Summary
The poem starts off describing England hundreds of years of ago when King Arthur ruled it as a magical country. There were fairies and elves roaming the land, and it was an often occurrence for the elf-queen to be dancing with the mystical creatures. But these mystical creatures can’t be seen anymore, since they are extinct. Instead, if you go into the forests you will find friars and priests. It’s their fault that the fairies and elves don’t exist anymore, but it is a good thing for the women since they don’t have to worry about demons and imps anymore. The story then focuses on a knight who was riding through the forest. As he was riding he met a woman he was very fond of. In fact he was so fond of her that he raped her. People were mad at him for doing that to her, and tried to persuade King Arthur into sentencing the knight to death. But the queen begged the King to give the knight another chance, which the King granted. The knight has to meet a certain condition to live, which is that he has to find what women want the most in the world. He is given a year and a day to find the answer, but he has to promise the queen that he will return on the day. So the knight right away goes on a quest to find the answer. He looked in every house and place with people in the land, but he couldn’t find two people that could give him the same answer. It was thought that women want to be flattered and pleased; this is true as women can be won with flattery and attention. Women also like to think they can be trustworthy and able to keep secrets, but this is not true, women cannot keep secrets. The knight could not find the answer to his question, so he headed back home in sadness. On his way he came across 24 dancing ladies that turned out to be a lonely, old, ugly woman who assured him that she had the answer he was searching for, which she told him in exchange that he’d do anything she desired. With the answer and full of confidence, the knight headed back to the castle. In the court the queen was waiting along with an assembly of many other women waiting to hear the knights answer. When commanded he immediately gave his answer – “the thing women desire is sovereignty over their husband and lovers”