I found it very difficult to decipher Chaucer’s tone based on the Middle English version of the General Prologue. Having to focus on the meaning of individual words, I failed to notice the tonal aspects of the text. The depiction of the Prioress, however, brought the tone back into focus for me: “But for to speken of hir conscience/ She was so charitable, and so pitous/ She wolde wepe if that she sawe a mous/ Caught in a trappe, if it were deed or bledde/ Of smale houndes hadde she, that she fedde/ With roasted flessh […]” (8). The Prioress cries over a dead mouse, but gives no thought to the animal that must be killed in order to serve as food for her hounds. This discovery of irony inspired me to read the entire depiction again, and upon re-inspection, I discovered another passage that hints at an ironic attitude toward the Prioress: “At mete wel ytaught was she withalle/ She leet no morsel from hir lippes falle/ Ne wette hir fingres in hir sauce depe/ Wel koude she carye a morsel and wel kepe/ That no drope ne fille upon hir brest/ In curteisye was set ful muche hir lest/ Hir over-lippe wiped she so clene/ That in hir coppe ther was no ferthing sene/ Of grece, whan she drunken hadde hir draughte/ Ful semely after hir mete she raughte” (7). The prioress’s behavior in this passage may just appear as a form of good etiquette. But the description illustrates that she knows how to keep her exterior clean while consuming food. The depiction of her eating habits may therefore function as a metaphor, hinting at her concern for exterior rather than interior cleanliness. Her portrait thus foreshadows the more overt hypocrisy of the religious figures that appear later in the prologue.