Intertwined Together

Marie de France’s poem, “Chevrefoil”, which translates to honeysuckle, is a poem about Sir Tristram and his lover, the Queen, who is also his uncle’s wife. But I wondered about the meaning of honeysuckle, and exactly of what it represented. In the poem, is it written,

For without her he cannot live.
For those two, it’s just like with
The sweet honeysuckle vine
That on the hazel tree will twine:
When it fastens, slips itself right
Around the trunk, ties itself tight,
Then the two survive together.
But should anyone try to sever
Them, the hazel dies right away,
And the honeysuckle, the same day. “Dear love, that’s our story, too:
Never you without me, me without you!”

From the quote above, it can be concluded that like a honeysuckle vine and the hazel tree, they were intertwined. The pair, Tristram and the Queen, were so intensely in love that they were connected and bound together that it leads to them dying on the same day because “their love so true, so pure”. This idea of purity can be applied to nature. And like the honeysuckle and hazel tree, if they were to a part, it would them as it does. Tristram’s banishment and their separation brings on their ruin.