What happens in Chapter 16 of The Canterbury Tales?
The Nun's Priest tells the tale of Chauntecleer, an impressively proud rooster who rules his barnyard and his beloved hen, Pertelote, with a mix of vanity and affection. After Chauntecleer wakes up in a panic from a prophetic dream involving a fox, Pertelote brushes off his fear as simple indigestion and suggests he take laxatives. Chauntecleer responds with a series of learned examples that show how dreams can predict the future, but he quickly forgets his own warning when he encounters flattery. A fox named Daun Russell enters the yard and praises Chauntecleer's singing as the best of all earthly music. The rooster, flattered, stretches his neck, closes his eyes, and crows — at which point the fox grabs him by the throat and dashes into the woods. The whole farm erupts in a chase: hens scream, the widow and her daughters run after them, and the ruckus rivals the fall of Troy. Mid-flight, Chauntecleer regains his composure and tricks the fox into opening his mouth to shout defiance at his pursuers; the rooster then escapes into a tree. Both the fox and the rooster learn a valuable lesson — the dangers of flattery and the importance of staying aware of reality — and the Nun's Priest wraps up with a quick moral urging the audience to find their own meaning.
Analysis
Chaucer masterfully uses the mock-heroic style here, elevating a simple barnyard incident to the level of classical epic and theological debate. The core technique of the tale is bathos: Chauntecleer's dream is taken as seriously as a Homeric prophecy, his marital disagreement with Pertelote plays out like a scholastic discussion on authority and experience, and the chase with the fox is described with the dramatic flair of Troy's downfall — all to highlight the pride of a chicken. The shifts in tone are both relentless and intentional; every lofty moment is quickly deflated, yet Chaucer skillfully avoids letting the humor devolve into mere farce.
The theme of auctoritee versus experience — the philosophical backbone of the tale — resonates with the Wife of Bath's Prologue and situates this fabliau within the larger Canterbury narrative. While Chauntecleer wins the debate about dreams, he ultimately loses the practical conflict because he discards his hard-earned wisdom as soon as his vanity is stroked. Thus, flattery emerges as the real villain of the story, proving to be more perilous than the fox himself.
Chaucer also weaves in layers of self-aware irony: the Nun’s Priest, a minor and nearly invisible character in the General Prologue, delivers the collection's most impressively crafted performance, hinting that what seems insignificant can hide the keenest intellect. The final call — "Taketh the moralite" — serves as a mock-serious nudge, challenging readers to ponder whether the tale speaks of dreams, pride, flattery, marriage, or all of these themes at once.
Key quotes from Chapter 16
“For evere the latter ende of joye is wo.”
The Nun's Priest intones this sententious line as Chauntecleer's moment of triumph tips into catastrophe, crystallising the tale's mock-tragic arc.
“Wommannes conseil broghte us first to wo, / And made Adam fro Paradys to go.”
Chauntecleer offers this misogynist aside after ignoring Pertelote's advice, only for the narrator to immediately undercut it with a winking disclaimer that these are the cock's words, not his own.
“Taketh the moralite, goode men.”
The Nun's Priest's closing address to the pilgrims performs a final mock-homiletic flourish, simultaneously inviting and satirising the impulse to reduce a rich fable to a single lesson.