Today, we'll start the Knight's son's tale. I don't know about you, but I find it maddening. I will go now to the Riverside to see if there is any information on what happened to the rest of the tale! At the end, the Franklin seems to indicate that it was a satisfying tale...that can mean one of two things. He liked what he heard, which is what we read here ~ OR ~ he heard much more about that horse, the mirror and the sword than we did!

I just went and read a bit about the "missing parts" to the Squire's Tale and feel much better. Many of the "scholars" say that if each of the four magic gifts had been fleshed out, the whole poem would have been several thousand lines long...much longer than the Knight's Tale. Although some scholars say the pages may have been lost or that Chaucer just didn't finish, a very large number claim that what we have here is just what Chaucer intended for the Squire to tell. Shall we read it in that spirit?

He loved so hotly that till dawn grew pale
He slept as little as a nightingale.

The tale is told in two very different parts. Nellie, this really does bring back memories of the Green Knight! The stranger-knight comes riding right into the hall while the assembled guests were only on the second course (heron-chick and roasted swan...hmmm). The appearance of this stranger in their midst is as striking as the giant knight all dressed in green - I can't imagine the brass horse - and he's carrying the "broad mirror" (in one hand?) with his unsheathed sword swinging at his side. We are told he was as courteous as Gawain from fairyland (Fae, did you notice that?

Okay, his startling appearance, riding into the feast - these remind us of the Green knight - but what does he want? The Green Knight wanted to challenge the boldest of the court, and that's where Gawain came in. Gawain had to promise to seek out the Green Knight in a year for a rematch, after he had lost their duel. This stranger-knight comes bearing gifts from his king. Is that all? The gold thumb ring is for Canace - from the king, but it is the stranger-knight who was fetched to dance with her.

Harry has called upon the Squire for a tale of love...between stranger-knight and Canace? Or is the stranger-knight on a mission from the king who is interested in her? Part I closes with all attention on the brass horse. It is at this point that the Trojan horse analogy starts to build. What are the magical qualities of this horse? It can fly, it can get you home again with a turn of the pin in its ear? This is reading like a fairy tale, isn't it?

HAHAHA! I think I have to go back and read Fae's post again! Did that fair fairy say she's piggy-backing on an old man's back??? Oh dear! I came to tell her about Spenser's Fairie Queene, but we'll be in Canterbury by the time she catches up with us!!!

I found this very interesting site which reveals that both John Milton and Edmund Spenser both felt compelled to continue, if not to finish the "unfinished" Squire's Tale...although I see no mention of the fabulous robotic horse!

I keep thinking about how Chaucer delved into previously written tales and used elements in Canterbury Tales....will continue to search for sources that will lead us to the brass horse!

The setting, the names...all evoke the East, and yet the tenor of the tale is so West...the mention of the Ides of March, for example. The fact that the horse is brass in this story - if it didn't seem so modernistic - seems a good choice of material for an oriental fantasy horse however....

Here's an interesting site...note also the explanation of the word freshe as indicative of "sexual prowess", which has been used here to describe not only the young bachelors, but also the king and father who has borne the crown for twenty years - but he himself is still freshe

I'll keep searching for more on the brass horse! Enjoy a lovely summer day, all!

If Chaucer intended this fragment to be complete, are there enough clues to decipher the intent of the tale? The tale is meant to be a response the the Merchant's Tale...we have heard that the Merchant himself was unhappy in his marriage, surely old January and May were none too happy, and Harry tells of his own shrewish wife ~ calling on the virile young bachelor to tell a tale of true love, romance. So we are prepared to hear such a tale from the Squire. Do we hear it?

Part II finds Canace in the garden (yet another garden) up bright and early following her beauty sleep (she does seem very concerned with her appearance, I thought while reading this - the mirror is quite an appropriate gift then). As soon as she went out in the early morning and we were told of the singing birds, you know that this will be a fairy tale. But is it? What is it? A distraught falcon, convered in her own blood, from self-inflicted wounds - because she has been abandoned! That's all we know! If we put Part I and Part II together, what do we get...a romance? a story of true love? Reminds me of Peritot and Chanticler ~ the birds take on human characteristics, so we will have to consider how this story reflects on humanity, on men!

She speaks of the condition that she gave him her love - "That my good name, my honor and position in public and in private had no hurt".

Refers to his "double heart" and how he "fell on his knees and plaved the humble part with such devout and bashful reverence (Canace's mirror would have warned her of his double heart?)

This bird! "None was fit to tie his shoe" - so she took his hand and promised "I am yours forever...

What is the tale saying, Part I and Part II combined?????

Need your input!

"The nourisher of all digestion, Sleep,
Began to wink upon them. 'Drinking deep,'
He said, ' and heavy toil, for slumber call.'
And with a yawning mouth he kissed them all,
Saying, "To bed, to bed, it is the hour
Of my dominion, blood is in its power.
Cherish your blood, he whispered, "nature's friend.'

To bed, to bed, it is the hour................

To bed, to bed, it is the hour of my dominion, blood is in its power.

"Possibly proverbial ~

**Sleep after a meal provides the stomach with greatest amount of bodily heat and aids digestion

**Healthy blood was regarded as the source of bodily well-being

Then I shall speak of Algarsyf his son
And next of Theodora whom he won
To wife, and the perils he must pass
On her account, helped by the steed of brass.

And after of another Cambalo,
Who fought her brothers in the lists and so
At last won Canace by might and main.

And then there is Camballo...this could have meant someone other than her brother who was also named Cambalo - or a suggestion that Canace would be abducted and won back by her brother Cambalo, BUT in Spenser's Fairie Queen IV.5, there are three brothers who are presented as suitors for Canace's hand but must fight against Cambello, her brother...

What a mystery! Harry and the Franklin seem very satified with the Tale as we see it here, don't they? Nothing but compliments from the Franklin, which seems to annoy Harry to no end!

A good introduction to the Franklin's Tale, though...

The Squire's Tale deals with unfaithfullness and virtue in relation to birds...The young Squire's tale seems important more for what it hints at, rather than for what it has actually said. The Franklin's Tale will treat those same ideas with human depth...have you read it yet?

No, no, no, Maryal,I didn't pick up on the incest implication either, it was the Riverside Chaucer which tosses in studies of scholars, and there are several there who reached this conclusion. Riverside says that Chaucer used different sources for each of the two parts...from the Orient and the French. There are so many versions, but the mixup with the description of Theodora and Canace and then Theodora marrying one of the brothers...that seems to be what has caught the attention of the scholars. Other sources have the brother Cambralo fighting for his sister but losing to his opponent. It isn't clear why he is fighting for her...but that has the attention of other scholars...

She does seem to be a rather helpless little creature, with all these suitors. It seems that all of Chaucer's women are falling into one of two categories so far...the helpless, fainting little birds, or the flirting flousies (sp?)who make shrewish wives...

I'll be interested to hear what you all think of Dorigen, the wife in the Franklin's tale...

I have been looking for the news about a fellow traveler, Charlotte. And now I see she has left us... May her soul rest with the everloving Lord. I think that her presence here will not be easily forgotten. And her poetry is a continuing example of her wonderful life. My sympathy and love to Milt.

I've been on this pilgrimage before, and have tried to get to all the sacred places here in England. I have a great need to speak to the Lord and He always answers me... Even when traveling to Jerusalem, He always addressed me in my native tongue...

But as for this group, they seem so like the ones I was traveling with on my crusade... not at all devout and interested more in the food and drink, and their wild stories.

I'll be back after dinner to speak to this profane young fae-in-training! HAHAHAHAHAA!

The Knight Arviragus marries Lady Dorigen. they are very happy in love and he leaves for his other home.( trusting her.)

He freely gave his promise...that he would never exercise his authority against her will or show jealousy (!) but would obey with simple trust...
SAVE HIS SOVEREIGNTY IN NAME upon her
He should preserve, lest it should shame his honour. What does this mean??? That it should look to all the world that he is her soverign...but in truth he will exercise no authority over her. Hmmmm

And what does she promise him? That there will never be any strife or argument between them - through any fault of hers...

Does this sound like a good deal to you? The best example of the ideal marriage...both promising to obey the other. The unsettling part - this is a secret agreement. For the world, he ruled the roost and you know what? He had fled the nest - for years! Her faithful servant! Where was he? Where is the Franklin's servant-wife?

"To put such idleness away
The cause of so much ruin and stagnation
I have, as diligently as I may,
Followed the legend of my own translation...
Cecilia O martyr, saint and maiden."

"And you, all you that read what I write
Forgive me "I take the words and
Sense from one who held in holiest reverence
The Saint of whom he wrote, and tell her tale,
Begging you to amend it where I fail."

In some tales, Cecilia is with them at the time of their arrest; in others, she is caught burying the three men.

> Alexander Severus, who was emperor when Urban was Pope, did not persecute the Church, though it is possible some Christians may have suffered in his reign. Herodian says that no person was condemned during the reign of Alexander, except according to the usual course of the law and by judges of the strictest integrity. A few Christians may have suffered, but there can have been no furious persecutions, such as is described in the Acts as waged by the apocryphal prefect, Turcius Almachius.

This is the site that Faith gave us in her above post. William Caxton,Golden Legend translated in 1483 from Jacobus de Voragine that Chaucer re-wrote as his Second Nuns tale.

Historians interested in the "real lives" of individual saints, value the earliest texts above all others. For assessing the cult of later Western Europe, a collection of saints' lives - the Legenda Aurea or Golden Legend - dominates the manuscript record.

Jacobus de Voragine (1231-98, Archbishop of Genoa 1292-98, beatified in 1896, feast day July 13), writing sometime before 1267, achieved a dominance in later western hagiographical literature-- about 900 manuscripts of his Golden Legend survive. From 1470 to 1530 it was also the most often printed book in Europe. There is the only one standard Latin edition.

In this shape the whole story has no historical value; it is a pious romance, like so many others compiled in the fifth and sixth century. None of these opinion is sufficiently established, as neither the Acts nor the other sources offer the requisite chronological evidence. The only sure time-indication is the position of the tomb in the Catacomb of Callistus, in the immediate proximity of the very ancient crypt of the popes, in which Urbanus probably, and surely Pontianus and Anterus were buried. The earliest part of this catacomb dates at all events from the end of the second century; from that time, therefore, to the middle of the third century is the period left open for the martyrdom of St. Cecilia. Crypt of St. Cecilia

Mention is made of an ancient Church of St. Cecilia in Rome in the fifth century, in which Pope Symmachus held a council in the year 500. But Symmachus held no council in that year. That held at Easter, 502, was in the "basilica Julii"; that on September 1, 505, was held in the "basilica Sessoriana"; that on October 23, 501, was in "porticu beati Petri apostoli que appelatur Palmaria." The next synod, November 6, 502, met in the church of St. Peter; that in 533, "ante confessionem beati Petri"; and that in 503 also in the basilica of S. Peter. Consequently, till better evidence is produced, we must conclude that S. Cecilia was not known or venerated in Rome till about the time when Pope Gelasius (496) introduced her name into his Sacramentary.

In the picture "she stands in the centre, in a rich robe of golden tint, and her hair confined by a band of jewels. In her hand is a small organ,--but seems about to drop it as she looks up, listening with ecstatic expression to a group of angels, who are singing above. Scattered and broken at her feet lie the instruments of secular music... To the right of St. Cecilia stands St. Paul... to the left, in front, the Magdalene,... and behind her St. Augustine".

Honoring Saint Cecelia, people have often honored music itself, and its transformative, uplifting powers. On the occasion of Saint Cecelia's Day--celebrated in London through the 18th century--the poet Alexander Pope evokes the beauty of a symphony:

"In broken air, trembling, the wild music floats;
Till by degrees, remote and small,
The strains decay,
And melt away
In a dying, dying fall."

The Jewish musicians who played Klezmer music in the extermination camps, as well as the millions of people who have prayed to Saint Cecelia, draw from a common spiritual fountain which vindicates Alexander Pope's ode for Saint Cecelia, that "song could prevail O'er Death and o'er Hell, A conquest how hard and how glorious!" No matter what the powers of evil, "music and love were victorious."

Prayer to Saint Cecilia Dear Saint Cecilia, one thing we know for certain about you is that you became a heroic martyr in fidelity to your divine Bridegroom. We do not know that you were a musician but we are told that you heard Angels sing. Inspire musicians to gladden the hearts of people by filling the air with God's gift of music and reminding them of the divine Musician who created all beauty. Amen.

My Riverside Chaucer says that the character of the second nun is thought by some to have been added as a "creation of the scribes", and that the heading, Second Nonnes Tale may actually have meant to designate the second tale told by the Prioress!


Methinks that since Chaucer did not revise any of this before his death, that he intended to work on this some more...and that we have no choice today but to accept this <is hers...the virgin, telling the tale of another virgin? I can be comfortable with that!

The Interpretacio nominis Cecilie and the tale to about line 345 are drawn from the Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine...and the second half from a source decended from some longer Latin life of the saint...some believe the Passio by Mombritus, some believe from the Historio passionis beatae Caeciliae by Antonio Boso - others believe a combination of the two!!!!

A reference to the lyfe of Seynt Cecile in the prologue to Chaucer's Legende of Good Women shows that the Second Nun's Tale was written before 1386-87. Older scolars put it very ealy in Chuucer's Italian period because of the borrowings from Dante...around 1373.

MYOYMYOMOMY!!!!

Mike - Sr. Neverenter HAHAHA! I get it! Good one! As to the tale of Cecilia...is Cecilia's marriage really supposed to have been an "exemplum" of the ideal marriage??????? Methinks it is Chaucer at his best with tongue in cheek again? What do you think?

Barbara the Florentine Art site was magnificent!!! I've spent far too much time looking at it, but something just clicked!!! The last lines of the tale..

St. Urban and his deacons secretly
Fetched forth her body and buried it by night
Among his saints, Her mansion came to be
The Church of St. Cecilia, hers by right
.....
And in that Church in every noble way
Christ and his saint are honored to this day.

Question #1: Why did she, why does any young girl make such a decision? Is it devotion or is it an aversion to sex/marriage because of a traumatic or unpleasant experience? If devotion, where did it come from? Did Cecilia have a strict Christian upbringing? Where was her father during her childhood? Is he Christian? Does he know her faith, devotion, her feelings about marriage?

What were her options at this point, unhappy child? What would most young girls have done in her situation?

Virgin/VirginityThe soul in its state of primordial innocence; inviolable purity; the pure and passive aspect; the inviolability of the sacred. Virginity is often asssociated with inviolability, as with vestal virgins, when violation was believed to weaken the magic power and hence the social structure. The Virgin represents the femimine ideal and is the subject of the struggle, attaiment and protection of the male Hero.

Marriage The reconciliation, interaction and union of opposites; relationship between the divinity and the world;The heros gamas, the sacred marriage between god and goddess, priest and priestess, king and queen, representing the mystic union of heaven and earth, sun and moon, the solar bull and lunar cow, on which the vital forces of the sky and earth and the fertility of the cattle and crops depend. It also symbolizes spiritual union, attaining perfection and completion by the union of opposities in both life an death, each partner 'giving up' to the other, but with the death forming a new life. In Christianity it represents the union with the Divine Lover, Christ, the bridegroom.

Barbara, Do you think that perhaps Chaucer does not intend this to be an exemplum for the ideal marriage then, but rather an example of a person of honor, speaking the truth, defending ones'honor to the death? I think it might be tied in with the Canon's Yeoman's Tale that follows, but we'll have to wait for that discussion...

Her appearance before Almachius becomes in Chaucer's telling, a confrontation between her simple faith and the foolish learning of one who calls himself a philosopher, yet worships a stone. What is this stone that Cecilia speaks of?

Nothing you lack to make your outward eye
Totally blind, for what is seen by all
To be a stone you seek to glorify
A senseless piece of stone that you would call
A god!

"15 And while the organ made its melody,
16 To God alone within her heart sang she:
17 O Lord, my soul and body guide to The
18 Unsoiled, lest I in spirit ruined be.

bath - A caldarium, a pot for boiling water. A Roman bathing room heated from below. Such a room is preserved in the Church of the Santa Cecelia in Traslevere.

The Medieval tradition of illustration shows the saint naked in the cauldron with a fire blazing beneath. "This erotic suggestiveness derives from the licentious associations with the public baths of Rome." At least the Medieval legends continue to locate the bath in the privacy of her own mansion.

The Roman illustrations of the legend portray her in a high-necked dress in the bath, no flaming cauldron...

Stone The Riverside Chaucer tells that the "stone" in the Second Nun's Tale may refer to stone idols, but more likely to the false metal produced by the medieval alchemists - known as philosophers at the time!

Lots more on alchemy coming up in the Canon's Yeoman's Tale - directly related to this reference. I just read in the Riverside that there are no known sources for the Yeoman's tale, and many think this is the only one Chaucer invented himself - possibly relating to a bad experience in which he was deceived and after revenge!

If so, this would have been highly unusual, as "it was not considered the function of the teller of tales in the 14thc to invent the stories he told, but to present and embellish them with artful rhetoric."

Alf! Great observation on the Valerian root and Valarian's role in this tale...watch for it to reappear in The Canon's Yeoman's Tale!!!

Nearing journeys end we meet up with the sweaty, hooded, slovenly dressed (it serves him right) lord and his yeoman.  Is it Robin Hood?  No!  Is itone of our Harry Potter grouplings? NO!  An alchemist- this canon? Can he really convert this base metal into gold? Or- is he a magician only? Can he control natural events by invoking charms, slight of hand or other forms of trickery? What say you all?

That all this blessed road we ride upon
From here as far as Canterbury town,
why he could turn it all clean upside down And pave
it all with silver and with gold!"

Our Harry, quite the cynic, inspecting  the tattered garb questions the  magic powers of our distrustful canon.
  As the turn coat yeoman proceeds to relate their escapdes of  robbing the poor to fill their coffers, the canon orders him to "shut his pie hole" (hold his tongue) and cease slandering him.  Harry, ever the thoughtful one, tells him to "go on, don't be forbidden" and our canon flees in grief and shame.
  Our yo man(!) admits to his shortcomings and his inability to "quit this game of deception" as he relates the Canon's Yeoman's Tale.

The closest story, writen by Ramon Lull, tells of a swindler who adds to moulten gold a mixture purported to be an herbal mix, but actually containing so much gold - that the amount found at the end is greater than was originally melted down.

A chaplain, William de Brumely confessed in 1374 to having made counterfeit gold pieces, having learned the process from a William Shuchirch, a canon of the King's Chapel in Windsor. (SUCCESSFULLY made the coins using alchemy!!!???)

In 1390 Chaucer was responsible for the repairs to Windsor Castle (is there no end to this man's talents? A Handyman too! ) If Shuchirch was still alive and practicing (practicing what? Alchemy? Clergical duties? What?) - Chaucer would have known him at Windsor.

There are other records which show that Chaucer lost money in dealings with Shuchirch in the 1390's when Chaucer had to borrow small sums. (???) If Chaucer wrote this out of resentment towards alchemists and a canon, we might have our man!

Shasta:You pointed out to us that Jung   thought that base instincts could be transformed into highly-developed spirituality.  When I read that I immediately thought of "dust to dust."  How's that for symbolism??  Perhaps it was because of the gold representing the sun and silver the moon etc. that depicted the spirituality of it.

Phyll:  What a great observation.  Geoff accepting our 'puters.  I love it.
<hr>

Nothing good comes from transmutation, we're warned!  One loses their savings and their brains become addled. "If one of you has money in his fist, step up and make yourself an alchemist."
Transmutation is a trade off:

If you are wealthy you can be taught to transmute your wealth to naught.
The priest traded his soul for avarice.
Ones joy is traded for despair.  This is starting to read like a Stephen King novel.

All of this labor in vain and yet

this is their art.

The spirit of the canonical order is thus quaintly but clearly explained in the "Observances in Use at the Augustinian Priory at Barnwell, Cambridge," lately edited with a translation by F.W. Clarke:

The road along which Canons Regular walk in order to reach the heavenly Jerusalem is the rule of Blessed Augustine. Furthur lest Canons Regular should wander away from the rule, there are given to them, in addition, observances in accordance with it handed down from remote ages and approved among holy fathers in all quarters of the world. This rule is simple and easy, so that unlearned men and children can walk in it without stumbling. On the other hand it is deep and lofty, so that the wise and strong can find in it matter for abundant and perfect contemplation. An elephant can swim in it and a lamb can walk in it safely. As a lofty tower surrounded on all sides by walls makes the soldiers who garrison it safe, fearless, and impregnable, so the rule of Blessed Augustine, fortified on all sides by observances in accordance with it, makes its soldiers, that is, Canon Regular, undismayed at the attacks, safe and invincible.

To explain further the nature and distinctive spirit of the canonical order, we may say, with St. Augustine, that a canon regular professes two things, "sanctitatem et clericatum". He lives in community, he leads the life of a religious, he sings the praises of God by the daily recitation of the Divine Office in choir; but at the same time, at the bidding of his superiors, he is prepared to follow the example of the Apostles by preaching, teaching, and the administration of the sacraments, or by giving hospitality to pilgrims and travellers, and tending the sick

...(where is the monastery of Black Canons which St. Columba founded). Speaking of the very monastery built by the saint at Hy, another historian, Gervase of Canterbury, in his "Mappa Mundi", informs us that the monastery belonged to the Black Canons

When, in and after the eleventh century, the various congregations of canons regular were formed, and adopted the Rule of St. Augustine, they were usually called Canonici Regulares Ordinis S. Augustini Congregationis, and in England Austin Canons, or Black Canons

Secular canons were also replaced by canons regular at Twynham, Plympton, Waltham, and other places. This was, no doubt, a period of great prosperity for the canonical order in England. But soon evil days came. There was first the Black Plague, and like every other ecclesiastical institution, the canons regular were fairly decimated, and we may say that they never quite recovered

"In the middle ages the learned recognized four stages of drunkenness...lion-drunk or choleric; ape-drunk, or sanguine; mutton-drunk, or phlegmatic; or swine-drunk, melancholy

You'd think he had been drinking monkey-wine,
And that's when one goes playing with a straw!

The word lemman in Chaucer usually has the connotation of adultery, lust treacherous love, and rape. But the word was not held to be coarse, and the Manciple is the only Pilgrim to apologize for it; he reuses it in line 238. Perhaps Chaucer felt the word had lower-class connotations and was somewhat old-fashioned.

To some scholars, the word here means "sweetheart" - (my American Heritage Dictionary gives "sweetheart" as one of the meanings of the word, "bully", which is perhaps why Coghill used it in his translation.)

Another critic argues that the word has connotations of moral disapproval; he cites its presence in a 15th c. glossary where it translates concubina

"Little speech, much quiet" as we "reflect upon the crow."

I've long wondered why those crows are so bloody ugly black!!!

The moral of the Manciple's tale -

"Be cautious, fashion nothing new
By way of tidings, whether false or true"

Marj:  Thanks for the link.  Didn't you actually feel that the crow was the sessenger with certain powers such as the indians believed.  I hate to look a crow in the eye as they're mesmerizing.

Anna:  My dear patient, how are you feeling this fine Sunday morning?  Still a little green around the gills?

Joan:  One must draw a very, fine line here.  Will it make a differnce to the friend?  Did it make Phoebus any happier knowing that his "beloved" had cheated on him?  For what reason did the beautiful, tasteful, becoming crow relate the tale of  her transgressions?  He turned this romantic , loving marriage into a menacing, unattractive, ominous horror .  For what purpose?  Why do we feel the need to infringe on anything that is held in high regard by others?  I love this tale!  There is so many thought-provoking issues here.  I for one have been there, done that and will never do it again.  As you say, the crow is now black with guilt, no onger beautiful.  That is what happens to friendships also if one indulges in that same scene.

My son, reflect upon the crow...
My son, hold your tongue and hold your friends
My son, God in his endless goodness set a wall about the tongue of teeth and lip...
My son, too often by some babbling speech many are blasted
My son restrain your tongue in self denial on all occasions
My son, so teach your children when they are young
My son, superfluous speech will harm you
My son, a tongue can sever friendship at a blow.

• Ah hah!  As we near the completion of our journey we finally hear from the Parson. He offers us virtuous matter thru his moral teachings.  He portrays the  seven deadlies to us.  The first one, being that of  PRIDE. "Outward pride is like a tavern sign that shows there is wine in the cellar."  Could he be speaking of our TABARD?



• It may show itself in too many clothes or too few.  Take note, fellow pilgrims of the variety of attire we have donned.



• or in the carriage of the body.  Reflect, dear pilgrims on your postrue as you sit astride your palfrey.



• One can show sinful pride in retinue!    Is that not a group of attendants who accompany a person of rank?  There are plenty of those with us.



• Ostentatious hospitality (hello HARRY)



• In one's strength, one's gentility - that should cover the lot of us.






• The remedy for Pride is Humility or true self-knowledge.  I would venture to say that our motley group could take a lesson along that avenue.

I've read that it is the General Prologue which contains the pure poetry of Chaucer. The prologue is considered to be his masterpiece, the creation of these characters who demonstrate the seven deadly sins.

The tales themselves expand upon the themes, and sometimes amuse - so that it is easy to come away with the feeling that Chaucer is more amused, more tolerant than he really is. If we were to read only the General Prologue and then the Parson's Tale, we would come closer to understanding Chaucer's purpose here. Perhaps to amuse us to catch our attention, but never to be tolerant of the weaknesses and sins of man...those seven deadly sins he details so carefully through the Parson.

Oh Alf!, you have undertaken to attack the 'deadlies' - the first of which is pride! Yes perfect...from the sign on the Tabard ...Pride is certainly on display here in the tales, but notice the emphasis is not on naming names of the sinners (it would be easy with pride, I think), but rather on Penance and Remedy. The Parson refrains from naming names, Chaucer refrains from naming and finally even confesses regret for having told the tales on these individuals!!! The emphasis is on Penance. The emphasis is on the remedy for each.

Gosh it's hard not to name names........I almost just did. Oh, heckers, let's do it! Let's point a finger at the character most guilty of PRIDE! Try to imagine this same character attempt to remedy the sin...with a healthy dose of humility!

Next...ENVY. We're told that this is the worst of sins....

ENVY!  Oh to be in a size 8 again.  (oops sorry).  Didn't you just love that --" backbiting and grumbling are the devil's PaterNoster"?  What a great statement and I can't think of a beter way to phrase it.  How often do we begrudge another , being filled with resentment and malice?
600 years and "we sure don't change" much do we?

Most of us know that Joyce's Ulysses was banned...How about Catcher in the Rye? We know about Little Black Sambo, but how about Alice in Wonderland, Call of the Wild, Black Beauty, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, Cinderella? In 1989, Little Red Riding Hood was banned from CA schools, the illustrated edition which showed a third grader carrying wine and bread to grandma's!

Others that may or may not surprise you...The Bible, The Odyssey, Brave New World, Grapes of Wrath...Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, King Lear...?

Canterbury Tales made the list for several decades because it was judged "indecent and obscene" and therefore could not go through US Mail. So much for ordering quick and cheap from Barnes and Noble.

I'm wondering how it got "off the list"? Maybe that's when the edited versions appeared...the editions you read in High School never contained all the tales, did they? Well, did they? I don't think so........

"You'll get no fable or romance from me...fables are wretched and uncouth."

hmm---My wicked anger is never premeditated.  There is nothing calculated or intentional about my anger.  Remember, I am the fool that shoots from the hip and when I open my mouth, I merely change feet.  I have an explosive personality, one that our Parson would frown upon.  Malice aforethought!  Well now,  I did grind up apple seeds to feed my ex-husband when I heard they were poisonous.  I guess that would qualify as premeditated and malice aforethought, hey?  Our parson says the remedy for anger is Patience.    Well!  Restraint, tolerance and submission is patience!  I would fail there, also I'm afraid.

Next question?  What in the world is accidie?  I couldn't even find that one in my dictionary.

Clearly he hasn't written all the intended tales, or even organized those he has finished...and yet Harry talks as if he's heard two tales from all the others at this point. Suddenly he has fast forwarded to the Parson's handbook on Penance and the Retraction, leaving us, befuddled Pilgrims on the roadside, with Harry's game unresolved...who gets the fee meal when we get back to the inn? Or is that the point? There's no going back, no second chances...

Much attention is given to the progression of sin from venial to deadly in the handbooks, and in Chaucer's Tale ~ series of remedies for venial sins and then long discussions of the Deadlies. If the remedies are not followed and developed to overcome the venials, they turn into Deadlies...one example...Little snits can lead to anger which can lead to Homicide!

(Ac"ci*die) n. [OF. accide, accidie, LL. accidia, acedia, fr. Gr. 'a priv. + care.] Sloth; torpor. [Obs.] "The sin of accidie." Chaucer.

So it was Sloth, but a further search makes the case for the difference between Accidie and Sloth - more than you ever wanted to know...but I'm including all of it, because it is truly sobering (did you hear that, Harry?

Accidie: rejecting life... is a Middle English word, retrieved because the usual word, "sloth," now only expresses a trivial laziness. Accidie is a form of spiritual despair, a refusal of grace, a bargain with nothingness that shuts out God's gift of the new possibility. Usually called sloth, laziness, dejection, passive-aggressiveness, despair or spiritual depression nowadays, accidie is a spiritual listlessness or depression, a reluctance and finally a refusal to respond to God. Accidie begins at the center, at our relationship with God, and it stems ultimately from a refusal to live toward God as dependent creatures made in his image. It is a passive shrinking from creative existence. The style of accidie would be to dampen down one's inner life, living at a minimum level of mind and heart, letting thoughts and feelings die down.

Accidie is a partial consent to non-being, striking a bargain with insignificance. Another way to sin by accidie is to empty out one's self in idle worship rather than growing toward God, seeking significance in some other human being or cause or circumstance, scrabbling after a sense of self-worth. Self-abdication offers a temporary refuge both from God and from the nothingness that stalks creative life. The fruit of accidie is despair. In its terminal form it finally rejects God's new possibility. It rules out grace, shutting any opening to the divine life.

Accidie has its full effect when one puts oneself intentionally beyond the reach of God's mercy. Spiritual withdrawal and depression often start with dishonest prayer, refusing to raise some issue with God, rejecting a summons, getting tired of God's silence and walking away. It chooses to live and die on the margins of its own nothingness rather than launch out further into the abyss of God. It leaves the self independent from God and in control, even at the price of self-minimization. Those who bargain with nothingness can avoid surrender to God.

 

NOW! That being said-- accidie, oh how terrible !! A detachement literally from life. I've seen people like that; families, patients, and friends who have reached that ultimate point. Rejection of life! Oh Lord spare me that. If I never keep another asset, allow me myenthusiasm.

ginger

I'll go first...I got the biggest kick out of the Marriage tales..and maybe of those, the Clerk's. The irony of it all. The Marquis fears the end is near and prays for guidance in choosing the most virtuous wife he can so that he may live out his remaining days in the most fitting way, worthy of reaching heaven's gate. So his final choice is a twelve year old girl - Griselda - ( I guess he wanted to be certain of her virginity - this is understandable, sort of. But she is a child, untested. And so she must undergo a lifetime of tests, destroying her family, his family, but proving her virtue! I think this is Chaucer's satire at its best!

I still feel I have to go back and reread the Tale of Sir Topaz and Melibee, because I zipped through those without fully appreciating the reasoning behind Chaucer's choice to have these tales come from his character on the Pilgrimage...

I liked also those two birds...Pertelot and Chaunticler...for reasons I must admit I forget...but another marriage tale as I recall.

Favorite Pilgrim?...hard to beat the Bath Widow...her tale was good too, wasn't it?

Your favorites?

I do believe that what you have been doing in these discussion groups is extremely important to a lot of people. My gratitude to both you and Maryal.

Love, Kay


This is the first Great Books discussion that we have closed in years - without Charlotte. Words can not adequately express this loss. May her memory remain with us as long as we are here to remember her.

Thank you, Kay, for what you did for Charlotte, for the rest of us. It was a great source of comfort to know that in some small way, we made a difference in Charlotte's last days.