The Dreamer, the Whelp, and Consolation in the "Book of the Duchess"
Author(s): John Block Friedman
Source: The Chaucer Review, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Winter, 1969), pp. 145-162
Published by: Penn State University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25093084 .
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THE DREAMER,
THE WHELP,
AND CONSOLATION IN THE
BOOK OF THE DUCHESS
by John Block Friedman
have ac
For many years, readers of Chaucer's
Book of the Duchess
as
near
reason
that the
the
the
its composition
behind
certainty
cepted
was
died of
of
who
duchess
the title
John of Gaunt's wife, Blanche,
in 1369. And yet, this historical
does not ex
the plague
identification
the Book
plain very much about the work itself. If, as most assume,
was
in an
was
written
it
the
in
if
Duchess
intent?that
is,
of
elegiac
effort to console the bereaved
and praise the dead wife?we
husband
are forced, upon putting down the poem, to wonder
at the small con
solation
it could have afforded John of Gaunt. The Narrator's
apparent
or insensitivity
to his grief, does not
to the Black Knight,
a large part of the poem
such an intention, while
square easily with
seems not to be concerned with the Knight or his lady White
at all.
In focusing our attention on the Knight's bereavement,
however, we
tend to lose sight of the fact that the Dreamer,
also, is suffering from a
to
effects
but one whose
well
defined
be
less
sure,
personal problem,
in many ways parallel the distresses of the Man in Black.1
Indeed, the
and psychic
theme of personal
loss and its effects on man's physical
runs throughout
with
condition
the poem, beginning
the Narrator's
into a literary ex
lines about himself,
and moving
opening
directly
rudeness
consolation
and her lost king. Whatever
ample, the story of Alcione
it seems likely that he
Chaucer may have intended for John of Gaunt,
it through his development
would
have presented
of this more uni
versal
theme.
treatment of personal
loss early in the poem, es
Perhaps Chaucer's
case
in
not
of
the
for his later
the
Dreamer,
only prepares
pecially
treatment of the Black Knight, but also, in large part, explains
it If
are
in which
the Dreamer
this is so, then the way
and the Knight
shed
additional
the
relation
of
the
together may
brought
light upon
two
characters.
cannot describe
the Narrator
his own condition with
the
Although
same objectivity
and clarity he applies to the Black Knight, Chaucer
for this limitation by revealing a great deal about the
has compensated
of this character can be divided,
Narrator
indirectly. His presentation
into three parts or stages. First we are told by the
for convenience,
1.
R. M.
Duchess,"
Narrator
"Nature's
Lumiansky,
TSE,
as well
law."
"The Bereaved
Narrator
IX (1959),
reads
the
5-17,
as the Knight,
with
emphasis
in Chaucer's
as a
poem
upon
The Book
consolation
the Dreamer's
of the
for the
return
to
146
THE
THE
DREAMER,
WHELP
sufferer himself
of the physical
ills attendant
and spiritual
upon his
insomnia and are offered a hint that some personal
lies
unhappiness
we
are
behind his suffering.
to
tale
Ovid's
his
reaction
shown
Second,
of Ceys and Alcione:
for the first time in the poem the Narrator
feels
a
is
for
for
His
another.
the
Alcione
step to
pity
grieving
empathy
wards his eventual
recommitment
to life. As a result of his reading of
as a reward for his outgoing
the fable?and
feelings?the
perhaps
Narrator
falls asleep and has a dream, the third stage in his recovery,
aware of his surroundings
in which
he becomes
and then involved
on his troubles, he is roused by the
with others. No longer brooding
a fellow
sounds out of doors, joins in the hunt,2 and is able to question
in which he finds himself.
Then he is led
hunter about the company
seen as a projection
to the Man in Black, who has been widely
of the
man
s
to
heal
this
and
and
Dreamer's
state,3
attempts
probe
spiritual
The dialectic
of the two characters
shows the Narrator
unhappiness.
to have gained in perspective
and objectivity
since we first met him at
the opening of the poem. As the dream ends, so does the poem, with
cure either for the Man
in Black or for the
out showing a complete
recon
will
become
that
offer hope
Narrator.
It does, however,
they
as
a
human
and
of
the
result
ciled with life
understanding
philosophic
Through his own
they have gained from their conversation.
sympathy
counsel to the Man in Black to free himself from the bonds of Fortune,
has
the ill fortune which
the Narrator may thus come to terms with
his eight years' sickness.
produced
at the method
I should first like to look more
by which
closely
It is the whelp,
to the Black Knight.
the Dreamer
Chaucer
introduces
the
as he walks
in the forest, who brings
to the Dreamer
appearing
for getting
two men together. This dog is not only directly responsible
from one place to another in the story, it is also indirectly
the Narrator
an
with
communication
the Narrator's
for
sympathetic
responsible
can bring him some
the dialogue which
other person?for
ultimately
it may be asked,
measure
of spiritual and physical well being. Why,
in his poem? Why not a
did Chaucer choose a dog for these functions
have had
unicorn or a Hon or even the hunted
stag itself? He would
in the
earlier
its
from
the
for
appearance
stag
using
ample precedent
2.
"Transitions
R. Crampton's
Georgia
stresses
( 1963),
ess," JEGP, LXII
and Meaning
the Dreamer's
what more than I do (p. 490).
3.
See Bernard
Hupp?
Chaucer's
Allegories
and
D. W.
Robertson,
1963),
(Princeton,
p.
in The
immersion
Book
of the Duch
some
in the hunt
in
Studies
and Chaf:
Jr., Fruyt
R. Kreuzer,
"The
53;
James
Dreamer in The Book of the Duchess," PMLA, LXVI (1951), 543-47; and
B. H. Bronson, "The Book of the Duchess Reopened," PMLA, LXVII ( 1952),
863-81,
as well
as Lumiansky,
p.
12.
JOHN
BLOCK
147
FRIEDMAN
many versions of the life of Saint Eustace, where an extraordinary
stag
to a cliff. As the saint stands at the
leads Eustace, who is out hunting,
bottom of the cliff looking up, he sees a cross appear miraculously
be
tween the animal's horns, and Christ speaks to him from the stag's
him on the spot. This legend would
mouth,
certainly have
converting
been known to the poet, for it was widely popular in the Middle Ages.4
And yet Chaucer
chose a dog.
attention
for the
Though Chaucers
whelp has received considerable
one
in
it
the
with
which
Dreamer,
critics,
excep
engaging way
greets
reason why
tion, have not provided
it, and not some
any convincing
has
other animal, should have been there. The whelp's
appearance
from the courtly
been explained by one group of critics as a borrowing
French poetry of Machaut,
and others.5 Robinson
and, in
Deschamps
in
have
that
the
little
detail, Kittredge6
greater
dog
suggested
so much else in that
Machaut's
Jugement dou Roy de Behaigne?like
have served as Chaucer's model. But the dog in Machaut's
poem?may
rather, it and a maid merely
poem does not lead anybody
anywhere;
mourns
her lover and is overheard
the lady who
accompany
by the
feels that the dog is like the lion in the same au
poet. Kemp Malone
he
thor's Dit dou Lyon. As for its function in the Book of the Duchess,
to a class of animals very familiar in
argues that "the puppy belongs
medieval
story: animals which flee before the hero and entice him to
Other
writers
functions.
follow."7
Bernard
give the dog different
an
D.
have
W.
offered
and
Robertson,
Jr.,
allegorical
Hupp?
explana
tion for the dog's appearance.
This view, while certainly not one with
which many
students of the poem would
agree, does at least hint at
in the Book of the Duchess.
association
with healing
the whelp's
and Hupp?,
"Whelps," say Robertson
"represent priests in their func
sins unwittingly
tion of curing by word and by example
in
retained
on
to
the mind and thus not confessed."
that
the
'little
go
argue
They
cares of
of the hidden
dog ps] perhaps
symbolic of the elucidation
the human soul through example."8
4. The story is told by Jacob of Vor?gine, ?urea Legenda, CXXXVII, and Vin
5.
6.
cent
of Beauvais,
to name
two of the
X, 58-61,
Histori?le,
82,
Speculum
sources.
most
For a bibliography
of the many
metrical
versions
of
important
see Holger
this legend,
Peterson,
ed., La Vie de Saint Eustache
(Paris,
1928),
pp. xii-xv.
on this matter
the bibliography
See
offered
"Chaucer's
by J. Burke
Severs,
n. 3.
in the Book
Self-Portrait
of the Duchess,"
PQ, XLIII
(1964),
F. N. Robinson,
Chaucer
note
ed., The Works
of Geoffrey
(Boston,
1957),
to 11. 388-97.
are drawn
All quotations
from Chaucer's
from
this
poetry
text
See also G. L. Kittredge,
and his Poetry
Chaucer
Mass.,
(Cambridge,
1951), pp. 54-67.
7.
8.
Kemp
Fruyt
Malone,
Chapters
and Chaf,
pp. 54,
on Chaucer
97.
(Baltimore,
1951),
p.
33.
148
THE
DREAMER,
THE
WHELP
One recent critic, Beryl Rowland,
has offered the view that, far from
and helpful dog described
being the attractive
by M alone, "Chaucer's
its docility
and obsequiousness,
demonstrates
those very
whelp, with
in the dog."9
qualities proverbially
regarded as being most deceptive
She points out that the whelp's
action, "fauned me as I stood" (389),
can have a more sinister meaning,
for "fawn" can mean "to court favor
in Middle
ref
by cringing"
English
(p. 150). She cites a great many
erences to dogs in Chaucer's
are
other poems, all but a few of which
are
associated
unfavorable,
inferring from these that "Chaucer's dogs
with distasteful
ideas" (p. 152). Nor is this notion supported
only by
in the poems
Chaucer's
attitude
Miss Rowland
themselves.
ranges
to the dog as
literature collecting
references
widely
through medieval
a symbol for evil or for unpleasant
things. She cites, among other evi
a
in which
is
from
the
Ancren
"the devil
Riwle
dence,
comparison
likened to a fawning dog" (p. 150). The Ancren Riwle unquestionably
was one of the most
instruction written
important works of religious
in the Middle
for its many
and
had
and
great power
Ages
authority
a
man moore
is
readers. But, as Chauntecleer
there
observed,
"many
... That al the revers seyn of this sentence."
of auctorite/
Hildegarde
in her popular
of Bingen,
for example,
dom and explains how he shares many
bestiary, praises the dog's wis
of man's characteristics.
man
and
And for that reason the dog notices
and understands
loves him and freely dwells with him and is faithful to him. Thus,
the devil hates and abhors the dog for the faith he bears to man.10
Miss Rowland
also tells us
...
view \joi the dog] favored
cites the Brut, Havelok,
and
that the dream in
argument
mare, and that in the mythic
that Chaucer
"adheres to the pejorative
..." (p. 154) and
by writers of romances
as evidence
to support her
King Horn
is like a night
the Book of the Duchess
she feels may
"nightmare hunt" which
... he is ... the
lie behind the poem "the dog is conspicuous
snarling
himself
chases
the Dreamer,
both
of hell"
emissary
(p. 158) who
pursuer
The
native
and
pursued.
romances
she mentions,
quite unlike
romances,
far closer to the conventions
9.
are all predominantly
warlike
however,
are
the French courtly romances which
a
In
number
of the Book of the Duchess.
in Chaucer's
'Book of the Duchess',"
"The Whelp
Neuphilo
Beryl Rowland,
at
is presented
150.
Her
LXVI
argument
(1965),
Mitteilungen,
logische
Bestes:
of
in her unpublished
dissertation,
Aspects
"Blynde
greater
length
118
of British
Animal
World"
Chaucer's
pp.
Columbia,
1962),
(University
28, 147-53.
10. Hildegarde
of Bingen, De Animalibus, XX (PL CXCVII,
1327).
JOHN
BLOCK
FRIEDMAN
149
or French-inspired
the dog is very favor
courtly romances
or
the
of
life
hero
otherwise
often
the
aiding him.
saving
ably treated,
A few titles may be offered: Tristan, the Perceval
continuation,
Tyolet,
and The
Sir Eglamour,
The King of Tars, Sir Triamour,
Durmart,
In short, however many authors speak against
Seven Sages of Rome.
the dog, we can find an equal number who
speak for him. And of
course the matter of context is particularly
important here. Like many
familiar objects recurrent in the literature of the Middle Ages, the dog
be said
appears in so many different ways that there cannot accurately
to be a "tradition of the dog" to cast symbolic
light upon his every ap
in medieval
It is no more difficult, as the examples
literature.
pearance
re
to argue for a "tradition" which
mentioned
above may
indicate,
of French
gards the dog favorably as to argue for one which does not. We have,
to choose, and how far any of
in effect, several traditions from which
our text depends
them is able to illuminate
upon its appropriateness
to the situation described
therein. More relevant than general favor or
associate
disfavor would
be traditions which
the dog with
leading,
allow us to
These would
with healing, and with philosophic
wisdom.
in the Book of the Duchess
make better sense of the whelp's
position
there was not without
and confirm that its presence
design.
Let us consider,
then, the events leading up to the whelp's
appear
ance in the poem, and the context
of that appearance
itself. The
Dreamer's
gradual r?int?gration with the world of men, which began
as he leaves the chamber of
for Alcione,
advances
with his sympathy
with their literary scenes in
the wonderful
These windows,
windows.
has just
like the story the Dreamer
colored glass, are in one respect
read. They draw attention first to themselves,
but through them the
aware of a world outside and beyond himself.
Dreamer
For
becomes
the windows
that he notes the blueness
of the
it is after he describes
of the sunshine, and only then that he hears the
sky and brightness
noises of the hunt assembling.
over the earlier, pre
The world of the hunt is a great improvement
or
of the Ceys and Alcione
internal
chthonic
landscape
dominantly
story. It is filled with color and sound, and peopled by men devoting
to action rather than to morbid
their energies
The dif
contemplation.
these two sections of the narrative are pointed up by
ferences between
the use of the horn. In the story of Ceys and Alcione,
Juno's messenger
ear to wake up the unwilling
had to blow his horn in Morpheus'
god
to his wife.
In the dream,
of sleep and get the shade of Ceys
the
sound of a horn being tested by a huntsman
draws the Dreamer will
to the eventual meeting
ingly from his bed and sets him on his way
an
or purposeful
in
Man
The
call
of
active
the
Black.
with
life, it
150
THE
would
seem, has become
THE
DREAMER,
more
WHELP
attractive
to him
than
the oblivion
of
sleep.
The Dreamer
joins the hunt and
to the forest. It is there, after the
indicate that the hart has eluded
counters the whelp.
This animal's sudden appearance
are among the most vivid
Dreamer
rides with the rest of the company
horn has sounded the "forloyn" to
en
its pursuers,
that the Dreamer
attention
and concentrated
details in the poem.
to the
I was
fro my tree,
go walked
ther cam by mee
And as I wente,
A whelp,
that fauned me as I stood,
and koude no good.
hadde yfolowed,
me as lowe
com
to
and
crepte
Hyt
as
me
hadde
yknowe,
hyt
Ryght
Heide
doun hys hed and joyned hys eres,
And leyde al smothe doun hys heres.
That
I wolde
have
Hyt
And
fledde,
I hym
Doun
by
kaught
and was
hyt, and anoon
fro me goon;
and hyt forth wente
folwed,
a floury grene
wente
(387-98)
the dog was doing before he
is some ambiguity
about what
There
intended
this to be vague.
and perhaps Chaucer
met the Dreamer,
it
on
statement
"hadde yfolowed,
that
the
of
basis
the
Kittredge
argued,
to keep up with
the
and koude no good," that it had been struggling
in their pursuit of the stag "and is now astray in the woods."11
hounds
the various senses of the verb
this is a possibility.
Among
Certainly
sense used
in hunting
an
intransitive
is
"follow" in Middle
English,
an object for the
to
as
had
Chaucer
every
supply
opportunity
jargon;12
did follow, the intransitive
the whelp
verb to indicate what precisely
is that it
seem the most likely. Another possible meaning
sense would
and had been unable to catch up with him
the Dreamer
had followed
as long as he rode.
and by its behavior
The dog comes up to the Dreamer
familiarly
it had sought and was glad to find.
seems to regard him as someone
with the Dreamer.
Its actions suggest that it is trying to communicate
interest in him, and lowers its head
First it approaches with evident
tries to catch it, it re
as if to be stroked, but as soon as the Dreamer
11.
12.
Chaucer
Kittredge,
See "Folwen,"
v.,
and
5.
(a),
his Poetry,
MED.
p. 69.
JOHN
BLOCK
FRIEDMAN
151
to
the Dreamer
treats. If the whelp
in the Book of the Duchess wished
to
follow him, his coaxing behavior
could not be better calculated
achieve that end.
is no random enticement,
enticement
The whelp's
of the Dreamer
for it leads him to a very special place, down a flowery path into a
of the land of the gods of sleep to
land in every respect the opposite
of the
That world was reminiscent
which Juno had sent a messenger.
sterile underworlds
of antique
literature:
yet grew corn ne gras,
ne
Ne tre,
that ought was,
^nothing]
Beste, ne man, ne noght elles_
Ther
never
(157-59)
in excess the sleep so
The inhabitants
of this "derke valeye" enjoyed
for loss of con
much desired by Alcione
and the Narrator.
Standing
answer
as an
to emotional
these gods of sleep
sciousness
disturbance,
were fittingly associated with a region unproductive
of living things.
teems with
the Dreamer moves, however,
The wood
through which
in
trees
life?thick
above, animals
grass and flowers underfoot,
great
to
must
so
be
unknown
the
many deer that
abundance,
place
including
This
'Titel used, hyt semed thus" (401).
Octavian's
party,
hunting
to Morpheus
and Eclym
land has its patron deities who correspond
"Flora
in the earlier tale. They are gods of life and motion,
pasteyr
So
two
that
floures
make
and Zephirus,
/ They
too,
(402-3).
growe"
the
while
the "derke valeye" of the gods of sleep had been below
and
"wonder
earth s surface and the cave in which
they slept
depe"
to the
enters
is compared
the land the Dreamer
like "a hellepit,"
heavens:
As
To
To
As
thogh the erthe envye wolde
be gayer than the heven,
have moo floures,
swiche seven,
sterres bee.
in the welken
(406-09)
enters this place and begins to reflect on what he sees
As the Dreamer
its job done.
It has led
from the poem,
there, the whelp
disappears
the Dreamer
and us to the central situation of the poem, the confron
in which we
tation with the Black Knight.
This then is the context
shall consider the dog further.
as a guide or leader was as well established
The dog's reputation
time as it is in our own, nor was this reputation
limited
Chaucer's
in
to
152
THE
DREAMER,
THE
WHELP
in the sport of hunting.13 The motif of the dog who leads a
usefulness
man to a destination
in the romances
in fairy land was quite common
of the Chessboard
mentioned
earlier. Perceval
arrives at the Castle
in finding a
only by the aid of a dog; a dog aids the hero of Tyolet
is
in
led to the
Sir
and
of
Ardus
Triamour, King
magic
stag;
Arragon
interestingly
body of his faithful knight Roger by the knight's hound,
over the body for many years.14
called "True-Love," who has watched
from
lead the Dreamer
Chaucer's whelp, however,
does not merely
one place to another, he leads him to a potential
cure for his malady.
is
This cure lies in his relation to the Man in Black, who in many ways
like himself.
The similarities
between
the two men are readily ap
Both suffer physically
from what are primarily psychic prob
parent.
that
lems. Both, when we first meet
them, are so sunk in melancholy
they are scarcely cognizant of their surroundings. We have mentioned
to be concerned with anything but
the Dreamer's
earlier unwillingness
a parallel to it occurs in the behavior
of the Knight:
his own problems;
... And grette hym, but he spak noght, / But argued with his
"I went
owne thoght...."
"Hys sorwe and hevy thoght, / Made hym that he
of the
me
And of the hunt, suggestive
her de
noght"
(502-3, 509-10).
a del"
never
theron
of
the
activities
men,
says "My thought ys
Knight
(543).
and
to look outside
of himself
has begun
The Dreamer,
however,
some progress
before his encounter with
towards objectivity
has made
than
frame of mind
the Man in Black. He is thus in a more analytical
he was at the opening of the narrative, and is better able to profit from
13.
14.
228-46.
See A. H. Krappe,
IAF, LV
(1942),
Animals,"
"Guiding
in The
Seven
his master's
such faithful
Another
Sages
of
body
dog
guards
the
719
ff.
For
191
OS
ed. K. Brunner,
1932),
(London,
EETS,
Rome,
see Jesse L. Weston,
The Legend
Perceval
(London,
of Sir Perceval
story,
see
was
VIII
edited
(1879),
by G. Paris, Romania,
I, 269.
1906-09),
Tyolet
was
Sir Triamour
edited
1. 369f.
(London,
Society
Percy
by J. O. Halliwell,
Romance
Mediaeval
in Laura
Hibbard
XVI
and is discussed
Loomis,
1846),
seems
to
of Sir Triamour
The
author
in England
pp. 283-89.
(N. Y., 1960),
ed.
French
from the 12th-century
Macaire,
the story of the dog
have drawn
IX. He
de
la France
Po?tes
in Les Anciens
F. Guessard
1858-70),
(Paris,
to his mas
on page
xxix of his Introduction.
the dog motif
discusses
Fidelity
is
There
folklore.
of the dog's
cited
features
ter is one of the most
commonly
a Midrashic account of how the dog guarded the body of Abel from birds
The Legends
See Louis Ginzberg,
beasts.
Pa.,
(Philadelphia,
of the lews
in the Book
of
the dog
which
puts
IV, 142, n. 31, for this account,
1913),
the bal
be numbered
treatments
of the theme may
Genesis.
Among
popular
at Aylsham,
of faithful
and the misericord
lad of "Twa Corbies"
carvings
dogs
Stead
and Ixworth Thorpe.
J. M.
Irstead,
(Lines.),
Winthorpe
Barningham,
in "Chaucer's
to support
his argument
man
to such traditions
Whelp:
alludes
and
A Symbol of Marital Fidelity?" N 6- Q, III (Sept., 1956), 374-75. On the
see Maria
dog generally,
N. J.,
(New Brunswick,
Leach,
1961).
God
Had
a Dog:
The
Folklore
of
the Dog
JOHN
BLOCK
153
FRIEDMAN
a look at the Black Knight's problem?and,
by analogy, his own prob
to the Black Knight
lem as well.
The Dreamer's
is a
first response
one:
same
to
sitten
clinical
"What ayleth hym
her?" (449). That the
his own condition had troubled the Dreamer
be
question
concerning
fore he fell asleep is no coincidence.
It is a question which must be
answered before any cure can begin.
One of the characteristics
which distinguishes
the Dreamer
from the
we should even say inability
Man in Black is his reluctance?perhaps
?to
face the cause of his distress. Up until now he has referred to it
and has focused
only obliquely
insomnia. His initial approach
to its physical
side:
his attention upon its physical
effect,
to the Black Knight's
grief is likewise
was fled for pure drede
to hys herte, to make hym warm?
For wel hyt feled the herte had harm?
To wite
eke why hyt was adrad
The
blood
Doun
and for to make hyt glad;
By kynde,
For hit ys membre
principal
al
Of the body; and that made
wexe
and
hewe
grene
Hys
chaunge
And pale, for ther noo blood ys sene
In no maner
lym of hys.
(490-99 )15
though the lament of the Man in Black reveals that his lady has
does not acknowledge
this fact, but presses
the
died, the Dreamer
sorrow
so
cause
of
to
him
the
his
that he may "amende hyt"
tell
Knight
and make him "hool." Simply to speak of it, he suggests,
"may ese
That
semeth
ful
sek
under
It is
your syde" (556-57).
youre herte, /
in
is
offered
the
full
that
this
of
the
suggestion
knowledge
possible
answer it will elicit, or in the hope that talking it out will benefit the
Even
the Dreamer
to "have more
Black Knight, while
incidentally
allowing
is
It
of
that
the Dream
hys thought" (538).
equally possible
knowynge
er is still unready
to come to terms with
himself
the loss or shock
his own distress.
If so, it is the Black Knight
which has occasioned
who must be credited with the first observation
that the problem
is not
one. "Ne hele me may no phisicien,
a physical
/ Noght Ypocras, ne
In this observation,
of course, he differs noticeably
(571-72).
Galyen"
15.
The
medical
Joseph
Grennen,
of this and
imagery
"Hert-huntyng
(1964), 131-39.
in the poem
other passages
in the Book
of the Duchess,"
is discussed
MLQ,
by
XXV
154
THE
THE
DBEAMER,
WHELP
from the Dreamer,
who had declared
earlier: "For there is phisicien
but oon / That may me hele; but that is don' (39-40). The Dreamer's
in misunderstanding
denseness
the Black Knight's
chess
apparent
could
to face a
further
of his unwillingness
evidence
be
metaphor
harsh reality?or
of a sympathetic
desire to draw out the Knight on
the subject that is troubling him. Perhaps a combination
of both these
attitudes would
best explain the Dreamer's
towards
halting progress
an answer to the question,
"what ayleth hym?"
In any case, the way
to a cure for both men bes through their discussion
of the Knight's
condition.
To return, then, to the whelp.
in the poem gives it an
Its position
active role in advancing
the Dreamer
state of
towards an improved
we
would
well
be
assume,
health?and,
consequent
psychic
physical
association
this function reflect any traditional
of the dog
ing. Does
Four distinct precedents,
each of which Chaucer
with healing?
could
exist
in
art
have
medieval
been
familiar
and
literature
for
with,
easily
the idea of a healing dog. We find such dogs in the legend of Aescle
in the Book of Tobit;
in the story of the life
pius, the god of healing;
in medieval
of Saint Roche and its representations
art; and finally in
the widely
popular romance, Tristan.
cur
in the Middle Ages that the dog had marvelous
It was believed
Sometimes
the dog is given these without
ative powers.
any further
as in the remark by the 13th-century
explanation,
encyclopedist,
that "the tongue of the dog is medicinal
of
Thomas
and by
Cantimpr?,
and those of others."16 And some
licking he heals his own wounds
as in a
times the dog is shown as an emblem of the god Aesclepius,
sometimes attributed
to Apuleius, where
miniature
from the Herbarius
the head of the
Above
Chiron, and Plato are represented.
Aesclepius,
a dog.17 Ancient writers
is prominently
had
pictured
god of healing
in
the
of
had
been
referred to dogs who,
temples
living
Aesclepius,
of
credited with miraculous
cures, by touching or licking the wounds,
in
in
the
of
who
healed.
Thus
temples
being
slept
hopes
ailing persons
in the iconography
of the god for this reason
the dog often appeared
of the story, passed on by Lactantius,
that Aescle
as well as because
on dog's milk.18
an
nourished
had
been
infant
when
pius
16.
17.
De Naturis
of Cantimpr?,
Thomas
Rerum,
TV, De Animalibus,
xiii, "Lingua
sua aut aliena
sanat
B.M. MS.
canis medicinalis
est, lambendoque
vulnera,"
on a bench
This
end at Lakenheath
12 F. vi, fol. 28v.
story is carved
Royal
in Job, XX, vi (PL LXXVI,
Moral,
See also Gregory,
Suffolk.
146-47).
church,
Vitellius
C. Ill, 19r, is reproduced
Cotton
from B.M. MS.
in
This miniature,
and Mythological
Illuminated
F. Saxl and H. Meier,
Catalogue
of Astrological
Manuscripts of the Latin Middle Ages
18.
See the
Collection
story of the blind boy, Lyson,
and Interpretation
of the
(London, 1953?),
III, 2, pi. 1.
in E. J. and L. Edelstein,
Testimonies
(Baltimore,
A
Asclepius:
1945),
I, 233,
JOHN
BLOCK
FRIEDMAN
155
in the Book of
association
of the dog with healing
is made
Another
Tobit. The Tobit legend was a popular one in the Middle Ages; parts
on the archivolts
of the story were represented
of the North Transept
at Chartres.19
There were
also French
and English mystery
plays
as
version was performed
based on the Tobit
story20 and an English
late as 1567.21 In the Book of Tobit we find the most
sympathetic
treatment of the dog in Biblical
literature. The outlines
of the story
can be told briefly. Tobit, a man dear to God,
is sleeping by a wall
when he is blinded by sparrow dung which
falls into his eyes. The
is sent by God to heal the old man's blindness.
Tobit,
angel Raphael
in desperate
to recover
straits from his blindness,
sends his son Tobias
some money
held by a distant friend, instructing
the boy to take a
The companion
he finds, though he does not
traveling companion.
know this, is Raphael;
the two set out accompanied
by Tobias' dog.
On the way, Tobias struggles with a great fish while bathing
in a river
to prepare
and kills it; Raphael
counsels his companion
the fish's gall
as a cure for blindness, which he does. After many adventures,
Tobias
?who
has acquired a wife along the way?the
and
the
angel,
dog re
turn to Tobit's house, where
the old man
is healed by the fish gall.
to announce
till the end of the story?serves
The dog?forgotten
their
Tobit's house,
arrival. As the company
approaches
The dog, which had been with them in the way, ran before; and
the news shewed his joy by fawning
coming as if he had brought
his tail. (Douay Version,
and wagging
11.9)
The parallels
this story and the account of the dog in the
between
are interesting.
Tobias' dog is associated
Book of the Duchess
spe
cifically with the arrival of a cure for an ailing man, and its actions
suae caudae gaudebat"
remind us very much of the ac
"blandimento
tions of Chaucer's whelp.
Though Tobias' dog has a very minor and
even slightly comic role in the tale, it was seriously regarded
in the
own
its
in
had
and
the
of
Middle
Book
of
exegeses
symbolism
Ages
as
of
this
The traditional
Tobit.
for
the
interpretation
dog
standing
234;
dog's
with
Nat.
13. The
on
and Aelian,
nourishment
An., VII,
story of the god's
Div.
is told by Lactantius,
milk
For
the god
Inst.,
I, x (PL VI,
160).
see the woodcut
in Vincenzo
snake and dog,
both
deUi
Cartari,
Imagini
Dei de gV Antichi
19.
20.
See
(Venice, 1556), p. 44.
Adolf
The Sculptural
Cathedral
Katzenellenbogen,
of Chartres
Programs
p. 68 and figs. 60-61.
(N. Y., 1964),
Sir E. K. Chambers,
The Mediaeval
Stage
(Oxford,
II, 131 and n.
1903)
in the legend may
interest
Dramatic
have
been
stimulated
of
by Matthew
a Latin
was
as a
Vendome's
which
Tobias,
epic of the two Tobits,
popular
school book: PL CCV, 933.
21.
Ibid.,
p.
379.
156
THE
DREAMER,
THE
WHELP
Doctors
of the Church who protect the flock from heretics and demons
is not to our point, but we may note that Bede had singled out the
animal as an important
for the idea that wisdom
often
exemplum
comes from simple things.
"Non contemnenda,"
he said, "est figura
canis hujus, qui viator et comes angeli est."22
The legend of Saint Roche offers another helpful dog. Roche died
in 1327, too late for treatment
in Romanesque
art and in the Aurea
in two countries Chaucer visited, France
but he was popular
Legenda,
as a patron of those stricken with the
and Italy. Roche was renowned
to by Blanche, who died
plague; perhaps he may have been appealed
in 1369. One of the best known events
in the saint's
of that disease
life was his falling sick in a forest and being supplied with bread by a
to him every day. Conse
dog, who made his way through the woods
is the dog. A good example
of Saint Roche
his attribute
quently,
statuette of the fifteenth cen
shown with his dog survives in a German
Wadsworth
Athenaeum
tury, now in Connecticut's
(No. 1939.245).
was represented
a
Continental
Roche
with his
While
saint,
primarily
dog in English alabaster reliefs and church sculpture during Chaucer's
lifetime.23
for a healing dog in the Book
the most
literary antecedent
Perhaps
the
is
of
the
the
Duchess
story
magic dog Pticru, who soothes Tris
of
tan and Iseult in their exile from each other:
At the neck, hung by a chain of gold, it bore a little bell; and that
tinkled so gaily, and so clear and soft, that as Tristan heard it, he
was soothed, and his anguish melted
away, and he forgot all that
for such was the virtue of the bell
he had suffered for the Queen;
heard it, he lost all pain.
that whosoever
and its property:
a strategem, Tristan was able to send the dog to Iseult, who
Through
of Tristan;
made a jewelled cage for it and carried it about in memory
and as she looked at the little dog, "sadness and anguish and regrets
out of her heart."24
melted
22.
Bede,
as
PL XCI,
For dogs
933.
In Librum
Tobiae
Interpretatio,
AUegorica
de Moralitatibus,
Liber
in popular
lore, see the late 13th-century
in "Dante's
fols.
Lat.
106r-107r,
3332,
quoted
by R. E. Kaske
as well
as nn.
XVII
134 and
and
Traditio,
231-32,
'Veltro',"
(1961),
preachers
MS.
B.N.
23.
'DXV
138.
See
the handlist
in Medieval
Saints
item 112, as well
don,
p.
1955),
by W.
Alabaster
of the
Hildburgh,
"Representations
LXI
68-87,
Folklore,
(1950),
Carvings,"
The Imagery
Churches
(Lon
Anderson,
of British
R. L. P. Milburn,
Saints
and their
and more
generally,
published
English
as M. D.
162;
Emblems in English Churches
24.
Joseph
B?dier,
ed.
and
trans.,
L.
(Oxford, 1949).
The
Romance
of
Tristan
and
Iseuk
(N.
Y.,
1945), 132-33, 134. In the Munich MS of Gottfried's Tristan, C gm. 51, fol.
86v,
there
is a picture
of Pticru.
JOHN
BLOCK
FRIEDMAN
157
use of the whelp
rather
Good precedent
exists, then, for Chaucer's
than some other animal to bring his ailing Dreamer
to the even more
in Black. Dogs
in the Middle
both
associated
ailing Man
Ages were
a
is nec
with leading and with healing.
Yet
particular kind of healing
the illness of the two char
because
essary in the Book of the Duchess
even more than it is physical.
acters is psychic
To bear the blows of
a
men
wis
both
certain perspective
and philosophic
Fortune,
require
Their dialogue,
of these
them closer to the attainment
bringing
own
a
in
to
is
its
the
heal
way
qualities,
healing process, comparable
in
which
Consolation
Boethius'
takes
ing process
of Philosophy.25
place
the two men consists
the bulk of the conversation
between
Though
of the Knight's description
of his condition
and his praise of the lady
sees their conversation
as
the
he
that
Dreamer's
White,
replies suggest
an occasion for a kind of Boethian dialogue.
At the beginning
of their
the Man in Black admits to the Dreamer, who is cast as
conversation,
in the role of the eiron, that his sorrow "hath myn under
it were
dom.
must
lorn" (565).
The Dreamer
regain, both for himself
stondynge
if either is to deal with
and for his partner, some of that understanding
his problems; his answers indicate that he is trying to meet each of the
For ex
outlook.
Knight's complaints with a broader, more philosophic
a
as
to
wish
for
death
result
of
of For
the
blows
the
ample,
Knight's
tune the Dreamer
of man's being as a reason
the uniqueness
opposes
for continued
existence:
"'A, goode sir,' quod I, 'say not soo!
/ Have
"
som pitee on your nature / That formed yow to creature*
(714-16).
that the lady White was "Myn
When
the Knight ?fters the information
al
and my god
my blesse, / My worldes welfare,
hap, myn hele, and
the Dreamer's
studied
obtuseness
desse"
this
undercuts
(1039-40),
"
premise and places it in its proper perspective:
'By oure Lord,'
quod
"
I, y trowe yow wel! / Hardely,
your love was wel beset'
( 1042-43,
my emphasis).
as in
I have offered can be regarded
To be sure, the illustrations
or gaucherie,
stances of the Dreamer's
tactlessness
but it is not neces
25.
in situation
from the parallels
the Consolation
between
Aside
of Philosophy
there are some
of lan
and the Book
similarities
of the Duchess,
interesting
one
is
struck
In
the
with which
guage.
Consolation,
by the frequency
reading
and the Lady
both Boethius*
of advice
words
take
despondency
Philosophy's
for example,
the form of medical
"medicinae,"
I, pr. ii; "remedia,"
language,
in the same prose
In Book
I, pr. v, and "medicaminis"
passage.
II, pr.
iii,
we hear of "remedia
tua morbi,"
and at the beginning
of the third meter
in
calls Philosophy
Book
his "Physician."
Parallels
of a more
I, Boethius
gen
the two poems
been
eral sort between
have
discussed
by D. W.
Robertson,
of Chaucer's
Book
in John Ma
Jr., "The Historical
of the Duchess,"
Setting
in Honor
and John Keller,
Studies
eds., Mediaeval
hotiey
of Urban
Tigner
Holmes, Jr. (Chapel Hill,
1965), pp. 177-78.
158
THE
DREAMER,
THE
WHELP
sary to read them
for understanding
in that way.
In the context of the Narrator's
search
overcome
to
which
he
his
melancholy,
by
hopes
these and other exchanges
like them appear both natural and well di
time as
rected. And when we remember
that dialogue
is, in Chaucer's
in our own, an honored and traditional way of arriving at rational un
as the agent by which
then the whelp
the Dreamer
gets
derstanding,
to the Knight assumes a peculiar
For
by Chaucer's
appropriateness.
time the dog had come to be associated
not only with
the power of
or a
reason generally,
but with the more specific idea of investigation
truth arrived at through the dialectic
process.
quest for philosophical
of special reasoning ability was
The idea that the dog was possessed
a very old one. It can be traced back to Plato, who tells us in the Re
the dog to a philosopher
public
(II, 376) that Socrates had compared
it determines what it likes and dislikes by the tests of knowl
because
edge and ignorance.26 This half serious remark may have led the Stoic
to argue that the dog could reason syllogistic
Chrysippus
philosopher
in various forms, was widely known in an
argument,
ally. Chrysippus'
It was retold by Aelian, by Sextus Em
tiquity and the Middle Ages.
and, among
by Plutarch,
piricus, by Porphyry, by Philo of Alexandria,
in their hexamera.21
by Basil and Ambrose
early Christian writers,
it
and perhaps from a Latin author who knew Aelian,
From Ambrose
in
the
to
of
the
the
author
bestiary
preserved
twelfth-century
passed
I quote the story from the bestiary,
University
Library.28
Cambridge
since that work or one like it may well have been known to Chaucer.
This version differs only slightly from the account given by the Greek
"When a dog comes across the track of a
above.
authors mentioned
hare or a stag," the author
tells us,
of the
of the trail, or the criss-cross
and reaches the branching
it has split into more parts, then the dog puzzles
trail because
of each differ
seeking along the beginnings
silently with himself,
the scent, as if enun
ent track. He shows his sagacity in following
"Either it has gone this way,"
says he to
ciating a syllogism.
in
"or that way, or, indeed, it may have turned twisting
himself,
26.
See Apology,
to swear
the dog.
was
accustomed
22;
So too, Socrates
by
on this passage
scholium
482.
172 and Gorgias,
Olympiodorus'
Charmides,
rational
the dog's
that this oath
symbolizes
nature,
in the Gorgias
explains
Commentaria
in Platonis
W.
Gorgiam
Philosophi
Norvin,
ed., Olympiodori
(Leipzig, 1936).
27.
28.
Nat
59; Sextus
An., VI,
Aelian,
De AbsHnent?a,
III, 6; Philo, De
horn.
Anim.,
13, 45; Basil. Hex.,
This work
II. 4.26.
MS.
C.U.L.
the Twelfth Century
I, 14, 69; Porphyry,
Pyrrhon.,
Ernpiricus,
De
So?.
MoraUa:
45-46;
Animal.,
Plutarch,
Hex.,
VI, 4, 23.
IX, 4; and Ambrose,
was
edited
of
by M. R. James, A Bestiary
(Roxburghe Club, 1928).
JOHN
BLOCK
FRIEDMAN
159
that other direction.
into this road,
But as it has neither entered
nor that road, obviously
it must have taken the third one!" And
so, by rejecting error, Dog finds the truth.29
Out of the dog's association with the syllogism developed
his use as
an attribute
some
for the third member
of the Trivium, Dial?ctica,
as well as his prominent
times called L?gica,
in
emble
appearance
scenes depicting
or
matic hunting
the pursuit of wisdom,
salvation,
no
means
an
as
as
virtue. Though
attribute
of
Dial?ctica
by
popular
her more familiar snake, the dog appears in this role both earlier and
later than Chaucer's
lifetime in rather disparate works of art, suggest
a
tradition
rather than the specific dependence
cf one
ing
generalized
of
another.
Herrad
famous
painter upon
Landsberg's
encyclopedia,
for example,
contains a minia
the twelfth-century
Hortus Deliciarum,
ture of the seven liberal arts personified
as women.
Dial?ctica
holds in
her outstretched
hand a dog's head, carefully
labelled "caput canis."30
A table top depicting
in 1533,
the Artes, painted by Asmuss
Stedelm
also shows Dialectic,
this time as a man seated at a desk and copying
at his feet.31
from a book. A dog is shown prominently
scenes is of particular
The use of the dog in typological
hunting
as
structure of the Book of the Duchess,
for the narrative
significance
as for the conversation
well
the Dreamer
and the Black
between
to a quarry
Pictures of hunts in which dogs led their masters
Knight.
which was really a symbol for virtue or wisdom may well have aided
in his choice of a dog to lead the Dreamer
to the Man
Chaucer
in
Black. The hunt, after all, dominates
the poem.
Its sounds beckon the
Dreamer
from the solipsistic world in which we meet him at the begin
its progress
the Dreamer
meets
of
the poem; during
the whelp
ning
in Black;
its ending
and converses with
the Man
signals the end of
their conversation
and of the poem itself.
should suffice to show the uses to which
Three different
examples
and sixteenth centuries.
hunt scenes were put during the fifteenth
A
in
and
altar
cloth
stained
painting,
popular
embroidery,
subject
glass
was the unicorn hunt as an allegory of the Annunciation.
windows
In
a Flemish or Northern French window
in Kings College Chapel, Cam
bridge, for example, Gabriel, garbed as a hunter with horn, has driven
Christ?down
from heaven
the unicorn?symbolizing
and to the lap
of the Virgin, who sits in a "hortus conclusus."
Gabriel's
four hunting
29.
30.
31.
A Book
trans., The Bestiary:
(N. Y., 1960),
of Beasts
pp. 63-64.
Deliciarum
fol. 32r.
ed., Hortus
(Paris,
1952),
Joseph Walter,
in Raimond
Van Marie,
This
table
de
l'Art
top is reproduced
Iconographie
au M oven Age
et ? la Renaissance
p. 234,
Profane
(The Hague,
1932),
fig. 262.
T. H. White,
160
THE
DREAMER,
THE WHELP
the
and Pax?2 From
dogs are labeled Justicia, Ventas, Misericordia
first quarter of the sixteenth century comes a Venetian
woodcut
de
in the guise of a stag; a hunter sends his
the quest for Virtue
picting
is
dogs, labeled Desio and Pensier, after the quarry.33 A third example
one of a series of woodcuts
the seven liberal arts and other
illustrating
life in Gregorius
Reisch's popular
aspects of late medieval
university
in 1496; there
the Margarita
first published
encyclopedia,
Philosophica,
were six editions before 1599. The whole picture?really
an emblem?
as a hunt scene. Some of its elements
of "Typus Logice"
is presented
are already familiar to us: Logic personified
as a woman,
here a hunt
common
to
unicorn
both the
ress, and the horn
allegory and the Ve
true and false forms of
netian woodcut.
Even the dogs, representing
have their own personalities.
Ventas
briskly pur
logical investigation,
sues the hare Problema, while his partner, Falsitas,
is as untrustworthy
as his name would
the point
indicate.34 Without
belaboring
it seems at least probable
that Chaucer was aware of con
and
process
temporary uses of the dog as a symbol for the dialectic
to
in mind when he employed
the whelp
that he had this symbolism
to the Black Knight.
lead the Dreamer
and
Once brought
dog, the Dreamer
together by this philosophic
to a philosophic
the
the Knight address themselves
subject:
instability
is Fortune
of earthly things. In one sense, the subject of their dialogue
in another it is the familiar remedium Fort?nete as
and her fickleness,
in the Middle
and a host of writers
Boethius
adumbrated
Ages.
by
as the source of his
the idea of Fortune
The Man in Black introduces
a long series of oxymorons?
misery quite early in his speech. After
so forth, he says, "Alias! how
"Myn hele ys turned into seknesse" and
"For fais Fortune hath pleyd a game /
I fare werre?"
(616).
myghte
fais and ful of
Atte ches with me, alias the while!
/ The trayteresse
or mesure
...
..." (632).
is
"Withoute
She
lawe,
feyth,
(618-20)."
gyle
looking
further,
32.
33.
34.
Van Marie
on p.
hunt
provides
447.
in Van
a handlist
of
works
depicting
the
allegorical
unicorn
p. 188, fig. 125.
Marie,
Reproduced
in the Margarita
have
the Artes
The woodcuts
recently
Philosophica
depicting
A Pic
World:
Chaucer's
available
been made
Hussey,
by Maurice
generally
the picture
of
who
discusses
torial Companion
1967),
England,
(Cambridge,
seems
it as fig. 53d.
The work
first to have
on pp. 81-82
and prints
Logic
in 1496,
several
at Heidelberg
and there were
been
anonymously
published
on
cites.
An
than the one Hussey
earlier
other
editions
interesting
sidelight
of the dog on a litur
is offered
Reisch's
by the appearance
investigative
dog
we
find
St. Victor),
where
of the late twelfth
century
(Xanten,
gical bowl
an Old Testament
and an
six trinities,
each made
figure,
up of an abstraction,
See Fritz
and a dog.
consists
of Scientia,
One
of these
animal.
Solomon,
am Rhein
14
Kunst
Tausend
I, pl.
1932),
Jahre Deutscher
(Berlin,
Witte,
and
p. 31.
JOHN
BLOCK
161
FRIEDMAN
in a conven
"So turneth she hyr false whel..."
(644), and continues
an effort to
in
To this the Dreamer
tional attack on Fortune.
replies,
in
the
Man
Black:
help
Remembre
For
Of
he ne
noght
yow of Socrates,
nat thre
counted
that Fortune
koude
strees
doo.
(717-19 )35
Thus the first bit of counsel or remedy to come out of their conversa
tion is a reference
to the philosopher
who by not caring for Fortune's
of course, had railed against Fortune
power was free of her. Boethius,
as the
at the beginning
in much
of the Consolation
the same way
as Phi
Black Knight does.36 So too, the Dreamer
is just as amazed
to favor him.
losophy was that the Knight could expect Fortune
comes under discussion
The next response to Fortune's
blows which
to his problems,
is the Knight's
solution
proposed
"hyt ys to deye
the Dreamer
He cites mythological
soone" (690). Again
disagrees.
and Biblical men and women who killed themselves
for love, remark
"which a fool she was"
"and ryght
ing of Dido,
(734), and concludes
His use of mythology
thus / Hath many another foly doon" (736-37).
in the argument presents
the act of dying for love in a removed
and
as
much
timeless way for the Knight's
the
old
examination,
objective
to the Dreamer
had presented
tale of Ceys and Alcione
the fruitless
ness of his earlier desire to escape his problems by sleeping.
The positive
the Middle
Ages one of the
example of Socrates?for
more
of
the
secular
wisdom?and
greatest
negative
representatives
ones of women who died for love, as well as the Dreamer's
reluctance
death the significance
to accord White's
given it by the Man in Black,
are all efforts at helping
the Knight
look at his loss philosophically
The
and, by so doing, to overcome his grief insofar as that is possible.
by his drift toward
Knight, by his remark about his lost understanding,
of the mutable
as his
creation
death, and by his taking a member
to the Dreamer,
as
and his "goddesse," has revealed
"worldes welfare"
to man's true pur
that he is blinded
to any critical medieval
audience,
of the Supreme Good, which
inheres not in the
pose: the knowledge
In the very act of presenting
created world but in the Creator.
the
is not the end of
Knight with the idea that the loss of his lady White
for future happiness,
life or the end of all possibilities
the Dreamer
is
35.
36.
that the Lady
It is worth
noting
Philosophy
in Consolation,
Boethius
the complaining
i and II, pr. i.
See Consolation,
I, m.
cites
I, pr.
the
iii.
example
of
Socrates
to
162
THE
DREAMER,
THE
WHELP
this truth as an answer to the problem
of his own eight years'
sickness?presumably
resulting from the loss of love or a loved one.
So far we have discussed
the things which
the Dreamer
says, direct
to the Black Knight.
But when
the Dreamer
has at
ly or obliquely,
to admit that "She ys ded"
the Knight
last gotten
(1309)?words
whose brutal directness
echoes the words of Ceys to his wife?healing
is possible.
The cause of grief has been brought out into the open and
it is: the death of a human be
the problem has been defined as what
can
causes
must be borne.
it
and
It is at this
though
ing which,
grief,
the
the
hunt
that
and
Dreamer
awak
the
ends,
point
Knight departs
success
of
the
at
for
the
consolation
Dreamer's
ens,
attempts
ultimately
it lies outside the poem.
cannot be predicted;
As soon as the lady's death is acknowledged,
"with that word ryght
anoon / They gan to strake forth; al was doon, / For that tyme, the
It is tempting here to take the phrase "strake
hert-huntyng"
(1311-13).
"sound the end of the hunt on the horn"?one
forth" to mean
of its
we
then
would
to
have
another
mark
horn,
yet
possible meanings?for
return to society and an outgoing
the final step in the Narrator's
life.37
shown
the words
of Ceys:
has heeded
"Awake!
The Narrator
let be your
sorwful lyf !" He now leaves the world of the dream and truly enters
to his earlier isolated
of men.
far from returning
the world
Indeed,
and unhappy
state, he resolves to share his experience with mankind
The poem ends with both its characters
"in ryme" (1332).
presum
than they were
ably happier and wiser as a result of their conversation
of a mnemonic
at the beginning.
In the words
distich on the Artes,
a
vera
in
truth
which Chaucer's
"Dial?ctica
amiable whelp
docet,"38
role.
has played a small but significant
Sir George
Williams
37.
Delasanta,
Rodney
PMLA, LXXXIV
38.
Cited
(N. Y.,
in E.
1953),
R.
University
"Christian
(1969),
Curtius,
p. 37.
Affirmation
in
The
Book
of
the
sees the horn as the horn of Apocalypse
European
Literature
and
the
Latin
Duchess,"
(p. 250).
Middle
Ages