MEN WHO LAUGH LIKE WOMEN:

FEMALE LAUGHTER AND MOCKERY IN OVID AND HIS MEDIEVAL AFTERLIVES

Roberto Suazo Gómez

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for Doctor of Philosophy

University of Otago
2022
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My first thanks go to my main supervisor, Simone Celine Marshall, for her commitment to this thesis
and her tireless trust in my abilities to write it. I greatly appreciate her patience and constructive
remarks, constant support and encouragement throughout all stages of this research. I would also
like to acknowledge the assistance of my co-supervisor Gwynaeth McIntyre, for her generosity in
sharing her knowledge and providing key guidelines to make this research possible. My gratitude as
well to the University of Otago and its Department of English and Linguistics under whose
sponsorship the research presented in this thesis was undertaken. Finally, a special thanks to my
patient wife, Valeria Paris, who has been married to this thesis, in its sickness and health. Her
laughter and sense of humour sustained me throughout the process, and most probably prevented
her from divorcing me.
 ABSTRACT

Disruptive female laughter, often accompanied by mockery and trickery, has a major presence in
medieval Pseudo-Ovidian Latin works, being also a frequent motif in the works of such diverse
vernacular writers as the English Geoffrey Chaucer, the Castilian Juan Ruiz, and the Italian Giovanni
Boccaccio. The focal aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse this distinctive strand within
medieval comic literatures, rooted in both Ovid's treatment of women’s laughter and jocular
speech, and the reception of these Ovidian tropes in the Later Middle Ages. Medieval writers
considered here are characterized by their special attentiveness to Ovid’s humour and paid
particular attention to the parodic and self-parodic use of female laughter and mockery in Ovidian
poetry. A central argument posed by this research is that medieval Ovidianism stimulated the
cheerful depiction of laughing women who apparently are not intent on pleasing men, but rather
on pleasing themselves. Furthermore, female hilarity can go even to the extreme of provoking the
deflation of the poet's authorial persona and authority. Likewise, in some writers such as Chaucer
and Boccaccio the use of female laughter extends beyond self-parody to challenge and humorously
subvert antifeminist literature of their day.

Among the Ovidian heritage explored in this thesis, Ovid’s portrayal of Anna Perenna in Fasti 3.675-
696 stands out. The goddess is depicted as an old celestial procuress who tricks Mars by turning his
infatuation with Minerva into an occasion of self-indulgence. The vignette finishes with the old
goddess laughing at the duped god. Anna’s burlesque scene dialogues with a number of medieval
narratives such as the Pseudo-Ovidian De Vetula, Ruiz's Libro de Buen Amor, Chaucer's Troilus and
Criseyde. In this respect, the thesis provides an in-depth analysis on the importance of Ovid's Anna
in shaping the medieval comic character of the go-between, with a special focus on her triumphal
laughter, generally expressing delight at the disgrace of a man, which is commonly heard throughout
these late medieval works.
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: A TRADITION OF GIGGLING 1

Chapter 1:
LEARNING TO LAUGH. PARODY, PARADOX, AND BURLESQUE IN OVID'S DEPICTION OF WOMEN
LAUGHING 40

Chapter 2:
CHAUCER'S LAUGHING FEMALE PREACHERS: OVID AND JEROME IN THE MOUTHS OF THE WIFE OF
BATH AND SAINT CECILIA 70

Chapter 3:
BRIDE SWAP, RAPE TRAP: THE MEDIEVAL AFTERLIVES OF ANNA PERENNA’S BED TRICK 110

a. Bride swap: The medieval afterlife of Anna Perenna’s bed trick in the Pseudo-
Ovidian De vetula and Boccaccio’s novella VIII.4 118
b. The metamorphoses of Ovid's Anna Perenna: The Ovidian go-between and the
debate about female consent in the Pamphilus group 137

Chapter 4:
LA BOCCA FETIDA. OVIDIAN REMEDIES AND THE TREATMENT OF PARODY IN BOCCACCIO'S IL
CORBACCIO 167

Conclusion 204

Bibliography 215
INTRODUCTION: A TRADITION OF GIGGLING

He felte a thyng al rough and long yherd,

And seyde, "Fy! allas! what have I do?"
"Tehee!" quod she, and clapte the wyndow to,
And Absolon gooth forth a sory pas.

[The Miller’s Tale, ll. 3738-3744]

Tehee, said she

The Miller's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer famously features a grotesque scene in which a man's pride
is outrageously debased by female mockery. Alisoun, a young, comely wife, conspires with her lover,
an Oxford scholar called Nicholas, to make love to him right under her elderly husband's nose. To
this end the cuckolded husband is made to believe that a second Noah's flood is about to come, so
that he is dangling in a bathtub among the rafters, totally persuaded that this is the only way to
survive, while Alisoun and her partner disport themselves at ease. Unfortunately, they are
interrupted by Absolon, a dandyish parish-clerk who is also lusting after the young wife. Unaware
that Nicholas is beside her in the room, Absolon stands beneath the window and, in a hyper-
melodramatic parade of courtly masculinity, starts singing his songs only to receive a clamorous
rejection of his beloved. However, as he insists on begging Alisoun for a kiss, she concocts a practical
joke to disdain the unwelcome suitor even further. "Now hust, and thou shalt laughen al thy fille,”
she whispers to Nicholas. And then, in the dark of the night, she sticks her naked bottom out of the
window. Instead of a long-anticipated kiss, Absolon suddenly finds himself savouring not Alisoun’s
mouth but her lower eye (nether ye). The punch line of Alisoun’s scatological trick is her giggle —
"Tehee!" quod she (3740) — whilst she shuts the window on a disheartened Absolon.

Like many readers of Chaucer, the first time I read that passage I could not help laughing at the
disgrace of Absolon and continued to chuckle to myself echoing Alisoun's giggle. But then, I did not
know much about that triumphant “tehee." Eventually, I would find out that this onomatopoeia of
laughter, the only one in the entire The Canterbury Tales,1 is in fact Alisoun’s most memorable

1 Andrew Cole, “Getting Chaucer’s Jokes,” in Approaches to Teaching Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, ed Peter W. Travis and

Frank Grady (New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2014),64.

1
utterance in The Miller’s Tale. What I personally found peculiar was the fact that it was not an
interjection suggesting any type of laughter, but rather a strongly gendered one, nothing less than
the representation of a girlish giggle, the first in English literature. While the gender distinction
occurring in Alisoun’s giggle may seem obvious, in my particular early experience as an ESL reader
of Chaucer it represented a truly linguistic oddity. The reason is that in Spanish, my native language,
there are very few possible onomatopoeias to convey the sound of laughter in writing. More
importantly, the available options to present laughter in a text are gender neutral. In other words,
written laughter does not tell by itself much about the gender of whom emits it, which is why
“tehee” is an expression essentially untranslatable into Spanish.

As Terry Eagleton asserts, laughter is a language with a host of different idioms, among which
cackling, chortling, grunting, howling, chuckling, shrieking, gasping, shouting, roaring, guffawing,
snorting, and giggling.2 But, of course, this statement points to the many ways whereby laughter —
that physiologic accompaniment of humour and amusement, among other miscellaneous
phenomena— is often translated into English. While it is true that laughter has many different
forms, not all languages are that lavish, neither in ways to write down laughter nor in words for
describing its various types. English not only has a broad vocabulary for different types of laughter
and smiling, but also this vocabulary of laughter appears more clearly marked by gendered
associations. For instance, the English “giggle” is rarely associated with male laughter. Often related
to a girlish gaiety, yet swinging between naivety and roguery, the concept of giggling (and not merely
laughing) also suggests the idea that femininity and women as gendered subjects can somehow be
shaped by a particular way of laughing. Given this background, I became understandably amazed at
Alisoun’s “tehee” and set myself to acquire some further knowledge of that language of giggling
filtered through medieval literature.

An aura of uniqueness pervades Alisoun’s giggle according to an interesting essay by Angela Carter
regarding the heroine of Chaucer's bawdy tale. In Carter’s view, that “tehee” can be read as a rare
mark of female agency and defiance towards male authority, a sound "which is not heard very often
in literature" expressing "the innocent glee with which women humiliate men.”3 Likewise, in a
fleeting yet enlightening comment, Mary Beard refers to Carter’s view on Alisoun’s giggle and

2 Terry Eagleton, Humour (Newhaven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019), 1.

3 Angela Carter, “Alison’s Giggle," in The Left & the Erotic, ed. E. Phillips (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1983), 53.

2
defines giggling as a “form of laughter, including its literary and cultural construction, [that] is almost
exclusively associated with women and girls.” Moreover, according to Beard, literary giggles make
up what she calls a "tradition of subversive female laughter,” which has become a "distinctive strand
in modern Western culture."4 Curiously, Beard dates this tradition to Chaucer, regarding it almost
entirely missed in the Roman world, not so much because Roman women did not giggle, but rather
because, as a counter-cultural female form, their giggling might not have been incorporated into
mainstream male literature.

The insights offered by these early readings proved to be very thought-provoking and worthy of
further examination. Thus, not long after, what had started for me as a concern over a translation
gap, eventually became a series of research questions, most of which have never thus far been
considered by scholarship on late medieval comic literature. First, was Chaucer the only late
medieval writer depicting giggles, or it may be considered a motif he shared with contemporary
comic literature? Secondly, how subversive can the giggling be when it is represented within texts
so profoundly affected by gender stereotypes and misogynistic undertones, such as Chaucer’s
fabliau-like tales? Thirdly, to what extent could a literary giggle be regarded feminine if it remains
part of a female voice created and ventriloquized by a male author? Finally, is it plausible to outline
a tradition of subversive female laughter underlying Western literature, not as a hypothetical strand
running from Chaucer to a modern development of the motif, but considering the literary
precedents fuelling Chaucer and his contemporaries? And if so, what common Latin root can be
proposed from which that tradition has grown? These are the primary research questions guiding
the current study.

This thesis addresses these questions by providing an original angle from which to observe the
representation of women laughing and joking in a range of late medieval comic works. Its focal aim
is to describe a distinctive strand within fourteenth-century Western literature, characterized by
engaging in fruitful dialogue with the Roman poet Ovid (43 B.C.E. - 17 C.E.), especially in regard to
the subtly treatment of female laughter and mockery as part of the means and strategies used by
this author to achieve his comic effects. In this regard, I have to disagree with Beard's suggestion
that the female giggle was first introduced in literature by Chaucer. Precedents for this giggle with

4 Mary Beard, Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling and Cracking Up (Berkeley: University of California Press,

2014.), 157.

3
which women humiliate men can be found in pseudo-Ovidian Latin works of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, hinting at both its roots in Ovid's oeuvre and its importance within the peculiar
process whereby Ovid was adapted and appropriated through his medieval reception. Ovidian
tropes concerning female jocularity recur prominently in the works of vernacular comic writers as
diverse as the Italian Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375) and Juan Ruiz (c. 1283 – c.1350). The latter
provides us with a strong foundation to propose a common tendency linking Chaucer to his
contemporaries, which may well have been instigated by their particular engagement with a shared
Ovidian heritage. Finally, this specific form of Ovidian intertextuality may also be seen as a decisive
factor modelling the subversive dialogue these vernacular writers often articulate with the potent
tradition of antifeminism of their day.

Medieval misogyny is to be considered an unavoidable counterpoint to the subversive tradition of

female laughter. Therefore, I first place my subject against the background of the medieval
antifeminist tradition, focusing on its relationships with comic literature and highlighting the
peculiar ways in which Chaucer, Ruiz, and Boccaccio dialogue with misogynist tropes. I then turn to
examine the transmission of Ovid’s poetry, with a special focus on the way in which his humour, wit,
and ironic tone migrate into vernacular comic literatures of the late Middle Ages, and the place of
female laughter and mockery in medieval Ovidianism. This discussion is followed by theoretical
considerations about laughter and humour. Recognizing and describing what may well be called a
predominantly male form of humour, strongly pervading Chaucer’s fabliau-like tales such as The
Miller's Tale, will be useful to delineate, by way of contrast, our approach to the 'subversiveness' of
laughing women in the Ovidian tradition. In the last section of this introduction, I present a
paradigmatic example of subversive female laughter found in Ovid’s poetry. Contrary to Beard’s
view, I suggest that giggles have a place in an influential passage of Ovid’s Fasti which had a huge
(and largely unnoticed) impact on the development of medieval comic literature, equally affecting
Pseudo-Ovidian works and the works of Chaucer, Ruiz, and Boccaccio. Finally, a chapter-by-chapter
outline of this research is provided at the end of this introduction.

4
Giggling within medieval antifeminism

The issue of women’s laughter appears intertwined with the admittedly vexed question of the
representation of women’s agency, women’s speech and the possible or impossible blank spaces
and gaps offered by our culture to hear the distinct sound of women's voices. In particular, Beard’s
notion of a tradition of subversive female laughter suggests both a distinctive form of women’s
speech and the possibility to deploy their language in a distinctive way through literature. However,
considering that Western literature has been mainly controlled by the male-dominant gaze —
through its production, performance, and transmission— the need for cautiousness when assessing
a literary giggle, both its subversive potential and feminine otherness, becomes apparent.

As Carter recognizes, female characters have scarcely expressed themselves or spoken of their own
experience without the filter of a male narrator, whose dominance we can assume until the mid-
eighteenth century.5 Here a word of caution is in order. Regardless how remarkable or unruly its
outburst may be, a literary giggle, like the one we read in The Miller's tale, must be seen primarily
as a piece of the female subjectivity recreated in a male-authored text. In the same vein, when
turning back to Alisoun’s famous prank, it is worth asking who is supposed to laugh at it or who gets
the last laugh. Even though Alisoun herself certainly finds delight in humiliating Absolon, just before
putting in practice her prank, she quietly whispers Nicholas: “Now hust, and thou shalt laughen al
thy fille” (3722). As Martin Blum remarks, Alisoun is announcing to Nicholas that she is going to
perform a joke on what in reality is his competitor.6 Alisoun is thus depicted as an irreverent jester
who also reminds us to keep in mind that her giggle resonates within the androcentric literary West,
where concerns with female jocular speech usually relate to the reaction it draws from men.

In order to be rigorous, we should also admit that in late medieval comic literature neither giggles
nor depictions of women mocking men turn out to be as scarce as might be supposed. Whether
coming from lively young girls, shrewish wives, cunning old go-betweens or wanton widows, female
laughter expressing delight at the disgrace of a man is far from unusual in late medieval literary
works. In fact, this is a widely exploited device that can be found either in Latin scholarly texts or

5Carter, 56.
6Martin Blum, "Negotiating Masculinities: Erotic Triangles in the Miller's Tale," in Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches to
Maleness in the Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, ed. Peter G. Beidler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998), 46.

5
genres in the vernacular languages, such as the mystery plays and the fabliaux. As noted above, such
instances are also found in the works of three prominent fourteenth-century vernacular writers:
Chaucer, Ruiz and Boccaccio. With respect to the latter, Frederick Biggs has already noted that we
may hear an echo of Alisoun’s “tehee” in Monna Isabetta, Frate Puccio's unfaithful wife in
Decameron III.4, who cannot but shriek with laughter while she and her lover are having a good
time, not caring that her cuckolded husband is listening from the adjacent room where he devoutly
carries out a penance with the aim of finding paradise.7 Furthermore, depictions of female tricksters
and female trickery, especially against undesirable suitors, are a common theme in the Decameron,
as occurs in the fourth story of day eight. In this novella the widow Monna Piccarda is harassed by
the Provost of Fiesole, a pushy suitor who, like Chaucer's overfastidious Absolon, cannot take 'no'
for an answer. To thwart his advances, the widow plays a joke on the lecherous provost inviting him
to a nocturnal tryst in her bedchamber where, thinking to lie with her, he lies with her elderly maid,
Ciutazza.

Literary portrayals of female laughter and mockery often emphasise women's power of deception
and their power over men. However, another caveat must be issued concerning the threat this
power may actually pose to male authority. The underlying message may be exact the opposite,
since many of these examples may ultimately serve to maintain, confirm and reinforce the
traditional power imbalance between sexes. A prime medieval anecdote about women laughing at
men lend itself to illustrate this point: the apocryphal story of Virgil in the basket, as it was reworked
by Juan Ruiz, the Castilian Archpriest of Hita, in his Libro de buen amor. The tale, very popular in
medieval Europe, appears within the extensive debate between the Archpriest and Don Amor, in
which the poet contends that love causes all seven deadly sins. When the sin of lust is being
addressed, in stanza 257 we can read:
Al sabidor Virgilio, como dize en el testo,
engañólo la dueña, quando l’ colgó en el cesto,
cuidando que l’ subió a su torre por esto.

7 Frederick Biggs, “The Miller’s Tale and Decameron 3-4,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 108: 1 (2009), 69.

According to Biggs, Decameron III.4 is likely to be a source rather than an analogue for the Miller's Tale. Scholars have also
noted Chaucer’s Miller's Tale debt to the cycle of mystery plays of York, Chester and other cities. In this regard, John the
carpenter presumably imagined the plausibility of a second flood based on what he may have witnessed in the Noah plays.
Likewise, the portrayal of Alisoun also famously hints at a tradition of Noah's Wife’s unruliness, as she refuses to enter the
ark. See Alfred David, “Noah’s Wife’s Flood," in The Performance of Middle English Culture: Essays on Chaucer and the
Drama, ed. James J. Paxson, Lawrence M. Clopper and Sylvia Tomasch (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998), 97-109.

6
[Virgil, the sage, as it says in the book, was tricked by a woman when she left him hanging in the
basket, while he believed that she was pulling him up to her tower by that means.]8

Virgil, the poet of the days of Augustus, has here taken on the legendary identity of a necromancer
who fell in love with a tricky lady. Virgil thus boards on a large basket she has lowered from her
window, fully convinced that he was going to be pulled up to his mistress' bedchamber for an
amorous rendezvous. However, he is left hanging in the basket overnight, and the next day he is
humiliated to be seen in such a predicament by the people of Rome. In Ruiz’s rendition of the tale,
female trickery, and the subsequent laughter that humiliate the wise man, certainly serves to poke
fun at the follies committed by a supposedly wise man in love, thus fulfilling its didactic function as
a warning on the dangers of lust. On this note, the example of Virgil may be aligned with what Susan
Smith has called the evil “power of women” theme. This is a recurrent topic in a range of medieval
misogynistic rants which appeal to famous narratives taken either from the Bible, ancient history or
romance, to illustrate the idea that no man, no matter how great, is safe from the women’s wiles.9
This is the repetitive message we heard from such stories: Women use their charms and sexuality
to triumph over mighty or wise men, thus bringing about their ruin, whether turning them to
idolatry, or making them lose their renown, strength or dominance.

Virgil, the frustrated lover dangling in basket, can thus be seen as one more in the long line of famous
men brought down by a woman, along with Aristotle being rode by Phyllis, Hercules dressed in
women's clothes and spinning under Omphale's command, Socrates when soaked by his shrewish
wife Xanthippe with the contents of a chamber pot, Samson lured by Delilah's charms and poisonous
flattery, or David and Solomon, who, despite their great deeds, could not resist women. However,
in Ruiz’ reworking of the tale we are told that Virgil manages to take revenge for the humiliation he
had suffered. He uses his sorcery to put out all the fires of Rome and warns the populace that the
only way to rekindle any flames in the city is to ignite torches or candles by contact with the private
parts (la natura) of the “wretched woman” (mugger mesquina). This retaliation somewhat
resembles Absolon's crude, albeit frustrated, revenge against Alisoun in the Miller's Tale. Let us not

8 English translation taken from Raymond S. Willis, ed., Juan Ruiz, Libro de Buen Amor (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972), 78.
9 Susan Smith defines "the power of women topos" as "the representational practice of bringing at least two, but usually
more, well-known figures from the Bible, ancient history or romance to exemplify a cluster of interrelated themes that
include the wiles of women, the power of love, and the trials of marriage." See Susan Smith, The Power of Women: A
Topos in Medieval Art and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 2.

7
forget that the red-hot poker the disdained lover ends up applying to Nicholas' buttocks, was
originally addressed to Alisoun. Ultimately, Virgil's exemplary punishment not only points to the
hypersexualization of the mocking woman, on the understanding that she alone carries the flame
(of lubricity, as we are to presume), but it also betrays an underlying violence —indeed, a specifically
sexual violence that is realized on the women's body— being disguised and ameliorated through
humour. She is certainly not a Prometheus type willingly giving men the gift of fire. On the contrary,
men come in droves and violently take the fire away from her, much to the delight of Virgil:
Si dava uno a otro fuego o la candela,
amatavase luego, e venian todos a ella;
encendian allí todos como en grand centella:
assí vengó Virgilio su desonra e querella.

[If one person passed fire or a candle flame to another, it would go out instantly, and they all would
come to her; they all lit their flames there as in a big coal of fire: in this way Virgil avenged his honour
and the offense (done to him)]

Ruiz's tale is both an example of women's power and powerlessness. It also reminds us that, even if
debasing men’s honour, female laughter and mockery are often part of comic narratives that make
violence against women look entertaining and acceptable. This is a particularly important aspect
that may be considered when assessing the supposedly subversive potential of these literary
images. The same caution applies to Alisoun's giggle and trick, as will be discuss bellow. As for the
Archpriest's tale, it seems clear that the fierce reprisal against the "wretched woman" finds its
ultimate legitimacy in Virgil's duty to avenge such an offensive slight on his honour, since she made
a mockery of his plea. The tale demands a high level of identification of male audience with its
protagonist —a sympathetic merriment at his comical predicament in order to learn from it.
However, the same does not count with the comic effect that should come from his revenge over
the anonymous mistress. It seems that the “momentary anaesthesia of the heart” or absence of
feelings that, according to Henri Bergson, is the chief symptom of the comic, has to be total when it
comes to the woman's misfortune. What needs to be stressed here is that, though transformed by
fantasy, Virgil is depicted as an individual, as too are the other great men featuring in this kind of
examples. Instead, there is not a trace of individuality in the “wretched woman.” Equated with the
evilness, she has been reduced to a general and undifferentiated category. This form of imagining

8
and narratively depicting women can be seen as a distinctive feature connecting a large portion of
medieval comic literature with the discourse of misogyny.

As R. Howard Bloch remarks, misogyny is found potentially in almost any medieval work. Of course,
its pervasiveness must be considered in any rigorous approach to the representation of women in
medieval comic literature. Bloch defines misogyny as a speech act in which woman is the subject of
the sentence and the predicate a more general term, or, alternatively, the use of the substantive
woman or women with a capital W." A collective noun, predicated by essentialist and unchangeable
definitions, which naturalizes notions such as the inherently inferiority of women and the dangers
they pose to men.10 While antifeminist authors restrict themselves to speak and think of a category
rather than of women as they knew them

Perhaps one of the most eloquent examples of the universalizing equation of women with evil is
Tertullian's famous dictum that women are the gate of the hell. Especially telling in this regard is the
manner in which Tertullian addresses the inheritors of Eve's sin, by using of the singular pronoun,
as though he were describing a demoted woman viewed sub specie aeternitatis: “You are the
gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one
to turn your back on the divine law.”11 As Bloch cogently suggests, the underlying purpose of this
kind of universalizing proposition is to present women as being outside of history, thus removing
them from the realm of events. By speaking and thinking of a category, misogynistic authors turn
their backs on women in lived experience. Similarly, medieval comic literature often reduces women
to stock characters; they are quarrelsome and noisemakers, bossy and garrulous, gluttonous and
lascivious, unstable and rebellious. This kind of characterization produces (and reproduces) cultural
constructs of femininity that dehumanize women to a comical state. Thus, as with puppets or
clowns, they can be heartily laughed at without the slightest feeling of sympathy or pity.

10 According to Bloch, the persistent equalization of women with evil is to be considered among other essentialist
definitions provided by the discourse of misogyny. These discursive appropriations range from defining them as
incomprehensible and mysterious, to commendatory generalisations made by ardent worshipers of women. Bloch’s
notion that misogynistic speech is not always —nor necessarily— deprecatory may be linked to Jill Mann's view of
Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. According to Mann, Chaucer’s laudatory depiction of women, in sharp contrast to
male treachery, entails the risk of naturalizing women's victimization as inevitable. As well-intentioned and committed as
it can be, Chaucer produces "an antifeminist's mirror-image" that "derives the very substance of its being from its
antagonist's power and relies on that power to justify its own extremism." See Jill Mann, Feminizing Chaucer (Cambridge:
D. S. Brewer, 2002), 39.
11 Patristic authors also linked the feminine with the aesthetic, decorative, the ornamental, and the materially contingent,

as another form of naturalizing women inferiority with respect to men. Particularly, the coveting of ornamentation by
women is, for Tertullian, a sign of women's persuasive, rhetorical participation in the Fall.

9
The comical humiliation of Virgil in the Archpriest's anecdote does not contradict the general
engagement of medieval comic literature with the topoi of antifeminism. Indeed, to enumerate
examples of "women's power" over men blinded by lust was a common rhetorical strategy in the
discourse of medieval misogyny. Such a tradition comprises a number of antifeminist and
antimatrimonial treatises, either in Latin or in the vernacular, revolving around motives such as the
inferiority, instability, sexual depravity, loquacity and cunning of women, and the dangers they pose
to men's spiritual and physical wellbeing. In order to argue this, misogynists had an array of
authoritative sources at their disposal. As Francomano explains,12 antifeminist texts turned
repeatedly to biblical wisdom literature, to the second version of the creation of humankind in
Genesis, and to the sayings of the Fathers of the Church. The physiology of Aristotle and Galen, who
held that women are defective by nature —represented as a mutilated or incomplete man— and
associated women with the body and materiality, also offered foundations for misogynistic
arguments. In general terms, medieval misogyny appears founded on philosophical and theological
claims about woman's ontological inferiority, and in the scientific appraisal of female bodily
weakness and instability.

Among the writings of Church Fathers, probably the most influential piece of antifeminist writing
for over a millennium was Jerome's Adversus Jovinianum, which was inspired in part by the classical
satirical tradition.13 Jerome’s work includes the “Golden Book on Marriage” (Liber Aureolus de
Nuptiis) by a pagan named Theophrastus, which argues that no wise man should ever take a wife
(I.47). As Jill Mann remarks, this relatively brief section of Jerome’s treatise exercised a quasi-
hypnotic influence on medieval antifeminism. Theophrastus’s caustic tirade is illustrated by literary
anecdotes about evil women and the dangers of marriage, among them Xanthippe, of Pasiphae,
Clytemnestra and Eriphyle. Similar catalogues reappear centuries later in medieval antimarriage
tracts, such as the twelfth-century Walter Map's Dissuasio Valeri and the Lamentations of the
thirteenth-century Matheolus, and we can also find them in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue.
Medieval antifeminism likewise found its authoritative sources of imitation in classical works such

12 Emily C. Francomano, “The Early Modern Foundations of the Querella de las Mujeres," in The Routledge Research

Companion to Early Modern Spanish Women Writers, ed. Nieves Baranda and Anne J. Cruz. (London and New York:
Routledge, 2018), 42-43.
13 Fabian Alfie, “The Sonnet about Women who Marry in Old Age: Filth, Misogyny, and Depravity,” in Bodily and Spiritual

Hygiene in Medieval and Early Modern Literature: Explorations of Textual Presentations of Filth and Water, ed. Albrecht
Classen (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2017), 390.

10
as Juvenal's sixth satire, Sallust's descriptions of Sempronia and Ovid's Ars Amatoria and Remedia
Amoris. As will be commented upon later, Ovid's works formed the core of the medieval schoolboy's
curriculum and were specially used for supporting clerical celibacy, as well as offering advice on
sexual hygiene, remedies for lovesickness, and palliatives for amorous rejection. In the fourteenth
century writers such as Jehan Le Fèvre and Giovanni Boccaccio developed the canon of antifeminism
in the vernacular tongue, becoming recognized experts on the subject. Particularly, Giovanni
Boccaccio’s last fiction Il Corbaccio is often considered book of unparalleled misogyny, given its
vicious vituperation of women, being imitated by latter antifeminist treatise such as Alfonso
Martínez de Toledo’s Arcipreste de Talavera or Corbacho (1438).

Medieval comic genres provide a very fertile literary ground for the development of antifeminist
topoi. It should be noted, however, that although misogyny is, as Bloch suggests, a peculiar way of
speaking about women, it cannot be merely seen as restricted to literature or textual
representation. As D. H. Green remarks, misogynistic reductive assumptions about women must be
considered beyond the speech, as a reflect of the inferior situation and negative treatment of
women in the male-dominated society of the Middle Ages, their widespread marginalization in
social and educational life, and their demoted position within the institution of marriage, which is
suggested by the overlapping between misogamy and misogyny especially in clerical circles.14
Furthermore, as will be discussed later in this introduction, literary tropes of misogyny play an
important role naturalizing violence to real women, while reinforcing the hierarchies and gender
norms within a patriarchal society.

Medieval antifeminism will be an unavoidable interlocutor throughout this study, as a crucial

constituent of the works and cultural milieus that we are here to discuss. Emphasis will be placed,
however, on a different form of dialogue articulated by Ruiz, Boccaccio and Chaucer with the
antifeminist discourse of their day. I suggest that these authors can be also distinguished by their
active and conscious engagement with misogynistic tropes, by appealing to them in a distinct way
that, far from being straightforward, reveals the many ambiguities and contradictions of misogyny
and misogynists. The relationship between literature and antifeminism grown complex and varied

14 See D. H. Green, Women and Marriage in German Medieval Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009),

75.

11
in some of the finest passages of the comic works that will concern us here, especially when this
relationship becomes the object of explicit poetic concern.

Insofar as the above-mentioned writers embark on this nuanced dialogue with the topoi of
antifeminism, depiction of giggling and female mockery becomes especially significant. The bulk of
this research is devoted to highlight a common attempt to elaborate on the topic of women laughing
at men for their own pleasure, not only with a view to endorse and reproduce the antifeminist satire,
but also to go beyond misogynistic stereotypes and generalizing statements applied to women.
Likewise, rather than an indistinct element within satirical portrayals of women, female laughter
was also exploited to invest female characters with a high degree of autonomy and agency. In the
works of Chaucer, Ruiz and Boccaccio women are often depicted as makers of humour; they not
only taunt, mock and trick men, but also often the poets themselves —or their authorial
projections— become the target of female's laughter. These three writers have in common a self-
conscious engagement with their literary works, often assuming an ironic pose towards their
authoritative function. Irony, self-deprecation, or misdirection are devices usually employed by
Chaucer when describing himself as a writer,15 a trait also found in the works of Boccaccio and Ruiz.
Likewise, the employment of an ironic, self-conscious and self-effacing authorial persona often
appears coupled with the attempt to rise above antifeminist satire. Whether through self-irony or
an ‘insider’ play with misogynistic and misogamistic discourses, these vernacular writers
humorously challenged the assumptions of medieval antifeminism.

Female laughter and mockery come in handy as part of the self-diminishing strategies usually
deployed by these writers to debase their own authorial presences in their texts. It occurs in Juan
Ruiz’ Libro de Buen Amor namely in the brief adventure of the "vieja rahez" (stanzas 945-949) where
a sexual intercourse between the Archpriest and an old procuress is hinted at. This passage shows
an Ovidian old woman mocking the author’s coital expertise as she judges his performance very
disappointing and far below the expectations that he himself had created in the previous episodes

15See Michael Foster, "Chaucer's narrators and audiences. Self-deprecating discourse in Book of the Duchess and House
of Fame,” in Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past, ed. Janne Skaffari et al. (Philadelphia, PA, and
Amsterdam, 2005), 199-214. By "self-deprecation" Foster understands (and so do I) "any rhetorical or stylistic feature
within a texts that serves to highlight the narrator —and by association, the author— as either comical or inferior figure.”
With regards to Chaucer’s use of this device in the Canterbury Tales, one may think of his own unimpressive role as
"Chaucer the pilgrim" and his abortive recounting of the Tale of Sir Thopas. The disastrous reception of his own story is
underscored by the Host who explodes "Namoore of this, for Goddes dignitee" and claims that his ears are aching listening
to that "drasty speche."

12
of the Libro. As will be explained bellow, the figure of the old woman go-between takes on great
importance for any attempt to ponder the subversive potential of female laughter and mockery in
late medieval comic works, insofar as she often becomes a troublesome character humorously
defying and spurning male authority.

The rhetoric of self-deprecation receives its most radical treatment by Boccaccio in what
paradoxically has been considered his major contribution to the anti-feminist discursive tradition:
the aforementioned Il Corbaccio, where the writer portrays himself as an unrequited, bitterly jilted
lover. Here female laughter is heard from a widow who contemptuously mocks the poet-lover as
she wantonly shares his love letter with her own preferred paramour and, not content with that,
spreads malicious gossip about him all over town. In a dream-vision of the afterlife, Boccaccio meets
a shade who turns out to be that of the widow’s cuckolded husband. The product of this oneiric
encounter is the extensive (and misogynistic) treatise we read, which the poet confesses he wrote
to chastise the scornful widow. However, “women hating” ends up providing the occasion and
discourse for Boccaccio to set a literary joke in which his own misogynous alter-ego and the summa
of commonplaces of medieval misogyny are equally caught.

While antifeminism is pervasive in medieval literature, it may also become a fertile ground for self-
irony and formal parody. Furthermore, the discourse of misogyny can also provide an extraordinary
occasion for the representation of women who fight back. In this regard, the Wife of Bath's prologue
Chaucer offers what is probably the most exemplary case of a medieval heroine mocking and
challenging the antifeminist discursive tradition as it appears condensed in her fifth husband’s
beloved "book of wikked wyves." In her speech, the Wife eloquently addresses the discursive
appropriation and oversimplification of women by the male authors included in such anthology of
antifeminist texts. Misogynous clichés and reductionist stereotypes of women take on a new tone
as they come out of her mouth, allowing us to appreciate that "historic real imbalance of possessory
power" between sexes, which, according to Bloch, is at the core of the discourse of misogyny.16

16According to Bloch, whether good or bad, laudatory or deprecatory, the reduction of Woman to a category implies in
our culture an appropriation that is not present when identical generalizing statements are applied to man or men, as a
consequence of the historic real imbalance of possessory power between sexes. See Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, 5.

13
Power imbalance between men and women results in the discursive distortion and the complete
disregard towards women-individuals in antifeminist literature, which is famously formulated by the
Wife in her lion-painting complaint (692: who peyntede the leon, tel me who?). Had a lion painted
it, the picture showing a man killing a lion would have been rather different. Chaucer, a male-writer,
formed by a literary culture infused with misogyny, is not attempting to correct such a distortion by
repainting the lion. Neither is he intending to speak on behalf of women or to explore the true
nature of female consciousness. In fact, the Wife is herself a character composed by the foremost
tropes antifeminist satire, which, as Mann remarks, does not imply Chaucer’s endorsement of it.
Quite the contrary, his literary game consists of imagining a woman-individual who is affected by
these stereotypes and proceeds to confront them, thus exposing the tension between the category
“Woman,” and a woman's concrete experience as a criterion of meaning.17 Through this conceit,
Chaucer could also anatomize the ingrained categories those "lion painters” employ to tame
women, making them both manageable and representable, by questioning the role and the
privileged status of male writers as source of authoritative knowledge about women. Just as Juan
Ruiz's Trotaconventos and Boccaccio's cruel widow, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath carries out her
demolition work with much laughter in her throat. This laughter does not echo misogynistic clichés,
nor expresses the male fear of being mocked (and symbolically debased) by that pure evil “Women.”
As will be seen below, considering these writer’s intertextual debt to Ovidian humour, one cannot
wonder that they did not shrink from partaking of such a paradoxical bliss.

The many faces of the medieval Ovid

The approach adopted for this research allows us to reassess the bonds between medieval comic
literature and misogynistic discourses, on the premise that those bonds were not relentless or
unproblematic. As mentioned above, the bulk of this research is intended to explore the extent to
which Chaucer, Ruiz and Boccaccio exploited the possibilities of female laughter and mockery to
grant their heroines with a degree of subjectivity and agency, either complicating, disrupting or
parodying male authority and misogynistic commonplaces. It should be noted, however, that even
though similarities between these writers might significant enough to justify comparison, their
literary commonality founded upon their shared uses of female laughter and mockery cannot be

17 Mann, Feminizing Chaucer, 67.

14
adequately explained by simply relying on (sometimes rather hypothetical) reciprocal influences
from one to another. Such coincidences, I suggest, are best understood as a mark of these writer's
common Ovidian ancestry. Ovid himself would surely have recognized the joyful playfulness of these
medieval authors, appreciating both the literary game they were playing, and the comic effects
achieved by depicting women laughing at men. Either case, in order to understand the creative
imitation, appropriation, and reception of Ovid tropes in fourteenth-century vernacular comic
literature, we need to dwell briefly on the wider context of medieval Ovidianism.

While in the early centuries of the Middle Ages Ovid's works were not widely disseminated, the
situation changed dramatically from the twelfth century forward. Ovid's meteoric rise to popularity,
betokened by a vast multiplication of manuscripts, as well as by a plethora of citations and echoes
in contemporary literature, was so startling that the twelfth and thirteenth centuries has been often
dubbed the aetas Ovidiana or "the golden age of Ovid." Medieval Ovidianism, a product of the
resurgence of Ovid, became a pervasive and multifaceted intertextual force shaping a “rich and
complex network of readings, claims, counter-appropriations, repudiations and retractions in which
Ovid's works never ceased to thrive.”18 The Metamorphoses, the Ars amatoria, the Remedia amoris,
the Heroides, and to a lesser degree the Amores (often known as the Liber sine titulo),19 circulated
broadly in medieval Europe capturing Latin and vernacular literary cultures, extending their force
through pedagogical, learned, courtly, and popular forms. As Jamie C. Fumo comments, scholastic
reading of Ovid and his entrance to medieval schoolroom reveal with particular clarity the complex
assimilation of a corpus of ancient texts into a new cultural setting. Far from being a neutral or
purely mechanical enterprise, the reception of Ovid was a challenging labour of adaptation and
appropriation of texts that were perplexing to medieval Christian audiences both in letter and
spirit.20

Ovid became one of the main classic authors studied in schools and universities of the later Middle
Ages. In this context, efforts were made to canonize his poetry by directing it to the ethical concerns
of a medieval Christian. However, Ovid’s reputation as an expert on sex and seduction, due to his
self-created image in Amores but especially in Ars amatoria, represented a particularly difficult

18 Jeremy Dimmick, "Ovid in the Middle Ages: Authority and Poetry," in The Cambridge Companion to Ovid, ed. Philip

Hardie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 286.

19 John M. Fyler, “The Medieval Ovid.” In A Companion to Ovid, ed. Peter Knox (London: Blackwell, 2009), 411.
20 Jamie C. Fumo, “Commentary and Collaboration in the Medieval Allegorical Tradition,” in A Handbook to the Reception

of Ovid, ed. John F. Miller and Carole E. Newlands (Maiden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell,. 2014), 114.

15
challenge. Their potential damage was limited, as Alistair Minnis explains, through the construction
of a vita Ovidii which features regularly in the accessus or academic prologues framing Ovid’s works
in many manuscripts. According to Ovid’s fanciful life-narrative, being relegated in Tomis by the
Emperor Augustus on account of his scurrilous verses, the poet repented of his love poetry and
produced other texts (particularly Remedia amoris) which asserted his change of heart.21 It should
be noted that the creation of this medieval Ovid, on the basis of the rather salacious pagan poet,
demanded both an extensive moral recalibration of his works and an the creation of an structure to
resolve contradictions between them: a stunning transformation for the poet of transformation
himself.22 Accordingly, in order to rationalize and justify the place of Ars amatoria in the medieval
canon, Ovid's banishment was figured as the price he had to pay for the sinful lifestyle he taught
and encouraged. Then, since the poem exposes the offence of which Ovid was allegedly repentant
about, the Remedia amoris is transformed into a genuine retraction of the Ars amatoria. Ovid's love-
poetry could thus be described as ‘pertaining to ethics’ (ethice subponitur), because the poet
teaches good morality and seeks to eradicate evil behaviour.

Although Ovid' Ars amatoria (and its companion piece, Remedia amoris) can be rightly described as
a mock instructional poem,23 it circulated in medieval France and England being widely regarded as
a serious treatise on desire and sexuality. As Marilynn Desmond remarks, "Ovid's praeceptor
ironically elaborates on the mechanics of seduction and intercourse in order to parody Augustus's
marriage legislation, [however] the excessive detail and overblown rhetoric that made the Ars ironic
in its original Roman context made it pedagogically efficacious within the discourses of the twelfth
century church."24 In the medieval schoolroom, Ovid's love poetry was used as a guide for learning
grammar, rhetoric, style, and was especially valued due to its attractiveness for grabbing students’
attention and giving them a strong motivation to learn from it. Of course, the didactic rhetoric on

21 Alastair Minnis, Fallible Authors: Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of Bath (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2013), 6-7.
22 Fumo, “Commentary and Collaboration,”114.
23
Beard, Laughter, 157.
24 Marilynn Desmond, Ovid's Art and the Wife of Bath. The Ethics of Erotic Violence (New York: Ithaca, 2006), 52. For

medieval reception of Ovid’s erotodidactic poems see also Marilynn Desmond, “Venus's Clerk: Ovid's Amatory Poetry in
the Middle Ages,” in A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid, ed. John Miller and Carole E. Newlands (New York: John Wiley
& Sons, 2014). According to Desmond, the reception of Ovid’s amatory texts in vernacular textual cultures generally
focuses on the implications of amor as a cultural ideal. Desmond also argues that "Ovidian eroticism was critical to the
formation of poetic subjectivities, particularly feminine subjectivities, in medieval vernaculars.” As Carole Newlands has
explained, medieval reception of Ovid influenced the appearance of female writers such as Christine de Pizan (1364-
c.1430), who engaged polemically with the Augustan poet throughout her work. See Carole E. Newlands, Ovid (London
and New York: Tauris, 2015), 150.

16
sexual desire did not go unnoticed. However, Ars amatoria's message, resignified and relocated in
the moral sphere, became highly suitable to the purposes of the homosocial culture developing in
educational institutions. Such a culture, Desmond asserts, was "designed to prepare students for
lives of clerical celibacy in which they would have been expected to uphold heterosexual ideals but
not to participate in marital sexuality and to simultaneously shun same-sex desire."25

However paradoxical it may seem, in medieval imagination Ovidius praeceptor amoris becomes
Ovidius ethicus —or even Ovidius christianus, as we shall see below. Rather than instructing them
on how to seduce women, the medieval Ovid should infuse antimatrimonial and antierotic ideas
among schoolboys and scholars. Ovid's erotodidactic poems serve the objective of dissuading its
audience to associate with women, thus meeting the purposes of medieval misogynistic and
misogamistic literature. Simultaneously, however, Ovid’ love poetry played an important role in
shaping masculinity within the all-male academic environment due precisely to its lavish sexual
imagery. In this respect, Ovidian notion that sexual violence is permissible in the gambit of seducing
women became especially relevant to a young, clerical, and male audience. Marjorie Curry Woods
has cogently highlighted the importance and function of passages describing rape in classical works
which were widely used as material to teach Latin to medieval boys. These texts, Ars amatoria
featuring prominently among them, provide students with "a cornucopia of adolescent male
fantasies." The rhetoric of sexual violence is thus closely associated with the development and
assertion of aggressive masculinity, and with the fostering of myths like "rape is seduction gone
wrong" and "women secretly want to be raped," which, according to Carissa Harris, can be seen as
the sturdy pillars upholding medieval rape culture.

While antifeminism is a hallmark of the scholastic appropriation of Ovid, it should be stressed that
the medieval afterlife of this Augustan poet cannot be taken as monolithic. As rightly pointed out
by Fumo, although the different faces of Ovid were harmonized by academic interpretation, the
unreformed lover and the remorseful ethical instructor were frequently played off against one
another in the literary sphere. As literary evidence of the incorrigible plurality of the medieval Ovid,
Fumo alludes to Chaucer’s Wife of Bath confronting Jankyn's book, which, as already stated,
included "Ovides Art." The Wife is certainly an Ovidian creature criticizing the misogyny of Ars

25 Marilynn Desmond, Ovid's Art, 52.

17
amatoria, while drawing her feminine experiential authority on the third book of that same text.26
Here Chaucer is not elaborating upon Ovidian material as it were the expression of an authoritative,
monolithic, unilaterally serious, unified voice, but playfully recognizing the multiple “Ovids”
available in his day. Such an awareness, I believe, may be linked to the “pervasive Ovidianism" that
John M. Fyler observes in Chaucer and other thirteenth and fourteenth-century poets,27 meaning
by this “an attentiveness not only to the literal surface of Ovid's poetry but to his characteristic wit
and ironic tone, to his manner as well as his matter."

Along with Chaucer, I herein suggest that Boccaccio and Ruiz can be regarded as poets that display
a pervasive Ovidianism, paying particular attention to the humour, hybridity, and polysemy of their
Ovidian material. What has been previously called the rhetoric of self-deprecation present in these
vernacular writers is a hallmark of Ovid's self-reflexivity. By self-reflexivity it is meant those aesthetic
manoeuvres by which the poet foregrounds his text’s production, authorship, and intertextual
linkages, either by referring to the very act of writing, displaying self-consciousness in regard to
genres and tropes, showing an ironic attitude towards himself and his creation, either by stressing
the sheer delight in artistry and artifice or critically stripping the artistic setup and disclosing the
flaws of his work.28

The above is especially evidenced in Amores, where the poet’s anticipation of critics and the
consequent injury of his own works (as if not worthy of acknowledgment) appear in form of certain
specific tropes, such as the figure of modesty and the recusation or polite refusal of writing elevated
epic verse, often based on claims of insufficient talent.29 Nevertheless, Ovid pushes such tropes to
an extreme by presenting himself as a failure, either as a poet or as a lover. In Am. 3.7, for instance,
Ovid the lover is depicted as a physical failure, while in Am. 3.8 Ovid's love poetry is appreciated by

26 For the Wife’s and la Vielle’s dialogue with Ars amatoria 3 see Desmond, Ovid's Art, 116–43.
27 Dante Jean de Maun
28 Linda Hutcheon describes self-reflexivity, parody and metafiction in literature as elements that call attention to

knowledge as human constructs. See Linda Hutcheon. A Theory of Parody: the Teachings of Twentieth-Century Art Forms.
University of Illinois Press, 2000.
29 Critics often mentions Ovid's innovative use of the “Callimachean” recusation in Amores. Particularly, in the opening

sequence of Amores 1.1, where Love leads Ovid away from the battlefield to write about the bedroom, Ovid wittingly
rejects the traditional Callimachean recusatio in which the lyric poet humbly admits his inability to write an epic, but
instead claims that before beginning to write elegy, he is already an epic writer, blurring opposition of war and love that
extends to elegy's opposition to epic. Hunter H. Gardner studies the relation of the recusatio to the poem as a whole, by
arguing that Ovid's use of this device is a hallmark of the amator's development, or failure to do so, throughout the
narrative of poetic attempts and failures shaping the plot of all three books of Amores. See Hunter H. Gardner, Gendering
Time in Augustan Love Elegy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 115.

18
a woman who nevertheless does not appreciate Ovid himself. More importantly for our topic, in
Am. 1.8 literary criticism is carried out by the witch/lena Dipsas, who is depicted mocking Ovid the
poet-lover and devaluing poetry altogether. Here Homer is used as a foil for the real "genius," the
openhanded lover, as Dipsas instructs Ovid's mistress to go for the money and shun poets because
they are poor (Am. 1.8.61-2: qui dabit, ille tibi magno sit maior Homero; / crede mihi, res est
ingeniosa dare).30 In the thirteenth century, La Vieille of Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose31 repeats
Dipsas’ advice, Ovid himself being added along with Homer as an example of the worthlessness of
literary art:
D'amer povre home ne li chailleu
Qu'il n'est riens que povre hom vaille;
Se c'ert Ovides ou Omers,
Ne vaudroit il pas. ij. gomers (13621-24)

[She should not trouble herself to love a poor man, for a poor man is good for nothing: were
he Ovid or Homer, he would still be worth less than a couple of drinks]32

Chaucer, Ruiz and Boccaccio also emulated Ovid’s strategy in Amores 1.8 by engaging in self-
deprecatory games. Female literary criticism, accompanied by mocking grimace at male authority
and artistry, reappears with particular intensity in Chaucer's Wife of Bath's Prologue and in
Boccaccio's Il Corbaccio. Regarding this latter work, critics such as Anthony Castells and Robert
Hollander have likewise pointed out Boccaccio's parodic appropriation of Ovid’s Remedia amoris.
Boccaccio conceived his misogynistic treatise as an Ovidian retractio, filled with atrabilious humour,
on the understanding that the reason for composition of Ovid’s original repentance of his Ars
amatoria was parodic.33 In this respect, Boccaccio goes against the grain of the scholastic
conventions for the reassessment and acclimatization of Ovid's oeuvre, putting the parodic intent
before the ethical narrative of remorse and conversion. Similarly, Ruiz’s Libro humorously stresses
the ambivalence of the medieval Ovid, often confounding the moral philosopher and the lecherous

30 Oliensis, Ellen. Loving Writing/Ovid's Amores (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 91.
31 French citations from the Roman de la Rose are taken from Armand Strubel, ed. Guillaume de Lorris et Jean de Meun:
Le Roman de la Rose (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1992). English translation of this text are drawn from Frances
Horgan, The Romance of the Rose (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).
32 Horgan, 210.
33 See Robert Hollander, Boccaccio's Last Fiction: Il "Corbaccio" (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 2. It

is also possible to find traces of this Ovidian ironic remorse in Chaucer’s works, for instance, in his retractation included in
The Canterbury Tales.

19
praeceptor amoris. A fine example of this procedure is found in the prose prologue of the Libro
which, as Minnis cogently argues, can be read as an unorthodox version of an Ovidian accessus.34
Ruiz claims that his intention is to guide every person back to the true memory of doing good (a
memoria de bien obrar), thus shunning foolish worldly love. Although the ethical teaching seemingly
has the last word in this vernacular accessus, the poet strikingly counterbalances this edifying
message by asserting that his book can be also read as a guide to learn and have a taste of worldly
love (si algunos... quisieren usar del loco amor, aquí fallaran algunas maneras para ello). Thus, as
Minnis sums up, it is difficult if not impossible to find any "last word" in Ruiz's prologue, nor in the
Libro as a whole, as it resolutely resists closure. Furthermore, such a resistance recurs "in the best
traditions of Medieval Ovidianism."

All these examples convey the distinctiveness of Ovid's appropriation by Chaucer, Ruiz and
Boccaccio, which will be further examine in the different chapters included in this study. The
Ovidianism of these vernacular writers diverges from the medieval scholarly reception of Ovid. The
latter often relies on a strict pattern to unify Ovid's works, thus eradicating their many
contradictions, both inner and in relation to each other, with a view to achieve an uncomplicated
closure. By contrast, Chaucer, Ruiz and Boccaccio show no interest in pinning down the poet's voice,
but artistically exploit his ambivalence and contradiction as potentially generative and productive.35

It should be noted, however, that the Ovidianism of these vernacular writers was not only facilitated
by their acute reading of Ovid’s originals. Ruiz, Chaucer and Boccaccio not always (nor only) accessed
Ovid’s Latin texts directly, but often made use of some translations, commentaries, and other
surrogates for the Ovidian original. In other words, they not only were confronted with multiple
“Ovids,” but also were exposed to a vast diversity of Ovidian textualizations available at their time.36

34 Alastair Minnis. Magister Amoris: The Roman de la Rose and Vernacular Hermeneutics (Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2001), 69-71.
35 It should be noted, however, that, as Warren Ginsberg argues, Ovid’s characteristic irony somewhat anticipates the

ethical interventions of medieval commentators by embedding a “countervoice” within the text itself. See Warren
Ginsberg, “Ovidius ethicus? Ovid and the Medieval Commentary Tradition,” in Desiring Discourse: The Literature of Love,
Ovid through Chaucer, ed. J.J. Paxson and C.A. Gravlee (Selinsgrove, PA and London: Susquehanna University Press, 1998),
67. As Fumo comments, Ovid’s own self-reflexiveness may be seen initiating "a process of critical reflection capable of
assimilating even alien forms of commentary within a continuum of exegesis, thus inverting the power dynamics by which
medieval commentators would seem to “master” the master. See Fumo, “Commentary and Collaboration,” 118. Rita
Copeland also argues in this vein when stressing the productive character of scholarly commentaries as they continually
refashion the text for changing conditions of understanding. See Rita Copeland, Rhetoric, Hermeneutics, and Translation
in the Middle Ages: Academic Traditions and Vernacular Texts. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 64.
36 Fumo, “Commentary and Collaboration,” 115.

20
In this regard, scholars suggest that Ruiz may have gained his knowledge on Ovidian texts through
glosses, commentaries, the culling of extracts or "flowers" that are known as florilegia and the
imitative Ovidian works.37 Likewise, Boccaccio's and Chaucer's reworkings of Ovidian tropes have
been often recognized as following other vernacular writers who were themselves steeped in the
Ovidian tradition, such as Jean de Meun and Dante, as well as vernacular adaptations and
translations of Ovid, especially the medieval French traditions of the Ovide Moralisé.38 The latter is
an early fourteenth-century poetic amplification and Christian allegorical commentary on Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, rendered in manuscripts often combining textual and visual component through
extensive illustrations. Accordingly, visual engagement with the Ovidian material has to be
considered in regard to the manuscript tradition accessed by Chaucer, Boccaccio and Ruiz. As shall
be seen in the last chapter of this dissertation, Boccaccio's parodic use of hell's mouth imagery in Il
Corbaccio can be of great help for illustrating the extent to which Ovidian tropes may appear
intertwined with the rich tradition of illuminating or pictorial allegory.

Imitation, emulation, intertextuality, allusions, references, translation, rewriting, adaptation and

appropriation from Ovid are a major lifeblood fuelling medieval literatures. Among these intense
intertextual dialogues, this study pays particular attention to certain products of what Richard
Burkard calls a “classroom industry" of Ovidian verse imitations —or modernizing appropriations of
Ovid's style and themes written in Latin—, given their particular relevance for the depiction of
disruptive laughing women in our vernacular poets. Imitative Ovidiana, also linked to the medieval
schoolroom, runs the gamut from school exercises with little aesthetic value to a range of complex
works, including a literary genre such as the Latin comediae, as well as an important body of pseudo-
Ovidian poetry. Much of the playfulness and humorous qualities found later in Ovid’s vernacular
appropriations were already present in the tradition of Ovidian creative imitation in Latin verses.

37 According to Edwin J. Webber, Ruiz's first-hand knowledge of Ovid's works is debatable, suggesting instead that he may
have drawn on the Disticha Catonis, the moral distichs of Cato, a popular elementary Latin reader of the Middle Ages. See
Edwin J. Webber, “Juan Ruiz and Ovid,” Romance Notes 2 (1960): 56. Similarly, Richard Burkard argues that Ovid’s originals
had very little influence on Ruiz’s poem and he most likely made use of pieces of imitative Ovidian literature. If the
Archpriest drew upon authentic Ovidian poetry for the Libro, “he has allowed that borrowing to be swamped by borrowing
from imitative works.” See Richard Burkhard, The Archpriest of Hita and the Imitators of Ovid: A Study in the Ovidian
Background of the Libro de buen amor (Newark, DE: Juan de la Cuesta, 1999), 43; See also Michelle Hamilton,
“Transformation and Desire: The Go-Between in Medieval Iberian Literature.” (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of
California, Berkeley, 2001), 264.
38 For Chaucer's use of Ovide moralisé see John M. Fyler, “The Medieval Ovid,” 416. For Boccaccio's see Steven M.

Grossvogel, “A Fable of the World's Creation and Phaeton's Fall (Allegoria mitologica),” in Boccaccio: a critical guide to the
complete works, ed. Victoria Kirkham, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Levarie Smarr (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 2013), 64.

21
Such a tradition gave rise to sophisticated pieces which became highly influential in the European
late medieval intellectual world. Any attempt to explore the peculiar appropriation of these Ovidian
tropes by fourteenth-century vernacular comic writers must consider their previous passage
through the sieve of Ovidian Latin traditions established in the clerical schools.

The thirteenth-century De vetula especially stands out for its creative manipulation of the regular
plot of Ovid's medieval imaginary life. Presented itself as “the last will and testament” of Ovid found
on his tomb near the Black Sea, De vetula is an apocryphal mock-autobiographical poem, though it
was long considered an authentic Ovidian work. It features a first-person narrator who introduces
himself as Ovid and recounts his life from exile, thus narrating his youthful erotomania, his failure
in love and later remorse. De vetula's plot follows the pattern traced by medieval Ovid's life-
narratives, by narrating the shift from the art of love to its rejection with the significant addition of
the poet’s later conversion to Christianity. Whereas the historical Ovid had mentioned a poem and
a mistake (Tr. 2.207 carmen et error) as the two charges which led to his fate as a political exile, the
fictional Ovid of this pseudo autobiography declares that his fate, along with his change of heart,
was triggered by the trickery of an old procuress, the vetula who gives her name to the poem.

The Ovidian Old Woman has an indisputable ancestry over the medieval figure of the old bawd, who
often appears intermingled with the medieval go-between for lust and sexual conquest. It must be
stressed that her rebirth to a medieval afterlife took place within the "classroom industry," where
Ovid's epigones produced verses modelled on those of the master. In fact, the Old Woman's first
noteworthy appearance playing the role of a go-between occurs in the anonymous twelfth-century
Latin comedy, Pamphilus de amore. This figure will have a prominent presence in this research since
it is arguably the Ovidian character that best embodies the subversive potential of female laughter
and mockery in late medieval comic literature.

Much has been written about the importance of the above mentioned Dipsas for the medieval
depiction of the old bawds such as Ruiz’s Trotaconventos and Chaucer’s Wife of Bath —
unsurprisingly, given that she is the obvious source for La Vielle in Le Roman de la Rose. While Dipsas
and her famous “hetaira catechism” are always worth consideration, I have sought to expand the
view on the lena of Amores as the ultimate prototype of the medieval old woman or vetula,
especially concerning her role as a go-between, with an especial focus on the above-mentioned

22
Ovidian Latin works. One of the most important arguments I put forward in this study is that this
somewhat ubiquitous medieval character is strongly indebted to Ovid's farcical narrative appearing
in his Fasti 3.675-696, where the elderly goddess Anna Perenna fulfils the role of a go-between.
Unveiling the unacknowledged presence of this passage of Fasti in late medieval comic literature
becomes especially significant for a better understanding of Ovidian figures such as the tricky
procuress and the laughing beloved. Exploring Anna's classical model and its adaptations in both
Latin and vernacular medieval literatures can also be of great help in outlining an Ovidian tradition
of female laughter and mockery, which also brings us back to a notion of literary giggling such as
that suggested by Beard. However, a tradition of subversive female laughter connecting Ovid with
his medieval afterlives, especially with Chaucer, Ruiz and Boccaccio, needs to be further clarified.
The next introductory sections expose the theoretical underpinnings for gauging the subversive
potential of the literary images that will concern us here.

Rape culture and female laughter

As previously mentioned, medieval literature has often been considered, as a whole, hostile to
women. Particularly, the subject of humour in late medieval comic narratives has been critically
approached mostly in terms of misogynistic male humour.39 While acknowledging that literary
heroines may, at times, enjoy joking at men’s expense, a recurrent scholarly perception is that
medieval comic literature women are more often victims of laughter. According to Lisa Perfetti, for
instance, though there are a handful of exceptions, women appear chiefly as targets, regularly
depicted as “the objects of the exchange between men who laugh at their expense,” in accordance
with a model in which women are excluded from “men's bonding laughter.”40 In this study, as

39 Something similar happens when it comes to classical comic literature. For instance, regarding Plautine Roman comedy
and its reception, Dorota Dutsch observes that these plays used to be more interested in women as objects rather than
subjects, “objects of laughter whose words and actions echo the male subject’s mistrust, contempt and even astonishment
towards women.” Dutsch also identifies a strong tendency to the immoderation that defines the ancient comedic feminine
behaviour, a trait usually represented “as intrinsic to the feminine nature,” and that is "the leitmotif of most of the
humorous comments on women." See Dorota Dutsch, Feminine Discourse in Roman Comedy: On Echoes and Voices
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 46, 151.
40 Lisa Perfetti, “Men's Theories, Women's Laughter: The Thousand and One Nights and Women's Comic Pleasures in

Medieval Literature.” Exemplaria 10 (1998), 211. Perfetti bases part of her analysis on Freud's theoretical model of humour
posed in his study Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, especially his notion of women as victims of sexual violence,
under the guise of smutty jokes. Perfetti also observes that Freud figures women as passive victims of jokes between men:
"According to Freud's model, a man whose sexual desire for a woman is thwarted (either because of her refusal or because
of some other obstacle), tells a joke to another man in order to channel his unfulfilled desire into a different kind of
pleasure, the pleasure of comic production... In this paradigm, the woman has no place except as the comic butt of the
exchange between the two men who laugh at her expenses." Perfetti, 208-209.

23
already noted, I am mostly concerned with determine the subversive surplus of female agency in
male-authored works depicting female laughter and mockery. Nevertheless, with a view to
achieving this goal, the question about the extent to which medieval comic narratives are
representative of “male” humour should be brought to the fore, as part of our understanding of the
topic at hand.

Assuming that humour and laughter are gendered, these medieval comic narratives are often
described as telling us more about masculine desires and insecurities than about what a woman
could have ever found amusing or pleasant; in the same vein, the type of humour associated with
these works would reflect (and shape) certain patterns of behaviour and thought in male
homosocial groups, especially in regard to women. Several stories included in Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales, among them The Miller's Tale mentioned earlier in this Introduction, have been read through
this lens. As shall be seen, while theoretically well-founded, these critical approaches leave little
room for more nuanced interpretations regarding the humour imparted by these medieval comic
narratives.

It is worth mentioning that Chaucer borrowed freely from the fabliau genre for several of his
Canterbury Tales, most notably those told by the Miller, Reeve and Cook. The fabliaux are short
stories, often in the vernacular, whose plots usually revolve around sexual slapstick, trickery, and
adultery. These stories are likewise known by displaying sexual and physical violence and regularly
feature misogynistic portrayals of female characters, as well as stereotypical gender battles.
Although women are frequently the winners of fabliaux's skirmishes, the genre's dominant value
system tends to conform to masculine ideals of forcefulness, aggression, and sexual prowess.

The thirteenth-century French fabliau De Berangier au lonc cul, which has been long recognized as
an analogue of The Miller's Tale, is noteworthy in this respect.41 A rich usurer (usurier riche et
conblé) manages to get the knighthood by marrying the daughter of an impoverished nobleman.
However, it does not take the wife long to start complaining that her idle husband does not behave
as a real knight. To calm her down, the husband rides out into the forest, where he slams his sword,
shield, and armour against a tree just to pretend he has fought against powerful rivals. Hoping to
impress his young wife, he comes back home carrying epic stories of great battles he allegedly won.

41
Nathaniel Dubin, trans., “De Berangier au lonc cul,” in The Fabliaux (New York, 2013), 213-28.

24
However, the truth is rapidly found out by the wary wife who decides to take vengeance on her
cowardly spouse. To that end, she disguises as a knight and calls herself Berangier au long cul
[Berangier of the long ass], an anatomical epithet that suits well the burlesque nature of her quest.
Berangier challenges her husband and gives him an ultimatum: he may joust (jostez) and surely die,
or he may kiss her ass (vos me venroiz el cul baisier). Out of cowardice, rather than fight his disguised
wife back, the husband agrees to kneel and kiss her bottom.

This tale bears a significant resemblance to Chaucer's Miller’s Tale, particularly because it also stages
a hilarious scene concerning the lower stratum of the female body.42 However, while it seems
apparent that in both the Miller's and Berangier’s narratives scatology does its business by turning
bodies upside-down, in the latter the problematic kiss is used explicitly to humiliate a low-born
character.43 This punishment occurs by means of an aristocratic woman dishonouring a peasant
husband, as she considers him an unqualified man; through the cross-dressing device, the tale
makes it clear that the husband simply cannot be a better man than his wife is. It does not seem by
chance that the unworthy social climber is severely chastised for not fitting to “proper” male gender
performance. In fact, women's power and unruliness in the fabliaux can often be explained in terms
of the reinforcement of existing social orders and power structures. This would also explain the high
level of identification of male authors and audiences towards this kind of “female” subversion. To
some extent, the fabliau’s literary transvestism and the motif of the women on top can be
interpreted as strategies to prove the rule of male superiority. From this view, the shameful kiss
would represent not so much the husband’s submission to his wife as the subordination of this
nouveau riche to his (male) superiors. 44

Similarly, Alisoun's agency as a jester in The Miller's Tale may be interpreted as reinforcing male
hierarchy within the patriarchal order, and therefore not as necessarily transgressive of the
sex/gender system, nor subverting the inherent masculinism of comic literature.45 Absolon, of

42 Laura Kendrick suggests that, in this fabliau, as in Chaucer's Miller's Tale, the kiss placed on a lower orifice, instead of

on the mouth, puts woman "on top" in a grotesque parody of the ceremony of vassalage. See Laura Kendrick, Chaucerian
Play: Comedy and Control in the Canterbury Tales (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 188n10.
43 For this argument see Frederick Biggs, Chaucer’s Decameron and the Origin of the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge: D.S.

Brewer, 2017), 155.

44 For this approach to the fabliaux see Meagan Evans, “You’re Putting Me On: The Old French Fabliaux as Carnival Cross-

Dressing.” New Medieval Literatures 12 (2010), 69-88.

45 I draw on Gayle Rubin's definition of sex/gender system as "a set of arrangements by which a society transform biological

sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transforms biological sexuality into products of human
activity , and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied." Gayle Rubin, "The Traffic in Women," in Toward an
Anthropology of Women, ed. Rayna R. Reiter (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1975): 159. I likewise recognize that, as

25
course, is the target of Alisoun’s joke. He is being laughed at by the girl. From early in the tale,
however, his portrayal has been carefully devised to stress the fact that he is an ineffectual lover
and thereby an ineffectual man. To that end, the parish clerk is depicted as an affected, braggart,
lovelorn, overly fastidious man, overflowing with a mawkish sentimentality. Moreover, as Stephanie
Trigg has observed, Absolon’s astonishment at the hairiness of Alisoun's lips, and his ensuing shock
and helplessness at his discoveries about female anatomy, make him look as a beaten, weeping
child.46 It should also be noted that Absolon's traumatic experience also brings up the misogynistic
representations of female body as abject. His disgust and fear with regard to Alisoun's "hole," blurry
presented as a sort of conflation of her vagina and anus, echo grotesque figurations of female sexual
organs by medieval antifeminism. Female bodily lower stratum was frequently deemed as
dangerous, polluting, and emasculating, to the extent to be linked to the gate of disorder or the gate
of hell in both medieval writing and imagery, as shall be discussed further on in this study.

It is also worth noting that neither Alisoun’s joke nor her behaviour is censured by the storyteller.
While the denouement of the story shows Alisoun cheerfully unscathed, getting away with adultery
and escaping from Absolon’s vengeance, all men in The Miller's Tale come to a bad end. Nicholas is
scalded in the “towte” (3812). John, the cuckolded carpenter, ends up with a broken arm and
deemed a madman by his neighbours. Further, as a sudden and contagious flood of laughter,
Alisoun’s “tehee” seems to spread festively over the neighbourhood — "every wight gan laughen at
this stryf" (3849)— to eventually infect Chaucer’s pilgrims themselves, who "laughen at this nyce
cas" (3855). However, the Miller's final words come to spoil Alisoun's fun, since he crudely concludes
his tale by saying that “thus swyved was this carpenteris wyf” (3850). Critics such as Carissa Harris
and Anne Laskaya have drawn attention to the fact that Alisoun is here portrayed as sexually and
grammatically passive.47 This ending certainly prevents us from fully endorsing Carter’s assertion

Simon Gaunt remarks, the representation of gendered individuals within cultural artefacts like literary texts need not
reflect accurately the situation of gendered individuals within historical sex/gender systems; on the contrary such
representations may distort social structures to justify and explain differences and hierarchies that are the product of
culture rather of biological differences. In other words, gender distinctions are both subject to and produced by discourse.
Simon Gaunt, Gender and Genre in Medieval French Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 15.
46 Stephanie Trigg, “Weeping like a Beaten Child: Figurative Language and the Emotions in Chaucer and Malory," in

Medieval Affect, Feeling and Emotion, ed. H. Crocker and G. Burger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 29.
47 Carissa Harris, Obscene Pedagogies: Transgressive Talk and Sexual Education in Late Medieval Britain (Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press, 2018), 45. Similarly, Anne Laskaya remarks that the end of the story shows Alisoun as the "the sexual
object" of men who are blind towards women. She also quotes Johan Huizinga's statement that "all conventions of love
are the work of men: even when it dons an idealistic guide, erotic culture is altogether saturated with male egotism."
Similar egotism, continues Laskaya, reveals itself in the Miller's Tale, but not without ironic exposure. Anne Laskaya, “Men
in Love and Competition: The Miller's Tale and the Merchant's Tale,” Chaucer's Approach to Gender in the Canterbury
Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), 91-92

26
that Alisoun "managed to get herself fucked by the man of her choice, to her own satisfaction,"48
while eloquently disclosing the misogyny at work in Chaucer's tale, according to which Alisoun is
merely an object to be “swyved” by men.

The pilgrims' reaction to The Miller's Tale provides valuable clues as to what a medieval audience
might have found amusing. In fact, the frame-tale structure, found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
but also present in Boccaccio’s Decameron and Ruiz’ Libro de buen amor, provides an interpretative
context to evaluate literary humour in its relationships with extratextual audiences. Framing
narratives serve to connect the diegetic audience, inscribed within the work, with our authors'
imagined extradiegetic audience, the reader or auditor outside the narrative world, thus giving us
significant leads about the effect sought to be produced on them. In this respect, it should be noted
that Chaucer and Boccaccio were particularly detailed in depicting an audience in the act of
appreciating humour, through the employment of a frame situation in which various narrators tell
tales to each other. Furthermore, the fact that their fictional recipients conform a medieval mixed-
sex audience represents an advantage when approaching the subject of female laughter.49

There are three women among the tale-tellers pilgrims of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales: the Wife of
Bath, the Prioress, and the Second Nun. While we are told that the pilgrims enjoyed themselves and
laughed at the tale told by the Miller, we do not have a clear reference regarding the reaction of the
three female pilgrims. On the contrary, the narrator significantly emphasizes the fact that there
were no men aggrieved by this tale (3859: Ne at this tale I saugh no man hym greve). Only Oswald
the Reeve, who is a carpenter by trade, is offended since he interprets the tale about the cuckolded
carpenter as a personal attack on him. Apparently, the Reeve is worried about being identified with
Alisoun’s husband and, thus, becoming the target of the group's laughter. The stubborn resistance
of the Reeve to make himself a laughingstock to other men may be more clearly reflecting a
medieval male audience’s response to The Canterbury Tales’ humour.

48Carter herself notices that the use of the passive mood is “striking.” See Carter, “Alison’s Giggle," 63.
49For a detailed discussion on the extent to which some Chaucer’s works were intended for an actual female audience
see Florence Percival, Chaucer's Legendary Good Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Alfred Thomas,
Reading Women in Late Medieval Europe: Anne of Bohemia and Chaucer's Female Audience (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2015). Also see Amy Vines, Women's Power in Late Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2011),
especially the first chapter, “Prophecy as Social Influence: Cassandra, Anne Neville and the Corpus Christi Manuscript of
Troilus and Criseyde” where Vines examines the ways in which the famous fifteenth-century manuscript of Chaucer's
Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 61) predisposed a specific female reading. The manuscript,
belonging to Anna Neville, incudes a frontispiece illumination of a man, possibly Chaucer, offering a recitation to a noble
audience of both men and women.

27
According to Carissa Harris, male-male competition is one of the most important lessons a male
audience might have learned from The Miller’s Tale.50 Focusing on the pedagogical implications of
medieval ribald narratives, Harris delineates with particular clarity the misogynistic lessons taught
by Chaucer’s fabliau-like tales, especially their role in shaping and enforcing what she calls a “felawe
masculinity.” This brand of masculinity is generated through peer-to-peer cultural education typical
of "deeply hierarchical, masculine, and homosocial” environments.51 Men build a sense of
communal identity by exchanging obscenity and bawdy jokes, thus teaching each other sexual
mores, gender norms and the prevailing patriarchal culture. The male pilgrims’ debate and
storytelling reflect this cultural literacy on gender and sexuality which, as Harris argues, includes the
internalization and normalization of a rape culture which permeated medieval period and extends
to the present day. It is worth dwelling upon this idea, since Ovidian medieval tradition is especially
tainted with sexual violence.

Harris defines rape culture as "the social, cultural, and structural discourses and practices in which
sexual violence is tolerated, accepted, eroticized, minimized, and trivialized... victims are routinely
disbelieved or blamed for their own victimization, and perpetrators are rarely held accountable or
their behaviours are seen as excusable or understandable."52 In a rape culture, violence against
women is both etched in and built up cultural products such as the comic works which will concern
us here. Particularly, Ovid's advice in the Ars amatoria that women like to be forced served rape
culture for centuries. It contributed to shaping the erotic imagination in generations of schoolboys
and schoolmasters, and beyond the classroom. But medieval Ovidianism, included its vernacular
realizations, also echoed a cultural context where, as Noah D. Guynn remarks, sexual violence was

50
Harris, Obscene Pedagogies, 45.
51 Harris, 48. "Felawe", explains Harris, is the word that Chaucer's characters use for one another, a word that connotes
homosociality, partnerships, shared interests, and sociability. Particularly, Harris' concept of "felawe masculinity" points
to the repertoire of knowledge about gender, sex, and power a man could learn from humorous tales and bawdy jokes
told within a male-gendered group. See Harris, 31.
52 Carissa Harris, 30. Since Chaucer's stories make the violence against women look both entertaining and acceptable, as

Harris argues, former and current readers enjoying the humour of The Canterbury Tales have often laughed at a “funny
rape”. See Harris, 51. Harris recalls Rachel Moss' insightful view when referring to the passage in which Nicholas secretly
“caughte [Alisoun] by the queynte” (3276). What for many is the best indecent pun of Chaucer, actually is a trivialized
portrayal of a woman being assaulted. Seen from another perspective, Alisoun is not the actual target of the joke but
perhaps she is a means of punishment of the actual target: John, the carpenter. If, as Rachel Moss has argued, medieval
women in flesh were sometimes raped by men to chastise their fellow, Chaucer’s fabliaux certainly recall that pattern.
See Rachel Moss, “Chaucer’s Funny Rape: Addressing a Taboo in Medieval Studies," Rachel E. Moss. Blogging on feminism,
medieval studies, teaching and learning (blog), 11 September, 2014, https://rachelemoss.com/2014/09/11/chaucers-
funny-rape-addressing-a-taboo-in-medieval-studies/.

28
a ubiquitous, if infrequently punished, crime, one that found considerable legitimacy in fictional and
scientific accounts of women who resisted but were ultimately conquered by their own desire.53

That Chaucer lived in a rape culture cannot be ignored, and the same caveat applies to the other
vernacular and Latin authors included in this research. Neither can we afford to disregard that they
often created the rape cultures in which their characters lived. Hence, objectivation and violence
against women appear as something natural, indisputable, and even laughable in the works we are
dealing with. Furthermore, Harris asserts, "felawe masculinity" refuses to take rape seriously or to
acknowledge its harms, and instead enacts further violence by rendering it both comic and trivial,
“nothing more than a funny story with which to entertain one’s friends and bring ‘the boys’ closer
together.”54

Rape culture is both producing and being produced by male humour, and so it is the masculine
competition culture. While in the Canterbury Tales women's bodies are often treated as sexual
objects for male pleasure, their possession and dispossession become a trigger for males’
(supposedly natural, testosterone-fuelled) competitiveness. As mentioned above, the Miller insults
the Reeve by telling a story of a duped and cuckolded carpenter; motivated by fear of other men's
mockery, the Reeve tells a tale about how a miller was cuckolded by two students who managed to
sleep both his wife and his daughter. While the tales' heroines are figured as plunder, which must
be taken as a form of retaliation, the storytelling becomes a male competition where no one wants
to give the other the chance of having a good laugh at their expense. In fact, these pilgrims seem to
deal with humour and ridicule in a way that resembles Thomas Hobbes' famous definition of
laughter as the expression of a “sudden glory,” a feeling of superiority at the expense of another.55
Tightly associated with the contemplation of someone else's failure or misfortune, laughter is thus
associated with conflict and triumphant egoism, distrust and competition. Thus, Chaucer’s

53 Noah D. Guynn, Allegory and Sexual Ethics in the High Middle Ages (New York: Palgrave, 2007), 170.
54 Carissa Harris, 51.
55 Thomas Hobbes, The Essential Leviathan: A Modernized Edition, ed. Nancy Stanlick, Daniel P. Collette (Cambridge, MA: Hackett,

2016), 34. Hobbes’ definition is in the core of the so-called superiority theories of laughter. Victor Raskin proposes a useful
division of the various theoretical approaches to laughter into ‘superiority’, ‘relief’, and ‘incongruity’ theories. Incongruity
theories focus on and provide some insights into the stimulus of humour, arguing that laughter may be triggered by the
occurrence of surprising events. Superiority theories are focused on the relationship between speaker and hearer,
highlighting the disparaging laughter caused by the other’s or one’s former weaknesses and failures. Finally, the release
or relief theories, whose greatest exponent is Freud, are centred around the feelings and the psychology of the recipient
of humour, arguing the relieving effect of laughter on a repressed and socially constrained individual. See Victor Raskin,
Semantic Mechanisms of Humor (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1985), 40.

29
fellowship appears fraught with anxiety through the quarrel that we see developing between the
Miller and the Reeve. Indeed, such anxiety about being mocked and ridiculed as “fooles” by other
men evokes a deeper fear lurking underneath: the fear of being considered less valuable within the
hierarchical male homosocial community.

Harris' view reminds us to what extent medieval literary humour draws on the degradation of
women, and its relevance in shaping homosocial bonding and power differential among all-male
communities. It also makes us recall Henri Bergson’s capital notion that laughter always requires an
echo, since “our laughter is always the laughter of a group;”56 as a cohesive device, laughter helps
shaping community sense either by integrating individuals into a given group or excluding the
outsiders.57 Bergson also believed that laughter has the power to define a community by distinguishing
between ‘us’ and ‘them’—for instance, those who share a burst of laughter and those who are laughed
at. Likewise, sharing a laugh over something or someone involves, at some level, the assertion of a
group’s shared values; laughter reinforces them and enables a sense of belonging.

The function of the laughter elicited by male aggressive humour may be also overlapped with
Bergson's ideas. Let us remember that, in an attempt to establish the utility of laughter as a social
practice, Bergson attributes “a corrective function” to it. Laughter is aimed at punishing the unsocial,
the deviant, performing as a regulative force within the social organism. To fulfil its social purpose
laughter “must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is directed.”58
Nevertheless, that disgraceful impression provides an opportunity to correct oneself, as the person
who is laughed at can profit from the insight provided by others’ derision, thus acquiring awareness
of their failures and defects. At the same time, by laughing at others we can become aware of all
those potential blunders (or deviance from the social norm) that we may incur by our own
negligence. For instance, someone might spontaneously laugh at a pedestrian who stumbles and
falls in the street, out of which the sudden glory arises: “You’ve fallen down, I haven’t!" But, shortly
later, when encountering the banana peel, he who previously laughed would be warned and ready
to dodge it. Of course, nobody wants to slip on the same banana peel that tripped the fool.

56 Henri Bergson, Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trans. Cloudesley Brereton and Fred Rothwell (New

York: Dover, 2005), 3.

57 For the distinction between the laughter of inclusion and the laughter of exclusion see Eugène Dupréel, “Le

Problème sociologique durire". Revue philosophique 106 (1928), 213-60.

58 Bergson, 96-7.

30
“Aha, Felawes! beth ware of swich a jape,” as comments the Host on The Shipman's Tale (439), is a
phrase that summarizes quite well the male learning of laughter. It may be said, therefore, that by
laughing merrily at Absolon’s misfortune and echoing Alisoun’s giggle, men who have paid attention
to The Miller’s Tale could also prevent themselves from being “japed.” Seen through this lens, the
subversive potential of giggling is nullified; instead of unsettling gender hierarchies, it is reduced as
a reminder of some important lessons about this brand of masculinity. For instance, that no man is
expected to be the butt of a woman’s joke, neither being subjected to her nor revealing such naivety
and vulnerability. In other words, the giggle functions as a warning to avoid such costly blunders —
whether playing the role of the cuckolded husband or the ineffectual lover— and a stimulus to
continue competing for being dominant, instead of being relegated to the subordinate, effeminized
side.

Stabilizing hierarchy and social distinctions seem to be essential is this masculine model of humour
based on scorn and the assertion of superiority,59 where those who are perceived as powerless and
inferior becomes the object of laughter, which of course include women and men tricked by women.
This interpretative path certainly may explain much of the humour in Chaucer's fabliau-like tale.
Nevertheless, a theoretical counterbalance is indicated in order not to confine all portrayals of
female laughter and mockery, whether in Chaucer's works and those of the other authors
considered here, to a passive element within edifying male narratives.

As previously stated, much of the analysis contained in this study consists of identifying and
describing the strategies employed by late medieval Ovidian comic writers to unsettle the traditional
bonds between comic literature and misogyny, which necessarily involves a degree of variability in
the patterns of male humour described by Harris. As part of these strategies, female laughter and
mockery take on much more versatile forms than what is expectable within the limits of "felawe"
masculine culture. Needless to say, when depicting women making fun of misogynists or responding
to antifeminist tirades Chaucer and his contemporaries were not necessarily sticking up for women's
right to revolt against a misogynistic culture. Disruptive depictions of laughing women are best

59 Commenting on superiority theorists of laughter, including Hobbes, Baudelaire and Bergson, Jonathan Taylor refers to

the "phallic and masculine subtext of a humour based on the assertion of superiority." He likewise lists a number of critics
and theorists that have argued the connection between a traditional form of masculinity and a model of humour based in
aggression and violent superiority, including Joanne Gilbert, Hickey-Moody, Timothy Laurie and Jerry Palmer. See Jonathan
Taylor, Laughter, Literature, Violence, 1840–1930 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 18-19.

31
understood as the reflection of a poetic interest in engaging with other forms of humour available
in the Ovidian tradition. They are also nurtured by the poets’ desire to elicit a playful and ironic form
of laughter in their audience, whereby a feminine response to humour may be also contemplated.

It must be acknowledged, however, that, given its predominantly callous humour, Chaucer’s fabliau-
like tales certainly are not the best example to test the scope of such literary conceits. Likewise,
Alisoun of The Miller’s Tale is far from achieving the degree of agency of the other Alisoun, the Wife
of Bath. However, there is still merit in her giggle. After all, when Alisoun slams the window and says
“tehee” we are certainly witnessing an extraordinary event. For Chaucer's onomatopoeic quotation
of Alisoun’s giggle represents a clear example of male desire to listen to the sound of female
laughter. To listen and learn, not to shout down and dominate. This poetic willingness to listen to
an Other, albeit in germ here, is best understood on the basis that comic literature often allows
what Mikhail Bakhtin calls a dialogical relationship of the author with his own discourse and context.
As Bakhtin explains, dialogism occurs in literature when a privileged discourse, language, conceptual
system or worldview becomes “relativized, de-privileged, aware of competing definitions for the
same things.”60

When addressing laughter and humour we should be aware that we are dealing with phenomena
which are hard to pin down. Laughter is always the laughter of a group, there is no doubt about it.
Nonetheless, laughter should not exclusively be seen either as a weapon to punish others or as a
means by which a given group shapes and disciplines their members. In fact, relations between
comic discourse and the group in which it operates and to which it is addressed are often subjected
to nuanced and complex negotiations, since humour usually draws on a group’s shared values, yet
manipulating and subjecting them to irony, subversion, and mockery, with a view towards laughter.
Jokes presume knowledge and beliefs, but they also reveal and test beliefs. That means that sharing
laughter does not always result in a reinforcement of social values and boundaries. Rather, they are
sometimes relativized to a degree by humour, and individuals may become more consciously aware
of alternatives.

60 Mikhail Bakhtin, “Discourse in the novel,” in The dialogic imagination. Four Essays by MM Bakhtin, ed. M. Holquist

(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), 427. Similarly, Carter notes that to write Alisoun’s prank scene Chaucer —just
like any man who actually wants to reproduce a feminine giggle— should have been available to identify himself with a
woman rather than with another man; therefore, he must have been willing to perceive some aspects of male desire as
foolish. See Carter, “Alison’s giggle,” 53.

32
Traditionally, comic literature has had the propensity to test cultural beliefs. Comic works also turn
their humour against its own literary conventions, and laughter can even be working against an
author’s own ideals —which may be reassessed, treated with irony or scepticism. Furthermore,
gender conventions may also be disrupted through irony and comedy. Literature, as a whole, may
be considered a masculine institution, as it has been historically developed and perpetuated mostly
by men. However, to borrow a phrase from Jean-François Lyotard, comedy often makes men laugh
like women.61 As will be explained later, Ovid was particularly fond of exploiting this quality of comic
literature, a feature that lingered on throughout medieval Ovidianism and that our medieval comic
authors did not fail to cultivate to the utmost. To my knowledge, its best demonstration within
Ovid’s corpus is probably found in his account of Anna Perenna’s festival in Fasti, as will be seen
below.

Anna’s laughter

Laughter is relentlessly social, since it works as a mechanism for bonding social groups together.
However, as Laurie O’Higgins has observed, this group-building can occur in two different ways. One
is an exclusionary form, in which laughter is associated with the building of communal boundaries
and power differential in the group's hierarchy, through the humorous belittlement of those
considered deviant or outside the pale. Judging by the functions assigned to laughter, the already
commented masculine model of humour falls under this classification. However, there is also
another way of building groups through laughter, by which connection between people is
emphasized through the blurring of distinctions and hierarchies. This way of laughing tends "to
break down hierarchies within the community," thus enabling people to engage in another form of
social communication, while establishing communities, albeit fleeting ones, of shared delight and
porous boundaries.62

In a similar vein, Bakhtin has pointed out that humour and laughter can frequently be perceived as
“safety valves” for releasing social tensions and cultivating cultural bridges between people. Bakhtin
explains that there is a carnivalesque laughter that "dethrones the king and the dogma,” allowing

61 Jean-François Lyotard, "One of the Things at Stake in Women’s Struggles," trans. Deborah J. Clarke, Winnifred Woodhull,

and John Mowitt, Sub-Stance 20 (1978), 10.

62 Laurie O'Higgins, Women and Humour in Classical Greece (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 4.

33
one to see “the joyful relativity of all structure and order, of all authority and all (hierarchical)
position.”63 The carnival spirit and its particular form of laughter have also impacted literary creation
and those genres included in what Bakhtin calls the "dialogic line" in the development of Western
literature.64 If this laughter does not only destabilize social structures and conventions, but also
nurtures and motivates innovation in artistic thinking, medieval writers under its influence may well
have allowed themselves to playfully mock their own expectation about women and their confining
certitudes on gender boundaries and hierarchies, rather than just debasing women by laughing at
them.

While Bakhtin's notion of carnivalesque laughter and its transposition into literature may appear
either vague or purely hypothetical, other scholars have further highlighted the role played by
giggles and female jocular speech in ancient rituals and feminine festivals of misrule. Women’s ritual
performances and cultic unbridled speech could have also helped in shaping ancient comic literary
genres. In this regard, O’Higgins develops Bakhtin’s concepts of the carnival and carnivalesque-
grotesque realism and proposes a productive relationship between female cultic joking (aischrology)
and ancient Greek’s literature.65 Particularly, iambic poetry and Attic Comedy would flourished
partly shaped by women’s speech and laughter. The outrageous jocular language and behaviour of
women in Greek cults of Demeter and Kore, such as the Thesmophoria, contributed to the
establishment of female community which was represented by Aristophanes as a “shadow” polis
amid the male-dominated agenda of the polis. In O’Higgins’ view, Aristophanes’ comedies
negotiated the political crises of Athens in the late fifth century through a dialogue with women’s
offstage voices.66

63 Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, ed. Caryl Emerson (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press,
1984a), 124.
64 Bakhtin traces the “dialogic” line in the development of European prose, starting with ancient genres like Menippean

satire and subsequently leading to Dostoevsky. According to Bakhtin, "carnival categories, and above all the category of
free familiarization of man and the world, were over thousands of years transposed into the dialogic line of development
in novelistic prose." See Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky, 124.
65 In Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin coined the term grotesque realism to identify a peculiar aesthetic of the carnival's

language and imagery transposed into literature. According to Bakhtin, "grotesque realism" is centred on the image of the
grotesque body. O'Higgins connects the "paradoxical mixing of decay with premature life" of Greek’s female festivals with
Bakhtin's description of Kerch terracotta figurines of laughing "senile pregnant hags." According to Bakhtin, grotesque
body is "ambivalent. It is pregnant death, a death that gives birth. There is nothing completed, nothing calm and stable [in
these figurines]. They combine a senile, decaying and deformed flesh with the flesh of new life, conceived but yet
unformed. Life is shown in its twofold contradictory process; it is the epitome of incompleteness. And such is precisely the
grotesque concept of the body." See O’Higgins, Women and Humour, 29.
66 O'Higgins, Women and Humour, 13.

34
Ovid explicitly refers to a carnival-like atmosphere influencing his poetry, especially the Ars
Amatoria, the Remedia Amoris, and his Medicamina Faciei Femineae (Cosmetics for Women). These
works were probably inspired by the subgenre of didactic poems (artes) on non-serious subjects
that were popularly composed for the Saturnalia (Tr. 2,491 talia luduntur fumoso mense
Decembri).67 During this Roman festivity ‘gift’ books for amusement were provided, which included
the didactic treatment of a frivolous topic, such as dice and various board games, swimming
instruction and painting. What should be stressed here is that female laughter and jokes also had a
ritual function in Roman festivals. It is likewise plausible to hold that that there was a connection
between those cultic instances and the development of Roman comic genres dialoguing with Ovid's
poetry.

In this respect, T.P. Wiseman observes that mime, or one type of it at least, was often performed by
a chorus of dancing girls who can be thought, beyond the stage, as “dancing nymphs” and cult
performers.68 Wiseman also points to “the long-established association of nymphs” with Greek
Demetrian and Dionysian rites and asserts that mime was "certainly a likely medium for the
performance” in Roman rites enacted by women. In the Rome of Ovid's day, women acted in mime
performances and were permitted to play female roles.69 These performances also took place during
outdoor festivals celebrated in honour of goddesses such as Flora or Anna Perenna. However, the
extent to which the mimae (female performers) and some forms of women's cultic humour could
have influenced Ovid's portrayals of female mockery and unruliness is yet to be explored fully.

A case in point —discussed at length in Chapter 1 and 3 of this study— is Ovid’s detailed treatment
of the goddess Anna Perenna and her festival in Fasti. When explaining why young girls used to
chant ribald songs during Anna’s festival (Fast. 675-676: nunc mihi cur cantent superest obscena
puellae dicere), Ovid tells us about a myth in which this Roman goddess is asked by Mars to help
him to woo Minerva —a virgin goddess well known for repelling sexual desires. Anna solemnly
commits to serve as Mars’ intermediary and arranges a tryst for him. However, when everything is
finally set and Mars can proceed to unveil his beloved in the bridal chamber, he discovers not

67 See Patricia Watson, “Parody and Subversion in Ovid’s Medicamina Faciei Femineae,” Mnemosyne 54 (2001), 458.
68 Timothy Peter Wiseman, “Ovid and the Stage,” in Unwritten Rome, edited by T. P. Wiseman (Exeter: University of Exeter
Press, 2008), 219.
69 T.P. Wiseman, “The Cult Site of Anna Perenna: Documentation, Visualization, Imagination," in Imaging Ancient Rome:

Documentation-Visualization-Imagination, edited by L. Haselberger and J. Humphrey (Portsmouth: Journal of Roman

Archaeology Supplementary Series 61, 2006), 56. Wiseman also argues that Ovid had a great debt to mime theatre.
Whether mime actresses’ jocular speech may have influenced Ovid's writing will be discussed in Chapter 1 of this volume.

35
Minerva but a kindly old dame (comis anus), who turns out to be Anna herself impersonating the
“armed goddess.” Ovid also tells that, when Mars tries to kiss her, Anna discloses her true identity
and then laughs (ridet) since she has got away with tricking him.

This comic vignette serves as an aetiology for the custom among Roman young girls of sharing ribald
jokes and engaging in jocular speech when attending Anna Perenna’s festival. According to the poet,
those girls enjoyed remembering Anna’s prowess by singing and uttering obscene sayings without
restraint. Of course, Anna's deed is directly related to her ability to make a fool of Mars. More
importantly, Ovid's account is a clear example of the role played by laughter in Roman women’s cult
activity. It provides us with a concrete example where female laughter, as well as their jocular
speech and coarse language, appear challenging hierarchies and temporarily subverting social and
gender differences. This is the kind of laughter that, I suggest, migrated towards late medieval comic
literature, exerting a peculiar influence over vernacular reception of Ovid, given the strong (yet
unnoticed) intertextual ties between medieval Ovidianism and this passage of Fasti.

As stated at the beginning of this Introduction, Beard mentions that girlish giggle, like Alisoun's
triumphant "Tehee,” has no precedent in in Roman literature. However, that chorus of girls
exchanging cackles and coarse jokes to worship Anna Perenna in Ovid’s Fasti certainly represents a
classic instance of subversive giggling. As Carole Newlands observes, in Ovid’s account women’s
festive speech "is recognized as a powerful tool that through laughter challenges and even overturns
hierarchical pretensions to authority and control."70 Likewise, Ovid's portrayals of both Anna's prank
and the Roman girls’ ribaldry show female laughter either degrading or relativizing men's position
of power. Fear and exaggerated regard towards masculine authority are driven away by laughter.
After all, the deflation of Absolon’s solid self-image at Alisoun's window in The Miller’s Tale is
reminiscent of the humiliation suffered by the hyper-masculine god Mars because of Anna’s bed
trick. Both men are beaten in a bloodless battle and by the same joke’s punch line: the sound of
female laughter.

70 Carole Newlands, Playing with Time: Ovid and the Fasti (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 332.

36
Summary of chapters

Each chapter included in this study concerns different aspects of the representation of female
laughter and mockery in both Ovid and medieval Ovidianism. Chapter 1 places the subject within
Ovid's general delight in paradox and parody. The focus is mainly put on his mock didactic poems,
especially the third book of Ars amatoria, where females are instructed in how to laugh (Ars 3.280-
90). Some excerpts taken from the Metamorphoses and the Heroides are also brought up as
examples of Ovid's parodic and playful uses of the motif of female laughter. In addition, the chapter
delves into Ovid’s depiction of women's cultic laughter and jesting during Anna Perenna’s feast day
in Fasti 3.675-696 and raises questions about its possible influence on Ovid’s parodic and self-
parodic literary style. In that passage the poet establishes a close bond between young girls' mirth
and an elderly defiant femininity embodied by the goddess Anna Perenna who is also presented
playing the role of a procuress. This is going to be a lasting alliance that resonates in the literary
depiction of the medieval old woman, a figure that unfolds into different (and sometimes
overlapping) variants, such as the lusty widow, the ugly old hag, and the go-between.

From Chapter 2 onwards, attention is given to late medieval comic literature, with an emphasis on
Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Ruiz, as well as other Ovidian writers. The medieval reception of Ovidian
tropes of female laughter and mockery is discussed, considering intertextual references, stylistic
echoes or borrowed/inherited characters. Chapter 2 analyses Chaucer's portrait of the Wife of Bath,
taking into consideration medieval stereotypes and attitudes towards female laughter. Medieval
conduct literature intended for female audiences proves to be particularly useful in this regard, since
it frequently provides for standard rules fixing proper and improper forms of female laughter. One
interesting aspect stressed in this chapter is that Ovid's didacticism was often taken at face value in
medieval conduct literature. Especially, his lesson in laughter at Ars 3.280-90 was often
misappropriated to construct the ideal of moderate, still and pleasant feminine smiling, which was
conventionally contrasted with the gaping mouth of laughter. The binary split of the female mouths,
either widely opened or closed, either noisy or silent, is engrained in cultural constructions of
femininity and the female body, also associated with the Church Fathers’ attitudes toward female
laughter and its relationships with both verbal and sexual unruliness. In this regard, the chapter also
analyses the patristic sources of the symbolic equivalence between the two “mouths” of the female
body, that is, the conflation between female mouth and genitals, an association which is embodied
(and alluded to) by the Wife of Bath.

37
Chaucer portrays Dame Alisoun emphasizing her voraciousness through terms like “appetit,”
“likerous mouth” or “coltes tooth.” He also describes her gaping mouth, especially her wide-set
teeth. This trait has been generally regarded as a hallmark of the bad girl and the shrew in
prototypical images of women in antifeminist satire and is also presented as negative by conduct
literature. However, the Wife of Bath’s mouth wide open in laughter is resignified into a self-
empowering marker of identity, thus enabling a woman to fight back antifeminist literature,
specifically questioning those writings compiled in her husband's book of "wykked wyves." Among
the different authors who, according to the Wife, have painted a misguided picture of women we
find Saint Jerome and, paradoxically, Ovid himself. In this regard, Chapter 2 also stresses the Wife's
shadow-debate with Jerome’s misogynistic positions, considering Chaucer’s intertwined references
to both Ovid’s and Jerome's writings to create his character. The Wife is likewise contrasted with
another of Chaucer's heroines who also laughs at male authority: the virgin saint Cecilie from The
Second Nun's Tale.

The specific influence of Ovid's Anna Perenna on medieval narratives is discussed in depth in
Chapter 3. The focus is once again put on Fasti 3.675-696, but this time as an important —and
frequently overlooked— source for the European medieval go-between tradition, a tradition
likewise rich in portrayals of women laughing at the expense of men. I look at Anna's traces in two
medieval Latin Pseudo-Ovidian works, which played a major role in bridging the Ovidian corpus to
medieval vernacular literatures: Pamphilus de amore and De vetula. While scholars have often
focused on Dipsas from Amores 1.8 as the main Ovidian source for the intermediary featuring in
medieval comic narratives, my contention is that Anna’s acting as procuress for Mars in Fasti should
be also considered a key model for this character. Likewise, Anna’s bed trick left a lasting legacy that
may be traced in De vetula and the Pamphilus, and also in the literary tradition of vernacular
Ovidianism. The chapter therefore analyses different textual reincarnations of Anna, with a special
focus on both her laughter and trickery, such as the widow Mona Piccarda in Boccaccio's Decameron
VIII.4, Trotaconventos in Ruiz's Libro de Buen Amor, Auberee in the homonymous fabliau and even
the intriguing Pandarus in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.

As noted above, another Ovidian trait shared by medieval writers like Chaucer, Ruiz and Boccaccio
is the paradoxical enjoyment in pretending to be oddly merciless at themselves by invoking the motif

38
of female laughter. In this regard, Chapter 4 of this study focuses on Boccaccio’s last work, Il
Corbaccio, as an exemplary display of a self-diminishing type of humour compromising the figure of
the writer (or his authorial self-projection) while performing the parody of antifeminist literature.
Boccaccio intentionally masks himself as a fool of love (beset by mad passion) for the sake of parody,
thus shaping his own alter ego as a jilted misogynous lover, humiliated by a widow who
contemptuously laughed at him as she wantonly shares his love letter with her paramour. Not
content with that, the widow spreads malicious gossip about the narrator all over the city. On the
verge of suicide, the writer has a dream-vision of the afterlife where he meets his guide, who turns
out to be the pathetic shade of the cuckolded husband of the widow. The guide intends to heal the
narrator’s lovesickness by ill-speaking about women, with special emphasis on his ex-wife, thus
invoking the well-known commonplaces of the medieval antifeminist tradition.

This last chapter analyses the parodic mechanisms operating in Il Corbaccio, a work largely indebted
with Ovid’s Remedia Amoris that can be read as a mock antifeminist treatise. Il Corbaccio offers a
good conclusion for the literary-historical itinerary traced by this study, since it can be seen as a
parodic summa of the misogynistic tropes regularly mocked and put into question in the works of
Ovid and his medieval offspring. Il Corbaccio appeals to the millenary tradition of antifeminist
rhetoric in such an aggressive, disproportionate and absurd manner that it ends up subverting its
original aims. Likewise, in a way resembling Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, the gaping female mouth filled
with laughter plays a major role in Il Corbaccio exposing the cracks and fissures of misogynistic
discourses. Either to mock male authority or to voice criticism against it, or even to present
themselves as targets of comic scorn, a constant strategy among the writers considered in this thesis
consists of laughing through a feminine mouth. If we listen carefully to this laughter, as I suggest
here, we may notice that these writers did not fail to heed Ovidian lessons, to the misogynists’
dismay and much to the amusement of all.

39
CHAPTER 1

LEARNING TO LAUGH. PARODY, PARADOX, AND BURLESQUE IN OVID'S DEPICTION OF WOMEN

LAUGHING

Quis credat?

Ars Amatoria 3 is dedicated to female readers, meretrices or libertinae, and gives advice to them on
how to seduce (or please) men. Rare is a face that lacks blemishes, says Ovid’s speaker, who has
previously introduced himself as the praeceptor amoris. Consequently, his advice is for the majority
of women who, precisely because they were not born beautiful, will appreciate his tips to conceal
their worst features. Particularly, Ars 3.277-280 concentrates on the female mouth, addressing the
issues of bad breath and unsightly teeth. Women are then instructed not to laugh lest they risk
exposing their horsy or blackened teeth. Nonetheless, there seems to be something else about
female laughter, as the praeceptor amoris cannot help but exclaim: “Who would believe it? Girls
learn even how to laugh” (Ars 3.281: Quis credat? Discunt etiam ridere puellae). This is followed by
a set of technical instructions on how women can laugh beautifully:71

Sint modici rictus, parvaeque utrimque lacunae,

Et summos dentes ima labella tegant.
Nec sua perpetuo contendant ilia risu,
Sed leve nescio quid famineumque sonent.
Est, quae perverso distorqueat ora cachinno:
Risu concussa est altera, flere putes.
Illa sonat raucum quiddam atque inamabile ridet,
Ut rudit a scabra turpis aselle mola. (Ars 3. 283-290)

[Let the mouth be but moderately opened, let the dimples on either side be small, and let
the bottom of the lip cover the top of the teeth. Nor should they strain their sides with
continuous laughter but laugh with a feminine trill. One will distort her face with a hideous
guffaw, another, you would think, was weeping, when doubled up with laughter. That one’s

71 Beard, Laughter, 157

40
 laugh has a strident and unlovely harshness, as when a mean she-ass brays by the rough
millstone.]72

Divergent critical interpretations have been put upon the passage just cited, ranging from
considering it as a witty deployment of Ovidian parodic playfulness to reading it in terms of a veiled
expression of male anxiety about female laughter. The former stance is adopted by Beard when
pointing out that the humour of this particular piece of advice rests precisely on the idea that
laughter could ever be the subject of instruction. According to Beard, if “the artful teacher” says
“you’ll never believe this […] of course we don't, but we are given the lesson all the same.” 73 The
lesson in laughter becomes inevitably clumsy and laughable, given its highly specialized instructions
which are simply impracticable. How can someone control the appearance of two little, symmetrical
charming dimples (lacunae), framing a semi-opened mouth, while laughing sweetly and briefly? And
it also has to look natural! From this view, what the praeceptor’s advice is saying between the lines
is: “You could never follow these spuriously technical instructions; that's the joke.”74

Although recognizing that “women's laughter is carefully policed in the literary representation of
the Roman world,” Beard reads the praeceptor's lesson in laughter in terms of a literary joke drawn
on the absurdity of assuming that rules about laughter could be laid down. Carol Merriam proposes
a different approach to the lesson in laughter, by suggesting that the praeceptor delivers it for the
benefit of men since female addresses of his advice are ultimately taught how to fit into men’s
literary fantasies rather than how to win in love.75 Merriam's perspective is aligned with other
scholars who argue that, although Ars Amatoria 3 is nominally addressed to women, Ovid seems to
have had the male lover in mind, that is, the targeted audience of the previous two books. In this
regard, Roy Gibson observes that a good proportion of the advice given in Ars 3 “seems designed to
benefit men rather than (or as much as) women, and much of Ovid's humour has a strongly male
perspective." 76 Similarly, Alison Sharrock points out that while in Ars 3 "women are supposedly

72
Ovid, The Art of love, and other poems, trans. J.H. Mozley, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1979), 139. Latin citations and English translations of Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris were taken from this edition.
73 Beard, 157. Beard also remarks that some of these how-to-laugh guidelines, like the dimple regime, are more or less

impossible to carry out, while others are close to incomprehensible.

74 Beard, 158.
75 Carol Merriam, “She who laughs best: Ovid, Ars Amatoria 3.279-90." Latomus 70 (2011), 405.
76 Roy Gibson, Ovid: Ars amatoria book 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 21.

41
being taught how to catch and keep (and exploit) a lover… it is hard to resist the feeling that what
they are actually being taught is how to let their men have it all ways.” 77

Along with mocking the idea that laughter can be deemed a teachable subject, Beard holds that the
Ovid’s purpose in his lesson in laughter is to underline the ambivalent or paradoxical status of
laughter in Roman culture, understood as an element that either humanize or dehumanize.78 The
term rictus, meaning “the gap between the lips opened up in Iaughter,” regularly appears
throughout Ovid’s oeuvre referring to animals, monsters and creatures considered dangerous, and
most particularly in his Metamorphoses, as a marker for the change of status from human to
animal.79 In ancient world, Beard explains, laughter was commonly deemed a defining property of
the human species, while, at the same time, the noise, spasms and groans produced by laughter put
human beings closer to the animal kingdom.80 In Ars 3, female readers are instructed to minimize
gap between the lips opened up in laughter (sint modici rictus). If they eventually manage to laugh
in such a way, girls can maximise their beauty when amused, thereby looking appealing to their

77 Alison Sharrock, “Love in Parentheses: Digression and Narrative Hierarchy in Ovid's Erotodidactic Poems,” in The Art

of Love. Bimillenial Essays on Ovid's Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris, ed. R. Gibson, S. Green and A. Sharrock (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2006), 29.
78
Beard, 159.
79 For a similar view, see Sarah Miller, Medieval monstrosity and the female body (London: Routledge, 2010), 150n29.

Miller agrees with Beard when pointing that “a mouth open with laughter can be described as a rictus,” yet she stresses
that this generally entails “a negative connotation.” According to Miller, in classical Latin a rictus is often "the gaping maw
of an animal" and poses some examples of the word used within this context in Juvenal (Sat. 10.230) and Lucretius (De
Rerum Natura 5.1064). With regard to the use of rictus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Miller asserts that the word "always
describes the mouth of an animal, and most often the mouth of a human either in the process of transforming or having
transformed into an animal". Among various examples found in the Metamorphoses, can be mentioned Io the heifer
(1.741), Callisto the bear (4.481), a dolphin (3.676), frogs (6.378), and the dogs of Scylla’s loins (14.64). Miller also observes
that in Ars Amatoria 3.283 Ovid describes the overly wide and therefore unattractive mouth of a laughing woman as a
rictus, and urges her to practice laughing with her mouth properly closed if she wants to find a lover.
80 Concerns about unsightly appearance and the potential bestiality of female laughter are also alluded by Victoria Rimell

in her comments on the praeceptor’s lessons in laughter. Women should guard of revealing their Medusa's feral face,
since laughing at jokes may lay bare their "Gorgon-like grimace." See Victoria Rimell, Ovid’s Lovers: Desire, Difference and
the Poetic Imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 85. The metaphor of Medusa's laughter has been
largely related to women's unruliness and their defiance to male authority. According to this view, female laughter is
punished since it is interpreted as a refusal to take men seriously and, therefore, as a threat to patriarchal control. Much
of this approach is in debt with Hélène Cixous’ well-known essay "The Laugh of the Medusa," which appeared as an article
in 1975. Cixous’ re-writing of the Medusa myth in its connection to women's laughter is also a response to its Freudian
counterpart. In his late text called "Medusa's Head" (1922), Freud reads the myth as a metaphor for the castration
complex. Cixous, instead, transforms the image of the deadly Medusa into the beautiful, laughing Medusa: "You only have
to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing.” Hélène Cixous,
"The laugh of the Medusa," in Feminist theory: A reader, ed. Wendy K. Kolmar and Frances Bartkowski (Boston, MA:
McGraw Hill, 2005), 260. As Perfetti comments, Cixous forges the metaphor of Medusa's laughter as a sign of resistance
in a large sense, as it would represent the possibility of some other discursive space for women. "Cixous's women do not
simply refuse to obey the general by saying 'no.' In laughing, they refuse to speak the general's language, and thus resist
the discourse that consistently figures woman as the inferior element of an asymmetrical binarism —sun/ moon,
culture/nature, form/matter." Perfetti, “Men's Theories,” 213.

42
suitors. But they can also prevent their mouths from resembling the japing jaws of an animal, since,
as the praeceptor's pun reminds us, women can either ridet (laugh) or rudet (bray).

Beard's emphasis on the parodic and paradoxical teaching of Ovid’s lesson in laughter contrast with
Merriam reading of the same passage as an expression of male anxiety over women laughing. More
precisely, for Merriam such a lesson is part of Ovid’s general strategy in the Ars 3 of teaching women
“on how to fit into the elegiac world.”81 Within an elegiac setting, female laughter is perceived as a
menace, since it is usually depicted as a source of suffering and torment for men. A recurrent elegiac
motif is the laughter of a woman accompanied by the poet's rival. Laughter with a rival, says
Merriam, “demonstrates the attitude that the elegists consistently see in women's laughter: it is
offensive, because it has the power to hurt, and because it puts the beleaguered poet into an inferior
position.”82 Given this elegiac background, the praeceptor’s instructions are designed to deter
women from laughing by appealing to their vanity with some advice on beauty, in the hope that this
may stop the poet-lover’s torment, thus lessening the power imbalance with his cruel mistress.
Furthermore, Merriam extends her argument beyond the elegiac world by suggesting that Ovid
conceived of pain inflicted by woman's laughter “as part of the universal male condition.”83

Marriam’s view is in keeping with Eric Downing's interpretation of the lesson in female laughter,
whereby the passage should be read as an imaginary attempt to control women's laughter. Downing
argues that the praeceptor amoris is a misogynistic reversal of Pygmalion, inasmuch as his craving
for controlling the physicality of laughter appears linked to the verbal authority to write poetry
about women, as a way to maintain control over them. In other words, Ovid’s speaker attempts to
make real women into artworks, in accordance with the dictum “art conceals art" (ars est celare
artem). Thus, the lesson in laughter may also suggest that the calculated, artificial effect must
replace the spontaneous, natural given.84 The deep reason for discouraging women from laughing
is that “a woman who is still, practically inanimate, is effectively more attractive to men, as

81 Merriam, 405. According to Merriam, Ovid's erotodidactic speaker conforms to Roman literary standards about

women's laughter. In this regard, complaints about women's laughing with a gaping mouth recur in the works of other
Roman poets, such as Catullus and Lucian de Samosata. See Merriam, 407.
82 Merriam, 411.
83 Merriam, 412.
84 Eric Downing, “Anti-Pygmalion: the praeceptor in Ars Amatoria 3,” in Constructions of the Classical Body, ed. J.I. Porter

(Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999), 240.

43
evidenced in the story of Pygmalion in the Metamorphoses.”85 The passive living statue must
substitute for the natural woman.

A main objection one may raise against the interpretations focused on male anxiety regarding
female laughter, and the ensuing need for controlling it, is that they often lose sight of the fact that
Ovid's advice to women not to laugh is largely contingent on physical appearance and sensuality
first and foremost, and not on the issue of laughing per se. As previously noted, the context of the
lesson in laughter within Book 3 are the tips with which women may hide defects and cover up their
unattractive body parts. In this regard, for instance, the tip for the girl with halitosis to refrain from
talking before she has eaten can hardly be seen as a metaphor for silencing women —if one were
to extend the reading of an underlying desire of controlling the physicality of women pervading
these lines. I believe, nonetheless, that Merriam's view of the lesson in laughter as ultimately
grounded in elegiac tropes is worth of being elaborated on, but without losing sight of the fact that
Ovid's adherence to the elegiac model is characteristically tongue-in-cheek. Precisely, considering
Beard's emphasis on parody and paradox as unavoidable constituents of these instructions enables
us to ponder the extent to which the elegiac motif of female laughter (and the subsequent fear it
should provoke in the amator) is reworked by Ovid by pushing the attempt to control it to the level
of hyperbolical absurdity.

As Alexander Dalzell remarks, the Ars Amatoria is clearly a parody of didactic poetry, with one of its
main subjects being the comedy of love as it was inscribed in Latin elegy.86 With this in mind, rather
than a method to control female laughter stricto sensu, the passage should be read as mocking
instructions whose object of laughter is not actually women but clichés about women conveyed by
Roman prevalent discourses (literary and otherwise). My personal contention, to be tested
throughout this chapter, is that both parody and paradox are staples of Ovid’s treatment of the
motif of women’s laughter, which recur in different passages of his oeuvre. Ovid's paradoxical
depiction of female laughter often intersects some relevant aspects linked to his own conception of
art, as may be argued by tracing the motif’s presence in some passages of the Metamorphoses and
Heroides. As will be discussed in the following sections, Ovid's exploits of the motif of female
laughter to both shape and undermine his own authorial persona, to explore the ambiguities of

85Downing, 243n4.
86Alexander Dalzell, The Criticism of Didactic Poetry: Essays on Lucretius, Virgil, and Ovid (Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1996), 147, 152.

44
gender and identity, and to comically subvert male authority in a more general fashion. Likewise,
Ovid's creative exploitation of paradox and parody in depicting female laughter lend itself to be
connected to Roman dramatic genres, especially with mime performances on the stage and during
cultic activities. On this note, the last section of the chapter pays particular attention to the festival
of Anna Perenna and the last aetiological narrative about the identity of that goddess in Fasti 3.675-
696.

Humour and parody in Ovid’s erotodidaxis

As previously noted, some critical readings of Ars 3 suggest that, although it is presented as
instruction of the puellae, the praeceptor's advice conveys a kind of humour which is predominantly
masculine, if not plainly misogynistic. In line with this are the above-mentioned interpretations of
the lesson in laughter as expressing either male anxiety about being mocked by women or/and the
craving of control over female body. In fact, Ovid’s humour should be understood as a contingent
product of what Keach calls the "elusive complexity" of Ovid's poetry, which commonly prevents us
from fixing a primary meaning in his poems.87 Beard also seems to suggest this approach in her
comments about the instructions on laughter, when alluding to Gibson’s acknowledgment that
“Ovid's virtuoso technical display reads well but is hard to pin down."88 Yet, as Beard asks, is that
not exactly the whole point of Ovid’s style? In fact, both Ovid's voice and the genre of his works are
always hard to pin down.

In order to shed new light on the praeceptor's lesson in laughter it may be useful to consider the
parodic humour of the Ars Amatoria. Both this and its companion piece, the Remedia Amoris, are
“mock instructional poems,” to borrow an appropriate label used by Beard.89 These works certainly
fit Bakhtin’s definition of parody as a "conscious hybrid" discourse.90 According to Bakhtin, parody

87 William Keach, "Venus and Adonis," in Elizabethan Erotic Narratives: Irony and Pathos in the Ovidian Poetry of
Shakespeare, Marlowe and Their Contemporaries (Rutgers: Rutgers University Press, 1977), 84.
88 Beard, 158
89 Beard, 157.
90 Bakhtin sees in the parody an old literary device; since Greek times, comic writers create "parodies of genres" as well

as parodying canonized styles or literary models. Bakhtin states, for instance, that the Greeks were not at all embarrassed
to attribute the authorship of the parodic Batrachomyomachia (or The war of the frogs and the mice) to Homer himself.
“For any and every straightforward genre, any and every direct discourse —epic, tragic, lyric, philosophical— may and
indeed must itself become the object of representation, the object of a parodic travestying ‘mimicry’." Likewise, Bakhtin
remarks that ancient parody "was free of any nihilistic denial" as it was not the heroes who were parodied nor the Trojan
War and its participants. Actually, "what was parodied was only its epic heroization; not Hercules and his exploits but their
tragic heroization. The genre itself, the style, the language are all put in cheerfully irreverent quotation marks, and they

45
constitutes "most ancient and widespread forms for representing the direct word of another.”
When parodying, the statement of the other speaker is invested by new values and accenting in a
different way, with expressions of doubt, indignation, irony, mockery, ridicule, and the like. From
this view, literary parody may be understood as a device that allows ambiguous use of someone
else's words for conveying purports that collide with (or may appear hostile to) their original
intentions.

Scholars such as Molly Myerowitz. David A. Jones and Alexander Dalzell have analysed the Ars
Amatoria and Remedia as parodies of both elegy and didactic poetry. These works mock the
structure, style, and language of other serious technical prose works on rhetoric, morals and
medicine. As Myerowitz notes, didacticism is founded on the premise that it is feasible to transmit
mastery of an art by its instruction, given the proper technique and its knowledgeable application.
However, in Ovid's didactic poetry "the fluid and free world of play enables the conscious falsehood
to become truth.”91 Myerowitz interprets these poems as parodies of didactic and elegiac
conventions, thus stressing the ultimate lack of seriousness with which one can view a cultural
construct such as love. Similarly, David A. Jones points out that the Ars posits amor as an activity
susceptible to ratio, such as farming, hunting and other teachable pursuit.92 As a mock didactic
poem, Ars Amatoria’s chief comedic assumption relies precisely on the idea that love, a rather
frivolous topic, is also a tractable matter, susceptible to codification as an ars. Furthermore, as
Myerowitz remarks, applying didactic conventions to the subject of love "exposes the complexities
that art entails, the paradox in the notion that supreme mastery of any art can follow a simple recipe
or formula."93

Dalzell points out that the iocosa materia of the Ars is derived from elegy. However, while much of
its content consists of typical elegiac themes recycled and transformed, the predominant tone of
the Ars Amatoria is mock-didactic. Likewise, Dalzell provides us with an enlightening approach to
parody in this work. In his view, while the Ars can be indisputably called a parody of didactic
literature, the reluctance of part of Ovid's scholarship to declare the poem as such lies, most

are perceived against a backdrop of a contradictory reality that cannot be confined within their narrow frames." See
Bakhtin, "From the Prehistory of Novelistic Discourse," in The dialogic imagination, 55-56.
91 Molly Myerowitz, Ovid's Games of Love (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1985), 183.
92 David A. Jones, Enjoinder and argument in Ovid's Remedia amoris. (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1997), 14.
93 Myerowitz, 34.

46
probably, in the perception that parody must be always subversive.94 However, parody need not
always be destructive, even though mock and undermine old and obsolete literary forms, thus giving
rise to something new, is one of its functions. According to Dalzell, the specificity of parody is its
dependence of a relationship with another text, but that relationship need not be essentially hostile.
In Ovid's case, his intention is not so much criticizing his references or the conventions of his echoed
genres, but to "create a general attitude of mockery and disrespect."95

In fact, Ovid had a serious and sympathetic interest in didactic poetry. His mock-instructional poems
should be placed against the background of the light didactic poetry that flourished in Graeco-
Roman Antiquity, derived from the Alexandrian tradition. The ‘mock-serious’ tone and hybrid nature
of Ovid's erotodidactic poetry make it, as Dalzell asserts, an experiment in the Alexandrian "mixing
of genres." Similarly, Marguerite Johnson situates Ovid in such a tradition, underlining the
innovative character of Alexandrian technical treatises, including the liberation of subject matter to
incorporate the trivial and comic, as well as an emphasis on the ludic capabilities of didacticism.
Ovid's didactic treatment of a frivolous topic in the Ars, Remedia, and also in his Medicamina, is also
akin to the subgenre of didactic poems (artes) on non-serious subjects, which were popularly
composed as Saturnalian entertainment. In Tristia Ovid himself alludes to this parodic-playful type
of didactic poetry, concerning topics such as board games, swimming, painting pottery, and
cosmetics, which were “played in the smoky month of December” (Tr. 2.491 talia luduntur fumoso
mense Decembri), and makes explicit its influence over his poetry.96

Parody and generic experimentation, typical of Ovid’s poetry, are also key features of the didactic
tradition with which Ovid was working. As Dalzell points out, the comic ethos is characteristic of
such a tradition. Erotodidaxis first appears in comedy and the earliest literary experts on the art of
love were bawds and other experienced women. This tradition carries over into elegy in such poems
as Propertius 4.5, Tibullus 1.5, and 1.6. Bawdy didacticism reappears vigorously in Amores 1.8
embodied by Dipsas.97 Critics such as Johnson and Sharrock have argued that in his mock-didactic
poems Ovid's speaker echoes the persona of Dipsas, as he adopts the authorial pose of the lena

94 Dalzell, Criticism, 147.

95
Dalzell, 148.
96
See Marguerite Johnson, Ovid On Cosmetics: Medicamina Faciei Femineae and Related Texts (London: Bloomsbury,
2016), 24; Patricia Watson, “Parody and Subversion in Ovid’s Medicamina Faciei Femineae,” Mnemosyne 54 (2001), 458
97
Dalzell, 148.

47
teaching women.98 Among other things, the role of the lena consists of instructing women on how
to conduct their love affairs and prettify their image sufficiently to endear them to men, which is
also the purpose of the advice delivered by the praeceptor in Ars 3. This is a point to which I shall
return later in this chapter.

The playful parodic nature of Ovid's erotodidactic poetry must be considered when appraising the
humour of Ars Amatoria 3. Having this in mind enables one a better look at the lesson in laughter in
Book 3. Ovid’s master of love delivers his lesson from a parodic universe where, as Jones put it,
amatory concerns are paramount and all other concerns must be made subservient to them.99 As
previously noted, Ovid's claim to master an ars or technique with which to control love is not to be
taken seriously. Neither his love advice to the would-be lover of both sexes, who are his addressees
in the Ars Amatoria, is to be considered as serious instruction, defensible on either practical or moral
grounds, not any more than his medicinal advice can cure the sick "patiens" of the Remedia. Of
course, it was amusing in Ovid's day to assume that rules could be laid down by the use of which
anyone could become a master of the art of love. As Dalzell puts it, the comedy in the Ars “lies in
the very lack of liveliness, in the banal, matter-of-fact way of dealing with something which the poet
and the reader both know cannot be reduced to a formula.”100

The same comical principle, I believe, can be applied to female laughter when it becomes another
art in the context of a mock-didactic speech which claims to efficiently transmit the supreme
mastery of it by following a recipe. Logically, it is paradoxical to assert that someone possesses an
infallible technique to control spontaneous spasm of joy. As Beard rightly notes, Ovid's lesson in Ars
3. 281-290 pokes fun at the norms of female laughter. More precisely, the norms which operate in
the world of Elegy, the iocosa materia of the Ars Amatoria. However, following Dalzell's ideas about
Ovid's parodic style, it may be concluded that elegiac rules of female laughter do not remain valid
when transposed into a mock-didactic poem. Rather, they are reassessed against the background
of the “general attitude of mockery and disrespect.”

98 Johnson, Ovid On Cosmetics, 22.

99 Jones, Enjoinder, 47.
100 Dalzell, Criticism, 141.

48
Laughter features among the literary tropes of the female body alluded by elegists. It may be
depicted in the unattractive form of a gaping laughing mouth scorning the amator, or as the
moderate smile in eulogistic portraits of the poetic puellae.101 It may certainly indicate the
threatening unruliness of women assuming a position of power, which, as Merriam notes, perturbs
the stillness or a lack of expression preferable by poets. Nevertheless, the lesson in laughter of Ars
3 reworks such tropes, recycling and reallocating them in a new context; the parodic humour is,
therefore, derived from the sharp incongruity between form and content. Particularly, the didactic,
mock-solemn pose assumed by the praeceptor amoris clashes with the trifling material of elegy. The
light tone and the artificial manner are, as Dalzell notes, the literary expression of the elegiac world,
a world which in itself we are not encouraged to take too seriously.102 Quite the contrary, the
praeceptor takes elegiac tropes at face value, as he does in his instruction for women on how to
laugh. But this is a lesson nobody needs to learn, and eventually has the opposite pedagogical effect:
instead of enabling mastery or control over laughter, they attract our attention over its
unmanageable nature and the absurdity of any effort to control it. This includes, of course, any
artistic effort of carving a woman's mouth or tweaking her laughter to the poet's taste.

Along with parodying the norms of female laughter, Beard suggests that Ovid's lesson in laughter
expose some of “the cultural fault lines in Roman gelastic conventions.”103 As mentioned above,
Bears particularly contends that the paradoxical status of laughter in Roman culture is laid bare by
Ovid's pun: ridet (laugh) / rudet (bray). The joke lays bare the paradoxical status of laughter, being
both "the very attribute that defined the human's humanity" and what "made him or her one of the
beasts —a braying ass, for example.104 In fact, the humour derived from the depiction of women
laughing in Ovid's oeuvre often depends on an element of ambiguity or even, I would like to argue
here, liminality. Female laughter lends itself to creating paradoxical moments of comical confusion
between two realms, whether human and animal, divine and human, or the poet (author) and his

101 On the fabrication of 'woman' in elegy see Maria Wyke, “Written women: Propertius' scripta puella,” JRS 77 (1987), 47-

61. For Ovid's puella see Maria Wyke. “Reading female flesh: Amores 3.1." in History as Text: The Writing of Ancient
History, ed. Averil Cameron (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989), 113-43. Wyke points out that elegiac
poets often shape their puellae apparently not based on any real women or, at least, they should not be taken as evidence
for the social history of Roman courtesans. This practice also gives us an idea of how poetry itself, as a verbal artefact, was
sometimes connoted as a feminine creature in Roman literary imagination. From this view, elegiac puellae should be
described as "written women"; that is to say, embodied poetry rather than women of flesh and blood.
102 See Dalzell, 163. As Dalzell puts it, “[e]legy proclaims a view of life —'make love, not war,' perde tempora ('waste your

time')— which is a sort of humorous distortion of the accepted values of Roman society.”
103 Beard, Laughter, 157.
104 Beard, Laughter, 159.

49
fictional portrayal as a lover. Most importantly, female laughter was especially employed by Ovid to
explore the ambiguities of gender and identity in different passages of his works, including his mock
instructional poems, as will be seen below.

Men who laugh like women

As previously noted, instead of conveying them straightforwardly, parody lays bare the conventions
of its referenced texts. Under this mode of representation, the underlying message of the lesson in
female laughter in Ars 3. 281-290 cannot be reduced to the fulfilment of an anti-Pygmalion craving
or an attempt for exorcising inveterate male terror toward female agency. There is no need to deny
the Ars’s misogynistic content either. As a matter of fact, Ovid’s poem includes an infamous
statement of sexual violence as secretly enjoyable for women, in Ars 1.663-4, and the instruction to
rape thar follows in Ars 1.664-706. However, as Dalzell remarks, unlike an antifeminist satire, such
as sixth satire of Juvenal, Ovid’s mock-didactic poem lacks a sustained moral centre or a consistent
point of view. On the contrary, the ambivalences and shifting perspectives of the praeceptor amoris
undermine his apparent moral judgments. In order to nuance the notion of a predominantly male
perspective of the humour of Ars 3, it is particularly worth considering Ovid's ambivalently gendered
viewpoint.

The praeceptor's views on women may shift and change depending on his audiences. This become
especially noticeable when referring to women’s sex drive, either in Book 1 or Book 3, one being
composed for male consumption, while the other arguably was composed for a female audience.105
Thus, for instance, at Ars 1.269-346 the praeceptor elaborates on the idea that all women are highly
sexed, starting with connecting female lust to the world of animal passions (Ars 1. 279-80: Mollibus
in pratis admugit femina tauro:/ Femina cornipedi semper adhinnit equo) to then illustrating this
through a range of mythological examples, including Myrrha, Pasephae and Medea. Later, at Ars
3.9-24, the praeceptor changes his position and argues that most women are actually chaste, so that
we should refrain from attributing the shortcomings of a few women to all of them (Ars 3.9: Parcite

105 On the female audience of the Ars see Sharon James, “Women reading men: The female audience of the Ars Amatoria,"

The Cambridge Classical Journal 54 (2008): 136-59. James refers to some examples of the praeceptor falling into
contradictions in his statements about women. In her view, while the praeceptor's self-contradictions, failures, and
moments of confusion can be funny, the hostility toward women arises unambiguously in various passages of Ars Amatoria
like “the instruction to rape at 1 .664-706 or at 2.445-54, where the lover is to make his beloved tearful, enraged and
violent.”

50
paucarum diffundere crimen in omnes). However, shortly after, at Ars 3.25-9, he seems to contradict
this by saying that he is not teaching chaste women (Ars 3.27: Nil nisi lascivi per me discuntur
amores). The ambivalences and shifting perspectives of the Ars's speaker are also a source of
Ovidian humour. Instead of compromising the reliability of the master and his advice, the versatility
and shifting inconstancy of the praeceptor becomes his most cherished skills. The comical
incongruence lies precisely in the fact that he never abandons his pose of competence, even
bordering on pedantic quackery. This is necessary since, as Dalzell remarks, the speaker of didactic
poetry knows that one cannot teach what one does not know. Of course, nobody knows a recipe for
bending other's will or to control female laughter. However, Ovid’s mock-didactic teacher must be
skilled enough in pretending that the uncontrollable can be manageable, and that he knows the
proper technique to achieve this prodigy.

Dalzell provides another enlightening view into the issue of Ovid's humour when asserting that,
while the Ars presupposes that love is something that can be successfully manipulated, elegy, in
contrast, is the poetry of failure. Even though there can be fleeting moments of triumph,
mournfulness is the predominant mood of the elegiac lover, who "pines in despair, or freezes
outside his mistress's door, or contemplates suicide or emigration.”106 Accordingly, since elegy
depends on the basic assumption that love is a torment, the laughter of the puella is often seen as
torture instrument. As mentioned above, Merriam argues in this vein when she states, for instance,
that the deities of elegy (Venus and Cupid) “collude with the women to torture the men, and all
laugh together at the hapless poet from a position of power.”107

Merriam is, nevertheless, right to say that much of the advice in Ars 3 can be seen as an attempt to
make women fit into the elegiac world, whereby the lesson Ars 3. 281-290 may direct us to elegiac
tropes on female's laughter. However, her analysis fails to account for the parodic treatment of the
elegiac world in Ovid's mock-didactic poems. Merriam's extreme position is especially apparent in
her conclusion: the praeceptor's advice for women to refrain from laughter may be interpreted as a
pre-emptive strike by the elegiac amator wounded by female laughter, who “through advice on
beauty,” or an appeal to women’s vanity, expects that “the power imbalance can be corrected, and

106 Dalzell, Criticism, 140.

107 Merriam, “She who laughs,” 421.

51
the torment will stop.”108 This view misses the fact that in the Ars the working suppositions of elegy
are drastically altered, as they are transposed into the didactic genre. The parodic mode ultimately
emphasizes the fact that no women can actually fit into the world of elegy, for either good or bad.

It should be also noted that in Amores, his first collection of elegiac love poetry, Ovid gives a comical
treatment to the torment of the male-lover. In this context, the role played by female laughter
deserves a more nuanced analysis. Merriam exemplifies the threatening laughter of elegiac women
by referring a passage in Amores 2.5 where Ovid’s poetic girlfriend laughs at his concerns about a
rival just before kissing him (Am. 2.5.51-52: risit et ex animo dedit optima, qualia possent/ excutere
irato tela trisulca Ioui).109 While it is true that in scenes like this laughter appears stressing women's
position of power in the relationship, as a typical source of distress and anxiety of the elegiac lover,
there are also other moments in Ovidian elegy where female's derisive laughter may serve parodic
purposes. In this regard, Rebecca Armstrong has noted that in Amores parody appears in brief bursts
and to a great effect, since the work is as much part of the elegiac 'scene' as a response to it.110 Thus,
Ovid often takes a familiar elegiac trope and gives it his own particular twist, self-consciously
pointing to the genre's inherent paradoxes or offering an ironic rereading of their conventional
themes and forms.

As Carole Newlands notes, in Amores Ovid plays the game of love with few illusions and with often
self-deprecatory humour that offsets his chauvinism.111 An outstanding example of this is found in
Amores 1.8. In that episode, the poet overhears the drunken hag Dipsas giving her famous “hetaira
catechism” or her instructions to Ovid’s mistress on how be unfaithful, take many lovers, seek her
own financial interests, and always value cash over poverty. Particularly, Dipsas instructs Ovid's
mistress to go for the money and shun poets like him, because they are all poor. Homer himself is
herein used as a foil for the real "genius", the openhanded lover (Am. 1.8.61: qui dabit, ille tibi
magno sit maior Homero). In this passage of Amores we can see the parodic self-reflexivity of Ovid's
poetry in its most corrosive form. The criticism carried out by the witch/lena Dipsas poke fun at Ovid
the lover, also reaching Ovid's the author while devaluing poetry altogether. This humour based on

108 Merriam, “She who laughs,” 421.

109 Merriam, 411. All references to Amores and Heroides are taken from Ovid, Heroides and Amores, trans. Grant
Showerman. Loeb Classical Library, 2nd ed (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1914).
110 Rebecca Armstrong. Ovid and His Love Poetry (London: Bloomsbury, 2005), 13.
111 Carole Newlands, Ovid. London and New York: Tauris, 2015), 27.

52
self-flagellation or self-deprecation reminds one of that peculiar mechanism that Freud calls
“gallows humour” (Galgenhumor) in which the jester’s own suffering is the key piece.112 What
should be stressed is that Dipsas’ mockery exemplifies the extent to which Ovid's adherence to
elegiac conventions in Amores may be tongue-in-cheek. Placed within the framework of the bawd’s
erotodidaxis, the trope of female laughter becomes part of a self-conscious and autocritical self-
parody, imbued with masochistic intensity for comic effects. Through this rhetorical device, the poet
depicts himself as not worthy the favour, either of his puella or his audience. While it remains a
torment, female laughter becomes a self-inflicted injury, and so demands to be read.

Ovid apparently was not only humiliated by Dipsas’s words, but later he also elaborated on her
lessons. As previously noted, old bawds such as Dipsas were the earliest literary experts on the art
of love, featuring first in comedy and later in elegy. In this regard, Sharrock cogently suggests that
when creating the praeceptor amoris, Ovid drew on the witch-bawd of Amores 1.8: “Ovid the
erotodidactic poet is on the same side as Dipsas —a seducer and a witch.”113 In her famous sermo
Dipsas certainly appears as an experienced professor who masters and teaches her own Ars
amatoria. Let us remember that ars is a signature concept of Ovid's poetry, meaning either
“technical skill” or "trick, crafty stratagem."114 The concept appears narrowly linked to a conscious
manipulation of artifice, contrivance, and deception. In this regard, to be skilled at the art of love
involves a certain dramatic flair and can be associated with the mastery of some stereotypically
female skills, precisely the kind of attributes Ovid may have learnt when overhearing the bawd
instructing his girlfriend on the proper way to choose and use a lover. In this regard, it is not strange
to suggest that Ovid bore in mind Dipsas when crafting the narrator of his mock instructional poems.
In fact, Dipsas' rhetoric brings her intriguingly close to the poet himself and to Ovidian ideas of art.

The art of love is, as previously stated, a codified body of teachable knowledge and skills that can
be learned or acquired. This is also the subject that both Dipsas and the praeceptor boast of
mastering. He, or she, who masters the art of love must be well versed in the art of disguise, the

112 Dorota Dutsch has noted the presence of this form of humour in her analyses of Plautine Roman comedy. As she
describes it, through this comic procedure the teller and the butt of the joke are one and the same person and such a
person “typically finds himself in dire circumstances.” Dutsch also adds that for most of his examples of gallows humour,
“Freud chooses the convict facing an execution as the protagonist… If, instead of yielding to despair, the convict jokes
about his situation, he can derive a certain pleasure ‘at the cost of the relief of affect that does not occur.’ Split thus into
the observer and the observed, the teller of the joke triumphs over his trauma.” Dutsch, 95.
113 Alison Sharrock, Seduction and Repetition in Ovid's Ars Amatoria 2 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 86.
114 See Peter Jones, Reading Ovid. Stories from the Metamorphoses (Cambridge. University Press, 2007), 222.

53
play with masks, consisting of planning every behaviour, staging identities and tweaking everyday
situations towards an erotic outcome. Acting as a praeceptrix amoris, some of Dipsas’ instructions
in Amores 1.8 prove to be especially histrionic. Like a first-rate actress, Corinna should learn to cry
on demand (Am. 1.8. 83: Quin etiam discant oculi lacrimare coacti). She also should blush at will,
since true blushing is nice on faces, but calculated appearance of modesty profits in more cases (Am.
1.8.35-6: Decet alba quidem pudor ora. Sed iste, si simules prodest, verus obesse solet). Similarly,
as though he were a good apprentice of this tricky old woman, the praeceptor teaches his female
addressees that to succeed in love they should disguise their true emotions and turn them to
practical use, as occurs in his advice in Ars 3. 671-682 that a woman should pretend jealousy, so the
man will be convinced that she loves him.

Ironically, the praeceptor instructs his students of both sexes in the sort of schemes which Ovid the
poet deplores and condemns when overhearing Dipsas' monologue. Whereas in Amores 1.8 Ovid
the poet-lover curses Dipsas’ loose tongue, in the Ars the praeceptor is an enthusiastic partisan of
her wisdom which sums up by stating that “if the art is concealed, it succeeds” (Ars 2.313: Si latet
ars prodest). Oddly enough, this piece of advice is given to men, whose own domain of the art of
love entails mastering hypocrisy.115 What should be stressed here is that there is not only a literary
genealogy connecting the praeceptor with Dipsas and that particular brand of erotodidaxis
embodied by the lenae, but he retains the pose of the teacher of women, and many of the skills he
teaches can be deemed as feminine to a certain extent.

Ovid's artistic principles brings him closer to the instructions provided by both the praeceptor and
Dipsas. As Paul Barolsky reminds us, every art always goes hand in hand with deception.116 Similarly,
for E. D. Blodgett the mastering of the art of love is fully compatible with Ovid’s conception of the
artist’s role, which consists of dissimulating, cheating, counterfeiting, to make the incredible
credible.117 The true art must always appear natural and spontaneous and give no evidence of the
labour which perfected it. While the art of love is a “Protean act,” since the wise lover suits himself
to countless fashions, Ovid’s style is likewise strategy and façade. Robert Hanning also notes a

115 For a different view on the praeceptor’s hypocrisy, see Richard Lanham. The Motives of Eloquence: Literary Rhetoric in

the Renaissance (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1976), 52. Lanham observes that, since all the teaching of
the praeceptor, including his own performance, entails a "theatrical presentation of self," therefore "no hypocrisy is
involved" inasmuch as "situation determines self: different situation, different self."
116 Paul Barolsky, “A Very Brief History of Art from Narcissus to Picasso,” Classical Journal 90.3 (1995), 255.
117 E. D. Blodgett, "The Well-Wrought Void: Reflections on the Ars Amatoria," Classical Journal 68 (1973), 322.

54
juxtaposition between artistic pursuit and erotic cultus in the advice of Ars Amatoria, where cultus
refers to cosmetic beautification rather than refinement. Lover’s skills and artistic genius overlap
since both refer to an "exercise in self-construction that must constantly attune itself to ever-
changing circumstances." 118

Nevertheless, the Protean quality, shared by the artist and the lover, is first and foremost a feminine
attribute in Ovid's erotodidaxis, as it is suggested by the praeceptor when asserting that various are
the hearts of women (Ars 1.755-56: sunt diversa puellis pectora). The male addressee of Ars 1 and
2 is called to play de lover (Ars 1.611: Est tibi agendus amans). Playing the lover requires being as
versatile as Proteus precisely as the performer must be ready to adapt himself to the countless
hearts of the woman. Whilst she plots, he counterplots; whilst she conceals her true desires and
defects, he is ready to counterfeit as well, his goal being to deceive the deceivers (fallite fallentes).
However, as the praeceptor himself recognizes, often the pretender becomes what he has
pretended to be (Ars 615-16). Paradoxically, insofar as male lovers must adopt countless fashions
and deploy deceptive tactics, as consequence of their erotic pursuit they necessarily become as
adaptable and versatile as women. In other words, every man who craves to master the art of love
should be ultimately willing to learn the art of women.

With these issues in mind, let us return to the praeceptor’s exclamation in Ars 3.281: “Who could
believe it? Girls learn even how to laugh!” Like Beard, Craig Williams reads the verse as an ironic
remark of Ovid’s speaker suggesting that if women want to attract men, among the many things
they must learn is laughter.119 Nonetheless, as Williams notes, the emphasis is more on discunt
(learn) than on ridere (laugh). Once he has finished his “spurious technical instructions,” the
praeceptor claims: How far does art not go?” (Ars 3. 291: Quo non ars penetrat?) —and it may be
supposed that women’s art of deception is being alluded to here. In fact, the praeceptor praises
those puellae who are skilled at making their faults fashionable, by shaping or dissimulating them
with charm. He is likewise amazed at girls’ learning plasticity and seems especially determined to
show that feminine art succeeds in opposite, even antithetical, domains. Thus, as easily as they learn

118 See Robert Hanning, Serious Play: Desire and Authority in the Poetry of Ovid, Chaucer, and Ariosto (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2010), 48.
119 Craig Williams, “Identified quotations and literary models: The example of Martial 2.41,” in Flavian poetry, ed. R.R.

Nauta, H-J. Van Dam, & J. J. L. Smolenaars (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 344.

55
to laugh, they learn weeping (Ars 3. 291: discunt acrimare decenter),120 among other displays of
their prodigious versatility.121 The lesson in female laughter appears therefore narrowly linked to
the Ovidian notion of ars, either as the mastery of a skill, deception, or sleight of hand. Of course,
laughter is an unteachable and unlearnable skill, but (as the joke suggests) women can make
possible the impossible.

In the Remedia Amoris the praeceptor returns to the issue of laughter. Among his medicinal mock
instruction to fall out of love, this time exclusively addressed to men, the praeceptor warns his
patients that, instead of suffering for a woman’s scorn, they should “feign to be heart-whole… and
laugh, when you would mourn your plight” (Rem. 493-494: et sanum simula… et ride, cum tibi
flendus eris). Here, again, laughter is introduced as a skill. But on this occasion is presented as a skill
that every man should learn in order to succeed over women and extricate himself from love.
Considering all this, it is worth asking ourselves: what could a man gain by learning to laugh, in the
manner of women?

As discussed above, in Roman elegiac fantasy female laughter often threatens men, as it can express
women’s delight at their control over their suitors, as well as their domain over situations. However,
considering the parodic component of his mock-didactic poetry, Ovid’s response to female laughter
becomes much more complex and elusive than a successful pre-emptive attack, wrought by an
elegiac lover wounded by female laughter. In fact, by taking carefully the praeceptor's advice, we
should recognize that men are not merely called to stop female laughter. Quite the contrary, when
it comes to laughter, the female beloved occupies the master's exemplary position and turns the
male lover into her imitating pupil. In Ovidian erotodidaxis men have no choice but to laugh like

120 See also Remedia Amoris when the praeceptor advises his male students: “And take care not to be moved by women’s
tears: they have taught their eyes to weep” (Rem. 690: Ut flerent, oculos erudiere suos). Commenting on the praeceptor's
instructions on Ovid's Ars, Lanham has remarked that the third book closes with a piece of advice on "decorous positions
for sexual intercourse and on how to fake the most sacred spontaneity of all, sexual climax." See Lanham, 52. Actually, in
Ovid’s parodic handbooks women’s learning ability goes so far that they can either learn to speak defectively, as they have
the "power to mar their power of speech," or acquire a great deal of literary expertise. As James has noted, in Ars 3 the
praeceptor outlines his female addressees as especially keen on poetry and assigns them a near-PhD reading list. In fact,
in Ars 3. 329-46 the puella is supposed to read Callimachus, Philetas, Anacreon, Sappho, Menander, Varro, Vergil and Ovid
himself, especially his Ars 1 and 2, Amores and Heroides. See James, 144.
121 Women’s prodigious control over their laughter and other bodily impulses can appear to be in contradiction with

Roman conceptions on laughter. According to Beard, “a powerful Roman cultural myth of laughter (like our own) was that
as a natural irruption, it challenges the ability to master it, and so the proper observance of the social protocols of laughter
was the mark of a man (usually a man) fully in control of himself.” See Beard, 133. However, in Ovid's works women often
appear endowed with the talent of mastering their mirth. A good example is Helen's holding back her laughter in Heroides
17.163-64, an scene that will be discussed below.

56
women, that is to say, with a fake laugh, a convenient laugh, if they want to overcome the torment
and despair. At the end, learning to laugh like women is the price to be paid to taste the paradoxical
glory of preventing women from having the last laugh. By means of this comic strategy, men may
eventually recover their lost position of power, although the risk of being confused with their female
counterpart is high and has to be assumed.

Jupiter’s feminine laughter

The second book of the Metamorphoses features another great example of Ovid's paradoxical
female laughter entailing the blurring of gender boundaries. In the episode of Jupiter and Callisto,
we can see the god laughing like a goddess. Infatuated with the idea of seducing the lovely nymph,
Jupiter disguises himself as the goddess Diana, whom Callisto actually loved. When the god in
disguise appears in front of the nymph, she cannot but marvel at the magnificence of her beloved
goddess and eulogizes her as "greater than Jupiter." While Jupiter’s transformation into a woman is
intriguing enough, the transvestite god carries this impersonation even further by giggling at
Callisto's naughty remark (Met. 2.429-430: ridet et audit / et sibi praeferri se gaudet et oscula
iungi).122 According to Sharrock, this ambivalent laughter points to both the god's immoderation in
transgressing his own gender boundaries and his willingness to control the object of his desires. This
contradictory impulse towards both control and unrestraint makes Jupiter at once “both hyper-
masculine and feminized."123

Similar contradictory tendencies inform Ovid’s characters and speakers elsewhere in his works. The
poet shows himself especially keen to exploit the wide range of ambiguities lurking in human nature,
including ambivalent relationships between desire and gender. In this regard, among Greco-Roman
writers, Ovid was probably the one who went further in his artistic attempt to craft female speakers
and merge his voice with theirs.124 This is especially noticeable in his Heroides —a series of imaginary

122 In my commentaries on the Metamorphoses, I follow Ovid, Metamorphoses: A New Verse Translation, trans. David
Raeburn (London: Penguin Books, 2004).
123 Alison Sharrock, “Gender and Sexuality”, in The Cambridge Companion to Ovid, ed. Philip Hardie (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2003), 97.

124
In his comments on Heroides, L.P. Wilkinson asserts that “although Ovid may write about women often with amused
cynicism, he seems to have had an unusual inclination to see things from their point of view”. However, continues
Wilkinson, even though one may consider Heroides as a "sympathetic to women" poem, there is no major trace that allows
us to judge Ovid's famous women impressions as expressive of feminine voices beyond the literary pale. See L.P. Wilkinson,

57
letters from famous heroines of antiquity to their husbands, lovers, and erstwhile lovers. The fact
that those poems have no frame, nor explicit signs indicating that we are actually reading a male-
authored text, makes Ovid a sort of early ghost-writer, except for the fact that those women on
behalf of whom he wrote were, so to speak, real ghosts. As Sharrock comments, the hybrid nature
of the female speakers of the Heroides leads us to question: what kind of gendered voice is produced
by a male author speaking through a female mask, but completely subsuming his masculine
authority into the female writing?125

It may be said that Ovid’s writing in the Heroides carefully disguises itself just like Jupiter does in
Metamorphoses 2.401-530. And, of course, when playing the role of some of his heroines as senders
of his fictional letters, Ovid also laughs like women are supposed to do, in a way that also recalls
Jupiter laughing at Callisto's uninhibited remark, even though his own authority could appear to be
at stake. The similarity between Jupiter's transvestism and Ovid's writing under several female
masks raises the following question: To what extent can laughter undermine the authority of the
man in female disguise?

In Heroides 17. 159-64 Ovid puts on the body of Helen to mock Menelaus by recalling how she barely
fought back laughter (vix tenui risum) when, before his departure, her husband instructed her to
take care of his household affairs during his absence, including the Trojan guest, Paris. In response,
Helen writes, she could say nothing but “I will” (nil illi potui dicere praeter ‘erit’). Of course, those
who are acquainted with the story may easily imagine how heartily and joyfully Helen answered at
the request of her husband. Her assertion is ironic, since she has already proven to be truly
committed to fulfilling her responsibilities towards Paris, who happens to be the recipient of her
letter, and therefore the addressee of her flirtatious banter. While the literary conventions of elegy
are recognizable in this epistolary version of this epic love triangle,126 the parodic twist is here

Ovid Recalled (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1955), 86. For a more in-depth analysis on Ovid’s women and the
female perspective, see Katharina Volk, Ovid (Malden, MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 81-94.

125Sharrock, “Gender and Sexuality”, 97.

126As in the best tradition of Roman love elegy, Helen is mocking her cuckolded husband and deliberately sharing this
laughter with Menelaus' rival. Previously, in Heroides 16.227-30, Paris himself confesses he was shrunken by Helen's
disdainful laughter, when she kissed Menelaus in front of him during a banquet (Her. 16.229-30: notavi in gemitu risum
non tenuisse meo). However, the parodic and playful employment of this trope is noticeable in Heroides, for instance, in
the reversal situation raised by Medea’s suffering when imagining her beloved Jason laughing at her with Creusa (Her.
12.178-1: rideat et uitiis laeta sit ilia meis! Rideat et Tyrio iaceat sublimis in ostro). Yet, as Merriam observes, “instead of
suffering passively as a male elegiac poet would do, Medea plots her revenge." See Merriam, 411n20.

58
suggested by the rather vulgar and blatant exposition of Helen’s and Paris's well-known affair, which
can be witnessed with extraordinary closeness, thus inviting the voyeuristic gaze.

Helen’s shameless mockery at the expense of Menelaus may be compared to Callisto’s indiscreet
remark about Jupiter's inferiority as compared to Diana (Met.2.429: 'audiat ipse licet, maius Iove),
since in both cases male authority seems to be teased by women's wit and sharp tongues. In both
cases women likewise refrain from joking in the presence of the male object of their mockery. On
the one hand, while Helen struggles to control her laughter when her husband is around, she
unleashes it in her private writing. On the other hand, Callisto's intention is to please Diana. When
making the disguised Jupiter laugh, she truly believes they are sharing a burst of laughter reserved
for women. This may suggest a kind of feminine laughter linked to spaces of complicity and trust
among women men do not (or should not) have access to. In fact, in both examples Ovid's fantasy
allows us to intrude on the privacy of those mythical females, thus letting us hear women's secret
laughter at men.

Ovid's depiction of women laughing may appear exceptional against the background of Roman
literature, where, according to Beard, examples of female subversive laughter are rare. Of course,
this absence does not mean that Roman women did not giggle, although, as a counter-cultural
female form, their laughter was not incorporated into mainstream male literature. For the most
part, argues Beard, in Roman literature women’s laughter does not seem to represent much of a
threat to male egos, or at least Roman rules and regulations on laughter implicitly or explicitly were
intended to ensure it did not disrupt male traditions of laughter and joking.127 However, these
examples of Ovid's poetry do exhibit a significant degree of disruption of male authority. In the Paris-
Helen letters, for instance, the parody is clearly evoking elegiac tropes about women’s wickedness,
nevertheless they are deliberately placed within an epic framework where heroes and their prowess
are regularly the focus of attention. This device stresses the foolishness of the epic heroes by
presenting them acting like elegiac lovers. Helen laughs in the elegiac fashion, thus performing the
comic degradation of the epic heroization of legendary men such as Paris and Menelaus.

In the episode of Jupiter impersonating the goddess Diana we see Callisto unknowingly degrading
nothing less than the highest male authority, by having the joyful audacity of judging the god not as

127 Beard, 157.

59
great as her patron goddess. Here we are momentarily breaking into an all-female partnership and
witnessing the sort of familiarity allowed in a realm entirely detached from male surveillance. It is
worth noting, however, that Jupiter contrives to violate the autonomy of Diana’s warrior-nymphs
community. In this regard, it may be argued that such an intrusion precludes the possibility of
appreciating female mirth as a disruptive force. After all, the god seems to retain control and
ultimately manages to rape Callisto under the shape of Diana.

Jupiter's cross-dressing is an expression of the god’s omnipotence. However, it remains paradoxical

that, in order to assert his masculine power, he must first succeed in turning himself into a woman.
Furthermore, although Jupiter seems to get the last laugh, the fact that he laughs at Callisto's
derisive remark makes his triumph all the more problematic. His laughter is provoked by the rather
contradictory delight of hearing that Jove disguised as Diana is preferred to Jove without disguise
(Met. 2.430: sibi praeferri se gaudet). Jupiter thus rejoices to be preferred to himself! The reflexive
pronouns are striking. As Shilpa Raval observes, the irony generated by the reflexive pronouns
reminds us that, despite his female costume, “this is no virgin goddess, but rather the lusty king of
the gods.”128 However, I believe, Ovid's irony stresses the folly of Jupiter drawing upon an artistic-
cosmetic addendum to impersonate someone else, as a display of his might. The paradoxical
outcome of his trick is being considered greater than himself —the illusion being preferred to its
creator— with the ensuing devaluation of is own self-image. In the end, the position of power thus
held prove to be a much flimsier construction, precisely because its artificiality is both exposed and
stressed.

Ovid's transvestite Jupiter is, as Michael Holahan notes, "clearly a figure for the artist."129 The god's
rejoice at his female disguise is certainly in line with Ovid's self-conscious delight in artistry and
artifice. As stated above, Ovid's ideal of artistic genius is likewise echoed by the praeceptor amoris'
praise of women’s deceptive skills in Ars Amatoria. In the same vein, Jupiter’s extreme self-
indulgence in shape-shifting suits well the role of the Ovidian artist. Furthermore, according to the
traditional Roman binary ideals of gender, that is, the division between masculine and feminine
traits and “essential” male and female natures, Jupiter's excessiveness also falls on the side of

Shilpa Raval, “Cross-Dressing and Gender Trouble in the Ovidian Corpus.” Helios 29 (2002),153.
128
129Michael Holahan, “Iamque opus exegi: Ovid's Changes and Spenser's Brief Epic of Mutability,” English Literary
Renaissance 6 (1976), 247.

60
femininity, while "limitedness, stability, and moderation” are prerogatives of men.130 Nevertheless,
as Sharrock remarks, in his cross-dressing adventure Jupiter is “at once hyper-masculine and
feminized.” Something similar occurs with Ovid. As a poet, he often occupies Jupiter's ambivalent
position of being, at the same time, beside himself and in control of the situation.

Ovid's style has been frequently described in terms of a precarious, yet virtuous balance between
control and excess.131 Jupiter's performance is equally ambivalent in this respect. His delight lies not
only in the lust obtained by controlling Callisto, “but also in the wit of changing shapes and in a
reflexive consciousness of divine power.”132 Similarly, Ovid does not only content himself with
admiring his dazzling aesthetic illusion but is drawn to seek recognition, either putting himself or his
artistry in the spotlight. In doing so, he indulges in some theatrical excesses. Something similar
occurs with Jupiter's self-mocking, which somehow echoes Ovid's self-disparaging remarks in
Amores 1.8. The god's delight can be interpreted as a risky jibe to the extent that self-irony not only
implies laughing at oneself, but also authorizing others to laugh at the jester. Jupiter's laughter
exposes the seams of his disguise, revealing that his authority derives from the act of performing a
feminine role. Albeit fleetingly, all his might becomes a performance. And, listening to Callisto, we
could also judge Jupiter’s true skin just as another perhaps not-so-great disguise.

The example of Jupiter in Diana-costume can make us more aware of the nature of the
subversiveness of female laughter and mockery in Ovid's works. Impersonating women's speech
and making fun of men through a feminine mask are not in themselves a threat to the authority of
the man who is in disguise, unless the jester has the audacity of redirecting the laughter toward
himself and his own forms of impersonation. In doing so, as will be seen next, Ovid not only risks
being confused with a woman but —what is perhaps even riskier— with a particular class of artist,
a vulgar type of actor, whose performance is boosted by the desire of both exposing himself and
getting pleasure from being the laughingstock of his audience.

130 Dutsch, Feminine Discourse, 149.

131 As Rimell puts it with respect to the Ars Amatoria, Ovid often "betrays a considerable lack of control over his material,
a comic manipulation of his didactic mask which is itself evidence of artistic control.” See Rimell, Ovid’s Lovers, 77n23.
Likewise, Donald Reynolds mentions that Roman critics often censured Ovid for lacking artistic control: "Seneca
complained that he could not leave well alone, Quintilian that he indulged his talent instead of controlling it." Donald
Reynolds, Virgil (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), 123.
132 Holahan, 247.

61
Anna Perenna’s festival and Ovid’s literary burlesque

Laughter, perhaps more than any other spontaneous and involuntary eruption of a vehement
passion, has been traditionally perceived as disruptive and threatening to authority. To begin with,
laughter is a bodily event, and it is likewise narrowly linked to the social aspect of human life. As
Catherine Conybeare puts it, a cackle against intolerant authority can spread contagiously since
“one laughing subject engenders others.”133 The control of laughter is commonly exerted on behalf
of hierarchical power relations, rooted in class, gender, racial/ethnic or other boundaries. In this
respect, Bakhtin claims that laughter is policed to prevent existing structures, prevailing values and
established norms from being grasped in their arbitrariness and fragility, their variability and
impermanence.134 Authority usually appears cloaked with an intolerant, one-sided tone of
seriousness and refuses to see itself “in the mirror of time” since its power lies on abstract truths
that "pretend to be absolute and to have extemporal importance.”135

As mentioned above, the episode of Metamorphoses where Jupiter impersonates Diana may
suggest an intrusion into a circle in which only women might take part, a feminine realm detached
from male surveillance —and, particularly, from Jupiter's absolute power and omniscience. The
god’s intrusion to this nymphs' enclosed female circle also raises the question of whether, by
depicting Callisto's naughty remark about Jupiter, Ovid intends to echo Roman men's anxiety about
women's uninhibited jocular speech. Free, uninhibited, mutually liberating, and festive speech in
the context of an all-female gathering could certainly illustrate the disruptive social potential that
some scholars have found attached to women’s laughter, its power to relativize and undermine
masculine authority, as well as the rigidity of gender roles and stereotypes.136 When addressing

133 Catherine Conybeare, The Laughter of Sarah: Biblical Exegesis, Feminist Theory, and the Concept of Delight (New

York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 59.

134 Bakhtin’s analysis of the so-called "carnivalized" literature draws on its mutual influences with what he names European

popular culture of laughter. According to Bakthin, people's festive laughter is endowed with the power of relativizing all
norms, values, social masks and hierarchies. Therefore, laughter would allow liberation as a sort of antidote of dominance.
For Bakhtin, laughter dethrones the king and the dogma, allowing one to see "the joyful relativity of all structure and
order, of all authority and all (hierarchical) position." Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky, 124. Likewise, according to Bakhtin,
this festive laughter has a positive, regenerating, creative sense. Despite focusing on medieval and Renaissance folk culture
and Rabelais' comic works, Bakhtin's ideas also entail a "carnivalized" Greco-Roman antiquity. Regarding this, Mary Beard
discusses the pertinence of the “carnivalesque” approach to some Roman festivals, specifically, "Bakhtin's reconstruction
of the Roman festival of Saturnalia as an ancient ancestor of carnival, and so a key component in the ‘laughterhood’ of
ancient Rome.” See Beard, 62-65.
135 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and his world (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 212.
136 Most of the arguments highlighting the capacity of female laughter to turn upside down the positions of power (at

least, as it has been imagined in comic literature) follow Bakhtin’s theoretical-philosophical reflections on laughter and

62
Roman culture, however, one major reservation regarding this approach is that there is hardly a
trace of actual women boldly teasing gender hierarchies or enjoying their own sardonic joke about
male authority. However, Ovid's fleeting mention of Roman puellae’s performances at Anna
Perenna’s festival in Fasti 3.675-96 constitutes an exception to this rule. This passage certainly can
provide us with rough idea about a certain type of female mockery of male authority. Can their
bawdy sayings and racy songs suggest a culture of insurgent, jocular female speech, as an exclusive
domain of Roman women?

In Ovid's Fasti the tale of Anna’s deception of the lecherous Mars functions an aetiology of why it is
that on this day of Anna Perenna's festival girls chant obscenities (Fast. 3.675: cur cantent obscena
puellae).137 Here Anna is portrayed as an old celestial go-between who dupes the god into thinking
that he was about to spend a wedding night with the famously virginal goddess Minerva. In this
farcical vignette, Anna stands out as an unusual example in the Roman world of a woman flagrantly
mocking male authority, for her own pleasure and satisfaction. Needless to say, in the story Mars,
the dreadful and martial figure, is degraded into an inept and foolish lover. Although, apparently,
the story does not really offer a direct explanation for the lewd songs,138 the poet ends the episode
concluding that female celebrants indulge in such ribaldry and buffoonery in memory of Anna, since
"it is a pleasure to have hoodwinked a great god” (Fast. 3.696: et iuvat hanc magno verba dedisse
deo). In this regard, Carole Newlands notes that, while English translators regularly use a common
visual metaphor for deception, “hoodwink,” the form used herein is "verba dare,” meaning literally
that Anna “gave words to” the god, so that the Latin metaphor is verbal. From this view, Ovid’s

the topsy-turvy world of the carnival, where the hierarchical order is temporarily reversed. See, for instance, Natalie
Zemon Davis, "Women on Top: Symbolic Sexual Inversion and Political Disorder in Early Modern Europe,” in The Reversible
World: Symbolic Inversion in Art and Society, ed. Barbara A. Babcock, 147-90 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978).
Likewise feminist critics such as Barbara Creed, Kathleen Rowe, and Mary Russo have used the notion of the carnivalesque
to explore images of the female grotesque, the unruly women and the women on top. See Mary Russo, The Female
Grotesque: Risk, Excess, Modernity (New York: Routledge, 1994); Barbara Creed, "Horror and the Carnivalesque: The Body-
Monstrous," in Fields of Vision: Essays in film studies, visual anthropology, and photography, ed. L. Devereaux & R. Hillman,
127-59 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); Kathleen Rowe, The Unruly Woman: Gender and Genres of Laughter
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995).
137 The majority of the Latin citations and English translation are taken from Ovid, Fasti, trans. J.G. Frazer. Loeb Classical

Library (London: Heinemann, 1931). When other translation is used, it will be duly indicated in a footnote.
138 For this view see Jessica Wise, Gender, Rhetoric, Authority: Ovid’s Fasti and Augustan Thought on Women (Unpublished

doctoral thesis, University of North Carolina, 2017), 179. According to Wise, what the myth does provide is “another story
of the foolishness of a Roman male leader acting like an elegiac lover.” Wise also observes that in Fasti this is the last
mention of Mars in the month. “Ovid has transformed the god from the warrior, for whom Romulus named the month,
into a fully disarmed elegiac lover. After this festival, Mars further disappears from his book, which can be seen as one of
the signature moments in Ovid’s project of “disarming” the martial, epic god in Book 3.

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account emphasizes “the power of women’s speech at Anna’s festival to challenge social and gender
norms and mock patriarchal structures.”139

Anna Perenna's feast day is often described in terms of a popular celebration of free speech,
communal rejoicing, relaxation of social norms and social inversion. In this regard, Jeremy Hultin
suggests that the most prominent function of foul language during the festival was fostering a
playful release from normal social restraints.140 Similarly, according to Newlands, in Ovid’s
description “the paradoxical juxtaposition of obscena with puellae empathizes the relaxation and
inversion of social conventions at the festival with regards to speech, as even young girls, the most
carefully guarded category of femininity, can sing without constraint.”141 It may be conjectured,
therefore, that girls’ unrestrained mockery not only challenged male authority during Anna’s
festival, but, in this context, female laughter also contributed to blurring gendered boundaries and
unmaking usual gendered roles of Roman women.

It should be noted, however, that, regardless of how honest and unseemly its outburst was, female
laughter and coarse language allowed against this festive background were not completely
spontaneous or unscripted. In fact, Ovid's account informs us that, along with drinking and other
leisure activities, during Anna’s mirthful festival people used to sing the ditties they had learned in
the theatre (Fast. 3.535: illic et cantant, quicquid didicere theatris). In this respect, T. P. Wiseman
has suggested a cross-pollination between Anna Perenna's cultic activities and Roman theatrical
stage, especially mime performances. In Ovid's time mime was "certainly a likely medium for the
performance of Anna’s story."142 Seen in this light, puellae’s lubricious songs and bawdy jokes during
the festival would have had a distinctive dramatic flair.

The obscene girls described by Ovid and the mime chorus were overlapped to a greater extent,
according to Wiseman. In fact, those girls can be thought as mime actresses, since even during their
offstage fun in Anna Perenna’s feast day they were also featuring as nymphs in a mythological
burlesque. As Wiseman puts it, the goddesses of mime are "showgirls who sing and dance.”143

139 Newlands, “Infiltrating Julian History,” 142.

140 Jeremy Hultin, The Ethics of Obscene Speech in Early Christianity and Its Environment (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 36-37.
141 Newlands, 140.
142 Wiseman, “The Cult Site,” 57.
143 Wiseman, “Ovid and the Stage,” 229.

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Anna's festival can thus be considered as another form of stage, spilling out into daily life. Likewise,
the puellae's mockery can also be described in terms of that “stagy” laughter attributed by Beard to
the female mime artists (mimae).144

Roman mime certainly was not a silent spectacle, as the modern usage of the term might suggest.
Notwithstanding its relatively blurriness,145 there is scholarly agreement that mime was an
extraordinarily popular genre in Rome, especially in Augustan age, which also influenced a range of
literary productions, from elegiac poetry to satirical writings. Moreover, according to Beard, mime
was “strikingly imitative,” and stood out because “its whole point was to make people laugh."146
Another point of scholarly consensus is that mime was one of the few ancient theatrical genres that
featured women as performers.

According to Wiseman, Ovid’s poetry was particularly indebted to the theatre, especially with mime
both as source of humour and as a literary device. Mime’s influence is particularly notorious in
Ovid’s narrative about Anna Perenna and Mars included in Fasti, which was probably originally the
plot of a mime.147 Wiseman also notes that in Tristia Ovid admits that he exploited that genre in his

144 Beard, 102-3. These performances appear narrowly associated with popular cults and plebeian celebrations in Roman
culture. Wiseman remarks that the chorus of girls of the festival can be thought of as “dancing nymphs” and points to “the
long-established association of nymphs with Dionysiac cult.” According to Wiseman, since ancient Greece “mimetic dances
at Bacchus initiation rites” featured girls who impersonated nymphs. Puellae’s performances at Anna Perenna’s festival
also recall the “mystic drama” of the rites at Eleusis. See Wiseman, “The Cult Site,” 56. The chorus of girls playing the
nymphs can be also found in popular spectacles and entertainments associated with the ludi Florales. In this respect,
Wiseman observes that in Fasti Ovid calls Flora's naked showgirls a "plebeian chorus." The purpose of festivals such as
Anna Perenna’s and Flora’s was “to make the mythical real, for a day”. Wiseman, “Anna and the Plebs,” 9. Likewise, Ovid’s
literary strategy relies on “alluding to a stage scenario familiar to his readers.” Wiseman, “Ovid and the Stage,” 229.
145 For a detailed discussion on mime in modern scholarship see Beard, 167-172. Among the aspects which have been

often debated are its use of bawdy language and bodily mimicry, its social milieu and audience, whether it was a vulgar or
a sophisticated genre, as well as the extent to which Roman mime was in debt with an earlier Greek tradition. Regarding
its literary tone and social background see Wiseman, “Ovid and the Stage,” 216. Wiseman points out that “mime could be
both vulgar and sophisticated, morally sententious and obscene”. With respect to Greek mime tradition and its reception
in Rome, see Costas Panayotakis, “Hellenistic Mime and its Reception in Rome,” in The Oxford Handbook of Greek and
Roman Comedy, ed. Michael Fontaine and Adele C. Scafuro (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 392. Panayotakis
mentions that in the Hellenistic period the term mime “could signify (at least) two cultural products, a poem of dramatic
nature and superior literary qualities and an artless spectacle of an actor or an actress or a group of actors performing
tricks, dancing lasciviously, and making improvised, obscene jokes.” The versatility of the genre would have been
transferred into Rome, where mime-pieces were presented whether at the theatrical stage, funerals, triumphs, festivals
or banquets. Likewise, Wiseman alludes to mime’s ubiquity and its versatility as a dramatic form which influenced, and
even was overlapped with, Roman literary genres of “high culture.” See Wiseman, “Ovid and the Stage,” 216.
146 Beard, 169.
147 Some commentators have established a connection between Anna-Mars-Minerva episode in Fasti and the prior-

existing mime by Decimus Laberius, from which remains only few words. On that mime and its fragments, see Costas
Panayotakis, Decimus Laberius: The Fragments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 115-9; see also Wiseman,
Roman Drama, 72-3.

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poetry, and that his works were often “danced” on the stage (Tris. 2.519–20: et mea sunt populo
saltata poemata saepe).148 In fact, thematic affinity with this theatrical tradition is recognizable in
various laughable episodes of Metamorphoses and Fasti, especially when gods and goddesses
become involved in less noble deeds, closer to the most pedestrian and mundane everyday life.149
Particularly, the story of Anna-Mars-Minerva can hint at a common plotline within the so called
“adultery mimes,” where old go-betweens —which is the role played by the aged Anna in Fasti—
were stock figures.150

It is certainly tempting to imagine mime actresses performing roles which Ovid could have specially
written for them, and whose traces can be found throughout his works.151 Moreover, we may
speculate that, in the opposite direction, Ovid’s style could have been influenced by actresses
starring in mimes, who perhaps were recognized by a peculiar way of laughing and mimicry —as
might be inferred from Catullus' invective against a girl who laughs "like a stage tart.” It is not
unreasonable, according to Beard, “to suppose that mime actors and actresses had a distinctive,
perhaps lewd, laugh.”152

While the hypothesis of a specific cross-fertilization between Ovid’s poetry and the speech of mime
actresses remains highly tenuous and conjectural at best, the hilarity of mime, linked to a specific
practice of mimicry, may be plausibly inferred from Ovidian features I have commented throughout
this chapter. Mime appears as a parodic-travestying form in Bakhtin’s sense, since its gist was the

148 Ovid’s defence of his poetry during his exile allows us to appreciate the enormous popularity of mime by the reign of

Augustus. As Hultin has observed, Ovid appeals to the tenor and terms of the mime as well as to the fact that everybody
watched these performances: “What if I had written mimes with obscene jokes [obscena iocantes], which always contain
passages on illicit love ...? These are watched by girls ready to marry, by matrons, men and boys —and most of the senate
attends. It’s not enough that their ears should be besmirched by impure language [incestis vocibus]: their eyes have to get
used to seeing much that is shameful...” Trist. 2.497–514, translation by Hultin, 56.
149 See Wiseman, “Ovid and the Stage,” 217. Wiseman lists fifteen episodes from Metamorphoses and Fasti considered by

scholars to be directly influenced by the Roman theatre and mime, including the Anna Perenna-Mars short skit.
150 Hultin mentions that Athenaios in The Deipnosophists 14.621c gives two possible subjects of a mime piece: “sometimes

women who are adulteresses and procuresses, sometimes a man drunk and going on a revel to his lover.” Hultin, 52. For
a detailed discussion on adultery as a frequent theme of mime, see R. W. Reynolds, “The Adultery Mime” CQ 40 (1946),
77-84. According to Reynolds, 77: "the Adultery Mime reached its full popularity neither in Egypt nor in any part of the
Greek speaking world, but on the mimic stages of the Romans, in whose more liberal attitude to the status of women it
found perhaps a more congenial atmosphere."
151 On some renowned Roman mime actresses and the dramatic origin of some Ovid’s stories, see Wiseman, “Ovid and

the Stage,” 220-25.

152 Catullus 42. 7-9: Quae sit, quaeritis? Ilia, quam uidetis turpe incedere, mimice ас moleste ridentem catuli ore Gallicani.

In her study on Roman laughter, Beard comments on these verses by Catullus against a woman who is hanging onto his
poetry tablets. Where the poet describes her laughter as mimice ac moleste Beard translates “in the style of mime actress,”
adding that this “is generally the sense that most translators of the poem now give.” Other translations mentioned by
Beard are “odious actressy laugh,” or that she laughs “like a stage tart.” Beard, 171.

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appropriation of another voice, gesture, expression, jargon or style intended to produce a comical
effect. Mime performers, whether males or females, imitated different forms of speech, probably
barefaced but certainly with a view to eliciting laughter in the audience. Likewise, as Beard points
out, for the imitation to succeed it was central that the audience laughed not only at the parodied
speech but also at the actors themselves.153 It is possible to state, therefore, that Ovid often laughs
in that peculiar “stagy” way.

Just as mime performers, Ovid is also ridiculus in both senses of the Latin adjective: something that
is laughable (more or less “ridiculous” in the modern sense) and something or someone who actively
makes people laugh. Ovid’s parodic impersonations of others’ speeches are certainly laughable, and
frequently the smart jokester becomes the target of the laughter. This way of laughing, Beard says,
was abominated by Roman cultured elite and especially feared by the orators, who also raised
laughter to persuade and, in doing so, often risked confusion with this infamis actor.154 On the
contrary, we know that Ovid hardly had qualms about laughing with the bawdy vulgarity of a mimus.
As he himself claims: “What if I had written mimes with obscene jokes?” (Tris. 2. 497: Quid, si
scripsissem mimos obscena iocantes).155 Just as Jupiter who was delighted to be mistaken for Diana,
Ovid proudly cloaks his poems with the humour of the mime, since what may be seen as a form of
degradation actually makes him even greater than himself.

Imitative strategies employed by actors and actresses in mime performances could have inspired
much of Ovid's parodic and self-ironical games. As previously argued, the strong tendency to overdo
his spectacularized display of artifices ends up making visible, if not stressing, the artist’s
theatricalized persona and his clever mastering of maks with puckish delight. Moreover, throughout
Ovid’s oeuvre a high awareness of the disguise and show business becomes apparent, inasmuch as
the poems themselves often become ever-changing stages, crowded by vagrant figures, multiple
and fluid identities resembling the atmosphere of burlesque. Similarly, in the festival of Anna
Perenna the celebrants perform the parody of ordinary life in which serious issues are not excluded,
provided they may be rendered in comical, trivializing manners within a general attitude of mockery
and disrespect.

153 Beard, 170.

154 For an analysis of the contested relationship between orators and mime players, see Beard, 99-127.
155 Quoted and translated in Hultin, 56.

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Ovid's literary burlesque can be ultimately branded as feminine since, to some extent, in Roman
culture that label proved adequate for the stage. As Dutsch observes, if we assume that limitedness
and stability were categorized as essentially masculine, the theatre, a place reinvented with each
performance and peopled by ambivalent figures, could be seen as feminine at some symbolic level.
Fundamentally, the stage reveals problems with "the hygiene of the self,” which either splits into
multiples selves or extends its boundaries to include others.156 Similarly, Ovid’s hybrid narrative
poetry could be labelled as feminine given its ambivalence and prodigality of meanings, its
performative self-consciousness, and its tendency to blur the boundaries and barriers of gender and
genres.

The creation of literary artefacts which may be labelled as especially feminized, in the sense
described above, was perhaps one of Ovid’s lasting legacies. Of course, some might say that from
this point of view all art appears as feminine, as engaging in any form of art ultimately involves going
beyond oneself. However, the peculiarity of Ovid, which will recur later in his medieval afterlives, is
that the poet does not avoid boasting on this so-called feminine quality. Quite the contrary, he
strives to amplify and develop this quality in all its paradoxical consequences.

Centuries later, in De Vita Solitaria Petrarch will accuse Ovid of having a "lascivious and lubricious
and altogether womanish mind" —the poet’s proneness to carnality and sensual pleasures being
here the marker of his alleged femininity.157 Yet Ovid had a multifaceted and rather ambivalent
medieval afterlife. In fact, medieval commentators read the poet either as an ethical pedagogue, an
antifeminist authority or a master of sensuality. In either case, the feminine quality of Ovid remains
in the Middle Ages as a consequence, again, of his problems with the "hygiene of the self." As will
be seen in the next chapters, the peculiar Ovidianism of late medieval comic poets like Chaucer, Ruiz
and Boccaccio exploited the ambivalence of the master to a great extent. In particular, these writers
elaborated on the Ovidian figure of the laughing old women, and also deployed the trope of female
derisive laughter and mockery to undermine their authorial self-projections, as well as the
authoritative discourses on women’s nature and gender boundaries. And, from time to time, late
medieval comic writers returned to the paradox bequeathed by Ovid, by laughing with a female

156 Dutsch, 180, 185.

157 Quoted in Fyler, The medieval Ovid, 415.

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laughter that does not bother to conceal that there is a man behind the mask, a man who is just
pretending to laugh like a woman, perhaps for the mere pleasure at seeing masks fall.

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CHAPTER 2

CHAUCER'S LAUGHING FEMALE PREACHERS: OVID AND JEROME IN THE MOUTHS OF THE WIFE OF
BATH AND SAINT CECILIA

He hadde a book that gladly, nyght and day,

For his desport he wolde rede alway;
He cleped it Valerie and Theofraste,
At which book he lough alwey ful faste.
And eek ther was somtyme a clerk at Rome,
A cardinal, that highte Seint Jerome,
That made a book agayn Jovinian…
Ovides Art, and bookes many on

[The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, ll. 672-680]

Ovid and Jerome bound in the same volume

In her tale's prologue, the Wife of Bath gives us a detailed description of the book that Jankyn, her
fifth husband, regularly read for his amusement and at whose contents he always heartily laughed.
The so-called book of “wikked wyves” is a collection of misogynist literature and anti-matrimonial
tracts bound together in one volume. As far as we know, this is a fictitious text, since there is no
news about actual manuscripts containing the exact compilation of texts listed by Chaucer.158 It is
quite probable, however, that the poet freely drew on the misogynistic and misogamistic literature
that flourished during the Middle Ages and was widely read in universities, all-male institutions with
a mainly clerical student body.159 In this respect, it seems not fortuitous that Jankyn was a clerk at
Oxford —which, incidentally, recalls Nicholas in the Miller's Tale and let us not forget that the Wife’s
name is, perhaps not accidentally, Alisoun.160 As Ruth Mazo Karras explains, the reading of works

158 There are compilations of manuscripts which have considerable similarities to the one Chaucer describes. In this regard,

an attempt at (partial, creative) reconstruction has appropriately been made by Ralph Hanna and Traugott Lawler, using
materials collected by Karl Young & Robert A. Pratt. Hanna, Ralph, ed. Jankyn's book of wikked wyves (Athens: University
of Georgia Press, 1997).
159 For a study of the manuscript situation of this misogynistic material and its circulation among universities during the

fourteenth century, see Robert Pratt, "Jankyn's Book of Wikked Wyves: Medieval Antimatrimonial Propaganda in the
Universities," Annuale Mediaevale 3 (1962), 5-27.
160 For the relationship between Chaucer's two Alisouns see Edmund Reiss, "Chaucer's Thematic Particulars," in Signs and

Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry, ed. John P. Hermann and John J. Burke (University, AL: University of Alabama Press , 1981),
30. Reiss notes that, speaking of her fifth husband, the Wife tells how he had been a clerk of Oxford and had boarded at
the home of her friend, whose name was Alisoun (527-32). The Wife would seem to be referring to the situation at the

70
such as those included Jankyn’s codex was promoted as part of the educational curricula, with the
purpose of encouraging both Latin literacy, through the study of ancient authors, including
“antifeminist classics,” and the celibacy among the clerks, on the expectation that they would
remain and progress in orders.161

This chapter foregrounds two of Jankyn’s preferred readings, their influence being particularly
pervasive among medieval literate culture: Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and Jerome's fourth-century
treatise Against Jovinian (Adversus Jovinianum), especially Jerome's allusion to The Golden Book of
Marriage allegedly written by Theophrastus.162 Ovid and Jerome are likewise the target of the Wife´s
criticism, as she identifies them as “clerkes” who “devyne and glosen, up and doun” (26). Of course,
although he appears bound up with Jerome, embedded within the covers of the same volume, Ovid
cannot rightly be charged of being one of those scholarly Christians, despite some medieval legends
that made the Augustan poet a proto-Christian during his latter days in exile. In any case, the
presence of the Ars Amatoria in Jankyn's codex hints at the appropriation of Ovid's oeuvre by
scholastic misogyny. Particularly, Ovid's mock instructional poems were the object of an extensive
moral recalibration to be placed in the medieval canon, but also converted into jokes passed
between men.

There is a wide consensus among scholars that Chaucer bore in mind the misogynist culture of his
day when crafting the Wife's Prologue. At the same time, Ovid and Jerome have received special
scholarly attention, and stand out as major sources for both the Wife’s speech and comical
portrayal. Paradoxically, the Wife's contestation of misogynistic authority has been described as
following up the models supplied by her male-contenders, at varying degrees. On the Ovidian side,
for instance, Michael A. Calabrese notes that Dame Alisoun adopts a distinctively Ovidian outlook
as she makes praeceptor amoris’s advice to lovers “part of her own art of love.” Similarly, Marilynn
Desmond remarks that the sources of the Wife of Bath’s characterization and speech are both

beginning of the Miller's Tale. Likewise, the fact that the Wife's name is also Alisoun reinforces the idea that this connection
was intentional.
161 Ruth Mazo Karras, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe (Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 79.

162 For the presence of Jerome’s treatise in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue see Robert Pratt, “Saint Jerome in Jankyn's Book

of Wikked Wyves," Criticism 5 (1963), 316-22. For Ovid’s erotodidactic poems see Michael A. Calabrese, “New Armor for
the Amazons: The Wife of Bath and a Genealogy of Ovidianism.” In Chaucer’s Ovidian Arts of Love (Tallahassee: U. Press
of Florida, 1994); Jeremy Dimmick, "Ovid in the Middle Ages: Authority and Poetry," in The Cambridge Companion to Ovid,
ed. Philip Hardie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 264-87; Marilynn Desmond, Ovid's Art and the Wife of
Bath. The Ethics of Erotic Violence (New York: Ithaca, 2006).

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Dipsas, the lena of Amores 1.8 and Ars Amatoria Book 3.163 Scholars usually agree on the fact that
the Wife of Bath is a literary creature composed to a great extent of Ovidian elements. There is, for
instance, an important wink to Ovid’s Remedia Amoris in the General Prologue (475: Of remedies of
love she knew per chaunce). Likewise, through her kinship with La Vielle of the Roman de la rose,
the Wife has been broadly recognized as a medieval heir of Dipsas, who, in turn, has been pointed
by critics like William Matthews and John V. Fleming as an ancient precedent of the medieval
character of the old woman go-between. In this regard, the Wife can be seen both as an
outstandingly original Chaucerian character and as one of the most traditional characters featuring
in The Canterbury Tales.164 The Ovidian background of the Wife’s comic portrayal is not just taken
as evidence of her irrepressible loquacity, rough scholarship and moral turpitude, but rather as
taking part in Dame Alisoun’s subtle rhetorical and exegetical strategies. Such nuanced layers of
meaning and witty strategies are also part of her Ovidian heritage and, as Fleming suggests, can be
discerned when the Wife grapples with written authority, especially when confronting Jerome's
views.165

On the other hand, with regard to “that cardinal, that highte Seint Jerome,” it has been said that the
Wife not only quotes his influential treatise but also debates with Jerome’s doctrines. Her rebuttal
of the arguments presented by Jerome in Against Jovinian has received especial attention from
recent scholarship that has significantly shifted the view on Alisoun as a "hopelessly carnal and
literal" yet misleading exegete,166 whose lack of understanding and corrupted appropriation of Holy
Scripture should have seemed laughable at Chaucer's time. On the contrary, several scholars have
shed light on the orthodox accuracy of the Wife’s “carnal” hermeneutics, highlighting her sharp
criticism of Jerome’s radical asceticism and anti-female propaganda.167 In this context, the debate
between the Wife and Jerome became a key issue, especially since it poses the problem of women's
interpretative praxis and commentary of the Scriptures. Dame Alisoun does not only assume the
role of a scholar, but she performs as a “noble prechour,” as the Pardoner asserts. In this regard,

163 Calabrese, 94; Desmond, Ovid's Art, 116–43.

164 See William Matthew, “The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect,” Viator 5 (1974), 413-43; John V. Fleming, Classical Imitation
and Interpretation in Chaucer’s Troilus (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990).
165 John V. Fleming, "The Best Line in Ovid and the Worst," in New Readings of Chaucer's Poetry, ed. Robert G. Benson and

Susan J. Ridyard, Chaucer Studies, 31 (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003).

166 Durant Waite Robertson, A Preface to Chaucer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), 317.
167 See Katharina Wilson, “Chaucer and St. Jerome: The Use of ‘Barley’ in the Wife of Bath's Prologue," Chaucer Review

19:3 (1985), 245–51; Warren S. Smith, “The Wife of Bath Debates Jerome,” Chaucer Review 32 (1997), 129–45; Thomas C.
Kennedy, “The Wife of Bath on St. Jerome,” Mediaevalia 23 (2002), 75–97; Theresa Tinkle, "Contested authority: Jerome
and the Wife of Bath on 1 Timothy 2," Chaucer Review 44 (2010), 268–93.

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Alastair Minnis notes that the Wife of Bath’s humorous but highly unsettling authority-claim, and
the fact that she dares to preach in front of the pilgrims, are the hallmarks of her problematic
portrayal, since female sex was considered an inevitable impediment to public ministry.168

Within this framework, however, studies focusing on the role played by the motif of female laughter
as an enabler of Alisoun's preaching still remain scarce. Along with this, an analysis of the cross-
influences between the authors listed in Jankyn's book, especially with respect to the meanings they
attach to female laughter, is still lacking. Here I will argue that the encounter of Ovid and Jerome in
Jankyn’s fictitious codex not only hints at their influence over Chaucer’s portrayal of female laughter,
but it also provides us with an occasion to examine the possible cross-borrowing of certain Ovidian
tropes in Jerome's own satirical depictions of women.

Chaucer draws a complex and nuanced picture of female laughter in its relationship with women's
power of speech and agency. Proof of this is that in The Canterbury Tales we can find another
heroine who dares both to laugh and preach: the virgin Saint Cecilia from the Second Nun's Tale.
Each heroine, in her own way, crosses the border when assuming a male role and begins to preach.
Both women likewise laugh at male authority, whether that of husband, ecclesiastical, or otherwise.
However, although female laughter features crucially in these two tales, as a mark of these women’s
agency, its type and significance are intriguingly different. It may be said that women’s agency,
speech, and laughter are troublesome and negatively exemplary when they are not being plied in
the service of patriarchy, as occurs with the five-time-married Wife of Bath, but when they are, as
in the case of the virgin martyr Cecilia, then they are laudable.

The first sections of this chapter focus on the stereotypical gap-toothed smile of the Wife of Bath,
considering the ways in which female laughter was often constructed by late medieval cultural
imagination, as can be seen in didactic literature intended for female audiences. I will argue,
however, that the meaning and functions of the Wife's laughter in her prologue are far from being
clarified by relying on the division of medieval female laughter as a conspicuous definer of feminine
sinfulness or virtue, a vision based on a binary split which often occurs in medieval conduct
literature. The approach to female laughter —its presence or absence and its intensity—as an

168 On the issue of female scholarship and preaching see Alastair Minnis, Fallible Authors: Chaucer's Pardoner and Wife of

Bath (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), especially Chapter 4: Gender as fallibility. Chaucer's Wife of
Bath and the impediment of sex.

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adamant differentiator of a woman's highly sexed nature or her chastity, is also nuanced by Christine
de Pizan's advice on that issue included in her conduct text Le Livre des Trois Vertus. Furthermore,
to take a look at medieval conduct literature for women provides a good opportunity to ponder
another side of the problematic reception of Ovid during the Middle Ages. His Ars Amatoria not only
enjoyed a privileged authority among male intellectual circles, but also had a relevant, yet indirect
role in shaping the medieval ideal of female laughter regularly found in conduct texts.

This chapter continues by introducing Ovid and Jerome as two major models that create tension
while informing Dame Alisoun’s laughing sermon, and then establishes the likely literary influence
of Ovid over Jerome's own imagery of laughing women. Likewise, Jerome's conception of female
laughter is carefully examined through the lens of his ascetic ideology. In Jerome's writings,
especially in his counsels to his female disciples, the motif is often used to categorize women into
different types, whether considering it a mark of degradation or a mark of higher spiritual rank. This
background is subsequently used to shed light on the peculiarities of Saint Cecilia's laughter in the
Second Nun’s Tale, by comparing the virgin saint with some exemplary female ascetics described by
Jerome. One main question to be answered here is to what extent the ways in which Chaucer's
female preachers joke and laugh are influenced by those models provided by Ovid and Jerome. This,
in turn, raises another question: How do these two models work, whether restricting or allowing
the apparently disruptive speech of these laughing women, especially when they preach and, thus,
cross the border assuming a male role—on the understanding that only men could preach?

The gap-toothed mouth

A long-dated, and still growing, body of scholarship has been exploring the precedents of the Wife
of Bath, recognizing her as a product of ―as well as a response to― the misogynist tradition
entrenched in Chaucer’s contemporaries, which rested on a mixture of pagan and Christian views
on gender, sexuality, and marriage. Within this framework, it is possible to find some attempts to
understand Dame Alisoun's peculiar ethos with a focus on her “likerous mouth” and her wide-set
teeth. The latter trait has usually been interpreted as a hallmark in the prototypical portrayal of the
“bad girl,” in the light of certain cultural constructions of femininity and the body, also associated
with medieval attitudes toward female laughter.

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When Alisoun is alluded to in the General Prologue, we are told that “Gat-tothed was she” (468) and
in her tale’s prologue she herself remarks on this physical trait in her own self-portrayal (603: Gat-
tothed I was, and that bicam me weel). According to Bernard Levy, the fact of having a gap-toothed
smile should be read as “an indication in medieval physiognomy that such a person was endowed
with a highly sexed nature.”169 In this case, this feature by itself could have printed a specific ethos
to the Wife, by inserting her into what at first appears as a rigid taxonomy of womanhood. As Lisa
Perfetti explains, Chaucer's Wife of Bath gathers characteristics "to create a portrait of the ‘bad girl’
170
whose excessive female sexuality is linked to wide-mouthed laughter and joking.” Such a
stereotyped characterization may suit well the way in which Alisoun presents herself before the
readers and her pilgrimage companions, as an overly sexualized woman, a kind of praying mantis
who drains vital energy from her lovers. This becomes apparent, for instance, when she alludes to
her intercourses with her rich and elderly husbands as a source of a rather sadistic amusement to
her. In line with this, she does not even try to hide that those memories make her laugh (201-2: As
help me God, I laughe whan I thynke/ How pitifully at night I made them work!). The portrayal of
the Wife’s gaping mouth can be contrasted with that given in the General Prologue of the Prioress's
very small mouth (153: Hir mouth ful smal, and therto softe and reed) and her shy smile (119: of hir
smylyng was ful symple and coy).

The female mouth whose teeth were widely set apart was often interpreted as a sign of boldness
and uncontrolled appetites, particularly lust. Such linkages become part of the clichés about women
and over-stylized conventions that are common in Western medieval literary culture. Some critics,
such as Perfetti and Olga Trokhimenko,171 have observed that this association recurs in medieval
cultural imagination, being regularly expressed in both literature and educational treatises
prescribing and proscribing behaviour, and thus constructing desirable femininity. In conduct texts
for women laughter was likewise discouraged due to its strong physical component, which made it
akin to other bodily pleasures. Indeed, a burst of laughter would have represented a dangerous
threat of public exposure of women's sinful moral internal landscape, through one of the most
conspicuous body's orifices: the mouth. In this regard, Perfetti understands that the repression of

169 Levy, Bernard. “Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, the Loathly Lady and Dante’s Siren." Symposium 19: 4 (1965), 362.
170 Perfetti, Women and Laughter, 30.
171 See Perfetti’s Introduction in Women and Laughter, especially 4-12; Olga Trokhimenko, Constructing Virtue and Vice:

Femininity and Laughter in Courtly Society (ca. 1150–1300) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014), see especially
Chapter 1, 26-61.

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laughter results from the religious concern about the bodily filters that should prevent the entry of
the evil, among which the mouth was regarded the most vulnerable doorway to sin. It would not be
surprising, Perfetti adds, that women, allegedly less able to control their bodies, “were more likely
to be associated with the sinful implications of laughter.”172

To abstain from laughing ―or, at least, to apply restraint to avoid bursting with laughter― often
features as one among many other behavioural instructions intended for a female audience,
whether religious or lay, we can find in medieval didactic literature, including etiquette and conduct
manuals. In this regard, Trokhimenko provides a detailed analysis of this gendered approach to
laughter in didactic literature written mostly by clerics and intended to educate young aristocrats.173
The appeal to avoid unbecoming laughter features in medieval tracts on the spiritual life containing
instructions concerning physical behaviour of novice religious. A good example is the guide for
novices De exterioris et interioris hominis compositione, written around 1240 and attributed to
Franciscan friar David of Augsburg (c.1200-1272). In its Middle English translation, the advice on
laughter reads as follows: “Lete þi lauhwyng be right and without mow makynge and more
shewynge to benignite þen dissolucion.”174 Very low-pitched discreet laughter suits women, since
they are called to avoid the dissoluteness traditionally associated with their sex. Examining conduct
texts like this, with a focus on the degree of virtue or vice they assign to a given form of laughter,
allow us to understand the role played by it in the construction of medieval women's identities.

The appeal to women to refrain from laughter recurs in a range of medieval conduct literature,
whether male-authored, female-authored or anonymous, containing lessons about proper courtly
behaviour. And quite frequently, albeit at varying degrees, control of laughter is liable to be
connected to the need for controlling a woman's body. For instance, in the fifteenth-century Middle
English poem How the good wijf taughte hir doughtir,175 a young girl is advised by her mother not
to jangle or gossip with friends in the church, while at home the recommendation is: “laughe thou

172 Perfetti, Women and Laughter, 6.

173 Trokhimenko, 93-127.
174 Simone Celine Marshall ed., “An Abstracte owte of a Boke that is Callid Formula Nouiciorum, edited from London BL

MS Arundel 197," Mystics Quarterly 29.3-4 (2003), 103. The Middle English translation, entitled "An abstracte owte of a
boke pat is callid formula nouiciorum," corresponds to Part One of the three-part Latin prose text.
175 Both the original texts and the translations are taken from Claire Sponsler, ed.,"The English How the good wijf taughte

hir doughtir and How the wise man taught his sonne," in Medieval Conduct Literature: An Anthology of Vernacular Guides
to Behaviour for Youths with English Translations, ed. Mark D. Johnston, , 285-304 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2009).

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not to loude, ne yane thou to wide, but laughe thou softe and myelde, and be not cheer to wielde”
(ll. 56-67).176 Here, once again, a woman's moderation regarding her speech and noise is seen as
conditioning or shaping her virtue and good reputation. Conduct literature, though, can instruct
women to laugh moderately yet seductively, under the assumption that the unbridled opening of
their mouths may raise suspicion of promiscuity in both speech and sexuality.

Del reggimento e costumi di donna, an educational poem written by Francesco da Barberino (1264-
1348),177 echoes the simultaneous concern over women's sexuality, their speech, and their laughter.
Whereas the two latter are balanced by virtue of moderation, a woman will be able to convey
feminine charm with an aura of modesty. In Barberino's poem, this is a particularly sensitive issue
as it is intended to guide the girl who, going through an awkward and tough age (fanciulla la qual si
comincie alquanto a vergognare), is torn between the sin of failing God and behaving well, as a
means of attaining grace (ch'omai cade in peccatp s'ella fallasse a Dio, e merito sed ella ben si porta).
With this premise in mind, the donna is instructed to temper her speaking; she should not keep
silent to the extent of never speaking to anyone, though she should listen meekly and talk in the
right place and time, whereas her tone of voice should be low, with her hands and limbs steady
(colle sue mani e l'altre membra ferme). In parallel, the girl should avoid uncontrolled and constant
laughter, but not joyful facial expressions or moderate laughter. After all, utter lack of laughter is
also unbecoming, as it comes from a cruel or vile heart and a young lady is not yet restricted that
much (questa tal fanciulla non é distretta ancor a tutto tanto).

As Perfetti has observed, Del reggimento significantly stratifies laughter according to women's social
rank.178 The daughters of lesser men (figliuola di minore uomo) can skip the protocol, play and move
freely (e porra ben piu ridere e giucare e piu dattorno onestamente andare, piú allegrezza menare).
However, to laugh carelessly is not advisable for the daughter of a nobleman (figliuola di gentile
uomo) who should safeguard her honour and behave in a way that befits her status. Along with
encouraging noblewomen to keep from giggling loudly, the poem is clear in asking them to avoid

176 Sponsler, 290.

177 Both the original texts and the translations are taken from Eleonora Stoppino, trans., "The Italian Reggiento e costumi
di donna (Selections) and Documenti d'amore (Selections) of Francesco da Barberino," in Medieval Conduct Literature,
127-83.
178 Perfetti, Women and laughter, 70.

77
opening their mouths and looking unseemly, especially as a result of revealing their teeth (mostrar
li denti, che non e cosa conta).179

According to Trokhimenko, medieval conduct literature shows that demands to control female
laughter coexisted with the attempts to define its acceptable forms.180 Against a courtly background,
for instance, the insistence that ladies learn the etiquette of laughter satisfied the social need for
eroticism and seductiveness, as well as guarantee smooth interactions between the sexes.
Trokhimenko mentions La clef d'amors (dated 1280 by Gaston Paris), an anonymous Old French
rendition of Ovid's Ars Amatoria, as an example of the courtly expectations about female laughter.
La clef d'amors attempts to define an ideal laughter (le rire idéal), while, in a manner similar to Del
reggimento, stresses the need of dissimulating a female's gap-toothed smile. The feminine ideal
laughter is thus defined in terms of “a little laugh, sweet and brief, with the mouth semi-open
between two little charming dimples" (un petit rire doux et court, a bouche entr'ouverte avec deux
jolies petites fossettes).181 Ars 3. 280-90 is undoubtedly the source of this ideal, and one can note
that, far from having been read in a parodic sense, Ovid’s lesson in laughter was taken very seriously
by medieval interpreters. The farcical instructions depicting the way in which Roman girls
supposedly learnt to laugh (Ars. 3.280: discunt etiam ridere puellae) also spread in didactic literature
intended to shape female behaviour.

While Ovidian wry humour seems to be overlooked by part of his medieval reception, the particular
medieval afterlife of Ars Amatoria's advice on women's laughter does not lack irony. Transposed
into medieval conduct literature, the joke within a pagan mock didactic poem about fleeting and
adulterous affairs came to express feminine charm in perfect bodily control, becoming an indicator
of women's discretion, honour and sexual virtue.182 In other words, the praeceptor amoris' mock-
lecture style was taken axiomatically as verbatim instruction, thus taking part in the binary scheme
often traced by medieval didactic literature when addressing the issue of female laughter.

179 E sa d' alcum sollazzo/ ridere le convegna,/ non gridi: a! a!, né con simili voci,/ pero che con cio faria mostrar li denti,/

che non e cosa conta; ma, sanza alcum romore,/ sembranza vaccia d'alcuna allegrezza [If something amusing makes her
laugh, she must not scream: "Ah, ah!" or something similar, because in doing this she would show her teeth, which is not
proper; rather, without any sound, she should offer a joyful appearance] Stoppino, 137. The conventional association
between women's sexual misbehaviour and the exposure of their teeth is also apparent in Jean de Meun's la Vieille, a
character strongly influenced by Ovid. In her speech of the Roman de la Rose, this literary old bawd proclaims that the
woman who wants to attract suitors should laugh with her mouth closed (ll.13359-66).
180 Trokhimenko, 116.
181 Quoted in Trokhimenko, 117.
182 On the medieval reception of Ovid’s mock didactic poems, see the Introduction of this dissertation.

78
Therefore, what began as cumbersome and rather absurd how-to-laugh guidelines turned into the
courtly ideal of still, sober and pleasant feminine smiling. Furthermore, albeit unintendedly, Ovid
inspired both the model to define an ideal form of female laughter and its counterpart. Hence the
call for women to not laugh out loud or open their lips too widely in laughter since those traits are
in line with her loose mouth and errant sexuality. This association, incidentally, recurs in the motif,
widespread in medieval literature, of the symbolic equivalence between the two “mouths” of the
female body, that is, the conflation between female mouth and genitals.183

Needless to say, that idealised petit rire does not suit the Wife of Bath's wide-opened, eager, chatty,
and unrestful mouth, whose split front teeth would suggest both open legs and sexual availability.
In fact, Alisoun appears strikingly self-conscious of the conflation of her “two mouths,” when
acknowledging that her gluttonous mouth must have a lecherous tail (466: A likerous mouth moste
han a likerous tayl). Chaucer also brings the female bodily top and bottom together by overlapping
Alisoun's drinking and sexual habits. However, in the case of the Wife’s performance as a preacher,
the topic of the “two mouths” can also be connected to the weaving of both high and low words
which she utters before the pilgrims.

According to the traditional binary split of the female laughing mouth, as a conspicuous definer
and/or an adamant differentiator of feminine sinfulness or virtuosity, Dame Alisoun clearly exhibits
the wrong type of laughter. The gaping mouth, which the noble ladies should shun, is also a
distinctive feature of the stereotyped wife populating medieval antimatrimonial satires. Laughter
appears in line with a range of “vices of the mouth” attributed to this fictitious woman. She is bossy
and garrulous, gluttonous and lascivious. However, as Jill Mann rightly points out, the fact that the
Wife is a female character composed by the foremost tropes of antifeminist satire, does not imply

183 For an in-depth commentary on this medieval topic see Perfetti, Women and Laughter, 7-9 and Trokhimenko, 47-51.
Likewise, scholars interested in the topic of the “unruly women” or the “woman on top” in medieval culture and literature,
such as Carissa M. Harris and E. Jane Burns, have observed the recurring symbolic association between a laughing woman's
gaping mouth and female genitalia, interpreting the efforts to control women’s laughter as symbolic attempts of men to
restrain female's delight and power over them. As Burns has observed, “to laugh with a gaping mouth means in some
sense to split apart the lower body and open the lower, genital mouth as well. Neither gesture becomes the elegantly
attired and properly attractive medieval lady.” E. Jane Burns, Bodytalk: When women speak in Old French literature
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 204. However, this symbolic association seems to have come a long
way before reaching the Middle Ages. In Roman elegy, female laughter was also perceived as a power stance and
expressed sexual misbehaviour. See Merriam, 415. Moreover, images entailing both the control of female laughter and
sexuality can be tracked in ancient Greece. In this regard, O'Higgins, 45, identifies the "strong —and negative— sexual
connotations" of women's laughter in the Odyssey," where Penelope laughs twice, and both instances are connected with
the period in her story when her fidelity may most come into question.

79
Chaucer’s endorsement of it.184 Particularly, far from being reduced to a mark of fallenness, Dame
Alisoun’s gaping mouth in laughter becomes a problematic locus when it is used to preach by
citation of authorities —a point to which we shall return below.

The evil-tongue

The advice to moderate laughter was common in medieval conduct literature for women. However,
it is worth noting the singularity of the prescriptive approach to female laughter that can be found
in the first known female-authored conduct book for laywomen, Le Livre des Trois Vertus,185 written
by Christine de Pizan in 1405. Christine’s counsel of preventing excessive or uncalled-for laughter
(la gardera de trop rire, et non sans cause) appears in the middle of a wider instruction given by
Worldly Prudence to a good princess or high-born lady. The uniqueness of this piece of advice lies
in the fact that it can hardly be based on the assumption that women are less able than men to
control their impulses. Although Christine discourages feminine laughter, her advice actually serves
more subtle purpose than the simple avoidance of sin, under the assumption that women are by
nature more prone to incontinence.

As Christine herself clarifies, Prudence’s advice is completely in accordance with God’s teaching and
will. Among several lessons, the wise lady must learn how to behave in public and how to speak
eloquently and articulately (Prudence at Sobrece apprendront a la dame a avoir parler ordonné et
sage eloquence). This teaching in particular emphasises the harmony between the gestures and the
words. Therefore, coupled with moderate speech, moderate laughter also comes together with a
female body that is kept under control, without making movements and avoiding facial grimaces
(sans faire mouvemens des mains, du corps, ne grimaces du visage). However, it is worth noting that
the call to the princess to control her mouth and speech serves to prevent her from being maliciously
accused of slandering others (sur toute riens que nullement ne mesdie d'aultrui, ne parle en
blasmant); this on the understanding that, above all the earthly things, there is nothing that is so
becoming to noble women than preserving their honour.186 Therefore, as Sharon Mitchell explains,

184 Mann, “Antifeminism,” 66.

185 Original texts taken from: Le livre des Trois Vertus de Christine de Pizan , ed. Charity Cannon and Eric Hicks (Paris: H.
Champion, 1989). In my commentaries to this treatise, I follow: Sarah Lawson’s translation of the text. Christine de Pizan,
The Treasure of the City of Ladies, or The Book of the Three Virtues, ed. Sarah Lawson (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985).
186 Throughout her treatise, Christine insists that moderation is for the best sake of the ladies and poses it as a way to

protect themselves from the slanderers: "...her speech will always be calm and without coarseness, because when

80
noble ladies should avoid words of criticism not because they are necessarily unkind, but because
they can be later cited against them. Immoderate laughter and vulgar gestures should be avoided
for similar preventive reasons.187

Under this light, although Prudence’s advice could be seen as reflecting misogynous commonplaces
―namely the medieval trope of female garrulity and gossip―, it actually has more to do with
Christine’s practical concern regarding public defamation of women than with their alleged
weakness or lack of control over their unruly bodily passions. Further, this advice can be more
accurately interpreted as a calculated response to men’s bad words and wicked tongues. In line with
this, instead of being thought as a call for women to keep their feeble doorway shut to sin,
Christine’s advice to refrain from inappropriate laughter should be seen as a means of helping the
lady to preserve her good reputation, while at the same time showing moderation can be a way of
discrediting male slanders against women.

Christine firmly believed that moderation is on the side of women. On the contrary, in her writings,
this capability for self-retraining is far from being affordable for those villainous slanderers, typically
men, including those clerks who, echoing Ovid's books read at school,188 write and spread
antifeminist jokes and literature. Nor was moderation a chief virtue of those cavaliers who cannot
but defame women they have loved, exchanging bedtime stories of their amours, as presented in
her Epistre au Dieu d'Amours. Here Cupid himself complains:
Dieux, quieulx parleurs! Dieux, quelles assemblees,
Ou les honneurs des dames sont emblees!

[Good God, what gossips! God, what gathering,

coarseness issues from the mouth of a lady or of any woman it rebounds more on her herself than on those to whom she
says it." Lawson, 58.
187 Sharon C. Mitchell, “Moral Posturing: Virtue in Christine de Pisan's Livre de Trois Vertus,” in The Inner Life of Women in

Medieval Romance Literature: Grief, Guilt and Hypocrisy, ed. Jeff Rider and Jamie Friedman (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011), 87.
188 For Christine's critique of Ovid see Libre de la cité des dames 1.9.2, translated in Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City

of Ladies, trans. Rosalind Brown-Grant (London: Penguin, 1999), 20-1. Christine had early pointed to Ovid as a major
influence in medieval misogyny. In her Epistre au Dieu d'Amours she wrote: “And that's what clerks are up to noon and
night, /With verses now in Latin, now in French,/ They base their words on I don't know what books/ Which tell more lies
than any drunkard does/Now Ovid in a book he wrote, sets down/ Profuse affronts; I say that he did wrong/ He titles it
The Remedy of Love,/ And there he lays to women nasty ways,/ Repulsive, sordid, filled with wickedness" (ll. 277-285). In
the Epistre Christine also targets Ovid's Art of Love deeming it misconceived and renaming it "The Art of Great Deceit, / Of
False Appearances" (ll. 377-8).

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 at which a lady’s honour’s stripped away]189

As can be seen in the Epistre ―as well as in the Cité, and other works― the way in which Christine
addresses misogynist literature, especially Ovid and Jean de Meun, is strikingly similar to that of
Dame Alisoun lambasting Jankyn's book. Significantly, when accusing antifeminist writers of being
slanderers, Christine’s criticism draws on one of Jean de Meun’s personification allegories:
Malebouche or "Evil-tongue" from the Roman de la Rose. Malebouche can be traced in many
medieval literary texts, featuring as a character ladies are generally warned to keep away from,
because his custom is to go about disdaining women and spreading malicious gossip about them. It
is worth noting that Malebouche’s verbal incontinence brings him close to the stereotypical
portrayal of the gap-toothed and foul-mouthed woman in misogynous literature, usually satirised
and chastised due to her venomous tongue and unruly voice.

Malebouche somehow mirrors the misogynous commonplaces about women's lack of restraint and,
by doing so, he turns them against the defamers of women. To a certain extent, this allegorical figure
also echoes Christine’s opinion at the beginning of La cité des dames, when she alludes to authors
of misogynistic treatises that, judging by their awful views on women, seems to speak from one and
the same mouth. However, instead of repaid tit for tat, in her conduct book Christine strategically
recommends ladies to be mild in their speaking and laughter, along with other modest and demure
behaviour, to keep them away from slanders. Ultimately, in Christine's view, moderation not only is
the best strategy to not give men an opportunity to soil a lady's good name and reputation, but also
the kind of response that women, by nature gentler and more circumspect, are particularly
predisposed to give.

Other passages of Christine´s Le Livre des Trois Vertus offer some good examples of this. As
mentioned above, the wise princess is taught to be careful with her speech and laughter as people
can spread the worst rumours about her supposed indiscretions, especially false flatterers. Even
when the princess notices it, instead of expressing enmity towards her defamers, Christine
recommends making them calculatingly believe that she regards them as highly as her friends.
Christine agrees that a discrete behaviour, including moderate laughter, is more convenient for the

189 Christine de Pizan, “Epistre au dieu d'Amours,” in Poems of Cupid, God of Love, ed. and trans. Thelma S. Fenster and

Mary Carpenter Erler (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1990), 42.

82
noblewoman, nevertheless self-restraint is figured as a useful social tool that may also have far-
reaching political implications. Thus, the princess who is advised by Prudence is not only more
capable of self-restraint than men, but she can also encourage “goodness in others” and even
mediate between her bellicose husband and his enemies, whether neighbours or subjects. For, given
their natural “sweeter disposition” (plus doulce condicion), women are recognized as a factor of
peace and stability among men (a pacifier l ' homme). On the contrary,
les hommes sont par nature plus courageulx et plus chaulx et le grant desir qu'ilz ont d'eulx
venger ne leur laisse aviser les perilz ne les maulx qui advenir en pevent.190

[men are by nature more courageous and more hot-headed, and the great desire they have
to avenge themselves prevents their considering either the perils or the evils that can result
from war]191

When seen in the light of her particular agenda in defence of women, Christine’s concern about
laughter seems to stem from interests that are more profound than mere apprehensions regarding
the sinful implications of a wide-opened mouth. For her, laughter carries implications that are much
more complex than the simple mistrust towards female's aptitudes to self-master their bodies.
Within the framework of her rebuttal to medieval misogyny, though, moderate laughter still
remains a symbol through which feminine virtue is constructed, albeit strategically, through public
display.

Compared with Christine’s portrayal of the wise princess and judging from the way in which she
laughs and talks, the loud-mouthed and somewhat deaf Wife of Bath can justifiably be suspected of
having ignored Prudence’s admonitions. It seems clear that the Wife does not oblige herself to shut
the gate of her mouth against misogynous defamations; quite the contrary, she counters those evil-
tongued clerks, embodied both in Jankyn and the writers he used to read, Ovid and Jerome among
them. However, just like Christine, Dame Alisoun manages to wittingly adapt the doctrines of
misogyny for using them against the slanderous enemies of women. The difference lies in the
rhetorical manoeuvres she adopts to give her own rebuttal to Malebouche among which her gap-
toothed mouth is presumptuously welcomed. In other words, whereas Christine opts for not to

190 Cannon and Hicks, 35.

191
Lawson, 51.

83
laugh, in order to discourage men's expectations and turn the misogynist tropes against them,
Alisoun keeps laughing and nevertheless surprises her antifeminist counterpart by making an
unexpected move: while she laughs, she preaches and, by doing this, she both usurps and challenges
male authority.

Alongside the debauchery attached to her stereotyped laughter, the Wife’s role as a preacher has
been labelled as misleading, foolish, and rather unorthodox. For instance, commentators have often
noted that Alisoun's rhetorical skills are praised by the Pardoner who ponders her as a noble
preacher (165: Ye been a noble prechour in this cas). In this regard, Susan Kilgour interprets the
Pardoner’s receptiveness to Alisoun's sermon as a sign that she is the same as him, that is, an
inveterate dissimulator; according to this, both should be seen as charlatan preachers whose
allegedly pious conformity to the Church's standards is no more than “a camouflage of their unclean
hearts and motives.”192 In a similar vein, Susan Gallick argues that the ultimate intention of the
Wife’s sermon would be to defend her own self-interest, by justifying her multiples marriages and
her pure joy in sex. From this view, although the Wife follows the techniques of medieval preaching
by looking for Biblical support to make a convincing case, her attempt to gloss authoritative texts
and scriptural passages lacks theological value.193

But does Alisoun really preach a sermon devoid of any theology? As Alaister Minnis remarks, when
the Friar rebukes the Wife of Bath for making arguments in holy writ and engaging in the “aart” of
disputation which is the prerogative of “clerkes grete,” he is voicing a theological concern that
women cannot preach because of their nature (they are inferior to men, and were led into error by
the devil) and because of civil law, which debars them from public office.194 Dame Alisoun is impeded
to hold priestly powers or exercise authority over others, because she is a member of the half of the
human race deemed fallible for being endowed with the wrong kind of material body, the inferior
female rather than the superior male form. However, although the Friar strongly encourages her to
leave exegetical questions to professional preachers and better-qualified clergymen, he also
recognizes many lucid things contained in her sermon (1273: Ye han seyd muche thyng right wel, I
seye).

192 Susan Kilgour, Comedy and satire in Chaucer's portrayal of the Wife of Bath (Unpublished Master of Arts thesis, Iowa
State University, 1974), 16.
193 Susan Gallick, "A Look at Chaucer and His Preachers," Speculum 50: 3 (1975), 463-4.
194 Minnis, Fallible authors, 38.

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It seems clear that Chaucer, just like Christine, does not preclude the female mouth from speaking
words of wisdom, and does not merely associate female laughter with a sinful lack of restraint. But
again, we must keep in mind that female laughter takes on different meanings in different contexts.
This becomes apparent as soon as we contrast the Wife's cheerful yet troublesome preaching with
Saint Cecilia’s unproblematic preaching and laughing. However, as will be seen below, though Dame
Alisoun does not pretend to be a saint, her gap-toothed mouth does not lack its share of virtue.

Two mouths brought together: The Wife echoing Ovid and Jerome

Although the Wife's mouth apparently gathers the stereotypical requirements for playing the “bad
girl,” when saying "muche thyng right wel" she does not seem to content herself with fitting the
mould shaped by such narrow categories. In other words, Dame Alisoun seems to manage to be
both at the virtuous and at the sinfulness side. If we consider that matters concerning both bodily
lower stratum and sophisticated apostolic preaching appear harmonically mingled throughout her
speech, Alisoun's mouth may well be described as an elusive, fluid, liminal, ambivalent and
polyphonic locus, rather than a binary either/or, clearly pointing to the good girl/bad girl dichotomy.

On the one hand, the Friar acknowledges that Dame Alisoun has said many things right well on
theological problems of great difficulty. On the other hand, she has inherited her mouth from an
Ovidian ancestor who used to teach worldly and carnal cupidity: Dipsas, the old lena of Amores 1.8.
In this regard, Fleming cogently points out the ambivalent interweaving of Ovidian and biblical
models in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, underscoring their connection with the motif of the thirst.195
Dame Alisoun echoes the “hetaira catechism” delivered by Dipsas, who is said to have a tongue filled
with baneful eloquence (Nec tamen eloquio lingua nocente caret), by means of which she corrupts
innocent and chaste girls. Particularly, Fleming argues that the Wife inherited Dipsas’ garrulous and
thirsty mouth, and we should not forget that Dipsas’ name is directly related to her insatiable thirst
for wine ―to the point that Ovid tells she has never seen the dawn sober (Am. 1.8.3-4: nigri non illa
parentem/ Memnonis in roseis sobria vidit equis). In both Alisoun and Dipsas the thirst is literal and
figurative, the kind of thirst cannot be quenched either with wine or when her mouth is swamped

195 See Fleming, "The Best Line.”

85
by a tremendous flood of words.196 However, the Wife’s mouth also voices biblical wisdom. In this
regard, Fleming mentions the Wife’s resemblance to the Samaritan woman who insists upon
drinking the water that promises everlasting life. The Wife likewise evokes a female wedding guest
at Cana, when Mary urges Jesus to fill the pitchers before they run out. Similarly, the language used
in her sermon before the pilgrims is free and frank, as befits that kind of speech that, in Bakhtin's
opinion, can be said in the atmosphere of the banquet and, thus, appears intimately connected
“with wise conversation and gay truth."197

It is worth stressing, thus, that Dipsas’ verbal incontinence, whose roots are deeply sunk in the comic
and erotic imagery of ancient paganism, is the literary device behind Alisoun's eloquent defence of
her position as both a constructive actor of Christendom and a valid interlocutor against clerkly
literature. And it is on this point ―the Wife’s unsettling embracing of authority to teach and
preach― that feminine verbal incontinence becomes problematic, insofar as it may spread good
doctrine, or, as the Friar recognizes, it may say many things right well. That Alisoun's jovial glosses
do not lack exegetical depth nor theological foundations has been pointed out by scholars such as
Smith and Tinkle.198 This is particularly noticeable in light of her well-commented shadow-debate
with Jerome's extreme positions, ranging from his depreciation of marriage, through his strident
defence of celibacy to his reduction of women’s role in religion to sexual restraint. Within the
framework of this debate, instead of discrediting her, laughter serves Dame Alisoun as a means to

196 Fleming's linkage between Alisoun and Dipsas also echoes another medieval tradition with regard to the thirsty yet
fearsome female mouth. In medieval reception, Ovid's drunken sorceress underwent another metamorphosis into the
snake dipsas, nothing less than a mythical serpent that produces a deadly thirst. Though, of course, this snake remains
feminine. Along with Ovid’s precedent, this Dipsas woman-serpent is indebted with Lucan's famous account in the
Pharsalia (9.867-95) that tells about a snake born from the blood of Medusa and capable of inducing an insatiable thirst
and a feeling of being on fire. In medieval antifeminist literature, the snake is usually conflated with the motif of a woman's
mouth, which is ready to bite. That bite, albeit pleasant, may well cause a fearsome transformation in men. This variation
on the topic appears in Walter Map's twelfth-century famous letter, also mentioned among the texts compiled in Jankyn's
book, The Advice of Valerius to Ruffinus the Philosopher not to Marry (Dissuasio Valerii ad Ruffinum philosophum ne
uxorem ducat). Here Valerius tries to deter his friend Rufinus from marrying. However, he laments, his friend has been
already bitten by dipsas and is irretrievably poisoned by his love for a woman (Dissuasio 142-3: placaris ut dipsas cui sol
incanduit a Cancro). His fate henceforth will be suffering from thirst because, according to the legend, the thirst kindled
in the man by the serpent's bite lasts until he dies. Once again, the lust stirred in a man by a woman is equated to his
condemnation. And, just as Valerius feared, once surrendered to the snake-woman, for Rufinus it is his farewell from
philosophy. As Alisoun Scott explains, "Dipsas the snake-woman is thus a powerful imagining of processes of emasculation
and transformation that threaten to separate man from his essential, rational self.” Alisoun Scott, "Dipsas and Traditions
of the Serpent-Woman in Early Modern Literature," in Word and Self Estranged in English Texts, 1550–1660, ed. Philippa
Kelly and L. E. Semler (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010), 73.
197 Bakhtin, Rabelais, 281.
198 See Smith, “The Wife of Bath Debates Jerome” and Tinkle, "Contested authority.”

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satisfy her willingness to contest authority, as well as to criticize male exegetical dominion over
Scriptures.

The fourth-century Church Father is not only mentioned by the Wife as the author of Against
Jovinian, but she also drags him out of his invisibility as the Latin translator of the Vulgate, namely
when she alludes to the misogynist equation of women’s sexual intemperance with the insatiable
hell (371: Thou liknest eek wommenes love to helle). Here Dame Alisoun is quoting Proverbs 30:16
(there are three things that are never satisfied and a fourth that never says: Enough!). Critics such
as Wurtele, Rudat and Fleming have drawn attention to the original context of this cite in the
Vulgate, where it reads: tria sunt insaturabilia... infernus et os vulvae et terra.199 Thus, originally,
among those three things that are never satisfied, Jerome mentioned “os vulvae" or "the mouth of
the vulva." However, the citation was changed by Jerome himself to "Infernus, et amor mulieris" in
Against Jovinian (1.28), from which it is inferred that the Wife keeps this reading in her memory and
hence she echoes "wommenes love." In other words, Alisoun quotes Scripture as it is quoted by
Jerome who, in turns, prevents himself from using his own translation of the Vulgate in his rebuttal
to Jovinian.

In his original Latin source —os vulvae— Jerome not only linked women's sexual appetite to hell,
the parched earth and inextinguishable fire, but he oddly outlined a female speaking genitalia, which
(metaphorically) amounts to the Hellmouth. This trope certainly sums up the misogynistic
commonplace according to which excessive openness of the mouth is seen as a convincing indicator
of sexual openness, and the sin of one orifice implies the potential transgression of the other.200 As
Katie L. Walter explains, lechery transforms human mouths into hellmouths. “Kissing is
multidirectional. It extends the human both into the corporeal and into the unseen tortures of
hell.”201 But the female mouth also equates to the hellmouth since it is seen as a site of evil where
speech becomes another form of sin. In this regard, according to Fleming, Jerome’s biblical image
suggests the idea that talkative (and, one would add, laughing) women typically betray their

199 Douglas Wurtele, "The Predicament of Chaucer's Wife of Bath: St. Jerome on Virginity," Florilegium 5 (1983), 232n29;

Wolfgang Rudat, '''Infernus et os vulvae': A Second Look at Proverbs and Chaucer's Prioress,'' CEA Critic 58.2 (1996), 35-
47; Fleming, “The Best Line”, 66.
200 Trokhimenko, Constructing Virtue, 51.
201 Katie L. Walter, Middle English Mouths (Cambridge University Press, 2018), 141.

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husbands or lovers and bring them to humiliation or even destruction, which is also common enough
in medieval misogynist literature. 202

Jerome was, if not the most hardened detractor of laughter among the Church Fathers, admittedly
one of the most fervent in dismissing its value for the earthly life, since, as he asserts, while we are
living in this valley of tears (valle lacrimarum) we must not laugh, but cry.203 More importantly,
Jerome was especially tenacious in discouraging laughter among his female disciples, whether
virgins or widows willing to embrace chastity. In his writings, the above-mentioned association
between laughter, body, and bodily openings appear often elaborated in a one-sided negative and
sinful sense, making the control over laughter not only advisable but stern and mandatory,
especially in women. In line with the repression of laughter, the discouragement of women
―especially wives― from preaching and teaching is a constant in Jerome’s writings. Thus, if we
strictly focus on Jerome’s theological positions, it is rather clear that Dame Alisoun crosses the line
by both freely laughing and exercising apostolic authority.

While much has been said about the Ovidian lore informing the Wife of Bath, much still remains to
be done with Jerome in the weaving of intertextualities found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,
especially with regards to his depiction of female laughter in its relationship with the contested issue
of women’s preaching. Likewise, as will be discussed below, Ovid's presence is occasionally
perceived in Jerome’s own rendering of the kind of laughter women should avoid in the context of
this Church Father’s radical asceticism.

202 See Fleming “The Best Line”, 73. The lack of discretion that leads women to betray secrets entrusted by men was usually

considered part of female misleading nature. Not surprisingly, as well, Dalila's example is alluded to by Lady Nature in the
Roman de la Rose, as Fleming observed in “The Best Line”, 72. Hence her advice to male lovers to be quiet (16664: Taisiez,
taisiez, taisiez, taisiez!) and to think twice before sharing secrets with women with such biting, poisonous, and harmful
tongues. The insistence on such treacherous talkative women recurs in misogynistic treatises and literature, such as those
compiled in Jankyn’s book, including biblical and pagan examples, ranging from Xantippe, Socrates's quarrelsome wife, to
Dalila, the biblical woman who, using her poisonous flattery, cut off Samson's hair. This occurs, for instance, in Walter
Map's Valerie, an antifeminist treatise which also referred to the Aureolus or The Little Golden Book of Theophrastus,
included in Jerome’s Against Jovinian (1.47). The female charm of speech (contendet eloquentia), as Valerius reminds his
friend Rufinus, is often perceived as the cause and the instigation of the overthrow of the perfect man. Walter Map's work
follows the rhetorical device of argumentation based on examples of the evil deeds and nature of women employed by
Jerome (and by the Roman satirists before him, as well as by Ovid, to some extent). This model matches with what Susan
Smith calls "the power of women topos." See Susan Smith, The Power of Women, 2.
203 The Latin text reads: "Quamdiu ergo sumus in valle lacrimarum, non debemus ridere, sed flere. Propterea dicit et

Dominus: 'Beati flentes, quia ipsi ridebunt.' Interdum ergo sumus in valle lacrimarum, et saeculum hoc lacrimarum est,
non gaudii.” Jerome, Sancti Hieronymi Presbyteri Tractatus sive homiliae in Psalmos, in Marci evangelium aliaque varia
argumenta, edited by Germain Morin (Maredsous and Oxford: J.Parker. Bibliopolas, 1897), 89.

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Versiculus ille vulgatus: Jerome quoting from Ovid

The idea of the two women's mouths welded together can be traced back to early patristic writings
addressing pagan religions. In their comments on Eleusinian mysteries, where female mocking and
laughter apparently played an important part, Christian polemicists, such as Clement of Alexandria
and Arnobius of Sicca, referred to a mythical old woman named Baubo ―who has been often
considered a personification of the vulva by modern scholarship.204 This character features in Greek
Orphic texts, the alleged source of Christian critics, as an allomorph of the old woman lambe from
Homer’s Demeter Hymn. She was also considered a sort of patron saint of the ancient Greek ritual
of aischrologia (or scurrilous joking) linked to certain ancient festivals in which women deployed
abusive and obscene speech.205 In the myth, Baubo is best known for having made the goddess
Demeter burst into laughter by pulling up her dress and displaying her genitalia. Terracotta figurines
dating from the fourth-century BC represent her as a striking instance of conflation and reversal of
the female mouth and genitalia. As Danuta Shanzer explains, referring to Arnobius of Sicca’s
comments in Adversus Nationes 5.25, Baubo was considered a rare thing, a female exhibitionist who
shaves her pubic area, and fashions a child's face on her stomach and genitalia, as part of her
laughable performance before the goddess Demeter.206

However, it would be inaccurate to say that early Christian critics spotted in Baubo a particularly
sinful form of female laughter linked to carnal lust, as expressed by Jerome's biblical image of the
os vulvae as Hellmouth. In fact, Baubo is evoked to emphasize the ludicrous and obscene nature of
both pagan beliefs and rites, as a suitable example to be used by patristic satirical criticism. It is with
this intent that Clement of Alexandria alludes to Baubo in his Exhortation to the Greeks 2. 17-19, as
part of his attempt to discredit the Eleusinian mysteries as mere custom and vain opinion. In this
context, the flamboyant old woman parades along with the bunch of amorous and passionate
heathen deities who are subjected to every sort of human emotion, cravings, and necessities,
including laughter ―which, in the eyes of the Christian critic, seems quite ridiculous given their

204 See Bruce Lincoln, Emerging from the Chrysalis: Rituals of Women's Initiation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991),
81; Maurice Olender, “Aspects of Baubo: Ancient Texts and Contexts,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic
Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. D. M. Halperin, J. J. Winkler and F. I. Zeitlin (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1990), 103.
205 For more on Baubo and the ritual of aischrologia see O'Higgins, 2003, 51-53; and Anne Carson, “The Gender of Sound,”

in Glass, Irony and God (New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1995), 135-6.
206 Danuta Shanzer, “Latin Literature, Christianity and Obscenity in the Later Roman West,” in Medieval Obscenities, ed.

Nicola McDonald (York: York Medieval Press, 2014), 189.

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status as immortals.207 But for that very reason laughter should not be wholly dismissed when it
comes to humans. On the contrary, it should be counted among humans’ capabilities ―and, indeed,
patristic writers conspicuously use it as a rhetorical device.208 In Clement's writings laughter does
not seem to be neither condemned nor extolled. Following Aristotle on this point, he recognizes
humans as an animal capable of laughter, although he is emphatic in stating the importance of
exercising restraint and not laughing at everything. As rational beings, Clement writes in
Paedagogus 2.5, "we are to regulate ourselves suitably, harmoniously relaxing the austerity and
over-tension of our serious pursuits, not inharmoniously breaking them up altogether." Clement,
though, expresses dismay at “that discordant relaxation of countenance [which] in the case of
women is called giggle and is meretricious laughter.” Likewise, he warns that, especially for children
and women, “laughter can be the cause of slipping into scandal.”209

According to Neil Adkin, while the Church Fathers were generally concerned about laughter, their
opinions oscillated between the appeal to moderate it as a sign of virtue, or bitter condemnation.
In this context, Saint Jerome would fit in the latter group due to his radical opposition to laughter
which he considered unbecoming not only in clerics and ascetics but also in ordinary Christians.210
However paradoxical it may seem, Jerome can be described as a tenacious opposer of laughter and
at the same time as an outstanding Christian satirist of antiquity. Not only was Jerome a self-
confessed and rather ardent reader of Latin pagan classics ―to the point of having dreamt he was
dragged before a divine tribunal and flagellated for reading Cicero211— but he was especially
indebted to Roman satirists such as Juvenal. In this vein, Jerome has been described as an heir of an

207 Clement of Alexandria, “Exhortation to the Greeks,” in Clement of Alexandria, Loeb Classical Library, edited and
translated by G.W. Butterworth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1914), 3-263. For Clement’s discussion on
pagan god’s human feelings and bodily needs see especially 75-7.
208 Arnobius of Sicca’s references to Baubo included in Adversus Nationes 5.25 also serve this strategy. As Shanzer

observes, Arnobius's reasoning is sparked by one typical patristic poser ―namely, do the pagan gods have genitals?― only
to then end up in an explicit and gross reductio ad absurdum. "If they do, then gods have orgasms, menstruate, have
abortions and miscarriages. The passage culminates in an imagined scene in heaven: slow-moving pregnant goddesses
weighed down by their bellies, screaming to Iuno Lucina for release from their pain." Shanzer, 189. Similarly, Clement tells
the myth of Persephone's kidnap and the mourning Demeter, and carefully describes secret rites and symbols, with a view
to make it clear the absurdity and frivolity of pagan beliefs: “Are not the mysteries a mockery?” concludes Clements,
revealing the point that he wanted to bring up.
209 Translation taken from Clement of Alexandria, “Paedagogus (The Instructor),” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Father of

the Second Century; Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria, edited by James Donaldson and
Alexander Roberts, 207-270. New York: Cosimo, 2007. For Clement’s view on laughter see Book II, Chapter V, 249-50.
210 Neil Adkin “The Fathers on Laughter.” Orpheus 6 (1985), 149-50.
211 "I was caught up in the spirit and dragged before the judgement seat of the Judge... Asked who and what I was I replied:

‘I am a Christian.’ But He who presided said: "Thou liest, thou art a follower of Cicero and not of Christ." See Jerome’s
Epistle 22 to Eustochium in Jerome, Jerome: Letters and Select Works. Vol 6 of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, trans.
W.H Freemantle and ed. Henry Wace (New York, Cosimo, 2007), 35.

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age-old comic literary tradition of mordant attacks on women and marriage.212 It is worth, therefore,
inquiring more closely into Jerome's particular view on female laughter. Yet at the same time, given
Jerome’s thorough knowledge of Latin literature, it is also worth questioning if Ovid's rendering of
the motif influenced Jerome's own imagery of female laughter.

Despite the interweaving of pagan and Christian references common in patristic writings, Ian
Fielding notes that Ovid seems to have been in a state of limbo in late antiquity, and that his poetry
had little bearing on the work of late-Roman authors like Jerome.213 In this regard, unlike his almost
unavoidable influence on late medieval misogynist tradition, Ovid was not an important reference
for early Christian anti-feminist discourse. However, it is worth noting that some traces of the author
of Ars Amatoria can be perceived in Jerome’s writings, although, as Philip Polcar notes, Jerome
apparently avoided disclosing this reference.214 I would like to draw more attention to one of these
veiled allusions in Jerome’s representation of female laughter.

In his Epistle 123, Jerome introduces an unreferenced quote by describing it as “versiculus ille
vulgatus.” Those verses were taken from Ovid's Amores 3.2.83: “She laughed and promised
something with her sparkling eyes” (Risit et argutis quiddam promisit ocellis). As Polcar explains, in
its original source text, Ovid is describing his elegiac mistress Corinna. The desired girl is sitting next
to Ovid at the Circus and, although she first shrinks from his advances, at the final couplet she
promises the poet something with her ‘bedroom eyes’; along with her glance, her laughter is a signal
that at some other location an erotic postlude will take place.215 It is worth noting that Jerome’s
unreferenced quote comes in one of the many letters he wrote to his female disciples. In this
context, Ovid's depiction of Corinna’s laughter appears as a countermodel to the ascetic ideal
Jerome sought to infuse in his recipient.

Jerome, who would later become a referent for medieval misogyny, surrounded himself with
females. When returning to Rome in 382, after his experience as a hermit in the Syrian desert, he

212 See David Wiesen, St. Jerome as a Satirist. A Study in Christian Latin Thought and Letters (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1964), 113-65.
213 Ian Fielding, “A Poet between Two Worlds: Ovid in Late Antiquity,” in A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid, ed. John

Miller and Carole Newlands (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2014), 100. See also Alessandro Ronconi, “Fortuna di Ovidio,"
A&R 29 (1984):1-16, 15.
214 Philip Polcar, "Ovidian traces in Jerome's Works. Re-evaluation and beyond," in Ovid in late antiquity, ed. Franca Ela

Consolino (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), 184.

215 Polcar, 184.

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was the spiritual advisor to a number of Roman well-born ladies, matrons, widows and their
daughters interested in asceticism. A prolific letter-writer, Jerome used the epistolary form to
provide advice, theological guidelines and biblical exegesis to his disciples. In the above-mentioned
epistle, the allusion to Ovid occurs in the context of his attempt, in accordance with his own ascetic
agenda, to dissuade Ageruchia, a highborn widowed lady besieged by suitors, from remarriage. To
that end, Jerome argues on the basis of the epistles of Paul (Timothy 5: 4-15 and Corinthians 7: 8-9)
―a rather common resource in his writings, which is likewise used as a basis for his rebuttal to
Jovinian. The argument holds that it is much more tolerable that a woman should marry again than
that she should be a prostitute, although continence is still better for her. If she cannot contain
herself, marriage is recommended, since, as the apostle states, "it is better to marry than to burn."
Jerome seizes the occasion to warn his addressee that a woman must not sully her reputation by
attracting the eyes of young men after her by gay smiles or expressive glances. In other words, she
must give no ground for the application to herself of those versiculus ille vulgatus whose author
Jerome refrains from identifying. Ultimately, what Jerome implies is that Corinna's expressive
glances and laughter applies to wanton females who represent the anti-type of female virtue. A
laughter like that should be avoided by Ageruchia to not bring discredit upon her profession of
widowhood.216

The letter provides guidance to Ageruchia on the best means of preserving her widowhood, the
second of the three degrees of chastity according to Jerome. Seen under this light, laughter, its
presence or suppression, appears aligned with the hierarchy of womanhood traced by Jerome in
accordance with his tripartite division of sexual purity. As Wurtele observed, in Jerome’s scheme
virginity is ahead of chaste widowhood—placed in some kind of immutable, eternal, heavenly
summit— and widowhood, in turn, is ahead of marriage and re-marriage, which rank only above
fornication.217 Therefore, women holding the lowest place would lend themselves to be modelled

216 See Jerome’s Epistle 123, to Ageruchia, against the second marriages, in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 230. The
high valuation and need of preservation of the female virginal body, as well as its metaphorical and physical liaison with
the activities of the mouth, especially with laughter, is also present in the thought of other patristic writers, such as
Ambrose. In Concerning virginity 3.13 he wrote: "And you, holy virgin, abstain from groans, cries, coughing, and laughter...
let virginity be first marked by the voice, let modesty close the mouth, let religion remove weakness, and habit instruct
nature." Quoted in Trokhimenko, 76. As Trokhimenko notes, in these patristic counsels avoidance of laughter is presented
as the condition for the female disappearing, so that the virgin can be unnoticeable to the world. In Jerome's letter to the
widow Ageruchia, discouragement of laughter serves a similar purpose of not bringing men’s attention to herself.
However, the need for the female body to disappear is also linked with the aim of giving up the earthly and delving into
ascetic otherworldly spirituality.
217Douglas Wurtele, “The ‘Double Sorwe’ of the Wife of Bath: Chaucer and the Misogynist Tradition,” Florilegium 11

(1992), 182. This tripartite hierarchy of sexual purity, ranking marriage in the third place, is also valid in the case of men.

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upon Ovid’s puella, whose laughter connotes a worldly, carnal sensibility, diametrically opposed to
spiritual sensibility.

It is worth recalling that, in Ovidian elegiac fantasy, Corinna is Dipsas’ favoured pupil, and she also
can be seen as her rejuvenated self-portrait. In other words, as Ellen Oliensis notes, Dipsas would
be the image of what the puella will one day become and, conversely, the girl features as the
embodiment of what Dipsas once was.218 From this view, what Ovid overhears in Amores 1.8 is the
old lena advising her younger self in how to fill the place she will vacate, and such teaching includes
rhetorical performance. It may be suggested, therefore, that in their reciprocity and
complementarity, Corinna and Dipsas appear as the antithesis of the virgin-chaste widow dyad
favoured by Jerome ―one may think, for example, of the pair of Eustochium and Paula, daughter
and mother, virgin and widow, both beloved pupils of Jerome disposed to the ascetic life, of whom
will be discussed later.

Following on the same train of thought, the Wife of Bath not only inherits Dipsas' mouth, meaning
the old woman's rhetorical skills, but Corinna's lecherous laughter is somehow renewed in her gap-
toothed mouth as well. Incidentally, the erotic teaching of Dipsas can be seen as the reversal to the
overly rigorous ascetic practices of Jerome, which were carried to extreme lengths by some of his
disciples. Dame Alisoun, as has been said, uses this Ovidian lore to contest Jerome's extreme
positions, especially those stemmed from his distaste for carnal intercourse even in legitimate
circumstances. Jerome's mordant depreciation of marriage, which is at the core of his attack on
Jovinian, recurs in various of his letters sent to noble Roman ladies; many of these letters, as Wurtele
suggested, may well have figured in the kind of reading inflicted on Alisoun by her fifth husband.219
Dame Alisoun is, as Minnis remarks, an “archwife” and an authority on marriage.220 It seems

As Paul asserts (1 Cor. 7:1-2), "it is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man
to have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband." This idea was taken up and developed by other
Christian thinkers before Jerome, such as John Chrysostom who considered "virginity to be as high above marriage as the
heavens are above earth." Referring also to Paul, Tertullian asserted that "it is better neither to marry nor to burn".
According to him, sanctity should be pursued and preferred, without detriment to marriage, "not as if we superseded a
bad thing by a good, but only a good thing by a better; for we do not reject marriage, but simply refrain from it.”
218 Ellen Oliensis, Loving Writing/Ovid's Amores (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), 90.
219 Wurtele, “Double Sorwe,” 182.
220 Minnis, Fallible authors, 249.

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appropriated, therefore, that from her improvised pulpit, the Wife appears as the leading contender
of Jerome, being the Church Father her main rival authority in this shadow disputatio.

Throughout his letters it is common for Jerome to try to dissuade young girls from getting married
or young widows from remarrying. A good example of Jerome's animosity towards marriage can be
found in his Epistle 54. Resorting to Proverbs 26:11, he compares a woman remarrying to a dog
returning to its own vomit: “Why will you again swallow what has disagreed with you? The dog is
turned to his own vomit again and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.”221 As
Wurtele explains, Jerome's aggressive devaluation of marriage could have been partly influenced by
certain pagan moralists, especially the Stoics, whose attitudes to sexuality were relentlessly
negative.222 If usually Jerome’s contempt for marriage is scarcely veiled, his radicalism becomes still
more strident when he employs satire as a rhetorical weapon. For instance, in Against Jovinian,
commenting on an anecdote by Seneca about an impassioned couple whose love grew out of all
proportion, Jerome argued that he who too ardently loves his own wife is an adulterer. "It is
disgraceful to love another man's wife at all, or one's own too much. A wise man ought to love his
wife with judgment, not with passion. Let a man govern his voluptuous impulses, and not rush
headlong into intercourse."223 To Jerome's disproportionate criticism on marriage it can be added
his disparaging opinion about pregnancy ―in spite, as the Wife of Bath would say, of God expressly
commanded "for to wexe and multiplye" (28). Jerome nevertheless argued that young virgins should
not attend the public baths along with married women since "women with child is a revolting
spectacle."224

To return to Jerome’s fleeting allusion to those “well-known verses,” it seems clear that Ovid's
mistress’ laughter is far from raising ambivalent readings in the letter to the widow Ageruchia. That
veiled reference was unilaterally used to exemplify a threat to the ideal of chastity, fasting, and
stillness Jerome encouraged in his female disciples. This brief glimpse of the Ovidian courtesan,
though, shows that laughter was actually conceived as a differential mark for women by Jerome.
However, laughter does not just show up as a disturbance of his ascetic ideal. Exceptionally, it can

221 Jerome's Epistle 54 to Furia on the preservation of the state of widowhood, in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 103.
222 Wurtele, “The ‘Double Sorwe,” 182.
223 “Against Jovinian,” in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 386.
224 Jerome’s Epistle 107 to Laeta, in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 189.

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accompany certain holy utterances from the lips of his most gifted female students, as will be see
below.

Once she wept but now laughs forevermore

That Jerome's view regarding laughter is interwoven in his ascetic agenda becomes especially
notorious when examining his portrayal of virtuous femininity. Such an ideal is expressed, for
instance, in his praise of virgin Asella's sparing demeanour. As can be read in his Epistle 24:
Nihil illius seueritate iocundius, nihil iocunditate seuerius, nihil risu tristius, nihil tristitia
suauius. Ita pallor in facie est, ut, cum continentiam indicet, non redoleat ostentationem.
Sermo silens et silentium loquens.

[There is nothing more delightful than her severity, nothing more severe than her
delightfulness; nothing is sadder than her laugh or gentler than her sorrow. Her pale face
reveals her abstinence, but there is no trace of ostentation. Her speech is silent, and her
silence is eloquent] 225

Jerome seems to describe feminine virtue as a contradiction. Laughter and eloquence are both
nullified by their opposites: tears and silence. In line with this paradoxical portrait, it might be
interpreted that the feminine path toward virtue can only be walked in stillness, through the
renunciation of their agency, or even through their complete submission to male authority.
However, Jerome's accounts of his most talented disciples are not confined to the depiction of
passive, powerless and depersonalized female characters. Moreover, laughter often plays a
significant role in them.

Jerome’s ideal of the feminine virtue is perfectly embodied by one of his most renowned and devout
disciples, Paula, a wealthy Christian widow of a Roman senator who renounced her aristocratic
status and embraced an ascetic lifestyle. In his Epistle 45, when contesting the charges, brought by
his enemies, of immorally close relationships with his female companions, Jerome admits that Paula
is the kind of lady that can subdue his mind (meam posset domare mentem) as he thinks of her

225Jerome. Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi epistulae. Pars I: Epistulae I-LXX, edited by Isidor Hilberg. CSEL, 54 (Vienna: Tempsky,

1910), 217. The translation is mine.

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grieving and fasting, squalid and filthy, almost blinded by tears.226 In other letter addressed to
Paula's daughter, Eustochium, who followed in the footsteps of her mother and lived her virginal
life as a nun in the monastery founded by Paula at Bethlehem, Jerome recommends the virgin to
shun obscene language and refrain from laughing at the silly jests and words of mischief issued by
flatterers.227 Laughter in women entails weakness since, according to Jerome, jesters just pretend
to make trial of a virgin's steadfastness by seeing whether she hears them with pleasure.228

As Trokhimenko has noted, the traditional connection between laughter and sexuality was rather
common in patristic writers such as Jerome, Ambrose and Chrysostom, and was later developed in
disquisitions on the nature of laughter during the Middle Ages. The medieval visionary Hildegard of
Bingen echoes that patristic view by arguing for the sinfulness of laughter and emphasizing its
"commonality with carnal desire.”229 V.A. Kolve likewise cites Hildegard's thought to explain that
during the Middle Ages there was the belief that the faculty of laughter was one of the results of
the fall of man. According to this view, if humans were perfect, they would be allowed to
demonstrate their higher joys in less carnal ways.230

In line with this, Jerome's advice to his disciples suggests that women are more inclined to yield,
through their laughter, to the sinful desires of our fallen bodily condition. Hence his eulogies to
women who are engaged in ascetic struggles against worldly affairs usually stress their victory over
laughter. Jerome’s lengthy Epistle 108,231 where he writes upon Paula’s death in 404, includes what
is perhaps the most telling description in this respect. Once again, the addressee is Eustochium,
Paula’s mourning daughter. When referring to the many virtues of her recently deceased mother,

226 See Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 59.

227 See Epistle 22 in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 31.
228 To another virgin, Demetrias, Jerome advises: when you are present, buffoonery and loose talk must find no place.

Once again, Jerome warns his disciple that men often make use of mockery and jaunty words to try the gates of chastity
(temptant claustra pudicitiae). The virgin, therefore, should leave worldlings the privileges of laughing and being laughed
at (ridere et rideri saecularibus derelinque). Jerome concludes his piece of advice praising two well-known Roman men
who had laughed only once in their lives. See Epistle 130, in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 260-272.
229 Trokhimenko, 84. For a discussion on the status of laughter in medieval ecclesiastical discourse, and its indebtedness

to patristic views, see Trokhimenko, 63-78. Hildergard's argument to support the sinfulness of laughter, understood as a
direct result of the Fall, feature in Causae et curae, a handbook of advice in matters of sickness and health, in which both
monastic and medicinal traditions appears intertwined. It reads as follow: "Before his fall, Adam knew the angels' song
and every forms of music and had a voice like the peal of the bell. However, as a result of his fall, through envy, the serpent
infested his marrow and his abdomen with a kind of wind, and it is still present in every man. Through this wind a person's
spleen becomes fat, and thereby inappropriate intemperance, hilarity, and echoing laughter are set loose." Quoted in
Trokhimenko, 83-34.
230 Verdel Amos Kolve, The Play Called Corpus Christi (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1966), 127.
231 Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 195-212.

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Jerome quotes Paula's tearful words explaining her self-flagellation routine. As she has converted
to the Christian faith, after a “sinful” life, Paula would rather soil her face (turpandat est facies)
which, contrary to God’s commandments, she used to embellish with cosmetics. Paula also mortifies
her body which once was given up to many pleasures, and accepts that she must make up for her
long laughter by perpetual weeping (longus risus perpeti conpensandus est fletu).

It is worth noting that Paula's statement about laughter is in accordance with Jerome's ascetic
teaching, especially with his usual appeal to Jesus' blessing in John 16:20 upon those who weep, as
well as his customary view on the earthly as a crucible of sanctified suffering. However, although
laughter should be rejected by ascetic women during their mundane existence, Jerome strikingly
reserves a place for it in the afterlife. Thus, near the end of the above-mentioned letter, he
celebrates Paula's achievement of joy after her life of weeping. Finally, she has finished her course.
Since she has kept the faith, now she enjoys the crown of righteousness, and can undergo a blessed
change. Once she wept but now laughs forevermore (O beata rerum conmutatio! flevit ut semper
rideret).

Jerome's statement on Paula's other-worldly delight may seem rare, considering that total
indulgence in laughter ―an alleged sign of our fallen condition― is posed as a reward awaiting those
who can dry up their tears in celestial glory, now as a sign of eternal joy. But, in fact, the eulogy to
Paula poses a different kind of female pious laughter expressing spiritual joy, which should not be
confused with earthly laughter expressing carnal desires. Jerome, however, not only theoretically
allowed this laughter but also employed it elsewhere as a motif to imbue Paula with a heroic flair
even when she was still alive. Laughter, thus, presents a dilemma to Jerome's ascetic understanding
of the body. As Ingvild Saelid has pointed out, salvation worked by means of the body, and the
body― paraphrasing Jerome's metaphor― is not a fixed entity but a transformative vehicle that can
develop either into a temple for the Holy Spirit or into a brothel.232 Likewise, laughter can be a sign
either of spiritual awareness or spiritual ruin. Notwithstanding all the caution used in depicting it,

232 Ingvild Saelid, Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins: Laughter in the History of Religion (London: Routledge, 1997), 73. The

metaphor is used by Jerome in one of his Epistle 22 to Eustochium, where it reads: "But even real virgins, when they have
other failings, are not saved by their physical virginity, what shall become of those have prostituted the members of Christ,
and have changed the temple of the Holy Ghost into a brothel (mutauerunt tepum sancti spiritus in lupana)." Jerome,
Letters and Select Works, 24.

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the strong bodily connotations of female laughter make that line extremely thin. How does Jerome
manage to make his acetic women laugh free from any bodily stain?

As will be seen in the last sections of this chapter, the ambiguities lurking in Jerome’s depiction of
Paula’s laughter are somehow reflected in the main character of the hagiography that Chaucer calls
"Lyf of Seynt Cecile" in the Legend of Good Women (F.426 and G.416). In The Canterbury Tales
Chaucer put his own version of that narrative into the mouth of the Second Nun and we can read
that Cecilia ―who would perfectly meet the ideal of virginity defended by Jerome― laughs in open
court at a Roman prefect's commands and even mocks his alleged power. Therefore, if Jerome
considered that there is "a time to weep, and a time to laugh" and that, especially in the case of
virtuous women, the latter is the afterlife, how can we interpret Cecilia's laughter and her earthly
mockery?

Laughing beyond the flesh: Saint Cecilia and Paula

Among The Canterbury Tales, the legend of the miracles and martyrdom of the Roman virgin Cecilia,
told by the Second Nun, stands out for its protagonist's blatant contempt towards the imperfect
earthly temporality and her steadfast embracement of the heavenly "trouthe." Among Chaucer's
female character, Cecilia is likely the best candidate for testing Jerome's ideal of female virtue, in
her strict compliance with the subjection of the body to the spirit. Her religious fervour leads her to
swear to give up the mundane and keep her virginity (276: The world and eek hire chambre gan she
weyve), even though she married Valerian, the young aristocrat whom Cecilia attempts to convert
during her wedding night. Laughter, though, is not absent from Chaucer's hagiographic depiction of
this early Christian martyr.

Cecilia is adamant that she will remain undefiled (unwemmed) and, during the wedding night, she
deters her spouse from touching her in vileynye, warning him about her beloved guardian angel
who is willing to slay him if disobeyed. Anne Eggebroten stresses the comic potential of this
bedchamber scene, suggesting that Chaucer's intention was to make the readers laugh at this
husband in his shock, his thwarted desires, and his jealous misinterpretation of the angel.233 As
different critics have explained, comic scenes were rather typical of hagiographic literature,

233 Anne Eggebroten, “Laughter in the 'Second Nun's Tale': A Redefinition of the Genre,” Chaucer Review 19 (1984): 57.

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although humour was exploited by the genre to serve serious purposes, to teach rather than merely
to delight.234 Particularly, Chaucer's version of the legend, grounded largely on Jacobus de
Voragine's Legenda Áurea, heightens some comic features already present in the traditional
hagiographic framework.

Since the Second Nun presents her tale as her own project in Latin translation, we may assume that
it was her decision to emphasize those pitiful imperfections of unbelievers like Valerian; she would
also be responsible for exaggerating the humorous figure of the fool tyrant who obstructs God's
worship, embodied in the Roman prefect Almachius. This latter remarkable comic scene takes place
when Cecilia faces a trial (ll. 449-57) and readers are induced to laugh at Almachius who is saucily
rebuked by the saint. The antagonism from a pagan figure of authority is a recurrent theme in
several female virgin saints’ legends. Just like Cecilia, the heroines of these stories usually engage in
bold debates with rulers and judges “who deem wrongly through sense perception what cannot be
rationally known.”235 In this context, the virgin saint's laughter may be considered a common
hagiographic motif and comes to mean that opposition to God is not only sinful but laughable.

However, in the Second Nun's account the clash between Cecilia and the pagan judge becomes more
strident, and so does the saint’s laughter. When comparing Chaucer’s tale and its source, Paul
Beichner observes that while in Jocobus’ Legenda the virgin saint just smiles (surridens), when the
prefect commands her to choose either sacrifice to the pagan gods or death, in The Second Nun’s
Tale we are told that Cecilia "gan for to laughe" (462).236 The open laughter expresses both the
saint's amusement and her complete disregard for what should be considered just a false dilemma
posed by a fool. What follows is Cecilia’s fiery mocking at Almachius' assertion that he has the

234 See Eggebroten, 56-8 and Thomas, “Reading women,” 89.

235 Susanna Fein, “Of Judges and Jewelers: Pearl and the Life of Saint John,” Studies in the Age of Chaucer 36 (2014), 50-
51. Fein discusses the dialog between the Pearl-Maiden and the narrator in the Pearl and poses that the Pearl-Maiden’s
stern corrections of the Jeweler are not far from the tradition of the virgin saint facing an unjust judge, "invariably a pagan
worshiper of idols” who symbolizes "the fallibility of the faithless person who lacks spiritual vision, the one who believes
only in what can be seen, touched, tasted, or heard.” As an example, Fein mentions the emperor in the prose Life of Saint
Katherine, “a figure who thinks he can tempt the saint into error by promising to erect a statue of her for others to
worship” and underscore Katherine’s “archly taunts” at him for his false faith. Thomas, 89, points out the adscription of
The Second Nun’s trial scene in this hagiographic tradition, asserting that “Chaucer’s Cecilie similarly remonstrates with
the prefect Almachius, deflating his power with a strikingly contemptuous smile.”
236 Paul Beichner, "Confrontation, Contempt of Court, and Chaucer's Cecilia," Chaucer Review 8 (1974), 204.

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“power and auctoritee / To maken folk to dyen or to lyven” (471-72), by naming him a temporal
“Ministre of deeth” (485).

Cecilia’s laughter within her temporal existence is an expression of her own position of power over
her pagan male-contender. As a sign of her intellectual independence ―in consonance with her
chaste freedom from male-sexual power over her―, her laughter can be read along with the
disruptive role Elizabeth Dobbs notes in Cecilia as a speaker who puts aside male authority and
crosses the border when assuming a male role and begins to preach.237 While this latter feature
brings Cecilia strikingly close to the Wife of Bath’s cheerful (and unsettling) preaching, the saint's
laughter must be interpreted piously, that is, in its narrow connection with the nature of that truth
at whose service she places herself. In other words, Cecilia's laughter expresses a kind of authority
that is not based on teaching and studying the Christian doctrine to stress its practical application
to earthly experience, as Dame Alisoun does. Rather, the saint's insolent gaiety comes from a first-
hand knowledge and experience of the revealed truth. The saint dwells in God, that is, "in trouthe"
what means to be alive to heavenly sensations “that the ordinarily sensate cannot feel.”238 Within
this framework, the saint's laughter comes from elsewhere and overwhelms her individuality.

It may be said that Cecilia's laughter dissolves the boundaries between the divine and the worldly,
which is in line with a specific role of humour in hagiographic literature. As mentioned above, in the
world of the Second Nun's Tale, readers can recognize the humorous flair in the lack of
understanding and misleading efforts of foolish or squeamish men who do not dare to move toward
God. The comic effect is, thus, connected to their refusal to break down the barrier between the
earthly and the supernatural, which is finally set aside, for instance, when unbelievers yield and are
able to see angels.

The familiarity of medieval audiences with Cecilia’s exceptional characteristics surely encouraged
them to laugh at those obtuse characters who dare to confront her.239 At the same time, this
background would have prevented them from laughing at the virgin saint, even in the quirkier
passages of her legend; for instance, when, after being tortured, boiled alive and suffering three
unsuccessful attempts at beheading, Cecilia manages for keep preaching to the pagans and

237 Elizabeth Dobbs, “The Canaanite Woman, the Second Nun, and St. Cecilia,” Christianity and Literature 62.2 (2013), 215.
238 David Raybin, “Chaucer's Creation and Recreation of the Lyf of Seynt Cecile,” Chaucer Review 32 (1997), 207.
239 Eggebroten, 57.

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converting many people to Christian faith. Her subsequent preaching during the three days, after
receiving three strokes in the nekke, eloquently illustrates her miraculous condition as a spiritual
individual capable of disembodiment.

Cecilia's authoritative speaking may appear at odds with Jerome's ideal of ascetic female virtue,
inasmuch as her sex should be understood as an impediment to public ministry. In this regard,
Chaucer tells that, after suffering extreme physical torture, Cecilia was left in her house, half dead,
with her neck carved. Yet when Christian folks were about her, Cecilia spent three days teaching
them the faith that she has fostered and preaching to them (539: hem she gan to preche). It is true
that, as Minnis warns, herein Chaucer is not in the business of subverting the doctrine pertaining to
the impediment of sex which would keep women from priesthood. Cecilia holds a specially
privileged position, which is dramatically, indeed shockingly, established.240 However, this
extraordinary preaching is also a prove that living like a saint is not what we normally think of as
being alive. Furthermore, speaking like a virgin saint should not be thought of as a regular female
speech either. The same principle, I believe, apply to Cecilia’s laughter. As David Raybin have noted,
Cecilia’s life consists of being dead to the world, as dead as those who eventually follow her in
martyrdom and, thus, belong to the world beyond.241 In line with this, Chaucer’s portrayal of the
martyr Cecilia enhances her capacity to go beyond any ordinary sort of human identification or
classification. Rather, the virgin saint seems willing to cut across all boundaries, including gender
boundaries. Similarly, her pious ―yet derisive― laughter at male authority can be seen as a sign of
her liminal status, within and beyond both the physical realm and the realm of womanhood.
Something similar can be found in certain passages penned by Jerome that ambiguously refer to the
laughter of his ascetic female companions. A brief parallel between Paula and Cecilia could help to

240 Minnis, Fallible authors, 334. Minnis remarks in Chaucer's tale Cecilia is allowed a preaching role, but in carefully

controlled circumstances. Likewise, Chaucer keeps Cecilia well away from the subversive possibilities explored by John
Wyclif when suggesting her as an unsettling example for arguing that, in certain cases, a layfolks could consecrate the
supreme sacrament of the Eucharist. According to Minnis, the Second Nun’s Tale "seems to support the orthodox
consensus that it is impossible for a woman to go beyond her female body (in this life at least), inasmuch as the
impediment of sex is always there, barring her from the priestly prerogative of consecration (whether of sacramentals or
sacraments) and ensuring that any preaching she undertakes is fully justified by special circumstances.” Minnis, Fallible
authors, 336.
241 Raybin, 204.

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explain the fact that the more disembodied the ascetic woman seems to be, the more freely she can
preach and taunt.242

In the above-mentioned eulogy to Paula, Jerome strikingly tells a humorous anecdote regarding the
extents of her physical discipline. Paula was attacked by a violent fever, so the doctors urged upon
her the necessity of taking a little light wine to accelerate her recovery. As she relentlessly refused,
Jerome secretly asked for the help of the blessed pope Epiphanius to admonish (or rather to compel)
her to take the wine. The prelate was led into her chamber but failed in convincing her. Instead,
Paula rebuked him with a smile (sensit insidias et subridens), letting him see that she perfectly knew
that the advice he was giving her was not his but Jerome's. Given this, the pope did not waste more
words. He left her chamber and when Jerome asked how it went, he replied: As old as I am I have
been almost persuaded to drink no more wine (tantum profeci ut seni homini paene persuaserti ne
vinum bibam!).243

By pushing Jerome's ascetic ideal to the extreme, Paula appears extraordinarily exempt from
observing the customary restraints to female laughter and speech. To some extent, Jerome's
anecdote recalls Cecilia's mocking of male-authority, except that Paula's laughter stands her above
not less than the head of Church. Linked to her bold laughter, we find that Paula, just like Cecilia,
teaches and preaches the Christian faith. In the same letter, Jerome narrates how Paula used to get
in arguments with heretics, and especially recalls a certain cunning rascal (veteratur callidus) who
posed her a series of theological questions with a view to impose his deviating views. Even though
Jerome deprives his disciple of speech, by eliding her words and depicting himself confronting the

242 It is worth noting that the fourth-century ascetic ideal defended by Jerome can be seen as an effort to reshape and
update the martyrdom of the first Christians. Aviad Kleinberg explains that, as the Roman empire become a Christian
empire, adherence to the Christian religion "gradually offered more advantages and privileges” and “newcomers were
attracted not to the religion of the poor and persecuted who would one day gain access to the kingdom of heaven but to
the religion of those who had already inherited the earth." In order to recover the spirit of early Christianity, the ascetic
ideal sought to change "the present to make it more like the past." Asceticism was thus a "spiritual martyrdom," a pursuit
of heaven through a heroic renunciation of comfort, pleasure, and physical security, that should be considered hell on
earth in the eyes of ordinary. See Aviad Kleinberg, Flesh Made Word: Saints' Stories and the Western Imagination
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008), 34. In my view, this relationship of continuity between
Christian martyrdom and asceticism allows for (and makes it interesting) a parallel between Cecilia, a martyr saint, and
Jerome's female ascetic disciples.
243 See Epistle 108 in Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 207.

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man, he does mention that Paula publicly proclaimed these heretics as enemies of the Lord (eos
voce publica hostes domini proclamaret).244

Jerome's writings offer several examples of the high regard he had for his female pupils and the
important roles that they played in the Church in the late fourth century. In fact, those women who
gained Jerome's admiration by their steadfast espousal of chastity not only achieved becoming
sexless beings but also were deserving of the highest patristic compliment which, as Jane
Schulenburg explains, was being called “male” or “virile.”245 In this sense, the achievement of female
ascetism comes close to Cecilia’s sanctity. Whether expressed through their laughter or their words,
these women's agency appears as the manifestation of their existence beyond her flesh and her sex.

It is worth noting that, between the third and fifth century, Christian thinkers reconceived Roman
ideals of military, political, paternal and sexually potent manliness, by shifting to a new model of
masculinity embodied in the soldier of Christ (Miles Christi), here understood as the ascetic man
who strives against mundane temptations. The new ideal of masculinity asserts the superiority of
virginity and celibacy, as these paths represented the truly manly life, while marriage and family
relations were effeminizing.246 Jerome apparently conceded that ascetic women could fulfil the
profile of the Miles Christi, provided they transcended the weakness of their sex and acted in a virile
manner rather than like women. As he himself wrote in his Commentary on the Letter to the
Ephesians, a woman is different from a man “as the body is from the soul.” But when she follows
the ascetic path and wishes to serve Christ more than the world, “then she will cease to be a woman
and will be called man.”247

It seems apparent, therefore, that Jerome saw many of his ascetic female disciples as peers and
ranked them above womanhood. Paula's laughter can be interpreted in this light, as a mark of her
extraordinary manliness which is also aligned with her extraordinary allowance to preach. This
would also imply the masculinization of her mouth and, thus, the loss of its dangerous connection
with the lower stratum of the body. Apparently, the manly celibate mouth not only appears
endowed with the capacity of articulate authoritative thoughts and to convey the theological truth,

244 Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 209.

245 Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, "The Heroics of Virginity: Brides of Christ and Sacrificial Mutilation," in Women in the Middle

Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Mary Beth Rose (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 32.
246 See Kim M. Phillips and Barry Reay, Sex before Sexuality: A Premodern History (Cambridge: Polity, 2011), 27.
247 Quoted in Vern Bullough, Sexual Variance in Society and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 365.

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but it also can delight in mockery without risking sin. As previously noted, Jerome himself often
appealed to humour in his writings, and he even resorts to pagan sources in order to elicit laughter
in his readers, as though expressing clear-headedness instead of vulgar passions. One telling
example occurs when he mocks women and marriage by quoting the satiric treatise of Theophrastus
in Against Jovinian 1.47; Jerome finds there a source of pleasure not unlike the delights he would
prevent his disciples from tasting. However, in cases like this, we should understand that his laughter
could somehow be unattached from the material, instead of giving fresh fuel to his “blazing body”
(ardenti corpusculo), to paraphrase his Epistle 22.248

It can be asserted, therefore, that the narratives of Cecilia and Paula describe a sort of spiritual
translation from the physical realm to eternal domains of reality affecting these heroines, which is
reflected in their extraordinary speech and laughter. Cecilia's body is a spiritual body ―her body
that shall be, to borrow a Pauline expression―, and so is her laughter. Likewise, interpreted piously,
Paula's laughter is a manifestation of the disembodiment she attained due to her radical asceticism.
Thus understood, laughter can also be seen as a sign of vanishing of the unbridgeable gap between
human and divine. However, according to Jerome, that gap somehow echoes the distance between
women and men. Ultimately, the laughter of both Cecilia and Paula should be seen as a sign of
agency and rising status which nonetheless requires that their female nature had been previously
dissolved. Their laughter and strong voices are laudable since they have been scrupulously
accommodated and plied in the service of a patriarchal structure that extraordinarily endows
women with a higher spiritual development, provided that we assume it as a virile value.

The virgin and the wife: different laughter, same Christian body

The analysis of portrayals of the Wife of Bath and Saint Cecilia has shown that in Chaucer's writing
laughter appears in line with female agency and speech. However, the motif takes on different
meanings in each narrative, which apply differently to these two very different female characters.
Women's laughter, eloquence and agency, may be troublesome and negatively exemplary when
they appear threatening male superiority or are not dully confined and limited by Christian
patriarchal imagination, as occurs with Dame Alisoun's unsettling laughing preaching. Yet when they
are, as in the case of Saint Cecille, then they are permissible and even laudable. Medieval attitudes

248
Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 25.

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towards female laughter were significantly influenced by patristic ideas about women. In this
regard, Chaucer's careful depiction of Cecilia's exceptional laughter and preaching is liable to be
equated with Jerome's descriptions of Paula and other female ascetics who embodied the model of
the femina virilis or virago. In line with this, bursts of female laughter are often discouraged by
Jerome, being only accepted provided that they were capable of being termed as virile.

Christine's writing can be seen as affected by this sort of misogynist restriction about female speech
and laughter. As Ilse Paakkinen notes, in a number of different passages of her work, Christine
herself alludes to an inner metamorphosis of her natural feminine condition and inclinations to
feebleness and peacefulness, in order to be able to perform tasks that required a masculine essence,
that is, bravery and courage, such as become a writer and a debater.249 In The livre des Trois Virtus
she somehow hints at her own mutation into a man when counselling widowed women involved in
legal disputes —that is, widows that, just like her, should boldly defend themselves in the male-
realm of the public sphere— to "take on the heart of a man" (prengne cuer d'omme), which she
describes as “constant, strong and wise.”250 It is noticeable that this advice to widows differs from
those Christine gives to maidens and married women to whom, as mentioned above, she
recommends a mild behaviour in accordance with their peaceful nature. Of course, Christine does
not recommend women of any social rank to laugh in public, either a female or male-fashioned
laughter. However, since, to a considerable extent, the dominant medieval conception aligned
female speech and agency with the emergence of laughter, the latter may be counted among those
behaviours that, at best, were fully allowed under the assumption of a masculine essence or “male
heart” inside the feminine body.

This mutation from female to male, as the paradoxical price a woman must pay to exert a degree of
agency, is reflected by Chaucer's portrait of Saint Cecilia which has to be placed within the
framework of the masculinized virgin heroines of hagiographic tradition. Similarly, according to
Jerome's ascetic ideal, just under exceptional circumstances, women were allowed to preach (and
to laugh), provided that they may be granted with the honour of being considered virile by forcefully
defending their chastity, thus raising above their fallen, female worldliness. However, once it has
been shown to what extent Chaucer’s depiction of Cecilia's laughter and preaching may be in

249 Ilse Paakkinen, "The Metaphysics of Gender in Christine de Pizan's Thought," in Gender in Late Medieval and Early

Modern Europe, ed. Marianna G. Muravyeva and Raisa Maria Toivo (New York: Routledge, 2013), 45-8.
250 Lawson, 158.

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accordance with Jerome's thinking, discords raised by the Wife of Bath when coming into the picture
become still more disturbing.

It is true that, as Minnis asserts, Dame Alisoun's preaching can be described as a mock-magisterium,
mainly focused on the subjects of sex, marriage, and the ways of women. To some extent, this would
facilitate that her views can be laughed out of court by linking her to the stereotyped shrew-wife
scorned by the misogynistic tradition. However, as Minnis also notes, the Wife of Bath is reminiscent
of those creatures of the schoolmen’s nightmares, the auditrix, doctrix, and praedicatrix, which
explains the Friar discomfort with the appropriation of authorities in her discourse. Dame Alisoun
employs techniques of advocacy and biblical hermeneutics which had their usual context in the
public spaces of church and school. However, as a wise old woman descendant of Dipsas, the Wife
does not seem to care much about performing as a preacher in front of the Canterbury company.
Furthermore, she is a widow who publicly challenges men, but clearly disregards the advice of
Christine and does not put aside her feminine characteristics for assuming those of a man.251 Quite
the contrary, the Wife proudly incarnates the sexualized and potentially transgressive feminine
body into which Christian exegetes, Jerome among them, rewrote women other than virgin and
chaste widows. In order to counter Jerome, an extreme detractor of marriage, she stresses her own
experience as a wife. In other words, instead of obliterating her sex, she asserts it even though it is
the major impediment that should keep her away from publicly engage in such a debate. As
previously noted, the Friar himself recognizes that Dame Alisoun has said "muche thyng right wel.”
However, he also warns that her performance went far. Her mouth could have said the doctrinal
truth, but that does not alter the fact that her wise mouth is located in the wrong body.

Jerome enthusiastically used the human body and its parts as a metaphor of the Church’s
hierarchical order, both as a community and in its relationship with the transcendental. He benefits
from this formula in his controversy with Jovinian precisely to defend the moral hierarchy and
spiritual distances among the members of the Church. Specifically, Jovinian ―a Roman monk whom
Jerome lampoons by calling him a Christian Epicurean who has "discharged himself like a sot after a

251It is worth mentioning that scholars have described the Wife of Bath as a masculine woman. For instance, George

Englelhardt compares Alisoun to a "virago, who is 'mannish.'" See George Englelhardt, "The Lay Pilgrim of the Canterbury
Tales: A Study in Ethology," MS 36 (1974): 321. For a discussion of masculine mannerisms of the Wife of Bath, see Elizabeth
Biebel, “A Wife, a Batterer, a Rapist: Representations of 'Masculinity' in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” in
Masculinities in Chaucer: Approaches To Maleness in The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, ed. Peter G. Beidler
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 63-76.

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night's debauch”252― had argued that virgins, widows and wives, had equal merit. Given this,
Jerome rebuts by resorting to Paul's epistles (Corinthians 12.22-24) and states that while some
members are more honourable, others excite the sense of shame (alia membra esse honestiora, alia
verecundiora). Finally, Jerome asks: “Do you think that the mouth and the belly, the eyes and the
outlets of the body are to be classed together as of equal merit?”253

As stated above, according to Jerome’s hierarchical and gender-typed division of Christian social
order, virginity and celibacy define those members who must be ranked above and are extolled as
a greater spiritual value than marriage. On the contrary, Jovinian maintained that marriage and
virginity are of equal merit in God's sight, since baptism, not virginity, defines the true Christian.
Likewise, according to Jerome, the place of married and sexually active women concurs with the
lower parts of the Church body, the belly and the outlets, which should be concealed and
subordinated to the masculine head. Within this framework, the figure of the Wife of Bath usurping
the leading role as a preacher could certainly destabilise the hierarchical tripartite division of
women’s purity (virgins, widows and wives) transforming the feminine basement, allegedly tamed
by their masculine head, into a battleground.

Chaucer's unsettling portrait of Dame Alisoun as a usurper of the priestly office is foreshadowed by
Jerome's ironical references in Against Jovinian 1.47 to those women of his time (mulieres nostri
temporis) who press him with apostolic authority (apostoli ingerant auctoritatem) and before the
first husband was buried, start repeating precepts which allow a second marriage.254 Those fourth-
century women are depicted by Jerome as both laughable and riotous; he admonishes them to
keep their place in the lower parts of the Church's body. Later in his treatise, Jerome sarcastically
suggests that women like those should be counted among the livestock of swineherds (subulci) or
false prophets like Jovinian, who always promise pleasant things such as "fast seldom, marry often"

252 Epicurus Christianorum... quos hesternam crapulam ructans. Jerome indulges in a considerable amount of diatribes

and arguments ad hominem against Jovinian, which he apparently considered appropriate to his contest. Thus, for
instance, he warns the readers to beware of the very name of Jovinian as it derived from that of an idol, Jove (2.38: Cave
Joviniani nomen, quos de idolo derivatum est). Likewise, in several passages Jerome reproaches his opponent's deviant
teaching through an assault on his literary abilities, whether mocking his inelegant grammar or overly inflated rhetoric, or
discrediting the rationality of his exegesis by calling him a servant of corruption, a barbarous writer, a drunk and a
madman. See, for instance, Against Jovinian 1.3, where Jerome suggest that Jovinian's arguments are so incoherent and
revolting that he should be put into the strait jacket which Hippocrates prescribed. See “Against Jovinian” in Jerome,
Letters and Select Works, 346-416.
253 Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 411.
254
Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 382.

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(Raro jejunate, crebrius nubite).255 Yet, Jerome says, the truth is bitter, and who preach it are filled
with bitterness (Amara est veritas, et qui eam predicant). According to Jerome, Jovinian's female
followers seek scriptural authority for the consolation of their incontinence. They are women who
has lost their chastity and sense of shame, thus defending such licentious practices. In this respect,
it is worth noting that instead of responding to women’s claims over the basis of scriptural authority,
Jerome chooses to dismiss them simply by laughing. First, by resorting to Theophrastus' pagan satire
on marriage.256 Later, picturing them among the army of Jovinian's subalterns, who are described
—with a conspicuously Ovidian flair— as amazons with uncovered breasts, challenging men to a
battle of lust.257

Those fourth-century women resemble the Wife of Bath since they not only defend their legitimate
right to remarrying, but also disturb Jerome with their authority-claim. The Church Father is not
nearly as lenient as Chaucer's Friar. He does not recognize anything right in those women's opinions.
For him, their aspirations only could be fulfilled in the feverish dream (febrem somniare) of Jovinian,
where the Christian body has been turned upside down, where the less is levelled with the greater
and the excellence of marriage can be proclaimed to the detriment of virginity.258 Dame Alisoun,
however, is not attempting to turn Jerome's bodily hierarchy upside down. As she herself asserts:
"The dart is set up for virginitee" (75). Likewise, the Wife of Bath recognizes that, although it does
not suit an ordinary woman like her, virginity may be easily accomplished by a saint ―and the
connubial virginity of Saint Cecilia comes to endorse the Wife's view. Ultimately, rather than
degrading virginity and celibacy ―both signs of virile commitment with God in patristic view― or
setting them below the marriage, the Wife's sermon restores married women their rightful value,
unfairly soiled by Jerome's disparaging assertions. Strictly speaking, when defending the value of
women and marriage, the Wife of Bath adopts a moderate position, becoming closer to other
Christian thinkers that corrected Jerome's radicalism, such as Augustine.259

As we have seen, Jerome's rhetoric strategy to counter wives' arguments and authority-claim mostly
consists of making them the object of grotesque debasement. Thus, in terms of Jerome’s own

255 Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 415.

256 Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 382.
257 Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 415.
258 Jerome, Letters and Select Works, 347.
259 For this interpretation see Smith, “The Wife of Bath Debates Jerome,” 143.

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figuration of the Church as a body, the lower stratum hosts the undervalued female members of
Christianity. Hence wives can be placed (metaphorically) in the site of the belly and the outlets of
the body. It is worth remembering, however, that, as Bakhtin explains, the lower stratum of the
body is characterized by its ambivalence; it should not only be seen as the bodily grave but also as
a productive and generative place, the area of the genital organs and, thus, the fertilizing and
renewing stratum.260 From this view, there is no practical need for the Wife of Bath to proclaim
marriage ranking higher than virginity. By sticking up for married women as basement of the
Christian body, the Wife is already relativizing the hypothetical prize reserved for the saint who
adopts virginity both as a sign of virility and as a step on the path to a martyr's death and the glorious
life. While the latter stands as the transcendent truth in Cecilia's mouth, Alisoun's laughter works in
order to reveal the underlying material truth. After all, does not God need wives to multiply
Christians, renew Church body, and give birth to the saints?

260 Bakhtin, Rabelais, 148.

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CHAPTER 3

BRIDE SWAP, RAPE TRAP: THE MEDIEVAL AFTERLIVES OF ANNA PERENNA’S BED TRICK

Anna Perenna’s bed trick

In his calendar poem Fasti, Ovid bestows a lavish treatment on the goddess Anna Perenna, framed
by a description of her mirthful festival (festum geniale), held yearly on the Ides of March, the first
full moon of the year in the lunar calendar. When referring to the manner of the Roman commoners’
customary celebration of the goddess, Ovid recalls having once encountered a procession and
witnessed a drunk old woman lugging an equally drunk old man home from the festivities (Fast.
3.541-42: senem potum pota trahebat anus), a scene the poet considered worthy of record (visa est
mihi digna relatu), perhaps because they are both tipsy, but only the man cannot walk. In Newlands'
view, this elderly couple may well illustrate a comic ritual inversion of the dignity of Roman elders,
and thus would be an example of the carnival associations of the public performances and rites held
in Anna Perenna's honour on her feast day.261 Whether described as a rowdy New Year’s festival, a
female fertility cult, a drinking bout of the plebians, or a day of merrymaking, devoted to the
pleasure of love, dancing, and revelling, Anna Perenna's celebration represents an instance of
symbolic transgression and defiance of social norms, hence Ovid’s emphasis on the crossing of
boundaries and the blurring of differentiation by age or gender during the festival.262

As Ovid described it, the festival certainly seems to have been very much a plebeian celebration
marked by the temporary misrule and the relative license extended to the lower classes. The poet
draws particular attention to female protagonism; a disruptive femininity unleashed during Anna
Perenna's festival day is reflected in the references to its celebrants. The early mention of the drunk
old woman may be interpreted as a foreshadowing of that elderly, defiant femininity associated

261 Newlands, Playing with Time, 60-1.

262 Newlands applies Bahktin's carnival theory in her early analysis of Ovid's episode on Anna's jovial fest. Nevertheless,
she has been careful in stressing that it would not be sufficient nor accurate to merely point it out as an instance of a
subversive "world-upside-down." In later articles, she argues that, more than reflecting the temporary inversion of the
social hierarchies, in which, for instance, women rise to the top by acting the dominatrix and men are accordingly
degraded, Ovid's account highlights a female alternative critical voice. Likewise, Ovid's Anna Perenna embodies resistance
to, or at the very least, offers alternative perspectives upon Rome's prevalent values, customarily conveyed by dominant
narratives of nationhood and divinization, either in literature or other media such as the calendar. See Newlands
“Infiltrating Julian History,” 126.

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with Anna herself in Fasti. But the old woman represents nonetheless only one possibility among
other versions and conjectures piled up by the poet as to who Anna was. Through the abundant and
varied aetiologies and mythic stories connected with the goddess, Ovid's Anna turns out to be a
multifaceted and extremely varied character.

In this regard, I would like to draw more explicit attention to the fact that Anna Perenna is depicted
either as a maiden or as an old woman in Fasti. She plays the role of a virgin in distress, as Ovid first
depicts her as a mythical princess, the younger sister of Dido, queen of Carthage, who is transformed
into a nymph by the river Numicius (Fast. 3.543- 656).263 Then, she features as the old woman of
Bovillae (Fast. 3.661-74), who is said to have given cakes to the starving during the secession of the
plebs to the Mons Sacer in 494 BC. This time the narration is set in a historical context where Anna
appears as a nourishing figure and a feisty old woman struggling for the people’s rights against the
elite who tried to suppress them. Finally, in the last vignette Anna is once again depicted as an old
woman, but this time she plays the role of a celestial bawd, who apparently follows her own erotic
desires (Fast. 3.675-696).

This last narrative is of particular relevance for this chapter. Ovid narrates that the lovelorn god
Mars, longing for a union with Minerva, begs Anna to intercede for him. Therefore, Anna is here
portrayed as a go-between. As Newlands has noted, in Fasti Mars himself identifies Anna as a kindly
old woman (comis anus) who is skilled at bringing people together;264 for her part, Anna commits

263 Forced into exile after her sister death, Anna arrives in Rome as a refugee. There she is treated hospitably by Aeneas,
only to be later obliged to flee again, threatened by the jealousy of Lavinia, the wife of the hero. Anna eventually finds a
way to escape from her attackers with the assistance of the river Numicius who transforms her into a river nymph. And,
as she herself announces from the depth of the stream, since then her name is Anna Perenna, that is to say, "the perennial
river" (amnis perennis). It is worth noting that in Antiquity the topic of the persecution and rapture of a mythical heroine
is often seen as representing moments of crisis in women’s lives, and equally interpreted in its symbolic links to women's
loss of virginity or sexual reputability. In this regard, Anna Everett Beek observes that Anna Perenna’s apotheosis makes a
curious contrast with Ovid’s treatment of the topic of the fleeing women in Metamorphoses, where stories of this kind
often stage rape and other forms of violence against women and are resolved in a way that deprives them of agency: she
is transformed into a plant, a spring, a stone or some subhuman form. Conversely, we can see a different pattern emerging
in Fasti, in which pursued women are usually promoted to divinity and thereby invested with power. The above-mentioned
Anna’s apotheosis can be seen as having an underlying sexual component— she is, after all, forcefully snatched away
(rapuisse) by the river Numicius, which evokes the rapes that gods commit against mortal women. However, by hiding in
its perennial stream, Anna has been saved from a mortal danger, while at the same time has gained immortality and can
wield a great power. See Anna Everett Beek, “How to Become a Hero: Gendering the Apotheosis of Ovid's Anna Perenna,”
in Uncovering Anna Perenna: A Focused Study of Roman Myth and Culture, ed. G. McIntyre and S. McCallum (London:
Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 96.
264 Fasti 3.683-4: Effice, di studio similes coeamus in unum:/ conveniunt partes hae tibi, comis anus. [Facilitate the union

of two deities alike in their interests; this type of job suits you, kindly old woman] Translated by Newlands, “Infiltrating
Julian History,” 141.

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herself (seemingly at least) to help the god to woo Minerva. However, having tricked the god with
hollow promises and nourished his foolish hopes with the uncertainty of delay, Anna pretends to
have gained Minerva's consent. Finally, when the wedding night comes, Mars raises the bridal veil
and, just when he is about to kiss the deity, he recognizes, to his dismay, not Minerva but Anna, who
laughs at the duped god.

The final farcical anecdote added by Ovid stands out by its especial promotion and defence of
women's freedom. In fact, Anna’s trick takes on great significance in the context of the Ovidian
corpus, as the only occasion on which a woman assumes such a degree of power in taking sexual
advantage of a god, apparently to his dismay.265 Her trick also represents one instance of female
laughter and mockery clearly subverting male authority, a kind of laughter that is not heard very
often in Roman literature.266 Moreover, the section ends with the portrayal of those young girl,
celebrant of the festival, who sing obscene songs with shameful lyrics (certaque probra), and telling
old jokes accompanied by dirty remarks (ioci ueteres obscenaque dicta), in memory of the elderly
Anna's trick played on the lustful Mars.267 For Ovid the indecorous and impertinent performance of
those young girls is as worthy of narration as the scene of the old woman dragging along a drunken
old man described earlier. In both cases, actual women resemble the goddess in whose honour they
have become either inebriated or otherwise uninhibited.

In my view, the repetition of allusions to female celebrants of opposite ages, at the beginning and
the end of Ovid's account of Anna's festival, not only provides coherence and meaningful structure

265 Anna Everett Beek, Always Look on the Bright Side of Death: Violence, Death, and Supernatural Transformation in Ovid's

Fasti (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Minnesota, 2015), 42.

266 See Beard 2014, 157. Beard regrets the lack of instances of truly subversive female laughter in Roman literature.

Carefully policed in Roman literary representations, female laughter "does not seem to represent, as a specifically
gendered form, much of a threat to male egos or to male traditions of laughter and joking, or at least the rules and
regulations, implicit or explicit, were intended to ensure that it did not". Nevertheless, Fasti 3.675-696 can be read as a
good example of the liberating and counter-hegemonic force of female laughter and mockery.
267 In Fasti 693-6, we read: "The new goddess laughed at dear Minerva’s lover. Never did anything please Venus more than

that. So old jokes and obscene sayings are sung [ioci veteres obscenaque dicta canuntur], and people love to remember
how Anna choused the great god." Some scholars have related puellae's foul language at Anna Perenna's festival with the
aischrology (cultic obscenely joking) in other ancient worships to fertility goddesses and their corresponding festivals, such
as the Thesmophoria in honour to Demeter. Ovid would be attempting to apply an aetiology akin to the myth of Iambe,
Demeter's obscenely joking female friend, to the aischrology of Anna Perenna. The explanations for the aischrology in
Demetrian worship focus on delighting the goddess. To that end, female worshipers re-enact the paradigmatic deed of
Iambe, whether her obscenities in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter or the pulling up of her dress and exposure of her vulva
attributed to Baubo, the equivalent of Iambe in the “Orphic” version of the myth. For his part, Ovid tells us that Anna's
trick on Mars pleased Venus and, therefore, girls utter crude jokes and sing ribald songs during Anna Perenna’s day feast.
For women's obscene and abusive cultic speech variously described in ancient sources see Hultin, 29-39.

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to the passage, but also highlights the deep bond between elderly and youthful femininity pervading
Ovid's treatment of the goddess, a connection especially noticeable in Anna’s bed trick. Whatever
its motivation, the core of Anna’s trick relies on women’s body-swapping/age changing and the
consequent confusion or merger of female roles and status. Given this, the trick can be interpreted
as both a variation of the theme of the metamorphosis, and, more precisely, as a way of rendering
the boundaries between ages and stages of women’s life porous through mockery and laughter.
Anna’s trick can be likewise linked to the goddess’ role as a personification of the Revolving Year or
the Moon-Year, also alluded to by Ovid in a fleeting aetiology (Fast 3.657: Sunt quibus haec Luna
est, quia mensibus impleat annum). By alternating waxing and waning phases, as Ovid himself
asserts, the moon fills up the measure of the year, connecting its beginning and its end. In her lunar
aspect, Anna is both old and new. Similarly, her bed trick appears associated with the renewal, by
restoring Anna's youth who shows herself "like a new bride" (Fast 3.690: Anna tegens vultus, ut
nova nupta, suos). The divine trickster is thus an ambivalent figure, an old crone in a bridal dress.

Considering the above, the following will focus on the further development of Anna’s trick in
medieval narratives which are in dialogue with Fasti 3.675-696. My argument is that Ovid’s last
vignette about Anna Perenna had a significant impact on the literary portrait of the old woman
featuring in a wealth of medieval texts, who is often merged with the figure of the go-between.

Anna’s bed trick in the medieval tradition of the go-between

The medieval afterlife of Ovid's Anna Perenna has not received the attention it certainly deserves.
It is particularly striking that there is no recent scholarship bringing Anna together with the figure of
the medieval go-between and bawd. Mention may be made to some out-dated speculations on the
survival of random folk customs, pagan beliefs, or elements of "country matter" in medieval
literature, especially through the comic tradition and romance conventions. David Reid, for instance,
suggests a fleeting resemblance between Anna and the so-called Loathly Lady —the old hag
featured in medieval folk narratives such as the Wife of Bath's Tale by Chaucer and the late fifteenth-
century story of Dame Ragnelle— especially in light of the perennial cyclical nature and changing,
overlapping female identity of the Roman goddess.268

268 David Reid, “Crocodilian Humor: A Discussion of Chaucer's Wife of Bath,” Chaucer Review 4.2 (1970), 87-88; see

especially note 19.

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Let us briefly remember that in Chaucer’s Loathly Lady’s story a knight-rapist must find out what
women most desire, otherwise he will be sentenced to death by a female court, as a retaliation for
his abusive behaviour. The Loathly Lady eventually provides the answer (sovereignty), in exchange
for marriage to the knight. Later on, once they are both in the bridal chamber, the knight is brought
under great dejection and distress in beholding his horrid wife lying in bed and laughing at his misery
(1092: His olde wyf lay smylynge everemo). However, after posing a final test for the knight, she
ends up transforming herself into a young virginal girl, which the former rapist is delighted about.
In reality, that ending seems to describe the exact reverse of Anna's bed trick. As shown above, such
a trick consists of the unsightly old woman taking the place of the young beloved girl, with the likely
aim of frustrating masculine expectations.

According to Reid, “the transformation of the Loathly Lady looks like the mythical harvest figure of
crone and maiden, or the rejuvenation of the year, or some other seal of health and wealth in pagan
traditions.”269 Of course, Anna Perenna represents the rejuvenation of the year whereby the couple
aged Anna/virgin Minerva featuring Ovid’s narrative in Fasti could be connected with the mythical
harvest figure of crone and maiden. However, establishing connections between medieval
narratives and elements of a random (and, presumably, imprecise) folk/pagan lore, involves the risk
of leading us to build on a shaky ground.270 In my view, the main problem is that just appealing to
the continuity of pagan beliefs in medieval comic tradition does not tell us anything about how Anna
Perenna exactly came to be found, as I would like to suggest, in such varying forms throughout
medieval literature. For this reason, in order to place our subject on a more secure footing, it is
preferable to stay focused on the Ovidian corpus, as it was read, transmitted and filtered through
their medieval reception by literate culture. Thus, it will be possible to locate the exactly
whereabouts of Anna Perenna within medieval literary traditions.

269 Reid, “Crocodilian Humor,” 87.

270 Elements of pagan folklore have been similarly associated with other medieval works. William Dunbar's late
fifteenth/early sixteenth century poem The tretis of the twa mariit women and the wedo (or "The Conversation of the Two
Married Women and the Widow") is a good example of this. Dunbar's narrator overhears three ladies, dressed in green,
a widow and two younger married women who follow in her footsteps, discoursing on love and marriage. According to
A.D. Hope, these ladies may be viewed as three overlapping identities behind whom stand the ancient triple goddesses.
Hope rhapsodizes about possible folk-lore survivals in late fifteenth-century Scotland —specifically, the old Celtic fairy
tradition— and hypothesizes around the pagan backdrop allegedly semi-concealed behind Dunbar's poem. In this regard,
Hope highlights the fairy, unearthly nature underlying Dunbar’s portrayal of these three women of Edinburgh anxious to
slip their marital issues, and links them to a range of folkloric, mythological and historical sources. However, as even the
author admits, this theory does not stand as a piece of literary criticism, but rather as an "imaginative commentary"
triggered by “the pleasure of following conjecture for its own sake.” See A.D. Hope, A Midsummer's Eve's Dream.
Variations on a Theme by William Dunbar (New York: Viking Press, 1970), 5-6.

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The following pages explore the ways in which Ovid's Anna —that kindly old lady praised by Mars
due to her skills in bringing people together— has migrated into the Middle Ages and been reworked
as per this new cultural contingency, while conserving some aspect of her classic portrayal in Fasti.
To that end, I shall track the further development of Anna’s bed trick in its manifold forms of
appearance through a range of medieval narratives. The main argument is that Fasti’s last vignette
about Anna Perenna had a significative impact on a wealth of medieval texts featuring the figure of
the go-between in plots regularly involving sex trickery, and a farcical suitor in his sexual pursuit of
either a virgin girl or a widow (or even overlapping female figures). It is my particular contention
that Anna’s bed trick —which in itself entails the merging and overlapping of female roles and
identities— left a lasting legacy that may be traced in medieval Latin Pseudo-Ovidian works such as
De vetula and the Pamphilus, but also reaching the works of vernacular Ovidian offspring, especially
Geoffrey Chaucer, Juan Ruiz, and Giovanni Boccaccio.

As mentioned above, a particularly striking feature of the last vignette of Anna Perenna in Fasti is
the fact that Mars expressly approaches the elderly goddess to act as his go-between. Serving as
Mars’ go-between is nevertheless a significant aspect of Anna's characterization that has been often
overlooked by scholarship on Ovid's medieval reception. Generally, the prime Ovidian candidate
considered to be the source behind the medieval procuress is Dipsas, the ancient hag who teaches
the courtesan how to get more money and gifts from her current or potential lovers in Amores
1.8.271 This old woman is usually described as a lena, a stock character of the Roman comic stage,
variously translated as “bawd,” “procuress,” “brothel-keeper,” or “madam.” However, Dipsas does
not explicitly act as a go-between for two lovers, much less one trading on the man's infatuation as
Anna actually does. Furthermore, the recurrence of the scene of the bed trick and the motif of
females swapping bodies and roles in a number of medieval narrations featuring the old woman,
seems to suggest that Anna Perenna should share the credit with Dipsas as the Ovidian source
behind this medieval character.

271 See for instance Fleming, Classical Imitation, 161. Fleming describes Dipsas as “the Great Mother of all medieval literary

bawds,” given that her speech encompasses a complete catalogue of techniques to trick men, which will clearly supply
her medieval literary relatives. As Gretchen Mieszkowski details, this inherited corpus of knowledge includes "displaying
presents other men have sent, pretending it is the courtesan's birthday, making a rich lover jealous by indications that she
has been having sex with another man, telling a handsome but poor man to find rich male lovers to get money to buy gifts
for her, having her mother, sister, and nurse ask men for more gifts on her account, and so forth.” Gretchen Mieszkowski,
Medieval Go-Betweens and Chaucer's Pandarus (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 16-17.

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In addition to Anna Perenna's role as a go-between, medieval narratives also echo her role as a
trickster who turns Mars’ infatuation into an occasion of self-indulgence, either because she aims
to attract a well-built and sexually aroused man into her bed, or merely because she finds delight in
beholding Mars' astonishment once he has found himself in bed with an undesirable old woman
who laughs in his face. Likewise, on the basis of Fasti 3.675-696, Ovid’s medieval reception may have
interpreted Anna's trick as an attempt to ward off the rape of a virgin bride; instead of seeking to
cajole Minerva, a young virgin goddess who categorically rejects sex, Anna would have taken her
place to foil Mars’ lustful interest on her.272

The search for traces of Anna Perenna's bed trick in medieval literature is the main thread running
through the different sections in this chapter. The wide range of medieval works to be discussed
here have been grouped into two types, according to their degree of closeness to this Ovidian
model:

a) Those in which the bed trick is closely approximated to Ovid’s. The most influential work
falling into this category is De vetula, a thirteenth-century pseudo-Ovidian Latin
narrative poem. Here an old go-between swaps places with the virgin lady who is the
object of the first-person narrator’s passion —a narrator who introduces himself as
Ovid, the unhappily ingenious poet. In addition, one interesting case of slight variation
of the bed trick scene is found in Boccaccio's Decameron, namely in the fourth story of
day eight: the novella of the lustful provost of Fiesole and the widow Monna Piccarda,
who tricks him into bed with her unsightly servant Ciutazza.

b) Those works in which the bed trick is altered and turned against the woman coveted by
the man who resorts to the services of the go-between. Here we find a larger set of
works in which the old procuress manages to lure the beloved lady into a standard rape
trap, consisting in locking her up alone with the man, in such a compromising situation

272 This interpretation was also plausible in Roman contexts. See Elaine Fantham, “Sexual Comedy in Ovid's Fasti: Sources

and Motivation.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 87 (1983): 185–216. Fantham has investigated the influence of
mime in three episodes of frustrated rape in Fasti; one of this is “Anna Perenna's frustration of Mars’ attempt on the virgin
Minerva by substituting her own aged body under the blanket —the same false-bride trick used to foil the lecherous
Lysidamus of Plautus' Casina.” Fantham, xi.

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 that she cannot extricate herself from it without losing her reputation. This scene recurs
in various medieval works, ranging from the twelfth-century Latin comedy Pamphilus de
amore, through Juan Ruiz’s Libro del Buen Amor (specifically, The Endrina-Melon’s
episode, usually described as a mixture between De vetula and the Pamphilus), to some
fabliaux such as Auberee. We can also find this pattern reworked by Chaucer in Troilus
and Criseyde, in which the role of the procuress is oddly played by a man, Pandarus.

Along with pursuing medieval echoes of Anna’s last narrative in Fasti, a secondary thread running
throughout this chapter concerns how medieval narratives adapted Ovid's model bearing in mind
certain blurry zones within the traditional division of women's stages of life in the Middle Ages,
where widowhood particularly stands out as an ambiguous social category. As Louise Mirrer asserts,
medieval attitudes towards widowhood range from regarding it a state that freed women to act on
the wanton, whorish, and unprincipled tendencies ascribed to women in general by misogynistic
writers, to praising widows for their renewed potential to achieve special grace.273 In fact, widows
qualified to devote themselves to God in a way they could not as married women. And, freed from
carnal cares, they could almost approach virgins in holy status. As shall be discussed further on,
given its relative blurriness and independence from male tutelage, widowhood could have been
imagined as a locus where the roles and status of medieval women were extremely fluid, permeable,
and permutable. In this vein, it does not seem by chance that widows well befit the role of the aged
Anna and often take the place of the virgin when re-enacting her bed trick in medieval narratives.

273 Louise Mirrer, Upon My Husband's Death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe (Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan Press, 1992), 1.

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 a. Bride swap: the medieval afterlife of Anna Perenna’s bed trick in the Pseudo-
Ovidian De vetula and Boccaccio’s novella VIII.4

Ovid returns from his grave

The Pseudo-Ovidian poetic narrative De vetula (On the Old Woman), composed in France at some
point in the thirteenth century,274 presents itself from the outset as a self-conscious piece of writing
that creates its own mythology. It was allegedly found in an excavated tomb in the vicinity of Tomis,
on the shore of the Black Sea, with an epitaph engraved on it which read “here lies Ovid, the most
gifted of poets” (hic iacet Ovidius ingeniosissimus poetarum).275 The circumstances of the discovery
are explained in a prose introduction. It states that the tomb was opened but no body was found;
instead, it contained an ivory casket, within which was a book marvellously unconsumed by the ages
(nulla vetustate consumptus). The book, that turned out to be De vetula, would be Ovid’s final work,
nothing less than his lost autobiography from exile. The introduction is then followed by a verse
preface by a certain Leo, protonotary of the palace of Byzantium and alleged editor of the work.
Through Leo we learn that, when resigned to the idea that he would not be pardoned and he could
never return to his homeland, Ovid stipulated that the book should be left in his tomb (DV pref 10:
Inque suo secum iussit condire sepulchro) awaiting its unearthing. When the day came, the book
was brought from Tomis to Constantinople where Leo posthumously published it to the delight of
medieval readers. This way, the fictional prologist duly executes the fictional Ovid's last will, allowing
him to live forever (redivivum nomen haberet) through his everlasting work, capable of standing for
his corruptible body.

Despite its presumed incorruptibility, De vetula is a story of changes, as indicated by the subtitle it
bears in some manuscripts: "De Mutatione Vitae." In this regard, Sarah Miller observes that Leo’s
prefacio makes this central motif explicit by announcing the poem will recount the events that led
the poet to abandon his licentious ways and be reformed.276 The story, delivered through a narrator
adopting Ovid's voice, is arranged into three parts. As we are told in its verse preface, the first book

274 Traditionally dated around 1250 , De vetula must have been published between 1222 and 1268. The work's authorship

has been attributed to Richard Fournival, though the evidence is not conclusive. For a full discussion on the dating and
authorship, see Paul Klopsch, ed., Pseudo-Ovidius de Vetula (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 78-99; Dorothy Robathan, ed., The
Pseudo-Ovidian De Vetula (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1968), 6-10.
275 Latin citations from Dorothy Robathan, ed., The Pseudo-Ovidian De Vetula. The translations are mine.
276 Miller, Medieval monstrosity, 12.

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tells the days of “Ovid’s” youth, when he was devoted to amusements and love affairs (quando
vacabat amori); the second book addresses how he changed his ways (quare mutavit). Of course,
every change has its causes by which it is necessarily brought about. The anonymous old woman,
from whom the poem gets its title, carries the honour of being the catalyst for the poet's
metamorphosis (pro qua fuerat mutatio facta). Later in Book Two, we learn that the vetula was a
go-between hired by “Ovid” to help him to seduce a young lady. Instead of doing that, she ultimately
spoils all his erotic fantasies about young girls, leading him to the renunciation of worldly pleasures
and the embrace of celibacy. Finally, the third book explains what manner the poet lived afterwards
(et quomodo postea vixit). As we shall find out later, this transformation led the former poet of love
to become entirely devoted to philosophical studies and the sciences, especially astral sciences.
Having become a sober scholar, Ovid predicts the birth of Christ from an extraordinary conjunction
of Saturn and Jupiter and becomes convinced of the truths of Christian faith.

Critics have often noted that this apocryphal biography attempts to extend the Ovidian canon,
becoming a rather Ovidian-sounding recap of it. As Nora Goldschmidt states, De vetula establishes
a complex intertextual relationship with the Ovidian textual corpus, which can be described as both
a revision of Ovid's works and a creative dialogue with them.277 Under the guise of the aged poet
exiled to the frontier town of Tomis, the narrator looks back on his erotic biography moving from
an Ars amatoria to a Remedia amoris.278 With the benefit of hindsight, as Marek Kretschmer
observes, “Ovid” retells his life as a moral journey during which his metamorphosis occurs: the
Ouidius praeceptor amoris becomes Ouidius ethicus and Ouidius christianus.279 It is important to
stress, therefore, that De vetula not only tells us how the life of “Ovid” allegedly changed, but also

277 Nora Goldschmidt, “Ovid's Tombs: Afterlives of a Poetic corpus,” in Tombs of the Ancient Poets: Between Literary
Reception and Material Culture, ed. N. Goldschmidt and B. Graziosi (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 105.
Goldschmidt has noticed the presence of scenes in De vetula that rival Ovid himself for metaliterary play. Thus, for
instance, pseudo-Ovid depicts himself reading Ars Amatoria and following his own advice in De vetula 2.580-4. See also
Nora Goldschmidt, Afterlives of the Roman Poets: Biofiction and the Reception of Latin Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2019), 51.
278 For this interpretation see Ralph Hexter, “Ovid in the Middle Ages: Exile, Mythographer, Lover,” In Brill's Companion to

Ovid, ed. B. Boyd (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 440; and Miller, 31.
279 Marek Thue Kretschmer, “The Love Elegy in Medieval Latin Literature (Pseudo-Ovidiana and Ovidian Imitations)," in

The Cambridge Companion to Latin Love Elegy, ed. T.S. Thorsen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 279.
Ovid's life in exile was the subject of a range of fantastic traditions during the Middle Ages, largely grounded in enthusiastic
yet fanciful interpretation of certain passages of the Ovidian corpus. The poet's youthful erotomania, his failure in love,
later remorse, and life as an enlightened proto-Christian, shape a regular plot in Ovid's imaginary life, that may well have
been stoked by the outreach of De Vetula. This plot is likewise in line with the Christian penitential narrative model through
which Ovid's mock handbooks, Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amores, had been assimilated by the clergy from the twelfth
century onwards.

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offers valuable insights into how Ovid’s own authorial image and the meaning of his work change
according to the spirit of the time.

Medieval reception of the Ovidian corpus of texts had already brought them into dialogue with
contemporary debates about sex and love. De vetula follows this trend, though making a
medievalized Ovid very literally come alive again. The fantastic discovery of the poet’s last work
should be equated with the very resurrection of Ovid's voice in the Middle Ages. The readers were
supposed to be ready to continue his life story from the point where it was left by Ovid’s works of
exile. In this regard, Goldschmidt notes that Tristia became the master text for medieval Ovidian
biofiction, being crucial in shaping future readers of Ovid’s poetry, especially affecting medieval
reception of it as an autobiographic, self-confessional work.280 Tristia was also influential in
establishing the mythology of the poet destroyed by his own genius (Tr. 2.2: ingenio perii qui miser
ipse meo).281 Hence arose the legend of the pernicious carmen which caused Ovid’s banishment,
often identified as the Ars Amatoria.282 The guilty carmen appears coupled with a mistake or fault
that Ovid failed to disclose during his lifetime. In De vetula, however, Ovid’s famous mistake turns
out to be having engaged the services of a mischievous old procuress.

De vetula not only brought Ovid back from the grave in a medieval fashion, but also drove Anna
Perenna into the medieval chamber. Considering that the text is explicit that the poet’s beloved is a
virgin, and that the vetula apparently tricks him into having sex with her, the Mars-Minerva-Anna
triangle is seemingly renewed in this pseudo-Ovidian work. In the best style of the trick that the
aged Anna plays on Mars in Fasti, the vetula, who is described as a revolting hag, manages to secretly
take the place of “Ovid’s” true love. The presence of the body-swapping bed trick, among other
significative thematic parallels and resonances, suggests that De vetula should be read and
interpreted in dialogue with Fasti's last vignette about Anna Perenna.283

280 Goldschmidt, Afterlives, 33.

281 See also Tristia 2.342, 3.3.74
282
See also Ex Ponto 2.9.75-6; Tristia 5.12.67-8.
283 Hilda Buttenwieser notes that, although manuscripts of Fasti are very numerous, when compared to Ovid's

erotodidactic poetry it seems that the Middle Ages would not have paid too much attention to the Fasti. See Hilda
Buttenwieser, "Manuscripts of Ovid's 'Fasti': the Ovidian Tradition in the Middle Ages," TAPA 71 (1940 ), 49. However, as
Fritsen has more recently argued, Fasti was especially appreciated in French school of Orléans between the twelfth and
the thirteenth century. Fritsen also mentions that the scholarly value of the Fasti lay in its adscription to the didactic genre
of astronomical poetry. The presence of zodiacal compositions in Fasti manuscripts suggests that Ovid could impart
erudition regarding star lore and that he presented a model to emulate. This adscription of the Fasti is suggestive since,
as mentioned above, the Pseudo-Ovidian poet of De vetula highlights the astronomical knowledge of Ovid, who is credited

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De vetula eventually became a medieval bestseller,284 being widely read, copied, translated, and
distributed across Europe. Its pan-European influence can be traced through the works of diverse
vernacular writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Juan Ruiz, Jean de Meun, and Giovanni Boccaccio.
While there is a broad range of works that can be arguably related to the Ovidian model, the closest
medieval relatives of Ovid's Anna are found in De Vetula. Likewise, the pseudo-Ovidian poem depicts
the bed trick in narrow accordance with the model found in Fasti, which probably led the motif to
be exploited by other literary narratives thereafter. As shall be shown below, Boccaccio's novella
VIII.4, included in his Decameron, not only remains perhaps one of the most self-evident
readaptations of the old Anna's trick, but also presumably retains much of its original essence.

Virgin into vetula

Book Two of De vetula tells how “Ovid” has become infatuated with his neighbour's virginal
daughter, whose beauty he describes in sensuous detail. However, there are many obstacles to be
overcome in the fulfilment of his desires, especially the tight control exerted by the puella’s parents
(DV 2.346-7: locus et tempus non concurrere loquendi/ Presertim quia nimirum materque
paterque). For this reason, the poet is compelled to look for the only person capable of breaking
into such an impenetrable fortress: a go-between (DV 2.351: Querenda fuit mediatrix). The chosen
one is an old woman of pitiable appearance, who used to beg for scraps, but who had nevertheless
also worked as nurse of the beloved puella (fuerat quondam dilecta sedula nutrix), making her the
perfect candidate for the scheme.

Despite her initial reluctance, the old woman ends up yielding to the many gifts “Ovid” promised to
her.285 Soon the procuress brings good news to her client, having succeeded in arranging a tryst with

with the astronomical prediction of the birth of Jesus (DV 3.613-15). See Angela Fritsen. Antiquarian Voices. The Roman
Academy and the Commentary Tradition on Ovid's Fasti (Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2015), 9.
284 David Bellhouse has called De vetula a “medieval bestseller.” The Latin poem was frequently copied and nearly sixty

manuscript copies survive, mainly held in libraries across Europe. The first printed edition appeared in about 1475. De
Vetula was also translated into French in the fourteenth century by Jean Le Fèvre. David Bellhouse, “De Vetula: A Medieval
Manuscript Containing Probability Calculations,” International Statistical Review 68.2 (2000), 126.
285 Pseudo-Ovid’s hyperbolic enumeration of gifts deserves a special comment. On the one hand, it may be recognized

some kinship between this passage in De vetula and Dipsas's advice to Corinna in Amores 1.8 regarding how to pluck her
lovers by demanding expensive gifts. On the other hand, certain elements present in the bribery of the vetula recurs in
other medieval works featuring the old woman as go-between or adjacent characters. In this regard, it is worth noting
that Pseudo-Ovid's list of gifts is divided into two specific groups: food gifts (a goatskin for the wine, wheat, legumes, a
piece of ham) and clothing gifts (a cloak, a tunic, a cape, a fur, espadrilles, fabric). See below the analysis of Boccaccio's

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the girl, the result, in her words, of a pious deception (fraude pia). The vetula will persuade the
maiden to wash her hair; and later, under the excuse of combing her hair, she will keep the girl in a
chamber far from her mother's purview (extra maternos thalamos), so that “Ovid” can meet her
unhampered. The go-between guarantees him that the girl will be there lying naked on the bed (In
lecto nudam invenies), whereon all the poet must do is seize the opportunity and force her to have
sex with him.

When the time comes, after a bumpy walk through the puella’s dark and labyrinthine house, “Ovid”
sneaks into the room where his beloved is sleeping. In the darkness, his explorante manu sweeps
along the bed. Naturally the girl must remain silent, “Ovid” thinks to himself, silence being
appropriate for a modest virgin (DV 2.481: Virginis artari sic vult pudor et sibi parci). By contrast, the
man must take the lead in bedroom skirmishes of this sort. However, his initial delight is marred
upon discovering the old woman lying there next to him. Under the impact of such a great
disappointment, the burning torch of love abruptly fades out (DV 2.489: moritur fax, ignis amoris).

In his apocryphal biography, the pseudo-Ovidian narrator shares the same fate as Mars in Fasti; he
must recognize that he has embraced an old body instead of the younger more attractive one he
expected. At first, “Ovid” is in a state of perplexity, wondering: who could believe that a virgin, who
has just fulfilled four Olympiads (DV 2. 493-4: quatuor implens nuper olimpiades) —that is, she is 16
years old— could have become old so quickly. A rose has never faded in such a short time (DV 2.495:
Numquam tam modico rosa marcuit). In Fasti the armed god was torn between shame and anger at
the sight of an old dame instead of the virgin he expected (Fast. 3.692: nunc pudor elusum, nunc
subit ira). Upon discovering the truth, “Ovid” confesses that his initial intention was to attack the
old woman with a dagger. However, concerned about the possibility of causing scandal and
tarnishing the puella’s reputation, he rises from the bed and refrains from taking revenge. This
renewed vignette of the bed trick ends up with “Ovid” bitterly complaining because he cannot find
a punishment proportional to the crime of the vetula.286

novella VIII.4 where Ciutazza is rewarded with a smock for taking the place of her mistress. Such interest in clothing as a
reward is shared by diverse go-betweens such as Auberee, Trotaconventos or even the late fifteenth-century Celestina,
the Spanish most influential go-between portrayed by Fernando de Rojas. Working as a seamstress is likewise regularly
shown as one of the many offices held by the medieval go-between, along with peddler, perfumer, cosmetic-maker,
mender of maidenheads, among others.
286 The poet resigns himself to wish her the worst through an extensive series of curses: “…igitur vivat luitura diu scelus

istud./Sit mendica manum non inveniat miserantis. /Estoque siquid ei dabitur, modicumque malumque./Panem non
comedat, nisi que dederit putre granum…” [May she live always mourning her crime! And may she be a beggar and may

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In his description of the beloved’s substitution, the pseudo-Ovidian narrator resorts to language
borrowed from Ovid’s own Metamorphoses, which is both striking and consistent. "I have sung of
forms changed into new bodies," states “Ovid”, in a clear reference to the two opening lines of the
Roman epic of transformations (DV 2.495–97: In nova formas/ corpora mutatas cecini,
mirabiliorque/ Non reperitur ibi mutatio quam fuit ista). Brought back to life by medieval fiction, the
Roman poet has a chance to find out that no change is more amazing than that one he witnessed
that night, when, in so short a time and in such mysterious fashion, such a beautiful girl turned into
such a disfigured old hag.

As stated above, change is the main theme of De vetula, hence the importance of Pseudo-Ovid’s
sexual failure that changes him forever. However, on closer inspection, a specific topic running
through this pseudo-Ovidian narrative is the mutability of the body. The body is constantly changing,
and this is likely the most amazing metamorphosis to be sung in a poem. While not even Ovid himself
can escape this fate,287 my focus here is on the meanings of the mutation of virgin into vetula. As
Miller has cogently explained, this transformation can be best described as the transition from an
enclosed, constrained, and proportionate body to another characterized by its openness and
instability.288 Thus, the virgin's beauty is equated to steadiness, order, and containment, while the
revolting vetula's body exposes its gaping orifices, allowing continual commerce between inside and

not find a compassionate hand. And if anyone gives you something, let it be little and bad. May you not eat bread unless
you have been offered rotten grain...] (DV 2.529-532). The formula recalls Ovid’s cursing Dipsas at the end of her episode
in Amores 1.8.110-14.
287 Apart from inflicting an erotic trauma in the Pseudo-Ovidian narrator, his intimacy with the vetula leads him to a change

which is both spiritual and physical. In De vetula 2.6-20 we are told the poet used to praise the man whom nature had
given power and could know a girlfriend whenever he wanted (cognoscere posset amicam). But now, he praises half-men
(semiviros), those men whom nature has denied the power (vires).For an analysis on the motif of castration and the figure
of the semiviros see Miller, 14-19. The theme of Ovid's castration by jealous husbands as the price he had to pay for his
sins appears to have enjoyed certain credibility between medieval intellectuals, since it was reproduced in Jean Le Fèvre's
Book of Gladness. Le Fèvre, who also translated the Latin text of De vetula, was probably the source that Christine de Pizan
had in mind when writing in City of Ladies: "[Ovid’s] body was given over to all kinds of worldliness and vices of the flesh:
he had affairs with many women, since he had no sense of moderation and showed no loyalty to any particular one.
Throughout his youth, he behaved like this only to end up with the reward he richly deserved: he lost not only his good
name and possessions, but even some parts of his body! [...] So finally he was castrated and deprived of his organs because
of his immorality." Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 20-21. It seems that the legend may be rooted in
medieval reception of Ovid's actual interest on the figure of the eunuch, as it may be seen, for instance, in Fasti 4.223–46,
when the poet addresses the Roman cults of Cybele. In this regard, Alison Sharrock notes Ovid's own curiosity about the
fact that Cybele cults were celebrated by "virile Romans," within a "manly culture" that, nevertheless, worships "a goddess
whose priests are eunuchs." The answer, says Sharrock, is the myth of Attis, "a Phrygian boy loved ‘chastely’ by the
goddess Cybele. He promised to remain a virgin, but broke his promise with a nymph, whom Cybele killed in vengeance.
Attis castrated himself, in remorse for his broken pledge and the death of his beloved." Sharrock, “Gender and Sexuality,”
103.
288 Miller, 3.

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outside. I consider it useful to draw on Miller’s interpretation to specifically address the stark
contrast between the virgin's mouth whose beauty is depicted in terms of smallness and stillness,
barely disturbed by moderate smiling (DV 2.290: Bucca brevis, sola brevitate notanda) and the
vetula’s excessively and sonorously opened mouth in laughter. It is interesting to note that in De
vetula laughter appears as a particular attribute of the aged woman. In my view, this may be
interpreted in line with Anna Perena's laughter in Fasti.

The aged puella’s laughter

Like the unnarrated aftermath of Anna Perenna's trick on Mars, De vetula is elusive regarding the
details of Ovid’s fateful encounter with the old procuress. We are not informed about any
motivation behind the go-between’s treachery. Therefore, we can only surmise as to whether she
was moved by willingness to defend the virgin from rape (perhaps with her complicity, as will be
hinted later) or by no other reason than to indulge her own pleasure at having a man of her choice
lie next to her and submit to her will. Unlike Anna's trick on Mars, however, the vetula does not
crown her bed trick by laughing at the duped lover.

Anna's laughter is not entirely absent from this pseudo-Ovidian work, as we later find out; though,
in an unexpected twist, this time we find the virgin laughing at her suitor’s expense. Here lies one
of the most significant variants of De vetula compared to Anna's trick in Fasti. “Ovid” says that the
young girl was forced to marry a noble knight and leave the town. However, some twenty years
later, the puella returns, having become a widow. We learn that they meet again, and “Ovid” takes
the opportunity to clear up some past misunderstandings. The puella hints at the possibility of her
co-participation in the vetula’s scheme or, at least, that she knew about the plan of her former
nurse. What is certain is that she disagrees with the version given by the narrator and confesses that
she believed that “Ovid” actually consummated his encounter with the vetula:
Et brevibus verbis ex ordine singula pando.
Subridens dixit, “memini certe satis horum,
Excepto quod anum te subposuisse putabam”.
Me testante deos quod anum non subposuissem,
“Sed quid» ait «meminisse iuvat modo talia? Numquid
iam sumus ambo senes quasi nec complexibus apti?” (DV 2.572-577)

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 [And, in a neat nutshell, I reveal each and every fact to her. She smiled and said, "I remember
it very well, except that I thought you had had sex with the old woman". By the gods I
solemnly swore that I had not had intercourse with the old woman. “Anyhow, she replied,
what is the point of remembering those things now? Are not we both old enough for tender
and playful embraces?”]

Despite her words, “Ovid” soon notices that the aged puella —as Miller deliberately and
ambiguously brands her—has reappeared very much disposed to accept his advances. And much of
this new courtship recalls the first. Without wasting time, he goes in search of another go-between.
Though this time we are not informed whether the chosen one is old or not; all we know is that she
is a "faithful mediator" (mediatrix fidelis) and a maid servant (ancilla). This procuress arranges their
new rendezvous and once again we attend to a darkened chamber scene, although this time the
outcome will be different. Ovid walks through the dark room where the widow is waiting for him
and willing to receive him. He has learned his lesson, so now shows himself more cautious and takes
a moment to verify the identity of the person that lies on the bed:
... ipsam
Attrecto manibus, respondent sufficientur
Singula; frons, sedes oculi, nasus, labra, mentum.
Sentio ridentem, ruo totus in oscula. Quid plus?
Nudus suscipior cum mansuetudine multa;
Totus in antiqui delector amoris odore. (DV 2.662-668)

[I feel her with my hands, and everything seems to be in its right place: her forehead, the
orbit of her eyes, her nose, lips, and chin. I feel her laughing and my entire body rushes into
her mouth. What more can I say? Naked, I am received with much gentleness. I am fully
delighted in the fragrance of the old love]

The go-between’s bed trick had previously exposed the pseudo-Ovidian narrator to the sudden
shifting of the pendulum from virgin to vetula, with his subsequent disappointment. At this second
chance, however, “Ovid” enjoys a moment of fullness in the company of his old love. The narrator
acknowledges that it is a pleasure to recall what she was like, despite her older age (DV 2.669-70:
Quod fuerat, meminisse iuvat). Though marked by life —“Ovid” especially alludes to marks of

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sexuality and childbearing (post tot partus)—, the aged puella still demonstrates how fine she was
in her prime. The enchantment is nevertheless temporary. Shortly afterwards, the poet becomes
aware of his own old age when hearing what people say about him: “See the foolish old man now”
(DV 728: Vetulus iam desipit iste). This way, “Ovid” recognizes himself as vetulus. This moment of
self-recognition makes him realize that ageing is an irreversible metamorphosis taking place over
the course of time. But now his own pleasure with the widow is torturing him. The poet becomes
increasingly anxious to keep intact the image of the one who, in his heart, should remain forever
young. The victory came but too late, laments “Ovid” sunk in reveries, while frantically questioning
what Fortuna gave him and what chance has taken away (DV 2.681: quid fortuna michi dedit et quid
casus ademit). Finally, he resolves to renounce his relationship with the widow, cursing the swift
and inexorable approach of old age as the worst disease (DV 2.708: Pessimus, irretinebiliter ruitura
senectus).

Whatever happens next, the pseudo-Ovidian account of his eagerly pursued and so much coveted
union with his old love is described with feeling and tenderness. The intercourse is described in a
way that emphasizes its reciprocity (unum venimus in lectum) and peaceful nature (cum pace
receptus eram). Most importantly for the subject at hand, Ovid tells us that the widow laughed. The
gaping laughing mouth is a hallmark of the vetula's body, though unbecoming to the puella’s
portrait, according to Ovidian aesthetic criteria previously exposed in the poem.289 Yet, unlike her
younger days, now the poet’s beloved can afford to emit such a triumphant chuckle. And he cannot
help but feel pleased when rushing into her mouth.

“Ovid” must recognize that things have changed so much since his last failed attempt. The once
silent object of his lust now expresses her amorous interest, takes the initiative in an act of
consensual intercourse. Her laughter is an indicator for this change. Regardless of his later
repentance, Pseudo-Ovid’s reencounter with his aged beloved reimagines women's corporeality
and laughter also serves this end. If earlier he had praised the perfect virgin body, whose beauty
consisted in its containment, stillness, and proper boundaries, consummating the long-awaited
encounter will bring him to the realization that the virgin was becoming the vetula from the very
beginning.

289 Such beauty standards, in Miller's view, are largely based on praeceptor amoris' lessons, especially on his instruction

to Roman girls on how to laugh in Ars Amatoria 3. 280-90. See Miller, 32-3.

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“Ovid” finds in old age the antidote to erotic love;290 it is ultimately the cause for which he ends up
eschewing his life of love forevermore. De vetula's Book Two is often read in parallel with Remedia
Amoris, as it dramatizes the cure for lovesickness prescribed by the praeceptor, consisting of turning
the beloved’s attractions into defects or possibly worse. In this regard, Miller points out that the
vetula extinguishes love simply by revealing her true nature, in a manner similar to those women in
Remedia amoris (ll. 347-50) that must be caught unarmed (inermen), not wearing any makeup or
jewellery, to discourage repentant lovers. The female body stripped of its ars is also, in Ovidian
terms, beyond the reach of artful concealment, graces of style and poetic embellishment.
Eventually, women's true nature distresses the pseudo-Ovidian narrator, as he senses the sinister
presence of the old woman lurking within beautiful young female bodies; they will inevitably
become open, messy, leaky and transgressive. In this vein, female laughter appears loaded with
monstrous connotations.

In Miller's view, the gaping female mouth, often coupled with ravenous sexual desires, discloses the
alien nature and monstrous features of the female body. Likewise, raucous female laughter entails
the feared monster-evoking violation of boundaries.291 I propose, however, that the aged puella's
laughter imprints a peculiar ambivalence upon the female transgressive body, obviating a purely
negative interpretation. Rather, her laughter, which entices Ovid into a passionate kissing (ruo totus

290 This outcome is usually interpreted in connection with Remedia amoris. From this view, De vetula dramatizes the cure
for lovesickness prescribed by the praeceptor, consisting of turning the beloved’s attractions into defects or possibly
worse. For this interpretation see Ryan Giles, “A Galen for Lovers: Medical Readings of Ovid in Medieval and Early
Renaissance Spain,” in Ovid in the Age of Cervantes, edited by Frederick de Armas (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2010), 8. However, it is worth remembering that, as is his custom, the praeceptor amoris’ teaching in this regard is imbued
with contradictory views. This way, in Ars 2.665-78 he commends the allure of the mature women and the benefits of
having them as lovers. It is profitable for young lovers to have a relationship with a woman with whitening hairs, who has
past her prime and lacks her flower (flore caret), since they have greater sexual experience and skills that come with age
and practice (Ars 2. 677-8: illae munditiis annorum damna rependunt, et faciunt cura ne videantur anus).
291 The concept of monstrosity and its perturbing openness is central in Miller’s approach to this pseudo-Ovidian narrative

The monster, which in itself is a mixture of contradictory things, troubles boundaries such as those between humans and
animals, but also disrupts hierarchically organized categories, such as social categories based on class, age or gender, or
the margins defining self-same, autonomous individuality. On the relationship between the concepts of openness and
monstrosity, see Margrit Shildrick, Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the Vulnerable Self (London: Sage, 2002)
According to Shildrick, the fear of the monster in Western imagination is linked to the cultural contempt for fragility and
vulnerability of subjectivity: the monster undermines the idea of self-sufficiency, exposing the confusion of forms and the
lack of singularity as the condition of all. That is why openness is one chief feature of monsters. The openness and
vulnerability of the human is what Western discourse has insisted in covering over by shaping idealized, proportionated,
self-contained, and stable bodies and identities. Yet the monster is always lurking behind this façade, ready to traverse
their tenuous boundaries, and recall to us that, at the end, the monsters are us.

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in oscula), should be seen as an indicator of the profound instability of such boundaries, allowing
alternative viewpoints to emerge.292

As nostalgia over lost youth soon seizes “Ovid”, the topos of the ageing lover enables us to reassess
his previous picture of the desirable female body: in reality, it has always been opened and
unfinished, for bodily life must be understood as an ongoing event, always in motion and
transcending its limits. The widow’s aroused laughter can be interpreted as a joyful assertion of this
ostensible sense of greater bodily truth. The widow’s laughter also transmutes the fulfilment of
Pseudo-Ovid's desires from mere poetic fantasy to a living paradox. He has finally embraced the
body long desired, albeit late, and embraces a body whose boundaries have become permeable and
mobile; a body informed by deep ambivalence: an aged puella, a widowed virgin, a mixture of a
young and an old woman.

In this way, both by blurring boundaries and underwriting a femininity endowed with special power,
the aged puella's laughter leads us close to Ovid's portrait of Anna Perenna in Fasti, while asserting
the paradox that the virgin is the vetula and vice versa. Thus, distinctions and boundaries between
women set by age, especially those conceived in relation to their marital status and bodily
circumstances, become blurred and exposed as artificial. Gendered structures defining roles, power
relations and hierarchies are likewise disturbed as the former rapist becomes submissive and
overwhelmed by the grotesque femininity of the widow. And, unlike Pseudo-Ovid's first failed
attempt, when the vetula's body caused horror in him, this second chance proves that monstrosity
also has its charm and may be a delightful, though ungovernable, source of pleasure.

It is not by accident that, while the virgin's body appears as a passive object of the narrator’s desire,
framed by the eroticized violence to which the female body is culturally submitted, the vetula's body
is beyond control and manages to trouble the patriarchal power structure that allows sexual
violence against women. In this respect, the pseudo-Ovidian poet behind De vetula stays true to the

292 The openness of laughter can be also interpreted from an approach that emphasizes ambivalence, hybridity, and

semiotic multivalence over more purely negative connotations of monstrosity in Western discourse. Bakhtin, for instance,
in his study of carnivalesque forms in literature, underscores the importance of the body's orifices in what he calls
grotesque realism. Instead of being concealed, the mouth, the anus, the nose, the ears, the phallus, and the vagina are
stressed and exaggerated, as points at which the body opens out to the world and to other people. Bakhtin places the
“the grotesque body" at the core of a realistic representation since, in stark contrast to the idealized body, "is a body in
the act of becoming. It is never finished, never completed; it is continually being built, created, and builds and creates
another body." See Bakhtin, Rabelais, 317. Likewise, according to Bakhtin, the grotesque body becomes central to
carnivalesque literature's ability to upset hierarchies and to enable a new view of the prevailing social order.

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original essence of Anna Perenna's bed trick in Fasti: on her own initiative, an old woman took the
place of a virgin twenty years ago, which prevented her from being raped; now, having herself
become an old woman, the former virgin willingly decides to be with “Ovid”. What should be
underlined is that within the logic of this device the old woman must take the virgin's place —the
position of victim or sexual object—to trigger an unexpected feminine agency. Thus, what started
out as a snare set to catch a woman became a space of female self-indulgence at the expense of the
rapist. If the motivations behind the old go-between's trick were only inferable from some textual
clues, the aged puella's laughter clarifies the message. Her laughter is the assertion of her control
over both her body and the man she drew to her side.

Nevertheless, consideration of the social context of De vetula’s composition enables us to better

understand why it is not by chance that Anna's laughter reappears precisely at the moment when
the puella has not only grown older but has also become a widow. Unlike men, ranked according to
their class or employment within society, medieval women were often categorized according to the
stages of their private lives —virgins, wives, widows, or nuns.293 Women were also ranked in terms
of the state of their bodies and in accordance with their connections to men. As a maiden, she was
under her father's protection; as a wife, control over her life moved to her husband. However,
compared with the sharp-edged limits imposed over these states of medieval women's life, where
the female body may be considered male property, widowhood is a particular status whose
contours are diffuse.

According to Barbara Hanawalt, widows can be considered a special class of women in late medieval
society. Generally speaking, women who had sufficient annuities, property, or other forms of
permanent income, especially if they were young, were able to exercise a freedom of choice that
was not available to other women.294 In this regard, as Katherine Clark observes, widowhood can be

293 Louise Vasvari, “Why is Doña Endrina a Widow? Traditional Culture and Textuality in the Libro de Buen Amor,” in Upon

my husband’s death: Widows in the Literature and Histories of Medieval Europe, ed. Louise Mirrer (Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan, 1992), 262.
294 See Barbara Hanawalt, “Widows,” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing, ed. Carolyn Dinshaw

and David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 58-69. It is worth noting, however, that laws applying
to widows vary in different regions and at different time periods. In late medieval England, for instance, widows became
wards of the state and were sometimes forced to remarry. In this regard, wealthy widows were often targeted by marital
predators and susceptible to forced abductions. Widows forced into remarriage reverse the literary stereotype of the
merry, lusty widow we find in De vetula or in vernacular writers such as Chaucer, Boccaccio and Ruiz. For widows and
remarriage in medieval England see James Brundage, “Widows and remarriage: moral conflicts and their resolution in
classical canon law,” in Wife and Widow in Medieval England, ed. Sue Sheridan Walker (Ann Arbor: The University of
Michigan Press, 1995). For widowhood and forced remarriage see Caroline Dunn, Stolen women in medieval England:
rape, abduction and adultery, 1100-1500 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 82-97.

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considered a liminal category, as the death of a spouse, brought a woman to a limus where she
elected whether to remarry or to remain in permanent chastity.295 In the latter case they were
brought close to virgins, so that widowhood and virginity became interrelated categories.296 As will
be discuss in later sections, certain literary depictions of the medieval widow are somehow
reminiscent of Ovid's Anna Perenna precisely because they suggest the link between widowhood
and renewal or certain reversal of bodily cycles of change and decay. Likewise, though in late
medieval society each female state was clearly delineated by social and religious differences, literary
widows often occupied an ambiguous and disruptive space. Closely indebted to De vetula, the
following tale by Boccaccio also presents widows as good candidates to impersonate Anna Perenna.

Do not mess with the widow

A distinctive feature of Ovid's Anna Perenna was her ability to merge and combine different phases
and facets of women's life. The model of Anna's bed trick, involving a seesaw pattern swinging from
youth to old age, may have inflicted a Protean instability in the representation of women among
Ovid's medieval offspring, which also contributed to the emergence of alternative perspectives on
gender and power structures in medieval literature. What is certain is that De vetula offers an
updated version of this ancient motif by appealing to the ambiguous figure of the widow within the
contemporary division of women's stages of life. Following the model of this pseudo-biographical
work, medieval narratives reworking Anna's bed trick are usually comic tales concerning widows.

A good example of this can be found in Boccaccio's Decameron, namely the fourth tale of the eighth
day told by Emilia, whose narrative scheme strikingly recalls De vetula. In the role of the duped lover
this brief novella features the provost of Fiesole, elderly in years but lecherous and presumptuous,
who was determined to obtain the favours of a widow of gentle birth (una gentil donna vedova)
named Monna Piccarda, whether she wanted to grant them or not (o volesse ella o no). Tired of the
importunate and irrepressible demands of such an undesirable suitor, Monna Piccarda comes up
with a plan to get rid of him. As Olivia Holmes has noted, the widow’s plan follows the model of
Boccaccio's novella di beffa —that is, stories that celebrate the triumph of cleverness and wit, by

295 Katherine Clark. The Profession of Widowhood: Widows, Pastoral Care and Medieval Models of Holiness (Washington

D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 14.

296 Church Fathers such as Tertullian and Jerome praised widows for abandoning the marital and sexual life, thus

establishing a comparative relationship between widowhood and perpetual virginity. See Cindy Carlson and Jane Weisl,
eds. Constructions of Widowhood and Virginity in the Middle Ages (New York: St Martin's Press, 1999), 1-21.

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revolving around a practical joke, subtly planned to take revenge on an offender. In this case, the
widow's beffa is expressly presented by the narrator in terms of corrective justice.297 Through her
storytelling, Emilia stresses the loathsome misbehaviour of the provost and, from the very
beginning, she justifies the stratagem devised by this highly intelligent widow (molto savia), both to
punish him and to drive him off, by asserting that she treated the churchman in a manner that he
deserves (sí come egli era degno).

Monna Piccarda’s plan consists in duping the annoying priest into believing she reciprocates his lust
and is willing to spend a night with him. Even though here we do not find a go-between as such —
the widow arranges both the tryst and the prank— we do find a re-enactment of Anna's bed trick
including the customary female body swapping. This time, the widow persuades her maidservant
(fante) Ciutazza to take her place in an amorous encounter with the elderly priest. We are told that
Ciutazza was not too young (non era... troppo giovane) and was also fabulously ugly. Patrizia Bettella
has observed that in creating this character Boccaccio drew upon the figure of the old bawd as
guardian and servant in De vetula.298 When writing his tale Boccaccio may well have had in mind
the pseudo-Ovidian poem, instead of drawing directly from the Fasti. However, via De vetula, female
characters of this novella inherited important features from Ovid's Anna, the mischievous old
woman placed at the beginning of this intertextual chain of references, borrowings, and reworkings.

One important innovation introduced by Boccaccio is its exceedingly detailed description of Ciutazza
with an emphasis on her extraordinary ugliness —in line with the topos of the vituperatio vetulae,
which is often described in terms of a violent execration against elderly women who are depicted
with repellent detail.299 We are given a lavish list of her revolting traits, among which her crooked
mouth (la bocca torta), with great thick lips and black rotten teeth, stands out. It should be noted,
as well, that this hyperbolic description appears just before the sexual encounter the widow has
secretly arranged between the maidservant and the provost. This narrative structure is used to
heighten the subsequent dishonour and disappointment of the vain churchman. Furthermore, the
duped lover is firmly convinced he had had intercourse with Monna Piccarda, and only realizes post

297 Olivia Holmes, “Trial by Beffa: Retributive Justice and In-group Formation in Day 8,” Annali d’italianistica 31 (2013),

373.
298 Patrizia Bettella, The Ugly Woman: Transgressive Aesthetic Models in Italian Poetry from the Middle Ages to the

Baroque (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 199.

299 Bettella, 26. See also Fabian Alfie “Yes ... But Was It Funny? Cecco Angiolieri, Rustico Filippi, and Giovanni Boccaccio,”

in Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, ed. Albrecht Classen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010), 370.

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factum that he had spent the night accompanied by the unsightly maid. All these elements give
rawness to the plot, adding a degree of specificity and concreteness that were missing in the
previous versions of the bed trick. Likewise, Boccaccio makes it more explicit the transgressive
functions of the bed trick previously shown in De vetula, whose seeds were already suggested in
Ovid's last narrative about Anna Perenna in Fasti. Now the trick reappears clearly weaponized, both
as a form of self-defence a woman employs against sexual harassment, and as a trap set by a woman
to get the man she wants.

Scholars generally agree on recognising Monna Piccarda’s relative independence to choose for
herself, as well as her intelligence in ridding herself of an unwanted suitor while mocking his
tyrannical desires. The role played by Ciutazza appears to be more contentious though. In this
regard, some critical views concerning Boccaccio’s novella might persuade the reader to temper an
excessively pro-women interpretation, whether considering the strident caricature of Ciacuzza as
grotesque, cruel and demeaning300 or the fact that, in order to attain her goals, Monna Piccarda
must soil the reputation of Ciatuzza, "making a woman's triumph from the degradation of the other
women.”301 On this matter, however, my view is closer to that of Katherine Brown who has rightly
observed that the narration gives hints at the various ways Ciutazza profits from her exchange with
her mistress.302

There is a clear complicity between the widow and her maidservant, expressed in a formal
agreement and a transaction behind the provost's back. Ciutazza is to be rewarded with a new
smock (camiscia) for her services — which brings to mind the clothes and other textile gifts Pseudo-
Ovid offers the vetula to convince her of serving as go-between for him and his virginal neighbour.
And, most importantly, as Brown points out, Ciutazza is also the satisfied recipient of the sexual
encounter so longed-for by the lecherous churchman.303

The provost and the maidservant thus re-enact the roles of Pseudo-Ovid and the vetula, who in turn
re-enacted the roles of the dreadful Mars and the aged Anna. As in De vetula, the encounter takes

300 Mario Baratto, Realtà e stile nel Decameron (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1993), 398.
301 Marilyn Migiel, A Rhetoric of the Decameron (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003), 59.
302 Katherine Brown, “Monna Piccarda, Ciutazza, and the Provost of Fiesole: An Absence of Beauty (VIII.4),” in The

Decameron Eighth Day in Perspective, ed. William Robins (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), 92-93.
303 Ciutazza signals her assent to Monna Piccarda's request by saying: “If need be…I would sleep with half-dozen, let alone

one” (Sí, dormirò io con sei, non che con uno, se bisognerà). According to Holmes, 374, Ciutazza's response to the proposal
of sleeping with a man in her mistress’s stead renders her as extremely venal, apart from physically repulsive.

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place in a darkened room, but now we are clearly told that the provost held Ciutazza in his arms (si
recò in braccio la Ciutazza) and disported himself with her thinking he was taking possession of the
prize he has so long coveted (beni lungamente disiderati). We are also told that the old maid
returned the compliment (cominciolla a basciare senza dir parola, e la Ciutazza lui). While the
woman is mistaken by the suitor who cannot tell the difference in the dark, the intercourse is
otherwise completely consensual on her part. It may be said that, in collusion with Monna Piccarda,
Ciutazza manages to bring to completion the subversive potential suggested early in Anna Perenna's
bed trick. Ciutazza retraces Anna's role as trickster who turns a man's infatuation and aggressive lust
into an occasion of self-indulgence, while demonstrating both control over herself and the unwary
man lying with her. At the same time, Monna Piccarda takes up Anna's role as patron of women's
free will, since she defends her own right to make decisions over her body, categorically rejecting
harassment by an overzealous suitor without exploiting or degrading her maidservant in the
process.

As noted above, Emilia, the narrator, presents her tale as one of retaliation by announcing that the
widow treated the provost in accordance with his deserts. This significant innovation introduced in
Boccaccio's novella deserves further consideration. In fact, the disappointment of the provost
occurs in a much more embarrassing fashion than in its precedents and acquires the form of an
exemplary punishment. This can be seen in stark contrast to Pseudo-Ovid's ambiguity on the
motivations behind the vetula’s bed trick —a characteristic already present in Ovid’s Fasti. The
autobiographical narrator of De vetula is also ambivalent when referring to his own relish amid his
intercourse with the aged puella, which he only repents later. On the contrary, the provost of Fiesole
just needs to discover the truth to instantly regret his outrageous conduct. Furthermore, the
provost’s shame is exposed publicly. Emilia describes how Monna Piccarda's brothers break into the
room where the priest is lying with Ciutazza in his arms (gli fu mostrato il Proposto con la Ciutazza
in braccio), causing him to be found by the local bishop. In addition to being severely reprimanded
by his bishop, the humiliated provost becomes the laughingstock of the children who taunt him by
reminding him of his intercourse with Ciutazza. Thus, the lecherous churchman ‘gets what he
deserved’ and so does Ciutazza, who is duly rewarded with a fine new smock.

The provost of Fiesole did learn his lesson, though it was learnt too late: he should never have
‘messed with the widow’. However, an important issue is to what extent widowhood grants Monna

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Piccarda a special power that should be feared greatly. According to Vasvari, widowhood
constituted a category of relatively enviable legal, economic, and sexual independence compared
with that of other medieval women, and hence one of potential threat to the patriarchal social
order.304 In this regard, Boccaccio’s novella shows Monna Piccarda boasting about her sexual
independence when, feigning interest in his advances, she communicates to the priest her decision
to sleep with him whenever he pleases. For, as she herself states, she has no husband to whom she
must give an account of her nights (io non ho marito a cui mi convenga render ragione delle notti).

While male fear of unbridled ‘vidual’ sexuality inspired much medieval antifeminist literature, where
a widow's wit is often depicted in a negative light, Boccaccio painted an amiable picture of a cunning
medieval widow. She is praised for her ability to retain her onestà, that is, her virtue, but also seems
to stand out for her keen sense of justice. In this regard, it should be noted that the bishop praises
Piccarda and her brothers for having employed such a stratagem against the sinner priest. This
authority figure seems to agree with the narrator that the provost was treated in the manner he
deserved (lui sí come egli era degno avean trattato). However, the bishop does not celebrate under
any circumstances the widow's right to refuse the advances of an unwanted suitor. Rather, coming
from him, feminine justice, and the feminine principle of revenge promoted by the widow are
reduced to mere “semblance of justice”, as Holmes suggests.305 In reality, the bishop emphasizes
that the viciousness was chastened without shedding ecclesiastical blood (senza volersi del sangue
de’ preti) and, thereby, celebrates a good compromise reached between honourable men. Society,
nonetheless, remains the same, without an actual change in the status of women as object of
harassment or ill-treatment, and without removing the advantages that priests enjoyed and which
allowed such abuses.

Despite the relative privilege of widowhood, Boccaccio’s novella makes it clear that Monna Piccarda
does not have complete independence. Notwithstanding her gentle birth, she is not economically
independent (la piú agiata donna del mondo non era) and lives in a modest house (una casa non
troppo grande) together with her two brothers. And, as she herself recognizes, she needs to have
the approval of them to put her revenge in motion. In this regard, some scholars have observed that

304 Vasvari, 262.

305 Holmes, 373.

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the widow’s independence is constrained306 or even absent from the novella,307 since Piccarda
ultimately must play by the rules and within the hierarchy of power of a masculinist society; after
all, her stratagem cannot be spared of male acquiescence to be socially acceptable, as the
unavoidable assistance of her brothers and the bishop's last words connote.

It appears clear that, to carry out her revenge, Boccaccio’s widow cannot completely disregard male
tutelage and surveillance. However, it should not be forgotten that Monna Piccarda not only
concocts the plan on her own, but she directs both Ciutazza and her brothers to put the plan into
effect. Even though it must bypass the traditional male gatekeepers to be socially accepted, the trick
itself remains a women's issue. Moreover, in Boccaccio's novella the motif of the bed trick persists
in opening a private space of female sovereignty somehow at odds with the outside. Female agency
is exerted in the darkened chamber as though it were a world apart, troubling a social system that
reduces women to objects, which somewhat conserves the memory of Ovid's early picture of Anna's
trick allowing other rules of social interaction in the context of the goddess' festival.

The influence of Anna Perenna’ last vignette in Fasti can be traced in medieval literature, as can be
seen in both De vetula and Boccaccio’s novella. In both texts female characters take on many of the
characteristics of Ovid's aged Anna. At the same time, these medieval narratives rework the motif
of the bed trick by harnessing the peculiar social situation of the partially independent medieval
widow. These medieval versions of Anna's bed trick can still be understood as a form of resistance
to social rules, while offering alternative perspectives upon power structures of medieval patriarchal
society.

The extent to which medieval widows and single women could trouble a social system that reduced
women to objects has been a recurrent subject of discussion in the few past decades.
In parallel with that, another recurring theme is the special articulation of agency and subjectivity
that generally accompanied the literary portrait of medieval widows, as various as Chaucer's
Criseyde or Doña Endrina from the Libro de Buen Amor by the Castilian writer Juan Ruiz; these
characters feature in narratives largely linked to the Ovidian old woman and in which the figure of
the go-between plays a major role. Although a host of critics have already pointed out the
disturbance linked to the relative autonomy shown by such widows, who act within a social

306 Holmes, 374.

307 Migiel, A Rhetoric, 224.

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backdrop which assumes women to be men's property, what has yet to be explored fully are the
ways in which these medieval works could have seized the model of Anna Perenna’s last narrative
in Fasti.

The group of works called by Thomas Garbáty “the Pamphilus tradition” deserve further analysis in
this vein. Drawing on the twelfth century Ovidian Latin comedy Pamphilus de amore, these works
revolve around the trickery of an unscrupulous intermediary who assists a lovelorn man, typically
leading to the rape and sexual assault of the wooed woman, usually a young and attractive widow.
Such a pattern connects works as diverse as Juan Ruiz's Libro and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. As
shall be discussed in the next sections, the pattern underlaying these works can be interpreted, to
some extent, as a variation on Anna’s last narrative in Fasti, reached by wondering what would have
happened had Anna not betrayed Mars but Minerva.

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 b. The metamorphoses of Ovid's Anna Perenna: The Ovidian go-between and the
debate about female consent in the Pamphilus group

Call it violence if you wish

The mid-twelfth-century anonymous Latin comedy Pamphilus de amore contains what can be
considered the first fully developed characterization of the tricky old woman. This figure then began
appearing almost ubiquitously in Western European vernacular literatures playing the role of a go-
between for sexual conquest.308 In that connection, Thomas Garbáty has called the “Pamphilus
tradition" a group of works where, among other resemblances, the figure of an unscrupulous go-
between is prominently present. All these go-betweens assist lovelorn men in romantic flirtation
and invite their beloved maidens to their houses for a meal, as an excuse to lure them into a trap
and put them in a compromising situation with their suitors. All these intermediaries are likewise
accused of trickery and treachery by the women. This pattern, though variously adapted, recurs in
works as diverse as Juan Ruiz's Libro de Buen amor and Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde.309

Pamphilus de amore may be summarized as follows: The young Pamphilus falls in love with his
beautiful and virginal neighbour called Galathea, who refuses to submit to his advances. When the
hero tells Venus about his lovesickness, the goddess instructs him in the art of love and tells
Pamphilus to court the girl with eloquence, but to be ready to use force. Likewise, the goddess
specifically advises the unrequited lover to ask for the aid of a go-between, whereupon he resorts
to an old woman, simply called the Anus. In trying to gain the confidence of Galathea, the go-
between praises Pamphilus at great length assuring he is wealthy, which is not true. The
intermediary oversees every detail of the plan and instructs the lover to act like a man when the
opportunity strikes (546: Dum locus affuerit te precor esses virum). Later, the Anus entices the girl
into coming to her house on the pretext of eating apples and nuts. Once the girl is there, the suitor
breaks into the place, and the bawd leaves the couple alone. Without further ado, Pamphilus rapes
Galathea, despite her outrage and protests. Upon returning, the old woman feigns ignorance of

308 Gretchen Mieszkowski. Medieval Go-Betweens and Chaucer's Pandarus (New York: Palgrave, 2006), 26.
309 Thomas Garbáty, “The Pamphilus Tradition in Ruiz and Chaucer,” Philological Quarterly 46 (1967): 457-70.

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what has just happened, but immediately Galathea reproaches her for trickery. Finally, after
delivering a speech urging the couple to get married as soon as possible, the procuress demands
Pamphilus what she is owed.

Ovid was the major inspiration of the Latin comediae; the genre itself grew out of the tradition of
Ovidian creative imitation in Latin verses in the medieval schoolroom, earlier in the twelfth century.
In cathedral schools these works featured prominently along with the Ovidian canon as tools for
teaching and learning Latin grammar and rhetoric. Like Ovid's originals, Ovidian imitative literature
proved to be particularly helpful in softening up schoolboys first taste of Latin, by giving them a
310
strong motivation to study and learn it. In this context, Marjorie Curry Woods has noted that
Latin comedies like the Pamphilus were part of a "long-standing schoolroom tradition of teaching
texts describing rape,” a tradition where the Ars Amatoria occupied a most important place.311

Admittedly, the Pamphilus coincides with Ovid's sex guide in its didactic purpose, although differing
in form with this source —since, instead of being a treatise, it offers a dialogue format.312 Most
notable among the Ovidian lesson present in the comedy are that rape is an act of manhood and
that sexual violence is permissible in the gambit of seducing women —or, put another way, that
women mean “yes” when they say “no.” As the praeceptor amoris contends: Call it violence if you
wish, but girls like you to use it. Women like to be taken by force and often give unwillingly what
they really want to give (Ars 1.673-4: vim licet appelles: grata est vis ista puellis/ quod iuvat, invitae
saepe dedisse volunt).

Sexual violence in the Pamphilus has become a contested subject within a wider debate on the
medieval reception and interpretation of Ovid’s erotic poetry among the adolescent boys taught by

310 On the origin and uses of medieval Latin Comedies within in claustral and cathedral schoolrooms see Anne Howland

Schotter, "Rape in the Medieval Latin Comedies," in Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modem Literature, ed.
Robertson and C.M. Rose (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 243; Rosanna Cantavella, “The Seducer's Tongue: Oral and Moral
Issues in Medieval Erotodidactic Schooltexts,” in Spoken Word and Social Practice: Orality in Europe (1400-1700), ed.
Thomas V. Cohen and Lesley K. Twomey (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2015), 400; and Mieszkowski, 20. On the prominence of the
Ovidian canon in the medieval classroom, see Ralph Hexter, Ovid and Medieval Schooling. Studies in Medieval School
Commentaries on Ovid's Ars Amatoria, Epistulae ex Ponto and Epistulae Heroidum (Munich: Arbeo-Gesellschaft, 1986).
311 Marjorie Curry Woods, “Rape and Pedagogical Rhetoric of Sexual Violence,” in Criticism and Dissent in the Middle Ages,

ed. Rita Copeland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 60-61.

312 The dialogues might have be mimed as the young men would find in the character of Pamphilus a role model for

seducing and making love to a maiden. See Cantavella, 405. On the theatrical status of the Latin comediae and its
relationship with the performing arts see Bruno Roy, "Arnulf of Orleans and the Latin Comedy," Speculum 49 (1974): 258–
266.

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clerics. Scholars such as Alastair Minnis, Ian Thompson and Louis Perraud have argued that scenes
of sexual violence in Latin comedies should be understood as instances of the rhetoric of seduction
set by the praeceptor amoris. From this view, the Pamphilus does not intend a realistic depiction of
a rape but the demonstration of the above mentioned Ovidian principle of women’s tacit
compliance. Furthermore, women would be disappointed with the man who does not force them.
For, as Venus explains to Pamphilus, a girl deems nobler to lose her virginity by force than to take
the trouble of stating her plain consent (Pam. 113-14: Pulchrius est illi vi perdere virginitatem /Quam
dicat: de me fac modo velle tuum).313 Thus, although when caught and manhandled by Pamphilus
Galathea cries and emphatically rejects him, from this rhetorical approach the rape is ultimately
denied under the argument that her "protests during the climax of the seduction are not
inconsistent with a hidden willingness to comply.”314

Another view has been suggested by Woods who, although recognizes rape as a plot device in works
like the Pamphilus, nonetheless avoids reading such scenes realistically or as an attempt to explore
female psychology. Instead, she analyses sexual violence in school texts as “the paradigmatic site
for working out issues of power and powerlessness,” especially within an all-male environment such
as the medieval classroom.315 There is still another feminist stream of criticism, represented by
scholars like Alison Elliott and Anne Schotter,316 who have read the Pamphilus’ rape scene in terms
of social realism, interpreting the work as an attempt to explore the actual problem of rape and
consent by giving voice to a female victim. Likewise, according to this view, Galathea’s protest may
be seen as contesting Ovid’s amorous precepts of Ars Amatoria.317

313 Latin citations of Pamphilus de amore from Adolfo Bonilla y San Martín, ed.,"Una comedia latina de la Edad Media: El
Liber Pamphili," Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 70 (1917): 395–467. English translation of this text are drawn
from Thomas Garbaty, ed., "Pamphilus, de Amore": An Introduction and Translation. The Chaucer Review 2.2 (1967): 108-
134.
314 See Ian Thompson and Louis Perraud. Ten Latin School Texts of the Later Middle Ages: Translated Selections (Lewiston,

NY: Mellen Press, 1990), 159-60; and Alastair Minnis, Magister Amoris: The Roman de la Rose and Vernacular
Hermeneutics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 184, especially note 59.
315 See Woods, 73. Woods focuses on the schoolboys as receptor of Latin comedies and argues the pedagogic value of

sexual violence and erotic imaginary present in the genre. Their importance goes clearly beyond its utility as tools for
teaching verbal skills, grabbing student attention and inculcating grammar lessons. By learning from scenes of sexual
violence adolescent males could project themselves onto the victim and work out “their anxieties about adulthood on the
bodies of literary ladies (or rather girls).” They could also find “a method of defining their manhood and controlling their
own lives.”
316 See Alison Elliott, ed. and trans. Seven Medieval Latin Comedies (New York: Garland, 1984), xxviii-xxxii; and Schotter,

250.
317 Mieszkowski assumes an intermediate position within this debate. In her view, while the Ovidian rhetorical readings of

the Pamphilus strive to deny that there is a rape, the feminist sympathetic interpretations of Galathea read her through
an ahistorical lens. Among the predominantly male audience of the Latin comedy, sympathy with the voice of a female
victim would not have aroused such a great interest. Despite this, Mieszkowski wonders if the rhetorical readings may not

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Whatever position is taken in this debate, it seems apparent that scholarly attention has thus far
been concentrated primarily on Ovid's didactic poems as the main source of the Pamphilus. In doing
so other, perhaps more subtle, intertextual links between the Latin comedy and the Ovidian corpus
have been overlooked. In this regard, scholars generally appear to concur with the opinion of
Garbáty that, though the Pamphilus shows many Ovidian traits, the story is not found anywhere in
the poet’s works.318 In the following sections of this chapter I will discuss this view by proposing an
alternative intertext that can shed new light on the Pamphilus: Fasti 3.675-696. Considering this
unnoticed source allows us to reassess the controversial figure of the go-between in the group
comprising the Pamphilus, Ruiz's Libro and Chaucer's Troilus. It should be noted, as well, that topics
such as rape and women's sexual consent have been major critical concerns developed in relation
to these works. The approach proposed here provides an appropriate occasion for discussing these
troubling and conflicting themes.

The likelihood of an intertextual dialogue between Anna's comic vignette and Pamphilus is rather
plausible —albeit, of course, the addition of a significant twist affecting the latter's denouement is
probably the most intriguing aspect of this relationship. The fact that the anonymous author of the
Latin comedy was probably a scholar of Orléans reinforces its possible linkages with Ovid’s calendar
poem.319 As Angela Fritsen has argued, Ovid’s calendar poem was especially appreciated in the
French school of Orléans, between the twelfth and the thirteenth century, where it was
promulgated for its didactic use, being read and lectured on for its range of wisdom and
knowledge.320 Particularly, in his twelfth-century commentaries on Fasti, Arnulf of Orleans refers to
the passage where Mars praises Anna's talent as a go-between, that is, as someone skilled at
bringing people together (Fast. 3.684: conveniunt partes hae tibi, comis anus). Arnulf glosses this
characterization as "hee partes id est in conciliando stuprum conveniunt vetule."321 It is worth noting
that Anna's mediation is here described as leading to "stuprum," a term that, in medieval legal

just be reluctant to acknowledge the attractions of rape for medieval male readers. The immense popularity of Pamphilus
in the Middle Ages would lie in its ability to feed readers' appetite for reading about rape, while indulging some other
submission and domination fantasies, such as the conquest of a higher-class female by a lower-class man. To that end, the
figure of the intermediary would have been a key piece in enabling the readers to feel free to identify with the hero, thus
enjoying the story guilt-free since the loathly old woman could be blamed and held liable for the rape. See Mieszkowski,
30-31.
318 Garbáty, 458.
319 See William Matthews, “The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect,” Viator 5 (1974), 422.
320 Angela Fritsen. Antiquarian Voices. The Roman Academy and the Commentary Tradition on Ovid's Fasti (Columbus:

The Ohio State University Press, 2015), 9

321 Arnulfi Aurelianensis Glosule Ovidii Fastorum, kritische Erstedition und Untersuchung, ed. Jörg Rudolf Rieker

(Florence: SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo, 2005), 115.

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usage, was referred to a violation of proper sexual norms, often connoting rape or the illicit
defloration of a virgin.322 Furthermore, Arnulf employs the term "vetule" in reference to the elderly
Anna, a word which is rare in Ovid's portraits of old women but became the hallmark of the medieval
procuress. Finally, Arnulf’s commentary on Anna's last aetiological narrative highlights the goddess's
rhetorical dexterity and deceptive speech (scilicet Annam verba deception). This early example of
the reception of Anna by a medieval commentator of Fasti anticipates and illuminates the further
development of this Ovidian figure in works such as the Pamphilus and De vetula.

Anna’s characterization as a pandering and faithless intermediary is a noteworthy aspect of her last
narrative in Fasti that has been overlooked by scholarship on Ovid's medieval reception. In fact, as
I suggest below, Anna may arguably have provided a model for the Anus, the anonymous old woman
of the Pamphilus and their subsequent re-embodiments in vernacular literatures. It is worth
mentioning that Pamphilus often circulated in manuscripts along with De vetula.323 As have been
previously shown, this pseudo-Ovidian poem clearly draws on Anna Perenna's comic vignette in the
Fasti. De vetula postdates the Pamphilus and was likely predicated on the Latin comedy;
nevertheless, it retains the motif of the substitute bride, featuring an old procuress swapping places
with a virgin maiden who is wooed by a narrator who introduces himself as Ovid. It is highly likely
that the dialogue with both imitative Ovidian pieces influenced the later reworkings of the go-
between's plot in Ruiz' Libro and Chaucer's Troilus.

With these issues in mind, let us return to the debate about sexual violence in the Pamphilus.
Compared with the above-mentioned advice of Ars Amatoria, the model of Anna's bed trick on Mars
may offer a different understanding on women's will, consent and pleasure. In this regard, my
contention is that the anonymous poet behind the Pamphilus may have elaborated on two
contradictory Ovidian models for crafting his dramatic poem. Furthermore, it may be suggested that

322 In medieval legal discourse, the two Latin words generally used for rape are stuprum and raptus, both terms borrowed
from Roman law. However, neither of them corresponds precisely to the modern understanding of the word rape as
forcible intercourse without the consent of one of the parties. As Frederika Elizabeth Bain explains, raptus is concerned
primarily with abduction, with or without the consent of the woman. It does not necessarily directly relate to sexual
activity, and may comprise kidnapping as well as rape. On the other hand, stuprum refers to any illicit sexual activity, again
with or without consent, including rape but also adultery and homosexual intercourse. Frederika Elizabeth Bain,
Dismemberment in the Medieval and Early Modern English Imaginary (Berlin and Boston, MA: De Gruyter, 2021), 66. On
the treatment of rape and the offence of raptus by medieval canon law and theology, as well as the definition of stuprum
as defloration of virgins —a narrower meaning than in Roman law— see Corinne Saunders, Rape and Ravishment in the
Literature of Medieval England (Cambridge: Brewer, 2001), 76-119.
323 Francisco Rico, “Sobre el origen de la autobiografía en el Libro de buen amor,” Anuario de estudios medievales 4 (1967),

312.

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the Latin comedy not only dramatizes the inner polyvocality of Ovid's oeuvre, but it also lends itself
to engage in an intense dialogue with its context. In other words, the Pamphilus was certainly
invested by the social impulses framing its process of composition and reception. In this regard, I
agree with Schotter who links, I think persuasively, the rape of Galathea and her protests to the
contemporary debates over the legitimacy of female consent that concerned twelfth-century
clerics. As will be shown below, the subsequent vernacular apprehensions of the Pamphilus will
keep problematizing Ars Amatoria's stance on sexual violence while favouring the emergence of the
question for female consent, in line with the poets' respective creative pursuits, audiences and
cultural contexts.

Ovidian sources of Pamphilus’ old woman

Although the Ars Amatoria is an indisputable source of the Pamphilus, differences between the Latin
comedy and Ovid's instructional poem arise as soon as we notice that, while the praeceptor amoris
teaches self-sufficient lovers, the hero of this comedy proves incapable of bearing the weight of
managing his love life by himself. His success depends on entrusting the mission of making Galathea
yield to a third party; therefore, on the advice of Venus, the lover rushes to find a go-between.
Embracing this methodology, or at least in such a manner as Pamphilus does, appears to be a rather
unorthodox way to become a graduate in Ovid’s school of love. It is true that the praeceptor
encourages the lover to employ an intermediary, whether chambermaids, porters, slaves, as one of
the many available devices to approach and seduce an object of desire. The beloved's maid, for
instance, can be a useful resource provided that the lover instructs her properly to advocate on his
behalf (Ars 1. 351-358). However, a quite different thing is submitting entirely to the tutelage and
strategies of the go-between, as Pamphilus and other medieval lovesick heroes are doing.

It seems clear, however, that the Ars Amatoria is not the main source of the go-between featuring
in the Pamphilus. In this Latin comedy the hero seeks an old woman who dwells nearby there and
is described as subtle and crafty, a most apt servant in the arts of Venus (Pam. 284-5: anus subtilis
et ingeniosa, artibus et Uenéris apta ministra satis). She is never properly named, but only referred
to as the Anus or the old woman. It is worth remembering that De vetula also features an
anonymous aged woman who plays the role of go-between, after whom the poem is named. While
both Latin words anus and vetula refer to a woman advanced in years, the former usually denotes

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an elderly person with respect, unlike the term vetula which, as used in the eponymous poem, is an
unflattering label, usually employed with reference to the ugliness and disagreeableness of an aged
woman.324 Nevertheless, the old women populating Ovid's works, especially those liable to be
connected with the medieval go-between, are regularly referred to as anus. The three best
examples are Dipsas, Myrrha's nurse, and Anna Perenna.

In a very well-known passage of Amores Ovid writes about an old drunken woman who he calls
Dipsas anus (Am. 1.8.2). Ovid's portrayal of this drunken old sorceress, especially her advice to
Corinna in the art of fleecing men, is a clear source for La Vieille of Le Roman de la Rose. Following
on this path, Dipsas has been also seen as an ancestor of a range of medieval literary old women,
such as Chaucer's Wife of Bath and the Anus herself.325 Dipsas is an embodiment of carnal
knowledge and certainly her advice moulded various medieval literary bawds, supplying many of
their techniques. For these reasons, she has been frequently appointed as the Ovidian ancestor
and/or standard type of the cunning and deceitful medieval go-between. However, as Mieszkowski
observes, Dipsas does not account either for the ordinary role or the customary attributes of the
medieval go-between.326 We never see her mediating between two lovers, much less trading on the
man's infatuation like the hired professional crone of medieval literature. The two of Ovid’s old
women who actually play the role of go-between are Myrrha’s nurse in Metamorphoses and the
aged Anna Perenna in Fasti.

In Metamorphoses 10.298-502 Orpheus tells the story of Myrrha, a virgin princess of Cyprus who
attempts to commit suicide by hanging herself from a rafter. Fortunately, an old woman breaks into
the room (Met. 10. 384: surgit anus, reseratque fores) and rescues her in good time. The old woman,
who happens to be Myrrha’s nurse, inquires the source of her turmoil and the girl reveals her illicit
love for her father. Torn by two terrible outcomes awaiting her ward, suicide or incest, the nurse
opts for the latter. Thus, taking advantage of both the drunkenness of the king and the absence of
his wife, the old woman tricks him into sexual intercourse with his daughter in the darkened
chamber. By using this trick Myrrha gets away with sleeping with her father for several nights
without been discovered.

324 H.H. Arnold. Döderlein's Handbook of Latin Synonymes (Andover: W.F. Draper, 1859), 16.
325 See John V. Fleming, Classical Imitation and Interpretation in Chaucer’s Troilus (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1990), 161. Fleming describes Dipsas as “the Great Mother of all medieval literary bawds.”
326 Mieszkowski, 17.

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The tale of Myrrha's incestuous passion has often passed unnoticed when discussing the possible
Ovidian sources of the medieval go-between. However, it contains what is perhaps the prototype
for the frequent characterization of the medieval go-between as a trusted person and closest
confidante of the heroine.327 This feature reappears in Pamphilus, where the Anus boasts of her
close bonds to Galathea who supposedly follows her counsel in all things (Pam. 308-10). Such a
familiarity between the procuress and the beloved maiden also recurs in much the same way in the
Libro de Buen Amor (LBA 711, 716) and we see it again in Chaucer’s Troilus where the go-between
is the beloved’s relative.

Ovid’s stories about go-betweens share another element with Pamphilus: the desired woman is a
virgin. This element is present in Myrrha's tale, but it is also found in Anna Perenna's last narrative
in Fasti, to my mind, in a manner much more reminiscent of Pamphilus’ plot. Here, as we already
know, Minerva is the virgin desired by the lovesick Mars, who, as far as we are told, grew convinced
that they can make a good couple since they are both armed deities, so that they would share similar
pursuits (Fast. 3.683: di studio similes coeamus in unum). Therefore, without any sign that Minerva
reciprocates his love, and rather relying on somewhat vague laws of attraction —like attracts like—
Mars approaches the newcomer goddess Anna. As Carole Newlands, the god identifies her as a
kindly old woman who is skilled at bringing people together (Fast. 3.684: conveniunt partes hae tibi,
comis anus).328 Thus, as Mars himself recognizes, the office of go-between certainly befits well to
Anna.

Among all the above mentioned Ovid’s old women, Anna best prefigures the role and attributes
later developed by the medieval go-between featuring in the Pamphilus group. This divine trickster
contains the germs for the duplicity, imposture and immense power of manipulation that will later
develop into the Anus, Trotaconventos and Pandarus. Likewise, Mars shows affinity to the lovelorn

327 Leyla Rouhi notes that, as a model of affection and loyalty overriding moral concern, Myrrha's nurse acts as the

prototype of medieval go-betweens who elaborate strategies of mediation around this conviction. Rouhi is nevertheless
thinking of the tradition of the idealized romance go-between. See Leyla Rouhi, Mediation and Love: A Study of the
Medieval Go-Between in Key Romance and Near-Eastern Texts (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1999), 54. It is worth noting that
the procuress in De vetula claims to have been the puella's wet nurse, just like the old woman of Myrrha’s tale (DV 2.361:
fuerat quondam dilecta sedula nutrix). Incidentally, the dark chamber where the bed trick is staged in De vetula may also
stem from this source.
328 Carole Newlands, “Infiltrating Julian History: Anna Perenna at Lavinium and Bovillae,” in Uncovering Anna Perenna: A

Focused Study of Roman Myth and Culture, ed. G. McIntyre and S. McCallum (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), 141.

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hero of the Pamphilus and his medieval relatives, such as Troilus and the Iberian Don Melón. They
are unreciprocated and highly dependent lovers, leaving everything at the hands of a duplicitous
intermediary whose loyalty is questionable or at least unpredictable. As mentioned above, however,
there is one crucial difference between Anna and these go-betweens. Instead of seeking to cajole
Minerva, a young virgin goddess who categorically rejects sex, Anna took her place to foil Mars’
lustful interest on her. Thus, the goddess’ trick can be interpreted either as an attempt to ward off
the rape of a virgin bride329 or a scheme for turning a man's infatuation and aggressive lust into an
occasion of self-indulgence.

In the following sections I will discuss the extent to which certain traces of Ovid's Anna can be
discerned in the Pamphilus group, although inventively reshaped and reaccommodated by new
cultural demands affecting medieval reception of Ovidian material. In this regard, a special focus
will be placed on the metamorphoses of the goddess’ bed trick. In the Pamphilus it becomes a trap
used by the go-between against Galathea, insomuch as Anna's model appears intertwined with the
praeceptor amoris' advice on sexual violence, enabling the suitor to gratify his predatory lust, as
though the aged Anna would have been true in her word and deceived the virgin goddess instead
of duping Mars. However, the works addressed here open up to competing views especially with
regards to women's will and consent. This feature is enhanced, in part, by elements of Anna's model
lingering along the way of the Pamphilus tradition.

A hare has fallen into a trap

As previously stated, in the Pamphilus Venus ventriloquizes the Ars Amatoria's principle of women’s
latent willingness to be raped. However, although the procuress' labour makes Galathea more
interested in her suitor, it is worth noting that she remains worried about causing gossip and never
consents to meeting alone with him. After being pressed by the procuress the girl laments that the
laws of Venus soon cause a virgin to lose her honour (413: Per Veneris morem virgo cito perdit
honorem), as though presaging her own fate. Having been caught in the go-between's trap,
Galathea herself narrates her rape through an eloquent protest:

329 On this interpretation see Elaine Fantham, “Sexual Comedy in Ovid's Fasti: Sources and Motivation,” Harvard Studies
in Classical Philology 87 (1983): 185–216. Fantham investigates the influence of mime in three episodes of frustrated rape
in the Fasti; one of this is Anna Perenna's frustration of Mars’ attempt on the virgin Minerva by substituting her own aged
body under the blanket.

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 Pamphile, tolle manus! Te frustra nempe fatigas!
Nil ualet ille labor! quod petis esse nequit
Heu michi! quam paruas habet omnis femina uires! (683-5)

[Pamphilus, keep your hands off; you will be surely exhausted in vain!
Your exertion is useless; what you ask cannot be.
Ah me, that a woman has ever such little strength]330

Once the crime is done, Galathea claims that, although Pamphilus has overcome her resistance, all
hope of love is shattered between them forever (695–96). As Schotter notes, the strong protest of
the heroine is a unusual feature, since it violates the Latin comediae’s generic convention of
condoning or euphemizing rape, while challenging Ars Amatoria’s principle of women’s tacit
compliance on which such convention is based.331 Galathea was dragged into an extreme situation
which nevertheless put her in the position of expressing her subjectivity. Upon being outraged, she
compares herself to a fleeing hare that has fallen into a trap (in laqueam fugiens decidit ecce lepus!),
a caught fish seeing the curved hook, and a caught bird seeing the snare. Thus, the maiden echoes
(and bitterly deplores) the advice previously given to Pamphilus by Venus that he must imitate an
artful fisherman (et piscis liquidis deprenditur arte ub undis), whose source are the subtle traps a
lover must set, like a hunter or fisherman, according to the Ars Amatoria 1.47-48.

Galathea’s complaints are especially addressed to the old woman, whom she accuses of betrayal
and holds responsible for her misfortune. But her grievance also betrays a tacit awareness of the
other Ovidian source text informing the Pamphilus, namely Anna's comic vignette in Fasti. Of course,
it was not supposed to end this way for the virgin beloved, at least not according to this latter source.
In fact, the Anus' treachery not only violates Anna’s paradigm, but also her subservient role to her
client’s lustful interest goes against the grain of the regular agency of the old women populating
Ovid's oeuvre. Whether Dipsas, Myrrha's nurse or Anna Perenna, they are all on the side of women,
while plotting against their current or potential lovers.

330 Translated by Garbáty, “Pamphilus, de Amore," 131. Schotter suggests Ovid's story of Philomela in Metamorphoses

6.424-74 as a possible source of Pamphilus’ rape scene, considering the attention given to the subjective reaction of the
female victim. See Anne Howland Schotter, “The Transformation of Ovid in the Twelfth-Century Pamphilus,” in Desiring
Discourse: The Literature of Love, Ovid Through Chaucer, eds. James J. Paxson and Cynthia A. Gravlee (Selinsgrove, PA,
1998), 80.
331 Schotter, "Rape in the Medieval Latin Comedies,” 248.

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The rape trick conducted by the go-between in the Pamphilus appears as an innovation introduced
by Ovid's medieval epigones that is absent in the Ovidian corpus and subverts the ethos behind
Ovid's old women. However, such innovation still seems to be built upon Anna Perenna's last
vignette in Fasti, even though the anonymous writer reworked his source by making Anna/Anus
serve well the wishes of Mars/Pamphilus. In other words, the Pamphilus can be seen as an
adaptation of the original story —the only in the Ovidian corpus about an old woman who both acts
as a go-between for a man infatuated with a virgin, and plots a sexual trick—, obtained by wondering
what would have happened had Anna not betrayed Mars but Minerva.

Such a plot twist can be interpreted in line with the need for harmonization between the conflicting
Ovidian material informing the Pamphilus, especially between the Ars Amatoria's statements on
rape and the assertion of female will in Anna's vignette, to the extent that they have been merged
and transposed into the new dialogic form of the Latin comedy. However, as Julie Sanders notes,
the transposition of a source text is to be read not only generically but also as a re-vision in
accordance with the new cultural/ temporal setting.332 In the case at hand, the intertextual
juxtaposition of two opposite views of Ovid in the Pamphilus may be reflecting the ideological
confrontation of the two sides in an ongoing debate. Thus, the echoes of Ovid's amatory poetry
sustain the misogynistic view of female will as an irrelevant hurdle, while Anna's vignette enables
the emergence of dissent and alternative views, as per the new medieval societal attitudes toward
women's consent.

A possible reason why the author of the Pamphilus regarded Galathea's claims worth heeding —
and, thus, departed from the principle set by the Ars Amatoria— can be found considering the
ongoing debate about the importance of women's consent surrounding the creation of this Ovidian
work. The Gregorian reforms of the late eleventh century established marriage as a holy state that
depended for its validity on free consent by the both parties. As Schotter suggests, by including
Galathea’s protests, the rape scene may be dramatizing questions that actually concerned the
twelfth-century Church, while channelling the canonical belief that women, as well as men, desired
and deserved a choice in partners. In the Pamphilus this newer view coexists with Ovid’s advice in

332 See Julie Sanders, Adaptation and Appropriation (London and New York: Routledge, 2006)

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the Ars Amatoria that women like to be forced, inculcated in the medieval schoolroom as a result
of the normalization of violence through pedagogical practices and the curriculum itself.333

With this in mind, the rape scene should not be understood exclusively in terms of a demonstration
of the praeceptor’s rhetoric of seduction. There are two Ovids dwelling in the Pamphilus and there
is not agreement between them. The force, advised by the praeceptor, might succeed in deeds, but
there is no room for an eroticization of dominance. What should be highlighted here is that in the
Pamphilus rape is not characterized as a comical matter, devoid of sorrow and pain, while the issue
of women's consent is not presumed hazy and pliable, but addressed in a serious and meaningful
way.

There are other medieval tales about go-betweens and sexual tricks resembling the Pamphilus’
pattern, but that nevertheless do not problematize women’s consent. The French fabliau
Auberee,334 for instance, dated from the late twelfth/early thirteenth century, features an old
procuress, Dame Auberee, who meets all the traditional requirements of the medieval go-between
for lust; she is a poor old beggar woman, skilled in subterfuge, able to manipulate both the suitor
and the victim, without leaving anything to chance. This time, however, her client is the son of a
prosperous tradesman, who asks her to act as go-between for him with a married woman. As usual,
the old woman devises a plan to leave the wife alone with the rapist. Previously, she herself had
coached her client into sexual aggression, advising him to persist even if the wife refuses, since she
will end up enjoying the sexual trap.

In this fabliau the go-between’s trick remains almost the same, though with a different outcome.
The man gets in the bed where the wife is sleeping at the procuress' house. She attempts to scream,
but he is quick to warn that her resistance only will bring shame on her. If people find out that she
is lying naked next to him that will just damage her reputation and good name. This form of coercion
pays off, as we are told that the wife puts her pride aside, changes her attitude and seeks to calm
the young man with caresses, to which he responds with kisses and hugs, while she lets herself be
pleased (cele si fet bel atret). Subsequently, Auberee crafts a new trick to help the wife to make
things right with her jealous husband and everything comes to a happy ending. Thus, as the pattern

333
Schotter, "Rape in the Medieval Latin Comedies,” 242.
334 Nathaniel Dubin, trans., “Auberee,” in The Fabliaux (New York, 2013), 277-314.

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moves from Latin comedies to fabliaux, questions concerning women’s consent vanish under a
blanket of serene amorality. This seems to suit the fabliaux well, a genre that values the pleasure of
sex upon the demands of marriage, and where husbands are routinely presented as jealous and
stupid. The audience of this fabliau was ultimately invited to enjoy a comic story about how a young
rich man manages to get his long-desired affair, thanks to the witty wiles of the procuress. The
legitimacy of such methods of conquering is in no way called into question, nor is a woman's right
to consent or refuse.

Along with questioning of sexual violence, the Pamphilus group does raise concerns about women's
consent. It is worth noting that Galathea's strong voice will reappear in the subsequent heroines of
these works who are also compelled to express their own desires and subjectivities after falling into
the go-between's snare.335 Furthermore, in both Ruiz's and Chaucer's works the topic of the rape
trap is nuanced and reworked in response to new objectives, among which stands out the need of
addressing feminine audiences.

What in Fasti began as a frustrated seduction, spoiled by the tricky go-between, in the Pamphilus
became a successful rape, due to the tricky go-between. However, in the subsequent works of the
group the intermediaries’ sexual tricks become an increasingly contentious motif, as they continue
allowing the emergence of critical female voices destabilizing the discourses that reduce them to
rapable objects. Likewise, some distinguishable elements from Ovid's Anna Perenna, inherited and
adapted by both Ruiz's Libro and Chaucer's Troilus, will lend themselves to problematize the topics
of women's consent and male sexual dominance in these narratives.

It was the month of March, and spring had come

There is an array of multifarious cultural influences and sources informing El Libro de Buen Amor by
Juan Ruiz, the Castilian Archpriest of Hita who lived during the early to mid-fourteenth century.
Scholars have often linked this Iberian work to the goliardic poetry written by clerically trained

335 For the literary relationship between rape and the representation of female subjectivity see Elizabeth Robertson,
“Public Bodies and Psychic Domains: Rape, Consent, and Female Subjectivity in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde,"
in Representing Rape in Medieval and Early Modern Literature, ed. E. Robertson and C. M. Rose (New York: Palgrave,
2001), 281-310.

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professional poets, as well as to Ovidian and pseudo-Ovidian erotodidactic texts.336 In this regard,
the Archpriest specifically mentions the Pamphilus as his source for the so called Endrina episode
(spanning stanzas 580-909) which is largely structured upon the recognizable pattern of that Ovidian
comedy. Immediately prior to this episode, Ruiz revisits Venus’ advice echoing Ovid’s claim that
women actually want men to force them since they often wish to give unwillingly what they like to
give (LBA 631: Por mejor tiene la dueña de ser un poco forçada/ que dezir: 'Faz tu talente,' como
desvergonçada). The Libro also features Don Amor, another speaker who adapts the Ars Amatoria.
We are told that Don Amor studied Ovid in school (LBA 612: Don Amor a Ovidio leyó en la escuela),
which once again brings up the unavoidable presence of the Ovidian corpus among school texts.
Finally, Ruiz refers to both Pamphilus and Ovid (by his cognomen Naso) as advanced students in Don
Amor’s school and eventually blames them for the immoral features of Don Melón-Doña Endrina's
story (LBA 891: que lo feo de la estoria dize Pánfilo e Nasón).

The narrator of the Libro is a kind of alter-ego for its creator who also assumes the role of the
lovesick protagonist. Nonetheless, in a very Ovidian gesture, his identity constantly shifts through a
playful exploration of different, and not infrequently contradictory, narrative masks. One noticeable
change occurs right after the end of Don Amor's speech where the narrator names himself as Johan
Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita (LBA 575: Yo, Johan Ruiz, el sobredicho acipreste de Hita)337 while in the next
episode his name changes to "Don Melón de la Uerta” (stanza 727) — and thereafter the name
recurs several times through the Endrina episode. In line with the Pamphilus, Don Melón is madly
in love with Doña Endrina (or Lady Sloe),338 his attractive and wealthy neighbour; on the advice of

336 For a detailed analysis on the Ovidian background of the Libro de Buen Amor, see Francisco Rico, “Sobre el origen de la

autobiografía en el Libro de buen amor,” Anuario de estudios medievales 4 (1967):301-25; and Richard Burkard. The
Archpriest of Hita and the Imitators of Ovid: A Study in the Ovidian Background of the Libro de buen amor (Newark, DE:
Juan de la Cuesta, 1999). See also Bienvenido Morros, “Las fuentes del Libro de Buen Amor,” in Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de
Hita y el Libro de Buen Amor, ed. Bienvenido Morros and Francisco Toro (Alcalá La Real: Centro para la Edición de los
Clásicos Españoles y Ayuntamiento de Alcalá la Real, 2004), 69-104. Morros addresses peninsular genres such as Galician-
Portuguese lyric which also influenced El Libro, along with the Ovidian material. Michelle Hamilton adds an interesting
contribution to the study on the sources of Juan Ruiz’ work by proposing that the Libro not only follows Western European
models, but also draws upon thirteenth-century Iberian texts, particularly those of the Andalusi-Iberian Jewish authors
whose works also engage in an pseudoautobiographical parodic style and offer startling similarities to the Latin pseudo-
Ovidian De vetula. See Michelle Hamilton, “Rereading the Widow: A Possible Judeo-Iberian Model for the Pseudo-Ovidian
‘De Vetula’ and the ‘Libro de buen amor,’” Speculum 82.1 (2007): 97-119.
337 The stanza is found only in MS S (Salamanca).
338 For a survey on of critical opinions on the significance of protagonist’s vegetal names, see Louise Vasvári, “Vegetal-

Genital Onomastics,” Romance Philology 42 (1988-89), 6-7. More recently Carlos Heusch has pointed out that, apart from
their horticultural references, the protagonist's names parodically allude to the sphere of rural Castilian nobility, within
the poet's general aim to address a noble audience. See Carlos Heusch, "A Poet in the Court of King Alfonso. The Libro de
Buen Amor in Its Courtly Context," in A New Companion to the Libro de buen amor, ed. Ryan Giles and José Manuel Hidalgo
(Leiden: Brill, 2021), 34.

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Venus, Don Melón hires the professional services of an old procuress, subtle, crafty and well-versed
in wiles (LBA 698: artera e maestra e de mucho mal saber). After many twists and a great deal of
chatter, the procuress manages to trick her client’s beloved into having intercourse with him.

Notwithstanding its similarities, the Libro also presents significant differences with the Pamphilus.
Many of the changes were presumably inspired by the Latin pseudo-Ovidian poem De vetula. The
change of the marital state of the beloved, from the virgin maiden of the Pamphilus to a fashionable
young widow in the Libro, may be regarded as a consequence of Ruiz's intertextual dialogue with
De vetula.339 All alone and without a companion (LBA 757: viuda e mancebilla, sola e sin companero),
akin to the little turtledove, she remains apparently faithful to the memory of her late husband.340
Such a portrayal is put into the mouth of the old woman Don Melón has hired to help him lay siege
to Doña Endrina. The procuress of the Libro, called Doña Urraca but better known by her nickname
Trotaconventos, can also be seen as a mixture of the Pamphilus' Anus and the vetula of the
eponymous poem. It is likely due to this crossed insemination that, even though the rape trap is the
main trick of Trotaconventos, the Archpriest strikingly includes a self-compromising allusion, liable
to be linked to Anna's bed trick, later on in his poem.

Trotaconventos fulfils consistently the figure of the medieval go-between for lust. She is described
as a “vieja buhona” (peddler or a jewel vendor), always complaining about her poverty and nagging
to be paid. She easily earns the trust of the disdainful and cautious beloved lady, who is tightly
guarded by her mother. In the process of making the widow yield, the procuress lies continuously
about herself and the attributes of Don Melón. Finally, after gaining the trust of Endrina,
Trotaconventos invites the widow to her house and sets her a trap. Unfortunately, the extant
manuscripts of the Libro missed the thirty-two stanzas potentially able to contain a rape scene
similar to that in Pamphilus. Despite this, the Libro retains the go-between's warning to the lover to
be a man (LBA 869: sed cras omne en todo) before the rape, and the irate protest of Endrina blaming
the crone following the rape:
¡Ay viejas tan perdidas!

339See Rico, 320-1; Morros, 87-8.

340For the widowed turtle-dove trope see Marcel Bataillon, “La tortolica de Fontefrida y el Cántico spiritual,” Nueva
Revista de Filología Hispánica 7 (1953): 291-306; Eugenio Asensio, Poética y realidad en el cancionero peninsular de la
Edad Media. (Madrid: Gredos, 1957); Laura Calvert, "The Widowed Turtledove and Amorous Dove of Spanish Lyric Poetry:
A Symbolic Interpretation," Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 1 (1973): 273-301.

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 ¡a las mugeres traedes enganadas e vendidas!
Ayer mill cobros me davades, mill artes e mill sal;
oy, ya que só escarnida, todas me son fallecidas.

[O you accursed old crones! You sweep women along, deceived and betrayed! Yesterday
you offered me a thousand recourses, a thousand tricks and escapes; today, when I have
been ruined, they all have failed me.]341

To these words, the old woman cynically replies: “don’t blame me, you got what you deserved” (LBA
878: A mí non me rebtedes, fija; que vos lo merecedes). The outraged widow must resign herself to
her fate since all men do the same (LBA 881: todos los omnes fazen como don Melón Ortiz). At the
end, Trotaconventos pronounces a conciliatory speech which, according to the narrator, shows her
good judgement and comes to settle this dispute by proposing the union of the couple. The phrase
"Dona Endrina e don Melon en uno casados son" brings about the denouement of this episode,
suggesting either the wedding of the couple or that they joined together in concubinage.342

The lacuna prevent us from knowing whether —and if so how— Ruiz elaborated on the topic of the
female protest during the rape. After the gap, however, in her reproach to the old woman, Endrina
expressly alludes to herself as the pursued prey —namely, a fish biting the hook in stanza 884, thus
resuming the dialogue with the Pamphilus. In fact, the motif of the rape trap is in keeping with the
amatory imagery in the Libro, where the courtship is constantly rendered through metaphors
presenting the man in the guise of a hunter chasing his prey.343 It is worth noting, however, that
Ruiz’s reworking of the Pamphilus significantly diverges from this source through the addition of an
explanatory frame.

341 English translation taken from Raymond S. Willis, ed., Juan Ruiz, Libro de Buen Amor (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972),

236.
342 For this interpretation of "casados" see the critical edition of the Libro by Joan Corominas. Juan Ruiz, Libro de buen

amor, ed. Joan Coromidas (Madrid: Gredos, 1967), 344. See also Gerald B. Gybbon-Monypenny, “Dixe la por te dar
ensiempro. Juan Ruiz’s Adaptation of the Pamphilus,” in Libro de buen amor Studies, ed. G. B. Monypenny (Tamesis:
Londres, 1970), 123-147. For an interpretation in favour of the marriage see Richard Burkard, "Courtly love and hideous
love: gentility followed by rape in the Libro de buen amor," Journal of the American Association for the Interdisciplinary
Study of the Arts 1-2 (1996), 29.
343 The hunt has been commonly signalled as a central organizing metaphor of Ruiz’s work. See Dayle Seidenspinner-

Núñez, The Allegory of Good Love: Parodic Perspectivism in the Libro de Buen Amor (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1981), 55; Vicente Reynal, El lenguaje erótico medieval a través del Arcipreste de Hita. (Madrid: Playor, 1988), 109.

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As mentioned above, the poet finishes the Melón-Endrina episode begging pardon for “what is
unseemly in the story" (lo feo de la estoria). Pamphilus and Ovid are to blamed for its inappropriate
content, instead of (or along with) being invoked as reliable sources of authoritative information
about good love.344 Criticism of the sources is better understood in the light of the poet's appeal to
a feminine audience. The mixed audience inscribed in the Libro represents a significant difference
with respect to the Pamphilus' target audience. As Carlos Heusch notes, although Ruiz’s male
addressee may keep learning how to have a lovely lady (64d: entiende bien mi libro avrás dueña
garrida), now the Ovidian lesson has become a layered morality tale and women have their say
too.345

Facing a possible negative reaction from his female addressees, the poet is quick to point out that
there is a good lesson to be drawn from this bawdy tale, as we see in stanza 892: "Dueñas aved
orejas, oíd buena licion / entendet bien las fablas, guardatvos del varon" (Ladies, give ear, listen to
a good lesson, / interpret my proverbs correctly: be on guard against men). For a feminine audience,
the story of Pamphilus can no longer be reduced to the application of the Ovidian ars amandi.
Transposed into the Libro, the rape trap cannot be merely understood as a demonstration of the
Ovidian principle on the permissibility of sexual violence or women’s tacit willingness to consent to
intercourse. On the contrary, Ruiz sharpens the tendency initiated in the Pamphilus of calling this
principle into question. This time, the poet urges women to distance themselves from the traps and
tricks set by men aided by the “viejas” (old women), so that they can avoid the fate of Endrina. The
moral is reinforced by the fable of the lion and the ass where the latter manages to escape at first
from the fury of the lion but, foolish and gullible, allows himself to be caught and plunges himself
into destruction. Following this, the poet insists that he did not mean to offend any women but to
give them a parable, while distancing himself of Don Melón by disclosing that he had no part in the
story (LBA 909: Entiende bien la estoria de la fija del endrino:/dixel' por te dar ensienplo, mas non

344 Such a duplicity related to the fundamental ambiguity of the Libro as famously stated in its prologue. The definition of

good love, either that of worldly or that of God, depends on the readers. The poet claims he has written the book the
reader wishes it to be, an idea illustrated in stanza 70, whereupon the book introduces itself and declares to be a relative
of a musical instruments: "De todos instrumentos yo, libro, so pariente" (I, this book, am akin to all instruments of music).
Like a musical instrument whose music depends entirely on the talent of the hands that wield it, the virtues of its
addressees will shape the message, either constructive or destructive, of the Libro. On the interaction between the Libro
and its audience as a site for resolving the work's linguistic and ethical relativism, see E. Michael Gerli. Reading, Performing,
and Imagining the 'Libro del Arcipreste' (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. 2016), esp. pp. 59-90.
345 See Heusch, 30.

153
porque a mi vino). Note as well that women's power of decision is here enhanced on an interpretive
level, insomuch as they are called to place the right interpretation on the story of Endrina.

Ruiz also complicates Pamphilus' portrayal of the go-between as a facilitator of men's predatory
lust. Don Melón is an incompetent hunter; unable to set his own traps, he is entirely dependent on
the old woman’s wiles.346 Trotaconvento's rhetorical strategies are likewise fraught with images
diminishing women when compared with prey animals. For instance, the go-between ensures her
client the prompt delivery of the desired prey and vows to snare for Don Melón not only Doña
Endrina but also other lasses with white throats (otras mocetas de cuello albillo). Later, the narrator
praises the old woman's hunting skills, by remembering how she duped his lady into her trap as the
lure makes the falcon come (LBA 942: Como faze venir el señuelo al falcón). However, compared to
the Anus, Trotaconventos’ rhetorical chase of the woman-prey acquires greater complexity thanks
to the array of aphorisms, fables, and moral tales she employs as part of her verbal badgering
intended to make the obdurate Doña Endrina yield.

One fable is specially telling about Trotaconventos' understanding of the hunt of love and lust. In
their first encounter, Endrina shows herself extremely wary of the preaching and falsehood of the
go-between. Perceiving her mistrust, Trotaconventos counterattacks by appealing to the fears that
widowhood often brings. To this end, she tells her the enxienplo of the bustard who refuses to hear
the advice of the swallow and ended up trapped by a hunter (stanzas 746-65). The fable's moral
purpose is supposedly to warn Endrina of the dangers of being entrapped in widowhood. All men
are hunters who set dangerous traps (paranças malas); they come to woo her with the sole purpose
of taking her goods and usurping her inheritance. Although she warns the widow about those rogues
who just want to pluck her, as happened to the bustard, the procuress advocates for Don Melón,
the only hunter whose trap can protect her from all these evils. Ultimately, by appealing to this
instructive fable, Trotaconventos is suggesting to Endrina that an undesirable trap lies only in being
caught by the wrong hunter, rather than in the mere act of being caught. To be caught is thus
presented as an unavoidable fate for women. However, Trotaconventos seems to be beyond the

346See Gail Phillips, The Imagery of the Libro de 'Buen Amor,' Spanish Series 9 (Madison: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval
Studies, 1983), 117. Phillips observes that the relationship of dependence is often presented as that of a child and his
mother, which is reflected in the familiar way of addressing to each other. See, for instance, stanzas 719, 799, 800 and
813.

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reach of such a female fate. She not only ensnares a prey for her client, but also as intermediary can
rejoice at having a prey for herself.

Later in the Libro, the Archpriest seems to merge again with Don Melón. We then learn that he fell
ill, perhaps due to lovesickness, and in his convalescence was visited by a despicable old woman
(vieja rahez), with whom he got into an altercation whose details are just hinted at:
El mes era de março, salido el verano;
Vínome ver una vieja, díxome luego de mano:
“Moço malo, moço malo más val enfermo que sano”.
Yo travé luego d'ella e fabléle en seso vano.
Con su pesar la vieja díxome muchas vezes:
“Açipreste, más es el roído que las nuezes”.
Díxel yo: «¡Diome el diablo estas viejas rahezes!
Desque han bevido el vino, dizen mal de las fezes». (945-946)

[It was the month of March, and spring had come; an old woman came to see me and said
to me right off: "You bad young fellow, a bad young fellow is better when sick than when
well." I seized on her immediately and spoke to her in an emptyheaded way. In her sorrow
the old woman told me over and over: "Archpriest, the noise is bigger than the walnut
[shells that make it]." I told her: "The Devil sent me these useless old women [like you] !
After they have drunk up the wine, they criticize the dregs."]347

As can be seen from the passage, something unspecified happened between the Archpriest and the
old woman. Though Ruiz does not specify who she is, the "vieja” featuring in the above cited lines
has been often identified with Trotaconventos, whose death the Archpriest later mourns bitterly
(stanzas 1518-1578). Critics have often acknowledged the influence of De vetula in this episode, as
the text gives hints about a previous failed sexual encounter between the Archpriest and the lustful
old woman.348 The exchange of proverb-punches between them is eloquent in this respect. She

347Translated by Willis, Libro de Buen Amor, 252.

348See Rico, “Sobre el origen”, and Morros, “Las fuentes.” See also Francisco Grande, "La moralización ovidiana en el Libro
de buen amor y la Confesión del amante," in Juan Ruiz, Arcipreste de Hita, y el Libro de buen amor, ed. Bienvenido Morros
and Francisco Toro (Alcalá La Real: Centro para la Edición de los Clásicos Españoles y Ayuntamiento de Alcalá la Real, 2004),
349-62.

155
insults him with the saying “más el roído que las nuezes” with which the crone complains about the
sexual behaviour of the protagonist, considering it very disappointing and far below the
expectations that had been created by his rapist's fame.349 To this, the Archpriest retorts bringing
up both her state of inebriation and her cynical complaints through another saying: “Desque han
bevido el vino, dizen mal de las fezes.” Drunkards always complain about the wine after having
drunk it, that is, when they only have the residue left in the glass.

Ryan Giles observes that the old woman's humiliating visit to the convalescent Archpriest takes
place in the month of March, in keeping with Anna Perenna's festival in the Fasti, which could hint
that Ruiz was aware of a connection between the De vetula topic and the portrayal of March/Mars
in Ovid's calendar poem.350 However, it is debatable that Ruiz may have been conscious of Anna's
ascendency over the figure of the go-between. It seems more likely that the Libro's intertextual
echoes to its two tightly intertwined Ovidian sources, the Pamphilus and De vetula, provided its go-
between with a greater complexity, bringing back some elements from Anna's original vignette in
the process. What seems certain is that, despite her role in the Endrina episode, Trotaconventos
cannot be rightly described as utterly subservient to the sexual voracity of her client. On the
contrary, the episode of the “vieja rahez” hints at her own sexual expertise and initiative which
would far outstrip that of the Archpriest. He had hired her services after several failed amorous
adventures with other women, and no one better than Trotaconventos knows his unenviable
amorous curriculum. The despicable old woman mocks the self-perception of the rapist as a skilled
lover regarding it as much ado about nothing, which recalls the aged Anna's laughter at Mars and
her ability to turn male aggressiveness and lust into an occasion of self-indulgence.

The Archpriest announces he composed many "cantares caçurros" telling all the wrongs the old
woman had done to him (LBA 947: fiz' cantares caçurros, de quanto mal me dixo). He even brags
that when hearing his burlesque songs chaste ladies cannot help but laugh. Aware of the raciness of
his material, he once again appeals to his feminine audience for pardon (A vos, dueñas señoras..
demándovos perdón), though he is confident they will grant it as they can enjoy a bit of foolishness
among words of wisdom (entre los sesos una tal bavoquía). Unfortunately, there is no place in the
folios for these scurrilous songs, either because Ruiz did not write them or they were lost through

349 Morros, 90.

350 Giles, “A Galen for Lovers,” 16.

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the Libro’s transmission.351 Even though we cannot know further details about his intercourse with
the go-between, one might conjecture that Don Melon/Archpriest had to vary his role from hunter
to hunted. If we are to believe that Trotaconventos could have snared the rapist, we may also
suspect that the sexual possession of her client counts as the main payoff he owes her for her
services as go-between.

Ruiz’s suggested encounter with the old woman rewrites Pamphilus making him both the hunter
and the prey. The old woman's mockery calls into question the supposed supremacy of male desire,
in a way reminiscent Anna Perenna’s laugh at Mars in Fasti. Likewise, if we are to believe Ruiz, this
kind of humour can spark a highly infectious fun among the ladies. The episode of the "vieja rahez"
complicates the misogynistic message of the Libro in general, and of the old woman as a character
obsequious to the rapist's desires in particular. At the end, Trotaconventos’ loyalty lies with no one
but herself.

Ben yold, ywis, I were now nought heere!

Although the immediate source of Troilus and Criseyde is Boccaccio's Il Filostrato, the indirect
connection between Chaucer's poem and the Pamphilus tradition deserves our attention.
Resemblances to both the Pamphilus and the Endrina episode of Ruiz’s Libro become apparent in
the first three books of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde,352 especially considering the intriguing figure
of Pandarus and the trickery he employs in bringing about the sexual encounter of the protagonist
couple. The go-between is here a man, the best friend and confidant of the lovelorn Troilus. He is
also the uncle of Criseyde, the widowed daughter of the traitor Calkas, a great soothsayer who
deserted to the Greek camp. Likewise, Criseyde seems to share significant features with Doña

351 Morros, 90, argues on the appropriateness of the genre of the "cantares caçurros" to convey similar content to that
found in De vetula. He describes this burlesque songs as parodies of the courtly romance or the cantigas of love, in the
line of certain scurrilous songs of Galician-Portuguese poetry, in which poets lament the disdain of an old woman with
whom he has fallen in love and that others have taken to bed.
352 For a good overview of the most relevant data on the possible influences of Ruiz’s Libro over Chaucer's work, as well

as Chaucer's probable knowledge of Iberian literature, see Eugenio Olivares Merino, “Juan Ruiz's Influence on Chaucer
Revisited: A Survey,” Neophilologus 88 (2004): 145–61. Garbáty was among the first critics in formally proposing that
Chaucer could have accessed Ruiz's work during a diplomatic mission to Spain in 1366; according to this conjecture,
Chaucer could have assimilated some elements of the Castilian poem, especially the Endrina episode, either by reading it
directly or hearing its recitation. Even though Chaucer's visit to Spain seems to be an issue widely agreed upon, it seems
hard to prove, if not impossible, that the English poet could have had some direct knowledge of the Libro during this
journey or at some other time.

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Endrina, especially as she strives to keep up the appearance of a steadfast widow and is anxious
about maintaining herself free from gossip, whether about herself or her father.

As a reflection of its background, set during the siege of the ancient city of Troy, much of Chaucer’s
narrative revolves around the rhetorical siege of Criseyde laid by her uncle on behalf of Troilus.
Although at first glance the figure may seem unrecognizable in this new male guise, Pandarus may
to some extent be read as a cross-dressing Ovidian “old woman” figure. He certainly retains many
characteristics of the procuress of the Pamphilus group. He is a senior advisor in love, equally
experienced in the old dance. However, as agent of Troilus’ desires, Pandarus seems to go further
than any other intermediary mentioned thus far, as will be seen later.

As usual in the Pamphilus group, the go-between arranges for the lovers to meet at his house. To
that end, Pandarus employs the customary subterfuge of inviting the maiden to dinner (3.560).
Fortune is on Pandarus' side, as a deafening storm arises. Criseyde, then, must stay overnight at her
uncle's house. In the meantime, Troilus stays hidden in an adjoining room observing them. When
the time is come, Pandarus must drag the hesitating Troilus "by the lappe" (3. 742) through a secret
trapdoor into the bedroom where Criseyde is sleeping. While Troilus is still concealed behind her
bed curtains, Pandarus lies to his niece who has just woken up by saying that her lover has just
arrived. Troilus is out of his mind with jealousy, Pandarus says to his niece, due to a rumour about
her and a certain Horaste, and thereby she should reassure him to save his life. Finally, Troilus is
pushed by Pandarus into such an awkward situation that he cannot bear it and faints.

At first sight, Chaucer’s hero may appear closer to the conventional courtly lover, idealizing and
idolizing his beloved, than to the clumsy Don Melón, or the burlesque would-be suitor easily
controlled by the tricky old woman. However, Troilus' portrayal as the all-perfect courtly lover by
Chaucer can be construed as a deliberate parody of the conventions of the courtly romance.353 The
narrator's description of the hero weeping at his love predicament is often accompanied by a comic
touch. Particularly, Troilus' fainting in anguish before Criseyde's bed is a famously bizarre moment
of the poem.

353 For this interpretation see Charles Muscatine, Chaucer and the French Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University

of California Press, 1964), 137. Muscatine also notes that, depending on perspective, Troilus can be viewed as an ideal
hero of romance, or as an ancestor of Don Quixote.

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Criseyde vigorously reproaches Troilus’ jealousy and defends herself from suspicion. If jealousy is
love, she reflects alluding to a well-known Ovidian thesis included in Ars Amatoria 3.589-600,
perhaps it is more like hate than love. The sight of his beloved's tears eventually triggers in Troilus
an emotional and physical collapse, which incidentally recalls Pamphilus’ swoon after the Anus
aroused his jealousy by lying to him about a rival in love (Pam. 445-62). Many critics have painted a
disparaging picture of Troilus' faint; it has been seen as a sign of weakness, effeminacy, impotence
or inability to perform sexually.354 However, in medieval literature, sudden unconsciousness is often
not feminine gendered —one thinks for example of The Divine Comedy where Dante repeatedly
faints, much to Virgil's awkwardness, during his journey through Hell. In fact, as Mieszkowski
suggests, Troilus' swoon and his motivations are appropriately manly for a romance hero.355

However, Pandarus' actions shift the scene of the faint from romance to farce. This shifting also
coincides with the intertextual dialogue of Chaucer with the Pamphilus' script, especially when
Pandarus throws the dazed Troilus into Criseyde’s bed and urges him to act like a man (TC 3.1098:
O thef, is this a mannes herte?). In this regard, if we are to analyse Chaucer's bedchamber scene in
its likely connections with the go-between's standard sexual trick in the Pamphilus, we must start
by recognizing the significant change brought about by adding a considerable degree of
awkwardness of the hero facing the "fate" of acting like a man. Troilus is overwhelmed by the
situation, as though he was the prey trapped by the go-between snare. In fact, in Chaucer's poem
the go-between's sexual trick drastically differs from those that we have previously seen.

As mentioned above, Crisyede's reproaches to Troilus suggest that Pandarus' scheme is presumably
inspired by Ars Amatoria's advice, namely by the assumption that jealousy excites the lover's desire.
Added to this is the Ovidian motif of the lover's break-in at the puella's chamber as a form of
titillation (Ars 2.243-64). Early in Book 2. 750-56, however, Criseyde had clearly expressed her
opposition to jealousy aligned with her declared rejection of masculine possessiveness as a widow
who saw herself as her “owene woman, wel at ese.” Even though the plan does not go as expected,
Chaucer's intermediary is crafty enough to turn the situation into his favour. Shortly after Troilus'
faint, with the pretext of ensuring his friend's comfort, Pandarus manages to literally toss Troilus
into his niece's bed and undress him (TC 3.1097-99). This way, Chaucer takes to an extreme the topic

354 For a summary of these comments see Mieszkowski, 168.

355
Mieszkowski, 169.

159
of the go-between leading the course of the love affair down to the tiniest detail. After exhorting
Criseyde to forgive the helpless Troilus and pull out the thorn sticking in his heart, Pandarus
withdraws and leaves the couple alone —if one may say so, since, apparently, he remains in the
room, as if he were an embodiment of the voyeuristic reader contemplating the erotic scene.

Troilus' swoon, however unintentionally, becomes a key piece in Pandarus’ plan. It is also a smart
move in Chaucer's reworking of the motif of the go-between's trick. This preamble serves the poet
to transpose the Pamphilus' motif of the rape trap, but in such a way that dissipates the abruptness
and rawness of both the lover's assault and the go-between's treason. I can be said that Chaucer
also elaborates those elements he draws from the Pamphilus tradition with an awareness of female
response to Ovidian sexual violence. Like in Ruiz’s Libro, women appear as a significant portion of
the imagined audience in Troilus and Criseyde, and there is also evidence of female courtly
readership of Chaucer's poem.356 However, while Ruiz attempted to counteract sexual violence by
transforming the Endrina episode into a moral example, Chaucer goes further by undertaking a
major redesign of the Pamphilus source text. This redesign seems to take us back to Ovid's primal
source in Fasti, with Troilus becoming an easy prey for a tricky intermediary who mocks him and
appears entangled in his love affairs beyond measure. At times, Troilus resembles Mars as he seems
to be fraught, and awkwardly trapped in the go-between's bed. What is to be stressed here is that
the rawness of the Pamphilus’ rape trap vanishes in Chaucer’s highly nuanced reworking, which
includes, among other elements, Pandarus' manipulation, mockery and intrusion; Troilus'
repentance, vulnerability and clumsiness; Criseyde's initial irritation, her later concern and, above
all, her final consent.

However, Chaucer frames Criseyde's consent with a measure of aggressiveness on Troilus's part,
which, coupled with Pandarus trickery to keep his niece in his house, has given rise to a debate about
the authenticity or trustworthiness of Criseyde's words.357 Having recovered from the fainting,

356 See Amy Vines, Women's Power in Late Medieval Romance (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2011), especially the first chapter,

“Prophecy as Social Influence: Cassandra, Anne Neville and the Corpus Christi Manuscript of Troilus and Criseyde,” that
examines the ways in which the famous fifteenth-century manuscript of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (Cambridge, Corpus
Christi College MS 61) predisposed a specific female reading of the poem. The manuscript, belonging to Anna Neville,
incudes a frontispiece illumination of a man, possibly Chaucer, offering a recitation to a noble audience of both men and
women.
357 The question of whether Criseyde consented or she simply was trapped remains a matter for critical debate. Some

critics support the idea of Criseyde's free decision to have sex with Troilus. Angela Wiesl, for instance, suggests that the
bed scene marks a shift in Criseyde and Troilus' sex roles; henceforth, Troilus becomes the dominant figure, while Criseyde
freely yields, abandoning her former role as lady-lord of amour courtois. See Angela Weisl, Conquering the Reign of

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Troilus clasps Criseyde into his arms. She trembles as an aspen leaf, while he warns she is now the
captured prey (the sely larke) of a predatory bird (the sperhauk) and must surrender to him (TC
3.1188-1208). Chaucer’s describing Criseyde as the lark who has been caught by a sparrow-hawk
Troilus recalls the predatory love imagery of the Pamphilus and the Archpriest's poem. However, in
stark contrast to the previous works of the group, Criseyde replies to Troilus' advances by saying
that he could not be touching her, if she had not already yielded (TC 2.1210–11: Ne hadde I er now,
my swete herte deere, / Ben yolde, ywis, I were now nought heere!). Criseyde’s consent is thus
emphasized by Chaucer, and we can hear it from the heroine’s own mouth.

Although the classic set-up for a rape may look almost unrecognizable in Chaucer's poem, something
yet remains: the compromising situation set by Pandarus provokes Criseyde to verbally articulate
her own desires. Let us remember that the trap set by both the Anus and Trotaconventos triggers
the articulation of the outraged women's voices and subjectivities. But, unlike Galathea's and
Endrina's resistance and protests during the rape and post-factum, Criseyde's retrospective
statement expressively manifests her consent to Troilus's advances and the erotic scene that follows
conveys the mutuality of the lovers' delight. It is true that, as Helen Phillips observes, the narration
of the sexual arousal is created predominantly through the male experience and sex is described in
terms of male achievement.358 However, while we know about Troilus being in "hevene he gan hym
to delite" after the description of Criseyde's body in 3.1247-49, we are also told about Criseyde's
pleasurable and active engagement in the deed (TC 3.1226-28: Criseyde, al quit fron every drede
and tene …made hym swych faste it joye was to sene).

Femeny: Gender and Genre in Chaucer's Romance (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995), 44. Similarly, Jill Mann suggests the
establishment of a new pattern in the relationship at this point of the narrative, since Criseyde's submission to Troilus is
already balanced and supported by the submission he has already made to her. See Jill Mann, Feminizing Chaucer
(Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002), 86. Other scholars such as Mark Lambert and Louise O. Fradenburg acknowledge that
Criseyde's consent is rather diffuse —at least, we are not aware when she makes up her mind as it seems to occur offstage.
Therefore the question about rape remains open. See Mark Lambert, “Troilus, Books I–III: A Criseydan Reading,” in Essays
on Troilus and Criseyde, ed. Mary Salu (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1979), 119; Louise O. Fradenburg, “‘Our owen wo to
drynke’: Loss, Gender, and Chivalry in Troilus and Criseyde,” in Troilus and Criseyde, ed. R.A. Shoaf, MRTS 104 (1992): 100.
Finally, other critics directly observe rape in the scene. For instance, Helen Phillips underscores the narrator's sparrow
hawk/lark image as it conveys aggressivity, predatory possession and ultimately the idea that love is not woman-friendly,
but a matter of male triumph. While for Phillips the poem's insistence that Criseyde has consented is manipulative, most
recently, Clare Davidson has argued that Criseyde’s reaction can be interpreted as a result of the heroine’s giving over the
expectation of consent; in other words, she must consent because she has been caught into a situation in which this
reaction is necessary and/or inevitable, insofar as it is culturally signified as such. See Helen Phillips, “Love,” in A
Companion to Chaucer, ed. Peter Brown (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 260; Clare Davidson, "Reading in Bed with Troilus and
Criseyde," The Chaucer Review 55 (2020): 166.
358 Phillips, “Love,” 260.

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Criseyde’s consent stands in a sharp contrast to both Galathea's and Endrina's protests, who clearly
manifest their aversion towards the rapist, as well as their awareness of having been debased by
the treacherous go-between. It is nonetheless true that the sparrowhawk/lark image evokes the
spectre of the Ovidian rape present in the Pamphilus tradition. A nuanced analysis of the Chaucer’s
bedchamber scene must recognize that, along with Criseyde's free will and pleasure, the poet
inscribes a degree of masculine coercion and dominance. While none of these meanings overtake
the other, critical understanding of Criseyde's role in the scene at hand has come to oscillate
between positing her as the victim of a rape or the experienced widow who willingly accepts a novice
young lover. This, incidentally, reminds us of Muscatine's well-known comment on the almost
proverbial difficulty of assessing the nature of Chaucer's heroine: Criseyde's ambiguity is her
meaning.359 However, instead of thinking of Criseyde’s “yes” meaning “no” —like a sort of reversing
of narrow Ovidian rhetorical readings of Galathea's protest—, I would now like to draw more
attention to some traces of Anna's comic vignette in Chaucer’s poem that can enable and support
the autonomous expression of Criseyde's true desires.

Cast youre widewes habit to mischaunce

Earlier in Book 3, we find Troilus concerned about Pandarus’ plan. Terrified at the thought of
approaching his beloved's bedchamber, the hero invokes the assistance of Jove, Apollo, and Mars
(TC. 3.722-28). As Mark Amsler notes, here Chaucer may be deliberately hinting at Ovid's
mythography, especially to the usual narrative role of gods as sexually dominant males, which can
serve as models for Troilus’ own mission.360 Two of these gods are directly rapists: Jupiter
successfully rapes Europa, while Apollo fails in pursuing Daphne. However, Mars' presence among
these gods cannot be fully explained by his attributes as a warrior covered with a "blody cope.”
Instead of the predatory lover, in Ovid's works Mars is especially noted for his laughable roles and
his chequered love-life. Mars is the lover of Venus in the burlesque ensnarement of the couple by
the cuckolded Vulcan —as Troilus himself recognizes in his prayer (TC 3.725: For love of Cipris). But
the god is likewise the duped would-be lover of Minerva in Anna Perenna's comic vignette in Fasti.
This latter role of Mars also relates to Troilus' own love predicament. Troilus' performance at

359Muscatine, 164.
360Mark Amsler, “Rape and Silence: Ovid's Mythography and Medieval Readers,” in Representing Rape in Medieval and
Early Modern Literature, ed. Christine Rose and Elizabeth Robertson (London: St. Martin's Press, 2016), 85.

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Pandarus' house can be also interpreted as a mixture of the sexually dominant lover, in the manner
of the predatory gods of Ovid's rape narratives, and the farcical lover, similar to overconfident Mars
who ends up diminished in Anna's arms. Further, while it can be said that Pandarus' bedroom
becomes a trap to catch Criseyde for Troilus, it is also possible to argue that Pandarus, as a cross-
dressing Ovidian old woman, catches them both for himself.

Pandarus is an ambivalent figure and so is his relationship with Troilus. A friend procurer, Pandarus
oscillates between the ideal of amicitia—that virtuous friendship between male aristocrats willing
to do extraordinary things for each other361— and the pattern of the tricky go-between for lust of
the Pamphilus tradition.362 In this last regard, as already stated, Pandarus’ supervision of Troilus and
Criseyde’s first sexual intercourse certainly exceeds what we have seen in any other go-between
thus far. Earlier in the poem, we find Pandarus deriving an almost voyeuristic pleasure from his role
as a go-between, envisioning the day when he has brought the love affair to success and claiming
that "we may ben gladed alle thre’" (TC 1.994). Pandarus’ high degree of involvement with the
couple has been subjected to much scholarly debate. Mieszkowski is perhaps the one who has gone
furthest by suggesting Pandarus’ omnivorous bisexual attraction towards both his friend and his
niece.363 Without needing to venture any further into such matters, the certain fact is that Troilus
and Criseyde are literally getting between Pandarus' sheets. Moreover, unlike the Anus and
Trotaconventos who suddenly and stealthily exit the stage during the rape scene, Pandarus is an
intruder, an unwelcome presence in Chaucer’s bedchamber and, in this sense, echoes the figure of
the aged Anna in Fasti. Needless to say, Pandarus neither entraps Troilus nor tries to take Crisyede's
place but he throws Troilus into Criseyde’s bed, then strips him, while repeatedly mocking the
swooning manhood of the lover.

Pandarus’ ambivalence also affects his relationship with his niece. On the one hand, he uses coercive
manipulation to arrange the first sexual encounter of Criseyde and Troilus. But, on the other hand,

361 See John Hill, 'Aristocratic Friendship in Troilus and Criseyde: Pandarus, Courtly Love and Ciceronian Brotherhood in

Troy', in Robert G. Benson and Susan J. Ridyard (eds.), New Readings of Chaucer's Poetry (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2003),
165-82.
362 According to Mieszkowski, Chaucer merged in Pandarus the two opposing traditions of the medieval go-between: the

one, pandering for idealized love —which is the keynote of the intermediary in several romances—, and the other,
pandering for lust. See Mieszkowski, 179-83.
363 See Mieszkowski, 144. According to this view, the consummation scene is afloat with homoerotic, heterosexual, and

incestuous desire since “Pandarus channels Troilus’ desire through himself to such a degree that he becomes part of the
lovers’ possessing of each other.”

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uncle and niece undeniably maintain a relationship of complicity, as can be seen through their
comfortable, light-hearted, even teasing, interactions. As a matter of fact, Criseyde laughs only
when she is with her uncle; at some point, the antics of Pandarus make her burst into laughter to
the extent that the narrator asserts that she “for laughter wende for to dye” (TC 2.1169).

A highly significant exchange between uncle and niece takes place when Pandarus first presents
Troilus' case to Criseyde. In jesting, Pandarus asks her to take off her wimple and dance, whereupon
she laughs and refuses, saying that is unbecoming of a widow to do so. (TC 2.111-19). Would not it
be better for her to read saints’ lives? To dance is not for her but for maidens and young wives. In
response, Pandarus says that he will tell her something that will make her play (a thyng to doon yow
pleye), an invitation usually described as a double entendre. The term “pleye” may be read either
in the narrow sense of dancing and of joyous, carefree emotion, or in the way the word is used in
the fabliaux where its meaning mischievously slips from merriment and games to amorous play,
love-making and sexual intercourse.364 The invitation is also the starting move in Pandarus’ own
erotic game. Whatever the case, both laughter and “pleye” appear elsewhere directly associated
with Criseyde’s joy of living; thus, when the narrator describes her grief, he mentions she has lost
“the pleye, the laughter, men was wont to fynde/ On hire, and ek hire joies everichone” (TC 4.866-
7).

The term “pleye” is also mentioned the morning after the protagonist couple’s first sexual
encounter, namely when Criseyde reproaches her uncle for having orchestrated the whole scheme
(TC 3.1565-6: Fox that ye ben!... ye causes al this fare). Notice that, once again, we find the heroine
protesting the go-between, following the trend of the Pamphilus tradition. Yet, once again,
Chaucer's narrative destabilizes such a pattern, since the narrator does not take long to state that
Pandarus is forgiven by his niece, and strikingly compares Criseyde's forgiving her uncle with the
forgiveness of God/Christ for his own death (TC 3.1577: God foryaf his deth, and she al so). We are
then told that she begins to play with her uncle (TC 3. 1578) which may be the proof that Criseyde
has truly forgiven the methods of the go-between. The scene concludes with the claim that

364 See Geoffrey W. Gust, Chaucerotics: Uncloaking the Language of Sex in The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde

(New York: Palgrave, 2018), 87.

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Pandarus achieved all his intent (TC 3.1582: And Pandarus hath fully entente). What is to be stressed
here is that, at the end, Pandarus' intent is not incompatible with Criseyde's desires.365

Let us draw attention once again to Pandarus' appeal to cast aside the widow's habit, understood
as an expression of the go-between’s intent regarding his niece. In other words, his intention of
making Criseyde come out of mourning as a sine qua non for her renewing interest in “pleye,”
meaning by this either sex or a more general delight in living. Strikingly, we read an analogous
exhortation put in the mouth of Trotaconventos when she urges the also widowed Endrina to stop
mourning. What profit does it bring to her to wear that black cloth and go around humiliated and
exposed to mockery? (LBA 762: ¿Que provecho vos tien' vestir esse negro pano, andar
envergonçada e con mucho sossano?). Instead of burying herself alive, lapsing unconsciously into
age and ugliness, she must go out and show her beauty in public, see and been seen. Similarly,
Pandarus indicates that a widow's habit makes Criseyde unattractive and that it would hinder her
in the “aventure.” Get rid of the widow's habit and make the most of the next adventure that comes:
this is a way to read the exhortation of Trotaconventos and Pandarus, and also a way of
understanding what the "pleye" can mean in Chaucer’s contribution to the Pamphilus tradition.

These exhortations to the widows to begin their life anew can be interpreted beyond the incidental
tactics and trickery of medieval go-betweens. They can also bring up old images and meanings
embedded in Ovid's Fasti, yet renewed or re-accentuated as per their different cultural spaces. In
this chapter I have argued that Ovid’s Anna Perenna is an unacknowledged source for the Pamphilus
tradition. As mentioned above, Ovid’s comic vignette about the divine trickster eloquently
reinforces the idea of female free will, insomuch as Anna’s impersonation of the virgin may be
interpreted either preventing her from an unwanted defilement, or a way of turning a man's
infatuation and aggressive lust into an occasion of self-indulgence. In the manner of Anna, the go-

365 The description of Pandarus throwing his arm under Criseyde's neck to kiss her introduces another sexual note.

Whatever happens that morning under Criseyde's bedclothes, again the word “pleye,” now coupled with "entete," has led
some critics such as David Sims to suggest that there would be something more than just an avuncular kiss and the shared
delights of morning leisure. From this view, Pandarus "hath fully his entete” by himself enjoying Criseyde the morning
after her first intercourse with Troilus. See David Sims, “An Essay at the Logic of Troilus and Criseyde,” Cambridge Quarterly
4 (1968), 142. Regarding this discussion, I agree with Evan Carton who draws attention to the evasive language used by
Chaucer in this post-nuptial encounter, which makes the reader "responsible for the meaning he produces; and that is the
meaning of the scene. No amount of receptivity to its sexual suggestiveness will give us the incest, but any amount should
make us re-examine interpretations of the poem that can only survive by flatly rejecting such a possibility." See Evan
Carton, “Complicity and Responsibility in Pandarus' Bed and Chaucer's Art,” PMLA 94:1 (1979), 57.

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betweens of the Pamphilus group can also become a driving force behind women's agency and an
enabler for the articulation of their own desires.

Furthermore, through their advice to the mourning widows, both Trotaconventos and Pandarus
echo a central theme pervading Ovid’s account of Anna Perenna in Fasti, where both the goddess’
portrayals and her festival are highly centred on the idea of renewal. 366 In this regard, it is worth
noting that the idea of a decaying life subjected to renovation is also expressed by Ovid’s image of
the aged Anna taking the place of the virgin. Anna is a crone in a bridal dress, an old woman in a
state of arousal who entraps the man she has chosen. Her trick, celebrated by those obscena
puellae, or girls chanting obscenities in the goddess’ festival, also hints at the links between women's
laughter and agency —an idea that is adapted by Chaucer in the portrayal of Criseyde's laughter
fuelled by Pandarus' humour, that allow her to both regain control over her life and set life in
motion.

This lengthy chapter has uncovered Anna Perenna as an important source for later depictions of the
Ovidian Old Woman, especially as a go-between in late medieval comic literatures. In particular, it
has been shown that, at varying degrees and through different guises, Anna's model reappears
through the Pamphilus group and lend itself to address contemporary concerns about sexual
violence and women's consent. Of course, Anna's primal countenance changed in her medieval
afterlives, being perceived against different backgrounds, juxtaposed and intertwined with other
sources, and infused with new intentions and meanings. However, the works commented here
retained more than a passing resemblance of this old deity praised by Mars for being skilled in
bringing people together.

366 See Sabino Perea, “Anna Perenna: Religión y ejemplaridad mitica,” Espacio, Tiempo y Forma. Serie II, Historia Antiqua

11 (1998), 191.

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CHAPTER 4

LA BOCCA FETIDA. OVIDIAN REMEDIES AND THE TREATMENT OF PARODY IN BOCCACCIO'S IL

CORBACCIO

The protagonist-narrator of Giovanni Boccaccio’s last work, Il Corbaccio or Labirinto d'amore, is a

scholar on or just beyond the threshold of maturity. The narrator, widely regarded as the author's
alter-ego character in the text, experiences (and eventually writes down) a dream-vision in which
he is cured of his unrequited passion for a wanton widow by a spirit-guide, who turns out to be no
other than the widow's dead husband. The guide is aware that the scholar was on the brink of
suicide, having been through great suffering due to his former wife —a woman whom, for the sake
of accuracy, he prefers to call the dragon (drago potrei chiamare).367 For this reason, he gently
prescribes our narrator a particular treatment designed to restore him to his senses. The cure will
be achieved just by listening to his virulent harangue against the widow in particular, and
womanhood in general, which encompasses the vast list of the alleged vices and foulness of women.
Paradoxically this malicious lecture about women is imparted under the aegis of the Virgin Mary,
blessed among all women and mother of the Church, who is described as the antithesis of the
widow.

Il Corbaccio has been frequently considered Boccaccio's most enigmatic and controversial creation,
especially for discovering an unexpected side of the writer as virulent misogynist which has puzzled
and misled critics for centuries. Such an authorial self-image appears contradictory, considering the
kind of relationships Boccaccio develops with women through his previous works, especially in the
Decameron where they feature not just as objects of praise or seduction, but also as producer and
consumers of discourse. In this regard, Regina Psaki and Thomas Stillinger note that “probably no
other male European writer of his time can rival Boccaccio's overt concern about linking his own
status as an author to women.”368 However, in Il Corbaccio Boccaccio deliberately echoes a range of

367 Tauno Nurmela, ed., “Giovanni Boccaccio: Il Corbaccio,” Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae Series B, 146

(Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1968); Anthony K. Cassell, ed., The Corbaccio (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1975).
368 Thomas Stillinger and F. Regina Psaki, “Boccaccio and feminist criticism: an introduction," in Boccaccio and Feminist

Criticism, ed. Thomas T. Stillinger and Regina Psaki (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 1. For Boccaccio's
address to his female readers of the Decameron, see especially the Prologue and the Introduction to Day 4. Another
noteworthy example of Boccaccio's interest in women is his anthology of female biographies, De claris mulieribus (Of
Famous Women), in which he catalogued famous women, both virtuous and vicious, from myth, legend, and history.
However, Boccaccio's praise of famous women is not unproblematic. His attitude towards his subject matter is made plain
in his preface: "If men should be praised whenever they perform great deeds (with strength which Nature has given them)

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topics and commonplaces from a longstanding antifeminist tradition nurtured by classical literature,
secular satire and Patristic writings. Although articulated in a hyperbolic and often jarring manner,
the spirit-guide’s arguments were taken from the vast body of misogynistic literature, ranging from
Ovid and Juvenal, through Jerome and Valerius, to the anti-feminist digressions of the Roman de la
Rose and the many rambling treatises on the dangers women pose to the physical and spiritual well-
being of men.369

Robert Hollander identifies three interpretative lines when approaching Il Corbaccio.370 The first
took the text as an autobiographical piece, an acid attack launched by Boccaccio in his old age
against the female gender. From this view, the work should be read as a projection of the author’s
own emotional bitterness as a result of his unrequited love for a widow.371 Such a love
disappointment would explain that, having previously written in praise of women and love and even
painted a self-portrait as a defender of the gentle sex, Boccaccio came suddenly to write this virulent
misogynistic invective motivated by a desire for revenge. Echoing the author’s passions, the
narrator's intention, declared in his envoy, is to take revenge on the widow by writing about her, so
he hopes that his diatribe gets into her hands and his words can avenge him (io spero sì con parole
gastigar colei).372 In short, according to this approach, Il Corbaccio was devised as a true literary

how much more should women be extolled (almost all of whom are endowed with tenderness, frail bodies, and sluggish
minds by Nature) if they have acquired a manly spirit." See Giovanni Boccaccio. Concerning Famous Women, trans. Guido
A. Guarino (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1963), xxxvii. For an analysis on how Boccaccio’s praise of women
assumes the misogyny of clerical tradition see Glenda McLeod, Virtue and Venom: Catalogs of Women from Antiquity to
the Renaissance (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), 59-80. McLeod notes that Boccaccio’s collection appears
especially in keeping with Jerome's view on women, encouraging chastity and associating femininity with vice, while
portraying women whose virtues lead to accomplishments as both rare and virile.
369 See Pamela Stewart, “Boccaccio,” in The Cambridge History of Italian Literature, ed. Peter Brand and Lino Pertile

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 85. According to Cassell, Boccaccio carefully excerpted and stored a
collection of misogynistic passages in a personal anthology or florilegium known as the Zibaldone laurenziano. Among the
texts compiled, were the satires against marriage, Theophrastus’ Golden Book cited in Jerome’ s De Nuptiis (On Marriage)
and Walter Map's Valerius Rufino ne ducat uxorem (Valerius to Rufinus that he not take a wife), also referred by Chaucer’s
Wife of Bath in her description of Jankyn’s book of “wikked wyves.” When the spirit-guide claims against wives, and the
undesirability of the scholar and philosopher taking a wife, Boccaccio elaborates on passages from those misogynist tracts.
Other antifeminist material quoted in Il Corbaccio comes from Juvenal’s Sixth Satire, the Roman de la Rose and the
Lamentations of Matheolus. See Cassell, xx - xxi.
370 Robert Hollander, Boccaccio's Last Fiction: Il "Corbaccio" (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 42.
371 Attempts to link the text to its author’s personal life, under the assumption that Boccaccio's newfound misogynistic

tone would be attributable to an amorous disaster and a change of heart in his old age, have been often contingent on
the question concerning the dating of the work. However, Il Corbaccio’s date of composition remains uncertain. For an
historical overview of the various theories of the dating, concluding in favour of the date in 1365 see Giorgio Padoan,
“Sulla datazione del Corbaccio,” Lettere Italiane 15 (1963), 1–27. For an exhaustive refutation of Padoan’s theories, and a
conclusion in favour of an earlier date, see Hollander, 26-33.
372 Immediately after having said that, the narrator shows more hesitant and even seems to walk back from his previous

intentions. In Cassell’s translation: “Oh little work of mine, your end has arrived, and it is time to give my hand its rest...
see that you do not come into the hands of evil women, especially into those of her who surpasses every demon in
wickedness and who has been the cause of your present toil, since you will be ill received. She is to be stung by a sharper

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vedetta; consequently, by having written and then published the work Boccaccio executed the
threats he himself put in the mouth of his fictitious alter-ego.

Moving gradually away from that simplistic view, a second critical stance dismissed a narrow
autobiographical reading of Il Corbaccio and stressed its fictional nature, however continued to take
Boccaccio's anti-feminist bravado very seriously, admiring his capacity to indulge in blatant
misogyny. Finally, a third stage of critical attitudes towards the work, where Hollander places his
own study, suggests that Boccaccio’s last narrative should not be taken literally and certainly it was
not meant to convey the writer’s hatred towards women. Rather, we should interpret it as a "literary
joke" intended to expose the error of foolish love and the irrational retaliation of jilted lovers. Il
Corbaccio playfully shifts the meaning of the misogynistic tirade since those who are put in the
spotlight are not women but the scholar-narrator and the spirit-guide. According to this view,
Boccaccio's last work should be understood as a parody of misogynistic discourses designed to show
the ridiculousness of two bad-mouthed men, two male hysterics exposing their own weaknesses
and failings.373

The latter is the approach I will advocate and expand upon throughout this chapter. I am working
on the assumption that Il Corbaccio is much more than a straight antifeminist manifesto. In fact,
Boccaccio’s last work lends itself to be read as both a summa and a parody of the antifeminist
tradition. Among the layers of misogynist literature informing this work, in the present chapter I will
stress the presence of Ovid as the main source of the parodic style prevalent in Il Corbaccio,
especially with regards to the use Boccaccio makes of the motif of female laughter, mockery and
gossip. There are a range of textual clues pointing at Boccaccio’s parodic intent throughout this
work. The following section of the chapter briefly mentions some clear instances of parody noted
by previous scholarship, and then moves on to the specific intertextual dialogue between
Boccaccio’s literary game and Ovidian tropes.

goad than you bear with you; swiftly and fearlessly this will attack and wound her, if the Giver of all Grace grants it.”
Cassell, 77. The narrator's hesitation is noticeable. He now cannot decide whether he wants the widow to read the book
or the book to avoid his former beloved. Hollander notes that, in addition to his literary vengeance, the scholar now hopes
for the “vendetta di Dio” to strike his former lady. See Hollander, 17. References to a male audience made up of young
men (massimamente a' giovani), misguided lovers, perhaps become spiteful male consumers of misogynistic treatises,
also occur earlier in the text. The role of the widow as a reader and especially addressee of the work is, nevertheless, of
interest to interpret Il Corbaccio, as shall be discussed later.
373 Hollander, 42.

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The following sections analyse the grotesque description of the widow’s body presented by the
guide as a remedy to make the narrator overcome his lust for. My contention is that the guide’s
healing treatment is linked with Ovid’s counsel in the Remedia Amoris: the lovelorn must dwell upon
all the bad qualities and defects of his mistress (Rem. 315: profuit adsidue vitiis insistere amicae).
The intriguing identity between the infernal valley where the misogynists are trapped and the
widow’s sexual organs is also a matter of further analysis in this chapter. In doing so, I take into
account the medieval motif of the hellmouth, commonly employed as a stock metaphor for female
unrestrained sexuality in antifeminist literature. As already discussed in previous chapters, while the
linking of women’s two mouths (and thereby female eloquence and sexual promiscuity) can be
traced to classic antiquity, the idea of women as the gate of hell has its roots in patristic writings. In
addition, here I analyse the development of the motif in its iconographical forms, especially as it
appear depicted in the fourteenth-century illuminated manuscripts of the Ovide moralisé. Both the
textual and visual components of Ovidian manuscript tradition accessed by Boccaccio may have
informed the gigantic somatopia of the widow's genitalia in Il Corbaccio, that is to say, the grotesque
presentation of the woman's physicality assuming the shape of the infernal landscape. However,
this device responds to Il Corbaccio's parodic strategy consisting of both echoing the misogynist
rhetoric and pushing it to its most absurd extremes. The antifeminist harangue is thus framed in
such an immoderate and unreasonable manner that it becomes ultimately devoid of any seriousness
and verisimilitude.

The chapter later focuses on the Ovidian parodic use of elegiac motives of female laughter and
mockery, especially as they are reworked by Boccaccio to depict the widow laughing at his alter-
ego's passionate love letter, while indiscreetly sharing it with her young paramour. Here once again
the widow appears as an embodiment of the misogynistic motif of the hellmouth, since her laughing
is connected to both her verbal and sexual unruliness. However, I propose that Boccaccio not only
makes parodic (and self-parodic) use of the motif of female laughter, but also echoes Ovid’s concept
of rumour as a source for writing. Ovid’s erotodidactic poems are famously predicated on sexual
gossip. Likewise, some passages of his Metamorphoses established a lasting bond between rumour
and literature which was subsequently replicated by medieval writers like Boccaccio, De Meun and
Chaucer. The intersection of gossip and artistic innovation collides and colludes with the
misogynistic cliché of women's verbal unruliness, given rise to paradoxes that are also exploited by
Boccaccio.

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As indicated earlier in this study, men’s defamation and evil-speaking is one specific aspect of
rumour embodied by the figure of Malebouche, literally “Bad Mouth." This personification allegory
first features in the Roman de la Rose, where he is depicted finding flaws and fault in every woman.
Both laughter and gossip are censored by Malebouche as examples of female defects:

“Il n’est nule qui ne s’en rie

S’ele ot parler de lecherie” (3901-2)

[“There is not a woman who does not laugh when she hears talk of loose living”]374

I have previously alluded to Malebouche in connection with medieval conduct literature, where
laughter was often deemed an unbecoming behaviour that might cause a woman to lose her
reputation. The current chapter delves deeper into this character as a locus classicus for the topic
of the rumours and gossip spread about women, but also stresses the paradox linked to this
allegorical figure. Malebouche spread malicious gossip about women while complaining about their
unrestrained speech and verbal dishonesty, thus turning misogynistic tropes against himself. Such
a paradox intensifies when the emblematic slanderer becomes a type for the writer of antifeminist
literature, as I suggest occurs in Il Corbaccio.

Antifeminist literature frequently warns men about women’s misuse of language and endows them
with the clichéd reputation for gossip and garrulity. In an ingenious twist, male anxiety about the
circulation of women’s speech becomes a theme in Il Corbaccio. Hence the spirit-guide's complaint
that his ex-wife had a fetid mouth (bocca fetida). And hence likewise the widow is accused of sharing
the narrator's love letters with her lovers and publicly slandering him. Moreover, the narrator cites
her foul verbosity as the reason why he fell in despair and turned his hand to writing his little book.
The resulting work, however, reads as an exhibition of malevolent hatred and an attempt at sullying
the honour of the widow. The major paradox behind this is that, while Il Corbaccio's male characters
blame women for misusing language, they are at the same time guilty of the misconduct with which
women are charged. Such a paradox can be seen as the cornerstone of a maze devised by Boccaccio
to entangle the misogynists in their own theories. Within the logic of this device, the misogynistic

374 Horgan, 59.

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arguments ultimately turn against their own promoters, revealing their true identity as male
scandalmongers whose tongues are uncontrollable in gossip, slander and backbiting.

A mock antifeminist treatise

Guyda Armstrong notes that, compared with the corpus of misogynist and misogamist literature, an
original aspect of Boccaccio's work is the peculiar arrangement of the antifeminist polemic within a
“realistic” narrative frame.375 The narrator begins his account by introducing himself wide awake
amid the painful isolation of his chamber, thinking about the vicissitudes of carnal love and assailed
by suicidal thoughts. Fortunately, he is visited by heaven-sent inspiration or enlightening thought
(pensiero). The pensiero eventually helps the desperate scholar to recover the will to live and accept
things just the way they are. The framing situation ends with the narrator hanging out with his
friends, amused in philosophical discussions that cheer his heart and mind. Curiously, the spurned
lover is already consoled when he goes to bed and slips into his dream-vision.

As Hollander has rightly noted, the narrative situation framing the antifeminist content, instead of
strengthening it, contributes to discredit it. Here we meet the first of the many contradictions of Il
Corbaccio since the narrator seems to have recovered the right way of wisdom, without needing
either to undertake a hazardous journey or to compose a book based on such an experience.
Likewise, adds Hollander, while all this early reasoning follows conventional wisdom of a most
familiar Boethian strain, revenge is a crucial point in which the pensiero appears strikingly (and, most
likely, deliberately) at odds with the advice which Philosophy's wisdom offers to his pupil and patient
Boethius in the Consolation of Philosophy.376 In this regard, the framing situation reveals important
clues that our narrator is a fallible one; the fact that he appears as a neglected scholar and definitely
a bad reader of Boethius should prevent us from taking him seriously.377

375 Guyda Armstrong, “Boccaccio and the Infernal Body: The Widow as Wilderness,” in Boccaccio and Feminist Criticism,
ed. Thomas C. Stillinger and F. Regina Psaki (Chapel Hill, NC: Annali d’Italianistica, 2006), 87.
376 Hollander, 7.
377 Kriesel compares the weakened and neglected scholarship of the narrator of Il Corbaccio with that of Rinieri, the young

protagonist of Decameron VIII.7, who is also a scholar and interrupts his studies to court a widow. In shaping the narrator
of Il Corbaccio, Boccaccio would have tried to specify the identity of the scholar as a bad reader in more overt terms to
warn humanists misguided by elegiac fantasies. The scholar-narrator not only misread the classics but also he cannot even
read the true intentions of a supposedly uneducated women, though well read in elegiac discourses, such as the widow.

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Once in his dream journey, Boccaccio’s scholar resembles Dante's pilgrim, who can pass through the
afterlife with the certainty that he is going to leave the place, as though he wakes up from a
nightmare. He walks through a delightful and beautiful path (dilettevole e bel sentiero) which
abruptly turns into a dark valley overgrown with a tangled forest of knots and harsh trees,
brushwoods, thorns and brambles, surrounded with rugged mountains and inhabited by savage
animals. Shortly afterwards, the spirit of the widow’s husband reveals to the narrator that those
beasts he still hears growling all around are a crowd of wretches —of whom he is one—who have
been caught in the net of false love.378 They are actually speaking of their lovesickness, but when
they do so their voices have no other sound in the ears of well-disposed men of discretion than
howls and roars. For that reason, the spirit-guide calls that realm a "labyrinth" because men become
trapped in it as they did in that of old, without ever knowing the way out. Although both the narrator
and his guide seem to assume this desolate and infernal landscape as a passing place, the text
provides various hints about their kinship with those roaring men almost indistinguishable from
beasts.379

As he comes to realise before the guide, his recent behaviour has debased him to "a beast without
intellect” (una bestia senza intelletto). He regrets having fallen madly in love with an unworthy
woman who was already engaged to a younger man, whom the neighbours call “the second
Absalom" (il secondo Ansalone). Along with his elderly age, the narrator's erudition is likewise
invoked as an aggravating factor by the guide who laments that, having studied his whole life, his
judgment had utterly failed, letting himself be easily pleased and deceived by falling into the
clutches of his ex-wife. Cassel and Kirkham note that the scholar’s predicament reminds of the motif
of the Circean spell, that is, the fate of men trapped by animal passion, a descent into a lower state
which traditionally represents an opportunity of breaking the wicked enchantment through moral
recovery. But, unlike Dante, no matter how far the narrator wanders on his dream-journey, he never
shrinks the distance toward wisdom nor gets back to the right track. His passage through the

See James C. Kriesel, Boccaccio's Corpus: Allegory, Ethics, and Vernacularity (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
2019), 223-4.
378 Questa misera valle è quella corte che tu chiami “d'Amore” e quelle bestie che tu di' che udite hai e odi mugghiare sono

I miseri, de' quali tu se' uno, dal fallace amore inretiti. Nurmela, 57 [This wretched valley is what you call ‘The Court of
Love’; and these beasts, which you say you heard and hear growling, are the wretches —of whom you are one— who have
been caught in the net of false love] Cassell, 14.
379 As Penelope Doob has described it, Boccaccio’s labyrinth of love is a place where the male shades chitchat and where

their cursing is heard as the raven's croaking. See Penelope Doob, The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity
through the Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1990), 170.

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Labyrinth of Love should be read as a failed conversion, which leaves the pilgrim right where he
started, enmeshed in love-hatred and revenge.380

The interwinding of autobiographical fiction and dreamed journey works as a double-edged device.
On the one hand, it endows more credibility to Boccaccio's literary alter-ego as warrantor for his
own account. On the other hand, it eventually diminishes the righteousness or merit of both Il
Corbaccio’s speakers and the authoritative arguments they mouth, preventing us from taking
misogyny as a serious discourse. It is not by chance that the scholar's purification, transfiguration,
and transformation, are contingent on the light and wisdom of a spiritual guide who is not a saint,
the personification of Philosophy or a revered ancient author worthy of imitation, but a pathetic
shade of a cuckolded husband. As Migiel suggests, the authority of the spirit-guide is put into
question since he is overly attached to worldly things and, just like his pupil, is driven by a frenzied
spirit of revenge.381 Such a guide appears far from trustworthy. Moreover, there are blatant flaws
in his discourse debasing its authority and calling into question its alleged healing effects over the
dreamer-narrator. Misreading also seems to be a key element in the portrait of the narrator's guide.
He twists Catholic teaching, just as his humanist pupil contradicts philosophical wisdom.382

380 See Anthony K. Cassell and Victoria Kirkham, "Introduction," in Diana's Hunt, Caccia di Diana: Boccaccio's First Fiction,
ed. and trans. Anthony K. Cassell and Victoria Kirkham (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), 62, 93 n.41.
381 Marilyn Migiel, “Boccaccio and Women,” in The Cambridge Companion to Boccaccio, ed. Guyda Armstrong et al

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 172. In spite of his mean passions, the guide claims he does not belong to
that enchanted valley inhabited by beastly grumbler men. He introduces himself as a quasi-Virgilian figure, who dwells in
Purgatory and has been sent by the divine authority —specifically, at the behest of the Virgin Mary— to help the narrator
to come back to his senses. In this respect, Boccaccio’s Labyrinth of Love clearly dialogues with Dante’s Inferno, the place
par excellence of divine vendetta. Jason Houston notes that the emphasis on hatred, vilification and personal revenge
clashes with Dantean ethics and language. Particularly, the peculiar pleasure the spirit-guide takes in being the agent of
vendetta and in convincing the scholar that vengeance falls in line with proper Christian morals, demonstrates a
misreading of the Dantean system of justice in Inferno where divine justice reigns. See Jason M. Houston, Building a
Monument to Dante: Boccaccio as “Dantista” (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010), 118. For a thorough analysis
of the Dantean elements of Il Corbaccio, see Hollander, 39-42.
382 Among the misguiding arguments wielded by the guide, Kriesel highlights his claims that women's many moral failings

are grounded in —and tainted by— their corporeality, starting with the first woman in the world, whose gluttony,
disobedience and persuasions were the origin of all miseries. The first man, on the contrary, does not seem to bear any
responsibility for the original sin, or at least this event did not diminish masculine nobleness and power. Therefore, the
guide argues that a woman is an imperfect beast-like creature (la femina è animale imperfetto), while man is a perfect
animal (animale perfetto), made in the image and semblance of God, meant to rule and not to be ruled, and ultimately
declares that man was created just a little below the angels (poco minore che gli angeli) in the hierarchy of being. The
guide’s argument, however, proves to be conspicuously fallacious from a doctrinal standpoint. He does not only uphold a
rather binary, polarizing way of categorizing men and women, but also, as Kriesel notes, he falls in a fierce denial of
corporeality to represent the metaphysical and spiritual, even to the extreme of denying the basis of the catholic doctrine
of the Incarnation. The guide’s argument is that, although women may boast of the femininity of the Virgin Mary and thus
pose the possibility of being an image of her, their tainted corporeality negates any similarity they have to an incorporeal
Mother of God who is formed of quintessence to be the dwelling place of Christ’s incarnation. Men, instead, can perfectly
reflect the image of God but only because they have transcended their bodies and the material. Therefore, both to
preserve his anticorporeal theory and for the sake of consistency of his misogynous argument, the guide must “obfuscate

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Based on the above, Il Corbaccio constitutes neither a fluke nor a twist in Boccaccio’s literary
production, nor should it be read as a sincere retraction of his previous commitments by a former
exalter of women suddenly converted into the arch-slander of the feminine sex.383 Rather than a
personal narrative by Boccaccio, it should be read as both a summa of medieval misogyny and a
parody of antifeminist literature. To be more precise, Boccaccio's literary game relies on the use of
parody to both articulate the antifeminist tradition and leave it in disgrace.384 As Morson contends,
parody discredits a given act of speech by redirecting the reader's attention from its text to a
compromising context or the occasion of its uttering, as it is created by the parodist.385 In the case
of Il Corbaccio this mechanism also entails the deliberate self-diminishing of the authorial voice
inscribed in the work.386 In other words, what we witness here is a focus-shift from the authoritative
sources of antifeminist arguments to the laughable figure of the misogynist or the producer of such
discourses against women. Accordingly, Il Corbaccio reads as a mock antifeminist treatise, a parodic
discourse whose actual target is not women, but rather what Howard Bloch describes as the
repetitive monotony in what misogynists have to say about women.387

In fact, in Il Corbaccio’s longstanding misogynous arguments are carried to such an extreme as to

defeat the very end they aim at. Particularly, the spirit-guide's inflammatory rhetoric becomes too
extravagantly disproportionate even for the antifeminist genre. This occurs, for example, when
stating that women are not just imperfect creatures excited by a thousand foul passions but the

the fact that God made a gendered embodiment of the divine when ‘writing’ salvation history,” and thus tacitly denies
the basis of the catholic doctrine of the Incarnation. See Kriesel, 225-6.
383 Critics also offer a third path for understanding Boccaccio's apparent turn away from his old 'feminism' in his strident

antifeminist invective. In this regard, Perfetti, commenting the fact that Boccaccio wrote works both for praising women
and blaming women, includes Boccaccio among those male-authors that, before and after him, enjoyed playing "that most
masculine of scholarly games, in which authors demonstrate that they can master both sides of the debate." See Perfetti,
Women and laughter, 97. However, in my view, the narrow understanding of Il Corbaccio as a deployment of rhetorical
versatility by Boccaccio overlooks the elements of self-conscious parody undermining authorial authority inscribed in the
work, as it is presented in self-flaunting, or even self-defeating terms.
384 According to David Lodge, “parody borrows a style and applies it to expressive purposes that are in some sense the

reverse of the original purpose, or at least incongruous with it.” See David Lodge, After Bakhtin: Essays on Fiction and
Criticism (London & New York: Routledge, 1990), 101.
385 Morson, 71.
386 It is worth noting that this mechanism can be seen from the title of the work. As Letizia Panizza states, “[t]he title itself,

Il Corbaccio, offers a typical medieval play on Boccaccio’s name. It inverts the first part, turning bocca, ‘mouth,’ into corba,
‘crow’ or ‘raven,’ and keeps –accio as a suffix qualifying the noun, suggesting something huge, ugly, coarse, or unpleasant.
Boccaccio playfully inverts his name, transforming a ‘big, vulgar writer of novelle’ into a ‘big, ugly, coarse crow/raven’
bearing harsh news. See Letizia Panizza, “Rhetoric and Invective in Love’s Labyrinth (Il Corbaccio),” in Boccaccio: a critical
guide to the complete works, ed. Victoria Kirkham, Michael Sherberg, and Janet Levarie Smarr (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 2013), 184.
387 Bloch, Medieval Misogyny, 2.

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filthiest creatures, that even the pig when he is most wallowed in mud, is not as foul as they are.388
The diatribe rises towards a continuous crescendo, intensifying and magnifying its tone and reaching
lurid proportions through a range of grotesque descriptions of the widow’s body, especially her
genitalia which is described either as an obscure valley, a gulf, or a port with capacity for many ships
at once. Ironically and revealingly so, the very Labyrinth of Love, also called the “pigsty of Venus” by
the guide, becomes a feminine landscape, or visual somatopia, to borrow the term coined by Darby
Lewes to name a geographical place "simultaneously composed of female bodies and designed for
male bodily satisfaction.”389 The narrator and his guide are literally dwelling in the female body they
claim to abhor.

As will be shown in the next section, Boccaccio's literary joke becomes apparent by taking grotesque
dimensions when the guide intends a drastic cure to quell the narrator's love. Such a cure consists
of looking beneath the cloaks of the widow (dell'occulte parti coperte da' vestimenti), stripping a
space the narrator has never seen before and the guide feels entitled to describe in detail, as one
would expect from an ex-husband. But the widow’s nether region and the infernal landscape where
the two men are dialoguing are one and the same. When reaching that point, it becomes
overwhelmingly apparent that the actual model behind the healing process occurring in Il Corbaccio
is not the Boethian Consolation —where Philosophy is the healer and Boethius the patient in
desperate need. Although the narrator and his guide are not noted for being the most attentive
readers, this bit of the guide's speech stays true to Ovid from whom Boccaccio, in turn, has learnt
this particular remedy of love.

Dwelling in her defects

The presence of Ovid's Remedia Amoris in the spirit-guide’s long tirade revealing to the narrator all
the imperfections, artifices and defects of women has been long discussed. Edward Hulton, in his
Giovanni Boccaccio. A biographical study (first published in 1910), described the guide's speech as
only comparable to the brutality and grossness exhibited by Ovid when concocting his remedies of
love.390 Hollander has also pointed out the similarities between Il Corbaccio and the Remedia Amoris

388 "La femina è animale imperfetto, passionato da mille passioni spiacevoli e abbominevoli pure a ricordarsene, non che

a ragionarme...Niuno altro animale è meno netto di lei; non il porco, quale ora è più nel loto, agiugne alla bruttezza di lei.”
Nurmela, 71.
389 Darby Lewes, Nudes from Nowhere: Utopian Sexual Landscape (Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), 3.
390 See Edward Hulton, Giovanni Boccaccio: A Biographical Study (Hastings: Delphi Classics, 2017), 182.

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as a clue to the problematic nature of the spirit-guide's advice. However, he recognizes that
Boccaccio was a sensitive reader of Ovid's erotodidactic poems, works intended for mock lovers
about their ridiculous behaviour. Particularly, Boccaccio demonstrates affinity for and
understanding of the comic strategies used by Ovid in his lessons on how to break the spell of
infatuation and cure oneself of love.391 From this view, Boccaccio had indeed in mind the Remedia
Amoris while writing Il Corbaccio, nevertheless he employed it to disrupt the common stock of
misogynistic lore.

I now want to delve deeper into the presence of the Remedia in Il Corbaccio by focusing on the way
in which a specific Ovidian piece of advice is elaborated by the Italian poet in his last fiction.
According to the preaceptor amoris seeking revenge and hating a woman once loved is both a crime
and an end fitting to savage minds (Rem. 655-6: Sed modo dilectam scelus est odisse puellam:/
Exitus ingeniis convenit iste feris). The most advisable in order to heal from lovesickness is to be cool
and indifferent, while letting passion vanish gently and without haste. However, the praeceptor’s
advice is, as usual, contradictory. In another passage of the Remedia, he urges his pupils to focus on
the many defects, falseness and hypocrisy of their mistress, as they can provide them with the seed
of hatred they need to unlearn love (Rem. 303-308: Haec tibi per totos inacescant omnia
sensus:/Haec refer, hinc odii semina quaere tui). Thus, while on the one hand a man should refrain
from revenge, avoid hating or showing contempt for his former lover —since such reactions just
prove that either he loves still, or will find it hard to end his misery— on the other hand, he is also
encouraged to dwell on all his mistress’ flaws and foster hatred, since intentionally cultivated
revulsion is needed to displace and supress past love.392 This particular Ovidian medicine has clearly

391 Even though Il Corbaccio contains few evident quotations of the Remedia Amoris, Hollander highlights the importance

of Ovid's authorial stance and strategy as model for his last work. Likewise, Boccaccio’s parodic work can be read as an
Ovidian retractio, as a playful "confessio amantis”. See Hollander, 37-9.
392 To give disjointed and incongruous advice is a characteristic trait of Ovid's speaker, a feature clearly inherited by Il

Corbaccio’s narrator who suffers from chronic fickleness and often runs into contradictions—what Gian Piero Barricelli
has called “the two-way tonality”, which is exemplified by the narrator's phrase “ciò che mi pareva davanti, ora mi pare il
contrario”, that is, "I now think the opposite of what I thought before." See G.P. Barricelli, “Satire of Satire: Boccaccio’s
Corbaccio.” Italian Quarterly, 18 (1975), 104-5. Ovid's shifting positions in the Remedia on whether or not the former
beloved needs to be hated may likewise have influenced the ambivalence shown by the scholar-narrator of Il Corbaccio,
who flaunts his Boethian vision of the world as a fleeting site of loss and forgetting, only to then embrace vengeance as if
it were a praiseworthy form of behaviour. It is worth mentioning that, according to the inconstant advice of the praeceptor,
a sense of goodwill towards the former romantic partner should be understood as a healing symptom while harbouring
hatred, or having thoughts of revenge against her is a sign that the disease has not been eradicated (Rem. 557-8: Non
curare sat est: odio qui finit amorem,/aut amat, aut aegre desinit esse miser). The praeceptor also asserts that as soon as
a man can embrace his love rival he can be considered cured. Judging by his great resentment against both the widow and
the so-called “second Absalom", such a healing effect would be far from being experienced by the scholar narrator of Il
Corbaccio.

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inspired the harshest method prescribed by the spirit-guide to purge and cure the narrator’s
lovesickness in Il Corbaccio.

In Boccaccio’s time, the harshness of some techniques to extinguish love included in the Remedia
had already earned Ovid a prominent place among those writers accused of hating women. As with
the author of Il Corbaccio, this judgment is the likely consequence of an over-literal interpretation
of Ovid's mock instructional poems. What is certain is that both works prescribe a process of
desensitization towards women's charms underlining its value for the subsequent cure of love. Both
the spirit-guide and the praeceptor put their pupils (and the readers) in the position of a voyeur and
invite a morbid gaze at the female body, displayed not for the lust of the viewer, but with a
grotesque emphasis in its most unseemly aspects, in the hope of making it as undesirable as
obscenely comical. The spirit-guide is, in fact, emulating Ovid's speaker, who asserts that the remedy
for lovesickness must be as harsh as Cupid's arrows (Rem. 435-6: adtrahet ille puer contentos fortius
arcus/ saucia maiorem turba petetis open). However, although the techniques to free oneself from
an unrequited love can be overly cruel, as a coach of men who want to fall out of love Ovid is clearly
satirical. So too is Boccaccio when echoing Ovid in the guide's tirade.

In the Remedia the praeceptor begins his healing method by asking his pupils to force themselves
to turn their mistresses' perfections into defects or possibly worse, which should not be that
complicated to achieve since evil things are neighbours to good (Rem. 323: et mala sunt vicina
bonis). First the lover must feign distaste towards the charms he used to extol in his former partner.
A second procedure may be to exacerbate his beloved's natural defects or shortcomings as much as
possible, for instance, by taking her for a walk if her gait is awkward or telling her something to make
her laugh if her teeth are ugly. Another advice is to arrive unexpectedly to catch her unarmed
(inermen), not wearing any makeup or jewellery, so the lover can contemplate her true artless
appearance.

The rawness of this process of quenching the flame of love intensifies. The praeceptor manages to
engage in coarse joking while pretending to maintain a regard for a certain decorum. Thus, he admits
he is embarrassed to say what he is going to say anyway (Rem. 407: Et pudet, et dicam) and
subsequently counsels a technique to make the intercourse with the beloved as repelling as
possible. The same device is used again shortly afterwards. Thousand are the forms of disease,

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thousand the methods of cure, the praeceptor asserts. Therefore, no technique should be taken for
granted. There are lovers whose passion vanishes as soon as they catch sight of their mistress’
obscene parts (Rem. 429: obscenas in aperto corpore partes).393 Some others fall out of love when
seeing the couch soiled by shameful marks left by a woman (Rem. 432: inmundo signa pudenda
toro). And one may even wonder: what about that man who hides as his girl does her nasty business
(reddente obscena puella), and secretly see what custom forbids us to see? God forbid I should
advise anyone to do such a thing!, exclaims the praeceptor, and then he adds: Granted, it works,
but it's just not done (Rem. 439-40: Di melius quam nos moneamus talia quemquam/ ut prosint,
non sunt expedienda tamen).394

Commenting on this passage, Jane Burkowski observes that Ovid's speaker shows awareness of his
own boundary-pushing. For this reason, he declares he would never advise techniques such as
examining sexual secretions or spying on a woman at her chamber pot, though he has essentially
just advised them. Nonetheless, Ovid introduces a false embarrassment and claims to be bound by
generic and social convention, while consistently managing to “twist these same conventions to
make them act entirely contrary to their usual purpose, using them not genuinely to curb himself
but to humorously afford to articulate the obscene.”395

Much like Ovid’s speaker, the spirit-guide of Il Corbaccio anticipates reproaches from the narrator
(and the readers), and apologizes in advance for the raw nature of his speech:

393 Meaning, literally, obscene parts in an open body (aperto corpore).

394 Ovid's salacious advice on how to suppress and extinguish sexual attraction is somehow evoked in a range of medieval
medical treatises. A good example is the fourteenth-century Lilium medicinale by the physician Bernard of Gordon (1258-
1318), where he tackles a variant of melancholia associated with amor hereos — an illness named after noblemen and
lords of the manor often overcome this affliction— caused by love for a woman and the subsequent distortion of
judgement that leads the lovesick to deem her to be the most beautiful, the most worthy of respect, the most
extraordinary with the best built, in body and soul, that there can be. After listing both gentle and strong methods, Doctor
Bernard of Gordon prescribes forcing besotted lovers to anatomize an old horrible shrew and look under her cloaks as a
last resort for healing. "Under her clothes the old woman should wear a rag soaked in menstrual blood. In full view of the
patient, she should first utter the worst invectives regarding the woman he loves and, if that proves useless, she should
remove the rag from her bosom, wave it under the nose of the unhappy man, and shout in his face: Your friend, she is like
this, she is like this! [...] If, after all that, he does not change his mind, concludes the doctor, then he is not a man but the
devil incarnate." Quoted in Ioan P. Couliano, Eros and Magic in the Renaissance, trans. Margaret Cook (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1987), 20. Giles notes that by the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries Ovid had been transformed into a
lovesick poet-physician. In this regard, Pseudo-Ovidian medieval Latin fiction, such as De Vetula, were influenced by
medical treatise such as Avicenna's popular therapy of finding an "old woman to disparage the beloved, speaking of her
stinking disposition." A similar remedium is pursued by the guide of Il Corbaccio, though the figuration of the beloved
woman as revolting does not recourse to the talents of a horrible shrew but completely relies on the guide's debasing
language. See Giles, 8.
395 Jane Burkowski, “Puellae gently glow: scent, sweat, and the real in Latin love elegy and Ovid’s didactic works,” in Bodily

fluids in Antiquity, ed. Mark Bardley, Victoria Leonard and Laurence Totelin (New York: Routledge, 2021), 83.

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 Tu forse hai teco medesimo detto o potresti dire: "Che cose sono quelle di che costui parla;
chente il modo, chenti sono i vocaboli; o convengons'elle a niuno, non che a uomo onesto
e il quale ha li passi diritti verso l'etterna gloria?396

[You perhaps have said to yourself, or might say, 'What is it this fellow is talking about?
What way is that to talk? What words are these to use? Or, ‘Are they fitting to anyone, not
to mention an honourable man, and one who has his steps directed towards eternal
glory?]397

However, from this point on, the guide's speech will be entirely focused in stripping the true (and
abominable) nature of his ex-wife —a ludicrous contradiction, given that not long before he had
reproached the narrator for intruding beneath the mantles of a widow, or rather, beneath those of
devils (vai cercando sotto il mantelli delle vedove, anzi de’ diavoli). However, drawing on the
Remedia, the guide adopts the voice of a physician orator and justifies his move by arguing that a
harsh treatment must be endured to heal an equally-severe illness. An astute doctor (discreto
medico) knows that there are some illnesses and patients that often require foul-smelling remedies
(odoriferi unguenti medicato). Similarly, the cure for the narrator's malady can only be achieved
through a nasty medicine consisting of stinking arguments and demonstrations (con argomenti con
dimostrazioni puzzolenti), since a fetid word (una fetida parola) would be more effective than a
thousand pleasant and honest persuasions.

In Il Corbaccio Boccaccio implements Ovid's advice on debasing the object of desire by merciless
contemplation of her defects. The guide literally anatomizes the widow's body, describing it in terms
of putrid ugliness. Armstrong has noted that, as the visual stripping progresses in a leisurely descent
from face to waist, the depiction of the woman becomes increasingly depersonalized, until all that
remains is the description of her sexual organs.398 The description of the female body also exploits
the metaphorical equation between women’s upper and lower mouth. Thus, when telling how his
former wife used to wake up with a pitiable look, the guide warns the narrator about her morning

396 Nurmela, 109.

397 Cassell, 52.
398 Armstrong, 88-90.

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cough with phlegm which he compares with a load of dung or a mountain of manure (monte di
letame). Shortly afterwards, when the guide addresses the widow's sexual organs, he equates them
either to a gigantic gulf or a port whose mouth is so enormous that can receive many ships at once:
La bocca, per la quale nel porto s’entra, è tanta e tale che, quantunque il mio legnetto con
assai grande albero navigasse, non fu già mai, qualunque ora l’acque furono minori, che io
non avesse, senza sconciarmi di nulla, a un compagno, che con non minore albero di me
navigato fosse, fatto luogo. Deh, che dich’io? L’armata del Re Ruberto, qualora egli la fece
maggiore, tutta insieme concatenata, senza calar vela o tirare in alto temone, a grandissimo
agio vi potrebbe essere entrata… Egli è per certo quel golfo una voragine infernale.399

[The mouth through which the port is entered is of such size that although my little bark
sailed with quite a tall mast, never was there a time, even though the waters were narrower
then, that I might not have made room for a companion sailing with a mast no less than
mine without disturbing myself in the least. Ah, what am I saying? King Robert's armada all
chained together at the time that he enlarged it could have entered there with the greatest
of ease without lowering its sails or raising its rudders… That gulf then is certainly an infernal
abyss.]400

Several scholars have called attention to the intertwining between the revolting female body
recreated by the guide and the infernal geography that surrounds the two interlocutors. According
to Psaki, the harsh valley witnessed by the narrator during the opening sequence of his dream vision
prefigures, and is quoted by, the guide's descriptions of the widow's private parts.401 The widow's
sexual organs are described in scatological terms, as an infernal, polluted, hyperbolic landscape. In
this respect, Simone Marshall also notes that the Labyrinth of Love has been devised as specifically
female in nature.402 Such a nature also explains that the enticing path, through which the labyrinth
is accessed, is smoothly traversed by the narrator, who feels like a winged being flying over the
ground, and then is propelled by a frantic impulse to rush, culminating in an abrupt halt in the midst
of a changed, unpleasant path —a passage that reads as a sexual metaphor according to

399 Nurmela,113-14.
400 Cassell, 55-6.
401 Regina Psaki, "Boccaccio and Female Sexuality: Gendered and Eroticized Landscapes.” In The Flight of Ulysses: Studies

in Memory of Emmanuel Hatzantonis, ed. Augustus A. Mastri (Chapel Hill, NC: Annali d’Italianistica, 1997), 132.
402 Simone Marshall, The Female Voice in The Assembly of Ladies: Text and Context in Fifteenth-Century England

(Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 29.

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Armstrong.403 In this vein, the descent into the widow's innermost nature can be read in accordance
with the Ovidian advice to repentant lovers (catch your mistress "inermem", off guard). Getting
through the Labyrinth of Love can be considered —at least in a first approach— as equivalent to
descent into the defenceless feminine body, that is, a body without its seductive adornment in the
form of cosmetics and jewellery. As Doob suggests, the path's delightfulness is only an appearance
masking its true ugliness, as can be expected from women who seem beautiful “because cosmetics
and clothing mask their true deformity.”404

Continuing the logic of Ovid’s remedium, the guide expects to make his pupil overcome his lust for
the widow by shockingly exposing him to her true nature —the same aim the narrator wishes his
male audience could achieve through his text. However, the remedy turns out to be worse than the
malady. The dead husband spares no effort to provide this lavish geographical description of his ex-
wife's nether regions, including fantastic toponymy such as of the Gulf of Setalia, the Valley of the
Acheron and the village of Evilhole with its rivers of blood and urine. Such a grossly and wilfully
outrageous picture produces both repugnance and laughter. After all, the exaggerated and
extravagant nature of the guide’s tirade cannot be taken straight and seriously. Such a hyperbolic
extravagance eventually undermines Il Corbaccio's stated purpose to be read as an edifying and
even redemptive treatise. Quite the contrary, the effect becomes frankly comical once we notice
that the two men are actually trapped inside the body they wish to give up. In other words, after
the stripping tour through the widow’s body, the debased nature of both the guide and his pupil is
equally exposed. Both are held captive under the mantles of the widow, likely with no way out.

The Hellmouth

Commenting on the sheer excess and extravagance of Boccaccio’s infernal somatopia, some critics
have suggested that it bears a resemblance to —and somehow foreshadows— the vehement,
grotesque style of the sixteenth-century French writer François Rabelais.405 Though Boccaccio’s last

403 Armstrong, 86.

404 Doob, 170.
405 See, for instance, Psaki, “Boccaccio’s Corbaccio,” 118, and Armstrong, 94. An extrapolation of the motif of the

hellmouth can be found in Rabelais's Pantagruel (second book, chapters XXXII - XXXIII) when a pilgrim who has been
swallowed by mistake by this giant king finds himself in a "nouveau monde.” Then a whole army of men descends through
Pantagruel's mouth into his stomach where cities and villages are found in abundance. See François Rabelais, Gargantua
and Pantagruel, trans. J. M. Cohen. (Baltimore: Penguin, 1955), 272-75. In his analyses of Rabelais’ works, Bakhtin
underlines the idea of its grotesque physicality as revealing "two bodies in one” as can be found in images either of being

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fiction is somewhat unusual in its depiction of the widow's grotesque physicality, seen from beneath
and inflated with mordant hyperbole, there are contemporary sources for comparison which cannot
be neglected. Along with the above-mentioned Ovidian verbal remedies, the visual imagination
complementing medieval reception of Ovid's works offers another source from where Boccaccio
may have drawn inspiration for his grotesque imagery. In this regard, it is worthwhile discussing the
iconographic tradition for the hellmouth, which is also present in Christian allegorical
interpretations of Ovid's mythological narratives. Likewise, as Armstrong suggests, Boccaccio’s
depiction of the underworld as an image of both the womb and woman's genitalia represents the
culmination —at once shocking in its rawness and laughable in its absurdity— of the rhetoric of
denigration of women in medieval misogynist tradition.406 In such a rhetorical tradition the
grotesque linkage between female genitalia and the hellmouth was a stock motif.

As Sandy Bardsley remarks, by the late Middle Ages, the hellmouth had become a widely known
metaphor, meaning either an entrance of hell, the mouth as a site of evil, or speech as a possible
form of sin.407 When representing the Last Judgement, mystery plays used to stage a hellmouth as
a visual devise; often in the shape of the gaping mouth of a whale or a dragon, its role was to swallow
the sinning souls damned for eternity.408 Likewise, the image of a monstruous mouth devouring the
dead became a common iconographical feature of Christian art. Of particular relevance to the
discussion here are the miniature depictions of the hellmouth used in fourteenth-century
illuminated manuscripts of the Ovide moralisé. The grotesque gaping monster's mouth as the
entrance to hell illustrates the myth of Eurydice’s death and Orpheus’ attempt to bring her back
from Pluto’s realm. Marilynn Desmond and Pamela Sheingorn note that the visual narrative of
Orpheus and Euridice in the Ovide moralisé draws on an interpretative tradition within which

swallowed, pregnancy or in the bodily underworld. According to Bakhtin, in the grotesque imagery the body is never
presented as an indivisible whole since "from one body a new body always emerges in some form or another.” Likewise,
the grotesque body is never stable, unchanging entity, but "reflects a phenomenon in transformation, an as yet unfinished
metamorphosis, of death and birth, growth and becoming […] The other indispensable trait is ambivalence. For in this
image we find both poles of transformation, the old and the new, the dying and the procreating, the beginning and the
end of the metamorphosis." See Bakhtin, Rabelais, 24-6.
406 Armstrong, 96.
407 Sandy Bardsley, Venomous Tongues: Speech and Gender in Late Medieval England (Philadelphia: University of

Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 26.

408 For a discussion of hellmouths in mystery plays see Patricia Grace Dignan, Hellmouth and Villains: The Role of the

Uncontrolled Mouth in Four Middle English Mystery Cycles (Unpublished doctoral thesis. University of Cincinnati, 1994).

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Orpheus’ journey into Hades becomes assimilated with Christ's descent into Hell.409 Likewise,
Orpheus the musician is identified with both David the psalmist and Christ whose harp plays the
music of Christian doctrine.410 A fifteenth-century manuscript of Christine de Pizan’s Epistre Othéa
also depicts both Orpheus and his mistress dressed in contemporary fashion, at the moment of
Eurydice's vanishing under the ugly gaping of hellmouth, which is located in a distinctive medieval
setting, so that the underworld is clearly associated with the Christian hell and not the classical
Hades.

Figures 1 and 2. Illustrations of Eurydice's vanishing including the hellmouth. Ovide moralisé, 1316-1325. Bibliothèque de
Rouen, MS O.4, fols. 247r -248r.

409 Marilynn Desmond and Pamela Sheingorn, Myth, Montage, & Visuality in Late Medieval Manuscript Culture: Christine

de Pizan's Epistre Othea (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006), 103. For the fate of Orpheus’ myth in the Middle
Ages see John Block Friedman, Orpheus in the Middle Ages (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000).
410 Suzanne Conklin Akbari describes the Ovide moralisé as one of the main vehicles for the transmission of Ovid’s

Metamorphoses during the later Middle Ages, influencing the works of Chaucer and Christine de Pizan. See Suzanne
Conklin Akbari, "Ovid and Ovidianism," in The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature. Volume 1: 800–
1558, edited by Rita Copeland, 187–208. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Also see Carla Lord, “Three Manuscripts
of the Ovide moralisé,” The Art Bulletin, 57. 2 (1975): 161-175. Lord suggests that the thirteenth-century Bible moralisée
influenced the visual program of the Ovide moralisé, as it was conceived as a mythological prefiguration of the New
Testament. From the moralized versions of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the most extensive program of illustrations (453
miniatures) can be found in the earliest surviving manuscript: Rouen, Bibl. mun., O.4 (1315-20). Book 10 in the Rouen
manuscript opens with a miniature of Orpheus's bride being bitten and fatally injured by a serpent. Orpheus then descends
into Hades to ask for Eurydice's return, and the next miniature depicts him singing to the rulers of the underworld.

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Figure 3: Orpheus and Eurydice leaving Hell. From Christine de Pizan's Epistre Othéa, 1461. Brussels MS Bib. Royale 9392,
fol. 73v.

The motif of the hellmouth appears conflated with grotesque figurations of the feminine in patristic
writings. In late antiquity, Tertullian condemned women as the gate of the devil (diaboli ianua). The
feminized gate of Hell also features in Jerome's Vulgata, specifically in his translation of Proverbs
30:16 where he enumerates hell among the insatiable things, along with the mouth of the womb
(infernus et os vulvae et terra quae non satiatur aqua). In Boccaccio’s day the old image of the
hellmouth as a feminine gate or orifice had become a rhetorical formula and a literary
commonplace. The Rhetorica novissima by the Bolognese law master Boncompagno da Signa
(c.1165–c.1240) lists an exhaustive set of stock metaphors to be used when describing women, both
positive and negative, among which it can be read: “Her pubis can be transposed into a gate of
disorder or the mouth of the underworld.”411

In the Decameron Boccaccio humorously resorts to this image to make mockery of ecclesiastics and
ridicule theological language. This occurs, for example, in the tenth story of day three featuring a
pious hermit called Rustico who takes Alibech, a seemingly gullible young girl, into his hut. Since the
cohabitation soon awakens Rustico’s desire, he concocts a scheme. Pretending to perform a rite to

411 Quoted in Armstrong, 89.

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initiate Alibech into the mysteries of faith, he explains to her that when the devil becomes too
arrogant and angry he must be immediately placed in “hell” (rimettere il diavolo in Inferno). "Put
the devil back in the hell” is both a coarse male euphemism for sex and a religious metaphor
perfectly in keeping with the tradition according to which the hell is between her thighs. However,
Alibech soon takes a liking to the lecherous liturgy which eventually overwhelms the once-arrogant
devil. Finally, the unhappy hermit, who eats nothing but roots, has to beg for mercy. Thus, though
metaphorically, the devil is indeed devoured by the hellmouth.

The voracious appetite of the female hellmouth is likewise the leitmotif of the misogynist tirade
launched by the guide in Il Corbaccio, except that he does not seem to be aware that he and his
interlocutor are, in fact, the foolish devils already swallowed and absorbed by the bodily
underworld. Thus, the misogynistic metaphor is pushed to its most extreme and bizarre form. The
use of the motif is also in keeping with Boccaccio's general strategy in Il Corbaccio of echoing to
antifeminist rhetoric but in a way that, as described by Susan Signe Morrison, ends up being as
extreme and offensive as to discharge it of any verisimilitude.412

In Il Corbaccio the commonplace of the hellmouth is magnified to colossal proportions in the vast
geography framing the misogynist invective, thus becoming more than a metaphor for female
corruption or a symbol of the debased female body. In fact, the work invites the reader to imagine
the wide entrance into the depths of the female body as if it actually were the entrance to a bodily
underworld. In this regard, the most salient reference behind Boccaccio’s infernal topography of the
female body is the Dantean inferno whose architecture, as Robert Durling has argued, is grotesquely
structured as a parallel of human body, a correspondence that draws upon the traditional notion of
Satan’s perverse body as an infernal counterpart of the Body of Christ or the Church.413 Sinners are
thus thrown into this realm through the jaws of the hellmouth. Once engulfed, they are not
supposed to come back, as the grotesque marginalia of illuminated manuscripts, like those of the
Ovide moralisé, usually reminds us.414 Of course, Dante is a rare and honourable exception to this

412 Susan Signe Morrison, Excrement in the Late Middle Ages: Sacred Filth and Chaucer's Fecopoetics (New York: Palgrave

Macmillan, 2008), 49.

413 Robert Durling, “Deceit and Digestion in the Belly of Hell,” in Allegory and Representation, ed. by Stephen J. Greenblatt

(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), 61.

414 So too does Minos when warning Dante “be not deceived by the spacious entrance!" (Inf. 5. 20: non t'inganni l'ampiezza

de l’intrare). Alluding to Dante’s exceptional evacuation from Inferno, understood as a bodily realm, Sylvia Tomasch
suggests that he was ingested and then excreted to return to tell his tale. See Sylvia Tomasch, “Judecca, Dante's Satan,

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rule. Boccaccio's loudmouth misogynists, for their part, have lost the right to be counted among
those privileged who manage to be evacuated from the underworld.415 And apparently they have
not escaped, because the hell is in their own evil mouths, as will be discussed below.

The art of gossip

Just like the Remedia amoris, Il Corbaccio can be described as a witty artifact just apparently aimed
at saving suicidal disappointed lovers from their intended fates. Far from being genuine, these
concerns serve more as pretexts for putting the parody on march (Hollander 1988, 36). As
mentioned above, Il Corbaccio's narrator offers his book as a guide and consolation to young men,
but overtly declares his intention to take revenge on the widow by writing about her. While
recognizing his lovesickness over the widow has dragged him down to a bestial state, something
very shameful for a scholar who more than anyone else must cultivate the lucid mind, he keeps
ignoring either the moral or intellectual contradictions of going ahead with his vendetta. His
intellectual failure is nevertheless only one of the two things that led the scholar-narrator to utter
despair. Apparently, the second reason is an even greater source of shame which moved him to
eventually spread the word about the widow’s wickedness.

In his dialogue with his guide the narrator discloses that he is not just suffering from unrequited
love. Prior to that, the widow had provoked his advances, so he started writing passionate letters to
her only to find out later that she was actually teasing him. In particular, the narrator refers to one
carefully written letter, where he described in courteous terms his ardent desire for the widow, and
how she indiscreetly shared its content with her young lover, the scholar's main rival, whom he calls
"the second Absalom." The spirit-guide assures the narrator he himself witnessed the bedroom
scene when both his ex-wife and her lover were gossiping about him, while reading his letter with
amazing guffaws, calling him “driveller”, “nincompoop”, “filthy swine”, and other nicknames, while
embracing and kissing at every word.416 In sum, the scholar’s love letter gives the widow and her

and the Displaced Jew,” in Text and territory: Geographical Imagination in the European Middle Ages, ed. Sylvia Tomasch
and Sealy Gilles (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 261.
415 If we interpret Il Corbaccio through the lens of Bakhtin's grotesque realism, the vaginal hellmouth might suggest the

gate to death and rebirth, also implying the metaphorical womb in which the characters are paradoxically at the same
time enclosed and outflowing. At this stage, however, I am tempted by a different reading of Il Corbaccio as a parodic
inversion of Virgin Mary's sacred womb where God became a perfect man. The narrator and his guide, in contrast, only
get worse, as it has been shown throughout this chapter.
416 Cassell, 62-3.

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lover a cause for laughter. But they not only enjoy themselves by ruthlessly mocking the old scholar
but also scatter the gossip all about Florence, making public his pathetic love and making him a
laughingstock.

In the eighth day of the Decameron, Pampinea tells a story largely regarded as a precursor to Il
Corbaccio, featuring a beautiful widow who also mocks a scholar accompanied with another man.
Elena, the widow, has accepted the courtship of the young student Rinieri, but merely to flatter her
own vanity. Thus, we are told that the widow plays a beffa (joke) on the young student. She ditches
Rinieri in her house's inner courtyard and manages to keep him out there, in the middle of a frozen,
snowy night, without any cover. Meanwhile, she and her paramour are in a warm chamber,
comfortable and cosy, disporting themselves and laughing at the scholar’s misery. But such a cruel
treatment does not go unpunished.

Being the object of female gossip and derisive laughter triggers Rinieri’s revenge, just as it does in
the case of the old scholar narrator of Il Corbaccio. However, while in Decameron VIII.7 revenge is
the principal element of the plot, in Il Corbaccio the text itself becomes the vendetta while the act
of writing is presented as a form of retaliation towards the indiscreet woman. In this regard, it is
worth considering more closely the productive role played by idle gossip among writers influenced
by Ovid, not only supplying contents, but also as an incentive event triggering the creative process.

The cruel and disdainful laughter of a woman accompanied by the poet's rival is an old elegiac stock
motif widely exploited by Ovid, from whom Boccaccio likely borrowed it. As Merriam observes,
when depicting the motif Ovid echoes the kind of attitude that Roman elegists used to see in
women's laughter: “it is offensive, because it has the power to hurt, and because it puts the
beleaguered poet into an inferior position.”417 Women’s threatening laughter, especially if
accompanied by the exposure of their wide gaping mouth, can likewise be associated with the
misogynistic topos of the garrulous female in classical sources. This persistent stereotype in Western
misogynistic discursive tradition is ultimately grounded in the notion that women are naturally more
talkative than men, and hence more prone to gossip than men. The link between women and
gossiping remains also a staple of medieval antifeminist prejudice, as Bloch rightly points out.418 The

417 Merriam, 411.

418 Bloch, 15.

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old elegiac association between feminine laughter and sexual incontinence is likewise a remarkably
persistent motif, as illustrated by Boccaccio's indiscreet widows making fun of their scholarly suitors
while merrily lying in the arms of another lover.

The topic of the mistress laughing along with her lover at the poet's expense may certainly reflect
misogynistic anxiety about female power and the circulation of women’s speech. However, as
discussed in earlier chapters,419 Ovid’s attitude towards the motif of female laughter is far more
complex than that of the slanderous satirist. Rather, in a playfully parodic manner, Ovid pursues a
comic effect through which both literary conventions and his own authorial self-projection become
the object of ridicule. The elegiac motif of the mistress’ merciless laughter, echoed by her lover, was
also used by Boccaccio to humorously deflate himself or make evident the weaknesses and flaws of
his poetic alter ego.

Ovid’s engagement in the device of self-parody becomes particularly noticeable in Amores 1.8, the
famous passage depicting Dipsas’ “hetaira catechism” or her instruction to Ovid’s mistress on how
to be unfaithful, take many lovers, seek her own financial interests, and always value cash over
poverty. Ovid depicts himself eavesdropping Dipsas' instruction, which includes some malicious
comments about his worthlessness both as lover and as a poet. Paradoxically, while reporting
women's secret sermo, Ovid is in fact spreading the hearsay about himself and consequently
collaborating to undermine both his image of elegiac lover and as an artist. Thus, Ovid's overheard
snatch of talk not only serves as an excuse for him to playfully deface his own poet's mask but also
to tacitly subvert the misogynistic principle according to which gossip must be considered the
exclusive domain of women. Gossip is in fact the subject matter of this famous passage.

As is well known, Dipsas' portrait and cackling voice were enormously influential for the
characterization of the medieval shrew, a type often overlapped with the procuress and the witch,
and customary endowed with a clichéd reputation for gossip and slander. As Christine Neufeld
notes, in the popular imagination the shrew is always already a gossip, while the witch is always
already a shrew.420 The concept of the gossip’s circle, as a community of women or a female

See chapter one in this thesis.

419

Christine Neufeld, Xanthippe's Sisters: Orality and Femininity in the Later Middle Ages (Unpublished doctoral thesis,
420

McGill University, 2001), 3.

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subculture antipathetic to men, is certainly deeply engrained in medieval antifeminist thought. One
of its most important classical literary precedents is Ovid's Amores 1.8.421 But beyond the issue of
Dipsas foreshadowing many medieval shrews, including merry widows, go-betweens and witches, a
scene like that also begs the question about the extent to which such garrulous women intersect
with the eavesdropping scribe who, following Ovid's path, records their private chitchat. Ovid, the
same as his medieval emulators, can be accused of being likewise much too fond of gossip. After all,
he depicts himself poking his nose around Dipsas' business, thus revealing a private talk.
Furthermore, by way of retaliation, he also spreads his curses against the shrew through his poem.

Lindsay Reid has observed that Ovid's own amatory works are famously predicated on sexual gossip.
Likewise in the Metamorphoses the impetus for literary composition appears tightly associated with
the spreading of rumour and ambiguous hearsay.422 Ovid's representation of Fama as an
intermixture of factum and fictum is especially telling in this regard. In Metamorphoses Book 9 (137-
8) we are told that Deianira hears “scurrilous gossip” (fama loquax) about her husband Hercules and
his alleged dalliances with princess lole. Although Ovid's speaker neither confirms nor denies this
report of Hercules' new passion and sexual misconduct, Deianira believes the tale. Such gossip
eventually becomes the subject matter of Heroides 9, a letter written by that same legendary
woman, which gives us a good example of the Ovidian process through which verbal rumour ends
up becoming written literature. Later, in Book 12, Ovid represents Fama as living on a hill where
earth meets the sea and sky, in a house with a thousand holes in the roof crossed by echoes and a
cacophony of tidings, mixing lies with truth. Ovid described how in Fama’s house stories grow up
and each new narrator adds something to what he has heard (Met 12. 57-8: mensuraque ficti crescit
et auditis aliquid novus adicit auctor).

Medieval writers more sensitive to Ovid's parody usually prove themselves masterful at the art of
gossip. A notable example of this is Chaucer’s House of Fame.423 Set up as a dream narrative and a

421 Neufeld, 11, notes that images of the gossips' circle generally informs representations of deviant women, like shrews

and witches. The late fifteenth-century poem by William Dunbar, The Tretis of the Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo offers
an excellent case study as it elaborately depict both the gossips' circle and the act of eavesdropping, following the classical
model of Amores 1.8.
422 Lindsay Reid, Ovidian Bibliofictions and the Tudor Book: Metamorphosing Classical Heroines in Late Medieval and

Renaissance England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), 79.

423 Philip Hardie observes that the meanings of the Latin term fama (literally “what is said”) include 'fame,' 'glory,'

'reputation,' good but also bad, 'infamy'; 'public opinion,' 'rumour,' 'gossip' and ‘tradition.’ Though the modern English
‘fame’ only retains a small part of the meaning of fama, the range of meanings in Middle English and the early modern
period remained wider. See Philip Hardie, Rumour and Renown: Representations of Fama in Western Literature

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self-mocking experiment, resembling, to some extent, Il Corbaccio, the poem narrates how
“Geffrey” is first taken toward the Milky Way to later ending up right within the House of Rumour,
a fantastic structure made of twigs, whirling around. As Turner notes, this building is described as a
distribution centre for tidings, an intertextual space crossed by old stories, offering to the poet
material for his writings but also a ground-level view of the life surrounding him.424 Similarly, Susan
Phillips has argued that the House of Rumour not only features gossip and idle talk as the raw
material of poetry, but also is a productive means to transform old sources into new tales, providing
the writer with a method to renegotiate his relationship with traditional literary authority.425
Towards the end of the poem, Chaucer’s narrator is drawn to “a gret noyse” coming from “a corner
of the halle,” where he encounters a group of men in a corner who tell “love tydynges” (3.2141–3).
Whether for Chaucer the trivial and the earthly rumours are not alien neither to the poetry nor to
its makers, the dissemination of gossip can be understood as a masculine domain, thereby implying
the collusion between the figure of the poet and the topic of the garrulous gossiping woman. The
difference is one of degree and not of kind. At best, men can boast about their artistry or their
capacity of harnessing gossip with artful appearance, whereupon rumour is transformed in art, in
Ovidian terms.

The House of Rumour of Chaucer’s dream vision is described as the “house of Daedalus” (1920-21:
Domus Dedaly / That Laboryntus cleped ys). It is a labyrinthine structure constantly filled with many
clashing voices, which is somewhat reminiscent of Boccaccio’s Labyrinth of Love. Both the scholar-

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 2. Chaucer clearly exploits this ambivalence in his House of Fame. The
poem can be described as a meditation on poetic influence and literary authority. A good example is the prominent place
given to Virgil's Aeneid, whose text appears written on a table of brass on the walls of the Temple of Venus. Chaucer’s
poem begins evoking Virgil’s classic text but ends with oral tidings and airborne gossips when describing the House of
Rumour. In this regard, although the Aeneid roots the poem in a classical source, Chaucer makes it clear that he is not
content merely to emulate. Geffrey's journey to the houses of Fame and Rumour expresses the relationship between oral
rumour and literature, and the idea that poetic authority, as man’s fame, has historical, labile sources, spreading through
both talking and writing. Stories are told and retold; old sources are transformed into new tales and become part of the
tradition. Following this concept, while the Aeneid is an important model for his House of Fame, Chaucer’s narrative seems
far more sympathetic to Dido rather than Aeneas. Blending Virgil's and Ovid's versions of the story, Chaucer depicts Dido
as the object of betrayal, emphasising Aeneas's artful use of falsehood. Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women, which also
includes the legend of Dido, similarly opens on a narrator who is captivated by the authority of "old bokes", but who is
compelled by an indignant God of Love to redirect his work to new requirements, the “makyng of a glorious legende/Of
goode wymen, maydenes and wyves" (F 483- 84). It is worth mentioning, as well, that The House of Fame is often referred
to ‘Chaucer’s Dante’, since the text was written as response to the Divine Comedy. The creative imitation of Virgil, Dante
and Ovid is a major feature of Chaucer’s House of Fame. For the relations between the House of Fame and the Divine
Comedy see Taylor, 20-49.
424 Turner, Chaucer, 226.
425 Susan Phillips, Transforming Talk: The Problem with Gossip in Late Medieval England (University Park: Penn State

University Press, 2007), 71.

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narrator and his guide are like those men exchanging love tidings that Geffrey saw in a corner of the
House of Rumour, except that their tidings are always disappointing. The Labyrinth of Love is
inhabited by cuckolded husbands, disdained and rejected would-be-lovers, mumbling their
frustration and pitiless violence. Rumours circulate, gossip spreads. The narrator, a man of letters,
is willing to retaliate against the widow who discredited and publicly shamed him, just as Ovid after
he overheard Dipsas’ gossip about him. As mentioned above, the scholar’s writing, which he expects
eventually to reach the hands of the widow, is his vendetta, by means of which he hopes to subject
the culprit to the same suffering he had endured. But his little book reveals its seams and is imbued
with contradictions. Exposing both the narrator and his guide as gossip mongers is perhaps the
greatest of them all.

Precisely, the commitment to take his revenge to a level where it becomes literature —namely, a
literary vendetta— marks the most prominent difference between the scholar of Il Corbaccio and
his precedent in Decameron VIII.7. Of course, Rineri's physical punishment of Elena, consisting of
burning her body under the sun, the exact opposite of the beffa the widow played on him, is
extremely cruel.426 And, nevertheless, is "giusta retribuzione" (just retribution), according to the
storyteller Pampinea, who in fact presents the tale as a warning to women against duping men,
especially scholars. Rinieri's words accompanying his chastising of the widow are eloquent in this
regard. Particularly, his threats about the power of his pen which is far greater than those who have
not experienced it suppose. Had his scheme failed, Rinieri menaces, he would still have lampooned
Elena so mercilessly, and with so much eloquence, that when his writings come to her notice she
would have wished to never have been born.427 While Ranieri's vengeance is consummated with the
physical punishment of the widow, Il Corbaccio may be read as the consummation of that dreadful
literary revenge imagined by the young scholar of Decameron VIII.7. The old scholar-narrator of

426 It is worth mentioning that Boccaccio describes Elena’s sunburnt skin as a piece of flaming parchment being stretched

from both ends (come la pelle cotta di una pecora bruciata, se qualcuno la tirasse). The image reminds of the elegiac
recognition of the mistress as a written woman and, more generally, the elegiac concept of poetry as a feminine creature.
However, Boccaccio’s image conveys the idea of undoing both the mistress and the work. For the concept of the elegiac
women as scriptae puellae see Wyke, “Written women.”
427 When addressing Elena with many threatening words, Rinieri warns her never to despise the wooing of an older man,

particularly of a learned man like him, and then advocates for sexual superiority of older men, although we have been told
on several occasions that the scholar is "un giovane.” Rinieri’s outburst has led critics, such as Millicent Marcus and Guido
Ruggiero, to suggest an echo of Boccaccio’s own vision pervading this passage. From this view, Boccaccio reveals such a
close identification with his protagonist that he temporarily replaces the fictional character with his own narrative
persona. See Millicent Marcus, "The Tale of Maestro Alberto (I.10)," in The “Decameron” First Day in Perspective, ed. Elissa
B. Weaver (Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2004), 234. Guido Ruggiero, Love and Sex in the Time of Plague: A
Decameron Renaissance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2021), 81.

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Boccaccio’s last fiction attempts to prove that the powers of the pen are far greater. His narrative,
however, cannot but tell the story of a failed vengeance. As will be shown below, to write a
slanderous book to defame the widow turns out to be the greatest example of the scholar's
proverbial folly. It is also a parodic gesture by Boccaccio, consisting of writing under the mask of
such a jilted old man, bent solely on revenge, a benighted antifeminist persona that allows him to
mock misogynistic literature as a whole.

The paradox of Malebouche

Roman genres and literary conventions are often parodied in Ovid’s works, as he actively plays
either with elegy, epic, or other serious discourses. Particularly, the Remedia Amoris, as well as its
companion piece the Ars Amatoria, can be rightly branded as a mock instructional poem, whose
main subject is the comedy of love as it was inscribed in Latin elegy, yet rendered in a parodic
didactic tone.428 All too often, however, medieval writers and commentators did not
grasp Ovid's parody and satire. The Remedia was frequently taken as a serious attack upon love and
the true retractation of a reformed lover, an exemplum of contrition and a confession by a sinner,
or even by a proto-Christian, heartly repentant of his past carnal frailties.429 Unlike this
interpretation, Boccaccio clearly grasped the shrewd stratagem behind the praeceptor’s advice on
how to fall out of love.

Boccaccio’s identification with Ovid's sense of parody becomes especially noticeable in his last
fiction, especially in its attitudes towards the tradition of misogynist and misogamic satire. In other
words, while Ovid regularly mocks elegiac and didactic conventions, Il Corbaccio reads as a mock
antifeminist treatise, a parodic discourse whose actual target is not women but the extensive and
deep-seated tradition of anti-female bias. Likewise, just as every parody, Boccaccio’s last fiction
ultimately pays its own oblique homage to the discourse it mocks,430 and thereby can be seen as an
exemplary display of the pervasive and virulent medieval misogyny —“a summa of the antifeminist
tradition,” as Armstrong describes it.431 Finally, echoing and magnifying the cluster of medieval

428 See Myerowitz, 34 and Beard, 157.

429 For medieval literal reception of Ovid’s mock instructional poems, see footnote 55.
430 As Bakhtin observes, the parody of a genre, style or literary model contains elements of tribute and ridicule, reverence

and criticism in a somewhat diffuse mixture. See Bakhtin, “The Discourse of the Novel.”
431 Armstrong, 87.

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misogynous commonplaces, Boccaccio's parody does not only mock them but also offers a way of
reassessing them, while shining light on the chinks and cracks created by misogynist extreme views.

Whether the scholar-narrator got the urge to write his work because he wanted to take revenge
equal to the harm done, that is, make it to serve as a means to spread disparaging gossip about the
widow, then Il Corbaccio is in open and irreducible contradiction with one basic precept of
misogynous literature, the genre to which it allegedly belongs. As stated above, in that tradition a
constant claim is that women misuse and abuse language: they nag, lie, chatter and gossip. They are
noisemakers from morning to night. The Lamentations of Matheolus, a fourteenth-century
antifeminist and antimarriage manifesto usually compared with Il Corbaccio, claims that "the tongue
of a quarrelsome wife never tires of chiming in. She even drowns out the sound of the church
bell.”432 Echoing as well anti-marital and antifeminist bitterness, Lady Nature of the Roman de la
Rose invokes the fate of Samson and warns male lovers about proud, indiscreet and gossipy women
such as the malicious Dalilah:
Taisiez, taisiez, taisiez, taisiez!
Pensez de voz langues tenir,
Car riens n’en peut a chief venir
Quant des secrez sont parçonieres,
Tant sont orguilleuses e fieres,
E tant ont les langues cuisanz
E venimeuses e nuisanz. (16664-70)

[…you will keep quiet, quiet, quiet, quiet! Be sure to hold your tongues, for nothing will
succeed if they share your secrets, so proud and overbearing are they, with such biting,
poisonous, hurtful tongues]433
Such is women’s nature, as Fleming observed, and it is not a coincidence that Lady Nature, herself
a talkative women, is the one who reveals it to us.434 Similarly, the narrator of Il Corbaccio shows

432 Jehan le Fèvre. The Lamentations of Matheolus, excerpted in Woman Defamed and Women Defended: An Anthology

of Medieval Texts, ed. by Alcuin Blamires, 177-97 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1922), 178. Jean Le Fèvre gives the following
explanation of women's noisiness: Why are women more argumentative, so full of idle gossip and more talkative than
men? Because they are made of bone, while our bodies are fashioned of clay: bone makes more noise than clay. Blamires,
184.
433 Horgan, 257.
434 Fleming, “The Best Line,” 72.

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awareness of the dangers of women's loose lips. He not only laments the indiscreet exposition of
his letter by the widow to her paramour, but he also witnesses how she disgraces him in public. One
day, the scholar tells, he saw her pointing him out to other ladies in her company, while saying: "Do
you see that dolt? He's in love with me; look how lucky I can count myself.”435 While the widow
spreads malicious gossip about the narrator among women, the second Absalom does the same
among his fellow men. But engaging in gossip is reprehensible conduct coming from a man, muses
Boccaccio's alter ego. He himself laments that, when he heard the rumours about him all over town,
he was on the verge of using words that would dishonour the widow. Fortunately, a small spark of
reason showed him that paying her slander back would be a mistake. Such a fit of rage would only
have brought far greater shame upon himself than upon the widow. Despite his great agitation, he
moderated his anger (on poco ma molto turbato, mi ritenne). Therefore, the scholar concludes, he
can be proud that he never have stood as low as the widow and his rival.

The contradiction is more than obvious. Or what is the narrator doing now but revengefully and
publicly dishonouring the widow by means of his little operetta? He simply cannot withhold from
pouring out his harboured resentment when taking out a quill to draw the hideous portrait of the
widow with the aim of making it public. In fact, the greatest paradox of Il Corbaccio stems from the
fact that by ill-talking about the widow, and bitingly complaining about women’s linguistic
unruliness, the scholar-narrator is participating in the same objected female vice. Thus, Boccaccio’s
work brings us to a point at which the misogynist and the object of his tirade stop being perceived
contradictorily. We can name this the paradox of Malebouche.

As outlined earlier in this thesis, Malebouche (sometimes translated as Evil Tongue) first features as
the emblematic bad-mouther of the Roman de la Rose and eventually becomes a recurring character
in late medieval poetry, playing various roles either as the allegorical slanderer, the misogyny
incarnate or the reflection of the misogynistic writer. Initially, Guillaume de Lorris personifies
Malebouche as one of the guardians of the Rose. He is described as the son of a spiteful old woman
(Ce fils d'une vieille grogneuse), possessing the most poisonous and bitter tongue. We are also
told that Malebouche is a noisemaker, playing a number of rustic wind instruments, flutes and pipes
and horns. In this regard, the figure somehow resembles the noisy Fama in Ovid's Metamorphoses,
yet allegorizes a more specific aspect of rumour by giving a peevish, querulous voice to misogyny.

435 Cassell, 20.

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Thus, we are told Malebouche spares no women (Male bouche qui riens n’espergne) and bitterly
complains about their wantonness, saying:
“Il n’est nule qui ne s’en rie
S’ele ot parler de lecherie;
Ceste est pute, ceste se farde,
Et ceste folement esgarde;
Ceste est vilaine, ceste est fole
Et ceste si a trop parole.”(3901-6)

[“There is not a woman who does not laugh when she hears talk of loose living; one is
immoral, another paints her face, and yet another gives you come-hither looks; this one is
coarse, that one is mad, and the third talk too much”]436
De Lorris also describes Malebouche as a male gendered personification by asserting that he is a
man who lies easily (c'est uns hom qui ment de legier). Although we are also told that he is in the
habit of spreading falsehoods about both women and men, the characterization of Melbouche as
an arch-adversary of women, always trying to damage their reputation, will endure over time. We
find it again, for instance, in The Floure and the Leafe, a fifteenth-century poem, mistakenly
attributed to Chaucer in early editions of his works. Herein a lady addresses the female narrator and
prays that God will keep her "fro the wicked remembraunce/ Of Male Bouch, and all his crueltie” (ll.
579-580).

In the second part of the Rose by Jean de Meun Malebouche’s misogyny is little developed. Tellingly,
however, as Gabriella Baika has observed, the allegorical bad-mouther is not portrayed speaking
but noting the evil way in which his words affect people’s lives.437 He “poisons and envenoms all his
victims, making martyrs of them with his tongue” (4101-3: envenime et qui entouche/ Tous ceus
dont il fait sa matire,/ Par langue les livre à martire). Further in the poem, Ami, the sympathetic
friend, describes Malebouche as someone who hates either men or women, since his tongue is
ready to slander anyone behind their backs (8129-30: Car quant il het ou homme ou fame,/ Par
derrier le blasme et diffame). Ami defines the character as a simulator, who employs slander as an

Horgan, 59.
436

Gabriella Baika, Lingua Indisciplinata. A Study of Transgressive Speech in the Romance of the Rose and the Divine
437

Comedy (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Pittsburgh, 2007), 58 n78.

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offensive weapon and hypocrisy as a covert. In his heart he hates people, Ami says, but smiles at
them with his mouth and his teeth (8135-6: Il het les gens où cuer dedens,/ Et lor rit de bouche et
de dens). In the course of the poem, Malebouche receives an appropriate punishment by getting
his tongue cut out.

Critics have frequently noted that, as a personification allegory, Malebouche’s gender is not
transparent nor stable. In this regard, Douglas Kelly points out that, although the name Malebouche
is grammatically feminine, the character is consistently gendered masculine, especially in the second
part of the Roman de la Rose.438 The understanding of the figure as both "bad mouth" and more
specifically as "male mouth" may have been more frequent among contemporary readers of the
text and thereafter,439 nevertheless the ambiguity and fluidity of Malebouche’s gender identity
remains intriguing and unclear. The emblematic foul-mouth is depicted as a woman in a minor but
substantial number of manuscript illuminations.440 Helen J. Swift also considers both possibilities of
gender in the case of Malebouche since, as an aspect of the rose-maiden's personality the character
bears female attributes, and nevertheless he is often represented as a cleric and appears in both
text and image as a man.441

438 See Douglas Kelly, Internal Difference and Meanings in the Roman de la rose (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1995), 108-9. Kelly explains that “Bouche" or "mouth" has always been a feminine noun in French. “An adjective modifying
it will accordingly assume the feminine form, as occurs in the Rose’s personification Male Bouche. In Guillaume de Lorris’s
first mention of the character, pronominal reference to Male Bouche is "gender correct": "Male Bouche, la janglor,/ Et
avec li Honte et Peor" (v. 2819-20; cf. 3020) (Male Bouche the prattler (feminine adjective), and with her Shame and Fear).
However, shortly afterwards, syllepsis takes over. "Henceforth Male Bouche is consistently marked by masculine
pronouns, gender flectional modifiers except male, which is part of her/his name, predicate adjectives, and synonyms.”
Likewise, Kelly makes the illuminating point that the old French "Male Bouche" carries gender equivocation: since
preconsonantal "s" was no longer pronounced by the thirteenth century, "male Bouche" ("Bad Mouth") suggests its virtual
homophone "Masle Bouche" ("male Mouth,” as opposed to "female "mouth," modern French "Mâle Bouche"), creating
circumstances in which the feminine grammatical gender of the noun is contradicted by the meaning of the adjective, and
the sex-change effected in the romance is enacted in the name of the character who undergoes it. See Kelly , 122, 181n75.
439 Douglas Kelly, Machaut and the Medieval Apprenticeship Tradition: Truth, Fiction and Poetic Craft (Cambridge: Brewer,

2014), 181.
440 Among manuscripts featuring female Malebouche in the illuminations there are Bibliothèque municipale de Châlons-

en-Champagne, 270, Bibliothèque municipale d’Arras, 897, Bodleian Library, MS Douce, 332, and Bibliothèque de
l’Assemblée nationale, 1230.
441 Helen J. Swift, Gender, Writing, and Performance: Men Defending Women in Late Medieval France, 1440–1538 (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 2008), 236.

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 Figure 4: Female Malebouche (centre). Fourteenth-century illuminated manuscript of the Roman de la Rose.
Bibliothèque municipale de Châlons-en-Champagne, MS 270, fol. 88r.

Figure 5: Personification of Jealousy (left), mislabelled Malebouche in scroll. Fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript
from Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MS M.24, fol. 27r.

In relation to the above, Chimène Bateman notes that there is something inherently feminine about
Malebouche’s qualities, since the vices of the character are in keeping with those traditionally
imputed to women.442 Like them, Malebouche does not know when to keep his tongue under
control. The character therefore occupies a problematic locus of enunciation characterized by
undermining the essentialist view of gender, particularly with respect to the use of language. With
this in mind, even though the allegorical figure of Malebouche is not directly alluded to in Il
Corbaccio, it can be said that Boccaccio’s venomous characters get entangled in the paradox posed
by the emblematic foul-mouthed. In the same manner as Malebouche, they accuse women of
misusing language but they are found guilty of the same misconduct. Similarly, Boccaccio's
antifeminist portrait of women as gossip-prone, noisemakers and malicious talkers, turns against

442 Chimène Bateman, “Irrepressible Malebouche. Voice, Citation and Polyphony in the Roman de la rose,” Cahiers de

recherches médiévales et humanistes 22 (2011), 21-2.

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the male speakers who bitterly complain about female speech, rendering them as Malebouche
types as well.

Malebouche enjoyed a long yet invidious life beyond the Rose. It can be said that his male gender
attribution was subsequently strengthened during the late fourteenth and early fifteenth century’s
literary debate known as the querelle de la Rose. In her Epistre au dieu d'amour Christine de Pizan
first presented her famous charge of public defamation against those men who blamed, accused,
and defamed women, which included those writers prone to the excesses of defamatory language
and misogynistic abuse. Among the writers criticized by Christine were Jean de Meun and Ovid
himself, whose Ars Amatoria she deems an “Art of deceiving women.” At this point, both Ovid and
Jean de Meun began to be deemed as types of Malebouche,443 while the allegorical figure embraced
the role of a personified stand-in for those writers held accountable for defaming women or inciting
hatred towards them.444 Later, during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, the querelle de la
rose grew into the querelle des femmes, the early modern cultural debate around the nature of
women and their role in society —as well as the nature of writing about and by women. In this
context, writers such as Martin Le Franc and Jean Marot reworked the figure of Malebouche as both
an embodiment of misogynist slander and a projection of Jean de Meun.445

443 Even before Christine's criticism sparked off the first querelle, some readers of the Rose already associated the author,

Jean de Meun, with the slanderous character Malebouche. Guillaume de Deguilville, Cistercian monk contemporary to
Boccaccio, poses this possibility in the second version of his dream-vision Le Pèlerinage de Vie Humaine of 1355. The
narrator-protagonist meets Venus (Luxure) who confesses to him all her faults and tells him that her chief enemy is
Virginity whom she has caused to be maligned in the Roman de la Rose. Instead of naming either Lorris or de Meun as the
creator of this personification, the narrator declares that Venus' scribe is Malebouche (Male Bouche est ton escripuain)
and both the scribe and Venus share the identity of the most ill-speaking allegorical character of the Rose (...et tu male
bouche as aussi/ Quant contre chastete mesdy tu as). Quoted in Stephanie Kamath, Authorship and First-Person Allegory
in Late Medieval France and England (Woodbridge, Suffolk: D. S. Brewer, 2012), 47. As Kamath observes, “the creation of
the Foul Mouth character in the Rose becomes an act of a foul mouth, which leads to the Rose author's renaming as Foul
Mouth.”
444 See Swift, 236, and Helen Solterer, The Master and Minerva: Disputing Women in French Medieval Culture (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1995), 151.

445 In his Champion des dames (1485) Le Franc narrates a dream vision in which the castle of Love is assaulted by

Malebouche and defended in a knightly contest that takes the form of a debate. With the aid of the allegorical figure
Franc-Vouloir (Free Will), the Champion of Ladies confronts his adversaries, Malebouche and Villain Penser (Vile Thought).
Malebouche, presented as the Champion's chief enemy, symbolizes misogynist slanders but also is a type for writers such
as Jean de Meun and Matheolus who incarnate misogyny. Judy Kem notes that Jean Marot appeals unstintingly to the
figure of Malebouche to both attack and defend women, as well as attacking and defending de Meun, in Le doctrinal des
princesses et nobles dames and La vraye disant advocate des dames, respectively. Deploying his rhetorical versatility,
Marot takes both sides in the querelle, which he treats as a rather sophisticated joke. Marot's defence of women in La
vraye disant advocate des dames (dated 1506) is a case of what Swift calls "male impersonation of a feminine voice,
speaking not only on behalf of, but also through the voice of, the woman being represented." See Swift, 183. Through the
feminine voice of the Advocate, he condemns "malz embouchez" or slandering men, while defending women’s intelligence
and moral strength. Slanderers, whose lizard tongues sting and bite, are equated to "mallebouche," who leaves an "uglier
track than any venomous serpent or toad... "a thrust of the tongue erases all honour with its false report.” See Judy Kem,

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However, it is worth noting that Jean’s defence to such charges is already inscribed in the Rose and
consists of tearing himself apart from the matter of his writing. Thus, in one of the passages of
antifeminist tenor in the poem, the narrator argues that no blame should belong to him as he is only
repeating and glossing words and ideas stated by previous authors rather than embracing such ideas
and utterances. In his own words:
Je n'i faz riens fors reciter,
Se par mon geu, qui po vos coute,
Quelque parole n'i ajoute,
Si con font antr'eus li poete,
Quant chascuns la matire trete
Don il li plest a antremetre;
Car si con tesmoigne la letre,
Profiz et delectaction.
C'est toute leur entencion. (15204-12)

[I merely repeat, except for making a few additions on my own account which costs you
little. Poets do this among themselves, each one dealing with the subject that he wants to
work.]446

Jean's defenders in the querelle will successively repeat the admittedly rather specious argument
that the poet merely repeats or reports from other sources. This stance intersects perfectly with the
Ovidian connection between writing and rumour, later reworked by Chaucer and Boccaccio,
provided that writing is understood as a form of echoing or verbal reverberations of precedent
utterances. Verses are versions, and then are derivative. And so are gossips.447 Of course, writers
often risk being called foul mouthed as a consequence of the act of replicating other's voices —
which also reminds us of Juan Ruiz extricating himself from the unseemly story of Endrina and Melón

Pathologies of Love: Medicine and the Woman Question in Early Modern France. (Lincoln: Nebraska University Press,
2019), 43.
446 Horgan, 235-6.
447 Bateman describes Malebouche as a character who appropriates and transforms other people’s discourses, whereupon

becomes a type either of all those speakers inside the Rose who borrow the speech of the slanderer, or of Jean de Meun
himself. Malebouche can be seen, by extension, as a type of the writer who built new works over previous writings. See
Bateman, 26.

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by laying blame in his precedents, namely Pamphilus and Ovid (891: que lo feo de la estoria diz
Pánfilo e Nasón).

However, the equation of Malebouche and Jean de Meun, as part of the rhetorical devices used by
Christine and her followers, degrades the auctoritas of the author of the Rose and his precedents.
It not only exposes Jean himself as a slanderer, but also redefines the full range of authoritative
sources informing his foul-mouthed speech by reducing them to mere rumours and ill-talking.

Kelly observes that in the Rose Malebouche embraces that negatively inflected femininity Jean de
Meun refers to as “meurs femenins.” It may be argued that by entertaining the habit of gossip,
supposedly female in essence, the allegorical personification of misogyny becomes the
personification of an ambivalent type of speech suitable to be borrowed and articulate either by
men or women. It is interesting, in this regard, that Malebouche's punishment is to be deprived of
his tongue —his defining member, as Kelly notes— implying a form of castration and, by extension,
effeminacy.448 Another parallel can be suggested here between Malebouche's fate in the Rose and
Christine de Pizan's portrait of Ovid in her introduction to La cité des dames, whom she accuses of
having spread derogatory remarks about women in his writings, such as the Ars Amatoria and the
Remedia Amoris. Through the speech of Lady Reason, Christine refers the defaming legend of Ovid's
castration as punishment for his promiscuity and various offences against morals: "his body was
given over to all kind of worldliness and vices of the flesh... he lost not just his good name and his
possessions, but even some parts of his body!... So finally, he was castrated and deprived of his
organs because of his immorality.”449 Curious as it may seem, Christine brings out rumours about
Ovid as part of her own strategy in defence of women. Of course, Christine was by no means a
parodist of antifeminist discourses. Quite the contrary, she and the other contenders in the context
of the querelle de la Rose/querelle des femmes usually take sides on the debate on women and
attempt to produce one-sided, serious, straightforward discourses, claiming to speak authoritatively
on the subject of dispute. It is nevertheless suggestive that, even though she is writing to rebut
misogynist claims and defend women from malicious rumours spread by male ill-talkers, in her own
way, Christine cannot get out of the Malebouche paradox, as she cannot help finding in rumour a

448 See Kelly, Internal Difference, 114-115.

449 Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies, 20-21.

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poetic inspiration and subject matter, just as do both the scholar-narrator of Il Corbaccio and Geffrey
in Chaucer’s House of Fame, and just as Ovid himself did before them all.

Boccaccio, of course, is no stranger to the act of reporting others’ ideas and utterances. As
mentioned early in the chapter, Il Corbaccio can be read as a compendium of antifeminist abuse,
whose sources stretched back from Ovid and Juvenal, through Jerome and the Church Fathers to
Jean de Meun and his contemporaries. However, unlike the author of the Rose, the literary game
posed by Boccaccio consists of not trying to dissociate the author from his matter subject, but rather
adopting a self-diminishing strategy. Boccaccio reports the antifeminist tradition through the
persona of a sloppy writer and failed scholar, taught by a phony master, and thus conflates this
persona to his genuine personality. However, voiced by the mouths of the scholar and the guide,
the auctoritas of the quoted sources is likewise degraded into a mere informal exchange of
misleading information and distorted knowledge, whereupon it becomes closer to rumour and
gossip, characterized by the confluence of many vague, contradictory and formless voices,
articulated by faceless groups.

Boccaccio’s last fiction is a mock antifeminist treatise, whereby misogynist tropes are parodied, thus
becoming open to a playful and critical reassessment. Here parody’s aim may be described in
Morson’s terms, as an attempt to discredit the very act of speech by redirecting readers attention
from the text itself to the compromising context of the utterance. Boccaccio’s literary joke is the
game of the parodist consisting of putting his speech between ironic quotation marks, borrowing
from others’ words, degrading and transforming these references.450As it has been shown
throughout the chapter, both the setting and the speakers of Il Corbaccio lend themselves to the
parodist’s purposes. But a parody is also an interaction designed to be heard and interpreted by a
third person. It requires the involvement of an audience able to grasp the joke, whose own process
of active reception is anticipated and directed by the parodist. One may wonder, therefore, what
kind of readers Boccaccio had in mind when conceiving Il Corbaccio and whether the writer thought
about a female audience, as he had previously done in the Decameron.451

450Morson, 75, 65.

451Migiel observes that in the Proem of Decameron Boccaccio "specifies a female audience that is presumably more
accepting of his proffered gift." Moreover, in the Introduction to Day 4, Boccaccio responds to male critics "who scoff
contemptuously at an Author who writes for men's pleasure and benefit." See Migiel, A Rhetoric, 6.

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Il Corbaccio is a parody built on cultural and literary references which would have been easily
recognized by educated well-read men in Boccaccio’s day. Although women are the obsessive
theme of misogynistic and misogamist literature, these texts were consumed by a mostly male
audience. But, for this very reason, the aim on the part of the scholar-narrator that his little book
was read not only by misguided lovers like him but also (and perhaps, mainly) by the widow-object
of his diatribe is suggestive and lends itself to further analysis. Depicted as the future reader of the
book, the widow of Il Corbaccio prefigures an albeit imaginary feminine response to the work. One
may conjecture that, if she has read this bizarre and overly odious piece of writing, she would have
laughed at it and at its author, perhaps in the same outrageous manner as she did when reading the
scholar’s letter. In any case, such an imaginary reception is somehow performed by another literary
widow, Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, who, in her tongue-in-cheek monologue, recalls how her scholar–
husband Jankyn textually harassed her with a book written by a range of evil-tongued men, used to
spreading malicious rumours about women.

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CONCLUSION

This thesis explored how the antifeminist discourses and comic literature which appear in the
Roman period continued to have a close and overlapping relationship during the late medieval
period. Foremost among the classical roots of medieval antifeminism is Ovid, especially his
erotodidactic poems Ars Amatoria and Remedia Amoris. However, as I have shown in this study, the
position of Ovid as a source for antifeminist literature proves highly problematic due to the teasing
playfulness and parodic ambivalence of his works. Although the Ars and the Remedia are parodic-
didactic poems, part of the medieval reception of Ovid commonly overlooked their humour, and
not seldom took the praeceptor amoris' mock advice at face value. I have nevertheless argued that
writers like Chaucer, Boccaccio and Ruiz reveal an acute assimilation of the literary qualities that
inform Ovid’s erotodidacticism, being usually sensitive to the rhetorical self-consciousness and
playful style that predominate throughout Ovid’s oeuvre. Furthermore, these writers paid particular
attention to the parodic and self-parodic use of female laughter and mockery in Ovidian poetry. In
particular, Chaucer and Boccaccio stand out for having employed this Ovidian motif to parody and
humorously challenge antifeminist literature of their day.

In writing the different chapters included in this thesis, I have therefore focused sharply on one
particular strand within Western comic literary tradition connecting Ovid’s classical texts to
medieval vernacular literature, especially to Chaucer, Boccaccio, and Juan Ruiz. Likewise, two Latin
Pseudo-Ovidian works, De vetula and the Pamphilus, were underlined due to their importance in
bringing the Ovidian corpus and medieval vernacular literature together. In this regard, the medieval
reception of the episode of Anna Perenna in Fasti has been extensively considered throughout this
study. As I have shown, Ovidian heritage nurtured a tradition of using female laughter and mockery
understood as tropes consciously designed to mock and stub the absurdity of stereotypical male
conceptions about women, whether literary or otherwise. Both Ovid and his medieval offspring
commonly depicted laughing women who are not –or so it seems– intent on pleasing men, but
rather on pleasing themselves, regardless of whether their pleasure can also entail the deflation of
the writer’s authorial persona and authority.

Representation of female laughter and mockery in the context of Ovid's poetry was the topic
addressed in Chapter 1. The lesson in female laughter in Ars Amatoria 3.280-90 was discussed

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emphasizing its character as parodic instructions that draw attention to the highly codified and
artificial portrayal of women painted by elegy. These instructions must therefore be interpreted
within the broader context of Ovidian parodic didacticism characterized by mock elegiac tropes and
the pragmatic function of serious didactic works. Other parodic and self-parodic uses of the motif
were likewise analysed in this chapter. Female laughter appears either complicating or subverting
male authority, whether it is placed in the mouth of an epic heroine become epistolary writer like
Helen from Heroides, or when a lecherous god such as Jupiter laughs while impersonating the
goddess Diana in Metamorphoses. The undermining of male authority through female laughter and
teasing also affects Ovid's own poetic persona, whether the elegiac lover of Amores, or the
extremely solemn yet frivolously ironic praeceptor amoris of his mock didactic poems.

Portrayals of women's subversive laughter may have been infrequent in Roman literature, as
suggesting by Beard’s comment quoted at the beginning of this study. However, I have argued that
Fasti’s account of the festival of Anna Perenna offers an instance where Ovid describes a women's
custom on the Ides of March clearly related to their unbridled jocular speech. In Ovid’s account,
Anna is endowed with a contagious laugh that especially infects other women. An implied female
audience of Anna's farcical story, presumably rendered as a mime performance in Augustan Rome,
can be perceived in this section of Fasti. Thus, we are told that Anna's laughter pleased Venus and
Ovid describes the puellae or mimae singing saucy verses and jokes in memory of Anna's laughter
at the mighty Mars during the goddess' festival. On this note, as Elaine Fantham comments, in
Anna's feast there must have been some kind of scurrilous songs, mocking men and wishing or
forecasting the frustration of misplaced lust, in connection to Anna's deception and frustration of
the lecherous Mars. 452 Medieval reworking of Anna's bed trick in De vetula continued conveying the
idea that the procuress attempts either to ward off the rape of a virgin bride, or to turn a man's
infatuation and aggressive lust into an occasion of self-indulgence.

Mimes and other theatrical spectacles were current entertainment at Roman festival time. During
the last decades, scholarship has made significant advances in tracing the features of popular drama
in many of Ovid’s narratives. However, Ovid’s description of the puellae's disruptive jocular activities
during Anna Perenna’s festival deserves more attention in this respect. Although the idea that the

452 Elaine Fantham, "The Fasti as a source for women's participation in roman cult," in Roman Readings: Roman Response

to Greek Literature from Plautus to Statius and Quintilian (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 2015), 438.

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poet may have drawn inspiration from the unsettling voices of the mimae seems tantalizing, we can
currently offer little more than guesses concerning the actual impact of this dialogue over Ovid's
poetry. Particularly, the possible influence of mimae’s “stagy” laughter over Ovid's parodic humour
remains an open topic. Further background on the role played by those female performers both on
the stage and within the Roman cults may hold the key for better understanding the relationships
between Ovid’s humour and actual female jocular speech of his day. What can be established for
certain is that Anna Perenna's laughter, and some of the values it embodied, became highly
contagious through a poetic channel, late medieval comic works being their most distinguished
carriers. Furthermore, the figure of the old lady praised by Mars for being skilled in bringing people
together could spread over a whole stream of medieval comic literature featuring the vetula playing
the role of the go-between.

The different chapters unfolded throughout this thesis have shown that echoes of Ovid’s treatment
of female laughter and mockery passed around from mouth to mouth among medieval female
characters such as the Wife of Bath, the various embodiments of the go-between, or Boccaccio’s
mocking widows. Women's giggles and mockery have been mostly addressed with a focus on the
intertextual dialogue between Ovidian tropes and of late medieval comic works, either in Latin or in
the vernacular. This study has centred on a particular stream of medieval Ovidianism, represented
by writers characterized by their thorough attentiveness to Ovid's parodic humour, as well as by
producing works whose polyphonic openness allowed (or even consciously prompted) disruptive
outbursts of female laughter for the sake of comic effect or entertainment. Presumably, the humour
of these works was chiefly intended to elicit laughter in male learned audiences or readerships. It is
hard to ascertain the extent to which a medieval female audience could have felt identified with the
literary comic heroines analysed throughout; whether women found amusement on their comic
portrayals and deeds is still harder to prove.

Chapter 2 explored certain norms imposed on medieval female jocularity in both monastic and
courtly environments, according to didactic literature intended for female audiences. These sources
provide us with a counterpoint to the literary material emerging from the Ovidian lore, allowing us
to know the extent to which characters like the Wife of Bath confirmed or subverted the medieval
norms regarding proper and improper forms of female laughter. Medieval didactic literature
appropriated and misappropriated Ovid's lesson in female laughter included in Ars Amatoria 3.

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Ironically, these mock instructions on the standard elegiac rules of female laughter were frequently
deemed serious advice when transposed onto a medieval stage. As a consequence, what started as
a parodic lesson ended up providing an authoritative ground for the binary scheme often traced by
etiquette and conduct manuals when addressing the issue of women’s hilarity. Particularly, the need
for women to control their laughter was a usual concern posed by these manuals, whether they
were intended for young female aristocrats or novice religious.

In this regard, the courtly ideal of still, sober and pleasant feminine smiling was paradoxically built
upon the praeceptor amoris’ cumbersome and absurd how-to-laugh guidelines. According to this
ideal, to laugh with a mild to moderate baring of the teeth was considered appropriate for noble
young girls, who also were advised to hide their teeth when laughing, especially if they were
unsightly. A mild retraction of the mouth's corners while raising a couple of tiny, comely dimples in
her cheeks, was also advisable for a young woman looking for the proper laughter, according to
vernacular renditions of Ars Amatoria. Of course, is hard to imagine how girls could ever learn to
control their dimples, as Beard acutely notes when commenting the praeceptor’s lesson in
laughter.453 But surely the mystery persisted when medieval didactic literature echoed these
instructions to laugh (perhaps literally) like no one else, ever. In any case, while moderate, quiet
laughter became an indicator of female discretion, honour and sexual virtue, medieval conduct
literature strongly discouraged women from bursting into laughter. Likewise, to laugh with a gaping
mouth was not only considered incompatible with feminine decorum, but also carried a troubling
status as a mark of both unrestrained verbosity and errant sexuality.

Women’s loud, careless laughter often acquired one-sided negative connotations in medieval
conduct literature, suggesting that the control over women's laughter was not only advisable but
stern and mandatory according to both courtly and religious precepts. Apart from Ovid’s unintended
influence, this binary construction connecting women's virtue with the capacity to control the
physicality of laughter was strongly nurtured by the Church Fathers' attitudes towards women's
hilarity and jocular speech. In Chapter 2 I argued that Jerome deserves credit for having linked
female laughter to both sin and bodily impurity. Female laughter was greatly restricted in the
context of Jerome's ascetic ideology, especially among virgins and widows. In this respect, I
suggested that Jerome's concerns regarding women’s laughter may be understood in the light of his

453 Beard, 158.

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metaphorical linkage between the female upper/lower mouths and the inferno. In other words,
female laughter was endowed with the potential power to open the insatiable hellmouth. Along
with its concrete meaning as the gate of hell, such a metaphoric construction of the female mouth
ended up acquiring at least two different meanings in medieval antifeminist rhetoric, as a shortcut
to women’s unrestrained sexuality and as the understanding of female speech as a form of sin.

However, Jerome himself did not escape from a certain degree of contradiction when accepting
female laughter as a sign of a higher spiritual development, provided that it was capable of being
termed as virile. This latter view on laughter is rooted in the broader concept that women must go
beyond their feminine condition, meaning their natural inclinations to feebleness and peacefulness,
and thus embracing masculinity, so that they can develop a degree of agency. Such ideals can be
perceived in some descriptions of Jerome's female ascetic disciples and is commonly present in
stories of female virgin saints. Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale about Saint Cecilie was examined as a
good example of this.

A similar approach can be also found in Christine de Pizan’s conduct book Le Livre de trois vertus
when she counsels widows to “take on the heart of a man” (que elle prengne cuer d'omme) to
defend themselves in legal disputes. However, within her particular agenda in defence of women,
Christine endorses the idea of a natural “sweeter disposition” of the female gender, in response to
antifeminist discourses complaining about women's lack of restraint. Although humour is far from
being central in Christine’s works, she addresses laughter as part of her practical advice to
aristocratic ladies included in her didactic work Le Livre des Trois Vertus. Arguments appealing to
both sinful implications of a wide-opened mouth and mistrust of female aptitudes to self-mastery
are not upheld by Christine. Nonetheless, she still advocates for moderate laughter and talk as
appropriate marks through which feminine virtue must be preferably constructed and publicly
displayed. In this regard, Christine’s stance is in stark contrast to medieval writers more sensitive to
Ovid's parody, who often demonstrate an enhanced willingness to disrupt and confound the
reductive binary framework through which female laughter was regularly constrained by late
medieval didacticism.

As I also have shown in Chapter 2, in Chaucer's portrayal of the Wife of Bath laughter is not split
either as a mark of female virtuosity or sinfulness. Instead, Chaucer stresses the potential of her

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jocular talk to disrupt and destabilize gender roles, while undermining fixed notions of virtue and
sin. While Saint Cecilie fulfils the ideal of chaste and virile laughter Jerome praised in some of his
most skilled female disciples, the Wife laughs out loud without putting aside her feminine
characteristics to assume those of a man. Nevertheless, just like Saint Cecilie, the Wife manages to
cross the line by playing a male role and exercise apostolic authority. Through her famous speech,
the Wife not only asserts the sexualized and potentially transgressive gap-toothed, yelling, laughing
open mouth, but she also proves capable of conveying doctrinal truth, thus challenging patristic
misogynist extreme positions.

In Chapter 3 I followed the traces of Ovid’s Anna Perenna in medieval literature to shed light on its
crucial influence for the development of the tradition of the medieval go-between. In pursuing the
veiled presence of Anna’s trick on Mars through different medieval works, I hope to have
contributed to the larger project of determining the sources of the old woman procuress. This
central character featuring in multifarious forms in vernacular literatures across Europe can be
defined as both an outstandingly original medieval character and as one of the most traditional
characters in Western literature. The procuress starring in late medieval comic genres is
demonstrably an Ovidian figure which was transplanted into medieval soil and then transferred to
a range of languages and cultural settings, thus displaying new features in each new appearance. In
this regard, I have demonstrated that Ana Perenna must share the honour, along with the well-
known model of the witch Dipsas, of being the Ovidian source of the medieval literary bawds.

To a significant extent, medieval comic narratives revolving around the figure of the go-between
retain the basic structure we can find in Ovid's last narrative about Anna Perenna in Fasti. A
lecherous yet gullible suitor leaves the conquer of his beloved in the hands of an untrustworthy go-
between. The go-between craftily manipulates the situation and turns it to her own advantage, thus
obtaining her desires. Her victory is expressed with a triumphant, last laugh at the man's expense.
This basic plot premise remains, even though when migrating into medieval literature Anna’s
trickery and laughter take on many variables and different shades of meaning. Anna’s role is
renewed when the vetula takes the place of the virgin puella, when Ciutazza impersonates Monna
Piccarda, or when the aged puella delightfully laughs at Pseudo-Ovid bent to her wishes; either in
that occasion when Trotaconventos mocks the Archpriest’s love-making skills, or in the scene of

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Pandarus’ bed, which can be considered a scheme created by the go-between to manipulate both
lovers for his own pleasure.

It may also be concluded that Ovid’s influence over the medieval go-between, and especially Anna
Perenna’s model, often endows this figure with a significant degree of rowdiness and ambivalence,
thus preventing it to serve (or at least to serve consistently and without contradictions) the purposes
of misogynistic rhetoric pervading medieval literature. In the works surveyed here, the go-between
features as a disruptive character challenging male authority to a greater or lesser extent, often
acting as a driving force behind women's agency and articulation of their own desires. Thus, these
medieval narratives renew the old, positive tie, already recognized by Ovid, connecting Anna
Perenna with women’s speech and laughter, both considered powerful tools that challenge male
hierarchical pretensions to authority and control, while enabling alternative perspectives upon
prevailing values and structures to be expressed. Also noticeable is the persistence in medieval
narratives of the symbolic linkage between Anna and the flow of life, encompassing death, renewal,
and rebirth, conveyed by Ovid’s account in Fasti of both the goddess’ bed trick and her festival. In
this respect, the old appeal to renewal is expressed and retained, under new guises, through the go-
between’s advice to the widows —mouthed either by Trotaconventos or Pandarus—to get rid of
their mourning black habits and make the most of the amorous adventures yet to come.

While the corruptive influence of these old procuresses over women is a stock motive in medieval
antifeminist literature, men’s need to resort to them is exploited by comic literature in such a way
that often the go-between becomes a rather ambiguous, uncontrollable figure capable of wielding
a great power. In this regard, Boccaccio writes that the wicked widow who inspired Il Corbaccio used
to be surrounded by "certain old biddies, alewives and cosmeticians, who are excellent madams and
go-betweens for enabling Master Shaft (Messer Mazza) to reenter the Obscure Valley from which
he had been chased after many tears."454 A sexual intercourse obviously hides behind the
metaphorical and obscene language employed by Boccaccio, and those tears (lagrime), as Patricia
Simons explains, are a misogynistic pun referring to spermatic fluid.455 Chapter 4 of this thesis has
exposed that the whole of Il Corbaccio consists of compiling and grossly exaggerating antifeminist

454 Cassell, 42.

455 Patricia Simons, The Sex of Men in Premodern Europe: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011),

69.

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tropes and jokes of the sort, yet emphasizing that repetitive monotony in what misogynists have to
say about women from the Church Fathers onwards. Thus, Boccaccio’s last work has been described
as a summa of the antifeminist tradition but also a renewal of those tired old hatred discourses
which are turned into laughing matter.

Boccaccio was most likely aware of the rigid and conventional nature of antifeminism and
elaborated on Ovid’s parodic style, especially his Remedia Amoris, to craft his own mock anti-female
treatise parodying misogynist rhetoric. Accordingly, Il Corbaccio's misogynous major characters are
deliberately depicted in such a pitiable way that their clichés and hackneyed arguments are
debased, de-authorized and ultimately turned back against the defamers of women. As noted
above, Boccaccio’s parody of antifeminist lore not only echoes its sources and references but also
renews them with a view to new creative possibilities. In this respect, the conventional misogynous
topic according to which women should be reputed as the hell’s gate, given their unruly sexuality,
figures prominently in Il Corbaccio. The topic of the hellmouth, often implying the symbolic
equivalence between the two “mouths” of the female body, can be traced to the Church Father's
writings, especially to Jerome's Vulgata's identification of os vulvae and inferno, being both
described as insatiable and never satisfied. The Obscure Valley of the above-mentioned misogynistic
pun derives its origin from this patristic image, which also becomes the bizarre infernal setting of
Boccaccio's parodic narration.

The trope of the conflation between female mouth and genitals, along with its connection to hell, is
also alluded to by Chaucer's Wife of Bath. However, this misogynistic commonplace is pushed to its
most absurd extremes by Boccaccio. Likewise, the female gaping mouth in laughter, associated with
both verbal and sexual incontinence, are antifeminist clichés submitted to parody and ridicule in
both Boccaccio’s last fiction and Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Prologue. As has been shown in this study,
this symbolic association can be also traced back to classical stages. Specifically, in Roman elegy
female laughter was also perceived as a threat towards men’s authority and expressed both
women’s power and sexual misbehaviour. In this regard, Ovid’s comic treatment of this elegiac
trope in his parodic-didactic poems can be pointed as a suitable starting point of the tendency,
among medieval writers, of appealing to female laughter to mock both norms of female laughter
and male concerns about it.

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In creating the Wife of Bath, Chaucer chiefly drew on the Ovidian model of Dipsas from Amores 1.8
to trigger a parodic game through which the chinks and cracks of authoritative male discourses
about women’s nature and gender differences are exposed and spotlighted. Let us not forget that
women, for the Wife of Bath, are in the same position as the lion portrayed by a man who depicts
himself in the act of taming it. Hence her indignant remark: “Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?”
(692). Such a portrayal cannot be trusted, and certainly it would be quite different if a representative
individual of the portrayed specie was the painter. In a similar manner, the Wife questions the
distorted image of women rendered by those offending texts gathered in her husband's book of
"wykked wyves." Finally, Chaucer eloquently crowns his imaginary response from a woman to
misogynous literature by making the Wife destroy the book that tormented her.

The way in which the Wife fights back against Jankyn's anthology of antifemale vituperations, among
which is “Ovides Art,” may be compared to that of Christine when challenging misogynous literature,
especially Ovid and Jean de Meun, as can be seen in the Epistre au Dieu d'Amours and other of her
works. Chapter 2 and 4 of this research brought into the discussion Christine de Pizan's rebuttal to
misogynist writers whom she accuses of ill-talking and publicly defaming women. Within the logic
of this argument, I suggested, antifeminist authors were equated with the figure of Malebouche or
"Evil-tongue," the allegorical slanderer from the Roman de la Rose. This association will later
become even more explicit in the context of the querelle de la Rose/querelle des femmes, where
Jean de Meun was repeatedly deemed a Malebouche type. I have shown that the figure of
Malebouche mirrors the misogynous commonplaces about women's verbal unruliness. When he
becomes a figure for the author of antifemale invectives, Malebouche creates an insurmountable
contradiction revealing fissures in misogynist arguments about women's nature. In Chapter 4 I have
shown how Boccaccio seizes a similar paradox in Il Corbaccio to discredit his misogynistic speakers
whose allegedly authoritative knowledge-claims are thus reduced to mere gossip and tattle. They
are no longer credible as argumentative resources but become available as a target and topic of
comic literature.

Like Boccaccio, among her rhetorical manoeuvres to refute misogyny, Christine also lashed out at
the unrestrained tongues of antifeminist writers. Christine, however, can hardly be described as an
Ovidian writer in the manner of the male-writers studied here. She engaged polemically with Ovid
throughout her works, regarding him an authoritative source behind medieval misogyny, and

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therefore a source of prejudices and misconceptions about women. This sets her apart from Chaucer
and Boccaccio who drew on Ovidian tropes, including his use of female laughter, to parody
antifeminist literature and expose profound paradoxes attached to the discourse of misogyny. The
Wife of Bath, for example, may well be described as an Ovidian creature mocking the antifeminist
misappropriations of Ovid, which put him on an equal footing with Jerome. However, albeit with
differing agendas and emphasis, the promotion of critical perspectives on medieval antifeminism
eventually brought Christine and Ovidian male-writers, such as Chaucer and Boccaccio, together.

Linda Burke has noted that, in her Book of the City of Ladies, Christine's citations of Jehan Le Fèvre's
Lamentations of Matheolus are relentlessly scornful and dismissive, calling it a "little book... of no
authority” and a mere "trufferie," among other epithets.456 Furthermore, Christine speculates on
whether the misogynistic rants of Matheolus should be taken as serious invective against women or
treated with detachment as some kind of literary game. Such a perspective, which has been
suggested by a number of modern critics regarding to Le Fèvre's Lamentations, is also the one I
myself have adopted concerning Boccaccio’s Il Corbaccio. According to Burke, however, for Christine
the real-world consequences of antifeminine discourse—rejection of marriage, promiscuity, even
wife-beating— were too serious to be neutralized with a hermeneutics of evasion. I agree with
Burke that Christine's polemics on women are passionately designed to refute the topoi of the
misogynistic tradition in their most obvious literal meaning. Nevertheless, Christine's own uses of
humour and laughter as a form of criticism are yet to be further investigated.

The scope of the present study has been largely restricted to the dialogic counterpoint between
Ovid’s classical sources and late medieval comic literature, while bypassing the admittedly elusive
issue of whether literary portraits of laughing women may or may not correlate to actual forms of
late medieval female humour. While it would be desirable to know more about medieval women's
humour, the lack of comic texts known to be authored by women remains an obstacle either to
exploring first-hand depictions of female laughter and mockery, or to positively ascertain what
medieval women actually found amusing. Of course, the lion has been painted by men, and so have
been the giggles resounding in these pages. They have been crafted by men as a literary device

456 Linda Burke, Appendix. A Unique Interpolation on Christine de Pizan in a Manuscript of Jehan Le Fèvre's Lamentations

and Libre de Leesce, in Jehan Le Fèvre, The Book of Gladness / Le Livre de Leesce, ed. and trans. by Linda Burke (Jefferson:
McFarland & Company, 2013), 134.

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usually designed to set the wheels of parody in motion, allowing them to adopt paradoxical, or
ambivalent, or even transgressive stances with regard to the mainstream misogynistic ideology.
However, if these writers often resorted to women’s laughter to make fun either of antifeminism or
the male-constructed concepts of womanhood and love —or even to engage in self-deprecatory
forms of humour by mocking their own authority as men of letters— it was most likely because they
were keen to hear and include divergent voices and alternative discourses in their fictions.

Portrayals of female comic characters playing the role of critical recipients of male discourses
prefigure a female audience responding with humour to both antifeminist discourses and comic
literature written by men, as can be seen either in Chaucer’s The Wife of Bath's Prologue or in
Boccaccio's claims that he expects his book to be read by the wicked widow in Il Corbaccio.
Unfortunately, even though both Chaucer and Boccaccio claimed to write for women, and
populated their fictions with female readers or listeners, the sparse material evidence of female
readership of their works make it not advisable to try to go beyond those fictional mocking
responses, at least for now.457 Future works will hopefully further explore and shed light on the role
played by women as consumers of medieval literary humour. The last laugh may be yet to come,
and may be hers, after all.

457 For Boccaccio's claims that he is writing for a female audience in the Decameron, see Migiel, A rhetoric, 3-16. Aileen E.

Feng also mentions Filomena of the Filostrato, as an example of pseudo-female addressee, and the historical addressee
of De Mulieribus claris, Andrea Acciaiuoli. However, she clarifies that "there is little historical evidence to support a female
readership of Boccaccio's works until the Quattrocento.” See Aileen E. Feng, “The tale of Cesca”, 201. On the other hand,
among Chaucer's female characters addressed in this thesis, the Wife of Bath, Criseyde, the Second Nun are depicted
either as listeners, readers or even translators of male-writings. For an analyses of Chaucer's depiction of women as
readers see Madeleine Saraceni, “Chaucer's Feminine Pretexts: Gendered Genres in Three Frame Moments,” Chaucer
Review 51:4 (2016), 403-435. Chaucer also claims to write for women, whether in the Legend of Good Women, in the Man
of Law's Introduction, in Anelide and Arcite, and elsewhere. However, Saraceni observes that there is a dearth of material
evidence of female readership of Chaucer’s works in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. As mentioned in
note 15, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College MS 61 is an early fifteenth-century manuscript of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde
that shows specific evidence of female readership. The manuscript also contains a well-known frontispiece illumination in
which a man, possibly Chaucer, offers a recitation or reading to a noble audience of both men and women. For an analysis
of this manuscript predisposing a female reading see Vines, 17-52.

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