The Canterbury Tales · The Reeve’s Tale · The Prologue

The Prologue

When folk had laughed all at this nice case

Of Absolon and Hendy Nicholas,

Diversë folk diversëly they said,

But for the morë part they laugh’d and play’d;1189

And at this tale I saw no man him grieve,

But it were only Osëwold the Reeve.

Because he was of carpentérë’s craft,

A little ire is in his heartë laft;1190

He gan to grudge1191 and blamed it a lite.1192

“So thé I,”1193 quoth he, “full well could I him quite1194

With blearing1195 of a proudë miller’s eye,

If that me list to speak of ribaldry.

But I am old; me list not play for age;1196

Grass time is done, my fodder is now foráge.

This whitë top1197 writeth mine oldë years;

Mine heart is also moulded1198 as mine hairs;

And I do fare as doth an open-erse;1199

That ilkë1200 fruit is ever longer werse,

Till it be rotten in mullok or in stre.1201

We oldë men, I dread, so farë we;

Till we be rotten, can we not be ripe;

We hop1202 away, while that the world will pipe;

For in our will there sticketh aye a nail,

To have an hoary head and a green tail,

As hath a leek; for though our might be gone,

Our will desireth folly ever-in-one:1203

For when we may not do, then will we speak,

Yet in our ashes cold does firë reek.1204

Four gledës1205 have we, which I shall devise,1206

Vaunting, and lying, anger, covetíse.1207

These fourë sparks belongen unto eld.

Our oldë limbës well may be unweld,1208

But will shall never fail us, that is sooth.

And yet have I alway a coltë’s tooth,1209

As many a year as it is passed and gone

Since that my tap of life began to run;

For sickerly,1210 when I was born, anon

Death drew the tap of life, and let it gon:

And ever since hath so the tap y-run,

Till that almost all empty is the tun.

The stream of life now droppeth on the chimb.1211

The silly tonguë well may ring and chime

Of wretchedness, that passed is full yore:1212

With oldë folk, save dotage, is no more.”1213

When that our Host had heard this sermoning,

He gan to speak as lordly as a king,

And said; “To what amounteth all this wit?

What? shall we speak all day of holy writ?

The devil made a Reevë for to preach,

As of a souter1214 a shipman, or a leach.1215

Say forth thy tale, and tarry not the time:

Lo here is Deptford, and ’tis half past prime:1216

Lo Greenwich, where many a shrew is in.

It were high time thy talë to begin.”

“Now, sirs,” quoth then this Osëwold the Reeve,

“I pray you all that none of you do grieve,

Though I answér, and somewhat set his hove,1217

For lawful is force off with force to shove.1218

This drunken miller hath y-told us here

How that beguiled was a carpentére,

Paráventure in scorn⁠—for I am one:

And, by your leave, I shall him quite anon.

Right in his churlish termës will I speak⁠—

I pray to God his neckë might to-break.

He can well in mine eyë see a stalk,1219

But in his own he cannot see a balk.”