Monthly Archives: August 2015

The Canterbury Tales ~ The Cook’s Prologue and Tale

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The Cook makes some amusing comments about The Reeve’s Tale and then claims that he will relate a tale that happened in their city.  The Host encourages him to start, but tells him that he must tell a good story to make up for all the bad food that he’s sold them.  The Cook responds in kind, revealing that his tale will be about an innkeeper.
The Cook
The Cook’s Tale
A gay, jovial, black-haired apprentice named Perkin Reveler, loves flirting and drink and dancing.  And although Perkin is generous in his expenditures, his master often finds his cash-box empty and concludes:
“For certainly with an apprentice reveler
Who haunts dice, wild times, or making out
His master shall pay for it in his shop
Though he had no part in the partying
For theft and wild times are interchangeable
However much he knows how to play the cittern or fiddle
Revel and social integrity, especially in low ranks,
Are always at odds with one another, as men may see …”
or in Middle English:
“For sikerly a prentys revelour
That haunteth dys, riot, or paramour,
His maister shal it in his shoppe abye,
Al have he no part of the mynstraleye
For thefte and riot, they been convertible
Al konne he pleye on gyterne or ribible,
Reve and trouthe, as in a lowe degree,
They have ful wrothe al day, as men may see ….”
Mindful of Perkin’s tricks, his master releases him from his apprenticeship, and the young man decides to move in with his friend, who has similar vices, and his wife, who makes her living on her back, shall we say.
Apprentice
Orest Kiprensky
source Wikiart
Although Chaucer only wrote 58 lines of The Cook’s Tale, and then left it incomplete, we can already see the form of the tale developing like the previous ones.  After the noble Knight’s Tale, the stories have become gradually more and more humorously coarse and indecorous.  Who else will the apprentice deceive, and what effect will his disreputable friends have on his already well-developed vices? 

Here ends the first fragment of tales.  From now on, the order of tales can vary, depending on which manuscript your particular translator chose to rely.  Because we’re going by Thomas Tyrwitt’s ordering of the fragments (more information on the different manuscripts here), the next tale will be the The Man of Law’s Tale or The Lawyer’s Tale ……

The Canterbury Tales ~ The Reeve’s Prologue and Tale

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The Reeve is still simmering over The Miller’s Tale about the Carpenter, and boasts that he would repay the Miller in kind, yet he is too old for the obscene jokes the Miller likes to employ.  The old Reeve gets carried away with his descriptions of old age and its sufferings, and the Host must interrupt to get him back on track.  The Reeve then proclaims that, as the Miller told his tale out of personal enmity for him, he will repay like for like:

“I’ll speak his low talk, just as he has spoken.
I pray to God he gets his neck broken.
In my eye he can see what mote there is,
But what he can’t see is the beam in his.”

Or in the Middle English:

“Right in his cherles termes wol I speke.
I pray to god his nekke mote breke;
He can wel in myn yë seen a stalke,
But in his owne he can nat seen a balke.”

The Reeve
source Wikimedia Commons

The Reeve’s Tale

Simon, a miller, and given the nickname of Simkin, resides in Trumpington near Cambridge, his mill standing by a rippling brook.  His wife, the daughter of a clergyman, is imperious and disdainful, while Simkin is known for thievery and deception.  When he cheats the university, overcharging them for the grinding of their corn, two students Alan and John, decide he needs to learn a lesson.  They take wheat to be ground by the miller, but the miller outmaneuvers them:

“Instead of flour, I’ll give them only bran.
‘The greatest scholar is not the wisest man,’
As one time to the wolf remarked the mare.
For all their cunning a fig is what I care.”

He then looses their horse, and when the students chase after him, the miller steals their grain, giving it to his wife to bake a loaf of bread.

Finally, the students return with their horse, but it is night, and they are forced to offer the miller payment to permit them to stay overnight.  They are allowed one bed, the miller in his wife are in a second, their 20 year-old daughter in a third, and the baby boy in his cradle at the foot of the miller’s bed.

The miller and his wife have drunk so much wine that they fall asleep directly, but the students still plot revenge.  Alan decides to have his way with the miller’s daughter and, not to be outdone, John moves the cradle to the foot of his bed and, after going out to relieve herself, the miller’s wife crawls into bed with John.  In the morning, after his romp, Alan tries to crawl back into bed with John, but of course, due to the switched cradle, he ends up in bed with the miller.  He inadvertently whispers his night secrets to the miller, who is incensed at his duplicity.  They struggle, the miller is beaten up by both Alan and his own wife, who mistakes his bald head for the student’s white nightcap and gives him a good thump on the head with a staff.  And so the miller is beaten and cheated, in another romping tale by Chaucer.

The Old Mill at Sunset (1844)
Thomas Cole
source Wikiart

This tale exemplifies the common “cradle-trick” tale, and is a near copy of Bocaccio’s tale of the Sixth Story of the Ninth Day of his The Decameron. Chaucer gives the Reeve a type of northern dialect, which cannot be translated well, so if you don’t read the Middle English version, you will likely miss it.  It’s apparently the first example in English literature of a regional accent used in humorous imitation.

Next The Cook’s Tale, which was unfinished by Chaucer ……..

The Canterbury Tales ~ The Miller’s Prologue and Tale

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After the tale of courtly love by the Knight, the Host requests the Monk to recite his tale, however the churlish and boorish Robin the Miller interrupts, insisting on having his tale told first.  While he claims his tale is noble, he absolves himself of all responsibility for it, claiming drunkenness as his excuse.  Given his character and situation, one wonders what will proceed from his mouth.  In fact, Oswald, the Reeve, protests that the Miller’s tale about a carpenter, will insult carpenters, of which he is one, but the Miller begins to tell his tale, in spite of the Reeve’s objections.

Illustration of Robin the Miller
playing the bagpipes
source Wikipedia

The Miller’s Tale

A Carpenter named John lived in Oxford, and he had a student named Nicolas, as a boarder, who was poor, learned in Astrology, well-versed in the art of love, and knew how to conduct himself.  The Carpenter, though old, was newly wedded to a handsome eighteen-year-old girl, Alisoun, and while he appears a kind, simple man, he guards her jealously, afraid that another man will steal her affections.  Nicolas decides that he will have his way with her, and Alisoun is a willing accomplice.  Now to get the Carpenter out of the way. Yet not only does the Carpenter have this wily student plotting to steal his wife, but also Absolon, the parish clerk, has seen her, fallen in love and decides to woo her with music outside her window, but the miller’s wife is not interested.

Meanwhile Nicolas cooks up a plan to rid them of the Carpenter, so they can spend the night together.  He convinces him that a flood, second only to Noah’s, is coming and that he needs to acquire three large tubs to hang from the ceiling where the three of them can sleep, and when the waters arrive, they can cut the ropes and float away.  The Carpenter, convinced of the tale, spends a great deal of time collecting the tubs and doing the work.  He is so exhausted that he falls asleep immediately in his tub, and then Alisoun and Nicolas climb down to enjoy themselves in his bed.  Little do they know that Absolon is once again going to try to win Alisoun’s favours by wooing her from outside the window.  She agrees to a kiss but, to Absolon’s stupified surprise, what she stick out the window is her bare backside and not her head.  Ai-ya! Absolon is repulsed and leaves, but when he returns, he has a branding iron with him. This time Nicolas, to give the clerk further shock, decides to stick his rear end out the window for the next promised kiss, and does he get the surprise of his life!  His cry of “Water!” wakes up the Carpenter who thinks the flood is upon him and cuts his rope.  For his troubles, the poor Carpenter gets a broken arm and the ridicule of the whole town.

Alison and John (1913)
Russell Flint
source 

This tale seems a response and a parody to The Knight’s Tale, in that The Knight’s Tale was filled with chivalry, courtly love, honour and destiny, whereas in this tale, there is adultery, lust, and deception, depicted with obscenity and humour.  As in The Knight’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale also presents another love triangle, but in this case, it is one that is base and immoral, instead of the Knight’s illustration of courtly love.

In addition to turning the virtues of The Knight’s Tale on its head, the Miller seems to be offering a commentary on the church, and not a very pleasant commentary at that.  The Carpenter has the same trade as Jesus and Joseph, and is presented as a rather ingenuous, bumbling fool.  Absolon’s position of parish clerk appears to offer more negative criticism.  His dialogue seems to sometimes grow from Songs of Songs, as he uses some of the most beautiful biblical love poetry to seduce another man’s wife.  I’m unsure as to whether his name is a lampoon of the biblical character Absalom, King David’s son who was known for his ingratiating manners and pretentious love of pomp and show.  Everything meaningful about the biblical Absalom is portrayed on the outside, but there is no depth to his strength of character.  The Miller’s Absolon obviously has a faith that holds little meaning for him and has no effect on his actions.

These bawdy tales were favourites of Chaucer’s times and are categorized as a fabliau, originating in France and characterized as short merry tales, “generally about people in absurd and amusing circumstances, often naughty sexual predicaments. The stories frequently involve a betrayed husband (the cuckold), his unfaithful wife, and a cleric who is the wife’s lover. “ (1)

The next tale will be told by The Reeve, the pilgrim who protested the telling of The Miller’s Tale.  What shall we find in his tale, and how will it link to the two we have already heard?