Bile and Vanity

There are many themes and motifs worth exploring in The Nun's Priest's Tale, but I was struck by the introduction early on of diet and body humors. The widow/dairywoman doesn't play an important role in this story, but of the few things we are told about her, one is of her diet. Chaucer tells us that, "Attempree diete was hir physik." She eats moderately and modestly. She doesn't have a rich diet-- she eats brown bread (not the Boston variety, I'll warrant) and drinks milk. She doesn't have gout (a rich man's disease) and she doesn't drink wine, either white or red.  Sometimes she has bacon and eggs, a good English (or French) supper. This aspect of the widow strikes me as an odd thing to focus on. If I were having my biography written, I would not want the focus to be on what I eat!

After we are introduced to the widow and her "doughten" the narrator focuses in on the subjects of the tale, Chanticleer and his favorite wife, Pertylote. We are told that Chanticleer's bile is black and that he is melancholy, which is redundant. Melancholics are the lovers, the poets, and the dreamers. Chanticleer doesn't disappoint.

In 2940-2950 after Chanticleer has had a dreadful nightmare, his wife tells him that he is too full of poop and he had best take a laxative. Chanticleer tells her that Pharaoh didn't need a laxative when he told his dreams to Joseph. And the rooster's dream turned out to be just as prophetic as Pharaoh's.

The sin that entrap's Chanticleer is vanity. He falls into the fox's trap of flattery. "Pride goith bifore sorewe; and the spirit schal be enhaunted byfor fallyng." So says Solomon by way of Wycliffe.