Whan That Novembre — Lucas Blogs About The Canterbury Tales: Part 7

By now you shouldn't be surprised that it's the same old photo.

 The Intro

Welcome back to What That Month  — Lucas Blogs About The Canterbury Tales. Last month I closed out the fourth fragment with a discussion of The Merchant's Tale. While I wasn't crazy about it, it did at least complement The Clerk's Tale which preceded it. This month I hope to read the entirety of the fifth fragment, which comprises The Squire's Tale and The Franklin's Tale. This raises an important question, namely:

The "Wait a Minute, What Exactly is a Franklin?"

Way back in the fourteenth century, when Chaucer was writing The Canterbury Tales, a franklin was one of the social classes. Specifically a franklin was a free man, that is to say, not a serf. To be more specific, by Chaucer's time, a franklin was a landowner who wasn't a member of the gentry or the nobility.

The Squire's Prologue

Okay, so maybe the fourth and fifth fragment aren't as separate as you might think, because Harry Baily is actually still talking about love when the Squire's prologue begins (my edition follows previous editions for the sake of line numbering). Anyway, Harry presumes that the Squire must know as much about love as any man, and while the Squire protests, he is willing to tell —

The Squire's Tale

Part One

Cambiuskan (possibly Batu Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan) rules Tartarye (the Mongol Empire) from Sarray (Sarai, a city in what is now Russia, was the seat of Batu Khan's rule). He's apparently a pretty good king, he keeps the laws of his religion (it goes unnamed but it's probably meant to be Islam), he's merciful, strong, and true. His wife is named Elfeta, and together they have two sons, Algarsif and Cambalo, and a daughter, Canacee. Now Canacee is so beautiful that the Squire couldn't possibly describe her. A likewise indescribably lavish feast to honor Cambiuskan's twentieth year on the throne is interrupted by—

A green knight with a green axe, riding a green horse?

No, a normal knight with a mirror, a ring and a sword, riding a brass horse. He rides right up to Cambiuskan's dais and explains that he represents the king of Arabe and Inde (you got this, Hypothetical Reader) to present Cambiuskan with four gifts: 1) a brass horse that can bear its rider anywhere within "foure and twenty houres," 2) a mirror which can display any coming adversity, and allow the user to see others' true inentions, 3) a ring which allows the wearer to speak to birds and to know which herbs will prove useful as medicines, and 4) a sword whose edge deals out wounds that will not heal unless touched by the flat of the blade. Specifically, the horse and the sword are for Cambiuskan and the mirror and ring are for Canacee. The horse is placed in a hall where everyone gawks at it and the knight is allowed to rest, after this he comes back to the feast and dances with Canacee so gracefully that once again the Squire is at a loss for words. Meanwhile, after eating dishes that, I must remind you, the Squire simply cannot do justice to with words, the knight gives Cambiuskan a tech demo on his new brass toy, and everyone goes back to partying until the early morning.

Part Two

While everyone else is sleeping off their party hangover, Canacee — who left the party early — gets up at 6:00 am in order to go on a walk in the woods. While she's out she sees a falcon swoon from the top of tree and injure itself with its beak. She immediately runs over to cradle the falcon in her lap and uses her magic ring to ask it what's up. It turns out that that its a lady falcon whose true love turned out to not be so true after all. He left her for a kite! (The nerve!) In any case, Canacee builds the lady falcon a coop in symbolic colors. Meanwhile, the Squire starts talking about all the cool stuff he's totally going to talk about in Part Three. Like how Algarsif won the hand of Theodora, and how Cambalo entered the lists to win Canacee's hand.

Wait, aren't Cambalo and Canacee siblings?

Yes.

Part Three

Well, Apollo (read, the sonne, I mean, the sun) is in the house of Mercury—

How'd Lucas Like the Squire's Tale?

As you may have noticed, The Squire's Tale is unfinished. So maybe it's unfair to pass judgment. In his introduction to this fragment, David Lawton (the editor of my edition) points out that critical opinion has gone back and forth over whether Chaucer intended to finish the story, or if it was in earnest or parodic. I can't say for sure, but I often favor interpretations with a satirical bent. Though that would raise the question of what exactly Chaucer is satirizing. Possibly self-serious storytellers?

It might depend on whether you read the tale as fanciful or absurd. Honestly, it's a little hard to tell, but for me the thing that tips it over towards absurdity is the Squire's excessive use of occupatio. That is to say, a rhetorical technique in which the speaker makes a point of telling you that they won't tell you something (think of how Cervantes doesn't care to recall the name of Don Quixote's hometown). In this case, the Squire keeps going on about how he couldn't possibly describe the princess's beauty or the feast's extravagance to the point that it can't help but seem like a running gag.

But are the story elements really that absurd within the context of medieval literature? Obviously, the knight interrupting a party is very similar to the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and the bird's lengthy tale of woe to Canacee wouldn't seem out of place as an animal fable about the danger of staking your happiness on romantic love. Then again, the fact that it gets cut off around the time it says that Cambalo is going to enter a tournament to win his sister's hand might point to it being less than serious. Unless it's meant to be a tragedy. Or maybe it's just operating on the xenophobic assumptions about foreigners practicing incest or being otherwise uncivilized.

All of this is to say that I don't know quite what to make of The Squire's Tale. I do think it has some interesting ideas. For example, who's gonna use the mechanical flying horse? Anyway, it also has this month's Middle English Word of the Month: fumositee (noun, fumes of alcohol). That's right, it's on account of all that fumositee that everyone else was still sleeping in when Canacee went out on her morning stroll. Now let's move on, because the squire's just been interrupted by—

The Franklin's Introduction

The Franklin praises the Squire's fair speech and points out his youth, partly to segue into a series of complaints about his own wastrel son. Turns out that the Franklin's son has been hanging around with the wrong sort of crowd and wasting his money on dice games. Harry Baily interrupts and reminds him that he'd better start telling a story or he'll be abrogating his responsibilities vis-à-vis the storytelling contest.

The Franklin's Prologue

The Franklin begins by bringing up the Breton lay (a type of poetry popularized in the 13th century by Marie de France) and says that he happens to know a pretty good one (he's either mistaken or lying, like a lot of The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer cribbed this from Bocaccio). But as he's merely a simple freeman, unlearned in rhetoric, he asks that his travelling companions grant him leeway if his storytelling powers fall short.

The Franklin's Tale

In Armorik, or Britaine (Brittany, not Britain, which confusingly is also Britaine), there's this knight, Averagus, who confesses his love to a fair lady named Dorigen. It turns out that this love is requited and they both agree to pay each other respect and never try to exert control over each other. After they've been married for a year, Averagus goes off to spend a year or two in Engelond, or Britaine (this time it is Britain and not Britanny, which again is also Britaine). And since they'd both agreed not to try and control each other, Dorigen says she's fine with it. However, every day she goes out to coast and sighs seeing the big black rocks and worries that they'll sink Avergus's boat on his return journey. Anyway, there's this squire, Aurelius, who it turns out is exceedingly handsome and graceful and he's secretly pining away after Dorigen. One night at a feast, he screws up his courage and confesses that if she will not return his love it will just kill him. Obviously, Dorigen loves no one but Averagus so she tries to let Aurelius down easy by promising to love him best of all if he can remove all the rocks from the coast of Britaine (Brittany). Now, Aurelius has two options: A) he could take the hint and move on with his life, or 2) he could try and figure out a way to make it look like the rocks are gone. So, obvs, he goes up on a cliff and prays to Apollo to intercede on his behalf with Diana to use her moon powers to create an unusually high tide so that the rocks will be hidden underwater.

Hold the phone! Now give the phone to me, how does that satisfy the conditions of Dorigen's promise. Not only would the rocks still be there, they'd be ever more dangerous because they wouldn't be visible.

Look, just go with it Hypothetical Reader. Anyway, when nothing happens Aurelius is overwhelmed with sorrow and suffers from an unnamed malady that leaves him bedridden for two years. In that time he's in the care of his brother, a clerk who overheard his prayer. Eventually, the clerk recalls that he came across a book while studying in Orliens (Orleans) that might tell them how to achieve the desired effect through natural philosophy. This snaps Aurelius out of it and they immediately head off to Orliens where they meet a magicien who tells the clerk that all of his fellows from the university are dead, but that maybe he could help them with their troubles. So they go back to the magician's house and he astounds them with his illusions and Aurelius agrees to pay him one thousand pounds if he can make the rocks disappear. They travel back to Britaine (still Brittany) and the magician checks his almanac and sees that there will be a two-week long high tide coming up.

Really, a two week long high tide?

Just leave it be. Anyway, he does some hocus pocus and tells Aurelius to keep an eye on the tides. So once the rocks slip under the water, Aurelius takes Dorigen to the shore and shows her that the rocks are gone. Now Dorigen has two options: 1) she could tell Aurelius that she was trying to let him down easy by giving him an impossible task to prove himself, or B) she could keep her word. She tells him to give her some time. She then uses that time to give a little speech about the inconstancy of women. Meanwhile, Averagus notices that his wife is out of sorts and asks her what the deal is. She tells him the story so far and Averagus says that she ought to keep her word, ie sleep with Aurelius, because apparently breaking a promise is worse than adultery. When Dorigen tells Aurelius that she'll sleep with him, Aurelius can see how uncomfortable he's made her and releases her from her promise. But then he has to go back to the magician and see if he can work out an installment plan, but the magician, seeing that Aurelius didn't get what he wanted out of the arrangement agrees to forgive the debt, because, again, he didn't actually do anything. Which leaves us with the question, who's the most generous?

How'd Lucas Like the Franklin's Tale?

Well, if there's one thing that this puts to rest it's the question of whether Chaucer intended for the Squire's Tale to be incomplete. Clearly the Franklin is responding as if the Squire had told a complete story. It does leave open the question of the sincerity of the Squire's Tale, but let's talk about the Franklin's Tale itself.

As he has for a few of the other tales, David Lawton (the editor of this edition) describes this tale as operating on fairy tale logic. That is to say that a promise, once given, cannot be broken. I don't know that I would agree in this case. I mean, sure, I clowned on Aurelius and Dorigen for treating her promise as a legitimate verbal contract in the synopsis, but it's pretty clear that the characters take giving their word seriously. Maybe too seriously, but it seems more like a story about not promising more than you're willing to deliver. Dorigen isn't willing to sleep with Aurelius, Aurelius can't afford to hire the magician, and the magician is a fraud.

Also, does it count as a twist that even though Aurelius prays to Apollo to intercede on his behalf with Diana, everything in the story has a natural explanation? I mean, the gods have already shown themselves plenty willing to intervene in human affairs in both the Knight's Tale and the Merchant's Tale, but there isn't so much as a response to Aurelius's prayer. In any case, that does give it a more modern feel even if it still has all the same medieval trappings as the rest of The Canterbury Tales.

However, on the whole I'm not particularly taken with the Franklin's Tale. Maybe it's the fact that once again we see a return of St. Jerome's Against Jovinian (when Dorigen talks about woeful stories of women), maybe it's the fact that it follows a more fantastical story and manages to be the more ridiculous of the two. Maybe it's the fact that the Franklin ends the story by framing it as a parable about generosity and forgiveness rather than as being one about being careful about what you promise people. It's perfectly fine, but nothing special.

The Outro

Well, that's the fifth fragment. Next month I'll be taking a break (since the final Monday of December falls between Christmas and the New Year), but Whan That Month will return on the final Monday of January.