Then Merlin came to Perceval and to his master Blaise and took his leave of them. He said that Our Lord did not want him to appear to people again, but he would not die until the end of the world.
‘But then I shall live in eternal joy. Meanwhile I shall make my dwelling-place outside your house, where I shall live and prophesy as Our Lord shall instruct me. And all who see my dwelling-place will call it Merlin’s esplumoir.’26
With that Merlin departed; and he made his esplumoir and entered in, and was never seen again in this world.
Neither of Merlin nor of the Grail does the story say more, except that Merlin prayed to Our Lord to grant mercy to all who would willingly hear his book and have it copied for the remembrance of his deeds. To which you will all say: Amen.
Here ends the romance of Merlin and the Grail.
Notes
1 The manuscript simply reads quant il se leva.
2 Literally ‘gladioli’.
3 i. e. the water for washing hands before eating.
4 The ninth canonical hour: three o’clock in the afternoon.
5 The first canonical hour: six o’clock in the morning. This must be a scribal error for ‘vespers’: it does not tally with the damsel’s story that follows.
6 The third canonical hour: nine o’clock in the morning.
7 Enamel and other decorations, usually on a knight’s helmet.
8 i. e. his vestments.
9 The reference to a bowshot is not strictly accurate, but is an attempt to translate arpens, a vague medieval term of measurement implying a distance of a couple of hundred yards. An arpent later came to be a measurement of area approximating to an acre.
10 See previous note.
11 See note 4 above.
12 The first canonical hour: six o’clock in the morning.
13 See note 4 above.
14 See note 4 above.
15 See note 12 above.
16 Preliminary engagements, effectively a practice session, usually held the day before a tournament proper.
17 In the early thirteenth century a tournament was a mass combat of knights divided into two or more teams. Here it is being fought between a company from the castle and ‘those outside’.
18 The play on words that appears in Joseph of Arimathea (above, here) is made again here, juxtaposing graal and the verb agreer (‘to delight’).
19 The manuscript accidentally reads ‘you’.
20 See note 9 above.
21 Cassivellaunus, who led British resistance to Julius Caesar’s invasions. His story appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain.
22 Brennius and Belinus, also in Geoffrey of Monmouth.
23 See note 9 above.
24 See note 6 above.
25 A strange reference to the Greek hero. Ethyope is perhaps a half-memory of Erythia, where Hercules has a bloody encounter with the triple-bodied ogre Geryon shortly after setting up his mighty Pillars.
26 This untranslatable – and probably invented – word has wonderful resonances. Its root is ‘the shedding of feathers’, implying moulting, transformation, renewal.
ARTHURIAN STUDIES
I
ASPECTS OF MALORY, edited by Toshiyuki Takamiya and Derek Brewer
II
THE ALLITERATIVE MORTE ARTHURE: A Reassessment of the Poem, edited by Karl Heinz Göller
III
THE ARTHURIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY, I: Author Listing, edited by C. E. Pickford and R. W. Last
IV
THE CHARACTER OF KING ARTHUR IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE, Rosemary Morris
V
PERCEVAL: The Story of the Grail, by Chrétien de Troyes, translated by Nigel Bryant
VI
THE ARTHURIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY, II: Subject Index, edited by C. E. Pickford and R. W. Last
VII
THE LEGEND OF ARTHUR IN THE MIDDLE AGES, edited by P. B. Grout, R. A. Lodge, C. E. Pickford and E. K. C. Varty
VIII
THE ROMANCE OF YDER, edited and translated by Alison Adams
IX
RETURN OF KING ARTHUR, Beverly Taylor and Elisabeth Brewer
X
ARTHUR’S KINGDOM OF ADVENTURE: The World of Malory’s Morte Darthur, Muriel Whitaker
XI
KNIGHTHOOD IN THE MORTE DARTHUR, Beverly Kennedy
XII
LE ROMAN DE TRISTAN EN PROSE, tome I, edited by Renée L. Curtis
XIII
LE ROMAN DE TRISTAN EN PROSE, tome II, edited by Renée L. Curtis
XIV
LE ROMAN DE TRISTAN EN PROSE, tome III, edited by Renée L. Curtis
XV
LOVE’S MASKS: Identity, Intertextuality, and Meaning in the Old French Tristan Poems, Merritt R. Blakeslee
XVI
THE CHANGING FACE OF ARTHURIAN ROMANCE: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in memory of Cedric E. Pickford, edited by Alison Adams, Armel H. Diverres, Karen Stern and Kenneth Varty
XVII
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS IN THE ARTHURIAN ROMANCES AND LYRIC POETRY OF MEDIEVAL FRANCE: Essays presented to Kenneth Varty on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, edited by Peter V. Davies and Angus J. Kennedy
XVIII
CEI AND THE ARTHURIAN LEGEND, Linda Gowans
XIX
LA3AMON’S BRUT: The Poem and its Sources, Françoise H. M. Le Saux
XX
READING THE MORTE DARTHUR, Terence McCarthy, reprinted as AN INTRODUCTION TO MALORY
XXI
CAMELOT REGAINED: The Arthurian Revival and Tennyson, 1800-1849, Roger Simpson
XXII
THE LEGENDS OF KING ARTHUR IN ART, Muriel Whitaker
XXIII
GOTTFRIED VON STRASSBURG AND THE MEDIEVAL TRISTAN LEGEND: Papers from an Anglo-North American symposium, edited with an introduction by Adrian Stevens and Roy Wisbey
XXIV
ARTHURIAN POETS: CHARLES WILLIAMS, edited and introduced by David Llewellyn Dodds
XXV
AN INDEX OF THEMES AND MOTIFS IN TWELFTH-CENTURY FRENCH ARTHURIAN POETRY, E. H. Ruck
XXVI
CHRÉTIEN DE TROYES AND THE GERMAN MIDDLE AGES: Papers from an international symposium, edited with an introduction by Martin H. Jones and Roy Wisbey
XXVII
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT: Sources and Analogues, compiled by Elisabeth Brewer
XXVIII
CLIGÉS by Chrétien de Troyes, edited by Stewart Gregory and Claude Luttrell
XXIX
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SIR THOMAS MALORY, P. J. C. Field
XXX
T. H. WHITE’S THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, Elisabeth Brewer
XXXI
ARTHURIAN BIBLIOGRAPHY, III: 1978-1992, Author Listing and Subject Index, compiled by Caroline Palmer
XXXII
ARTHURIAN POETS: JOHN MASEFIELD, edited and introduced by David Llewellyn Dodds
XXXIII
THE TEXT AND TRADITION OF LA3AMON’S BRUT, edited by Françoise Le Saux
XXXIV
CHIVALRY IN TWELFTH-CENTURY GERMANY: The Works of Hartmann von Aue, W. H. Jackson
XXXV
THE TWO VERSIONS OF MALORY’S MORTE DARTHUR: Multiple Negation and the Editing of the Text, Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade
XXXVI
RECONSTRUCTING CAMELOT: French Romantic Medievalism and the Arthurian Tradition, Michael Glencross
XXXVII
A COMPANION TO MALORY, edited by Elizabeth Archibald and A. S. G. Edwards
XXXVIII
A COMPANION TO THE GAWAIN-POET, edited by Derek Brewer and Jonathan Gibson
XXXIX
MALORY’S BOOK OF ARMS: The Narrative of Combat in Le Morte Darthur, Andrew Lynch
XL
MALORY: TEXTS AND SOURCES, P. J. C. Field
XLI
KING ARTHUR IN AMERICA, Alan Lupack and Barbara Tepa Lupack
XLII
THE SOCIAL AND LITERARY CONTEXTS OF MALORY’S MORTE DARTHUR, edited by D. Thomas Hanks Jr
XLIII
&nbs
p; THE GENESIS OF NARRATIVE IN MALORY’S MORTE DARTHUR, Elizabeth Edwards
XLIV
GLASTONBURY ABBEY AND THE ARTHURIAN TRADITION, edited by James P. Carley
XLV
THE KNIGHT WITHOUT THE SWORD: A Social Landscape of Malorian Chivalry, Hyonjin Kim
XLVI
ULRICH VON ZATZIKHOVEN’S LANZELET: Narrative Style and Entertainment, Nicola McLelland
XLVII
THE MALORY DEBATE: Essays on the Texts of Le Morte Darthur, edited by Bonnie Wheeler, Robert L. Kindrick and Michael N. Salda
Titles of Related Interest
AVAILABLE AS AN EBOOK
Richard Barber, King Arthur: Hero and Legend (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1986)
“The whole subject is brought up to date and well illustrated... Arthurian buffs will want this book.” Anthony Powell, Daily Telegraph.
Who was the real Arthur? Why were his Knights so famous? Was he buried at Glastonbury? Why is he so popular today? The Arthurian legends have a perennial fascination, whether for the enthusiasts for the historical Arthur or for the devotees of Grail legends or Arthurian fiction: yet there is no single book available which covers the entire development of the legend.
Richard Barber has been writing on the topic of ‘the once and future king’ for twenty-five years, and he is an ideal guide to the fascinating evolution of the stories about Arthur and his knights. He argues that we know little about the original Arthur except that he was a heroic figure, and that successive generations have reshaped this ‘hero without deeds’ to reflect their own ideals and preoccupations, from the anonymous 8th century Welsh chronicler who first listed his battles to the novelists of the 20th century. It is this very diversity and flexibility that gives Arthur his unchanging appeal, and which has attracted some of the most original and innovative writers in each century. Richard Barber gives a clear and readable outline of the development of the medieval stories about Arthur and his court in French, German and English, and describes how the stories were revived in the 19th century by the English poets and by Wagner. He pays equal attention to the works of art, both medieval and modern, inspired by Arthur.
RICHARD BARBER is the author of several books about Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, ranging from The Figure of Arthur, which examines possible identities for the ‘historical’ Arthur, to The Arthurian Legends.
“Authoritative but accessible...[an] admirable survey... If you want a reliable overview of this phenomenal figure as he is developed and refurbished, then you can’t do much better than this.” PENDRAGON.
Nigel Bryant, The Legend of the Grail (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006)
The Grail legends have been appropriated by novelists as diverse as Umberto Eco and Dan Brown yet very few have read for themselves the original stories from which they came. All the mystery and drama of the Arthurian world are embodied in the extraordinary tales of Perceval, Gawain, Lancelot and Galahad in pursuit of the Holy Grail.
The original romances, full of bewildering contradictions and composed by a number of different writers, dazzle with the sheer wealth of their conflicting imagination. In Nigel Bryant’s hands, this enthralling material becomes truly accessible. He has constructed a single, consistent version of the Grail story in modern English which reasserts its relevance as one of the great and enduring works of literature.
NIGEL BRYANT’s previous Arthurian books include The High Book of the Grail (Perlesvaus), Chretien de Troyes’ Perceval and its Continuations, and Robert de Boron’s Merlin and the Grail.
“An original compilation that ingeniously weaves together several diverse strands of the Grail legend. It is an intriguing, and occasionally surprising, refashioning of the tale...a delightful read.” ARTHURIANA.
Nigel Bryant (tr.), A Perceforest Reader: Selected Episodes from Perceforest: The Prehistory of Arthur’s Britain (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2012)
Perceforest is one of the largest and certainly the most extraordinary of the late Arthurian romances, and is almost completely unknown except to a handful of scholars. But it is a work of exceptional richness and importance, and has been justly described as “an encyclopaedia of 14th-century chivalry” and “a mine of folkloric motifs”. Its contents are drawn not only from earlier Arthurian material, but also from romances about Alexander the Great, from Roman histories and from medieval travel writing – not to mention oral tradition, including as it does the first and unexpurgated version of the story of the Sleeping Beauty. Out of this, the author creates a remarkable prehistory of King Arthur’s Britain, describing how Alexander the Great gives the island to Perceforest, who has to purge the island of magic-wielding knights descended from Darnant the Enchanter, despite their supernatural powers. Perceforest then founds the knightly order of the “Franc Palais”, an ideal of chivalric civilisation which prefigures the Round Table of Arthur and indeed that of Edward III; but that civilisation is, as the author shows, all too fragile. The action all takes place in a pagan world of many gods, but the temple of the Sovereign God, discovered by Perceforest, prefigures the Christian world and the coming of the Grail and Arthur.
Nigel Bryant has recently adapted this immense romance into English; even in his version, which gives a complete account of the whole work but links extensive sections of full translation with compressed accounts of other passages, it runs to nearly half a million words.
A Perceforest Reader is an ideal introduction to the remarkable world portrayed in this late flowering of the Arthurian imagination.
Copyright © Nigel Bryant 2001
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner
First published 2001
D. S. Brewer, Cambridge
Reprinted in paperback 2003, 2005, 2007
This edition published 2016
Transferred to digital printing
ISBN 978‐0‐85991‐616‐5 hardback
ISBN 978‐0‐85991‐779‐7 paperback
ISBN 978‐1‐78204‐729‐2 ebook
D. S. Brewer is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
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A CiP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00‐052971
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