The Legend of Sir Lancelot du Lac

ancelot were not yet ripe, and that I should, therefore, confine myself to the discussion of the more striking

ventures filling in the framework, varying (as we shall presently see) so considerably, that till we have

ider an exaggeration of this motif, the love-madness, also occurs more than once and has affected the Tristan story. This is certainly not an original feature, but I think it is a question whether the source be

o belonging specially to the prose Lancelot. In one instance it is from the prison of the Dame de Malehault that he attends the tournament and returns, as in the Charrette; in the other he is freed from the prison of the three queens by the daughter of the Duc de Roc

ble to say which of the great mass of adventures now composing the prose Lancelot belonged to the original redaction. Nor can this again be satisfactorily settled till we have determined the mutual relation between the

does so,[116] but under entirely different circumstances from those recorded in the prose Lancelot. The latter account is of extreme length, and apparently a free imitation of the Arthurian expeditions of the Chronicles; the incident of Frollo's defeat before Paris is certainly borrowed from Geoffrey or his translators. As it now stands the incident is lacking in point and practically unnecessary

rospect of arriving at some real and definite conclusion-the love of Lancelot for the wife of his liege lord. Setting aside the many minor questions to which the subject gives rise, it seems to me that the main problem of the amours

e noted in our discussion of the latter poem, Chrétien evidently credits his audience with a previous knowledge of the relations between the queen and his hero; he nowhere hints that he is about to tell them something new, nor does he offer any explanat

turies, we are speaking well within the mark. It is obvious that we have here ample time for forgetfulness, dislocation, or rearrangement of the original legend. Yet that that legend survived I hold for certain. Had Arthur been completely forgotten, the immense popularity achieved by the romances of hi

ife and nephew, and his death in battle with the latter. Certainly there is a genuine historic element in the account of his wars; and it is significant that the older Arthurian chroniclers-Geoffrey of Monmouth and his tr

to that familiar to us through Malory, and borrowed by him from the Mort Artur. In the latter, the queen is no accomplice in Mordred

n is different: they shall speak fo

et fist en

ne sot

c ert à

fu et e

ui de la

ordret se

avoit d

eveu Mor

i l'avoit

it honie

t morte est

toit morne

n s'en e

ra en un

vint no

vie i

o?e, n

rovée,

rgogne de

e avoit fait.'-Bru

s 'Breton' tradition and the clerk Walter of Oxford (cf. note to above pas

r bi-

t he

e and t

om was

s ufel

iboren

d heo f

ueen u

?nden he

e gon i

ter for-

heore

er seoe

?lche

er na m

oden for he

Madden's ed., l

Wace, Layamon adds the detail, that none knew the manne

hit mon

eo weore

eo hinne

seolf

e watere.'-l

treachery, but a willing sinner; and that the tradition of her infidelity t

at though in each of the pseudo-historic versions Guinevere, as we have seen, is genuinely in love with Mordred, and is roundly condemned by the chroniclers for her conduct, in no single one of the Arthurian romances is there any trace of the slightest affection existing between them. Mordred, save as trait

. Even so aggressively virtuous and clerical a romance as the prose Perceval li Gallois, though quite aware of the connection, regards Guinevere in a favourable light-indeed, as morally superior to Arthur! Nor can we quote the Queste as representing the opposite view; true, Lancelot is blamed for his relations with the queen, but Guinevere, when she appears upon the scene, is treated with marked respect, and the reader has an uncomfortable suspicion that the writer objected to her rather as woman than as wife,-he objects to the sex as a whole, only forgiving

s character; we judge her on the grounds of her relations with Lancelot, which we regard as

ed out, knows practically nothing of Lancelot; that must rest upon other grounds

ut I think that most probably the primitive story ascribed the r?le of lover to Gawain. I made this suggestion some four years ago,[1

two sides of one original personality; and that a perso

early Irish mythic tradition may be we cannot yet say: th

y combat between father and son (Cuchulinn and Conlaoch). This latter incident I believe to be of greater importance in heroic-mythic tradition than has yet been realised. As I interpret it, the father and son combat in heroic tradition really represents the 'slayer who shall himself be slain,' the pre

, but they might very well be so united. I think that the earlier Gawain was at once Arthur's nephew and son by h

o beheld him; or the love-potion of the Tristan story; a device whereby the earlier tellers of these tales secured sympathy for the lovers, witho

, if Gawain was to preserve his position as leading hero of the legend, and I now think it most probable that that change was effected by divesting Gawain of the characteristics incompatible with his later position, and bestowing them on another personal

with regard to Guinevere, and that we have a survival of it

hat Lancelot does not represent the original lover at all, that that tradition is now represented by the Mordred story, and that there was a period in the evolution of the legend, preceding

as in its origin an invention, was probably brought about by two caus

ex characteristics which cannot be explained on the hypothesis of other than a dual source. Thus it is impossible not to feel that the relations of the lovers are dictated by the rules of a conventional etiquette rather than by the impulse of an overmastering passion. Even in the scene

Lancelot is so overcome by the assumed indifference of the queen that he promptly attempts suicide. Compare this with the story of Gawain and Orgeluse in the Parzival. Gawain is heartily in love with the lady, who treats him, not merely with indifference, but with absolute insolence-insolence to which Gawain opposes the most s

ies of the would-be poets of medi?val Italy, or of certain of the troubadours; but the night interview in the Charrette, the story of Lancelot's re

ict unless Arthur will consent to take back his faithless wife; while throughout the war with Lancelot the sympathies of the reader are asked for the knight, not for the king. Nothing could well be lower than the morality of the Lancelot story as it now stands: the cynical indifference of what we may

he final war with Arthur we are told that Lancelot is twenty-one years Gawain's junior, this latter being seventy,[126] while Arthur is ninety years old! It is quite clear that we have here no tale

r the middle of the twelfth century the tone given to courtly society by certain influential princesses, among them Eleanor of Aquitaine and England, and her daughter, Marie de Champagne, demanded the introduction into the popular Arthurian story of a love element, conceived after the con

ations. It is noticeable that in each of the poems in which Chrétien mentions Lancelot previous to the Charrette he places him third in the list of Arthur's knights; in Erec the two first are Gawain and Erec; in Cligés they are Gawain and Perceval. None of the three here named would be available: Gawain from his relationship alike to Arthur and to Mordred, besides the fact that the character he early acquired as 'the Maidens' Knight' rather militated against the exclusive fidelity requisite for the post; Erec was

ty in his relations with his mysterious protectress gave the required suggestio

uinevere; despair and madness of Lancelot; reconciliation, suspicion, detection, danger, deliverance, all the well-known formul? of such a love-tale are employed, well interspersed with the knightly adventures of Lancelot and other companions

ile the version given by Hartmann von Aue of the abduction of Guinevere shows points of contact with that of Iseult by Gand?n, but the incidental parallels between the stories are in reality very slight. Turn, however, to the prose Tristan, and you find the influence of the Lancelot absolutely dominant. Following the example of Lancelot, Tristan believes himself to have lost the favour of his adored queen, flies to the woodland, where he goes mad; attempts suicide; Iseult pours out her woes in letters to Guinevere, who is regarded as the noblest of queens, and a

But how thoroughgoing was this modification, and how disastrous to the older story, can only be understood by a first-hand study of the texts. An interesting point for future criticism to determine will be whether there was ever an earlier,

ggest that the order of Guinevere's lovers, so far as can be de

s of the relation surviving in the accounts given in the Merlin of Gawain as the 'queen's knigh

ivalrous hero, and the more unamiable features of the primitive conception were transferred to another charact

he queen's character is regarded as irreproachable and Mordred as an unwelcome suitor. Strong traces of thi

thin the Arthurian cycle a love-tale which should rival in popularity the well-known and independent Tristan story. Mordred, howe