SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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To finish the turn in the narrative toward the hopeful, the book concludes with the Tale of
Telaphus and Teucer. Achilles’ son Telephus intervenes on behalf of Teucer, who is
about to be killed by Achilles. Telephus remembered a time when Teucer had shown
mercy to him and Achilles relents. The history in this book of family members killing
each other is diverted and a different course is begun. The sanctity of the family unit is
upheld and harmony is restored, but only when the king answers wrath with mercy.
In the first three books Gower followed the described pattern, but the trend is
interrupted with the fourth book. This is a book of stories of transformations organized
under the sin of sloth. The tale of Iphis and Ianthe begins with the threat of King Ligdus
to his wife that if she bore a daughter instead of a son, the child would be slain. A
daughter was born and Isis, goddess of motherhood, appeared with a solution; her mother
must keep the child, name it Iphis, and raise it as a boy. At the age of ten Iphis was
betrothed to Ianthe, a duke’s daughter, and the two played together as children,
. . . ofte abedde
These children leien, sche and sche,
Whiche of on age bothe be.
So that withinne time of yeeres,
Togedre as thei ben pleiefieres,
Liggende abedde upon a nyht,
Nature, which doth every wiht
Upon hire lawe forto muse,
Constreigneth hem, so that thei use
Thing which to hem was al unknowe;
Wherof Cupide thilke throwe
Tok pite for the grete love,
And let do sette kinde above,
So that hir lawe mai ben used,
And thei upon here lust excused.
(IV.478-92)