felixharrowgate @ 2007-06-22T16: 53:00
title : Iwein
author : Hartmann von Aue
language : Middle High German
genre : Arthurian epic
So far I read the introduction, where we meet some knights of the round table and also king Artus and his queen Ginover. We learn of some characteristics of the knights. Keie being the sardonic and unpleasant one.
Kalogrenant tells the story of his aventiure (v.259) to the forest of Breziljan [I've been there in summer of 06, it's in France and really beautiful and mystical and Celtic - Forêt de Brocéliande ] He encounters a chateau and there a beautiful girl. But he rides on to find his aventiure and he meets a savage surrounded by the wild animals he's ever seen.
"do I gesach one can sit in
under almitten in: getrôste
to me the sin
but I dô. in the near
came and I was right sîn genam,
dô I vorht in so Sere
sam diu animal ode mère "As soon as he
Collects his courage he goes up to him asks him to "evil ode guot art thou?" ["are you bad or good?" which caused me to laugh...] He seems to be neither and tells Kalogrenant about a fountain [the fountain of Barenton ] where he would find his aventiure. Kalogrenant encounters the fountain, and does as told: he pours water from the fountain over the emerald and a heavy thunderstorm is evoked. Thereupon a knight approaches and challenges Kalogrenant for he has called the tempest which ravaged the knight's forest. The knight beats Kalogrenant and he loses his horse and his dignity and finally makes it back to the Arthurian court.
As he has finished his story his cousin Iwein want's to avenge Kalogrenant and also is curious about the strange wonders of the forest. So he decides to go on aventiure. Keie his being pessimistic and sardonic self tells him.
irn "vastet niht, daz I hear WOL
wines vol
a cup of git, daz sî iu demand side,
mere talk and manheit
dan vierzec unde
fours with wazz ode to beer. " But too
Arthur decides to challenge the myterious knight and if they all rode together Iwein knows that not himself but Gawain will be the first choice to fight the knight. So he leaves for his aventiure secretly. He finds the savage, who tells him the way to the fountain and there he does as Kalogrenant did and the knight shows up. They fight long and hard till the knight wants to surrender and flees towards his chateau. Iwein hunts him down mercilessly and finally kills him when they reach the knights castle. For some tricky mechanism Iwein is now trapped in this castle - because when they entered all portcullis fell down and the one Iwein rides through even splits his horse in two.
He meets a girl that remembers him from greeting her at the court of Artus (no one else did) and therefore she wants to help him escape the wrath of the knight's followers. She hands him a ring that will make him invisible.
The household buries the knight and Iwein falls in love at first sight with the knight's wife/widow. vrou minne herself (the personification of love) must have done this to him, because no other force could be to blame for making him fall in love with the wife of the man he just killed. Of course he is devastated because he doesn't believe that she could ever love him back for what he did to her. At the funeral she cires bitterly for the loss of her husband and is sure that she will never find another man that noble and good.
As the girl who gave the ring to him notices his distress, she again decides to help him and together they forge a plan to make the widow fall in love with Iwein.
this is as far as I've read so far ;) (v.1884)
