The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Prologue Lines 169-193 Summary

  • The Pardoner interrupts the Wife. He calls her a "noble prechour in this cas" (171).
  • The Pardoner says he was about to get married. Now he's having second thoughts.
  • The Wife tells the Pardoner that if he waits a little, he shall drink "of another tonne, / Er that I go, shal savoure wors than ale" (176-177): he will hear something that will make him feel even more wary of marriage.
  • Once the Wife has told the Pardoner about the woe of marriage, then he can choose whether or not he wishes to engage in it.
  • The Wife tells the Pardoner he should be wary of approaching too near marriage.
  • She says she can give more than ten examples to prove this.
  • Quoting from Ptolemy, the Wife says that men who aren't corrected by others' examples are doomed to be examples for others.
  • The Pardoner begs the Wife to say more about this, to teach young men of her methods.