Sir Thopas and Melibee
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- Date Submitted: 05/03/2010 09:55 AM
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Sir Thopas and Melibee
Immediately fallowing The Prioress’s tale, the comedic duo of the Tale of Sir Thopas and Melibee not only give a humorous break to the nun’s bleak story, but a witty merging on several accounts. The long descriptions in Sir Thopas seem like a story being made up as he went along and due to the Host’s interruption; Chaucer is letting his own characters denounce his writing. What is the most hilarious; however, reading only a few paragraphs into The Tale of Melibee does the reader cense the punishment involved. It is an excruciatingly long assembly of proverbs and sayings that torment you with a story about war and peace. Melibee is more of a punition for the unfinished Tale of Sir Thopas; when the Host interrupts Chaucer, he claims that his rhymes are terrible and his story is not worth listening to. “No more of this, for Goddes dignitee,…for thou makest me So wery of thy verray lewednesse That, also wisly God my soule blesse, Myn eres aken of thy drasty speche.”(pg261 919-923)
Sir Thopas is a humorous blend of silly rhymes describing a rediculiouse romance of a wealthy lord falling in love before he knows with whom. The hero’s description sounds more feminine and is even given a woman’s name, Thopas. “Sir Thopas wex a doghty swayn. Whyt was his face as payndemayn, His lippes rede as rose. Hise rode is lyk scarlet in grayn, And I yow telle in good certayn, He hadde a semely nose.”(pg256 724-729) He eventually falls in love with an elf queen but runs away from the climactic battle because he has no armor.
The details in this story seem to be too similar to what is going on between Chaucer’s audience and the host. The Host’s comment about him being pale and spacey, Chaucer becomes the opposite, a fair and bold knight. “Al of a knyght was fair and gent In bataille and in tourneyment;His name was sir Thopas.”(pg255 715-717) The Host also descries him always looking for a hare, an in his tale Chaucer becomes a hunter for wild beasts, not...
Immediately fallowing The Prioress’s tale, the comedic duo of the Tale of Sir Thopas and Melibee not only give a humorous break to the nun’s bleak story, but a witty merging on several accounts. The long descriptions in Sir Thopas seem like a story being made up as he went along and due to the Host’s interruption; Chaucer is letting his own characters denounce his writing. What is the most hilarious; however, reading only a few paragraphs into The Tale of Melibee does the reader cense the punishment involved. It is an excruciatingly long assembly of proverbs and sayings that torment you with a story about war and peace. Melibee is more of a punition for the unfinished Tale of Sir Thopas; when the Host interrupts Chaucer, he claims that his rhymes are terrible and his story is not worth listening to. “No more of this, for Goddes dignitee,…for thou makest me So wery of thy verray lewednesse That, also wisly God my soule blesse, Myn eres aken of thy drasty speche.”(pg261 919-923)
Sir Thopas is a humorous blend of silly rhymes describing a rediculiouse romance of a wealthy lord falling in love before he knows with whom. The hero’s description sounds more feminine and is even given a woman’s name, Thopas. “Sir Thopas wex a doghty swayn. Whyt was his face as payndemayn, His lippes rede as rose. Hise rode is lyk scarlet in grayn, And I yow telle in good certayn, He hadde a semely nose.”(pg256 724-729) He eventually falls in love with an elf queen but runs away from the climactic battle because he has no armor.
The details in this story seem to be too similar to what is going on between Chaucer’s audience and the host. The Host’s comment about him being pale and spacey, Chaucer becomes the opposite, a fair and bold knight. “Al of a knyght was fair and gent In bataille and in tourneyment;His name was sir Thopas.”(pg255 715-717) The Host also descries him always looking for a hare, an in his tale Chaucer becomes a hunter for wild beasts, not...