The Canterbury Tales – A Retelling

by Peter Ackroyd

  Theseus swore an oath that he would wreak such fatal vengeance on Creon that all the people of Greece would concur that the tyrant had met a prompt and welcome death at the hands of the ruler of Athens. This was his pledge. All at once, without any delay, he mounted his steed; then he unfurled his banner and led his army towards the city of Thebes. He vowed that he would not return to Athens, or linger for even half a day, until he had defeated Creon. He took the precaution of sending Hippolita, his new bride, and her beautiful younger sister, Emily, to take up residence in Athens. Meanwhile he spent his first night on the road rather than in his marital bed. There is no more to say.

  The weapons of his army glittered in the fields about Thebes. On the great white banner of Theseus was embroidered the red image of Mars, god of war and king of combat, with his spear and shield held aloft. Beside the banner was the pennant of Theseus, curiously wrought of gold; it depicted the head of the Minotaur, whom he had killed in the labyrinth of Crete. Death to all monsters! So rode the duke, so travelled the conqueror, with the flower of chivalry all around him. In majesty he came up to the gates of Thebes and alighted there; then he arrayed his troops in the field where he expected to do battle.

  I do not want to embarrass the ladies with accounts of the fighting. I will be brief. In combat Theseus killed Creon, according to the knightly book of arms, and put his army to flight. Then he stormed the town, and tore down its walls; not a beam or rafter was left in place. It was a just punishment. He restored to the ladies the corpses of their husbands, although little was left of them except the bones. Still they could now be dispatched with due form and order. It would be too harrowing to report all the tears and cries and laments of the ladies when they saw the remains of their husbands burning on the funeral pyres. It is enough to say that Theseus, the illustrious conqueror, paid great honour and courtesy to them before they left for their respective cities.

  After Theseus had killed Creon and captured Thebes, he stayed with his troops in the field. They still had work to accomplish in the conquered kingdom. There was pillaging to do. The dead soldiers of Thebes lay in heaps upon the ground, and the Athenians began systematically to strip them of their armour and their clothing. The pillagers did their work with diligence, searching all those defeated in battle for anything of value. There is now a turn in the tale. Among the piles of the dead the Athenians found two young knights, lying side by side, as if they had fought valiantly together. They were both bearing the same heraldic device, and they were both richly clad in ornamented armour. And they were both badly wounded. They were neither alive nor dead, but in some uncertain state between. One of the knights was named Arcite. The name of the other knight was Palamon. You will have heard of them, I am sure.

  When the Athenian heralds examined their coats of arms they declared that these two young men were cousins of royal blood and true aristocrats of Thebes. So the soldiers carefully extracted them from the morass of the dead, and carried them gently to the tent of Theseus. The noble duke then pronounced that they should be consigned to an Athenian prison, where they would remain for the rest of their lives without the possibility of freedom. No ransom would be sought or accepted. Now that Theseus had finished his glorious work, he led his army from the scene of battle and rode home to Athens bearing the laurel wreath of victory. There he still lives, in honour and in comfort. Happy ever after. What is left to say? Yet turn your eyes towards a dark tower. There, in anguish and in woe, lie Palamon and Arcite. They will suffer there for the rest of their lives. However large the ransom offered, they will never be released.

  So the world whirled on, day by day and year by year, until on one May morning everything changed. On that spring morning Emily left her bed – Emily, the sister of the queen, lovelier than the lily on its stalk of green, fresher than the new flowers of May, prettier than the rose whose hue is not so fair as hers – I say that Emily left her bed before dawn and was prepared for the day before the sun ever rose. The month of May will brook no sluggishness at night. The season stirs every noble heart and awakes the spirit with the words, ‘Arise. And do homage to spring.’ So Emily paid her obeisance to the season of rebirth. She dressed in yellow and in green. Her blonde hair, waist length, was braided in tresses behind her back. At the rising of the sun she strolled through the garden of the castle, gathering red and white and particoloured flowers to make an intricate garland for her head. She was singing like an angel as she picked the lilac and the violet. Yet beside this garden, separated by the garden wall, was the dark tower where Palamon and Arcite were confined. It was the principal dungeon of the castle, as thick and strong as any prison in the world. So, with Emily singing and the two knights languishing, heaven and hell were close together.

  Bright was the sun, and the air most clear, when Palamon had risen from his pallet bed. By permission of his gaoler this woeful prisoner had the use of an upper cell, from which he could see the city of Athens. He could also see the garden beneath him, clad in the green vesture of spring, where radiant Emily was still walking. Palamon, however, had not yet seen her. He was pacing to and fro, measuring the strict confines of his chamber and lamenting his fate. ‘Alas,’ he whispered to himself, ‘I wish that I had never been born!’ But then just by chance he happened to look through the thick iron bars covering his window. He cast a glance upon Emily sauntering below. Then immediately he turned pale and cried out, ‘Ah!’, as if some barb had caught at his heart. At the sound of his cry Arcite started up from sleep and asked what had upset him. ‘Cousin,’ he said, ‘you have gone as pale as the dead. What troubles you now? You look so ill suddenly. Why did you cry out? Who has offended you? For God’s sake do not rail so much against our imprisonment. We must have patience. This is our fate. We have no choice in the matter. We are subject to the bad aspects of Saturn, in the turning of the spheres, and cannot escape our destiny. What is the saying? “He must need swim that is borne up to the chin.” So stood the heavens on the day that we were born. We must endure.’

  Palamon answered him, shaking his head. ‘Cousin, you have received the wrong impression of my woe. It was not our confinement that made me cry out. My new torment entered my heart through my eye, where very likely it will kill me. I am woeful because of her. With the flowers. Below us.’ He went over to the window again, and looked down at Emily. ‘The fairness of this lady that I see, walking to and fro through the castle garden, is the cause of all my pain and lamentation. I cannot tell whether she is a woman or a goddess. My guess is that she is Venus, come to earth.’ Thereupon he fell to his knees and prayed aloud. ‘Venus, great goddess, if it be your will to reveal yourself in this garden before me, a wretched and sorrowful creature, I beseech you to deliver us from this dark prison. Yet if it be my destiny to remain in durance vile, imprisoned by divine decree, then turn your piteous eye upon my family that has been brought so low by tyranny.’ And as he prayed Arcite walked over to the window and beheld Emily wandering in the garden. The sight of her beauty affected him so greatly that, if Palamon had been wounded, Arcite almost expired. He sighed deeply, and could not refrain from speaking out. ‘This perfect beauty, this vision of her that walks within the garden, has slain me suddenly. Unless I obtain her mercy and her grace, unless at the very least I am permitted to see her, I am as good as dead. There is nothing else to say.’

  When Palamon heard his complaint, he became angry. ‘Are you serious? Or is this a joke?’

  ‘I am in deadly earnest. God help me, I have no reason to play.’

  ‘It does not reflect well on your honour, you know, to be false and treacherous to your cousin.’ He was frowning at Arcite as he spoke. ‘We have both sworn deep oaths that we would never cross each other in love, and would each seek our common good. We have both sworn that we would rather die under torture than oppose or hinder one another. We would remain true till death do us part. That was my oath. I presume that it was yours. I don’t think you will deny it. But now what has happened? You are aware of my love for the la
dy in the garden, but you have decided that you also wish to be her lover. No chance. I will love and serve this lady until the day of my death. That will not be your fate, Arcite, I swear it! I loved her first. I took you into my confidence, and told you all my woe. As my sworn brother, you are bound by oath to help me. Otherwise you will be judged a false and perjured knight.’

  Arcite, in pride of spirit, answered him with disdain. ‘You will be judged the faithless knight, Palamon. I was the one who loved her first.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Look at you. You still do not know whether she is a goddess or a woman! You are touched by love for a deity, while I am consumed by love for a mortal woman. That is why I confessed my feelings to you, as my cousin and brother. Put the case that you loved her first. What do all the learned clerks tell us? When love is strong, love knows no law. Love itself has greater dominion. Earthly rules are of no account. Lovers break them every day. A man must love, even if he strives against it; he cannot escape love, even at the cost of his own life. It may be love for a maid, for a widow, or for a married woman. It does not matter. Love is the law of life itself. In any case it is not likely that you or I will ever win her favour. You know well enough that we are both consigned to this cell perpetually, without hope of ransom. We are like the dogs in Aesop’s fable, striving for the bone. They fought all day, without result, and then there came a kite that bore the prize away. Therefore we must behave like courtiers around the king. Each one for himself. Do you agree? I tell you again that I will always love her. You can love her, too, if you wish. There is nothing more to say, nothing else to do. We will remain in this prison for the rest of our days, and endure whatever fate is visited upon us.’

  If I had more time, I would tell you more about the continual strife and enmity between them. But let me be brief and to the point. It happened one day that the worthy duke Perotheus, king of the Lapiths, arrived in Athens. He had been the intimate of Theseus since earliest childhood, and had come to the city to resume their happy companionship; he loved no one in the world so much as his friend, and Theseus returned that love. Anyone who reads the old books will learn of it. The story is that when Theseus died, Perotheus went down to hell in order to rescue him. What was Theseus doing in hell? I do not know that part of the story. To resume my own tale, if I may, I should inform you that Perotheus had been the lover of Arcite. So at his friend’s earnest desire and entreaty, Theseus decreed that Arcite should be released from prison without any ransom. Arcite would be free to go wherever he wished, but there was one condition to his liberty. It was agreed that, if Arcite were ever found and caught in Athenian territory, he would be instantly beheaded. Whatever the pretext and whatever the time of his incursion, he would die. What did Arcite do? What else but leave Athens at once and return to Thebes? There was no safer course. But he had best beware. He had left his head as his pledge.

  Yet, in truth, he suffered more keenly than before. He felt all the pangs of death. He wept; he wailed; he groaned; he lamented. He secretly longed for an occasion to kill himself. ‘Alas,’ he cried, ‘that I was ever born! My prison now is darker and more dreary than my cell. I am now forced to endure the torments of hell, not of purgatory as before. I wish that I had never known Perotheus. Then I could still lie imprisoned with Palamon. Then I would have been in bliss and not in woe. For then, even fettered and immured, I could have enjoyed the sight of the mistress I adore. I may never have enjoyed her favour, but at least I could have looked upon her. Oh Palamon, dear cousin, you have been awarded the palm of victory. You may endure the pain of imprisonment – endure, no, enjoy. Compared to me, you are in paradise. Fortune has turned the dice for you. You have the sight of her while I am rendered blind. And since you have the blessing of her presence near at hand it is possible that you, a worthy and a handsome knight, might one day attain that goal you so fervently desire. Fortune is ever turning like the wheel. But I, living in barren exile, have no such expectation of grace. I am deprived of all hope, in such despair that no creature on earth can comfort me. There is nothing made of fire, of earth, or water, or of air, that can console me. So I must live, and die, in misery and distress. I must say farewell to joy and happiness.’

  He broke down weeping, before he once more resumed his lament. ‘Why do so many people complain of the actions of providence, or the decisions of God Himself, when their eventual fate is better than any they could possibly have imagined? Some men long for riches, but at the expense of their health and even of their lives. Some men desire to escape from prison, as I once did, only to be murdered in the households of their kin. In hope and ambition there lie infinite harms. We do not know the answers to our prayers. We fare as one who wanders drunk through the streets; he knows that he has a house, somewhere, but he cannot remember the name of the street. His is a long and wayward journey. So do we fare in this fallen world. We search for felicity down every lane and alley, but often enough we take the wrong path. All will agree. And I especially know the truth of this – I, who believed that release from prison would be the highest good! I should have known better. Now I am exiled from all hope of happiness. Since I can no longer see you, Emily, I am as good as dead. Who can give more heat to the fire, or joy to heaven, or pain to hell? There is no more to say.’ He sat in silence, and bowed his head.

  Let us return to the cell where Palamon still lay. After the sudden departure of Arcite, he cried out in a paroxysm of anguish and despair. The dark tower rang with his laments. The fetters that held his legs were wet and shining with his salt and bitter tears. ‘Alas, Arcite,’ he cried, ‘in our contest you have the victory! You now enjoy your freedom in our home city. Why should you give a thought to my suffering here? I know that you are valiant. I know that you are shrewd. It is possible that you will call together the members of our affinity, and prosecute so bold a war against Athens that by some chance – or even by some treaty with Theseus – you will obtain the hand of my lady Emily. I would rather lose my life than lose her. But you are free to roam. You have been delivered from our prison. And you are a great lord. My case is different. I am confined. I must weep and wail, for the rest of my life, with all the woes that prison life can give. Yet there is no woe so deep as that of unrequited love. So I must endure a double torment upon this earth.’ As he lay upon the stone floor of his prison, lamenting, he was seized by a fit of jealousy so strong and so sudden that he felt his heart contract within him. It enveloped him like madness. He turned as pale as milk – no, worse – as pale as the bark of a dead ash tree.

  Once more he began to cry out loud. ‘Oh cruel gods that govern this world, binding it with your eternal decrees inscribed on sheets of adamantine steel, what is humankind to you? Do men mean more to you than the sheep that cower in the fold? Men must die, too, like any beast of the field. Men also dwell in confinement and restraint. Men suffer great sickness and adversity, even when they are guilty of no sin. What glory can there be for you in treating humankind so ungenerously? What is the good of your foreknowledge, if it only torments the innocent and punishes the just? What is the purpose of your providence? One other matter, too, outrages me. Men must perform their duty and, for the sake of the gods, refrain from indulging their desires. They must uphold certain principles, for the salvation of their souls, whereas the silly sheep goes into the darkness of non-being. No beast suffers pain in the hereafter. But after death we all may still weep and wail, even though our life on earth was also one of suffering. Is this just? Is this commendable? I suppose I must leave the answer to theologians, but I know this for a fact. The world is full of grief. I have seen a serpent sting an unwary traveller and then glide away. I have seen the thief murder his prey, and then wander forth unchecked and unharmed. But I must linger here in prison. Truly the gods, in their jealous rage against my race, have all but destroyed my family and razed the walls of Thebes. Now Venus herself has decided to slay me, too, by poisoning me with jealousy for Arcite. Where can I turn?’

  I will n
ow leave Palamon in his sad plight for a moment, and tell you what has been happening to Arcite. The summer has passed, and the long nights have merely increased the duration of his pain. In truth I do not know who has endured the most suffering, the freed lover or the prisoner. Let me summarize their situation. Here is Palamon. He is condemned to perpetual imprisonment, consigned to chains and shackles until the day of his death. Here is Arcite. On pain of death by beheading he is exiled from the territory of Athens, forever excluded from the sight of fair Emily. I will ask you lovers the question. Who is worse off? One of them can glimpse his gracious lady, day by day, but will never be able to approach her. The other is as free as air, able to journey wherever he wishes, but he will never see Emily again. Consider it. Judge the matter as best you can. Put the two characters before you, as if they were upon a gaming board. Meanwhile I will carry on with the story, just to see what happens next.

  PART TWO

  When Arcite eventually returned to Thebes, he grew faint and sick. His one word, endlessly repeated, was ‘Alas!’ We know the reason. I will add only that no other creature upon the earth has ever suffered, or will ever suffer, so painfully. He could not sleep. He did not eat or drink. He became lean and emaciated, as dry and brittle as a stick; his eyes were hollow, and his complexion turned a sickly yellow as if he had the jaundice. He looked truly frightful. And he was alone. He sought out solitude like a wounded animal. He spent his nights in tears and, if ever he heard the music of a lyre or lute, he wept openly and without pause. His spirits were so feeble, and his demeanour so changed, that no one recognized him or knew his voice. He behaved madly, wildly. He did not seem to be suffering from lovesickness, but rather from despair engendered by the melancholy humour; he had been touched in the foremost ventricle of the brain, which is the proper home of the imagination. So, in the fantasy of Arcite, everything was turned upside down. All was on a totter. There is no point in recalling every detail of his despair.