KNIGHT’S TALE, THE

byGeoffrey Chaucer

(ca. 1381)

The Knight’s Taleis the first of theCANTERBURY TALES. Probably written before the rest of the tales and incorporated later, theKnight’s Taleis a courtly ROMANCE based on BOCCACCIO’sTESEIDA. It concerns two Theban kinsmen, Palamon and Arcite, who both fall in love with Emelye, sister-in-law of Duke Theseus of Athens. Three major changes CHAUCER made to Boccaccio’s story are, first, reducing the length of the narrative to about a third of Boccaccio’s text, and second, enhancing the role of Palamon to make the two knights more equal rather than focusing, as Boccaccio had, chiefly on Arcite; and third, adding a philosophical element to the poem through the influence of BOETHIUS’sCONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, a text Chaucer was probably translating about the same time. One of Chaucer’s more popular tales in the Renaissance,The Knight’s Talewas the source for Shakespeare and Fletcher’s playTwo Noble Kinsmen. The tale is divided into four parts. In part 1, Theseus discovers the wounded bodies of the two Theban youths among the dead after his successful assault on Thebes. Because they are of the “blood royal” of Thebes, he brings them back to Athens to perpetual imprisonment. From their prison cell, Palamon catches sight of Emelye walking in the garden and falls immediately in love with her.When Arcite looks out to see what has so affected his cousin, he is similarly love-struck. The two quarrel over Emelye for some time. But one day a guest of Theseus begs for Arcite’s release from prison, and Theseus lets him go, but only on the condition that he never return to Athens. Thus the first part ofThe Knight’s Taleends with Palamon imprisoned but able to see Emelye, and Arcite free but exiled from Emelye’s presence.

In part 2, Arcite, his looks altered over time by the anguish he feels at being unable to see his beloved, returns to Athens in disguise and becomes a servant in Theseus’s court.Palamon is able to escape from prison, and by chance the two meet in a grove outside of Athens, where Palamon is hiding. Still quarreling over Emelye, the two agree to do battle the following day. Arcite brings arms from Athens and the two begin a deadly battle. At that point Theseus by chance rides by with his household and stops the fight.When he learns the cause of the pair’s enmity, he remarks on the fact that neither of them has ever spoken to Emelye (she herself has been unaware of their existence, let alone their love for her); but he orders the cousins to postpone their battle for a year, during which time he promises to build a large arena for a great tournament to which they will each bring 100 knights, and promises Emelye as the prize for the victor in the tournament.

In part 3, Chaucer includes long descriptions of Theseus’s great arena as well as of the knights accompanying each cousin as they arrive in Thebes for the tournament. The morning before the tournament begins, each of the chief characters prays at one of the gods’ temples within the arena: Arcite prays to Mars for victory in the tournament; Palamon prays to Venus for Emelye; Emelye prays to Diana, asking that she not be required to marry, but that, if she must have one of the suitors, she go to the one that desires her most. On Olympus, each of the gods clamor to Jupiter to have their prayer answered, and Jupiter’s old father, Saturn, says that he will ensure that all works out in a manner that satisfies the three prayers.

In the tournament, after long fighting, Palamon is taken captive and Arcite declared the winner. But as he rides toward a smiling Emelye, basking in victory, Arcite is thrown by his horse and is killed by the fall.As he dies Arcite tells Emelye not to forget Palamon if she should ever marry. Arcite is buried, and after several years’ mourning, Theseus calls Palamon to Athens, and in a lengthy speech in which he says the greatest wisdom is to “make virtue of necessity,” he arranges for Palamon to marry Emelye in order to ally the kingdoms of Athens and Thebes.

Critical attention has often focused on the two lovers, and each has his defenders as the more worthy of Emelye’s attentions. For the most part, though, Palamon and Arcite are seen as essentially equal. Theseus has also been the subject of scholarly attention, and he is generally seen as a wise ruler concerned with justice. But justice and order in the face of what appears to be an unjust universe is the problem that has concerned the greatest number of scholars. This is also the question raised by Boethius in theConsolation of Philosophy, and the meditations on destiny, on love, and particularly on the “First Mover,”whom Theseus credits in the end with seeing all of human destiny from an eternal vantage point we are not vouchsafed, give the poem a serious philosophical dimension unusual in a chivalric romance.

■ Benson, Larry, et al., ed.The Riverside Chaucer. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1987.

■ Bloom, Harold.Geoffrey Chaucer’s“The Knight’s Tale.” New York: Chelsea, 1988.

■ Kolve,V.A.Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1984.

■ Leicester, H. Marshall.The Disenchanted Self: Representing the Subject in theCanterbury Tales. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990.

■ Muscatine, Charles.Chaucer and the French Tradition: A Study in Style and Meaning. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957.