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XXII. The Grateful Lion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur
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Extract

I have recently expressed the opinion that the story of Androcles and the Lion, a tour de force by Apion the Egyptian, was suggested to its author by an actual occurrence in the amphitheatre at Rome; and that Apion supplied both motivation and decorative incident out of his own fertile fancy, much as a journalist of our own time would elaborate a column sensation out of a small nucleus of fact.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 39 , Issue 3 , September 1924 , pp. 485 - 524
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1924

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References

1 The Charles Mills Gayley Anniversary Papers, Berkeley, 1922; pp. 197–213.

2 This is the title of two articles by Mr. Johnston: see Proceedings of the American Philol. Assoc., XXXII, li; Zeitschrift Jiir franzosisclte Sprache, XXXI, 157 ff.

3 So Wendelin Foerster (“Kristian-Wörterbuch,” Romanische Bibliothek V, Einleitung, p. 99); G. Baist (“Der dankbare Löwe,” Romanische Forschtmgen, XXLX, 317); O. M. Johnston {Proc. Am. Philol. Assoc., I.e.). The most significant variation from this view has been presented by Mr. A. C. L. Brown (“The Knight of the Lion,” P. M.L.A. XX, 673–706).

4 “Der dankbare Löwe,” p. 317: “dass in der ersten Hâlfte des 11. Jahrhunderts die Schlange an Stelle des Dorns in das Thema getreten…. war.”

5 The earliest record of the association of the grateful lion with Golfier is in the Chronicle of Jaufré de Vigeois, which was finished in 1184. But that the story was known somewhat earlier appears from allusions to it in poems by the troubadours Guillem Magret and Gaucelm Faidit. See A. Pillef. “Ein unged-rucktes Gedicht des Troubadours Guillem Magret und die Sage von Golfier de Las Tors,” Mittcilungen der schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde, XIII-XIV, 640–647; and F. Naudieth, “Der Trobador Guillem Magret,” Zft. für rom. Philol. LII, 94–8, 118–119.

6 Particularly by Johnston (Proc. Amer. Philol. Assoc., XXXII, li; and Gaidoz, “Le Chevalier au Lion,” Mélusine, V, col. 217 ff, 241 ff. Even Mr. Brown suggests that Chrétien may have used a legend like that of Golfier (“Knight of the Lion,” p. 686, note 2).

7 hoc. cit.; cf. Iwain, a Study in the Origins of Arthurian Romance, Harvard Studies and Notes, VIII, 129–130.

8 In the “Knight of the Lion.”

9 See note 2, supra.

10 This view has been advanced by Heinrich Goossens as well as by Mr. Brown (in “Knight of the Lion”); cf. Goossen's Ueber Sage, Quellen, tmd Kom-position des Chevalier au lyon, Paderborn, 1883.

11 Such as Franz Settegast's attempt to equate Yvain's lion with the lions of Cybele (Antike Elemente im altfranzosischen Merowingerzyklus, nebst einem Anhang über den Chevalier au Lion, Leipzig, 1907), and Gaidoz' unfortunate suggestion that the prototype of all grateful lions was a tame lion in the possession of Rameses the Great (Mélusine V, loc. cit.).

12 Zft für französ. Sprache, XXXI, 161–2. Mr. Johnston's Tale of the Tigers is from the collection of Maive stokes (Indian Fairy Tales, London 1880, pp. 153 ff.).

13 These objections to Mr. Johnston's oriental examples have been admirably stated by Baist, “Der dankbare Löwe,” pp. 318–319.

14 Andrew Lang, Brown Fairy Book, 1914, pp. 1 ff.

15 The French translation of this work by M. le Duc d'Angoulesme le Père (Paris 1667), is incorrectly cited by Gaidoz (Mélusine V, col. 224). The chapter in question, both in the French translation and in the original, is LXXI. The original was published by Diego's widow, at Seville, in 1586.

16 See E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus (Grimm Library, No. 2, Vol. I; London, 1894), III, Chapter 1; Chapter 21, pp. 180ff —Tales which contain this motive usually represent the hero as rescuing a maiden from the dragon; his reward is the maiden's hand. The Wolfdielrich, in which the rescue of a lion from a serpent was first combined with the motive of the impostor and the tokens, uses the dragons' tongues to confound the false claimant; the hero's reward is to be the Queen's hand. The rescue of the lion seems to take the place of the rescue of the heroine. The Wolfdielrich has suffered a second contamination with material from the Brunswick-Cycle (Henry the Lion); the motive of the Impostor and the Tokens apparently came from the Tristan. Diego—whose false claimant asks an indefinite reward—-evidently knew some (oral) version of our episode which, though derived from the Wolfdielrich, had fallen from its setting. His immediate source was probably one of a considerable number of short tales which form a deposit of Wolfdielrich detritus all over Europe.

17 Proc. Amer. Philol. Assoc., XXXII, li.

18 Mélusine, V, col. 217–224; 241–244. Gaidoz believed that the Golfier-legend was brought from the East by a Crusader, and that it is ultimately derived from imperfectly recollected instances of the actual use of tame lions in hunting and in battle. He cites a number of historical personages to whom antiquity assigned such tame lions, and quotes the report of Laass d'Águen (Ecrivains de l'histoire auguste, II, 239) that in America—especially in Mexico—tame “lions” are used instead of dogs for hunting. Finally, he regards the representation of the Pharaoh (on the walls of the Ramesseum) as assisted in battle by a lion as evidence that lions were actually trained to help their masters in war. As well refer to an actual occurrence the picture—also on the walls of the Ramesseum—of the God incarnate acting as Pharaoh's charioteer!

19 Baist (“Der dankbare Löwe,” p. 318) very pertinently cites Benfey's statement to this effect; (Benfey, Pantschatantra, I, 222) 'Schliesslich will ich übrigens nicht unbemerkt lassen, dass der Gedanke von der Dankbarkeit der Tiere alien Anspruch darauf hat, für einen allgemeinen menschlichen gelten zu können, sich also auch in unabhängig von einander entstandenen Gebilden auszusprechen vermag.“—Naturally, any people—once given the idea of the gratitude of beasts—could develop the concept of a grateful lion. In the essence of things there is no reason why grateful lion tales should not appear in the Orient, except—as Baist (op. cit., p. 319) says—that the Orient knew the lion's real character too intimately. But the fact remains that the Orient either did not develop, or did not preserve, tales of grateful lions.

20 It seems about time that this theory received a little consideration. Modern scholarship seems possessed of an Oriental mania: the Orient has replaced Africa as the source of “always something new.”

21 Pet. Dam., Epistol. VI, 5. See Baist, “Der dankbare Löwe,” p. 317.

22 See Baist, op. cit., p. 319.

23 See A. Thomas, “Le Roman de Goufier de Lastours,” Romania XXXIV, 55–65; P. Meyer, Chanson de la Croisade contre les Albigeois, (Paris, 1879) pp. 378–380; and A. Pillet, “Ein ungedrucktes Gedicht des Troubadours Guillem Magret und die Sage von Golfier de las Tors,” Mitteilungen der schlesischen Gesellschaft für Volkskunde, XIII-XIV, pp. 640–647. For the text of Jaufré's version, see Pillet, p. 647, book 1; or Bouquet: Recueil des historiens des Gaules (also known as “Rerum Gallicarum et Francicarum Scriptores”), XII, 428.

24 The Magnum Chronicon appears in the sixth volume of Rerum Germanicarum Scriptores (Ratisbon, 1726); see Tome iii, 140 ff.; and for the date of composition, p. 1. Meyer (op. cit., p. 379, note) thinks that the Prior Jaufré and the author of the Magnum Chronicon used a common source for the lion-episode. This is inconceivable: the agreement between them is so literal that the author of the Magnum Chronicon must have had Jaufré‘s text before him. All divergences are plainly due to the later writer's desire to expand his narrative without fear of detection. His description of the lion following the hero “sicut lepus” is merely a misunderstanding of Jaufré‘s phrase “sicut unus leporarius,”; and he inserts an unwarranted “ut dicunt” to mislead the reader as to his source.

25 See pp. 269 fi., tome I, livre ii, (4. ed. Paris, 1687).

26 Kristian-Wörierbuch, Einleitung p. 33.

27 See note 31, infra. Both Pillet and Naudieth notice the significantly casual tone of Magret's allusion.

28 Golfier died some time after 1126. See Kenneth McKenzie, “Unpublished Manuscripts of Italian Bestiaries,” P. M. L. A., XX, 397. I believe Professor McKenzie is wrong in attaching Golfier's lion-adventure to the siege of Antioch, in 1097; Maimbourg definitely associates it with the siege of Marra, in 1098.

29 De Naturis Rerum, Lib. II, Cap. cxlviii, ed. Rolls Series, pp. 229 ff.

30 Yvain, vv: 3481 ff.

31 See Yvain, vv. 4167 ff., 4521 ff., 5185 ff. The extant accounts of Golfier's adventure merely represent the lion as helping him in battle. The only hint that Golfier's lion actually saved his life is contained in the following lines by Faidit (See Pillet, loc. cit.) :

Cum fo'l leos a'n Golfier de las Tors,

Quan l'ac estort de sos guerriers peyors.

32 Cf. Baist, Die Quellen des Yvain, pp. 403–4. Cf. Brown, Iwain, a Study, p. 130: “The whole treatment of the lion (i.e. by Chrétien) is carried out con amore. The animal puts in an appearance at every adventure, and his exploits are made so prominent that he almost becomes for a time the real hero of the tale.”

33 Lady Guest's translation (London, 1902), I, 42 ff.

34 Étienne de Bourbon, who died c. 1261, gives, as three distinct stories, a version which seems to be from Chrétien, a variant of Androcles, and a version which looks like Golfier (Tractatus de diversis materiis praedicabilibus; see A. Lecoy de la Marche, Anecdotes Historiques Légendes et Apologues Tirés du Recueil inédit d'Étienne de Bourbon, III, 216, p. 188).

35 Epistol. VI, 5; see Baist, “Der dankbare Löe,” p. 317.

36 Naturalis Historia (ed. C. Mayhoff, Leipzig, 1909), Lib. VIII, Cap. xvi, 21.

37 Nodes Ailicae, V, xiv.

38 De Natura Animalium, VII, xlviii.

39 Die Quellen des Yvain, p. 404. The story of St. Hieronymus and the Lion is found in the Legenda Aurea, Cap. cxlvi. It is plainly distorted Androcles.

40 The story in the Romulus is a late Latin adaptation of the Androcles, something like Pliny's tale of Mentor, but not so fragmentary.

41 See Thiele, Der lateinische Æsop des Romulus uni die Prosa-Fassungen des Phadrus, (Heidelberg, 1910) Einl., pp. xxiv-xxv. I do not agree with Thiele's conception of the relations between the lion-story in the Romulus and the Androcles: see Gayley Anniversary Papers, pp. 199–201.

42 See Hervieux, Les Fabulistes Latins, (Paris, 1884) pp. 516–517; second edition (Paris 1893), pp. 23, 243.

43 A. C. M. Robert, Fables inédites des XIIe, XIIIe, et XIVe siècles, (Paris, 1825) pp. 471–3, 529–532.

44 Oesterley, Gesta Romanorum, Cap. 104, pp. 434–5.

45 T. F. Crane, The Exempta of Jacques de Vilry, p. 78.

46 For example, 'Otho Melander (Iocorum atque Seriorum, Frankfort 1617) copies Ælian verbatim, and acknowledges indebtedness. Bromiard (Summa Praeiicantium, II, ii, 32) summarizes the Androcles accurately, and appears to draw his material from Gellius.

47 It is absolutely certain that Gellius drew his material directly from Apion's text. He cites Apion's lost Treatise on Egyptian Affairs as his authority; he is very careful to distinguish the passages which he quotes from those which he summarizes. The latter he indicates by the use of accusative and infinitive; the former he indicates by the liberal use of the word “inquit.”

48 Histoire des Croisades pour la Deliverance de la Terre Sainte, (Fourth ed. Paris, 1687), Tome I, Livre ii, 269 ff. Maimbourg lived from 1610 to 1686.

49 Yvain, vv. 3354 ff.; 3375.

50 Revelations 12: 3, 7–9; 20: 1–2. Isaiah 21: 1.

51 See A. Maury, Croyances et Légendes du Moyen-Age, (Paris, 1896), pp. 218–220.

52 Maury, Croyances et Légendes, pp. 234, 226: “Une union (p. 234), si intime dans le langage et même dans les croyances des Chrétiens, entre les idées des démons et des serpents, dut, de bonne heure, faire naitre chez le peuple des grossières erreurs. Celui-ci confondit naturellement le symbole et l'objet…. et … les serpents vaincus qui designaient allegoriquement la défaite de l'esprit du mal, devinrent à ses yeux des serpents veritables.” P. 226: “En Bretagne, les apôtres qui ont preché la foi sont regardés comme ayant détruit les serpents qui ravageaient la contrée: tels sont saint Cadon, saint Maudet et saint Pol de Léon.”

Hartland (Legend of Perseus, pp. 44–46) cites Baring-Gould's opinion (Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 301) in these words: “Mr. Baring-Gould, indeed, conjectures that the incident of the rescue of Andromeda attached itself to his [St. George's] name in consequence of a misunderstanding—on whose part he does not specify—-of the concluding words of an encomium on the saint made by Metaphrastes, a Byzantine writer of the early part of the tenth century, in which he ascribes to his hero the feat of confounding and making a mock of the cunning dragon, meaning of course the Devil. M. Maury enumerates forty-two saints, not including St. George, to whom a victory over a dragon has been ascribed by a similar blunder; and it would not be surprising to find that this list is far from complete.” Hartland refers to Maury, Croyances et Légendes de l'Antiquité, (Paris, 1863), pp. 144–5.

53 See Philippe de Thaun's Bestiaire, vv. 491–580. In vv. 25–48, Philippe represents Christ as “King of beasts …the lion signifies the son of St. Mary.” The same figure appears in the De Naturis Besliarum, a prose Bestiary preserved in an 11th century manuscript, published by Gustav Heider (Vienna, 1851) as the Dicta Joh. Crisostomi. This Bestiary also equates the panther with Christ, and represents the panther as overcoming the dragon, Satan. Further citations are unnecessary, since these symbolisms are common to all the Bestiaries.

54 See Fr. Lauchert, “Zum Physiologus,” Romanische Forschungen, 1890, p. 13.

55 Liber Exemplorum, ed. A. G. Little, (Aberdeen, 1908), p. 47, Section 80. The author refers to Gulielmus Peraldus; Little gives the precise reference in Peraldus (p. 139). It is not possible to tell whether this is Golfier or Neckam's anecdote—more likely the latter.

56 The variant in the Gesla Romanorum (see note 44 supra) is late; moreover, it is a mere rehash of the Fable of the Lion and the Shepherd, with the word miles substituted for pastor.

57 See Johnston, Zeitschr. f. fr. Spr., XXXI, 160. I have not been able to obtain Arbellot's Clievaliers limousins, to which Mr. Johnston refers.

58 See Reiffenberg, Gilles de Chin (Brussels, 1847), Introd., p. lxxvi; G. Liégeois, Gilles de Chin, l'histoire, et la légende, Louvain-Paris, 1905), pp. 20, 47 fï.; A. Pillet's review of Liégeois, in Herrig's Archiv, 113, pp. 447 ff. I agree with Liégeois that the lion-adventure attributed to Gilles was drawn directly from the Yvain; but I believe, with Pillet, that Liégeois' dates for the first part of the Gilles are open to question. I can hardly go so far as to adopt Pillet's view that the part of the Gilles in which the lion-adventure occurs was composed between 1163 and 1175; if he is right, then there is a serious question of priority as between this poem and the Yvain. Such a romance as the Yvain would almost certainly have been known to the composer of the Gilles if the Yvain were written first; but how if the Gilles were earlier? In that case, we should have to recognize four 12th century versions instead of three; the Gilles-version would group itself with the Yvain rather than with the Golfier-Neckam group. Gaston Paris (Romania XXII, p. 358, foot n. 1) regarded the Golfier, the Yvain, and the Gilles as mutually independent in respect of our episode; and the death of Gilles' lion at the hands of robbers would seem to constitute evidence for his view. Although I hold with Liégeois rather than with Paris, I regard the question as far from settled. Paris is wrong (I.e.) in calling Gilles a crusader, as he has himself recognized (La lilt. jr. au Moyen age, 2. éd., Paris, 1890, p. 308).

59 The best discussion of the legend of Henry the Lion is the introduction to W. Seehaussen's “Michel Wysseriherres Gedicht ‘Von dem edeln hern von Bruneczwigk, als er über mer fure’ und die Sage von Heinrich dem Löwen,” Germanistische Abhandlungen, XLIII, 2, (Breslau, 1913).

60 See Amelung-Jänicke, Wolfdielrich A2, XVI, Str. 601. 61 J. F. D. Blöte, Le Chevalier au Cygne, in Zts.f. roman. Philol., 1897, pp. 176 ff.

62 Lions portrayed on shields—not as definite coats-of-arms, but as appropriate decorative figures—were of course earlier and more widespread. See A. C. L. Brown, “Knight of the Lion,” p. 688, note 1. Mr. Brown has also called attention (Iwain, a Study, p. 131) to the association of the lion with Yvain's shield in the Prose Lancelot.

63 The beast which guides and carries Cuchulinn (Knight of the Lion, pp“ 688–90) is not said to be a lion, but (I quote from Mr. Brown's summary) ”a terrible great beast like a lion.“ After it is first mentioned, it is referred to not as ”the lion,“ but as ”the beast.“

64 Gustav Weil, Tauseni und Eine Nacht (Stuttgart, 1838), II, 845 ff.

65 Weil, op. cit., II, 327 ff.

66 “Knight of the Lion,” pp. 684–7.

67 The most strenuous advocate of this relation is, of course, Wendelin Foerster, who reaffirms his views in his Krislian-Wörterbuch, p. 106.

68 “Knight of the Lion,” p. 685, and note.

69 “Knight of the Lion,” p. 686, and note 2.

70 See Wolfd. B II, Str. 722–9; cf. D VIII, 225–35. Apparently Mr. Brown did not know Wolfd D, nor does he seem to have compared B II with B V.

71 As Hermann Schneider has shown (Die Gedichte unci die Sage von Wolfdielrich, Munich 1913, pp. 295 ff.). It is indeed to be regretted that Mr. Brown tried to support his Celtic theory with Wolfd-material, which he neither knew in its entirety nor understood. That cycle is perplexing enough at best, and hopelessly confusing to one who has not studied all the versions. Mr. Brown assumed the lion-episodes, and much more, of the Wolfd. derived from the same Celtic tale to which he refers the Yvain (“Knight of the Lion,” p. 679, and note 2): “evidently from some version more primitive than Chretien's, for Wolfd. has the entrance through the marvellous fountain to reach the Other World …. an archaic motive not in Yvain.” This situation occurs in Wolfd. B V; it has nothing to do with Otherworld Journeys or Celtic marvellous fountains. The “marvellous fountain” in B V is merely an elaborate imitation of an ordinary fountain in the earlier B II; the entrance to a castle through the fountain in B V is a misunderstanding of the situation of the castle near the ordinary fountain in B II; the entire episode of Liebgart's captivity in B V is a wretched rifacimento of Sigeminne's captivity in B II (Str. 422 ff.).

Mr. Brown is equally mistaken in his conception of the relations between the assistance rendered by Wolfdietrich's lion “in his fight with the wicked vassal” (“Knight of the Lion,” I.e.) and the similar episode in the Yvain. Wolf-dietrich helps several lions in the course of the Wolfdcycle: the one which helps him against the wicked vassal—the same one he rescues from the serpent in B II—-appears only in the B and D poems; in A and C there is no trace of it. The sequence of hero helping lion plus lion helping hero against vassal (B and D) is imitated from the situation in Chrétien, or in Hartmann's Iwein.

72 See G. L. Kittredge, Gawain and the Green Knight, (Cambridge, 1916), pp. 231–2: “An immortal woman, a. fée, resident in the land of joy and perpetual youth (which is conceived as an island or an underground realm or as somehow separated from the world by a river or the sea) is enamored of a mortal here and summons him to her presence. The messenger may be an attendant nymph or an animal. In the latter case, the animal is not an ordinary beast but a magical creature in the service of the fée, and may even be a transformed fairy maiden.” —This quotation is from Professor Kittredge's definition of the folktale type Fairy Mistress, to which type the Yvain—as Mr. Brown has ably demonstrated—belongs.

73 I have chosen these particular examples because Mr. Brown has cited them (“Knight of the Lion,” pp. 692–700).

74 Kittredge, Gawain and the Green Knight, I.e., and p. 47. This is also the fundamental situation in the Tale of Abu Mohammed the Lazy (see third paragraph on this page, infra).

75 See E. S. Hartland, The Legend of Perseus (Grimm Library, No. 2, Vol. I., London, 1894). I, Chapters II-IV.

76 Weil, Tausend und Eine Nacht, II, pp. 845 ff.

77 J. F. Kristensen, Jyske Folkeminder (Aarhus, 1897), XIII, 70–76.

78 Campbell, pp. 44 ff. This story, indeed, has three sets of three beasts each which help the hero; in one of the sets the principal beast is a lion.

79 Hartland, op. cit., Ch. III.

80 Iwain, a Sktdy, p. 131; see also note 2.

81 “Knight of the Lion,” p. 676.

82 “Knight of the Lion,” p. 686, note 2.

83 “Knight of the Lion,” p. 685.

84 Ed. Eugen Kölbing: fvens Saga, (Halle a.S., 1898). Altnordische Saga Bibliothek, Heft 7. For the date of the Norwegian original, see Ch. XVI, par. 29, p. 115.

85 Kolbing, op. cit., p. xvi.

86 Kölbing, p. xii.

87 See G. Schleich, Ywain uni Gawain (Oppeln and Leipzig, 1887), and the study by the same author: Ueber das Verhältnis der mittelenglischen Romanze Ywain und Gawain zu ihrer altfranzösischen Quelle (Berlin, 1889).

88 F. W. Schmidt, Ueber die italienischen H eldengedichte aus dem Sagenkreis Karls des Grossen. Ill Theil, Berlin u. Leipzig, 1820, p. 61.

89 Op. cit., pp. 145–6, 152.

90 For example, in the oral tale cited byGrundtvig, Danmarks Garnie Folke—viser, I, 131.