Yonec – 11/3

In Marie De France’s Yonec, there is a moment where the lovers are found out and (at least in my version of MDF – http://users.clas.ufl.edu/jshoaf/Marie/yonec.pdf), Muldumarec says,

“My sweet love, my friend, Your love’s brought my life to its end.
I told you it would happen thus:
Your form and face have slain us”

Why those specific words? What do you think of this in the scope of the posthuman as well as Shaw’s essay? Obviously Muldumarec’s “form and face” are different than the wife’s but why does it seem hers are more egregious and therefore their downfall?

4 thoughts on “Yonec – 11/3

  1. I find it interesting that this is all for the love of a lady, and I wish I could remember where I read or heard something along the same lines of dying for the love of a woman. I have seen this sort of tale before in a film called ‘Lady Hawke’, where lovers are separated by a cruel curse, she to be a hawk during the day, and he a wolf by night. They were always together but they weren’t able to be ‘together’ as lovers. This poem where it was the knight who took the form of a hawk really reminded me of that film.

    To be different has been tied to being other in many of the works we have read this semester. I believe that the knight is meant to be some sort of fae-folk or even a changeling, given his abilities, and though he loves the lady, she is only human. This difference in species would have been unacceptable, though they are obviously compatible enough to fall in love and have a child together. The fact that it is the lady who is different than him is interesting, and a play on what is usually considered normal. He is a shape shifter, but because she is not his people would never accept her, quite the reversal of roles.

    The addition of being doomed for the love of a lady is interesting. Many things have been done for love even in the other works we have encountered. Yod destroys himself for love, much like this knight has been pierced by iron and steel to see his love.

  2. “My sweet love, my friend, Your love’s brought my life to its end.
    I told you it would happen thus:
    Your form and face have slain us”

    When I read this it brought to mind what many epic poems and other tales emphasize when they speak of what love makes one do. It brings to mind Helen of Troy and how her beauty was so great that it was the downfall of an entire Greek city state. It is a very similar theme, Paris of Troy falls in love with Helen who is very much forced into a marriage with Menelaus, as most know Helen runs away with Paris back to Troy. Thus starting the Trojan war that was the downfall of Troy. I think in this poem specifically her beauty much like in the case of Helen was so great that it makes the men do things for love they might not otherwise do. I do not think that it is necessarily that her form is egregious, however there is a negative connotation tied to it because her lover is killed by the jealous husband, but I believe this to be the message of the tale that the great desire for her and her beauty caused his ultimate downfall. I do not see any further meaning attached to the “Form and Face,” it is just emphasizing the great beauty she was endowed with, and that he could not resist. It is unfortunate that these ends seem to always be blamed on a woman’s beauty, it is very objectifying, but nonetheless it just seems to be the classic myth type of scenario.

  3. My version is slightly different:
    “Sweet love, sweet bele amie,
    for my great love of you I die.
    I warned you this would come to pass;
    your beauty was the death of us.”

    Either way, the diction plays a pertinent role. The “form and face,” or “beauty” in my version,” play a role because it is the reason for why the old dame became suspicious in the first place. Since the knight brought the lady happiness, it physically shined through via her beauty. Thus, the old dame noticed that she had become more beautiful again after years of depression, and instructed his sister to spy to figure out why. Therefore, like the knight says, if it had not been for her “form and face” or “beauty,” the old dame would never have been suspicious. This relates to the posthuman, especially to Shaw’s analysis, because it focuses in on the embodiment of the mind. Just as Shaw explains that people easily perceive a computer as intelligent but struggle to perceive it as a person, the old dame only notices the lady’s renewed happiness through her physical looks, not from actually talking to her or interacting with her personally.

  4. While, initially, this statement sounds extremely sexist. The guy seems to accuse his lover, and her beauty, for causing his death. Taken out of context this might be read as if she weren’t beautiful he would have never fallen in love with her, therefor would not have been in the situation that caused his injury. Placed back in context, she was not beautiful when he first came to her, she had lost her beauty due to loneliness from being locked in her tower, friendless and alone. At their first meeting the knight says to her “you must take great care and thought that we are not surprised and caught” (lines 200-201). So, the lady’s happiness with her lover caused her beauty to return and the old woman became suspicious. Why was the lady beautiful again with no apparent change in her circumstance? Through the suspicion around the return of beauty, her “form and face,” is their downfall.
    As for why these words exactly, a lot can be lost in translation. While one translation reads “Your form and face have slain us” another reads “your beauty was the death of us” in my limited understand of French I would have translated it to “your looks have killed us” which, to me at least, seems to fit in more with the original context but is not nearly as poetic.
    Overall I don’t feel that these lines have anything to do specifically with post-humanity or her appearance over his. It is simply the noticeable change in her appearance, due to her happiness, that caused suspicion that inadvertently lead to his death.

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