Page 93 - DENG405_BRITISH_POETRY

British Poetry

Notes to bed, the miller’s head shining with the alcohol he had drunk. The miller and his wife got into
bed, placing the baby’s cradle at the foot of their bed, and the clerks and the daughter followed suit.
Shortly, the miller began to snore. Before much longer, his wife and daughter were joining in, and
the noise was such that you could have heard it two furlongs hence.
Aleyn, kept awake by the snoring, prodded John (next to him in the bed), and resolved to have sex
with the miller’s daughter, in revenge for the corn that he felt sure the miller had stolen from them.
John warned him not to wake the miller–but Aleyn didn’t care for his advice, and proceeded straight
to the daughter’s bed, where he very quickly achieved his aim: and continued to achieve it all night.
John, alone in his bed, felt jealous of Aleyn (still having sex with the miller’s daughter) and decided
to get some of the action for himself-taking the baby’s cradle from the foot of the miller’s bed and
placing it at the foot of his own. Shortly after this, the miller’s wife woke up to go “for a pisse”
(4215), and, coming back into the bedroom, felt around in the dark for the cradle – of course, it
wasn’t at the foot of her bed, but at the foot of John’s. As she climbed into the bed, John jumped on
her, and gave her, “so myrie a fit ne hadde she nat ful yore” (“the sort of good time she hadn’t had
for ages”). The two clerks thus lay happily occupied until the third cock crew.
Leaving the bed as the morning dawned, Aleyn was told by the miller’s daughter the location of the
loaf of bread made from the corn the miller had stolen. Aleyn crept back to the bed, feeling for the
cradle, and finding it with his hand. Thinking that the cradle signified the miller’s bed, Aleyn thought
he had the wrong bed, and so continued on toward the next bed, and, finding no cradle at its foot,
crept in beside the miller. Taking him by the neck, he spoke to him softly - telling “John” to wake up
and make ready to leave, as he had been copulating with the miller’s daughter all night.

What advantages does Symkyn’s daughter have that make her a desirable bride?

“Ye, false harlot, hast?” said the miller, catching Alayn by his Adam’s apple and punching him in
the face, causing blood to run down Aleyn’s chest. The two men rolled, fighting, on the floor like
two pigs in a poke, up one minute and down the next, until the miller tripped on a stone and fell
backwards onto his sleeping wife.
The miller’s wife, thinking a devil had visited her, began to cry out in panic to God, and to her
husband to wake up and help her, as she thought the two clerks were fighting. With that, John
awoke, and tried to find a stick to help her–but the wife, who knew the room better than John,
found it first. Seeing a “litel shymeryng of a light” reflecting the moon’s light, and thinking it Aleyn’s
nightcap, the miller’s wife brought down the staff hard onto the miller’s bald skull. “Harrow! I dye”
he cried, and fell down. The clerks gave him a beating, dressed themselves, took their horse, their
corn and their loaf of bread, and escaped.

The Reeve makes a final proverb at the end of his tale, “One who does evil should not
expect good”, before concluding with God’s blessing on the company, adding finally
that he has now “quyt the Millere in my tale”.

Analysis

From the beginning of its prologue, The Reeve’s Tale takes the idea of “quitting” and puts it center
stage, changing altogether the dynamic of the first fragment. As the Knight’s Tale was “repaid” and
“replayed” in the Miller’s Tale (both about two men in love with the same woman) on a different

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