Yvain, or the Knight With the Lion

“For, once, those lovers among us

Deserved to be called courteous,

Brave, generous and honourable.

But now all that is turned to fable.

Those who know naught of it, say I,

Claim they love, but in that they lie;

True love seems fable to those I cite,  

Who boast of love but lack the right.”

In King Arthur’s time, honor and duty were prized, and love was deeply felt and cherished. The narrator laments that, in his own time, centuries later, those great virtues have languished, and that the world is worse off for it. 

“There are those who all they hear

Understand not, though they hear;

They listen with the ears alone,

While the heart is like a stone.”

Calogrenant tells his audience of knights that the story of his misadventure contains more meaning than the mere thrills of wonder and terror it contains. Through him, the author warns his readers that the tale and the saga that follows it contain dimensions of the heart and mind that will be missed by those who listen simply for amusement. 

“Straight and tall, and motionless,

Seventeen feet; not a fraction less.

He gazed; never a word did yield,

No more than a beast of the field,

And I assumed he lacked reason,

And could not utter like a man.

Nevertheless I ventured boldly,

Saying to him: ‘Come now, tell me

Whether thou art truly human!’

And he replied: ‘I am a man.’

‘What kind of man? ‘Such as you see;

I am no more than I seem to be.’”

Here, the forest giant speaks to Calogrenant, who assumed—as sometimes we all do—that, because someone appears different, he must be stupid.