"If men shal telle proprely a thing/the word moot cosyn be to the workyng." (l. 209) The diction initially struck me as odd, as "cousin" seems a strange word choice when one is emphasizing precision and the exactness of word mirroring deed, yet upon reading the line a second time, I found myself thinking it seemed strangely apropos, thematically. The way that Chaucer and Ovid tell the tale, stringing other people's narratives in and relating by hearsay, it certainly seems "cosyn to the workyng." Though this is ostensibly the Manciple's tale, he repeatedly refers to the "wise clerks" (314) from whom he takes it, and strangely relinquishes the reins to his mother for the closing words.

I did think it interesting that Chaucer otherwise glossed over the family aspect, however. Ovid's inclusion of the first bird's tale, which brings in a curious thread of incest at the end ("But of what use was that to me if, after all, Nyctimene, who was changed into a bird because of her vile sins, was put into my place? Or have you not heard the tale all Lesbos knows too well, how Nyctimene outraged the sanctity of her father's bed?" 590), is completely dashed from the Chaucer. Family in Ovid seems to have a stifling function, as shown in the first bird's undoing (watching a family of girls unwrap a box against orders, which, contrary to the Pandora myth, here contains only a boy and a snake) and the Nyctimene parallel. It's arguable whether the mother in the Chaucer is serving the same function, as she is granted a voice for the final words of the piece, yet the voice is used only to ordain silence.