the merchants tale: quotes

merchant’s appearance in general prologue

‘high on a horse’

‘forked berd’

merchant’s suffering due to his wife in general prologue:

‘weping and wailing’

description of the merchant’s wife:

‘she is a shrewe et al’

‘I have a wyf, the worste that may be’

merchant’s view on marriage:

‘snare’ and ‘ybounde’

where is the tale set?

‘pavie’, Lombardy, Italy

-famous for bankers and brothels

merchant’s view on January and women:

‘on wommen, ther was his appetit’

‘were it for hoolinesse or for dotage, I kan nat seye’

merchant’s benefits of having a wife:

‘whan a man is oold and hoor; thane is a wyf the fruit of his tresor’

‘a wedded man in his estaat liveth a lyf blishful and ordinaat’

view of bachelors:

‘bacheleris have often peyne and wo’

January’s view on marriage:

‘marriage is a ful greet sacrement’

‘hooly boonde’

January’s marriage expectations:

‘som mayde fair and tendre of age’ and ‘nat passe twenty yeet’

‘bet than old boef is the tendre veel’

Placebo’s view on January’s marriage:

‘it is an heigh corage of any man that stapen in his age to take a yong wif’

Justinus’ view on January’s marriage:

‘it is no childes pley to take a wyf withouteth avisement’

Justinus’ experience in marriage:

‘I have wept many a teere ful privetly sin I have had a wyf’

January’s attraction to May:

‘fresshe beautee’

‘age tendre’

‘middel small’

‘armes longe and sklendre’

January’s fear of the afterlife:

fears that ‘ther may no man han parfite blisses two…in erthe and eek in heavene’

first mention of May:

‘by sly and wys tretee…shal wedded be unto this Januarie’

Venus-pagan goddess of sexual love:

‘and Venus laugheth upon every wight’

warning to January- metaphorical blindness:

‘O Januarie, dronken in pleasance…se how thy Damyan, thyn owene squier…entendeth for to do thee vilyeyne’

‘blind as a stoon’

unattractive imagery of January:

‘thikke brustles of his berd…lyk to the skin of houndfissh’

‘he was al coltissh, ful of ragerye’

Damyen’s courtly love:

‘this sike Damyan in venus fyr’

cunningness of May: relationship with Damyen

‘rents it al to clouted atte laste, and in the privee softely caste’

‘pittee renneth soon in gentil herte’

January helping Damien into the tree:

‘my foote might set upon youre bak’

implicit reference to May’s pregnancy:

‘in my plit’ she has ‘so greet an appetit’ for fruit

references to Theophrastus:

‘a trewe servant dooth moore diligence thy good to kepe, than thyn owene wyf, for she wol claime hald part al hir lyf’

Damyen sneaking into the garden:

‘on Damyan a signe made she, that he should go beforn with his cliket’

Pluto and Proserpina contrasting views on January:

‘honorable knight’

‘lewd as gees’

Proserpina making a case for women:

‘nis noon but God, but neither he na she’

January regains his vision:

‘ne was ther nevere man of things so fain’

‘'have pacience and resoun’

‘he swived thee’

epilogue:

‘whiche slieightes and subtitees in wommen been’

‘sin wommen konnen outen swich chaffare’

‘a lobbing shrewe is she’