THE NUN’S PRIEST’S TALE
Here begins the Nun’s Priest’s Tale of the Cock and Hen, Chanticleer and Pertelote.
A poor woman, somewhat stooped down with age, 55
Once was dwelling in a narrow cottage,
Beside a grove there, standing in a dale.
This widow, about whom I tell my tale,
Since that day when she was last a wife,
In patience led a very simple life, 60
For small were her income and her chattel.
By husbanding what God has sent her well,
For herself and two daughters she provides.
Three large sows had she, and no more besides,
Three cows, and then also a sheep named Moll. 65
Quite sooty were her bower and her hall,
In which she ate many a slender meal.
With tangy sauce she didn’t need to deal.
No dainty morsel through her throat did get,
For her small farm did dictate her diet. 70
Overindulgence never made her sick;
Temperate diet was her only physic,
Exercise, and a heart that was content.
From dancing, the gout did her not prevent,
And apoplexy did not hurt her head. 75
No wine did she drink, neither white nor red;
Her table was served most with white and black—
Milk and brown bread—in which she found no lack,
Smoked bacon, and sometimes an egg would do,
Because she was a dairywoman, too. 80
A yard she had, enclosed on every side
With sticks, and a dry ditch on the outside,
In which she had a cock named Chanticleer.
For crowing, in this land, he had no peer,
With his voice merrier than the merry organ 85
Whose notes, on mass-days, in the church began.
When he crowed in his shed, surer was he
Than a clock or timepiece of an abbey.
By nature, he knew each revolution
Of hours as they rose in their ascension, 90
For when fifteen degrees had ascended,3
He crowed so it could not be amended.
His comb’s redder than the finest coral,
And crenellated like a castle wall;
His bill is black, and just like jet, it glows; 95
Azure like lapus are his legs and toes;
His nails, whiter than the lily flower,
And like burnished gold is all his color.
This gentle cock had in his governing
Full seven hens to do his pleasuring, 100
His sisters, concubines, and paramours,
Wonderfully like him in their colors;
The one whose hue was fairest on her throat
Was called “The Fair Demoiselle Pertelote.”
Courteous she was, gracious, debonnaire, 105
Obliging, and she bore herself so fair
Since on the day that she was seven nights old
That truly, she has all the heart to hold
Of Chantecleer, locked up in every limb; 110
He loved her so that all was well with him.
But such a joy it was to hear them sing,
When first the bright sun up began to spring,
In sweet harmony, “My love’s left the land!”—
For at that time, as I do understand,
All beasts and birds back then could speak and sing. 115
So it happened when the day was dawning,
As Chantecleer there among his wives all
Sat on his perch, which was placed in the hall,
And next to him sat his fair Pertelote,
Chantecleer began groaning in his throat, 120
Like a man who, in dreams, has troubles sore.
And when his Pertelote thus heard him roar,
She was aghast and said, “O, my heart dear,
What ails you to groan in this manner here?
You are such a sound sleeper! For shame! Fie!” 125
“Madame,” he said, and thus he answered, “I
Pray to you that from this you take no grief.
By God, I dreamed that I was in such mischief
Right now that my heart still is sore with fright.
Now God,” said he, “my dream interpret right, 130
And out of foul prison my body keep!
I roamed around, as I dreamed in my sleep,
Within our yard, when there I saw a beast
Like a hound, who’d have made arrest at least
On my body, or would have had me dead. 135
His color was between yellow and red;
Tipped was his tail and both of his ears there
With black, unlike the rest of all his hairs;
His snout was small; and glowing was his eye.
Yet, from his look, for fear, almost I die. 140
This caused me my groaning, it is doubtless.”
“Shame!” said she, “fie on you, coward spineless!
Alas,” said she, “for, by that God above,
Now have you lost my heart and all my love!
By my faith, I cannot love a coward! 145
Surely, as any woman’s said or heard,
We all desire, if it might ever be,
Husbands bold and wise, generous and free,
Also discreet—and no niggard or fool,
Nor one afraid of each weapon and tool, 150
Nor a boaster, by the good God above!
How dare you say, for shame, right to your love
That there is anything that you have feared?
Have you no man’s heart, but still have a beard?
Alas! Aghast of dreams can you now be? 155
God knows, nothing’s in dreams but vanity.4
Dreams are engendered from satiation,
From gas and bodily disposition,
When your humors abound more than is right.
Surely this dream, which you have had tonight, 160
Comes straight from the great superfluity
Of red choleric humor, as you see,
Which causes folks within their dreams to dread
Both sharp arrows and then fire with flames red,
And red beasts, too, which they fear will them bite, 165
And strife and dogs, both great and small in might;
Just as the humor of melancholy
Makes many men in sleep cry openly
For fear both of black bears and of bulls black,
Or of black devils who might take them back. 170
Of other humors could I tell also
That work so men have sleep that’s full of woe;
But I’ll pass them by lightly as I can.
Lo! See Cato, who was so wise a man,
Said he not thus: ‘Pay no heed now to dreams’? 175
Sire,” said she, “when we fly down from these beams,
For God’s love, now, please take some laxative.
By my soul’s peril while here I may live,
I advise for the best—no lies from me—
That both of choler and melancholy 180
You purge yourself; and so you won’t tarry,
Though in this town there’s no apothecary,
To certain herbs I myself shall you lead
For both your health and benefit, indeed;
And in our yard, those herbs for you I’ll find 185
Whose properties, by nature of their kind,
Can purge you both below and then above.
Don’t you forget all this, by God’s own love!
You’re choleric in your disposition;
Watch out that the sun, in its ascension, 190
Won’t find you filled up with hot humors yet.
And if it does, a groat I’d dare well bet
You shall have a reoccurring fever,
Or an ague that proves to be a killer.
For a day or two, you’ll have digestives 195
Of worms, before you take your laxatives
Made from spurge laurel 5and fumitory,
From hellebore growing here and centaury,
From caper spurge, or else then from rhamus,
From ground ivy growing in our yard thus; 200
Peck them right where they grow and eat them in.
Be merry, husband, by your father’s kin!
And dread no dream; I can tell you no more.”
“Madame,” said he, “all thanks be for your lore.
Nonetheless, regarding good Don Cato, 205
Who, for wisdom, has great renown, I know,
Though he bade us that no dreams should we dread,
By God, in many old books, men have read
From many men of more authority
Than Cato, may I thrive prosperously, 210
Who say the reverse of his evidence,
And who have well found through experience
That dreams become the significations6
Both of the joys and the tribulations
That folks here endure in this life present. 215
Of this, we need now make no argument;
The very proof of it shows in the deed.
Of the greatest authorities men read,
One has said thus: that once two fellows went
On pilgrimage, with quite a good intent. 220
It happened, this was the situation:
In a town with such a congregation
Of people, and with few places to stay,
Not so much as a small cottage found they
In which the two of them might sheltered be. 225
Therefore they must, out of necessity,
For that one night, both part their company;
And each of them goes to his hostelry,
And took his lodging, whereso it might fall.
And one of them was lodged within a stall, 230
Far in a yard, with the plow and oxen;
That other man was lodged well enough then,
As was his fortune or his luck and chance,
That holds the world in common governance.
So it happened, long before it was day, 235
This man dreamed in his bed, right where he lay,
How his fellow began on him to call,
And said, ‘Alas, for in an ox’s stall
This night I shall be murdered where I lie!
Now help me, brother dear, or else I’ll die,’ 240
He said, ‘In all haste, now come to me here!’
From his sleep, this man started up in fear;
But when he’d wakened from his sleep indeed,
Over he turned and took of this no heed.
He thought his dream was only vanity. 245
Twice thus while he was sleeping, dream did he;
The third time his friend came, he did explain,
It seemed to him, and said, ‘I am now slain.
Behold my wounds bloody and wide and deep!
Tomorrow rise up early from your sleep, 250
And at the west gate of the town,’ said he,
‘A cart there full of dung then you will see,
In which my body’s hidden privately,
And at once have this same cart seized boldly.
My gold has caused my murder, the truth’s plain.’ 255
In detail he told him how he was slain,
With a piteous face all pale of hue.
And trust it well; his dream he found quite true.
In the morning, as soon as it was day,
Right to his fellow’s inn, he took his way; 260
And when he came up to this oxen’s stall,
After his fellow, he began to call.
The innkeeper answered him directly,
And he said, ‘sir, your fellow’s gone, you see.
As soon as day came, out of town he went.’ 265
The man suspicious got of what he meant,
Remembering what his three dreams did say,
And forth he goes—he’d no longer delay—
To the town’s west gate, and he found at hand
A dung cart set up to manure the land, 270
Which was arrayed in the exact same way
As you heard the dead man describe and say.
With an emboldened heart aloud cried he
For a just vengeance on this felony:
‘My fellow has been murdered this same night; 275
In this cart, he lies there, gaping upright.
I cry out to the magistrates,’ said he,
‘Who should both protect and rule this city.
Harrow! Alas! Here lies my fellow slain!’
What should I more about this tale explain? 280
Out people ran and cast the cart to ground,
And in the middle of the dung they found
The dead man there, who murdered was all new.
O blissful God, who is so just and true,
Lo, how you’ll reveal a murder always! 285
Murder will out, as we see day by day.
Murder loathsome and abominable
To God, who’s so just and reasonable,
That he won’t suffer it concealed to be,
Though it should wait a year or two or three. 290
Murder will out; this is my conclusion.
The town’s ministers, without hesitation,
Seized the carter and sorely did him torture,
And the innkeep sorely on the rack for sure;
Their wickedness they did confess and own, 295
And both then were hanged right by the neck bone.
So here may men see that dreams are to dread.
And certainly, in the same book, I read,
Right there in the next chapter after this—
I’m not lying, may I have joy or bliss— 300
Of two men wanting to go out to sea,
For a reason, into a far country,
If the wind had not blown up contrary,
Making them then in a city tarry
That stood there by a harbor pleasantly; 305
But one day, before evening shortly,
The wind did change, and blew as they liked best.
Jolly and glad, they went right to their rest,
And they made plans quite early to set sail.
Hark! One man had a great marvel prevail: 310
For one of them, there sleeping as he lay,
A wondrous dream had early in the day.
It seemed a man was standing at his bedside,
Commanding him that his time he should bide,
And told him thus: ‘If tomorrow you sail, 315
You shall be drowned; that’s the end of my tale.’
He woke and told his friend what he dreamed then,
And prayed him this voyage to abandon;
And for that day, he prayed, his time to bide.
His fellow, who’s lying by his bed’s side, 320
Began to laugh, and heaped the scorn on fast.
‘No dream,’ said he, ‘makes my heart so aghast
That I will hesitate to do my things.
I don’t give a straw for all your dreamings,
For dreams are only vanities and japes. 325
All day men can dream of owls and apes,
And such sources of amazement plenty;
Men dream about things that shall never be.
But, now since you’ll wait here, as I see,
And willingly waste your time slothfully, 330
Lord, it makes me sorry. Have a good day!’
And thus he took his leave and went his way.
But before half of his course he had sailed,
I don’t know why or what bad luck it ailed,
But, by chance, the ship’s bottom was all rent, 335
And ship and man beneath the water went
In sight of other ships there alongside,
Which were sailing with them on the same tide.
Therefore, I say, my dear, fair Pertelote,
That from such old examples, you may note 340
And learn that no man should be so heedless
Of his dreams; for as I tell you, doubtless,
There are many sad dreams that should cause dread.
Lo, in the life of Saint Kenelm I read—
He who was Kenwulf’s son, the noble king 345
Of Mercia—how Kenelm had dreamed a thing.
A bit before he was murdered, one day,
His murder in a vision came his way.
His nurse expounded in every respect
His dream to him, and told him to protect 350
Himself from treason; but, seven years old,
Of his dreams, little notice did he hold,
His heart so holy thought dreams could not hurt.
By God! I would for this give up my shirt,
If you had read this legend, just like me. 355
Dame Pertelote, I say to you so truly,
Macrobius,7 who wrote the vision so
In Africa of worthy Scipio,
Has affirmed dreams, because they are, says he,
Warnings of things that afterwards men see. 360
And furthermore, I pray you to look well
In the Old Testament, about Daniel,
If he believed that dreams were vanity.
Moreover, read Joseph,8 and there you’ll see
Whether dreams are sometimes—I don’t say all— 365
Warnings of things that later should befall.
Look at Egypt’s king, at that Don Pharoah,
And his baker and his butler also,
And see if dreams’ effects can overwhelm.
Whoso seeks histories of sundry realms 370
Reads about dreams many a wondrous thing.
Lo Croesus, who of Lydia was king,
Dreamed he not he was sitting on a tree,
Which signified that he soon hanged would be?
Lo here Andromache, good Hector’s wife, 375
On the same day that Hector lost his life,
She did dream on the very night before
How soon that Hector’s life would be no more,
For on that day in battle he would fail.
She warned him well, but it was no avail; 380
He went to fight despite all of her pleas.
But at once he was slain by Achilles.
But this same tale is far too long to tell,
And it is almost day; I may not dwell.
Shortly I say, to make my conclusion, 385
That I shall have because of this vision
Adversity; and I say furthermore
That in these laxatives, I set no store;
They are venemous and well I know it;
Them I defy; I love them not one bit! 390
Now, let us speak of mirth, and stop all this.
Madame Pertelote, so may I have bliss,
In one thing, God has sent to me much grace;
For when I see the beauty of your face—
You are so scarlet red about your eyes— 395
It makes it so that all my dread just dies;
For just as surely as In principio,
Mulier est hominis confusio9—
Madame, the meaning of the Latin’s this,
‘Woman is man’s joy and all his bliss.’ 400
For when I feel at night your soft, warm side—
Although right then on you I cannot ride,
Since our perch is made too narrow, alas—
I am so full of both joy and solace
That I shall defy both vision and dream.” 405
And with that word, he flew down from his beam—
For it was day—and also his hens all,
And with a cluck, then to them he did call,
For he found corn that in the yard had laid.
Regal he was; he was no more afraid. 410
Full twenty times he feathered Pertelote,
And before prime tread her as much, you’ll note.
He looks like he were the grimmest lion,
As he is roaming, his tiptoes upon;
He didn’t deign set his foot on the ground. 415
He clucks whenever some corn he has found,
And to him run his wives then, one and all.
Thus royal, like a prince is in his hall,
This Chantecleer I leave in his pasture,
And after, I’ll tell of his adventure. 420
When the month in which the world began,
Which is called March,10 when first God had made man,
Was all complete, and then there had passed too,
Since March was over, thirty days and two,
It happened Chantecleer in all his pride— 425
His seven wives were walking by his side—
Cast his eyes upward toward the bright sun,
That in the sign of Taurus then had run
Twenty degrees plus one, and somewhat more,
And knew by instinct, and no other lore, 430
It was nine, and crowed with blissful sound then.
“The sun,” he said, “has climbed in the heaven
Forty degrees plus one, and more than this.
Madame Pertelote, of my world, my bliss,
Hark to these blissful birds and how they sing, 435
And see here the fresh flowers, how they spring;
Revelry fills my heart, and contentment!”
But quickly to him came a sad event;
Always the later end of joy is woe.
God knows that soon all worldly joy does go; 440
If a rhetorician could tell fairly,
In a chronicle, he might write safely
This is a sovereign fact quite notable.
Now, each wise man, hark, if he is able;
This story is as true, I undertake, 445
As is the book of Lancelot of the Lake,11
That women hold in such great reverence.
To tell my meaning, I’ll now recommence.
A black-tipped fox of sly iniquity,
Who, in the grove, had dwelled fully years three, 450
By high imagination as forecast,
Throughout the very hedges that night passed
Into the yard where Chanticleer the fair
With his wives was accustomed to repair;
And in a bed of cabbages, he lay 455
Till it was past midmorning of that day,
Biding his time, on Chanticleer to fall,
As gladly do these homicidals all
Who lie in waiting just to murder men.
O false murderer, lurking in your den! 460
O new Iscariot, new Ganelon,
False dissimulator, O Greek Sinon,12
Who brought Troy utterly to sorrowing!
O Chantecleer, accursed be that morning
That you into the yard flew from the beams!
You were full well forewarned then by your dreams 465
This very day would come perilously;
But all that God foreknows, thus it need be13—
This opinion of a certain clerk is.
Witness on him who a perfect clerk is,
That in schools is a great altercation 470
In this matter, and great disputation,
And has been for a hundred thousand men.
I don’t know how to sift it to the bran, then,
As can the holy doctor Augustine,14
Boethius,15 or Bishop Bradwardine,16 475
About whether God’s worthy foreknowing
Constrains me needfully to do a thing—
“Needfully” I call plain necessity;17
Or else, if free choice is granted to me
To do that same thing, or just to do naught, 480
Though God foreknows the deed before it’s wrought;
Or if his knowing constrains me not at all
Except by necessity conditional.18
I won’t deal with such matter, it is clear;
My tale’s about a cock, as you may hear, 485
Who took his wife’s counsel, to his sorrowing,
To walk in the yard that very morning
When he had dreamed the dream that I’ve you told.
These women’s counsels are fatal and cold;
These women’s counsels brought us first to woe 490
And from Paradise, they made Adam go,
Though he’d been merry and well at his ease.
But since I don’t know whom it might displease,
If I these women’s counsel wished to blame,
Pass over it; I said it in my game. 495
Read authorities who make such matters clear,
And what they say of women, you may hear.
For these are the cock’s words; they are not mine;
In women, I can no harm divine.
To bathe herself merrily in the sand, 500
Lies Pertelote, with sisters near at hand;
Chanticleer, in the sun, noble and free,
Sang more merrily than mermaids in the sea
(For Physiologus19 says certainly
How mermaids sing both well and merrily). 505
And so it happened, as he cast his eye
Among cabbages on a butterfly,
He was aware of this fox, lying low.
Nothing at all made him then want to crow;
He cried at once, “Cock! Cock!” and up does start 510
Like men who are quite frightened in their heart.
For naturally, a beast desires to flee
From his enemy, if he can it see,
Even if he’d never seen it with his eye.
This Chanticleer, when there he did him spy, 515
He would have fled, but to him the fox said,
“Now, gentle sire, alas, where do you head?
Are you afraid of me, who am your friend?
Now, certainly, may I meet a fiend’s end,
If to you harm or villainy wished I! 520
I have not come on your secrets to spy,
But, it is true, the cause of my coming
Was only so I could hear how you sing.
In truth, you have a voice as merry then
As an angel who is up in heaven. 525
And thus, you in music have more feeling
Than Boethius20 or any who can sing.
My lord your father—may God his soul bless—
And your mother, out of noble gentleness,
Have both been in my house to my great ease; 530
And, surely, sire, quite gladly I’d you please.
But, since men speak of singing, I will say—
So might I use my two eyes well today—
Except for you, I never heard man sing
Like your father first thing in the morning. 535
True, when he sang, from his heart came his song.
And so that he could make his voice more strong,
He would so pain himself that with both eyes
He then must wink, so loud would be his cries,
And he’d step up upon his tiptoes tall, 540
And stretch forth his neck, which was long and small.
And moreover, he had such discretion
That there was no man in any region
Who him in song or wisdom might surpass.
I have well read in Don Burnel the Ass,21 545
Among his verses, how there was a cock,
Who, since a priest’s son did give him a knock
On the leg when he was young and dumb thus,
He made it so he lost his benefice.
But, surely, here, there’s no comparison 550
Between the wisdom and the discretion
Of your father, with all his subtlety.
Now sing, good sire, for holy charity,
Let see: can you your father counterfeit?”
This Chanticleer was beating his wings yet, 555
Like a man who could not this treason see,
So was he ravished by this flattery.
Lo, you lords, many a false flatterer
Is in your courts, and many a losengeour,22
Who pleases you much more, as I would guess, 560
Than he who speaks to you with truthfulness.
Read Ecclesiastes on flattery;
Be wary, you lords, of their treachery.
This Chanticleer stood high upon his toes,
Stretching his neck, and his eyes tight did close, 565
For the occasion, he crowed quite loudly.
Don Russell the fox started up quickly,
And by the throat seized Chanticleer right there,
And on his back, him toward the woods did bear,
For there was no one yet who him pursued. 570
O destiny that may not be eschewed!
Alas, that Chanticleer flew from those beams!
Alas, his wife cared not a bit for dreams!
On a Friday23 fell this misadventure.
Alas, Venus, you goddess of pleasure, 575
Since your own servant was this Chanticleer,
Who in your service did all he might here,
More for delight than the world to multiply,
Why on your own day would you let him die?
O dear sovereign master, you Sir Geoffrey,24 580
Who, when slain was King Richard so worthy
With an arrow, mourned for his death so sore,
Why have I not your wisdom and your lore,
Like you did to chide Friday, as we see?
For, on a Friday, truly, slain was he. 585
Then I would show you how I could complain
About Chanticleer’s dread and for his pain.
Surely, neither cry nor lamentation
Did ladies ever make when Ilion25
Was won, and when, with his sword drawn by him, 590
Pyrrhus,26 by the beard, had seized king Priam,27
And slain him, as it says in the Aeneid,
As in the yard there all of those hens did,
When they the sight of Chanticleer did see.
But Dame Pertelote did shriek supremely, 595
Much more loudly than did Hasdrubal’s28 wife,
When her own husband there had lost his life
And the Romans burned Carthage to the ground.
She was so filled by torment’s rage profound,
Into the fire willingly she did start 600
And burned herself up with a steadfast heart.
O woeful hens, you all cried exactly
The way, when Nero had burned the city
Of Rome, then cried all the senators’ wives
Because their husbands guiltless lost their lives— 605
Nero slew them all as the city burned.
Now back again to my tale I will turn.
This widow and her two daughters also,
Unknowing, heard these hens cry and make woe;
Immediately out of doors they drove, 610
And saw the fox then going toward the grove,
Who bore upon his back the cock away,
And they cried, “Out! Harrow and wey-la-way!
Ha! Ha! The fox!” and after him they ran,
And then, with staves, many another man. 615
Colle, our dog ran, and Talbot and Garland,
And Malkyn, with her distaff in her hand;
Ran cow and calf, and even ran the hogs,
So frightened by the barking of the dogs
And the shouts that the men and women make; 620
They ran so fast they thought their hearts would break.
They yowled just like fiends do down in hell;
The ducks cried like they would be killed as well;
The geese, for fear, flew up over the trees;
Out of the hive there came the swarm of bees. 625
So hideous was the noise—God bless me!—
That surely Jack Straw29 and his company
Never made shoutings that were half as shrill
When any Flemish they did look to kill,
As that day at the fox all of them would. 630
They brought trumpets made of brass and boxwood,
And horns of bone, in which they puffed and blew,
And with those they shrieked out, and they whooped, too.
It seemed as though right down heaven would fall.
And now, good men, I pray you, listen all: 635
Lo, see how Fortune does turn suddenly
The hope and pride both of the enemy!
This cock that on the fox’s back did lay,
For all his dread, right to the fox did say,
And he spoke thus, “Sire, now, if I were you, 640
I should say, as wise God would help me to,
‘Turn back again, you proud churls there, you all!
May a true pestilence upon you fall!
Now right to the woods’ side, I have come near;
No matter what you do, the cock stays here. 645
I will eat him, in faith, and quickly, too!’”
The fox answered, “In faith, that’s what I’ll do.”
And as he spoke that word, all suddenly
This cock broke from his mouth quite agilely,
And up into a tree at once did fly. 650
When the fox saw the cock sit there up high,
“Alas!” said he, “O Chanticleer, alas!
For I have to you done a great trespass.
I made you afraid, catching you off guard,
When I seized you and brought you from the yard. 655
Sire, I did it with no wicked intent.
Come down now, and I’ll tell you what I meant;
So God help me, I’ll tell the truth to you!”
“No, then,” said he, “I’d curse both of us two.
And first, I’d curse myself, both blood and bone, 660
If you tricked me more than one time alone.
Through flattery, now no more will you try
To make me sing and then wink with closed eye;
For he who winks, when he with eyes should see,
Purposely, nevermore shall prosper he!” 665
“No,” said the fox, “but God give him mischance,
Who’s so indiscreet in self-governance
That he jangles when he should be silent.”
Lo, thus it is to be so negligent
And reckless, and to trust in flattery. 670
But you who think this tale just a folly,
About a fox, or else a cock and hen,
Take from it the morality, good men.
Saint Paul says that all that which is written,
For our teaching is truly written, then; 675
Take the fruit, and let the chaff be still.
Now, good God, if it should be your will,
As says my Lord, so make us all good men,
And bring us all to his high bliss! Amen.
Here is ended the Nun’s Priest’s Tale.
THE EPILOGUE
“Sir Nun’s Priest,” our Host said to him quickly, 680
“Blessed may both your stones30 and britches be!
A merry tale of Chanticleer we heard.
But, if you were a layman, by my word,
You would be a good treading-fowl,31 all sright.
If you’ve got heart and vigor like you might, 685
You’d need some hens, if you know what I mean,
Yea, much more than seven times seventeen.
See now what brawn here has this gentle priest,
So great a neck, such a large breast, at least!
He looks like a sparrow hawk with his eye; 690
No need for him his color now to dye
With red hues made of grains from Portugal.
Sire, for your tale, may good luck you befall!”
And after that he, with quite merry cheer,
Said to another one, as you shall hear. 695
3 fifteen degrees had ascended: The number of degrees figured to be in a clock hour. Chanticleer knows astronomy so well he can crow on the hour.
4 nothing’s in dreams . . . : Pertelote here initiates the debate with Chanticleer, which will go on for some lines, about the many ways to interpret dreams. This debate was a lively one throughout the classical period and into the Middle Ages and involved disputations among many classical, biblical, and Christian exegetical sources.
5 spurge laurel, etc.: The herbs in Pertelote’s list were used for digestive and purgative purposes in the Middle Ages, though they would not have been very pleasant tasting.
6 dreams become the significations: Chanticleer here takes the opposite side from Pertelote in the medieval debate about dreams. Rather than being purely somatic phenomenon, as Pertelote argues they are, Chanticleer asserts that dreams are predictive of future events.
7 Macrobius: Fifth-century Roman author of a commentary on Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis (Dream of Scipio), originally a part of Cicero’s De Re Publica (On the Republic) . In the dream, the great general of the Second Punic War, Scipio Africanus the Elder, comes to his adopted grandson to tell him, from the perspective of the afterlife, about the world, moral conduct, and right living. Medieval writers often mistakenly credited Macrobius with authoring The Dream of Scipio (Chaucer makes this mistake here, but not in his Parliament of Fowls). Macrobius’s commentary became a central source of medieval dream lore.
8 Daniel; Joseph: Figures associated with prophetic dream visions in the Bible. See Daniel 7 and Genesis 37 ff.
9 In principio, / Mulier est hominis confusio: In the beginning / Woman is the confusion of man. Chanticleer goes on to mistranslate the Latin (whether accidentally or on purpose is a matter for debate) in line 3166.
10 March: It was believed in the Middle Ages that God created the world at the vernal equinox.
11 Lancelot of the Lake: The romance of Lancelot and Guinevere, which ends up in disaster, and which, of course, the Nun’s Priest suggests, is fiction and thus not true at all.
12 Iscariot . . . Ganelon . . . Sinon: Betrayers of Christ, Roland and Charlemagne, and Troy, respectively.
13 all that God foreknows, thus it need be: In the lines that follow, the Nun’s Priest encapsulates the medieval debate, reaching back to the early Christian Church and Saint Augustine and Boethius, about the relationship between God’s foreknowledge, predestination, and humans’ free will. As with Pertelote and Chanticleer’s debate about the meaning of dreams, the Nun’s Priest presents the various aspects of the argument here without ever coming out on one side.
14 Augustine: Bishop of Hippo (fourth to fifth century) and, as one of the early Church Fathers, one of the most significant voices in the establishment of Christian theology.
15 Boethius: Early Christian philosopher from Rome, late fifth through early sixth century, author of The Consolation of Philosophy, a work he wrote when he was imprisoned in Pavia and that Chaucer translated; it influenced Chaucer’s ideas about free will, fortune, and predestination in its relationship to providence.
16 Bishop Bradwardine: A fourteenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury and participant in this debate about free will.
17 plain necessity: Cause and effect; God foresees and therefore the deed must come to pass.
18 necessity conditional: Conditional or inferential necessity. This is the compromise on this issue that Boethius reached and that characterizes Chaucer’s position throughout his writing. With conditional necessity, God has perfect foreknowledge, but that foreknowledge is not causal, leaving humans with free will.
19 Physiologus: Name of an anonymous second-century Greek book or author of a bestiary or group of stories about real and mythological animals that were given Christian allegorical meanings. The mermaids were interpreted as sirens in the Middle Ages.
20 Boethius: One of his other writings, along with the Consolation of Philosophy, was a textbook on musical theory.
21 Don Burnel the Ass: Also called Speculum Stultorum (Mirror of Fools), a satiric work written by the monk Nigel de Longchamps (late twelfth century) containing many stories in which members of the clergy are lampooned as donkeys wandering around trying to find ways to lengthen their tails.
22 losengeour: Liar or flatterer. In medieval courts, losengeour was virtually a technical or professional term for a whole class of sycophantic hangers-on who flattered those in power and lied about their competitors in order to advance their own interests.
23 Friday: The day dedicated to Venus, but also a day of bad luck in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Since Friday was Venus’s day, and since Venus, as the goddess of love, was notoriously changeable, Fridays were thought to be as changeable as lovers were under Venus’s influence.
24 Sir Geoffrey: Geoffrey of Vinsauf, in his thirteenth-century handbook of rhetoric, Poetria nova, provided as a rhetorical example a lament on the death of Richard I.
25 Ilion: Troy’s citadel.
26 Pyrrhus: Son of Achilles.
27 Priam: King of Troy at the time of the Trojan War.
28 Hasdrubal: King of Carthage in 146 B.C.E., at the time the Romans under Scipio destroyed it.
29 Jack Straw: This is one of Chaucer’s few references to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. Jack Straw was known as a leader of the revolt, which killed a number of immigrant Flemish cloth workers because they were seen as competition by the English.
30 stones: Testicles.
31 treading-fowl: A rooster, since treading was the term used for copulating among poultry.