Female Poets-Marie de France

I have copied and pasted from project guttenberg some of her writings.






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 derivedmainly from the "Lays" of Marie de France. I do not profess them to bea complete collection of her stories in verse. The ascription varies.Poems which were included in her work but yesterday are withdrawnto-day, and new matter suggested by scholars to take the place of theold. I believe it to be, however, a far fuller version of Marie's"Lays" than has yet appeared, to my knowledge, in English. Marie'spoems are concerned chiefly with love. To complete my book I haveadded 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 themore easily to Marie de France, because she was both an artist and awoman. To deliver oneself through any medium is always difficult. Fora woman of the Middle Ages to express herself publicly by any meanswhatever was almost impossible. A great lady, a great Saint orchurch-woman, might do so very occasionally. But the individualityof the ordinary wife was merged in that of her husband, and for oneAbbess of Shrewsbury or Whitby, for one St. Clare or St. Hilda, therewere how many thousand obscure sisters, who were buried in the dailyroutine of a life hidden with Christ in God! Doubtless the artistictemperament burst out now and again in woman, and would take nodenial. It blew where it listed, appearing in the most unexpectedplaces. A young nun in a Saxon convent, for instance, would writelittle dramas in Latin for the amusement and edification of the noblemaidens under her charge. These comedies, written in the days of theEmperor Otho, can be read with pleasure in the reign of King George,by those who find fragrant the perfumes of the past. They deal withthe pious legends of the Saints, and are regarded with wistfuladmiration by the most modern of Parisian playwrights. In theircombination of audacity and simplicity they could only be performed bySaxon religious in the times of Otho, or by marionettes in the moreself-conscious life of to-day. Or, again, an Abbess, the protagonistof one of the great love stories of the world, by sheer force ofpersonality, would compose letters to one--how immeasurably her moralinferior, in spite of his genius--expressing with an unexampledpoignancy the most passionate emotions of the heart. Or, to take mythird illustration, here are a woman's poems written in an age whenliterature was almost entirely in the hands of men. Consider thestrength of character which alone induced these three ladies to strayfrom the beaten paths of their sex. To the average woman it wasenough to be an object of art herself, or to be the inspiration ofmasterpieces by man. But these three women of the Middle Ages--andsuch 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--indeedthe very century in which she lived has been a matter of dispute. Herpoems are written in the French of northern France; but that does notprove her necessarily to be a Frenchwoman. French was the tongueof the English Court, and many Englishmen have written in the samelanguage. Indeed, it is a very excellent vehicle for expression.Occasionally, Marie would insert English words in her French text, thebetter to convey her meaning; but it does not follow therefrom thatthe romances were composed in England. It seems strange that sofew positive indications of her race and home are given in herpoems--nothing is contained beyond her Christian name and the barestatement that she was of France. She took great pride in her work,which she wrought to the best of her ability, and was extremelyjealous of that bubble-reputation. Yet whilst this work was anexcellent piece of self-portraiture, it reveals not one single factor date on which to go. A consensus of critical opinion presumes thatMarie was a subject of the English Crown, born in an ancient towncalled Pitre, some three miles above Rouen, in the Duchy of Normandy.This speculation is based largely on the unwonted topographicalaccuracy of her description of Pitre, given in "The Lay of the TwoLovers." Such evidence, perhaps, is insufficient to obtain a judgmentin a Court of Law. The date when Marie lived was long a matter ofdispute. The Prologue to her "Lays" contains a dedication to someunnamed King; whilst her "Fables" is dedicated to a certain CountWilliam. These facts prove her to have been a person of position andrepute. 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 Abbé de La Rue, in fact, said that this was"undoubtedly" the case, giving cogent reasons in support of hiscontention. But modern scholarship, in the person of Gaston Paris,has decided that the King was Henry the Second, of pious memory; theCount, William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, his natural son by FairRosamund; and that Marie must be placed in the second half of thetwelfth century. This shows that scholarship is not an exact science,and that such words as "doubtless" should not be employed more thannecessary. A certain Eastern philosopher, when engaged in instructingthe youth of his country, used always to conclude his lectures withthe unvarying formula, "But, gentlemen, all that I have told you isprobably wrong." This sage was a wise man (not always the same thing),and his example should be had in remembrance. It seems possible (andone hesitates to use a stronger word) that the "Lays" of Marie wereactually written at the Court of Henry of England. From politicalambition the King was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, a lady ofliterary tastes, who came from a family in which the patronage ofsingers was a tradition. Her husband, too, had a pronounced liking forliterature. He was fond of books, and once paid a visit to Glastonburyto visit King Arthur's tomb. These, perhaps, are limited virtues, butHenry the Second had need of every rag. It is somewhat difficult torecognise in that King of the Prologue, "in whose heart all graciousthings are rooted," the actual King who murdered Becket; who turnedover picture-books at Mass, and never confessed or communicated. It isyet more difficult to perceive "joy as his handmaid" who, because ofthe loss of a favourite city, threatened to revenge himself on God, byrobbing 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 daythat he was born. Marie's phrases may be regarded, perhaps, as acourtly flourish, rather than as conveying truth with mathematicalprecision. If not, we should be driven to suggest an alternative tothe favourite simile of lying like an epitaph. But I think it unlikelythat Marie suffered with a morbidly sensitive conscience. There islittle enough real devotion to be met with in her "Lays"; and ifher last book--a translation from the Latin of the Purgatory of St.Patrick--is on a subject she avoids in her earlier work, it waswritten under the influence of some high prelate, and may be regardedas a sign that she watched the shadows cast by the western sunlengthening on the grass.
Gaston Paris suggests 1175 as an approximate date for the compositionof the "Lays" of Marie de France. Their success was immediate andunequivocal, as indeed was to be expected in the case of a ladysituated so fortunately at Court. We have proof of this in thetestimony of Denis Pyramus, the author who wrote a Life of St. Edmundthe King, early in the following century. He says, in that poem, "Andalso Dame Marie, who turned into rhyme and made verses of 'Lays' whichare not in the least true. For these she is much praised, and herrhyme is loved everywhere; for counts, barons, and knights greatlyadmire it, and hold it dear. And they love her writing so much, andtake 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 lordsand ladies of her century were so enthralled by Marie's romances, forher success was thoroughly well deserved. Even after seven hundredyears her colours remain surprisingly vivid, and if the tapestry isnow a little worn and faded in places, we still follow with interestthe movements of the figures wrought so graciously upon the arras. Ofcourse her stories are not original; but was any plot original atany period of the earth's history? This is not only an old, but aniterative world. The source of Marie's inspiration is perfectly clear,for she states it emphatically in quite a number of her Lays. Thisadventure chanced in Brittany, and in remembrance thereof the Bretonsmade a Lay, which I heard sung by the minstrel to the music of hisrote. Marie's part consisted in reshaping this ancient material in herown rhythmic and coloured words. Scholars tell us that the essence ofher 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 oneway or the other; but it seems better to accept a person's definitestatement until it is proved to be false. The Breton or Celticimagination had peculiar qualities of dreaminess, and magic andmystery. Marie's mind was not cast in a precisely similar mould.Occasionally she is successful enough; but generally she gives theeffect of building with a substance the significance of which she doesnot completely realise. She may be likened to a child playing withsymbols which, in the hand of the enchanter, would be of tremendousimport. Her treatment of Isoude, for example, in "The Lay of theHoneysuckle," is quite perfect in tone, and, indeed, is a littlemasterpiece in its own fashion. But her sketch of Guenevere in "TheLay of Sir Launfal" is of a character that one does not recall withpleasure. To see how Arthur's Queen might be treated, we have butto turn to the pages of a contemporary, and learn from Chrestien deTroyes' "Knight of the Cart," how an even more considerable poetthan Marie could deal with a Celtic legend. The fact is that Marie'sromances derive farther back than any Breton or Celtic dream. Theywere so old that they had blown like thistledown about the fourquarters of the world. Her princesses came really neither from Walesnor 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 nightof separation; and her mouth was magical as Solomon's seal." You canparallel 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, andCuchulain with his child in Ireland. Such stories are common property.The writer takes his own where he finds it. Marie is none the lessadmirable because her stories were narrated by the first man in Eden;neither are Boccaccio and the Countess D'Aulnoy blameworthy since theytold again what she already had related so well. Marie, indeed, was anadmirable narrator. That was one of her shining virtues. As a piece ofartful tale telling, a specimen of the craft of keeping a situation insuspense, the arrival of the lady before Arthur's Court, in "The Layof Sir Launfal," requires a deal of beating. The justness and finenessof her sentiment in all that concerns the delicacies of the humanheart are also remarkable. But her true business was that of thestoryteller. In that trade she was almost unapproachable in her day.There may have been--indeed, there was--a more considerable poetliving; 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 heartswere not only admirers of beautiful stories; they had the delicateprivilege also of admiring themselves in their habit as theylived--perhaps even lovelier than in reality--amidst their accustomedsurroundings. The pleasure of a modern reader in such tales as theseis enhanced by the light they throw on the household arrangements andcustoms of the gentlefolk of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Itmay be of interest to consider some of these domestic arrangements, asillustrated by stories included in the present volume.
The corporate life of a mediaeval household centered in the hall. Itwas office and dining and billiard room, and was common to gentle andsimple alike. The hall was by far the largest room in the house. Itwas lighted by windows, and warmed by an open fire of logs. The smokedrifted about the roof, escaping finally by the simple means of alantern placed immediately above the hearth. A beaten floor wascovered by rushes and fresh hay, or with rugs in that part affected bythe more important members of the household. The lord himself and hiswife sat in chairs upon a raised daïs. The retainers were seatedon benches around the wall, and before them was spread the diningtable--a mere board upon trestles--which was removed when once themeal was done. After supper, chess and draughts were played, or (aswe may see in "The Lay of the Thorn") minstrels sang ballads and theguest contributed to the general entertainment by the recital of suchjests and adventures as commended themselves to his taste. If the hallmay be considered as the dining room of the mediaeval home, the gardenmight almost be looked upon as the drawing room. You would probablyget more real privacy in the garden than in any other part of thecrowded castle, including the lady's chamber. It is no wonder thatwe read of Guenevere taking Launfal aside for a little privateconversation in her pleasaunce. It was not only the most private,but also the most delightful room in the house--ceiled with blue andcarpeted with green. The garden was laid out elaborately with a perronand many raised seats. Trees stood about the lawn in tubs, and therewas generally a fountain playing in the centre, or possibly a pond,stocked with fish. Fruit trees and flower beds grew thickly about thegarden, and a pleasanter place of perfume and colour and shade itwould be difficult to imagine in the summer heat. The third room ofwhich we hear continually in these romances is the lady's chamber. Itserved the purpose of a boudoir as well as that of a sleeping room,and consequently had little real privacy. It contained the marriagechest with its store of linen, and also the bed. This bed recurseternally in mediæval tales. It was used as a seat during the day, andas a resting-place of nights. It was a magnificent erection, carvedand gilded, and inlaid with ivory. Upon it was placed a mattress offeathers, and a soft pillow. The sheets were of linen or silk, andover all was spread a coverlet of some precious material. An excellentdescription of such a couch is given in "The Lay of Gugemar." Thischamber 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, seeingthemselves reflected from Marie's pages as in a polished mirror, Iam not competent to speak. The type of beauty preferred by the oldromancers was that of a child's princess of fairy tale--blue-eyed,golden-haired, and ruddy of cheek. The lady would wear a shift oflinen, "white as meadow flower." Over this was worn a garment of furor silk, according to the season; and, above all, a vividly colouredgown, all in one line from neck to feet, shapen closely to the figure,or else the more loosely fitting bliaut. Her girdle clipped herclosely about the waist, falling to the hem of her skirt, and her feetwere shod in soundless shoes, without heels. The hair was arranged intwo long braids, brought forward over her shoulders; as worn by thosesmiling Queens wrought upon the western porch of Chartres Cathedral.Out of doors, and, indeed, frequently within, as may be proved by areference to "The Lay of the Ash Tree," the lady was clad in a mantleand a hood. It must have taken a great deal of time and travail toappear so dainty a production. But to become poetry for others, it isnecessary for a woman first to be prose to herself.
I am afraid the raw material of this radiant divinity had much toendure before she suffered her sea change. In mediaeval illustrationswe see the maiden sitting demurely in company, with downcast eyes, andhands folded modestly in her lap. This unnatural restraint was inducedby the lavish compulsion of the rod. If there was one text, above allothers, approved and acted upon by fathers and mothers of the MiddleAges, it was that exhorting parents not to cocker their child, neitherto 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 motherdisciplines her maid. Parents trained their children with blows.Husbands (ah, the audacity of the mediaeval husband) scattered thelike seeds of kindness on their wives. In a book written for theedification of his unmarried daughters, Chaucer's contemporary, theKnight of La Tour Landry, tells the following interesting anecdote.A man had a scolding wife, who railed ungovernably upon him beforestrangers, "and he that was angry of her governance smote her with hisfirst down to the earth; and then with his foot he struck her on thevisage, and broke her nose; and all her life after that she had hernose crooked, the which shent and disfigured her visage after, thatshe might not for shame show her visage, it was so foul blemished. Andthis she had for her evil and great language that she was wont to sayto her husband. And therefore the wife ought to suffer, and let thehusband have the words, and to be master." May I give yet anotherillustration before we pass from the subject. This time it is takennot from a French knight, but from a sermon of the great Italianpreacher, St. Bernardino of Siena. "There are men who can bear morepatiently with a hen that lays a fresh egg every day than with theirown wives; and sometimes when the hen breaks a pipkin or a cup hewill spare it a beating, simply for love of the fresh egg which heis unwilling to lose. Oh, raving madmen! who cannot bear a word fromtheir own wives, though they bear them such fair fruit; but when thewoman 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 givesyou no rest, you take patience with her for the sake of her miserableegg--and sometimes she will break more in your house than she herselfis worth, yet you bear it in patience for the egg's sake. Manyfidgetty fellows, who sometimes see their wives turn out less neat anddainty than they would like, smite them forthwith; and meanwhile thehen 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'sromances are concerned mainly with love. Her talent was not verywide nor rich, and I have no doubt that there were facets of herpersonality which she was unable to get upon paper. The prettiestgirl in the world can only give what she has to give. By the time anyreader reaches the end of this volume he will be assured that thestories are stories of love. Probably he will have noticed also that,in many cases, the lady who inspires the most delicate of sentimentsis, incidentally, a married woman. He may ask why this was so; and inanswer I propose to conclude my paper with a few observations upon thesubject of mediaeval love.
I doubt in my own mind whether romance writers do not exaggerate whatwas certainly a characteristic of the Middle Ages. To be ordinaryis to be uninteresting; and it is obvious that the stranger theexperience, the more likely is it to attract the interest andattention of the hearer. Blessed is the person--as well as thecountry--who has no history. But it was really very difficult forthe twelfth century poet to write a love story, with a maiden as thecentral figure. The noble maiden seldom had a love story. It istrue enough that she was sometimes referred to in the choice of herhusband: two young ladies in "A Story of Beyond the Sea" are bothconsulted in the matter. As a rule, however, her inclination was notpermitted to stand in the way of the interests of her parents orguardians. She was betrothed in childhood, and married very young, formercenary 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 wasno great opportunity for a love story here; and the strange entreaty,on the part of the nameless French poet, to love the maidens for thesake of Christ's love, passed over the heads of the romance writers.Not that the mediæval maidens showed any shrinking from matrimony."Fair daughter, I have given you a husband." "Blessed be God," saidthe damsel. There spoke a contented spirit. Things have changed, andwe can but sigh after the good old times.
But the maiden inevitably became the wife, and the whirligig of Timebrought in his revenges. The lady now found herself the most importantmember of her sex, in a dwelling filled with men. She had few womenabout her person, and the confidant of a great dame in old romance is,frequently enough, her chamberlain. These young men had no chance ofmarriage, and naturally strove to gain the attention of a lady, whosefavour was to them so important a matter. A mediæval knight was thesworn 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 ofabsorbing interest; so she turned to such distractions as presentedthemselves. The prettier a lady, the sweeter the incense and flatteryswung beneath her nose; for this was one of the disadvantages ofmarrying an attractive woman. "It is hard to keep a wife whom everyoneadmires; and if no one admires her it is hard to have to live with heryourself." One of these distractions took the shape of Courts of Love,where the bored but literary chatelaine discussed delicate problems ofconduct pertaining to the heart. The minstrel about the lady's castle,for his part, sought her favourable notice not only by his songs butalso by giving an object lesson of his melancholy condition. One wouldimagine that his proceedings were not always calculated to furthertheir purpose. A famous singer, for instance, in honour of a lady whowas named Lupa, caused himself to be sewn in a wolf's skin, and ranbefore the hounds till he was pulled down, half dead. Another greatminstrel and lover bought a leper's gown and bowl and clapper fromsome afflicted wretch. He mutilated his forefinger, and sat before hislady's door, in the company of a piteous crowd of sick and maimed, toawait her alms. No doubt he trusted that his devotion would procurehim a different kind of charity. From such discussions as these, andfrom conduct such as this, a type of love came into being which waspeculiar to the period. Since the lovers were not bound in the sweetand common union of children and home, since on the side of the ladyall was of grace and nought of debt, they searched out other bands tounite them together. These they found in a system of devotion, silenceand faithfulness, which added a dignity to their relations. Thesevirtues they took so seriously that we find the Chatelaine of Vergidying because she believed her lover to have betrayed her trust. Themediaeval romancer contemplated such unions with joy and pity; butfor all their virtues we must not deceive ourselves with words. Suchhonour was rooted in dishonour, and the measure of their guilt wasthat they debased the moral currency. Presently the greatest of allthe poets of the Middle Ages would arise, to teach a different fashionof devotion. His was a love that sought no communion with its object,neither speech nor embrace. It was sufficient for Dante to contemplateBeatrice 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--willever be possible to men. It did not suffice even to Dante, for allhis tremendous moral muscle. Human love must always and inevitably befounded on a physical basis. But the burning drop of idealism thatDante contributed to the passion of the Middle Ages has made possiblethe love of which we now and again catch a glimpse in the union ofselect natures. And that the seed of such flowering may be carriedabout the world is one of the fairest hopes and possibilities of thehuman race.
EUGENE MASON.
The originals of these narratives are to be found in Roquefort'sedition of the Poésies de Marie de France; in a volume of theNouvelles Françoises en Prose, edited by Moland and D'Héricault; andin M. Gaston Raynaud's text of La Chatelaine de Vergi.