{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect18_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect18_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect18_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/eng/mect/mect18.htm","summary":"This is the opening section of \"The Clerk's Tale\" from Geoffrey Chaucer's *Canterbury Tales* (14th century), a narrative poem in Middle English drawn from Boccaccio's *Decameron* via Petrarch. It introduces Walter, the young Marquis of Saluces in Lombardy \u2014 noble, beloved, and accomplished, but criticized for living only for present pleasures and refusing to marry. His subjects petition him formally to take a wife and secure the succession, framing marriage as a \"blissful yoke\" of sovereignty rather than servitude. Walter relents, but insists on choosing his own bride and extracts a promise that the people will honor her unconditionally, regardless of her origins.\n\nThe tale then pivots to Griselda, the daughter of Janicula, the poorest man in the village \u2014 a young woman of extraordinary virtue, industry, and filial devotion who has caught Walter's eye during his hunts, though she knows nothing of his intentions. On his wedding day, Walter rides to her cottage, proposes to her astonished father, and asks Griselda herself to consent \u2014 she kneels in submission before even knowing his purpose. The passage establishes the tale's central tension: an extreme, socially transgressive marriage premised entirely on absolute obedience, setting up what will become a prolonged test of Griselda's patience that later becomes harrowing. Readers drawn to medieval explorations of gender, power, sovereignty, and virtue under duress will find the full tale rewarding and troubling in equal measure.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas","translated_text":null,"word_count":9201}