1. This widwe, of which I telle yow my tale,
Sin thilke day that she was last a wyf,
In pacience ladde a ful simple lyf,
2. She fond hir-self, and eek hir doghtren two.
Three large sowes hadde she, and namo,
Three kyn, and eek a sheep that highte Malle.
3. Hir dyete was accordant to hir cote.
Repleccioun ne made hir never syk;
Attempree dyete was al hir phisyk,
4. Hir bord was served most with whyt and blak,
Milk and broun breed, in which she fond no lak,
Seynd bacoun, and somtyme an ey or tweye,
For she was as it were a maner deye.
The Prologue
After the Monk has told his tale, the Knight pleads that no more tragedies be told. He asks that someone tell a tale that is the opposite of tragedy, one that narrates the extreme good fortune of someone previously brought low. The Host picks the Nun’s Priest, the priest traveling with the Prioress and her nun, and demands that
he tell a tale that will gladden the hearts of the company members. The Nun’s Priest readily agrees, and begins his tale.
Summary
A very poor widow lives in a small cottage with her two daughters. Her main possession is a noble cock called Chaunticleer. This rooster is beautiful, and nowhere in the land is there a cock who can match him in crowing. He is the master, so he thinks, of seven lovely hens. The loveliest of these is the beautiful and gracious Lady Pertelote. She holds the heart of Chaunticleer and shares in all his glories and all his problems
One spring morning, Chaunticleer awakens from a terrible dream of a beast roaming in the yard trying to seize him. This beast's color and markings were much the same as a fox. Lady Pertelote cries out, "For shame . . . . Fie on you / heartless coward" ("Avoi(coward) . . . fy on you, herteless") and tells him that being afraid of dreams is cowardly and that, by showing such fear, he has lost her love. She tells him he dreamed because he ate too much and that it is well known that dreams have no meaning; he simply needs a laxative. Chaunticleer graciously thanks Lady Pertelote, but he quotes authorities who maintain that dreams have a very definite meaning and insists that he does not need a laxative.
Later, Chaunticleer catches sight of a fox named Don Russel, who is hiding near the farmyard. Chaunticleer begins to run, but the fox gently calls out that he only came to hear Chaunticleer's beautiful voice. Hearing this, the vain cock shuts his eyes and bursts into song. At that moment, the fox races to the cock, grasps him about the neck, and makes off with him. The hens in the barnyard make such a terrible commotion that they arouse the entire household. Soon the widow, her two daughters, the dogs, hens,geese, ducks, and even the bees, are chasing the fox.
Chaunticleer suggests to the fox to turn around and shout insults at his pursuers. The fox, thinking Chaunticleer's idea a good one, opens his mouth, and Chaunticleer nimbly escapes to a treetop. The fox tries once again to lure Chaunticleer down by compliments and flattery, but the rooster has learned his lesson.
At the conclusion of the tale, the Host praises the Nun's Priest. Observing the Priest's magnificent physique, he comments that, if the Priest were secular, his manhood would require not just seven hens, but seventeen. He thanks "Sir Priest" for the fine tale and turns to another for the next tale.
The Tale of the Nun’s Priest
A poor, elderly widow lives a simple life in a cottage with her two daughters. Her few possessions include three sows, three cows, a sheep, and some chickens. One chicken, her rooster, is named Chanticleer, which in French means “sings clearly.” True to his name, Chanticleer’s “cock-a-doodle-doo” makes him the master of all roosters. He crows the hour more accurately than any church clock.
His crest is redder than fine coral, his beak is black as jet, his nails whiter than lilies, and his feathers shine like burnished gold. Understandably, such an attractive cock would have to be the Don Juan of the barnyard. Chanticleer has many hen-wives, but he loves most truly a hen named Pertelote. She is as lovely as Chanticleer is magnificent.
As Chanticleer, Pertelote, and all of Chanticleer’s ancillary hen-wives are roosting one night, Chanticleer has a terrible nightmare about an orange houndlike beast who threatens to kill him while he is in the yard. Fearless Pertelote berates him for letting a dream get the better of him. She believes the dream to be the result of some physical malady, and she promises him that she will find some purgative herbs. She urges him once more not to dread something as fleeting and illusory as a dream. In order to convince her that his dream was important, he tells the stories of men who dreamed of murder and then discovered it. His point in telling these stories is to prove to Pertelote that “Mordre will out”—murder will reveal itself—even and especially in dreams. Chanticleer cites textual examples of famous dream interpretations to further support his thesis that dreams are portentous. He then praises Pertelote’s beauty and grace, and the aroused hero and heroine make love in barnyard fashion: “He fethered Pertelote twenty tyme, / And trad hire eke as ofte, er it was pryme [he clasped Pertelote with his wings twenty times, and copulated with her as often, before it was 6 A . M . ”.
One day in May, Chanticleer has just declared his perfect happiness when a wave of sadness passes over him. That very night, a hungry fox stalks Chanticleer and his wives, watching their every move. The next day, Chanticleer notices the fox while watching a butterfly, and the fox confronts him with dissimulating courtesy, telling the rooster not to be afraid. Chanticleer relishes the fox’s flattery of his singing. He beats his wings with pride, stands on his toes, stretches his neck, closes his eyes, and crows loudly. The fox reaches out and grabs Chanticleer by the throat, and then slinks away with him back toward the woods. No one is around to witness what has happened. Once Pertelote finds out what has happened, she burns her feathers with grief, and a great wail arises from the henhouse. The widow and her daughters hear the screeching and spy the fox running away with the rooster. The dogs follow, and pretty soon the whole barnyard joins in the hullabaloo. Chanticleer very cleverly suggests that the fox turn and boast to his pursuers. The fox opens his mouth to do so, and Chanticleer flies out of the fox’s mouth and into a high tree. The fox tries to flatter the bird into coming down, but Chanticleer has learned his lesson. He tells the fox that flattery will work for him no more. The moral of the story, concludes the Nun’s Priest, is never to trust a flatterer.
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