Marie de France

 

Frozen cobweb. Frome, 22 January 2023.

[Young Guigemar, wounded and in a swoon, has been rescued by a beautiful lady who herself lives in house imprisonment, married to a jealous old lord. Soon love overwhelms them...]

Guigemar was very much in love and either had to receive relief or be forced to live a life of misery. Love emboldened him to reveal his feelings to her. "My lady," he said, "I am dying because of you; my heart is giving me great pain. If you are not willing to cure me, then it must all end in my death. I am asking for your love. Fair one, do not refuse me." When she heard his words, she replied fittingly, and said lightly, "Friend, such a decision would be over-hasty: I am not accustomed to such requests." "My lady," he replied, "in God's name, have mercy on me! Do not be distressed if I say this: a woman who is always fickle likes to extend courtship in order to enhance her own esteem and so that the man will not realize that she has experienced the pleasure of love. But the well-intentioned lady, who is worthy and wise, should not be too harsh towards a man, if she finds him to her liking; she should rather love him and enjoy his love. Before anyone discovers or hears of their love, they will greatly profit from it. Fair lady, let us put an end to this discussion." The lady recognized the truth of his words and granted him her love without delay. He kissed her and henceforth was at peace. They lay together and talked, kissing and embracing. May the final act, which others are accustomed to enjoy, give them pleasure. 

Guigemar was with her for a year and a half, I believe, and their life gave them great delight. But fortune, never unmindful of her duties, can soon turn her wheel. One man takes a fall, another rises; so it was in their case, for they were soon discovered. 

(from Marie de France's Guigemar, 1986 Penguin translation by Glyn S. Burgess and Keith Busby.)

Guigemar is the first of Marie de France's Lais in the only manuscript that contains all twelve of them: the 13th-century MS Harley 978 in the British Museum. Most translators have kept to the Harley sequence. And like many another reader, I found it so satisfying and logical that I felt it must go right back to the original author, writing perhaps eighty years earlier. There's no proof of that, but it's very possible. Marie, in my conception, was one of the first people to shape a really classic collection of short stories. 

I should admit to my conception being flagrantly anachronistic; but attempting to fit Marie into what we think we know about medieval authors is distinctly tricky. In the Lais she shows very little interest in religion and her tales far outrun any simple rule-based morality. Love is usually extra-marital, as it is here. Marie says she is re-telling Breton tales, but they are not really very like folk tales. Some have supernatural trappings, but the centre of interest lies in psychology and how people behave to each other.  

This still period of the lovers' ecstacy is like a hinge at the centre of Guigemar. Before it, the hero's exemplary family, a magic deer, a magic ship, and then this secreted love. After it, betrayal, separation, time-lapses, and an increasingly sober attempt to put things right in an imperfect world. The story never quite finds its way back to its magic, and its love remains something stolen. Marie's handling of pace, ekphrasis, elaborate and misleading openings, selective and seemingly random detail (we know the name of Guigemar's irrelevant sister, but not the name of the heroine): it all foreshadows the art of Chaucer, two centuries later.

You can read the whole of the Burgess and Busby translation of Guigemar here (PDF): 

https://bostoncollege.instructure.com/courses/1554567/files/62832081/download?wrap=1

Original text of the same passage, in Anglo-Norman:

Guigemar aime durement :
u il avra hastif sucurs,
u li estuet vivre a reburs.
Amurs li dune hardement :
il li descuevre sun talent.
’Dame’, fet il, ’jeo muere pur vus ;
mis quers en est mult anguissus.
Se vus ne me volez guarir,
dunc m’estuet il en fin murir.
Jo vus requier de druërie :
bele, ne m’escundites mie ! ’
Quant ele l’a bien entendu,
avenantment a respundu.
Tut en riant li dit : ’Amis,
cist cunseilz sereit trop hastis,
d’otreier vus ceste preiere ;
jeo ne sui mie custumiere.’
’Dame’, fet il,’pur deu merci,
ne vus ennuit, se jol vus di !
Femme jolive de mestier
se deit lunc tens faire preier,
pur sei cherir, que cil ne quit
que ele ait usé cel deduit.
Mes la dame de bon purpens,
ki en sei ait valur ne sens,
s’ele trueve hume a sa maniere,
ne se fera vers lui trop fiere,
ainz l’amera, si’n avra joie.
Ainz que nuls le sace ne l’oie,
avrunt il mult de lur pru fait.
Bele dame, finum cest plait ! ’
La dame entent que veir li dit,
e li otreie senz respit
l’amur de li, e il la baise.
Des ore est Guigemar a aise.
Ensemble juënt e parolent
e sovent baisent e acolent ;
bien lur covienge del surplus,
de ceo que li altre unt en us !

Ceo m’est a vis, an e demi
fu Guigemar ensemble od li.
Mult fu delituse la vie.
Mes fortune, ki ne s’oblie,
sa roe turnë en poi d’ure,
l’un met desuz, l’altre desure.
Issi est il d’els avenu ;
kar tost furent aparceü.

(Source: https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Lais_de_Marie_de_France/Guigemar .)

Full original text of the Lais:

 https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Auteur:Marie_de_France

The above link also contains Roquefort's 1820 translation into modern French, but this is very different; for instance Roquefort's rendering of the first paragraph ends simply thus: "La dame persuadée de la vérité de ce discours, accorda au chevalier le don d’amoureuse merci, et depuis ce jour ils furent heureux." I'm not sure if this is down to bowdlerization or to using a different source text. 

bien lur covienge del surplus,
de ceo que li altre unt en us !

But it may be, too, that Burgess and Busby were over-explicit ("May the final act, which others are accustomed to enjoy, give them pleasure.") Edith Rickert has only: "Surely it is fitting that they should have a just share of what other folk are wont to have!" I wish I knew enough Old French to be sure, but Suzanne Klerks says that OF "surplus" can mean both "excess" and "spilling of seminal fluid", so maybe these lines can be interpreted in different ways. (The Anglo-Norman Dictionary, however, provides no support for the latter meaning: https://anglo-norman.net/entry/surplus_1 .)

*

MS Harley 978 is a 13th-century miscellany in Latin, French and English. Besides the Lais it also contains music (including the sole text of "Sumer is icumen in"), a calendar, medical texts, poems including The Song of Lewes, Marie's Fables, and much more. Here it is in full: 

https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Harley_MS_978#:~:text=A%20miscellany%20or%20'manual'%20including,compiled%20between%201261%20and%201265.

*

The shortest of the Lais, the eleventh in the Harley sequence, is called Chevrefoil. Marie (who always claims that what she's passing on to us is a poem with a prior existence) says: "the English call it Gotelef and the French Chevrefoil". Unlike Laüstic, the eighth of the Lais, no Breton title is offered. It should be something like Gwezvoud, because that means honeysuckle in Breton, which is what she's talking about. The title alludes to something Tristram says in a letter to the queen: 

The two of them resembled the honeysuckle which clings to the hazel branch: when it has wound itself round and attached itself to the hazel, the two can survive together: but if anyone should then attempt to separate them, the hazel quickly dies, as does the honeysuckle. 'Sweet love, so it is with us: without me you cannot survive, nor I without you.'

(from Chevrefoil, in Burgess and Busby's translation)

The poem describes a joyous meeting between the parted lovers, a rare moment of perfect happiness. Yet Tristram's resonant image of their inseparableness has a shadow: our foreknowledge that this winding honeysuckle and this hazel stem will indeed be ripped apart, and will not survive it. 

"Goat-leaf" is a literal Englishing of "chevrefoil", the French name for honeysuckle ("chèvrefeuille" in modern French). The name comes from post-classical Latin caprifolium (7th c. onward) and is also in other languages e.g. Italian "caprifoglia" and Swedish "vildkaprifol" (indeed it had a brief tenancy in English: Spenser writes of the "caprifole"). But English people of the twelfth century didn't actually call it "goat-leaf". They would either have said "woodbine" or "honeysuckle". "Woodbine" (or "woodbind") seems to be the oldest term; it was used for this plant and also for ivy, bindweed, and probably other climbers too. And the word "honeysuckle" certainly existed in the fourteenth century and perhaps long before. 

But why did the plant get called caprifolium? There's usually no definitive answer to that sort of question. The most common explanation is that goats like to eat the leaves. This is apparently true, though honeysuckle may not be very good for them (especially if they eat the poisonous berries). But, after all, goats eat most greenery that it's possible to eat. 

Another explanation I've seen is that the name really refers to the roe-deer ("chevreuil") and a legend that they get intoxicated eating the leaves of honeysuckle. Deer being nearly as omnivorous as goats when it comes to tender leaves, they certainly do eat honeysuckle sometimes, and hunters regard honeysuckle thickets as a likely spot to find deer. Gardeners, on the other hand, consider honeysuckle to be safer from deer depredation than most other shrubs. 

A third explanation, that caprifolium got its name because it climbs "like a goat", is I suspect just nineteenth-century ingenuity. But who can really say? 

Frosty morning. Frome, 18 January 2023.

Marie de France may also have been the first author to produce a collection of "Aesop's" fables in a modern European language. She says that her fables were translations from the English of King Alfred. But there's no other evidence of English fables existing at that time. Marie's fables, on the other hand, are well preserved (they survive in a much larger number of manuscripts than the Lais). 

Marie's Fables in the original Anglo-Norman:
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Po%C3%A9sies_de_Marie_de_France_(Roquefort)/Tome_2

There are 103 fables in her collection. The first forty are from the Latin tradition of Aesop's fables, but the rest have various origins, sometimes unknown. They are often not as charming as you might expect.

51: The Monkey and Her Baby

Once there was a monkey-lady

Who showed all animals her baby.

They thought this mother quite absurd

Both in her manner and her word,

But then she did to lion go.

She asked him first if it weren't so --

That it was beautiful. Said he,

An uglier beast he'd yet to see.

He ordered her to take it home

And keep in mind this axiom:

'Every fox his tail does prize,

And marvels greatly that it's his.'

Sad and depressed, she went from there.

Along the way she met a bear.

Stock still the bear stood and assessed her.

Then cunningly the bear addressed her,

'Do I see here that infant small --

The talk of every animal --

The beautiful and noble one?'

'Indeed,' she said, 'this is my son.'

'Oh let me hold and kiss the dear.

I'd like to see it closer here.'

She gave it to the bear, and he

Took it and ate it hastily.

   And for this reason you should not

Disclose your secret or your thought.

Some things can bring delight to one,

Which to some others prove no fun.

Disclosure brings iniquity;

This world has no integrity.

(Translation by Harriet Spiegel, 1987.) 

There's a few more here (PDF):

https://bostoncollege.instructure.com/courses/1554567/files/62832142/download?wrap=1

Frosty lawn outside my home (one of fifteen or so flats, I should specify). Frome, 18 January 2023.

Reading Marie de France took me off in other directions. I drifted, fascinated, into reading about the whole fable tradition, and about that semi-legendary author Aesop. I even ended up reading John Vanbrugh's 1697 comedy Aesop, in which the ugly fabulist is transported into a world of coffee-houses, rakes, projectors, periwigs and the pox. Aesop is little regarded compared to The Relapse (1696) and The Provoked Wife (1697). Perhaps Colley Cibber, who had been by all accounts sensational as Lord Foppington in The Relapse, was not so well suited to playing a wise teller of home truths. And the dramatic momentum is a bit halting, with the middle Acts largely given over to Aesop receiving various dubious clients while the main story stands still. All the same, if you enjoy Vanbrugh's writing I think you'll be amply entertained. 

The play was freely based on Esope à la ville (1690) by Edmé Boursault (1638-1701), but Vanbrugh tells us the fifth act was all his own work: here's a sample.

[Euphronia, in love with Oronces, is being pressured by her father into marrying Aesop. Here Doris, her maid, is telling her to cajole Aesop into getting the wedding delayed.]

[Doris.] 

.... Why, you must tell him—'Tis natural to you to dislike Folks at first sight: That since you have consider'd him better, you find your Aversion abated: That though perhaps it may be a hard matter for you ever to think him a Beau, you don't despair in time of finding out his Iene scai quoy. And that on t'other side; tho' you have hitherto thought (as most young Women do) that nothing cou'd remove your first Affection, yet you have very great hopes in the natural Inconstancy of your Sex.

Tell him, 'tis not impossible a change may happen, provided he gives you time: But that if he goes to force you, there's another piece of Nature peculiar to Woman, which may chance to spoil all, and that's Contradiction: Ring that Argument well in his Ears: He's a Philosopher, he knows it has weight in't.

In short, Wheedle, whine, flatter, lye, weep, spare nothing, it's a moist Age, Women have Tears enough; and when you have melted him down, and gain'd more time, we'll employ it in Closet-Debates how to cheat him to the end of the Chapter.

Euphronia.

But you don't consider, Doris, that by this means I engage my self to him; and can't afterwards with Honour retreat.

Doris.

Madam, I know the World—Honour's a Jest, when Jilting's useful.

Besides, he that wou'd have you break your Oath with Oronces, can never have the Impudence to blame you for cracking your Word with himself. But who knows what may happen between the Cup and the Lip. Let either of the Old Gentlemen dye, and we ride triumphant. Wou'd I cou'd but see the Statesman sick a little, I'd recommend a Doctor to him, a Cousin of mine, a Man of Conscience, a wise Physician; tip but the Wink, he understands you.

Euphronia. 

Thou wicked Wench, woud'st poison him?

Doris.

I don't know what I wou'd do, I think, I study, I invent, and some how I will get rid of him. I do more for you, I'm sure, than you and your Knight Errant do together for your selves.

Euphronia. 

Alas, both he and I do all we can; thou know'st we do.

Doris.

Nay, I know y'are willing enough to get together; but y'are a couple of helpless Things, Heaven knows.

Euphronia. 

Our Stars, thou see'st, are bent to Opposition.

Doris. 

Stars!—I'd fain see the Stars hinder me from running away with a Man I lik'd.

Euphronia.

Ay, But thou know'st, shou'd I disoblige my Father, he'd give my Portion to my younger Sister.

Doris.

Ay, there the Shooe pinches, there's the Love of the Age; Ah!—to what an Ebb of Passion are Lovers sunk in these days. Give me a Woman that runs away with a Man, when his whole Estate's pack'd up in his Snap-sack. That tucks up her Coats to her Knees; and through thick and through thin, from Quarters to Camp trudges heartily on, with a Child at her Back, another in her Arms, and a brace in her Belly: There's Flame with a Witness, where this is the Effects on't. But we must have Love in a Feather-bed, Forsooth, a Coach and Six Horses, Clean Linen, and a Cawdle; Fie, for shame. ...

(from Aesop, Act V)

Complete text of John Vanbrugh's Aesop: 

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A65052.0001.001