Yde et Olive
Thirteenth-century chanson de geste
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Yde et Olive is a thirteenth-century chanson de geste written in decasyllabic monorhyming laisses in a Picard-influenced dialect of Old French.[1] It is one episode in a cycle of sequels to Huon de Bordeaux that follow various members of his family. Sometimes titled La Chason d'Yde et Olive by editors, it follows La Chanson d'Esclarmonde, the story of Huon's wife and Yde's grandmother, and La Chason de Clarisse et Florent, the story of Yde's parents. Yde et Olive is punctuated by a poem titled Croissant, which tells the story of Yde and Olive's son. Yde's story resumes after this interlude and is usually edited as Yde et Olive II. Yde et Olive is a relatively unstudied chanson compared with its counterparts in the Huon series.
It is considered by some scholars to be the earliest Old French adaptation of the myth of Iphis in Ovid's Metamorphoses, though other scholars have questioned whether this ancient cognate is anything more than coincidentally similar.[2] Likewise, it has been postulated that the story was worked into dramatic form in the Miracle de la fille d'un roy (1454), but scholars have also rejected this hypothesis, claiming that the transference of the motif of a cross-dressing heroine escaping her father's incestuous desires results from oral tradition rather than direct textual influence.[3] The play does not significantly deviate from the chanson except in its finale (the heroine Ysabelle's true sex is discovered at the end, where she restored to womanhood and married to the king instead of remaining married to his daughter), more similar to the ending of Le Roman de Silence. Caroline Cazanave's quintessential book[4] on the Huon de Bordeaux Sequel Cycle contains an extensive discussion of the text and the manuscript tradition.
Manuscript and editions
The story of Yde and Olive appears in two manuscripts:
- Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, français, 1451, f. 225r (short summary of the text)
- Turin, Biblioteca nazionale universitaria, L. II. 14, f. 389va-395va and 397rb-399va
The latter contains the only surviving complete version of the story of Yde and Olive. The Turin manuscript, known as Ms T, is an illuminated and beautifully decorated book that fortunately survived the fire that ravaged the library in 1904. The manuscript has since been restored several times, though some pages have been permanently damaged. It has recently been digitized in its entirety.
The first part of Yde's story was translated into Modern English by Mounawar Abbouchi in Medieval Feminist Forum. The translation is accompanied by a facing-page edition of the original text and is accessible online. More recentlyin 2024, Elena Podetti published with Champion her edition of Yde et Olive I, Croissant, and Yde et Olive II. The Huon de Bordeaux Sequel Cycle had previously been edited twice in its entirety, once by Max Schweigel's in 1889, and a second time in a 1977 dissertation by Barbara Anne Brewka at Vanderbilt University.
Plot
The marriage of Florent to Clarisse is briefly recounted. A triumphant Florent returns to Aragon and is crowned king after the death of his father, Garin. Shortly after, Clarisse finds herself with child, but fears her pregnancy, and with good reason as the queen dies giving birth to a daughter named Yde. Florent goes into prolonged mourning, ignoring his kingly and fatherly duties, and refusing to remarry despite the insistence of his barons. However, as Yde grows into a young woman and the resemblance to Clarisse grows more pronounced, Oton falls in love with his own child and decides to marry her. Horrified by the prospect, Yde disguises herself as a man, steals her father's horse, and flees the country. Going by Ydés, the hero now embarks on a series of chivalric adventures that eventually lead him to Rome, where he begins to serve the king, Oton. Impressed by his valor, Oton decides to marry Yde to his one and only daughter, Olive, and make him his heir. Finding no other way out, Yde reluctantly agrees to wed Olive. Yde abstains from consummating the marriage for fifteen days after their wedding, feining illness. Finally unable to resist his wife's urging that they consummate the marriage, Yde confesses his secret to Olive. The latter reassures him that his secret is safe, but their conversation is overheard and reported to the king, who vows to have them both burned if the story is true. In order to learn the truth, Oton summons Yde to bathe with him. The hero and his princess wife believe that all is lost and pray for salvation, when at the eleventh hour, an angel descends from heaven to appeal to the king not to test such a tried and true vassal. The angel then announces that by the will of God, Yde is now a man in body, that Oton will die eight days hence, and that Yde and Olive will conceive a child who will be named Croissant that very night.[1]
The episode some scholars have called Croissant follows, telling of the deeds of Yde and Olive's son. The narrative then picks up in Yde et Olive II with Florent dead and Yde returning to Aragon as the rightful heir to claim his throne.
Influence and Adaptations
Medieval and Early Modern
Adaptations into Prose
In the early sixteenth century the cycle of sequels was rewritten into prose as part of Les prouesses et faictz merveilleux du noble huon de bordeaulx[5], which was then translated into Middle English and printed as The Boke of Duke Huon of Burdeux[6] by John Bourchier, Lord Berners, for Francis Hastings, Earl of Huntingdon, early in the century, to be printed twice more, c. 1570 and in 1601. The stories were developed into a novel-like retelling.
Miracle Play
A direct connection between the miracle play, Le miracle de la fille d'un roy, and Yde et Olive is contested, but the two share themes and plot points. In the play, the daughter of a king flees her father's incestuous desire and becomes a knight. It is miracle #37 in Les miracles de Nostre Dames par personnages[7].
In Modern Culture
Daisy Black adapted Yde and Olive into a storytelling performance that she took on a tour in the UK in 2025[8]. In 2022, a short animation inspired by Yde et Olive was created by Camille Lorthioy, Julien Lin, Pauline de la Provôté, Sllène Chauveau, Meije Lanson, and Caroline Pagès[9] for their graduating project from Ecole Méliès.