The OED defines loyalty as "faithful adherence to one's promise, oath, word of honour, etc.; †conjugal faithfulness, fidelity."
For me this is what the tale is all about. For me the crow shows his loyalty to Phoebus. Phoebus seems to be more upset by his wife's infidelity and in turn takes it on the crow (the messenger).
This story is about the crow, but I don't think that we are supposed to view the crow as the bad person. I do not think that Phoebus is the bad person either. It seems Phoebus rage at the crow takes the attention away from his cheating wife. Making the term loyalty to only reply to friendships and governance, which in turn made me think of chivalry.
But then the question is what about the wife. If loyalty is faithful adherence to one's promise would that not apply to a marriage.
What exactly were the vows people took in Medieval European marriages?
Anyways, I believe that the crow had every right, as a friend and companion, to inform Phoebus of his wife's affair. It would be wrong to see this and have his friend believe his wife was faithful while I'm sure everyone in the town would have been aware.
I completely agree. A friend would have the responsibility to tell a friend if their wife was cheating on them. But what bothers me about this tale is the crow seems to be just an animal to me. It's not like The Nun's Priest's Tale where the animals had human characteristics. To me, this crow is behaving like a crow. It only knows what it was trained to do, so my interpretation of the story more has to do with watch your training. If you don't want to know something don't be in the situation to find out. The crow got punished for his nature because Phoebus didn't want to hear bad news.
ReplyDelete