MARIE DE FRANCE 



lord. The knight has to yield to their demands 

 and to consent to accept in marriage the daughter 

 of a neighbouring noble who had made it known 

 that he desired him for son-in-law. Neither 

 lover utters any complaint or reproach, and the 

 needful sacrifice is about to be made. But 

 fortune, sometimes kind, intervenes ere it is too 

 late, and reveals the noble birth of the loved 

 one. The knight weds her with great joy, and 

 to complete this happy picture we read that the 

 other lady returned with her parents to her 

 own domain, and was there well bestowed in 

 marriage. 



This idea of mutual sympathy and sacrifice 

 gives meaning also to the lay of " The Two 

 Lovers," and to that of " Yonec," but perhaps it 

 is most simply, yet forcibly, summed up in the 

 lay of " The Honeysuckle," an episode taken 

 from the Tristan story. Tristan, hearing that 

 Isolde is to ride through a certain wood on her 

 way to Tintagel to attend the Pentecostal Court 

 held by the King, hides in the wood. Here he 

 cuts a branch of hazel round which honeysuckle 

 has twined, and carving his name and certain 

 letters on it, he lays it in the way by which the 

 Queen must pass, knowing that she will recognise 

 it as a sign that her lover is near, since they 

 have met before in suchwise. The import of 

 the writing is that he has long been waiting to 

 see her, since without her he cannot live, and 

 that they two are like the hazel branch with 

 the encircling honeysuckle, the which, as long 



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