The Prologue to the Tale of Beryn begins upon the pilgrims’ arrival in Canterbury, where they lodge at the inn, “The Checker of the Hoop.” (1–12). While the company is dining at the inn, the Pardoner, disgusted with how the meal is served according to social hierarchy, leaves the fellowship to instead speak with the barmaid, Kit (13–22). After giving the barmaid his staff, Kit shows the Pardoner where she sleeps, “al naked,” complaining that she has no lover because hers has died (23–39). The Pardoner tells Kit not to stay loyal to her dead lover (40–59). Feigning flirtation, Kit attempts to make the Pardoner break his fast from alcoholic beverages (a customary practice for pilgrims before reaching a shrine). The Pardoner gives Kit money, calling her his treasurer, but refuses to break his fast (60–98). Kit describes a contrived dream to the Pardoner, who says it foretells her future marriage to a loving husband. He then leaves her, promising to return soon (99–118). Through an interjection by the narrator we learn that both Kit and the Pardoner are aware of each other's ulterior motives, but each is confident that he or she can outsmart the other (119–129).
Later, the company visits the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, where a monk of Canterbury sprinkles their heads with holy water. Within the cathedral, the Pardoner, the Miller, and other members argue about what scenes are depicted on the stained glass windows. Harry Bailly, the Host, scolds them for their bickering and they all pray to St. Thomas, then buy souvenirs of the pilgrimage, except for the Miller and the Pardoner, who steal their souvenirs (145–174). The Summoner asks for half of what they have stolen, but the Miller is worried that the Friar will find out what they are doing and plots the ways in which he will "quyte" (repay) him on the return journey (175–190). The company then breaks their fast by indulging in drink while the Host congratulates them on a successful first half of the tale-telling competition. The Host suggests that they spend the day in pleasure, but to rise early the next morning for the return journey to Southwark (191–230). Following the Host's suggestion, the fellowship breaks into smaller groups: the Knight, the love-sick Squire and the Yeoman survey the town's defences; the Clerk advises the Summoner not to be offended by the tale the Friar has already told; the Monk, the Parson, and the Friar have drinks with an old friend of the Monk's; the Wife of Bath and the Prioress drink wine and talk in a garden; the Merchant, the Manciple, the Miller, the Reeve, and the Clerk go into the town (231–297).
The Pardoner stays behind at the inn with the intention of sleeping with Kit. The narrator assures the reader that the Pardoner would be better off sleeping in a bog than with the barmaid. That night, the Pardoner goes to Kit's room where she feigns sleep. The Pardoner apologises for frightening Kit, who tells him to return after everyone is asleep. The Pardoner leaves, falsely assured that he will bed Kit (298–378).
That night the Pardoner again notes how the Host serves the Knight and the prelates before the lower ranking members. After the meal, the Miller and the Cook continue drinking, and at the suggestion of the Pardoner, sing loudly, inciting reprimand from The Summoner, the Yeoman, the Manciple and the Reeve. At the request of the Host and the Merchant, they all sleep, except for the Pardoner (388–425). Meanwhile, Kit, her paramour, and the innkeeper have been dining on goose and wine bought with the Pardoner's money. Kit explains how she has tricked the Pardoner and her paramour promises to beat the Pardoner with his own staff. (426–466).
Upon entering Kit's room, the Pardoner angrily finds Kit in bed with her paramour. The paramour attacks the Pardoner, yelling to the innkeeper that there is a thief in his inn. The Pardoner, armed with pan and ladle, hits the paramour on the nose, (which, as the narrator tells us, causes the man to experience chronic nasal problems for a week after the encounter). With the kitchen pan, the Pardoner injures the innkeeper's shin (which later becomes infected). Kit is the only one to escape unscathed. The paramour and the innkeeper, unable to find the Pardoner, decide to resume their search in the morning. Although the Pardoner is physically injured, the greatest wounds are to his pride. As the Pardoner attempts to return his room, he is attacked by a guard dog, which causes him to spend the night in the dog's litter (while the dog takes his bed), immobile for fear, regretting his attempt to bed with Kit (467–655). The next morning, the Pardoner hides his injuries and leaves with the rest of the company, who continue their game with the second tale of the Merchant, the Tale of Beryn (656–732).
The Tale of Beryn
The Tale of Beryn is the first tale told on the journey back to the Tabard Inn in Southwark. Told by the Merchant, it is a long tale of 3,290 lines. Its portrayal of merchants in a positive (or at least neutral) light make it peculiar in the Middle Ages.[1] Beryn is the son of Faunus and Agea, a wealthy couple in Rome. Beryn's parents do not discipline him as a child, but instead allow him to gamble as much as he desires. Beryn frequently gambles away all of his possessions, including the shirt on his back. When Agea dies, Faunus swears to never marry again, but after three years of living without a wife, the Emperor of Rome changes Faunus' mind. Now eighteen, Beryn has continued to gamble, but his new stepmother Rame disapproves of the lack of discipline with which Agea and Faunus have raised Beryn. Rame makes Faunus talk to Beryn about correcting his gambling habit. Full of foolish pride, Beryn fights with his father. Beryn then visits his mother's grave, where his father finds him to offer him knighthood. Beryn rejects the offer preferring instead to leave Rome in attempt to find his fortune in Egypt. Before arriving, his ship is blown off course to an unknown land. In this land, all law is decided via lawsuits and a clever lie is more valuable than truth. Here Beryn decides to gamble on a game of chess, resulting in a complete loss of his possessions. Beryn is then falsely accused of being someone else, stealing a blind man's eyes, and impregnating someone's daughter. He is then sued by his accusers, but since the truth is not a legitimate defence in the land's court, Beryn's accusers seem to be undefeatable. That is until a jester named Geoffrey comes to Beryn's aid by telling better lies about the prosecution, than those told about Beryn. Due to Geoffrey's clever lies, the court rules in Beryn's favour and his gambled possessions are returned.
The text
The Northumberland MS 455 (fols. 180a-235a), dated c. 1450–70 is the only manuscript containing the Canterbury Interlude and The Tale of Beryn. The Canterbury Interlude and the Tale of Beryn were published along with the other tales in John Urry’s 1721 edition of The Canterbury Tales. Because it is the only manuscript containing these tales, it is difficult to judge what is scribal error and what is the original text. For this reason, modern scholars must analyse the text of The Canterbury Interlude and The Tale of Beryn against other tales copied by the same scribe in the same manuscript (specifically The Canon's Yeoman's Tale and The Summoner's Tale) to ascertain scribal anomalies.
Sources
The Tale of Beryn is an adaptation of the French Romance Berinus, written in the mid-fourteenth century. In Berinus, the protagonist is the gambling degenerate of The Tale of Beryn. In earlier versions of the tale, this is not the case.[2]Berinus itself derives from the Seven Sages of Rome. The Seven Sages of Rome is adapted from the Indian work, the Book of Sindibad, composed in Sanskrit as early as 500 BC. The Book of Sindibad is quite similar to the Tale of Beryn; it features a young merchant whose father – also a merchant – has just died. Despite the prior warning of his father, the young merchant travels to the Himalayan region. Upon his arrival he is accused of killing a man's father, and two other claimants demand money from him; one claims that the merchant's father bought his eye, and the other claims that she is owed child support. They all go to court, but the prince of the region, who was friends with the merchant's father, instructs the young merchant how to trick the people out of their lawsuits. The Arabian version of the tale, "The Merchant and the Rogues," has less in common with the Tale of Beryn, and although it may not actually be one of the tale's sources, it does concern a corrupt ruler who tries to trick strangers in his land with riddles. The stranger in the tale, with the help of an old woman, solves the king's riddles. Unlike the Tale of Beryn, the protagonist is “an idealized model student,” not a gambler.[3]
Representative critical analyses
In the article, “From Southwark's Tabard Inn to Canterbury's Cheker-Of-the Hope: the Un-Chaucerian Tale of Beryn,” Jean E. Jost postulates that the courtly love tradition as seen in The Canterbury Tales is absent in “The Tale of Beryn.” To demonstrate this claim, Jost's essay examines the courtly tradition, the prologue, the tale itself, including the characters, and also the tale's “poetic proficiency” as a way of demonstrating the differences between the original The Canterbury Tales and un-Chaucerian poet's “Tale of Beryn” (133). Jost argues that the tale lacks the sophisticated rhythm and rhyme scheme of Chaucer's tales, and instead is full of repetitious and uninspired language.[4]
Stephen Harper, in an article entitled “’Pleying with a ȝerd’: Folly and Madness in the Prologue and Tale of Beryn,” suggesting that folly is a central theme within the work of the unknown “Beryn-writer.” Harper's work considers various representations of fools in both tale and Prologue, not only examining the literary value of fool imagery, but using that imagery to evidence the artistic prowess of the Beryn poet. In addition to examining the fool imagery present in both the Prologue and tale, Harper also briefly discusses madness as a mechanism for moral reversal.[5]
In “Journey's End: The Prologue to the Tale of Beryn,” Peter Brown examines the probable origins of The Tale of Beryn – spending most of his efforts on discerning its author. He, like most critics, dismisses the possibility of the text being penned by Chaucer. Brown writes that the author is probably a monk from either Canterbury or one of the other nearby “monastic institutions” – a conclusion reasoned by the author's treatment of monks and his knowledge of pilgrims' practices. The Tale of Beyrn is said to be one of the great examples of English fabliaux with a descriptive realism that “reveals as much about medieval Canterbury as The Miller’s Tale does about Oxford” or the Reeve's does about Cambridge. Brown claims the author is one of the earliest examples of an English author feeling the “anxiety of influence,” in that the author feels a “sense of being indebted to, yet needing to escape from, the work of the earlier English writer” (165).[6]
Frederick B. Jonassen in his article “Cathedral, Inn and Pardoner in the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn” presents a critique of the Canterbury Interlude which focuses on its relation both to The Canterbury Tales as a whole and to The Pardoner's Tale specifically. Jonassen begins by positing that the Pardoner's encounter with Kitt is a fabliau which closely models the Miller's Tale. Jonassen then draws parallels relating the relationships between the Pardoner and Kitt, and between the characters of other Chaucer tales. Jonassen argument finds the greatest strength of the Beryn author stemming from his Chaucerian-like juxtaposition of 'solaas' and 'sentence' throughout the tales, as well as his emphasis on the dichotomy between the high and the low. Jonassen argues that the main difference in the Beryn author's "Interlude" and Chaucer's tales rests in its harmless presentation of the Pardoner. The Beryn author makes the tale a light fabliau rather than a tale detailing sin to “emphasize the foolishness of the Pardoner to the exclusion of the sinister moral threat of misleading the pilgrims he poses.”[7]
Critical editions
Bowers, John M., ed. (1992). The Canterbury Tales: Fifteenth-Century Continuations and Additions. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications.
Tamanini, Mary E. Mulqueen, ed. (1969). The Tale of Beryn: an Edition with Introduction, Notes, and Glossary. New York: New York University Press.
Furnivall, F. J. and W. G. Stone, eds. (1909). The Tale of Beryn with A Prologue of the Merry Adventure of the Pardoner with a Tapster at Canterbury. Oxford, UK: Early English Text Society.
Related Research Articles
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's magnum opus. The tales are presented as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.
Geoffrey Chaucer was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for The Canterbury Tales. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He was the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. Chaucer also gained fame as a philosopher and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliament.
"The Miller's Tale" is the second of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1380s–1390s), told by the drunken miller Robin to "quite" "The Knight's Tale". The Miller's Prologue is the first "quite" that occurs in the tales.
"The Wife of Bath's Tale" is among the best-known of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. It provides insight into the role of women in the Late Middle Ages and was probably of interest to Chaucer himself, for the character is one of his most developed ones, with her Prologue twice as long as her Tale. He also goes so far as to describe two sets of clothing for her in his General Prologue. She holds her own among the bickering pilgrims, and evidence in the manuscripts suggests that although she was first assigned a different, plainer tale—perhaps the one told by the Shipman—she received her present tale as her significance increased. She calls herself both Alyson and Alys in the prologue, but to confuse matters these are also the names of her 'gossib', whom she mentions several times, as well as many female characters throughout The Canterbury Tales.
"The Cook's Tale" is one of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It breaks off after 58 lines and was presumably never finished, although some scholars argue that Chaucer deliberately left the tale unfinished. The story starts telling of an apprentice named Perkyn who is fond of drinking and dancing. Perkyn is released by his master and moves in with a friend who also loves to drink, and whose wife is a shopkeeper whose real occupation is that of a prostitute.
"The Reeve's Tale" is the third story told in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. The reeve, named Oswald in the text, is the manager of a large estate who reaped incredible profits for his master and himself. He is described in the Tales as skinny and bad-tempered and old; his hair is closely cropped reflecting his social status as a serf. His sword is rusty while he rides a fine gray horse called Scot. The Reeve is a skilled carpenter, a profession mocked in the previous "Miller's Tale". Oswald responds with a tale that mocks the Miller's profession.
"The Pardoner's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. In the order of the Tales, it comes after The Physician's Tale and before The Shipman's Tale; it is prompted by the Host's desire to hear something positive after the physician's depressing tale. The Pardoner initiates his Prologue—briefly accounting his methods of swindling people—and then proceeds to tell a moral tale.
The Ellesmere Chaucer, or Ellesmere Manuscript of the Canterbury Tales, is an early 15th-century illuminated manuscript of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, owned by the Huntington Library, in San Marino, California. It is considered one of the most significant copies of the Tales.
"The Nun's Priest's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by the Middle English poet Geoffrey Chaucer. Composed in the 1390s, it is a beast fable and mock epic based on an incident in the Reynard cycle. The story of Chanticleer and the Fox became further popularised in Britain through this means.
"The Man of Law's Tale" is the fifth of the Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, written around 1387. John Gower's "Tale of Constance" in Confessio Amantis tells the same story and may have been a source for Chaucer. Nicholas Trivet's Les chronicles was a source for both authors.
The General Prologue is the first part of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It introduces the frame story, in which a group of pilgrims travelling to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury agree to take part in a storytelling competition, and describes the pilgrims themselves.
"The Prioress's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
The Canterbury Tales is a 1972 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini based on the medieval narrative poem by Geoffrey Chaucer. The second film in Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life", preceded by The Decameron and followed by Arabian Nights, it won the Golden Bear at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival.
There are two pseudo-Chaucerian texts called "The Plowman's Tale".
Chaucer's influence on 15th-century Scottish literature began towards the beginning of the century with King James I of Scotland. This first phase of Scottish "Chaucerianism" was followed by a second phase, comprising the works of Robert Henryson, William Dunbar, and Gavin Douglas. At this point, England has recognised Scotland as an independent state following the end of the Wars of Scottish Independence in 1357. Because of Scottish history and the English’s recent involvement in that history, all of these writers are familiar with the works of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Trinity Tales is a 1975 British television series, consisting of six 50-minute programmes, written by Alan Plater and shown on BBC2. It was loosely based on Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, updated to a modern setting.
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories, mostly in verse, written by Geoffrey Chaucer chiefly from 1387 to 1400. They are held together in a frame story of a pilgrimage on which each member of the group is to tell two tales on the way to Canterbury, and two on the way back. Fewer than a quarter of the projected tales were completed before Chaucer's death. It is uncertain in what order Chaucer intended the tales to appear; moreover it is very possible that, as a work-in-progress, no final authorial order of tales ever existed.
The Squire is a fictional character in the framing narrative of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. He is squire to the Knight and is the narrator of The Squire's Tale or Cambuscan. The Squire is one of the secular pilgrims, of the military group. The Knight and the Squire are the pilgrims with the highest social status. However his tale, interrupted as it is, is paired with that of the Franklin. The Squire is a candidate for the interrupter of The Host in the epilogue of the Man of Law's Tale.
Tabard Gardens is a small park in Southwark, London. It is located on Tabard Street and gives its name to the surrounding Tabard Gardens Estate. The park was created as part of a slum clearance programme by the London County Council and opened in 1929. It is owned and managed by Southwark Council.
The Host is a character who plays a key role in and throughout Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. He is the owner of the Tabard Inn in London, where the pilgrimage begins and he agrees to travel on the pilgrimage, and promises to judge both the tales the pilgrims tell, and disputes among the pilgrims. He discusses his marriage to his absent wife, Goodelief, when commenting on The Tale of Melibee with its message of patience. The Host says Goodelief is herself extremely impatient and speedy in urging him to violent revenge. Her name Goodelief may be a real name or just meaning, perhaps ironically, good dear one.
References
↑ Ladd, Roger A. (2010). Antimercantilism in Late Medieval English Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.101–132. ISBN978-0-230-62043-8.
↑ Jost, Jean E. (1994). "From Southwark's Tabard Inn to Canterbury's Cheker-of-the-Hope: The Un-Chaucerian Tale of Beryn". Fifteenth-Century Studies. 21: 133–48.
↑ Harper, Stephen (Summer 2004). "'Pleyng with a Ʒerd': Folly and Madness in the Prologue and Tale of Beryn". Studies in Philology. 101 (3): 299–314. doi:10.1353/sip.2004.0013. S2CID162293922.
↑ Brown, Peter (1991). "Journey's End: The Prologue to The Tale of Beryn". In Julia Bofey; Janet Cowen (eds.). Chaucer and Fifteenth-Century Poetry. London, UK: King's College.
↑ Jonnassen, Frederick B. (1991). "Cathedral, Inn, and Pardoner in the Prologue to the Tale of Beryn". Fifteenth-Century Studies. 18: 109–32.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
