Chaunticleer the cock, the widow’s prized possession, is the lord of the barnyard: he has seven hen wives, and his plumage is described as though it were made of jewels. Although Chaunticleer is a rooster, he is well-educated and makes lots of literary allusions, even if he doesn’t know what all of them mean.
Chaunticleer Quotes in The Canterbury Tales
The The Canterbury Tales quotes below are all either spoken by Chaunticleer or refer to Chaunticleer. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
Quotes
For al so siker as in principio
Mulier est hominis confusio,––
Madame, the sentence of this Latyn is,
“Womman is mannes joye and al his blis.”
Get the entire The Canterbury Tales LitChart as a printable PDF.
Chaunticleer Character Timeline in The Canterbury Tales
The timeline below shows where the character Chaunticleer appears in The Canterbury Tales. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
The Nun’s Priest’s Tale
...in a little cottage with her two daughters. Her greatest possession is her noble rooster, Chaunticleer, who is the best singer in the land. Chaunticleer crows the time more accurately than...
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One morning, Chaunticleer awakens from a terrible nightmare. He tells Pertelote that a savage, reddish, beast was about...
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Chaunticleer argues that men of even greater authority than Cato argue that dreams are extremely important....
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Chaunticleer praises Pertelote’s beauty, saying that “In principio, mulier est hominis confusion,” which he translates as...
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One day in May, just as Chaunticleer has declared his perfect happiness, an inexplicable wave of sorrow comes over him. That very...
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The next morning, Chaunticleer is watching a butterfly when he sees the fox watching him. Terrified, the cock is...
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Chaunticleer suggests to the fox that he stop and taunt his pursuers. The fox likes this...
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