Note that the Host's plan is actually a business scheme for him:  His plan increases the chances that all of the company will be back in his inn after the trip.

A Reeve is a person who is the overseer of work on an estate. (The term is still present in modern English in the word "sheriff," the title given to the "overseer" of a "shire" or "county.)

The Reeve, you will recall from the General Prologue, is a traveling companion of the Miller's.  A reader might wonder why the Reeve has such strong objections to the Miller's proposal to tell a tale about a carpenter.  It is discovered later in the poem (in a portion of the Canterbury Tales not included in the Norton Anthology) that this Reeve, before being elevated to overseer, had been a carpenter by trade.  Naturally, he would take offense at a story which (he rightly expects) will hold a member of his craft up for ridicule.  Later, when the Reeve tells his own tale, he tells a fabliau (an important term which will be discussed during class) about a miller who is the one who is cuckolded (another important term that will be discussed in class) and thus held up for ridicule.  While the Reeve's Tale is not included in the selections from Canterbury Tales contained in our anthology, the same story is told by one of the young nobles in Boccacio's Decameron, and that story is included in the Norton Anthology, beginning on page 1631. 

Five

Note that Chaucer had said, in the General Prologue, that she'd been "taken to wife" by five men.  The original Middle English version says

Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde five,

Withouten other compaignye in youthe

(Translation:  "She'd had five husbands [whom she married] at the door of the church, without other company in youth," or as the Norton Anthology of Western Literature translates it, "Omitting other youthful company." )  The phrase that follows the equivalent passage in the Modern English translation of the Norton is "But let that pass for now!"  This is one of those ambiguous passage that are scattered throughout the Canterbury Tales. 

The fact that she'd married each of the five husbands "at the door of the church" indicates that all the marriages were approved by the church since she was a widow each time.  (Only the very wealthy and powerful would be married inside the church; the more common folks were married at the door of the church.)  But the line "But let that pass for now!" makes us wonder what's meant by "Omitting other youthful company":  Is Chaucer suggesting that she had had no lovers outside of marriage?  Or is he suggesting that she had had five sexual partners in her husbands, plus other lovers outside of marriage?  The fact that she is described as having a healthy sexual appetite certainly gives credence to the latter interpretation.

Two issues are implicit in this event: 

First, while it establishes the power of the knight (here representing Nobility) over the lower class, it also sets up a way of thinking about women that is fairly new for the times (the Wife of Bath's time, not King Arthur's), because in the Wife of Bath's story, power is given to the women of King Arthur's court to decide this matter. 

Second, note the comments the Wife of Bath had made about this story being set "In the old days when King Arthur ruled the nation."  This line does two things:  it makes it clear that this story (like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight) is part of "Arthurian legend," and it sets up the information she gives in the two lines later stating that at that time "This realm we live in was a fairy land," meaning that legendary creatures like fairies and elves were still around.  Establishing this idea does two things: 

One, it gives her an opportunity in the lines that follow to get in a dig at "these holy friars" (note that a friar is one of her fellow pilgrims) whose arrival has driven the fairies away by the friars' acts of blessing "our chambers, kitchens, halls, and bowers, / Our citites, towns, and castles, our high towers, / Our villages, our stables, barns, and dairies."  Implicit in her comment (though not stated) is a condemnation of the friars:  they expect an offering in exchange for all this blessing.

Two, it foreshadows the magical powers of the old crone who helps the knight with the answer to his question.

This answer is another of those ambiguous passages, since any of the incorrect answers to this question may be what is really meant by the answer.  The term "sovereignty" is the issue, and the possibilities of its meaning will be discussed during class. 

Since she is poor, ugly, and of "low birth," the knight is sick at heart for having to marry her and hesitatant to consummate the marriage.  When the crone (the term for such a person as the old woman) realizes his misgivings, she presents an argument as to why he should not hold her low estate, poverty, and ugliness against her.  Her reasoning is in the form of a disputacion, a medieval French term for an argument based upon biblical and classical precedent and citing each liberally.  In preparation for discussion of the Wife of Bath's Tale, review the sorts of arguments the crone offers.  In addition, review the way the Wife of Bath herself, in her Prologue, uses similar methods of argument for her claims about women in marriage.

Radix Malorum Est Cupiditas means literally (and word for word) the following:

Radix = "root"

Malorum = "of evil"

Est = "is"

Cupiditas = "Avarice"

Avarice is also known as "greed" and "cupidity," and is the fifth of the Seven Deadly Sins. The passage is directly from the Scriptures.

Note that these accounts are told as "stories within stories within stories"--Shahrazad has told the story of the merchant facing death for the accidental killing of the Demon's son, and each of these tells his own story.

This passage represents a major "Turning Point" in the course. The notion of Fate (what our translator of Machiavelli's The Prince calls "fortune") has been one of the Great Themes all semester, with character after character affirming the belief that one's fate is determined outside one's self. (Remember the speeches by Telemachus, by Hector, by Aeneas, and others on the subject.) Now, in the Renaissance (the "beginnings of the modern world"), a new idea about this matter has come to the fore. It is the concept of "free will." If one accepts what Machiavelli says--that Fate is arbiter of half of our lives--then the problem that arises is this: which half does fate control? If you did not catch Machiavelli's solution to that problem, re-read this section on how to deal with "fortune" and free will. It is a very significant "moment" in our understanding of the shifting paradigm represented by the Renaissance.

It is notable that Hamlet does not mention here (although he does mention it later in an almost off-handed way) that his uncle and not he had been elevated to the kingship upon the death of Hamlet's father.  He is also more distressed by his mother's quick marriage following his father's death than his own ambition or even the fact that she had married her late husband's brother.

The ghost claims to be the ghost of Hamlet's dead father, but people of the time (who were even more fascinated by the supernatural than people of the present age) believed that Satan would sometimes take the form of a ghost in order to entice people to sin. Consequently, your professor (and many other scholars), believing that Shakespeare intended the ghost's identity to be ambiguous, will not refer to the Ghost as "the ghost of Hamlet's father," but merely as "the Ghost."  Note, in fact, that the only source for "proof" that the ghost is indeed the ghost of Old King Hamlet is the word of the ghost itself.  Everyone else says it "looks like" the old king.

The play (as altered by Hamlet) will be performed later by the players.  Note that the king does react to what the play depicts. 

This scene begins with Ophelia's expression of a desire to return "remembrances" to Hamlet.  During the scene, Hamlet tells her repeatedly to "get thee to a nunnery." Much of his comments have to do with beauty, deception, sexuality, and reproduction.  The term "nunnery" might mean what it sounds like--a place where nuns live in chastity--but a "nunnery" could also refer to a brothel.  No wonder Ophelia comments, "O what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!"  It is interesting also to recall that Hamlet, after his conversation with the Ghost who claims to be the ghost of his father, tells his friends that part of his strategy will be to "put on an antic disposition," that is, to pretend to be mad ("crazy").  Is Hamlet's behavior with Ophelia part of that plot?  It is also interesting to note that Ophelia herself goes mad later in the play. 

The first two of these.