Graelent

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

Graelent is an Old French Breton lai, named after its protagonist. It is one of the so-called Anonymous Lais and draws on Marie de France's Lanval.

Plot summary

In the words of Tom Peete Cross,

Graelent, a noble knight ... is loved by the queen of Bretaigne, but he refuses her offer of affection. Angered at the rebuff, the queen speaks ill of him to the king, who withholds the pay due Graelent for service in time of war. Sad at heart because of poverty, Graelent wanders into the forest, where he starts a white hind. On pursuing the animal, he comes to a beautiful fountain in which a maiden, with two attendant damsels, is bathing. Graelent steals up quietly and takes the lady's clothes. The latter at first becomes terrified and begs him to return her property, even going so far as to offer him gold. When, however, Graelent asks her love, she treats him scornfully. The knight now threatens to keep her garments. He finally induces her to leave the fountain and dress, whereupon he carries her into the dark forest and makes her his mistress. The lady now suddenly changes her manner entirely. She tells him that she has visited the fountain for the purpose of meeting him and that she has long known of his coming. She also grants him her love and promises him great riches, assuring him that she will visit him whenever he desires, provided he does not reveal her existence.

At the end of the king's annual Pentecost feast, all present are expected to praise the beauty of the queen as being greater than any other that they know.

Graelent, who happens to be present at one of these strange ceremonies, keeps silent. On being asked by the king why he withholds his praise, he announces that he knows a woman thirty times as fair as the queen. The king thereupon threatens him with life imprisonment if at the expiration of a year he cannot produce the woman whom he praises so extravagantly. Graelent later finds that his mistress does not appear at his desire, and is overcome with the most bitter remorse. Finally, however, the lady of the fountain returns, arriving at court just in time to save her lover from the threatened punishment. When she departs, Graelent mounts a wonderful horse (one of his mistress's gifts), and, in spite of her warning, follows her. He rides after her into a river. Here he is on the point of being drowned when he is saved by the lady and carried off. He has never returned. The horse, escaping from the water, mourns for the loss of his master. He may still be heard at this season of the year.[1]

Related texts

Graelent is related to Lanval by Marie de France, and Guingamor. According to Glynn S. Burgess,

The definitive view of these three lays, chronologically and thematically, is that of R. N. Illingworth, who concluded that they were composed in the order Lanval, Graelent, and Guingamor, with Graelent and Guingamor (both anonymous) drawing on Lanval, but Guingamor also drawing on Graelent. Moreover, although the narratives were taken largely from Marie, the two anonymous lays integrated into their stories, independently of Marie, material stemming from "a nucleus of genuine Celtic tradition".[2]

Graelent was translated into Old Norse as Grelent, one of the Strengleikar; this text has value for tracing the textual history of the French lai.[3] In its turn, this translation seems to have influenced the Icelandic romance-saga Samsonar saga fagra and the rímur Skíðaríma, both of which include characters called Grelent.[4]

Editions

  • Margaret E. Grimes, The Lays of Desiré, Graelent and Melion: Edition of the Texts with an Introduction (New York: Institute of French Studies, 1928).

Manuscripts

  • A. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, fr. 2168, f. 65r, col. 2--70r, col. 2. Picard, end of thirteenth century.
  • S. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, nouv. acq. fr. 1104, f. 72r, col. 2--77r, col. 1. Francien, c. 1300.
  • L. Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, fr. 2770, f. 57r--72r. An error-prone copy of A by Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye. Eighteenth-century.
  • N. Copenhagen, AM 666 b 4°, pp. 89-91 (verses 1-156 only).[5]

References

  1. ↑ Tom Peete Cross, 'The Celtic Elements in the Lays of "Lanval" and "Graelent"', Modern Philology, 12 (1915), 585-644, http://www.jstor.org/stable/432976.
  2. ↑ Gynn S. Burgess, 'Marie de France and the Anonymous Lays', in A Companion to Marie de France, ed. by Logan E. Whalen, Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2011), pp. 117-56 (p. 155).
  3. ↑ Marianne E. Kalinke and P. M. Mitchell, Bibliography of Old Norse–Icelandic Romances, Islandica, 44 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 105.
  4. ↑ Strengleikar, ed. by Aðalheiður Guðmundsdóttir, Íslensk rit, 14 (Reykjavík: Bókmenntafræðistofnun Háskóla Íslands, 2006), pp. 29-30.
  5. ↑ Glyn S. Burgess, The Old French Narrative Lay: An Analytical Bibliography (Cambridge: Brewer, 1995), p. 59.
Retrieved from "https://infogalactic.com/w/index.php?title=Graelent&oldid=646172467"