ABSTRACT
Then, in a narrative shorthand that is typical of the Violier and of narrative exempla, the wife dies and the widower becomes a monle The story, as is standard in this kind of exemplum, is then put into a Christian moralization in which elements of the anecdote are allegorized to demonstrate symbolic relationships between the soul and the world. Here, the husband is the worldly man who falls into sin, symbolized by 'saillir et voller du derriere Ie noir corbeau' (the black crow issuing forth and flying out of the bottom) (458). It is characteristic of the relationship between the tale and the moralization in this book that the husband who plays a more or less positive role in the tale (by unmasking falsehood), is the sinner in the moralization. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate that the world may appear valuable but that it must be abandoned for the rewards of heaven.
