Peter Ackroyd - The Canterbury Tales – A Retelling

‘You are still in your green time, but youth will one day give way to age. The years come as silent as a stone. Death is the enemy of all, young or old, high or low. No one can escape. But even if we are all certain that we will die, sir, none of us know when that day will come.

‘Our intentions are good. You know that. We have never yet disobeyed you in anything. So very humbly we ask you to listen to our request. It concerns a marriage. If you agree, we will choose for you a wife in as short a time as possible. She will be of the utmost rank of the nobility, so that as your wife she will bring honour to you and to God.

‘Free us from fear and trembling, dear lord. Take a wife, for God’s sake. If it should happen – God forbid – that you should die and that your line came to an end, we might be ruled by some stranger from a strange land. We cannot think of anything more terrible. So we beg you to marry in all haste.’

Walter heard this humble and sorrowful request, and was moved by it. How could he be angry with such suppliants? ‘You well know, my dear people,’ he replied, ‘that before this moment I have never thought of the sweet constraints of a wife. I enjoy my liberty, and know well enough that it is not to be found in marriage. Where once I was free, I would be in servitude.

‘Nevertheless I understand your good intentions. I know your good will towards me. And I trust your judgement, as I have always done. So of my own free will I declare that I will be married as soon as I can. I know that you have promised today to find a wife for me, but I release you from that pledge. I wish to hear no more about it.

‘God knows that children are often very different from their parents. Goodness comes from God and not from noble ancestors or a rich family. I will put my trust in God. I place my life and estate – and my marriage – in His care. Let Him do with me as He please.

‘So allow me, please, to find a wife for myself. I will take the responsibility. But you must promise me this. I ask you to honour whatever wife I choose for as long as she may live. You must make the most solemn pledge to support her in word and deed, here and everywhere, just as if she were the daughter of an emperor.

‘You must also swear another oath. You must swear not to complain or criticize. When I have chosen, I have chosen. You are asking me to give up my liberty, after all. So I must be allowed to follow my own inclination. Unless you assent to my proposals, I will have nothing more to do with the matter.’

So unanimously they agreed to all of the marquis’s conditions. No one dissented. Before they departed, however, they begged their lord to name the day of the wedding as soon as possible. They feared, you see, that in the end he might not marry at all.

He did name a day, as they asked. On that particular day, he declared, he would be faithfully married in compliance to their wishes. They all kneeled down before him, and pledged their obedience. He thanked them for the respect and affection they had shown to him, and sent them on their way. They filed out of the hall, and went to their own homes.

Then Walter summoned the officers of his court and asked them to prepare a feast; he ordered the members of his private household to make all the arrangements for the bridal day. They busied themselves about the preparations with a good will, each of them wanting to make a success of the occasion.

Not far from this great palace, where the marquis was making ready for the feast, there was a hamlet nestling in very pleasant scenery. The poor folk of the neighbourhood lodged, and kept their cattle, here. They laboured in the fields, and the fields were often fruitful.

Among these poor people was one fellow who was reckoned to be the poorest of them all. Yet was not the Son of God born in a simple manger? God’s grace can reach an ox’s stall. The name of this poor man was Janiculus. He had a beautiful young daughter, whose name was Griselda.

To speak of virtue, and of beauty, she was in every sense one of the fairest in the world. She had been brought up in honest poverty, and there was no trace of greed or sensuality in her nature. She drank water more often than she drank wine. She embraced labour rather than idleness.

Griselda was still of a young age, and a virgin, but in her heart were genuine ardour and courage. She looked after her poor and elderly father with tenderness and affection. She watched the sheep in the pasture, and in the cottage was busy at the spinning-wheel. She did not stop working until she retired to bed.

When she came home from the fields she brought with her cabbages and other vegetables, which she cut up and cooked to make a modest meal. Her bed was hard. There were no feathers in her pillow. But she always cared for her father, and treated him with all the reverence and obedience he could possibly desire.

Walter, in the course of his many hunting expeditions, had often seen this maid. He had not looked upon her in lust. Far from it. He had gazed and gazed and sighed. He had contemplated her beauty.

He had recognized her to be the very image of a virtuous woman, passing all others of her age. He had seen feminine grace in her manner and appearance. It is true that many people have no insight into these things. But the marquis was an exception. He decided that he would marry Griselda and no other.

The day appointed for the wedding had come. But no one in the land knew who, if anyone, was to be the bride. Many of them wondered aloud. Others asked each other in private if the marquis had broken his promise. ‘Is he not going to be married after all?’ they complained. ‘Is he going to make a fool of himself? And of us, as well?’

Yet secretly the marquis had already ordered rings and brooches and other precious gems, set in gold and azure, for the sake of Griselda. He had also found a young woman of the same stature, and had measured her for the dresses of his new bride. Griselda was sure to have a full trousseau as well as every adornment for her wedding day.

It was nine o’clock on the morning of the wedding day. All the palace had been decorated. Every hall, and every little chamber, had been made ready for the celebrations. The kitchens and storerooms had been stuffed with food and drink. You could not have seen better fare in the whole of Italy.

The marquis rode out in state, attended by all the company of his lords and ladies who had been invited to the wedding feast. The knights in his service also accompanied him on the royal journey. To the sound of lutes and trumpets, then, the procession wound its way to the little hamlet where Janiculus and Griselda lived.

Griselda had of course no idea that all this magnificence and display were for her sake. She had gone to the well to fetch water, as usual, and was now hurrying back home to see the grand spectacle. She knew that the marquis was going to be married that day, and didn’t want to miss it.

‘I will stand with the other girls,’ she said to herself, ‘outside the door and take a look at the bride as she rides past. I will get through all the work at home as quickly as I can. Then I’ll have time to catch a glimpse of her on the way to the palace. I hope she comes this way.’

She had just got up to her door, and was about to cross the threshold, when she heard a voice. The marquis had ridden towards her and was calling out to her! She put down the water-vessel in a little wicker enclosure, and fell upon her knees. She kneeled in front of her lord, waiting patiently to hear his will.

The marquis dismounted from his horse and walked over to her. She did not dare look up at him. He gazed at her thoughtfully, and then in an earnest manner began to speak to her. ‘Where is your father, Griselda?’