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| The Canterbury Tales mural by Ezra Winter, 1939 |
| Geofrey Chaucer | The Canterbury Tales |
| Harvard's Geoffrey Chaucer Website | Harvard's Geofrey Chaucer Website The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems The Canterbury Tales in modern English |
| Tales | Notes |
| The Cantyerbury Tales by Geofrey Chaucer The General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales: Summary, Analysis and Criticism PILGRIMS and other travelers: | Geoffrey Chaucer worked on it from 1387 until his death in 1400. It was published in 1400 in the Kingdom of England (10th century to May 1, 1707 when it became U.K.) Why are The Canterbury Tales important? - It provides a resource for Middle English, considered as one of the 'Fathers of the English Language' - With its 24 stories, it provides insight to the culture of the time - With is 24 different storytellers it’s an example of how the perspective of the narrator affects the story - It's funny, sad, morally uplifting and dispicable. It short, it's entertaining |
| General Prologue - (TEXT) (Modern English) | A group of religious pilgrims are traveling from the Tabard Inn in Southwark to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The pilgrims include: Knight - The Knight's Tale Squire (knight's son) - The Squire's Tale Knight's yoeman (foresters or outdoorsman) Prioress (Madame Eglantine - The Prioress's Tale Second nun - The Second Nun’s Tale the nun's priest - The Nun’s Priest’s Tale Monk - The Monk's Tale Friar (Huberd the Friar) (a limiter, i.e. limited to where he can beg) - The Friar's Tale Merchant (member of wealthy middleclass) - The Merchant's Tale Clerk (an Oxford student) - The Clerk's Tale sargeant of law (Man of Law) - The Man of Law's Tale The Franklin (a land owner) - The Franklin's Tale a haberdasher a carpenter a weaver a dyer a tapestry weaver Cook (Roger) - The Cook's Tale Shipman - The Shipman's Tale doctor of physic (Physician) - The Physician's Tale Wife of Bathe (Alisoun) - The Wife of Bath's Tale Parson (he practiced what he preached) - The Parson's Tale the parson's brother The Plowman The Miller (Robin) - The Miller's Tale The Manciple (steward at a law school) - The Manciple's Tale The Reeve (Oswald, manager of an estate, a carpenter) - The Reeve's Tale Summoner (summons sinners to church court trials) - The Summoner's Tale Pardoner (sells pardons) - The Pardoner's Tale Host (Harry Bailey) The Narrator (Geoffrey Chaucer) - Sir Thopas Tale and The Tale of Melibee (Along the way they are joined by Canon Canon's yoeman - The Canon's Yoeman's Tale) The host suggest that they enetertain one another with stories, two eah on the way to Canterbury and two each on the way back. Whoever tells the most meaningful and comforting story will receive a free meal paid for by the rest of the pilgrims. |
| The Knight's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | a retelling of the epic poem Teseida della Nozze d'Emilia by Giovanni Boccaccio Theseus, the minotaur killer, attacks Creon the king of Thebes to address his unceremonious treatment of dead enemy soldiers. After Creon is defeated, two cousins, Palamon and Arcite, are discovered alive among the dead. They are imprisoned in Athens. After years there, Palamon glimpses Emelye, the sister-in-law of Theseus, and falls in love. His cousin Arcite, sees her and proclaims his love too. This cousin discontent bewteen the cousins. Arcite is released and exiled through his connection with Perotheus who was a friend with Theseus. Meanwhile Palamon is able to escape jail but drugging his jailer. Palamon, while hiding in a grove, overhears Arcite singing of love. This leads to them squabbling over who should get Emelye. Thesus while on a hunt discovers them and plans to execute them until his wife and Emelye intervene with their protests. Theseus proclaims that there will be a judicial tournament between the cousins backed by 100 men each. One year later the tournament commences. Palamon prays to Venus to make Emelye his wife; Arcite prays to Mars for victory; and Emelye prays to Diana t either remain unmarried or marry the one who truly loves her. Arcite is proclaimed the victor in light of Palamor being injured. But Saturn is swyed by Venus and intervene: Arcite dies as a result of his horse falling on him. The prayers of all three were answered. Theseus closes the tale with The First Mover speech |
| The Miller's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The drunk miller, Robin, tells a tale to quite the Knight's tale. It combines the motifs of two different fabliaux, the 'second flood' and 'the misdirected kiss'. As a parody to the Knight's tale, this is a story of a carpenter, John, his young wife, Alisoun, and two young men, Nicholas and Absolon, who have fallen in lust with her. Nicholas is a boarder in the carpenter's house who grabs Alisoun, and cofesses his lust for her. After her threat of srying for help and his crying in yearning, she agrees to a tryst when it's sfae. Shosrly afterwards Absolom, the parish clerk, is filled with love-longing for Alisoun when he sees her in church. He commences to woo here with full moon, love songs delivered under her window and gifts.Alisoun, being invloved with Nicholas, puts him off. Nicholas implements a scheme to spend a whole night with Alisoun by tellin John that the stars foretell a massive flood and convincing him to suspend 3 large tubs from the roof of the barn that they can use as escape vessels. All three clamb into the 3 tubs; Nicholas and Alisoun leave when John falls asleep to spend the nigh in John's bed. The same night, Absolom comes to Alisoun's window begging for a kiss. She demurs and puts her butt out the window, which Absolom, in the dark, kisses. He deduces that he's been duped and returns with a hot poker. On his begging for one more kiss, Nicholas sticks his butt out the window and farts in Absolom's dierection (a fart being something that Absolom deplores). Absolom sticks Nicholas with the hot poker. Nicolas yells "Water! Water!" which wakes John who chops the rope holding up his tub. The tub crashes through the ceiling. The commotion attracts the neighbors, Quick thinking Nicholas and Alisoun make up a story of join being derainged, thinking that there was a second flood. |
| The Reeve's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The tale is based on a popular fabliau, the "cradle trick" which is also the source of the 6th story on the 9th day of The Decameron. The reeve, Oswald, is an estate manager and is a skilled carpenter. Since carpenters were mocked in the Miller's Tale, Oswald retaliates by mocking millers. Symkyn is a cheating, bullying miller married to an arrogant, snobbish "daughter" of a clergyman. They have a 20 year old daughter, Malyne, and a 6 month old son. Two clerical students, John and Aleyn, plan to beat Symkyn at his own game by bringing a larger quantity of corn for grinding and closely watching the process. Symkyn sabotages this plan by setting their horse free and stealing the flour while the two students retriev their horse. The students spend the night with the Miller's family in a room with three beds. During the night Aleyn purposely beds Malyne, and John accidently beds the Miller's wife because the cradle with the 6 month old boy was moved. Alyen mistakenly gets into the Millers bed thinking it was his and John's and brags about his conquest. The miller becomes enraged and wakes the wife who begins beating the raging "student". The students take off with the bread made from the stolen grain. The Reever says the story demonstrates the proverb - One who does evil fares badly and concludes - a deceiver will himself be deceived. |
| The Cook's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The Cook, Roger, tells a tale of an apprentice named Perkyn who was fond of drining, dancing, and dice. His master, finding his till empty a couple of times when Perkyn left the shop, released Perkyn thinking it best to get rid of the bad apple before it spoils the remaining good apples. Perkyn moves in with a friend who also like to drink and gamble, and whose wife is a shopkeeper but whores to make a living. |
| The Man of Law's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | John Gower's "Tale of Constance" may have been the source of this story. Constance is the Emperor of Rome's daughter. The Sultan proposes to marry her based on reports of her beauty from Syrian merchants. The Emperor agrees provided the Sultan and his subjects become Christians. The Sultan's enraged mother connives to prevent this conversion by amssacring her son and the wedding party and setting Consyance adrift at sea. Constance is shipwrecked on the Northumberland coast. Her Christian faith is validated by her companion, Hermengyld, healing a blind man. A rebuffed wicked knight kills Hermengyld and tries to frame Constance by planing the bloody dagger. He perjusres himself and mysteriouslly is struck dead. King Alla of Northumberland converts to Christianity on learning of the miracles. Alla's evil mother intercepts and falsifies letters between Alla and his constable resulting in Constance being banished. Contance is forced to go to sea and runs aground in Spain where a would-be rapist boards her ship but mysteriously falls overboard. She is found by a Roman Senator returning from a mission to barberie (Syria) to avenge the slaughter of Christains by the Sultan's mother. Constance and her child are brought back to Italy to serve as a household servant. The heartbroken King Alla goes on a pilgrimage to Rome and discovers Constance there. They return to Northumberland where Alla dies a year later. Constance returns to Rome where her son eventually becomes Emperor. |
| The Wife of Bath's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The Woman of Bathe, Alyson, in the General Prologue is described as a good wife, somewhat deaf, from Bath, and good at making cloth - better than cloth from Flanders. She is the first woman to go up and make an offering in her parish church, she has had five husbands plus other company in youth, a worthy wife (reputation not challenged?); she’s been on many pilgrimages, rides an ambler, good to chat with, experienced, "wandering by the way", a dominant person, and demands prioirty As a prelude to her tale she expounds on marriage and some details of her married life: - Woe that is in marraige - Experience and authority, takes issue with the Bible: Samaritan woman - how many husbands are you supposed to have? - 4th husband - womanizer - 5th husband - Oxford student: he’s 20 and she’s 40; gave him her property: he reads stories about wicked wives; she grabs pages out of book and he hits her and bursts her ear drum. - Her tale takes place in King Arthur's time - a knight rapes and to avert death he must find out what women want most. His quest leads him through many interviews until he meets an old, ugly woman who will tell him what he needs if he agrees to do what she wants if he lives. Women want sovereignty and mastery. |
| The Friar's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | Huberd the Friar tells the tale of a corrupt summoner who, on his way to extort money from a widow, encounters a devil. The devil, as a yeoman, is wearing the Lincoln green of outlaws and poachers. The two men become fast friends and tell of their trade secrets. The devil reveals his true nature and the summoner asks about various aspects of hell and the forms the demons take. They agree to take whatever is offered to them and split the take. They encounter a carter whose horses are stuck. Frustrated, the carter says that ‘the devil may take them’. The Summoner asks why the devil isn't ‘taking them’ to which the devil says that the carter doesn't mean what he says. They go to the house of the widow where the Summoner gives her a court summons which he expects will cause the widow to bribe him. He also says that she has an old debt from where he paid a fine on her behalf to get a charge of adultery dropped. Incensed, the woman damns him to hell unless he repents his false charges. As the Summoner will not repent on any condition, the devil confirms that the woman meant what she said and takes the Summoner body and soul to hell. |
| The Summoner's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | Summoners were officials in ecclesiastical courts who delivers summons to people. The summoner satirizes friars in retaliation to the friar's tale about summoners. In the prolague he tells of a friar going to hell and not seeing any other friars, thinking them to be goodly men; but the angel accompaning him bids satan to hold up his tail and let the friar see his ass where the nest of friars are. He then tells the story of a friar in Holderness, a marshy area of Yorkshire, who goes begging house to house until he comes to the house of Thomas who is ill. The friar spoke about how good his sermon was and ordered a meal from Thomas' wife. The wife tells how her child has died recently and the friar claims that he had a revelation that the child had entered heaven and that his fellow friars had similar visions. The friar, irritated when he learns that Thomas has given money to other friars tells the sermon of an angry king who sentenced a knight to death because he had returned without his partner, automatically assuming that the knight had murdered his partner. When a third knight takes the condemned knight to his execution, they find the knight alive who was supposedly murdered. When they reurn to the king to get the sentence revered the king instead sentences all three to death. The friar follows this up with telling of another rueful king, Cambyses, who was a drunk and in response to one of his knights claiming that drunkenness caused people to lose their coordination, drew his bow and shot the knight's son. At the end of his sermon, the friar asks Thomas for money for the brothers' cloister. Thomas tells the friar he has something for him down his backside to share equally with his fellow friars. When the friar reaches down, Thomas gives the friar a bodacious fart. The friar, insulted, complains to the lord of the village. The lord's squire suggests arranging the friars around a wheel, one at each spoke and having Thomas fart in the middle so that the fart can be distributed along the spokes. |
| The Clerk's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The marquis of Saluzzo in Piedmont is pressured by people in his community to marry. He agrees provided that the woman is his choice. He chooses a hardworking, honest maiden who is caring for her aged father. The marquis holds his intentions very close to the breast, annoucing the marraige, planning, and having his estate and the village decked out ready for the celebration when mid-morning of the day of the wedding he asks her father and Griselda for her hand. Part of the agreement includes Griselda doing everything that the marquis asks her to do without question. Once married, after the birth of their daughter, the marquis tests Griselda by asking/telling her to give up her daughter and leads her to think the baby will be killed. She agrees and the marquis secretly arranges for the daughter to be raised by his sister in Bologna. He does the same thing with their son. Griselda patiently does as he wishes. When the daughter is 14, the marquis, Walter, arranges for her and her younger brother to come to Sluzzo to be his wife. On the morning of the arrival, he dismisses Griselda, sending her back to her father in a smock. After Griselda giving the marquis advice on how not to treat his new wife, she goes home to her father. Walter then asks for her help with managing his great house in anticipation of the arrival of the two jewel-bedecked youngsters. Griselda lovingly obliges. Walter finally let's go of his obsession with testing Griselda and recognizes her as his wife tells her that the two youngsters are her ‘dead’ children |
| The Merchant's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The tale has many predecessors: One Thousand and One Nights, Guillaume de Lorris' Roman de la Rose, Deschamps' Le Miroir de Mariage, and Boccaccio's 7th day-9th tale of the Decameron. An older man, Januarie, decides he wants to marry and consults his brothers, Placebo and Justinus. His sycophantic brother, Placebo, encourages him while his just brother opposes it. He decides to go ahead and marries May, a not quite 20 year old. A squire in Januarie's court, Damyan, is induced by Venus to fall in love with May. May reciprocates his desires and they conspire to have sex. Januatie has built a walled, locked garden where he and May can enjoy privacy to explore each other sexually. Januarie is struck blind. On June 8, Januarie and May go to the garden. Damyan is already there. Using Januarie's back as a boost, May climbs into a pear tree to have sex with Damyan. In the meantime, two gods, Pluto and Perserpina intervene at this point. Pluto gives Januarie his sight back and Perserpina grants May the skill to talk her way out of anything. Januarie and May exit the story as a couple in good standing but May insinuates that they'll be more daliances that Januarie's eyes will mispreceive. |
| The Squire's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | Cambyuskan (Gengis Khan) leads the Mongol Empire with two sons, Algarsyf and Cambalo, and a daughter, Canace. He holds a feast to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his reign when a strange knight shows up with 4 gifts: a brass horse with the power of teleportation; a mirror which reveals the minds of the king's friends and enemies, a ring that lets the wearer understand and communicate with birds; and a sword whose wounds can only be healed by its touch. Canace eagerly rises the next moriing wearing the ring and finds a grieving falcon who tells Canace that she has been abandoned by her false lover who left her for a kite. Canace heals the bird and builds her a blue coop. The second part of the tale which would involve the sons and the quest of Cambalo to win Canace is interupted by the franklin. |
| The Franklin's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | A franklin is a free, non-serf without noble status. His tale is of two French lovers, Arveragus and Dorigen who decide to create a marriage as an equal partnership with the exception that, in public, Averagus would appear to have overall authority. Averagus travels to Britain for fame and fortune and leaves Dorigen in Brittany. Dorigen misses her husband terribly and is anxious his ship will be wrecked on the coastal black rocks on his return home. A squire name d Aurlius courts her against her will and in an effort to get rid of him, she makes a rash promise while in a lighthearted mood. If he can get rid of all the rocks along the coast, he might have her love. Aurelius contracts with a magician to get rid of the rocks for a hefty sum. The rocks disappear and in the mean time Averagus has returned. Dorigen explains her predicament to her husband who says that in good conscience she must keep her promise to Aurelius. When Aurelius hears that Averagus has told her to fulfill her promise, he releases her from her oath. The magician forgives Aurelius of his debt and the story ends with the question: who acted most nobly? |
| The Physician's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | Based on a story in Titus Livius' (59BC-17AD) Histories and retold in The Romance of the Rose. The physician tells of a father, Virginius, whose 14 year old daughter, Virginia, catches the eye of a lecherous, corrupt judge, Appius, who conspires with a churl, Claudius, to claim that Virginaia is actually a slave that Virginius abducted. Virginia, not wishing to give herself to Appius, consents to her father's plan to kill her to save her. Virginius brings Virginia's head to Appius in court. Appius orders that Virginius be hanged but a crowd of people burst into the room in response to the false charges of Claudius and the conspiracy of Appius. They arrest and imprison Appius. Appius commits suicide in prison. Virginius asks for clemency for Claudius who the crowd is set to hang. |
| The Pardoner's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | A pardoner is a church official who sells indulgences. Some peddle fake relics and preach against the vice that they, themselves practice: greed. In his prologue, the Pardoner brags about his duping his victims who he holds in contempt. As a lead in to his storey, he preaches against glutony, gambling, and oath taking. In his tale he tells of 3 young men of Flanders who set out to kill Death. When they encounter an old man looking to exchange youth for his age, the old man directs them to find Death under a nearby tree. There they find treasure instead. Out of greed they end up killing one another. The pardoner says his theme is to point out that greed is the root of all evil |
| The Shipman's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The Sailor's Tale is in the form of a fabliau (a comic, sexual, anti-clerical, anti-nobility tale). Both Boccaccio and Chaucer reworked them: a type of folktale called "the lover's gift regained" A merchant has a funloving, socializing wife who enjoys spending money. He aslo has a young monk friend who stays with them for a while. The wife confides to the monk that she does not love her husband and asks him for 100 franks to pay her debts. The monk, unbeknownst to the wife, borrows money from the merchant to give to her. In appreciation the wife agrees to bed the monk. The monk, before leaving town, tells the merchant that he returnes the loan to his wife. When the merchant asks his wife about the money, she says that she thought the payment was the monk's way of repaying for being such a long house guest and that she uesd it to buy clothes. She suggests that she'll repay the debt in bed. |
| The Shipman-Prioress Link | |
| The Prioress's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | Madame Eglantine tells a tale of a child martyr killed by Jews. A 7 year old son of a widow living in a Christian city in Asia has deep reverence for Mary and learns to sing the Alma Redemptoris Mater (Nurturing Mother of the Redeemer) and sings it while going home from school through the Jewish ghetto. Inspired by Satan, some Jews conspire to murder him and do so. His mother, missing him, searches and finally finds the boy with his throat cut still singing the Alma Redemptus Mater. He contiues to sing even during his requiem mass. When the abbot asks how this is possible, the boy says that he has a grain in his mouth given to him by the Blessed Mary and until it is removed he will continue to sing. The abbot removes the grain. |
| Geoffrey’s Sir Thopas’s Tale (TEXT) (Modern English) | Sir Thopas was born in Flanders, a good looking long-haired blonde who dressed very richly and was a good hunter and skilled bowman. He was a celibate young man even though he attracted many young women. One night he had a dream that his true love was of the Otherworld, the elf-queen. The next day he goes haphazardly galloping through the woods in search of his elf-queen. Eventually he found himself deep in the forrest and was confronted by a giant, Sir Olophant, who told him to get lost. Sir Thopas made a snippy remark before hustling away from Olophant’s barrage of sling tossed stones. He goes back to his city and with much glee tells what happened and asks his men to prepare him for battle. There is much drinking, and eating, and merryment as Sir Thopas puts on hs five or six layers of clothing and armor and shiny things. As Geoffrey gets to the penultimate point of his story, the host interrupts him and says to stop, it hurts his ears to listen to such crap! |
| Geoffrey's The Tale of Melibee - (TEXT) (Modern English) | Based on Renaud de Louens' Livre de Melibee et de Dame Prudence (1336) which is ia translation of Albertanus' Liber consolationis et consilii ("Book of Consolation and Counsel") (1246). Albertus was influenced by Seneca, Cicero, St Augustine, and Old Testament Wisdom literature. Melibee is away one day when 3 enimies break into his hous, beat his wife, Dame Prudence, and attack his daughter. The tale is a dialogue or debate between Melibee and Dame Prudence about what actions to take and how to seek redress from his enemies. |
| The Monk's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | A series of 17 short tragedies of those with high status who fell from grace without hope of recovery: - Lucifer - Adam - Samson (Book of Judges) - - - killed a lion with his bare hands - - bound the tails of 300 foxes to burn down corn fields, olive trees, and vineyards - - killed 1000 men with an ass's jawbone - - tore down the gates of Gaza - - told the secrect of his strength to Dalila who betrayed him - - blinded and displayed as a fool as entertainment, he toppled a buildings supporting columns to kill 3000 enemies and himself - Hercules - - slew the Nemean lion and skinned it - - killed the Harpies - - stole golden apples from a dragon - - removed Cerberus from the gates of hell - - slew the tyrant Busiris and had his horses eat him - - destroyed a fiery, venemous serpent - - broke one of Achelous's horns off - - killed the three-headed shepherd Cacus - - killed Antaeus the giant - - killed a grisly boar - - held up the sky to give Atlas a break - - a lover, Deianeira, gave him a poisonous shirt made by Nessus. When it was inevitable that he would die, he had red coals raked over himself. - Nebuchadnezzar - - had a statue of himself made for people to worship. - - Daniel and two others refused and were sent to death in a furnace where they didn’t die. - - God took away the king's wits and he became like an animal. After enough years had passed, God gave back his wits to a much humbler Nebuchadnezzar. - Belshazzar, (556-539BC) son of Nebuchadnezzar - - threw a celebration using the vessels stolen from Jeruselem to drink from. A dismbodied hand wrote on the wall "Mene tekel peres" which Daniel interpreted: - - - Mene - God has numbered your days - - - Tekel - you have been weighed and found wanting - - - Peres - your kingdom is will be divided and given to the Medes and Persians - Zenobia (260-272) - - The Queen of Palmyra, fled into the woods as a child and raised herself to be fierce, strong, and self-reliant. - - married Odenthus and had two sons: Hermanno and Thymalao - - Was conquered by the Emperor Aurelian - King Peter of Spain - - betrayed and killed by his brother - King Peter of Cyprus - - killed in bed by his jealous noblemen - Bernabò Visconti of Lombardy (1323-1385) - - a ruthless despot, died after being imprisoned by his nephew who was also his son-in-law, Gian Galeazzo - Count Ugolino of Pisa 1214-1289 - - imprisoned with his young children in consequence of false accusations by Roger, the bishop of Pisa - - he is starved to death and ate his children along the way - Nero - - Seneca was his tutor. Seneca killed himself rather then be subjected to Nero's tyranny - - his tyranny came to an end when the citizens of Rome rebeled against him and he fled the palace and ended his own life in a garden. - Holofernes - - a conquering captain who served Nebuchadnezzar - - Judith cut off his head while he was in a drunken sleep - King Antiochus the Ilustrious - - see Book of Maccabees - - he vowed to conquer Jerusalem but was thrown from and dragged behind his chariot. His body began to rot with worms while he still survived. An awful death had he. - Alexander the Great - - ruled for 12 years after his father, King Philip II, before he was poisoned by his people - Julius Caesar - - murdered by a conspiracy of supporters - Croesus (560-546) - - King of Lydia who waged war on Cyrus of Persia, was captured and led to a fire to be burnt alive. A torrential rain put the fire out and he escaped. - - He continued the war when he had a dream in which he was in a tree with Jupiter washing his back and Phoebus Apollo drying him off. His daughter, Phanya, interpreted the dream to mean that he would be hanged on a tree with Jupiter bathing him with rain and Apollo drying him with the sun. He was re-captured and hanged. |
| The Nun's Priest's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The story of a proud rooster named Chauntecleer who has a dream of doom in the form of a fox. He wakes up his favorite hen, Pertelote. who tells him he's suffering from indigestion and chides him for believing in dreams. Chauntecleer recounts a long list of prophets who farsaw their deaths in dreams: - two fellows find boarding on opposites sides of town. One dreams of his companion being murdered and discovers the next day that it was as he dreamed - two men traveling held up by adverse weather. The weather clears and one of the men dreams of being warned that the boat will sink. The other man disregards the dream and the boat sinks. - Saint Kenelm son of Kenulf King of Mercia - Macrobius and Scipio Africanus' dream - Pharoah with his baker and his wine stewart - Daniel - Croesus Unfortunately, the dream is true, the fox is waiting for him the next day and flatters him to cuckoo in the morning. When Chauntecleer stands outstretched with eyes closed to sing, the fox grabs him and tosses him on his back. Chauntecleer suggests that he stop to tell his pursuers to give up. The fox does but as soon as he stops Chauntacleer flies from his open mouth. He doesn't fall for the fox's heartfelt repentence. |
| The Second Nun's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | After encouraging us to turn away from ideleness; saying a prayer to the 'flower of all virgins', 'blissful Virgin'; and exhibiting some creative etymoligizing of "Cecilia", the second nun tells the hagiography of St Cecilia (200-230): A Christian, noble Roman lady who her parents married to a pagan nobleman named Valerian. Cecelia confines in Valerian that an angel of the Lord watches over her and that the angel would love him if Valerian would respect her virginity. When Valerian asked to see the angel, he was told he would need to be baptized by Pope Urban I at the 3rd milestone on the Via Appia. He did this and was rewarded with seeing the angel. The angel granted Valencia's wish that his brother ,Tiburce, become a Christian. The brothers were arrested and were killed when they didn't acknowledge Jupiter as god. Maximus, one of their arresting officers who the brothers had converted, was whipped to death. Cecilia was arrested and sentenced to die in a bath of boiling water. The water didn't boil when Cecilia was in it and the executioner struck her 3 times trying to cut off her head. She lived for 3 days, preaching to her friends and asking that her house become a church. |
| The Canon's Yeoman's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The canon and his yeoman arrive together, but when the yeoman begins to describe the activities of the canon, the canon leaves in embarrassment. The yeoman is then encouraged to contiune telling about the canon. The canon spent much time trying the make gold using alchemy. The yeoman then tells of the various schemes that the canon does. In the last scheme the canon sold the recips for making silver to a priest. |
| The Manciple's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | Albertanus of Brescia's Liber de doctrina dicendi et tacendi (Book of Speaking and Keeping Silent) [1245] The Manciple is a purchasing agent for a law court and tells a fable about Phosebus Apollo and his pet white crow who he taught to speak. Apollo loves his wife very much, but she has a lover who the crow witnesses making love to the wife. When the crow tells Apollo about what he witnessed, Apollo gets very angry and kills his wife. Regretting his actions, Apollo blames the crow for upsetting his happy life so he plucks all of its white feathers and proclaims that the crow will be black forevermore and will also have an awful voice. The Manciple ends his tale with a moral: it's best to hold your tongue and not say anything malicious even if it's true. |
| The Parson's Tale - (TEXT) (Modern English) | The parson delivers a treatise on penitence and the seven deadly sins. He divides pentinence into three parts: - contrition of the heart - confession of the mouth - satisfaction He defines two kinds of sin: venial and deadly: deadly is when a man loves anything more than our creator Jesus Christ; venial sin is when a man loves Jesus less than he ought. He then proceeds to expound on the seven deadly sins and their remedies: - Pride vrs humility - Envy vrs love of neighbor - Anger vrs patience or sufferance - Laziness and indolence vrs fortitude and strength of will - Avarice (lust of earthly things) and covetousness (lust for earthly things) vrs mercy (lending and giving) and pity (empathy for others) - Gluttony (uncontrolled appetites to eat and drink) vrs abstinence - Lechery vrs chastity and self control |
| Chaucer's Retraction | Geoffrey pays omage to Jesus Christ as his inspiration, asks forgiveness of anything that displeases, asks for prayers and forgiveness for any vanities associated with the various books he wrote (at least the ones he remembers and he lists those and "many another book" if he could remember them.) He lists other books which are saintly in nature hoping that they will be considered at the day of doom and he will be saved. |
