MARIE DE FRANCE 



also gives her reason for abandoning classical 

 translation, which, as a Latin scholar, she had 

 contemplated making, not only for the use of the 

 less learned, but also, as she tells us, for personal 

 discipline, since " he who would keep himself 

 from sin, should study and learn and undertake 

 difficult tasks. In suchwise he may the more 

 withdraw him and save himself from much 

 sorrow." The twelfth century was a time of 

 extraordinary intellectual activity, and Marie 

 tells us that she suftered from what we are apt 

 to regard as a special evil of our own day the 

 overcrowding of the literary market. So she 

 wisely turned aside from the Classics and the 

 crowd, and set herself to give literary expression 

 to the old Celtic folk-lore, hitherto perhaps 

 unrecorded save in song. 



Of Marie's work that has come down to 

 us we have The Fables^ already mentioned, 

 dedicated to Count William, surnamed Long- 

 sword, and son of Henry the Second and Fair 

 Rosamond ; * The Lays, dedicated to the king, 

 Henry the Second, and doubtless read by Fair 

 Rosamond in her retreat at Woodstock ; and 

 The Purgatory of St. Patrick^ translated from the 

 Latin at the request of an anonymous bene- 

 factor. Of these only The Lays need here con- 

 cern us, as it is in them that our interest lies, 



1 Marie thus refers to Count William : 



" Pur amur le cumte Willaumc, 

 Le plus vaillant de cest royaume, 

 M'entremis de cest livre feire, 

 E de PAngleiz en Roman treire." 



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