Heldris Of Cornwall By Hanris Essay

1. “Do you know how stingy people are? Serve them well, as if they were your father: then you then you will be most welcome, judged by a fine minstrel, well-received. But when it comes time for you to ask for something, do you know what you will find? Very bad cheer and a sour face, that’s what you’ll always get from them. You greedy, nasty, petty people, this world is but a transitory place: you have so robbed it of all pleasure that there is no play or laughter any more. You’ll profit less from it while you pile up riches, you fools” (Heldris, 3)

a. This quote is from the beginning of the poem, before the actual story starts. The author, Heldris of Cornwall, is introducing his tale by giving some advice to his readers. Heldris believes

“Is that what comes of love? Such dreadful pain and such bitterness? Then love’s ways are truly wicked- first to do good and then to do evil. All this he does to manipulate lovers.” (Heldris, 31)

a. Cador, a knight, and Eufemie, a medicine woman, have been in love with each other, but neither will tell the other of their love. Keeping their love hidden has made them both so ill that they were bed ridden. This idea of love being painful is explained in The Art of Courtly Love written by Andreas Capellanus. Capellanus states, “Love is a certain inborn suffering derived from the sight and excessive mediation upon the beauty of the opposite sex” (80).

3. “She was a triumph of Nature’s art. If I tell you all about this handiwork, don’t be annoyed, for you ought to be well informed, if you ask to hear a story, in order to understand what it’s really about. Nature, who has great powers, came to the child and took hold of it and said, ‘Now I’m going to create a masterpiece.’” (Heldris,

Heldris says this when Silence is born no describe how beautiful she is. He wants the audience to be able to understand the context of the story before reading so they fully know what is going on in the story. Nature is a character and a concept in the poem, Silence that spends the story trying to get Silence, the main character, to revert back to her assigned gender as a girl. Nature created Silence as a “masterpiece”. Silence was beautiful like “extra-fine flour” (Heldris, 87). Women in the poem Silence are described by their physical features. Heldris describes Silence by her physical features such as her face and her body