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The Rôle of the Lion in Chretien de Troyes' Yvain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Julian Harris
Julian Harris*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin Madison 6
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Extract

Although the lion plays a considerable rôle in Chrétien de Troyes' Chevalier au Lion, his function in the poem has traditionally attracted relatively little attention on the part of Arthurian scholars. Gaston Paris, in one of his notable articles on Chrétien, relegated the story of the noble beast to a footnote in which he said: “cette historiette … ne sert à rien dans le récit où Chrétien a jugé bon de l'insérer.”1Naturally enough, scholars who regard Yvain as a Celtic otherworld tale dressed up in French clothing, finding no close analog to the lion in Celtic lore, have paid little attention to him. And those who have con-cerned themselves with demonstrating that the source of the lion story was Latin or Greek have been interested more in the relation between Yvain's lion and that of Androcles (or some other one) than in his function in the poem. Those who have studied particularly the structure of the poem have attached more importance to the lion,2 but so far as I know no one has pointed out what seems to me to be his symbolic significance. Since Chrétien repeatedly said that he was concerned both with the “matière” and the “sens” of his romances,3 and as he called Yvain the roman du Chevalier au Lion,4 it seems reasonable to examine the poem in some detail and try to see if he attached more significance to the lion than modern scholarship has pointed out.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 64 , Issue 5: Issue 1 part 1 , December 1949 , pp. 1143 - 1163
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1949

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References

1 Mélanges de Littérature Française du Moyen Age, p. 268.

2 Alfred Adler has contended in his “Sovereignty in Chretien's Yvain”, PMLA, LXII (1947), 281–305, that the basic theme of Yvain is a coincidentia oppositorum, that “the lion is the common denominator for Yvain's opponents at the fountain”, and, eventually, that Yvain “is one with the lion.” Massimila Wilxzynski, in an unpublished Ph.D. thesis entitled “A Study of the Yvain of Chrétien de Troyes”, Univ. of Chicago, 1940, made a detailed analysis of the rôle of the lion and concluded that the lion is a living symbol of cor-toisie and that his function in the poem was “probably : (1) to heighten his hero's career; (2) to explain his name, Chevalier au Lion.” Ernst Brugger, in his “Yvain and his Lion”, MP, xxxvin (1940), 267–287, advanced the argument that Yvain lifilz au roi Uriien became a knight with a lion because Chrétien “knew of another Yvain whose epithet del Leonel-Lionel seemed to imply such a connection.”

3 Yvain, 11. 149–155. Here and elsewhere in this article I refer to the “large” edition of the poem made by Wendelin Foerster (Halle, 1887). Cf. W. A. Nitze, “Sans et Matière dans les uvresde Chrétien de Troyes”, Rom., XLW (1915–17), 14–36.

4 Yvain, 1. 6814.

5 Lines 1–2773.

6 Lines 2774–6818.

7 E.g., Gaston Paris, Mélanges de Lilt. Fr., p. 245.

8 Elise Richter, in “Die kunstlerische Stoffgestaltung in Chrestien's Ivain”, ZRPh, xxxrx (1919), 385–397, has pointed out the importance of repetition in the composition of Yvain.

9 Lines 1004–15. Lunete very carefully explains the circumstances in which Yvain had helped her. Instead of being merely a helpful maid who helps the lovers get together, she turns out to be a charitable member of society.

10 E.g., A. C. L. Brown, Twain: a study in the origins of Arthurian romance (Boston, 1903), p. 146: “In the latter part of the tale he has inserted several conventional knightly combats to please the age of chivalry and has interwoven the favorite theme of the thankful lion.”

11 This view, originally held by W. Foerster, Kristian Von Troyes: Worterbuch zu seinen SSmtlichen Werken (Halle, 1914), p. 99, has been developed in various ways by Richter, Wilxzynski, and Adler.

Et li buens hon desoz son toit
Prie Deu, quant aler l'an voit
Qu'il le defande et qu'il le gart
Que mes ne vaigne cele part. [2860–63]

13 Lancelot once expressed faith that God would take care of him (Cltarette, 11. 3098 ff.), but Meleagant, his opponent in the combat, also prayed to God. In 11.3738 ff., love strengthens Lancelot. We may observe also that although the name of God occurs from time to time in the earlier works of Chrétien, it occurs much less frequently than in Yvain. On the basis of a rapid examination of Cligès, Erec, and Lancelot, it can be safely said that in general the characters in the early works practically never resort to prayer. Exception would have to be made for Guillaume d'Angleterre if it is one of Chretien's early works.

14 E.g., when Iseut swore she had never been in the arms of any man but the king and the wayfarer (Tristan in disguise) who had just carried her across the water, the “truth” of her statement was immediately borne out by a solemn trial by fire!

15 Espurgaloire Saint Palriz, ed. T. A. Jenkins (Chicago, 1903), 11. 873 ff. I shall attempt to show in another article that the similarities are no mere coincidence.

16 In the well-known passage in La Quesle del Saint Graal, ed. A. Pauphilet (Paris, 1923, CFMA), Perceval said, p. 95, that “Nostre Sires li a envoiee cele beste por fere li compaig-nie: si le tient a mout bele aventure.” The author of La Queste of course knew Yvain: and if he did not see the symbolism of the lion in the earlier work, he was much less mindful of allegory than most of his contemporaries.

17 E.g., Gustave Cohen, Chrétien de Troyes et son oeuvre (Paris, 1931), pp. 329, 361.

18 Cf. Paul Meyer, “Les Bestiaires” in Histoire Littéraire, xxxrv (1914), 362–390; E. Wal-berg, Le Bestiaire de Philippe de Thailn (Lund, 1900); L. Spitzer, “Le Lion arbitre moral de l'homme”, Rom., LXIV (1938), 525–530. A. G. Brodeur, “The Grateful Lion”, PMLA, xxxrx (1924), 510, has noted that in the Physiologus and the Bestiaries “the lion is invariably the symbol of Christ.” According to Philippe de Thaon, the author of the bestiary which was no doubt best known among Chretien's contemporaries, the lion symbolizes the deity in various ways: “Or oè'z senz dutance D'ico signefiance. Li leiins signefie Le fiz Sainte Marie; Reis est de tute gent Senz nul redutement; Poanz est par nature Sur tute creature, Od fier cuntenement E od fier vengement (11.45–54). Force de deïté Demustre piz quaré; Le trait qu'il at deriere De mult graille manière Demustre humanité Qu'il out od deïté; Par la cue justise Ki desur nus est mise; Par le jambe qu'at plate Mustre Deus ert aate E coven-able esteit Que pur nus se dureit; Par le pié qu'at culpé Demustrance est de Dé, Que le munt enclorat, En sun puin le tendrat” (11. 61–76) etc. Other animals and various birds also “signify” Christ, according to Philippe, but none so thoroughgoingly.

19 Emile Mâle, L'Art religieux au XlIIème siècle, p. 36, quotes a Lectionnaire as follows: “Leo etiam apertis oculos dormire perhibetur; quia in ipsa morte, in qua ex mimanitate redemptor noster dormire potuit, ex divinitate sua immortalis permanendo vigilavit.”

20 The despair of the lion and his attempt at self-destruction is probably intended to reveal his deep friendship for Yvain. Cf. Charlemagne's prayer (Chanson de Roland, 11. 2938 ff.) that his life be taken away so that his soul may be with Roland's soul and that his body may be buried with Roland's body. It may be an allusion—a very crude one, to be sure—to the biblical theme that Christ, the Good Shepherd, etc., lays down his life for mankind.

21 G. Cohen, op. cit., p. 338, says, à propos of this very passage: “L'anonymat et le mystère sont de l'essence de l'aventure et ces paladins ont souvent plus de spontanéité que de discernement.”

22 Lines 3940–42. The difference between the meaning of OF pitié and the usual meaning of NE pity or even NF pitié is no doubt too obvious to need clarification. Perhaps we should mention the fact that pitié was the second of the dons de l'esprit—paour-humilité, pitié, science (qui rend sage), force, conseil (qui déracine avarice), entendement (qui combat luxure), sapience (qui combat le péché de bouche)—by which a Christian could combat and overcome the capital sins: orgueil, envie, ire, accide, avarice, luxure, péché de bouche. Cf. Ch. V. Langlois, La Vie en France au Moyen Age (Paris, 1928), Vol. iv, passim. Let us cite also a brief passage from Chretien's Guillaume d'Angleterre—which bears more than one similarity to Yvain—in which the poet speaks of the function of humility:

Qui s'umelie, si s'essauce
Ce dit an et c'est veritez.
Mout essauce home humilitez
Et mout l'enore et mout l'alieve. [1036–39]

23 Lines 4619–20. Cf. G. Cohen, who remarked (p. 337) that both the poet and the reader are amused at this passage!

24 The meaning of the expression no doubt begins to weaken before the end of the Middle Ages as can be seen when the hero of the Chatelaine de Coucy uses it (1. 2195) with the extravagance of a courtly lover launching a fine phrase at his lady. Similarly Fergus uses the expression in an equally extravagant passage in which he speaks of the power of his love (Fergus, p. 74, 1. 14). Although neither Godefroy nor Tobler-Lommatszch gives an example which supports precisely my interpretation of the meaning of the expression, numerous examples from the Bible seem to me to do so: e.g., “In te Domine, speravi, non confun-dar in aelernum” (Ps. 70,1). (I am indebted to Professor Alfred Galpin for this reference.)

25 Cf. NED s.v. confound, 2 : “In curses or imprecations—as an equivalent or substitute for ‘bring to perdition’.”

20 Yvain, ii. 3706 ff.;ll. 3916 ff.

27 Cf. Adler, pp. 293–294.

28 Cf. Adler, p. 302.

29 T. P. Cross and W. A. Nitze, Lancelot and Guenevere, p. 69.

30 G. Cohen, p. 225.