The first example of Ferguut’s slackness appears when he has won the Shield (3815‒84). Ferguut takes up residence in the giant’s castle, with the two damsels he has liberated at his side, who serve him. He allows himself to be pampered by the damsels for four months. The narrator comments:
Dus was hi ginder .i. stickelkijn
Viere maent wel te gemake
Metten joncfrouwen; al hare sprake
Ende datsi daden sat hen wel;
Si hadden bliscap ende spel.
(3822‒26)
1 All quotations and translations of the Ferguut in this article come from Johnson and Claassens, Dutch Romances. II. Ferguut. Line numbers are given in parentheses.[And so he remained there for a little while, for four months at his ease with the damsels; their every word and deed became them; they rejoiced and made merry].
The use of the diminutive
stickelijn ‘a little while’ in line 3822, combined with the rather long period of four months, is remarkable. The author implicitly criticizes Ferguut: the aim of his quest is Galiene, but he does not seem to be in a hurry to find her. In the French source Fergus focuses on Galiene constantly. He is severely wounded from the battle with the giant and the two girls do their utmost to cure his wounds. After three days, Fergus climbs to the upper floor of the castle and looks out of the window at Rocebourc, ‘La u s’amie assise estoit’ [Where his beloved is besieged] (4791).
2 The edition of the Fergus is W. Frescoln, ed., Guillaume le Clerc, The Romance of Fergus (Philadelphia: William H. Allen, 1983). Line numbers are given in parentheses. The land has been burnt and laid waste. This displeases Fergus greatly, and he bursts into action:
Or se tenra molt a mauvais
Se il I sont longues en pais
El siege qu’il ne les regart
Maintenant des estres se part;
Les degrés de la tour avale,
Si vint courant parmi la sale,
(4797‒ 802)
[Now he will think himself a great coward if they maintain that siege undisturbed for long without investigating them. He immediately leaves the upper floor, goes down the staircase in the keep and comes running into the hall].
3 The translation is from D. D. R. Owen, Guillaume le Clerc, Fergus of Galloway: Knight of King Arthur (London: J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, 1991), p. 77.In contrast, the Middle Dutch hero seems to forget about Galiene in the pleasant company of the damsels. After four months, he starts longing for adventures, and asks:
“Joncfrouwen, dat u God moet dagen,
Wetti iewer enighe niemaren
Daer ic soude moghen varen
Om te bejagen lof ende prijs?”
(3829‒31)
[‘Damsels, may God be with you, have you heard tell of any place where I might journey to in order to achieve praise and honor?’]
As a knight, he wants to live up to chivalrous expectations but his question has nothing to do with Galiene; he does not seem concerned with her at all.
From the damsels, Ferguut and the audience learn that Galiene, who lives in a nearby castle (only about seven miles away), is under attack by a king who wants to marry her against her will. Suddenly, Ferguut is in a hurry. The narrator uses the word dapperlike ‘courageously’ (3868), when Ferguut quickly fetches his new horse, Pennevare, and he also comments that Ferguut does not want to linger anymore (3886), which could be understood ironically after four months of vacation.
In the next episode Ferguut fights for Galiene and Rikenstene. For two days, he takes the lead in the battle for those from ‘inside’. In the evening he retires to his castle in the woods where the damsels take good care of his wounds (3857–4191). This is not a good decision since in his absence, Galarant and his men attack Rikenstene and the townspeople are about to give up the castle. In order to rescue her lands, Galiene also acts foolishly. She proposes a winner-takes-all-battle: her champion (although she does not have one) will fight Galarant and another knight in forty days. Because no one dares to undertake such a combat, Galiene sends her maid servant Lunette to Arthur’s court. However, the girl returns alone since all of the knights of the Round Table have left on a quest to find Ferguut.
Before she arrives at Rikenstene on the way back, Lunette passes by the giant’s castle and meets Ferguut as he is enjoying himself outside. Ferguut does not know about the combat Galiene proposed to Galarant, and does not seem to be overly concerned about her. The narrator comments: ‘Hi ginc hem meien in dat gras’ [He was out riding for pleasure in the meadow] (4414). It is only by the force of Adventure that Ferguut’s quest may proceed: ‘Alse adventure soude gescien / Lunetten heft hi saen versien/ Die uter maten serich quam’ [As luck would have it, he caught sight of Lunette who approached in deep sorrow] (4415‒17).
When Ferguut sees the grief-stricken girl, he takes the initiative and stops her against her will. After asking her four times (!) why she is crying, he finally learns the reason for her sadness and hears about Galiene’s problems: she has not succeeded in finding a champion to fight on her mistress’s behalf (4458‒523). Talking to Ferguut, Lunette expresses her displeasure about the battle by means of an ‘apostrophe’ addressed to Galiene:
‘Al u lant seldi verliesen
Wel hebdi gesproken den riesen.
Ghi selt varen uten sinne
Eer gi den coninc geloeft u minne.
Dusgedaen dinc hordic noit lesen.
Volmaket God, hoe mach dit wesen?
Mi heves wonder, so helpe mi God!
Datsi minnet enen sot
Dien si noit maer enewerf sach’.
(4505‒13)
[‘You will lose all your lands. You have taken counsel with fools. You’ll go quite insane before you pledge your love to the king. I have never heard tell of such a thing. O God of perfection, how can this happen? So help me God, it amazes me that she loves some fool whom she has seen no more than once’].
According to Lunette, Galiene has made a foolish agreement with king Galarant. Moreover, she loves a ‘sot’, an idiot she has only seen once. He is, in Lunette’s words: ‘.1. arem keytijf, / Een blode knecht ut vremden lande’ [some poor wretch, a simple knight from some foreign land] (4518‒19). The use of dramatic irony makes this beautiful scene interesting and humorous. The audience knows that Lunette is unaware of the fact that it is precisely this idiot to whom she is speaking.
As Lunette takes her leave, Ferguut tells her that Galiene’s beloved will no doubt ride to her rescue (4527). The girl, however, thinks that Ferguut is mocking her. Later, when she arrives at Rocebourc, she repeats Ferguut’s words to her mistress. Galiene, in turn, is understandably dubious: ‘“Lunette, dit mochte niet waer sijn / Die ghene die heft die herte mijn / Hine acht op mi lettel no vele”’ [‘Lunette, this cannot be true, the man who possesses my heart cares nothing for me one way or the other’] (4585‒87). Ferguut has not shown much concern so far and acts very slowly indeed. Only when Lunette informs him about the situation at Rikenstene, does he know what he must do.
In the Old French
Fergus,
Galiene’s lady-in-waiting, Arondele, is modeled on the character of Lunete from
Le Chevalier au Lion (
Yvain)
(Yvain or The Knight of the Lion; hereafter
Yvain).
4 Roel Zemel, ‘“Ene behagele coninginne”: Over de heldin van de Ferguut en haar voorgangsters’, Spektator 22 (1993): 181–97 at p. 195. The Flemish author must have recognized this connection and reinforces it by using the same name as Chrétien and by adding other references to
Yvain. For instance, Lunette tells Ferguut that her lady will have her beaten to death because she did not find a champion: ʻMijn joncfrouwe sal mi doet doen slaenʼ [My lady will have me slain] (4498). Later on in the romance, confronted by her mistress, she asks for judgement: ‘“Over mi so doet rechten,/ Doet mi branden in enen viere”’ [‘Pass judgement on me now, have me burnt at the stake’] (4548‒49). These words evoke Chrétien’s romance where Lunete is accused of treason and faces execution at the stake if a champion willing to fight for her against three adversaries within forty days does not appear. In
Yvain, Lunete is locked in prison when she meets the hero, Yvain, who eventually rescues her.
5 Chrétien de Troyes, Le Chevalier au Lion (Yvain), in Chrétien de Troyes, Romans, ed. and trans. David F. Hult (Paris : Le Livre de poche, 1994), lines 3561–765; 4383–573. The intertextual connection has a humorous effect: in
Ferguut Lunette asks for the punishment that was almost inflicted upon Lunete in Chrétien. However, the Middle Dutch Galiene would not even think of harming Lunette (4551‒54). In
Yvain, Lunete plays a much larger role than her namesake in
Ferguut. Because of her clever manipulation, the love story of Yvain and Laudine ends well, at least for Yvain. But at this point in
Ferguut, Lunette does not recognize the hero, and a happy ending seems far away.
The next day, Ferguut, alias the Knight with the White Shield, arrives in the nick of time to rescue Galiene and Rikenstene. He defeats king Galarant, kills his nephew Macedone, and the future looks promising. However, once again Ferguut disappears to his castle without making himself known, bringing the story to a standstill once more.