[In the following essay, Burke discusses the surprising absence of “negative female stereotypes” in the Confessio Amantis.]

It is readily apparent to readers of the Confessio Amantis, especially to those who are familiar with the earlier works of Gower, that the great English poem is imbued with a tone of mellowness, sensitivity, and compassion for the limitations of human nature.¹ What has not been so apparent is that an important reason for this benign atmosphere is the almost total absence of negative female stereotypes and antifeminist propaganda in the Confessio.

Unlike other Middle English poets, Gower does nothing to call attention to his literary treatment of women in the Confessio. He never announces any plan to recount the legend of good women, as does Chaucer in his poem of that name. Nor does he add any ironic disclaimer to the story of a bad woman, as does Chaucer in Troilus and Criseyde:

Bysechyng every lady bright of hewe,
And every gentil womman, what she be,
That al be that Criseyde was untrewe,
That for that gilt she be nat wroth with me.
Ye may hire giltes in other bokes se;
And gladlier I wol write, yif yow leste,
Penelopeës trouthe and good Alceste.

(V.1772-78)²

These lines have the effect of planting the idea in the reader's mind, as if he had not thought of it earlier, that Criseyde is a prime example of female inconstancy. The faint praise of good women was a device known to Gower, as we find in the Vox Clamantis:

Sit licet absurdum nomen meretricis, ab illo
Quam pudor observat femina nulla capit;
Sit licet infamis meretrix tamen illa pudicas
Non fedat fedo nomine fedo suo

(V.315-18)³

Granted that the reputation of a harlot is inglorious, the woman whom a sense of decency watches over suffers nothing from it. Granted that a harlot is infamous, that shameful woman does not disgrace virtuous women by her own ill repute.⁴

Predictably enough, Gower launches from this beginning into an enthusiastic denunciation of women in general. However, nothing like this occurs in the Confessio. In the latter poem, Gower simply includes many stories of exemplary women in a totally natural and unobtrusive way.

A general reading of the Confessio Amantis confirms this discovery of the author's favorable approach to women. The most important female character in the poem, that is the lady courted by Amans, is regarded with the utmost respect by both her suitor and Genius. There is no suggestion that she is married,⁵ or engaging in improper relations of any kind. Furthermore, the vast English poem is as remarkable for what it does not say as for its actual statements about women. It contains no reference to the sin of Eve nor any form of the medieval commonplace “Mulier est hominis confusio.” There is very little reference to female submission in marriage;⁶ more often, men are advised to take lessons with a humble spirit from their wives and daughters.⁷ Statements of female inferiority are rare and mild.⁸ Although we find Gower playing spiritedly on each of these antifeminist themes in his two earlier works, they are quietly dropped from the Confessio.⁹

In addition, the author's favorable view of women in the Confessio can be more specifically substantiated through two types of comparative study. First, we can compare the treatment of a story or theme in the two earlier works, Mirour de l'Omme and Vox Clamantis, with similar passages in the English poem. Such comparisons can illustrate how the poet changed his own approach.¹⁰ For this type of comparative study, I have chosen the story of Xanthippe, which is common to the Mirour and the Confessio. It is also most revealing to study Gower's sources for particular tales and the changes he made in them.¹¹ I will discuss two tales in relation to their sources: the story of Jason and Medea (adapted from Benoît and Guido) and the tale of Iphis and Anaxarete (borrowed from Ovid's Metamorphoses). In these three stories, the female character is either actively sinful or, in the case of Anaxarete, an involuntary agent of harm. What the artist does with these less than exemplary characters is, in my opinion, even more important for our study than the numerous tales of good women in the Confessio.

Gower tells the famous story of Xanthippe pouring water on Socrates¹² in both the Mirour and the Confessio in order to illustrate the vice of abusive, unrestrained language—Tençoun or Cheste, a branch of Ire. Socrates' corresponding virtue of patience is also emphasized in both accounts. As usual, the Confessio gives a fuller version. While the Mirour tells us only that Xanthippe was angry and contentious with her husband (4168 ff.), the English poem sets a scene and provides some motivation for the wife's foul humor: she is carrying water in from outdoors on a cold winter day while Socrates sits peacefully reading by the fire, “as he which tok / His ese for a man of age” (III.660-61). In both stories, the husband's silence under reproof fans Xanthippe's ire to the point when she dumps the water on his head. He replies patiently with the observation that after thunder comes the rain.

Although similar in content, the stories are handled very differently in the two poems. In the Mirour, Tençoun is personified and explained as a woman (4069 ff.)¹³ The description of this vice calls forth much moralizing and text-quoting against abusive wives in general (4069-4167), before the story of Xanthippe is offered as a single example (4168 ff.) The following passage is typical of the whole:

Cest un dit du proverbiour,
Qe des tous chiefs n'est chief peiour
De la serpente; et tout ensi
De toutes ires n'est irrour
Pis que du femme ove sa clamour,
Quante tence; car ly sage auci
Ce dist, que deinz le cuer de luy
Folie buylle tresparmy
Comme du fontaine la liquour.
Riens sciet q'a lors ne soit oï;
Trop mette en doubte le mary,
S'il ad forsfait, de perdre honour

(4141-52)

It is a saying of the Proverb-maker that of all heads there is none worse than that of the serpent; and likewise of all angers there is none worse than that of the woman with her shouting, when she is contentious. For the wise man also says that in her heart folly boils throughout like the liquor of the fountain. She knows of nothing that may not be heard there; she puts her husband too much in fear; this is his penalty, to lose honor.

No less than three times in his description of Tençoun, the author alludes to the club (bastoun) as the appropriate restraint on abusive wives (4100, 4115, 4138). The word chastiement—as the answer to a scolding wife—occurs twice (4090, 4137). Although the poet stops short of saying that all women are like that, he obviously regards Tençoun as mainly a female vice, and he loves to indulge in the medieval game of quoting antifeminist auctoritates. As an afterthought, he does mention the sin of Tençoun in men, but this description takes up only twenty-four lines (4309-32) out of his entire account of this daughter of Ire.

In the Confessio, Genius first explains the sin of Cheste in general. Although the characteristics of this vice are similar to those of Tençoun in the earlier poem, Cheste is personified as a man (III.417 ff.) and there is no mention of women or antifeminist authorities. Still less do we find any reference to clubbing or punishing of wives; such details would be abhorrent to the spirit of the Confessio. Genius tells the lover to confess if he is guilty of this form of wrath (III.472 ff.) Amans denies having spoken an angry word to his lady, but admits that at times he “Per cas seid more thanne ynowh” (III.513). In the dialog, it becomes clear that the lady is equally innocent of any abusive language; Amans no more expects her to scold him than he believes God would be angry at a prayer (III.535 ff.) When the lover begs for an exemplum of patience, Genius tells the story of Socrates and his wife, followed by three more stories of unwise speech. Gower has not softened the moral of the story: Xanthippe is still the typical “wicked wif” (III.649) and Socrates the all-too-patient husband (III.699 ff.) In context, however, the wrathful excesses of the wife serve as an example of a particular sin, rather than an accusation of women in general or a warning against marriage.

Gower derived the first two-thirds of his tale of Jason and Medea (the quest of the golden fleece) from two sources: Benoît de Sainte-Maure's Roman de Troie and Guido delle Colonne's Historia Destructionis Troiae. Although he seems to have relied mainly on the former, Macaulay is incorrect in stating that Benoît was his only source; certain details are borrowed from Guido.¹⁴ Gower's improvements and economies in the story he inherited are noted in Macaulay's notes on the passage. Throughout the tale, there is evidence that we are dealing with a literary artist who possessed a sure control over his material. Most important for the purposes of this study, however, is his transformation of the character of Medea and of the love between her and Jason. This is especially interesting in view of the fact that Medea is one of the more sinister women in mythology (although she is included in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women) and Gower gives an account of her nefarious activities which is more complete than either of his medieval sources.

First, we find that the Medea of Benoît and Guido is a creature of feminine frailty from the moment she enters the story. This trait is lightly and amusingly pointed out by Benoît, who states that when King Oëtes calls Medea in to meet Jason “Si s'atorna plus bel que pot” (1230)¹⁵ by donning her best finery. Guido seizes this detail as an excuse for a few of his most typical remarks:

Medea autem, audito patris precepto, quamquam esset virgo nimium speciosa, conata est, ut mulierum est moris, speciem addere speciei per speciosa videlicet ornamenta. Quare compta pretiosis ornatibus et regio apparatu, decora cuncto gradu, non obesse familiaritate, ad discumbentium mensas accessit.¹⁶

Medea, however, having heard the command of her father, although she was an extremely beautiful maiden, tried, as is the custom of women, to add beauty to beauty, that is, through beautiful ornaments. For this reason, she came to the tables of the dinner guests decked out with precious ornaments and royal attire, elegant in her entire bearing, not with a familiarity to put one off.¹⁷

He continues with an address to Medea's foolish father, reproaching him for inviting his daughter to sit by Jason at the feast:

Sed O misera et infatuata nobilitas, quid urbanitate debes in honoris tui precipitium et tui decoris pro curialitate iacturam? Numquid est sapientis se credere constancie puellari aut sexui muliebri, qui nullis annorum circulis novit captare constantiam?¹⁸

Oh, unfortunate and infatuated generosity, what do you owe to politeness in the hazard of your reputation and the loss of your honor for courtesy? Is it wise to trust to feminine constancy or the female sex, which never has been able, in all the ages, to remain constant?¹⁹

By contrast, Gower says nothing at all about any preparations on Medea's part for the meeting with Jason.²⁰ Instead, he describes the king's summons in this way: “After Medea gon he bad / Which was his dowhter, and sche cam” (V.3368-69). In two unobtrusive lines, Gower produces an entirely different impression of Medea's entrance from either of his sources. Instead of dressing up to impress the handsome stranger, she obediently responds to her father's command. There is no statement in this version that the king was wrong in inviting his daughter to the feast.

Similarly, Medea's nocturnal assignation with Jason in her chamber is subtly altered by Gower. In Benoît and Guido, the go-between sent by the princess to summon Jason is an old woman servant. Elderly chaperones had, of course, a most unsavory reputation in the Middle Ages. They not only permitted young men access to their charges, but were known to give amatory advice based on their extensive experience.²¹ In Benoît's more detailed account, Medea's old servant is called “maistre,” which connotes “teacher.” She offers very interesting advice indeed, telling Medea to get into bed before Jason comes, because it would be “plus gent” (1544). Medea obeys, and the old woman sets out to fetch Jason. When the two arrive, Medea behaves with instinctive duplicity:

Medea le senti venir
Si a fait semblant de dormir
E cil ne fu pas trop vilains:
Le covertor lieve o ses mains.
Cele tressaut, vers lui se torne;
Auques fu vergondose e morne:
“Vassaus,” fait el, “qui vos conduit?”

(1585-91)

Medea heard him coming and pretended to sleep. And he was not too crude; he raised the sheet with his hands. She started and turned towards him. She was somewhat ashamed and sad. “Vassal,” she said, “who brings you here?”

Although this passage is handled with a light and humorous touch, it obviously constitutes a very pejorative description of feminine scheming.

By contrast, Medea's companion and go-between in the Confessio is called simply a “Mayden,” and she gives no advice at all. Jason's appearance in the chamber is described a bit differently:

A Mayden fro Medea cam
And to hire chambre Jason ledde,
Wher that he fond redi to bedde,
The faireste and the wiseste eke;
And sche with simple chiere and meke,
Whan sche him sih, wax al aschamed.

(V.3476-81)

In this account, Medea is free of conquetry and quite straightforward about her love for Jason; only one detail—her embarrassment—is retained from the source. Here again, Gower creates a much more ingenuous heroine than does Benoît.

Moreover, the English poet makes some important changes in the way Jason and Medea fall in love. He is much more sympathetic toward both young people than either of his sources. Benoît and Guido each record that Medea became widly enamored of Jason at first sight. In both accounts, she is unable to take her eyes off him.²² Benoît explains Medea's passion with a catalog of Jason's physical charms,²³ and is followed in this by Guido.²⁴ The Roman sums up her feelings in the following line: “Mout le desire a mariage” (1290). Guido elaborates on this statement with characteristic moralizing:

Inde est quod tenui sono suos eburneos infra dentes collidit hec verba: “O utinam iste barbarus tam speciosus tam nobilis michi maritali copula iungeretur,” ut sibi ipsa daret intelligi unculpabili affectione illud appetere quod culpa et crimine non carebat. Omnium enim mulierum semper est moris ut cum inhonesto desiderio virum aliquem appetunt, sub alicuius honestatis velamine suas excusationes intendant.²⁵

And for this reason it was that she softly forced these words between her ivory teeth: “Oh, I wish this foreigner, who is as handsome as he is noble, might be joined to me in marriage,” so that she might allow herself to believe it was because of innocent affection that she was longing for what was not devoid of sin and guilt. For it is always the custom of women, that when they yearn for some man with immodest desire, they veil their excuses under some sort of modesty.²⁶

Neither source says anything at all about Jason's reaction to Medea in this scene. His feelings for her, such as they are, occur only when he realizes that she can do something for him.

On the other hand, Gower changes the elements of the story which suggest an exemplum of unbridled female passion. He also removes the callously oblivious behavior of Jason. In the Confessio, love at first sight occurs equally in both the man and woman:

Sche hadde herd spoke of his name
And of his grete worthinesse:
Forthi sche gan hir yhe impresse
Upon his face and his stature,
And thoughte, hou never creature
Was so wel farende as was he.
And Jason riht in such degre
Ne mihte noght witholde his lok,
Bot so good hiede on hire he tok,
That him ne thoughte under the hevene
Of beaute sawh he nevere hir evene,
With al that fell to wommanhiede

(V.3376-87)

Love as universal human experience becomes the subject of Gower's account. Once again, he completely transforms the tone of his sources. Although Medea is obviously pleased by what she sees, she is not presented as taking note of every physical feature. And it is Jason who cannot move his gaze. Gower goes on to add a passage of his own invention about the mutual longings of the lovers as they lie sleepless in their own beds that night (V.3403-36). Characteristically, Medea is planning a specific course of action to solve her problem, while Jason rather vaguely resolves to do his best in love.

All this is not to say that Gower idealizes the character of Medea in the Confessio. Instead, he records that she stole her father's treasure before fleeing with Jason (V.3895-98). This detail is found in Guido but not in Benoît, and it suggests that Gower was determined to tell the worst he knew about her. Furthermore, he tells the story of Medea's life after her elopement with Jason, an account which is omitted by both Guido and Benoît in the interest of brevity. This includes her sorcery to restore the youth of Aeson, and finally the murders of Creusa and of her own two children by Jason.²⁷ While Medea is innocent and appealing when she first falls in love, something goes wrong with her as the story progresses. At the same time, the sincerity of Jason's initial love serves to emphasize his later weakness and treachery.

We can understand the deterioration of these two lovers by recognizing the real theme of the story as Gower renders it. Genius introduces the tale as an exemplum against Jason's sin of perjury. It is this, of course, but there is also a much more important meaning. Like so many tales of the Confessio, this one exemplifies the abuse and misdirection of normal human sexuality. What Jason and Medea feel for each other is basically good and initially pure. Their quest for the golden fleece is a noble adventure. However, they bring about their own moral downfall by the hasty, furtive, and illicit consummation of their love. Jason flees secretly with his beloved, in defiance of her father; later, he ties to sneak away from his obligation to her. Medea is first unable to restrain her passion for Jason; later, she is unable to control her hatred for him. Gower directs his moral impartially at both men and women, eliminating antifeminist elements from the story.

A third example of women in the Confessio Amantis is the tale of Iphis and Araxarathen at the end of Book IV.²⁸ In Ovid's Metamorphoses, the tale is a simple warning to girls against refusal in love. Iphis, a youth of humble origin, falls violently in love with the princess Anaxarete. He courts her only to receive an arrogant rejection:

saevior illa freto surgente cadentibus Haedis,
durior et ferro, quod Moricus excoquit ignis,
et saxo, quod adhuc vivum radice tenetur,
spernit et inridet, factisque inmitibus addit
verba superba ferox et spe quoque fraudat amantem.

(XIV.711-15)²⁹

She is more savage than the sea that rises at the setting of the Kids, harder than iron which the Noric fire tempers, or rock still living which is held at its root—she scorns and mocks him. Cruelly she adds arrogant words to her unkind deeds, and defrauds the lover even of any hope.

Unable to bear this torment, Iphis hangs himself at her door and is taken away to be prepared for burial. Looking out the window, Anaxarete sees his funeral procession and responds only with belated interest:

          … iam deus ultor agebat.
mota tamen “videamus” ait “miserabile funus”

(XIV. 750-51)

                                        Now the avenging god drove her on.
Moved nonetheless, she said, “Let us see this
                              miserable funeral.”

Trying unsuccessfully to leave the window, the merciless girl is turned to stone and becomes an example to others. The moral of the story is obvious, and with good reason: it is placed in the mouth of Vertumnus, who uses it to persuade a stubborn virgin to grant him her favors.

With characteristic independence, Gower refashions this little tale to his own purposes. Genius introduces the story as an exemplum against despair in love, the sin of Iphis and, potentially, of Amans. The social positions of the young man and woman are reversed; Iphis becomes the son of a king, with presumably more responsibility for self-control, and Araxarathen is a maiden of lowly origin. The girl is not described as haughty or cold, and a legitimate reason for her refusal is provided:

          … he was soubgit
To love, and put in such a plit,
That he excedeth the mesure
Of reason, that himself assure
He can noght; for the more he preide,
The lasse love on him sche leide.
He was with love unwys constreigned,
And sche with resoun was restreigned:
The lustes of his herte he suieth,
And sche for drede schame eschuieth,
And as sche scholde, tok good hiede,
To save and kepe hir wommanhiede

(IV.3523-34)

No such vindication of the woman is offered by Ovid. Her motives in Gower are honorable, but her behavior is excessive in its own way, as the poet delicately informs us: “For the more he preide / The lasse love on him sche leide.” Finally despairing, the young man hangs himself. When Araxarathen sees what has happened, she assumes the blame (3610), swoons repeatedly from remorse, and begs the gods to punish her fittingly. (There is nothing corresponding to this in Ovid.)³⁰ This request is granted; she is turned to stone and her remains are placed next to the tomb of Iphis (3655 ff.) Gower invents an epitaph composed for the two lovers by their fellow citizens:

Hier lith, which slowh himself, Iphis,
For love of Araxarathen:
And in ensample of tho wommen,
That soffren men to deie so,
Hire forme a man mai sen also,
Hou it is torned fleissh and bon
Into the figure of a Ston:
He was to neysshe and sche to hard.
Be war forthi hierafterward;
Ye men and wommen bothe tuo;
Ensampleth you of that was tho.

(IV.3674-84)

Gower's innovation is to divide the responsibility for the disaster between the two characters, instead of reproducing a simplistic exemplum of female coldness. Iphis is guilty of despair and suicide—no trifling combination. He is as much responsible for the death of his beloved as she is for his.

The more important theme of the story, apart from its connection with the sin of despair, is the tendency of love to get out of hand and the need for reason as a check on passion if tragedy is to be avoided. This is the underlying significance of many love stories in the Confessio, regardless of which sin they are said to exemplify.

In conclusion, we find that Gower, in the Confession Amantis, dropped his own earlier anti feminist preachments, and eliminated the misogynistic bias which he found in the sources for his tales. There are stories of evil women in the poem, but these characters serve as examples of sin rather than illustrations of the nature of women in general. This brings us to the question of why the poet made these changes. Did he alter his opinions of women toward the end of his life? While it may be tempting to think so, there is no evidence that Gower actually recanted any of his earlier opinions on women and love. However, he quite deliberately changes his approach to the reader and his theme, and it is in these changes that I believe the explanation lies. First, Gower explains his intentions for the new poem in the following well-known lines:

Bot for men sein, and soth it is,
That who that al of wisdom writ
It dulleth oft a mannes wit
To him that schal it aldai rede,
For thilke cause, if that ye rede,
I wolde go the middel weie
And wryte a bok betwen the tweie,
Somwhat of lust, somewhat of lore,
That of the lasse or of the more
Som man mai lyke of that I wryte. …

(Pro.12-21)

In other words, he renounces the style of unmitigated moral exhortation which characterizes his earlier poems, the Mirour and the Vox. He chooses instead the time-honored, and much more effective, technique of instruction in a pleasurable form.³¹ His own term for this style, “the middel weie,” and his use of the English language, suggest that this poem is intended to be enjoyed by the widest possible audience. In addition, the author establishes that his main subject is love, a change from the moral allegory and social satire of the two earlier poems:

I may noght strecche up to the hevene
Min hande, ne setten al in evene
This world, which evere is in balance:
It stant noght in my sufficance
So grete thinges to compasse,
Bot I mot lete it overpasse
And treten upon othre thinges.
Forthi the Stile of my writinges
Fro this day forth I thenke change
And speke of thing is noght so strange,
Which every kinde hath upon honde,
And wherupon the world mot stonde,
And hath don sithen it began,
And schal whil ther is any man;
And that is love, of which I mene
To trete, as after schal be sene.

(I.1-16)

As recent criticism has pointed out, Gower retains his strong moral beliefs in treating this new topic. Genius is everywhere an advocate of sexual love in accord with both nature and reason,³² that is, love for the purpose of procreation within the laws of marriage.³³ While he recognizes that virginity is a superior state (V.6358 ff.), Genius is more concerned with the continuation of the species and with the moral instruction of those for whom total celibacy is impossible—of course, the majority of mankind.

With this moral purpose, Gower adopts both the verbal conventions and dramatis personae of courtly love. Instead of repudiating the language of passionate attachment, he uses it to describe the happiness of married lovers: “Tout un soul coer eiont par tiel devis / Loiale amie avoec loials amis.”³⁴ He identifies both Genius and Venus, the patrons of procreation, as fulfilling a role ordained by God in the order of the universe.³⁵ The many stories of lovers and the positive treatment of love fulfill the dual purpose of the Confessio: they evoke pleasure in the reader while providing the moral lesson of marital chastity. A parallel development occurs in Gower's treatment of women in the Confessio. I have no doubt that this conventional medieval gentleman always held entirely orthodox opinions of the natural inferiority of women. However, as a literary artist, he rejects violent antifeminist statements as having no place in a work which has praise of the marriage relationship as a central theme. In medieval literature, there tends to be a close connection between antifeminist and antimatrimonial satire.³⁶ The Confessio preaches marriage as the happy fulfillment of sexuality for most human beings; misogynistic views would clash with this ideal. Although Genius and Venus must dissuade Amans from his misguided passion, not once do they suggest that the lady is in herself unworthy of a man's devoted love.³⁷

Notes

1. See J. A. W. Bennett, “Gower's ‘Honeste Love’,” in Patterns of Love and Courtesy: Essays in Memory of C. S. Lewis, ed. John Lawlor (Evanston, 1966), p. 109. Also see G. C. Macaulay, ed., The Complete Works of John Gower, (Oxford, 1899), I, lxxiii. See also Derek Pearsall, “Gower's Narrative Art,” Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 81 (1966), 475-84, passim. Pearsall, 481, briefly notes Gower's “humanity” to women as a component of his style.

2. From F. N. Robinson, ed., The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Mass., 1957).

3. All quotations from John Gower are from G. C. Macaulay, ed., The Complete Works of John Gower, 4 vols. (Oxford, 1899, 1900, 1901, 1902).

4. From Eric W. Stockton, trans., The Major Latin Works of John Gower (Seattle, 1962), p. 203. I also wish to thank Professor W. T. H. Jackson of Columbia University for his helpful suggestions concerning the Latin and Old French passages used in this article.

5. See Bennett, p. 112.

6. The only such reference I have found is mild in tone: Confessio VII.1670 ff.

7. See the Tale of Florent, I.1396 ff., and the Tale of the Three Questions, I.3067 ff. In the latter, the hero saves his own life by entrusting a secret to his daughter Peronelle—not exactly the standard antifeminist statement.

   Patrick J. Gallacher, Love, the Word and Mercury: A Reading of John Gower's Confessio Amantis (Albuquerque, 1975), pp. 88-90, discusses the tale of Florent: “The requirement that Florent accept the hag's words to save his own life implies clearly that Amans too must accept his lady's advice. … The command of his lady anticipates his final dismissal from the court of Venus and contains the will of God for him.” Gallacher, p. 105, also discusses the importance of virtuous speech in other women characters of the poem. Thaise, the daughter of Appollonius, exemplifies both virtuous speech and action in the culminating exemplum of the Confessio.

8. These are statements that women are fearful or generally weak: II.2272 ff., IV.1924 ff., VII.4252 ff.

9. A partial inventory of Gower's earlier views on women:

   Mirour

   Eve and “mulier est hominis confusio”: 131 ff., 7769 ff., 8573 ff.

   Woman as temptress: 9337 ff.

   Wives-should-submit theme, with blame of Eve: 17533 ff.

   Vox

   Eve and “mulier est hominis confusio”: Book IV, Chapter 11; Book V, Chapter 6.

10. John H. Fisher, John Gower: Moral Philosopher and Friend of Chaucer (New York, 1964), pp. 95-96, has provided an example of such comparison in his book on Gower: “After a break in the manuscript (MO 22359) the text picks up with a story from I Esdras 3:4. The king asks what is the strongest thing in the world, and his chamberlains reply a king, a woman, wine, and truth, in ascending order (MO 22765). In Esdras and in Gower's later, fuller retelling (CA VII.1753), the order is wine, king, woman, truth and the reference to women is complimentary; she is stronger because both drunkard and king are born of her. The changed order in the Mirour is pejorative: wine is stronger because it overcomes both king and woman.” In addition, Donald G. Schueler points out that Gower expresses an unfavorable attitude toward women as “inspirers of chivalric derringdo” in the Vox, V.491. However, in the Confessio IV.1105 ff., Genius includes the love of one's lady as an honorable motive for prowess in battle. See “Gower's Characterization of Genius in the Confessio Amantis,” Modern Language Quarterly, 33 (1972), 249-50, including note 18.

11. Gallacher, pp. 103-04, compares the story from Esdras (see note 10) in the Confessio with its source: “Genius's way of telling Zorobabel's answer departs significantly from the source. First, he embellishes Zorobabel's illustration of woman's power with a courtly statement about woman as an incentive to virtue [Confessio VII.1904-07]. … Genius, in contrast to Zorobabel, posits a causal relationship between woman and virtue, or the pursuit of knighthood and honor. …”

12. Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue states that Xanthippe “caste pisse upon his heed” (729). Gower has a tendency to avoid scatalogical references, especially in the Confessio.

13. All sins are personified as women in the opening allegory of the Mirour, in keeping with the conventions of personification allegory. Gower obviously felt uneasy about this, thinking of possible misunderstandings and even wishing to avoid unfairness to women:

    Tous ceux dont vous irray contant,
    Comme puis orretz l'estoire dite,
    Naiscont du merveillous semblant;
    Car de nature a leur naiscant
    Trestout sont mostre hermafodrite:
    Sicome le livre m'en recite,
    Ce sont quant double forme habite
    Femelle et madle en un enfant:
    Si noun de femme les endite
    Les filles dont je vous endite
    Sont auci homme nepourquant.

    (1022-32)

    All those [sins] of whom I am going to tell you, as you will now hear the story told, are born with a marvellous appearance; for by nature at their birth all are hermaphrodite monsters. As the book tells me about it, these are when a double form, male and female, inhabits one child. Unless I am referring to a woman, the daughters of which I write to you are also men nonetheless.

    Many sins in the Mirour are discussed as primarily practiced by males. The author often implies that both men and women are guilty of a sin: e.g., 5348 ff., 7156, 7661. While the Mirour frequently resorts to antifeminist clichés and authorities, it is not a one-sided or abnormally misogynistic work.

14. Macaulay, III, 497 (V.3247 ff., n.) See the apostrophe to Jason, Confessio V.4175-86, and Guido delle Colonne, Historia Destructionis Troiae, ed. Nathaniel Griffin (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), p. 24. Also common to Gower and Guido is the detail that Medea stole her father's treasure before fleeing with Jason: Confessio V.3895 ff., 4181, and Guido, pp. 24, 31. In Guido, it is not quite clear whether this treasure is the fleece itself. Macaulay also states that Guido does not mention “the thanksgiving which Jason is to offer up to the gods after his victory and before he takes the fleece,” Confessio V.3626 ff. However, this detail is mentioned by Guido, p. 26.

15. All quotations from Benoît are from Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Le Roman de Troie, pub. d'après tous les manuscrits connus, ed. Léopold Constans, Société des anciens textes français, 52, 55, 57, 62, 67 (Paris, 1904-12). I use the line numbers from the left-hand column of this edition; Macaulay's line citations refer to the italicized numbers on the right-hand side.

16. Guido, p. 17. In his Troy Book, Lydgate retains this detail: John Lydgate, Troy Book, ed. Henry Bergen, EETS, ES 97, 103, 106, 126 (London, 1906), 11. 1801 ff. Of course, we should not make too much of comparisons between Gower's tale of Jason and Medea, and this episode of Lydgate's Troy Book. The Troy Book is presented as a translation of Guido's Historia, while the Confessio is not.

    See Alain Renoir, “Attitudes toward Women in Lydgate's Poetry,” English Studies, 42 (1961), 1-14. Also see A. S. G. Edwards, “Lydgate's Attitudes to Women,” English Studies, 51 (1970), 436-37.

17. Mary Elizabeth Meek, trans., Historia Destructionis Troiae by Guido delle Colonne (Bloomington, 1974), p. 15.

18. Guido, p. 17. Lydgate greatly amplifies this passage in the Troy Book, 11. 1823-2029, adding much more sermonizing on the inconstancy of women.

19. Meek, p. 15.

20. Elsewhere, Gower discusses the vanity and self-beautification of women: “Sic fragili pingit totas in corpore partes / Addit et ad formam quam deus ipse dedit” (Vox, V. 379-80).

21. In the Mirour, Gower states that if a woman is lecherous in her youth, she can not give up lechery in her old age. When she is too decrepit to do anything herself, she becomes a go-between, deriving vicarious satisfaction from the sins of the young, 9445 ff. This statement is undoubtedly influenced by the characterization of La Vieille in Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose. For an extensive account of the “randy old women” in Ovid and medieval literature, see William Matthews, “The Wife of Bath and All her Sect,” Viator, 5 (1974), 413-43.

22. Benoît, 1262-63; Guido, p. 18.

23. Benoît, 1266 ff. Macaulay incorrectly refers to this as a physical description of Medea, III, 497 (Confessio V.3247 ff., n.) He cites italicized line number 1254 in the Constans edition of the Roman which corresponds to my line 1266.

24. Guido, p. 18.

25. Guido, p. 18. Lydgate amplifies this passage, discussing the hypocrisy of women, Troy Book, 2064 ff. He concludes with a disclaimer of misogyny, not found in Guido:

    þus liketh Guydo of wommen for tendite.
    .....I am riȝt sory in englische to translate
    Reprefe of hem, or any evel to seye;
    Leuer me wer for her love deye.
    Where-fore I preye hem to take in pacience;
    My purpose is nat hem to done offence;
    þei ben so gode and parfyte everechon,
    To rekne alle, I trowe þer be nat on,
    But þat þei ben in wille and herte trewe.
    For þouȝ amonge þei chese hem lovis newe,
    Who considreth, þei be no þing to blame;
    For ofte tyme þei se men do þe same.
    þei most hem purveie whan men hem refuse;
    And ȝif I koude I wolde hem excuse.

    (2097, 2100 ff.)

    This passage is reminiscent of Chaucer's and Gower's apologies to good women in Troilus and Criseyde and the Vox, cited earlier in this paper.

26. Meek, pp. 16-17.

27. Russell A. Peck discusses Medea's loyalty and tender concern toward her father-in-law as the motives behind this act of sorcery: Kingship and Common Profit in Gower's Confessio Amantis (Carbondale, Illinois, 1978), pp. 113-15. He also notes Jason's share in the guilt for the deaths of Creusa and the children, p. 115. Peck's entire analysis of the tale, which I discovered shortly before this article went to press, stresses Gower's sympathetic attitude toward the heroine, pp. 108-115.

    According to Bruce Herbert, “The Tale of Tereus in Ovid and Gower,” Medium Aevum, 41 (1972), 209-10, Gower also improves the character of another mythological woman who killed her child: “Procne in Gower is a less blameworthy character than she is in Ovid. When she hears of the rape of Philomela she does not, as Ovid's Procne does [Metamorphoses VI] (611-19), indulge in savage fantasies of revenge, but prays to Cupid, Venus, and Apollo for help [Confessio V] (5817-60). Gower also spares us an account of her meeting with Itys and decision to kill him. … After the murder Gower allows her a speech to Tereus in which she dwells on his guilt (5915-27), so directing our attention away from her misdeeds to those of her husband, the cause of the tragedy in which she is caught up. She herself acts almost in ignorance of what she is doing. … She is portrayed as a more attractive character from the very beginning of the tale. …” Both Gower and his medieval sources chose, in fact, to idealize Medea's life considerably, while heaping blame on Jason for his perfidy. None of these authors include Medea's dismemberment of her brother, or her murderous instructions to the daughters of Pelias, although both incidents are to be found in Ovid. Jason is regarded as a sort of male counterpart to Criseyde. Guido, p. 24, even pauses from his usual diatribes against women to apostrophize Jason on his treachery.

28. Shortly before this article went to press, I discovered that Götz Schmitz, The Middel Weie: Still- und Aufbauformen in John Gowers Confessio Amantis (Bonn, 1974), pp. 117-35, includes a discussion of this story in relation to its source which is parallel in several respects to my own. He mentions Gower's more sympathetic treatment of the heroine, p. 124. However, Schmitz's wide-ranging analysis of the tale is only incidentally concerned with Gower's treatment of women. Schmitz also notes the prominence of virtuous women as examples of faithful love in the poem, pp. 78, 109, 114, 152, 158. His brief remarks on the subject complement but do not duplicate my own findings.

29. Ovid, Metamorphoses, ed. and trans. Frank Justus Miller, Loeb Classical Library (London, 1916). I have consulted this work in translating this and the following passage from Ovid.

30. In the Ovide Moralisé, the Latin “mota” (Metamorphoses XIV.751) is expanded into the single statement “Pitié et repentance en ot,” in describing Anaxarete's emotions when she sees her suitor's funeral procession: C. de Boer, ed., “‘Ovide Moralisé’, Poème du commencement du quatorzième siècle publié d'après tous les manuscrits connus,” Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam. Afdeeling letterkunde. Nieuwe reeks, deel 15, 21, 30 (no. 3), 37, 43 (1915-38), XIV.5244. Of course, Gower might have borrowed the repentance of Anaxarete from this source. However, I am not at all convinced by a recent article suggesting that Gower was influenced by the Ovide Moralisé. See Conrad Mainzer, “Gower's Use of the ‘Mediaeval Ovid’ in the Confessio Amantis,” Medium Aevum, 41, (1972), 215-29. At any rate, the influence of the Latin Ovid on the works of Gower is much more important and easier to substantiate. In the Vox Clamantis, for instance, the author shows himself to be a facile imitator and borrower of Ovid's Latin. See Macaulay, IV, xxxii-xxxiii.

31. See Horace, Ars Poetica, 333-34; also Roman de la Rose, 7171-76.

32. The Cinkante Balades, also a late work, express this idea succinctly: “Amour s'acorde a nature et resoun.” Balade 1.

33. See Bennett, passim, and Schueler, passim.

34. John Gower, Traitié pour essempler les amantz marietz, iii. 17-18. This collection of ballads is found attached to several manuscripts of the Confessio: Macaulay, I, lxxxiv. As the poet tells us in the Latin lines which follow the Traitié, this work was undertaken on the occasion of his own marriage: “Hinc vetus annorum Gower sub spe meritorum / Ordine sponsorum tutus adhibo thorum.” The tale of Appollonius, Confessio VIII, illustrates happy and successful married love.

    Of course, Gower was not the first poet to write of marriage as a normal and proper setting for love. See Henry Ansgar Kelly, Love and Marriage in the Age of Chaucer (Ithaca, 1975), passim. Kelly traces the theme of conjugal love from Ovid through Chaucer and Gower.

35. Gower's Genius and Venus are quite different from their namesakes in the Roman de la Rose. With his own purposes, Jean de Meun had described them both as amoral and potentially dangerous forces. However, as George D. Economou points out, the Confessio follows the example of Alan of Lille's De Planctu Naturae in placing Genius and Venus in alliance with nature, and hence with reason: “The Character Genius in Allan of Lille, Jean de Meun, and John Gower,” Chaucer Review, 4 (1970), 208.

    Gower presents a pejorative view of both Venus and Genius in the two earlier poems (Mirour 20690 ff., Vox IV.595-602), but not in the Confessio.

36. Kelly points out the usual “antigamy of misogyny” in medieval literature, pp. 47-48.

37. I wish to thank Professor Robert W. Hanning and Professor W. T. H. Jackson for their helpful suggestions concerning this article.