Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales: Miller’s Tale

1 Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales: miller 's Tale Shut your trap! the Reeve answered and said, Set aside your rude drunken ribaldry. It is a great folly and sin to injure or defame any man, and to bring woman into such bad reputation. You can say plenty about other matters. 3149. The miller 's Tale Geoffrey Chaucer This drunken miller answered back immediately and said, Oswald, dear brother, he is no cuckold who has no wife. But I do not say, therefore, that you are one. There are many good wives, and always a thousand Here follow the words good to one bad. That you know well yourself, if you between the Host and the miller . have not gone mad. Why are you angry now with my tale? I have a wife as well as you, by God, yet for all When the Knight had ended his tale, in the entire the oxen in my plough I would not presume to be crowd was there nobody, young or old, who did not able to judge myself if I may be a cuckold; I will say it was a noble history and worthy to be called to believe well I am not one.

2 A husband should not be mind; and especially each of the gentle people. Our too inquisitive about God's private matters, nor of his Host laughed and swore, So may I thrive, this goes wife's. He can find God's plenty there; he need not well! The bag is unbuckled, let see now who shall tell inquire about the remainder. 3166. another tale, for truly the sport has begun well. Now you, Sir Monk, if you can, tell something to repay the What more can I say, but this miller would withhold Knight's story with. 3119 his word for nobody, and told his churl's tale in his own fashion. I think that I shall retell it here. And The miller , who had drunk himself so completely therefore I beg every gentle creature, for the love of pale that he could scarcely sit on his horse, would not God, not to judge that I tell it thus out of evil intent, take off his hood or hat, or wait and mind his but only because I must truly repeat all their tales, manners for no one, but began to cry aloud in Pilate's whether they are better or worse, or else tell some of voice1, and swore by arms and blood and head, I my matter falsely.

3 And therefore whoever wishes not know a noble tale for the occasion, to repay the to hear it, let them turn the leaf over and choose Knight's story with. 3127 another tale; for they shall find plenty of historical matters, great and small, concerning noble deeds, and Our Host saw that he was all drunk with ale and said, morality and holiness as well. Do not blame me if Wait, Robin, dear brother, some better man shall you choose incorrectly. The miller is a churl, you speak first; wait, and let us work thriftily. 3131 know well, and so was the Reeve (and many others), and the two of them spoke of ribaldry. Think well, By God's soul! he said, I will not do that! I will and do not blame me, and people should not take a speak, or else go my way! 3133 game seriously as well. Tell on, in the Devil's name! answered our Host. Here ends the Prologue. You are a fool; your wits have been overcome.. 3135 Here begins the miller 's Tale.

4 Now listen, one and all! But first, said the miller , A while ago there dwelt at Oxford a rich churl I make a protestation that I am drunk; I know it by fellow, who took guests as boarders. He was a my voice. 3138 carpenter by trade. With him dwelt a poor scholar who had studied the liberal arts, but all his delight And therefore if I speak as I should not, blame it on was turned to learning astrology. He knew how to the ale of Southwark2, I pray you; for I will tell a work out certain problems; for instance, if men asked legend and a life of a carpenter and his wife, and how him at certain celestial hours when there should be a clerk made a fool of the carpenter. 3143 drought or rain, or what should happen in any matter;. I cannot count every one. 3198. 1. Pilate's voice. Pilate in the mystery or Corpus Christi This clerk was named gentle Nicholas. He was well plays of the Middle Ages apparently spoke in an skilled in secret love and consolation; and he was exaggerated fashion.

5 2. Southwark. Borough of London. also sly and secretive about it; and as meek as a 1. Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales: miller 's Tale maiden to look upon. He had a chamber to himself in plucked out to make them narrow. She was more that lodging-house, without any company, and delicious to look on than the young pear-tree in handsomely decked with sweet herbs; and he himself bloom, and softer than a lamb's wool. From her belt was as sweet as the root of licorice or any setwall3. hung a leather purse, tasseled with silk and with His Almagest4, and other books great and small, his beads of brass. 3251. astrolabe5, which he used in his art, and his counting- stones for calculating, all lay neatly by themselves on In all this world there is no man so wise who could shelves at the head of his bed. 3211 imagine such a wench9, or so lively a little doll. Her hue shone more brightly than the noble10 newly His clothes-press was covered with a red woolen forged in the Tower11.

6 And as for her singing, it was cloth, and above it was set a pleasant psaltery6, on as loud and lively as a swallow's sitting on a barn. which he made melody at night so sweetly that the And she could skip and make merry as any kid or calf entire chamber was full of it. He would sing the following its mother. Her mouth was sweet as hymn Angelus ad Virginem7, and after that the King's honeyed ale or mead, or a hoard of apples laid in the Note8. Often was his merry throat blessed. And so hay or heather. She was skittish as a jolly colt, tall as this sweet clerk passed his time by help of what a mast, and upright as a bolt. She wore a brooch on income he had and his friends provided. 3220 her low collar as broad as the embossed center of a shield, and her shoes were laced high on her legs. She This carpenter had newly wedded a wife, eighteen was a primrose, a pig's-eye12, for a lord to lie in his years of age, whom he loved more than his own soul.

7 Bed or even a yeoman to wed. 3270. He was jealous, and held her closely caged, for she was young, and he was much older and judged Now sir, and again sir, it so chanced that this gentle himself likely to be made a cuckold. 3226 Nicholas fell to play and romp with this young wife, as clerks are very artful and sly, on a day when her His wit was rude, and he didn't know Cato's husband was at Osney13. And secretly he caught hold teaching that instructed that men should wed their of her genitalia and said: Surely, unless you will equal. Men should wed according to their own station love me, sweetheart, I shall die for my secret love of in life, for youth and age are often at odds. But since you. And he held her hard by the thighs and said, he had fallen into the snare, he must endure his pain, Sweetheart, love me now, or I will die, may God like other people. 3232 save me! 3281. This young wife was fair, and her body moreover She sprang back like a colt in the halter, and was as graceful and slim as any weasel.

8 She wore a wriggled away with her head. I will not kiss you, in striped silken belt, and over her loins an apron white faith, she said. Why, let me be, let me be, Nicholas, as morning's milk, all flounced out. Her smock was or I will cry out, Alas! Help!' Take away your white and embroidered on the collar, inside and hands, by your courtesy! 3287. outside, in front and in back, with coal-black silk; and of the same black silk were the strings of her white But this Nicholas began to beg for her grace, and hood, and she wore a broad band of silk, wrapped spoke so fairly and made such offers that at last she high about her hair. 3243 granted him her love and swore by Saint Thomas of Kent that she would do his will when she should see And surely she had a lecherous eye; her eyebrows her chance. 3293. were arched and black as a sloe berry, and partly My husband is so jealous that unless you are 3 secretive and watch your time, I know very well I am Setwall.

9 A spice similar to ginger. 4 no better than dead. You must be very sly in this Almagest. Ptolemy's astrological treatise (second century, Alexandria). thing. 3297. 5. Astrolabe. Instrument for measuring the position of celestial bodies. It has been replaced by the sextant. Chaucer also wrote a Treatise on the Astrolabe explaining the use of the instrument. 6. Psaltery. A stringed instrument that was usually set on the 9. musician's lap. Wench. Woman of a lower class. 7 10. Angelus ad Virginem. A hymn to Blessed Mother, Mary, Noble. A coin worth six shillings, eight pence. 11. on the event of the Annunciation. Tower. The Tower of London, which housed the mint. 8 12. King's Note. Perhaps a reference to the medieval song Primrose, A pig's-eye, two small flowers. 13. King William's Note. Osney. Town near Oxford. 2. Geoffrey Chaucer - The Canterbury Tales: miller 's Tale No, have no fear about that, said Nicholas. A amorous and jolly, until he came to the carpenter's clerk has spent his time poorly if he can not beguile a house a little after the cocks had crowed, and pulled carpenter!

10 3300 himself up by a casement-window. 3360. Dear lady, if your will so be, And thus they were agreed and pledged to watch for I pray you that you pity me 3362. a time, as I have told. When Nicholas had done so, he sang in his sweet small voice, in nice harmony petted her well on her limbs, and kissed her sweetly, with his cittern. 3363. he took his psaltery and made melody and played fervently. 3306 This carpenter woke, heard his song and said without hesitation to his wife, What, Alison! Don't you hear Then it happened on a holy day that this wife went to Absalom chanting this way under our own bedroom- the parish church to work Christ's own works. Her wall? 3367. forehead shone as bright as day, since she had scrubbed it when she had finished her tasks. 3311 Yes, God knows, John, she answered him, I hear every bit of it. 3369. Now at that church there was a parish clerk named Absolom. His hair was curly and shone like gold, and Thus it went on; what would you have better than spread out like a large broad fan; its neat part ran well-enough?