Following several excellent tales, the Host, noting that the Clerk or Scholar has not said much, calls on him to tell his story. Yet he begs of him not to speak to them in “Heigh style, as whan that men to kinges write.” Instead, he tells the Scholar to “speke plein at this time” so that plain folk can understand him.
The Scholar agrees to take the stage. He will tell a tale that he heard in Padua from Petrarch, before he died. Here we glimpse the scholar’s humility. He has no tale of his own, but he will relate one from a known poet, who will be far more capable of entertaining this troop than the Scholar. His is a morality tale, and he tells it to exhort his companions to loyalty, steadfastness, and endurance through suffering, and to see in the suffering of the courageous Grisildis a picture of the suffering and victory of Jesus Christ.
I’ll provide the barest outline, so as not spoil the surprising ending.
Walter, a marquis of Saluces, long in pedigree, lives comfortably and at peace with “his worthy elders”. He is “A faire persone, and strong, and yong of age,/and full of honour and courtesy”.
But Walter is what today we would call a “presentist” for “on his lust present was al his thought”. Worst of all, he has not taken a wife, thus jeopardizing the continuation of his family lineage and the wellbeing of the people.
The people pressure Walter to marry. He agrees to their proposal, resolving to trust God to bless his marriage and his estate, and he swears the people to honor his choice and his wife. The people agree.
Out on a hunt, Walter sees a lovely bur poor village girl and decides to marry her. Her name is Grisildis and the Scholar reminds us, “But hye God som time senden can/His grace into a litel oxes stalle.” Here is the first of several Biblical allusions the Scholar will salt into his tale, each designed to suggest a laudable moral. And this one cues up Grisildis as a Christ image.
Grisildis was “the fairest under sonne”. She drank only clean water from a well, was virtuous in every way, and “knew we labour, but noon idea ese”. She had many other gifts as well.
Walter keeps his choice a secret until the day of his wedding, at which time Grisildis is summoned. Thinking she is merely going to observe the wedding, she comes in everyday clothes. All are surprised when Walter puts her in the wedding gown and takes her as his wife.
The people, it seems, are perplexed and perhaps a bit disappointed. Shouldn’t Walter have married a woman of nobility? And not one of them?
Walter decides to test his wife’s loyalty and the vow she undertook to obey his every word, to prove her virtue to one and all. His tests cost Grisildis her two children and banishment from the palace after twelve years of loving, faithful, uncomplaining service to her husband.
But Walter has a plan, and while his method seems as cruel as what happened to Job, in the end all turns out well. The Scholar summarizes: Since a woman was able to be so patient before her lord, every man who suffers adversity must study to learn patience as well:
For, sith a womman was so pacient
Unto a mortal man, wel moore us oghte
Receiven al in gree that God us sent.
For greet skile is, he preve that he wroghte;
But he ne tempteth no man that he boghte,
As seyth Seint Jame, if ye his pistel rede.
He preveth folk alday, it is no drede,
And suffrethus, as for oure excercise,
With sharpe scourges of adversitee
Ful ofte to be bete in sondry wise;
Nat for to knowe oure wil, for certes he,
Er we were born, knew al oure freletee.
And for oure beste is al his governance;
Lat us thanne live in vertuous suffrance.
God is sovereign, and He tests us every moment (Job 7.17, 18). Loyalty to Him demands patience and an uncomplaining soul, steadfastness in commitments and callings, and a disposition marked by joy and contentment. Chaucer’s tale reminds us of universal truths we too easily overlook or forget, especially of the grace, wisdom, and power of God to care for His own.
