Barlaam and Josaphat: A Christian Tale of the Buddha (22 page)

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

1
.
Edward C. Armstrong,
The French Metrical Versions of
Barlaam and Josaphat
,
Elliott Monographs 10 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1922). There is also a fourteenth-century translation into Occitan, the language of southern France.

2
.
Daniel Gimaret, trans.,
Le livre de Bilawhar et
B
u
d
a
sf: Selon la version arabe ismaélienne
(Geneva: Droz, 1971).

3
.
D. M. Lang, trans.,
The Balavariani: A Tale from the Christian East Translated from the Old Georgian
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1966) and
The Wisdom of Balahvar: A Christian Legend of the Buddha
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1957).

4
.
Gui de Cambrai,
Le vengement Alixandre
, ed. Bateman Edwards, Elliott Monographs 23 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1928).

5
.
Bernard Gicquel, “Chronologie et composition du
Balaham et Josaphas
de Gui de Cambrai,”
Romania
107 (1986): 113–23.

6
.
Robert Ackerman, “
The Debate of the Body and the Soul
and Parochial Christianity,”
Speculum
37 (1962): 541–65.

7
.
Carl Appel, ed.,
Gui von Cambrai, Balaham und Josaphas nach den Handschriften von Paris und Monte Cassino
(Halle: Niemeyer, 1907). The manuscript published by Hermann Zotenberg and Paul Meyer,
Barlaam und Josaphat: Französisches Gedicht des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts
(Stuttgart: Litterarischer Vereins, 1864), is based only on the Paris manuscript.

THE NARRATOR'S INTRODUCTION

1
.
This is a first example of the narrator's frequent interventions into the text to comment on the story.

2
.
The narrator frequently addresses a listening audience, rather than readers, and it is likely that the story was read aloud and perhaps even read performatively. The reader, perhaps a minstrel, may have created voices or mannerisms for the characters and performed them as he read.

JOSAPHAT LEAVES HIS PALACE

1
.
This is Zardan, who will appear later, and he seems to recognize Christian belief but does not embrace it. Josaphat will test him later, and he will refuse to convert (see pp. 65–66). The courtiers who accompany Josaphat on his first ride into the city also seem to recognize the Christian God (see p. 15).

BARLAAM TEACHES JOSAPHAT ABOUT JUDGMENT DAY

1
.
The narrator here equates Jews and pagans; in his view only Christians have a true religion and only Christians can truly do good deeds, because they do them for God.

BARLAAM RETURNS TO HIS HERMITAGE

1
.
It is not clear why Zardan says he has seen Barlaam only once, since Barlaam's frequent visits to the king's son caused his concern in the first place. He may mean that he was present only once when Barlaam spoke with Josaphat.

2
.
Later, Aracin says he has seen Barlaam many times.

3
.
The narrator refers to Josaphat's earlier adherence to his father's idolatry and to his veneration of idols created by men, rather than God, the Creator of all things.

PRINCE ARACIN FAILS TO FIND BARLAAM

1
.
Aracin addresses the hermits with apparent respect. He may speak ironically, or he may simply use a conventional form of address.

2
.
This is the first time the author describes Indians as Saracens. He may be conflating the Indians with Muslims, who are usually called Saracens in Old French texts. However, there is no explicit mention of Islam, whereas the purported beliefs of Greeks, Chaldeans, and Egyptians are described in some detail. It is more likely that the narrator uses the name Saracen to mean “pagan,” as is also the case in some other Old French narratives.

3
.
This paragraph is addressed to the audience, and the author refers to himself in the third person (Gui). The passage could have been added by a later copyist who recorded the story, or Gui de Cambrai may wish to reassert his claim to be its author and translator by naming himself in the story.

KING AVENIR ATTEMPTS TO WIN BACK HIS SON

1
.
The reference to Paul is imprecise and represents a general appeal to authority rather than a specific citation.

KING AVENIR CALLS FOR A PUBLIC DISPUTATION

1
.
Barachie will return at the end of the story as the successor to whom Josaphat entrusts his Christian empire.

2
.
Gui de Cambrai uses the traditional identification of John of Damascus as the author of the story and identifies the origin of the Latin book from which he translates his story.

THE CHALDEANS BEGIN THE DISPUTATION WITH NACHOR

1
.
This is the first of many indications that King Avenir recognizes Christian truth but refuses to believe because he does not want to give up his earthly pleasures and privileges.

2
.
Nachor's defense of Christianity is a version of the
Apology of Aristides
, a famous defense of Christianity given by the Athenian philosopher Aristides in the second century CE. It was mentioned by many authors in late antiquity, but no extant copies were known until the nineteenth century, when two copies of the
Apology
were found, published, and translated, and the resemblance to Nachor's speech could be discovered.

3
.
Barlaam and Josaphat
is set in a distant past, and the narrator does not distinguish between historical periods. For this reason, Plato's brother, Aristotle's nephew, the eighth-century John of Damascus, and figures from other periods can all coexist during Josaphat's lifetime.

THE GREEKS JOIN THE DISPUTATION

1
.
The narrator uses Latin names for the Greek gods because knowledge about Greek mythology was transmitted through Latin texts in the Middle Ages.

2
.
The narrator begins an impassioned condemnation of what he sees as corrupt sexual practices.

3
.
The narrator references a checkmate move that uses a knight, bishop, and king, but not the queen. He thus describes “mating” relationships among men, and specifically among men who belong to the social classes whose corruption he laments here and elsewhere in his narrative.

4
.
The identification of Mars as a “sheep eater” is probably a reference to the ritual sacrifice of sheep to Mars.

5
.
These sentences seem to come from the narrator, but they may represent the voice of a professional minstrel who also performed in taverns.

6
.
Once again the narrator interrupts Nachor.

7
.
Medieval authors took Dares Phrygius as an eyewitness to the fall of Troy.

8
.
In medieval traditions, Brutus was known as the founder and first ruler of Britain.

NACHOR CONCLUDES HIS REFUTATION OF THE PAGANS

1
.
The narrator uses a feudal vocabulary to describe relationships in antiquity.

2
.
According to tradition, the apostle Thomas was sent to India to proselytize. He is later described as the first to build a church in India (see p. 143).

KING AVENIR NEGLECTS HIS GODS

1
.
The narrator begins a misogynist rant.

2
.
The women reference the values of courtly love, familiar to the audience from courtly romances and poetry.

A BEAUTIFUL PRINCESS TEMPTS JOSAPHAT

1
.
The narrator refers to Apollonius of Tyre, a romance hero whose story circulated widely in medieval Europe.

2
.
This lady suggests that if Josaphat does not love women, he must love men. Her accusation echoes the narrator's earlier condemnation of homosexuality.

THEONAS CONFRONTS JOSAPHAT

1
.
A reference to the wheel of fortune, a figure for the cyclical rise and fall of fortune, here modified to suggest that a false religion does not even really rise at all: it only appears to prosper.

KING AVENIR GIVES HALF HIS KINGDOM TO JOSAPHAT

1
.
John of Damascus, long considered the author of
Barlaam and Josaphat
, becomes a character in Gui de Cambrai's version of the story.

2
.
The narrator identifies the king's allies using invented names meant to recall pagan lands and peoples.

3
.
The archbishop sanctions a holy war against the pagans. His exhortation to fight echoes calls to Crusade warfare and recalls the figure of the fighting archbishop Turpin in the Old French
Song of Roland.

KING AVENIR GOES TO WAR AGAINST HIS SON

1
.
A lady's sleeves were sewn onto her garments after she was dressed in them, and they are often described as love tokens in medieval literature. A lady gives her knight a sleeve as a token of her favor, and the knight carries it as a standard in a battle or a joust. Miradeus's possession of his lady's sleeve locates the pagan knight in a courtly love context.

2
.
The knight brings honor to his lady by fighting well, and his prowess is enhanced because he loves his lady. This is the circular logic of courtly love.

3
.
Gui de Cambrai begins to call the pagans Turks, in what is surely a conflation of Josaphat's battle with Crusade warfare.

KING AVENIR CONVERTS AND CHRISTIANITY SPREADS

1
.
Monks are sometimes described by the color of the habits they wear; Benedictine monks wear black.

JOSAPHAT WISHES TO LEAVE HIS KINGDOM

1
.
The narrator counts Nachor, along with Barachie and Josaphat, as one of the Christians present at the disputation (see p. 87).

A DEBATE BETWEEN JOSAPHAT'S BODY AND SOUL

1
.
The soul uses the rhetoric of courtly love to describe its sovereignty over the body in terms of a lady's sovereignty over her lover.

THE NARRATOR LAMENTS THE SINS OF THE PRESENT WORLD

1
.
The narrator begins a long condemnation of worldly corruption among the clergy and the nobility.

2
.
The narrator uses supersessionist rhetoric to condemn corrupt clerics: they destroy Christian belief and the church becomes the pre-Christian synagogue. There is also an obvious anti-Semitic association of the synagogue with corruption.

3
.
The narrator describes the church as the spouse of the clergy.

4
.
A reference to the Muslim possession of Jerusalem and to the Crusading movements that attempted to take the city.

5
.
The siege of Damascus during the Second Crusade (1148) led to a defeat for the crusaders. The narrator may reference calls to the Fifth Crusade (1213–21), an attempt to retake Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land.

6
.
A vavasor is a minor noble in the feudal hierarchy.

7
.
Gui describes feudal loyalty.

BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT ARE REUNITED IN DEATH

1
.
The incorrupt body is a sign of sanctity, which is further demonstrated in the miracles associated with the relics.