How many women does Chaunticleer have doing his bidding?

1 ANSWERS

1. amomipais82
   

   Hi There,
   The Nun's Priest's Tale
   
   OUR host next called out, with a rough familiarity, to the Nun's Priest, "Now, Parson! draw near, Sir John, * and tell us something to gladden our hearts. Although you do still ride upon a jade, man, and your beast is poor and lean; so long as he serves your turn, no matter. See that you keep a merry heart, that is the chief care of this life."
   
   "Yes, host," said he, "riding or walking, blame me if I be not merry withal." And straightway this goodly Priest opened upon his tale.
   
   
   
   LONG ago, a poor widow, somewhat stooping with the weight of years, dwelt in a little cottage beside a grove which stood in a dale. Ever since she had ceased to be a wife, she earned her bread in patience and simplicity: slender was her stock, and slender was her rent. With careful husbandry she supported herself and two daughters. She had three hogs, three cows, and a ewe. Smoky was her cabin in which she ate many a frugal
   
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   meal: no pungent sauce to whet her appetite, or dainty morsel entered her lips: her diet accorded with her apparel, and both were humble. She never ailed through repletion, and temperance was her only medicine. Activity and exercise were all her heart's delight; no gout prevented her from dancing, and apoplexy made not her head to tremble. Wine formed no part of her household store, but milk was her beverage; and her meals consisted of brown bread, singed bacon, and an egg or two.
   
   She had a little yard enclosed with sticks, and on the outside a dry ditch. In this yard she kept a c**k called Chanticleer—a merrier crow than his was not to be heard in all the country round. He was as true to his matin hour as the abbey clock. He could tell by instinct the ascension of the equinox, and when it had risen fifteen degrees, then would he crow so that it was a joy to hear him. His comb was ruddier than the finest coral, and embattled like a castle-tower. His bill was black, and shone like jet; his legs and toes were azure, his nails were whiter than the lily-flower, and his neck and back were burnished gold.
   
   This gentle c**k had seven hens in his train—his wives; all of various colours, of which the fairest about the throat and breast was Dame Partlet. She was a most courteous, discreet, debonair, and companionable lady; conducting herself withal so fairly that since the day she was a week old she had held fast imprisoned the heart of Sir Chanticleer. What a pleasure it was to hear them singing, in sweet accord, as the bright sun began to arise: "My love, my joy, is far in land." * For, in those days, I
   
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   have heard that birds and beasts could both speak and sing as we do.
   
   It happened one day, just before the dawn, as Chanticleer sat upon his perch among his wives, and next to him fair Partlet, he began to groan in his throat like one sore troubled in a dream. And when she so heard him roar, she became alarmed, and said, "My own dear heart! what makes you groan in this manner? truly you are a fine sleeper! fie, for shame!" And he answering her said, "Madam, I entreat you not to be uneasy; but, upon my truth, I had just now fallen into such mischief that my heart still quakes with fear at the thought of it. Heaven send me a clean quittance of my dream, and keep me safe and sound in body. Methought that I was walking up and down our yard, when I saw a beast like a hound, who would have seized upon me and put me to death. His colour was a light tawny, betwixt yellow and red, and both his ears and tail were tipped with black; his snout was sharp, and he had two sparkling eyes. The look of him still makes me ready to die. This, most likely, occasioned my groaning."
   
   "Away!" said she, "fie on your faint heart! Alas! by Heaven! you have forfeited all my affection. In faith, I cannot love a coward; for be sure that, whatever a woman may say, we all desire our husbands to be bold, wise, and free; neither a fool nor a niggard; and, above all, no braggart. How durst you for shame say to your love that anything could make you afraid? Have you a man's beard and not his heart? To be frightened at a dream! which, Heaven knows, is all vanity. Dreams frequently arise from fume and repletion, when the humours increase;
   
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   and, no doubt, this dream which you have had to-night came from the great over-flowing of your red choler, which makes people dream of arrows, and of fire with ruddy flames, of red beasts that try to bite them, of contentions and strifes, and great and small red wasps: as the humour of melancholy will cause a man to cry out in his sleep for fear of black bulls and bears, and black devils ready to snap them up. I could tell you too of other humours, that cause one much trouble in his sleep but let them pass. Does not Cato, that wise man, say, 'Pay no regard to dreams'?"
   
   "Now, sir," said she, "when you fly down from the beam, let me urge you, for the love of Heaven, to take some cooling herbs. Depend upon it I give you good advice in recommending you to clear away both choler and melancholy; and that you may lose no time, as there is not an apothecary in the town, I will inform you of a few simples that I shall find in our yard, which have the property of thoroughly purifying your blood. You are of a very choleric complexion, and must take great care when the sun comes out in his strength that you do not become full of hot humours; else I lay a wager that you will be laid up with an ague or tertian fever. For a day or two, I would recommend your eating some worms by way of digestive before you take your alteratives * of laureola, centaury, or fumetery, of hellebore, spurge, or dog-wood berries, or ground-ivy, that is growing in the yard. Pick them where they grow, and eat them. Come, be merry, my dear husband! for the sake of your father's kindred do not be afraid of dreams."
   
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   "Madam," said he, "gramercy of your great learning; but, nevertheless, touching that same Cato, who had such a reputation for wisdom, although he told us to 'take no heed of dreams,' I assure you that you may read in old books of a higher authority than ever Cato possessed, that the very reverse of his opinion is a matter of well founded experience; for that dreams are warnings both of the joys and tribulations that people are to endure in this life. The thing needs no argument; indeed the proof of it carries conviction. One of the greatest authors * we read of relates that formerly two men went forth upon a pilgrimage, and it happened that they came into a town where there was such a congregation of people, and the lodging so scanty, that they could not find so much as a cottage in which they could remain together; they were, therefore, compelled to part company for that night, and each of them to go to his inn, and put up with such entertainment as he might find. One of them was lodged in an ox-stall, and the other, by that good luck which at times attends every one, was comfortably provided. Now it happened that during the night he who was well-housed dreamed that the other cried out to him for help, for that he was being murdered in an ox's-stall, where he was lodged for the night. 'Hasten to help me, dear brother,' said he, 'or I shall die.' The man started from his sleep, but thinking it only a dream he took no heed of it; so, turning round, went off again. Twice, however, he dreamed the same; and the third time, his companion, as
   
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   he thought, came to him and said, 'I am now slain, behold my deep and wide gashes; arise up early on the morrow and go to the west gate of the town, where you shall see a cart full of dung; in this my body is privately concealed. Boldly arrest that cart. My gold was the cause of my being murdered'; and so he told him, with a pale and piteous face, every point how he was slain. And be sure that he found his dream all true, for in the morning, as soon as it was day, he went to his companion's inn, and when he came to the ox-stall he inquired after him. The ostler told him that his fellow-traveller had left the town at day-break. The survivor, bearing his dream in mind, began to suspect, and immediately went to the west gate, where he found a dung-cart exactly as the dead man had described, when he began to cry out lustily for help and vengeance, saying that his companion lay murdered in that cart. What more need I say? The people rushed out and overturned the cart, where, in the midst of the dung, they found the dead man newly murdered.
   
   "O good, true, and blessed God! behold how thou dost always cause murder to betray itself! Every day do we find the saying true that 'murder will out'; so loathsome and abominable to a just God is this crime that he will not suffer it to be hidden, though it remain concealed for years. Straightway the magistrates of that town having seized the carter and ostler, and put them to the rack, they confessed their wickedness, and were both hanged.
   
   "Thus you may see that dreams are to be feared. And in the very next chapter of the same book you may read of two who were about to take a voyage to a far country, but were detained by reason of contrary winds. One day,

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