In a pile of bodies, pillagers find the young royal Theban knights Palamon and Arcite, who are cousins. They are still alive. Theseus sends them to Athens to be imprisoned for life, and returns home.
Locked in a tower, Palamon one May morning sees Emelye walking in the garden, and falls instantly and madly in love with her. As he explains his love to Arcite, his cousin also spies Emelye and he too is captured by her beauty. immediately the cousins, who have been as close as brothers since birth, become sworn enemies over the love of Emelye.
Another duke, Perotheus, arrives in Athens to visit Duke Theseus. Perotheus also knows Arcite well, and when he hears the knight is Theseus’ prisoner, he begs for Arcite’s release. Theseus agrees on condition that Arcite never be seen in any of Theseus’ lands, on pain of death. So Arcite returns to Thebes, heartbroken that he can never again see Emelye. At least Palamon, locked in the tower, can look at her, he moans. Meanwhile Palamon sighs that he is wretched, but lucky Arcite can gather an army in Thebes and return to conquer Athens to win the lady.
Finally Arcite can’t stand it anymore and risks returning to Athens to see Emelye. He is so pale and thin from lovesickness that he’s unrecognizable, so he is able to become a page at Theseus’ court, still worshipping Emelye from afar.
One morning Arcite is walking in a grove, exclaiming how unfair it is that he can’t even disclose his identity. What he doesn’t know is that Palamon has escaped from prison and is overhearing every word from behind a bush. He leaps out and vows to kill Arcite for loving Emelye.
The two agree to meet the next day and fight to the death, but when they do, Theseus, Queen Hippolyta, and Emelye happen along and see the battle. Palamon tells Theseus the whole story, declares his and Arcite’s love for Emelye, and admits they both should die for disobeying him. Theseus has pity and declares a tournament joust instead. Each knight may enlist one hundred other knights and whoever wins the battle shall have Emelye.
Palamon prays to Venus, goddess and planet of love. Arcite prays to Mars, god of war. In the heavens, Saturn promises Venus that her favorite, Palamon, shall win. Palamon is captured in the tournament, and Arcite wins. But as Arcite comes forward to accept Emelye, Saturn shakes the ground so that Arcite’s horse falls and kills him. As he dies, Arcite asks Emelye to have pity on Palamon if she ever marries.
Years pass, and when mourning for Arcite is over, Theseus declares that the world must go on. He orders Emelye and Palamon to be married, since Palamon has suffered so long for her love. With this happy event, the tale ends.
THESEUS, the wise duke, is firm but fair. We have a picture of him as the strong conqueror, but also as the figure who, like God, dispenses justice along with mercy. For this reason, some have seen Theseus as the major character in the Knight’s Tale. He personifies the idea of just and reasonable leadership. It’s no accident that he rules Athens, the ancient center of learning and reason. He conquers the Amazon nation because it is fitting that a man should be the higher power over women. (This is according to the ideal of knighthood, not necessarily Chaucer’s own view. As we shall see, Chaucer pokes fun at some of the courtly conventions even though he greatly admires the Narrator-Knight’s behavior.)
Theseus is the representative of order, throughout the tale making a great show of ceremonies and games–such as the joust and the hunting of the hart–that are played by ordered rules.
ARCITE believes that Theseus is not really his “mortal enemy,” nor is his cousin Palamon. But Arcite is the favorite of Mars, the god of war, so he does not listen to reason.
Instead he follows his own willingness, which first leads him to go against his cousin, then against his own good fortune. Imagine having your life saved–twice, no less–and cursing your luck because you are set free rather than put to death. We are meant to see Arcite as a man foolish in his willfulness. He is blind to his good fortune: he even complains about men who bemoan fortune’s twists, which is exactly what he’s doing.
Because of Mars he wins the joust, but he does not realize that fortune is changeable. Only at his death does he begin to see reason and ends the grudge he’s been holding for so long against Palamon.
Does PALAMON get the lady Emelye because he’s the better, more valiant knight? He certainly is valiant in the joust–it takes twenty men to capture him–and he is the one who tells Theseus the truth about Arcite’s identity and their shared love for Emelye. But where Arcite is overly willful, Palamon refuses to put any stock at all in people’s ability to change their situations. He languishes in jail, believing that “man is bounden” to “God’s observaunce.”
While some readers think that both men are ideal knights from a popular romance, others think Chaucer intended irony in their descriptions, and that indeed neither one of them is worthy of the lady. Or you might think that both are equally worthy, since each has his faults and blind spots yet sincerely upholds what he thinks is right.
What about EMELYE, the object of affection in all this? For it’s hard to see her as much more than an object. Part of the humor of the Knight’s Tale comes from the fact that these two knights are pining away over beautiful Emelye for years, while she doesn’t yet know they exist. They are ready to kill each other over her, yet we discover that she would rather stay a virgin than marry either one of them.
We may not be quite sure how to take her because we see her only through the eyes of the two knights, who see her in different ways. A hint may be in the way she accepts the dictates of Diana, the goddess of chastity, that she must marry; and so she casts a “freendlich eye” on Arcite when he wins her hand. In general, we’re told, women follow “the favour of fortune” (line 1824), as the products of nature do.
^^^^^^^^^^CANTERBURY TALES: STORY LINE
We learn a lot about the Knight’s Tale from the very fact that the Knight is chosen to tell the first tale. “Were it by aventure, or sort, or cas” (whether by accident, luck, or chance), the Knight chooses the straw. But it only seems to be random: it’s proper that the Knight begin first according to the class structure. So things may appear to be luck when actually there’s a plan behind it all.
The Knight will not describe Theseus’ feats, he says; then he proceeds to tell us all the things he won’t tell us about.
NOTE: This is a device the Knight uses often, which provides humor and is Chaucer’s sly way of getting in description that is not strictly relevant.
We get a vivid picture of his strength and his love of “much glory and great solemnity” (pomp). In fact, his first words show he’s annoyed that his homecoming is marred by women in black crying and upsetting the order of things.
The first mention of fortune comes from an old woman who says each of the widows was royalty before her husband died at Thebes, but now they are wretches, “Thanked be Fortune and hir false wheel” (line 67). She adds that fortune doesn’t let anyone remain secure.
Theseus won’t stand for this injustice, and he dashes off to avenge these women. It is women who throughout the tale will spur him to action and provide the just ruler with compassion. Here, he’s protective as he pities their plight.
After he has won the battle, Theseus returns to do “greet honor” to the women, as is orderly and proper. The burial of the Athenian soldiers is a ritual that helps man order himself in the universe.
Arcite and Palamon, although of noble birth, are stuck in a tower until the end of their days. But again, fortune turns just when you’d think things couldn’t get any worse. Palamon, “by aventure or cas” (another reference to accident or luck), sees Emelye walking in the garden. She is fresh as nature herself but also sings as “hevenly” as an angel (line 197). Palamon, looking at her, can’t tell whether she’s a woman or a goddess. But if the two cousins are prisoners, she is bound, too, by the garden walls, within which she “romed up and doun” (line 211). This is Chaucer’s way of showing that fortune circles everyone.
When Palamon cries out as though pierced through the heart, Arcite ironically lectures him on accepting what can’t be changed.
For God’s love, endure in patience