Reviews, 239
Sir Gawain at the Grail Castle. Translated by Jessie L. Weston. (Arthurian Romances unrepresented in Malory's Morte d' Arthur, No. vi.) London : Nutt. 1903.
There are three versions in this little book. The first of them renders one of the best stories in the whole of mediaeval romance, from Gautier's continuation of the Conte du Graal ; the other two, from the German poem of Heinrich von dem TiirHn and from the French prose Lancelot, are also full of interest. Gautier's story of Gawain's adventures, the lonely chapel, the dark causeway, the castle of the Grail, is translated by Miss Weston from a MS. not yet published, and evidently more original than the text printed in Potvin's edition. Miss Weston in the notes indicates some of its peculiarities, and calls attention in the preface to its very remark- able old-fashioned manner of address — " Seignurs, ensi avons apris " : " it is a minstrel's version, a text used by one who recites his verses to a knightly audience " — not a work of the same refined ambition as the poems of Chrestien, but nearer to the popular style of the common English romances, in this respect at any rate. Miss Weston's notes revive an old and still unsatisfied wish for a thorough edition of the Conte du Graal.
By some oversight, there is no reference to the pages or lines of Potvin's edition, which may be here supplied. The story begins there in volume iii., p. 351, and ends iv., p. 8. Miss Weston's note, p. 80, may be supplemented with a reference to Potvin, iii., p. 369 ; v., p. 99. The style of the translation is rather too artificial for the fluent simplicity of the old French ; a grammarian may object to the translator's use of " ye " in all cases — " I pray ye," " I will aid ye," " evilly did he slander ye in the queen's bower " — as hardly justified by her English authors. The second story runs better than the first. None of the three is dull, and though Sir Gawain himself on one occasion was sent to sleep by his host telling the story of the Grail, few readers of this book will find it necessary to excuse themselves by his example.
W. P. Ker.
