page_title: The Miller's Tale
section_title: Synopsis
hierarchical_section_title: The Miller's Tale / Synopsis
caption_attribution_description: English: This door, carved with a linen-fold decoration, was probably a back or interior door of a middle-class home. It is remarkable for its cat hole. Few doors with cat holes have survived from this early period, but the 14th-century English writer Geoffrey Chaucer described one in the "Miller's Tale" from his Canterbury Tales. In the narrative, a servant whose knocks go unanswered, uses the hole to peek in: "An hole he foond, ful lowe upon a bord/ Ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe,/ And at the hole he looked in ful depe,/ And at the last he hadde of hym a sighte."
context_page_description: "The Miller's Tale" is the second of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, told by the drunken miller Robin to "quite" "The Knight's Tale".
  The Miller's Prologue is the first "quite" that occurs in the tales.
context_section_description: "The Miller's Tale" is the story of a carpenter, his lovely wife, and two younger men who are eager to sleep with her. The carpenter, John, lives in Oxford with his much younger wife, Alisoun, who is a local beauty. To make extra money, John rents out a room in his house to a clever scholar named Nicholas, who has taken a liking to Alisoun. Another man in the town, Absolon the parish clerk, also has his eye on Alisoun.
  The action begins when John makes a day trip to a nearby town. While he is gone, Nicholas physically grabs Alisoun "by the queynte", and she threatens to cry for help. He then begins to cry, and after a few sweet words, she agrees to have sex with him when it is safe to do so. Their affair begins. Shortly afterward, Alisoun goes to church, where Absolon sees her and immediately is filled with "love-longing." He tries to woo Alisoun by singing love songs under her window during the full moon, sending her gifts, and seeks her attention by taking a part in a local play. Alisoun rebuffs all his efforts, however, because she is already involved with Nicholas.
  Nicholas, meanwhile, longs to spend a whole night in Alisoun's arms rather than just the few moments they get together during John's absences. With Alisoun, he hatches a scheme that will enable him to do this. He tells John that he has foreseen a terrible event in a vision from God. The next Monday, God is going to send a massive flood twice as great as the one he sent in Noah's time. He says that God told him they could save themselves by hanging three large tubs, each loaded with provisions and an ax, from the ceiling of the barn. Once the waters rose, they would cut the ropes, hack through the roof, and float until the waters subsides. John believes him and on Monday night, they ascend by ladder into the hanging tubs. As soon as John is asleep, Nicholas and Alisoun climb down, run back to the house, and sleep together in John's bed.
  That same night, Absolon comes and begs Alisoun to kiss him. At first she refuses him, but Absolon persists, so she offers him one quick kiss. Instead of presenting her lips to Absolon's, though, she sticks her backside out the bedroom's "shot-window" (privy vent), and Absolon kisses her "ers" (arse) in the dark. Angry at being fooled, Absolon gets a red-hot coulter from the smith with which he intends to burn Alisoun. He returns with it to the window and knocks again, promising Alisoun a gold ring in exchange for a kiss. This time, Nicholas, having gotten up to relieve himself anyway, sticks his buttocks out to get in on the joke and farts thunderously in Absolon's face. Absolon thrusts the coulter "amidst the ers" of Nicholas who cries out for "Water!" to assuage the pain.
  The screams wake John, who thinks the flood is upon them and cuts the rope attaching his tub to the ceiling. He crashes to the floor, breaking his arm, and the townspeople, hearing the noise, rush to the scene. Upon hearing Nicholas' and Alisoun's version of events, they laugh at poor John and consider him mad. The tale ends: "Thus, swyved was this carpenteris wyf, / For al his kepyng and his jalousye, / And Absolon hath kist hir nether ye, / And Nicholas is scalded in the towte. This tale is doon, and God save al the rowte!"
caption: Door with Cat Hole (carved oak, Late Medieval period, 1450–1500, France, Walters Art Museum) This door, carved with a linen-fold decoration, was probably a back or interior door of a middle-class home. It is remarkable for its cat hole. Few doors with cat holes have survived from this early period, but the 14th-century English writer Geoffrey Chaucer described one in the "Miller's Tale" from his Canterbury Tales. In the narrative, a servant whose knocks go unanswered, uses the hole to peek in: "An hole he foond, ful lowe upon a bord/ Ther as the cat was wont in for to crepe,/ And at the hole he looked in ful depe,/ And at the last he hadde of hym a sighte."
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