Classics and the Western Canon discussion

We enter our last week with a group of shorter, but no less interesting, tales.

We start with a sweet tale which addresses, in a quite different way from those of the Wife of Bath and the Clerk, the issue of sovereignty in marriage.

There is much to discuss about this tale, but I'll let others start raising these points, limiting myself here to encouraging people to address the question Chaucer ends with:

Lordings, this question will I ask now:
Which was the most free [generous], as thinketh you?
Now telleth me, ere that you further wend.
I can no more, my tale is at an end.

Bill wrote: "It probably won't surprise you, Everyman, if I say that I quite disagree with your statement that this tale approaches the sovereignty of marriage in a different way then the Wife of Bath's.."

Fair enough. But consider in each case which party is the driving force behind the definition of their relationship, and whether the Wife of Bath's husbands were subservient because "any lover of a lady must," or for some other reason.

I think the dynamics of this tale set it in opposition to the WoB, though the final conclusion may be the same. (Though I am not so sure the quality of love shared by the WoB and No. 5 is the same as that between Arveragus and Dorigen.) The WoB obtains her goal through more forceful means -- physical violence plays a role in both her prologue and her tale -- while here the result is realized in a much more graceful way. So maybe the question could be couched this way: who would you rather have as a mate -- Alison or Dorigen?

And I think there may be a more generous reading of Aurelius. He seems to have been stricken by the malady of love, which was at the time considered to be a real sickness. (Maybe Madge can tell us more about humors in this regard.) In any case, I think his machinations are forgivable if seen in this light, as the acts of an incurable romantic.

(Maybe Madge can tell us more about humors in this regard.)

Here is a table of the Four Humours and explanations thereto:-

http://www.kheper.net/topics/typology...

Chaucer may have been following the idea of a tale from Boethius about a case of the medieval doctor Galen, which is thought to be the first account of lovesickness. Iastrus's wife was suffering from insomnia and showing signs of considerable agitation. When Galen attended her she refused to answer any questions and brought their first consultation to an end by disappearing under the bedclothes! Undeterred Galen continued to make house calls, until a chance observation allowed him to make a diagnostic breakthrough. He noted that his patient's expression and complexion completely changed when somebody happened to mention the dancer Plyades. Galen swiftly applied his hand to her wrist, and noticed that the woman's pulse had become extremely irregular....'Thus I found out that the woman was in love with Plyades and by a very careful watch on succeeding days, my discovery was confirmed.' Galen proposed that a lovesick individual, under the influence of extreme passion, experiences a humoral (or chemical) imbalance, which in turn promotes the occurrence of physical symptoms.

Medieval Arab doctors also wrote a great deal about 'love madness' and thought that the intellectual and emotional disturbances it caused to the brain were incurable. Later it came to be described as melancholia (Greek for 'sadness') which was produced by an excess of 'black bile', one of the four bodily humours.

(Oh Bill! Don't tell me that you haven't done any 'piteous moaning' in your time?!)