The Weakness of Love in Marie de France’s Deus Amanz

Deus Amanz lives in the same genre as Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as well as William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. It is also similar to Chevrefoil in the same collection. It is a story of lovers whose parents interfere with their love, and who end up dying together for their love.

In Pyramus and Thisbe, it is clear that the story is communicating the persistence of love: “they would have married,/but their parents forbade it. What they could not forbid/was the mutual passion they felt for each other./There was no go-between; their talk was nods and gestures,/and the more the fire was covered, the hotter it burned” (Ovid 4. 70-74). In Romeo and Juliet, the message is much the same, and the lovers take great risks to be with each other. In Act 2 Scene 1, when Romeo sneaks back into the Capulets’ garden and sees Juliet on her balcony, he says, “With love’s light wings did I o’er-perch these walls;/For stony limits cannot hold love out,/And what love can do that dares love attempt;/Therefore thy kinsmen are no let to me.” Even in Chevrefoil, Tristan “gave himself up/to death and destruction” (19-20) by returning to the land from which he was exiled in order to communicate with his lover, the queen Iseult.

In Deus Amanz, love is depicted as shallower and weaker than in Marie de France’s other lais, and other works of a similar niche, even though its genre is one whose frequent moral concerns the “power of love”. Instead, other aspects of the story overshadow the love, such as courtly renown, reputation, and the performance of masculinity.

The lai begins by describing the relationship of the king with his daughter. The king is overly attached to the princess after the death of his wife: “he was comforted by the girl,/since he had lost the queen” (23-24). The implication of incest is clear, especially considering the public response to this scandal, that “many people held it against him,/his own household blamed him for it” (25-26). Even if the relationship is not incestuous, it is unhealthy. He feels he can not be separated from her, so he crafts a scenario where he can keep his daughter and also silence the criticisms toward him. He decrees that any suitor who can carry his daughter to the top of a nearby mountain without stopping has his permission to marry her. Many suitors try and fail to fulfill this impossible challenge.

Her lover is introduced as “noble and handsome,” the “son of a count” (50), who “lived in the king’s court” (53). He is ambitious and “undertook to do well/so as to have renown above all others” (51-52). This trait is the reason he “quite often stayed” (54) in the king’s court, and also the reason he “loved the king’s daughter,/and many times he asked her/to grant him her love/and accept him as her beloved” (55-58). This is all communicated in the logical progression of these ten lines. The youth’s love of the king’s daughter comes from his ambition and desire for “renown” in her father’s court. In contrast, in Romeo and Juliet, the lovers are willing to throw away all chances at a good courtly reputation in order to be together.

The implication of the fact that “many times he asked her/to grant him her love” (56-57) is that many times the girl rejected or evaded his requests. This is contrary to this story’s colleagues, in which unconditional love usually occurs at first sight, if sometimes with a little foreplay. In Romeo and Juliet, the lovers kiss upon first meeting, and discover only after that they are from rival households, and yet not even this fact (the importance of which should not be underestimated in the light of the play) makes them question their love, it only forces them to come up with strategies to exercise this love in spite of their families. Contrary to this, in Deus Amanz, the girl’s devotion to her father is equal or greater than her devotion to the youth. She begins by belittling his strength, saying “Friend…I know well/you could not carry me by any means:/you are not strong enough” (85-87). She then explains that if they ran off together, it would bring pain to both her and her father: “If I go away with you,/my father would be sad and angry,/he would live only with great torment./Truly, I love him so much and he is so dear to me/I would not wish to anger him” (88-92). Her attachment to her controlling father overshadows her devotion to her lover, as she protects her familial relationship by sending the youth away to her aunt in Salerno rather than running off with him. This pales in comparison to the sacrifices made by other women in the genre.

The youth travels to Salerno, where he receives a vial from the girl’s aunt that will grant him infinite endurance. He returns to the king’s court and immediately asks the king for his daughter. Once again, his strength is belittled, as the king “did not by any means refuse him,/but he considered it a very great folly,/since he was of a young age” (149-151). The challenge then becomes an event, and the king “sends for his retainers and his friends/and everyone he could get:/he did not let anyone stay behind/…/they came from everywhere” (156-158, 162). The gaze of the court figures prominently throughout the story, first with the youth’s ambition for courtly renown and now the great pomp and ceremony of his feat. The king, by giving the challenge, is trying to prove and defend his masculinity, and he does so by issuing a challenge that will prove all other men to be less potent than he is. It is widely publicized as proof that no other man is good enough for his daughter. In this way, the youth’s masculinity is challenged before the eager gaze of the court. This gaze forces him to defend his masculinity for the sake of his reputation and courtly renown, and he shows “no moderation” (179) in his performance. Once again, he puts his performance of masculinity ahead of his devotion to love. The princess reminds him to drink his draught from the medicine woman, saying that “I know well that you are getting tired:/so recover your strength!” (186-187), but he refuses. “I would not by any means stop/long enough to drink” (190-191), he says, “these people would cry out to us,/they would stun me with their noise;/they could easily upset me” (193-195). Then, as the scene goes on, they become more and more distant from each other. The girl pleads with him often to drink the vial, but “he did not want to hear or believe her” (201). It is his insecurity about his perceived masculinity under the gaze of the onlookers that ultimately kills the youth. He is anxious that the crowd might see him falter and ridicule him. If his love were truly all he thought about, he would’ve drunk the draught without a second thought.

At the top of the mountain, the youth dies, having not drunk the vial. At first, the princess “thought he was in a faint” (207), but then when she realizes he is dead, “Sorrow for him touches her heart” (226, emphasis mine). She does not weep profusely, she does not lament for her lover, like Pyramus, Thisbe, and Romeo do. Sorrow simply touches her heart. Of course, Marie de France does mention that “she had never been so sad” (222), but the reader gets the impression that sadness does not come readily to her, and neither does love. She lays down next to the youth, kissing him, before she dies. This detail is typical of this type of romance, but what is not typical is that there is no communication between them before that death. In Pyramus and Thisbe, Thisbe’s voice all but raises Pyramus from the dead for one last conversation between them: “‘It’s your dearest Thisbe/calling you. Please listen, please lift up your head.’/At Thisbe’s name, Pyramus lifted his eyes,/heavy with death” (Ovid 4. 162-164). Even this lack of one last bit of communication could be overlooked if not for the fact that there are no points in the story in which the two lovers actually experience loving one another. There is no tender moment, no burst of passion. Everything is centered around achieving a forbidden love that isn’t there. The story reads as quest after quest, and not even at the end do the lovers express any tenderness.

It is important to look at the king’s reaction to their deaths. When he reaches the top of the mountain along with the rest of the onlookers, he “the king falls to the ground in a faint./When he could speak, he shows great sorrow (232-233, emphasis mine). The king is performing what he believes is expected of him at the death of his daughter. To understand his lack of sorrow, we have to rewind. When the princess realizes that her lover has died, she pours the draught onto the ground: “the mountain was well watered with it,/all that area of the country/was greatly bettered by it” (215-216). It feels almost hopeless—rather than securing their love, the drink is poured into the ground to benefit the onlookers and the town of Pistre. The two lovers have died, and the court of the king who denied them their love is greatly bettered by their deaths. This may explain why the king seems to only pretend to weep at their deaths. His love for his daughter was weak—it’s based on his desire for “comfort” after the death of his wife, and to stave off the feelings of emasculation he feels, doing so by issuing the challenge for his daughter. But now his kingdom will prosper. Flowers are sprouting up around him on the hilltop, and his subjects will see that his land is rich and favored by God, and his rule will be legitimized, his masculinity unquestioned.

Rather than adhering to the customs of the genre, Deus Amanz explores love at its weakest, masculinity at its most toxic. It does this by inhabiting a genre that is traditionally about love at its most persistent and powerful, and turning it on its head.