The Canterbury Tales | The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
A WIDOW poor, somewhat advanced in age,Lived, on a time, within a small cottage
Beside a grove and standing down a dale.
This widow, now, of whom I tell my tale,
Since that same day when she’d been last a wife,(5)
Had led, with patience, her straight simple life,
For she’d small goods and little income-rent;
By husbanding of such as God had sent
She kept herself and her young daughters twain.
Three large sows had she, and no more, ’tis pain,(10)
Three cows and a lone sheep that she called Moll.
Right sooty was her bedroom and her hall,
Wherein she’d eaten many a slender meal.
Of sharp sauce, why she needed no great deal,
For dainty morsel never passed her throat;(15)
Her diet well accorded with her cote.
Repletion never made this woman sick;
And no wine drank she,—either white or red;
Her board was mostly garnished, white and black,
With milk and brown bread, whereof she’d no lack,(20)
Broiled bacon and sometimes an egg or two,
For a small dairy business did she do.
A yard she had, enclosed all roundabout
With pales, and there was a dry ditch without,
And in the yard a cock called Chanticleer.(25)
In all the land, for crowing, he’d no peer.
His voice was merrier than the organ gay
On Mass days, which in church begins to play;
More regular was his crowing in his lodge
Than is a clock or abbey horologe.(30)
And when fifteen degrees had been ascended,
Then crew he so it might not be amended.
His comb was redder than a fine coral.
And battlemented like a castle wall.
His bill was black and just like jet it shone;(35)
This noble cock had in his governance
Seven hens to give him pride and all pleasance,
Which were his sisters and his paramours
And wondrously like him as to colours,
Whereof the fairest hued upon her throat(40)
Was called the winsome Mistress Pertelote.
Courteous she was, discreet and debonnaire,
Companionable, and she had been so fair
That truly she had taken the heart to hold
Of Chanticleer, locked in every limb;(45)
He loved her so that all was well with him.
But such a joy it was to hear them sing,
Whenever the bright sun began to spring,
In sweet accord, “My love walks through the land.”
So it befell that, in a bright dawning,(50)
As Chanticleer ’midst wives and sisters all
Sat on his perch, the which was in the hall,
And next him sat the winsome Pertelote,
This Chanticleer he groaned within his throat
Like man that in his dreams is troubled sore.(55)
And when fair Pertelote thus heard him roar,
She was aghast and said: “O sweetheart dear,
What ails you that you groan so? Do you hear?
You are a sleepy herald. Fie, for shame!”
And he replied to her thus: “Ah, madame,(60)
I pray you that you take it not in grief,
By God. I dreamed I’d come to such mischief,
Just now, my heart yet jumps with sore affright.
I dreamed, that while I wandered up and down
Within our yard, I saw there a strange beast(65)
Was like a dog, and he’d have made a feast
Upon my body, and have had me dead.
His snout was small and gleaming was each eye.
Remembering how he looked, almost I die;
And all this caused my groaning, I confess.”(70)
“Aha,” said she, “fie on you, spiritless!
Alas!” cried she, “for by that God above,
Now have you lost my heart and all my love;
I cannot love a coward, by my faith.
For truly, whatsoever woman saith,(75)
We all desire, if only it may be,
To have a husband hardy, wise, and free.
How dare you say, for shame, unto your love
That there is anything that you have feared?
Have you not man’s heart, and yet have a beard?(80)
Alas! And are you frightened by a vision?
Dreams are, God knows, a matter for derision.
Visions are generated by repletions
And vapours and the body’s bad secretions.”
“Lo, Cato, and he was a full wise man,(85)
Said he not, we should trouble not for dreams?
Now, sir,” said she, “when we fly from the beams,
For God’s love go and take some laxative;
On peril of my soul, and as I live,
I counsel you the best, I will not lie.(90)
Be merry, husband, for your father’s kin!
Dread no more dreams. And I can say no more.”
“Madam,” said he, “gramercy for your lore.
Nevertheless, not running Cato down,
Who had for wisdom such a high renown,(95)
And though he says to hold no dreams in dread,
By God, men have, in many old books, read
Of many a man more an authority
Who say just the reverse of his sentence,
And have found out by long experience(100)
That dreams, indeed, are good significations,
As much of joys as of all tribulations
That folk endure here in this life present.
There is no need to make an argument;
The very proof of this is shown indeed.”(105)
“One of the greatest authors that men read
Says thus: That on a time two comrades went
On pilgrimage, and all in good intent;
And it so chanced they came into a town
Where there was such a crowding, up and down(110)
Of people, and so little harbourage,
That they found not so much as one cottage
Wherein the two of them might sheltered be.
Wherefore they must, as of necessity,
For that one night at least, part company;(115)
And each went to a different hostelry
And took such lodgment as to him did fall.
Now one of them was lodged within a stall,
Far in a yard, with oxen of the plow;
That other man found shelter fair enow,(120)
As was his luck, or was his good fortune,
Whatever ’tis that governs us, each one.”
“So it befell that, long ere it was day,
This last man dreamed in bed, as there he lay,
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