Pelleas

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Howard Pyle : Sir Pellias the Kind

Pelleas (or Pellias , [ ˈpɛliəs ]) is a knight of the round table in the Arthurian legend . His story first appears in the so-called Post-Vulgate cycle. There Pelleas is the son of a poor vassal who strives for the love of the highborn girl Arcade , Archade or Lady Ettard .

background

Although he wins her a gold bracelet in a tournament , she spurns it, locks herself in her castle and refuses to receive it. Every day she sends her knights to humiliate him in the hope of driving him away. Sir Gawain'Arthur's nephew witnesses Pelleas' humiliation and vows to help him by walking to Arcade in Pelleas' armor pretending to have killed him. If he has won her trust, he will advertise Arcade in Pelleas' name and lead her to him. Instead, Gawain falls in love with Arcade himself and forgets his promise to Pelleas. When Gawain does not return with the girl, Pelleas searches for them and finds them in bed together. He can't bring himself to kill the two of them, leaves his bare sword in bed between them and returns home, where he doesn't want to leave the bed before he dies of grief. The next morning, Arcade recognizes the sword, and Gawain remembers his promise. He convinces Arcade to love Pelleas and brings them together. The couple marry and have a son, Guivret the younger, who later becomes one of King Arthur's knights.

Thomas Malory revised the story in the first book of his Le Morte d'Arthur . There Gawain leaves the girl - who is called Ettarde in this version - after the incident with the sword. Nimue , the mistress of the lake, comes to Pelleas, hears his story and falls in love with him herself. She takes revenge on Ettarde by magic by enchanting her to fall in love with Pelleas as much as he does. Pelleas, whose love has turned to hate, disdains her, and she dies of grief. Nimue and Pelleas get married, and Nimue becomes Guivret's mother.

In Alfred Tennyson's Idylls of the King , Pelleas is knighted young by King Arthur. He loves the girl Ettarre , who is bothered by her youthful shyness and stuttering and does not return his affection. She lies to him in order to get a gold bracelet as a token of his love, which he won in a tournament. After she has got the maturity and thus higher social standing, she wants to be left alone. Despite her betrayal, Pelleas cannot forget her. He defeats all the knights she sends against him, but allows himself to be captured each time, as this is the only way to see his true love. Ettarre takes his horse from him and sends him away; again and again he returns. Gawain offers to convince Ettarre. He claims to have killed Pelleas and betrays him by sleeping with her himself. Pelleas finds the two together and leaves his sword on them, as a sign that he is alive, but also that he cannot kill a knight like Gawain in his sleep.

Pelleas appears as a minor character elsewhere in these works; he fights in tournaments and defends Guinevere against her kidnapper Meleagant as one of the Queen's knights. Its story also remained popular with writers of the 19th and 20th centuries.

literature

  • Thomas Malory: Le Morte Darthur. Online book on [1] . (English).
  • Thomas Malory: The Last Battle of King Arthur. CH Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54811-6 . (German edition of Le Morte Darthur. )
  • Alfred Tennyson: The Idylls of the King. Penguin Classics, 1989, ISBN 0-14-042253-6 . (English).
  • Alfred Tennyson: royal idylls. De Gruyter, Berlin, ISBN 3-11-111931-9 . (German edition, also available as a Kindle edition).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lady Ettard at Le Morte Darthur. Book IV Chapter XXI (English).
  2. ↑ Sir Gawaine and Lady Ettard at Le Morte Darthur. Book IV Chapter XXII (English).
  3. ↑ The Lady of the Lake and Pelleas at Le Morte Darthur. Book IV Chapter XXIII (English).
  4. ↑ Pelleas and Ettarre in The Idylls of the King. (PDF file; 720 kB) from page 159.