"Les Deus Amanz" is a Breton lai

Breton lai

A Breton lai, also known as a narrative lay or simply a lay, is a form of medieval French and English romance literature. Lais are short , rhymed tales of love and chivalry, often involving supernatural and fairy-world Celtic motifs...

, a type of narrative poem, written by Marie de France

Marie de France

Marie de France was a medieval poet who was probably born in France and lived in England during the late 12th century. She lived and wrote at an undisclosed court, but was almost certainly at least known about at the royal court of King Henry II of England...

 sometime in the 12th century. The poem belongs to what is collectively known as The Lais of Marie de France

The Lais of Marie de France

The Lais of Marie de France are a series of twelve short narrative Breton lais by the poet Marie de France. They are written in the Anglo-Norman and were probably composed in the late 12th century. The short, narrative poems generally focus on glorifying the concept of courtly love through the...

. Like the other lais in the collection, Les Deux Amants is written in Old French

Old French

Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...

, in rhyming octosyllabic couplets. This lai tells the tragic story of two lovers.

Plot summary

A widowed king takes comfort in raising his beautiful daughter, and he is reluctant to let go of her when she is of marriageable age. He challenges all her potential suitors to prove themselves by carrying her up a nearby mountain. Many men make the attempt and fail. When the king's daughter falls in love with a noble and handsome man, she tells the man of a magical potion that will renew his strength and allow him to carry her all the way up the mountain. He obtains the tonic from her aunt who has vast medical knowledge, but when he tries to carry her up the mountain, he stubbornly refuses to take the potion. He succeeds in bringing her to the summit, but he collapses from exhaustion and dies. She tries to give him some of the potion to revive him, but he is already dead. She then throws the vial to the side and dies from a broken heart. The site where the vial breaks becomes a fertile ground for various beneficial herbs. The people of the kingdom bury them on the mountain, and the mountain becomes known as "the Mountain of Two Lovers".

Allusions

The mountain mentioned in the poem actually exists, near the commune

Communes of France

The commune is the lowest level of administrative division in the French Republic. French communes are roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities or villages in the United States or Gemeinden in Germany...

 of Pîtres

Pîtres

Pîtres is a commune in the Eure department in Haute-Normandie in northern France. It lies on the Seine.-History:Historically, it had a bridge to prevent Vikings from sailing up the river to Paris. It was here that King Charles the Bald promulgated the Edict of Pistres in...

 in the Haute-Normandie

Haute-Normandie

Upper Normandy is one of the 27 regions of France. It was created in 1984 from two départements: Seine-Maritime and Eure, when Normandy was divided into Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. This division continues to provoke controversy, and some continue to call for reuniting the two regions...

 region of France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.