Maistre Pathelin: Manipulation of Topics and Epistemic Lability

Author(s): Cesare Segre and John Meddemmen

Source: Poetics Today, Vol. 5, No. 3, Medieval and Renaissance Representation: New Reflections
(1984), pp. 563-583
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1772380
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 MAISTRE PATHELIN: MANIPULATION
OF TOPICS AND EPISTEMIC LABILITY*

CESARE SEGRE
Romance Philology, Pavia

The farce of Maistre Pathelin1 is on a denotative level excep-

tionally unequivocal; such difficulties as there are in its lively
dialogue are merely linguistic, and understanding of the whole is
never in question. The ten scenes into which modern editors divide
the farce fall into three distinct movements:2
1 (I-II). Maistre Pathelin (P) manages to get 6 aulnes of cloth
from a draper, Guillaume Joceaulme (G); the cash equivalent (9
francs, or 6 escus) is to be paid at P's home, and G is to call there
when he closes his shop; he is also invited to share a goose and have a
glass of wine.
2 (III-V). Shortly afterwards G calls at P's house where he meets
the wife, Guillemette, distraught because, she says, P is seriously ill;
indeed, he has, it seems, been confined to bed for the past eleven
weeks. In proof G is shown P in bed and delirious, at death's very
door; G beats a hasty retreat, convinced that he is a victim of the
wiles of the Evil One.
3 (VI-X). Thibault Aignelet (T), a shepherd who looks after the
sheep which provide G's wool, is brought before the court by G on a
sheep-stealing charge. He turns to P for help, and at his suggestion
answers all the questions put to him by bleating a monosyllabic bee.
The judge takes him for a half-wit and sends him free. But when P
* Translated by
John Meddemmen.
1. I quote from Holbrook (1924).
2. The division into three movements is obvious. Rousse (1973) gives, though, a demonstra-
tion, and points out that such a three-fold articulation has the text fall into sections each
of approximately 500 verses: this is the average length of a farce in this
period. Rousse
further remarks that it is in the links between the three movements that we find G's two
monologues: verses 498-506 and 1007-1016. Crist (1978) goes on to note that the
relations between G-T, P-G, and P-T correspond to fundamental moments of the
system
of exchange: production of the raw material (barter economy), transmission of the trans-
formed material (money economy), and legal assistance.

Poetics Today, Vol. 5:3 (1984) 563-583

564 CESARE SEGRE

asks to be paid for his services, T meets his insistence with reiterated
bleatings.
The plot is, then, fairly straightforward, and might lend itself to
fabliau treatment (see 3.1). It is when we analyze its techniques in
detail that we come to see how the anonymous author has contrived
to create out of a plot of this kind one of the masterpieces of the
Renaissance theater.

1. DISCOURSE PRAGMATICS AND "BEFFA"

1.1. Recourse to discourse pragmatics will prove productive only
after factivity characteristics have been made clear. We might begin,
for example, with the modality of make do. In the first movement
P's speeches would be directed towards having G hand the cloth over
on credit, though this is true only in part, as we shall see. In the
second movement there is no longer any question of G's being made
to do anything. Finally, in the third movement, the immediate aim
of T and P, to obtain acquittal from the judge, is merely the means
by which to obtain cancellation of the fraud (T) and payment of
T (P). Each of these results are further put to use by P to effect
further humiliation of G. Nor does make believe (getting things
believed) take us much further. In the first movement P has G believe
a great many things (that he is an old friend of his father's, that he
is of easy means, etc.), but what is important is not so much con-
vincing him as creating a climate which will favor his undertaking.
This modality has greater weight in the second movement, though it
is directed towards a result which lies in the area of presuppositions:
convincing G that P is at death's door makes him infer that P cannot
possibly have obtained the cloth from him shortly before. Lastly,
in the third movement make believe involves the judge alone,
whereas G and P, at different moments, are each clearly aware of the
deception practiced on them.

1.2.1. The farce is a contest in deception:3 P manages to trick G

who, for his part, thinks he has passed off his cloth for more than
it is worth, while cadging a free meal as well; P and his wife outvie
each other in hoodwinking G when he comes to collect; T has
cozened G out of his sheep; P and T trick the judge, and G as well,
obtaining an unjust acquittal; T cheats P, paying him for his services
with one bleat after another.
There are two real actants, P and G. P's wife, Guillemette, and the
shepherd T (like the judge) are merely aspects of the actant P (see
Greimas 1973). The master-stroke of the finale lies in its conclusively
conferring upon T the status of actant: it is thanks to this that T

3. On the semiotics of deceit see Maddox (1978).

 MAISTRE PATHELIN 565

turns to his own purposes the deception P taught him to use against
G. Hence the duel P-G ends in the final success of T (but see 6.1).

1.2.2. Nonetheless, in Maistre Pathelin the results of deception are

less important than deception itself. The farce belongs to the great
literary tradition of the beffa:4 it is an art which is its own reward,
where tangible results are secondary.
The beffa is the triumph of intelligence. As he sets on foot his
projects, P declares just that "mon sens esprouver" (verse 35) is his
aim, and words like sens (also at 51), science (33), saige (8, 17), keep
recurring, always with reference to cunning. Even as he takes up T's
cause, P proudly declares that a case "tant mieulx vault et plus tost
l'empire, / quant je veulx mon sens applicquer" (1129-1130). P's
cunning (as distinct from that of G, limited to selling at inflated
prices, or of T, who makes use of an expedient taught him by P) is
put into effect through the art of speech.5 Of this P himself is well
aware ("tu m'orras bien desclicquer" [1131]); as is Guillemette,
who is proud of her husband ("en luy usant de beau langaige"
[457]); even the victim knows it ("par vostre beau langaige"
[1482]). The result is that the final defeat at the hands of T irks P
not so much for the money he loses as for the fact that it humiliates
him in his own proper role of trickster (see 6.1).
This pettifogging lawyer of a protagonist well represents the
appetites and the unscrupulousness of the outer fringes of those
classes of society which in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
renewed both the culture and the life of Europe.6 The play of often
humorous variations7 on the word advocat is quite significant; it
takes up the play's opening lines: avacassoye (5), advocassaige (7),
advocat (13), advocasserie (47), advocacion (55), advocas (60); its
significance is the more evident when we observe the way it dovetails

4. For the use and senses of the term beffa in Italian literature see, for example, the two
volumes edited by Rochon (1972-1975).
5. Frappier (1967:214), rightly observes that this is "une comedie du langage et de sa
puissance insoupconnee." See also Erre (1977:95): "le travail sur le langage - et sur les
langages - effectue dans la piece souligne l'importance du langage en tant que theme
problematique de la piece et en tant que producteur de son non-sens et de son sens"; indeed,
says Erre, "le langage est le seul moteur de la piece."
6. It has been asked whether Pathelin is a fully fledged lawyer (Lemercier 1952:257) and
not, rather, "un vague clerc de bas etage volontairement mal defini, un 'braconnier' en
marge de la profession d'avocat" (Lejeune 1961:487 and, earlier, Harvey 1940). But the
most convincing opinion is that he really is a lawyer, however lowly placed: "Pathelin
gehort zu einer niederen Sorte von Rechtsanwalten, ist dabei aber kein niederer Kleriker;
er hat sein einstiges berufliches Ausehen eingebiisst; obwohl ohne Lizenz ist ein keiner,
der bloss ins Handwerk pfuscht. Auch ein Winkeladvokat ist ein Advokat" (Rauhut 1965:
50).
7. For this series, and for its stylistic value, see Spitzer (1924:369); Holbrook (1928:67-69
and 71 [he denies its humorous connotations]; Lejeune (1961:485); Rauhut (1965:54).
566 CESARE SEGRE

with the semantic field of tromper, often by means of rhyme

(advocasserie : tromperie [47-48]; advocacion': trompacion [55-
56]).

1.2.3. The sense of glorious freedom which the beffa gives comes
clearly to the fore when there are no objectives to be reached, in
the dialogues between P and Guillemette (scenes I and III). The
exchanges of this husband and wife team are based on a deep-rooted
conviction that P is a pastmaster in deception. Scene III gives us, in
addition, a trick in jest, when P, who has just brought home the
cloth, is asked by Guillemette who will pay. He answers that the
cloth has already been paid for; she says he had no money; he says
he had (a parisi); she asks how much he has spent; he says: ung
denier. The duet ends with an account of what had happened in
scene II (see 3.2): an account which resolves the earlier misunder-
standings, neutralizing the seeming contradictions between P's
affirmations and those of Guillemette.

1.3. It is now easier to understand how a pragmatic analysis of our

text might be undertaken. If the goal to be reached is less important
than the means employed (artifices, expedients) in reaching it, the
problem is not how to make do or to make believe, rather how to
make do or believe: modality overrides finality. Not that this implies
a more limited quantity of action; we are faced rather with a series
of actions at first sight disparate, but which put into effect a specific
strategy of cozenage. These actions, though, have a prevalently
psychological content, since they are to keep the victim in a state of
incapacity, compelling him all unwitting to do or to believe exactly
what P wants. At the end of the operation, the separate results are
subordinated to one overriding aim: the superiority of the deriding
actant with respect to the actant who is derided.
Instead of
X influences Y,
we have
X influences Y in such a way that he shows himself
superior to Y.
If the aim is not so much achievement of a tangible result as
demonstration of a superiority which is intellectual (astuteness); if
modalities prevail over finalities, the result is that topics8 lose their
concrete character and become elements in an overall strategy of

8. In the opposition topic-comment, the topic is that about which something is said, the
comment is that which is said about the topic; the Prague School use the terms tema and
rhema. In practice, within the range of this article, the topics are the themes for discourse
proposed by the interlocutors.
 MAISTRE PATHELIN 567

deception. The following analysis will bear in mind this kind of

variety in the use of topics.

2. THE FIRST MOVEMENT: TOPIC MANIPULATION

2.1. In the first movement, P's strategy is to confound G, in sub-
stance to undermine his presuppositions about the world, by giving
utterance to a series of topics at first sight quite divorced from P's
real strategy. Quite simply his plan is:
to get the cloth from G (without paying),
and our parentheses circumscribe the part of the operation which
is not to be confessed. The topics which P elaborates are, though, the
following: a) the way G resembles his father ("Vous luy resemblez
de visage . . . comme droitte paincture" [124-125] ; "des oreilles, /
du nez, de la bouche et des yeulx,/: oncq enfant ne resembla mieulx/
a pere" [142-145]; "vrayment c'estes vous tout poche" [146,
etc.]); b) G's canniness as a merchant and the excellent quality of
his materials ("Que ce drap ycy est bien fait!" [180]; "Enhen, quel
mesnaiger vous estes!" [184, etc.]); c) P's abundance of ready
money ("J'avois mis appart quatre vingtes / escus, pour retraire une
rente" [198-199]); this is effected with but small outlay thanks to
the offer of a denier a Dieu (232-233).
These three initial topics are interconnected in ways that will
become clear only when the transaction itself takes place: a) because
P recalls that G's father readily gave credit ("si prestoit / ses denrees
qui les vouloit" [172-173]); what is more - and the turn is comic
- G's father has, it seems, foretold the swindle ("Ha, que vous
verrez', / qu'il me disoit, 'de grans merveilles!" [140-141]); b) be-
cause P, who states from the outset that he has no intention of
buying, says that he is driven to it by the excellent quality of the
materials: in short, he appears in the guise of a disinterested, indeed
of an uninterested, customer; and c) because, in keeping with the
ample supply of ready money he says he commands, P pays scant
attention to the length of the cloth (G lengthens it in his own
interest) and as G measures, P shows aristocratic indifference (272-
275). He had already declared that expense was no object ("Ne me
chault; couste et vaille!" [215]).

2.2. G is swept away by P's strategy: on hearing his father praised,

he invites P to take a seat (135-137, 139); when with deliberate
ambiguity income is touched on, G seeks inappropriate clarifications,
and these reinforce the ambiguity (203-205).9 G has a strategy of

9. P declares: "J'avois mis appart quatre vings / escus, pour retraire une rente" (198-199),
and gives the impression of boasting at the same time liquid assets and real estate. G under-
standably asks in amazement: "Se pourroit il faire / que ceulx dont vous devez retraire /
568 CESARE SEGRE

his own, but it is routine: it comes to the fore once he sees a chance
of selling his cloth: references to hard times in the trade (112-113,
116-117), justification of his prices (240-241, 242-245, 248-
253), enthusiasm for the excellence of the merchandise (182-183).
Indeed, G overdoes it, even declaring (in unwitting prophecy) that
everything is at P's command, that payment is secondary ("et
n'eussiez vous ne croix ne pille" [226] ).10 This P at once takes up
("Je le scay bien, vostre mercy" [227]).
It is at this point that G thinks the field is open; he can gull his
antagonist, selling him more cloth than he needs at its declared retail
price without discount, and probably giving short measure (P is not
interested in checking).

2.3. This kaleidoscope of topics becomes outright manipulation1'

at the moment of payment. In place of an opposition payment
delayed/immediate payment, P puts forward various deviant
oppositions. The first of these is payment at (his own) home/pay-
ment in the shop. It is reinforced by another, yet more deviant:
a visit of G to P (a sign of friendship)/refusal of such a visit (a sign of
enmity). Lastly, as a further stimulus to G's greed, P puts forward
two oppositions: acceptance of the invitation to supper/refusal to
accept; payment in gold/payment in current coin. The success of this
manipulation is proclaimed by G himself: "Vrayment, cest homme
m'assotist" (302).
The climax in this manipulation comes at the moment of the
transaction: G, in fact, imagines he is to take the cloth to P's house
himself, so that nothing is as yet in jeopardy. But P provides yet
another deviant opposition: cloth transferred by P / cloth transferred
by G. No reference is made to the difference in time (P will take the
cloth home at once, whereas G can only arrive after he has shut up

ceste rente prinssent monnoye?" (203-205). But we have to do here with a well-defined
legal operation, the "retrait des rentes": see Lemercier (1952:220-223) and Rauhut (1981:
263).
10. Which corresponds to the truth announced by Guillemette: "Vous n'avez ne denier ne
maille" (70, idem at 372). See P's boast vice versa: "Encore ay je denier et maille", etc.
(216).
11. I use the term "manipulation" within a framework somewhat different from that of
Greimas-Courtes (1979:220-222), for they stress the modalities of pouvoir, while merely
touching on that of savoir, which is on the contrary, for me, fundamental. Erre (1977)
also speaks of manipulation, calling Pathelin "le manipulateur" (p. 97) and going on to
distinguish most interestingly between "langage de la tromperie/flatterie," "langage pi6ge,"
in which play is made of the contrast between message and context (e.g., in scene VIII),
and "langage forteresse," language of international incommunicability (pp. 98-102). Crist
(1978:72) also makes reference to "manipulating words." To manipulation, seen with
Greimas as "depriving the receiver of the discourse of any freedom of choice," but also as
"transformation of the receiver's semiotic competence," Maddox (1983) dedicates a whole
important chapter (part II, chapter 7).
 MAISTRE PATHELIN 569

shop); what is stressed instead is a somewhat dubious matter of

courtesy: as if carrying the cloth was a chore from which P wishes
to free G ("se vous en prenez ja la paine" etc. [310]). This un-
founded opposition is, though, reinforced most strongly by means
of gesture (P puts the pack under his arm) and by insistent repetition
of the invitation to dine (313-314, 318-323, 330-331), of recol-
lections on P's part of G's father (323-327), which serve to under-
line a friendship the son is slow to keep alive. Thus theme (a),
enucleated in 2.1, appears once again, coming as it were full circle,
and for the last time.
It is in his reactions to this final strategy that G's defeat is made
manifest. Faced with the false courtesy of P eager to take away the
cloth, the only objection he can think of (and an energetic gesture
on P's part at once counters him) is that it is not regular: "Ne vous
chaille: / il vault mieux, pour le plus honeste, / que je le porte"
(306-308). Finally, once the opposition home-payment/shop-
payment has been resolved in favor of the first of its elements, G
hazards an extreme opposition: payment on G's arrival at P's house/
payment after his arrival: as if such a difference existed when the
really urgent problem is by now: payment/non-payment.

3. METATHEATRICAL PARTS
3.1. In the farce metatheatrical parts abound: monologues and
conversations which do not leave their mark on the unfolding of
events but which anticipate them (prospective sections), in the form
of an action program, or which comment on how things are pro-
gressing (retrospective sections). I would single out in particular
verses 406-435, when P tells Guillemette of his meeting with G;
verses 460-477, P's instructions to Guillemette when G's visit is
imminent; verses 1157-1177, P's instructions to T before the trial.
In this triumph of "beau langaige," where the ends are less important
than the means, the prospective sections sketch out in already
animated form themes which the mimetic parts will then put into
effect, while the retrospective sections provide not only assessment
but the savor of re-enactment. In effect, these metatheatrical parts
(be they prospective or retrospective) duplicate the scene, presenting,
within diegesis, direct speech exchanges of great vivacity, quite
different from those of the corresponding scenes, as if the comic
potential of the scenes in question was to be exploited to the full.
These metatheatrical parts, with their mixed form,12 have all the
appearance of fragments of a hypothetical fabliau, in competition
with the corresponding play.

12. In the sense in which narration (diegesis) contains dialogical (mimetic) sections.
570 CESARE SEGRE

3.2. The metatheatrical parts further give us the point of view of

the characters. I refer to the "asides" and to the dialogue between
P and his wife (who between them constitute a single actant). I
would draw attention to verses 344-351, in which G shows his
satisfaction at having outwitted P: he is convinced that his cunning
has got the better of P's ("Or n'est il si fort entendeur / qui ne trouve
plus fort vendeur!" [347-348]). An habitual mirror-image naturally
enough inverts the terms. It is no accident that P too makes use of
a mirror-image as he congratulates himself on the success he has
obtained ("il ne m'a pas vendu / a mon mot; c'a este au sien, / mais
il sera paye au myen" [336-338]).
Furthermore, verses 498-506 show how, in accepting P's pro-
posals, what had loomed large in the slow-witted, stingy mind of
G was the thought of the free meal he had hoped to scrounge.
Far more interesting, of course, is the dialogue between P and
Guillemette. We have already seen (1.2.3) how P amuses himself
from the outset defining his acquisition of the cloth with enigmatic
turns of phrase which have the appearance of alluding to a normal
transaction: such playfulness shows how satisfied he is at the success-
ful outcome of his deception. But it is the perfection of the strategy
itself which matters most: hence it is that P tells Guillemette of his
exploit repeating things the audience has already seen on stage
(406-435). We are faced once more with topics (a) and (b) from 2.1
(verses 410-420 and 421-423 respectively), as well as the main
implication of topic (a), the readiness to accord loans shown by G's
father (424-427). Direct speech, though, renews P's love of word
play: he plays the trick again in telling of it. The apotheosis of
"beau langaige." Guillemette has a part of her own to play in this
apotheosis, particularly when she reminds her husband of an illu-
strious precedent, Aesop's fable of the fox and the crow (438-459):
this victory of words has its own patents of nobility. There is a
similarly self-satisfied underscoring in the second movement, when
P and his wife laughingly recount the success of their pretense with
the astounded expressions of G (732-765) or when they con-
gratulate each other on their inventiveness and performance (995-
1006).

4. SECOND MOVEMENT: MANIPULATION

OF REALITY AND EPISTEMIC LABILITY
4.1. In the second movement of the farce, G is faced with two
tricksters who act in concert: P and his wife. As they exhibit a P who
is, and has for some time been, seriously ill, they lend support to
an obvious presupposition: P cannot possibly have found himself
only shortly before in G's shop.
The two complices share out their respective tasks: Guillemette
is to intimidate, P is to impress. But we must distinguish between
 MAISTRE PATHELIN 5 71

the first verses (507-605), in which only G and Guillemette con-

verse, and those which follow (609-686), when P too is on stage.
Guillemette, who has already staked out an effective strategy, carries
on with it even after her husband intervenes, insisting with a repeated
climax, first of all on how serious the illness is, and then on how
close he is to death: a stroke of genius is her apostrophe: "Seignez
vous! Benedicite! / Faictes le signe de la croix" (830-831). Guille-
mette further takes upon herself the role of interpreter: it is she who
explains to G that P has taken him for the doctor (674-675), it is
she who defines the various tongues and dialects P goes on using,
even inventing explanations for his knowing them (for Limousin
[842-845]; for Picard [859-860]; for Norman [902-904]; for
Breton [939-942]). Worth noticing in particular is Guillemette's
introductory function: not only does she ask for silence so that the
invalid will not be woken, she reaches the point of foretelling his
recourse to plurilinguism (789-790), though this is to begin only
with verse 834.

4.2.1. With telling hysteron proteron, Guillemette, instead of devel-

oping the theme "P is ill, we must be quiet," starts out enjoining
silence and only then relates it to the fact that someone is ill; at last,
driven to it by G's amazed reactions, she specifies that it is P who
is ill. In short, the comment manifestly precedes the topic. The two
syllogisms which underpin Guillemette's exchanges are: 1) P cannot
have been in G's shop, given that he is gravely ill; 2) there is no need
for P to buy cloth for "jamais robe ne vestira / que de blanc, ne ne
partira / dont il est que les pies devant" (593-595).

4.2.2. P's strategy is much more varied. Besides expressing all the
exigencies of a patient (drinks and medicines, rearrangement of his
bed, etc. [606-609]; opening of the window [611-612, etc.]), P
stages: I) Hallucinations ("ces gens noirs" [613]; "ung moisne noir
qui vole" [619] ; "chat ... monte" [621] ; "ung asne que j'os braire"
[912] ),13 which he counters with magical formulae (613-614);
II) Confusion over people (he pretends to take G for his own doctor
[636 ff, 666-669]; he does not recognize Guillemette [848]; he
wants to become a priest [851]); III) Delirium (802-807), with
barbarolalic manifestations (Limousin [834-840], Picard [852-
855], Flemish [863-875], Norman [886-899], Breton [919-
930j, pseudo-Lorrain [943-956], Latin [957-968]).

4.2.3. The comic character of the scene is multiplied by the twofold

functionality of its expedients: for the exchanges which confirm P's
illness are at the same time insulting towards G ("Et que veult ceste

13. Often these expressions and sentences point to, and make fun of, G himself (see 4.2.3).
572 CESARE SEGRE

crapaudaille? / Alez en arriere, merdaille!" [849-850]; the whole

of the speeches in Breton and pseudo-Lorraine dialect), allusions to
the successful swindle ("que de l'argent il ne me sone!" [840] ; "car
tu m'as fait grant trichery; / ton fait, il sont tout trompery" [917-
918]); there is even a narrative summary of the swindle itself ("Dicat
sibi quod trufator, / ille qui in lecto jacet, / vult ei dare, si placet, / de
oca ad comedendum. / Si sit bona ad edendum, / pete tibi sine mora"
[963-968]). G understands nothing at all; indeed, he understands
that P is raving.
Equally comic are the scatological references to the fraud: to G
who talks to him of money (635), P confides: "j'ay chie deux petites
crotes / noires, rondes comme pelotes" (636-638, and see the rest
of the dialogue) and inquires: "Se peussiez esclarcir ma merde, /
maistreJehan?" (666-667).

4.3.1. At this point we can no longer speak of manipulation of

topics. The only case (Guillemette who enjoins silence on G, and
then, as G rightly remarks, raises her voice herself) can be given
psychological justifications. What is being manipulated is reality
itself.14 For what P and Guillemette are trying to pass off as credible
is belied by the facts: P's visit to G's shop, purchase of the cloth.
If the two complices do get the better of G, it is because they have
managed to subvert his convictions, fostering in him a serious
epistemic lability. Hence, G's behavior here becomes of primary
interest (for he cannot cling to a strategy of any kind, whereas in
the first movement he could).
The immediate escape route from the contradiction has G thinking
- and here Guillemette's tactics lead him on - that the sick man is
a different person from the one to whom he sold his cloth: hence
the series of qui? (512, 517, 521) and the question, which has
become desperate (Guillemette has already said, verse 521, that we
have to do with "Maistre Pierre"): "N'esse pas ceans que je suis /
chez maistre Pierre Pathelin?" (544-545).
Once the inapplicability of the hypothesis has been ascertained,
the only thing G can do is to counter the differentiated strategy
of Guillemette, together with that of P, with those facts of which
he is certain: the purchase of the cloth, the debt owing to him
(522-523, 530-531, 536-537, 560-561, 586-588, 634-635,
641, 649, 654-656, 663-665, 670-671, 783, 795, 811-813,
828-829). Reality is perceived as a whole, organically, and G
invokes isolated details in confirmation: the exact time of P's visit
(596-597), his invitation to share in a goose (698-699), P's be-
havior as he went away with the cloth (846-847).

14. Frappier (1967:216) spoke of the motif "de la confusion entre le vrai et le faux, entre
la realite et l'illusion."
 MAISTREPATHELIN 573

But the force of his complaint varies thanks to the effective action
of Guillemette and of P; indeed, its phases are quite clearly marked:
in fact, G withdraws full of excuses (704-705), he then thinks better
of it, comes back, and leaves defeated once more at verse 984. This
epistemic two-act tragedy is worth following in detail.

4.3.2. G begins with assertive modes (524-525, 560-561, 590,

596), with injunctive modes (527-528, 530-531, 577), at times
with deprecatory modes (536-537); Guillemette's assertions are
defined madness ("estes vous folle?" [530]). G's decision is effec-
tively countered by Guillemette, who in her turn defines as pleas-
antries or as vain imaginings G's statements ("sanz rigoler" [528];
"Alez sorer a voz coquars" [534]; "Nous baillez vous de voz
trudaines?" [568]; "Estes vous yvre? / ou hors du sens? [582-
583]). Her exhortation to shout less (as a rule shouted) allows her
to break in on G's sentences, to break his determination.
It is, though, on the appearance of P that G begins to waver. The
questions he had asked ("Est il malade a bon essient, / puis orains
qu'il vint de la foire? [630-631]) were already a sign of weakness;
even more so his abundant use of cuidier ("je cuide qu'il y a este"
[633, etc.] ; and once more at the end, before giving up once and for
all: "je cuidoye" [697]; "car je cuidoye fermement" [705] ). G goes
on claiming credit due, but it is significant that the debtor is no
longer indicated after verses 634-635 ("Du drap que je vous ay
preste, / il m'en fault l'argent, maistre Pierre"): for example, 641
("Neuf frans m'y fault"), 649 ("mes neuf frans ne sont point
rendus"), 655 ("J'auray mon drap ains que je fine, / ou mes neuf
frans!"), 670 ("Il me fault neuf frans rondement"). By now the
motif is repeated obsessively if not very hopefully: there is a certain
tearfulness is his exclamation: "Six aulnes de drap, maintenant! /
Dittes, esse chose advenant, / par vostre foy, que je les perde?"
(663-665). G's epistemic crisis stands fully revealed in verses 680-
685 -
Par le sanc bieu,je ne sqay comme
cest accidentluy est venu,
car il est au jour d'huy venu
et avonsmarchandeensemble,
a tout le moins comme il me semble,
ouje ne sqay que ce peult estre:
- where a twofold je ne sGay frames an affirmation which then
shades out in a desolate "a tout le moins comme il me semble."
As for the "proof of the goose" (promised by P, but Guillemette
says that you don't cook geese for invalids), it is a failure and G
leaves full of apologies ("Je vous pri qu'il ne vous desplaise", etc.
[704]).
The monologue which brings the first phase to an end recognizes
574 CESARE SEGRE

the success of the enemy's strategy ("ceste femme me depiece / de

tous poins mon entendement" [710-711]; "je ne scay se je songe"
[719]; "Meschoir puist il de corps et d'ame / se je soy qui sauroit a
dire / qui a le meilleur ou le pire, / d'eulx ou de moy: je n'y voy
goute" [728-731]). Worth noting is the epistemic anguish which
follows up every opinion with its opposite: "Je s(ay bien que j'en
doy avoir / six aulnes /. . ./ I1 les a eues vrayement . . ./ Non a"
(708-713); "j'ay veu la Mort qui le vient poindre;/ au mains ou il le
contrefait" (714-715); "Et! si a! il les print /. . ./ Non a!" (716-
719); "Par le sanc bieu, il les a eues! / Par la mort bieu! non a! /.. ./
Non a Si a!" (724-729). But it is clear that what matters is not the
degree of adherence to a new episteme: what really counts is that
G's episteme concerning his transaction with P has by now collapsed.
Second phase. Beyond the range of influence of the two com-
plices, G is reconfirmed in his certainties. He has an extra argument:
P is a disreputable individual ("le faulx tromperre" [760]; "Et cest
advocat potatif, / a trois leqons et trois pseaulmes! / Et tient il les
gens pour Guillaumes /'fools'/!" [770-772]; unfortunately, G
himself happens to be called Guillaume).15 Furthermore, on coming
back to P's room, he catches Guillemette laughing at what she and
P have been saying in his absence (782). There follows a new series
of proclamations concerning his credit, injunctive (795, 811-813) or
assertive (846-847). The energy of his demands is indicated by
Guillemette's use of words like desver (779), desvoye (796),forcene
(827); while G himself confesses: J'enraige (828), and ends up feeling
esbaubely (988).
It is after P's second multilingual exploit that G finds himself
once more in the net. His question "Mais comment parle il propre-
ment / picart? dont vient tel cocardie?" (857-858) shows his
curiosity when faced with a pathological phenomenon which he
takes seriously. A little further on (after a new exploit on P's part),
his questioning has a touch of pity, which subordinates an optative
allusion to his credit, almost pro forma ("Qu'est cecy? Il ne cessera /
huy de parler divers langaiges? / Au moins qu'il me baillast ung gage /
ou mon argent, je m'en alasse" [878-881]: he would, after all, be
quite satisfied with an account!); the question which follows is even
more compassionate ("Comment peult il porter le fes / de tant
parler? Ha, il s'affolle" [900-901]). A new and decisive epistemic
crisis of G is documented by his dialogue with Guillemette:
Le drappier
Ha, Saincte Marie!
vecy la plus grant resverie
ou je fusse onques mes boute;
15. P, in referenceto the personwho has relinquishedthe cloth, has alreadysaidto Guille-
mette "c'est ung Guillaume"(389), which can mean, at one and the same time, that he is
"someonecalledGuillaume"'and is "a simpleton."
 MAISTRE PATHELIN 575

jamais ne me fusse doubte

qu'il n'eust huy est6 a la foire.
Guillemette
Vous le cuidiez?
Le Drappier
Saint Jacques, voire!
mais j'aper oys bien le contraire (905-911).
What should be especially noted here is the fact that the concept of
resverie (906) which was first applied to P's delirium (qu'i' semble
qu'i' doye resver" [735]; "Je feray semblant de resver" [780]; "I1
est encor en resverie: / il resve", etc. [788-789]) is now turned
against G himself.
From this point on, G is sure he is assisting at P's death agony:
he participates and is impressed ("Helas! pour Dieu, entendez y. / Il
s'en va! Comment il guergouille!" [931-932] ); he is, too, in rather
a hurry to get away, passing this off as discretion before the final
leave-taking of the dying man and his wife (977-980): he does,
in fact, go, with renewed apologies, where the cuidoye of verse 982
is almost a confession of epistemic guilt. Here, too, an aside gives
us G's conclusions: the real culprit is the devil ("Le dyable, en lieu
de ly, / a prins mon drap pour moy tenter" [989-990]), and G
renounces his credit anyway, whoever took the cloth ("je le donne, /
pour Dieu, a quiconques l'a prins" [993-994] ).

4.4. In reality, G has been present at the staging of a play, the

first-rate actors being P and Guillemette. To show within the con-
fines of a play the degree of "theatricality" everyday life itself
achieves, this is the brilliant "trouvaille" of our anonymous author.
For the aspect of mystification involved in P and Guillemette's "act"
makes us see the whole play in a different light: for like everything
in the theater, it is at one and the same time fiction (illusion) and
imitation of reality. It is, however, only in texts of unusual discern-
ment, such as this, that enucleation of a particular "theatricality"
from within the representation itself brings the audience face to face
with the problem of mimesis as a form of fiction.
This theme of "theatricality" will become an explicit topos
nearly a century later, in particular by means of the "play within
the play" technique. In our case, however, "theatricality" stands
revealed as the climax of realism: the farce represents P's merry
pranks with an effectiveness so admirable that it shows as well the
(theatrical) fictions which body them forth. One needs to have a
very firm hold on reality to be able to describe its manipulations
in such a manner.

5. THIRD MOVEMENT: CONFUSION AND OVERLAPPING OF TOPICS

5.1. The third movement of the farce is, from an actantial point of
view, the most complex. First and foremost, there are four characters
576 CESARE SEGRE

on stage: the judge, who must settle the action brought by G for the
theft perpetrated by T; T himself, and, as advisor and improvised
defending counsel, P; last but not least, there is the habitual victim,
G. The relationships are complex as well. On a deep level, it is P who
makes use of T to put into effect a new beffa at G's expense (and G
has good reason to complain: "chascun me paist de lobes; / chascun
m'en porte mon avoir / et prent ce qu'il en peult avoir" [1007-
1009]); on a surface level, we have a small-time trickster, T, who
turns to the expert hoaxer, P, to avoid getting his just deserts. Lastly,
and the fact is psychologically decisive, G, who has just left P on his
deathbed, finds himself faced with him once more, as ready as ever
and as dangerous as he was when first he appeared in the shop; P tries
to muffle his face, and G, actively engaged in an attempt to ascertain
his identity, cannot concentrate on the cause in hand.

5.2. G's disorientation is one of the principal elements of the comic

mechanism. Because G, taken up with the problem of unmasking
P ("Je puisse Dieu desavouer / se ce n'estes vous, vous sans faulte!"
[1253-1254]; "C'est il, sans aultre, vrayement! / par la croix ou
Dieu s'estendit!", etc. [1263-1264]; "Or regni je bieu se vous
n'estes / celluy, sans aultre, qui l'avez / eu, mon drap!" [1306-
1309]; "Je vous cognois a la parolle, / et a la robe, et au visaige"
[1429-1430, etc.]) entangles his revendications against P, for the
stolen cloth, and those against T, for the sheep.16
The manipulation of reality effected by P appears as a confusion
of topics for G (the comment is "he has robbed me," but the topic
is an alternation of T and P), while it is an overlaying of topics for
the judge (who, in a plea concerning sheep-stealing on the part of T,
keeps finding references to subtraction of cloth and to debts of six
escus, which concern P). G is thereby kept, thanks to P's strategy,
subject to the same condition of lability earlier induced. Such
lability does not involve the judge because P is careful to polarize
the sense of the topics in play in one single direction, as we shall
now see.

5.3. The trial scene itself can be divided into two phases. In a first
phase (1215-1422) the topic propounded is that of the sheep-
stealing carried out by T. The presence of P reactivates in G his
obsession with the theft of the cloth he has suffered at the hands
of P. As a result, from the moment his case is publicly proclaimed,
G interrupts the arguments against T to announce that he has re-

16. The confusion begins already at scene VI, when G tells T: "Tu me rendras, quoy
qu'il adviengne, / six aulnes . .. dis je, l'essomage / de mes bestes," etc. (1041-1043); and
then: "(.. .) tu les rendras au samedi, / mes six aulnes de drap, je dy, / ce que tu as prins sur
mes bestes" (1048-1050).
 MAISTRE PATHELIN 577

cognized P (1253-1254, 1263-1266, etc.); with verses 1271-1272,

G initiates a veritable confusion of topics, substituting the topic of
stolen cloth for the topic which is the object of the trial. It is only
with verses 1307-1309 that he declares in less impulsive fashion
his charges against P ("Or regni je bieu se vous n'estes / celluy, sans
aultre, qui l'avez / eu, mon drap!"), and he is about to expound them
to the judge when the judge himself invites him to define his charges
against T. It is at this point, in a discourse which ought to be quite
untrammeled, that interference between the two topics reaches its
climax, by means of constant self-correction ("j'avoye / baille six
aulnes . . . Doy je dire, / mes brebis" [1321-1323] ; "I me dist que
j'auroye / six escus d'or quant je vendroye . .. / Dis je, depuis trois
ans en qa, / mon bergier," etc. [1326-1329] );17 and with apologies
to the judge ("Je vous en pri, sire, / pardonnez moy" [1323-1324] );
in the end, G rounds off his description of T's misdeeds with an
account of P's theft, though there is no apparent connection ("Quant
mon drap fust soubz son esselle", etc. [1341-1344] ).
With considerable ability, P makes use of G's confusion as proof
of his bad faith in accusing T (1267-1270, 1287-1289); even
better, he contrives a tendentious conciliation between the two
topics, always at G's expense (1273-1281). It is clear that judgment
lies in his hands rather than in those of the judge ("Pour Dieu, faictes
le proceder" [1260]; "mais je loe qu'on examine / ung bien peu sa
partie adverse" [1297-1298]): he even installs himself as G's
accuser ("Or je m'en fais fort qu'il retient / au povre bergier son
salaire" [1353-1354]). In particular, any direct confrontation
between the judge and T has been avoided by P in his rapid dialogue
with T (1383-1393): P is quick to come to the conclusion that T
is "fol de nature" (1394-1396), a conclusion which the judge
accepts because it is straightforward and convenient. Hence the
case comes down to the confused deductions of G, which, thanks
to the hermeneutic manipulations of P, prove utterly counter-
productive.
The judge, who, as we have hinted, is inclined from the outset
to lend credence to P ("Qu'esse qu'il dit de drap?"), soon loses
patience with G's superimposition of topics ("Paix! par le dyable!
vous bavez!", etc. [1283]; "Sommes nous becjaunes, / ou cornards?
Ou cuidez vous estre?" [1293-1294]; "Et! taisiez vous! Estes vous
nice?" [1311, etc.]); he brings G back, brusquely and time after
time, a ces moutons18 (as they are called at 1291): in 1261-1262,
1283-1286, 1312-1313; he criticizes the disorder of G's exposition
("Il n'y a ne rime ne rayson", etc. [1345]; "Vous entrelardez / puis

17. The same technique as in the exchanges quoted in the preceding note.
18. The expression revenons a nos moutons became a part of common French usage after
Rabelais, alluding to Maistre Pathelin, used it.
578 CESARE SEGRE

d'ung, puis d'aultre" [1347-1348]; "I1 brouille de drap, et babille /

puis de brebis, au coup la quille!" [1350-1351]); and the judge
ends up silencing G and declaring that P has no case to answer
(1411-1414). But if his surely partiality19 is untouched by doubt
it is thanks to P's careful polarization of topics. See, for example,
the way in which, when G asks to be allowed at least to conclude
his arguments, the judge rebuts (tit for tat), dematerializing such
substance as there is:
Le drappier
Ce ne sont pas abusions
que je vous dy, ne mocqueries.
Le juge
Ce sont toutes tribouilleries
que de plaider a folz n'a folles! (1409-1412)
He denies, in short, the topic proposed by G and manipulated by P.
The second phase (1423-1501) unfolds when it is already quite
clear that T will be acquitted (even though explicit judgment in this
sense is given only at verse 1492). This time G uncompromisingly
poses as a topic the theft of his cloth, accusing P before the judge
("Je vous compteray tout le fait, / monseigneur, par ma conscience"
[1433-1434]); he has no doubt of P's identity ("Je vous congnois
a la parolle, / et a la robe, et au visaige" [1429-1430] ). But any
attempt to pinpoint the topic is thwarted by P, who astutely brings
the discourse round again to the topic of sheep-stealing. Once again,
then, we have manipulation of topics.
Except this time G energetically defends the topic he has at last
decided upon. Each time P seeks to sidetrack him, G compensates
and brings him back into line (P: [...] "vieilz brebiailles ou
moutons"/. . ./ G: "Quelz moutons? C'est une vielle! / C'est a vous
mesme que je parle", etc. [1438-1442]; G: "Regardez, sire,
regardez! / Je luy parle de drapperie, / et il respond de bergerie!"
[1455-1457]). But P's passion reinforces his interventions, as does
his reliance on the connivance of the judge ("Hee, sire, imposez leur
silence!" [1435]; "Faites le taire!" [1447]; "S'en pourroit il taire?"
[1478]); nor is he wrong, for by now, thoroughly manipulated by P,
the judge does nothing to hide his aversion for G (1445-1446, 1472,
1475-1476), indeed he hastens to withdraw himself from the
discussion (1489, 1496-1500).
Now comes the moment of truth. G once more attempts to claim
his credit from P (the judge has left the scene). He celebrates his
own liberation from his epistemic crisis, repeatedly reiterating his
identification of P: "C'estes vous en propre personne, / vous de vous,
19. That the judge is biased in favor of P, and inclined from the outset to second him,
seems obvious to Cohen (1931:95), and it seems no less obvious to me. The judge's integrity
is, on the contrary, defended by Harvey (1940:325-331) and by Lemercier (1952:218-
219).
 MAISTRE PATHELIN 579

vostre voix le sonne" [1514-1515]; "C'estes vous, ou regni Saint

Pierre! / vous, sans aultre; je le scay bien / pour tout vray!" [1529-
1531]. P, obviously, rejects all reference to the first movement (the
stealing of the cloth) and to the second ("Ne vous laisse je pas
malade, / orains, dedans vostre maison?" [1523-1524]). But he
reaches unheard of heights of linguistic abstraction when, violating
the shifter function of the pronoun (see Jakobson, 1957 and
Benveniste 1956); not only does he suggest that he has been taken
for other people (Esservelle [1510] ;Jehan de Noyon [1519] ),20 but
denies outright that he corresponds to G's vous, in other words, to
moy or ce: "Moy de moy? Non suis, vraiement" [1517]; "Or n'en
croyez rien, / car certes ce ne suis je mie" [1531-1532] . It is a
near-surrealist discussion in which negation arrives at the absurd:
P does not deny that he is Maistre Pathelin, whose name is never
mentioned; he does deny, though, that he is I.
6. NEGATION OF THE TOPICS
6.1. This farce has been seen as a kind of morality of the biter bit
(see, for example, Cons 1926:112). And there are textual elements
to confirm this kind of approach. Right from his dialogue with G,
T gives signs of his technique of cunningly exaggerating his own
stupidity and inexperience (1021-1034); and one has the impression
that he has from the outset seen his chance of using P's suggestion
against P himself; and this is hinted at in one of P's own replies
("Dittes hardiment que j'affolle, / se je dy huy aultre parolle, / a vous
n'a quelque aultre personne, / pour quelque mot que l'en me sonne, /
fors 'bee', que vous m'avez aprins" [1186-1190]). Furthermore,
it seems that P has been afraid from the beginning that he would be
tricked by T: given that on two occasions he has him confirm his
undertaking to pay him for his services (1193-1194; 1207-1208).
There is even a hint of retaliation, when he invites T to supper
(1584), just as he had for his gulling invited G, or when he exclaims,
in the shape of a proverb, "Me fais tu mengier de l'oe?" [1577],
whereas in G's case he really has promised to make him eat "de mon
oye" (300).21 T as well, while he declares his readily available
financial means (1079, 1116) and promises to pay P not "en solz, /
mais en bel or a la couronne" (1125-1126) repeats one of P's
expedients for hoodwinking G ("Soufist il se je vous estraine /
d'escus d'or, non pas de monnoye?" [298-299] ).22
20. These are almost certainly figures from local folklore.
21. For the play between proper and figurative senses of the expression in farce, see
Roques (1931). Another symmetry is this: P calls to T "Sa! argent!" (1567), exactly as G
had called to Guillemette: "Sa! mon argent!" (530).
22. It should further be noted that T twice repeats his promise to pay him "a vostre mot"
(1196, 1209), just as P had promised himself: G, who has not made the sale "a mon mot,"
is to be paid "au mien" (see 3.1). T thus deceives P in exactly the same way in which P had
deceived G.
580 CESARE SEGRE

Reality is, though, more complex. As P himself hints:

Or cuidoye estre sur tous maistre,
des trompeurs d'icy et d'ailleurs,
des fort coureux et des bailleurs
des parolles en payement,
a rendre au jour du jugement,
et ung bergierdes champsme passe! (1587-1592)
His boast that he is the prince of tricksters is more than justified
by the rest of the farce; and T, even if on this occasion he has had
the better of him, still remains a modest "bergier des champs," or,
as he had earlier put it, "ung bergier, ung mouton vestu, / ung
villain paillart" (1579-1580). Nor is this all: T has put into effect
to damage P an expedient which P himself had suggested (to damage
G). Hence the victor, in point of intelligence, is still P, even though it
turns to his own disadvantage. T's progress from subordinate actor
(co-actant with P) to actant in competition with P (see I, 2.1) is
therefore less decisive than it might otherwise seem. Where P does
not win, his cunning does.

6.2. There is, instead, a different sense in which P does meet with
real retaliation. I refer to scene X, verses 1541-1599. P asks T a
series of questions (whether he is satisfied, if he agrees that his
suggestions have been brilliant), of observations (P, too, has behaved
splendidly), of increasingly pressing requests (to pay his debt),
of threats. Every time the reply is merely "bee." The great mani-
pulator of topics finds himself face to face not with negation of the
topics he proposes but, rather, with negation of the existence of
topics. Or, if we prefer this other formula, he is faced with a uni-
versal topic, withdrawal from discourse and derision.

7. EPISTEMICCRISISAND CRISISOF REALITY

Deceit of any kind manipulates some element of reality. Narrative
texts of the Middle Ages, exempla, novelle, and fabliaux in parti-
cular, often describe these manipulations, making use of a True/
False commutation for the elements which are presented to the
person deluded as differing from the truth (see Segre 1979:113-
118). In addition to the antiquity of their themes, novelle 7 and 9 of
Day VII in Decameron might be regarded as typical; here the wife
informs her husband of the possibility that she will betray him, or
even has him assist at the betrayal, but in circumstances such that
he is brought to exclude the truth of what he has been told or of
what he has seen. Maistre Pathelin presents, on the contrary, a
manipulation which gives life to a whole alternative world (among
possible worlds), and which obliges one of the characters (G) to
accord more credit to this alternative world than to the real one.
In the real world, P has carried off G's cloth, and enjoys the best of
 MAISTRE PATHELIN 581

health; in the alternative world, he is the devil who, in the guise of P,

has possessed himself of the cloth, whereas P himself is delirious
and at death's door. The manipulation progressively eliminates the
victim's doubts and his grip on reality, so that he ends up accepting
the alternative world as valid.
This manipulation of worlds is exemplified in the famous example
of Sly in The Taming of the Shrew's Prologue; Sly is a poor drunkard
who is convinced, by carefully contrived manipulation in which the
actors themselves take part, that he is a well-to-do gentleman married
to a noblewoman, etc. But it is possible to find texts earlier than
Maistre Pathelin. The novelle involving Calandrino, for example,
in Decameron (VIII, 3 and 6; IX, 3 and 5), and in particular, VIII, 3,
centered on the heliotrope: his friends' strategy of manipulation
convinces Calandrino that he has become invisible because among the
stones he has collected there is a heliotrope; the people he en-
counters do not greet him, and this confirms him in his conviction.
When his wife does subsequently see him, Calandrino attributes the
fact to a female prerogative of counteracting spells. The Calandrino
novelle are further interesting as example of beffe in which the
modality overrides any practical goal. For example, depriving
Calandrino of his pig (VIII, 6) is not an end in itself, but one element
in the beffa in the humiliation of Calandrino; as a result it is not
condemned.
The text in which such manipulation of worlds reaches its acme,
provoking in the victim a tragic epistemic crisis, is probably the
Novella del Grasso legnaiuolo.23 Developing an idea from Plautus
(Amphitruo) which had been imitated in the Middle Ages (Vitalis of
Blois Geta, and the Italian Quattrocento rifacimento by Ghigo
Brunelleschi, Geta e Birria), this novella tells of a complex machina-
tion by which his friends convince Grasso that he is not Grasso,
that he is his friend Matteo. Grasso, indeed, ends up in prison thanks
to the debts of Matteo; while Matteo's relatives, who are in on the
plot, first ransom him from prison, and then confide him to the care
of a priest who is to rid him of the odd idea that he is Grasso.
Grasso's epistemic crisis is expressed by a dizzy attack of pronouns,
quite different from Maistre Pathelin's deployment, which is
exclusively sophisticated and ludic (see 5.3): for example (and I
quote from various versions): "E' mi pare che costui che e su sia
me"; "sarebbe mai lui diventato me?" The connection with the
Calandrino novelle is explicit (one of the versions has: "Tu mi darai
ad intendere ch'io sia Calandrino"; and another: "Sarei io mai

23. Editions: Accademia della Crusca, Novella del Grasso

legnaiuolo nella redazione del
codice Palatino 200. Testo - Frequenze - Concordanze, Florence 1968; A. Rochon, La
nouvelle du "Grasso legnaiuolo", in Rochon, ed., 1975, 339-372 (redazione Manetti).
Parts of a third version have been communicated to me by G. Folena.
582 CESARE SEGRE

Calandrino, ch'io sia tosto diventato un altro, sanza essermene

avveduto?"); there is recurrent use of smemorare, smemorato (in
other versions smarrito), which corresponds to Maistre Pathelin's
resver.
Such a theme will have found favor in a period which goes from
the spring to the autumn of the Renaissance thanks to its probable
connection with the replacement, often traumatic, of the theocentric
perspective which had dominated the Middle Ages by a new antropo-
centric standpoint. The world is no longer commensurate with the
divine plant; it can no longer be made to fit into a rigid hierarchy
of beings which is more certain than empirical reality; the world
is a field open to human experience and activity; morality, too, is
involved in this program, and is transformed by it. Convictions are,
as a result, ever subject to crisis, and this is particularly the case with
individuals who are not intellectually pliable; there may even be
some who, themselves intellectually more robust, induce crises in
others, with the additional aim of depriving them of that portion
of the world which they believe they possess or think they have
ensured for themselves. Intelligence, necessary for dealing with
reality, is found to be no less precious in manipulating the reality
of other people. Subjugation is (also) intellectual subjugation, just
as the epistemic crisis is (also) a crisis of power.
At a later date, with Baroque civilization, the various worlds will
come to be seen as equipollent, the real world and other possible
worlds, or dream worlds. The epistemic crisis will call in question
reality itself in La vida es sueno.

REFERENCES*
Benveniste, Igmile, 1956. "La nature des pronoms," in: For Roman Jakobson (The Hague:
Mouton), and in: Morris Halle, et al., eds. Problemes de linguistique gene'rale (Paris:
Gallimard 1966), chapt. XX.
Cohen, Gustave, 1931. Le theatre en France au moyen ige, II, Le thedtre prophane (Paris:
Rieder).
Cons, Louis, 1926. L 'auteur de la farce de Pathelin (Princeton: Princeton UP).
Crist, Larry, 1978. "Pathelinian Semiotics. Elements for an Analysis of Maistre Pierre
Pathelin," L'esprit createur 18, no. 3, 69-81.
Erre, Michel, 1977. "Langage(s) et pouvoir(s) dans la Farce de Maitre Pathelin," Dis-
sonances I, no. 1, 90-118.
Fischler, Alexandre, 1969. "The Theme of Justice and the Structure of La farce de Maitre
Pierre Pathelin," Neophilologus 53, 261-273.
Frank, Grace, 1941. "Pathelin," Moder Language Notes 56, 42-47.

* Only texts of which use has been made are listed; for a complete bibliography of Maistre
Pathelin the reader is referred to Lewicka (1972); Rauhut (1965:41-43; 1981:259-262).
There is a full bibliography in Maddox (1983), a text I read in manuscript when my own
article was ready for printing; I have borne it in mind in my notes. I wish to thank Donald
Maddox for the kindness with which he brought to my attention a number of items in the
bibliography.
 MAISTRE PATHELIN 583

Frappier, Jean, 1967. "La farce de Maistre Pierre Pathelin et son originalite," in: Charles
V. Aubrun, et al., eds. Melanges de litterature comparee et de philologie offerts a
M. Brahmer (Warszawa:PWN Editions Scientifiques de Pologne), 207-217.
Greimas, Algirdas J., 1973. "Les actants, les acteurs et les figures," in: C. Chabrol, ed.
Semiotique narrative et textuelle (Paris: Larousse), 161-176.
Greimas, Algirdas J. and Joseph Courtes, 1979. Semiotique. Dictionnaire raisonne de la
theorie du langage (Paris: Hachette).
Harvey, M. G., 1940. "The Judge and the Lawyer in the Pathelin," Romantic Review 31,
313-333.
Holbrook, Richard. 1924. Maistre Pierre Pathelin (Paris: Champion) (CFMA).
Jakobson, Roman, 1971 (1957). "Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian Verb,"
in: Selected Writings,II (The Hague/Paris: Mouton), 130-147.
Lejeune, Rita, 1961. "Pour quel public La farce de Maistre Pierre Pathelin a-t-elle ete
redigee?" Romania 82, 482-521.
Lemercier, Pierre, 1952. "Les elements juridiques de Pathelin et la localisation de l'oeuvre,"
Romania 73, 200-226.
Lewicka, Halina, 1972. Bibliographie du theitre profan francais des XV? et XVI? siecles
(Paris: Editions du CNRS).
Maddox, Donald, 1978. "The Morphology of Mischief in Maistre Pierre Pathelin," L'esprit
createur XVIII, no. 3, 55-68.
1983 Semiotics of Deceit: the Pathelin Era (Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell UP).
Rauhut, Franz, 1965. "Die Kunst des Dialogs in der Exposition des Maistre Pierre Pathelin,"
Zeitschrift fiir romanische Philologie 81, 41-62.
1981 "Erklarungsbediirftige Stellen im Maistre Pierre Pathelin," Zeitschrift fur romani-
sche Philologie 97, 259-278.
Rochon, Andre, ed., 1972-1975. Formes et significations de la "beffa" dans la litterature
italienne de la Renaissance (Paris: Universite de la Sorbonne nouvelle).
Roques, Mario, 1931. "Notes sur Maistre Pierre Pathelin," Romania 57, 548-560.
Rousse, Michel, 1973. "Le rythme d'un spectacle medieval: Maitre Pierre Pathelin et la
farce," in: Missions et demarches de la critique. Melanges offerts au Prof. J. A. Vier
(Paris: Klincksieck), 575-581.
Segre, Cesare, 1979. Structures and Time. Narration, Poetry, Models (Chicago/London:
The Univ. of Chicago Press).
Spitzer, Leo, 1924. Review of R. T. Holbrook, ttude sur Pathelin. Essai de bibliographie et
d'interpretation (Paris/Princeton: Champion 1917), in: Zeitschrift fiir romanische
Philologie 44, 368-373.