The Merchant's Tale

The Merchant's Tale

"The Merchant's Tale" (Middle English: The Marchantes Tale) is one of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In it Chaucer subtly mocks antifeminist literature like that of Theophrastus ("Theofraste"). The tale also shows the influence of Boccaccio (Decameron: 7th day, 9th tale), Deschamps' Le Miroir de Mariage, Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris (translated into English by Chaucer), Andreas Capellanus, Statius, and Cato. The tale is found in Persia in the Bahar Danush, in which the husband climbs a date tree instead of a pear tree. It could have arrived in Europe through the One Thousand and One Nights, or perhaps the version in book VI of the Masnavi by Rumi. Though several of the tales are sexually explicit by modern standards, this one is especially so. Larry Benson remarks:

The central episode of the Merchant's Tale is like a fabliau, though of a very unusual sort: It is cast in the high style, and some of the scenes (the marriage feast, for example) are among Chaucer's most elaborate displays of rhetorical art.

Many characters in this Tale have cratylic names: Januarie, the main character, is named in conjunction with his equally seasonal wife May, representing their individual characters: Januarie is "hoor and oolde", sharing the bare and unfruitful characteristics of his title month, whereas his youthful and "fresshe" wife represents the spring seasons. This has particular relevance when considering the parallel between this tale, and the Biblical tale of Adam and Eve. Januarie's brothers are named Placebo and Justinus: the former a sycophant, whose name in Latin means 'I will please', and the latter a fairer man ('the just one') with no individual motive.

The main character, Januarie (or January), a senex amans, is a 60-year-old knight from the town of Pavia, in Lombardy.

Summary of the tale

Januarie decides that he wants to marry, predominantly for the purpose of lawful recreational sex and to produce an heir, and he consults his two brothers, Placebo (meaning 'I shall please'), who while encouraging him offers no personal opinion, and Justinus (meaning 'he who is just'), who opposes marriage from his own experience. Januarie, a vain man, hears only the flattery of his sycophantic friend Placebo.

Januarie marries May, a young woman not yet 20 years old, largely out of lust and under the guise of religious acceptability. He chooses her after telling all of his friends to go and look for a wife for him.

A squire in Januarie's court, called Damyan, falls in love with May and writes a letter to her confessing his desires: the goddess Venus "hurt him with hire brond" at the wedding party – meaning she set his heart on fire with love. This could simply be a personification of Damyan falling in love, but since Pluto and Proserpina do physically intervene later, Damyan's love could be seen as literally induced by Venus. May reciprocates his attraction and plots to have sex with him. Januarie creates a beautiful walled garden, reminiscent of the Garden of Eden as well as courtly love poetry, where he and May do have sex. Immediately after this Januarie is struck blind by Pluto. This disability causes him to become extremely jealous, and he keeps his hand on May at all times, to assure that she does not leave or commit adultery. However, during this time, May is able to give a copy of the garden key to Damyan, and they plan to consummate their love in the garden during one of Januarie and May's trips there.

The day comes, and the married couple is in the garden, Damyan has creeped in before them using the key and hides in a pear tree, waiting for May. May, implying that she is pregnant and craving a pear, requests one from the tree and Januarie, old and blind, and therefore unable to reach, is persuaded to stoop and allow May to climb onto his back herself. In the tree, May is promptly greeted by her young lover Damyan, and they begin to have sex, described by the Merchant in a particularly lewd and bold fashion: "And sodeynly anon this Damyan / Gan pullen up the smok, and in he throng." Indeed, the narrator does apologise for this explicit description, addressing the pilgrims saying: "Ladyes, I prey yow that ye be nat wrooth; I kan nat glose, I am a rude man –"

Two gods are, at this moment, watching the adultery: husband and wife Pluto and Proserpina. They begin a passionate argument about the scene, in which Pluto condemns women's morality. He decides that he will grant Januarie his sight back, but Proserpina will grant May the ability to talk her way out of the situation, saying, "I swere / That I shal yeven hire suffisant answere / And all wommen after, for hir sake; / That, though they shulle hemself excuse, / And bere hem doun that wolden hem excuse, / For lak of answere noon of hem shall dien."

Januarie regains his sight – via Pluto's intervention – just in time to see his wife and Damyan engaged in intercourse, but May successfully convinces him that his eyesight is deceiving him because it has only just been restored and that she is only "struggling with a man" because she was told this would get Januarie's sight back.

The tale ends rather unexpectedly: the fooled Januarie and May continue to live happily. However, Chaucer does not end the tale entirely happily: a darker suggestion is there, as May tells Januarie that he may be mistaken on many more occasions ("Ther may ful many a sighte yow bigile"), indicating that, perhaps, her infidelity will not stop there.

Fabliau debate

One question that splits critics is whether the Merchant's tale is a fabliau. Typically a description for a tale of carnal lust and frivolous bed-hopping, some would argue that especially the latter half of the tale, where Damyan and May have sex in the tree with the blind Januarie at the foot of the tree, represents fabliau. Derek Pearsall, for example, is in favour of this view. Some critics, such as Maurice Hussey, feel that Chaucer offers a great deal more sophistication and philosophical insight to put this on a level above fabliau.

Sources and variants

Similar tales are Boccaccio's Story of Lydia and Pyrrhus and The Simpleton Husband from One Thousand and One Nights. Book IV of The Masnavi of Rumi contains another pear tree story.

Adaptations

On 27 February 2017, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama premiered a new, full-length operatic adaptation of Chaucer's The Merchant's Tale created by writer Stephen Plaice and composer Julian Philips, entitled The Tale of Januarie. Plaice created his libretto in Middle English not only adapting the original Chaucer text for an operatic setting, but also drawing on other works by Chaucer and creating entirely original Middle English lyrics. Philips and Plaice structured this adaptation across all four seasons of the calendar year, extending Chaucer's original Tale into Autumn thereby following Januarie's tale on beyond the grave. The Tale of Januarie is published by Peters Edition.

In Pasolini's film The Canterbury Tales, this story is adapted with Josephine Chaplin as May and Hugh Griffith as Sir January.

External links

• Harvard's interlinear translation. Archived 14 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine
• Harvard's page Archived 24 December 2002 at the Wayback Machine
• Modern Translation of the Merchant's Tale and Other Resources at eChaucer Archived 22 October 2019 at the Wayback Machine
• "The Merchant's Tale" – a plain-English retelling for non-scholars.