steal their fl our and give it to his wife to knead into a
cake, but he also makes their horse bolt, forcing them
into an undignifi ed scramble across the fi elds to recap-
ture the animal; thus the miller proves that “The gret-
teste clerkes been noght wisest men” (l. 4054).
By the time the scholars manage to detach their
horse from its company of wild mares, night has fallen
and they are forced to ask for Symkyn’s hospitality.
The provisions and ale they send for become the occa-
sion for an impromptu feast at which both the Miller
and his wife get drunk, and when they all go to bed (in
the same room, as was the custom), the two older peo-
ple’s (and their daughter’s) snores are a sonorous
accompaniment to the scholars’ rueful nightly medita-
tions. But they also provide the cover under which the
two students undertake their revenge by “swyving”—
that is, having sex with, the Miller’s wife and daughter.
First, Aleyn slips quietly into Malyne’s bed and rapes
her before she has a chance to cry out; then John,
shamed by his friend’s boldness, moves the cot where
the baby sleeps from the proximity of the parents’ bed
to his own, so that when the miller’s wife has to get up,
she mistakes the bed in the pitch-dark room and ends
in John’s arms, enjoying his enthusiastic lovemaking in
the drunken conviction that it is her husband’s.
Dawn arrives, and the denouement begins with a
mock AUBAUDE: Malyne’s tearful adieus to her “lem-
man” (“sweetheart,” l. 4240), who in his turn swears, “I
is thyn awen clerk” (l. 4239). This is soon forgotten,
however, as Aleyn, equally tricked by the displaced
cot, enters the miller’s bed and boasts of his success.
The uproar caused by the miller’s discovery of his
daughter’s undoing causes a furious fi ght with Aleyn,
which is abruptly ended when the wife, persevering in
her mistake, deals her husband a stunning blow. With
dishonor upon both women and the recapture of the
stolen fl our, the students’ revenge is completed, and
they can go back to Cambridge victorious.
“The Reeve’s Tale” is a FABLIAU, a short, comic, and
scurrilous tale in verse, generally dealing with low-
born characters, set in the present or in a not-too-dis-
tant past, so as to make the setting and characters
(however generic or stereotyped) immediately recog-
nizable to the audience. Born of the Reeve’s bitter
desire for revenge, however, this tale is less light and
humorous than its companion piece, “The Miller’s
Tale,” and the fate it metes out to innocent characters
such as the miller’s daughter helps us understand the
fabliau’s darker side. Yet the comedy is far from sacri-
fi ced, and the tightly constructed plot turns the fi nal
scene into a triumph of slapstick comedy, a farce of
clock-like inevitability. Faithful to the spirit of the
genre, Chaucer does not pass judgement on any of his
characters, nor do any of the pilgrims comment on the
scholars’ outrageous revenge. However, Chaucer avoids
the transformation of the comedy into mechanical farce
and the representation of the miller and his rival as
mere puppets by preserving the individuality of each
character, giving most of them a name, often unforget-
table physical traits (such as the “camuse nose” mark-
ing the kinship between the miller and his daughter),
and a distinctive personality, while these characteris-
tics preserve evident links with the types of the genre
tradition.
Critical attention to “The Reeve’s Tale” has tended to
focus on individual characters, as they are distinctive
enough to warrant in-depth analysis and may suggest
literary analogues and echoes beyond the fabliau tradi-
tion. The miller, for instance, has suggested analogies
with Simon the Magician as represented in Dante’s
Inferno; he has also evoked outright analogies with the
devil or, given his name and simian appearance, with
the ape. The two students, with their association with
one of the most famous and ancient universities in
Europe, have prompted analyses of their role in medi-
eval scholarly tradition, suggesting derivations from
Richard de Bury’s Philobiblon (1473) or other conven-
tional treatises on scholarly life. More generally, bibli-
cal analogies are suggested by the Reeve’s declaration,
in his Prologue, that his rival the Miller “kan wel in
myn eye seen a stalke, But in his owene he kan nat
seen a balke [beam]” (ll. 3919–20), and recent studies
have used the biblical analogy as a possible interpreta-
tive key for the tale. Some attention has also been ded-
icated to the animal imagery in the tale, and to its
associations with allegorical images of pride, wrath,
and lust.
A number of parallels in French, Italian, German,
and Flemish literature have been identifi ed for this
tale, and a number of studies have concentrated on its“REEVE’S TALE, THE” 341