version being of a much later date than the Ashmole Ferumbras. But also that version from which the prose romance has been copied or compiled, cannot have been the original of A. For although the phrase of A, 3888—“A skuntede as a bore”—seems to contain some resemblance of expression with the reading of the prose Fierabras—“il commença à escumer come s’il fust ung senglier eschaufé,” which Caxton translates—“he began to scumme at the mouthe lyke a bore enchaffed”—the reading of A, ll. 1307 ss., which greatly varies from Caxton’s version (a translation of the French prose Fierabras), renders inadmissible the supposition that the original of the French prose version is the source of A.44
Having thus compared the Ashmolean Ferumbras, as far as can be done at present, with all existing versions of this romance, we arrive at the following conclusions.
The Ashmole Ferumbras is a pretty close translation of some French version, which we are at present unable to identify. Its original was neither of the same family (w) as the Fierabras, edited by MM. Krœber and Servois, nor yet of that of the Escorial version. Nevertheless, the original of Sir Ferumbras cannot have differed much from the common original, from which these two groups of MSS. are derived. To this original, called y by Grœber, the MS., from which A has been copied, appears to have been more closely related than to the Provençal version, from which it certainly is not derived. As the liberties which the author of Sir Ferumbras took in translating his original, consist only in very slight modifications, we may conclude ‹xxii› from his closeness of translation in general, that in those passages of A which exhibit significant deviations from the known French versions, these variations are not due to the composer of the Ashmolean poem, but were already to be found in its original. Therefore the Ashmole Ferumbras may be considered as representing by itself the translation of an independent French MS., which perhaps belonged, or at least was nearly related, to the type y.
I now come to the consideration of the Sowdan of Babylone, which the simple analysis given by Ellis,45 shows to be an essentially different work from the Ashmolean Ferumbras. Indeed, whilst the Syr Ferumbras represents only a portion (viz. the second part) of the original Fierabras [or Balan, as Gaston Paris has styled it],46 the Sowdan approaches the original more nearly in that it contains the long ‘introductory account’.47 For this first part of the Sowdan (as far as l. 970), although it cannot be considered as identical with the first portion of the old Balan romance, contains several facts, which, however abridged and modified, show a great resemblance with those which must have been the subject of the lost portion of the old original. Whereas the Ashmolean Ferumbras is, on the whole, a mere translation of a French original, the Sowdan must be looked upon as a free reproduction of the English redactor, who, though following his original as far as regards the course of events, modelled the matter given there according to his own genius, and thus came to compose an independent work of his own.
This point being fully treated in my Dissertation,48 I need not again enter into discussion of it here. I only mention that the composer of the Sowdan has much shortened his original, omitting all episodes and secondary circumstances not necessarily connected with the principal action, so that this poem does not contain half the number of lines which his original had,49 and that the proportion of the diffuse Ashmolean Ferumbras and the Sowdan is over five to one.50 ‹xxiii›
The subject of the ‘introductory account,’ or the first part of the Sowdan, is nearly the same as that of the Destruction de Rome, differing from this poem only in the omission of a few insignificant incidents or minor episodes, and in greater conciseness, which latter circumstances, however, enters into the general plan of the author.
Indeed, the author of the Sowdan seems to have known the Destruction, as we see from a comparison of the two poems. Thus the following instances show a great resemblance of expression of the two versions:
| Sowdan. | Destruction. | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 37 | ‘With kinges xii and admyralles xiv’ | 420 | ‘Ensemble ou li issirent xv roi corone Et xiv amaceours’ |
| 1154 | ‘Bien i a xxx roi et xiv admiré’ | ||
| 689 | ‘xxx roi sont ou li et xiv amaceours’ | ||
| 163 | ‘Et xiv amaceours’ | ||
| 77 | ‘The Romaynes robbed us anone’ | 115–16 | ‘De cels de Romenie que m’ont fait desrobber. Tiel avoir m’ont robbé’ |
| 75 | ‘to presente you’ | 119 | ‘vous quidai presenter’ |
| 76 | ‘a drift of wedir us droffe to Rome’ | 120 | ‘Uns vens nous fist à Rome parmi le far sigler’ |
| 110 | ‘An hundred thousande’ | 217 | ‘Par C fois M payen’ |
| 128 | ‘To manace with the Cristene lore’ | 228 | ‘pour François menacier’ |
| 332 | ‘Et menace François pour faire les loye’ | ||
| 175–76 | ‘Oure sheldes be not broke nothinge, Hawberkes, spere, ner poleyne, ner pole’ | 546–47 | ‘Quant encor nen est lance quassée ne brusie, Ne halbers derompus, ne fors targe percie’ |
| 224–27 | ‘Lukafere, Kinge of Baldas, The countrey hade serchid and sought, Ten thousande maidyns fayre of face Unto the Sowdan hath he broghte’ | 613–19 | ‘Lucafer de Baldas discent al mestre tre, Devant l’amirail vint, forment l’a encline: Voyant tot ses barnages l’a l’eschec presente, Moignes, prestres et lais, que sont enchenee, Hermites et enfants, a tous lor poign lié; As femmes et pucels les os furent bende, Totes vives presentent par devant l’admiré.’ |
| 228 | ss. ‘The Sowdane commaunded hem anone That thai shulde al be slayne … He saide “My peple nowe ne shalle With hem noughte defouled be” ’ | 614 | ‘Maintenant soient tot occis et descoupé. Ne voil que mi serjant en soient encombré.’ |
| 278 | ‘He clepede his engynour Sir Mavone’ | 908 | ‘Sortibrans a mande Mabon l’engineor’ |
| 289 | ‘Mahoundis benysone thou shalt haue’ | 627 |
|
