Textual authority, continued

In my post "Textual authority and the Franklin's Tale," I discussed in depth textual authority in the Franklin's Tale, touching briefly on the Wife of Bath, and suggest that Chaucer seems to be questioning the value of depending on and referring to texts to lend authority to statements and stories. Throughout the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer portrays the use of texts as potentially dangerous and misguiding.

What, then, are we to think of the Tale of Melibee and its bombardment of quotes, proverbs and references to classical and biblical authorities? 

In the prologue, the host passes judgment on Chaucer-the-Pilgrim's language and genre, criticizing his choice of rhyme in Sir Thopas: "Myne eres aken of thy drasty speche. / Now swich a rym the devel I biteche! / This may wel be rym dogerel" (923-25). He then begs of Chaucer a moral tale in prose, a tale that at the least "ther be som murthe or som doctryne" (935). Seemingly offended, Chaucer quites the host in the extreme, launching a loquacious, long-winded bombardment of name-dropping, classical and scriptural wisdom, advice and proverbs. 

The host's request and the structure of the Tale of Melibee is reminiscent of something the Pardoner said during his prologue — while betraying his methods and strategy, the Pardoner tells his traveling companions that he tells his congregation old stories of long-time-ago because it's what they like, remember best and repeat. Insultingly, he says, "Thanne telle I hem ensamples many oon / Of olde stories longe tyme agoon. For lewed peple loven tales olde; / Swiche thyngs kan they wel reporte and holde" (435-39). Thus, references to classical and biblical tales and authorities appeals to the "ignorant and unlearned" (footnote, 177). The Oxford English Dictionary offers several other meanings of "lewed" in use during Chaucer's time — "Belonging to the lower orders; common, low, vulgar, ‘base'." Essentially, Chaucer in an earlier tale to Melibee suggests that people who love tales olde, or references to textual authority, are potentially idiots. Thus, by quiting the host with the Tale of Melibee, Chaucer questions his intelligence and status by exposing his preference for "tales olde" of morality. 

The excess of textual referents in the Tale of Melibee is also reminiscent of the Wife of Bath's prologue, in which Alison both deplores and uses textual authority. Peppering her monologue with references to Solomon, the apostle Mark, Ptolemy and Darius, Alison subverts her criticism of male usage of textual authority to subjugate women. The Physician's Tale also exposes a concern with textual authority, striving to convince his (lewed?) companions and us readers that his story "is no fable, / But knowen for historial thyng notable" (155-56). The Franklin emphasizes that his narration is based on text, repeating "as the bookes telle" (1378).

The Tale of Melibee is just another link in the chain Chaucer is slowly building of a sentiment against textual authority, as well as a questioning of the stability and reliability of language. In the prologue to Melibee, Chaucer begs his listeners/readers to trust his translation of Melibee, asserting that "as in my sentence, / Shul ye nowher fynden difference / From the sentence of this tretys lyte / After the which this murye tale I write" (961-64). Chaucer asks us to believe that he has translated directly from the origin its perfect meaning. Even if the language, the sentence itself, the structure of his utterances, is different from the original, the meaning supposedly remains the same. We can quite his claim by asking him, again: Even if the sentence (word choice, grammar) changes, the sentence (meaning) does not?  

The Oxford English Dictionary also lists under "sentence," the meanings "opinion, authoritative decision, judgment, quoted saying of some eminent person or a maxim." Thus, if Chaucer's sentences change, but his sentence remains the same, do his sentences change or remain the same? Is he conveying accurately the sentences of these wise people, learned sources, classical and biblical figures and stories? 

There are at least two examples in which he is not. By introducing changes and alterations from the originals into his tale, Chaucer directly questions his listener's/reader's dependence on his use of textual authority and quality of his translation from the translation of the original. Cooper writes that "Chaucer's claim that different versions of a story proclaim the same message despite the verbal forms tthey take, as the Gospels do, is irrelevant to the change of language involved in his translation of Melibee (311).

The first example: Cooper points out an omission from the original Tale of Melibee — Among all his advice on politics and war, Chaucer leaves out a quote from Solomon "found in the original, that laments the state of the land where the king is a child: a text that would hardly have been tactful in late fourteenth-century England" (311). This omission from Chaucer's translation cannot help but alter the total sense of the corpus of wisdom/opinion in the Tale of Melibee by subtly altering the political judgment of the text. By using the Tale of Melibee to convey a political message, Chaucer places himself "among the wise counselors of the treatise, not among the flatterers" (Cooper 311). However, by altering a key element of the translation, Chaucer calls into question the reliability of his own advice. Chaucer, by interjecting himself into his tale, has extrapolated it to apply to reality, and his questionable treatment of textual authority brings into question the whole message of the Tale of Melibee. 

A second example comes in Chaucer's merging of two different proverbs into one maxim: "What is bettre than gold? Jaspre. What is bettre than Jaspre? Wisedoom. And What is bettre than Wisedoom? Womman. And what is bettre than Womman? Nothyng" (1107-08). The original proverb in Latin gloss is, "Quid melius auro? Jaspis. Quid Jaspide? Sensus. Quid Sensu? Mulier. Quid Mulier? Nihil" (Explanatory notes, page 448). In Chaucer's version, mulier, or "good" is substituted with Woman. So, here, we have at least one example each of sentence (structural) change and sentence (meaning/opinion) change. 

One last thing I want to point out before I wrap this up is to point out the humor of the husband-wife dyad relationship, in which Prudence adopts the guise of a masculine know-it-all, bombarding her hen-pecked husband with proverb after maxim after quote after name. Ovid, Seneca, Jesus ... practically all the poets, philosophers, disciples and apostles who ever penned a sentence of advice. After several pages of this inundation, Melibee protests, "Certes ... I se wel that ye enforce yow muchel by wordes to overcome me in swich manere that I shal nat venge me of myne enemys ..." and goes on to dissent from her opinion on vengeance (1426). And he ultimately issues a smackdown, telling her that after all her blathering and quoting and citing, she has yet to advise him on how to act in his emergency: "I see wel, dame Prudence, that by youre faire wordes and by youre resounds that ye han shewed me, that the weere liketh you no thying; but I have nat yet herd youre conseil, how I shal do in this nede" (1672-73). Prudence has inflated her language, repeated the same basic ideas over and over, expended much energy only to make the simple point that she doesn't like war. Chaucer's mocking of this repetitive waste is visible underneath Melibee's reminder that Prudence has yet to give him her advice simply and in a nutshell, so to say. 

Much like Prudence, Chaucer uses bombastic language, excessive references to textual authority, inflates language, all to make the point that people should not rely on incessant references to long-dead philosophers and religious authorities, but come to the point and give their advice, straight-up. It's up to us, now, whether to separate Chaucer the author from Chaucer the pilgrim and take his advice to heart, or dismiss it on the same basis we are inclined to dismiss Chaucer-the-pilgrim's moralizing. 

Cooper, Helen. Oxford Guides to Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.