SOURCE: Sinnreich-Levi, Deborah M. “The Female Voice of the Male Poet: Eustache Deschamps' Voix Féminiśe.” In Voices in Translation: The Authority of “Olde Bookes” in Medieval Literature, edited by. Deborah M. Sinnreich-Levi and Gale Sigal, pp. 207-18. New York: AMS Press, 1992.

[In this essay, Sinnreich-Levi refutes the notion that Deschamps was solely a misogynist poet by examining several poems written in a female voice and depicting women sympathetically.]

While the fourteenth-century French poet Eustache Deschamps is known for his anti-feminist stance, typified in Le Miroir de mariage, he did write at least fifty-two poems whose speakers are women. And while it is true that the number of anti-feminist poems Deschamps wrote far outnumbers the number of pro-feminist poems, and certainly outnumbers the number of poems in women's voices, it can not be ignored that one of every thirty extant poems of Deschamps comes to us in a woman's voice. Their psychological plausibility and the range of emotions and ideas they express is striking. His speakers include women from many different walks of life.

The women whose voices Deschamps adopted are varied. The vast majority of the poems are spoken by courtly ladies and generally concern love or other male/female relationships. There are at least twenty seven such poems which will be left aside for this investigation.¹ Nine poems are spoken by female allegorical figures or personifications. Some of these poems do not lend themselves to consideration in any feminist reading of Deschamps's work because their “femininity” is strictly grammatical; that is, they are merely the personifications of feminine nouns and Deschamps did not choose to endow them with a more specifically female personality. Nevertheless, the speakers are female and will be mentioned for contrast. Other personifications and allegories are more interesting because of the similarity their female figures bear to “real” female speakers. They include the Head, Rule, Necessity, Mother Church, Fortune, and France. In addition, and more interestingly, seven poems spoken by two novices, a servant, and two wives will be discussed below.

The Head (La Tête) is engaged in a dialogue with the Body (Le Corps) in “Balade 1056” (SATF [Raynaud/Queue de Sainte-Hilaire, Société des Anciens Textes Français edition of the complete works of Deschamps] V, 344).² The dispute is over the Head's poor relationship with the Body. There are no traces here whatsoever of a woman's voice beyond the Head's addressing the Body as “Corps, doulz amis” (O Body, sweet friend). The only “feminine” quality of this female figure is the grammatical gender of the noun.

Among the female allegories with more clearly defined female voices are Rule (La Règle) and Necessity (La Nécessité) who discuss Rule's woes in “Balade 935” (SATF V, 145). Rule complains that no one respects her any more, although she, the daughter of Reason, had once been held in high esteem by princes and barons whom she served loyally. These same men's children hate the name that Cato and the seven liberal arts loved, and by which men used to learn science, and how to live without danger through wise government.³ Her refrain of “Et comment faray je, comment?” (What am I to do?) is answered by Necessity who insists that she will force people once again to seek out Rule lest they perish by their own foolhardiness. Nothing, including buildings, can stand without Rule and all men's work will come crashing down if Rule continues to be ignored. This practical advice, here spoken by a female figure, is characteristic of Deschamps as can be seen in many of his poems as well as in the introductory sections of L'Art de dictier where he discusses the usefulness of the liberal arts. Although Deschamps had a liberal education, he had much more use for the practical applications of the liberal arts in his years of courtly service.

Among poems with personified female figures is one concerning Mother Church. In “Balade 243” (SATF II, 75), she complains in the refrain that today no one wants to be a martyr for her sake any more (“Nulz ne veult mais pour moy estre martyr”). She recalls her founding, the works of the apostles, the conversions of many pagan peoples and the martyrdoms of the saints, but now all her servants are given to fornication and contention which will destroy her. She is opposed by a rival, Synagogue. She begs her true husband, Christ, to save her from the trespasses of those evil ones who in any case will go to serve Satan, adding, “O vray espoux / … ne veuilles moy t'epouse guerpir / Ne remanoir ou tele adversite” (29-34). (O true husband, do not abandon me, your wife, or leave me in such adversity.) Deschamps is not the only poet to have cast the Church in this relationship with God, but the pleas here are not dissimilar from the complaints of courtly ladies seeking relief from adverse circumstances.

There are two poems spoken by Fortune. The first is “Balade 287” (SATF II, 141). Deschamps is far from being alone among the artists and writers who depicted Fortune as a female allegory. In the former balade, Fortune answers Free Will (Franc Cuer) who had addressed her in “Balade 286.” They disagree about whether, according to God's plan, man's free will help him resist adversity. Free Will cites the patient suffering of Job to show how “Franc Cuer ne puez de son siege mouvoir.” (Free Will can not be dislodged.) Fortune does not think so well of man, lists his many faults, and concludes that it is possible to win out against the cowardly and the weak of heart. (“Lasche et moul cuer de son siege mouvoir.”)

In the latter balade, “Balade 1134” (SATF VI, 56), Fortune identifies herself as the mother of all: “Mere de tous suy nommee Fortune.” Hardly maternal in her style, she is a powerful female figure who lectures the man who has come to put himself in her power (“Je viens tous nus, dame, en vostre pouoir” (Lady, I come all naked into your power.) She tells man that he has nothing worldly that she has not given him, and that she can not take away again any time it pleases her.⁴

The allegory with the largest number of poems is France who bemoans the state of worldly affairs in four poems: “Balade 159” (SATF I, 288); “Balade 164” (SATF 1, 294); “Balade 255” (SATF II, 93); and “Lay 312” (SATF II, 324). In “Balade 159,” France describes herself as the “Vefve au jour d'ui et dolente orpheline” (Today's widow and mournful orphan) (l.2). Her power is in decline and she is no longer respected in the world community. This complaint is similar in diction and tone to the complaint of an abandoned lady, who recites the details of her former, happy state, and compares it to the deplorable condition she currently finds herself in.

In “Balade 164,” in very similar language and tone, France once again describes herself as a widow and an orphan—more literally this time since this poem mourns the death of the king. She complains:

Je deusse estre comme vefve gardee
Et cherie comme la douce flour
Secourez moy, lasse! ou je ne voy tour:
…
Que devendra la dolente esbahie?

(9-10; 15-16)

(I ought to be guarded like a widow
And cherished like a sweet flower
…
Help me, alas! for I see no escape.
What shall become of this frightened, mournful woman?)

“Balade 255” finds France bewailing her past glory when nobility and chivalry contributed to her glory; now she is beset by shame in times when no one wants to do anything except deceive his fellow (Quant nulz ne veult fors l'autre decevoir). This balade lacks the true grief expressed in “Balade 164.” It is formulaic, listing the virtues of men in former times, and the vices of the men of the present. This Lady France is concerned with duty and correct behavior which she no longer finds among her people.

Perhaps the most interesting of the poems spoken by France is “Lay 312,” “Le Lay du tresbon Connestable,” which mourns the death of Bertrand Du Guesclin as a woman might mourn the death of a lover. His attributes and deeds are lovingly catalogued in this 316-line lay. While the majority of the poem could have been spoken by any anonymous narrator recounting the life of the dead, the first pair and last two pairs of strophes depend on the fiction of the widowed France for their poignancy. The speaker heaps up mournful adjectives to describe her bereft condition:

Lasse, de fort heure nee,
Fortunee
Et mal menee,
Esgaree,
Triste, dolente, esplouree,
Plaine de dolour,
De tristour,
Et de plour,
Dame de toute langour,
Que n'es ma vie finee!

(1-10)

(Alas, born in an evil hour
Ill-fortuned
And badly led,
Abandoned,
Sad, mournful, weeping,
Full of grief
And sadness
And tears,
Languishing lady,
Why does my life not end?)

Deschamps greatly admired Du Guesclin and tried to have his name added to the list of the Nine Worthies as a tenth, modern Worthy. The poet wrote several other poems in praise of Du Guesclin, but chose to use a woman's voice to mourn his passing adding to the pathos of the situation by the shift in perspective to the female voice.

The next four poems under consideration here are spoken by famous female figures: one by the Virgin Mary and three by the Sybil. The Virgin answers a prayer which had been addressed to her in the preceeding balade, “Balade 135” (SATF I, 259). In “Balade 134,” a prayer is uttered to the Virgin, beseeching her help in overcoming the seven deadly sins which are storms besetting the metaphoric ship which is a man's life. Her practically phrased response is to love her Son, Christ, and to forget error and folly. She advises man to let the seven virtues be opposed to the seven sins if the second death of Hell is to be avoided. Her advice is straightforward and simply phrased:

Humilite et Chastete n'oublie
Et Charite, qui tant fait louer;
Abstinance soit en ta compagnie,
Pacience, pour touz maulx endurer.
De ton avoir doiz aux povres donner
Pour eschiver d'enfer la mort seconde
Se ma pitie veulz vers toy que se fonde.

(8-14)

(Don't forget humility and chastity
And charity, which so many praise;
Let abstinence accompany you,
And patience, so that you may endure all evils.
Give of what you have to the poor
To escape the second death of hell
If you wish my pity, o you who founder.)

In spite of its religious speaker, this poem uses quotidien diction and images, lending immediacy to a figure who might otherwise seem too distant.

The voice of the ancient prophetess Sybil is used by Deschamps in three balades: “192” (SATF II, 9); “1046” (SATF V, 329); and “1212” (SATF VI, 204). In “Balade 192,” the Cumaean Sybil reminds the reader that she had prophesied the advent of Christ and so asks credence for her prophecy that France will overcome England. In “Balade 1046,” Sybil calls herself the prophet of the living god (“Je, Sebille, de Dieu vivant prophete” 1.1) and she foretells Judgment Day in dense allegorical terms. The refrain, however, is clear: “Et lors doivent monarchies changier” (And now monarchies must change). Deschamps has made this pagan prophetess speak again of Christian futures and offer advice to Christian monarchies. In similar vein is “Balade 1212,” Sybil's prophecy of God's vengeance on sinners. The Sybil's language in this poem, however, is clear and straightforward. Foretelling general destruction and devastation rather like God's vengeance on Sodom, she warns three classes of people to mend their ways lest they plan to endure the hard rule of Hell to come: the nobility, the people, and the clergy: that is, everyone. While Deschamps has written many other poems on exactly this subject, the choice of this classical, female prophetess conveys added seriousness to his warnings. While there is certainly no lack of male prophets into whose mouths Deschamps could have placed his words, the popularity and accessible nature of the Sybil made her a more credible speaker.

The most interesting poems considered here are spoken not by courtly ladies but women of different stations altogether. There is one poem spoken by a fiancée; one by a servant; two by nuns or novices; and four by wives.

There are two virelays spoken by novices who have fled the cloister, “Virelay 751” (SATF IV, 233) and “Virelay 752” (SATF IV, 235). In the former, Robinette complains that she had been placed in the convent at too young an age and, for that reason, will never take vows. The setting of this virelay is pastoral. Shepherds and shepherdesses are seen picnicking amid spring flowers and lilting songbirds. Robinette sees herself as too young and pretty to waste away behind convent walls where only paralytic, one-eyed, or otherwise physically deformed women should be placed—not a lovely young woman who knows how to dance about.⁵

The novice of the latter poem complains of her family, too. She is the only child of a bourgeois family whose parents sent her for a convent education; however, she learned nothing except a little word of love, which caused her to become so amorous, that she desires nothing more than a handsome friend.⁶ Robinette in the former poem lacks her “sister's” education, but shares her amorous ambitions. Neither of these novices fit the stereotypical image of a church woman, but they are slightly reminiscent of Chaucer's Prioress, whose worldly ties he painted so clearly. It is likely that these poems are the product of Deschamps' real life observations since the religious life and all that surrounded it was a great fascination of his. Early in his life, religious affairs were an object of ridicule for him: later, he came to believe in the great importance of a religious life, and to rail against those who abused the Church and its appurtenances.

The voice of the common people, indeed, descriptions of them, was not commonly heard in early European literature beyond, for example, the idealized images of shepherdesses in pastourellas, or the humble beginnings of some saints' lives. That Chaucer's travellers are realistic and vivid even in such unappealing details as the Cook's festering boil, bespeaks their humanity in a sterile landscape. The two novices just described are among characters whom Deschamps described with surprising vividness for a fourteenth-century French writer. The reader can see and hear the pastoral dances and songs. And any young woman of Deschamps' time or the present would feel for these young women's situation. Several of the women whose voices Deschamps used next are similarly appealing.

In “Balade 1144” (SATF VI, 72), Deschamps speaks through a serving girl who offers the advice not to judge a book by its covers. She no longer trusts even the most apparently innocuous circumstances. Rising at first light to hang the laundry out to dry, she has been tricked by clear skies into leaving the wash, only to have one barely noticeable cloud (“une nuee obscure”) suddenly block out the sun and rain so much that all her work is lost. From this and other quotidien misadventures, she has gleaned the folk wisdom voiced in the refrain: “L'en ne doit pas tout jugier de l'oeil.” (One mustn't judge everything by eye.) This rare domestic voice is unprecedented in literature of this period. But anyone whose domestic plans have ever hit a snag recognizes this serving girl's experience and the quality of her advice.

The last of the female voices to be heard in this discussion are those of angry wives who speak against their husbands in four poems. The wife in “Balade 1232” (SATF VI, 235) rails against her unfaithful husband who not only has been cheating on her so blatantly that other townspeople come to her bearing tales of his misdeeds, but also has been spending their community property on his “little girls,” (“fillettes.”) This wife, however, does not merely bewail her condition, but will get her revenge even if, as her refrain asserts, she does nothing else.⁷ And since he has been “breaking their marriage,” (“Puisqu'il brise son mariage,” l.26), so, by Saint Arnold, will she. She will furnish her “cage” with a bird for her comfort. (“… je pourverray a ma caige / D'un oisel, pour moy conforter” lines 17-18). Her conclusion, stated in the balade's envoy, is that no one ought to blame her for her conduct. The speaker's ire and jealousy are most believable, and are enforced by her plain language and bawdy imagery.

The wife of “Balade 1235” (SATF VI, 240) voices an opposite complaint. She mourns her first beauty, when she was fourteen and fifteen. She describes the beauties of her body—all wasted as she was given in marriage to a vulgar peasant. After describing his physical and moral turpitude in colloquial language, she bewails the fate of all the wives of poor men—eternally serving their do-nothing husbands and inundated with children. This balade's refrain is, “No woman ever suffered such pain/grief” (“Onques femme n'ot tel dolour”). Those readers only familiar with Deschamps's anti-feminist poems will be quite surprised at the sympathetic image of the abused wife in this poem. Her youth and beauty have been spent without being appreciated on a vulgar man who is as useful to her as a jouster's dummy. This poem does fall among Deschamps' anti-marriage poems, but is unusual in its female perspective. There is no hint of sympathy for the elderly husband.

Two more complaints are voiced by the wife of a man named Giraudon. In “Balade 892” (SATF V, 78), the complaint is sexual in nature and bold in its statement. Like the wife of “Balade 1232,” Giraudon's wife is angered by his infidelities; however, her ire is expressed much more vulgarly. Once their relationship was tender and pleased her. It was as if he were a lord and she a lady, but now he is still a lord and she is reduced by him to the status of a chambermaid.⁸ She claims she will take a lover, and the very next man who shivarees her.⁹ Her stated reason for her proposed infidelity is that her sexual organs will putrefy if left too long unused.¹⁰ In the final strophe of this balade, she strongly cautions women who take lovers not to marry them, for that is what she has done. At first, he came at her beck and call; now she will never again have anything that will please her. This conflict of marital versus non-marital love relationships is quite unusual. Courtly love poetry generally depicts the married lady with an adulterous lover. Giraudon and his wife's marriage would seem to lend support to the courtly conceit that love cannot thrive in marriage, but only outside its bounds.

In “Rondeau 670” (IV, 129), the same wife complains against the same husband, for the same reasons, but this time in completely unrepeatable language. Using language completely unacceptable in polite society, she bewails his decline as a lover. She recalls that he used to satisfy her sexuality, but, because of his ribald lifestyle her “malady” remains uncured. In the poem's three refrains, she says:

He! Giraudon, qu'est tes viz devenus?
Maudite soit ta ribaude de vie,
Quant tu ne pues saner ma maladie!

(1-3)

(Hey! Giraudon, what's happened to your screw?
Curse your licentious life,
If you can't cure my malady any more!)

She defies him to return to her sexual parts, lest she have more cause to repeat her refrain. Deschamps has written many other poems in similar scabrous language, but this is the only one spoken by a woman.

The majority of the work on the topic of Deschamps's feminine figures remains to be done, but even this preliminary overview makes it clear that Deschamps can no longer be considered just another one of the herd of medieval, anti-feminist ranters and ravers. His women speak with humanity, credibility, and passion. They represent women from all walks of life. Deschamps presents them sympathetically—the serving girl, the novices, the betrayed and embittered wives—allowing the reader to hear their individual voices in everyday scenes from fourteenth-century French life. Although he expresses unadulterated misogyny in other places, in these poems in women's voices, he clearly voices the frustration and anger that must have informed much of such women's lives.

Notes

1. These poems will be the object of future study for me. Among the (twenty-seven) mentioned, two are spoken by old ladies; and one by a young lady. At least eight are dialogues between ladies and their lovers or the lovers' would be detractors. Three rondels answer a prince's request for love. Several answer the charges of tale-bearing, jealous slanderers. Many complain of the passage of time and the concomitant loss of beauty and youth.

2. All references are to the Raynaud/Queue de Sainte-Hilaire, Société des Anciens Textes Français edition of the complete works of Deschamps, referred to in the text as SATF.

3. Moult fu amee de Caton
   Et des vii. ars pour enseignier
   Science, et vivre sanz dangier
   Par sage et seur gouvernement …

   (15-18)

4. … tu n'as riens fors les biens de nature,
   Fragilite, debilite, ordure;
   Les biens mondains fuitis et fortunez
   Sont par ma main retoluz et donez
   Ou il me plaist …

   (4-8)

5. Du cloistre me suis retraitte,
   Ou l'en doit rendre contrette
   Ou corps de rude facon,
   Femme borgne ou contrefette,
   Non pas fille joliete,
   Qui scet baler du talon.

   (6-11)

6. Je n'y ay riens apriz
   Fors un mot d'amourette
   Qui ma fait sy gaiette,
   Que jauray bel amy,
   Autre rien ne me hette.

   (8-11)

7. Si j'en puis nullement finer.

8. Il estoit sers et je dame; …
   …
   … sires est et je suis chambriere

   (3, 6)

9. … un chascun me fait charivari

   (11)

10. Le trou purra si je n'ay de l'entrait.

    (11, 15)

Works Cited

Deschamps, Eustache. Oeuvres complètes de Eustache Deschamps, Gaston Raynaud & Queux de Saint-Hilaire, eds. Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1878-1903; Rpt. NY: Johnson Reprint Corp., 11 vols., 1966.