The Miller’s
Tale is one of the best-known and best-loved of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury
Tales, due to its “naughty” nature and the tight and pacey narration.
The Miller is
the second pilgrim to tell a tale. The first of the pilgrims to do so was the
Knight, who told a very long tale based on the medieval tradition of courtly
love, according to which women are placed on a virtual pedestal and worshipped
from afar. In the current case, the woman does not even know that she is the
object of devotion for seven years!
The tale is
full of long descriptions, speeches and prayers, with all the conventions of
knightly chivalry being incorporated in a classical environment, with a few
Graeco-Roman gods being thrown in for good measure.
And then the
Miller makes his presence felt. What a contrast of mood! We suddenly turn from
this gracious, probably elderly, knight, who is full of courtesy and good
manners, to a man who is definitely from the working class, with no social
graces at all, and who is roaring drunk into the bargain.
The host, who
is keeping the pilgrims in line and making sure that they fulfil their bargain
of each telling at least one tale, then turns to the Monk for the next story,
but is rudely interrupted by the Miller, who insists on being heard. “In Pilate’s
voys he gan to crie and swoor …” as Chaucer puts it.
The Miller
knows that he is drunk, and therefore blames any slurring of his speech on “the
ale of Southwerk”, which was presumably supplied by “mine host”, but of which
the Miller has already consumed more than his fair share. He also tells us that
he wants to tell his tale because it concerns a carpenter and his wife, and he
plainly wants to “have a go” at the Reeve, who is also a carpenter, and we have
to imagine that the two have been arguing with each other along the way.
Chaucer now
speaks in his own voice, to apologise, it would appear, for having to include
this tale at this juncture. It is as though he was saying “everything was going
so well, and now this happens. Don’t blame me, I’m only being an honest
reporter, it really is not my fault.” Of course, this is just Chaucer with
tongue planted firmly in cheek. His humorous effort to detach himself from his
own work is made even funnier when he advises his reader to “turn the page and
choose another tale” if he or she is likely to be offended by the sort of story
that characters like the Miller or the Reeve are likely to tell, and we would
prefer something of “morality and holiness”.
What greater
incentive could we want to persuade us to plunge into the Miller’s Tale, having
been given such a delicious warning of the earthy delights to come?
The Miller’s
Tale
Despite his
drunken state, the Miller is quite capable of giving us more than 650 lines of
perfectly rhymed couplets. He starts by introducing the cast of characters,
firstly Nicholas the clerk, whose is basically an astrologer, and the lodger of
John, an elderly carpenter. John has recently married Alison, who is described
as being “wild and young”. John is fully aware that Alison is likely to be
sexually attractive to other men, and so he keeps a very close eye on her.
When the
carpenter is away one day Nicholas makes his advance on Alison. There is no
ten-year wait here, as in the Knight’s Tale, but a direct assault upon the
woman in question. Alison does not take long to promise herself to Nicholas,
but they both know that finding an opportunity to take things to their logical
conclusion will not be easy. Nicholas is sure that he will think of something.
However,
there is another rival for Alison’s charms, namely Absolon the young parish
clerk. He takes to serenading Alison beneath her bedroom window, and is course
overheard by John the carpenter. Alison has no time for Absolon, and mocks him
at every opportunity, as she has her sights set elsewhere.
Nicholas
comes up with a plan. For the first part of it, he shuts himself away in his
room for the whole day, until John becomes anxious about his welfare. When his
servant lad reports back that Nicholas is lying on his bed staring at the
ceiling, John breaks down the door, at which Nicholas tell him that his
astrological research has told him that Noah’s Flood is about to happen again,
and very soon.
In order to
save the three of them, so Nicholas tells the carpenter, the latter must
acquire three large wooden tubs and suspend them from the roof beams. He must
also cut a hole in the gable, so that, when the flood waters rise, all they
have to do is cut the ropes and float out through the hole to safety. One vital
precaution is that John must suspend his tub well away from that of his wife,
lest he be tempted to “synne” and so not be worthy of God’s grace in saving
him. How thoughtful of Nicholas to consider the morals of his landlord!
With John
safely suspended in the roof, Nicholas and Alison should be free to have their
wicked way. And indeed, the plan starts out well, as John the carpenter spends
the next day making all the arrangements, including building ladders for the
three of them, providing food and ale to last them until the flood subsides, and
sending his servants away. All this effort has worn him out, so that, once in
his tub, he falls into a sound sleep. Nicholas and Alison can now resort to the
marital bed instead.
The plot
thickens
However, the
two lovers are not the only ones who have plans. Absolon wonders why the
carpenter has not been seen around all day and reckons that he must be away.
This is therefore a good chance to woo Alison without interruption. He plans to
knock at her window before first light and steal a kiss from her.
When he
announces his presence, Alison, who is still in bed with Nicholas, tells
Absolon that she can never love him because her love is given to another.
Absolon pleads for a farewell kiss, at which she sticks her bare backside out
of the window. In the darkness, he kisses it, and is alarmed to find that he is
kissing something a lot hairier than he expected. Alison and Nicholas, not
surprisingly, find this to be highly amusing, but Absolon now seeks revenge.
He goes to
the blacksmith and borrows a piece of hot metal from the forge. Going back to
Alison’s window, he tells her that he has a gold ring for her, which she can
have for another kiss. However, this time it is Nicholas who fancies a laugh at
the parish clerk’s expense, and he sticks his backside out of the window,
letting fly a fart for good measure. Absolon replies with a whack from the hot
metal, which Nicholas finds to be far less amusing than what had gone before.
Yelling
“Help! Water! Water!”, Nicholas wakens John, who is still in his tub in the
rafters. Thinking that the cry of “Water!” refers to the expected flood, John
promptly cuts his rope with the axe and comes crashing down, breaking his arm
in the process. When the neighbours turn up, Alison and Nicholas tell them
about John’s insane belief in Noah’s Flood, and everyone now regards him as
being mad. The Miller then brings his tale to a rapid conclusion.
How the
Miller’s Tale has been received at different times
We know the
response of the pilgrims on hearing the Tale, because Chaucer begins the next
section, the Reeve’s Prologue, by telling us that everyone laughs loud and
long, with the exception of the Reeve, who takes it as a personal affront and
soon replies with a tale of his own that has the sole intention of getting
revenge on the Miller. We can imagine that even the “gentle” characters, such
as the Knight and the Parson, had a good belly-laugh on hearing the Miller’s
Tale, with absolutely no embarrassment being shown at mentions of arses and
farts.
There have
been periods of history when such a tale would have had a very different
response. Bawdy, earthy, sensuous humour such as this did not go down well in
the Victorian era, for example, when Chaucer was very much out of favour,
mainly because of Tales like this. Thomas Bowdler would have been hard pressed
to make the Miller’s Tale suitable for the ears of young ladies (it was he who
produced a sanitized version of Shakespeare by taking out all the rude words,
often with hilarious results to a modern ear).
Chaucer’s
humour
It must be
admitted that there is nothing subtle about the Miller’s humour. This is about
as basic and knockabout as humour can get. However, there are subtleties in the
writing that are worth a second look. For example, there is a wonderful play on
words, early in the Tale, that is lost on modern readers. The Miller follows
“As clerkes ben ful subtile and ful queynte” with “And prively he caughte hire
by the queynte”. The word “queynte” has gone in two directions since the 14th century,
as from it we have acquired both “quaint” and a notorious four-letter word
beginning with “c”! Chaucer’s original readers would not have missed this!
Chaucer’s
characterizations
Another
response is to admire the wonderful characterizations produced by Chaucer in
the Miller’s Tale. We have the somewhat stock character of the dim-witted
elderly fool who is set up to be duped and cuckolded, but also the clever,
scheming clerk who eventually suffers for being just a bit too clever, and the
jilted lover who is both a fool and an avenger.
Above all,
though, we have the splendid female character, Alison, who is a prototype of
many female characters in literature. She is sharp, sexy, and sassy, a young
woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. She has a wicked sense of
humour and a streak of cruelty. She also has the sense and good fortune to be
the only main character who escapes with no punishment for her deeds, either
physical or emotional. By the end of this short tale we feel that we would
recognise her if we met her in the street; indeed, no modern TV soap opera
would be complete without a good sprinkling of Alisons.
My personal
response, as a long-time admirer of Chaucer, is to wonder at the genius of a
man who could put two such tales as those of the Knight and the Miller side by
side, and get away with it. Not only that, he succeeds at convincing us in two
very different genres: the tale of courtly love, as might be told in the houses
of the great and the good, and the “fabliau” of bawdy ribaldry that would be
suitable for the drunks in the tavern. We know, from the fact that the General
Prologue and the first four tales form a continuous manuscript sequence, that
it was Chaucer’s intention to start the Canterbury Tales with this contrast of
styles. It is not just me who believes that he pulled off this feat with
enormous success!
© John
Welford
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