The Nun’s Priest’s Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is a tale that allegorically reveals the depths of human behavior and psychology through animals on one hand while subverting common expectations of an epic in order to provide comedy on the other hand.

Chaucer uses his characters as props to reveal the true nature of humans. At the start of the Miller’s Tale, a tale of debauchery and crass humor, Chaucer divorces himself from the work, reminding the reader that he is simply a stenographer. His characters are living, breathing entities with lives of their own, lives that dance along the meteres of his poem. The Nun’s Priest’s Tale differs from the other tales in that there is an added layer of abstraction in the form of farm animals.

Readers are introduced to the epic tale of Chauntecleer, a rooster, husband to seven hens, king of his yard, master of his chicken coop. His dream and the fear that he exhibits from that dream shows how much humans fear the unknown. The dog-like beast is the “other,” the foreigner, the invader. Fear of invasion is relevant to medieval times, invasion of armies and of disease or bad “humors.” Pertelote’s advice to take laxatives in order to cure himself of bad dreams not only serves as a comedic quip but it also highlights the difference in thinking between the matron hen and the rooster. When people are confronted with a problem, some resolve to superstition while others look for practical solutions.

Pertelote and Chauntecleer provide commentary on the human ability to see truth through a subjective lens by choosing a side and picking out examples that favor their arguments. “Look at Cato,” Pertelot says, “who was so wise a man — didn’t he pronounce on the subject thus: ‘Pay no attention to dreams’?” (lines 120–121). Pertelot offers her version of truth, but Chauntecleer takes his own version of truth from ancient stories. These stories delve into the darkness of humanity, our ability to enact senseless violence. In the first story, a man dreams that he’s going to be murdered and tells another man he’s gone on a pilgrimage with the dream he had. When the dream comes true, the authorities torture a carter and an innkeeper, receive a confession, and hang them.

Chauntecleer’s first story unearths the danger of mob mentality and how quickly violence can erupt. Those who are powerless become victimized. In seeking truth, torture is used, which only provides a subjective truth because of the means in which the confession is provided. Sometimes we choose to believe what confirms our own biases. Yet, Chauntecleer, after expounding on the legitimacy of dreams, chooses to ignore his own warning in order to get back into the good graces of his lover. From the rooster’s perspective, this act is highly irrational.

Throughout The Canterbury Tales, characters act irrationally because of love. Men like Aurelius and Absalom pine for their lovers, but their love distorts their morality over time. Chaucer seems to be critiquing the silliness of courtly love, of the lengths men and women go to achieve their romantic goal. Love and violence is at the core of humanity and The Nun’s Priest’s Tale uses allegory to tackle these themes. Epics often tackle themes of love and violence, but this tale turns the epic on its head.

Epics typically revolve around a statuesque male figures. So, it is no surprise that Chauntecleer is called a cock in the tale, a phallic symbol. He is the best crower in all the lands with a voice “merrier than the merry organ that was played on holy days”(32–33). Already the narrator is satirizing epic heroes like Beowulf, who had the strength of thirty men. The rooster is “more dependable than any clock” and can telegraph the heavens more precisely than any astronomer. He is described in the tone of romantic poetry, which pokes fun at the way epic heroes are often described as flawless beings. When Chauntecleer descends from his perch, the narrator characterizes him as a “grim lion,” yet he walks daintily on his toes (359). The juxtaposition is another comedic trick that undermines the epic hero.

And then the fox arrives and so does the epic adventure that is not quite so epic, because the fox flatters Chauntecleer, which subverts the epic because the narrator is usually the flatterer who extols the hero’s worthiness. When the fox finally attacks, Chauntecleer, unlike many heroic figures, emits a shriek that rivals the likes of Trojan ladies. His shriek is only bested by Pertelote and his other hens, who, ironically, save him because of the riot their shrieks cause. In the end, Chauntecleer escapes through cunning, not might and learns that flattery can get you into deep trouble.

The moral of the tale is a quasi-moral because it works against human nature. Flattery is something that is hard to speak out against and pales in comparison to a moral like, don’t kill innocent bystanders. It is a final joke in a long string of jokes that dismantles the epic while, through the use of allegorical characters, highlights the psychological and moral disposition of human beings.