Domnei

“En cor gentil domnei per mort no passa.”

To
Sarah Read McAdams
In Gratitude and Affection

“The complication of opinions and ideas, of affections and habits, which prompted the chevalier to devote himself to the service of a lady, and by which he strove to prove to her his love, and to merit hers in return, was expressed, in the language of the Troubadours, by a single word, by the word domnei, a derivation of domna, which may be regarded as an alteration of the Latin domina, lady, mistress.”

C. C. Fauriel, History of Provençal Poetry

A Preface

It would be absorbing to discover the present feminine attitude toward the profoundest compliment ever paid women by the heart and mind of men in league—the worshipping devotion conceived by Plato and elevated to a living faith in medieval France. Through that renaissance of a sublimated passion domnei was regarded as a throne of alabaster by the chosen figures of its service: Melicent, at Bellegarde, waiting for her marriage with King Theodoret, held close an image of Perion made of substance that time was powerless to destroy; and which, in a life of singular violence, where blood hung scarlet before men’s eyes like a tapestry, burned in a silver flame untroubled by the fate of her body. It was, to her, a magic that kept her inviolable, perpetually, in spite of marauding fingers, a rose in the blanched perfection of its early flowering.

The clearest possible case for that religion was that it transmuted the individual subject of its adoration into the deathless splendor of a Madonna unique and yet divisible in a mirage of earthly loveliness. It was heaven come to Aquitaine, to the Courts of Love, in shapes of vivid fragrant beauty, with delectable hair lying gold on white samite worked in borders of blue petals. It chose not abstractions for its faith, but the most desirable of all actual—yes, worldly—incentives: the sister, it might be, of Count Emmerick of Poictesme. And, approaching beatitude not so much through a symbol of agony as by the fragile grace of a woman, raising Melicent to the stars, it fused, more completely than in any other aspiration, the spirit and the flesh.

However, in its contact, its lovers’ delight, it was no more than a slow clasping and unclasping of the hands; the spirit and flesh, merged, became spiritual; the height of stars was not a figment. … Here, since the conception of domnei has so utterly vanished, the break between the ages impassable, the sympathy born of understanding is interrupted. Hardly a woman, today, would value a sigh the passion which turned a man steadfastly away that he might be with her forever beyond the parched forest of death. Now such emotion is held strictly to the gains, the accountability, of life’s immediate span; women have left their cloudy magnificence for a footing on earth; but—at least in warm graceful youth—their dreams are still of a Perion de la Forêt. These, clear-eyed, they disavow; yet their secret desire, the most Elysian of all hopes, to burn at once with the body and the soul, mocks what they find.

That vision, dominating Mr. Cabell’s pages, the record of his revealed idealism, brings specially to Domnei a beauty finely escaping the dusty confusion of any present. It is a book laid in a purity, a serenity, of space above the vapors, the bigotry and engendered spite, of dogma and creed. True to yesterday, it will be faithful of tomorrow; for, in the evolution of humanity, not necessarily the turn of a wheel upward, certain qualities have remained at the center, undisturbed. And, of these, none is more fixed than an abstract love.

Different in men than in women, it is, for the former, an instinct, a need, to serve rather than be served: their desire is for a shining image superior, at best, to both lust and maternity. This consciousness, grown so dim that it is scarcely perceptible, yet still alive, is not extinguished with youth, but lingers hopeless of satisfaction through the incongruous years of middle age. There is never a man, gifted to any degree with imagination, but eternally searches for an ultimate loveliness not disappearing in the circle of his embrace—the instinctively Platonic gesture toward the only immortality conceivable in terms of ecstasy.

A truth, now, in very low esteem! With the solidification of society, of property, the bond of family has been tremendously exalted, the mere fact of parenthood declared the last sanctity. Together with this, naturally, the persistent errantry of men, so vulgarly misunderstood, has become only a reprehensible paradox. The entire shelf of James Branch Cabell’s books, dedicated to an unquenchable masculine idealism, has, as well, a paradoxical place in an age of material sentimentality. Compared with the novels of the moment, Domnei is an isolated, a heroic fragment of a vastly deeper and higher structure. And, of its many aspects, it is not impossible that the highest, rising over even its heavenly vision, is the rare, the simple, fortitude of its statement.

Whatever dissent the philosophy of Perion and Melicent may breed, no one can fail to admire the steady courage with which it is upheld. Aside from its special preoccupation, such independence in the face of ponderable threat, such accepted isolation, has a rare stability in a world treacherous with mental quicksands and evasions. This is a valor not drawn from insensibility, but from the sharpest possible recognition of all the evil and Cyclopean forces in existence, and a deliberate engagement of them on their own ground. Nothing more, in that direction, can be asked of Mr. Cabell, of anyone. While about the story itself, the soul of Melicent, the form and incidental writing, it is no longer necessary to speak.

The pages have the rich sparkle of a past like stained glass called to life: the Confraternity of St. Médard presenting their masque of Hercules; the claret colored walls adorned with gold cinquefoils of Demetrios’ court; his pavilion with porticoes of Andalusian copper; Theodoret’s capital, Megaris, ruddy with bonfires; the free port of Narenta with its sails spread for the land of pagans; the lichen-incrusted glade in the Forest of Columbiers; gardens with the walks sprinkled with crocus and vermilion and powdered mica … all are at once real and bright with unreality, rayed with the splendor of an antiquity built from webs and films of imagined wonder. The past is, at its moment, the present, and that lost is valueless. Distilled by time, only an imperishable romantic conception remains; a vision, where it is significant, animated by the feelings, the men and women, which only, at heart, are changeless.

They, the surcharged figures of Domnei, move vividly through their stone galleries and closes, in procession, and—a far more difficult accomplishment—alone. The lute of the Bishop of Montors, playing as he rides in scarlet, sounds its Provençal refrain; the old man Theodoret, a king, sits shabbily between a prie-dieu and the tarnished hangings of his bed; Mélusine, with the pale frosty hair of a child, spins the melancholy of departed passion; Ahasuerus the Jew buys Melicent for a hundred and two minae and enters her room past midnight for his act of abnegation. And at the end, looking, perhaps, for a mortal woman, Perion finds, in a flesh not unscarred by years, the rose beyond destruction, the high silver flame of immortal happiness.

So much, then, everything in the inner questioning of beings condemned to a glimpse of remote perfection, as though the sky had opened on a city of pure bliss, transpires in Domnei; while the fact that it is laid in Poictesme sharpens the thrust of its illusion. It is by that much the easier of entry; it borders—rather than on the clamor of mills—on the reaches men explore, leaving’ weariness and dejection for fancy—a geography for lonely sensibilities betrayed by chance into the blind traps, the issueless barrens, of existence.

Nicolas de Caen, one of the most eminent of the early French writers of romance, was born at Caen in Normandy early in the 15th century, and was living in 1470. Little is known of his life, apart from the fact that a portion of his youth was spent in England, where he was connected in some minor capacity with the household of the Queen Dowager, Joan of Navarre. In later life, from the fact that two of his works are dedicated to Isabella of Portugal, third wife to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, it is conjectured that Nicolas was attached to the court of that prince. … Nicolas de Caen was not greatly esteemed nor highly praised by his contemporaries, or by writers of the century following, but latterly has received the recognition due to his unusual qualities of invention and conduct of narrative, together with his considerable knowledge of men and manners, and occasional remarkable modernity of thought. His books, therefore, apart from the interest attached to them as specimens of early French romance, and in spite of the difficulties and crudities of the unformed language in which they are written, are still readable, and are rich in instructive detail concerning the age that gave them birth. … Many romances are attributed to Nicolas de Caen. Modern criticism has selected four only as undoubtedly his. These are—(1) Les Aventures d’Adhelmar de Nointel, a metrical romance, plainly of youthful composition, containing some seven thousand verses; (2) Le Roy Amaury, well known to English students in Watson’s spirited translation; (3) Le Roman de Lusignan, a re-handling of the Melusina myth, most of which is wholly lost; (4) Le Dizain des Reines, a collection of quasi-historical novellino interspersed with lyrics. Six other romances are known to have been written by Nicolas, but these have perished; and he is credited with the authorship of Le Cocu Rouge, included by Hinsauf, and of several Ovidian translations or imitations still unpublished. The Satires formerly attributed to him Bülg has shown to be spurious compositions of 17th century origin.

Nicolas de Caen est un représentant agréable, naïf, et expressif de cet âge que nous aimons à nous représenter de loin comme l’âge d’or du bon vieux temps … Nicolas croyait à son Roy et à sa Dame, il croyait surtout à son Dieu. Nicolas sentait que le monde était semé à chaque pas d’obscurités et d’embûches, et que l’inconnu était partout; partout aussi était le protecteur invisible et le soutien; à chaque souffle qui frémissait, Nicolas croyait le sentir comme derrière le rideau. Le ciel par-dessus ce Nicolas de Caen était ouvert, peuplé en chaque point de figures vivantes, de patrons attentifs et manifestes, d’une invocation directe. Le plus intrépide guerrier alors marchait dans un mélange habituel de crainte et de confiance, comme un tout petit enfant. A cette vue, les esprits les plus émancipés d’aujourd’hui ne sauraient s’empêcher de crier, en tempérant leur sourire par le respect: Sancta simplicitas!

The Argument

“Of how, through Woman-Worship, knaves compound
With honoure; Kings reck not of their domaine;
Proud Pontiffs sigh; & War-men world-renownd,
Toe win one Woman, all things else disdaine:
Since Melicent doth in herselfe contayne
All this world’s Riches that may farre be found.

“If Saphyres ye desire, her eies are plaine;
If Rubies, loe, hir lips be Rubyes sound;
If Pearles, hir teeth be Pearles, both pure & round;
If Yvorie, her forehead Yvory weene;
If Gold, her locks with finest Gold abound;
If Silver, her faire hands have Silver’s sheen.

“Yet that which fayrest is, but Few beholde,
Her Soul adornd with vertues manifold.”

Sir William Allonby

The romance of Lusignan of that forgotten maker in the French tongue, messire Nicolas de Caen. Here begins the tale which they of Poictesme narrate concerning dame Melicent, that was daughter to the great count Manuel.

I

How Perion Was Unmasked

Perion afterward remembered the two weeks spent at Bellegarde as in recovery from illness a person might remember some long fever dream which was all of an intolerable elvish brightness and of incessant laughter everywhere. They made a deal of him in Count Emmerick’s pleasant home: day by day the outlaw was thrust into relations of mirth with noblemen, proud ladies, and even with a king; and was all the while half lightheaded through his singular knowledge as to how precariously the self-styled Vicomte de Puysange now balanced himself, as it were, upon a gilded stepping-stone from infamy to oblivion.

Now that King Theodoret had withdrawn his sinister presence, young Perion spent some seven hours of every day alone, to all intent, with Dame Melicent. There might be merry people within a stone’s throw, about this recreation or another, but these two seemed to watch aloofly, as royal persons do the antics of their hired comedians, without any condescension into open interest. They were together; and the jostle of earthly happenings might hope, at most, to afford them matter for incurious comment.

They sat, as Perion thought, for the last time together, part of an audience before which the Confraternity of St. Médard was enacting a masque of The Birth of Hercules. The Bishop of Montors had returned to Bellegarde that evening with his brother, Count Gui, and the pleasure-loving prelate had brought these mirth-makers in his train. Clad in scarlet, he rode before them playing upon a lute—unclerical conduct which shocked his preciser brother and surprised nobody.

In such circumstances Perion began to speak with an odd purpose, because his reason was bedrugged by the beauty and purity of Melicent, and perhaps a little by the slow and clutching music to whose progress the chorus of Theban virgins was dancing. When he had made an end of harsh whispering, Melicent sat for a while in scrupulous appraisement of the rushes. The music was so sweet it seemed to Perion he must go mad unless she spoke within the moment.

Then Melicent said:

“You tell me you are not the Vicomte de Puysange. You tell me you are, instead, the late King Helmas’ servitor, suspected of his murder. You are the fellow that stole the royal jewels—the outlaw for whom half Christendom is searching—”

Thus Melicent began to speak at last; and still he could not intercept those huge and tender eyes whose purple made the thought of heaven comprehensible.

The man replied:

“I am that widely hounded Perion of the Forest. The true vicomte is the wounded rascal over whose delirium we marvelled only last Tuesday. Yes, at the door of your home I attacked him, fought him—hah, but fairly, madame!—and stole his brilliant garments and with them his papers. Then in my desperate necessity I dared to masquerade. For I know enough about dancing to estimate that to dance upon air must necessarily prove to everybody a disgusting performance, but preeminently unpleasing to the main actor. Two weeks of safety till the Tranchemer sailed I therefore valued at a perhaps preposterous rate. Tonight, as I have said, the ship lies at anchor off Manneville.”

Melicent said an odd thing, asking, “Oh, can it be you are a less despicable person than you are striving to appear!”

“Rather, I am a more unmitigated fool than even I suspected, since when affairs were in a promising train I have elected to blurt out, of all things, the naked and distasteful truth. Proclaim it now; and see the late Vicomte de Puysange lugged out of this hall and after appropriate torture hanged within the month.” And with that Perion laughed.

Thereafter he was silent. As the masque went, Amphitryon had newly returned from warfare, and was singing under Alcmena’s window in the terms of an aubade, a waking-song. “Rei glorios, verais lums e clardatz—” Amphitryon had begun. Dame Melicent heard him through.

And after many ages, as it seemed to Perion, the soft and brilliant and exquisite mouth was pricked to motion.

“You have affronted, by an incredible imposture and beyond the reach of mercy, every listener in this hall. You have injured me most deeply of all persons here. Yet it is to me alone that you confess.”

Perion leaned forward. You are to understand that, through the incurrent necessities of every circumstance, each of them spoke in whispers, even now. It was curious to note the candid mirth on either side. Mercury was making his adieux to Alcmena’s waiting-woman in the middle of a jig.

“But you,” sneered Perion, “are merciful in all things. Rogue that I am, I dare to build on this notorious fact. I am snared in a hard golden trap, I cannot get a guide to Manneville, I cannot even procure a horse from Count Emmerick’s stables without arousing fatal suspicions; and I must be at Manneville by dawn or else be hanged. Therefore I dare stake all upon one throw; and you must either save or hang me with unwashed hands. As surely as God reigns, my future rests with you. And as I am perfectly aware, you could not live comfortably with a gnat’s death upon your conscience. Eh, am I not a seasoned rascal?”

“Do not remind me now that you are vile,” said Melicent. “Ah, no, not now!”

“Lackey, impostor, and thief!” he sternly answered. “There you have the catalogue of all my rightful titles. And besides, it pleases me, for a reason I cannot entirely fathom, to be unpardonably candid and to fling my destiny into your lap. Tonight, as I have said, the Tranchemer lies off Manneville; keep counsel, get me a horse if you will, and tomorrow I am embarked for desperate service under the harried Kaiser of the Greeks, and for throat-cuttings from which I am not likely ever to return. Speak, and I hang before the month is up.”

Dame Melicent looked at him now, and within the moment Perion was repaid, and bountifully, for every folly and misdeed of his entire life.

“What harm have I ever done you, Messire de la Forêt, that you should shame me in this fashion? Until tonight I was not unhappy in the belief I was loved by you. I may say that now without paltering, since you are not the man I thought some day to love. You are but the rind of him. And you would force me to cheat justice, to become a hunted thief’s accomplice, or else to murder you!”

“It comes to that, madame.”

“Then I must help you preserve your life by any sorry stratagems you may devise. I shall not hinder you. I will procure you a guide to Manneville. I will even forgive you all save one offence, since doubtless heaven made you the foul thing you are.” The girl was in a hot and splendid rage. “For you love me. Women know. You love me. You!”

“Undoubtedly, madame.”

“Look into my face! and say what horrid writ of infamy you fancied was apparent there, that my nails may destroy it.”

“I am all base,” he answered, “and yet not so profoundly base as you suppose. Nay, believe me, I had never hoped to win even such scornful kindness as you might accord your lapdog. I have but dared to peep at heaven while I might, and only as lost Dives peeped. Ignoble as I am, I never dreamed to squire an angel down toward the mire and filth which is henceforward my inevitable kennel.”

“The masque is done,” said Melicent, “and yet you talk, and talk, and talk, and mimic truth so cunningly—Well, I will send some trusty person to you. And now, for God’s sake!—nay, for the fiend’s love who is your patron!—let me not ever see you again, Messire de la Forêt.”