Page 113 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes Along went this friar, house by house, until he came to the house of Thomas, a local resident who
normally indulged him, and found him ill. The friar spoke of the sermon he had given that day,
commenting on the excellent way he had glossed the biblical text-and essentially ordered a meal
from Thomas’s wife.
She told the friar that her child died not more than two weeks before. The friar claimed that he had
a revelation that her child had died and entered heaven. He claimed that his fellow friars had a
similar vision, for they are more privy to God’s messages than laymen, who live richly on earth, as
opposed to spiritual riches. The friar claimed that, among the clergy, only friars remain impoverished
and thus are closest to God; and told Thomas that his illness persists because he had given so little
to the church.
Thomas claimed that he had indeed given “ful many a pound” to various friars, but never fared the
better for it. The friar, characteristically, is irritated that Thomas is not giving all of his money solely
to him, and points out to him that a “ferthyng” (a farthing) is not worth anything if split into twelve.
Continuing to lecture Thomas, the friar began a long sermon against anger (“ire”), telling the tale of
an angry king who sentenced a knight to death , because, as he returned without his partner, the
king automatically assumed that the knight had murdered him. When a third knight took the
condemned knight to his death, they found the knight that he had supposedly murdered. When
they returned to the king to have the sentenced reversed, the king sentenced all three to death: the
first because he had originally declared it so, the second because he was the cause of the first’s
death, and the third because he did not obey the king.
Another ireful king, Cambises, was a drunk. When one of his knights claimed that drunkenness
caused people to lose their coordination, Cambyses drew his bow and arrow and shot the knight’s
son to prove that he still had control of his reflexes. The friar then told of Cyrus, the Persian king
who had the river Gyndes destroyed because one of his horses had drowned in it.
At the close of this sermon, the friar asked Thomas for money to build the brothers’ cloister. Thomas,
annoyed by the friar’s hypocrisy, told the friar that he had a gift for him that he was sitting on, but
that he would only receive it if he promised to split it up equally between each of the friars.

What distracts the lord of the shire from dealing with the insult?
The friar readily agreed, and put his hand down behind Thomas’ back, groping round – and Thomas
let out a fart louder than a horse could make. The friar became immediately angry, and promised to
repay Thomas for his fart, but, before he could, the servants of the house chased the friar out.
The enraged friar found the lord of the village and told him of the embarrassment he suffered,
angrily wondering how he was supposed to divide a fart into twelve. The lord’s squire spoke up
with a suggestion, in return for a “gowne-clooth” from his master: take a cartwheel, and tell each of
twelve friars to lay his nose at the end of a spoke. Then the friar of the tale could sit in the centre of
the wheel and fart, and each of the spokes would carry the smell along to the rim–and therefore,
divide it up between each of the friars.

Analysis

Chaucer carefully shows us the Summoner, quaking with anger, after hearing the Friar’s Tale, and
those pious readers who might have thought that the Friar’s Tale veered close to the line of blasphemous
sin would likely have been straight out offended by the Summoner’s. It is a bilious, aggressive tale
which does not even consider pulling its punches, and the Friar’s contempt is roundly “quyt” with a
full-on, unrelenting attack from the Summoner.
Anality is a key ingredient in the tale, potentially a reference to the possible interpretation of the
General Prologue which argues that the Summoner and Pardoner are engaged in a homosexual

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