holy, Celtic dreaminess, Celtic "other-worldliness";
and we forget the qualities that made Caesar's Gauls, St. Paul's
Galatians, so different from the grave and steadfast Romans--that
loud Gaulois that has made the Parisian the typical Frenchman. A
different being, this modern Athenian, from the mystic Irish
peasant we see in the poetic modern Irish drama!--and yet both
are Celts.

Not much "other-worldliness" about Chretien. He is as positive as
any man can be. His is not of the world of Saint Louis, of the
Crusaders, of the Cathedral-builders. In Cliges there is no
religious atmosphere at all. We hear scarcely anything of Mass,
of bishops, of convents. When he mentions Tierce or Prime, it is
merely to tell us the hour at which something happened--and this
something is never a religious service. There is nothing behind
the glamour of arms and love, except for the cas de conscience
presented by the lovers. Nothing but names and framework are
Celtic; the spirit, with its refinements and its hair-splitting,
is Provencal. But what a brilliant whole! what art! what measure!
Our thoughts turn to the gifted women of the age--as subtle, as
interesting, and as unscrupulous as the women of the
Renaissance--to Eleanor of Aquitaine, a reigning princess, a
troubadour, a Crusader, the wife of two kings, the mother of two
kings, to the last, intriguing and pulling the strings of
political power--"An Ate, stirring him [King John] to blood and
strife."

The twelfth century was an age in which women had full scope--in
which the Empress Maud herself took the field against her foe, in
which Stephen's queen seized a fortress, in which a wife could
move her husband to war or to peace, in which a Marie of
Champagne (Eleanor's daughter) could set the tone of great poets
and choose their subjects.

If, then, this woman-worship, this complexity of love, this
self-debating, first comes into literature with Chretien de
Troyes, and is still with us, no more interesting work exists
than his earliest masterpiece, Cliges. The delicate and reticent
Soredamors; the courteous and lovable, Guinevere; the proud and
passionate Fenice, who will not sacrifice her fair fame and
chastity; the sorceress Thessala, ancestress of Juliet's
nurse--these form a gallery of portraits unprecedented in
literature.

The translator takes this opportunity of thanking Mr. B. J.
Hayes, M.A., of St. John's College, Cambridge, for occasional
help, and also for kindly r