תמונות בעמוד
PDF
ePub

Chaucer continued. General view of the Prologues to the Can-
terbury Tales. The Prioresse. The Wife of Bath. The Fran-
kelein. The Doctor of Physicke. State of medical erudition
and practice. Medicine and astronomy blended. Chaucer's
physician's library. Learning of the Spanish Jews. The
Sompnour. The Pardonere. The Monke. Qualifications of

THE HISTORY

OF

ENGLISH POETRY.

SECTION V.

THE romance of SIR GUY, which is enumerated by Chaucer among the "Romances of pris," affords the following fiction, not uncommon indeed in pieces of this sort, concerning the redemption of a knight from a long captivity, whose prison was inaccessible, unknown, and enchanted". His name is Amis of the Mountain.

a

The Romance of Sir Guy is a considerable volume in quarto. My edition is without date, "Imprinted at London in Lothburye by Wyllyam Copland." with rude wooden cuts. It runs to Sign. S. ii. It seems to be older than the Squyr of lowe degree, in which it is quoted. Sign. a. iii.

Or els so bolde in chivalrie As was syr Gawayne or syr GIE. The two best manuscripts of this romance are at Cambridge, MSS. Bibl. Publ. Mor. 690. 33. and MSS. Coll. Caii, A. 8.

[An analysis of this romance will be found in the "Specimens" of Mr. Ellis, who is of opinion that "the tale in its present state has been composed from the materials of at least two or three if not more romances. The first is a most tiresome love story, which, it may be presumed, originally ended with the mar

[blocks in formation]

riage of the fond couple. To this it should seem was afterwards tacked on a series of fresh adventures, invented or compiled by some pilgrim from the Holy Land; and the hero of this legend was then brought home for the defence of Athelstan, and the destruction of Colbrand." Mr. Ritson in opposition to Dugdale, who regarded Guy as an undeniably historical personage, has laboured to prove that "no hero of this name is to be found in real history," and that he was "no more an English hero than Amadis de Gaul or Perceforest. Mr. Ellis, on the other hand, conceives the tale "may possibly be founded on some Saxon tradition," and that though the name in its present form be undoubtedly French, yet as it bears some resemblance to Egil, the name of an Icelandic warrior, who "contributed very materially to the important victory gained by Athelstan over the Danes and

[ocr errors]

"Here besyde an Elfish knyhte b
Has taken my lorde in fyghte,

And hath him ledde with him away
In the Fayry, Syr, permafay."

"Was Amis," quoth Heraude, "your husbond?

A doughtyer knygte was none in londe."
Then tolde Heraude to Raynborne,
How he loved his father Guyon:
Then sayd Raynburne, "For thy sake,
To morrow I shall the way take,
And nevermore come agayne,
Tyll I bring Amys of the Mountayne."
Raynborne rose on the morrow erly,
And armed hym full richely.—
Raynborne rode tyll it was noone,
Tyll he came to a rocke of stone;
Ther he founde a strong gate,

He blissed hym, and rode in thereat.
He rode half a myle the waie,

He saw no light that came of daie,
Then cam he to a watir brode,
Never man ovir suche a one rode.
Within he sawe a place greene
Suche one had he never erst seene.

their allies at Brunanburgh;" he thinks "it is not impossible that this warlike foreigner may have been transformed by some Norman monk into the pious and amorous Guy of Warwick." This at best is but conjecture, nor can it be considered a very happy one. Egil himself (or his nameless biographer) makes no mention of a single combat on the occasion in which he had been engaged; and the fact, had it occurred, would have been far too interesting, and too much in unison with the spirit of the times, to have been passed over in silence. In addition to this, the substitution of Guy for Egil is against all analogy, on the transformation of a Northern into a French appellation. The initial letters in Guy,

[blocks in formation]
« הקודםהמשך »