A metrical study of five ‘lais’ of Marie de France 9783111655284, 9789027978066

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DE PROPRIETATIBUS LITTERARUM

edenda curat C. H. VAN SCHOONEVELD

Indiana University Series Practica, 85

KATHARINE W. LE MÉE

A METRICAL STUDY OF FIVE LAIS OF MARIE DE FRANCE

MOUTON PUBLISHERS THE HAGUE • PARIS • NEW YORK

ISBN 90 279 7806 9 © Copyright 1978 Mouton Publishers, The Hague No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers Printed in Germany

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

At the outset I would like gratefully to acknowledge the help of the following persons: Professor Robert Austerlitz who, with great generosity and good cheer, has given his expert advice to every aspect of this work; Professor Lawton P. G. Peckham and Professor Donald Frame who carefully read and checked the manuscript and offered useful suggestions on the development of the project; the late Professor Elliot V. K. Dobbie who advised in the preparation of the phonetic text. I wish also to thank the members of my family and especially my uncle, Mr. John M. Heath, for their continued interest and support throughout the years of my formal education. My husband, Dr. Jean Le Mee, has helped immeasurably to keep the spark of this project lighted and has taught me how to work.

ANALYTIC TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction I. Background on Marie de France and the Texts being used 1. The Identity of Marie de France 2. Marie's Literary Works 3. Dating and Chronology of the Works 4. The Lai - Its Content and Form 5. Plot Summaries of the Lais of the Corpus 6. The Phonetic Transcription II. Investigation of Stress Patterns 0. Introductory Résumé 1. Procedure for Marking Stress 2. Description of Line Patterns of Stress 3. The Concept of Meter 4. Simplification of Stress Patterns 5. Description of the Inner Structure of the Poetic Line 6. Stress Information 7. The Information Content of Stress Patterns III. 0. 1. 2. 3. 4. IV.

Investigation of Word Length Introductory Résumé Identification of Words Description of Line Patterns of Word Length Meter as Revealed in Word Length Caesura

Sounds and Rhyme 1. Rhyme Types 2. Repetition of Sounds Within the Line 3. Grammatical Category of Rhyming Words

1 . . . .

9 9 11 11 12 15 23 35 35 37 47 49 58 61 73 76 87 87 89 91 100 100 107 107 110 .111

V.

Grammatical Structure 1. Sentence Types 2. Sentence - Line Coincidence 3. Inner Structure of the Sentence Narrative Structure 1. Arithmetical Symmetry in "Les Deus Amanz" and "Laiistic" . 2. Narrative Devices

115 115 117 118

VI.

VII. 1. 2. 3.

.

The Relationship of Form and Meaning Stress Word Length Syntax and Grammar

VIII. Conclusions

127 127 131 139 139 151 155 161

Appendices A. Phonetic Transcription of "Laiistic" with Stress and Word Length Patterns B. Line Patterns of Stress C. P a r t i . Line Patterns of Word Length Part 2. Frequency of Occurrence of Word Types at Various Positions in the Line D. P a r t i . Grammatical Analysis of "Laiistic" Part 2. Sentence Types Found in "Laiistic" and "Les Deus Amanz" E. Part 1. Data for Figure VI-1 : Alternance of Narrative Device by Position in "Laiistic" and "Les Deus Amanz" Part 2. Sentences of "Laiistic" and "Les Deus Amanz": Grammatical Complexity and Narrative Category F. Colon Patterns, Relative Frequency, and Information Content of the Line of "Laiistic" and "Les Deus Amanz" Bibliography

- Editions of Marie's Works General Bibliography

165 169 171 175 177 182 183 185 190 199 199

LIST OF TABLES

Table II - 1

Possible Stress Patterns for Single Words in Old French

II - II

Frequency of Occurrence of Stress in the Eight Syllabic

. . .

42

Positions of the Line

54

II-III

"Chevrefoil" Sequence of Stress Patterns

64

II-IV

"Laiistic" Sequence of Stress Patterns

65

II - V

Metrical Information of Stress Patterns

77

VI -1

Explanation of the Content of the Narrative Sections of "Laüstic" and "Les Deus Amanz"

137

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure II-1

Frequency of Occurrence of Stress in the Eight Syllabic Positions of the Line - Five Lais Taken Separately

. . . .

55

II-2

Meter as Seen in Stress

57

II-3

"Laüstic" Pattern Sequence Within the Line

67

II-4

"Laüstic" Pattern Sequence in Enjambement

68

II-5

"Laüstic" Pattern Sequence: Total

69

"Chevrefoil" Pattern Sequence Wihtin the Line

70

II-7

"Chevrefoil" Pattern Sequence in Enjambement

71

II-8

"Chevrefoil" Pattern Sequence: Total

72

III-l

Frequency of Occurrence of Word Types Ending at Given Syllabic Positions

93

III-2

Frequency of Occurrence of Word Types in All Syllabic Positions

95

Frequency of Occurrence of Monosyllables Occupying Given Syllabic Positions

96

Frequency of Occurrence of Bisyllables Occupying Given Syllabic Positions

96

Frequency of Occurrence of Trisyllables Occupying Given Syllabic Positions

97

II-6

III-3

III-4

III-5

'

III-6

III-7

III-8

VI-1

Frequency of Occurrence of Tetrasyllables Occupying Given Syllabic Positions

98

Frequency of Occurrence of Pentasyllables Occupying Given Syllabic Positions

98

Frequency of Occurrence of Word Types Occupying Given Syllabic Positions (Meter as Seen in Word Length)

99

Alternance of Narrative Device by Position "Laustic" and "Les Deus Amanz"

134

Percentage of "Les Deus Amanz" and "Laustic" Devoted to Narrative Categories

135

VII-1

Sentence Complexity vs. Narrative Category

157

VII-2

Percentage of Sentences of Each Narrative Category Expressed with Various Sentence Types

158

VI-2

LIST OF CHARTS

Chart I-A

Francien Consonants and Their Latin Sources

28

I-B

Francien Vowels and Their Latin Sources

31

II-A

Constituent Patterns of Colon I and Colon II

62

III-A

Type of Word Present at Syllabic Positions 4 and 5 a

IV-A

Rhyme Types Present in C, D, A, and L

108

V-A

Résumé of Syntactical Data

121

V-B

"Laustic", Word Length and Grammatical Patterns Most Frequently Associated with Colon Patterns of Stress . . . .

124

. . . .

103

VI-A

Narrative Structure of "Les Deus Amanz" and "Laustic"

.

.

129

VI-B

Narrative Sections of "Laustic" and "Les Deus Amanz" .

.

.

136

VII-A

Three Most Frequent Colon Patterns in Each Narrative Section

VII-B

Average Stress Information Content of Narrative Sections

143/ 144

VII-C

Average Relative Frequency of Narrative Sections .

145/146

VII-D

Average Amount of Metrical Information per Narrative Category

.

.

141

150

INTRODUCTION

This work is a metrical study of five of the Lais of Marie de France. In the present introduction we shall give the reader a broad outline of the various aspects of this investigation; in particular, we shall summarize the basic assumptions and procedures used. Much of the structural unity of poetry is the result of the total or partial repetiton of many different types of patterns. In our study of Old French poetry we notice that, traditionally, the attention of metricians has been drawn primarily to rhyme and to the number of syllables in the line, often to the apparent neglect of other linguistic elements which may also reveal patterning. By contrast, our own interest began with a focus on the rhythmical patterns in Old French which derive from the presence of the stress accent, an accent which has largely been lost in the modern spoken language. Another area of interest, seemingly also neglected in the past, is the freer word order characteristic of the older language and the resultant variety of possible syntactic patterns which can thus occur in it. There is a tendency today to regard Old French poems as texts to be read silently — a procedure probably not in keeping with the original intent of their authors. We have long been fascinated will all oral presentations of these early works which we have been fortunate enough to hear.l Recited aloud, the poems gain a quite startling vitality which is often not fully appreciated by contemporary students. It is, therefore, primarily our interest in the sound of Old French which prompts us to choose this language in particular for our metrical study. In this work, a framework for metrical study much broader than those generally adopted in poetics is used. Here, any regularly-recurring, quantifiable aspect of formal structure is considered as subject for metrical investigation. This method of approaching a poetic work, suggested by Robert Austerlitz, is explained in his Ob-Ugric Metrics as follows:

1. Lectures on Old French literature given at Columbia University by Professors Peckham and Pei; the recording: Medieval Romance Poetry - A Survey of Medieval Romance Literatures by Dr. Mario Pei (New York: Folkways Records, 1961).

2 Metrical analysis includes all the procedures involved in the segmentation of a text into its constituent units, the description and classification of these segments, the description of their inner structure, and, finally, the application of quantitative criteria to them. Metrical analysis should thus reveal the structure of a given type of poetry and account for the various constituent factors which participate in shaping it.2

We are therefore not confined specifically to an investigation of rhyme or to a syllable count, which can be quickly accomplished in the case of the Lais, since they provide an exceedingly consistent example of octosyllabic couplets always having the rhyme scheme AA, BB, CC, etc. Instead, we turn our attention as well to the regular, patterned occurrence of certain other linguistic forms: (1) stressed syllables, for example -dis in jadis\ (2) mono-, bi-, tri-, tetra-, or pentasyllabic words such as le, nume, ensemble, espleiterent, and escriereient; (3) specific sounds such as [s] recurring not only in rhyme position but within the line; (4) grammatical forms seen, for example, in the infinitive chacier or the past participle escrit; and (5) syntactic units such as the prepositional phrase en la cuntre. To a limited extent it has been possible, also, to extend the analysis to the level of the sentence and, finally, even to the point of observing the recurrence of certain narrative categories. The purpose of our work is therefore first to identify, describe, and quantify the constituent patterns of the lais of our corpus and, second, th investigate, in so far as possible, their relationship to the meaning of the poem. It will be seen that, due to the nature of the obtainable data, the degree of precision possible at each level of analysis varies considerably: in the case of stress accentuation, we work with only two possibilities, either stressed or unstressed syllables, and patterns are therefore quite easy to see. However, when the analysis proceeds to word length (Chapter III), the units contributing to patterns are five in number, since words of one to five syllables appear in our corpus and, consequently, the number of possible patterns is greatly increased. On the level of grammar (Chapter V), the number of items which participate in patterns is at least twelve (noun, finite verb, conjunction, adverb, etc.) while the number of sounds and sound combinations recurring in rhyme position and within the line is extremely large, being limited only by the phonemic make-up of Old French itself and by the positional and sequential restrictions obtaining within this language. Because the data provided at the levels of stress accentuation and word length prove to be the most manageable, we shall choose them to illustrate the concept of meter. As will be seen in the discussions of this question (Chapter II, Section 3; Chapter III, Section 3), we begin from the 1154-line corpus comprising the poems "Chevrefoil", "Les Deus Amanz", "Laiistic", 2. Robert Austerlitz, Ob-Ugric Metrics - The Metrical Structure of Ostyak and Vogul Folk Poetry (Helsinki: Helsingin Liikekirjapaino Oy, 1958), 26.

3 "Equitan", and "Bisclavret", and, specifically, from the patterns of either stress or word length seen in each individual line. Once these patterns are clearly established, we determine, by counting, exactly what linguistic feature or form (stress or its absence; mono-, bi-, tri-, tetra-, or pentasyllabic word) is most frequently found at each syllabic position of the poetic line. In the initial part of our analysis, the study of stress accentuation, each of the five poems of the corpus is treated separately, since there is, a priori, little reason, other than that provided by the octosyllabic form and the rhyme pattern common to each, to make us believe that they should necessarily be considered together as a single corpus. Recently in Recherches sur les oeuvres attribuées à Marie de France3 Richard Baum has even expressed doubt concerning the common authorship of the Lais. Once we establish that the same tendencies toward the presence or absence of stress at specific positions within the poetic line pertain to all five poems, we proceed to determine the most probable line pattern for the entire corpus. It is important to note here that this pattern which is abstracted from the entire corpus, and which we will define as meter with reference to stress, is not the most frequent pattern occurring in the corpus. It might not, in fact, occur even once by itself in a poetic line. It is, rather, an underlying framework, a matrix to which the individual lines may be compared. In some types of verse, notably ballads and children's rhymes, there is, practically speaking, very little difference between this underlying meter and its actualization in the poetic line. The result, therefore, sounds stereotyped and trite and contains virtually no surprise element. However, in many literary works, including the one at hand, the meter is not actualized in any rigid manner. It is precisely in the tension created between the meter and its actualization that much of the technical ability and finesse of the poet is revealed. Our study is limited to meter as it may be determined from five lais of Marie de France. We have been led to examine only a limited corpus in considerable detail rather than to attempt a superficial examination of the works of several authors, or even of those of Marie de France herself. This restriction came about not necessarily by preference but, rather, because of the practical necessity of confining the scope of this work. The method here proposed could, however, be applied elsewhere for the purpose of obtaining a precise description either of the works of a single author or of a whole literary genre, in this case the Old French lai which may, as Baum points out, 4 be, thus far, very ill-defined. 3. Richard Baum, Recherches sur les oeuvres attribuées à Marie de France (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitàtsverlag, 1968), 58. 4. Recherches sur les oeuvres attribuées à Marie de France (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitàtsverlag, 1968), 218.

4 The Ewert edition of the Lais of Marie de France 5 was selected primarily because it is both easily accessible and, at the same time, faithful to the best manuscript of the work. It seems that a metrical study, with its emphasis on the more common, less consciously-fashioned aspects of the text, might usefully complement the stylistic analysis already performed on the Lais by Barbara Brookes. 6 Our choice of five out of twelve lais was governed by the relative brevity of these texts. Throughout this study we attempt to base our investigation on the text itself rather than on any a priori notions entertained about it. This assertion — that we are guided primarily by the text — must, however, be stated with certain reservations; the patterns found are not, of themselves, inherent in the poetic lines but are, rather, the result of assumptions and definitions made at the beginning of the analysis. Practically speaking, this means that one metrician's way of looking at the phenomenon of stress or word length or grammar may be very different from that of another. In any event, the metrician working in this framework will se no more than what is implied in his initial assumptions and definitions. The matter of importance, then, is the relevance and generality of his basic premises and the pertinence and fruitfulness of his observations and their explanation. Therefore, in our presentation of meter as seen in stress accentuation, it is not the fact that we find 78 patterns while someone else might see 70 or 200 that is important, but, rather, the fact that we have established an economical, precise, and simple method of accounting for the data which we have obtained. Realizing that, in every case, our conclusions will be no more valid than the data from which they are taken, we have exercised great care in the transcription of the texts, in the marking of stress accentuation and word boundaries, and in the determination and indication of grammatical and narrative categories. Chapter I, Section 6, describes in detail the method used for reconstructing the phonetic text, a representative sample of which is given in Appendix A: we etymologize each word as far as Late Latin and then project it forward into the Francien of the twelfth century according to rules of phonetic development found primarily in M. K. Pope 7 . The completed transcription then serves as a guide in reading the lais aloud and forms the basis of Chapter IV, "Sounds and Rhyme", where we speak of patterns of sound. Regarding stress accentuation, various authors disagree as to its placement

5. Marie de France, Lais, ed. by Alfred Ewert (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965). 6. Barbara Brookes, "A Method of Stylistic Study Applied to the Lais of Marie de France", (unpublished Ph. D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1967). 7. M. K. Pope, From Latin to Modem French (Manchester: The University Press, 1952).

5 and function in the poetic line. Georges Lote, referring primarily to poems which were sung and accompanied by modal music, would give accentual prominence only to the syllables preceding the caesura and ending the line, other syllables being unstressed: [ le vers français ancien] ignore les crêtes toniques que nous appelons aujourd'hui accents rhythmiques, et il ne comporte que deux points d'appui, toujours les mêmes, la césure et la rime, qui soutiennent les autres syllables, celles-ci possédant toutes la même valeur atone. Il court sans arrêt, jusqu'aux repos fixes qui l'attendent, sans tenir compte du sens, sans tenir compte non plus de ces brisures qui marquent aujourd'hui nos ponctuations modernes, et qui doivent être considérées comme des licences, plus ou moins nombreuses selon que la forme du poète est plus or moins châtiée. On peut observer que certains poèmes, ou certains passages, en deviennent inintelligibles.® Other authors, notably Dragonetti, Jenkins, and, more recently, Van der Werf and Clarkson, 9 have upheld the free placement of the stress accent within the line. Their position is summarized by Kastner when he speaks of French verse in general:

8. Georges Lote, Histoire du vers français, Tome II (Paris: Boivin, 1951), 346. 9. Roger Dragonetti (La Technique poétique des trouvères dans la chanson courtoise [ Brugge, België: "De Tempel", 1960J, 458-483), after a detailed refutation of the position of Lote, concludes on page 483 as follows: "Ainsi, dans le cadre des conceptions du XII e et du XIII e siècles, le vers rhythmique est techniquement constitué par un nombre déterminé de syllables, l'homophonie ou la rime et l'accent d'intensité dont nous examinerons dans la suite les diverses fonctions." T. Atkinson Jenkins (La Chanson de Roland, rev. ed. [Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1924], cxxxix), in speaking of the early Old French of the Roland, adds: "There is always, therefore, a fixed tonic accent at the fourth syllable, and another at the tenth; aside from these, the arrangement of tonics is entirely free, the rhythm varying from line to line, at the will of the poet". Hendrik Jan Van der Werf, in "The Chansons of the Trouvères: A Study in Rhythmic and Melodic Analysis" (Ph. D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1964, 78), maintains that modal music did not imply a fixed, rigid placement of stress in the text: "The one point of view which seems to have been insufficiently explored is the observation that the chansons are first and foremost poems; in regard to their rhythm it must be remembered that only the number of syllables, the rhyme and, sometimes, the caesura were fixed; for the rest, primary word accents could come anywhere and the accentuation of a verse differed from stanza to stanza. Certainly these poems were sung, performed, or recited to a certain melody, but, in full accordance with the nature of both poem and melody, the chansons were performed in such a way that the text could receive full attention. Therefore, the normal rhythm for the performance of trouvère chansons is a free rhythm, or better a declamatory rhythm, governed by the text." Austin Clarkson's "On the Nature of Medieval Song: The Declamation of Plainsong and the Lyric Structure of the Fourteenth-Century Motet" (unpublished PH. D. dissertation, Columbia University, 1970, 216-217) summarizes and gives further assent to the opinion of Dragonetti.

6 Yet French verse is in a measure accentual in so far as the last sounded syllable of the line must be a stressed syllable, as also the last sounded syllable immediately preceding the cesural pause. The place of the other accents, however, is free, and it is largely to this freedom in the disposition of the accents, other than at the cesura and at the end of the line, that French versification owes one of its chief advantages - the multiplicity of possible rhythmical periods and combinations. 10

In fact, Lote himself compromises his position with regard to the rigid placement of accents by stating that certain poetic works dating from the end of the twelfth century were probably spoken or declaimed and were, therefore, not under the restrictions which apply to poems that are sung: Mais l'autre hypothèse, tout aussi admissible, consiste à supposer que, dès l'époque où apparaît la musique modale, la séparation entre la déclamation pure et le chant, qui est déjà faite, présente assez de solidité pour que la diction non accompagnée de mélodie résiste à la contagion. C'est à partir de Chrétien de Troyes, selon G. Paris, c'est-à-dire depuis le dernier quart du XII e siècle environ, que la poésie a commencé à pouvoir se passer du concours de la musique. "Les romans bretons, a-t-il écrit, sont destinés à être lus et non à être chantés."! 1

For our part, we would surmise that the lais, written at approximately the same time as the romans of Chrétien, were spoken or recited by the wandering trouvères. This does not mean that they could not also have been sung, although, up to the present time, no accompanying music has been found. Our assumption does, however, permit us to transcribe and accentuate the words of the lais in accordance with the rules pertaining to the spoken language. The study of word length (Chapter III) is based on the initial statement that words are graphic units separated by a space in the written text. They are, in most cases, unambiguously identified, since they are clearly separated from each other in the manuscript copies of the lais. In determining how the text should be segmented, we tried at first to read the lais aloud in the hope of discovering whether there was a caesura and, if so, where and under what circumstances it would occur. Finding these attempts largely unsuccessful, we then decided to find a more objective criterion for determining caesura, a method based on the words of the lais themselves and their respective positions in the poetic lines. Chapter III, Section 4, describes this procedure. Thereupon, our investigation of textual segmentation moves on first to rhyme patterns and then to the various types of sentence and their coincidence with the poetic line. An investigation of the organization of the three principal elements of the sentence (Subject, Verb, and Complement) and of the gram10. L. E. Kastner, A History of French Versification (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1903), p. B. 11. Lote, Histoire du vers français, 161. The term lus is taken here to mean 'read aloud', to an audience or to oneself.

7 matical parts of speech which comprise them completes our purely formal description of the lais. At every successive level, the attempt is the same: to identify, describe, and quantify recurring patterns. Our investigation of the relationship of form and meaning was guided by two basic questions: (1) In the case of stress accentuation, do stress patterns in any way strengthen the meaning conveyed by the text, tending, for example, to be metrically striking, i.e., deviating greatly from the established meter, at moments of high emotion in the story? (2) Can any consistent relationship between metrical pattern and meaning be found at any level of the analysis? We had not progressed very far in our attempts to associate stress patterns and word length patterns with plot situations before realizing that, whereas these patterns could be most easily and clearly described, it was quite another matter to relate them to these plot situations in the lais; we were, in a sense, attempting to predict the cathedral from its hewn stones. It was clearly evident that we had first to determine a unit of narrative meaning which could be consistently identified and then relate to it stress and word length patterns. Having a clear and more objective idea of the kind of meaning we were attempting to associate with the stress and word length patterns, it became possible to continue the analysis. We had previously noticed certain superficial resemblances between the plots of "Laiistic" and "Les Deus Amanz". Further investigation, inspired by C. A. Robson's analysis of the arithmetical structure of "Les Deus Amanz",12 led us to attempt a similar analysis of "Laiistic" and, finally, to point out the striking similarity of narrative structure in both (Chapter VI). We were able to see the presence of certain narrative devices occurring in the same sequential order in both "Laiistic" and "Les Deus Amanz". These provided the units of narrative meaning which we sought. Chapter VII relates stress, word length, and sentence type to these narrative categories and gives our conclusions concerning the relationship of form and meaning as identified here. We now begin the body of the text with a chapter on Marie de France and the texts which we have used for this investigation. Since questions about Marie herself and about the lai as a literary genre are extensively treated in introductions to the various editions of her work listed in the bibliography, it seems unnecessary to recapitulate any more than the most salient points here. The chapter begins with general information intended to orient the reader toward this author and her works. It concludes with a more technical description of the way in which we have attempted to transcribe her dialect.

12. C. A. Robson, "The Technique of Symmetrical Composition in Medieval Narrative Poetry", Studies in Medieval French presented to Alfred E. Ewert in Honor of His Seventieth Birthday (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 26-70.

I

BACKGROUND ON MARIE D E F R A N C E A N D THE TEXTS BEING USED

1. THE IDENTITY OF MARIE DE FRANCE The exact identity o f the twelfth-century writer o f the Lais, the Fables, and the Espurgatoire Seint Patriz remains a mystery in spite o f numerous scholarly attempts t o solve the problem. 1 Contrary to the practice o f most medieval writers, Marie did sign all three works. Lines 3 and 4 o f the lai "Guigemar" show her calling attention to the importance o f her ideas: Oez, seignurs, ke dit Marie Ki en sun tens pas ne s'oblie.2 At the end o f the Espurgatoire task just completed:

(11. 2 2 9 7 - 2 3 0 0 ) she identifies herself with the

Jo, Marie, ai mis en memoire Le livre de 1'Espurgatoire: En Romanz, qu'il seit entendables A laie gent e cuvenables. In line 4 o f the Epiloque to the Fables she writes: Marie ai nun, si sui de France.

1. J. C. Fox, "Marie de France", English Historical Review, 1910, XXV, 303 ff.; U. T. Holmes, "New Thoughts on Marie de France", Studies in Philology, t. 29, 1932, 1-10, and History of Old French Literature (New York: Crofts, 1937); R. D. Whichard, "A Note on the Identity of Marie de France", Romance Studies presented to William Morton Day (Chapel Hill, 1950), 177-181;and Baum,Recherches. 2. All quotations from Marie's works are, unless otherwise noted, taken from the following editions: Alfred Ewert, ed. Marie de France, 'Lais' (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965); Alfred Ewert and R. C. Johnston, eds., Marie de France, 'Fables' (Oxford Basil Blackwell, 1942); Thomas Atkinson Jenkins, ed., L'Espurgatoire Seint Patriz (Philadelphia: Press of Alfred J. Ferris, 1894). This book was completed in 1971 and does not include further research on Marie de France which may have appeared since that time.

10 Basing their reasoning on this quotation, all critics agree that the lady in question was not in her native country during her writing career. The words si sui de France serve to distinguish her from other writers who also bore the name of Marie. The full appellation Marie de France was given to this author in 1581 by Claude Fauchet, an influential literary historian. There is general agreement also that Marie's country of exile was England. Evidence for this is provided in several ways mentioned by Ewert in his introduction to the Lais:3 (1) Marie states in the Epiloque to the Fables (1. 12) that she translated them from English into French at the request of a count bearing the English name Willame. This presupposes a precise knowledge of English; (2) English names and placenames are frequent both in the Lais and in the Fables; (3) there is a reference to France as teres de la in the lai called "Milun", line 332. Evident in Marie's work is her familiarity with royalty. The Lais are dedicated to a king and themselves reflect courtly pastimes and interests: the fondness for a test of strength seen in "Les Deus Amanz", fascination for the malwanee-husband-lover triangle treated in "Laiistic" and "Equitan", superstitious belief in the power of animals found in "Bisclavret". Marie was obviously a woman of great intellectual capacities and was fully aware of her own talents. In the Prologue to the Lais (11. 1-4) she speaks, as did many other medieval writers, of the responsibility of those having an education not to hide their light: Ki Deus ad dune esci'ence E de parlei bon' eloquence Ne s'en deit taisir ne celer, Ainz se deit volunters mustrer.

In lines 23-25 of the same Prologue she declares that those able to do so should write both for the edification of others and, also, to keep themselves out of mischief: Ki de vice se volt defendre Estudi'er deit e entendre E grcvos' ovre comencier:

The fact that Marie knew (11. 28-30) where she toys a story taken from Latin, translate the Espurgatoire

3. Ewert, Lais, v and vi.

Latin very well issues from the Prologue to the Lais with the idea of composing in Romance vernacular and also, later in her career when she actually does from a Latin original. Ernest Hoepffner, in his intro-

11 duction to the La/s, 4 speaks of Marie's cultural background and her familiarity with Priscian, Ovid, the Brut of Wace, the Roman de Thèbes and the Roman d'Eneas.

2. MARIE'S LITERARY WORKS

The three extant literary works of Marie de France, though sharing a common poetic form, are nevertheless totally different from each other in content and intent. The Lais form part of the body of courtly literature having love, its adventures and intrigues, as principal subject. For these twelve short stories in verse form Marie adapted the events and situations sung and recounted by wandering jongleurs of the twelfth century. Her express purpose in writing was to give fixed form to what she had heard, to preserve it for posterity (Prologue to the Lais, 11. 39-40) and, in so doing, to present a worthy gift to the king (Prologue 11.43-56). The Fables is a less original work since Marie, in her own words (Epilogue to the Fables, 11. 11-12) was translating de I'engleis en romanz, i.e. from English into Old French. The exact sources for all 103 fables have not been found. Marie herself mentions (Prologue to the Fables, 1.12) familiarity with the translations of Aesop's fables made by a certain "Emperor" Romulus, who had no legitimate claim to royalty. It is certain that Marie borrowed heavily from the Romulus fables and that, in addition, she drew from popular fabliaux and from the Renart stories. Her stated purpose for writing the Fables is not merely entertainment as was the case for the Lais, but principally to give her listeners practical lessons in moral guidance in order that they mend their ways (Prologue, 11. 7-10). The Espurgatoire Seint Patriz tells the story of the voyage of the knight Owein through Saint Patrick's purgatory, hell and paradise. It is from Henry of Saltrey's Tractatus de purgatorio Sanctii Patricii that Marie translates, rendering its lines from Latin into Old French. Her purpose is didactic: to teach the common people, in a language they understand, that the quality of a Christian's afterlife depends directly on his moral conduct during this life.

3. DATING AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE WORKS

There is little doubt that Marie de France wrote during the latter half of the twelfth century. However, the exact date of each of her works has not yet been precisely established and editors are not in agreement concerning the chronological order of their composition. J. Lods, A. Ewert, and J. 4.

Ernest Hoepffner, Les Lais de Marie de France (Paris: Boivin & C' e , 1935), 52-53.

12 Rychner 5 , three recent editors, favor placing the Lais first, between 1160 and 1170, the Fables somewhat later, and the Espurgatoire shortly after 1189. Here again R. Baum's opinion 6 differs from that of other editors. He would place the date of the Espurgatoire at the beginning of the thirteenth century, thereby presuming a much longer period of literary activity for this author. It is possible, in dating the Lais, to use evidence provided by other twelfthcentury literary works. E. Hoepffner 7 mentions that Marie was influenced by the Brut of Wace which was completed in 1155; J. Rychner 8 makes the same assertion concerning the Eneas written c. 1160. It is frequently pointed out 9 that Ille et Galeron, written, according to the most recent findings, in 1178 by Gautier d'Arras, closely resembles Marie's lai of "Eliduc" and contains an allusion (verses 929-930) to the Lais. It can, therefore, be safely assumed that at least some of the lais were completed by 1178.

4. THE LAI:

ITS CONTENT AND FORM

The original meaning of the word lai was a song or musical composition. It derives from a Celtic root which is cognate with the Old Irish word laid 'song' and Gaelic laoidh 'hymn'. Richard Baum points out 1 0 that the actual word lai was first attested in a Provençal text. The first example of its use in Old French is found in the translations of the Historia regum Britanniae By Geoffroy of Monmouth, where the meaning is 'melody, song, song of the birds'. Baum also explains that, in Provençal literature beginning with the second half of the twelfth century, the term lai designates a variety of song which was a part of the repertory of the jongleurs. This song often commemorated an important event in the life of the people or recalled an adventure of heroic proportions. Essential to the performance of the original lais were certain musical instruments, namely the harp and the rote. There is little evidence suggesting that words necessarily accompanied the instrumental performance in any precise way. Rather, it is generally thought! 1 that the jongleur often sang or retold the story, somewhat in the nature of program notes, before actually playing the musical piece or the lai.

5. Jeanne Lods, Les Laisde Marie de France, CFMA, No. 87, 1959 (Paris: Champion), vii; Ewert, Lais, vii; Jean Rychner, Les Lais de Marie de France, CFMA, No. 93, 1966, xii. 6. Baum, Recherches, 217. 7. Hoepffner, Lais, 52-53. 8. Rychner, Lais, x. 9. Rychner, xi. 10. Baum, Recherches, 31. 11. Ewert, Lais, xii; Hoepffner, Lais, 42-43; Lods, Lais, viii.

13 This i m p o r t a n t p o i n t — that t h e original lais w h i c h inspired Marie were m o s t l i k e l y n o t o n l y sung b u t also recited — is m e n t i o n e d b y Ewert in his int r o d u c t i o n t o t h e Lais: The propagators of the Breton lais.. . were clearly the Breton jongleurs of whose activity there is ample evidence in the twelfth century and even much earlier. But of the songs they performed neither music nor words have come down to us. The term lai, like the modern 'song', was used indifferently to denote the music or the words or both taken together, but it is by no means improbable that when the jongleurs gave their performance the song may have been preceded or followed by a prose narrative, or intercalated in the prose narrative in the manner of the 'chante-fable' of Aucassin et Nicolete. 12 In a f o o t n o t e o n t h e same page, Ewert p o i n t s o u t that Bédier also agreed o n t h e m a n n e r in w h i c h t h e lais were p e r f o r m e d : This is the very plausible conclusion reached by Bédier, according to whom the Breton lai was probably 'une pièce mi-parlée mi-chantée'. That this form of composition with alternating prose and verse was favoured in Old Irish literature is shown by such texts as the Voyage of Bran, originally written down in the seventh century. During t h e t w e l f t h c e n t u r y t h e w a n d e r i n g jongleurs

spread b o t h stories and

m u s i c across England and northern France, speaking English, Celtic, or French as t h e s i t u a t i o n required. Marie w a s familiar w i t h t h e s e tales w h i c h had circulated f r o m o n e story teller t o a n o t h e r and saw in t h e m e x c e l l e n t subjects f o r narrative p o e t r y , saying in line 3 3 o f t h e Prologue t o t h e Lais: Des lais pensai k ' o ï aveie. In his i n t r o d u c t i o n t o t h e Lais, Julian Harris q u o t e s M. F o u l e t ' s c o l l e c t i o n o f Marie's o w n s t a t e m e n t s c o n c e r n i n g this matter: Jadis, au temps des anciens Bretons (Equit., 3; Elid., 1182), quant une aventure était arrivée parmi les barons (Equit., 1-3), on prenait plaisir à se la raconter, elle circulait de bouche en bouche (Equit., 5-6; Prolog, 36; Laüstic, 157, etc.); puis c'était une mode très en honneur que d'en faire un lai pour en conserver le souvenir (Prolog. 35-38; Equit., 7-8; Elid., 1183-4; Guing., 675-6); ce lai portait généralement le nom du héros de l'aventure (Chaitiv., 201-203; Elid., 21-26; Guing., 677); c'était une mélodie qu'on pouvait probablement aussi chanter sur des paroles (Guing., 885-6); parfois le lai n'était composé que longtemps après que l'aventure elle-même c'était arrivée (Yonec, 559-60); il pouvait donc y avoir des aventures qui se transmettaient sans donner naissance à un lai.13

12. Ewert, Law, xii 13. Julian Harris, Marie de France, the Lays Gugemar, Lanval, and a Fragment of (New York: Institute of French Studies, 1930), 62.

Yonec

14 The word lai, originally referring to adventure stories coming from an oral tradition, was then easily taken up by Marie so as to become the title of her own work. Bauml 4 cautions against referring to the lai as a distinct literary genre of the Middle Ages. Many works called 'lais' either by scribes, compilers, or copyists are so extremely heterogeneous in form and in content that proposed definitions simply do not apply to all. The distinction between fabliau, lai, and dit is particularly difficult to make. Since our purpose in the present work is not to define a genre but to describe the texts at hand, we shall continue by giving plot summaries of the lais which constitute our corpus. These résumés are included in order to orient any readers who might be unfamiliar with the poems and to make it possible for them to follow Chapter VII, where specific reference is made to plot situations. Those already acquainted with the stories may, after reading the following information, move on directly to Section 6: THE FIVE LAIS OF THE CORPUS Title

Abbr.

Subject

Number of Lines

"Chevrefoil"

C.

Meeting of Tristan and the Queen

118

"Les Deus Amanz"

D. A.

Young man's unsuccessful attempt to carry a princess to a mountaintop to gain her hand

244

'Laüstic"

A knight stops his wife's illicit love affair by killing its symbol, the night-1 ingale

160

'Equitan"

E.

The abortive attempt of the king and the seneschal's wife to murder the seneschal

314

"Bisclavret"

B.

A baron is betrayed by his wife while he is in the guise of a werewolf

318

Total 5. PLOT SUMMARIES OF THE LAIS OF THE CORPUS SUMMARY OF "CHEVREFOIL"

14. Baum, Recherches, 22.

1,154

15 Lines

Principal Ideas

Details

1-10

Introductory summary 15

Marie wishes to tell the story of Tristan's and the queen's love which resulted in pain and death.

11-20

Dismissal of Tristan from King Mark's kingdom

Because of his great love for the queen, Tristan is exiled from King Mark's kingdom. He returns to Southwales to spend a lonely and desperate year.

21-24

Marie comments on the plight of faithful but rejected suitors

Marie says that Tristan's sorrowful pensiveness is natural for his condition.

25-43

Tristan leaves home to seek out the queen

Tristan is too sad to remain in Southwales. He decides to joirney to the queen's residence in Cornwall.

(29-36)

He questions peasants along the route

En route he questions some peasants about the habits of the king.

(37-43)

The peasants tell Tristan the whereabouts of the king and queen

He learns that Mark will attend the Pentecostal celebration at Tintagel. The queen will accompany him.

44-46

Elation of Tristan

Tristan is delighted to hear this news.

47-60

Preparation of the hazelwood stick, symbol of Tristan

Tristan cuts a hazelwood stick and carves his name on it. The queen will recognize this symbol of him when she passes along the route.

61-78

Marie speaks of the love of Tristan and the queen; explanation of the symbol

Marie says that Tristan waited a long time to see the queen. Just as the goats leaf is attached to and depends on the hazel tree, Tristan cannot exist without the queen.

79-91

The queen recognizes the hazelwood stick

When the queen sees the carved wooden stick, she immediately stops her retinue and retires into the forest.

92-101

Joyous meeting of Tristan and the queen

Tristan and the queen meet and talk together. The queen confides that King Mark now regrets having dismissed Tristan; there will soon be a reconciliation between the two.

102-106

The separation

The queen must leave and Tristan must return to Wales. Both weep at parting.

15. Please not that the horizontal lines indicate paragraphs or stanzaic divisions made in the Ewert edition; parentheses enclose the line numbers of subsections when further division of a larger section seems necessary.

16 107-118

Epiloque

Tristan composed a new lai to commemorate his joy at meeting the queen. Marie has recounted the story. SUMMARY OF "LAUSTIC"

1-6

Introduction and summary

The Bretons called this lai "Laiistic" which is rossignol in French and nightingale in English.

7-12

The setting

Near Saint Malo lived two worthy knights.

13-16

Description of the first knight

One knight was married; he was wise, courteous, and handsome.

17-23

Description of the second knight

The other knight was a bachelor, well known for valor in fighting. He loved the first knight's wife.

24-32

The mutual love of the second knight and the first knight's wife.

The couple love each other, but must be careful not to be apprehended.

33-56

They communicate from nearby windows

Fortunately their houses are near each other. By standing at the window they may either speak or throw gifts to each other.

57-62

Their love lasts until summertime (lyric passage)

The love affair continues until summer when woodland and meadow are green and orchards are in flower.

63-68

Marie comments on the situation

It is no wonder that love flourishes.

69-78

The lady arises at night to "listen to the laiistic"

When her husband is asleep, t h e lady arises to go to the window. It is her delight to see her lover, even though she can have no more signs of affection than words and glances afford.

79-82

The husband's anger

The husband awakens and angrily questions her activities.

83-90

The wife's response

The lady explains that listening to the nightingale is her special delight.

91-100

The husband's decision to trap the laiistic

The husband laughs angrily. He then determines to trap the bird at any price. Snares are placed throughout the orchard.

101-120

The husband catches the bird and brings it to his wife

The gleeful husband catches the bird and brings it still alive to his wife's bedroom. When the wife asks for the bird, the angry man breaks its neck, thrusts it at his wife, and storms out.

17 121-134

The grief of the wife

The lady mourns the death of the bird. Now she will have no plausible excuse to go to the window at night. She resolves to send her lover news of what has happened in the form of the dead bird.

135-140

Preparation of the bird

The bird is carefully wrapped and is sent to the lover.

141-156

Presentation of the bird to the lover

When the lover receives the bird, he becomes very sad. He places the bird in a small golden container decorated with precious stones which he always carries with him.

157-160

Epilogue

This story was a Breton lai. SUMMARY O F "LES DEUS AMANZ"

1-6

Introductory summary

This is the adventure of two young people who died because of their love. The Bretons made a lai of this story.

7-20

Description of the setting

The mountain of the two lovers is located in Normandy near the city of Pistre.

21-31

The king's dilemma

The widowed king of Pistre is comforted by his beautiful daughter. He wants to prevent her from marrying.

32-38

The king's requirements for his daughter's suitor

The suitor must carry the daughter to the top of the mountain without stopping for rest.

39-48

Reaction in the kingdom

Many young men attempt t h e climb but none succeed; the girl remains unmarried.

49-62

Description of the count's son

There is a handsome and good young man living at the court who is in love with the king's daughter.

63-71

The distress of the young couple The couple are unable to marry unless the king's requirements are fulfilled.

72-83

The youth's proposal

The youth proposes running away together.

84-120

The girl's response

The girl loves her father too much to want to anger him by running away.

(93-108)

Her wise aunt in Salerno

The girl's aunt will be able to give the youth a potion to provide him with extra strength for climbing the mount-

(109-120)

The girl's plan is accepted

The youth receives the girl's advice and leaves gratefully for Salerno.

18 121-126

The youth prepares for the trip to Salerno

The youth attires himself richly. His closest friends will accompany him on the trip.

127 -140

The stay at Salerno

The aunt reads the youth's letter o f introduction. She gives him a potion which, as soon as it is drunk, will immediately refresh the body.

141-142

The youth returns home

The youth returns home.

143-154

The youth asks the king for the girl's hand

He asks the hand o f the king's daughter. The king, not believing that the young man will succeed in climbing the mountain, nevertheless agrees to let him try.

155-179

Preparation for the climb

People come from all around to view the spectacle.

(163-166)

The girl's preparations

The girl fasts in order to weight as little as possible.

(167-179)

Arrival o f spectators and participants

On the appointed day the youth comes first with the potion. The king leads his daughter, clad in a light smock, through the waiting crowd. The couple embrace and the youth gives the potion to the girl to hold.

180-187

The couple climb half way up the mountain

Joyfully the youth takes the girl in his arms and begins the climb. T h e girl urges him to drink the potion.

188-196

The youth's refusal to drink the potion

The youth feels that if he stopped, the noise o f the crowd would make him dizzy.

197-205

The youth fails from exhaustion

In spite o f repeated pleas f r o m the girl, the youth continues to the top where he falls from exhaustion.

206-212

The grief o f the girl

The girl kneels beside her lover and tries to revive him, all to no avail.

213-219

The girl throws the potion on the mountain

In sorrow and despair, the girl throws the potion upon the mountain. Many good herbs take root in this spot.

220-228

Death of the girl

The grief o f the girl is so great that she dies in the arms o f her lover.

229-240

Grief and mourning of the king and the townspeople

The couple are placed in a marble c o f f i n and are buried on the mountain.

241-244

Epilogue

Restatement o f the introduction.

19 SUMMARY O F "BISCLAVRET" 1-14

Prologue

The lai is named "Bisclavret" in Breton; The Normans call it "Garwaf". In former days men o f t e n changed into this ferocious beast.

15-23

Portrait of the baron

In Brittany lived a baron prized by his lord and loved by his friends. He was married to a good woman and their love was mutual.

24-28

The baron's frequent unexplain- The lady's only difficulty was her hused absence band's mysterious absence three days of every week.

29-36

The baron's wife's decision to question him

One day when the baron returns home, the lady works up courage to question him.

37-41

The baron reassures his wife

The baron embraces his wife and says he will tell her anything he knows.

42-52

The wife questions his activities

The lady explains her suffering during his absence; she asks where he goes and whether he loves another.

53-56

The baron cannot answer

He tells her that if he answers, bad news will come of it.

57-62

The wife insists

The wife wheedles and flatters her husband in the hope of having an answer.

63-66

The baron finally explains his transformations, man to werewolf and conversely

The baron explains that he changes into a werewolf and lives from prey and plunder in the forest.

67-78

Clothes are necessary for reassuming human form

On further questioning, he admits that he goes naked leaving his clothes behind. However, if his clothes were lost, he would b e unable to reassume the human form.

79-86

The wife continues to question

The wife, using her love as justification for gaining more knowledge, continues to question and plead.

87-96

The baron tells the location of the clothes

Finally the baron tells the location of the clothes - under a bush, near an old chapel.

97-102

The frightened lady wishes to leave her husband

The lady, frightened by her husband's strange transformations immediately thinks of a way to leave him.

103-110

She contacts a chevalier, long desirous of her favors

She sends a message to a chevalier living nearby who has often requested her love.

111-116

The lady declares her love

In the message, she offers herself to him with no restrictions.

20 117-119

They are fianced

The chevalier gratefully accepts.

120-134

The chevalier steals the baron's clothes

The lady tells her love about the clothes and sends him to steal them. Everyone thinks the baron has left for good and his wife marries the chevalier.

135-148

Later, the king encounters the werewolf while hunting

A year later the king goes hunting in the forest inhabited by the werewolf, the baron in disguise. The werewolf, acting almost as a human being, kisses the king's foot as if pleading for mercy.

149-160

The king is overwhelmed by the human quality of the werewolf

Surprised and frightened, the king restrains his dogs. There would be no more hunting that day.

161-184

The king adopts the werewolf

The king is overwhelmed by the tameness of the beast. He takes the werewolf to his castle and instructs his chevaliers to respect and protect him.

185-195

The chevalier attends a festival at the court

One day the king calls together his feudal barons for a celebration. Among the guests is the chevalier, husband of Bisclavret's former wife.

196-203

The werewolf recognizes the chevalier and attacks him fiercely

As soon as the chevalier arrives, the werewolf recognizes his identity and jumps on him.

204-218

The courtiers are shocked at the animal's behavior

Everyone at court is amazed at the violence of the otherwise tame animal.

219-230

Bisclavret's wife visits the king A short time later the king, accompanied and the werewolf in the country by Bisclavret, goes:to the country. There they received the visit of the wife who came bearing gifts for the king.

231-237

The wife is viciously attacked by Bisclavret recognizes her and jumps in a rage of violence; he tears off the lady's the werewolf nose.

238-260

A wise man advises the king to question the lady

A wise man points out that t h e animal has attacked only two persons, the chevalier and his wife, obviously as an act of revenge. The lady should be asked to explain this strange coincidence.

261-274

The lady admits stealing Bisclavret's clothes

The lady admits betraying her husband by taking the clothes which would allow him to resume human form.

21 275-280

The clothes are returned to the werewolf but he ignores them

The king asks for the stolen clothes, receives them, and gives them to Bisclavret. The animal pays no attention to them.

281-292

The sage advises leaving the animal alone with the clothes

The sage perceives the animal's possible sense of shame at changing in front of people and tells the king to leave the animal alone with the clothes.

293-304

In privacy, the werewolf changes The werewold is transformed into a man. into the chevalier. The King re- The king recognizes the former baron. joices His joy is so great that he returns all the land to the baron.

305-314

The king bans the traitorous couple from the country

The traitorous couple are forced to leave the country. Their children were henceforth born without noses.

315-318

Epilogue

Marie has retold the story of Bisclavret. SUMMARY OF "EQUITAN"

Lines

Principal Ideas

Details

1-12

Introduction

The Bretons were noble barons. They made la is from the adventures they heard. One lai concerned King Equitan.

13-16

Portrait of King Equitan

King Equitan was prized and loved by his people. He enjoyed pursuing pleasure and courting the ladies.

17-20

Marie moralizes about the dangers of love

Marie warns those who are extravagant in love. She says that it is difficult to keep love under control.

21-24

Portrait of the king's seneschal

The king has a loyal and brave seneschal who maintained his land.

25-28

Equitan was always seeking pleasure

The king wouldn't leave the pleasures of the hunt except for waging war.

29-37

Descriptioh of the seneschal's wife

The seneschal's wife was extraordinarily beautiful.

38-42

King Equitan seeks the affections The king hears of the seneschal's wife, of the seneschal's wife Without seeing her, he covets her. Often he sends her gifts and greetings.

44-50

He finds a pretext for speaking with the lady.

One day, while on a hunting trip near the seneschal's castle, the king seeks the opportunity of speaking with the wife and declaring his love.

22 51-64

The king is in love with the seneschal's wife

The king is stricken by the beauty and character of the wife; love's arrow pierces him through and through.

65-88

Equitan mulls over his predicament

The king feels strongly the pangs of love, yet knows he has no right to take another man's wife. Yet he begins to justify his position; such a lovely lady would indeed be ill-fated and unhappy if she had no lover.

89-100

The king decides to ascertain the lady's feelings

Finally the king decides that further mulling serves only to distress him further. He should go directly to the lady and ask if she would accept him. as a lover.

101-112

A rendezvous with the seneschal's The next day the king, while hunting, wife feigns illness and fatigue in order to return to his private chambers. The seneschal sends his wife to attend the king.

113-116

The king confesses his feelings

The king lays bare his heart to the lady.

117-148

The lady points out her lowly estate

The lady objects that she is of much more lowly birth. If she were to accord her love, the king would soon abandon her and her condition would be worse than before. Love between persons of equal station is always best.

149-168

Equitan convinces the lady of his good intentions

Equitan objects that his intention is not to cheat her in any way.

169-176

He pleads for her favors

He tells her not to consider him as a king but as a friend.

177-184

Equitan and the seneschal's wife Finally Equitan succeeds in convincing the lady. The two exchange rings and pledge their love pledge their love.

185-196

The couple have a private rendezvous

The king has no difficulty in meeting the lady. He says he is retiring to his chambers for a bloodletting. No one dares to interrupt.

197-211

The lady hears local gossip and becomes afraid

Rumors start to run through the town. The lady fears being exposed and losing her lover.

212-220

She tells Equitan her fears

Crying, she tells Equitan that she will be desolate without his love.

23 221-228

Equitan reassures the lady

Equitan assures the lady of his continuing love. He suggests doing away with the seneschal.

229-240

The plot to kill the seneschal

The lady agrees to try to put an end to her husband if Equitan will help her.

241-262

The plot to burn the seneschal in a boiling bath

The king will visit the seneschal's castle to have his blood let. On the third day he will invite the seneschal to accompany him to the baths. The lady will put boiling water in her husband's tub.

263-270

King Equitan asks the seneschal to accompany him to the baths

Three months later Equitan and the seneshcal come to the country for bloodletting against sickness. Part of the procedure will be bathing. The two men agree to go together.

271-276

The seneschal's wife prepares the water tubs

The water tubs are prepared by the seneschal's wife who makes sure that boiling water is destined for her husband.

277-286

The seneschal leaves the room briefly. In The seneschal leaves briefly; in the meantime Equitan courts his the meantime his wife and Equitan make love on his bed. wife

287-300

The seneschal discovers the couple. Equitan, fearful and ashamed, jumps into the wrong tub.

301-306

The seneschal hurls his wife into In anger, the senschal throws his wife the boiling bath into the boiling water where she perishes along with her lover.

307-310

Marie comments on the situation Marie comments that those who wish evil for others should not be surprised when it comes to them instead.

311-314

Epiloque

The seneschal returns, thrusts himself at the door until it gives way, revealing the couple. Equiran, to cover his shame, jumps into the scalding water.

The Bretons made a lai of this story. 6. THE PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

The step which precedes the metrical analysis proper is a detailed investigation of the pronunciation o f the text. Such an investigation is by necessity putative: we can never recapture the exact sounds which were uttered b y Marie and her contemporaries but we can make attempts at reconstructing them. This introduces the question o f her dialect. For a statistical study such as this one, where broad tendencies and readily

24 apparent patterns are of the greatest interest, we did not wish to undertake a detailed study of the six extant manuscripts of the Lais. Rather, we chose to accept as a whole the work of one editor, (A. Ewert), who had as his express purpose to give "the text substantially as it was presented to his contemporaries by the scribe of H " , 1 6 where H stands for Harley. The Harley manuscript, written in the mid-thirteenth century by an Anglo-Norman scribe, is recognized by virtually all editors as the earliest and most satisfactory version of the Lais. This manuscript, now in the British Museum, is the only one to contain the Prologue and all twelve lais. When beginning the study, we assumed that the Harley manuscript represented the work of a single author. However, as we have previously mentioned in the introduction, R. Baum questions this assumption.! 7 Comparing the Prologue to the entire work with the prologue of the lai "Guigemar", he notes repetitions which seem to him unlikely and unnecessary. With reference and credit to the previous work of Jeanne Wathelet-Willem 18 Baum points to substantial structural and contextual differences which seem to suggest multiple authorship existing especially between the lai "Equitan" and the other lais of the Harley collection. Since "Equitan" is one of the lais selected for this study, we will present our view of this question in the final conclusion of our work. The problem of Marie's dialect has been the frequent subject of scholarly debate. J e n k i n s 1 f a v o r i n g Anglo-Norman, bases this preference on the lack of the diphthong ou from Latin O, U. Warnke concludes 2 0 that Marie most likely wrote in the dialect of Vexin, the western part of the lie de France adjoining Normany, but adds that there was, no doubt, an admixture of Norman features, such as ei < Latin E (closed and stressed) and two separate nasal vowels 3h and eh attributable to English influence. Ewert offers another explanation which seems plausible to us: The presence of such Norman features is, however, susceptible of another explanation. . ., and it is more probable that Marie wrote in 'standard' literary French, which at the time in question still showed the preponderant influence of Normandy. This Norman colouring was maintained for a time and appears even in the work of writers who had no Norman connection. In Marie's case there is the additional difficulty of assessing accurately the effect which the prolonged residence abroad in an Anglo-Norman milieu may have had. . . It is, however, clear that whatever influence her Anglo-Norman milieu may have had, Marie continued t o maintain a sound ear for the rhythm of her native tongue. Her handling of the octosyllabic couplet shows no substantial departure from Continental usage.21

16. Ewert, Lais, xxi. 17. Baum, Recherches, 40. 18. Jeanne Wathelet-Willem, "Equitan dans l'oeuvre de Marie de France", Moyen Age, 69 (1963), 325-345. 19. Jenkins, Espurgatoire, 28. 20. Cited by Ewert in Lais, xx. 21. Ewert, Lais, xx-xxi.

25 Accepting the likelihood that Marie wrote in a literary language closely resembling the dialect of the lie de France of the late twelfth century, we transcribed the text in Francien, making only the following five concessions to Anglo-Norman suggested by Warnke and endorsed by Pope and F o u c h e : 2 2 Francien

Anglo-Norman

(1) [an] only

[en] and [an] distinguished (Pope, §1152)

(2) [ei] retained

[ei] > [ e ] (Pope, §1159)

(3) Latin E + palatal >[ei]>[oi]

Latin E + palatal > [ei] only (Fouche, p. 271)

(4) Latin 6 > [ u ] > [ e u ]

Latin 0 > [u] (Fouche, p. 208)

(5) [e] before liquids remains

[e] > [ e ] before liquids (Pope, §1146)

In order to avoid any confusion resulting from the orthography of the lais, each word which was to be transcribed was etymologized as far as Late Latin and, then, projected forward into twelfth-century Francien. Reference was constantly made to the phonetic charts in M. K. P o p e , 2 3 paragraphs 661687. Unless otherwise noted, her designation of the sound of Old French of the end of the twelfth century was accepted. For certain problematical developments we also consulted Fouché and S c h w a n - B e h r e n s . 2 4 Chart I-A, appended to this section, shows the consonant sounds used in the phonetic transcription and their Latin sources. Summarized therein is information taken from M. K. Pope, paragraphs 675-678 and, also, from her chart, p. 81, giving the Francien consonant system of the late eleventh century. In chart I-A hyphens and superscripts indicate the phonetic environment of the Latin sounds as follows: -P

final P

T-

initial T

-TJ-

T plus yod in intervocalic position

Ke,

i

initial K followed by e or i K preceded and followed by a

-N- > final

intervocalic N in Latin becomes final in Old French 22. Warnke, Die Fabeln der Marie de France, Bibliotheca normanica, VI (Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1898), lxxx-lxxxv; Pope, From Latin to Modern French; Pierre Fouché, Phonétique historique du français, troisième éd. rev. (Paris: Librairie ancienne Honoré Champion, ed., 1958-1961). 23. Pope, From Latin to Modem French. 24. Fouché, Phonétique historique; Edward Schwan and D. Behrens, Grammaire de l'ancien français, traduction française par Oscar Bloch (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1900).

26 In line with the conservative nature of the transcription, the alveolar and dentipalatal sounds have been transcribed as affricates rather than as the fricatives into which they eventually developed: [ts], [dz], [ts], [dz], rather than [S], [z], [s], [z]. Regarding preconsonantal s, Fouche and Pope 2 5 suggest that it was retained later than its voiced equivalent z; however, due to lack of a precise statement as to its pronunciation, it has been transcribed simply as [s]. Written double consonants have been transcribed as one, since there were probably no distinctly pronounced geminate consonants within the word at this period. 2 6 Chart I-B, also appended to this section, shows the vowel developments. The information therein is taken largely from Pope, paragraphs 661-674. The symbols and abbreviations used include: A

tonic A




develops to

a, A

-

longX

a, A

-

short A

A/

-

A in a closed syllable

A

A in an open syllable

u

sound resulting from the palatalization of [1]

ç -

Latin open e

E

Latin closed e

P.

M. K. Pope

F.

Fouché

S. B. -

Schwan-Behrens

Fr.

Francien

A. N. -

Anglo-Norman

25. Fouché, Phonétique historique, 861; Pope, From Latin to Modern French, paragraph 1178. 26. Pope, From Latin to Modern French, paragraph 362.

27 The notes in the far right column of Chart I-B, numbered 1 to 5, refer to the five concessions made to Anglo-Norman mentioned above. Following Pope, we retained the nasal consonant as well as the nasal vowel in the transcription. The suggestions of Fouche 2 7 were accepted for the problematical development Latin Q > FR. [WE] (p. 206) and for the combination 0 plus u [qew] (p. 323). The exact pronunciation of [u] < Latin U is very uncertain, since the sound was in assonance both with u and i during the twelfth century. The sound [y]has been chosen to represent it. Finally, the sandhi rules governing the joining of words closely connected in meaning may be stated as follows: (1) Final voiceless stops remain unchanged in all environments. (2) Final nasals assume the place of articulation of the initial of the following word. (3) Final

(4) Only [r]and [1] may be geminated. Other consonants, though represented by two letters, are pronounced as one sound and have, therefore, been transcribed with one symbol.

In preparing to begin the metrical study, we transcribed the three lais "Chevrefoil", "Les Deus Amanz", and "Laustic" in their entirety but, due to the necessity of limiting the length of this work, only "Laustic" appears in Appendix A. The reader should note that this sample contains not only the sounds but also an indication of stress accentuation and word length patterns, the explanation of which will be provided in Chapters II and III.

27. Fouché, Phonétique

historique.

28

S ^

C o o

I S

F5 8 §

3

£

0 to 1

1 3

£ g

£ S I g ^ I

I

3 "7 - U:

I

a z A j. s s ï S

;3

-a 3

« g

A

J

en c/2 t/2

•a x O vj 61 ^

C/5 . t - ai, .

I 3

H 05 C X u

'5

H H ^ H H ^ Q

Q

Q

g

I

a, ¿ a* a- CQ

«_!._!, qqQqcqoh

Ì3 •o g

3AISOIJ uoijBinoijiy j o k u u e j \

3JE3UJJV

29

S JA.

A O Z Z Z O

J J I-, ¥ 9 ^

E

A

¿

A * Z S

, S

A

OS A OÄ AS ¿5 AS E¿ O

BA'A A-:I O,« VJ^ ft-

Z

LESEN

¿5 P ¡2 ^ &B ¡¿ A

]EI3JTR[

PSIIMI

SAIJBOUJ

H

T« CO

J

T S W £

« 2

, , - , «>. ' «Y. U ^FT.TI, CQ PTO(

3APE0IJJ

30

00 C 3 3 -•S - - 13 g JS -e g .S Q «i « L S -5 « « Ò o ^ - — > -O S

jï pMOA-iuias

31 CHART I-B. FRANCIEN VOWELS AND THEIR LATIN SOURCES A < LATIN 3 and GERMANIC 5 Reference

Latin Sound and Its Position

FR.

1. P. § 6 6 6

A/

[a] [an] [aw] [a] [e]

2.

3. 4. 5. & F. pp. 247-8 6. P. § 666 7. 8. 9. &P. 1545 10. P. 666 11.

12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

+ n, m + u( [ainl + u « l ) [ieu] preceded by palatal + n, m , +j > N1 A/ and A + X + u«l) +1) + vowel +1] + cons. + j + cons, j.i

A. N.

Note

[e] [e]

[ëin]

[ën]

[je] [je] [jën] [ï\]

[aw] [äq] [ein] [e] [e]

[ën]

A < Late Latin a Countertonic < Latin and German a, à. 19. P. § 6 6 7 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

A/and A + n, m + U(