The Canterbury Tales

tale. Tyrwhitt thinks it was taken from the story of Florent, in the first book of Gower’s Confessio Amantis; or perhaps from an older narrative from which Gower himself borrowed. Chaucer has condensed and otherwise improved the fable, especially by laying the scene, not in Sicily, but at the court of our own King Arthur. ↩

Fairies; French, feerie. ↩

Begging friars. See note 74. ↩

Villages. Compare German, dorf. ↩

Stables, sheep-pens. ↩

Where. ↩

Evening-tides, afternoons; undern signifies the evening; and mele, corresponds to the German mal or mahl, time. ↩

Begging district. ↩

An evil spirit supposed to do violence to women; a nightmare. ↩

Where he had been hawking after waterfowl. Froissart says that any one engaged in this sport “alloit en riviere.” ↩

Spite of. ↩

Condemned. ↩

For as it happened, such. ↩

Then. ↩

Execute, destroy. ↩

In such a position. ↩

The executioner’s axe. ↩

Learn. ↩

Satisfactory. ↩

Go. ↩

Sighed. ↩

Depart. ↩

Provide him with. ↩

Agreeing together. ↩

Pleasure. ↩

Came very near the truth. ↩

Caught as birds with lime. ↩

Pleases. ↩

Foolish; French, niais. ↩

Fret the sore. Compare, “Let the galled jade wince.” ↩

Try. ↩

Secret, good at keeping confidence. ↩

Rake-handle. ↩

From Anglo-Saxon, helan, to hide, conceal. ↩

Small. ↩

Deformity, disfigurement. ↩

Makes a humming noise. ↩

Sound. ↩

Learn. ↩

Spirit. ↩

Trouble, anxiety. ↩

Same. ↩

Eagerly; German, gern. ↩

Imagine, tell. ↩

To meet. ↩

Forth from hence. ↩

Faith. ↩

Dear. ↩

Unless. ↩

Instruct; German, weisen, to show or counsel. ↩

Pay your reward. ↩

Boast, affirm. ↩

Whispered a secret, a lesson. ↩

Promised. ↩

Preserved. ↩

Faith. ↩

Promise. ↩

Curse. ↩

Would not. ↩

Buried. ↩

Perhaps. ↩

Take no pains. ↩

Same. ↩

Fastidious, niggardly. ↩

In addition. ↩

Writhe, turn about. ↩

Burst. ↩

If you could conduct yourself well towards me. ↩

Is only to be despised. See note 64. ↩

In private and in public. ↩

Wills, requires. ↩

Ancestors. ↩

Birth, descent. ↩

Sentiment. ↩

Kind of. ↩

Dante, Purgatorio, VII 121. ↩

Cease. ↩

Thence. ↩

Burn. ↩

It will perform its natural function. ↩

Gentility, nobility. ↩

From its very nature. ↩

Esteem, honour. ↩

Because. ↩

French, renommee, renown. ↩

Goodness, worth. ↩

True. ↩

That. ↩

Doubt. ↩

Dear. ↩

Forsake. ↩

Reproach. ↩

Poverty endured with contentment. ↩

Scholars. ↩

Holds himself satisfied with, is content with. ↩

A slave, abject wretch. ↩

Properly, the only true poverty is sin. ↩

“Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator”⁠—“Satires,” X 22. ↩

In a fabulous conference between the Emperor Adrian and the philosopher Secundus, reported by Vincent of Beauvais, occurs the passage which Chaucer here paraphrases:⁠—“Quid est Paupertas? Odibile bonum; sanitas mater; remotio Curarum; sapientae repertrix; negotium sine damno; possessio absque calumnia; sine sollicitudinae felicitas.” ↩

Deliverer from care and trouble. ↩

Strange; from French eloigner, to remove. ↩

Is a spying-glass, pair of spectacles. ↩

True. ↩

Age. ↩

Text, dictum. ↩

Cuckold. ↩

Thrive. ↩

Die. ↩

Resort. ↩

Considered. ↩

Sighed. ↩

Set no value, care not. ↩

Pleases. ↩

At variance. ↩

Die mad. ↩

Unless. ↩

Unless. ↩

Pleases. ↩

Took. ↩

In succession. ↩

Grudgers of expense. ↩

On the “Tale of the Friar,” and that of the “Sompnour” which follows, Tyrwhitt has remarked that they “are well engrafted upon that of the ‘Wife of Bath.’ The ill-humour which shows itself between these two characters is quite natural, as no two professions at that time were at more constant variance.