3 The Lais of Marie de France: Foreword and Prologue

Foreword

Marie who? A number of suggestions have been proposed for the identity of this wonderful twelfth century poet. Marie, Abbess of Shaftesbury, the illegitimate daughter of Geoffrey Plantagenet and half-sister to Henry II, King of England, is a plausible candidate, but Marie, Abbess of Reading, Marie I of Boulogne, Marie, Abbess of Barking, and Marie de Meulan, wife of Hugh Talbot, are all possibilities. There were a lot of Maries, after all, but only a few who could read and write in English, Latin, and Anglo Norman French. It is not inappropriate, however, for her to be a bit mysterious and even emblematic as the author of these strange, suggestive, and intriguing poems. One important thing we do know about her is that she also translated the Ysopet, a collection of 103 Aesopic fables, which could have influenced the Lais but at least suggest something about her taste in literature. There is a fabulous quality to these poems, which are at one and the same time childish and very knowing, innocent and sophisticated.

The order of the poems is different in different manuscripts of the Lais, and it may well be that Marie didn’t write all of them — but the ones she did write were good enough to have the others attributed to her, perhaps as an homage. Or it could have been that a scribe threw in another two or three that he liked, ixhad space for, and that looked to him to be similar. The unnamed king she addresses at the end of the prologue was almost certainly Henry II of England (ruled 1154–89), her half-brother — assuming she was the Abbess of Shaftesbury.

The Norman Conquest, for all its cruelty, brought European political and literary life to England. In the twelfth century, the French were producing chansons de geste, as well as love lyrics of the troubadours and trouvères and a number of religious and philosophical works from writers such as St. Bernard and Abelard. Marie — any of these Maries — would have been educated in France, almost certainly in a convent, and would have been familiar with most of these examples of the efflorescence of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

These are courtly poems, which is to say that they fall within the tradition of sophisticated literature that requires an appropriate audience of the kind one generally finds at courts of kings and noblemen. They are full of wit and elegance. If they pretend to be simple folktales, they rely on the capacity of their readers (or, more likely, hearers) to understand their ambiguity and richness. One might think of these poems as toys for adults, for they are decorous variations on themes from fairy tales and Märchen. Marie’s subjects are the charms and difficulties of love of various kinds and the way that goodness and wickedness are rewarded and punished in a complicated world. But it would be a disservice to her and to the poems to try to extract a philosophical or political “position” from pieces that are, I think, written as entertainments and deliberately mixed in xapproach and attitude. The form itself imposes certain constraints, for the lai is shorter than the romance, which means that love tends to strike suddenly so that we can concentrate on the crises of various kinds and the frequently surprising dénouements. Longer than a lyric, shorter than a chanson, the lai has its own natural domain to which Marie was particularly well suited.

My intention in making this new translation was not to supply students in comp lit courses with yet another text (although I hope that even the reluctant readers among them may be surprised to discover that what they have been assigned is actually fun). On the contrary, I saw in these lais an opportunity to show off, just as Marie was showing off. It was a challenge to try to reproduce the panache of the originals. I wanted to convey not only the sense of the poems but also, beyond the meat of meaning, the sizzle of the poetry — which transcends time and place. If these pieces had been written this year by a Mary Francis from New London, they’d be very much worth reading.

Prologue

If one has received from God the great

gift of eloquence, it is his fate

and duty to exercise and display

these talents. If one would compose a lay

he must speak or rather write

as well as he can for men’s delight

and appreciation. The talent will first

blossom in his company’s thirst

for more and ever more of the same.

Then people will hear of him: his name

will spread about him. In his pursuit

of fame these blossoms will bloom, and fruit

may even appear in the form of books

in library shelves and tables and nooks.

Some poets dare to be obscure to engage

the scholars (although perhaps fewer

simple readers). Priscian describes

how poets can dupe the scholarly tribes

and by this contrarian endeavor

contrive for their works to live forever.

The scholars’ glosses and citations

provide them with harmless occupations

by which they avoid the rudenesses

of the rough-and-tumble world that is

the lot of most. My original scheme

was to find a Latin text that would seem

to lend itself to a version in our

French and pass a pleasant hour.

But others have done such things before

and I wanted to occupy myself with a more

worthwhile project. I thought of the lays

I had heard in my younger days

that I could preserve for those who care

about bold knights and ladies fair.

Some of these I have put into rhyme

not merely to pass some idle time

but to do some good. Late into the night

I have sat and worked by candlelight.

I did this in your honour, sire,

whom all good men respect and admire,

a paragon of virtue and taste.

If your kind acceptance graced

my little verses it would please

me greatly, and upon my knees

I offer them to you, hoping to win

a royal smile. Let us begin.