Jurgen | Page 2

XLIV IN THE MANAGER'S OFFICE
XLV THE FAITH OF GUENEVERE
XLVI THE DESIRE OF ANAÏTIS
XLVII THE VISION OF HELEN
XLVIII CANDID OPINIONS OF DAME LISA
XLIX OF THE COMPROMISE WITH KOSHCHEI
L THE MOMENT THAT DID NOT COUNT

A FOREWORD
"Nescio quid certè est: et Hylax in limine latrat."

A Foreword: Which Asserts Nothing.
In Continental periodicals not more than a dozen articles in all would
seem to have given accounts or partial translations of the Jurgen

legends. No thorough investigation of this epos can be said to have
appeared in print, anywhere, prior to the publication, in 1913, of the
monumental Synopses of Aryan Mythology by Angelo de Ruiz. It is
unnecessary to observe that in this exhaustive digest Professor de Ruiz
has given (VII, p. 415 et sequentia) a summary of the greater part of
these legends as contained in the collections of Verville and Bülg; and
has discussed at length and with much learning the esoteric meaning of
these folk-stories and their bearing upon questions to which the "solar
theory" of myth explanation has given rise. To his volumes, and to the
pages of Mr. Lewistam's Key to the Popular Tales of Poictesme, must
be referred all those who may elect to think of Jurgen as the resplendent,
journeying and procreative sun.
Equally in reading hereinafter will the judicious waive all allegorical
interpretation, if merely because the suggestions hitherto advanced are
inconveniently various. Thus Verville finds the Nessus shirt a symbol
of retribution, where Bülg, with rather wide divergence, would have it
represent the dangerous gift of genius. Then it may be remembered that
Dr. Codman says, without any hesitancy, of Mother Sereda: "This
Mother Middle is the world generally (an obvious anagram of Erda es),
and this Sereda rules not merely the middle of the working-days but the
midst of everything. She is the factor of middleness, of mediocrity, of
an avoidance of extremes, of the eternal compromise begotten by use
and wont. She is the Mrs. Grundy of the Léshy; she is Comstockery:
and her shadow is common-sense." Yet Codman speaks with certainly
no more authority than Prote, when the latter, in his Origins of Fable,
declares this epos is "a parable of ... man's vain journeying in search of
that rationality and justice which his nature craves, and discovers
nowhere in the universe: and the shirt is an emblem of this instinctive
craving, as ... the shadow symbolizes conscience. Sereda typifies a
surrender to life as it is, a giving up of man's rebellious self-centredness
and selfishness: the anagram being se dare."
Thus do interpretations throng and clash, and neatly equal the
commentators in number. Yet possibly each one of these unriddlings,
with no doubt a host of others, is conceivable: so that wisdom will
dwell upon none of them very seriously.

With the origin and the occult meaning of the folklore of Poictesme this
book at least is in no wise concerned: its unambitious aim has been
merely to familiarize English readers with the Jurgen epos for the tale's
sake. And this tale of old years is one which, by rare fortune, can be
given to English readers almost unabridged, in view of the singular
delicacy and pure-mindedness of the Jurgen mythos: in all, not more
than a half-dozen deletions have seemed expedient (and have been duly
indicated) in order to remove such sparse and unimportant
outcroppings of mediæval frankness as might conceivably offend the
squeamish.
Since this volume is presented simply as a story to be read for pastime,
neither morality nor symbolism is hereinafter educed, and no
"parallels" and "authorities" are quoted. Even the gaps are left
unbridged by guesswork: whereas the historic and mythological
problems perhaps involved are relinquished to those really
thoroughgoing scholars whom erudition qualifies to deal with such
topics, and tedium does not deter....
In such terms, and thus far, ran the Foreword to the first issues of this
book, whose later fortunes have made necessary the lengthening of the
Foreword with a postscript. The needed addition--this much at least
chiming with good luck--is brief. It is just that fragment which some
scholars, since the first appearance of this volume, have asserted--upon
what perfect frankness must describe as not indisputable grounds--to be
a portion of the thirty-second chapter of the complete form of La
Haulte Histoire de Jurgen.
And in reply to what these scholars assert, discretion says nothing. For
this fragment was, of course, unknown when the High History was first
put into English, and there in consequence appears, here, little to be
won either by endorsing or denying its claims to authenticity. Rather,
does discretion prompt the appending, without any gloss or scholia, of
this fragment, which deals with
The Judging of Jurgen.
Now a court was held by the Philistines to decide whether