The Project Gutenberg EBook of French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of
Marie de France, by Marie de France

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Title: French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France

Author: Marie de France

Release Date: March 3, 2004 [EBook #11417]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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FRENCH MEDIAEVAL ROMANCES

_From the Lays of Marie de France_

_Translated by Eugene Mason_.

1911

INTRODUCTION

The tales included in this little book of translations are derived
mainly from the "Lays" of Marie de France. I do not profess them to be
a complete collection of her stories in verse. The ascription varies.
Poems which were included in her work but yesterday are withdrawn
to-day, and new matter suggested by scholars to take the place of the
old. I believe it to be, however, a far fuller version of Marie's
"Lays" than has yet appeared, to my knowledge, in English. Marie's
poems are concerned chiefly with love. To complete my book I have
added two famous mediaeval stories on the same excellent theme.
This, then, may be regarded as a volume of French romances, dealing,
generally, with one aspect of mediaeval life.

An age so feminist in its sympathies as ours should be attracted the
more easily to Marie de France, because she was both an artist and a
woman. To deliver oneself through any medium is always difficult. For
a woman of the Middle Ages to express herself publicly by any means
whatever was almost impossible. A great lady, a great Saint or
church-woman, might do so very occasionally. But the individuality
of the ordinary wife was merged in that of her husband, and for one
Abbess of Shrewsbury or Whitby, for one St. Clare or St. Hilda, there
were how many thousand obscure sisters, who were buried in the daily
routine of a life hidden with Christ in God! Doubtless the artistic
temperament burst out now and again in woman, and would take no
denial. It blew where it listed, appearing in the most unexpected
places. A young nun in a Saxon convent, for instance, would write
lit