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Unit 18: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis-X

18.1.2 The Canon Yeoman’s Tale Text Notes

With this Canon, the narrator begins, I have lived for seven years, and yet I am no closer to
understanding his science. The “slidynge science”, as he calls it, has made him only poor–and, so he
argues, it will do to anyone who applies himself to it. The narrator then expounds in detail the processes
of alchemy, with reams of scientific terminology, rehearsing an inventory of vessels made of pottery
and glass, apparatus like curcurbites and alembics, and minerals like arsenic and brimstone.
The narrator then recites the four spirits (volatile substances–which are easily evaporated by heat)
and the seven bodies (metals) which, in medieval alchemy, were an almost forerunner to the periodic
table. No-one who practices alchemy, the narrator concludes, will profit: he will lose everything he
puts into it. No matter how long he sits and learns the terms, he will never gain from it.

The narrator then turns on God, saying that though God had given them hope and
they had worked hard to discover the philosopher’s stone, they had had no luck.
Alchemists, the narrator continues, are liars. The narrator then tells of the reactions some of the
metals produce-shattering pots, sinking into the ground, and leaping into the roof; and, he says,
when a pot explodes, his master just throws away the elements (even when someone points out that
some of the metal has survived) and starts again, despite the money that people have spent to buy
the goods. The narrator reveals that–despite any arguments about why the pot might have shattered–
the alchemists always seem to get it wrong. Finally, the narrator claims that nothing is what it
themes: apples which look nice are not good, men that seem the wisest are the most foolish, and the
man who seems most trustworthy is a thief.

18.1.3 Et Sequitur Pars Secunda

This is the tale proper of the Canon’s Yeoman, and it tells of a Canon whose infinite falsehood and
slyness cannot be written. He makes anyone he communicates with behave foolishly, and yet people
ride for miles to make his acquaintance, not knowing or suspecting that he is a charlatan.
The narrator then makes a slight aside to apologise to canons in general, claiming that his tale is of
one bad canon, but is not representative of all canons, just as Judas was the one traitor among the
apostles.
In London, there lived a priest who sung masses for the dead – and one day he was visited by the
false Canon, who begged him to lend him a certain amount of gold. The priest obliged him, and,
three days later, the Canon returned to pay him back. Expressing gratitude that the Canon has paid
him back on time, the priest prompts a speech from the Canon about the importance of “trouthe”
and keeping one’s word. The Canon then promises to show the priest some of his “maistrie” before
he goes. The narrator then comments on the falsehood and dissimulation of the Canon, before
apparently addressing the audience of the pilgrimage: “This chanon was my lord, ye wolden weene?”
(This canon was my master, you think?). No–this Canon, the narrator tells us, is another Canon,
and, even in describing him, the Yeoman’s cheeks blush red.
The Canon sent the priest’s servant to bring quicksilver and coals, and then took a crucible and
showed it to the priest, telling him to put an ounce of quicksilver in there. The priest did as he
asked, and they put the crucible into the fire. Yet the false Canon took a fake coal, unseen, which
had a hole in it, stopped with wax, which held silver filings. While the priest was wiping the sweat
from his face, laid the coal in the furnace just above the crucible. Naturally, the wax melted and the
silver filings ran out over the crucible.

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