The prologues and epilogues that frame each of Marie’s tales refer to the lais
performed by Breton storytellers in commemoration of past adventures truly lived. Celtic
and English place-names and personal names corroborate Marie’s claimed sources: four
lais take place in Brittany, three in Wales, two in both places, and one in an undetermined
Bretagne. Marie did not simply write down orally circulating stories. Her artfully crafted
compositions combine the written traditions of Latin and vernacular writings with the
legendary materials of Celtic and popular tales. While it may be impossible to untangle
historical reference and literary topos in Marie’s repeated claim to retell well-known lais
bretons, her indications suggest a process of transmission that begins with an adventure
heard by Bretons, who then compose a lai, sung with harp accompaniment. Marie has
heard the music and the adventure, the latter perhaps told as a prelude to the song. She
then tells us the adventure in rhymed octosyllables, the form used also in the Fables and
the Espurgatoire, elaborating simultaneously its truth, or reisun (cf. the razos in the
Provençal lyric tradition). The title itself, carefully designated in each case and
sometimes translated into several languages, guarantees the authenticity of the process.
The general prologue opens with a traditional exordium on the obligation of writers to
share their talents and then cites the authority of Priscian to describe the relationship
between ancient and modern writers: do philosopherpoets hide a surplus of meaning to be
found later in the obscurities of their writing, or do later, more subtle poets add it to their
predecessors’ works? Scholars have variously interpreted these verses (9–22): we are
drawn into the problem of interpretation at the very moment the subject of glossing is
introduced by Marie’s authorial persona. She then explains the nature of her project: not a
translation from the Latin as many have done, but something new, demanding hard labor
and sleepless nights, the writing down in rhyme of those adventures commemorated in
lais. Hoping to receive great joy in return, Marie then offers her collection to an unnamed
king. She names herself in the following verses, printed by modern editors as the
prologue to Guigemar (ll. 3–4) but set off in the manuscript only by a large capital
indicating a new section (Gl).
The twelve lais that follow in Harley 978 are Guigemar (886 lines), Equitan (314),
Fresne (518), Bisclavret (318), Lanval (646), Deus amanz (254), Yonec (558), Laüstic
(160), Milun (534), Chaitivel (240), Chievrefoil (118), and Eliduc (1184). As indicated
by the considerable variations in length, the lais offer great diversity, but they also
operate as a collection unified by the themes of love and adventure. Indeed, they seem to
invite exploration as an openended set of theme and variations, in which Marie reveals
the complexities and varieties of human experience, without trying to contain them
within the confines of any single doctrine of love. Heroes and heroines, all noble,
beautiful, and courteous, are individualized not by psychological development but by the
situations in which they find themselves. Consider the two short anecdotes that constitute
Laüstic and Chievrefoil. Both involve a love triangle: married couple plus lover.
Chievrefoil relates an episode in the story of Tristan and Iseut, a secret reunion of the
lovers vouchsafed during one of Tristan’s returns from exile. Whereas Marc here remains
ignorant of the tryst, the husband of Laüstic discovers his wife’s nocturnal meetings with
her lover. Although their affair remains innocent, limited to their mutual gaze across
facing windows, the angry husband puts an end to their meetings by trapping and killing
the nightingale the lady claims as reason for her nightly visits to the window. When the
lady sends to her lover the nightingale’s body wrapped in an embroidered cloth, along
The Encyclopedia 1115