Galiene eventually sets the story in motion again. The narrator takes up the final part with the words: ‘Nu keric weder te Galienen’ [Now I shall return to Galiene] (4979). What follows is a complete surprise because things get worse for Ferguut:
Nu keric weder te Galienen
Die heft gelaten staen haer wenen.
Soe siet wel dat het niet en wout:
Hen es geen dinc, hen vercout.
Ferguut mach wel so lange merren
Dat sijn rapen selen berren:
Wijfs herte en es niet van stale.
(4979‒85)
[Now I shall return to Galiene, who has left off her weeping. She realizes that it will do her no good: there is no passion that does not lose its heat. Ferguut may well delay so long until his turnips have burned. A woman’s heart is not made of steel].
Galiene’s love for Ferguut suddenly seems to have cooled and she no longer wants to wait for him. She rides to Arthur’s court to ask the king to find her a husband to administer her lands, and the king announces a tournament with the hand of Galiene as the main prize.
In Fergus, Galiene is clever, manipulating her barons and King Arthur in order to ensure that the tournament will lead to her having the Knight with the Splendid Shield as her husband, because she knows that Fergus is beneath that disguise. The Middle Dutch author makes a different choice: Galiene does not know the identity of the Knight with the White Shield, but she admits to her barons that she would love to have him as her husband, if possible (5010). She appears to have completely forgotten about Ferguut.
With this turn, the tension mounts about whether the two will be united in the end. The narrator seems to ridicule Ferguut’s lack of action: he must really make haste now if he wishes to have Galiene as his wife. The combination of line 4985: ‘Wijfs herte en es niet van stale’ [A woman’s heart is not made of steel], read as a litotes, and the unusual and enigmatic saying about the burning turnips that precedes it: ‘Ferguut mach wel so lange merren / Dat sijn rapen selen berren’ [Ferguut may well delay so long until his turnips have burned] (4983–84), which offers a sudden change of style (referring to Ferguut’s agricultural background?), are fine examples of the author’s ironic narrative style. With these remarkable expressions, he criticizes both Galiene and Ferguut. The hero is too relaxed, he has waited too long, and now the turnips (farmers’ food?) are almost burned, while the heroine is not only impatient but even fickle.
1 See: Zemel, ‘“Ene behagele coninginne”’, pp. 194–97. See for the ironic use of the rhetoric figure litotes: D. H. Green, Irony in Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), Chapter 6, especially pp. 189–94.At this point in the story, the Flemish poet inserts another humorous scene, not found in the French source (5098‒151).
2 See: Zemel, ‘Koning Artur in actie’, pp. 44, 51. As before, Ferguut has to be compelled by another character. He does not know about Galiene’s initiative and is enjoying himself (again!) in the woods near his castle. Then, he encounters an ugly dwarf, armed as a knight, on a beautiful horse, a
contradiction in terms, which makes Ferguut laugh:
In sijn wout was hi spelen gaen
Ende hi sach comen enen naen
Op een herde scone ors gereden.
Hi was lelic van allen leden,
Enen scilt ane sinen hals hi droech.
Ferguut groettene ende loech
Ende sprac: ‘Naen, waers die tornoy?’
(5101–07)
[He was riding out for pleasure in his forest when he saw a dwarf approaching, mounted on a very handsome horse. He was ugly as sin, a shield he wore about his neck. Ferguut greeted him and laughed, and said, ‘Dwarf, where is the tournament?’]
The dwarf makes clear that he is no fool, in contrast to the ignorant Ferguut who is not on his way to the tournament himself to win the hand of the stunningly beautiful Galiene:
‘Waer dat ic vare, dat wetti wel,
Want en es batseleer en geen
Hine si daer, die wert es twee sleen;
So soudi oec, waerdi niet sot’.
(5118–21)
[‘You know full well where I am going, for there isn’t a bachelor worth two plums who isn’t there; You would be too, if you weren’t a fool’].
Like Lunette, the dwarf calls Ferguut a ‘sot’, a fool, and urges him to act: ‘Her ridder, of gi daer wilt sijn / Ghi moet u haesten’ [Sir knight, if you want to be there you had better make haste] (5142–43).
When Ferguut hears about the tournament, he thinks first of chevalerie, his long-awaited revenge on Keye (5148), and not Galiene. Only once he is on his way to Arthur’s court does he finally realize that he may well lose Galiene due to his own stupidity. It seems that he has come to his senses at last and can finally combine love and chivalry. Alone, he cries out in despair:
Hoe dicke riep hi: ‘Galiene,
Salic u nu moeten verliesen?
Wel haddic gesproken den riesen,
Dat ic naesten niet en voer tote u
Ten Rikenstene; dats mi leet nu,
Hets dicke geseit; dats waer sprake
Blode man quam noit te hoger sake.’
(5152–58)
[‘How often did he call out: ‘Galiene, am I now to lose you? I acted as such a fool that I did not go to you before at Rikenstene; I regret that now. It is often said, and a true saying: cowards never do great deeds’].
Earlier, Lunette uses a very similar expression as in line 5154: ‘Wel hebdi gesproken den risen’ [You have taken counsel with fools] (4505), criticizing her mistress’s behavior. In his soliloquy, Ferguut pathetically criticizes himself, finally realizing that his behavior so far has been very foolish, even cowardly, indeed. Again, the Flemish author treats the balance between love and chivalry, which Ferguut needs to find, in a humorous light.
In the end, Ferguut appears at Arthur’s court in time. As the Knight with the White Shield, he first defeats Keye and then all the knights of the Round Table, except Gawein, whom he does not want to fight. Only when he removes his helmet does the court recognize him. Ferguut wins his prize and a bishop marries him and Galiene right away. The narrator then ends the story with a remarkable comment, which offers another indication for irony as far as the love quest is concerned: ‘Elc en haette anderen niet sere’ [Each held little hate for the other] (5559). This phrase contains a litotes in combination with a word conveying moderation (
niet sere, ‘little’). The meaning of this indirect statement is of course that Ferguut and Galiene love each other very much.
3 For similar examples, see for instance: Green, Irony in Medieval Romance, p. 193. However, this is not what the narrator says. By the litotes, the denial of the opposite, the author causes the listener or reader to remember the characters’ actions leading to this finale. It almost went wrong because of Ferguut’s laziness, but above all, because of Galiene’s impatience. Does she really love Ferguut? All the narrator says about her emotions is that she is very much ashamed when she discovers that the Knight with the White Shield is the knight who once rejected her (5547–53).
4 Note the similarities between line 1517, at Ydel castle: ‘Si scaemde hare utermaten sere’ [She was exceedingly embarrassed], and line 5551: ‘Galiene hadde die scaemte groot’ [Galiene was very embarrassed]. See also: R. M. T. Zemel, ‘Het vergeten vergrijp van Galiene’, Spektator 18 (1988–89): 262–82 at pp. 276–78. So, the use of litotes here is once again an indication for the ironic treatment of the love theme by the author.