Essay: The Lais

Is This Love?

Love is a complicated emotion. In fact, try as they might, most people cannot give a solid definition as to what love is without falling into a stream of metaphors. The Lais by Marie de France contains twelve stories about people who experience love. However, not every story exhibits a true or healthy love. The purity and strength of love is judged in this collection of stories by the interactions between the main lovers and the representation of women. To be considered an appropriate love, there are a few rules. Love must paramount all other goals; becoming a reason for sacrifice, devotion, and equality in their relationship; but cannot be a reason for harming others. Love may not be a method to achieve another goal. These rules and the way that they are acted upon in The Lais are Marie’s way of expressing what she considers  true love to be.

During Marie de France’s life, love was not commonly acted upon between those of nobility because marriage was usually the result of a diplomatic agreement thus marriage was not usually associated with love. However, times were changing and The Lais became part of the transition as they focus on the importance of love, allowing love to transcend societal obligations, law, time, distance, reality, and marital agreements. This strong priority for love in these stories emphasizes a deep need people have for intimate relationships with others that Marie de France viewed as important. While not all of the lovers in these stories have happy endings, Marie de France emphasized the desire that every person has to be loved.

The story of “Guigemar” is about a man who comes across a ship that takes him to a foreign land where he falls in love with the queen who was locked up in a tower by her jealous husband. “If you can find a loyal love, you should love and serve it faithfully, be at its command. Guigemar was deeply in love; he must either get help quickly or live in misery. So love inspires bravery in him: he reveals his desires to the lady.” (Guigemar 493-500) They spend over a year together before he must leave, whereupon she ties his shirt up in knots, he gives her a chastity belt, then two years later she leaves her husband by boat. She becomes hostage to a man named Meriaduc and thus Guigemar has to fight and destroy him to regain his lover. (pg 30-55) In this story, Guigemar and the queen have a true love. While she was married when they met, no malicious action was ever taken on the husband. When Meriaduc tried to prevent the love however, he met a tragic end as Marie de France, who is an active character in all her stories, points out that true love is number one. While separate, Guigemar and the women remained faithful to each other through the chastity belt and the knotted shirt. Unlike her husband, Guigemar did not force the queen to live his way and so it was a mutual desire for their relationship to act out as it did. Both characters acted upon their love. Guigemar fought Meriaduc for her freedom while she actively refused other male attempts and escaped her husband for love.

Just like Penelope from The Odyssey, some women cannot make up their minds regarding love. “Chaitevel” is a story about a woman who cannot decide who she loves more out of her four suitors. 

“The lady had good sense: she took her time to consider, to find out and to ask which of them would be best to love. They were all of such great merit one could not choose the best.” (Chaitevel 49-54) Because she is unwilling to make a decision, three of them die and the last becomes gravely injured during a tournament. She lost all of them because she could not choose one. (pg 181-188) The men that were fighting for her were dedicated and sacrificed their time for her love. However, since she had all the power to choose who to have, their love was mocked unintentionally. She never made a choice or sacrificed the opportunity to have the others for just one of them and that gamble was too high for her inability to resolve this situation made it so that it had to resolve itself.

Marie de France mentions in “Lanval” that love overrules laws, social etiquette, and duty. Lanval was a great knight who was lonely because he was envied. He ended up meeting a maiden who promised him extreme riches and love as long as she was his secret. However, he ended up spilling his story after Guinevere, King Arthur’s wife, tried to seduce him. “[The queen] fell at [her husband’s] feet, asked his mercy, saying that Lanval had dishonored her; he had asked for her love, and because she refused him he insulted and offended her: he boasted of a love who was so refined and nobel and proud that her chambermaid, the poorest one who served her, was better than the queen.” (Lanval 315-324) King Arthur was not amused and a trial was held, the verdict being release if he had proof but banishment if not. Even though the maiden was under no obligation to help Lanval after he broke his promise, because he broke it due to his love for her, she saved him and stole him away, never to be seen again. (pg 105-123) Lanval chose to remain faithful to his lover rather than keeping her, showing that his love for his maiden was more than just physical or beneficial to him. This sacrifice in combination with his extreme honesty during the trial justifies their love as he does not try to cheat his way out of banishment but rather remains devoted, agreeing to the king’s unjust charges. This story opposes “Chaitevel” in that Lanval makes his choice and sticks to her even though there are several opportunities to back down but the woman in “Chaitevel” loses everything because she is indecisive.

Love is the driving force behind the actions in these stories, whether that love is purely physical or legitimate. In “Equitan”, the king falls in love with his seneschal’s wife because she is very beautiful. She refuses his advances until he gives her complete control in their relationship. “You be the lord and I’ll be the servant — you be the proud one and I’ll be the beggar! The king pleaded with her, begged her so often for mercy, that she promised him her love and granted him possession of her body.” (Equitan 175-180) They were lovers for a while until his seneschal mentions a need for the king to wed. The seneschal’s wife convinces the king to kill her husband so that they can be together but their lust for each other overwhelms them so they ruin their own plan by having sex. They then die the way that they intended the seneschal to, a boiling bath. (pg 60-69) The moral of the story is simple, “Whoever wants to hear some sound advice can profit from this example: he who plans evil for another may have that evil rebound back on him.” (Equitan 307-310) This tale illustrates that while love is considered very important, it must be a true love and there can be no intention of harm. The seneschal was described as very necessary, useful, and loyal to his king. He took care of a plethora of the affairs of the king’s possessions and so the decision to kill him was more unjustifiable than it was to begin with. The seneschal’s wife was obsessed with control and plotted against her husband after her power over the king became at risk. She also was not willing to make the appropriate sacrifice when it was revealed that the king needed a spouse. All of these observations reveal that the two lovers did not have a true love and thus deserved their end.

To show the correct course of action that the seneschal’s wife should have taken in “Equitan”, the next story, “Le Fresne” is about twins who separate at birth and the one that gets abandoned is left at a church where Gurun meets and falls in love with her. They have an affair and live in Gurun’s house until he has to marry La Codre. She then dutifully acts as a servant in his household, “No matter what she saw, it didn’t seem to bother her; she didn’t even seem a bit angry. She waited on the bride-to-be courteously and efficiently. Everybody who saw this thought it a great marvel. Her mother inspected her carefully, and began to love and admire her.” (Le Fresne 376-384) baring no grudges against the couple until it is revealed that she is the sister of La Codre. When the truth is revealed the marriage is annulled so Le Fresne is allowed to marry Gurun. La Codre finds her own man later in life. (pg 73-87) La Fresne was willing to remain Gurun’s mistress when it was deemed that she not marriage material and did so without complaint. This example of self sacrifice shows the extent of her devotions. He gave a lot of money to the abbey that she lived at to receive “Lord’s Rights” to visit then take her home. It is even mentioned that she is the one he wanted to marry and while everyone loved her but they deemed that she was not marriageable and so he had to accept another’s hand. When the seneschal’s wife acted to preserve the power in the affair that they had, she died. When Le Fresne accepted her fate and still remained true to Gurun, she was able to get what she wanted. These stories were told in sequence so that it was easy to view them as ‘what not to do’ and ‘what to do’.

Families always make love complicated. In “Les Deux Amanz”, the king refuses to allow his daughter to marry so he forms a plan that would make it difficult for his daughter to wed. “So he sent word far and near, to this effect: whoever wanted to win his daughter should know one thing for certain: it was decreed and destined that he would have to carry her in his arms to the summit of the mountain outside the city without stopping to rest.” (Les Deux Amanz 32-38) Unfortunately, a count’s son falls in love with the girl so he decides to brave the mountain. She gathers a potion that will give him strength during the climb but he refuses so when he reaches the top, he dies. She dies shortly after from sadness. (pg 126-133) The boy was in love with the girl. This was evident in his conviction to brave the mountain to have the right to marry her. However, he was prideful and wanted to be viewed as magnificent so he chose glory over his love. Her love for him was pure. She did not want to marry only because she did not want to take the risk. When he decided to brave the mountain, she starved herself to lessen his difficulty. After he died from climbing, her sadness was so severe that she also perished. In these regards, their love was not true love because while they both loved each other, he chose pride first.

A woman’s pride comes from her view of her husband. Therefore, when a woman found out a horrible secret about her spouse, the news was so shocking that she became so repulsed that she decided to leave her spouse in “Bisclavret”. The wife learns of the werewolf, “The lady heard this wonder and turned scarlet from fear; she was terrified of the whole adventure. Over and over she considered how she might get rid of him; she never wanted to sleep with him again.” (Bisclavret 97-102) but due to her repulsion, convinces a knight that loves her into stealing her husband’s manhood so she can leave her man. However, the wolf finds the king and wins his favor so that when the traitorous wife and knight come to visit, the king banishes them and the wolf becomes man once more. (pg 92-100) The Baron’s wife did not love the knight but rather used him because she was repulsed by her husband. Furthermore, before she knew the Baron’s secret, she loved him. Because of her frivolity in love, she and all of her daughters lived their lives without noses in exile. It was found in learning the truth that her devotions towards her husband were only skin-deep so she chose the knight as a new partner because he was easy to manipulate and fully man. The Baron’s wife did not love.

When is it justifiable to murder your husband when you love someone else? Apparently, they must be the cause of the lovers’ downfall. In “Yonec” a woman is locked up by her husband so she wishes for a lover and one appears. “Now she would rather remain here than look for pleasure elsewhere. She wanted to see her love all the time and enjoy herself with him. As soon as her lord departed, night or day, early or late, she had him all to her pleasure.” (Yonec 217-223) However, she lacked moderation in summoning him so they were discovered and he died. The woman made her husband forget the ordeal and gave birth to her bastard, Yonec. When he was grown, she told him the truth of his birth as she was told to by her lover’s prophecy then promptly died. Yonec beheaded his stepfather, becoming lord. (pg 137-152) The woman loved her knight but she forgot to be careful so she caused his death. In dying, he told her how his revenge would be brought about and it happened as he promised because their love was true. Yonec was willing to avenge the death of his true father because he realized, “…the pain and the grief that they suffered for love.” (Yonec 553-554) The knight sacrificed his life for the woman and she dutifully followed his words until she was finally able to join with him once more.

Love is very patient in “Milun”. In the story, a knight falls in love with the daughter of a nobel man. She gets pregnant, the child is given to her sister, the knight leaves for fame, she gets married off, and then he returns to find out that they are now neighbors. They spend twenty years sending secret messages to each other through a swan until there is a rival for the knight’s abilities in tournaments, ‘The Peerless One’. The knight goes off to fight him and discovers that ‘The Peerless One’ is the knight’s son. “Milun told his son how he loved the boy’s mother, and how her father had given her to a baron of that region, and how he had continued loving her, and she him, with all her heart, and how he used the swan as a messenger, having the bird carry his letters, since he couldn’t trust anyone else.” (Milun 490-498) They decide to kill the woman’s husband so that they can be reunited as a family only to discover his death upon their return. (pg 162-177) The knight and the woman are both really dedicated to each other as is shown by their long term devotion. The decision to kill the husband so that they could be reunited as a family is not considered negatory in this circumstance because his death was not caused by them nor was it to be done with malice or for the purpose of ‘winning’. If the knight was malicious enough to force their love to elope then he would have used his skills and done so long ago instead of waiting until he found his son.

What does it mean to truly love someone? In “Laustic”, a man loves his neighbors’s wife and she feels the same. They would meet at the windows of their houses to talk, give each other gifts, and admire their physique. When the husband becomes irritable due to her constant presence at the window, he traps the nightingale whom he believes is the reason for her nightly absences. “She asked her lord for the bird but he killed it out of spite, he broke its neck in his hands — too vicious an act — and threw the body on the the lady; her shift was stained with blood, a little, on her breast.” (Laustic 113-119) When she lost her reason to visit the window, she let her love know by giving him the dead bird and he kept it with him forever. (pg 155-159) The husband was the one stopping their love from becoming anything more or allowing it to continue. However, no action is taken on the husband for being an obstacle in their love because he never directly prevented it. This proves that their love was pure and that they were both willing to sacrifice the ability to be together to continue a greater devotion. When the man kept the bird in the end, it was his way of remaining faithful to a love he could never materialize.

“Chevrefoil” is very similar to “Laustic” in that the main character does not get the woman because the timing and the other characters made it so. Tristam loves the king’s wife so he is banished. However, when the queen travels to attend a feast, he attempts to make himself known to her on a hazel branch.“If the queen noticed it — and she should be on the watch for it, for it 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.” (Chevrefoil 55-60) She detected the wood and stops her travels to find him in the woods whereupon they have a short conversation about how Tristam can win the affections of the king again but it ends with them parting ways. (pg 190-193) The love that Tristam and the queen have is bittersweet. Their love is true but their circumstances fail to allow fruition because neither of them have the opportunity to act upon that love. In this way, their love is not the most important value to either of them and this is shown more clearly when they reunited because they spent their time discussing how to win the king’s favor instead of rejoicing in their love.

As long as everyone accepts a sin made through love then it does not matter that the sin was made. In fact, sometimes the spouse that prevents the union from occurring, such as the king in ‘Chevrefoil,’ may support true love. This lesson was in “Eliduc” whereupon a man is slandered and thus banished so he goes on a trip to a foreign land and falls in love with a woman even though he promised his wife that he would not. The woman, Guilliadun, loves him too but she does not know that he is married. “They made their pledges to each other; they spoke no more that time. Eliduc went to his lodging; he was filled with joy, he had done well. He was often able to speak to his love, there was great affection between them.” (Eliduc 537-542) They pursue a courtly love and after a year he returns home because the king needs his services. He decides to go back and retrieve Guilliadun but on the way home she learns of his marriage and faints dead. His wife, Guideluec, learns of his lover and witnesses resurrecting weasels so she revives Guilliadun. Eliduc learns of his love’s awakening and rejoices. Guideluec sees his love for the girl and decides to join a covent as a nun so that they can be wed. After several years of marriage, Eliduc and Guilliadun join the church as well. (pg 196-229) Guilliadun and Guideluec both had true love for Eliduc. Guilliadun showed her devotion but allowed Eliduc to not act upon it during their year together. When she learned of his betrayal, she died. Guideluec sacrificed her rights to her husband when she learned of his love of another. She viewed love as such an important part of life that when she was no longer the love of her husband’s life, she let him go. Eliduc on the other hand, followed the example of “Chaitevel” a little too strongly. He spent a year trying to decide if he loved his mistress or his wife more. After he lost his mistress, he decided that he loved her more but it was too late. If it was not for the graces of his wife, he would have had a melancholy existence. However, his love for Guilliadun was indeed true even if it did take him a while to realize so their lives were happy. Also the conflicts revolving around their Christianity for engaging in this behavior was further relieved when they eventually turned away from human love to God, which in Marie de France’s opinion, resolved all conflicts.

Everyone experiences love in a different way with different people. Sometimes this love is purely physical, other times platonic. Love is not limited to circumstances, distance, or law. Marie de France emphasized the importance of all kinds of love and the roles that they contribute in society in The Lais. While there are many different ways of representing love, a healthy love, a true love, a justifiable love must be mutual, be devoid of hate, have acts of devotion, and must rise above the circumstances that it is limited in. The twelves lais written in this piece of literature show examples of loves that fail, but more importantly, of love that succeeds.

If the lais are looked at statistically half of the lais end in tragedy whilst the other half end well for the lovers. Guigemar, Le Fresne, Lanval, Yonec, Milun, as well as Eliduc all end well for the lovers while Equitan, Bisclavret, Les Deux Amanz, Laustic, Chaitivel, and Chevrefoil end poorly. The order that the lais were written in is an every-other pattern: good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, good, bad, bad, good. Furthermore, many of the stories in the lais are the same but how the lovers reacted to their situations determined their fate. This was done purposefully as Marie de France emphasized what true love is, how it should be expressed, and the limitations on what is proper for someone to do if they truly were in love. For example, self sacrifice is a legitimate way to show your love but murdering the people that are situational obstacles that hold no resentment is not.

During this time in life, love was finally becoming an important part of life. Marie de France used her stories to express this upcoming importance but also to warn of infatuations, lust, and poor behavior. Love is beautiful and this collection of stories, no matter the result for the individual characters, is about its divine mystery and how wonderful it is to experience love.

Works Cited

De France, Marie. The Lais of Marie De France. Trans. Robert W. Hanning and Joan M. Ferrante. New York: Dutton, 1978. Print.