Ramblings on Christina of Markyate’s mouth

So I accidentally bought a book the other day (the bookshop was just there, flashing its volumes enticingly at me): The Life of Christina of Markyate, A Twelfth-Century Recluse. It’s published in 2005 by Toronto U. P., but is actually a re-issue of a 1959 edition+translation by C. H. Talbot, who managed with great effort to transcribe those parts of the single manuscript that were not destroyed or obscured by the Cotton fire of 1731 (honestly, why would you move a collection of priceless manuscripts to a place called Ashburnham House for temporary storage? Someone was just asking for trouble).  My excuse for the flagrant self-indulgence (it cost all of $9!) is that it is tangentially related to my thesis, as it’s a product of St Albans, and I’ll be using existing studies on the historical-writing culture of St Albans as a touchstone for more original work that I intend to do on other places.  And, although she lived during the first half of the 12th century, and the vita seems to have been writing during her vita, the surviving manuscript was written (apparently with some intentional alteration from the lost original) in the mid 14th, so it’s within my time period too[1].

I’ve only just started reading it, but I was immediately struck by the style of narration, in which speech is very prominent.  It frequently uses direct speech, marked by the use of the first person (note the punctuation of the transcription):

Dixitque. Dimitte me. ut eam hostium obserare. Quia licet minime Deum metuimus. saltem homines opere tali ne superveniant vereri debemus.
And she said to him: ‘Allow me to bolt the door: for even if we have no fear of God, at least we should take precautions that no man should catch us in this act.’ (42-43) 

Direct speech is both frequent and usually marks the emotional and moral crux of each scene. Not only that, but it emphasises speech and its style and effect to such a degree that it would not be an exaggeration to call the whole vita (well, so far as I’ve read) a narrative of speech events.

• Almost every scene centres around a particular potent occasion of speech. 
• Christina’s devotion to Christ is learned and expressed through speech, as is the battle for her mind and chastity. 
• The proof of her holiness is in her speech: eg, when young she speaks aloud to Christ in her room at night, in a loud clear voice, believing that no mortal could hear her while she was addressing God.
• Her spiritual education by Sueno is told in terms of his speech and the “colloquium” he had with her. And the elided “cum” in “cum”+“loquor” is appropriate: we are told that he is learning from her speech as much as the other way around.
• Similarly, when trying to force her into marriage, her parents’ primary method of coercion is to keep all religious, god-fearing men from having “colloquium” with her, as if blocking access to the words can keep God away. Instead, she is surrounded examples of bad speech, by “people given to jesting, boasting, worldly amusement, and those whose evil communications [mala colloquia] corrupt good manners [mores bonos]” (47).
• In addition, they set one of her best friends on her, who uses flattery and persuasion and sheer persistence for a whole year to try to persuade her to consent – to that one verbal act that constitutes a contract of betrothal or marriage (depending on verb tense).
• Vows, prayers and moments of verbal consent are the turning points that provide the dramatic structure of the narrative.
• In trying to seduce her, the evil bishop Ralph of Durham uses not force, or even simply words, but explicitly “that mouth which he used to consecrate the sacred species”, neatly demonstrating the moral difference between his speech and hers.

In the example I quoted above, the use of direct speech provides the dramatic and moral crux of the scene. Ralph is  trying to seduce/rape the young Christina in his bedroom, and she is employing a ruse to allow her nearer the door so that she can escape, while pretending to acquiesce. The direct speech thus dramatises the ploy, heightening its effect, and doubles it by having her feign what we as readers know is a completely insincere disregard for God and God’s omnipresence. At the same time, that jarring note serves as a harsh reminder of exactly what the bishop’s priorities should be, highlighting his hypocrisy and thus suggesting that Christina’s apparent dishonesty is excusable, in the service of a higher truth.

The bishop demands her oath that she would not ‘fail’ but that she indeed lock the door; she swears to it, darts out of the room and locks him in. These happen in reported speech, rather than direct, playing out the suggestions inherent in the direct speech.

Incidentally, the word I’ve rendered above as ‘fail’ is my own translation of ‘falleret’.  Talbot, who prefers throughout to read this text as a literal account of her life[2], misses the double meaning here and translates it as ‘deceive him’ – certainly the primary meaning in context, and the only meaning Ralph intends, but I would have preferred to have the ominous hint preserved.  To fall truly in this instance, to fail in her vows of virginity, would be to stay in the room with him.

This emphasises the difference maintained throughout the scene between her reading of words (which is largely allegorical) and his (determinedly centred on the physically present).  She observes that the door is closed but not bolted (“clausum… sed non obseratum”). Similarly, her chastity is so far defended, but not inviolable.  Bolting the door erects a physical barrier between her and her would-be violator, just as there is already a spiritual barrier between them.  She has kept her promise she made to him: she has locked the door both physically and spiritually, in a manner far more significant than he intended. She is not forsworn: she adheres to a truth he cannot comprehend.


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[1] Copying a text, especially with substantial editing, definitely counts as historical writing for my purposes.  Oddly, Talbot seems to make little distinction between the original author and the amending copyist – so far as I can tell, as he uses the word ‘biographer’ for both, he seems to assume they’re both from St Albans on the grounds of the same textual evidence (use of “nostrum” etc when referring to the saint or monastery).


[2] He emphasises the biographer’s close relationship to her and the fact that it was written in her lifetime, as well as the paucity of fantastical tales that mark most hagiography of the period, to conclude that it was a genuine attempt at a “history” of the real woman rather than a collection of “stock elements”.  I… disagree, mostly with that distinction.

Lego librum – who is the reader?

John of Salisbury was on the brink of distinguishing three meanings for the verb legere, but then leaves it at two.  He says that the word ‘to read’ is equivocal, indicating either the activity of a teacher reading out and a listening learner (‘docentis et discentis’) or that of studying what is written for oneself (‘per se scrutantis scripturam’). John therefore refers to three different persons (teacher, learner, individual reader), but lumps the first two together by seeing them under prelectio, the communication between teacher and pupil, as distinct from lectio, individual reading. By thus squeezing out the learner-listener (discens) from the usage of legere, John has confined himself to a double function of this verb.  He therefore remains content with the suggested distinction between prelegere (to read aloud to others) and legere (to read for oneself).[1]

 

That distinction that John of Salibury doesn't quite commit to is actually quite an interesting one if it's fully articulated. And if it isn't, that is in itself interesting. When we analyse mediaeval reading patterns, do we consider locutor and audens to be one single unit, the lector? When we read a mediaeval reference to a specific act of reading, does the author of the reference consider them as a single unit, and if not, where is his/her focus? To whom is the verb legere given - where does the credit lie?

If we consider (or our hypothetical author considers) the speaker to be the reader, we foreground the skill of reading - in other words, we buy into (or examine) the cultural stratification around that ability that was for so long the closely guarded property and defining characteristic of clerics. If we consider the hearer to be the reader[2], we foreground instead the act of comprehension - involvement in a specific moment rather than intellectual accomplishment, internal analytical processes rather than external processing - and open possibilities for the meaning of 'legere' approaching, for example, spiritual contemplation.  This might also tie in, depending on period and author, with the opposition of mouth and ear, and the concerns over positive and negative functions of speech.

I don't suggest that either is more correct - I simply think it's a distinction that is valuable to bear in mind when reading mediaeval accounts of such moments, to see which figure/idea is foregrounded by the author, or to reserve our own ability to analyse the scene from both angles.

 

 

[1] D. H. Green, Women Readers in the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2007, 5-6.  Internal quotes are John of Salisbury, Metalogicon I 24 (qtd in Green, Medieval listening and reading: The primary reception of German literature 800-1300, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1994, 337 n. 155).

[2] The speaker may also be a hearer, and thus a reader under this definition, but not invariably.

Word made flesh #1

Now this is interesting.

The story is that of the Levite’s concubine from Judges (King James and Latin Vulgate): 

Judges 20.4: I came into Gabaa, of Benjamin, with my wife, and there I lodged: 5 And behold men of that city, in the night beset the house wherein I was, intending to kill me [volentes me occidere], and abused my wife with an incredible fury of lust [incredibili libidinis furore], so that at last she died. 6 And I took her and cut her in pieces, and sent the parts into all the borders of your possession: because there never was so heinous a crime, and so great an abomination committed in Israel. 7 You are all here, O children of Israel, determine what you ought to do.

According to the earlier narrative, the men who came to the house desired not to murder him but to rape him.  The host, reminiscent of Lot, offered his virgin daughter and his guest’s wife rather than the guest: “I will bring them out to you, and you may humble them, and satisfy your lust: only, I beseech you, commit not this crime against nature on the man” (“educam eas ad vos ut humilietis eas et vestram libidinem conpleatis tantum obsecro ne scelus hoc contra naturam operemini in virum”, Judges 19.24).  When she returned to the host’s house and fell dead on the threshold, her husband took her and cut her into twelve pieces, which he sent “into all the borders of Israel” (Judges 19.29.  The outrage summoned the Israelites, whom he addressed as above; and war was the result[1]. This is an image of the key scene from a 13th century Bible Moralisée (sadly blurry):

Österreicheische NationalBibliotecke Codex Vindobonensis 2554 fol. 65v, copied from Caviness 148.

The upper two images are of the corpse being brought home on an ass, and then being divided for distribution.  The lower two are of Jerome and Augustine helping Lady Philosophy  down from the ass of paganism, then giving the twelve books of the Patriarchs to the apostles.

But note the very deliberate visual parallels.  The corpse and Philosophy are helped down from the ass, Philosophy drooping in a way that imitates the inertia of the corpse.  As the corpse is dismembered into twelve parts for demonstrative distribution about the land, Philosophy is fragmented into twelve books to be distributed via the apostles.  Even the divided body parts are very flat and square, resembling images of the parts than the parts themselves, and lacking the curves that usually mark the feminine.

So the books are directly glossed as the dismembered body parts, which are themselves implicitly converted to relics and offered for idolising perusal, their femininity negated.  The female body of Philosophy, meanwhile, appears to have been constructed entirely of the books into which she is fragmented (and she has no more agency of her own, even when intact, than does the corpse). Word is made flesh – just as the words in the books are written on the dismembered flesh of the sheep who kindly donated the parchment.

This also raises the question of the female body as text.  It is not an autonomous text, however, but glossed, interpreted and directed by men – and the written word itself is essentially a male-dominated medium, so in converting to words the body that had temporarily escaped the Levite’s control, he reasserts his ownership and control. It becomes a commodity to be distributed according to the gift and will of its owner, with no more meaning than he chooses to assign it.  The woman’s experience of rape is not heard, only the man’s experience of theft.

Nevertheless – the woman has become Philosophy, and distributed to the inspiration of men’s intellect.  Grammatically feminine, of course, so she must be depicted by a woman, but it’s not a bad reincarnation for a gang-raped concubine, surely?


[1]   Which I’m sure was a great comfort to her.




Cited: Caviness, Madeline H. Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle, and Scopic Economy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

Notes on Chaucer's Dido and Fame

This is a quick draft of something I may rework in a later paper to reflect on Criseyde and her understanding of the power of her own speech. I think the central ideas of the House of Fame are more focussed on trouthe and its representation than speech per se, so I'm skewing it slightly to my own ends here; but it's just thoughts, for now. Given it's meant to be used later, it doesn't really have a thesis, nor any kind of shape.

All line references are to the first book of the House of Fame, in the Riverside Chaucer.

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The moment in which Dido falls for Aeneas is narrated twice, ascribed once to the intervention of Venus and once to Aeneas’ stories of himself. An intervention by Venus to cause sudden love is a familiar romantic figure, but so is the woman falling in love with tales of the adventuring man. Stories of Yvain’s valour win Laudine over twice. Guenevere’s heart gradually softens as she hears of Lancelot’s adventures, and Bertilak’s wife tells Gawain that she loves him because of the stories she has heard of his valour and courtesy. But the Gawain of rumour has a questionable relationship to the Gawain we see, Yvain himself is hidden once by an invisibility ring and once by a pseudonym, and news of Lancelot is slow, erratic and rumour-coloured. In this case, the fact that Aeneas himself narrates his stories could give his first-hand account greater authority, eliminating that unreliable middleman, Fame. But of course, a man may have any number of reasons for misrepresenting the truth about himself; and Chaucer undercuts the sincerity of the proceedings here by casting a shadow of irrationality and haste over both accounts the crucial moment.

And, shortly of this thyng to pace,
She made Eneas so in grace
Of Dido, quene of that contree,
That, shortly for to tellen, she
Becam hys love, and leet him doo
Al that weddynge longeth too. (240-44)

The repetition of “shortly” emphasises the immediate effect of Venus’ work. So far, this is a story of the gods’ games with mortals, and we expect her to fall in love instantly, and do not question its rationality, psychological likelihood or the moral implications of Venus’ actions. But the ominous tone of the last line, censorious or compassionate, hints at a woman deceived or tricked into not only acting but feeling contrary to her will, to her lasting detriment. And then we see this god’s game from the other side, the actors playing out the plot twist that the producer decreed. The narrator brushes aside the tale of “the manere / How they aqueynteden in fere” (249-50) as too “long” - a word he uses twice in two lines – to return to the rapidity of the seduction:

Ther sawgh I grave how Eneas
Tolde Dido every caas,
That hym was tyd upon the see.
And after grave was, how shee
Made of him, shortly, at oo word,
Hyr lyf, hir love, hir luste, hir lord; (253-58)

We know, of course, that “every caas / that hym was tyd upon the see” does, in fact, make a very impressive story, but the dry brevity of the narration makes her response seem impossibly fervent. The breathless passion of “Hir lyf, hir love, hir luste, hir lord” belongs to the climax of a whole-hearted romantic scene, not the erratic and slightly bemused narration of this dreamer. Its very rhythm feels out of place here - even without the return of that word, “shortly”, snagging the syntax in the middle of the line before it and reminding the ear of Venus’ intervention. Dido’s sudden infatuation is unnatural, and feels so; and we know it will lead to her death. Even before the narrator casts doubt on the truth of Aeneas’ stories (“Wenynge hyt had al be so, / As he hir swor” 262-63), or reveals that “he to hir a traytour was” (267), there is a sense of unfairness about both Venus’ too-partial actions[1] and Aeneas’ too-powerful words.

Dido’s love for Aeneas, on the human level, is presented as the direct result of Aeneas’ words. The man she falls in love with is the man she hears about, not the man she sees – and it is this man “unknowen” (270) who drives her to her death. This potential discrepancy between “apparence” and “existence” (265-66) is at the heart of the House of Fame, and is usually, though not invariably, expressed in concern over words: their weight and power, and their questionable ability to represent reality. Aeneas ascribes less weight to his words than does Dido. For her, they represent reality: for him, they are a deliberate manipulation of reality, a means to an end, conjuring a man who can impress Dido (and perhaps himself), easily set aside for his departure. Dido is left to lament her misconception, that “your bond / That ye have sworn” (321-22) does not have the power she believed it had, to “holde yow stille here with me” (324).

The narrator echoes Aeneas’ actions in the more cynical story of Theseus and Ariadne. Despite everything that “he had y-swore to here, / On al that ever he myghte swere” (421-22), Theseus has no qualms about abandoning Ariadne when her usefulness (or her appeal) has passed. Like Aeneas, Theseus regards his words primarily as a tool: powerful enough to win Ariadne over while he needs her, but ultimately disposable. They have no binding effect on him, and there is no necessity for them to represent reality accurately.

Dido’s experiences alter her perception. In the world that she sees now, men have “such godlyhede / In speche”, but “never a del of trouthe” (330-31). Aeneas’ exposure of the gap between fame and reality has opened her eyes - “Now see I wel” (334) – and left her bitterly aware of fame’s contradictory nature: insubstantial, but ruinously powerful. While it may not reflect reality accurately, its effect on the lives it touches has real substance.

O, wel-awey that I was born!
For thorgh yow is my name lorn,
And alle myn actes red and songe
Over al thys lond, on every tonge.
O wikke Fame! - for ther nys
Nothing so swift, lo, as she is! (345-350)

Like Criseyde, she laments the irretrievable loss of her good name, and the injustice of the words that will memorialise her (353-60). Fame has ruined her throughout her life and beyond her death, but its uncertain nature paradoxically renders her own speech too insubstantial to recreate her in a positive image:

Al hir compleynt ne al hir moone,
Certeyn, avayleth hir not a stre. (362-63)

Uncertainty about the power and accuracy of one's own words extends beyond the characters carved on the wall, even to the narrator. Virgil's robust “Arma virumque cano” becomes a tentative “I wol now singe, if that I can, / The armes, and al-so the man”. (143-44). The narrator's reaction on leaving Venus' temple casts doubt on the poetic form itself. His prayer for protection against illusion undermines the tangibility and reliability of everything that has gone before - a poem relating and discussing the events of another oft-poesied poem - and therefore, by implication, on the validity and “auctoritee” of poetic tradition. How can poetry convey truth, after all, if the poets themselves are at odds with each other?[2] The appearance of the eagle, traditionally clear-sighted and immune to illusion, seems a promising answer to his prayer, and his feathers are the gold of purity and clarity and truth. But we've just read a whole book warning us against deceptive appearances: “Hyt is not al gold that glareth” (272).

The man Dido fell in love with was created by words, created by man, not the reality of the man created by God. There is a hook there, regarding the public and private aspects of speech – Fame vs. vice/virtue, and how each affects and effects the person – but that is for another day!



[1] From a divine perspective Venus' actions are internally consistent, but from a human level they appear as arbitrary as Fame's later judgements to her petitioners.

[2] After writing this, I read Nick Havely's introduction to HoF (Chaucer's dream poetry, eds. Helen Phillips and N. R. Havely, London: Longman, 1997), in which he makes a similar point about Chaucer problematising his own medium, the book. When the word “boke” occurs at line 426 it “refers to an authoritative witness to a woman's fidelity and trust [Ariadne's for Theseus]... Yet only three lines later “the booke” is just as emphatically invoked to justify Aeneas' betrayal of Dido”. The effect of this is to “emphasize the medium's capacity both to convey and celebrate 'truth' in love, whilst... compounding and perpetuating falsehood” (114). And of course, that takes us into the question of whether fiction is lies, and what Chaucer would have understood by “fiction”, to what extent he considered Virgil's stories as history and what ethical obligations he would have felt he had to the historical figures he himself was depicting, which is quite another tangent on the topic of fame and memory in itself.

Three Species of Allegorical Fox

From time to time in mediaeval (and not only mediaeval) art and literature, animals drop by - mostly symbolic ones. By their character and generally understood perceptions of them, they stand in for something or other, often glossed by context. Butterflies and chameleons, whom I discussed a few posts back, are two of the rarer creatures in this little occasional zoo, so their meaning is rather sparse and one-sided. If they were in a dictionary, they'd only have one entry. Creatures like lions, boars, deer and foxes, on the other hand, are more familiar and more common, and often have a range of (sometimes contradictory) meanings. If they were in a dictionary, they would take up a whole column with different definitions.

Or, to hop abruptly to a different metaphor[1]: there is only one species of butterfly, and it is closely related to the chameleon - probably in the same genus. But there are many different species of fox within the vulpes genus. Here are three encountered in my reading today, from just one text[2]:

Vulpes astuta carnivora, or the Sly Devouring Fox, is a subtle threat in that he rarely shows his true self, but desires only to soothe his prey with an innocuous face before bolting it down. If thwarted, may resort to sarcasm:

Ther be nowe oo maner of pepill [a kind of people] that be gret desyuerres [deceivers], [like] as these grete loordes the which taketh giftes and seruices of thoo that hatth neede of theire helpe and euer taketh and euer promisseth and atte the laste they haue but federis [feathers] and woordis, as the foxe seide to the larke. (167, 'Off Disceite')

Cheated out of a satisfying meal, this species may accuse his erstwhile victim of resorting to his own tricks, possibly unaware of his hypocrisy.

Vulpes astuta arguta, or the Clever-tongued Fox, belongs to the same sub-species as the last, but is better known for his smooth tongue and his ability to convince his victim to act in a way detrimental to their own interests. He may then take advantage of the deception to devour his prey, as does V. a. carnivora, or he may seek to deprive them of some other benefit or possession:

Alsoo ther be some strong disseyueres ... [who] maketh to beleve that the swan is blacke[3] and the crowe white, as the foxe didde the ravyn whom he sawe hoolde a peece of chese in his beeke. "Oo birde"[4], seide hee, "what thowe art feire and white. If thowe kowdest [could] synge, thow sholdest passe [surpass] alle birdes." And than he [the raven] reioyssed [rejoiced] hym and openyed the beeke to synge. And the cheese felle fro hym, and the foxe cawght it anon. This is of Ysopeis fablis [Aesop's fables], but the example is noo fable, that siche foxes and siche flatererris [flatterers] berith aweye grete rentes and gret giftes and ... lacketh but oo thyng, as Seneque [Seneca] seith, that is to seye, on to seye trouthe. (167, 'Off Disceite')

Vulpes lasciva dissumulata, also known as the Lusty Brush-tail. A rarer species, of which only the females are seen. Definitely not to be trusted, and motivated primarily by lust for sensual pleasure. These conceal their evil nature not with their words, but with an exceptionally large and luxuriously furred tail. If the tail is pried aside, however, their filthy, stinking underbelly and privy parts may be discerned:

[Flatterers] ascuseth [excuse] and couerith the synnes of theyme that theye wil flatere. And therfore in scripture theye be called tailles, for theye couere the harlotrye [not solely sexual] of the synnes of riche men for some temporel availe. Wherfore theye be likenyd to the tayle of a shee foxe [she-fox] ... for theire deceit and theire trecherie. (197, 'Off Flaterynge')

It seems that I'll have to keep an eye out for more foxes in order to flesh out the species tree! Reynard in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, of course, borrows from all these traditions, including the coward, the vermin-in-the-hunting-field and the (literally!) uncovered deceiver, of which we have no representative today. But sadly, he is too much of a hybrid to be properly classified.


[1] It's not mixing if the first one never recurs! Juxtaposed metaphors?

[2] The mirroure of the worlde: a Middle English translation of Le miroir du monde, ed. Robert R. Raymo et al. for the Bodlein Library, Medieval Academy Books 106 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003). It's very similar to The Book of Vices and Virtues - enough so that either the French source of one must have been copying the other, or they were both indebted to one common source. Mirroure, however, lacks the butterfly metaphor.

[3] Apparently the author had never visited Australia.

[4] Inverted commas inserted by yours truly, to make the direct speech easier to decipher for anyone less familiar with Middle English.

I eat the air, promise-crammed.

I think I shall have to start reading mediaeval bestiaries.

Here is a beautiful little metaphor that I somehow managed to miss when I did my post on the sins of the voice:

Þe deuel sheweþ hym in þis world in many wise [ways] and liknesse[s] and takeþ hym liknesse [takes on shapes] for to deceyue and bigile wiþ men. And right so doþ þe liyere [liar], and þerfore he fareþ as a butre-flye, þat lyueþ bi [ie, on] þe aier and haþ no þing in hire guttes [her belly] but wynd, and at euery colour þat sche seþ [sees] sche chaungeþ hire owne.[1]

Leaving aside for this post the symbolic application of this to the liar - though the combination of adaptibility and frailty it implies for someone who has to live only on "wynd" fascinates me - I love what this tells us about the mediaeval understanding of a butterfly.

Firstly, she's feminine. This can't be an accident of grammatical gender - it's deliberate on the part of the translator, certainly, given the change from the masculine pronoun for the sinner to the feminine for the butterfly he resembles. And unless the original Middle French had a different noun for butterfly, Lorens would have used the masculine "papillon", so if he also referred to the butterfly as "elle" the usage would have been even more striking. But whether the femininity is the idea of the English translator, of Lorens, of the bestiary he may have consulted or simply a widely spread notion of the insect's nature, it is unflatteringly appropriate. Women were commonly perceived as less stable, less reliable, and of course most had very little physical power and thus had to rely on words. Even their bodies were considered to be less stable than a man's - ever heard of a condition called "wandering womb"? And most women, particularly in the upper classes, did have to change her colours to suit her new situation, because on marrying - often quite young - they woudl be sent forth into a different community, sometimes far from home, even in a different country, and be expected to settle into it and manage whatever wifely duties were appropriate to her situation.

Does this make her a liar? Politic, maybe...

Secondly - and thirdly, since these lump together nicely - butterflies a) eat air and b) change their colour to camouflage. Obviously, neither of these are scientifically accurate, but Lorens isn't really trying to provide an accurate picture of a butterfly here. The butterfly one might see over the hedgerows - which he can't have seen change its colours, because individual butterflies don't - is not the creature under discussion. This butterfly is the allegorical butterfly of the bestiaries, interesting primarily for the reflection it casts on the human spirit under consideration.

But of course, this distinction is too sharp, and implies that people held two separate ideas of "butterfly" in their head. I don't think this is true - I think it's more a case of an ability to subordinate the observable to the symbolic, to not mind or consider significant any differences one might notice in the real butterfly to the allegorical. Even without the aid of allegory, we can today largely consider the koala a soft and cuddly creature who exists mostly for cuddling tourists, and if we do hear those very loud screams and grunts they make in the night, just roll over and mutter "bloody koalas!" before going back to sleep, the socially prevalent image intact.

I have wandered off topic, I think. The connection I meant to make is with this:

King Claudius: How fares* our cousin Hamlet?
Hamlet: Excellent, i'faith, of the chameleon's dish. I eat the air, promise-crammed.** [2]

Hamlet's puns usually require some glossing - certainly he confuses Claudius here - and so I shall add the footnotes the Norton edition provides here:

* How does; Hamlet's response puns on "fare" as food and drink.
** The chameleon was supposed to live on air. Hamlet puns on 'heir', referring to Claudius' insubstantial promise of the succession.

So the chameleon also eats the air. And, of course, the chameleon actually does change colour (though not to camouflage). The allegorical significances of the two animals could have quite an overlap, then; though butterflies, being light and airy and winged, are a more intuitive metaphor for changeability. Might the idea of the butterfly's changing colours be derived from confusion with the chameleon? It could have risen independently, of course - many species of butterfly can be distinguished by little but colour, and most will instinctively seek out resting places against which they will camouflage[3]. My instinct would be to suspect that the ideas may have risen independently, but became strengthened and solidified by occasional association.

Sadly, two quotes aren't enough to unravel a cultural history of allegorical significance for either animal. Clearly research is in order!


[1] The book of vices and virtues: a fourteenth century English translation of the Somme le roi of Lorens d'Orleans, ed. W. Nelson Francis, Early English Text Society OS 217 (London: Oxford UP, 1942), 60.
[2] Hamlet, The Norton Shakespeare, ed. Stephen Greenblatt et. al. (London: Norton, 1997), 3.2.84-86.
[3] Even in species where colour varies significantly between individuals - each individual knows where to land to hide itself. And without a mirror!

Mors et vita in manibus lingue

Another interesting quote which reflects on the conflicting mediaeval ideas of the power and proper function of speech, and indeed the fascination with that ambiguity:

Mors et vita in manibus lingue. Mors: quia lingua que mentitur occidit animam. Vita: quia ore conuersio sit ad salutem. [1]

Roughly:

"Death and life lie in the power [lit. 'the hand', which is a diverting image] of the tongue. Death, because the lying tongue slays the soul. Life, because the mouth brings conversion to salvation."

Dante's Virgil would have so much to say on the subject!


[1] Raoul Ardent, Speculum universale distinctionem de virtutibus et vitiis eisdem oppositis, c. 1195, Bibliotheque Nationale MS. la. 3240, ff. 1r-203v: 161r. Cited in Craun, Lies, slander, and obscenity in medieval English literature: pastoral rhetoric and the deviant speaker (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1997) 72.

The Seventh Deadly Sin: Þe Synne of Mouþ

And so we come (somewhat tardily) to the last sin - the fragile vestige of an excuse for me doing this sequence, as it is tangentially relevant to an essay I'm working on. It is not called gluttony, but "the sin of the mouth". Proper and improper uses of the mouth were an ongoing topic of discussion at this time. It was the point of exchange between the body and the outside world, and so constantly ambivalent. Food and drink entered by it, nourishing the body but presenting the temptation of gluttony and instigating the fleshly processes of digestion[1]. At death the human soul left the body via the mouth; devils could enter by it to possess the body; and of course the spirit of God entered physically in the form of the host at communion[2]. AThe mouth also had the duty of speech, which could range from blasphemy, damaging slander or lies, to strategy, peace-speaking, theological learning, teaching others or singing the praises of God[3].

With this in mind, it isn't so surprising if Lorens felt the need to address all the categories of sin that belong to the mouth, and should elide them under the seventh that we call gluttony now. He explains (in translation), "The seventh head of the beast is the sin of mouth. And because the mouth has two offices, whereof one serves for the swallowing of meat and drink, and the other to speech, therefore it is principally divided in two; that is to say, in the sin of gluttony, that is in food and drink, and in the sin of wicked tongue, that is to speak folly." (46)

I will quote more than usual today, with the excuse of essay relevance, and because he has so many beautifully sarcastic analogies:

First will we speak of the sin of gluttony, for that is a default and an evil that pleases the devil wonderous much and much displeases God, for through that sin hath the devil great power in man and woman, as clerks read in the gospel that God gave leave to the devils to go into swine, and when they were within the swine, they made them all run into the sea headlong and drown themselves. [This was] a token that gluttons that lead their life in gluttony as swine, the devil hath power to enter within them and drench them in the sea, that is to say in hell, and to make them to eat so much that they burst, and to drink so much that they drown....

This is the fisher of hell that fishes and takes the fish by the mouth and by the throat[3]. This vice displeases much God, for a glutton does great shame to God when he makes his god of a sackful of dung, that is to fill his belly, that he loves more than God and doubts, and therefore he serves it all of its asking.

God bids him fast; his belly bids him fast not, 'but eat thy food all in ease, and sit to your meal long enough, and thou shalt eat better and more'.

God bids him rise early; his belly bids him lie still, for he is too full to rise so early. 'I may sleep, for church is [at] noon hour; it will wait for me'.

And when he does rise, he begins his prayers and says "Ah, lord God, what shall we eat today? Where shall we find anything that is enough?"

And after these matins, then come the laudes: "Ah, lord God, we drank good wine yester-eve and ate good food."

Then shall he begin to weep for his sins, and say, "Alas, I am almost dead: the wine was too strong yester-eve; my head acheth."

This man has an evil god. This god and this vice brings a man to shame, for first he begins to be a tavern-goer and an ale-goer, and next he is a dice-player, and next he sells his heritage and all that he hath, and after that he becometh a harlot and a thief, and so cometh he to be hanged. (46-48)

There are five branches of gluttony:

Eating early or late. Eating early is a sin, for "it is a foul þing for a man of good age þat may not abide tyme of day to ete" (48). Late hours are just as bad, for it is associated with going to bed late and rising late and wasting the whole day: "þei wasteþ tyme and turneþ vp-so-doun, for of þe nyght þei makeþ day" (49). Teenagers beware.

Eating and drinking too much.

Eating too hastily.

Eating too richly.

Being a gourmet. That is, "to delyte in queynte and deynteuous metes [foods]" (52). I'm afraid our family is damned.

Following this comes a denunciation of the tavern, which is the schoolhouse of the devil. In this, the inverse of the holy church, the devil reverses the miracles of God:

In holy church is God wont to do miracles and show his virtues: [he makes] the blind to see, the crippled to walk right, madmen to come into their right wits, dumb men to speak, deaf men to hear. But the devil doth the contrary of all this in the tavern. For when a glutton goes to the tavern he walks right enough, and when he comes out then all this is lost, for he has no wit nor reason nor understanding. These are the miracles that the devil doth (53-54).

Next come sins of the tongue, which may be divided into ten branches: "ydel, auauntyng [boasting], losengerie [flattery], bakbityng, lesynges [lying], forswerynges, stryuynges, grucchynges, rebellynges, blasphemye" (55).

Idle words cause the speaker to lose their time by spending it in folly, the good that they ought to be doing instead, and the treasure of their heart. Idle words are not, in fact, idle, but dear and full of harm. There are five kinds of idle words:
- Gabbling like a water mill.
- Bearing worrying news (Gandalf Stormcrow, anyone?).
- Exaggeration "wher-yn is moche vayn glorie" (56) (it was THIS BIG).
- Dirty jokes.
- Sarcasm. Methinks Lorens is occasionally guilty of this one himself. Though, reading closer, sarcasm is only bad if it is made "vpon goode men". Presumably one can be as sarcastic about sinners as necessary.

Avaunting, which comes in five kinds:
- Boasting about past deeds.
- Boasting of what one owns.
- "Surquidrye", which of course appeared under pride as well. Here it is defined as the sin of he "þat bosteþ and seiþ, 'I wole do so and so, and I wole venge wronges; I wole ... do meruailes [wonders]'" (57).
- Disparagement.
- False humility. Here falls Gawain.

Losyngerie, or flattery, which again divides into five:
- Indiscriminate praise (Chaucer the Pilgrim in the General Prologue?).
- Praise of children.
- Untruthful praise.
- Servile complaisance.
- Glossing over the faults of others.

Backbiting. Interestingly, to take a brief diversion into the realm of the monstrous, flatterers are likened to mermaids ("There is a thing that shows itself in the sea or other waters that men call meremaidens, that have the body of a woman and tail of a fish, and they sing so pleasingly that they have power to bring men who hear them into sleep, such as shipmen... and when they have brought a man to sleep, they slay him and devour him" (58-59)), and backbiters are compared to sirens ("There is a kind of adder that is called siren and that runs faster than any horse[5]... and she is so venomous that nothing may save a man that she envenoms").
- Lying to lay blame on others.
- Exaggerating the misdeeds of others.
- Devaluing the good deeds of others.
- Detraction. These sinners "ben like þe scorpioun þat makeþ good semblaunt as wiþ his visage [shows a fair face], and enuenymeþ wiþ his tail" (60). I think Lorens had never seen a scorpion's face. They're about as attractive as spiders'.
- Depicting the entire person in a bad light.

Lying.
- White lies, to help other people, which are the least culpable branch.
- Lies to please other people - this includes minstrels and story-tellers.
- Harmful lies.

Forswearing.
- Swearing "wiþ grete hete" (61)
- Swearing "lightly, þat is for nought and wiþ-out resoun" (61).
- Swearing by habit.
- Swearing foolishly.
- Breaking an oath.

Strife.
- Striving against others.
- Chiding.
- Despising.
- Speaking evil of others.
- Reproving.
- Threatening.
- Stirring discord.

Grudging, the recourse of "he þat dar not chide" (64).
- Grudging against man.
- Grudging against God.

Rebellion, "þat is to be rebel", as Lorens helpfull explains (66).
- Rebellion against advice.
- Against God's commandments.
- Against reproof.
- Against teaching.

Blasphemy, which is "as seynt Austeyn [Augustine] seiþ, whan a man bileueþ or seiþ of God þing þat a man scholde not bileue ne holde ne seye, or whan a man ne bileueþ nought þat he scholde holde" (67 - yes, the double negative is permissible in Middle English grammar). It comes in many kinds, such as when people blaspheme without thinking and use God's name in vain, or when witches and necromancers use it for their spells, or a man blasphemes from wrath and spite. Blasphemy is seldom forgiven.

Here endeth the seven deadly sins and all their branches, and whoever will study well in this book, it will profit him, and he may learn to reckon all manner of sins and to shrive himself well, for there is no man who may shrive himself well nor keep himself from sin if he knows them not. Now shall he that readeth attentively in this book look to see if he be guilty of any of these sins, and if he be guilty, repent him and shrive him and keep him to the best of his power from any other that he is not yet guilty of, and beseach meekly of Jesus Christ that he keep him from all those and any others; and so may he keep us all, amen. (68)

And may we remember never to praise our children, or speculate on the stock market, especially in its current state, or to engage in carnal acts with a common woman.


[1] Many saints, particularly female ones, were supposed to have done without food for days, months or years at a time, being nourished entirely by either the Eucharist or the Holy Spirit. Or occasionally her own miraculous milk, in the case of Christina the Astonishing, but she's hardly representative. Just... well... astonishing. This equation of holiness or purity with abstaining from food was mirrored, of course, in the more usual routine of fasting on certain days or at certain times. People in holy orders - halfway between saints and ordinary humans, you might say - had more restricted diets (many orders of monks were largely vegetarian) and were required to fast more often.

[2] Caciola, Nancy. “Mystics, Demoniacs, and the Physiology of Spirit Possession in Medieval Europe.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 2. 42 (2000): 262-306. I would cite the pages specifically, but I don't have it by me. The whole article is worth a read, though. Sadly does not contain any reproductions of mediaeval pictures of the moment of death, with the soul in the form of a little bird, human, or wafty flame-shaped thing leaving the mouth of the newly deceased - I shall try to find an example tomorrow and cite that here.

[3] It's possible to trace a very forceful debate about the proper use of the mouth throughout Dante's Commedia, particularly the Inferno. For a discussion of the symbolism of the boar's mouth in mediaeval literature as it pertains to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, see Thiébaux, Marcelle, “The Mouth of the Boar as Symbol”, Romance Philology, 22 (1969): 281-99. She examines how the boar's mouth is a symbol of damage and destruction (or even just thoughtless, spiteful talk like Kay's), and is particularly often used as a metaphor for the slanderer who gives away the secret of a pair of lovers and thus brings about destruction and calamity.

[4] What does this say about contemporary fishing techniques? Or is it simply a baited hook in the mouth, then a stick through the gills (throat) once the fish is caught?

[5] Incidentally, the fastest land snake is the African Black Mamba, but it only reaches the speed of a running human. Unfortunately, it combines this with being the only land snake who'd prefer to attack and chase you rather than escape, given the chance, so running is both a good idea and largely futile. And people think Australia's fauna is scary...

Unless otherwise specified, all quotes are from The book of vices and virtues: a fourteenth century English translation of the Somme le roi of Lorens d'Orleans. Ed. W. Nelson Francis. Early English Text Society OS 217. London: Oxford University Press, 1942.