"[7]
Other MSS. are rather fuller:
"Et Messires Gauvain savoit
Plus que nus hons vivant de plaies,
Unes herbe voit les une haies
Qu'il connoissoit lonc temps avoit
Que son mestre apris li avoit
Enseigniee et bien moustree,
Et il l'avoit bien esgardee
Si l'a molt bien reconneue."[8]
We find reference to Gawain's possession of medical knowledge
elsewhere. In the poem entitled Lancelot et le cerf au pied blanc,
Gawain, finding his friend desperately wounded, carries him to a
physician whom he instructs as to the proper treatment.[9]
"Ende Walewein wiesde den Ersatere mere
Ene const, die daertoe halp wel sere."[10]
In the parallel adventure related in Morien Gawain heals Lancelot
without the aid of any physician:[11]
"Doe was Walewein harde blide
Ende bant hem sine wonden ten tide
Met selken crude die daer dochten
Dat si niet bloden mochten."[12]
They ride to an anchorite's cell:
"Si waren doe in dire gedochten
Mochten sie daer comen tier stont
Datten Walewein soude maken gesont."[13]
The Dutch Lancelot has numerous references to Gawain's skill in
healing. Of course the advocates of the originality of Chretien
de Troyes will object that these references, though found in poems
which have no connection with Chretien, and which are translations
from lost French originals of an undetermined date, are one and all
loans from the more famous poem.
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