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THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH DEMANDAS TO THE EXTANT FRENCH MANUSCRIPTS OF THE POST-VULGATE QUESTE DEL SAINT GRAAL

1975; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 52; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382752000352013

1469-3550

Fanni Bogdanow,

Medieval Literature and History

Abstract The Portuguese Demanda do Santo Graal preserved in a unique fifteenth-century manuscript, no. 2594 of the National Library of Vienna, and the Spanish Demanda del Sancto Grial the greater part of which has only survived in two early printed editions, Toledo, 1515 and Sevilla, 1535, derive ultimately, though not independently of each other, from the French Post-Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal and Post-Vulgate Mort Artu. The latter have not come down to us in their entirety in any single manuscript; only fragments of varying lengths have been preserved in MSS B.N. fr. 112, 116, 340 and 343. However, the second half of the Queste del Saint Graal incorporated in the Second Version of the prose Tristan offers us, apart from certain variants, substantially the same version as the latter portion of the Quest section of the Demanda. As regards the first half of the Quest section, the Demanda here also shares a number of incidents with the Tristan Queste, but whereas the latter reproduces faithfully the corresponding incidents of the Vulgate Queste, the Demanda presents these in a partially remodelled form. In addition, the Demanda contains a series of incidents which are not in the Tristan Queste. BSS Subject Index: FRANCE — HISTORY, LITERATURE, CULTURE & INFLUENCEARTHURIAN LITERATURECOMPARISONS IN LITERATURE & CULTUREGRAIL LITERATUREMANUSCRIPTS/CODICESQUESTE DEL SAINT GRAALTRISTAN QUESTE Notes 1 A Demanda do Santo Graal, ed. A. Magne (Rio de Janeiro 1944), 3 vols.; 2nd ed., I, 1955, II, 1970; Glossary, I, 1967. My quotations from the Port. Demanda (D) are directly taken from the manuscript, but my paragraph references correspond to those of Magne's edition. 2MS 1877 of Salamanca University Library (formerly MS 2-G-5 of the Palace Library, Madrid), copied in 1466 by a certain Petrus Ortiz, includes a small fragment of the Mort Artu section of the Spanish Demanda. On the relationship of this fragment to the printed editions, see my article ‘An attempt to classify the extant texts of the Spanish Demanda del Sancto Grial’ in Studies in Honor of Tatiana Fotitch (Washington 1972), 213–26. The 1535 ed. has been reprinted by Bonilla y San Martín (La Demanda del Sancto Grial, NBAE, VI [Madrid 1907]). My quotations have been taken from the 1515 ed. which has the same chapter refs. as the 1535 ed. No copy of the 1500 Sevilla ed. has survived. 3MS B.N. fr. 112, copied in 1470 by Micheau Gonnot, consists of 3 vols, bound in one. The last part (Livre IV) contains a redaction of the Queste consisting of fragments taken from the Vulgate Queste, the Post-Vulgate and the prose Tristan. MS B.N. fr. 343 includes a portion of the Vulgate Queste followed by a fragment of the Post-Vulgate. MS B.N. fr. 116 has inserted a fragment of the Post-Vulgate after the end of the Vulgate Queste. MS B.N. fr. 340 includes a small fragment of the Post-Vulgate Mort Artu. 4The prose Tristan Queste has been preserved in MS B.N. fr. 772 (T) and other manuscripts. For details, see my Romance of the Grail (Manchester-New York 1966), 88, n. 3. 1See my Romance of the Grail, 88–120. 2The Spanish Demanda (De) omits a considerable amount of material, including the equivalent of D, §§153–279 and §§363–76. 3As I shall show in a separate article, De has altered one of the episodes of this latter part of the narrative. 5This is the reading of the majority of manuscripts. Variants: Harpar, Hapart. 6Variants include: Gahenoir, Guenor. 1The 1535 ed. has: eschose sobre vna yerua. 4My quotations from Tr. have been taken from MS B.N. fr. 772 (T). 1Not in De (cf. note 2, page 14). 2The following is an example : 12 D (§393; f- I32d): E de quanto fiz me pesa muyto, nom tanto porque soõ chaguado, como polla vilania que y fiz e pola cortessia que achei no cavaleiro. 12 De (ch. CCX): E de tanto quanto yo fiz, me pesa mucho, e no tanto por que so llagado, como por la villanía que fiz fallando tanta cortesia e tanta humildad en el. 12S (IV, f. 124c), N (f. 90c): Et certes de tant com j'en ay fait je m'en repens, non mie tant pour ce que je suis bleciés que je fais pour la villenie que j'en fis et pour la courtoisie que je trouvay ou chevalier. 12T (f. 354a): Et de tant con g'en ai fet me repent je mout, non mie tant pour ce que je sui bleciez coume pour la courtoisie que je trouvai u chevalier. 12 D De agree with SN in preserving the words in italics which are essential as it is his villenie that Eliezer regrets. 2Magne, the editor of D, saw that the sentence is incomplete and emended it by-adding ‘Ora pedide-lhe que leixe esta batalha.’ 1It is no doubt the proximity of celui soir in the next sentence which caused the substitution of celui soir for celui jour in the common source of NS. 1It does not follow, of course, that all the readings peculiar to D and De are necessarily late alterations. For those portions of the Post-Vulgate Queste where only one French text has survived, either Tr. or N or S, it is not always possible to say whether it is DDe or the French which has preserved the original reading, especially in those cases where both readings are equally acceptable. 1A unique example of the form gaanno has been observed in an Asturian text dated 1273—Fernández-Guerra, El Fuero de Avilés (Madrid 1865), 80: ‘perque lo perdiemos pel uro. gaanno que ganastes el portazgo del pescado de alta mar’ (cf. Corominas, DCELC, II, 656a, note 7). There is no evidence, however, that the word was widespread. 1 De 2 has the pres. indic. Professor Manuel Rodrigues Lapa, to whom I submitted example II(i), has kindly made the following observation, for which I am most grateful: ‘Não resta dúvida que o texto em D está deturpado e que a forma original deveria ser qualquer coisa como isto: “… que se Dalides vos assi ouvesse achado como vós o achades …” Simplesmente, o tradutor português, que conhecia bem ambas as línguas (portugués e francês) e tinha gosto literário, para evitar a repetição do verbo achar, empregaria o verbo fazer: “… vos assi ouvesse achado corno vós of azedes”. Um escriba posterior, algo apressado, foi, neste passo, induzido em erro por dois motivos: aquela construção vicária, fazedes, aliás, usual em português literário, e a confusão, que ainda hoje na leitura fazemos dos dizeres dos interlocutores. O escriba considerou em Galvão, muito logicamente, uma atitude de desconfiança perante as declarações do cavaleiro ferido, e atribuiu-lhe a ele, Galvão, o fraseado: “E bem sabede vós … de seu grado”. Com efeito, só depois de verificar o cadáver de Dalides é que Galvão o reconheceu. Portanto, fallades não écastelhanismo, mas uma alteração voluntária do texto, com o sentido que lhe é próprio, falar (= dizer). E as alterações do 2o texto português procederão desta diferente visão do acontecimento e das personagens que nele intervêm. 1D's eyxeco has the sense of ‘quarrel, contention, discord’ (see Magne, ed. Demanda [1944], III, 178). De, perhaps not understanding the meaning of eyxeco, has rendered it by a word which visually looks like D's reading—excesso. 1It is possible also that the use of canes in the Spanish (by now losing ground to perros) was induced by the Portuguese caães. 1 Cf. notes on pages 26 and 28. 1This is also the view of Prof. M. Rodrigues Lapa (A ‘Demanda do Santo Graal’. Prioridade do texto português [Lisboa 1930]; reprinted in his Miscelânea de Língua e Literatura Portuguêsa Medieval [Rio de Janeiro 1965], 105–33; French transl., Bulletin des études portugaises, I, no. 3 [Coimbra 1931], 137–60). Cf. C. E. Pickford, ‘La priorité de la version portugaise de la Demanda do Santo Graal’, BHi, LXIII (1961), 211–16. K. Pietsch and P. Bohigas Balaguer argued for Spanish priority (see Spanish Grail Fragments, ed. K. Pietsch, 2 vols. [Chicago 1924–25], I, xxii; Bohigas, Los textos españoles y gallego-portugueses de la Demanda del Santo Grial, [Madrid 1925], 81–94). María Rosa Lida de Malkiel and Roger Steiner, on the other hand, have suggested that the original ‘Iberian’ translation was written in a mixed language (see M. R. L. de Malkiel, in Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages, ed. R. S. Loomis [Oxford 1959], 409–10; Steiner, ‘Domaa/Demanda and the priority of the Portuguese Demanda’, MPh, LXXIV [1966], 64–67). 2For examples, see my article in the T. Fotitch volume, pp. 218–26.