Bisclavret

            On Friday morning I almost finished working out the chords for the chorus of “Privé” by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            The power went off for about a minute but it cost me about twenty minutes of work. 

            I read a little bit of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain is wandering his way lost through Wales fighting dragons, ogres and other monsters but nobody he asks has ever seen a green knight. 

            I had potato chips and salsa with sour cream for lunch. 

            I finished reading the section of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that was required for my British Literature class. It just goes up to the point where Gawain, after searching for the Green Knight finds a castle where he hopes to hear Christmas mass. The story goes on from there. Maybe I’ll read the rest on my own time outside the course. 

            I read the Marie de France lai “Bisclavret”. "Bisclavret" is the Breton word for "werewolf". This is the oldest werewolf story in British literature. A knight lives with his wife in his castle but he has the habit of mysteriously going away for three days at a time. His wife begs to know what he does, where he goes and worries that he has a lover. After much coaxing and assurances that he can trust his wife he gives in and tells her that he is a werewolf and must go and hunt for prey. She asks if he goes naked and he says he does. He is reluctant to tell her where he keeps his clothing because if someone were to find out from her and take them away then he would not be able to change back into a human. Again after preying on his loyalty to her she convinces him to reveal the hiding place of his clothing. But now the lady has decided that she can not sleep next to someone that turns into a beast. She sends word to another knight that has long loved her and tells him that he can have her now. When she tells him her husband’s story he goes to the hiding place and removes his clothing, thus trapping him in the form of a werewolf. He then marries Bisclavret’s wife. Much later the king is hunting when his dogs corner the werewolf. But the beast immediately behaves in an affectionate way towards the king and so the monarch takes him as his pet. The werewolf accompanies the king everywhere and is kind to everyone until the king throws a party to which the knight that married Bisclavret’s wife is invited. The werewolf immediately attacks the knight. The king is able to call him off but people consider it strange that a beast that is so gentle to everyone else would attack this knight. When the king goes hunting again he travels once again with Bisclavret but decides to spend the night in the castle of the knight that the werewolf attacked. When Bisclavret sees his wife he attacks her and bites off her nose. A wise old counsellor to the king tells him that if only this husband and wife are attacked by the werewolf then they must have done something in the past to harm him. The woman is tortured until she confesses. She is made to bring Bisclavret’s clothing to him but he does not react to them. The wise man explains that the werewolf is embarrassed to change in front of the king. He is left alone in the king’s bedroom room with his clothing and after a while the king comes in to find the man asleep in his bed. He is given back his castle and land and his former wife and her husband are exiled. All of their children are born without noses. 

            I started reading the De France lai “Lanval”. Lanval is a foreign knight in King Arthur’s Round Table. He is a good and noble knight but the other knights are jealous of him and Arthur ignores him. One day he goes for a ride to forget his troubles and when he stops to lie beside a stream he is approached by two beautiful maidens who call him by name and take him to the tent of their mistress. That’s as far as I got before dinner. 

            I grilled three pork souvlakis and had them with a potato and gravy while watching The Count of Monte Cristo. 

            In this story a pair of boots and a pistol are stolen from the locker of a young soldier named Jean D’Avril. The boots are worn by one of the robbers of a shipment of army gold who deliberately drops the pistol behind before driving away. The boots are then returned to Jean’s locker. Jean is arrested while smooching with his fiancé Cecile in a park. The count and his friends just happen to witness the arrest and promise Cecile they will help. Jean is court-martialled and sentenced to die in a week. The count calls upon Lasage, the King of the Beggars of Paris. H asks him to spread the word that the count is sending a shipment of gold to Calais, the next day at noon. The next day Carlo and Jacopo are transporting a chest in a coach when two armed highwaymen stop them and take the chest. The count follows them while his friends go back to get horses. The robbers take the coach to The Golden Rooster Inn. The count walks in on them posing as a purchaser of gold and says that Lasage informed him of this operation. He says the law of France only permits the government to buy gold but he has the means of getting gold out of France. They open the chest to show him that they have a half a million francs worth of gold ingots. The count examines a bar and tells them he’ll give them 2000 francs for the lot. He scratches the bar with a knife to show that the ingots are all gold painted lead. The crooks begin to accuse each other and draw swords when there is a knock on the door. It’s Captain Lassine the army paymaster, who turns out to be the boss of the whole operation. He and the count recognize one another. The count tries to fight his way out but is knocked unconscious. Lassine decides that they will make the count pay a fortune for his freedom but then they will kill him. He is taken to the dungeon of some abandoned barracks. Jacopo and Carlo arrive at the inn just as the carriage is being driven away. Carlo follows the coach while Jacopo goes inside the inn and forces the only man left there to tell him where the count is being taken. At the dungeon Lassine tells the count that he can buy his life for ten million francs. He says he’ll be back in an hour for his answer. Carlo arrives but is knocked out and placed in the count’s cell. The crooks leave to go back to the inn and then Jacopo comes in to rescue his friends. When Lassine and his men return to the barracks the count and his friends ambush them. The crooks are taken back to Paris and convicted and so Jean is set free. 

            Cecile was played by Patricia Hardy, who won the titles of Miss Coney Island, Miss Loews, Miss Press Photographer of New York and Miss Brooklyn. She was also a showgirl at the Copacabana before heading for Hollywood. After appearing on the cover of Look Magazine she became a favourite pin-up of soldiers fighting in Korea. James Dean used to sleep on her couch. I addition to many supporting television roles she also appeared in “Girls in the Night" and "Don't Knock the Rock".