Post by moira on May 16, 2008 19:08:38 GMT 2
Marie de France (flourished sometime between 1160 and 1215)
Here is a poem about a rare happy moment, an interlude:
Chevrefoil (The Honeysuckle):
I should like very much
to tell you the truth
about the lai men call Chevrefoil
why it was composed and where it came from.
Many have told and recited it to me
and I have found it in writing,
about Tristan and the queen
and their love that was so true,
that brought them much suffering
and caused them to die the same day.
King Mark was annoyed,
angry at his nephew Tristan;
he exiled Tristan from his land
because of the queen whom he loved.
Tristan returned to his own country,
South Wales, where he was born,
he stayed a whole year;
he couldn't come back.
Afterward he began to expose himself
to death and destruction.
Don't be surprised at this:
for one who loves very faithfully
is sad and troubled
when he cannot satisfy his desires.
Tristan was sad and worried,
so he set out from his land.
He traveled straight to Cornwall,
where the queen lived,
and entered the forest all alone
he didn't want anyone to see him;
he came out only in the evening
when it was time to find shelter.
He took lodging that night,
with peasants, poor people.
He asked them for news
of the kingwhat he was doing.
They told him they had heard
that the barons had been summoned by ban.
They were to come to Tintagel
where the king wanted to hold his court;
at Pentecost they would all be there,
there'd be much joy and pleasure,
and the queen would be there too.
Tristan heard and was very happy;
she would not be able to go there
without his seeing her pass.
The day the king set out,
Tristan also came to the woods
by the road he knew
their assembly must take.
He cut a hazel tree in half,
then he squared it.
When he had prepared the wood,
he wrote his name on it with his knife.
If the queen noticed it
and she should be on the watch for it,
for it had happened before
and she had noticed it then
she'd know when she saw it,
that the piece of wood had come from her love.
This was the message of the writing
that he had sent to her:
he had been there a long time,
had waited and remained
to find out and to discover
how he could see her,
for he could not live without her.
With the two of them it was just
as it is with the honeysuckle
that attaches itself to the hazel tree:
when it has wound and attached
and worked itself around the trunk,
the two can survive together;
but if someone tries to separate them,
the hazel dies quickly
and the honeysuckle with it.
"Sweet love, so it is with us:
You cannot live without me, nor I without you."
The queen rode along; So
she looked at the hillside
and saw the piece of wood; she knew what it was,
she recognized all the letters.
The knights who were accompanying her,
who were riding with her,
she ordered to stop:
she wanted to dismount and rest.
They obeyed her command.
She went far away from her people
and called her girl
Brenguein, who was loyal to her.
She went a short distance from the road;
and in the woods she found him
whom she loved more than any living thing.
They took great joy in each other.
He spoke to her as much as he desired,
she told him whatever she liked.
Then she assured him
that he would be reconciled with the king
for it weighed on him
that he had sent Tristan away
he'd done it because of the accusation.
Then she departed, she left her love,
but when it came to the separation,
they began to weep.
Tristan went to Wales,
to wait until his uncle sent for him.
For the joy that he'd felt
from his love when he saw her,
by means of the stick he inscribed
as the queen had instructed,
and in order to remember the words,
Tristan, who played the harp well,
composed a new lai about it.
I shall name it briefly:
in English they call it Goat's Leaf
the French call it Chevrefoil.
I have given you the truth
about the lai that I have told here.
************
The above is the shortest of Marie's lais, and presents a "meeting in the woods, a moment that has little importance in longer versions of the story" (from The Lais of Marie de France, ed & trans, Ferrante and Hanning). Tristan and Isolde meet, presumably make love, have a little conversation that counts.
They took great joy in each other.
He spoke to her as much as he desired,
she told him whatever she liked.
Marie often uses "a symbolic creature" or "artifact:" the nightingale in Lastic, the hungry swan in Milun, here the hazel tree wound about with honeysuckle.
Almost nothing is known for sure about Marie de France. She wrote narrative poetry in vernacular French in the 12th century, and her use of English words and allusions in French texts and stories (with their typical motifs and attitudes) has connected her to the court of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. She wrote "for sophisticated people in positions of power" (Ferrante, "The French courtly Poet," Medieval Women Writers, ed. K. Wilson). She shows a woman's point of view in her sustained interest in the intangible, the "inner life of emtioins and the mind." In two lais she has her character compose lais about their situation. Common to women's films is the happy interlude; common to women's novels (18th century) is the meeting in a pavilion in a courtly landscape. Like Chretien de Troyes, she often choses characters who are not the most famous ones of the Arthur cycle (though in this one she has the famous pair). Her style is relatively or apparently simple. The 12th century is often said to have been a period which saw an expansion of intellectual, social, and artistic activity, a kind of cultural Renaissance occurred in a few lucky places.
The rise of town life, scholastic centers, courts, universities, and a courtly aristocracy which developed an ethic of courtly love (for the poetry, not life). Other women connected to Marie de France are Marie, Countess of Champagne, said to be patroness of Chretien, and Heloise, mistress, wife, of Abelard and letter writer.
We see in the little lai two people seeking some self-fulfillment in
a community where this is the last thing the organization and norms are set up to do. The poet "alludes to a number of details in the story that her audience would recognize: the king's anger over the affair, the envious barons, and the loyal servant Brenguein, all of which evoke the world that was hostile to the love. She makes no reference to the potion." In this story we do not have fatal attractions but "joy and understanding they share when they are together, and which sustain them when they are apart."
Here are Judith Shoaf's translations:
web.english.ufl.edu/exemplaria/intro.html
She is the listowner of Arthurnet.
A page with much information:
www.wsu.edu/~brians/love-in-the-arts/marie.html
Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_de_France
Ellen Moody
