Geoffrey’s Women
Ygerna’s character utterly baffled me. When Uther first walks in disguised as Gorlois, Geoffrey said that she “naturally believed all he said and refused him nothing,” implying that she is at least a dutiful wife-whether or not she actually loved Gorlois is up for debate. But then when Uther claims her in his own form, Geoffrey says that “From that day on they lived together as equals, united by their great love for each other.” Where did that come from? Is Ygerna just a fickle person, or does Geoffrey expect his women to love whichever man they’re currently married too? I was also surprised that Geoffrey would feel the need to say they lived as equals, since I didn’t think equality between men and women was an issue back then.
He also mentions Arthur’s sister Anna, who later married Loth of Orkney. In more modern versions of the Arthurian legend, this role is usually played by one of Arthur’s stepsisters Morgause or Morgan. What happened to Anna? Does anyone know when or why she disappeared from the legend?
madison73 wrote:
Geoffrey does have a strange idea of the character of the women in these accounts. And the phrase “as equals” seems to come up more than once when he talks about famous couples. After reading “Erec and Enide” though, that expression sort of takes on a different meaning. Any equality mentioned is usually referring to the love between a man and a woman, so whenever the relationship is described as an equal one it is just saying that the two loved each other equally. Maybe thats what Geoffrey meant when he said Ygerna and Uther lived as equals.
That still leaves her looking very fickle, but it can be read that although she did not love Gorlois she was nonetheless obedient, which is a pretty reasonable assumption for the times. Her love that appeared for Uther out of nowhere may just be another way of showing how great and magnificent Uther is – any woman would just fall in love with him on the spot. This reading makes a lot more sense after reading “Erec and Enide”, where love is not based on an exclusive connection between two people but rather on how admirable, beautiful, brave, noble, etc. an individual is.
Posted 15 Sep 2007 at 5:44 pm ¶