The Wife of Bath's Prologue: Canterbury Tales

• The Wife of Bath's Tale is from The Canterbury Tales.
• It was translated by Nevill Coghill.

The Prologue

• The Pardoner interrupts the Wife of Bath, commenting on her "noble preaching."
• The Pardoner says he was considering marriage, but may not now after hearing her.
• The Wife of Bath tells him to wait
• She also tell the Pardoner "You'll taste another brew before I've done", saying her story isn't over yet.
• She plans to continue with her tale of tribulation in married life.
• The Wife of Bath describes herself as an expert and a "whip" in marriage.
• She invites the Pardoner to "sip" from the "cask of marriage" but warns him to be cautious.
• The Wife of Bath says she will give many instances.
• She argues that those who ignore the warnings of others will face correction.
• She cites Ptolemy's Almagest as support.
• The Pardoner asks her to continue her tale and instruct the younger men.
• The Wife of Bath agrees, hoping the company won't be offended by her potentially fantastical views.
• The views she gives are only offered to amuse.

The Tale

• The setting is ancient days during the reign of King Arthur.
• England was "brim-full of fairy folk" with the Elf-Queen and her courtiers dancing in green meadows.
• Fairies are no longer seen.
• The "saintly charity and prayer" of holy friars have purged the air.
• The friars now occupy the spaces where elves once walked, searching the countryside and blessing various places.
• A knight in King Arthur's day forcefully takes a maiden's maidenhead.
• Due to the outcry, King Arthur condemns the knight to be beheaded.
• The queen and other ladies intercede, pleading for the king to show grace.
• The king grants the queen the power to choose the knight's fate.
• The queen tells the knight he still isn't certain of his life.
• The queen says his life will be spared if he can correctly answer the question: "What is the thing that women most desire?"
• If he doesn't know the answer immediately, he will have twelve months and a day to find it.
• The queen will take gages from him to extort surrender of your body to the court.
• The knight is sorrowful but accepts the challenge.
• He sets out seeking the answer.
• The knight searches everywhere, but finds no consensus.
• Some say women want wealth and treasure.
• Others suggest honor, jollity, pleasure, gorgeous clothes, or fun in bed.
• Some claim women desire to be often widowed and remarried.
• Some women say they want to be cossetted and flattered.
• According to the Wife of Bath, flattery is a good way to win women.
• Some say women desire freedom to do as they please without reproval.
• The Wife of Bath claims that women don't like being told their faults.
• Women like to be thought wise and void of sin.
• Some believe women find it sweet to be thought dependable, discreet, secret, firm of purpose, and controlled.
• The Wife of Bath states that women can't keep secrets, referencing the tale of Midas.
• Midas had ass's ears that he hid from everyone but his wife.
• He begged his wife not to tell, and she swore she wouldn't.
• However, she couldn't contain the secret and whispered it to the water in a reedy marsh.
• The knight realizes he can't discover what women love the best.
• As he is returning home, despondent, he sees a dance of "four and twenty ladies, nay, and more" at the edge of a wood.
• When he approaches, the dancers vanish, leaving only an old woman.
• She asks him what he's looking for.
• The knight explains his predicament and asks if she knows the answer, offering to pay her for it.
• The old woman asks the knight to swear to do whatever she requires.
• She guarantees his life will be saved and says the queen will agree.
• She tells him the answer, and they proceed to court.
• The knight tells the court "A woman wants the self-same sovereignty over her husband as over her lover".
• She wants to master him, and he must not be above her.
• The court agrees with the knight's answer.
• The old woman demands that the knight keep his promise to her for saving his life.
• She asks the knight to take her for his wife.
• The knight asks her to take all his goods and leave his body free.
• The old woman refuses, saying she wants his love/be his wife.
• The knight laments his misalliance with such a foul creature.
• He is forced to wed her.
• The marriage is private and joyless.
• The knight is miserable, finding his wife repulsive.
• The wife asks why he is so sad and questions if he is acting as knights of King Arthur's house should.
• She reminds him that she saved his life and has never wronged him.
• The knight complains about her being old, plain, poor, and low-bred.

The Wife's Arguments on Nobility

• The wife of the knight asks if these are the cause of his unrest
• She says she could "set right what you suppose a blunder".
• She says he spoke of gentle birth, but arrogance is hardly worth a hen.
• The Wife of Bath states that doing deeds of gentleness is what decides if you are a gentleman.
• Christ wills people become gentle through virtue and good deeds, not ancestry.
• Fathers can't pass down virtues, they can pass down tangible wealth such as establishments. They can only can lead by example.
• Dante wrote, "Seldom arises by these slender branches prowess of men, for it is God, no less, wills us to claim of Him our gentleness."
• Everyone knows this as well as I; for if gentility were implanted by the natural course of lineage down the line, public or private, could it cease to shine in doing the fair work of gentle deed?
• Take fire and carry it to the darkest house between this kingdom and the Caucasus, and shut the doors on it and leave it there, it will burn on, and it will burn as fair.
• God knows you'll often find some lording full of villainy and shame.
• To be esteemed a gentleman, one actually needs to follow noble code and cred.
• Filth and bad manners are what make a churl.
• Gentility is only the renown for bounty is foreign to your own.
• Reflet how noble (says Valerius) Was Tullius surnamed Hostilius, Who rose from poverty to nobleness
• Thus they express themselves and are agreed: 'Gentle is he that does a gentle deed.
• The Wife of Bath states that through his grace she can live in virtue still, making her a gentlewoman.
• One has to begin to live in virtue and to shrink from sinning to become a gentlewoman.
• She states that Almighty God chose a life of poverty.
• No shame in poverty if the heart is gay says Seneca.
• Truly poor are they who whine and fret and covet what they cannot hope to get.

Further arguments

• True poverty can find a song to sing
• Juvenal says a pleasant little thing: 'The poor can dance and sing in the relief of having nothing that will tempt a thief.'
• Poverty is a great incentive to a livelihood, and a great help to capacity for wisdom, if accepted patiently
• You gentlemen engage yourselves in honor to respect old age.
• You say I'm old and fouler than a fen. You need not fear to be a cuckold then. Filth and old age, I'm sure you will agree, are powerful wardens over chastity.
• You have two choices; which one will you try? To have me old and ugly till I die, but still a loyal, true, and humble wife That never will displease you all her life, or would you rather I were young and pretty And chance your arm what happens in a city
• The knight decided to leave the decision to her: "You make the choice yourself, for the provision Of what may be agreeable and rich In honor to us both, I don't care which; Whatever pleases you suffices me."
• "And have I won the mastery?"
• Now that she decides, she will be beautiful and faithful.
• The knight indeed saw that she was young.
• He kissed her many times
• So they lived ever after to the end in perfect bliss

Final Statement

• The Wife of Bath prays that Christ Jesus sends husbands meek and young and fresh in bed to overbid their wives when they wed
• May Christ cut short the lives of those who won't be governed by their wives
• She hopes old, angry niggards of their pence get a pestilence.