The Canterbury Tales: The Miller's Tale Cunning and Cleverness Quotes

Nicholas has already learned the literature, history, and theology that made up the arts curriculum of the medieval scholar, but his real passion is for astrology, or fortune-telling. In wanting to know the future, Nicholas is guilty of telling God's "pryvetee," or secrets, though he denies this to John (l. 455). The desire to know the truth through fortune-telling reveals Nicholas's sin of pride.

The tone of this passage is somewhat dismissive. First of all, the grand promise of the knowledge gained from "astrologye" is reduced in line 87 to weather forecasting. The narrator then makes a somewhat vague allusion to men asking him about "what sholde bifalle of every thing." In this passage at least, the "I may nat reken hem alle," seems like the medieval version of "whatever."

Not only is Nicholas a scholar of arts and astrology, he's also skilled in the pursuit of "derne" (secret) love. The "solas" here refers to the end-point of secret love – the solace that is the remedy for love-sickness (probably sex). The fact that the love is secret suggests that it's illicit – that is, between two people who aren't actually supposed to love one another because they're not married.

This passage sets up one of the major juxtapositions explored by "The Miller's Tale": the cunning clerks (students) versus the stupid peasants. The stereotype of the medieval peasant was all brawn and no brains. According to this logic, of course a clerk would be able to trick a carpenter. With this statement Nicholas reveals that he's buying into the stereotype.

Absolon is the parish clerk, in which capacity he writes charters and deeds, but it seems he also has a side-practice as a barber. (Barbers at this time also practiced blood-letting, which was thought to be beneficial to one's health.) The goal here seems to be to portray Absolon as a renaissance man or a jack-of-all-trades.

Absolon is talented in the arts: he's an accomplished dancer, singer, and guitar player. Yet, like he does in his description of Nicholas's fortune-telling, the narrator seems to diminish Absolon's talents. Here he fills our mind with funny images – like Absolon's legs casting to and fro, or Absolon singing in his high, thin, tenor – while also filling our ears with the somewhat whimsical rhyming of rubible and quinible.

Playing Herod in the local play is Absolon's attempt to get Alisoun's attention. It fails, but we at least learn more about his numerous artistic talents. Unfortunately for Absolon, our admiration is tempered by how pathetic he seems in setting himself up for constant rejection.

Here John is called "sely," or foolish, reflecting Nicholas and Alisoun's opinion of him. Calling the deception in which these two are about to engage a "game" implies that they regard the whole affair with a lack of seriousness. It is not the love affair of their lives, merely a night of good fun.

The unlearned, John suggests here, actually have an advantage in only knowing their Apostle's Creed, because this prevents them from getting confused or damaged by arcane, dangerous knowledge. The reference to "Goddes pryvetee," which recurs several times in the course of the tale, could be a dirty joke: "pryvetee" can refer to genitalia, and in a tale chock-full of sex, this meaning may not be too much of a stretch.

Nicholas convinces John not to tell anyone else about the flood. Were he to tell someone smarter, that person might knock some sense into him, which Nicholas does not want.

Alisoun's flattery of John, like Nicholas's prophecy "only" for the three of them, makes John feel special, chosen by God as one who is "sent" by him to do something important. Combine this with Alisoun's damsel-in-distress plea to John to "save our lyf," and he's putty in her hands.