Introduction
Even though her works were exemplary, she was little known to the world; after all, Marie de France was not her original name. All her fame came from her distinct poetic works. Information about her birth place remain scanty, however, there is a strong belief that she was French born but raised up in England; all this is disputed for one reason or another (Bloch 160). It is believed that Marie lived in the 12th century. Putting her debatable biographic information aside, her poetic works remain iconic; in fact, they are an everyday inspiration for upcoming poets. Through her poems, she is revealed to be a dedicated lady with a great personality. Taking a critical look at her poems, “Laustic” and “Equaitan,” something common is revealed. Both poems are talking about adultery. The poems do not address adultery in any other way but on the fact that adulterers do not end up in a good way. This analysis is seeking to unearth some of the underlying issues in the poems (Steinberg 58).
Discussion
“Euitan” is the story of a king, his seneschal and his wife. The king develops a love for the seneschal's wife, and longs to be with her. The wife also wants to be be with the king, not her husband. To solve this problem and get the husband out of the way, the wife devises a plan to kill him: for the king to trick him into taking a bath which the wife will fill with scalding water. The king likes the plan, and they pursue its development. The plot involves scalding water in the bath for the husband, but, when the time comes to prepare the water for the baths, the wife heats both bath waters, one for the husband and the other for king, to scalding temperatures. Just like it works out, and being discovered by the seneschal in an embrace, the king in shame jumps into one scalding tub and dies. The seneschal, realizing the situation of the adultery, picks up the wife and throws her into the other tub of scalding water. The end of the poem demonstrated the theme that “adultery comes to no good end,” as both adulterers are dead at the end.
The message of this story regarding unfaithfulness and extramarital affairs is that they end badly and often in unexpected ways. Apparently, the wife was not happy with either her husband or the king and decided to kill them both. In the end, she was unfaithful not only to her husband, but also to the king in her false love for him that lured him to his death. Thus, one can derive the theme of “adultery comes to no good end” from this story. Despite the fact that the wife survives, both men who loved her died for their love for her. The moral of the story was stated in the poem, “Fickle lovers, who think they're slick,/ Always ready to play some trick,/ Are themselves deceived—they lose face/If they lose out, it's not surprising./ They earned it by their enterprising” (Marie de France).
In “Laustic,” the infidelity plays out in a completely different, less violent, but more symbolic way. Two castles are together. In one castle lives a knight and his wife. In the other castle lives another knight. The knight in the second castle loves the other knight's wife, but they never make actual physical contact. They only look at each other over the wall separating the two castles. The reality of their love is symbolized by a nightingale (“laustic”) which sings at night when they look at each other while the husband sleeps. When the husband discovers the wife staring out of the window every night, he asks her why. She says she is enjoying the song of the nightingale. Thinking he is doing her a favor, he captures the nightingale and gives it to her for a pet. Instead of gratitude, the wife is angry because he has captured the bird. In his anger at her rejection of the gift, the husband kills the nightingale. As the nightingale symbolized the love between the wife and knight in the other castle, when the husband caught it, it meant that her secret love had been discovered, captured. When the husband kills the bird, he has killed the love of the adulterous affair between the wife and the other knight. The message of this story, like the message of “Equitan,” regarding unfaithfulness and extramarital affairs, is that in unexpected ways. The other knight builds a shrine to keep the body of the dead bird in as a memorial to his lost love affair for the wife: “The bird’s enshrined body memorializes the love which its song had enabled, and its sacrifice strikingly symbolizes the effect of the forces which deny and destroy love” (“Marie de France, 'Laustic'” n.p.).
Conclusion
A clear insight into the poems gives the opinion that Marie had on adultery and extramarital affairs. Marie makes the poems end in way that reveals that in deed adultery is a social evil, something that has the potential of leading someone into self-destruction. Taking her poem “Equaitan,” into consideration, it does not end in a good way; both the villains die (Bloch 162). Unfortunately, they do not die an ordinary death, their death is mysterious. It is the vey plot they made to kill the seneschal that kills them. In “Laustic” the hidden affair is finally revealed, the husband has been suspicious all this time until one night when he decides to ask his wife. Knowing how an extramarital affair is condemned in the society, the wife lies that she has been waking up to listen to the nightingale. Astonishingly, the husband knew it was a lie and decides to kill the nightingale. The extramarital affair is finally confirmed when the man she has been having an extramarital affair with decides to wear the dead bird around the neck as a sign of their love and tragedy (Bloch 165). All these poems reveal the evils associated with adultery and extramarital affairs.
Works Cited
Bloch, R. Howard. The Anonymous Marie de France. Chicago: University of Chicago
Dorothy Gilbert. New York: Norton Company Publishers, 2015. Print.
Literature. Jefferson: McFarland, 2003. Print.
Marie de France. “Equitan” and “Laustic.” In Marie de France Poetry, translated by
Press, 2003. Print.
Steinberg, Theodore L. Reading the Middle Ages: An Introduction to Medieval
