The Merchant's Tale continues the debate on Marriage, started by the Wife of Bath, and carried into clearer air by the modest Clerk of Oxford. Chaucer had Latin sources for the discussions, and the humorous laxity of the story of January and May is based on an old popular jest-story of which Boccaccio's version, in the "Decameron," seems nearest to the original form—the Tree, as in Asiatic versions, is enchanted. A more pleasant variety of Asiatic tale, that of the Flying Horse (as in the "Arabian Nights"), is "left half-told" by the Squire, the son of the Knight: as good a man as his father. Chaucer either never finished the story, or the conclusion was lost.
The story told by the Franklin is, after those of the Knight and the Prioress, perhaps the most poetical of all. It is a romance in which the problem of marriage and the supremacy of husband or wife is once more touched on and happily settled by the steadfast love of the knight and lady. They are separated for years, a new lover is rejected by the lady, and, to win her, makes a magician cause by "glamour" (something in the way of hypnotic suggestion) the apparent disappearance of the black rocks of Britanny. But loyalty is stronger than magic. This charming tale is based on a Breton original; but the handling is entirely Chaucer's, and is done in his best and gentlest manner.
The Second Nun's Tale is the legend of the marriage and wooing of St. Cecily; it was composed in stanzas, and is put into its place without the removal of lines which show that it was written separately before Chaucer thought of his framework. Among the latest additions are the Prologue and Tale of the Canon's Yeoman,—neither yeoman nor canon is among the original characters of the General Prologue. The story contains a satire of the golden dreams, self-deceptions, and impostures of the Alchemists, with their search for the Philosopher's Stone.
The Tale of the Manciple, or kitchen servant, is really a "Just so Story" explaining why the crow is black, and is taken from Ovid, who took it from an old Greek fable.
Finally, the honest country Parson has his chance. He announces that being a man of Southern England, he likes not rum, ram, ruf (alliterative verse), nor cares for rhyme, and he preaches in prose at very great length. His sermon is a free translation, with alterations of all sorts, from a French source, the same as the source of the "Ayenbite of Inwyt" (Remorse).
The immense variety in character of the Tales, covering all the tastes of the time, is now apparent. For the gay and the grave, the lively and severe, Chaucer has provided reading.
[1] This is manifest for (line 1201) he dismisses the story of Perithous and Theseus la Hades,
But of that story list me nat to wryte.