TALE OF MELIBEE, THE

byGeoffrey Chaucer

(ca. 1390)

After the Host,Harry Bailey, has interrupted the Pilgrim CHAUCER’s recitation of his burlesqueTALE OF SIR THOPAS, the poet’s persona responds with a lengthy moral allegory in prose known asThe Tale of Melibee. In the past critics ofThe CANTERBURY TALESsaw Melibee as a deliberately bad tale, one chosen specifically to bore the Host in revenge for the interruption ofThopas. More recent scholars have seen little sense in this interpretation—why should Chaucer’s readers suffer through a bad tale so that the fictional pilgrim may avenge himself on the fictional Host? In fact the Host is not bored with the tale at all, but rather wishes his wife Goodelief had heard it, an intimidating shrew who seems to be the opposite of Melibee’s wife, Prudence. In the tale a band of his enemies breaks into Melibee’s house, where they attack and beat his wife, Prudence, and daughter Sophie, leaving the daughter with five mortal wounds. The furious Melibee wants vengeance, but his wife counsels him to receive his suffering in patience. She says he should call a council of his friends, which he does, and they advise him to go to war to avenge himself. Though Melibee agrees to their advice, Prudence once again steps in and speaks for patience. Overcoming his initial reluctance to listen to a woman, she delivers a long admonitory speech on the proper use of counsel, as well as of wealth and power. Though concerned with the harm it will do to his reputation and his honor, Melibee finally is convinced by his wife to seek peace. He ultimately thanks God for sending him a wife of such “discretion,” and on her advice, he summons his enemies and forgives them openly, praying at the same time that God will forgive all of his own trespasses. Chaucer’s tale is a rather close (by medieval standards) translation of Renaud de Louens’s French work, theLivre de Melibée et de Dame Prudence(ca.1336), itself a freer translation of the earlier LatinLiber consolationis et consiliiby Albertanus of Brescia (1246). Renaud’s text was popular, and was included in the book of theMénagier de Paris(1392–94), compiled as a manual of advice for the Ménagier’s young wife. The tale’s contemporary popularity, then, suggests that more recent critics’ contempt forMelibeehardly reflects the tastes of Chaucer’s own age. Though the tale has not been a critical favorite, some scholars who have seriously consideredMelibeehave seen it as a pacifist political tract, applying possibly to JOHN OF GAUNT’s proposed war in Spain, or a generally pacifist warning to the English nobility to use caution and seek wise counsel rather than act rashly. Others have seen it as a distinctly religious tale, relating consciously to other tales in Chaucer’s text, particularly those concerned with marriage, and those (likeThe KNIGHT’S TALE) that glorify war.

■ Benson, Larry, et al., eds.The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987.

■ Collette,Carolyn.“Heeding the Counsel of Prudence: A Context for theMelibee,”Chaucer Review29 (1995): 416–433.

■ Cowgill, Jane. “Patterns of Feminine and Masculine Persuasion in theMelibeeand theParson’s Tale.” InChaucer’s Religious Tales, edited by C. David Benson and Elizabeth Robertson, 171–183. Chaucer Studies 15. Cambridge, U.K.: Brewer, 1990.

■ Owen, Charles A., Jr. “The Tale of Melibee,”Chaucer Review7 (1973): 267–280.

■ Stillwell, Gardiner.“The Political Meaning of Chaucer’sTale ofMelibee,”Speculum19 (1944): 433–444.

■ Strohm, Paul. “The Allegory of theTale of Melibee,”Chaucer Review2 (1967): 32–42.