Erec is Not About that Base, bout that Base, nor Trouble

I'm not so concerned with this tale being in any way plagiarist of Biblical anecdotes, only because those Biblical stories themselves have predecessors in The Epic of Gilgamesh and various legends of myths of ancient Greek traditions. I don't feel there's any victory or relevance in proving whose culture "stole" stories from whose; people have been writing similar stories for literally thousands of years. It should be taken as a matter of historical accuracy then, and not of personal offense, that the stories in the Bible (along with just about every other religious text) were not the first to be written about any of the plot points they explain. Betrayal, love, creation explanation, flooding; you name it, it was written about before it was recorded in a religious text. On that note, I'm closing the issue about the originality of the story, and taking into account its content objectively.

So we get a lot of description of Enide and other maidens as beautiful, fair, and without baseness, meaning that they have not a hint of normalcy within them, so extravagant are their looks. Mostly Enide, though, because she's more beautiful and wise than anyone else. The sheer volume of superlative description in this story (and we're not even done the story yet, mind you) is breathtaking. At every describing of something Erec has done or owned, his deeds and possessions are noted to be without equal, the best beneath heaven, etc. He's the most attractive man, his horses are the fastest and the best kept, his clothes are the most expensive, his jousting is the best the world has ever seen, his generosity is unparalleled, and so on and so forth. From the start, we are to understand that he has no faults, no equal anywhere in lands near or far.

Except that he's weirdly rude to Enide come their journey to nowhere in particular, where Erec decides to ride around aimlessly seeking out people to best in combat so as to prove that he's not totally whipped by his marriage. At the start of this journey, he decides to tell Enide to shut her fucking face, because if she talks, he'll hate her forever and ever, times ten thousand. I don't understand where this request comes from, unless he intends to appear ignorant of threats so that they are more likely to approach him and be vanquished. In any case, she disobeys him several times and alerts him to incoming knights, all of whom he soundly defeats while reminding Enide that she's on his last nerve, even though all she's doing is trying to protect the man. It's a weird turn of character for him, as he appears so compassionate until she tells him the rumors of his loss of honor, at which point he ups the testosterone and becomes Sir Assclown of Douchealot just to prove a point.

I wasn't sure what to make of Enide's promise to the count that she would be his lover, as it seems entirely reasonable at this point for her to dislike Erec for his censure of her for her well-meant warnings to him. As we've ready many a lai that depicts a woman deciding on a whim to ditch her husband for another man and plot his death, I was pleasantly surprised to read that her acceptance of the count's proposal is part of a plan to save Erec, whether or not he deserves such respect from her after his harsh words.

In summary, there seems to be a lot of filler between the starting action of the story and the action we've finally come upon in the count's plot to secure Enide for himself. I can't say I'm entirely pleased with how many men have approached Erec with intent to best him, then so easily decided "you know what, this man really is beautiful and strong, I think I'll admit defeat and serve him as best I can."

In his admiration of Enide's unrivaled beauty and wisom (as well as his own perfect appearance, apparently), Erec is not about that base. And, in his conquering of any man that should challenge his pride, he is, undoubtedly, not about that trouble either.