The Sergeant at Law's Tale: Part 1

There is a group of traders from Syria who are well known throughout the Middle-East and Europe. They go to Rome and are visited by the Emperor's daughter, Constance. When they return to Syria they visit their friend, the Sultan, to recount their travels and to tell him about Constance's beauty. The Sultan falls in love with her based upon the traders' story and gathers his council to tell them that he will die if he cannot marry her (sooo freakin' dramatic!) Anyways, the councilmen tell the Sultan that the Emperor would never permit his daughter to marry a Muslim. So the Sultan proposes that he should convert to Christianity, and hence, all his subjects and family would as well. His councilmen then present the proposal of marriage to the Emperor who accepts and plans a lavish wedding. Constance, however, is distraught because she has to marry a foreign man; one who she does not know and will have trouble relating to, due to their cultural differences. She acknowledges that she will essentially become a slave to her future husband and live a life of misery, yet she can do nothing to stop the marriage. Meanwhile, the mother of the Sultan is appalled that her son would renounce their religion and take up Christianity. She gathers her own councilmen and plots to prevent the marriage so that the her family and citizens can remain faithful to the Koran. She tells her advisers that they should all pretend to accept Christianity, and once they do that, she will throw a grand feast for the soon to be husband and wife.

The Cook's Tale Prologue:

The cook talks about how much he enjoyed the Reeve's tale and how people should be careful about who they let in their house. To prove his point he quotes Solomon, "Bring not every man into thine house." The host of the party warns the cook to tell a fair and decent tale with quality content. He doesn't want the tale to be like the cook's various pastries and pies that are a week old and covered in flies. The cook says that he has a good story but it is about an innkeeper and he asks the host not to take offense.

The Cook's Tale:

There was a prentice who lived in the same city as the cook. He was strong, handsome and incessantly happy. He loved to sing, dance and gamble his way through the city. However, a problem arose with his employers. They took his outings as thievery because they were essentially the ones to pay for his gambling excursions. Near the end of the man's apprenticeship his master told him to leave. The thought being that the man could not persuade the other men to follow his nightly outings. The Tale ends with the man finding a female companion to gamble and spend his days with. The catch being that she was a prostitute and that was the only match the man was fit for.

Intro to the Sergeant-At-Law's Tale:

Based on the sun's position in the sky, the host determines that it is the eighteenth of April. He asks the Sergeant-At-Law to fulfill his promise and to begin his story. The lawyer says that there is no tale he could tell that has not already been written by Chaucer, the writer in their company. The host says that Chaucer does not write tale's associated with anything that is grotesque or sinful. To that, the lawyer says that he will tell a tale of poverty and speak in prose, leaving the formation of poetry to Chaucer.

The Sergeant-At-Law's Tale Prologue:

The lawyer talk of poverty and how it is the worst condemnation that God could give. He says that poverty reduces a man to become a beggar and diminishes any sort of self-respect due to the need to survive. Poverty causes a man to steal and commit other sinful crimes. He quotes the wise as saying that it is "better to be dead than poor." He then transitions into talking about the rich and how God created a world in which men could be so disproportionately wealthy.

The Reeve's Tale Summary:

After the Miller finishes telling his tale, the Reeve is really offended because he is a carpenter and the story was inappropriate. So for some reason the Reeve thinks that he can get back at the Miller by telling an even raunchier tale that involves a dishonest miller getting cheated. So there is a miller who lives near Cambridge who grinds all the corn for the local area and a nearby college. He steals the flour from everyone he grinds it for and everyone know of his dishonesty but won't do anything about it because he is a strong and dangerous man. Two young men, named John and Alan, come from the nearby college to watch the miller grind their corn so they won't be cheated out again. However, the miller knows of their plan and tries to outsmart the scholars by undoing their plan. He goes outside his house, where the scholars' horse is tied up, and undoes the rope so that the horse runs off. Once the scholars find out about their runaway horse they completely forget about the overseeing of the flour and run to go retrieve their horse. They finally get the horse tied up again by nightfall and ask to stay in the millers house. After the miller, his wife, and his twenty year old daughter fall asleep, Alan decides to get some recompense for his stolen goods. He goes over to the miller's daughter and has sex with her. Then John feels like an idiot because he hasn't gotten any pay back so he moves the baby's cradle in front of his bed so that when the wife gets up to pee and comes back she'll climb into his bed (using the crib to navigate which bed she's in because it is so dark). So the wife gets in bed with John and they have sex because she thinks it's her husband. When Alan get ready to leave he goes to the miller's bed (thinking it's John's) and tells him what he did. The miller and Alan then get into a fight and eventually Alan and John escape with their flour, horse and a sense of payback.