Sacred Texts: Legends and Sagas

The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...

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This is the Parson's Prologue from Geoffrey Chaucer's *The Canterbury Tales* (late 14th century), a framing narrative in Middle English verse that introduces the final tale of the pilgrimage collection. The Host notes that the sun is low — around four o'clock — and that only one tale remains to be told, then calls on the Parson to close out the storytelling game. When pressed for a fable, the Parson refuses, citing St. Paul's injunction against falsehood and idle stories, and insists on offering instead a moral, instructive prose meditation rather than rhyme or alliterative verse, which he dismisses as beneath him. His stated aim is to guide the company toward "Jerusalem celestial" — using the earthly pilgrimage as a metaphor for the soul's journey toward salvation. Distinctively, the Parson frames his contribution not as entertainment but as spiritual instruction, explicitly subordinating himself to clerical correction and positioning the entire Tales collection as culminating in penitential seriousness rather than amusement. This prologue signals Chaucer's closing movement away from comic and secular storytelling toward orthodox religious didacticism.

The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...

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