Anne Berthelot
(University of Connecticut, Storrs)
Merlin, ipuer senex par excellence
There is a manifest discrepancy between the image of Merlin entertained by
people in the Middle Ages, and the modern vision of this same Merlin: for most
modern writers, starting with Tennyson in the nineteenth century, Merlin is the
prototype of the old wizard, an old man who has never been young. Τ. H. White
addresses directly the issue of Merlin's age when he makes him aging backwards
(getting younger every day) to explain his knowledge of the future,1 and several
other writers have adopted the same bizarre notion.2 J. R. R. Tolkien, for his part,
suggests when he introduces the wizards to Middle Earth that they came from
another shore already aged, since the "Istari" are in fact (re)incarnations of the
"angelic" Maiars: there is no inkling that Gandalf or Saruman ever were children!3
In fact, one may argue that this vision of Merlin as an old man "in his dotage"
originates in Malory's Morte dArthur, where precisely the prophet makes only a
brief appearance as the ridiculous old would-be lover of Nimüe, the Damsel of the
Lake:
. . . it fell so t h a t M e r l i n fell in a d o t a g e o n the d a m o s e l t h a t K i n g Pellinor b r o u g h t to
court, a n d she w a s o n e of the d a m o s e l s of the lake, t h a t h i g h t N i m u e . a n d h e w a s
assorted u p o n her, that h e m i g h t n o t b e f r o m h e r . 4
In order to be respectable and respected, an enchanter must be old—or at least
look old. However, Merlin's first appearance in literature is under the features of
a child: a preternaturally wise child, of course, an infans whose striking trait is that
1 See The Sword in the Stone, the first volume, published in 1938, of Τ. H. White's complete retelling
of the Arthurian legend, The Once And Future King (1956). This is a reasoning that does not really
make sense, in fact, like most temporal paradoxes, and does not quite solve the enigma of Merlin's
prophetic knowledge.
2 Fred Saberhagen in Merlin's Bones (New York: TOR, 1995), for instance, and to some extent Deepak
Chopra in The Return of Merlin (New York: Harmony, 1995).
3 See Unfinished Tales ofNumenor and Middle-Earth, ed. Christopher Tolkien (Boston: Hougton Mifflin,
1980).
4 Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte D'Arthur (London: Penguin Classics, 1986), Book IV, Chapter 1,117.
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252 Arme Berthelot
he speaks, and tells things no child (and no adult for that matter) should know.
But nevertheless a child. It is precisely the contrast between Merlin's childish
appearance and his "grown-up" wisdom that makes the value of the character.
For the Middle Ages,5 wisdom is the privilege of age: one grows wise as one grows
old. Merlin is the puer senex, this unconscionable fusion of contraries that
underlines the scandal of his very existence. Born from the devil, who wanted him
to be a cruel parody of Christ, the Antichrist who would bring mankind back to
the fold, Merlin never appears as a real child. But then, Christ does not either:
while some late apocryphal Gospels enjoy ascribing childish behavior and
tantrums to Jesus,6 most of the time He behaves as a miniature adult—see, for
instance, the scene among the merchants in the Temple—and is also visually
represented as such.7 When Merlin is first born, the physical traits he is endowed
with signify the beast, or the non-human, rather than the child—logically enough,
since he is "officially" a child at this stage: he is huge, black, and covered with
coarse hair like a bear cub:
Et quant les femes le regurent de terre, si n'i ot onques cele qui grant paor n'eust por
ce qu'eles le virent plus pelu et plus poil avoit qu'eles n'avoient onques veü a autrel
enfant avoir.8
[And when the women received him, there was never one of them who was not much
afraid of him, because they saw him hairier and having more dark hair than they had
ever seen on any other child.]
Immediately after his baptism, however, the interesting element about him is his
growth-rate: at barely one year of age, he looks like a seven-year old child, which,
of course, has also much to do with his gift of speaking, indeed of convincing
people through his discourse. The calendar of the few following years is not that
precise, however; Merlin is still a child, albeit a very articulate one, during his
5 As it is in most "primitive" societies, maybe because getting old against considerable odds is per se
an achievement worthy of respect - and maybe a proof of intelligence, if not wisdom. Concerning
old age in the Middle Ages, and more specifically the motif of the puer senex, see Ernst Robert
Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, transl. Willard R. Trask. Bollingen Series,
XXXVI (1948; 1953; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 98-115.
6 See for instance L'Evangile de l'enfance du Pseudo Mathieu, in: Ecrits apocryphes chritiens (Paris:
Gallimard "La Pleiade", 1997), vol. 1.
7 Most art critics have noticed how old the Holy Child looks on Mary's lap in most Western paintings
and sculptures until the thirteenth century. Let us not speak of Byzantine art, where the Theotokos
and Jesus look the same age. See Andre Grabar, Les Voies de la criation en iconographie chretienne.
Antiquite et Mayen age. Idees et recherches (Paris: Flammarion, 1979). But for contrastive perspectives
regarding childhood in the Middle Ages, also with respect to the depiction of the child Jesus, see
Childhood in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter,
2005).
8 Roman de Merlin, ed. Alexandre Micha (Geneve: Droz, 1980), § 10,11.40-43.
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Merlin, puer senex par excellence 253
mother's trial and vindication, and when he selects Blaise for his scribe and starts
dictating the "Book of the Grail" to him. He remains a child at least until
Vertigier's messengers come looking for him: at that point, in fact, he is identified
as the "fatherless child" the messengers have been sent out to find through the
agency of an indignant playmate who accuses him of cheating. It may be
interesting to notice that, although some years have gone by, Merlin apparently
has not aged: he still looks like a seven or eight year old child, even though his
earlier exponential growth should make him look at least twelve or thirteen. The
fatherless child prophesizes in front of Vertigier and reveals to the usurper-king
the secret of his falling tower and the imminence of his demise. Then he
vanishes—never to be encountered again in the Romance of Merlin, or in any of its
Latin counterparts, including the Historia regum Britanniae; even the memory of
him seems to fade,9 for when Constant's sons, the young king Pendragon and his
brother Uter, are told of Vertigier's "wise advisor" and prophet the barons who
mention this character in the hope of ingratiating themselves with the new power
make no mention of a child:
Si apelerent Pandragon et Utier son frere a une part, et si lor distrent cele
merveille que il avoit conte et que il estoit li meudres devins qui onques fust
veuz.10
[They then took aside Pandragon and his brother Uter, and told them the
marvel that he (Merlin) had told, and that he was the best diviner who had
ever been seen.]
Indeed, the numerous emissaries Pendragon sends to look for Merlin do not meet
any childish figure: wild man, cowherd, eventually "prodome" dressed as a rich
bourgeois, all the new avatars of Merlin are grown-up, even verging on old age.
From that moment on, Merlin in vernacular texts is depicted as an adult, or
preferably as an old man.
The very simple, natural, and logical (from a medieval point of view) equation
between wisdom and maturity is vindicated by this shift in Merlin's character. The
puer senex is a freak, a spectacular topos that focuses the audience's attention.
Merlin needs to be an exceptional child—quasi a monster-child—in order to
impress some unbelievable, revolutionary truths on the mind of those who are
9 "Unfortunately, we do not have the beginning of the Rheinische-Merlin: considering how the author
insists on the dimension of old age and respectability in his rendering of the character, it would have
been enlightening to see how he dealt with the motif of the puer senex. See: Oer Rheinische Merlin,
Text - Ubersetzung - Untersuchungen der 'Merlin'- und 'Lüthild'-Fragmente, ed. Hartmut Beckers et al.
Schöninghs mediävistische Editionen, 1 (Paderborn, Munich, Vienna, and Zürich: Ferdinand
Schöningh, 1991).
10 Widern, § 31,11. 67-70.
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254 Anne Berthelot
confronted with this merveille. The parallel with Christ, too, must be implemented
to the fullest, and as long as Merlin appears first and foremost as an Antichrist
who had renounced his diabolical father and as the prophet or apostle of the new
Gospel of the Grail, he retains his childish appearance, so much at odds with his
preternatural wisdom. In fact, the few other circumstances where he is still
depicted as a child are not really related to the "normal" course of the narrative,
but rather to visions and allegories: so it is that a child who may, or may not, be
Merlin (contrary to what happens in most romance episodes where Merlin
exercises his metamorphic power; the text never states clearly the identity of the
prophet and the child) appears magically to remind Perceval of his mission in the
third part of the Pseudo Robert de Boron's trilogy, Perceval.11 In that case, the
childish appearance is precisely useful insofar as it is providing a complete break
with the rational course of events: a child is out of place in these sequences, and
this is what attracts the character's, as well as the readers', attention. Whether the
child is really a "semblance" of Merlin or not, the effect produced is the same: a
warning, a recollection of the first appearance of the puer senex in the story, a
reminder of the almost sacrilegious parallel between Christ and the would-be
Antichrist. This child does not need to speak up, his presence is in itself the whole
of the message he has to convey.
Nevertheless, even in these texts that make good use of the Wunderkind motif,
there seems to be an hesitation regarding Merlin's age; immediately after his birth,
when the extraordinary hairiness of the child is stressed yet again, some
manuscripts introduce a secondary element, which may with some ingenuity be
interpreted as complementing what follows (namely the growth-rate of the baby),
but may also be literally interpreted as an essential presence of old age at the heart
of youth:
. . . m o l t se m e r v e i l l e n t d e eel enfant qui einsis estoit v e l u z et qui sembloit estre vielz,
et e n c o r e n ' a v o i t q u e .IX. m o i s et il sembloit qu'il e u s t .II. a n s o u plus.
[ . . . (the w o m e n ) w o n d e r m u c h a b o u t this child w h o w a s so h a i r y a n d s e e m e d to b e
old—or vile — a n d w h o l o o k e d t w o - y e a r s old or m o r e , w h i l e h e w a s only n i n e
months.]12
On further reflection, the probable interpolation of the adjective "vielz"—the
presence of which is not confirmed in a majority of manuscripts—seems in fact in
11 See Robert de Boron, le Roman du Graal, ed. Bernard. Cerquiglini. Bibliotheque medievale (Paris:
Union Generale d'editions, 1981).
12 Ibid., § 10,11.59-62. Emphasis mine. Phonetically, "vile" and "old" are exactly similar in Old French.
The semantic ambiguity may be a reflection on the essential vileness of Old Age—wise, maybe, but
also, for instance, is kept out of the "Jardin de Deduit" in Guillaume de Lorris' Romance of the Rose,
because only Youth can love. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, The Romance of the Rose, transl
Harry W. Robbins. Ed., and with an Introd. Charles W. Dunn (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1962).
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Merlin, puer senex par excellence 255
complete contradiction to what comes immediately afterward, since a nine-month
old baby looking like a two-year old child is hardly an old man. It does read,
however, as a gloss, a comment on what is generally assumed regarding Merlin:
he is old, even though he looks young—and in any case, older than his age.
Besides, and in a rather spectacular manner, the puer senex is consistently
flanked, as it were, and complemented by a real senex offering all guarantees of
wisdom and respectability. As soon as he comes out of the maternal tower, Merlin
is part of a duet with a character whose main usefulness is to counterbalance the
disastrous impression the too diabolically gifted "devil's son" would risk. Blaise,
whom Merlin calls "master," because "it was his mother's master" and, mainly,
her confessor, is the authority figure who confers respectability to Merlin's
vaticinations. While acting as a scribe under Merlin's dictation—apparently a
subordinate role—he is in fact the guarantor of the truth of what Merlin's tells. The
couple Blaise-Merlin reproduces the Gospel's pairings of a divine inspirator
("Man," Lion, Ox or Eagle) and a subservient human conduit (St Matthew, St
Mark, St Luke, or St John). Inspiration may be "young," out of the boundaries of
human aging process, but the one who takes responsibility for the divine message
has better be old enough to be respected and to communicate the wisdom to the
audience.
Blaise is old, not so much in fact—it is never stated—as in the area of
representations. If for no other reason than to escape the suspicion of "fole amur"
between him and his penitent, he has to be an old man—a priest, in the
etymological meaning of the word, presbuteros in Greek meaning originally 'the old
man whose wisdom entitles him to care for the community.' As such, and when
he goes on to live in the forest of Northumberland to obey Merlin's injunction, he
meets the requirements of the hermit role13—and presumably is apt to play the
part of the "interpreter" which is one of the basic functions of the hermit. In fact,
even when Merlin has "grown-up", Blaise remains the buttress against which the
prophet's truthfulness is propped.
Blaise's presence, indeed, does allow Merlin to escape some of the disadvantages
of being a child. In some cases, however, introducing both figures at the same time
is not practicable, and would even be counter-productive. The basic value of this
peculiar "semblance" is to impress Merlin's audience with the sheer discrepancy
between the old wisdom of his pronouncements and his "childish," weak, and
fragile appearance; hence the presence of an accompanying adult would spoil the
effect. But sometimes the audience balks at such an incredible association, and
13 There is, indeed, no "young" hermit; that it is, per se, an oxymoron is emblematized by the insistence
on the strange quality of "Joseus le jone ermite" in Perlesvaus: le Haut livre du Graal: roman et prose du
XHIe siecle, trad, l'ancien frar^ais en f r a ^ a i s moderne par Anne Berthelot. Reinekes Taschenbuch-
Reihe, 18 (Greifswald: Reineke, 1997).
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256 Anne Berthelot
refuses downright to listen to or to believe in the words of the so-called infans.
There is a perfect example of this problem at the very beginning of the Suite du
Merlin, until recently known as Suite-Huth.14 Merlin, who has chosen to absent
himself during the election and coronation of young King Arthur (one might say
that his main narrative reason is that he has to be absent when the incest between
brother and sister is consummated), approaches the king, who has lost his hunting
companions, assuming the features of a five- or seven-year old child. He starts
prophesizing, announces that Mordret's birth will bring the doom of the kingdom,
and eventually mentions the incest. Arthur is duly impressed, but he protests that
no one knows his parentage, and consequently no one can accuse him of having
slept with his sister. The child Merlin affirms then that he has known very well
Arthur's father, King Uterpendragon. At that point, profoundly relieved, Arthur
laughs loudly and refuses to listen further: how, he asks, could such a child have
known King Uter who has been dead for years?
En non de Dieu, fait li rois, or te di je don't que d'ore en avant net e querrai je mais de
chose que tu me dies, car tu n'es mie de l'aage que tu peuusses onques avoir veut mon
pere se che fu Uterpandragons, pour coi il ne pot onques riens faire pour toi net u pour
lui. Et pour chou te require jou que tu t'en ailles de chi, que apres ceste menchoinge
si aperte que tu me veus faire acroire pour verite ne quier jou plus avoir la compaignie
de toi.
[In the name of God, said the king, I tell you now that I will never believe anything
you tell me, for you are not of such an age that you could ever have seen my father if
it was Uter Pandragon, and so he could not have done anything for you or you for
him. And this is why I request that you go away from here, for after this so obvious lie
which you tried to make me believe as true, I don't want to be in your company
anymore.]15
It is worth noticing that Arthur's rejection of Merlin in this passage is formulated
almost exactly in the words used for the canonical renunciation of the devil's
works and blandishments. In evincing a knowledge unattainable for a "natural"
child, Merlin has let too much of his devilish inheritance show up. Thus chastened,
and unable apparently not to comply with the king's banishment—although, as
the text suggests, he is thoroughly exasperated—Merlin disappears—and comes
back a few moments later, as an old and venerable man, who then proceeds to tell
the distraught king exactly the same things as the child:
14 The name stemmed from the possessor of the long-thought unique manuscript. Gerard Roussineau
has recently given a new edition of this romance, based on a more complete, recently identified
manuscript. See La Suite du Roman de Merlin, ed. Gilles Roussineau. 2 vols. Textes litteraires frangais,
472 (Geneve: Droz, 1996).
15 La Suite du Roman de Merlin, § 13,11. 43-51.
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Merlin, puer senex par excellence 257
Quant Merlins entent ceste parole, ilfait sanblant que il soit moult courechies, si se part
erraument dou roi et se met en la foriest la ou il vit plus empressee. Et lors canga la
samblance que il avoit adont et prent la forme d'un viel home et anchiien de l'age de
.IIIIXX. ans, si feble par samblance k'a painnes pooit il aler, et fu viestus d'une grise
roube. En tel abit vint devant le roi, si ot samblant de sage komme.
[When Merlin hears these words, he acts as if he were very angry, goes away
immediately and enters the forest where it looks the deepest. And then he changed
[sic] his appearance that he had at that point and took the form of an old man, very
ancient, eighty years of age, so weak in appearance that he could barely walk, and he
was dressed in a grey robe. In such a guise he came in the presence of the king, and he
looked as a wise man.) 16
Whether it is the repetition, or the higher level of credibility evinced by an old man
who presents all the "secondary" traits implying respectability, truthfulness, and
trustworthiness, Arthur this time has no choice but to believe Merlin's predictions.
This is decisive. From now on in the Suite du Merlin, Merlin will always appear as
an old man, even in his amorous dealings with Morgue, Arthur's half sister, and
Niviene, the Damsel Huntress. Moreover, this short-lived attempt to hide behind
the mask of a child is unique in the Merlin-and-Arthur corpus; in all other texts
that I know of, whenever Merlin acts as Arthur's advisor, he appears as an old
man. Not only as the kind of mature, serious character who first presents himself
to Pendragon and Uter, but as a really old figure, endowed with the markers of old
age: white hair, stooped countenance, wrinkles, etc. The problem with Merlin, of
course, is that you never know what his real aspect is. Whether he chooses a
somewhat disreputable appearance, like the infirm beggar who sits outside
Pendragon's camp or the hairy cowherd who rudely refuses to come and meet the
king, or a more trustworthy and honorable one, like the various "prodomes" who
drop in time and again and whisper some interesting suggestions in the king(s)'
ears, there is no way to know which one, if any, is the true one.17 In fact, Merlin's
appearance is rarely a central point in the episodes that feature him; sometimes,
when such a detail is important for the storyline, the text signals that the wise
prophet, for instance, adopts the figure of a young and handsome youth in order
to court Niniane, or reveals, post factum, that the stag who ran havoc in the
emperor's palace was no other than Merlin. 18 The rest of the time, his character is
16 La Suite du Roman de Merlin, § 14, 11. 1-8. Emphasis is mine. The interesting fact, besides the
repetitive use of words having to do with "appearance," not with essence, is that the weakness of
old age seems as much part of Merlin's "dress" as the grey robe the character is wearing: both
elements are part of a disguise, not necessarily related to the real being of Merlin.
17 See Christina Noacco's article; "Le fils du diable: Merlin dans tous ses etats," L'Esplumeoir 4 (2005):
7-23.
18 This uncertainty regarding Merlin's appearance extends to all characters around him: the worst case
of confused identities is presented in the late Prophesies de Merlin, where the three cardinals who have
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258 Anne Berthelot
as little described as any of the main figures of the Arthurian world, Arthur
himself, Guenevere, Keu or Gawain.
One may assume, globally, that he favors the persona of a middle-aged,
respectable but still solid, bourgeois: Merlin almost never dons the paraphernalia
of a knight.19 Although he does not engage in fighting, and sometimes expressly
refuses to do it due to his preoccupation with his soul's salvation, he nevertheless
rides with the army, not unfrequently carrying the royal dragon banner (which he
has magically engineered, in fact), and sometimes using his horse as a ram to
tackle an opponent; he acts also as a messenger, a task that demands some degree
of fitness, even if in the case of Merlin, it rather involves sudden appearances and
disappearances than long riding hours. All these elements seem to oppose the
notion of a medieval Merlin as an old man; on the other hand, as we have already
mentioned, Malory in the Morte D'Arthur underlines the ridiculous nature of
Merlin falling in love with Nimue because of his age.
But then, the answer to this vexing question may be found in the Indo-European
mythology: as Claude Sterckx demonstrated,20 Merlin belongs to the category of
Protean gods, those ancient divinities endowed with the gift of prophecy, but who
very much dislike to make use of this gift to help mankind, and try to escape
inquiries through successive metamorphoses. Their prototype is Proteus, whose
name has the Greek word for "first" as its root, and whose list of "semblances" is
uncannily close to those attributed to Taliesin, Merlin's Celtic alter ego. Proteus, like
Nereus, is a reluctant soothsayer, whose—mainly animal, but sometimes also
"elemental"21—transformations are meant to avoid having to answer questions
regarding "the past, the present, and even part of the future", and are usually
triggered by physical violence. His basic form, however, the one he reverts to
when everything else has failed, is one of extreme old age, and there are no tales
about a young Proteus, even less so a childish one. It may be noted, too, that in some
cases Proteus's natural appearance is partly that of a snake, from the waist below,
which makes him a prime candidate for Christian assimilations to the Devil.
Conversely, while Taliesin's statements refer to his being ancient, among the oldest
living creatures, which makes sense since his soul remains unique from one
come from Rome to check Merlin's orthodoxy fall victims to his illusions and believe the same young
male servant is in fact a beautiful courtesan accompanying each of them under a different disguise.
19 I know of one or two exceptions, duly mentioned in the text, in Les premiers faits du roi Arthur (Le
Livre du Graal, vol 1, ed. Philippe Walter et al. [Paris: Gallimard "La Pleiade", 2001]).
20 Cf. Claude Sterckx, Les Dieux protiens des Celtes et des Indo-europeens (Brussels: Societe beige d'etudes
celtiques, 1994).
21
Wind, fire, river... Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea, is mentioned by Hesiod in his Theogony (Hesiod,
ed. with Prolegomenon and Commentary by M. L. West [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966]), w .
333-336). Menelaus conquers Proteus despite the god's attempts at metamorphosis and forces him
to reveal the truth regarding Helen in Euripides' eponymous play.
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Merlin, puer senex par excellence 259
reincarnation to the other, his previous persona is that of a young boy, specifically
named Gwion Bach, i.e. boy. And it is as a baby, a supposed infans, that he is found
and named by Elphin, whom he then comforts through a prophetic song which
convinces the young prince he has indeed won more than a banal catch of salmon:
W e a k a n d small as I a m ,
O n the f o a m i n g b e a c h of the o c e a n ,
In the d a y of trouble I shall b e
Of m o r e service to t h e e t h a n t h r e e h u n d r e d s a l m o n .
E l p h i n of notable qualities,
B e n o t displeased a t t h y m i s f o r t u n e ;
A l t h o u g h reclined thus w e a k in m y b a g ,
T h e r e lies a virtue in m y t o n g u e .
W h i l e I continue t h y p r o t e c t o r
T h o u h a s t n o t m u c h to fear. 2 2
In other words, childhood and extreme old age appear as similar, interchangeable
characteristics of Protean figures whose real physical aspect cannot be ascertained
but whose prophetic talents remain constant through the complete cycle of their
reincarnations. Technically, these characters are old, since they have been around
since the beginning of time; it does not mean, however, that they have to look old:
their appearance is nothing more than a disposable envelope, which does not add
or detract anything to the wisdom acquired over the years/centuries.23 As in the
case of Merlin, most of these "prophets" have a more extensive knowledge of the
past than of the future. Among Greek or Roman divinities, this comes in part from
a certain disinterest in soothsaying; on the other hand, the rejection of mundane
prophesies by the tenants of the Christian faith imposes such a limitation on
Merlin's talent: as he states clearly, the devil does not know the future, although
he is often able to extrapolate it from past events and to make credulous human
beings believe that he does know it. Most manifestations of the child Merlin's gift
of "second sight" have to do with the past (or the present): he reveals the identity
of his father, the affair between the judge's mother and her priest, the presence of
the dragons under Vertigier's tower.
True prophesies are relatively few—in fact, Wace in the Roman de Brut leaves out
the long "prophecies de Merlin" that have led to the popularity of Geoffrey of
Monmouth's Historia regum Britanniae.24 From an antique or medieval point of
22 Taliesin, in The Mabinogion, transl. Lady Charlotte Guest. Ed. and introd. by Leslie Norris (London:
The Folio Society, 1980), 247; see also the online version at: http://www.sacred-
texts.com/neu/celt/mab/mab32.htm (last accessed on Feb. 25, 2007)
23 This might be an interesting parallel to the 'Old Man' in The Strieker's Daniel von dem Blühenden Tal,
see the contribution to this volume by Albrecht Classen
24 See Wace's, Roman de Brut: A History of the British. Text and Transl. Rev. ed. Judith Weiss. Exeter
Medieval English Texts and Studies (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2002), w . 7733 sq.
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260 Anne Berthelot
view, it makes perfect sense that a creature who has existed since the beginning
of the world knows everything past and hidden. As the ability to talk of the
"Fatherless Child" demonstrates, his childish appearance is no more than a
convenient envelope, a mask placed for a moment on the face of the Wise Old Man
(or God): "Iarwain Ben-Adar, oldest and fatherless", as Tolkien would describe his
true merlinesque figure, Tom Bombadil.25
A last observation needs to be added here: at the end of the prose Perceval,
Merlin retires to an "esplumeoir," an interesting variant of the grave or prison
where he is usually shut in. Numerous hypotheses have been formulated about
this place, since the word is a hapax legomenon and the context not peculiarly
enlightening. The most probable one suggests that the esplumeoir is a kind of cage
where one puts the hawks and falcons—let us not forget that the merlin is a small
falcon—to moult. According to this interpretation, Merlin could be seen as a
human version of the phoenix: when growing old, he would retire to his esplumeoir
and step out again, reborn, as it were, as a child. Trying to determine how old
Merlin truly is, trying to assess whether his real appearance is the puer senex who
impresses Blaise's and Vertgier's clerics, or the wise old man whom Arthur
encounters in the forest, is a completely futile enterprise: a "hero with a thousand
faces,"26 Merlin cannot be pinned down at any age of life. His aptitude to adopt
any aspect betrays a completely a-temporal essence; puer senex he is, indeed,
insofar he is simultaneously puer (but never infans) and senex, without ever being
one or the other for good. As Pendragon's well-meaning advisors unwittingly
demonstrate, there is no way one can identify Merlin, because he has no definite
appearance, and no definite age—and even those who think they know him have
no idea of his nature:
Et [Ii rois] se merveille molt et fait apeler eels qui disoient conoistre Merlin et lor
demande: "Seingnor, nos atandons Merlin, mais il n'i a celui de vos par le mien esciant
qui le connoisse; et se vous le connoissiez, si le me dites." Et il responnent: "Sire, ce ne
puet estre, se nous le veons, que nous nou connoissons bien." Et Ii prodom qui fu
venuz devant le roi parole et dist: "Seingnor, puet cil bien conoistre autrui, qui ne
conoist bien pas soi?" Et il respont: "Nous ne disons pas que nous le conoissons de
tout ses afaires, mais nos conoistrons bien sa samblance, se nos la veom." Et le
prodome respont: "Ne conoist pas bien home qui ne conoist que la samblance, et si le
vos mosterrai." 27
25 He is definitely not a Gandalf, who is a more "fancy"" wizard, true to the developing modern type
of wizards. Tom Bombadil, a more secretive and mysterious figure, strikingly resembles the very
atypical Merlin featured by Tolkien's friend C. S. Lewis in This Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale
for Grawn-Ups (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1946).
26 To use, and abuse, the title of a very famous book by Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand
Faces. 2nd ed. (1968; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972).
27 Ibidem, § 34,11.14-27.
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Merlin, puer senex par excellence 261
[And the king wonders and has called together those who said they knew Merlin, and
asks them: "Lords, we are waiting for Merlin, but there is no one among you, as I am
able to ascertain, who knows him. And if you know him, tell me." — "Sire," they said,
"it cannot be, if we see him, that we don't know him very well." And the respectable
man who has come in the king's presence spoke shift of tense and said: "Lords, can
one who does not know himself well know somebody else?" And they answer: "We
do not say we know him thoroughly, in all his traits, but we will know his appearance
well enough if we see it. And the wise man answers: "he does not know somebody
well, who knows the appearance only, and I shall prove it to you."]
The barons of Logres categorically refuse to face the permanent "vacillation" of
Merlin's afaire, because it questions in fact their own comprehension/ap-
prehension of themselves; they try to fall back on a philosophical distinction
between estre and paraistre; even that, however, is too dangerous in the long run.
When they say they will know Merlin's exterior if they see it, it is wishful thinking:
they know nothing of his ability to change his looks at will. The masquerade
Merlin plays in order to delight the young princes and to gain their good will is
just a parlor trick, pleasant, but eventually more disturbing than it is worth. Fixing
Merlin's image firmly in the category of "old man," on the contrary, enables the
Arthurian romance to stabilize the very mutability of the world, to restore order
where the changing transfigurations of the prophet had seemed to mirror an
increasingly chaotic world. Merlin himself is the one who puts an end to the game,
when he assumes this aged persona to save Uter; as he tells the king, surprised that
his brother did listen to this disreputable-looking jester, in this circumstance, he
took on "an old and wise appearance" ("une vieille semblance saige", ibid. §35,11.
23-24). The equivalence between old age and wisdom is confirmed, and Merlin's
changing aspect is, once and for all, subsumed under the mask of the Old Sage.
Dont acte.
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