In the _Canterbury Tales_ Chaucer's method of character delineation is more concise. In _Troilus and Criseyde_ he has five books, containing over 8000 lines, at his disposal, and the raptures and anguish of the lovers are described at considerable length. In the _Canterbury Tales_ he has a far more complex task before him; he has to present the pilgrims themselves, in the various prologues and end-links; to make each tale a dramatic revelation of the character of the teller; and to exhibit the characters of the personages who play a part in the various stories. The 560 lines of the _Prologue_ in themselves contain a far greater number and variety of characters than are to be found in the whole of _Troilus and Criseyde_, and if there is less subtlety of treatment the later prologues and end-links soon atone for this. Nothing, for instance, would have been easier than to draw a conventional picture of the self-indulgent, pleasure-loving monk, and at first sight we might think that Chaucer had done little more, though even in the _Prologue_ we are conscious of a sharp distinction between the Monk, who with all his faults is a gentleman, and such vulgar impostors as the Pardoner and the Somnour. But further acquaintance soon rectifies this conception. Self-indulgent and pleasure-loving the Monk undoubtedly is, but he is no hypocrite or evil-liver. The Host makes one of his few mistakes in tact by treating him with breezy familiarity, "Ryd forth," he cries:-- Ryd forth, myn owne lord, brek nat our game, But, by my trouthe, I knowe nat your name, Wher shal I calle you my lord dan John, Or dan Thomas, or elles dan Albon? Of what hous be ye, by your fader kin? I vow to god, thou hast a ful fair skin, It is a gentil pasture ther thou goost; Thou art nat lyk a penaunt[89] or a goost. The Monk knows better than to rebuke the somewhat coarse pleasantries that follow; but with quiet dignity he ignores the familiarity and offers to relate either the life of St. Edward or else a series of tragedies:-- Of whiche I have an hundred in my celle. The choice of subjects in itself constitutes a delicate but unmistakable snub. The Host expected some tale of hunting and merriment from him--tragedy has little in common with his stout, jovial person, and frank delight in good living--instead of which the pilgrims are regaled with a series of moral discourses which would have been perfectly in place in the cloister, but seem strangely ill-suited to the present company. Indeed, the pilgrims grow restive under so much good advice; they evidently fear that the worthy Monk means to inflict the whole hundred tragedies on them, and after listening, with growing impatience, to seventeen tales of woe, the tender-hearted Knight can bear no more:--