Several lines later, and here Chaucer's abridging of Boccaccios Teseida (the model for his tale)'s description of Theasus conquest becomes apparent and marked; Hippolyta represents in her wifely capacity the model of pathos in her imploring for Theaseus her Lords sympathy for Palamon and Arcite - the queen anon, for verray wommanhede, gan for to wepe.greet pitee was it, as it thoughte hem alle'-. The traditional power structure, of a worthyre' knight acceding to his beloveds wishes with the full recognition that her power only lies within his will as husband, is implied. S.H. Rigby in her Essay upon Femininity in Chaucer remarks just this that women are defined in relation to men in Chaucer' and quotes the line womens conseil broghte us firste to wo/ and made Adam fro paraddys to go' when explaining the explanatory logic of the male pose towards the female form, essentially seen as transgressing when set outside or apart from male authority, whatever form this authority might assume in the literary form. Indeed in texts such as Malorys' Morte D'Arthur, there exists numerous references underlying the text to the aspect of Chilvary, and the elevated form of the female figure in relation to society. .
Set against this order was the competing' influence of the Fabliaux, an equally crafted Art Form, and One represented here by the Millers Tale. Helen Cooper talks in The Oxford Guide To the Canterbury Tales of the Fabliaux as referring to the contemporary world' to its basic functions', and of the Fabliaux as burlesque parody' of the elevated. The correspondingly similar structures of the Knights and Millers Tale, despite their ostensible differences, recall Professor E. Vinaves Introduction to his Works of Sir Thomas Malory(1947) when talks of the distinction between -plot- matiere, and presentation- sen. Works of Medieval Literature may have been constantly referential and in homage to their predecessors in matiere- the framing plot structure and substance of the text, but the sen- presentation, in essence meaning the intention behind the plot, the reason for which it was appropriated, differ.
