I’m not sure how much I
enjoyed this tale, which could have been because I am not familiar with the origin of
it. But it began and ended like a classic
fairy tale, so it was sort of boring.
The beginning was a detailed description of a beloved, harp-playing king and beloved, beautiful queen. The sun is shining and the flowers are
blooming and everything is just perfect, which is an obvious sign that
something horrible is about to happen. And it does. But for who?
From the name of this story, it
seems to want us to focus on Sir Orfeo.
It is his story about how he lost the love of his life and how he got
her back and how he - they - lived happily ever after.
But why focus on him when you can focus on her? What happened to him really isn’t that
interesting comparably. But I’m sure she’s
got stories.
It’s like this horrible thing is only bad because it means the king has lost his queen, instead
of thinking about what actually happened to her. I’m pretty sure she’s the one worse off. However, he’s sad, quits his job and wonders
in the forest. It’d be one thing if he
said, “Alright I’m leaving to go get my wife back,” but he doesn’t. It seemed more pathetic than romantic to me.
They spend such little time
wondering about Herodis and where she was and how and who and this evil king who
kidnaps women for no reason. I was confused
and disturbed by the descriptions of the people in the castle. Some didn’t have a head or arms and were
wounded and were on fire and drowning.
I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I don’t think it’s a good
thing. However, when Orfeo and Herodis leave
the castle, they just go on living their happy fairy tale life as if it didn’t
happen. Like can there be a sequel with
a fight and some revenge? Isn’t that the point of medieval romances?
This story did include the
honor debate, as all of these stories do.
When the king refuses to grant Orfeo his request, Orfeo plays the honor
card. Orfeo says that he wouldn’t be a
noble king if he didn’t keep his promise and grant him his wish. But what about
the fact that he took your wife? Does
that make him noble? If this guy is fine
with going around taking women then I think he’d be okay with not giving you what
you want. However, the king says that
Orfeo has a good argument and gives him Herodis. If only Orfeo had requested that the king
release everyone else.
I agree with what you're saying about how if the king did not want to keep his promise. I do not think anyone who is willing to steal women would feel like he needs to honor his promise. But that is just my thoughts on it. I do wish that Orfeo would have asked for everyone to be set free but I guess that would not have made the story as weird as it was and because he would not have gotten his happy ending and got his wife back.
ReplyDeleteI’m commenting here since one of my teammates didn’t post. But I agree with you when you said it was boring. I had gotten used to all of the over-the-top fights and duels in our other stories, so to see another story without any violence at all was kind of a letdown. And what did happen to Herodis? She was just kidnapped for no reason and left in the underworld for ten years, but then just came back as if nothing had even happened? I know if that had happened to me I would have needed therapy from seeing all of the headless and limbless people day in and day out.
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