Medieval clerks writing about
women — especially when they are writing against women — often
speak of them collectively, not only as a
gender distinct from men but as if they constituted
a religious order or academic school or,
broadly interpreted, a belief, way of life,
or estate. When in such a work a fictional
woman character speaks out, teaches, or preaches
(things women were not supposed to
do), she tends to fall into a strident, authoritative
tone and to refer to women and men as "us" and "them." The
Wife of Bath is such a character and, in
this respect, resembles the Old Woman in
the Romance of the Rose, on whom Chaucer,
at least in part, modeled her.
The Romance of the Rose, a
long thirteenth-century French poem, extremely
popular and influential in the Middle Ages,
was written by two authors. The first part,
4,058 lines by Guillaume de Lorris, is a
dream-vision allegory in which an aristocratic
young man falls in love with a rosebud symbolizing
a lady or her sexual favors. The Lover is
aided by a personification called "Fair
Welcome" but opposed by other personifications
that symbolize the personal and social restraints
standing against his advances — Fear,
Shame, Gossip ("Malebouche" in
French; "Wikked Tongue" in a Middle
English translation), and "Daunger," our word danger, which,
personified as a churl wielding a club, here
stands for instinctive female resistance
to male sexual desire. The first part was
never finished; it breaks off with the rose
imprisoned in the castle of Jealousy with
the Lover disconsolate on the outside. The
poem was taken up by Jean de Meun, an academic
at the University of Paris, who continued
it for another 17,724 lines, which cover
religion, philosophy, history, science, sex,
love, marriage, and women.
The following text is a series
of excerpts from Jean de Meun's discourse
of the Old Woman, from which Chaucer borrowed
extensively for the Wife of Bath's Prologue
as well as for the portrait of the Prioress
in the General Prologue. Employed by Jealousy
to keep a close watch on Fair Welcome, the
Old Woman has been bribed to let the Lover
communicate with Fair Welcome and launches
into a long, rambling speech in which she
tells Fair Welcome about her life and instructs
him how to succeed in life and love. Because
the latter's French name, Bel Acueil, is
grammatically masculine, he is male, and
the Old Woman frequently addresses him as "my
son." But the advice itself is appropriate
to a young girl, and in manuscript illuminations
he is sometimes portrayed as a girl. The
format of a wise old person addressing a
youth is precisely that taken by Solomon
in the Book of Proverbs, by St. Benedict
in the first line of his Rule, and
by the knight-hermit addressing the squire
in Ramón Lull's Book of the
Order of Chivalry.
'Ah, Fair Welcome, I am extremely fond
of you, for you are so handsome and worthy.
My time for joy has all departed but yours
is yet to come. I can scarcely stand upright
any longer except with a stick or a crutch.
You are still a child and do not know what
you will do, but I know very well that sooner
or later, whenever it may be, you will pass
through the flame that burns everything,
and plunge into the bath in which Venus makes
women bathe. I know it well, you will feel
the burning brand, and I advise you to listen
to my instructions and prepare yourself before
bathing there, for the young man who has
no one to instruct him bathes there at his
peril. But if you follow my advice you will
come safe into port.
'I was young and beautiful, silly and
irresponsible, and I have never been to the
school of Love, where they teach the theory,
but I know it all through practice. Experience,
which I have pursued throughout my life,
has made me wise in love's ways (NAEL
8, 1.257, lines 1–2), and since I now
know all about it, it is not right that I
should fail to teach you what I know, the
fruits of my own experience. It is good to
advise the young. It is certainly not to
be wondered at that you do not know the first
thing about it, for you are young and green.
'But the fact remains that I persevered
until in the end I obtained the knowledge,
and I could even give a public lecture on
it. Not everything that is very old is to
be fled from or despised: sense and experience
are to be found there. We have often encountered
people who were left, in the end at least,
with a fund of sense and experience, however
dearly they had bought it. And when, not
without great pain, I had obtained sense
and experience, I deceived many a valiant
man who had fallen captive into my toils;
but I was deceived by many before I realized
it.
'Moreover, my sweet child, no one, unless
he were very studious or had experienced
great grief, could know or imagine the pain
in my heart when I recalled to mind the fair
speeches, sweet pleasures, sweet delights,
sweet kisses, and most sweet embraces that
had flown away so soon. Flown? Certainly,
never to return!
'And yet, by God, the memory of my heyday
still gives me pleasure, and when I think
back to the gay life that my heart so desires,
my thoughts are filled with delight and my
limbs with new vigour. The thought and the
recollection of it rejuvenates my whole body;
it does me all the good in the world to remember
everything that happened, for I have at least
had my fun, however I may have been deceived
(NAEL 8, 1.267, lines 475–79).
'Fair, gentle son, with your sweet,
tender flesh, I would like to teach you the
games of love, so that when you have learned
them, you will not be deceived. Shape yourself
according to my art, for no one who is not
well informed will be able to get through
without some loss. Now make sure you listen
and pay attention and commit everything to
memory, for I know all about it.
'It is good to frequent rich men if
their hearts are not mean and miserly and
if you are skilled at fleecing them. Fair
Welcome may attract as many of them as he
likes, provided he gives each to understand
that he would not take any other lover for
a thousand marks in fine powdered gold, and
provided he swears that, had he been willing
to allow his rose, which is most sought after,
to be taken by another, he would have been
loaded with gold and jewels, but that his
heart is so true and faithful that no one
will stretch out his hand for the rose except
him alone (NAEL 8, 1.266, lines 449–55)
who is extending his hand at that moment.
'It is true, I assure you, that the
lord of the fair must collect his toll from
everyone, and if you fail at one mill, hey
up to the next as fast as you can! The mouse
who has only one hole to retreat to has a
very poor refuge and is in great danger when
he goes foraging (NAEL 8, 1.269, lines 578–80).
It is just the same for a woman, for she
is mistress of all the bargaining in which
men engage in order to have her; she ought
to take from everyone, since on mature reflection
she would see that it was a very foolish
idea to have only one lover.
'In short, [men] are all deceitful traitors,
ready to indulge their lusts with everyone,
and we should deceive them in our turn and
not set our hearts upon just one of them.
It is a foolish woman who gives her heart
in this way: she ought to have several lovers
and arrange, if she can, to be so pleasing
that she brings great suffering upon all
of them. If she has no graces, let her acquire
them and always behave more cruelly towards
those who will strive all the harder to serve
her in order to win her love, while exerting
herself to welcome those who do not care
about it (NAEL 8, 1.261, lines 215–20).
She should be familiar with games and songs,
but avoid quarrels and strife. If she is
not beautiful, she should enhance her appearance.
'If her neck and throat are fair and
white, let her see to it that her dressmaker
cuts the neck so low that half a foot of
fine white flesh is visible front and back.
* * *
'And if her breasts are too full, let
her take a kerchief or scarf and wrap it
round her ribs to bind her bosom, and then
fasten it with a stitch or knot; she will
then be able to disport herself.
'There is also a proper way to weep,
but every woman has the skill to weep properly
wherever she may be. Even when no one has
caused them any trouble or shame or annoyance,
they still have tears at the ready: they
all weep in whatever they like, and make
a habit of it. But no man should be moved
by it, not if he sees the tears flowing as
fast as rain, for a woman only sheds such
tears and suffers such sorrow and affliction
in order to make a fool of him.
'She ought also to behave properly at
table. . . . She must be very careful not
to dip her fingers in the sauce up to the
knuckles, nor to smear her lips with soup
or garlic or fat meat, nor to take too many
pieces or too large a piece and put them
in her mouth. She must hold the morsel with
the tips of her fingers and dip it into the
sauce, whether it be thick, thin, or clear,
then convey the mouthful with care, so that
no drop of soup or sauce or pepper falls
on to her chest. When drinking, she should
exercise such care that not a drop is spilled
upon her, for anyone who saw that happen
might think her very rude and coarse. And
she must be sure never to touch her goblet
when there is anything in her mouth. Let
her wipe her mouth so clean that no grease
is allowed to remain upon it, at least not
upon her upper lip, for when grease is left
on the upper lip, globules appear in the
wine, which is neither pretty nor nice (NAEL
8, 1.221-22, lines 127–36).
* * *
She should
take care not to get drunk, for no drunken
man or woman can keep anything secret, and
when a woman is drunk she has no defences
(NAEL 8, 1.267, line 473) but blurts out whatever
she thinks; she is at everyone's mercy
when she allows such a misfortune to overtake
her.
'A woman must be careful not to lead
too cloistered a life, for the more she stays
at home, the less she is seen by everyone
and the less her beauty is known, desired,
and sought after. She ought often to go to
the principal church and attend weddings,
processions, games, festivals, and dances
(NAEL 8, 1.269, lines 561–64), for it
is in such places that the God and Goddess
of Love hold their classes and sing Mass
to their disciples.
'Moreover, women are born free; the
law has bound them by taking away from them
the freedoms Nature had given them. For Nature,
if we apply our minds to the question, is
not so stupid as to create Marote simply
for Robichon, nor Robichon for Mariete or
for Agnes or for Perrete; on the contrary,
fair son, you may be sure that she has made
all women for all men and all men for all
women, every woman common to every man and
every man to every woman. Thus when, in order
to prevent dissolute conduct, quarrelling,
and killing, and to facilitate the rearing
of children, which is their joint responsibility,
these ladies and maidens are affianced, taken,
and married by law, they still try in every
way they can, and whether they be ugly or
fair, to regain their freedom.
'When a bird from the green woodland
is taken and put in a cage, where he is most
carefully and delicately cared for, and sings
for the rest of his life with a joyful heart,
or so you think, he still longs for the leafy
wood which it was his nature to love, and
would like to be in the trees, however well
fed he may be. It is his constant thought
and endeavour to recover his freedom; he
tramples his food underfoot in the eagerness
which fills his heart, and goes up and down
his cage, hunting and searching in great
distress for a window or opening through
which he might fly away to the wood. In the
same way, I assure you, all women whether
maidens or ladies and whatever their origin,
are naturally disposed to search willingly
for ways and paths by which they might achieve
freedom, for they would always like to have
it.
'It is the same, I tell you, for the
man who enters religion; later on he repents
and almost hangs himself for grief. He complains
and laments until he is inwardly full of
torment, so great is the desire that wells
up in him to do something to recover his
lost freedom. For his will does not change,
whatever habit he may assume and wherever
he enters the religious life.
'Upon my soul, if I had been wise, I
could have been a very rich woman, for great
men courted me when I was pretty and charming,
and I had some of them firmly in my toils.
But by the faith I owe God and Saint Thibaut,
when I had taken from them, I gave away everything
to a scoundrel who put me to great shame
but whom I loved the best. I addressed all
the others as lovers, but he was the only
one I loved, although I assure you that he
cared not a fig for me, and said so. He was
a bad man — I never saw a worse one — and
he had nothing but contempt for me, calling
me a common whore; scoundrel that he was,
he never loved me. Women have very poor judgement,
and I was a true woman. I never loved a man
who loved me, but if this wretch had hurt
my shoulder or cracked my skull, I tell you
I would have thanked him for it. However
much he beat me, I would still have had him
fall upon me, for he was so good at making
peace, whatever hurt he might have done me
(NAEL 8, 1.268, lines 509–20). However
badly he treated me, beating me and dragging
me about, hurting my face and bruising it,
he would always beg my forgiveness before
he left. However humiliating his language
to me, he would always sue for peace and
then take me to bed, and so there was peace
and harmony between us once more. And so
he had me on the end of a rope, the false,
thieving traitor, because he was so good
in bed. I could not have lived without him
and I would willingly have followed him everywhere.
If he had run away, I would have gone in
search of him as far as London in England,
such was my love and affection for him. He
put me to shame and I him, for he used the
fine gifts I gave him to lead a riotous life;
he never saved anything, but spent it all
dicing in the taverns. He never learned another
trade, nor did he need to, since I gave him
so much to spend and money was mine for the
taking. Everyone paid me, and he was happy
to spend it, and always on debaucheries,
for depraved desires inflamed him. His mouth
was so tender that he would not try to do
anything worthwhile, and had no fondness
for any kind of life except one of pleasure
and idleness. In the end, as I saw, he got
into a very bad way, for he became poor and
had to beg for bread, while I had not money
enough for two carding-combs, nor had I married
a lord. And so, as I told you, I was reduced
to want and came here through these thickets.
Fair son, let my condition be an example
to you, and remember it. Behave sensibly,
so that you will be the better for my knowledge,
for when your rose is withered and white
hairs assail you, then you will surely feel
the lack of gifts.'