This over, Gahmuret did a courteous thing. He freed the prisoners he had taken. As for Hardiz and Kaylet, why, he reconciled them! Then followed such festivities that if any has equalled them since I should say he was a very mighty man. Gahmuret saw to it that his treasure was not spared. They doled out Arab gold to poor knights one and all. To the Kings, Gahmuret himself gave precious stones, nor did he forget the Princes gathered there. The vagrant minstrel folk were very glad, for they too shared in the rich bounty. Now let the guests ride off, whoever they are: the Angevin has given them leave to go.
They hammered the sable Panther on to his shield as his father had borne it before him. Over his hauberk he wore a small white silken shift of the Queen’s (the one who was now his wife) as it came from her naked body. – They saw no less than eighteen pierced by lances and hacked through by swords, before he left the lady. She used to slip them on again over her bare skin when her darling returned from jousting after riddling countless shields. The love of these two expressed a deep attachment.
Gahmuret had honour enough as it was when his manly courage took him overseas into the thick of battle. How his expedition grieves me! He received a reliable message that his lord the Baruc had been overrun by Babylonians, the first of whom the story calls Ipomidon, the second Pompeius. The latter was a proud and noble man – not the Pompey who fled away from Rome in ancient times in fear of Julius Caesar. His uncle on his mother’s side was King Nebuchadnezzar, who read in lying books that he was himself a god! – People now would laugh it to scorn. They did not spare their persons or property. They were brothers, and of high descent, indeed from Ninus, who reigned before Baghdad was founded and who also founded Niniveh. The Baruc had declared these two cities tributary to him, and they smarted under the shame and loss. As a result, a great deal was won and forfeited on either side. Warriors were seen at grips there. Thus Gahmuret embarked for overseas and found the Baruc under arms. However much his journey grieves me personally, Gahmuret was received with great joy.
Of what happened there, of how their fortunes stood with win or loss, Lady Herzeloyde knew not a thing. Lovely in person, she was dazzling as sunshine and possessed of wealth as well as youth and superabundant happiness. She had all and more man one can wish for. She practised the arts of well-doing and so won the liking of her people. The Lady Queen Herzeloyde’s whole way of life brought her a rich return of praise, and her modest ways were much commended. She was Queen over three lands: she was mistress of Waleis and Anjou and wore the crown of Norgals in its capital city of Kingrivals. Her husband was so dear to her that if any other woman in the world had won so fine a friend, what would she have cared? She could have suffered it without bitterness.
When he had been away for half a year she was counting on his returning: this was the hope that sustained her. The blade of her contentment then snapped at the very hilt. Alas and lack-a-day that virtue should fruit in such sorrow and devotion give rise to such grief! But such is the way of the world: joy today and grief tomorrow.
One noonday the lady lay in troubled sleep, when a dreadful vision came to her. It seemed to her as though a shooting-star swept her to the upper air where a host of fiery thunderbolts assailed her, flying at her all together so that her long tresses hissed and crackled with sparks. The thunder pealed with loud claps and showered down tears of fire. As she came to herself again a griffin snatched at her right hand – whereat all was changed for her! For now she marvelled at how she was mothering a serpent which then rent her womb and how a dragon sucked at her breasts and flew swiftly away and vanished from her sight! It had torn her heart from her body! Such terrors had she to behold! Never since has such anguish befallen a woman in her sleep. Till then she had been all that a knight could desire. Ah, the pity of it! This is all to change. Henceforth she will wear grief’s pallor. Her losses grow apace. Sorrows to come are on their way to her.
The lady fell to kicking and writhing, moaning and wailing in her sleep, things unknown in her before. Some young ladies were sitting there: they leapt to the bedside and woke her.
At this point Tampanis, her husband’s prudent squire-in-chief, rode in accompanied by numerous little pages. Then happiness was no more. With weeping and wailing they told of their lord’s death. This so afflicted her that she fell in a swoon.
‘How was my lord overcome, so well armed that he was?’ asked the knights.
Hard pressed by his grief, the squire nevertheless answered those warriors.
‘Long life did not attend my lord. Plagued by the great heat, he removed his coif. Cursed heathenish cunning robbed us of our good warrior! A knight had got blood of billy-goat into a flask and then smashed it on the Adamant, which grew softer than a puff-ball. May He whom painters still depict as the Lamb, with the Cross between His hooves, compassionate what was done that day! When they rode in their companies to engage, you should have seen how they fought there! The Baruc’s horse defended themselves with mighty valour. Many a shield was pierced there as they raced to the encounter on Baghdad’s plains. The charging squadrons wound their way into each other and pennants were intermingled. Many a proud knight fell there.
‘Compared with the deeds my lord performed the glory of the others shrank to nothing. But then Ipomidon rode up. He paid him back in lethal coin for once having thrust him down at Alexandria with many thousand knights looking on. My true-hearted lord turned to face this king: but the other’s thrust taught him what it was to die! The point of the lance cut clean through his helmet, such a hole was bored through his head that the splinter of the shaft remained there. Yet the stalwart kept his seat and rode out of battle a dying man on to a broad mead. Soon his chaplain was kneeling at his side, while in brief words he made his confession and sent this shift and the lance that severed him from us. He died without reproach. He commended his squires and pages to the Queen.
‘They conveyed him to Baghdad. The Baruc gave no thought to the cost – the tomb in which the spotless hero lies was embellished with gold and precious stones – a fortune went to its making. His young body was embalmed. Many suffered torments of grief. The stone above his grave is a costly ruby through which his body shines! Our wishes were respected in that a Cross was set above his grave in the manner of the Crucifixion from when Christ redeemed us by His death, to comfort him and guard his soul. The Baruc defrayed the expense. It cost him a rare emerald. We did all this without assistance from the infidel, since the Cross whose blessing the death of Christ conferred upon us, is not in the keeping of their rite. The heathen worship Gahmuret in all seriousness as they do their own estimable god, yet not to the glory of the Cross or because of Christian teaching that will loose our bonds at the Judgment, but because his manly loyalty, his confession and repentance give him a bright radiance in Heaven. In him, deceit and treachery were at a low ebb.
‘Upon the Adamant, his helmet, they engraved an epitaph and fixed it to the Cross above his grave. The Inscription reads:
‘Through this Helm a lance-thrust struck a noble Hero, Gahmuret by name, a mighty King who ruled three lands, each one at which conferred a Crown with its train of mighty Princes. He was born of Anjou and lost his life before Baghdad in the Baruc’s cause. His fame shot up so high that none will ever reach its mark wherever men shall judge of knights hereafter. There is no mother’s child to whom this Hero swore surrender, that is, within the Chivalric Order! He gave help and manly counsel to his friends and never failed them. For women he suffered bitter love-pangs. Baptized, he followed the Christian rite. It is no lie but truth to say that his death distressed the Saracens. The Hero strove for fair renown in all his conscious days and so died a renownèd Knight. He won the victory over all that is perfidious. Now ask God’s Mercy on the man that lies here.’
Such was the squire’s account. Many men of Waleis wept for all to see. They had good cause for their sorrow.
The Lady was carrying a child that was already quickening in her womb, but they let her lie unaided. The child had been aliv
e for eighteen weeks,* and its mother the Queen Herzeloyde was wrestling with Death. It was witless of those others not to help the woman, for she carried in her womb one destined to be the flower of chivalry if Death will but pass him by. But then a wise old man who had come to condole with her bent over her as she fought Death. He forced her teeth apart, and they splashed water into her mouth. She returned to her senses at once.
‘Ah me, what has become of my darling?’ she cried, wailing in lamentation for him. ‘The noble fame of Gahmuret was what filled my heart with joy, but his reckless ardour took him from me. I was younger than he by far, yet I am his mother and his bride, bearing as I do himself and his life’s seed here, which we in our love did give and receive. If God is steadfast in his purpose, may he allow this seed to come to fruit, for I have suffered too great a loss in my consort. How cruelly Death has dealt by me! Gahmuret never shared a woman’s love but he rejoiced in her joys and was saddened by her sorrows. It was manly devotion moved him in this, for he was devoid of all villainy.’
Now hear another thing the Lady did. She clasped her belly and the child within in her hands and arms, and said: ‘I pray God to send me the noble fruit of Gahmuret! This is the prayer I cherish in my heart – God keep me from foolish desperation! If I were to kill myself while carrying his love-seed it would be the second death of Gahmuret, who was as true to me as a man can be.’
The Lady did not care who saw it – she tore her shift from her bosom and busied herself with her soft white breasts. With a woman’s instinct she pressed them to her red lips. ‘It is yours to hold a babe’s nourishment,’ said this woman grown wise, ‘and you have sent it on ahead ever since I felt the quickening.’ It was just what she wanted to see, this food above the heart, the milk within her breasts! Queen though she was, she pressed it out. ‘Milk, how loyal of you to have come! Were I not baptized already you would have marked my christening! Often, now, I shall sprinkle myself with you, as with my tears, both alone and in the presence of others, for I shall mourn for Gahmuret.’
The Lady asked them to bring the bloody shift in which Gahmuret had lost his life at the head of the Baruc’s company and met a warrior’s death with the élan of a man of courage. She also asked after the lance that had done him to death. Ipomidon of Niniveh, that proud and noble Babylonian, had paid him back in such warlike coin mat her shift was hacked to rags and tatters. She made as if to put it on as in former days when her husband was back from tournaments: but they took it from her hands.
The foremost men in the land lodged the lance with its blood in the minster as people lodge the dead. Then all showed their grief in Gahmuret’s land.
A fortnight later the Lady was delivered of a babe, a son so big in the bone that she scarce survived.
With this the story has made its cast, and its beginning is marked. For only now is he born to whom the tale is dedicated Of his sire’s joys and last extremity, of his life and death, you have heard some part. Now learn from where the hero of this story comes to you and how he was kept from harm. They concealed from him knowledge of chivalry until he could think for himself!
When the Queen had regained her senses and taken her babe to her arms she and the other ladies studied the little piddler between his legs. And what a fuss they had to make of him, seeing him shaped like a man! In course of time he grew to be a smith – with swords! – and he struck many sparks from helmets, since his heart was of manly mettle.
The Queen loved to kiss him, over and over again. ‘Bon fiz, cher fiz, bea fiz,’ she said with tender insistence. She quickly took the dun-red points – by which I mean the tiny beaks of her breasts – and thrust them into his little mouth. She had carried him in her womb and was now herself his nurse. This lady who shunned the failings of her sex reared her child at the breast. It was as though her prayers had restored Gahmuret to her arms again. Yet she did not give way to frivolity: humility stood by her.
‘The Queen of Heaven gave her breasts to Jesus,’ she said pensively, ‘who in the fullness of time received a bitter death on the Cross in human shape for love of us and there by proved His devotion. Whoever makes light of His anger, his soul will fare ill at the Judgment, however pure of heart he is or may have been. This I know for sure.’
The lady of the land besprinkled herself with the dew of her sorrowing heart, her eyes rained down upon her body. All a woman’s affection was hers. She lent her lips to both sighs and laughter. She rejoiced in the birth of her son, yet her gay spirit was drowned at sorrow’s ford.
Wolfram’s Apology
IF any speaks better concerning women than I, he may do so without my resenting it. It would please me to learn of their great pleasure. From one alone would I withhold my loyal service – having found her unfaithful, my anger towards her does not change.
I am Wolfram of Eschenbach and something of a minnesinger. Like a tongs I clench on my anger for a woman who has so mishandled me that I cannot choose but be her enemy. For this I suffer the hostility of others. Oh, why do they behave so? Yet although I deplore their enmity, it is womanly feeling that prompts them, since I said something I ought never to have said,* and wronged myself as well, which will scarce ever happen again. On the other hand, they should not gallop ahead of themselves and charge at my palisade – they will meet stiff opposition there! I have not lost my ability to judge shrewdly of their ways and behaviour. Yet I will champion any woman of modest character, touching her good name – any pain she suffered I should take very much to heart.
When a poet cries ‘Check-mate!’ to all ladies to advance his own particular one,† his praise limps of the spavin. Whichever lady cares to inspect my patent – and not only see but hear it -I shall not mislead her. My hereditary Office is the Shield! I should think any lady weak of understanding who loved me for mere songs unbacked by manly deeds. If I desire a good woman’s love and fail to win love’s reward from her with shield and lance, let her favour me accordingly. A man who aims at love through chivalric exploits gambles for high stakes.
Unless the ladies thought it flattery, I should go on offering you things as yet unheard of in this story, I would continue this tale of adventure for you. But let whoever wishes me to do so, not take it as a book. I haven’t a letter to my name !* No few poets make their start from them: but this story goes its way without the guidance of books. Rather than that it be taken for a book, I should prefer to sit naked in my tub without a towel – provided I had my scrubber!
Chapter 3
IT saddens me that so many bear the name of woman. They all have the same clear voices. Many are quick to deceit, some are free of it. Thus there are two sides to the question. In my heart I am embarrassed that all are named alike. Womanliness, as long as you remain true to yourself, you and fidelity shall remain inseparable!
Many hold that poverty is good for nothing. Yet if one suffers it for fidelity’s sake one’s soul shall escape Hellfire.
There was a woman suffered poverty for fidelity’s sake so that her gift was renewed in Heaven with infinite bounty. I do not suppose there are many alive today who in their youth would give up earthly riches for heavenly glory. Not one is known to me. Men and women are all the same as I see them: they would shirk it, one and all.
Rich in possessions, Lady Herzeloyde estranged herself from her three kingdoms. She bore a load of care. Falsity was so absent from her heart that eye and ear could find no trace of it. To her the sun seemed but a mist. She fled the world’s delights. In her eyes day and night were all one. Her heart was obsessed with grief.
Set on grief, the Lady withdrew from her possessions to a forest in the wilds of Soltane – not to the meadows to be among flowers. She had no mind for garlands, were they red or of colours less gay, so entire was the sorrow in her heart. To this retreat she took the son of noble Gahmuret for refuge. Her followers had to clear the ground and make it arable.
How she cosseted her son! Before he arrived at years of discretion she summoned her people, man and woman, and forbade t
hem all on pain of death ever to breathe the name of ‘knight’ – ‘For if my darling were to learn of knighthood I should be very heavy-hearted. Now have your wits about you and keep him in the dark concerning knighthood and all that has to do with it!’
Things took their hazardous course. Buried away in this fashion the boy was reared in the wilds of Soltane, cheated of a royal style of life in all things, except that he would cut bow and arrows with his own hands and shoot at the flocks of birds there. But when he had shot a bird that had been singing full throat but a moment before, he would burst into tears and, clutching at his hair, wreak vengeance on his own head.
He was proud and handsome. He washed himself in the meadow on the river-bank each morning. He had no care in the world save the singing of the birds overhead. Its sweetness pierced him to the heart and brought a tightness to his breast. All in tears he ran to the Queen.
‘Who has been vexing you?’ she asked. ‘You went out to the meadow didn’t you?’
But he was unable to tell her anything, as may easily happen with children today.
She pursued this in her thoughts for a long while. One day she saw him gaping up at the trees to see where the happy clamour of the birds was coming from. She realized then that it was their piping that brought the tightness to his breast. In this her son was the victim of amorous desire to which his race was heir. Lady Herzeloyde now turned her hatred on the birds. But why…? She did not know. She wished to put an end to their singing. She ordered her ploughmen and drovers to hurry out and wring the necks of all the birds they could lay hands on! But the birds were better mounted! Some few escaped their deaths, a number survived to make merry with song.
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