Book XII

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Page 210, line 493--'_Gawain and Obilot_.' Though Chrêtien and Wolfram agree here in the main outline of the story, yet the details differ completely, and the episode as related by the German poet is far more graceful and poetical in treatment. In Chrêtien the elder sister strikes the younger in the face, and it is in order to avenge this insult that the child begs Gawain to fight for her. It is the father, and not the child herself, who suggests presenting the knight with a token; he bids Gawain at first pay no attention to her request, and there is no trace of the pride and affection with which Lippaut evidently regards both his daughters, or of the confidence between father and child which is so charming a feature in Wolfram's poem. Gawain, according to Chrêtien, does not present his little lady with the captured monarch, but only with his steed, a compliment she shares too with his hostess and her daughters. In the French poet we have nothing of the amusing assumption of maiden dignity by the child Obilot, or of the graceful courtesy, half serious, half laughing, with which Gawain falls in with her whim, and sustains his

## part in the pretty play. Critics have bestowed much praise on this

book, and on the character of the child Obilot, and some have thought that, in the picture of father and child, and in the words put into Lippaut's mouth, we have a glimpse of the home life of the poet, and an expression of personal feeling. In _Willehalm_, Wolfram refers to his daughter's dolls, and throughout his poems he frequently alludes to children, their ways, and their amusements. However that may be, nowhere else in the poem does _Gawain_ appear to so much advantage as in this episode.

Page 211, line 522--'_Parzival_.' Cf.