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From: "Peter Durham" <trahaearn@email.msn.com>
To: <bunstable@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Game of Courtly Love
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 10:43:59 -0700
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This came across the mailing list for the Barony Janelyn and I used to live
in. Might be fun to do something like this at a college event?
- Trahaearn

>Since the dawn of the SCA, all gentlefolk in our society have bemoaned
>that when they were young, the moon stood still, the stars were as
>numerous as the campfires at Pennsic, and their fellow scadians were more
>polite, and acted with better manners and more gentility.  We all think
>longingly of the time when romance and chivalry were young, and new, and
>the center of our lives.
>
>Well, it's time to stop bemoaning and longing for the past.  It's time we
>all throw our hat back in the ring, dust off those old nobility airs, and
>perhaps give them a bit of a new shine.
>
>To this end, I am proposing a modest exercise.  The point of this exercise
>is simple: to give us all (or, at least, those who participate) a little
>practice in the art of courtly love.  The "game" will be played at Mayday,
>where each participant will be given (secretly) the name of a participant
>of the opposite gender, who is to be their inspiration for the day.  Your
>mission, should you choose to accept it, it is keep this person uppermost
>in your thoughts for the entire day; everything you do, you do for her;
>every word you say has in its secret heart the goal of furthering the
>honor and glory of your inspiration.  You must do everything you can to
>further his causes.  And, of course, you must do all this with the utmost
>secrecy.  Well, perhaps you can't help showing how inspired you are; at
>least you can keep your beloved's identity secret.
>
>What this means in practice:
>
>There are very few rules here.  They are:
>
>(1)  No one must know, at the end of the day, by whom you are inspired.
>
>(2)  Nothing untowards must be done (this probably should go without
>saying, but let's be safe here).  Remember, the honor of him or her by
>whom you are inspired is paramount even to your own; nothing should sully
>that honor, and in our period, any sort of display of affection (perhaps
>other than with your spouse) would sully the honor of both.  Besides, the
>best reward a true gentleman can expect for his service is a kind word, or
>a smile.
>(3)  You take whomever you get.  I'm going to draw names randomly, so I
>guarantee no active matchmaking.  If there is someone specific with whom
>you don't want to deal, tell me ahead of time.  Please remember, however,
>that given the secrecy and circumspection of the whole thing, no one
>should be doing anything that is a problem for you; if they are, call them
>on it loudly, and publicly.  Or simply tell me, and I will call off the
>person in question.
>
>These are the only absolute rules.  It might be a good idea (if you think
>you have proved yourself worthy enough) to make sure your inspiration
>knows he inspires you.  This is not, however, necessary; you may very well
>decide you are not yet worthy of such honor.
>
>Beyond these, your goal is simple in form: always, always, always, through
>your every action, and every word, over the course of the entire event,
>keep your inspiration uppermost in your thoughts.  Do everything you do
>for them.  Say everything you say for them.  Think everything you think
>for them.
>
>Here are some more practical suggestions as to what you might want to do
>for your beloved, to further their honor and glory, or to show them how
>worthy you are of their love.  However, I beseech you, please do not limit
>yourself to ideas from this list.
>* Write an anonymous poem naming your beloved as heaven's gift to earth.
>* Write a signed poem, describing the virtues of an anonymous inspiration
>(shepherds and shepherdesses are excellent substitutes to maintain the
>anonymity of your beloved).
>* Bribe an actor to slip the name of your inspiration into the evening's
>performance (in, of course, a flattering way; or as least as flattering as
>an actor can do, they being of such base station).
>* Hire a messenger to send secret letters to your beloved (shameless plug
>- since I will be doing the name-drawing, I obviously can't participate,
>and would therefore love to be a confidential messenger to any who wish :-)
>* Bribe your beloved's servants to allow you a moment (and they shouldn't
>grant you more than a moment) to speak to your beloved alone.
>* Ask your beloved to dance - what better time to speak to them alone?  Of
>course, this would require bribing some musicians to play a dance,
>convincing a whole lot of others it would be fun (so you aren't too
>obvious about it), etc.  Please remember that you shouldn't dance too
>often with the same person - people would most assuredly talk.
>* If you happen to be fighting, there are possibilities to do with the
>lists; of course, you can't make it too obvious to whom you are paying
>honor.  Then again, sending those you conquer to pay homage to him or her
>is probably legit - they are bound to secrecy, for you let them go with
>their life.
>* Send them a token - best of all, one they will recognize, and no other
>will.
>* Ask of them any task, and fulfill it.
>* Gifts are always good.
>
>It might be noted that a lot of these ideas involve bribery.  To those not
>directly involved in a particular exchange: please be easy to bribe.  This
>whole thing will probably be much more fun for everyone (especially those
>of modest means) if you are.  In addition, please stay bribed - don't go
>blabbing what you were told in confidence.  Try to cooperate with those
>playing - they should be making their own lives hard enough that anything
>you could add would just be superfluous.
>
>In all the above, I have used male and female pronouns interchangeably.
>In the historical version of this game, the women inspired, and the men
>were inspired.  For the purposes of this game, men and women will be on
>equal footing (simply because, not knowing the numbers ahead of time, it
>is probable that the ratio of men to women will not be such that the game
>will be fun, otherwise).
>
>To put this all in a bit of perspective, I would like to expound upon my
>ideas of how this game fits in, or doesn't fit in, with the probably dozen
>or so cloved fruit that will be wandering around the event (in a vain
>attempt to make clear exactly what I intend by all this).
>
>On the one hand, you shouldn't offer your beloved a cloved lemon - people
>would most assuredly determine that you are in love, and probably infer
>that your beloved has given in to your constant attentions, and therefor
>would her honor be completely besmirched.  Then again, if you took part in
>many such exchanges, no one could assume you were overly familiar with
>your beloved.  On the third hand, your beloved would have every right to
>be extremely jealous of you and the many others with whom you shared this
>mark of esteem.  Perhaps you could make up for this by doing enormous
>amounts of service for your beloved, to show her and assure her of your
>true intentions.  But boy, would that take an extraordinary amount of
>service.  Perhaps it would just be simpler to stay out of the cloved
>lemons' game.  On the fourth hand (or is it sixth?), since when is taking
>the easy way out the proper way to show your inspiration how much he means
>to you?  Perhaps it is best to go the hard route, do the service, and hope
>for but a single kiss.  Of course, after all this service, and all this
>hardship, she could still refuse (and rightfully so!) even the smallest
>mark of affection; that's to be expected, serving him is its own reward
>anyway.
>
>Obviously, most of this game is internal.  The main goal is merely to
>think of someone constantly (and he says "merely." Ha!)  There is no
>single winner; there is no loser; we are all going to carefully avoid
>cliches after those last two phrases.
>
>Now, the practical details.
>If you want to participate, please contact me personally.  "My wife and I
>both want to do this" is not enough - I have to hear it from each of you.
>All such contacts will be private.  People can, of course, declare
>publicly what they are doing; I will ignore such public announcements, but
>they might have their purpose.
>A day or two before Mayday, I will draw names from a hat, and determine
>each persons inspiration.  Please tell me when you contact me if you want
>to know ahead of time or not.
>The game will start when you arrive at Mayday, and will end when the event
>ends.



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