The End Game in Marie de France's Lais: The Search for a Solution

Author(s): Heather M. Arden

Source: Dalhousie French Studies, Vol. 61 (Winter 2002), pp. 3-11
Published by: Dalhousie University
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40837413
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The End Game in Marie de France's Lais:
The Search for a Solution

Heather M. Arden

çy* he endings of Marie de France's Lais raise the question: Who will decide the
Is outcome, and thereby the meaning, of the adventure? In some lais it is clearly
the male lover who determines the significance of the adventure lived by the lovers,
as we find in "Chaitivel," a lai about a lady and her four admirers. After the tournament
in which three of the knights are killed, the surviving lover wants to replace the
lady's title, "Quatre Dois" ("[My] Four Griefs" [1. 204]) by his own, which
commemorates their story: "Le Chaitivel" ("The Unfortunate One" [208]). l Since the
title of a lai is assumed to summarize the adventure and point to its meaning, the
lady's remarkable adventure involving her loss of four lovers becomes instead, with
the change in title, the story of the lover's adventure and his grief. In many other lais
it is the solution proposed by the female protagonist which stands out: Fresne
spreads her blanket on her lover's marriage bed to prepare it for his bride; Guildeluec
retires to a nunnery so that her husband can marry his beloved; Lan val' s fairy
mistress comes to Arthur's court to clear her lover's name. If we look more closely,
however, we see that a masculine solution replaces or rewrites the feminine one not
simply in one or two of the lais but in all of them, thereby establishing the ultimate
meaning of the adventure as masculine. In this article I will explore the ways in which
Marie's female characters deal with their difficulties, and how the ultimate resolution
of the lais are determined by their men. Finally, I will look at how this remarkable
pattern of male solutions taking precedence over female ones may reflect Marie's
pessimism about women's sphere of action in her society, and even her uncertainty
about the ultimate reception of her own work in a society in which men traditionally
had the last word.
All of Marie's lais center on a love relationship, the threat or obstacle to that
love, and the resolution - happy or tragic-of the situation, and in all the lais the
threat or obstacle that the lovers face is another person.2 In eight of the twelve
stories, we find the traditional love triangle in which the problem is caused by the
female lover's spouse or parent.3 The other four lais present multiple love
relationships, either through the situation of a male lover between two women, as in
"Fresne" (where the love relationship is threatened by the lover's impending
marriage), "Lanval," and "Eliduc," or through the situation of a woman with four
suitors, as in "Chaitivel." While it is true that some of the longer lais offer not one
but a series of problems or crises, this article will focus on the final resolution
brought about by the protagonists, to clarify the ways in which they attempt to

1 . The edition used is that of Jean Rychner. All translations are mine.
2. A thorough analysis of love triangles in the lais can be found in Maddox. Lawson discusses narrative
structure in the lais based on a Proppian approach. While helpful for understanding the structure
of the lais, neither article discusses the gendered nature of their endings. Ménard suggests an
approach to the endings based on the criteria of provisional vs. final, happy vs. unhappy, open vs.
closed (61-99). The "conclusions fermées" (92) which he analyzes are forms of the masculine
endings discussed in this article.
3. This pattern is found in "Guigemar," "Laüstic," "Deux Amanz," "Yonec," "Milun,"
"Chievrefoil," "Equitan," and "Bisclavret."

Dalhousie French Studies 61 (2002)

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 4 Heather M. Arden

overcome their difficulties and to discover whether a woman's or a man's solution

ultimately determines the outcome - and the meaning - of the story.
Six of the twelve lais end with confrontational or violent acts by the male
protagonists. In "Equitan" and "Bisclavret," the ending is written by men who
violently punish a woman guilty of committing a crime. In each case the fema
protagonist has attempted not simply to maintain a relationship with her lover but t
rid herself of an unwanted husband. Thus masculine violence (by the seneschal in
"Equitan," by the werewolf and the king in "Bisclavret") simply responds to th
women's aggressiveness by imposing a kind of socially sanctioned justice. While i
is not surprising that when women are wicked, men will re-establish law and order, i
is significant to find this pattern also in the lais in which women protagonists
attempt a peaceful resolution to their problem.
In four of the six lais that end violently the agonistic ending imposed by men
supercedes a woman's attempt to conclude the adventure non- violently, either
through an effort to reunite the lovers or through the woman's act of communication
with her lover. "Guigemar" is a striking example of this pattern. Guigemar's lady
sensing that she and her lover will be separated, devises a test to keep Guigema
faithful until they are reunited. After her husband causes their violent separation, sh
flees her imprisoning tower, finds the ship that takes her to her lover, and reach
him after danger and distress. Surprisingly he fails twice to recognize her. First, on
seeing her again after their long separation, he doubts the evidence of his own eye
because, he says, "Femmes se resemblent asez" (779); she, however, does not hav
the same problem of recognizing him. Second, he refuses to believe that it is she
even when she unties the knot in his shirt, that is, when she has passed the test she
set for the woman he will love. It is only when he finds the girdle that he gave he
that he recognizes her-by recognizing his object, the girdle. According to a commo
folktale pattern, the lovers should be reunited at this point, since they have passe
the difficult tests. The lady does indeed ask Guigemar to take her away: "Amis, mene
en vostre drue !" (836), but he must first fight and kill Meriduc, his competitor, wh
refuses to give her up. Thus the chivalric ending of "Guigemar," created by the tw
men, supersedes the lady's folktale resolution based on quest, test, and reward.
A similar pattern is found in the other lais in this category. "Yonec" presents
more somber story than that of "Guigemar," a story of attempted reunion which th
male protagonist turns into a tale of vengeance. After her remarkable bird-lover
wounded by her jealous husband, the lady, like her counterpart in "Guigemar," make
a heroic attempt to rejoin her lover by fleeing her imprisonment and following th
man she loves. When Muldumarec's beloved manages to reach him, after danger an
distress, on his death bed, she continues to behave like a woman passionately in
love: she is scripting a Tristanesque story of love and death. He however has othe
plans: the lady is "réduite à sa fonction procréatrice" (Harf-Lancner 106) when he
gives her the sword with which he wants his yet unborn son to kill her husband. To
further his plans, Muldumarec tells his beloved what she will say in the end and give
her a ring to protect her from her husband-he even gives her the clothes he wants he
to wear: "Un chier bliaut li ad done ; / si li cumandë a vestir" (438-39). Years later
she carries out his instructions - and dies on his grave: the story ends as he ha
scripted it.
Another lai in which a woman attempts a peaceful reunion with her lover, only to
be blocked by his aggressive intentions, is "Deus Amanz." The young woman in this
lai, torn between the demands of her father and her lover, devises a conciliatory plan
by which the lovers will be able to marry without causing pain to her father: she

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Marie de France 5

sends her lover to ge

allow the young man
her suitors. But the
the cooperative solu
story as one of masc
Finally, the lai of "M
a loving relationship
and retaliation, or b
The last act of Milu
her lover for twenty
give Milun permissi
her menfolk. It is t
legal spouse and m
considerations of pa
lais-"Guigemar," "D
heroine acts in a w
maintaining their r
And these lais end
protagonist's rewriti
While this first
prerogative in medi
prerogative, but in a
woman's experienc
prologue to the Lais t
In "Chaitivel" an
responsible for the
above, the surviving
that his title-"Sun p
to his request, althou
Jamés dame de m
Ja tant n'iert b
Teus quatre ens
Ne en un jur si n
Fors vus tut sul
(195-99)
While Marie conclud
scribe of Harley 978
later). Similarly Tris
("Pur les paroles rem
words he will record
writes his name on t
to attract her atten
exist without each o

4. See Arden for a more

5. "Never will a lady of
together, / Nor lose the
of "Chaitivel" and othe
durable form" (27). For
6. See the note to line 1

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 6 Heather M. Arden

De s'amie qu'/7 ot veii

hand, is more concerne
celebrating the fleetin
The four remaining lais also portray how a masculine gesture closes the
adventure and gives it its ultimate meaning. Like the lovers in "Chaitivel" and
"Chievrefoil," Lanval takes over the resolution-and the meaning-of the lai. His final
act of leaping onto his fairy mistress's horse rewrites the ending she had intended,
that is, the separation she had imposed after he broke her interdiction (she is not
consulted about his desire to ride off with her). In contrast to the three lais just
discussed, the final three lais in this category, "Fresne," "Eliduc," and "Laiistic,"
present a strong, loving heroine who seems to imprint her point of view on the
adventure, but here too we find the final chapter written by the men in her life.
In "Fresne" and "Eliduc" the heroine acts in a selfless way to help the man she
loves, without even expecting the reward of reunion with him. These are the
strongest, most generous concluding gestures by Marie's heroines. Fresne makes a
magnanimous gesture of support for her lover by spreading her beautiful blanket on
his wedding bed, although she knows that he is about to marry someone else.
Fresne' s preparation of her beloved's nuptial bed results in her father learning about
and pardoning her mother's sin; consequently the archbishop annuls Fresne' s lover's
marriage so that he can marry Fresne. In the end her father steps in to arrange it all:
Sis pere ne volt plus atendré :
II meïsmes vet pur sun gendre,
E l'erceveke i amena ;
Cele aventure li cunta.

El demain les départira,

Lui e cele espusera.7
(493-96; 501-02)
And so the next day the newly-weds are indeed separated, Gurun marries his beloved
("Après ad s'amie espusee" [505]), and her father bestows half of his lands on his new
son-in-law. There is no indication that Fresne was consulted. Her selfless act of love
has thus become a family chronicle endorsed by the church.
The most generous gesture of all is undoubtedly that of Eliduc' s remarkable wife,
who withdraws into a convent to allow her husband to marry his beautiful amie. This
ending of "Eliduc" parallels that of "Fresne" through the selflessness of the heroine
who desires only the happiness of the man she loves. Although Guildeluec's
withdrawal to a convent is one of the most memorable and moving endings in the
lais, the story does not end with her taking the veil-it ends with Eliduc retiring to a
monastery after years of happy marriage with his second wife, whom he sends to join
the first one. Guildeluec's generous gesture is reabsorbed into Eliduc's adventure
involving his relationship with two women-his serial polygamy and pious end. This
tension between Eliduc's story and the women's is reflected (as in "Chaitivel") in the
competing titles for the lai: according to Marie, the lai should be named for the two
women, "Kar des dames est avenue / L'aventure" (25-26). The scribe of Harley 978,
however, adds his "surplus de sen" by reinscribing the title of "Eliduc."8

7. "Her father wanted to wait no longer: / He himself went to get his son-in-law, / And brought the
archbishop there;/ He recounted to them the adventure./ [...]/ The next day [the archbishop]
will separate them [Gurun and Fresne' s sister], / He will marry him to her [Gurun to Fresne]."
8. The question of the lais' titles will be discussed below.

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Marie de France 7

The most striking ex

adventure is found i
passionate but discre
husband complains ab
listening to the nigh
well as being a real b
to preserve the lady's
crisis is provoked by
whose body he throw
lover that she will n
cors petit" (121), ov
embroidered with gol
bird and the cloth, t
lover-but already the
the cloth is "escrit":
cloth? Is it her adven
servant who recounts
irrelevant. Finally, t
jewels, in which he p
lady out entirely. W
always, in an ostentat
the brutal husband ("
nightingales are killed
object of his making
lover has thus been t
his interpretation of t
In all twelve lais, th
rewritten by the ma
the men in authority
striking that men also
authored endings is
females, which stres
endings based on com
ecclesiastical authorit
private relations and
whole, for the wome
a woman, while the m
Before considering th
the names of the lais
lais clearly reflect a
male lover who name
Marie tells us emphat
the scribe of MS. Br
"Eliduc") who names
narrative palimpsest o
whole. While the orig

9. Scholars often interp

nightingale's death on th
Van Vleck 38-39). Faust p
10. Whitfield discusses thi

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 8 Heather M. Arden

Rychner 194), a second

refers more readily to
aventure11 on which
"Laiistic" begins thus:
Une aventure vus dirai
Dunt li Breton firent un lai.
Laiistic ad nun, ceo m'est vis,
Si l'apelent en lur païs.12
(1-4)
Nevertheless, given the repetitive pattern of male domination in the lais' endings,
Marie most certainly intervened in the naming and telling of her stories in order to
shape the lais to her understanding of her society, independent of the original
titles.1*
While the pattern of end-game resolutions is clear, its significance poses some
intriguing questions, questions that challenge our understanding of Marie's literary
endeavor. When Marie shows again and again how the male protagonist has the last
word, is she simply recognizing the social reality of her time? For despite the
influence, even the power, that noblewomen possessed in the twelfth century, they
were ultimately subject to the authority of their male relatives or rulers. Is it possible
to envisage a challenge to this state of affairs by the author, without reading too
much into her "intentions"? While Marie recognizes the dominance of the chivalric
social structure in which she lived, she also sees the possibility of another form of
interaction, as shown most clearly in the lais of "Fresne" and "Eliduc." The
confrontation of two value systems, one based on competition for hierarchical status,
the other on cooperation for mutual fulfillment, underlies the contrasting endings
created by Marie's female and male protagonists. Yet the endings of the lais also
recognize the inevitable reestablishment of masculine value systems.
We therefore need to view this narrative pattern in the light of what modern
scholars would like to see as her possible "feminism." Scholars have explored the
possibility of a feminist reading of Marie's lais by focusing on the roles of her
female characters, often seeing them as empowered by their female creator. For
example, Michelle Freeman observes that in "Fresne," "power rests in the hands of
women" (1988:259). Furthermore, a number of scholars have suggested that Marie
goes so far as to challenge the patriarchal structures of her society. "Marie's work,"
writes Jacqueline Eccles, "challenges the political and social structure of the time"
(281). In an article in which she reviews various critical approaches to Marie's
"femininity," Sharon Kinoshita concludes that it is "in this dissent from the
fundamental premises of patriarchy that the 'feminism' of the Lais of Marie de France
might ultimately reside" (272). While arguing that the "signs of women's power
should be taken seriously in Marie's /aw," Nora Cottille-Foley also recognizes that
this power "is an area where [Marie's] writing entertains a tense relationship with the
social reality of her time" (168). Other scholars have raised the difficulty of defining
a "feminine voice" in the lais.14 It now becomes clear, when we consider the complex

11. For a discussion of the significance of Marie's concept of "aventure," see Prior.
12. "I will tell you an adventure/ About which the Bretons made a lai. / Its name is The Nightingale, I
believe, / That is how they call it in their country."
13. For further discussion of names in the Lais, see Bruckner 1991.
14. bee, tor example, Huchet: "Pas trace [...] dans les lais de la moindre conscience féministe
(408). Pickens argues against over-stressing the importance of women's roles in the lais: "La
représentation de la production textuelle dans les récits de Marie est en effet bien plus riche et

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 Marie de France 9

way in which the la

patriarchal society wa
pessimistic- about th
This ambivalence has
work. We find an ind
had for Marie in the
authorial concerns e
justifies her project in
talents (1-4), she revea
reason she rejected, sh
doing that, she tells
remarkable authorial
desire to create a liter
domain of translations from Latin.16
Another theme of the prologue deals with historical transmission and
interpretation of texts.17 In a difficult, much commented passage, Marie describes
how subsequent generations reinterpret texts in their own way: "K'i peüssent gloser
la lettre/ E de lur sen le surplus mettre" (15-16).18 Thus, as she is reinterpreting the
stories she has heard, future audiences will reinterpret hers.
After this confident justification of her writing, Marie's tone changes in the
envoi, that is, the dedication of her stories to the "nobles reis" (43), the paragon of
chivalry: if he deigns to accept them, "Mult me ferez grant joie aveir" (52); do not
consider me pushy ("surquidiee" [54]), she says, if I offer them to you. Thus, by
presenting her lais to this first male reader, Marie is in effect in the position of the
heroines of her lais-she must trust her story to the male-dominated society in which
she lives.19 Diana Faust believes that "one can only conjecture what changes her
texts have undergone in order to please him" (21). The pattern of rewriting the lais'
endings by the male characters which we have described suggests Marie's authorial
anxiety about how her texts will be interpreted. While she feels compelled to transmit
her texts to her own and future generations, and while she is confident of her creative
abilities, she nonetheless feels apprehensive about how her texts will be received. Is
this simply normal authorial anxiety, or is there the added element of concern about
the possibility of divergent gendered readings of her texts? I believe that the pattern
of male rewriting that we have seen in the endings supports the hypothesis that Marie

bien plus complexe que ne le suggère une lecture qui ne valorise que le rôle des personnages
féminins" (1993:1121). It is interesting to note, however, that almost all of Picken' s analysis of
textual production in this article deals with the role of women characters. Pickens 1994 offers a
masculinist perspective on the ambiguity of the lais.
15. Many scholars have offered interpretations of Mane's ideas in the general prologue and the
prologue to "Guigemar." See in particular the discussions by Pickens 1978; Hunt; Foulet and
Uitti. Cowell focuses on the opening lines, which refer to the biblical Parable of the Talents.
16. Bruckner 1995 argues that Marie's choice of oral material over texts suggests that she sees "un
conflit potentiel à l'intérieur de la culture médiévale entre deux types d'autorité, l'une textuelle,
l'autre de l'expérience" (7). I suggest that Marie also associates textual authority with
masculinity, whereas she can use orally transmitted stories to focus more on women's
experience.
17. Pickens argues that this is the central theme of each of her lais (1993:1122).
18. "[...] that they could gloss the letter/ And add the additional measure of their interpretation."
Burch analyzes the literal sense of the lines referring to the obscurity of the Ancients and the
need to gloss their writings. Relevant to my argument here is simply the idea of successive
interpretations of Marie's texts by subsequent generations.
19. Freeman 1984 focuses on parallels between Marie and her women protagonists.

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 10 Heather M. Arden

is concerned about how

scholars have sensed Ma
yet observed the patter
Andrew Cowell, for exa
releases her own lais int
both the woman and he
Marie's part for contro
consciousness of the un
attribute to a medieval
interpretation, I believe
women and men respond
respond to her lais in str
Universit

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