The Man of Law's Introduction

I'm not quite sure what to make of the Man of Law's Introduction, Prologue, Tale, and Epilogue just yet, but for me the most fascinating part was definitely the very beginning in the Introduction. I was struck by how poetic and intelligent the Host appears in the first forty or so lines. Although the first stanza is narration by the poet, it very eloquently describes the Host using the positioning of the sun to tell the time of day: "Oure Hoost saugh wel that the brighte sonne / The ark of his artificial day hath ronne / The ferthe part, and half an houre and moore" (1-3). The narrator does remind the reader that the Host "were nat depe ystert in loore" (4), but I found myself ignoring that line after the Host further uses his knowledge of the shadows and of the position of "Phebus" (10).

The Host's ensuing words to the pilgrims continued to surprise me. Whereas thus far the Host has seemed to be quite rowdy and reckless a character, he is incredibly well spoken here. As he is urging the pilgrims not to lose time, his speech resembles an epic simile, albeit reversing the traditional order:
Lordinges, the time wasteth night and day

And steleth from us, what prively slepinge,

And whatthurgh necligence in our wakinge,

As dooth the streem that turneth nevere again,

Descendinge fro the montaigne into plain. (20-4)

He goes on to quote the advice of Seneca (25), so as to lend authority to his suggestion, and then offers them another metaphor about how time is irretrievable, just as virginity is (29-31). These opening stanzas were probably my favorite throughout all of the parts of the Man of Law's section, although I am having trouble discerning their significance. I'm not sure why Chaucer would have the Host suddenly come forth with such florid, poetic language full of metaphors and references, when otherwise the Host really comes off as an uneducated layman.

One other section of the Introduction I found incredibly intriguing was the Man of Law's sigh that Chaucer (not the pilgrim nor poet, but presumably some "other" writer even greater than Ovid... how impossibly cheeky he is!) has already written in poetry all their is to tell. Still, though, he says: "But nathelees I recche noght a bene, / Thogh I come after him with hawe-bake. / I speke in prose, and lat him rymes make" (94-6). However, he then goes on to give us an incredibly long tale in poetry, not prose, complete with rhyme. In fact, he actually changes the rhyme scheme used in what we've read thus far (as far as I can tell, though I did not check every line). Whereas the General Prologue, the Wife of Bath, and the Pardoner all have rhyming schemes of AABBCC, as does the Introduction to the Pardoner's Tale, as soon as he begins with his Prologue, he changes it. His stanzas are not only all of equal length, but all follow the rhyme scheme ABABBCC-- it's almost as if he is one-upping the rest of The Canterbury Tales despite his claim of inferiority!