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5 Seduction, Maternity, and Royal Authority LE ROMAN DES SEPT SAGES DE ROME recounts that when the emperor of Rome's first wife dies, leaving him with a son, his counselors advise the emperor to take another wife. The emperor follows their advice, with unfortunate results: Molt s'esmerveillent par Ie regne k'il ne prennolt une autre femme. Concile en tinrent Ii baron a .1. geudi de Rouvison. "Sire, font ii, merchi, pour De, Ie glorieus de mai:ste! Ne poriies longhes garir ne chaaste ensi tenir, car vous estes de biel eage. Prendes femme de haut parage. Se vous en aviies enfans, vos fils aisnes seroit manans ki lor poroit donner adies riches hounors et grans palais." Tant Ii dirent que HIe fist, et a .i. dyable se mist c'on deust pendre par la geule! D'enghien et d'art savoit plus seule que la femme au roi Constentin, la Salemon ne la Fortin, ne la femme Artu de Bretaigne, ki tant sot de male bargaigne Seduction, Maternity, and Royal Authority 145 que par son enghien porcacha comment Murdres envenima. Li rois n'a pas la dame prise, mais ceste lui, par tel devise qu'ele devint dame et signor; ele a souspris l'empereor. L'en devroit l'omme lapider ki sa femme lait trop monter. (Roman des sept sages, K: 407-36) (There was much surprise throughout the kingdom that he did not take another wife. The barons held a council on the Thursday of Rogation. "Sire:' they say, "have pity, for the sake of God and the glory of his majesty! You cannot remain healthy, nor keep chaste like this for long, for you are young. Take a noble wife, and if you have children your eldest son will be powerful enough to give them rich honors and great palaces." They counseled him until he did it, and he joined himself with a devil who should have been hung! She alone knew more about trickery and magic arts than the wife of King Constantine, the wife ofSolomon or ofSamson the Strong, or than the wife ofArthur of Britain who knew so much about evil bargaining that she sought to poison Mordred by ruse. The king did not take the lady, she took him, and in such a way that she became lady and lord; she overcame the emperor . Any man who lets his wife rise too high should be stoned to death.) Fenice is notably absent from this list of adulterous wives who used magic to deceive their husbands. Guenevere is present, accused of an attempt to poison Mordred that does not appear in any other story.l The narrator's list of famous "women on top"2 illustrates the dangerous consequences of women's power and suggests that the danger is averted through a collective enforcement of men's control of their wives: "Any man who lets his wife rise too high should be stoned to death." The narrator specifically points to the inappropriate rise of royal wives: the new empress became both lady and lord ("ele devint dame et signor"). Moreover, the wife's power is impliCitly linked to an inappropriate sexual dominance: "the king did not take the lady, she took him." The king was meant to take her as his wife and consort, but he also should have taken her sexually in a consummation of the marriage. The narrator suggests that the king got taken- by his wife. The association ofwomen, political power, and sexual predation Chapter 5 is one that is fully exploited in the Roman des sept sages and in several other medieval French narratives like Le roman de Silence and La chatelaine de vergi. In these stories, a woman attempts to seduce one of her husband's vassals, he rejects her, and the woman then claims that the vassal tried to seduce her. Commonly known as the Potiphar 's wife topos after the Biblical account of the attempted seduction ofJoseph, when the literary motiffeatures a queen it permits an exploration of the implicit link between transgressive sexuality and women's political authority.3 Jezebels Although the story of the seductress queen is usually described as an example of the Potiphar's wife topos, early medieval historians associated a perceived misuse of political power not with Potiphar's wife, but with Queen Jezebel, whose story is told in the book of Kings. Janet L. Nelson has described how two powerful Merovingian queens were characterized as Jezebels by their...

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