Geoffrey Chaucer’s Host interrupts him mid-tale with a burst of comic rudeness. He’s so fed up with the “drafty speech” and awful rhymes that his ears ache—he declares it’s not even worth a turd and forbids any more verse. Chaucer, playing the put-upon pilgrim, meekly asks why he’s being stopped when he’s doing his best, but the Host demands something with either entertainment or moral heft, and in prose. Chaucer cheerfully agrees, promising a “moral tale virtuous,” but he also gets a little pre-emptive. He explains that, like the four Evangelists who all tell the same story of Christ’s suffering yet differ in detail, he might add extra proverbs or adjust the wording from his source. Don’t blame me, he says—the core meaning will be the same. The whole passage is a playful self-parody, creating a mood that’s half sheepish apology, half sly wink, as Chaucer pivots from his famously terrible rhyme to a deadpan prose sermon.
The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's Tale of Meliboeus. — Summary
THE PROLOGUE.
"No more of this, for Godde's dignity!" Quoth oure Hoste; "for thou makest me So weary of thy very lewedness, That, all so wisly God my soule bless, Mine eares ache for thy drafty speech. Now such a rhyme the devil I beteche: This may well be rhyme doggerel," quoth he. "Why so?" quoth I; "why wilt thou lette me More of my tale than any other man, Since that it is the best rhyme that I can?" "By God!" quoth he, "for, plainly at one word, Thy drafty rhyming is not worth a tord: Thou dost naught elles but dispendest time. Sir, at one word, thou shalt no longer rhyme. Let see whether thou canst tellen aught in gest, Or tell in prose somewhat, at the least, In which there be some mirth or some doctrine." "Gladly," quoth I, "by Godde's sweete pine, I will you tell a little thing in prose, That oughte like you, as I suppose, Or else certes ye be too dangerous. It is a moral tale virtuous, All be it told sometimes in sundry wise By sundry folk, as I shall you devise. As thus, ye wot that ev'ry Evangelist, That telleth us the pain of Jesus Christ, He saith not all thing as his fellow doth; But natheless their sentence is all soth, And all accorden as in their sentence, All be there in their telling difference; For some of them say more, and some say less, When they his piteous passion express; I mean of Mark and Matthew, Luke and John; But doubteless their sentence is all one. Therefore, lordinges all, I you beseech, If that ye think I vary in my speech, As thus, though that I telle somedeal more Of proverbes, than ye have heard before Comprehended in this little treatise here, T'enforce with the effect of my mattere, And though I not the same wordes say As ye have heard, yet to you all I pray Blame me not; for as in my sentence Shall ye nowhere finde no difference From the sentence of thilke treatise lite, After the which this merry tale I write. And therefore hearken to what I shall say, And let me tellen all my tale, I pray."