A New Perspective on the Wager Cycle

Abstract

THE basic pattern of the wager tale (Cymbeline; Decameron, II, 9; Euryanthe; et al.) is well known. A man stakes his possessions or his life on the virtue of a woman whom another undertakes to possess. A deception makes it appear that the woman has yielded to the wouldbe seducer, and he claims the stake, only to be brought to confusion when the lady's chastity is finally established. Gaston Paris, in his masterly and indispensable study of the wager stories,1 classified them into three main groups. Group A is characterized by the circumstance that the would-be seducer acts in good faith in claiming to have won the wager, having been led through a substitution to believe he actually has possessed the lady. In groups B and C both, on the other hand, he wittingly slanders the heroine, the distinction between these groups being that in B the woman is active in bringing about her vindication, while in C her role is passive. Group A is clear cut, and there can be no argument over its reality; the case is otherwise, however, for B and C. The fact is that the subgroups B2, B3, and B4 show much closer affinity to C than they do to subgroup B1; and there are ample grounds for doubting that Paris' distinction between B and C-that is, activity or passivity of the heroine in bringing about the denouement-is an essential one. Actually, it seems preferable in the interest of greater simplicity, as well as of logic, to envisage the wager tales as resolving themselves into three distinct types having the following general patterns: