maiden (unmarried girl) - dotard (senile elderly person) - feeble (weak) - cuckold (be unfaithful to) - flatter (compliment)
A marriage between a decrepit old man and a young maiden is commonly referred to as a January-May wedding, taken of course from this tale.
While this tale is the most original of Chaucer's, the trick played at the end on the old dotard — often referred to as the "Pear-Tree episode" — was found in many popular tales of the time.
In fact, the figure of the aged or feeble lover is frequent in literature of all ages.
In this tale, as in others, the reader assumes that the older man will be cuckolded by a younger, handsomer, more virile man, especially because the older man has difficulty coping with his young wife in bed.
The Merchant's Tale is the second tale handling the cuckolding of an old husband by a young bride (the first was The Miller's Tale).
The choice of names supports the Merchant's point-of-view: January (old with white hair like snow) marries May (young and beautiful like the May flowers) after rejecting the good advice of Justinius (the just or righteous man) and following the advice of Placebo (the flattering man).
Similar tales are Boccaccio's Story of Lydia and Pyrrhus and The Simpleton Husband from One Thousand and One Nights. Book IV of the The Masnavi (Persian poem) of Rumi contains another pear tree story.
A tale from the Decameron (1916) by John William Waterhouse (1849–1917)
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