GRISELDE, GRISILD, GRISILDIS. Griselde is the heroine of The Clerk's Tale, which, the Clerk says, he has learned from a worthy clerk of Padua, Francis Petrak, ClP 21-38. The reference points to Petrarch's Latin tale, De obedientia ac fide uxoria mythologia; Chaucer also used an anonymous French translation, Le Livre Griseldis. The story is also the Tenth Tale on the Tenth Day of Boccaccio's Decameron. The Clerk states at the end of the tale that since Griselde was patient with a mortal man, we ought to be patient in all that God sends, ClT 1149-1155, realizing that his tale is a difficult one for his audience. It is also a difficult one for a modern audience. [Fraunceys Petrak: Janicle: Walter]

Griselde, with silent final -e, occurs seven times initially, ClT 274, 344, 953, 1029, 1030, 1062, 1177; eleven times in medial positions, ClT 232, 365; with final syllabic -e, 466, 470, 792; with elided final -e, 989, 1007, 1009, 1051; with final syllabic -e, 1143; with elided final -e, 1147. Grisild occurs once only, in final rhyming position, ClT 442. Grisildis occurs twice initially: once as nominative case, ClT 537, and once as accusative case, ClT 1182; twelve times in medial positions: once in the locative case, ClT 297; four times as nominative case, ClT 210, 335, 428, 537; once in accusative plural case, ClT 1165; twice as genitive case, ClT 576, MerchT 1224, and twice as dative case, ClT 752, 1187; and twice in final rhyming position in the dative case, ClT 752, 948.