The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue & Frame Story Lies and Deceit Quotes Page 2
Citations follow this format: (Line). We used the line numbering found on Librarius's online edition.
| Quote #4 Nowher so bisy a man ther nas; |
There's an awful lot of "seeming" going on in the Man of Law's portrait, which makes us think that, despite the generally neutral tone of it, there might be something going on underneath the surface here.
| Quote #5 Wel coude he stelen corn, and tollen thryes. |
The Miller cheats his customers by replacing part of the flour they've purchased with worthless filler, or by charging them three times the going price for wheat. This former method of cheating customers foreshadows the one that occurs in the Reeve's tale.
| Quote #6 His lord wel coude he plesen subtilly, |
The Reeve uses trickery to gain not only money, but gratitude. This last makes the Reeve's action particularly heinous because it's not only that he's stealing from his Lord; he's also making him look like an idiot.
