The Canterbury Tales

The Millers

Characters:

John: wealthy but ignorant old carpenter

Alison: John’s wife. Very beautiful and young (18 years old)

Nicholas: Oxford student who studied astrology and was well acquainted with the art of love.

Absolon: Alison’s admirer.

Summary:

A rich carpenter lived at Oxford, with his wife and a clerk, an impoverished student of astrology. The carpenter’s wife was only eighteen years old, and that’s why he protected her a lot. One day while the carpenter was out, Nicholas convinced Alison to sleep with him. However, the wife worried because her husband was very protective and jealous, so they decided to look for an opportunity to do so.

Absolon was another man who was mad with desire for Alison, but she was in love with Nicholas.

One day Nicholas came up with a plan to spend the night with Alison. He told John that, according to his reading of the moon, next Monday, a flood would drown the world. John was to take large wooden troughs, one for each for Nicholas, Alison and John, and hang them up in the roof (full of supplies); when the water arrives, all John would have to do is take an axe, cut the cord, break a hole in the gable, and float away with his wife and his clerk intact. Monday arrived and the three climbed up to the roof. When John fall asleep, Nicholas and Alison got together.

Absolon went to sing to Alison and she asked him to go away, so he said he would go if she gave him a kiss. Alison agreed but when Absolon leans in to give her a kiss, she puts her naked ass out of the window. He leaves angrily but goes there again for revenge. As he asks for another kiss, offering a ring to Alison, Nicholas puts his naked ass too, but Absolon burned it with a hot iron. Nicholas crying awoke John who cut the cord with the axe, bringing everything crashing down from the roof, through the floors, until finally landed on the cellar floor, knocked out.

Moral: The moral of the play is that John should not have married someone so young.

#books #reading