The Canterbury Tales Quotes Activity

Identifying Quotes - Answers

A scene from the Christmas Production of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Gary Stone/Stringer/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The following quotes were taking from the "Prologue" of "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer. Identify the person who is speaking or being described.

  1. None had ever caught him in arrears.
    Reeve
  2. He was an easy man in penance-giving
    Where he coul dhope to make a decent living:
    Friar
  3. He'd sewed a holy relic on his cap;
    His wallet lay before him on his lap,
    Brimful of pardons come from Rome all hot.
    He had the same small voice a goat has got.
    Pardoner
  4. He much disliked extoring tithe or fee,
    Nay rather he preferred beyond a doubt
    Giving to the poor parishioners round about
    From his own goods and Easter offerings.
    He found sufficiency in little things.
    Parson
  5. He could make songs and poems and recite.
    Knew how to joust and dance, to draw and write.
    He loved so hotly that till dawn grew pale
    He slept as little as a nightingale.
    Squire
  6. His nostrils were as black as they were wide.
    He had a sword and buckler at his side,
    Miller
  7. He liked to play his bagpipes up and down
    And that was how he brought us out of town.
    Miller
  8. She certainly was very entertaining,
    Pleasant and friendly in her ways, and straining
    To counterfeit a courtly kind of grace,
    A stately bearing fitting to her place,
    Nun
  9. A medal of St. Christopher he wore
    Yeoman
  10. But still to do him justice first and last
    In church he was a noble ecclesiast.
    Pardoner
  11. His house was never short of bake-meat pies,
    Of fish and flesh, and these in such supplies
    It positively snowed with meat and drink
    Franklin
  12. Above his ears, and he was docked on top
    Just like a priest in front; his legs were lean,
    Like sticks they were, no calf was to be seen.
    Reeve
  13. had hair as yellow as wax,
    Hanging down smoothly like a hank of flax.
    In driblets fell his locks behind his head
    Pardoner
  14. The cause of every malady you'd got
    He knew, and whether dry, cold, moist, or hot;
    Doctor
  15. I saw his sleeves were garnished at the hand
    With fine grey fur, the finest in the land,
    And on his hood, to fasten it at his chin
    He had a wrought-gold cunningly fashioned pin;
    Into a lover's knot it seemed to pass.
    Monk
  16. Loving God best with all his heart and mind
    And then his neighbour as himself
    Plowman
  17. Then he would shout and jabber as if crazy,
    And wouldn't speak a word except in Latin
    When he was drunk, such tags as he was pat in;
    Summoner
  18. his horse was thinner than a rake,
    And he was not too fat, I undertake.
    Oxford Cleric
  19. She'd had five husbands, all at the church door
    Apart from other company in youth;
    Wife of Bath
  20. so had set
    His wits to work, none knew he was in debt
    Merchant

Source: "England in Literature" (Medallion Edition)

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Kelly, Melissa. "The Canterbury Tales Quotes Activity." ThoughtCo, Aug. 27, 2020, thoughtco.com/the-canterbury-tales-quotes-7718. Kelly, Melissa. (2020, August 27). The Canterbury Tales Quotes Activity. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-canterbury-tales-quotes-7718 Kelly, Melissa. "The Canterbury Tales Quotes Activity." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-canterbury-tales-quotes-7718 (accessed March 29, 2024).