Old French Romances, Done into English, William Morris [easy books to read in english TXT] 📗

as well as in its present form, it is definitely located on Romance soil, while the names of the heroes are clearly Latin (Amicus and Æmilius).  It was, however, only at a later stage that the story was affiliated to the Epic Cycle of Charlemagne.  On the face of it there is clearly stamped the impress of popular tradition.  Heads are not so easily replaced, except by a freak of the Folk imagination.  It is probably for this reason that M. Gaston Paris attributes an Oriental origin to the latter part of the tale, and for the same reason the Benedictine Fathers have had serious doubts about admitting it into the Acta Sanctorum.  On the other hand, the editors of the French text, the translation of which we have before us, go so far as to conjecture that there is a historic germ for the whole p. xviiLegend in certain incidents of the War of Charlemagne against Didier.  But as the whole connection of the Legend with the Charlemagne Cycle is late, we need not attribute much importance to, indeed, we may at once dismiss their conjecture.

These disputes of the pundits cannot destroy the charm of the Legend.  Never, even in antiquity, have the claims of friendship been urged with such a passionate emphasis.  The very resemblance of the two heroes is symbolic of their similarity of character; the very name of one of them is Friend pure and simple.  The world is well lost for friendship’s sake on the one side, on the other nearest and dearest are willingly and literally sacrificed on the altar of friendship.  One of the most charming of the Fioretti tells how St. Francis overcame in himself the mediæval dread at the touch of a leper, and washed and tended one of the poor unfortunates.  He was but following the example of Amil, who was not deterred by the dreaded sound of the “tartavelle”—the clapper or rattle which announced the approach of the leper [4]—from tending his friend.

p. xviiiHere again romance has points of contact with the folk tale.  The end of the Grimms’ tale of Faithful John is clearly the same as that of Amis and Amile. [5]  Once more we are led to believe in some dependence of the Folk-Tale on Romance, or, vice versa, since an incident like that of resuscitation by the sacrifice of a child is not likely to occur independently to two different tellers of tales.  The tale also contains the curious incident of the unsheathed sword in bed, which, both in romances and folk-tales, is regarded as a complete bar to any divorce court proceedings.  It is probable that the sword was considered as a living person, so that the principle publico was applied, and the sword was regarded as a kind of chaperon. [6]  It is noteworthy that the incident occurs in Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, which is a late interpolation into the Arabian Nights, and may be due there to p. xixEuropean influence.  But another incident in the romance suggests that it was derived from a folk-tale rather than the reverse.  The two bowls of wood given to the heroes at baptism are clearly a modification of that familiar incident in folk-tales, where one of a pair leaves with the other a “Lifetoken” [7] which will sympathetically indicate his state of health.  As this has been considerably attenuated in our romance, we are led to the conclusion that it is itself an adaptation of a folk-tale.

IV

The tale of King Florus—the gem of the book—recalls the early part of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and the bet about a wife’s virtue, which forms the subject of many romances, not a few folk-tales, and at least one folk-song.  The Romance of the Violet, by Gerbert de Montruil, circa 1225, derives its name from the mother’s mark of the heroine, which causes her husband to lose his bet.  This was probably the source of Boccaccio’s novel (ii. 9), from which Shakespeare’s more immediately grew.  p. xxThe Gaelic version of this incident, collected by Campbell (The Chest, No. ii.), is clearly not of folk origin, but derived directly or indirectly from Boccaccio, in whom alone the Chest is found.  Yet it is curious that, practically, the same story as the Romance of the Violet is found among folk-songs in modern Greece and in Modern Scotland.  In Passow’s collection of Romaic Folk Songs there is one entitled Maurianos and the King, which is in substance our story; and it is probably the existence of this folk-song which causes M. Gaston Paris to place our tale among the romances derived from Byzantium.  Yet Motherwell in his Minstrelsy has a ballad entitled Reedisdale and Wise William, which has the bet as its motive.  Here again, then, we have a connection between our romance and the story-store of European folk, and at the same time some slight link with Byzantium.

V

The tale of “Oversea” has immediate connection with the Crusades, since its heroine is represented to be no other than the great grandmother of Saladin.  But her adventures resemble those of Boccaccio’s Princess of Babylon (ii. 7), p. xxiwho was herself taken from one of the Greek romances by Xenophon of Ephesus.  Here again, then, we can trace back to Greek influence reaching Western Europe in the twelfth century through the medium of the Crusades.  But the tale finds no echo among the folk, so far as I am aware, and is thus purely and simply a romance of adventure.

This, however, is not the only story connected with the Crusades in which the Soudan loves a lady of the Franks.  Saladin is credited by the chatty Chronicle of Rheims with having gained the love of Eleanor, wife of Louis VII., when they were in Palestine on the Second Crusade.  As Saladin did not ascend the throne till twenty years later, chronology is enabled to clear his memory of this piece of scandal.  But its existence chimes in with such relations between Moslem and Christian as is represented in our story, which were clearly not regarded at the time with any particular aversion by the folk; they agree with Cardinal Mazarin on this point.

p. xxiiVI

So much for the origin of our tales.  Yet who cares for origins nowadays?  We are all democrats now, and a tale, like a man, is welcomed for its merits and not for its pedigree.  Yet even democracy must own, that pedigree often leaves its trace in style and manner, and certainly the tales before us owe some of their charm to their lineage.  “Out of Byzantium by Old France” is a good strain by which to produce thoroughbred romance.

Certainly we breathe the very air of romance in these stories.  There is none of your modern priggish care for the state of your soul.  Men take rank according to their might, women are valued for their beauty alone.  Adventures are to the adventurous, and the world is full of them.  Every place but that in which one is born is equally strange and wondrous.  Once beyond the bounds of the city walls and none knows what may happen.  We have stepped forth into the Land of Faerie, but at least we are in the open air.

Mr. Pater seems to regard our stories as being a premonition of the freedom and gaiety of the Renaissance rather than as especially p. xxiiicharacteristic of the times of Romance.  All that one need remark upon such misconception is that it only proves that Mr. Pater knew less of Romance Literature than he did of his favourite subject.  The freshness, the gaiety, the direct outlook into life are peculiar neither to Romance nor Renaissance; their real source was the esprit Gaulois.  But the unquestioning, if somewhat external, piety, the immutability of the caste system, the spirit of adventure, the frankly physical love of woman, the large childlike wonder, these are of the essence of Romance, and they are fully represented in the tales before us.  Wonder and reverence, are not these the parents of Romance?  Intelligent curiosity and intellectual doubt—those are what the Renaissance brought.  Without indulging in invidious comparisons between the relative value of these gifts, I would turn back to our stories with the remark that much of the wonder which they exhibit is due to the vague localisation which runs through them.  Rome, Paris, Byzantium, form spots of light on the mediæval map, but all between is in the dim obscure where anything may occur, and the brave man moves about with his life in his hands.

We thus obtain that absence or localisation p. xxivwhich helps to give the characteristic tone to mediæval romance.  Events happen in a sort of sublime No Man’s Land.  They happen, as it were, at the root of the mountains, on the glittering plain, and in short, we get news from Nowhere.  It seems, therefore, peculiarly appropriate that they should be done into English in the same style and by the same hand that has already written the annals of those countries of romance.  Writing here, in front of Mr. Morris’s versions, I am speaking, as it were, before his face, and must not say all that I should like in praise of the style in which he has clothed them, and of its appropriateness for its present purpose.  I should merely like to recall the fact that it was used by him in his versions of the Sagas as long ago as 1869.  Since then it has been adopted by all who desire to give an appropriate English dress to their versions of classic or mediæval masterpieces of a romantic character.  We may take it, I think, that this style has established itself as the only one suitable for a romantic version, and who shall use it with ease and grace if not its original inventor?

If their style suits Mr. Morris, there is little doubt that their subject is equally congenial.  I cannot claim to be in his confidence on the p. xxvpoint, but it is not difficult, I fancy, to guess what has attracted him to them.  Nearly all of them, we have seen, are on the borderland between folk-tale and romance.  It is tales such as these that Mr. Morris wishes to see told in tapestry on the walls of the Moot-Hall of the Hammersmith of Nowhere.  It was by tales such as these that he first won a hearing from all lovers of English literature.  The story of Jason is but a Greek setting of a folk-tale known among the Gaels as the Battle of the Birds, and in Norse as the Master Maid.  Many of the tales which the travellers told one another in the Earthly Paradise, such as The Man Born to be King (itself derived from the first of our stories), The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and The Ring given to Venus, are, on the face of them, folk-tales.  Need I give any stronger recommendation of this book to English readers than to ask them to regard it as a sort of outhouse to that goodly fabric so appropriately known to us all as The Earthly Paradise?

JOSEPH JACOBS.

p. 1The Tale of King Coustans the Emperor

This tale telleth us that there was erewhile an Emperor of Byzance, which as now is called Constantinople; but anciently it was called Byzance.  There was in the said city an Emperor; pagan he was, and was held for wise as of his law.  He knew well enough of a science that is called Astronomy, and he knew withal of the course of the stars, and the planets, and the moon: and he saw well in the stars many marvels, and he knew much of other things wherein the paynims much study, and in the lots they trow, and the answers of the Evil One, that is to say, the Enemy.  This Emperor had to name Musselin; he knew much of lore and of sorceries, as many a pagan doth even yet.

Now it befell on a time that the Emperor Musselin went his ways a night-tide, he and a knight of his alone together, amidst of the city which is now called Constantinople, and the moon shone full clear.

And so far they went, till they heard a Christian woman who travailed in child-bed in a certain house whereby they went.  There was the husband of the said woman aloft in a high solar, and was praying to God one while that she might be delivered, and then again another while that she might not be delivered.

When the Emperor had hearkened this a great while, he said to the knight: “Hast thou heard it of yonder churl how he prayeth that his wife may be delivered of her child, and another while prayeth that she may not be delivered?  Certes, he is worser than a thief.  For every man ought to have pity of women, more especially of them that be sick of childing.  And now, so help me Mahoume and Termagaunt! if I do not hang him, if he betake him not to telling me