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Unit 13: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis-V

Notes

The conclusion of the Envoy tells fair women to show off their good looks, and
ugly women to spend all of their husband’s money!

13.1.4 The Words of the Host

When the Clerk had finished his tale, the Host swore “By Goddes bones” that he would rather lose a
barrel of ale that his wife had–even once–heard this tale. It is a noble tale, he continues–before advising
the company not to ask why he’d rather not have his wife hear it.

Analysis
That the Clerk, in a typically clerical touch, gets his tale from a very worthy literary source is not a
fiction of Chaucer’s. The tale does indeed come from a tale of Petrarch’s; yet what the Clerk fails to
mention in his citation is that Petrarch himself took it from Bocaccio’s Decameron (a fact which Chaucer
certainly knew). Another thing, surely known to the clerks in Chaucer’s audience, that the Clerk
omits to mention is that even Petrarch had difficulty interpreting the tale as he found it in Boccaccio.
The key problem, in fact, to reading the Clerk’s Tale is interpretation.
The tale itself is simple enough: woman of low birth is horribly tested by her noble husband, made
to suffer extremely, and eventually, is restored to good fortune. But what does the tale mean? Not,
according to the Clerk, at least, what it seems to mean at first reading: that women should patiently
submit themselves to their husbands will. This sentiment, of course, is deeply at odds with the Wife
of Bath (herself explicitly acknowledged and praised by the Clerk in the tale) and her tale only a
little earlier–and the Clerk endorses the Wife’s desire for female maistrie.

What promise does Griselde make to Walter before accepting his offer of marriage?
Yet why is the tale not to be read as endorsing female subjugation to the husband? Perhaps because
the Clerk (as he implies) wholeheartedly endorses the maistrie-seeking of the Wife of Bath, but also,
as is twice said in the tale, because there are no Griseldes left in the world today. Is this lack of
patient Griseldes a sign of progress, or something to be mourned? If the story is a celebration of
Griselde’s fortitude, the Clerk accurately judges that it would be impossible for any woman to
legitimately withstand the suffering that Griselde faced with such resignation; and indeed, her
extreme behavior might not even be read as commendable, for she allows her husband to murder
her two children without struggle. The Clerk indicates that women should strive toward the example
that Griselde sets, but not necessarily follow her example in such an extreme form. Where does one
draw the line? The tale could be read as supporting either pro-feminist or anti-feminist sentiments.
Petrarch’s solution to the problem is also voiced by the tale: that the tale is not, in fact, about men
and women at all, but how men in general should relate to God. This is a perfectly reasonable
interpretation, but as presented by Chaucer, Walter–cruel, testing for no obvious reason, and
extremely self-satisfied–does not make for a particularly attractive representative of God. Petrarch’s
interpretation of his own story is not an absolute one: and nor is Chaucer’s (it is important to note
that the envoy at the very end of the tale is attributed “de Chaucer” and not to the Clerk–perhaps
something more significant than a simple print-setting error). For the envoy advises wives not to
nail down their tongues, but to attack their husbands and be shrews-a sentiment which the tale
does not reflect at all, particularly when you consider that it is Griselde’s strength of character and
humility which justify her eventual reward and reunion with her children.
Chaucer, Petrarch, and the Wife of Bath–each have separate lines of interpretation for a single tale,
and each of them are potentially justified in the text. Yet the Clerk’s presentation does not invite the
reading of the tale as simply a fable-there is little heightened or distanced in the presentation. In

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