1 Blessed may he be who wrote/copied/recited [this] song/poem. Amen.

2 Hair will grow through his hood (i.e., a threadbare hood indicates poverty)

3 Here I set my pen down. I [not the pen] am blameworthy if I have written poorly.

Line references are consistent for both texts in the early part of the poem. Thereafter we have listed Lambeth (L) first followed by the corresponding line numbers in Naples (N) in parentheses; when lines are omitted in L, N is the first text referenced. Short stanzas or missing lines are noted for both manuscripts. Perhaps these omissions are deliberate or the lines could have been missing from the scribe’s copy-texts.

Abbreviations: A: Ashmole 61 (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS 6922) (see Shuffelton); AND: Arthurian Name Dictionary; C: London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A.ii (see Mills); L: London, Lambeth Palace, MS 306; LBD: Li Biaus Descouneüs; LD: Lybeaus Desconus; LI: London, Lincoln’s Inn, MS 150 (formerly known as Lincoln’s Inn, MS Hale 150) (see Cooper); MED: Middle English Dictionary; N: Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS XIII.B.29; NAE: Lacy, New Arthurian Encyclopedia; ODOS: Farmer, Oxford Dictionary of Saints; P: London, British Library, MS Additional 27879 (Percy Folio); SGGK: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Shuffelton: Codex Ashmole 61.

Incipit L: A tretys of one Gyngelayne othir wyse namyd by Kyng Arthure Lybeus Dysconeus that was bastard son to Sir Gaweyne. This extended incipit in L is unique among the extant manuscripts. N: Libious Disconious.

1–6 The invocation to Christ and his mother is conventional and appears to include the audience in its storytelling. Renaut de Bâgé’s poem begins with an encomium to the poet’s lady: “Cele qui m’a en sa baillie / cui ja d’amors sans trecerie / m’a doné sens de cançon faire — por li veul un roumant estraire / d’un molt biel conte d’aventure” (For my sovereign lady I have written and sung of a love that knows no false­hood, according to the direction she gave. Now I wish to compose a romance for her from a beautiful tale of adventure) (Le Bel Inconnu, lines 1–5). The substi­tution of the Virgin Mary in the English version underscores similarities between religious discourse and the quasi-religious discourse of courtly love, marking perhaps a shift in emphasis toward piety. The Virgin is the recipient of a number of pleas in the poem, most notably when the maiden Violet is abducted and about to be assaulted by two giants.

4 L: That lysteneth of a conquerour. N: That listenith of a conquerour. The cues of oral poetry are retained, even though this is a late version of the poem; the oral story­telling tradition and minstrelsy are particularly strong in both L and N. Musical instruments, the dwarf’s ability to entertain as well as to advise, and several musical allusions draw attention to the debt that metrical poetry and music owe to each other. See Zaerr, “Music and Magic.” Purdie notes that the rhymes “conqueror/warrior” appear also in the opening of Otuel and Roland (Anglicising Romance, p. 125n111); see Otuel and Roland, lines 3, 11.

7 L: His name was Sir Gyngelayne. N: His name was hote Gyngeleyn. L’s manner of naming the protagonist “Sir Gyngelayne” has the effect of legitimating the natural son of Gawain by dubbing him a knight, whereas N does not. The moniker “Lybeaus Desconus” (spelled in various ways in Lambeth and Naples) is later bequeathed upon the hero by Arthur for practical purposes (see L, N, line 80), an act marked by a marginal note in L. In Renaut’s poem, the hero’s name is not revealed until the end.

7–30 The story of the hero’s enfances in Renaut’s text enters the narrative after the defeat of the enchanters (Mills, p. 42). In LBD, however, the events of the “enfances” differ from the English versions. Following the fier baiser, the disembodied voice of la Pucele as Mains Blancs (the Maiden of the White Hands) informs Guinglain that his father was Gawain and that his mother is Blancemal le Fee (lines 3235–37). The mother of the Middle English Lybeaus, however, is not a “fay” who arms her son to send him to the Round Table. There are several romances where the hero’s mother, estranged from the hero’s father, either because she has been abandoned or because of the father’s death, leaves the court and makes a life in rural seclusion, often in a forest, with her son whom she isolates and protects from the world. In Sir Perceval of Galles, for example, Acheflour retires from court upon the death of her husband and lives secluded in a forest with her young son Perceval. Whereas Lybeaus’s acquisition of a chivalric identity begins with his discovery of a dead knight in full armor, Perceval’s chivalric identity begins when he meets fully alive Arthurian knights. Further, the illegitimacy of Gyngeleyn is lessened by the fact that his father is Sir Gawain, one of Arthur’s most honored knights. Gawain ranks among “the most complex Arthurian characters”; he often exemplifies courtesy and chivalric ideals, but his frequent womanizing also receives attention (Shuffelton, p. 474n8). The stigma of illegitimacy imposed upon Lybeaus at the beginning of the poem is somewhat mitigated at the end by full recognition of the Arthurian court and his marriage to the regal Lady of Synadoun. N and A continue and conclude the hero’s enfances with the return of Gyngeleyn’s mother to Arthur’s court in the final scene, a family reconciliation not present in the other manuscripts. Sir Degaré, like Lybeaus, is an illegitimate son, but he manages to reconcile his parents and promote their marriage, whereas in LD, Sir Gawain and Lybeaus’s mother do not marry.

9 L: Under a forest syde. N: Bi a forestis side. The location of Lybeaus’s conception at the edge of a forest also places him at the outer limits of legitimacy. As Shuffelton notes, “bastardy was often imagined as manifesting itself in moral or physical defect” (p. 475n15); moreover, in the realm of the law, an illegitimate child could not legally inherit property from either parent (Brand, “Family and Inheritance,” p. 73). This medieval context thus provides motive for Lybeaus’s strong drive for public recognition by the Arthurian court and confirms the underlying narrative sense that he is to some extent legitimized by his paternal bloodline and his father’s reputation. According to Thomas Wright, “The story of rising from an obscure beginning is a very common one in medieval literature, and belongs to a principle of medieval sentiment, that noble blood was never lost . . . and that if a knight, for instance, met with a woman, or however low the circumstances under which the child received its first nurture, the blood it had received from the father would inevitably urge it onward till it reached its natural station” (quoted in Hales and Furnivall, Bishop Percy’s Folio, 2:405).

11 L: With Arthur at the Roun Table. N: With Arthur at the Round Table. The Round Table, added to the Arthurian cycle by Wace in the twelfth century in his Roman de Brut (“Fist Artur la Runde Table” [Arthur had the Round Table made], line 9751), has become a symbol of Arthurian governance. The Winchester Round Table shows the names of twenty-four knights, one of whom is Lybeaus Desconus, written “S(ir) lybyus dyscony(us).” See Badham and Biddle, “Inscriptions in the Painting,” pp. 255 and 280.

19 L: For he was full savage. N: For that he was so savage. Narratives of l’enfant sauvage (the wild child) abound in the Middle Ages. In Middle English romance, the wild child trope may include characters such as Gowther, whose kinship with Merlin (as half-brother) renders him a good candidate for taming; that he is conceived by a demon disguised as his mother’s husband (an episode akin to Arthur’s as well as Merlin’s conception) contributes to his lack of civility. His wild behavior is particularly noteworthy when he is described as having suckled nine wet nurses to death (Sir Gowther, lines 119–20). Lybeaus exemplifies his inner wild child in that he inhabits the forest and, like young Perceval, he flagrantly disregards the rules of chivalric behavior.

26 L: His moder clepte him Bewfiz. N: His modir callid him Beaufits. The name means literally “Beautiful Son” (Beau Fitz) and is a term of endearment bequeathed upon the boy by his mother, whose name is unstated, although in LBD, Guinglain’s mother is Blancemal le Fee. It is tempting to see a pun as well on “Bewvisage.” See N, line 72, where Lybeaus is praised for being “so feire of vis” and similarly in L (same line number): “so fayre a vice.” Naming is an important feature of medieval romance, a genre often concerned with questions of identity and chivalric education. His mother’s term of endearment is later supplanted by Arthur’s dubbing of the young man as Lybeaus Desconus, although both names allude to the young hero’s good looks and, by implication, his noble blood through kinship with Gawain and Arthur. Lybeaus’s testing through adventure confirms the outward sign of noble blood, that is, his masculine beauty, and explains his natural prowess.

28 L: And this childe was so nyse. N: And he him silve was nyse. Lybeaus is called a child here not only because of his apparent youth (as indicated by Arthur in L, line 103: “But me thinketh thou arte to yonge” or N, line 106: “But ever me thinkith thee ful yong”) but because his identity is partially defined by his biological kinship with Gawain and by his mother. “Child” also means a young man who aspires to be a knight or a young knight at the early stages of his career. To say that Lybeaus is a “child” because he has not been fully enfolded into chivalric masculinity and Arthur’s court is pertinent to the use of the term here, since Lybeaus’s identity is fully aligned at this point in the narrative with a mother wholly responsible for her son’s nurture. Like other orphaned, abandoned, fostered, or quasi-legitimate male protagonists of medieval romance (e.g., Tristan, Perceval, Lancelot, and Arthur), Lybeaus cannot be fully masculinized until he has been properly trained in the precepts and practices of chivalry. Only A and P assign a specific age to Lybeaus: “Ten yere olde I ame” (A, line 52) and “14 yeere old I am” (P, fol. 157r, line 52 [Cooper]). The typical age at which a young man could be knighted was twenty-one. This rite of passage varied among literary knights: at twenty Chaucer’s Squire is still a squire, while Bevis of Hampton becomes Sir Bevis at fifteen, as does Sir Gowther.

37 L: He toke off that knyghtis wede. N: The childe drowe off the knyghtis wede. In a system predicated upon honor and prowess, armor stripping is a dishonorable and frowned-upon practice. The scene recalls a similar incident in the tales of Perceval in which the young rustic, with the help of Gawain, appropriates the armor of a dead knight. He, like Lybeaus, is unfamiliar with courtly etiquette. Lybeaus’s ignorance and naiveté in this scene illustrate the “savagery” and “outrage” mentioned in lines 19 and 20.

41 L: Glastynbury. N: Glastonbury. A traditional placename associated with Arthurian literature. Its use in the Middle English romance situates Arthur and his court in that part of Britain known as Logres. In Wirnt von Grafenberg’s Wigalois, Arthur’s court is located in Brittany, whereas in LBD, Arthur’s court is in Caerleon in Wales.

45 L: This childe knelyd downe on his kne. Despite his lack of chivalric training, C and L’s Lybeaus seems to know what to do in front of a king, a gesture that tacitly indicates the boy’s innate nobility, an apparently inherited character trait that allows the disadvantaged Lybeaus to claim his proper heritage in this early scene. N, A, and P (the stanza is missing completely in LI) omit Lybeaus’s gesture of kneeling, perhaps in order to underscore his rustic ways. In N, he simply greets (grete, line 45) the king and his knyghtis alle (line 44).

48 L: missing expression. N: Y pray yow, par amour. Literally, for the sake of love, this is a conventional courtly expression added to requests. The expression is used only in N and P.

49 L: I am a child unkowthe. N: Y am a childe unknowe. The boldness of this pronouncement in a court obsessed with gestures of civility and courtesy indicates lack of training in these skills. The translation of L’s unkowthe as uncouth is certainly plausible, but N’s unknowe suggests that it could also mean “unknown,” or that the scribe understood it as a word relating to the overall themes of the poem; the notion that to be unknown is also to be outside the realm of chivalry renders both interpretations possible.

52 L: Lorde, I pray thee nowthe. N: Lord, Y pray you nowthe. This line differs con­sid­er­ably from the other redactions that indicate Lybeaus’s age. (See note for line 28.)

61 L: Sayde Gyngelayn, “Be Seint Jame!” N: The childe seid,“Bi Seint Jame.” L alone among the manuscripts cites the name “Gyngelayn” here. The naming of saints is significant throughout the narrative. This reference is probably to James the Great, the first apostle of Christ to die and to be martyred for Christianity. The shrine with which he is most often associated is Santiago de Compostela in Spain. His cult was so thoroughly linked to pilgrimage that his emblems, the scallop shell and wide-brimmed hat, frequently became the garb of medieval pilgrims (see ODOS, p. 135).

66 L: Clepped me Bewfice. N: Callid me Beaufice. This second occurrence of Lybeaus’s informal moniker underscores its importance to the narrative. In the Promptorium Parvulorum, the nickname means “more beautiful son;” the entry reads “Byfyce. Filius, vel pulcher filius (1:28). Shuffelton’s suggestion that Rate, the presumed author/scribe of A, “may be evoking another famous romance hero, Bevis (or Beuis) of Hampton, who is not otherwise connected to this story” (p. 475n26), lends another dimension of meaning to the designation. Good looks appear to foreshadow a hero’s success.

69 L: Be God and Seint Denyce. N: Bi God and Seint Denyce. Although the naming of saints is a common feature of the English version of the poem, in passages focused on the renaming of the protagonist, the utterance of saints’ names calls attention to their value as mediators between human and divine realms. This saint, for whom the abbey of St. Denis was named, was popular in France and also in England, with forty-one churches named in his honor (see ODOS, p. 135).

80 L: Lybeus Disconeus. N: Lybeus Dysconius. This short line, consisting only of the two words that compose the protagonist’s name, calls attention to itself metrically as well as visually. In L, the name Lybeus Disconious in a later hand appears in the margin; interestingly, the spelling Disconious resembles the Naples spelling Dysconious.

88–93 L: “Now Kyng Arthur hathe made me knyght.” Alone among the manuscripts, L attributes a verbal response to Lybeaus that suggests an innate graciousness and proclaims his new status to the court.

89 L: I thanke him with all my myght. N: And with a swerde bright of myght. Nancy Cooper ("Libeaus Desconus," p. 400) believes that “bright” is erroneously repeated here from the previous line. A reads “suerd of might” (line 89), C: “swerde of might” (line 77), and P rearranges the lines thus: “K[ing] Arthur anon right / with a sword ffaire and bright / trulye þ[at] same day / dubbed that child a knight / And gave him armes bright” (fols. 157r–v, lines 85–89 in Cooper).

92–93 L: to say . . . in feere. N: with a swerde bright of myght (line 89). say (“assail”). See MED saien (v)d: “to test one’s strength on, do battle with; an aphetic form of asseien: to try, test, challenge,” in feere (in the company of men). Having been knighted, Lybeaus is eager to prove himself in combat. In N, he is taught by Gawain.

93 L: Short stanza. Following Arthur’s investiture of Lybeaus, Gawain trains him in knightly combat and provides him with a shield only in N, A, P, and C. The passage is missing in both L and LI. Gawain’s mentorship is important to the shaping of Lybeaus’s identity as a knight and a tacit if unacknowledged recog­nition of their father-son relationship and Lybeaus’s innate nobility. The shield, of course, marks a knight’s identity in the field. N: Aftur, him taught Gaweyn . . . He hongid on him a schilde (lines 91–94). Also missing in L and LI, the details of the shield appear in C, N, A, P. The griffon, a hybrid fabled animal with traits of a lion and eagle, appeared in medieval bestiaries, encyclopedias, and travel lit­er­ature, and was adopted as a common feature in heraldry. It is somewhat ironic that the Fair Unknown should be given such a well-known identifying heraldic device. At N, line 264, however, the shield has only one griffon as its device. N: a schilde / With grefons overgilde, / Ipeyntid of lengthe ful gay (lines 94–96).

95 L: Of Arthure a bone he bade. N: Anone a bone he bade (line 98). The novice knight’s request for the king’s granting his petition is reminiscent of a similar scene in Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, though such a request is an important trope of romances and of Arthurian literature more generally. Notice how N’s “Anone” creates a Lybeaus more impetuous than L’s.

103 L: But me thinketh thou arte to yonge. N: But ever me thinkith thee ful yong (line 106). Arthur’s assessment here emphasizes the youth and inexperience of Lybeaus and perhaps refers back to the king’s initial reluctance to dub him without proof of his abilities or lineage. If Lybeaus is as young as ten or fourteen as some manu­scripts suggest (see note for lines 28 and 52), then Arthur’s hesitancy is well justified, although medieval boys were expected to engage in adult activities earlier than modern boys. Aristocratic males, for example, were generally im­agined to be ready for marriage at age fourteen (for girls, age twelve). Military training also began early. William Marshall served as a squire for eight years, during which time he trained for combat; he was thirteen when he entered the service of William, lord of Tancarville (Painter, William Marshal, pp. 16–17).

108 L: Wesshed and went to mete. N: Thei weschid and went to mete (line 111). The motif is found in Emaré, Sir Orfeo, Le Bone Florence of Rome, and Robyn Hode and the Potter. This custom is reiterated in several different ways in courtesy books that advocated teaching children, particularly boys, from a young age, e.g., The Young Children’s Book from Ashmole 61, Dame Courtesy from Ashmole 61 (previously pub­lished as The Babees Book, ed. Furnivall; see Shuffleton, Codex Ashmole, p. 447), etc. See also the texts in Furnivall's edition of The Babees Book: including Aristotle’s A B C, Urbanitatis, Stans Puer Ad Mensam, etc., the texts in Medieval Conduct Literature.

115 L: Ther con a mayde in ryde. N: Ther come a maid in ride (line 118). As often happens in Arthurian narratives, an adventure ensues just as the court sits down to dine (perhaps the best time to catch everyone at home). There is a strong resemblance to Lunete in Chrétien’s Yvain here.

116 L: And a dwerfe by hir syde. N: A dwarfe rode bi hur side (line 119). The dwarf is a stock character of medieval romance, but this particular dwarf has a name and description of his own. Unlike most medieval dwarves he is more virtuously construed (see notes for lines 130–40 below).

118 L: The may hight Ellene. N: The maid was yhote Elyne (line 121). In LBD, the messenger is named Helie. Other variations include Elene (C), Elyn (A), and Hellen (P). The line is missing in LI.

124–26 L: She was clothed in tarse, / Rownd and nothinge scarse, / I-pured with blawndenere. N: The maiden was clothid in tarsis, / Round and no thing skars, / With pelour blandere (lines 127–29). References here to tarse and blawndenere suggest an exotic opulence to Elene’s dress. Tarse refers to a costly fabric associated with Tharsia, whereas blawndenere refers to rich fur, possibly ermine. The dwarf in Sir Degaré has a surcoat “iforred with blaundeuer apert” (line 794). Other manuscript variants include blandere (N, line 129), blaunner (C, line 117), blaundyner (A, line 129), and Blaundemere (P, fol. 157v). The line is missing in LI. Editors have found blauwndener (L) or blandere (N) difficult. The Auchinleck editors of Sir Degaré transcribe the word as “blaunchener” (line 794), but the manuscript reads “blaundener.”

129 L: Milke white was hir destere. N: Mylke white was hur desture (line 132). According to the MED, the term refers to “a riding horse of noble breed, a knight’s mount.” Later in the poem, the horse is called a palfrey, a steed more closely identified with women and ordinary riding rather than a steed used for battle, although the terms appear to be used interchangeably in LD. The luxurious saddle decorations as well as the milk white color of the horse indicate the high status of both.

130 L: The dwerf was clothed in ynde. N: The dwarf was clothid in ynd (line 133). Ynd(e) could be the color of the cloth (indigo) or a kind of cloth associated with India, extravagant and exotic, distinguishing the dwarf as a special envoy from a signifi­cantly noble court. The manuscripts do not agree on the color or the fabric of the dwarf’s clothing; P clothes him “with scarlett ffine” (fol. 157v). N’s “hynd” is probably an error for “ynd.” Mills (LD, p. 208–09n121–32) notes the similarity between this description of Theodeley (N’s Deodelyne) and the dwarf in the Auchinleck Sir Degaré, lines 781–94.

132 L: Stoute he was and pertte. N: For he was stout and pert (line 135). The term pertte means “attractive” or “comely,” according to the MED. The dwarf here resembles the lady of Sir Launfal as described in lines 292 and 294, “Sche was as whyt as lylye yn May . . . He seygh nevere none so pert.” Stoute here does not represent portliness but rather strength or courage.

135 L: His surcote was so ryche bete. N: His sircote was overte (line 138). Mills (LD, p. 209n126) corrects L with a reading from C, here corroborated by N. The reference is to the surcot ouvert. Mills directs readers to Joan Evans, Dress in Mediaeval France, frontispiece, pp. 17, 31, and fig. 67 (p. 209n126). A reference to sorcot overt also appears in Sir Degaré, line 793. This is another instance where N agrees with C and not with L, A, or P (the line is missing in LI); C reads “Hys surcote was ouert”; P: "His cercott was of greene"; and A: "His sircote was yalow as floure."

136 L: His berde was yelewe as wax. N: His berde was as yelow as wax (line 139). Dwarves play an important part in medieval romance, and not all conform to negative stereotypes of this stock character. Many function similarly to Shakespeare’s “licensed” fools as messengers, philosophers, or counselors to the king. Some­times they are wicked and treacherous as is the dwarf in the Tristan narratives; at other times they are loyal as in Malory’s “Tale of Sir Gareth.” Physiognomy, the medieval science of physical form and shape thought to correspond to one’s intrinsic worth, appears not to apply to these characters. The dwarf in LBD and Wigalois enters Arthur’s court riding on the back of his lady’s saddle. Perhaps it is only by coincidence that the dwarf’s “yellow beard” matches the color of his lady’s hair. However, as Mills notes (See the quotation Mills cites on p. 208n121– 32), the dwarf in Sir Degaré has hair as “crisp an yhalew as wax” (line 786).

137 L: To his girdyll hange his fax. N: To his gurdul [henge] the plax (line 140). C also reads “To hys gerdell henge the plex” (line 128), once again agreeing with N and opposed to L, A, and P. (See Mills, LD, p. 209n128.) According to the MED, plax refers to braided hair or beard, whereas fax refers to the hair of the head.

142 L: Theodeley was his name. N: Deodelyne was his name (line 145). See C Teandelayn; A Wyndeleyn, P Teddelyne. The line is missing in LI. These are the Middle English versions of Tidogolain, the dwarf in LBD, who serves Helie, the lady-in-waiting to Blonde Esmeree, the French text’s equivalent to the Lady of Synadoun. Vernon J. Harward, Jr., The Dwarfs of Arthurian Romance, places this character within a category he defines as “romance dwarfs,” whom he describes as often having characteristics such as “beauty or handsomeness of countenance, excellent proportion of body and limbs, and, twice, [as described in this poem, having] fair hair” (p. 29). Theodeley/Deodelyne is clearly what Harward calls a “petit chevalier” (p. 29). The messenger’s name Elyne (the spelling in N) is incorporated into N’s spelling of the dwarf’s name, Deodelyne (italics added). Both dwarf and Elyne function as metonymic surrogates for the Lady of Synadoun, whose messengers they are. Together their attitudes and comments challenge, test, and later confirm the prowess and knightliness of Lybeaus.

146–47 L: Sotill, sawtrye in same, / Harpe, fethill, and crowthe. N: Sotil, sawtre in same, / Of harpe, fethil, and crowthe (lines 149–50). These are the stringed instruments — citole, psaltery, harp, fiddle, and crowthe — that Theodeley/Deodelyne apparently masters, indicating that he is indeed a “petit chevalier” educated in courtly accom­plish­ments pleasing to aristocratic ladies. Music and minstrelsy appear also in the Golden Isle and the enchanted castle of Synadoun. (See Zaerr’s discussion in “Music and Magic”). The debt that medieval poetry pays to music is addressed in Strohm and Blackburn, Music as Concept and Practice, especially in the section on minstrels and their education (pp. 98–103) as well as the section on instrumental music (see below note 216), “Soft Instruments,” pp. 147–56.

148–50 L: He was a gentill boourdour / Amonge ladyes in boure, / A mery man of mouthe. N here (lines 145–53) appears to have a defective stanza, missing L’s triplet. Mills (LD, p. 289) notes that L 148–50 are lacking in N, but that they are present in all other versions of the poem (except LI, where this entire section of the poem is missing). These lines, however, carry an almost sexual implication concerning the relation­ship of the dwarf to women in their bowers, and they appear in neither Sir Degaré (see note to line 136 above) nor LBD. In other words, the omission in N may be intentional, a way of evading an unnecessary sexual implication.

160 L: Mi lady of Synadowne. N: My lady of Synadowne. The imprisoned heroine of LBD, la Blonde Esmeree, the queen of north Wales, is presented by Helie as the “daughter of King Guingras” (line 177). See the note for L, line 1772. Synadoun refers to the ancient Roman station of Segontium, called later by the Welsh Cair Segeint, Caer Seint, or Caer Aber Seint, at the base of Mount Snowdon in Wales. It became known as Snauedon and later simply Snowdon (see Loomis, “From Segontium to Sinadon,” pp. 526–28). Synadoun was also associated with magic and a history relevant to the curse placed upon the queen. According to the AND, a curse inhibited construction on Vortigern’s fortress at Snowdon, which could only be removed by the blood of a fatherless child. His emissaries brought before him Ambrosius (in Nennius) or Merlin (in Geoffrey of Monmouth), who stayed his execution by showing a hidden lake beneath the foundation, where two dragons fought, one white, the other red; the victory of the white dragon, Merlin said, “foretold Vortigern’s eventual defeat” (AND, p. 449). In the Welsh Lludd and Llefelys, the dragons had been buried there by Lludd. In the Historia Meradoc, Snowdon is the capital of Wales, whereas in LBD, it is at the base of the Snowdon mountains laid waste by two sorcerers, Mabon and Evrain, until disenchanted by Guinglain, the son of Gawain (p. 449).

162 L: That was of grete valure. N: That was of grete honour. This description appears to refer to the lady and not the prison, since virtue typically resides in human subjects rather than in inanimate objects. The term valor or honor applied to a woman is significant, however, since, according to the MED, the term embodies chivalric virtues of “nobility of character,” “spiritual worth,” “courtliness,” “refinement,” “bravery,” “courage,” “physical strength,” “stability,” and “endurance.”

164 L: That is of wer wyse and wight. N: In warra that were wyse and wight. N’s reading “warra” conflicts with L and A, which have “wer” and “were” respectively. C deviates completely, omitting the concept of war, and substituting the line “With herte good and light” (line 155). The line is missing in LI, but P carries forth the idea of war in a much altered line, “For to win her in fight” (line 170 [Cooper]; fol. 157r). Given that the manuscripts disagree, N’s “warra” is a possible variant of ware or wara. The phrase “in warra” is probably a variant of “on warra,” meaning watchful or alert (MED). The line thus describes an alert or keen knight who is both wise and courageous.

165 L: To wynne hir with honoure. N: To wyn hur with honour. In LBD, Helie forewarns the Arthurian court that the knight who frees her lady must first accomplish the “Fier Baissier,” the Fearsome Kiss (line 192). Here, in the ME narrative, Lybeaus has no prior knowledge of this expectation and so is taken completely by surprise when the dragon kisses him later.

166 L: Uppe startte that yonge knyght. N: Than stert up a yong knyght. In LBD, Arthurian knights hesitate to volunteer for the task, whereas here Lybeaus simply asks first.

178 L: The mayde began to chide. N: Than gan Elyne to chide. Shuffelton calls Elene a “demoisele mesdisante, a sharp-tongued maid who never hesitates to voice severe criticism, particularly when the hero engages in something foolhardy” (p. 476 n181). One might consider her to be the prick of Lybeaus’s conscience since she reminds him of his promise to Arthur at crucial points in the narrative.

183 L: lose. N: loce. The term refers to “reputation” or “being known.” The Naples scribe frequently uses c and s interchangeably.

197–200 L: He shall do bataylles thre . . . At Poynte Perilowse, / Besyde the Chapell of Awntrous. N: Bataile five othir thre . . . At Poynt Perillous, / Biside the Chapel of Aventours. Lybeaus has many more fights than predicted by the dwarf (William Selebraunch and his three nephews, two giants, Sir Jeffroun, Sir Otis de Lile, Maugys, and Sir Lambert; before he actually sees the Lady of Synadoun, he must fight Iran and Mabon). Nor does Lybeaus begin his adventures at Poynt Perillous by the Chapel of Adventours. In LBD, Tidogolain does not speak or prophesy in this scene. According to Mills, Poynte Perilowse “roughly corresponds to le Guè Perilleus of the same episode in BD (323), but the Old French romance makes no mention of the cause with which the Poynte is presumably identified in L 301” (p. 213). Perhaps its mention here creates a bridge to the French romance and a reminder that Lybeaus is Gawain’s son. According to the AND, this is “a treacherous ford in the land of Galloway that no knight dared to cross. Gawain reached it during his travels and tried to jump his horse across it, but his horse jumped badly and dumped him into the river” (p. 401). Lybeaus will win against his opponent(s) here but will experience a river dunking later in the poem. Moreover, “chapel” is as likely to refer to a haunted place or fairy mound (as in SGGK) as to an orthodox parish church. The MED, in fact, cites this line, (chapele, n5c, “a haunted place, a fairy mound”). According to Shuffelton, “Antrus is a corrupt form of the name found in other manuscripts, Awntrous, and the Chapell of Antrus may be translated as ‘the Chapel of Adventures’” (p. 476n202–03).

203–16 The punctuation that Mills provides in his edition to L (lines 207–10) exaggerates the boast to the point of dissembling, as Lybeaus seems to claim experience in mortal combat that he does not yet have. A slight alteration in punctuation, how­ever, makes more sense in context and avoids vilifying the hero. He has some training in weapons (see note to lines 90–93 above). The remainder of the passage expresses Lybeaus’s firm conviction that to flee the potentially fatal battle is reprehensible.

216–25 L: short stanza. This stanza is missing in L and C, but present in all other manuscripts (N, A, P, and LI). It includes two rather stunning lines quoted in The Squire of Low Degree: “Therfore the dwarfe was full wo, / And sayd: ‘Arthur, thou arte to blame. / To bydde this chylde go sucke his dame / Better hym semeth, so mote I thryve” (lines 620–23). The Naples lines spoken by the dwarf are strikingly similar: “Go home and sowke thi dame / And wynne ther thi degré” (lines 224–25). With this particularly insulting remark, the dwarf cuts Lybeaus down to size and manifests the threat to the young hero indicated as well through his association with music. See note 146–47 above.

223–28 L: The mayden for ire and hete / Wolde neyther drynke ne ete. . . . N: The maide for noye and hete / Wolde nought drinke ne ete . . . (lines 232–37). In LBD, Helie and Tidogolain leave once Arthur has given his decree, before the meal, so that Lybeaus has to catch up with them later. Here the two messengers remain at the table and do not eat, but all three begin the quest together.

227 L: Tyll the table was raysed. N: Til the tabul was unleide (line 236). Shuffelton remarks that “in medieval halls, the large dining tables were movable boards, taken up and stored after meals to make space for other activities” (p. 476n239).

231 L: Foure of the best knyghtis. N: Four of the best knyghtis (line 240). L adds a fifth knight in the arming of Lybeaus, Lawncelett, who gives him a spear (line 258). In L, the first four knights are Gawain, Perceval, Ywain, and Agravain. N’s four differ in identity and order, and where L lists Gawayne, Persyvale, Iwayne, and Agfayne (Agravain), N lists Percevale, Gawayn, Ewain, and “Griffayn,” and excludes Lancelot (see the note for L240 [N250]). Shuffelton believes that the N, A reading of Gryffayn or Geffreyn is a corruption of Agravain (p. 476n257), and although this is plausible, the name may also be a corruption of Griflet (also known as Girflet or Jaufre). The names connected to Gawain, that is, Perceval and Ywain, may have evoked the name Griflet. For an account of the connections among Jaufre/Griflet and Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain and Perceval, see Hunt, “Texte and Prétexte.” Griflet in Malory’s Morte d’Arthur is one of the knights killed by Lancelot in his rescue of Guinevere. For a history of Sir Griflet in French and English Arthurian tales, see Reno, Arthurian Figures, pp. 133–34.

232 ff. L: short stanza. N: Of the best armour that myght be found (line 242).

235 L: That in the flome was baptiste. N: That in the flem Jourdan was baptist (line 245). As the passage makes clear, this is a reference to the archetypal baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. The trope is recalled later in the poem when Maugis/Maugus dunks Lybeaus in a river during a battle (see L, lines 1413 ff. and N, lines 1436 ff.).

240 L: To armen him the knyghtis were fayne. N: To army him the knyghtis were fayn (line 250). In LBD, the Fair Unknown appears in Arthur’s court fully armed. Arthur does not knight the young warrior (he accepts him into his service as a knight of the Round Table), nor do his companions give him arms and weapons. The knights “fayne” named in the following lines are interesting, particularly since Gawain is first on the list and his brother Agravain is also included. In the middle are Perceval and Yvain, two knights arguably made most famous by Chrétien de Troyes; Lancelot is named shortly hereafter as the knight who provides lance and sword. Purdie links this scene in LD to the arming scene in Otuel and Roland (Anglicising Romance, p. 125 and n111). N, 271–72 (C, lines 235–36; L, lines 261–62) thus corresponds to Otuel and Roland 312, 315. However, where C, line 232 (L, line 258) recalls Otuel and Roland 303 (Purdie, Anglicising Romance, p. 125n111), N does not. Lancelot does not number among the arming knights in N, A, and P as he does in C and L (the episode in LI is illegible).

242 L: Syr Persyvale. N: Sir Percevale (line 251). In Sir Perceval of Galles, Perceval resembles Lybeaus in that he appears in Arthur’s court without chivalric upbringing and demands to be knighted; he also subsequently confirms his knightly worth. Ironically Perceval and Gawayn, the knights Elyne would have preferred as champions of her lady, are the first knights to prepare Lybeaus for his quest.

244 L: The fourthe highte Agfayne. N: The fourth was Sir Griffayn (line 254). See note 254 below where a griffon becomes part of the heraldry not found in L.

246 L: They kestyn on him of sylke. N: Thei cast on him of sylke (line 256). The arming scene depicted in L beginning at this line and in N at line 256 is an important set piece of chivalric romance and takes on the symbolic meanings of sacred ritual and the dressing of a knight or a priest. See Ramón Lull, chapter vi “The Sig­nificance of a Knight’s Arms,” The Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, pp. 76–89, a popular text that circulated in England in “numerous manuscripts of French versions” (p. xvi), e.g., St. John’s College, Oxford, Codex 102 (late fourteenth century) and BL MS Additional 22768 first half of the fifteenth century) and translated with some elaboration into English prose in 1456 by Gilbert of the Haye (the Abbotsford manuscript). For Hay’s version of chapter 6, see pp. xli–xlii. The most memorable literary example in Middle English perhaps is the arming of Gawain in SGGK, though Chaucer’s arming of Sir Thopas may be a close second, with its mirror of mockery [CT (VII[(B2)] 857–87]. The attention paid to the description of the arming contrasts interestingly with both the undressing of the enchanted lady and her subsequent redressing as Lybeaus’s bride.

254 L: A shelde with one cheferon. N: A schilde with on griffoun (line 264). Only L varies from the heraldic griffon at this point (but see note for line 93 above). C has gryffoun (line 231); A: gryffyn (line 267); P: griffon (fol. 158v); and LI griffown (fol. 4r). Guinglain’s shield in LBD has a “lion of ermine” emblazoned on it (line 74). The shield hung around Lybeaus’s neck by Gawain is significant, especially in relation to its emblem. Noteworthy in this regard, as Hahn observes, may be “the fifteenth-century depiction of a coat of arms composed of a green field emblazoned with three gold griffins registered to ‘SIR GAWAYNE the good knyght’ (Harleian MS 2169; this is reproduced in The Ancestor: A Quarterly Review of County and Family History, Heraldry and Antiquities 3 [1902], p. 192” (Sir Gawain, p. 390).

257 L: Sir Percyvale sett on his crowne. N: Sir Persevale set on his croun / A griffon he brought with him (lines 267–68). Gawain has just set a helmet on Lybeaus’s head, and Perceval seems to add a crest in the figure of a griffon, which is also the heraldic animal depicted on his shield. This reference to a helmet crest is unique to N. Helmet crests, although first devised in the twelfth century, became fashionable in the fifteenth (Bradbury, Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare, p. 266). Chaucer appears to ridicule such pretensions in the Tale of Sir Thopas, CT (VII[(B2)] 906–08): “Upon his creest he bar a tour, / And therrinne stiked a lilie flour— / God shilde his cors fro shonde!”

260 L: And a fell fauchone. N: And a fel fouchone (line 270). For a good note on falchions see Ewart Oakeshott’s European Weapons and Armour and The Sword in the Age of Chivalry. See also Oakeshott, Archaeology of Weapons, p. 235, and Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era 1050–1350, by David Nicolle. The MED defines a falchion as “A large, broad sword with a curved blade, a falchion; also, a short stabbing-sword or dagger.” The Middle English Breton lay Sir Gowther features a falchion as a weapon that represents in part Gowther’s identity and prowess. As David Salter puts it in a chapter on the poem, this is a weapon that only Gowther “is strong enough to wield” (Holy and Noble Beasts, p. 72).

264–66 L: The knyght to hors gan sprynge / And rode to Arthure the kynge / And sayde, “My lorde hende.” N: The yong knyght to hors gan spring, / And rode to Arthour the kyng, / And seid: “My lord so hynde” (lines 274–76). N here agrees with L (and C, lines 241–42). According to Purdie (Anglicising Romance, p. 125n111), these lines link LD to Otuel and Roland, lines 324–25. Lybeaus departs on the quest here with Elene and the dwarf, whereas in LBD he leaves the Arthurian court only with his squire Robert, as Helie and Tidogolain have already left (see note for lines 223–28 above). Throughout LBD, Squire Robert assists Li Biaus, but Squire Robert is not a character in LD.

270–71 L: Arthur his honde up haffe / And his blessyng him gaffe. N: Arthour his hond up hafe, / And his blessyng he him yafe (lines 280–81). The blessing by the king authorizes the mission. The upraised hand of a monarch with Arthur’s authority is significant in itself, but to have a blessing (here more a sanctioning of the mission than a religious blessing) from him indicates his confidence in Lybeaus’ ability to carry out his mission.

281–82 L: Faste he gan to chide. / And saide, “Lorell, caytyfe.” N: Ever sho gan to chide, / And seid: “Thou wrecche, thou caitife” (lines 291–92). L seems in error here, since Elene is the one who needs to be convinced that Lybeaus is in fact a worthy knight, and since the dwarf has already made his opinion clear, his chiding seems superfluous. Like N, C also attributes the chiding to Elene: “sche be-gan to chyde” (line 258) as does LI, “schee gonne chide” (fol. 4), although in A and P, both Elene and the dwarf combine efforts (“gan thei chyd” [A, line 294] and “they gan to chide” [P, fol. 158v]). Helie also chides at this point in LBD.

288 L: He hat Syr William Delaraunche. N: William Celabronche (line 298). William’s role as the first major opponent of Lybeaus is unique to the Middle English version of the poem. In LBD, Li Biaus’s first opponent is Blioblïeris, guardian at the Perilous Ford (see Theodeley’s/Deodelyne’s “prophecy” earlier) (see note to lines 197–200). Blioblïeris seems to be a crusader; he wears “a silk tunic from the Holy land” over his hauberk (lines 357–58). Li Biaus defeats him and sends him to Arthur’s court. However, his three companions, “Elin the fair, lord of Graie, / the strong knight of Saie, / and William of Salebrant” (lines 527–29) encounter him prior to his departure and seek to avenge his defeat. The English romance substitutes the name William Delaraunche/Celebronche for Blioblïeris, and his three companions become three unnamed kinsmen, probably because of the demands of rhyme scheme. “Celebronche” rhymes in N with “stonche” and “honche” and “lonche”; see also below, lines 376–77, where “Celebronche” again rhymes with “lonche.” Later “William” rhymes with “schame” and “St. Jame” (lines 431, 433). “Blioblïeris,” placed in the same rhyming position, would not rhyme so easily in English. As the main opponent, William is given a more expansive role in the ME version. Lybeaus’s decision to fight against a knight who has just been described as “a werreour oute of wytt” (L, line 290) suggests Lybeaus’s impetuosity and lack of experience in battle, if not in matters of mature deliberation. That he is victorious and does not kill his opponent in this version as he does in LBD places greater emphasis on William’s importance as a witness to Lybeaus’s growing prowess; he is expected to tell his story of defeat when he returns to Arthur’s court. Also noteworthy is that LD appears in the Percy Folio along with The Squire of Low Degree in which there is a reference to Salebraunce, though in the Squire the name refers to a chapel where five battles are to be fought rather than to a person: “Than for to do these batayles fyve / At the chapell of Salebraunce” (lines 624–25). See Kooper, Sentimental and Humorous Romances, pp. 127–79.

306–07 L: He bare a shelde of grene / With three lyons of gold shene. N: He bare a schilde of grene / With three lions of golde schene (lines 316–17). Heraldry is part of an elaborate sign system, a means by which knights could be identified even when their faces were covered by a visor and helmet. Colors, animal totems, design features, and other details signify the status, if not the identity, of the knight.

309 L: Of sute lynnell and trappes. N: To suche lengels and trappis (line 319). The sense here seems to be that the device of the lion on William’s shield is replicated on the harness and trappings of his horse, a typical medieval practice.

314 L: And sayde, “Welcome bewfere.” N: And seid, “Welcome, Beaupere.” (line 324). William’s familiar greeting seems to suggest that he knew Lybeaus was coming or perhaps that the young knight’s distinctive physical features lend him a generic identity, thus prompting a remark akin to “hey, good lookin.’”

368 ff. L: short stanza. N: A quarter fille to ground; / Sir Libeous in that stound / In hart he was agast (lines 379–81). William has sliced away a quarter of Lybeaus’s shield. C has a “kantell,” which the MED (cantel) defines as “A chunk, piece, slice.”

382 L: For the love of Mary. N: For the love of Seint Marie (line 395). William’s call to the Virgin, the emblem of mercy, suggests his desperation. The act recalls Gawain’s plea for aid from the icon of Mary painted inside his shield immediately after which Bercilak’s castle appears in SGGK (lines 753–62).

395 L: Thou shalt to Artor wende. N: Thou schalt to Arthour wynde (line 408). Shuffelton suggests that “Arthur acts as both a lordly receiver of tribute and as a recording authority or audience who validates the accomplishments of the hero” (p. 477n411). He cites a discussion in Maddox’s Arthurian Romances of Chrétien de Troyes, pp. 14–25.

400 L: Lybeus Disconeus. N: Libeous Disconious (line 413).The iteration of the hero’s name in a line of its own calls attention to its significance. The name is repeated at several points in the poem and again at the end, thus trumping the number of times Gyngelayn is used (in L, four times including the incipit). Here the stress pattern guiding the pronunciation of the name appears to be Lýbe?s Dísc?néus. Contrast with line 423 following.

423 L: Lybeus Disconeus he highte. N: Libious Disconious he hight (line 436). The pronouncement of a name that literally signifies nothing recalls the scene in Homer’s Odyssey in which Odysseus says his name is “nobody” when asked by the Cyclops who has just stolen his sheep and done injury to him. Medieval writers are not likely to have known Homer’s epic poems directly but rather through Virgil’s Aeneid and its retelling of the Trojan War. The Lybeaus poet frequently uses amphibrach (unstressed, stressed, unstressed syllables).

428 L: And eke a well fayre berne. N: And eke a wel faire schene (line 441). The description here is of Lybeaus’s squire, who is otherwise not a prominent player in the English version. In LBD, however, he has a name (Robert) and an identity as a squire. That he is also a fair youth is in keeping with the emphasis on Lybeaus’s level of maturity and good looks. The squire becomes something of a reflection of his knight. The equivalent line in N describes the lady “schene” who accom­panies the knight.

430–31 L: That he hathe made me swere / By his fauchone bryght. N: That he hath made me swore / Uppon his bronde bright (lines 443–44). Chivalric society is dependent upon honor by word as well as deed, hence the importance of oaths. There is also an implicit threat in the falchion/brond.

451 L: His hambrek we will to-rasshe. N: We schul his hauberk of bras (line 464). The manuscripts disagree on what exactly the three knights will do with Lybeaus’s hauberk. They will “to-rasshe” it, which Mills renders “tear to pieces” (L, line 451). P and A have them unlacing his hauberk (“unlace” in both). C does not have this line, and in LI the passage is missing. N’s reading “of bras” makes sense, however. William’s nephews do not accuse Lybeaus of having a hauberk made of an inferior metal (brass); rather the verb “bracen” can mean to seize or grasp, to impale, or to wrap or fasten together. The sense here suggests that the brothers threaten to “of bras,” that is, unravel or break Lybeaus’s chain mail to pieces.

452 ff. L: short stanza. N: also missing. Appears only in C as follows:

Now lete we Wylyam be,
Þat wente yn hys jorne
Toward Artour þe Kyng.
Of þese knyõtes þre
Harkeneþ, lordynges fre,
A ferly fayr fyõtynge.
Þey armede hem full well
Yn yren and yn stel,
With-out ony dwellyng
And leptede on stedes sterne
And after gon y-erne
To sle þat knyõt so yenge.
(lines 430–41)

454 L: Syr Lybeus that yonge knyght. N: Ne Libeous, the gentil knyght (line 467). While L emphasizes age, N emphasizes nobility.

458 L: Gamen and grete solas. N: Game and grete solas (line 471). It is unnecessary to understand the line as indicating, as Mills does, “a night of love-making” (LD, p. 58), a reading recently repeated by Shuffelton (p. 477n474) and Cory Rushton, “Absent Fathers, Unexpected Sons,” p. 145. The innocence of the couple’s mirth is evoked by the final line of the stanza, indicating that the dwarf served them “Of alle that worthi was” (L, line 464; N, line 477). For the argument countering the reading by Mills, see Weldon, “‘Naked as she was bore,’” pp. 70–71.

470 L: Rydynge from Carboun. N: Come ridyng fro Karlioun (line 483). As suggested by N and the other versions, this is probably Caerleon, a small town in southeast Wales on the River Usk. According to the NAE, Caerleon is a castle important to Arthurian legend “as the place where Geoffrey of Monmouth has Arthur hold a plenary court, after organizing the conquests made in his first Gallic campaign. Geoffrey may have chosen it simply because it was near his native Monmouth and he had seen the ruins, which in the twelfth century were still conspicuous” (NAE, p. 65).

488 L: That he to-brake Gowers thiegh. In C and L, the eldest brother is Gower; in A, he is Banerer; in P, Baner; and in N, Gawer (LI has a missing folio here). Also, in C, L, A, and P, Lybeaus breaks the eldest brother’s thigh or leg, but in N, Lybeaus breaks his spine: And brake his rigge bone (line 500). In general, N presents Lybeaus as more aggressive and violent in his early formative adventures.

499–501 L: Than loughe this mayden bright / And seide that this yonge knyght / Is chose for champyon. N: Than louge that maide bright / And seid: “This yong knyght / Was wel ychose champioun” (lines 511–13). That Elene has finally been convinced of Lybeaus’s capabilities as a knight is indicated in the sense of relief conveyed in her “loughe.” That women often provide the encouragement for a knight’s achievement can also take the form more traditionally associated with courtly love; the knight becomes a better combatant in arms when he fights for his beloved, at least in theory. Chrétien’s Lancelot provides a study in how much power a lady (i.e., Guenevere) could have over her champion.

518 L: short stanza. N: Sir knyght, bi Seint John (line 527). Most probably this refers to John the Apostle, a privileged witness to special events in the Gospels, such as Christ’s agony in the Garden. John was known for his ardent temper, and his invocation here would be appropriate in the context of Lybeaus’s deadly prowess in his battle with the three nephews of William. See ODOS, p. 262. The oath by Saint John at this point in the text appears only in the N, A, P tradition. See also note to line 731 below.

581–82 L: Thei dight a loge of leves, / With swerdys bryght and browne. N: Thei made a logge of levys / With swerdis bright and broun (lines 593–94).The detail of making a lodge out of leaves and swords is not in LBD, but using their swords Bevis and Terri build a lodge of leaves for the pregnant Josian in Bevis of Hampton (see lines 3621–23).

586 L: And evyr the dwerf can wake. N: And ever the dwarfe gan wake (line 598). N streamlines the narrative here by omitting three lines in the C, L, A, LI, and P accounts, which attribute the dwarf’s inability to sleep for fear of theft: L: That nothinge shulde betake / Here hors aweye with gyle. / For dred he ganne quake (lines 587–89).

597 L: Be God and be Saint Gyle. N: By God and by Seint Gile (line 606). Giles is the patron saint of cripples, lepers, and nursing mothers (see ODOS, p. 211). Saint Giles’s shrine was on the pilgrim’s route to Compostela. He founded a monastery at Saint-Gilles in Provence (ODOS, p. 211).

598–99 L: Lybeous was stoute and fayre / And lepte upon his desteyre. N: Sir Libious was stout and gay, / And lepe on his palfray (line 607–08). In LBD, combat with the giants takes place between Blioblïeris and his companions Elin of Graie, the lord of Saie, and William Salebrant. Also, after their defeat, the lord of Saie with the wounded Elin (William has been killed) returns Clarie, the victim of the giants, to her family. In the ME version, Lybeaus takes Violet to her father himself. In Wace’s Roman de Brut, a giant abducts Eleine, the niece of Arthur’s kinsman, Hoel, and he carries her to Mont St. Michel, intending to rape her; she dies in the attempt. Arthur, Bedevere, and Kay interrupt the giant as he is roasting a wild boar on a spit, and Arthur kills him. (See Wace, Roman de Brut, ed. Weiss, lines 11287–560).The story is retold in the Alliterative Morte Arthure, where the giant not only slays a maiden but feasts on children. He has men and beasts roasting on spits when Arthur approaches him, and is more elaborately described in animal terms: “He grenned as a grayhound with grysly tuskes” (line 1075). See the description later of Maugis, who is also cast as a stereotypical subhuman giant. Although this episode is originally found in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, subsequent versions elaborated his representation of the giant, who is not portrayed in explicitly animal terms despite his animal behavior. Further, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s scene of Arthur to the rescue on Mont St. Michel recalls the biblical story of David and Goliath, where the child David defeats the gargantuan threat to the Hebrew nation. One might say that these implications are suggested in every scene of giant slaying in medieval romance. Other exempla include Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwick, Sir Launfal, Sir Degaré, Sir Eglamour of Artois, and SGGK; Spenser’s Orgoglio is the giant whose defeat moves Redcrosse into eventual recognition as a figure for St. George.

603 L: Two gyauntes he sawe there. N: Two jeyauntis he founde at the last (line 611). See Jeffrey Jerome Cohen’s discussion of this scene in Of Giants, pp. 73–76.

604–05 L: That one was rede and lothelych, / That other black as eny pyche. N: That one was blak as picche, / That othir rede and lotheliche (lines 613–14). There has been considerable debate about whether the color of knights and the giants they fight refers to skin color or the color of armor. (A special issue of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 31 [2001] contains a number of essays that address matters of race and ethnicity pertinent to a reading of otherness.)

607–08 L: The black helde in his arme / A mayde i-clypped in his barme. N: The blake gan holde in barme / A feire maide bi the arme (lines 616–17). There is an allusion here to Arthur’s battle with the rapist giant of Mont St. Michel (see note to lines 598–99 above). In Wace’s Brut (and in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History), the maiden dies during the giant’s assault, and so does not suffer the indignity of rape. In LBD, the rape is interrupted, and the maiden does not die (see lines 707–16, p. 45), as is the case in LD.

609 L: So bryght as blossom on brere. N: Bright so rose in brere (line 618). This detail alludes to the flower (rose) on a branch in springtime, and evokes conventional female beauty. Although brief, it gestures to the rhetorical effictio, an elaborate description of (noble) feminine pulchritude consisting of stereotypical details arranged from head to toe (see Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova). Here the line metonymically suggests the conventional beauty of Violet. Later a similar phrase describes Lybeaus's mother in N: “Hur rode was rede so rys” (2234).

615 L: For some man shuld it wit. N: For sum man schulde it wete (line 621). This appears to be a legal term equivalent to “witness.” In English law, witnessing a crime in the making required the witness to call attention to the deed by raising the hue and cry. The maiden’s prayer to “Mary mylde” appears to be gender specific and notable in that way. As patron saint of childbirth, the Virgin Mary seems an odd choice, but, given the sexual nature of the threat and the Virgin’s traditional function as mediatrix, perhaps all the more understandable.

626 L: Hit is no childes game. N: It is no childis game (line 635). According to the author of Ratis Raving, a child’s game could include gathering flowers, building houses with sticks, making sailing ships with any available materials, making and dressing dolls or “poppets,” and playing at sword fighting (among others). Many children’s games were enacted in imitation of adult activities, including “war games” played by boys. (See Nicholas Orme, Medieval Children, especially chapter 5.) Since Lybeaus is still a “child” in terms of his chivalric experience, if not his specific age, depending on which version of the narrative one is reading, the reference here is significant. In L, C, LI, and P this line forms part of Lybeaus’s speech. In N and A, however, the fearful observation that two of these grim foes pose a threat belongs to the narrator, not the hero. The N, A Lybeaus, in other words, appears more courageous and determined and less timid. Also noteworthy is the proverbial nature of the expression. According to Whiting C221 (p. 83), this line and variations on it appear in several ME narratives, including Otuel and Roland, Gregorius, Octavian, Tottenham, and old Januarie’s lines in Chaucer’s Merchant’s Tale, CT (IV[(E)] 1530–31): “I warne yow wel, / it is no childes pley / To take a wyf,” and Le Morte Darthur. The use of a related proverb in line 1683 (L) to describe how one of Lybeaus’s opponents rocks in his saddle after their combat emphasizes the connection between chivalric readiness and maturity.

643–44 L: And besought swete Jhesus / Helpe Lybeus Disconeus. N: And bisoughte Jhesus, / That he wolde helpe Libeus Disconyous (lines 649–50). That Elene prays to Jesus for aid in helping Lybeaus underscores the specificity of the request for divine intervention. Here Mary is not asked to play her traditional role of mediatrix but rather her Son is called upon to intervene. When envisioned in his role as the sword-wielding apocalyptic Christ, this seems an appropriate choice for a knight.

646–47 L: The rede gyaunte smote thore / To Sir Lybeous withe the bore. N: The rede geaunt smote thore / To Libeous, with the wilde bore (lines 652–53). Mills (LD, 218n616–18) links this idea of the giant striking with a roasted boar on a spit to Wace, where a giant is roasting a char de porc; he sees the passage as perhaps inspiring this event in LD.

648 L: As wolfe oute of wede. N: As wolfe that wolde of wede (line 654). The poet deploys similes rather infrequently, and the repetition of this particular phrase at line 986 in L calls attention to that fact. It may also be calling attention to a trope of the wild beast as a thematic concern of the poem, as well as a reality of medieval life in England. According to a relevant entry in The Dictionary of Medieval Terms and Phrases, “there were enough wolves in England during the reign of King John (1199–1216) for a bounty of 5s to be offered for their catching and killing. There are many AS placenames which indicate the presence of wolves, e.g. Woolley in Yorkshire [< wolves’ + OE leah=wood] and Woolmer in Hampshire, [< wolves’ + OE mere=lake]. In 1209 two colts were killed and eaten by wolves in Hampshire. There are also sufficient records of wolves being caught in the king’s forests to make it unsurprising that during the 1130s there were full-time royal wolf hunters, with a pack of two dozen hounds and also greyhounds. A wolf-catcher in Worcestershire in the early 13c was paid 3s a year. No records survive to show how many, if any, he caught, or whether indeed there were any wolves left in that part of England. Certainly, wolves were killing deer in the Forest of Dean in 1290s [sic]. Wolves appear to have survived in England until the 17c, and longer in Scotland” (ed. Corèdon and Williams, p. 300).

657 ff. L: short stanza. N: The bore was ful hote than; / On Sir Libeous the grece ran (lines 670–71). The detail of the hot grease causing a wound or pain as well as the extended description of the red giant reaching a height of fifteen feet appears in the N, A, and P tradition only (it does not occur in LI). Mills (LD, p. 218n657) compares this scene to one in the First Continuation of Perceval (ed. W. Roach), where a knight strikes Sir Kay with a bird that has been roasting over the fire (see lines 9373–75).

657 L: To quyte the gyaunte his mede. N: To yelde the geaunt his mede (line 663). The exchange of blows is construed as payback and retribution, literal acts reversed by the notion of redemption. Coming on the heels of a plea for rescue, this line appears to be ironic.

662 L: A tronchon oute he laught. N: A tronchon up he caught (line 680). The giant demonstrates his strength by pulling a fully grown tree out of the ground. As he lifts it to deliver a blow, Lybeaus recognizes an opportunity to prune the limb by which the giant just uprooted the tree.

673 L: In Frensshe as it is ifounde. N: In Frensche tale as it is found (line 691). Although a convention of romance is to acknowledge a French source, whether or not it is the actual source, this is probably an allusion rather than an explicit reference to LBD. Shuffelton, who presumes Chestre to be the author of LD, comments: “Though this phrase suggests that Chestre is working directly from a French source, several factors limit the certainty of this interpretation. Several other manuscripts preserve entirely different readings of this line, and it is a common formula used by many other Middle English romances” (p. 477n699).

674–75 L: He that he gave the fyrste wounde, / He servyd hym so aplyght. N: Tille that othir he went that stound / And servid him aplight (lines 692–93). The idea of a “first wound” appears only in L. Mills (LD, p. 219n643–44) notes that N (C, A, P, LI) makes more sense here than L, which contradicts the earlier slaying of the black giant by suggesting that he had only been wounded by “the fyrste wound” (line 674). Mills argues for the superiority of L, however, by noting the repetition of the tag line in N, lines 690 and 693, “in þat stound” and “that stound,” which suggests a scribal error of repetition. He also observes that “Chestre . . . [was] uncon­cerned to accommodate statements made in one part of his work with those found at another.” The possibility of a scribal error with tags, however, does not invalidate the more sensible reading of N (C, A, P, LI).

676–77 L: And then toke the hedis two / And bare the mayden thoo. N: Tho he toke hedis tway / And bare ham to that may (lines 694–95). Lybeaus displays the severed trophy heads to a grateful maiden before sending them to Arthur’s court. Cohen’s comment is worth noting here: “Following the structure received from the David and Goliath story, the display of the conquered giant’s head is often in its simplest terms part of the rite de passage from boyhood to manhood, from mistakes and potential ambiguity into the certainties of stable masculinity” (Of Giants, p. 73).

690 L: His name is Syr Anctour. This line in which Violet names her father is missing in N. Mills’s note on Anctour is useful: “The name of this character recalls the Antore who in AM 9751 meets his death at the hands of giants, but in his function he more closely resembles the aged father of Enide (E 375 in passim). The corre­sponding figure in BD [LBD, i.e., Li Biaus Descouneüs] is not characterized at all (see 892), but in Platin’s Giglan he is described as ancien, and it seems possible that the name in LD [LD, i.e., Lybeaus Desconus] may have arisen from a contracted form of the adjective anci(e)nor (? *ancīor l. ivv) in the OF source. But whatever the provenance of the name it was sufficiently unfamiliar to be replaced by that of Arthur in two of the less reliable texts of LD. . . . This king is also associated with the scene in the version given of it in the Didot Perceval, since the giant there waits for the girl’s father to set out for Arthur’s court, before abducting her” (p. 219n660). According to the entry in the AND, Antor (with variations of spelling including Antore, Antour, Anton, and Entor) is “Arthur’s foster-father, and the father of Kay, in the Prose and Vulgate Merlins, the Didot-Perceval, and Tennyson. Robert de Boron seems to have originated the character . . . [where] Antor raised Arthur after Merlin presented him with the child. . . . His character appears in the Post-Vulgate and Malory as Ector” (p. 28). J. D. Bruce suggests that the origin of the name lies in a possible corruption of Arthur, “given the literary tradition of naming children after their foster fathers” (AND, p. 28). As Shuffelton notes, “A character with a similar name (Antor, Antour) appears in several Arthurian romances as Arthur’s foster father and the father of Kay the Seneschal. See The Erle of Tolous (Shuffelton item 19), line 853 and note. Perhaps the name is meant to evoke loose associations of benevolent paternity” (p. 477n716). The name of Violet’s father in L is Anctour (line 690) or Antore (C, line 3660), Anter (A, line 716), Antory (LI, line 372), or Arthore (P, line 723 fol. 161v. [Cooper line 72]). The omission in N appears to be an error because later reference is made to Lybeaus donning armor, “That the erle of Auntouris was” (N, line 804). Only C preserves a stanza in which the earl offers Lybeaus his daughter in marriage, which Lybeaus refuses. Mills (LD, p. 220n688–99) argues for the authenticity of this stanza on the basis of content and rhyme scheme. However, in LBD, the maid’s name is Clarie, and she is taken back to her unnamed father’s castle by the surviving nephews of Blioblïeris (the events are different). The passage authenticated by Mills, in other words, may not be authentic at all. It does not appear in the original and exists only in C. Mills (p. 221n688–99) locates the origin of the offer of Violet to Lybeaus in the episode of the gerfalcon in Erec et Enide, in which Erec expresses his wish to marry the host’s daughter, Enide.

691 L: They clepen me Violet. N: Mi name is Violette (line 709). In a scene that recalls the beginning of the poem, the maiden is asked to identify herself. Unlike Lybeaus she is able to name her father (except in N), and she describes him as “of riche fame” (L, line 686) The name of the lady is unusual, and the only other reference appears to be Violet the Bold, “one of many ladies at King Arthur’s court to fail a chastity test involving a magic goblet” (AND, p. 488). Gerbert de Montreuil, who wrote the continuation of Chrétien de Troyes’s Perceval, has a romance called Roman de la Violette (c. 1220), where the heroine has a birthmark resembling a violet. Jean Froissart wrote La plaidoirie de la rose et de la violette, an allegorical debate between two courtly ladies, one of whom is named Violette.

698 L: Oute of the busshes con sprynge. N: Out of a busche gan sprynge (line 716). The description of Violet’s abduction recalls the abduction of Guenevere by Meleagant, though here it is construed as an ambush done without much premeditation. Mills notes that “Chestre’s account seems to have been influenced by the later scene at the Îlle d’Or, in which he tells how another black giant (Maugrys) besieges a city to gain possession of a lady (lines 1243–51): this modification makes it seem strange that Vyolette should wander about, so freely and unsuspectingly, on her own” (LD, p. 220n661–66). The idea that a giant lurks in the bushes conventionally associates him with rural, uncivilized, even nonhuman behaviors and values. See the description of Maugis/Maugus below.

713–14 L: To Kynge Arthour in present, / With mekyll glee and game. N: To Kinge Arthour, in present, / With moche gle and game (lines 731–32). The severed heads are sent to the court as proof of Lybeaus’s prowess and growing reputation. The “glee and game” here indicate something of a victory celebration.

717 ff. L: short stanza. N: also missing. The passage is supplied here by C:

The Erl Antore also blyue
Profrede hys doftyr hym to wyue:
Vyolette that may;
And kasteles ten and fiue
And all after hys lyue
Hys lond to haue for ay.
Than seyde Lybeaus Desconos,
“Be the loue of swete Jhesus,
Naught wyue yet Y ne may;
J haue for to wende
Wyth thy mayde so hende.
And therfore, haue good day!”
(lines 688–99)

719 L: Yave him full riche mede. N: Gave Sir Libeous to mede (line 737). The earl rewards Lybeaus with armor and a horse tested “in turnament and in fyght” (L, line 723). These items are notable for their material value, but also stand as an indication of a formal recognition of Lybeaus’s status as a knight. See note to line 690 above.

727 ff. L: The adventure of the knight with the gerfalcon begins here. Compare N, 745 ff. In LBD, the adventure with Otis precedes the gerfalcon story. Renaut’s source for his version of the story is the sparrowhawk episode in Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide. In LBD, Helie, Robert the Squire, and the dwarf spy a castle, Becleus, and on their journey, they come upon a maiden (Margerie) whose lover-knight has been killed. She explains to them the conditions set by the lord of the castle, Giflet (French Giflés), son of Do: any maiden who dares take the beautiful sparrowhawk that sits on a golden perch must have a knight willing to claim her to be the most beautiful maiden of all. He will then be challenged by the lord of the castle. The party proceeds to where the sparrowhawk sits, and Li Biaus asks Margerie to take it. The lord of the castle appears with his beloved, Rose Espanie; he defends her position as the most beautiful of women, despite the fact that she is “ugly and wrinkled” (LBD, line 1727). Li Biaus defeats him. In LD, the hero’s motive for the challenge lies neither in revenge for past personal insult, as in Erec and Enide, nor to avenge the wrong committed against a maiden, as in LBD, but in Lybeaus’s personal sense of adventure, a motive criticized by the dwarf. Margerie and Robert disappear in LD, and decapitation becomes the loser’s reward. Mills (LD, pp. 220–21n.L 750–53) contends that decapitation, which makes the episode more forbidding, has been transferred from Renaut’s later episode with Malgiers.

731 L: Suche sawe he never none. N: Suche sawe he never none (line 749). Although opulent and marvelous castles are common in romance, Lybeaus’s lack of chivalric experience and his early life in the woods away from Arthur’s court help to explain his awestruck response, “Be Seynt John!” (L, line 733; N, line 751).

744 L: He hathe done crye and grede. N: He had do crye and grede (line 762). The phrase suggests an official and public announcement, here of a challenge to combat.

746 L: A gerfawkon, white as swanne. N: A jerefawken as white as swane (line 764). Possibly the white gerfalcon of Iceland (MED), a large hawk used for hunting and much prized. This hunting bird is a substantial reward for what amounts to a beauty contest between Lybeaus’s lady and the lady of his opponent, Jeffron. Like people, birds of prey were often classified in a hierarchical system. According to Richard Almond, “The basic division in the manual is between hawks of the tower and hawks of the fist, which conveniently corresponds largely to the falcons (Falconidae) and the hawks (Accipitridnae). The short-winged hawks were more popular with the French whereas the long-winged hawks, generically falcons, were more favoured in England. The latter birds include the peregrine, merlin and hobby, all of which were, and still are, used by falconers to fly at live quarry. Roy Modus’s division differs somewhat from the basic classification. He places the peregrine falcon, lanner, saker and hobby as hawks of the tower, whereas the goshawk, sparrow hawk, gyrfalcon and merlin are classed as hawks of the fist” (Medieval Hunting, p. 42). This episode of the gerfalcon, while in LBD, is likely to have derived from Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide.

754 ff. L: short stanza. N: Ther stont on every cornelle (line 773). Mills translates C’s “karnell” — “Ther stant yn ech a karnell” (line 737)—as battlement. The word means corner or angle, or the front of a building (MED).

757 L: Bi God and Saint Michelle. N: By God and bi Seint Mighelle (line 776). This probably refers to Michael, the avenging archangel and principal combatant against the dragon/devil of Apocalypse. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the Arthurian themes of this narrative, his most famous shrine is Mont Saint Michel, celebrated as a place of divine judgment in The Alliterative Morte Arthur, where, according to the ODOS, “a Benedictine abbey was founded in the 10th century” (p. 349).

761 L: A lemman two so bright. N: A lemman two so bright (line 780). This beauty contest motif is also present in Sir Launfal when Tryamour and her ladies are compared to Guenevere (Gwenore) who has insulted Launfal and made a false accusation, thereby necessitating a trial. Because Launfal has broken his pledge of discretion and silence to Tryamour, he is no longer able to call upon her for aid. The outcome of the trial will depend on whether his claim of a lady more beautiful than Guenevere is true.

768 L: Jeffron le Freudous. N: Geffron le Frediens (line 787). All manuscripts have trouble with this name; C: Gyffroun le Fludous (line 772) or Flowdous (line 751); L: Jeffron le Freudous (line 768) or Freudys (line 789); LI: Jeffron le Frondous (fol. 8v); A: Gefferon lefrondeus or lefrendeus (fol. 46r); P: Giffron la ffrandous (fol. 162r) , and Cooper, line 802, has Giffron La ffraudeus. In LBD, the knight’s name is Giflés, li fius Do (line 1805). Mills notes that “Gyffroun is in himself one of the most polite and reasonable of all the hero’s antagonists” (LD, p. 221n785–89). While Jeffron is clearly more chivalrous than the other antagonists, “polite” and “reasonable” are perhaps exaggerations.

785 L: That Er Aunctours was. N: That the erle of Auntouris was (line 804). This refers to the earl Antore mentioned earlier in L, C, and A as the father of Violet, but omitted in N. The bestowing of the earl’s armor upon Lybeaus, however, is mentioned at N, lines 736–38, so N’s omission of the earlier passage is likely an error. See note to line 690.

794 L: Come prickande with pryde. N: Come prikyng as prins in pride (line 813). The resonance of this with Spenser’s Redcrosse Knight, who goes pricking across the plain at the beginning of Book 1 of the Faerie Queene, is worth noting, though there is no evidence that Spenser knew LD. To “prick” means to spur a horse to move at a quicker pace, but also connotes “distress,” “grief,” “goading,” or “urging to action” as used in the devotional work, The Prick of Conscience.

805 L: Ther is no woman so white. N: That woman is none so white (line 824). The color gestures to the conventional effictio, the formal rhetorical description of ideal beauty, where “white” signals the delicacy of a woman’s skin rather than its color. Thus the line means “that no woman is as beautiful.”

817 L: In Cordile cité with sight. N: short stanza. The site is probably Cardiff as is the case with Cardyle in L, line 830. Variant spellings are: Cardelof, Cardull, Karlof, Cardeuyle, Kardeuyle, Kardill, Karlill, Cardigan. Shuffelton speculates that the city is “[p]ossibly Carlisle, in northern England,” but, as Mills argues, the Welsh city of Cardiff is more likely (Shuffelton, p. 478n844; LD, p. 222n800).

837 L: And hit the mayde Elyne. N: And seide to maide Elyne (line 853). Lybeaus’s election of Elene to the role of substitute maiden differs from source and cognate tales. Chrétien’s Erec selects his host’s daughter, Enide, whom he later marries, as his fair maiden to champion in the contest. LBD has the wronged Margerie claim the sparrowhawk for him so that he can avenge her. Lybeaus, however, has neither love nor justice as a motive here; his is a subterfuge that allows him to meet his opponent in combat and utilize chivalry to promote himself and his reputation.

850 L: Thow doste a savage dede. N: Nowe is this a wondir dede (line 866). The wise dwarf in L reminds the still-churlish Lybeaus that this is not what chivalry is supposed to be, whereas in N he reminds Lybeaus that he is not evincing appropriate adult (chivalric) male behavior. Using ladies as tournament prizes undermines the central tenets of chivalry, that is, to honor ladies and fight on their behalf, and to champion their causes, especially if they involve unlawful captivity. This is the damsel-in-distress motif so prevalent in Arthurian romance. This stanza is not in C. N and A draw attention to inexperience and youth, L, to churlishness and madness (madd hede, line 853).

854 L: As lorde that will be lorne. N: As man that wolde be ylore (line 870). Despite the apparent similarity between L’s “lorne” and N’s “ylore,” the two words are different. L’s “lorne” means “lost,” as the dwarf chastizes Lybeaus for acting mad, as someone who is either “lost” mentally or a suicide (running toward certain death). N, however, alters the charge of madness to childishness; the dwarf accuses Lybeaus of juvenile behavior, acting as a schoolboy who has yet to learn something of value.

857 L: And in Bedlem was borne. N: That we ne come him bifore (line 873). L’s reference to Bethlehem and the birth of the Christ Child points to an archetypal event that underscores the religious ideals of chivalry, that is, humility and obedience to one’s Lord, even when He appears in the body of an infant. This will stand in stark contrast to the necromancers depicted later. Lybeaus’s response here indicates his misunderstanding of these chivalric ideals (much akin to Perceval’s early misunderstanding of the purpose of the Grail quest) and his sensitivity to the imputation of his prowess.

861 L: The mayde Ellyne, also tighth. N: That maide feire and fre (line 877). Mills (LD, p. 222n844–91) notes similarities between this description of Elene and Dame Tryamour in Sir Launfal. The description of Elene’s attire, ornamentally beautified with precious metals, jewels, and furs, indicates the wealth supporting Elene, perhaps provided by her lady, the queen of north Wales, also known as the Lady of Synadoun. The rest of Elene’s attire reflects the “best” of the “empire” she represents, that is, North Wales. L adds to her apparel “a robe of samyte” (line 862), a costly fabric that enhances her appearance even further.

885–87 L: He bare ... gold the bordure. N: He bare ... golde was the border, ryngid with floris (lines 901–03). Although the details differ, both texts offer a depiction of Jeffron’s heraldic device; heraldry and its emblems were an important means by which identity could be ascertained when a knight was unknown and his face was covered by a visor. The description of the shield, like the description of the ladies’ attire, typically signals allegiance to a court and kinship group. Its obvious display of material wealth suggests the high standing of the knight in his relation to the court. See notes to lines 93 and 254 above.

898–99 L: A lady proude in pryde, / Iclothed in purpyll palle. N: A lady ful of pride, / Yclothid in purpul palle (lines 914–15). The description of Jeffron’s lady differs somewhat from the description of Elene. Jeffron’s lady wears purple, while Elene wears white. In her edition of LBD, Karen Fresco adds that “purple was a rare and costly fabric, probably made out of silk imported from Tyre and Alexandria. It came in several colors and seems to have been worn by royalty. In LBD only Blonde Esmeree, a princess, wears popre” (p. 393n3279). In LD there is also an elaborate description of the lady’s rosy complexion and her blond hair, “as gold wyre shynynge bryght.” Blond hair is considered desirable in ladies of medieval romance in general, but in the French version hair color is particularly important as indicated by the name of LBD’s Lady of Synadoun, that is, la Blonde Esmeree. For a classical medieval description of idealized female beauty, see Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s Poetria Nova, pp. 36–37.

912 L: Hir browes also blacke as sylke threde. N: Hur browys as silken threde (line 928). Well-shaped, clearly separated, and darkly colored eyebrows were considered a sign of beauty, as were gray eyes, milky white complexion, and an elongated “swyre,” that is, neck. A woman’s eyebrows, if not separated but rather as one continuous growth across the forehead, were considered a sign of sexual promiscuity. There is an interesting contrast to be made with the later description of the eyebrows of the Saracen giant Maugis.

930–31 L: Ellyne the messangere / Ne were but a lawnder. N: Elyne the mesynger / Nas but a lavender (lines 946–47). When it becomes apparent that Elene cannot win this beauty contest, an unflattering comparison to a laundrywoman ensues. In Erec et Enide, the sparrowhawk contest over the most beautiful woman resides less in the relative merits of each woman and more in the power of love to influence the judgment of lovers. Renaut takes this idea to an extreme in that Giflet’s damsel is truly ugly, so that there is no real contest between her and Margerie; instead, Renaut’s narrator marvels at how “love could so disturb his judgment . . . for Love makes the ugliest woman seem a beauty”(lines 1731,1734). In LD, by contrast, the contest is real, and onlookers declare that Elene, though fair, is much less beautiful than Jeffron’s maiden. Unlike Jeffron (or Erec or Giflet), however, Lybeaus is not in love; only pride motivates him here. This is the first of two or three episodes that project weakness or bad judgment by the hero (see note to line 837 above). The mistaken motives are also marked by Lybeaus’s severely violent defeat of Jeffron, who has his “rigge tobrake” (N, line 1006; L, line 990, “Geffrounes backe to-brake”), the same excessive result of violence inflicted upon one of William’s nephews earlier, so that he has to be carried to town on his shield. Shuffelton notes that “In comparison to other versions of this motif, the outcome here is surprising. Usually the hero’s lady is judged more beautiful, prompting a combat to settle the dispute. Though Elyne has been described as bryght, schene, and sembly (lines 120–32), perhaps her beauty is downplayed here so that Lybeaus’s attempt to win the falcon seems all the more rash” (p. 478n953).

944 L: Magré thyne hede, hore (so, too; C, line 915). N: compare line 960. In agree­ment with L, C, has “Maugre thyne heed hore” (line 915) and LI, “Mawgre thy berd hore” (Cooper line 513; fol. 8v), whereas in agreement with N, P has “Maugre thy head indeed” (Cooper line 978; fol. 163r) and A, Thoff thou be wroth therforn (line 971); LI, C, and L imply that Geffron is an older or an old man, which does not make sense here.

951–52 L: Her shaftis brosten asondre, / Her dyntis ferden as thonder. N: Here schaftis brake in sondir, / Hare dyntis fyrde as dondir (lines 967–68). The sound and fury signifies the intensity of this confrontation between the brash young upstart and his experienced opponent.

960 L: This yonge frely freke. N: So this yonge freke (line 976). The description here likely is more positive than it appears to be to modern readers since “frely freke,” according to the MED, denotes the fair, noble, freeborn knight rather than the more negatively construed modern word for one who resides outside the norm in terms of appearance or behavior, that is, “freak.”

967–68 L: As Alysaunder or Kyng Arthur, / Lawncelot or Syr Percevalle. N: As Alexaundre or Kyng Arthour, / Launselake or Persevale (lines 983–84). The comparison to these particular figures, all of whom had similar childhood experiences and a distinctive fearlessness in combat, underscores one of the central themes of romance, that is, that even those fairly unknown can acquire a legitimate place in the annals of literary history, if not history itself. The enfances of LD is often compared to the enfances of Sir Perceval of Galles; both are examples of the fair unknown motif and both men come to Arthur’s court knowing little of chivalry. That all these historic icons are products of a traumatic or atypical childhood appears to be a prerequisite of transformation in narratives of heroic triumph.

986 L: As wolfe that wolde at wede. N: As a man that wolde of wede (line 1002). The shift from wolf to man signals recognition of a proverbial expression and alters the more typical and negative aphorism of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. (See note for line 648.)

1000 L: Was borne home on his shelde. N: Geffron in his schilde / Was ybore out of the filde (lines 1015–16). Carrying bodies off the field using a shield as a stretcher is an ancient practice, maybe one reason shields were designed to be as large as possible. See also note for line 488.

1003 L: By a knyght that hight Cadas. N: Bi a knyght that hight Clewdas (line 1019). This may refer to Cadoc the king who “fought in a Castle of Maidens tournament, where he was defeated by Gawain’s son Guinglain” in Renaut’s version (AND, p. 93, s.v. “Cadoc"). In A, this character is named Lucas; other variants are Gludas (C), Caudas (LI), and Chaudas (P).

1011–13 L: He hathe sent me . . . he fyrst byganne. N: He hath sende me . . . Sithe he furst bigan (lines 1027–29). Arthur’s recognition of Lybeaus’s deeds vis-à-vis the “trophies” he sends back to the court points to the central tenet of feudal relations, that is, the king’s duty to reward his knights and the knight’s duty to fight on behalf of the king. Lybeaus has fought, at this point, William, his three nephews, two giants, and Jeffron: seven opponents in four battles.

1019 L: Kardill towne. N: Karlille toune (line 1035). This refers to Carlisle, the chief residence of King Arthur, or perhaps Cardiff. See note for line 817.

1034–35 L: For youre frely sale: / Hit blowis motis jolelye. N: Fer yere ferly falle! / Sir Otis hit blewe, de la Ile (lines 1050–51). The dwarf, presumably speaking to Elene, recognizes the sound of the horn as coming from the vicinity of Synadoun, thus signaling the company’s progress. This marks the beginning of the episode with Sir Otis de Lile (or de la Ile), once a loyal servant of the Lady of Synadoun, who has since abandoned her to her fate. As Mills notes, this name is equivalent to Orguillous de la Lande, the huntsman knight of Renaut’s LBD, line 1486, whose name translates to “Proud Knight of the Glade.” In LBD, the story of the hunter (li venere) and the brachet takes place before the adventure of the sparrowhawk. Clarie, the maiden rescued from giants by Li Biaus, catches up with him and his party. They spy a stag followed by hunting dogs with a small brachet trailing behind. Clarie picks up the brachet, saying that she will take the dog to her lady, when the hunter rides up and demands the return of his brachet. In this version, Li Biaus attempts to persuade Clarie to return the brachet, but she refuses, and at this point the hunter conspires to take the dog back by force. One might compare this situation to Malory’s Torre and Pellinore, a section in which knights go out to claim hounds or deer that belong to someone else, resulting in deaths and destruction that call into question the tenets of chivalry. In LD, the hero seems more at fault for having given Elene the brachet himself and therefore he is completely responsible for refusing to return it to Otis, once more placing himself in the wrong. In LBD, Orguillous de la Lande attacks Li Biaus alone, whereas in LD, Sir Otis later waylays Lybeaus with a host of knights; this proves to be his most difficult combat yet, one in which he is seriously wounded. Mills (p. 226n1009) points out that the name in LD may derive from Duke Otus, who in Guy of Warwick is Guy’s entrenched enemy.

1040 L: West into Wyralle. N: West into Wirale (line 1056). This refers to what was known as the Wilderness of Wirral, a forested area northwest of Liverpool, next to Wales. Gawain finds himself in the “wyldrenesse of Wyrale” (line 701) in SGGK.

1042 L: They sawe a rache com renynge. N: Ther come a rache rennyng (line 1058). Unlike the greyhound bred to hunt by sight, this breed of dog hunts by scent.

1047 L: He was of all coloures. N: For he was of alle colours gay (line 1063). Although N indicates the variegated colors of the canine, “of alle colours gay,” missing from this short stanza are the lines that complete the description, “That man may se of floures / Bytwene Mydsomer and Maye” (L, lines 1048–49).
As Mills (LD, p. 227n1021–23) suggests, the description of the brachet may reflect the multicolored Peticrewe in Sir Tristrem: “He was rede, grene and blewe” (line 2404), although in that narrative the animal is not a hunting dog but a lap dog presented to Duke Gilan of Wales by one of the goddesses of Avalon. The bell around its neck was thought to bring happiness to the owner of the dog, hence Isolde, in her efforts to be as unhappy as Tristan, rips it off. Lybeaus’s chasing of the diminutive canine recalls a similar episode in Chaucer’s Book of the Duchess, only there the attention-getting whelp leads the dreamer to a grieving knight (lines 386–449). References to this particular breed of dog appear also in other notable ME romances (see Lupack, Lancelot of the Laik and Sir Tristrem, pp. 224–25, lines 2399–2420).

1048 L: That man may se of floures. This line is missing in N, but the sense survives there without it, namely that the many colors are those nature brings forth between Midsummer and May (see below).

1049 L: Bytwene Mydsomer and Maye. N: Bitwene Mydsomer and May (line 1064). Mid­summer, usually in June, marked a time of festive celebration of the longest day of the year.

1083 L: Quod Sir Otis de Lile. N: Quod Sir Otis de la Ile (line 1098). Mills identifies this name as equivalent to l’Orguillous de la Lande, the huntsman knight of LBD, line 1486 (Mills, LD, p. 236; Fresco, p. 88). The name may also refer to the treacherous Duke Otoun in The Stanziac Guy of Warwick. In A, this character is named Otys de la Byle. See note to line 1034 above.

1088 L: Chorle. N: Chourle (line 1103). The use of churl here suggests Lybeaus’s own lack of training in the finer points of courtesy. He resorts to name-calling to which Otis responds with verbal indignation and an identification of just who his parents were, that is, “My fader an erle was . . . the countesse of Carlehille, / Forsothe, was my dame” (lines 1092–93). Shuffelton notes that “Rate’s spelling of the insult, carle, and the place name, Carlehyll has created a little joke here, perhaps inspired by another Middle English romance, Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle” (p. 478n1120).

1108 L: Rode home to his toure. N: Rode home in that schoure (line 1123). N’s phrase is a variation of “a god schoure,” that is, quickly.

1117–18 L: Though he were the grymmer grome / Than Launcelet de Lake. N: Though he were also stronge / As Launcelet de Lake (lines 1132–33). The comparison here is interesting, since Lancelot is known as much for his fierce loyalty and devotion to Guenevere as he is for his fierceness in battle. So too the term refers to Lybeaus’s immaturity. The MED defines grome as ranging in meaning from “infant” to “boy” to “young man” as well as social ranking: “A man of low station or birth; also, a worthless person.”

1146 L: arblast. N: areblast (line 1161). This is a synonym for a crossbow as well as a term for the missile discharged from the weapon.

1153 L: This is the devyll Satan. N: Here comyth the devil Satan (line 1168). Another example of misidentification and name-calling; this name is often used in romance to describe giants, heretics, and pagan others.

1161 L: For twelve knyghtis, all prest. N: Twelve knyghtis prest (line 1176). There is a distinct imbalance between opposing sides here.

1179–80 L: Lybeous slowe of hem three, / The fourthe begon to flee. N: And four awey gan fle (line 1194). N omits a line here and changes the text so that four flee rather than the fourth.

1183 L: And his sonnes foure. N: And his sonnys fowre (line 1197). Mills notes that “the huntsman’s sons are not mentioned in any of the cognates,” and he cites a similar passage in Bevis of Hampton: “Two ffosters he smote adowne / Wyth the dynte of hys tronchon / vi he slewe at dyntys thre / And odur vi away can flee” (LD, p. 229n1153–58). Shuffelton observes that “The appearance of Sir Otys’s sons is not otherwise mentioned, and seems an afterthought on the part of Chestre” (p. 478n1210).

1186 L: He one agaynes fyve. N: He alone ayenst fyve (line 1200). The imbalance between oppositions heightens the degree of aggression and makes the next line — Faughte as he were wode — necessity rather than the hyperbole typical of chivalric romance. As the scene suggests, getting into a state of battle frenzy enables Lybeaus to overcome the inequity. He is even able to kill three horses, one stroke each. In this instance, Lybeaus does not balk at being outnumbered, as he did when faced with two giants.

1194 N: Short stanza. See L, lines 1180 ff.

1202 L: Bothe mayle and plate. N: Throwe helme and basnet plate (line 1216). That Lybeaus is able to cut through chain mail or helmet as well as steel-plated armor suggests his extraordinary strength. Just as Havelok the Dane demonstrates his manpower in feats of strength that later enable him to reclaim his patrimony and avenge the death of his sisters, so too Lybeaus demonstrates his martial prowess. Havelok, unlike the others, goes through a number of contests literally designed to test his strength as a man, not as a knight. He is also described as taller than other men.

1217 L: Under a chesteyne tree. N: Undir a chesteyne tre (line 1231). As Mills aptly observes “the submission of one character to another under a (chestnut) tree occurs in a number of romances. Sometimes the dominating character possesses supernatural powers, as in Sir Gowther. . . where a fiend begets a child on a lady; sometimes both characters are human, as in Le Bone Florence” (LD, p. 230n1189–94). Other romances in which this motif may be found include The Erle of Tolous, Bevis of Hampton, and Sir Orfeo.

1247 N: short stanza. See L, lines 1233 ff.

1263 L: Kynge Arthur had gode game. N: Kyng Arthour had good game (line 1274). Arthur’s delight in storytelling prior to sitting down to a meal is extended to his reception of prisoners. The submission and recounting of the narrative and the knight responsible for the defeat contributes to Lybeaus’s burgeoning reputation, a necessity for a knight who needs to prove himself. Lybeaus’s growing list of credentials convinces the king that he has chosen wisely. This is the first instance where Arthur and the court recognize Lybeaus as an accomplished knight of the Round Table.

1269–71 L: Nowe rest we here a while / Of Sir Otys de Lyle / And tell we forthe oure talis. N: Rest we nowe a while / Of Sir Otys de la Ile / And telle we of othir talis (lines 1280–82). As is typically found in tail-rhyme romance, these lines mark a transition from one episode to the next.

1273–74 L: And sey awntours the while / And Irlande and in Walys. N: In Cornewaile and in Walis (line 1285). Requisite adventures for the aspiring knight are suggested here. Although crossing the Irish Sea is not a formidable challenge to the resourceful knight, the link between these two Celtic kingdoms is a feature of Arthurian literature, particularly the Tristan thread. Both N and A place Lybeaus’s adventures in Cornwall and Wales, whereas P has him in England and Wales. L and C place him in Ireland and Wales. A journey to Ireland would take Lybeaus out of his way, and there is no such itinerary in any of the sources. Mills, following Schofield, sees the reference to Ireland as a misunderstanding of a source passage, suggesting that C and L represent the author’s line (LD, p. 231n1222–24). N, A, and P, however, place Lybeaus within the conventional settings for Arthurian adventures and offer a more reasonable and typical area of sojourn rather than an extended period of quest such an Irish journey would require. See also the note for line 1479 below, where N also reduces the amount of time Lybeaus spends with Dame Amoure / Diamour. These are examples of N (and often A, P) revising or correcting the excesses of the other manuscripts’ details (see Mills, “Mediaeval Reviser”).

1276 L: Whan fenell hangeth al grene. N: Whan levys and buskis ben grene (line 1287). L’s specific reference to fennel refers to a perennial plant described in one of the quotations in the MED as having a “double manner of kynde, wilde and tame” (p. 487). Although less specific, N, too, marks a shift in the narrative with a shift in seasons, when leaves and bushes were green; see Malory’s opening of “The Knight of the Cart” and “Slander and Strife” in Le Morte Darthur.

1280 L: And notis of the nyghtyngale. N: Of the nyghtingale (line 1291). Nightingales have long been associated with pivotal moments in romance narrative. In Marie de France’s Laüstic, the songbird provides an excuse for the lovers to communicate at night. When the jealous husband discovers the ruse, he kills the bird and throws its body at his wife, staining her white chemise with blood. In Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (Book 2, line 918), the nightingale sings outside Criseyde’s window as she dreams of the white eagle who steals away her heart. There the mirage is ominous in that it recalls the allusion to the myth of Philomela and Procne at the outset of the fated day (Book 2, lines 64–70).

1290 L: Men clepeth this Il de Ore. N: Men clepith hit Il d’Ore (line 1301). Literally the Isle of Gold or Golden Isle, this place appears in LBD as the island replete with a castle belonging to the Maiden of the White Hands (la Pucele as Blances Mains); in LD, the castle belongs to Dame Amoure/Diamour, whose name evokes the seductive love she will later proffer Lybeaus.

1291 L: Here be fightis more. N: Ther hathe ybe fighting more (line 1302). P (line 1337) reads: “There hath beene slaine knights more” (fol. 165v, line 1337 in Cooper).

1296 L: A gyaunt that heght Maugys. N: A giaunt that hat Maugus (line 1307). The corresponding figure in LBD is Malgiers li Gris, a knight who guards the fantastic castle, l’Isle d’Or, the Golden Isle (line 1930) and who is the suitor of the enchantress la Pucele as Blances Mains, the Maiden of the White Hands (line 1941). La Pucele has promised to marry him if he can defend the causeway that leads to the castle:

The maiden had decreed that any knight who could defend her island for seven years, against any knight who passed that way, could marry her. Malgier set his sights on accomplishing the goal, although he was so loathsome that the Maiden would have found some way to get out of the marriage anyway. After five years, he had killed 140 knights and seemed undefeatable, but he was finally killed by Gawain’s son Guinglain. (AND, p. 340)

Malgiers has defeated all would-be suitors and placed their helmeted heads on stakes before the causeway. Although he is an evil knight (“fel, cuvers et mals / mais trop ert plains de mautalans” [cruel, base, and wicked, / a faithless scoundrel]) (lines 2035–36), he is not, like Maugis, a Saracen giant. Mills assumes that the author has confused Malgiers li Gris with “the typical Saracen giant of heroic romances” (LD, p. 232n1243–48). This may not be a matter of confusion. Maugus does resemble stock Saracen giants, who are racially distinct. Maugus is called a “devil so blak” (N, line 1374), as is the Saracen giant in Octovian Imperator, which, like Sir Launfal, has been attributed to Thomas Chestre. The giant in Octovian Imperator does not wear black armor, but he has “blake yghen” (line 935), is similarly associated with animal traits, and has an inhuman height: “He was of lengthe twenty feet” (line 925). Giants in medieval romance are also associated with “unbridled lust,” functioning as emblems of lower or bestial human aspects (Saunders, Rape and Ravishment, p. 209). This reinvention of Maugus, then, may have to do with the parallel shift in the characterization of the lady of l'Isle d’Or. In LD, she is a malevolent enchantress who sidetracks Lybeaus from his true quest to rescue the Lady of Synadoun, while in LBD la Pucelle is a benevolent sorceress who helps him. It is generically and aesthetically appropriate, therefore, for an evil enchantress to have a Saracen giant associated with lust to challenge Lybeaus. The combination of evil enchantress and stock evil giant, then, brings two conventional villains to bear on Lybeaus, whereas Li Biaus fights a combatant who turns out to be another suitor and thus a competitor for la Pucele’s affections. The name “Maugys/Maugus” has eluded modern scholarship, though the chanson de geste hero Maugis bears some kinship to the Maugus of LD. Maugis belongs to the Charlemagne stories of France, and his family exploits are contained in what is known as the “Renaud de Montauban cycle” of tales. Maugis or Maugris was a foundling raised by the fairy Oriane; he became a great enchanter, learned in both white magic and the black arts. Later, he becomes the lover of the enchantress/fairy Oriane. At one point, Maugis dons Saracen arms. Maugus in LD similarly has Saracen arms and battles in the service of an (evil) enchantress. The Middle English author may have imported and adjusted his material in order to develop his version of the LBD, especially his adjustment of the alliance between the “Saracen hero” Maugus and the malevolent Diamour.

1305 L: He is thirty fote on leynthe. N: He is furti fote longe (line 1316). As Mills notes, “the description of Maugys’s size . . . makes his fighting on horseback unexpected.” He remarks, moreover, that Chestre “was not wholly consistent in remodelling Malgiers on the lines of a Saracen giant” (LD, p. 233n1291–93). Perhaps this giant is more akin to Ascopard in Bevis of Hampton, who begins as a supporter of Bevis and Josian but becomes a traitor later in the narrative. Also, Amoraunt, the giant in Guy of Warwick may be alluded to in this recharacterization. Only N has Maugus’s height as forty feet, clearly exaggerating his gigantic size in order to develop the stock Saracen villain. A’s Magus (the name is perhaps a play on the Latin word for magician, magus) is “thryty fote longe” (line 1331): P reduces his height to “20 ffoote of length” (line 1351, fol.165v). The line is missing in LI.

1317 ff. L: missing stanza. N: And so is he grymly / As Y telle thee, wittirly / He is also grete / As is an ox or a kowe . . . Or as grete as any nete (lines 1328-33). Mills (p. 232nL1316) notes that this stanza, which expands the giant’s description, appears only in A and N. It follows the typical elaboration of comparisons to animal traits common to stock giants in medieval romance. See note 1305 above. A, however, introduces an ass and a cow as beasts scarcely able to draw Maugis’ cart of equipment. N, by way of contrast, introduces animals as comparisons to the giant; Maugis is as large as an ox, a cow, or any. The Naples text, then, emphasizes animal characteristics, and we might say that he “transforms” Maugis by moving him in the direction of the bestial, which is perhaps intended to link him more firmly to the Circean Dame Amoure/Diamour.

1331 L: That men calleth Ile Dolour. N: That men clepith Il d’Ore (line 1354). L seems to veer away from the original name of the island to suggest perhaps its dark side, a cause of human pain and sorrow, but N repeats the name of the Golden Isle in anticipation of Lybeaus’s encounter with the sorceress, Dame Amoure or Diamour, who dwells there. In LBD, the Isle d’Or is an enchanted island with a fabulous castle where la Pucele lives.

1337 L: Thre mawmentis therin wes. N: Four mawmetts therin was (line 1360). ME romance often represents Saracens as idol worshipers. Mawmetts are pagan idols. The word comes from Old French Mahomet, a corruption of Mohammed, whose name thus became synonymous with “idol.” A and N characteristically enhance the stock, villainous nature of Maugis, here increasing the mawmetts on his shield from three to four; so too, C, line 1275.

1343 L: Tell me whate arte thowe. N: Telle me whate art thowe (line 1369). In Ywain and Gawain, Colgrevance tells a story in which a peasant asks him, “What ertow, belamy” (line 278), and later King Arthur asks Ywain the same question, “What man ertow?” (line 1341). Such questions in medieval romance foreground the theme of chivalric identity, and therefore Lybeaus identifies himself here as an Arthurian knight. His full identity, his true name and parentage, is later revealed in stages by Sir Lambard, the Lady of Synadoun, and (in N, A only) Lybeaus’s mother.

1353–54 L: Syr Lybeus and Maugis / On stedis proude in prise. N: Maugus on fote yode, / And Libeous rode to him with his stede (lines 1376–77). L and C present Maugis on horseback, which, as Mills (LD, p. 233n1291–93) notes, is unlikely given his size. A, N, P place Maugis on foot, thus eliminating the inconsistency. See also Mills, “Mediaeval Reviser,” pp. 13–14.

1363 L: That levyd on Turmagaunte. N: That levyth on Termagaunt (line 1386). Termagaunt is the name of another pagan god sometimes said in ME romances to be worshiped by Saracens.

1375 L: That his shelde fell him froo. N: That his swerde fille him fro (line 1398). A, N agree that Lybeaus loses his sword here, whereas L, C, P have him lose his shield at this point in his fight with Maugis, which later proves inconsistent. Since Lybeaus reaches for an ax as a weapon in the next stanza, it seems reasonable that he has lost his sword. N omits the detail of the ax’s location found in A, C, L, and P (the stanza is missing in LI); e.g., “That henge by his arsowne” (L, line 1384).

1378 L: And smote Lybeous stede on the hede. N: And hit Libeous’ stede on the hede (line 1401). Horses die as frequently as the knights they carry in this romance. Lybeaus will retaliate against Maugis’s horse by driving his ax “Through Maugis stede swyre”(L, line 1386). The killing of a knight’s horse may be read as a symbolic act, indicting that in chivalry equine lives are also at risk.

1383 L: And an ax hent ybowne. N: An ax he hent ful sone (line 1406). Note that here N once more presents a more coherent text; where L, C, and P have Lybeaus smite off the head of Maugis’s horse (which he is too large to ride), N has him aim at Maugis’s neck, missing, and striking the giant’s shield instead so that it flies away, thus remaining consistent to the idea that Maugis fights on foot and not on horseback. Maugis is depicted in A as losing only a piece of his shield. Later, however, Lybeaus runs to recover that shield: N’s version presents the more credible adventure.

1395–96 L: From the oure of pryme / Tyll it were evensonge tyme. N: From the owre of the prime / Til hit was evesonge tyme (lines 1418–19). It was customary for fighting to cease at evensong or vespers.

1399 L: “Maugis, thine ore.” N: “Maugus, thyne ore” (line 1422). Combat would seemingly have few rules, but there are still common courtesies to be expected. Here Lybeaus requests a moment to refresh himself with a drink of water, after which Maugis “smertly hym smytte” (L, line 1412). Maugis's unchivalric action endorses the medieval stereotype of the Saracen giant.

1422 L: I shall for this baptyse. N: Y schalle for thi baptise (line 1445). The irony of this retort suggests the symbolic meaning of Lybeaus’s refreshment. Like Spenser’s Redcrosse Knight, his strength has been renewed by water from the well (or stream). Mills’s remark expands the allusion to a scene in Guy of Warwick in which the eponymous hero battles the giant Amoraunt: “Guy agrees [to allow Amoraunt to drink from the river] and Amoraunt quenches his thirst, but later denies Guy permission to do the same unless he discloses his identity to him. But even when he has done this, Amoraunt refuses to let him go, and he has to make a dash for the river. While he is drinking he is knocked into it by the giant, but he quickly recovers, curses the giant for his treachery, and says that although ‘baptized’ by Amoraunt, he does not owe his name to him” (LD, p. 234n1333–62). The reference to “baptism” is found in the Anglo-Norman Gui and in the ME texts of Guy found in manuscripts Caius 107 (8514–17) and CUL MS ff.ii.38 (8265–68) (Mills, LD, p. 234n1333–62). The allusion to baptism is not in the Stanzaic Guy of Warwick, however.

1445 L: jepowne. The jupon (gipon) may refer to the tunic worn under the breastplate, but, more likely here, it designates his surcoat bearing his coat of arms worn outside chain mail and breastplate. See OED, jupon, n. 1.

1449–50 L: The gyaunte this ganne see / That he shulde slayne bee. N: The giaunt gan to se / That he schulde yslayne be (lines 1472–73). Mills (LD, p. 235n1384–94) observes a close correspondence between this scene and the scene in Octovian Imperator where Florent kills the giant Guymerraunt (in the Northern Octavian the giant’s name is Arageous or Aragonour).

1462 L: la Dame Amoure. N: Diamour (line 1484). La Pucele in LBD, this lady’s symbolic name literally means Love in L, but in N perhaps it is more akin to Duessa in The Faerie Queene. A, C, and P retain the image of “whiteness” found in LBD: A, line 1498, “That lady was whyte as flower;” C, line 1399, “A lady whyt as flowr,” added to N here to retain the sense, and P, line 1507, “A Ladye white as the Lyllye flower.” L and LI mention only that she is “bright” (L, line 1461; LI, line 694). It seems likely, therefore, that N would have retained the image of whiteness captured in A and P. As Maria Bendinelli Predelli (Bel Gherardino, p. 235) suggests, whiteness conventionally marks noblewomen as fitting objects of knightly love, and the phrase “white as flower” or “white as lily flower” is merely a chivalric stereotype. However, it may be a direct echo of LBD or a similar version, where “whiteness” is a significant attribute of la Pucele, figured not only in her name but in her description (see lines 2238, 2403–10): her whiteness, too, is compared to a lily flower — “Mains ot blances con flors de lis” (line 2241) — which conveys a dimension of sanctity to her role, since the lily is traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary. Unlike la Pucele, however, Dame Amoure/Diamour is cast as a malevolent enchantress. Blancemal’s name and the attribute of whiteness serve to mark her ambiguity, much like la Fata Bianca in Bel Gherardino or Li Biaus’s mother in LBD. In both LD and Bel Gherardino, the figure of the sorceress retains the “whiteness” of la Pucele, even while their narrative roles have changed. Sanctity, however, is rendered ambiguous in the Old French name, Blancemal, a combination of blance (white) and mal (evil), and perhaps this is why Lybeaus’s mother is not named in LD. Like Circe, Dame Amoure/Diamour tempts Lybeaus away from his quest to liberate the Lady of Synadoun and to disregard Elene: “he forgate mayde Elyne” (L, line 1481). In Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain, the eponymous knight forgets to return to his wife, Laudine, in a year as promised.

1473 L: Lybeous graunted hir in haste. N: Sir Libeous graunt it in hast (line 1495). Dame Amoure/Diamour offers Lybeaus what appears to be her hand in marriage to­gether with all of her cities and castles, that is, her inheritable lands and properties as well as the cities owing her allegiance (and taxes). Lybeaus accepts this propo­sition. Only N inserts the pronoun “it” in Lybeaus’s acceptance, a pronoun that logically connects his agreement to Diamour’s offer. The other manuscript vari­ants include C, line 1411, “Lybeauus grauntede yn haste”; A, line 1510, “Lybeus grantyd hyr in haste”; and P, fol. 166v, “Sir Lybius frened her in hast,” where frened probably signifies “frended,” that is, he became friends with her (Cooper’s text, line 1519 reads frened). The variants without the pronoun perhaps imply his consent to her proposition of marriage, but when combined with “her” might also suggest that his consent was primarily to her person, her beauty. N makes it clear that his consent is to her proposition first, and then afterwards he “love to {plain hur cast” (line 1496). The distinction of the pronoun is significant, given the text’s focus on marital consent throughout; this illegitimate marriage based upon magical coercion contrasts markedly with Lybeaus's later marriage, which is based upon free consent. See Weldon, "Naked as he was bore."

1475–76 L: For she was bright and shene. / Alas, she hadde be chaaste. N: For sho was bright and schene. / Alas, that sho nad be ychastid (lines 1497–98). Shuffelton notes that these two lines are missing in A and suggests that the omission may be deliberate: “Though the lines may have been missing in Rate’s exemplar, it is also possible that he omitted them due to their suggestion of a sexual liaison [as in L and N]. But line 1513 [A]— ‘sche dyde hym traye and tene’—nevertheless hints at Denamowre’s seduction of Lybeaus” (p. 479n1511), as does his protracted stay with her and her offer of marriage. In L and N, the narrator immediately characterizes the enchantress as an improper match for Lybeaus.

1479 L: For twelve monthes and more. N: Thre wokis and more (line 1501). In LBD, the hero spends only one night with the sorceress, whereas Lybeaus spends a year or more with her in C, L, P but only three weeks in A, N. The length of his stay is illegible in LI, line 712, although the reference to “monyth and more” clearly indicates more than several weeks. The reduced amount of time of Lybeaus’s enchanted stay with Diamour in A, N to some extent lessens his culpability as well as the power of the enchantress over him.

1487 L: Than other suche fyve. N: Than othir wicchis fyve (line 1509). N, together with C and LI, introduces the term wicchis, further intensifying the impression that the sorcery practiced by Dame Amoure/Diamour is aligned with the occult. Further, her enchantment is associated with minstrel music (“She made hym suche melodye / Of all maner mynstralsye” (L, lines 1488–89). As Linda Marie Zaerr, “Music and Magic,” points out, a conjunction of magic and music appears in the enchanted hall of Iran and Mabon, where Lybeaus hears and sees minstrels: “Trumpys, hornys, sarvysse, / Right byfor that highe deys, / He herde and saughe with sight” (L, lines 1836–38). As he proceeds further, he sees minstrels in the niches of the walls and again hears their music: “Suche maner mynstralsye / Was never within wall” (L, lines 1855–56). That the necromancy of Mabon and Iran involves magic and music, similar to the musical sorcery of Diamour, is suggestive. Also important to note is that the analogues frequently depict Lybeaus’s mother as a woman of fairy or possibly an enchantress. In LBD, for example, the protagonist’s mother is Blancemal le Fee. In the ME romance, Lybeaus’s mother is not depicted as either a fairy or a sorceress, although in N she is referred to as “a giantis lady” (line 2249).

1498 L: He mete Elyne that may. N: He mette Elyne, that feire may (line 1520). That Elene hangs around until she can catch Lybeaus alone to correct his errancy under­scores her loyalty to the cause of her lady as well as her confidence in Lybeaus’s now-proven abilities to accomplish the mission.

1520 L: Jurflete was his name. N: Sir Jeffelot was his name (line 1539). Also known in other variants as Gyrflete, Jerflete, Jeffelot, or Gesloke. A squire made into a steward marks a distinctive move up the social ladder. In A, this character is called Syr Gesloke. R. W. Ackerman suggests a link with Girflet, son of Do of Carduel, who became a knight of the Round Table and was “slain by Lancelot in the abduction of Guinevere” (Index of the Arthurian Names in Middle English, p. 112). See also note to line 240 above. In LBD, squire Robert accompanies the hero from the Arthurian court together with Helie and the dwarf. Furthermore, Gyflet, son of Do, in LBD, is the name of the knight of the gerfalcon. See note to lines 727 ff.

1533–35 L: Cor and fenne full faste, / That men hade ere oute caste, / They gadered ynne iwysse. The custom of carrying waste products outside the boundaries of the city is reversed in these lines. That the use of the word “cor” may suggest the presence of one or many corpses is in accord with the uncanny effects of the occult forces conjured up by Mabon and Iran. In C this passage reads: “For gore and fen and full want / That there was out ykast / To-gydere they gadered ywys" (lines 1471–73); N omits the passage entirely, as does A, while in LI it appears as follows: “Bothe gor and fen faste, / That hadde out beo caste, / Th . . . gedred yn iwis” (lines 763–65); and in P: “They gathered dirt & mire ffull ffast; / Which beffore was out cast, / They gathered in Iwis” (lines 1579–81; fol. 167r). That the city is called “Gaste” or “Desolate” or “Waste” City as an analogous name for Synadoun underscores an implicit connection to the dead and to practices of necromancy, though the term appears to be used ambiguously. Roger Sherman Loomis notes in “From Segontium to Sinadon: The Legends of a Cité Gaste” that the city was built on or near the site of Segontium, the ancient Roman fortress located in north Wales. Also relevant to the haunting elements of this part of the poem may be the site’s association with the defeat and death of the British king Vortigern prophesied by Merlin when he interpreted the symbolic meaning of opposing red and white dragons discovered underneath the tower that Vortigern was attempting to build. The prophecy revealed the demise of the red dragon and the ascendancy of the white, a sign of victory for the Saxons.

1539–40 L: They taken in the goore / That ar was oute yboore. This line and stanza are missing in N. The custom in this enchanted castle appears to be atypical for medieval waste management but perhaps typical for the strangeness of this section of the poem. As Derek G. Neal points out, “Lybeaus arrives with the go-between Elaine and her steward at a town where ‘filth and ordure’ are ‘collected back in’ rather than ‘thrown out.’ In this strange place lurks humiliation rather than death: Lybeaus risks being spattered with filth if he loses the challenge of Sir Lambard, hence (according to Elaine) to be known as a coward” (Masculine Self, pp. 220–21).

1549 L: That hight Syr Lanwarde. N: His name is clepid Lambert (line 1561). Also Lambard, Lambarte, Lamberd, Lambardys, and Lancharde, this character is the constable or steward of the Lady of Synadoun’s castle; he is in a position that bequeaths him responsibility for overseeing everything that goes on both inside and outside. Here he assumes the role of porter, the most relevant example of which is found in SGGK. The name also recalls a character in the Anglo-Norman Gui, who, as Mills explains, “is a vassal of Otes (Otus Guy) and who equals him in villainy. . . . In LD, Lambard is essentially a ‘good’ character, but his habit of fighting with all visitors to the castle, including those who had come to rescue his lady, could easily have raised doubts about his real nature and caused the author of the OF Lybeaus [sic] to bestow upon him a name with associations of treachery” (LD, p. 236n1487). Shuffelton notes that no version is entirely coherent in its portrayal of Lambert (p. 479n1574). Stephen Knight suggests that the name evokes the Lombards, the great bankers of the later Middle Ages, and their powerful importance to aristocratic landholders (“Social Function,” pp. 107–08). See Richard Kaeuper, Bankers to the Crown, on England, Lombardy, and mercantilism. In Thomas Chestre’s Sir Launfal, Lombardy, the setting of Sir Launfal’s tournament with the gargantuan Sir Valentine, provides an amusing satire on such mercantile/chivalric inequalitites.

1549 L omits the detail of the castle-dweller as giant. N: a giaunt felle (line 1559). This line is also missing in C, P, LI but present in A, line 1572, “a gyaunt felle.” Found only in N and A, the phrase seems to suggest (erroneously) that Lambert is a giant, like Maugis. Also in N, A the lines describing the habits of the citizens of Synadoun to throw garbage on the loser (L, lines 1560–68) are omitted (see note to lines 1539-40 above). Mills (LD, p. 236nL1530–68) suggests that the comparison to a giant represents an attempt to make Lambert more negative and that the poet/reviser dropped this effort later, reverting to the more positive characterization of Lambard in LBD. See also Shuffleton, p. 479n1574. N’s use of “giant,” however, differs. The point here is that Lambert is a man of extra­ordinary size or strength (MED) rather than the folktale villain or stereotypical giant; in other words, N makes him a formidable opponent.

1554 L: And ere he do thi nede. N: omitted. Why Lambert should humilate Arthurian knights or why there is an assumption that all challengers are Arthurian knights is not clear. See Textual Note to N, line 1554.

1581 L: And axed ther ostell. N: And axid ther ostelle (line 1591). Medieval hospitality required monasteries and castles to admit travelers, especially at night or in inclement weather. This custom appears in romances; Gawain tells the porter of Bercilak’s castle that he comes “herber to craue” (SGGK, line 812).

1587 L: Who was here governours. N: Who is your governour (line 1597). This expression recalls SGGK, when Bercilak, in his guise as the Green Knight, enters Arthur’s hall, he asks, “Wher is. . . / Þe gouernour of þis gyng” (lines 224–25). See also note 1581 above.

1593 L: The porter prophitable. N: The porter, prestabelle (line 1603). The chain of command is made clear: the porter reports to the constable before letting the knights in. This contrasts sharply with the actions of the porter in SGGK wherein Gawain is admitted immediately once he is recognized as one of the most famous knights of Arthur’s court. According to the MED “prestabelle” may mean “eager to serve” but may also be related to the sixteenth-century French word, prestable, meaning “remarkable,” in which case it would be close in meaning to L’s “prophitable.”

1597 L: “Syre, of the Rowne Table.” N: “Thei bene of the Rounde Table” (line 1607). The identification of Arthur’s knights differentiates them from all others in terms of renown and respectability.

1609 L: As a greyhounde dothe to an hare. N: So as the greyhound aftir the hare (line 1619). In another rare simile the poet creates a hunting image against which the porter is compared ironically — this is what he is not. The greyhound was noted for its speed, and the point here is that porter races to inform Lambard as speedily as a greyhound pursues a hare.

1629–30 L: His shelde was asure fyne, / Thre beer hedis therinne. N: A schilde he bare, fyne, / Thre boris hedis ydentid therinne (lines 1639–40). L’s azure shield differs from N’s merely fine one. Blue is one of the most frequently used colors (or tinctures) in heraldry. Others commonly used are red, black, and green, while more uncommonly used tinctures are purple, sky-blue, and mulberry. The ermine on the shield refers to a pattern, not fur; see Friar, Dictionary of Heraldry, p. 343 and p. 159. The two versions also differ in the animal heraldry, where L has bears’ heads and N, boars’ heads. Both emblems suggest formidable strength. The two shields seem to bring together the details of the shield belonging to Sir Degaré’s father, a fairy knight, who bears a shield “of asur / And thre bor-hevedes therin / Wel ipainted with gold fin” (lines 997–99).

1641 ff. These lines confirm Lambert’s powerful build, which N and A express as giant-like (see note to line 1549 above). L, A, and P compare him in this stanza to a leopard (L: “lebard” [line 1645]; A: “lyberd” [line 1662]; P: “Libbard” [fol. 167v]; missing in LI), whereas only N makes Lambert a Lombard (line 1655). In Chestre’s Sir Launfal, Sir Valentine, another Lombard, is “fyftene feet” tall (line 512), but there is no suggestion that he, any more than Lambert, is a Saracen giant or stereotypical villainous or rustic giant. It is worth noting here that Lambert has none of the inhuman and animal characteristics associated with Maugis or the two giants who abduct Violet.

1655 N: Prowte as eny Lombard. Lombardy is more famous for its bankers than “prowte" knights. Compare the satiric battle between Launfal and the giant of Lombardy in the ME Sir Launfal. See note 1549.

1683–84 L: Sate and rocked . . . in his cradill. N: That he sate . . . in cradille (lines 1693–94). Lybeaus has given his opponent a taste of his own medicine in this scene of role reversal. Whiting lists this line in Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases, p. 83.

1701 ff. N and A arrange this stanza differently from L. The details of the fighting part of the stanza are abbreviated, and Lybeaus, rather than offer more violence (see L, line 1702, “Wilt thou more?”), immediately responds generously to Lambert’s shame at having been unsaddled: “Be nought agrevyd” (N, line 1711).

1701 N: short stanza. See L, lines 1689–1700.

1708 L: Thowe arte of Sir Gawynes kynne. N: Thou art of Sir Gaweynis kyn (line 1717). Unlike what happens in LBD, the Lady of Synadoun’s constable, Lambard, recognizes Lybeaus as a kinsman of Gawain, the most formidable British knight in Arthur’s court and, in a deft maneuver of self-preservation, pledges his loyalty to the stronger knight. Further, in LBD, la Pucele reveals his identity, whereas in LD Lambard partially reveals it; the Lady of Synadoun, after her disenchantment, also recognizes Lybeaus’s identity in terms of kinship with Gawain, but it is Lybeaus’s mother who finally and fully completes his identity when she attends her son’s marriage feast at Arthur’s court and reveals that Lybeaus is not only a kinsman to Gawain but his son (N, A only).

1709 N: He schalle my lady gete (line 1709). See also A: He schall my lady gete (line 1709). Lambard’s prophecy that Lybeaus is the champion who shall rescue the Lady of Synadoun is missing in L and occurs only in A and N.

1736 L: God and Seint Leonarde. N: Jhesus, Hevyn kynge (line 1757). Although N invokes Christ, L refers to Saint Leonard, one of the most popular saints of western Europe. Leonard was patron saint of hospitals, prisons, pregnant women, and captives. The evocation of his name seems appropriate considering the Lady of Synadoun’s imprisonment.

1756 L: Clyrkys of nigermansye. N: Clerkis of nigromansy (line 1777). Necromancy, according to the MED, refers to sorcery or black magic. Corinne Saunders, in Magic and the Supernatural, notes that necromancy may refer to demonic practices and the conjuring of the dead, but observes that “it is very rare for romances to describe explicitly demonic magic practised by humans” and that romance writers “employ ‘nigromancy’ not to depict rituals wholly different in kind from natural magic . . . but rather to suggest more dangerous rituals that enter further into the conscious practice of magic” (p. 154). Helen Cooper, in The English Romance in Time, writes, “Middle English ‘nigromancy’ is magic on the edge of acceptability, not magic conducted through the agency of the dead” (p. 161). In LD, necromancy is only mentioned twice, in the lines above and later in L, lines 1767–68: “Hit is by nygrymauncye / Iwrought with fayreye.” In N the comparable lines are “Hit is made bi negromansy, / Ywrought it was with feyry” (lines 1788–89). The text implies perhaps that the ghostly magicians who perform in the enchanted hall and vanish suddenly are necromantic spirits, but as the text offers no explicit reference to the dead, they seem more illusory than necromantic. The magic of the clerks appears elsewhere in the poem as chambur (L: line 1975; N: charmour, line 2007), chauntement (L, line 2103; N, missing line), chawnterye (L: line 2132), and sorserye (L, line 2055; N: sorcery, line 2087; N: sorserye, line 2171).

1758 L: Irayne ys that o brother. N: Iran is, than, one brothir (line 1779). Variants include Yrayn, Jrowne, and Evrain in LBD.

1759 L: And Mabon is that other. N: And Mabon is that othir (line 1780). Variants include Maboun and Mabouunys. A likely derivation of “an enchanter and hero from Welsh legend derived from the Celtic god Maponos. He was the son of Mellt and Modron (herself taken from the goddess Matrona). He is named as a servant of Uther Pendragon in an early Welsh poem. In Culhwch and Olwen, Culhwch needs his assistance in the hunt for the boar Twrch Trwyth” (AND, p. 333). In LBD, Mabon and his brother, Evrain, enter the city of Snowdon disguised as jongleurs; they cast spells so that the populace believed they were insane, and they laid waste to the city, which became known afterwards as the Desolate City. Mabon attempted to coerce la Blonde Esmeree into marriage by transforming her into a snake, a form she would endure while she refused him or until rescued by “the greatest knight . . . from the court of Arthur” (see LBD, lines 3319–62, especially 3353–59).

1772 L: That is of knyghtis kynne. N: Comyn of kyngis kynne (line 1793). C, L, P make the Lady of Synadoun “of knightis kin.” A is silent on her kinship. LI, fol. 10v, refers to her as “so gent a dame.” Only N raises her status to a king’s daughter, thereby elevating Lybeaus’s station as her (future) husband.

1790 L: Luste they done hir synne. N: Lest that thei bring hur in synne (line 1811). The sense here seems to be that Iran and Mabon are trying to force the Lady of Synadoun to give Mabon all her inheritance, that is, to marry him. Lambard and the townspeople fear that they may “force” her into sin, that is, if Mabon rapes her and then claims her as his wife. The enchantment of the Lady of Synadoun, in other words, has coerced marriage and propertied wealth as its motive.

1833 L: Syr Lybeaus, knyght curtays. N: Sir Libeous reyght his corcis (line 1854). L reads here “knyght curtays,” so too, C, A, LI, and P. N’s reading is unique; Lybeaus arranges his “corcis,” that is, corset, a piece of body armor or corselet, in preparation to enter the enchanted hall. The action suggests the young knight’s trepidation.

1850 L: Butt mynstralis cladde in palle. N: But mynstrell clothid in palle (line 1871). The negative association between fairy magic and music links the enchanted castle to the enchantment of the Golden Isle and Dame Amoure/Diamour. For a useful discussion of minstrels and minstrelsy of the time, see Howard Mayer Brown and Keith Polk, “Instrumental Music.” See also the note to line 1487 and Zaerr, “Music and Magic.”

1854 N: Sir Libeous reyght his corcis. This line appears only in Naples, which the MED locates under “righten” v. 1c, “to aim (a weapon), point; direct (one’s course), in which case the line would mean “Sir Libeous directed his course.” All other manu­script versions of Lybeaus have some form of “curtays” in a line similar to A’s “Syr Lybeus, knyght curtays” (line 1830). However, “righten” v. 2a and 2b may also in­volve armor, as in “set one’s gear in order” or “to make weapons ready”; the MED gives the example, “right her armour” (Merlin, line 150). Similarly, in the Prose Merlin, Leodogan acquires armor: “And [thei] hym unbounden, and right his armoure, and sethen made hym to lepe on a steede that was stronge and swyfht” (Arthur at Tamelide, lines 222–24). The difficulty of the Naples line is compounded by the ambiguity of the word corcis. If the word refers to “course,” as implied in the MED reading, then the Naples line is an anomaly, as MED gives no other example of “righten” connected with course or direction; all other MED examples under 1c collocate “righten” with weapons aimed or pointing, not with setting out on a “course” or “direction.” It may be that the noun corcis is a scribal distortion of cors, corset, or corselet. Hewitt describes fourteenth-century inventories that support this reading: the inventory of Louis Hutin (1316) mentions a “cors d’acier,” that of Humphry Bohun (1322) includes a “corset de fer,” and that of the Earl of March (1330) a “corsetz de feer” (2:136). Corcis as cors, corset, or corselet thus preserves the usual MED senses of righten 1.a.b. and c. and 2.a. and b. Lybeaus does not direct his course or point his horse in the right direction, then; rather, he arranges his armor properly before riding into combat.

1872 L: The halle ypeynted was. N: The halle ypeyntid was (line 1893). The splendor of the locale enhances its enchantment. The hall is reminiscent of other enchanted places, most significantly in ME narrative, such as in the otherworldly palace of the fairy king in Sir Orfeo: “Amidde the lond a castel he sighe, / Riche and real and wonder heighe, / Al the utmast wal / Was clere and schine as cristal” (lines 355–58). Orfeo thinks “it is / The proude court of Paradis” (lines 375–76). Also resonant is the enchanted hall encountered by Sir Degaré, a palace filled with beautiful women, mirth, music, and a sumptuous feast.

1888 L: The erthe began to quake. N: The erthe bigan to quake (line 1908). The natural world marks the impending battle as in the earlier scene of thunder and lightning. It is also possible that the earthquake, thunder, and lightning are illusory, wrought by magic.

1892 ff. L: missing stanza. N: Sir Libeous therof had mervaile . . . Er that Y se what he be, / Aboute this biggyng”(lines 1914–25). This stanza is unique to N. See Sir Gawain’s musings about the “dele” and “fende” that might fittingly inhabit the green chapel, “a chapel of meschaunce” (SGGK, lines 2185–98).

1975 L: His chawntementis ne his chambur. N: His acton ne his charmour (glossed as sorcery, line 2007). There clearly appears to be a scribal error in L since “chamber” makes little sense, even if one stretches the imagination to define the word as “body.” Hence, we have glossed the word as “charms” (sorcery).

2006–08 N: short stanza. See L, lines 1974–75.

2021–22 L: The venym will me spille; / I venymed hem bothe. The mention of venom occurs in C, L, and P (the lines are missing in LI); no venom is mentioned in N or A. The poisoned sword is another means by which Mabon and Iran engage in a nonchivalric mode of combat. Shuffelton notes that “Like N, Rate’s copy-text had these lines instead of three lines in the Cotton manuscript and in L explaining that Mabon has poisoned the swords. As a result of this foul play, Lybeaus’s refusal to spare Mabon’s life seems more explicable in those manuscripts” (p. 480n2009–11).

2037 L: Tho Mabon was slayne. N: Than Mabon was yslayn (line 2069). Lybeaus cleaves the skull of Mabon; in Renaut’s version smoke comes from the skull’s mouth: “Donné li a si grant colee / que mort l’abat guile baee. / Del cors li saut une fumiere / qui molt estoit hideusse et fiere / qui li issoit par mi la boce” (lines 3059–63). (The Fair Unknown dealt him such a great blow / that he knocked him down dead, his mouth agape. / From his body there arose / a horrid and fearful plume of smoke, / which spewed out of his mouth.) Meanwhile Iran appears to disappear.

2060 ff. Both L and N are missing this stanza. Only P includes it as follows: Then he was ware of [a] valley;
Thitherward he tooke the way
   As a sterne Knight and stout.
As he rode by a riuer side
He was ware of him that tyde
   Vpon the river brimm:
He rode to him ffull hott,
& of his head he smote,
   Ffast by the Chinn;
& when he had him slaine,
Ffast hee tooke the way againe
   For to haue that lady gent.
(Cooper, lines 2104–15; see also fols. 120r–v)

2067 L: A worme ther ganne oute pas. N: A worme ther out gan pas (line 2099). Worm is a word typically equated with serpent or dragon. The woman/beast here is clearly a dragon since she is a worm with wings and a tail. Medieval portrayals of the Fall often depict the serpent as a woman; for example, the serpent in the sculpture above the left portal, west façade, Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, looks like the archetypal Eve. See page 83 for an image of Eve and the Dragon-Serpent in Speculum humanæ salvationis, and for more on this point, see Weldon, “‘Naked as she was bore,’” pp. 73–77.

2069 L: “Yonge Y am and nothinge olde.” N: Yonge and nothing olde (line 2101). In L, the Lady of Synadoun addresses Lybeaus directly as a dragon-woman, whereas in N, the dragon-woman does not address him, and this line represents indirect narratorial comment. No form of this line appears in the French LBD.

2083 L: The worme with mouth him kyste. N: The worme with mouthe him kist (line 2115). This is the fier baiser episode at the heart of the Fair Unknown narrative and the effective cause of the disenchantment of the Lady of Synadoun. Other “fearsome kisses” take place in Ponzela Gaia, Carduino, and Lanzelet, as well as in LBD, but in no other episode is the dragon/serpent endowed with a “womanes face.” Similar to the loathly lady narrative, the kiss disenchants the dragon-lady, transforming her into her previous form, a beautiful woman. This is also the moment in which Lybeaus’s identity is manifestly revealed, for only the kiss by a blood relative of Gawain can affect the disenchantment.

2085–87 L: And aftyr this kyssynge / Off the worme tayle and wynge / Swyftly fell hir froo. N: And aftir that kissing, / Of the worme bothe taile and wyng / Sone thei fille hur fro (lines 2117–19). In LBD, as Ferlampin-Acher notes, the transformation of disen­chantment is never seen (La Fée et la Guivre, p. lixn128); so too, in Lanzelet and the other European analogues where the transformation also occurs “off stage” or is never directly described. Only in LD does the disenchantment take visible form.

2091 ff. L: But she was moder naked, / As God had hir maked: . . . As naked as she was bore. N: But scho was al nakid / As the clerkis hur makid; . . . . As nakid as scho was bore (lines 2123–24; L, line 2137, N, line 2176). The disenchantment involves the disappearance of the serpent-Eve-dragon disguise (“Off the worme tayle and wynge / Swyftly fell hir froo” [L, lines 2086–87]), suggesting that the transformation returns the lady to a state of innocence equivalent to a prelapsarian Eve, the mother of all human­kind. Not only is she innocent but without shame. N’s original reference to clerks recalls the enchantment caused by Iran and Mabon, and perhaps implies their malicious disrobing of her prior to covering her with the magic dragon disguise. Later, however, when Lybeaus recounts the story to Lambard, he describes her, “As nakid as scho was bore” (N, line 2176). Another parallel to this striking image is the story of Saint Margaret, patron saint of childbirth, who is swallowed by a dragon but erupts from its belly reborn. See Weldon, “‘Naked as she was bore,’” p. 81.

2120 ff. L: missing stanza. N: To loke aftir Iran (lines 2153 ff.). This passage dealing with the search for and killing of Iran occurs after the disenchantment only in the N, A tradition. For Mills, it is a revised passage that corrects the unsolved mystery of Iran’s disappearance and provides closure. N omits the repetitive lines from A at this point: “And ther sone he wane. / He went into the towre / And in that ilke chambour” (A, lines 2113–15). Of the two, N is more sensible than A, and from line 2153, the passage is original with N.

Syr Lybeus, the knyght gode,
Into the castell yode
     To seke after Irain.
He lokyd into the chambour
Ther he was in towre,
     And ther sone he hym wane.
He went into the towre
And in that ilke chambour
     He saw Irain that man.
He drew hys suerd with myght
And smote of hys hede with ryght,
     For soth, of Irain than.
(Shuffleton, A, lines 2108–19)

2134 N: Short stanza. See L, lines 2097 ff.

2137 L: As naked as she was bore. N: As naked as scho was bore (line 2176). See note for line 2091 above.

2138 N: Short stanza. See L, lines 2109 ff.

2160ff. N: Short stanza. See L, lines 2121 ff.

2178 L: Arthur gave also blyve. N: Arthour, he gave blyve (line 2217). Arthur’s blessing and consent to the marriage sanctions it and renders Lybeaus’s mission complete. He has literally won the lady’s hand in marriage. In LBD, this is a bittersweet reward, since in that poem Lybeaus’s true love is the Maiden with the White Hands whom he had left abruptly to complete his mission.

2192 ff. L: missing stanza. N: 2232 ff. The arrival of Lybeaus’s mother is unique to A and N, and solves what Mills perceives as an inconsistency in the other manuscript versions, where Gawain's sudden recognition of his son is left unexplained (“Mediaeval Reviser,” pp. 17–18). The appearance of Guinglain’s mother not only solves what Mills perceives as an inconsistency, Gawain’s sudden recognition of his son, which is left unexplained in C and L but added to A and N; it also provides reconciliation of the separated and “lost” parents. The family reunion motif appears in Sir Degaré, Octovian Imperator and the Northern Octavian, Emaré, and Sir Isumbras. Illegitimate but chivalric sons occur in the story of Lancelot and Galahad, Le Livre de Caradoc, and Ysaÿe le triste.
Gawain's address to the Lady of Synadoun (N: 2244 ff.) is unique to N, A, P, and LI. Only in N, however, does Gawain refer to Lybeaus’s mother as a “giantis lady” (line 2249) — see note to line 1487 above. A refers to her as a “gentyll lady” (line 2209); so, too, LI, “gentil lady” (Cooper, line 1077; fol. 12v). Although her description as a giant’s lady might seem incongruous, there is a sense in which N’s reading restores the idea that Lybeaus’s mother is kin to a race of nonhuman beings. LD belongs to a group of folkloristic narratives in which the hero’s enfances is obscure; he is raised outside of civilization and his parents or one of his parents and/or guardians is divine or animal (Walter, Bel Inconnu, pp. 49–72). In LBD, Guinglain’s mother is Blancemal le Fee (line 3237), for example; in, Wigalois, she is Florie, daughter of a fairy king. If, as a giant’s lady, Lybeaus’s mother is meant to be a giant’s daughter, then she recalls folklore tradition in which a giant’s daughter helps the hero or marries the hero, as in the British folktale “Nix Nought Nothing.” In the Celtic story How Culhwch Won Olwen, Culhwch weds Olwen, the beautiful and nonmonstrous daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden. In folklore and myth, giants, like fairies, live outside human communities, so the N association of Lybeaus’s mother with giants maintains the obscure and uncivilized (nonhuman) parentage of the hero lost in the other versions of LD. It is also possible that the “giant” status of Lybeaus’s mother indicates her “otherness” — that she resides outside the court and is marginalized by her unwed, single-parent status.

2199 L: Sevyn yere they levid same. N: Ten yere thei levid in same (line 2274). The marriage in N lasts longer than L’s, although neither text (nor any other version) men­tions children, which are often the conventional index of a successful medieval marriage.

2204 L: Grawnte us gode endynge. Amen. N: To blys He us alle bring. Amen (line 2279). Despite the naming of Lybeaus in the incipit of L as Guinglain, the name given to him by Arthur (Lybeaus Desconus) is the name that accrues recognition and authority in the chivalric world. This is the name that is cited on the Winchester Round Table.

2280 N: Qui scripcit carmen sit benedictis. Amen. A formulaic ending which often con­cludes secular as well as religious manuscript entries. The correct spelling is scripsit; however, the variant scripcit also frequently appears in manuscript colophons. For instance, the exact phrasing and spelling closes The Prick of Conscience in Manchester, John Rylands, Library Eng. 51 [olim Quaritch Sale Cat. 344, Item 28], fol. 116v (see The IMEV: An Open-Access, Web-Based Edition of The Index of Middle English Verse, ed. Linne R. Mooney et al., Number 3428: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/ host/imev/record.php?recID=3428.). This is the first of a hierarchy of display scripts in the Lybeaus portion of N, here a bastard display script composed of a mix of more formal bookhand scripts, including an approximation of textualis semiquadrata with its occasional feet in the minims, occasional separate letters, angular letters, and a more formal cursive blend of mainly Secretary forms (the letter a) together with some Anglicana forms (the long s).

2281 N: Hic Explicit Libeus Disconyus. This colophon is written in the scribe’s most elevated and formal bastard display script.

2282–85 N: He that lovyth welle to fare / . . . . / His here wol grow throw his hood. This homely verse, which apart from the more formal capital h and top line with its stylistic decorative features, is written in the same script as the text (a mix of Secretary and Anglicana features) and inserts a conventional moral on the page, although it is not clear whether or not it is meant as a commentary on LD. These moralizing verses appear in Bodley MS 315 (SC 2712) which was presented to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral in the mid-1470s by Magister John Stevens, a canon at Exeter. According to the manuscript, the Naples verses are among several which appeared on the wall of the dining hall of the Augustinian Canons' Priory of St. Stephen of Launceston in Cornwall. See Rossell Hope Robbins, "Wall Verses at Launceston Priory." The sense is that indiscriminate spending leads to poverty, a condition marked by the wear and thinness of the material of the hood that allows the wearer’s hair to poke through the material. The scribe signs his name here as More, whom Manly and Rickert identify as a Harry More, although they offer three other potential scribal candidates who were writing/copying at the same time: an Oxford stationer John More, a London stationer, Richard More, and a Bristol scrivener William More (Text of the Canterbury Tales, 1:376). There is, however, no scholarly agreement on these suggestions. Verses from Lydgate’s “Beware of Doubleness” as well as a disguised signature of the scribe as More concludes the final item in N, Grisilde or The Clerk’s Tale on p. 146 of the manuscript.

2286 N: Hic pennam fixi penitent me si male scripsi. This is a smaller script than that used for line 2281 and less formal, although here, too, there are suggestions of textualis. The same Latin phrase is repeated at the end of the Naples manuscript, con­cluding the tale of Griselde (Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale). See Weldon, “Naples Manuscript.” See the note for lines 2282–85 above.

 

ABBREVIATIONS: A: Ashmole 61 (Bodleian 6922) (see Shuffelton); C: British Library Cotton Caligula A.II (see Mills); L: Lambeth Palace MS 306; LI: Lincoln’s Inn MS 150 (formerly known as Lincoln’s Inn MS Hale 150) (see Mills); N: Bibliotec Nazionale, Naples MS XIII B.29; P: British Library Additional MS 27879 (also known as the Percy Folio).

1 N: guide letter J and space three lines deep for later insertion of decorated capital.

111 Thei. N: the.

122 and. N: an.

133 ynd. N: hynd.

140 henge. N: kyenge? This word is ill-formed, and the scribe appears to have attempted a correction by superimposing a y, with the result that the first letter of the word is illegible. It may be a k or a b.

149 sawtre. N: swithe. L, C, and A have a version of sawtre here.

152 telle. N: telle me (makes no sense in context).

154 knelid. N: kene.

188 Sir. N: si.

190 errour. N: errout.

202 Lybeus. N: .l., which is N’s typical abbreviation for the name of the hero.

225 Scribal ink blot over g of degré.

239 Commaundid. Linear scribal correction commaandid corrected to commaundid.

254 Compare the fourth person: Agrafrayn (C, line 221), Agfayne (L, line 244).

257 A. N: at.

269 werre. N: were.

282 As. N: and.

287 palfray. N: palfaray.

325 here furth rides. N: he furth right.

327 his. N: hir.

337 two. N: to.

345 her. Interlinear scribal correction with the addition of r after he. The scribe has also corrected the a in al.

384 slygh. N: slyght.

392 his. N: is.

399 a. N: missing.

409 sei. N: seid.

414 Unkouth. N: unkough.

415 on. N: un.

429 Thei. N: the.

439 Scribal correction of e in bifore.

491 Interlinear scribal correction over m in ame, which is then crossed out.

494 Following this line, L reads: And to them stoutly con rede (line 482), giving the stanza an unusual thirteen lines. N omits this line and corrects the stanza.

498 his. N: is.

499 Libious. N: .l.

519 L has three lines here that are missing in N, A, P. The stanza is missing in C and LI. The following stanza also has some missing lines and some new ones added. These words of the youngest brother, for ex­ample, are only in N, A.

533 Sir. N: sir. The letter combination ir is ill-formed. The stem of the r touch­es the stem of the i, and the headstroke of the r is exaggerated.

538 Than. N: That.

554–55 And in that ilke spaas, / The right arme fille him fro. So A. L reads “And in that selfe space / His lyfte arme brast atwoo” (lines 542–43).

574 so. N: se.

592 Scribal interlinear correction — geuy crossed out and greuys written after.

593 Thei. N: the.

594 broun. N: bron.

649 bisoughte. N: bisoughe.

663 geaunt his. N: geauntis.

665 With. N: but. Scribal error perhaps because of following butte.

691 Boxed catchwords at bottom of p. 94b, tille that othir.

692 Underlined catchwords at top of p. 95a, it is founde. These catchwords refer back to p. 94b, the last words of which are “it is found” (line 691).

694 Tho. N: the.

698 thonkid. N: thongid.

705 biforne. N: biforme.

763 feirer. N: feire.

778 What appears to be a partially boxed catchword on p. 95b, turne over, is not actually a catchword. It seems to be the scribe’s note to himself.

787 Geffron le Frediens. N: Geffron Jle Frediens. See line 808 below.

793 his. N: is.

797 dwellid. N: leftin; L: dwellyd (line 778).

813 prins. The scribe uses Latin abbreviations but often modifies or adapts them to the English spellings of his dialect. Here, for instance, the abbreviated p form (see C, lines 256 ff.), which usually signals a Latin abbreviation for per or pre (or pro) but which here represents pri. Prins (not prens) is the usual N spelling: see line 849 below, where prins is writ­ten out fully. See also the notes for lines 849 and 1462.

817 schrille. N: schille.

842 graunt. N: gaunt.

849 prout. Another example where the scribe uses the Latin pre abbreviation for simply pr. See note 813 above and line 318, where the word proute is written out in full.

903 border. N: borders. The plural noun makes no sense here.
ryngid with floris. N: ryng flor, where the scribe has inserted an r above the o. In C and L, the word “floures” (C, line 860; L, line 889) refers to color: e.g., “And of that same colours / And of that other floures” (L, lines 888–89). In the A, N, LI, P tradition, however, flowers are decorative items on the shield; e.g., “Of gold was the border, / And of the same colorus, / Dyght with other floures” (A, lines 914–16). N’s line seems to be a scribal error connected with the A, N, P sense. A plausible rendering of the line, then, is “ryngid with floris.”

906 cromponis. This word “cromponis” and line 903 above are unique to N.

919 ruffyne. Compare LI: rosyn.

926 on. N: in.

927 schyning. N: schynding.

933 straight. N: stranght.

949 Geffron le Fredus. N: Geffron Ile Fredus. See Explanatory Note 768. All versions of LD have difficulty with this name. Here the French article le is mis­spell­ed as Ile.

1051 de la Ile. N: de a Ile.

1078 greyhoundis. N: grewhondis.

1102 wile. N: while. The other manuscripts have gile.

1136 ther. N: the.

1178 cler. N: cleir. See clere, line 943.

1215 actowne: N: attowne.

1220 an ax. N: missing word, as attested in L, C, A, P (stanza missing in H).

1248 Sir Libeous written over illegible erasure.

1280 ff. Guide letter r and space three lines deep for later insertion of a decor­ated capital.

1287 buskis. N: buskid.

1307 Maugus. The scribe writes a Latin abbreviation stroke over the a, and it is likely that he intends the abbreviation to represent au rather than an, Mangus. Elsewhere the spelling Maugus is used.

1318 knyghtis. N: knighti.

1373 turne. N: turine.

1407 nekke. N: hekke.

1420 there seems to be a scribal error. The rhyme scheme is broken: A has “tho” (line 1434); L, “throo” (line 1397).

1440 swore. N: swere.

1462 othir. The scribe has written a thorn with a Latin abbreviation symbol for er, so that the word technically should be other. However, the scribe again adapts the Latin symbol for his normal spelling of othir, the usual form which appears throughout the manuscript. See the note for line 813 above.

1464 After. N: Afer.

1471 sans faile. N: sam faile.

1483a Missing line. L, line 1461: A lady bright as floure. The text in N is supplied from C.

1509 Than othir wicchis fyve. L has “other suche fyve” (line 1487), as does A (line 1522). This is one of the interesting variations where N (and LI) agrees with C, line 1425, as Mills points out (LD p. 235n1425).

1520 He. N: the.

1548 Men. N: me. L, line 1526: men clepen hit.

1554 The word towne is written over an illegible erasure.

1554 A, N omit the lines L:1530–41 and the stanza L:1557–68 where the inhabitants of the castle gather refuse in order to throw it on the heads of challengers to humiliate Arthurian knights, thereby embar­rassing Arthur further. A and N thus delete this insult to Arthurian knights.

1594 porter. N: portelle.

1603 prestabelle is unique to N: other manuscripts have some form of L’s prophitable (line 1593).

1619 Scribal interlinear correction with r inserted above the g of greyhound.

1677 renoune. L has raundon (line 1667), C resoun (line 1605), and A rawndon (line 1684).

1679 To. N: And. And does not make sense since neither really does deliver a mortal wound. They are attempting to do so, however, so “To” is a better choice of expression here.

1684 he him. N: have and. We have corrected this following L, line 1674, So harde he hym hitte.

1690 and. N: an.

1761 Libeous. N: Libeouc. Compare with the c in “chast” (line 1735) and in “clerkis” (line 2130). The scribe forms a miniscule c in two ways, the more common angular variety, and the one here where the angularity disappears. Unlike a t formation, the headstroke differs from the t headstroke and does not cross the stem, as it does in Lambart in the same line. This scribe often alters s and c for spellings; see the certeyne / serteyne shifts and the unique Cinadowne for Sinadowne (line 1548). Libeouc makes more sense as the manuscript reading in this context.

1779 one. N: one is.

1811 Scribal correction of g in bring.

1820 An e has been inserted above makith.

1834 Scribal correction of h to f in of.

1843 Libeousis. N: l is.

1923 onis. N: enis.

1967 sans faile. N: samfaile.

1984 Scribal correction of the r of provid over illegible erasure.

2017 and. N: an.

2024 lame. N: lane.

2063 Sir Libeous. N: si.L.

2134ff. Missing lines. L: Thorowe ther chauntement / To a worme thei had me went / In wo to leven and lende, / Tyll I had kyssed Gaweyne (lines 2103–06).

2165 Scribal correction. The scribe has written t above the r of pertly.

2184 pris. Once more the scribe adapts the Latin abbreviation for his English spelling so that the word reads pris, not pres. See the note for line 813 above. The spelling of this word throughout the manuscript is pris: see lines 2237 and 1304.

2197 a precious. N: a precious a.

2239 delaye. N: delayne.

2283 Ever. N: eur.