{"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_mect40_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect40_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect40_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/mect40.htm","summary":"This is the Second Nun's Prologue from Geoffrey Chaucer's *Canterbury Tales* (late 14th century), a verse prologue in Middle English introducing a hagiographic tale about Saint Cecilia. The prologue opens with a moral argument against idleness \u2014 framed as the devil's snare \u2014 and presents the act of translation as a form of virtuous labor, justifying the nun's retelling of Cecilia's life as spiritual busywork against sloth. The central section is a formal invocation to the Virgin Mary, drawing on the tradition of Marian prayer poetry (echoing Bernard of Clairvaux) with elaborate praise of Mary as intercessor, vessel of the Incarnation, and advocate for sinners. The prologue then offers a sustained etymological meditation on the name \"Cecilia,\" deriving it from Latin and Greek roots to yield meanings such as \"heaven's lily,\" \"way to the blind,\" \"heaven of the people,\" and \"lacking blindness\" \u2014 each gloss reinforcing the saint's virtues of chastity, wisdom, and active goodness. Distinctive is how Chaucer uses this extended onomastic exercise not merely as scholarly display but as a structural preview of the saint's character. Readers interested in medieval religious verse, Marian devotion, hagiography, or Chaucer's engagement with translation as a moral act will find this prologue a compact, carefully crafted specimen of all four.","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":942}