Chaucer quotations

The Merchant’s marriage and wyf

'“She is a shrewe”

“She wolde overmmacche the devil”

“Weping wailing care and oother soorwe”

The Merchant’s encomium (ironic praise of marriage)

“Mariage is blissful and ordinaat​”

“Wyf is god’s yifte verraily​”"

“Mariage is a greet sacrament​”

‘A wyf will be buxom, entenif, will love and serve, in sik and hool”- a wife will be obedient, attentive, will love and serve in sickness and health

Senek (Auctoritee) says “ no thing superlative than a humble wyf

Januarie: this worthy knighte

“For love is blind alday and may nat see, his fantasye​”

“I have my body folily despended​”

“Wants a maid fair and tender of age​”

‘She shal nat pas twenty yeer’

What are Januarie’s views on marriage?

“It is so esy and so clene”

“That I shall hav my heven in erthe heere”

“There is so greet ese and lust in marriage”

What is Justinus’ response to this Senex Amans? (foolish older man)

“Hated his folye”

“I have wept many a teere ful prively, sin I had a wyf”

“She will be Goddes whippe, your soule up to heven skippe”

“Ther nis no greet felicitee in marriage”

“No childes pley”

The Wedding

“Scrit, bond, feffed in his lond”

“When tendre youthe hath wedded stouping age ther is such mirthe”

What are quotations about May and Januarie’s wedding night?

“He drinketh ypocras,clarree t’encreesen his corage​”

“Bride was brought to bed as stille as stoon​”

“She preseth nat his pleying worth a bene”

How is Damyan’s name cratylic?

“Familiar foo, servant traitor, bosom nadder sly untrewe, O perilous fyr”

“Wepeth fresshe May that loveth Damyan so beningnely”

May’s defiance

“In warm wex emprented the cliket”- the key becomes a symbol of deception.

The proleptic reference to wax earlier in the tale presents Januarie’s foolish reasons for marrying a young wife- they are easier to control- like warm was- yet May’s deceit is ironic and presents Januarie as the emobiement of the Senex Amans.

“If I do unto my kin that shame/put me in a sak and drenche me​”

“I am a gentil woman”

Temptation in the tree

“In he throng​”

“He that misconceyveth, he misdemeth”

Other wives in other tales

Clerk’s Tale- Griseldis: “grete pacience” “buxom”

Wife of Bath: Women want “sovereigntee and maistrye”

Januarie’s selfishness/views on marriage and women

“warm wex with handes plye”

“I lede my lyf in avoutrye… and go straight to the devel, whan I die.”

‘I have my body folily despended blessed be God that it shal be amended”

“bene-straw and greet forage”- older women are dried up grass.

“She shal not pass twenty yeer”

“pay his wyf hir dette”

Evidence of the use of Auctoritees

“Judith, Abigail, Sarra and Rebekke”- wise, but deceitful wives who save their husbands through lying and cunning.

The presentation of Damyan

“This sike Damyan in Venus fyr so brenneth that he dieth for desir”

“In a lettre wroot he al his sorwe”

“In secree wise his purs and eek his bille”

The Garden- deception/Januarie’s blindness 

“Made a gardyn, walled al with stoon… that he wroot the Romance of the Rose”- (context- a dream vision poem from the 13th century- focuses on love, women and sexuality)

“Amidde his lust and his prosperitee, is woxen blind, and that al sodeynly”

“To eten of the smale peres grene”

"A man that waketh out of his sleep”

What are Januarie’s views of himself?

“As laurer thurgh the yeer is for to sene”

“Though I be yoot I fare as dooth a tree”