The Portable Chaucer by Geoffrey Chaucer; Theodore Morrison

Author:Geoffrey Chaucer; Theodore Morrison [Chaucer, Geoffrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781101125953
Publisher: PENGUIN group
Published: 2009-09-16T22:00:00+00:00

[One of the manuscript fragments of The Canterbury Tales consists of the Second Nun’s Prologue and Tale (a life of St. Cecilia) and the Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue and Tale. “At Boughton under Blean forest,” as Chaucer relates, a man clothed in black above a white surplice overtook the pilgrims, his horse in such a lather it could hardly keep going. He was accompanied by a Yeoman, who, in conversation with the Host, began to hint more and more directly at the profession of his master, the Canon, who was obviously an alchemist. The Yeoman describes how they live among thieves in the alleys on the edge of a town, how they borrow money under pretense that they can make “two pounds out of one,” and how they always fail in their effort to produce gold by transmutation. The Canon draws near while the Yeoman is revealing his secrets, and tells him not to say a word more. The Host commands the Yeoman to keep right on speaking, and when the Canon sees that he cannot control the situation, he quickly rides away. The Yeoman then launches into his tale, which is a series of anecdotes exposing the cheats and sleights of a canon who practiced alchemy. (Not the Canon who has just ridden away, as the Yeoman keeps insisting!) The description of the canon’s tricks is in Chaucer’s best colloquial manner, and the tale is historically valuable; but it is full of alchemical jargon, and an attempt at a modern version would make thorny going.

Another manuscript fragment consists of the Physician’s Tale and the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale. Since Chaucer did not complete The Canterbury Tales and therefore did not give them any final arrangement, I have not hesitated to put the Pardoner’s Tale at a climactic point toward the end, although editors of Chaucer’s text would place it earlier. It is a folk tale, current throughout the world in various forms, and certainly one of Chaucer’s finest and best-told stories. Nothing in The Canterbury Tales, indeed, is better than Chaucer’s whole presentation of the Pardoner and his methods of preaching.

The Physician tells the story of the Roman “knight” Virginius, his beautiful and virtuous daughter Virginia, and the unjust magistrate Apius, who, in lust for the girl, plotted with a scoundrel named Claudius to trump up a claim that she was really the daughter of Claudius and had been stolen from the cradle. Apius rules in favor of Claudius before Virginius can state his case, and thus Virginia is apparently delivered into the magistrate’s power. Virginius confronts his daughter with the choice between death and shame, and after asking a little time to bewail her fate, she asks him to “smite softly with his sword,” and swoons. Virginius cuts off her head and sends it to the false judge. This tale deeply affects the Host, whose taste for tragedy the interrupted Monk’s Tale has already shown to be limited.]

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