It may be worth noting that the person silenced is almost invariably a
woman (whether it be an injunction against speech on pain of some terrible
consequence or the actual removal of the tongue, as in several classical
myths and Titus Andronicus, or a self-imposed silence as a kind of
test of virtue or endurance, as in the most famous of all such tales,
Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale" of Patient Griselda, derived from several
earlier versions. More recently Jane Campion re-worked the motif in
_The Piano_. The "silent woman" is often equated with the good woamn
in folklore--but the old English tavern sign equates the silent woman
with a headless woman. And all to do with power.
Tom Dillingham
woman (whether it be an injunction against speech on pain of some terrible
consequence or the actual removal of the tongue, as in several classical
myths and Titus Andronicus, or a self-imposed silence as a kind of
test of virtue or endurance, as in the most famous of all such tales,
Chaucer's "Clerk's Tale" of Patient Griselda, derived from several
earlier versions. More recently Jane Campion re-worked the motif in
_The Piano_. The "silent woman" is often equated with the good woamn
in folklore--but the old English tavern sign equates the silent woman
with a headless woman. And all to do with power.
Tom Dillingham