Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/673

Rh ROMANCE 649 of the use of A favourite device in later fiction, by which fairies are introduced who bestow special gifts at the birth of a hero ; and amongst its chief personages is the misshapen dwarf Tronc, after- wards named Aubron that is, Oberon and made beautiful. He was adopted from the old French story of Huon de Bordeaux, just as the Oberon of the latter had his origin in the Elberich of the Hcldenbuch. The original composition of Perceforest has been assigned without reason to the 13th century, and it is possible that some insignificant portion of the romance may have been written in the 14th ; but the probability is that David Aubert was the real author of the extant work, and that he wrote it at the court of Burgundy about 1450. It would be difficult to imagine a work more absurd, heterogeneous, and wearying in its immensity than this. The veiy "variety" for which Dunlop praises it merely indicates the mass of multifarious and incongruous incidents, un- connected and uninteresting, of which it is full. Antiquaries, how- ever, find it useful for the history of those knightly sports called tournaments, immense numbers of which are described in minute detail. Arthur of Little Britain must have been considered a very interesting romance when Lord Berners translated it into English, but we cannot discover its attractiveness. It is a dull inartistic composition, with scarcely any distinctiveness in the drawing of its personages. A great number of poetic and prose compositions, beginning with chansons and fabliaux in the 12th and 13th centuries, form a large portion of the literature of Arthurian romance ; but in most instances they deal only with episodes, and are better described in the articles relating to the literature to which they belong than they could be, or ought to be, here. Some of them may, however, be mentioned briefly in chronological succession. In the 12th century that is, between 1170 and 1200 Arnaud Daniel the troubadour wrote a poem, now quite lost, on Lancelot and Guinevere ; Chrestien de Troyes the trouvere wrote one entitled the Charrette, i.e., in refer- ence to Lancelot's unknightly mode upon one occasion of hurrying to the rescue of Guinevere in a cart for want of a horse ; this story was continued by Godefroi de Leigni. Chrestien wrote another poem on (Peredur) Perceval, which was continued by three other hands, in which Perceval remains the achiever of the Grail-quest. He also wrote Erec et Enide, a poem which contains the same substance as the Welsh story of Geraint in the Mabinogion, and which never appeared in any of the Arthurian romances ; and the Chevalier au Lyon, which is similarly identical with the Lady of the Fountain in the Mabinogion. Owen or Ywain, the Chevalier au Lyou, is a prominent Round Table knight in the romances, but his story is not incorporated in them. Hartmann von der Aue translated Chrestien's poem into German verse before 1200 ; in English it appeared as Ywain and Gawain in the 14th century ; another English poem, Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight, was written about 1360, as well as a Scottish Golagrus and Gaicaine, in the 14th century. A poem, dated 1212, containing Le Roman de Joseph d'Arimathie, has been published by Francisque Michel, and is supposed by many to be Robert de Borron's original work. Its substance is the same as the first part of the prose Petit Graal, which Hucher has published as Borron's real original. About the same time, or a few years earlier, Ulrich von Zatzikhoven translated Arnaud Daniel's Lancelot into German verse ; the lost Perceval in verse of Guyot de Provins and Wolfram von Eschenbach's metrical German version of it (in which he miscalls the trouvere " Kiot der Provenzal ") have already been mentioned. There is an early German poem called Wigalois, composed by Wirnt of Grafenberg (i.e., Gui, son of Gawain), evidently derived soon after 1200 from a French original, Gui Galeis or Giglan, which is lost. On Gawain himself there are two French poems by Raoul and Renault or Raoul de Beaujeu, of the 13th century ; and one of Chrestien de Troyes's chansons (before 1200) celebrates Cliges, a nephew of Gawain. A French poem on Merlin dates from about 1300. There is a Petit Tristan or Brun de la Montague, written in verse in the 14th century. The French poems of Marie de France, written in England early in the 13th century, contain lays of Lanval and of Chevre-feuille (on Tristan), which are professedly Arthurian subjects. Of the English works on the Round Table romances the chief are the metrical History of (he Grail, trans- lated early in the 15th century by Henry Lonelich, and published from a MS. by "the Roxburghe Club, and Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Arthur. An English prose romance of Merlin was written about 1450, and a metrical Arthour and Merlin is probably fifty or sixty years older. A further Life of Arthur in English verse is supposed to have been composed about 1428. There is a metri- cal version of Renault de Beaujeu's Giglan, probably of the latter part of the 14th century. Two poems both entitled Morte Arthur exist, one written about 1390, which especially treats of King Arthur, and another belonging to the middle of the 15th century, of which the story of Lancelot is the subject-matter ; and there is a Scottish Lancelot of the Laik in verse, which was composed late in that century. A romance of the Seint Graal, in verse, written about 1350, was probably a translation of Robert de Borron's Joseph d'Arimathie. Between 1838 and 1849 Lady Charlotte Guest printed aud translated the Mabinogion (Children's Stories) from the Welsh MS. known as the Llyfr Coch o Hcrgest, tran- scribed late in the 14th century, and now preserved at Oxford, in the library of Jesus College. At first it was believed that these stories, so far as they agreed with the narratives of the printed French romances, were copies of the original legends used by Walter Map and the Borrons ; but there can be little doubt that only those portions which are not found in the romances are of independent Celtic or Cambrian origin, while the remainder was derived from the French stories or poems of the 13th and 14th centuries. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF EARLIEST EDITIONS OF CHIEF ROUND TABLE ROMANCES. Partzifal und Titurel, in German verse, 2 vols. fol., 1477. This book is a translation by Wolfram von Eschenbach, about 1205, of Guyot's lost French poem, based upon Robert de Borron's Histoire du Graal,. Perceval, fol., Paris, 1530. A totally distinct work from the Franco-German Partzifal mentioned above. Various poems in French and English of early date exist on the adventures of Perceval, but they are not to be identified with the prose romance. Morte Arthur, fol. , print, by William Caxton, 1485. Sir Thomas Malory's Eng- lish translation of the second French Arthurian compilation which had been made about 1250, and united Tristan with the so-called iMncelot. Lancelot du Lac, 3 parts, fol., Rouen, 14S8 ; and Paris, A. Verard, 1494. This, the first Round Table compilation, was made about 1200, and embodied three or four tales which had previously had a separate existence. An Italian trans- lation appeared in 3 vols. Svo, Venice, 1558-59. A Spanish translation appears to be the Deirutiida del Sancto Grial, fol., Toledo, 1515, which may possibly be the whole Lancelot notwithstanding its name. A Dutch Roman van Lancelot of the 13th century was printed by Jonckbloet in 2 vols. 4to, 1846-49, from a MS. It may not be a translation of the French romance. The Maitland Club printed ia 1839 a Lancelot du Lac in Scottish metre, from a MS. of the 15th century. Tristan, fol., Rouen, 1489; and Paris, Verard, about 1499. Don Tristan de Leonis, fol., Valladolid, 1501, is a Spanish translation. The Italian I dui Tristani, 2 vols. Svo, Venice, 1555, is a compilation of the two romances of Tristan and his son Ysaie. The two stories were united also in the late Spanish versions, if not in the first edition of 1501. A Scottish poem on Sir Tristram was written by Thomas Rhymer of Ercildoune in the 13th century ; published by Sir Walter Scott. Various early poems on the same subject have been printed in Tristan by Francisque Michel, 2 vols. 12mo, 1835-37. A German poem of Tristan und Isolde, begun by Gottfried of Strasburg early in the 13th century, and continued by others in the same century, was published at Berlin in 1821, 4to, by Groote, and by Von der Hagen in 2 vols. Svo, Breslan, 1822. This poem and the Scottish one are supposed to be derived from :i French Tristan in verse by a trouvere Thomas, which is included in Michel's Tristan. There exist also an Icelandic Saga af Tristam og Isond, of the 13th century, published in Miiller's Saga-Bibliothek, and old popular chapbooks on the same subject in German, Danish, Italian, Bohemian, and modern Greek. The oldest German edition of the popular Tristrant was printed in 4to at Augsburg in 1484. Artus de Bretagne, fol. (no place), 1493 ; also at Lyons in 1496. An English translation was made by Lord Berners, Arthur of Lytell Brytayne, fol. (print, by Robert Redborne, no date, but probably about 1565). Vie et Prophelies de Merlin, 3 vols. fol., Paris (ed. Verard), 1498. There exist an Italian translation, Historia di Merlino, made by Antonio Tedeschi in 1379, fol., Venice, 1480, and a Spanish translation, El Baladro del Sabio Merlin, fol., Burgos, 1498. The Lytel Treatys of the Byrth and Prophecye of Merlin, published by Wynkyn de Worde, 4to, 1510, is a popular poem; and the Life of Merlin, 4to, 1641, is an original work by Thomas Heywood. The Early English Text Society has published Merlin or the Early History of King Arthur (Svo, 1869-77), in prose, from an English MS. of the 15th century, which was made from a French original. There exists also an Arthour and Merlin in verse, written about 1400, which has been printed for the Abbotsfprd Club, 4to, 1838. Geoffrey of Monmouth's original De Vita et Vaticiniis Merlini, in verse, was printed by the Roxburghe Club in 1830, 4to. His prose narrative (portion of the Historia, Britonum) was first printed in the Brittannix utriusque Begum Origo, 4to, Paris, 1508, and afterwards better in the Heidelberg Script. Rerum, Britann., fol., 1587. Gyron le Courtoys, fol., Paris, Verard, no date (about 1501). Two old Italian translations of the 14th or 15th century have been printed from MSS. in Italy, Svo, Verona, 1834, and Svo, Florence, 1835. Alamanni's Girone el Cortese is a poem on the subject of the romance, written for Francis I., 4to, Paris, 1548. Histoire (et Queste) du S. Graal, fol., Paris, 1516. The Spanish Demanda del Sancto Grial and Baladro de Merlin have probably no connexion with this book, but are rather to be considered as drawn from the Lancelot. A French poetic Roman du Saint-Graal of the beginning of the 14th century has been published by Francisque Michel, 12mo, Bordeaux, 1841 ; and a prose one of earlier date (perhaps the remote original of the French romance printed in 1516) has been published by Hucher, 12mo, Le Mans, 1874. The Early English Text Society has printed (Svo, 1871) a 14th-century poem, Joseph ofArimathea, derived from the earlier French. The English verse Seynt Graal, by Henry Lonelich, pub- lished by the Roxburghe Club, 4to, 1863-64, must be considered as derived from the Lancelot rather than from the Histoire du S. Graal. Ysaie le Triste, fol., Paris, 1522. For Italian and Spanish translations see Tristan, above. Meliadus de Leonnoys, fol., Paris, 1528. Of this there exists an Italian trans- lation, Egregi Fatti del gran Re Meliadus, 2 vols. Svo, Venice (Aldo), 1559-60. Perceforest, 6 vols. fol., Paris, 1528. (b) Charlemagne and his Twelve Peers. The cycle of Franco -Teutonic or French romance of which the mythical history of Charles the Great forms the central design is, so far as its original literary elements are concerned, more ancient than the Franco-British cycle of Arthur and his knights. The reduction into prose of the old chansons de geste and of the poemes cydiques which followed them was, however, of much later date than the similar conversions of Round Table poems; and the 15th- century prose romances are so mangled and altered from the character of the earlier stories in verse that without a short notice of the latter it would be impossible to get a XX. 82