Whan April with his tickyboxen soote ...

[larryhammer]

Old cartoon: Woman in medieval dress on horseback, saying to a companion, "I'm the Wife of Bath, but you can call me Bubbles."

[Poll #957720]

I note, btw, that in the General Prologue, not one character portrait would be improved if replaced by a ninja. (Tho' 'tis amusing to contemplate a hidden thirtieth pilgrim: There was a ninja out of Outremere, / So stelthy he I hardely saw him there.) NRS = 0. I'll report on the others as I go.

---L.

Comments

[janni.livejournal.com]

What about The Tickybox's Tale?

[larryhammer]

Scholarly consensus is that it was written later by an immitator -- which is why it's not included in modern editions of the Tales.

---L.

[janni.livejournal.com]

Slander, I tell you, slander!

No one ever wants to hear the Ticky-Box's story, even though you can tell just from the titles of all those other tales how important he was ...

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I thought the Wife of Bath *was* a ninja - else how did she get rid of those husbands. (which provides a new guide for literary perfection - tales that don't need ninjas because there's one hidden there already. Yes I've been watching Buffy all week. Does it show?)

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Back in 2003, someone on one of my newsgroups made a mistaken reference to "The Canterbury Carol." Someone who wasn't a gentleman might have snidely pointed out that she meant "The Coventry Carol." Not me, though. I provided the carol (http://home.comcast.net/~kiptw/words/canterbury.txt).

Yes, I was proud of myself. (Incidentally, I haven't written a tune for it. Even more incidentally, I think the chorus could be sung three or four times, wherever it feels right, rather than after each verse, as indicated. There's such a thing as going too far.)

[larryhammer]

Alison, a ninja? But she has too much fun -- and too argumentative. Not to mention, this.

---L.

[larryhammer]

Heh. Not bad. (Though the monk and friar are two of the three priests.)

Hmm -- the theme to "Gilligan's Island" doesn't work. You used Full Measure.

---L.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

The first two are disguise and the third is most uncanonical. Actually, I'm not too sure ninjas aren't allowed to have fun - they're just not allowed to show it.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The Knight's Tickybox.

Also the short poem "Alysoun Tickybox". Sort of like "Eleanor Rigby".

[larryhammer]

Only in the privacy of their own clans?

---L.

[larryhammer]

I almost included the Knight's Tickybox.

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I want more of the Ninja's tale, please!

and how about The Tickybox of Fowles--I love that one, personally....

[larryhammer]

Writing more will have to wait till I read more, and can approximate real Middle English better. I can, however, point you to the General Tickylogue in words of one beat.

(I almost included the Tickybox of Fowles, but decided one non-Canterbury work was the limit.)

---L.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I imagined the general scheme of "Veni, veni, Emmanuel" while writing it. It also seems to fit with the first couple lines of "The Queen to Me a Royal Pain Doth Give."

I suppose the monk and friar could step forward and take solos after the composite verse. Fiddlesticks.

Anyway, I nominate "Complaint to His Tickybox."

Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky...