Page "The Franklin's Tale" Paragraph 7

Geoffrey Chaucer.

Treatise on the Astrolabe addressed to his son Lowys AD 1391. As the Franklin says in his prologue, his story is in the form of a Breton lai, although it is in fact based on a work by the Italian poet and author Boccaccio ( Filocolo 1336 retold in the 1350s as the 5th tale on the 10th day of the Decameron ) in which a young knight called Tarolfo falls in love with a lady married to another knight, extracts a promise to satisfy his desire if he can create a flowering Maytime garden in winter, meets a magician Tebano who performs the feat using spells, but releases her from the rash promise when he learns of her husband's noble response.

But in Chaucer's telling, the Franklin adapts the style so that it is barely recognizable as a Breton lai.

The relationship between the knight and his wife is explored, continuing the theme of marriage which runs through many of the pilgrims ' tales.

Whereas most of the Breton lais involved magic and fairies, the usual fantastical element is here modified by the use of science to make rocks disappear rather than a spell.

This is fitting for a writer like Chaucer who wrote a book ( for his son Lewis ) on the use of the astrolabe, was reported by Holinshed to be " a man so exquisitely learned in al sciences, that hys matche was not lightly founde anye where in those dayes " and was even considered one of the " secret masters " of alchemy.