SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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CHAPTER II
‘SWICHE UNKYNDE ABHOMINACIOUNS’: MEDIEVAL INCEST
When called upon to tell his tale in the Canterbury Tales, the Man of Law protests
that he is unable to find one that Chaucer has not already told, for “if he have noght seyd
hem, leve brother, / In o book, he hath seyd hem in another” (MLT 51-2). Although he
has written of Lucrece, Thisbee, Phyllis, Helen, Penelope, Dido, Ariadne, and many other
women who suffered for love, the Man of Law praises Chaucer for not writing tales of
incest:
But certainly no word ne writeth he
Of thilke wikke ensample of Canacee,
That loved hir owene brother sinfully—
Of swich cursed stories I sey fy! --
Or ellis of Tyro Appollonius,
How that the cursed kyng Antiochus
Birafte his doghter of hir maydenhede,
That is so horrible a tale for to rede
Whan he hir threw upon the pavement,
And therefore he, of ful avysement,
Wolde nevere write in none of his sermons
Of swiche unkynde abhomynacions (MLT 77-88)
These tales of “unkynde abhomynacions” are included in the Confessio Amantis of
Chaucer’s contemporary, John Gower. Chaucer had previously commended Troilus and
Criseyde to “moral Gower” (T&C 1856). Moreover, the Man of Law goes on to tell the