Say now somewhat, since other folk have said; Tell us a tale of mirth, and that anon....'
Chaucer executes himself as willingly as the rest, and enters upon a long-winded tale of knight-errantry, parodied from the romances in vogue; but the Age of Chivalry is already half past. Before the poet has even finished the preliminary catalogue of his hero's accomplishments--
'No more of this, for Goddës dignitee,' Quoth our Hostë, 'for thou makest me So weary of thy very lewedness [folly That (all so wisely God my soulë bless) Mine earës achen of thy drasty speech [trashy Now, such a rhyme the devil I biteche! [commit to This may well be rhyme doggerel,' quoth he.
Chaucer suffers the interruption with only the mildest of protests, and proceeds to tell instead "a lytel thing in prose," a translation of a French translation of a long-winded moral allegory by an Italian friar-preacher. The monumental dulness of this "Tale of Melibee and of his wife Prudence" is no doubt a further stroke of satire, and Chaucer must have felt himself amply avenged in recounting this story to the bitter end. Yet there was a moral in it which appealed to the Host, who burst out--
... as I am a faithful man And by that precious _corpus Madrian_ [St. Mathurin I haddë liever than a barrel ale That goodë lief my wife had heard this tale. For she is nothing of such patience As was this Melibeus' wife Prudence. By Goddës bonës, when I beat my knaves, She bringeth me forth the greatë clubbëd staves, And crieth 'Slay the doggës every one. And break them, bothë back and every bone!' And if that any neighëbour of mine, Will not in churchë to my wife incline, Or be so hardy to her to trespass, When she com'th home she rampeth in my face And crieth 'Falsë coward, wreak thy wife! By corpus bones! I will have thy knife, And thou shalt have my distaff and go spin!'
The Host has plenty more to say on this theme; but presently he remembers his duties, and calls upon the Monk for a tale, though not without another long digression on monastic comforts and monastic morals, from the point of view of the man in the street. The Monk takes all his broad jesting with the good humour of a man who is used to it, and offers to tell some tragedies, "of which I have an hundred in my cell." After a few harmless pedantries by way of prologue, he proceeds to reel off instalments of his hundred tragedies with the steady, self-satisfied, merciless drone of a man whose office and cloth generally assure him of a patient hearing. Here, however, we are no longer in the minster, but in God's own sunlight and fresh air; the Pilgrim's Way is Liberty Hall; and while Dan Piers is yet moralizing with damnable iteration over the ninth of his fallen heroes, the Knight suddenly interrupts him--the Knight himself, who never yet no villainy ne said, in all his life, unto no manner wight!