The Creation of Consent in the Physician's Tale

Abstract

In a remarkable moment of Physician 's Tale Virginia consents to her own death, asking her father Virginius to kill her: Yif me my deeth, er that I have a shame, she implores him (VI 249).1 This moment, like all those when Virginia speaks, appears neither Chaucer's stated source, Livy's history, which Chaucer may or may not have known, nor his unstated source, Jean de Meun's Roman de la Rose, which Chaucer most certainly did know.2 This particular addition arises from Virginius's response to evil judge Apius's demand that Virginia be handed into his custody. As Virginius understands situation, he is faced with a ter rible choice for his daughter: to hand her to Apius in lecherie to lyven (VI 206), or to kill her, ending her life before Apius can take her virgin ity. What is remarkable about this moment Physician s Tale is not so much that Virginius decides it is better for his daughter to be dead than dishonored (taking her head to save her maidenhead, as some have explained pun) ,3 but instead that Virginia herself agrees with this deci sion. Virginia's consent to her own death, added to story by Chaucer, is only one improbable moment a tale generally considered faulty, but it is, I believe, a crucial moment. In this essay I will argue that primary question that drives this tale is what might lead a young woman to decide that death is preferable to loss of virginity and to agree to her own death. While some Chaucerians have simply condemned Physician 's Tale (it is, one succinctly stated, the faultiest of Canterbury Tales), many more have analyzed problems with tale, providing a variety of diag noses.4 Noting that story as told Livy's history and Roman de la Rose is explicitly political, Sheila Delany has argued that Physician's Tale Chaucer introduces political ideas but is subsequently unwilling or unable to treat them as plot develops.5 Angus Fletcher also sees tale as moving away from question of explicitly political authority, but contends that it takes up questions of writerly and historical authority.6 Linda Lomperis contends that authority question is authority over bodies, and she reads tale a split between physical body and