Yvain

by Chretien de Troyes

  Stories of Celtic provenience, what the French call the matière de Bretagne, owed much of their popularity in Chrétien’s day to Geoffrey of Monmouth, a cleric who published in around 1136 the fabulous History of the Kings of Britain. This book treats King Arthur as one of a long line of British monarchs supposedly descended from Brutus, the great-grandson of Aeneas, and presents his court as a great center of chivalry and civilized conduct. Geoffrey in fact mentions Yvain under the form Iwenus, as the nephew of the king of Scotland. Geoffrey’s work was translated into Old French in around 1155 by Wace, who added certain attributes to the record of Arthur’s achievements, including the Round Table “about which the Bretons tell many a fable.” Wace also mentions that professional storytellers had already associated many wonders and adventures with Arthur. Of interest to us here is the fact that in another work, the Roman de Rou, Wace expresses his fascination with the forest of Broceliande in Brittany where, he tells us, according to the Bretons, fairies and marvelous adventures are sometimes encountered and where the fountain of Barenton is found, which causes rain if one pours water over the stone located beside it. Wace went so far as to visit the area but, he reports, came back as great a fool as when he went. Since the Roman de Rou was in all likelihood written before Yvain, either the legend of the magic fountain existed in tradition, from which Chrétien somehow picked it up, or Chrétien knew of it from reading the passage in Wace. In any event the fountain in Yvain does not appear to be situated in Brittany.

  Other notable characters and features of Yvain have Celtic parallels: the birds singing in the trees after the storms that Calgrenant and Yvain provoke; the figure of Morgan le Fay, from whom comes the unguent that heals Yvain and who traditionally takes on the appearance of a blackbird; the lady of Noroison, whose name signifies “black bird” and who may have been herself a manifestation of Morgan in some lost source. Certain aspects of three characters—the hospitable lord of the castle with whom both Yvain and Calgrenant stay the night before they reach the enchanted fountain, the gigantic, deformed herdsman who guards the wild bulls and points the way to the fountain, and Esclados the Red—have led scholars to think that they may be narrative descendants of the giant Curoi, a sun god known to us through Irish tales but no doubt also figuring in early Welsh literature, most of which has been lost.3 Likewise the motif of the hidden name recalls the tale in which the Irish hero Cuchulainn kills his own son in single combat. Other plot devices with folkloric sources include the pouring of water on a stone to bring rain by sympathetic magic (the copper gong in the hospitable host’s castle may have the same relation to thunder) and the magic rings so useful to the hero. Still other elements may have classical sources; for example, the lion’s gratitude may owe something to the tale of Androcles, and some of the comments on love appear to be based on Ovid. But Yvain’s major debt is to Celtic traditions.

  The only written record of a realization of part of the story, prior to Chrétien, appears in the anonymous Latin Life of St. Kentigern4 written in Scotland between 1147 and 1164. Here, Ewen ( = Owein, Yvain), son of King Ulein ( = Urien), seduces Thaney, the daughter of King Leudonus of Leudonia, that is to say Lothian (compare Chrétien’s version of Laudine’s father’s name, “Laudunet of Landuc”). St. Kentigern, the patron saint of Glasgow cathedral, is said in the Life to have been the son of Thaney and Ewen. According to the story, Ewen courted Thaney, but she refused to marry him, and in retribution her father sent her to work as the servant of a swineherd. Desperately in love with her, Ewen sent a woman to try to persuade Thaney to grant him her affection; when this failed, he disguised himself as a girl and met her near a fountain. Through trickery, he led her away to an isolated spot and raped her, as a result of which she conceived the child Kentigern. Ewen then abandoned Thaney. Her father punished her for becoming pregnant by having her thrown from a mountaintop, but she survived unharmed, after which a clear fountain, no doubt a token of her innocence, sprang up miraculously. Her father then pursued the swineherd into a marsh, apparently under the impression that he was responsible for the conception, but the herdsman managed to kill the king. So at least a decade before Chrétien’s work the Yvain figure appeared in a story in which, in league with a female intermediary, he courted and abandoned a lady of the fountain(s) who was associated with a herdsman. Ewen’s disguise appears to be analogous to Yvain’s ring of invisibility. Chrétien may have been the one to link this story, or more likely—since it was probably a traditional tale taken up by the author of the Life of St. Kentigern—a variant version of it, with the legend of the rain-producing fountain.

  Chrétien did not, then, make up the story of Yvain out of whole cloth. But it is not always easy to tell just which detail is traditional and which original in his romance. This question of sources may be more bothersome to us than it would have been to him, since many a medieval author took pride in the traditional quality of his story. Originality in the sense of the invention of new material was not yet a desideratum that took precedence over other considerations. What is apparent, however, is that the legendary elements from Celtic sources have been demythologized and rationalized, either by Chrétien or by his predecessors; in place of an awareness of mythic meaning, one encounters Chrétien’s own concerns for courtliness, personal worth, and correctness of knightly behavior. He never tells us that Laudine and Lunette were once fairies (if in fact he knew); on the other hand, the moral points of his tale have also to be derived from careful reading, since overt didacticism does not appear to have been part of his literary makeup.

  A medieval Welsh tale, “The Lady of the Fountain,” in the collection commonly known as the Mabinogion, tells a story that is an obvious counterpart to Yvain. It was once thought that Yvain and “The Lady of the Fountain” derived from a common source. It is much more likely, however, that a reading of Chrétien’s romance was heard by some Welsh storyteller who retold the tale using elements familiar to his audience and stripping it of most of the characteristics that make it instructive in the ways of courtliness.5 In “The Lady of the Fountain” Owein does not insult the Calgrenant figure (Cynon), nor does Arthur declare his intention of testing the fountain before Owein’s departure from court; no particular motivation is assigned to Owein’s pursuit of the fountain’s defender, and Owein makes no attempt to convince the lady of the fountain that he loves her. He jousts for three days with Gwalchmei (Welsh counterpart of Gawain) after he defeats Cei ( = Kay) at the fountain, eliminating both the need for and the potential effect of a duel with Gwalchmei at the end of the tale. Arthur, rather than Gwalchmei, lures Owein away from his wife, and the conflict between knighthood and marital obligations is greatly muted since the reason for the separation of husband and wife is not so that Owein can demonstrate his prowess in tournaments, but rather so that Arthur can show him to the nobles of the Island of Britain. Owein’s reconciliation with his wife is achieved immediately after he defends Luned, and quite abruptly:

  And then Owein, and Luned with him, went to the dominions of the Lady of the Fountain. And when he came away then he brought the lady with him to Arthur’s court, and she was his wife so long as she lived. [The Mabinogion, trans. Jones and Jones, pp. 180-81]

  After this point Owein overcomes the Black Oppressor, in the tale’s equivalent to the adventure of the Castle of Infinite Misfortune. The moral improvement that Yvain’s character undergoes in the increasingly selfless adventures Chrétien has him undertake, leading up to the reconciliation, is quite absent in Owein’s experiences, and the feats the hero performs have no particular progression to them. While the Welsh tale exhibits its own very fine qualities of vividness and color, it differs from Chrétien’s romance in tone, in a myriad of details, and in meaning, in ways that highlight the French author’s preoccupation with courtly behavior.

  Since Chrétien was writing for the court of Champagne, his concerns generally parallel those of the noble class: the behavior of knights and ladies, proper conduct in love affairs, the duties of rulers. One
of the most significant scenes in his Eric and Enid, in fact, is the couple’s coronation, during which Erec wears a silk robe ornamented with scenes depicting the quadrivium—four of the seven liberal arts (geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy) constituting the school curriculum and no doubt the arts most useful for the task of ruling a kingdom. All the more surprising, then, that one of the episodes in Yvain, the Castle of Infinite Misfortune (one of those enigmatic “customs,” as Chrétien calls them, institutionalized wonders that dot the hazardous landscape of Arthurian romance, providing adventure for knights who wander in search of it) should present a tableau of economic exploitation—the captivity of the ladies who have been sent as tribute from the Island of Virgins forced to weave silk day after day for slave wages and a miserable allotment of food while they enrich the two “sons of devils” whose tyranny Yvain later brings to an end. The type of concern reflected in this obviously sympathetic image of oppressed workers— even if they are of noble stock—is unique in Chrétien’s romances.

  Chrétien endows his characters with a good deal of life. The scene in which Yvain is trapped between portcullis and gate, minus his spurs and the back half of his horse, sticks in the mind, as does the one in which the lion humbles himself before his startled liberator. An ironic humor marks Chrétien’s portrayal of Laudine’s indecorously rapid conversion from inconsolable widow to willing bride, a conversion engineered by Lunette, who feigns to have brought the new husband from Arthur’s court when he has been in the lady’s castle all the time. The same ironic humor marks the author’s account of Yvain’s hyperbolic protests of unlimited devotion (11. 2025-32). There is wry comment in the contrast between Yvain’s beastly neglect of his lady and the lion’s excessive fidelity—to the point of attempting a suicide that is brought to a skidding halt only by the last-minute realization that his master is still alive.

  Chrétien has also provided certain enigmas that heighten the reader’s interest. Who is the Lady Sauvage who informs Lunette that Arthur is seeking the magic fountain? What sequel can the reader imagine to the flirtatious meeting of Lunette and Gawain, the one linked with the moon by her name and the other traditionally associated with the sun? Did no one challenge the fountain during Yvain’s absence? In the end it is not just the vividness of his narration or his deft handling of characters but also his teasing refusal to tie up all the loose ends and comment on all the fantastic occurrences that makes Chrétien’s romance one of the high points of medieval storytelling. This quality, coupled with his frequent observations on the nature of love (undoubtedly of burning interest to his immediate audience), sometimes gives the impression that he comments a bit too much on matters for which the modern reader might wish less explication while passing over in silence mysteries that seem to us to cry out for explanation.

  Yvain’s popularity appears to have spread quickly. Within a generation it had been adapted into German in Hartmann von Aue’s Iwein. It was also translated into Norwegian in the thirteenth century and Swedish in the fourteenth, and the fourteenth-century English romance, Ywain and Gawain, derives from it.

  Although Yvain is a favorite among readers of Chrétien, none of his other works lags far behind in quality. Erec and Enid shares with Yvain the theme of the proper balance between the duties of marriage and the demands of knighthood, exploring the story of a couple who lack confidence in one another. They find it in a series of adventures that take them away from Arthur’s court after their wedding, climaxing in the mysterious “Joy of the Court” episode in which Erec delivers from enchantment a knight (Mabonagrain, avatar of the Celtic god Mabon) who is the mirror image of himself. Cligés also presents an Arthurian ambiance, but its principal hero is the young heir to the empire of Constantinople, which his uncle has usurped from him. Cligés regains the throne after falling in love with his uncle’s young wife, Fénice, “the Phoenix,” who refuses to commit adultery and become another Isolt but manages through the stratagem of a feigned death to unite herself to Cligés despite all obstacles. In fact, adulterous love is the major concern in only one of Chrétien’s romances, Lancelot, a work that he wrote at the request of Marie of Champagne and then relinquished before it was finished, perhaps because he disliked the task of presenting the affair between Queen Guinevere and Lancelot in a positive light.

  Lancelot begins with the evil king Melegant’s arrival, one Ascension Day, at King Arthur’s court, where he issues a challenge. He will set free those of King Arthur’s subjects whom he holds prisoners if any knight is capable of defeating him in battle. But if Melegant wins, his prize will be Queen Guinevere. Sir Kay cajoles Arthur into allowing him to take up the challenge. But Melegant triumphs and leads both Kay and the Queen off into captivity, with Gawain and Lancelot in pursuit. Lancelot manages to make his way to her, overcoming enchantments and other obstacles and undergoing the ignominy of having to ride in a cart, vehicle of infamy, whence the designation “Knight of the Cart.” Finally he visits the cell in which Guinevere and the wounded and unconscious Kay are imprisoned, and makes love to her. This leads Melegant to accuse Kay of having committed adultery with the queen, an accusation that is to be tested by judicial combat. Himself sequestered through the machinations of Melegant’s retainers, Lancelot succeeds in freeing himself long enough to take part, incognito, in a tournament at which Guinevere is present. Here he fights alternately as poorly and as well as he can, according to the queen’s command. He then returns to captivity, but escapes once again from his tower prison to kill Melegant in the judicial combat that takes place at Arthur’s court.

  The action of Lancelot is referred to on three occasions in Yvain. The first occurs when Lunette tells Yvain that she would have asked Gawain to defend her against the accusations of unfaithfulness leveled against her:

  But some knight

  Had stolen away the queen,

  Or so they told me. And surely

  The king was out of his mind

  To let her go anywhere near him.

  It was Kay, I think, who took her

  To meet the knight who carried

  Her off, which disturbed my lord

  Gawain so much that he’s gone

  To find her. And he'll never come back

  Until he’s found her, he'll never

  Rest.

  [11. 3705-3716]

  Then when Yvain asks the baron whom he later defends against Harpin of the Mountain why he did not attempt to get help from his cousin Gawain, he replies:

  But a knight from some strange country,

  Who came to that court seeking her,

  Has taken the king’s wife.

  He could never have led her away,

  To be sure, entirely by himself.

  It was Kay, who so befuddled

  The king that he allowed the queen

  To pass under his protection.

  The king was a fool, and the queen

  Reckless, entrusting herself

  To Kay. . . .

  Gawain has gone off hunting

  The villain who stole the queen.

  [11. 3918-28,3937-38]

  Finally, Chrétien tells us that when the younger daughter of the Lord of Blackthorn arrived at Arthur’s court,

  it was just three days

  Since the queen had come back from imprisonment,

  Stolen by Melegant and held

  Along with his other prisoners;

  Only Lancelot had been left

  Behind, treacherously locked

  In a tower.

  [11. 4740-46]

  These references to another romance, unique in Chrétien’s corpus, are the primary evidence that Yvain and Lancelot were written at about the same time or even simultaneously. Chrétien may also be evoking Lancelot in order to emphasize certain differences between the treatments of love in the two works: Yvain’s love for another lord’s wife only occurs after the husband’s decease, and while in both works love is the reward for chivalric achievements, in Yvain the love eventually succeeds with
in the bonds of marriage and the hero pointedly rejects offers of illegitimate attachments.

  With respect to the treatment of love, Lancelot is atypical of Chrétien’s works. In addition to the fact that he appears to present favorably the themes of adulterous love and the total submission of the lover to his lady—thus reflecting notions seldom found elsewhere in Old French literature proper but current among the troubadours writing in Old Provençal in southern France—in Lancelot Chrétien also undercuts the main characters, allowing them to act in ways that border on the ridiculous. He may have been unhappy with the plot and the interpretation presented to him by Marie of Champagne (as he mentions in the prologue), and he might even have attempted to walk a thin line between pleasing his patron and treating the subject ironically. In any case he abandoned his work to Godefroy of Lagny. Nevertheless, both the romance and the tale of Lancelot and Guinevere’s liaison were popular in the Middle Ages. In the final book of the thirteenth-century Lancelot—Grail Cycle, The Death of King Arthur, the Arthurian kingdom is destroyed as a result of the couple’s conduct, and later medieval writers, notable among them Sir Thomas Malory, continued to exploit this theme.

  Undoubtedly the most intriguing of the myths that Chrétien propagated is to be found in his final work. In Perceval or The Tale of the Grail the young and naive Welsh boy Perceval sets off for King Arthur’s court in spite of the apprehensions and warnings of his mother. She is stricken with anguish at his departure because Perceval’s brothers were killed in battle, which caused his father to die of grief. As Perceval leaves, he turns to look back and realizes that his mother has fallen to the ground, but in his eagerness to become a knight he fails to return to find out what is wrong with her. He succeeds in his immediate goal under the direction of an experienced knight, Gornemant of Gohort, who teaches him the skills of knighthood and also advises him about social intercourse, counseling the impetuous boy against asking too many questions.