What happens in Chapter 4 of The Canterbury Tales?
The Reeve's Tale centers on two clerks from Cambridge, Aleyn and John, who head to a mill to keep an eye on their college's grain after suspecting the miller, Symkyn, of cheating them. Symkyn, a boastful and dishonest man, unties their horse while they’re distracted, leading to a wild chase across the fens. By night, the clerks find themselves needing to seek shelter at the miller's home. That evening, Aleyn ends up in bed with Symkyn's daughter Malyne, while John, not wanting to be left out, moves the cradle to mislead Symkyn's wife into his own bed. At dawn, Aleyn mistakenly identifies Symkyn as John and proudly reveals his night with Malyne. This prompts Symkyn to attack Aleyn; meanwhile, Symkyn's wife, confused by the shifted cradle, accidentally strikes her husband in the dark. The clerks manage to overpower Symkyn, reclaim their grain (and a cake that Malyne reveals was made from stolen meal), and ride away. The tale concludes with the Reeve's sharp moral: the deceiver ultimately gets deceived.
Analysis
The Reeve's Tale is a fabliau crafted with remarkable precision, serving as Chaucer's means to express the Reeve's barely hidden anger towards the Miller, who had ridiculed a carpenter—essentially the Reeve's profession. This dynamic of revenge operates both structurally and thematically: the tale retaliates against insults, moving from professional embarrassment to sexual triumph. Chaucer's skill shines through in how he uses dialect. Aleyn and John communicate in a Northern English dialect ("Wa is me," "il hayl"), a rare example of sociolinguistic mimicry in Middle English literature that highlights their outsider status while making them relatable as scrappy underdogs.
The cradle, dislocated at midnight, is the tale's brilliant comedic device—a single element that leads to a series of misidentifications and turns the wife's involvement into farce. However, beneath the raunchy exterior lies a cooler undertone: Malyne's soft farewell to Aleyn about the stolen cake is surprisingly tender, presenting a moment of real emotion that Chaucer weaves into the chaos without commentary, allowing the reader to grasp its significance.
Symkyn's arrogance—his fixation on lineage, his wife's convent upbringing, and his daughter's prospects for marriage—drives his downfall. Chaucer portrays hubris not as a tragic flaw but rather as a source of comedy, and the beating Symkyn endures is more about humiliation than catharsis. The Reeve's final taunt reminds us that every story in the Canterbury frame serves as a weapon.
Key quotes from Chapter 4
“And therefore this proverbe is seyd ful sooth, / 'Hym thar nat wene wel that yvele dooth.'”
The Reeve delivers his closing moral, crystallising the tale's lex talionis logic: the miller who cheated others is cheated in kind.
“Aleyn wax wery in the dawenynge, / For he had swonken al the longe nyght, / And seyde, 'Fare weel, Malyne, sweete wight!'”
Aleyn's dawn farewell to Malyne introduces an unexpected note of tenderness into the fabliau's otherwise mechanical eroticism.
“This millere smyled of hir nycetee, / And thoghte, 'Al this nys doon but for a wyle; / They wene that no man may hem bigyle.'”
Symkyn's internal monologue as he unties the clerks' horse reveals his contempt and overconfidence—the precise hubris that will undo him.