The Nun's Priest's Tale
Here beginneth the Nun's Priest's Tale of the Cock and Hen, Chaunticleer and Pertelote.
APOOR widow, well on in old age, dwelt once in a small cottage, that stood in a dale, beside a grove. Since the day her goodman died, this widow of whom I tell you my tale, had led her simple life in patience, for her worldly goods were few and her winnings scant. By husbanding well that which God sent her she provided for herself and her two daughters. Three large sows she had, but no more; three kine and eke a sheep, named Moll. Her bower was full sooty and eke her hall, in which she ate full many a spare meal. Never a bit needed she pungent sauce; no dainty morsel passed her lips. Her diet was in accord with her petticoat. Repletion never made her to ail; a temperate diet was her only physic, save exercise and heart's content. The gout hindered her not from dancing; apoplexy weakened not her head. No wine she drank, neither red nor white. Her board for the most was laid with white and black: milk and brown bread, of which she had a plenty, and broiled bacon, and sometimes an egg or two; for she was as it were a kind of dairy woman.
A yard she had enclosed on all sides by sticks, and a dry ditch without. Therein she kept a cock named Chaunticleer, whose
like for crowing was not in all the land. His voice was merrier
76
