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Unit 16: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis-VIII

Notes

The Host then demands that Chaucer tells a “tale of myrthe”, and “that anon”
(do it soon). Chaucer replies to the Host that he only knows one tale: a rhyme that
he learned many years before.

16.2.2 The Tale of Sir Thopas Text

(I) Asking the “lords” to listen, the tale announces itself as being “of myrthe and of solas” (fun and
seriousness). It then introduces Thopas, a fair knight with a white face, rose-red lips, blond hair and
beard, and a seemly nose. Thopas was very well dressed and he could hunt for deer, go hawking,
and he was a good archer. Many maidens were brought in for him to sleep with, but he was chaste,
and no lecher.
One day Thopas went out riding on his gray horse, carrying a launcegay and a longsword, and
passed through a forest which had many wild beasts in it (buck as well as hares). Thopas heard the
birdsong and fell into a love-sickness, and rode so fast that his horse sweated. Thopas therefore lay
down to give him and his horse a rest, deciding that he would be in love with an elf-queen.
Thopas then climbed back into his saddle to find an elf-queen, but he came across a great giant
called “Sire Olifaunt”, who threatened Thopas that, if he left his territory, he would kill his horse.
Thopas (described as “the child”) said that he would meet with the giant tomorrow, as he had
forgotten his armor, and travelled in the opposite direction very fast. This giant threw stones at
him, but he got away.
(II) “Yet listeth” (keep listening) to my tale, the narrator continues, because Thopas has again come
to town. He commanded his merry men, as he had to fight a giant with three heads. They gave him
sweet wine and gingerbread and licorice, and then Thopas got dressed in his armour. The end of
this fit tells the company that if they “wol any moore of it” (want to hear any more) then the narrator
will try to oblige them.
(III) “Now holde youre mouth, par charitee” (Now shut up, for charity’s sake) begins the third fit,
before explaining that Thopas is of royal chivalry. Thopas drank water from the well with the knight
Sir Percivel, until one day…
Here the Host “stynteth” [stops] Chaucer’s Tale of Thopas
No more of this, for God’s sake, says the Host, criticizing the “rym dogerel” which Chaucer uses.
Chaucer asks why he has had his tale stopped when it is the best rhyme he knows – and the Host
replies that his crappy rhymes are not worth a turd, advising him rather to tell something in prose.
Chaucer obliges, promising “a litel thyng in prose”, finally asking the Host to let him tell “al my
tale, I preye”.

Analysis

Sir Thopas offers up one of the funniest moments in the Canterbury Tales. Written in ridiculously
bouncy tail rhyme, the poem is a hilarious parody of Middle English verse romances packed full of
bizarre pastoral details. Thopas, for example, is hugely effeminized, well-dressed, and with a girl’s
name (Thopas was usually a woman’s name in the medieval period). Thopas falls in love, in the
manner of the courtly knight, before he has decided who he will be in love with (an elf-queen, in the
end) and runs away from his climactic battle at the end of the first fit because he has forgotten his
armour.
In the Ellesmere manuscript, the setting of Sir Thopas has the tale ever vanishing into the margin,
and close readers will note the way each fit is half the length of its predecessor - there is, as well as

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