5. Summary
The Shipman’s Tale, one of the 24 stories in The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer. It is based on an old French fabliau and
resembles a story found in Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron.
In the tale told by Chaucer’s Shipman, the wife of a rich merchant
convinces a young monk that her husband refuses to pay for her
clothes and asks him to lend her 100 francs. Smitten, he agrees.
The monk then asks the husband to lend him 100 francs to buy
cattle, and the monk gives the sum to the wife, who thanks him by
taking him to bed.
When the merchant later returns from a journey, the monk says that
he has repaid the debt by returning the money to the wife. The wife
admits that this is so but says that she thought it was a gift and that
she used it to outfit herself as becomes the wife of a successful
merchant. She then offers to repay her husband with her “jolly
body.” Chaucer indulges in a bawdy pun about repayment by “taille”
(meaning either tally or tail).
7. Plot
The tale tells of a merchant whose wife
enjoys revelry and socializing, on which
she spends money. A young monk, who
is close friends with the merchant,
comes to stay with them. After
confessing that she does not love her
husband, the wife asks the monk for
one hundred franks to pay her debts.
9. This tale present a "debate" on the role of position and power in
this world. The opening lines of The Shipman's Tale establish
this theme. "Once there was a merchant in St. Denys who was
rich and was highly respected as wise" ("A marchant whilom
dwelled at Seint Denys, / That riche was, for which men helde
hym wys.") The tale itself concerns a rich merchant who has a
certain authority over those around him because of his apparent
wealth. He also has a wife who has a merry and companionable
air. (A wyf he hadde of excellent beautee; / And compaignable
and revelous was she."), but these excellent qualities cost the
merchant dearly.
Analysis
10. At the beginning of the tale are some puzzling lines:
The silly husband always has to pay
He has to clothe us, he has to array
Our bodies to enhance his reputation,
While we dance round in all this decoration.
(The sely housbonde, algate he moot paye,
He moot us clothe, and he moot us arraye,
Al for his ownene worshipe richely
In which array we daunce jolily)
The use of the first person plural pronoun "us" in the phrase "he has to clothe us" clearly
suggests that Chaucer intended to assign this story to one of the female members of the party,
and due to the subject matter it could have been no one other than the Wife of Bath. Apparently
Chaucer wrote this story for her and then changed his mind, forgetting to eliminate the
inconsistent passage.
Poetic Expression Analysis
12. Conclusion
The presented moral is that you can't
trust anyone, even your closest
friends. The monk was a close friend
to the Shipman and a man of the
church, yet he still deceived the
Shipman by being involved with his
wife.
