Introduction

Manuscript, Editions, Translations

The lay of Desiré is preserved in two manuscripts: (i) MS S, f. 10v, col. 1 – 15v, col. 1, (ii) MS P, f. 7v, col. 2 – 12v, col. 1. A translation of the lay into Norse is included in the thirteenth-century Strengleikar collection (MS N, pp. 37–48). Desiré was first published in 1836 by Francisque Michel in Lais inédits des XIIe et XIIIe siècles (pp. 3–37). In 1928 it was edited along with Graelent and Melion by E. Margaret Grimes (pp. 48–75) and again in 1976 by Prudence M. O’H. Tobin in Les Lais anonymes des XIIe et XIIIe siècles (pp. 264–83). The editions of Michel and Tobin are based on MS P (=Grimes MS B), but we follow Grimes and print MS S (=Grimes MS A). Tobin's text was reprinted in 1984 by Walter Pagani with a facing Italian translation (pp. 84–127) and again in 1992 by Alexandre Micha with a facing Modern French translation (pp. 106–49). Desiré has also been translated into Modern French by Danielle Régnier-Bohler (1979, pp. 67– 83), who in 1982 produced a luxury edition of the poem with illustrations by Xavier, and again in 2003 by Nathalie Desgrugillers (pp. 39–52). In addition, the lay has been translated into Dutch by Ludo Jongen and Paul Verhuyck (1985, pp. 101–08), into Spanish by Isabel de Riquer (1987, pp. 59–72) and into Japanese by Hideo Morimoto in Lais bretons féeriques au Moyen Age (1998). The Norse translation was edited in 1850 by Rudolph Keyser and Carl Unger (pp. 37–48) and again in 1979, together with an English translation, by Robert Cook and Mattias Tveitane (pp. 108–33).

Date, Author

Desiré must have been composed early enough to appear in the Strengleikar collection. The latter is hard to date precisely, but it was certainly composed some time between 1226 and 1263 (the date of the death of King Hákon Hákonarson, who commissioned the translation2). On the basis of a couple of historical events, Tobin (p. 164) considers that Desiré could have been composed between 1190 and 1208. She argues that the reference in vv.