Candice:
<snip>
What is a better word for a sense of mutual respect and mutual
responsibility, which also implies difference? For something which means
the enrichment of social relationships, in its focussing on individual
validities? [Alison]
I'd say read _The Franklin's Tale_, where the word is _gentilesse_--a
nobility of spirit or sensibility in which _trouthe_ and _freodom_ combine
to yield the notion of integrity.
[...]
Chaucer learned this instructive tale from Boccaccio [Candice]
The implied apposition of "maistre" and "soverayntee" can even be read as
the condition of possibility for gentilesse to acquire its non-class-bound
connotations.
[...]
The ME sense of "for shame of" is "out of respect for," so the point is the
pretense of Arveragus's sovereignty over Dorigen as a face-saving gesture.
[Candice again]
<snip>
I like integrity: it maps personal wholeness onto social wholeness. On which
some thoughts.
What may perhaps be interesting, if you compare Chaucer with *Filocolo*
IV/31ff, one of his two analogues in Boccaccio (*Decameron* X/5 is somewhat
different), is that Chaucer focuses on the boundary separating discipline
from restriction whereas Boccaccio focuses on that between liberality (on
the one hand) and (on the other) taking liberties.
In Chaucer male 'soverayntee' is a public mask. As you say, it's in
opposition to 'maistrye'. Because Dorigen and Arveragus are simultaneously
both lovers and spouses they are, in effect, complete: for Arveragus 'swich
lordshipe as men han over hir wyves', for her the agreement that he will
'hir obeye and folwe hir wil in al / As any lovere to his lady...'; 'servant
in love, and lord in mariage' for him, *servant in marriage, lady in love*
for her, presumably. Thus Aurelius, who is Dorigen's social inferior, can
offer only love (adultery as relief from _in_completeness) and only during
Arveragus' absence. The rocks now noticed around the coast are both a
visible obstacle to married love's continuance and completeness and a
defence against the (temporary) completion offered by adultery. To get rid
of them (the prospective lover's impossible task) would be to annul
constraint. And that, in this context, isn't merely impracticable; it's
paradoxical. And since the purpose of setting such a task is purely to
defend Dorigen's relationship with Arveragus, beyond which it's a gesture
empty of meaning, her gesture parallels that of her husband ('for shame of
his degree') when he defensively uses 'soverayntee'.
Boccaccio's approach is rather different: Cage's 'Permission granted. But
not to do whatever you want,' as it were. There's none of Chaucer's sense of
social guardedness. Thus (in *Filocolo*) both Tarolfo and the husband are
described as 'cavaliere'. Nor does the husband go away, so that what's on
offer from Tarolfo is the _prospect_ of love: its occurring or arising
rather than fading away. In line with this, the impossible task becomes the
creation of a summer garden blooming in midwinter.
What's left over, in Chaucer, is the absence of obstacles (the rocks are
still submerged) and of repressive enforcement (Aurelius wishes to meet his
obligations even though they will break him, but he is released). In
*Filocolo* (but not in the *Decameron*, where it vanishes) the summer garden
is left: love really does last, after all, and even when not reciprocated.
Tebano, its creator, having assumed that Tarolfo's failure means no payment,
refuses it even when it is offered: 'nor would he take anything of Tarolfo's
('né di quello di Tarolfo volle alcuna cosa prendere').
In these terms the *freedom* of Chaucer's 'Which was the moste free, as
thinketh yow?' strikes me has having significantly different implications
from the 'liberalità' in Boccaccio's 'Now it is to be wondered as to which
of them had shown the greatest generosity' ('Dubitasi ora quale di costoro
fosse maggiore liberalità').
And, of course, the multiple oppositions being explored within and between
these versions of the tale(s) between discipline & repressiveness,
liberality & licence, harshness & generosity and so forth are
applicable to much wider social contexts.
Christopher Walker
