In the Event of the Franklin's Tale

There is no truth to delimit in the event. Events come, if ever they arrive, to designate fields of pure possibility and emergent futurity. Consider one old tale of “diverse aventures” (V.710), Chaucer’s Franklin’s Tale.1 Somewhere in Brittany, Dorigen is happily married to the knight Arveragus, having recently pledged her undying love. “Have heer my trouthe — til that myn herte breste” (V.759). Soon he goes on an expedition abroad. Dorigen watches ships come to port in the hopes that one will return her husband safely, and she is tormented by thoughts of his foundering. Dorigen cultivates a “derke fantasye” (V.844), meditating on the hazards of a seascape that consists of “grisly rokkes blake” (V.859) just offshore. They are menacing and apparently meaningless obstacles to her happiness. She cannot shake bleak thoughts of a possible fatality, despite friends’ comforting words and pleasant distractions. Then something unexpected does happen. At a dance, the amorous squire Aurelius propositions Dorigen, begging her mercy. She rejects his advances, tactfully couching her reply in terms that are described as playful: shesays she will yield to Aurelius only if he removes thedangerous rocks that threaten her beloved husband. “Have heer my trouthe, in al that evere I kan” (V.998). It would seem impossible. But Dorigen’s so-called rash promise to Aureliusis a fateful utterance carried away by further events, accompanied by a powerful sense of foreboding, setting in motion so many impossibilities. Dorigen and expectantreaders of the tale subsequently drift towards a future of still more improbable events.