Nun’s Priest’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer

THE CANTERBURY TALES

Geoffrey Chaucer

The Nun’s Priest’s Tale

September, 2014

Nun’s Priest’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer

Explain the following issues:

1) Dreams are problems of digestions

2) The relationship between Chanticleer and Lady Pertelote

3) The dream and the function of the dreams in the story

4) The moral of the story

Dreams are problems of digestions

It was believed at those times that humours (body fluids) caused diseases and affected people’s sleep if they were not balanced. Therefore, an excess or misbalance of fluids may cause you problems of digestion, and these problems made people have nightmares. This is briefly explained by Pertelote: after hearing her husband’s bad dream, she completely disdains the dream, stating that “Dreams are engendered in the too-replete/From vapors in the belly, which compete/With others, too abundant, swollen tight.” (Lines 103-105). She also advises him to take some herbs for his digestive issues:

“Worms for a day or two I’ll have to give/As a digestive, then your laxative/Centaury, fumitory, caper-spurge/And hellebore will make a splendid purge;/And then there’s laurel in the blackthorn berry,/Ground-ivy too that makes our yard so merry;/Peck them right up, my dear, and swallow whole./Be happy, husband, by your father’s soul!/Don’t be afraid of dreams. I’ll say no more.”(Lines 141-149).

The relationship between Chanticleer and Lady Pertelote

Chanticleer is very busy with all of his"lady" hens and appears to be quite popular.  He is also characterized to be lacking in courage as he reveals his bad dreams to Pertelote, who is one of Chanticleer’s 7 wives, but she is his favorite one.

“She is the most beautiful colored like him with all particulars; she with the loveliest dyes upon her throat…courteous, debonair, … since she was 7 years old, she held the heart of Chanticleer controlled” (45-59).

Chanticleer and Lady Pertelote have an interesting relationship because...