Opening Passage: From the Gregorius:
My heart has often compelled my tongue to speak much of things that seek worldly reward. My naive years advised it thus. Now this I know to be true indeed: whoever in his youth trusts the scheming of hell's jailer, and, trusting in his youth, sins and says to himself: you are still a young man; there is still plenty of help for all your wrongdoings; you can certainly do penance for them in your old age -- such a person thinks other than he should. These thoughts will easily vanish when the common fate of us all hinders his will to repent, in that bitter death takes vengenace on his earlier way of thinking, cutting short his life with a sudden end. Bereft of grace, he has then chosen the worse course. And even if we were born of Adam, at the time fo Abel, and were to preserve his soul unmarred by sin until Judgment Day, he still would not have done enough to gain eternal life that has no beginning and will also never pass. (pp. 167-168)
Summary: Besides a number of smaller poems that mostly relate crusading and wooing, and the Lament, an apparently early longer work that involves a debate between the body and the heart in matters of love, the works of Hartmann von Aue are Erec, Gregorius, Poor Heinrich, and Iwein. They are all knightly romances. Erec and Iwein are Arthurian romances, and, in fact, are translations and adaptations of earlier Arthurian romances by Chretien de Troyes. Gregorius and Poor Heinrich are non-Arthurian. All four deal with knights who find themselves having to navigate situations far outside the ordinary regions of life.
Erec, the first Arthurian romance to be written in German, follows the adventures of a young knight named Erec, who is humiliated in front of Queen Guinevere by the dwarf of a knight named Iders; Erec attempts to trace down the knight, but as he does so, he spends the night at the house of a nobleman named Coralus, where he meets Coralus's beautiful daughter, Enite. He also learns about an upcoming Sparrowhawk Tournament, in which a sparrowhawk is given as a prize to the knight who successfully proves in battle that his lady is the most beautiful; he learns, moreover, that Iders is participating in the tournament. Borrowing armor from Coralus, he defeats Iders in the tournament, proving Enite the most beautiful lady; they marry and return to Erec's home city, Karnant, where Erec becomes ruler. However, as often happens, the life of ease turns out to be bad for Erec; he spends so much time with his wife that he neglects his duty as a ruler. Erec eventually learns that even Enite thinks he has deteriorated, so he sets out for adventure, taking Enite with him but forbidding her to speak to him. This rule she breaks several times, each time saving his life. They have several adventures, ending with Erec fighting and defeating a powerful knight named Mabonagrin in order to save the widows of eighty knights whom Mabonagrin has killed. Erec defeats the knight and tehrefore is able to return with this honor to the court of King Arthur.
Gregorius tells the story of Gregorius, a knight who discovers that his parents are actually only his by adoption,a dn sets out to learn more about his biological parents, discovering, to his horror, that his parents were brother and sister; that is, Gregorius is the child of incest. He attempts to rise above this by knightly deeds, which lead him to meet the woman who will eventually become his wife. Unfortunately, an accident reveals that she is in fact his mother. This horrifying discovery leads Gregorius to live his life as a holy hermit, living chained living the penitential life on a rock in on an isolated rock in the middle of a large lake. Seventeen years go by, and in Rome, God reveals to some of the clergy that the next Pope will be discovered on a rock in Aquitaine. They find Gregorius there and he becomes Pope.
Der arme Heinrich is about a knight, Heinrich, from Ouwe (Aue), who is a paragon of knightly virtues but is struck by leprosy. He does not take it well, and after consulting every doctor he can, he discovers that there is one and only one cure: the life-blood from the heart of a virgin, freely given. That seems as good as saying that cure is impossible, so Heinrich goes to stay with one of his caretakers, the only person who does not completely shun him for his leprosy. The daughter of the caretaker becomes taken with Heinrich, and when she learns what the cure is, offers her own life so that he might be healed. Being an extremely obstinate and eloquent girl, she manages to convince both Heinrich and her parents that it is useless to try to stop her. They find a doctor, who is for obvious reasons very reluctant to perform this operation; but he too is eventually persuaded. However, Heinrich through a crack in the door sees the girl lying on the table, and is struck by guilt; he prevents the operation, saying that this has made him accept his leprosy. The girl is just as obstinate as she was, and berates him as a coward, but he does not relent. However, as they return to Ouwe, Heinrich's leprosy unexpectedly clears, and Heinrich and the girl marry.
Iwein is the story of Iwein (Ywain), cousin of Gawain, who sets out to avenge the defeat of another cousin, Kalogrenant, at the hands of the knight Askalon. He does so, killing Askalon, but is trapped in Askalon's castle. He only manages to escape with the help of Lunete, the handmaiden of Askalon's wife, Laudine. Iwein happens to see Laudine, however, and falls in love with her; he wins her hand in marriage with the help of Lunete, who convinces Laudine that there is no one else who can provide better protection. However, Gawain notes that Iwein is not adventuring as he used to; he is turning out, in fact, to be something like Erec, so Iwein heads out to see what might befall, but only after having given Laudine a promise that he would return by a year and a day from the time he left; in a sense the year-and-a-day is the time after which a man is legally dead and someone else can usurp his estate, so if he does not return by then, he will have failed as protector. However, Iwein gets so caught up in the tournaments he is attending that he misses the deadline. Lunete brings Laudine's complaint before the Round Table itself, and Iwein is dishonored. Having lost wife, estate, and knightly honor, Iwein goes mad and becomes a wild man, from which state he is rescued by the Lady of Narison, who happens to have a magic salve made by Morgan le Fay, which heals him. In return, he helps her, but he refuses from that point on either to become ruler or to marry, and among his adventures he ends up rescuing a lion from a dragon. The lion becames a loyal companion, so Iwein becomes known far and wide as the Knight with the Lion. He eventually discovers that Lunete has been sentenced to death, and so he defends her innocence in trial by combat, which he is able to do in part with the help of the lion. Through a further set of adventures, Iwein undertakes to help another woman in trial by combat; she is in a dispute with her sister over inheritance. The sister's champion turns out to be exceptionally good, and their fight goes on and on, until nightfall requires the finish of it to be postponed to the next day. By chance, Iwein discovers that his opponent is actually Gawain; King Arthur comes to the rescue by Solomoning the situation, asking the older sister a question that gives her away and proves the younger sister right. Thus Iwein is allowed back into court, but it takes Lunete to trick Laudine into giving Iwein a chance again, which she does by setting up a situation in which Laudine, who does not know Iwein's new identity, to help the Knight with the Lion in regaining his lady's favor. They renew their marriage and live happily ever after.
All of the stories are concerned with honor, of course, but they are also concerned in great measure with the power of love to face adversity, even the most terrible -- a power that love very much needs, because human nature being as it is, without that power, love could not survive humanity itself. We in our folly and failing guarantee that love will face adversity. But love is not conquered by our folly and failing.
Favorite Passage: From the Iwein:
Looking farther, he saw a beautiful big hall, which he and the girl inspected without finding a soul there. He followed a side path leading to a road that went past the hall. Searching carefully, he noticed some stairs. They took him to a huge park, more beautiful than any he had ever seen. There he saw an old knight lying comfortably on a couch, with which the goddess Juno, in her greatest splendor, would have been pleased. The beautiful flowers, the fresh grass enveloped him in a sweet aroma -- it was a pleasant place for the knight to be lying. He was handsomely mature, and in front of him sat a lady who was doubtless his wife. For all their advanced years the pair could not have been more handsome nor have acted with greater dignity. In front of them, in turn, sat a girl who, so I've been told, could read French very well and was entertaining them by doing so. Often she made them laugh. Because she was their daugther they thought whatever she read was fine. It is right to praise a girl who has good manners, beauty, noble birth, youth, wealth, modesty, kindness, and good sense. She had all this and everything else which one could wish for in a woman -- besides which she could read very well. (pp. 303-304)
Recommendation: Recommended.
*****
Hartmann von Aue, Arthurian Romances, Tales, and Lyric Poetry: The Complete Works of Hartmann von Aue, Tobin, Vivian, and Lawson, trs., The Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA: 2001).
