In the gospels of Matthew and Luke, followers of Jesus ask him to teach them how to pray. Jesus then teaches them a prayer.[1] A slightly elaborated version of that prayer has come to be known as the Lord’s Prayer or the Our Father {Pater Noster}. That prayer has Christians pray to God to “lead us not into temptation.” Such a prayer makes some today feel uncomfortable. Would God lead persons into temptation, rightly understood as a test or trial?
Widespread aversion to struggle is an unusual cultural development. Struggle fundamentally shapes the ancient Greek epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. Hebrew scripture chronicles the struggles of God’s chosen people to be faithful to their God. The biblical Book of Job represents personally bewildering aspects of the struggle to be faithful. So too does God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his only child Isaac. Cultures around the Mediterranean for hundreds of years after the birth of Jesus supported intense competition among elite men to show superiority in learning and eloquence. The apostle Paul declared, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”[2] In common experience, progress in most endeavors requires trials, tests, and struggle.
The ancient Greek text of the gospels of Matthew and Luke record Jesus instructing his followers to pray “lead us not into trial / test / temptation {μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν}.” The ancient Greek phrase “μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς” consist of the negative particle μὴ and the compound verb εἰσφέρω formed from the preposition “into {εἰς}” and the verb “carry / bear {φέρω}.” Thus the inflected form “μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς” means “do not carry us / do not lead us.” Tertullian, writing about 200 GC, translated “μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν” into Latin as “do not lead us into temptation {ne nos inducas in temptationem}.”[3] Other early church fathers, including the influential, faithful translator Saint Jerome, translated “μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν” into Latin in the same way. Tertullian himself apparently was troubled by the sense of God leading us into a trial. Nonetheless, that’s what the gospels say.
Christians might take some comfort from the gospels telling of God leading Jesus into trials. Before Jesus began his public ministry, John the Baptist baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. According to Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus came up from the waters of the Jordan, the sky opened, a dove descended and alighted on Jesus, and a voice from Heaven said, “This is my beloved Son.” The dove became a symbol of the Holy Spirit, an aspect of God. But this father-God then immediately put his beloved Son to a difficult test:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
The Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness was the Holy Spirit, an aspect of God. The struggle of Jesus in the desert with the devil / tempter seems to have been necessary to strength him to perform his mission. Perhaps Christians might understand their trials and temptations as leading them likewise.
Trails, tests, temptations, and other struggles aren’t pleasant. Moreover, success in any real struggle isn’t guaranteed. One would prefer to be delivered from the evil of having to struggle. Jesus advised his followers to pray, “lead us not into temptation.” The need for that prayer suggests that God might lead persons into temptations or trials. Christians led into trials should pray that they will prevail as Christ did when the Spirit led him into the wilderness.
[3] Tertullian, On prayer {De oratione} 8, Latin text of Evans (1953a), my English translation. For a full English translation of De oratione, Evans (1953b). Jerome also translated Matthew 6:13 / Luke 11:4, as “ne nos inducas in temptationem {lead us not into temptation}.” On early Latin variants of “lead us not into temptation,” Higgins (1945).
Tertullian himself was uncomfortable with the language of Matthew 6:13 / Luke 11:4, as he understood it. He thus added an interpretive gloss:
“Lead us not into temptation,” that is, suffer us not to be led, surely by him who tempts.
{ NE NOS INDUCAS IN TEMPTATIONEM, id est, ne nos pariaris induci, ab eo utique qui temptat. }
While translating “μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς” accurately into Latin, Tertullian argued that God shouldn’t be supposed to tempt. Such concern perhaps was felt even earlier:
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
James 1:13-14. James surely wrote with knowledge of the gospel tradition of the Lord’s Prayer. Paul in Corinthians teaches more obliquely about God’s relation to temptation:
God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church 2846 states about the received, ancient Greek text of Matthew 6:13 / Luke 11:4, “μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν”:
It is difficult to translate the Greek verb used by a single English word: the Greek means both “do not allow us to enter into temptation” and “do not let us yield to temptation.”
That seems to be factually incorrect. Similarly, Doyle (2018) and Doyle (2022).
In accordance with the arguments of Tertullian, De oratione 8, Pope Francis in 2019 approved a change in the translation of the Lord’s Prayer in the Italian Roman Missal: “e non ci indurre in tentazione {and lead us not into temptation}” was changed to “e non abbandonarci alla tentazione {and do not abandon us to temptation}.” The process of making that change encouraged careful study and discussion of the original Greek text of the gospels. See, e.g. Grimbilas (2017), Williams (2019). Pope Francis hasn’t attempted to decree that Christians faithful to the Catholic church magisterium cannot pray the Lord’s Prayer in the best translation into their ordinary language, as they judge the best translation based on their study and reason. For a somewhat related controversy, consider the attempt to ban the prayer “Ave Marie” in sixteenth-century England.
While men tend to be romantically simple, some men who consider themselves educated and sophisticated write flowery, courtly love letters to women. More than 1600 years ago, both the Master Teacher of Love Ovid and the Doctor of the Christian Church Saint Jerome taught men not to write contrived love letters. Nonetheless, courtly love letters became so popular that medieval scribes included templates for them in their reference books of form letters, called formulae. Now more than ever, men must learn well the classical love-letter teachings of Ovid and Jerome.
With his gender-subtlety and ironic brilliance, Ovid could easily be misunderstood. In ancient Rome, letters were commonly written on wax tablets. Ovid ostensibly advised young men to write fawning love-letters to women:
Try wax on well-scraped tablets to smooth the way. Let wax go first as your heart’s privy-counselor. Let it bear your fawning words, and imitate a lover’s words. Without exception, whoever you are, add in begging.
{ Cera vadum temptet, rasis infusa tabellis: Cera tuae primum conscia mentis eat. Blanditias ferat illa tuas imitataque amantem Verba; nec exiguas, quisquis es, adde preces. }[1]
Why would a man in love have to imitate a lover’s words? One might think that Ovid was advising men to act like Propertius did toward his beloved Cynthia. But, as great teachers do, Ovid elaborated his teaching in a way that should prompt thought:
Young Roman men, study the good arts, I tell you, but not only to support trembling defendants. Like the people, like the solemn judge, like the chosen Senate, defeated by your eloquence, a young woman will give herself into your hands. But hide your manliness. Don’t be forward with your speaking skill. Your remarks should avoid tiresome words. Who, other than the weak-minded, would speechify to a tender girlfriend? Often a letter has been a strong cause of hatred. Let your speech be credible by using words customary, though fawning. Speak as if you were there in person.
{ Disce bonas artes, moneo, Romana iuventus, Non tantum trepidos ut tueare reos; Quam populus iudexque gravis lectusque senatus, Tam dabit eloquio victa puella manus. Sed lateant vires, nec sis in fronte disertus; Effugiant voces verba molesta tuae. Quis, nisi mentis inops, tenerae declamat amicae? Saepe valens odii littera causa fuit. Sit tibi credibilis sermo consuetaque verba, Blanda tamen, praesens ut videare loqui. }
Ovid’s advice on speaking is actually advice on writing a love letter. Moreover, that advice contradicts itself. Formal speaking skill is associated with tiresome words. A man’s words should be “customary, though fawning.” Most men don’t typically use fawning words other than to women that they desperately want to have as their lovers. Ovid teaches men that words are slippery tools. Letters meant to prompt love can cause hate. Ovid’s subtle lesson: don’t write love letters. Speak to a woman in person and use ordinary language.
Saint Jerome, not surprisingly since he was a saint, was much more charitable toward love-lorn men. He bluntly told them what they needed to know:
A holy love has nothing to do with frequent little gifts of cloth bands, pressing one’s mouth to clothes, tasting each other’s food, and fawning and sweet letters. “My honey, my light, my desire,” and such other follies of lovers, all delights and charms and ridiculous proper courtesies — we blush at such things in stage comedies and we detest them in men of the world.
{ crebra munuscula et orariola et fasciolas. et vestes ori adplicatas et degustatos cibos blandasque et dulces litterulas sanctus amor non habet. “mel meum, lumen meum meumque desiderium” et ceteras ineptias amatorum, omnes delicias et lepores et risu dignas urbanitates in comoediis erubescimus, in saeculi hominibus detestamur }[2]
Despite the love-letter teachings of Ovid and Jerome, medieval men wrote courtly love letters to women. In fact, writing courtly love letters to women was such a common practice that by early in the ninth century at least one formulae contained a standard-form love letter:
Lovingly loving and insatiably desiring her, whom I much desire, my honey-sweetest and most beloved of all girlfriend (insert her name), I in God’s name, I (insert your name) send you greetings through this letter and as much joy as is contained in the fullness of our hearts. And these greetings walk though the clouds, and the sun and moon bring them to you.
When I lie down, you are in my heart. And when I sleep, I dream always of you.
Be well by day and traverse pleasant nights and always have your boyfriend in mind. Do not forget him, and I will not do so to you.
You devise one strategy, and I’ll devise another by which with guile we’ll fulfill our desire.
May He who reigns in Heaven and provides for all lead you into my arms before I die.
{ Amabiliter amando et insaciabiliter desiderando dulcissima atque in omnibus amatissima, multum mihi desiderabilem melliflua amica mea illa, ego in Dei nomine, ego mando tibi salutes usque ad gaudium per has apices, quantum cordis nostrae continet plenitudo. Et ipsi salutes inter nubes ambulant, sol et luna ejus deducant ad te.
Ego quando jaceo, tu mihi es in animo. Et quando dormio, semper de te somnio.
Bene habeas in die et noctes suavis transeas et amico tuo semper in mente habeas nec ponas illum in oblivione, quia ego tibi non facio.
Tu pensas unum consilium, et ego penso alterum, per qualem ingenio implemus desiderium
Qui regnat in celo et providet omnia, tradat te in manibus meis, antequam moriar. }[3]
Working at the Abbey of Clairvaux in 1471, the young monk Johannes de Vepria added a large set of courtly love letters to his formulae. Here’s one of his letter templates for a man to use in writing to a beloved woman:
To the greatest comfort of weary spirits, to complete joy, solid hope, and abode of all that is joyful, from him for whom your breath is honeyed breeze, for whom your gaze is clearest light:
What else but the longest life would suffice for your great attractiveness? That you, sweetest one, establish my love as the necessary cause for your writing, I accept just as I gladly hold you firmly clasped in the tightest chain of true love. Your actions, which overflow with so frequent benefits, prove that it is easy to trust in your words, for your actions make obvious that your love is not cold. Even with a silent tongue, through deeds you speak sufficiently about him whom you claim to love.
{ Summo lassorum animorum solamini, gaudio integro, spei solide, omnium demum que locunda sunt domicilio, ille cui tuus spiritus mellis est haustus, cui tuus intuitus clarissimum lumen est:
quid aliud nisi ut magne suavitati tue longissima vita sufficiat? Quod amorem meum dulcissima scribendi necessarium tibi causam constituis, ita gratanter accipio, sicut artissima vere dilectionis cathena te firmiter astrictam teneo. Verbis eciam tuis ut facillima fides sit, opera tua probant, que ita frequentibus beneficiis redundant, ut apertum sit amorem tuum frigidum non esse, et eum quem te amare testaris, lingua eciam tacente, factis sufficienter loqueris. }[4]
The Master Teacher of Love Ovid and Doctor of the Christian Church Saint Jerome didn’t teach men to write form-letter courtly love letters. Ovid satirized the learned love conventions of Roman elegy. He would have winced at the plain banality of form love letters. Perhaps he would have grimaced in thinking that such letters might lead to castration. Jerome, moreover, was a caring and devoted teacher. He taught women in outrageous ways what he thought was best for them as beloved children of God. Jerome probably regarded love letters in formulae as serving mass-produced idols far inferior to the intensely personal passion of Jesus Christ. With respect to Ovid and Jerome’s teachings on love letters, the subsequent history of love letters indicates that classics has failed in teaching men.
[1] Ovid, Art of Love {Ars Amatoria} 1.437-40, Latin text from Ehwald’s Teubner edition (1907) via Perseus, my English translation. The subsequent quote above is similarly sourced from Ars Amatoria 1.459-68. A. S. Kline’s translation is freely available online.
Ovid, who with his practical help for men in love promoted gender equality, offered similar letter-writing advice to women in love:
Young women, write clean, but middling, customary words. The public manner of speech pleases. Ah! How often a letter has ignited an uncertain lover, and a barbaric tongue hurt a lovely shape!
{ Munda, sed e medio consuetaque verba, puellae, Scribite: sermonis publica forma placet; A! quotiens dubius scriptis exarsit amator, Et nocuit formae barbara lingua bonae! }
Medieval European writers regarded Ovid as a master teacher of love. But many medieval writers misunderstood Ovid to support courtly love. For example, a thirteenth-century Old French adaptation of Ovid’s Ars amatoria straightforwardly emphasized courtliness in love letters:
Now write therefore in such a way at first to your dear lady so that there isn’t a word of baseness but those of honor and courtesy. By your letters you will ask to have her love and her heart.
{ Or escri donc en tel maniere au premier a ta dame chiere qu’il n’i ait mot de vilanie, mes d’enor et de cortoisie. Par tes letres porras aquerre s’amour et son courage enquerre. }
The Key to Love {La clef d’amors} vv. 689-94, Old French text from Doutrepont (1890), my English translation. For a loose English verse translation of La clef d’amors, vv. 169-1296 (with small omissions), Shapiro (1997) pp. 12-42.
Verses from a motet probably composed in Paris in the second half of the thirteenth century offers better wisdom:
Love that comes by letter will not last long.
{ Amours qui vient par mesage Ne pourroit longues durer }
Old French text from the Bamberg manuscript via Uulders (2010) p. 7, my English translation.
[2] Jerome, Letters 52 (To Nepotian) 5.7, Latin text from Cain (2013), my English translation benefiting from those of id., Carroll (1956), Wright (1933) and Freemantle (1892). My translation is more literal than Cain’s, but consistent with its meaning. Cain’s Latin text is that of Hilberg (1910), with eighteen changes other than punctuation and orthography. Wright’s Latin text is also from Hilberg and identical to Cain’s for the above quote.
Nepotian left civil service to become a Christian priest. He then became a presbyter at Altinum, near Venice in northern Italy. Nepotian’s uncle Heliodurus was bishop of Altinum and Jerome’s friend. Jerome wrote this letter to Nepotian in mid-393 GC. Cain (2013) p. 2. Jerome evidently intended a wider readership than Nepotian for this long, erudite letter. In the medieval period it was widely read. It survives in nearly 300 manuscripts. Id. p. 22.
Regarding Jerome’s reference to comedies, Cain commented:
Jer. means primarily the comedies of Plautus and Terence — as literary artifacts, that is, not as theatrical productions, for by his time these ‘classics’ were not longer performed on stage
This form love letter would apply equally well to any girlfriend. A compiler probably indicated “ad sponsam” for the sake of propriety. Perhaps another compiler earlier appended the comment:
This is an excellent greeting between two young persons. The one sends it to the other and neither is satisfied with only this.
{ Haec est magna salutatio inter duos juvenis; alter alterius transmittit et neminem sufficit. }
Sourced as previously. That compiler apparently imagined this form letter to be propitious for amorous seduction.
About forty manuscripts of form letters / formularies {formulae} survive, most from the late eighth and ninth centuries. Brown (2017) pp. 98-9. The type of forms included in formulae vary widely. The forms were intended to be useful models:
the formulas are characterized by a clear intent to reuse or learn from the text included in them, either as frameworks for producing new documents, as sources of formulaic language, as teaching texts, or simply as records of really interesting kinds of transactions.
Id. p. 99. For more on formulae manuscripts and their historical value, Rio (2009).
[4] Letters of Two Lovers {Epistolae duorum amantium} 105, Latin text from Mews & Chiavaroli (2001) pp. 280-2, my English translation, benefiting from that of id. and Newman (2016) p. 220. The first publication of Epistolae duorum amantium was Könsgen (1974).
The “chain of love,” a metaphor often used by the Woman {nos. 55, 71, 76, 84), would soon take visual form in the motif of a woman leading a man by a tether wound tightly about his neck.
Epistolae duorum amantium survives in only one manuscript: France, Troyes, Médiathèque municipale MS. 1452. For its formulae, the compiler / scribe Johannes de Vepria drew upon authors ranging from Cyprian of Carthage (d. 258) to the dictores “Transmundus of Clairvaux (d. after 1216), Jean de Limoges (d. mid-thirteenth century), and a contemporary rhetorician, Carolus Virulus (d. 1493).” Newman (2016) p. 53. De Vepria’s omission of Ovid, Augustine, Jerome, Anselm, Bernard, and others suggests that his concern wasn’t stylistic elegance but everyday usefulness. Cf. id. Ordinary usefulness is a central characteristic of formulae. Rio (2009), Brown (2017). Moreover, de Vepria’s omission of the pioneering dictore Boncompagno of Signa suggests that he had a conventional view of courtly love.
[5] Whether Epistolae duorum amantium is properly ascribed to Heloise and Abelard has been a matter of considerable scholarly controversy. Dronke observed, “it is often impossible to demarcate the ‘artificial’ from the natural in medieval letters.” Dronke (1965) vol. 1, p. 482. Yet expressive quality can be judged. In the Epistolae duorum amantium, the man’s Latin is “barely competent.” Ziolkowski (2004) p. 186. The man’s poetry within Epistolae duorum amantium is like “yeomanly products of verse making,” “the work of a schoolboy or apprentice poet.” Jaeger (2005) p. 136. Abelard was recognized as a brilliant poet. To the question “Do the man’s letters resemble the known works of Abelard?”, Newman conceded, “Very little.” Newman (2016) p. 65. Ziolkowski struggled to imagine Abelard writing such love letters:
I find it hard to accept that his love letters would diverge so starkly in thought and expression from his other writings. Could Abelard have revealed his hidden pedestrian side, an inner poetaster that he kept hidden from the world at large, only on the wax tablets he dispatched to his paramour?
Ziolkowski (2004) p. 188. Detailed philological analysis indicates that Epistolae duorum amantium were meant as a parody, perhaps of the famous couple Heloise and Abelard. Schnell (2022).
Medieval formulae include documents of widely varying literary qualities. That’s consistent with the higher literary quality of the woman’s love letters compared to the man’s in the formulae love letters of Epistolae duorum amantium. Jerome criticized men for sending contrived courtly love letters like Epistolae duorum amantium 105. Yet men evidently continued to do so.
Dronke, Peter. 1965. Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Love-Lyric. 2 vols. Vol. 1, Vol. 2. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Freemantle, William Henry, trans. 1892. The Principal Works of St. Jerome. Philip Schaff, ed. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, vol. 6. Oxford: Parker.
Hilberg, Isidorus, ed. 1910-1918. Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae {Letters of Saint Eusebius Hieronymus (Jerome)}. Vindobonae: Tempsky. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) 54 (Epistulae 1-70), 55 (Epistulae 71-120), and 56 (Epistulae 120-154).
Newman, Barbara. 2016. Making Love in the Twelfth Century: Letters of two lovers in context. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Reviews by Constant Mews and by Alex J Novikoff.
Shapiro, Norman R. trans, witrh James B. Wadsworth, and Betsy Bowdenn notes and commentary. 1997. The Comedy of Eros: medieval French guides to the art of love. 2nd edition (1st edition, 1971). Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Schnell, Rüdiger. 2022. Epistolae Duorum Amantium: Parodien – Auf Ein Berühmtes Liebespaar? Leiden: Brill.
Jealousy and concern for fidelity in love are common to both women and men. Yet persons with penises don’t know for certain, absent modern DNA paternity testing, who their biological children are. Because they give birth, persons with wombs know for certain who their biological children are. That’s a fundamental gender inequality in parental knowledge. Within a discussion of jealousy and cuckolding, an exemplum in the fifteenth-century Middle English romance Partonope of Blois figured heterosexual sex of reproductive type as putting a sword into a scabbard. Partonope of Blois nonetheless ignored fundamental gender inequality in parental knowledge.
In Partonope of Blois, the Byzantine Empress Melior led by magic the young French noble Partonope into her bed. After they had sex, Melior made the common anti-meninist claim that men as a gender are disloyal to women. Partonope responded:
Because of that I pray that you always will think that I shall always be true to you without change and evermore glad to do your pleasure above that of all other persons. This I am ready to ensure to you by oath or bond or in whatever way your noble heart can best devise. I think well I am your dear since you have chosen me to be your beloved.
{ Where-fore I pray yow euer þat ye Wolle þynke þat I shalle euer be Trewe to yowe wyth-owten varyans, And euer-more gladde to do yowe plesauns A-bofe alle other creature; Thys I am redy yowe to ensewre By othe or bonde, or in whatte wyse Yowre gentylle herte can beste deuyse. Welle I wotte I am yowe dere, Sethe ye haue chose me to be yowre ffere. }[1]
Partonope himself had previously felt jealousy and understood its terrible effects. While he didn’t condemn all women as disloyal, he was concerned about Melior’s loyalty to him in warning her about the dangers of jealousy:
I truly cannot think that you will ever in any way be won easily from me in any manner. Such thought in me shall never arise. In your heart let no folly bring to your mind that jealousy should ever such a master be that I should think, my lady, that you in your heart could be untrue or easily change me for a one new. For well I thought about this before that I would fear jealousy, but nevermore. After this day beware to have in mind that false traitor that often rests unkind, that makes lovers unsteadfast until noble loves at last have their great love brought to hate, and after that forever strife.
{ Ne trewly I cannot þynke þat ye Wolle euer in any wyse be Wonne lyghtely frome me in any wyse, Suche thoȝte in me shalle neuer ryse. Ne In yowre herte lette no ffoly Brynge to yowre mynde þat Ielosy Shulde euer suche a master be þat I shulde þynke, my lady, þat ye In yowre herte cowde be vntrewe, Or lyghtely chaunge [me] for a newe. For welle I wotte here be-fore I haue drad Ielosy, butte [n]euer-more Efter thys day haue hym in mynde þat ffals traytore þat ofte reste vnkynde, That loueres made vnstydfaste Tylle here loues, tyll at þe laste Here grette loue was broghte to hate, And after þat for euer debate. }
Partonope’s vacillations from her feeling jealousy about him to him feeling jealousy about her underscores gender symmetry in that treacherous feeling.
Fundamental gender inequality in parental knowledge makes cuckolding a much more damaging concern for men. Partonope superficially specified men in introducing an exemplum about cuckolding. But his thought could readily be interpreted to apply equally to women:
And all jealousy’s craft is but false imagination of that which was never put into action. So often times a man shall dream a thing that is impossible, and yet in sleeping he shall think it be rightly well and that it were as true as the Gospel.
{ And alle hys crafte ys but fals ymagynacion Off þat was neuer put in exsecucione; As ofte tyme a man shalle dreme a þynge þat ys in-possibell, and yet in slepynge He shalle wene hyt myghte be ryghte well And þat hyt were as soþe as þe gospelle. }
Partonope’s exemplum of jealous imagination, in contrast, is vividly gendered:
Such a case happened once in this same land of a man who urged his wife to swear that he was a cuckold and she to him was untrue — this on every day that he would love her anew. Yet he could never this thing prove — that he was a cuckold. It was his complete belief. And always his wife wept and said no. The innocent wife was in great distress, and he so fervently imagined this thing that one night as he lay sleeping, jealousy thought it would make him frightened. He thought he saw his neighbor draw out his sword and fully into his scabbard he thought he ejaculated. When he had finished, where he went he didn’t know. Out of his sleep he frantically awoke, for fear of jealousy all his body shook. “Shame, alas!” said he, “that I was born! Now it is worse than ever it was before. For well I am certain of what be my imagination. The deed is done and put in execution. My dream has showed me by experience. He that ejaculated here in my presence in my scabbard — he has done the deed!” And thus jealousy has given the fool his reward.
{ Thys case felle onus in thys same londe Off a man þat bare hys wyffe on honde pat he was Cokoolde, and sho was to hym vntrewe, For euery day þat he wolde loue a newe. Yette cowde he neuer put þys þynge in preve. þat he was cokoolde, hyt was hys fulle be-leve, And euer hys wyffe wepte and sayde naye. The sely woman was In grette affraye, And he so sore ymagened of þys thynge That on a nyghte, as he lay slepynge, Ielosy þoȝte he wolde make hym a-fferde. He þoȝte he sawe hys neyȝiore drawe owte hys swerde, And fulle hys scawbarte he þoȝte þat he pyssed. When he had don, where he be-come he nyste. Owte of hys slepe woddely he a-woke, For-ferde of Ielosy all hys body quoke. “Owte, allas!” sayde he, “þat I was boore! Nowe hyt ys worse þen euer hyt was be-fore. For welle I wotte be myne ymaginacion The dede ys done and put in exsecucion. My dreme haþe showed me by expereauns He þat pyssed here in my presauns In my scawbarde, he haþe don þe dede.” And þus Ielosy haþe quytte þe fole hys mede. }[2]
Partonope, however, put forward a gender-symmetric moral lesson for his exemplum of jealousy and cuckolding. The principle is for her to imagine the other to be as she would have the other imagine her to be:
And therefore put jealousy out of mind, for in that case you shall never find that ever untrustworthy to you shall I be. And you do the same, while you live, for me. And then shall our hearts stand in rest, and each of us shall well the other trust.
{ And þerfore putte Ielosy owte of mynde; For In þat case ye shalle me neuer ffynde, þat euer mystrustye shalle I to yowe be. And do þe same, whylle þat ye lyffe, to me; And þen shalle owre hertes stonde in reste, And eche of vs shalle welle oþer truste. }[3]
That’s worthy moral thinking. But it doesn’t recognize humans created with differences: some humans with penises, some with vaginas; some with semen and some with eggs that can become nascent humans nourished in the egg-bearing humans’ wombs. In reality, humans have a fleshly foundation for gender differences in concern about jealousy and cuckolding.
[1] Partonope of Blois vv. 1727-36, Middle English text from Bødtker (1912)’s edition of MS. London, British Library, Additional, 35288, f. 2r-154r, my English modernization.
Partonope of Blois survives in four other incomplete manuscript copies, two of which are printed in Buckley (1862). A distinctive version was copied about 1450 into MS. New Haven, Yale University, Beinecke Library, Takamiya, 32, f. 164r-166v. Nichols (1873) and Bødtker (1912) provide the Yale University Takamiya text.
Partnope of Blois closely translates the late-twelfth-century Old French romance Partonopeu of Blois. However, MS. British Library, Additional, 35288, the only Partonope of Blois manuscript that preserves Melior and Partonope’s initial encounter in bed, is missing a leaf just after they have sex (after v. 1598 at the end of leaf 19). The parallel with Partonopeu of Blois and Partonope’s response to Melior indicates that the Middle English text is missing Melior’s anti-meninist outburst about men’s disloyalty. See Partonopeu of Blois vv. 1317-23, presented in my post about Partonopeu of Blois. The missing leaf occurs with a shift from vellum to paper as the manuscript material. Rikhardsdottir, who overlooked Melior’s anti-meninist outburst, stated:
The collation of vellum and paper in one manuscript, while not unheard of in English medieval manuscripts, is unusual, and its incongruity is amplified by the fact of the lacuna. The hand of both parts appears to be the same, excluding the possibility of a later scribe having added text to an existing copy. The curious collation does invite the possibility, nevertheless, that the two parts of the manuscript may originally have been separate texts (one written on vellum, the other on paper), perhaps in a commercial scriptorium, which were put together for a patron. They obviously contained the same story and the absence of the missing leaf may thus be due to the fact that it contained text that either overlapped with, or was of a different nature from, the resuming text of the paper copy. The other part could also simply have been damaged, or missing, which would explain why the separate manuscript copies were placed together to begin with. The catchword on folio 19 verso (last vellum folio) does not match the lines on folio 20 recto (first paper folio), confirming that a leaf is indeed missing from the vellum quire.
The lacuna and the interesting compilation of vellum and paper are significant here, as there is an observable narrative shift that occurs at this point. This shift is furthermore fundamentally connected to the different character representation evident in the various versions of the Partonope story. The Melior that appears after the lacuna is a self-assured, sexually demanding woman, quite different from the seemingly affronted and much-subdued Melior of the previous scene.
Rikhardsdottir (2012) pp. 140-1. While Melior acted subdued and modest when in bed for the first time with Partonope, she acted self-assured traveling to France to lure Partonope from there into her bed in Byzantium. Partonope’s initial modesty in bed is best understand as her being behaviorally complicit in the socially constructed burden of sexual performance that men endure.
Subsequent quotes from Partonope of Blois are similarly sourced. They are vv. 1737-54 (I truly cannot think that you…), 1755-60 (And all jealousy’s craft is but false imagination…), 1761-84 (Such a case happened once in this same land…), 1785-90 (And therefore put jealousy out of mind…).
[2] For putting a sword into a scabbard as a figure for heterosexual intercourse in medieval Nordic literature, Nøttveit (2006a). Id. notes almost all the anthropologists who have studied scabbards in recent decades have been women. A paucity of attention to men and men’s distinctive perspectives and voices has become a serious problem in the humanities in general.
[3] Cf. Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31. This exemplum doesn’t occur in surviving texts of Partonopeu of Blois. Windeatt called it “an indecorous exemplum of a distinctly fabliau kind.” Windeatt (1990) p. 76. With its moralization and context, this exemplum seems to me to have more literary sophistication than most fabliaux. It has irony and allusions of the sort associated with Chaucer. Moreover, jealousy is an important theme in Cupid and Psyche, a source story for Partonopeu of Blois.
[4] Spensley observed:
the courtly ladies of late twelfth century French romance are notably diverse, and … the social framework within which they evolve is much less rigid than that of the fifteenth century literary stereotype of ‘the courtly lady.’
Spensley (1973). Ideological rigidity has gotten worse since the fifteenth century. That’s apparent even just in medieval literary criticism.
Vines began her analysis of Partonope of Blois by invoking a modern authority: ‘“Chivalry is an all-male club,” Elizabeth Archibald asserts in her article, “Women and Romance.”’ While such an introductory citation to an academic authority might help in scoring an academic publication, in truth an all-male club is a ridiculous and obfuscatory metaphor for men’s abject position in relation to women under the sexual feudalism of chivalry.
Mieszkowski perceived in Partonope of Blois “inverted gender roles.” From a position of moral superiority, she contemptuously opined, “the conventional ending to the romance is enhanced by the satisfaction of seeing the inverted gender roles of hero and heroine put to rights.” Mieszkowski (2004), abstract. The medieval audience probably better understood women’s social status and listened to Partonope of Blois less dogmatically.
[images] (1) Man reading old romances like Partonope of Blois. Image from front matter of Buckley (1862). Partonope of Blois begins:
Whosoever wishes to read old stories, he shall find without fear marvels and wonders many and numerous of mirth, joy, disease, and good fortune.
{ Hoo so luste olde stories to rede, He shalle ffynde, wyth-owten Drede, Meruellys and wonders mony and ffele Off myrthe, ioye, dyssese, and wele. }
Bødtker, A. Trampe, ed. 1912. The Middle-English versions of Partonope of Blois. Early English Text Society. Berlin: A. Asher & Co.; New York: C. Scribner & Co., Leypoldt & Holt; Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co.
Nøttveit, Ole-Magne. 2006a. “Slirene fra middelalderen – Et kjønnsløst forskningstema?” Pp. 411-22 in Barndon, Randi, and Gro Mandt, eds. Samfunn, symboler og identitet: festskrift til Gro Mandt på 70-årsdagen. Universitetet i Bergen, Arkeologiske Skrifter (UBAS) Nordisk 3.Bergen: Univ., Arkeologisk Institutt.
Nøttveit, Ole‐Magne. 2006b. “The Kidney Dagger as a Symbol of Masculine Identity – The Ballock Dagger in the Scandinavian Context.” Norwegian Archaeological Review. 39 (2): 138-150.
Rikhardsdottir, Sif. 2012. Medieval Translations and Cultural Discourse: the movement of texts in England, France and Scandinavia. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.
Spensley, Ronald M. 1973. “The Courtly Lady in Partonope of Blois.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 74 (2): 288-291.
Vines, Amy N. 2007. ‘A Woman’s “Crafte”: Melior as Lover, Teacher, and Patron in the Middle English Partonope of Blois.’ Modern Philology. 105 (2): 245-270.
Windeatt, Barry A. 1990. “Chaucer and fifteenth-century romance: Partonope of Blois.” Ch. 5 (pp. 62-80) in Ruth Morse and Barry Windeatt, eds. Chaucer Traditions: Studies in Honour of Derek Brewer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
