Question

Typical of medieval story tellers, the Wife of Bath in the midst of telling her story about Camelot digresses into a short narrative from mythology written by Ovid to illustrate how women can't keep a secret. Which story is it?

Answer 1

In Geoffrey Chaucer's 'The Canterbury Tales', the Wife of Bath references the story of King Midas from Ovid's mythology to illustrate that women (and by extension, people) cannot keep secrets, when highlighting her outlook on gossip.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Wife of Bath, a character in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, indeed digresses from her tale to illustrate the idea that women cannot keep secrets. The specific story she references from Ovid's mythology is that of King Midas. According to the myth, Midas has a pair of donkey's ears, a secret he wishes to keep hidden from everyone. However, his barber learns of it and, unable to keep the secret, whispers it into a hole in the ground. The reeds that grow from that spot then reveal the secret by whispering 'King Midas has donkey ears' whenever the wind blows.

This example is used by the Wife of Bath to underscore her view about women's tendency to gossip, drawing from a classical source to give weight to her argument.