English Comps Byerly: Section B

15 January 1997

From ‘The Pardoner’s Tale’: (pp. 201-202, lines 407-425)

This olde man gan loke in his visage, And seyde thus, “For I ne can nat finde A man, though that I walked into Inde, Neither in citee nor in no village, That woulde chaunge his youthe for myn age; And therefore moot I han myn age stille, As long time as it is Goddes wille. Ne Deeth, allas! ne wol nat han my lyf. Thus walke I, lyk a resteless caityf, And on the ground, which is my modres gate, I knokke with my staf bothe erly and late, And seye, ‘Leve moder, leet me in! Lo, how I vanish, flesh, and blood, and skin! Allas! whan shul my bones been at reste? Moder, with yow wolde I chaunge my cheste That in my chambre longe tyme hath be, Ye, for an heyre clout to wrappe me!’ But yet to me she wol nat do that grace, For which ful pale and welked is my face.

The quest of the three “ryotoures” in “The Pardoner’s Tale” for Deeth, the man who they believe has killed their companion, engages mythic elements of the hero’s adventure. Before crossing the first threshold of adventure, Joseph Campbell writes, the hero encounters “some little fellow of the wood, some wizard, hermit, shepard or smith” who acts as the hero’s guide. This “great figure of the guide, the teacher, the ferryman, the conductor of souls to the afterworld” is in Christian belief often the figure of the Holy Ghost. For the Pardoner’s three heroes, the “olde man” who directs them to Deeth is this mythic guide.

The “olde man” is not only a guide to Deeth, but a figure of death itself. In both appearance and speech, he evokes the image of Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx who stands between the upper and under worlds. He is a representation of the immortal, but not imperishable. Having been asked by the “proudest of thise ryotoures” how he has lived in such long age, the old man reveals that he is a mysterious wanderer also bound on a quest (403). He says,

“For I ne can nat finde A man, though that I walked into Inde, Neither in citee nor in no village, That woulde chaunge his youthe for myn age; (408-411)

While the “ryotoures” seek Deeth/death, the old man, seemingly already finding death, now seeks the reserve quest in youth and rebirth. He seeks that magic elixir that can make him again young, but has not yet discovered one within his own mythic adventure. It seems as though he has found knowledge of death, but death has not found him. In his old age, his face covered, his flesh withered to the bone, he takes on the figure of immortality as ghost or ferryman. The old man continues,

Ne Deeth, allas! ne wol nat han my lyf. Thus walke I, lyk a resteless caityf, (414-415)

The restlessness of his condition figures him as one on the edge of the two worlds of life and death. Without home, he is a captive to the mortality of which death will not deprive him. Therefore, he is also Death’s slave who, in his covered deathly-bony frame and his unrest, shares a mythic parallel in Charon.

The old man connects a search for death with a search for youth as though by dying he may be reborn. He says,

And on the ground, which is my modres gate, I knokke with my staf bothe erly and late, And seye, ‘Leve moder, leet me in! (416-418)

The ground becomes a symbol for the womb, his “modres gate,” into which he hopes to discover sanctuary. The gate image picks up an element of the threshold to adventure through which the hero must pass. Knocking upon the gate, the old man also evokes the Christian belief of entering into heaven, but being denied. That he knocks “bothe erly and late” suggests the two endpoints in the segment of a man’s time in the world, that is birth and death. His plea, “Leve moder, leet me in!”, suggests the psychology of the child, who upon being born, wishes to return to his mother’s womb — a rebirth.

This return to be reborn suggests that death can be a rebirth for the old man’s language recognizes the apparent similarities in how a man both enters and leaves his life. He suggests the connection between the cloth one wraps a corpse and the cloth one into which one places a reborn child. However, denied re-entry into the womb and denied entry into the grave, the old man, who in “flesh, and blood, and skin” withers, is left to roam as guardian of that which he cannot attain.

The irony of “The Pardoner’s Tale” is that the three “ryotoures” find the death which the old man cannot. It is important to know that their quest is an uninformed quest based in part by their arrogance. The Pardoner’s foolish three heroes embark to find a man named Deeth, when, of course, they are in fact looking for death. With the aid of the old man guide, they do find each their own deaths when, driven by greed and avarice, they kill each other over a treasure of gold hidden under a tree. What they discover is the knowledge of death and therefore the symbol of the treasure-keeping tree is also a symbol of the Tree of Knowledge from which Adam and Eve eat. Stealing from the tree, Adam, Eve, and the three “ryotoures” discover mortality.

As though knowledge of sin and mortality are combined, the fought-over treasure symbolizes greed and death. In the mythic adventure, as the hero approaches the threshold he can either slay its guard and cross or, defeated, be slain. In “The Pardoner’s Tale,” Chaucer reveals a successful defeat as they fulfill their quest, but in achieving their aim destroy themselves.

---

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero With A Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press. (1973)