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Sleeping beneath the surface of the Franklin's Tale (c. 1394) is a danger nowhere greater than when the Franklin's two Breton protagonists, Dorigen and Arveragus, find their marriage on the brink of failure. The husband, in town for two days while Dorigen ponders suicide, comes home to find his wife weeping alone. When he asks why, Dorigen tells him everything. What we already know is that more than two years earlier, while he was away in England, she rid herself of a besotted squire named Aurelius by promising to love him only if he made all the tidal rocks of Brittany disappear. Now Aurelius, employing for £1,000 an astronomer from Orleans, has done just that and expects Dorigen to carry out her promise. Arveragus responds as follows: This housbonde, with glad chiere, in freendly wyse Answerde and seyde as I shal yow devyse: "Is ther oght elles, Dorigen, but this?" "Nay, nay," quod she, "God helpe me so as wys! This is to muche, and it were Goddes wille." "Ye, wyf," quod he, "lat slepen that is stille. It may be wel, paraventure, yet to day. Ye shul youre trouthe holden, by my fay!" (V.1467-74) 1 An admiration for the man seems clear in the way the Franklin prepares us for the calm of his response. Arveragus does not show the rage his wife seems to expect. Outwardly cheerful, he asks a question which most of us would take to mean 'Is it nothing more than that?', in keeping with his smiling demeanour. But his question is not nonchalant; Dorigen takes it literally. Answering words which mean 'Is there anything more than this?' twice with 'nay', she reassures him that she is not hiding something worse, and that what has happened is bad enough. About the last part Arveragus seems to agree with her. If his 'ye' does not mean 'you' in the words 'Ye, wyf', he means 'yes', it is too much. By telling her to let sleeping dogs lie, 2 he advises her not to break the stasis which his calm has imposed. This he maintains by appearing to yield to destiny. Saying that 'paraventure' the business may turn out well, even now, he means either just 'perhaps'; or 'by the power of "adventure"', by which he surrenders himself and Dorigen to providence; 3 or 'by some miracle', in which case it is with a more guarded show of optimism that Arveragus tells her to keep her promise. Whichever it is, he sends his wife away to have sex with a stranger while endeavouring to keep himself composed. This essay will explore why stasis matters to Arveragus and also to the teller of this tale. Arveragus à la Boccaccio Arveragus' pressure on Dorigen may be measured against the conduct of his counterpart in the tale of Menedon from Il Filocolo ('the love-struck') of Giovanni Boccaccio (c. 1336-8), which (possibly in the form of a manuscript excerpt from Book IV) was Chaucer's primary 2
Sleeping beneath the surface of the Franklin's Tale (c. 1394) is a danger nowhere greater than when the Franklin's two Breton protagonists, Dorigen and Arveragus, find their marriage on the brink of failure. The husband, in town for two days while Dorigen ponders suicide, comes home to find his wife weeping alone. When he asks why, Dorigen tells him everything. What we already know is that more than two years earlier, while he was away in England, she rid herself of a besotted squire named Aurelius by promising to love him only if he made all the tidal rocks of Brittany disappear. Now Aurelius, employing for £1,000 an astronomer from Orleans, has done just that and expects Dorigen to carry out her promise. Arveragus responds as follows: This housbonde, with glad chiere, in freendly wyse Answerde and seyde as I shal yow devyse: "Is ther oght elles, Dorigen, but this?" "Nay, nay," quod she, "God helpe me so as wys! This is to muche, and it were Goddes wille." "Ye, wyf," quod he, "lat slepen that is stille. It may be wel, paraventure, yet to day. Ye shul youre trouthe holden, by my fay!" (V.1467-74) 1 An admiration for the man seems clear in the way the Franklin prepares us for the calm of his response. Arveragus does not show the rage his wife seems to expect. Outwardly cheerful, he asks a question which most of us would take to mean 'Is it nothing more than that?', in keeping with his smiling demeanour. But his question is not nonchalant; Dorigen takes it literally. Answering words which mean 'Is there anything more than this?' twice with 'nay', she reassures him that she is not hiding something worse, and that what has happened is bad enough. About the last part Arveragus seems to agree with her. If his 'ye' does not mean 'you' in the words 'Ye, wyf', he means 'yes', it is too much. By telling her to let sleeping dogs lie, 2 he advises her not to break the stasis which his calm has imposed. This he maintains by appearing to yield to destiny. Saying that 'paraventure' the business may turn out well, even now, he means either just 'perhaps'; or 'by the power of "adventure"', by which he surrenders himself and Dorigen to providence; 3 or 'by some miracle', in which case it is with a more guarded show of optimism that Arveragus tells her to keep her promise. Whichever it is, he sends his wife away to have sex with a stranger while endeavouring to keep himself composed. This essay will explore why stasis matters to Arveragus and also to the teller of this tale. Arveragus à la Boccaccio Arveragus' pressure on Dorigen may be measured against the conduct of his counterpart in the tale of Menedon from Il Filocolo ('the love-struck') of Giovanni Boccaccio (c. 1336-8), which (possibly in the form of a manuscript excerpt from Book IV) was Chaucer's primary 2
Each of the fragments 4, 5, and 6 in the Ellesmere order of The Canterbury Tales contains two tales in which Christian values are contrasted with pagan ones. Christian submission in The Clerk's Tale is opposed to pagan hedonism in the Merchant's , magic to providence in the Squire's and Franklin's , and Roman justice to divine judgment in the Physician's and Pardoner's . Since the Squire's and Franklin's tales both have secular tellers and a pagan setting, it is not immediately obvious that they can be contrasted as secular and religious tales; nevertheless, it is the Christian basis of The Franklin's Tale that I wish to demonstrate in this essay. Indeed, the whole fi fth fragment, it seems to me, develops as a considered progress from pagan ethics to Christian morality.In consequence, The Franklin's Tale is best understood not on its own but as a response to The Squire's Tale . 1 Whereas The Squire's Tale is pagan, incomplete, and magical, the Franklin's sequel (and I use the word advisedly) is not merely complete in itself but a completion of the unity called fragment 5; it repudiates magic by treating it as mere illusion, and it contains a Christian subtext in its ostensibly pagan setting. Further, whereas the characters in The Squire's Tale are stereotypes-the feasting Oriental King, the courteous knight, the dawn-celebrating princess, and the lovelorn courtier diminished to falcon form-those that the Franklin portrays undergo a testing experience that demonstrates the folly of their preconceived ideas. Their understanding of the ideal of gentillesse changes and develops, and the tale reaches closure at the end of a linear narrative. 2 The Squire's Tale , on the other hand, offers stasis but no story, subjects but no psychology, situations but no resolutions. 3 apollo's chariot and the christian subtext of THE FRANKLIN'S TALE
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