Jaufry the Knight and the Fair Brunissende: A Tale of the Times of King Arthur, Page 2

  PREFACE TO THE FRENCH VERSION.

  The literary world of France scarce knows the extent of its own riches.In the catacombs of its libraries and archives there is a heap ofunknown jewels which would give a new and brighter lustre to its poeticwreath. The "great age" did not even suspect their existence; theeighteenth century passed over without bestowing on them, a glance; andif, in our days, a few of our learned brethren have conceived the ideaof drawing them to light, the rumour of their labours, which moreoverwere both superficial and incomplete, never got beyond the doors of theInstitute.

  There still remains, then, more especially as regards the south, to openup the lode of this mine of gold,--a virgin mine as yet, inasmuch asSainte-Palaye, Rochegude, Raynouard, and Fauriel, have but scraped Uponits surface,--and reanimate, in a poetic point of view, the middle ages,too easily sacrificed at the period of the _renaissance_, too severelyproscribed by the University. Fed, in truth, from our entry into collegewith the literature of Greece and Rome, which, however admirable inform, is but sober in invention, we can have no conception of thoseworks wherein the imagination of France, youthful, vigorous, and gay,blossomed in full freshness like a rose in spring. Some judgment maybe formed of the value of the poems rhymed by the troubadours in thetwelfth and thirteenth centuries by the romance which is now presentedto the public. Dragged from the dust beneath which it has lain buriedfor six hundred years, the romance of _Jaufry_ is translated for thefirst time; and when we consider the merit of the story, we may add,without fear of contradiction, that it deserved such honour long ago.

  Let the reader call up in his mind a pavilion of Smyrna or Granada, withcolumns of white marble light and graceful as those of the Alhambra,with elegant trellis-work, glass of varied hues, and filled with apervading tone of warmth,--the warmth of a May sun,--and he will havesome notion of the romance of _Jaufry and the fair Brunissende_:--fewthings being more piquant, more fresh, more fanciful, or which betterreflect the charming caprices of a southern imagination in the middleages. Feudal society revives therein entire, with all its fairy doings,its knightly fictions, its manners, and its grand lance-thrusts; andsuch is the interest of the tale, that we allow ourselves to be carriedaway by it with as much pleasure as our ancestors must have felt,when it was told to the sounds of the minstrers viol in the greatcastle-hall, or beneath the shadow of the tent.

  Two peculiarities, which are not matter of indifference to history,enhance the value of this poetic gem: one is, the influence of Arabicideas, of which it has a distant savour like the balmy oases ofthe East; and the other, the inspiration which it evidently lent toCervantes. If, for instance, we discover therein the roc, the wishes,and the tent of the Fairy Paribanou, as traces of the _Arabian Nights_,we behold, on the other hand, that this romance of _Jaufry_ hasfurnished the one-handed genius of Alcala with the first idea of theadventure of the galley-slaves (_desdichados galeotes_), the cavalierin green (_cavallero del verde gavan_), the braying of the regidors(_rebuzno de los dos regidores_), the Princess Micomicona, and theenchanted head. And in this respect we may be permitted to remark, thatthe romance of _Jaufry_ offers matter of a piquant comparison with thework of Miguel Cervantes. Is it not strange, after the ingenious _DonQuixote_, to find ourselves reading with pleasure the adventures of aknight-errant?

  We should still have much to say concerning this poem and our system oftranslating it; but as we are averse to useless dissertations, we willconfine our further remarks within short space. This romance, which iswritten in the _Provencal_ tongue of the twelfth century, is composedof eleven thousand one hundred and sixty verses of eight syllables. *It was begun by a troubadour, who heard the tale related at the court ofthe king of Aragon, and finished by a poet whose modesty caused him toconceal his own name and that of his colleague. In order to render thereading of their work more pleasant, while using our efforts to retainthe southern character and genuine tone of colour, we have pared awaysome of the verbosity and tautologies which at times encumber while theyretard the progress of the action. May this flower of the genius of ourfathers retain in our modern tongue a part of that freshness and perfumewhich were its attributes in former days!

  * The Imperial Library possesses two manuscript copies: one in small folio, written in a minute round Italian hand, with double columns of forty-five verses,--124 pages, classed under No. 291, 2d French supplement; the other, a small quarto, which will be found under No. 7988.