Black as the Crow

Perched among the many birds in the Parliament of Foules sits “the crowe with vois of care” (364).1 The crow receives no space to speak in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Valentine’s Day poem —a grim reminder perhaps of the circumstances under which he received his sad voice and scorched appearance. In Chaucer’s hands it is a different, perhaps darker, story than the one told by Ted Hughes. The crow does not launch himself into blackness through a jealousy contest; rather he becomes but one victim at the hands of a jealous and wrathful master. As Chaucer’s Manciple tells the story, the crow had once been a white bird with a beautiful voice. Phoebus Apollo had taught the crow how to speak like a human, and when this crow sang, “Therwith in al this world no nyghtyngale/ Ne koude, by an hondred thousand deel, / Syngen so wonder myrily and weel” (IX.136–139). But the crow’s status within Phoebus’s household does not last long in the Manciple’s Tale. Having witnessed Phoebus’s wife with her beloved, the crow immediately declares the wife’s unfaithfulness to Phoebus —and Pheobus’ resulting identity as a cuckold — with the song, “Cokkow! Cokkow! Cokkow!” (IX.243). Phoebus turns his ire and sorrow towards his wife and his minstrelsy before addressing the crow as a traitor. To quite the crow of his false tale (IX.293), Phoebus strips him of his song, deplumes his white feathers, and casts him out of his home.