Like the Second Nun, the Nun's Priest is not described in the General Prologue. In the prologue to his tale, however, the Host describes him as a muscular man with a thick neck and broad chest, qualities that the Ellesmere miniature seeks to capture.
The original of Chaucer's tale was a fable by Marie de France.
This translation is by Harriet Spiegel (Marie de France, Fables
[University of Toronto Press, 1994). The illustration of the Cock is from the
Livre des Proprietes des Choses, XV century
The Cock and the Fox
And now a cock you'll hear about; 
Atop a dung heap he sang out.
Then up to him there came a fox
Who with fine words addressed the cock.
Said fox,'How lovely you are, sir!
I've never seen a nobler bird!
Your voice the dearest of them all
Save for your sire's (as I recall);
No bird could better vocalize
Than he - for he would close his eyes.
'I'11 do the same,' the cock proposed.
He flapped his wings; his eyes he closed;
He thought to make his song shine bright.
The fox leaped up and clutched him tight
And took off toward the forest; and
As he passed through some open land,
The shepherds tried to run him down;
Dogs barked at him from all around.
'Look at the fox! He's caught a cock!
If he comes near, woe to the fox!'
The cock said, 'Shout to them just so -
I'm yours and you'll not let me go!'
But as the fox began to shout,
From fox's mouth, the cock leaped out -
And up the trunk of an old tree.
And when the fox all this did see,
He felt himself most infantile
To have been duped by rooster's guile.
Outraged and in a dreadful wrath,
The fox began to curse his mouth
For speaking when it ought to hush.
The cock replied,'I'll do as much
And curse the eye that thinks to shut
When it should safeguard and watch out
Lest the seignior should suffer ill.
And thus with fools, for they all will
Speak out when they their tongues should check
And check their tongues when they should speak.
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