The Canterbury Tales The Monk - The Friar’s Tale
The Monk’s Tale
Harry Bailey appreciates the tale of Melibee and complains about his bloodthirsty wife who often berates him for not being violent enough with the troubles makers at his Inn. He then turns to the well-dressed monk, and after complimenting him on his girth and vivacity, asks him to tell a tale. The monk informs the pilgrims that he would like to tell the tale of fallen Kings. He begins with accounts of Lucifer, Adam, and Samson, and how all of these once great characters were brought low. Then he talks of the kings of the classical era and tells them about the tragedies that befell kings like Hercules. His attention then shifts to the kings mentioned in the bible, such as Nebuchadnezzar and his son, Belshazzar. Finally, he concludes with stories of Kings Peter of Spain and Cyprus, Nero, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar.
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
The knight interrupts the Monk’s long tirade of tragedy and expresses his preference for stories that saw the rise of unexpected heroes rather than stories about the fall of great kings. Harry agrees with the knight and asks the Monk to tell a better story, but the Monk refuses to indulge them. The host then turns to the Nun’s Priest and asks him to tell his tale. The priest begins his story about a wonderful rooster called Chanticleer that belonged to a widow. The rooster had several hens in his flock, but Pertelote was his favorite hen. He spent most nights with her, and on one such night when they were together, Chanticleer awoke from a terrible dream about being eaten by a predator. His violent reaction to the dream wakes up Pertelote, but she is unsympathetic when he tells her about his dream. She calls him a coward and tells him that bad dreams are caused merely by a bad stomach. She recommends he make use of some laxatives to relieve himself of such humor.
Chanticleer insists that many great men have talked about the premonition that comes to them in the form of dreams. Alas, he relents and they return to bed in one another’s loving arms. The following day, Chanticleer spots a fox hiding in the yard and he crows to warn the others. However, the fox approaches him and flatters him about the quality of his crowing. Insisting that Chanticleer was as melodious as his father, and this puts the rooster at ease. Suddenly, the fox stoops down and catches him in his mouth, and begins to run away. The hens raise a huge outcry which brings the widow and her daughter out of the house. They set out after the fox, and Chanticleer recommends that the Fox shout back some insults at his pursuers. The fox opens his mouth to follow Chanticleer’s advice, and Chanticleer flies into the trees. The Fox attempts to flatter the rooster once more, but Chanticleer is much wiser now.
The Physician’s Tale
Harry Bailey loves the Priest’s tale and invites the Physician to follow the tale of Chanticleer. The Physician recites a story written by the Roman writer Livy. The story is about a girl named Virginia, who was the very image of perfection and virtue. An old and lecherous judge called Appius decided that he was going to have the beautiful maiden to himself. He concocts a deplorable scheme with a local con man, and they decide to bring Virgina’s father to court. The conman claims that Virginia was a servant of the conman’s household and that she had been stolen from his house when she was still a child. The deplorable judge rules in favor of the conman and asks Virgina’s father to hand him over to him. The man goes home and informs his daughter of the court proceedings, and informs her that the only way to preserve her from rape was death. Virgina allows her father to behead her and then presents her decapitated head to the judge. Appius is thrown into jail by the townspeople, and he commits suicide in prison.
The Pardoner’s Tale
Harry is quite upset about the physician’s tale and asks for a more cheerful story about his health. The Pardoner volunteers but the others are not so trusting, he promises to think of a cheerful story over the meal. Once the pilgrims are settled, the pardoner explains that he sells relics to aid people in absolving their sins, and provides pardons for a small sum of money to the people who do not wish to go for confession. He doesn’t care about people’s souls and is mainly just concerned with lining his pockets. The Pardoner then sets off on his tale, after sermonising a little bit about the sins of greed, thievery, and sweating. He explains that he often uses the same story for his sermons.
His story focuses on three wretched Dutchmen, who spend their time indulging in all vices. They hear a rumor that a fellow named Death is going around killing people and decide that they are going to kill Death. They set out on a journey to find the miserable wretch and come upon an extremely old and wizened man. They berate the old man and ask him about the whereabouts of Death. The old man sadly tells them that he had last seen Death under a tree, and he gives them directions to the tree. The Dutchmen follow his directions and arrive at a tree, whose base is filled with a treasure of Gold coins. They rejoice at their luck and decide to split the treasure equally amongst themselves. One of them goes into town to fetch some food and wine for the other two, while they remain to guard the treasure. The sole man has the idea to poison the wine of his fellows so that he can have the whole treasure to himself. He procures a deadly poison and adds it to the wine before returning to them.
Meanwhile, the two men who remain to guard the treasure have a similar idea. They decide to kill the man who had gone into town so that they each have a larger share of the treasure. They kill him as soon as he arrives but drink the wine that he had brought for them. So all three of them end up meeting death under the tree.
The Pardoner ends his tale and asks the pilgrims to pay him a small fee for a guaranteed place in heaven. Harry Bailey dislikes the Pardoner, and they nearly come to blows but the Knight restores the peace between them.
The Wife of Bath’s Tale
The Wife of Bath, Alison, begins to tell her own life story before going into the tale for the competition. She explains that she has had five husbands, and she believes that her divine commandment from god has been marriage and sex. She goes on to provide a brief history of her marriages, explaining that she had been deplorably exacting with her first three husbands. She would not let them into her bed without first receiving a present from them. Her fourth marriage happened to be with a man who was habitually unfaithful to her, and so she paid him back in the same way. However, her fifth and final marriage had been the one that she had enjoyed the most. She had been married to a man half her age, and their relationship had been filled with bouts of passion and violence. Once he had hit her so hard that he thought he had killed her, but when she regained consciousness, she paid him back with a similarly violent blow.
The Friar and Summoner interrupt the Wife of Bath’s telling by getting into an argument amongst themselves. Alison then begins the tale of a knight who was brought before King Arthur for raping a beautiful maiden. Arthur hands over the dishonorable knight to his Queen Guinevere to do with him as she pleases. The Queen poses a question to the knight and promises to give him a pardon if he should tell her the right answer. She asks him about what women want above all else. The knight confesses that he doesn’t know the answer and Guinevere gives him a year to discover it. He journeys far and wide during that year and asks everyone but he never receives a convincing answer. Finally, when he has given up and the year has nearly elapsed, the knight comes across a group of dancing women.
He approaches them, and all of them disappear except for an ugly old woman. He poses the question to her and she promises to give him the answer if he would swear to do as she asks of him. He agrees and presents himself in front of Guinevere on the following day. He tells her that all women have sovereignty over their husbands and lovers. He is granted his life, but the old crone shows up at court and informs them that she had supplied the answer and in return, he had promised to wed her. The knight protests but he is forced to marry the old woman. On their first night together, she asks him whether he would have her be ugly and faithful or beautiful and unfaithful. The knight asks her to decide for herself, and so she becomes both beautiful and faithful.
The Friar’s Tale
The Friar appreciates the Wife of Bath’s tale and launches into his own story about a dishonest Summoner who worked with a group of prostitutes to swindle people. The Summoner from among the pilgrims is quite offended and tries to stop the friar from completing his story, but the Friar continues. One day, this wretched Summoner happens to run into a Bailiff, who mistakes him for a man of his line of work. The two of them agree to accompany one another as they have similar professions. The Bailiff eventually confesses that he is not fact just any Bailiff but rather a demon from hell. The Summoner is a little overwhelmed, but he decides to continue traveling with the Bailiff. They come across a man whose wagon is stuck in the mud and he can be heard cursing the wagon to hell. The Summoner asks the Bailiff if he could now take the man’s belongings since he had damned it all to hell. The Bailiff explains that the man hadn’t truly meant what he had been saying.
The summoner decides he’s going to show the man how it is done, and they go over to an old woman that the Summoner is extorting for money. She curses him to hell, and the Bailiff steps in to ask her if she is serious, when the woman assents, the Bailiff takes the Summoner off to hell.
Analysis
The Canterbury Tales is not simply about stories from various backgrounds, but it’s also an examination of the art of storytelling. For instance, this section of the novel begins with the long and drawn story of fallen kings that is related by the Monk. The stories in themselves are all filled with wondrous details that would certainly enrapture any number of people, yet none of the pilgrims truly appreciates his tale. On the other hand, the Nun’s Priest tells the tale of a rooster to such great effect that all of the pilgrims find themselves appreciating the tale. The Nun’s priest goes on to explain that stories are filled with wheat and chaff, wherein the wheat represents the morals while the chaff represents the useless details that can be expended. Essentially, Chaucer suggests that storytelling is about finding the right balance between wheat and chaff, or rather morals and unimportant but entertaining details. From this view, we can understand that Monk’s tale failed to entertain because it contained too much wheat and not enough chaff.
