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Unit 10: The Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Non-detailed Study): Discussion and Analysis-II

own. However, the Host reminds the Cook, who is named Hodge of Ware, that he owes the company Notes
a good tale since food he prepares so often makes travelers ill. Good-naturedly, the Cook begins his
story. Perkin the Reveler is apprenticed to a guild of food merchants. He is a wild and fun-loving
youth, particularly fond of gambling and womanizing. Both vices require money which he lifts
from his master’s safe.

10.1 The Reeve’s Tale

10.1.1 The Reeve’s Prologue

The company laughs at the foolish story of Nicholas and Absolon. But the narrator notes that Oswald
the Reeve alone is angry because he was a carpenter, like John, the butt of the joke in the Miller’s Tale.
The Reeve then speaks, claiming that, despite his age, he still cunning, and that the qualities of boasting,
lying, anger and greed pertain particularly to the elderly. The Host interrupts this rather bitter
monologue, pushing the Reeve to tell his tale if he is to speak at all. The Reeve then promises to
“answere” and to some extent “sette the Miller’s howve” (“set his hood”–make a fool out of him). The
Miller has scornfully told a tale, the Reeve continues, about how a carpenter was tricked. The Reeve
resolves to “quit” the Miller’s Tale.

10.1.2 The Reeve’s Tale Text
At Trumpington, near Cambridge, there was a brook upon which stood a mill. The miller who lived
there wore ostentatious clothing and could play the bagpipes, wrestle and fish. He also was heavily
armed: carrying a “panade” (a cutlass) in his belt, a “joly popper” (small dagger) in his pouch, and
a “Sheffeld thwitel” (a Sheffield knife) in his trousers. Bald as an ape, with a round face and flattened
nose, this miller’s name was Symkyn, and he was a dishonest thief, cheating money out of King’s
Hall, a Cambridge college, and stealing meal and corn.
His wife came from a noble family, and she was as haughty as ditch-water - “stinking with pride”
as the OED has it. The couple had a twenty year-old daughter, and a son who was only six months
old and lay in his cradle. The daughter was a large girl with a pug nose, broad buttocks and high,
round breasts (though, the narrator is at pains to point out, she did have nice hair).
Two Cambridge students, John and Aleyn, received permission from the master of the college to
see the corn ground at the mill-and resolved not to let the dishonest miller cheat them out of even
half a grain of corn. The two clerks arrived at the mill, and greeted Symkyn, telling him they were
there to grind their corn and take it back to the college. While they ground the corn in the mill,
Symkyn crept outside, found the clerks’ horse, and set it loose.
Their cornmeal ground and bagged into sacks, the clerks stepped outside to discover that their
horse had run away; Aleyn, almost out of his mind with frustration, forgot all about the corn. The
miller’s wife claimed that the horse had run off to the fen with some wild horses, and the two
gullible clerks ran off toward the fen. With them out of the picture, the miller took half a bushel of
their flour, and told his wife to go and make a loaf of bread out of it, satisfied with himself for
outwitting the clerks. Meanwhile, the two clerks ran up and down, spending hours chasing their
horse, until, at almost night-time, they caught him in a ditch.
Returning, weary and wet, the two arrived at the mill, finding the miller sitting by the fire, and they
begged for his help. Though my house is narrow, the miller joked, I’m sure you’ll be able to make it
seem bigger: because clerks can “by arguments make a place / A myle brood of twenty foot of
space” (4123-4). Symkyn let the two clerks stay the night, providing ale and bread and a roast goose
for dinner.
Symkyn then made them a bed up in his own room, only ten or twelve feet from his own bed. His
daughter also had a bed in the same chamber. At midnight, the party had finished eating, and went

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