Laüstic is a lai written by Marie de France. It tells of a woman who falls in love with her neighbour.
Characters[]
- The first knight's wife
- The first knight
- The second knight
Plot[]
In the St. Malo region, two knights live in houses adjacent to each other. One of the knights falls in love with the wife of his neighbour and begins a secret relationship - exchanging gifts between their houses in the middle of the night.
As time goes on, the first knight becomes aware of his wife's strange habit of peering through the window in the night. To hide her affair, she claims that she is listening to the song of the nightingale. To keep his wife "in line", the jealous knight has his servants capture the nightingale and the knight kills it in front of his wife. The wife is despondent, realizing that she can no longer see her lover in the night.
To send a message to her lover, the wife writes a message on the nightingale's silk funeral shroud in gold writing. The wife's lover preserves the body of the bird in a reliquary bedazzled with jewels and begins carrying him around with it.
Notes[]
- Laüstic is featured within the Harley 978 manuscript alongside the original manuscript of Marie de France's lais.