The Merchant's Tale

I was not expecting the Merchant’s Tale to pull me in so many different directions but he does! In the beginning of the tale, I was all on board with his long spiel about how amazing and wonderful it is to have a wife. As a wife, I know I'm pretty awesome so I appreciated the acknowledgement. But, then January (by the way, what a name!) comes into the scene and starts talking about his specifications for a wife. I mean, she can’t even be older than 20 so I guess all of us over-20s are just doomed forever. It's cool; those women didn't want to be ol' Jan's wife anyway.  After dealing with January and his lovely character, I got some major Tristan and Isolde vibes coming from May and Damian and I was all for it! And then Hades and Persephone (Pluto and Proserpina) come in!? Be still my heart. The Merchant is ticking all my fan-girl boxes. However, at the very end of the tale I had a feeling we were dipping into biblical territory with May being tempted by Damian in the garden and taking part of his “fruit”. I liked the tale, despite the whiplash of feelings while reading it, but I’m left a little confused as to what the Merchant was trying to say by having a story begin with praising the qualities of wives and then ending it with deceitful one, and then also by including biblical imagery but not including a Christian deity, but rather Roman ones. Thoughts?

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