The Pardoner's Tale -- The Old Man and Death

We discussed in class today the Pardoner’s Tale from the Canterbury Tales. I remember reading it in my freshman year western literature course but that was so long ago, and a translated edition. It’s incredible how different the stories are in their original words. Everything has a deeper meaning.

Well, in the Pardoner’s tale (which is really just a short tale with a lot of preaching from the Pardoner) there are three “revelers” who are angered that the thief “Death” has killed one of their friends when he was in a drunken stupor on the beach.

A servant boy warns the men that this “Death” cuts the hearts of men in two and they should be wary.

The men decide still to form a brotherhood and to search for this thief “Death”. Now remember, they have also been drinking so they run off after death in a drunken fury.

At one point they are jumping over a “stile” and they run into an old man. No, to me this is the most interesting part of the story, and according to our text and professor, it is still uncertain who this old man is, what he represents.

The old man can not die; he is looking for a young man willing to exchange his youth for the old man’s age. The three revelers are rude to him, and say he is a spy for death. The old man chastises them and then tells them they can find death under an Oak where they actually find a pile of gold that they end up killing each other over.

Now, the old man, who is he? What is he? At first I lean towards him being Death, but perhaps he is just a tool of death… an informant? A worker of death? Somehow indebt to death? Why is he on this search to find someone who will trade youth for age?

Maybe, and I have nothing to back this up, maybe he made a deal with death long ago, when he was young. And the deal was that he could live forever if he worked as Death’s servant and the only way he could die was if he could find a young man willing to trade youth for age (which of course he will never find). Now he realizes the deal was not as sweet as it seemed when he was young, now that he is forever old. And he remains eternally Death’s servant.

the Lewis Chessmen

Saw a NYT article on the 12th century Lewis Chessmen today and thought they were just incredible:

Devil found in detail of Giotto fresco in Italy's Assisi

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/05/us-italy-giotto-idUSTRE7A417420111105

Chaucer -- Troilus and Criseyde -- The Myth of Modern Progress

Began reading Troilus and Criseyde in my Chaucer class and
it is incredible. I can’t believe I have never read this or been told about
this work of Chaucer’s before this! It is so beautifully done. It’s an epic, a
romance, and a humor. Like I said, it is
incredible and enjoyable to read.
I love some of the themes and how forward thinking it is, or
maybe it isn’t so forward thinking, maybe it is just that we are constantly
told the modern has progressed and yet we read such works as these that makes
one realize that people, art, and culture haven’t changed/progressed as much as
we might like to think…
For example:
The dialogue is really entertaining and I can see people
having the same sort of conversations today, granted, not using such beautiful
turns of phrase:
"How hastow thus unkyndely and longe
Hid this fro me, thow fol?" quod Pandarus.
"Paraunter thow myghte after swich oon longe,
That myn avys anoon may helpen us."
"This were a wonder thing," quod Troilus;
"Thow koudest nevere in love thiselven wisse.
How devel maistow brynge me to blisse?"
(I.617-623)
Troilus basically saying “dude, how the devil are you going
to help me when you couldn’t help yourself in love” made me laugh and think of guys
I know today and how they interact.
And later Pandarus mentions how Troilus has mocked love:
For thow were wont to chace
At Love in scorn, and for despit him calle
`Seynt Idiot, lord of thise foles alle.'
(I.908-910)

Another example is Criseyde’s reluctance to marry:

Not unlike the Wife of Bath and the old woman in The Romaunt of the
Rose, Criseyde believes men, notably husbands, can be restrictive to their
wives, controlling, and jealous, and she values her freedom from such domestic
tyranny.

"I am myn owene womman,
wel at ese --
I thank it God -- as after myn estat,
Right yong, and stonde unteyd in lusty leese,
Withouten jalousie or swich debat:
Shal noon housbonde seyn to me
`Chek mat!'
For either they ben ful of
jalousie,
Or maisterfull, or loven
novelrie.”
(II.750-756)

Of which to telle in short is myn entente
Th' effect, as fer as I kan understonde.
She thanked hym of al that he wel mente
Towardes hire, but holden hym in honde
She nolde nought, ne make
hireselven bonde
In love; but as his suster,
hym to plese,
She wolde fayn to doon his herte an ese.
(II.1219-1225)

Aleppo -- 1138 Earthquake

So today in history in 1138 the Aleppo (Syria) earthquake happened which caused 230,000 deaths. The United States Geological Survey considers it the 3rd deadliest earthquake in history.

Ok, so, I would never have even given this little fact a second thought if I hadn't been at my Medieval Middle East History class last night and my Professor began talking about the Sunni Revival Period (11/12th cent.). She mentioned that with the revival of the Sunni's, Baghdad began to fall and the power center started to shift West, to cities like ALEPPO, Cairo, and Granada/Cordoba.

It makes sense then why this would have been an especially devastating earthquake at this time. It occurred just when Aleppo was growing and benefiting from the Revival and shift west.

St. Augustine -- Cuiusdam Ciceronis

In translating Augustine's third book you cone across his comments on Cicero's book Hortensius,

"inter hos ego inbecilla tunc aetate discebam libros eloquentiae, in qua eminere cupiebam fine damnabili et ventoso per gaudia vanitatis humanae. et usitato iam discendi ordine perveneram in librum cuiusdam Ciceronis, cuius linguam fere omnes mirantur, pectus non ita. " (III.4)


Augustine is talking here about how at a tender age he discovered an eloquent book (the Hortensius)

...and now in the ordinary course of study I had reached in the book of a certain Cicero..."

One of the comments on this flippant way of mentioning Cicero (as if people wouldn't know that there was one and only one Cicero that mattered) was that Augustine was trying to distance himself from the paganism of Cicero. In a way, he was saying "I know he is a pagan but maybe we can just overlook that for now..."

I'm not sure yet if I agree with this. He uses an awful lot of classical "pagan" quotes and allusions in his works to make me think he thought any less of them for being pagan. I don't know that he would apologize for their being pagan. Perhaps he was just being sarcastic?

Chaucer -- The Wife of Bath -- Children? Literate?

Some of my notes from my Chaucer class today:

In the Last Will and Testament of Edmund Denny (handout) it states that if the wife marries again the property goes to Denny and her's son. So, if the Wife of Bath had had children, she might not have been able to accumulate the wealth she did by the fifth husband This may be a good argument for her not having children. Especially since she married Janekyn for love and not for money, she must have been independently wealthy from some of her husbands. I guess she could have still had children, maybe from an earlier marriage, but then not from the others. She would have still had wealth and yet lost some from one husband to one of her children. Were all the Wills made like this? Maybe she could have still had children and yet kept the money? Especially if they were all younger children. But I don't think it makes sense with her character that she would have had children.

The question of whether she was literate I think is still up in the air. I lean towards her not being. First, Janekyn read to her from the "Book of Wicked Wives." Second, she did tear the book and then order him to throw it in the fire. I'm not sure, as angry as she was at the book, she would have condoned this if she was literate.