lonelygirl wrote:
i agree, it doesn't sound like miller's tale at all.
I thought she said "Miller's Tale."
And
the version of the tale that I read on-line has several things that might be relevant.
First of all, the "poor scholar" (who's called Handy Nicholas in this version) who lived in the carpenter's boarding house loved astrology, and could solve problems -- and apparently predict the future -- by using it. He has an Almagest, which is a medieval treatise concerned with astrology, astronomy, or alchemy.
We know Bree is interested in the Zodiac of Denderah.
And Nicholas has a zither, and sings songs like "The Angel to the Virgin."
We've been speculating that Bree's virginity is important to the ceremony.
The carpenter has just married an eighteen-year-old girl who is much younger than him, gorgeous, and has a roving eye. Also -- and this seems important:
Very daintily were her eyebrows plucked,
And those were angled and as black as any sloe.
Sounds like Bree's eyebrows, no?
(EDITED TO ADD: Sorry, Tryon -- I just saw that you posted about the eyebrows before I did.)
The young scholar is hot for the wife, who promises that she will do the dirty deed with Nicholas if they can find a time.
"Unless we watch well and keep private, I know well I am dead," said she. "We must be very secret in this case."
Okay, the lovely young woman, Alisoun, goes to church "to do Christ's work." The parish clerk, Absolon, sees her and starts wooing her by moonlight, in view of her husband. But Alisoun loves Nicholas, and Absolon is desolate at her rejection.
So Nicholas and Alisoun come up with a plan to be together. While John (the carpenter) is out of the boarding house, Nicholas puts enough food and drink for a couple of days in his own room, and tells Alisoun that if John comes back and asks where he (Nicholas) is, she should say that she doesn't know. Nicholas stays in his room all day Saturday and up until Sunday night, and doesn't answer when he's called or when someone knocks on the door.
When Bree called her parents, they didn't answer.
John starts to worry that something's wrong with him. He sends up a servant, who looks in Nicholas's room and sees Nicholas staring off into space. The servant tells John, who concludes that Nicholas's study of the stars has caused him to go crazy. So he breaks down the door, and Nicholas appears to come to and tells him that he has a huge secret to tell John and that John cannot tell anyone.
Bree loves the stars. And she's been told that her religion relates to astrology and that she can't tell anyone about what she's doing in relation to the ceremony.
Sigh. I'm running out of energy to keep reading and summarizing and pointing out parallels. The point is, though, that The Miller's Tale could very well be the right story, and could also be full of clues.
)