The Franklin's Tale
Since the Franklin was kind enough to compliment the Squire at the end of the last tale, the Host tells him to go next. The Franklin apologizes for not being studied enough to include flowery descriptions in his story, which I for one don't mind because I've been chipping away at this book for over a year now and I really don't need to spend any more time on prose than I have to. Here's his tale:
There is a knight from Brittany named Arveragus that puts in the work and wins the hand of the lady he loves, whose name is Dorigen. She's a little above his station, so when they get married, Arveragus promises that he's going to say he's the head of the household to keep up polite appearance; but really, he's cool with submitting to her judgement and letting her keep doing her thing without ever getting jealous of her. She likewise promises to be ever faithful to him and vows that the two shall never fight about anything.
The Franklin pops in and says, hey, y'all might think this guy is crazy for not outright owning this lady, but actually, the secret to a loving marriage is allowing women to maintain their freedom. Which, you know, is the same thing the Wife of Bath said a half-dozen tales ago, but, hey, reinforcement I guess.
A year or so passes, and Arveragus decides he needs to go on a "business trip" to England to "build his brand", which for a knight either means "war" or "jousting and tournaments and partying a bunch". In this case it's the latter, so the trip won't be fraught with danger, but he's still going to be away for two years. Dorigen falls into a deep despair after he leaves, which is only assuaged somewhat by his frequent letters and the consolations of her friends.
To make Dorigen feel better, her friends decide she needs to get out of the house for a little bit and go on a nice walk. They take her up the cliffs overlooking the sea, but this just makes her feel even worse. For one, there's many ships going to and fro, but none of them are carrying her husband. For two, there are many sharp rocks jutting out of the shallow seas, just waiting to tear up these ships, and she prays to god that Arveragus is able to make it home safely in spite of them.
Her friends realize that bringing Dorigen here was a bad idea, and begin to think that maybe backgammon would be a less-distressing distraction.
Not long later, they decide to throw a nice, safe garden party for Dorigen, complete with dinner and dancing to brighten her spirits. In attendance is a handsome squire named Aurelius, who Dorigen has known for a number of years. She doesn't however, know about the huge crush he's had on her all this time; he gets to chatting her up, and eventually builds up the courage to profess his love. Dorigen replies that she could never betray Arveragus, and very overtly adds that being involved with Aurelius is clearly out of the question.
...Except then she says (probably a little drunkenly) that, you know what could make her love him, is if he removed all those jagged rocks along the shores of Brittany so that ships could pass safely. Every last one. Only if he could do that for her would she give him what he wants; of course, they both know full well that such a thing would be utterly impossible, and she says as much.
Aurelius goes home completely distraught, only having the wherewithal to pray to Apollo, pleading with him to ask Diana—in their endless chase through the sky—to maybe slow it up a bit and make the night last longer, so that the moon brings the tide in and hides all the rocks for a while. Like, a year, tops.
This doesn't work, probably because Aurelius couldn't be assed to pray to Diana directly. Anyway the only person who appears to hear Aurelius's prayer is his brother, who really doesn't know what to do to help the guy.
More time passes, during which Arveragus comes home, and everybody is happy again. Well, except for Aurelius, who's pretty much been locked in his room for two years being emo about everything, which really is just sad. Eventually though, his brother remembers some time he spent in France, and recalls a pamphlet he read once about rituals involving the phases of the moon and such, and surely if they journeyed to France they might find something that could help. In their travels, they run into David Copperfield (the magician, not the eponymous character of the book I should really read/make fun of sometime). Although David Copperfield is working in Orleans as a clerk, he is familiar with all manner of illusion, and invites them home to show off his skills. As he's laying in the box about to be sawed in half, Aurelius asks David Copperfield if he could possibly make it look like all the rocks in the sea have disappeared. David Copperfield says, of course he can do that, but he's going to need time to prepare the rituals, and it's not going to be cheap—a thousand pounds, although what he's going to do with a thousand English pounds is anybody's guess since he lives in France. It's a huge amount, but Aurelius says it's an absolute bargain, and he's happy to pay it should the illusion work.
They all go back to Brittany, and David Copperfield gets to work setting up his magic trick. He needs to study the moon's phases, and it takes a while; eventually Aurelius goes back to bellyaching about this unrequited love, so David Copperfield works a little faster. In time, he succeeds; through his magic trickery, the rocks look like they have disappeared from the sea entirely.
Aurelius runs to go tell Dorigen, saying "Aha, look! All the rocks are gone! You remember the thing you promised three years ago when you were drunk, right?"
Dorigen is in complete shock at this turn of events, and needs some time alone to collect herself. She now needs to make a choice; and because perjuring yourself before God is, naturally, entirely out of the question, she really only has two options: sleep with Aurelius and suffer the shame of being an unfaithful wife forever, or death. Dorigen reasons that death must surely be the better option; in fact, there must be a thousand famous stories of women dying to preserve their faithfulness, and she ends up telling most of them out loud.
Arveragus—who was out of the house for the day—comes home, and because this is a healthy relationship, Dorigen spills the beans about everything. However, Arveragus just listens calmly to the entire dilemma. When she finishes, he says, all right, obviously you promised to sleep with this guy so we can't back out of that. But, as long as we don't tell a single other person, nobody has to know about this. I will suck it up and not turn this into a big deal, and I think we can get through this without anybody thinking you're a hussy.
So Arveragus calls a couple servants to escort Dorigen to the garden, the appointed meeting place. Along the way, she "runs into" Aurelius (who was absolutely stalking her), who jokingly says, "wow, fancy running into you here! Where are you off to?"
Keeping up the act in front of the servants—who don't know anything about what's going on—she replies, "Ugh, my husband is sending me to the garden to keep this stupid promise I made."
Aurelius stops dead in his tracks, realizing her response means that Arveragus knows about all this, but is nevertheless doing the honorable thing in allowing Dorigen to fulfill her promise.
So Aurelius tells Dorigen, "Look, obviously you showing up here tonight to fulfill your promise would never sway my opinions; but the fact that your husband, a fellow man, is allowing you to do this is inspiring to me, and really damn decent of him. So I'm going to show him that a squire can be the bigger man and release you from your obligations. Go home."
"Really?"
"I mean, look, I've been locked away in my room not getting laid for three years, so anything we did would be over in five seconds anyway."
Dorigen goes home to Arveragus to tell him the good news, and they live happily ever after.
Aurelius, meanwhile, keeps receiving increasingly aggressive invoices in the mail, so he figures he ought to pay up. However, he can only scrape together about five hundred of the thousand pounds he promised. He takes the money and goes to see David Copperfield to ask about payment plans.
"Did we not agree to a thousand pounds?"
"We did."
"And did I not produce the illusion as requested?"
"You did."
"And did you not get the girl?"
"Well, actually..."
He explains the sacrifice that Arveragus was willing to make, and how he decided to do the honorable thing and let Dorigen go. David Copperfield listens to this, and eventually tells him, let it not be said that a clerk/stage magician does not maintain the same level of nobility as a knight or a squire. You may consider the costs dropped. Now go away.
As the story concludes, the Franklin challenges the other travelers to guess which of these three men was the most generous in the end.
Although of the three, Arveragus never stood to profit from tricking a woman to have sex with somebody, so how this is even a question.
Here ends the Franklin's tale.