The Summoner’s Tale, one of the 24 The Pardoner’s Tale, one of the 24 stories The Wife of Bath’s Tale,
fe of Bath’s Tale, one of the 24
stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer.
Told in retaliation for the Friar’s
unflattering portrait of a summoner, this
earthy tale describes a hypocritical friar’s
attempt to wheedle a gift from an
ailing benefactor. The angry man offers the
friar a gift on the condition that he divide
it equally among his fellows. The friar
agrees and is instructed to reach under his
patron’s buttocks, whereupon he is
rewarded with a fart. The friar is aghast—
and perplexed as to how best to divide the
gift among his 12 colleagues. A squire wins
a coat from him by suggesting that the
friars assemble around a wheel, with the
benefactor at the hub, so that all could
share equally in the flatulent offering.
The Merchant’s Tale, one of the 24
stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer.
The story draws on a folktale of familiar
theme, that of an old man whose young
wife is unfaithful. Old Januarie is deceived
by his young wife, May, and her lover,
Damyan, after Januarie suddenly goes
blind. The lovers sneak up to the branches
of a pear tree above Januarie’s head and
begin to make love. An enraged Pluto
instantly restores the old man’s sight, but
Proserpina allows May to outwit him by
explaining that she was fighting with
Damyan in the tree because she had been
told that doing so would cause Januarie’s
sight to be restored.
in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer.
The cynical Pardoner explains in a witty
prologue that he sells indulgences—
ecclesiastical pardons of sins—and admits
that he preaches against avarice although
he practices it himself. His tale relates how
three drunken revelers set out to destroy
Death after one of their friends had died.
An old man tells them that Death can be
found under a particular oak tree in a
grove, but when they arrive at the tree,
they discover only a pile of gold florins.
Two of the men plot to kill the third so as
to have more of the treasure for
themselves. However, after they kill their
friend, they drink some wine that he had
poisoned earlier, and they too die. The
Pardoner concludes his tale by speaking in
florid rhetoric against the vices of gluttony,
gambling, and blasphemy—adding at the
end that he will be more than happy to
secure divine forgiveness for his listeners,
for a price.
stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer. Before the Wife of Bath tells her
tale, she offers in a long prologue a
condemnation of celibacy and a lusty
account of her five marriages. It is for this
prologue that her tale is perhaps best
known.
The tale concerns a knight accused of
rape, whose life shall be spared if in one
year he discovers what women most
desire. He eventually turns to an ugly old
witch who promises him the answer that
will save his life if he will do the first thing
she asks of him. The answer—that it is
“maistrie,” or sovereignty over men, that
women desire—is accepted in court, and
the witch then demands that the knight
marry her. In bed she asks him if he would
wish her ugly yet faithful or beautiful and
faithless. He insists the choice must be
hers. This concession of her mastery
restores her youth and beauty, and they
live happily ever after.
The Clerk’s Tale, one of the 24 stories
in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer, published 1387–1400.
Chaucer borrowed the story of Patient
Griselda from Petrarch’s Latin translation
of Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron. A
marquis marries beautiful low-born
Griselde (Griselda) after she agrees to obey
his every whim; he then subjects her to a
series of cruelties to test her love. He
abducts their children, telling Griselde
they must die. Years later, he asks her to
leave, and later calls her back to decorate
his chambers, supposedly for his new wife.
Griselde amiably agrees, as she has
patiently endured all her previous
indignities. At last the marquis relents,
proclaiming his love for Griselde; instead
of a new wife, the young woman who
arrives is Griselde’s grown daughter, and
both she and her brother are restored to
their mother as a reward for her
constancy.
The Manciple’s Tale, one of the 24 stories
in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer.
The Manciple, or steward, tells a story
about the origin of the crow, based on
the myth of Apollo and Coronis as told
in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Phebus
(Phoebus) kept a snow-white crow that
could mimic any human voice. The bird
witnesses Phebus’s wife with her lover and
informs his keeper. Phebus kills his wife in
a jealous rage. Later, feeling remorseful, he
blames the crow for his madness, plucks
out its feathers, turns the bird black, and
commends it to the devil.
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale, one of the 24
stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer, “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is based
on the medieval tale of Reynard the Fox,
common to French, Flemish, and German
literature.
The protagonist of this mock-heroic story
is Chanticleer, a rooster with seven wives,
foremost among them the hen Pertelote.
Pertelote dismisses Chanticleer’s dream of
being attacked and tells him to go about
his business. A fox soon approaches and
flatters him, recalling the exquisite song of
Chanticleer’s father. The vain rooster is
thus tricked into closing his eyes and
crowing, only to be seized by the fox and
carried off. As Chanticleer’s owners and
the animals of the barnyard run after
them, Chanticleer suggests that his captor
yell to tell them to turn back. When the fox
opens his mouth, the rooster escapes. The
tale ends with a warning against flattery.
The Parson’s Tale, the final of the 24
stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer. The tale is a lengthy prose
sermon on the seven deadly sins. Chaucer
may have intended this tale, with
its plethora of pious quotations, as a fitting
close to the stories of the religious
pilgrims. After reviewing the sins of Pride,
Envy, Anger, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony, and
Lechery and their remedies, the Parson
urges confession and satisfaction (that
is, atonement through such acts as
almsgiving, penance, and fasting).
The Monk’s Tale, one of the 24 stories
in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer, published 1387–1400.
The brawny Monk relates a series of 17
tragedies based on the fall from glory of
various biblical, classical, and
contemporary figures,
including Lucifer and Adam; Nero and Juli
us Caesar; Zenobia, a 3rd-century queen
of Palmyra; and several 14th-century
kings. After 775 lines of lugubrious recital,
the Knight and the Host interrupt, bored
by the list of disasters.
The Tale of Melibeus, Melibeus also
called Melibee, one of the 24 stories in The
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Reproved by the host of the inn for his
tedious narrative of “The Tale of Sir
Thopas,” Chaucer in his own persona
offers this prose allegory, a close
translation of a French adaptation of a
13th-century Italian story. Long (over a
thousand lines) and—despite the host’s
earlier entreaties for something lively—
dull, it is essentially a moral debate
between Prudence and her husband
Melibeus, with occasional comments by
his friends, on the subject of vengeance.
Prudence urges her husband to forgive the
enemies who have assaulted and wounded
their daughter. Her advice is couched
largely in proverbs, and both sides quote
liberally from such various moral
authorities as the biblical figure Job, St.
Paul, St. Augustine, Ovid, Seneca,
and Cicero. Melibeus eventually agrees to
make peace with his enemies, but only
after he has rebuked them.
The Tale of Sir Thopas, one of the 24
stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer.
Chaucer himself narrates this tale, a
witty parody of the worst poetic romances.
In insipid language, obvious rhyme, and
plodding rhythm, the poet tells of Sir
Thopas’s search for the Elf Queen and of
his encounter with the giant Sir Olifaunt.
Before Chaucer can finish the story,
however, the host of the Tabard Inn
interrupts, begging him to stop the
wretched doggerel.
The Shipman’s Tale, one of the 24 stories
in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer. It is based on an old
French fabliau and resembles a story
found in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron.
In the tale told by Chaucer’s Shipman, the
wife of a rich merchant convinces a
young monk that her husband refuses to
pay for her clothes and asks him to lend
her 100 francs. Smitten, he agrees. The
monk then asks the husband to lend him
100 francs to buy cattle, and the monk
gives the sum to the wife, who thanks him
by taking him to bed. When the merchant
later returns from a journey, the monk
says that he has repaid the debt by
returning the money to the wife. The wife
admits that this is so but says that she
thought it was a gift and that she used it
to outfit herself as becomes the wife of a
successful merchant. She then offers to
repay her husband with her “jolly body.”
Chaucer indulges in a bawdy pun about
repayment by “taille” (meaning either tally
or tail).
The Prioress’s Tale, one of the 24 stories The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale, one of the
in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey 24 stories in The Canterbury
Chaucer. Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, published
The tale is based on an anti- 1387–1400. A humorous description of a
Semitic legend of unknown origin that was roguish canon and alchemist, as told by
popular among medieval Christians. The his assistant, the tale pokes fun at both
Prioress describes how a widow’s devout
alchemy and the clergy. After describing
young son is abducted by Jews, who are
failed alchemical processes in detail, the
supposedly prompted by Satan to murder
the child to stop him from singing the canon’s yeoman tells his tale of a canon
hymn “O Alma redemptoris” to the Virgin who swindled a priest by selling him
Mary. One of the Jews slits the boy’s powders to transmute mercury into silver,
throat and casts his body into an open then escaped before his scheme was
sewer. Miraculously, the boy is still able to discovered.
sing and does so until his mother and a
group of Christians find him. A provost
condemns the guilty Jews to be executed,
and before he dies the boy explains how
the Virgin enabled him to continue singing
after his throat was slit.
The Physician’s Tale, one of the 24
stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey
Chaucer.
The tale is a version of a story related both
by the Roman historian Livy and in the
13th-century Roman de la Rose. It
concerns the lust of the evil judge Appius
for the beautiful, chaste Virginia. Plotting a
strategy by which he can possess her, the
judge instructs his servant to swear in
court that Virginia is a slave whom her
father abducted. Her father, seeing
through the plot, kills her to save her
honour and delivers her head to Appius.
Although Appius gives an order for the
father’s execution, the townspeople rise
against the judge and throw him in prison,
where he kills himself.