Part 10 (1/2)
For long years we hear no more of la Belle Iseut in Tristan's life, which is wholly devoted to winning himself a place at the Round Table and putting to shame his wicked uncle, King Mark. But he had never forgotten Iseut, and praised her so enthusiastically that King Mark conceived a desire to have her for his wife. Tristan, despatched to Ireland to fetch Iseut to be his uncle's bride, was kindly received on account of his honorable mission, and of the great renown he had won. He made a formal demand for the princess: ”I desire that ye will give me la Belle Iseut, your daughter, not for myself, but for mine uncle King Mark, that shall have her to wife, for so have I promised him.” ”Alas,”
said the king, ”I had liever than all the land that I have ye would wed her yourself.” ”Sir, an I did, then were I shamed for ever in this world, and false of my promise.”
All was made ready for the voyage, and la Belle Iseut was committed to the care of Tristan: ”a fairer couple or one more meet for marriage had no man seen.” She was accompanied into the strange land by her gentlewoman, dame Brangian, to whom the Queen of Ireland had given a powerful love philtre to be administered to the husband and wife on the wedding day: whoso drank of that philtre with another, should love that other with a love that knows no ending. By a fatal error, it was to Tristan and Iseut that the philtre was given during the voyage; and from that time an invincible pa.s.sion drew them toward each other. Love so overmastered Tristan that he was false to his knightly vows, false to the trust imposed, and yet happy in his guilty love for the betrothed of King Mark. And Iseut returned his love, and moaned at the thought of Mark.
When they reached the court of Cornwall some stratagem must be devised to prevent the King from discovering that his bride had been unfaithful; but it is always easy for the romancer to extricate himself from entanglements that seem to the ordinary mind hopelessly involved, and the solution generally suggests fresh complications. In this case it was arranged that the lady-in-waiting, Brangian, should personate the bride at night, trusting that King Mark, fuddled with wine and sleep, would not discover the fraud. The scheme was entirely successful; King Mark suspected no wrong. But la Belle Iseut, that gentle lady whom all loved, determined to leave no witness to the shame of herself and Tristan, hired two murderers to slay the faithful Brangian! More pitiful than Iseut, the murderers were smitten with compa.s.sion and merely carried off their victim and left her bound fast to a tree, from which she was rescued by the gallant Saracen knight, Sir Palamedes. Palamedes, indeed, was also one of Iseut's lovers, and had loved her in Ireland before she met Tristan. But Iseut scorned him now as she had scorned him then: her whole heart was given to Tristan, for Tristan was a knight of greater prowess than he. Iseut loved Tristan, and not her husband; the husband at length grew suspicious, and the lover was forced to flee for his life.
Many adventures befell him, but his heart was still with la Belle Iseut.
Wounded once more by a poisoned arrow, he could no longer return to Iseut to be cured, and bethought him of his cousin, Iseut de la Blanche Main, a lady skilled in surgery, who lived in Brittany. To Iseut of the White Hand, then, went Tristan, and a new and most curious episode in the love story began. For the new Iseut cured Tristan, but fell in love with him, and loved him pa.s.sionately. He could not return her love, for he had not forgotten la Belle Iseut, but out of grat.i.tude he married her; and Iseut of the White Hand, not knowing that she had not all her husband's love, was happy in what she had.
Tristan made a confidant of his wife's brother, Peredor, telling him such marvels of the beauty of la Belle Iseut that Peredor was half in love by hearsay, and quite in love when he and Tristan journeyed into Cornwall and saw the lady. She seemed for a moment flattered by the new love, and played the coquette till Tristan, driven to madness, wandered off into the forest; and the heart of Iseut was sad and sick of longing and regret. Here he dwelt, till one day he was captured by King Mark, who failed to recognize his nephew in the naked madman, and confined him within the high walled garden. But la Belle Iseut came forth to see the man, and Tristan, knowing her even in his madness, turned away his head and wept. Then a little dog that Iseut had always with her, smelt Tristan, and knew him, and leapt upon him; for this dog had Iseut kept by her every day since Tristan gave her to Iseut in the first days of their love. And thereupon Iseut fell down in a swoon, and so lay a great while; and when she might speak, she said: ”My lord Sir Tristan, blessed be G.o.d ye have your life! And now I am sure you shall be discovered by this little dog, for she will never leave you; and also I am sure that as soon as my lord King Mark shall know you he will banish you out of the country of Cornwall or else he will destroy you. For G.o.d's sake, mine own lord, grant King Mark his will, and then draw you unto the court of King Arthur, for there are ye beloved.”
King Mark banished Tristan forever, and to the court of King Arthur went Tristan, winning there ever fresh fame, until finally King Mark himself, moved by jealousy and envy, came to destroy Tristan. But the good Arthur reconciled uncle and nephew, and Tristan went to free Cornwall from a horde of invading Saxons. The intrigue with Iseut was renewed, and Mark confined Tristan in a dungeon, whence he was released only by an insurrection of Mark's oppressed subjects. Iseut eloped with him, and the two wandered in the forest like true lovers, this fair lady and her bold knight, and were finally received at Joyeuse Garde by the gallant Lancelot, where they dwelt till a fresh reconciliation with King Mark brought about the restoration of Iseut to her husband.
We must not forget the other Iseut, the white-handed lady whom Tristan married and left behind in Brittany. The fact of her existence came again to his recollection now, and he returned to her. She was in dire distress and longing for her husband; but from her caressing arms he fled again to put down a rebellion in his dominions. Once more sorely wounded, once more he was cured by the white hands of his wife, whom he nevertheless soon afterward abandoned to renew the intrigue with the rival Iseut in Cornwall. But he was again discovered and put to flight by the jealous husband. The spirit of restlessness would not let him be quiet with his wife, the knight must be up and doing; and while he engaged in a reckless adventure he was grievously wounded, so grievously that death seemed nigh and not to be put off by the ministrations of Iseut of the White Hand. Tristan sent a messenger in haste for la Belle Iseut: ”Come with all speed, if you love me! And that I may know you are on the s.h.i.+p let the sails be white; if you cannot come, let the sails be black.” Iseut hastened toward her lover, with feverish impatience, blaming winds and waves and slow messengers. Meanwhile, the neglected wife, Iseut of the White Hand, discovered the truth and grew wildly jealous. Tristan lay on his bed in agony, waiting for news of the s.h.i.+p bearing la Belle Iseut. The jealous wife, too, kept watch, and when the white sails of the vessel told her that her rival was coming, was almost at hand, jealousy got the mastery: ”I see the s.h.i.+p,” she cried to Tristan. ”What color are her sails?” asked he. ”Black, all black,” she cried. The sick knight fell back upon his bed, moaning out reproaches upon the Iseut who had forsaken him in his need:
”Amie Yoslt! treis fez a dit, A la quarte rent l'esperit.”
(Iseut, my love! three times he cried, at the fourth he rendered up his soul.)
”Iseut is come out of the s.h.i.+p; in the street she hears the lamentations.... An old woman told her: 'Lovely lady, so help me G.o.d, we have here a sorrow greater than men ever had before: _Tristan li pruz, li francs, est mort_ (Tristan the brave and n.o.ble is dead).'... All dishevelled went Iseut through the streets and into the palace where the body lay. Then she turned her to the east and prayed for him pitifully: 'Tristan, my love, when I see you lie dead, I should live no longer. You are dead because of my love, and I die, ami, of grief because I could not come in time.' Then she lay herself beside him, embraced him,... and in that same moment yielded up her spirit.”
The reader will note almost at once the similarity of this tale to one famous in Greek legend, that of Theseus and the Minotaur; and there are several details, necessarily omitted in the summary we have given, which tend to make this similarity still more marked. But the matter in which we are more interested is the character of the heroine. One might remark that there are certain features in la Belle Iseut not very unlike those of Andromeda, so readily consoled by Dionysius. The lady Iseut is a typical heroine of the romances, and as such we may comment upon those of her characteristics which seem most noteworthy.
The love motive of the romance is, to begin with, as strong as the motive of pure adventure; it is, indeed, the love story which serves as the thread to bind the whole together. This shows a marked change in the importance of women in the eyes of those who wrote to please the world.
But the relations of the heroine to the hero are most amazing. Not only is Iseut very forward, more than ready to confess her love and to give full response to that of Tristan, but she is all this with the full consciousness that she is doing wrong. The poet, realizing that the moral of his story might be brought in question, the love potion: being under the spell of enchantment the lovers are not responsible.
Whether we shall acquit the lovers at the bar of romantic justice or not, we cannot forget that their entire story is based upon guilty pa.s.sion, which seems to have a peculiar fascination for the romancer: it is the same, to cite but one example out of the many that could be adduced, in the story of Lancelot and Guinever, with the episode of Elaine. To be sure, in both cases we have mentioned, the highest honor is denied the hero: it is not for the guilty Tristan, false to his knightly oath, nor yet for the chivalrous but guilty Lancelot to win the Holy Grail; and we are not teft in doubt, we are told that only the pure in life could win that honor. And then for Iseut, though she is fair and much beloved, there is a pathetic end, an end that brings no crowning happiness, no reward; but punishment.
One trait in the character of Iseut is disconcerting to those who cherish romantic ideals: her cruelty. We could forgive her the love for Tristan, and we learn to feel for her, as we read the romance, some part of the pa.s.sion that instilled itself into Tristan's veins with the love draught; but what shall we say when she deliberately plans the murder of a defenceless woman, and one who had performed service unexampled in its fidelity and sacrifice?
If Iseut represented the poetic ideal in the age of chivalry, was the real woman of that age like Iseut? We can answer, unhesitatingly, no.
The conditions of life in the romances were very highly idealized, and certain forms in the romance became purely conventional. The heroine must always be more beautiful than tongue can tell, and she must, in the end, win her lover, or be merciful to him, according as she began in disdain or in love sickness. Numerous adventures, wildly fantastic in character, preceded this consummation; but readers even in that day got to such a point that their jaded palates could no longer be tickled even by the choicest extravagances. Men knew that in real life they did not love in that way; and women knew it, too, though they were perhaps slower to confess it. At any rate, the reaction from the extreme type of romantic idealization of woman began even while the romance of chivalry was trying to persuade its readers that all women were like Iseut, Guinever, Elaine, and that these were angels.
The reaction against the ideal of chivalry in literature took two main directions, the one, more purely comic or realistic, representing the woman of the middle cla.s.ses, the other, more intellectual and satiric, representing woman in general but especially the lady. The first is represented, we may say, by the great _Roman du Renard_ and those short popular tales which strolling minstrels were wont to recite, the _Fabliaux_. The second we find chiefly in the _Roman de la Rose_ and its numerous progeny.
Renard is, of course, the central personage in the gigantic beast epic, but we hear not a little of his wife Hermeline or Erme, of madam wolf, Dame Hersent, and of Harouge, the leopardess. They play before us a little game, which we know is the game of life as women lived it in the days when Renard was still a famous personage. To give but one episode, from _Renard le Nouveau_, by Jacquemart Gelee, end of the thirteenth century, Renard becomes the confidant of n.o.ble (the lion), and learns of his amour with Dame Harouge; forthwith the subtle Renard begins to intrigue, until at last Harouge becomes his mistress. Besieged in Maupertuis by n.o.ble, Renard sends a flattering love letter to each of his old flames, the lioness, the wolf, and the leopardess. The three ladies are delighted with the proposals of the charming Maitre Renard.
They draw lots to see which shall possess forever the affections of the irresistible Lothario; the lot falls to Dame Hersent, and the three ladies write a joint letter to inform Renard of their choice, a choice not very pleasing to Renard, who is, moreover, provoked because they have exchanged confidences. His revenge is at once planned. Going to court dressed as a charlatan, he gives to n.o.ble a precious talisman by means of which, he says, any deceived husband can learn of his wife's infidelities; and n.o.ble, Isengrin (the wolf), and the leopard are eager to test the virtues of the talisman. The ensuing dreadful revelations may be imagined. The guilty wives, well beaten by their wrathful husbands, flee from the court and are kindly received by crafty Renard, who forthwith establishes a harem. It is a pleasantly humorous story, and the conditions of real life are distinctly reflected, while the satiric intent is not enough to distort the reflection.
In the _Fabliaux_, however, woman is even more clearly portrayed as she really was, or at least as she seemed to the men. A large part of Old French literature, as one critic has remarked, is devoted to exposing and discussing, the misfortunes of marriage; and in these relations the deceived husband is, we might say, clown paramount. The authors of the _Fabliaux_--which were written to amuse the bourgeois as well as the knight--”invented or discovered anew talismans that revealed their misfortunes (as husbands): the enchanted mantle which grows either longer or shorter suddenly when put on by an unfaithful wife, the cup from which none but happy husbands can drink.... Our tellers of tales invented a whole cycle of feminine tricks and ruses.... The women of the Fabliaux shrink from no stratagem: they can persuade their husbands, one that he is covered by an invisible cloak, another that he is a monk, or a third that he is dead.” Contending with them or seeking to outwit them is of no avail, says the author of these tales, for _mout se femme de renardise_,--many a foxy trick does woman know,--and _fols est qui femme espie et guette,_--he is a fool who spies upon a woman.
The story of one of these triumphs of beauty over wisdom will ill.u.s.trate the best type of the _Fabliaux_; it is called the _Lai d'Aristote_. When Alexander had conquered India, he rested in shameful sloth, a slave to love for a young Hindoo princess. Aristotle, master of all wisdom, reproved his quondam pupil for this neglect of grave matters; and the Hindoo girl, perceiving Alexander's unhappy frame of mind, discovered what had produced it. She will be revenged on the crabbed old scholar; ere noon of the next day she will make him forget grammar and logic, if Alexander will only allow her free scope, and he shall see Aristotle's defeat if he will watch from a window opening on the garden. In the early morn, while the dew was on the gra.s.s and the birds were just beginning to sing, she tripped out into the garden, her corsage loosely fastened, her golden hair waving wildly down her neck; and as she picked her way hither and thither among the flowers, her petticoat daintily lifted, she sang sweet little songs of love. Master Aristotle, at his books, heard the singer, and ”such a sweet memory she stirred in his heart that he shut his book.” ”Alas,” he said, ”what is the matter with my heart? Here am I, old and bald, pale and thin, and a philosopher more sour than any yet known or heard of.” The damsel gathered flowers and wove a garland for herself, singing the while so sweetly, so enticingly, that the sour philosopher gave way, opened his window, and talked to her, nay, came out to her and courted her like a very lover, offering to risk for her sake body and soul. She asked not so much by way of proof of his devotion. ”It is merely a little whim of mine,” she said, ”if you will gratify me in that, I might love you.” The whim is, that he should let her ride about the garden on his back. ”And you must have a saddle on: I shall go more gracefully.” Love won the day, and there was the foremost scholar in the world prancing about on all fours like a colt, with a saucy girl on his back, when Alexander appeared at the window.
The pedagogue was not dismayed; with the saddle and bridle upon him, he looked up at the king: ”Sire, tell me if I was not right to fear love for you, in all the ardor of youth, since love has harnessed me thus, I who am old and withered! I have combined precept and example: it is for you to profit by them.”
Sometimes the poet of the Fabliau pauses to describe his heroine and her costume; now it is a lively country maiden, barefooted, with her clothes all wet from the armful of water-cress she has gathered; now it is a coquette finis.h.i.+ng her toilette before the mirror, which she makes a little page hold while she binds up her tresses and flirts with him; and now it is a party of ladies seated in some castle bower, embroidering heraldic devices on the banners of their knights. Then there is a jolly story of three _commeres_ of Paris, the wife of Adam de Gonesse, her niece Marie Clipe, and Dame Tifaigne, milliner, who tell their husbands that they are going on a pilgrimage, oh! a pious pilgrimage, on the feast of the Three Kings of Cologne. They evade their watchful but too credulous spouses, and here they are seated at an inn table, where one gets ”as good wine as ever grew; it is health itself; 'tis a wine clear, sparkling, strong, fine, fresh, soft to the tongue, and sweet and pleasant to swallow.” The good cheer begins with much eating of fat goose, fritters, onions, cheese, almonds, pears, and nuts, while the trio joins in singing:
”Commeres, menons bon revel!
Tels vilains l'escot paiera Qui ja du vin n'ensaiera.”