While the cock is straining to do this the fox grabs him by the throat and makes off. Just as the fox is about to drag him into the woods, the cock suggests that the fox turn and shout some abuse at their pursuers, people around alerted by the noise. The fox opens his mouth to do so, and Chanticleer escapes to a tree. That is the end of the story and the moral is a double-edged one: '"'Beware of flattery!'"' and '"'keep your mouth shut!'"' .
III/ THE BEAST-EPIC .
The Nun"'"s Priest Tale belongs to the genre of the Beast epic. It is usually an allegorical tale, often long in which animals are characters and in which the style is pseudoepic. The prototypal beast epic is almost certainly Roman de Renard, composed late in the 12th century by Pierre de Saint-Cloud. The first episode is the Chanticleer story later used by Chaucer in the Nun"'"s Priest tale. .
One of the main cause of the comical aspect of this fable is the ridiculous disparity between the manner of writing and the subject matter. Throughout the text we meet oppositions, contrasts between the learned and the crude, from the sublime to the ridiculous and the effect is essentially funny. There is a constant playing off of the barnyard register against the philosophical, the courtly, the theological and the high rethorical. .
The way the characters are described betrays that disparity. The descriptions are built up from grand images you would not normally associate with a couple of farmyard birds. The cock"'"s voice is pleasanter than the church organ, his comb is like fine coral and edged like the battlements of the a castle, his claws are whiter than the lily, and his overall colouring is like burnished gold. He is above all a '"'gentil'"', meaning noble cock and so are his wives. They are not just hens but his '"'paramours'"', meaning lovers, and his favourite is a '"'faire damoysele Pertelope'"', who is particularly '"'Courteous.