Keu

Keu (Welsh: Cai or CEI , Latin: Caius or Gaius ) is the name of a knight of the Roundtable in the Cycle arthurien. He was initially foster brother of the King Arthur, before becoming Sénéchal at his court following a promise made by this last with Antor, his adoptive father and true father of Keu. According to the sources considered, this character is still designated like Kay or Kai , while exploiting the homophony allowed in English with the word key (key), because this object is the emblem of the Keu knight.

As a Knight of the Roundtable, Keu is completely deprived of traditional chivalrous qualities and is used thus often as development with more brilliant characters like Lancelot, Gauvain or Perceval. At Christian of Troyes, the Keu seneshal is tolerated at the court only because he is foster brother of the King Arthur but he is famous there for his violence and his lack of courtesy. Thus, whereas the women are protected in all the kingdom, he dares to strike a young virgin in front of Perceval which he will insult of many times. He will finish even by the désarçonner of sound Cheval in a battle caused by Keu itself in a way always very violent and insulting.

He becomes later seneshal, named by his brother, and one of the first knights of the Roundtable. In the posterior literature, it is known for its malicious gossip and its behavior of lout. However, in the preceding tales, it belonged to the first characters to be illustrated in the entourage of Arthur with Bedivere, with which it is often associated.

Keu is omnipresent in the literature arthurienne but it is rare that it is other thing there that a driving bolt to emphasize other characters. Though it handles it to serve its interests, its fidelity with Arthur is usually not questioned. For the Cycle of the Vulgate , the Post-Vulgate and the Dead of Arthur of Thomas Malory, Antor, the father of Keu, adopts the Arthur child in low age after Merlin took it from its truths parents, Uther and Ygraine. Antor the pupil with Keu as of the brothers but the filiation of Arthur is revealed when it withdraws Excalibur stone at the time of a tournament with London. Arthur, being used as rider in Keu coldly made knight, loses the sword of his/her brother and makes use of that which is in the stone to replace it. Keu shows its characteristic opportunism once again when he claims to be that which fired the sword from the stone. That could have made of him the King of Breton the, but it finishes by raviser and ends up recognizing Arthur like its legitimate king. It becomes one of the first knights of the Roundtable and serves his brother like rider throughout his life. The father of Keu is called Antor in the later literature, but the Welsh tales name it Cynyr Bores-Fourchue. Chrétien of Troyes announces that it had a son called Gronosis, which was given up with the evil, while the Welsh give him a named son and a girl Garanwyn and Celemon. The novel seldom spoke about the love life of Keu, an exception being Escanor of Girart of Amiens, which tells in details its love for Andrivete de Northumbrie, that it must defend against the political machinations of his/her uncle so that both can marry.

Welsh Cai

In the Welsh literature, where it is called Cai Hir (Keu the Large one), he is a powerful champion with hot blood. In the novel of Mabinogion Culhwch and Olwen , Bedivere and are to him two of the six knights designated to accompany Culhwch in its research (another is Gwalchmei, or Gauvain) and it achieves heroic exploits: it kills the giant Wrnach, it saves Mabon, the son of Modron, its prison in the middle of water and it does one leaves dog of the beard of Dillus the Bearded one. One allots to Cai superhuman possibilities in most of the Welsh literature. The poem Pa Gur announces that he had fought against a monstrous cat and the Welsh Triads name it like one of the “Three Knights enchanters of the Great Britain”, allotting the capacity to him to become as large as a tree. In Culhwch , Cai is a heading which is scrambled with Arthur, because this one wrote a satirical song on its victory against Dillus the Bearded one, but one makes of him elsewhere the honest companion of Arthur.

Keu in later legend

Keu and Bedivere appear in the Historia regum Britanniae of Geoffroy de Monmouth where they help Arthur to beat the Giant of the Mount Saint-Michel. Monmouth makes Keu count d' Anjou and seneshal of Arthur, posts that it occupies in the latest literature.

In the work of Christian of Troyes, Keu shows the characteristics that one gives him today usually. It keeps its coléreux and burning character of the Welsh literature, but it is wholesale only one boasting inefficient. Christian the met in scene like a scoffer and a troublemaker; a driving bolt which emphasizes heroic knights like Lancelot, Yvain, or Gauvain. In Yvain or the Knight with the lion it is ironical about the chivalrous courtesy of Lord Calogrenant, and in Lancelot or the Knight of the cart it misleads Arthur when this one enables him to try to save Guenièvre Méléagant, which leads for him to a humiliating defeat. In Perceval or the Tale of Graal , Lord Keu is annoyed in front of the naivety of Perceval and gives a slap to an young girl who says that he will become the best knight of all times, thereafter Perceval avenges it by breaking the shoulder for Keu. Wolfram von Eschenbach, which tells the same history in its Parzival , known as with its audience not to judge Keu too hard because its malicious words are actually used to maintain the order courteous.

The specialists stressed that the character scorning and boasting with the excess of Keu never makes him a ridiculous character, a coward or a traitor, except in the novel of Graal Perlesvaus , where he assassinates Lohot the son of Arthur and lines up among the enemies of the king. This strange work is an exception, however, and the image which one gives of Keu generally goes from a simple malicious cruelty, as in the Romance of Yder or the Iwein of Hartmann von Aue with an ironic humor and even sympathetic nerve, as in Durmart the Welshman and Escanor of Girart of Amiens. It is curious, since it is found it everywhere, that the death of Keu is not frequently treated. In the Welsh literature, one mentions that it was killed by Gwyddawg and was avenged by Arthur. In the work of Geoffroy de Monmouth and the alliterative Dead of Arthur , it is killed in the war against the Lucius Roman Emperor, while the Cycle of the Vulgate the fact of dying in France, also in a battle against the Romains. Another version makes it take part in the Bataille of Camlann: survivor just like Arthur, dying, and Girflet, he dies when Arthur wants to tell him good-bye. Arthur étreint too strong Keu, and this one expires at once.

External bonds

Portrait on the site King Arthur' S Knights

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