An Optical Theme in The Merchant’s Tale

An Optical Theme in The Merchant's Tale Peter Brown University ofKent, Canterbury Th,fin,! episode of The Me,chant< Tale cont,ins th,ee smptising events: the restoration of January's vision, his sight of May and Damian copulating in the pear tree above his head, and the old man's eventual acceptance of May's explanation that he has been the victim of an optical illusion. Chaucer's treatment of these incidents is not adequately ac­ counted for in the published sources and analogues. He introduced new material which derives from the medieval science of vision, or optics. Medieval optical texts furnish parallels both for Chaucer's treatment of visual deception in the ending of The Merchant's Tale and for the tale's general theme of inner blindness. These works, three of which were known to Chaucer, provide hitherto unnoticed analogues. In her study of 1936 Germaine Dempster identified two types of decep­ tion story which share similarities with Chaucer's version. 1 The Optical Illusion type features a husband who agrees that the sight of his wife with another man was a visual deception. The Blind Husband and Fruit Tree type includes a blind husband whose sight is restored in time for him to witness the act of adultery taking place in a fruit tree. He is then persuaded by his wife that her purpose was to cure his ailment. Dempster concluded that a Novellino narrative of the Blind Husband variety is closest to Chaucer's version of the story but allowed that he could have been influ­ enced by a story of the Optical Illusion type. Additional analogues of both 1 GermaineDempster, "On the SourceoftheDeception Story in theMerchant's Tale," MP 34 (1936-37):133-54; and see her "The Merchant's Tale," in W. F. Bryan and Germaine Dempster, eds., Sources andAnalogues ofChaucer's Canterbury Tales (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941), pp. 333-56. 231 RECONSTRUCTING CHAUCER types have subsequently come to light, but without disturbing Dempster's findings.2 The ending of The Merchant's Tale is an unprecedented blend of the Optical Illusion and Blind Husband stories. The process of amalgamation may be traced from line 2354, when Pluto restoresJanuary's sight.3 From this point onward Chaucer takes account ofJanuary's visual experience in ways which are unusual, detailed, and complex. Pluto causesJanuary to see "as wel as evere he myghte" (line 2356), but, as it soon emerges, January's ability to see well is severely restricted by psychological impediments. His first reaction is to look for his wife because he dotes on her: "was ther nevere man of thyng so fayn, / But on his wyf his thoght was everemo" (lines 2358-59). Here Chaucer makes the first of several statements about the relations betweenJanuary's state of mind and his visual experience.Janu­ ary is impelled as it were involuntarily to search out the object of his devotion and socatches sight of May and Damianin flagrante delicto. It is a moment of visual truth, and Chaucer indicates that, just as thought directs vision, so vision directs emotion.January cries out in anguish like a mother who fears that her child will die (lines 2364-67). May's explanation of what is happening is in line with the Blind Hus­ band models: she claims that her intention was to cureJanuary's blindness, "to heele with youre eyen" (line 2372). The story would normally end here, but instead Chaucer transposes the narrative to an Optical Illusion type. The transition occurs with May's claim that she has done no more than "strugle with a man upon a tree" (line 2374), so suggesting that her husband's eyes have deceived him. At this stageJanuary is not inclined to deny the evidence of his senses. The memory image is impressed vividly on his mind (lines 2376-79): "Strugle!" quod he, "ye algate in it wente! God yeve yow bothe on shames deth to dyen1 He swyved thee, I saugh it with myne yen, And elles be I hanged by the hals'" When May retorts "Thanne is...my medicyne fals" (line 2380), she is, of course, referring to the cure which she pretends to have effected; but there 2 Charles A. Watkins, "Modern Irish Variants of the Enchanted Pear Tree," SFQ 30 (1966):202-13; Karl P. Wentersdorf, "Chaucer's Merchant's Tale and Its Irish Analogues," SP 63 (1966):604-29; "A Spanish Analogue of the Pear-Tree Episode in the Merchant'sTa!e," MP 64 (1967):320-21; and Peter G. Beidler, "Chaucer's Merchant's Tale and the De­ cameron," Italica 50 (1973):266-84. 3 All quotations from Chaucer are F. N. Robinson, ed., The Works ofGeoffrey Chaucer, 2d ed. (Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 1957). 232 AN OPTICAL THEME is also a sense in which she is admitting, in the form of an aside, that the explanation of her deed with Damian is inadequate as a remedy for concealing the adultery, becauseJanuary refuses to believe her version of events against the visual evidence. So May switches her tactics by introduc­ ing as a supplementary explanation of whatJanuary has seen the idea that he is suffering from defective vision. This development in her strategy represents a change from what might be called a magical explanation to one which has the trappings of science. The terms in which the second explanation is presented go far beyond anything found in the Optical Illusion analogues. The first statement in May's scientific explanation is that January has only partial sight: "Ye han som glymsyng, and no parfit sighte" (line 2383). With this utterance May's account of optical phenomena becomes increasingly technical. January begins to be persuaded. Although contin­ uing to claim that he sees "as wel as evere I myghte" (line 2384), he concedes that what he saw pass between his wife and squire may have been imagined: "me thoughte he dide thee so" (line 2386). The note of certainty has gone fromJanuary's recollection of his visual experience. May is quick to press home her advantage and pursues a three-pronged plan of decep­ tion. First, she appeals to science by suggesting that January's eyes are defective; second, she appeals to magic by claiming that her action in the tree has curedJanuary's blindness; and third, she appeals to her husband's emotions by hinting that he is ungrateful (lines 2387-89): "Ye maze, maze, goode sire," quod she; "This thank have I for I have maad yow see. Alias," quod she, "that evere I was so kynde1 " January capitulates and prepares to deny the existence of what has happened by suppressing the residual, still disturbing visual memory of his wife with Damian. He apologizes to May for accusing her falsely, although there still lurks the suspicion that he thought he saw the pair together, that "Damyan hadde by thee leyn, / And that thy smok hadde leyn upon his brest" (lines 2394-95). With astonishing speed January has moved from absolute certainty about what he saw to thinking that he saw it to banishing the image from his mind. His vision has been restored, but the effect of May's eloquence is such and his devotion to her so extreme that he might as well continue to be sightless. To set her husband's mind completely at rest, May elaborates the scientific explanation.Just as a man waking from sleep is not always able to enjoy perfect vision until he is fully awake, so a man cured of blindness may 233 RECONSTRUCTING CHAUCER not be able to see properly for a day or two. She suggests, menacingly, that January is likely to undergo more illusions similar to the one just experi­ enced. He should not be too hasty in jumping to conclusions, for ap­ pearances can be deceptive (a remark which applies to May's entire argu­ ment). Finally, she warns that mental preconceptions may give rise to visual errors, an observation all too true in its application toJanuary, whose emotions and thoughts have been so receptive to the idea that his eyes, not May, have deceived him (lines 2396-2410): "Ye, sire," quod she, "ye may wene as yow lest. But, sire, a man that waketh out of his sleep, He may nat sodeynly we! taken keep Upon a thyng, ne seen it parfitly, Ti! that he be adawed verraily. Right so a man that longe hath blynd ybe, Ne may nat sodeynly so we! yse, First whan his sighte is newe come ageyn, As he that hath a day or two yseyn. Ti! that youre sighte ysatled be a while, Ther may fol many a sighte yow bigile. Beth war, I prey yow; for, by hevene kyng, Fu! many a man weneth to seen a thyng, And it is al another than it semeth. He that mysconceyveth, he mysdemeth." What May says has the ring of truth, considered as science, but the science is misapplied since it is used to account for an event which was not an optical illusion at all. The scientific content ofher speech, therefore, has an ambivalent status. On the one hand, it impresses and persuadesJanuary more effectively than did the magical explanation May earlier espoused. This is not the only occasion on which Chaucer used scientific theory as an alternative explanation of an optical phenomenon previously accounted for in magical terms alone. When, in The Squire's Tale, a magic mirror is brought to the court of Cambyuskan, one bystander suggests that its powers may be understood (lines 229-30) Naturelly, by composiciouns Of anglis and of slye reflexiouns. On the other hand, May is patently abusing scientific knowledge for her own ends: science is shown not to have the status of objective, fixed truth, 234 AN OPTICAL THEME but rather to vary in its veracity according to the applications and motiva­ tions ofthose who employ it. One is reminded ofthe abuse ofalchemy for personal gain as it is depicted in The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale. The scientific element in the ending of The Merchant's Tale is not simply an isolated curiosity absent from the known analogues. It should be considered as a significant instance of the process whereby Chaucer used science imaginatively and to add stiffening to his narrative sources.4 To inquire further into such creative practices it is necessary first to determine the intellectual context of Chaucer's references to visual theory. David C. Lindberg has described how the science of optics, or perspectiva, rose to preeminence among the physical sciences during the thirteenth and four­ teenth centuries.5 Influential scholars like Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon secured academic respectability for the discipline, drawing together optical writings by classical and Arabic authors, which they assimilated to a traditional Christian interest in the metaphysics of light and vision. The subject ofperspectiva soon became an integral part ofthe arts courses at the universities. At Oxford by 1350 it was possible to study optical texts by Al­ hazen and Witelo assubstitutesfor works byEuclid.6 Evidenceofthe wide­ spread interest in optics during the fourteenth century may be found in a range of texts, from the highbrow scholastic treatise to the more popular and accessible encyclopedia, sermon exemplum, and vernacular poem. Alhazen's De aspectibus (written ca. A.D. 1000 and translated into Latin in the early thirteenth century) was probably the most important and influential ofall medieval works onperspectiva. The third book is devoted to the circumstances, causes, and types of visual deception. Alhazen recognizes that weak vision, such as that which supposedly afflictsJanuary, is a significant cause of error: Weak sight and excess introduce error into the perception of...distance, for iftwo objects are set opposite the eye, one of which is brightly coloured and the more 4 On Chaucer's imaginative use ofscience see M. Manzalaoui, "Chaucer and Science," in Derek Brewer, ed., Geoffrey Chaucer, Writers and Their Background (London: Bell, 1974), pp. 224-61. 5 David C. Lindberg, Theories a/Visionfrom AI-Kindi to Kepler, University of Chicago History of Science and Medicine (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1976), chaps. 4-7. 6 Pearl Kibre andNancy G. Siraisi, "The Institutional Setting: TheUniversities," in David C. Lindberg, ed., Science in the Middle Ages, Chicago History of Science and Medicine (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 129; James A. Weisheipl, "Curriculum of the Faculty of Arts at Oxford in the Early Fourteenth Century," MS 26 (1964):143-85. 235 RECONSTRUCTING CHAUCER distant, the other weakly coloured and nearer, then (since there is no apprehension of distance without comparisons with other intervening objects) ...the weak eye will make an uncertain comparison; and because it seems certain to the perceiver that the perception of nearer locations is more distinct than that of more distant ones, he firmly concludes that of these objects the more brightly coloured one is nearer.7 The Silesian scholar Witelo completed in about 1274 an authoritative compendium of optical theory, the Perspectiva, based on Alhazen's work and all other optical treatises extant in the West. The fourth book deals with the same topics as those found in Alhazen'sbook 3. Witelo points out that a weak eye takes longer than a normal, healthy eye to register visual events,8 and he describes the various causes of a discrepancy which may arise between what the perceiverexpectsto see and what in fact he does see. It is this sort ofdislocation ofactual and imagined sights that May exploits so well: "For when some object appears to visual perception as another and as if it were the real one, then the mode of apprehension makes a visual error, because the form pre-existing in the mind is applied unsuitably to another form, to which it does not correspond."9 Witelo also notes how weakness ofsight can increase the margin oferror, giving rise to cases of mistaken identity: "... an eye affected by a bright, strongly lit colour judges all the colours it then sees to be of that same colour or of a colour mixed from it; and also through illness of the eyes a horse appears to be an ass, and Socrates is seen as Plato."10 We might add that a lovemaking Damian may appear to be no more than a strug­ gling man. There is no evidence that Chaucer was familiar with either of these works. However, he was at least aware that Alhazen and Witelo were considered to be authorities on the science of optics, for they are men­ tioned as such, together with Aristotle, in The Squire's Tale when the properties of the magic mirror are being debated (SqTF 232-35): 7 Alhazen, Opticaethesaurus: Alhazeniarabislibriseptem ... 1572, 3.7.69, ed.F.Risner, Sources of Science, no. 94 (New York:Johnson, 1972), p. 101. Unless otherwise noted, the translations are mine. 8 Alhazen, Vite!lonzs thuringopolinilibn·X. ..(forming the second part of the Opticae thesaurus), ibid., 4.109, p. 167. 9 Ibid., 155, p. 187. 10 Ibid., p. 188. 236 AN OPTICAL THEME They speken of Alocen, and Vitulon, And Aristotle, that writen in hir lyves Of queynte mirours and of perspectives, As knowen they that han hir bookes herd. Apart from the mention of Witelo, these lines derive from Jean de Meun's continuation of the Roman de la Rose, in which there is a long speech by Nature who, in authoritative tones, explains how visual phe­ nomena may be understood through the difficult science of optics (RR 18013-43).11 Here, in what is demonstrably one source of Chaucer's knowledge of optical theory, we encounter a passage which almost cer­ tainly stimulated his ideas about the themes of The Merchant's Tale and about its ending. Nature and Genius agree that a mirror would have saved the lovers Venus and Mars a great deal of trouble. Venus could then have foreseen Vulcan's arrival and could have had her excuses ready to explain Mars's presence. She might also have been able to persuade Vulcan that adultery had not happened and that what he had seen was an illusion (RR 18105-29). The similarities with the ending of Chaucer's poem do not need laboring. Mirrors, says Nature, can also cause illusions, and she associates with these the images produced in the mind's eye by mental and emotional aberrations, incuding those ofthe besotted lover (RR 18239-46, 18357-404). The psychological state described by Nature, and its connec­ tion with mirror images, find echoes in Chaucer's description ofJanuary as he imagines the type of woman whom he would like to marry; erotic images of local beauties pass through his heart like the reflections one might receive from a mirror positioned in a marketplace (MerT E 1577-87). Jean de Meun provided Chaucer with a model for making optics the stuff ofpoetry; in the story ofMars, Venus, and Vulcan he supplied a plot close to that followed in the ending of The Merchant's Tale, and he suggested a link, to be developed by Chaucer, between visual deception and sexual fantasy. The antecedents found in the Roman, and in the writings of 11 Guillaume de Lorris andJean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Daniel Poirion (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1974). The relationsbetweenNature's speech on optics and the design of the poem as a whole have been discussed by Alan M. F. Gunn, The Mirror ofLove: A Reinterpretation ofthe Romance ofthe Rose, Texas Technological College Research Publica­ tions in Literature (Lubbock: Texas Tech Press, 1951), pp. 28-29, 49-50, 219-22, 266-73, 301; Patricia J. Eberle, "The Lovers' Glass: Nature's Discourse on Optics and the Optical Design of the Romance ofthe Rose," UTQ 46 (1976-77):241-62. 237 RECONSTRUCTING CHAUCER Alhazen and Witelo, still fall short of giving a satisfactory framework within which to consider Chaucer's use of optical material in The Mer­ chant's Tale. Further parts of that framework are to be found in en­ cyclopedias and sermon exempla. Chaucer's use of the Speculum maius (ca. 1244) of Vincent ofBeauvais is well known. 12 The first two books of the first part, the Speculum naturale, have much to say about vision and light. For instance, Vincent identifies three causes of defective vision like those which, according to May, afflictJanuary. These are staring too long at an object of extreme whiteness or brightness, waking suddenly from sleep, and opening the eyes after a prolonged period in which they have been closed or in darkness, a circumstance close toJanuary's as he stares amazed into the pear tree: ... it happens that when someone for a long time has closed his eyes or has been in darkness, and afterwards has gone into the light, he does not see well until moderately changing light has entered from without, because, to reiterate the truth, vision is completed by a visual humour which runs to the eyes through the hollow optic nerves from the interior part of the brain, which said dry humour draws forth moderate colour. 13 Chaucer's use of the De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomew the Englishman (compiled 12 30-40) has not been established, but itneverthe­ less contains material close to that which he used. One of the best-known encyclopedias of the later Middle Ages, it was translated into several vernaculars, including French (1372) and English (1398). In his seventh bookBartholomew deals at some length with the causes of defective vision and blindness, and it is possible to recognize inJanuary a syndrome which the author describes. January is over sixty when the action of The Mer­ chant's Tale begins, he is a bon viveur, and throughout his life he has given immoderate attention to women. On each of these three counts, according 12 Chaucer refers to Vincent's "Estoryal Myrour" in LGW G 307. Scientific borrowings from the encyclopedia have been documented in the following articles by Pauline Aiken: "Vincent of Beauvais and Dame Pertelote's Knowledge of Medicine," Speculum 10 (1935):281-87; "Arcite's Illness and Vincent of Beauvais," PMLA 51 (1936):361-69; "The Summoner's Malady," SP 33 (1936):40-44; "Vincent of Beauvais and Chaucer's Knowledge of Alchemy," SP 41 (1944):371-89; "Vincent of Beauvais and the 'Houres' of Chaucer's Physician," SP 53 (1956):22-24. 13 Vincent ofBeauvais, Bibliotheca mundi: Vincentii bellovacensisspeculum quadruplex; naturale, doctrinale, morale, historiale . ..omnia nunc accurate recognita . .. opera et studio theologorum Benedictorum collegii Vedastini in alma academia Duacensi ... (Douai: B. Belleri, 1624), vol. 1, bk. 25, chap. 34, col. 1797. 238 AN OPTICAL THEME to Bartholomew, a man is likely to suffer partial or complete loss of vision. A declining vitality in the humours causes gradual blindness in old age: "...ferst here nen wexen dymme, and }Janne }Jey haue}J defaute of si3t, and at }:le last }:le vertu of si3t faille}J and }Jey lesi}J al here si3t."14 Food and drink may affect vision intermittently: "...defaute of si3t is nou3t con­ tynual but it come}J and goop, for it waxi}J and wayne}J by diuersite of mete and of drinke."15 Lechery also causes the eye to suffer: "Hechinge and smertinge of nen comen somtyme of outward }Jinges, as...of fleischlich likinge and ofte seruyse of Venus pat corrumpi}J and dissolue}J }:le spiritis and }:le humour cristallyne."16 January's reaction to blindness is one of possessive jealousy of May "Lest that his wyf sholde falle in som folye " (MerTE 2074).Bartholomew warns that blindness is a wretched state and causes emotional disturbance.The blind man lives in a state of anxiety and fears desertion by his friends, a fear that inJanuary's case is fully justified: "Selde he clop ou3t sikirly; wel nne alway he douti}J and dredi}J....Pe blinde is wrecchid, for in house he dar no}Jing tristily doo, and in }:le way he dredi}J lest his felawe wole forsake him."17 Bartholomew ends on a moral note: "Better is to a man to be blynde and haue his i3en iput out }Jan haue i3en and be desceyued and bigiled with fikelinge and flateringe }Jerof."18 The narrator of The Merchant's Tale makes the identical point as the plan of Damian and May to deceive the blindJanuary gathers momentum (lines 2107-10): 0 Januarie, what myghte it thee availle, Thogh thou myghte se as fer as shippes saille? For as good is blynd deceyved be As to be deceyved whan a man may se. The usefulness of optical data in pointing a moral was taken further in sermon literature. There is a remarkable and widespread collection of exempla devoted to the moralizing of information taken from the science ofperspectiva, theLiber de oculo morali, compiled in the 1260s by Peter of 14 Bartholomew, On the Properties of Things: john Trevisa's Translation of Bar­ tholomaeus Anglicus de proprietatibus rerum, ed. M. C. Seymour et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), vol. 1, bk. 7, chap. 20, p. 364, lines 8-12. 15 Ibid., chap. 19, p. 363, lines 19-21. 16 Ibid., chap. 15, p. 359, lines 32-33; p. 360, lines 3-5. 17 Ibid., chap. 20, p. 365, lines 15-16, 27-29. 1s Ibid., lines 35-37. 239 RECONSTRUCTING CHAUCER Limoges. The work has no direct bearing on The Merchant's Tale, but it represents the tendency of preachers to make systematic use of visual phe­ nomena as similitudes for spiritual and moral states. 19 Chaucer's probable familiarity with such exempla can be demonstrated by referring to Robert Holkot's commentary on Wisdom (written ca. 1333) which Chaucer is known to have consulted.20 In his twenty-ninth lectio, Holkot relates each of the seven cardinal sins to both the spiritual and the physical blindness which they separately cause. Holkot begins with pride, which blinds by its excessive splendor. The sun is compared to the display of worldly glory, which prevents the inner eye from seeing spiritual truth by its great brightness. Showy intellectuals and fortunate and rich men are likely to be affected by this sin. The rich, powerful, and ingenious ruler of Pavye comes to mind, and forcibly so as Holkot goes on to quote from a letter of Seneca to Lucilius a story similar in moral to that of The Merchant's Tale: ...his [Seneca's] wife had a certain female servant, who suddenly became blind; she ceased to see.The story sounds incredible, but it is true: she did not know that she was blind, but kept asking her attendant if she might leave the house in which she lived, saying that it was too dark.Seneca adds: what makes us smile in her case happens to the restof us; nobody understands that he is himself greedy or covetous. The blind ask for a guide while we wander without one, saying: "I am not self­ seeking, but living in my city demands great expenses.It is not my fault that I have a choleric disposition, or that I have not settled on a definite way of life; it is due to my youth." Why do we deceive ourselves? The evil that affects us is not external, it is within us, it is seated in our very vitals.For that same reason we achieve health with all the more difficulty, because we do not know that we are sick.21 Just as texts with a scientific bias provide a framework for May's final speech, so the moralizing of optical data gives a context for the theme of inner blindness as it occurs in The Merchant's Tale. For Seneca's moral 19 For recent studies of Peter's work see David L. Clark, "Optics for Preachers: The De ocu/o morali by Peter ofLimoges," MichA 9 (1977):329-43; Gudrun Schleusener-Eichholz, "Naturwissenschaft und Allegorese: der Tractatus de oculo morali des Petrus von Limoges," FMAS 12 (1978):258-309. 2° Kate Oelzner Petersen, On the Sources ofthe Noone Prestes Tale, Radcliffe College Monographs, no. 10 (Boston: Ginn, 1898), pp. 98-118; RobertA. Pratt, "SomeLatinSources of the Nonnes Preest on Dreams," Speculum 52 (1977):538-70. 21 Robert Holkot, M. Roberti Holkoth.. . in librum sapienttae regis Salominis praelec­ tiones CCXIII..., [ed. J. Ryterus] ([Basel], 1586), lectio 29, p. 104. See also Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistolae morales, epistle 50, ed. and trans. Richard M. Gummere, Loeb Classical Library (London: Heinemann, 1917), 1:330-33, on which my translation is based. 240 AN OPTICAL THEME applies toJanuary: the true cause of his blindness is within. WhenJanuary becomes physically blind, it is but the external manifestation of internal disorders.He is never more blind than when his sight is restored and May is able to persuade her husband that his eyes do not see the truth. They do, butJanuary does not know what the truth is. Outer and inner blindness have become as one.The causes ofJanuary's lack of insight may be divided into four categories: intellectual, spiritual, erotic, and emotional.22 January's observations on the advantages of marrying a young woman reveal a worldly wisdom which is actually a falseperspicacity. Older women are too knowing, too resistant to manipulation, says January (MerT 1415-30), but, on the other hand, he is unaware of the dangers of marrying a young woman like May. He accepts the flattering words of Placebo because they are in accord with his own estimation of himself (lines 1513-15): And trewely, it is an heigh corage Of any man that stapen is in age To take a yong wyf... Justinus's more realistic counsel- "Ye shul nat plesen hire fully yeres thre" (line 1562)-is dismissed out of hand: "Straw for thy Senek, and for thy proverbes!" (line 1567).January is prepared to accept only arguments which reflect his own preconceived opinions. Spiritual myopia is evident whenJanuary initiates a specious discussion on paradise.He presents the dilemma as an academic one: "Assoilleth me this question, I preye" (line 1654); and his manner is urbane to the point of cynicism. January understands that no man may enjoy two perfect states of bliss, that is, both on earth and in heaven. Yet his marriage to May promises to be so full of "felicitee, ...ese and lust, / ...So delicat, withouten wo and stryf, / That I shal have myn hevene in erthe heere'" (lines 1642-43, 1646-47). If heaven itself is bought with tribulation and penance, how may heavenly bliss be attained by a happily married man such as himself? AlthoughJanuary confesses to "drede" (line 1653) in thinking about this issue, it is clear that his worries about the salvation of his soul do not run very deep. Justinus points out that his master's view of the afterlife is simplistic. Heoffersan alternative perspectivewhich includes asenseof the 22 For another discussion ofJanuary's inner blindness see Robert B. Burlin, Chaucerian Fiction (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 207-10. 241 RECONSTRUCTING CHAUCER complexity and irony of human experience and of the relations between earthly and heavenly states. May, he suggests, might prove to beJanuary's purgatory on earth, "Goddes meene and Goddes whippe" (line 1671), whereby his soul will be fitted for heaven. In the event, January's inner blindness is so severe that he is impervious to the purgatory inflicted by May's actions and so also to their spiritual benefits. January's blindness in erotic matters is clear from the passage already mentioned, in which he creates mental images of sexually attractive women before securing the real woman who will match his fantasy. January's choice of May is his own, made without consulting his advisers. The Merchant observes that this procedure is perhaps not very farsighted (lines 1595-98): He atte laste apoynted hym on oon, And leet alle othere from his herte goon, And chees hire of his owene auctoritee; For love is blynd alday, and may nat see. The opinions of others count for nothing, such is the force ofJanuary's conviction that he is right: "inpossible it were to repplye / Agayn his choys, this was his fantasye" (lines 1609-10). January wanders further into the realms of erotic illusion. May, whom "to biholde it semed fayerye" (line 1743), fills him with vicarious sexual pleasure and with intimations of virility (lines 1750-64). After a night of feverish lovemaking, and in the cold light ofmorning, May's perception ofher husband's antics brooks no pretense: she sees him as utterly devoid of youth and sexual appeal (lines 1851-54).January's sexual delusions help conceal from him the possibility that a younger man than he might be regarded by May as a better lover. The detection ofdeception in one's own home is difficult enough, suggests the Merchant, without the further impediments which January suffers. The ruler of Pavye is "dronken in plesaunce / In mariage" (lines 1788-89) and so has no inkling of Damian's intentions. The narrator exclaims in apparent sympathy, "God graunte thee thyn hoomly fo t'espye!" (line 1792). EventuallyJanuary does espy Damian caught in the act, but it is too late because inner affiictions enable May to misdirect her husband's inter­ pretation of what he has seen. January's inner condition worsens with the physical blindness which suddenly affects him, for, as previously noted, it produces an emotional disturbance in the form of possessive jealousy. So extreme is January's jealousy that he restrains May's movements by always keeping a hand on 242 AN OPTICAL THEME her person (lines 2087-91). Ironically, communications between May and Damian now become more visual. Owing toJanuary's blindness, "privee signes" (line 2105) can pass between them: May motions Damian into January's garden (lines 2150-51) and then makes a further sign with her finger to tell Damian that the time has come for him to climb into the pear tree (lines 2209-10). Blind, ignorant of the deceptions being practiced, still hoping for heavenly bliss, in a state of jealousy, controlled by his dedication to the erotic image ofMay, and convinced that his marriage is of the best, January has given May all his worldy possessions (lines 2160-84). His material ruination completes the process of intellectual, spiritual, erotic, and emotional bankruptcy. The theme of inner blindness in The Merchant's Tale may have been suggested to Chaucer by one of the Blind Husband stories in which the husband is presented as a jealous man, or by an Optical Illusion story in which the husband is unaware ofhis own shortcomings and ofhis wife's infidelity. 23 Such analogues provide only a hint ofa theme which Chaucer was to treat in a much more complex way. Sources for the earlier phases of The Merchant's Tale, the Miroir de manage ofEustache Deschamps and the Elegtae Maximzani, contain passages with some reference to blindness, but Chaucer has not used them to any considerable extent.24 It was he who enriched the idea of inner blindness and he who introduced optical material into the closing passages ofthe tale. The context and probably the sources ofthese changes are to be found in texts which deal more directly with visual phenomena, for Chaucer's innovations are rooted in the medi­ eval tradition ofperspectiva as it is represented in specialized scientific works, encyclopedias, vernacular poetry, and sermon exempla. The ana­ logues to be found in Alhazen, Witelo, and Bartholomew should no longer be disregarded. The Roman de la Rose, Speculum maius, and Wisdom commentary ofHolkot are known to have been used by Chaucer, and they therefore have strong claims to be considered as even closer to the origins ofhis inspiration. 23 Beidler, "Chaucer's Merchant's Tale," pp. 276-77. 24 Dempster, "The Merchant's Tale," p. 335; Albert E. Hartung, "The Non-Comic Merchant's Tale, Maximianus, and the Sources," MS 29 (1967):13, 18. 243 ...