Identify this medieval poem for me, please!

January 24, 2024 3:22 AM

The most memorable line is something about 'shall the [some kind of lesser animal] [do a thing] where the lion once [did a more majestic thing]'? As I recall, it's a poem by a woman after the death of her first lover or husband, and she's using it to deter a would be suitor. I *feel* like it may have been a king, but I'm not entirely certain. Please help, I only vaguely recall this on the edge of my memory, it's been driving me mad for weeks, and search engines are shit now.
posted by corb to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

Unclear why I felt the need to search for this at 3 am, but are you thinking of Yvain (a knight) and Laudine (the widow of a guy Yvain killed)? From a French Arthurian romantic poem, Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes. They did end up getting married but then he flounced off to have knightly adventures, breaking a promise to her, and he seems to have killed a snake in order to save a lion, and in doing so, there was a bunch of opining about the nobility of lions compared to snakes. Here’s a translation of the poem: link. Go to the part where it says “Yvain encounters the lion.” Then later other things happen with the saved lion.
posted by loulou718 at 3:53 AM on January 24

It's not a medieval poem so I'm not sure, but this sounds very similar to two poems in Guy Gavriel Kay in his novel The Lions of Al-Rassan:

When the Lion at his pleasure comes
To the watering place to drink, ah see!
See the lesser beasts of Al-Rassan
Scatter, like blown leaves in autumn,
Like air-borne seedlings in the spring,
Like grey clouds that part to let the first star
Of the god shine down upon the earth.


Let only sorrow speak tonight.
Let sorrow name the moons.
Let the pale blue light be loss
And the white one memory.
Let clouds obscure the brightness
Of the high, holy stars,
And shroud the watering place
Where he was wont to slake his thirst.
Where lesser beasts now gather
Since the Lion will come no more...

A character composes and recites them about his king (the lion), the second one after he dies.
posted by mephisjo at 4:46 AM on January 24

Of course my suggestion above still may be a long shot, but I thought that seeing the wording may help you flush out the phrasing for better search results or for answers here.
posted by mephisjo at 5:19 AM on January 24

Could it be Shakespeare? This seems like the kind of thing Hamlet might have said to his mother, but ctrl-F for "lion" across the text of Hamlet doesn't find it.
posted by hovey at 7:14 AM on January 24

So definitely not any of the above but does help on narrowing - I remember it as a relatively short - under twenty lines and maybe even under fifteen - and it was a direct address from the woman to the man. The closest I can approximate is “Shall the (jackal?) (eat?) where the lion once (trod?) I remember that it’s explicitly about rejecting a sexual advance, the guy isn’t I believe looking to marry her but even if he was, she’s rejecting him in sexual terms on the basis that the king was so awesome that she can’t sleep with a lesser man.
posted by corb at 10:17 AM on January 24

There's quite a bit of.comparing both Penelope and Odysseus to lions in the Odyssey plus Penelope is all about deterring suitors. There is an essay about lion comparison in the Odyssey which I am struggling to link to but search "Mourning Lions and Penelope’s Revenge".

Example from the Odyssey:

There she found Odysseus among the slaughtered dead men,
spattered over with gore and battle filth, like a lion
who has been feeding on an ox of the fields, and goes off
covered with blood, all his chest and his flanks on either
side bloody, a terrible thing to look in the face;

The author also refers to some modern poetry "Penelope writes" (well 1982) by Katha Pollitt which considers things from Penelope's POV, which might be relevant but I can't find a link.
posted by biffa at 4:56 AM on January 25