Chaitivel

In Chaitivel, Marie de France takes a different twist than in previous lais. She tells a lai where a young maiden is in love with 4 nights at once. This is the first we have read of more than one lover at a time during our journey through Marie de France. By Marie introducing various situations every time in her lais, I believe she may be trying to prove the point that individuals in the medieval romance era were willing to do anything to have just an ounce of love in their life. Whether there is betrayal involved or not the characters go against all odds, in secrecy, to be with their true love. The lai of Chaitivel intrigues me because after 3 of the knights have died trying to prove their worthiness and the 4th is alive yet wounded terribly, the average individual would assume the women would gladly take the knight as her own because he has proved himself worthy but she is in such grief that the 4th wishes himself dead rather than to having to bear her misery.