THE MERCHANT (1) (Canterbury Tales)
The Portrait from The General Prologue
Chaucer's description of the Merchant is comparatively brief and somewhat casual in tone, ending as it does in his refusal to tell us the man's name. Many of the characters remain without names but Chaucer draws our attention to this lack here and abandons possible omniscient narration in favour of his own persona as another pilgrim who knows only as much as the others.
A forked beard was a fashionable way of dressing the beard amongst the bourgeoisie and "motteleye" [a parti-coloured cloth] was also considered modish and could be a sign that the Merchant was a gildsman. These traits along with his sitting on a high saddle suggest that he wishes to gain approval from others and he wears an elegant hat from Flanders and boots fastened neatly with a clasp. This swift visual cameo is followed by the fact that he speaks his "resons" [opinions] with an important air and constantly stresses his increase in profits. Yet there is a note of insecurity as he needs the sea kept free from enemy ships between Middleberg in Holland and Orwell on the English coast as that is his trade route for his dealings in wool. A "sheelde" was a unit of exchange, a French crown, and profit on such dealings was forbidden except for royal money changers: however, merchants were frequently accused of illegalities in this matter. He lives on his wits which he uses well and is so dignified and imposing in his manner and behaviour concerning his financial arrangements ("chevisaunce" means "borrowings") that no-one knows he is in debt. Chaucer often uses the word "worthy" to imply the opposite or to leave the verdict open and here he dismisses his character quite brusquely.
The Merchant is a self-made man who covers up his flaws with dignity and we may feel that we should look for similar screening in his Tale, although the portrait give us few hints as to what kind of story he will tell, except to suggest that the teller will want to please everyone and hide his deficiences. Chaucer's eye has roamed over his appearance and his ear has heard his pronouncements but without much deep interest.
The Merchant's Tale
This story is a mixtures of modes, being a fabliau (a low-life crude bar-room story), a satire on courtly love and a psychological insight into the spirit and mind of an elderly man. It may be considered part of a "Marriage Group" of Tales which add up to a discussion on marriage and certainly we need to connect it with the Clerk's and the Wife of Bath's Tales. It takes a common plot of the old husband being deceived by a young wife but adds mythological and socially satirical elements as well as the inner and outer workings of January's body and brain. The Clerk has told the story of the almost unbelievably submissive and obedient Griselda (if she is taken as a real woman not as a kind of allegorical figure) and the Wife of Bath has presented herself as an aggressively feminist character who makes money out of old rich husbands until her final marriage. The Merchant has somewhat misunderstood the Clerk's Tale because it seems to him to relate directly and in reality to his own life by providing such an extreme opposite. He does not stop to think.
The Merchant launches into a Prologue in which he expresses his bitterness about his own experiences in marriage as if, once he has decided to reveal the failings in his life, he cannot resist emphasising them. Although the Clerk has suggested that his Tale (which precedes that of the Merchant) is intended as an image of the relationship of Christ to his Church, the Merchant picks up some of the last words and applies them to his own life-story: both use the terms weeping and wailing. ("And lat hym care, and wepe, and wrynge, and waille!" The Clerk's Tale) These expressions have clearly reminded the Merchant of his own troubles and he embarks on a complaint which colours our interpretation of his Tale. The bitterness and cynicism remain in the minds of the reader/listener as we respond to the story and decide whose voice is narrating at which point. The idealism of January about the wedded state cannot be endorsed by the disillusioned Merchant. So strong is his rancour that it comes as a shock to find that he has been married only a couple of months and we might guess that this is the reason for his deciding to go on this pilgrimage. He may have felt the need for space to think and may also have been pleasantly surprised at the idea of a contest of story-telling with its prize as he likes bargaining and emerging with a profit. He will therefore devote himself to concocting a story to win but not before he has told his own tale of marital hardship, even if that goes against his usual desire to cover up.
In the first twenty or so lines of the prologue to the Merchant's Tale we notice two main characteristics: the emphasis on the word "I" and also the stress on his wife's despicable nature. He uses the first person often to state how right he is to complain as his disgust and disillusionment is so strong: "I trowe"; "I woot"; "I dar wel swere"; "I yow reherce", all meaning similarly "I tell you." The terms for her include: "malice"; "shrewe"; "passing [extreme] crueltee"; "cursednesse" and he reckons that she would "overmacche" [be more than a match for] the devil if she were attached to him. The story of Griselda has provoked this outburst and he vows he would never again marry if he were free, generalising that married men "liven in sorwe and care" but qualifying this in case anyone is offended that the sentiment applies "for the moore part, I sey nat alle." He swears by Doubting Thomas who would not believe in the resurrection of Christ until he had put his hand in the wounds, implying that anyone with normal faith would trust him. Marriage is for him a "snare" and his listeners may recall how the Wife of Bath's speech proved him right as she admitted to trapping old rich men into wedlock for their possessions.
We learn with some astonishment that he has engendered all this bitterness in the short space of two months but he does not accuse his wife of infidelity and we are left to guess what she has done to deserve his spite. His pain is clear as he states that an unmarried man even "rive/Unto the herte" [split to the heart] could not speak of as much agony as he can. (In Chaucer's English double negatives such as "ne koude in no manere" add emphasis and do not cancel each other out.) It is out of character for him to admit to being henpecked but the two other pilgrims, the Clerk and the Wife of Bath, have each penetrated his dignity in different ways and he is incensed. The Host senses that a good story might emerge from this virulence and asks him to tell a relevant tale: the pilgrims by and large obey the Host and the Merchant agrees whilst refusing to say more about himself. This is an example of occupatio, a shortening rhetorical device whereby, if used as claimed, the narrator can hint at more material but not hold up his account by giving it. The result is that we expect a cynical story about marriage which may be a reflection of the Merchant's own experience. His Prologue affects our response to the whole Tale and this is one case where the teller and the tale are closely linked.
The Merchant's Tale
The Merchant also sets his story in Lombardy, in a city called Pavia, well known for banking and brothels, both possibly relevant to the story which deals with both money and lust. He describes his main character as "worthy", a term often used by Chaucer quite loosely to invite the reader/listener to decide if it is merited or not. His age is sixty which, in those times, would have seemed much more elderly than nowadays, as his name January suggests by its wintry connotations. He has been a womaniser and intent on "bodily delit" which the Merchant claims is the folly of secular men, thus toadying to the clerics amongst the pilgrims. The narrator, be it the Merchant or Chaucer, immediately raises the question of his motive in suddenly wishing for marriage: is it for religious reasons or "dotage", the foolishness of senility. The teller abandons omniscient narration in stating that he cannot answer this conundrum since any narrator can tell us what his characters are thinking if he chooses but this adds realism, as if January were a living person and the Merchant viewing him from outside. Throughout the Tale we have to assess who is the speaker at any moment: Chaucer, the Merchant, January or minor characters whilst remembering that Chaucer is the overall creator handling these voices with dexterity and speaking through others. January has a great "corage" [desire] for marriage which has come upon him as soon as he has turned sixty and he looks around for a wife, praying to find one: the lexis is religious though words like "blisful", "hooly", "paradis" must not be taken at face value and lean towards an interpretation that he wants to sanctify his sexual yearnings before it is too late. This impression is underlined by the sustained irony as it cannot be the Merchant using these terms since he is profoundly disillusioned with marriage. The imagery of the Garden of Eden where "first God man and womman bond" is prevalent throughout the story but carries with it the threat of the presnce of a destructive serpent. January changes register at "worth a bene" and this homeliness and bluntness vitiates the apparently religiosity. The word "wis" is pointedly ironic when considered against the Merchant's own views on marriage.
At this point we await a story where the central character is disappointed in his high expectations but, instead of the start of this tale, there is a digressio about marriage. Such digressions were considered proper provided they are controlled and do not delay the narrative for too long but and this one is relevant and skilful since it deals with marriage and gives January's inner thoughts. The voice is that of the Merchant demonstrating January's foolish optimism and it sounds like an interior monologue during which January rehearses the advantages of marriage. The delusion that a wife will be "the fruit of his tresor" when he is old and white-haired is obvious and particularly so when set against a background of ribald folk tales in which the senile husband is deceived by a youthful wife. The use of the word "tresor" and the determination to secure an heir reveal a financial side to the potential union: it is a sensible but self-centred objective as is the desire for "solas". There is exaggeration of the case when bachelors are described as constantly complaining when the Merchant has revealed that he wishes he were still unmarried.
The irony deepens and becomes more overt when the life of unmarried men is recounted and we note the opposition between the "libertee" of being single and the state of being "ybounde" in marriage. The former is more appealing even though he claims it is a state of "brotelnesse", this fragiity being stressed by repetition and the comparison to that of a bird or animal. There is a payment for "sikernesse" [security] which is the yoke of a contract which does not even ensure that stability. The idealised account of the generalised wife is overstated as she is said to be "buxom" [obedient like Griselda], "trewe" and completely devoted and loyal in sickness or health, even when he is dying. This must be set against the Wife of Bath's revelations that she longed for her most of her elderly husbands to die so that she would inherit their property. January disparages a textual authority, Theophrastus (who discouraged marriage in favour of a good servant or friends) and shows hubris in doing so as such authorities should be respected; the bold rhyme "hoold" and "cokewold" draws attention to the likelihood of any elderly man's being made a figure of fun by his young wife's infidelity. The sententia or opinion of Theophrastus must, he says, be defied and the language here is derogatory: "ther God his bones corse [curse]", a rash and contemptuous rejection of a valued authority, one who points to the vulnerability of January's own position in a projected marriage.
In lines 99-105 we find the irony deepening as well as becoming more overt: January through the mouth of the Merchant shows that a wife is to him a possession under the guise of a gift from God such as land, income, pasture, common land or furnishings. His view is essentially mercenary and calculating as well as misguided as it is obvious that these objects will last and are not like a "shadwe upon a wal." A note of warning occurs when the wife is seen as, possibly, an enduring nuisance:
A wif wol laste, and in thyn hous endure,
Wel lenger then thee list [even longer than you wish], paraventure.
Realising that he may have offended some of the religious members his audience, the Merchant returns to the holy elements in marriage, calling it a sacrament and the bachelor is seen as "shent" [damned or ruined], helpless and lonely. Here again he hastily corrects himself and states that he is excluding clerics from his judgements and speaking only of "folk in seculer estaat." Woman is and was made to help man as the story of the Garden of Eden relates. God created Eve when Adam needed her but the audience would have instantly recalled that she caused the Fall of Man by disobeying God and eating the apple and that there was a serpent or devil lurking in the paradise. The dual motives of January give a clue as to where this evil may be hidden in his intentions as he wants both a "paradis terrestre" and "disport" [pleasure]. The hyperbole overstates the case: "So buxom [obedient] and so vertuous is she" and reminds us that neither Eve nor any other woman is so ideally submissive that harmony is certain. The memory of the Wife of Bath's manipulations and the perfection in the abstraction of Griselda are the background to our reactions. There is a lack of logic in the argument that, because husband and wife are metaphorically seen as one flesh they will be completely united in their attitudes to "wele" [happiness] and "distresse". By now we are convinced that January is misguided and the tension lies in waiting to see exactly how he will become disillusioned like the teller of the Tale. The imagery of the Garden of Eden will pervade the story as does Chaucer's skill in speaking through the Merchant and January and other characters.
The extreme idealisation of the next lines (125-149) causes us to ask certain general questions such as how far any man contemplating marriage wants a totally subservient wife: the passage reflects entirely a male point of view and so exaggerates the "blisse" (a word which has religious connotations) of having a wife that it is impossible to believe in the statements. No hardship can occur and no tongue can describe the happiness of the union. The woman will help a poor husband to work and will be thrifty, doing all that her husband wants although the alliteration of "l" rings a warning bell: "Al that hire housband lust, hire liketh weel" sounds too pat. The overstatements continue as she is said never to contradict him and the monosyllables in "She seith nat ones 'nay' whan he seith 'ye'" underline the simplistic and deluded viewpoint. Eulogy has moved into fantasy. The abstract and hyperbolic language of "blisful", "precious","murye" and "vertuous" with its use of apostrophe in the "O" and its muddle of motives is vitiated by the change of register to homely terms at "worth a leek." A wife is again seen as a possession sent from God who must be thanked but one with stamina whose endurance is a postive, ensuring "sikernesse" [security], except that we see that this may be over-confidence as the husband may, against his belief, be deceived in reality as the Wife of Bath has shown. This could happen even if he follows his wife's advice as the feeble 'rhyme', "wise," "wise", suggests by its lack of conviction. Yet there is some sense at last of the woman's having a mind of her own. By this stage we have received insights into the mind of January more than is usual in the fabliau mode and realise that there is more of a psychological element here than in the traditional crude and bawdy story of that genre.
At this point there is a slight switch in the narration as the Merchant breaks into Januray's thought to reveal and show off his own learning and so attract admiration from the other pilgrims. He gives exempla from the Old Testament and ancient philosphers to add weight to his points. Such examples were highly valued at the time as originality was not at a premium and quoting from respected authors or authorities added authority to the discourse. The examples should be brief, accurate, documented, specific and relevant to the main thrust whereas we note the irony here since those chosen demonstrate deceitfulness and clever resourcefulness rather than virtue and loyalty. Rebecca wanted financial gain for Jacob, Judith was a murderess and both Abigail and Ester were cunningly deceitful. There is violence and treachery under the surface of which the Merchant seems unaware. One of the sources of sly humour in The Canterbury Tales is the fact that many narrators are not fully conscious of the effects they are creating.
After a nod at Seneca and Cato which is too vague to command respect, the husband and wife are presented as mutually obedient (lines 165 ff) but there is an ironic repetition of the early words of the narrative in "biwaille and wepe" and the alliteration in "I warne thee, if wisely thou wolt wirche" (although frequent in Old and Middle English poetry) here draws attention to the falsity of the claims by being too obvious. There is a comparison between the love of a husband for his wife and that of Christ for his church but we note the contrast: the husband seems to love his wife because, in doing so, he loves himself and his affection is not altruistic. The bond will benefit him also although the claim that they will be so united that "ther may noon harm betide" is the height of fantasy in its impossibility.
The Merchant takes a firm hold of his narrative when he resumes the plot and mentions January, where the calendar month strikes us as suggesting he is too old to consider marriage and hope for its honey sweetness. Again January's motives are mixed as he wants both the "lusty [pleasant] lif" and the "vertuous quiete", the earthly contentment and the heavenly rewards. When he sends for his friends, we notice that he does not truly wish consultation but to tell them the results of his deliberations. We suspect it will not be a summary and that he will go through a charade of a council. Yet the Merchnat shows sound control of the Tale in returning to the thread of the plot after a digressio. We guess that disappointment will dog January for many reasons but this creates tension and apprehension more than in a fabliau where a bawdy and comic outcome is the only expectation.
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The Portrait from The General Prologue
Chaucer's description of the Merchant is comparatively brief and somewhat casual in tone, ending as it does in his refusal to tell us the man's name. Many of the characters remain without names but Chaucer draws our attention to this lack here and abandons possible omniscient narration in favour of his own persona as another pilgrim who knows only as much as the others.
A forked beard was a fashionable way of dressing the beard amongst the bourgeoisie and "motteleye" [a parti-coloured cloth] was also considered modish and could be a sign that the Merchant was a gildsman. These traits along with his sitting on a high saddle suggest that he wishes to gain approval from others and he wears an elegant hat from Flanders and boots fastened neatly with a clasp. This swift visual cameo is followed by the fact that he speaks his "resons" [opinions] with an important air and constantly stresses his increase in profits. Yet there is a note of insecurity as he needs the sea kept free from enemy ships between Middleberg in Holland and Orwell on the English coast as that is his trade route for his dealings in wool. A "sheelde" was a unit of exchange, a French crown, and profit on such dealings was forbidden except for royal money changers: however, merchants were frequently accused of illegalities in this matter. He lives on his wits which he uses well and is so dignified and imposing in his manner and behaviour concerning his financial arrangements ("chevisaunce" means "borrowings") that no-one knows he is in debt. Chaucer often uses the word "worthy" to imply the opposite or to leave the verdict open and here he dismisses his character quite brusquely.
The Merchant is a self-made man who covers up his flaws with dignity and we may feel that we should look for similar screening in his Tale, although the portrait give us few hints as to what kind of story he will tell, except to suggest that the teller will want to please everyone and hide his deficiences. Chaucer's eye has roamed over his appearance and his ear has heard his pronouncements but without much deep interest.
The Merchant's Tale
This story is a mixtures of modes, being a fabliau (a low-life crude bar-room story), a satire on courtly love and a psychological insight into the spirit and mind of an elderly man. It may be considered part of a "Marriage Group" of Tales which add up to a discussion on marriage and certainly we need to connect it with the Clerk's and the Wife of Bath's Tales. It takes a common plot of the old husband being deceived by a young wife but adds mythological and socially satirical elements as well as the inner and outer workings of January's body and brain. The Clerk has told the story of the almost unbelievably submissive and obedient Griselda (if she is taken as a real woman not as a kind of allegorical figure) and the Wife of Bath has presented herself as an aggressively feminist character who makes money out of old rich husbands until her final marriage. The Merchant has somewhat misunderstood the Clerk's Tale because it seems to him to relate directly and in reality to his own life by providing such an extreme opposite. He does not stop to think.
The Merchant launches into a Prologue in which he expresses his bitterness about his own experiences in marriage as if, once he has decided to reveal the failings in his life, he cannot resist emphasising them. Although the Clerk has suggested that his Tale (which precedes that of the Merchant) is intended as an image of the relationship of Christ to his Church, the Merchant picks up some of the last words and applies them to his own life-story: both use the terms weeping and wailing. ("And lat hym care, and wepe, and wrynge, and waille!" The Clerk's Tale) These expressions have clearly reminded the Merchant of his own troubles and he embarks on a complaint which colours our interpretation of his Tale. The bitterness and cynicism remain in the minds of the reader/listener as we respond to the story and decide whose voice is narrating at which point. The idealism of January about the wedded state cannot be endorsed by the disillusioned Merchant. So strong is his rancour that it comes as a shock to find that he has been married only a couple of months and we might guess that this is the reason for his deciding to go on this pilgrimage. He may have felt the need for space to think and may also have been pleasantly surprised at the idea of a contest of story-telling with its prize as he likes bargaining and emerging with a profit. He will therefore devote himself to concocting a story to win but not before he has told his own tale of marital hardship, even if that goes against his usual desire to cover up.
In the first twenty or so lines of the prologue to the Merchant's Tale we notice two main characteristics: the emphasis on the word "I" and also the stress on his wife's despicable nature. He uses the first person often to state how right he is to complain as his disgust and disillusionment is so strong: "I trowe"; "I woot"; "I dar wel swere"; "I yow reherce", all meaning similarly "I tell you." The terms for her include: "malice"; "shrewe"; "passing [extreme] crueltee"; "cursednesse" and he reckons that she would "overmacche" [be more than a match for] the devil if she were attached to him. The story of Griselda has provoked this outburst and he vows he would never again marry if he were free, generalising that married men "liven in sorwe and care" but qualifying this in case anyone is offended that the sentiment applies "for the moore part, I sey nat alle." He swears by Doubting Thomas who would not believe in the resurrection of Christ until he had put his hand in the wounds, implying that anyone with normal faith would trust him. Marriage is for him a "snare" and his listeners may recall how the Wife of Bath's speech proved him right as she admitted to trapping old rich men into wedlock for their possessions.
We learn with some astonishment that he has engendered all this bitterness in the short space of two months but he does not accuse his wife of infidelity and we are left to guess what she has done to deserve his spite. His pain is clear as he states that an unmarried man even "rive/Unto the herte" [split to the heart] could not speak of as much agony as he can. (In Chaucer's English double negatives such as "ne koude in no manere" add emphasis and do not cancel each other out.) It is out of character for him to admit to being henpecked but the two other pilgrims, the Clerk and the Wife of Bath, have each penetrated his dignity in different ways and he is incensed. The Host senses that a good story might emerge from this virulence and asks him to tell a relevant tale: the pilgrims by and large obey the Host and the Merchant agrees whilst refusing to say more about himself. This is an example of occupatio, a shortening rhetorical device whereby, if used as claimed, the narrator can hint at more material but not hold up his account by giving it. The result is that we expect a cynical story about marriage which may be a reflection of the Merchant's own experience. His Prologue affects our response to the whole Tale and this is one case where the teller and the tale are closely linked.
The Merchant's Tale
The Merchant also sets his story in Lombardy, in a city called Pavia, well known for banking and brothels, both possibly relevant to the story which deals with both money and lust. He describes his main character as "worthy", a term often used by Chaucer quite loosely to invite the reader/listener to decide if it is merited or not. His age is sixty which, in those times, would have seemed much more elderly than nowadays, as his name January suggests by its wintry connotations. He has been a womaniser and intent on "bodily delit" which the Merchant claims is the folly of secular men, thus toadying to the clerics amongst the pilgrims. The narrator, be it the Merchant or Chaucer, immediately raises the question of his motive in suddenly wishing for marriage: is it for religious reasons or "dotage", the foolishness of senility. The teller abandons omniscient narration in stating that he cannot answer this conundrum since any narrator can tell us what his characters are thinking if he chooses but this adds realism, as if January were a living person and the Merchant viewing him from outside. Throughout the Tale we have to assess who is the speaker at any moment: Chaucer, the Merchant, January or minor characters whilst remembering that Chaucer is the overall creator handling these voices with dexterity and speaking through others. January has a great "corage" [desire] for marriage which has come upon him as soon as he has turned sixty and he looks around for a wife, praying to find one: the lexis is religious though words like "blisful", "hooly", "paradis" must not be taken at face value and lean towards an interpretation that he wants to sanctify his sexual yearnings before it is too late. This impression is underlined by the sustained irony as it cannot be the Merchant using these terms since he is profoundly disillusioned with marriage. The imagery of the Garden of Eden where "first God man and womman bond" is prevalent throughout the story but carries with it the threat of the presnce of a destructive serpent. January changes register at "worth a bene" and this homeliness and bluntness vitiates the apparently religiosity. The word "wis" is pointedly ironic when considered against the Merchant's own views on marriage.
At this point we await a story where the central character is disappointed in his high expectations but, instead of the start of this tale, there is a digressio about marriage. Such digressions were considered proper provided they are controlled and do not delay the narrative for too long but and this one is relevant and skilful since it deals with marriage and gives January's inner thoughts. The voice is that of the Merchant demonstrating January's foolish optimism and it sounds like an interior monologue during which January rehearses the advantages of marriage. The delusion that a wife will be "the fruit of his tresor" when he is old and white-haired is obvious and particularly so when set against a background of ribald folk tales in which the senile husband is deceived by a youthful wife. The use of the word "tresor" and the determination to secure an heir reveal a financial side to the potential union: it is a sensible but self-centred objective as is the desire for "solas". There is exaggeration of the case when bachelors are described as constantly complaining when the Merchant has revealed that he wishes he were still unmarried.
The irony deepens and becomes more overt when the life of unmarried men is recounted and we note the opposition between the "libertee" of being single and the state of being "ybounde" in marriage. The former is more appealing even though he claims it is a state of "brotelnesse", this fragiity being stressed by repetition and the comparison to that of a bird or animal. There is a payment for "sikernesse" [security] which is the yoke of a contract which does not even ensure that stability. The idealised account of the generalised wife is overstated as she is said to be "buxom" [obedient like Griselda], "trewe" and completely devoted and loyal in sickness or health, even when he is dying. This must be set against the Wife of Bath's revelations that she longed for her most of her elderly husbands to die so that she would inherit their property. January disparages a textual authority, Theophrastus (who discouraged marriage in favour of a good servant or friends) and shows hubris in doing so as such authorities should be respected; the bold rhyme "hoold" and "cokewold" draws attention to the likelihood of any elderly man's being made a figure of fun by his young wife's infidelity. The sententia or opinion of Theophrastus must, he says, be defied and the language here is derogatory: "ther God his bones corse [curse]", a rash and contemptuous rejection of a valued authority, one who points to the vulnerability of January's own position in a projected marriage.
In lines 99-105 we find the irony deepening as well as becoming more overt: January through the mouth of the Merchant shows that a wife is to him a possession under the guise of a gift from God such as land, income, pasture, common land or furnishings. His view is essentially mercenary and calculating as well as misguided as it is obvious that these objects will last and are not like a "shadwe upon a wal." A note of warning occurs when the wife is seen as, possibly, an enduring nuisance:
A wif wol laste, and in thyn hous endure,
Wel lenger then thee list [even longer than you wish], paraventure.
Realising that he may have offended some of the religious members his audience, the Merchant returns to the holy elements in marriage, calling it a sacrament and the bachelor is seen as "shent" [damned or ruined], helpless and lonely. Here again he hastily corrects himself and states that he is excluding clerics from his judgements and speaking only of "folk in seculer estaat." Woman is and was made to help man as the story of the Garden of Eden relates. God created Eve when Adam needed her but the audience would have instantly recalled that she caused the Fall of Man by disobeying God and eating the apple and that there was a serpent or devil lurking in the paradise. The dual motives of January give a clue as to where this evil may be hidden in his intentions as he wants both a "paradis terrestre" and "disport" [pleasure]. The hyperbole overstates the case: "So buxom [obedient] and so vertuous is she" and reminds us that neither Eve nor any other woman is so ideally submissive that harmony is certain. The memory of the Wife of Bath's manipulations and the perfection in the abstraction of Griselda are the background to our reactions. There is a lack of logic in the argument that, because husband and wife are metaphorically seen as one flesh they will be completely united in their attitudes to "wele" [happiness] and "distresse". By now we are convinced that January is misguided and the tension lies in waiting to see exactly how he will become disillusioned like the teller of the Tale. The imagery of the Garden of Eden will pervade the story as does Chaucer's skill in speaking through the Merchant and January and other characters.
The extreme idealisation of the next lines (125-149) causes us to ask certain general questions such as how far any man contemplating marriage wants a totally subservient wife: the passage reflects entirely a male point of view and so exaggerates the "blisse" (a word which has religious connotations) of having a wife that it is impossible to believe in the statements. No hardship can occur and no tongue can describe the happiness of the union. The woman will help a poor husband to work and will be thrifty, doing all that her husband wants although the alliteration of "l" rings a warning bell: "Al that hire housband lust, hire liketh weel" sounds too pat. The overstatements continue as she is said never to contradict him and the monosyllables in "She seith nat ones 'nay' whan he seith 'ye'" underline the simplistic and deluded viewpoint. Eulogy has moved into fantasy. The abstract and hyperbolic language of "blisful", "precious","murye" and "vertuous" with its use of apostrophe in the "O" and its muddle of motives is vitiated by the change of register to homely terms at "worth a leek." A wife is again seen as a possession sent from God who must be thanked but one with stamina whose endurance is a postive, ensuring "sikernesse" [security], except that we see that this may be over-confidence as the husband may, against his belief, be deceived in reality as the Wife of Bath has shown. This could happen even if he follows his wife's advice as the feeble 'rhyme', "wise," "wise", suggests by its lack of conviction. Yet there is some sense at last of the woman's having a mind of her own. By this stage we have received insights into the mind of January more than is usual in the fabliau mode and realise that there is more of a psychological element here than in the traditional crude and bawdy story of that genre.
At this point there is a slight switch in the narration as the Merchant breaks into Januray's thought to reveal and show off his own learning and so attract admiration from the other pilgrims. He gives exempla from the Old Testament and ancient philosphers to add weight to his points. Such examples were highly valued at the time as originality was not at a premium and quoting from respected authors or authorities added authority to the discourse. The examples should be brief, accurate, documented, specific and relevant to the main thrust whereas we note the irony here since those chosen demonstrate deceitfulness and clever resourcefulness rather than virtue and loyalty. Rebecca wanted financial gain for Jacob, Judith was a murderess and both Abigail and Ester were cunningly deceitful. There is violence and treachery under the surface of which the Merchant seems unaware. One of the sources of sly humour in The Canterbury Tales is the fact that many narrators are not fully conscious of the effects they are creating.
After a nod at Seneca and Cato which is too vague to command respect, the husband and wife are presented as mutually obedient (lines 165 ff) but there is an ironic repetition of the early words of the narrative in "biwaille and wepe" and the alliteration in "I warne thee, if wisely thou wolt wirche" (although frequent in Old and Middle English poetry) here draws attention to the falsity of the claims by being too obvious. There is a comparison between the love of a husband for his wife and that of Christ for his church but we note the contrast: the husband seems to love his wife because, in doing so, he loves himself and his affection is not altruistic. The bond will benefit him also although the claim that they will be so united that "ther may noon harm betide" is the height of fantasy in its impossibility.
The Merchant takes a firm hold of his narrative when he resumes the plot and mentions January, where the calendar month strikes us as suggesting he is too old to consider marriage and hope for its honey sweetness. Again January's motives are mixed as he wants both the "lusty [pleasant] lif" and the "vertuous quiete", the earthly contentment and the heavenly rewards. When he sends for his friends, we notice that he does not truly wish consultation but to tell them the results of his deliberations. We suspect it will not be a summary and that he will go through a charade of a council. Yet the Merchnat shows sound control of the Tale in returning to the thread of the plot after a digressio. We guess that disappointment will dog January for many reasons but this creates tension and apprehension more than in a fabliau where a bawdy and comic outcome is the only expectation.
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