Book Reports: Erec and Enide

[Sir Wolf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erec_and_Enide
Finished the story today, the first of Chrétien de Troyes' five Arthurian romance poems. I wish now I would have had a copy of the book that was larger with larger print, ug my eyes bleed!

There were many things I noticed in this story.

Whenever nature was used it was capitalized. as in "Nature gave her beauty" etc etc. 
Knights could fight all day and evening.
Men had to remove their full helmets and still wore ventails over their mouths.
there is an outer bone over the brain
Knights don't greet one another, they have to joust first and ask questions later.
There is no mention of Camelot just Cardigan (which is a Welsh town),
Arthur has a son Llacheu who is a member of the round table,
There are tons and tons of Kings, Counts, Barons and Knights. One wonders what each of them do or is their job
Even then women talk a lot
If a knight was beaten he kept his oath and would travel armed and would be expected to do what his victor had told him to do.
There are mentions of Giants and Dwarves.
A royal camp can be moved several miles down the road during a conversation.
100 to 500 times someone was commended unto God.
They ate no meat on Saturday. Just fish etc.
One wonders if a white stag was an albino deer. Is it the same thing as a hart? And if you get him you get to kiss the bestest lady!!
Chretien starts to tell about the bedroom of the lovers but then stops! Guess he doesn't want a dirt n smut book.
Shields sound like they were kite shields with center bosses on them. but this is odd cause they are not depicted in effigies or manuscripts with great helms.
armour was worn everyday no mater what the condition or its condition.

any more thoughts?

[Sir Edward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erec_and_Enide
Whenever nature was used it was capitalized. as in "Nature gave her beauty" etc etc. 
Men had to remove their full helmets and still wore ventails over their mouths.
there is an outer bone over the brain

I think some of it is artifacts of the translation. My copy doesn't capitalize "nature", but it does translate it to that word. I suspect it was a form of the word that is meant to imply God rather than just mother nature. In my copy, it also doesn't mention ventails but rather "chin straps". I wonder if there was a single word for both, or there was some ambiguity in the original? Also, my copy mentions the cut sheering off some bone without reaching the brain, rather than there being more than one layer of it.

There are tons and tons of Kings, Counts, Barons and Knights. One wonders what each of them do or is their job

I also noticed that the author seems to have an issue with counts, since they're often the villains.

There are mentions of Giants and Dwarves.

I think this just means midgets and very large people. It does note that the giants ride fairly normal horses.

[Sir Edward]

I finished reading this one, and will soon be on to Cliges. But Erec and Enide was quite amusing in a lot of ways. I got a huge kick out of it. The narrator's little comments were quite amusing, and I was often shaking my head at the "perfect" knightly behavior that involved knights charging at each other and only realizing they were friends after getting unhorsed. And of course, Erec's testing of Enide by refusing to let her speak (as well as her lack of adherence to that) was... uhm... amusing.

[Sir Wolf]

ya that was funny. i can hear him now "dont talk to me woman!" hehehehe i wonder if he was trying to stay focused or just testing to see if she would listen or what.

[Sir Edward]

Yeah, it's not entirely clear. I mean, if he really was that upset that he didn't want her to speak to him (and he did at one point say he loathed her), then talk about a drama-queen. Total over-reaction. But if he was testing her loyalty, that her desire to keep him safe was more important than her obedience, then it's a little more understandable. But still... the whole "shut up, woman" thing is not quite the courtly love I was expecting.

[Sir William]

Well, I just got the complete romance works of Troyes so I hope to share in the conversation at that time...right now, I have no idea what you're going on about. 

[Sir Wolf]

ooo spoilers! heheheh good luck

[Sir William]

Is it me or are these sort of difficult to get through?  I'm just finishing the Knight of the Lion, having read Erec and Enide, Cliges and the Knight of the Cart- its almost dreadful they're so chivalrous.  I wonder if people really behaved like that or just aspired to...probably the latter.

It was sacchariny!  I know, not a word...but you get what I mean.  I keep picking up other books to avoid continuing in this one...

[Sir Edward]

Yeah, you're further along than I am. I'm about half-way through the Knight in the Cart. I read a few pages, and then don't come back for a week or two. I'm really really bad about continuing books.

But you're right, it's hard to get through. I skipped Cliges after pages and pages of lamentation. Ugh, I had enough.

In terms of how realistic it is, I'd say it's about as real as Hollywood is today. Some of it is meant to be believable, but it's full of inaccuracies, and idealized, and meant to hearken back to the near past (to them), the way we might glorify parts of WWII or something.

[Sir William]

There are people who glorify WWII?  I guess I get it...its only within the last two years that I finally got the idea that maybe the Crusades wasn't all about knights in gleaming hauberks taking back the beloved Holy Land from the bedeviled Infidels...or rather, I should say that I came to the realization that it was much more gruesome, much more bloody and lot less chivalrous and high-handed than my initial understanding.

Research...it too can be considered a double edged sword, at least to the idealist at heart.  Guess I'm awake now!

Lancelot wasn't as bad as Cliges...that was probably the least liked story I've ever read...I'm quite certain I'll never read it again.  I'm looking forward to Percival just to finish the book.

[Sir Edward]

Yeah, "glorify" might not have been the best word, but you definitely understood my point. The truth tends to be a lot dirtier and more complicated than the "common knowledge" version.

I'm looking forward to finishing out the book too.

[Sir William]

This is one time where a race to the finish is in order...a shame, to want to reach the end of the book just for the sake of it.  lol

[Sir Wolf]

aha i was reading knight and the lion today! only read about 20-30 pages ugg i feel asleep once i think too. they get the imagination going but man they take forever!

[Sir William]

Yea...and its so...flowery, for lack of a better term.  They didn't really go on like that back then, did they?

[Sir Edward]

Well, these stories were written to be multi-thousand line poems in old French. I have a feeling they were more about the flowery language than the story itself.