FOOTNOTES:
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Keightley, Thomas
[34] Ferdousee's great heroic poem. It is remarkable that the Peries are very rarely spoken of in this poem. They merely appear in it with the birds and beasts among the subjects of the first Iranian monarchs.
[35] Chap. xx. translation of Jonathan Scott, 1799.
[36] See below, Shetland.
[37]i. e. possessed, insane. It is like the νυμφοληπτος of the Greeks.
[38] It must be recollected that the Peries are of both sexes: we have just spoken of Peri kings, and of the brothers of Merjân.
[39] In the Shâh Nâmeh it is said of Prince Siyawush, that when he was born he was bright as a Peri. We find the poets everywhere comparing female beauty to that of superior beings. The Greeks and Romans compared a lovely woman to Venus, Diana, or the nymphs; the Persians to a Peri; the ancient Scandinavians would say she was Frith sem Alfkone, "fair as an Alf-woman;" and an Anglo-Saxon poet says of Judith that she was Elf-sheen, or fair as an Elf. In the Lay of Gugemer it is said,
Dedenz la Dame unt trovée Ki de biauté resanbloit Fée.
The same expression occurs in Méon (3, 412); and in the Romant de la Rose we meet, jure que plus belle est que fée (10, 425). In the Pentamerone it is said of a king's son, lo quale essenno bello comme a no fato.
[40] Mines de l'Orient, vol. iii. p. 40. To make his version completely English, M. von Hammer uses the word Fairies; we have ventured to change it.
[41] In Purchas' Pilgrims, vol. i., quoted by Sir W. Ouseley.
[42] Compare Antar and the Suspended Poems (translated by Sir W. Jones) with the later Arabic works. Antar, though written by Asmai the court-poet of Haroon-er-Rasheed, gives the manners and ideas of the Arabs of the Desert.
[43] The Jinn are mentioned in the Kurân and also in Antar.
[44] See Tales and Popular Fictions, p. 37, seq. Lane, Thousand and One Nights, passim.
[45] Genius and Jinn, like Fairy and Peri, is a curious coincidence. The Arabian Jinnee bears no resemblance whatever to the Roman Genius.
[46] "When we said unto the Angels, Worship ye Adam, and they worshiped except Iblees (who) was of the Jinn."—Kurân. chap. xviii. v. 48. Worship is here prostration. The reply of Iblees was, "Thou hast created me of fire, and hast created him of earth."—Ib. vii. 11; xxxviii. 77.
[47] It was the belief of the Irish peasantry, that whirlwinds of dust on the roads were raised by the Fairies, who were then on a journey. On such occasions, unlike the Arabs, they used to raise their hats and say, "God speed you, gentlemen!" For the power of iron, see Scandinavia.
[48] The Arabs when they pour water on the ground, let down a bucket into a well, enter a bath, etc., say, "Permission!" (Destoor!) or, Permission, ye blessed! (Destoor, yâ mubârakeen!)
[49] For the preceding account of the Jinn, we are wholly indebted to Lane's valuable translation of the Thousand and One Nights, i. 30, seq.
[50] The first is given by Lane, the other two by D'Herbelot.
[51] On the subjects mentioned in this paragraph, see Tales and Popular Fictions, chap. ii. and iii.
[52] In the Amadigi of B. Tasso, she is La Fata Urganda.
[53] Lancelot is regarded as probably the earliest prose romance of chivalry. It was first printed in 1494. The metrical romance called La Charrette, of which Lancelot is the hero, was begun by Chrestien de Troyes, who died in 1191, and finished by Geoffrey de Ligny. We may here observe that almost all the French romances of chivalry were written originally in verse in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, principally by Chrestien de Troyes and Huon de Villeneuve. The prose romances in general were made from them in the fifteenth century.
[54]
For while it was in hand, by loving of an elf, For all his wondrous skill was cozened of himself: For walking with his Fay, her to the rock he brought, In which he oft before his nigromancies wrought. And going in thereat, his magics to have shown, She stopt the cavern's mouth with an enchanted stone, Whose cunning strongly crossed, amazed while he did stand, She captive him conveyed unto the Fairy-land. Drayton, Poly-Olb. Song IV.—See above, p. 2.
[55] La damoiselle qui Lancelot porta au lac estoit une fée, et en cellui temps estoient appellées fees toutes celles qui sentremcloient denchantements et de charmes, et moult en estoit pour lors principallement en la Grand Bretaigne, et savoient la force et la vertu des parolles, des pierres, et des herbes, parquoi elles estoient en jeunesse, et en beaulte, et en grandes richesses, comment elles divisoient.
[56] La dame qui le nourissoit ne conversoit que en forest, et estoit au plain de ung tertre plus bas assez que celui ou le roy Ban estoit mort: en ce lieu ou il sembloit que le bois fust grant et parfont (profond) avoit la dame moult de belles maisons et moult riches; et au plain dessoubs y avoit une gente petite riviere moult plantureuse de poissons; et estoit ce lieu si cele et secret que bien difficille estoit a homme de le trouver, car la semblance du dit lac le couvroit si que il ne pouvoit estre apperceu. And farther, La damoiselle nestoit mie seulle, mais y avoit grande compaignie de chevaliers et de dames et damoiselles.
[57] Vol. i. ch. 42.
[58] Vol. iii. ch. 31.
[59] Tristan was written in verse by Chrestien de Troyes. The prose romance was first printed in 1489.
[60] Parthenopex was written in French in the twelfth century, according to Le Grand; in the thirteenth, according to Roquefort.
[61]Composed—for to call it, with Ellis, Ritson, and others, a translation, would be absurd. How Ellis, who had at least read Le Grand's and Way's Fabliaux, could say of Chestre, that he "seems to have given a faithful as well as spirited version of this old Breton story," is surprising. It is in fact no translation, but a poem on the adventures of Sir Launfal, founded chiefly on the Lais de Lanval and de Graelent, in Marie de France, with considerable additions of Chestre's own invention, or derived from other sources. These Lais will be considered under Brittany.
[62] Thus we ourselves say the Príncess Royal, éxtreme need, etc. This, by the way, is the cause why the Greeks put a grave and not an acute accent on words accented on the last syllable, to show that it is easily moveable.
[63] As this seems to be one of the lost arts, we will here and elsewhere mark the feminine e and the change of accent.
[64] Rode—complexion; from red.
[65] Occient—occident or océan? The Gascon peasantry call the Bay of Biscay La Mer d'Occient. The Spaniards say Mar Oceano.
[66] It is strange to find the English poet changing the Avalon of the Lai de Lanval into the well-known island of Oléron. It is rather strange too, that Mr. Ritson, who has a note on "Oliroun," did not notice this.
[67] The Lai ends thus:
Od (avec) li sen vait en Avalun, Ceo nus recuntent le Bretun; En une isle que mut est beaus, La fut ravi li dameiseaus, Nul humme nen ot plus parler, Ne jeo nen sai avant cunter.
In Graelent it is said that the horse of the knight used to return annually to the river where he lost his master. The rest is Thomas Chestre's own, taken probably from the well-known story in Gervase of Tilbury.
[68] Huon, Hue, or Hullin (for he is called by these three names in the poetic romance) is, there can be little doubt, the same person with Yon king of Bordeaux in the Quatre Filz Aymon, another composition of Huon de Villeneuve, and with Lo Re Ivone, prince or duke of Guienne in Bojardo and Ariosto. See the Orl. Inn. l. i. c. iv. st. 46. I Cinque Canti, c. v. st. 42.