Part 4

The history of the story in the West is complicated on account of the puzzling multiplicity of versions among which it is sometimes exceedingly difficult to determine the interrelations. The clue to the difficulty was early hinted at by Sommer (E. Sommer, Einl. zu R. Fleckes Flore und Blaunscheflur, Quedlingburg und Leipzig, 1846), and more recently the matter has been very thoroughly explained by Herzog (H. Herzog, Die beiden Sagenkreise von Flore und Blanscheflur, Wien, 1884) in his investigation of the subject. Herzog points out that there are to be distinguished in the Occident, two distinct general versions of the story. In the first of these, #A#, seems to be preserved the story in its original and genuine form. The second of these versions, #B#, seems to be a remodelling of the original version in the attempt to adapt to common folk a story in its existing form intended for higher circles of society.[I-13] For this purpose slight allusions in #A#, are expanded in #B# into striking incidents. To bring out into strong light the injustice of Floris’s father and the final triumph of true love, supernatural and horrible elements and episodes are introduced. Since these new elements are of a kind common in other Byzantine tales, it is concluded that the remodelling of the story had already taken place before the importation from the East.

The second of these imported versions, #B#, first circulated in Italy, in Spain and in Greece. It also seems, somewhat indirectly as we shall see, to have served as a basis for the second French version and for one group of the German _Volksbücher_. The versions of #B#, if we leave the second French version out of consideration, all represent the parents of Blauncheflur as Italian, and in part have the same names for the characters. This circumstance, with other corroborating facts, seems to indicate that version #B# first took root in Italy, and from there spread into Spain and into Greece, possibly its original home.

Version #A#, on the other hand, seems first to have been imported into France, the great jobbing nation of the Middle Ages in all sorts of romantic stuffs and materials. From France it was early retailed to Germany, to England, to Scandinavia, and, possibly, to Italy. From Germany in turn it was re-exported into Bohemia. Version #A# was without doubt the first to become known, since we find it not only in the Old French, but in the Germanic versions springing from a French source, in an unperverted state. All the different versions of #B#, on the other hand, have been very noticeably influenced by #A#, indicating that the arrival of #B# was after #A# had become established and well known.

_(b) In France._

We encounter the story of _Floris and Blauncheflur_ earliest in France, and the French seem to have been the first to make the story a subject for poetic treatment. The story appears in French, besides in two songs celebrating episodes in this tale of true love, in two distinct versions. The earliest of these versions, which we may designate as I., had its origin, it seems, about 1160.[I-14] (Cf. F. Steinmeyer, H Z, xxi, 319.) Certain it is that a French version of #A# must have existed about 1170, to serve as a basis for one of the German (the low Rhenish) versions, Floyris und Blanscheflur. This French version, #I#, seems to represent fairly well the #A# general form of the story. As so often in the case of other romances, the _jongleurs_ tried to bring this foreign importation into the cycle of French story by connecting in bonds of kinship, its characters with the names celebrated in French epic. Blauncheflur is represented as being the mother of Bertha of the big foot, the wife of Pepin, father of Charlemagne.[I-15]

Du Méril (E. du Méril, Floire et Blancheflor, Paris, 1876) in discussing the interrelations of the two French versions, characterizes one as a version for a select public, “_version aristocratique_,” and the second as a version for the entertainment of the masses, “_version populaire_.” The French II. version, the “_version populaire_,” is, according to Herzog, p. 4, the result of a sort of fusion of the #A# and #B# general forms of the story,[I-16] with which have been woven in various episodes which elsewhere are not known to either general form of the story, #A# or #B#. Herzog further on continues (p. 11), “Ich halte dafür dass dieselbe (the OF. II. version) ebenfalls aus Italien nach Frankreich hinübergewandert ist, wo ihr Bearbeiter den Inhalt des zweiten Kreises mit dem ihm geläufigen ersten Kreise so verschmolzen hat, dass dieser einige nur dem zweiten Sagenkreise angehörige Züge ganz verdrängte.”

The general style and manner of handling the story is quite different in the two French versions. The “_version aristocratique_” preserves the traits of an oriental romance, and Floire is represented as a love-sick youth. “_Sans li ne puis jou pas aprendre_” he replies when his father proposes to educate him alone. There is hardly a more sentimental passage in literature than the one in I. (212-266) describing the school-days of the children:

_Ensamble vont, ensamble vienent Et la joie d’amor maintient Nus d’aus deus chose ne savoit Que lués a l’autre ne disoit. . . . . . . . . . . . . On ooient parler d’amors. Ensamble lisent et aprendent; A la joie d’amor entendent: Un vergier a li peres Floire . . . . . . . . . . . . D’amors i chantent li oisel. Quant il mangoient et bevoient Li oisel seure aus se séoient; Des oiseles oent les chans: Cou est la vie as deus enfans. . . . . . . . . . . . . Et quant a l’escole venoient Lor tables d’yvoire prenoient, Adont lor veissiez escrire Letres et vers d’amors en cire. Letres et salus font d’amors Du chant des oisiaus et des flors._

The writer of I. is evidently a genuine poet, though perhaps somewhat of the ‘spring poet’ order. He exalts the sentiment of love, as we have seen, and feelingly describes the elaborately constructed tomb (vv. 530-652), the finely wrought cup (vv. 431-498), and the birds and flowers and fountains and trees of the gardens of the king and of the ‘Admiral.’ He dwells in sensuous fondness in his enumeration equally of the fine stuffs and precious stones; the _mantiaus_, _vairs osterins_ and _bliaus indes porprins_ (429-30), or the _saffirs_ and _calcidoines_ and _boines jagonses_ and _sardoines_, etc. (1755-77), and of flowers and trees; the “_poivre, canele et garingal_,” or the “_encens, girofle et citoval_,” or the _beuns_, the _plantoine_, the _alïer_, the _boins figiers_, the _peschiers_, the _periers_ and the _noiers_ (1761-8).

The “_version populaire_,” on the other hand, seems to be adapted somewhat to the ideal of the native French epic, and Floire is represented as a model of courage and knightly virtue, in a class with the _douze pers_ and the other heroes of the Charlemagne cycle of stories. The writer interpolates scenes in which Floire may display his fighting qualities. In the early part of the story, he returns from school just in time to rescue Blauncheflur, who is about to be committed to the flames. He accomplishes her rescue by acting as her champion and fighting the seneschal, who has accused her of attempting to poison the king. The combat is a stirring one quite in the manner of the _Chansons de geste_ (vv. 920-1160). On the journey to Babylon, Floire has heroic adventures in a battle with Diogenes, son of Samones, king of the city of Fusis (1854-1984). Later, when the trial of Fl. and Bl. is interrupted by the arrival of an invader, Jonas de Handreas, Fl. offers to vanquish the invaders if his life be spared. At first he is unsuccessful in his attempt, but after being taken prisoner by the invaders, he is aroused by the reproachful words of Bl. and breaking loose, slays Jonas, thus delivering the city and winning Bl. (3120-3410). The writer of II. emphasizes the battle scenes at the expense of the descriptive passages, devoting to the description of the tomb only 32 verses, and to that of the wonderful cup, only 14. He seems also to be of a practical turn of mind, and instead of fondly enumerating the gems received for Bl., describes rather the circumstances of the sale. Babyloine is a rich city with no poor, and has a rent of three thousand ounces of gold each day (vv. 2319, 2342). From all these instances one can see that the sweet and sentimental tale of the I. version is quite modified in II. If we agree with Herzog that this version was the result of the blending of the #B# version imported from Italy, with the #A# version, which was already well known in France, we must conclude also that this “_version populaire_” is influenced by the ideals of contemporary French poetry of native origin, by the manners and conventions of the _chansons de geste_, and the heroic romances springing from or influenced by them.

_(c) Provence._

Among the troubadours of Provence the story of Fl. and Bl. was early known and popular, as one must judge from the very frequent allusions. There is, however, no proof of the existence of a Provençal romance.

_(d) In Germany._

In Germany are to be encountered many versions of the popular story. The earliest one seems to have been the Low Rhenish poem Floyris and Blaunchiflur, of about 3700 lines, translated by an unknown poet about 1170 (Steinmeyer, H. Z. xxi, 307-331). To the middle of the 13th century belongs the MHG. poem in 8006 lines by Konrad Fleck, composed, quite independently of the Low Rhenish version above mentioned, after an OF. original. (Ed. by E. Sommer, Quedlingburg u. Leipzig, 1846.) Somewhat younger is the Mid. Low Germ. poem, _Floris ende Blancefloer_ of 3983 lines (Ed. by H. von Fallensleben, Leipzig, 1836, and by H. E. Moltzer, Groningen, 1879, in the _Bibl. van Middelnederlands Letterkunde_). The poet, Dideric van Assenede, says, himself, that he derived his material from the “Walsche.”[I-17] As a matter of fact his original seems to have been French. To the third half of the 14th century belongs the Low Germ. poem _Flosse un Blankflosse_ of 1534 lines (Ed. by Stephan Waetzoldt, Bremen, 1880), which also seems to go back to a French original.[I-18]

If we look more closely into the question of the French original of the German poems, we must assume a version, χ, earlier than the version preserved in the three existing MSS. of French I. version. These three MSS. may be classed into a group, _z_, whose chief characteristic is the attempted suicide of Floris in the Lion pit. This scene appears in two of the existing MSS., and the writer of the third MS. seems to have had the scene in his original but to have left it out. (Cf. H. Sundmacher, _Die altfrz. u. mittelhd. Bearbeitung der Sage von Fl. und Bl._, diss. Göttingen, 1872.) Among the German versions it appears only in the LG. _Flosse un Blankflosse_. The other German versions must rest on an OF. version, χ, which at the hands of Fleck[I-19] underwent an artistic reconstruction, but at the hands of Dideric was translated simply, without the addition of any new ideas by the adapter.

In addition to these early German versions must be mentioned two groups of _Volksbücher_: (1) from Boccaccio’s Filocolo, (2) from Fleck’s poem, also a Bohemian adaptation and a German Jewish adaptation, (Cf. Hausknecht, ed. of Fl. u. Bl., pp. 13-20, Berlin, 1885.)

_(e) In Scandinavia._

Our story had a wide circulation also in the North, as one must infer from the number of Scandinavian versions preserved: (1) the old Norweg. fragment of a saga (ed. by G. Storm, _Nordisk Tidskrift for Filologi og Pædagogik_, Copenhagen, 1874, pp. 24-28), (2) the complete Icelandic saga of _Flóres ok Blankiflúr_, (3) the fragments of a second Icelandic Saga (ed. by Brynjolf Snorrason, _Annaler for nordisk old kyndighed og historie_, 1850); (4) the Old Swed. poem (ed. by E. Klemming, _Samlingar utgifna af svenska formskrift-sällskapet_, I., Stockholm, 1844); and (5) the Danish translations from the Swedish (ed. by C. J. Brandt, _Romantisk Digtning fra Middelalderen_, I. and II. København, 1869-77). The distinguishing characteristic of the Northern versions is the conclusion. According to the Norse version, Floris, to refute the charge that he has gained admittance to Bl.’s tower by the use of magic tricks, offers to fight in single combat the bravest of the Admiral’s knights. In the ensuing combat he overcomes the Admiral’s champion, and receives as his guerdon, Blauncheflur. If we accept Herzog’s conclusions (pp. 15, 35, 45-6, 66) we must assume as an original for the Scandinavian versions, a French original, N, with the ending peculiar to the Northern versions. The development from this original is shown by the following plan (also borrowed from Herzog, p. 92).

_(f) In Italy._

In Italy also the story of Fl. and Bl. enjoyed great popularity. The two chief versions were: (1) the _Cantare_, written by a popular poet in _ottave rime_; and (2) Boccaccio’s youthful production, his first prose romance, _Filocolo_. That the I. version of the story, the one most popular in France, was also current in Italy, we see in these two versions, both of which show, in addition to the special traits of II., many traits peculiar to version I. To determine exactly the interrelations of these two versions is no easy matter. From allusions in the _Filocolo_ we know that the _Cantare_ was the older. Internal evidence, however, forbids the supposition that the _Filocolo_ has sprung from the _Cantare_. Rather the two versions go back to a common source. This Italian, or Franco-Italian, version, which probably had no differences of real moment from the _Cantare_ in its present form, must in many points have been more ample and complete, and in individual instances nearer the French tradition, than the _Cantare_ is.

In connection with the Italian group must also be mentioned the Greek poem of Florios and Platziaflore, composed in the 14th century and founded upon the _Cantare_.

_(g) In Spain._

In Spain we find allusion to our story already in the 13th century, when the _Gran conquista de Vltramar_ refers to Fl. and Bl. as the most devoted pair of lovers that one had ever heard of. But there is no proof of the existence of a Spanish version of the story as early as this. In the year 1512, appeared at Alcala the prose romance, _Flores y Blancaflor_, which is current to the present day. The close relationship of this to the Italian versions is very evident. Its source, however, seems hardly to be directly the _Cantare_. The beginning of the Spanish romance, which is entirely peculiar to this version, points rather to a version in the North of Italy, which the Spanish adapter has quite probably translated into Spanish without important alteration.

[Footnote I-13: G. Paris distinguishes three general versions, two French versions and a third, “Roman” version, in which the parents of Blauncheflur are not French but Roman.]

[Footnote I-14: The evidence cited by G. Paris, consists of allusions to--(1) History of Troy, (2) Siege of Troy, (3) Aeneid, etc. The place of origin, according to G. Paris, was probably in the region about Beauvais, lying between Normandy, Picardy and the Île de France.]

[Footnote I-15: Perhaps this is a mere coincidence, since in a poem about Berthe, her father happens to be named ‘Florie,’ a Florie with a different history, _roi de Hongrie_. Later this relationship was commonly assumed. In the _Gran Conquista de Vltramar_, the story of Berthe is intercalated. She is daughter of Blancaflor and Flores.]

[Footnote I-16: G. Paris makes this II. version the sole representative of a third distinct form of the story, the 2^o of his general classification, 1^o, 2^o, 3^o.]

[Footnote I-17: That is to say, French or Italian.]

[Footnote I-18: This version was evidently not translated from a French MS. but written from memory. The details are not always exactly identical with those of the French, though often so, enough so to make the origin of the poem unmistakable though it is much condensed and the order of events somewhat transposed.]

[Footnote I-19: Fleck’s work is a paraphrase. The details are identical but are amplified to 8006 verses.]

§ 3. ENGLISH VERSION.

The story of Fl. and Bl. found its way into England in the 13th century, that is to say, when it had been for a hundred years familiar to French hearers and after it had already spread into many lands outside of France. As has been said, the English version goes back to a French original. This original was certainly of the I. form. Of the features peculiar to the French II. version, the English version does not show one, while it agrees with the French I. version to the extent of exact translation of many phrases and verses and even of reproduction of French rime-words. At the same time the French original that lay before the English adapter can not have been the text exactly as it is preserved in any one of the three extant French MSS., but rather an older, or purer text which we have designated by χ, a distinguishing feature of which is the absence of the attempted suicide of Floris in the lion pit. The text that must be assumed as the original of the English poem must have been very similar to the original from which Fleck and Dideric derived their German versions, but not exactly identical as is evidenced by frequent slight divergences.

The English poet has not expanded and amplified by the addition of further details or by the introduction of personal reflections, as the German Fleck has done. He has presented the essential features of the love story as it impressed him, in a condensed form to be sure, at the same time without bareness or baldness. Unlike the adapter of the Low Rhenish condensed version, he has preserved the original order of incidents, and has usually preserved faithfully the smallest details that have any essential bearing on the plot.

Some idea of the English writer’s fidelity to the details and even to the phraseology of his French original, and of his method of translating, may be gained from the following parallel passages:

_Que bien sorent parler latin_ _Et bien escrivre en parchemin_ vv. 263-4.

_Inouȝ þey couþ of latyne_ _And wel wryte on parchemyn_ vv. 33-4.

_Faites la moi tost demander_ _Ja li ferai le chief couper._ vv. 399-400.

_Let do bryng forþ þat mayde,_ _Fro þe body þe heved schal goo._ vv. 140-41.

_Et il l’a tant bien acatée_ _Qu’a fin or l’a sept fois pesée._ vv. 507-8.

_Þe amyral hur bouȝt anoon_ _And gafe for hur, as she stood upryȝt,_ _Seven sythes of gold her wyȝt._ vv. 194-6.

_Ci gist la bele Blanceflor_ _A cui Floires ot grant amor._ vv. 651-2.

_Here liþ swete Blauncheflur_ _Þat Floris loved par amur._ vv. 217-18.

_Un grafe a trait de son rapier_ . . . . . . . . . . _En son cuer bouter le voloit,_ _Quant sa mere cou apercoit._ vv. 787-890.

_His knif he droȝ ut of his scheþe_ _And to his herte hit hadde ismite,_ _Nadde his moder hit underȝite._ vv. 308-10.

The _grafe_ is elaborately described in vv. 788-98:

_Li roi li done un palefroi,_ _Qui d’une part estoit tous blans,_ _De l’autre rouges comme sans._ vv. 964-6.

_Þe king let sadel a palfray_ _Þe oon half white, so mylke_ _And þat oþer reed, so sylk._ vv. 382-4.

_Fius, fait ele, gardez le bien;_ _Tant com l’aurez, mar _cremez_ rien;_ _Car vous ja rien ne requer(r)iez_ _Que tost ou tard vous ne l’aiez_ vv. 1003-6.

_Mi sone, he rede, have þis ring;_ _While he is þin, ne dute noþing._ . . . . . . . . . _And be hit erli and be hit late_ _To þi wil þu schalt habbe whate._ vv. 393-8.

_La le troevent ou siet, sous l’arbre,_ _Sor un perron qui fu de marbre._ vv. 1355-6.

_Þe briggere he fond ate frome,_ _Sittinde on a marble ston._ vv. 558-9.

_Le millor conseil que jou sai_ v. 1858.

_Þe beste red þat ihc þe can_ v. 742.

_Si maudient qui s i foula_ v. 2060.

_Hi beden God ȝive him wel fin_ _Þat so manie flures dide þerin_ vv. 855-6.

_Des flors sali un paveillon_ _Des eles feri mon menton;_ _Del paveillon tel paor oi,_ _Que m’escriai plus tost que poi_ vv. 2093-6.

_Þer fliste ut a buterfliȝe,_ _Are ihc wiste, on mine iȝe._ _So sore ihc uas offerd of þan,_ _Þat ihc loude crie bigan_ vv. 889-92.

_Bele compaigne, Blanceflor,_ _Volez vous veoir bele flor?_ vv. 2117-18.

_And sede, “Swete Blauncheflur,_ _Wiltu se a wel fair flur?”_ vv. 897-8.

_Damoisele qui a amor_ _Et joie en soi, doit avoir flor._ vv. 2124-30.

_Ho þat loveþ par amur,_ _An haþ þerof joie, mai love flur._ vv. 903-4.

In spite of this number of tolerably exact correspondences, in word and phrase, with the French original, the English poem is a condensed adaptation rather than a slavish translation. As in the French II. version, the tender and sentimental element is much condensed; but the English writer, unlike the writer of French II., does not introduce the heroic and warlike element in the form of duels and battles. He does not amplify by adding new details, as Fleck did, nor does he confuse the order of incidents as does the adapter of the Low Rhenish version. He makes rather a faithful condensation quite after the manner of English adapters from the French, which is no doubt to be explained as due not so much to difference between the writers, English and French, as to a difference between the hearing publics, French and English, for whom the production was intended.[I-20]

No doubt with his English public in mind, the English poet, in adapting the story from the French, has modified to some extent the tenderness and sentimentality, even at times the poetic descriptions, of his French original (compare vv. 1117-1194 of the French with the corresponding English vv. 457-72), and has omitted the enumeration of gems and of precious stuffs suggestive of an elegance perhaps unintelligible to an English speaking and hearing public at this time. The wonderful cup, to the description of which 67 verses (431-498) are devoted in the French romance, in the English poem is dismissed with 17 verses (163-184). The garden so elaborately described in the French, vv. 1724-1835, in the English poem occupies only vv. 685-732. The description of the knife (_grafe_), which serves no other purpose than that of external adornment in the French version (vv. 788-799), is entirely neglected in the English translation. The translator’s method is well illustrated in the case of the description of Floris’s equipage preliminary to setting out on his journey. The description of the saddle and harness occupies 37 verses (964-1000) of the French poem, and is dismissed by the English translator with 5 (vv. 382-389), _I ne can telle ȝou noȝt Hu richeliche þe sadel was wroȝt_, and three verses following.