Merlin (poem)


Merlin is a partially lost epic poem in which Robert de Boron reworked Geoffrey of Monmouth's material about the legendary figure of Merlin, writing in Old French sometime in either the late 12th or early 13th century. Merlin tells the stories of the origin and early life of Merlin, his role in the birth of Arthur, and how Arthur became the king of Britain. It emphasises Merlin's power to prophesy as well as his connection to the Holy Grail. Merlin introduced a number of new motifs that later became popular in medieval and later Arthuriana, also ensuring the lasting place of Merlin as a key character in the legend of King Arthur.
The story of Merlin is related to Robert's two other reputed Grail poems. Its medieval prose retelling and its continuations, collectively known as the Prose Merlin, have been incorporated directly into the Vulgate and the Post-Vulgate cycles of chivalric romances during the early 13th century.

''Merlin'' and the Little Grail Cycle

Writing Merlin, the French knight-poet Robert de Boron seems to have been influenced by Wace's Roman de Brut, an Anglo-Norman adaptation of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. It is an allegorical tale, relating to the figure and works of Christ. Only 504 lines of Merlin in its original poem form have survived to this day, but its contents are known from the prose version.
Together with the other poems attributed to Robert de Boron, the surviving only in prose and the perhaps completely lost Perceval, it forms a trilogy centered around the story of the Holy Grail. In this "Little Grail Cycle", Merlin's part and role in the Arthurian legend becomes much greater than it was before, as it tells the story of the Arthurian myth as completely rewritten for the Holy Grail: brought from the Middle East to Britain by followers of Joseph of Arimathea, the Grail is eventually recovered by Arthur's knight Percival as foretold in one of the prophecies in Merlin.
In an alternate theory postulated by Linda Gowans, going against the widely accepted conventional scholarship, the prose text is actually the original version of Merlin, and the poem is unfinished because its author has simply given up on it. She furthermore put in doubt Robert's authorship of either of these, attributing only Joseph to him.

Synopsis

The first part introduces the character of, a cleric and clerk who is pictured as writing down Merlin's deeds, explaining how they came to be known and preserved. The text claims that it is actually only his translation of a Latin book written by a Blaise as dictated to him by Merlin himself.
Merlin begins with the scene of a council of demons plotting to create the future Merlin as their agent on Earth to undo the work of Christ, but their plan is foiled and the mother names the child Merlin after her father. It continues with the story of the usurper king Vortiger and his tower, featuring the seven-year-old Merlin with amazing prophetic powers. Following Vortiger's death, which Merlin also predicted, he assists the new king Pendragon and his brother Uter in their bloody war against Saxon invaders, later erecting Stonehenge as burial place for the fallen Britons and eventually inspiring the creation of the Round Table.
This is followed by the account of Uter's war with the Duke of Tintagel for the latter's wife Ygerne, during which Merlin's magic, including many instances of shapeshifting, enables Uter to sleep with Ygerne and conceive Arthur, destined to become the Emperor of Rome. After Uter kills his rival and forcibly marries Ygerne, the newborn Arthur is given into the foster care of Antor, while Ygerne's daughters from the previous marriage are wed to King Lot and King Ventres, and her illegitimate daughter Morgan is sent away to a nunnery and becomes known as Morgan le Fay.
The poem seems to have ended with the later "sword in the stone" story, in which Arthur proves he is to become Britain's high king by a divine destiny. This has been the first instance of this motif to appear in Arthurian literature; it has become iconic after being repeated almost exact in Thomas Malory's popular Le Morte d'Arthur.
The following is the complete text of the mid-15th-century English translation, with modern conventions for punctuation and capitalization, of the prose version :
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  1. Prose and continuations

Merlin is regarded as having been followed by the third part in Robert's Grail cycle, Perceval, however this poem is either entirely lost or perhaps was never even really written. It is nevertheless uncertainly associated with the anonymous romance known as the , which might be either a reworked prose 'translation' of Robert's poem or just another author's unofficial attempt to complete the trilogy, and was found in only two of the many surviving manuscripts of prose rendition of Merlin.
The poem Merlin itself was recast into prose c. 1210 as the Prose Merlin by authors unknown. It was then extended with a lengthy sequel sometimes known as the Suite du Roman de Merlin to become the early 13th-century romance Estoire de Merlin, also known as the Vulgate Merlin. The Estoire de Merlin constitutes one of the volumes of the vast Vulgate Cycle as probably late addition to it. The later Post-Vulgate Cycle also begins with material drawn directly from Joseph and Merlin. The writer of the Post-Vulgate manuscript known as the Huth Merlin in fact attributed the authorship of the entire cycle to Robert.
The first of these prose sequels to Merlin, included in the Vulgate Estoire du Merlin, is the Merlin Continuation also known as Vulgate Suite du Merlin, a 'historical' sequel about the various wars of Arthur and the role of Merlin in them, also focusing on Gawain as the third main character. The second, included in the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin, is a 'romantic' sequel that includes elements of the Vulgate Lancelot. The third is an alternative version known as the Livre d'Artus, which too was written after the Vulgate Cycle had been completed.
Today, the Post-Vulgate Suite is best known as the primary source of Malory for the first four books of Le Morte d'Arthur. It also served as the basis for the Merlin sections of Castilian Demanda del Sancto Grial and Galician-Portuguese Demanda do Santa Graal. Prior English translations and adaptations have included Henry Lovelich's verse Merlin and the romance Of Arthour and Merlin, each based on different manuscripts of the Vulgate Merlin.