The Canterbury Tales: the Man of Law's Tale Foreignness and the Other Quotes

This is not the first time that merchants bearing tales have made an appearance. Don't forget that the narrator claims to have had this tale from a merchant he met along the way. In a world without telephones or newspapers, these travelers' tidings might be the only contact one would have with foreign places. Details of daily life in these places might indeed seem like "wondres" to those who had never encountered them before.

The Sultan's advisers rightly see the cultural differences between Custance and the Sultan as an almost insurmountable obstacle to their marriage. In a tradition in which "like should marry like," the "diversitee" between the two potential partners here would be a foreboding signal of problems to come. Which, hello—totally true.

Although it's true that Custance marries someone who comes from a different culture, the details of her situation—the separation from familiar friends, fear of an unknown husband—might be common to any noblewoman who was required to leave home in an arranged marriage. That's why we think this passage seems to humanize Custance's situation. Many women of the time would've been able to sympathize with Custance's plight, even if they'd never been shipped off to anywhere as exotic as Babylon.

In stating so starkly the will of her parents that she travel to a "Barbre nacioun," Custance emphasizes the harshness of her fate. Why? Because the word "Barbre," which she uses here to mean pagan, calls to mind the attacks of Rome by ruthless, bloodthirsty barbarians, so that Custance's destination seems very scary.

The Sultan's mother's reluctance to embrace foreign customs comes immediately after Custance's trepidation at traveling to a strange land. So in a weird way, these two ladies have something in common: both women are reluctant to give up what is familiar to them.

By calling the Sultan's mother a second "Semyrame," the narrator connects her to a specific group of pagans from way back in the day. Semiramis was an ancient queen of Babylon whose nation persecuted the Israelites. So the narrator's making a connection between the Sultaness and a group who historically antagonized the spiritual ancestors of the Christians.

The corrupt Latin that Custance speaks is nonetheless intelligible to the Northumbrian constable. The similarity in language symbolizes the similarities in cultural between the two. (Which makes the Northumbrian conversion to Christianity an easier process.)

Donegild's objection to her son's marriage is different from the Sultan's mother's. It's not as much about religion with Donegild as it is her dislike of her son being with someone so generally different. We're not sure if that's better or worse.

With her letter, Donegild transforms Custance into what she fears. Her objection to her son's marriage was that he was taking for a mate "so strange a creature." Here Custance is again a creature, this time a "feendly" one. From Donegild's perspective, her grandchild is an alien of sorts, for in his veins runs the blood of someone completely different from her.

By painting Donegild as a spirit who walks in hell, the narrator implies that she doesn't belong here among human beings. Her treachery separates her from their ranks, and makes her hatred of Custance that much more sinister.

The fact that the hands in which Custance now finds herself are "hethen," or not Christian, seems to automatically qualify her as needing protection in the narrator's mind. This assumption reflects a belief that heathens are without any morals whatsoever.