The Motif of Young Waters
by William Wistar Comfort
Modern Language Notes, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Apr., 1905), pp. 115-116
THE Motif Of Young Waters. [1]
Professor Child, in his unusually scant note to this dramatic ballad, makes no allusion to the striking occasion of all the trouble therein narrated. The similarity of situation presented by this ballad and several other well known poems would seem to warrant mention in another edition of Professor Child's collection.
In connection with the ballad King Arthur and King Cornwall, Professor Child discussed the group of literary remains represented by the Voyage de Charlemagne, the first tale in The Thousand and One Nights, the poem of Biteroif and Dietleib, and an Icelandic Reimnur. These all present a motif which Professor Child does not maintain is identical, but with which he associates them in his index under the caption: "King who regards himself as the richest, most magnificent, etc., in the world is told that there is one who outstrips him, and undertakes to see for himself whether this is so, threatening death to the person who has affirmed his inferiority in case this is disproved." With such a motif as this Young Waters has not been connected either by Professor Child, Gaston Paris, Koschwitz, or Morf.
We may compare Young Waters conveniently with the Voyage de Charlemagne, probably the most familiar member of the group mentioned above.
In the Scottish ballad, the king, queen and courtiers are looking over the wall of Stirling town to see a gay party of knights who are ap- proaching for a tournament. A "wylie" lord asks the queen:
'0 tell me wha's the fairest face
Rides in the company?'
She answers:
I've sene lord, and I've sene laird,
And knights of high degree,
But a fairer face than Young Waters
Mine eyne did never see.'
"Out then spack the jealous king
And an angry man was he:
'0 if he had been twice as fair,
You micht have excepted me.'
"'You're neither laird nor lord,' she says,
' Bot the king that wears the crown;
There is not a knight in fair Scotland
But to thee maun bow down.'
" For a' that she could do or say,
Appeased he wad nae bee,
But for the words which she had said,
Young Waters he maun dee."
And he was killed "for the words the queen had spoke."
The Voyage de Charlemagne opens thus: One day at S. Denis when the courtiers were gathered about, Charles took his queen by the hand and questioned her thus: "Lady, did you ever see any king under Heaven whose sword became him so well and the crown upon his head?" To which she foolishly replied: " Emperor, you may prize yourself too highly. I do know one who is more graceful than you when he wears his crown in the midst of his knights." When Charles hears this his pride is hurt. He is furious, demands the stranger's name that a comparison may be made in the presence of the French cour- tiers, and swears he will kill the queen if the test does not warrant her bold assertion. Then the queen cries for mercy, saying she was only joking, and that this stranger is, to be sure, richer than Charles, but is in every other sense inferior to him as a chevalier and a warrior. Under threat of instant death if she does not reveal the stranger's identity, the queen names Hugo, Emperor of Greece and Constantinople. With renewed threats of vengeance upon his return if the queen's statement is not verified, Charles and his suite start out on their famous expedition.
Now, a close comparison of these two passages furnishes a similar situation: Upon a formal occasion, a king is told by his queen the unwelcome truth that some one outshines him in personal beauty and magnificence. Thereupon, the king at once turns wroth, and the queen, seeing her folly, tries to so "hedge" or qualify her rash statement as to mollify her lord. This she does by assuring him that really he excels all others in military strength and prowess. Not satisfied, the king solemnly vows to take vengeance upon some one, - in Young Waters upon his rival, - in the Voyage upon the queen herself.
So much is common to the two poems, -certainly enough to strike the casual reader with force. Now, the Voyage is a long poem, of which our episode is but the point of departure; while the ballad is a brief dramatic recital shorn of all digressions. If we consider the two situations as at all analogous, which seems undeniable, the only considerable divergence is that in the Voyage Charles goes on a far journey to verify the queen's statement, while in Young Waters no such inves- tigation is necessary. This journey occurs in all the other versions which G. Paris has identified with the Voyage (Romania ix, 8 ff.), and this many will regard as the essential trait of the motif.
It may be argued that in Young Waters the king takes vengeance only upon the handsome youth, while in the Voyage Charles tells his queen that if she has lied, her life shall be the forfeit. In both cases vengeance is the main thing. But we may note that Buchan's later version of Young Waters, of which Professor Child had a very poor opinion, contains the identical brutal threat of Charles, when the Scottish king in his rage says to the queen:
" 'Likewise for your ill-wyled words,
Ye sall hae cause to mourn;
Gin ye hadna been sae big wi child,
Ye on a hill sud burn.' "
Percy's opinion that the Scottish ballad, which was first published in 1755, was founded upon the historic amours of Queen Anne of Denmark and a certain Earl of Murray, does not alter the interesting fact that we have here springing up on Scotch soil a very similar motif to what has already been recognized and labeled in an Arabian tale, in Germanic saga and in an old French chanson de gete.
Whether or not there is any family connection between these different manifestations of this motif of royal jealousy, is another matter. I am only pleading for a fuller comment on Yotng Waters, which is not a poor ballad, after all. Would it not seem fair to Younig Waters to connect this ballad, at least as a literary curiosity, with the long note Professor Child has added to King Arthutr, &c., and to the parallels of Koschwitz adduced in his editions of the Voyage de Charlemagne and in his Sech Bearbeitungen des alt-franzosischen Gedichtg von Karls des Grosen Reise (Heilbronn, 1879)
WILLIAM WISTAR COMFORT.
Haverford College
Footnote: 1. Child, Eng. and Scot. Pop. Ballads, n, 94.