The Canterbury Tales: The Clerk's Tale Part IV Summary

  • Four years pass before Grisilde is with child again.
  • It turns out to be a boy.
  • The baby is gracious and beautiful to look at.
  • Walter and all his people thank and praise God for the baby.
  • When the baby is two years old and finished nursing, Walter gets another urge to test his wife.
  • Oh, boy.
  • We find out that married men know no limits when they find a patient creature.
  • "Wife, says Walter, "I've told you that people hate the fact that we're married.
  • "Since my son has been born, it's worse than ever. The complaining slays my heart and lays me low. It's tearing me apart.
  • "People are running around like headless chickens saying that when I'm gone, the blood of Janicula will succeed to the throne, since there won't be anybody else to rule over the land.
  • "They're totally freaked out about this.
  • "When people gripe like that, I've got to listen, you know? I've got to keep the peace.
  • "Therefore, I want to do to this child as I did to his sister.
  • "Hey, don't get sad—I'm warning you. Be patient, I pray."
  • Grisilde says she wants nothing and will never do anything but what Walter desires. She says she left her will and liberty when she married Walter, so now she must obey his desires. She would even die to please him, if that's what he wanted.
  • "Death cannot compare to your love," Grisilde says.
  • When Walter sees the steadfastness of his wife, he casts down his eyes and wonders how she suffers all these torments in patience.
  • He's not going to think too hard about it, though. He leaves with a dreary expression, even though in his heart he is very happy.
  • The ugly sergeant snatches Grisilde's son, just as he snatched her daughter. It's maybe even worse this time.
  • So patient is Grisilde that she shows no sign of unhappiness but kisses her son and blesses him.
  • Grisilde asks the sergeant to bury her son's tender limbs in the earth to keep him from the birds and beasts.
  • The sergeant makes no answer and goes on his way.
  • The sergeant takes the boy to Bologna.
  • Walter wonders at Grisilde's patience.
  • If Walter did not know just how much she loved her children, he would have thought that some cruel nature allowed her to suffer all this steadfastly. Seriously, this dude just can't stop.
  • Good thing Walter knows well that, next to himself, there is no one Grisilde loves as much as her children.
  • Our clerk-narrator now asks the ladies: Don't these trials suffice? What more can a husband possibly devise to test Grisilde's wifehood and steadfastness, himself trucking on unmoved?
  • Yeah, well, when some people set their mind to do something—even something absolutely ridonculous—they just won't give it up.
  • Walter is one of these people.
  • Walter waits to see if Grisilde's manner toward him has changed in any way.
  • Walter never finds variation in Grisilde; she is always the same of manner and countenance.
  • The older Grisilde grows, the more true and loving to him she becomes, if that is possible.
  • Because of this, it seems that among the two of them there is only one will: whatever Walter wants, Grisilde also, ahem, wants.
  • And thank goodness, everything happens for the best, right? Right?
  • Grisilde shows that a wife should wish for nothing but what her husband wishes. Or so the story goes.
  • A slander about Walter spreads throughout the land. People are saying that he has murdered his own children out of a cruel heart... and because he married a poor woman.
  • Because of this, the people now hate Walter as hard as they used to love him.
  • Hey, to be a murderer is a hateful thing. Word.
  • Nevertheless, Walter is not giving up anytime soon. He's like an addict who really needs that testing-his-wife fix.
  • When his daughter is twelve years old, Walter sends a message to the court of Rome. He asks the people in Rome to write up orders for him, saying how the pope wants him to remarry because of the unrest in his land.
  • Walter wants the people in Rome to counterfeit a papal bull (that's an order from the pope), declaring that he has permission to leave his first wife, by the pope's dispensation, in order to stop the unrest between him and his people.
  • The people in Rome publish this counterfeit order.
  • The people of Walter's land believe that this order is a true one.
  • When this news comes to Grisilde, she gets sad.
  • But, always steadfast, Grisilde is ready to endure her fate. She's just waiting to find out what Walter wants her to do.
  • Walter writes a letter to Bologna.
  • Walter asks the Earl of Panago to send his children home in honorable estate. He says that the earl should not reveal to anyone whose children they are. He must only say that the maiden is going to marry the Marquis of Salucia (that would be Walter himself).
  • Nasty, Walter. That's just nasty.
  • The earl does as Walter asks, riding to Salucia at daybreak with his lords in rich array and guiding this maiden and her brother.
  • The young maiden is dressed as though for marriage, bedecked with gems.
  • The young maiden's brother, now seven years old, is also dressed very nicely.
  • Thus, all blinged out, the children ride toward Salucia.