"The pilgrims on the road to Canterbury."

This is found 10 pages into the prologue to The Canterbury Tales. These kids were dying for something colorful to look at by then.

And they didn't even get another highwayman.

"I'm telling you. We should have taken a left at Albuquerque."

Behind them, the knight and his squire son (Chaucer considered the knight an idealist, his son a dandy, but a skilled athlete and lover) are conniving. They think the nun isn't onto them, but she has a way of knowing things. The friar? Oblivious. Too much ale. The Wyf is too busy trying to appear pious. The clerk, also in the background, is studying for the priesthood, reading a red book, much like this one.

The story ends differently today, don't you think?

Next | More Books | Home