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ALISCANS, 5702: DES TORS D'ARCAISE

RAYMOND WEEKS

The name Arcaise in line 57021 of Aliscans has never been explained. It has probably been dismissed by readers as one of the numerous Saracen proper names which were invented by the fancy of the trouvères. The usual explanations of such names, however, do not apply: it is not in the rime, and does not occur in the rime anywhere in the poem, nor does the (doubtless) variant form Arcage, of line 8035. Again, it cannot owe its existence to the habit of the ancient poets of assigning to pagan chieftains names which were either grotesque or sinister.

Perhaps the context of the line in question may throw some light on our investigation. A Saracen hero, Margot, appears in battle:

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Some of the features in this description are found in other poems. For example, we read of those who inhabit Bocident in the Conquête de Jérusalem2:

Chil mainent .x. jornees de la l'arbre qui fent.

8135 Une fois ens en l'an, por renovelement,

Se vait chascuns baigner el flove de jovent.3
Onques chil ne mengerent de nul grain de froment.
Ainc parler n'en oïrent ne n'en sevent noient.
Trestot vivent d'especes, n'ont nul habitement,
Et sont lait et hisdeus; de conbattre ont talent.

1 The edition cited is that of Wienbeck, Hartnacke and Rasch, Halle, 1903.

2 Edited by C. Hippeau, Paris, 1868. In lines 2561 ss. of the same poem, there is mention of Bocident and Monuble, the latter being a country where froment does not exist, where the inhabitants (who are said to be blacker than soot) live on "espices, de chucre et de piment." This passage also includes mention of the "arbre qui fent."

3 The fountain of youth is mentioned often in Esclarmonde (edited by Max Schweigel, Marburg, 1889, in Ausgaben und Abhandlungen) and is near Bocident.

Again, Brehier des Tors de Bocident is said to be "Hideus et noirs plus q'arremens froiés."1 Another case: Margot is said in one passage of the Chevalerie Vivien2 to be from Marsaine, while another hero, Mathamar (or Martamar), is said to be from the same place. We have in this chanson no description of the country of Margot, but that of Martamar is thus described (vv. 1651-1654):

Par mi l'estor est Martamars venus,
Rois de Garise qui siet outre lou flun;
Solaz n'i luist ne n'i prent son escons,
Il n'i croist bleis, ne tramois ne nus fruis.

While it is not possible to identify Bocident, Garise (which may of course be the same as Arcaise), and Arcaise, certain things in the passages here cited indicate that the poets had in mind the extreme limits of the Orient as they imagined them. The literature concerning mediæval opinions of the Orient is too vast to be cited here. Mention may be made, however, of the fact that mediæval scholars and poets say that the extreme limits towards the Orient (as indeed towards the Occident) were reached by Hercules, who set up pillars to mark the place. With such a legend as a starting point, it is easy to see with what strange creatures the medieval poets would people the region near the pillars of Hercules, and what a reversal of usual climatic and astronomical phenomena they would assign to it. May it not be that the tors d'Arcaise of line 5702 of Aliscans means the towers of Hercules, or, rather, of the region named after Hercules? The change of herc- to arc- is perfectly regular in French, and the alteration in the remainder of the word is not in the least remarkable in a rare proper name which figured in the songs of popular poets. It is likely that a manuscript of Aliscans once existed in which the Arcaise of line 5702 bore more resemblance to Hercule. The unknown fifteenth-century translator of this chanson thus renders the passage in question: "Il [Margos] estoit si puissant qu'il possedoit la terre des tours d'Arcalde jusques an habisme ou les vens dessendent. Et dist l'en que la est la gueulle d'enffer ou les deables habitent les plus souvent. Et outre cellui lieu n'a royaulme, terre ne seignourie habitable si nom a bestes et oyseaux sauvages, et n'y croist pain, vin ne ble si 1 La Chevalerie Ogier, Paris, 1842, v. 10,019. The word arrement occurs often in descriptions of Bocident; cf. Conquête de Jérusalem, 7510-7512:

La premiere eschiele est de ceus de Bocidant.
Plus sont noir c'arremens (a malfés les commant!)
Et n'ont de blanc sor aus mais que l'oil et la dant.

In Huon de Bordeaux, Agrapart offers to Huon "le marche par devers Bocident" and his sister, who is "noire com arement": vv. 6519-6521.

2 Edition of A. Terracher, Paris, 1909, v. 173; for the other passage, vid. v. 314 (from the text of Boulogne).

3 Professor Kittredge has treated the pillars of Hercules in a masterly article in the Putnam Anniversary Volume, New York, G. E. Stechert, 1909, pp. 545-566. I desire to thank Professor J. Douglas Bruce for drawing my attention to this article, and for furnishing me other data.

nom d'aulcunes espices, dont on aporte aucuneffois par deça."1 Evidently the translator did not see in Arcalde (if that be the form of his original) a reference to the towers of Hercules. To be sure, he may not have been acquainted with the legend. In any event, he misunderstood the text, and translated it to mean that Margot possessed the country from the towers of Arcalde clear to the abyss.

In conclusion, it may not be amiss to offer a few facts showing how, in other forms, the name Hercules was used in Old French without, doubtless, any one's understanding that it referred to the great hero.

One of the most frequent ways of saying: "at the ends of the world," was: "as bornes (or bonnes) Artu (or Arcu)."2 Scholars long since discovered that the form Artu, by much the more frequent, is an alteration of Arcu, which is derived from Hercule. The triumph of the form Artu of course attests the popularity of King Arthur.3

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Although the lines 5700-5710 of Aliscans do not contain the words "bornes Artu" [or "Arcu"], they contain an equivalent, for, passing over the somewhat vague "desci k'en oriënt," we have, in "arbres ki fent," an expression which means at the ends of the oriental world," as, for example: Et le mer et le terre jusqu'a l'arbre qui fent," Bastart de Buillon, edited by A. Scheler, v. 587, cf. v. 2874; "N'i laissent a semondre dusc'a l'arbre qui fent," Conquête de Jérusalem, v. 2570; “N'a plus fier chevalier jusqu'a l'arbre qui fent," Bauduin de Sebourc, II, p. 284. A well-known equivalent expression in the old poems is: "jusqu'au sec arbre," as: "Desc'au sec arbre, ne tant c'on puet aler," Huon de Bordeaux, p. 105.

It is probable that a careful search would disclose stranger descendants of Hercule than Artu or Arcaise. We read in line III of the second redaction of the Moniage Guillaume: "Car fust il ore as puis de Montagu!" but one manuscript bears: "ore droit as bones Artu." This causes us to suspect a

1 Vid. Fritz Reuter, Die Bataille d'Arleschant, Halle, 1911, p. 123. For an attempt to explain Arcalde as Arcadie, see Leo Jordan, Litblt. f. Germ. und Rom. Phil., XXXIV, 117.

2 Vid. the following passages: "Querre t'ai fait jusq' as bones Artu,” Aliscans, p. 358, v. 25; "Car il n'a en ce monde jusqu'a bonnez Artus," Hugues Capet, p. 211; "Que n'a si bele fame dusc'as bones Artus," Roman d'Alixandre, H. Michelant, Stuttgart, 1846, p. 380, v. 33; "Toie ert la terre dusc'as obes Artu," Moniage Renoart, MS. of Boulogne, fol. 143 vo. Sometimes another word than bornes is used: ".C. liewes loing outre les pors Artu," MS. of Boulogne, fol. 148 r. Occasionally the form Arcu occurs: ".I. des bons c'on trovast dusqu'as bones Arcu," Roman d'Alixandre, p. 168, v. 36.

8 Vid. P. Paris, Manuscrits François, Paris, 1840, III, pp. 92, 93, 104, 105; P. Meyer, "Etude sur les mss. du Roman d'Alexandre,” Romania, XI, pp. 216, 323, and the same author in his Alexandre le Grand dans la littérature française du moyen âge, Paris, 1886, Vol. II, p. 171 and note 2; J. Runeberg, Etudes sur la geste Rainouart, Helsingfors, 1905, p. 97, note 1; the article by Professor Kittredge mentioned above.

♦ W. Cloetta, in the publications of the Société des Anciens Textes, Paris, 1906. The author gives the reading of the variant as boues, which is probably an error. In line 5182 of the same poem, we find: "N'a trois vilains dechi a Montagu," with Montargu and Morangu as variants.

similar alteration in many passages, such as: "Mius vous venist tous estre a Montagu," Aliscans, v. 7433. Similarly, Mont-Léu has doubtless dispossest occasionally Artu or Arcu. In line 846 of the Chevalerie Ogier we find: "Nostre iert la terre dessi a Mont-Léu," but a variant reads: dusc'as bones Artu," an expression used again by the poet in line 12,243.

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It is barely possible that a trisyllabic form of Hercule in bones or bornes Hercule found a substitute in the Montoscure of a passage in Foucon de Candie, v. 4054 of the edition of O. Schultz-Gora, Dresden, 1909: "El mont d'Oscure, ou la lande ert pleissiée" (MS. 774 of the Bibliothèque Nationale has est plesie and mont oscur, fol. 106 ro; and MS. 25,518 of the same library has mont d'oscure, fol. 68 vo. The significant part of this line, permitting us perhaps to identify Montoscure, is the last word, which means apparently 'folded.' If so, the same statement is made of the earth in the Roman d'Alixandre, in the very passage which relates the arrival of Alexander at the bornes Arcu: "La mer(s) qui tiere clot a les mons si plaiés" (that is, ploiés), p. 316, v. 31. Another similar descendant of bones Hercule may perhaps be seen in one of the names of Brehier des Tors de Bocident, whom we have already mentioned. He is also called Brehier des Tors de Mont Argüe, in the Chevalerie Ogier, v. 10,311.

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