Diary Entry by Eleanor of Paris
I, Eleanor, write this entry on the 28th of March in the year 1278.
I have been reading Marie de France’s writings for the past week. I am finding them to be very interesting, but also perplexing. They confuse me sometimes. They confuse my idea of love. Marie’s Lai, “Le Fresne”, is particularly confusing to me. The different ideas of what love can be are very odd to me. I don’t really understand them, but I am going to try to.
“Le Fresne” puts forward this idea that love might be present in marriage. And that love can lead to a happy ending. This is so different from the idea of love and marriage that I have been raised on. I was raised to believe, by both being told and witnessing, that love and marriage cannot exist together. That love, when it does occur, exists separately from marriage. My mother and father are kind to each other, but I do not think they love each other. My aunt herself has told me that my mother had loved a boy from their town when she was young, but nothing came from it. My aunt told me the story and then added that even if they had been allowed to marry, their love would have faded. My aunt said “Love and marriage cannot mix. How can they? They are such separate ideas.” When I read Marie’s “Equitan”, I understood what my aunt had told me. In the story, love should only exist in absence because anything other than love in absence leads to tragedy.
I have been seeing some parallels between “Equitan” and “Le Fresne”. Both I think question the idea of honor and morality. In “Equitan”, we have the dishonorable king and the dishonorable wife of the seneschal. In the end after they are both dead, Marie makes clear what the message of the story is:
I have been reading Marie de France’s writings for the past week. I am finding them to be very interesting, but also perplexing. They confuse me sometimes. They confuse my idea of love. Marie’s Lai, “Le Fresne”, is particularly confusing to me. The different ideas of what love can be are very odd to me. I don’t really understand them, but I am going to try to.
“Le Fresne” puts forward this idea that love might be present in marriage. And that love can lead to a happy ending. This is so different from the idea of love and marriage that I have been raised on. I was raised to believe, by both being told and witnessing, that love and marriage cannot exist together. That love, when it does occur, exists separately from marriage. My mother and father are kind to each other, but I do not think they love each other. My aunt herself has told me that my mother had loved a boy from their town when she was young, but nothing came from it. My aunt told me the story and then added that even if they had been allowed to marry, their love would have faded. My aunt said “Love and marriage cannot mix. How can they? They are such separate ideas.” When I read Marie’s “Equitan”, I understood what my aunt had told me. In the story, love should only exist in absence because anything other than love in absence leads to tragedy.
I have been seeing some parallels between “Equitan” and “Le Fresne”. Both I think question the idea of honor and morality. In “Equitan”, we have the dishonorable king and the dishonorable wife of the seneschal. In the end after they are both dead, Marie makes clear what the message of the story is:
“Anyone who wants to listen to reason
Can find here a moral for any season;
He who seeks to harm his neighbor
Will be the victim of his own labor.”
I know that most of these stories were not created by Marie and that she has crafted what the message of the story could be. What the “moral for any season” is. Marie is warning us. She is warning us that those who are disloyal will be punished in some way.
In “Le Fresne”, the wife of the knight unjustly accuses her neighbor of being dishonorable to her husband because she has given birth to twin boys, stating that a woman who has given birth to two children has been unfaithful to her husband. The wife of the knight then gave birth to twin girls. The wife was so ashamed that she gave up one of her daughters to protect herself from that same shame. The story reminds us of the importance of good moral character and dissuades us from speaking ill of our neighbors. Which believe me I will never do...again. The daughter spends her life in a nunnery unaware of her past. This same daughter then goes on to love a knight and they live happily for some time. But here is where I get confused about love and what it should be.
In “Le Fresne”, the wife of the knight unjustly accuses her neighbor of being dishonorable to her husband because she has given birth to twin boys, stating that a woman who has given birth to two children has been unfaithful to her husband. The wife of the knight then gave birth to twin girls. The wife was so ashamed that she gave up one of her daughters to protect herself from that same shame. The story reminds us of the importance of good moral character and dissuades us from speaking ill of our neighbors. Which believe me I will never do...again. The daughter spends her life in a nunnery unaware of her past. This same daughter then goes on to love a knight and they live happily for some time. But here is where I get confused about love and what it should be.
So from my understanding, love should exist in absence. That is what the troubadours have taught me. Love is supposed to be this far off thing. And I should never act on it according to “Equitan”. After reading “Equitan”, I am not sure I want to love. But also, I have realized that love is not something you can choose. You cannot fight it. “Equitan” tries, I think, not to love his seneschal’s wife. He tries to convince himself to be honorable and loyal and not a servant of Love. But he cannot help himself. And he dies because of what he does. Well, that’s what I cannot tell. Does he dies because he acts on his love or because he plotted to kill the king?
In “Le Fresne”, the woman and the knight are happily living together and it is stated that they are well respected. Although they are not married, they can be in love and be respected. They can also be together and be in love, which challenges the idea that love can only be enjoyed from afar. The knight eventually has to marry because the knight is of a certain class and people begin telling him to take a wife. The woman remains faithful to him and graciously steps aside when the knight and his bride are married. The woman steps aside because she knows her place and because she knows she can never marry her lover. She is gracious and faithful to her lover. And people respect and love her for it. And in the end, she and her lover, the knight, marry, but only when it is revealed that she is of noble birth. In this story, class and nobility is very important and despite the woman’s abundance of virtues she is not deemed worth of marriage to the knight until she is discovered to be of noble blood. In the end she and her lover, the knight, are allowed to marry. Surely they were in love before they married, so why would they not continue to be after being married? This story confuses me because it looks as if marriage can be based on, at the very least, mutual affection. So can there be love? I do not know, nor do I understand.
In “Le Fresne”, the woman and the knight are happily living together and it is stated that they are well respected. Although they are not married, they can be in love and be respected. They can also be together and be in love, which challenges the idea that love can only be enjoyed from afar. The knight eventually has to marry because the knight is of a certain class and people begin telling him to take a wife. The woman remains faithful to him and graciously steps aside when the knight and his bride are married. The woman steps aside because she knows her place and because she knows she can never marry her lover. She is gracious and faithful to her lover. And people respect and love her for it. And in the end, she and her lover, the knight, marry, but only when it is revealed that she is of noble birth. In this story, class and nobility is very important and despite the woman’s abundance of virtues she is not deemed worth of marriage to the knight until she is discovered to be of noble blood. In the end she and her lover, the knight, are allowed to marry. Surely they were in love before they married, so why would they not continue to be after being married? This story confuses me because it looks as if marriage can be based on, at the very least, mutual affection. So can there be love? I do not know, nor do I understand.
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