The Friar: The devil holds the key

In the previous Chaucer entry we closed with the fact that a ram, because of his cloven hooves, symbolizes the devil. Chaucer clearly says the Friar is "wanton and merry," "beloved and familiar" with franklins (country gentlemen) and women of the town. Pursuing this less than an exemplary cleric as the devil provides solutions to the poet's crafty lines.
     When the lines are NOT clear, allegorically speaking, that makes them important. (Read--Fletcher's Allegory: A Symbolic Mode.) Several Chaucer lines try the ingenuity of editors. For example, "rage he could, as if he were a whelp." Notes advise the reader to see a "puppy" in the "whelp," but where is the sense in a puppy raging? Fourteenth-century rage can mean carnal desire as well as madness, wrath, fierceness, violence. "Puppy" does not fit. Checking further, a whelp can also be "the offspring of a noxious creature." The OED includes quotations like "fiend's whelp" and "whelps of the devils."
     Another outstanding instance of confusion is:
          His tippet was stuffed (farsed) full of knives 
          And pins, for to give fair wives.
 A tippet is this long, narrow, ornamental strip of fabric that hangs freely.
 

 The Friar supposedly stuffed (farsed) his with knives and pins. One editor suggests there must be a pocket in his tippet! Medieval "pins" were not the flimsy items of today, but sturdy implements such as spikes, tools for stabbing, and prods that a devil might use in hell--or in a stage production of hell. These heavy, sharp instruments deserve a sturdy pouch. Again, there is something wrong with this picture.
     The most troublesome word is "farsed," followed closely by "tippet" and "pittance." "Farsed," in French, means "stuffed," but it is also the source of the word farce. Farce is a direct connection to devils in medieval plays. On stage, demons were always a comic element, "continually being dragged in, even where [they are] not strictly required . . . purely for . . . merriment." Devils are portrayed as fear-filled; they do a lot of sprawling, groveling, and breaking wind. When the battle--the defense of hell--is in full swing, a demon runs into the fray with the medieval equivalent of sparklers in his hands, ears and arse. The ultimate for our imagination is a grand finale: a crew of demons dragging sinners to the pit of hell amid great noise, prodding and confusion.
     Our next challenging word is "tippet." (M.E. typet) It actually has two parts. If we remove the "et" (the French diminutive ending) we have the English word "type"--a snare, a trap. Now we do NOT have to picture that narrow strip of cloth "stuffed full of knives and pins." The line provides a devilish trap--such as hell--full of instruments that prod and puncture.
     "Pittance" is our third word. Chaucer's playing a game with the word. The rules are like the ones that hold for remembrance, hindrance, deliverance. The -ance functions as "caused someone to be" remembered, hindered, or delivered. In similar fashion, then, pittance is "caused someone to be" pitted, where the pit is hell. "Hell pit" was a common term.
     Covertly, the scene becomes a snare for this farcical performance where knives and pins represent assorted, pointed instruments aimed at "worthy" women as they are herded into a pit. The pit entrance was called "hell mouth" and was a prominent feature of medieval staging.

Dramatists reveled in portraying Doomsday where "devils rolled, shoved, pricked and tossed the damned into Hell Mouth unceremoniously." The wicked were a source of "rude laughter and humiliating action." Elegant women being herded by the devil was the "pittance" he'd hoped for. And the raging whelp becomes a demon giving his comic all.

If the devil told a story about hell, it would be appropriate. Of course, that's where we began with the story of Helle--not a place, but a girl. The clincher of the Friar / Aries identity as the devil--if we still need one--is his Tale.
     Aries is the Ram that let Helle slip into the water. The Friar, then could tell a story about Helle--and he does. The twist is that h-e-l-l-e is the Middle English spelling of the devil's territory. The Friar entertains us with a story about "helle" and how the devil, who announces himself "a feend; my dwellyng is in helle," transacts his business to trap souls.
     Ovid, the Latin poet, may have directly inspired Chaucer's duplicity. For our poet, who read both Latin and Middle English, a double image would be evident when Ovid refers to Aries as "the ram of Helle": one image is the animal that carried a girl named Helle; the other is an animal symbolic of the devil from "helle." Not a word need be changed; the images superimpose.

The Friar--a bag of tricks

We've had a brief look at Aries in the entries called "Written in the Stars" (4-23-2012). It showed how Chaucer provides star clues to recognize the signs of the zodiac. Now we'll take a broader look at Aries disguised as the Friar in his introduction in the General Prologue. Some Pilgrim introductions are minimal, but the Friar boasts sixty lines! The poet has a full palette to draw from, and he does. Hints from mythology, astronomy, astrology, medieval dramatics, the animal image, and symbolism are sprinkled throughout.

The myth tells of a young brother and sister--Phrixus and Helle--who are saved from a wicked stepmother by a magical ram (as in sheep). The creature flies through the air toward a safe destination with them on its back. Phrixus lands safely, but unfortunately, his sister loses her hold and falls into the water (today's Dardanelles) and drowns. And, unfortunately for the ram, Phrixus is so grateful to be safe that he sacrifices it! The ram's hide becomes the legendary Golden Fleece. And the gods reward the heroic animal by placing it in the heavens as the constellation Aries.
     An ancient creation story says the earth was made when the sun was in Aries. So in astronomy the sign coincides with the vernal equinox in March, which announces the beginning of a new year. The poet hints at a sign of beginning by inserting "In principio." Locating the figure in the sky is aided by a triangle of stars, sometimes seen as a harp, above it. Two distinctive stars--Hamal and Sheratan--mark the animal's head. And identifying the constellation couldn't be easier as Chaucer tells us:
               And in his harping, when he had sung,
               His eyes twinkled in his head aright,
               As do the stars in the frosty night.
March nights would certainly by "frosty."
     Astrologically, Aries is "a dreaded sign" indicating passionate temper and bodily hurt. Violence is also expected because of the association with Mars. The poet refers to men in pain, victimized widows and the Friar's rage. Several lines are a challenge to understand. Though editors interpret the words, the message doesn't seem to fit. We'll give that a closer look a little later.
     As the animal image, Chaucer says the Friar's "clothes" are not threadbare, but clothing fit for a person of importance.
               For there he was not like a cloisterer
              With a threadbare cope, as is the poor scholar,
              But he was like a master or pope.
              Of double worsted was his "semycope,"
              That is round as a bell out of the press.
He has a "semycope" (short cloak) made of worsted (wool). It is rounded as a "belle" (a kind of cloak or tunic) out of a "presse," which is a device to press and stretch cloth. In other words his woolen cloak--his fleece--fits him as if it were pressed and stretched just for him. What fun for the poet.
     Let's take a second look at the "worsted." This is fabric of "well-twisted yarn, long-staple wool."A handsome ram would have such a coat. But even better, the cope, the garment in question, is "double" worsted. "Double" seems an innocent enough word, but it's concealing a second image. The word is also the name of a medieval French gold coin. (Medieval Spain had the "doubloon.") Chaucer, in his international business dealings, would be familiar with a great variety of coins. To call the garment "double worsted" then becomes gold worsted, as in the famed Golden Fleece.
     Symbolically, being an animal with cloven hooves makes the Friar a symbol of the devil, often illustrated as a shaggy black ram. This covert diabolical identity applies to much of the Friar's portrait. We'll pick up there next time and uncover the entertaining allusion to medieval drama as well.