This fourteenth tale in Canterbury Tales has a “physician-pardoner link" in which the host reviews the physician's tale as the most striking one arousing pity in everyone and says that the very beauty of Virginia has turned the Judge mad and has brought death to her as the gifts of fortune and nature always cause death to many good people. The host invites the Pardoner to tell a merry tale now to ease the pilgrims. But the pilgrims are afraid that the Pardoner may tell a quite obscene tale and so they insist him to tell a moral tale to which he agrees and begins his prologue to his tale.
The Prologue throws a good deal of light on the character of the Pardoner and his way of preaching. He says that his theme of all preaching is “the love of money is the root of all evil", but he himself confesses that he commits that very sin. He is skilful in selling his relics to his folks. He shows a brass shoulder-bone of a holy jew's dead sheep and convinces people that if it is washed in a well, the well water will get the power to cure the cattle stung by snake. He also has a glove that will empower the user to multiply his grain. He reserves such relics not for sinners or cuckold but for good people, especially the unlettered ones. Since he is drunk now, he unfolds his heart that he must have money, wool, cheese, wheat, wine and a jolly young woman in every town. He thus begins his tale:
“For though myself, I’m a sinful man,
Tell you a moral tale? Well, that I can"
There was a wicked city named Flanders with full of gamblers, drunkards, thieves, lechers, gluttons and liars. There, a company of three young friends sat in a tavern and indulged in drinking. They could see a coffin carried to the grave and knew from their servant boy that the dead man is none other than one of their old friends and was slain at drunken state last night by a thief called Death who then stole his breath. Both the boy and the innkeeper revealed that the thief had killed thousands of people in the nearby village of pestilence and his habitation must probably be there. The three friends swore to join together and kill the thief. They rushed to the village and found an old man who was ever wandering and looking for someone who is young and may exchange the youth for his old age. Asked upon the whereabouts of the thief, the old man directed them to reach the end of the lane nearby and find the thief under a tree there.
The three profligates found but eight bushels of fine gold coins under the tree. The most wicked of them suggested to enjoy the time with bread and wine and carry the gold home late at night without the knowledge of others. They drew a lot and sent the youngest one to go to the city for fetching food and wine. The Two friends safeguarding the gold plotted to kill the other one on his return in a pretended game. But the one who brought wine added poison it to kill the remaining two so as to possess the entire gold. Thus all the three encountered Death.
After telling the story, as he used to do with his folk, now the Pardoner begs for money showing his relics. He asks the host first to try his relics or bull (pope's order of pardon) to clear of his sins. The raged host bursts,
“I would I had your bollocks in my hand,
Instead of relics or some reliquary!
Have them cut off, them I’ll help you carry,
And they shall be enshrined in a hog's turd.”
The Knight intervenes them and ease the situation by bringing them near and kiss each other friendly.
Criticism:
We can forgive the Pardoner for his greed and hypocrisy but how can we, when he says, he “must have jolly wench in every town!”? There bursts a hilarious laughter when the Pardoner starts begging from his own fellow pilgrims with his so called relics. Who can portray and ridicule at the corrupt Pardoner better than Chaucer? The tale is but a widespread moral story for children often making its presence nowadays in hints development exercise and the theme is ‘sin of avarice' – money is the root of all evil. The story of three brothers in the Harry potter universe and Rudyard Kipling's “the King's Ankus” in the Second Jungle Book are modelled on this Pardoner's tale.
As for pardoner's character, he who preaches against what he practices is an antithesis to Parson who preaches what he practices. In the beginning of the tale, or even in the prologue, the Pardoner is simply making a mountain out of the molehill and to a greater portion, it is full of morals: to condemn drunkenness, he quotes Seneca and to deplore gluttony, he quotes Paul. Thus a long lecture frequents to elucidate each wickedness. The allegorical significance of the story is another aspect worth mentioning. Death is personified as a thief who steals one's breath and the three so called friends, being hungry for money, are stolen of their breath by the thief under the tree. Their drunkenness, gluttony and avarice join together and bring their fatal end. Some critics have seen the old man as Death’s messenger as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment