The Reeve’s TaleThe Prologue
When folk had laughed all at this nice caseOf Absolon and Hendy Nicholas,Diverse folk diversely they said,But for the more part they laugh’d and play’d;And at this tale I saw no man him grieve,But it were only Osewold the Reeve.Because he was of carpenteres craft,A little ire is in his hearte laft;He gan to grudge and blamed it a lite.“So the I,” quoth he, “full well could I him quiteWith blearing of a proude miller’s eye,If that me list to speak of ribaldry.But I am old; me list not play for age;Grass time is done, my fodder is now forage.This white top writeth mine olde years;Mine heart is also moulded as mine hairs;And I do fare as doth an open-erse;That ilke fruit is ever longer werse,Till it be rotten in mullok or in stre.We olde men, I dread, so fare we;Till we be rotten, can we not be ripe;We hop 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:For when we may not do, then will we speak,Yet in our ashes cold does fire reek.Four gledes have we, which I shall devise,Vaunting, and lying, anger, covetise.These foure sparks belongen unto eld.Our olde limbes well may be unweld,But will shall never fail us, that is sooth.And yet have I alway a coltes tooth,As many a year as it is passed and goneSince that my tap of life began to run;For sickerly, when I was born, anonDeath 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.The silly tongue well may ring and chimeOf wretchedness, that passed is full yore:With olde folk, save dotage, is no more.
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 Reeve for to preach,As of a souter a shipman, or a leach.Say forth thy tale, and tarry not the time:Lo here is Deptford, and ’tis half past prime:Lo Greenwich, where many a shrew is in.It were high time thy tale to begin.”
“Now, sirs,” quoth then this Osewold the Reeve,I pray you all that none of you do grieve,Though I answer, and somewhat set his hove,For lawful is force off with force to shove.This drunken miller hath y-told us hereHow that beguiled was a carpentere,Paraventure in scorn, for I am one:And, by your leave, I shall him quite anon.Right in his churlish termes will I speak,I pray to God his necke might to-break.He can well in mine eye see a stalk,But in his own he cannot see a balk.”