The Canterbury Tales General Prologue, by Geoffrey Chaucer (Part IV)

(Part I | Part II | Part III)

Here is the final part of my posts on 'The General Prologue'! I never thought it would take quite so long, I was thinking a very brief 'look over' would take an hour and a post, not four whole posts! This one, however, ought to be quite brief now I've gone through the "nyne and twenty", and now I'm going to just look at the last part: how they came to tell their tales. It's fairly short, around 150 lines and the whole chapter is about 855-860 lines depending on the edition. 

Southwark today.

Chaucer reminds us first of the location: they have all gathered in the Tabard Inn in Southwark, and then he goes on with this disclaimer, which I love:

But first I pray yow, of youre curteisye,
That ye n'arette it nat my vileynye,
Thogh that I pleynly speke in this mateere,
To telle yow hir wordes and hir cheere,
Ne thogh I speke hir wordes proprely.
For this ye knowen also wel as I,
Whoso shal telle a tale after a man,
He moot reherce as ny as evere he kan
Everich a word, if it be in his charge,
Al speke he never so rudeliche or large,
Or ellis he moot telle his tale untrewe,
Or feyne thyng, or fynde wordes newe.
He may nat spare, al thogh he were his brother;
He moot as wel seye o word as another.
Crist spak hymself ful brode in hooly writ,
And, wel ye woot, no vileynye is it.
Eek Plato seith, whoso kan hym rede,
The wordes moote be cosyn to the dede.
Also I prey yow to foryeve it me,
Al have I nat set folk in hir degree
Heere in this tale, as that they sholde stonde.
My wit is short, ye may wel understonde.

One thing I must say: by this point in the Prologue, I feel I understand the language so much more now that I didn't have too many problems understanding this, and I imagine most people will have the same experience, and so I do feel super-patronising in translating it. But, maybe some people reading this haven't read my other posts, so I'll say in brief: Chaucer is simply saying that he is repeating each of the character's prologue and tale to the best of his memory without omitting anything: it is, he says, the responsibility of a story teller to do so - "Whoso shal telle a tale after a man, / He moot reherce as ny as evere he kan / Everich a word, if it be in his charge, / Al speke he never so rudeliche or large, / Or ellis he moot telle his take untrewe..."

He moves on to the Host, "a myrie man", who has a proposal: this is the key point of The Canterbury Tales: in order to make their difficult journey ahead more interesting, whoever is judged to tell the best tale will receive a supper paid for by the others:

For trewely, confort ne myrthe is noon
To ride by the weye doumb as stoon;
...
This is the poynt, to speken short and pleyn,
That ech of yow, to shorte with oure weye,
In this viage shal telle tales tweye
To Caunterbury-ward I mene it so,
And homward he shal tellen othere two,
Of aventures that whilom han bifalle.
And which of yow that bereth hym best of alle,
That is to seyn, that telleth in this caas
Tales of best sentence and moost solaas,
Shal have a soper at oure aller cost
Heere in this place, sittynge by this post,
Whan that we come agayn fro Caunterbury.

The pilgrims are invited to tell two tales on the way, and two tales on the way back (the lack of four tales per pilgrim suggests The Canterbury Tales is unfinished, I believe). And, of course, they all agree!

The Prologue closes with the morning after, when the host reminds them of what they agreed., and they draw straws to decide who will begin. Everyone is delighted that The Knight will be the first to begin: "The sothe is this, the cut fil to the Knyght, / Of which ful blithe and glad was every wyght." They go on their way as The Knight says,

... "Syn I shal bigynne the game,
What, welcome be the cut, a Goddes name!
Now lat us ryde, and herkneth what I seye."
And with that word we ryden forth oure weye,
And he bigan with right a myrie cheere
His tale anon, and seyde as ye may heere.

And those are the final words of 'The General Prologue'!

Next up, obviously, is 'The Knight's Tale': a four parter, almost four times the length of 'The General Prologue'! I am a little daunted... it would be good for me to write a little on each part of Tales, however I don't think I could commit to writing so much as I have done! I think (I hope) this has been the most important, as I've been introduced to each character and I feel I know them a little better now.

So then, onwards!