II. Equitan

The Bretons were noble people who

composed these lays in order to

remember what had been said and done

and preserve it from oblivion.

One tale concerns a courtly man,

a lord of Nantes, named Equitan.

Greatly admired and well loved, he

upheld the code of chivalry

and gave himself to the pleasures of love.

Those who lack understanding of

this kind of living cannot be

fully alive and cannot see

how a man who is under the sway

of love can have his reason give way

to passion’s arbitrary commands.

Governing Equitan left in the hands

of a seneschal who was loyal and brave

so that the master could follow — save

in times of war — his inclinations

for novel and ever more keen sensations,

pursuing animals in the chase,

fishing in his favorite place,

or other rather gentler arts

of making love and breaking hearts.

His seneschal was married to

an extremely beautiful woman who

was so attractive as to produce

great misfortune. Her eyes were bright,

her nose was slender, her skin was white,

his lips were perfectly formed. Let us say

that she was nature’s nonpareil.

The king had often heard her praised

and not surprisingly this raised

a frisson of interest in his mind,

such that he contrived to find

a way to meet her (as he had never

managed to do). He was quite clever

and went on a hunt in the region where

she lived — and as long as he was there,

he thought it proper to make a call

at the castle of his seneschal

(who happened at that moment to be

away on Equitan’s business, as we

might have guessed). There were, therefore,

during the visit occasions galore

for him to express his admiration

for her grace, her beauty, her cultivation

and hint at the keenness of his desire

for her, as love’s spark burst into fire.

That night, in bed, as he turned and tossed,

knowing that he had nearly crossed

the line, and it was indecent and wrong

for him to proceed with this, but the strong

power of Love had seized him and he

had no will to resist it or free

himself from its clutches. He had to blame

himself for forgetting how, in a game,

there are winners and losers, and he was one

of the latter group. What could be done?

He could not betray his seneschal who

had always given him his true

allegiance and would be deeply grieved

if he discovered he’d been deceived.

But could such a beautiful woman be

without a lover? Then why not he?

Perhaps the seneschal had by now

resigned himself . . . Might he allow

such liaisons? Would it be fair

if the two men were somehow to share

this gorgeous woman between them? All night

he tried not to think about her, but light

was appearing in the sky and he

was wide awake and in misery.

In this condition of abject woe

he told himself that he did not know

whether the woman’s inclinations

might match his own. His speculations

were otherwise otiose and absurd,

which gave him hope, for it occurred

to him that there might be a way

out of this mess. At break of day

he rose and set out to hunt for game,

and the seneschal, who was back now, came

along to keep him company.

But Equitan complained that he

did not feel well and returned to go

to bed. His companion of course had no

idea of what the matter was

and he sent his wife to learn the cause

of their lord’s distress — a woman can

often do better at this than a man.

She had no plausible reason not

to go although she had guessed what

was troubling him. She made her visit

to ask their visitor, “What is it

that ails you?” And he answered, “You!

There’s nothing I can say or do,

I am in love with you, and unless

you bring relief for my distress

I shall surely die.” She said,

pursing her lips and shaking her head,

“I must have time to consider such

a problem. I fear that you very much

outrank me and that, should I comply

with your wishes, you would by and by

abandon me. If I confessed

my love and granted your request,

our feelings would not be equally shared.

I am your vassal, and you are prepared

to be my lord in love. As I well

know, such an inequity

in love is a disability:

a poor man’s love, though it be rude,

is full of joy and gratitude,

while a prince or a king will take it for

granted, so that the lesser is more.

If I were to place my love and trust

in a higher station than mine, I must

expect unhappiness to follow

pleasures that would be brief and shallow.

The powerful man takes as his right

the love he desires, if but for a night.”

To these words Equitan replied,

“Say not so!” and with some pride

suggested that these were the calculations

of merchants and men in such occupations,

but not of courtliness, for we

have higher ideals and are therefore free

of tradesmen’s reckonings. Those who

play such tricks — and I trust they are few —

are laughingstocks. You now may be

my vassal, but love’s peripety

would make you queen and me the servant

loyal, obedient, and fervent.

I surrender myself to you

and swear that I shall forever do

your bidding — if you do not allow

me to die for your sake now.”

Many other things he said

to her as he protested and pled

so ardently that in the end

she was unable to defend

herself and (as we thought she’d do)

gave him her soul and body, too.

They exchanged rings and with them swore

to love each other forever more,

and they kept these oaths, which were to be

the cause of their deaths, as we shall see.

Their love lasted for years without

arousing any suspicion or doubt

on anyone’s part. The king would say

he needed to be bled — that way

claiming a privacy in which she

could visit him in secrecy

for the doors to his suite were locked and none

unless he was summoned would take it upon

himself to intrude. The lord had no

desire for other women, although

the courtiers proposed many times that he

should take a wife so that there might be

an heir. He would not hear of this

and declined to allow discussions in his

presence, but the seneschal’s wife

heard the rumors that were rife

and worried that if he might be

married to someone, then surely she

would be cast off and sent away.

She soon found an occasion to say

that she was worried, and understood

that it would be for the country’s good

if he were to marry, but in that case

she would, for lack of his embrace,

wither away, sicken, and die,

and she tried her hardest not to cry.

Equitan replied that he

would never marry and said that she

could rely on his word. “Indeed,” he said,

“if your husband were to die, we’d wed

at once, and you would share my throne.”

In that phrase, the seed was sewn,

and she began at once to contrive

scenarios that would let her arrive

at the widowhood to which he had made

reference. But she’d need his aid.

He promised that he would gladly do

whatever she required him to,

and she explained her plan: he should

come to her husband’s castle where good

hunting was to be found, and there

after this exercise, declare

that he would like a bath. The men

could both bathe together, but when

the tubs were prepared the one would be

comfortably warm, but other she

would have filled with water boiling hot

so that one who stepped in it could not

survive. Her husband’s death would appear

to the world to be an accident. Clear

and simple it was, and he agreed

that this was the way they would proceed.

A couple of months go by and the time

comes for them to commit their crime.

On the third day of his visit there

at his seneschal’s palace, in a rare

moment of conviviality

Equitan suggests they both be

bled and then take a nice bath to

relax as gentlemen often do.

The lady arranged for a pair of tubs

to be brought to the bedroom for their scrubs,

one, of course, with the boiling water.

Equitan looked at her and thought her

lovelier than ever and took

his pleasure with her in a donnybrook

of erotic positions. A girl was on guard

at the locked door, after all, to ward

off visitors. But the seneschal came

and he thought the girl’s excuses were lame.

It was his house, after all, and he

knocked at the door impatiently,

and then, suspecting, or angry, or both,

in a fit of fury and waxing wroth,

he broke down the door and saw his wife

with the lord to whose service he’d given his life.

Resistless, he approached the bed

resolved that one or both would be dead

immediately. Equitan

being naked, was not the man

he would have been wearing clothes, and he

jumped into one of the tubs . . . But you see

he chose wrong and his last breath

was a scream as he was boiled to death.

It was clear to the seneschal that this

boiling tub was intended as his.

One of the would-be murderers yet

remained alive, and he could not let

her get away, so he threw her in

the water headfirst for her share in their sin.

Men and women have often found

that the evil they plan can rebound

and strike them down who intended to strike.

It’s poetic justice or something like.

All this happened as I have recited,

for the Bretons tell the tale that I did.