The mock-heroic tone is also used in other instances: when the Nun’s Priest describes the capture of the Don Russel and refers to the event in terms of other prominent traitors (referring to the fox as “a new Iscariot, a second Ganelon and a false hypocrite, Greek Sinon”) and when the barnyard animals discuss high philosophical and theological questions. For Lady Pertelote and Chaunticleer to discuss divine foreknowledge in a high intellectual and moral tone in the context of barnyard chickens is the height of comic irony. We must also remember the cause of the discussion of divine foreknowledge: Lady Pertelote thinks that Chaunticleer’s dream or nightmare was the result of his constipation, and she recommends a laxative. Chaunticleer’s rebuttal is a brilliant use of classical sources that comment on dreams and is a marvelously comic means of proving that he is not constipated and does not need a laxative. Throughout the mock-heroic, mankind loses much of its human dignity and is reduced to animal values.
The Nun’s Priest’s ideas and positions are set up in his genially ironic attitude toward both the simple life of the widow and the life of the rich and the great as represented by the cock, Chaunticleer (in Chaucer’s English, the name means “clear singing”). The Nun’s Priest’s opening lines set up the contrast. A poor old widow with little property and small income leads a sparse life, and it does not cost much for her to get along. The implication is that living the humble Christian life is easier for the poor than for the rich, who have, like Chaunticleer, many obligations and great responsibilities (after all, if Chaunticleer does not crow at dawn, the sun cannot rise).
