Opening Passage:
A wise man once said that speech without wisdom is worthless and wisdom unrevealed is also of little value, that he who thinks of something and keeps it to himself accomplishes no more than a fool does. What good is his knowledge if he says nothing and wins no one's favor? Hidden treasure and hidden learning are useless, but speech with understanding is worthwhile. It often happens that discourse lacks meaning and therefore gains nothing. Still, the warrior who is accustomed to drawing his sword and then running away before striking a blow seldom wins a battle. The longer he runs, the farther he is from victory, and the jewel is trodden unwittingly into the mud; just as the man who washes unbaked bricks only gets them dirtier. Whoever is going to fight and flee must still know how to protect himself well, for that is the way of the world. These words apply to me, for sad to say, I cannot be called on eof the most gifted, even though I would swear I am not among the fools. Misfortune, leave me free of rustic crudeness! (p. 3)
Summary: The Crown beings with a discussion of the life of King Arthur; this King Arthur lost his father, Uterpandragon, at the age of six and received the crown directly from him. He grew up very quickly and became an exemplary knight. One year, Arthur held a huge Christmas celebration with a tournament at Tintaguel in Cornwall. To this feast came a knight with a beautiful voice, but his skin was coverd with scales. He brought with him a tankard that could never be stolen from its rightful owner, because it would simply appear whenever he wished, and that had the curious feature that it would reveal any falseness of heart. This is asking for trouble, but this is what the Arthurian court lives for; they pass the tankard around and it spills wine over everyone with any deceit in them, and to the degree that they have this falseness. Many ladies and lords are greatly embarrassed, and Sir Keii, with his vicious wit, skewers them all. After it is passed around, the knight leaves it to Arthur, where it can be a test of any stranger who comes to court.
It's not entirely clear why von dem Turlin begins with this incident, although it perhaps it is to help us better gauge Sir Gawein's virtue with respect to the rest of the court -- the tankard spills on him, although much less severely than it does over most of the lords and ladies there. As the narrator says, "A little shortcoming can conceal great merit" (p. 24). This is true, we will see, of more than just Gawein. In any case, after the feasting, most of the knights ride out to a great tournament at Jaschune. This leaves Arthur alone with a few companions; the queen makes fun of Arthur warming himself by the fire, comparing him unfavorably to a knight she has heard stories of who is impervious to cold, and this hurts Arthur's feelings more than she anticipated. He and his companions ride out to find the knight and see what the story really is. They find him and there is a bit of jousting, both physical and verbal, back and forth, and they discover that he is named Gasozein de Dragoz; the knight thinks that Queen Ginover and he are soulmates, and that Arthur is feloniously keeping her against her will, and nothing will persuade him otherwise. The queen's jest gives Arthur some pause -- perhaps it is true -- but he decides to put the matter to the queen. The queen, meanwhile, is worried about Arthur out in the terrible cold, and hoping he is safe.
Meanwhile, Sir Gawein is out on adventure, which largely entails him beating down miscreants and giants and saving various people. These adventures are very much like what you would expect, but they lead to Sir Gawein into a rather unusual adventure. Amurfina, the daughter of Lord Laniure of Serre and Lady Ansgien, has taken possession of a magic bridle, the family's major heirloom, which guarantees the power of ruling Serre. This has put her into a feud with Sgoidamur, her sister, who insists that she has stolen it. The dispute gets very bad, and obviously solving it will require an appeal to the court of King Arthur. Unfortunately, both sisters have the same idea: each realizes that she stands the best chance of winning the dispute if she gets Sir Gawein on her side. Amurfina lucks out by catching Sir Gawein out on his adventures (her sister is going to Arthur's court to find him). Von dem Turlin spends an immense amount of time on the interactions between Sir Gawein and Amurfina; suffice it to say that Amurfina has cheated and spiked his food with a love potion that makes him fall in love with her, pledges to marry her, and forget entirely who he is. The chink in Amurfina's plan is that Sir Gawein is highly renowned, and he ends up being very interested in these stories of this amazing knight named Gawein, whose stories seem so familiar. The power of the potion breaks, and Sir Gawein sets out again on adventure to finish some of the giant-slaying he had been doing, although he seems to bear Amurfina no ill will, in part because he still doesn't seem to be quite clear what has happened.
Meanwhile, back at court, Queen Ginover is in for a surprise when she discovers that her honor is under suspicion because a knight named Gasozein is claiming that they are sweethearts. Arthur puts the choice to her, Arthur or Gasozein, and the queen chooses Arthur, saying that Gasozein has no claim on her. Spurned by the woman he thinks of as his true love, Gasozein departs in a fury. As you might expect, this is not the end of the tale. The queen's brother, Count Gotegrin, is furious that she would shame herself, as he sees it, and he abducts her in order to kill her. She is saved by Gasozein, who then also abducts her, although in his case it is not by force but due to the fact that the queen doesn't resist, because she thinks he is crazy and capable of anything if she doesn't humor him. Inevitably, he starts crossing lines, and the queen ends up needing to be saved again, this time by Sir Gawein. Gawein and Gasozein fight and fight, and it turns out to be an epic battle -- no one is normally a match for Gawein, but Gasozein is a competent knight who is unusually motivated. Nonetheless, Gawein eventually forces Gasozein into surrender; Gosozein swears to do no more harm and go with Gawein and Ginover to Karidol, where King Arthur's court is now residing. There Gasozein is true to his word, even offering to do his penance in the dungeons; he is pardoned, and he and Gawein become friends.
In the meantime, at the great Pentecost feast at Karidol, a maiden comes to the Arthurian court. Her name is Sgoidamur, and she tells a story about how her wicked sister stole a magic bridle that guarantees the power to rule. Sir Gawein, always tenderhearted toward a lovely woman, is moved to compassion and agrees to be her champion and retrieve the bridle for her; if he does so he can marry her. He comes to the magic castle of Gansguoter, who is Amurfina's uncle (and also, as it happens, the second husband of Igerne, Arthur's mother). Gansguoter challenges Gawein to a beheading game. Gawein cuts off his head; Gansguoter picks up his head and walks away. In the morning, Gawein bares his neck to the now-healed Gansguoter, but Gansguoter deliberately misses. Gawein then has to fight many monsters in the hope of retrieving the bridle, which in a sense he does, because he reunites with Amurfina and return to court.
Now things are a little sticky, since Gawein is champion on both sides. In fact, he is pledged to marry both sisters. With some help from the king, Gawein negotiates a deal in which Sgoidamur marries Gasozein, who has his own kingdom, and they have a double wedding.
Thus ends Book One. Book Two is Gawein's grail quest. Much of this is what you would expect, because von dem Turlin basically steals the earlier Parzival Grail legends and gives them to Gawein; Sir Gawein is just less naive and more intelligent than Sir Parzival. Sir Gawein also has the inevitable help of the ladies, which is a great boon in any adventure and perhaps more important to a knight than intelligence. In particular, Gansguoter's sister is a goddess of some kind and she passes Sir Gawein the answers in the back of the book, so to speak, so that he avoids all of Parzival's mistakes and comes to the Grail with remarkably little difficulty. It's not a perfectly straightforward path, though; Sir Gawein sees many strange things, all of which suggest that Sir Gawein's quest is a quest through Purgatory. This is never explicitly stated, but the forward notes that the quest seems to be structured as a sort of riddle for the audience to try to figure out. Our images of Purgatory are heavily influenced by Dante; the images people associated with Purgatory in the thirteenth century are often radically different, and I suspect most people today would not solve the riddle, since the images are all weird symbolic scenes like a burning red man being whipped by screaming beautiful maidens, or a beautiful boy with arrows in his eyes, and things like that.
The Parzival-like part of Gawein's Grail story is interwoven with another story, in which Sir Gawein goes through a number of adventures to achieve a magical victory stone, fighting a dragon and doing similar things for Lady Fortune, who has promised him, if he is successful, a ring that will guarantee the permanence of Arthur's court. The victory stone ends up being relevant to the Grail quest, but the relationship between the two stories is perhaps the weakest element of the narrative. Nonetheless, I think it plays an important role -- by the end of the book, Sir Gawein has achieved the Grail, in a muted fashion, and (apparently) released souls from Purgatory by doing so, but he has also brought honor to the court of King Arthur, which will now endure forever, thus granting the realm blessings both divine and human.
Von dem Turlin has a reputation for being verbose, and he is; I was not prepared for the sheer extent of his commitment to the principle that you should never say something in a sentence if you can say it in a paragraph. To some extent this is just medieval writing -- many great medieval works are written on the plan of 'simple story, many digressions' -- but von dem Turlin takes it very far. This does result in some very beautiful passages, and no doubt in the original gives him the opportunity to show off his poetic prowess, but in English prose translation it can get a bit wearying. The stories themselves, however, are quite interesting.
Favorite Passage:
Just before he entered the country, Gawein encountered something remarkable and beautiful, which pleased him greatly. He saw a very broad sword of fire that guarded a road leading to a strong tower in front of a charming castle the walls of which were as bright and transparent as glass. Nothing could be concealed within, because it would be seen from the outside. I don't know when it happened, but it was completely deserted. Although all this seemed most unusual to Gawein, I don't believe it was an enchanted castle, only that its history was unknown. Here it was that he left the heath. (p. 323)
Recommendation: Recommended, although, again, you have to be prepared for its style, which is deliberately wordy.
****
Heinrich von dem Turlin, The Crown, Thomas, tr., University of Nebraska Press (Lincoln, NE: 1989).
