Cleomadés and the Marvellous Flying Wooden Horse

A translation into English of Albert Henry’s definitive edition of Adenet le Roi’s Cleomadés, a story based on a tale from The One Thousand and One Nights.

Palace and pageantry, music and feast contribute to the poetic beauty of the tale, in which the hero Cleomadés and his sweetheart Clarmondine share love of an intensity evoking that of Layla and Majnun, of Isolde and Tristan, of Guinevere and Lancelot. When adventures with a mechanical flying horse separate them disastrously, the lovers undertake epic journeys and devise ingenious ruses to effect their eventual union. In medieval French tradition, their ardour is the consuming passion of the narrative. However, Cleomadés is replete with material on the status of women, of the disabled, of the insane, of religious toleration, of violent behaviour, of duty toward parents. Produced in Paris in 1285 under the patronage of Marie de Brabant, queen of France and daughter of Adenet’s first patron, Cleomadés crowns its author’s illustrious career.