CHAUCER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES

IMPORTANT OUTCOMES DURING THE PERIOD

Geofrey Chaucer mostly wrote in English
This period started the usage of another verse called “rhyme Royal”(Name derived from later use by Scottish
KING James I in his “Kings quaire”
Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde is called “The first modern novel”
Canterbury cathedral was the site of martyrdom of Saint Thomas a Becket in 1170 which became a shrine
which became a stop for pilgrimage to Jerusalem and gave inspiration for crusades in thirteenth century
Peasant’s Revolt,when king Richard II spoke to the peasant representatives ,it is recorded that he used
English or Inglis)
Sin is a moral offence in the church, Confession was the Roman Catholic church’s wasy of holding its believers
which can forgive sins as long as penance is paid
There was a pressure to name the sins during this period after pope Innocent III fourth Lateral council in
1215
Invention of printing press Caxton bought it to England, Wynken de Worde his assistant
The group known as Scottish Chaucerian give many writings between Chaucer’s death and Renaissance
Protestant and humanist, courtly love ,chivalry ,confession, war poetry, dramas, comedy, romance, Miracle,
Mystery , Morality and politics took major role of themes for poetry, prose and plays during the period
Scots is an offshoot of the Northumbrian dialect of Anglo Saxon with strong influence of Norse, Gaelic,
French and Dutch
Two common methods used for linking clauses in old English are coordination and parataxis (no linking
words)
Latin syntactic structures of cicero are more imitated
 LITERATURE DURING THIS PERIOD (MIDDLE PERIOD)
1360 CHAUCER-The romaunt of the Rose
1368 CHAUCER-The book of duchess-dream poem
1374/85 CHAUCER-----The house of fame, The parlemant of foules, the legend of good women, Troilus and Criseyde,
1375-76 John Barbour-The Bruce(first text to celebrate Scottish nationalism)
1380 CHAUCER-Canterbury tales
1370-90 William Langland-Piers plowman, John Gower-Confession Amantis
1411-12 Thomas Hoccleve-The regiment of princes
1412-20 John Lygdate-Troy book
1431 John Lygdate-The fall of the princes
15th century Wiilam Dunbar-Testament of cresseid, The moral fables of Aesop The Phrygian ,Willam Dunbar---Lament
for makers,, Gavin Douglas---Translation of Aeneid, The palice of Honour and King Hart
Thomas Malory-Le Morte D’Arthur,Prose version of The King Arthur and knights of round table
John Skelton---The bowge of court 1498,The tunnyng of Elenour Rummyng, Philip sparrow,
Moral Plays York cycle, Wakefield and Chester, Every man drama, The castle of perseverance, A satire of the three estates,
John skelton-Magnificence

CHAUCER-THE ROMAUNT OF THE ROSE –courtly love

Le Roman de la Rose, begun by Guillaume de Lorris ca. 1230 and completed, in a different style, ca. 1270-80, by Jean de Meun, builds on
the concept of courtly love found in the poetry of the troubadours. The authors create a complex allegory of the romance between the
Lover and the Rose. In the quest to pick the Rose (to achieve the conquest of love), the flower and its attendants represent the Lady and
her sentiments while being wooed.
In the first part of the poem, written by de Lorris, the Lover recounts his dream, ending with the winning of a kiss from the Lady. In the
dream, the Lover discovers a walled garden and gains entrance thanks to a beautiful young woman. He meets Diversion and dancers
who represent courtly values such as Beauty and Generosity. A tour of the garden brings him to a beautiful bed of roses by the Fountain
of Love. Pierced by the arrows of the god of love, he sets out to pluck the rosebud that has overwhelmed his senses. Love explains to the
Lover how he ought to conduct himself, and the conflicting emotions he will feel. With help from Warm Welcome, the Lover makes his
way through the thicket of thorns and confronts Danger and his allies, Slander, Fear and others. Aided by Friend, Honesty, Pity and
Venus, he succeeds in overcoming Chastity and obtaining his desire.
His bliss is short-lived, as the forces of resistance oppose him in the second part of the poem, written by de Meun. The Lover sets out on
a renewed quest to conquer the heart of his love, whom Jealousy has imprisoned along with Warm Welcome. The long and arduous
battle is interspersed with didactic lectures by such figures as Reason. False Appearance and Forced Abstinence trick and strangle
Slander, thus entering the wall and freeing Courtesy and Generosity. The four confront the old woman guarding Warm Welcome, who
advises on table manners and dress for young women and recommends that they not be faithful to only one man, as men are by nature
untrustworthy. The Lover gains admittance to see Warm Welcome, but is confronted with Danger, Shame and Fear who imprison
Welcome ever more securely. Before those forces can conquer the Lover, he calls his army to assail the castle with the help of Venus
(carnal love). Venus sets the castle on fire, causing Danger, Jealousy and her companions to flee. The battle over, the Lover is able to
complete his pilgrimage and at last pluck the rosebud.

The Roman served as an influential compendium of advice for readers of its time and was the cause of the first literary "war," which
revolved partly around arguments on the role and dignity of women.

CHAUCER-THE BOOK OF DUCHESS-AN ELEGY OR LAMENT

POEM (Refer to original text documents)
The Dreamer is speaking, and he begins his prologue with an ejaculation of artless astonishment: —
I have great wonder that I am still alive, for I have had no sleep this long time. Hopeless love gives me no rest. It amazes me that a man
can live so long, and suffer so much, and sleep so little. I should think he would die. One night, a little while ago, weary from lack of
sleep, I bade my servant bring me a book to pass the time away, and I began to read it, sitting up in my bed. It was a volume of old stories,
and one of them was Ovid's tale of Ceyx and Alcyone. It told how King Ceyx was lost at sea, and how Queen Alcyone, in anxiety and
distress, prayed Juno to vouchsafe her a dream, that she might know whether her husband was alive or dead. And Juno despatched her
messenger to the God of Sleep, and he, obeying her command, sent the drowned Ceyx to Alcyone in a vision. He stood at the foot of her
bed, and called her by name, and told her of his fate, and bade her bury his body, which she should find cast up on the shore: —
"And farewel, swete, my worldes blysse!
I praye God youre sorwe lysse.
To lytel while oure biysse lasteth!"
Alcyone awoke, and mourned, and died ere the third morrow. I was astonished at this tale, for I had never heard of any gods that could
send sleep to weary men- and straightway I made a vow to Morpheus, or Juno or whatever divinity it might be that had such power.
Scarcely had I finished speaking when I fell fast asleep over my book, and I had a wonderful dream, which I do not believe even Joseph
or Macrobius could interpret. I will tell you what it was.
So ends the prologue, which not only serves as a felicitous introduction to the vision that is to follow, but gives us, in perfection, the
atmosphere, the mood, of the piece, — love and sorrow and bereavement. It shows us, too, the Dreamer in complete psychic sympathy
with the subject; for what could be more natural than that he should dream of some bereavement or other, when his mind was full of
the piteous tale of Alcyone, and the background of his thought was his own suffering for hopeless love?

I dreamt that it was May, and that I was awaked by the singing of the birds upon my chamber roof. My windows were of stained glass,
figuring the tale of Troy, and the walls were painted with the whole story of the Romance of the Rose. The sun streamed in upon my bed,
for there was not a cloud in the sky. And as I lay, I heard a huntsman blow his horn, and the noise of men and horses and hounds; and
I arose, and took my horse, and rode out into the field, and joined the hunters, who were hastening toward the forest. Then I asked a
fellow who was leading a hound in a leash, "Who is hunting here ?" " Sir," said he, " the emperor Octavian, and he is close by." So the
hunt began. The hart was found, and the dogs were uncoupled. But soon he stole away, and the huntsman blew a "forloyn" at the last.
I left the tree where I had been posted; and a little puppy, that had followed the hounds, but was too young to keep up with them, came
and fawned upon me, and crept up humbly, with joined ears, as if he had known me; but when I would have caught him, he ran away. I
followed down a grassy path, with flowers underfoot, that led through the wood, till at last I was aware of a young knight in black clothes,
who sat under a tree, and he was composing a bitter complaint — a kind of song — of the death of his lady. I greeted him courteously,
but he neither heard nor saw me, so full of sorrow was he.
By-and-by he looked up, and I asked his forgiveness for disturbing him. But he took no offence, and was very gracious, despite his sorrow,
and seemed willing to talk with me. So I begged him to tell me his grief, saying that I would help him if I could, and that even to speak
of it might ease his heart.
Then he burst out into a piteous lament. Nothing, he said, would do him any good. His laughter had turned to weeping, his glad thoughts
to heaviness, his day to night, his valor to shame. For he had played at chess with Fortune, and she had taken his queen, and checkmated
him. But he could not blame her: he would have done as much, had he been Fortune; for, said he, "I dare well say she took the best! But
by that game of chess, I have lost all my happiness, and there is nothing left for me but death."
Now, when I heard this story, I could scarce stay there longer, for pity. I besought him not to kill himself, for then he would lose his soul.
And I told him that no man alive would make all this woe, just for losing a queen at chess. "Why!" cried the knight, "you do not
understand me! I have lost more than you imagine."
So I begged him to leave his riddles, and tell me plainly what had plunged him into such distress. And he assented, if I would promise
to hear him to the end. I swore to listen, and to understand, so far as I had wit. Then he told me the story of his life. How from his earliest
youth he had served the god of love. Yet it was many a year before he set his heart on any lady. He had always longed for the time to
come, and prayed ever to the god to vouchsafe that he might fall in love with one that should be beautiful and gracious. And once upon
a time, so he said, he came into a place where there was the fairest company of ladles ever seen. But one surpassed them all, as the
summer's sun outshines the moon or the seven stars. And he took no counsel but of her eyes and his own heart, for it seemed to him that
it would be far better to serve her in vain than to win the love of any other woman in the world.
Then he told me of her beauty, and all her charming ways. There was no dulness where she was: she was neither too quiet nor too merry;
and her speech — how goodly it was, and how soft! She was never scornful; no man or woman was wounded by her tongue, and her
word was as true as any bond, and she knew not how to chide. Then the knight told me the lady's name. It was "good, fair White" [that
is, Blanche], and well did it accord with her loveliness.

"Truly," said I, when the knight paused a moment, "your love was well bestowed. I know not how you could have done better." "Better?"
cried he. "Nay, no wight so well!" " So I suppose," was my reply, " I am sure you believe what you say." [For of course, the Dreamer, as a
loyal lover, must not admit that any lady can surpass his own amie.} "Why!" cried the knight, "all that saw her said, and swore, that she
was the best and fairest. She was as good as Penelope of Greece or the noble wife Lucretia. When I first saw her, I was young, and scarce
knew what love meant; yet I gave all my childish mind to the emprise. And still she sits in my heart and verily I would not let her pass
out of my thought for all this world."
Then I asked the knight to tell me how he first spoke with the lady, and how she knew that he loved her, and then to vouchsafe to explain
what the loss was that he had mentioned before. "Nay!" cried the knight again, "you know not what you say. I have lost more than you
imagine." "How so?" I asked. "What is your loss? Does she refuse to love you? Or have you done aught amiss, so that she has forsaken
you? For God's sake, tell me the whole story!"
Then he told me how he first declared his love. Long it was before he dared, and then he stammered, and forgot his fine speeches, and
hung his head for shame, and could utter only one word "Mercy!" and no more. At last his courage came again, and he besought her to
accept his humble service; but it was yet a long time before she returned his love. Then his joy was perfect.
He was as one raised from death to life. "Thus we lived," said the knight, "for many a year in perfect harmony. Our hearts were so even a
pair that neither suffered nor rejoiced without the other."
Once more I asked the knight a question: "Sir," said I, "where is she now?" "Now?" said he. "Alas that I was born! That was the loss that
I told you of. Remember how I said, 'You know not what you mean. I have lost more than you imagine!' God knows, alas! That was she!"

CHAUCER-THE HOUSE OF FAME

[Thanks partly to Pope's brief and elegant paraphrase, in his "Temple of Fame," and partly to the familiar force of the style
and the satirical significance of the allegory, "The House of Fame" is among the best known and relished of Chaucer's minor
poems. The octosyllabic measure in which it is written – the same which the author of "Hudibras" used with such admirable
effect -- is excellently adapted for the vivid descriptions, the lively sallies of humour and sarcasm, with which the poem
abounds; and when the poet actually does get to his subject, he treats it with a zest, and a corresponding interest on the part of
the reader, which are scarcely surpassed by the best of The Canterbury Tales. The poet, however, tarries long on the way
to the House of Fame; as Pope says in his advertisement, the reader who would compare his with Chaucer's poem, "may
begin with [Chaucer's] third Book of Fame, there being nothing n the two first books that answers to their title." The first book
opens with a kind of prologue (actually so marked and called in earlier editions) in which the author speculates on the causes of
dreams; avers that never any man had such a dream as he had on the tenth of December; and prays the God of Sleep to help
him to interpret the dream, and the Mover of all things to reward or afflict those readers who take the dream well or ill.
Then he relates that, having fallen asleep, he fancied himself within a temple of glass -- the abode of Venus -- the walls of
which were painted with the story of Aeneas. The paintings are described at length; and then the poet tells us that, coming out
of the temple, he found himself on a vast sandy plain, and saw high in heaven an eagle, that began to descend towards him.
With the prologue, the first book numbers 508 lines; of which 192 only -- more than are actually concerned with or directly
lead towards the real subject of the poem -- are given here. The second book, containing 582 lines, of which 176 will be found
in this edition, is wholly devoted to the voyage from the Temple of Venus to the House of Fame, which the dreamer
accomplishes in the eagle's claws. The bird has been sent by Jove to do the poet some "solace" in reward of his labours for
the cause of Love; and during the transit through the air the messenger discourses obligingly and learnedly with his human
burden on the theory of sound, by which all that is spoken must needs reach the House of Fame; and on other matters suggested
by their errand and their observations by the way. The third book (of 1080 lines, only a score of which, just at the outset,
have been omitted) brings us to the real pith of the poem. It finds the poet close to the House of Fame, built on a rock of ice
engraved with names, many of which are half-melted away. Entering the gorgeous palace, he finds all manner of minstrels
and historians; harpers, pipers, and trumpeters of fame; magicians, jugglers, sorcerers, and many others. On a throne of
ruby sits the goddess, seeming at one moment of but a cubit's stature, at the next touching heaven; and at either hand, on
pillars, stand the great authors who "bear up the name" of Ancient nations. Crowds of people enter the hall from all regions
of earth, praying the goddess to give them good or evil fame, with and without their own deserts; and they receive answers
favourable, negative, or contrary, according to the caprice of Fame. Pursuing his researches further, out of the region of
reputation or fame proper into that of tidings or rumours, the poet is led, by a man who has entered into conversation with
him, to a vast whirling house of twigs, ever open to the arrival of tidings, ever full of murmurings, whisperings, and clatterings,
coming from the vast crowds that fill it -- for every rumour, every piece of news, every false report, appears there in the
shape of the person who utters it, or passes it on, down in earth. Out at the windows innumerable, the tidings pass to Fame, who
gives to each report its name and duration; and in the house travellers, pilgrims, pardoners, couriers, lovers, &c., make a
huge clamour. But here the poet meets with a man "of great authority," and, half afraid, awakes; skilfully -- whether by
intention, fatigue, or accident -- leaving the reader disappointed by the nonfulfilment of what seemed to be promises of further
disclosures. The poem, not least in the passages the omission of which has been dictated by the exigencies of the present
volume, is full of testimony to the vast acquaintance of Chaucer with learning ancient and modern; Ovid, Virgil, Statius, are
equally at his command to illustrate his narrative or to furnish the ground-work of his descriptions; while architecture, the
Arabic numeration, the theory of sound, and the effects of gunpowder, are only a few among the topics of his own time of
which the poet treats with the ease of proficient knowledge. Not least interesting are the vivid touches in which Chaucer
sketches the routine of his laborious and almost recluse daily life; while the strength, individuality, and humour that mark
thedidactic portion of the poem prove that "The House of Fame" was one of the poet's riper productions.]

CHAUCER-THE PARLIAMENT OF FOWLES –DREAM ALLEGORY

The Parliament of Fowls is one of CHAUCER’s earlier DREAM VISION poems, written as a celebration of Valentine’s Day—a day,we
are told in the poem, when every bird chooses its mate. It has also been suggested that the poem was written to commemorate the
adolescent RICHARD II’s betrothal to ANNE OF BOHEMIA. This reading would identify the three tercel eagles in the poem with the
three noble rivals for Anne’s hand: Richard himself, Charles of France, and Friedrich of Meissen.
If that is the poem’s intent, it would date the text to about 1380–82. This would place the poem soon after Chaucer’s second Italian
journey, and the poem reflects the influence of BOCCACCIO in particular. Abandoning the short, octosyllabic (eight-syllable) couplets
of the earlier dream visions The BOOK OF THE DUCHESS and The HOUSE OF FAME, here, under the Italian influence, Chaucer adopts
a longer decasyllabic (10-syllable) line and invents the stanza form called RHYME ROYAL. Rhyming ababbcc, the rime royal stanza is
strikingly similar to Boccaccio’s OTTAVA RIMA (which rhymed abababcc): Chaucer simply eliminated the fifth line to create a stanza
with two equal parts (lines 1 through 4 and lines 4 through 7), both including the b-rhyme of the central fourth line. Thus the structure
supports the fourth line as a turning point in the stanza.
 The Parliament of Fowls begins with a comic persona of Chaucer avidly reading in order to learn “a certeyne thing,” presumably about
love. The narrator tells of his experience reading Cicero’s “Dream of Scipio,” summarizing Africanus’s journey into the heavens with the
younger Scipio to view the insignificant earth. When the narrator falls asleep reading, Africanus comes to him and guides him through
a gate reminiscent of DANTE’s infernal one. But this gate leads not to hell but into a garden of love, an idealized landscape surrounding
a dark Temple of Venus. Much of the description is adopted from a similar one in Boccaccio’s TESEIDA. Ultimately the dreamer emerges
into the light where the Goddess Nature is supervising a great meeting of birds, who have all gathered on Valentine’s Day to choose their
mates. Nature holds on her hand a beautiful formel (female) eagle, to which three tercel (male) eagles lay claim. Each tercel eagle makes
his case, and Nature says that the formel must choose among them. Meanwhile the birds hold a noisy parliament to debate the issue of
just whom the formel should choose. A variety of opinions is expressed by representatives of the different classes of birds—the “birds
of ravine,” probably suggesting the nobility; the seed fowl, representing the clergy; the waterfowl, representing the commoners; and the
worm fowl, suggesting the middle class.
Ultimately the formel postpones her decision for a year, and Nature tells the other birds that they are free to choose their own mates.
Before they leave, the birds sing a harmonious song in the form of a roundel (or RONDEAU). The noise of the birds awakes the dreamer,
who goes back to his books to keep looking for answers. If there is an answer to his question in the parliament, the Narrator hasn’t seen
it. Scholars have debated themselves as to whether the theme of the poem is love and love’s complexities, or whether the theme is politics:
Africanus discusses the importance of acting for the “common profit” in the beginning, and the birds’ song at the end returns their own
chaotic society to harmony at the end.Many recent critics have suggested that the poem is really about the nature of knowledge and
truth and how we know what we know: The birds’ song seems to suggest that we can have certainty in this world, while the final stanza
that shows the dreamer still searching for something suggests that he, at any rate, has not been able to find any certain knowledge. The
Parliament of Fowls is a pivotal text in Chaucer’s career: It is the most mature of his early dream visions, and its rime royal verse form
looks forward to his great love poem TROILUS AND CRISEYDE, while the ESTATES SATIRE of the bird parliament itself looks forward
to the GENERAL PROLOGUE to the CANTERBURY TALES.

CHAUCER-THE LEGEND OF GOOD WOMEN

The poem is the third longest of Chaucer's works, after The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde, and is possibly the first
significant work in English to use the iambic pentameter or decasyllabic couplets which he later used throughout The Canterbury Tales.
This form of the heroic couplet would become a significant part of English literature no doubt inspired by Chaucer.

The prologue describes how Chaucer is reprimanded by the god of love and his queen, Alceste, for his works—such as Troilus and
Criseyde—depicting women in a poor light. Criseyde is made to seem inconstant in love in that earlier work, and Alceste demands a
poem of Chaucer extolling the virtues of women and their good deeds.
For thy trespas, and understond hit here:
Thou shalt, whyl that thou livest, yeer by yere,
The moste party of thy tyme spende
In making of a glorious Legende
 Of Gode Wommen, maidenes and wyves,
That weren trewe in lovinge al hir lyves;
And telle of false men that hem bitrayen,
That al hir lyf ne doon nat but assayen
The poet recounts ten stories of virtuous women in nine sections. The legends are: Cleopatra, Thisbe, Dido, Hypsipyle, Medea, Lucrece,
Ariadne, Philomela, Phyllis and Hypermnestra. The work is a similar structure to the later Monk's Tale and like that tale, and many of
his other works, seems to be unfinished. Chaucer's sources for the legends include: Virgil's Aeneid, Vincent of Beauvais, Guido delle
Colonne's Historia destructionis Troiae, Gaius Julius Hyginus' Fabula and Ovid's Metamorphoses and Heroides.
The incomplete nature of the poem is suggested by Chaucer's Retraction from The Canterbury Tales which calls the work the xxv. Ladies.
Fifteen and nineteen are also numbers used to describe the work. In the prologue several women are mentioned—Esther, Penelope,
Marcia Catonis (wife of Cato the younger), Lavinia, Polyxena and Laodamia—whose stories are not recorded and the nineteen ladies
in waiting of Alceste mentioned in the prologue might suggest an unfulfilled structure.
The command of queen Alceste is said, by John Lydgate in The Fall of Princes, to be a poetic account of an actual request for a poem by
Anne of Bohemia who came to England in 1382 to marry Richard II. If true this would make Chaucer an early poet laureate. Joan of Kent,
Richard's mother, is also sometimes considered a model for Alceste. The supposed royal command is one suggested reason for the poem's
unfinished state as Chaucer got bored with the task and gave up. Several passages hint at Chaucer's dissatisfaction:
But for I am agroted [stuffed] heer-biforn
To wryte of hem that been in love forsworn,
And eek to haste me in my legende,
Which to performe god me grace sende,
Therfor I passe shortly in this wyse;
These lines, late in the poem, could simply be occupatio or paralipsis, the rhetorical device common in Chaucer of bringing up a subject
merely to say you will not mention it.
Whether the poem's state is due to Chaucer becoming bored with it is uncertain, but it is not now regarded among his best work, despite
being popular when first written. One early fan is Chaucer's own character, the Man of Law, who praises Chaucer and the poem which
he calls Seintes Legende of Cupide. The work is rather inconsistent in tone, with tragedy mixed uncomfortably with comedy, and the
legends are all somewhat similar with little of the characterisation which is key to The Canterbury Tales. Some scholars have conjectured
that the work is deliberately poorly written and the work is actually a satire against women although this is not widely agreed with.
Another idea is that it is a satire on the idea of taking stories of classical origin and twisting them to give them contemporary moral
meanings. This would suggest that the poem is not only an early use of heroic couplets but also one of the first mock-heroic works in
English.
The nature of the poem with its separate legends makes dating it difficult but it is clearly placed between Troilus and the Tales around
1386/1388. Chaucer seems to have returned to the work a decade later to rewrite the prologue, but the latter text, which survives in only
one manuscript, is generally considered inferior to the original.
A thousand tymes have I herd men telle,
 That ther is Ioye in heven, and peyne in helle;
And I acorde wel that hit is so;
But natheles, yit wot I wel also,
That ther nis noon dwelling in this contree,
That either hath in heven or helle y-be,
Tennyson used the poem as theme for his own poem A Dream of Fair Women..

CHAUCER-TROILUS AND CRESEYDE –Rhyme royal

In the seventh year of the Trojan War, a Trojan prince named Troilus falls in love with Cressida, the daughter of a Trojan priest who has
defected to the Greek side. Troilus is assisted in his pursuit of her by Pandarus, Cressida's uncle. Meanwhile, in the Greek camp, the
Greek general, Agamemnon, wonders why his commanders seem so downcast and pessimistic. The wise and crafty Ulysses informs him
that the army's troubles spring from a lack of respect for authority, brought about by the behavior of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior,
who refuses to fight and instead spends his time sitting in his tent with his comrade (and lover) Patroclus, mocking his superiors. Shortly
thereafter, a challenge to single combat arrives from Prince Hector, the greatest Trojan warrior, and Ulysses decides to have Ajax, a
headstrong fool, fight Hector instead of Achilles, in the hopes that this snub will wound Achilles's pride and bring him back into the
war.
In Troy, the sons of King Priam debate whether it is worthwhile to continue the war—or whether they should return Helen to the Greeks
and end the struggle. Hector argues for peace, but he is won over by the impassioned Troilus, who wants to continue the struggle. In the
Greek camp, Thersites, Ajax's foul-mouthed slave, abuses everyone who crosses his path. His master, meanwhile, has been honored by
the commanders over the sulking Achilles, and is to fight Hector the next day.
That night, Pandarus brings Troilus and Cressida together, and after they pledge to be forever true to one another, he leads them to a
bedchamber to consummate their love. Meanwhile, Cressida's father, the treacherous Trojan priest Calchas, asks the Greek commanders
to exchange a Trojan prisoner for his daughter, so that he may be reunited with her. The commanders agree, and the next morning—
to Troilus and Cressida's dismay—the trade is made, and a Greek lord named Diomedes leads Cressida away from Troy. That afternoon,
Ajax and Hector fight to a draw, and after Hector and Achilles exchange insults, Hector and Troilus feast with the Greeks under a flag
of truce. As the camp goes to bed, Ulysses leads Troilus to the tent of Calchas, where the Trojan prince watches from hiding as Cressida
agrees to become Diomedes's lover.
The next day, in spite of unhappy premonitions from his wife, sister, and his father, Hector takes the field, and a furious and heartbroken
Troilus accompanies him. The Trojans drive the Greeks back, but Patroclus is killed, which brings a vengeful Achilles back into the war,
finally. Achilles is unable to defeat Hector in single combat, but he later catches him unarmed and, together with a gang of Greek
warriors, slaughters him. Achilles then drags Hector's body around the walls of Troy, and the play ends with the Trojan warriors
retreating to the city to mourn their fallen hero.

CHAUCER-TROILUS AND CRESEYDE –Rhyme royal

In the seventh year of the Trojan War, a Trojan prince named Troilus falls in love with Cressida, the daughter of a Trojan priest who has
defected to the Greek side. Troilus is assisted in his pursuit of her by Pandarus, Cressida's uncle. Meanwhile, in the Greek camp, the
Greek general, Agamemnon, wonders why his commanders seem so downcast and pessimistic. The wise and crafty Ulysses informs him
that the army's troubles spr60
.ing from a lack of respect for authority, brought about by the behavior of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior, who refuses to fight and
instead spends his time sitting in his tent with his comrade (and lover) Patroclus, mocking his superiors. Shortly thereafter, a challenge
to single combat arrives from Prince Hector, the greatest Trojan warrior, and Ulysses decides to have Ajax, a headstrong fool, fight Hector
instead of Achilles, in the hopes that this snub will wound Achilles's pride and bring him back into the war.
In Troy, the sons of King Priam debate whether it is worthwhile to continue the war—or whether they should return Helen to the Greeks
and end the struggle. Hector argues for peace, but he is won over by the impassioned Troilus, who wants to continue the struggle. In the
Greek camp, Thersites, Ajax's foul-mouthed slave, abuses everyone who crosses his path. His master, meanwhile, has been honored by
the commanders over the sulking Achilles, and is to fight Hector the next day.
That night, Pandarus brings Troilus and Cressida together, and after they pledge to be forever true to one another, he leads them to a
bedchamber to consummate their love. Meanwhile, Cressida's father, the treacherous Trojan priest Calchas, asks the Greek commanders
to exchange a Trojan prisoner for his daughter, so that he may be reunited with her. The commanders agree, and the next morning—
to Troilus and Cressida's dismay—the trade is made, and a Greek lord named Diomedes leads Cressida away from Troy. That afternoon,
Ajax and Hector fight to a draw, and after Hector and Achilles exchange insults, Hector and Troilus feast with the Greeks under a flag
of truce. As the camp goes to bed, Ulysses leads Troilus to the tent of Calchas, where the Trojan prince watches from hiding as Cressida
agrees to become Diomedes's lover.
The next day, in spite of unhappy premonitions from his wife, sister, and his father, Hector takes the field, and a furious and heartbroken
Troilus accompanies him. The Trojans drive the Greeks back, but Patroclus is killed, which brings a vengeful Achilles back into the war,
finally. Achilles is unable to defeat Hector in single combat, but he later catches him unarmed and, together with a gang of Greek
warriors, slaughters him. Achilles then drags Hector's body around the walls of Troy, and the play ends with the Trojan warriors
retreating to the city to mourn their fallen hero.

CHAUCER-CANTERBURY TALES
The Canterbury Tales Author/Context
Geoffrey Chaucer lived during a tumultuous period in England's history. During his early youth, the Bubonic Plague terrorized Europe,
killing a large portion of the population, and forever leaving a lasting impression on those surviving the catastrophe. Throughout
Chaucer's life, the Church was also in an upheaval. It was caught in a position of deception and uncertainty, perhaps because of the
Plague and perhaps because of economics. Nonetheless, the fraud occurring within the holy walls influenced Chaucer's work. During
his lifetime, the Hundred Years War between England and France also took place, which again placed a violent element in Chaucer's
work.
It is this period of political and social turmoil in England that allowed Chaucer to produce a large body of influential work. Known as a
poet and often as a friend of the nobility, Chaucer was ultimately part of the bourgeois of England. Very little is actually known about
his life, despite his rearing by a middle-class family. His father was in the wine and leather trade, perhaps giving the family their surname
- Chaucer - for it means a maker of footwear. He was a page in a royal household during his youth, continued his relationship with
royalty throughout his life, married the daughter of a knight, Philippa, and traveled to France and Spain. His life was that of "an active,
responsible civil servant and cosmopolitan courtier" (Halverson x).
Because of the political unrest of the time and Chaucer's witty, sharp, sarcasm, he wrote The Canterbury Tales, a group of fabliau and
fragments, consisting of a piece of each of England's stereotypical citizen archetypes put together in a mixing pot on their pilgrimage to
Canterbury. The destination is not as significant as is the action that occurs along the way. The Tales are not even finished and the
destination is never even reached during the course of the writing.
"That The Canterbury Tales was left unfinished may well have been a matter of choice, not fate. It is likely that Chaucer abandoned his
great literary work in the last years of his life and turned his thoughts to the salvation of his soul, as the Retraction suggests. He not only
abandoned the tales but also expressed regret for having ever written them, except those explicitly religious and moral" (Halverson, xx-
xxi).
These fragmented stories and prologues bring together a brilliant satire of Chaucer's contemporary England, commenting not only on
the people of the time, but bringing in Christianity, perhaps primeval feminism with the Wife of Bath, anti-Semitism, sexuality,
unfaithfulness, and humor. Although not all of the tales are finished, and the entire work is cut short and book-ended with a retraction,
Chaucer's wit stands strong. When looking at Chaucer's work, four things must be remembered about Chaucer himself and his time
period. He was a Catholic during the end of Catholicism in England, he was chivalric, he was English, and he was part of the Bourgeois.
This combination of characteristics yielded what is now considered one of the most important manuscripts in the English language.
The Canterbury Tales Major Characters
Host: The host is the manager of the Tabard Inn, the origination of the journey to Canterbury. He goes on the trip and is also somewhat
the proprietor of the tales, for he suggests that each pilgrim tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two on the way back. He mediates
arguments between the pilgrims and interjects his comments throughout the different tales. It is the host who holds the group together
during their journey.
Knight: As the first character mentioned in the prologue, the Knight is the epitome of nobility and honor on this pilgrimage. He is a
strong and honorable fighter who was in the Crusades and fought for Christianity. He brings along his son, a Squire, to see Canterbury
and tells the longest tale of Palamon, Arcite, and Emelye. It is a love triangle with a mixed ending, involving knights, battle, and chivalry.
Squire: The squire is repeatedly described as a lusty bachelor and has trouble competing the tale he begins. He is only twenty years old
and does not possess the same vigor as his father. His incomplete tale is about gifts brought to court by a mysterious knight of Tartary.
Prioresse (Nun): The Prioress is an emotional and sentimental woman of God who lets her feelings and tears run loose for any and all
small events of death. She is weak with her self-control. The prioress tries to give off a refined impression, while all the while she is crude.
She tells a gruesome tale of Jews who murder a young boy for singing about his Christian faith.
Second Nonne (Nun): The Second Nun is simply the secretary of the first. Her short tale chronicles the history and life of Saint Cecilia.
Monk: The monk is described as masculine and robust and travels with the Prioress and her secretary. He tells an animal tale of a hen
and her rooster husband who find out the truth behind dreams and prophesies.
Frere (Friar): As one of the few pilgrims given a name, Hubert, the friar is an immoral man constantly worried about making a profit
rather than turning men away from sin and bringing them to heaven. His tale is an attack on the wickedness of summoners. The friar
and the summoner have an ongoing battle in these tales that brings humor to the group.
Clerk: The Clerk is an impoverished, unemployed Oxford student who lacks a true profession. He is simply educated and has no skills
to find a job. His tale is of a woman named Griselde who marries a man of grand status. The husband repeatedly tests her virtue and
devotion to him through painful years of hardship.
Sergeant of the Law (Man of Law/Lawyer): The Man of Law appears to be much busier than he is in reality and claims to hold much
respect. He is educated and holds to the letter of the law. His lengthy tale is of the young Roman Catholic, Constance, who endures years
of pain and familial loss, but always remains true to her faith. She is a true Christian through her many exploits.
Franklin: The Franklin is the companion of the Man of Law and is a man of earthy pleasures. He delights especially in food, the culinary
arts, and tells a tale of a woman who vows to follow through on her affair with another man if he can accomplish an impossible task to
save her true love.
Haberdasshere, Carpenter, Webbe, Dyerf, Tapycer: These are five guildsman on the pilgrimage who never tell a single tale. They listen
and enjoy the stories.
Shipman (Sailor): The shipman tells the story of a woman who becomes involved with a dishonest monk in order to aid her husband.
The monk dupes the woman and her husband.
Doctour of Phisik (Physician): The Physician tells a tale about a father who murders his own daughters in an attempt to protect them
from scandalous rapists.
Wife of Bath: The Wife of Bath is often thought of as a proto-feminist and is one of the most memorable of the pilgrims, for her prologue
is longer than her tale. She has been married five times and uses her sexuality as manipulation with men to get what she wants. Her fifth
young husband uses violence against her and made her deaf in one ear from a blow to the head. She is loud, opinionated, and uses the
Bible to back up her supposed immoral actions. The Wife of Bath tells a story of a knight who must search for the answer to 'what women
desire?'. The knight finds out that women simply wish to hold authority and control over their mates.
Parson: The Parson is a good man of the cloth who is devoted to God and his congregation. He is respected and blessed and tells a tale
of sin existing in multiple faces. As one of the holy and moralistic men of the pilgrimage, the Parson represents the Church that is not
completely dishonest.
Merchant: The Merchant is a wealthy pilgrim constantly talking of economics and profit. Concerned with making money, he is arrogant
and vain and tells a humorous story about an unfortunate blind old man who marries a youthful woman who makes a cuckold of him
in his presence.
Reeve: The Reeve is a thin man with a grand temper. He tells his story in retaliation to the miller's tale and it is about a Miller who is
tricked by two Oxford students.
Miller: The Miller is very large in contrast to the Reeve. He is also rude to the other pilgrims, sharing a small quarrel with the Reeve on
the journey. He tells a humorous tale of a student who manipulates an affair with the wife of a foolish Reeve.
Pardoner: The Pardoner is an immoral, slimy, and effeminate man who openly discusses his false actions of selling fake relics to others.
He is honest to his task of fraud and openly tells a tale about three rioters who kill themselves out of avarice. As one of the self-loathing,
yet memorable characters on the journey, the Pardoner returns to his fraudulent behavior at the conclusion of his allegorical tale, trying
to sell fake relics to the other pilgrims.
Manciple: The Manciple was also educated in the field of the law and tells a tale about how appearances are often deceiving.
Summoner: The Summoner is another immoral pilgrim not true to his profession, for he does not truly summon impious people to
church. He chooses whom to select and is often paid off by sinners. His tale is in reaction to the Friar's strong anti-summoner tale and
is presented as a satirical parody.
Cook: The Cook is one of the vulgar pilgrims of the journey who becomes involved with violence and arguments along the way. He is a
commoner who does not hide his class and behavior and tells a short, incomplete fabliau.
Canon and his Yeoman: The Canon and his Yeoman join the pilgrimage in the middle of its course and bring a sense of mystery to the
group. They heard glorious tales of the stories told en route to Canterbury and craved to be a part of that excitement. The canon does
not reveal his profession and leaves the group as his Yeoman gives clues. He does not want to be discovered by any soul, so the Canon's
Yeoman remains with the pilgrimage and tells a tale about the fraud of a canon.
Minor Characters
Arcite: Arcite is one of the knights and royal cousins imprisoned by Theseus who falls in love with Emelye. He is pardoned by Theseus
and assumes a new identity. He wins the battle at the end of the tale for Emelye's hand in marriage, but dies when thrown from his
horse. He tells Emelye to marry the worthy Palamon and is buried by the kingdom.
Palamon: Palamon is the other royal cousin and knight imprisoned by Theseus who falls in love with Emelye. He remains in jail for seven
years and escapes. He does not win the battle for Emelye's hand, but marries her after Arcite dies.
Emelye: Emelye is the sister of the Amazon queen Hippolyta and the object of Palamon and Arcite's affections. She does not want to
marry at all and desires to remain a maid. She eventually marries Palamon.

Theseus: Theseus is the King of Athens who marries Hippolyta after conquering Scythia. He avenges the poor widow's husbands in
Thebes and imprisons Palamon and Arcite. He builds the theater for the duel and orders the ultimate marriage between Palamon and
Emelye.
Hippolyta: Hippolyta is the conquered queen of Amazons who marries Theseus and returns to Athens with him.
John: The old carpenter of Oxford who is tricked into believing that a flood the size of Noah's Flood is coming to town. He is cuckolded
by his wife, Alison, and injured after falling down from the roof in a tub.
Alison: The young, sly, beautiful wife of John the carpenter who falls in love with Nicholas, the young student of Astronomy. She conspires
with him to trick her husband and Absolon.
Nicholas: The young student of astronomy (or astrology) who initially befriends the old carpenter, John, and boards at his lodgings. He
falls in love with John's wife, Alison, and tricks both Absolon and John about the flood. He ends up with a burned bottom.
Absolon: Absolon is the musician from Oxford who is in love with Alison. Nicholas and Alison play tricks on him when he serenades her
and asks for kisses. He turns the chicanery around and winds up burning the two of them.
Symkyn: The flat-nosed, round-faced deceitful miller who lived near the brook near Cambridge. He has a wife and two children and
steals from anyone he can. He is eventually beaten up by his own trickery.
Aleyn: Aleyn is one of the students from Cambridge who come to the Miller for ground corn for the steward. He seduces Symkyn's
daughter Molly while everyone is sleeping.
John: John is the other student from Cambridge who comes to the miller for ground corn for the steward. He seduces the miller's wife
and gets away with the corn.
Molly: Molly is Symkyn's eldest daughter and is seduced by Aleyn while her father is sleeping next to her.
The Miller's Wife: The miller's wife is a pretentious woman who is seduced by John, one of the students, in front of a sleeping Symkyn.
Constance: The beautiful Christian daughter of the Emperor of Rome, who is sent to Syria to marry the Sultan, and then returned on a
boat to Rome after the massacre. She lives on the shores of Cumberland and marries King Alla. She gives birth to Mauritus while there,
but is banished by his mother, Lady Donegild. She is reunited with her father and husband at the conclusion of the tale and returns to
the shores.
The Sultan: The Sultan converts to Christianity to marry Constance, but unfortunately takes her to a foreign land that she does not like.
The Sultana: The Sultana is the Sultan's mother who devises the massacre that allows Constance to supposedly return home in lieu of
marrying her son.
Dame Hermengild: Dame Hermengild is the Warden's wife of Northcumberland who befriends Constance. The Knight murders her
and frames Constance for her death.
The Warden: The Warden finds Constance on the shores of Northcumberland and brings her to King Alla.
King Alla: Alla is the King of Northcumberland and is currently at war with the Scots. He marries Constance and has a child, Mauritius,
with her.

Mauritius: Mauritius is the son of Alla and Constance and is banished by Lady Donegild with Constance soon after his birth. He later
becomes emperor of Rome.
Lady Donegild: Lady Donegild is King Alla's mother and maliciously changes the letters of correspondence between the two. She sends
Constance and Mauritius away from Northcumberland while Alla is away.
Jankin: Jankin is the Wife of Bath's fifth husband. He is half her age and violent. He struck her on the ear so hard that she is now deaf
on that side.
The Knight: The Knight in King Arthur's palace raped a young maiden and was forced to discover the one thing that women desire in
order to save his own life. He realizes that women want control over their husbands and is forced to decide between an older, ugly woman
of devotion, or a young, beautiful woman of independence. He gets the young, beautiful devoted woman in the end and lives happily
ever after.
The Old Woman: The old woman tells the knight what women truly desire and tells him that he must marry her. She turns into a
beautiful woman upon a single kiss from the knight and lives happily ever after with the knight.
Satan (Yeoman): Satan, the devil, says that he is a yeoman initially upon meeting the summoner. Satan and the summoner travel
together, conniving different people, and eventually wind up in hell together.
The Summoner: The summoner works for the archdeacon and attempts to trick people into going to hell. He meets the devil along his
journeys and befriends him. The two travel together, tricking others into hell. He winds up in hell with Satan.
Thomas: Thomas is a wealthy resident of Yorkshire, from whom the friar requests money for the church. He has recently lost a child and
is disturbed by the friar's chicanery. He farts on the friar's hand in lieu of giving up his riches.
The Friar: The friar preaches to local residents of Yorkshire for money. He visits Thomas and requests food and money. He is farted on
and run out of the house.
Walter: Walter is the Marquis of Saluzzo who marries the virtuous commoner Griselde. He tests her extensively throughout the years by
taking away their children, declaring them dead, and stripping her of her clothing and dignity. He eventually reclaims his family and
lives with them in the palace.
Griselde: Griselde is a virtuous commoner and the subject of Walter's unending test of devotion. She always holds true to her love for
him and eventually returns to the castle to live with her long-lost two children and husband.
January: January is the old knight who marries young May because he believes married life to be true happiness on earth. He is cuckolded
by May and his squire Damian in front of his blind eyes. Foolishly in love, January believes his wife's false tale and continues to live in
lies.
May: May is January's young, unfaithful wife, who sleeps with Damian the squire and lies to her husband.
Justinus: Justinus is January's married brother, who tries to convince him that marriage is not worth the pains. He claims that January's
marriage to a young woman would not last three years.
Damian: Damian is January's young squire who sleeps with his wife, May, in front of his eyes.
Cambinskan: Cambinskan is the King of Tartary who befriends a mysterious knight who brings with him a magical horse.

Canacee: Canacee is the daughter of King Cambiskan who receives the magical gift from the knight of animal language and herbal
healing codes.
Dorigen: Dorigen is the wife of knight Arviragus who falls into a deep depression upon his exodus from Britain. Because she loves him
so dearly and fears for his life, she promises to have an affair with Aurelius in exchange for his possible actions that could save his life.
Arviragus: Arviragus is a devoted husband and strong knight in Britain, but must leave his wife and country for war. He eventually
realizes through honor that he must give up his beloved Dorigen in order to save her name.
Aurelius: Aurelius is the youthful squire who falls in love with Dorigen and makes a deal with an Orleans student so that he can have an
affair with her. He eventually rescinds his forced payment of Dorigen upon realization of the pain it causes her.
Virginius: Virginius, a well-respected knight, murders his daughter, Virginia, when he realizes that she has been dishonored and raped.
Appius: Appius is the judge who manipulates the tale with others. He allows Claudius to claim that Virginius stole a slave and
furthermore claims that the slave is his daughter, Virginia. When his chicanery is revealed, he is put in jail where he commits suicide.
Virginia: Virginia is the maiden daughter of Virginius who allows her fairness and beauty to lead her to trouble. Appius lusts after her
and schemes to have her raped.
The Three Rioters: The three rioters are drunk men who claim to find Death and slay him. Instead of killing Death, they kill one another
out of avarice.
The Old Man: The old man clothed in robes directs the three rioters to the gold under the oak tree, which in turn leads the rioters into
avarice and allows them to kill each other.
The Merchant: The Merchant is a stingy businessman who vehemently wants to reclaim money lent to his wife. She goes to their border
Dan John for the money, but gets into other trouble doing so.
The Wife: The Merchant's wife is unfulfilled in her marriage and seeks companionship with Dan John. She agrees to have an affair with
him for the money that she owes her husband, but eventually repays him through sexual means.
Dan John: Dan John is a monk who assumes the role of the merchant's cousin and lives in his house. He lends the Merchant's wife the
money she owes her husband in exchange for an affair, but secretly gets that money to pay her from the merchant himself. His plan is
revealed by the Merchant at the end of the tale.
Melibeus: Melibeus is a wealthy and powerful ruler who vows revenge on his enemies who raped and attacked his family. His wife pleas
for mercy for others from his rage.
Prudence: Prudence is Melibeus' wife, who despite being victimized, still desires mercy upon her attackers.
Sophie: Sophie is the daughter of Prudence and Melebeus who is also raped and attacked by his enemies. She is left for dead, but
ultimately survives.
Chanticleer: A rooster on the farm of the old lady who believed that dreams were a prediction of reality. Chanticleer is almost eaten by a
fox, when Pertelote squawks out loud and everyone is saved.

Pertelote: Chanticleer's favorite hen who did not believe that dreams were a reflection of reality. Instead, Pertelote believed that they were
signs of ill humor. Pertelote saves Chanticleer from getting eaten by a fox.
Canon: The Canon shows the priest how to fake silver from coal and gets away with his chicanery.
Priest: The priest is witness to the canon's false silver and is paid off to keep the secret.
Phoebus: Phoebus is a God who married a woman while on earth. She was disloyal and unfaithful, regardless of his incessant watching.
Because of his experience, he teaches a white crow how to speak the language of people. When he learns of his wife's affairs through the
white crow, he condemns the bird to perpetual blackness and depression.
The Crow: The white crow is able to speak the language of humans because Phoebus enabled him to do so through teaching. However,
when he reveals valuable information that displeases Phoebus, he attacks and curses the crow, and condemns them to forever be black
and harsh.
The Canterbury Tales Objects/Places
Tabard Inn: The Tabard Inn is the initial location for the pilgrims journeying to Canterbury. They meet there and begin their trip of
story telling and camaraderie. It is located in Southwark, which was at the time a suburb of London, south of the Thames River.
Canterbury: Canterbury is the destination of the pilgrims hoping to catch a glimpse of the relics and shrine to Saint Thomas Becket, who
was murdered in the Canterbury Cathedral in 1170 and became a martyr for Christianity thereafter.
Thebes: Thebes is the city of several tales, including the Knight's Tale of Palamon and Arcite's love for Emelye.
Oxford: Oxford is a city in England that houses the University and several of the tales told on the journey to Canterbury, including the
Miller's Tale, and The Wife of Bath's Tale (her fifth husband).
Cambridge: Cambridge is another city in England that houses a University and several of the tales told on the journey to Canterbury,
including the Reeves' Tale.
Rome: Rome is the holy center of Christianity and the location of parts of several of the tales told on the journey. It is the home of
Constance, the Christian heroine of the Man of Law's Tale.
Northcumberland: Northcumberland is the shore city where Constance is shipwrecked and lives in the Man of Law's Tale. Alla is the
King of this nation, converts to Christianity, and marries Constance.
Yorkshire: Yorkshire is another city in England where the Summoner's Tale is set.
Saluzzo: Saluzzo is the mountainous Italian city, which is the setting of the Clerk's Tale.
Flanders: Flanders is the setting of the Pardoner's drunken tale of avarice and of the Tale of Sir Thopas.
The Canterbury Tales Quotes
Quotes
The General Prologue
Quote 1: "When that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour,
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tender croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blissful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke." General Prologue, l.1-20
The Knight's Tale
Quote 2: "And now thou woldest falsly been aboute / To love my lady, whom I love and serve / And evere shal, til that myn herte sterve. /
Nay, certes, false Arcite, thow shalt nat so! / I loved hir first, and tolde thee my wo." Knight's Tale, l.284-288
The Miller's Prologue
Quote 3: "By Goddes soule, quod he, that wol nat I, / For I wol speke, or elles go my wey." Miller's Prologue, l. 24-25
The Miller's Tale
Quote 4: "Thy wyf shal I wel saven, out of doute.
Go now thy wey, and speed thee heer-aboute.
But whan thou hast, for hire and thee and me,
Ygeten us thise knedyng tubbes thre,
Thanne shaltow hange hem in the roof ful hye,
That no man of oure purveiaunce spye.
And whan thou thus hast doon, as I have seyd,
And hast oure vitaille faire in hem yleyd,
And eek an ax, to smyte the corde atwo,
Whan that the water comth, that we may go." Miller's Tale, l.375-384
The Reeve's Tale
Quote 5: "And therfore this proverbe is seyd ful sooth, / Hym thar nat wene wel that yvele dooth; / A gylour shal hymself bigyled be."
Reeve's Tale, l.399-401
Introduction to the Man of Law's Prologue
Quote 6: "To breke forward is nat myn entente." Introduction to the Man of Law's Prologue, l.40

The Man of Law's Prologue

Quote 7: "Bet is to dyen than have indigence. / Thy selve neighebor wol thee despise, / If thou be povre, farwel thy reverence!" Man of
Law's Prologue, l.16-18
The Man of Law's Tale
Quote 8: "Bitwene hir bothe lawes, that they sayn / They trowe that no cristene prince wolde fayn / Wedden his child under oure lawes
swete / That us were taught by Mahoun oure prophete." Man of Law's Tale, l.88-91
The Wife of Bath's Prologue
Quote 9: "I pray you, telleth me, / Or where comanded he virginitee?" Wife of Bath's Prologue, l.61-62
The Wife of Bath's Tale
Quote 10: "I grante thee lyf, if thou kanst tellen me / What thyng is it that wommen moost desiren. / Be war and keep thy nekke-boon
from iren." Wife of Bath's Tale, l.48-50
The Friar's Tale
Quote 11: "That lay by hem, they tolde it in his ere.
Thus was the wenche and he of oon assent;
And he wolde fecche a feyned mandement,
And somne hem to chapitre bothe two,
And pile the man, and lete the wenche go." Friar's Tale, l.58-62
The Summoner's Prologue
Quote 12: "This frere bosteth that he knoweth helle, / And God it woot, that it is litel wonder; / Freres and feendes been but lyte asonder."
Summoner's Prologue, l.8-10
The Clerk's Tale
Quote 13: "Lat me allone in chesynge of my wyf, / That charge upon my bak I wole endure; / But I yow preye, and charge upon youre lyf
/ That what wyf that I take, ye me assure / To worshipe hir, whil that hir lyf may dure, / In word and werk, bothe heere and everywheere,
/ As she an emperoures doghter weere." Clerk's Tale, l.106-112
The Merchant's Tale
Quote 14: "Ne se ye nat this honurable knyght,
By cause, allas! that he is blynd and old,
His owene man shal make hym cokewold.
Lo, where he sit, the lechour, in the tree!
Now wol I graunten, of my magestee,
Unto this olde, blynde, worthy knyght
That he shal have ayen his eyen syght,
Whan that his wyf wold doon hym vileynye.
Thanne shal he knowen al hire harlotrye,
Bothe in repreve of hire and othere mo." Merchant's Tale, l.1010-1019
The Squire's Tale
Quote 15: "And what man that is wounded with a strook / Shal never be hool, til that yow list of grace / To stroke hym with the plate in
thilke place / Ther he is hurt; this is as muche to seyn, / Ye moote with the plate swerd ageyn / Strike hym in the wounde, and it wol
close." Squire's Tale, l.152-157
The Franklin's Prologue
Quote 16: "But sires, by cause I am a burel man, / At my bigynnyng first I yow biseche, / Have me excused of my rude speche. / I lerned
nevere rethorik, certeyn; / Thyng that I speke, it moot be bare and pleyn." Franklin's Prologue, l.8-12
The Physician's Tale
Quote 17: "Anon his herte chaunged and his mood, / So was he caught with beautee of this mayde, / And to hymself ful pryvely he sayde,
/ This mayde shal be myn, for any man." Physician's Tale, l.126-129
The Pardoner's Prologue
Quote 18: "My theme is alwey oon and evere was, / Radix malorum est Cupiditas." Pardoner's Prologue, l.5-6
Quote 19: "I stonde lyk a clerk in my pulpet,
And whan the lewed peple is doun yset,
I preche so, as ye han heerd bifoore,
And telle an hundred false japes moore." Pardoner's Prologue, l.63-66
The Shipman's Tale
Quote 20: "He is na moore cosyn unto me / Than is this leef that hangeth on the tree!" Shipman's Tale, l.149-150
Quote 21: "And wel ye woot that wommen naturelly
Desiren thynges sixe as wel as I
They wolde that hir housbondes sholde be
Hardy, and wise, and riche, and therto free,
And buxom unto his wyf, and fressh abedde." Shipman's Tale, l.173-177
The Prioress's Tale
Quote 22: "This Provost dooth the Jewes for to sterve, / That of this mordre wiste, and that anon. / He nolde no swich cursednesse observe;
/ Yvele shal have that yvele wol deserve." Prioress's Tale, l.142-145
Sir Thopas
Quote 23: "Alle othere wommen I forsake, / And to an elf-queene I me take / By dale and eek by downe." Tale of Sir Thopas, l.83-85
The Second Nun's Tale
Quote 24: "I have an Aungel which that loveth me,
That with greet love, wher so I wake or sleepe,
Is redy ay my body for to kepe.
And if that he may feelen out of drede
That ye me touche, or love in vileynye,
He right anon wol sle yow with the dede,
And in youre yowthe thus ye sholden dye.
And if that ye in clene love me gye,
He wol yow loven as me for youre clennesse,
And shewen yow his joye and his brightnesse." Second Nun's Tale, l.33-42
The Manciple's Tale
Quote 25: "And to the crowe, O false theef, seyde he, / I wol thee quite anon thy false tale; / Thou songe whilom lyk a nyghtngale, / Now
shaltow, false theef, thy song forgon, / And eek thy white fetheres everichon." Manciple's Tale, l.188-192
Chaucer's Retractation
Quote 26: "Now preye I to hem alle that herkne thai litel tretys or / rede, that if ther be any thyng in it that liketh hem, that / therof they
thanken oure Lord Jesu Crist, of whom procedeth / al wit and al goodnesse." Chaucer's Retraction, l.1-4
Quote 27: "So that I may been oon of / hem at the day of doome that shulle be saved. / Qui cum patre, &cetera." Chaucer's Retraction,
l.29-30
Summary: The Knight’s Tale Part One
Long ago in Ancient Greece, a great conqueror and duke named Theseus ruled the city of Athens. One day, four women kneel in front
of Theseus’s horse and weep, halting his passage into the city. The eldest woman informs him that they are grieving the loss of their
husbands, who were killed at the siege of the city of Thebes. Creon, the lord of Thebes, has dishonored them by refusing to bury or
cremate their bodies. Enraged at the ladies’ plight, Theseus marches on Thebes, which he easily conquers. After returning the bones of
their husbands to the four women for the funeral rites, Theseus discovers two wounded enemy soldiers lying on the battlefield, nearing
death. Rather than kill them, he mercifully heals the Theban soldiers’ injuries, but condemns them to a life of imprisonment in an
Athenian tower.
The prisoners, named Palamon and Arcite, are cousins and sworn brothers. Both live in the prison tower for several years. One spring
morning, Palamon awakes early, looks out the window, and sees fair-haired Emelye, Theseus’s sister-in-law. She is making flower
garlands, “To doon honour to May” (1047). He falls in love and moans with heartache. His cry awakens Arcite, who comes to investigate
the matter. As Arcite peers out the window, he too falls in love with the beautiful flower-clad maiden. They argue over her, but eventually
realize the futility of such a struggle when neither can ever leave the prison.
One day, a duke named Perotheus, friend both to Theseus and Arcite, petitions for Arcite’s freedom. Theseus agrees, on the condition
that Arcite be banished permanently from Athens on pain of death. Arcite returns to Thebes, miserable and jealous of Palamon, who
can still see Emelye every day from the tower. But Palamon, too, grows more sorrowful than ever; he believes that Arcite will lay siege to
Athens and take Emelye by force. The knight poses the question to the listeners, rhetorically: who is worse off, Arcite or Palamon?
Summary: The Knight’s Tale Part Two
Some time later, winged Mercury, messenger to the gods, appears to Arcite in a dream and urges him to return to Athens. By this time,
Arcite has grown gaunt and frail from lovesickness. He realizes that he could enter the city disguised and not be recognized. He does so
and takes on a job as a page in Emelye’s chamber under the pseudonym Philostrate. This puts him close to Emelye but not close enough.
Wandering in the woods one spring day, he fashions garlands of leaves and laments the conflict in his heart—his desire to return to
Thebes and his need to be near his beloved. As it -happens, Palamon has escaped from seven years of imprisonment that very day and
hears Arcite’s song and monologue while -sneaking through the woods. They confront each other, each claiming the right to Emelye.
Arcite challenges his old friend to a duel the next day. They meet in a field and bludgeon each other ruthlessly.
Theseus, out on a hunt, finds these two warriors brutally hacking away at each other. Palamon reveals their identities and love for Emelye.
He implores the duke to justly decide their fate, suggesting that they both deserve to die. Theseus is about to respond by killing them,
but the women of his court—especially his queen and Emelye—intervene, pleading for Palamon and Arcite’s lives. The duke consents
and decides instead to hold a tournament fifty weeks from that day. The two men will be pitted against one another, each with a hundred
of the finest men he can gather. The winner will be awarded Emelye’s hand.
Summary: Prologue to the Miller’s Tale
The pilgrims applaud the Knight’s Tale, and the pleased Host asks the Monk to match it. Before the Monk can utter a word, however,
the Miller interrupts. Drunk and belligerent, he promises that he has a “noble” tale that will repay the Knight’s (3126). The Host tries to
persuade the Miller to let some “bettre” man tell the next tale (3130). When the Miller threatens to leave, however, the Host acquiesces.
After the Miller reminds everyone that he is drunk and therefore shouldn’t be held accountable for anything he says, he introduces his
tale as a legend and a life of a carpenter and of his wife, and of how a clerk made a fool of the carpenter, which everyone understands to
mean that the clerk slept with the carpenter’s wife (3141–3143). The Reeve shouts out his immediate objection to such ridicule, but the
Miller insists on proceeding with his tale. He points out that he is married himself, but doesn’t worry whether some other man is sleeping
with his wife, because it is none of his business. The narrator apologizes to us in advance for the tale’s bawdiness, and warns that those
who are easily offended should skip to another tale.
Read a translation of Prologue to the Miller’s Tale →
Summary: The Miller’s Tale
The Miller begins his story: there was once an Oxford student named Nicholas, who studied astrology and was well acquainted with the
art of love. Nicholas boarded with a wealthy but ignorant old carpenter named John, who was jealous and highly possessive of his sexy
eighteen-year-old wife, Alisoun. One day, the carpenter leaves, and Nicholas and Alisoun begin flirting. Nicholas grabs Alisoun, and she
threatens to cry for help. He then begins to cry, and after a few sweet words, she agrees to sleep with him when it is safe to do so. She is
worried that John will find out, but Nicholas is confident he can outwit the carpenter.
Nicholas is not alone in desiring Alisoun. A merry, vain parish clerk named Absolon also fancies Alisoun. He serenades her every night,
buys her gifts, and gives her money, but to no avail—Alisoun loves Nicholas. Nicholas devises a plan that will allow him and Alisoun to
spend an entire night together. He has Alisoun tell John that Nicholas is ill. John sends a servant to check on his boarder, who arrives to
find Nicholas immobile, staring at the ceiling. When the servant reports back to John, John is not surprised, saying that madness is what
one gets for inquiring into “Goddes pryvetee,” which is what he believes Nicholas’s astronomy studies amount to. Nevertheless, he feels
sorry for the student and goes to check on him.
Nicholas tells John he has had a vision from God and offers to tell John about it. He explains that he has foreseen a terrible event. The
next Monday, waters twice as great as Noah’s flood will cover the land, exterminating all life. The carpenter believes him and fears for
his wife, just what Nicholas had hoped would occur. Nicholas instructs John to fasten three tubs, each loaded with provisions and an ax,
to the roof of the barn. On Monday night, they will sleep in the tubs, so that when the flood comes, they can release the tubs, hack through
the roof, and float until the water subsides. Nicholas also warns John that it is God’s commandment that they may do nothing but pray
once they are in the tubs—no one is to speak a word.
Monday night arrives, and Nicholas, John, and Alisoun ascend by ladder into the hanging tubs. As soon as the carpenter begins to snore,
Nicholas and Alisoun climb down, run back to the house, and sleep together in the carpenter’s bed. In the early dawn, Absolon passes
by. Hoping to stop in for a kiss, or perhaps more, from Alisoun, Absalon sidles up to the window and calls to her. She harshly replies
that she loves another. Absolon persists, and Alisoun offers him one quick kiss in the dark.
Absolon leaps forward eagerly, offering a lingering kiss. But it is not her lips he finds at the window, but her “naked ers [arse]” (3734).
She and Nicholas collapse with laughter, while Absolon blindly tries to wipe his mouth. Determined to avenge Alisoun’s prank, Absolon
hurries back into town to the blacksmith and obtains a red-hot iron poker. He returns with it to the window and knocks again, asking
for a kiss and promising Alisoun a golden ring. This time, Nicholas, having gotten up to relieve himself anyway, sticks his rear out the
window and farts thunderously in Absolon’s face. Absolon brands Nicholas’s buttocks with the poker. Nicholas leaps up and cries out,
“Help! Water! Water!” (3815). John, still hanging from the roof, wakes up and assumes Nicholas’s cries mean that the flood has come.
He grabs the ax, cuts free the tub, and comes crashing to the ground, breaking his arm. The noise and commotion attract many of the
townspeople. The carpenter tells the story of the predicted flood, but Nicholas and Alisoun pretend ignorance, telling everyone that the
carpenter is mad. The townspeople laugh that all have received their dues, and the Miller merrily asks that God save the company.
Summary: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
The Wife of Bath begins the Prologue to her tale by establishing herself as an authority on marriage, due to her extensive personal
experience with the institution. Since her first marriage at the tender age of twelve, she has had five husbands. She says that many people
have criticized her for her numerous marriages, most of them on the basis that Christ went only once to a wedding, at Cana in Galilee.
The Wife of Bath has her own views of Scripture and God’s plan. She says that men can only guess and interpret what Jesus meant when
he told a Samaritan woman that her fifth husband was not her husband. With or without this bit of Scripture, no man has ever been
able to give her an exact reply when she asks to know how many husbands a woman may have in her lifetime. God bade us to wax fruitful
and multiply, she says, and that is the text that she wholeheartedly endorses. After all, great Old Testament figures, like Abraham, Jacob,
and Solomon, enjoyed multiple wives at once. She admits that many great Fathers of the Church have proclaimed the importance of
virginity, such as the Apostle Paul. But, she reasons, even if virginity is important, someone must be procreating so that virgins can be
created. Leave virginity to the perfect, she says, and let the rest of us use our gifts as best we may—and her gift, doubtless, is her sexual
power. She uses this power as an “instrument” to control her husbands.
At this point, the Pardoner interrupts. He is planning to marry soon and worries that his wife will control his body, as the Wife of Bath
describes. The Wife of Bath tells him to have patience and to listen to the whole tale to see if it reveals the truth about marriage. Of her
five husbands, three have been “good” and two have been “bad.” The first three were good, she admits, mostly because they were rich,
old, and submissive. She laughs to recall the torments that she put these men through and recounts a typical conversation that she had
with her older husbands. She would accuse her -husband of having an affair, launching into a tirade in which she would charge him
with a bewildering array of accusations. If one of her husbands got drunk, she would claim he said that every wife is out to destroy her
husband. He would then feel guilty and give her what she wanted. All of this, the Wife of Bath tells the rest of the pilgrims, was a pack
of lies—her husbands never held these opinions, but she made these claims to give them grief. Worse, she would tease her husbands in
bed, refusing to give them full satisfaction until they promised her money. She admits proudly to using her verbal and sexual power to
bring her husbands to total submission.
Summary: The Wife of Bath’s Prologue
The Wife of Bath begins her description of her two “bad” husbands. Her fourth husband, whom she married when still young, was a
reveler, and he had a “paramour,” or mistress (454). Remembering her wild youth, she becomes wistful as she describes the dancing and
singing in which she and her fourth husband used to indulge. Her nostalgia reminds her of how old she has become, but she says that
she pays her loss of beauty no mind. She will try to be merry, for, though she has lost her “flour,” she will try to sell the “bran” that
remains. Realizing that she has digressed, she returns to the story of her fourth husband. She confesses that she was his purgatory on
Earth, always trying to make him jealous. He died while she was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Of her fifth husband, she has much more to say. She loved him, even though he treated her horribly and beat her. He was coy and
flattering in bed, and always won her back. Women, the Wife says, always desire what is forbidden them, and run away from whatever
pursues or is forced upon them. This husband was also different from the other four because she married him for love, not money. He
was a poor ex-student who boarded with the Wife’s friend and confidante.
When she first met this fifth husband, Jankyn, she was still married to her fourth. While walking with him one day, she told him that
she would marry him if she were widowed. She lied to him and told him he had enchanted her, and that she had dreamed that he would
kill her as she slept, filling her bed with blood, which signifies gold. But, she confides to her listeners, all of this was false: she never had
such a dream. She loses her place in the story momentarily, then resumes with her fourth husband’s funeral. She made a big show of
crying, although, she admits, she actually cried very little since she already had a new husband lined up.
As she watched Jankyn carry her husband’s casket, she fell in love with him. He was only twenty and she forty, but she was always a lusty
woman and thought she could handle his youth. But, she says, she came to regret the age difference, because he would not suffer her
abuse like her past husbands and gave some of his own abuse in return. He had a “book of wicked wives” she recalls, called Valerie and
Theofraste. This book contained the stories of the most deceitful wives in history. It began with Eve, who brought all mankind into sin
by first taking the apple in the Garden of Eden; from there, it chronicled Delilah’s betrayal of Samson, Clytemnestra’s murder of
Agamemnon, and other famous stories. Jankyn would torment the Wife of Bath (whom we learn in line 804 is named Alisoun) by reading
out of this book at night.
One evening, out of frustration, the Wife tears three pages out of the book and punches Jankyn in the face. Jankyn repays her by striking
her on the head, which is the reason, she explains in line 636, that she is now deaf in one ear. She cries out that she wants to kiss him
before she dies, but when he comes over, she hits him again. They finally manage a truce, in which he hands over all of his meager estate
to her, and she acts kindly and loving.
Her tale of her marriages finished, the Wife announces that she will tell her story, eliciting laughter from the Friar, who exclaims, “This
is a long preamble of a tale!” (831). The Summoner tells him to shut up, and they exchange some angry words. The Host quiets everybody
down and allows the Wife of Bath to begin her story.

Summary: The Wife of Bath’s Tale

In the days of King Arthur, the Wife of Bath begins, the isle of Britain was full of fairies and elves. Now, those creatures are gone because
their spots have been taken by the friars and other mendicants that seem to fill every nook and cranny of the isle. And though the friars
rape women, just as the incubi did in the days of the fairies, the friars only cause women dishonor—the incubi always got them pregnant.
In Arthur’s court, however, a young, lusty knight comes across a beautiful young maiden one day. Overcome by lust and his sense of his
own power, he rapes her. The court is scandalized by the crime and decrees that the knight should be put to death by decapitation.
However, Arthur’s queen and other ladies of the court intercede on his behalf and ask the king to give him one chance to save his own
life. Arthur, wisely obedient to wifely counsel, grants their request. The queen presents the knight with the following challenge: if, within
one year, he can discover what women want most in the world and report his findings back to the court, he will keep his life. If he cannot
find the answer to the queen’s question, or if his answer is wrong, he will lose his head.
The knight sets forth in sorrow. He roams throughout the country, posing the question to every woman he meets. To the knight’s dismay,
nearly every one of them answers differently. Some claim that women love money best, some honor, some jolliness, some looks, some sex,
some remarriage, some flattery, and some say that women most want to be free to do as they wish. Finally, says the Wife, some say that
women most want to be considered discreet and secretive, although she argues that such an answer is clearly untrue, since no woman
can keep a secret. As proof, she retells Ovid’s story of Midas. Midas had two ass’s ears growing under his hair, which he concealed from
everybody except his wife, whom he begged not to disclose his secret. She swore she would not, but the secret burned so much inside her
that she ran down to a marsh and whispered her husband’s secret to the water. The Wife then says that if her listeners would like to hear
how the tale ends, they should read Ovid.
She returns to her story of the knight. When his day of judgment draws near, the knight sorrowfully heads for home. As he rides near a
forest, he sees a large group of women dancing and decides to approach them to ask his question. But as he approaches, the group
vanishes, and all he can see is an ugly old woman. The woman asks if she can be of help, and the knight explains his predicament and
promises to reward her if she can help him. The woman tells the knight that he must pledge himself to her in return for her help, and
the knight, having no options left, gladly consents. She then guarantees that his life will be saved.
The knight and the old woman travel together to the court, where, in front of a large audience, the knight tells the queen the answer with
which the old woman supplied him: what women most desire is to be in charge of their husbands and lovers. The women agree
resoundingly that this is the answer, and the queen spares the knight’s life. The old hag comes forth and publicly asks the knight to
marry her. The knight cries out in horror. He begs her to take his material possessions rather than his body, but she refuses to yield, and
in the end he is forced to consent. The two are married in a small, private wedding and go to bed together the same night. Throughout
the entire ordeal, the knight remains miserable.
While in bed, the loathsome hag asks the knight why he is so sad. He replies that he could hardly bear the shame of having such an ugly,
lowborn wife. She does not take offense at the insult, but calmly asks him whether real “gentillesse,” or noble character, can be hereditary
(1109). There have been sons of noble fathers, she argues, who were shameful and villainous, though they shared the same blood. Her
family may be poor, but real poverty lies in covetousness, and real riches lie in having little and wanting nothing. She offers the knight a
choice: either he can have her be ugly but loyal and good, or he can have her young and fair but also coquettish and unfaithful. The
knight ponders in silence. Finally, he replies that he would rather trust her judgment, and he asks her to choose whatever she thinks
best. Because the knight’s answer gave the woman what she most desired, the authority to choose for herself, she becomes both beautiful
and good. The two have a long, happy marriage, and the woman becomes completely obedient to her husband. The Wife of Bath
concludes with a plea that Jesus Christ send all women husbands who are young, meek, and fresh in bed, and the grace to outlive their
husbands.
Summary: Introduction to the Pardoner’s Tale
The Host reacts to the Physician’s Tale, which has just been told. He is shocked at the death of the young Roman girl in the tale, and
mourns the fact that her beauty ultimately caused the chain of events that led her father to kill her. Wanting to cheer up, the Host asks
the Pardoner to tell the group a merrier, farcical tale. The Pardoner agrees, but will continue only after he has food and drink in his
stomach. Other pilgrims interject that they would prefer to hear a moral story, and the Pardoner again agrees.
Summary: Prologue to the Pardoner’s Tale
My theme is alwey oon, and evere was—
Radix malorum est Cupiditas.
After getting a drink, the Pardoner begins his Prologue. He tells the company about his occupation—a combination of itinerant
preaching and selling promises of salvation. His sermon topic always remains the same: Radix malorum est Cupiditas, or “greed is the
root of all evil.” He gives a similar sermon to every congregation and then breaks out his bag of “relics”—which, he readily admits to the
listening pilgrims, are fake. He will take a sheep’s bone and claim it has miraculous healing powers for all kinds of ailments. The
parishioners always believe him and make their offerings to the relics, which the Pardoner quickly pockets.
The Pardoner admits that he preaches solely to get money, not to correct sin. He argues that many sermons are the product of evil
intentions. By preaching, the Pardoner can get back at anyone who has offended him or his brethren. In his sermon, he always preaches
about covetousness, the very vice that he himself is gripped by. His one and only interest is to fill his ever-deepening pockets. He would
rather take the last penny from a widow and her starving family than give up his money, and the good cheeses, breads, and wines that
such income brings him. Speaking of alcohol, he notes, he has now finished his drink of “corny ale” and is ready to begin his tale.
The Pardoner describes a group of young Flemish people who spend their time drinking and reveling, indulging in all forms of excess.
After commenting on their lifestyle of debauchery, the Pardoner enters into a tirade against the vices that they practice. First and
foremost is gluttony, which he identifies as the sin that first caused the fall of mankind in Eden. Next, he attacks drunkenness, which
makes a man seem mad and witless. Next is gambling, the temptation that ruins men of power and wealth. Finally, he denounces
swearing. He argues that it so offends God that he forbade swearing in the Second Commandment—placing it higher up on the list
than homicide. After almost two hundred lines of sermonizing, the Pardoner finally returns to his story of the lecherous Flemish
youngsters.
As three of these rioters sit drinking, they hear a funeral knell. One of the revelers’ servants tells the group that an old friend of theirs
was slain that very night by a mysterious figure named Death. The rioters are outraged and, in their drunkenness, decide to find and
kill Death to avenge their friend. Traveling down the road, they meet an old man who appears sorrowful. He says his sorrow stems from
old age—he has been waiting for Death to come and take him for some time, and he has wandered all over the world. The youths,
hearing the name of Death, demand to know where they can find him. The old man directs them into a grove, where he says he just left
Death under an oak tree. The rioters rush to the tree, underneath which they find not Death but eight bushels of gold coins with no
owner in sight.
At first, they are speechless, but, then, the slyest of the three reminds them that if they carry the gold into town in daylight, they will be
taken for thieves. They must transport the gold under cover of night, and so someone must run into town to fetch bread and wine in the
meantime. They draw lots, and the youngest of the three loses and runs off toward town. As soon as he is gone, the sly plotter turns to
his friend and divulges his plan: when their friend returns from town, they will kill him and therefore receive greater shares of the wealth.
The second rioter agrees, and they prepare their trap. Back in town, the youngest vagrant is having similar thoughts. He could easily be
the richest man in town, he realizes, if he could have all the gold to himself. He goes to the apothecary and buys the strongest poison
available, then puts the poison into two bottles of wine, leaving a third bottle pure for himself. He returns to the tree, but the other two
rioters leap out and kill him. They sit down to drink their friend’s wine and celebrate, but each happens to pick up a poisoned bottle.
Within minutes, they lie dead next to their friend. Thus, concludes the Pardoner, all must beware the sin of avarice, which can only bring
treachery and death. He realizes that he has forgotten something: he has relics and pardons in his bag. According to his custom, he tells
the pilgrims the value of his relics and asks for contributions—even though he has just told them the relics are fake. He offers the Host
the first chance to come forth and kiss the relics, since the Host is clearly the most enveloped in sin (942). The Host is outraged and
proposes to make a relic out of the Pardoner’s genitals, but the Knight calms everybody down. The Host and Pardoner kiss and make
up, and all have a good laugh as they continue on their way.
Summary: The Prologue of the Nun’s Priest
After the Monk has told his tale, the Knight pleads that no more tragedies be told. He asks that someone tell a tale that is the opposite
of tragedy, one that narrates the extreme good fortune of someone previously brought low. The Host picks the Nun’s Priest, the priest
traveling with the Prioress and her nun, and demands that he tell a tale that will gladden the hearts of the company members. The Nun’s
Priest readily agrees, and begins his tale.
Summary: The Tale of the Nun’s Priest
A poor, elderly widow lives a simple life in a cottage with her two daughters. Her few possessions include three sows, three cows, a sheep,
and some chickens. One chicken, her rooster, is named Chanticleer, which in French means “sings clearly.” True to his name,
Chanticleer’s “cock-a-doodle-doo” makes him the master of all roosters. He crows the hour more accurately than any church clock. His
crest is redder than fine coral, his beak is black as jet, his nails whiter than lilies, and his feathers shine like burnished gold.
Understandably, such an attractive cock would have to be the Don Juan of the barnyard. Chanticleer has many hen-wives, but he loves
most truly a hen named Pertelote. She is as lovely as Chanticleer is magnificent.
As Chanticleer, Pertelote, and all of Chanticleer’s ancillary hen-wives are roosting one night, Chanticleer has a terrible nightmare about
an orange houndlike beast who threatens to kill him while he is in the yard. Fearless Pertelote berates him for letting a dream get the
better of him. She believes the dream to be the result of some physical malady, and she promises him that she will find some purgative
herbs. She urges him once more not to dread something as fleeting and illusory as a dream. In order to convince her that his dream was
important, he tells the stories of men who dreamed of murder and then discovered it. His point in telling these stories is to prove to
Pertelote that “Mordre will out” (3052)—murder will reveal itself—even and especially in dreams. Chanticleer cites textual examples
of famous dream interpretations to further support his thesis that dreams are portentous. He then praises Pertelote’s beauty and grace,
and the aroused hero and heroine make love in barnyard fashion: “He fethered Pertelote twenty tyme, / And trad hire eke as ofte, er it
was pryme [he clasped Pertelote with his wings twenty times, and copulated with her as often, before it was 6 a.m.” (3177–3178).
One day in May, Chanticleer has just declared his perfect happiness when a wave of sadness passes over him. That very night, a hungry
fox stalks Chanticleer and his wives, watching their every move. The next day, Chanticleer notices the fox while watching a butterfly, and
the fox confronts him with dissimulating courtesy, telling the rooster not to be afraid. Chanticleer relishes the fox’s flattery of his singing.
He beats his wings with pride, stands on his toes, stretches his neck, closes his eyes, and crows loudly. The fox reaches out and grabs
Chanticleer by the throat, and then slinks away with him back toward the woods. No one is around to witness what has happened. Once
Pertelote finds out what has happened, she burns her feathers with grief, and a great wail arises from the henhouse.
The widow and her daughters hear the screeching and spy the fox running away with the rooster. The dogs follow, and pretty soon the
whole barnyard joins in the hullabaloo. Chanticleer very cleverly suggests that the fox turn and boast to his pursuers. The fox opens his
mouth to do so, and Chanticleer flies out of the fox’s mouth and into a high tree. The fox tries to flatter the bird into coming down, but
Chanticleer has learned his lesson. He tells the fox that flattery will work for him no more. The moral of the story, concludes the Nun’s
Priest, is never to trust a flatterer.
Summary: The Epilogue to the Nun’s Priest’s Tale
The Host tells the Nun’s Priest that he would have been an excellent rooster—for if he has as much courage as he has strength, he would
need hens. The Host points out the Nun’s Priest’s strong muscles, his great neck, and his large breast, and compares him to a sparrow-
hawk. He merrily wishes the Nun’s Priest good luck.

William Langland-Piers plowman

“Piers Plowman,” a Middle English poem by William Langland, is a quest that occurs within dream visions that satirize secular and religious
figures corrupted by greed. The poem is divided into sections called passus, Latin for step (passus is singular and passi is plural) and means
a stage, or the stages, of a journey.
Vision 1
Prologue: Will falls asleep and has a dream where on one side he sees a tower belonging to Truth/God/Heaven, and a valley with a large
dungeon representing Hell. In between is this world with its living inhabitants.
Passi 1 – 4: As Will dreams, Holy Church urges Will to seek Truth. There is a conflict between Holy Church and Theology over the nature of
Lady Mede. Will sees Lady Mede and finds out about her planned marriage to False. Lady Mede travels to the royal court, and the King
proposes she marry Conscience, but Conscience denounces her. Conscience and Reason convince the King not to marry Lady Mede to False.
Will wakes up.
Vision 2
Passi 5 – 7: Will dreams that Reason gives a sermon to the Field of Folk and the people decide to repent. The Seven Deadly Sins make a
confession, and in penance attempt to go on pilgrimage to Truth. They get lost, and Piers Plowman makes his first appearance: he will help
them if they help plough his half-acre. Piers and the penitents plough the half-acre. Some refuse to work, and Hunger punishes them until
they do. Once Hunger has been satisfied, the people return to being idle. Eventually, Truth sends Piers a pardon for the penitents’ sins. When
challenged on the pardon’s validity by a priest, Piers angrily tears it in two. Will then decides to seek Dowel.
Vision 3
Passi 8 – 12: Will’s search for Dowel begins. He enters into an argument with Friars. He then meets Thought. Thought instructs Will to “Do
well, do better, do best.” The interpretation of this is to be provided by Wit. Wit attempts to understand Dowel, and Will meets Wit’s wife,
Dame Study. She complains to Will about his ignorance. Will then proceeds to Clergy and Scripture to learn more about Dowel. Scripture
complains about Will’s lack of self-knowledge. Will becomes angry and goes into a dream within a dream where he meets Fortune. Will serves
her into old age, but she abandons him. Will then learns about the salvation of the Emperor Trajan and the power of love. Will has an
argument with Reason, and concludes that Reason does not do enough to keep people from sin, but Reason disagrees. Will wakes from the
dream-within-a-dream. He now meets Imaginatif, who advises him to be patient. Imaginatif emphasizes the need for humility and the
importance of Grace.
Vision 4
Passi 13 – 14: Will dreams of sharing a feast with Conscience, Scripture, Clergy, and Patience. He also encounters the greedy Doctor of Divinity
(who has a disdain for love). Then Conscience and Patience meet Haukyn, who wears a coat of Christian faith, which is soiled with the Seven
Deadly Sins. Conscience teaches Haukyn to seek forgiveness and do penance. Patience teaches Haukyn about the merits of embracing poverty.
Haukyn then cries out for God’s mercy.
Vision 5
Passi 15 – 17: Will finds himself disconnected from the waking world, but Reason helps him to go back to sleep, where Will meets Anima (or
spirit). Anima gets upset with Will for his pride in wanting to know too much, but goes on to talk about charity, in particular how the Church
should care for its flock, but how its priests and monks do not always fulfill this duty. Talking to Anima, Will starts to conclude that Piers
Plowman is Christ. Will realizes that he needs to switch from searching for Dowel to searching for Charity. Will falls into another dream-
within-a-dream, this time about the Tree of Charity, whose gardener is Piers Plowman. Will participates in a reenactment of the Fall of Man
and then has a vision of the life of Christ; when this reaches the point where the Devil is defeated, Will wakes up from the dream-within-a-
dream. Will goes looking for Piers and meets Faith/Abraham, who is himself searching for Christ. Next, Will meets Hope/Moses, characterized
by the tablets of law, who is also in search of Christ. Will learns about the Good Samaritan, the prospect of salvation, and the importance of
Love.
Vision 6
Passus 18: Will experiences Love and the intersection of human and divine time. Will witnesses Christ riding into Jerusalem and Christ’s
crucifixion. Will wakes up, and now urges his family to attend mass.
Vision 7
Passus 19: During mass, Will falls asleep and sees Conscience. Conscience recounts the life and Passion of Christ. Will finds out about
Pentecost, witnesses Pride attacking Unity/Holy Church, and then wakes up.
Vision 8
Passus 20: Will falls asleep and dreams of the Antichrist. Kynde sends Old Age, Death, and Pestilence to chastise people. Will is attacked by
Old Age. He witnesses Holy Church undermined by a hypocritical Friar. Conscience goes on pilgrimage to seek Piers Plowman, and calls on
Grace for help, whereupon Will wakes up.