quote:
Originally posted by ail221:
Interesting I see Guinevere's relationship with Arthur as a marriage based on Public duty, were as Guinevere's relationship with Lancelot was one of passion and admiration for his heroism. For love triangles you could look at Helen, Paris and Menelaus.
Not totally. While most of it was certainly a politically motivated marriage, Guinevere shared Arthur`s ideals, and that was some thing they had in common and what was the basis of their affection.
However she probably was never passionately in love with him, even though she cared for him.
Her grand passion was Lancelot, but it seems she was consumed with guilt about that (cause she knew Arthur was a good man).
Actually in the versions of the story I read Guinevere did not end up with Lancelot but entered a convent and become a nun, and Lancelot after not being able to sway her became a monk himself.
Another triangle that is interesting is Tristan, Isolde and King Mark(e)
BTW about Menelaos, Helena, Paris, it was actually a bit of a quadrangle, as Paris had been in love with Oenone before, and abandoned her and their little son, when he was courting Helena. Actually it was said that he was even married to Oenone before that
Interestingly there are some things that are similiar tothe Tristan and Isolde story, just that Oenone was a bit more revengeful.
"Mortally wounded by Philoctetes' arrow, he begged Oenone to heal him with her herbal arts,[6] but she refused and cast him out with scorn, to return to Helen's bed, and Paris died on the lower slopes of Ida. Then, overcome with remorse, Oenone, the one whole-hearted mourner of Paris, threw herself onto his burning funeral pyre, which the shepherds had raised. A fragment of Bacchylides suggests that she threw herself off a cliff,[7] in Bibliotheke it is noted "when she found him dead she hanged herself," and Lycophron imagined her hurtling head first from the towering walls of Troy. Her tragic story makes one of the Love Romances of Parthenius of Nicaea.[8]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oenone
To be honest, it is her character that I feel the most compassion for in all this drama.
BTW it seems Venus spell had worn off after a few years and she wasn`t quite as enarmoured with paris anymore.
Menelaos however seems to have loved her or have been enarmoured by her right to the end. It is told that when he finally captured her and wanted to kill her for her infidelity, he couldnīt.