LLT 180 Lecture 23 1 We're doing -- I meant to apologize last time, and I'm sure you can't blow this up adequately, to have you buy an obscene book like this with a cover that's so explicit. But, you know, I thought about going over to the bookstore with a marker and marking 'em all out, or getting some Liquid Paper that was kind of goldenrod. But I decided that, you know, you're all big boys and girls and so I'd let it go. Actually, you don't need to read this book. One of the nice things about reading this is it's like reading something of White's: you can just read the titles of the chapters and say, "Okay. I have the summary." And so as we go from chapter to chapter, it's like, "Okay, The Abduction. Obviously, somebody's gonna be abducted." This is a very different style than what we're used to. And it's kind of interesting that Gottfried makes the point a lot of times that he's not gonna just talk about stuff immediately. So we don't get some of these descriptions of what people are wearing that goes on for 19 pages. He says, "Let's get on with the story." And so we're gonna have to set up what's gonna happen later. And to set this all up, we're gonna have to get -- we're gonna have to get -- my brain's dead. We're gonna have to get Tristan away from where he is and get to Mark's court. And so everybody who meets Tristan is very impressed by his excellence, his excellence in all ways. And what really puts him at danger here first is not just his great looks, but he has excellent manners. Actually, as I read this, I thought, "God," you know, "I'm a lot like Tristan." But then they talk about Rual later, about how great he looks for somebody his age, and I go, "No, no. I'm like Rual." So, you know, maybe that's why I like to read this book because I can think -- I can fantasize that these people are actually me. Or I am them. LLT 180 Lecture 23 2 But anyway, he has fine manners, probably my only positive quality, but this is attractive to people. And Curvenal, C-u-r-v-e-n-a-l, is gonna be a character that keeps coming back up, so a name you should pick up on. He's kind of his tutor and yet his pal at the same time. One of the amazing things -- and remember, Tristan was sent away. He was sent away to be educated. And he's gonna have great skill in languages. And even later it's gonna come up that he even knows more languages than you can imagine. He can basically converse with anybody in almost any language that you associate with northern Europe. So these guys, these merchants who come up to Rual's castle, think, "Well, you know, these Norwegians. They're gonna steal this kid and make some money off him." So evidently, they figure they can sell him someplace -- on the Internet. Not really funny. So they steal -- they take him and Curvenal away with them, and a tempest arose. And so one of the things we're gonna deal with here a lot -- if you read as far as I fantasized I'm gonna get today, where they have the battle on the island -- we keep calling on God in here. And so God represents right, justice, fairness, and God would certainly not let anything happen that is not right, fair and just. And so as they're stealing him, this great tempest comes up and it lasts for eight days. Eight's an okay number, nothing particularly significant. And they're so scared, they'll say they'll set 'em free. It's kind of interesting. When I was working out the other day -- we think, "Well, a tempest came up. How bad can that be?" -- and I had the Weather channel on. I don't LLT 180 Lecture 23 3 know whether I was on my idiot-treadmill. Actually, I kind of like it. It's kind of mind- numbing as opposed to running on the streets and having to dodge cars and stuff. But they were talking about a winter storm in the northeast in 1991 and a fishing boat that sank. They said that when they were headed back in -- they heard a storm was coming and they were headed back in, and they had 8 to 10-foot waves. Be a fairly typical, standard swell in the North Atlantic. And within three hours they had 80-foot waves. So these guys, you know, this is what they were up against, you know. It's not good, so they say, "We'll let 'em free, we'll let 'em free." And they set 'em free in Cornwall. Just put 'em on shore. And we know -- I think it's already been mentioned that Mark of Cornwall -- you know, back to the beginning of the story -- is his uncle. And that's why Rivalin, this king, is very famous and gone to his court before. So we now know he's in the country of his uncle. And the kid is -- you know, the kid's young. You know, he's just been dumped on this place. He's been kidnapped away from his family. But he's wearing good clothes, which is always important. It's always my theory. It's my theory in teaching this course. If you lack in substance, you have to dress nicely. So if I'm not dressing nicely, I'm really in big doo-doo, as former President Bush would say. Because if you don't have any good clothes and no substance, you lack everything. But here he has good clothes. He has good substance, too. We read, "He was wearing a cloak and robe of magnificent brocade." And, you know, ermine seems real popular at this time, and it's lined with ermine. He sets off -- he comes to a road, meets some pilgrims. These pilgrims will be LLT 180 Lecture 23 4 important. Because later, Rual is gonna be looking for him. Rual this loyal person treats him like a son, perhaps treats him better than his son, is gonna be looking for him and the way he finds him is encountering these pilgrims. For some reason -- and I don't know if it's just to set us up later that he's a big story-teller. Each group he meets, he invents stories about who he is. He doesn't tell them the truth. And the only reason that becomes important is perhaps later when he goes to be cured after he gets poisoned by the wound by Morold, and he goes to be cured by Isolde, he makes up this story. And so maybe what we're doing -- the author's setting us up here, that Tristan is the great prevaricator. He is the great liar, making up stories about himself. So all of a sudden it's not like he's out of character. They -- the pilgrims, those other people at the very end of that chapter on The Abduction, are impressed by what? His manners. His manners. We read at the very end of that chapter, His clothes held their attention, for they were very splendid and of marvellous texture. "Good God," they mused, "who is this boy and where is he from, that has such beautiful manners?" And so something that sets him apart. They're going to Tentagal, which we know also from before, if we remember, is where Mark holds court. So he's gonna go to where Mark is. They're going along -- and some of this we're gonna be able to skip over, a bunch of pages, unless you're particularly big into hunting and you want to know how to cut up a deer as an optional way. But this next chapter entitled The Hunt, they come upon Mark's people out hunting. And Tristan, for some reason, says, "Oh" -- you know, LLT 180 Lecture 23 5 he said before he'd been out hunting with friends and he got separated, and now he tells the pilgrim, "These are my people." And so they leave him and he joins up with this group, and basically takes over. He has the manner of taking over the action, Tristan does, of inserting himself into the action, and shows them how to cut up a hart properly, how to cut up a deer properly, and they're all impressed. And so, you know, he basically -- you know, manners. He knows about hunting. He's gonna be able to sing. And he also can do knightly stuff. And when he finds out the truth about himself, he's gonna emphasize this part which has not been emphasized. So he knows the whole culture. He knows how to do everything about court, what's involved in courtly life, exceedingly well. He again -- they ask him who he is, and he again makes up a story. Yet another story. And this time he says his father's a merchant. And all this does is delay -- well, he doesn't really know who he is, you know. He hasn't been told who he is.