The Inner Life of Women in Medieval Romance Literature: Grief, Guilt, and Hypocrisy (New Middle Ages)

TH E N E W M I D D L E AGES BONNIE WHEELER, SERIES EDITOR The New Middle Ages is a series dedicated to pluridisciplinary studies of medieval cultures, with particular emphasis on recuperating women’s history and on feminist and gender analyses.This peer-reviewed series includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections.

PUBLISHED BY PALGRAVE: Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Patronage, and Piety edited by Gavin R. G. Hambly The Ethics of Nature in the Middle Ages: On Boccaccio’s Poetaphysics by Gregory B. Stone Presence and Presentation:Women in the Chinese Literati Tradition edited by Sherry J. Mou The Lost Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard: Perceptions of Dialogue in Twelfth-Century France by Constant J. Mews Understanding Scholastic Thought with Foucault by Philipp W. Rosemann For Her Good Estate:The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh by Frances A. Underhill Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages edited by Cindy L. Carlson and Angela Jane Weisl Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England by Mary Dockray-Miller Listening to Heloise:The Voice of a TwelfthCentury Woman edited by Bonnie Wheeler

Crossing the Bridge: Comparative Essays on Medieval European and Heian Japanese Women Writers edited by Barbara Stevenson and Cynthia Ho Engaging Words:The Culture of Reading in the Later Middle Ages by Laurel Amtower Robes and Honor:The Medieval World of Investiture edited by Stewart Gordon Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature edited by Elizabeth Robertson and Christine M. Rose Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages edited by Francesca Canadé Sautman and Pamela Sheingorn Sight and Embodiment in the Middle Ages: Ocular Desires by Suzannah Biernoff Listen, Daughter:The Speculum Virginum and the Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages edited by Constant J. Mews Science, the Singular, and the Question of Theology by Richard A. Lee, Jr.

The Postcolonial Middle Ages edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

Gender in Debate from the Early Middle Ages to the Renaissance edited by Thelma S. Fenster and Clare A. Lees

Chaucer’s Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies of Discourse by Robert S. Sturges

Malory’s Morte D’Arthur: Remaking Arthurian Tradition by Catherine Batt

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The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature edited by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren Popular Piety and Art in the Late Middle Ages: Image Worship and Idolatry in England 1350–1500 by Kathleen Kamerick Absent Narratives, Manuscript Textuality, and Literary Structure in Late Medieval England by Elizabeth Scala Creating Community with Food and Drink in Merovingian Gaul by Bonnie Effros Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses: Image and Empire by Anne McClanan Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects,Texts, Images edited by Désirée G. Koslin and Janet Snyder Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady edited by Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons Isabel La Católica, Queen of Castile: Critical Essays edited by David A. Boruchoff Homoeroticism and Chivalry: Discourses of Male Same-Sex Desire in the Fourteenth Century by Richard E. Zeikowitz Portraits of Medieval Women: Family, Marriage, and Politics in England 1225–1350 by Linda E. Mitchell Eloquent Virgins: From Thecla to Joan of Arc by Maud Burnett McInerney The Persistence of Medievalism: Narrative Adventures in Contemporary Culture by Angela Jane Weisl

The Texture of Society: Medieval Women in the Southern Low Countries edited by Ellen E. Kittell and Mary A. Suydam Charlemagne’s Mustache: And Other Cultural Clusters of a Dark Age by Paul Edward Dutton Troubled Vision: Gender, Sexuality, and Sight in Medieval Text and Image edited by Emma Campbell and Robert Mills Queering Medieval Genres by Tison Pugh Sacred Place in Early Medieval Neoplatonism by L. Michael Harrington The Middle Ages at Work edited by Kellie Robertson and Michael Uebel Chaucer’s Jobs by David R. Carlson Medievalism and Orientalism:Three Essays on Literature, Architecture and Cultural Identity by John M. Ganim Queer Love in the Middle Ages by Anna Klosowska Performing Women in the Middle Ages: Sex, Gender, and the Iberian Lyric by Denise K. Filios Necessary Conjunctions:The Social Self in Medieval England by David Gary Shaw Visual Culture and the German Middle Ages edited by Kathryn Starkey and Horst Wenzel Medieval Paradigms: Essays in Honor of Jeremy duQuesnay Adams,Volumes 1 and 2 edited by Stephanie Hayes-Healy

Capetian Women edited by Kathleen D. Nolan

False Fables and Exemplary Truth in Later Middle English Literature by Elizabeth Allen

Joan of Arc and Spirituality edited by Ann W. Astell and Bonnie Wheeler

Ecstatic Transformation: On the Uses of Alterity in the Middle Ages by Michael Uebel

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Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays edited by Lawrence Besserman

Medieval Fabrications: Dress,Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings edited by E. Jane Burns

Tolkien’s Modern Middle Ages edited by Jane Chance and Alfred K. Siewers

Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France?:The Case for St. Florent of Saumur by George Beech

Representing Righteous Heathens in Late Medieval England by Frank Grady

Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the Middle Ages by Erin L. Jordan

Byzantine Dress: Representations of Secular Dress in Eighth-to-Twelfth Century Painting by Jennifer L. Ball

Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

The Laborer’s Two Bodies: Labor and the “Work” of the Text in Medieval Britain, 1350–1500 by Kellie Robertson

Medieval Go-betweens and Chaucer’s Pandarus by Gretchen Mieszkowski

The Dogaressa of Venice, 1250–1500: Wife and Icon by Holly S. Hurlburt Logic,Theology, and Poetry in Boethius, Abelard, and Alan of Lille:Words in the Absence of Things by Eileen C. Sweeney The Theology of Work: Peter Damian and the Medieval Religious Renewal Movement by Patricia Ranft On the Purification of Women: Churching in Northern France, 1100–1500 by Paula M. Rieder Writers of the Reign of Henry II:Twelve Essays edited by Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones Lonesome Words:The Vocal Poetics of the Old English Lament and the African-American Blues Song by M.G. McGeachy Performing Piety: Musical Culture in Medieval English Nunneries by Anne Bagnell Yardley The Flight from Desire: Augustine and Ovid to Chaucer by Robert R. Edwards Mindful Spirit in Late Medieval Literature: Essays in Honor of Elizabeth D. Kirk edited by Bonnie Wheeler

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The Surgeon in Medieval English Literature by Jeremy J. Citrome Temporal Circumstances: Form and History in the Canterbury Tales by Lee Patterson Erotic Discourse and Early English Religious Writing by Lara Farina Odd Bodies and Visible Ends in Medieval Literature by Sachi Shimomura On Farting: Language and Laughter in the Middle Ages by Valerie Allen Women and Medieval Epic: Gender, Genre, and the Limits of Epic Masculinity edited by Sara S. Poor and Jana K. Schulman Race, Class, and Gender in “Medieval” Cinema edited by Lynn T. Ramey and Tison Pugh Allegory and Sexual Ethics in the High Middle Ages by Noah D. Guynn England and Iberia in the Middle Ages, 12th15th Century: Cultural, Literary, and Political Exchanges edited by María Bullón-Fernández

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The Medieval Chastity Belt: A Myth-Making Process by Albrecht Classen

Communal Discord, Child Abduction, and Rape in the Later Middle Ages by Jeremy Goldberg

Claustrophilia:The Erotics of Enclosure in Medieval Literature by Cary Howie

Lydgate Matters: Poetry and Material Culture in the Fifteenth Century edited by Lisa H. Cooper and Andrea Denny-Brown

Cannibalism in High Medieval English Literature by Heather Blurton The Drama of Masculinity and Medieval English Guild Culture by Christina M. Fitzgerald Chaucer’s Visions of Manhood by Holly A. Crocker The Literary Subversions of Medieval Women by Jane Chance Manmade Marvels in Medieval Culture and Literature by Scott Lightsey American Chaucers by Candace Barrington Representing Others in Medieval Iberian Literature by Michelle M. Hamilton Paradigms and Methods in Early Medieval Studies edited by Celia Chazelle and Felice Lifshitz

Sexuality and Its Queer Discontents in Middle English Literature by Tison Pugh Sex, Scandal, and Sermon in FourteenthCentury Spain: Juan Ruiz’s Libro de Buen Amor by Louise M. Haywood The Erotics of Consolation: Desire and Distance in the Late Middle Ages edited by Catherine E. Léglu and Stephen J. Milner Battlefronts Real and Imagined:War, Border, and Identity in the Chinese Middle Period edited by Don J. Wyatt Wisdom and Her Lovers in Medieval and Early Modern Hispanic Literature by Emily C. Francomano Power, Piety, and Patronage in Late Medieval Queenship: Maria de Luna by Nuria Silleras-Fernandez

The King and the Whore: King Roderick and La Cava by Elizabeth Drayson

In the Light of Medieval Spain: Islam, the West, and the Relevance of the Past edited by Simon R. Doubleday and David Coleman, foreword by Giles Tremlett

Langland’s Early Modern Identities by Sarah A. Kelen

Chaucerian Aesthetics by Peggy A. Knapp

Cultural Studies of the Modern Middle Ages edited by Eileen A. Joy, Myra J. Seaman, Kimberly K. Bell, and Mary K. Ramsey

Memory, Images, and the English Corpus Christi Drama by Theodore K. Lerud

Hildegard of Bingen’s Unknown Language: An Edition,Translation, and Discussion by Sarah L. Higley

Cultural Diversity in the British Middle Ages: Archipelago, Island, England edited by Jeffrey Jerome Cohen

Medieval Romance and the Construction of Heterosexuality by Louise M. Sylvester

Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer’s Fecopoetics by Susan Signe Morrison

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Authority and Subjugation in Writing of Medieval Wales edited by Ruth Kennedy and Simon Meecham-Jones

Julian of Norwich’s Legacy: Medieval Mysticism and Post-Medieval Reception edited by Sarah Salih and Denise N. Baker

The Medieval Poetics of the Reliquary: Enshrinement, Inscription, Performance by Seeta Chaganti

Medievalism, Multilingualism, and Chaucer by Mary Catherine Davidson

The Legend of Charlemagne in the Middle Ages: Power, Faith, and Crusade edited by Matthew Gabriele and Jace Stuckey The Poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein: An English Translation of the Complete Works (1376/77–1445) by Albrecht Classen Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing: Reading the Book of Life edited by Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker and Liz Herbert McAvoy Ethics and Eventfulness in Middle English Literature: Singular Fortunes by J. Allan Mitchell Maintenance, Meed, and Marriage in Medieval English Literature by Kathleen E. Kennedy The Post-Historical Middle Ages edited by Elizabeth Scala and Sylvia Federico Constructing Chaucer: Author and Autofiction in the Critical Tradition by Geoffrey W. Gust Queens in Stone and Silver:The Creation of a Visual Imagery of Queenship in Capetian France by Kathleen Nolan Finding Saint Francis in Literature and Art edited by Cynthia Ho, Beth A. Mulvaney, and John K. Downey Strange Beauty: Ecocritical Approaches to Early Medieval Landscape by Alfred K. Siewers Berenguela of Castile (1180–1246) and Political Women in the High Middle Ages by Miriam Shadis

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The Letters of Heloise and Abelard: A Translation of Their Complete Correspondence and Related Writings translated and edited by Mary Martin McLaughlin with Bonnie Wheeler Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe edited by Theresa Earenfight Visual Power and Fame in René d’Anjou, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the Black Prince by SunHee Kim Gertz Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog: Medieval Studies and New Media by Brantley L. Bryant Margaret Paston’s Piety by Joel T. Rosenthal Gender and Power in Medieval Exegesis by Theresa Tinkle Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature by Roger A. Ladd Magnificence and the Sublime in Medieval Aesthetics: Art, Architecture, Literature, Music edited by C. Stephen Jaeger Medieval and Early Modern Devotional Objects in Global Perspective:Translations of the Sacred edited by Elizabeth Robertson and Jennifer Jahner Late Medieval Jewish Identities: Iberia and Beyond edited by Carmen Caballero-Navas and Esperanza Alfonso Outlawry in Medieval Literature by Timothy S. Jones Women and Disability in Medieval Literature by Tory Vandeventer Pearman

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The Lesbian Premodern edited by Noreen Giffney, Michelle M. Sauer, and Diane Watt

Vernacular and Latin Literary Discourses of the Muslim Other in Medieval Germany by Jerold C. Frakes

Crafting Jewishness in Medieval England: Legally Absent,Virtually Present by Miriamne Ara Krummel

Fairies in Medieval Romance by James Wade

Street Scenes: Late Medieval Acting and Performance by Sharon Aronson-Lehavi Women and Economic Activities in Late Medieval Ghent by Shennan Hutton Palimpsests and the Literary Imagination of Medieval England: Collected Essays edited by Leo Carruthers, Raeleen Chai-Elsholz, and Tatjana Silec

Reason and Imagination in Chaucer, the Perle-poet, and the Cloud-author: Seeing from the Center by Linda Tarte Holley The Inner Life of Women in Medieval Romance Literature: Grief, Guilt, and Hypocrisy edited by Jeff Rider and Jamie Friedman Heloise and the Paraclete: A Twelfth-Century Quest (forthcoming) by Mary Martin McLaughlin

Divine Ventriloquism in Medieval English Literature: Power, Anxiety, Subversion by Mary Hayes

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THE INNER LIFE OF WOMEN IN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE LITERATURE GRIEF, GUILT, AND HYPOCRISY

Edited by Jeff Rider and Jamie Friedman

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THE INNER LIFE OF WOMEN IN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE LITERATURE

Copyright © Jeff Rider and Jamie Friedman, 2011. All rights reserved. First published in 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN® in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world, this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN: 978–0–230–10514–0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The inner life of women in medieval romance literature : grief, guilt, and hypocrisy / edited by Jeff Rider and Jamie Friedman. p. cm.—(New middle ages) ISBN 978–0–230–10514–0 (hardback) 1. Literature, Medieval — History and criticism. 2. Women in literature. 3. Romances — History and criticism. 4. Emotions in literature. I. Rider, Jeff, 1954– II. Friedman, Jamie. III. Title. PN682.W6I56 2011 809⬘.9335220902—dc22

2011006477

A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: August 2011 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America.

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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

xi

Acknowledgments

xiii

1. The Inner Life of Women in Medieval Romance Literature Jeff Rider

1

2. Order, Anarchy, and Emotion in the Old French Philomena Karen G. Casebier

27

3. What Was She Thinking? Ysolt on the Edge Brîndu şa E. Grigoriu

53

4. Moral Posturing: Virtue in Christine de Pisan’s Livre de Trois Vertus Sharon C. Mitchell

85

5. Gesture, Emotion, and Humanity: Depictions of Mélusine in the Upton House Bearsted Fragments Tania M. Colwell

107

6. Is She Angry or Just Sad? Grief and Sorrow in the Songs of the Trobairitz Hannie van Horen Verhoosel

129

7. Between Concealment and Eloquence: The Idea of the Ideal Woman in Medieval Provençal Literature Jennifer Rudin

147

8. Spiritual and Biological Mothering in Berceo’s Vida de Santa Oria Emily C. Francomano

159

9. Writing as Resistance: Self and Survival in Leonor López de Córdoba and Teresa de Cartagena Victoria Rivera-Cordero

179

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X

CONTENTS

10. Between Boccaccio and Chaucer: The Limits of Female Interiority in the Knight’s Tale Jamie Friedman

203

11. In Laura’s Shadow: Casting Female Humanists as Petrarchan Beloveds in Quattrocento Letters Aileen A. Feng

223

Notes on Contributors

249

Index

253

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ILLUSTRATIONS

5.1 UHB 194v: Mélusine’s response to Raymondin’s denunciation 5.2 UHB 194r: Raymondin pleads for Mélusine’s forgiveness 5.3 UHB 196v: Mélusine and Raymondin swoon before a grieving court 5.4 UHB 196r: Mélusine dictates her final wishes 5.5 UHB 197r: Mélusine visits her children

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112 114 116 118 119

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank the editor of the New Middle Ages series, Professor Bonnie Wheeler, for her advice and unf lagging support throughout the ups and downs of the preparation of this volume; Brigitte Shull, Lee Norton, and Joanna Roberts at Palgrave Macmillan for their help with its production; and the Thomas and Catharine McMahon Memorial Fund of Wesleyan University for a grant to help with its preparation and production.

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CHAPTER 1 THE INNER LIFE OF WOMEN IN MEDIEVAL ROMANCE LITERATURE Jeff Rider

C

ontemporary theories of emotions suggest that they are complex schemas that have three principal components or aspects, three faces.1 One of these components has long been recognized, is founded in human biology, and is presumably largely the same for all human beings (and shared to various degrees with animals). “According to the biological idea,” writes Keith Oatley, “emotions derive from genetically based neural and hormonal programs of response. . . . From the biological perspective emotions are seen as largely fixed, as given, as natural.” “If there were no cross-cultural commonality,” he and Jenkins write elsewhere, “if all emotions were culturally idiosyncratic, it would be hard to see how any emotional understandings could be possible between people of different societies. . . . Humans are genetically provided with a start-up program of innate patterns, distinctive abilities, and biases.”2 Emotion also has “a cognitive element,” however, “combining raw feeling . . . with judgment and perception, through which an individual evaluates, labels, and controls his feelings. . . . a substantial consensus exists that emotions are not simply biological reactions but also involve an interplay between body and mind.”3 According to this way of thinking, emotions enable us to think more quickly and efficiently than we could do otherwise, allowing us to synthesize great masses of information despite gaps in our knowledge and to reduce them to manageable “feelings.” They induce certain basic states that orient us toward useful action in certain ways. They help us evaluate complex situations, discern and prioritize our interests and concerns, and choose between possible

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courses of action, although such evaluations are not, of course, always accurate.4 The third component of emotion is social. Emotions, that is, are both socially constructed and play a social function, have social effects, are, as Robert Solomon puts it, “subjective engagements in the world.”5 “Emotions described as ‘socially constructed,’ ” writes Oatley, “are put together from parts that derive mainly from culture. Repertories of emotions, according to this approach, are like languages . . . . Comparably, it is argued, each culture has patterns of emotions that are somewhat distinctive, that derive from societal practices, and that convey meanings and effects to members of that culture.”6 Or, as Rosenwein puts it, “No one is born knowing appropriate modes of expression, or whether to imagine emotions as internal or external, or whether to privilege or disregard an emotion. These things make up the ‘feeling rules’ that societies impart.”7 As Solomon points out, moreover, “an emotion . . . is in essence ‘political’— that is, it has to do with our relations with other people” and thus the expression of emotions also, as Geoffrey White notes, “works to create or reproduce social identities and relationships.”8 Our emotional life is thus, in fact, as much an outer life as it is an inner one: “emotions,” as Ronald de Sousa puts it, “face both in and out.”9 Shaping and shaped by cognitive processes and social conventions and relations, emotions bring certain things to our attention in certain ways and their expression does certain things. This all-encompassing nature of emotion has been well expressed by Richard A. Shweder and Jonathan Haidt, who write, the “emotion” (e.g., sadness, fear, or love) is not something independent of or separable from the conditions that justify it, from the somatic and affective events that are ways of feeling or being touched by it, from the actions it demands, or the like. The “emotion” is the whole story: a kind of somatic event (fatigue, chest pain, goose f lesh) and/or affective event (panic, emptiness, expansiveness) experienced as a perception of some antecedent conditions (death of a friend, acceptance of a book manuscript for publication, a proposition to go out to dinner) and their implications for the self (e.g., as loss, gain, threat, possibility), and experienced as well as a social judgment (e.g., of vice or virtue, sickness or health) and as a kind of plan for action to preserve one’s self-esteem (attack, withdraw, confess, hide, explore). The “emotion” is the entire script. It is the simultaneous experience of all the components, or, perhaps more accurately, the unitary experience of the whole package deal.10

The expression “emotional life” as it is used here thus refers to the entire life of a human being conceived as a combination of biological, cognitive,

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and social components. Emotions are precisely where inner and outer life meet and open out onto one another, and “emotional life” should thus be understood as an expansive rather than reductive term. Emotions, writes Reddy, are one of the most important “kinds of thought that lie ‘outside’ language, yet are intimately involved in the formulation of utterances . . . and when we speak of our emotions, they come into a peculiar, dynamic relationship with what we say about them.” He suggests that that we think of speaking or writing—or dancing— about emotions as a form of “translation” and proposes that “the most important facet of emotional expression” is that attempts to formulate or “translate” “thought material” that “lies ‘outside’ language” and “exceeds attention’s capacity to translate it into . . . talk in a short time horizon,”— attempts that he refers to as “emotional utterance[s]” or “emotive statements” or “emotives”—“already initiat[e] changes in this material before it is fully formulated”; the emotional utterances “have a direct impact on what they are supposed to refer to”; the thought material “emerges from the act of uttering in a changed state.” “Emotional expressions,” in sum, “can thus be considered as utterances aimed at brief ly characterizing the current state of activated thought material that exceeds the current capacity of attention. Such expression, by analogy with speech acts, can be said to have (1) descriptive appearance, (2) relational intent, and (3) self-exploring and self-altering effects.”11 The relation between emotions—pre-linguistic thought material—and language that Reddy is proposing here seems much like the relation between thought and sound that Saussure proposed as the origin of language: just as thought and sound articulate one another to produce language, so do emotions and language articulate one another to produce emotional utterances or emotive statements.12 That is to say that we both shape and learn about emotions by talking about them. It should thus be no surprise that narrative is one of the most important “normative social institutions and routine practices”13 through which people become emotionally aware and learn the cognitive and social uses of emotions and how to identify, construct, and perform them.14 If, as Michael Stocker has suggested, emotions should not be “thought of in terms of emotional mountains and canyons” but as “normal and entirely common and ubiquitous, . . . diffuse, pervasive, and long lasting, forming our background, as well as the tone, the color, the affective taste, the feel of activities, relations, and experiences,” then one can understand how narrative—as a complex, overdetermined descriptive continuum that ties events to a before and an after in a complex manifold of relations—is particularly well-suited for the representation of our dynamic, ubiquitous emotional life.15 If, indeed, as Shweder and Haidt suggest, emotions are

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“interpretive schemes of a particular script-like, story-like, or narrative kind that give shape and meaning to the human experience”16 —that is, if emotions have an essentially narrative form—there is every reason to believe that narrative is, in fact, the privileged institution and practice for this educational process since it has the same form as emotions.17 One might even go so far as to say that, insofar as they orient us toward or prepare us for action (either internal or external) and link this action to a cause or set of causes and an outcome or set of outcomes, emotions are narratives—and that narratives, therefore, always have an emotional tone and structure.18 Literature is in turn one of the most important tools humans have had for the preservation and dissemination of narrative, perhaps the most important tool for doing so up until the nineteenth century, and it has thus played an important role in this process of education and enculturation over time. As Oatley and Jenkins write, The principal way in which we become conscious—at least conscious of ourselves—is in giving ourselves and others accounts in narrative form. . . . Written narrative literature, from ancient times to the present, concentrates on our emotional lives and their problematics—as if story telling and story listening have always been attempts to understand these matters. The activity is satisfying because stories provide possibilities of vicarious action and pieces of solutions to the problems of how to act and how to be a person in the society that is depicted. Publicly available stories give members of society common exemplars of action and emotion. They help us to ref lect on and become part of the cultural tradition in which we live.19

Literature, even nonfictional literature, does not, of course, contain and communicate emotions or emotional experiences themselves but represents emotions, their sources, their evolution, and their effects, what Peter and Carol Stearns have termed an “emotionology”: “the attitudes or standards that a society, or a definable group within a society, maintains toward basic emotions and their appropriate expression,”20 or what Peter Stearns has referred to elsewhere as “emotional standards—the ‘feeling rules’ or emotionology that describes socially prescribed emotional values, and often the criteria individuals themselves use to evaluate their emotional experience.”21 The representation of emotion in literature is subject, moreover, both to what one might call social or external constraints and to generic or internal ones. “The representation of emotional standards,” as Barbara Rosenwein notes, “is itself a social product”22 and is to some degree determined by the emotionology of the author and the public he or she

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imagines. If I want my public, for example, to understand that my hero is angry, I must represent her anger in such a way that my public recognizes her emotion as such, and if I wish them to believe that she is a reasonable and perhaps even virtuous woman and that her anger is justified, I have to motivate her anger in a way that the public finds reasonable and acceptable. The representation of emotion in literature thus ref lects and is determined by the ambient emotionology as well as purveying and shaping it; the representation of emotion plays with and on—but also according to the rules of—that emotionology.23 Literary representation of emotional experience is likewise limited or determined, as Deploige observes, by the literary standards inherited and shared by the author and his or her public: When medieval authors used a certain discourse genre, they wanted— already merely by choosing that specific genre—to treat clearly delimited themes, to communicate specific values, to promote specific ideas. As a consequence, they became very much interested in some very specific emotions, while remaining silent on other, though not socially less important, emotional expressions in their environment. Written texts are moreover—and certainly in the Middle Ages—also characterized by literary traditions and customs and by dateless topoi that did not really reduce the barrier between the text and the reality behind it. Historians studying emotions are thus confronted with selective and genre-specific textual representations of emotional representations, with two levels of possible manipulations and misunderstandings, and thus with a kind of squared representation problem. 24

Moreover, as Deploige also reminds us, literature not only represents and purveys emotional standards but also produces emotions in its audience through its “provocation of the human imagination,” and this experience is a source of pleasure.25 Narrative literature thus offers us a privileged, but complex, means of studying past emotional standards, styles, or regimes—past emotionologies.26 This literature, even when it is nonfictional, does not offer us real emotions or real emotional experience. It offers us a normative, culture-specific, but creative, emotionally provocative, and pleasurable representation of the sources, experiences, values, and behaviors (and their consequences) associated with a normative, culture-specific set of emotions. This literature teaches—one might even say promotes—emotional standards and styles. It suggests how people might live well, or at least successfully, in the particular fictional, historical, or actual world it presumes and describes.27 But it also offers its audience the opportunity to grasp these standards more-or-less consciously, to identify and manipulate

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them (since it is precisely this coming-to-at-least-partial-consciousness of emotions and emotional standards that is necessary for the literary representation of emotional experience). Its teachings can thus never be monolithic or coercive, even when it wants to be prescriptive. Narrative literature educates rather than indoctrinating since, as Roberta Krueger has illustrated with respect to women readers of medieval romances, it often both offers examples of “resistance” to the standards it purveys and inevitably encourages, or at least inevitably leaves open, the possibility of such resistance in its audience. “The response of women readers” to romances, Krueger writes, was “neither uniform nor static. . . . Because reading is a dynamic interaction between text and reader, readers can hold simultaneously contradictory positions with respect to a text’s dominant ideology.”28 De Sousa similarly locates what one might term emotional freedom—the ability of emotions to “transcend any of the scripts for behavioral expression some of them might have originally been selected to enact”—in “the possibilities for enlargement (and also the capacity for self-deception) entailed by the ability to elaborate our emotions in terms of a narrative framework.”29 Readers, in other words, always retain some degree of agency, and their ability to respond creatively and individually to the emotionology set forth in a narrative, a response that is often provoked or encouraged by a narrative, is an important part of the reason that narrative is a particularly effective teacher of emotional standards and styles.30 Given that narrative literature shares the structure of an emotion, ref lects, purveys, and plays with the ambient emotionology of the time and place in which it was created, and seeks to produce an emotional reaction in its public, moreover, it is more than a “fossil,” more than an “artifact,” more than a relic we can use to study a past emotionology. Despite some very real cultural differences—which are perhaps most immediately sensible in the case of medieval narratives in the languages in which they were composed and the ways in which they have been preserved—to the degree we can surmount these differences (through philology, paleography, historical study, etc.), we can hope that these stories will teach us their emotionology and produce an emotional reaction in us in the same way that they did for their intended audiences. That is, we can hope to experience the emotionology represented by these stories directly, even if only partially or poorly, and confront it with our own.31 The principal difficulty in studying and understanding the emotional life represented by and in literary narratives from the Middle Ages is the differences between their emotionologies and ours. I might thus normally be expected to undertake a discussion at this point of the relative continuity and discontinuity between medieval and modern emotionologies

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in order to reach some conclusion about our ability to overcome these differences and understand the literary representation of medieval emotional life. I will get to this, but I would first like to raise what I believe to be a prior question that often goes unasked, and even more often unanswered: Why do we want to understand past emotionologies, in this case medieval emotionologies? Why should medieval emotional styles and standards matter to us? One answer, which I will call the historical answer, has been put succinctly by Peter Stearns: The history of emotions deals with processes of change in emotional standards and emotional experience, or, somewhat more complexly, with emotional continuities amid changing contexts. As part of developing historical understanding of emotional expression, a third focus may apply—seeking to grasp the characteristic emotional styles of a particular period, in and of themselves, as a means of enriching the portrayal of that past time and launching the process of comparing one previous period to another. Ultimately, however, the analytical goals center on change, either in emotions themselves or in the environments in which they operate. 32

I would rearrange the parts of this answer a little bit and say that the historical approach to past emotionologies first seeks, in every instance, “to grasp the characteristic emotional styles of a particular period, in and of themselves, as a means of enriching the portrayal of that past time and launching the process of comparing one previous period to another,” and that it is through the process of comparison thus launched that historical study seeks to discern something about human nature (its “emotional continuities amid changing contexts”) or about the nature (the laws) and direction of cultural and emotional changes through time (“with processes of change in emotional standards and emotional experience”).33 In two out of three cases, then, the historical approach would like, at least, to go beyond or get through the representations of emotionologies to something more “real” such as human nature or genuine feelings; presumably, only cultural or social historians would be content in some cases with the study of the emotional standards and styles of a period and the evolution of those standards and styles from one period to another. There is, however, at least one other answer to this question (and probably many more), which I will call the literary answer, that is not haunted by the desire to pass through the narrative representations of emotionologies to real emotional experience but is satisfied with an encounter with the narrative representations. This literary answer presumes that we can experience and understand past emotionologies through stories, if only partially and imperfectly, because and to the degree that we can read and understand past stories. Emotions, as was noted above, have a narrative

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structure that facilitates their representation in stories, and stories have always been a means of teaching emotional standards and styles, bringing them to consciousness and, to paraphrase Oatley and Jenkins, providing the members of a society with common exemplars of action and emotion to help them ref lect on and become part of the cultural tradition in which they live. To the degree we can understand a past story, then, we too can experience the feelings it sought to provoke among its first audiences, learn its lessons, become conscious of the emotionology it purveys, and become honorary or corresponding members of the cultural tradition for which it was composed. To the degree we understand them, we can be educated by these stories in the same way that their intended audiences were (although perhaps less effectively) and we can experience emotional effects analogous to those the stories produced in their intended audience.34 One might indeed suggest that understanding past stories requires and goes hand in hand with understanding their emotionology—that we can understand a past story only to the degree we can understand its emotionology and can understand its emotionology only to the degree we can understand the story.35 It is not necessary, from this “literary” point of view, that the “medieval” emotionology I project through and for the sake of my reading of a medieval story be an accurate replica of the emotionology that an author intended to represent in his or her text; indeed, it is unlikely that it will be. It is even less necessary that I understand medieval ideas or theories about emotions, which, as intellectual and intentional statements about emotions, were articulated in response to an existing emotionology, may have been quite different from it, and may give us a particularly poor image of it. What does matter, however, is that the “medieval” emotionology I project through and for my reading be different from my own, regular, everyday, modern emotionology. I, at least, presume that my emotionology will have some elements in common with the medieval emotionology ref lected and purveyed by the medieval story36 —if there were none, I don’t see how I could understand the story at all or, a fortiori, why it would interest me at all—and these continuities are necessary and valuable insofar as they draw me into the story and help me start understanding it, but the differences, the discontinuities between the “medieval” emotionology I project on the basis of my reading and my own emotionology, and the lack of comprehension they produce, are what make my reading valuable insofar as they allow me to enrich and expand my own emotionology, my own awareness of emotional standards and styles, the range of emotional experience and possibilities open to me. The “medieval” emotionology I project on the basis of my reading is valuable to me, that is, precisely insofar as it mixes unfamiliar

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components with familiar ones. When it is reported, for example, that Abbot Aelred of Rievaulx’s last words to his monks were “God who knows all things knows that I love you all as myself, and ‘I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus’ [Phil. 1:8] like a mother longs for her sons,”37 or when Galehaut’s tomb is opened years after his death so that the recently deceased Lancelot may be buried with him in the same tomb,38 the medieval emotionologies that I project and to some degree experience on the basis of my reading contain both familiar and unfamiliar elements (a strong affection that is familiar but of a kind and to a degree that I do not, in my emotionology, generally expect to find one man expressing for another in such a public and publicly accepted manner) and suggest to me, open up within me, the possibility of a greater range of emotional experience than the one I know. Past stories thus illuminate and enlarge my own emotionology by confronting it with a different one and can open me up to new ranges of emotional experience. 39 Seen from this point of view, the question of the continuities and discontinuities between modern and medieval sensibilities appears in a different light. Both are necessary and valuable and only the extremes are worrisome. If the emotionology we project on the basis of a reading of a medieval text is completely continuous with our own, something is probably wrong: either we are reading very poorly or we are faced with a hoax. Certainly such a reading does us no good. But something is probably also wrong if the emotionology we project on the basis of a reading of a medieval text is completely discontinuous with our own, and it is indeed hard to see how we could even read such a text, or why we would want to. One cannot, of course, “assume without proof . . . that people in the past shared our emotional experience, that we can use contemporary psychology to elucidate past behavior, or that we can use past data, without careful analysis to bolster contemporary psychological theory.”40 A critical sensibility and methodological caution—as well as, one might suggest, some knowledge of paleography, codicology, and the language and historical context in which the text was originally written—are necessary for a “good” reading of a medieval text,41 and some aspects of medieval emotionologies may simply remain incomprehensible to us.42 However, in general, as Rosenwein writes, There is, then, no reason to worry that studying the emotions of the Western Middle Ages is any more anachronistic than studying its universities, ideas, or political institutions. To be sure, all were different from their manifestations today, but in every case the historian can have fair hopes of entering sympathetically into a mind-set that is not entirely foreign to her own. Western emotions have persisted over the long haul.43

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As has already been suggested in several ways, the emotionologies represented in medieval literature were also, at least to some degree, specific to what Rosenwein has termed an “emotional community”: a group “in which people adhere to the same norms of emotional expression and value—or devalue—the same or related emotions,” “a group in which people have a common stake, interests, values, and goals. Thus it is often a social community.”44 Each of the texts studied here thus represents the emotionology of a particular emotional community—one might, in fact, go so far as to say that the emotionology implicated in the composition of a text is that of the author (only), or at least the author’s conception of his or her audience’s emotionology, while he or she was composing the text—but it is reasonable to imagine that the emotionologies of emotional communities that use a Romance language, for example, will on the whole overlap more with one another than with the emotionologies of emotional communities that use a Germanic language, and that within the realm of Romance cultures, the emotionologies of emotional communities that use “French” will on the whole overlap more with one another than with the emotionologies of emotional communities that use “Spanish” or “Italian.”45 The concepts of national languages such as “French,” “Spanish,” and “Italian” are, of course, problematic for the Middle Ages, and one can also imagine that during a period as long as the Middle Ages temporal differences may at some point become more important than cultural similarities (a fifteenth-century “French” emotionology may resemble a fifteenthcentury “Spanish” one more than it does a sixth-century “French” one), but it seems that cultural distinctions such as “Romance,” “French,” “Spanish,” or “Italian,” even though they are terribly broad, can serve a useful heuristic purpose, allowing us to distinguish and group texts whose emotionologies may have more or less in common.46 All stories, and the only stories, that were written down in the Middle Ages, even in a Romance language, were, moreover, composed for the elite emotional communities. More and more people may have had access to written literature as the Middle Ages unfolded, and the inf luence of that literature may have been more widespread, but, even at the very end of the Middle Ages, written literature was still produced only by elite members of society for elite members of society. The representation of emotionologies in medieval literature, therefore, inevitably has a class bias to it. “Adult male coal-miners,” writes Reddy, “women garment workers in a sweatshop, or f light attendants have very different social relationships and live in very different emotional atmospheres, whereas the executives who command them have much more in common.”47 If we replace “executives” by “members of the social elites,”

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“adult male coal miners” by “adult male agricultural workers,” and so on, the same could be said of the Middle Ages. This bias could, moreover, have a more-or-less sharp ideological edge to it: “emotional standards,” as Stearns writes, “also intertwine with power relationships”48 and, as Reddy suggests, “a normative style of emotional management is a fundamental element of every political regime, of every cultural hegemony. . . . Any enduring political regime must establish as an essential element a normative order for emotions, an ‘emotional regime.’ ”49 The emotionologies represented in medieval literature are class specific, at least to some degree, and their dissemination had an ideological aim, or at least ideological effects.50 This volume focuses on the representation of the emotional life of women in medieval romance literature for two reasons. First, the emotionologies represented in the texts studied here propose different emotional standards and styles for women than for men ( just as our emotionologies do now) and these texts played a role in teaching women (and men) what the—different—sources of emotions were for women (and men), what kinds of emotions were appropriate for them to feel, how they should feel those emotions, what emotions they could express and when, how and to whom they could express them, when and how it was appropriate for emotions to lead to action, and so on. One could, presumably, try to identify and study an overarching, “genderless” emotionology in these texts—and the emotionologies proposed to medieval men and women undoubtedly overlapped in many ways and the similarities and differences between these overlaps, then and now, could prove to be most interesting—but since few people were genderless in the Middle Ages or, indeed, are so now, gendered emotionologies seem more useful objects of study. Second, then as now, women were commonly considered to be “more emotional” than men. We are perhaps not surprised that this was true way back in the Middle Ages,51 but in their survey of research into gender and emotion, Leslie R. Brody and Judith A. Hall conclude that in contemporary northern American culture females (their term) in general experience many, but not all, emotions, both negative and positive, more intensely than males, “prefer more intimate, affectively immediate communication with others. . . . [and] are superior to males at identifying affect from nonverbal cues of face, body, and voice.”52 They further observe that “the interrelated ideas that women are more emotional and more emotionally expressive than men, as well as more expressive of particular kinds of emotions than men, are common [not only] in [North American] popular culture,” but tend “to be pervasive across 30 diverse cultures, with only 3 exceptions among the 30,”53 and they suggest, albeit cautiously, that these differences, which appear to remain

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somewhat constant across cultural divides, may have at least some basis in biological differences between females and males. Brody and Hall recognize, however, that the existence of the “interrelated ideas that women are more emotional and more emotionally expressive than men, as well as more expressive of particular kinds of emotions than men” across several cultures may be related to the similarities in the situation of women in these cultures: Insofar as these stereotypes are linked to a gender-linked division of labor and life tasks along instrumental and socioemotional lines, they are likely to be universal as well. . . . Culture and context become particularly important when emotions are viewed from a functionalist perspective (i.e., a view that emotions are adaptive for both interpersonal and intrapersonal goals). Since such goals vary widely for males and females— depending on, among other things, age, culture, socialization history, and socioeconomic status—it is not surprising both that gender differences in emotion are widely documented, and that these gender differences are sometimes inconsistent, varying as a function of these same factors.54

They likewise observe that such “stereotypes have a strong implicit prescriptive aspect, taking the form of display rules, which are cultural norms regulating how, when, and where emotions can be expressed by males and females in any particular culture. Violating stereotypic display rules can lead to negative social consequences, such as social rejection, reduced attractiveness to the opposite sex, and even occupational discrimination.”55 In general, they conclude that “both emotional expression and gender have complex interacting biological, social, and cultural roots.”56 This continuity between medieval and modern ideas about the greater emotionality and emotional expressiveness of women—whether based on biology or culture or both—makes medieval emotionologies accessible and interesting to us and suggests that a study of the representation of the emotional life of women in medieval romance literature may be a richer and more rewarding place to begin the study of the representation of medieval emotionologies than a study of the representation of the emotional life of men (although the latter would be a logical next step, as would an eventual comparison of the two). This volume focuses on the representation of “negative” emotions in the emotional life of women in medieval romance literature for two further reasons. First, as was noted earlier, Oatley and Jenkins have suggested that “narrative literature, from ancient times to the present, concentrates on our emotional lives and their problematics—as if story telling and story listening have always been attempts to understand these matters.”57 My knowledge of stories likewise suggests that they are far

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more likely—everywhere and always—to concentrate on the “problematics” of emotional experience, to portray fraught and critical moments rather than tranquil, happy ones. They often tell about people who move from the former to the latter (or from the latter through the former back to the latter), but the happiness usually appears only at the end, sometimes at the beginning, and is not much dwelt on. This is probably not accidental but one might also suggest that narrative does not, in fact, focus on the problematics of emotional experience per se, but that problematic emotional experiences are, rather, part and parcel of the kinds of events narrative recounts. Reddy has defined “suffering as an acute form of goal conf lict” in which “emotional effort” is required to maintain “a goal or action plan in spite of rising suffering due to goal conf lict. . . . Emotional suffering . . . is likely to accompany any important shifts in life goals, both in a preliminary stage, before the shift is embraced, and in a ‘workingthrough’ stage, where the suffering may be supplanted by grief or may take the form of guilt or shame.”58 (One might suggest that hypocrisy, the other “emotion” in this volume’s title, is an effort to avoid goal conf lict, to find a way to pursue two potentially conf licting goals simultaneously.) Therefore, insofar as narrative literature is a privileged social institution for the description, exploration, and articulation of goal conf lict and shifts in life goals thanks to its temporal qualities, causal structure, and capacity to represent emotional experience, it will also over-represent, so to speak, the emotions associated with such conf licts and shifts.59 If one group (or gender) in a community experiences more goal conf licts or experiences them more often than another, emotional suffering, grief, guilt, shame, and hypocrisy will naturally play a larger part in its emotionology than they do in that of other groups. It is not unusual, as Reddy notes, for emotional regimes to “impose stricter expectations on women than on men” and these stricter expectations may be expected to lead to more frequent and more profound goal conf licts, shifts in life goals, and their attendant emotions of suffering, guilt, grief, and shame.60 To the degree that emotions, moreover, are “acknowledgements of neediness and lack of self-sufficiency” and are “concerned with vulnerable externalities: those that can be affected by event’s beyond one’s control, those that are unexpected, those that can be destroyed or removed even when one does not wish it,” as Martha Nussbaum suggests, it is also easy to understand how women in a given community will be “more emotional” than men to the degree that the community allows them less autonomy than it does men (and vice versa).61 It is interesting that Brody and Hall also found that women report more “intropunitive affects (e.g., shame, embarrassment, and anxiety)” than men.62 This does not, of course, mean that they actually experience such emotions more frequently than men

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do, but they are at least taught to identify and express such emotions more readily than men do. What is true now may have been true, to some degree, in the Middle Ages, and if women were, in fact, being taught to identify and express such emotions more readily than men did then, texts such as those studied here played an important role in their education.63 In sum, then, there is good reason to believe that narratives, because they are a privileged social institution for exploring goal conf lict and shifts in life goals, will always over-represent the part of the emotionology bound up with their creation that is implicated in such conf licts and shifts. Narratives will always be more about emotional suffering, grief, guilt, shame, and hypocrisy than about happiness and contentment. There is also good reason to believe that—for political, economic, social, cultural, and, perhaps, biological reasons—these emotions have consistently played a larger role in the emotionology of women than they have in the emotionology of men, and that women in the Middle Ages, like women now, were more emotionally experienced and sophisticated than men. It should thus come as no surprise if a study of the narrative representation of medieval emotionologies ends up concentrating on the representation of the problematics of the emotional life of women in those narratives. It is probably the most salient aspect of medieval emotionologies represented there. The authors of the chapters collected here come from different linguistic cultures (English, German, Dutch, Spanish, Romanian) and different countries (the United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Romania, Australia), and their essays focus on texts from different linguistic traditions and different periods. The first five chapters focus on medieval northern French culture from the twelfth through fifteenth centuries, and, in the first and fifth chapters, on its interconnections with Latin and English cultures. The next two chapters look at examples of courtly poetry from the southern French culture of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The following three chapters focus on Spanish texts of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, while the last two turn to Chaucer’s adaptation of Boccacio’s Teseida: Delle Nozze d’Emilia and fifteenthcentury Italian Humanism. These chapters thus all focus on women characters (some of the women in question were historical figures, but their real existence can no more be communicated in literature than their real emotional experience; we are dealing with their representations, sometimes their self-representations) in twelfth-to-fifteenth-century medieval literature from Romance cultures who explore (not necessarily by violating or contesting, sometimes simply by learning) the emotionology of an emotional community. By following these women characters in their explorations, by trying to

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imagine what it would be like to live in and with the emotionologies purveyed by these narratives, we can hope both to learn something about twelfth-to-fifteenth-century Romance emotionologies and emotional communities, and to enrich and enlarge our own emotionologies. Notes 1. For introductions to contemporary psychological, anthropological, and philosophical ideas about emotions, see Keith Oatley and Jennifer M. Jenkins, Understanding Emotions (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996); Michael Stocker with Elizabeth Hegeman, Valuing Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Handbook of Emotions, ed. Michael Lewis and Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2000); William M. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Thinking about Feeling. Contemporary Philosophers on Emotions, ed. Robert C. Solomon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Annie Piolat and Rachid Bannour, “Emotions et affects. Contribution de la psychologie cognitive,” in Le Sujet des émotions au moyen âge, ed. Piroska Nagy and Damien Boquet (Paris: Beauchesne, 2008), 53–84; and Ronald de Sousa, “Emotion,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, , revised January 14, 2010. For introductions to the study of medieval emotions and how contemporary ideas about emotions apply to medieval emotions, see further Carolyn P. Collette, “Sense and Sensibility in the ‘Prioress’s Tale,’ ” The Chaucer Review 15 (1980), 138–150; Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998), especially the introductory and concluding essays by Rosenwein, 1–6 and 233–247, and the essay by Stephen D. White, “The Politics of Anger,” 127–131; Emoties in de Middeleeuwen, ed. R. E. V. Stuip and C. Vellekoop (Hilversum: Verloren, 1998); the fourarticle debate on “The History of the Emotions” organized by Catherine Cubitt in Early Medieval Europe 10 (2001), 225–256, especially the articles by Carolyne Larrington, “The Psychology of Emotion and Study of the Medieval Period,” 251–256, and Barbara H. Rosenwein, “Writing without Fear about Early Medieval Emotions,” 229–234; Kulturen der Gefühle in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Ingrid Kasten, Gesa Stedmann and Margarete Zimmermann, Querelles—Jahrbuch für Frauenund Geschlechterforschung, vol. 7 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2002), ; Codierungen von Emotionen im Mittelalter/Emotions and Sensibilities in the Middle Ages, ed. C. Stephen Jaeger and Ingrid Kasten (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2003); Grief and Gender: 700–1700, ed. Jennifer C. Vaught (New York: Palgrave, 2003); Jeroen Deploige, “Studying Emotions: The Medievalist as Human Scientist?” in Emotions in the Heart of the City (14th–16th Century), ed. Elodie Lecuppre-Desjardin and Anne-Laure

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Van Bruaene (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 3–24; The Representation of Women’s Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, ed. Lisa Perfetti (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2005), especially the Introduction by Perfetti, 1–22; Jutta Eming, Emotion und Expression: Untersuchungen zu deutschen und französischen Liebes und Abenteuerromanen des 12.–16. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2006); Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006); the special issue of Critique devoted to Émotions médiévales, ed. Piroska Nagy, no. 716–717 (2007); and Le Sujet des émotions au moyen âge, ed. Piroska Nagy and Damien Boquet (Paris: Beauchesne, 2008), especially the introductory essay, “Pour une histoire des émotions. L’historien face aux questions contemporaines,” by Nagy and Bouquet, 15–51. 2. Keith Oatley, “Social Construction in Emotions,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Lewis and Haviland, 341; Oatley and Jenkins, Understanding Emotions, 50; see also Nico H. Frijda, “The Psychologists’ Point of View,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Lewis and Haviland-Jones, 2nd ed., 60–70; Jesse Prinz, “Embodied Emotions,” in Thinking about Feeling, 44–58; and Paul E. Griffiths, “Is Emotion a Natural Kind,” in Thinking about Feeling, 240–243. 3. Peter N. Stearns and Carol Z. Stearns, “Emotionology: Clarifying the History of Emotions and Emotional Standards,” The American Historical Review 90 (1985), 834; cf. Oatley, “Social Construction in Emotions,” 343–345; Oatley and Jenkins, Understanding Emotions, 252–258, 283–284; Catherine Peyroux, “Gertrude’s furor: Reading Anger in an Early Medieval Saint’s Life,” in Anger’s Past, 41–42; Frijda, “The Psychologists’ Point of View,” 70–71; and Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, 14, 191. 4. Reddy writes: “An emotion is a range of loosely connected thought material, formulated in various codes, that has goal-relevant valence and intensity . . . , that may constitute a ‘schema’ (or a set of loosely connected schemas or fragments of schemas); this range of thoughts tends to be activated together . . . but, when activated, exceeds attention’s capacity to translate it into action or into talk in a short time horizon. Its loose and often variegated character is a ref lection of the complexity of translation tasks (including the formulation and application of goals). . . . Any time activations of a wide variety challenge attention’s capacity for translation, native speakers of English are likely to say that they are aware of an emotion or feeling. . . . emotions are a kind of precondition of volition and motivation; they convey the weight of hundreds of past volitions and motivations into the present” (The Navigation of Feeling, 94–95, 120); cf. Jenefer Robinson, “Emotion: Biological Fact or Social Construction,” in Thinking about Feeling, 33–35; Peter Goldie, “Emotion, Feeling, and Knowledge of the World,” in Thinking about Feeling, 97–102; Jon Elster, “Emotion and Action,” in Thinking about Feeling, 151–162; De Sousa, “Emotion,” section 8, “Rationality and Emotions.”

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5. Robert C. Solomon, “Emotions, Thoughts, and Feelings: Emotions as Engagements with the World,” in Thinking about Feeling, 77. 6. Oatley, “Social Construction in Emotions,” 341. 7. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, 15; cf. Goldie, “Emotion, Feeling, and Knowledge of the World,” 94–95. 8. Solomon, “Emotions, Thoughts, and Feelings,” 83; Geoffrey M. White, “Representing Emotional Meaning: Category, Metaphor, Schema, Discourse,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Lewis and Haviland-Jones, 2nd ed., 39; see also Amélie Oksenberg Rorty, who writes: “a person’s—a society’s—characteristic emotional repertoire, its pattern of dominant and recessive emotions and attitudes, is structured by, and in turn reinforces, political and economic arrangements” (“Enough Already with ‘Theories of the Emotions,’ ” in Thinking about Feeling, 276); and Deploige, “Studying Emotions,” 21–22. For a résumé of current thinking about the way emotions are engagements with the world, see Nagy and Boquet, “Pour une histoire des émotions,” 31–35. 9. “Emotions: What I Know, What I’d Like to Think I Know, and What I’d Like to Think,” in Thinking about Feeling, 63. 10. Richard A. Shweder and Jonathan Haidt, “The Cultural Psychology of the Emotions: Ancient and New,” in Handbook of Emotions, 2nd ed., 405–406. Cf. Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, “Emotion as a Subtle Mental Mode,” in Thinking about Feeling, 250–268; Rosenwein: “Putting social constructivism and the cognitive view together, we may say that if emotions are assessments based on experience and goals, the norms of the individual’s social context provide the framework in which such evaluations take place and derive their meaning” (Emotional Communities, 15); and Pierre Livet: “la plupart des noms d’émotions désignent des structures . . . complexes qui impliquent des situations sociales ainsi que leurs normes culturelles” (“Les émotions au moyen âge. Analyse rétrospective,” in Le Sujet des émotions au moyen âge, 487–488). 11. The Navigation of Feeling, 64, 94, 102–105. 12. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, ed. Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye, Albert Riedlinger, trans. Roy Harris (London: Duckworth, 1983), 110–111. 13. Shweder and Haidt, “The Cultural Psychology of the Emotions,” 398. 14. Reddy writes that what he terms “emotional styles” “are best communicated by means of sensory-rich participatory performances: ritual, predication, theater. But they may also be conveyed, or suggested, by literature, art, music, iconography, architecture, dress. All such practices and products can be viewed as emotive in character” (The Navigation of Feeling, 331). Rorty suggest more generally still that “workplaces, religious institutions, banks, schools, courts, museums, mass media, armies, advertising and insurance companies, clinics and hospitals all model, direct, and constrain the psychological/emotional repertoire of a culture” (“Enough Already,” 277).

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15. Stocker, Valuing Emotions, 5, 8. Cf. Robinson, “Emotion,” who observes that “even a simple episode of emotion is a process,” and that “our emotional life occurs in ‘streams’ that change all the time” (37, 38); Solomon, “Emotions, Thoughts, and Feelings,” 78–79; and De Sousa who writes that “it seems conceptually incoherent to suppose that one could have an emotion . . . for only a fraction of a second . . . . One explanation of this feature of emotions is that a story plays itself out during the course of each emotional episode, and stories take place over stretches of time” (De Sousa, “Emotion,” section 6, “Perceptual Theories,” paragraph beginning “Some philosophers suggest . . .”). On narrative as a “configurational mode” of comprehension that holds together or comprehends a number of “elements in a single and concrete complex of relationships” in which “the end is connected with the promise of the beginning as well as the beginning with the promise of the end, and the necessity of the backward references cancels out, so to speak, the contingency of the forward references” so that “the actions and events of a story comprehended as a whole are connected by a network of overlapping descriptions”: “in the array of descriptions grasped together in the understanding of any incident or character, each overlaps with at least one in another array, and at least one overlaps with a description in every other array,” see Louis O. Mink, “History and Fiction as Modes of Comprehension,” New Literary History, 1 (1970), 541–558. 16. Shweder and Haidt, “The Cultural Psychology of the Emotions,” 405; cf. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling, 100–101; Ronald de Sousa: “human emotions, thanks to a gift of language that brings with it a particularly strong form of intentionality, are differentiated from the emotions of other animals as well as from one another by the acquisition of a narrative form” (“Emotions: What I Know,” 63; cf. 65–66, 73–74); and De Sousa, “Emotion,” section 6, “Perceptual Theories,” paragraph beginning “Some philosophers suggest . . . ” 17. Martha Nussbaum suggests that the emotional experiences of other people are made available to us precisely through “stories” (“Emotions as Judgments of Value and Importance,” in Thinking about Feeling, 186), while Rorty observes that “emotions are further identified and individuated by their place in a dramatic narrative”; that “specific ‘emotional’ attitudes are individuated and identified . . . within the context of a narrative scenario” (“Enough Already,” 274, 278). Cf. De Sousa, “What I Know,” 73; and idem, “Emotion,” section 10, “Morality and Emotions,” paragraph beginning “An important amendment to that view . . .”; and section 11, “Summary and Guide to the Recent Literature,” paragraph beginning “Martha Nussbaum’s theory of emotions . . . ” 18. Cf. Nagy and Boquet, “Pour une histoire des émotions,” 41. One of the two most frequent approaches to medieval emotions and emotionologies has been to study the emotional vocabulary of a particular community as a way of grasping its emotional experience and standards, and Reddy’s analysis of the way in which “emotional utterances” shape our emotions

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19.

20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25.

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as they express them helps us understand the validity and effectiveness of such an approach. I would suggest, however, that a study of a community’s narratives is a still more sensitive and comprehensive way, as well as a more pleasurable and more immediate way, to grasp its emotional experience and standards. As De Sousa notes, “while it is useful to recognize a limited number of named emotions for the purposes of social communication and classification, the actual experience of emotion is better modeled by aesthetic experience, and the range of values they apprehend better assimilated to the indefinitely many dimensions in which aesthetic experience can take us” (“What I Know,” 73). Oatley and Jenkins, Understanding Emotions, 369; cf. ibid., 359, 366–373; Paul L. Harris, “Understanding Emotion,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Lewis and Haviland, 237; Paul Hyam, “What Did Henry III of England Think in Bed and in French about Kingship and Anger,” in Anger’s Past, ed. Rosenwein, 105–120; Peter N. Stearns, “History of Emotions: The Issue of Change,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Lewis and HavilandJones, 2nd ed., 25; Shweder and Haidt, “The Cultural Psychology of the Emotions”; White, “Representing Emotional Meaning,” 39; Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, 24–25; and Deploige, “Studying Emotions,” 23. Stearns and Stearns, “Emotionology,” 813. Stearns, “History of Emotions,” 20. Cf. Reddy’s description of “emotional ‘regimes’ ” that help ensure “the unity of a community—such as it may be— . . . [by providing] a coherent set of prescriptions about emotions . . . ideals to strive toward and strategies to guide individual effort” (The Navigation of Feeling, 61–62); Catherine Cubitt, “The History of the Emotions: A Debate. Introduction,” Early Medieval Europe 10 (2001), 225–226; and Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, 193. Elster describes “social norms” as “rules of behavior sustained by the emotional reactions of other people towards those who violate the rules” (“Emotion and Action,” 156). Rosenwein, “Writing without Fear,” 232. “ . . . texts imputing ira to God and God’s saints,” writes Stephen White, “support two other conclusions about the representation of anger. First, there must have been well-understood conventions about when it was appropriate for an author to impute anger to people about whose emotions he had no definitive knowledge. . . . Second, there must also have been well-understood conventions about when it was appropriate to display anger”; “Whether or not these sources ever provide accurate information about the emotions actually experienced or expressed by medieval people, they encode well-understood conventions about displaying anger in political settings” (White, “The Politics of Anger,” 137, 139). Deploige, “Studying Emotions,” 20. Deploige, “Studying Emotions,” 23; Gregor Vogt-Spira points out that it was already “basic knowledge in scholia, grammars, and anthologies of Late Antiquity” and thus of the Middle Ages “that sensory perception brought about by the exterior world is not experienced as different

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26.

27. 28.

29.

from the one evoked through texts by way of phantasia [which he defines as the ‘power of imagination’]; . . . that literature can arouse something analogous to sensual perceptions, the ideal result of this process being that the induction by means of texts becomes indistinguishable from that which is brought about by means of the perception of the external world” (Gregor Vogt-Spira, “Senses, Imagination, and Literature,” in Rethinking the Medieval Senses. Heritage/Fascinations/Frames, ed. Stephen G. Nichols, Andreas Kablitz, and Alison Calhoun [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008], 52, 54, 55); cf. Keith Oatley, “A Taxonomy of the Emotions of Literary Response and a Theory of Identification in Fictional Narrative,” Poetics 23 (1994), 53–74 and Stocker, Valuing Emotions, 38–39. Shweder and Haidt (“The Cultural Psychology of the Emotions,” 398–401) discuss in detail a third-century Sanskrit text’s analysis of the emotional reaction to dramatic representations and the pleasure that this reaction produces (cf. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling, 57–59). See Oatley, “Social Construction in Emotions,” 347; Larrington, “The Psychology of Emotion and Study of the Medieval Period,” 254; Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, 26–29, 196. Not all the essays in this volume focus on narrative literature—although all the examples discussed in them might be said to be implicitly narrative or to contain implicit or proto-narratives—and non-narrative literature offers different approaches to studying past emotionologies. Lila Abu-Lughod has suggested that in certain settings among the Awlad ‘Ali, “a Bedouin group of the Egyptian desert,” women may use “ghinnāwa poetry [a difficult, traditional form of poetry] to express sentiments of resistance to elders’ wishes, or sentiments of profound grief over the effects of their commands.” But she argued that “such expressions . . . only served to underscore the personal cost of obedience . . . , thus increasing the honor of the one who suffered”; “these snatches of poetry, when recited in front of strategically chosen intimates, by their artful and expressive character, showed not a failure of control, but ‘the profundity of that which had been overcome’ ” (Lila Abu-Lughod, Veiled Sentiments: Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986]; cited by Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling, 38, 56). For a medieval Romance non-narrative example, see Wendy Pfeffer, “Constant Sorrow: Emotions and the Women Trouvères,” in The Representation of Women’s Emotions, 119–132. Cf. Lisa Perfetti, “Introduction,” in The Representation of Women’s Emotions, 2, 16. Roberta Krueger, Women Readers and the Ideology of Gender in Old French Verse Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), xiii, 16. Cf. Jennifer C. Vaught, “Introduction,” in Grief and Gender, 2–3; David Lee Miller, “Afterword: Only a Rite,” in Grief and Gender, 245; and Perfetti, “Introduction,” 14–15. De Sousa, “What I Know,” 73.

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30. Cf. Oatley, “A Taxonomy of the Emotions,” 59–61. The other most frequent approach to medieval emotions and emotionologies (in addition to the study of the emotional vocabulary of a particular community mentioned in note 19 above) has been to study the theories of emotions (or passions) elaborated in this or that community. Such studies—like the studies of emotional vocabularies—seem to me to be founded on a recognition of the role of “emotional utterances” and thinking in shaping emotions, but insofar as the theories they study are presumably more formal, more individual and subjective (and thus, at least as far as medieval theories are concerned, more male-oriented, even misogynistic), and more remote from the common emotional experience of the majority of the members of that community, the emotionologies they discover were probably less practiced and less widespread. They provide an interesting and valuable background, or counterpoint, to the study of a community’s emotionology by means of its narratives or common vocabulary, and they draw appropriate attention to an emotionology’s formality—or at least its susceptibility to formalization—but they seem less well-equipped to grasp precisely the freedom, the creativity, the ability to “transcend . . . scripts for behavioral expression,” “the possibilities for enlargement (and also the capacity for self-deception)” inherent in any living, practiced emotionology. 31. This interest in a direct experience of the distinct emotionology implicated in and purveyed by the texts studied in this volume also explains the deliberate lack of any effort to reach a general conclusion, theory, or story here of the emotionology of medieval women in Romance cultures. Readers are, of course, free to formulate such a conclusion, theory, or story themselves. 32. Stearns, “History of Emotions,” 16. 33. As Rosenwein has shown very clearly, medieval emotional standards and experience have often been constructed (one is tempted to say lampooned or caricaturized) in order to fit into and support a master narrative of emotional “progress” from an unconstrained, childlike, or barbarian past to an increasingly mature, controlled, and sophisticated present (Emotional Communities, 5–25). 34. As Nagy and Boquet write: “Dès lors que nous reconnaissons ce processus de contagion entre celui qui ‘emet’ et celui qui ‘reçoit’ l’émotion, nous devons en tenir compte dans la lecture de tout texte ou image qui met en scène des émotions. . . . à l’instar du spectateur médiéval, en se laissant imprégner par les émotions de la scène figurée, nous nous absorbons dans la scène; de spectateurs, nous devenons nous-mêmes ce qu’on pourrait appeler les bénéficiaires émotifs” (“Pour une histoire des émotions,” 39; cf. 39–43). [“As soon as we recognize this process of contagion between the person who ‘emits’ and the one who ‘receives’ the emotion, we must take it into account in the reading of every text or image that portrays emotions. . . . like the medieval spectator, who let him or herself be filled by the emotions of the scene that was being represented, we get lost in the

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35.

36.

37. 38. 39.

40. 41.

scene; we cease being spectators and ourselves become what one might call emotive beneficiaries”]. The ability of stories to provoke feelings (and thus teach emotionologies) was recognized in the Middle Ages. Peter of Blois, for example, wrote: “A prudent, honorable, strong, friendly man, agreeable in all things, is often described in tragedies and other songs of the poets, in the ditties of jongleurs. The vicissitudes and wrongs inf licted cruelly on this same man are also recounted, just as performers report fabulous things about Arthur and Gawain and Tristan, hearing which, the hearts of the listeners tremble with compassion and are even driven to tears” (De confessione sacramentali, PL 207, 1088; my translation). This passage was drawn to my attention by a paper on “Arthurian Emotions” read by Frank Brandsma at the 22nd Congress of the International Arthurian Society, Rennes, France, July 2008 (). On the ways in which narratives provoke emotions, see also the works cited in n. 25 above. Or, as Michael Stocker puts it, “emotions can be understood only if we understand the worlds of people with those emotions and . . . understanding such worlds involves understanding those emotions” (Stocker, Valuing Emotions, 6); the worlds in question in this volume are either fictional or historical—that is, worlds that do not exist and must be imagined (even if they once existed). Even Catherine Peyroux, who seems skeptical of our ability to understand past emotionologies, observes that “when we write histories of the past in which feeling is omitted, we implicitly disregard fundamental aspects of the terms on which people act and interact, and we thus deprive ourselves of important evidence for the framework of understanding in which our subjects conducted the business of their lives” (“Gertrude’s furor,” 54–55). See Larrington, “The Psychology of Emotion and Study of the Medieval Period,” 253–256, on how we are able to understand medieval emotions in textual accounts. Walter Daniel, The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx, ed. and trans. Maurice Powicke (Oxford: Clarendon, 1950), 58; trans. modified. The Death of King Arthur, trans. James Cable (Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1971), 234–235. My thinking about the “medieval” emotionologies we project when we read medieval stories and the role that they can play in expanding our emotionologies owes a great deal, indeed everything, to Paul Ricoeur. See Jeff Rider, “Other Voices: Historicism and the Interpretation of Medieval Texts,” Exemplaria 1 (1989), 293–312; idem, “Whence? Whither?” in Reflections in the Frame: New Perspectives on the Study of Medieval Literature, ed. Peter Allen and Jeff Rider, Exemplaria 3:1 (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1991), 243–266; idem, “L’Utilité du Moyen Âge,” Itinéraires LTC (Littérature, Textes, Cultures), 2010, no. 3. 35–46. Stearns and Stearns, “Emotionology,” 820–821. See Oatley, “Social Construction in Emotions,” 346, and Rosenwein, Emotional Communities 26–29.

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42. See Stearns and Stearns, “Emotionology,” 814; Stearns, “History of Emotions,” 16–17; Peyroux seems to suggest that we cannot, in fact, comprehend medieval emotionologies: “Whatever the immediate felt experience or physiological component of emotions, feelings are ‘cultural acquisitions’ intelligible only in the context in which they occur. . . . Manifestly, a reading of Gertrude’s anger that depends on ‘common sense’ is of no use in a context with which we have no sensibility in common” (“Gertrude’s furor,” 42; cf. 43). 43. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, 55–56. See also Stearns and Stearns, “Emotionology,” 823–824, 829. The substantial continuity between medieval emotionologies and our own is also suggested, or supported, by recent studies of childhood and family life in the Middle Ages, which end up showing overwhelmingly, at least in my reading of them, just how little the human experience of childhood, adolescence, parenthood, and so on has changed—although they also show that some things have changed—between then and now. An enormous number of books and articles have appeared on these topics in recent years, but one could get at least an introductory introduction to the subject from the following works: Barbara Hanawalt, The Ties That Bound: Peasant Families in Medieval England (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Frances and Joseph Gies, Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages (New York: Harper and Row, 1987); Nicholas Orme, Medieval Children (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001); The Premodern Teenager: Youth in Society, 1150–1650, ed. Konrad Eisenbichler (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2002). Shweder and Haidt, however, note cautiously that “it is one of the marvels of life that across languages, cultures, and history, it is possible, with sufficient knowledge, effort, and insight, to truly understand the meanings of other people’s emotions and mental states. Yet one must also marvel at one of the great ironies of life— namely, that the process of understanding the consciousness of others can deceptively appear to be far easier than it really is, thereby making it even more difficult to achieve a genuine understanding of ‘otherness’ ” (“The Cultural Psychology of the Emotions,” 410). 44. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities, 2, 24–25. See also Oatley, “Social Construction in Emotions,” 341; and Shweder and Haidt, “The Cultural Psychology of the Emotions,” 398–399. 45. This further suggests, if further suggestion is necessary, the great interest of multilingual regions such as England, Wales, and Flanders, where Celtic, Germanic, Romance and bi- and tri-lingual emotional communities coexisted and where many people participated in more than one community. 46. The decision to focus on Romance literature in this volume was dictated by the interests and competencies of its contributors, but one also has to wonder whether popular notions about the “emotionality” of Romance cultures did not make it easier to think of putting together a volume about the representation of the emotional life of women in Romance literature.

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47. 48. 49. 50.

51.

52.

53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59.

The Navigation of Feeling, 128. Stearns, “History of Emotions,” 26. The Navigation of Feeling, 121, 124; cf. 122–128. See Rosenwein: “We cannot know how all people felt, but we can begin to know how some members of certain ascendant elites thought they and others felt or, at least, thought they ought to feel” (Emotional Communities, 196). This is, of course, true of the representation and dissemination of any emotionology, even today. See Stearns and Stearns, “Emotionology,” 828–830; Stearns, “History of Emotions,” 25–26. Race is, of course, another parameter to be taken into account in our study of medieval emotionologies but does not enter explicitly into the chapters collected here. It deserves more study. For examples of the way race inf lects the representations of (other people’s) emotionologies in medieval literature, see Bonnie Wheeler, “Grief in Avalon: Sir Palomydes’ Psychic Pain,” in Grief and Gender, 65–77; Perfetti, “Introduction,” 7–8; Kristi Gourlay, “A Pugnacious Pagan Princess: Aggressive Female Anger and Violence in Fierbras,” in The Representation of Women’s Emotions, 133–163; and Sarah Westphal, “Calefurnia’s Rage: Emotions and Gender in Late Medieval Law and Literature,” 178–185. It seems likely that medieval authors tended to project “anti-emotionologies” onto racial, ethnic “others”— emotionologies that permit or even encourage emotions and emotional expressions in which “our” community should not indulge, although it may want to (cf. Jeff Rider, “The Other Worlds of Romance,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Romance, ed. Roberta Krueger [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000], 115–131). See Vaught, “Introduction,” 1–6; Perfetti, “Introduction,” 1; Goodland, “‘Us for to wepe no man may lett’: Resistant Female Grief in the Medieval English Lazarus Plays,” in The Representation of Women’s Emotions,” 112. Leslie R. Brody and Judith A. Hall, “Gender and Emotion,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Lewis and Haviland, 448, 450, 452. For introductory discussions of the role of gender in emotional life, see Brody and Hall, “Gender and Emotion”; idem, “Gender, Emotion, and Expression,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Michael Lewis and Jeannette M. HavilandJones, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2000), 338–349; and, for the Middle Ages, Peyroux, “Gertrude’s furor.” Brody and Hall, “Gender and Emotion,” 447; idem, “Gender, Emotion, and Expression,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Lewis and Haviland-Jones, 2nd ed., 339. Brody and Hall, “Gender and Emotion,” 447. Brody and Hall, “Gender, Emotion, and Expression,” 339. Brody and Hall, “Gender, Emotion, and Expression,” 339–343, 346–347. Oatley and Jenkins, Understanding Emotions, 369. The Navigation of Feeling, 124; cf. Rorty, “Enough Already,” 276–277. Elster has suggested that “emotions of shame and contempt regulate the behavorial expressions of other emotions” (“Emotion and Action,” 158), which, to

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60.

61.

62. 63.

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the degree it is true, would also explain the overrepresentation of shame, guilt, and hypocrisy (an effort to avoid shame and contempt) in the narrative representation of emotions. The Navigation of Feeling, 135; cf. 130–137. Reddy cites a specific case of goal conf lict and emotional suffering occasioned by a mid-nineteenthcentury French marriage, at a time when ideas about marriage, “due to Christian teaching, to the circulation of sentimental novels, and the popularity of innumerable melodramas and songs, . . . included an ideal of romantic love that stood in strong tension with the norm of arranged marriage” (The Navigation of Feeling, 137). This kind of conf lict will sound familiar to medievalists and might lead one to wonder whether the similarities of such conf licts in twelfth- and nineteenth-century Europe were not an important source of nineteenth-century “medievalism.” In Reddy’s example, however, it is a man who suffers from the gulf between his ideal of marriage and the reality of his marriage. On the links between grief and gender, and literature, see also Miller, “Afterword: Only a Rite,” 244–245. Nussbaum, “Emotions as Judgments,” 185, 193. However, Katharine Goodland also argues that emotional social practices over which women preside, such as ritual lament, can, in fact, be a form of “resistance to male social authority” (“‘Us for to wepe,” 90; cf. 90–97). Brody and Hall, “Gender, Emotion, and Expression,” 344; On the greater emotional expressiveness and intropunitive affects of medieval and modern women, at least in literature, cf. Perfetti, “Introduction,” 13–14; and Pfeffer, “Constant Sorrow,” 129–130.

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CHAPTER 2 ORDER, ANARCHY, AND EMOTION IN THE OLD FRENCH PHILOMENA Karen G. Casebier

I

n the twelfth-century account of the myth of Tereus, Procne, and Philomena1 attributed to Chrétien de Troyes,2 the poet recasts the Ovidian tale3 of violence and vengeance as vernacular romance.4 In his adaptation of the classical myth, Chrétien portrays courtly ideals as an artificial cultural construct that both regulates and restrains individual desire, thereby highlighting the differences between the controlled emotional responses of individuals in civilized societies and the anarchical impulses of individuals in barbaric ones. This is particularly apparent in his representation of romantic love: in contrast to later works such as Le Chevalier de la Charette and Cligés, where adulterous relationships are celebrated affairs,5 love in Philomena is depicted as “adulterous, incestuous, and cruel.”6 This is due primarily to the antihero’s false love, which serves as a marker for uncivilized behavior and barbaric deeds. However, when compared to the body of Chrétien’s work, the destructive effect of Tereus’s false love in Philomena also serves as a foil for the civilizing effect of true love that is exalted in Erec et Enide. Nonetheless, Chrétien’s atypical portrayal of love in this romance has led some to question his authorship.7 Indeed, the claim that Chrétien is the author of the poem is tenuous: in the prologue to Cligés, Chrétien refers to one of his works as “the metamorphosis of the hoopoe, the swallow and the nightingale” [Et de la hupe et de l’aronde/Et dou rousignol la muance],8 which suggests that he did write a vernacular version of the Ovidian myth, but the only copy of Philomena has been preserved in the Ovide moralisé. In this work, composed c. 1328, the author of the

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compilation identifies the author of the poem as “Chrétien” and purports to have copied it faithfully from an earlier source without introducing any changes: “But I will not write the story, except as Chrétien tells it; he has translated the story well” [Mes ja ne descrirai le conte,/Fors si com Crestiens le conte,/Qui bien en translata la letre].9 Although Chrétien’s authorship has been questioned, it has never been seriously challenged. Nonetheless, any reading of Philomena must consider not only the transcriber’s fidelity to Chrétien’s adaptation of Ovidian myth,10 but also Chrétien’s fidelity to his classical source(s). While Ovid’s tale is undeniably the most popular version of this myth, other classical authors wrote versions of this tale, and, since it is possible that Chrétien had access to at least some of them, the medieval poet may have drawn inspiration from more than one source for the metamorphosis. 11 Nonetheless, Chrétien rarely deviates from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The most obvious difference between the two poems is their length,12 but the two tales are substantially similar with respect to plot, despite the fact that Chrétien recasts certain events to ref lect medieval cultural and political practices. One of Chrétien’s most important innovations is to underscore the sexual tension that is already present in Ovid’s Metamorphoses by amplifying his characters’ moral and emotional complexity , which is particularly poignant with respect to his portrayal of the two sisters. Despite these innovations, Ruth Morse criticizes Chrétien’s treatment of the female characters because “Tereus’s inner debates receive more attention than either Philomena’s or Procne’s,” and more of the action occurs in Pandion’s palace than in Tereus’s kingdom.13 Nonetheless, the poet’s treatment of the inner, emotional life of the two sisters both intensifies the drama and heightens sensitivity to the psychologically complex situations that characterize The Metamorphoses,14 and Chrétien’s alterations to his classical source are painstakingly adapted to the mores of medieval society. The emotions that his characters express in response to the unfolding drama are highly codified and evaluated in reference to prevailing societal practices, so that each character’s emotional response ref lects either the civilized world of Pandion’s court or the chaos of barbaric Thrace. Emotion is, therefore, a cultural construct, a performance enacted through specific social practices that are associated with civilization or barbarism.15 In Chrétien’s Philomena, each moral dilemma is framed as a choice between two evils, a choice between codified, civilized responses to wrongful acts or a barbaric, visceral response that derives from the need for personal vengeance. Throughout this tale, the characters’ interior monologues emphasize the pathos of the decision-making process. One bad turn always deserves another, and authorial commentary is

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judiciously rendered so as to reinforce the reader’s interpretation of both the characters’ emotional states and the morality of their actions. Since each moral dilemma is posited as an ethical conf lict between personal desire and courtly code, much of Philomena’s capacity to instill horror in the audience derives from the persistent, microcosmic opposition of barbarism and civilized society, as courtly discourse and behavior are frequently subverted to advance each character’s personal desires. Tereus’s lust serves as a catalyst for the cycle of violence and vengeance in the work when he rapes, tortures, and imprisons his sister-in-law, but it is Procne and Philomena, overcome by grief and anger, who turn this tale into a tragedy when they murder their (respectively) son and nephew, Itys, butcher his body, and serve it to Tereus at a banquet that both recalls and subverts the Eaten Heart motif of medieval romance 16 while simultaneously evoking the prominence of infanticide and cannibalism in classical myth.17 These pseudo-courtly characters may conform to the outward expression of courtly attitudes and behaviors, but the courtly ethic is, in fact, a convenient cover for a tale of brutality and retribution, “a pure gem of atrocity,”18 in which desire conquers reason, and the natural, barbaric nature of man escapes the artificial confines of the courtly world that attempts to restrain it. It is emotion that tips the balance between civilization and barbarism, reason and desire; Tereus’s lust and Procne’s grief are contained by a thin veneer of courtliness, but as soon as they allow their personal desires to eclipse their duty as rulers of Thrace, their selfish exercise of free will destroys an entire kingdom, as is illustrated via the microcosm of the family. The poet does not even allude to the possibility of a happy ending: on the contrary, the abrupt metamorphosis that ends the relentless cycle of violence and vengeance vividly illustrates the progressive regression of each character from human being to beast. Chrétien establishes his poem as courtly romance by presenting Philomena—King Pandion’s youngest, unmarried daughter—as an ideal courtly lady. The first half of his portrait of her describes Philomena as the epitome of physical beauty (l. 140–69). This “catalogue of charms”19 includes the princess’ blond hair (l. 140–41), sparkling eyes (l. 146), full lips (l. 153–55), roses-and-cream complexion (l. 151–52), even teeth (l. 158), f lawless white skin (l. 145, 159–60), small breasts (l. 161–62), and so on. The poet also decries his feeble attempt to do justice to her beauty (l. 130–37) and both opens and closes the physical portrait with the standard trope detailing Nature’s exceptional efforts to perfect the heroine’s charms (l. 142–44, 167–69).20 Chrétien’s portrait of Philomena’s beauty is followed by an even longer list of her intellectual accomplishments (l. 170–204).21 The poet introduces this second “catalogue of charms” by stating that his heroine “was

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no less wise than beautiful” [Ne fu mains sage que bele (209; l. 172)]. Philomena could play chess and checkers (l. 177), she was skilled in hunting and fishing (l. 182–87),22 she was a gifted seamstress (l. 188–93), she could play several musical instruments (l. 196–99), and she could not only read (l. 194) but was also well versed in the art of rhetoric (l. 195, 202–204). According to the poet, Philomena “was knowledgeable in all that a young woman should know” [Sot quanque doit savoir pucele (207; l. 171)], and both her exceptional beauty and her intellectual qualities conform to contemporary ideals of beauty and courtly deportment (l. 170–71).23 In fact, this second portrait demonstrates that Philomena is desirable not only because of her beauty, but also because her intellectual accomplishments render her a valuable addition to any medieval court (l. 180–81). By underscoring her political currency as an attractive, intelligent woman, Chrétien not only foreshadows the future loss of her beauty and her inability to exercise this impressive collection of courtly skills, but he also paints a portrait in direct opposition to the male protagonist, Tereus, who is ruled by desire rather than reason. If Philomena personifies courtly ideals of beauty and social refinement in civilized Athens, Tereus embodies the anarchical tendencies of the uncivilized world. Chrétien insists on Tereus’s anti-courtliness from the beginning with the marriage of Procne, Pandion’s eldest daughter, to the king of Thrace: “To a king? Rather to a wicked tyrant named Tereus” [A roi? Mes a tirant felon./Tereüs ot li tiranz non (201; l. 11–12)]. In fact, while Chrétien merely hints at a political alliance (l. 7–8) between the two states, Ovid declares that Procne’s marriage is a result of Tereus’s aid to Pandion in repulsing a foreign invader from Athens (6.424–28). Tereus’s skills as a warrior and military strategist have gained him a royal bride, but the royal bridegroom does not conform to contemporary ideals of courtly, civilized behavior. The poet frequently qualifies his protagonist as wicked or cruel and disloyal, but he also uses stronger terms such as traitor, liar, and thief.24 He even applies the Christian epithet vile demon25 to his pagan prince, so that Tereus serves as an anti-courtly and antiChristian foil to Philomena’s physical and moral perfection. When Tereus returns to Athens five years later to ask King Pandion if his sister-in-law may come to Thrace to visit her sister, Philomena’s beauty inspires love at first sight: “Philomena’s dazzling beauty seizes his heart” [Sa granz biautez son cuer li anble/Et sa tres bele contenance (209; l. 210–11)]. However, Chrétien comments that Tereus’s love is base and perverse: “Pitifully he has evil and foolish desires. Vile, churlish love now binds him. Vile? Yes, for sure. Love torments him with vileness, for it wishes to make his heart love his wife’s sister” [Pechiez le met an esperance/De mauvestié et de folie;/Amors vilainement

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le lie./Vilainement ?—Voire, sanz faille./De vilenie se travaille/Quant il son cuer viaut atorner/A la seror sa fame amer (209–211; l. 212–18)]. Guéret-Laferté suggests that “courtly rhetoric serves here to describe vile love,”26 but Chrétien’s primary objection to Tereus’s love is not the adulterous nature of the characters’ relationship, but the kinship ties that would have rendered such a relationship incestuous during much of the medieval period. In another passage, Chrétien describes Tereus’s excessive, illicit desire as madness, and his jeu de mots with the noun and verb forms of the adjective forsené (mad) underscores the opposition between the barbarous impulse of free will and the self-control exercised by individuals in civilized society: “No one should call all this love. Love? No, indeed. Then what? Excess. Disloyalty. Madness [ forsenage]. Because, unless I’m wrong, Love does not involve the surrender of one’s reason [ forsener]. Tereus was quite mad [ forsenez] now and kept getting worse [ forsane]” [Qu’amors ne doit nus ce clamer./—Amors? –Non voir. —Et quoi? —Outrage,/ Desleauté et forsenage,/Car, s’au voir cuit bien assener,/N’est pas amors de forsener./Trop est forsenez Tereüs/Et si forsane plus et plus (221–223; l. 482–88)]. Tereus’s false love, which Chrétien portrays as a form of madness, is the emotion that inspires the cycle of violence and vengeance that will end in the destruction of an entire kingdom, thereby illustrating the potential of unchecked desire to destabilize even an emerging, uncivilized society. Since Chrétien consistently portrays the foreign king as completely deficient in courtly attributes, it should come as no surprise that he is the villain of this piece. However, the poet complicates the narrative by introducing a pagan law particular to Thrace that allows the modern reader to excuse Tereus’s uncivilized, unchristian, and unethical attitudes because they derive from principles of cultural relativism. This fictional, pagan law permits any act so long as it is pleasurable: “One of the gods they had established that they could do anything they wanted or pleased. Such a law had this god written for them that one could do whatever pleased or delighted, without offense. Such was the pagan law” [Car uns lor deus que il avoient/Selonc la loi que il tenoient/Establi qu’il feïssent tuit/Lor volanté et lor deduit./Tel loi lor avoit cil escrite/ Que quanqu’il lor plest ne delite/Pooit chascuns feire sanz crime,/Itel loi tenoit paiennime (211; l. 221–28)]. Amelia Van Vleck refers to this as Tereus’s “pleasure-law,”27 and although it seems evident that Chrétien introduces this law to render his Ovidian material more palatable to a medieval, Christian audience, there can be little doubt that Tereus’s desire for his sister-in-law would have been condemned as both illegal and immoral. The poet has already qualified Tereus’s desire as illicit

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when he describes it alternatively as folly, a foul deed, excess, disloyalty and madness.28 The introduction of the pagan “pleasure-law” may appear to mitigate Tereus’s desire precisely because it codifies his status as Other; breaches of Christian law and courtly ethics may be tempered by Tereus’s status as a barbarian, because the “pleasure-law” that governs his attitudes and behavior privileges personal desire and rejects the codes of ethics and morality that regulate and restrain the uninhibited exercise of free will in civilized society. However, it is unlikely that this fictional pagan law is an early attempt at cultural relativism. In fact, for contemporary audiences, Chrétien’s “pleasure-law” ultimately adds weight to the depiction of Tereus and his kingdom as barbaric, further delineating the division between civilized and uncivilized societies. Within the context of the pagan “pleasure-law,” the Thracian king’s incestuous pursuit of his sister-in-law requires no further justification. Indeed, this fictional law initially engenders some sympathy in the audience for this anti-courtly hero as he engages in the standard rituals of courtly love. In Athens, Tereus’s anti-courtliness is not yet perceived as a sign of moral corruption, but rather as a generic expression of the barbarism that characterizes pagan society. In effect, the poet’s suggestion of cultural relativism appears to negate his prior assessment of the Thracian king’s love as base and perverse (l. 212–18, 482–88) precisely because his prejudicial remarks on Tereus’s abuse of courtly rhetoric may be confused with the ineptitude of a foreigner who unsuccessfully apes local custom. Just prior to the narrative’s central event, the rape and mutilation of Philomena, Chrétien’s tyrant (l. 11) employs courtly language, to implore Philomena to become his lover: “ ‘Beauty,’ says he, ‘you should know now that I love you and ask that you make me your lover; and may it be kept secret if it is to last’ ” [“Bele,” fet il, “or sachiez bien/Que je vos aim et si vos pri/Que de moi façoiz vostre ami,/Et ceste chose soit celee/ Se vos volez qu’ele et duree” (235; l. 766–70)]. Since the “pleasure-law” that guides Tereus’s conduct neither requires Philomena’s consent nor recognizes sexual intercourse between Tereus and Philomena as an act of incest, Tereus’s adulterous proposal is not only entirely legal from his perspective but also beyond moral reproach. The very fact that Tereus engages in courtly discourse suggests that he earnestly desires Philomena to accept his offer of love, and we might conclude that Tereus believes he is performing a great courtesy simply by framing his request in courtly terms. Given that the king’s moral behavior is governed by the barbaric “pleasure-law” of Thrace, his adoption of the courtly customs of civilized Athens is an overt attempt to bridge the cultural divide and establish a new social relationship between himself and his sister-in-law. Here, courtly ritual may be a transparent disguise for male lust,29 but Tereus’s

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courtly pursuit of Philomena also renders him a pathetic figure because the poet capitalizes on the Ovidian topos of Love as an irresistible, irrational force that impairs man’s ability to reason. When Philomena rejects Tereus because a relationship between them would be “immoral” [contre droiture] (l. 775, my translation), he immediately reformulates his request to ref lect the “pleasure-law” that regulates moral and ethical behavior in Thracian society: “ ‘So much do I love you and find you pleasing that I’d like you to consent and let me do whatever I want with you’ ” [“Tant vos aim et tant me pleisiez/Que vuel que vos me consantez/Feire de vos mes volantez” (235; l. 778–80)]. Although Tereus’s second request marks a rupture with courtly discourse, the foreign prince nonetheless continues the courtly ritual in which the lover infinitely pleads for his lady’s favor until such point as she determines him worthy of it. Philomena counters Tereus’s second offer of love with another refusal, but this time she emphatically declares that a relationship between them would constitute disloyalty because of their kinship ties (l. 781–88).30 Here, Philomena evokes the courtly ethic that prohibits romantic love between herself and her brother-in-law, but it serves only to highlight the disparity between the codified emotional responses of civilized society and the unbridled anarchy of the uncivilized world. After this second rejection, Tereus abandons courtly discourse entirely: “ ‘Since I hold you here at my discretion, and since I can satisfy my desire, I don’t care if you like it or not. You will have no defense here: I am going to do everything to sate my heart’ ” [“Quant je vos taing ci a seür/Et mes talenz feire me loist,/Ou buen vos soit ou tot vos poist,/Ne vos i vaudra rien deffanse:/Tot ferai quanque mes cuers panse” (235; l. 790–794)]. Tereus is clearly ruled by desire, and his invocation of the pagan law permits him to gratify this desire while simultaneously immunizing him from moral and legal culpability. In fact, this last statement is not even directed at Philomena but is an interior monologue by which he justifies the violence he will unleash to force Philomena to become his lover. Having unsuccessfully negotiated for love within the socially sanctioned, highly codified framework of courtly ritual, Tereus abandons his courtly façade and reverts to the simple, unrestricted “pleasure-law” of Thrace that permits him to fulfill his sexual fantasies without further delay. As for Philomena, although she has rejected Tereus’s love as illicit by citing her kinship ties to her brother-in-law and her personal loyalty to her sister (l. 771–76, 781–88), her ethical response to Tereus’s adulterous, incestuous proposal is completely irrelevant. Tereus rapes her not once, but twice, then cuts out her tongue to ensure her silence (l. 798–855). After the first rape, Philomena urges her attacker to repent, recalling his promise to her father to return her safe and sound to Athens and

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reminding him of his tears of sincerity that convinced Pandion to allow her to leave Athens in the first place (l. 807–25). Philomena perceives his act as an uncivilized, brutal response to her ethical rejection of his indecent proposal, and she reproaches her rapist not for her lost virginity, but for his breach of courtly ethics: “ ‘Fiend, why are you acting so wrongfully? It will drive you to a raging madness! Repent now, that is the wisest course, as long as repentance still remains possible, without perjury or fraud’ ” [“Fel, por quoi fes tel mesprison/Qu’einsi forsanes et esrages?/ Repan toi, si feras que sages,/Tant come il te loist repantir/Sanz parjurer, sanz foi mantir” (237; l. 828–32)]. In The Metamorphoses, the Ovidian heroine threatens to denounce her brother-in-law with a public revelation of his crimes (6.533–48), so that her twitching tongue vividly illustrates her thwarted desire for justice (6.557–60). Yet although Chrétien’s heroine omits any reference to vengeance for her lost virginity,31 the poet does maintain that Tereus cuts out her tongue to prevent her from reporting the crime of rape (l. 847–52), which implies that Tereus did fear retribution for this act.32 The loss of Philomena’s tongue underscores Tereus’s barbarism because his cruelty reinforces the previously identified traits of madness and excessive desire that already distanced him from civilized, courtly society. More importantly, Tereus invalidates Philomena’s status as an object of courtly desire and aligns her with the barbaric impulses of the “pleasure-law” when he mutilates and disfigures her. Without a tongue, Philomena will no longer play games or hunt with her father’s noble guests, nor will she entertain them with music or poetry. Tereus’s brutal exercise of personal desire strips her of the physical perfection and intellectual talent that have rendered her valuable to courtly society. Tereus then returns home to his wife, Procne, who immediately inquires as to the whereabouts of her sister when she does not see her disembark with the landing party (l. 899–903). Instead of immediately reporting Philomena’s “death,” the king alludes to some sort of unfortunate accident in a speech (l. 904–48) that is punctuated with traditional signs of grief: “The scoundrel bows his head low, pretending an appearance of worry and grief. He even deceives by sighing aloud falsely to cause his lie to be believed . . . And he again makes a false sigh, and in order to sound more convincing, using deceit and cunning, he causes his eyes to begin weeping” [Li fel tint la teste beissiee/Et fist sanblant et contenance/D’ome qui et duel et pesance,/Et si fist par decevemant,/Un faus sospir apertemant/Por sa mançonge feire acroire./. . ./Et lors refist un sospir faus,/Et por son dit miauz afermer/Comança des iauz a lermer/ Par barat et par renardie (241; l. 904–09, 926–29)]. Tereus’s behavior mimics medieval grief and concern to spare his wife the details of this

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tragic accident, but Chrétien’s insistence on the rhetorical response to grief implies that Tereus’s emotions do not ref lect genuine sentiment. His bowed head (l. 904), false sighs (l. 908, 926), and tears (l. 928) create a credible illusion, but the king has already employed the rhetoric of tears when he secured Pandion’s permission to bring Philomena to Thrace (l. 544–45). Philomena had explicitly questioned the sincerity of Tereus’s tears after her rape (l. 824–25). Although tears may be read as a medieval sign of grief as well as sincerity 33 the poet comments that Tereus’s tears derive from barat and renardie. Both terms are transparent allusions to deceit and cunning that would resonate with contemporary audiences; renardie is a common term for deception by the thirteenth century,34 whereas the earlier term, barat, refers specifically to deception by fraud.35 To further emphasize Tereus’s insincerity, Chrétien adds, “With these words he sighs again, though without great pain within his heart” [A ce mot autre foiz sospire/Sanz ce que grant duel au cuer et (243; l. 942–43)]. This portrait of exaggerated grief is not, however, gratuitous. Tereus’s evasive replies to his wife’s queries in this episode foreshadow the banquet scene in which Procne will deny Tereus’s repeated requests to see his son, and where Procne’s overly solicitous treatment of her husband will evoke the illusion of husbandly concern that Tereus manufactures during this scene. Yet Tereus’s feigned sorrow contrasts sharply with Procne’s genuine mourning when he finally utters the phrase “ ‘Know that your sister is dead’ ” [“Sachiez que vostre suer est morte” (243; l. 948)]. Procne’s response is immediate and visceral, even though Tereus’s withholds the circumstances surrounding Philomena’s false death: “She has almost gone raging mad. Then she called herself forlorn, wretched, and was beside herself with grief. By turns she tore out her hair, struck her face, wept, shouted and swooned, cursed the gods, and accused death” [Car par un po n’esrage vive./Lors se claimme lasse, cheitive,/Et s’a tel duel ne set que face./Or tret ses crins, or fiert sa face,/Or plore, or crie et or se pasme,/ Les deus maudit et la mort blasme (243–45; l. 973–78)]. Procne’s grief is genuine, but her behavior is so typical of other descriptions of medieval mourning that it can hardly be characterized as exceptional at first glance.36 However, the queen’s complete disregard for her husband’s emotional and physical health is noteworthy (l. 895–96); throughout the poem, Procne is defined by her love for her sister, and the queen’s excessive devotion to her sister is virtually indistinguishable from Tereus’s excessive desire for his sister-in-law. Indeed, the suggestion that the queen’s grief is a form of madness parallels Chrétien’s characterization of the king’s false love for his sister-in-law (l. 482–88) and hints at the utter collapse of Thracian society that will be triggered with the death of

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Itys. However, the exaggerated character of Procne’s grief also signifies the extent to which she herself has adopted the “pleasure-law” of Thrace, so that Procne’s emotional repertoire now encompasses both the codified rituals of civilized society and the unbridled chaos of a barbaric Other. Procne’s excessive grief becomes apparent when she mourns her sister’s false death, as the funeral speech in which she addresses Death—and in which she specifically mourns the loss of Philomena’s beauty37—is one of the longest of the entire poem (l. 979–1004).38 In mourning the visible mark of her sister’s courtliness, Procne reminds the audience that Philomena’s status in courtly society derives from her physical beauty and intellectual talent, and that Tereus’s selfish fulfillment of his desire has invalidated Philomena’s value to civilized society. With neither her beauty nor her intelligence to sustain her, Philomena, like Tereus, is now defined by her status as an anti-courtly Other. Chrétien also intensifies the pathos of Procne’s grief by adding exotic, “pagan” details that align her more closely with the forces of barbarism. The queen not only dresses in somber attire that better ref lects her anger, anguish, and grief 39 but also vows to make annual blood sacrifices to Pluto so that the god of Hell will keep Philomena’s soul “with honor, peace, and repose” [a enor/Et a delit et a repos (247; l. 1032–33)]. Chrétien blends Christian imagery with fictional pagan funerary rites when he remarks that the inscription on Philomena’s tomb reads, “ ‘Pluto, have mercy on the soul for whom I perform this sacrifice and this worship’ ” [“Pluto, de l’ame aies merci/De cele por cui je faz ci” (247; l. 1053–54)]. Finally, the poet brings the audience’s pity for the queen to a climax by insisting that her devotion to her sister is futile: “Thus, with great devotion Procne placed all her attention in offering the sacrifice to rescue the soul of her sister from a place where it was not” [Einsi o grant devocion/ Metoit tote s’antancion/Progné au sacrefise feire/Por l’ame sa seror fors treire/De la ou ele n’estoit mie (247; l. 1057–61)]. Chrétien’s amplified depiction of Procne’s grief is neither futile nor superf luous. Procne’s genuine mourning for her sister, coupled with her acts of love and devotion, serves as a foil for Tereus’s insincerity. Although Tereus imitates courtly ritual and courtly discourse when he pursues Philomena’s love, the violence with which he meets his sister-inlaw’s refusal and his casual dismissal of his wife’s emotional response to the false news of her sister’s death (l. 950–64), during which he ironically urges her to “ ‘moderate your heart’ ” [“atanprez vostre corage” (243; l. 951)], reveal his true nature, which is ruled by intemperate, excessive desire. In contrast, Procne’s genuine love of her sister—her concern for her physical and spiritual well-being—is illustrated by the perfect fulfillment of Philomena’s funerary rites.

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Peggy McCracken suggests that Procne’s sacrificial offering to Pluto both foreshadows and parallels the murder of Itys and the ritual feast that follows: “The structure of the story aligns Procne’s sacrifice of the bull when she learns of Philomena’s death with the murder of her son when she learns that her sister lives.”40 Krueger concurs, noting that the ritual transferal of the bull’s blood to the white pot (l. 1038–39) parallels the white tablecloth and the severed head that will be present at Tereus’s cannibalistic feast.41 More importantly, since Chrétien portrays Pandion’s court as the civilized counterpart of the barbaric court of Thrace, Procne’s adoption of pagan funerary rites signifies the erosion of her courtly values. Her excessive grief and promises of ritual sacrifice to pagan gods vividly illustrate the point to which she, too, has been contaminated by the anti-courtly, barbaric “pleasure-law” that privileges personal desire, symbolically by her marriage to Tereus and literally in her response to the false news of Philomena’s death. A year after Philomena’s “death,” the queen receives a gift from her sister, a bed-curtain upon which Philomena has embroidered her story, and the paralysis of grief quickly transforms into the frenetic mobility of anger. When Procne “reads” the cortine, Chrétien deliberately conceals her emotional response: “But she does not reveal her thoughts, for she does not wish to cry out or to make a commotion” [Mes son panser pas ne descuevre,/Que ne viaut feire cri ne noise (255; l. 1238–39)]. In this instance, Procne’s emotional reaction is not social, but rather intellectual. The cognitive theory of emotions suggests that human beings control their emotional responses through a filter of judgment and perception that enables us to synthesize large quantities of information and control our initial biological response.42 And while the queen’s silence parallels that of her tongueless sister, it also highlights a perceived need for deception: Procne immediately dismisses the girl from the palace and then follows her to the deserted cottage where Tereus has imprisoned Philomena. It is only when she arrives at the cottage and kicks the door down (l. 1248–57) that we see an irrational, emotional response. Here, Chrétien describes her as mad and deranged,43 so that the queen’s desire for reunification with her sister appears to be governed by the same emotions and attitudes that characterized her husband’s pursuit of Philomena (l. 482–88). However, the poet qualifies these adjectives with the adverbs like and as if44 and remarks that Procne deliberately follows the girl at a distance (l. 1241–43). Although Chrétien would like us to believe that the queen’s silence is an inaudible sign of her madness, her actions are, in fact, as rational and methodical as Tereus’s post-rape mutilation of Philomena. In The Metamorphoses, Ovid is more forthcoming about the queen’s emotional state. When the queen receives the bed-curtain, “Grief choked her

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utterance,/Passion her sense of outrage” [dolor ora repressit/Verbaque quaerenti satis indignantia linguae/Deferunt (148; 6.583–85)]. As in Philomena, Procne is possessed of her faculties even though her emotions have rendered her temporarily speechless. Unlike Chrétien, Ovid does not suggest that she is mad. Rather, he demonstrates how the queen’s silence allows her to simulate madness when she rescues Philomena during the bacchanal (6.587–600), a sacred ritual that was frequently associated with acts of savagery and impiety. Dressed in a crown of vines and leaves, covered in deerskin and armed with a spear (6.592–93), Procne participates in the rites of Bacchus and leads the procession to the isolated cottage where Philomena is held prisoner. The animal skin that Procne wears during the bacchanal is a portent of her diminishing humanity, but she is only feigning bestiality.45 Once she has disguised her sister as a member of the procession, they return to the palace (6.598–600). As in Philomena, the queen’s nocturnal activities are the deliberate, preconceived acts of a woman who wishes to conceal her actions; they can in no way be misconstrued as the irrational, erratic behavior of a woman entirely overcome by her emotions. And since Procne’s feigned madness in the central episode mirrors Tereus’s civilized façade when he courts Philomena, both accounts underscore the role of emotion as a catalyst for destructive, anti-courtly behavior. When the sisters return to the palace in Chrétien’s poem, they retire to an underground chamber where Procne’s first words to her sister are as follows: “ ‘Sister,’ she says, ‘my grieving is great on finding you so mutilated. I know not how I can take revenge for what that scoundrel did to you. May God grant him recompense to befit his wickedness’ ” [“Suer,” fet ele, “mout sui dolante/Quant si afolee vos truis,/Ne vangier ne vos sai ne puis/Del felon qui ce vos a fet./Deus doint que tel loiier an et/ Come sa felenie avient” (257; l. 1286–91)]. Chrétien introduces this passage by writing, “Procne weeps and laments bitterly” [Et Progné plore et se demante (257; l. 1285)]. The ref lexive verb se dementer, which may be translated as “to give oneself over to grief ” or even “to torment oneself with grief,”46 intensifies the queen’s emotional response so that her excessive grief further aligns her with her husband’s immoderate lust; it also vividly illustrates the extent to which the civilized Athenian princess has adopted the anarchical custom of Thrace, which privileges personal desire at the expense of societal duty. Procne’s discourse may espouse both Christian ethics and courtly justice, but Chrétien implies that the queen’s desire for personal vengeance overrides any notion of legal action in l. 1288–89. Procne’s desire for vengeance is problematic because she does not have the right to demand justice in the matter of Philomena’s rape. Nancy

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Jones’s sociopolitical study of Philomena argues that customary law would have prevented any real justice for the rape and mutilation of Philomena.47 Since rape was considered to be a crime against the woman’s family, le clameur de haro (the hue and cry) was reserved for the woman’s male relatives. Thus Procne’s desire to avenge her sister’s honor becomes a potentially dangerous political threat to Tereus’s kingship because her usurpation of the male right to vengeance introduces political instability to Thrace through the exercise of female desire. Indeed, the suggestion of disorder introduced by Procne’s discourse and the poet’s commentary takes physical form when her son, Itys, enters the room. Itys’ resemblance to his father reveals the means by which Procne may exact vengeance on her husband: “Ha,” she hisses, “image of the fraud, that vile demon! You must die a bitter death for your father’s treachery and will pay now for his wickedness. You shall die wrongly for his crime, even though you do not deserve it at all, except that, to my knowledge, never has there been nor has God ever made a more perfect resemblance to another human being . . . And for this I want to behead you.” [“Ha,” fet ele, “chose sanblable/Au traïtor, au vil deable!/Morir t’estuet de mort amere/Por la felenie ton pere./Sa felenie conparras,/Por son forfet a tort morras/Qui ne l’as mie desservi,/Fors solemant qu’onques ne vi/Ne Deus ne fist mien esciant/Chose a autre miauz ressanblant,/Et por ce te vuel descoler” (257–59; l. 1299–1309).]

Without a male family member to raise “the hue and cry,” Procne would be expected to tolerate the injustice done to her sister. Instead, she performs the male role of seeking retribution for her husband’s crimes. At this moment, Procne decides to usurp not only the authority of medieval customary law that permits male family members to seek retribution for crimes against the family, but also that of the fictional pagan law introduced by Chrétien to justify Tereus’s rape and disfigurement of Philomena. In The Metamorphoses, Ovid engenders sympathy for his heroines by underscoring the moral dilemma of the hierarchy of family loyalty (6.631–35) and portraying them as mad,48 but Chrétien capitalizes on the horror of infanticide because Procne’s desire for vengeance is misdirected toward the son instead of the father. Chrétien refuses to extend the protection of the “pleasure-law” to women in a legal gloss to his commentary on this episode that forces the audience to interpret the murder of Itys as a deliberate, preconceived act that is both illegal and immoral. In effect, the poet redefines the “pleasure-law” as a masculine legal and moral principle when he denounces Procne’s plan as a crime against “cultural order, natural law

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and moral sentiment”49: “Law and nature and pity, too, forbid all human creatures this, that a mother should kill or dismember her child” [Si con requiert droiz et nature/De tote humainne creature/Et si con pitiez le deffant,/Que mere ne doit son anfant/Ne ocire ne desmanbrer (259; l. 1315–19)]. In effect, while Tereus’s crimes against Philomena are justified by the anarchy of the “pleasure-law” and mitigated by his status as Other, Procne’s attitudes and behavior must conform to a different law that regulates the moral and emotional responses of women. Here, it is a biological imperative (the law of Nature), rather than the courtly code, that defines how women should feel and prescribes how they can act. Chrétien’s assumption that the natural law that governs motherly behavior should overcome the anarchical impulses of the “pleasure-law” is closely related to the modern notion that some emotions are biologically derived, that is, all human beings are provided with a fixed set of basic emotional responses that are hormonally based.50 However, in ascribing certain emotions only to mothers, Chrétien suggests that the emotional repertoire is not only a performance of culture, but one of gender as well. Indeed, Procne herself recognizes the murder of Itys as contrary to women’s nature when she states that the child will die a tort (l. 1204), as a substitute for his father. Chrétien’s law of Nature underscores the unrestrained violence and brutality that differentiate barbarism from civilization; it highlights the necessity of sublimating the personal desire of these women to exact vengeance to the collective will of the courtly world that forbids infanticide. In civilized society, women gain political currency because of their ability to serve as tangible prizes for knights who adhere to masculine ideals of courtliness and courage. Male desire (and male violence) is legitimate in civilized society because it is carefully regulated and sustains the courtly code. At its worst, female desire represents disorder and anarchy because it is a potent threat to male political and familial authority, but even at its best, female desire is an illicit and undesirable trait because of its potential to disrupt male social and political hegemony. In this tale, however, both male and female desire are presented as disruptive, as destabilizing forces that threaten society from within, so that civilization and barbarism are brought into ever closer proximity with one another through Chrétien’s insistence on the unbridled emotions that motivate all of his characters’ deeds. In the interior monologue in which Procne decides that depriving Tereus of his son and heir is a fitting punishment for his crimes against Philomena, Chrétien glosses the brutality of Tereus’s crimes by calling them wickedness and transgression(s) instead of specifically naming the crime of rape.51 By minimizing the destructive force of Tereus’s personal

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desire, Chrétien exploits both the horror of Procne’s infanticide and the disruptive force of instability that she represents to Tereus’s kingship. The poet also suggests that Procne’s revenge derives from pride and demonic inf luence (l. 1330–31), so that we perceive Procne’s desire for justice as an extension of women’s natural inability to control their emotional responses.52 Chrétien’s references to devilry [diablerie] as a motive for infanticide do little to conceal the fact that Procne’s bloodlust derives from her desire for personal vengeance. Procne’s exercise of free will is the direct result of her illicit exercise of male authority, and she thus incarnates the threat of disorder and anarchy that women’s uncontrolled desire represents to the courtly, civilized world. However, Chrétien’s allusion to demonic inf luence may engender some degree of sympathy for the queen because of her misdirected sense of justice that sacrifices the son for the father’s crime:53 “And now, just as the little child held to her lovingly, she, fiendish and ferocious, goaded by the Devil, cuts off the child’s head, then hands it to her sister. Together they prepare the f lesh quickly and carefully: one part they roast, the other they stew” [Si con la tenoit acolee/Li petiz anfes par chierté,/Par deablie et par fierté,/Que deables l’amoneste,/A l’anfant copee a la teste,/Si l’a Philomena bailliee,/Puis ont la char apareilliee/ Antr’eles deus mout bien et tost./Partie an mirent cuire an rost/Et an esseu l’autre partie (259; l. 1328–37)]. Since both Nature and courtly custom dictate that mothers must protect and defend their children, Procne’s misappropriation of the masculine “pleasure-law” marks a breakdown in the social order. Moreover, Procne’s initial transgression of the law of Nature is compounded when she butchers her son’s body like that of a common food animal.54 As the women prepare the gruesome feast, Chrétien intensifies the moral and emotional impact of this scene on the audience by insisting that the queen’s desire is paramount: “Procne delays and tarries now in order to thoroughly accomplish her will” [Progné tarde mout et demore/Que tote et sa volanté feite (259; l. 1340–41)]. The poet abandons all pretense that Procne is motivated by demonic suggestion and reveals that, like Tereus, she has allowed desire to eclipse reason. Although Ovid’s Metamorphoses poses Procne’s decision as a moral dilemma in which the murder of Itys might restore the ethical balance,55 the murder of Itys is equally immoral in both accounts: when the queen concludes that her innocent son is a viable substitute for his criminal father, she merely replaces one act of impiety with another. McCracken remarks that within the context of sacrifice, murdering mothers such as Procne and Medea are universally condemned because these acts derive from personal vengeance. In fact, she suggests that the unmitigated

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brutality of Itys’ murder in Chrétien’s account contributes to “the demonization of the character of Procne.”56 In contrast, literary figures such as Boccaccio’s Griselda are often lauded for their crimes against Nature, because Griselda’s willingness to sacrifice her children in accordance with her husband’s will represents a demonstration of wifely obedience to patriarchal law.57 Morse remarks that “Griselda’s fortitude can be a model of . . . that aspect of patience and refusal to respond with anger and revenge which is open to both women and men.”58 In contrast to Procne, Griselda is indeed a gendered model of Christian fortitude: we do not expect women to act, because action is the prerogative of men. Women who respond with vengeance are deemed unnatural because they threaten male authority by deviating from prescribed female social roles, but Procne f louts the law of Nature in addition to customary law. As an unnatural mother, Procne commits a misappropriation of the legal system to wreak vengeance on her husband, an act that represents a breakdown in the social order and further highlights the corruption of her courtly values, but her transgression of Chrétien’s law of Nature is equally significant because it illustrates the gradual erosion of her humanity that will culminate in physical metamorphosis. The final stage of the tale is a banquet that both evokes and subverts the courtly ritual of the feast. This banquet parallels the ritual feast that preceded Tereus’s departure from Athens (l. 582–620), but the second banquet may also be interpreted as a microcosm of the first. The preparations of the two sisters before the arrival of their guest of honor are no less exacting than those of Pandion’s household, and the queen’s personal service substitutes for the army of servers Tereus enjoyed at Pandion’s court.59 Additional details about the meal—where one rare delicacy is roasted and stewed (l. 1336–37) rather than three (l. 615)60 — invite comparison to Pandion’s feast. This cannibalistic feast is necessary to complete Procne’s revenge (l. 1340–41) and exact justice for Philomena: “Procne very amiably brought him in and seated him comfortably, so that the meal would please him. He enjoyed such service very much. She had set the table with a beautiful white cloth . . . . She carries in now a loin of Itys, and Tereus carves it and eats and drinks” [Progné l’an mainne et si l’assiet/Mout pleisamment et a grant eise/Por ce que li mangiers li pleise./Cil prant mout an gré son servise,/Cele li a la table mise,/Et la nape fu bele et blanche./D’Itis li aporte une hanche,/Et cil taille et mange et boit (261; l. 1372–79)]. Apart from its cannibalistic nature, there is little to distinguish this private dinner from any other medieval banquet scene. Both Nancy Jones and Jane Burns demonstrate how the ritual feast evokes the rape of Philomena. Jones maintains that the child’s dismembered body

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represents Philomena’s broken hymen and severed tongue,61 while Burns proposes that “the beauty and whiteness of the eroticized female body are transferred to a [white] tablecloth” with which Procne has set the table (l. 1377).62 However, the queen’s service to her husband at this cannibalistic feast is ironic; just as she misappropriates male authority to avenge the crimes against her sister, Procne subverts courtly ritual to serve personal vengeance. Yet if her subversion of courtly ritual is reminiscent of Tereus’s courtship of Philomena (l. 766–70, 777–80), it also exposes the violence that underlies civilized society: Procne is a dangerous woman because she f lagrantly ignores courtly ideals that dictate how women should feel and prescribe how they can act, but Chrétien compounds her culpability by invoking a law of Nature that applies only to women (l. 1315–19). The queen’s disorder derives from her exercise of free will, and anarchy ensues when personal desire is permitted to eclipse reason. There is one essential detail, however, that differentiates the two banquets. At Pandion’s court, Tereus refused both food and drink, preferring to serve Philomena and keep her company (l. 596–600, 603–04): “She was his drink, she [was] his food . . . And it pleases him more to sit and watch Philomena at length than to drink or eat” [C’est ses boivres, c’est ses mangiers./. . ./Et mout li pleisoit a seoir,/Plus por la pucele veoir/Que por boivre ne por mangier (227; l. 601, 611–13)]. In contrast to the king’s lack of appetite at Pandion’s state dinner, Tereus’s hearty appetite on this occasion is blatantly obvious (l. 1378–79, 1389). The queen has assured her husband, “ ‘You will dine with pleasure’ ” [“Que vos mangeroiz a deduit” (l. 1364; my translation)], and Tereus’s literal consumption of his son’s f lesh becomes a gruesome substitute for the metaphysical, erotic devouring of Philomena at Pandion’s feast.63 When viewed from this perspective, the banquets that occur near the beginning and end of the poem exhibit a certain symmetry that highlights exactly how the codified rituals that govern courtly discourse and courtly behavior conceal the disruptive force of personal desire. For Chrétien’s audience, the thin line between order and anarchy that separates civilization from barbarism is made all the more apparent precisely because it is Procne, Tereus’s foreign bride, who subverts the masculine prerogatives of her own civilized roots that emphasize controlled emotional responses in favor of the barbaric customs of Thrace that privilege individual desire, all the while continuing to maintain an outward façade of courtliness to better exact her revenge. During this episode, Tereus asks for his son twice (l. 1381–83, 1393–99). Although the irony of his requests is not lost on the audience, Chrétien intensifies the dramatic tension of this scene by having Procne

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mimic her husband’s evasive behavior upon his return from Athens (l. 904–948). The queen first replies, “ ‘Sire, soon you will have your fill of him’ ” [“Sire, toz an seroiz saos” (261; l. 1384)], but she reveals the truth a few verses later (l. 1403–06). To illustrate the veracity of her claim, Philomena enters the banquet room and presents Itys’ bloody head to his father (l. 1407–12).64 Curiously, for the first time in the poem, Tereus’s emotional response encompasses shame: “He sees he is betrayed, stands for a moment astonished, motionless, and speechless from disgrace and distress. Shame is his due now that he recognizes his son’s head” [Tereüs voit qu’il est traïz,/S’estut une piece esbaïz,/Qu’il ne se mut ne ne dist mot/D’angoisse et de honte qu’il ot./Honte ot si come avoir dut/Quant la teste son fil conut (263; l. 1413–18)]. When Procne brings out the sister rather than the son, Tereus must confront the anarchical consequences of strict adherence to the anarchical, masculine “pleasure-law” that has just deprived him of his son and heir. Struck dumb by the sisters’ revelation, Tereus is rendered as speechless as his victim, Philomena. More significantly, the anguish, anger, and grief65 that Tereus now experiences mirror Procne’s emotions when she learned of her sister’s fictional death (l. 999, 1004). To describe Tereus’s emotional state Chrétien uses the word honte [shame] four times in l. 1416–25 (l. 1416–17, 1423–24), so that, initially, shame is more important than either anger (l. 1420) or grief (l. 1416, 1420) in this passage. Tereus feels shame first when he realizes that Procne has murdered their son and he has eaten him (l. 1420–22), and second when he sees his victim, Philomena (l. 1423–25). However, Tereus’s desire to avenge his son’s murder quickly overcomes the f leeting shame and sorrow that he feels when he sees Philomena (l. 1426–27),66 and he takes up his sword with the intention of murdering the two women in retribution for their own act of treachery. Fortunately, Fate intervenes to transform all three characters into birds (l. 1442–53), breaking the potentially endless cycle where courtly ritual serves as a civilized cover for unchecked, anarchical desire. The entire poem is characterized by the persistent opposition between barbarism and civilization, the conf lict between personal desire and collective will, and although this is most apparent in the rape of Philomena and murder of Itys, it also extends to the two banquet scenes. In those episodes, Procne’s use of courtly discourse and ritual to mimic the behavior of her deceptive husband while he unwittingly engages in cannibalism echoes Tereus’s overly solicitous service to the unsuspecting Philomena during his erotic, metaphysical devouring of his sister-in-law. Procne’s subversive use of courtly discourse and ritual also recalls Tereus’s anticourtly response to Philomena’s rejection when courtly attitudes and

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behavior fail to achieve the desired result. As for Philomena, she and Itys are almost interchangeable objects of Tereus’s fickle desire, but as victims of violence, their mute bodies retain the capacity to render Tereus speechless with shame. Even in the final verses of the poem, Chrétien continues to mask the violent, destructive impulses of free will in civilized society. Having been transformed into a nightingale,67 Philomena breaks into a bloodthirsty birdsong condemning all men who abuse courtly ladies: “For the bad [men] that she hates so much she sings through the wood as softly as she can: ‘Kill! Kill!’ ” [Por les mauvés qu’ele tant het/Chante au plus doucemant qu’el set/Par le boschage: “Oci! Oci!” (265; l. 1465–67)]. If the murder of Itys transgressed the law of Nature, the nightingale’s song transgresses the law of lyric poetry, in which springtime is typically reserved for courtly discourse between knights and ladies.68 Krueger suggests that Chrétien’s portrayal of the nightingale offers “an ambivalent image of female power” precisely because Philomena uses her restored, avian voice to cry out for revenge.69 Yet although Philomena initially embodies a courtly ideal of femininity and Tereus consistently represents the anti-courtly Other, it is actually Procne who occupies the ambiguous, ill-defined margin between order and anarchy. It is Procne’s emotions that render this boundary permeable, thereby illustrating not only the danger that the exercise of free will poses to society, but also that restraining one’s natural impulses is the fundamental act that separates human beings from beasts. Tereus may have begun the cycle of violence and vengeance, but it is Procne who ultimately brings down a kingdom. It is Procne’s illicit expression of emotion and her subversive femininity that represent a real danger to the stability of the courtly code, not the masculine “pleasure-law.” Chrétien deliberately poses this tale as a conf lict between civilization and barbarism, between courtly ritual and personal desire, and not even the metamorphosis of his protagonists can restore the ethical balance once logic and reason have been eclipsed by desire. Notes 1. For those unfamiliar with this myth, the basic plot is as follows: Tereus falls in love with his sister-in-law, Philomena, in Athens and brings her back to Thrace to visit her sister, Procne. When she steadfastly refuses his advances, he rapes her twice, cuts out her tongue, and imprisons her in a cottage in the forest. Philomena embroiders her tale and sends the finished work to her sister, who then rescues her from the cottage and brings her back to the palace. In revenge for the rape of Philomena, the two

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2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8. 9.

sisters murder their (respective) son and nephew and serve him to Tereus at a private banquet. When Tereus realizes what has happened, he takes up his sword to kill the sisters, but the gods intervene and turn all three characters into birds in retribution for their crimes of impiety. Philomena, ed. C. de Boer (Paris: Guethner, 1909); Philomena et Procné, in Raymond Cormier, ed. and trans., Three Ovidian Tales of Love: Piramus et Tisbé, Narcisus et Dané and Philomena et Procné, Garland Library of Medieval Literature 26 (New York: Garland, 1986), 181–281. Unless otherwise noted, all citations refer to the lines of this edition and the pages of this translation. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Books 6–10, ed. William S. Anderson (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972), Book 6.424–674, 50–56; in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, trans. Rolfe Humphries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955), 143–152. All citations refer to the lines of this edition and the pages of this translation. Hoepffner and Keller argue that the author of Philomena borrowed several tropes from the romans d’antiquité. See Ernst Hoepffner, “La Philomena de Chrétien de Troyes,” Romania 57 (1931): 19–74; and Hans-Elrich Keller, “De l’Amour dans Philomena,” in L’Imaginaire courtois et son double: actes du VI congrès triennal de la Société Internationale de Littérature Courtoise (ICLS) Fisciano (Salerno) 24–28 juillet, 1989, ed. Giovanna Angeli and Lucian Formisano (Naples: Edizioni scientifiche italiane, 1992), 361–370. See Keller and Edith Joyce Benkov, “Philomena: Chrétien de Troyes’ Reinterpretation of the Ovidian Myth,” Romance Philology 26:3 (1983): 201–209. Roberta L. Krueger, “Philomena: Brutal Transitions and Courtly Transformations in Chrétien’s Old French Translation,” in A Companion to Chrétien de Troyes, ed. Norris Lacy and Joan Grimbert (Cambridge: Brewer, 2005), 88. The general consensus maintains that the stylistic features and thematic preoccupations of the author are consistent with Chrétien’s other works. Along these lines, Hoepffner first summarizes and then refutes a number of philological arguments against Chrétien’s authorship. For a more recent argument, see Elisabeth Schulze-Busacker, “Philomena: Une révision de l’attribution de l’oeuvre,” Romania 107 (1986): 459–485. Cligés, ed. Stewart Gregory and Claude Luttrell (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1993), l. 6–7. “Introduction du Philomena dans l’Ovide moralisé,” ed. Cornelis de Boer, in Philomena, ed. de Boer, l. 29–31, p. 135; my translation. For the full text, see Ovide moralisé: poème du commencement du quatorzième siècle publié d’après tous les manuscrits connus, ed. Cornelis de Boer, Martina G. de Boer, and Jeannette Th. M. Van’T Sant, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afdeeling letterkunde, Nieuwe reeks, 15, 21, 30, 37, 43 (Amsterdam: 1915–1938, reprinted in 1966–1968 by Weisbaden: Martin Sändig), OM 6.2183–3840, 336–369.

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10. Hoepffner argues that some of the vocabulary is more consistent with the thirteenth-century usage, which suggests that the author of the Ovide moralisé did more than simply transcribe Chrétien’s Philomena. Emmanuèle Baumgartner subscribes to the view that this is an “oeuvre de jeunesse” with an unknown number of remaniements in her recent critical edition and translation (Pyrame et Thisbé, Narcisse, et Philomena: trois contes du XIIè siècle français imités d’Ovide [Paris: Gallimard, 2000], 274), as does Jean Frappier (Chrétien de Troyes: l’homme et l’oeuvre [Paris: Hatier-Boivin, 1957] 68). However, despite the remaniements, the case for Chrétien’s authorship is substantial. See also Marie-Claire Gérard-Zai, “L’auteur de Philomena,” Revista de istoria si teorie literara 25 (1976): 361–368. 11. For a discussion of Chrétien’s classical sources, see Benkov. 12. Chrétien expands 262 Latin hexameters to 1,468 octosyllabic verses through the rhetorical technique of amplificatio. 13. Ruth Morse, The Medieval Medea (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1996), 132. 14. Ovid is renowned for the psychological complexity of his characters and his sensitivity to emotionally complex scenarios. The brevity and intensity with which he recounts these myths are due primarily to the sheer scope of The Metamorphoses, as well as to Ovid’s assumption that his contemporary audience would already be familiar with these stories. 15. Keith Oatley, “Social Construction in Emotions,” in Handbook of Emotions, ed. Michael Lewis and Jeannette M. Haviland-Jones, 2nd ed. (New York: Guilford Press, 2000), 341. 16. Madeleine Jeay, “Consuming Passions: Variations on the Eaten Heart Theme,” in Violence against Women in Medieval Texts, ed. Anna Roberts (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1998), 73–96. 17. Kronos, the last of the Titans, deliberately swallowed all of his newborn children except Zeus in a futile effort to prevent one of them from usurping the throne. Other prominent examples of infanticide and cannibalism in classical myth include Tantalus, who slew his son to prepare a feast for the gods, and Atreus, who served his nephews to their father, Thyestes, at a reconciliation dinner. Atreus’ murder of his nephews was a deliberate, premeditated act of revenge against his brother, who had stolen the throne through an earlier act of deception, and, as in most versions of Philomena, the children’s heads are dramatically produced during the banquet to confirm the act of unwitting cannibalism. 18. R. J. Cormier, One Heart, One Mind: The Rebirth of Virgil’s Hero in Medieval French Romance, Romance Monographs 3 (University of Mississippi: Romance Monographs, 1973), 41. 19. Ernest Gallo, The Poetria Nova and Its Sources in Early Rhetorical Doctrine (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), 45–46. 20. Cf. Chrétien’s portraits of Enide (Erec et Enide, ed. and French trans. J. M. Fritz [Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1992], l. 422–441), Laudine (Le Chevalier au Lion, ed. and French trans. David F. Hult [Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1993], l. 1466–1498) and Blanchef lor (Le Conte du Graal, ed. and French trans. Charles Méla [Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1990], l. 1763–1787).

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21. Chrétien devotes thirty lines to Philomena’s physical description and thirty-five to her intellectual and social skills. 22. Enide is also skilled in falconry (Erec et Enide, l. 1304–1305). 23. Michelle Guéret-Laferté proposes that Philomena’s education may have exceeded that suggested by contemporary models of women’s education. She points out that Chrétien compares the intellectual and social accomplishments of his heroine to two masculine figures, Apollonius of Tyre and Tristan, rather than female historical or literary models, which suggests that Philomena actually knows more than a young woman should know (“De Philomèle à Philomena,” Bien dire et bien aprandre: Bulletin du Centre d’études médiévales et dialectales de l’université de Lille III, 15 [1997]: 55). 24. felon, l. 11, 542; or fel, l. 807–812; desleal, l. 711, 1456; traïtor, l. 810, 1300; parjuré, l. 1321; lerre, l. 750; my translations. 25. vil deable, l. 1300; my translation. 26. “La rhétorique courtoise sert ici à décrire l’amour vilaine” (Guéret-Laferté, 49). 27. “Textiles as Testimony in Marie de France and Philomena,” Medievalia et Humanistica 22 (1995): 33, 35. 28. folie, l. 213; vilenie, l. 220; outrage, l. 483; desleauté, l. 484; forsenage, l. 484; my translations. 29. Guéret-Laferté, 49–50. 30. Philomena’s response is not without precedent. Although the story is not contemporary with Philomena, the cross-dressing heroine of Le Roman de Silence rejects Queen Eufeme’s offer of love by invoking both feudal loyalty and filial piety (Heldris de Cornuälle, Le Roman de Silence: A Thirteenth-Century Arthurian Verse Romance by Heldris de Cornuälle, ed. Lewis Thorpe [Cambridge: W. Heffer and Sons, 1972], l. 3802–3809, 4166–4173). For a contemporary example, see Marie de France’s Lanval, in which the knight rejects the queen’s advances on grounds of feudal loyalty (in Les Lais, ed. Jean Rychner [Paris: Champion, 1983], l. 271–274). 31. The author of the Ovide moralisé actually identifies Philomena herself as the cause of Tereus’s lust, making her the embodiment of deceitful love in his allegorical interpretation of the myth (l. 3839–3840). This may explain, in part, why Philomena makes such a feeble protest at the loss her most valuable asset, her virginity, but such a conclusion also assumes that the author of the Ovide moralisé did make alterations to his source. 32. Chrétien also insists that Tereus’s companions were aware of the rape, but that they remained silent because they feared their king (l. 860–866). 33. For a full explanation of the notion of contrition larmoyante, see JeanCharles Payen, Le Motif du repentir dans la littérature française médiévale (des origines à 1230) (Geneva: Droz, 1967). 34. Adolf Tobler and Erhard Lommatzsch, Altfranzösisches Wörterbuch, 11 vols. (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1971), 8:769, s.l. renardie. In addition, Hoepffner attributes the use of renardie to the author of the Ovide moralisé, pointing out that this word did not become synonymous with tromperie

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35. 36.

37.

38.

39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45.

46.

47.

48.

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or tricherie until the beginning of thirteenth century, after Le Roman de Renart had become popular. He also proposes that the original reading may have been “par barat et par tricherie,” citing Cligés: “N’i ot barat ne tricherie” (l. 4389) (23–24). In addition, Hoepffner’s reconstruction of this line based on one of Chrétien’s romances further strengthens the case for his authorship of Philomena. Tobler-Lommatzsch, 1:830, s.l. barat. Cf. the grief of Silence’s parents and the entire court when they receive the false news of Silence’s death in Le Roman de Silence (l. 2997–3000, 3013–3032). Also, in La Vie de Sainte Euphrosine, Euphrosine’s father rends his clothing and faints (l. 681–683) as a sign of his immeasurable loss (l. 725–726) (Raymond T. Hill, “La Vie de Sainte Euphrosine,” Romanic Review 10:3 [1919]: 159–169, 191–232 and 12:1 [1921]: 43–49, 162–163). Procne also accuses Death of having made Nature his enemy: “ ‘Indeed Nature ought to hate you since you have killed her most beautiful creature’ ” [“Et mout t’an doit haïr Nature/Quant la plus bele creature/Qu’ele oncques feïst as ocise”] (245; l. 981–983). Keller notes that during this speech, Procne makes no fewer than nine separate invocations to Death (Keller, 369). She also urges death to reunite her soul with her sister’s (l. 986–987). ire, angoisse, dolor, l. 999, 1004; my translations. “Engendering Sacrifice: Blood, Lineage and Infanticide in Old French Literature,” Speculum 77 (2002): 55–75, 69. Krueger, 99. Oatley, 343–345. forsenee, l. 1246; desvee, l. 1261; my translation. come, l. 1246, 1261; my translation. Anderson suggests that Procne is “caught up in pretense” because Ovid’s use of the verb exululare (to howl [out]) denotes the “irrational shrieks of a Bacchante”: the queen’s bestial behavior in this episode also foreshadows her physical metamorphosis at the end of the tale (Anderson in Ovid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Books 6–10, 229). Tobler-Lommatzsch, 2:1369–1370, s.l. dementer. See also Frédéric Godefroy, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française, 10 vols. (Paris: Librairie des Sciences et des Arts, 1938), 2:497–498, s.l. dementer. “The Daughter’s Text and the Thread of Lineage in the Old French Philomena,” in Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. Elizabeth Robertson and Christine M. Rose (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 169–170. During the actual murder, Ovid compares Procne’s aggression to a tigress attacking a deer (6.636–637) and the sisters butcher the body and begin to cook it while Itys is still alive (6.644–645). Both the rapidity and viciousness of the murder of Itys encourage the audience to interpret this as a crime of passion. Curiously, in the modern Spanish ballad versions of this myth, Blancaflor y Filomena, a pregnant Procne miscarries the baby and proceeds to cook it in a stew, which serves both to mitigate the

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49. 50. 51. 52.

53.

54.

55.

56. 57. 58. 59.

60. 61.

brutality of Itys’ murder and to align the audience’s sympathies with the two sisters. Krueger, 100. Oatley, 341. felenie, l. 1302, 1303; forfet, l. 1304; my translations. At the beginning of the narrative, Chrétien suggests that Tereus’s illconceived love for Philomena was a result of demonic suggestion: “Thus has the devil . . . enchanted Tereus” [Si l’a deables anchanté] (221; l. 462); however, ultimately, the masculine “pleasure-law” serves to legitimate the rape of Philomena while simultaneously destroying any empathy for the barbaric acts of this character. This trope is frequently associated with hagiographical and devotional literature, where demonic suggestion frequently precedes a pious female character’s lapse into sin. See Thaïs and Nièce, in La Vie des pères, ed. Felix Lecoy, 3 vols. (Paris: Société des anciens textes français, 1987–1999), 1:72–90 and 2:150–169, respectively. Compare Procne’s casual treatment of Itys’ body to the elaborate funerary rites and intense grief surrounding the false death of Philomena (l. 974–1061). Here, Procne’s interior monologue rejects her marriage as illegitimate, so that filial piety to her sister supercedes a wife’s loyalty to her husband: “ ‘And why should one make pretty speeches,/The other be dumb, and ravished tongue unable/To tell of ravish? Since he calls me mother,/Why does she not say Sister? Whose wife are you,/Daughter of Pandion? Will you disgrace him,/Your husband, Tereus? But devotion to him/Is a worse crime’ ” [“cur admovet’ inquit/‘Alter blanditias, rapta silet altera lingua?/ Quam vocat hic matrem, cur non vocat illa sororem?/Cui sis nupta, vide, Pandione nata, marito!/Degeneras! scelus est pietas in coniuge Tereo”] (150; 6.631–635). McCracken, 55. McCracken, 74. Morse, 206. “The seneschal, the great squire, the baker, and the cupbearer all took care and pains to ready and prepare what was fitting, each according to his position. Some hastened to set the tables, others kept bringing water to several places. They were not lazy servants or squires but adept valets who served everything proper, and they all exerted themselves to serve well” [Li senschaus, li conestables,/Li panetier, li eschançon,/Chascuns ot cure et cusançon/D’atorner et d’apareillier/Ce qu’apartient a son mestier./Li un corent les tables metre,/Li autre se vont antremetre/De doner l’eve an plusors leus./Leanz n’ot nul serjant oiseus,/N’escuiier ne vaslet adroit,/Qui ne servist de que que soit] (227; l. 584–594). Peacock, swan, and pheasant. Jones, 177.

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62. “Raping Men: What’s Motherhood Got to Do with It?” in Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. Elizabeth Robertson and Christine M. Rose (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 154. 63. Burns, 135–136. 64. Cf. the myth of Atreus. 65. angoisse, ire, dolor, l. 1416, 1420; my translations. 66. Guéret-Laferté notes that Tereus’s emotional response of shame and remorse constitutes the first steps toward repentance (54). However, this is not a saint’s life or a miracle tale, but a bloody tale of vengeance and retribution. See also Payen. 67. Chrétien’s account of the metamorphosis alters Ovid’s (6.668–670), in which it is impossible to determine whether Philomena is transformed into the nightingale or the swallow. Benkov’s study of Chrétien’s sources suggests several reasons for Chrétien’s choice based on non-Ovidian versions of the myth. 68. For details, see Wendy Pfeffer, The Change of Philomel: The Nightingale in Medieval Literature (New York: Peter Lang, 1985). 69. Krueger, 102.

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CHAPTER 3 WHAT WAS SHE THINKING? YSOLT ON THE EDGE Brînduşa E. Grigoriu

T

he Prose Romance of Tristan is an old story that was loved for a long time.1 It treasures the memory of “the most sovereign knight who has ever been in the realm of Great Britain, both before and after King Arthur, save for the very good knight Lancelot” [Li plus soveriens chevaliers qui onques fust ou reaume de la Grant Bretaigne, et devant le roi Artus et aprés, fors solement li tres bons chevaliers Lancelot dou Lac]. 2 Tristan is “sovereign” for many reasons, most of them related to his knighthood. However, one thing above all distinguishes him: he loves and is loved by a queen. Lancelot too, one might say. The difference is that Tristan plays on a distinct emotional cord: the philter. It is a queenly love crowned by magic that makes Tristan triste (sad); no other woman, no other story can sadden more effectively. The emotion provoked by Ysolt’s presence in Tristan’s life is exactly what the emotional community of the romance public demanded, and the demand lasted for three centuries. It is, though, a questionable emotion, provoked by a questionable art. Before allowing it to work the miracle of “love and more-than-love,”3 the narrator had to legitimate it. But how can one legitimate incestuous, adulterous, uncourtly love? Everything depends on Ysolt’s empathetic powers. If she can move, love can persuade.

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Ysolt is endowed with the emotional potential of a virgin heart. Her heartfelt, gradual opening to the possibility of being with Tristan makes all the difference between drunkenness and love. Before drinking the potion, Ysolt knew that Tristan was about to become her nephew-in-law, that she herself was about to become a wife and a queen. She could have tried to say no to love; she could have opposed some nobler emotion to it. She might have at least put off its fulfillment, as the code of courtly love suggested.4 What was she thinking? one might ask, considering the religious climate of the romance. In a world where even Lancelot is summoned to give up adultery and take up sainthood,5 how could Ysolt be mastered by magic? Her skill in medicine indicates an ability to make and control potions, and yet she cannot—or will not—heal herself of love. To answer the question of her inability or unwillingness to resist her love for Tristan, we shall focus on Ysolt’s experience of the philter. Three emotional stages foreshadow its impact: self-assertion, selfeffacement, and, ultimately, the opening toward the other. We shall explore them as phases in the process that structures Ysolt as an emotional being. The episode of the philter will be analyzed as the moment when Ysolt’s “feeling rules” become emotionally intelligible. The somatic and psychosocial experience of these rules will be investigated in its most intense episodes, from intoxication and consummation to the wedding night and the plot against Brangien. When Ysolt is established as Tristan’s queenly lover, her emotional initiation—and our exploration of it—will be complete. The bashful maid will have become a lovable, loving lady. Before the magic potion, Ysolt’s universe revolves around herself. This centering first becomes a source of emotion with Tristan’s healing. Intrigued to see her medical strategies fail, the already-famous Ysolt is overcome by discouragement. The reader is confronted, for the first time, with conf licting representations of Ysolt: her father’s and her own. Whereas her father claims that Ysolt is the best healer in the world,6 she is ready to consider herself ignorant.7 Her negative feelings are so intense that they deepen the analysis of the medical evidence and intensify the inference process. Diagnosis becomes an emotional act: “she felt in her heart that the wound was poisoned” [li chiet ou cuer que cele plaie fu entoschiee].8 At this stage, Tristan’s presence is not significant in itself; the only person Ysolt is thinking about is Ysolt. Her emotional involvement is egotistical; she wants to live up to her fame. When she asks Tristan to

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come into the sunlight, she wants to see the wound and not the wounded man.9 Later on, she does everything in her power to heal the wound and prove her skill. The patient’s beauty does not move her; it is Tristan alone who fears that his looks will make him recognizable. She is so absorbed in the healing process that she never suspects Tristan’s identity. Success simply prompts her to greater success: “And she so strives and takes such care that before two months had passed he was as hale and hardy as he had ever been” [Et ele s’entremet tant, e tant i met sa cure, que ençois que dui mois furent passé fu il aussi sains e aussi hestiez com il avoit esté plus].10 Cognitive emotions are predominant, and they awaken her to the outer world: the medical puzzle in her mind leads to a scrutiny of Tristan’s body. When she lays eyes on Tristan for the second time, it is not a wound that draws her attention; she is asked to see the man in him, and to gauge his desirability as a husband. Brangien also suggests that Tristan fight against Palamède for Ysolt’s sake and expects her to take some interest in the fighters. The princess is not ready to look at either of them other than surgically: she considers their qualities objectively and opposes Palamède’s valor and prowess to Tristan’s beauty. Being loved does not call forth any emotion in her. At least, this is what she says: “My heart does not move me. They are wasting their efforts, and I care little about it” [Mes corages ne me mue. Il tendront lor poene gastee, car de ce m’est ores mout a po].11 However, when she proclaims Tristan to be the preferable suitor, she seems to experience a hopeful feeling toward him. Her evaluation is tinged with subjectivity: “if our knight [Tristan] is as good and valiant as he [Palamède], and if he is as noble as he seems to me, one should sooner choose him, for if he were well healed, he would be, without mistake, the handsomest knight in the world” [se nostres chevaliers fust de sa bonté e de sa proesce, et il fust gentils hom com il me semble, l’en s’i devroit mieus acorder a ce qu’il seroit sanz faille, s’il estoit tres bien gariz, li plus biax chevaliers dou monde].12 The use of a superlative in a private conversation with a confidante is not exactly a declaration of love, but it shows a certain inclination toward the knight; after all, she is asked to compare Tristan only to Palamède, not to all the handsome knights in the world. Naming her favorite “our knight” also suggests something more than a doctor-patient relationship; familiarity and admiration go hand in hand, but they do so tacitly. Ysolt wants to appear uninterested in such matters; she speaks only when the question is forced upon her.13 Her denial of affective involvement is accompanied by the affirmation of certain criteria according to which men should be evaluated. The relevance of beauty is a matter of feminine judgment, and Ysolt is woman(ly) enough to respond to its appeal, although the narrator declares that she

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“had never longed for love, nor did she long for it” [onques n’avoit baé a amors, ne n’i baoit].14 Ysolt may well experience emotions and prove able to give an aesthetic or medical justification of them, but privacy is generally forbidden, intimacy ritualized. The king’s daughter is a public figure. After the medical and chivalric preludes, Ysolt is called to her queenly vocation. This phase involves the presence of a father figure, of a people, and of a(n) (m)otherland. Her feelings are modeled and molded according to this threefold pressure. When she is presented with the prospect of a marriage to Tristan, she remains silent. When she is told she must marry Tristan’s uncle instead, she keeps to herself. What is she thinking? The narrator notes only what she is not thinking: of revenge.15 Whereas the queen of Ireland, Ysolt’s mother, proves “a wrathful and furious woman” [feme iriee et forsenee],16 ready to carry out male vendettas with her own hands; the future queen of Cornwall prefers the paternal model of wisdom and temperance.17 As in earlier versions, the Ysolt of the prose romance is unwilling to raise the sword against the naked Tristan. Moreover, she is said to behave like a lady, while her mother is reproved for her inappropriate, un-ladylike inclinations.18 Silently aware of everything, Ysolt learns that a real queen is moved by nothing. One could even say she looks perfectly unmovable. And yet, Anguins, her father, sees her move away: in his dream, she is kidnapped by Tristan. Why would a father dream of such a fate for his daughter? The narrator suggests only the contagion of a silent emotion. It is in her father’s nightmare that Ysolt is first shown to develop an emotional response to Tristan. Her father imagines her celebrated joyfully as queen,19 then sadly deprived of honor and liberty when Tristan appears.20 Daylight reality is not as emotionally invested: Ysolt is ready to play her part dutifully, without showing any specific feeling. Whereas the narrator describes amply the joyfulness of the court, the future queen is not singled out.21 She passes unfeelingly from Anguins’s hands to Tristan’s22 and does everything she is asked to do. She accepts the political alliance without hesitation and shows herself to be an obedient daughter, a willing fiancée, and a trustworthy ambassador. Self-effacement is her way of practicing politics.23 When she embarks for Cornwall, one might say that she is well trained for an emotionless life. Nothing of her previous interest in Tristan seems

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relevant now; loaded with jewelry and affairs of state, Ysolt leaves her weeping parents and sails away without a tear.24 She does not complain about her exile as she does in the older versions of the legend; Tristan’s company provides her with courteous entertainment and she accepts it, without excessive joy or sorrow. At this stage, Ysolt is the mere embodiment of courtesy, and her companion gives her an opportunity to perform as such.25 Her feelings do not seem hurt by Tristan’s decision to give her away to Mark; everything is serenely fitting about the queen-to-be. However, the queen of Ireland is aware that her daughter may disobey, that some stif led emotion may burst forth. Her mother’s sense of the need for conjugal magic suggests that Ysolt may have to master her feelings. The philter is simply an emotional regulator, meant to keep discord at bay. 26 However, the philter is also meant to awaken Ysolt to her feminine nature; a queen is also a woman and must be nurtured as such. Female emotionology finds its best expression in this transfusion of love. Reading the scene of the “love drink,”27 any woman of the thirteenth century must have become aware of one thing: no lady is fully a lady, no queen fully a queen, until she experiences love. The ideal, of course, would be what Chrétien de Troyes advocated in his struggle against the philter: a loving, married couple.28 What were the chances that Ysolt would embrace such a model of her own accord? The circumstances preceding the drinking of the philter seem to indicate that it was improbable. Ysolt is playing chess with Tristan, and their courteous exchange is becoming particularly intense. The weather is hot enough to justify a transition from political amenities to sheer familiarity; it is significant that Ysolt finds it natural for Tristan to wear light clothes in her presence and that she feels free to do the same.29 One is reminded of the bathing scene: she has already been in his—naked—company and experienced no embarrassment. As long as a ritual is being observed, the other—even if lightly clothed or naked—can find his place in a pattern of interaction; chess neutralizes erratic emotions. One recognizes the cool Ysolt: she can stand the heat. Her temperature is under control. Yet, when the “hot and very thirsty”30 Tristan has asked for wine and has drunk it, he orders that she be given wine as well, which is done, and she drinks.31 Something seems to have upset the queen-subject hierarchy. Tristan is the one in command, at least in the couple’s intercourse with the world. The servants must pour wine because Tristan says so, and because Ysolt does not say no. She does not say yes, either. It is her body that becomes affirmative.

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Nobody has asked her anything and yet some questions arise: why would she drink a beverage she has not ordered? What kind of a queen does she mean to be, drinking to please another? What was she thinking? The narrator is, once again, elliptical about Ysolt’s inner life. She is obviously in a good enough mood to ignore the difference between her—new—status and Tristan’s.32 Like Tristan, she has become warm, albeit perhaps with a different kind of warmth. Their youthful familiarity allows them to invert their roles. One may suppose that she is thirsty too, by a sort of physical empathy; their similar clothing indicates that both are feeling the heat. And biological parameters matter more, at this intense hour, than social or political ones. Ysolt is becoming some body, as much as Tristan. For both, love begins as a kind of thirst. Therefore, she drinks too. 33 The expert in potions is just as incautious, just as eager to drink, as any other drinker on a summer day. The reader must believe that neither the smell nor the appearance of the wine has warned her of its nature. The woman most learned in medicine in the world is fooled, at a distance, by her own mother—the best diagnostician by the greatest malady. Confronted with love, doctor and patient are both equally vulnerable: sweetness makes its way into their blood.34 The enjoyment of an intense taste is the first reaction to the philter. It represents the perceptual stage of emotion, in which the other person is hardly involved. There is a subject and an object, a drinker and a drink: the experience is intense and confronts the self with an exterior, reified form of otherness. From the tongue to the eye, via the heart, it is the narrator who leads the way: “Then their hearts change and alter. Now that they have drunk, the one looks at the other” [Lor cuer lor change et si lor mue. Maintenant qu’il ont beü li uns regarde l’autre].35 The narrative expands into a display of emotions that sets the tone for the readers. Gradually, the intrapersonal experience opens onto the interpersonal: Ysolt’s awareness of an emotional disorder is paralleled by Tristan’s. Yet, they do not really share the philter: they simply experience it simultaneously; each one is absorbed separately but similarly in the gustative sensation and the heart-throbbing emotion. When they look at each other, they are struck by a special kind of evidence. The other exists: as such. From then on, this other also exists as a counterpart of Me: this other becomes You.

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The drinkers see in each other a possible means of satisfying their emerging needs. Magic operates like an addiction: the sweetness inside requires an external source, a repeatable action, in order to be renewed and to last. And each needer (already an addict?) is found fit to satisfy the other’s need. There is a sudden revelation of the correspondence between inner and outer experiences. As far as Ysolt is concerned, this revelation is inscribed on the white page of a virginal past. She can see only the promise of nourishment for her passion. She has never fed her emotions on male f lesh, nor is she accustomed to see a man’s beauty as a means to slake some inner thirst. However, Tristan is no longer a patient for her; the wound is promptly forgotten. A different kind of relevance shines over her life and fills in the blanks of marital expectations. The question of choice is asked again; one hears again implicitly Brangien’s inquiry and Ysolt’s choice of Tristan. Only, this time, the rival is not a valiant knight such as Palamède; he is an unseen king, a man she could not choose because he was imposed upon her. While the emotions of the body are translated into the idioms of discovery, thought, and purposeful action, Ysolt is solicited by remembrance and oblivion. The balance is broken between the two memory processes: she remembers everything notable about Tristan and forgets absolutely everything about Mark.36 This dialectics of passion involves intense concentration on the one and total neglect of the other: the astonishing experience of Tristan deletes Mark as a possible experience. 37 This opposition is relevant for one dramatic reason: it switches on one light by switching off another. Emotion f lashes on the two possible worlds and renders one of them impossible. The experience involves cognitive enrichment, too: the initial sensations of gustative and visual pleasure lead to a new social positioning of Tristan in relation to Ysolt and Mark. Thus, the male source of magic becomes a substitute husband. Ysolt learns that the one who moved her (indirectly) can go on moving her, and she understands that marriage is the best way to secure such movements. Emotion has taught her how to make sweetness last. Having gone from taste to thought, she can now move on toward action; the next step is deliberation. The arguments are not rational at first: they consist of sudden hotness and irresistible attraction to that other-become-You. 38 But the heart-felt emotion becomes purposeful, in a tacit movement of agreement.39 Ysolt learns to justify love to her virgin self.

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She rationalizes her eagerness and founds it on the undeniable evidence of Tristan’s desirability. It is easy for her to do: “he’s the handsomest knight in the world and the best” [c’est li plus biax chevaliers dou monde et li miaudres].40 This view is not entirely new to her, and certainly not entirely false. She has already expressed her opinion of Tristan’s beauty, as well as her intuition of his chivalric potential. Moreover, her father’s opinion is a trustworthy guide and Anguins normally sees Tristan as the best match for his daughter.41 The reader has all this evidence at hand and can well understand Ysolt’s process of self-persuasion. As for Ysolt herself, she is already won to the cause emotionally and ready to content herself with the two superlatives. Her joy is a celebration of the best possible option: “That Ysolt loves Tristan makes her gay and merry, for it seems to her indeed that there was no other man to whom she could better entrust her heart” [Se Yselt aime Tristan, ele en est liee et joiouse, et bien li semble qu’ele ne porroit mieuz metre son cuer en nule maniere].42 She seems to congratulate herself on falling in love with the right person, and the initial astonishment is resolved satisfactorily. Having made peace with herself, Ysolt may now open herself to the other. At first, this interpersonal overture is still a part of her inner life. She simply begins to think for two. The couple, a most convenient couple according to social criteria, becomes the basic unit of her thought. The narrator’s vision replicates hers, thanks to a sympathetic use of indirect free speech: “He is very handsome and she is very beautiful; he is a noble man and she is of high lineage; they should get along well together” [Il est tres biax et ele est tres bele; il est gentils hons et ele est de haut linaige; bien se doevent acorder ensemble].43 Emotion infuses the whole process, and the argument gains in intensity and concision. The twofold consideration—aesthetic and genetic—is inspired by the contemplation of the man in front of her. The body permeates the entire judgment, as does the chemistry of fair traits and noble genes. But it is a social body of which she thinks. She does not yet embrace Tristan’s limbs, not even with her glance. Another emotional event follows the revelation of the couple’s compatibility. Ysolt becomes aware of her own social-body, and of Mark’s. The love triangle is the next relevant unit. Ysolt is not ready to accept it: her social model is focused obstinately on the couple. The young woman cannot think of an adulterous relationship with Tristan. She simply wants a spouse who will make the sweetness last and is ready to break the triangle. As for Mark, rejection follows oblivion. Nobody but Tristan must have her love: gazing at the right one makes Mark look like the wrong one. Ysolt’s emotional world is black and white.

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So Ysolt says “no” to Mark: “let no word be said about King Mark” [or ne soit jamés parlé del roi Marc].44 It is, of course, an astonishing conclusion, that the fiancé’s nephew should prove more suitable than the fiancé himself. But any moral scruples that Ysolt may have have nothing to cling to; Mark is of no ontological relevance to her; she may act as if he has never existed.45 Tristan, by contrast, does exist, and his existence solicits her keenly. Her gaze is no longer amazed: it confirms. Ysolt knows she is as fit for Tristan as he is fit for her, and she conveys this knowledge spontaneously. With her, “concealing isn’t worth anything” [Celer n’i vaut riens].46 Inner truth becomes evident. Her opening is paralleled by Tristan’s, and this synchronization seems only natural to her. Whether her perception is a sign of self-confidence or a symbol of a naïve view of cross-gender relations, the man’s interest in her does not strike her as magic. She does not wonder why he falls in love with her. It is Tristan who marvels at the discovery: “he is so joyful about this adventure that he tells himself that he is the most blessed knight who ever lived since he is loved by the most beautiful damsel in the world” [il est tant liez de ceste aventure qu’il dit a soi meïsmes que or est il li plus beneürez chevaliers qui onques fust quant il est amez de la plus bele demoisele dou monde].47 Although the maiden is “very hardily joyful for what has happened” [mout durement liee de ceste chose],48 she does not experience the gratitude that is attributed to the man. The feminine model for acknowledging love prescribes awareness and availability, without any humble recognition of the other’s uniqueness. Ysolt is not overjoyed—just joyful. And that is enough. When Brangien and Governal find out that their masters have drunk the love potion, they manifest their emotions as intensely as did the narrator. Their prophetic mourning is asexual in tone and creates a framework for the interpretation of what follows: “It was inevitable that they fall in love” [A force estoit qu’il s’entreaiment].49 The emotional vibration prepares the reader for a surrender to fate. Without a fight? Normally, the woman character is expected to offer some resistance to desire and to require her “soupirant” [suitor] to go through certain trials before granting him her love. Fin’amor remains a model throughout the thirteenth century, as one can see in the Prose Lancelot. Guinevere does not give in to passion on the first date, and the broken shield is not immediately made whole50; the rules of courtesy allow emotions to grow, even within an adulterous garden, provided they are cultivated in a refined, gradual manner.

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Therefore, Ysolt’s surrender is unacceptable without a strong reminder of the philter. Fate alone can excuse the immediate quenching of desire. What was she thinking? we have wondered. We considered her motivations, we followed her reasoning into love. We saw her jump to the conclusion that she is entitled to love Tristan. A moment comes when she thinks aloud, knowing that Tristan thinks the same. Through speech, emotion becomes explicitly thinkable. And thoughts can be shared. The spark that ignites all this thinking is desire: “he desires nothing but Ysolt, and Ysolt desires nothing but Tristan” [il ne desire nule chose fors Yselt, et Yselt ne desire riens fors Tristan].51 Although Tristan is the first to unveil heart-felt love,52 Ysolt alone is given the romance privilege of direct speech. As a queen, she may well address Tristan as “tu” (familiarly, intimately), rather than using the polite “vous”: “ ‘Tristan . . . , if you love me, this makes me most joyful and most cheerful, for I, too, love nothing in this world but you, nor shall I for as long as I live’ ” [“Tristanz . . . , se tu m’aimes, de ce sui je mout liee et mout joiant, car autresi n’aime je riens ou monde fors que toi, ne n’aimerai tant com je vive”].53 She is the only one who can say “ je t’aime,” so she says it. Her “accord” is not only a declaration of love: it is also a declaration of intentions. Ysolt loves and will love Tristan; moreover, she wants him to know that she commits herself to him for life. What kind of commitment is that? Although she is, in thought, ready to give up her marriage to Mark in order to form a couple with Tristan,54 all she speaks about is love: marriage is of no (explicit) relevance when desire comes into play. It is the present that she wants to make last. The expression “for as long as I live” is mere hyperbole for Ysolt, as wholeheartedness is to Tristan. The feminine form of the emotion seeks to be timeless, whereas the masculine one focuses on the moment’s intensity. Tristan and Ysolt’s verbal synchronization in the magic of love is cut short by the narrator, who hurries emotion to its bodily fulfillment. “What can I tell you” [Que vos diroie je ]?55 he begins. After a rapid summing-up of the situation—“Tristan knows that Ysolt shares his desire” [Tristanz conoist que Yselt s’acorde a sa volenté]56 —he lets the new lovers make love. The lady is willing, the boat keeps sailing, nobody runs away. Ysolt is not a victim, just a fornicator. Could she be thinking about fornication? Probably not, considering her inexperience.

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All that she wants is to be with Tristan, according to her choice; she cannot be expected to understand what being with somebody may involve. Her idea of being with Mark or with Tristan is, however, disjunctive enough to suggest she has a vision of a public, legitimate couple. This immediate intimacy is not a matter of shame to her, just a transition to a more visible condition of choice. She probably expects Tristan to reject all other women as she has rejected Mark, and to complete their “synchronization” by some future move. Her availability to intimate intercourse, her lack of awareness of its public consequences, and the vagueness of her desire are an expression of her virginity. Ysolt is an inexperienced woman. She has not mastered the politics of love as she has the science of potions. Besides, she is a woman awakened to her womanhood by the philter. Her medicinal background, instead of making her wary of intoxication, leads her to experiment with the powers of this sweetness that proves such a remedy to thirst. When, back in Ireland, she tried to heal Tristan’s unseen wound, she chose, at first, the wrong treatment.57 Now, like then, she is unable to detect venom. And, once again, she is eager to experiment. A modern narrator would insist on what she experiences, somatically and psychologically, when she moves to the next stage. The medieval narrator is simply elliptical. What he describes is a conventional—and conventionally veiled—episode of def loration. He does not focus on the virgin. Thus, many questions remain unanswered. Is she thrilled when Tristan performs the first gestures? Aware of his previous experience? Bitterly or sweetly aware? Does she respond to his teaching? Is she intoxicated enough to be a quick learner? The text gives only one answer: “he does with her what he wants and takes from her the name of virgin” [Il fait de li ce que il veust et li tost le non de pucele].58 Ysolt becomes a pleasing object in Tristan’s hands. For one—emotional—moment, the narrative speaks of sex instead of love. Pragmatic parameters such as who, when, and where are relevant here: “there is no disturbance, for they are all alone in the chamber, and expect no interruption and are afraid of no one” [Il n’i a nul destorbement, car il sont en chambre sol a seul, qu’il n’ont garde de sorvenue ne paor d’un ne d’autre].59 The act is considered objectively, and it must be a private, unimpeded, successful act. Whereas the modern spirit sees a difference between making love and having sex, Tristan obviously does not. The narrator shows him “fall in love”60 and links this falling to sexual intercourse. Tristan’s love story with Ysolt begins when he first makes

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love to her. The text highlights the moment accordingly: “and thereafter he suffered such great hardship and travail from the love he caught thus through the love drink that no knight before or after him ever suffered as much for love as he” [et de cele amor qu’il prist ensi par le boire amorous ot il puis poine et travail si grant que avant ne aprés ne fu chevaliers tant traveilliez por amors com il fu].61 Tristan’s commitment is an exclusive one: “no other did he love, no other did he know” [n’autre n’ama n’autre ne conut]62; it is the beginning of the greatest and saddest performance ever accomplished by a knightly lover. When love turns into sexual commitment—and exclusivity—destiny makes Tristan triste. Ysolt and the philter are a sad adventure to him. The love drink is not evoked in this fatal, hyperbolic key for Ysolt. Ysolt herself is not evoked at all at this moment, although it is, for her too, the first episode of a sad, meaningful, unparalleled love story. The narrative silence covering Ysolt’s feelings is quite surprising in a courteous climate; the norms of courtesy usually require an author to focus on the lady’s power, on her gradual opening to love, on the algorithm of satisfaction she makes her lover observe.63 The narrator makes it impossible, at this stage, to see Ysolt as Tristan’s “dame” [lady]. Feudal standards cast a dark light on Ysolt’s yes to a vassal: it does not befit a queen to let a subject deprive her of her virginity. No narrative attention is paid to the former virgin. She seems to have experienced this passage in a passive manner. Nothing has broken, emotionally: Ysolt remains in love with Tristan after he has made love to her. To Brangien and Governal, her condition is of more concern than Tristan’s. Whether in love or not, the non-virgin is in danger. To the guardians of her honor, feelings are not important. It is her body that is the most exposed and the most preoccupying: “when King Mark does not find Ysolt as he should . . . , he will destroy her” [quant li rois Mars ne troverra Yselt com il devroit . . . il la destruira].64 However, as soon as the new lovers return to the public stage, Ysolt’s feelings are shown to echo Tristan’s. Her idea of an everlasting commitment is still alive. She expects to experience love, in that new and pleasing way, for evermore. And her expectations are realized—for the time being: Tristan “spends time pleasantly with Ysolt, with whom he experiences such joy that he asks for no other paradise, nor does Ysolt” [se deduit avec Yselt dont il a sa joie, qu’il ne demande autre paradis, non fait Yselt].65 Is such a paradise suitable for a future queen? The guardians’ normative attitude forces the question onto the reader. They have seen her “lie” with Tristan and they have become obsessed with the possibility of her def loration.66

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Does Ysolt think about it? Does she experience loss or dishonor? Nothing indicates the slightest regret. Ysolt’s first sexual experience with Tristan may have been spontaneous; however, her concern with eternal love is not: given the circumstances, the queen is happy to be a concubine.67 Her emotional involvement is strong enough to distance her from the social ideal of respectability. She does not think of marriage any more than she did when she experienced the first twitch of desire. Likewise, Tristan thinks of no ritual to legitimate the consummation. Despite his awareness that Ysolt’s love is a real blessing, he treats Ysolt as he would treat any consenting sexual partner—as he treated his first lover 68 —and remains sexually attached to her. Ysolt becomes his lover and Tristan has never considered, so far, turning a lover into a wife. However, a bond of irresistible attraction unites them, and this bond, termed (euphemistically?) “love,” grows stronger and stronger: “and their love grows so much and so strong that they cannot see how they can live without one another” [et tant lor croist lor amor et enforce qu’il ne voient mie coment li uns se puist consirer de l’autre].69 This kind of emotion is certainly not a social one. It involves ever greater intimacy, privacy, and exclusiveness. It limits society to one man and one woman; it receives no church blessing, no family celebration. Although the philter was meant for conjugal purposes, neither Tristan nor Ysolt is ultimately interested in marriage. Their joyful concubinage could last forever. According to the guardians of the philter, however, Ysolt’s present condition is shameful.70 But she needs more socializing before she can become socially emotional. And shame does not correspond to her profile. As soon as the philter has inspired Ysolt with love, her beauty and Tristan’s valiance entitle her to become queen of the Lointeignes Isles (Distant Isles). In this faraway land, where they are driven by the tempestuous sea, the feeling rules are simple: if a man is accompanied by a woman and if the man is more valiant than the current king and the woman more beautiful than the current queen, they are crowned together, as soon as the previous couple has been executed.71 This custom is the law: having proved their valor and beauty, Tristan and Ysolt become “lords” of the land. Although they are not married, they are recognized universally as a couple. As rightful suzerains, Tristan and Ysolt are free to live together and do whatever befits a lawful couple. But subject to the custom, they are forbidden to leave the isle. Ysolt is a public figure here and enjoys an honorable status. There is no special focus on her emotional evolution, but one may deduce

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that the queenly prisoner is just as delighted to share the throne as her companion: “Tristan was there in the company of Ysolt and Governal and Brangien, and he enjoyed a most glorious and delightful life because he had everything he wanted since he had Ysolt in his full power” [Tristanz estoit lasus entre li et Yselt et Gorvenal et Brangain, et menoit si glorieuse vie et si envoisiee qu’il a tot ce qu’il veust puis qu’il a Yselt en sa delivre poesté].72 The emotion evoked by the philter thus becomes compatible with social existence. It is, however, a minimal society, formed by exiled people brought together by chance. In this context, being the queen simply means being at the mercy of an unchristian, unarthurian tradition.73 Moreover, the choice of a sexual partner, granted by the philter in such a paradoxical way, is no longer possible: Ysolt could not leave the couple even if she wanted, for her own safety. Her life and her survival are linked to Tristan’s, and such a bond is, somehow, just as binding as marriage, and just as highly valued. According to the narrative, being in the beloved man’s power is a glorious emotion, but not a lasting one. Ysolt’s destination is Mark, and Tristan does nothing to change it. When the defeated Galahot abolishes the custom of the Isles, Tristan takes Ysolt and embarks for Cornwall in order to accomplish his mission. When she debarks in Cornwall, it is impossible to surprise in her the slightest display of emotion. The narrator focuses on feudal politics. Ysolt is simply the banner of her official conqueror and deliverer: “In this way . . . Tristan conquered Ysolt the Fair, and thus freed her from the Giant’s Isle and delivered her to King Mark, his uncle” [En tel maniere . . . conquist Tristanz Yselt la Bloe, et ensi la delivra il de l’Isle au Jaiant et la livra au roi Marc, son oncle].74 However, as the night approaches, her feelings come to light. It appears that Ysolt is not grateful to Tristan for having delivered her from the Giant’s Isle: “then she told herself that she would rather still be on the Giant’s Isle, where she could be with Tristan, her friend, whenever she wished, than to have come to Cornwall to be with King Mark” [si dit a soi meesmes que encores vosist ele mieuz estre en l’isle au Jaiant la ou ele avoit Tristan, son ami, a sa volenté, qu’ele fust en Cornoaille venue por estre avec le roi Marc].75 However, her discontent is of no narrative consequence; Tristan does not take her seriously enough to pay full attention to what she wants. He simply worries about the consequences of the philter and tries to save her royal face.76 It is significant that Ysolt is neither made aware of the philter’s powers, nor made a part of the rescue team. All she has to do is exit and reenter the wedding bed that first night. The three guardians of her honor

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prepare her nuptiae (marriage rites) without preparing her; this lack of preparation suggests that the “gift” 77 may well be given without much talk. She is Tristan’s trophy and Mark must share in it. What is the trophy thinking? For the first time in her life, Ysolt is deeply sad and experiences frustration: “She is much angrier than one could believe, for she cannot forget the one whom she loves with all her heart” [Ele en est assez plus correciee que l’en ne puet cuidier, car ele ne puet celi oblier qu’ele aime de tot son cuer].78 How does she handle these negative emotions? Does she search for a scapegoat? Does she plan any private vendetta? Nothing indicates that she manages them at all. Unable—or unwilling—to elaborate a plan of her own, Ysolt must resign herself to reality. All she can do is think of past alternatives —with her present heart. And her heart is simply aching: Tristan, the unforgettable, has disappointed her. All her enthusiasm for the best and the most beautiful knight subsides. The sweet emotion of the philter has turned sour. Moreover, the inseparability it secures must be experienced, from now on, separately, at least for several hours every night. Ysolt is triste. Tristan is not: he simply invests his feelings in the action to come and wants Ysolt to perform her role properly. There was no honor in the wine cup, but Tristan handles intoxication in an honorable way and proves sober enough to think of lighting and snuffing candles at the right moment, of a virgin to replace the bride, of marrying off his concubine—royally. He is the matchmaker, and Ysolt the person to be married. During the ceremony, she looks so graciously marriageable, that she simply embodies the Bride, regardless of the bridegroom. She is no longer a mere piece of the puzzle of fate: to her subjects, she herself matters. And this may help her to feel important: “Ysolt is there, so beautiful and so pleasing in all things, so sweet, so simple, so resplendent that all marvel at her beauty and her beautiful countenance. All the ladies and the knights gaze on Ysolt” [Yselt i est, si bele et si plesanz en totes choses, si douce, si simple, si resplandissant que tuit la regardent a merveilles por sa biauté et por sa bele contenance. Toz li regarz des dames et des chevaliers est sor Yselt].79 Ysolt’s luminous presence suggests a mature ability to control dark feelings and to shine—as brilliantly as befits a queen. Her countenance is the sign of a successful management of emotions. However, this shining has a circumstantial spark: Ysolt loves to be beheld, for even a moment, as Tristan’s bride. At the very moment when this possibility is given up, she enjoys a general confirmation of her choice

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and of her own desirability: “Tristan is next to Ysolt, and if the one is comely, the other is comelier still. And, when they have gazed at them for a time, many people marvel that Tristan handed Ysolt over to his uncle” [Tristanz est dejoste Yselt, et se li uns est biax, encores est li autres plus. Et li plusor quant il les ont asez regardez dient que merveilles a fait Tristanz quant il a Yselt livree a son oncle].80 Aesthetically, Ysolt was right: everybody can see that Tristan is better suited for her than Mark is. Nobody looks at the king, not even the queen on coronation day. Love and amour propre go hand in hand. On her wedding day, Ysolt can share with everyone her emotion for Tristan that the philter provoked. It is a conjugal emotion, intelligible to all: “they were a better match both by beauty and by age, and if God had suffered that the one have the other, no such beautiful marriage would ever have been seen since then in any land” [mieuz s’acordassent ensemble et par biauté et par aaige, et se Diex eüst sofert que li uns eüst l’autre, onques mes nus plus biax mariaiges n’eüst esté veüz en nule terre].81 But God does not suffer Ysolt to have Tristan. Tristan does not share in the emotion provoked by the philter. The Church unites Ysolt to Mark, in an unbeautiful, indissoluble marriage: “King Mark took Ysolt as his wife according the law of holy church, and made her second only to him throughout Cornwall” [li rois Mars prist Yselt a feme selonc le droit de sainte eglise, et li dona aprés li tote l’onor de Cornoaille].82 Such a coronation is certainly not what Ysolt wishes for; nevertheless, she can be expected to experience some royal delight, invested as she is by universal admiration. Whoever the king may be, she makes a beautiful queen, and self-centered emotions contribute to her splendor. Besides, Ysolt is no longer a gift; it is her turn to be given something: a realm over which to reign. This sovereignty may remind her of that which she experienced on the Giant’s Island. If Ysolt is a queen, she was first Tristan’s queen. And to her this secret knowledge is just as delightful as the people’s perception of them as the ideal couple. What about the holy church? Is Ysolt thinking about God? Religion has never moved Ysolt, and nothing indicates any spiritual emotion during the wedding ceremony. The queen cannot be expected to be more grateful to God than she is to Tristan for the present grace; nor is she likely to experience contrition or be penitent. This holy commitment is, in fact, the most brilliant moment of untruth in her entire life. She learns how to lie, how to silence her truth, how to remain radiant. When she is in Ireland and agrees to become Mark’s fiancée through Tristan, she does not have a truth of her own. The philter has given her

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this chance: Ysolt now knows what she wants, what she gives up when she takes the crown. It is the wedding night that completes the exchange. When it is time to honor the conjugal bed, Ysolt is the first to occupy it: “when the night had come dark and obscure, Ysolt got into the bed they had made ready for her. The king did not wait long to follow her” [quant la nuit fu venue noire et oscure, Yselt se coche el lit que l’en li avoit apareillié. Li rois ne demora pas granment a venir après].83 Although the candles burn, the bride is now in the dark. For the first time since drinking the philter, she must spend her night in a different man’s bed. Unlike Tristan’s, it is a public, honorable, legitimate bed, made for a queen. No description whatsoever is given of the bed’s precious adornment. The golden cage is a cage. One can easily picture Ysolt’s feelings on seeing Tristan, her unforgettable love, standing next to Governal somewhere in the chamber, while Mark takes off his royal array and enters her bed.84 This sudden nakedness is forced on her, and it cannot be a delightful experience, considering the philter’s revelation of the one. Mark is simply another, and this can only repel her. However, the three men—Tristan, Mark, and Governal—may now begin their puppet show: the candles are blown out, and Ysolt’s emotions stif led as well. What is she thinking? She knows that if she fails to leave the bed on time, Mark may discover her fault and destroy her. Fear and eagerness to escape are the only imaginable emotions. She may also notice, with that lucidity that remains alive in the back of one’s (frightened) mind, what a convincing speaker Tristan is. The words he uses are well tuned to explain the need for darkness.85 His appeal to courtesy, his focus on her—virginal—pleasure, his authoritative speech must have made a strong impression on her. On the one hand, she may have felt like congratulating her cold-blooded accomplice; on the other, she may have regretted seeing her lover lose all his fire. Tristan’s voice must have sounded different to her. Something in this scene opens her eyes: there is a time to love and a time to conceal love. It is a lesson she is well prepared to receive: her queenly performance of the day must have been a useful training for the night. Ysolt is a wonderful actress and performs without fault. She rises from bed and lets Brangien replace her86; when the def loration is over, she goes back to bed and lies next to Mark until morning.87 The Tristan verse romances depict her impatience to regain her place and describe her anguish throughout the Brangien-Mark episode,88 but the

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prose version makes no mention of such emotions. In this prosaic world, Ysolt is an agent, and her mission is accomplished efficiently. Thanks to her, Mark is a married king in the morning, and everybody stays happy. What about Ysolt? Her tribulations continue. An era of confused feelings succeeds, as she sees Mark congratulate Tristan on his loyal treatment of her.89 When the loyal one is promised the crown, Ysolt must partake in his joy and relief, while understanding exactly what that loyalty has and will cost her. Moreover, Mark is in love with his queen, and this keeps her busy day and night. As an adult woman, she knows what is expected of her. The emotion provoked by the philter is not dead, but Ysolt’s fear is stronger than magic.90 She is well aware of the necessity of hiding her love and cares for her life as much as she cares for Tristan’s.91 Therefore, she shows Mark a joyous face, in and out of his bed.92 Feigning joy and hiding fear do not exhaust Ysolt’s emotional powers. She is able to go on loving Tristan, and this enlightens her life. In the end, the experience in Cornwall becomes a mere chapter in her love story: “the love drink that she had drunk had estranged her from her lord, and it drives her wholly towards Tristan. He is the one whom she loves with all her heart, the one she cannot leave, the one of whom she always thinks” [li boires amorox qu’ele avoit beü l’avoit esloignié de son seignor, et la moine del tot a Tristan. Celi aime ele de tot son cuer, celi ne porroit ele laissier, a celi est toz ses pensers].93 The experience initiated by the philter goes on. No discord, no separation can affect the magic-drinkers: they are meant to stay together, so they do. The others, kingly or not, are mere extras. However, to keep the stage safe, Ysolt must watch over spectators. The greatest threat is Brangien, and the whole matter seems intricately feminine. As a narrative result, it is Ysolt alone who is in charge of the rescue. What is she thinking? Inspired by fear, she suspects that her maid has become Mark’s accomplice.94 For the first time in her life, the young woman thinks of a strategy of her own and carries it out, all by herself. It proves to be her greatest mistake, but also her most serious attempt to manage the emotion provoked by the philter. Ysolt has an objective: she wants to live her double life unimpeded. Therefore, she finds a way to deal with the impediment: murder. The young potions-master, the savior of lives, sends Brangien into the forest

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to look for herbs and find her death. It is difficult for the reader to empathize with such a queen; emotions prove hard to share when they become so morally negative. The narrator does his best: “This frightens her so much that she does not know what to say, unless she has Brangien killed. But if she were free of her, then she could be sure that her affair would never be spoken about” [Ceste chose la met en si grant paor qu’ele ne set qu’ele doie dire, s’ele ne fet Brangain metre a mort. Mes s’ele en estoit delivree, adonc seroit ele asseür que jamés de son afaire ne seroit parlé].95 The problem is that everybody speaks about this love affair; in the forest, Brangien delivers the most touching speech she can think of, where sex is equated with botany. The emotion provoked by the philter is of vital importance here. The killers themselves respond to it: “When she was moved, Ysolt lost her f lower. . . . The other maiden, who had watched over her f lower more carefully, lent it to Ysolt, and Ysolt was thereby saved” [Yselt quant ele fu esmeüe perdi sa f lor. . . . L’autre demoiselle, qui mieuz avoit sa f lor gardee, la presta a Ysolt, et par itant fu Yselt sauvee].96 Through such telling metaphors, the reader is induced to acquit Ysolt’s nuptial substitute. Ysolt herself soon comes to change her mind. Her emotional experience is now stronger than ever: “and she is so angry that she had her killed that she would have given anything she owned to undo this thing” [si est tant correciee de ce qu’ele l’a fait ocirre qu’ele vorroit avoir doné quanque ele a que ceste chose ne fust avenue].97 It is her own freedom, taken by Palamède, that she will be required to exchange for Brangien’s presence.98 Ysolt must go through many adventures and be delivered by Tristan again before she sets everything right.99 The initial situation, as critical as it seemed, proves to be the best possible world, and the f lowerless Ysolt finally makes peace with the savior of her f lower. This ultimate experience is exactly what it takes to adjust the present to the past, court manners to the emotion provoked by the philter. When she decides to return to the throne,100 Ysolt is perfectly adapted to her life. She is queen enough to turn down Tristan’s invitation to run away: “ ‘We have managed our love as wisely as we could so that no one has noticed anything. We can we do so for a long time still, if God wills’ [‘Nostre amor avons menee au plus sagement que nos poïmes que nus ne s’en est aperceüz. Et encores le porrons nos faire ensi longuement, se Dieu plest’].”101 Fol’amor is not the emotion provoked by the philter; sage amor is. Love management is all that Ysolt wants to think of; she becomes aware that a domestic trio—or even a pas de quatre—does not prevent a couple from being a couple.

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When Tristan tries to extract the dyad from the court, fearing that such an opportunity may never occur again, Ysolt replies: “ ‘Don’t worry about that’ ” [“onques de ce ne vos esmaiez”].102 She promptly declines the invitation, inspired by social motives such as the avoidance of dishonor. Her mature understanding leads her to the politically effective solution. Queen Ysolt now reigns over Tristan and provides Tristan with a model of self-government. She can (even) reign over herself—and teach self-control. No fear of intruders or of separation can upset her now. Ysolt has finally understood that, whatever the circumstances, the philter secures exclusive togetherness. She knows how love magic works. Therefore, Ysolt no longer needs to be handed over to Mark: after two days of intimacy with Tristan, she returns light-heartedly to Cornwall. Being queen provides her with the opportunity to be with Tristan—and remain a dame. She no longer thinks of murdering another to secure the permanence of her couple. Something has been completed. Fearless, loving, and stable, Ysolt becomes the woman of her life. Both Tristan and Mark can feel it—and she is the woman of their lives, too; no further abduction is possible. The story may change its setting, multiply its episodes, light and extinguish its foot lamps, but its actors remain in place. The people of Cornwall acclaim their queen: “Great is the joy and celebration with which the people of Cornwall greet their lady” [Granz est la joie et la feste que cil de Cornoailles font por lor dame].103 For Madame Ysolt, the philter has been filtered. Emotionally speaking, Tristan’s enchantment with Ysolt grows along with her growing powers of enchantment. The romance tells a story of gradual, reasonable magic. It is also a story of feminine charisma. At the epoch of the medical treatment and of the discovery in the bath, Ysolt presents herself merely as a daughter. She heals Tristan willingly, as her father orders; despite her mother’s vengeful urgings, she lets him live. As soon as Tristan comes into her life, she learns how to obey and how to disobey. And she performs as befits a princess. All her indoor activities prepare her to become a queenly housewife. The emotion Tristan provokes awakens in her a sense of (male) beauty, without upsetting her senses. Ysolt has been educated to preserve her virginity until her wedding night and nothing indicates that she is vulnerable to sexual temptation. The reader sees Tristan forget Ysolt, become involved with a married woman, and then go back to her. It is important, before the philter comes

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into play, that Ysolt’s virginity be established as a distinguishing valor. Tristan’s Ysolt is—normally—infallible. Thus, when the beautiful maiden is betrothed to Mark, she has no emotional cord for love. She does not argue; she does not delight in her parents’ decision. She simply goes with the f low. On the ship, however, her familiarity with Tristan draws the reader’s attention: something does not fit the pattern of conventional courtesy. When Tristan commands a cup Ysolt has not requested, when she drinks from it, one can only wonder—as we have done—what she is thinking. Her seeming eagerness to please a future subject is not f lirtation. Ysolt must appear as inexperienced and innocent as possible—without losing her halo of good breeding. Tristan is still not intimidated by her. Magic begins when they drink, together. The reader is ready for a marvelous, irresistible transfiguration. Tristan undergoes it, and Ysolt sees it happen. Before throwing herself into his arms, she takes time to think. Of what? we have wondered. She is reasoning emotion into love, love into considerations of compatibility and durability. Her feeling rules require stability, and she seems to aspire to the status of Tristan’s wife or concubine, while vigorously excluding Mark from her plans. A duo is all she wants to think of, and the reader must believe it: Ysolt is not thinking of adultery when she falls in love with Tristan. She is a pure-hearted girl, intoxicated. As soon as the king’s daughter becomes a concubine, her lover offers her an isle over which to rule; Ysolt’s relationship with Tristan is given a narrative chance. However, readers know, from tradition, that the Irish maiden must become the lady of Cornwall. Thus, Tristan delivers her to Mark as if she were a message—of political conciliation. Ysolt’s inner life is hardly relevant at this point. It is the wedding night that casts a dramatic light on the young woman’s feelings. The public must feel what she goes through and empathize with her in order to find the emotional resources to forgive her subsequent actions. When Ysolt decides, soon after Brangien’s saving def loration, to have her accomplice killed, it is a critical moment for the queen’s sympathizers. But the philter’s sweetness has a bitter counterpart: the exclusion of all guests. And this exclusion, Ysolt thinks, can best be achieved by murder. It takes a long time and a hard emotional training, abduction by a pagan and rescue by Tristan, to make Ysolt a queen again. But this queen wins back the reader’s sympathy: her suffering has turned her into a wise lover, able to achieve her mission of peacemaker

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between two peoples. The emotion provoked by the philter is adjusted to marriage, without splitting the only compatible couple. As for Tristan, love has already made him as “sovereign” as the prologue foretold: he is loved magically by and is magically in love with an enchanting queen. Ysolt’s inner truth and outer credibility move his— and our—world. Emotionally, Ysolt is a success. Her experience of the philter singles her out for a future sacrifice on the romance altar: she loves so touchingly that one is eager to see how she dies.104 When readers are sympathizers, the reading goes on—and on. The Prose Romance of Tristan is an old story that was loved for a long time. Notes 1. In the Introduction to her edition of the Prose Tristan, Renée L. Curtis asserts that “its popularity was superior to that of any other prose romance, considering the number of manuscripts surviving to this day” (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, vol. 1, ed. Renée L. Curtis [Munich: Max Hueber, 1963], 5; my translation). The three volumes she edited rely on seventy-seven manuscripts and represent only one-fifth of the matière. In 1987, when Philippe Ménard undertook the task of directing the publication of the remaining narrative in nine more volumes, eighty-two manuscripts were available, dating from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries. See his “Introduction,” Le Roman de Tristan en prose, gen. ed. Philippe Ménard, vol. 1: Des aventures de Lancelot à la fin de la “Folie Tristan,” ed. Philippe Ménard (Geneva: Droz, 1987), 7. The romance’s impact on the modern reader is approached relevantly by Emmanuèle Baumgartner, Le Tristan en prose. Essai d’interprétation d’un Le Roman médiéval (Geneva: Droz, 1975), ix–xiii. 2. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, Prologue, 18–20, p. 39. All translations are mine. 3. “Amour et passe amour” describes Tristan and Ysolt’s ultimate feeling and qualifies their last act on the romance stage. See Le Roman de Tristan en prose, gen. ed. Philippe Ménard, vol. 9: La fin des aventures de Tristan et de Galaad, ed. Laurence Harf-Lancner (Geneva: Droz, 1997) § 84, 64–65, p. 201. 4. In her study devoted to the courtly background of the romance, Janina Traxler asserted that “the major characters in the Prose Tristan romances feel something which seems in its broad lines to be ‘courtly love.’ In particular, Tristan and Iseut are consumed with thoughts of each other. They frequently speak of their love in terms which go well beyond the carnal to the idealized. In fact, because of the effects of the potion, theirs

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5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14. 15.

16.

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might be considered a double, almost redundant, courtly love—each is lover as well as beloved, each considers the other to be a God, a sovereign over the lover’s heart, and so on” (“Courtly and Uncourtly Love in the Prose Tristan,” in Literary Aspects of Courtly Culture. Selected Papers from the Seventh Triennial Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox [Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1994], 162). According to religious authorities in the Prose Romance of Tristan, falling in love with a king’s wife must be regarded as a devilish success; in a lengthy conversation with a “wise man,” Lancelot is told: “then did the Enemy blind you, for, as soon as you fell into the ardor of lust, you swept away humility and took to vanity and wanted to go about with your head held up as fiercely as a lion and said in your heart that nothing should matter to you anymore if you did not have your way with the one who looked so beautiful to you” [lors te toli li Anemis la veüe, car si tost tu espreïs de l’ardeor de luxure, tantost encachas tu humilité et preïs orguel et vausis aler teste levee ausi fierement conme uns lions et deïs en ton cuer que tu ne devoies riens prisier se n’avoies ta volenté de cele que tu veïs si bele] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, gen. ed. Philippe Ménard, vol. 6: Du séjour des amants à la Joyeuse Garde, jusqu’aux premières aventures de la Queste du Graal, ed. Emmanuèle Baumgartner et Michelle Szkilnik [Geneva: Droz, 1993], § 77, 9–15, p. 148). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 312, 21–24, p. 158. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 314, 12–13, p. 158. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 314, 15–16, p. 158. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 315, 1–3, p. 158. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 315, 11–13, p. 159. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 330, 10–11, p. 165. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 330, 17–20, p. 165. It is when Brangien points out that Tristan and Palamede may one day propose to her that she considers the possibility of choosing between them: “ ‘If it comes to the point where it is fitting for me to do so’ ” [“Se a ce venist qu’il le me covenist faire”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 330, 15, p. 165). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 330, 3–4, p. 165. “Ysolt is not much angered, nor are the damsels within; they all say rather that it is better that Tristan go away freely than that he be prevented from doing so because of a man who cannot be brought back” [Yselt n’est mie granment iriee, non sont les demoiseles de leanz, enz dient comunalment qu’il est mieuz que Tristanz s’en voise quites que ce qu’il soit encombrez por celi qui jamés ne puet estre recovrez] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 353, 7–10, p. 177). For all these feminine judges, Morholt’s death is not a sufficient reason for Tristan’s. “And then she seized the sword like a wrathful and furious woman” [Et lors prent l’espee come feme iriee et forsenee] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 349, 1, p. 175).

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17. “The king was wise and temperate” [Li rois estoit saiges et amesurez] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 351, 10, p. 176). 18. She is, on the contrary, among those who enjoy Tristan’s bathing and company (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 384, 2–4, p. 348). 19. Killing a valiant knight does not become a lady, as a squire declares: “ ‘Ah! Lady, do not kill the best knight in the world in your house in this way. It is at the very least inappropriate for you because you are a lady; leave it to the king to avenge this thing because he will certainly accomplish it in a way that will be to your honor better than you could’ ” [“Ha! Dame, n’ociez pas en tel maniere en vostre ostel le meillor chevalier dou monde. Il ne vos apartient pas au moins por ce que vos iestes dame, mes lessiez sor le roi la vengence de ceste chose, car certes il esploitera a vostre honor mieuz que vos ne feriez”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 350, 8–13, p. 175). 20. “She felt this joy and festiveness because all the people adored her” [Ele estoit en cele joie et en cele feste que toz li pueples l’aoroit]; Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 441, 6–7, p. 217). 21. Tristan and tristesse (sadness) go together well: “then Tristan arrived from the other side, sober and pensive and looking very angry” [atant ez vos de l’autre part Tristan venir, mat et pensif et correcié par semblant trop durement] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 441, 7–8, p. 217). And this sadness seizes Ysolt’s heart, as the dreamer acknowledges: “he never answered a word, but led Ysolt away immediately, so sad that everyone who saw her said: ‘God, what a shame for Ysolt’ ” [il ne responoit onques, enz en menoit totevoies Yselt, tant dolente que nus ne la veïst qui ne deïst: “Diex, quel domaige d’Yselt!”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 441, 13–15, p. 217). 22. The narrative mentions simply that “everyone rejoiced, the great and the small” [tuit en font joie, grant et petit] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 440, 9–10, p. 217). No focus is put on Ysolt. 23. As soon as her father says to Tristan, “ ‘I give her to you for King Mark; take her, I give you possession of her’ ” [“Je la vos doig por le roi Marc; tenez la, car vos en revest”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 439, 13–14, p. 217), she passes to him like a gift: “he thus now receives the girl for King Mark, his uncle” [Si reçoit maintenant la demoisele por le roi Marc, son oncle](Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 439, 16, p. 217). 24. Such passivity was, historically, the politically correct behavior for a woman: the bride represented a donation linking a man to another man: she was, normally, “given to the husband by her father or by the close relative who was her guardian: this joining of right hands finalized a gift” (Dominique Barthélémy, “Parenté,” Histoire de la vie privée, ed. Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby [Paris: Seuil, 1985], 138; my translation). 25. “Ysolt left Ireland so well supplied with dresses and beautiful jewels and beautiful pleasant things that it was clear that she came from a rich place.

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26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31. 32.

33.

34. 35.

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The king cried when his daughter left, and the queen too” [Yselt se departi d’Yrlande si bien garnie de robe et de biax joiax et de biax deduiz que bien paroit qu’ele venist de riche leu. Li rois pleure au departir de sa fille, et la roïne aussi] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 443, 3–5, p. 218). Ysolt’s reaction to this display of emotion is not mentioned, as if she had none or as if it were irrelevant. “Ysolt enjoys Tristan’s company and they talk of many things. Tristan has no shameful thoughts” [Yselt s’envoise avec Tristan, et parolent de mout de choses. Tristanz ne pense mes a mal] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 444, 5–6, p. 218). Evoked as evils to be prevented, “discord and anger” [descorde ne corroz] seem to be psychological possibilities rooted in Ysolt’s temperament (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 443, 15, p. 218). Ysolt’s mother baptizes the philter clearly: “ ‘This drink is called the love drink’ ” [“Cil boivres est apelez boivres amorous”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 443, 13, p. 218). The idea that a marriage should involve love was largely diffused as a social and religious norm at the time: “Church doctrine concerning the marriage bond grew more refined. The dilectio or tenderness uniting the spouses was joined to the desponsatio or promise of marriage, and the defloratio by which the marriage was consummated, to confirm the validity of the nuptial bond” ( Jean-Charles Payen, “La ‘Mise en roman’ du mariage dans la littérature française des XIIe et XIIIe siècles: de l’évolution idéologique à la typologie des genres,” in Love and marriage in the Twelfth Century, ed. Willy van Hoecke and Andries Welkenhuysen [Leuven: University of Leuven Press, 1981], 220). “It was wonderfully hot, so Tristan had put on only a light silk cote, and Ysolt was wearing green samite” [il faisoit chaut a merveilles, si que Tristanz n’avoie vestue que une cote de soie legiere, et Yselt estoit vestue d’un vert samit] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2 [Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976], § 445, 13–15, p. 65). Tristan “was hot and very thirsty” [estoit chauz et grant talent avoit de boire] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 445, 10, p. 65). “When he has drunk, he orders that the wine be given to Ysolt, and it is given to her and she drinks” [Quant il a beü, il comande que l’en doint le vin a Yselt, et l’en li done, et ele boit] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 445, 12–13, p. 65). Everyone on the ship, including Ysolt, is in a good mood, at least for the first three days: “For three days they were at sea, glad and rejoicing in the good weather that God had bestowed upon them” [Trois jorz demoreient en mer, lié et joiant del bon tens que Dex lor avoit envoié] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 445, 1–2, p. 65). “Now they have drunk” [Or ont beü], insists the narrator in a grave tone (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 445, 14, p. 65). “This drink was very sweet to them, but sweetness was never bought more dearly than this will be” [Cist boivres lor a esté mout douz, mes

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36. 37. 38.

39.

40.

41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

onques nus doçor ne fu si chierement achatee com ceste sera] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 445, 17–19, p. 65). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 445, 19–20, p. 65. “King Mark is completely forgotten” [Toz est obliez li rois Mars] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 445, 22, p. 65). Ysolt is just as amazed as Tristan is: “they are also altogether astonished” [et sont ausi com tuit esbahi] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 445, 20, p. 65). “Now they are so warm that for all the world Tristan cannot help but love Ysolt straightaway and Ysolt Tristan” [Or en sont si eschaufé qu’il ne porroit remenoir por tot le monde que Tristanz n’amast Yselt et Yselt Tristan] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 3–4, p. 66). “They agree so fiercely on this in their hearts that they have no inclination to do anything else” [A ce s’acordent selonc lor coraiges si fierement que de celi proposement ne se quierent il remuer] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 4–6, p. 66). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 10–11, p. 66. This is what he thinks at least when he is free to ignore political circumstances: “The king himself wished that she love him and he her, and that he ask for her in marriage because he is convinced that she could not be better given in marriage” [Li rois meïsmes vosist bien qu’ele l’amast et il li, et qu’il la preïst a moillier, car il li est bien avis qu’ele ne poïst mie estre mieuz assenee de mariage] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 347, 8–10, p. 174). Le Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 9–10, p. 66. Le Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 11–13, p. 66. Le Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 13–14, p. 66. Ysolt seems as scrupulous as Tristan: “because before this they would not have contemplated this villainy for anything in the world” [car devant ne pensassent il a caste vilenie por riens dou monde] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 2–3, p. 65). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 4–5, p. 66. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 20–22, p. 66. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 20, p. 66. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 447, 12–13, p. 66. The damsel who brings a broken shield to Guinevere, as a gift from the Lady of the Lake, gives the following explanation: “ ‘Lady,’ ” she says, pointing to a knight portrayed on one half of the shield, “ ‘this is a knight, the best there is, in my opinion. The knight accomplished so much, both by his love and by his actions, that the lady [portrayed on the other half ] granted him her love. But there is nothing more between them, as yet, than kissing and hugging, as you see on this shield; and when it comes about that love is complete, you must know that this shield that you see thus broken shall become whole again and hold the two parts together’ ” [“Dame, chist est uns chevaliers, li mieudres qui orendroit soit au mien quidier. Tant fist li chevaliers que par amor que par oevre que la dame li

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52. 53.

54. 55.

56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

62. 63. 64.

65. 66. 67.

68.

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dona s’amor. Mais plus n’i a encor que de baisier et d’acoler, si com vous vées en cest escu; et quant il avenra que l’amor sera enterine, si saciés que chis escu que vous vées si desjoins se rejoinra et tenra ensamble les .II. parties”] (Lancelot. Le Roman en prose du XIIIe siècle, ed. Alexandre Micha, 8 vols. [Geneva: Droz, 1978–1983], vol. 8, § 16, 8–9, p. 207). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 3–4, p. 67. “Tristan reveals all his thoughts to Ysolt and how he loves her with all his heart” [Tristanz descoevre a Yselt tot son pensé et com il l’aime de tot son cuer] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 5–6, p. 67). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 6–8, p. 67. “Let King Mark look for another woman for himself, for this one wants to have Tristan” [Li rois Mars quiere a soi une autre feme, car ceste veust Tristan avoir] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 446, 15, p. 66). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 10, p. 67. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 10–11, p. 67. Ysolt’s attempt to heal Tristan is unsuccessful for the first ten days because of the diagnosis. See Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 314, 3–11, p. 158. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 12–13, p. 67. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 11–13, p. 67. “Tristan fell in love with Ysolt in the way I have described to you” [En tele guise com je vos devis cheï Tristanz es amors Yselt] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 13–14, p. 67). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 15–16, p. 67; my italics. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 448, 14–15, p. 67. It is the contemporary Prose Lancelot that sets the courteous horizon of expectations for a ladylike management of love: when the Lady of the Lake sends Guinevere the broken shield mentioned above, the narrative focuses on the feminine experience of it and readily insists on Guinevere’s gradual experience of love-fulfillment. The gift itself is a mirror of the courteous ideal, and its being offered by a fairy mother to a queenly lover turns it into a sort of feminine amorous heritage. See, for instance, Guinevere’s contemplation of the shield after her first night of sexual intercourse with Lancelot, and her subsequent realization that she is the best loved of all ladies, Lancelot. Le Roman en prose du XIIIe siècle, vol. 8, ed. Alexandre Micha, § 35, p. 444. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 449, 4–5, p. 67. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 449, 14–15, p. 67. “ ‘Tristan has def lowered Ysolt, without doubt; I saw them lying together’ ” [“Tristanz a Yselt despucelee, sanz faille; je les vi gesir ensemble”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 449, 3–4, p. 67). Contemporary religious standards tended to discourage and devalue concubinage: “canonists were uncomfortable with the policy of tolerating concubinage and advised couples to regularize their unions. The Church

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69.

70. 71. 72. 73. 74.

75.

76. 77.

78.

also fashioned a mechanism for encouraging this result: abjuration under pain of marriage. Church courts could require couples who lived in open concubinage to swear an oath that they would not have sexual relations with one another. If they were later discovered keeping company, they were subject for the penalties of perjury, unless they immediately solemnized their union by formal marriage” ( James Brundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990], 369). Tristan’s conduct during his first affair—with the wife of Segurades—is simple: “when he has greeted the lady, he takes off his armor and his clothes, and gets in bed with her” [quant il a la dame saluee, si se desarme et despoille, et se coche avec li] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 368, 4–5, p. 184). He never tries to turn this adulterous relationship into a legitimate one, and, when the lady is kidnapped, he dares not try to rescue her for fear of Mark’s rivalry: “he feared his uncle, for he had already found out so much that he was sure that Mark loved the lady, and that he hated him on account of that same lady” [il dotoit son oncle, car il avoit ja tant apris qu’il savoit vraiement qu’il amoit la dame, et qu’il le haoit por cele dame meïsmes] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 1, § 377, 6–8, p. 188). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 449, 15–17, p. 67. Brangien and Governal are obsessed with shame. See, for example, Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 449, 9, 11, p. 67. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 456, 50–53, p. 72–73. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, vol. 2, § 474, 1–3, p. 85. Although he benefits from it—since it allows him to keep company openly with Ysolt—Tristan complains about the custom of the land and expresses his desire to have Arthur mend it according to the standards of the Round Table; see Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 465, 23–25, p. 79. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 483, 28–29, p. 91. Because the Lointeignes Isles were governed by the giant Dialetes and his descendants—Brunor is on the throne when Tristan arrives—they are also referred to as the Giant’s Isle. In order to free Ysolt and the residents of the isles from this giant dynasty, Tristan has to defeat Galahot, who is Brunor’s son. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 20–23, p. 93. Tristan initiates the operation by which Brangien is substituted for Ysolt in the wedding bed on the first night. In a conversation with Brangien and Governal, he points out that Ysolt is a victim of magic and attributes her loss of virginity to the philter: “the love drink, through which Ysolt lost her virginity” [le boivre amorox, par quoi Yselt perdi son pucelaiges] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 484, 12, p. 92). “Tristan takes Ysolt by the hand and goes before his uncle” [Tristanz prent Yselt par la main et s’en vient devant son oncle]; “the king receives the damsel with great joy and thanks him greatly for this gift” [Li rois

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79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85.

86.

87. 88. 89.

90.

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reçoit la demoisele mout lieement, et mout le mercie de cesti don] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 483, 19–20 and 24–25, p. 91). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 19–20, p. 93. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 3–6, p. 92. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 6–9, p. 92–93. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 9–11, p. 93. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 12–14, p. 93. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 23–25, p. 93. “The king undressed and took off his breeches and got into bed” [li rois s’est despoilliez et dechauciez et mis ou lit] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 26, p. 93). His nuptial speech is rendered word for word: “ ‘Uncle,’ says Tristan, ‘it is the custom in Ireland that when a noble man lies with a maiden, the candles are put out so that the maiden is less self-conscious and enjoys herself more fully with her lord; this is most courteous. Her mother begged me hardily to do this, and I have done it for love of her’ ” [“Oncle,” fait Tristanz, “c’est la costume d’Yrlande que se gentil home vet avec pucele, les chandelles sont destaintes por ce que la pucele en est moins honteuse et plus seürement se deduist avec son seignor; si est grant cortoisie a faire. Sa mere me pria mout durement que je feïsse ensi, et je l’ai fait por la soe amor”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 28–32, p. 93). Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 34, p. 93. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 485, 37, p. 93. The texts of the “version courtoise” all note Ysolt’s intense fear during Brangien’s def loration. See Thomas, Le Roman de Tristan, Tristan et Iseut. Les poèmes français. La saga norroise, ed. Philippe Walter and Daniel Lacroix (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1989) v. 140–142, p. 336; Frère Robert, La Saga de Tristan et Yseut, ed. Régis Boyer, in Tristan et Yseut. Les premières versions européennes, ed. Christane Marchello-Nizia (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), p. 559; Gottfried de Strasbourg, Tristan et Isolde, ed. Danielle Buschinger and Wolfgang Spiewok, in Tristan et Yseut. Les premières versions européennes, p. 550. Mark addresses and honors Tristan publicly: “ ‘Tristan, good nephew, now I see and have proof of your loyalty! You have watched over Ysolt carefully for me. And for this service I will make you my chamberlain, and grant you lordship over Cornwall after me’ ” [“Tristanz, biaus niés, or voi je bien et conois vostre leauté! Bien m’avez gardé Yselt. Et por cesti servise vos ferai je mon chambellan, et vos otroi aprés moi la seignorie de Cornoaille”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 486, 4–6, p. 93). All her conduct with Mark is governed by her “apprehension . . . lest he perceive the love she has for Tristan” [dotance . . . qu’il ne s’aperçoive de l’amor qu’ele a a Tristan] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 486, 22, p. 94).

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92. “And she knows well that if he perceived it, he would destroy them both” [Et ele set bien se il s’en apercevoit qu’il les feroit endeus destruire] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 486, 23, p. 94). 93. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 486, 21, p. 94. 94. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 486, 19–20, p. 94. 95. “King Mark very much enjoyed spending time with Brangien, more than with any other damsel, so she might by chance soon tell him” [li rois Mars se deduisoit trop volentiers a Brangain, plus qu’a nule autre damoisele, si li avra tost dit par aventure] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 487, 6–7, p. 94). 96. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 487, 6–10, p. 94. 97. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 488, 31 and 33–34, p. 95. 98. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 489, 12–14, p. 96. 99. Hearing Ysolt promise she would give anything to have Brangien at her side again, the pagan knight Palamède, Tristan’s most prestigious rival, offers to bring Brangien back in exchange for a gift that the king Mark himself must grant him before the court; Mark accepts the offer and Palamède asks for Ysolt. The episode echoes that of the abduction of Tristan’s first lover, whom Tristan did not save. This time, however, he goes to the rescue of his kidnapped dame and manages to find and free her. See Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 412, 29–34, p. 116, for the outcome of the episode. 100. These adventures occupy §§ 492–509 of the second volume of the romance edited by Curtis. 101. Kidnapped by Palamède and rescued by Tristan, Ysolt comes to a point where she can choose between eloping with her rescuer and returning to her husband. Her decision is clearly expressed: “ ‘if we were to go away now as you have suggested, then our adultery would be openly known, and I would be called an adulterous and unfaithful queen. It thus seems better to me that we return now to King Mark and lead our life in the same way and just as happily as we have up until now’ ” [“se nos nos en aliens orandroit ensi com vos l’avez devisié, lors seroit nostre folie coneüe apertement, et vos en seriez apelez traïtor vostre oncle, et je en seroie clamee roïne fole et deleal. Por ce vient il mieuz, ce me semble, que nos nos en alons orandroit au roi Marc, et menrons autretel vie et aussi envoisiee com nos avons dusques ci fait”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 512, 12–16, p. 116). 102. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 512, 10–12, p. 116. 103. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 512, 24, p. 116. 104. Le Roman de Tristan en prose, ed. Curtis, vol. 2, § 512, 34–35, p. 116. 105. When Ysolt can no longer make love to her wounded Tristan, she asks him to teach her how to make death: “ ‘My friend, so help me God, there is nothing in this world right now that I would like as much as to die with you and to keep you company on this death, only I do not know how this may be. If you do know, tell me how and I will do it right

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away’ ” [“Ami, se Diex m’aïst, il n’est ore nule cose en cest monde com je amaisse tant conme morir avoec vous et con faire vous compaingnie a ceste mort, ne je ne sai conment ce puisse estre. Se vous le savés, si le dites, et jel ferai erramment”] (Le Roman de Tristan en prose, gen. dir. Philippe Ménard, vol. 9: La fin des aventures de Tristan et de Galaad, ed. Laurence Harf-Lancner [Geneva: Droz, 1997], § 82, 17–21, p. 198).

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CHAPTER 4 MORAL POSTURING: VIRTUE IN CHRISTINE DE PISAN’S LIVRE DE TROIS VERTUS Sharon C. Mitchell

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hristine de Pisan’s 1405 Livre de Trois Vertus, a book of advice for women from ranks ranging from the highest to those so low they could scarcely have been able to read it, seems initially to stand out among many popular medieval conduct manuals only for its putatively diverse readership. Conduct manuals usually targeted specific audiences: the Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry, written around 1371, told daughters of the lower nobility (starting with the author’s children) how to attract husbands and maintain marriages; the Ménagier de Paris, a household manual written around 1393, told the writer’s young wife how to avoid local scandals, supervise servants, rid the house of f leas, and thicken sauces; books of chivalry (including Christine’s own 1410 Livre des Fais d’Armes et de Chevallerie) gave the reader instructions on armor and military strategy. Despite their varied readership, the conduct manuals frequently share a skepticism about the genre of medieval romance literature, to which they are virtual antidotes. They draw on its conventions only to overturn them, from the unions arranged by family rather than fate or fin’ amor to the confidantes in whom one must never confide. The Livre de Trois Vertus would appear to differ very little in its approach from Christine’s later Livre du Corps de Policie (1407), a book that, along with standard advice on just government found in most Mirrors-for-Princes, contained instructions to tradesmen and merchants on combining honesty with profit. In one detail, however, Christine’s Livre de Trois Vertus is startling, for it frankly tells at least two categories of reader—princess and chaperone—not merely to conceal their emotions when proper but also to fake

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them when necessary. The Ménagier advises his wife to restrain her physical movements lest she be thought frivolous, and the Chevalier warns his daughters about what can happen when unmarried women show anger or desire too readily before possible suitors, but neither advises the reader to counterfeit emotions—merely to contain them. The need to feign emotion is not limited to those of inferior rank, for Christine’s Livre du Corps de Policie advises the prince to show no favor to individual courtiers and to seek counsel without indicating his preferred policy, lest his advisors tell him only what they think he wants to hear. But it never suggests that he actively simulate any emotion. The Livre de Trois Vertus promotes what Christine calls “virtuous hypocrisies”: displays of charity, loyalty, and affection toward people for whom one may feel open hostility, not solely for self-benefit, but for the stability of the realm and the edification of observers who will be moved to imitate and promote these qualities. Although writers on conduct frequently maintained that “behaving churlishly makes one a churl,” as Mark Addison Amos has noted, they also believed that “behaving nobly can make one noble: one’s manners (or any program of behavior) can lead to a fundamental inner transformation.”1 Accordingly, when the Ménagier and the Chevalier de la Tour Landry discuss sedate physical bearing and soft speech, they appear to think not only that these are the physical signs of a chaste and meek woman, but also that following a program of physical virtue encourages inner qualities of chastity and meekness. Christine de Pisan by no means advocates that a woman be secretly unchaste or belligerent while maintaining a virtuous exterior, and she does expect sincerity in one’s relations with God and the poor. Where one’s daily associates are concerned, however, she suggests that one had better learn to dissimulate and to dissimulate well. Her goals in this respect would seem to be markedly different from those typical of other conduct manuals written in France at this time. Some of Christine’s emphasis on dissimulation may be a question of audience. The Chevalier de la Tour Landry wishes his daughters to marry advantageously; the Ménagier has a new wife considerably younger than he is. Feminine disgrace will directly affect them and their families’ prospects. Christine, however, is writing for princesses whose misbehavior, actual or only rumored, can have far-reaching effects on the stability of the realm. The princess must guard her reputation for the sake of her people as much as for the sake of her soul, and she can’t always afford sincerity. This reputation will depend on her ability to display appropriate speech and physical carriage, and Christine gives stage directions for both: “She will speak rather softly and with a pleasant expression without making grimaces or movements of the body or the hands. Sobriety will keep her from laughing too much and without cause. It will prevent her,

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above all else, from ever speaking badly of any other person or saying any word of criticism” [parler . . . assez basse, a beaulz traiz, sans faire mouvemens des mains, du corps, ne grimaces du visage; la gardera de trop rire, et non sans cause; lui deffendra sur toutes riens que nullement ne mesdie d’aultrui, ne parle en blasmant].2 Critical speeches are banned not because they are unkind, but because they can be cited against her, as can immoderate laughter or vulgar gestures. The princess must be especially careful because the people who spread the worst rumors about her supposed sexual indiscretions may be the very ones pretending to be her best friends. The sweet persona that Christine advocates for her is less a question of meekness than of manipulation. The princess must never reveal that she considers malicious gossips to be enemies; rather, “she will make them think that she regards them highly as her friends . . . . But she will be so wise and circumspect that no one can believe that she does it calculatingly. It would be shameful if at one time she was very cordial and another time gave them furious looks that seemed genuine and were so plain that it was clear her smile was insincere” [elle leur monstrera donra a croire que elle les tient a tres grandement ses amis. . . . Mais il convendra que celle dicte bonne chiere soit ordonnee et menee par tel sens et si rassissement que nul ne puist apercevoir que faintement le face, car se une foiz estoit trop grande et autre foiz a yeulx felons—si comme le cuer que on voit bien que le ris en yst a force—,tout seroit honny (trans. 69; ed. 63)]. Although Christine says the lady should “hate with all her heart the vice of lying” and acquire a reputation for candor so that “people will believe what she says and have confidence in her as one has in a lady whom one has never heard lie” [fera hair du tout son cuer le vice de mençonge . . . que on croira ce que elle dira, et y adjoustera l’en foy comme a celle que on n’ourra jamais mentir (trans. 57; ed. 44)], telling nothing but the truth by no means equals telling the whole truth. This reserve extends to her husband’s family members: she must “speak well of them and praise them” even if they are “stand-offish and uncivil,” and also to his friends, toward whom “she will still be friendly” even when they “have bad characters” [dira bien d’eulx et les exsaucera . . . dongereux et mal traictable . . . si leur fera elle bonne chiere . . . qu’il y en eust de mauvais (trans. 65–66; ed. 57–58)]. She is to invite her detractors to apparently secret conferences, where she will tell them “ordinary things with a great show of secrecy and confidence and keep her real thoughts to herself ” [de choses comme par grant secret et fiance que seront toutes contre sa pensee (trans. 69–71; ed. 63–65)], clearly with the intention of tracking which rumors originated where. Christine’s endorsement of conciliatory gestures is very different from the advice given by the Chevalier de la Tour Landry. He tells the story

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of a lady whose reputation was destroyed after a heated argument with a man over a board game. The Chevalier notes that he himself tried to escort the lady away from the quarrel, but at no point did he recommend to the lady that she try to patch things up by speaking sweetly.3 His readers need only restrain anger and remove themselves from conf licts when possible. (Family members, obviously, particularly husbands, must be handled differently, as will be discussed later.) Christine insists that the performance of affection must be both convincing and consistent: “It is best to do this with the appearance of sincerity so that it does not put them on their guard,” and the lady must not herself complain about her enemies to anyone else, even to servants, “for if she said anything about them behind their backs contrary to the impression she wished to give and word of it got back to them, it would be a dangerous situation” [convendra que soit fait par si bonne maniere qu’ilz ne s’en donnent de garde . . . car se aucun mot d’isoit d’eulx en derriere contraire a ses semblans qui fust raporté [ce soit peril]]. The danger is not in being thought a hypocrite but in being seen as a coward: “They would think that she had done it out of fear, and it would make them prouder and bolder to harm her” [ilz penseroient que elle la feist par craintte; si en seroient plus orgueilleux et plus hardiz de lui nuire]. Should anyone report enemy gossip to her, she must assume that her reaction will also be reported to her enemies and so either pretend not to believe it or affect to suppose that her enemies meant well: “She can gloss over it by saying that they must have said or done it for some other reason than malice towards her” [se la chose se puet couvrir nullement, que pour aucune autre cause que pour mal d’elle laient dit ou fait]. The program has a twofold purpose: either the lady’s critics will be shamed into tractability, for fear of appearing ungrateful, or they will show their malice openly, at which point “their wickedness will be very much greater, and more apparent to everyone. They will be all the more condemned for it and also much more dishonoured, as you are supposed to be their friend” [leur traÿson et leur mauvaistié seroit de tant plus grande et de plus apperroit au monde: si en seroient de tant plus repris et plus deshonnouréz et moins venroient a leur entente, car chascun leur donroit le tort (trans. 69–71; ed. 63–65)]. The lady’s performance of friendship is utilized only in part for its effect on her personal enemies; it is also employed for its effect on general public opinion, which may well turn against the false friends, particularly when the princess herself seems so unsuspicious (or so forgiving). Again, Christine’s advice seems unusual for the period. The Ménagier notes that his young wife’s conduct may draw more criticism from her older female relatives than from him, but while he encourages her to seek their advice, he adds that she is free to decide how much of it she will

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follow.4 The wife’s respect for her elders need not preclude her making up her own mind, and the Ménagier does not seem particularly concerned that her family will interpret her decisions as proof of decreased affection. Her family consultations are part of her increasing maturity and independence, not an act she has to put on in order to avoid censure. Christine, however, did not allow for greater familiarity with relatives than with courtiers. She holds that family members, no less than acquaintances, require an outward display of respect that may ref lect little or nothing of the princess’s actual state of mind. Even a husband is not exempt: “she will humble herself towards him, in deed and by word and by curtsying: she will obey without complaint; and she will hold her peace to the best of her ability” [se rendra humble vers lui en fait, en reverence et en parole, l’obeira sans murmuracion et gardera sa paix a son pouoir soingneusement]. Christine acknowledges that some husbands are hostile, indifferent, or unfaithful but states that the woman should pretend “that she does not notice it and that she truly does not know anything about it” [que elle s’en aperçoive et que elle n’en scet riens], even when people try to bring her reports of her husband’s misdeeds, just as she is to ignore gossip about herself. If necessary, she should let her confessor confront her husband rather than speak to him herself and risk offending him. When she is with her husband, “she will try hard to say everything that ought to please him, and she will keep a happy expression on her face” [dira a son pouoir toutes choses qie plaire lui pourront, et a joyeux visage se contendra (trans. 62–64; ed. 53–55)]. Again, Christine’s advice is quite different from that given by other writers on conduct. The Ménagier tells how one wife reclaimed her straying husband by working cooperatively with his mistress for his health. Rather than pretending not to know of the affair, the wife allowed him to learn that she was well aware of it, although in a non-confrontational style. She may have had to restrain some jealousy or anger, but she feigned no emotion, even admitting to the mistress that she feared being saddled with an invalid.5 Her enlightened self-interest is quite plausible. While Christine, unlike the Ménagier, recommends that love for a husband be feigned if necessary, she holds that the love of God must be felt as well as displayed: “above all else you must love and fear Our Lord” [sur toutes choses vous aduit amer et craindre Nostre Seigneur (trans. 35–36; ed. 11)]. Even this sincere love must be publicly performed. She must show her love of God through acts of charity and mercy, and Christine bluntly states that “this active life has more use in the world” [Yceste vie active sert . . . plus au monde (trans. 44; ed. 24)] than a contemplative one. As for the elaborate regimens of prayer and fasting mentioned by both the Chevalier de la Tour Landry and the Ménagier, they

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are impractical for princesses: “Such ladies are more to be excused in the eyes of God if they do not spend so much time in long prayers as those who have more leisure, nor do they have less merit in attending conscientiously to public affairs than those who occupy themselves more with prayers” [telles dames font a excuser plus meismes vers Dieu se tant n’employent de temps en longues oroisons que celles qui plus ont loisir, ne elles n’ont pas moins de merite de bien et justement entendre a la chose publique et au bien de tous a leur pouoir que elles aroyent de plus longuement vaquer en oroisons (trans. 59–60; ed. 48)]. For the Ménagier and the Chevalier, this kind of piety would seem only perfunctory. Although both endorse charitable works, they also recommend elaborate rituals of prayer, both public and private. The Ménagier expects his wife to say complex written prayers early in the morning, not merely memorized Paters or Aves.6 The Chevalier is even more exacting: he tells harrowing tales of girls who hear only one Mass before breakfast or refuse to pray for the souls of the dead.7 Both inevitably come to bad ends. Christine puts little stress on the actions one performs before God. Rather, she emphasizes the acts one performs in His honor—specifically, one’s service to the poorest of His creatures. Here, at least, Christine requires sincerity. The virtuous woman performs charitable acts, but this is only the beginning: “She goes around to the hospitals, visits the sick and the poor . . . helps them at her own expense and physical effort for the love of God” [si cherche les hospitaulx, visite les malades et les pauvres, les secourt du sien et de la peine de son corps pour l’amour de Dieu], Christine writes. But sympathy must elide into empathy: “She has such great pity for people she sees in sin or misery that she weeps for them as though their distress were her own” [a si grant pitié des creatures que elle voit en pechié ou en misere ou tribulacion, que elle en pleure come de son meisme fait (trans. 44; ed. 24)]. When people show her deference, she must “behave respectably and speak softly; her conduct will be kindly and her expression gentle and pleasant, greeting everyone with lowered eyes,” and with “words so humane and so sweet that they may be agreeable both to God and to the world” [Son maintien, son port et son parler sera doulz et benigne, la chiere plaisant a yeulx baissiéz . . . en parole tant humaine et tant doulce que agreable soit a Dieu et au monde (trans. 47; ed. 29)]. Almsgiving is yet another performance. Although the princess is to do secret acts of charity through an almoner, she is also to do public ones, partly to set an example for others to follow, and partly so the poor and the downtrodden may feel their own status enhanced by contact with hers. Part of the physical performance of charity, interestingly, is dressing

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up, not down, to make visits to the sick and the poor, so they may feel honored. Christine’s grasp of psychology is very shrewd on the topic of visiting celebrities: The good princess will never be ashamed to visit hospitals and the poor in all her grandeur, accompanied magnificently, as is fitting. . . . For poor people are much more comforted and accept with more pleasure the kind word, the visit, and the comfort of a great and powerful person than of someone else. The reason for this is that they think that all this world scorns them, and when a powerful person deigns to visit them or comfort them they feel that they have recovered some honour, which is naturally a thing that everyone desires. [Et meismement n’aura mie honte la bonne dame de visiter elle meismes aucunes fois les hospitaulx et les provres a tout son estat, accompaignee grandement comme il appertient . . . . Car le povre est trop plus reconferté et plus prent en gré la doulce parole, la visitacion, et le reconfert d’une grant et poissant personne que d’un autre: la cause si est que il lui est avis, et il est vray, que tout le monde le pesprise, et il lui semble que quant personne poissant le daigne visiter ou l’araisonner, que il a recouvré aucun honneur, qui est chose que naturelement chascun desire. (trans. 53; ed. 38)]

Christine does not recommend having a bell rung before one as one goes to give charity, but she sees no impediment to having the donor’s name inscribed on tablets or announced by heralds: “Others will follow her example and give similarly, and by their actions they will gain a good reputation” [si y prendrent les autres exemple de pareillement donner. Et se ceste maniere de donner et d’avoir accointance a yeulx pour avoir renomee (trans. 71–72; ed. 66–67)]. At least three distinct groups benefit: the lady and her household, by setting a virtuous example; the audience, by following it; and the recipients who reap largesse from the first two. Here Christine brings up the question of hypocrisy openly. Is the public display of virtue blameworthy in itself? Christine insists it is almost compulsory: It may seem that she has a small streak of hypocrisy or that she is getting a name for it, yet it may be called a “just hypocrisy,” so to speak, for it strives towards good and the avoidance of evil. We do not mean that under cover of almsgiving they ought to commit evil deeds and sin, nor that great vanity ought to arise in their hearts. Certainly being “hypocritical” in the cause of good, will not offend any person who desires honour. We repeat that this kind of “just hypocrisy” is almost necessary, especially to princes and princesses who must rule over others . . . .

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[par eulx semble qu’elle touche aucun raim d’ypocrcrisie ou qu’elle en prengne le nom, toutevoies se puet elle appeller par maniere de parler juste ypocrisie, car elle tent affin de bien et schivement de mal; car nous n’entendonsmie que soubz umbre de ceste chose maulx et pechiéz se doient commettre, ne que une grant vaine gloire en doie sourdre en courage. Si disons de rechief que ceste maniere de just ypocrisie est comme neccessaire a princes et princepces qui ont a dominer aultruy. (trans. 72; ed. 67–68)]

Any consideration for the wounded pride of others abruptly disappears when dealing with political factions among the barons and the nobility. Although the princess is encouraged to heal political breaches and avert warfare whenever possible, she is advised to reproach . . . [malefactors] . . . sharply, saying that the misdeed is very serious and that the prince is quite justifiably offended by it and that he has decided to avenge himself for it, as is only right, but nevertheless she, who would always wish the blessing of peace, in the event that they would wish to atone for it or to make suitable amends, would gladly go to some trouble to try if she could by some means to make peace between them and her husband. [les en reprenda en poignant et en oignant, disant que les mesfait est moult grant et que bonne cause en est le prince indignéz, et que s’entente est de s’en vengier si comme il est raison, mais nonpourtant elle, qui vouldroit tousjours le bien de paix, ou cas que ilz se vouldroient amender ou en faire amende convenable, mettroit voulentiers peine d’essaier, se pacifier les pourroit vers son seigneur. (trans. 51; ed. 34–35)]

Certainly, the princess’s initially stern tone is not typical of the medieval “interceding woman” trope. The Chevalier praises the biblical Esther for assuaging her husband’s wrath and condemns Haman’s wife for provoking him further,8 but in neither case is the woman to display any anger, feigned or real: her job is restraining her husband’s emotions. The medieval popularity of such depictions of interceding queens may have seemed to give women authority, but I share Paul Strohm’s “considerable personal skepticism about whether intercessory queenship, exercised from the margins and conditioned upon exclusion from worldly office, represented a genuinely alternative feminine power. As a formation, it would seem more likely to dupe women than to empower them.” 9 Indeed, when the Ménagier recounts the popular medieval story of the woman who never lost patience with her husband no matter how abominably he behaved, his Patient Griselda seems not to know how to use her power to her own benefit. Griselda settles feuds between nobles with such skill that she acquires near-saintly status,10 but she is hardly the assertive

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soul Christine expects the princess to be. Before their marriage, Walter asks Griselda whether she can promise never to defy him, in thought as well as in deed.11 She agrees, and even when Walter’s mistreatment of her is at its most extreme, and the people have turned against him,12 she never seems to consider staging a coup—a not unheard-of occurrence in the Middle Ages.13 Christine’s princess employs a very different kind of feminine intercession. It involves little of the appeasement that the Ménagier describes—at least not until the princess has first intimidated the offenders. Only then may she proffer an olive branch. The sweetness Christine lauds is effective only after a good, round scolding. Moreover, Christine does not say whether the lady has to restrain her wrath or first manufacture wrath when speaking to the barons. One might speculate that the lady’s real grievance may occasionally be with a hot-headed husband who engenders such disputes, but she must redirect her irritation where it is officially sanctioned. Like affection, disapproval is to be produced on demand: toward lords in political disgrace, a lady must appear a strict yet clement intercessor, regardless which party she privately believes to be at fault. This deliberate program of tact and manipulation refutes accusations that Christine was little more than a courtly boot-licker. Although Sheila Delany derides Christine as “intensely loyal to [her] employers . . . the Rosemary Woods of her day,” a sycophantic woman who acclaimed “her corrupt and fratricidal patrons as the most benign and humane nobility in the world,”14 there is considerable evidence that Christine had few illusions about her patrons but was willing if necessary to feed their own illusions that they were nice people. Indeed, perhaps she thought that building up such a self-image in the minds of her readers might help them to transform themselves into nice people.15 Susan Crane has noted that elaborate rituals of amity are not always merely disguises; rather, they are mimetic rituals. She writes, “the transformation already inherent in the metaphor [of ritualized conduct] will implant itself in the understanding and behavior of the participants, better enabling them to produce the desired future.”16 The princess who represents her husband as a stern yet kindly lord, willing to relent, might have some chance of getting his barons to sue for peace; she can then notify her husband that they have done so, thus bringing him to make concessions on his own side. She certainly will have a better chance than someone who openly shows a lack of faith in her husband. Christine does not consider such deceptions as hypocrisy but as “discreet pretence and prudent caution, which is not to be thought a vice, but is a great virtue when done in the cause of goodness and peace without injuring anyone in order to avoid a greater misfortune” [discrete

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dissimulacion et prudent cautele, laquelle chose ne croye nul que ce soit vice, mais grant vertu quant faicte est a cause de bien et de apix et sans a nul nuire, pour eschiver greigner inconvenient (trans. 70; ed. 64)]. And yet she, herself, cannot entirely parse out where display ends and substance begins: a lady “cannot give any proof of her loyalty except by the love she shows . . . [her husband] . . . and the external signs by which thoughts and emotions are commonly judged. One cannot judge the intention of good people except by their deeds, which if they are good testify to a good person, and vice versa” [si ne puet faire autre certification de sa loyaulté fors par l’amour que elle lui monstre et les signes de par dehors par lesquelz on juge communement du courage, car autrement ne puet on jugier de l’entencion des gens fors par les oeuvres, lesquelles, se elles sont bonnes, tesmoingnent la personne bonne, et aussi au contraire (trans. 65; ed. 56–57)]. The problem with this method of evaluating others is obvious: what is to stop ladies-in-waiting or court officials from undertaking the same program of outwardly displayed integrity and good intentions that the lady is to exercise? Like Christine, the Ménagier wants women to know how to judge the characters of those around them. But unlike Christine, he does not acknowledge that the lady may not be the only one who knows how to put up a false front. Advising his wife to engage neither insolent servants nor overly ingratiating ones, he tells her to look for applicants who respond to criticism with blushing and bashful silence.17 The Ménagier never suggests that a woman may choose to seem shy and submissive without being so, but Christine is well aware of it. As willing as Christine is to admit that visible signs are all one has to go on, she is only too painfully aware that the lady’s courtiers, servants, and even her husband are also performers. The princess may hope that deceivers will not be able to sustain their performance of virtue for very long; their true colors will show, and she can correct her first impressions. But what does this say about her ability to maintain her own performance of affection toward a callous husband or a spiteful court? “Many women cannot pretend to ignore certain things, or do not know how to do it well” [ausquelz maintes ne scevent pas bien ou ne peuent dissimuler (trans. 71; ed. 65)], Christine admits. The dissimulation is necessary, but Christine cannot offer any advice on making it easy or natural. As Kim Phillips notes in her paraphrase of Simone de Beauvoir, the medieval girl “was not born but rather became a woman.”18 Christine claims that “women are by nature more timid and also of a sweeter disposition” [nature de femme est plus paoureuse et aussi de plus doulce condicion (trans. 51; ed. 35)], which enables them to make peace among quarrelsome men. But the behaviors

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she describes, the appropriate words for each situation, the look in the eyes—these are not natural things at all. They are learned behaviors. And although Christine suggests that performed benevolence may eventually win the respect of a neglectful husband or soothe the jealousy of gossips, she never actually states that the lady will truly grow to love her husband or feel genuine liking for her false friends. The obvious conclusion is that she need not. Lest one suppose that the princess is subject to these conditions because she moves in a courtly world where maintaining one’s public image is the norm, let us look at Christine’s advice to princes in Livre du Corps de Policie. Christine tells readers to listen to many opinions and give more weight to the counsel of experienced men than to that of youthful friends who may be sycophantic or simply reckless,19 but she never suggests that the prince mime a particular emotion—merely that he keep his inclinations to himself until he has heard from everyone. Toward underlings, he must not “show great annoyance or disdain . . . for some small thing or misdeed,”20 but his courtesy never extends to deliberate emotional displays: he is not to pretend to offer confidences to courtiers to test their loyalty; he must redress the sufferings of the poor, but he is not expected to weep over them.21 When he speaks to the public, he should use pleasing words, gestures, and tones to enhance the text of his speech, but his gestures and tones are not a text in themselves.22 For the princess, they are indeed a text, one that is to be read by everyone, from her closest companions to her lowest subjects. The hypocrisy Christine teaches involves exerting a command of face and bearing that will be interpreted by others in a particular way. The lines of dialogue have meanings that are intended to be misconstrued by the hearer, but they do not materially depart from the truth. It is a physical performance of virtue that may equally express inner charity or conceal suspicion and allow for surveillance. In short, it may ref lect and even inf luence the lady’s inner state—but it apparently need not do either, as long as it has the proper effect on her human audience. As Maureen Quilligan points out, Christine “never goes so far as to take Machiavelli’s final step and to argue that the appearance is more important than the actuality.” However, she does emphasize “the need to maintain the appearance of virtue” just as Machiavelli would do a hundred years afterward.23 For Christine, apart from the genuine love owed to God and to his most miserable creatures, emotions appear to be neither good nor bad. Are they, then, irrelevant? If personal feelings are irrelevant to conduct, then this is the case only where princesses are concerned. Christine’s advice in the second section

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of the book, addressed to the minor nobility and hautes bourgeoises who serve as chaperones and ladies-in-waiting at court, is very different: If you ask, “But truly, if my master or mistress is a bad person or doesn’t treat me very well, am I still obliged to love her?” We answer you, “Yes, certainly.” For if you think your employers are bad and that it is not to your advantage to work for them, you must leave them. You should leave if it seems better not to stay there any longer doing your duty badly and not bearing such love to them nor such faith as you owe them. [Et se tu veulz dire: voire, mais se mon maistre ou maistresse est mauvaise personne, ou ne me fait gaires de bien, suis je doncques tenue de l’amer,—nous te respondons que ouil, sans faille: car se il te semble que ilz soient mauvais ou mauvaises ou que n’y faces ton proffit, tu t’en dois partir, se bon te semble, non mie y demourer pour mal faire ton devoir et ne lui porter telle amour et tel foy que tu dois. (trans. 111; ed., 124)]

Princesses must act with love regardless of what they feel; for ladies-inwaiting, love must be felt in the heart as well as performed. A disparity between thoughts and acts is either a privilege of ladies of highest rank or, perhaps, their burden. Another kind of burden is borne by the governess or chaperone, who was usually chosen from among a young, newly married princess’s most virtuous ladies-in-waiting.24 Chaperones must be sincerely loyal, but they must also consider appearances. Should it be necessary for the chaperone to remonstrate with her charge for her bad behavior, she is to direct the majority of her criticisms at the princess’s public image. The chaperone is to describe for her mistress the pattern of behavior she needs to follow and point out how far she has departed from this pattern. Although the chaperone should observe that the ideal princess “should worship God devoutly,” the bulk of the sermon she is to deliver concerns physical codes only: She should have a confident bearing, calm and serene, be moderate and quiet in her diversion, laugh softly and not without cause, have a dignified manner, a humble expression, and good posture. She should respond to everyone kindly and be amiable in speech: her clothing and ornaments should be fine, but not too elaborate. She speaks with authority to strangers, welcoming them, not being overly familiar, and listening to them and not letting her attention wander. At no time does she appear mean, cruel or scornful. [qu’elle soit devote vers Dieu; et qu’elle ait contenance asseuree, coye et rassise, et en ses esbatemens attrempee et sans effroy; rie bas et non sans cause; ait haulte maniere et humble chiere, et grant port; soit a tous de

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doulce response et amiable parole, son habit et attour riche et non trop cointe, de regart Tardif et non volage; a nulle heure n’appere felle, male ne despite. (trans. 99; ed. 111; emphasis added)]

This behavior, the chaperone is to add, once was typical of her mistress, but now she has changed for the worse: “you have become very much more abandoned, more talkative and merrier than you used to be, and that is the kind of thing that usually causes people to have a shrewd idea. Hearts change when the manner changes” [vous estes devenue trop plus esgaiee, plus enparlee, et plus jolie que ne soliez estre, et c’est ce qui fait communement jugier les cuers changiéz quant les contenances se changent (trans. 112–13; ed. 112; emphasis added)].25 Without mincing words, the chaperone acknowledges that real guilt or innocence is immaterial: the princess is to consider ladies who “merely for being suspected of such love without the truth of it ever being proved, lost their honour and their lives from it. . . . I swear on my soul that there was no sin, nor guilt, nor wickedness, but yet you have seen their children reproached and held in less esteem because of it” [pour seulement estre souspeçonnees de telle amour, sans que la verité en fust oncques atteincte, en perdoient honneur et la vie . . . . si tiens sus mon ame que pechié ne coulpe villaine n’y avoient, et leurs enfans en avez veu reprouchiéz et moins priziéz (trans. 100; ed. 112–13)]. The chaperone’s concerns sound remarkably similar to those of the Chevalier de la Tour Landry’s, for he, too, tells of women who are blamed for sins of which they may have been innocent. The Chevalier is aware that some of these women may have been unfairly accused but knows that a woman’s sexual reputation may suffer even if she has violated only courtesy rather than chastity. As Anna Dronzek points out, although “in many of the [Chevalier’s] tales a woman’s sexual misbehavior is often only a symptom of her true, nonsexual sin,” the loss of status is repeatedly linked with a loss of chastity.26 Therefore, the woman who quarreled over the board game and the woman the Chevalier rejected as a bride because of her overfamiliar behavior suffered the same penalty: unsupported rumors of unchaste conduct destroyed their reputations.27 Women must not exhibit either anger or desire, real or feigned. But he does not advocate that they exhibit other, more socially acceptable emotions, in their stead. Christine, however, expects not only that women will repress unseemly emotions but also that they will actively display their opposites. She appears to consider her princess’s sexual chastity a matter of course but devotes far less attention to the matter than she does to directions on dress, movements, and physical carriage that will present a modest

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exterior. She certainly does not give as many examples of women who actually take lovers and are either punished or made to repent, as does the Chevalier de la Tour Landry. Christine’s discussion of “sobriety,” moderation and restraint in all physical conduct covers a good four pages; to chastity, the Chevalier’s obsession, she devotes one short paragraph. In other words, she focuses on appearances, not reality. Chastity, she writes, is a quality that the lady “will have so abundantly and with such purity that in neither word nor deed, appearance, ornaments, nor bearing, conduct, social pomp nor expression will there be anything for which she could be reproached or criticized” [de laquelle elle sera par ceste maniere de vivre tant reamplie et ramenee a tel purté qu’en fait n’en dit, semblant, attout, contenance, maintien, estat, regart, n’aura riens ou il ait a redire ne prochier (trans. 59; ed. 47)]. Christine seems to imply that it goes without saying that her readers would never engage in real immorality, but nevertheless they must guard against giving anyone a pretext for imputing vice, even unjustly.28 Part of the chaperone’s job is keeping up appearances. Court ladies are to display the visible signs of virtue, but they, like their mistresses, are warned not to be deceived by them; Christine red-f lags the same physical marks of deference she has recommended: “Although these people may well curtsy respectfully to her, with one knee touching the ground, and make deep bows and f latter a great deal, yet they will not keep quiet about gossip, but they will tell each other their impressions, and they will whisper scandal to each other” [que ilz facent ou que elles facent bien les obeissans, les genoulz a terre et a grant reverence, et assez de f lateries, si ne s’en tairont ilz mie; ains diront leur avis l’une a l’autre et chucheteront a conseil (trans. 124; ed. 144)]. To avert such scandals, the chaperone has the delicate task of manipulating any admirers without offending them. She is to encourage any such man to see her as a possible ally, so he will reveal any plots he has concocted and may even try to bribe her into cooperating. At that point, not only is the chaperone to warn him that she would interfere in any such scheme and report him if necessary, but she is also to assert that her lady would never do anything scandalous, and that “her virtue is easy to protect, for I know quite well that all her love is reserved for her husband, just as it ought to be” [qu’elle en est legiere a garder. Car je sçay bien que toute s’amour est en son signeur, si que elle doit ester (trans. 91–92; ed. 99–100)]. In short, Christine has the chaperone deliver the sort of moral platitudes her mistress ought to have recited. In this case, merely warning away the young man is insufficient: the chaperone must speak the lines of moral rectitude and spousal devotion because her mistress has failed to play the character herself.

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In the end, the chaperone herself is encouraged to manipulate the emotions of her princess, not just her attention to appearances. Christine has allowed for the possibility that a princess, particularly a very young one, will not know what is necessary to play her part. In this case, her chaperone must model for her the conduct, even the emotions, she must cultivate. Although her devotion to her mistress should be sincere, in other respects the chaperone’s behavior may be quite as manipulative as that recommended for the princess. The mimetic rituals Crane describes (quoted above) are to be used here to coax the princess into feeling wifely affection, as verbalized by the chaperone. If, for instance, the chaperone notices the princess behaving too f lirtatiously at a party, she must indirectly guide her thoughts to more proper channels, even if this means praising an unappealing husband: When everyone has departed and the party is over and her mistress has withdrawn, it may happen (if her mistress is a close friend of hers) that she herself will start the conversation with her chaperon, saying “Didn’t we dance tonight!” This man and that one are charming, or they are not, or something else. And then the wise lady can reply in words like these: “I don’t know, but I didn’t see anyone who seemed to me so kind nor so handsome and charming as my lord, and I had a good look around. I think that compared to the others he is the best favoured in all respects.” But if the lord is old or ugly she will say: “To tell the truth, I hardly noticed anyone else in the company except my lord, for compared to the others he seemed so clearly the lord and prince. And how good it is to hear him speak, for he speaks so wisely!” But let us suppose this has not been the case: she will still recall something about him that she can praise, but she will say nothing about what she may really think. [Et quant venra qu’ilz seront departiz et la feste faillie, et sa maistresse sera retraicte, pourra avenir se la dicte maistresse est privee d’elle, lui en entrera elle maismes en paroles, disant: Nous avons bien dancé, telz et telz sont gracieux, ou ne le sont mie, ou quelque chose. Et adonc la sage dame pourra respondre telz manieres de paroles: Je ne sçay que c’est, mais je n’en voy nul qui me semble tant plaisant ne tant bel ne gracieux que fait Monseigneur, et m’en suis bien prise garde, mais il m’est avis qu’entre les autres c’est cil a qui plus avient toutes choses a faire et dire. Ou se le seigneur est vieil ou lait, elle porra dire: Certes, je ne prenoye garde a nul de la compagnie fors a Monseigneur, car il m’estoit avis qu’entre les autres il sembloit si bien seigneur et prince, et comment le fait il bon oïr parler, que parle il sagement! Et posons qu’il n’y ait esté, si le pourra elle ramentevoir en quelque guise, disant bien de luy, mais de ce qu’elle aura pensé ne dira riens (trans. 90; ed. 98)].

Christine does not specify whether the thought the chaperone is to “say nothing about” is only a suspicion that her mistress may be encouraging

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gossip, or an awareness that her lord is sufficiently unattractive to make the temptation to stray understandable. The princess, if she has read Part I, may think that she is cleverly manipulating the court by miming the gestures and procedures of virtue. She is encouraged to believe that her emotions can be hidden, and maintained as they are, as long as she follows the visible stage directions of the virtuous character Christine has written for her. Her lady-in-waiting, however, is simultaneously being instructed on how to gauge and, if necessary, redirect the princess’s emotions. The positive things she says about the prince, however unappealing he may actually be, are not merely intended as a template on which the princess should model her own comments; they are also intended to inf luence the princess’s thoughts. If the princess thinks that those about her admire her husband as a courtly paragon or a wise ruler, she is less likely to be embarrassed by him. Even if the marriage is an arranged one, as it usually would be, she can at least feel proud to be seen by his side, instead of resenting being saddled with him. The chaperone’s aim may be a noble one, as it involves preserving her mistress’s marriage, her reputation, and possibly the stability of the kingdom, but Christine advises chaperones and ladies-in-waiting to direct the thoughts of the princess in the right direction whenever those thoughts seem in danger of straying into forbidden territory. Christine may tell the princess that she may think what she likes, as long as she performs the discernible acts of virtue, but the emotional independence Christine offers princesses appears to be, after all, only an illusion, even a deliberate deception. Christine’s attempt to reassure the chaperone that a princess who currently resents her will eventually come to appreciate the chaperone’s good sense and “will love her for it in the end” [l’en aimera au desrain (trans. 94; ed. 103)] may well be wishful thinking. There is every possibility that the princess will detest her chaperone for circumscribing her few opportunities to enjoy herself. Yet this holds only if we suppose that Christine never expects princesses to read this section. She may indeed have known that a timepressed princess would hardly be likely to read her entire book, but she was neither so foolish nor so foolhardy as to write things that she actively hoped the princess would not read. Indeed, we have seen that she often addresses messages to one group that are actually intended for the benefit of another group, in essence, modeling the very conduct she desires from her princesses and chaperones. She prefaces her advice to peasants and paupers with qualifiers: “If it happens to reach your ears” [se il ainsi que aler puist jusque a voz oreilles (trans. 176; ed. 218)]; “If it can come to your notice” [se jusques a vostre cognoiscence peut aler (trans. 178; ed. 221)]. A long passage that urges poor women to regard their rags

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with pride as the royal livery of Christ Himself, marking them as special members of his household, is typical (trans. 178; ed. 221). Perhaps some benevolent lady making her charitable rounds would read these passages to their supposed audience, but as usual, Christine has a multi-layered message, and probably most of it is for the benevolent lady, to teach her compassion for the objects of her charity. Most famously, Christine putatively addresses prostitutes: “you miserable women so indecently given to sin, open your eyes” [Ouvrez les yeux de cognoiscence . . . miserables femmes donees a pechié tant deshonnestement (trans. 171; ed. 211)]. The prostitute is to repent, and she must not fear that she will remain a pariah in any case and that repentance is, therefore, useless, because respectable people will be ready to help her: all who see her reformed and ashamed of her sin and dissolute life will feel very great pity for her . . . . She will be seen to have such a good and respectable life, such a devout and humble manner, that while she used to be rebuffed by everyone she will now be befriended and cherished by all good people. . . . and if she were so disposed, everyone would gladly take her to help do the laundry in their big houses. They would take pity on her and gladly give her a means of making a living. [toutes les bonnes creatures qui la verroient ainsi convertie et honteuse de son pechié et fole vie en auroient tres grant pitié . . . et pourroit estre veu de si bonne et honneste vie, tant devote, doulce et humble, que la ou elle souloit estre deboutee de chascun seroit appellee de toutes bonnes gens et chier tenue . . . . que ainsi fust disposee come nous disons. Car chascun la prendroit voulentiers a aidier a faire lessives en ces grans hostelz; si en auroient pitié et voulentiers lui donneroient a gaigner. (trans. 173; ed. 214)]

As this advice is unlikely to be read by the prostitutes themselves, Christine is clearly giving respectable women a hint that they should provide paid labor and words of kindness to such women precisely so that neither material want nor social isolation will drive reformed prostitutes back to their former trade. The social isolation was a real possibility, for the Ménagier counsels his wife never to be seen with women whose reputations are questionable.29 Christine’s advice to prostitutes is actually a coded message to high-born readers to offer such women alternate employment as laundresses and to speak to them without disdain, so that they will be encouraged to continue this socially acceptable form of employment, even if it is less remunerative than their former profession. 30 We know this is Christine’s intent, because she has earlier begged respectable women to help disgraced women reform: “You ought to have pity on fallen women, pray for them, give them a chance to redeem themselves”

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[Si devez avoir pitié des defaillans et prier pour elles, leur donner occasion d’elles retraire (trans. 174–75; ed. 215–217)]. It requires courage to follow such advice, since, as the Ménagier observes, the respectable woman’s reputation may be tainted by association, but it also requires courage for Christine to give such advice, for her own reputation as a moral writer might be tainted. To ensure that it is not, she takes a high moral tone— and her reader is free to copy it. What, then, are we to make of her advice to chaperones? Christine is well aware that guiding a rebellious charge can be an onerous task. As Roberta Krueger comments, the chaperone must use great diplomacy to prevent the princess from transgressing moral or social boundaries and yet stay in her “good graces.” The chaperone wishes to avoid offending her charge so deeply that she loses her position, but if the princess “begins to mock or worse, to plot against, her teacher,” the chaperone will be held responsible for any scandal the princess causes.31 Christine appears to be advising the princess to trick her court into thinking she loves her husband, her in-laws, and her ladies-in-waiting, even if she secretly hates every one of them. Simultaneously, however, she appears to be advising the chaperone to trick the princess into feeling real love for her husband and court connections, by expressing positive comments with which the princess may at first agree merely out of politeness, but which she may eventually accept as a consensus: that is, if everyone seems to admire her husband, perhaps he isn’t so bad. If the princess and the chaperone were to read each other’s sections, one might expect the entire program to backfire: both princess and chaperone might well resent Christine for playing one against the other. In teaching the princess to trick courtiers and the chaperone to trick the princess, Christine could be accused of trying to trick her readers. Far from trying to create a division between the princess and her chaperone, Christine is trying to convince chaperones and their charges that they are on the same side. Just as she wishes respectable women and reformed prostitutes to band together against men who exploit and perpetuate prostitution, she wishes the princess and her ladies to be aligned against both those men who are actively trying to corrupt the young princess and those men who would use her indiscretions as proof of the moral inferiority of all women. 32 I shall leave the question of whether Christine was a proto-feminist to others, but she certainly wants women to learn the benefits of solidarity, instead of constantly sabotaging each other. Christine banks on the likelihood that readers will look at the sections addressed to other readers. The princess who has read the advice to chaperones, urging them to steer their charges away not only from actual f lirtations but also from any discontented thoughts about the prince,

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might be less likely to roll her eyes in exasperation when her chaperone follows such advice, or to be indignant that anyone thinks she can be made to love an ugly or abusive man just by hearing him praised. As for the chaperone, if she has read the section addressed to princesses, she may be less likely to gossip about a rebellious charge and may regard her as young and impulsive, rather than as truly vicious. And she will probably find her charge more receptive to this attitude. Rather than being adversaries, the princess and her chaperone must be fellow actors: offering each other cue-lines and set speeches, prompting each other should one forget her lines or have trouble delivering them convincingly. In the end, Christine’s emphasis on the visible performance of virtue does not actually exclude a concern with the interior self. Princesses may be told to perform an affection they do not feel, but their chaperones are told to help them feel it, if necessary by expressing admiration for the prince and giving the princess a model to copy. Chaperones who cannot feel loyal to their princess, condone her actions, or tolerate court rivals are urged to resign. Like the Ménagier and the Chevalier de la Tour Landry, Christine does, in the end, expect outer virtue to correspond to inner virtue, but rather than depicting the virtuous exterior as an enhancement of an already virtuous interior, she hopes that rehearsing the procedures of charity and patience will produce their emotional realities even in those who feel downright ornery. What Christine is advocating is almost a kind of Method Acting: not the modern American version in which actors try to get in touch with their feelings, but the original version that Constantin Stanislavsky and Michael Chekov describe, in which an actor stamps his feet or gestures in a hesitant way in order to produce corresponding emotions of rage or shyness.33 Far from being an example of medieval hypocrisy, the acting out of one’s character was a necessary component to creating it, and having it accepted by society and ref lected back at the individual to reinforce it. Crane observes that “in several medieval contexts, public appearance and behavior are thought not to falsify personal identity but, on the contrary, to establish and maintain it.”34 The acceptance by spectators of the rhetorical moves that made up one’s character was a vital part of reinforcing one’s sense that one had become that character in very truth. In pretending that she does not seek the hearts and minds of her royal readers, when they are part of her ultimate goal, Christine risks being called something of a hypocrite. But since her ultimate goal is to promote the welfare of princess, lady-in-waiting, and kingdom, she herself would call her hypocrisy a virtuous one. She is also demonstrating how form equals function: just as she has created her own character of a wise and honorable woman by offering virtuous opinions and advice in her

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book, occasionally pretending to be unaware that one group will read another’s supposed message, so can her readers create their own virtuous characters by speaking lines of moral uprightness and keeping their gestures dignified and unobtrusive, while remaining apparently oblivious to the audience for whom these words and gestures are performed. Far from attempting to deceive or trick her readers, Christine is offering them the kind of rhetorical skills that have served her as a writer. Notes 1. Mark Addison Amos, “ ‘For Manners Make Men’: Bourdieu, de Certeau, and the Common Appropriation of Noble Manners in the Book of Courtesy,” in Medieval Conduct, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Robert. L. A. Clark (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 45. 2. Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des Trois Vertus, ed. and French trans. Charity Cannon Willard and Eric Hicks (Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1989), 45; Christine de Pisan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies: Or The Book of the Three Virtues, ed. and English trans. Sarah Lawson (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1985), 57–58. All citations of the work in French are from Willard and Hick’s edition; all citations of it in English are from Lawson’s translation. 3. Geoffroy de la Tour Landry, Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry: Pour l’Enseignement de ses Filles, ed. Anatole de Montaiglon (Paris: P. Jannet, 1854), 32–33. 4. The Goodman of Paris (Le Ménagier de Paris): A Treatise on Moral and Domestic Economy by a Citizen of Paris (c. 1393), ed. and trans. Eileen Power (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1928), 42. 5. Goodman of Paris, 190–191. 6. Goodman of Paris, 47–49. 7. Geoffroy de la Tour Landry, 12–13, 709 8. Geoffroy de la Tour Landry, 136–138. 9. Paul Strohm, Social Chaucer (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1989), 96. 10. Goodman of Paris, 120. 11. Goodman of Paris, 118. 12. Goodman of Paris, 127. 13. To do the Ménagier justice, he thinks the Griselda story both historically improbable and symbolically intended as an example of obedience toward God—not husbands (Goodman of Paris, 137–138). 14. Sheila Delany, “ ‘Mothers to Think Back Through’: Who Are They? The Ambiguous Example of Christine de Pizan,” in Medieval Texts & Contemporary Readers, ed. Laurie A. Finke and Martin B. Schichtman (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1987), 187.

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15. Kate Langdon Forhan, for instance, notes that royal scandals included the butchering of a man as he knelt in submission at court, the disinheritance and proclaimed illegitimacy of a royal heir by Queen Isabeau, and lesser disgraces such as a “lazy and spoiled” dauphin, but she makes it clear that none of this stopped Christine from seeking Isabeau’s mediation in a conf lict nor from addressing the lazy dauphin in Livre des Fais d’Armes et de Chevallerie as if he were a worthy audience of the examples set before him (The Political Theory of Christine de Pizan [Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2002], 21, 24, 146). 16. Susan Crane, The Performance of Self: Ritual, Clothing, and Identity During the Hundred Years War (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 23. 17. Goodman of Paris, 209. 18. Kim M. Phillips, “Bodily Walls, Windows, and Doors: The Politics of Gesture in Late Fifteenth-Century English Books for Women,” in Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts in Late Medieval Britain: Essays for Felicity Riddy, ed. Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Rosalynn Voaden, Arlyn Diamond, Ann Hutchison, Carol Meale, and Lesley Johnson. 19. Forhan, 34, 37. 20. Forhan, 30. 21. Forhan, 19–20. 22. Forhan, 46. 23. Maureen Quilligan, The Allegory of Female Authority: Christine de Pizan’s Cité des Dames (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1991), 251. 24. Roberta Krueger, “Christine’s Anxious Lessons: Gender, Morality, and the Social Order from the Enseignemens to the Avision,” in Christine de Pizan and the Categories of Difference, ed. Marilynn Desmond (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1998), 33. 25. The French original breaks the sentence differently suggesting that Christine is more concerned with the idea that people suppose that hearts change when the manner changes than whether hearts actually change. 26. Anna Dronzek, “Gendered Theories of Education in Fifteenth-Century Conduct Books,” in Medieval Conduct, 148–149. 27. Geoffroy de la Tour Landry, 32–33, 28–29. 28. Christine is exercising great restraint here: Queen Isabeau’s sexual conduct was so notorious that Desmond Seward refers to her as “sluttish” (The Hundred Years War: The English in France, 1337–1453 [New York: Constable, 1978], 138). Perhaps Christine hoped that the queen would moderate her public demeanor at least for the sake of decorum—possibly because she had decided that Isabeau’s private behavior was beyond repair. 29. Goodman of Paris, 52. 30. Diane Bornstein, The Lady in the Tower (Hamden, CT: Archon, 1983), 112.

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31. Krueger, 33. 32. Krueger, 28–29. 33. Constantin Stanislavski, An Actor Prepares, trans. Elizabeth Reynolds Hapgood (New York: Theatre Arts, 1936), 201; Michael Chekhov, To the Actor: On the Technique of Acting (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), 59. 34. Crane, 4.

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CHAPTER 5 GESTURE, EMOTION, AND HUMANITY: DEPICTIONS OF MÉLUSINE IN THE UPTON HOUSE BEARSTED FRAGMENTS Tania M. Colwell

I

lluminations of the fairy Mélusine captured the imagination of late medieval audiences with their fascinating portrayals of her supernatural monstrosity. As the fifteenth century progressed, however, French representations of the heroine of the Roman de Mélusine gradually depicted a fairy whose humanity vied for attention with her otherworldly nature in manuscript and incunabula iconography. Nowhere is this tension more explicitly conveyed than in the unexplored parchment fragments of a late fifteenth-century French manuscript of the prose Roman de Mélusine held in the National Trust’s Upton House Bearsted Collection, Warwickshire (U.K.).1 The five extant illustrated fragments in which Mélusine is represented depict the grief and sorrow ensuing from the crucial denunciation episode wherein Raymondin publicly condemns the fairy as a demonic agent in serpentine form.2 The Upton House Bearsted (hereafter UHB) fragments focus upon the sentiments of the couple and their court as they grapple with the implications of Raymondin’s denunciation; the illustration of this episode is unique among French manuscripts and differs markedly from the iconography in contemporary incunabula.3 The UHB fragments offer an exceptional visual interpretation of this episode, their detailed gestures and emotions urging audiences toward a reception of the heroine in which her humanity, not her monstrosity, was paramount. Written for Jean, duc de Berry, and Guillaume l’Archevêque, seigneur de Parthenay, at the end of the fourteenth century, the Mélusine romances

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attained wide popularity: over thirty prose and verse manuscripts (nine of which contain at least one miniature) and six different illustrated prose editions were produced before 1500.4 Despite the abundance of material testifying to the importance of Mélusine in late medieval French literary culture, the iconography of this striking figure has been considered in systematic detail by only a select group of scholars. These critics, notably Laurence Harf-Lancner and Françoise Clier-Colombani, broadly concur that the fifteenth century witnessed a decline in symbolic representations of the monstrous characteristics of the heroine in favor of depictions of the fairy emphasizing her human, maternal attributes. Elements of the grotesque inherent in Mélusine’s otherworldly nature remain visible, but they are subdued and function decoratively rather than discursively. Gradually, the heroine’s role as Lusignan mother is privileged visually at the expense of her fairy hybridity.5 The UHB fragments offer the most explicit example of this phenomenon among all French manuscripts. By providing unique clues to the fairy’s emotions in a sequence of interrelated miniatures, the UHB fragments articulate, more fully than any other French manuscript or edition, both the interior world and the humanity of the fairy heroine. The Roman de Mélusine centers around the half-mortal, half-fairy heroine who establishes the renowned Lusignan family while aspiring to full humanity for herself—a humanity that, in the romance, is largely defined in terms of mortality that in turn raises the possibility of Christian salvation. Mélusine is condemned by her mother to metamorphose into a semi-serpentine creature each Saturday in retribution for having, with her two sisters, entombed their father alive. However, the fairy is offered the chance to attain full mortality and salvation on the condition that her future husband never publicly reveal her hybrid status. Should her husband successfully conceal her anomalous condition, then she “ ‘will live the natural [read: mortal] course of [her] life and will die like a natural woman’ ” [“tu [Mélusine] viuras ton cours naturel et morras comme femme naturelle”]; should he fail in this, she “ ‘will return to [her] former torment, forever, as long as the High Judge remains seated’ ” [“tu [Mélusine] retourneroyes au tourment auquel tu estoies par auant/ et seras tousiours sans fin iusques atant que le treshault iuge tiendra son iugement” (Steinschaber, 6v)].6 As Mélusine herself reveals, her attainment of mortality is intimately bound up with the promise of salvation. Following Raymondin’s public disclosure of her status to the court, she explains to him that “ ‘if you had not betrayed your vow to me . . . I would have lived my whole natural life as a natural woman, and would have died naturally and had all my sacraments, and my body would have been entombed in the church of Our Lady of Lusignan, and the anniversary of

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my death would have been celebrated properly and devoutly’ ” [“se tu ne meusses faulce ton serment . . . [ j]eusse vescu tout le cours naturel comme femme naturelle et fusse morte naturellement et eusse eu tous mes sacremens et mon corps eut este ensepueli en leglize de notre dame de lusignen et eusse fait mon anniuersaire bien et deuement” (Steinschaber, 152v)]. Raymondin’s transgression, the fairy observes, has “ ‘condemned me to the dark penance which I have long endured as a result of my actions, and thus I will have to carry and suffer it until Judgment Day’ ” [“Or suys ie par ton fait rabatue en la penitence obscure ou iauoie long temps este par mon aduenture et ainsi le me fauldra porter et souffrir iusques au iour du iugement” (Steinschaber, 152v)]. Rather than Christian reward in the form of a natural death followed by the appropriate rituals, Mélusine now faces an eternity of suffering in dragon form. This discourse juxtaposing immortality, sin, and eternal penance with humanity and salvation, reiterated by Mélusine moments after Raymondin’s betrayal, offers an important key to understanding the UHB fragments’ depiction of the fairy heroine in specifically human terms.7 Throughout medieval literature, fairies are not typically depicted with an extensively developed interior life. As Sara Sturm-Maddox remarks, readers “do not expect, conventionally, to be privy to the thoughts or emotions of fairies,” because the distance between their interior world and that of the reader, and also of other characters, contributes to their inherent mystery.8 However, the UHB fragments’ close attention to Mélusine’s emotional experiences following the denunciation may ref lect a late medieval shift toward the characterization of fairies with recognizable emotions and motivations. Christine Ferlampin-Acher, for example, has identified a world of fairy characters whose affective experiences render them increasingly human in the fourteenth-century prose romance Perceforest.9 Indeed, such a development is consistent with the process referred to as the “rationalization” of fairies, in which their ambivalent unknowability is diminished in favor of an unthreatening, often human familiarity.10 Mélusine’s final transformation ensures that her ambivalent characteristics are never fully subsumed by the human in the text of the romance, but the fairy’s humanity nevertheless remains central in the extant UHB fragments. The UHB fragments highlight Mélusine’s humanity by their depiction of individuated gestures that, when read in conjunction with the text, would have strongly contributed to a sympathetic audience response.11 The impact of illustrations upon reception was widely recognized in the Middle Ages by scholars and libraires alike.12 Stephen Nichols has theorized audience reception of illustrated manuscripts as the dynamic product of audiences’ negotiation of the information provided by both

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the visual and the verbal narratives.13 When we ref lect that gestures also perform a socially conditioned communicative role,14 their depiction can be considered a third layer of information that audiences negotiated as they interpreted the image as a whole.15 It may reasonably be argued that a study of the UHB fragments—far from their original material, cultural, and temporal settings—can only produce a reading that is itself fragmentary. However, by comparing the fragments with the few equivalent illustrations from French manuscripts, as well as with the images and text in Adam Steinschaber’s premier edition of the French prose romance (Geneva, c. 1478), this chapter will demonstrate that these miniatures offered audiences a uniquely sensitive reading of Mélusine’s humanity. The five UHB fragments with which we are concerned each present a different stage in the episode proceeding from Raymondin’s denunciation of his wife. Brief ly, the first depicts the immediate reaction of Mélusine and the court to Raymondin’s public revelation of her nature; the second demonstrates Raymondin’s repentance for his betrayal and Mélusine’s response; the third highlights the couple’s distress; in the fourth fragment, Mélusine dictates orders to her court; and the fifth displays Mélusine comforting her sons (see figures 5.1–5.5). The first and fifth of these scenes are present in two verse manuscripts, while variants of each of the five are found in Steinschaber’s incunabulum; however, none of these images are contained in any other accessible French prose manuscript.16 The ensuing analysis will begin with a brief discussion of the action immediately preceding the denunciation and will be followed by a more detailed consideration of each of the five fragments depicting the consequences of this event.17 Raymondin’s denunciation is provoked by a disastrous incident involving two of his and Mélusine’s sons: Geoffroy de Lusignan’s incineration of the monastery of Maillezais and its monks, including his devout brother, Fromont. The immediate aftermath of this event situates Mélusine’s affective experiences within an acceptable, Christian framework.18 Importantly, the fairy’s measured response to this family crisis is juxtaposed against that of Raymondin whose extreme emotions align him with the demonic inf luence that he subsequently imputes to his wife’s character. On first seeing his wife after visiting the decimated remains of Maillezais, Raymondin is “so sorrowful and so beyond words that he was unable to respond” [il fut si doulent et si oultre dire que il ne luy respondit mot (Steinschaber, 150v)] to her greeting. Mélusine, whose distress is elicited more by Raymondin’s excessive mourning than by Geoffroy’s actions, presents an idealized Christian model of grief. As she explains to her husband, “ ‘It is madness on your part . . . to behave like this over something which cannot be otherwise, and which one

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can neither change nor remedy. You are arguing against the will of the Creator who makes all things and unmakes them according to his will. . . . Please leave off your grief ’ ” [“cest moult grant follie a vous . . . de vous ainsi demener de chose qui aultrement ne peut estre et qne [sic] on ne peut amender ne y remedier vous vous arguez contre la voulente du createur qui tout a fait et deffera touteffoys quil vouldra a son plaisir. . . . vueillez laisser le dueil” (Steinschaber, 150v)]. Mélusine thus advocates a moderate level of grief that accepts God’s will in its inscrutability, in contrast with Raymondin’s excess, which was considered to be unchristian.19 Despite his subconscious recognition of the validity of her words, Raymondin, who is “so beside himself and pierced with anger that natural reason deserted him” [si oultre et percie dire que raison naturelle estoit fouye de luy (Steinschaber, 150v)], proceeds to declare that Mélusine is a “ ‘treacherous serpent’ ” [“treffaulce serpente” (Steinschaber, 151v)] whose deeds and progeny are merely “illusions” [fantosme[s] (Steinschaber, 151v)]. Of all her children, Fromont was the only son who turned out well, but, declares Raymondin, thus linking Mélusine’s uncertain status with Geoffroy’s murderous deed, he “ ‘was destroyed by the demonic arts’ ” [“est destruict par art demoniacle” (Steinschaber, 151v)]. In alluding to Geoffroy’s actions, Raymondin pronounces ironically that “ ‘all those who are strengthened by anger are subject to the command of the princes of hell’ ” [“tous ceulx qui sont enforcenez dire sont es commandemens des princes denfer” (Steinschaber, 151v)]; he thereby implicitly characterizes his own irrational anger as equally sinful, another affective trope readily recognizable in the later Middle Ages.20 In the manuscript containing the UHB fragments, this passage would have established two interrelated premises against which the subsequent miniatures were read. First, it demonstrated Mélusine’s proximity to mortality, as she expresses a Christian model of grief and acceptance of the divine will. Second, with Mélusine thus embodying Christian values in opposition to Raymondin’s diabolic expression of anger, the denunciation itself acquires the taint of a sin that has a critical impact on the heroine’s own chances of salvation. In a scene of disarray and sorrow, the first fragment of the UHB sequence depicts, on the one hand, the shocked response of Mélusine and the court to Raymondin’s denunciation and, on the other, hints at Raymondin’s own reaction to his misdeed (figure 5.1 UHB 194v). On the left, the heroine swoons in grief and “sorrow” [douleur], with an anguished and possibly tearful facial expression in response to Raymondin’s fatal condemnation of her as a “ ‘treacherous serpent’ ” [“treffaulse serpente” (Steinschaber, 151v)].21 The confused dismay of the courtiers is indicated by their raised arms and hands, as well as by the clasped hands of the lady on the left—gestures that were common signs

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Figure 5.1 UHB 194v: Mélusine’s response to Raymondin’s denunciation (©NTPL/Angelo Hornak).

of distress and despair in the European Middle Ages.22 The sympathy of audiences is guided toward the heroine as they naturally follow the direction of the courtiers’ attention upon the helpless Mélusine. In particular, the man in blue who supports the heroine invites viewers into the image as he appears to glance outward toward us and upward toward the figures behind his right shoulder. Strikingly, Raymondin’s revelation of the heroine’s otherness grieves rather than frightens the courtiers, who attempt to revive their lady in both the image and the text: “the barons of the land and the ladies were greatly saddened and they restored the lady to her seat, and washed her face with cold water” [Adonc les barons du pays et les dames furent moult doulens et redresserent la dame en son seant et luy arouserent le visaige deaue froide (Steinschaber, 151v)]. Although clearly saddened and distressed, in the text and the imagery, the courtiers continue to treat Mélusine as their noble lady despite the possibility of her otherworldly nature. The cluster of courtiers attempting to revive their lady contrasts starkly with the figure of Raymondin standing alone on the right of the image as

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he watches Mélusine faint into the arms of her courtiers. At first glance, his physical isolation ref lects both his emotional distance from the scene facing him and the moral isolation of his accusation. However, closer attention to Raymondin’s stance reveals the culturally determined nature of gestural expression. For modern audiences, Raymondin’s crossed arms might ref lect the character’s aggressive yet self-righteous denunciation. However, Garnier’s study of medieval gesture suggests that this position probably conveyed Raymondin’s personal distress on realizing the implications of his declaration.23 Raymondin’s discomposure may equally be ref lected in his falling (or fallen?) cap and the elevation of his left arm, external movements suggestive of interior changes.24 Such a reading is consistent with the text that reveals Raymondin’s immediate repentance on seeing his wife faint, 25 and with his own facial expression in this image: not only are two tears, which are pictorial additions to the narrative, depicted on Raymondin’s face, but absent from his visage is the rage portrayed in depictions of this scene in BN mss fr. 12575 and fr. 24383, and (to a lesser extent) the Steinschaber edition.26 In these volumes, Mélusine is presented as the victim supported by her court, and her distress strongly contrasts with Raymondin’s enraged condemnation. In figure 5.1, however, grief and sorrow are the predominant emotions evoked by the movements of each of the characters surrounding Mélusine: their own attention and emotional responses draw those of audiences toward the personal anguish of the heroine for whom mortality is now impossible. Penitence, grief, and compassion are the dominant sentiments expressed in the second miniature, an illustration whose very austerity focuses viewer attention upon the emotional attitudes and gestures of its subjects (figure 5.2 UHB 194r). Raymondin pleads on his knees, his hands pressed palm-to-palm in an attitude of prayer (details replicating those in the text), begging for Mélusine’s forgiveness and imploring her to remain: “Raymondin was greatly grieved . . . [and when he] saw Mélusine before him, he kneeled and joined his hands while saying, ‘My dear lady . . . please forgive this misdeed and . . . stay with me’ ” [Raimondin fut moult doulent . . . [et quant il] vit melusine deuant luy il sagenoilla et iongnist les mains en disant/“Ma chiere dame . . . vueillez ce meffait pardonner et . . . vueillez auec moy demourer” (Steinschaber, 152v)]. 27 Raymondin’s position of inferiority before his wife serves two functions: by making this gesture, he temporarily restores the balance of power established throughout the romance wherein Mélusine, not her husband, is the authoritative partner.28 Further, his supplicatory stance physically conveys his repentance and desire to make amends for his

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Figure 5.2 UHB 194r: Raymondin pleads for Mélusine’s forgiveness (©NTPL/ Angelo Hornak).

sinful betrayal.29 This image contrasts markedly with the equivalent woodcut in the Steinschaber edition. In the woodcut, Raymondin sits on a bed looking toward Mélusine; they face each other at eye level as Mélusine, with outstretched left index finger, berates her husband, who passively accepts her words with little exterior emotional expression.30 Quite unlike the Steinschaber illustration, tears feature prominently in figure 5.2 and convey several layers of interdependent emotional expression. On the one hand, Raymondin’s tears provide an additional sign of his sincere contrition and underline the nature of his transgression as a sin against Mélusine.31 His tears further externalize his grief for the impending loss of his wife. Notably, the subtle depiction of Raymondin’s tears counteracts the melodramatic text, which comments that “tears f lowed from his eyes with such great abundance that his chest was soaked” [les larmes luy chayoient des yeulx a si grant habondance que sa poetrine estoit arousee (Steinschaber, 152v)].32 In this way, the patron or artist has deliberately downplayed the exaggerated nature of the Lusignan lord’s

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grief and repentance, thereby arguably accentuating their authenticity. 33 Mélusine and her ladies are also pictured with tears whose understated nature cleverly enhances the pathos of the text from which they are absent.34 The heroine’s personal distress is also suggested by her clasped hands, and her compassion for her husband’s aff liction is indicated by her slightly inclined, saddened face. Mélusine’s physical attitude of pity and compassion is textually underlined by her response that, although she is unable to remain with Raymondin, “ ‘I forgive you with all my heart’ ” [“ie vous pardonne de bon cueur” (Steinschaber, 153r)]. The fairy’s tears, illustrating Mélusine’s charitable compassion for Raymondin’s remorse, may also have been recognized by readers as a sign of compunction.35 Medieval society had long understood tears to be the spiritual articulation of sorrow for one’s own sins as well as for those of others.36 In their dynamic encounter with the UHB text and illustrations, readers could naturally draw on cultural beliefs to interpret the narrative dialogue before them. In view of the Christian overtones imbuing this sequence of fragments, it is likely that Mélusine’s tears were read as much as tears of compunction as of grief and compassion for her husband and herself. This portrait of grief and pity arguably counteracts what Hahn has referred to as the fairy’s “strangely inhuman” failure to register either compassion for the death of her son, or humility for her own serious transgression against her father.37 Indeed, Mélusine’s portrait, coupled with the refined depiction of Raymondin’s sorrow, directs audiences toward a sympathetic, sentimental reading of this scene, a reading that was less colored by both impassivity and melodrama than that promoted by the text alone. The heightening of grief and distress in the opening two images builds up to a climactic image in which Mélusine and Raymondin swoon simultaneously (figure 5.3 UHB 196v). The text does not describe the way in which the couple falls, merely commenting that after Mélusine embraced her husband, “they both experienced such enormous sorrow that they both fainted on the chamber f loor” [[Ilz] eurent tous deux si grant douleur quilz chaierent tous deux pasmez sur la terre de la chambre (Steinschaber, 153v)]. In this fragment, Mélusine and Raymondin fall to the ground in parallel with one another horizontally across the image. This spatial configuration, sepulchral in its connotations, evocatively presages both the heroine’s imminent departure from the mortal world, and her husband’s subsequent penitential entrance into a hermitage.38 Uniquely among the manuscripts, this illumination also allegorizes the end of Mélusine and Raymondin’s mortal life together through their effigy-like pose, which simultaneously alludes to the couple’s humanity. Such strong associations are less pervasive in Steinschaber’s rendition of this scene: the couple lie on a bed with mournful expressions, but with eyes wide open in front

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Figure 5.3 UHB 196v: Mélusine and Raymondin swoon before a grieving court (©NTPL/Angelo Hornak).

of their grieving courtiers.39 The characters’ distress is central in this woodcut, but the UHB fragment’s heavy Christian atmosphere, conveyed by the tomb-like posture of Mélusine and Raymondin, with its mortal implications, is almost absent. While figure 5.3 underscores the liminal status of the fairy as she prepares to depart the mortal world in exchange for penitential immortality, it nonetheless emphasizes her connection with the human, Christian world. Despite damage to the illustration,40 figure 5.3 conveys an impression of f luidity and motion. To the left of the central figures of Mélusine and Raymondin, the male courtiers huddle together, arms crossed or hands raised in surprise and distress. The women on the right manifest their grief more overtly, one lady raising her arms away from her body, another swaying to the right with hands joined in prayer, while the third can be seen on the extreme right margin, wiping away tears with her handkerchief. The variety of motion seen among the women may ref lect contemporary views of females as more emotionally excitable and physically subject to their passions than men.41 Interestingly, though, tears are visible on male and female faces, not only recalling textual details—the narrator comments that an observer “would have seen ladies and maidens,

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knights and squires crying and expressing great sorrow” [lors eut veu dames et damoiselles cheualiers et escuiers plourer et mener grant douleur (Steinschaber, 153v)]—but also pictorially reiterating the despair emanating from the courtiers’ movements.42 It is noteworthy that the mourners face the central figures of the seemingly dead couple, for this contrasts greatly with the textual description of courtly grief. According to the text, the courtiers “all began to cry, and moan, and experience such great sorrow that they forgot the two lovers who lay on the f loor” [[Ilz] commencerent tous a plourer et a plaindre et a mener si grant douleur quilz entreoublierent les deux amans qui gisoient par terre (Steinschaber, 153v)]. In other words, what may be seen as a parodic element of the text, whereby the mourners become so involved in their own grief that they forget the source of their sorrow, is eliminated from this fragment.43 Rather, the mourners’ attention focuses specifically on the tragic couple, thereby accentuating this scene’s dignified expressions of pathos and grief in contrast with those of the text. Not only does the courtly couple’s position underline their association with and imminent dissociation from the mortal world, but the court’s expressions of sorrow valorize the heroine as a noblewoman whose loss is worthy of regret. Occupying center-stage of the fourth fragment, Mélusine dictates a will as one of her final actions prior to her transformation (figure 5.4 UHB 196r). This is a crucial image that locates Mélusine as courtly lady and ancestral mother within the realm of Christian human activity. In an illustration that adds substantial detail to the text, Mélusine directs a scribe, as well as Raymondin and the surrounding barons, regarding the future management of her children and lands. That Mélusine dictates a formal will to a scribe is not described in the text, although she does leave oral instructions with her husband and barons.44 The heroine’s feudal authority in this image is indicated by her size: even seated, she is taller than her despondent husband and considerably larger than the scribe and attendant barons.45 Mélusine’s commanding position is reinforced both by her calm, tear-free appearance, which contrasts with the tear-stained faces of Raymondin and the barons, and by the assertive enumeration of her final wishes expressed by her deictic hand gesture.46 This fragment offers the only depiction of this scene from amongst all the extant French manuscripts, although the Steinschaber edition does include a woodcut of this scene that is quite differently composed: Raymondin, lying on a bed diagonally across the image, is the focus of attention for both courtiers and audience, while Mélusine is almost marginalized from the scene as she stands near the end of the bed dictating to a seated scribe.47 Figure 5.4 firmly promotes a reading of the fairy in Christian and human terms. A testament can be understood as an expression of self-identity and

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UHB 196r: Mélusine dictates her final wishes (©NTPL/Angelo

personal values as well as a statement of final wishes.48 In this regard, although her command to kill their murderous son, Horrible, appears cruel, Mélusine’s rationale for this action, that “ ‘he will destroy all that I have built and the lands of Poitou and Guienne will be forever ravaged by war’ ” [“il destruiroit tout ce que jay ediffie ne iamais guerres ne fauldroient au pays de poetou ne de guienne” (Steinschaber, 154v)], demonstrates a longer-term concern for the prosperity of her family’s heritage.49 This reading is supported by the fairy’s earlier direction that, after she has cared for her younger two sons, they be granted estates throughout these two regions. Mélusine’s patrimonial bequests also underscore the fairy’s affiliation with orthodox Christianity by their association with the explicit depiction of a will-making scene. As Claire Schen explains, such bequests in the pre-Reformation world were “not merely secular . . . as they carried an implicit, if not explicit, request for prayers and commemoration” on the part of the recipients.50 A multivalent reading of this scene that incorporates the human and spiritual interests of the heroine is strengthened by Mélusine’s subsequent plea to her court that it “ ‘please you to pray devoutly for me to Our Lord that it please Him to alleviate my penance’ ” [“vous plaise a prier notre seigneur deuotement pour moy quil luy

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Figure 5.5 UHB 197r: Mélusine visits her children (©NTPL/Angelo Hornak).

plaise a moy alleger ma penitence” (Steinschaber, 156r)]. The depiction of Mélusine’s determined exposition of her final wishes thus affirms her affiliation with the human world in two crucial ways. By demonstrating, both verbally and visually, her feudal authority and concern for her family’s longevity, Mélusine thus strongly asserts her identity as the matriarch of the Lusignan dynasty. Furthermore, on a spiritual level, when read in conjunction with the fairy’s bequests and her explicit plea for prayers, the representation of the will-making scene emphatically aligned Mélusine with conventional mortal concerns regarding the Christian afterlife. In its careful depiction of emotional gestures, this manuscript fragment uniquely underscores the bonds between the merveilleux, the mortal, and the Christian in the prose Roman de Mélusine. The dénouement to this sequence of images offers a poignant portrait of the heroine with her children (figure 5.5 UHB 197r). Once again, the fragment f leshes out the sparse detail offered by the text as it depicts Mélusine as a fully human figure seated by the fire with one of her sons. A second baby lies in a crib behind her, while two nurses look on from the bed. The prose romance explains that following her climactic serpentine f light from the court, Mélusine “came every day to visit her children,

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and held them by the fire, and comforted them as much as she could” [venoit tous les iours visiter ses enfans et les tenoit au feu et les aisoit de tout son pouoir (Steinschaber, 158v)]. This fragment sustains its manuscript’s vision of a fairy whose dominant characteristic during the final stages of the romance was her humanity. It thus contrasts strikingly with two earlier verse manuscript versions of this scene in which the hybrid monstrosity of the heroine is elaborated with Mélusine breastfeeding a son in semi-piscine and semi-dragon forms.51 The nursing motif is continued in Steinschaber’s edition with the slight difference that Mélusine is portrayed as a fully mortal, breastfeeding mother.52 Significantly, figure 5.5 is the only depiction of this scene among the prose manuscripts, and although it does not show her breastfeeding her children, it continues to privilege the maternal humanity of the heroine over her monstrous nature by showing her holding and comforting one of them.53 Mélusine has a downcast expression, her head is slightly lowered, and she appears to be staring into the distance as she tightly clasps her son’s leg. These gestures signify the fairy’s sorrow and despair and reinforce the reluctant nature of Mélusine’s departure from her family. This is a quiet and comparatively static scene in contrast with the previous images, a fact that more closely directs audience attention toward the fairy’s ref lective sorrow and maternal concerns. As a sequence of illustrations, the UHB fragments collectively pictorialize the trauma experienced by Mélusine, Raymondin, and their court at the dramatic peak of the romance; they do this by depicting successive stages of emotional conf lict, the impact of which is accentuated by the individualized gestures performed by the figures in each fragment. Medieval audiences of the original manuscript were thus confronted with an illustrative program that emphasized the grief-stricken quality of the action following Raymondin’s verbal denunciation of Mélusine. Precisely at a textual moment when the heroine’s monstrosity and marvelous nature are revealed to the literary court, these images presented historical readers with depictions of the heroine in which her humanity is accentuated, not only by her own gestures and emotions, but also by those of her husband and courtiers. (Indeed, it is notable that throughout these illustrations, Mélusine herself is not distinguished visually from other ladies by her physical appearance or costume; rather, her position and movements in the scenes indicate her identity as the otherworldly heroine.) In effect, this iconographic development parallels a textual phenomenon observed by Kevin Brownlee and Sturm-Maddox, wherein once Raymondin has revealed Mélusine’s otherworldly nature to the court, he and the court then express their grief and regret for her as a worthy noblewoman in language and movements that reconfigure the

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heroine in precisely those mortal, courtly terms that the denunciation has recently denied her.54 We should not assume, however, that the original UHB manuscript uniformly diminished the wondrous, otherworldly elements of the romance. Indeed, other visible UHB fragments depict scenes with giants and arrows emanating from a mysterious source, hinting at the manuscript’s complex portrayal of the merveilleux.55 Further, in view of the manuscript’s close relationship with the Steinschaber edition, it is highly likely that the original manuscript in which the UHB fragments appeared also contained images of a monstrous Mélusine in f light.56 Nonetheless, even this probability does not contradict the interpretation proposed here concerning the fairy’s expression of human affect. After her transformation into an airborne serpent, Mélusine is referred to in the narrative as “the lady . . . transformed into the form of a serpent” [la dame . . . transmuee en guise de serpent] whose lamentations were so wondrous that the court “cried with pity and understood clearly . . . that she was leaving involuntarily” [chacun en plouroit de pitie/et apperceuoit on bien quelle se partoit . . . par constrainte (Steinschaber, 156v)]. As Sturm-Maddox remarks, in this passage “the emphasis falls precisely but paradoxically on an inner life that can be read by all.”57 Thus, even had the UHB manuscript included an illustration of the transformed heroine, it is reasonable to suggest that the impact of the previous images (and the following depiction of the maternal Mélusine), in conjunction with the passage above, continued to promote the fairy’s human sentiments alongside, and perhaps above, her otherworldly nature. The paradox presented by the fairy whose affective life humanizes her at the moment when supernatural immortality becomes her destiny is ref lected in another aspect of the UHB miniatures. Throughout the images, Mélusine’s emotional response to Raymondin’s condemnation is depicted within a somber Christian framework that compelled readers to recognize her human, maternal despair. Indeed, the second and third fragments demonstrate the artist/patron’s explicit attempt to avoid melodramatic and potentially humorous textual details in favor of a restrained, yet sympathetic portrait of the heroine’s grief. In effect, the fairy, in human form, articulates a model of Christian values at odds with her otherworldly, ambivalent nature. By emphasizing the humanity of the fairy to such an extent, the original UHB manuscript acknowledged and conveyed, more than earlier Roman de Mélusine manuscripts, the paradox inherent throughout the romance wherein the merveilleux incarnates Christian ideals.58 The humanization of the fairy in these fragments may well be viewed as part of a religiously motivated rationalization of the heroine, whose otherworldly ambivalence is suppressed.

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Ultimately, in evoking Mélusine’s humanity through its carefully crafted visual expressions of her emotional life, among all extant prose and poetic Roman de Mélusine volumes, the UHB manuscript uniquely explores the tension between sin and salvation in a world in which the mortal, the supernatural, and the Christian coalesce. Notes

1.

2.

3.

4.

I would like to thank staff of Upton House and the National Trust (U.K.) for granting private access to the fragments in 2001 and 2006, I and am very grateful to the Bibliographical Society and the National Trust for funding my research trip in 2006. Many thanks are due to John Tillotson, Stephanie Tarbin, and Mark Wilson, and to the editor of and contributors to this volume for their thoughtful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. Sincere thanks are especially due to John Tillotson and Jeff Rider, whose assistance contributed significantly to the inclusion of the quality reproductions of the Upton House Bearsted fragments included in this chapter. This assertion is based on the research conducted on the extant prose and verse Roman de Mélusine manuscripts for two chapters of my doctoral thesis, “Reading Mélusine: Romance Manuscripts and Their Audiences, c.1380–c.1530” (Australian National University, 2008–2009). To the best of my knowledge, only two scholars have mentioned these fragments in even a footnote: Laurence Harf-Lancner, “La serpente et le sanglier: Les manuscrits enluminés des deux romans français de Mélusine,” Le Moyen Age 101:1 (1995): 68, n. 9; and Eleanor Roach, “Introduction,” in Coudrette, Le Roman de Mélusine ou Histoire de Lusignan par Coudrette, ed. Eleanor Roach (Paris: Klincksieck, 1982), 13–14, n. 1. I am currently preparing a bibliographical essay on the fragments. Upton House, The Bearsted Collection: Pictures (London: National Trust, 1964), 62–63. The fragments date from c.1480–1500 and may be of a central or southeastern French provenance (I am grateful to M. François Avril, Bibliothèque nationale de France, for assistance concerning the fragments’ date and provenance). Although there are twelve extant fragments, each about 145–160 x 100–50 mm (w x h), they have been framed so that both sides of the fragment are visible, hence I consider each side as a fragment. Portions of the text are extant in approximately half of the fragments, including some of the sixteen illustrated fragments. References to foliation of the fragments relate to their position in the Bearsted Collection. On representations of this episode in German manuscripts, see Françoise Clier-Colombani, “Les gestes de Mélusine. Attitude gestuelle mélusinienne: inf luences et résonances dans l’image,” Sénéfiance 41 (1998): 157–159. Several other prose and verse Mélusine manuscripts were designed to include miniatures but were not completed. Among the nine illustrated

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manuscripts, I have included two prose manuscripts not generally cited by Mélusine scholars: London, British Library, MS Cotton Otho D. II, and a profusely illustrated manuscript that was sold at a Sotheby’s auction to a private bidder in 1937 (Thomas Smith, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Cottonian Library 1696 (Catalogus librorum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Cottonianae), Reprinted from Sir Robert Harley’s copy, annotated by Humfrey Wanley, together with documents relating to the fire of 1731, ed. C. G. C. Tite (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1984), 74–75; The magnificent library the property of the late seventh duke of Newcastle removed from Clumber, Worksop . . . (London: Sotheby’s, 1937), 247–248). For studies of the Mélusine prose and verse manuscripts and their patronage, see Louis Stouff in Jean d’Arras, Mélusine: roman du XIVe siècle, publié pour la première fois d’après le manuscrit de la Bibliothèque nationale de l’Arsenal, avec les variantes des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque nationale, ed. Louis Stouff (Dijon: Publications de l’Université de Dijon, 1932); Jean-Jacques Vincensini in Jean d’Arras, Mélusine ou La Noble Histoire de Lusignan, ed. Jean-Jacques Vincensini (Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 2003), 42–63; Eleanor Roach, “La tradition manuscrite du Roman de Mélusine par Coudrette,” Revue d’histoire des textes 7 (1977): 185–233; Roach in Coudrette, Le Roman de Mélusine; Matthew Morris in Couldrette, A Critical Edition of Couldrette’s Mélusine or Le Roman de Parthenay, ed. Matthew W. Morris (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003); and Colwell, “Reading Mélusine”. On the early editions of the prose romance, see Laurence Harf-Lancner, “L’illustration du Roman de Mélusine de Jean d’Arras dans les éditions du XVe et du XVIe siècle,” in Le Livre et l’image en France au XVIe siècle (Paris: Presses de l’Ecole normale supérieure, 1989) and Hélène Bouquin, “Les aventures d’un roman médiéval: éditions et adaptations de L’Histoire de Mélusine de Jean d’Arras (XVe –XIXe siècles)” (Thèse pour le diplôme d’archiviste paléographe, Ecole nationale des chartes, 2000). 5. Françoise Clier-Colombani, La Fée Mélusine au Moyen Age: Images, Mythes et Symboles (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1991), 82–83; Harf-Lancner, “La serpente et le sanglier,” 78–84. See also Christine Ferlampin-Acher, “Le monstre dans les romans des XIIIe et XIVe siècles,” in Ecriture et modes de pensée au Moyen Age, ed. Dominique Boutet and Laurence Harf-Lancner (Paris: Presses de l’Ecole normale supérieure, 1993), 69–87. 6. Translations throughout this chapter are my own. The extant textual (and some of the illustrated) fragments visible at Upton House bear a very close relationship with the text and imagery of the first French edition of the romance produced by Adam Steinschaber in Geneva in 1478, hence textual evidence is drawn from Meyer’s facsimile publication of Steinschaber’s edition (L’histoire de la belle Mélusine de Jean d’Arras: Reproduction en facsimile de l’édition de Genève, imprimée par Adam Steinschaber en 1478, ed. with a preface by W. -J. Meyer [Berne: Société Suisse des Bibliophiles, 1923–1924]). It will be cited as “Steinschaber, foliation” as above; abbreviations are expanded with italics. For comparison of the

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7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

17.

extant text visible on the UHB fragments with the relevant passages in the Steinschaber edition, see Colwell, “Reading Mélusine,” App. F. See Rupert T. Pickens, “The Poetics of Paradox in the Roman de Mélusine,” in Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction in Late Medieval France, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 52. Nora Lee Catherine Parkin’s dissertation, “Geschlect und Transgression: The Theology of Sin and Salvation in Thuering [sic] von Ringoltingen’s ‘Melusine’ ” (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1993) was unavailable to me at the time of writing. Sara Sturm-Maddox, “Alterity and Subjectivity in the Roman de Mélusine,” in The Court and Cultural Diversity, ed. E. Mullally and J. Thompson (Woodbridge and Rochester, NY: D. S. Brewer, 1997), 121. Christine Ferlampin-Acher, Fées, bestes et luitons. Croyances et merveilles dans les romans français en prose (XIIIe–XIVe siècles) (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2002), 166–168. Laurence Harf-Lancner, Les fées au Moyen Age. Morgane et Mélusine. La naissance des fées (Geneva: Editions Sklatine, 1984), part 4. I have followed François Garnier’s broad understanding of gestures as simple or complex physical movements that may have either (or occasionally both) a functional and narrative or symbolic and expressive role in iconography. See Garnier, Le langage de l’image au Moyen Age, vol. 1 (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1982), 43–45, 49. See, for example, Richard de Fournival’s thirteenth-century Le Bestiaire d’Amour suivi de la réponse de la dame, ed. C. Hippeau (1809; Geneva: Sklatine Reprints, 1978), 2; and M. B. Winn, “Antoine Vérard’s Presentation Manuscripts and Printed Books,” in Manuscripts in the Fifty Years after the Invention of Printing, ed. J. B. Trapp (London: Warburg Institute, 1983), 67. Stephen Nichols, “The Image as Textual Unconscious: Medieval Manuscripts,” L’Esprit Créateur 29:1 (1989): 7–23. On the understanding of imagery and verbal text as independent yet interconnected narrative modes, see Miecke Bal’s “On Looking and Reading: Word and Image, Visual Poetics and Comparative Arts,” Semiotica 76 (1989): 283–320. Adam Kendon, Gesture: Visible Action as Utterance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), esp. chapter 16. For assistance in the interpretation of ambiguous gestures I have relied on the exhaustive work of François Garnier in his Le langage de l’image au Moyen Age, 2 vols. (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1982 and 1989). The verse manuscripts to which reference will be made are Paris, BN manuscrits français 12575 (c. 1420s) and 24383 (c. 1460s). Hereafter these will be referred to as BN mss fr. 12575 and fr. 24383. For reasons of space, comparison with these works will be cursory. Comparison with the Steinschaber incunabulum suggests that the following sequence may have been the order in which early audiences encountered the fragments: 195r–v, 193r–v, 194v–r, 196v–r, 197r–v, 198v–r, 199r–v, 200r–v, 201r–v, 192v–r, 202r–v, 203r–v.

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18. Until this point, Mélusine’s emotions are conveyed implicitly, rather than explicitly (Sturm-Maddox, 124). 19. On various attitudes toward grief in the Middle Ages, see Jennifer C. Vaught, “Introduction,” in Grief and Gender: 700–1700, ed. Jennifer C. Vaught with Lynne Dickson Bruckner (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 1–14. Vaught notes that excessive grief was condemned by the Church “as offensive to God because it exhibited a lack of faith by denying or overlooking salvation” (4). Moderation in expression of grief was also promoted in late medieval secular conduct manuals such as that written by Anne de France for her daughter at the end of the fifteenth century (see Anne de France, Anne de France: Lessons for My Daughter, trans., ed., and intro. Sharon L. Jansen [Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2004], 64). 20. Kevin Brownlee, “Mélusine’s Hybrid Body and the Poetics of Metamorphosis,” Yale French Studies 86 (1994): 29. On anger as a sin, see The Book of Vices and Virtues. A Fourteenth-Century English Translation of Somme le Roi of Lorens d’Orléans, ed. W. N. Francis, EETS o.s, 217 (London: Humphrey Milford and Oxford University Press, 1942), 25–26. For discussions of various forms of anger in the Middle Ages, see Anger’s Past: The Social Uses of an Emotion in the Middle Ages, ed. Barbara H. Rosenwein (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998). 21. Two tears may have been painted on the heroine’s face, the barest traces of which are visible today on this fragment. 22. Moshe Barasch, Gestures of Despair in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art (New York: New York University Press, 1976), 17–18; Garnier, 1:120 and 223–225. 23. Garnier, 2:152. 24. On the relationship between external movement and one’s internal condition, see Jean-Claude Schmitt, La raison des gestes dans l’Occident médiéval (Paris: Gallimard, 1990), 18. The external sign of disorder provided by Raymondin’s apparent loss of his cap could equally hint at Raymondin’s angry denunciation and/or the social disorder, notably the departure of the lady of Lusignan, arising from his anger. 25. Steinschaber, 151v. 26. BN ms fr. 12575, 79r, BN ms fr. 24383, 24v, Steinschaber, 151r. 27. On gestures of prayer in the Middle Ages, see R. C. Trexler, “Legitimating Prayer Gestures in the Twelfth Century: The De Penitentia of Peter the Chanter” and Jean-Claude Schmitt, “Between Text and Image: The Prayer Gestures of Saint Dominic,” History and Anthropology 1 (1984): 97–126 and 127–162 respectively. 28. Garnier, 1:113 and 213; Geoffrey Koziol, Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992), 62–63. 29. Koziol, 182. 30. Steinschaber, 152r. 31. Jean-Charles Payen, Le Motif du repentir dans la litterature française médiévale (des origines à 1230) (Geneva: Librarie Droz, 1967), 534ff; Tom Lutz,

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32.

33.

34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

39. 40.

41.

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Crying: The Natural and Cultural History of Tears (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1999), 44. The image of the soaked torso as a sign of grief was used elsewhere in medieval French literature; see Heather Lloyd, “Chrétien’s Use of the Conventions of Grief Depiction in a Passage from Cligés,” Forum for Modern Language Studies 20:4 (1984): 319. Although Classen has shown that public displays of extreme emotion validate the sentiment expressed by given characters in the unique thirteenth-century Mai und Beaflor, late medieval art witnessed the f lourishing of a heightened realism and “mimetic naturalis” that, in the context of the devotio moderna movement, sought to enhance the aesthetic and spiritual responses of the audience. In light of this later fifteenth-century concern with empathic reception, it is possible that the artistic suppression of the Mélusine text’s more exaggerated instances of emotional expression was designed to elicit a stronger response than the text was understood to excite. See Albrecht Classen, “Roman sentimental in the Middle Ages? Mai und Beaflor as a Literary Ref lection of the Medieval History of Emotions,” Oxford German Studies 35:2 (2006): 83–100, and Lloyd William Benjamin III, “The Empathic Relation of Observer to Image in Fifteenth Century Northern Art” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1973). Although Mélusine is described as anguished and grieving, neither she nor the courtiers are actually described with tears at this point. Only after Mélusine and Raymondin have fainted together (figure 5.3) are the courtiers described as crying (Steinschaber, 152v–153v). On charity in the Roman de Mélusine, see Laurence de Looze, “ ‘La fourme du pié toute escripte’: Melusine and the Entrance into History,” in Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction in Late Medieval France, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 131, 133. Sandra J. McEntire, The Doctrine of Compunction in Medieval England: Holy Tears (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990), 173. Stacey L. Hahn, “Constructive and Destructive Violence in Jean d’Arras’ Roman de Mélusine,” in Violence in Medieval Courtly Literature: A Casebook, ed. Albrecht Classen (New York: Routledge, 2004), 201. Garnier, 1:116. A common trope for religious enclosure was the entrant’s death to the secular world, for discussion of which see Ann K. Warren, Anchorites and Their Patrons in Medieval England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 92–98. Steinschaber, 153r. The lower portion of the image (probably less than an eighth of the image) was lost in the cropping process. It is on the rear of the will-making scene (figure 5.4), and it seems as though the person responsible for the cropping was more interested in this scene than in having a complete “fainting” scene. Lisa Perfetti, “Introduction,” in The Representations of Women’s Emotions in Medieval and Early Modern Culture, ed. Lisa Perfetti (Gainesville,

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42.

43.

44. 45.

46. 47. 48. 49.

50. 51. 52. 53.

54.

55. 56. 57. 58.

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FL: University Press of Florida, 2005), 4–7, and, in the same volume, E. Ann Matter, “Theories of the Passions and the Ecstasies of Late Medieval Religious Women,” 23–29. On weeping and tears as a mode of communication and a means of insight into a character, see Lutz, 24, and Gary L. Ebersole, “The Function of Ritual Weeping Revisited: Affective Expression and Moral Discourse,” History of Religions 39:3 (2000): 229. On parody in textual depictions of mourning, see Virginie Greene, “Le deuil, mode d’emploi, dans deux romans de Chrétien de Troyes,” French Studies 52:3 (1998): 257–278 and Lloyd, “Chrétien’s Use of the Conventions of Grief Depiction in a Passage from Cligés,” 317–322. Steinschaber, 154v–155r. Raymondin’s posture suggests the character’s complex experience of several emotions simultaneously. His inclined head, hand positioning, and orientation away from the center of the room suggest both Raymondin’s interiorization of his despair and a resigned acceptance of, yet refusal to acknowledge, the reality of Mélusine’s departure, itself underscored by her will-making (Garnier, 1:141, 148, 151, 185). Garnier, 1:209–211, and David McNeill, Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 18. Steinschaber, 154r. David Fein, A Reading of Villon’s Testament (Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1984), 81. Gabrielle M. Spiegel, “Maternity and Monstrosity: Reproductive Biology in the Roman de Mélusine,” in Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction in Late Medieval France, ed. Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996), 114. On this point, see also Tania M. Colwell, “Mélusine: Ideal Mother or Inimitable Monster?” in Love, Marriage and Family Ties in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Isabel Davis, Miriam Muller and Sarah Rees-Jones (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 195. Claire S. Schen, Charity and Lay Piety in Reformation London, 1500–1620 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 21. BN ms fr. 12575, 89r, and ms fr. 24383, 30r. Steinschaber, 158r. On depictions of breastfeeding in the verse manuscripts, see Clier-Colombani, La Fée Mélusine, 71–74, and Catherine Léglu, “Nourishing Lineage in the Earliest French Versions of the Roman de Mélusine,” Medium Aevum 74:1 (2005): 71–74. Brownlee, 30–32; see also Sturm-Maddox, 127–128 on the “retrospective” creation of Mélusine’s affective life throughout the later stages of the romance. UHB 199r, 200r, 203v. See Steinschaber, 155v. Sturm-Maddox, 128. On the paradox, see Pickens, 65–68, de Looze, “ ‘La fourme du pié toute escripte’ ”, 128–134, and Colwell, “Reading Mélusine”, chapter 3.

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CHAPTER 6 IS SHE ANGRY OR JUST SAD? GRIEF AND SORROW IN THE SONGS OF THE TROBAIRITZ Hannie van Horen Verhoosel

Introduction

T

hirty years or so ago the trobairitz, or women troubadours, were practically unknown even among medievalists and scholars of Romance languages. A renewed interest in the work of the trobairitz was initiated in 1976, when Meg Bogin republished the texts of their songs.1 This was followed by a wide range of publications, notably Angelica Rieger’s Trobairitz, which is a bible of knowledge on the subject.2 Poetesses and usually ladies of high rank, the trobairitz were the female counterparts of the twelfth- and thirteenth-century troubadours, the lyric poets of courtly love, who lived and worked in southern France, a region that is now referred to as Occitania. The names of about fifteen trobairitz have survived and the work of five of them—Azalaïs de Porcairagues, Clara d’Andusa, Casteloza, Bieiris, and the Comtessa de Dia—will be the subject of this chapter. The trobairitz play a unique role in the medieval world of the troubadours, primarily because of their exceptional position as women in a male-dominated society. This position also applies to their work, which fits almost completely into the poetic code of the male troubadour lyric. It is one of the rare moments in history when women, more or less as a group, speak directly to us. From their songs we can learn how they, as women writers, envisaged courtly love. Their appearance in history seems to be unique to a certain place, southern France, and to the short period of a single century in which women had the opportunity

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to engage actively in political, social, and cultural affairs. No comparable phenomenon occurred in either the immediately preceding or in the immediately following periods of history. The trobairitz began to participate in the literary activities of the courts in southern France around 1150 and their works fall into different genres of courtly literature such as the canso [song], the tenso [dialogue], sirventes [a song addressing current events], and the planh [lamentation]. In this chapter, I will consider only the cansos of the trobairitz and an anonymous planh because it is only in these genres that the traditional poetic code is reversed. The erotic situation of this traditional code presumes, on the one hand, the male poet-lover who courts his lady and, on the other, the highly placed and idealized lady, the domna, who, after a certain period of courtship, is supposed to accept the poet as her lover. The trobairitz had to reverse this situation; they themselves became the active, speaking lovers, who wanted to court, to praise or blame their amic, the male counterpart of the domna of the troubadours. What are the consequences of the reversal of this code for the poetess and her amic? It has been widely accepted that the trobairitz did not simply take the place of the male poet-lover, nor did the amic simply take the place of the domna. The female poetess-lover has many characteristics of both the domna and the male poet-lover, and the amic, although less idealized than the domna, is often endowed with some of her qualities as well as those of the male poet-lover. As Kittye delle Robbins puts it with regard to the female lover, “the persona may be, in various configurations, the introjected lady of the male tradition, the male-poet figure reinvented as female, the new androgynous creation which incorporates many elements of both, or something else again, a character who rejects the traditions and/or remolds them to suit herself in shapes no man foresaw.”3 The question that will occupy us in this chapter is how the emotions and actions as well as the personal qualities and characteristics of the transformed characters of the female poetess-lover and the amic are expressed in the formal language of courtly love. The vocabulary of courtly love Troubadour lyric was formal poetry, tied to strict conventions with respect to poetical forms, language, style, and themes or motives. Writing a courtly love song was not so much a matter of creating something new as recreating using existing material, a subtle molding of a fixed set of linguistic elements. The vocabulary of courtly love plays a crucial role in this context, and only the study of this vocabulary can clarify the shades of meaning of traditional terms and expressions when used in a changed poetic code.

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The vocabulary of courtly love can best be defined as a collection of stereotypical terms and formulas—or clichés dynamiques [dynamic clichés], as Dragonetti labeled them—that express the central notions and values of courtly literature.4 It was important that these terms and formulas be familiar not only to the troubadours, but also to their audience, and that they belong not only to the specific vocabulary of an individual troubadour but be used by the majority of the troubadours in successive generations.5 The vocabulary of courtly love contains, and is the sole means of expressing, the complex world of courtesy, and it must be kept in mind constantly that all descriptions and definitions of the vocabulary of courtly love are based on the male code, even when one is speaking of the vocabulary of the trobairitz. A radical change, like the reversal of the traditional love code, must be traceable in the stereotypical terms and formulas of the vocabulary. The limited size and the static character of the vocabulary of courtly love result in a linguistic/lyric style in which characters, emotions, actions, and events are always presented in the same words. In male poetry the domna always has beltatz [beauty], valensa [value], and pretz [fame], and she is supposed to give her lover mercy, joi, or at least gen acolhir [good treatment]. The lover is also equipped with fixed qualities: he can be fizel [faithful], humil [modest], ardit [brave], or gai [cheerful], but he is often fearful of showing his feelings to the domna. His quest for the domna is marked by a number of stereotypical phases that have been treated systematically by Glynnis Cropp in her study of the vocabulary of courtly love, in which she has defined and classified a collection of about four hundred clichés dynamiques based on a study of the work of a substantial number of troubadours, representative of the twelfth century. Cropp discerned a series of lexical categories that represent the different aspects and phases of courtly love. In thirteen categories she described the terminology, for example, for the domna and the lover, courtly love and courtly values, the quest for the domna, the grief the lover experiences when the domna rejects him or his joy when she does accept him. The images of the male lover and the female beloved are constructed along fixed lines and expressed with the help of a fixed set of terms proper to each. These sets include not only terms for the description of character, but also terms for emotions, behavior, and actions that are attributed to him or her, and there is some overlap between the two sets. The question is this: what happens to these sets when the poetic code is reversed, as it is in the cansos of the trobairitz? As I stated earlier, the female poetesslover of the trobairitz song is not the same character as the domna, nor is the amic the same person as the male poet-lover, and differences between them could be labeled as shifts between the traditional sets of vocabulary

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used to describe the principal male and female characters of the poems. This means that in the songs of the trobairitz the female poetess-lover can not only be endowed with the qualities and characteristics of the male poet-lover but also take over his emotions, his behavior, and his actions. The extent to which the female poetess-lover and the amic are described with the traditional vocabulary of the domna and the poet-lover, respectively, or take over elements from the domains of their counterparts in troubadour song, will qualify their images in the songs of the trobairitz. Grief and sorrow in courtly love From the male perspective of troubadour poetry, feelings of grief and sorrow belong without exception to the domain of the lover, but does this imply that the terms in which these feelings are expressed are strongly gendered? Before starting to think of an answer to this question it is necessary to pause a moment to consider the essence of grief in courtly literature. In troubadour song, the poet-lover often suffers from strong feelings of grief and melancholy. The reasons for this can be obscure, but usually it is the domna who is the cause of his grief. She may have rejected him or treated him with cruelty, and a painful desire for her turns his thoughts to joyless brooding. He cannot have his beloved domna and all he can do is yearn for her and desire her. This seems to be the troubadours’ aim. Their love is a passionate love, and passion means suffering. Fulfillment of their passion is not what they seek, and even less the consummation of their love. Their aim is passion itself, which they sometimes suffer with joy.6 As Raimon de Miraval tells us, “What is the meaning of love, if one does not have to suffer for it? Because the jealousy and torment that I sense, and the anguish and desire redouble my joy” [Que val amors, s’om mal no-n trai/Que la jelosi’e-l turmens,/ Q’ieu n’aic, e-l angoiss’e-l talens/Mi fant doblamen esgauzir].7 In troubadour poetry, feelings of grief and sorrow are conceptualized in the notion dolor.8 This notion often appears in the context of the antithesis joi< >dolor, which is one of the most characteristic features of courtly love.9 We find this antithesis in many songs, but it can manifest itself in very different forms. The concept joi, the first and central notion of courtly love, refers to a specific attitude of the troubadour, characterized by a joyful, exalted state of mind that urges him not only to love [amar], but also to compose songs [chantar]. Just like joi, the concept dolor sometimes takes on a more metaphysical status: the sufferings of the troubadour seem to spring from a certain state of mind, and no sources for his grief can be found in the text of the song. In general the troubadours tend to describe their state of mind in polarities, a way of

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thinking they probably inherited from the Cathars, whose religion was based on Manicheism, a doctrine that preached a sharp contrast between light and darkness, between good and evil, and between the spiritual and the material world. The citation from Raimon is also a good example of the way the troubadours express their grief. As Cropp points out, the inner struggle of the troubadour is far from subtle. He aims for joy, but at the same time he enjoys increasing his pain and the difficulties he has to overcome. The vocabulary of courtly love includes a great number of terms for feelings of grief and sorrow, and the lack of subtlety and psychological analysis in the poems is only partially compensated by the rich vocabulary that the poet uses to emphasize the importance of his sufferings. The severity of his grief is expressed through a cumulative procedure, that is, through the number of terms that he uses, a procedure that sometimes leads to excess.10 Sequences of more than four terms are quite common in troubadour poetry. To clarify the wide differentiation in meaning of all these terms, Cropp divided them into three subcategories: (1) terms for physical pain and deep sorrow, (2) terms for introspection, and (3) terms for physical effects. Cropp does not include in this category terms for feelings of anger as an expression of grief, but I will show that it is precisely this kind of expression of grief that plays an important role in the songs of the trobairitz. Although the total number of poems by the trobairitz is very small, they also make use of the full range of these terms. In order to compare their use of these terms with that of the troubadours, I have selected a corpus of troubadour song texts in which grief and sorrow are more or less thematic, or at least present in the standard terms.11 The selection includes a corpus of twenty-two songs by eight troubadours.12 The distribution of the terms for grief over the different categories in trobairitz texts is very similar to that in troubadour texts. Terms for pain, damage, and distress (category 1) and terms for crying, complaining, languishing, and even dying (category 3) have the highest scores in the texts of both the troubadours and the trobairitz. It is remarkable that even within the categories, the scores for individual terms show a striking correspondence, but sequences of more than two terms are rare in trobairitz songs. It seems, therefore, that there is almost no difference between the two textual corpora from a quantitative point of view. There is, however, a noticeable difference between the attribution of feelings of grief to a male and that to a female. In troubadour poetry, as I stated earlier, these feelings belong exclusively to the domain of the male lover, who is not necessarily the first-person narrator.13 In trobairitz song, these feelings are likewise attributed mainly to the female lover,

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but there are also a number of cases where pain and sorrow are assigned to a male person, especially to lauzengiers [slanderers] or other malevolent characters, the notorious troublemakers in troubadour song. Neither the trobairitz nor the troubadours ever seem to wish their beloved any harm, but this does not mean that they do not blame them: Casteloza and the Comtessa de Dia especially hold their amic fully responsible for their misfortune, and many troubadours reproach their domnas for their cruelty, neglect, or arrogance. Casteloza even uses her suffering to threaten her amic: if he lets her die, his blame will be great. She labels his behavior as a pechat [sin] and thus denounces his cruelty as morally improper and completely against the code of courtly love: “and if you let me die, you’ll commit a sin, and I will be in pain for that and you will be blamed severely” [E si’m laissatz morir/Faretz pechat, e serai n’en tormen/E seretz ne blasmatz vilanamen].14 The troubadours sometimes also refer to a kind of self-reproach, but the trobairitz never do so. So far, we have seen only a slight difference in the articulation of feelings of grief in trobairitz and troubadour poetry. However, it would be facile to say that everything the trobairitz did is a reversal of the code, replacing the male sufferer by a female sufferer. If we look at other aspects of utterances of grief in courtly love poetry, the differences are much more clear-cut. It is important to realize that the “love affairs” in which the protagonists in a song are involved can vary widely. In some songs the love affair is presented as a reality15: the lover praises and pleads with his beloved; he suffers for her and vows eternal fidelity to her. She can or will respond to this positively or negatively. In other songs, however, the love affair seems to be imaginary: the lover speaks of his deep desire and of his sufferings because of the lady, but she is not really present, is not aware of her admirer, and never responds. In fact, this domna does not seem to be a living person; she is an ideal and as such unattainable to the poet-lover. In troubadour poetry we find both kinds of love affairs in roughly the same number, but in trobairitz song the “real” love affair seems to prevail. The amic of the trobairitz is presented as a “real” person, although he is never present. Their love affair is “real” too but always has to end or is impossible from the very start. In this respect, only the songs of Casteloza are a possible exception to the pattern; her beloved is a “real” person, but sometimes the love affair seems to exist only in her imagination. Having established this difference in the kinds of love affairs portrayed in the two corpora of songs, we can ask whether there is any relation between the love affair and the sources of grief in courtly love song. There indeed seems to be such a relation in both troubadour and trobairitz song, but before we can consider this relation in detail we need to look at the sources of grief themselves.

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Sources of grief in courtly poetry One cannot always discover the sources of grief directly from the literal contents of a song, but in most cases it is the domna or the amic who is the cause of the trouble. However, this does not mean that they are always actively involved. Only in certain cases is the grief a direct consequence of an action by the domna or the amic. The most common reproaches are cruel treatment and neglect, the refusal to accept the poet(ess) as a lover, and the intention to make him or her languish too long, even to the point of death. I will refer to causes of this type as external causes. More often, however, the domna or the amic is only indirectly responsible for the lover’s pain and sorrow. The hopeless desire for the beloved can cause immense suffering, as can the poet(ess)’s inability to show his or her love. It is also possible that the lover feels a strong inhibition against articulating his or her feelings, often stemming from the fear of losing the beloved or being confronted with a refusal. Other sources of grief include physical absence or doubts about the sincerity or fidelity of the domna or the amic. More than once the lover shows regret or remorse because of his own shortcomings. All these causes of grief can be labeled as internal. One might expect that in love affairs that are presented as “real” the pain and sorrow of the lover will often be caused directly by actions or reactions of the domna or the amic (external causes). In trobairitz song this seems to be true: in this kind of love affair, the causes of grief are external more than seventy percent of the time. In A chantar, for example, the Comtessa complains about her lover’s betrayal, “For now I am deceived and betrayed” [Qu’atressi ‘m sui enganad’e traïa], and his objectionable attitude, “to me you are arrogant in what you say and do” [Mi faitz orguolh en dichz et en parvença].16 In troubadour song, however, the reasons for grief are divided equally between external and internal causes. In imaginary love affairs in both troubadour and trobairitz song the causes of grief are largely internal. As we have seen before, the love affairs in trobairitz song can generally be labeled as more “realistic,” so in this category we can expect that the lover’s grief will more often have an external cause. In the songs of Azalaïs, Clara, and the Comtessa, as well as in the anonymous planh, there can be no doubt about what causes the grief: it is the loss or even death of the beloved. Azalaïs de Porcairagues tells us, “I have lost him, to whom my life belongs and will as a result be sad forever” [Celui perdiei qu’a ma vida/E’n serai totz jorns marrida].17 In Casteloza’s songs we find a mixture of external and internal causes, and in some cases the situation is far from clear. In Amics, s’ie’us trobes avinen, the female lover suffers from the cruel and unkind attitude of the

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amic—“I find you bad, cruel and treacherous to me” [Qu’us trop vas mi mal e felon e tric]18 —but her pain is also caused by her own persistence in loving a man who does not accept her: “I will never stop loving you, even if I do not get any joy from you” [Car joya non m’ave/de vos, don no’m recre/d’amar . . . ].19 In Ja de chantar, the consciousness of her bad luck in matters of love seems to cause a permanent state of desperation: “in love it goes ever ill with me. Laments and tears have settled down in me” [E pieitz me vai d’amor,/Que planh e plor/Fan en mi lor estatge]. 20 In this respect Casteloza’s songs resemble those of the troubadours. There, too, we find a mixture of external and internal causes and their love affairs cannot always be clearly defined as either “realistic” or imaginary. In troubadour song, more than in trobairitz song, grief is caused by feelings of uncertainty and doubts about the steadfastness not only of the domna’s love but also of their own love. Bernart de Ventadorn is tormented by self reproach: “Arrogance, may God break you. My eyes weep because of you it is only fair that I’m denied all joy because it was me who took it away” [Orgolhs, Deus vos franha/C’ara ploron mei olh / Dreihz es que’m sofranha/Tots jois, qu’eu eis lo’m tolh].21 If the troubadour comes to the conclusion that the domna is not going to accept him and that there is no more hope for him, he will not persist in his love for her, but he ends the relation with a cumjat [exchange] and starts looking for another domna. In trobairitz song there is no cumjat; the trobairitz never stop loving their amic, no matter what harm he does, and they are proud of it. In fact, they find themselves to be better lovers than their male colleagues: “it pleases me, that I surpass you in matters of love” [E platz mi mout quez eu d’amar vos vença], the Comtessa de Dia tells her lover in A chantar.22 Just as the reversal of the courtly love code inf luences the causes of grief in the songs of the trobairitz, it can also affect the articulation of grief in several aspects. One aspect concerns the degree to which grief is experienced as a purely personal matter; another concerns the degree to which the grief is presented as real or imaginary. Personal grief or courtly value? In many troubadour songs, we encounter a personal experience of grief as well as the expression of grief as a concept [dolor]. The latter can be dealt with in sections of a more abstract and general kind, but it can also be articulated by the attribution of grief to a male character other than the first-person narrator. We find many examples of attributions of grief to a third person in troubadour lyrics, which, although they contain utterances of a general kind, are meant as a reference for the

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personal grief of the poet-lover. Having told us that “Nobody knows what joy is or distress, if he hasn’t been in Amor’s power,” Aimeric de Peguilhan continues, “But I do know the pain and the torment, and I am ignorant of what happiness means” [Nulhs hom no sap que s’es gaugz ni dolors,/S’en son poder non 1’a tengut Amors/Mas ieu sai be la dolor e· l turmen/E re no sai quals es la benanansa].23 Although passages such as this almost always point to the personal circumstances of the first-person narrator, they often strengthen the impression that grief is more than merely a personal experience for the troubadour, even in a particular song. They give the troubadour the opportunity to inform his audience about the essence of dolor, or to warn against the consequences of “uncourtly” behavior. These sections are often formulated as sayings or fixed expressions. There are only a few examples of passages dealing with dolor as a courtly convention that are not directly related to the personal affairs of the troubadour. Practically none of this can be found in the lyrics of the trobairitz, as they seem to express mainly their personal grief. There are several passages of a general or abstract nature in their songs, but they do not refer to the concept dolor. Attributions of grief to other women are scarce: there are only two cases. In her Ja de chantar, Casteloza refers to the grief that cavaliers inf lict on domnas in general,24 and in her Mout avetz there is a single fixed expression: “A lady can die of only a little harm, if one doesn’t keep it away from her” [Car per pauc de malanança/Mòr dòmna s’òm tot no’lh 1ança].25 This expression is meant to refer to the firstperson narrator. It is also interesting to examine the role of Amor in love affairs. Amor appears as a personification of love in many troubadour songs, and in a few he is also an active participant in the love affair. In such songs the troubadour deals with love as an abstraction. His personal love is externalized and represented as a personification of the concept amor. Sometimes this personification becomes a real person and then the poet can initiate a dialogue with him. In a number of songs Amor turns out to be very powerful, because it is Amor who makes the lover choose a particular domna, often one who proves not to be the best choice. The lover holds neither himself nor the domna responsible for what happens, but Amor, and the pain he has to endure will also be blamed on Amor. We find Amor in such a role especially in the songs of Aimeric de Peguilhan and Gaucelm Faidit. In Aimeric’s song the lover is completely in the power of Amor, who steers his course of action, and who saves him or makes him suffer at his whim: “He certainly doesn’t want to kill me quickly, but worse than death, to make me fade away. . . . But I can’t resist Amor: I love and I hate whom he wants me to” [Pero no·m vol ges colamen

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aucir, /Abans mi fai languen piegz de morir./. . ./Mas ieu non puesc ad Amor contradire:/So que·l platz am, e so que·l platz adire].26 Gaucelm Faidit’s attitude toward Amor is remarkable. In his song De solatz e de chan, he utters one accusation after another, but in Jamais, nuill temps he is very forgiving toward Amor: “If Amor has ever hurt me, I forgive him, because he is the one who made my beloved domna cross my path” [E si, anc jorn, mi fetz en ren marrir,/Er li perdon lo destric e.l dampnatge,/C’a tal dompna fai mos precs acoillir].27 Although we find several examples of personification in trobairitz poetry as well, it never concerns Amor. The trobairitz never blame their grief on some sort of “higher power,” but always directly or indirectly on the attitude or the behavior of the amic. Someone else, such as the lauzengiers, is occasionally blamed, but Amor himself is never held responsible. Does this mean that in general the grief of the trobairitz has to be considered as a strictly personal affair? I think the answer is “yes.” In their songs the trobairitz articulate principally private feelings of pain and distress that refer for the most part to their personal love affairs and these are, as might be expected, only rarely a cause for joy. Real or imaginary grief ? A second aspect of dolor with which we must deal is the degree of reality of the grief the lovers must or choose to endure. Just like the love affair itself, grief can, to some extent, be presented as a reality. This is the case in most of the songs of the trobairitz. Their grief, the lover’s suffering, is presented in the realis [indicative mood].28 Azalaïs, for instance, states that because of the loss of her beloved she “will be sad for all her days” [E’n serai totz jorns marrida].29 Sometimes grief is presented as a reality to be avoided or denied, as in Fin joi of the Comtessa de Dia: “I don’t lose myself in worries nor in any anxiety” [E non m’o tenh a pesança/ni a negun pensamen].30 In many cases, however, the grief does not seem to be real, but potential, optional, conditional, or purely imaginary. In such cases grief is placed in the irrealis [subjunctive or conditional mood]. In this respect, the work of Casteloza stands out. In her songs we find examples of both real and imaginary grief, and some images of the latter are extraordinary. In Mout avetz, she presents us with her morir [dying]. She depicts her death as an accomplished fact, but at the same time she makes it conditional: “And if you pay attention to someone else, you have killed and betrayed me” [E si d’autra vos perté,/M’avètz mòrta e traïda]. 31 Her sorrow in Amics is purely imaginary, however, since she suggests the possibility that her amic might set her heart at rest: “If you should tell me that I need not worry anymore” [Quan me dissetz que non agués cossir].32

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Although grief is usually presented as a reality in the songs of the troubadours, we also find examples of imaginary grief in most of their songs, and a firm relationship between the status of the grief and its external/internal causes cannot be established. Actual pain is by no means always caused by external circumstances, and imaginary pain can just as well be the consequence of internal causes as of external ones. In Uc de Saint-Circ’s song Gent ant saubut, the distress and the yearning of the lover do not result from the actions of the domna, but from mere frustration with the fact that he does not dare to open his mouth in her presence. Thus, his pain is real, but it is caused by internal factors.33 Another example is Bernart de Ventadorn’s lover, whose “suffering to death” [morir de dol] is presented as a consequence of the gossip of lauzengiers; but this does not really happen and is, on the contrary, a situation that the poetlover wants to avoid. 34 In this case the pain is imaginary and the supposed cause is external. Lexical and semantic details As we have seen earlier, the distribution of the terms for grief in the songs of the trobairitz and the troubadours is similar. Terms for physical and psychological pain and suffering, such as dol, mal, and dan, and for physical effects, such as plorar, planher, sospir, and morir, are very common in both troubadour and trobairitz song. Other terms with a more specific meaning, such as ira [anger], marrimen [inconsolable sadness], or esmai [embarrassment], likewise appear in both textual corpora, but to a much lesser extent. Terms for grief, moreover, are, with a few exceptions, attributed to the first-person narrator in both corpora. This could lead to the conclusion that the female lover of the trobairitz songs has simply replaced the male lover of the troubadour songs. However, this is not the case. We have to keep in mind that the female lover of the trobairitz song always bears characteristics of both the male lover and the domna of the troubadours. Since the link between feelings of grief and the male lover is quite strong in troubadour poetry, we might expect to find more expressions of grief in trobairitz poetry in which the female lover resembles the male lover of troubadour poetry than in trobairitz poetry in which the female lover resembles the troubadours’ domna, and that is precisely what we do find in the songs of the trobairitz. In the songs of the Comtessa de Dia, where the first-person narrator identifies herself, for the most part, with the domna, we find very few expressions of grief. In A chantar there are only two utterances of grief: in the second verse the female lover speaks about her rancura [resentment] against her beloved, and in verse sixteen she mentions her duolha [sadness]. 35 The term rancura, in particular,

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points to the fact that in A chantar the Comtessa deals with feelings of anger, resentment, and affront to a much greater extent than she does with feelings of sadness, pain, or distress. Anger, resentment, and affront can also be traced in the Comtessa’s song Fin joi and in Clara d’Anduza’s En greu esmai, but there they are not directed against the beloved.36 Although the identification of the lover with the domna in Clara’s song is rather weak lexically, there is no doubt that she is a woman.37 The female lover expresses her feelings of grief as much in terms of anger and resentment as in those of sadness and sorrow. In the song Estat ai of the Comtessa, grief at the loss of the beloved appears only in the first strophe, where it provides the justification for the second and third strophes, in which the Comtessa remembers her erotic desire for her lover. “I have been in great sorrow because of a lover I once had. . . . That is why I am in great pain now” [Estat ai en grèu cossirièr/Per un cavalièr qu’ai agut, . . . /Don ai estat en gran error].38 In Fin joi, the Comtessa denies the very existence of feelings of this kind. Even the knowledge that malevolent lauzengiers want to hurt her cannot upset her. She firmly states that she is not going to worry, and that she is twice as happy because of it. 39 In the songs of the Comtessa de Dia and Clara d’Andusa, then, the strong identification of the female lover with the domna seems to be incompatible with feelings of pain and distress but is, to a slight degree, compatible with anger or resentment. The idea of being a victim is not acceptable to a domna; if her feelings are hurt, she takes it as an affront and it arouses her anger. This view is supported by the songs of Casteloza, in which we find the opposite situation. There the female lover identifies strongly with the male lover of the troubadour song, and we encounter a first-person narrator who cultivates her grief. Her songs contain an abundance of terms for sadness, sorrow, pain, and distress: in fact, we find three times as many of these terms in Casteloza’s work as in the Comtessa’s. It is also significant that feelings of anger and resentment are absent from Casteloza’s songs. The female lover has no rancura for her amic, rather she seems deeply distressed and she suffers his cruelty with resignation. She may blame him severely, but she never tries to make him change his attitude. On the contrary, she endures her misfortune. This aspect has already been pointed out in H. Jay Siskin and J. A. Storme’s essay on Casteloza’s love, where they label it as her “suffering love.”40 Feelings of pain, sorrow, and sadness are dominant in troubadour song, but feelings of anger and resentment also occur. In particular, the term ira [anger] appears quite frequently. But as Cropp has pointed out, this term does not always represent anger.41 In most cases ira means sorrow or grief. This also holds true for our corpus of troubadour texts. We find only a few cases in which ira means anger, but the anger of the troubadours

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is mainly directed against slanderers and envious busybodies [lauzengiers and gelos], although sometimes it may also be directed against a lord or Amor himself. Only once does the lover direct his anger at a lady, who really does deserve blame: “No matter how I weep, complain and rage about her who took her love away from me” [Ni-m plor ni-m plaing ni-m n’irais/Per leis que s’amor m’estrais].42 Anger as an expression of grief directed at the lover in a personal love affair seems characteristic only for trobairitz song. Conclusions It is obvious that contrasts in the articulation of grief are determined not only by the gender of the terms. The type of love affair, the sources of grief, and the degree of personal involvement are also important. In the songs of the trobairitz, as we have seen, the majority of the relationships are presented as real ones, whereas in troubadour song we also find a substantial number of imaginary relations. In trobairitz song the causes of grief are more often to be found in external circumstances, and they can frequently be identified directly. The troubadours, however, often articulate inner doubts, uncertainty, and feelings of self-reproach. The grief of the trobairitz is always strictly personal, while in troubadour song grief is sometimes treated in a more general sense. The role of Amor is somewhat different in trobairitz and troubadour poetry. Although Amor is personified in trobairitz song, he never takes part in the action as a character, as he does in the songs of the troubadours. This means that in courtly love the male lover is often dependent on higher powers that lead, and sometimes mislead, him. In trobairitz song it is above all the attitude of the amic that determines the feelings, the behavior, and the actions of the female lover. I return now to the question asked at the beginning of this chapter: Is she angry or just sad? As we have observed, in the songs of the Comtessa and Clara we find only a few terms for grief that represent real sadness and sorrow and, to the degree in which they are present, these feelings are denied or overruled by feelings of anger. In Casteloza’s songs, though, the presence of pain, sorrow, and distress is very evident. What is the consequence of these observations for the gender of the terms for grief [dolor]? The incompatibility of pain and sorrow with the status of the domna interferes with the expression of grief in songs where the identification with the domna is strong. Feelings of grief are thus neither purely male nor purely female in the songs of the trobairitz, but their gender is, rather, always complex. Since we find expressions of grief

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for the most part in songs in which the poetess-lover identifies mainly with the role played by the poet-lover in the troubadour songs, we may assume that grief in the sense of sadness and sorrow is predominantly male and that identification with the domna tends to result in the articulation of grief in terms of anger or resentment. One could object that we are not dealing here with men or women but only with the persona of the domna and the lover. This might be true, but in troubadour poetry the domna, even if she possesses some male characteristics, is always clearly a female character. This means that in the songs of the trobairitz, who were themselves domnas, there is always a certain degree of identification of the first person with the domna. Even if the identification with the male lover is strong, they cannot ignore the domna. This might also be the reason why their love is always personal. For the trobairitz it might not be possible to think of courtly love as an abstraction wherein the domna is presented as an idealization, a projection of the yearnings and the ideals of the troubadours, because this domna is a personage with whom the trobairitz cannot identify. With regard to the notion dolor we could say that in courtly song the gender of grief, even when attributed to a female person, is predominantly male. In trobairitz song, there is a shift toward female grief, but only when the dimension of anger is involved. In her songs Casteloza, who—of all the trobairitz—identifies most strongly with the male lover, articulates her grief in terms of sadness, speaks about her sufferings and her distress, and even fears to die because of the pain she must endure. The Comtessa, however, although she too might feel sad sometimes, is also constantly aware of the fact that she is a domna; she is proud and does not accept the betrayal of her lover. Thus, sadness and anger are both present in the songs of the trobairitz, but the more the female lover presents herself as a domna, the less she can show sadness and the more she demands respect from her lover. And when he fails to give it, then she is really angry. Notes 1. Meg Bogin, The Women Troubadours (New York: Paddington, 1976). Oscar Schultz-Gora published the first edition of the complete works of the trobairitz in 1888 (Die provenzalischen Dichterinnen: Biographien und Texte nebst Anmerkungen und einer Einleitung [Leipzig: G. Fock, 1888]). 2. Angelica Rieger, Trobairitz; Der Beitrag der Frau in der altokzitanischen höfischen Lyrik: Edition des Gesamtkorpus (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1991). Other important studies on the trobairitz include those by Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); Katharina Städtler, Altprovenzalische Frauendichtung (1150–1250): Socialhistorische

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3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

12. 13.

14. 15. 16.

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Untersuchungen und Interpretationen (Heidelberg: Winter, 1990); Pierre Bec, Chants d’amour des femmes-troubadour (Paris: Éditions Stock, 1995); and Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner, Laurie Shepard, and Sarah Melhado White, Songs of the Women Troubadours (New York: Garland, 1995). Kittye Delle Robbins, “Woman/Poet: Problem & Promise in Studying the Trobairitz & Their Friends,” Encomia 1:3 (1977), 12. With regard to the subject position of the female lover, Sarah Kay states that “the masculine gender system is repressive for women and inhibits the expression of desire. Their subjectivity, when it is not annexed, is silenced or oppressed” (Subjectivity in Troubadour Poetry [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990], 111). Simon Gaunt focuses on women’s access to language: “The trobairitz highlight the difficulty facing women if they choose to write in a male dominated genre” (Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995], 179). R. Dragonetti, La technique poétique des trouvères dans la chanson courtoise (Bruges: De Tempel, 1960), 541. Glynnis Cropp, Le vocabulaire courtois des troubadours de l’époque classique (Geneva: Droz, 1975), 12. Denis de Rougemont, L’amour et l’occident, ed. définitive (Paris: Plon, 1972), 36–48. Raimon de Miraval, Ben sai que per aventura, l. 13–16, in Raimon de Miraval, Les Poésies du troubadour Raimon de Miraval, ed. L. T. Topsfield (Paris: Nizet, 1971), 186. Pierre Bec refers to this notion as “the painful isotopy” (l’isotopie douloureuse), which he contrasts with “the joyous isotopy” (l’isotopie joyeuse) (“La douleur et son univers poétique chez Bernard de Ventadour. Essai d’analyse systématique,” Cahiers de Civilisation médiévale 12 [1969]: 33). Pierre Bec, “L’antithèse poétique chez Bernard de Ventadour,” in Mélanges de philologie romane dédiés à la mémoire de Jean Boutiére, ed. Irénée Cluzel and François Pirot, 2 vols. (Liège: Soledi, 1971), 1:136. Cropp, 275. This selection was possible thanks to Peter T. Ricketts, Concordance de l’Occitan médiéval/The Concordance of Medieval Occitan, Concordance of Medieval Occitan (COM), 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001) (CD-ROM). In this chapter every reference to troubadour poetry, lyrics, and so on relates to this selection. There are a few cases where the troubadours mention grief in connection with the domna, but this grief is always denied or uttered as a possibility to be avoided. Casteloza, Amics, s’ie’us trobes avinen, l. 46–48 in Bec, Chants d’amour, 79. The term “reality” does not refer to any biographical experience of the troubadour or trobairitz. Comtessa de Dia, A chantar m.er de so qu.ieu non volria, l. 6 and 13, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 102.

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17. Azalaïs de Porcairagues, Ar em al freg temps vengut, 47–48, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 67. 18. Casteloza, Amics, s’ie’us trobes avinen, l. 6–8, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 78–79. 19. Casteloza, Ja de chantar non degr’aver talan, 1. 15–17, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 81. 20. Casteloza, Ja de chantar, l. 3–5, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 81. 21. Bernart de Ventadorn, Lancan vei la folha, l. 69–73, in Bernard de Ventadour, Chansons d’amour de Bernard de Ventadour, ed. Moshé Lazar (Paris, 1966), 206–210. [Query: Is the publisher name known for the work mentioned in note 21?] 22. Comtessa de Dia, A chantar, l. 11, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 102. 23. Aimeric de Peguilhan, Nulhs hom, l. 1–4, in Aimeric de Peguilhan, The Poems of Aimeric de Peguilhan, ed. W. P. Shepard and Frank M. Chambers (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1950), 190. 24. Casteloza, Ja de chantar, l. 46–48, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 82. 25. Casteloza, Mout avetz fach lonc estatge, l. 39–40, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 86. 26. Aimeric de Peguilhan, De fin’amor comenson mas chansos, l. 15–16, 29–30, in Aimeric de Peguilhan, 190–192. 27. Gaucelm Faidit, De solatz e de chan, in Gaucelm Faidit, Les Poèmes de Gaucelm Faidit, ed. J. Mouzat (Paris: Nizet, 1965), 329–332; Jamais, nuill temps, l. 6–8, in Gaucelm Faidit, 105. 28. Cf. Joan Ferrante, “Notes Toward the Study of a Female Rhetoric in the Trobairitz,” in The Voice of the Trobairitz, ed. W. Paden (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 66. 29. Azalaïs de Porcairagues, Ar em al freg temps vengut, l. 48, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 68. 30. Comtessa de Dia, Fin joi me don’alegranca, l. 3–4, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 107. 31. Casteloza, Mout avetz, l. 7–8, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 85. 32. Casteloza, Amics, l. 49, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 79. 33. Uc de Saint-Circ, Gent ant saubut miei uoill vensser mon cor, l. 19–21, in Uc de Saint-Circ, Poésies de Uc de Saint-Circ, ed. A. Jeanroy and J. J. Salverda de Grave (Toulouse: Privat, 1913), 21. 34. Bernart de Ventadorn, Lonc temps a qu’eu non chantei mai, l. 25–27, in Bernart de Ventadorn, 132. 35. Comtessa de Dia, A chantar, l. 2 and 16, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 102. 36. See Comtessa de Dia, Fin joi, l. 20, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 107; Clara d’Anduza, En greu esmai, l. 8 and 25, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 95. 37. By referring (indirectly) to her lover as an “amador,” a name for the poetlover in troubadour poetry, she situates herself implicitly in the position of a domna. She also compares herself (again indirectly) to “other ladies” [autras donas] (Clara d’Anduza, En greu esmai, l. 19–20, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 95).

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38. Comtessa de Dia, Estat ai, l. 1–2, 7, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 105. 39. Comtessa de Dia, Fin joi, l. 3–8, in Bec, Chants d’amour, 105. 40. H. Jay Siskin and J. A. Storme, “Suffering Love: The Reversed Order in the Poetry of Na Casteloza,” in Paden, ed., 113. 41. Cropp, 287. 42. Uc de Saint-Circ, Ses dezir e ses razo, l. 20–21, in Uc de Saint-Circ, 56.

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CHAPTER 7 BETWEEN CONCEALMENT AND ELOQUENCE: THE IDEA OF THE IDEAL WOMAN IN MEDIEVAL PROVENÇAL LITERATURE Jennifer Rudin

Beautiful—that’s the excuse Honorable—for this is what the social conventions demand Virgin—to make the achievement even more brilliant 1

G

eorges Duby gives a clear picture of a desirable mistress in medieval Provence: she must be so beautiful that a man cannot help falling in love with her at once and, therefore, be the victim; she has to be honorable so that loving her is a sign of an appreciation for good manners and a respect for what counts in noble society; and, last but not least, she must be a virgin and whomever she finally loves will be the one and only man in her life. Medieval Provençal didactic literature, especially the so-called ensenhamen, provides other, contemporary, more gratifying descriptions of what a woman must be and do to please a man in twelfth- and thirteenth- century Provence; however, and the rules they set down for women’s behavior will be the subject of this chapter. The term ensenhamen means “guidance, indoctrination, teaching” and could, therefore, denote every piece of didactic poetry that somehow provides instruction.2 It has, however, been applied to only twelve poems,3 and some scholars suggest that it should be applied to only eight or nine, or even only five poems, depending on the definition one uses to determine what constitutes an ensenhamen.4 Karl Bartsch wrote that “in a strict sense we consider these texts to be indoctrinations for a certain rank, listing its

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obligations—not in a generally moralizing way, but individually, taken from real life.”5 Albert Stimming noted further that “some [ensenhamen] . . . try to instruct with regard to external graces and . . . are often dedicated to specific strata of society, or even to individuals,” and Bohs concluded that “in Provençal literature Ensenhamens are didactic poems that provide instruction, in part for individuals, who represent specific groups, in part for several groups in general, concerning correct behavior, bos captenemens (‘good Tone’), in the elite, sophisticated world.”6 The ensenhamens are thus often addressed to people of a specific rank or social station. The first two ensenhamens listed in note 3, for example, are addressed to a cavayer [knight], the third one to an escudier [scholar], the forth to a guarso [boy], the fifth, sixth, and seventh to a joglar [minstrel], the eighth to a domna [lady],7 and the ninth to a donzela [young lady]; the last three of these twelve ensenhamens, however, are written in a more general manner, giving advice applicable to persons of different ranks. The ensenhamen of Arnaut de Mareuil, for example, contains rules of a more moral nature and is written not only for a cavayer and a domna, but also for citizens and clerics, and contains complaints about the decadence of the age.8 It does not, therefore, appear to be a typical ensenhamen when compared, for example, to the ones that give instruction about courtly behavior, such as the two poems written for women: “El terminie d’estiu” by Garin lo Brun9 and “En aquel mes de mai” by Amenieu des Escas.10 What unites all twelve poems, however, is quite simple. They are united, first, by the circumstances in which the instruction takes place. These circumstances are described beautifully by both Amanieu des Escas and Raimon Vidal: the teaching is set in the month of May, birds are singing, each one its part in low and high range, new life is growing everywhere, fruits and f lowers are blooming, it is a bright and sunny day.11 The twelve poems are also united by their dramatic nature. At the beginning of their instructional section, the poet seems lost in his thoughts and is interrupted by the appearance of someone who comes to him and asks for his advice.12 The poet interrupts whatever he’s been doing and starts a long and detailed lesson in the form of a monologue. Garin lo Brun’s poem is the earliest traditional ensenhamen and one of the two addressed to an individual woman.13 It begins with a “locus amoenus”-like description of the poet walking through a blooming garden on a bright summer day.14 A woman appears and, in the course of their conversation, asks him to advise her on how to behave properly: “A lady came to me with regard to a difficult matter and asked me to tell her something frankly, out of friendship: namely, by what measures or by what chance, through what teachings and by what attitude a lady could

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keep herself from behaving badly, how she could be known, loved and treasured for worth, and can be taught about prestige, learn how to be loved and treasured, and avoid all misbehavior according to the norms of cortesia” [Una domna.m semos/d’un afar perillos/e.m dis, per amistat,/que li disses vertat,/saber: per cal mesura/o per cal aventura,/ab cal enseignamen,/per cal contenemen/se poiria gardar/domna de folleiar,/que fos de preç saupuda,/amada e volguda,/e segon cortesia/gardes de vilania].15 He tells her to maintain her appearance (giving advice on personal hygiene and clothing),16 to receive guests politely in her husband’s house, not to go to church by herself but in decent company, not to walk too fast because it will tire her and make her look ridiculous, to be cheerful with cheerful people and courteous to courteous people, not to laugh too much, not to be seen with too many or too few people, and—finally—to pay attention to her speech. Brunel summarizes the various teachings aimed at women thus: Be agreeable, gay, smiling, drive away sadness. Listen with delight to those who recite verses and sing songs. Try to remember the best words and quote them when appropriate. Don’t allow yourself to lose them by repeating them for fools. Be kind to jongleurs who know beautiful love songs, be generous, they will make your reputation. You will be honored without having to think about it. . . . The most important thing is to speak well. Know how to receive. You should receive everyone well, but not in the same way. . . . Not all men share the same tastes. Some love calmness, others noise; some serious conversations, others more playful ones. Study the person to whom you are speaking, listen to his words, answer him according to what he says, you will find an appropriate answer in his own words. Whoever leaves you must take away the impression of having been intelligent. Smile on foreign knights, even more than you want to, don’t think about expense when you entertain them. They will leave in a good mood, spread your renown, and other foreigners will come to see you.17

An ideal woman thus had to impress with her intelligence as well as with her beauty and good manners. As Arnaut de Mareuil declares, “Ladies prize different things: some beauty, others audacity, some well-turned speech, others good manners, some are pleasant, others discerning. As you know, beauty is very pleasing in a lady; but it is above all well-ordered knowledge and discernment that enables one to honor each person as one should” [Las donas eyssamens/An pretz diversamens:/Las unas de beleza,/Las autras de proeza;/Las unas ben parlans,/Las autras benestans;/ Las unas son plazens,/Las autras conoissens./A domna, so sapchatz,/Esta mot gent beutatz;/Mas sobre tot l’agensa/Sabers e conoissensa/Quel fa cascun onrar/Segon ques tanha far].18

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A lady showed her intelligence and education above all through the spoken word, so speech was of particular importance in this milieu and some mention of it can be found in any description of cortesia. Garin lo Brun, for example, mentions rules of communication in his detailed explanation of what the term cortesia means: This, if you want to know, is what courtesy is: whoever knows how to speak and act well so that one has to love him, and who is never disagreeable; one is also courteous who knows how to perceive false behavior and to avoid disagreeableness and to do what pleases others, courtesy keeps this person good company. . . . Courtesy lies in giving and receiving graciously; courtesy lies in bestowing honor and in gracious speech; courtesy lies in good company. [Cortesia es tals,/se voleç saber cals:/qui ben sap dir e far/per c’om lo deia amar,/e se gardà d’enueis;/cortes pot esser pueis/qui sap foldat chausir/e ennui eschivir/e far ço c’altrui plaça/cortesia lo solaça./. . ./ Cortesia es en guarnir/E en gent acuillir;/Cortesia es d’onrar/E es en gen parlar;/Cortesia es en solaz]19

A woman had a duty to contribute to the discourse of the courtly community and was responsible for the so-called gen parlar [gracious speech].20 Teachings concerning eloquence were thus most important for the women and girls who were educated in this society. Garin lo Brun writes, “A lady’s speech should be suave, not too shy, gentle, and at an agreeable speed, neither too loud nor too soft” [Parlar de(u) domna conga/soau, ses gran vergonga,/bonamen e en pas,/ni trop aut ni trop bas].21 Brun also mentions that a woman was required to listen carefully in order to give fitting answers: “Pay attention first of all to whom you are speaking; listen to his words, and answer according to what you hear because while you are listening to him speak, you can think of your answer, whether it will be unfavorable or favorable” [Vos, al començamen,/Gardaz primeiramen/qui es ab cui parlaz;/ sas paraulas augaz,/e segon c’auzireç/e vos li respondec/qu’en aus lo seo parlar/vos podeç asennar/cals ataing lo respos,/se es mals o es bos].22 Restrained and gentle but also sophisticated and refined, her discourse was supposed to please guests and make them feel welcome and at ease so they would subsequently carry news of the court’s respectability everywhere and enhance its reputation. This diffusion was of great importance since personal bonds were the foundation of the political system and their endurance and reliability were, therefore, essential for a court’s success. What were the contents of these conversations? Mainly love, courtly love, in all its phases. Amor did not, however, mean what we mean by “love” today. Ruhe writes that

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courtly love was part of a doctrine of living, which combined ethical and aesthetic elements into a kind of work of art . . . . The term “love” seems to be some kind of a code in which “required qualifications” have been written, which imposes many duties on the person who commits to it . . . , but, on the other hand, provides him gratifications which make the effort worthwhile. . . . Personal relationships and personal representation are closely connected.23

Parlar d’amor was, therefore, a courtly quality and expected of both women and men. Whenever such a conversation did not please a woman, she could dismiss it, but there were advantages to not doing so. “The lady can leave the conversation and part company after a short while, if she doesn’t like it,” wrote Garin lo Brun, “But if you enjoy the conversation, friend, answer him with beautiful words too, for pleasant companionship with laughter and pleasure, when well done, that’s the bait for love, through which lovers are drawn into a friendship more easily” [C’assaz se pot breumen/partir de parlamen/e desloingnar solaz/domna, can non li plaz./Mas sie ssos parlamenç/vos es ben avinenç,/amia, siaz li/de bels diz autressi,/car bels solaz ab rire/e placers, qui·l sap dire,/zo es esca d’amor,/ per que son li amador/plus leu en amistat/enpres e enlaçat].24 The gen parlar thus gains honor and respect for the speaker, as the thirteenth-century Cort d’Amor observes: And one who comes to pay his attentions to a lady needs to know how to answer and to speak graciously, and take care, out of polite kindness, never to say a mean word, or an inconsiderate one, or an arrogant one. Whoever speaks obligingly, sows and reaps, because he sows an exemplary teaching and reaps praise and prestige from people. And he must take care in choosing his words, with virtue and without trickery, so that they will be well-received. She approves and is gracious because a friendly conversation amplifies the circle of her gallants, just as the rose and the f lower grow. Because a woman who knows how to speak obligingly will always be praised and honored. [E qui ven a leis corteiar/Sapcha gen respondr’e parlar,/E gart per plana gentilesa/Qe non diga mot de malesa,/Ni de folia ni d’orguell./Qui gent parla semena e cuell/Q’el semena ensenhaiment/E cuell laus e prez de la gent./E gars q’il mot sian causit,/Per so que meills sion graszit,/Ab vertat e se tricaria./Si cors consen e coindia,/Qe gen parlars creis son seinors/ Si com rasa creis e la f lors,/Per qe dompna gen enparlada/Sera totz temps pros e onrada] 25

A woman had to watch her speech very carefully, however, because, as Raimon de Miraval wrote, “with false promises and long delays, ladies turn courtly men into peasants” [Ab fals digz e ab termes loncs/fant

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dompnas de cortes vilas].26 There were also circumstances that required silence. As the troubadour Sordello recommends, Good lady, who want to live nobly,/It’s right and necessary for you to act/Blind, deaf, and mute at times;/And I will tell you why:/For a lady shouldn’t observe/Anything that is ugly to look at,/Since by gaping at something she observes,/Every gentleman considers her foolish;/Nor should she hear anything willingly/That isn’t noble or refined;/And if she can’t avoid the hearing,/She shouldn’t give an answer that’s good or bad./And she errs greatly if she inclines/To say more than a lady should./ For a well-kept silence is worth much more/Than a speech that travesties reason;/And so a lady without some reserve/Can’t act well, for an abstention/From displeasing things is very fine,/Since it brings on honor and pleasure. [Pros dopna, qui vol gen regnar,/cove que sia e·s deia far/orba, sorda, muda a sazo,/e dirai vos per qual razo:/que dopna non deu esgardar/zo que es laig per remirar,/qu’en l’esgardar qu’ell’i esgarda/la te totz om bos per musarda;/ni deu auzir per son grat re/que no l’esteia gen e be,/e s’a l’auzir no·s pot escondre,/mal ni be no i deu respondre;/e faill trop s’a parlar s’affraign/mas del parlar qu’a dopna taign,/q’us calars val trop melz de taill/q’us parlars que razo trassaill;/per que dopna ses retenenza/no pot be far, quar la suffrenza/es mout bona de desplazer,/que adus onor e plazer]27

The celar, the concealment of intimate details, was thus, alongside eloquence, an important part of these rules of courtesy. Written in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the ensenhamens give us a detailed view of the characteristics of a courtly education at that time, but they are also works of literature and their artistic merits are obvious. They capture our attention through their delicate, lyric use of language as well as through their content. The description of nature with which they begin can be read as an account of the scenery for a play, of the place of a performance. And what is performed there? A beautiful dialogue, distinguished by its content and language—a content with a didactic aim and language that demonstrate the poet’s literary ambitions. The actors in this play are a poet who declares himself to be honorable, well-educated, gentle, and reliable and, in the ensenhamens that interest us, a woman who is likewise honorable and respectable, of high rank through family and birth, who asks the poet for his advice. Why would such a person need any help in knowing how to behave properly? This conceit is presumably constructed because it gives the poet the opportunity to provide the highest level of education by describing the most refined and demanding rules, ones that require a sophisticated knowledge of the psychological structures of the society. This also gives him

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the opportunity to elevate the style of his writing. The ensenhamens may thus be scripts with a genuinely didactic interest; they may well proclaim the moral concepts of their time, but the lady who enters the scene and asks the poet to instruct her is also an instrument that serves the literary interests of the poem. There are, to be sure, other female figures in medieval Provençal literature who could have served as female role models and were probably as important in instructing aristocratic women as the ensenhamens. One good example is Flamenca. Written in the thirteenth century, Le Roman de Flamenca gives us clear evidence of the ideals promulgated for women in this society. This beautiful love story hides many rhetorical games of a strong didactic character, and the vocabulary that it uses to describe the ideal feminine qualities—pretz [honor], valors [merit], ricors [nobility], sens [wit], cortesia [courtesy], and solatz [socialbility], to give a few examples—is the same as that used by the ensenhamens.28 It is hard not to think that the romance’s first priority was didactic. One of the most important rules concerning love promulgated in medieval Provençal literature for the ideal woman, for example, was to pay attention to mezura, the measure that enabled one to maintain one’s honor, and Le Roman de Flamenca offers its audience an exemplary scene of the importance of both mezura and gen parlar. When Guilhelm whispers “alas” to his beloved Flamenca as a first sign of his love, he does so softly, but not so softly that she won’t hear him.29 Aware of the importance of her reaction, Flamenca thinks hard to find the most appropriate answer. She takes her time, looks in his face, and realizes he is blushing. Her thoughts are most delicate: “but, I know only too well, I must find/such a word that I can link together/with what he said already;/because it’s not really possible for me/ to answer him well enough without some planning;/and a lady ought to conceal her heart/a bit, at least at first, even a lot,/so that her desire is not revealed;/she ought to speak words of such ambiguity/that they neither lead to hope/nor cause despair.” [“<mas> ans coven, so sai, trobar/tal mot que puescam acordar/a so que.m dis prumierament;/quar ges fort ben adreitament/no.il puesc en escofet respondre;/e donna deu son cor rescondre,/sivals de primas, tant o quant,/c’om non conosca son talan;/e deu motz dir d’aital egansa/que non adugon esperansa/ni non fasson dese<s>perar”]30

Flamenca is even lettered—“ ‘And a woman is far better off/if she is equipped with a little literature’ ” [“E dona es trop melz cabida/s’es de letras un pauc garnida”]31—and René Nelli calls her “a superior woman,”32 but the poem teaches that even if a woman possesses all possible merits by

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birth, she still needs to develop them through education. Flamenca is thus the epitome of a courtly lady and her function as a role model is clearly evident. The poem’s combination of beautiful language and substantial doctrine, realistic analysis and psychological explanations, is admirable, but it would be wrong to presume that the ideal it presents was representative of any reality. It is an ideal that is being held up to an audience and incorporates—and teaches—all the qualities and suavity of cortesia. In summary, ensenhamen and similar literary forms such as Le Roman de Flamenca fulfil several purposes: they are a vehicle for the poet to gain a reputation; they possess educational value for women of the higher social strata; and—above all—they are entertainment. It is interesting to note that some of the tools and methods these works propose are used to manipulate people even today and that many of the techniques and virtues they suggest, if properly applied, can inf luence people in powerful ways. A woman who was learned in the cortesia—the art of concealment and eloquence—taught by the ensenhamen may well have wielded considerable inf luence in the society of her time. If nothing else, the ensehamen give us a very good insight into the prevailing values of medieval Provençal society. Notes 1. Georges Duby, Die Frau ohne Stimme: Liebe und Ehe im Mittelalter, trans. Gabriele Ricke and Ronald Voullié, new ed. (Berlin: Wagenbach, 2000), 50. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 2. The word comes from the Latin insignare, insignire (Walter von Wartburg and Jean-Pierre Chambon, Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch: eine Darstellung des galloromanischen Sprachschatzes [Bonn: F. Klopp; Basel: Zbinden, 1928–], v. 3). See also François-Just-Marie Raynouard, Lexique roman ou Dictionnaire de la langue des troubadours, 6 vols. (Paris: Silvestre, 1836–1844), 5:229, no. 23, s.v. Ensegnamen, ensenhamen, enseignamen, essegnamen, essenhamen: “teaching, instruction, education, politeness”; and Emil Levy, Provenzalisches supplement-Wörterbuch: Berichtigungen und Ergänzungen zu Raynouards Lexique roman, 8 vols. (Leipzig: O. R. Reisland, 1894–1924), 3:32–33, s.v. Ensenhamen: “instruction, lesson, sophistication, good manners, wisdom, document.” 3. According to Wilhelm Bohs, the term can be applied to the following twelve poems: (1) “Qui comte vol apendre” by Arnaut Guillem de Marsan; (2) “Enseignement de courtoisie”; (3) “El temps de nalador” by Amanieu des Escas; (4) “L’autrier mentre ques ieu m’estava” by Lunel de Monteg; (5) “Abrils issi’ e mays intrava” by Raimon Vidal de Bezaudun; (6) “Sitot non es enquist” by N’At de Mons; (7) “Forniers, per mos enseignamens” by Raimon de Miraval; (8) “El terminie d’estiu” by Garin le

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4.

5. 6.

7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

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Brun; (9) “En aquel mes de mai” by Amanieu des Escas; (10) “Razos es e mezura” by Arnaut de Mareuil; (11) “Aissi col tesaurs es perdutz” (or the “Ensenhamen d’Onor”) by Sordello di Goito; and (12) “Ensegnamenti sulle donne” by Severi de Girona (“Abrils issi’ e mays intrava. Lehrgedicht von Raimon Vidal von Bezaudun,” Romanische Forschungen 15 [1903]: 206–213). See François Pirot, Recherches sur les connaissances littéraires des troubadours occitans et catalans des XIIe et XIIIe siècles (Barcelona: Real Academia de Buenas Letras, 1972), 32; Don A. Monson, Les ensenhamens occitans. Essai de définition et de délimitation du genre (Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1981), 167; Amos Parducci, Costumi ornati. Studi sugli insegnamenti di cortigiania medievali (Bologna: N. Zanichelli, 1928), 19–86; and Giuseppe E. Sansone, Testi didatico-cortesi di Provenza (Bari: Adriatica, 1977), 43–180 (all cited in Doris Ruhe, “Erziehung als dialogische Kunst: Die Ensenhamens von Garin lo Brun und Arnaut Guilhem de Marsan,” in Zivilisationsprozesse: Zu Erziehungsschriften in der Vormoderne, ed. Rüdiger Schnell [Cologne: Böhlau, 2004], 172). It is important to note that the term ensenhamen was not used by the authors themselves but is, rather, first found in Paris, Bibl. Nat., MS fr. 22543, which dates from the fourteenth century (Ruhe, 172–173). Grundriss zur Geschichte der provenzalischen Literatur (Eberfeld: R. L. Friderichs, 1872; reprint Geneva: Slatkine, 1972), 44. Albert Stimming, “Provenzalische Litteratur,” in Grundriss der romanischen Philologie, ed. Gustav Gröber, 2 vols. in 3 parts (Strasbourg: K. J. Trübner, 1888–1902), 2.2:51; Bohs, 206. Katharina Städtler has written an interesting chapter about the domna in her Altprovenzalische Frauendichtung (1150–1250): Historisch-soziologische Untersuchungen und Interpretationen (Heidelberg: Winter, 1990), 147–149. Arnaut de Mareuil, “Razos es e mesura,” ed. Mario Eusebi, in idem, “L’ensenhamen di Arnaut de Mareuil,” Romania 90 (1969), 17–27. Ed. Carl Appel, in idem, “L’enseignement de Garin lo Brun,” Revue des langues romanes 33 (1889), 409–429. Ed. Karl Bartsch, in idem, Provenzalisches Lesebuch, mit einer literarischen Einleitung und einem Wörterbuche (Elberfeld: R. L. Friderichs, 1855; reprint Geneva: Slatkine, 1974), 140–148. “In this month of may/When the birds are gay/And sing in the woods” [En aquel mes de mai/Cant l’auzelo son gai/E chanto els boissos] (Amanieu des Escas, “En aquel mes de mai,” l. 1–3, p. 140); “April was leaving, May was arriving/And every bird was singing/next to its companion, some high, some low;/and since receded into the past/ everywhere the snow and the cold,/fruits were appearing, f lowers were appearing/and bright weather and the sweet season” [Abril issi’ e mays intrava/e cascus dels auzels chantava/josta sa par, que autz que bas;/e car remanion atras,/vas totas partz, neus e freidors/venion frugz venion f lors/e clar temps e dossa sazos] (Raimon Vidal de Besalú, “Avril s’en

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12.

13. 14.

15. 16.

17.

18. 19.

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allait et mai arrivait/Abril issi’ e mays intrava,” ed. and French trans. Jean-Charles Huchet, in idem, Nouvelles occitanes du Moyen Age [Paris: Flammarion, 1992], l. 1–7, p. 38). “I was thinking/about love that tormented me” [Estava cossiros/d’amor que-m destrenhia] (Amanieu des Escas, “En aquel mes de mai,” l. 4–5, p. 140); “And I was thinking,/And a little moody because of love./I remember that it was then morning,/in the square of Besalu” [e yeu m’estava cossiros/e per amor un pauc embroncx./sove.m que fo mati adoncx,/en la plassa de Bezaudun] (Raimon Vidal de Besalú, “Avril s’en allait et mai arrivait/Abril issi’ e mays intrava,” l. 8–11, p. 38). Ruhe provides a very detailed and well-founded description of the poem (175). It is interesting that these “pleasant place”-descriptions introduce the didactic dialogue. The “locus amoenus” may have been originally meant to represent an idealized place of safety and comfort, but Ovid inverts its function and uses it in his Metamorphoses as a place of violent encounters. For Shakespeare, it is a place where erotic passions can be freely explored since it lies outside of city limits, away from civilization, hidden from the social order that regulates and suppresses sexual behavior. Why do the troubadours associate it with education in behavior and the diffusion of ethical values? This is a point I discuss in my dissertation about medieval didactic writings. Garin lo Brun, “El terminie d’estiu,” l. 109–122, p. 412. Reading the minutiae of Garin lo Brun’s description of how a woman has to dress, Ruhe speaks of a “hint of fetishism” and suggests that Garin is trying to make the text more interesting for the male audience (178). Clovis Brunel, “Enseignements de courtoisie adressés aux dames dans la littérature du moyen âge en langue provençale, lecture faite dans la séance du vendredi 21 novembre 1941,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 27 (1941) 483. Arnaut de Mareuil, “Razos es e mesura,” l. 247–260, p. 22. Garin lo Brun, “El terminie d’estiu,” l. 427–436, 457–461, p. 422–423. Modern scholars such as Henri Dupin and Alfred Jeanroy have defined courtesy as follows: “Qualities of welcome and hospitality, loyalty and fidelity, goodness and pity, gentleness, liberality and generosity, joy, these are the virtues which, beyond beauty, and more than beauty itself, inspire the troubadours’ verses and are the source of their passions, which are perhaps more literary than real” (Henri Dupin, La Courtoisie au moyen âge [Paris: A. Picard, 1931], 96); “in lyric poetry, [this perfecting of the individual] is constituted by only the most accessible virtues, the talent of speaking well and appropriately, measure in all things, generosity, respect for women, in other words, in sum, worldly virtues; those precisely that were referred to by the term of courtoisie” (Alfred Jeanroy, La Poésie lyrique des troubadours, 2 vols. [Paris: E. Privat; Toulouse: H. Dider, 1934], 1:97).

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20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30. 31. 32.

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A chapter about gen parlar can be found in Städtler, 123–126. Garin lo Brun, “El terminie d’estiu,” l. 357–360, p. 420. Garin lo Brun, “El terminie d’estiu,” l. 427–428, p. 422. Ruhe, 170. Garin lo Brun, “El terminie d’estiu,” l. 325–338, p. 419. The Cort d’Amor: A Thirteenth-Century Allegorical Art of Love, l. 615–630, ed. and trans. Lowanne Jones (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, Dept. of Romance Languages, distributed by University of North Carolina Press, 1977), 133; my translation. Raimon de Miraval, “Contr’Amor vau durs et embroncs,” ed. and trans. Margaret Louise Switten, in idem, The Cansos of Raimon de Miraval: A Study of Poems and Melodies (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1985), l. 15–16, p. 194–195; translation modified. Sordello, “The Instruction in Honor/Ensenhamen d’Onor,” in The Poetry of Sordello, ed. and trans. James J. Wilhelm (New York: Garland, 1987), l. 1173–1192, p. 206–207. René Nelli, Le Roman de Flamenca, un art d’aimer occitanien du XIIIe siècle (Toulouse: Institut d’études occitanes, 1966; rpt. Toulouse: Institut d’études occitanes, 1989), 114. “Guillaume stopped in front of his Lady;/when she had kissed the psalter,/he said to her beneath his breath: ‘Alas!’/Yet he did not say it so softly/ that she did not hear clearly enough” [Guillems davan si donz estet;/quan il lo sauteri baiset,/el li dis suavet: ‘Hai las!’/Pero ges non o dis tam bas/ ques il fort be non o ausis] (The Romance of Flamenca, ed. and trans. E. D. Blodgett [New York: Garland, 1995], l. 3953–3957, p. 204–205). The Romance of Flamenca, l. 4239–4249, p. 218–221. The Romance of Flamenca, l. 4817–4818, p. 248–249; translation modified. Nelli, 115.

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CHAPTER 8 SPIRITUAL AND BIOLOGICAL MOTHERING IN BERCEO’S VIDA DE SANTA ORIA Emily C. Francomano

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onzalo de Berceo’s thirteenth-century poem narrating the heroic spirituality of Oria and her mother Amunna, eleventh-century nuns in the Riojan Monastery of San Millán de Suso, is known by two modern titles: the Vida de Santa Oria [The Life of Saint Oria] and the Poema de Santa Oria [The Poem of Saint Oria]. Both demonstrate that scholars have read the work as the life of just one saint, the virgin martyr Oria. Reading the Vida as a dual vita reveals an important facet of the work, namely, that in addition to the promotion of Oria’s cult and the monastery itself, the poem is about the negotiation of female bonds, both spiritual and biological, in the pursuit of sanctity. The Vida is an exemplary tale that provides a feminine gloss to Christ’s admonition in Matthew 10.37: “He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.” Amunna, the second saint of the vita, seems to have forgotten this precept and her emotional attachment to Oria is at first an obstacle to sanctity. However, as she recovers from the grief caused by her daughter’s death, Amunna’s biological and emotional ties to Oria become the sources of sanctity and of the vita itself. Berceo recounts the piety, heroic asceticism, and visionary experiences of both women in an engaging narrative, displaying his lively and clever manipulations of the cuaderna vía verse form that make his narrative poetry such enjoyable reading.1 The vita of Saint Oria contains none of the sexualized violence that made virgin martyr stories so popular and long-lived throughout the Middle Ages. Rather, Oria progresses from

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a markedly pious childhood, to her dedication as a virgin and recluse in the dual monastery of San Millán de Suso, and her martyrdom is the bloodless or “white” martyrdom of fasting, mortification of the f lesh, and penitential imitatio Christi, which characterizes later medieval female sanctity. Parental opposition to virgin martyrs’ otherworldly desires is also a commonplace in medieval hagiography, and Berceo’s poem gives this theme a peculiar twist. While mother and daughter pursue the ascetic life and receive visions, which, in the Vida, take the place of miracles as a source for admiration and as the evidence of divine favor, Amunna literally gets in the way of her daughter’s passage to heaven. Oria’s three visions detail the rewards of her heroic virginity. In the first, she is escorted to heaven by three virgin martyrs. There Oria sees processions of saints and the throne that awaits her, guarded by the allegorical figure of Voxmea. In her second vision, the three virgins present Oria with a nuptial bed fit for a bride of Christ and the Virgin Mary tends to her. Oria’s last vision transports her to the Mount of Olives, where she is greeted by holy men. Amunna’s two recounted visions further embellish Oria’s transition from this world to the next as a bloodless martyr. Throughout the poem, Berceo compares the spiritual valor of Amunna and her virgin daughter Oria, simultaneously claiming veneration for the mother, while never letting the audience forget the hierarchy of sanctity in which virgins are always worthy of more esteem than widows. Moreover, the poet describes Amunna’s resistance and reactions to her child’s death in great detail. Despite her importance in Berceo’s narrative, and no doubt because of the hierarchy in sanctity, critics have tended to relegate Amunna to the margins of their analyses of the Vida. In his seventeenth-century prose version of, and commentary on, the Vida, Fray Prudencio de Sandoval virtually erases Amunna from the episodes recounting Oria’s childhood, omits Amunna’s entrance into monastic life, and eliminates the epilogue containing her visions, claiming that it had been written badly.2 Most modern critics rarely mention Amunna, confining their analyses to Oria’s sanctity. However, John K. Walsh, whose valuable scholarship on the Vida inspired this study, mentions brief ly the epitaph and Amunna’s role in the lives of Berceo’s audience, asking, “To what extent is the focus on mother-daughter connected to a tomb-cult at San Millán, and is Berceo fostering or even launching the cult with his poem?”3 Walsh notes the sustained maternal presence in the Vida, as well as the attraction of the mother-daughter tomb for pilgrims, and even conjectures that Berceo added the epilogue, which he calls an “appendix,” in order to give Amunna a more important role in the poem and thus encourage increased pilgrimage.4 Nevertheless, he sums up Amunna’s role in the poem by

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characterizing her humorously and slightly derisively as a “stage mother in [her] daughter’s road towards sainthood.”5 More recently, Anthony Lappin has suggested that Berceo’s reference to Amunna’s story was intended to “[direct] his audience to the record preserved of Amunna’s mortifications and penances which were not the subject of his poem and which he had consciously excluded from his work.”6 However, given the importance of mothering and female guidance in the vita, I would argue that Amunna’s role was consciously included in the Vida, where she is indeed a central player on Berceo’s hagiographic stage. In the introductory stanzas of the Vida Berceo outlines the essential biographical information for Oria’s parents. He first gives the name and origin of Amunna and then those of Oria’s father, García. Both share many exemplary Christian values: “they always fought the good fight, kept away from evil: they longed for the grace of the heavenly king” [Siempre en bien punaron, partiéronse de mal/cobdiciavan la gracia del Reï celestial].7 They are “devout; they lived righteous lives. . . . They never wished to keep their bodies in luxury./They put all their efforts into serving God” [cathólicos, [que] vivién vida derecha. . . . nunca querién sus carnes mantener a gran vicio/metién toda femencia en fer a Dios servicio] (12a–13b). Amunna and García pray for a child whom they can give into God’s service and are rewarded with a daughter who is worthy of such “saintly” [santos] and “just” [ justos] parents (7a). As Walsh observes, “almost all that is said about Amunna and García is drawn from consecrated hagiographic anecdote in which saintly parents pray constantly for a child.”8 It is soon apparent that Amunna will be much more important in the Vida than García, Oria’s father, who disappears promptly from this world and reappears only brief ly in one of Oria’s visions and again in one of Amunna’s. Mother and daughter become anchoresses in quick succession in the Vida: Her mother wished to live a harsher life, she was enclosed as an anchoress, wearing a hairshirt. She martyred her f lesh to the greatest degree so that her soul would not be conquered by the devil. . ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... . . Oria, the black-veiled nun, abandoned the world: she entered a narrow cell as an anchoress. She underwent great abstinence, lived a penitent life, whence she gained a rich reward from God in the end. [Quiso seer la madre de más áspera vida, entró emparedada de celicio vestida; martiriava sus carnes a la mayor medida,

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que non fuesse la alma del dïablo vencida. . ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... Desemparó el mundo Oria, tocanegrada en un rencón angosto entró emparedada, sufrié grant astinencia, vivié vida lazrada, por ond ganó en cabo de Dios rica soldada.] (17–21).

Whereas in early life Oria “learnt her behaviour from her good parents” [Apriso las costumnes de los buenos parientes] (16a) and followed in her mother’s footsteps by becoming a recluse, her devotion to God soon outstripped that of her parents and she turned toward other models of sanctity. This development is not surprising in the Vida since entrance into monastic life has throughout the Christian tradition been the equivalent of leaving one’s biological family behind and joining a spiritual family with religious superiors in loco parentis. Nevertheless, Oria’s earthly family ties are not completely dissolved when she becomes a recluse. Rather, they are renegotiated according to a hierarchy of sanctity. The genealogical hierarchy between mother and daughter contrasts with the spiritual order in which virgins—no matter their age, the extent of their life experience, or sagacity—are superior to other women. Accordingly, when she is replaced as mother and teacher, Amunna becomes Oria’s spiritual sister in the monastery of San Millán and later becomes her biological daughter’s spiritual child and the recipient of the virgin’s divine instruction. The f luidity of these female bonds in the Vida serves as a reminder of the disparity between biological, carnal motherhood and the spiritual motherhood of heroic virginity, exalting the sanctity of brides of Christ over that of widows of men. As Clarissa Atkinson notes, “In its everyday physical and social meanings, parenthood was excluded from the monastic world; candidates for the religious life were supposed to eschew it,” but monastic life offered a new kind of parenthood; spiritual, as opposed to biological and earthly, mothering involves a combination of teaching and nurturing for the sake of the soul in the absence of physical motherhood.9 As Barbara Newman has observed, although “both the bridal and the maternal roles served as privileged metaphors for union with the Divine,” the metaphor served only “for those who were willing and able to renounce their concrete reality.”10 In the Christian hagiographic tradition, the special status of the Virgin and the virgins who imitated her validates the positive, protective, and nurturing connotations of motherhood while also clearly sustaining patristic theories on the innate sinfulness of female reproductive biology.

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Oria’s first two visions introduce her to a host of spiritual guides who teach her about her place within a spiritual, maternal lineage. The first occurs on the feast day of the popular virgin saint Eugenia. In the vision, three virgin martyrs “of great authority” [de grant auctoridat] (27a) come to Oria—Saints Agatha, Eulalia, and Cecilia. Oria listens with great devotion to the life of Eugenia and, Berceo tells us, delights in reading the passions of the three early Christian virgin martyrs as well (34a–b), whose lives provide her with models of piety and ascesis.11 The lives of Saint Eugenia and the three virgin martyrs from early Christianity also all typify the particular strength and sanctity of virginity: their intact bodies separate and release them from the normative and negative medieval associations of femininity and carnality. As Jerome (in)famously put it: “A woman also possesses this difference in respect to a man which the body has in respect to the soul in the literal sense inasmuch as a woman is devoted to birth and children. If, however, she should wish to be devoted to Christ more than to the world, she will cease to be a woman and be said to be a man.”12 In the vision, the three saints tell Oria that Christ is pleased with her service and that they have come to show her the rewards of her self-inf licted martyrdom, which they equate with their own passions and heroic defense of virginity. Saint Eulalia explains that Oria’s control over her f lesh has made her their rightful companion and co-bride of Christ: “You control and order your f lesh in such a way/that you proclaim yourself worthy to rise to the heavens” [assí mandas tus carnes e assí las castigas/ que por sobir al Cielo tú digna te predigas] (36c–d). Eulalia then gives Oria a dove that represents her soul and tells her, “watch this dove, forget everything else./See where it goes, do not be deceived;/guide yourself by us, daughter, for Christ invites you” [guarda esta palomba, todo lo ál olbida;/tú ve do ella fuere, non seás decebida,/ guíate por nos, fija, ca Christus te combida] (37b–d). A column appears leading up into the heavens, and Oria fixes her eyes upon her dove that soars up into the sky. The four virgins alight in a tree, where three more angelic personages meet them to lead them into heaven. James F. Burke and Simina M. Farcasiu identify the tree in Oria’s first vision as the Tree of Jesse, an iconographic rendering of the Virgin Mary’s ancestry, which prefigures the arrival of Mary in Oria’s second vision.13 We find another indication that Berceo had the image of the Tree in mind in Oria’s second vision when, in stanza 133a–b, she addresses Mary as “Mary/of whom the great man Isaiah spoke so much” [María/de la que fabló tanto el barón Isaía]. Medieval representations of the Tree of Jesse have a counterpart in the Tree of Anne, which, in contrast to the patrilineal genealogy of the former, emphasizes maternity and is filled with women: Anne herself, her

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daughter the Virgin Mary, her sister Esmeria, Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, and Mary’s half-sisters. With the important exception of the infant Christ, all the other male grandchildren of Anne are on the periphery. Pamela Sheingorn remarks that although images of paternitas prevailed from the eleventh century on, artisans continued to produce matrilineal representations of Mary’s heritage that suggest female patronage and the “deliberate focus on matriliny among female religious.”14 Berceo’s image of the virgins’ alighting in Mary’s family tree signals the importance of both spiritual and genealogical motherhood in female sanctity in general and in Oria’s vita in particular. Once in heaven Oria sees processions of “canons” [calonges] (54b) and “bishops” [obispos] (59d) and a “choir of virgins” [coro de las vírgenes] (63c). Many of the figures are familiar to her. She also hears the voice of Urraca—the “teacher, who had raised her” [maestra que la ovo criada] (69d), who is not mentioned earlier in the poem. Although local men are mentioned—Oria is able to see her father in the distance—and Christ’s voice is heard, the vision is mainly populated by women, emphasizing clearly the importance of spiritual mothering; all of the women who appear to Oria instruct her on how to preserve the purity of her soul until death. In the culmination of the vision there appears the stunning figure Voxmea, a new spiritual guide and teacher who guards the throne that Oria will one day occupy. Voxmea’s name implies that she is the word of God rendered corporeal and legible. As Lappin suggests, Berceo may have taken her name from Pr. 8.4, where Wisdom (Sapientia) calls out, “To you, O men, I call, and my cry [vox mea] is to the sons of men” [O viri ad vos clamito et vox mea ad filios hominum].15 Voxmea wears a dazzling gown inscribed with the names of Christ’s servants. The textual space on the dress is devoted mainly to religious recluses such as Oria and her mother “who conquered their f lesh to the greatest degree” [que domaron sus carnes a la mayor medida] (92d).16 In addition to teaching the value of asceticism by means of her gown, Voxmea explains to Oria that she will be able to take her place on the throne in heaven as soon as she has finished the course of her life, as long as she does not heed the “counsel of the Devil . . ./he who made Eve swallow the evil bite” [consejo del Peccado,/el que fizo a Eva comer el mal bocado] (96c–d). The Virgin Mary is the central figure of Oria’s second vision. Of all the spiritual nurturers that appear to Oria in her visions, Mary is the most humanly maternal. Oria’s asceticism and bodily mortifications are so extreme that she is upon her deathbed when Mary appears. She gives spiritual instruction but also cares for the physical well-being of the dying virgin by sending her a sumptuous bed outfitted with “rich cloths” [ricos

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pannos] (131b; 124b in Lappin). When Mary appears by Oria’s bedside, she wakes her up and embraces her: The Blessed mother, queen of the heavens, much more beautiful than the dawn, did not delay, not even for a moment she went straight to embrace Oria the nun. [La Madre benedicta, de los Cielos Sennora, más fermosa de mucho que non es la aurora non lo puso por plazo nin sola una hora, fue luego a abraçarla a Oria la serora.] (123; 130 in Lappin, translation modified).

Mary describes herself as “she whom you very much desire/to release all women from difficulty” [la que tú mucho quieres,/que saqué de porfazo a todas las mugieres] (125a–b; 132 in Lappin) and promises Oria that she too will soon be liberated. Her self-description recalls that she—as divine, virgin mother—has reversed the Fall. Not only does she relieve Oria of her physical pain but also promises her forthcoming fatal illness, death, and final release from all physicality (134a–136d). Oria’s third vision does not involve female authority, but rather a throng of “precious men” [preciosos barones] (143a) that greets her at the Mount of Olives. In the sections of the poem that relate Oria’s visions, Amunna’s role is first and foremost as her daughter’s anchor in the material world. Moreover, her earthly love for her daughter dramatizes the great difference between divine and human mothering. During Oria’s transports, Amunna rushes to the virgin’s bedside in the hopes of rousing her: Her mother, mad with grief, could not rest, for everyone thought that she was about to pass away. She entered her cell to check whether it was true. She began to shake her, she had to wake up. [La madre con la ravia non se podié folgar, ca todos se cuydavan que se querié passar; metióse en la casa por la cosa probar, empeçó a traerla, ovo a despertar.] (140)

Berceo calls the audience’s attention to Oria’s irritation when Amunna and the other nuns wake her up from the third vision: With this, the sick girl was greatly saddened: she did not want to wake at this point,

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for she was in great glory, in a pleasant place and she thought that she would never be able to return there. She was little pleased with those who woke her, either with her mother or with the nuns, for she was in great glory, amongst good men, and she felt not a jot of pain. [Con esto la enferma ovo muy grant pesar, en aquella sazón non querrié espertar, ca sedié en grant gloria en sabroso logar, e cuydava que nunca allá podrié tornar. Aviélis poco grado a los despertadores, siquiere a la madre, siquier a las sorores, ca sedié en grant gloria, entre buenos sennores, que non sintié un punto de todos los dolores]. (145–6)

As if to stress the absence of wise women in this world, Oria rebukes her mother and the other nuns for her return to mortality: . . . “Oh unhappy me! I was in great glory. Why did they wake me? I am in great distress. If they had only left me a little, they would have shown me great love, I would be finished, for I had arrived amongst such men that, compared to their goodness, the world is nothing.” [ . . . “Ay mezquina, sedía en grant gloria, porque me despertaron só en grant querimonia Si sólo un poquiello me oviessen dexada, grant amor me fizieran, sería terminada, ca entre tales omnes era yo arribada que contra los sus bienes el mundo non es nada.”] (151c–152d)

As her visions progress, Oria becomes increasingly disenchanted with this world, which is, by comparison, a comfortless place, where her soul is restrained by her mortified, but still f leshly body. Moreover, neither biological mother nor monastic family can measure up to the spiritual mothering Oria receives in her visions. In the first vision Oria’s reluctance to return to her mortal existence is expressed in terms of the absence of adequate female authority and guidance in this world. Although Oria begs the virgin martyrs to intercede on her behalf so that she may remain with Voxmea “in that inheritance” [en essa heredat] (100d), Voxmea tells

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her that her time has not yet come and she must return to this world and persevere in her asceticism. Oria responds, despairing, “ ‘The heavens are very high, I a miserable sinner:/if once I return to my lifeless body/I will find in the world neither mistress nor godmother’ ” [“Los Çielos son muy altos, yo peccadriz mezquina,/si una vez tornaro en la mi calabrina,/non trobaré en sieglo sennora nin madrina”] (104a–c, emphasis mine). Berceo portrays Amunna as greatly concerned for her daughter’s physical comfort: The woman’s mother, a being loved by God, was much pained with grief for her daughter’s agony. She had not slept that night, she was exhausted, she had eaten almost nothing. [La madre de la duenna, cosa de Dios amada, del duelo de la fija estava muy lazrada; non dormiera la noche, estava apesgada, lo que ella comié non era fascas nada.] (162)

Amunna’s grief is manifest in ways that closely resemble the mortifications of the f lesh she and her daughter pursue. Despite the similar altered psychological state caused by their physical suffering, Amunna’s visions are sent in response to her maternal grief while Oria’s devotional asceticism and penitential practices earn her the reward of her visions and sainthood. In Amunna’s first vision García appears, f lanked by three identical figures that recall the three identical virgins of Oria’s visions. Amunna asks her husband, “ ‘tell me about my daughter, whether she will see tomorrow’ ” [“dezitme de la fija, si verá cras el día”] (166d); he responds, “ ‘Oria is close to the end of her journey’ ” [“cerca anda del cabo, Oria, de la carrera”] (167b). García’s presence and his conversation with Amunna about Oria serve as a reminder that Amunna, unlike her daughter, is still defined by the earthly bonds of matrimony and motherhood. When Amunna awakes from the vision, she is upset; she is not thinking in terms of Oria’s joyous dies natalis in the next and better world, rather, “If before she was in pain, now she was more pained,/for she knew that her daughter would soon pass away/and that she would remain sad and disconsolate” [si ante fue en cuyta dessend fue más coitada,/ca sabié que la fija serié luego finada,/e que fincarié ella triste e desarrada] (169b–d). She then returns to Oria’s bedside and begs: “ ‘Daughter, as God may take you to his holy glory,/if you have seen a vision or some revelation,/tell it to me whilst you can remember it’ ” [“Fija, sí Dios vos lieve a la su santa gloria,/si visïón vidiestes o alguna istoria,/dezítmelo demientre avedes la memoria”] (172b–d). Oria refuses, warning that her mother’s insistence could

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interfere with God’s divine plan: “ ‘Mother, if you want to bother me so much,/I may choke before my hour’ ” [“madre, si me quisiéredes tan mucho afincar,/ante de la mi hora me puedo enfogar”] (174c–d). Berceo directly contrasts Amunna’s appearance at Oria’s bedside with the Virgin’s arrival in Oria’s second vision. While the Virgin Mary awakens Oria in order to open her eyes to the glorious future that awaits her, Amunna wakes her up in order to pull her back into this world, if only for a short time. And, while Mary’s embrace fills Oria with “great joy” [grant alegría] (124a), Amunna’s touch causes “great sadness” [grant pesar] (145a). These two contrasting bedside scenes call the audience’s attention to the crucial distinction between spiritual and biological mothering in the Vida. Indeed, Amunna’s motherly ministrations cause Oria more pain because she must return to her existence in the f lesh rather than stay in the transports of her vision of spiritual nurturing. The maternal anxiety caused by Oria’s sickness and immanent death amounts to parental obstruction of a virgin martyr’s desired end. Oria dies, leaving Amunna “distraught for her” [por ella fetillada] (186b). Although Berceo tells us earlier in the poem that Amunna fasted and mortified her f lesh out of pure piety (21), the lesser quality of her visions toward the end may be due to the fact that they are inspired by her earthly motherly distress and grief rather than her devotion to God. Amunna hopes, “if only she could dream of her [of Oria] once,/she would think herself healed and very well comforted” [sólo que [con Oria] la podiesse sonnar una vegada,/teniése por guarida e por muy confortada] (186c–d). In an epilogue following Berceo’s narratorial valediction requesting God’s grace, Oria comes to her grieving mother in a dream vision that fulfills both narrative and didactic functions.17 Oria’s visions transmit important information about heaven to the audience and Berceo similarly fills Amunna’s vision with eschatological content. The vision both assuages Amunna’s anguish and gives her the opportunity to hear the answers to all the questions that Oria had refused to answer on her deathbed. In the second bedside scene and the epilogue Amunna’s avid questioning about the nature of the other world clearly ref lects the didactic intent of the poem itself. Whereas in the earlier scenes where Amunna appears at her daughter’s bedside, Oria responds negatively, as if impatient with her mother’s anxiety, this second vision reconciles the mother and daughter. The reunion between Amunna and Oria also discloses a physical demonstrativeness hitherto unmentioned: “Both embraced, as they used to do in life” [Abraçáronse ambas como fazién en vida] (190a). This embrace reenacts the Virgin Mary’s tender caress in Oria’s second vision and thus indicates the reversal of family roles between the two women. Oria is now the

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spiritual nurturer of her earth-bound mother. However, Amunna begins each question with “fija” [daughter] and Oria begins each response with “madre” [mother], recalling the original connection between the two reclusas, which never dissolves entirely in the Vida. Amunna asks her daughter five questions that progress from maternal to theological issues. In addition to satisfying a mortal’s understandable curiosity about death, Amunna’s first question betokens her continuing concern for the physical well-being of her daughter. She asks, “ ‘if you are in purgatory or you have left it’ ” [“o si sodes en pena o sodes end essida”] (190d), referring to the aff liction Oria felt on her deathbed. Putting her new experience in earthly terms that her mother and Berceo’s audience as well can understand, Oria responds, “ ‘Mother,’ said her daughter, ‘it is a feast for all, like Easter or Christmas’ ” [“Madre—dixo la fija—festa es general,/com es Resurrectión o como la Natal”] (191a–b), and asks to take communion. Although Oria explains that she wants to go back to heaven as soon as possible, Amunna delays her departure with another question: “But, daughter, I want to ask you one thing: if when you died you received any punishment or whether they gave you a place immediately in heaven or whether they made you wait outside the door.” [“Mas, fija, una cosa vos quiero demandar, si en el passamiento rescibiestes pesar, o si vos dieron luego en el Cielo logar, o vos fizieron ante a la puerta musar.”] (195)

Oria replies that she had to wait through the night. Next, Amunna asks who kept Oria company that first night she waited outside the gates. Oria replies that the holy virgins and Mary stayed with her and once again we are reminded of Amunna’s distance from the holy throng of virgins. Amunna’s final question concerns Oria’s place in heaven, and we learn that she is among the Holy Innocents (200a). Oria instructs her mother about other matters as well before taking her leave: “These words said, and many other like them,/Oria the blessed, of spiritual deeds,/f led from the eyes of her mother’s heart” [Estas palabras dichas e muchas otras tales,/Oria la benedicta, de fechos spiritales/fússoli a la madre de los ojos corales] (201b–c; translation modified). Amunna wakes up from the vision in tears. The chaste visionary mother of a visionary virgin daughter, Amunna shares characteristics with other famous mothers whose portrayals are not as ambivalent in medieval literature. Berceo’s poem is significant within the thirteenth-century context of increased reverence for women—mothers in particular—as saints. Although the total number

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of mother-saints, women whose status of motherhood provided a path to sanctity, is comparatively low, and of mothers and children who pursue martyrdom together even lower, medieval hagiography does supply some examples of mothers and daughters who were partners in sanctity and whose cults were far more extensive than those of the two anchoresses of San Millán.18 Although the mother-saints scattered throughout the Golden Legend and other, though less widely known, sources serve as distant precedents for the linkage between motherhood and sanctity, the late-medieval cults of Saint Anne and Mary (revered primarily for the importance of their physical, though sinless, motherhood in salvation history) and of Saint Monica (yet another holy mother whose cult was popular in the Middle Ages) suggest ideals of motherhood that are even more pertinent to Berceo’s thirteenth-century Vida. Amunna’s presence in the Vida also recalls the Virgin Mary both as mater dolorosa and as the “maternal martyr” celebrated in late medieval hagiography, who, as Newman explains, reenacts Abraham’s supreme test of faith, and “whose holiness is enhanced by her willingness to abandon her children or, in extreme cases, consent to their deaths as the Virgin did to Christ’s. As a consequence of this renunciation, she is delivered from family ties and enabled to live for God alone.” Free from the duties of earthly mothering, a maternal martyr could display her “truly ‘maternal’ character in compassion for the infant Christ, loving service to the poor, and zealous care for her spiritual sons and daughters.”19 Although Amunna willingly offers her daughter to the service of God, her entrance into the life of a reclusa preserves rather than breaks the biological maternal line. Moreover, Amunna’s retreat from the world does not eclipse her maternal characteristics. Indeed, Amunna is portrayed during Oria’s life in the monastery as a watchful, anxious woman who cares for her child during a terminal illness as she would have done in civil life. Nor does Amunna appear to consent joyfully to her daughter’s martyrdom. In fact, the maternal concern implied by Berceo’s descriptions of Amunna’s “mad grief ” [rabia] (140a), “worry” [coita] (169b), and “tears” [lagremales] (201d) recalls Jerome’s characterization of “the battering ram of [familial] affection which shakes faith” and signals the presence of the devil.20 Amunna does not accept her daughter’s death with the willingness and peace of mind of a “maternal martyr”; rather she demonstrates her own need of spiritual mothering and comfort. Nevertheless, Amunna’s imitation of the Virgin is not limited to maternity and tears. Although earthbound f lesh delineates her clearly from the Virgin Mary, and Berceo stresses the spiritual distance between them, their maternal relationships clearly encourage the poem’s audience to draw certain analogies. Most importantly, the two maternal figures

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share a significant role in the transmission of their martyred children’s lives; like Mary, Amunna is the custodian of memory. Mary is said to have dictated the events of Christ’s life to the evangelists: “She kept in her memory everything she knew about the Lord and what the Lord did and said, so that when the time came to preach or write about the incarnation she could adequately make known all that had been said and done, to those who sought information.”21 Likewise, when the time comes to write the story of Oria’s life, Amunna is Munno’s source: “he composed the account./Her mother had told him all about it” [él [Munno] fizo el dictado;/aviégelo la madre todo bien razonado] (5c). Amunna also dictates her own vision foretelling Oria’s death to Munno: “She told it all [to him] . . ./She told him it well, he did not learn it badly” [regunzógelo todo . . ./bien gelo contó ella, non l apriso él mal] (170c–171b). Furthermore, in the epilogue, the dialogue between biological mother and martyred daughter, between disciple and saint, spiritual daughter and mother, implies that Amunna is the source for the epilogue itself. Moreover, Oria’s death increases Amunna’s sanctity and responsibilities as her mother. Although earthly motherly concerns inspire Amunna’s second vision, the knowledge imparted in the vision creates a new kind of motherhood for her: she becomes the transmitter of Oria’s life and afterlife, and thus a spiritual guide. Berceo does not relate the content of Amunna’s other “very great visions” [muy grandes visïones] (202a), but her role as an authority in relaying information about the other world is well established by the epilogue, and she becomes Oria’s intercessor in the here and now.22 Early in the Vida, Berceo characterizes Amunna as a saint in her own right, alluding to the existence of her cult: “Her service pleased God our Lord/the people of the land paid her great honour,/her good name spread to far-off lands” [plazié el su servicio a Dios nuestro Sennor,/los pueblos de la tierra faziénli grant honor,/issié a luengas tierras la su buena loor] (18b–d). However, with a line that mirrors his famous turning from corteza [husk] to meollo [kernel], and thus from dead letter to spirit, in stanza 16 of the allegorical introduction to the Milagros de nuestra señora [Miracles of Our Lady], Berceo turns away from the subject of the mother’s sanctity: “Let us leave the mother, let us turn to the daughter” [Dexemos de la madre, en la fija tornemos] (19a).23 Berceo’s descriptions of their burials equate the visionary mother and daughter: The daughter and her mother, both of saintly lives, just as they always had great and perfect love, have nothing separate in death and in all things:

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Amunna lies buried near to Oria. Rightly are the bodies to be venerated for they suffered for Christ many noble sufferings: may they make manifold prayers to God that he save our souls and pardon our sins. [La fija e la madre, ambas de santa vida, como ovieron siempre grant amor e complida, en la muerte y todo non an cosa partida, cerca yaze de Oria Amunna sepelida. Cuerpos son derecheros que sean adorados, ca sufrieron por Christo lazerios muy granados; ellas fagan a Dios ruegos multiplicados que nos salve las almas, perdone los pecados.] (182–3)

The request for Amunna and Oria’s combined intercession and the celebration of their remains as holy relics indicate that the poem is not solely the life of Oria, but that her mother also has a special inf luence in heaven. In the epilogue of the Vida Berceo also refers to Amunna’s independent sanctity: She saw, besides these, other very great visions of which a man might make good verses enough, but I have other worries to concern myself with. I want to leave off until another time. [Vido sin éstas otras muy grandes visïones, de que formarié omne assaz buenas razones; mas tengo otras priesas de fer mis cabazones, quiero alçarme d’esto fasta otros sazones.] (202)

In the organization of the Vida, Amunna’s vita, introduced by rhetorical occupatio, frames her daughter’s: Oria’s tale is the kernel within Amunna’s maternal husk. A Latin epitaph and its rendering in Castilian were appended to the poem by a later scribe in the fourteenth century. They serve as an early gloss on Berceo’s poem by presenting Amunna and Oria as if in a diptych where two possibilities for female sanctity are displayed—holy virgin and beatific mother: Beneath the stone you see lies the body of St Oria, And that of her mother Amunna, a woman worthy of memory: They pursued great abstinence in this transitory life, For which their souls are now in glory with the angels.

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[Hunc quem cerbis lapidem scultum sacra tegit membra Beata. Simul Auria Virgo cum matre Amunnia quies[c]unt Femina. Et quia pro Xpo arctam duxerunt vitam, Simul cum eo meruerunt coronari in gloria. So esta piedra que vedes yace el cuerpo de Santa Oria, E el de su madre Amunna fembra de buena memoria: Fueron de grant abstinencia en esta vida transitoria, Por que son con los Angeles las sus almas en gloria.]24

Amunna is both a foil for the many virginal spiritual mothers who appear throughout the Vida and a model for holy mothers and pious widows who can, in Jerome’s words, “make a virtue of necessity” by becoming ascetics.25 Although a widow who has had the f leshly experience of biological motherhood may never reach the same heights of sanctity as a virgin could, Amunna does become a spiritual mother and an important repository of eschatological information. The vita of Amunna, like the Northern European lives of thirteenth-century women who were not canonized studied by Anneke Mulder-Bakker, shows how some women “successfully combined marriage and motherhood with a religious life,” their vitae possibly “written to provide an illustrious history for these new types of female religiosity, an educative model for holy mothers of late medieval reality.”26 Amunna may indeed have appealed to members of the female religious community who had retired from the world as widows or in other circumstances after marriage, and perhaps also to the mothers of consecrated virgins who demonstrated their heroic virtue in ways that pained their parents. Berceo’s references to Amunna’s cult status and inclusion of her visions in the Vida provide a further model of sanctity and another object of pilgrimage for his audience as well. The tension in the Vida between portraying Amunna as a saint in her own right and depicting her as a worldly figure ref lects Berceo’s dual didactic purpose of glorifying virginity while providing models of sanctity for both brides of Christ and women whose potential for piety was conditioned by biological and emotional experience. The widowed mother of a virgin martyr is an ambivalent hagiographic figure whose tears are at once reminiscent of Jerome’s “battering ram” and of the mater dolorosa. Notes 1. Cuaderna vía verse form consists of monorhymed quatrains of Alexandrines with a caesura. It was frequently used in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in Castilian vernacular narrative and didactic poetry. See Isabel Uría Maqua, Panorama crítico del mester de clerecía (Madrid: Castalia, 2000)

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2.

3. 4. 5. 6.

7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

12.

and Julian Weiss, The ‘Mester de Clerecía’: Intellectuals and Ideologies in Thirteenth-century Castile (Woodbridge, UK: Tamesis, 2006). Although Sandoval claims to have found the Vida de la bien auenturada virgen Auria (Life of the Blessed Virgin Aurea) in “an ancient book, written by a monk who saw her and knew her” [un libro antiquissimo, escrita por un monge que la vió, y trató] (my translation), T. Anthony Perry argues that Sandoval probably had only a copy of Berceo’s poem on hand, rather than a document by an eleventh-century monk (Art and Meaning in Berceo’s Vida de Santa Oria [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968], 5). Walsh, “Sanctity and Gender in Berceo’s Santa Oria,” Medium Aevum 57:2 (1988): 259. John K. Walsh, “A Possible Source for Berceo’s Vida de Santa Oria,” MLN 87 (1972): 302. Walsh, “Sanctity and Gender,” 258. Lappin in Gonzalo de Berceo, Berceo’s “Vida de Santa Oria”: Text, Translation and Commentary, trans. Anthony Lappin (Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre of the University of Oxford, 2000), 12. Gonzalo de Berceo, “Vida de Santa Auria,” in El sacrificio de la misa; La vida de Santa Oria; El martirio de San Lorenzo, study and critical edition by Brian Dutton (London: Támesis Books, 1981), 11c–d. All citations from Berceo’s poem are from this edition. All translations are from Gonzalo de Berceo, Berceo’s “Vida de Santa Oria,” with slight modifications noted. Stanza numbers of Dutton’s edition and Lappin’s translation correspond unless otherwise specified. John K. Walsh, “The Other World in Berceo’s Vida de Santa Oria,” in Hispanic Studies in Honor of Alan D. Deyermond: A North American Tribute, ed. John S. Miletich (Madison, WI: Seminary of Hispanic Medieval Studies, 1986), 301. Clarissa Atkinson, The Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 66. Barbara Newman, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 93. According to her legend, Eugenia, for example, dressed as a man and joined an all-male religious community as Brother Eugene. Jacobus de Voragine reports that Helenus, the head of the monastery, saw through Eugenia’s masculine guise but kept her secret, declaring, “rightly do you call yourself a man because you act like a man even though you are a woman” ( Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William Granger Ryan, 2 vols. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993], 2:165). Consequently, her biological sex remained unknown to her community until her death. Jerome, Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians, in The Commentaries of Origen and Jerome on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, ed. and trans. Ronald E. Heine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 237–238. Scholarship on early Christian and medieval ideas of virginity is quite

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13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

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extensive and varied. For a recent and thorough review of contemporary approaches, see Maud Burnett McInerney, Eloquent Virgins from Thecla to Joan of Arc (New York: Palgrave, 2003), 1–14. James F. Burke, “The Four ‘Comings’ of Christ in Gonzalo de Berceo’s Vida de Santa Oria,” Speculum 48 (1973): 303; Simina M. Farcasiu, “The Exegesis and Iconography of Vision in Gonzalo de Berceo’s Vida de Santa Oria,” Speculum 61 (1986): 317–318. Elizabeth Valdez de Álamo describes images of the Tree of Jesse with which Berceo may have been familiar in “Visiones y profecía: El árbol de Jesé en el claustro de Silos,” in El románico en Silos: IX Centenario de la consagración de la iglesia y claustro, 1088–1988, ed. Mariano Palacios González, Studia Silensia Series Maior (Santo Domingo de Silos: Abadia de Silos, 1990), 173–185. Pamela Sheingorn, “Appropriating the Holy Kinship: Gender and Family History,” in Interpreting Cultural Symbols: Saint Anne in Late Medieval Society, ed. Kathleen Ashley and Pamela Sheingorn (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1990), 171. Lappin in Gonzalo de Berceo, Berceo’s “Vida de Santa Oria,” 36; The New Oxford Annotated Bible, ed. Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973); Biblia sacra iuxta vulgatam versionem, ed. Bonifatio Fischer, Iohanne Gribomont, H. F. D. Sparks, W. Thiele, and Robert Weber, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1975). Farcasiu and Weiss give the most detailed analyses of Voxmea. For Farcasiu, “the figure of Voxmea is the figure of Wisdom. Voxmea and Oria, through their names, are identified with Wisdom; they are symmetrically, prefiguration and hagiographic fulfillment of the Word of God” (327). Farcasiu also connects Voxmea and the throne to Ezekiel 1.25, “And there came a voice from above the firmament over their heads” [fieret vox supra firmamentum quod erat super caput eorum] (Farcasiu, 329). She adds that the throne, like Voxmea herself, “is a figure of the incarnation, a figure of the Word” and “a voice untainted by carnality” (329 and 458). Weiss reads Voxmea’s dress as a symbol of the poem itself and an essential facet of Berceo’s preoccupation with language and his own poetic voice. Oria symbolizes “the writer’s own desire to find ‘vox mea’, which inevitably entails a struggle with fallen, earthbound language.” The ‘Mester de Clerecía’: Intellectuals and Ideologies in Thirteenth-Century Castile, 83–84; 74. Berceo’s engagement of medieval sign theory has been the object of two other recent studies. See Robin M. Bower, “Prescriptions for Reading: The Medicinal Prologues of Gonzalo de Berceo’s Saints’ Lives,” MLN 118 (2003): 275–297; and Mary Jane Kelley, “Ascendant Eloquence: Language and Sanctity in the Works of Gonzalo de Berceo,” Speculum 79 (2004): 66–87. The composition and original placement of the epilogue has been the focus of much critical speculation. See Perry, 16; Walsh, “A Possible Source,” 300–303; and Isabel Uría Maqua in Gonzalo de Berceo, Poema de Santa Oria, ed. Isabel Uría Maqua (Madrid: Clásicos Castalia, 1981), 46.

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18. The Golden Legend includes, for example, the vita of Saint Sophia, who watched her daughters’ torture, encouraging their martyrdom, finally expiring after burying them ( Jacobus de Voragine, 1:185–186). Anneke Mulder-Bakker discusses other early iconographic links between martyrdom and motherhood: Saint Julita martyred with her three-year-old son; Felicitas and Symphorosa were each remembered as the mothers of seven sons; Regina, a noble Saxon, mother of ten virgins (“Introduction,” Sanctity and Motherhood: Essays on Holy Mothers in the Middle Ages [New York: Garland, 1995], 4–6). 19. Newman, 77–78. 20. Select Letters of St. Jerome, ed. and trans. F. A. Wright, Loeb Classical Library (London: W. Heinemann; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1933; reprint, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 35. Atkinson observes that this is typical in Jerome’s letters, where “images of pathetic, clinging family members, which could be powerfully moving in another context, signify danger and treachery” (68). 21. Jacobus de Voragine, 2:253. As Patricia Grieve observes, this theme is also of prime importance in Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora (Miracles of Our Lady), a collection of Marian miracles in verse (“The Spectacle of Memory/Mary in Gonzalo de Berceo’s Milagros de Nuestra Señora,” MLN 108:2 [March 1993]: 214–229). In Vida de Santa Oria, Mary is less an authority on past events than on future events. However, the prevalence of her role as custodian of memory in the Milagros leads me to suspect that Amunna’s role in the transmission of the life of her martyred child is not a casual detail. 22. An intriguing aspect of Amunna’s position in the chain of transmission is that her name and Munno’s are so similar. According to Evelyn Birge Vitz, vernacular hagiographers often invented names of secondary characters (“From Oral to Written in Medieval and Renaissance Saints’ Lives,” in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate BlumenfeldKosinski and Timea Szell [Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991], 99). It is possible that Berceo intentionally made the names of his written authority and Munno’s oral authority resemble one another. 23. Stanza 16 of the Milagros reads, “My Lords and friends, what we have said thus far is obscure and we wish to explicate it; let us take off the husk and take up the kernel, let us take what is inside and leave behind what is without” [Señores e amigos, lo que dicho avemos/palvra es oscura, esponerla queremos;/tolgamos la corteza, al meollo entremos,/prendamos lo de dentro, lo de fuera dessemos] (Gonzalo de Berceo, Milagros de Nuestra Señora, ed. Fernando Baños [Barcelona: Crítica, 1997], 7; my translation). 24. MS 4 of the Real Academia Española is a fourteenth-century copy of a lost thirteenth-century manuscript. These verses follow the rubric “The following verses are those found on the gravestone where the lady Saint Aurea lies buried” [Estos versos infra escriptos son los que estan enla

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lápida do yaze señora Sancta áurea virgen] (fol. 58r) and are included at the end of Tomás Antonio Sánchez’s eighteenth-century edition of the Vida (“Vida de Santa Oria Virgen,” in Colección de poesías castellanas anteriores al siglo XV, ed. Tomás Antonio Sánchez, 4 vols. [Madrid: Antonio de Sancha, 1779–1790], 2:433–461). John K. Walsh posits that the two stanzas in the fourteenth-century manuscript were not extant in the lost original and are the work of a later copyist (“Sanctity and Gender,” 259). I have translated the Castilian epitaph, which, in turn, is a loose rendering of the Latin quatrain. 25. Jerome, 239. 26. Mulder-Bakker, 20–21.

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CHAPTER 9 WRITING AS RESISTANCE: SELF AND SURVIVAL IN LEONOR LÓPEZ DE CÓRDOBA AND TERESA DE CARTAGENA Victoria Rivera-Cordero

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lthough women writers in the Spanish Middle Ages were few in number, it is notable that the first known female authors in this time period embraced genres that favor a certain level of interiority, such as lyrical poetry or autobiographical narratives. These first-person narratives reveal the desire to construct a certain image of themselves on the part of the women writers who struggled to solidify their status in a patriarchal society. It is, however, essential, as Ronald Surtz points out, to differentiate between women of different social status since this factor played an important role in determining their relative freedom.1 Scholars have argued, for example, that women of the highest levels of society enjoyed certain privileges of ownership in Castile during the Middle Ages, though not all high-status women were treated equally.2 Just as women did not generally enjoy ownership rights, they were rarely allowed to express publicly their views on certain topics, especially religion or law, and it is naturally those women who enjoyed some level of social privilege in other areas who first gained access to self-expression through writing. Yet even for these women, such privileges were won only in a limited fashion and were often exercised under the threat of male reprobation. This chapter explores the prose writings of Leonor López de Córdoba and Teresa de Cartagena which constitute fertile terrain for analyzing their strategies to construct textual images of themselves. I will focus on López’s

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only known work, Memorias [Memoirs], and Cartagena’s Admiraçión operum Dey [Wonder at the Works of God], the second of the two known treatises by the Castilian nun.3 In both cases a woman writes to correct the record with respect to what she has done and who she is. Although they wrote in very different contexts, each woman challenges the reader to view her as exceptional. By so doing, although both women defy contemporary gender roles they do not, in the end, propose to overturn them in a general sense. Their texts present exceptional female subjects who demand to be viewed as equal to men both in their actions and in their right to recount and defend those actions. In Memorias, López de Córdoba tells the story of her family’s fall into disgrace and social disfavor and of her attempts to regain her previously high economic and social status, while in Admiraçión, Cartagena defends her previous work, Arboleda de los enfermos, and her right to write a religious treatise. Both texts constitute a self-defense for their authors who use similar methods to define themselves.4 I contend that in both cases writing emerges from a situation of loss or suffering, which is material and psychological for Leonor de Córdoba and psychological and physical for Teresa de Cartagena. These two women needed to defend themselves publicly in order to restore themselves to a position that had been thrown into question. Their awareness of patriarchal opposition infuses their writing with a certain character of resistance. It is precisely in moments when personal identity is under the greatest threat that it may emerge more clearly (thus deriving strength from debility). This, I argue, is the case for both Córdoba and Cartagena. Both texts are first-person narratives that reveal the link between suffering, writing, and self-construction. Here, writing is an act of survival triggered by a traumatic situation and is thus the location for the emergence of an incipient female subjectivity. Leonor López de Córdoba’s Memorias The Aragonese aristocrat Leonor López de Córdoba is believed to have been born in December 1362 or in January 1363 to an inf luential and extremely well-connected family. What we know about her comes from Memorias, a ten-page text that she wrote (or perhaps dictated), as well as from a few other historical sources such as Alvar García de Santa María’s Crónica de Juan II, López de Ayala’s Crónica del reinado de Pedro I, Fernán Pérez de Guzmán’s Generaciones y semblanzas, and the correspondence of Queen Catalina of Lancaster.5 From Memorias we learn that her father, Martín López de Córdoba, was the grand master of the military orders of Calatrava and Alcántara, a position that he received from King Pedro I

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and that made him one of the most powerful people in Spain at the time. Her mother, Sancha Carrillo, was a relative of King Alfonso XI. López de Córdoba was also connected to the king through her marriage to a relative of Pedro I when she was only seven years old. López de Córdoba’s childhood was marked by trauma and death as a result of both illness and war. Her mother died when she was a child, and she witnessed the civil war between Pedro I and his half-brother Enrique of Trastámara in 1369. Since she and her family were on the side of the losing king, she was sent to prison with her family for nine years after her father was killed. The events that López de Córdoba recounts in Memorias ended in approximately 1401. Though there is no conclusive evidence, the text’s English translators, Amy Katz Kaminsky and Elaine Dorough Johnson, as well as Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux and Clara Estow, among other critics, agree in situating the composition of the text around the year 1412 when López de Córdoba was banished from the Castilian court. Other critics, such as María Milagros Rivera Garretas, argue that López de Córdoba wrote soon after the events she narrates and, therefore, before she served as Queen Catalina of Lancaster’s advisor [privada], a position she held from 1406 to 1407.6 If the first hypothesis is correct it would explain the defensive tone of the text by the need to reestablish an earlier position of privilege that was lost when the queen banished her. This would also partly explain López de Córdoba’s emphasis on loyalty and honor as well as her condemnation of betrayal.7 One of the aspects of López de Córdoba’s text that has been studied the most is its autobiographical character.8 Alan Deyermond was the first to include this brief text in a literary history of medieval Spain and referred to it as one of the first examples of autobiography in the Iberian Peninsula.9 Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux, who prepared the first modern annotated edition of the text in 1977 and was the first critic to analyze its literary value in the essay that accompanies the edition, likewise argues that the text is an autobiography.10 He sees the text as a defense and vindication of López de Córdoba’s family honor, which is accomplished by insisting on her lineage and her piety.11 Surtz, though, points out that medieval authors rarely identify themselves in their texts. Legal documents, of which, he argues, López de Córdoba’s text is an example, were an exception to this rule and thus provided a “context for self-naming.”12 In fact, López de Córdoba’s text is at once autobiographical, a legal document, epistolary, and historico-hagiographic (when, for example, she refers to the Virgin’s inf luence on her life). In the space of only ten pages, López de Córdoba relates a large number of events and provides numerous historical and biographical

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facts, presenting the “deeds and miracles that the Holy Virgin Mary” [echos é milagros que la Virgen Santa Maria] showed her.13 Taking as a starting point the historical event that marked her life most deeply—the death of Pedro I at the hands of his half-brother’s soldiers in 1369—she goes on to describe her childhood and part of her adulthood. Her text can be divided into distinct parts according to the events that she describes: the peaceful years of her early childhood, the historical events of the civil war that ended for her with nine years in prison, her liberation and struggle to regain social and economic status, the rejection by her cousins, and the death of her child. López de Córdoba begins her text with a f lurry of self-references (in italics below) since she, after the often mentioned Virgin Mary, serves as an authority for her own text, thus allowing her both to follow the tradition of a call to divine authority and to raise herself to the level of metatextual guarantor of truth: May all who see this testament know how I, Doña Leonor López de Córdoba, daughter of my lord, Grand Master Don Martín López de Córdoba and Doña Sancha Carrillo, may God grant them eternal glory, swear by this sign † that I worship, that all that is written here is true, for I saw it, and it happened to me and I write it down for the honor and glory of my Lord Jesus Christ and his Mother, the Holy Virgin Mary, who bore him, so that all creatures in tribulation might be assured that I believe in her mercy and that if they commend themselves wholeheartedly to the Holy Virgin Mary she will console them and succor them as she consoled me. And so that whoever might hear it may know the story of my deeds and the miracles that the Holy Virgin Mary showed me, it is my intention that it be left as a record: I ordered it written as you see before you. [Sepan quantos esta Esscriptura vieren, como yo Doña Lopez de Cordoba, fija de mi Señor el Maestre Don Martin Lopez de Cordoba, é Doña Sancha Carrillo, á quien dé Dios Gloria y Parayso. Juro por esta significancia de † en que yo adoro, como todo esto que aqui es escrito, es verdad que o lo vi, y pasó por mi, y escribolo á honrra, y alabanza de mi Señor Jesu Christo, é dela Virgen Santa Maria su Madre que lo parió, por que todas las Criaturas que estubieren en tribulacion sean ciertos, que yo espero en su misericordia, que si se encomiendan de Corazon á la Virgen Santa Maria, que Ella las consolará, y acorrerá, como consoló á mi; y por que quien lo oyere sepan la relacion de todos mis echos é Milagros que la Virgen Santa Maria, me mostró, y es mi intencion que quede por memoria, mandelo escrevir asi como vedes.]14

This passage ends with a significant self-reference (“I ordered it written” [mandelo escrevir]) whose purpose is to clarify that the writing of her text was not imposed by others but rather f lows from her own volition

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and posits her as an active agent. In a life filled with privileges and misfortunes, which stemmed directly from her family relations, and during which López de Córdoba was constantly reduced to currying favor in order to survive, the writing of this text is an exceptional act of choice that defines its author. López de Córdoba defines herself primarily by means of her family, presenting its social rank and emphasizing its direct links to the royal family of King Pedro I.15 After this introduction, she goes on to describe her first brief years of tranquility during which she lived as a child wife with her husband, the king’s daughters, some relatives of both, and her brother, Lope López de Córdoba, in Carmona. The king had shown his favor to her father by marrying him to López de Córdoba’s mother and then showed young Leonor his favor as well by marrying her to Ruy Gutiérrez Henestrosa, who was related to him. Material wealth was a second key element for López de Córdoba’s identity and she describes it in detail throughout her text: “My husband inherited great wealth and many offices from his father. His men on horseback numbered three hundred, and he had forty skeins of pearls fat as chickpeas, and five hundred Moorish slaves, men and women, and two thousand marks of silver in tableware, and you could not write down the jewels and gems of his household on two sheets of paper” [y à mi Marido quedaronle muchos vienes de su Padre y muchos Lugares, y alcanzaba treszientos de à Cavallo suyos, é quarenta madejas de Aljofar, tan grueso como garvanzos, é quinientos moros, é moras, y dos mill marcos de plata en bajilla, y las Joyas, y preseas de su Casa, no las pudieran escrevir en dos pliegos de papel].16 To this wealth, which she describes in such a strikingly precise fashion, López de Córdoba adds her own dowry: “two thousand marks of silver” [dos mill marcos de plata].17 Though her text is quite brief she dedicates much of it to a description of both her previous position in society and her material wealth as though the mere mention of this past glory could dispel her current misfortunes by forcing the reader to see her, not as the person she is, defined by her current circumstances, but as the person she was, defined by her past status. López de Córdoba then narrates the events of the war in which Pedro I was killed by his half brother, Enrique of Trastámara, who subsequently became Enrique II of Castile, and in this part of the text she paints a portrait of herself and her family as profoundly loyal subjects—in both senses of the word: a loyal servant and an agent who defines her- or himself through strength of character—in opposition to the several instances of betrayal from which she and her family suffered. She notes that her father, Martín López de Córdoba, went to protect Pedro I but found him already dead. After his victory Enrique punished those who had opposed

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him, among them López de Córdoba’s father, laying siege to Carmona for a year. She recounts these events with an emphasis on the strength of her father’s soldiers who fought and refused to surrender. Eventually, Enrique II sent his high constable to Carmona in order to make a pact in which he agreed to set López de Córdoba’s father and his soldiers free if they surrendered to him. Carmona capitulated on these conditions in 1371, but the king did not keep his promise and ordered that Martín López de Córdoba be executed and that his family, including eight-year-old Leonor, be sent to prison. She notes that the messenger, the high constable, did not support the king’s decision and left the kingdom after the betrayal. The episode closes with a further example of her father’s loyalty: while Martín López is on the way to be executed, Mosen Beltrán de Claquín, who betrayed Pedro I by bringing him to his murderous brother, tells him that he had warned him about what would happen if he resisted Enrique. Here the author reproduces her father’s words in order to highlight his bravery and loyalty: “It is better to die loyal, as I have done, than to live as you live, having been a traitor” [Mas vale morir como Leal, como Yo lo hé echo, que no vivir como vos vivis, haviendo sido Traydor] (emphasis in the original).18 The objective here is to construct an image of her father as a brave and honorable military commander who remained loyal to his ideas and to the dead king until the end and, therefore, to highlight the unfairness of her imprisonment. Here López de Córdoba clearly intends the reader to see her as belonging to this same patriarchal tradition of honor. Yet, the years that López de Córdoba spent in prison were marked deeply with the stain of dishonor. In the events she narrates she emphasizes the hardship, especially for the men, noting that her husband was held in solitary confinement without food or water for six to seven days. Of special importance to López de Cordoba are the chains and irons that the men were forced to wear: “Our husbands each had sixty pounds of iron on their feet, and my brother, Don Lope López, had a chain of seventy links on top of his irons” [y nuestros Maridos tenian sesenta libras de hierro cada vno en los pies, y mi hermano Don Lope Lopez tenia una Cadena encima delos hierros].19 She also mentions the deaths of her brothers-in-law and how they were robbed of their possessions while in prison. Her younger brother died at her side, and his last words—a request that his shackles be removed before his death (so that, symbolically at least, he would not die a prisoner)—recall those of her father insofar as they reveal his profound sense of honor. This request was denied. To drive this point home, López de Córdoba places great emphasis on the dishonor of her family members dying with their shackles on, which was a common treatment for slaves and was thus a further affront to the dead.20 Her text may be seen as an effort to restore her family’s lost honor.

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The act of recording these events, particularly the words of her father and brother, links her powerfully to this concept of honor while assuring the continuity of their memory. After the death of Enrique II, López de Córdoba and her husband, the only survivors, were set free. The next part of the text—where she explains how she regained economic and social strength, thanks to her efforts to contact a wealthy maternal aunt—is significant. Her husband, who tries unsuccessfully to recuperate his wealth, practically disappears from the text at this point. The last time she mentions him is to describe his arriving at her aunt’s home seven years later with only the shirt on his back, riding a lowly mule. Even though her husband lived with her subsequently at her aunt’s home in Córdoba, she never mentions him again. Her main purpose in describing this period of her life is to insist on her own strength and the help she claims to have received from the Virgin. While living in one of her aunt’s houses in Córdoba, López de Córdoba depended on her aunt to feed her and her family. However, this presented a problem for her since the family had to walk down the street to her aunt’s house at each mealtime to eat the food her aunt’s servants had prepared. To remedy this socially embarrassing situation, López de Córdoba turned to prayer: “Every night I prayed three hundred Hail Marys on my knees, so that she would put it in my aunt’s heart to agree to open a passageway into her dwellings. And two days before my prayers ended, I asked my aunt to allow me to open that passage, so that we would not have to walk through the street, past all the nobility of Córdoba” [cada noche rezaba treszientas Aves Marias de Rodillas, para que pusiese en Corazon á mi Señora, que consintiese abrir un postigo á sus casas, y dos días antes que acabase la Oracion, demandé ála Señora mi tia que me dejase abrir aquel postigo, por que no viniesmos por la Calle á comer á su mesa, entre tantos Cavalleros que havia en Cordoba].21 As a result of her religious devotion, her aunt grants her request, which López de Córdoba interprets as indicating that the Virgin favors her (despite her use of prayer for selfish social concerns). The restoration of her honor is essential to her text, but López de Córdoba also uses this episode to construct an image of herself as a proud, strong, and even relatively cold individual. When, at the last minute, some maids persuaded her aunt not to build the passageway after all, López de Córdoba states, “the one who did most to set my aunt against me died in my hands, swallowing her tongue” [la que me hizo más contradicción con la señora mi tía se murió en mis manos, comiéndose la lengua].22 The use of the ref lexive form of the verb morir [to die]—“se murió”—indicates here that the event was unexpected and, therefore,

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not the result of anything that López de Córdoba did.23 The text implies that she was simply the passive beneficiary of what may have been divine intervention since López de Córdoba’s aunt did build the passageway after the servant’s death. The coldness with which López de Córdoba recounts the event—about which she says nothing more—is even more striking than the mysterious death (perhaps from an epileptic fit) of the offending servant in her arms.24 The account of this death is similar to a previous episode that she narrates when her father orders the execution of twelve enemy soldiers during the siege of Carmona. In both cases, López de Córdoba tells the story as if she were a soldier who faces death coldly. There are other key moments that contribute to her image as a psychologically strong woman for whom the Virgin has special regard. For instance, she recounts a dream in which she saw the sky as she entered the arch of a church behind which lay some land. She interprets this as a premonition of her obtaining a house situated in this place and that the Virgin’s intervention made possible.25 Another significant moment is when she adopts a Jewish orphan in Córdoba after the 1391 pogrom in order to raise him in the Christian faith.26 She includes a prayer in her description of this episode in which she insists on the Virgin’s suffering for her son, Jesus, and then talks about her own suffering (“I suffered so much bitterness that it cannot all be written down” [pasé tantas amarguras, que no se podian escrivir]).27 Here the affinity with the Virgin’s loss becomes a keystone in the edifice of López de Córdoba’s own constructed identity. The arrival of the plague in Córdoba offers the author another way to tie her own travails to those of the Virgin. López de Córdoba asks her aunt to let her leave the city with her children.28 They seek refuge in Santa Ella where they are well received by the villagers who had been her father’s vassals. She thus obtains the best house in the village. Her aunt arrives later with her daughters, and at this point we learn that her cousins dislike her, possibly because they resent the attention that their mother has bestowed on her. When the plague eventually reaches Santa Ella, the whole family goes to Aguilar except for the orphan, Alonso, who is sent to Ecija. This is an important point because he returns sick with the plague. The episode of the sick child may be viewed as the centerpiece in the portrait of the author as strong, decisive, and Christian. The orphan can be seen as another of her projects: she has decided to protect him even if this means sacrificing her own f lesh and blood. López de Córdoba is warned that if her cousin, in whose house she is staying, finds the sick child, he will not tolerate his presence. So she decides to care for him in the house of a former servant of her father. She forces the servant (who is afraid of contamination) to take the sick adopted son into his house,

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and she interprets his action as motivated by fear of being viewed as disloyal.29 Each person, in fact, who takes care of the child becomes ill and dies “for my sins” [é por mis pecados].30 One night she sends her own twelve-year-old son to care for the orphan; he dies but the sick child survives. This constitutes another parallel with the Virgin: her son sacrifices himself for others. López de Córdoba attributes her family’s intolerance toward her to these deaths. She describes how, when she was denied permission to bury her son in the town, she carried her dead child through the street and was followed by a crowd of townsfolk who cried out: “Come out good people and you will see the most unfortunate, forsaken, and cursed woman in the world” [Salid Señores, y vereis la mas desventurada, desamparada, é Maldita muger del mundo]. 31 This touch of drama highlights her status as a public figure, emphasizing in particular that the villagers are on her side because they are still loyal to her father. Again, loyalty (even beyond family ties—since the family’s support is here lacking) trumps misfortune and forges identity. She returns to Córdoba and at this point her memoirs end abruptly while she is abandoned by all. The text ends with the simple statement “and so I came back to my houses in Córdoba” [asi vineme a mis casas de Cordoba]. 32 We know through historical accounts that she subsequently became an extremely inf luential advisor in the Castilian court of Catalina of Lancaster (granddaughter of Pedro I of Castile, and López de Córdoba’s friend since childhood), queen regent, and mother of the future Juan II. Through her privileged ties to both royal families (the family of Enrique and that of Pedro I), her adoption of a Jewish orphan during the violent uprisings against Jews (and her subsequent desire to convert this child to Christianity), and her answered prayers (which allow her to claim the Virgin Mary’s favor)—and above all through her founding her identity and voice on the fierce code of honor and loyalty that her father, her brother, her son, and she kept—López de Córdoba posits herself as exceptional. Exceptional in her suffering (imprisonment from a tender age, humiliation and loss of high-born family members, loss of material and social status), she is also exceptional in telling her own story in a mix of legalistic, historiographic, and hagiographic styles infused at times with brilliant f lashes of drama (such as her father’s defiant last words) but tempered by an unwillingness to fall into “female” emotions. Rather than wanting to be accepted or admired as “a woman,” she clearly defines her sense of self through the concepts of loyalty, honor, and psychological strength (in the sense that she does not show emotion on key occasions) and demands respect on particularly male terrains. Her text does not

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respond directly to any specific detractor nor does it make any kind of request; rather it appears to be simply López de Córdoba’s attempt to set the record straight. When she had done so, she retired to her “houses in Córdoba,” which allowed her to finish from a position of strength that Teresa de Cartagena was denied. Teresa de Cartagena’s Admiraçión operum Dey Like Leonor López de Córdoba, Teresa de Cartagena came from a prominent family but one whose inf luence was not limited to the political arena since her relatives were also important religious and intellectual figures in Spain. 33 Despite her deafness, she benefited from a privileged education for a woman in her time period. This is without doubt due to her inf luential family, the Cartagenas and the Santa Marías. 34 There are two known texts by Teresa de Cartagena: Arboleda de los enfermos [Grove of the Infirm] and Admiraçión operum Dey [Wonder at the Works of God]. Like López de Córdoba’s Memorias, both of Cartagena’s works contain autobiographical elements, yet the nature of Cartagena’s texts allowed her to explore her interiority in greater detail as well as to defend herself. Wonder was written in response to the harsh criticism that was directed against her earlier treatise, Grove, which was written in1450–1451 (or perhaps c. 1475, as Seidenspinner-Núñez and Kim have suggested).35 Unlike López de Córdoba, who presents her text as the product of her own volition, Cartagena claims to write Wonder in response to a request from a “virtuous lady,” Juana de Mendoza, the wife of the poet Gómez de Manrique, although this may be seen as yet another way of protecting herself from her detractors.36 Though López de Córdoba and Cartagena approach writing from radically different circumstances, both pursue the clear objective of sculpting an image of themselves as exceptional with a confidence borne of generations of family privilege. Whereas López de Córdoba begins with a clear delineation of her genealogy, Cartagena, who operates on a solely theological terrain, does not do so at all. Her determination to write both treatises is nonetheless strengthened by her family’s history of privileged status, even if her argument does not derive from it. Any study of Wonder must also take into account Grove, which the former was written to defend. Teresa wrote Grove as an attempt to give meaning to her physical aff liction; in fact, the text is an exploration of a physical disability from the subjective point of view of the sufferer.37 Grove is a major contribution to Castilian literature both because it is one of the earliest texts by a woman writer in the Spanish Middle Ages, and, more importantly, because it is one of the rare testimonies about illness from the

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perspective of a sufferer in that time period.38 It may be considered both a didactic-religious treatise and a consolation text, a very popular genre in fifteenth-century Castile. At the beginning of the text, Cartagena indicates that one of her objectives is to produce a work that will console both her and other sufferers. While exploring her own ailments, she also gives new meaning to health and disease by valorizing the second over the first and thus vindicating herself as well as a whole community of sufferers.39 For Teresa, Grove is an inner journey to spiritual fulfillment—“true Health” [verdadera Salut]40 —whose path is constituted by illness, suffering, and patience.41 In the first part of the text she establishes the basis for her argument (with her personal experience as an exemplum) and ends with a definition and exaltation of the concept of patience (the theoretical part of the treatise proper) as the path to divine grace. Thus, the treatise is written through the prism of her experience of disability. In Cartagena’s texts, disability becomes a vehicle to bestow moral and spiritual authority upon herself. In fact, the female writer’s solitude, which is prominent in Grove, allows her to create discursive strategies to subvert male authority. In her own exegetical work, she opened up a path for later women writers such as Teresa de Ávila and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.42 For this reason, one of the most common approaches to Cartagena’s work has been that of feminist theory in its attempts to revise a canon composed mostly of the works of male writers.43 Indeed, Grove was criticized severely in its time by male religious authorities; noting that “some prudent men and discreet women have marveled at a treatise that, with divine grace directing my weak womanly understanding, was written by my hand” [algunos de los prudentes varones e así henbras discretas se maravillan o han maravillado de vn tratado que, la graçia divina administrando mi f laco y mugeril entendimiento, mi mano escribió],44 Cartagena wrote Wonder at the Works of God to provide a commentary on her previous work and to defend herself from this criticism. Cartagena adopts the necessary strategy of false modesty, though she leaves no doubt as to her authorship of Grove (“written by my hand”) despite a “weak womanly understanding” (i.e., a disabled understanding). She goes on to emphasize that what causes wonder in men and women is not the content of her work, but the mere fact that a woman wrote it. In this way, Cartagena subverts misogynistic discourse by claiming that the content of her work was inspired by “divine grace.” In this context, there could be no better or stronger defense: she enjoys a divine inspiration that others lack. In Grove, Cartagena offers a new twist to the widespread notion of innate female weakness, as well as to negative views of disabilities. Building upon a reading of Saint Paul, she defends her right to enjoy God’s grace in order to affirm that the most imperfect subject will enjoy

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the greatest benefits, since physical imperfection is the source of spiritual perfection.45 Thus, it is precisely because women are considered inferior to men that they are best situated to receive God’s grace. Her physical disability can only enhance this position of superiority. Therefore, the defense of disability is linked to her defense of herself and is part of a more general defense of women’s right to a voice in theological matters. Cartagena rebuilds this position of superiority in Wonder. She insists on her physical weakness and presents an image of herself as assailed by many illnesses that hinder her “understanding” [entendimiento] or her intellectual capabilities. She asks, “How can there be any good in a person aff licted with so many misfortunes?” [¿Cómo en persona que tantos males asyentan puede aver algun bien?]46 But disability and physical weakness now have a new meaning since, as the readers of Grove know, her disability is what allowed her to achieve profounder introspection and thus isolate herself from the world and reach “true Health.” As she sees it, her deafness is the result of divine grace.47 In fact, the defense of illness that one finds in Grove becomes a defense of women’s right to write and, more importantly, of Cartagena’s right to write—a privilege that she will not cede easily. As she states in Wonder, “I do not want to usurp another’s glory nor ignore my own offense” [Asy que yo no quiero vsurpar la gloria ajena ni deseo huyr del propio denuesto].48 Writing here allows her to resist and confront her detractors directly. Cartagena’s authority as a writer derives from her exceptional status (as a recipient of God’s grace), and although she values private introspection above all, she prefers to state her defense in the more public arena of writing. In this sense Seidenspinner-Nuñez rightly points out that, though the text was written in Castilian, the work’s partially Latin title is important because of the connection between Latin and writing.49 Since Spanish had already begun to occupy the place that classical Latin had once held, the use of Latin in the late Middle Ages signaled (more than ever) a high level of education and thus, in this case, a foray even further into the restricted intellectual domain of men. The Latin title may be interpreted as an act of daring on Cartagena’s part, and both treatises might be seen as an effort to join a group of Spanish intellectuals to which the male members of her family had already belonged for many years. This self-defense allows Cartagena to define herself while securing a place in a family that did not always accept her (due to her illness). More importantly, perhaps, the fact that this is her second written treatise is proof that attempts to silence her have failed and that she is a true author now that she has produced a body of work.

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In Wonder, Cartagena begins her exploration of the concept of wonder or “admiraçión” with the very wonder that her text has produced among men and women, and she ends with an explanation of what should really cause wonder, thus distinguishing inappropriate or “doubting” wonder from respectful, appropriate wonder at the works of God. In order to defend herself and her right to write, Cartagena historicizes the marginalization of women: “I think, most virtuous lady, that the reason that men marvel that a woman has written a treatise is because this is not customary in the female condition but only in the male” [creo yo, muy virtuosa señora, que la causa porque los varones se maravillan que muger aya hecho tractado es por no ser acostunbrado en el estado fimíneo, más solamente en el varonil].”50 In the end, however, what is “customary” (and thus transient) cannot withstand what is divinely ordained. Thus, men dominate in this field not because of a greater physical or mental capacity, but simply because of social practices and conventions. In this sense, Cartagena’s voice emerges from a double silence—that imposed on women by a patriarchal society and that of her disability. Hence, we can see the link between disease and gender in Cartagena’s double defense. From the very first sentences of Wonder, Cartagena links these two “weaknesses”—physical disability and the female gender—that will later become her sources of strength. The text begins with a prologue where she uses the topos of false modesty but grounds it on her weakness due to her maladies. Cartagena presents herself as infertile dry soil that receives water from God, making her text the direct result of God’s grace and her a scribe: “The smallest thing in the world, like the greatest, could not be found unless God’s omnipotence created it. And if all things, great and small, created by God’s omnipotence are marvelous and worthy of great wonder and He can make on earth and in heaven whatever he pleases, why do we marvel at some things more than others?” [Pues sy todas las cosas, asy chicas como grandes, criadas e hechas por la onip[o]tencia [de] Dios son maravillosas e de grande admiraçión e todo lo que a Él p[lug]o et plaze, ha hecho e haze e puede hacer en el çielo e en la tierra ¿qué es la causa porque nos marauillamos más de vnas cosas que de otras?]51 Those who criticize her must be “bad” Christians since they do not see that her text, like everything else, is, in fact, God’s creation.52 What we see first as modesty (her insistence upon her infirmities and her weak understanding, which is incapable of doing anything good) is then counterbalanced or even canceled out by this bold assertion that God’s divine grace has fallen upon her and that her work is essentially unassailable.53 In order to demonstrate her right to write, she subverts the idea of female weakness inherited from patristic tradition by observing that God is responsible for

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conferring all knowledge: “He who could infuse the understanding of men with knowledge can thus infuse the understanding of women, even though our understanding may be imperfect or not as able or sufficient to receive and retain knowledge as that of males” [Pero non es mayor maravilla ni a la onipotençia de Dios menos fácile e ligero de hazerlo vno que lo otro, ca el que pudo e puede enxerir las çiençias en el entendimiento de las mugeres avnque sea ynperfecto o no tan ábile ni sufiçiente para las reçebir ni retener como el entendimiento de los varones].54 In Grove, Teresa de Cartagena defended women’s capacity for both salvation and, subsequently, reason.55 In Wonder, she insists again on this second capacity but, aware at least to some degree of the hostile context, does not go so far as to call for a more general equality of the sexes. Rather, as we shall see, Cartagena abandons a general defense of women to separate herself from the group and emerge as an individual, thus defending her own text and her own voice. This becomes apparent when she is arguing against allegations of plagiarism in her earlier work: “For my experience makes me sure, and God of truth knows that I had no other master nor consulted with any other learned authority nor translated from other books, as some people with malicious wonder are wont to say” [Pues la yspirençia me faze çierta e Dios de la verdad sabe que yo no oue otro Maestro ni me consejé con otro algund letrado, ni lo trasladé de libros, como algunas personas con maliçiosa admiraçión suelen dezir].56 Cartagena’s language is highly metaphorical in both Grove and Wonder. Her metaphors come from different realms, as she refers to herself as “infertile soil” and to the “wars” that assail her. To construct her defense in Wonder, she deepens this metaphoric language in order to draw a picture of women and ultimately of herself to overturn the common image of women. In order to construct her argument, she first draws a portrait of weakness and inferiority and then uses it to argue paradoxically against the common discourse. She argues that one should not marvel that a woman is able to write a treatise since both genders can be intellectually strong and are equally capable if God deigns to make them so.57 She then goes on to say that there are clearly physical differences between the genders: “men are strong and valiant” [el onbre es fuerte e valiente] and women are “weak and cowardly” [f laca e pusilánimi].58 Cartagena concludes from this that men, unlike women, do not fear to use the sword when they have to in order to protect women. But then she transforms this common image of female weakness by comparing men and women to bark and pith: And if you observe well the plants and trees, you will see how their outer bark or cortex is very robust and strong and resistant to the weather, to

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tempest and ice, and heat and cold. They are made in such a way that their firm and resilient bark protects the inner core or medulla enclosed within. And thus in this order the one works for the other, for the strength and hardness of the bark protects and preserves the medulla by resisting on the outside the inclemencies of the weather. The medulla, encased because it is weak and delicate, works inwardly and gives power and vigor to the bark; and thus the one preserves and helps the other and gives us each year the diversity and abundance of fruits that we see. And in this same way, I believe, our sovereign and powerful Lord wants these two opposites in human nature to operate: the masculine condition, strong and valiant, and the feminine, weak and delicate. [E sy queredes bien mirar las plantas e árboles, veréys como las cortezas de fuera son muy rezias e fuertes e sofridoras de las [ten]pestades que los tienpos hazen, aguas e yelos e calores e fríos. Están asy enxeridas he hechas por tal son que no paresçen syno vn gastón firme e rezio para conservar e ayudar el meollo qu’está en[cerc]ado de dentro. E asy por tal horden e manera anda lo vno a lo ál, que la fortaleza e rezidunbre de las cortezas guardan e conservan el meollo, sufriendo esterioramente las tenpestades ya dichas. El meollo asy como es f laco e delicado, estando yncluso, obra ynterioramente, da virtud e vigor a las cortezas e asy lo vno con lo ál se conserva e ayuda e nos da cada año la diversidá o conposidad de las frutas que vedes. E por este mismo respeto creo yo quel soberano e poderoso Señor quiso e quiere en la natura vmana obra[r] estas dos contrariedades, conviene a saber: el estado varonil, fuerte e valiente, e el fimineo, f laco e delicado.]59

Using the common contemporary association between women and inner spaces such as the home (the conventions of which discouraged women from any participation in the public sphere), Cartagena compares women with a plant’s pith, which is delicate but is also what produces the fruit and thus life. For Surtz, Cartagena’s use of the pith and bark metaphor presents gender differences in a new light. Here she seems to be reinforcing the traditional stereotype of women as weak and, therefore, somehow inferior. Yet for Surtz, Cartagena’s use of the botanical image, which was similar to the literary metaphor of the time in which the word meollo [marrow] meant the deep meaning of the text, is a way to subvert gender stereotypes since the marrow is associated with women in a way that empowers them: “Teresa manipulates to her own advantage her readers’ familiarity with this rhetorical commonplace, for in her botanical image the essential part, the meollo, corresponds to the female element, while the superficial interpretation, the corteza, corresponds to the male. Teresa thereby invites her readers to look beyond the surface corteza of her image in order to seek out the hidden meollo of female superiority.”60 Cartagena turns weakness into strength. She further equates the obligation of women

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to stay at home and dedicate themselves to domestic tasks with the life of a cloistered nun such as herself. The spatial imagery of an existence behind protected walls valorizes domesticity implicitly by linking it to inner spirituality and more authentic access to and understanding of God. In this one comparison, she defends both herself and women in general, albeit only the “good” kind who stay indoors. In her view, women are more authentic precisely because they are enclosed, weak, and thus the highly prized element—the meollo that needs to be protected. This echoes a certain masculine discourse of female disempowerment that continues to be wielded against ambitious women in some societies—but here Cartagena clearly attempts to turn this discourse into one of female empowerment (even though, again, it is truly effective only in her case). The publication of her writing—releasing it into the public sphere beyond the walls of her convent—contradicts this link between interiority and empowerment. Writing is the place of greatest intimacy and inner ref lection but it is at the same time the most public sphere that she can enter because her text will be read and commented on by many others, some of whom will be men with whom she will not come into physical contact. So even though Cartagena addresses vocatively the “virtuous lady” [virtuosa señora], she is in reality addressing primarily her detractors.61 The epithet is thus a ref lection of the paradox of writing for Cartagena: it ref lects both the intimacy of the protected inner space of women (one woman writes to another whom she knows to be on her side) and the public sphere into which the text projects the writer (putting her into contact with less friendly male readers). In Grove, Cartagena defends her status as a disabled person to think through spiritual matters, whereas in Wonder she extends the argument in favor of the least powerful by arguing that “weakness” (here the female condition) is precisely what must be defended, with her text serving as a proxy for herself. Cartagena argues that what originates in “weakness,” like what originates in the enclosed space of the soul (the inner understanding), must be protected because it is more authentic (the pith, not the bark). This applies equally to Cartagena and to her writing. Her male detractors have thus not only sinned against God by doubting his power to confer understanding upon a woman but also failed in their basic male duty to defend and protect that which is weaker than they: for if it is the basic function, as Cartagena argues, of women to be weak, it is an equally necessary counterpart that men defend—not attack—the weaker sex. She has, therefore, used the misogynistic prejudices of the time to turn the arguments against her writing on their head—though the final result is not to raise the status of all women but rather simply to defend her own right to have a voice and to use it.

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In the late Middle Ages women were usually the object of debate, one was either for or against them. The works of López de Córdoba and Cartagena offer us, for the first time in Castilian literature, the testimony of women as subjects of their experience in a patriarchal society and as subjects of the act of writing. Their very different positions in society— López de Córdoba on the vanquished side of a battle for royal power and Cartagena on the marginalized side of the infirm—make this testimony more diverse and valuable, but it is worth noting that two women who differed so greatly, one who cherished public life above all and the other for whom only the most private existence could be imagined, both chose the difficult path of writing—a clearly male terrain—to defend their reputations and actions. López de Córdoba and Cartagena posit a unique female subjectivity that they both construct and defend through writing, and their project stands in distinct opposition to the lives of female saints or the virtuous women, which were always written by others. Thus, López de Córdoba and Cartagena posit women as the written subject of literature rather than its writing object.

Notes 1. Ronald Surtz, Writing Women in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: The Mothers of Saint Teresa of Avila (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 2. 2. See Louise Mirrer, Women, Jews, and Muslims in the Texts of Reconquest Castile (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1996), 3; and Carmen Marimón Llorca, Prosistas castellanas medievales (Alicante: Publicaciones de la Caja de Ahorros Provincial, 1990), 31–32. 3. All Spanish language quotes from López de Córdoba’s Memorias are taken from “Las memorias de doña Leonor López de Córdoba,” ed. Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux, Journal of Hispanic Philology 2 (1977): 11–33. The English translation of the text comes from Leonor López de Córdoba, “Autobiografía. Autobiography,” trans. Amy Katz Kaminsky and Elaine Dorough Johnson, in Water Lilies/Flores del agua: An Anthology of Spanish Women Writers from the Fifteenth through the Nineteenth Century, ed. Amy Katz Kaminsky (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 19–32. Citations from the original text will be noted Memorias; those from the translation will be noted Autobiography. All Spanish language quotes from Cartagena’s Admiraçión operum Dey are taken from Teresa de Cartagena, Admiraçión operum Dey, in idem, Arboleda de los enfermos y Admiraçión operum Dey, ed. Lewis Joseph Hutton, Anejos del Boletín de la Real Academia Española 16 (Madrid: Real Academia Española, 1967), 37–109 and 111–141. The English translation of the text comes from Teresa de Cartagena, Wonder at the Works of God, in

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5. 6.

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idem, The Writings of Teresa de Cartagena, trans. Dayle SeidenspinnerNúñez (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998), 23–112. Citations from the original text will be noted Admiraçión; those from the translation will be noted Wonder. Mirrer rightly points out that the few women who wrote in Castile during this period did so in a defensive manner (139). This is clearly the case with both López de Córdoba and Cartagena. Marimón Llorca, 82. Amy Katz Kaminsky and Elaine Dorough Johnson, “To Restore Honor and Fortune: The Autobiography of Leonor López de Córdoba,” in The Female Autograph, ed. Domna D. Stanton and Jeanine Parisier Plottel (New York: New York Literary Forum, 1984), 70; Ayerbe-Chaux in Memorias, 26; Clara Estow, “Leonor López de Córdoba: Portrait of a Medieval Courtier,” Fifteenth-Century Studies 5 (1982): 25; María Milagros Rivera Garretas, Textos y espacios de mujeres (Europa siglos IV–XV) (Barcelona: Icaria, 1990), 169. Ruth Lubenow Ghassemi studies the question of Leonor’s supposed cruelty through a close reading of her Memorias and concludes that Leonor shows no emotion when recounting the deaths of others as long as their death has been in accordance with the principles of honor: “Un análisis del tema de la muerte en el texto de las Memorias demuestra que mientras no vaya acompañada del deshonor, no se presenta como una tragedia” (“La ‘crueldad’ de los vencidos: Estudio interpretativo de Las Memorias de Doña Leonor López de Córdoba,” La corónica 18:1 [1989]: 24). See Arturo R Firpo, “Un ejemplo de autobiografía medieval: Las Memorias de Leonor López de Córdoba (1400),” Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich 23:1 (1980): 19–31; and Encarnación Juárez “Autobiografía de mujeres en la edad media y el siglo de oro y el canon literario,” Monographic Review. Revista monográfica 13 (1997): 154–168. Estow analyzes Leonor’s inf luence at Catalina of Lancaster’s court based on historical documents from the era in “Leonor López de Córdoba: Portrait of a Medieval Courtier.” She also studies Leonor’s political power in “Leonor López de Córdoba: A Case for Writing Women,” in Models in Medieval Iberian Literature and Their Modern Reflections Convivencia as Structural, Cultural and Sexual Ideal, ed. Judy B. McInnis (Newark: Juan de la Cuesta, 2002), 155–171. Gregory S. Hutcheson scrutinizes the historical figure of López de Córdoba that appears in the Crónica de Juan II and argues for the possibility of the author’s lesbianism, focusing on the connection that she had with her patron Catalina of Lancaster (“Leonor López de Córdoba and the Configuration of Female-Female Desire,” in Same Sex Love and Desire among Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Francesca Canadé Sautman and Pamela Sheingore [New York: Palgrave, 2001], 251–275). “Autobiography is represented by the Memorias of Leonor López de Córdoba (1363–1412), which seems to have been composed towards the end of her life. The style is simple and sometimes awkward. . . . The authentic personal note, the depiction of someone who was, although

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11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

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well connected, relatively obscure, and the authorship by a woman, all combine to make this one of the most remarkable works of its time” (Alan Deyermond, A Literary History of Spain. The Middle Ages [London: Ernest Benn, 1971], 154–155). “La primera manifestación valiosa del género en España” (Ayerbe-Chaux in Memorias, 25). Rivera Garretas also views the text as an autobiography (162). Ayerbe-Chaux in Memorias, 27. Surtz, 47. Autobiography, 21; Memorias, 16. Autobiography, 21; Memorias, 16. Autobiography, 22; Memorias, 17. Autobiography, 22; Memorias, 17. Autobiography, 22; Memorias, 17. Autobiography, 24; Memorias, 18. Autobiography, 24; Memorias, 19. Rivera Garretas, 171. Autobiography, 27; Memorias, 21. Autobiography, 27–28; Memorias, 21. Ghassemi refers to this episode as one in which Leonor has murdered her aunt’s servant (25) but this seems unlikely for the reasons I state. It does, however, remain a fairly mysterious event on which López de Córdoba does not elaborate. Is this—possibly fictitious—story inserted here as a warning to others who may wish to oppose her will? Autobiography, 28; Memorias, 22. See Rivera Garretas, 173. According to Amanda Curry, this is a political act because it goes against the anti-Semitic ideology of the Trastámara family to which her aunt’s family subscribed (cited in Reinaldo AyerbeChaux, “Leonor López de Córdoba y sus ficciones históricas,” in Historias y ficciones: Coloquio sobre la literature del siglo XV, ed. R. Beltrán, J. L. Canet, and J. L. Sierra [Valencia: Universitat de València, 1992], 20). Autobiography, 29; Memorias, 23. At this point we learn that she has other children besides the adopted child. Autobiography, 29; Memorias, 23. Autobiography, 32; Memorias, 24. Autobiography, 32; Memorias, 24. Autobiography, 32; Memorias, 25. According to Francisco Cantera Burgos, she was born c. 1420–1435, and according to Deyermond (cited by Marimón Llorca, 108), c. 1420–1425. For more on the Cartagena-Santa María family, see Francisco Cantera Burgos, Alvar García de Santa María y su familia de conversos: historia de la judería de Burgos y de sus conversos más egregios (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1952). Her grandfather, Solomón Ha-Leví, a rabbi in Burgos, converted to Christianity around 1394 taking the

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35.

36.

37. 38.

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name Pablo de Santa María. He became archbishop of Burgos in 1412 (Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez, “ ‘But I Suffer Not a Woman to Teach’: Two Women Writers in Late Medieval Spain,” in Hers Ancient and Modern: Women’s Writing in Spain and Brazil, ed. Catherine Davies and Jane Whetnall [Manchester: University of Manchester, 1997], 4). The author’s family enjoyed tremendous inf luence not only in the religious world but also in the world of letters as Pablo de Santa María wrote Las siete edades del mundo [The Seven Ages of the World] addressed to King Juan II of Castile and the humanist Alonso de Cartagena was Teresa’s uncle. Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez and Yonsoo Kim, “Historicizing Teresa: Ref lections on New Documents Regarding Sor Teresa de Cartagena,” La corónica 32:2 (2004): 122. Critics have rightly interpreted Wonder as an analysis and defense of her previous text (Alan Deyermond, “Spain’s First Women Writers,” in Women in Hispanic Literature. Icons and Fallen Idols, ed. Beth Miller [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983], 41) and more importantly as a debate on gender differences (prevalent in this time period) and feminism since she also defends her status as a writer. Marimón Llorca calls the text the first “feminist” book in Spanish written by a woman (33), and Seidenspinner-Nuñez calls the text a “profeminist defense” in her interpretative essay after her translation (Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez in Teresa de Cartagena, The Writings of Teresa de Cartagena, 131). However, Surtz argues for the limits of this feminism (22). See also Seidenspinner-Núñez and Kim, 121–142. In Grove, she does not reveal the identity of the “virtuous lady” [virtuosa señora] to whom she addresses her text. This is a major difference between the two texts. Cartagena became deaf as a consequence of an illness that she does not specify. I have analyzed elsewhere how in Cartagena’s text physical difference, coupled with writing, awakens a process of introspection and I argue that she gives meaning to her illness by translating it into spatial imagery, which I see as a metaphorical embodiment that deepens her selfawareness. See Victoria Rivera-Cordero, “Spatializing Illness: Embodied Deafness in Teresa de Cartagena’s Arboleda de los enfermos,” La corónica 37:2 (2009): 61–77. Other critics have studied Cartagena’s Arboleda through the lens of illness and writing. See, for example, Juárez, who views the text as confessional in nature and, within this framework, interprets Teresa’s illness as the final redemption of a sinner. In this case, sin is the state of physical health (specifically of being able to hear) because, Cartagena argues, such a state brings one closer to the sinful world of vanities. Juárez rightly suggests that the cure means the creation of a superior new identity, or more specifically, a “superior level of spirituality” (“The Autobiography of the Aching Body in Teresa de Cartagena’s Arboleda de los enfermos,” in Disability Studies: Enabling the Humanities, ed. Sharon Snyder, Brenda Jo

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Brueggemann, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson [New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2002], 138). Brenda Jo Brueggemann also considers Cartagena’s action subversive for her time while believing that the Spanish writer uses “her deafness to cloak her gender, to call attention to her disability in order to be able to pass as an author at a time when no women of the church could author-ize.” Thus, for her, the author’s disability is only a tool used to assert herself and find authority as a woman writer. Deafness is then something that needs to be left behind once the act of writing begins, and that act, as Brueggemann argues, allows her to invent herself through the different rhetorical strategies of autobiography (“Deaf, She Wrote: Mapping Deaf Women’s Autobiography,” PMLA 120 [2005], 580, 581). James Hussar explores Teresa’s Jewish heritage in depth while situating the concept of the infirm within that tradition. For Hussar, illness in Grove could be seen figuratively, as it could be associated with Jews and conversos (also the intended audience of the treatise) such as Teresa since they were persecuted in her time and often linked with leprosy (“The Jewish Roots of Cartagena’s Arboleda de los enfermos,” La corónica 35:1 [2006], 156–157). 40. The English translation comes from Teresa de Cartagena, Grove of the Infirm, in idem, The Writings of Teresa de Cartagena, trans. Dayle Seidenspinner-Núñez (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1998), 24; the Spanish text is from Teresa de Cartagena, Arboleda de los enfermos, in idem, Arboleda de los enfermos y Admiraçión operum Dey, 37; all future citations from the original text will be noted Arboleda; those from the translation will be noted Grove. As Surtz pointed out, Cartagena’s work “is intended to demonstrate the spiritual benefits of bodily infirmities. The motif of illness, which is used as a metaphor by other writers, is both literal and figurative for Teresa” (23). The double aspect of illness as rhetorical and autobiographical gives the text a singular character. 41. Deyermond (“ ‘El convento de las dolençias’: The Works of Teresa de Cartagena,” Journal of Hispanic Philology 1 [1976]: 19–29), Juárez (“The Autobiography of the Aching Body”), and Yonsoo Kim (El saber femenino y el sufrimiento corporal de la temprana edad moderna: Arboleda de los enfermos y Admiraçión Operum Dey de Teresa de Cartagena [Córdoba: Universidad de Córdoba, 2008]) have all argued that illness stimulates the writing process for Teresa. 42. Some critics have noticed the genealogy that Teresa de Cartagena initiates and have highlighted the importance of her work for the study of that of Teresa de Ávila and Sor Juana. Even though we do not have evidence that Sor Juana read the fifteenth-century Castilian nun, Luis Miguel Vicente García (“La defensa de la mujer como intelectual en Teresa de Cartagena y Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” Mester 17:2 [Fall, 1989]: 95-103), and Clara E. Castro Ponce (“El sí de las hermanas: la escritura y lo intelectual en la obra de Teresa de Cartagena y Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” Cincinnati Romance Review 18 [1999]: 15-21) suggest that both writers defend the intellectual capacity of women.

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43. Deyermond, Surtz, Vicente García, Seidenspinner-Núñez, and Marimón Llorca, among others, have defended the impact of medieval and early modern Spanish women writers. See Deyermond, “Spain’s First Women Writers,” and “El convento de las dolencias”; Surtz, “Image Patterns in Teresa de Cartagena’s Arboleda de los enfermos,” LA CHISPA ‘87: Selected Proceedings: The Eighth Louisiana Conference on Hispanic Languages and Literatures, ed. Gilbert Paolini (New Orleans: Tulane University, 1987), 297–304, and Writing Women; Vicente García; Seidenspinner-Núñez, “But I Suffer Not a Woman to Teach”; and Marimón Llorca. 44. Wonder, 87; Admiraçión, 113. 45. She cites 2 Corinthians 12:9: “For virtue is made perfect in infirmity” [La virtud en la enfermedad es acabada e perfecta] (Grove, 45; Arboleda, 62). 46. Wonder, 88; Admiraçión, 113. 47. I have analyzed how Cartagena redefines deafness through the use of embodied metaphors in order to deprive illness of its negative connotations: “Cartagena’s embodiment of deafness allows her to create a private, silent space from which she can first build and strengthen a self free from the impurity of society, and then into which to invite other sufferers in a larger grove or arboleda—a community of newfound spiritual health” (Rivera-Cordero, 62). “Ultimately, the ‘grove’ constitutes a space for consciousness and introspection, as the subject is constructed through writing. The same way that the text is populated by trees and good counsel, Teresa’s own experience is presented as an authoritative example” (Rivera-Cordero, 75). 48. Wonder, 88; Admiraçión, 114. 49. In Teresa de Cartagena, The Writings of Teresa de Cartagena, 131. 50. Wonder, 89; Admiraçión, 115. 51. Wonder, 89; Admiraçión, 114. 52. As Surtz has noted, Cartagena clearly differentiates between two types of wonder, and those who criticize her are guilty of “bad” or “doubting” wonder (Writing Women, 34). By doing this, she says essentially that it is impious to criticize her. 53. Surtz has shown how common this combination of false modesty (including formulas of self-humiliation) and claims to divine authority was in the Middle Ages (Writing Women, 22). 54. Wonder, 90; Admiraçión, 115. 55. Cartagena’s defense of women’s ability to reason echoes the debates that took place at that time in Castile. These debates were highly inf luenced by Giovanni Boccaccio’s Corbaccio and De mulieribus claris, written a century earlier. As Castilian examples of the debate, the works of Alfonso Martínez de Toledo deserve to be mentioned; his Arcipreste de Talavera o Corbacho follows along the lines of Corbaccio, whereas Juan Rodríguez del Padrón’s Triunfo de las donas and Álvaro de Luna’s Libro de las virtuosas e claras mujeres both follow the general argument of De mulieribus claris in defending women.

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56. 57. 58. 59. 60.

Wonder, 103; Admiraçión, 131. Wonder, 103; Admiraçión, 131. Wonder, 90; Admiraçión, 116. Wonder, 91; Admiraçión, 117. Surtz, Writing Women, 29. Seidenspinner-Nuñez also argues that in her defense of writing Cartagena subverts the literary forms such as allegorical readings that link the cortex or bark with the superficial and pleasurable readings that one has to surpass in order to reach the hidden meaning of the text. Usually, the superficial and pleasurable readings were associated with carnality and the physical senses (and thus sin and the female), while the deeper readings were associated with the intellect (and the male). Cartagena is turning the tables here in order to associate the more profound and meaningful reading with woman (in Teresa de Cartagena, The Writings of Teresa de Cartagena, 135). Yet, even though she seems to grant that women are generally weak and fearful, Cartagena also shows that exceptions do exist. She refers to Judith in the Old Testament who proves an illustrative exception to the rule—a woman who did not hesitate to use a sword when it was necessary. The conclusion is clear: if God may decide that a woman can fight like a man, then gender differences are not fixed and immutable. Cartagena then identifies herself with Judith—as strong and capable of manly deeds, although hers involve “only” writing. Interestingly, Cartagena also associates herself later with the blind man on the road to Jericho. As Surtz points out, he represents humankind but Teresa uses him to represent herself, blessed by God’s grace and empowered by him (Writing Women, 36). Thus the defense of women turns into a self-defense, based on both her gender and her disability, in which she argues that through God’s grace both forms of “weakness” can be overcome and, what is more, that such “weaknesses” are particularly deserving of such grace. 61. Seidenspinner-Núñez argues that “Teresa’s ironic commentary is thus aimed at a double audience: her defense is ostensibly addressed to the ‘virtuous lady’ who acts more as an accomplice than a judge, but rhetorical points are scored against her hostile but absent and silenced detractors” (in Teresa de Cartagena, The Writings of Teresa de Cartagena, 132).

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CHAPTER 10 BETWEEN BOCCACCIO AND CHAUCER: THE LIMITS OF FEMALE INTERIORITY IN THE KNIGHT’S TALE Jamie Friedman

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nteriority is not a term that readers associate historically with Emelye, the object of desire in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale. Arguably the most silent female character in any of the Canterbury Tales, Emelye has little room to speak about her own consciousness, identity, or desires, all elements to which readers might point when looking for evidence of her interior life. Without that inner space, the place in which subjectivity articulates itself to itself, Emelye is generally assumed to exist on the surface of the narrative or at its margins.1 Critical readings posit Emelye as variously absent, trite, ideal, or symbolic, but never as a subject with her own interiority. Instead, these interpretations insist upon her body—vacated of awareness, desire, and volition—as the signifier and guarantor of the epic romance and the chivalric code that romance both upholds and engenders. Yet there are distinct moments in the tale when Emelye asserts her own volition and communicates her own interiority separate from these strictures upon female bodies and desires. Far from static and distant, idealized or absent, Emelye occupies a much more complex, and at times proximate, position than most critical interpretations allow. I argue that when Emelye is allowed to speak for herself, her subjectivity and the semiotic field that is her body operate outside the traditional heteronormative constraints of chivalric romance: she is unruly, powerful, and resistant. Her articulation of that autonomous inner life threatens the precarious masculine dominance in the tale, a dominance required by its chivalric

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and romantic ethos. In response to this threat, Emelye’s interiority must be vacated—voided of its presence and ability to speak about itself—so that Emelye’s body might continue to serve as the terrain across which men in the tale communicate and legitimate homosocial culture. It is the particularly violent male gaze upon Emelye’s body that attempts to empty her body of its potent interiority and to reappropriate her body for use as the symbolic and erotic goal of the romance in which she figures. This discussion of Emelye’s distinct feminine subject position, tracing the limits of her interiority, requires a return to Chaucer’s primary source for the tale: Boccaccio’s Teseida: Delle Nozze d’Emilia, where Emelye’s Amazonian literary history is treated in detail. This history, the specter of which seems to haunt the Knight’s Tale, sheds light both on the nature of Emelye’s Amazonian threat and upon the force of the men’s response to that threat in Chaucer’s tale. As we shall see, Boccaccio’s insistence upon his Emilia’s Amazon identity, the initial menace it represents, and the narrative and spectral mechanisms of male response to that identity find both resonances and telling absences in Chaucer’s reimagining of Emelye. Only when read against Boccaccio’s tale does the extent of Emelye’s unruly subjectivity surface as she follows her resistant trajectory begun in the Teseida. It is in this way I argue that Emelye’s subjectivity is manifested in the spaces between Boccaccio’s and Chaucer’s narratives. To be sure, some discussions of female subjectivity in Chaucer have come close to the view advanced here. Mark Miller, for instance, claims an ultimate subject position for Emelye, wherein she is a fully actualized individual against whom the other male characters measure their own subjectivity.2 However, while understanding her as the central subject in the tale, his reading tends to turn Emelye’s subjectivity to the service of male positioning, giving readers insight into male subjects as they gaze on this perfected female being. Readers learn about male response—both abjection and authority—but even this most idealized interpretation continues to repress, distance, and ultimately leave unrepresented Emelye’s own interiority. In part, my characterization of Emelye’s subjectivity approaches H. Marshall Leicester’s analysis of Alisoun in the Miller’s Tale. Leicester argues that Alisoun, like Emelye, effects a femininity that begins to articulate its own interiority outside the confines of male desire. 3 Yet, my approach differs from Leicester’s as I maintain that this feminine subjectivity is best visible via literary history—in the interstices between Chaucer and his source.4 My project in this analysis returns the question of an effect of subjectivity in Chaucer to a question of his relation to literary antecedents. I suggest that the literary construction of subjectivity, especially female subjectivity, charts a domain that is not fully accessible to our dichotomies of gender identity—at least not to those that have

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generally appeared in criticism of the Knight’s Tale. This domain is best visible to us through—and was indeed partially produced by—the relations of literary history, between whose gaps Emelye’s marginalized but potent subjectivity emerges. Emelye’s Literary Past: Boccaccio’s Teseida Of the several sources for the Knight’s Tale, Chaucer drew most extensively on the Teseida; Chaucer borrows about 80 percent of the Knight’s Tale’s lines from Boccaccio’s romance epic.5 Although Chaucer abridged many parts of what he took from the twelve books comprising the Teseida, he abridged Book I the most: he condenses its 1,104 lines to eight lines of introduction in the Knight’s Tale.6 Boccaccio’s first book treats the establishment of the Amazon nation, their killing of husbands and fathers, and their battle with Teseo and his Greek army, ending with the conquest of the Amazons and the large-scale nuptials between the two groups. It is only when Teseo and his men are forcibly removed from their life of domestic pleasure with the Amazons that the events initiating the rivalry over Emilia unfold. Boccaccio himself felt obligated to justify the presence of the first book and its exclusive treatment of the Amazonian war in his epic nominally about the love of two young Thebans for Emilia. He explains in a gloss that he includes the detailed story of the battle with Amazons “for no other purpose but to show whence Emilia came to Athens” [a niuno altro fine . . . se non per mostrare onde Emilia fosse venuta ad Attene].7 He continues that the extended treatment of the Amazon women—whose customs are somewhat foreign “and on that account more pleasing” [e perciò piú piacevole (gloss to 1.10)]—clarifies the rest of the story. Thus, Emilia’s Amazon identity is simultaneously disruptive to the surface of the plot, essential to the latent meaning of the story, and a site of narrative pleasure by virtue of its Otherness; according to Boccaccio, at least, readers cannot fully comprehend Boccaccio’s story without this textual history. Having justified their narrative inclusion, Boccaccio describes in another gloss what he understands about these women called “Amazons”: “The Amazons are women who killed all their males and dedicated themselves to warfare and had their right breasts cut off because these prevented them from drawing their bows; and this is why they are called Amazons, which means to say that they are without breasts” [sono l’amazone donne, le quali, uccisi tutti li maschi loro, si diedono a l’armi, e fecersi seccare tutte le destre poppe, perciò che le impedivano a tirare l’arco; e però sono chiamate amazone, che vuole tanto dire quanto senza

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poppa (gloss to 1.5)]. Boccaccio links Amazons with their violent past and devotion to martial skill. Indeed, Boccaccio understands Amazon identity only in terms of their destruction, by killing “all their males,” of male familial positions that guarantee patrilineal authority. In addition, the Amazons’ singular dedication to the mastery of warfare disrupts one of the central topoi of epic romance in which men act valiantly, warrior-like, on behalf of passive, constrained women. Indeed, Ipolita later claims that the Amazons are under attack exactly because they “are not satisfied with remaining subject to men and obedient to their whims like other women” [perché nostro piacer non si contenta/ di quell che l’altre, ciò è suggiacere/a gli uomini, faccendo ill or volere (1.26.6–8)]. Ritual mastectomy continues the Amazons’ resistance to paradigms of feminine corporeal passivity as they actively excise the fetishized focus of the male gaze. Consequently, their very bodies become a site of resistance to erotic objectification. If, according to Boccaccio, Emilia’s Amazon history is essential to understanding the romance that follows, then that romance is framed in the violence, resistance, and female autonomy that characterize the Amazon women’s actions and identity. Boccaccio contextualizes Book I within that feminine autonomy from the start. Once they have killed husbands, fathers, and sons, the women create a new independent society upon the ruins of the maledominated order.8 In addition to the political and social alterity of the new Amazonian collective, Boccaccio’s Ipolita signifies the Amazons’ resistance to traditional gender articulation and performance as she adopts what she views as a masculine identity. She claims that the Amazons perform “manly” deeds with virile courage: “You have declared war on Cupid . . . in order to display your virile courage. You f ly from that which pleases other women most, while you dare to perform manly, rather than womanly, deeds” [per voler virile animo mostrare,/contro a Cupido avete presa guerra,/e quel ch’a l’altre piú piace fuggite,/uomini fatti, non femine, ardite (1.24.5–8)]. Throughout this rousing speech to the Amazon troops, Ipolita emphasizes their rejection of traditional femininity not only on the corporeal level—at the site of their missing breasts—but also on the level of subjectivity, desire, and agency. She everywhere insists that the Amazons have spurned “womanish behavior” [cacciando ogni atto feminil da voi (1.25.8)] and explicitly rejected such feminine traits as mercy and cowardice, which she orders “put to death in every wise woman” [usi pieta altrove, ché qui morta/la commando io in ogni donna accorta (1.33.7–8)]. Instead, the Amazons perform manly deeds from their masculine souls. They desire honor won through active conquest; and the gods approve of their honorable recovery of lost freedom (1.26, 1.32).

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Interestingly, from the outset of her speech Ipolita opposes this “manly” agency to Cupid—to romantic love and its inherent constraints on women’s identity and ability to speak and act freely. Here Ipolita declares that women’s choice is between romantic love—with its ensuing powerlessness and subjection to men’s “whims”—or active, violent rejection of heteronormative repression. Although Ipolita and the rest of the Amazons are ultimately constrained into the service of Cupid they resist at the end of Book I, here at its beginning Ipolita represents a type of alterity that is not political but based upon these women’s capacity for transformation, as they reinscribe masculine valor for their own uses outside the traditional feminine subject positions within romance.9 Ipolita’s own actions certainly embody her performance of this manly womanhood. She critiques the objectification of women that implies their ontological inferiority to men (1.29). She roams her kingdom like a “wild boar, who . . . grinds his teeth and roars” [Né altramenti il cinghiar c’ha sentiti/nel bosco i can fremire e’ cacciatore,/i denti batte e rugghia (1.38–9)] as she seeks out her enemy and, when he attacks her walls from underground, she writes a scathing letter to Teseo challenging his honor as a knight while adopting a position of authority from within that chivalric honor code (1.99–107). Her women set ablaze and sink Greek ships and pour molten oil, pitch, and soap on the terrified men (1.52). Overall, Book I of the Teseida insists upon the possibility of feminine potency, operating outside traditional domains of women’s agency and identity, and on the consequent threat of violence and disruption of malecentered social and ideological constructions that women can represent. Boccaccio’s insistence upon this narrative context for a full understanding of the romance to follow suggests that the story of Emilia the Amazon must resonate with, even respond to, this narrative beginning.10 Repression and Resistance: Chaucer’s Emelye Within this narrative context, I examine how Chaucer’s recapitulation of this romance retains and represses traces of this Amazonian feminine autonomy and threat of violent resistance, traces manifested upon identities, bodies, bodies politic, and especially in the reiterated autonomy of Emelye’s subjectivity. Curiously, although some critics discuss the implications of the suppressed Teseida Book I, there is no detailed examination, to my knowledge, tracing the effects of Chaucer’s repression of Emelye’s Amazon identity upon her character as she appears in the Knight’s Tale.11 Additionally, with the notable exception of Karma Lochrie’s 2005 analysis, critics have tended to ignore the ways in which Emelye’s subjectivity retains the troubling markers of feminine resistance that are so insistently, if incompletely, silenced in the first stanzas of the Knight’s narrative.12

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Spearing comments upon this paucity of critical treatment as its own kind of repression in modern scholarship.13 Instead, studies in which the Teseida figures alongside the Knight’s Tale, ironically including Spearing’s, usually cite Emelye’s “most unAmazonian” or “impoverished” reimagining in Chaucer’s tale.14 According to these readings, Emelye does not display the volition, the awareness of her role as love object, or the consequent coy agency that Emilia possesses in Boccaccio’s version.15 Certainly by the conclusion of Chaucer’s tale Emelye does function in apposition to the unsettling femininity presented by the Amazons: she is silent and domesticated. Yet throughout the tale, and through a reading of the tale against its source in Boccaccio, that Amazon past surfaces insistently, repeatedly, even as it is actively sublimated. Though the historical and literary proximity of the Amazon’s power is distanced from the reader at the outset of the tale, the tale yet manifests the specter of women’s autonomous potential. That specter and the repressive response to it can be seen in the ways in which Chaucer effaces the women’s agency found in his source. Chaucer reduces the Amazons’ epic battle in Teseida Book I to lines figured in the occupatio with which many parts of the Knight’s Tale are famously narrated: I wolde have toold yow fully the manere How wonnen was the regne of Femenye By Theseus and by his chivalrye; And of the grete bataille for the nones Bitwixen Atthenes and Amazones; And how asseged was Ypolita, The faire, hardy queene of Scithia; And of the feste that was at hir weddynge, And of the tempest at hir hoom-comynge; But al that thing I moot as now forbere. (876–85)

In this stanza, as well as a few lines before, Chaucer rhymes “Femenye”—a word he seems to have coined16 —with “chivalry,” twice emphasizing the binary opposition of the feminine sphere with the masculine that mirrors that Amazon conf lict in his source. Further, the narrator implies that the Amazon struggle for autonomy is not completely contained. Though Hypolita is “asseged,” won, and domesticated, the “tempest” that she initiates at the outset of Boccaccio’s narrative spills out of the missing Book I and continues in Chaucer’s retelling, even as they ride to Athens. That threat continues later when Theseus encounters the Argive widows, who, according to a defensive Theseus, similarly challenge his recently won authority.17 Yet the possibility of Amazon resistance to male authority is foreclosed as soon as it is invoked. The Argive widows eventually

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plead, swoon, and beg while the description of Hypolita’s tempestuousness is simply cut off. Ultimately, Chaucer’s use of occupatio (the rhetorical rupture in which Chaucer mentions something by claiming to omit it) and extreme abbreviation of his source places this site of female power and resistance to male authority under erasure from the beginning of the tale. Indeed, women are often silenced with occupatio in the Knight’s Tale,18 giving the impression that the Knight must use explicit rhetorical maneuvers to contain their voices.19 This passage as a site of feminine power under erasure is especially interesting when read against the Knight’s claims (in the lines immediately following) that he cannot tell these events because “I have . . . a large feeld to ere,/And wayke been the oxen in my plough” (886–7). The connection of plowing with both writing and masculine sexual activity in other medieval texts has been noted,20 and the Miller perhaps amplifies the connection when Absolon wields the phallic coulter against Nicholas in the next tale.21 Contrasting with the “faire, hardy” women of the previous lines, this “wayke” male position suggests a narrative context particularly troubled with male impotence, an impotence that initiates the repression of women. As in the Teseida, it is this context of troubled male authority that frames the romance to follow, in which female autonomy, actual or potential, is met with rhetorical and narrative mechanisms of containment.22 Like Teseo, Chaucer’s Theseus conquers and domesticates the threatening women he encounters. One may wonder, in this fraught space, how Emelye in particular fares. Does she actively engage in this gendered power struggle, or is she wholly removed in the narrative sublimation and complete objectification most often cited by modern scholarship? Certainly romance conventions demand that Emelye’s character be vacated of much of her expressed interiority, as Weisl argues, in order to facilitate the love plot and the male authority dependent upon it.23 If women step out of their prescribed roles, both male-dominated regimes of order and the romance genre would be threatened: the romance cannot end as a romance and would slip into another genre, since a woman “has to be there to make the story go.”24 This model of constraint describes Emelye’s narrative position well: as the curtain goes down on the tale, she has been effectively marginalized and objectified, literally domesticated. However, I maintain that, despite the repressive mechanisms of romance, Emelye does retain some markers of her Amazon past, markers that are best revealed in reverberation with women’s speech and action in the Teseida. These traces, present in the single scene in which she articulates her interiority, manifest her Amazon subjectivity while also fueling the tale’s most extreme

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reinscription of that interiority and her body into paradigms of male authority and control. Within the context of a tale troubled by women’s potency and the specter of Amazonian uprising, Emelye’s prayer to Diana in the temple dedicated to that goddess seems a natural outgrowth of her Amazon past and her response to the romance conventions that repress her subjectivity and limit her agency. Interestingly, although the houses of Mars and Venus are described at some length in the Teseida, Boccaccio only describes Diana’s temple as clean and decorated with beautiful wall hangings (7.72); the rest of the temple is Chaucer’s creation. In fact, to fill in this narrative creation, Chaucer drew upon more sources, and more diverse sources, than in any other part of the tale.25 Yet Diana’s temple provides the only space in which Emelye can speak for herself.26 Before the tournament that will decide which of her admirers will win her, Emelye prays to Diana: O chaste goddesse of the wodes grene . . . Goddesse of maydens, that myn herte hast knowe Ful many a yeer, and woost what I desire, . . . to ben a mayden al my lyf, Ne nevere wol I be no love ne wyf. I am, thow woost, yet of thy compaignye, A mayde, and love huntynge and venerye, And for to walken in the wodes wilde, And noght to ben a wyf and be with childe. Noght wol I knowe compaignye of man . . . Bihoold, goddesse of clene chastitee, The bitter teeris that on my chekes falle. Syn thou are mayde and kepere of us alle, My maydenhede thou kepe and wel conserve, And whil I lyve, a mayde I wol thee serve. (2297, 2300–1, 2305–11, 2326–30)

Although these few sentences are all that Emelye is allowed to utter in this tale, they reveal much about her desires. She specifically underscores her past, her history as a devotee of Diana, and reiterates her desire to bring that past into the present and beyond. What she has desired “ful many a yeer”—the autonomous life outside male authority—she currently practices and will continue to enact as long as her body is under her authority to signify. Further, she emphasizes her present participation in a feminine community, recalling the communities of Amazons and other women that have threatened Athenian stability and authority from the margins of the tale. Her repetition of “compaignye,” referring alternately to purely female and male groups, establishes another binary opposition,

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this time of social collectives. Thus, her desire to be outside and Other in this case carries a communal valence, recalling the communal alterity of the Amazons’ society opposed violently to the Greeks. Emelye also represents heterosexuality, marriage, and childbirth as unwanted social constraints, especially as she opposes them—even in the end rhyme— with walking freely in the “wodes wilde.” Further, the triple negative in line 2,306 as well as the continued negatives in lines 2,310 and 2,311 emphasize as adamantly as possible her desire to remain outside romantic and domestic structures of women’s repression: those negatives—“ne nevere” and twice “noght”—begin any statement referring to traditional social activities for women. While the emphatic nature of her prayer is often overlooked, Emelye is clearly insistently unwavering in her rejection of the restrictions—on her body, agency, desires, and, ultimately, her identity— resulting from the roles of wife and mother the knights demand of her.27 This interpretation of Emelye’s prayer benefits from a comparison with Emilia’s prayer in the Teseida. Although Emilia also calls upon her history of service to Diana, including her Amazon past, her prayer ends paradoxically with a volition that seems divided between Diana’s obligations and Juno’s. She prays that, if she must marry, Diana will select among her suitors for her, not because she desires neither man, but because she desires them both: “for I myself do not know which one to choose, so winsome does each one seem to me” [ché io nol so in me stessa nomare,/ tanto ciascun piacevole mi pare (7.85.7–8)]. This facile collapse of resistance into desire undercuts Emilia’s Amazon identity, turning resistance to a coy masking of latent romantic desire. Conversely, Emelye’s prayer includes no such latent domestic or heterosexual desire. Although she also ultimately submits to her destiny, likewise praying that Diana “sende me hym that moost desireth me” (2325), she surrounds that request with reiterated assertions of desires for independence. She prays, “fro me turne awey hir hertes so/That al hire hoote love and hir desir,/And al hir bisy torment . . ./[be] turned in another place” (2318–21). She desires extraction, even effacement, from the web of erotic desires enacted by the objectifying male gaze.28 Her prayer ends, not with Emilia’s unveiled heterosexual desire, but with a reassertion of her intended maidenhood (2328–30). Read against Emlia’s prayer, Emelye’s loses the veneer of politeness often associated with it and gains an insistence, a determined preservation of her resistance and position outside traditional paradigms of feminine agency and volition. Ultimately, Emelye’s few sentences in Diana’s temple express most fully her own desires: to continue her Amazon identity, so clearly figured in her literary past, in opposition to the paradigms of male control exercised

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in regimes of marriage, childbirth, and heterosexual desire. Emelye’s prayer, thus, retains traces of the “regne of Femenye” as it iterates an interiority still adamantly resistant to these traditional mechanisms of male authority.29 Consequently, Emelye becomes the field upon which the specter of female uprising, haunting the margins of the Knight’s Tale from its beginning, must be disempowered and reconstituted. Reinscribing Emelye’s Unruly Body Thus far we have seen how the Knight’s Tale evinces a suspicion of the recurring threat of female potency. And we have examined some narrative and rhetorical devices for repressing the unruly feminine, with her troubling and persistent literary past.30 It is within and against this context that I propose to read two controversial, or else rarely treated, passages in the Knight’s Tale, both of which manifest the scopophilic mechanisms by which Emelye’s interiority is vacated and silenced. The temple of Diana is the space wherein Emelye most explicitly expresses her desires outside the control of chivalric or romance conventions. The temple may also represent the only private, secret space allowed in a tale that famously celebrates public spectacle. Spearing’s argument that secrecy works “to create a real or imagined refuge against the determining claims of the public sphere” might further the suggestion that the temple of Diana is an especially threatening space within this public and malecentered milieu—it is both feminine and private—in a tale menaced from the outset.31 It is, then, not surprising to find in that space the most forceful attempt at rearticulating Emelye’s body and her resistant interiority as an object for male desire. That forceful reconstitution is just what we find in the temple scenes, where the Knight’s voyeuristic gaze rests upon the body of Emelye. The site of contest, and conquest, is ultimately her distinctly feminine, resistant, unveiled body and the unveiled interior life it signals. When Emelye begins her rituals within the temple, this space of feminine activity and articulation, the Knight reveals: This Emelye, with herte debonaire, Hir body wessh with water of a welle. But hou she dide hir ryte I dar nat telle, But it be any thing in general; And yet it were a game to heeren al. To hym that meneth wel it were no charge; But it is good a man been at his large. (2282–88)32

This passage is not found in Boccaccio’s account, not beyond a detail that Emilia washes herself and puts on clean clothes (7.72). As in the first

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stanzas of the tale, Chaucer again employs occupatio, and with a similar effect: readers are invited to imagine Emelye’s naked body in its private, feminine ritual. The titillation derived from the action is suggested by the narrator’s felt obligation to excuse his voyeurism and “betrays the storyteller’s embarrassment at how exciting he finds the thought of these female rites.”33 The Knight’s discourse situates him particularly as a male viewer talking to other sympathetic men. That is, the sight of Emelye produces homosocial discourse, literally across the spectral, objectified feminine body. Yet this moment does more than objectify Emelye. This male leering is an active assertion of male power over women; women’s bodies can and ought to serve as the field legitimating and privileging masculinity and heterosexuality.34 The near proverbial tone of the final line suggests that this dictum, as well as the passive female body it requires, is a commonplace in this society. Ultimately, the Knight’s leering gaze upon her body—present and absent in occupatio—and her washing ritual presents the kind of violation that Emelye fears in her prayer.35 It is in this look that names and then refuses to describe her body, and in its insistence upon the pleasure that, according to the Knight, all men have a right to take in this voyeurism, that Emelye’s body is revealed, sexualized, and reappropriated against her will as an erotic object by men among men.36 A second voyeuristic moment goes further in its rearticulation of Emelye’s body as romance object. Significantly, after her washing ritual, and in response to her fiercely autonomous prayer, the Knight describes the gods’ reply: But sodeynly she saugh a sighte queynte, For right anon oon of the fyres queynte And quyked again, and after that anon That oother fyr was queynt and al agon; And as it queynte it made a whistelynge, As doon thise wete brondes ende out ran anon As it were blody dropes many oon; For which so soore agast was Emelye That she was wel ny mad and gan to crye. (2333–42)37

This scene represents a continuation of the voyeuristic uncovering and rearticulation of Emelye’s body initiated as the Knight observed her washing ritual earlier. Here, the repetition of the word “queynte” sexualizes the scene and seems to further the voyeuristic “game” among men—among the Knight and the male audience he addresses—begun in the previous scene. Although he cannot quite describe Emelye’s secret washing rite, he does describe, in graphic detail, the inescapable fate of

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Emelye’s body. Despite—indeed because of—her unruly desires articulated in her prayer, her body is destined to be reclaimed for the regime of erotic pleasure upon which the chivalric code depends. According to Strauss, the description of the sexualized fires as phallic logs and virginal vaginas—wet, squeaking, and bloody—accomplishes two things: it shows the Knight’s inappropriate obsession with Emelye’s body, and it turns her adamant rejection of heterosexuality into a powerless fear of male potency and sexual force.38 Taken together, these two increasingly forceful revelations of Emelye’s body in Diana’s temple transform her breastless, resistant body with its autonomous subjectivity into the objective terrain across which men communicate, take erotic pleasure, and found and perpetuate social affiliations. It is no wonder that we hear no more from Emelye in the tale: at this point, her one statement of interiority now countered with increasingly explicit mechanisms of containment, she is effectively silenced as the passive body to be negotiated among Theseus, Palamon, and Arcite. Some critics have resisted any overtly sexualized reading of the temple fires, or of Emelye in any scene, arguing that such readings are out of place in an innocently pious scene in a genteel chivalric romance. However, this overt, even obscene, eroticism does seem to have a place in Emelye’s literary history. That is, some manuscripts of the Teseida include a series of erotic glosses describing what nearly every male character in that other chivalric romance narrative wants to do to Emilia’s body.39 On his deathbed, Arcita wishes he could marry Emilia “so that he might have felt that sweetness which is so pleasing to the friars” [acciò che avessi sentito di quella dolcitudine che piace così ai frati (gloss to 10.40.5)].40 Later he again laments that Emilia was not able to grant him entry to her “places . . . where the honey is scooped out” [Loughi . . . donde si cava il mele (gloss to 10.40.7)]. After Arcita’s death, Teseo encourages Emilia to give up the service of Diana so that someone might “work her garden” [lavorare il suo giardino (gloss to 12.43.7)]. On the night of their wedding, Palemone and Emilia have intercourse seven times; the gloss elaborates, “It means that seven times he touched the lily where it does most good for woman, and one can believe that that night he scooped out a great deal of sugar and honey from it” [Dice che sette volte toccò il giglio dove più giova alla femina e credesi che quella notte ne cavassi gran quantità di zucchero e di mele (gloss to 12.77.4)]. Finally, the next morning, the Greek kings joke with Palemone, asking, “So how was it to break that little cloth?” “Did she cry out as you kept skinning her?” “Did you unload inside?” “Will you come up with enough for a second time?” “Who got the most out of it?” “Will you let me have a piece of that sweet-cake?” “Will you save the best part [lit.: “skin”] for me?”

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[“Sì com’ era rompesi quell pannicello?” “Pianse ella come camminasti a la tua scorticata?” “Scharicasti tu dentro?” “Trovera’ ve ne tu per un’ altra volta?” “A chui ne giovò più?” “Farai ch’ io abbi un pezuolo di quel migliaccio?” “Serbera’ mi il chuoio?” (gloss to 12.79.5–8)] Interestingly, after this “skinning,” Boccaccio writes that Palemone “arose when morning came, more comely and fresh than a thorn rose” [el si levò, venuta la mattina,/piú bello e fresco che rosa di spina (12.77.7–8)]. For her part, Emilia neither gets up from this encounter, nor does she appear again in the remainder of the narrative. Taken together, these bawdy comments reveal the same violent, sexual conquest of an objectified female body replicated in Chaucer’s temple scenes. Boccaccio’s glosses add imagery and narrative force to the Knight’s claim that “it is good a man been at his large.” Both texts seem to insist upon the sexualized female body, vacated of its interiority, as the necessary site for homosocial discourse and connection. No longer resistant or, for that matter, audible or even present after her narrative and sexual “skinning,” her body is now available for men’s use. Far from distancing himself from his source in the temple scene, Chaucer explicitly invites readers to revisit the literary history of this scene for the full, voyeuristic effect (2292–4). Although Coleman argues that these glosses undercut Boccaccio’s overall genteel tone,41 Chaucer, echoing them in his own romance narrative, suggests that this obscene leering and erotic fetishization may underlie the expression of chivalric courtly love in both versions. Whatever Chaucer’s argument about the mechanisms of chivalry, my point here is that this repressive narrative response to Emelye’s defiant, unruly interiority is best viewed against its literary history in Boccaccio’s version—in the interstices between Boccaccio and Chaucer—and, in part, as a product of that comparison. While readers, including many of the Canterbury Tales pilgrims themselves,42 interpret the Knight’s Tale as a narrative of love and chivalry in which men engage its central ideologies, the Knight’s Tale simultaneously tells the story of one woman’s desire to live outside the regimes of male control and objectification produced and legitimated by that romance. In a tale haunted at its historical margins by the specter of female uprising, Emelye’s interiority, when she articulates it, proves genuinely threatening to male authority recently won and precariously maintained. Emelye evinces an inner life that does actively participate in the consciousness, identity, and desires of her Amazon past; furthermore, although Chaucer titillates readers with her history—revealed and veiled—as he titillates them with her body, left to herself Emelye promises to continue her resistant trajectory into the future. The narrative response to this unruly trajectory operates first through a voyeuristic objectification, then via a

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more explicit and potentially violent reappropriation of Emelye’s body. In the process, Emelye’s subjectivity is effectively emptied of its power to speak as itself for itself—vacated of its articulated interiority—so that her silent and docile body may be transacted among Theseus, Arcite, and Palamon at the end of the tale. Ultimately, this study underscores the importance of reading the Knight’s Tale against its sources, especially when Chaucer so consistently invites his readers to do just that. The potency with which Emelye articulates her inner life, carrying the valence of recent Amazonian defiance and autonomy, manifests itself—and is ultimately produced—in reading Emelye against her Amazon history as presented in the Teseida.43 Such a comparison, a reading between, reveals a transmission process in which Emelye’s literary past complicates her character more than genre constraints allow. This comparison also suggests that characters such as Emelye have a literary subjectivity—an identity and history—created in the interstices of that history that overf low the bounds of any single representation or intention. In this way, the limits of Emelye’s interiority are found in the space between the narratives of Chaucer and Boccaccio. This theory of literary subjectivity dependent upon or produced by relations between texts suggests both a new understanding of Emelye in the Knight’s Tale and a new interpretive strategy to bring to bear upon texts and characters that operate in the spaces of historical representation. If Emelye is disruptive in the way that history itself is disruptive—changing the meaning of textual contents as they pass into new contexts—then readers benefit from an engagement of those contexts to understand the scope of the identities created in that historical domain. For it is in these spaces that characters such as Emelye, otherwise silenced, voice their clearest expression of subjectivity. Notes My gratitude goes to Andrew Galloway, Masha Raskolnikov, Cynthia Turner Camp, and Paul Hyams for their generous assistance in the preparation of this chapter. 1. One branch of critical response reads Emelye as varying incarnations of the female stereotype: she embodies either the feminine promise of love and regeneration, or the typical romance heroine, bound by the conventions of the genre, even “possibly the most mindless heroine in all literature” (Norman Eliason, “Chaucer the Love Poet,” in Chaucer the Love Poet, ed. Jerome Mitchell and William Provost [Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1973], 69). See also E. Talbot Donaldson, Speaking of Chaucer (London: Athlone Press, 1977), 48–49; V. A. Kolve, Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (Stanford: Stanford

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4.

5.

6. 7.

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University Press, 1984), 86–90; and A. C. Spearing, ed., The Knight’s Tale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 11–12. Positioned against these readings of Emelye as f lat stereotype are more recent readings of Chaucer’s works that have attempted to address and recover the particular ways that women function, speak, and signify in male-centered social and textual regimes. This interpretive context has sustained a focus on Emelye’s social and ideological function, concluding alternatively that Emelye serves as a social, philosophical, or generic ideal. For example, see Jill Mann, Geoffrey Chaucer (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1991), 180; Angela Jane Weisl, Conquering the Reign of Femenye: Gender and Genre in Chaucer’s Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), 61. My point is that, while these two camps of interpretation claim radically different hermeneutics, they each ignore the possibility of a distinct subjectivity for Emelye. See Mark Miller, Philosophical Chaucer: Love, Sex, and Agency in the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). See H. Marshall Leicester, Jr., “Newer Currents in Psychoanalytic Criticism, and the Difference ‘It’ Makes: Gender and Desire in the Miller’s Tale,” ELH 61 (1994): 473–499, especially 487–495. In addition, Leicester elsewhere reads the Knight’s Tale as troubled from its margins by the unruly, not fully contained slippage between epic past and romance present; and he analyzes the identities both constructed and sublimated in the representation of the epic within the conventions of romance. See The Disenchanted Self: Representing the Subject in the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). Again, however, it is “the chivalric-heroic masculine nature” that his analysis illuminates (324). The implications for women within a troubled chivalric code, a code that retains elements (but not women) that are “incompletely tamed,” remain relatively unexplored in his reading (236). Some critics have acknowledged Emelye’s distinct articulation of desires as disruptive to social, political, gender, or genre norms; especially useful to my own reading are Weisl; Barrie Ruth Strauss, “Freedom through Renunciation? Women’s Voices, Women’s Bodies, and the Phallic Order,” in Desire and Discipline: Sex and Sexuality in the Premodern West, ed. Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996), 245–264; and Elaine Tuttle Hansen, Chaucer and the Fictions of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992). Yet each of these readings fails to understand Emelye’s iteration of that interiority within the literary context of her Amazon identity, the persistence and repression of which must in part constitute Emelye’s subjectivity. William Coleman, “The Knight’s Tale,” in Sources and Analogues of the Canterbury Tales, ed. Robert M. Correale and Mary Hamel, 2 vols. (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002–2005), 2:88. Coleman, 88. Gloss to 1.10. This and all following references to the Teseida are from Giovanni Boccaccio, Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia, ed. Aurelio Roncaglia

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8. 9. 10.

11.

(Bari: G. Laterza and Figli, 1941). English prose translation is taken from The Book of Theseus: Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia, trans. Bernadette Marie McCoy (New York: Medieval Text Association, 1974). There is some critical debate about whether Chaucer’s manuscript of the Teseida included Boccaccio’s explanatory glosses, a question I address in the third part of this chapter. 1.8–9. See also 1.10, 1.17, 1.23, 1.36 for specific contrasts between Greek and Amazon polity. See Robert R. Edwards, Chaucer and Boccaccio: Antiquity and Modernity (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 24–25. Some may argue that this description of violence and resistance does not immediately apply to Emilia as she does not actively figure among the Amazon ranks in battle scenes with the Greeks. However, her presence may be suggested when the young Amazon girls (“damigelle”), presumably including Emilia, fortify the walls of the city (1.96). In addition, she is thrice explicitly named “Emilia the Amazon,” and Boccaccio’s description of her echoes, sometimes verbatim, the images he uses to describe Ipolita, that most Amazonian of women (see 1.125.3–6; 3.5–12; 2.9.4; 3.9.4). Thus it seems plausible to conclude that Boccaccio’s treatment of Emilia links her with the Amazon history he has deliberately included in this story. Many critics address Chaucer’s revisions of Teseida Book I, yet their analyses treat the Amazonian episode almost exclusively not as a gender problem but as a sociopolitical, ideological, or generic menace. Thus, its marginalization tends to function on these levels. See, for example, Robert A. Pratt, “Chaucer’s Use of the Teseida,” PMLA 62 (1947): 614; and, more recently, David Anderson, Before the Knight’s Tale: Imitation of Classical Epic in Boccaccio’s Teseida (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 200–201, for the commonly held interpretation of Chaucer’s elision of Teseida Book I as a decision to omit “elements from his source that did not relate directly to the theme of fraternal strife.” For other interpretations of the exclusion of Book I, see Coleman, 89; Charles Muscatine, “Form, Texture, and Meaning in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale,” PMLA 65 (1950): 911–929; Robert W. Hanning, “The Struggle between a Noble Design and Chaos: The Literary Tradition of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale,” Literary Review 23 (1980): 519–541; John Ganim, “Chaucerian Ritual and Patriarchal Romance,” Chaucer Yearbook 1 (1992): 65–86; Dominique Battles, The Medieval Tradition of Thebes: History and Narrative in the OF Roman de Thèbes, Boccaccio, Chaucer, and Lydgate (New York: Routledge, 2004), 99; Robert M. Stein, “The Conquest of Femenye: Desire, Power, and Narrative in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale,” in Desiring Discourse: The Literature of Love, Ovid through Chaucer, ed. James J. Paxson and Cynthia A. Gravlee (London: Associated University Press, 1998), 202n; Leicester, Disenchanted Self, 236; Edwards, 32; Priscilla Martin, Chaucer’s Women: Nuns, Wives and Amazons (London: Macmillan, 1990), 64; Lee Patterson, Chaucer and the Subject of History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 168.

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12. See Karma Lochrie, Heterosyncrasies: Female Sexuality when Normal Wasn’t (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 103-138. Lochrie’s analysis of Emelye as Amazon is instructive as she argues for a medieval praxis of sexual identity not governed by heteronormativity. Other notable critical exceptions include, for example, Weisl, who argues that repressing the Amazon context of the Knight’s Tale serves to contain the troubling aspects of femininity that lurk at the margins of chivalric romance. While Weisl articulates the Amazon threat at the margins of the Knight’s Tale, she does not discuss how Emelye, as an Amazon, participates in that feminine menace. See also Hansen, 219; Ganim, 72–77; and Susan Crane, “Medieval Romance and Feminine Difference in The Knight’s Tale,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 12 (1990): 48. Likewise, Strauss articulates the nature of Emelye’s resistance to heteronormative constraints in the prayer scene, but, again, the connection of this resistance to Emelye’s literary history is absent. 13. A. C. Spearing, The Medieval Poet as Voyeur: Looking and Listening in Medieval Love-Narratives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 163. 14. Spearing, Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 164; Battles, 91. 15. The most famous instance of Emelye’s unawareness of her role as erotic object motivating the central conf lict of the tale comes in Theseus’ ironic observation, “She woot namoore of al this hoote fare,/By God, than woot a cokkow or an hare!” (1809–1810). All references to the Knight’s Tale are drawn from The Riverside Chaucer, ed. Larry D. Benson, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Miff lin, 1987). 16. See The Middle English Compendium, s.v. “Femenye,” (accessed November 26, 2006). 17. This other female collective, frenzied in Boccaccio’s narrative but swooning and near-death in Chaucer’s, continues the Amazon threat of challenge to male authority. Perhaps this explains Theseus’ defensive posture before these swooning women: “ ‘What folk been ye, that at myn homcomynge / Perturben so my feste with criynge?’/. . . ‘Have ye so greet envye/Of myn honour, that thus compleyne and crye?’ ” (905–908). See Leicester, Disenchanted Self, 228–229 for a further discussion of Theseus’ response to the Argive widows. 18. For example, the Knight relates that Emelye shrieked and swooned upon Arcite’s death, deferring her actual words with “What helpith it to tarien forth the day/To tellen how she weep both eve and morwe?/For in swich cas women have swich sorwe,/Whan that hir housbondes ben from hem ago,/That for the moore part they sorwen so,/Or eles fallen in swich maladye,/That at the laste certainly they dye” (2820–2826). See also 2943–2944. 19. Spearing, Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 169. 20. Carolyn Dinshaw, Chaucer’s Sexual Poetics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989), 7, 14–15. Dinshaw cites Alain de Lille’s De planctu naturae, 10:30–34; the Roman de la Rose, 19513–19762; as well as the Prologue to the Legend of Good Women for the sexualized and literary plough. See also Gower’s Confessio Amantis, ed. Russell A. Peck, vol. 1,

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21. 22.

23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

30. 31. 32.

33.

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TEAMS (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications at WMU, 2000), 7.4221 for a proverbial expression linking the plough with heterosexual union within marriage. Miller’s Tale, 3730–3815 Theseus’ precarious authority recalls the image of Conquest in Mars’ temple. There, Conquest’s seat of honor is constantly menaced by the sword hanging precariously over his head by a “soutil twynes threed” (2028–2030). Theseus’ conquest of Femenye, in the service of Mars, seems equally threatened (975). Weisl, 3. Donaldson best expresses Emelye’s generic constraint, in positive terms, when he argues that Chaucer has intentionally written Emelye to have no character in order to use her as a symbol, because “symbols such as Emelye do not act, they merely are . . . Emelye is one of the ideas that make this world tolerable, and if she were given a personality, she would lose her symbolic significance as the goal toward which the better side of chivalry aspires” (48, 49). Ganim argues that the tale’s female agency “articulates itself only by its absence, by symbolic substitution, or in something close to masquerade” (77). See also David Wallace, Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 107. Many critics have commented upon Emelye’s function as impersonal embodiment of Nature. See, for example, Spearing, Knight’s Tale, 40; and Leicester, Disenchanted Self, 232. For Emelye as a version of love object reminiscent of the Romance of the Rose, see Martin, 44. Weisl, 13. See Coleman, 126–131. Edwards, 32. Here I follow Strauss, 252. See Leicester for a discussion of Emelye’s effacement in this scene (Disenchanted Self, 312). Here I agree with Hansen, 209. Aside from the ideological resistance Emelye articulates, her body may also literally manifest Amazonian resistance at the site of its missing right breast, that rather permanent signifier of Amazonian identity. See Spearing, Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 163 for a discussion of the unconscious of the Knight’s Tale. Spearing, Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 22. This passage’s difficult Middle English may account for the thinness of its treatment in much modern scholarship. Spearing translates the passage: “This Emily, with modest heart, washed her body with water from a well. But how she performed her rite I dare not tell, unless it should be in somewhat general terms; and yet it would be fun to hear everything. It would be no burden to any man who means well; but it is a good thing for a man to be free to imagine it” (Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 22). Spearing, Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 22. Others have connected his stated reluctance to describe Emelye with the painting in Diana’s temple in

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34.

35. 36.

37.

38. 39.

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which Actaeon is punished for seeing Diana naked; the narrator may wish to avoid Actaeon’s fate (Martin, 51). See also Spearing, Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 167; Leicester, Disenchanted Self, 309–310. In addition to a gendered objectification, the power to look often, though not always, reproduces social and political authority, when “the scope of the prince’s gaze marks his public dominion” and potency (Spearing, Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 22). The Knight’s Tale is replete with instances of the male gaze marking men’s public authority (896, 1066, 2983–2984), as well as the fetishizing male gaze of the garden scene treated at length by critics (see, among others, Spearing, Medieval Poet as Voyeur, 164–165; and David Aers, Chaucer [Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1986], 76–79). Others have asserted that the most insistent reproductions of the fetishizing “phallic gaze” happen in particularly private spaces. See Sarah Stanbury, “Regimes of the Visual in Premodern England: Gaze, Body, and Chaucer’s Clerk’s Tale,” New Literary History 28:2 (1997): 266; and Michael Camille, The Gothic Idol: Ideology and Image-Making in Medieval Art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 309. This model of the private as the space for spectral erotic objectification may illuminate the force of the reinscription of Emelye’s body here: in private, she operates as the spectral object of erotic pleasure among men. Strauss, 253. Perhaps it is this moment of corporal fetishizing to which the Miller responds in his own subsequent tale, famous for its revelation of orifices as a site of fascination and pleasure, both erotic and comic. Gatens further suggests that this kind of “corporeal specificity” has been used historically to exclude women and others from the body politic (“Corporeal Representation in/and the Body Politic,” in Writing on the Body: Female Embodiment and Feminist Theory, ed. Katie Conboy, Nadia Medina, and Sarah Stanbury [New York: Columbia University Press, 1997], 83). See Timothy O’Brian, “Fire and Blood: Queynte Imaginings in Diana’s Temple,” Chaucer Review 33 (1988): 157–167, for the history of the debate over the valence of “queynte” in Chaucer. Although the meaning of the term remains a contested issue, he concludes with others that the proliferating queyntes do initiate and circulate in a scene charged with sexualized body images. Strauss, 254. Coleman presents these glosses, as well as others, in his discussion of which Teseida manuscript, or which manuscript family, Chaucer must have known in his composition of the Knight’s Tale (110–114). Though these obscene glosses appear in only one group of the extant Teseida manuscripts, in the alpha family of manuscripts, Coleman and others make the case that it was a manuscript from the alpha family that served as Chaucer’s source text. Other critics insist, upon linguistic evidence, that Chaucer must have known Boccaccio’s glosses. Coleman says that the determining factor arguing against Chaucer’s knowledge of the glosses is that he doesn’t make use of them in the Knight’s Tale. I maintain that

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the voyeuristic fetishizing of Emelye’s body in Diana’s temple replicates and continues the same kind of objectification (with its violent overtones) that is present in this glossed treatment of Emilia. These five erotic glosses and their English translations are taken from Coleman, 113. Coleman, 113. See, for example, 3109–3113 in the prologue to the Miller’s Tale. Wallace uses a similar methodology in “ ‘Whan She Translated Was’: A Chaucerian Critique of the Petrarchan Academy,” in Literary Practice and Social Change in Britain, 1380–1530, ed. Lee Patterson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 156–215. His reading of Griselde against her literary history discusses her various political significations as she moves—via translation—across historical contexts from Boccaccio to Petrarch to Chaucer.

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CHAPTER 11 IN LAURA’S SHADOW: CASTING FEMALE HUMANISTS AS PETRARCHAN BELOVEDS IN QUATTROCENTO LETTERS Aileen A. Feng

Love, indeed, longs for a beloved [Amor enim relationem avet]1 —Lauro Quirini to Isotta Nogarola I have found, I have found what I wanted, what I have always been seeking, what I was asking for from Eros, what I was even dreaming of . . . [Ερηχ ερηχ ν θλον, ν ζτεον αε,/ν τουν τν ρωθ ν κα νειροπλουν· . . . ] 2 —Angelo Poliziano to Alessandra Scala The relation between women as historical subjects and the notion of woman as it is produced by hegemonic discourses is neither a direct relation of identity, a one-to-one correspondence, nor a relation of simple implication. Like all other relations expressed in language, it is an arbitrary and symbolic one, that is to say, culturally set-up. 3 —Teresa de Lauretis

I

n a letter written to her uncle, Ludovico di Leno, on July 16, 1485, Laura Cereta (1469–1499) provided a peculiar reason for having undertaken humanistic studies. She wrote, “I took on all this work myself so that the name of Laura, so wondrously celebrated by Petrarch, might be preserved in a second and quite new immortality—in me” [Ego potius omnen hanc insumpsi operam mihi, ut Laurae nomen, miro Petrarcae preconio cantatum, novior altera in me custodiat aeternitas].4 The female humanist claims to have undertaken humanistic studies so that the name Laura, already immortalized by Francesco Petrarca (1304–74) during the previous century, might be renewed in her. Cereta’s attempt to recuperate the name that had come to symbolize on the one hand, unrequited

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love, and on the other, feminine virtue, was a surprising excuse for entering upon the classically male field of study. Her attempt to break from the portrait she had inherited forced a confrontation between the Petrarchan vernacular lyric tradition of the Trecento and the emerging neo-Latin humanist movement of the Quattrocento—a relationship that will be examined in this chapter. Although Cereta does not state explicitly the reasons behind her aversion to being identified with Petrarch’s beloved, the negative consequences of such an identification are easily surmised. The Trecento figure of the medieval beloved finds full expression in Petrarch’s Laura, who, although multifaceted and complex, can be portrayed reductively in three words: silent, chaste, and unattainable.5 The last two qualities, perhaps, need no explanation. The amor purus [pure love] of courtly love inherited from Andrea Capellanus’s De Amore and the poetry of Dante’s dolce stil novo [new sweet style] linked the chastity of the beloved inherently to her inaccessibility and infused her with a salvific function.6 Yet, to say that the medieval beloved is silent is possibly misleading and, therefore, needs to be qualified. Although Laura speaks in a few places—in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, and the Bucolicum carmen—her words are quasi-prophetic and necessarily mediated by the male poet. Indeed, the sign placed upon a dormant Laura in RVF 190—“Let no one touch me” [Nessun mi tocchi]—recalls Christ’s words to Mary Magdalene, “Do not touch me” [Noli me tangere], at the Resurrection.7 Although Laura is made to speak, she serves a mediating function, acting as a mouthpiece for a higher message.8 These three characteristics form the shadow under which Cereta and the Quattrocento female humanists found themselves. Trained as humanists, women such as Isotta Nogarola (1418–66), Cassandra Fedele (1465–1558), Alessandra Scala (1475–1506), and Cereta exchanged letters with the most learned men of their age, earning praise for their erudition, publishing letterbooks, and often giving public orations.9 At first sight these women appear to have emerged from the tradition of silence they inherited, but, as a closer examination of their epistolary exchanges with some of the most prominent men of the century shows, the matter is more complex. Just as women were excluded from Cicero’s political writings, so too did they risk being excluded from the dominant discourse of his neo-Latin humanist imitators.10 Born under the shadow of Petrarch’s Laura, the female humanist may have gained a voice through her writing, but she found herself objectified by her male interlocutors, much as the silent, chaste beloved of the Petrarchan lyric. When Lauro Quirini (1420–75) writes “love, indeed, longs for a beloved” [amor enim relationem avet] to Nogarola,11 he was

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honoring her erudition in a Latin encomium, but he couches his praise in terms that Petrarch used to address his fictional beloved, and that later generations of Petrarchan poets would use to address their beloveds. Indeed, this language is intensely reminiscent of the language used by Angelo Poliziano (1454–94) in the Greek epigram to Alessandra Scala cited at the beginning of this chapter: “I have found, I have found what I wanted, what I have always been seeking, what I was asking for from Eros, what I was even dreaming of.” Poliziano believes he has found his beloved in the female humanist, yet his portrayal of her is at odds with the praise he bestows upon her for her mastery of Greek. Margaret King has long argued that educated women during the Renaissance were viewed as members of a “third sex,” using Cassandra Fedele as an example: “She, too, had overcome her sex, had created a man within her womanliness and had become a creature of ambiguous identity, belonging to a third and unknown sex beyond the order of nature. The learned women of the Renaissance, in the eyes of their male contemporaries and friends, ceased, in becoming learned, to be women.”12 Contrary to King’s assessment, it is precisely because they became learned, and thus more “masculine,” that the male humanists treated them discursively as more “feminine” in an attempt to uphold what they believed to be the “natural law” emerging from the Bible and its various interpreters as well as from the writings of Aristotle. That is, Aristotle’s view of women as naturally defective versions of men inf luenced clerical and scholastic thought via the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas. The general patristic interpretation informing the literati of this period points to a dual aspect of personhood: (1) personhood as understood through the universal category homo, and (2) personhood as restricted by categories of sex, vir and femina. Thus, the emphasis on chastity (a female virtue) and the use of Petrarchan courtly love rhetoric attempt to resignify the female humanist as “woman”: she is reminded of her place in the social and “natural” hierarchy. In the letters from her male humanist colleague, the learned woman of the Quattrocento thus becomes the embodiment of Laura.13 This chapter explores the odd frequency with which Petrarchan courtly love rhetoric appears in the Latin epistles written by male humanists to their female counterparts: Isotta Nogarola, Cassandra Fedele, and Laura Cereta. I shall argue that the amatory rhetoric is specifically Petrarchan, rooted in the Rerum vulgarium fragmenta and the paradigms of desire established between the poet-lover and his beloved Laura. Indeed, it is through Petrarch’s poetry that we encounter the most explicit working-out of the metaphysical relationship between male poet-lover and female beloved.14 Scholarship has long recognized the use of commonplaces in Renaissance texts written about women but has not generally done so in texts written

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to them.15 The imitation of Petrarchan poetics in the humanist epistle has ethical and political valences that warrant investigation, especially given the widespread circulation of Petrarch’s poetry within and beyond Italy: the discursive consequences of Petrarchism point to an attempt to subvert the threat of women’s taking an active public role and thereby disrupting the social hierarchy. At the moment in which Petrarchan language and imagery expand beyond the private space of the lyric, Petrarchism becomes a discourse of power and mastery, forcing a reconsideration of Petrarch’s inf luence on neo-Latin humanism and how we have conceived of the intersections between ethics and politics. Virginia Cox has stated, Whatever her initial novelty and threat value, by the late-fifteenth century, the “learned lady” was a familiar and sanctioned enough figure to have been co-opted as a kind of “national treasure,” routinely boasted of by compatriots as an honor to her city and her kin. True, these women were adopted more in the role of mascots than fully integrated members to the professional humanistic community; women’s existential “otherness” in the period was such that things could have hardly been any other way. Allowing for this, however, the writing woman did have a place by 1500 in Italian literary culture, even if that place was more of the nature of a pedestal or niche than a genuine “seat at the table.”16

I agree with Cox about the pedestal-dwelling function of women’s writing; however, I seek to discern male writing’s use of the paradigms of power found in lyric poetry to generate the “existential ‘otherness’ ” responsible for the marginalization-by-reification that Cox and I both identify. In this sense, one is reminded of a question the feminist theorist Teresa De Lauretis has posed in a rather different context but that nonetheless resembles our own: “How did Medusa feel seeing herself in Perseus’ mirror just before being slain?”17 This chapter explores the humanist text as if it were Minerva’s shield, a symbol of prudence and wisdom, and poses the same question about the fifteenth-century female humanists: how did they respond when looking at their ref lection in the Latin humanist text? Hidden Portraits Isotta Nogarola was one of the most prominent and controversial female humanists to emerge from the early Quattrocento. Born into a wealthy family, Isotta decided not to marry in order to devote herself to humanistic studies, becoming one of the first female professional humanists.18 As a result, her letterbook is a most voluminous example of female erudition and documents Isotta’s intellectual maturation from

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the beginning of her studies to the end of her life.19 Although she gained notoriety and praise for her erudition in sacred studies during her lifetime, she also became in 1439 the object of an anonymous invective, which included charges of adultery, promiscuity, and incest—the strongest imaginable attack on her chastity. 20 The same contradictions that Ann Rosalind Jones has described with respect to sixteenth-century female lyricists can be applied to the first generation of female humanists in the preceding century: “A first contradiction that these women [female poets] confronted was a mixed message about writing itself. Ideological pressures worked against their entry into the public world of print: female silence was equated with chastity, female eloquence with promiscuity.” 21 What further complicates the case of the female humanists was their use of Latin, the classical language of authority and politics. For example, Isotta’s public debate with Ludovico Foscarini (1409–1480) in 1451, later published as the “Dialogue on the Equal or Unequal Sin of Adam and Eve,” was one of the first occasions in which a woman participated in a public debate. 22 Thus, the educated woman’s encroachment into the public sphere could also be interpreted as a move into politics. Although the invective against Isotta is an extreme example, it shows the difficulty with which learned women were accepted by Quattrocento society; they were both admired and viewed as a threat needing to be suppressed. This ambiguous viewpoint is mirrored in the contamination by Petrarchan imagery of a Latin encomium written to Isotta Nogarola by the renowned humanist Lauro Quirini. Quirini, a student and classmate of Isotta’s brother Leonardo at the University of Padova, sent Isotta a letter between 1448 and 1452 praising her accomplishments in sacred studies and urging her to pursue the study of Greek. Having never met the young female scholar, Quirini opens the letter in a peculiarly affectionate, albeit laudatory, fashion: “Some sort of almost boorish shyness, remarkable Isotta, greatest glory of women of our age, has restrained me to this day from writing to you, whom, although silently, I have certainly cherished most affectionately” [Pudor nescio quis paene subrusticus Isota insignis feminarum nostri temporis maxima gloria ad hanc usque diem me tenuit, ne tibi antea scriberem, quam tacito quidem, sed certe plurimo amore colebam].23 Such rhetoric is exemplary of the topos of modesty frequently employed by male and female humanists alike: his bashfulness [pudor] prevented him from writing to the greatest glory of the women of his age, even though he has silently cherished [colebam] her with much love. The strong language of the final phrase is, however, suspect and, juxtaposed with the ending of the letter, calls the true purpose of the correspondence into question.

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After having thoroughly explained what Isotta has to gain from Hellenist studies, Quirini ends the letter by stating, “I promise you, therefore, with Attic faith—in the event you would not believe me without this vow—by wind and earth I swear to you that I preserve your sweet memory within the secret places of my heart” [Itaque tibi spondeo fide Athica, quod si iniurato non credis, per ventum et humum tibi iuro me tuam dulcem memoriam inter arcana pectoris servare].24 The pledge to preserve her memory within the secret places of his heart [memoriam inter arcana pectoris] recalls Petrarch’s RVF 96: “I am so vanquished by waiting and by the long war of my sighs, that I hate what I hoped for and my desires and every noose with which my heart is bound. But that lovely smiling face, which I carry painted in my breast and see wherever I look, forces me, and I am driven back just the same into the first cruel tortures” [Io son de l’aspettar omai sì vinto,/e de la lunga guerra de’ sospiri,/ch’i’ aggio in odio la speme e i desiri,/et ogni laccio onde ‘l mio cor è avinto. // Ma ‘l bel viso leggiadro che depinto/porto nel petto, e veggio ove ch’io miri,/mi sforza; onde ne’ primi empii martìri pur son contra mia voglia respinto].25 In a manner characteristic of Petrarch, the poet-lover here portrays himself as battle-torn and without hope. Although he has been conquered in the “war of . . . sighs” [guerra de’ sospiri] of the first quatrain, and despite his disdain for the hope and desire he feels, there is a driving force described in the second quatrain that throws him back into torment, albeit against his will: the “lovely smiling face” [bel viso leggiadro] that he carries in his heart. Within Petrarchan poetics, this face—the face of Laura—not only keeps him in the battle of love but, most importantly, also inspires and drives the poetic process. Thanks to the portrait, the absent beloved is eternal in his heart, and by extension, eternal in the landscape not only through the paronomastic play on laura-lauro (Laura-laurel tree/crown) that is prevalent throughout the collection, but also through the poet-lover’s projection of the portrait, as he states, “everywhere I look” [ove ch’io miri]. This image establishes the metaphysical relationship between Petrarch and his beloved Laura by making her ever-present, as an image and as inspiration, yet completely unattainable.26 Laura is necessarily unattainable so that Petrarch’s salvation is not put definitively in jeopardy, yet she is his soul mate. This kind of relationship is mirrored throughout the lyric tradition, which is characterized predominantly by the notion of unrequited love.27 Although reminiscent of Petrarchan poetics, Quirini’s use of “memoriam” is perplexing on several levels. First, there is no indication that he had ever seen Isotta. The faculty of sight was generally considered a necessary precursor to the innamoramento [falling in love], as is exemplified by an important Petrarchan source, Giacomo da Lentini: “Love is

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a desire that comes from the heart/through an abundance of great pleasure;/the eyes first generate love/and the heart gives it [love] nourishment” [Amor è un[o] desio che ven da core/per abondanza di gran piacimento;/e li occhi in prima genera[n] l’amore/e lo core li dà nutricamento].28 In addition, and more importantly, the evocation of this lyric commonplace undermines the stated purpose of the letter, which is to praise her intellect. This notion begins a series of encapsulating evocations that transform Isotta into the beloved of the Petrarchan lyric. Quirini goes on to explain that, despite the delay in his writing to her, he has been moved to write by his conscience and his affection for her, an affection that he will have for her as long as she wishes. He justifies this devotion through what seems to be a dictum of love: “Love, indeed, longs for a beloved” [Amor enim relationem avet].29 The use of the verb aveo depicts, not so much the act of seeking, but the act of longing and desiring. The term “relationem”—from relatio ( literally a carrying back or bringing back), used in philosophical and grammatical discourse—could be translated literally as “relation.” Although an abstraction, the desire of love to find a relation(ship) necessitates an object that, in the context of the letter, is Isotta. When this notion of a relationship is coupled with the use of a strong affective verb such as aveo, we are confronted with a statement reminiscent of the poet-lover’s claim that love desires a beloved. The move—from an encomium, to suggestions of future studies in Greek letters, to proclamations of love—is surprising, yet it points to the tension found in Petrarch’s appropriation of the Apollo-Daphne myth in his lyric. That is, through a paronomastic play on his first name, Lauro Quirini mirrors the simultaneous Petrarchan pursuit of letters and the beloved: “Therefore, you should love Lauro [the laurel], among many other reasons, particularly for this, that it is always green, for which reason the pagans consecrated it to Apollo, your god of wisdom” [Laurum ergo tum plurimis aliis causis amare debes, tum vel praecipue quod simper virescit, ob id enim Apolloni tuo deo sapientiae consecrabat gentilitas].30 Among the many (unspoken) reasons for which Isotta should love Laurum, Quirini emphasizes the fact that the laurel tree is evergreen [simper virescit], for which reason it was consecrated to Apollo, god of wisdom, as he states, but also god of poetry, which he fails to mention. His assertion that she should love Laurum, therefore, serves a double purpose: he praises and encourages her by telling her to love the laurel tree, signifying study and fame, while simultaneously telling her to love him, Lauro. The use of the double entendre echoes the Petrarchan paronomastic play on Laura’s name that enables the poet to love both fame and the beloved simultaneously within his poetics.

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Although the analogy seems to grant Isotta the power of subjectivity—if Lauro is Laura, then Isotta is Petrarch, the pursuer of the beloved and of fame—Lauro continues to speak from the position of privilege. Only he is able to switch between subjectivity and objectivity. By grounding the language in a narrative of desire, Lauro inscribes himself as the beloved who eggs on the pursuer. In other words, he embodies the male poetic fantasy of the beloved reciprocating love and desire. This reinforces the metaphysical relationship between Quirini and Isotta already described in the beginning of the letter when he confesses to carrying her “memoria” in his heart. Her role as a figure of the beloved is made definitive in the closing of the letter when he writes, “Farewell, and I entreat you, love me” [Vale et me, ut cupio, ama]. 31 The original intent of the letter, to encourage her toward Hellenistic studies, is virtually forgotten. Quirini grounds his praise in a language of desire, thereby undermining his purported praise of Nogarola’s intellectual accomplishments. The praise arises ultimately from the female humanist’s ability to inspire love in the male humanists, as did the lyrical beloved’s. She is not treated as an intellectual equal worthy of encomia, but rather as an object of affection. Literary allusions and Petrarchan topoi abound in letters sent to other female humanists in praise of their intellect. Many examples of the eroticization of the learned woman as a nymph and goddess, as well as of the infiltration of the tension between sacred and profane love into humanistic discourse, could easily be adduced to support the paradigm established here. In each case, the female humanist’s intellectual accomplishments are met with reductive praise grounded in desire, pointing to the figuration of the learned woman as a medieval beloved, an object of desire rather than an intellectual equal. The Latin humanist epistle ref lects the highest level of learning, the medium through which the humanist displays his/ her mastery of the classics and Latin composition. Yet, what is ref lected to the female humanist is not what is expected: not the image of an educated woman equal to her male humanist colleague, but rather an object of desire without a voice—a poetic beloved. The most explicit evidence of this transformation occurs in the literary metamorphosis of the beloved, specifically in Angelo Poliziano’s letters to Cassandra Fedele and the Greek epigrams he sent to the young female humanist Alessandra Scala. Metamorphosis of Female Humanists into Petrarchan Beloveds In a letter to Cassandra Fedele, Angelo Poliziano excuses his silence and delay in writing her by saying that when he first met her he was struck dumb, like Aeneas when he saw his mother Venus emerge from

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the woods dressed as a mortal woman.32 He was so dumbstruck that apparently he could not even read Cassandra’s letters. As a result, he took them to Alessandra Scala and asked her to read them aloud to him, and to an audience of his humanist peers: Alessandra’s father, Bartolomeo Scala (1430–97), Marsilio Ficino (1433–99), and Pico della Mirandola (1463–94). By having Alessandra, herself a young humanist, perform the letters, as if she were reciting a part in a play, Poliziano claims he was able to recreate Cassandra’s combination of learning and beauty: I came to the home of Alessandra Scala, and personally gave her and her father your letters to be read; which [letters] she [Alessandra] recited distinctly, skillfully, rhythmically, sweetly, with the result that, reciting your words, she represented you with all her features, as they say. The letters having been read through, she asked me to thank you, having professed that she owed much to you, who would do so much for her. Her own father praised her style in no uncertain terms; Marsilio [Ficino] did the same, as did Pico [della Mirandola]. [Alexandram Scalam domi conveni, coramque ipsius parente legendas ei tuas litteras dedi; quas illa ita distincte, scienter, modulate, suaviter pronuntiavit, ut ipsam te tua verba recitantem, liniamentis (quod dicitur) omnibus expresserit. Pellectis rogavit agerem gratias, debere tibi plurimum professa, quae tanti se faceres. Pater ipse stilum non mediocriter laudavit; idem Marsilius fecit, idem Picus, quamquam unus abs te nescio quomodo in illa litteratorum hominum tibi amicorum mentione praeteritus.]33

Poliziano emphasizes the spectacle of the event and gives no indication of the content of the letters Cassandra Fedele sent to him. Rather than engage Cassandra in a meaningful dialogue, he instead describes Alessandra’s recitation and pronunciation with a string of adverbs praising her acting ability—distinctly (with precision), skillfully, rhythmically, sweetly. Alessandra’s performance was so well executed that Poliziano claims she was able to impersonate Cassandra with all her physical features [liniamentis . . . omnibus]. In her reading of this passage, Jardine has noted that “this effects the metamorphosis of the individual talented woman into a genus of representatives of female worth.”34 Indeed, Alessandra’s acting out of Cassandra’s letters implies a universal connection between educated women: one can easily be substituted for another. That Cassandra’s words are embodied by another woman also asserts a necessary relation between women and the body, which distracts and detracts from the intellect. By sending a description of the spectacle to Cassandra, Poliziano attempts to include her as a spectator with Pico della Mirandola, Ficino, and the others. In this sense, De Lauretis’s work on feminism, semiotics, and cinema has much to offer this study, in particular the question she poses about

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the female film viewer: “How can the female spectator be entertained as subject of the very moment that places her as its object, that makes her the figure of its own closure?”35 Was the purpose of Poliziano’s response to entertain Cassandra Fedele, or was it to show her that her worth lay in the spectacle of her learning, rather than in her actual intellect? Given the emphasis on the actress Alessandra’s physical features and the performativity of pronunciation, it is clear that the audience was awestruck and impressed by her beauty and her voice, rather than by the content of what she was reciting. Cassandra’s voice was silenced by Alessandra’s performance, and the women’s identities were conf lated into one. In fact, the balance of the letter to Fedele focuses on the past and present accomplishments of her stand-in, the young Florentine Alessandra Scala. I hesitate to say accomplishments because, as is typical of the letters Poliziano sent to Cassandra, the emphasis is placed on the effect Alessandra’s accomplishments had on Poliziano. Poliziano devotes only one phrase to praising Alessandra’s erudition: “She is immersed day and night in studies of both languages” [Dies ea noctesque in studiis utriusque linguae versetur].36 This is a distinguished form of praise since Alessandra was one of very few women learned in Greek at that time. 37 This compliment, however, is overshadowed by the remainder of the letter, which discusses yet another spectacle: her performance as Electra in the Sophoclean play of the same name. Poliziano states that “this virgin herself took on [the role of ] Electra the virgin, in which she applied so much of [her] temperament or rather art or even love, so that she turned the eyes and souls of all on her alone. There was an Attic grace in her words, genuine and inborn, her posture open and efficacious everywhere, serving her proof, running through various emotions, so that much of truth and faith of long standing fables came to be in it” [ipsa Electrae virginis virgo suscepit, in qua tantum vel ingenii vel artis vel gratiae adhibuit, ut omnium in se oculos atque animas una converteret. Erat in verbis lepos ille atticus prorsum genuinus et natives, gestus ubique ita promptus et efficax ita argumento serviens, ita per affectus varios decurrens, ut multa inde veritas et fides fictae diu fabulae accederet].38 The language Poliziano used initially to describe his state of awe upon meeting Cassandra is mimicked here in his description of the audience’s response to Alessandra’s interpretation of Electra—a detail that could not have escaped Cassandra’s attention. All eyes and souls were turned to her whose posture [gestus] was so convincing that it made the fiction believable. It is at this moment that the figure of Electra contaminates the figure of Alessandra, for, Poliziano claims, “Electra is not remembered so that Alessandra be obscured” [Nec tamen Electrae sic meminit ut Alexandrae sit oblita].39 The parallel structure of the two theatrical episodes—Alessandra first acting as Fedele, and

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then as Electra—strips the female humanists of their identity through contaminatio. In other words, Alessandra can just as easily imitate Cassandra as she can Electra; both Cassandra and Electra are figured as parts in a play, and Alessandra’s accomplishments in Greek are reduced to her ability to recite and “play the part.” That this new Alessandra-Electra figure becomes Poliziano’s beloved is most explicit in the Greek epigrams he addresses to her after the performance. The first epigram in question, Ep. Gr. 28, repeats several details from the letter: When Alexandra played the part of Sophocles’ Electra—one unmarried girl playing the part of another—we were all astonished at how easily she spoke the Attic tongue without stumbling, though being Italian by birth, and at how she projected an imitative and authentic voice, and at how carefully she followed the customs of the stage, and at how she kept the character [of Electra] pure. Fixing her eyes upon the ground, she failed neither in effort nor in motion; nor did she disgrace herself by projecting a voice heavy with tears, but with wet eyes she stirred up the audience. We were all struck dumb: and jealousy stung me when I saw the brother in her arms. [
λκτρην πκριν  πτ  ζυξ ζυγα κορην/κορη λεξνδρη τν γε Σοφοκλεην,/θαμβομεν πντες π"ς ε#μαρ$ς τθδα γλ"τταν / &πυεν 'πταστως Α#σον,ς ο-σα γνος,/π"ς δ γε μιμηλ0ν προει κα, 1ττυμον α#δν,/τ'κριβ$ς 1ντχνου τρεε π"ς θυμλης, / π"ς 3θος δ  1φλαττεν 'κρατον· 5μματα γα6/πξασ  ο#δ ρμ7ς &μβροτεν, ο# βσεως·/ο#δ  'σχημνεεν φων0ν βαρδακρυν 8ε9σα, / βλμματι μυδαλ: σ;ν δ ς τ?ν 5μαιμον @Aς εBδον 1ν 'γκαλσιν.]40

The spirit of the epigram is true to the description within the letter. However, the final verses of the epigram detail the metamorphosis of the learned woman into his beloved: “jealousy stung me when I saw the brother in her arms.” Poliziano’s purported jealousy over Alessandra’s embracing the male actor on stage is unexpected, to say the least. For one thing, in the final scene of Sophocles’ Electra, the tragic female heroine embraces her brother after they have committed matricide. They are united by filial revenge, and not sexual desire.41 Yet Poliziano’s reading of the visual scene denotes the same kind of poetic fantasy present in Petrarch’s RVF 78 where the poet expresses jealousy of Pygmalion and his female statue: When Simon received the high idea which, for my sake, put his hand to his stylus, if he had given to his noble work voice and intellect along with form // he would have lightened my breast of many sighs that make what

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others prize most vile tome. For in appearance she seems humble, and her expression promises peace; // then, when I come to speak to her, she seems to listen most kindly: if she could only reply to my words! // Pygmalion, how glad you should be of your statue, since you received a thousand times what I yearn to have just once! [Quando giunse a Simon l’alto concetto/ch’a mio nome gli pose in man lo stile,/s’avesse dato a l’opera gentile/colla figura voce ed intellecto, // di sospir’ molti mi sgombrava il petto,/che ciò ch’altri à piú caro, a me fan vile:/però che ‘n vista ella si mostra humile/promettendomi pace ne l’aspetto. // Ma poi ch’i’ vengo a ragionar co llei,/benignamente assai par che m’ascolte,/se risponder savesse a’ detti miei. // Pigmalïon, quanto lodar ti dêi/de l’imagine tua, se mille volte/n’avesti quel ch’i’ sol una vorrei.]42

RVF 77 and 78 concern a (now lost) portrait of Laura allegedly painted by Simone Martini (1284–1344) that was so life-like that the poet attempted to speak to it. Petrarch’s jealousy of Pygmalion concerns the ability to embrace the female statue—a creation of art, much like Simone Martini’s painting—not converse with it. 43 In Poliziano’s case, it is the apparent reciprocation of desire that brings about jealousy: he sees another man in her arms. As was the case with Lauro Quirini and Isotta Nogarola, Poliziano projects himself into the scene as the object of Alessandra’s affection, revealing his privileged status through the oscillation between subjectivity and objectivity. Alessandra as Electra is displayed as an object of Poliziano’s desire, as one who fulfills the fantasy of reciprocation by embracing another man. Such a lyrical evocation deemphasizes her performance by turning the reader’s attention to Poliziano’s feelings of desire and jealousy. At this textual moment Alessandra becomes his silent, chaste, and desired beloved, just like Petrarch’s portrait of Laura and Pygmalion’s statue.44 Poliziano sent a total of six Greek epigrams to Alessandra, all depicting unrequited love and desire.45 The mere existence of such epigrams is enough to show Poliziano’s conf licted feelings toward Alessandra as both the incarnation of a beloved and an accomplished intellectual and colleague. But, when one examines closely the epigrams and Alessandra’s response to him, it becomes clear that he intentionally called upon imagery and various topoi from the lyric tradition to metamorphose her explicitly into his beloved, and that she, in turn, explicitly refused such a characterization. This conf lict emerges from the poetic tenzone between the two, beginning with Poliziano’s Ep. Gr. 30. The epigram is enclosed in lyrical evocations of unrequited love, and although Poliziano makes reference to Alessandra’s erudition, as we shall see, her status as a learned woman is overshadowed by her

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inscription as a beloved. He begins by inscribing her as his beloved, in the verses that introduce this chapter: I have found, I have found what I wanted, what I have always been seeking, what I was asking for from Eros, what I was even dreaming of: a maiden whose beauty is pure, and whose form is not derived from artifice, but from a simple nature; a maiden pluming herself upon both tongues, excellent both in dances and on the lyre; concerning whom there is a contest between Prudence and the Graces, who drag her in different directions, this way and that. I have found her, but this is not helpful: for only with difficulty is it possible for one in a blazing frenzy to see her once in a year. [ΕDρηχ  εDρηχ  Eν θλον, Eν 1ζτεον αFε,/Eν Gτουν τ?ν Hρωθ  Eν κα, Iνειροπλουν·/παρθενικ0ν Jς κλλος 'κρατον, Jς K γε κσμος/ ο#κ εLη τχνης, 'λλ 'φελοMς φσεως·/παρθενικ0ν γλNττ6σιν 1π  'μφοτρ6σι κομ"σαν,/ς σ γ  πο9α ∆ανοβιος 1κ ζφου 1ς μσον Jμαρ / κα-θις 1π  'ντολην αFπQ [εθρα χεεις./φωνα9ς δ  1ν πλεσταις σν τοι κλος Wρ 1λαστρε9,/\λλδι, ]ωμαικA, \βραικA, FδA/στρα, φσις, 'ριθμο, ποιματα κβρις, 8ατρο,/^ρακλ7ν καλουσ  'ντιμεθελκμενα./τ'μQ δ$ παρθενικ7ς σπουδσματα παγνι τ  αFν"ς,/Βκχορις εF κρναις, νθεα κα, δρσος `ς./τοιγQρ μτ  1λφαντος 1ναντα βμβον 'ερω/αLλουρον ΠαλλQς κα, σ γ  περφρονεις.]49

Alessandra challenges Poliziano’s application of Neo-Platonism to their situation when she asks, “Many are the soothsayers, but few are the prophets. Did you find [something]? You did not find [anything], nor did you have a dream. For the divine poet said, ‘God leads [one] to the similar’; but nothing is less similar to Alexandra than you.” She is not his soul mate because their souls are dissimilar. In addition, she exposes his use of Neo-Platonic rhetoric as empty and malleable by invoking her name, which Poliziano never does in the epigram he wrote to her. She reclaims her identity through this rhetorical move: she is neither Cassandra Fedele, nor Electra, nor Poliziano’s maiden [παρθενικήν] and intimates that the epigram he wrote could have been sent to anyone. Furthermore, in the process of undoing Poliziano’s characterization of her as his beloved, Alessandra redefines herself as a learned woman by calling on the authority of the “divine poet” [θε9ος 'οιδς]. Although the “divine poet” usually refers to Homer in the Hellenist tradition, Alessandra seems to echo Plato’s notion of soul mates in the Symposium, upon which Poliziano relied in his declaration that he had found “her” whom he always desired. In the space of a single epigram, Alessandra breaks from the mold and refuses to become Poliziano’s beloved. Although Poliziano continued to compose and send her his Greek epigrams, there is no indication that she ever responded to him, as implied in Ep. Gr. 48 where he writes, “If it is neither possible to look at you, nor to hear you, will I not receive a written reply?” [bν μηδ  εFσαθρε9ν, cν μηδ