Ywain: The Knight of the Lion PDF
Preview Ywain: The Knight of the Lion
M I L E S T O N E S OF T H O U G H T CHRÉTIEN de TROYES Y WAIN The Knight of the Lion Translated, with an introduction, by ROBERT W. ACKERMAN Stanford University and FREDERICK W. LOCKE Stanford University FREDERICK UNGAR PUBLISHING CO. NEW YORK MILESTONES OF THOUGHT in the History of Ideas General Editor F. W. STROTHMANN Stanford University Copyright 1957 by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Catabg Card Number: 57-9410 INTRODUCTION The twelfth century in Europe witnessed a great awaken ing, an anticipation of the high Renaissance of the fifteenth century. In France, one of the most notable aspects of this early movement was the flowering of vernacular literature, especially the troubadour poetry of the south and the some what later narrative literature, the court epic or romance. The most talented of the writers of romance was Chrétien de Troyes, a native of the county of Champagne in northern France, who seems to have written his poems for courtly cir cles during the period 1160-1180. His Lancelot, for ex ample, was composed at the behest of Countess Marie of Champagne, daughter of one of the most remarkable of all mediaeval women, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and his Perceval was dedicated to Count Philip of Flanders. We know that Chrétien wrote at least seven romances, of which five, in cluding Y vain, are preserved, and also a number of transla tions and reworkings of Latin poems, chiefly Ovidian. Yvain, or Ywain, as the name of the title character is anglicized here, is thought to have been written between 1169 and 1173. The principal characters and episodes of this story, as of Chrétien’s other Arthurian romances, are Celtic in origin, in the opinion of most recent scholars. Ywain, the son of Urien, for example, may well have got his name from an historical Briton of the sixth century. The adventures assigned to the hero, however, such as his encounter with the Wild Man of the forest, his experience at the marvelous spring, and his befriending of the lion, were apparently derived from Celtic story lore. It is entirely possible that the outlines at least of the tale of Ywain, as well as of other Arthurian stories, iii INTRODUCTION reached Chrétien through the medium of Breton conteurs who were ultimately indebted to insular traditions. Like Shakespeare, then, Chrétien achieved greatness not by plot innovation so much as by shaping existing and per haps widely known material to his own purposes. We will never know the exact nature of his sources, of course, but we can nonetheless say something about the poet’s personal contributions to his romances. For one thing, Chrétien’s four Arthurian poems tend to fall into a fairly distinctive pattern. The opening scene is laid in Arthur’s court where, amidst the imposing nobles of the Round Table, an untried young man is presented with a challenge. Upon accepting, he sets out alone and, after surmounting many perils and winning many combats, he performs the appointed labor and, by way of reward, receives a wife and vast estate, as does Ywain. But almost immediately, he is made aware of some short coming in himself, and he promptly abandons his happiness to undertake a second quest the object of which is to expiate or repair the fault. This series of adventures is concluded by a joyous reunion with the lady and occasionally with Arthur’s court as well. Because Chrétien convinces us that the hero’s later experiences bring him to a higher pitch of self-knowledge than he had attained heretofore, we accept the reunion as final and enduring, as a true fulfillment. In particular, Ywain’s moral regeneration during his second course of exploits is signalized by his selfless rescue of the lion from the clutches of the dragon and by his assumption of the sobriquet, the Knight of the Lion. The flow of Chrétien’s octosyllabic couplets lends an appro priately urbane expression to his narratives, imbued as they are with the ideals and sentiments of courtly knighthood. It is true that the leisurely, elevated conversation of the charac ters often strikes us as needlessly repetitious and the extended metaphors, in terms of which Chrétien in his own person sometimes analyzes motives and feelings, as prolix in the extreme. An obvious example of the latter tendency occurs iv INTRODUCTION when Ywain takes leave of his bride in order to go tourney ing with Gawain. King Arthur, we are told, is able to lead away the hero’s body but not his heart, for it is too firmly in Laudine’s possession. Normally, a body may not live on with out a heart, but Ywain is enabled to maintain life by fashion ing a new heart out of hope. It is interesting to note that metaphorical flights of this sort are omitted in the Middle English translation and that in consequence the two poems differ markedly in total effect. A reading of Chrétien’s several narrative poems suffices to demonstrate that his influence on the characteristic structure, tone, and theme of mediaeval romance was very great. Of his romances, Ywain has most often been singled out as the highest expression of his art. Morever, Ywain was paid the homage of imitation by a number of mediaeval writers, in cluding Hartmann von Aue and an accomplished, if anony mous English poet of the fourteenth century. v SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Arthurian Romances by Chrétien de Troyes, translated by W. Wistar Comfort, Everyman’s Library No. 698 (London: J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., 1928), pp. 180-269. Loomis, Roger Sherman, Arthurian Tradition and Chrétien de Troyes, New York: Columbia University Press, 1949. Nitze, William A., “Yvain and the Myth of the Fountain,” Speculum, XXX (1955), 170-79. Yvain, ed. Wendelin Foerster, 4th revised edition, Roma- nische Bibliothek, V (1912). Yvain, ed. T. B. W. Reid, Manchester: Manchester Univer sity Press, 1942. vi NOTE For present purposes, the complete prose rendering of Y wain by W. W. Comfort seemed to us not altogether suit able because its literal, line-by-line adherence to the French text has sometimes led the translator into difficult locutions and archaisms. The present translation is syntactically some what freer than Comfort’s although we have sought to render the sense of every passage as accurately as possible. Lines 3416 to 6526 are given in summary form rather than in direct translation. Explanatory notes are limited to a few bracketed expansions of words or allusions that might be unfamiliar to modem readers. vii
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