The wife of bath's five

bow eek AVES ollN LOUE DIESS The Wife of Bath's Five Author(s): R. F. Fleissner Source: The Chaucer Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall, 1973), pp. 128-132 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http:/Avww.jstor.org/stable/25093259 Accessed: 11/11/2009 08:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=psup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The http://www .jstor.org

The Wife of Bath's Five Author(s): R. F. Fleissner Source: The Chaucer Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Fall, 1973), pp. 128-132 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25093259 Accessed: 11/11/2009 08:33 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=psup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Penn State University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The http://www.jstor.org

THE WIFE OF BATH'S FIVE byR. R Fleissner in debita proportione Unde pulcrum Summa consistit?Thomas Aquinas, art. 4 i quaest. 5, Theologica, Was of Bath's having had five husbands? there a reason for the Wife a rhyme for It is far too easy to assume that Chaucer just needed wrote he when lyve She was a worthy womman at chirche-dore Housbondes al hir lyve: she hadde fyve. . . . (A 459-60) i is evidence with that he was acquainted five as le nombre D. W. in Renaissance and mediaeval prestigieux Pythagoreanism. of number for the reveals Robertson, import theory to Jr., example, viz.: "The spirit is influences world, upon Chaucer's Augustinian the spirit and the body most healthful when therefore most powerful of beauty which and loves the 'numbers' or constituents perceives are transmitted to it from God, and which it finds, through a rational in itself."2 Ernst Cassirer that ''besides space and observes motion, of the the structure time, the third great formal motif dominating is function thus fulfills the that "number world number," mythical which the Pythagoreans impute to harmony," being "a Unity of many elements" mixed elements and an agreement between disagreeing not so much tie which links things together that "acts as the magic as brings them into harmony within is the soul."3 Cassirer, however, remains numbers about the of individual ("there skeptical import into cannot be drawn in the end hardly any numerical term which and so this sphere of intuition and this process of sanctification"4), There to examine debt to of Chaucer's do well the plausibility Number. was at the start: Chaucer Two points are worth mentioning sig of to the who writers stressed mediaeval indebted meaning nificantly in and Dante and numbers, five namely particular, Pythagorean influence and there was a good deal of number upon Macrobius; Poet.5 number the Pearl That other Middle writers, notably English influence upon poets of the English Renais theory had considerable has been emphasized sance, Spenser particularly, by two leading nu is Fowler's work6 and A. Kent Hieatt. Alastair Fowler merologists, we should the Golden The Chaucer Review, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1973. Published by The Pennsylvania University Press, University Park and London. State

ROBERTF. FLEISSNER 129 here: he reveals the especially helpful but need not be summarized influences upon Spenser that also could have influenced Chau many cer (e.g., Nicomachus, Iamblichus, Bonaventura, Aquinas, Pythagoras, Hermes Trismegistus, Gnosticism). With of Bath, the debt to Dante, and Dantean regard to the Wife is most The of nobility noticeable. discussion numerology, probably in her tale is borrowed, as Paul G. Ruggiers from the Con notes, vivio.7 What may not be so well-known is the import of five,8 the number of figures forming the eyelid of the Eagle in the Purgatorio. That Chaucer was cognizant of this symbolism in the House of Fame has been pointed out by B. G. Koonce.9 Moreover, the concept that as "the of all five was nature, important type things,,1() embracing was known to Macrobius, to whom Chaucer in the Nun's alludes Priest's Tale and the Parliament of Birds. In the Prologue to the Wife of Baths Tale, the Wife says, Yet herde I nevere tellen in myn age Upon this nombre diffinicioun. Men may devyne and glosen, up and doun. . . . (D 24-26) Not only the Wife does this suggest that the poet might have known what seems not to know, but it implies a reason for professing number five. For the import assigned to the ignorance of the mystery to more tended be than been derived pentad magical mystical, having from Persian culture. Yet, though Hopper points out that "Capella he adds: "Irenaeus, [five] as the number of this world,"11 designates in his refutation of the Gnostics, is fal argues that their theology lacious not because it is based on number, but because the numerical scheme is incorrect. For do they not completely ignore the number is everywhere in the True Faith?"12 Nonetheless, manifest 5, which since five came to be a symbol of the flesh, the gradual Christianiza tion of numbers limited the pentad's religious significance ("it is that the Old Law, which lacked final perfection, therefore, fitting, in the Pentateuch"13), should be contained it was still held though to be a "worthy" number. Not only is the ambivalence of the num ber from the Christian for the Wife of point of view appropriate Bath's of Scripture, with the interpretation then, but its association flesh is fitting for "a worthy womman." The reason why the Wife of Bath had five husbands may well be then that Chaucer in the Pythagorean of endorsement recognized five (also strongly promoted on the Timaeus1*) mentary but of marriage,15 love, ly by Ficino, Plato, in his Com following the symbol, not just of the flesh or earth a point established by Plutarch16

from the notion that five was the sum of the first female and the first male digit, three. Though the Wife may give two, digit, the initial impression of being loose and unfaithful, her arguments are in accord with Scripture, albeit with a primitive reading of it at to five husbands reflects back on the in times, and so the reference in the pentad of heavenly and earthly love as revealed terrelationship and pentagonal The formulation of this was Fra classic symmetry. same Luca Pacioli's De Divina formulation The Proportione (1509). is evident vincit in the motto of the Prioress, Amor symbolically omnia. As with the Prioress, the Wife of Bath's love symbolism prob ably also has some ironic purport. it might in nu be mentioned that Chaucer was involved Lastly, in with his interests merology through (the association alchemy Hermes lore and Trismegistus again) especially astrology. Number from Babylonian times on was to Chaucer's and related astrology, concern with in the Astrolabe that subject not only treatise but in the Knight's Tale has some bearing on the Wife's cry, derivative Myn ascendent was Taur, and Mars therinne. Alias! alias! that evere love was synne! (D 613-14)17 that Chaucer moreover, indirectly alludes to the Golden lore in and pentad from which Proportion, pentagonal symmetry in the Tale.18 derives, Knight's general stated that she had never heard "Upon this nombre When the Wife or indi she was most diffinicioun," likely acknowledging directly Five and with the Golden Number associated rectly the mystique what John Donne was to refer to in "The Prim thereby anticipating rose"19 as the "mysterious number" five. It is notable, Central State University 1. All quotations are from The Works of Geoffrey ed. Chaucer, F. N. Robinson, 2nd ed. (Boston, 1957). to Chaucer: 2. A Preface studies p. 68. The following "The Bruce L. Grenberg, in Medieval Studies Perspectives have of Chaucer treated the subject Tale: Yeoman's Boethian Canon's Alchemists," Chaucer Review, Russell A. Peck, "Number 1 (Summer 1966), 37-54 Symbolism in the Prologue (especially pp. 54-55); to Chaucer's English Studies, 48 (1967), 205-15; and "Theme and Number in Numerological in Silent Essays Poetry: of the Duchess," and Alastair Brooks pp. 73-115; Fowler* 1970), Douglas 39 (1970), 123-146. cer's Knight's Aevum, Tale," Medium "A Note to literature include of numerology relationship Nexus, 2 (1957), 39-42; "The Mystical Meaning 1963), (Princeton, and numerology: the and Wisdom Parson's Tale," in Chaucer's Book Analysis York, (New "The Meaning of Chau own on the studies My on the Golden Section," of Five," English Studies, 46

ROBERTF. FLEISSNEB 131 (1965), 45; "Homage to the Pentad: Williams's Literature a summary Contemporary which provides 3. The 1955), Ages, merical (West Georgia of pentad lore College), as well 'The Great Figure/" on Notes 1 (September, 1971), as a structural analysis. 2-5, tr. Ralph Manheim, 2 Vols. of Symbolic Philosophy Forms, (New Haven, Literature and the Latin Middle II, 140, 151. Cf. E. R. Curtius, European trans. W. R. Trask on "Nu the XVth Excursus (London, 1953), especially Composition." 4. Cassirer, 5. See 6. Spenser recent 146. II, A Reading and the Green J. A. Burrow, of "Sir Gawain Knight" (London, cf. P. M. Kean, The Pearl: An pp. 41ff. Also 1965), Interpretation York, (New 14 and 138. On see A. Kent Hieatt, the import of five in particular, pp. 1967), "Sir Gawain: Numerical 4 Pentangle, Luf-lace, Structure," PLL, (Fall, 1968), et passim 354n. in Silent Poetry, ed. Alastair (reprinted Fowler). his and the Numbers of Time (New York, Structural Patterns on "Pentads his chapter 1964); also, more importantly, in Elizabethan Poetry (Cam and Ogdoads" 148-73). (pp. Forms: Triumphal bridge, 1970), particularly on Chaucer," 'The Italian Influence in Companion Rowland Beryl (London, 1968), p. 145. On Macrobius' see Richard L. Hoffman, "The Influence of the Classics 7. 8. Vincent Foster Medieval Hopper, Number and Influence on Thought and Expression on medieval Numerorum treatise basic Pietro Bongo's and to Chaucer influence on Chaucer," Sources, Meaning, (New York, 1938), pp. 197-98. The Renaissance written numerology (Bergamo, 1591). Mysteria Its Symbolism: ed. Studies, upon Chaucer, ibid., p. 163. See also in those Alastair times is Fowler, above. Chaucer and the (Princeton, 1966), p. 81. Also 9. 10. Cited by Hopper, Tradition p. 43. of Fame: Ruggiers, pp. in Symbolism 146-47. See Macrobius' "The on Commentary House the Dream tr. and ed.William Harris Stahl (New York, 1952), p. 103. 11. Hopper, loc. of Fame" of Scipio, cit. 12. for numerology, basis which Ibid., p. 74. A biblical is to be found Alisoun in upon what says, bearing as she to cite St. Paul, 10:30. Inasmuch likes the at least indirect have 11:26 and Matthew to the reference following may Isaiah in Pauline doctrine is worthy Browne of mention: "Saint pentad by Sir Thomas in a known Paul had rather than ten thousand in an unknown speak five words that is as little as could well A simple be tongue: spoken. proposition consisting one pot of three words and a complexed short of five" ordinarily (quoted by in Triumphal as Fowler Cf. five the of perception" p. 21). Forms, "span (the cluster of units that the eyes can report as a single entity) to the mind in longest its most modern and aesthetics; illustration is psychology prominent (in metrics) iambic pentameter. seem tenuous. use the sacred Cf. of five may p. 86. The argument Ibid., in the Consecration of the Bread the Mass est enim Corpus during ("Hie to in Everyman, where is also placed on the "Five alluded emphasis Meum"), 13. words Wits" 14. (senses). See Spenser and the Numbers of Time, p. 34, n. 1. of the pentad is Marriage"). p. 35 epithet Ibid., ("Another stress on its symbolizing to relate because he wishes Justice is indeed the Faerie This further Queene. symbolism interesting in his Garden but to relevant of Cyrus) by Browne scarcely as "fifth among as he stresses insofar the deities of the Jupiter, 15. more (p. 206), in his House of Fame. 16. In "De E apud Delphum" in the Moralia. This is a basic Fowler places it to Book V of (it is considered Chaucer planetary classical except week" source the significance of the pentad (the letter E being the fifth letter in the alphabet).

THE CHAUCERREVIEW "Chaucer Wood, Chauncey this "perhaps 184, has called and Astrology," in Companion the most famous horoscope to Chaucer Studies, in English literature." 18. I [A] 2450-69. Cf. Matila Ghyka, The Geometry of Art and Life pp. 1946), Golden 19. 90-91. Proportion See also is the leading modern Ghyka and pentagonal symmetry Spenser and the Numbers authority to nature p. 250. of Time, on (New York, of the and the realtionship the Fine Arts. For further consult study, Russell A. Peck's "Number Symbolism and the Idea of Order in the Works Geoffrey Chaucer," unpub. dissertation (University of Indiana,