Merchant's Tale May Quotes

May 1252 and Alfonso X, new to the throne and with his father’s dying challenge ringing in his ears, was not slow to pick up the baton in this regard, very possibly encouraged by Gaston de Béarn, who will have been well placed to tell tales of Henry’s weakness. Straight after de Montfort’s trial, Alfonso accepted the homage of Gascon families alienated by de Montfort’s harsh policies – including the influential Gaston, who, although cousin to Eleanor of Provence, was never averse to mischief making for the Crown. Soon word began to filter through that Gascon wine merchants were seeking out new markets in Castile – doubtless also with the encouragement of Alfonso and Gaston.2

the morally ambiguous fairies may have provided an outlet for the classicising impulse under a different and genre-appropriate guise. Thus Sir Orfeo of Winchester takes the place of Orpheus, and the Fairy King stands in for Pluto/Hades in Sir Orfeo. It is clear that some of the fairies of romance are little more than thinly veiled Classical gods, such as Chaucer’s fairy king and queen in The Merchant’s Tale, named Pluto and Proserpina, while Morgan le Fay bears many characteristics of Circe and Medea.113 It is possible, therefore, that one of the many versatile literary purposes of fairies in medieval romance was to introduce figures with the capacity to act like Classical deities while keeping them at arm’s length from the contested realm of theology.