Abstract
This article examines the persuasive role of comic exempla within the mid-thirteenth-century Castilian Calila e Dimna and Sendebar. Exempla are related by characters attempting to influence each other's thoughts and actions, but the tales either fail to persuade or else persuade too much. Thus, their effect on the plot is only temporary, and their comic plots only trouble the conveyance of meaning further. By comparing one tale of Calila with an analogous thirteenth-century French fabliau, I show that the blending of humour and didacticism undermines any stable, monological interpretation, rendering these texts as complex as they are fascinating.
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