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Unit 17: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis-IX

which she kept, enclosed all around with palings and with a ditch outside it, she had a cock called Notes
Chaunticleer, who was peerless in his crowing. Chaunticleer was beautifully coloured, with a comb
redder than coral, and a beak as black as jet, and he had under his government seven chickens, who
were his paramours, of which his favourite was Dame Pertelote.
One morning, Chaunticleer began to groan in his throat, as a man who was troubled in his dreams
does, and Pertelote, aghast, asked him what the matter was. Chaunticleer replied that he had had a
bad dream, and prayed to God to help him to correctly interpret it. He had dreamt that he, roaming
around the yard, saw an animal “lyk an hound” which tried to seize his body and have him dead.
The “hound’s” colour was somewhere between yellow and red, and his tail and both his ears were
tipped with black.
Pertelote mocked him, telling him that he was a coward. Pertelore then argues that dreams are
meaningless visions, caused simply by ill humors (bad substances in the body) – and quotes Cato at
length to demonstrate her point. Her solution is that she will pick herbs from the yard in order to
bring his humors back to normal.
Chaunticleer disagreed, arguing that while Cato is certainly an authority, there are many more
authorities available to be read who argue that dreams are significations – of good things and bad
things to come. He stated the example of one man who, lying in his bed, dreamt that his friend was
being murdered for his gold in an ox’s stall, and that his body was hidden in a dung cart.
Remembering his dream, this man went to a dung cart at the west gate of the town, and found the
murdered body of his friend. Chaunticleer then described the story of two men, who were preparing
to cross the sea. One of them dreamed that, if he crossed the sea the next day, he would be drowned
- he told his companion, who laughed at him, and resolved to go anyway. The ship’s bottom tore,
and his companion was drowned. Chaunticleer also cited the examples of Macrobius, Croesus and
Andromache, who each had prophecies in their dreams.
Then, however, Chaunticleer praised Pertelote, asking her to speak of “mirth”, and stop all this talk
of prophecy-the beauty of her face, he says, makes him feel fearless. He then quoted the proverb
“Mulier est hominis confusio”, translating it as “Woman is man’s joy and all his bliss”, when it
actually translates “Woman is man’s ruin”. Chaunticleer then flew down from his beam, called all
of his hens to him, and revealed that he’d found a grain lying in the yard. He then clasped Pertelote
to him with his wings, and copulated with her until morning.
When the month of March was over, Chaunticleer was walking in full pride, all of his wives around
him, when a coal fox (a fox with black-tipped feet, ears and tail) broke through the hedges and into
the yard. He bode his time for a while. The narrator then goes off into an aside, addressing
Chaunticleer, and wishing that he had taken “wommennes conseils” (woman’s counsel)–before he
moves back into the tale, reminding us that his tale “is of a cok”.
Chaunticleer sang merrily in the yard, and, casting his eyes among the cabbages, caught sight of the
fox–and would have fled, but the fox addressed him, asking where he was going, and claiming to
be his friend. The fox claimed to have met Chaunticleer’s mother and father, and talked of his
father’s excellent singing voice, and the way his father used to stretch out his neck and stand on his
tiptoes before singing. The fox then asked whether Chaunticleer can sing like his father–and
Chaunticleer stood on his tiptoes, stretched out his neck, closed his eyes, and, as he began to sing,
the fox grabbed him by the throat and ran off to the wood with him.

How has the Monk revenged himself on Harry Bailley?

The poor widow and her two daughters, hearing the cry of the chickens, ran after the fox toward the
crove, and many other men and animals ran after them. Chaunticleer managed to speak to the fox,
and encouraged him to turn to his pursuers and curse them, telling him that he was going to eat the

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