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highlighting its inflated nature, Chaucer lays bare the unreliability
of fame, which swells a little every time it is bandied about.
This metaphoric comparison is visualized by Chaucer near the
end of the poem, where the murmur of many people drifts into the
narrator’s ears. When people try to relate what they have just
heard to others, they begin their conversation in a similar fashion:
‘Thus hath he sayde,’ and ‘Thus de dothe,’
And ‘Thus shal hit be,’ and ‘Thus herde y seye,’
‘That shal be founde, that dar I leye -’
That alle the folke that ys alyve
Ne han the kunnynge to discryve
The thinges that I herde there,
What a-loude and what in ere. (Chaucer, 1997: 2052-2058)
In this hubbub what amazes the narrator the most is that everyone
relates what he or she has just received to someone else without
delay, and that everyone further embellishes the stories when
recounting them:
But al the wondermost was this:
Whan oon had herde a thinge, ywis,
He come forthright to another wight
And gan him tellen anonryght
The same that him was tolde,
Or hyt a forlonge way was olde–
But gan somwhat for to eche
To this tydinge in hys speche
More than hit ever was. (Chaucer, 1997: 2059-2067)
In this scene, the words uttered by these mouths are likened to
sparks: transmitted from mouth to mouth, originally tiny sparks
evolve into flames that can engulf a city (Chaucer, 1997:
2076-2080). For Chaucer, if all pieces of news are “woxen more
on every tonge / Than ever it was” (2082-2083) in the process of
