Images of Refined Love: Beroul's Tristan and Dante's Inferno

Love has many faces, earthly and sacred. Passion is love, but so is devotion. Sometimes one must fight for one's beloved, and sometimes it is one's beloved who dispels the demons. The medieval concept of Refined Love combined these aspects of the quest within and the quest without, of the noble and the ignoble, and of the sinful and the sacred. The knight who sought the hand of the forbidden lady risked transgression against the laws of the church. If his love was pure; if he did not let that love become physical, he could remain righteous. The virtuous maiden was one of the most potent symbols of the age. Mary, the Mother of God, had been born without sin, and had conceived without sin. Chastity was of the noblest of virtues. The soul unsullied by earthly love made for itself a place in Heaven. Tristan sought the hand of a woman whom he could not have. Yet, his love was pure, as she loved him with all her heart, and he pursued her in the same uncorrupted spirit. Dante loved Beatrice, but only in his mind, and in his heart. Untouched by his hand, she led him on a journey through otherworldly realms that he might learn the lessons of sin and righteousness. Both of these stories come very close to expressing that ideal of refined love. In both, a forbidden fruit brings with it the knowledge of good and evil. It is whether one tastes of that fruit that makes the difference.

In Beroul's Tristan, the hero makes off with his beloved. In consequence, Tristan and Isolde are pursued by King Mark. Isolde is Marc's wife, Tristan his nephew. In going off with Tristan, Isolde has broken her marriage vows, but what Tristan has done is much worse. By making away with his uncle's wife, he has violated all the conventions of refined Love by the simple fact that he has made his love real. It would have been one thing to admire Isolde from afar, to sing of...

At that instant, Tristan not only committed a grave sin in the eyes of the Church, but he broke, as well, the bonds of familial devotion to his uncle, and destroyed also the ties between himself and his lord. Tristan and Isolde are punished by being cast out of the world -- the ordered and holy world in which they had lived. "The wilderness is a forest of oblivion ... The lovers [are forced] to shun society, shirk courtly duties, and suffer material hardship. All is sacrificed for the sake of love."
The life-preserving effects of faith -- Good Faith -- are shown by the episode in which Tristan's hound, Husdent, discovers the lovers in their hiding place in the forest. Isolde exhorted Tristan to spare the animal. "Sir, take pity on him! A dog barks while hunting as much from training as from instinct .... It would be wonderful if we could train Husdent not to bark while hunting .... Tristan stood and listened to her. He took pity on the animal."

By doing as he was trained, the hound is only acting as he is supposed to act, and can, in no way, be considered to have committed any error, or to be deserving of any punishment. The same is not true of Tristan and Isolde.

On the other hand, in Dante's Inferno, Dante's relationship with Beatrice is much closer to the ideal of Refined Love. There is no physical element to the relationship between Beatrice and Dante. The two interact with each other, but it is an interaction that takes place on a spiritual plane. The very meeting of Dante and his Beatrice is a sign that the Poet has escaped both from the depths of Hell, and from the pain and punishment of Purgatory. His reward is Beatrice. Dante's love for Beatrice has remained moral -- justice has been done.

... The journey attains to Beatrice, and is therefore at…