ABSTRACT
The Shipman’s Tale is a fabliau about a merchant’s wife who makes love with a monk for profit while her husband is away on business and then tries the same tactic on her husband when he returns. The Shipman’s Tale is a puzzling story both because of and in spite of its superficial similarities to aspects of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. The Shipman’s abruptness, of course, mirrors the haste with which his characters conduct themselves; economy in the expenditure of language is an appropriate stylistic device in a tale that begins with an admonition against unnecessary “dispence.” The Shipman’s interest, as we have said, focuses on the financial transactions that can be used to ensure profit. In The Shipman’s Tale, Chaucer’s own rhetorical strategies, his use of the duplicity of language for his own artistic profit, call into question his belief in the possibility of language’s stability and reliability.
