“An ancient proverb says, quoth he,
Justice in an enemy
Is seldom to be found.”
He accuses the Wolf in his turn of violating the bonds of partnership. The Fox and the Wolf had arranged to rob a fish-cart. The Fox lay for dead on the road, and the carter, taking him up, threw him on the top of the load of fish, turning to his horse again. Reynard then threw the fish on to the road, and jumping down to join in the feast found left for him but fin and scales. The Badger explains away also the story of Reynard’s guilt as to Dame Isengrin, and, with regard to the Hare, asks if a teacher shall not chastise his scholars. In short, since the King proclaimed a peace, Reynard was thoroughly reformed, and but for being absorbed in penance would no doubt have been present to defend himself from any false reports.
Unfortunately for this justification, at the very moment of its conclusion a funeral procession passes;
“On sable bier
The relics of a Hen appear,”
while Henning, the Cock, makes a piteous complaint of Reynard’s misdeeds. He said how the Fox had
“Assured him he’d become a friar,
And brought a letter from his prior;
Show’d him his hood and shirt of hair,
His rosary and scapulaire;
Took leave of him with pious grace,
That he might hasten to his place
To read the nona and the sept,
And vesper too before he slept;
And as he slowly took his way,
Read in his pocket breviary.”
all of which ended in the devout penitent eating nineteen of Henning’s brood.
The Lion invites his council’s advice. It is decided to send an envoy to Reynard, and Bruno, the Bear, is selected to summon him to court.
Bruno finds him at his castle of Malepart, and thunders a summons. Reynard, by plausible speech and a story of honey, disarms some of his hostility, and entices him off to a carpenter’s yard, where an oak trunk, half split, yet has the wedge in. Reynard declaring the honey is in the cleft, Bruno puts his head and paws in. Reynard draws out the wedge. The Bear howls till the whole village is aroused, and Bruno, to save his life, draws himself out minus skin from head and paws. In the confusion the parson’s cook falls into the stream, and the parson offers two butts of beer to the man who saves her. While this is being done, the Bear escapes, and the Fox taunts him.
The Bear displaying his condition at court, the King swears to hang Reynard, this time sending Hinge, the Cat, to summon Reynard to trial. Hinge is lured to the parson’s house in hopes of mice, and caught in a noose fixed for Reynard. The household wake, and beat the Cat, who dashes underneath the priest’s robe, revenging himself in a cruel and unseemly way. The Cat is finally left apparently dead, but reviving, gnaws the cord, and crawls back to court.