Four Arthurian Romances
priors and the abbots of the Church step forward and anoint the new
King, as the Christian practice is. Now all the prelates, young and old,
came forward; for at the court there were a great number of bishops and
abbots. The Bishop of Nantes himself, who was a very worthy and saintly
man, anointed the new King in a very holy and becoming manner, and
placed the crown upon his head. King Arthur had a sceptre brought which
was very fine. Listen to the description of the sceptre, which was
clearer than a pane of glass, all of one solid emerald, fully as large
as your fist. I dare to tell you in very truth that in all the world
there is no manner of fish, or of wild behest, or of man, or of flying
bird that was not worked and chiselled upon it with its proper figure.
The sceptre was handed to the King, who looked at it with amazement;
then he put it without delay into King Erec's right hand; and now he
was King as he ought to be. Then he crowned Enide in turn. Now the
bells ring for Mass, and they go to the main church to hear the Mass and
service; they go to pray at the cathedral. You would have seen weeping
with joy the father of Queen Enide and her mother, Carsenefide. In truth
this was her mother's name, and her father's name was Liconal. Very
happy were they both. When they came to the cathedral, the procession
came out from the church with relics and treasures to meet them. Crosses
and prayerbooks and censers and reliquaries, with all the holy relics,
of which there were many in the church, were all brought out to meet
them; nor was there any lack of chants made. Never were seen so many
kings, counts, dukes, and nobles together at a Mass, and the press was
so great and thick that the church was completely filled. No low-born
man could enter there, but only ladies and knights. Outside the door
of the church a great number still remained, so many were there come
together who could not get inside the church. When they had heard all
the Mass they returned to the palace. It was all prepared and decorated:
tables set and cloths spread five hundred tables and more were there;
but I do not wish to make you believe a thing which does not seem true.
It would seem too great a lie were I to say that five hundred tables
were set in rows in one palace, so I will not say it; rather were there
five hails so filled with them that with great difficulty could one make
his way among the tables. At each table there was in truth a king or a
duke or a count; and full a hundred knights were seated at each table. A
thousand knights served the bread, and a thousand served the wine, and a
thousand the meat--all of them dressed in fresh fur robes of ermine. All
are served with divers dishes. Even if I did not see them, I might still
be able to tell you about them; but I must attend to something else than
to tell you what they had to eat. They had enough, without wanting more;
joyfully and liberally they were served to their heart's desire.
(Vv. 6947-6958.) When this celebration was concluded, the King dismissed
the assemblage of kings, dukes, and counts, of which the number was
immense, and of the other humble folk who had come to the festival.
He rewarded them liberally with horses, arms and silver, cloths and
brocades of many kinds, because of his generosity, and because of Erec
whom he loved so much. Here the story ends at last.
----Endnotes: Erec Et Enide
NOTE: Endnotes supplied by Prof. Foerster are indicated by "(F.)"; all
other endnotes are supplied by W.W. Comfort.
[Footnote 11: A Welsh version, "Geraint the Son of Erbin", included in
Lady Charlotte Guest's translation of "The Mabinogion" (London, 1838-49;
a modern edition will be found in Everyman Library, London, 1906),
tells the same story as "Erec et Enide" with some variations. This Welsh
version has also been translated into modern French by J. Loth ("Les
Mabinogion", Paris, 1889), where it may be consulted with the greatest
confidence. The relation of the Welsh prose to the French poem is a
moot point. Cf. E. Philipot in "Romania", XXV. 258-294, and earlier,
K. Othmer, "Ueber das Verhaltnis Chrestiens Erec und Enide zu dem
Mabinogion des rothen Buch von Hergest" (Koln, 1889); G. Paris in
"Romania", XIX. 157, and id. XX. 148-166.]
[Footnote 12: We frequently read in the romances of a hunt at Easter
(F.). As here, so in "Fergus" (ed. Martin, Halle, 1872), p. 2 f., the
knights hunt a white stag, which Perceval finally slays, but there is no
mention of the ceremony of the bestowal of a kiss.]
[Footnote 13: Chrétien nowhere gives any description of the nature of
the Round Table. With him, it is an institution. Layamon in "Brut" and
Wace in "Le Roman de Brut" are more specific in their accounts of this
remarkable piece of furniture. From their descriptions, and from other
sources in Welsh and Irish literature, it is reasonable to suppose that
the Round Table had a place in primitive Celtic folk-lore. Cf. L.F.
Mott, "The Round Table" in "Pub. of the Modern Language Association of
America", XX. 231-264; A.C.L. Brown, "The Round Table before Wace" in
"Harvard Studies and Notes in Philology and Literature", vii. 183-205
(Boston, 1900); Miss J.L Weston, "A Hitherto Unconsidered Aspect of the
Round Table" in "Melanges de philologie romane offerts a M. Wilmotte",
ii. 883-894, 2 vols. (Paris, 1910).]
[Footnote 14: There exists a romance devoted to Yder, of which G. Paris
printed a resume in "Hist. Litt. de la France", XXX., and which has
been recently edited by Heinrich Gelzer: "Der altfranzosische Yderroman"
(Dresden, 1913). There are apparently three different knight of this
name in the old French romances (F.).]
[Footnote 15: The word "chastel" (from "castellum") is usually to be
translated as "town" or strong place within fortifications. Only where
it plainly refers to a detached building will the word "castle" be
used.]
[Footnote 16: A "tercel" is a species of falcon, of which the male bird
is one-third smaller than the female.]
[Footnote 17: A "vavasor" (from "vassus vassallorum") was a low order
of vassal, but a freeman. The vavasors are spoken of with respect in
the old French romances, as being of honourable character, though not of
high birth.]
[Footnote 18: The numerous references to the story of King Mark,
Tristan, and Iseut in the extant poems of Chrétien support his own
statement, made at the outset of "Cligés", that he himself composed a
poem on the nephew and wife of the King of Cornwall. We have fragments
of poems on Tristan by the Anglo-Norman poets Beroul and Thomas, who
were contemporaries of Chrétien. Foerster's hypothesis that the lost
"Tristan" of Chrétien antedated "Erec" is doubtless correct. That
the poet later treated of the love of Cligés and Fenice as a sort of
literary atonement for the inevitable moral laxity of Tristan and Iseut
has been held by some, and the theory is acceptable in view of the
references to be met later in "Cligés". For the contrary opinion of
Gaston Paris see "Journal des Savants" (1902), p. 297 f.]
[Footnote 19: In the Mabinogi "Geraint the Son of Erbin", the host
explains that he had wrongfully deprived his nephew of his possessions,
and that in revenge the nephew had later taken all his uncle's property,
including an earldom and this town. See Guest, "The Mabinogion".]
[Footnote 110: The hauberk was a long shirt of mail reaching to the
knees, worn by knights in combat. The helmet, and the "coiffe" beneath
it, protected the head; the "ventail" of linked meshes was worn across
the lower part of the face, and was attached on each side of the neck to
the "coiffe", so that it protected the throat; the greaves covered the
legs. The body of the knight was thus well protected against blow of
sword or lance. Cf. Vv.711 f.]
[Footnote 111: This passage seems to imply that charms and enchantments
were sometimes used when a knight was armed (F.).]
[Footnote 112: The "loges", so often mentioned in old French romances,
were either window-balconies or architectural points of vantage
commanding some pleasing prospect. The conventional translation in the
old English romances is "bower".]
[Footnote 113: Tristan killed Morholt, the uncle of Iseut, when he came
to claim tribute form King Mark (cf. Bedier, "Le Roman de Tristan",
etc., i. 85 f., 2 vols., Paris, 1902). The combat took place on an
island, unnamed in the original text (id. i. 84), but later identified
with St. Samson's Isle, one of the Scilly Isles.]
[Footnote 114: The same act of feeding a hunting-bird with a plover's
wing is mentioned in "Le Roman de Thebes", 3857-58 (ed. "Anciens
Textes").]
[Footnote 115: For such figurative expressions used to complement the
negative, cf. Gustav Dreyling, "Die Ausdruckweise der ubertriebenen
Verkleinerung im altfranzosischen Karlsepos", in Stengel's "Ausgaben und
Abhandlungen", No. 82 (Marsburg, 1888); W.W. Comfort in "Modern Language
Notes" (Baltimore, February 1908).]
[Footnote 116: Chrétien in his later romances will avoid compiling such
a prosaic blue-book as is found in this passage, though similar lists of
knights occur in the old English romances as late as Malory, though of
some of them but little is known. Unfortunately, we have for the old
French romances no such complete work as that furnished for the epic
poems by E. Langois, "Table des noms propres de toute nature compris
dans les chansons de geste" (Paris, 1904).]
[Footnote 117: The only mention by Chrétien of this son of Arthur, whose
role is absolutely insignificant in the Arthurian romances.]
[Footnote 118: What was this drinking-cup, and who sent it to Arthur? We
have "Le Lai du cor" (ed. Wulff, Lund, 1888), which tells how a certain
King Mangount of Moraine sent a magic drinking-cup to Arthur. No one
could drink of this cup without spilling the contents if he were a
cuckold. Drinking from this cup was, then, one of the many current tests
of chastity. Further light may be thrown on the passage in our text by
the English poem "The Cokwold's Daunce" (in C.H. Hartshorne's "Ancient
Metrical Ballads", London, 1829), where Arthur is described as a cuckold
himself and as having always by him a horn (cup) which he delights
in trying on his knights as a test of their ladies' chastity. For
bibliography see T.P. Cross, "Notes on the Chastity-Testing Horns and
Mantle" in "Modern Philology", x. 289-299.]
[Footnote 119: A unique instance of such a division of the material in
Chrétien's poems (F.).]
[Footnote 120: Outre-Gales=Estre-Gales (v.3883)=Extra-Galliam.]
[Footnote 121: Such fanciful descriptions of men and lands are common
in the French epic poems, where they are usually applied to the Saracens
(F.). Cf. W.w. Comfort, "The Saracens in Christian Poetry" in "The
Dublin Review", July 1911; J. Malsch, "Die Charakteristik der Volker im
altfranzosischen nationalen Epos" (Heidelberg, 1912).]
[Footnote 122: With what seems to us mistaken taste, Chrétien frequently
thus delays mentioning the name of his leading charecters. The father
and mother of Enide remain anonymous until the end of this poem. The
reader will remark other instances of this peculiarity in "Yvain" and
"Lancelot".]
[Footnote 123: The maid Brangien was substituted for Iseut, the bride,
upon the first night after her marriage with Mark. Similar traditions
are associated with the marriage of Arthur and Guinevere, and of Pepin
and Berte aus grans pies, the parents of Charlemagne. Adenet le Roi
toward the end of the 13th century is the author of the most artistic
treatments of Berte's history (ed. A. Scheler, Bruxelles, 1874).
Cf. W.W. Comfort, "Adenet le Roi: The End of a Literary Era" in "The
Quarterly Review", April 1913.]
[Footnote 124: The reading "Sanson" (=Samson) is Foerster's most recent
(1904) suggestion to replace the word "lion" which stands in all