TRANSGRESSION AND OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW Sir Guillaume de Balaun was a troubadour who roamed the South of France in the Middle Ages, going ...
TRANSGRESSION AND OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW Sir Guillaume de Balaun was a troubadour who roamed the South of France in the Middle Ages, going from castle to castle, reciting poetry, and playing the perfect knight. At the castle of Javiac he met and fell in love with the beautiful lady of the house, Madame Guillelma de J aviac, He sang her his songs, recited his poetry, played chess with her, and little by little she in turn fell in love with him. Guillaume had a friend, Sir Pierre de Barjac, who traveled with him and who was also received at the castle, And Pierre too fell in love with a lady in Javiac, the gracious but temperamental Viernetta.
Then one day Pierre and Viernetta had a violent quarrel. The lady dismissed him, and he sought out his friend Guillaume to help heal the breach and get him back in her good graces. Guillaume was about to leave the castle for a while, but on his return, several weeks later, he worked his magie, and Pierre and the lady were reconciled. Pierre feit that his love had increased tenfold-that there was no stronger love, in fact, than the love that follows reconciliation. The stronger and longer the disagreement, he told Guillaume, the sweeter the feeling that comes with peace and rapprochement. As a troubadour, Sir Guillaume prided himself on experiencing all the joys and sorrows of love.
On hearing his friend's talk, he too wanted know the bliss of reconciliation after a quarrel. He therefore feigned great anger with Lady Guillelma, stopped sending her love letters, and abruptly left the castle and stayed away, even during the festivals and hunts. This drove the young lady wild. Guillelma sent messengers to Guillaume to find out what had happened, but he turned the messengers away. He thought an this would make her angry, forcing him to plead for reconciliation as Pierre had. Instead, however, his absence had the opposite effect: It made Guillelma love him all the more. Now the lady pursued her knight, sending messengers and love notes of her own. This was almost unheard of-a lady never pursued her troubadour. And Guillaume did not like it. Guillelma's forwardness made him feel she had lost some of her dignity. Not only was he no longer sure of his plan, he was no longer sure of his lady. Finally, after several months of not hearing from Guillaume, Guillelma gave up. She sent him no more messengers, and he began to wonder-perhaps she was angry? Perhaps the plan had worked after all? So much the better if she was. He would wait no more-it was time to reconcile. So he put on his best robe, decked the horse in its fanciest caparison, chose a magnificent heImet, and rode off to Javiac. On hearing that her beloved had returned, Guillelma rushed to see him, knelt before him, dropped her veil to kiss him, and begged forgiveness for whatever slight had caused his anger. Imagine his confusion and despair-his plan had failed abysmally. She was not angry, she had never been angry, she was only deeper in love, and he would never experience the joy of reconciliation after a quarrel. Seeing her now, and still desperate to taste that jOY, he decided to try one more time: He drove her away with harsh words and threatening gestures. She left, this time vowing never to see hirn again. The next morning the troubadour regretted what he had done. He rode back to Javiac, but the lady would not receive hirn, and ordered her servants to chase hirn away, across the drawbridge and over the hill. Guillaume fled. Back in his chamber he collapsed and started to cry: He had made a terrible mistake. Over the next year, unable to see his lady, he experienced the absence, the terrible absence, that can only inflame love. He wrote one of his most beautiful poems, "My song ascends for mercy praying." And he sent many letters to Guillelma, explaining what he had done, and begging forgiveness. After a great deal of this, Lady Guillelma, remembering his beautiful songs, his handsome figure, and his skills in dancing and falconry, found herself yearning to have hirn back. As penance for his cruelty, she ordered hirn to remove the nail from the little finger of his right hand, and to send it to her along with a poem describing his miseries. He did as she asked. Finally Guillaume de Balaun was able to taste the ultimate sensation-a reconciliation even surpassing that of his friend Pierre.
Interpretation Trying to discover the joys of reconciliation, Guillaume de Balaun inadvertently experienced the truth of the law of absence and presence. At the start of an affair, you need to heighten your presence in the eyes of the other. If you absent yourself too early, you may be forgotten. But once your lover's emotions are engaged, and the feeling of love has crystallized, absence inflames and excites. Giving no reason for your absence excites even more: The other person assurnes he or she is at fault. While you are away, the lover's imagination takes flight, and a stimulated imagination cannot help but make love grow stronger. Conversely, the more Guillelma pursued Guillaume, the less he loved her-she had become too present, too accessible, leaving no room for his imagination and fancy, so that his feelings were suffocating. When she finally stopped sending messengers,
he was able to breathe again, and to return to his plan. What withdraws, what becomes scarce, suddenly seems to deserve our respect and honor. What stays too long, inundating us with its presence, makes us disdain it. In the Middle Ages, ladies were constantly putting their knights through trials of love, sending them on some long and arduous quest-all to create a pattern of absence and presence. Indeed, had Guillaume not left his lady in the first place, she might have been forced to send hirn away, creating an absence of her own. Absence diminishes minor passions and inflames great ones, as the wind douses a candle and fans a fire. La Rochefoucauld, 1 613-1680 1' 1 \'1' 1 1 11'1'1 I', '; m 1'1 11: U)
C� While serving llnder the Duke Ai o[ Lu, T'ien Jao, rescnting hi .... ' ohscure position, said to his master, "I am going to wander [ar away Iike a snow goo.se. " What do YOll mean h)' that? " inquired the Duke, "Do you see the cock? " saiti T'ien Jao in reply. "Its cresl is a symhol of civi/ir)'; its power/i;! talons suggest slrenglh; irs daring to fixht any enemy denotes cuuraxe; its instinc! to in vite others whcnever [ood is ohlaincd shows henevolence; {lmi, lasl hut nOl leasl, its punelua!ity in keepi"g the time through Ihe niXfzl gives us an example of veracity In spile. however, of Ihese live virtues, the cock i,' daily killed to lill a dish on your tahle. Why? The reason is Ihat it is [ound wirhin our reach, On the other hand, the snow go(}se traverses in one jlixht a Ihousand li. Restinx in VOllr garden, il prey,; on YOllr fishcs ami tllrlle," and pecks . volIr millel, Though devoid u[ any of Ihe cock's five virtues, yel YOll prize (his hird f(Jr Ihe sake of ils scarcil)' This heing so. r shall jly far Iike a snow goose, " A NCIENT ('HINES�' PARABLES, Yli HSIl! SEN, Hl., 1 974 LAW 16 117 1 18 LAW 16 OBSERVAN CE OF THE LAW For many centuries the Assyrians ruled upper Asia with an iron fist. In the eighth century B.C., however, the people of Medea (now northwestem Iran) revolted against them, and finally broke free. Now the Medes had to establish a new govemment. Determined to avoid any form of despotism, they refused to give ultimate power to any one man, or to establish a monarchy. Without a leader, however, the country soon fell into chaos, and fractured into small kingdoms, with village fighting against village. In one such village lived a man named Deioces, who began to make a name for hirnself for fair dealing and the ability to settle disputes. He did this so successfully, in fact, that soon any legal conflict in the area was brought to hirn, and his power increased. Throughout the land, the law had fallen into disrepute--the judges were corrupt, and no one entrusted their cases to the courts any more, resorting to violence instead. When news spread of Deioces' wisdom, incorruptibility, and unshakable impartiality, Medean villages far and wide tumed to hirn to settle all manner of cases. Soon he became the sole arbiter of justice in the land. At the height of his power, Deioces suddenly decided he had had enough. He would no longer sit in the chair of judgment, would hear no more suits, settle no more disputes between brother and brother, village and village. Complaining that he was spending so much time dealing with other people's problems that he had neglected his own affairs, he retired. The country once again descended into chaos. With the sudden withdrawal of a powerful arbiter like Deioces, crime increased, and contempt for the law was never greater. The Medes held a meeting of all the villages to decide how to get out of their predicament. "We cannot continue to live in this country under these conditions," said one tribal leader. "Let us appoint one of our number to rule so that we can live under orderly govemment, rather than losing our hornes altogether in the present chaos." And so, despite all that the Medes had suffered under the Assyrian despotism, they decided to set up a monarchy and name a king. And the man they most wanted to rule, of course, was the fair-minded Deioces. He was hard to convince, for he wanted nothing more to do with the villages' infighting and bickering, but the Medes begged and pleaded-without him the country had descended into a state of lawlessness. Deioces finally agreed. Yet he also imposed conditions. An enormous palace was to be constructed for him, he was to be provided with bodyguards, and a capital city was to be built from which he could rule. All of this was done, and Deioces settled into his palace. In the center of the capital, the palace was surrounded by walls, and completely inaccessible to ordinary people. Deioces then established the terms of his rule: Admission to his presence was forbidden. Communication with the king was only possible through messengers. No one in the royal court could see him more than once a week, and then only by permission. Deioces ruled for fifty-three years, extended the Medean empire, and established the foundation for what would later be the Persian empire,
under his great-great-grandson Cyrus. During Deioces' reign, the people's respect for hirn gradually tumed into a form of worship: He was not a mere mortal, they believed, but the son of a god. Interpretation Deioces was a man of great ambition. He determined early on that the country needed a strong ruler, and that he was the man for the job. In a land plagued with anarchy, the most powerful man is the judge and arbiter. So Deioces began his career by making his reputation as a man of impeccable fairness. At the height of his power as a judge, however,
Deioces realized the truth of the law of absence and presence: By serving so many clients, he had become too noticeable, too available, and had lost the respect he had earlier enjoyed. People were taking his services for granted. The only way to regain the veneration and power he wanted was to withdraw completely, and let the Medes taste what life was like without hirn. As he expected, they came begging for hirn to rule. Once Deioces had discovered the truth of this law, he carried it to its ultimate realization. In the palace his people had built for hirn, none could see hirn except a few courtiers, and those only rarely. As Herodotus wrote, "There was a risk that if they saw him habitually, it might lead to jealousy and resentment, and plots would follow; but if nobody saw hirn, the legend would grow that he was a being of a different order from mere men." A man said to a Dervish: ""Why do I not see you more often ?" The Dervish replied, "Because the words '"Why have you not been to see me ?' are sweeter to my ear than the words '"Why have you come again ?'" Mulla Jami, quoted in ldries Shah 's Caravan 01' Dreams, 1 968
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