French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France by Marie de France
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Marie de France >> French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France
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16 FRENCH MEDIAEVAL ROMANCES
_From the Lays of Marie de France_
_Translated by Eugene Mason_.
1911
INTRODUCTION
The tales included in this little book of translations are derived
mainly from the "Lays" of Marie de France. I do not profess them to be
a complete collection of her stories in verse. The ascription varies.
Poems which were included in her work but yesterday are withdrawn
to-day, and new matter suggested by scholars to take the place of the
old. I believe it to be, however, a far fuller version of Marie's
"Lays" than has yet appeared, to my knowledge, in English. Marie's
poems are concerned chiefly with love. To complete my book I have
added two famous mediaeval stories on the same excellent theme.
This, then, may be regarded as a volume of French romances, dealing,
generally, with one aspect of mediaeval life.
An age so feminist in its sympathies as ours should be attracted the
more easily to Marie de France, because she was both an artist and a
woman. To deliver oneself through any medium is always difficult. For
a woman of the Middle Ages to express herself publicly by any means
whatever was almost impossible. A great lady, a great Saint or
church-woman, might do so very occasionally. But the individuality
of the ordinary wife was merged in that of her husband, and for one
Abbess of Shrewsbury or Whitby, for one St. Clare or St. Hilda, there
were how many thousand obscure sisters, who were buried in the daily
routine of a life hidden with Christ in God! Doubtless the artistic
temperament burst out now and again in woman, and would take no
denial. It blew where it listed, appearing in the most unexpected
places. A young nun in a Saxon convent, for instance, would write
little dramas in Latin for the amusement and edification of the noble
maidens under her charge. These comedies, written in the days of the
Emperor Otho, can be read with pleasure in the reign of King George,
by those who find fragrant the perfumes of the past. They deal with
the pious legends of the Saints, and are regarded with wistful
admiration by the most modern of Parisian playwrights. In their
combination of audacity and simplicity they could only be performed by
Saxon religious in the times of Otho, or by marionettes in the more
self-conscious life of to-day. Or, again, an Abbess, the protagonist
of one of the great love stories of the world, by sheer force of
personality, would compose letters to one--how immeasurably her moral
inferior, in spite of his genius--expressing with an unexampled
poignancy the most passionate emotions of the heart. Or, to take my
third illustration, here are a woman's poems written in an age when
literature was almost entirely in the hands of men. Consider the
strength of character which alone induced these three ladies to stray
from the beaten paths of their sex. To the average woman it was
enough to be an object of art herself, or to be the inspiration of
masterpieces by man. But these three women of the Middle Ages--and
such as they--shunned the easier way, and, in their several spheres,
were by deliberate effort, self-conscious artists.
The place and date of birth of Marie de France are unknown--indeed
the very century in which she lived has been a matter of dispute. Her
poems are written in the French of northern France; but that does not
prove her necessarily to be a Frenchwoman. French was the tongue
of the English Court, and many Englishmen have written in the same
language. Indeed, it is a very excellent vehicle for expression.
Occasionally, Marie would insert English words in her French text, the
better to convey her meaning; but it does not follow therefrom that
the romances were composed in England. It seems strange that so
few positive indications of her race and home are given in her
poems--nothing is contained beyond her Christian name and the bare
statement that she was of France. She took great pride in her work,
which she wrought to the best of her ability, and was extremely
jealous of that bubble-reputation. Yet whilst this work was an
excellent piece of self-portraiture, it reveals not one single fact
or date on which to go. A consensus of critical opinion presumes that
Marie was a subject of the English Crown, born in an ancient town
called Pitre, some three miles above Rouen, in the Duchy of Normandy.
This speculation is based largely on the unwonted topographical
accuracy of her description of Pitre, given in "The Lay of the Two
Lovers." Such evidence, perhaps, is insufficient to obtain a judgment
in a Court of Law. The date when Marie lived was long a matter of
dispute. The Prologue to her "Lays" contains a dedication to some
unnamed King; whilst her "Fables" is dedicated to a certain Count
William. These facts prove her to have been a person of position and
repute. The King was long supposed to be Henry the Third of England,
and this would suggest that she lived in the thirteenth century.
An early scholar, the Abbe de La Rue, in fact, said that this was
"undoubtedly" the case, giving cogent reasons in support of his
contention. But modern scholarship, in the person of Gaston Paris,
has decided that the King was Henry the Second, of pious memory; the
Count, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, his natural son by Fair
Rosamund; and that Marie must be placed in the second half of the
twelfth century. This shows that scholarship is not an exact science,
and that such words as "doubtless" should not be employed more than
necessary. A certain Eastern philosopher, when engaged in instructing
the youth of his country, used always to conclude his lectures with
the unvarying formula, "But, gentlemen, all that I have told you is
probably wrong." This sage was a wise man (not always the same thing),
and his example should be had in remembrance. It seems possible (and
one hesitates to use a stronger word) that the "Lays" of Marie were
actually written at the Court of Henry of England. From political
ambition the King was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, a lady of
literary tastes, who came from a family in which the patronage of
singers was a tradition. Her husband, too, had a pronounced liking for
literature. He was fond of books, and once paid a visit to Glastonbury
to visit King Arthur's tomb. These, perhaps, are limited virtues, but
Henry the Second had need of every rag. It is somewhat difficult to
recognise in that King of the Prologue, "in whose heart all gracious
things are rooted," the actual King who murdered Becket; who turned
over picture-books at Mass, and never confessed or communicated. It is
yet more difficult to perceive "joy as his handmaid" who, because of
the loss of a favourite city, threatened to revenge himself on God, by
robbing Him of that thing--_i.e._, the soul--He desired most in him;
and whose very last words were an echo of Job's curse upon the day
that he was born. Marie's phrases may be regarded, perhaps, as a
courtly flourish, rather than as conveying truth with mathematical
precision. If not, we should be driven to suggest an alternative to
the favourite simile of lying like an epitaph. But I think it unlikely
that Marie suffered with a morbidly sensitive conscience. There is
little enough real devotion to be met with in her "Lays"; and if
her last book--a translation from the Latin of the Purgatory of St.
Patrick--is on a subject she avoids in her earlier work, it was
written under the influence of some high prelate, and may be regarded
as a sign that she watched the shadows cast by the western sun
lengthening on the grass.
Gaston Paris suggests 1175 as an approximate date for the composition
of the "Lays" of Marie de France. Their success was immediate and
unequivocal, as indeed was to be expected in the case of a lady
situated so fortunately at Court. We have proof of this in the
testimony of Denis Pyramus, the author who wrote a Life of St. Edmund
the King, early in the following century. He says, in that poem, "And
also Dame Marie, who turned into rhyme and made verses of 'Lays' which
are not in the least true. For these she is much praised, and her
rhyme is loved everywhere; for counts, barons, and knights greatly
admire it, and hold it dear. And they love her writing so much, and
take such pleasure in it, that they have it read, and often copied.
These Lays are wont to please ladies, who listen to them with delight,
for they are after their own hearts." It is no wonder that the lords
and ladies of her century were so enthralled by Marie's romances, for
her success was thoroughly well deserved. Even after seven hundred
years her colours remain surprisingly vivid, and if the tapestry is
now a little worn and faded in places, we still follow with interest
the movements of the figures wrought so graciously upon the arras. Of
course her stories are not original; but was any plot original at
any period of the earth's history? This is not only an old, but an
iterative world. The source of Marie's inspiration is perfectly clear,
for she states it emphatically in quite a number of her Lays. This
adventure chanced in Brittany, and in remembrance thereof the Bretons
made a Lay, which I heard sung by the minstrel to the music of his
rote. Marie's part consisted in reshaping this ancient material in her
own rhythmic and coloured words. Scholars tell us that the essence of
her stories is of Celtic rather than of Breton origin. It may be so;
though to the lay mind this is not a matter of great importance one
way or the other; but it seems better to accept a person's definite
statement until it is proved to be false. The Breton or Celtic
imagination had peculiar qualities of dreaminess, and magic and
mystery. Marie's mind was not cast in a precisely similar mould.
Occasionally she is successful enough; but generally she gives the
effect of building with a substance the significance of which she does
not completely realise. She may be likened to a child playing with
symbols which, in the hand of the enchanter, would be of tremendous
import. Her treatment of Isoude, for example, in "The Lay of the
Honeysuckle," is quite perfect in tone, and, indeed, is a little
masterpiece in its own fashion. But her sketch of Guenevere in "The
Lay of Sir Launfal" is of a character that one does not recall with
pleasure. To see how Arthur's Queen might be treated, we have but
to turn to the pages of a contemporary, and learn from Chrestien de
Troyes' "Knight of the Cart," how an even more considerable poet
than Marie could deal with a Celtic legend. The fact is that Marie's
romances derive farther back than any Breton or Celtic dream. They
were so old that they had blown like thistledown about the four
quarters of the world. Her princesses came really neither from Wales
nor Brittany. They were of that stuff from which romance is shaped.
"Her face was bright as the day of union; her hair dark as the night
of separation; and her mouth was magical as Solomon's seal." You can
parallel her "Lays" from folklore, from classical story and antiquity.
Father and son fight together unwittingly in "The Lay of Milon";
but Rustum had striven with Sohrab long before in far Persia, and
Cuchulain with his child in Ireland. Such stories are common property.
The writer takes his own where he finds it. Marie is none the less
admirable because her stories were narrated by the first man in Eden;
neither are Boccaccio and the Countess D'Aulnoy blameworthy since they
told again what she already had related so well. Marie, indeed, was an
admirable narrator. That was one of her shining virtues. As a piece of
artful tale telling, a specimen of the craft of keeping a situation in
suspense, the arrival of the lady before Arthur's Court, in "The Lay
of Sir Launfal," requires a deal of beating. The justness and fineness
of her sentiment in all that concerns the delicacies of the human
heart are also remarkable. But her true business was that of the
storyteller. In that trade she was almost unapproachable in her day.
There may have been--indeed, there was--a more considerable poet
living; but a more excellent writer of romances, than the author of
"Eliduc," it would have been difficult to find.
The ladies who found the "Lays" of Marie after their own hearts
were not only admirers of beautiful stories; they had the delicate
privilege also of admiring themselves in their habit as they
lived--perhaps even lovelier than in reality--amidst their accustomed
surroundings. The pleasure of a modern reader in such tales as these
is enhanced by the light they throw on the household arrangements and
customs of the gentlefolk of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It
may be of interest to consider some of these domestic arrangements, as
illustrated by stories included in the present volume.
The corporate life of a mediaeval household centered in the hall. It
was office and dining and billiard room, and was common to gentle and
simple alike. The hall was by far the largest room in the house. It
was lighted by windows, and warmed by an open fire of logs. The smoke
drifted about the roof, escaping finally by the simple means of a
lantern placed immediately above the hearth. A beaten floor was
covered by rushes and fresh hay, or with rugs in that part affected by
the more important members of the household. The lord himself and his
wife sat in chairs upon a raised dais. The retainers were seated
on benches around the wall, and before them was spread the dining
table--a mere board upon trestles--which was removed when once the
meal was done. After supper, chess and draughts were played, or (as
we may see in "The Lay of the Thorn") minstrels sang ballads and the
guest contributed to the general entertainment by the recital of such
jests and adventures as commended themselves to his taste. If the hall
may be considered as the dining room of the mediaeval home, the garden
might almost be looked upon as the drawing room. You would probably
get more real privacy in the garden than in any other part of the
crowded castle, including the lady's chamber. It is no wonder that
we read of Guenevere taking Launfal aside for a little private
conversation in her pleasaunce. It was not only the most private,
but also the most delightful room in the house--ceiled with blue and
carpeted with green. The garden was laid out elaborately with a perron
and many raised seats. Trees stood about the lawn in tubs, and there
was generally a fountain playing in the centre, or possibly a pond,
stocked with fish. Fruit trees and flower beds grew thickly about the
garden, and a pleasanter place of perfume and colour and shade it
would be difficult to imagine in the summer heat. The third room of
which we hear continually in these romances is the lady's chamber. It
served the purpose of a boudoir as well as that of a sleeping room,
and consequently had little real privacy. It contained the marriage
chest with its store of linen, and also the bed. This bed recurs
eternally in mediaeval tales. It was used as a seat during the day, and
as a resting-place of nights. It was a magnificent erection, carved
and gilded, and inlaid with ivory. Upon it was placed a mattress of
feathers, and a soft pillow. The sheets were of linen or silk, and
over all was spread a coverlet of some precious material. An excellent
description of such a couch is given in "The Lay of Gugemar." This
chamber served also as a bath room, and there the bath was taken,
piping hot, in the strange vessel, fashioned somewhat like a churn,
that we see in pictures of the Middle Ages.
Of the dress of the ladies who moved about the castle, seeing
themselves reflected from Marie's pages as in a polished mirror, I
am not competent to speak. The type of beauty preferred by the old
romancers was that of a child's princess of fairy tale--blue-eyed,
golden-haired, and ruddy of cheek. The lady would wear a shift of
linen, "white as meadow flower." Over this was worn a garment of fur
or silk, according to the season; and, above all, a vividly coloured
gown, all in one line from neck to feet, shapen closely to the figure,
or else the more loosely fitting bliaut. Her girdle clipped her
closely about the waist, falling to the hem of her skirt, and her feet
were shod in soundless shoes, without heels. The hair was arranged in
two long braids, brought forward over her shoulders; as worn by those
smiling Queens wrought upon the western porch of Chartres Cathedral.
Out of doors, and, indeed, frequently within, as may be proved by a
reference to "The Lay of the Ash Tree," the lady was clad in a mantle
and a hood. It must have taken a great deal of time and travail to
appear so dainty a production. But to become poetry for others, it is
necessary for a woman first to be prose to herself.
I am afraid the raw material of this radiant divinity had much to
endure before she suffered her sea change. In mediaeval illustrations
we see the maiden sitting demurely in company, with downcast eyes, and
hands folded modestly in her lap. This unnatural restraint was induced
by the lavish compulsion of the rod. If there was one text, above all
others, approved and acted upon by fathers and mothers of the Middle
Ages, it was that exhorting parents not to cocker their child, neither
to wink at his follies, but to beat him on the sides with a stick.
Turn to "The Lay of the Thorn," and mark the gusto with which a mother
disciplines her maid. Parents trained their children with blows.
Husbands (ah, the audacity of the mediaeval husband) scattered the
like seeds of kindness on their wives. In a book written for the
edification of his unmarried daughters, Chaucer's contemporary, the
Knight of La Tour Landry, tells the following interesting anecdote.
A man had a scolding wife, who railed ungovernably upon him before
strangers, "and he that was angry of her governance smote her with his
first down to the earth; and then with his foot he struck her on the
visage, and broke her nose; and all her life after that she had her
nose crooked, the which shent and disfigured her visage after, that
she might not for shame show her visage, it was so foul blemished. And
this she had for her evil and great language that she was wont to say
to her husband. And therefore the wife ought to suffer, and let the
husband have the words, and to be master." May I give yet another
illustration before we pass from the subject. This time it is taken
not from a French knight, but from a sermon of the great Italian
preacher, St. Bernardino of Siena. "There are men who can bear more
patiently with a hen that lays a fresh egg every day than with their
own wives; and sometimes when the hen breaks a pipkin or a cup he
will spare it a beating, simply for love of the fresh egg which he
is unwilling to lose. Oh, raving madmen! who cannot bear a word from
their own wives, though they bear them such fair fruit; but when the
woman speaks a word more than they like, then they catch up a stick,
and begin to cudgel her; while the hen that cackles all day, and gives
you no rest, you take patience with her for the sake of her miserable
egg--and sometimes she will break more in your house than she herself
is worth, yet you bear it in patience for the egg's sake. Many
fidgetty fellows, who sometimes see their wives turn out less neat and
dainty than they would like, smite them forthwith; and meanwhile the
hen may make a mess on the table, and you suffer her. Have patience;
it is not right to beat your wife for every cause, no!"
At the commencement of this Introduction I stated that Marie's
romances are concerned mainly with love. Her talent was not very
wide nor rich, and I have no doubt that there were facets of her
personality which she was unable to get upon paper. The prettiest
girl in the world can only give what she has to give. By the time any
reader reaches the end of this volume he will be assured that the
stories are stories of love. Probably he will have noticed also that,
in many cases, the lady who inspires the most delicate of sentiments
is, incidentally, a married woman. He may ask why this was so; and in
answer I propose to conclude my paper with a few observations upon the
subject of mediaeval love.
I doubt in my own mind whether romance writers do not exaggerate what
was certainly a characteristic of the Middle Ages. To be ordinary
is to be uninteresting; and it is obvious that the stranger the
experience, the more likely is it to attract the interest and
attention of the hearer. Blessed is the person--as well as the
country--who has no history. But it was really very difficult for
the twelfth century poet to write a love story, with a maiden as the
central figure. The noble maiden seldom had a love story. It is
true enough that she was sometimes referred to in the choice of her
husband: two young ladies in "A Story of Beyond the Sea" are both
consulted in the matter. As a rule, however, her inclination was not
permitted to stand in the way of the interests of her parents or
guardians. She was betrothed in childhood, and married very young, for
mercenary or political reasons, to a husband much older than herself.
We read of a girl of twelve being married to a man of fifty. There was
no great opportunity for a love story here; and the strange entreaty,
on the part of the nameless French poet, to love the maidens for the
sake of Christ's love, passed over the heads of the romance writers.
Not that the mediaeval maidens showed any shrinking from matrimony.
"Fair daughter, I have given you a husband." "Blessed be God," said
the damsel. There spoke a contented spirit. Things have changed, and
we can but sigh after the good old times.
But the maiden inevitably became the wife, and the whirligig of Time
brought in his revenges. The lady now found herself the most important
member of her sex, in a dwelling filled with men. She had few women
about her person, and the confidant of a great dame in old romance is,
frequently enough, her chamberlain. These young men had no chance of
marriage, and naturally strove to gain the attention of a lady, whose
favour was to them so important a matter. A mediaeval knight was the
sworn champion of God and the ladies--but more especially the latter.
The chatelaine, herself, found time hang heavily on her hands.
Amusements were few; books limited in number; a husband not of
absorbing interest; so she turned to such distractions as presented
themselves. The prettier a lady, the sweeter the incense and flattery
swung beneath her nose; for this was one of the disadvantages of
marrying an attractive woman. "It is hard to keep a wife whom everyone
admires; and if no one admires her it is hard to have to live with her
yourself." One of these distractions took the shape of Courts of Love,
where the bored but literary chatelaine discussed delicate problems of
conduct pertaining to the heart. The minstrel about the lady's castle,
for his part, sought her favourable notice not only by his songs but
also by giving an object lesson of his melancholy condition. One would
imagine that his proceedings were not always calculated to further
their purpose. A famous singer, for instance, in honour of a lady who
was named Lupa, caused himself to be sewn in a wolf's skin, and ran
before the hounds till he was pulled down, half dead. Another great
minstrel and lover bought a leper's gown and bowl and clapper from
some afflicted wretch. He mutilated his forefinger, and sat before his
lady's door, in the company of a piteous crowd of sick and maimed, to
await her alms. No doubt he trusted that his devotion would procure
him a different kind of charity. From such discussions as these, and
from conduct such as this, a type of love came into being which was
peculiar to the period. Since the lovers were not bound in the sweet
and common union of children and home, since on the side of the lady
all was of grace and nought of debt, they searched out other bands to
unite them together. These they found in a system of devotion, silence
and faithfulness, which added a dignity to their relations. These
virtues they took so seriously that we find the Chatelaine of Vergi
dying because she believed her lover to have betrayed her trust. The
mediaeval romancer contemplated such unions with joy and pity; but
for all their virtues we must not deceive ourselves with words. Such
honour was rooted in dishonour, and the measure of their guilt was
that they debased the moral currency. Presently the greatest of all
the poets of the Middle Ages would arise, to teach a different fashion
of devotion. His was a love that sought no communion with its object,
neither speech nor embrace. It was sufficient for Dante to contemplate
Beatrice from afar, as one might kneel before the picture of a saint.
I do not say that a love like this--so spiritual and so aloof--will
ever be possible to men. It did not suffice even to Dante, for all
his tremendous moral muscle. Human love must always and inevitably be
founded on a physical basis. But the burning drop of idealism that
Dante contributed to the passion of the Middle Ages has made possible
the love of which we now and again catch a glimpse in the union of
select natures. And that the seed of such flowering may be carried
about the world is one of the fairest hopes and possibilities of the
human race.
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