The Canterbury Tales

last presented itself on this occasion: A day was appointed for Gundulfus’s being admitted into holy orders at a place remote from his father’s habitation; he therefore orders the servants to call him at first cock-crowing, which the cock overhearing did not crow at all that morning. So Gundulfus overslept himself, and was thereby disappointed of his ordination, the office being quite finished before he came to the place.” Wireker’s satire was among the most celebrated and popular Latin poems of the Middle Ages. The Ass was probably as Tyrwhitt suggests, called “Burnel” or “Brunel,” from his brown colour; as, a little below, a reddish fox is called “Russel.” ↩

Because. ↩

Foolish. ↩

Flatterer; French, flatteur. ↩

Deceiver, cozener; the word had analogues in the French losengier, and the Spanish lisongero. It is probably connected with leasing, falsehood; which has been derived from Anglo-Saxon hlisan, to celebrate⁠—as if it meant the spreading of a false renown. ↩

Truth. ↩

Occasion. ↩

Master Russet; a name given to the fox, from his reddish colour. ↩

Seized him by the throat. ↩

Escaped. ↩

Recked, regarded. ↩

Geoffrey de Vinsauf was the author of a well-known medieval treatise on composition in various poetical styles of which he gave examples. Chaucer’s irony is therefore directed against some grandiose and affected lines on the death of Richard I, intended to illustrate the pathetic style, in which Friday is addressed as “O Veneris lachrymosa dies!” ↩

“Priamum altaria ad ipsa trementem
Traxit, et in multo lapsantem sanguine nati
Implicuitque comam laeva, dextraque coruscum
Extulit, ac lateri capulo tenus abdidit ensem.
Haec finis Priami fatorum.”

Virgil, Aeneid, II 550.

↩

Yard, enclosure. ↩

Above all others. ↩

Shrieked. ↩

Simple, honest. ↩

Kill, destroy. ↩

The leader of a Kentish rising, in the reign of Richard II, in 1381, by which the Flemish merchants in London were great sufferers. ↩

Followers. ↩

Trumpets; Anglo-Saxon, bema. ↩

Made a popping or tooting sound. ↩

Surely. ↩

Addressing the pursuers. ↩

Nimbly. ↩

Offence. ↩

Took. ↩

Curse. ↩

Cause. ↩

Thrive. ↩

Prateth. ↩

For our instruction. See 2 Tim. 3:16. ↩

Certainly. ↩

A marginal note on a munuscript indicates that some Archbishop of Canterbury is here quoted. ↩

A layman. ↩

Cock. ↩

The brawny parts of the body. ↩

The sixteen lines appended to the “Tale of the Nun’s Priest” seem, as Tyrwhitt observes, to commence the prologue to the succeeding “Tale”⁠—but the difficulty is to determine which that “Tale” should be. In earlier editions, the lines formed the opening of the prologue to the “Manciple’s Tale”; but most of the manuscripts acknowledge themselves defective in this part, and give the “Nun’s Tale” after that of the “Nun’s Priest.” In the Harleian manuscript, followed by Mr. Wright, the second “Nun’s Tale,” and the “Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale,” are placed after the “Franklin’s tale”; and the sixteen lines above are not found⁠—the “Manciple’s” prologue coming immediately after the “Amen” of the “Nun’s Priest.” In two manuscripts, the last line of the sixteen runs thus: “Said unto the Nun as ye shall hear;” and six lines more evidently forged, are given to introduce the “Nun’s Tale.” All this confusion and doubt only strengthen the certainty, and deepen the regret, that The Canterbury Tales were left at Chaucer’s, death not merely very imperfect as a whole, but destitute of many finishing touches that would have made them complete so far as the conception had actually been carried into performance. ↩

This “Tale” was originally composed by Chaucer as a separate work, and as such it is mentioned in the “Legend of Good Women” under the title of The Life of Saint Cecile. Tyrwhitt quotes the line in which the author calls himself an “unworthy son of Eve,” and that in which he says, “Yet pray I you, that reade what I write,” as internal evidence that the insertion of the poem in the Canterbury Tales was the result of an afterthought; while the whole tenor of the introduction confirms the belief that Chaucer composed it as a writer or translator⁠—not, dramatically, as a speaker. The story is almost literally translated from the Life of St. Cecilia in the Legenda Aurea. ↩

Nurse. ↩

Delights. ↩

Occupation, activity. ↩

Endeavour, apply ourselves. ↩

Seize. ↩

Entangle, bind. ↩

Skirt, or lappet, of a garment. ↩

Leash, snare; the same as las, oftener used by Chaucer. ↩

For which others labour. ↩

The nativity and assumption of the Virgin Mary formed the themes of some of St. Bernard’s most eloquent sermons. ↩

Dwell. ↩

Thou noblest one, as far as our nature admitted. ↩

Nature. ↩

Wrap. ↩

The Trinity. ↩

Without remission, unceasingly. ↩

Praise. ↩

Without blemish. ↩

Compare with this stanza to the fourth stanza of the “Prioress’s Tale,” here, the substance of which is the same. ↩

Healer,