Canterbury Tales Good vs Evil Quotes

O Sowdanesse, roote of iniquitee!
Virago, thou Semyrame the secounde!
O serpent under femynynytee,
Lik to the serpent depe in helle ybounde!
O feyned womman, al that may confounde
Vertu and innocence, thurgh thy malice,
Is bred in thee, as nest of every vice!

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law’s Tale. The Man of Law depicts the Sultaness as an evil woman and a serpent from hell wearing the mask of femininity, who can destroy virtue and innocence through her malice. He portrays her at the arch-enemy of Constance, who is a symbol of virtue and innocence.

O Sathan, envious syn thilke day
That thou were chaced from oure heritage,
Wel knowestow to wommen the olde way!
Thou madest Eva brynge us in servage;
Thou wolt fordoon this Cristen mariage.
Thyn instrument so – weylawey the while! –
Makestow of wommen, whan thou wolt bigile.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law’s Tale. The Man of Law says that Satan knows well the ways of beguiling and deceiving women, ever since his successful temptation of Eve and the resulting fall of man. Satan, he says, will destroy the Christian marriage of the Sultan and Constance using another woman as his instrument – the Sultaness.

She blesseth hire, and with ful pitous voys
Unto the croys of Crist thus seyde she:
O cleere, o welful auter, hooly croys,
Reed of the Lambes blood ful of pitee,
That wessh the world fro the olde iniquitee,
Me fro the feend and fro his clawes kepe,
That day that I shal drenchen in the depe.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law’s Tale. After the wedding feast massacre, during which all Christians except Constance are murdered, the Sultaness’s men put Constance on a rudderless ship with provisions and bid her to sail back to Italy. Constance is more fearful of the devil than she is of death at sea, and prays that she will escape Satan’s clutches the day she drowns.

Victorious tree, proteccioun of trewe,
That oonly worthy were for to bere
The Kyng of Hevene with his woundes newe,
The white Lamb, that hurt was with a spere,
Flemere of feendes out of hym and here
On which thy lymes feithfully extenden,
Me kepe, and yif me myght my lyf t’ amenden.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law’s Tale. Set adrift at sea after the wedding feast massacre, Constance blesses herself and prays to the Cross of Christ, the banisher of fiends out of man and woman, to keep guard over her.

For as the lomb toward his deeth is broght,
So stant this innocent bifore the kyng.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law’s Tale. Using the simile of a lamb being brought to slaughter, the Man of Laws tells his fellow pilgrims how the innocent Constance is falsely accused before the king of murdering the constable’s wife Hermengild. The knight whose lustful advances inspired by Satan that Constance spurned actually slit Hermengild’s throat. And in his desire for revenge he left the bloody knife by Constance’s bed to implicate her.

The lettre spak the queene delivered was
Of so horrible a feendly creature
That in the castel noon so hardy was
That any while dorste ther endure.
The mooder was an elf, by aventure
Ycomen, by charmes or by sorcerie,
And every wight hateth hir compaignye.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law’s Tale. The Constable’s letter to the King forged by Donegild says that Constance has delivered so horrible and fiendish a baby that no one in the castle dares go near it. The mother is an evil spirit full of charms and sorcery and every person hates her, the letter states, as the vicious Donegild attempts to turn her son against Constance.

O Donegild, I ne have noon Englissh digne
Unto thy malice and thy tirannye!
And therfore to the feend I thee resigne;
Lat hym enditen of thy traitorie!
Fy, mannysh, fy! – o nay, by God, I lye –
Fy, feendlych spirit, for I dar wel telle,
Thogh thou heere walke, thy spirit is in helle!

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Man of Law’s Tale. The Man of Law has such contempt for Donegild’s malice and treachery that he is rendered speechless, saying he doesn’t have any English suitable to describe it. But he refuses to define her as human, instead he says she is a fiendish spirit straight out of hell.

"Now certes," quod this Somonour, "so fare I.
I spare nat to taken, God it woot,
But if it be to hevy or to hoot.
What I may gete in conseil prively,
No maner conscience of that have I.
Nere myn extorcioun, I myghte nat lyven."

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Friar’s Tale. The Summoner admits to the Yeoman (Devil in disguise) that he too lives by extortion, in his case stealing the money that he collects from peasants. The collections he makes he doesn’t give to his archdeacon but keeps for himself. He doesn’t tell those he takes the money from that it goes straight into his pocket, and not to the church. And he has no pangs of conscience about it, this greedy church official boasts, for were it not for his extortion he could not live.

My trouthe wol I holde to my brother,
As I am sworn, and ech of us til oother,
For to be trewe brother in this cas;
And bothe we goon abouten oure purchas.
Taak thou thy part, what that men wol thee yive,
And I shal myn; thus may we bothe lyve.
And if that any of us have moore than oother,
Lat hym be trewe and parte it with his brother.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Friar’s Tale. The Devil and ecclesiastical court Summoner make a pact to bond together as brothers forever. This is no surprise, as they certainly make a good fit seeing as they have a shared interest in deceitfulness and hypocrisy. They agree to go about their trade and share the proceeds together.

"Brother," quod he, "heere woneth an old rebekke
"Brother," said he, "here dwells an old crone
That hadde almoost as lief to lese hire nekke
As for to yeve a peny of hir good.
I wole han twelf pens, though that she be wood,
Or I wol sompne hire unto oure office;
And yet, God woot, of hire knowe I no vice.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Friar’s Tale. The greedy Summoner hatches a plot with the Devil to blackmail an old widow woman with a threat to summons her on trumped up charges before the ecclesiastical court, unless she pays him twelve pence. He admits that she is not guilty of any vice that he knows of.

"Pay me," quod he, "or by the sweete Seinte Anne,
As I wol bere awey thy newe panne
For dette which thou owest me of old.
Whan that thou madest thyn housbonde cokewold,
I payde at hoom for thy correccioun."
"Thou lixt!" quod she, "by my savacioun,
Ne was I nevere er now, wydwe ne wyf,
Somoned unto youre court in al my lyf;
Ne nevere I nas but of my body trewe!

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Friar’s Tale. The Summoner attempts to extort money from the old widow using lies and deceit. He tells her she has already been fined by the church court for being unfaithful to her husband and that he paid the fine. He threatens to take her new pan as payment, if she doesn’t give him a twelve pence bribe. But the woman dismisses the greedy Summoner’s claims as a pack of lies, saying she was always true to her body, and refuses to pay.

"Now, sire," quod he, "han freres swich a grace
That noon of hem shal come to this place?"
"Yis," quod this angel, "many a millioun!"
And unto Sathanas he ladde hym doun.
"And now hath Sathanas," seith he, "a tayl
Brodder than of a carryk is the sayl.
Hold up thy tayl, thou Sathanas!" quod he.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Summoner’s Prologue. The Summoner mentions the story of a friar being led down to hell in a vision by an angel to show the pains and torments there. The friar queries if friars are in such a state of grace that none of them go to hell. The angel replies that there are millions there. He leads the friar down to Satan, who has a tail broader than the sail of a galleon, and the angel asks Satan to hold up his tail.

She seyde, "Lord, al lyth in youre plesaunce.
My child and I, with hertely obeisaunce,
Been youres al, and ye mowe save or spille
Youre owene thyng; werketh after youre wille."

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Clerk’s Tale. In one of the tale’s most disturbing passages, Griselda makes no protest when her daughter it to be taken from her by Walter, presumably to be slain. She shockingly tells her husband that she and her children are his property and he may save or kill his own thing. The case of a mother unquestioningly accepting a husband’s evil will towards her children is one of the things that makes the Clerk’s Tale disturbing and uncomfortable reading. Where is her motherly instinct to protect her child? Where is the courage to stand up for what is right? Griselda may be virtuous in many ways, but she lacks the virtue of courage to stand up to Walter’s brutal behavior.

I wol no thyng, ne nyl no thyng, certayn,
But as yow list. Naught greveth me at al,
Though that my doughter and my sone be slayn –
At youre comandement, this is to sayn.
I have noght had no part of children tweyne
But first siknesse, and after, wo and peyne.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Clerk’s Tale. Griselda continues to show extreme obedience and submissiveness when husband Walter tests her loyalty again by proposing that their second child, a son, be put to death. The sound of silence from a mother who fails to protest the murder of her children by an authoritarian father is inexplicable. It demonstrates a flaw in Griselda’s otherwise virtuous nature and goodness, we believe. For isn’t the courage to fight for the life of your child a virtue, which she seems to lack? Submitting to Walter’s cruel and frankly evil will yet again, she says she will have nothing but what he desires. Her husband’s total sovereignty over her life and that of her children is clear when she says she has had no part of her children except the pain of childbirth.

O glotonye, ful of cursednesse!
O cause first of oure confusioun!
O original of oure dampnacioun,
Til Crist hadde boght us with his blood agayn!
Lo, how deere, shortly for to sayn,
Aboght was thilke cursed vileynye!
Corrupt was al this world for glotonye.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Pardoner’s Tale. It is hypocritical and ironic for the Pardoner to strongly condemn gluttony, being under the influence of strong ale himself during the telling of his tale. The Pardoner views this sin as the first cause of mankind’s ruin and damnation, when Eve succumbed to her hunger for the apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden in the Christian Bible story. Jesus as a result had to redeem mankind through his death and blood.

For in a bath they gonne hire faste shetten,
And nyght and day greet fyr they under betten.
The longe nyght, and eek a day also,
For al the fyr and eek the bathes heete
She sat al coold and feelede no wo.
It made hire nat a drope for to sweete.
But in that bath hir lyf she moste lete,
For he Almachius, with ful wikke entente,
To sleen hire in the bath his sonde sente.

– Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales, The Second Nun’s Tale. Enraged by Cecilia’s boldness and resolute Christian faith, Almachius sentences her to be boiled to death in a bath at her house. Day and night a great fire is lit under the cauldron, but she remains unharmed and stays cold, not even sweating one drop. But in that cauldron she is destined to die, for Almachius "with wicked intent" sends his executioner to slay the saintly Cecilia in the bath.
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