Yvain 3

There is the question of whether or not this is true love between Laudine and Yvain. Each time that they are brought together there is always Lunete involved with one of her plans. It doesn’t seem like love, but it seems more like Lunete bring them together because it will benefit them both.  This questions whether or not Lunete should have been killed for treason towards Laudine. Towards the conclusion of the text when Yvain creates this huge storm Laudine ask Lunete to find someone to protect the land because she knows that none of the men in the land would. Laudine suggests the knight with the lion, but Lunete says she can’t get him for he is no good because he is sad and dying of grief because the lady he loves will not forgive him.  Lunete basically traps Laudine because she says she doesn’t believe he will come unless the person swore and promised to do everything in his power to alleviate the great enmity that his lady feels towards him. Laudine is so naïve that she promises to do what she can: “ ‘I am prepared,’ her lady replied, ‘to pledge to you my word of honour before you set out on this quest that, if he comes to my rescue, I will do everything he desires, without guile or deception, to reconcile them, if I am able’”(Chrétien 377).  By Lunete having Laudine pledge her word it not only saves Lunete from seeming as if she betrayed Laudine, but also forces her to reconcile with Yvain because she has promised and she can’t break it.  Towards the end of the text when Laudine reconciles with Yvain it seems that she only does it because she promised and she doesn’t want to break her promise:” ‘I agree to this, because I’d be guilty of perjury if I did not do everything I could to make peace between us. So if you please, I grant it to you’ “(Chrétien 380). It seems as though she is settling because she figures not one can measure up to Yvain, and because she needs someone to protect her land. Yvain is so consumed by love for her that it all works they both get what they need from the relationship and it seems that as time goes on that is when they have no other choice, but to fall in love with each other because they both vowed and made promises that they can’t break.  It seems as though their relationship is convenient.