Thursday, January 16, 2014

The dreadful Reeve

The third member of  Pilgrim Chaucer's clique is the Reeve. The poet gives us clues to the Reeve's hidden identity as Scorpio. The animal figure and its temperament, both living and celestial, play a part.

A reeve is a keeper of accounts.
          The Reeve was a slender choleric man.
          He shaved his beard as close as ever he can;
          His hair was by his ears completely shorn around;
          . . .
          Very long were his legs and very lean,

          Like a staff; there was no calf seen.
He is slender and bad-tempered. His face has no evidence of a beard. Lack of hair is emphasized. Of his slender body, we learn that his legs are long and lean with no hint of muscle development. As scholar Harold Brooks remarks, this "thinness is positively abnormal . . . his legs, mere sticks."
     Ptolemy declared Scorpio a calamitous influence. And twelfth-century Michael Scot likens it to"a live scorpion in its effect on men."
          Well could he keep [protect] a garner and a bin.
He keeps watch over the storehouse and other storage areas. This is the scorpion's habit to lie in wait, keeping watch for prey.
          No auditor could get the better of him.
To compare the Reeve to an auditor only appears to say that both he and the auditor are of the same species. A human challenged by a scorpion, as he goes about examining stored goods, would be wise to make a strategic withdrawal and allow the feared "overseer" to continue guarding the stores.
          Well he knew by the drought and by the rain
           The yield of his seed and of his grain.
Attention is called to drought and rain, changes of environment. Actually, adaptable to weather, scorpions hide in the ground during dry spells, and surface again with the rain.
          His lord's sheep, his cattle, his milk cows,
          His swine, his horses, his livestock, and his poultry
          Was wholly in this Reeve's governing.
Observation from the first century calls a scorpion a "predator of the fields." Later, Michael Scot observes that it "gladly dwells in dirt and in obscure, filthy places such as the vicinity of latrines." Chaucer's contemporaries warn of venom most deadly, and advise caution in idyllic scenes for "under flowers rests the scorpion." The creatures thrive under stones, in crevices, under dead leaves and rubbish, in barns and deserted buildings, and thatched roofs.
     With their pincers and long, upturned tail, caution should be used in handling any of the species. Death, under some circumstances, can come as quickly as forty-five minutes.
          The Reeve prefers dwelling on uncultivated land;
          With green trees was his place shadowed.
An untilled area shadowed by trees is also a perfect scorpion habitat.
     The Reeve has a "coat and hood" as did the Miller. The coat is predictably blue, but a carefully chosen shade. More a bit later.
          In his youth the Reeve learned a good craft;
          He was a very good craftsman, a carpenter.
Recall that one of the craftsmen in the sign of Cancer was also a  carpenter. We see the skill as a creature's ability to construct an exoskeleton in order to grow.
          A long surcoat of pers [blue] he had,
          And by his side he bore a rusty blade.
A long coat is a proper garment for the extended figure of Scorpio. The shade of blue expressed as "pers" contains a play on the scorpion's ability to pierce.
     The constellation contains many blue-white stars. But red Antares is the brightest star and centrally located. The poet expresses this as the Reeve's necessarily rusty blade!
          He was tucked about as is a friar,
          And ever he rode the hindermost of our group.
Tucked like a friar, as with cinctures about a robe, tells of well-defined segments of the scorpion's body. And to ride the most toward the rear (hindermost) alludes to the scorpion's physical structure that extends behind him.

V. A. Kolve notes that the Reeve's prologue, which follows the ever-popular Miller's Tale, "forces us to reconsider everything the Miller has invited us to enjoy--animal liveliness, bawdy laughter, youthful energy, aged gullibility." The Reeve, instead, exhorts us to think on death. His chilling, oft quoted, vision of life describes Death opening the tap of life when we are born; the stream continues to pour out ineluctably until there is no more.
     The Reeve--the pilgrim labeled as the one who keeps the accounts--is a personification of the Last Judgment. That's another reason to say he is hindermost, as is Judgment. We now have three influences on Pilgrim Chaucer: Money, the Devil, and the Last Judgment.
     Prepare yourself for the repulsive Summoner.

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