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Unit 9: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis-I

9.3 The Miller’s Tale Notes
9.3.1 The Miller’s Prologue

After the Knight finishes telling his story, it meets with the approval of the whole company. The Host
then moves to the Monk (another high-status teller) to tell “somewhat to quite with the Knyghtes
tale”. It is at this point that the Miller, extremely drunk, interrupts “in Pilates voys”, proclaiming that
he has a tale that will quit the Knight’s.
The Host tries to dissuade the Miller, telling him “thou art a fool”, and that he is drunk – a statement
with which the Miller immediately agrees. The Miller starts to introduce a tale about how a clerk
“set the cappe of” (made a fool out of) a carpenter and his wife, but is immediately interrupted by
the Reeve (himself a carpenter) who tries to silence him. The Miller, though, refuses to be dissuaded
by the Reeve’s argument that tales should not be told about adulterous wives, claiming that

An housbonde shal nat been inquisityf
Of Goddes pryvetee, nor of his wyf.
Yet before the Miller’s Tale itself begins, our narrator makes another interruption to the story’s
flow, repeating a sentiment he already voiced in the General Prologue: that the tale he is about to
repeat is not his own, but the Miller’s. Our narrator has no evil intent in rehearsing such a tale, but
he must repeat all the tales told–otherwise, he will be falsifying his material.Thus, should any readers
find it offensive, they should turn over the leaf and choose another tale. Men, the prologue finishes,
should not “maken ernest of game”; find a serious moral in trivial things.

9.3.2 The Miller’s Tale Text

A rich carpenter lived at Oxford, with his wife and a clerk, an impoverished student of astrology and
constellations: this clerk was called “hende” (crafty, or cunning) Nicholas. The carpenter had recently
wedded a wife, only eighteen years old, who he protected fiercely–because, as she was young and he
old, he knew he might well be cuckolded.
One day, while the carpenter was at Osney, Nicholas fell to playing and teasing with this young
wife, Alison, and caught her “by the queynte”, telling her that he’d die for love of her and holding
her hard by the hip-bones. She sprang away from him, refusing to kiss him, but he followed her,
crying mercy and speaking fairly: and eventually, she agreed to sleep with him. However, the wife
worried, as her husband was so jealous and protective, it would be difficult to find an opportunity–
Nicholas resolved to beguile his master, and the two agreed to wait for an opportunity.
Another clerk in the parish, Absolon, who had curly, golden hair, was also mad with desire for
Alison, and used to sing at her window at night-time, wooing her until he was woebegone. But, of
course, there was no point in Absolon’s wooing: Alison was so in love with Nicholas, that Absolon
might as well go and whistle.
Meanwhile, Nicholas had come up with a plan. Nicholas told Alison to tell John (the carpenter) that
he was ill, and lay in his chamber all weekend, until–on Sunday night–the carpenter sent his slave
to knock on the door on check that Nicholas was in health. The slave looked through the keyhole,
and seeing Nicholas’ eyes gaping upward as if possessed, called to the carpenter, who–seeing
Nicholas–panicked, and attributed Nicholas’ state to his interest in astrology.

Nicholas, he thought, had seen the secrets of God, and gone mad. Having ordered his
slave to knock down Nicholas’ door, the carpenter awoke Nicholas from his “trance”
and the two began to speak.

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