Bravely bold Sire Thopas priked forth from Flaunders

[rymenhild]

Sire Thopas drow abak ful faste;
This geant at him stones caste,
...Out of a fel staf-slinge.
But faire escapeth Child Thopas,
And al it was thurgh Goddes gras,
...And thurgh his fair beringe.

[Sir Thopas drew back quickly;
The giant cast stones at him,
from a fell sling-staff.
But Child Thopas escaped fairly,
and it was all because of God's grace,
and because of his fair bearing.]

-Chaucer's Tale of Sir Thopas, lines 827-832

Thopas is totally a literary ancestor of Sir Robin, the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Launcelot. I love Thopas dearly. I want to take him home and feed him well and sing to him: "He was not afraid to die, oh brave sir Thopas!"

I do not think that expressing my deep and passionate love for Sir Thopas, The Slightly-Braver-Than-Sir-Robin, is necessarily the best way to impress my orals examiners, though.

ETA: Has anyone ever noticed that Tolkien's poem "Errantry" seems to be related to Sir Thopas?

Hise jambeux were of quirboily,
His swerdes shethe of ivory,
...His helm of latoun bright;
His sadel was of rewel-bon,
His bridel as the sonne shon,
...Or as the moone-light. - Sir Thopas, lines 875-880

Of crystal was his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony,
with silver tipped and plenilune,
his spear was hewn of ebony.
His javelins were of malachite
and stalactite - he brandished them,
and went and fought the dragon flies,
of Paradise, and vanquished them. - Tolkien, "Errantry" (no, I am not going to count the line numbers, sorry)

Am I just hallucinating a tonal similarity there?

Comments

[ex-greythist387.livejournal.com]

If it is not the only thing you say about Sir Thopas, it'll be fine. (You could turn it towards reception, e.g., depending on how the question's skewed.) Don't forget that two out of three likely Middle English examiners--your likely ones, I mean--may well have thought of the similarity themselves.... It's that argument-versus-shiny-things thing.