{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect04_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect04_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_neu_eng_mect_mect04_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/neu/eng/mect/mect04.htm","summary":"This is the Reeve's Prologue from Geoffrey Chaucer's *The Canterbury Tales* (late 14th century), a framed narrative poem in Middle English verse. Following the Miller's Tale\u2014a bawdy story mocking a carpenter\u2014the Reeve, Oswald, takes personal offense because he is himself a carpenter by trade. He responds with a lengthy monologue on the miseries of old age: desire persists even as physical capacity fades, and old men are left with only four vices\u2014boasting, lying, anger, and greed. His extended metaphor of a draining barrel of life is notably bleak and self-pitying. The Host cuts him off impatiently, essentially telling him to stop philosophizing and get on with his story. The Reeve then announces he will retaliate against the Miller in kind\u2014a dirty tale about a miller\u2014invoking the proverb that one must meet force with force. The prologue is distinctive for its unexpectedly somber meditation on aging lodged inside a comic, competitive framework, revealing a character driven as much by wounded pride and resentment as by ribald wit.","tags":[],"text":null,"title":"The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas","translated_text":null,"word_count":560}