LLT 180 Lecture 24 1 This is Tristan. So it takes about twenty days to get rid of the stench. He's starting to heal up. "I will tell you briefly that within twenty days she helped him so far" -- bottom of page 146 -- "that people suffered him everywhere." In other words, he didn't stink so bad anymore. Like the corner of our room. "And none who desired his company" -- no, no reflection on you. No, no. It didn't come out right. It's not our producer that has an odor problem, but rather it's something in the room before us that has an odor problem. Try to be nice, the story of my life. Anyway, give our producer twenty days and it'll be okay. "And none who desired his company held aloof because of his wound." Princess always with him, you know, and that's a bad deal. You know, Princess always with him. And what is she learning? Well, she's learning music; she's learning manners. We'll keep coming back to this manners thing. Always got me in the movie Pretty Woman where, you know, he had to teach her which silverware to use. Doesn't any dumbling know that you go from the outside in? Of course, I think part of having manners is making fun of it. When my next oldest brother's oldest daughter got married, it was a very, very, very fancy wedding. And we came in to the table and, you know, I don't know. There were nineteen forks and twelve knives. I don't know. And so I just took all the forks in my hand and held 'em up, and said to my wife, "I wonder what all this stuff's for?" And she said, "Would you please behave," and I said, "Okay," and I put 'em all back. But, you know, isn't that a little bit of overkill? You know, it's like give me a break. Probably because each one of those forks cost ten dollars extra for another course of the meal.
LLT 180 Lecture 24 2 So he's tutoring her in music, manners. Six months. Six months. And he had told -- so he's healed. It took twenty days for him to be healed. We have another six months. And he had told Curvenal originally something to the effect that, "If I don't show back up within a year" -- isn't that what he told him? "If I don't show up within a year, you can assume I'm dead." And so he's kind of coming to the end of this. He's healed, everybody's impressed. What do they liken Isolde to, you know? They liken her to a siren. Which is kind of interesting, 'cause what do sirens do? Yeah, they lure you to your death. Because you're attracted and then you shipwreck and you die. So kind of justly -- I guess all women are sirens, however. Life experience. We all speak from life experience. And so they likened her to a siren. Tristan -- the wire boy. I mean, he's just a wire. It's now healed and he has to figure how to get his butt out of here. So he makes up another story and says, "I've a wife at home and so you've gotta let me go." So they decide to let him go. They give him what? I was afraid somebody was gonna ask me about this and I forgot to look it up. They give him two marks of red gold. Anyone know what red gold is? I'll have to look it up. So he's back and one of the problems in here is envy and jealousy that people feel toward Tristan. In other words, the other people in Mark's court are always feeling that, you know, this is part of what you live with. And Mark says, "You know, anybody who's successful, anyone who does well, people are gonna be envious. They're gonna be jealous of them. That's just part of life." Now, when he returns to his uncle's court, of course, initially everyone's happy.
LLT 180 Lecture 24 3 And he talks about Isolde the Princess, how super-duper she is, fairer than fair, more mannered than mannered, just wonderful. Everyone, though, is not -- you know, a significant portion of the barons don't want Tristan to see Mark and they're suspicious. And they keep saying, "Well, he has to be using magic. He has to be using sorcery or some kind of trickery to be accomplishing everything." And so they want Mark to marry. And through a long discussion it comes back that the person they think he should marry is Isolde the Princess, and they think the thing to do is to send Tristan. Mark says, "Well, I won't marry anybody else but Isolde." He does this because he thinks, "Well, this will never turn out so I can still have my way. I'll still be able to let Tristan inherit my kingdom 'cause there's no way this will ever work out. The Irish hate us. It just can't happen." And so the barons say, "Well, let's send Tristan. He seems to be able to accomplish everything." But Mark says, "No, no, no. This is obviously just to try to get Tristan." And Tristan says, "No, I'll go, but send the barons with me." So this totally backfires on the barons. And so we're gonna get this party set off on this wooing expedition. And traditionally in Germanic materials, there are two ways to get a wife. Raub is to steal, to rob. So you can rob yourself one, just go snatch one, probably a lot less expensive, or you can woo one. So those are the two traditional ways. And here we're gonna woo one and we're gonna send Tristan with a hundred knights. And we read on page 154, toward the end of this chapter on the wooing expedition, what does he get?
LLT 180 Lecture 24 4 Tristan told the King's secretary to pick from the household twenty dependable knights, those most fit for battle; he himself recruited sixty mercenaries, both native and foreign; and from among the councillors [these guys who were envious and jealous of him] he took twenty barons without pay, making exactly a hundred companions. So Tristan plus a hundred. So they set sail. The barons are much like we've been seeing in Chrétien's material. It seems somehow these people who are often toward the top of the feudal ladder are a bunch of chickens. They just aren't very brave. And these guys -- these guys are scared. Tristan -- we've been having this whole book, ever since he was a 14-year-old kid he's been lying. And, you know, it's like I told my daughters, you know. I've lied a few times in my life. Tell me the truth. In the long-term, I won't be as mad if you tell me now, because the truth has a way to come out. However, my brother and I did keep -- I think I told you earlier this semester -- one lie to this day from my parents, and I hope they never find out. Because even at this time they won't think it's funny. So he says, "I must lie." He says, on the bottom of page 155, "I must lie." Well, that should be pretty easy for the boy, right? "I must lie for this to work out." He says, on the very bottom of 155, "I must lie to them for all I am worth today." Tells him to go away for a couple of days. If he doesn't show up in a couple of days, it probably means he's met his demise so to take off. So again, we get a story, over on page 157. Remember, anybody from Cornwall
LLT 180 Lecture 24 5 that shows up in Ireland is supposed to be immediately killed, going back to the slaying of Morold. And the fact that he chopped him up. It wasn't just that he slayed him; he chopped off his hand, he chopped off his head, so they brought the boy back in pieces. And so we get this other story. Again, he's saying that he's a merchant, that he's from Normandy. And remember, one of the ways he can get away with all these stories is that he can speak 94 languages, or whatever, just like a native speaker. So he can get away with making up stories because like he can speak everybody's language who's anyplace that the story takes place. He does say, "I've been here before." Now, what we're gonna find out at some point in this wooing expedition is that there's the baddest dragon around who lives here, and it's been, you know, the scourge of the countryside. And the King has promised whoever kills the dragon can have disposition of the daughter. Uh-hmm? [Inaudible student response.] Yeah, I will check on that. I did check back on what you asked on the other day. There's a word for that. Acroptic? When the first letters of like stanzas spell something? And it wasn't -- I don't know particularly why. My guess would be that it was just a highlight on maybe an initial page of the printed document, just to look cool. You know, you have those little monks sitting there before Xerox machines, doing stuff. And they didn't have their computer where they could blow up letters and change type and make things look slick. So they're just trying to sell copies. Another thing I don't know if I told you or if you stumbled upon. There are glossaries in the back. There are glossaries of place names and also character names.
LLT 180 Lecture 24 6 And we're gonna have to have some kind of test on this. And there are so many characters in here. This will give us a good place. You can see I've marked some of these in the back. When we get through with this, I'll tell you which characters I think are important and which ones are simply trash, that even in my worst moments I wouldn't be so mean as to ask you. I'll only tell you the ones I would be mean enough to ask you. So anyway, he tells this other ridiculous story in order to get ashore, and he partially bribes the guy. He says, "Hey, you know. Treat me well." And he got two marks of red gold before and now he gives one of 'em back. And they're all very impressed by the fact that he's given it. So the guy he encounters lets him come ashore, but they have no idea why he's there. So now we get this stuff about the dragon. And when you notice -- like when we saw Excalibur, they knight him in name of Saint Michael and Saint George. Saint George is the famous dragon slayer. He was my great, great, great uncle. And so if you just want to call me Saint, that's fine. But I've been called a lot of other things, that's for sure. In fact, they didn't have anything to do with saints. But here we have the dragon. We have this great serpent. And we have one of the key aspects of the story, of this pledge that -- this oath that the King has made at the very beginning of Chapter 12 about the dragon: The tale speaks of a serpent that was then living in that country. The cursed fiendish monster had burdened the land and the people with such an excess of harm that the King swore by his royal oath that he would give his daughter to
LLT 180 Lecture 24 7 whoever would make an end of it, provided he were a knight and of noble birth. Tristan -- even though we didn't hear about this before, Tristan, having been there for some time, had heard this. We read at the end of that paragraph, "Tristan knew all about it." So when Tristan was agreeing to help out before, he knew what avenue his approach would take. Now, the Queen's Steward -- and he's another one of our cowardly characters -- really has an obsession, kind of like the Prince in Ashputtle, has an obsession with Isolde. And he keeps riding around whenever anybody is after the dragon in hopes that he can be there and somehow claim victory. Because he wants to claim her for himself. Tristan sneaks off. He kills the dragon. It nearly kills him. It toasts and eats half his horse. Just right at the beginning of this chapter where a lot of the action takes place, he goes out and kills it. He attacks it more than once and finally kills it. And for some weird reason, except it's necessary for the plot, he cuts out its tongue. And instead of just kind of carrying the tongue along in a bag or something, he sticks it, you know, like inside his outfit so the tongue is up against him. We read on 161, "cut off from the tongue in the cavity as much as he wanted" [so I guess he didn't cut the whole thing off. As much as he wanted? How much of a dragon's tongue do you want?] "with his sword, thrust the piece into his bosom, and let the jaws snap to." He's like exhausted. We talk about, you know, how hot armor would be by the time you got all your padding on, and then you have the armor on, if it's a sunny day, and then the dragon's breathing flames on you on top of that, you're obviously fairly toasted. You're exhausted. And now he has a venomous, you know,
LLT 180 Lecture 24 8 dragon's tongue, you know, in his briefs. And so, you know, this is not good. So he's kind of staggering around and he falls with his armor on. He falls into this pool and just his mouth is sticking out. His mouth is sticking out. So he's not visible. It's important because the Steward is gonna come up, find the dead dragon, and then he's gonna look. He figures, "Well, maybe the guy" -- he can see this half-burned, eaten horse, and he figures, "Well, you know, the guy who probably killed the dragon is probably around here somewhere. I'm gonna try to find him so I can kill him like it was a duel." So sure enough, idiot Steward comes along. Because he's been out there. Tristan saw him before. Finds the toasted horse, finds the dead dragon, and then, so that he can say he attacked the dragon himself, he attacks the dead dragon. And so we have all this ridiculous activity where he rides at the dragon with the lance, then he takes his sword and chops him into pieces or chops at it, at least. And then he goes back, gets some of his people, and has -- he has the head fetched. So his evidence that he rightfully fulfills the role of dragon-slayer and should be granted Isolde the fair, the beautiful, the well-mannered, music prodigy, is going to be that he has the head of the dragon. The news gets back and the ladies at court are aghast, you know. This guy's a super dufus dork idiot, you know, coward. And Isolde says -- I think I've had people say this in my life, too -- "I'd rather kill myself than go out with you." But here she says, "I'd rather stab myself through the heart than marry this guy. Forget it." She says, on the bottom of page 163, "I will stab a knife through my heart!" Oh, yeah. Sure.
LLT 180 Lecture 24 9 What we need, then, is what we always need in this material. We need a wise woman, obviously difficult to find. But he goes -- this is all a joke. It's a joke. It's always amazing that you'll go through some semesters in certain courses, and you'll tease about that stuff all the time. And actually, years ago I had a woman who was an instructor in English and one of my evaluations at the end of the semester -- in all seriousness, I mean, 'cause this person was beyond serious she said, "I was concerned about all the sexist things you said in class." I'm thinking, "What?" What planet? So I hope you know that's really not who I am. I'll bring my daughters in for testimonies, if you want, 'cause they're frightened of me for sure. Anyway, they need a wise woman. And we said these wise women are usually not the main character. We've already been told that this is about Isolde, the Princess, the fair, the good, the well-mannered. And so usually it's gonna be some kind of relative, you know, who's in the position -- a niece, a cousin, somebody who has some blood relationship usually, who is the wise counsel. Just like we had in Erec -- you know, when we have these works -- I mean, in Yvain where we have some wise counsel. And here it's Brangane, however you pronounce her name. How would you pronounce her name? It's B-r-a-n-g-a-n-e. She appears for the first time in that paragraph, "Well, do not be afraid any more, I have some good news to tell you! He did not kill the dragon! It was killed by a stranger." So this is the Queen's insight, whatever the adventure that brought him here. "Up we get, we must hurry to the scene and investigate for ourselves!"
LLT 180 Lecture 24 10 And so we're now gonna have three women -- we're gonna have the relative woman who is the source of wisdom, and even the queen asks her for advice. And so they ride off and, of course, the young princess is going to be the one who finds him. And we again have these word pairs. And so on the bottom of 164, top of 165, "... the young Princess was the first to set eyes on her life and her death." Okay. So again, you know, both aspects: her joy, her sorrow. So we know, "Oh, this is the deal," you know? They think he's dead but, no, he's barely alive. And they find the tongue. I want to know what they're doing looking in his briefs. You know, just a question. But regardless, they found the dragon's tongue. And they say, "Oh, it was the dragon's tongue. That was the problem." So they take the dragon's tongue out and then the boy gets better. Tristan -- you know, I wrote in here Tristan is such a liar. He pretends he doesn't know them. But the Princess says, "Ah, I do believe this is Tantris." And the Queen says, "You're right." And Tristan says, "Look, you know, I'm too wiped out. You know, if you could let me recover, you know, I'll tell you the whole story." So they take him back. Tristan entrusts himself to the Queen and she guarantees his safety. An important, important point. When we see the role of women in here -- see, the Queen basically tells the King what to do, you know. What we see of G the G, the King -- remember Morold's boss -- you know, he's kind of like, you know, "What do I do?" And she tells him what to do and he says, "Well, whatever you want me to do, that's fine by me." And so we're kind of
LLT 180 Lecture 24 11 having a woman telling the men what to do and then we're having one woman serve as a wise counsel to the Queen and the Princess. And so lest we wonder who's driving this action forward or who's directing it, you know, it's not the stupid males as usual. They're just doing the stuff like killing the dragons and putting themselves in harm's way, where the women cleverly stay back and let the men, you know, put their life at risk. Not a good -- it doesn't make sense to me. But anyway, we're getting through this whole story. We can kind of skip ahead here so we can stay on track. We now have evidence when the Steward tries to claim Isolde, they know that Tristan did, that he has the tongue, and so a judicial combat -- as we get to the end of that chapter, a judicial combat has been set up for three days hence. Now, part of the reason they need some more time is, Tristan's still kind of weak. And he's been recovering for two days from this strenuous battle with the dragon plus all these poisons he's absorbed by carrying around its tongue. So he's in there, bathing. And, you know, gosh. You know, Isolde is just such a little tramp. She's in there staring at him while he's in the bath. Now, what is that? She's supposed to be all meek and mild and pure, and she's lusting after the boy. She's saying, "He's fine, just fine." We read here -- you know, it's entitled "The Splinter." It should be entitled "The Lusting of Isolde," is what it should be entitled. It says here, "Isolde kept on looking at him." So she isn't like stealing a glance. She's just totally checking the boy out. Isolde kept on looking at him; she scanned his body and his whole appearance
LLT 180 Lecture 24 12 with uncommon interest. She stole glance after glance [if you steal glance after glance, isn't that staring?] at his hands and face, she studied his arms and legs, which so openly proclaimed what he tried to keep so secret. She looked him up and down; and whatever a maid may survey in a man all pleased her very well [okay], and she praised it in her thoughts. I get it. She looks at him and she says, "Man, he's so fine. I mean, he's just so fine. I can't believe this guy's a merchant. You know, he should be a king," you know, or at least a college professor. Not really funny, but... So the Queen, in the meantime, has been telling Kingy-boy the whole story, bringing him up to date, not that he's important in any real sense. And while she's scanning him -- you know, one of the problems when you're underlining stuff and you read -- you know, if you try to go reread something and you just read what you've underlined at another time, it can end up being kind of funny. Because she's scanning him up and down and then the next thing I've underlined is on the next page: she checked out his equipment. Oh, no, that's not it. But anyway, she does check out his equipment, but in this case it means his sword, and found the piece missing. Uh-oh! So, of course, the piece that they have is just over here in this little mason jar, and so she goes and checks and goes, "Wow, it's the same." And so she starts thinking about his name -- "Oh, it's the same guy." And so she takes the sword and runs into the boy. Now, is this fair? The boy's still in the bath. You know, he must have some serious, you know, odor problems, though. And so she goes in to kill him. The Queen comes in. We have this naked fest, I guess. No, they're all dressed. Just Tristan is in
LLT 180 Lecture 24 13 the bath. And the mother says, "What are you doing?" and tells her to stop. The point here is, the Queen has pledged her protection so they can't do anything to Tristan. If they would, it would be against her honor. Of course, Isolde could never -- the Princess could never really do anything bad because she's a woman and women are supposedly nice. They aren't up to such dastardly deeds. Ask George W. I think they've had a couple executed in Texas, you know, so he doesn't believe that. But what does her heart bear? What do all hearts bear? They bear good and evil. And so again, consistent with that theme in romantic material, that all of this is part of one. Tristan says he has good news and again, our confidante -- now, this is the Queen's cousin; this is the Queen's cousin -- says not to kill him. And the three women now kind of consistently talk things over and wonder what the serious purpose that brought him here could be. They go back and talk with Tristan. He tells them the true state of things. They all kissed him. Is he still in the bath? What is this? No, just seeing if you were listening. And so they're working out this whole deal. Now, remember, they have a bigger problem. They have a bigger problem than Tristan. They have the Steward. And so if they don't have Tristan to produce the tongue and say he slayed the dragon, they're gonna be stuck with the Steward. So Tristan really has an upper hand in this whole thing and they know it. So reconciliation, anyway, is brought about which means what? They won't have to kill people from Cornwall anymore, that everything's hunky-dory now between Ireland and Cornwall. The King says, you know, to the Queen, "Well, if you want to forgive
LLT 180 Lecture 24 14 these people, that's your business, you know. Morold was your relative. And so if it's fine by you, it's fine by me." So he has all his knights come. They all come splendidly dressed in their best duds so that they impress everybody in court. So now we have the proof where we end up. In other words, where we're trying to get today is that we have satisfaction of events in Ireland so that Tristan and Isolde can set sail back to Cornwall, so they can go out and drink the love potion which is gonna be the big problem. And again, however we view that love potion, whether the love potion was really supposed to be against something magical that they really drank or whether, you know, it was just symbolic of their recognition about how they really felt about one another. So really, all that this next chapter is about is having the Steward come in and try to claim that indeed, you know, he killed the dragon and therefore he's entitled to Isolde, whereas the ladies are gonna produce Tristan and Tristan is gonna have the tongue. So all the people at court adjudicate in favor of Tristan. The Steward is still mad because he's been hot after Isolde the younger for a long time. And so he says, you know, "Well, then I want a duel." But then all his relatives talk to him and say, "Not a bright move. First of all, just on the one hand, this guy will obviously kick your butt and kill you, and then you don't have Right on your side so you're destined to lose." And so we kind of drag this chapter on, but the final outcome of it is that Tristan and Isolde are gonna go to Mark's court. One thing we saw in here, Gottfried, our author, generally speaking has said at many points, "I'm not gonna talk about this, you know. I'm not gonna get into this long
LLT 180 Lecture 24 15 description because it's just boring, you're not gonna enjoy hearing about it at court." And in some places in here it seems we've gotten a little longer descriptions -- for example, what Tristan is wearing -- than has been typical about Gottfried up to now. He has more, you know, let himself just, you know, rest for the fact that Armani designed it and therefore it must be really nice, without saying it has ermine on the inside and little strips of beaver and mink on the sleeves. You know, here he gets into these long descriptions. I don't know particularly why, unless he's trying to, you know, pump up Tristan as being this super great hero. The other thing is, too, we find in here that Isolde is referred to as the sun in the dawn and their cousin is referred to as the full moon. Now, I don't know if that has any plot circumstances to it, but anyway they're all celestial bodies -- or their bodies, I guess, are celestial in nature. Questions as far as we got? We want to try to keep up this pace where we pick up "The Love Potion" next time, which would take us over to -- I have too many paperclips in here -- which would take us over to page -- well, it would take us over to Chapter 23. It'd take us through Chapter 22 for next time. And just looking at the remainder of the semester, what I'd like to do is try to get through Tristan beginning of next week. And what I've been thinking is, if we can do that, is sandwiching Percival with films. We talked about this before. Where maybe seeing something like Indiana Jones as a preview to this little overview at the front about grail material, and then read Percival, and then conclude by seeing Monty themselves.
LLT 180 Lecture 24 16 MUSIC STARTS, ADDENDUM FOLLOWS Yes, as we're working on Tristan, perhaps it's helpful if we think back. The point I've been trying to make here, as we take a few separate minutes, to think about the types of knights we've had and look at them. In other words, we've made the general point that we have kind of the knight-knight -- you know, the Might is Right kind of knight. We have the educated knight. In other words, any knight who still has might, but who is educated and has some degree of manners, is a tremendous step forward, more of what we might think of somebody who is acceptable in Arthurian times. But with Tristan, what we've been talking about is -- we're turning now one step further forward. And so it's just not enough to be mighty and to be educated in the sense that you got through sixth grade and you can read and write, and maybe know how to interact correctly socially, but also that it's important to be cultured. And what does "cultured" mean? And so in the case of Tristan, what that means is that you can speak other languages, you can play instruments, you can sing songs, you can tell stories -- or in Tristan's case -- no, I'm not sure this is cultured -- you're gonna lie. But being able to lie is really part of his ability to tell stories, to be creative. And so as I was thinking about adding this segment, what entered my mind was, "Well, what if we look back at some people we've seen from the very beginning of the course." And so if we think back, for example, to Sir Ector. Sir Ector was obviously chosen by Merlyn to raise Arthur. And so why Sir Ector? Sir Ector obviously is living at a time of general chaos. We have disruptions in society. This is what Arthur is going to fix. And so he has Might, even though we don't really ever see a particular, you know,
LLT 180 Lecture 24 17 representation of that. But the fact that everybody leaves him alone, doesn't come and just take his castle away, must mean that they respect him at some level. He's a nice guy. I think that's one of the reasons he's picked. He's very egalitarian. He has everybody in to his castle, much like Arthur is. Arthur likes Dogboy. Arthur likes everybody and is respectful of Hobbs and his hawks, and how he would feel, even though Kay is not. And so he's a nice guy. And Ector also has what? Brains. He says repeatedly that one of his great memories is of education, however he pronounces it at different pages, making fun of his education. But that when the weather's bad, it's always good for education. And he is the one who sets the original quest by Arthur going and that is to find a tutor. We think about Arthur, of course, as fairly easy and we don't need to really beat up Arthur. But if you think of Pellinore -- oh, and Sir Ector, too -- he can read and write. Remember he writes that letter to Uther's huntsman, and so he's literate. And everybody who's a good knight, we are shown, is literate. Pellinore is kind of a joke, but he is evidently physically competent. He does have a good rating. And he obviously is also literate. The people that we want to make more points about are maybe like Sir Bruce Sans Pitié, the guy I've liked picking on from the beginning of the course and, of course, within the course the joke about his name in French, simplistically Sir Bruce Without Pity. Bruce is what? Basically, he doesn't have a brain. The guy's just a war machine. He just beats up people. And so when we look at these people, we kind of go into an evaluation of what kind of knights they're supposed to be. Sir Bruce is only physical.
LLT 180 Lecture 24 18 He is only physical. And so he is the representation of Right is Might. We don't ever see him writing a letter. We don't ever see him -- like, say, in the movie Braveheart, where the great hero does what? He can, later in the movie, speak Latin and French. He is not cultured. Gawain -- Gawain is cultured. He can write. We're shown that at the end of the book, in Candle in the Wind, where he writes this letter to Lancelot. And even they comment upon his penmanship and how beautiful it was, and how it didn't really go with the outer Gawain. So obviously, Gawain is a more complex character than we might be led to believe in regular circumstances. So he can write. He's certainly not cultured like Tristan is, but he is literate. He has great strength. And so like Ector in a lot of ways but a more important hero. But where Gawain goes all wrong is that he has this imperfect sense of Right and Wrong, and that is his flaw as an Arthurian knight within the system that Arthur sets up. Lancelot is not much different than Gawain. In White's work, of course, he's been beat with the ugly stick at least 10 times, gets a little better looking as his face kind of sags together. But really, very, very similar to him. Better ideals, somewhat more cultured. So then we jump at that point to the heroes we've seen, to the knightly heroes we've seen in Chrétien's material who are -- they are Erec and Yvain. Erec and Yvain are definitely creatures of the court. This is a more cultured court than we saw perhaps in White's material. It's a court that's had the influence of Eleanor of Aquitane and this whole thing about courtly love, and the relationship of knights and women, and that's
LLT 180 Lecture 24 19 what both of these works are about. And so it's represented that they're both great knights. You know, we saw like in the film Knights in Armor the role of knights. These guys are great warriors, people that everybody admires. Erec is a king, he ends up as a king. And so very important in medieval structure. They're both literate. And the important thing here that we don't see with Gawain, and we don't see with Sir Ector, for that matter, either, and we certainly don't see with Sir Bruce Sans Pitié, is that we see the relationship with a woman is very important. And so we're seeing -- we're moving into the more romantic in the sense of interrelationship with people, of sexes, as being an important factor here. And so as we move to Tristan, where do we take the leap? Where do we move that Tristan is different? First of all, in the other people, their physical education, the physical part of their knightly education, is an important factor. We take Arthur, for example, where half his time -- even though we don't spend a lot of time talking about it, we do spend a certain amount of time talking about his physical education as a knight on the field. With Erec and Yvain, we see -- that is the departure point for their life. With Tristan, the departure point for his life is not really his knightly prowess because he isn't about becoming a knight, but rather it's his education. He's sent away for his education. And so the focus is upon first educating him as a cultured individual so that he knows languages, he knows music, he can sing, he can play instruments, he can play many instruments. He's a great story-teller. But also what does he know how to do? He
LLT 180 Lecture 24 20 knows how to do all those other things, too, you know. He can go out there and -- when you go down to the Buffalo River Valley in Arkansas and shoot an elk, he's the guy you want to cut it up. He knows exactly how to cut it up. And so Tristan has all the educational aspects. Then he has all the cultured aspects. And then only as kind of as a third phase does he realize he's supposed to be this king, and so he does go back and improve his physical prowess. So he also becomes one of the great knights, one of Arthur's great knights who does all these wonderful things: slays the magic dragon and does these deeds. And so the last person we'll come to, who then will be Percival. And Percival won't have the culture material. But in Percival, what we're gonna do is, we're gonna have more the pure knight, the knight who can do great physical deeds, who because of his purity is gonna find the grail. So that is yet another embodiment of the quest that we're on. And so we're going from the physical to the physically educated, to the physically educated encultured, until finally where the course will end up is theoretically to be the highest standard of knighthood, to be the knight selected to guard the grail. To be the godly knight or the knight with God. I think that is perhaps the better way to state it.