[Footnote 27: This criticism of ignoble leisure on the part of a warrior is found also in "Erec et Enide" and "Yvain".]
[Footnote 28: This allegorical tribute to "largesse" is quite in the spirit of the age. When professional poets lived upon the bounty of their patrons, it is not strange that their poetry should dwell upon the importance of generosity in their heroes. For an exhaustive collection of "chastisements" or "enseignements", such as that here given to Alexandre by his father, see Eugen Altner, "Ueber die chastiements in den altfranzosischen chansons de geste" (Leipzig, 1885).]
[Footnote 29: As Miss Weston has remarked ("The Three Days' Tournament", p. 45), the peculiar georgraphy of this poem "is distinctly Anglo-Norman rather than Arthurian".]
[Footnote 210: For this intimate relation between heroes, so common in the old French heroic and romantic poems, see Jacques Flach, "Le compagnonnage dans les chansons de geste" in "Etudes romances dediees a Gaston Paris" (Paris, 1891). Reviewed in "Romania", xxii. 145.]
[Footnote 211: Here begins one of those long dialogues, where one person is represented as taking both sides of an argument. This rhetorical device, so wearisome to modern readers, is used by Chrétien preferably when some sentiment or deep emotion is to be portrayed. Ovid may well have suggested the device, but Ovid never abuses it as does the more prolix mediaeval poet. For the part playing by the eyes in mediaeval love sophistry, see J.F. Hanford, "The Debate of Heart and Eye" in "Modern Language Notes", xxvi. 161-165; and H.R. Lang, "The Eyes as Generators of Love." id. xxiii. 126-127.]
[Footnote 212: For play upon words and for fanciful derivation of proper names in mediaeval romance literature, see the interesting article of Adolf Tobler in "Vermischte Beitrage", ii. 211-266. Gaston Paris ("Journal des Savants", 1902, p. 354) points out that Thomas used the same scene and the play upon the same words "mer", "amer", and "amers" in his "Tristan" and was later imitated by Gottfried von Strassburg.]
[Footnote 213: According to the 12th century troubadours, the shafts of Love entered the victim's body through the eyes, and thence pierced the heart.]
[Footnote 214: For fanciful derivation of proper names, cf. A. Tobler, "Vermischte Beitrage", ii. 211-266.]
[Footnote 215: Ganelon, the traitor in the "Chanson de Roland", to whose charge is laid the defeat of Charlemagne's rear-guard at Ronceval, became the arch-traitor of mediaeval literature. It will be recalled that Dante places him in the lowest pit of Hell ("Inferno", xxxii. 122). (NOTE: There is a slight time discrepance here. Roland, Ganelon, and the Battle of Ronceval were said to have happened in 8th Century A.D., fully 300 years after Arthur and the Round Table.--DBK).]
[Footnote 216: For the ceremonies attendant upon the conferring of knighthood, see Karl Treis, "Die Formalitaten des Ritterschlags in der altfranzosischen Epik" (Berlin, 1887).]
[Footnote 217: The "quintainne" was "a manikin mounted on a pivot and armed with a club in such a way that, when a man struck it unskilfully with his lance, it turned and landed a blow upon his back" (Larousse).]
[Footnote 218: This conventional attitude of one engaged in thought or a prey to sadness has been referred to by G.L. Hamilton in "Ztsch fur romanische Philologie", xxxiv. 571-572.]
[Footnote 219: Many traitors in old French literature suffered the same punishments as Ganelon, and were drawn asunder by horses ("Roland", 3960-74).]
[Footnote 220: The same rare words "galerne" and "posterne" occur in rhyme in the "Roman de Thebes", 1471-72.]
[Footnote 221: This qualified praise is often used in speaking of traitors and of Saracens.]
[Footnote 222: The failure to identify the warriors is due to the fact that the knights are totally encased in armour.]
[Footnote 223: A reference to the "Roman de Thebes", 1160 circ.]
[Footnote 224: The disregard of Alis for his nephew Cligés is similar to that of King Mark for Tristan in another legend. In the latter, however, Tristan joins with the other courtiers in advising his uncle to marry, though he himself had been chosen heir to the throne by Mark. cf. J. Bedier, "Le Roman de Tristan", 2 vols. (Paris, 1902), i. 63 f.]
[Footnote 225: See Endnote #14 above.]
[Footnote 226: Cf. Shakespeare, "Othello", ii. I, where Cassio, speaking of Othello's marriage with Desdemona, says: "he hath achieved a maid That paragons description and wild fame; One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens, And in the essential vesture of creation Does tire the enginer."]
[Footnote 227: Ovid ("Metamorphosis", iii. 339-510) is Chrétien's authority.]
[Footnote 228: Cf. L. Sudre, "Les allusions a la legende de Tristan dans la litterature du moyen age", "Romania", xv. 435 f. Tristan was famed as a hunter, fencer, wrestler, and harpist.]
[Footnote 229: "The word 'Thessala' was a common one in Latin, as meaning 'enchantress', 'sorceress', 'witch', as Pliny himself tells us, adding that the art of enchantment was not, however, indigenous to Thessaly, but came originally from Persia." ("Natural History", xxx. 2).--D.B. Easter, "Magic Elements in the romans d'aventure and the romans bretons, p. 7. (Baltimore, 1906). A Jeanroy in "Romania", xxxiii. 420 note, says: "Quant au nom de Thessala, il doit venir de Lucain, tres lu dans les ecoles au XIIe siecle." See also G. Paris in "Journal des Savants", 1902, p. 441 note. Thessala is mentioned in the "Roman de la Violetta", v. 514, in company with Brangien of the Tristan legend.]
[Footnote 230: Medea, the wife of Jason, is the great sorceress of classic legend.]
[Footnote 231: This personage was regarded in the Middle Ages as an Emperor of Rome. In the 13th-century poem of "Octavian" (ed. Vollmuller, Heilbronn, 1883) he is represented as a contemporary of King Dagobert!]
[Footnote 232: This commonplace remark is quoted as a proverb of the rustic in "Ipomedon", 1671-72; id., 10, 348-51; "Roman de Mahomet", 1587-88; "Roman de Renart", vi. 85-86; Gower's "Mirour de l'omme", 28, 599, etc.]
[Footnote 233: It is curious to note that Corneille puts almost identical words in the mouth of Don Gomes as he addresses the Cid ("Le Cid", ii. 2).]
[Footnote 234: For this tournament and its parallels in folk-lore, see Miss J.L. Weston, "The Three Days' Tournament" (London, 1902). She argues (p. 14 f. and p. 43 f.) against Foerster's unqualified opinion of the originality of Chrétien in his use of this current description of a tournament, an opinion set forth in his "Einleitung to Lancelot", pp. 43, 126, 128, 138.]
[Footnote 235: Note that Chrétien here deliberately avoids such a list of knights as he introduces in "Erec". (F.)]
[Footnote 236: It must be admitted that the text, which is offered by all but one MS., is here unintelligible. The reference, if any be intended, is not clear. (F.)]
[Footnote 237: Much has been made of this expression as intimating that Chrétien wrote "Cligés" as a sort of disavowal of the immorality of his lost "Tristan". Cf. Foerster, "Cligés" (Ed. 1910), p. xxxix f., and Myrrha Borodine, "La femme et l'amour au XXIe Seicle d'apres les poemes de Chrétien de Troyes" (Paris, 1909). G. Paris has ably defended another interpretation of the references in "Cligés" to the Tristan legend in "Journal des Savants", 1902, p. 442 f.]
[Footnote 238: This curious moral teaching appears to be a perversion of three passages form St. Paul's Epistles: I Cor. vii. 9, I Cor. x. 32, Eph. v. 15. Cf. H. Emecke, "Chrétien von Troyes als Personlichkeit und als Dichter" (Wurzburg, 1892).]
[Footnote 239: "This feature of a woman who, thanks to some charm, preserves her virginity with a husband whom she does not love, is found not only in widespread stories, but in several French epic poems. In only one, "Les Enfances Guillaume", does the husband, like Alis, remain ignorant of the fraud of which he is the victim, and think that he really possesses the woman.... If Chrétien alone gave to the charm of the form of a potion, it is in imitation of the love potion in "Tristan". (G. Paris in "Journal des Savants", 1902, p. 446). For many other references to the effect of herb potions, cf. A. Hertel, "Verzauberte Oerlichkeiten und Gegenstande in der altfranzosische erzahlende Dichtung", p. 41 ff. (Hanover, 1908).]
[Footnote 240: I have pointed out the curious parallel between the following passage and Dante's "Vita Nova", 41 ("Romantic Review", ii. 2). There is no certain evidence that Dante knew Chrétien's work (cf. A. Farinelli, "Dante e la Francia", vol. i., p. 16 note), but it would be strange if he did not know such a distinguished predecessor.]
[Footnote 241: For the legend of Solomon deceived by his wife, see Foerster "Cligés" (ed. 1910), p. xxxii. f., and G. Paris in "Romania", ix. 436-443, and in "Journal des Savants", 1902, p. 645 f. For an additional reference, add "Ipomedon", 9103.]
[Footnote 242: For an imitation of the following scene, see Hans Herzog in "Germania", xxxi. 325.]
[Footnote 243: "Porz d'Espaingne" refers to the passes in the Pyrenees which formed the entrance-ways to Spain. Cf. The "Cilician Gates" in Xenophon's "Anabasis".]