CHAPTER IX THE DUTCH LANCELOT
In the previous chapters we have examined, so far as the material at our disposal permitted, the Lancelot legend in its gradual evolution from a collection of scattered tales, or lais, to the vast body of cyclic romance which was its final form. In this task we have restricted ourselves to those features which more intimately concern the personal character and fortunes of our hero; a choice which leaves untouched a large section of his adventures, such as his friendship with Galehault, and his winning of the Dolorous Garde. These are features which, affecting no romance or chronicle outside the Lancelot proper, cannot well be examined till more versions of this latter are available. In this, the concluding section of these studies, I propose, leaving the question of the nature and origin of the legend, to discuss the relation subsisting between those different versions of the text, on an examination of which I have based the three preceding chapters dealing with the prose Lancelot.
The texts in question are (1) the so-called Dutch Lancelot; (2) the printed edition of 1533 (Lenoire, Paris); (3) Dr. Sommer's summary of the prose Lancelot, based upon the printed edition of 1513, and compared by him with Malory's text; (4) Dr. Furnivall's edition of the Queste; and (5) Malory's Morte Arthur.[158] This gives us practically four different texts for each section (Dr. Sommer having also used the Queste), two of which, the Dutch Lancelot and the 1533 edition, appear to me to be of far greater importance than has hitherto been suspected.
I propose to publish in an Appendix a detailed summary of the contents of the distinctively Lancelot portion of the =D. L.=, but the compilation covers such an extent of ground, and contains texts of such value to the student of Arthurian literature, that I think it will not be superfluous to give here a brief outline of its general character.
A noticeable peculiarity of the version is, that, contrary to all other known versions of the Lancelot-Galahad-Grail story, it is in verse and not in prose. The MS. containing it appears to be of the beginning of the fourteenth century;[159] but Dr. Jonckbloet gives reason to think that the version contained in it was decidedly older than this date, and there are certainly references to the Lancelot story in much earlier Dutch MSS. Probably it is a compilation similar to that of Sir Thomas Malory, intended to combine the various romances of the Arthurian cycle with which the compiler was familiar, or of which MSS. were at his disposal. In the first instance it was a translation, and I think we must hold a very faithful translation, from the French. Even as we have it we shall find that it agrees closely with parallel French versions. In its original form it consisted of four books, the first of which has unfortunately been lost.
Book II. begins with what M. Paulin Paris called the Agravain section of the prose Lancelot, i.e. the Enfances, Galehault, and Charrette portions are not included.[160] The first 36,000 lines follow the course of the Lancelot; at line 36,947 it takes up the Perceval at the point of the arrival of the Grail messenger, and for about two thousand lines goes on to give an account of the achieving of the adventures mentioned by her. In some points the compiler agrees closely with Chrétien and seems to have followed his version, in others he departs entirely from any known version of the Perceval. Sometimes his names agree rather with Wolfram than with Chrétien; e.g. the lady is Orgeloise simply, not L'Orguelleuse de Logres; and Gawain's challenger is Ginganbrisil, a form which Professor Yorke Powell pointed out some years ago as the probable source of Wolfram's Kingrimursel.
L. 41,420, we have a visit of Gawain to the Grail castle, agreeing closely with that found in the Montpelier Perceval, and also, Dr. Jonckbloet informs us, with that contained in a German version
