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At the Tabard
The company sets out from the Tabard, its gate at the left. William Blake engraved the whole procession on the road out of Southwark · William Blake, Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims, engraving, 1810, National Gallery of Art, Washington · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
19-22
The Canterbury Tales 19-22 · At the Tabard in Southwark19-22At the Tabard in Southwark
Now the narrator steps in. He is staying at an inn on the south side of London, about to leave on his own pilgrimage.
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Bifel1
happenedbefell
that2
that
, in3
in
that4
that
seson5
season
on6
on
a7
a
day8
day
, In9
in
Southwerk10
Southwark
at11
at
the12
the
Tabard13
Tabarda herald’s coat
as14
as
I15
I
lay16
1
lodgedlay
Redy17
ready
to18
tóó
to
wenden19
set outwend
on20
on
my21
my
pilgrimage22
pilgrimage
To23
tóó
to
Caunterbury24
Canterbury
with25
with
ful26
very
devout27
devout
corage28
heartcourage
, it happened that, in that season, one day, in Southwark at the Tabard, as I lodged ready to set out on my pilgrimage to Canterbury with a very devout heart,
it happened that, in that season, one day, in Southwark at the Tabard, as I lodged ready to set out on my pilgrimage to Canterbury with a very devout heart,
Interpretation
It happened in that season, one day, as I was lodging at the Tabard in Southwark, ready to set out on my pilgrimage to Canterbury with a truly devout heart,
Southwark lies across London Bridge from the City, on the road south-east into Kent, so pilgrims for Canterbury gathered there. The Tabard was a real inn. A tabard is a herald’s coat, and Skeat quotes the antiquary Thomas Speght (1598), who calls it “the signe of an inne in Southwarke by London,” where “Chaucer and the other pilgrims mett together.” Speght adds that in his own day it had been newly repaired “for the receipt of many guests.”
Here the “I” of the poem appears: Chaucer, a pilgrim among the others, who tells us what he saw. Lay, Skeat says, is “used like the modern ‘lodged,’ or ‘was stopping.’” By his reckoning this evening is April 16, and the ride begins the next morning.
23-27
The Canterbury Tales 23-27 · Twenty-nine in a company23-27Twenty-nine in a company
That evening a crowd of travellers arrives at the inn. They have met by chance on the road, and all are bound for Canterbury.
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at night there had come into that inn fully twenty-nine in a company of various people, fallen by chance into fellowship, and they were all pilgrims, who meant to ride toward Canterbury;