Reimagining Natural Order in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue”

Abstract

In the middle of recounting how her fifth husband tormented her with his “book of wikked wyves,” the Wife of Bath poses the question, “Who peyntede the leon, tel me who?” (WBPro III.692).¹ She is alluding to the Aesopian fable of the man and the lion, a fable that brings out the importance—and the unreliability—of individual perspective.² The lion in the fable has just been shown a painting of a man killing a lion; disgruntled at seeing his species thus portrayed, he asks the question that Alisoun now repeats. As Jill Mann writes, Alisoun is showing that “women… are in the same position as the lion: they are powerless to correct the distorted image of themselves produced by clerical misogynists and given all the weight of bookish authority.” The Wife’s response is “to reveal the biassed individual behind the mask.”³