My dearest friends, 'tis my profound joy to share with you all these marvelous tales, which have issued in such lovely twists and turns of phrase from the tongue of our dear Marie. Seeing that your appetite for her bewitching words has been whetted, I shall divulge unto you at last a final tale. Heed, then, the account of mighty Bisclavret, the Were-Wolf.
Now some time ago there lived a lord with his lady, and never had a wedded pair enjoyed such bliss in one another's company, nor had any been so happily matched as they. The lord, whose name was Bisclavret, loved his lady well, and with all his heart adored her. To him no other lady had ever seemed as fair or lovely, nor did his eyes seek beauty elsewhere than her face and figure. For her part, the lady also beheld her husband with love in her eyes, but a strange suspicion festered long in her heart.
You see, dear ones, the lady had cause for her concern: each week her husband set out from their home on a mysterious errand, taking naught with him save the clothes on his back, and he would not return from his secret mission for three days. Though Bisclavret loved no one else, doubt preyed upon the thoughts of his lady. She feared that, perhaps, he had taken a lover, or was engaged in any manner of unsavory business, the nature of which she dared not guess.
Finally, the lady could no longer bear the burden of her distrust, and she elected to coax the truth from her husband's lips.
"My dear one," she asked him one day, her voice as sweet as honey, "my sweet husband, there is something which I have long desired, and only you may give it to me. But until now, I have been afraid to ask it."
Bisclavret held her close, and placed a soft kiss upon her brow, reassuring her that she need but ask, and all he had would be hers.
"I want to know, my love, to where do you disappear for three nights of seven, and on what business? In your absence I grow cold and lonesome, and in my mind's eye you are there, being held in the arms of another. I am sleepless, my lord, and certainly without knowing this great secret of yours, I shall surely die."
Bisclavret, though he begged her not ask him to reveal himself for the sake of her safety and peace of mind, finally divulged as follows:
"I am accursed, dear wife. Three nights of seven do I transform in the woods, and I become a beast -- a wolf. And for that time I roam and hunt in the woods until at last my form returns to me and permits me return to you."
But his lady was not satisfied; nay, she queried further.
"And what becomes of your clothes," she questioned, "when you become beast? I pray you, tell me all that you can."
Again, Bisclavret protested, but his lady persisted. At last he revealed his lair to her, the hiding place of his raiment during the times when he became a wolf. He even disclosed his greatest fear: if his hiding place were to be discovered and his clothing stolen, he should be forced to stay a wolf forever, until his clothing was returned to him.
Upon hearing this, the lady immediately excused herself, and sent an urgent message to a neighboring lord, who had long endeavored to earn her favor.
"For many years have you sought my heart," she penned, "and now it shall be yours." She promised him thus, on the condition that he steal the clothes of her husband, with whom she was now thoroughly appalled. She revealed to him Bisclavret's hiding place, and with great rejoicing he set about the task, leaving poor Bislcavret to his fate.
Now, sweet friends, our Bisclavret met with true suffering. Upon discovering his empty hiding spot, he not only became bound to the form of a wolf indefinitely, but his heart was doubly grieved, for he had also lost the love of the lady he had so treasured. With howls of anguish, he disappeared into the woods, lost to this world for a number of years.
In the meantime, his faithless wife spread a terrible rumor throughout the land that he had gone missing from her, and she presumed him dead. Shortly after, she wed the lord who had stolen Bislcavret's clothing, and she inherited all of Bisclavret's estate, thereby doubling the storehouses of her new lover.
But you, my good hearers, have surely already guessed that this does not conclude our story. If a one of you might chance to be so kind to place a drink in my hand, I shall soon continue.
Author's Note:
This is the first half of a retelling of "The Lay of the Were-Wolf" by Marie de France, told through the perspective of a minstrel and with some minor changes. I did not alter very much of this section of the lay; in the original, more time is allotted to the wife's interrogation of her husband, but here I have condensed that to better fit within the constraints of this website. Additionally, in the original the wife is made out to be entirely at fault, as though she is wrong to ask her husband about the reason for his weekly disappearances. Here, though, I wanted to offer a bit of humanization for her, which is why I included her fear that he may have taken a mistress.
As with the two previous stories on this site, I am endeavoring to examine the role of adultery in Marie de France's work. A lot of this will come through more in the next part, but I did want to call attention to this story in comparison with the previous ones. In The Lay of Guigemar, Marie de France portrays adultery as positive, a simple following of one's heart. In The Lay of Lanval, we see the Queen's attempt at adultery depicted in a negative light. In The Lay of the Were-Wolf, however, there are more factors at play. Opposing the rules of courtly love, which state that one should always pursue their true love, no matter the circumstances (hence justifying Guigemar's pursuit of his lover), this story pits those rules against the detestation of bestiality. Then, as now, bestiality was of course considered a disgusting transgression, and the reader is invited, in a way, to view the relationship from the point of view of Bisclavret's wife as she discovers that her husband is part animal. But before discovering Bisclavret's secret, Marie de France tells us that his wife loves him deeply and passionately, and the laws of courtly love, so popular in the literature of that era, demand a love like that be pursued. In the next part, we will see which of these ideals Marie de France chooses.
Source story: "The Lay of the Were-Wolf" from Lays of Marie de France and Other French Legends, translated by Eugene Mason (1911). Web Source.