The Pardoner's Tale

For the 2001 television episode, see The Pardoner's Tale (Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode).

The Pardoner, as depicted by William Blake in The Canterbury Pilgrims (1810)

"The Pardoner's Tale" (Template:Lang-enm) is one of The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. The story is in the form of an exemplum: the Pardoner (who makes a living selling falsified indulgences, besides fake relics and other supposedly magical knick-knacks) first explains the theme he will address, then tells his story, and finally draws the conclusion he had already mentioned in his introduction. The pardoner's theme, Radix malorum est cupiditas, applies to himself as well, since he explains in great detail that greed is his prime motive.

Plot

The tale is based on a folk-tale of Oriental origin, although many variations exist. Three drunken and debauched men set out from a pub to find and kill Death, whom they blame for the passing of their friend, and all other people that previously have died, which they were told by the Landlord. An old man they brusquely query tells them that he has asked Death to take him but has failed. He then says they can find death at the foot of an oak tree. When the men arrive at the tree, they find a large amount of gold coins and forget about their quest to kill Death. They decide that they would sleep at the oak tree over night, so they can take the coins in the morning. The three men draw straws to see who among them should fetch wine and food while the other two wait under the tree. The youngest of the three men draws the shortest straw; while the youngest man is away, the remaining two plot to overpower and stab the other one when he returns. However, the one who leaves for town plots to kill the other two: he purchases rat poison and laces the wine. When he returns with he food and drink, the other two kill him and drink the poisoned wine, dying slow and painful deaths. All three have found death.

Analysis

The pardoner is secretly gay. The relationship between tellers and tale is distinctly significant in "The Pardoner's Tale." The Pardoner is an enigmatic character, portrayed as grotesque in the General Prologue and apparently aware of his own sin—it is not clear why he tells the pilgrims about his own sin in the prologue prior to his tale—yet his preaching is correct and the results of his methods, despite their corruption, are good. Mention by him of a "draughte of corny strong ale" may suggest that he is being so open because he is drunk. The Pardoner's confession is similar in its revelation of details to the prologue by the Wife of Bath, who gives away details about herself in her prologue. Both prologues are heavily influenced by the Romance of the Rose, particularly the Fals Semblaunt episode.

The Pardoner is also described as a good speaker in his portrait in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, which is reflected in the quality of the narrative attributed to him. The critic A. C. Spearing has written that "much of the individual coloring of the actual tale is drawn from its teller." This is true of many of the tales and their tellers, but the Pardoner's motives are woven even more tightly into his tale than most. As in the his tale money altered his decisions.

Character of the teller

The religious climate at the time that Chaucer wrote this piece was pre-Reformation. Therefore, the Sacraments were still largely considered, as explained by St. Augustine, “outward and visible signs of an inward and invisible grace.” The suggestion that outward appearances are reliable indicators of internal character was not considered radical or improper among contemporary audiences. Indeed, the vivid depiction of the Pardoner’s hair, those locks “yellow as wax But smoothe as a strike (hank) of flex (flax),” does little to improve the reader’s opinion of his moral character.

Chaucer develops his description and analysis of the Pardoner throughout the Pardoner’s Tale using suggestive analogies that provide the reader with the perception of a man of extreme sexual and spiritual poverty, willingly admitting that he abuses his authority and sells fake relics. The Pardoner's tale matches the unctuous nature of the Pardoner in many ways. Eugene Vance illustrates one parallel effectively fostered by Chaucer’s sexual innuendoes. He writes: “The kneeling posture to which the Pardoner summons the pilgrims would place their noses right before his deficient crotch.”

In addition, Vance expands upon this comparison, identifying a sexual innuendo implicit in the Pardoner’s many relics. “The pardoner conspires to set himself up as a moveable shrine endowed with relics unsurpassed by those of anyone else in England.” Yet, of course, the relics are all fakes, creating a suggestion of both the Pardoner's impotence and his spiritual ill-worth.

General themes

Though the Pardoner preaches against greed, the irony of the character is based in the Pardoner's hypocritical actions. Using his position as an agent of the Roman Catholic Church, he admits extortion of the poor, pocketing of indulgences, and failure to abide by teachings against jealousy and avarice. He also admits quite openly that he tricks the most guilty sinners into buying his spurious relics and doesn't really care what happens to the souls of those he's swindled.

The Pardoner is also deceptive in how he carries out his job. Instead of selling genuine relics, the bones he carries belong to pigs, not departed saints. The cross he carries appears to be studded with precious stones that are in fact bits of common metal. This irony could be an indication to Chaucer's dislike for religious profit—a pervasive late medieval theme hinging on anti-clericalism. Chaucer's use of subtle literary techniques, such as satire, seem to convey this message.

However, the Pardoner might also be seen as a reinforcement of the Apostolic Authority of the priesthood, which according to the Catholic Church, functions fully even when the one possessing that authority is in a state of mortal sin, which in this case is supported by how the corrupt Pardoner is able to tell a morally intact tale and turn others from his same sin. Thomas Aquinas, an influential theologian of the late medieval period, had a philosophy concerning how God was able to work through evil people and deeds in order to accomplish good ends. Chaucer may have also been referencing a doctrine of St. Augustine of Hippo concerning the Donatist heresy of fourth and fifth century Northern Africa in which Augustine argued that a priest's ability to perform valid sacraments was not invalidated by his own sin. Thus, it is possible that with the Pardoner, Chaucer was criticizing the administrative and economic practices of the Church while simultaneously affirming his support for its religious authority and dogma.

In the General Prologue of the Tales, the Pardoner is introduced with these lines:

With hym ther rood a gentil Pardoner
Of Rouncivale, his freend and his compeer,
That streight was comen fro the court of Rome.
Ful loude he soong "Com hider, love, to me!"
This Somonour bar to hym a stif burdoun ...
A voys he hadde as smal as hath a goot.
No berd hadde he, ne nevere sholde have;
As smothe it was as it were late shave.
I trowe he were a geldyng or a mare.

The last three lines indicate that the narrator thought the Pardoner to be either a eunuch ("geldyng") or a homosexual.

Adaptations

• The Road to Canterbury: A Game of Pilgrims, Pardoners, and the Seven Deadly Sins -- a board game in which players play as the Pardoner from The Canterbury Tales.

See also

• English words first attested in Chaucer

Notes

J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has stated in an interview that her short story "The Tale of the Three Brothers" from The Tales of Beedle the Bard is loosely based on "The Pardoner's Tale".

External links

• Modern Translation of the Pardoner's Tale and Other Resources at eChaucer
• The Pardoner's Prologue and Tale e-text for reading, searching, and study - texts.crossref-it.info