Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/316

 276 The History of the Destruction

name of G^z^^never Zinevrdi, (which presupposes a 6^inevra), and similarly I^-erna for I^^rna. This can only be explained as a Venetian trait of the Romance language of the original, in which he already found them so spelt, or, what is much more likely, it is due to some South French dialect inter- mediate between those of Provence and the North of Italy, and not due to any liberty taken by the translator or by the second copyist of the Hebrew. Names like Loto and Bano, for Lot and Ban, and the form Langclot,^ may also be of non-Italian origin, and taken over in Italy in this form, for so they occur in the Reali di Francia and in other Italian versions of the ancient French romances of chivalry. They in fact show the route through which these romances have come to Italy. "Pennon" is undoubtedly French, and so are the forms " Messer," " scudier," and " Valvassor." The linguistic proof therefore points in the direction of the South of France for the version which served as the basis of the translation. The history of the literary transmission of this Cycle to Italy corroborates the conclusion to which I have come, for it was just about this date that Provencal poems began to penetrate into Italy and there to influence the nascent poetry of Italy. Collections of Provencal poems copied out in Italy are known to exist, and even Dante speaks of Provencal poetry as a school with which he was closely acquainted. Unfortunately the Hebrew version is only a fragment, but it is still full enough to enable us to penetrate through it to a more primitive phase of the Arthurian legends, as Dr. Schiiler has rightly pointed out. It contains many an archaic trait, and, though agreeing in the main with Malory, it yet differs so much from the English version that it may fairly be taken to represent another and probably more ancient one.

I have endeavoured to be as faithful as I could in the

^ The name Lan9olot is written in full only a few times in the book, being generally abridf^ed to Lan9.