The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale Fate and Free Will Quotes Page 2

Palamon concludes his prayer to Venus with a seeming willigness to accept the shape of his "destynee," whatever it may be. However, he asks that his lineage live on, revealing his belief that the continuance of one's bloodline may be the sole means of thwarting death.

Here, Arcite, who is newly released from prison, considers that Fortune has favored Palamon, who still gets to see Emily from his prison cell every day. Arcite's words of despair actually contain the seeds of hope for him: if, as he says, Fortune is "chaungeable," isn't it possible that she will soon decide to favor him again?

Arcite follows this question with many examples of people who asked for something from the gods, only to have that very thing they asked for be the cause of their own demise. Arcite's point is that he was foolish to pray for his release from prison, since now that release is the cause of his despair. Of course, Arcite's speech here also casts doubt upon the justifiability of his sorrow: how is he to know that the fate Fortune has prepared for him is not what he wants? Arcite gives himself no position from which to judge what happens to him as either good or bad.