Chaucer added the dream of Chanticleer to the traditional story. The conflicting interpretations by the hen and the cock are highly dramatic. More than one third of the tale is occupied by this digression or secondary plot. The dream sequence presented in line 116- 140. The cock had dreamt of a frightening beast. It was “Iyk an hound, and a wolde han maad arrest upon my body, and han had me deed’.
In other words, the hound- like beast would have seized and killed him. And so even after waking. “Yet of his look for fere almost I deye”. This fear has made him groan, and frightened Pertelote.
Chanticleer interprets his nightmare as warning against a possible danger of death. The warning prepares him, only partially, for the event, and he is able to save himself in crisis, for he keeps his wit about him. If he had not dreamt of the event, he could not have managed the crisis so well as he does. The dream is, thus an integral part of the plot and not a mere digression.
The Literary World 
One thought on “The dream in the Nun’s Priest’s tale is as a digression? ”