The Canterbury Tales’ Characters: Chaucer’s Pilgrims Retold

Our Host made welcome each and every one,
And right away our supper was begun.
He served us with the finest in good food;
The wine was strong to fit our festive mood.
Our Host performed, so it seemed to us all,
As well as any marshal in a hall.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

Our Host was an impressive man indeed
[…]
And he lacked nothing at all of the qualities proper to a man.”

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

A handsome man our Host was withal,
And fit to be a marshal in a hall.
A large man he was with striking eyes;
No fairer burgess was there in Cheapside.
Bold in his speech, and wise, and well taught,
And of honest manhood he lacked naught.
Add that he was a truly merry man;
And after supper jokingly began
To speak of entertainment and other things.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

And which of you that bears them best of all –
That is to say, who tells in this case
Tales the most serious that most solace –
Shall have a supper and we pay the cost,
Here in this place, sitting by this post,
When that we come again from Canterbury.
And to make you all the more merry,
I will myself gladly with you ride,
All at my own cost, and be your guide.

The Canterbury Tales, Host, The General Prologue

But first I pray you of your courtesy,
Not to consider me unmannerly
If I speak plainly in this matter,
In telling you their words hereafter,
Though I speak their words literally;
For this you know as well as me,
Whoso tells the tale of another man
Must repeat as closely as he can
Every word, if it be in his power,
However coarse or broad his dower
Of words, or else his tale will be untrue,
Or feign things, inventing words anew.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

Also I beg you, if you will, forgive me
If I have not placed folk in due degree
Here in this tale, as they indeed should stand;
I lack the wit, you may well understand.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

There was a Knight and he a worthy man,
That from the day on which he first began,
To ride abroad, had followed chivalry,
Truth, honour, courtesy and charity.
He had fought nobly in his lord’s war,
And ridden to the fray, and no man more,
As much in Christendom as heathen place,
And ever honoured for his worth and grace.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

This same worthy knight had been also
With the Emir of Balat once, at work
With him against some other heathen Turk;
Won him a reputation highly prized,
And though he was valiant, he was wise,
And in his manner modest as a maid.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

He was a very perfect gentle knight.
But to tell of his equipment, his array,
His horses fine, he wore no colours gay
Sported a tunic, padded fustian
On which his coat of mail left many a stain;
For he was scarcely back from his voyage,
And going now to make his pilgrimage.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

A good WIFE was there from next to BATH,
But pity was that she was somewhat deaf.
In cloth-making she was excellent,
Surpassing those of Ypres and of Ghent.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

Had been a worthy woman all her life;
Husbands at the church-door she had five,
Besides other company in her youth –
No need to speak of that just now, in truth.
And thrice had she been to Jerusalem;
She had crossed many a foreign stream.
At Boulogne she had been, and Rome,
St James of Compostella, and Cologne,
And she knew much of wandering by the way,
Gap toothed was she, truthfully to say.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

I will bestow the flower of my age
On the actions and the fruits of marriage.

The Canterbury Tales, Wife of Bath, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue

Experience, though no authority
Ruled in this world, would be enough for me
To speak of the woe that is in marriage.
For, lordings, since I twelve years was of age,
Thanks be to God who eternally does thrive,
Husbands at church-door have I had five –
If it be allowed so oft to wedded be –
And all were worthy men in their degree.

The Canterbury Tales, Wife of Bath, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue

The MILLER was a strong man I own;
A stout fellow, big in brawn and bone.
It served him well, for, everywhere, the man,
At wrestling, always looked to win the ram.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

His beard, as any sow or fox, was red,
And broad as well, as if it were a spade.
On the tip of his nose he displayed
A wart, and on it stood a tuft of hair,
Red as the bristles in a sow’s ear.
His nostrils were as black as they were wide;
A sword and buckler he wore at his side.
His mouth as great was as a great furnace.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

He stole corn, and made one toll pay three;
Yet had the golden thumb, a mystery!

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

The Miller is a churl; you all know this.
So was the Reeve also, and others too,
And harlotry they told of, both the two.
Take thought, and hold me free of blame –
Man should not treat in earnest what’s a game.

The Canterbury Tales, Miller, The Miller’s Prologue

The REEVE was a slender, choleric man.
His beard was shaved as close as any can;
His hair by his ears was fully shorn;
The top was cropped like a priest before.
His legs were long and very lean,
Like sticks they were – no calves to be seen.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

Well could he judge from drought or rain
The yield of his seed and of his grain.
His lord’s sheep, beef-cattle, and his dairy,
His swine, his horses, stock and poultry,
Was wholly in this Reeve’s governance
And he made reckoning by covenant,
Since his lord had only twenty years;
No man could find him ever in arrears.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

He could purchase better than his lord;
He had riches of his own privately.
He could please his lord subtly,
Giving and lending of his own goods,
And earn his thank you and a coat and hood.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

The drunken Miller has told us here
Of this beguiling of the carpenter,
Perhaps in scorn because I too am one.
And by your leave I’ll him repay anon,
In his own boorish language, no mistake.
And I pray to God his neck might break!
He sees a mote in my eye, or a stalk,
But no beam in his own, for all his talk.

The Canterbury Tales, Reeve, The Reeve’s Prologue

The Pardoner had hair as yellow as wax,
But smooth it hung like a hank of flax.
In clusters hung the locks he possessed,
With which his shoulders he overspread;
But thin they fell, in strands, one by one.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

His wallet lay before him in his lap,
Brimful of pardons, come from Rome hotfoot.

The Canterbury Tales, Narrator, The General Prologue

For my intent is only gain to win,
Not to correct them when they chance to sin.
For I care nothing, at their burying,
Whether their souls have gone blackberrying!

The Canterbury Tales, Pardoner, The Pardoner’s Prologue

But briefly my intent I here confess:
I preach, but only out of covetousness.
Therefore my theme is now, and ever was:
“Radix malorum est cupiditas.”
Thus do I preach against the very vice
I too indulge in, which is avarice.
Though I myself am guilty of that sin.

The Canterbury Tales, Pardoner, The Pardoner’s Prologue