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Li fix per delit,
Et elle a chanteir se prist
'De jolit cuer amerous:
Se j'avoie ameit trois jors,
Je dirois a tous
Bones sont amors'
"I kissed the shepherdess,
who is white and tender;
I threw her down on the grass,
PARTISAN REVIEW
she could not defend hersel(
Without waiting I did the game of love
to her with delight,
And she began to sing
'With gay loving heart:
If I had loved for three days,
I would tell everyone
love-affairs are good' ."
There is no attempt here to show the feelings or language of real
peasant girls. Rather, these
pastourelles
are aristocratic ladies in rustic dress
- and such has ever been the case of the pastoral genre. What this strongly
suggests is that at least some noble women allowed themselves to enjoy
the thought of being forced by knights. These women distanced them–
selves from the fantasy in several ways: It's not "we" - not "I" - but
"those women" who might be thus forced; and the songs are entertain–
ing, so no one need address the issue of rape seriously.
In
other words, it
is not merely medieval aristocratic males, but females as well, who found
these charming songs "titillating."
Can we distinguish between male and female fantasies in the
pas–
tourelles?
Some songs emphasize the success of the female partner of the
story: the woman's satisfaction at the end - sometimes even her impres–
sion that, despite having been raped, it is she who was - paradoxically? -
the victor. One poem ends thus: "When I had taken her virginity, she
got up on her feet; she shouted: 'I got off well Diterally: I escaped well
from you!].
It
has been thirteen years since I was born, on my word;
never did I have a morning I enjoyed more.' "
Is it preposterous - indeed oxymoronic- that a girl who has been
taken by force can speak, not just happily, but victoriously of the morn–
ing she has just spent? Phallocentric vanity might account for
cheerfulness, but it can hardly explain the sense of female triumph. This
"victim" does not appear to think of herself as such. One is reminded
