Chaucer’s “Tale of Melibee”: A Reassessment

Abstract

C H A U C E R ’ S “ T A L E O F M E L I B E E ” : A R E A S S E S S M E N T LAUREL J. BRINTON University of British Columbia C h a u cer’s “Tale of Melibee” is usually either maligned or neglected in critical discussions of The Canterbury Tales; the general nature of the tale has discouraged its consideration as an integral part of the fiction of The Canterbury Tales and as a truly Chaucerian creation. Indeed, the “Melibeus ,” a lengthy, moralistic, prose tract with the barest veneer of fictiveness and a strict faithfulness to its source, seems almost designed for rejection by modern audiences. Criticism has generally been limited, therefore, to estab­ lishing the date of composition of the tale or to seeing its relationship to its source, although some critics have come to acknowledge the worth of the “Melibeus” in its own age as art and as social and political commentary. However, all of these approaches have sought the importance of the tale outside of the literary work. For this reason, crucial critical questions re­ main: Why is the tale in The Canterbury Tales, what part does it play in the work as a whole, and why has Chaucer assigned the tale to Chaucer the pilgrim?1 The “Tale of Melibee” appears to lack literary artifice in itself and in its placement in The Canterbury Tales. For many readers of the tales, the “Melibeus” does not seem appropriate to the teller, Chaucer the pilgrim, as he is characterized in the prologue to “Sir Thopas,” nor to the telling. It does not respond to the dramatic situation in which it is told nor overtly continue the discussion of any theme. Chaucer the pilgrim simply complies with the Host’s request to “telle in prose somwhat, at the leeste, / In which ther be som murthe or som doctryne” (B2 2124-25).2 The tale Chaucer supplies is a close translation of Renaud de Louens’s Livre de Melibee et de Dame Prudence, itself a condensation and paraphrase of Albertanus of Brescia’s Liber Consolationis et Consilii, a popular tale at the time, trans­ lated into Italian, German, and Dutch as well as French. The tale has scarcely any plot or characterization but is rather the vehicle for a protracted discusion of certain moral and intellectual issues. The action which initiates the tale, the attack on Melibee’s wife, Prudence, and his daughter, Sophie, by three of his old foes, is hurriedly set forth in the first English Studies in C anada, x, 3, September 1984 eight lines of this long tale. What follows is Dame Prudence’s counselling of her husband on how to handle his enemies. The discussion ends, finally, with Melibee’s forgiveness of and reconciliation with his enemies. What plot action there is in the tale is not consistently carried through. Although Sophie is said to receive “mortal” wounds, Prudence says that she will “warisshe” ; then she is not mentioned again. The only characterizing ele­ ments of the tale, Prudence’s adroitness and eruditeness and Melibee’s obtuse­ ness and dogged resistance, do not create realistically rounded characters. Prudence is an allegorical figure of a prudent wife, and Melibee is a figure of fallible human nature; he is “a man that drynketh hony” (B2 2599), a man drunk with worldly riches and pleasures. Because of its nature, critics have spent a great amount of time looking for excuses for Chaucer’s telling of the “Tale of Melibee” in The Canter­ bury Tales. If it were an early work which Chaucer had available and wanted to use somewhere, it might be excusable. However, it has been quite conclusively dated in the Canterbury period, around 1386.3 Moreover, if it were simply a verbatim translation of the French, with no Chaucerian addi­ tions, it might be excusable.4 However, Chaucer gives certain narrative details (for example, the name of Melibee’s daughter, Sophie or “wisdom,” and the final sentence of the tale), inserts terms of address, complicates sentence structure, replaces doublets with single terms or, more commonly, amplifies the French text with synonymous words, adds...