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"My Trouthe for to Holde—Allas, Allas!":Dorigen and Honor in the Franklin’s Tale Alison Ganze Perhaps the most oft-quoted (and debated) words in the Franklin's Tale are those of Arveragus when he admonishes Dorigen that she must keep her promise to sleep with the squire Aurelius should he succeed in the task she playfully set him, for "Trouthe is the hyeste thing that man may kepe" (V 1479).1 The question is, exactly what kind of trouthe does Arveragus mean, and how does this trouthe apply to Dorigen? In addressing the first part of this question, we must bear in mind that trouthe is perhaps the single most multivalent word in Middle English. Its meaning had not yet been largely reduced to factual veracity, as it has in Modern English—in fact, this aspect of trouthe's meaning was still relatively new in Chaucer's time.2 For most of the Middle English period, trouthe comprised a wide range of interrelated meanings. The MED gives no fewer than sixteen different definitions of the word trouthe, including 'loyalty' (to one's kin, one's country, one's beloved, one's God); 'adherence to vows and promises'; 'constancy'; 'honor, nobility, integrity, or moral soundness'; 'honesty'; 'character or behavior that conforms to religious or divine standards, righteousness, or holiness'; 'faith,' especially Christian faith, the tenets of Christian belief; 'absolute truth,' usually identified with spiritual reality; 'factual information'; and 'justice,' usually in the context of natural law. These definitions are further complicated by the awareness that each definition is often implicated in or evoked by one or more of the others. Indeed, the MED offers its definitions with the caveat that, although quotations have been provided to illustrate each of the various senses of trouthe, it would be a mistake to assume that any quotation is exclusive in its illustration of a given meaning, for the word "and the concepts it expresses defy rigid categorization."3 Since Arveragus directs his wife to keep her promise to Aurelius, and since in her complaint Dorigen repeatedly expresses her desire to remain chaste to her husband, it is easy to conclude that Arveragus privileges one kind of trouthe—promises, or verbal fidelity—while Dorigen privileges another—loyalty to her spouse, or bodily fidelity. In fact, the concerns of [End Page 312] both husband and wife are united in yet a third sense of trouthe, that of honor. However, since the nature of that honor is itself a matter of debate, we are not much further along in resolving our dilemma. In Middle English, the word honour is nearly as semantically loaded as trouthe, encompassing both mundane and transcendent meanings. Its own synonyms include worship, curteisie, renoun, noblesse, glorie (both worldly and spiritual), worthynesse, name, and fame. Further complicating matters, one may note a dichotomous relationship between these two groups of synonyms. As Derek Brewer eloquently puts it, honour is Janus-faced. On the one side honour looks towards goodness, virtue, an inner personal quality; the other side looks towards social or external reputation, to marks of dignity, like giving generous feasts, or making honorific gestures like kneeling.4 This dichotomy is beautifully illustrated in Chaucer's translation of Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. In Book II, Prosa 6, honour follows from the personal virtue that is the only true good: But now, if so be that dignytees and poweris ben yyven to gode men, the whiche thyng is ful zelde, what aggreable thynges is ther in tho dignytees or powers but oonly the goodnesse of folk that usen hem? And therfore it is thus that honour ne cometh nat to vertu for cause of dygnite, but, ayenward, honour cometh to dignyte for cause of vertu. (Bo II.Pr.6.20–27) Ideally, of course, worldly reputation would be a reflection of inner virtue. In fact, as Gerald Morgan argues, "Honor in the sense of fame or reputation holds the status of a moral quality" because of the assumed correspondence "between external behavior and internal movements of the soul."5 Yet honor can too easily be simply equated with virtue and thus made an end in itself. Later in Boece, the entirety of Book...
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