Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/681

Rh ROMANCE 657 Sir Fridos, son of the duke of Wales, who educates him under the name of the Child of the Desert. Palmerin, his twin brother, meets with Polendos, who takes him and Selvian to Constantin9ple. Palmerin's first love-affair is with Polinarda, who repulses his affec- tion, and he travels to England under the title of the Knight of Fortune. In the middle of a battle with Florian the brothers are separated by Flerida and the secret of their birth divulged by Daliarte, a magician. Their subsequent adventures are beyond enumeration, those of the Perilous Isle being the most interesting. A part of the story relates to the castle of Almourol, where resides the proud Miraguarda, whose peerless beauty is championed by enamoured knights. The giant Dramuziando becomes one of her admirers. In this romance the marriages take place in the middle, giving ample opportunity for many more combats, abductions, ravishments, murders, and other deeds of violence or valour. This is evidently so close an imitation of the Amadis, while only second to it in popularity and intrinsic merit, that a comparison between the two naturally arises. As in its prototype, there are two heroes. We have Palmerin, the faithful lover, and Florian, the fickle one, as well as Daliarte, the magician, and the Perilous Isle. The characters are well discriminated : Palmerin is generous, brave, and chivalrous ; Florian, witty and courageous. The giant Dramuziando actually excites our sympathy and interest, and the emperor Primaleon is a fine and courtly old gentleman. Much feeling for the beauties of nature is shown ; the dialogue is good. On the other hand, the story is not so simple and natural as the original Amadis. There are too many knights and battles, and the romance is distinctly inferior as a work of art. The seventh book consists of Terceira [e Quarto] Parte de Pal- meirim de Inglaterra onde se contain os Feitos do Don Duardos Segundo seu Filho, which continues the Portuguese version of Moraes, to which the two parts are the third and fourth books. It was coinposed by Diogo Fernandez de Lisboa. The eighth and last book of the Palmerin series are the fifth and sixth parts of the same work, being C'hronica do Famoso Princepe Don Clarisol de Bretanha, by Balth. Go^alvez Lobato. Like the preceding, it was written in Portuguese and not translated. Pedigree of the Palmerin Heroes. Primaleon. 11 Florendos, m. Griana. m. 1 Arismena, king of Sparta. Armida, Palmerin de Oliva, m. Frisol, king m. Polinarda. of Hungary. 1 Francelina, m. Polendos, king of Thessaly. 1 1 Vasilla. . Flerida. Primaleun, m. Gridonia. Polendos, king of Thessaly (son of Palmerin and the queen of Tharsus). II 1 1 1 Florendos. Platir, Polinarda. Franciano. Clarisea. m. Sidela. I 1 1 Polendos. I ill Primaleon. Gridonia. Palmerin Flortir. of Lacedemonia. Frederic, king of England, m. daughter of Meliadus. II Don Duardos (Edward), m. Flerida. Palmerin of Florian. England, m. Polinarda. II Don Duardos II. II Don Clarisol. Bibliographical List of first Editions of Palmerin Romances. Bk. Spanish. French. Italian. English. 1. 2. a Palmerin de Oliva (1511). . Primaleon (1512) Polindo (1526) (1546) (1550) (Mambrino Roseo,1544) (1548) .... platirC15iS) (A. Munday, 1588) (Do., 1595) 4 Platir (1533) Do 5. Flortir (no Spanish edition) Do (1566) 6. Palmerin de Inglaterra (1552) d'lnghil- terra (1 554- 55) Flortir (P.ofEngland. A. Munday, 1602) 7. 8. (1547 ; in Portuguese, 1567) Don Duardos IT.de Bretanha (Portug. by Diogo Fer- nandez de Lisboa, 1587) Don Clarisol de Bretanha (B. Not translated. . Do (1554) Not trans. Do Not trans. Do. Goncalvez Lobato, 1602) (d) Teutonic, Anglo-Danish, &r. Outside the four great cycles of mediaeval romance there lie some minor cycles, as weir as various isolated fictions, to which we must now make reference. The origins of the Teutonic cycle belong to epic or Teutonic, ballad literature, as we find them in the Wilkinasaga, in the Nibelungenlied, and the Heldenbuch. As those works have already been treated separately or in connexion with the national literature to which they belong, we need only make brief allusion to the fact that the Germanic legend of Siegfried (Sigurd, Siegmund, Sigenot) is very ancient, and that the Norse or Icelandic sagas embody its oldest existing form. The High German Nibelungenlied, Hilde- brandslied, Hadubrand, Dietriclissaga (or Heldenbuch}, Konig Bother, &c., are probably specifically older than the Norse books, but they contain the legend in a later shape, the Heldenbuch especially deviating from the first two by the introduction of a number of names and incidents arbitrarily adapted from the history of the Gothic, Lom- bard, Burgundian, and Hunnic wars during the 5th and 6th centuries. There are no prose romances on these themes, but the mythical hero Siegfried, called Horn-Siegfried or Hornen-Siegfried, gave his name to the French and English stories of Horn and Eimenhild (Rimenhild being derived from Chrimhild, the wife of Siegfried). Before these last came into existence there had arisen in England a set of legends of which Anlaf Sitricson, the Danish king of Dublin (converted to Christianity 943, deceased on a pilgrimage in 981), was the hero. They were combined in a French poem called Havelok, by Geoffrey Gaimar (12th century), the name Havelok being a corruption of Anlaf or Olaf, and reappearing still later in the form of Hamlet. Various trouveres composed ballads of greater length on the same theme, with many additions, and finally others appeared in English. In all of them we find mixed elements, includ- ing incidents which connect this Dano- Saxon romance with Guy of Warwick and the French King Horn. The fact last mentioned tends to justify the assumption Anglo- of an Anglo- Danish cycle, which may be said to begin with Danish, the poem of Beowulf. Between the mythical Siegfried and Beowulf of the early centuries and the fictitious Horn and Guy of the 13th the Anglo-Danish Havelok of the 12th intervened, and furnished material to the trouveres who composed the last two works. In Horn and Rimen- hild there is little more than the names to connect the story with the old Siegfried poem, but much that brings it into contact with Anlaf and Danish or Norse history. Its reappearance in prose as Pontus et Sidoine belongs to the second half of the 15th century. Guy of Warwick, from whatever actual personage its hero may have been derived, is a purely English story of the 13th century, connected with Havelok by its evident relation to legends of Danish wars in England, and with King Horn by its embodiment of the most striking incidents of that story, namely, the return of Guy as a disguised palmer to his own castle, and the use of a ring by which he discloses himself to his wife. Havelok the Dane appeared first in a French poem by Geoffrey Havelok Gaimar (12th century), and was inserted by him between his 2?ri^ the Dane, or translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth (now lost) and his Estorie des Engles. The story runs that Adelbrict, a Dane, is king of Norfolk, while Edelsi is king in Lindsey. The former marries a sister of the latter, and both die ; a girl, Argentille, remains, who is given by her uncle, out of spite, in marriage to a scullion-jongleur, Cuheran. She dreams that her new husband is of superior origin ; he confesses that he comes from Grimsby. They both start for this place and discover that Cuheran's putative father, Grim, is dead. It turns out that Cuheran is the son of Gunter, an exiled king of Denmark, and that his real name is Havelok. He and Argeutille set out for Denmark, where Edulf, the brother of the usurper, has become king. Siar, formerly seneschal to Gunter, is lord of the town where Havelok lands and assists him when Argentille is attacked by miscreants. Havelok is made known by his power to XX. 83