Book Review Chaucer The Canterbury Tales – Melibee

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When you buy a book you don’t expect the translator to leave out chapters and stories he dislikes, but that is exactly what Nevill Coghill does with the Tale of Melibee in the Penguin translation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. I had no choice but to find another edition of the story to read it there. Prevented from finishing his deliberately dreadful fairy tale of the highly unlikely Sir Topaz, Chaucer is asked to tell a prose story instead, and that is the tale of Melibee. The story is really a basis for a moral debate on the nature of evil, suffering revenge and most importantly, forgiveness. Lord Melibee travels on business. While he is away, some of his enemies attack his fortified house, attacking his wife, Lady Prudence, and leaving his daughter, Sophia, close to death. We never find out if she survives or dies. Returning, Lord Melibee is furious and understandably all for revenge, but his wise wife advises him to forgive his enemies. They argue the issue, citing several literary and Biblical examples to support their respective cases, though it is clear that Lady Prudence has the upper hand throughout. Finally, Melibee agrees, and Lady Prudence arranges a meeting with the men who attacked her and her daughter. The men are genuinely moved by her offer of friendship and forgiveness and swear honest loyalty to Lord Melibee. It is not a bad tale, though lacking the excitement and twists of other given tales. Coghill perhaps needs some of the forgiveness offered in the tale, but I have none for him. A translator should not cheat his readers of that which he himself dislikes or disapproves of in this way. – if he dislikes part of a book, he has no business censoring it or translating the rest at all. Arthur Chappell