"The Shipman's Tale" (also called The Sailor's Tale) is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
It is in the form of a fabliau and tells the story of a merchant, his wife and her lover, a monk. [1] Although similar stories can be found in Boccaccio's Decameron , a frequent source for Chaucer's tales, the story is a retelling of a common type of folktale called "the lover's gift regained". [2]
The tale tells of a merchant whose wife enjoys revelry and socializing, on which she spends money. A young monk, who is close friends with the merchant, comes to stay with them. After confessing that she does not love her husband, the wife asks the monk for one hundred franks to pay her debts. The monk, without her knowledge, borrows the money from the merchant to give to the wife, at which point she agrees with the monk:
The monk volunteers the information that he has returned the loan to the wife a few days after he had borrowed it, and then leaves town. When the merchant asks his wife about the money, she says it has been spent on clothing and blames the monk saying that she thought the money was in payment for him being such a long house guest. Instead of giving her husband the money back she says she will repay the debt in bed. As the wife is tallying her debt in bed the story ends on a bawdy pun that all should "tally" the rest of their lives.
Apart from a criticism of the clergy, a common theme of Chaucer's, the tale also connects money, business and sex. Similar tales often end with both the wife and husband being conned, but the addition of the wife, in turn, conning her husband seems to be Chaucer's own embellishment.
The use of the pronouns "us" and "we" when talking from a woman's perspective, along with the wife's success at the end of the tale, has led scholars to suggest that the tale was originally written for the Wife of Bath but as that character developed she was given a more fitting story and the Shipman took on this tale. [4] In the line "he moot us clothe, and he moot us array," (line 12) and others, "us" and "we" are used, in a way that could be interpreted as a married woman speaking for other wives. It is also possible The Shipman may simply be imitating a female voice, but the epilogue of "The Man of Law's Tale" in some manuscripts suggests it should be followed by the Shipman's tale rather than the Wife of Bath, whose tale usually follows. [5] The changes give some insight into Chaucer's development of the tales and the connections between them.
It is likely that the career in the late-14th century of Dartmouth-based privateer John Hawley provided Chaucer with the historical basis for his character. [6]
In the BBC1 adaptation of "The Shipman's Tale" (renamed "The Sea Captain's Tale"), setting is changed to modern England and the protagonists are an Indian family. The monk's role is played by the merchant's business partner, who has come from India to set up a shop in England. The wife, beset by money problems, sleeps with this man, who learns of her previous affairs through the merchant. The business partner breaks up with the wife, and she, feeling jilted, smashes his shop. The merchant subsequently sends the other man back to India with a warning, and at the end he reaches across the bed to touch his wife's hand, a hint of possible reconciliation.
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.
"The Knight's Tale" is the first tale from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.
"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.
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The central episode of the Merchant's Tale is like a fabliau, though of a very unusual sort: It is cast in the high style, and some of the scenes are among Chaucer's most elaborate displays of rhetorical art.
"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 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 Prologue is arguably the most familiar section of The Canterbury Tales, depicting traffic between places, languages and cultures as well as introducing and describing the pilgrims who will narrate the tales.
"The Manciple's Tale" is part of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It tends to appear near the end of most manuscripts of the poem, and the prologue to the final tale, "The Parson's Tale", makes it clear it was intended as the penultimate story in the collection. The Manciple, a purchasing agent for a law court, tells a fable about Phoebus Apollo and his pet crow, which is both an origin myth explaining the crow's black feathers and a moralistic injunction against gossip.
"The Prioress's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
"The Clerk's Tale" is the first tale of Group E in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. It is preceded by The Summoner's Tale and followed by The Merchant's Tale. The Clerk of Oxenford is a student of what would nowadays be considered philosophy or theology. He tells the tale of Griselda, a young woman whose husband tests her loyalty in a series of cruel torments that recall the biblical Book of Job.
"The Physician's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales, written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century.
"The Tale of Melibee" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
"The Summoner's Tale" is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
"The Canon's Yeoman'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.
The Prologue and Tale of Beryn are spurious fifteenth century additions to Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. They are both written in Middle English.
