by
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones
Image Source: fairy room
Florentius' love: A reference to a story told and retold in the Middle Ages, most famously by Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales, where it is the Wife of Bath's tale. Florentius has to marry an old hag who has saved his life by providing him with the correct answer to a riddle.
Perhaps the reference to this story is a bit of foreshadowing by Shakespeare, since Florentius' old hag eventually transforms herself into a beautiful young wife, as Katherine eventually transforms herself from a shrew into a free-spirited and loving wife.
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by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones Image Source: fairy room |