Marie de France – Introductory Article (A. Classen)
The Ash Tree (see in “Le Fresne”) (mythology)
The Lai of “Bisclavret” (in English)
The Lai of “Le Fresne” (in English)
Prologue, and many of Marie’s other Lais
Marie de France website by David Merchant (with some rather dubious musical examples)
In light of Marie’s fables, consider this famous poem:
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
by Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Friedrich Schiller: Nanie:
Even Beauty must die!
That which subdues men and gods,
does not move the steely heart
of the Stygian Zeus.
Only once did love touch
the ruler of the underworld,
and still upon the threshold, sternly
he recalled his gift.
Aphrodite does not tend
the lovely youth’s wound,
torn by the savage boar
in his graceful body.
The immortal mother does not save
the godly hero
when, dying at the Scaean gate,
his destiny he fulfills.
But she rises from the sea
with all Nereus’s daughters
and the lament for
the exalted son goes up.
Behold, the gods weep,
all the goddesses weep
that beauty must fade,
that perfection must die.
Even to be an elegy
in the mouth of the beloved is glorious
(for the ordinary goes down unsung
to Orcus.)