Chaucer's Tale of Melibee

The Tale of Melibee is one of the least read of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and it is not hard to understand why. Like the similarly “unreadable” Parson’s Tale, it is in prose, it is very long (about 920 lines) and it has little to interest us as a story. It bears some resemblance to the Old Testament Book of Job, which also uses a fairly lightweight story as a frame on which to hang a lot of philosophical debate.

The best thing about the Tale of Melibee is the story of why it is told. Chaucer the pilgrim has been telling his Tale of Sir Thopas, which is a deliberately terrible piece of doggerel verse, and has been interrupted by the Host who can stand no more and complains that Chaucer is useless as a poet (“Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!”) and would do better to tell something in prose. This wonderful joke against himself by Chaucer the poet is followed by Chaucer the pilgrim obeying the Host’s demand for something “In which ther be som murthe or some doctryne”. The promised “litel thyng in prose” turns out to be the Tale of Melibee, which is hardly “litel” and tends most definitely towards “doctryne” rather than “murthe”.

The Tale

It all starts quite promisingly, with the first few lines telling how “myghty and riche” Melibee returns home to find that “thre of his olde foes” have broken in and attacked his wife Prudence and daughter Sophie. Sophie is seriously injured “with fyve mortal woundes in fyve sondry places,” and Melibee, not surprisingly, is much distressed as a result. However, the husband and wife then start a protracted conversation over how they should react, quoting classical and biblical sources at each other like players at some philosophical tennis match. The “action” of the story is thus virtually all over in the first 20 lines.

Prudence advises Melibee to consult his “trewe freendes alle”, quoting Solomon, in passing, as recommending such a course. A large number of people turn up in response to his summons, of all types and conditions, including “many subtille flatereres” and “somme of his neighebores that diden hym reverence moore for drede than for love, as it happeth ofte.”

Melibee is all for making war on his enemies, and the advice he gets is conflicting, with some advisers urging caution and others recommending immediate and drastic action, but with the latter being in the majority. Generally speaking, the younger advisers advocate war and the older ones are in favour of peace. There is a nice touch in the line, “Yet hadde this Melibeus in his conseil many folk that prively in his eere conseilled hym certeyn thing, and conseilled hym the contrarie in general audience”; there really is nothing new under the sun!

Prudence offers her own counsel, which Melibee is at first reluctant to accept, giving a number of reasons why a husband should not be governed by what his wife says. We seem to have re-entered the “marriage debate” of the earlier Tales when Melibee says, “if I governed me by thy conseil, it sholde seme that I hadde yeve to thee over me the maistrie; and God forbede that it so weere!” Naturally enough, Prudence answers all his points in turn, complete with quotations as ever.

Prudence tells Melibee that he has taken counsel in the wrong way, and that he has misinterpreted the advice he has been given. The best defence, according to her, is the love of your neighbours rather than towers and battlements. She is clearly in favour of Neighbourhood Watch! She also advises patience, and the rule of law against that of private vengeance.

To summarise a very long argument, Prudence advises Melibee to make peace, first with God and then with his enemies, as it was his own sin that brought the calamity upon his household. There is also a long discussion about the proper uses of wealth.

Eventually, Melibee agrees to be governed by his wife’s wisdom. She then finds the three enemies and persuades them to give themselves up to Melibee’s judgment. They are, indeed, very reasonable about it. When they arrive at the house, they apologise for their deeds, Melibee hears them out, and then debates with Prudence how they should be punished. He is at first determined to exact a harsh, but judicial, revenge, but Prudence advises him that forgiveness is the best course of action.

The Tale ends without any indication of whether young Sophie recovers or not, although the use of the term “mortal woundes” at the beginning of the Tale suggests that recovery is unlikely.

The reaction of the Host to the Tale is given at the start of the prologue to the Monk’s Tale, in which the Host contrasts the attitude of Prudence to that of his own wife who, in such circumstances, would have handed him a big stick to go and beat the enemies with.

Discussion

This is not the sort of Tale that modern readers find at all to their liking, as it has very little action and a lot of tiresome debate. There have certainly been ages when people would have found the Tale of Melibee more to their liking; to realise this we have only to remember that the 18^th century novels of Samuel Richardson, which were also enormously long and uneventful, were extremely popular when first published.

There have been suggestions that, just like the aborted Tale of Sir Thopas, Melibee is a parody of a particular type of literature that was popular in Chaucer’s time. However, that seems unlikely, given that the joke would have worn extremely thin after some 17,000 words. Also, there is evidence from close contemporaries that the Tale of Melibee was held in great respect at the time.

One reason for the Tale’s later fall in popularity is that it is allegorical, and that is a form of literature that has long been out of favour. There is another level of meaning to it when Melibee’s castle is seen as the home of the soul, the three enemies as the world, the flesh and the devil, and the five wounds inflicted on Sophie (“wisdom”) as the destruction of the five senses. There may also be a reference to the five wounds of Christ on the cross (nails in hands and feet and spear in the side). The arguments of Prudence are therefore a sermon on how to resist sin and prevent it from destroying the soul.

On another level, there could be a political message here. The taking of good counsel is a pervasive theme, and that was one of the major problems that faced King Richard II (reigned 1377-99), who had been king since the age of ten and thus subject to advice from all directions. Chaucer himself was closely associated with Richard’s uncle, John of Gaunt, and thus knew all about the conflicting influences on the young king, who was eventually deposed when he was unable to show sufficient strength to resist bad counsel.

In summary, this Tale is not at all typical of the Canterbury Tales as a whole, and is usually regarded as a failure. Chaucer was a far better poet than a writer of prose. Melibee is a translation of a French source, but Chaucer’s version is considerably longer than the original, thanks to all the extra quotations. Few people today think of Melibee as a highlight of the Tales, and for good reason.

© John Welford