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

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But Shakespeare has Gower introduce the play with an immediate condemnation of the
girl: “Bad child; worse father! to entice his own / To evil should be done by none:” (Prol.
29-30). Though the multiple versions of this tale that Shakespeare used as his sources
may account for some of this discrepancy between the two accounts of the unnamed
daughter, Gower the Chorus treats her with notably less sympathy than Gower the poet
had, and with a great deal less sympathy than was accorded to incestuous Canace. Gower
ameliorated the incest on the part of these young female characters in the Confessio
Amantis through the notion of kynde which put the burden of guilt on the fathers.
Although sexual attraction is natural, the adult father should be able to restrain his
passion, be it either sexual desire or anger, through reason; his use of coercion against his
young and helpless daughter renders him the culpable partner, according to Gower. But
Shakespeare’s Gower seems to discount this notion.
Gower’s Tale of Apollonius in Confessio Amantis describes the daughter of the
incestuous King Antiochus with the words “pierless of beauty,” “tendre and softe,” and
“tendre and ful of drede.” He relates that she “couthe not hir maidenhede defende,”
(Confessio Amantis VII.286- 301) implying at least an attempt at such a defense. The girl
makes much mention of her disgrace while the father’s own shame is entirely absent. As
further evidence of the father’s tyranny, the only advice the girl’s nurse can offer is to let
the king do as he wishes because “whan thing is do / there is no bote, / So suffren thei
that suffer mote” (VIII.339-40). This daughter is clearly an innocent victim whom
Gower’s readers were surely moved to pity. But in the intervening centuries the girl’s