Two Visions of Women

Visions of Women:

Geoffrey Chaucer is one of the more interesting voices to survive to us from the Middle Ages. He wrote a great deal about women, who were of obvious interest to him; and well they might be! But he also wrote in the voice of members of many different social classes and stations, and he did so with remarkable clarity. It's easy to imagine that he was really able to see things as his characters might have seen them, and use their own words to describe them.

Here are two descriptions of two women, the first from "The Knight's Tale" and the second from "The Miller's Tale." The Knight is described as a true adventurer and a grim man:

A KNIGHT there was, and what a gentleman,
Who, from the moment that he first began
To ride about the world, loved chivalry,
Truth, honour, freedom and all courtesy.
Full worthy was he in his sovereign's war...

His steeds were good, but he was not gaily dressed.
A tunic of simple cloth he possesed
Discoloured and stained by his habergeon;
For he had lately returned....

The miller, by contrast, was a thief, a boor, and a drunkard.

But first I make a protestation round
That I'm quite drunk, I know it by my sound:
And therefore, if I slander or mis-say,
Blame it on ale of Southwark, so I pray;
For I will tell a legend and a life
Both of a carpenter and of his wife,
And how a scholar set the good wright's cap."

This is a story about how a scholar made a cuckold by committing adultery with the wife of a carpenter. It's a ribald story, unlike the Knight's high and noble tale.

So, here are the women who are in some respects the chief characters of each tale. The Knight says this of his lady:

In honour of the May, and so she rose.

Clothed, she was sweeter than any flower that blows;
Her yellow hair was braided in one tress
Behind her back, a full yard long, I guess.
And in the garden, as the sun up-rose,
She sauntered back and forth and through each close,

Gathering many a flower, white and red,
To weave a delicate garland for her head;
And like a heavenly angel's was her song.
The tower tall, which was so thick and strong,
And of the castle was the great donjon,

(Wherein the two knights languished in prison,
Of whom I told and shall yet tell, withal),
Was joined, at base, unto the garden wall
Whereunder Emily went dallying.
Bright was the sun and clear that morn in spring,

And Palamon, the woeful prisoner,
As was his wont, by leave of his jailor,
Was up and pacing round that chamber high,
From which the noble city filled his eye,
And, too, the garden full of branches green,

Wherein bright Emily, fair and serene,
Went walking and went roving up and down.
This sorrowing prisoner, this Palamon,
Being in the chamber, pacing to and fro,
And to himself complaining of his woe,

Cursing his birth, he often cried "Alas!"
And so it was, by chance or other pass,
That through a window, closed by many a bar
Of iron, strong and square as any spar,
He cast his eyes upon Emilia,

And thereupon he blenched and cried out "Ah!"
As if he had been beaten to the heart.

And here is the Miller's:

Fair was this youthful wife, and therewithal
As weasel's was her body slim and small.
A girdle wore she, barred and striped, of silk.
An apron, too, as white as morning milk
About her loins, and full of many a gore;

White was her smock, embroidered all before
And even behind, her collar round about,
Of coal-black silk, on both sides, in and out;
The strings of the white cap upon her head
Were, like her collar, black silk worked with thread,

Her fillet was of wide silk worn full high:
And certainly she had a lickerish eye.
She'd thinned out carefully her eyebrows two,
And they were arched and black as any sloe.
She was a far more pleasant thing to see

Than is the newly budded young pear-tree;
And softer than the wool is on a wether.
Down from her girdle hung a purse of leather,
Tasselled with silk, with latten beading sown.
In all this world, searching it up and down,

So gay a little doll, I well believe,
Or such a wench, there's no man can conceive.
Far brighter was the brilliance of her hue
Than in the Tower the gold coins minted new.
And songs came shrilling from her pretty head

As from a swallow's sitting on a shed.
Therewith she'd dance too, and could play and sham
Like any kid or calf about its dam.
Her mouth was sweet as bragget or as mead
Or hoard of apples laid in hay or weed.

Skittish she was as is a pretty colt,
Tall as a staff and straight as cross-bow bolt.
A brooch she wore upon her collar low,
As broad as boss of buckler did it show;
Her shoes laced up to where a girl's legs thicken.

It's a fair bit of art, to capture the distance between those views so well. Here is one, who takes but little notice of the elements of beauty -- the long hair is mentioned, and not much else of the physical. It is "bright Emily," whose image burns a man's heart and strikes him down. In the next piece of the story, he goes on to declare to his companion that he is unsure if he has seen a woman, or a goddess walking the garden.

And there is another, for whom the woman is 'like a weasel' -- doubtless he means that in a good way -- whose perfection is her form. No detail of her physical body escapes his careful eye, but otherwise he has little to say of her.

Chaucer could capture both views, having the eyes to see both and the ears to hear how different men spoke of women. That's a rare gift. Most of us see only our own way, and are not able to understand that the world looks different to others. His knight had a heart that could be broken; his miller only had eyes.