arthur giving way to a pathetic regret that his merry company of Round Table champions is to be broken up for ever. Galaad, the pure knight, is the only one who succeeds, and becomes king of the Holy City ; then Joseph of Arimathea appears, and Galaad dies, his task accomplished. Gawain and Bors fail ; Lancelot and Perceval nearly succeed, but are foiled. Bors brings back an account of Perceval's death, and Lancelot returns to court, a moody man ; he and Guinevere fall back into the old sin. The queen is accused of having poisoned a knight, and is exposed to the usual ordeal. Lancelot saves her by conquering her accuser, but receives wounds which break open at the next secret meeting between them. Scandal 1 As Chrestien never finished his poem, and as he had two or three continu- ators before 1244, he may not be responsible for the Borronesque ending ; but it is to be remarked that Robert de Borron and Chrestien were both from Cham- pagne. 2 Whatever be the meaning of the Welsh name Peredur, that of Perceval seems to be also British and to mean " possessor of the Grail." It may not have been one man's appellation but a title applicable to Bron, Alan, or the last achiever. The British words of which it seems compounded are perchen, a root which implies ownership or possession, and mail (initially inflected vail), a cup or chalice, so that the earliest form was perhaps Perchenval. has been busy ; spies are on the watch ; and, although, when the lovers are surprised, he escapes by dint of hard fighting, the stains of blood found in the queen's bed are sufficient to condemn them. She is doomed to the stake, but at the moment of execution Lancelot appears and rescues her. They fly together to his castle of Joyeuse Garde, in which he is soon besieged by King Arthur, the king's nephew Gawain, and the other faithful knights. He offers to give up the queen if no harm shall be done her ; Arthur rejects the offer ; and, after long fighting, news comes of a papal interdict promulgated against the kingdom so long as King Arthur refuses to take back his wife. Guinevere is then received by her husband, but Arthur is advised by Gawain to continue the war against Lancelot, whom he follows to his castle of Cannes in France. During the siege Arthur has tidings of an insurrection in Britain : his nephew Mordred has seized the throne, and the queen has fortified herself in London against the usurper. He returns, and after a series of desperate battles Mordred is killed and Arthur wounded to death. Flinging his sword away, the king disappears from mortal view and is borne by fairies to Avalon. Lancelot also returns to England, laments the king's death, pays a mournful visit to the queen, now in a nunnery, retires himself to a monastery, and dies soon afterwards in sorrow and repentance. The original Lancelot, was the true Arthur or Round Table romance, although when first written it probably contained no mention of Perceval and Galaad. To it all the other tales and episodes gravitated, and the above analysis represents probably its final form about the year 1200. When at a later period, in the 13th century, it was abridged, and the Bret (Tristan) also, and both of them amal- gamated in the general Arthurian work now extant in many MSS. of the 14th and 15th centuries, the compilation came into existence which was translated into English by Sir Thomas Malory under the title Morte A rthur. The original complete Lancelot may be considered as a corporate work including the five branches which had previ- ously been separate, namely, (1) Merlin ; (2) Arthur and the Round Table ; (3) Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot ; (4) Joseph of Arima- thea and the Grail ; the Quest of the Grail and Perceval modified into (5) the new Quest of the Grail and Galaad. A sixth element was added in the French compilation, which formed the original of the Morte Arthur of Sir Thomas Malory, namely, (6) the story of Tristan and Yseult. V. Tristan. This beautiful Breton or Cornish romance was Tristan, originally a work totally independent of the Arthurian, Round Table, and Grail fictions ; and, if it is said by Helie de Borron to have been left incomplete by its first author, the Anglo-Norman knight Luc or Luces, of the castle of Cast, Gait, or Gau, near Salis- bury, and by Gasse li Blont (Eustace Blunt), who is spoken of as a continuator, we may presume that his statement was based upon no deficiency in the original narrative, but simply on the absence of all allusion to the Round Table. He therefore set to work to produce what he called the Bret, or the complete Tristan, by constructing a number of episodes which exhibit Tristan as one of the Round Table knights, as also having engaged in the quest, and as having been with his lady-love entertained for some time at Lancelot's castle of Joyeuse Garde. The Saracen knight Palamedes, who takes an important place in the complete Tristan, and who is not one of the least interesting characters, seems to have been one of the additions. Whether the first author was really a knight or not, and whether he wrote in poetry or prose, it may here be said once for all that the earliest exoteric reference to the authors of the Round Table romances is that of Helinand, who, writing close to the date of Walter Map's death (c. 1210), mentioned them as " quosdam proceres," a phrase which could only be used as indi- cating personages ranking at least as high as knights. Tristan (in the old English form, Tristram) of Lyonesse is the nephew of King Mark of Cornwall. 3 Warned by a dwarf that his nephew's existence will be pernicious to him, the king resolves to compass his death. His attempt is frustrated : the child is carried to the court of the Frank king Fararnond, and there grows up towards man's estate. He wins the love of Faramond's daughter, on the discovery of which he is compelled to fly to his uncle at Tintagel, with whom a reconciliation is effected> A prince called Morhoult or the Morhoult 4 of Ireland lands in Cornwall to claim tribute of King Mark. Tristan challenges him to single combat, wounds him mortally, and compels him to reimbark in a dying condition, but is himself wounded by the poisoned lance of his adversary. Seek- ing afterwards a healer for his wounds, he is borne by the wind to Ireland, and well received by the king of Ireland and his daughter Yseult, who restore him to health. It is, however, observed that he is wearing the sword of Morhoult, and he is obliged to take a hasty departure. On his return to Cornwall the incidents of the complete Tristan begin to connect him with Arthur and the Round Table, but his victory over a knight, there said to have accused the 3 His father Meliadus and mother Isabel, as well as the preceding genera- tions of ancestors, were probably invented by Helie de Borron, as well as the account of his premature birth in the open country. suggested by a recollection of the visit of Diarmuid MacMuircheartarch to England to claim help from the Normans in 1168 ?
 * Is this a corruption of Muircheartarch or Murhartarch, and, if so, was it