The Shipman in “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer

1. The Shipman in “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer By: Ahmed

2. Cover of The Original Poem

3. Shipman’s Prologue The shipman or nowadays known as the sailor, in this story was a drunkard, was dark-skinned, and overall now a very good person. The wine that he drunk were often stolen from his fellow sailors amongst others. He wore long clothes made of wool that covered both his upper and lower body entirely, he also wore a knife like substance.

4. Continued • He also wore a turban in his head, and he also liked to ride horses. He was from a place in the west of England (Dartmouth Town). He was a very sly, but still a very smart person.

5. The Shipman The Shipman

6. The Shipman’s Merchant Tale’s Prologue So the host thanks the previous story teller, and tells the priest to tell a story. The priest talks about God and how people should know more about God. So he was about to teach about religious teaching, and the shipman intervenes and said all the travelers were religious enough. He also says they don’t want to get sad from a religious story, and so the shipman tells an interesting story of his own.

7. The Shipman’s Tale The is a rich, but quite greedy merchant who has a very white, pale, but still a very beautiful wife, who both live in a grand house. He is someone who is quite often visited by friends and relatives. One of his closer relatives named Sir John, who is a good looking monk, who is also the merchant’s cousin, but someone the merchant treats as his own brother. One day the merchant request his cousin to come and stay with him for a few days as the merchant is about to go on a journey. So Sir John accepts his invitation and go to the merchant’s house. Here he encounters the beauty in his house (merchant’s wife). She talks with Sir John about her greedy husband, and she wants to borrow money from Sir John.

8. Continued Sir John says he’ll borrow money from the merchant before he goes on his and give it to her. Then, he gives her a very deep kiss, and say he wants to have sex with her and leaves. So he asks the merchant for money, but tells him a different reason, and the merchant obliges. The merchant than goes on his journey (to Bruges). At this time Sir John has sex with the merchant’s wife, in exchange for the money. The merchant than returns, and asks Sir John for the money, and he says he had given it to his wife. Then the merchant goes home to see the wife wearing new clothes using the money, which he think was from the repaid money. At first the merchant is angry that his wife didn’t tell him the money was repaid.

9. End of Story But when he comes home, his wife tells him they should have sex instead of her paying him, and so they do it, and then the merchant tell her not to spend so much on clothes in the future.

10. Sir John

11. Shipman’s Tale The Shipman Telling His Tale- “For which the words are in old English on the right”

12. Sources: • IMAGES • http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/canttales/woodcuts/shipman.gif • http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/sc/chaucer/15shipman2b.jpg • http://www.librarius.com/canttran/gptrfs.htm (General Prologue).

13. More Sources • Story’s Prologue • http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gchaucer/bl-gchau-can-ship.htm • Story • http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Canterbury-Tales-Summary-and-Analysis-The-Shipman-s-Tale.id-52,pageNum-91.html