Also, in another story by Marie De France, a man is wounded and dies at the cost of a woman he loved. In Dent’s Inferno 5, a couple is seen in the second circle of hell who was murdered for loving one another. In both the Inferno 5 and Marie De France’s Lass, it is seen that love causes pain in both works.
Therefore, will argue that Dante and Marie have similar views on the retirement of romantic love because both poems show that romantic love causes individuals to think and act irrationally, causing them to suffer for their romantic love In “Abstractive” of Lass, a man’s mind is clouded by the love he had towards his wife and ends up getting betrayed by her. A man, named Abstractive, is a noble man who is respected by many, but his secret is that he disappears during the week and turns into a werewolf.
His wife one day asked, coaxed, and flattered him so that Abstractive would tell her why he goes missing throughout the week. “Harm will come to me if I tell you about this, because I’d lose your love and even my very self’ (Lass, Abstractive, 53-56). Abstractive knew the consequences of tolling his wife, but yet he still manages to tell her that he becomes a werewolf. He even tells her where he kept his clothes, knowing that if he lost them he would be a werewolf forever until he got them back.
Then she told him how her husband went away and what happened to him; she also taught him the precise path her husband took into the forest, and then she sent the knight to get her husband’s clothes. So Abstractive was betrayed, ruined by his own wife. (Lass, Abstractive, 120-127) Baccalaureate’s wife betrays him by telling another man of his secret and by being responsible for the theft of Backstreet clothes. Love caused Backstreet to be deprived of reason and led him to tell his wife of his secret. In the end, Baccalaureate’s irrational action led him to suffer and to be betrayed by the women he loved.
In another story of the Lass, a man says some regretful things and suffers at the expense of losing the one he loves. In “Lana” of Lass, the main character, Lana, is approached by his queen and tells him, “l have cherished you, and loved you. You may have all my love; just tell me your desire” (Lass, Lana, 263-266). Lana tells her queen that he doesn’t desire her and then the queen gets angry and insults Lana. Lana gets disturbed and begins to speak irrationally, of that activity know nothing, but I love and I am loved by one who should have the prize over all the women I know.
And I shall tell you one thing; you might as well know all: any one of those who serve her, the poorest girl of all, is better than you, my lady queen, in body, face, and beauty, in breeding and in goodness. (Lass, Lana, 291-302) The queen’s lustful approach towards Lana only made him think of the romantic love he was sharing with his loved one. But when the queen insulted him after telling her that he had no desire for her, Lana got angry and began to act irrationally. It led him to insult the queen and speak of his secret romantic love affair, which Was to remain a secret. DO not any man know about this… You would lose me for good if this love were known” (Lass, Lana, 145-148). Because Lana spoke about his secret romantic love, he suffered for it. He had betrayed their affair. He was all alone in a room, disturbed and troubled; he called on his love, again and again, but it did him no good. He complained and sighed, from time to time he fainted; then he cried a hundred times for her to have mercy and speak to her love. (Lass, Lana, 335-345) Therefore, Marie shows in “Lana” that romantic love causes individuals to think and act irrationally, leading to their suffering.
This is seen when Lana insulted the queen and spoke of his secret romantic love, even though he didn’t mean to, which led him suffering and weeping knowing that he lost his loved one. Like Marie, Dante also illustrated in Inferno 5 that romantic love leads to an individual to think and act irrationally which results in their suffering. In Inferno 5, Dante the pilgrim is in the second circle of hell and there he speaks to a couple. Francesca and Paolo are suffering in hell, in where Francesca tells Dante of their suffering.
Love, quick to kindle in the gentle heart, seized this one for the beauty of my body, torn from me. (How it happened still offends me! ) Love, that excuses no one loved from loving, seized me so strongly with delight in him that, as you see, he never leaves my side. Eve led us straight to sudden death together. (Inferno, Canto IV, 100-106) This textual reference shows how Francesca and Paolo are suffering, in the sense that they were both put in hell to add to one another’s anguish and remind each other of their sin.
Just like in Marie De France’s Lass, the suffering of Dent’s characters in Inferno 5 was caused by the loss of rational thought and an irrational action. It is when we read about those longed-for lips now being kissed by such a famous lover, that this one (who shall never leave my side) then kissed my mouth, and trembled as he did. Our Galoot was the book and he who wrote it. That day we read no further (Inferno, Canto IN/ , 133-138) Francesca and Paolo lost rational thought when they began to read a book which caused love to overpower them and lead them to the irrational act of kissing.
Kissing led to their instant deaths because Francesca was in love with her husband’s brother, so when they kissed, Francesca husband saw them and killed them both. Francesca and Paulo’s romantic love affair led them to be overpowered by love, therefore, causing them to think and act irrationally, leading to the suffering they are undergoing in hell. One the other hand many would argue that both Marie De France’s Lass and Dana?¬s Inferno 5 are different because in Inferno 5, Dante the pilgrim is sympathetic towards Francesca and Paolo and love is portrayed highly.
When finally I spoke, sighed, ‘Alas, all those sweet thoughts, and Oh, how much desiring brought these two down into this agony. ‘ And then I turned to them and tried to speak; said ‘Francesca, the torment that you suffer brings painful tears of pity to my eyes. ‘ (Inferno, Canto IV, 112-1 17) The textual reference shows how Dante the pilgrim is sympathetic towards he couple after hearing of the suffering that Francesca and Paolo are going through in hell.
On another point, they will argue that romantic love is portrayed highly when they interpret lines 100-106 of Inferno 5, of the textual evidence I referenced in the paragraph above, as romantic lines because Francesca and Paulo’s love survives even in hell. However, this argument is weak because in reality Dante the poet does not want the reader to see that love is portrayed highly in hell or even portray Francesca and Paolo in a sympathetic way. In reality, Dante wants to point out that the couple is in hell or a reason and that they are suffering for their sins because of the act they for took when they lost all rational thought.
The fact that Francesca and Paolo shared romantic love for one another and let their love cause them to think and act irrationally which led to their suffer makes Marie De France’s Lass and Inferno 5 have similar views on the treatment of romantic love. Although people view that Dante and Marie have different views on the treatment of romantic love, I believe that their views are similar in which they both share the idea that romantic love causes individuals to think and act irrationally, causing them to suffer.
In “Abstractive’ and in “Lana” of Marie De France’s Lass, a man is seen in both stories losing rational thought and doing something irrational that causes him to suffer for his action. Alike in the stories of Marie De France’s Lass, Dante also shares the idea that romantic love causes individuals to think and act irrationally, causing them to suffer, when he introduces his readers to a couple who are suffering in hell for the irrational action they took when they lost rational thought.
