Game Suspended on Account of DeathA tavern owner announces a challenge to tell
the finest story, “of best sentence and most solas,” as he puts it, whereupon seven-innings-worth of batters step up to the plate.
Generations have been able to judge the
results for themselves, but Chaucer himself didn’t live long enough to declare
a winner. In limbo, his characters wait.
It’s perhaps appropriate as one recurring theme is the loss of time.
Seneca and many a philosopher
It
is here in the Prologue where the tavern owner, Harry Bailly,
suggests his contest. “Then, by my father’s soul – for he is dead –/ If you don’t
find it fun, why here’s my head!” All agree, and with that, we kick off the
contest with one of the longest and best-regarded tales, that of the Knight.
It’s perhaps appropriate as one recurring theme is the loss of time.
Seneca and many a philosopher
Laments for time
lost more than golden treasure;
For, as he says,
lost wealth’s reparable,
But time, once
lost, is irrecoverable.
(Introduction
to “The Sergeant-at-Law’s Tale”)
In
reviewing The Canterbury Tales, I
went with the Oxford World’s Classics translation by David Wright, published in
1985 and a very digestible way to take in Chaucer’s work. It is not complete;
Wright leaves off translating two of the tales, “The Tale of Melibeus” and “The
Parson’s Tale,” for being both tedious and overlong. Another, “The Tale of
Gamelyn,” is left off without mention, perhaps for being of dubious origin. The
rest are presented here, line by line, if not in their original, Middle English
state.
Wright
maintains the original’s sense of meter, showcasing Chaucer’s deft wit and way
with language, even while simultaneously bringing that language to our level of
immediate comprehension. This is no small feat. When I encountered Chaucer in
high school and college, he was like spinach on the plate, something to be
forked through and Cliff-noted around while en route to other authors I could
understand on their terms. I can handle poesy, and I can handle archaic
writing. But not both.
So
that Wright dispenses with this is fine by me. I know there are true Chaucer
enthusiasts who would disdain encountering English literature’s first known
giant on anything less than his own terms. But at least for me, and I suspect
many others, this is really the only way to experience the entirety of Canterbury Tales. Maybe next time, but I’d
have no appetite for next time if I hadn’t taken the bunny trail here.
The
basic idea of The Canterbury Tales is
simple. We find ourselves in a tavern, the Tabard, where more than a score of
people have gathered from across the spectrum of what was English life in the
14th century. Among them is a knight, a nun, a miller, a clerk, a
squire, a widow, a reeve, a parson, a summoner, a franklin, a doctor, and many
others.
 |
| A modern representation of some of the tale swappers we meet in The Canterbury Tales, as envisioned by Eljiasan. From http://www.seattleoperablog.com/2016/08/count-ory-history-of-dirty-joke.html |
“The
Knight’s Tale” proves one of the most intimidating ways to begin a contest. Going
back to my favorite sport, it’s like the San Francisco Giants plating a
half-dozen in the top of the first and then handing the ball to Madison
Bumgarner.
The
tale involves two noble cousins, Palamon and Arcita (in other texts Arcite), lone
survivors of a battle which leaves them captive to the Duke of Athens. Locked
in a cell, the cousins in turn spot “the fair and radiant Emily,” the Duke’s
sister-in-law, and fight over which has the right to claim her. This turns them
into mortal enemies, which is not a good thing especially as they are stuck in
that cell. In time, each manages to get out, whereupon their rivalry continues.
Whoever painted it
Grudged not a
penny on the colors, but
Knew how to paint
the life, and knew his job.
“The
Knight’s Tale” is one of the longest in this collection, yet it flies by with
zest and ample good humor. While set in what was for its time the familiar category
of chivalric romance, the tale plays out in unorthodox ways, such as how the two
protagonists are placed in the deliberately nonsensical position of
arguing which jailbird has the right to long after pretty Emily from afar. The
story goes on a rambling yet engaging course as the two men each find their
freedom and pursue their common lodestar with the zeal of salmon swimming
upstream. It is involving, good fun, and delivered with a facility that belies
the ages.
The
same can be said of the next two tales in a different way. “The Miller’s Tale”
is the most famous of these, perhaps the most famous of all the Canterbury Tales. If nothing else, it
leaves an impression. In this tale, we learn of an old carpenter with a young
wife who puts up a horny scholar. The scholar soon makes his intentions to the
wife clear, in a passage perhaps more shocking now than ever given sexual
harassment laws. The two then set out to cuckold the carpenter, while
simultaneously having fun at the expense of another scholar who also desires
the wife.
While
clever and certainly bawdy enough, I find “The Miller’s Tale” overrated. It
takes a long time to get to the point.
Not
quite as raunchy, but every bit as funny and twisted, is “The Reeve’s Tale.”
Here two students again match wits, this time against a crafty, cheating miller
who finds ways of stealing their grain. The students, however, get their own
back after the miller puts them up, by getting it on with the miller’s wife and
daughter:
Soon enough, John
the student comes to life,
And lays on hard
with this good miller’s wife;
It’s years since
she had had so good a bout,
For he thrusts
like a madman, hard and deep.
And what a ball
they had, Alan and John,
Till the third
cock, that crows before the dawn.
Adding
to the low good humor of the story is the backstory, which is the back-and-forth
between the Reeve telling this story and the Miller who told the last one. As
the Reeve, an estate supervisor, was once a carpenter, he doesn’t appreciate
how the carpenter got mocked in “The Miller’s Tale.” Thus he takes pains to
mock the miller character in turn.
Chaucer’s
apparent plan of action, specified in the Prologue, was to keep going like this
until he had well over 100 tales, four provided by each pilgrim, from which a
winner would be decided. Needless to say, this didn’t happen. Chaucer was
already in his 40s when he started the Tales,
well past anyone’s sell-by date in an era that brought us the Black Plague.
The
quality of the remaining stories is not always up to the standard Chaucer set
for himself early on. There are times you sense him rushing. Some of the
stories present parables where Christian values rise triumphant, which while
heartwarming hardly satisfy. The tales of the Cook and Squire each break off abruptly,
a shame especially in the latter case as it seems to be off to a fine start.
Chaucer
himself jumps in as a character in his own work to tell not one but two
stories, “The Tale of Sir Topaz” and “The Tale of Melibeus,” both apparently
stylistic parodies whose humor is lost in translation. “By God, to put it in a
word,” an unusually put-out Harry Bailly exclaims, “your shithouse rhyming isn’t
worth a turd.” Thus Chaucer takes himself out of the running.
Of
the remaining tales, several are of high reputation, justly deserved. Among them, “The
Pardoner’s Tale” may stand tallest to modern eyes, a very short story about greed and
death which packs quite a punch. Every bit as magnetic as the tale is the
teller, an openly hypocritical cleric who uses his powers to “pardon” sinners
as a means of lining his pockets:
While I can preach
And earn good
money for the things I teach,
Am I to choose to
live in poverty?
It’s never crossed
my mind…
All
work in diverse ways, if often more in the direction of characterizing their tellers
than in presenting a tale. “The Wife Of Bath’s Tale” works best as an extension of the character telling the story, who in a lengthy prologue lays out a philosophy for marrying five successive husbands. Similarly, “The Prioress’s Tale” points up the persistence of anti-Semitism in a story that has people wondering still which side Chaucer was on. Then there are the tales of the Friar and the Summoner, piquant vignettes united by the same theme of false clergy which are played off each other in the form of digs by rival brothers of the cloth.
Some, specifically “The Manciple’s Tale” and “The Canon Assistant’s Tale,” present arrestingly detailed views of life as it was in the 1300s and little more. I think “The Second Nun’s Tale” was a filler piece meant to mock the overly pious, but whatever the case it was the weakest link.
Only a handful hold together anywhere close to the level of “The Knight’s Tale,” my choice for the Bailly sweepstakes. But what’s marvelous about the work as a whole, abruptly cut off as it is, and compromised by a few clams, is the way it presents a lively cross-section of medieval society, not only for what they tell us but how they interact with each other. It’s a kind of fiction that feels centuries ahead of its time, even as it puts you the reader right there with the quintessentially medieval Chaucer.
Some, specifically “The Manciple’s Tale” and “The Canon Assistant’s Tale,” present arrestingly detailed views of life as it was in the 1300s and little more. I think “The Second Nun’s Tale” was a filler piece meant to mock the overly pious, but whatever the case it was the weakest link.
Only a handful hold together anywhere close to the level of “The Knight’s Tale,” my choice for the Bailly sweepstakes. But what’s marvelous about the work as a whole, abruptly cut off as it is, and compromised by a few clams, is the way it presents a lively cross-section of medieval society, not only for what they tell us but how they interact with each other. It’s a kind of fiction that feels centuries ahead of its time, even as it puts you the reader right there with the quintessentially medieval Chaucer.
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