Why does Marie leave the story so open ended when she has told us that the love of Tristan and the queen “brought them much suffering and caused them to die the same day” (9-10)? Does this relate to her focus on Tristan’s hazel-wood message?
ENGL 365 | Medieval Object Ecologies
Dr. Myra Seaman | Fall 2014
The hazel wood and the honeysuckle entwined is the symbol of Tristan and the queen (Islode)’s relationship, and it symbolizes the joy and sweetness of their love. And while, like the hazel wood and honeysuckle, their love will not last forever, the joy that they had is enough and worth it, and Tristan’s message in the tree is evidence enough of their love.
I find that this lai is open ended in that we learn very little about the actual manner of the lover’s deaths. In the closing lines we learn that Tristan himself composed the original version of the lai of which Marie tells us the “truth.” If Tristan composed this lai, then of course the tale would be open ended, because he could not have composed any lines about his own death, being that he would be dead. I feel like that is an over simplistic answer but that is all that I can deduce.
In regards to your reference to his message to the queen, which culminates:
“Sweet love, so it is with us:
You cannot live without me, nor I
without you.”
Here, Marie seems to fixate on the metaphor of the hazel and the honeysuckle. It is perplexing that Tristan (who, in writing the lai, could not have predicted the manner of their death) would condemn himself and his love or, more appropriately , foreshadow his own doom so accurately. This -in my opinion- evidences that Marie is perhaps not telling us the whole truth, that Tristan did not compose this lai, and subsequently we must quest if this “truth” was ever legitimately grounded in historical fact.