What Ails Chaucer's Cook? Spiritual Alchemy and the Ending of the Canterbury Tales
2001; University of Iowa; Volume: 80; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
0031-7977
Autores Tópico(s)Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies
Resumo[Alchemy] treats of the imperfect bodies of minerals, and teaches how to perfect them.... We compose this book of things perfecting and corrupting ... because contraries set near each other are more clearly manifested. Geber, Sum of Perfection In the Manciple's Prologue, Chaucer describes the following scene: two miles outside of Canterbury, Roger the Cook lags behind the company and falls asleep atop his horse. Seeing this, the Host begins to jape and pleye and selects the Cook to tell the next tale. Harry Bailly asks for someone to awaken the Cook and then poses this question: eyleth thee to slepe by the morwe? (1) The Manciple, kitchen steward at the Inns of Court, steps forward to doon ese to the Cook but ends up berating him instead. mocks Roger for his dazed eyes, pale visage, and sour breath, and reviles him as a stynkyng swyn! The exasperated Cook can only gape at the Manciple and then plummet from his horse. In his tirade, the Manciple glosses the Cook's condition as drunkenness, an explanation adopted by the Host and Chaucer the pilgrim. Generations of readers have also accepted the Manciple's interpretation--a popular guide to The Canterbury Tales calls the Cook's extreme a basic point for readers--and for good reason. (2) We know from the General Prologue that the Cook has a penchant for London ale, and later in the Manciple's Tale Roger accepts a mollifying draghte of from the Manciple's gourd. Chaucer the pilgrim sees little need of this since He drank ynough biforn--though the Host cannot say whether it was or oold or moysty ale. The pun in Harry Bailly's question--what ale-eth thee to sleep in the morning?--even supports the Manciple's interpretation. In all likelihood the Cook merely suffers the effects of an alcoholic bender the night before. Chaucer's text, however, does not yield up this explanation easily. Instead of establishing the Cook's inebriation up front, Chaucer makes Roger's condition the subject of inquiry and conversation throughout the Manciple's Prologue. The Host follows his initial question with three reasonable explanations: Hastow had fleen al nyght, or artow dronke? Or hastow with some quene al nyght yswonke, So that thow mayst holden up thyn heed? (16-18) An answer comes not from the Cook or the narrator but from the Manciple, a crafty embezzler who delights in deceiving his learned masters at the Inns of Court (567-585). After promising the Cook that he shall nat been yglosed, the Manciple pours forth a cascade of accusations that bury the Cook in glosses. Other drunken characters in The Canterbury Tales require no such glossing. Before telling his tale, the Miller himself makes protestacioun / That am (3137-38). The announcement is hardly necessary, for the signs of his inebriation are palpable. The Miller hears intoxication in his altered soun, and the Host, who later has such trouble reading the Cook, saugh that [the Miller] was dronke of ale (3138, 3128). Likewise, the Pardoner announces before telling his tale, I [have] dronke a draughte of corny ale (456), and the Friar begins his story of Cambises by declaring, Irous Cambises was eek dronkelewe (2043). In each of these cases, drunkenness is unambiguously established at the beginning of the narrative. Instead of declaring his inebriation or protesting his sobriety, however, the Cook appears sincerely perplexed by his condition: So God my soule blesse, As ther is falle on me swich hevynesse, Noot why, that me were levere slepe Than the beste galon wyn in Chepe. (21-24) Roger mentions wine, but only by way of comparison, and he pleads ignorance about the intense heaviness that has befallen him. The first two voices in the tale cannot--or at least do not--explain what ails the Cook. Only after the Manciple silences Roger and asserts his own explanation do the pilgrims accept the Cook's inebriation as fact. …
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