The Miller's Prologue and Tale
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The Miller's Prologue and Tale is the second of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, told by a drunken miller to 'quite' The Knight's Tale. When the host Harry Bailey asks for something to 'quite with it', this can be taken to mean 'to balance' or to 'pay back'. While the host who wants The Monk's Tale to follow means to balance, the Miller takes the other meaning. It is a vulgar, ribald, and satirical fabliau in stark contrast to the courtly love of the Knight's Tale.
The Miller's Prologue is the first 'quite' that occurs in the tales (to 'quite' someone is to mock them in a satirical way, or in the Middle Ages, to 'quite' was to match their blow in jousting).
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[edit] The Miller's Prologue
The prologue of the tale is in the form of a conversation between Harry Bailey, the owner of the Tabard Inn and the Miller, whose name is Robin. While the publican wants a better man to tell a tale he eventually allows the Miller to tell his tale.
The Miller is portrayed as drunk and shouting in the voice associated with Pilate in mystery plays. The Reeve urges the Miller not to joke about his profession; the Miller replies that he does not mean to insult carpenters in general, or portray them as cuckolds, and tells his tale anyway. Thus, The Reeve's Tale follows, which 'quites' the Miller with a tale in which some students make a fool out of a dishonest and greedy miller.
[edit] The Miller's Tale
The Miller's Tale is of a student (Nicholas) who persuades his jealous old landlord's much younger wife (Alisoun/Alison) to spend the night with him, making that possible through an elaborate scheme in which he convinces the landlord that he has found, through his astrology, that a flood of Biblical proportions is imminent. The solution, says Nicholas, is for each of them to wait silently overnight for it in separate tubs suspended from the rafters, and to cut their tubs from the roof when the water has risen. He adds that if the landlord tells anyone else, he'll become insane. This comic prank allows Nicholas and Alison the opportunity to sneak down, after the landlord falls asleep, and make love.
While Nicholas and Alison lie together, another hopeful suitor, the foppish Absolon, a parish clerk, appears at the bedchamber's low privy vent "shot-wyndowe" and asks Alison for a kiss. She quietly tells Nicholas to watch and get a good laugh. She sticks her "hole" out the window, and he "kiste hir naked ers ful savorly," pausing only when he feels bristly hair and considers that no woman has a beard. He realizes the prank and, hearing them laughing at him, becomes enraged. He disappears to borrow a red hot colter (a flat, pointed, plough part) from the early-rising blacksmith. Returning, he asks for another kiss, intending to burn Alison with the colter. This time Nicholas, who had risen from bed to "piss," sticks his own "ers" (arse) out the window. When Absolon says "speak sweet bird, I know not where thou art", Nicholas almost blinds him with an enormous fart, shocking Absolon, who then stabs Nicholas "amidde the ers" in his "toute" (anus) with the colter. Nicholas cries for water, awakening the landlord, who hears someone screaming "water, water" and thinks that the Second Flood has come. He panics and cuts himself down, falling to the floor and breaking his arm; the rest of the town awakens to find him lying in the tub. He tries to explain what he's doing in the tub, and sure enough in accordance with Nicholas' prophecy, he is considered a madman (and a cuckold, too) by the whole town.
[edit] Analysis
The tale appears to combine the motifs of two separate fabliaux, the 'second flood' and 'misdirected kiss', both of which appear in continental European literature of the period. Its bawdiness serves not only to introduce the Reeve's tale, but the general sequence of low comedy which terminates in the unfinished Cook's tale.
Critics see many Christian symbols in the Miller's Tale. Parts of the tale are similar to the Annunciation, with Nicholas as the Angel Gabriel and Alison as Mary, while the clueless carpenter John is Joseph. Nicholas's singing of the 'Virgin's Angelus', a popular song about the annunciation, hints at the parallel. Also, Medieval scriptural critics associated Mary with the image of the Burning Bush, perhaps inspiring the eventual branding with an iron.
The character of Absolon introduces another theme of the Tales, the corruption of the Church. The Nun's Priest's Tale and The Shipman's Tale deals with the same theme; the Summoner, Friar and Pardoner personify it. Absolon is a clerk, but thinks of little except wooing young women at church:
Gooth with a sencer (censer) on the haliday,
Sensynge the wyves of the parisshe faste;
And many a lovely look on hem he caste,
Alison, however, does not return Absolon's affections, although she readily takes his gifts.
A third theme, that of knowledge and science, appears in several marginal comments. Nicholas is an avid astrologer (as Chaucer himself was), equipped with, "His Almageste, and bookes grete and smale, / His astrelabie, longynge for his art..." John the carpenter and his servant Robin (also the Miller's name) represent unintellectual laymen; John tells Nicholas:
Ye, blessed be alwey a lewed [unlearned] man
He also recounts a story (sometimes told of Thales) of an astrologer who falls into a pit while studying the stars. The issue of whether learned or unlearned faith is better is also relevant to The Prioress' Tale and The Parson's Tale.
Feminists have occasionally criticised the story for its treatment of Alison as a "prize" to be fought over by the three principal male characters and by the fact that the hot colter was in fact intended for her bottom for refusing Absolon's unwanted attention. Others have noted this position to be somewhat far-fetched, and note that Alison freely chooses where to bestow her affections, is a spirited character and is not entirely blameless herself. All three of her paramours end up in physical or emotional pain. Critics have often noted Chaucer's progressively liberal morality, this incident being perhaps the most conspicuous example.
[edit] Continuations
The fifteenth-century Tale of Beryn depicts the Miller trying and failing to explain the stained glass windows of Canterbury cathedral.
Chaucer refers to the Distichs of Cato with this passage: "He knew nat Catoun, for his wit was rude." The Distichs of Cato was one of the most common textbooks in schools throughout medieval Europe, and was familiar to most anyone with a basic education in Latin.
[edit] References In Music
The song A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum appears to contain a reference to Chaucer's work: "And so it was that later as the miller told his tale, that her face, at first just ghostly, turned a whiter shade of pale".[1]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Read "The Miller's Tale" with interlinear translation
- A study guide for The Miller's Prologue and Tale
- Very simple, humorous version of the Miller's Tale, "children's book"-style
| Preceded by The Knight's Tale |
The Canterbury Tales | Succeeded by The Reeve's Prologue and Tale |
