Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

ently dead is not accomplished by a physician skilled in the healing art, and by no commonplace application of cotton and heated oil. Oriabel is washed ashore at Palermo (Palerne, as the poem has it), and is discovered by the bishop of that city, who, as he observes the comatose body, remembers a precious ointment which had been sent to him from the Orient, whence come all rare and costly things. It is the same ointment with which Christ was anointed (dex en ot oingt les flaus et les costez). Oriabel revives at the touch of this sacred salve, relates her history, and becomes a recluse in a little house by the minster.

The story has here made a long journey from its pagan Greek prototype. Bishops, nuns, priests and minsters have taken the place of the temple of Diana and the physician Cerimon.

transformation we have seen to occur in the Spanish and modern Greek versions.

Here

The fate of Tharsia takes a somewhat different appearance in the French poem. Jourdain, after the storm in which his wife was thrown overboard, comes to King Cemaire, who reigned in Orimonde (Tharsus) (and who corresponds to Stranguillio). his daughter is baptized and named Gaudisce. Jourdain commits her to the care of one Josselme (the counterpart of Theophilus), and departs to seek his queen. He sails by Tunis and the Nile, and at last reaches Palermo, where he finds his wife. He relates to her his adventures in a much briefer way than does Apollonius in the elder story. After he has found Oriabel and Renier, the story returns to Gaudisce. The king of Orimonde had a daughter who was far outshone in beauty and in grace by Jourdain's daughter. The queen's envy was violently aroused, and Josselme is ordered secretly to remove Gaudisce. Under the pretense of conducting her to her father he brings her to Constantinople, when, saying, "I commend thee to God," he abruptly leaves her :

"Gentiz pucelle, a Jesu tæ conmant,

[ocr errors]

Qui d'encombrier gart ton cors avenant (3161). Gaudisce, left alone with her nurse, Floriant (Lycorides), realizes her desertion and becomes desperate.

The treachery and brutality of the scene in the bordello are also made less revolting in the French poem. The son of the king of

1 In the Latin version Tharsia is to be murdered on the shore; only in Pericles and the Greek märchen does she accompany the traitor.

Constantinople becomes enamoured of the beauty of Gaudisce, but she rejects his suit, and will approach no man, nor listen to words of affection until she finds her father. The king, dismayed at the melancholy of his son, orders Gaudisce to be offered in a brothel. At this moment her parents fortunately arrive. They had first proceeded to Orimonde, where Josselme, dismayed at the arrival of Jourdain, confesses that he had conveyed Gaudisce to Constantinople, whither Jourdain immediately holds his course. He learns upon

his arrival that a woman is to be offered for sale, and his daughter comes at once into his mind. He finds no rest until he offers protection to the unknown unfortunate and recognizes in her his daughter. She marries Alis, the son of the king of Constantinople. They all return to France to be reconciled to Charlemagne. The usurper and murderer, Fromont, is conquered in field fighting by Jourdain, and condemned to be flayed alive and to be dragged to death by a horse. The faithful Renier is rewarded with the city of Blaivies, just as Hellenicus is remembered in the Apollonius.

It will be seen that in Jourdain the finding of the wife does not conclude the story. Oriabel hears Jourdain lamenting before her cell in Palermo. She thinks she recognizes the voice, and calls him to her window. Mutual recognition follows, and the Bishop dismisses her from her cloistral life.

The story of Jourdain de Blaivies is often found associated with the tale of Amis et Amiles and both were ultimately inserted in the Charlemagne cycle, Jourdain's father becoming the son of Amis. See also Deux Redactions du Roman des Sept Sages de Rome, published by Gaston Paris, Paris, 1876, pp. 161-196, for a discussion of a variation of the Romance of the Seven Sages in which the two friends are named Loys and Alexander. This latter story seems to be the foundation of Theodoor Rodenburgh's Alexander, a tragi-comedy in forty-four scenes, published at Amsterdam in 1618. Henslowe paid Martin Slaughter in May, 1598, £8 for five books, one of which was a play of Alexander and Lodwick. Mr. W. C. Hazlitt believes that this lost play was in some degree like the Dutch tragi-comedy.

Orendel, the hero of the poem which Berger has edited, is the son of Eigel. The name is found in Franconian and Bavarian from the eighth to the eleventh centuries and appears in its earliest form in Lombardy as Auriwandalus, which corresponds linguistically with Aurvandill or Horvandillus. The name, as Müllenhoff

points out, indicates a seafarer (Norse Aurr, A.-S. ear, moisture -Lat. Aqua). Orendel is the son of Ougel or Oügel, who must have been the central figure of a sailor myth. Singer supposes the name to be derived from that of one of the rejected suitors of the daughter of Archistrates, called Ardaleo or Ardaleon in the Latin Historia Apollonii.

Singer indulges in some bold speculation in his effort to account for "Orendel, son of Eigel." He remembers that in Vienna Codex 3332 the unsuccessful suitor is called Ardonius, as in Velser and the Gesta, and in the Spanish Libre de Apolonio he is named Aguylon, and Singer supposes that the Spanish may be a mutilated form and may lead back to Artigilon (of the middle German prose). He then imagines that Ardonius Agilon came to stand together, so that the French version, leaning upon domestic names, and mistaking the second form to be a genitive, converted it into Arondeus fils Aiglon, and the German poem in turn transmuted it into "Orendel, Künec Eigels sun." Similarly Singer supposes Jourdain to be a corruption of Ardonius, perhaps by attraction to St. Jordan who in 1236 suffered shipwreck on his way to Palestine. The names of the characters in this world-traveled tale have suffered in their journeys strange transformations and bewilderments. Apollonius becomes Perillie in Bohemian and Pericles in Shakespeare. Timoneda names the murderer Estrangilo (Stranguillio) and gives the real murderer's name to a senator, Teofilo (Theophilus).

Orendel in the poem is shipwrecked on his way to meet his bride, as Apollonius is in the Danish ballad. Notice the confusion between the daughter of Antiochus and the daughter of Archistrates. Orendel consults with his father concerning his purpose. Apollonius consults with his mother (according to the Danish ballad), or with his councilor (according to the Bohemian folks-book). The mother and councillor dissuade Apollonius; the father encourages Orendel. The description of the departure of the vessel abounds with lively touches, after the manner of Dümmler's metrical Latin version. Huge quantities of food are taken on board, enough for eight years, in which there may be a reminiscence of the heavy freighing of the ship on the occasion of the second embarkation of Apollonius (to Tharsus) when he takes with him 100,ooo bushels of corn.

A storm drives Orendel into the Klebermer (literally, sticky sea;

a traditional sea, possibly the Sargasso), where he is detained three years, until redeemed by divine help. So in Heinrich von Neustadt the fleet of Apollonius is driven upon the Lebermer (same as Klebermer) and detained a year, until the heathen gods chance to pass by and free the hero.

Orendel has a successful sea-fight with the fleet of the pagan king Pelian von Babilon, which corresponds in Jourdain with the surprise attack by the Saracens upon the sea. Doubtless both inci

dents grew out of the circumstance that in all the versions of the Apollonius story Antiochus equips a fleet that vainly pursues Apollonius after his solution of the king's riddle and his subsequent flight. In the old French prose version Antiochus prepares snares for Apollonius even before he comes to Antioch as a suitor, and sends out soldiers to destroy him. Curiously enough in Heinrich von Neustadt Thaliarchus, the major domo of Antiochus, fights with Apollonius, but is conquered in the duel.

It is easy to account, also, for the appearance in Orendel of the heathen king Pelian von Askalon, who craves possession of Orendel's bride, and threatens to hang Orendel on a gallows in the castle moat. No doubt this is the same Antiochus who desires to live in shame with his daughter and threatens to kill her suitors and impale their heads upon his castle wall.

Orendel is shipwrecked, lies three days in the sand, and then sees a fisherman approaching in a boat. In the Bohemian folksbook Apollonius swims three days and nights upon a log of wood, and on the fourth day he sees a fisherman in a boat. A similar situation is in the French prose romance. In Jourdain the fisher arrives in a boat, as also in the Danish ballad and the Cretan version. The fisher is old but robust-quendam robustum senem (Riese). The fisherman displays fear of Orendel, precisely as in the Danish ballad the fishers fear Apollonius (see p. 233). Orendel tells him that he is a shipwrecked fisherman. In some versions Apollonius refuses to tell his name. So in Godfrey, and Steinhöwel, and Shakespeare-" What I have been I have forgot to know."

In the French version he says he is a shipwrecked merchant; in Timoneda he is questioned by a bather, and he says he is a bañador from Tyre.

Orendel offers himself as a servant to the fisherman. In the Bohemian the fisher says, "Do you not know that having come out of the sea you are my serf? But God forbid that I should do you

any harm!" The fisher takes Orendel into his boat (cf. Pericles, "Canst thou catch any fishes then?"), who prays God to help him for he cannot fish.' He casts out his net, just as in the Danish ballad Apollonius must fish, and even carry the fish-basket. Among the fish that are caught is one in whose stomach they find a gray coat. Blood stains are observed on it, which makes the fisher say that a slain prince wore it. The coat has the appearance of armour. Orendel entreats the fisher to give him the coat, but he refuses, and instead gives Orendel a pair of shoes and a mantle. The coat is sold to him later at a low price, and the fisher pretends that he has given it to him, and begs him if he shall have good fortune in the world not to forget the fisher who succoured him. He is also given a pair of stockings, but there is no word of a partition of the fisher's mantle." In Wilkins' novel Apollonius even gets a blanket

for his horse.

Orendel remains six weeks with the fisher and then goes to the city, where he is imprisoned, and released by an angel. He comes to Jerusalem and, asking after the meaning of a noise that fills the air, is told that the Knights Templar are tourneying. In the Latin text Apollonius learns from a herald. In Pericles the fishermen have instructed him in advance of a tournament which the suitors have instituted.

Orendel meets two pagans who are rivals for the possession of the queen. They are Merzian and Sudan. Merzian lends his horse to Orendel, who overthrows and kills Sudan, whereupon Merzian takes flight. In Jourdain the hero first tries his valor with King Marques, the father of the princess, and then conquers an enemy of the king (Sortin) in serious combat. Marques and Sortin, Merzian and Sudan, are evidently identical names, or names of common origin. Singer conjectures that Marques arose from regem Archestratem! In the Latin Apollonius, it will be remembered, there is ball play, and gifts by the king, and then the dismissal of three suitors. In Copland there are only two suitors (as in Steinhöwel, Bohemian and French). In the French story the suitors go to war, and are conquered by Apollonius. Only one of the suitors has a name-Ardalio3. Pericles buys a horse with a jewel, conquers

1 In the French and Spanish he declines smilingly the invitation to fish. 2 The Bohemian and the Danish know nothing of the division of the cloak which the Latin speaks of. The Italian calls it "vestimento di Grigio."

In Twine only have the other suitors names-Munditius and Camillus.

« НазадПродовжити »