The Merchant's Tale

I don't know why, but I really like this tale... Maybe because I am not into romance or conventional love stories, but this was fun to read. The narrator describes how wonderful love is, "Marriage is a ful greet sacrament" and follows with a story about deceit and adultery. I thought it was very interesting that Pluto and Proserpina decided the fate of the couple instead of Jupiter and Juno, a more conventional couple among the gods, given that Juno is the goddess of marriage and Proserpina was essentially kidnapped into marriage. It makes sense that Proserpina would have been sympathetic to May because she also had no choice in marrying her husband.  I think Chaucer chose these two gods because he wasn't actually trying to demonstrate the niceties of marriage, but rather point out the problems; specifically jealousy and adultery. The symbolism of May taking the adviser's literal fruit from the secret garden was hilarious to me; I actually laughed out loud.


http://www.islandbreath.org/2012Year/10/121022snakeoil.jpg