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Summary: Prologue to Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales
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Summary: Prologue to The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Prologue to the Tales places these characters before us almost
as distinctly as they would appear in real life. At the Tabard Inn in
Southwark, just across the Thames from London, we see that merry band
of pilgrims on a pleasant April day. We look first upon a manly figure
who strikes us as being every inch a knight. His cassock shows the
marks of his coat of mail.
"At mortal batailles hadde he been fiftene.
* * * * *
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.
He never yet no vileinye ne sayde
In al his lyf, un-to no maner wight.
He was a verray parfit gentil knight."
His son, the Squire, next catches our attention. We notice his curly
locks, his garments embroidered with gay flowers, and the graceful way
in which he rides his horse. By his side is his servant, the Yeoman,
"clad in cote and hood of grene," with a sheaf of arrows at his belt.
We may even note his cropped head and his horn suspended from green
belt. We next catch sight of a Nun's gracefully pleated wimple,
shapely nose, small mouth, "eyes greye as glas," well-made cloak,
coral beads, and brooch of gold. She is attended by a second Nun and
three Priests. The Monk is a striking figure:--
"His heed was balled, that shoon as any glas,
And eek his face, as he hadde been anoint.
He was a lord ful fat and in good point."
There follow the Friar with twinkling eyes, "the beste beggere in his
hous," the Merchant with his forked beard, the Clerk (scholar) of
Oxford in his threadbare garments, the Sergeant-at-Law, the Franklyn
(country gentleman), Haberdasher, Carpenter, Weaver, Dyer, Tapycer
(tapestry maker), Cook, Shipman, Physician, Wife of Bath, Parish
Priest, Plowman, Miller, Manciple (purchaser of provisions), Reeve
(bailiff of a farm), Summoner (official of an ecclesiastical court),
and Pardoner. These characters, exclusive of Baily (the host of Tabard
Inn) and Chaucer himself, are alluded to in the Prologue to the
Tales as--
"Wel nyne and twenty in a companye,
Of sondry folk, by aventure y-falle
In felawshipe, and pilgrims were they alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde."
The completeness of the picture of fourteenth century English life in
the Canterbury Tales makes them absolutely necessary reading for the
historian as well as for the student of literature.
Certainly no one who has ever read the Prologue to the Tales will
question Chaucer's right to be considered a great original poet, no
matter how much he may have owed to foreign teachers.
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