Book Review Chaucer The Canterbury Tales The Squires Tale

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Spoiler alerts The most sprawling and lightly set out story in The Canterbury Tales, told by the Squire, son of The Knight who gave us the opening tale. It tells of the feast to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the coronation of the well-loved king, Cambuskan, who has two sons, and a daughter, called Canace. At the height of the feast, a travelling knight arrives with gifts from his own land. The gifts include a brass horse able to teleport its owner to anywhere in the world in an instant (a devise seemingly in advance of modern fantasy works), a magic mirror that reveals the true intentions of anyone looking into it, and thus exposing whether someone loves or hates another, and exposes enemies, a sword that not only cuts through the strongest of armour and stone, but also proves capable of healing the very wounds it inflicts. There is also a magical ring, which gives any who wear it the gift of being able to understand and be able to speak to the birds. After much marvelling at the fine rare gifts, the first section of the story ends. Part two concerns Canace making use of the magic ring, which she wears while taking a walk in the ;//forest. There, she meets a sad Peregrine Falcon who has injured herself trying to commit suicide. Her lover, another falcon, has jilted her and flown off with a Kite-bird, and left her in despair. Canace heals the bird, and builds it a beautiful Mew, decorated with birds regarded as honest and deceitful. The indication is now that The Squire plans to tell an undisciplined, endlessly rolling open ended tale, with various uses of the gifts. He starts telling a third story strand now in which one of Canace’s brothers, Cambalo, seeks her hand in marriage, despite this obviously being an incestuous passion. The story ends now when the Franklin (teller of the next tale) interrupts in mid sentence – clearly indicating that Chaucer planned to end it here too. Arthur Chappell