Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Medieval English and Dutch Literature in its European Context and the Work of David F. Johnson
- 1 Reconstructing a Lost Manuscript of the Old English Gospels
- 2 The Reception of the Old English Version of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues between the Conquest and the Close of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 An Unrecorded Copy of Heinrich Krebs’s An Anglo-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Dialogues, Printer’s Proofs
- 4 The Body as Media in Early Medieval England
- 5 Who Snatched Grendel in Beowulf 852b?
- 6 ‘Mobile as Wishes’: Anchoritism, Intersubjectivity, and Disability in the Liber confortatorius
- 7 The Presence of the Hands: Sculpture and Script in the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries
- 8 Perceval’s Name and the Gifts of the Mother
- 9 A Relaxed Knight and an Impatient Heroine: Ironizing the Love Quest in the Second Part of the Middle Dutch Ferguut
- 10 Multilingualism in Van den vos Reynaerde and its Reception in Reynardus Vulpes
- 11 Three Characters as Narrator in the Roman van Walewein
- 12 As the Chess-Set Flies: Arthurian Marvels in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale and the Roman van Walewein
- 13 For a Performer’s Personal Use: The Corrector’s Lines in the Lower Margin of the Middle Dutch Lanceloet Manuscript
- 14 ‘Oft leudlez alone’: The Isolation of the Hero and its Consequences in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 15 Shifting Skin: Passing as Human, Passing as Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 16 The Lover Caught Between his Mother and his Maiden in Lanseloet van Denemerken
- 17 Afterlives: The Abbey at Amesbury and the ‘Rehabilitation’ of Guinevere in Malory and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur
- 18 The Importance of Being an Arthurian Mother
- Select Bibliography
- Bibliography of David F. Johnson’s Works
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
8 - Perceval’s Name and the Gifts of the Mother
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Medieval English and Dutch Literature in its European Context and the Work of David F. Johnson
- 1 Reconstructing a Lost Manuscript of the Old English Gospels
- 2 The Reception of the Old English Version of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues between the Conquest and the Close of the Nineteenth Century
- 3 An Unrecorded Copy of Heinrich Krebs’s An Anglo-Saxon Version of Gregory’s Dialogues, Printer’s Proofs
- 4 The Body as Media in Early Medieval England
- 5 Who Snatched Grendel in Beowulf 852b?
- 6 ‘Mobile as Wishes’: Anchoritism, Intersubjectivity, and Disability in the Liber confortatorius
- 7 The Presence of the Hands: Sculpture and Script in the Eighth to Twelfth Centuries
- 8 Perceval’s Name and the Gifts of the Mother
- 9 A Relaxed Knight and an Impatient Heroine: Ironizing the Love Quest in the Second Part of the Middle Dutch Ferguut
- 10 Multilingualism in Van den vos Reynaerde and its Reception in Reynardus Vulpes
- 11 Three Characters as Narrator in the Roman van Walewein
- 12 As the Chess-Set Flies: Arthurian Marvels in Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale and the Roman van Walewein
- 13 For a Performer’s Personal Use: The Corrector’s Lines in the Lower Margin of the Middle Dutch Lanceloet Manuscript
- 14 ‘Oft leudlez alone’: The Isolation of the Hero and its Consequences in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 15 Shifting Skin: Passing as Human, Passing as Fay in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- 16 The Lover Caught Between his Mother and his Maiden in Lanseloet van Denemerken
- 17 Afterlives: The Abbey at Amesbury and the ‘Rehabilitation’ of Guinevere in Malory and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur
- 18 The Importance of Being an Arthurian Mother
- Select Bibliography
- Bibliography of David F. Johnson’s Works
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoria
Summary
IN CHRÉTIEN DE Troyes’ romance Perceval or Le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail) (c. 1180–90), during Perceval's first encounter with the mystery of the Grail in the Grail Castle, he fails to ask the crucial questions and finds himself expelled from the castle on the next morning without further explanation. He then encounters a grieving maiden whose lover has just been killed and who asks what has happened to him in the last few days. Perceval tells her that he was shown the Grail mystery but that, out of politeness, he asked nothing about what he saw. She then asks Perceval his name and after Perceval answers, she reproves him for his failure to speak and thereby heal the Fisher king. Curiously, while Perceval names himself for the first time in the romance, at this point Chrétien insists that he does not really know his name, but rather guesses it correctly. The maiden asks:
‘Coment avez vos non amis?’
Et cil qui son non ne savoit
Devine et dist que il avoit
Perchevax li Galois a non,
Ne ne set s’il dit voir ou non;
Mais il dit voir et si nel sot.
Et quant la damoisele l’ot,
Si s’est encontre lui drechie,
Si li dist come correchie:
‘Tes nons est changiés, biax amis.
Comment? – Perchevax li cheitis!
Ha! Perchevax maleürous,
Comme iés or mal aventurous
Quant tu tot che n’as demandé!
Que tant eüsses amendé
Le buen roi qui est mehaigniez
Que toz eüst regaaigniez
Ses membres et terre tenist,
En si granz biens en avenist!
Ma[i]s or saches que grant anui
En avenront toi et autrui.
Por le pechié, ce saches tu,
De ta mere t’est avenu,
Qu’ele est morte de doel de toi.
Je te connois mix que tu moi,
Que tu ne sez qui je me sui;
Ensamble od toi norrie fui
Chiez ta mere molt lonc termine:
Je sui ta germaine cousine
tu iez mes cousins germains.
Ne ne me poise mie mains
De ce que si t’est mescheü
Que tu n’as del graal seü
Qu’en en fait et ou on le porte,
Que de ta mere qui est morte,
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- Information
- Medieval English and Dutch Literatures: The European ContextEssays in Honour of David F. Johnson, pp. 151 - 164Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022