LLT 180 Lecture meetings. It seems when we come up to the tests, though, we always seem to run a little short. We'll

Transcription

1 LLT 180 Lecture 21 1 Laudine is hoodwinked, tricked into taking him back. A fairly unsatisfactory conclusion since women usually do the tricking and not men. But I guess it's Lunete who's really doing the tricking, so that's kind of in keeping. Again, we're gonna have a test on Monday. First things first, though. Let's get through the rest of this. And sequentially, as far as use of time in here, we've been doing pretty well in our class meetings. It seems when we come up to the tests, though, we always seem to run a little short. We'll see how we do today. Again, we pick up on page 343 to the end, and so we don't have a lot to do. And the important fact here is that he is now being known as the Knight with the Lion as opposed to Yvain, and this is gonna facilitate Laudine taking him back later because she doesn't know who he is. Nor does Gawain, nor does anybody. So it's important, as far as the plot goes on here, that he is not identified. The only person who knows who he is is Lunete, again the person carrying the action forward. Now, the lion has been his big helper and the lion has come to his rescue, but the lion is in bad, bad shape now. And so he's carrying the lion. Again, I guess, Yvain is a major stud. He's been pumping iron, using that bow machine they sell on TV, and is just all pumped up like Arnold. Again, we have to help maidens repeatedly, and so we're gonna be told the story and this is gonna lead to helping a lot more maidens. In this whole second part, once he has a falling out and once he's a bad boy and doesn't return after a year, he has to help women, women, women, and no more tournaments and such. And so we have this dispute between two daughters. And the older sister is being a jerk,

2 LLT 180 Lecture 21 2 doesn't want to give her younger sister anything, and the older sister has gotten to court first and has gotten Gawain -- of course, who's depicted as being the best of the knights, the strongest of the knights -- to help her. But in a strange piece of stuff -- and this is all setting up our conclusion, this last battle -- he says that she can't tell anybody who her champion is. And that's important for their battle later, when they don't know who's fighting, when Yvain is battling Gawain. And so the younger sister can't find a champion and so she's given 40 days. And we've talked about numbers -- I hope not too much that you're becoming ill by it. But we read at the bottom of page 345, about line 4798, "If she wishes, she can have" -- and this is Arthur. And Arthur, it says repeatedly in here, is for fairness, is for justice, is for being treated fairly, and so he doesn't like the older sister. He thinks she's a jerk. And he says the younger sister can have 40 days to find a champion. So a long time. A long time, 40 days. So she goes searching for this Knight with a Lion who has a reputation of what? Helping women, helping damsels in distress. And they refer to this as her quest. So knights aren't the only ones who go on quests, but also damsels go on quests. For some reason -- and I don't know why this is the device, but we have a damsel helping a damsel in this quest. Because she falls ill, so somebody else takes up the quest. We're gonna have a series of adventures, again trying to move toward the end. And as she moves along, we have not a retelling, but a reminding you of the great feats that Yvain has been doing. Because she comes along -- she comes to the castle where there's a dead giant outside. And they say, "Oh, yeah," you know. "He's been here, he's gone," and everybody directs her on the right path, until

3 LLT 180 Lecture 21 3 finally she catches up with him. On the bottom of page 348, on the top of the next page, she sees a man accompanied by the lion. So again, nobody knows who this is except he's the Knight with the Lion. She speaks with him, explains her problem. And we get back to this idea of inactivity is bad. And so we get back to what happened to Erec, that Erec ended up just staying with his wife. It wasn't really a lack of activity but the lack of proper activity, in that particular case, that got him in trouble. And so if you have a lack of knightly activity, I guess -- well, not n-i but k-n. I assume this won't fall on the floor someplace in the cutting room. That no one can win by inactivity. Well, let's just go on. Anyway, they come to a fortified town. Now he's with the damsel who's been hunting for him for the sister, right -- for the second sister. And they come to a fortified town where -- this is almost Kafka-esque. If any of you are familiar with Kafka. A very famous work by Franz Kafka. Maybe in a high school class you read the Metamorphoses. Recently there has been a revised edition of one of -- a couple of Kafka's novels come out. One, The Castle, which actually has been made into a movie twice. In The Castle, Kafka is always concerned with keeping justice. That's one of his main themes. And in The Castle, when the protagonist, a character by the name of Kay -- all Kafka's characters are always Kafka, of course -- is trying to find justice and no one will give him housing at the castle. They're all admonished not to. And one of the things that struck me about this, here we have somebody who's writing in the first half of the 20th century, which everyone thinks, "Gosh, this is so -- you know, this is such unique stuff." And here -- wait, you know. Here we are in 1170 and we're reading the same ideas. And so what's new?

4 LLT 180 Lecture 21 4 About 10 lines from the bottom, anyway, it says, "And the custom [so we keep being told about custom] is that we dare not, come what may, offer shelter in our houses to any gentleman coming from outside." So everybody is apparently being rude to him, but evidently they're not really being so much rude to him as being concerned for his safety. And the task here is going to be -- when he gets inside, what does he see? He sees a Nike factory or somebody making Kathy Lee Gifford clothing. See, you didn't read this part and you laugh about it. We have 300 damsels, 300 maidens, inside a stockade, all emaciated and working for nothing. They can basically not even make enough so they're making Michael Jordan's shoes or something. Anyway. That's one story. So they're thin, they're pale, look like Calista Flockhart or something. Wind, blow her away, please. Anyway, he's gonna take on this task and it's a good deal. He's been saving maidens individually and now he gets to save 300. What a sweet deal. It just doesn't stand him in good stead with Laudine. And with God, all right, because he keeps calling on God. So they're all very unhappy, they're all weeping. Ah, poor things. And when did all this start? Again, we've talked about time, we've talked a little bit about -- you know, at the beginning of fairy tales are what? Once upon a time. And here again, this kind of timelessness that we weave in here. We're not told, like, 30 years ago or something, but they say "a long time ago." Well, it turns out it's really not that long a time ago. 'Cause if there are only 300 maidens there - - they tell us later he has to send 30 a year -- it's obviously only 10 years ago. Which doesn't seem that long to me. To you, yes; to me, no.

5 LLT 180 Lecture 21 5 "A long time ago the King of the Isle of Maidens" -- hey, that sounds like a good place to be king of. Isn't that in Monty Python or something? -- "went round the courts and countries in search of new experiences... until he rushed headlong into the danger here." He's stupid. He's 18 years old. He thinks he's immortal. He doesn't put on his seatbelt. He drives too fast. And what does he encounter? He encounters two devil sons. There's a couple of words in here -- so I'm sitting there with my dictionary and I always hate it when, you know, they use words and definitions that make you look up another word. And so we run into a couple of words here. One is "fiend." And the word "fiend" historically comes from the word "enemy." And so the first meaning is "archenemy of man," so the Devil or Satan. "Generally, a person of extreme wickedness." But we also say, you know, "God, that guy's a fiend" and we use that in the sense of fanatic. It can also have that meaning. Another word they use was "goblin." And it made me think, you know, at Halloween time we'd talk about goblins and hobgoblins, and so I thought is there a difference? So, being a good doober, first I looked up "goblin," and "goblin" is an ugly or grotesque elf/spirit/ghost. Generally, a goblin is considered evil, but they can also be considered playful. Usually, if you use the word "hobgoblin," you're implying that they are playful. And so really it's not redundant to talk about goblins and hobgoblins were both there. It would just indicate there were both evil and playful spirits or ghosts there. Stuff you need to know for Halloween. Anyway, the guy gets in this trouble with the two Devil sons who, of course, Yvain, the Knight with the Lion, is gonna dispatch for us. So he makes a deal to get out of this, and that's how the

6 LLT 180 Lecture 21 6 maidens came to be here. And so he swore, on page 352, right about line 5285, Then in his terror, the king got out of this situation as best he could by swearing that each year for the duration of the pact he would send here thirty of his maidens [from the Isle of Maidens]; and by this payment he obtained his freedom. And a condition of the oath was that this tribute should be continued throughout the lifetime of the two demons [so as long as the demons live]; but on the day they were overcome [this is where the task comes in for the Knight with the Lion] and defeated in combat he would be freed from this imposition and we, who are now subjected to shame, grief and hardship [that is, the 300 maidens making the stuff with gold thread], should be released. So all they do is work, work, work, you know, and they're just poorer than poor. And so he has to fight. He has to fight the two demons. Always uneven odds in some of these tasks. And so he continues on. So he knows his task now and he continues on. And we read more stuff about love. And really this is kind of leading us into the next work we're gonna read, Tristan and Isolde, which is for noble hearts. With the idea that people who are concerned with love, if you're really concerned with love, you need to read stuff about love to fortify and educate yourself, you know. If you're not, it just makes you nauseous. It's like "Aggghhh." So here, he says on the top of 354, "longer fall in love nor do they love any more as they used to." So remember that lament at the beginning, that -- you know, people just don't know how to love anymore. You know, it's all a sham. Like, "Yeah, I love you. Haaaa," you know, "for whatever purpose it serves me. But what? I didn't say that."

7 LLT 180 Lecture 21 7 So he goes on in, everybody greets him. And, contrary to his expectations, this family who's there, or whatever, treat him excellently. The lion is also there. And we generally get this feeling that God is on the side of right. They keep calling upon God and they say, you know, "If this is meant to be, if justice will be, God will serve you in this attempt." And so God wouldn't have anything go wrong. And he does all of this good stuff like Perceval is gonna do later. He goes to confession or he goes to Mass. And so here, before he goes off to meet the two Devil sons, he goes to Mass which should further fortify him. Always a good idea. We again talk about castle customs and the custom is that anyone -- if he defeats these two Devil sons, that he's gonna become lord of the castle and must -- must marry the lord's daughter. Which, of course, he's already married, so probably not a good idea. He already has problems, you know? So he says, well, "I'm not gonna do that." And we get into these things: you must fight him. The fact that you're here, you must fight him. And he says he will fight them. So the goblins -- this is one of the goblins -- the sons of the goblin arrive. How does the lion react? You know, you get this idea animals know, you know. Animals have this instinctive sense of how people or things are. Doesn't like it at all. The lion says -- we read about the lion toward the bottom of page 355, the line "begins to quiver as soon as it sees them," and is really concerned that they will kill his master. The goblins say, "Part of the deal is you have to fight us alone, you know. The devil sent you. You have to fight us alone." And so they make him lock the lion away. And he locks him in a little room, and the battle commences. The lion is trying to escape because he's hearing how badly it's going,

8 LLT 180 Lecture 21 8 and finally he gets free. And we have this feeling in many of these combats that Yvain would've lost if the lion didn't come to his rescue. He plays a pivotal role. And we even read on the next -- on 357, about line 6 there, "... my lord Yvain had good reason to be very afraid of being killed." The lion is mad. The lion is mad. And so he attacks here, on 5632, "It seizes one of them and drags him to the ground like a log." You know, we've read enough Chrétien now, we wonder how people are going to die. It becomes one of the focal interests as you read. It seems he has standard ways. Like, he likes shoulders being separated from the body. That's one of the things he likes. We know he likes blood and brains flying, and he likes people being disemboweled. Those seem to be his favorite methods of death. And so we wonder, is this gonna be one of those or are we gonna have a new method of death? "... since the one the lion has brought down will never get up again if the other does not come to his rescue." So the other one turns to rescue him. Hey, we have a new way. Yvain cuts off his head. We haven't had that one before, have we? We've had people sliced in two. I'm not sure we've had this one. About the middle of the page, The rogue offered him openly his bare head and neck; and he gave him such a stroke that he sliced his head from his trunk so smoothly that he knew not a thing about it. But then, the second one who evidently survives somehow, at least he speaks, he has his shoulder torn from his body -- which I think is a repeat in the matter of mutilation that we've seen before. Everybody's happy, they're freed from the demons. The 300 maidens are obviously especially happy. And since Yvain gets to take them with him, he should be exceedingly happy. No, just kidding.

9 LLT 180 Lecture 21 9 But the lord is mad. Because he thinks that since Yvain wants to go on, that he's dissing his daughter, and he takes this personally. Finally, the lord says, "Oh, the heck with you," and Yvain departs. And the damsels split off, go on their way, back to their homeland. So we're gonna have to get back to Arthur's court because we have to set this deal right of the two sisters. That's gonna be kind of his last task before he gets to get back together with Laudine. Remember they had 40 days -- she had 40 days to find a champion. They're making their way back. They arrive at court. Gawain is not there, but he shows up. Now, for all this confusion so that they can fight, you know, it's important to remember what? That, one, nobody knows that Yvain is Yvain. He's been identifying himself and even sent news to court identifying himself as the Knight with the Lion. So nobody knows this is Yvain. And, secondarily, that Gawain forbade the older sister -- that's one of my pet peeves in life recently. One of those things that I'd like to fix but we can't. Nobody uses comparatives anymore. You know, somebody says, "Well, my oldest child" and I say, "Well, how many children do you have?" "Two." You don't have an oldest child if you only have two. You have an older child and a younger child. But just listen. Nobody uses comparatives in our language anymore. It's just, you know, our correctness of speech. But anyway, they do here. They talk about the older and younger. Another battle I will not win, but what the heck? So anyway, we have Yvain and the damsel showing up without the lion. Gawain has forbade the lady to say who is her champion. And when he shows up, he's dressed himself in such a way -- so not using his own shield or whatever -- that people don't know it's Gawain. And so people watching

10 LLT 180 Lecture this, nobody knows who's fighting who. Nobody knows who Yvain is except Lunete. So even this sister he's helping doesn't know who it is. She thinks it's the Knight with the Lion -- which it is. It's the same guy. And the only person who knows the other person is Gawain -- Arthur doesn't even know -- is the older sister. The older sister is just an itch -- let me figure how I can say that -- and won't accept any compromise. Even though Arthur has basically expressed the feeling, and everybody else, that the younger sister is right; that the other person is an idiot. And so this combat has to take place. And they again talk about love and hate and the relationship of love and hate, and what a precious thing love is. On the bottom of 362, "for love which is neither false nor a sham is a most precious and holy thing." So the champions get ready, since the older sister won't agree to any compromise, and we have this long battle. Now, the lion didn't come to court. So the lion who's been so helpful -- you know, the good lion who's been so helpful is gonna have no role in this particular battle. This is just gonna be knight against knight. It's serious combat. The older sister will have no part of a compromise, even though everybody is telling Arthur, you know, "Just make this stop. These knights are too great in order for one of them to perish." They take a break, fight all day -- kind of unbelievable. They take a break and they start talking. And Yvain speaks first, but he's just so beat up and tired that his voice isn't recognizable. Gawain speaks second and then identifies himself, on the bottom of page 365: "My name's Gawain, the son of King Lot." Yvain, realizing who he's battling, says, "If I'd have known who it was, I'd have not

11 LLT 180 Lecture fought you," and identifies himself. So now, you know, they're all like -- well, you know -- you know, they kiss each other, really freaky stuff, and each declares themselves defeated. And so being noble -- and Arthur's impressed by this. So he's happy. Arthur's happy with the nobility of the two, that each is not willing to take victory, that each wants to claim being defeated because of the worthiness of their opponent. So Arthur says he will settle it. And he reiterates -- I put a bunch of marks on my book, over here on page 367, about 10 lines from the bottom. The line starts "injustice." "That," says the king, "is why I wish to restore to your sister her rights; for I've never had any sympathy for what is wrong." And so again, said the other way around, he represents goodness, justice, right. Lion, I think you need a little more show time. You need to sit over here, you know? He sits so well. Actually, my parents -- he still lives in my parents' house. My brother and I, when we were way too old to do this -- we were probably young teenagers. My parents were taking us shopping someplace. You know, these big trucks that they sell stuffed animals off of on the side of the road and stuff? We said, "Oh. Oh. We want a bear." And my dad, to his credit or his lunacy, stopped and bought us a big, stuffed, black bear. And so when drive-in theaters still existed, one night we went on a double date and we took Bear with us. And the woman -- you know, she made us pay for Bear finally. She said, "Aww, that's a person," you know. We said, "You need glasses." One of the things, I'm sure when my parents die, we'll fight over: who gets Bear. I'll just say, "I'm more of a child than you are. I should get it."

12 LLT 180 Lecture Arthur threatens the older sister to try to get her to do what he wants, even thought he probably wouldn't have followed through on his threat. Everybody -- the knights are disarmed, the lion comes running, and up to this point when the lion appears nobody knew at court that Yvain and the Knight with the Lion were one and the same. Because they hadn't seen the lion here. And so now all -- everything kind of gets tied together, understandable. Yvain and Gawain are healed by the best physicians that Arthur has. But Yvain has the abiding problem, which is what? He still loves Laudine. And he just feels he has to work this out. And so really we have a cycle here, if you think about it. Because when you go to line 6527, what does he do? He sneaks away. And when did he sneak away before? He snuck away when he went to the fountain to try to avenge the dishonor to his family that had been done to his cousin, Calogrenant, all right? And so here again -- and that's where his relationship with Laudine started. So here again, he sneaks away and this is gonna lead to their reconciliation. So they wander away. They've come to the fountain and are just kind of there. But, like, they must throw some water on here, all right? "Then they journeyed [line 6529] until they saw the spring, where they caused a downpour of rain." So they must've poured some water, and so there's like an even bigger tempest than before. And so obviously, Laudine's in trouble. Just like when she needed a champion before, which led to Lunete's previous ploy, she now needs a champion again and she knows none of her wimpette knights will do anything, and so it's gonna need to be an outsider. So Lunete makes her ask twice. She doesn't want to be burned at the stake again, so she makes her ask twice for advice. And her advice is,

13 LLT 180 Lecture "Hey, you know. This guy who defeated the giants and defeated, you know, the Seneschal and his two brothers, he'd probably be a good choice but he has a problem. He has a problem with his lady love. They're on the outs and they need to be reconciled. And maybe if you promise that you would reconcile them, you know, he'd come and be the great knight that you need to protect the fountain." So while she promises, it's kind of curious -- if there's some kind of cultural historian or legal historian. I've never, you know, pursued this, but it's kind of interesting, on 6630: "Lunete, who was well versed in courtly manners, had a very precious reliquary brought out for her at once; and the lady knelt." So she makes her swear on a relique that she will do this. So kind of giving firm oath or pledge. And so the rest of this is just, you know, a little device that gets them back together, and they end up loving each other, living in peace -- e-a-c-e -- ever, ever after. And what's the accuracy of this story, you know? Are we to believe this story and what else? He says at the very end, 6814: Thus Chrétien concludes his romance of the Knight with the Lion; for I never heard any more of it told, nor will you ever hear more of it related, unless someone chooses to make some lying addition. So this is the whole story, you know? This is the truth. And any variation you hear of this is not the whole truth. Questions? I did finish making up the test. It's been kind of a squirrely morning. I wonder if he sheds? Not too bad. Isn't he cute? My daughters never wanted for stuffed animals. It's like, "Oh, yeah, he's cute. I'll buy it." I'm just jealous of his hair, actually. But anyway, the test will have the same kind of format as last time. It's gonna be on what: it's

14 LLT 180 Lecture gonna be on Candle in the Wind. And again, there aren't a lot of additional names and things in there because we're still talking about Mordred and Gawaine, and so there's not a lot of picky information in there that I can pick out. There are a few things that are important. Then there on Erec and Yvain. And so I think the last version I was working on on my computer -- I think there are 12 to 14 matching and then there are five IDs and there are two essays. Two essays. And for one of the essays -- hint, hint, hint -- I'll let you use Raglan's list -- okay -- characteristics of a hero. Lest you lost it, I have more in my office or you can scrounge one from a friend. I'll bring some, too, in case you lost them that day, so you don't panic and run back home or something. So that's what we'll do Monday. [Inaudible student response.] Oh, yeah. Yeah, I remember where you were at. It's back to the adventure with the giants, when he frees the four remaining sons of the count or the lord, whatever he's referred to as, and the daughter. And it said -- you know, see, that's even a better question. Again, where this came up. That it said that the wife of the count, or the wife of the lord, was Gawain's sister. Didn't it? I don't know exactly, you know. And that's why, then, they were his niece and nephew. And so one of the things that's supposed to be reported to Arthur's court is that, you know, he saved these people. And then it's referred to again at the end, where Gawain says, "Oh," you know, "I was told about my friend." Because he tells him, "Tell your friend, the Knight with the Lion." And Gawain relates there later -- he says, "Well, gosh, you know. This makes sense now. I've been wracking my brain.

15 LLT 180 Lecture You know, I've had a lot of adventures, I've been to a lot of courts, and I can't remember ever having met anyone who's called the Knight with the Lion. Yet, my niece and nephews said this person was my friend." I don't know. Don't know. I don't think it referred to that note. Sometimes when you want notes they don't have any because there's no answer. [Inaudible student response.] Kind of a posture problem. We're gonna change -- after this we're gonna change direction. We're gonna go read something Germanic. We're gonna read a thing by Gottfried von Strassburg on Tristan and Isolde, a very, very famous thing. There was a book by Chrétien, evidently, but it's lost. And so we're gonna go to some German material, obviously an English translation, and this is gonna really be about love. And then we're going to get really whacked at the end and we're gonna go back and read about Perceval. Perceval's a fragment. I said I thought about buying and have you buy one more book by Wolfram, which is available in paperback, who is the same guy as the first complete grail romance. But I figured, "Well, you don't want to buy another book." We can read this fragment and I can tell you how it ends. And we can think about whether we want to have a test then. We'll see how the time goes. And we'll finish up seeing Monte Python where we'll get back to the castle of maidens. Actually, you know, if you haven't seen it, it's almost too bad we don't have enough time just to run it through once, and then to run it through another time and stop and kibbitz about it at different points. Because there's so much good stuff in there, so much stuff that's accurate or playing on really true stuff, that it just kind of mucks up your brain. Like, you think you have it straight and then you walk

16 LLT 180 Lecture away, totally confused. But have a nice weekend -- have a dry weekend. Don't float away. Test on Monday. I'll be here.