Envy and Ethics: “Plesaunce Leefful” in The Parson’s Tale

One might go so far as to redefine The Parson’s Tale as a treatise on pleasure without making too extravagant a claim, for even beyond the prologue, much of the tale itself is centered on the psychological experience of delight. Among other Middle English texts that treat the vices alongside an etiology of sin-such as Book for a Simple and Devout Woman—the tale offers a unique emphasis on the pursuit of pleasure. In his concern that contrition be total, encompassing not only actions, but also sinful thoughts, the Parson spends considerable time elaborating the psychological motivation for and experience of sin, from the first enticing of the fiend up to the “flambe of delit” that grows when one contemplates the fulfillment of concupiscent desires. The Parson explains that envy is “divers from alle othere synnes” because it is opposed to “alle vertues and agayns alle goodnesses” and “sory of alle the bountees of his neighebor”.