Produced by Suzanne Shell, Anuradha Valsa Raj, and Project

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Domnei

A Comedy of Woman-Worship

By

JAMES BRANCH CABELL

1920

"En cor gentil domnei per mort no passa."

TO

SARAH READ McADAMS

IN GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION

"The complication of opinions and ideas, of affections and habits,which prompted the chevalier to devote himself to the service of alady, and by which he strove to prove to her his love, and to merithers in return, was expressed, in the language of the Troubadours, by asingle word, by the word domnei, a derivation of domna, which maybe regarded as an alteration of the Latin domina, lady, mistress."

—C. C. FAURIEL,History of Provencal Poetry.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

A PREFACE

CRITICAL COMMENT

THE ARGUMENT

PART ONE—PERION

I HOW PERION WAS UNMASKED

II HOW THE VICOMTE WAS VERY GAY

III HOW MELICENT WOOED

IV HOW THE BISHOP AIDED PERION

V HOW MELICENT WEDDED

PART TWO—MELICENT

VI HOW MELICENT SOUGHT OVERSEA

VII HOW PERION WAS FREED

VIII HOW DEMETRIOS WAS AMUSED

IX HOW TIME SPED IN HEATHENRY

X HOW DEMETRIOS WOOED

PART THREE—DEMETRIOS

XI HOW TIME SPED WITH PERION

XII HOW DEMETRIOS WAS TAKEN

XIII HOW THEY PRAISED MELICENT

XIV HOW PERION BRAVED THEODORET.

XV HOW PERION FOUGHT

XVI HOW DEMETRIOS MEDITATED.

XVII HOW A MINSTREL CAME

XVIII HOW THEY CRIED QUITS

XIX HOW FLAMBERGE WAS LOST

XX HOW PERION GOT AID

PART FOUR—AHASUERUS

XXI HOW DEMETRIOS HELD HIS CHATTEL

XXII HOW MISERY HELD NACUMERA.

XXIII HOW DEMETRIOS CRIED FAREWELL

XXIV HOW ORESTES RULED

XXV HOW WOMEN TALKED TOGETHER

XXVI HOW MEN ORDERED MATTERS

XXVII HOW AHASUERUS WAS CANDID

XXVIII HOW PERION SAW MELICENT

XXIX HOW A BARGAIN WAS CRIED

XXX HOW MELICENT CONQUERED

THE AFTERWORD

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A Preface

By
Joseph Hergesheimer

It would be absorbing to discover the present feminine attitude towardthe profoundest compliment ever paid women by the heart and mind of menin league—the worshipping devotion conceived by Plato and elevated toa living faith in mediaeval France. Through that renaissance of asublimated passion domnei was regarded as a throne of alabaster bythe chosen figures of its service: Melicent, at Bellega

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