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

Notes

Prudence interprets the attack on Sophie as the damage done to her because of man’s
vulnerability to the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. Her remedy: negotiate peace and
leave all to God’s grace and forgiveness.
The three enemies who have performed the deed are found and brought before Prudence, who
suggests forgiving them; Melibee again argues for a fine, which she again argues him out of. Melibee
forgives them, and, delighted with himself, praises at length his own generosity.

Analysis

Don’t worry if you’ve never read Melibee in full-a very famous academic (who I shall leave nameless)
studying at one of the world’s most renowned universities once admitted to me that she’d never
made it right through either. Melibee, first and foremost, seems to be a punishment for cutting Chaucer
off mid-flight with Sir Thopas; before beginning it, he promises a “litel thyng in prose”, asks that he is
not interrupted, and then delivers a hugely lengthy tale of almost unsurpassed dullness. If one saw in
Thopas running from the giant the figure of Chaucer trying to escape the Host’s demand, Melibee
seems to represent him coming back with the armor.
Some critics have also argued that an omission Chaucer deliberately makes from its source, Renaud
de Louens’ Livre de Melibee et de Dame Prudence [after 1336] (itself a translation of Albertanus of
Brescia, Liber consolationis et consilii) [1246]) points to Melibee as a separate composition intended
for the recently-crowned Richard II. Among Melibee’s many pieces of advice, Chaucer omits,
significantly for a child-king, “Woe to the land that has a child as king”. Is this, perhaps a manual
for a king?
Melibee is also rather self-consciously a construction; a patchwork of proverbs, sayings and wise
words, some of which have already appeared in the tales, and none of which are likely to be entirely
original. Part of the reason for its length is that its characters constantly cite authority after authority
to justify their opinion–and this academic arguing inflates the thin plot of the tale into page after
page of citation and quotation. So keen is everyone to get their favorite authority into the argument
that we never even find out what happens to mortally-wounded Sophie.
Melibee is, like Thopas (improvised from its situation), a text made up of text – and it proves
(particularly if the Parson’s tale, the only other tale in prose, was a late addition to the Canterbury
project) Chaucer’s mastery of genre, if nothing else. Prose tracts, full of academic discussion rather
than dramatic, narrative progression, are not without of his ability.
Within the tale itself, Prudence is another example of the patient and long-suffering wife who
demonstrates her virtue through stoicism, and, like Constance, her name is an obvious signifier of
one of her prominent qualities (Sophie, the daughter, has a name meaning “wisdom”). Her role in
the story is not as an active agent, she is a passive influence on the other characters; and she is a
good example to consider in examining the issue of “female counsel”, raised hitherto but particularly
in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale. Melibee suggests, above all, that women are worthy counselors and
interpreters, and, although the tale celebrates Prudence, its title is apt - it points to Melibee himself,
a man able to learn from his wife, whose name means “sweet learning” or “sweet knowledge”.

16.4 Summary

• The Christian minority in the town opened a school for their children in this city at the other
end of the same street.
• The provost praised Christ and his mother, Mary, and had the Jews tied up.

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