Amis et Amiles

rdf:langString Amis et Amiles

rdf:langString Amis et Amiles is an old French romance based on a widespread legend of friendship and sacrifice. In its earlier and simpler form it is the story of two friends, one of whom, Amis, was sick with leprosy because he had committed perjury to save his friend. A vision informed him that he could only be cured by bathing in the blood of Amiles's children. When Amiles learnt this he killed the children, who were, however, miraculously restored to life after the cure of Amis. The tale found its way into French literature through the medium of Latin, as the names Amicus and Amelius indicate, and was eventually attached to the Carolingian cycle in the 12th-century chanson de geste of Amis et Amiles. This poem is written in decasyllabic assonanced verse, each stanza being terminated by a short line. It belongs to the heroic period of French epic, containing some passages of great beauty, notably the episode of the slaying of the children, and maintains a high level of poetry throughout. The oldest version is a Latin poem composed around 1090 by Radulphus Tortarius, a monk of Fleury. The opening lines suggests that the poet was retelling a popular tale: Historiam Gallus, breviter quam replico, novit... (The Gaul knows the tale, which I am briefly telling...). More distant origins are rooted in folklore.