Cry Me A River
(The Clerk's Tale)
The story:
King Walter takes the advice of his counsellors and leaves his pursuit of pleasure and seeks a wife.
He chooses Griselda... the most beautiful but the poorest of peasants. Believing she has married him only for money and not for love, King Walter subjects Griselda to cruelty beyond measure, demanding that she should not make any complaint if she wishes to prove she loves him.
After suffering the loss of both children, the apparent annulment of their marriage and the final indignity of being expected to prepare the Kings next wife for the wedding, Griselda endures with such nobility that King Walter is is overcome with remorse for his behaviour and restores Griselda's children to her and admits the annulment of their marriage was faked.
In the picture:
Walter stands with his hawk as Griselda dotes on their first baby.
Behind the picture:
The Clerk's tale can be read as a moral tale to instruct both husband and wife in the niceties of proper marital behaviour.
Walter's selfish brutality is finally overcome by Griselda's submissiveness and integrity of character and consequently their marriage becomes a happy one.
Symbolism:
Each of the poppies and the extinguished candles represents a loss in Griselda's unhappy life.
The hawk clutches a snake coiled around a bent quill... an indication the the papal letter (shown with a cardinal beetle) is a forgery.
Griselda wears bittersweet in her hair as the molten wax from the candles form the river of tears she was not allowed to shed.
Ultimately the whole scene is illuminated by the re-lit candles as Griselda is reunited with her children and she is restored to her proper position as the king's wife.
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