The Prologue is perhaps the best single fragment of the _Canterbury Tales_. In it Chaucer introduces us to the characters of his drama: to the grave Knight and the gay Squire, the one a model of Chivalry at its best, "a verray parfit gentil knight," the other a young man so full of life and love that "he slept namore than dooth a nightingale"; to the modest Prioress, also, with her pretty clothes, her exquisite manners, her boarding-school accomplishments: And Frensh she spak ful faire and fetisly, After the scole of Stratford attë Bowë, For Frensh of Paris was to hir unknowë. In contrast to this dainty figure is the coarse Wife of Bath, as garrulous as the nurse in _Romeo and Juliet_. So one character stands to another as shade to light, as they appear in a typical novel of Dickens. The Church, the greatest factor in medieval life, is misrepresented by the hunting Monk and the begging Friar, and is well represented by the Parson, who practiced true religion before he preached it: But Christës lore and his apostles twelvë He taughte, and first he folwëd it himselvë. Trade is represented by the Merchant, scholarship by the poor Clerk of Oxenford, the professions by the Doctor and the Man-of-law, common folk by the Yeoman, Frankelyn (farmer), Miller and many others of low degree. Prominent among the latter was the Shipman: Hardy he was, and wys to undertakë; With many a tempest hadde his berd been shakë. From this character, whom Stevenson might have borrowed for his _Treasure Island_, we infer the barbarity that prevailed when commerce was new, when the English sailor was by turns smuggler or pirate, equally ready to sail or scuttle a ship, and to silence any tongue that might tell tales by making its wretched owner "walk the plank." Chaucer's description of the latter process is a masterpiece of piratical humor: If that he faught and hadde the hyer hond, By water he sente hem hoom to every lond. [Sidenote: VARIETY OF TALES] Some thirty pilgrims appear in the famous Prologue, and as each was to tell two stories on the way to Canterbury, and two more on the return, it is probable that Chaucer contemplated a work of more than a hundred tales. Only four-and-twenty were completed, but these are enough to cover the field of light literature in that day, from the romance of love to the humorous animal fable. Between these are wonder-stories of giants and fairies, satires on the monks, parodies on literature, and some examples of coarse horseplay for which Chaucer offers an apology, saying that he must let each pilgrim tell his tale in his own way.