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SEDUCTIVE TOPOGRAPHIES: THE LANGUAGES OF LANDSCAPE IN LA PUCE DE MADAME DES-ROCHES
Romanic Review, May 2004 by Tarte, Kendall
This blason, which has moved from the breast to the head and face, continues as the lovestruck animal searches for hidden places-"les lieux / Que cache la vierge honteuse, / Et qu'elle ne monstre à noz yeux." It drinks the blood of the beloved's arms, thighs, and stomach: "Tu as ce bon heur que de boire / Du sang de ces membres polis, / De ce ventre plus blanc que lis, / De ces cuisses & flancs d'yuoire."54 The discussion of the insect's pleasures-and the poet's envy-replaces the dangers to the flea. Whereas the preceding passage presents the potential dangers that the narrator's insistent questions to the flea expose, the stanzas that follow juxtapose the privileged flea and the jealous pcet: "Puce ie me pers quand ie pense / A tes plaisirs, à tes ébas, / Lors que doucement tu offense / Cette Nymphe or'haut ore bas."55 The violence of the flea's action-"offensefr]"-contrasts with its pleasure-"plaisirs," "ébas"-as it attacks the woman. Turnèbe recalls the descriptive catalog of body parts that the flea's imagined movements-"or'haut ore bas"-have uncovered; the following stanzas will expose the most intimate locations. A second attack again combines description of the flea's pleasure with vocabulary of conquest. The poet narrates a nighttime scene in which the fortunate insect gazes on the naked woman, then moves down her body:
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Puce tu as cest auantage
Que l'homme ne scauroit auoir
De iouyr de ce beau corsage,
Et le regarder nu au soir:
Puis lors que plus elle sommeille
Estenduë dedans son lit,
Ea pinçotant un bien petit,
Tout doucement tu la reueille.
...
Tu tastes ces lis & ces rosés.
Puis te coulant d'un pas larron
Sur sa poitrine & sur ses cuisses,
Enyurée de ces délices,
Tu t'endors dedans son giron.56
The flea's contact with the woman's body and the resulting pleasures are sexual. The active vocabulary-"pincotfer]," "tastefr]," "coul[er]"-highlights tactile sensations. The flea reacts to the female body with sexual pleasure-"iouyr"-and its pinching suggests the male role during the sex act.57 Its actions culminate in a drunken, post-coital slumber in her lap. Turnèbe's description of sexual pleasure has violent overtones, which his word choice implies. The verbs "taste[r]" and "coulfer] d'un pas larron" describe the movements of the flea, on the offensive; its pleasure-"iouyr"-also implies domination.58 The vocabulary and structure of Turnèbe's "Pvce" thus invite a metaphorical reading of the female body that the poem describes as a place under attack.
In a sonnet addressed to Catherine Des Roches, Claude Binet directly combines the exploration and siege of a place with that of a body. He links the sexual and topographical aspects of the poem and draws an analogy between the female body and city space: both are lands to be conquered. In an allegory of the city of Poitiers under attack, Binet draws a selective map of the surrounding region. Employing the discourse of military conquest, he conflates the woman Catherine and the city of Poitiers and imagines a siege:
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