[183] "Quidam nostris temporibus, pro expiandis his Britonum maculis, scriptor emersit, ridicula de eisdem figmenta contexens, ... Gaufridus hic dictus est.... Profecto minimum digitum sui Arturi grossiorem facit dorso Alexandri magni." "Guilielmi Neubrigensis Historia," ed. Hearne, Oxford, 1719, 3 vols. 8vo, "Proemium"; end of the twelfth century. [184] "Le Roman de Brut," ed. Le Roux de Lincy, Rouen, 1836-38, 2 vols. 8vo. _Cf._ P. Meyer, "De quelques chroniques anglo-normandes qui ont porte le nom de Brut," Paris, 1878, "Bulletin de la Societe des Anciens Textes francais." [185] The oldest poem we have in which the early songs on Tristan were gathered into one whole was written in French, on English soil, by Berou about 1150. Another version, also in French verse, was written about 1170 by another Anglo-Norman, called Thomas. A third was the work of the famous Chrestien de Troyes, same century. We have only fragments of the two first; the last is entirely lost. It has been, however, possible to reconstitute the poem of Thomas "by means of three versions: a German one (by Gotfrid of Strasbourg, unfinished), a Norwegian one (in prose, ab. 1225, faithful but compressed), and an English one (XIVth century, a greatly impaired text)." G. Paris, "La Litterature francaise au moyen age," 2nd ed., 1890, p. 94. See also "Tristan et Iseut," by the same, _Revue de Paris_, April 15, 1894. Texts: "The poetical Romances of Tristan in French, in Anglo-Norman, and in Greek," ed. Francisque Michel, London, 1835-9, 3 vols. 8vo.--"Die Nordische und die Englische Version der Tristan-Sage," ed. Koelbing, Heilbronn, 1878-83, 2 vols. 8vo; vol. i., "Tristrams Saga ok Isoudar" (Norwegian prose); vol. ii., "Sir Tristram" (English verse).--"Gottfried von Strassburg Tristan," ed. Reinhold Bachstein, Leipzig, 1869, 2 vols. 8vo (German verse). [186] "Inferno," canto v. [187] The following analysis is mainly made after "Tristan et Iseult, poeme de Gotfrit de Strasbourg, compare a d'autres poemes sur le meme sujet," by A. Bossert, Paris, 1865, 8vo. Gotfrit wrote before 1203 (G. Paris, "Histoire Litterarie de la France," vol. xxx. p. 21). [188] En sa chambre se set un jor, E fait un lai pitus d'am[o]r: Coment dan Guirun fu surpris, Pur l'amur de sa dame ocis.... La reine chante dulcement, La voiz acorde el estrument; Les mainz sunt bels, li lais b[o]ns Dulce la voiz [et] bas li tons. Francisque Michel, _ut supra_, vol. iii. p. 39. [189] On this incident, the earliest version of which is as old as the fourteenth century B.C., having been found in an Egyptian papyrus of that date, see the article by Gaston Paris's, Part I. [190] Swinburne, "Tristram of Lyonesse and other poems." [191] Bosert, pp. 62, 68, 72, 82.