En le honur de vos nobles reis,
Ki tant eftes preux et curteis,
M'entremis de Lais assembler,
Par rime faire et reconter;
En mon quoer penfoe et diseie,
Sire, ke vos presentereie,
Si vos les plaist. a receveir,
Mult me ferez grant joie aveir
A tuz jurs mais en ferrai lié, &c.[1]
But who is this monarch to whom Mary addresses her dedication? This was well known in her time, but in ours we can only conjecture. Let us endeavour, then, in the best manner we are able, to discover him.
1. First, then, we may perceive in Mary's prologue her apprehension of the envy which her success might excite against her in a strange country: for this reason she could not have written in France. 2. When at a loss for some single syllable she sometimes intermixes in her verses words that are pure English, when, the French word would not have suited the measure.
Fire et chaundeles alumez.
It should seem, therefore, that she wrote more particularly for the English, since her lines contain words that essentially belong to their language, and not at all to the Romance. 3. She dedicates her Lays to a king who understood English, because she takes care to translate into that tongue all the Welsh and Armoric pro- per names that she was obliged to introduce. Thus in the Lay of Bisclaveret, she fays the English translate this name by that of Garwaf, (Werewolf); in that of Laustic, that they call it Nihtgale, (Nightingale); and in that of Chevrefeuille, Gotelef, (Goatleaf ), &c.
- ↑ Prolog. des Lais de Marie.
