"Chaitivel", also known as "Les Quatre Deuils" or "Le Malheureux" in modern French or "The Four Sorrows" in English, is a Breton lai by the medieval poet Marie de France.
Like the other poems in this collection, Chaitivel is written in the Anglo-Norman dialect of Old French, in couplets of eight syllables in length.
When a tournament is announced at Nantes, shortly after Easter, competitors come from all over France, including the four knights.
The lady builds a tomb and enshrines the dead; and then she ensures that the remaining knight receives the best medical care possible, though his injury has caused him to be impotent.
One night after dinner, the lady tells the knight that she will compose a lai in honor of her four lovers and name it "The Four Sorrows".