Canterbury Tales and Other Poems by Geoffrey Chaucer (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

Their lives lead, <10> and wear but black, And forsake all their pleasances,

And turn all joy to penances;

And bare the dead prince to the barge, And named *them should* have the charge; those who should

And to the hearse where lay the queen

The remnant went, and down on kneen,

Holding their hands on high, gan cry,

“Mercy! mercy!” *evereach thry; each one thrice*

And curs’d the time that ever sloth

Should have such masterdom of troth.

And to the barge, a longe mile,

They bare her forth; and, in a while,

All the ladies, one and one,

By companies were brought each one.

And pass’d the sea, and took the land, And in new hearses, on a sand,

Put and brought were all anon,

Unto a city clos’d with stone,

Where it had been used ay

The kinges of the land to lay,

After they reigned in honours;

And writ was which were conquerours;

In an abbey of nunnes black,

Which accustom’d were to wake,

And of usage rise each a-night,

To pray for ev’ry living wight.

And so befell, as is the guise,

Ordain’d and said was the service

Of the prince and eke of the queen,

So devoutly as mighte be’n;

And, after that, about the hearses,

Many orisons and verses,

Withoute note* <11> full softely *music Said were, and that full heartily;

That all the night, till it was day,

The people in the church gan pray

Unto the Holy Trinity,

Of those soules to have pity.

 

And when the nighte past and run

Was, and the newe day begun, —

The young morrow with rayes red,

Which from the sun all o’er gan spread, Attemper’d* cleare was and fair, *clement, calm And made a time of wholesome air, —

Befell a wondrous case* and strange *chance, event Among the people, and gan change

Soon the word, and ev’ry woe

Unto a joy, and some to two.

 

A bird, all feather’d blue and green,

With brighte rays like gold between,

As small thread over ev’ry joint,

All full of colour strange and coint, quaint Uncouth* and wonderful to sight, *unfamiliar Upon the queene’s hearse gan light,

And sung full low and softely

Three songes in their harmony,

*Unletted of* every wight; unhindered by

Till at the last an aged knight,

Which seem’d a man in greate thought,

Like as he set all thing at nought,

With visage and eyes all forwept, steeped in tears And pale, as a man long unslept,

By the hearses as he stood,

With hasty handling of his hood

Unto a prince that by him past,

Made the bird somewhat aghast. frightened Wherefore he rose and left his song,

And departed from us among,

And spread his winges for to pass

By the place where he enter’d was.

And in his haste, shortly to tell,

Him hurt, that backward down he fell,

From a window richly paint,

With lives of many a divers saint,

And beat his winges and bled fast,

And of the hurt thus died and past;

And lay there well an hour and more

Till, at the last, of birds a score

Came and assembled at the place

Where the window broken was,

And made such waimentatioun, lamentation That pity was to hear the soun’,

And the warbles of their throats,

And the complaint of their notes,

Which from joy clean was reversed.

And of them one the glass soon pierced, And in his beak, of colours nine,

An herb he brought, flow’rless, all green, Full of smalle leaves, and plain, smooth Swart,* and long, with many a vein. *black And where his fellow lay thus dead,

This herb he down laid by his head,

And dressed* it full softely, *arranged And hung his head, and stood thereby.

Which herb, in less than half an hour, Gan over all knit,* and after flow’r *bud Full out; and waxed ripe the seed;

And, right as one another feed

Would, in his beak he took the grain,

And in his fellow’s beak certain

It put, and thus within the third i.e. third hour after it Upstood and pruned him the bird, had died Which dead had been in all our sight;

And both together forth their flight

Took, singing, from us, and their leave; Was none disturb them would nor grieve.

And, when they parted were and gone,

Th’ abbess the seedes soon each one

Gathered had, and in her hand

The herb she took, well avisand considering <12>

The leaf, the seed, the stalk, the flow’r, And said it had a good savour,

And was no common herb to find,

And well approv’d of *uncouth kind, strange nature*

And more than other virtuous;

Whoso might it have for to use

In his need, flower, leaf, or grain,

Of his heal might be certain.

[She] laid it down upon the hearse

Where lay the queen; and gan rehearse

Each one to other what they had seen.

And, taling thus, the seed wax’d green, as they gossiped

And on the dry hearse gan to spring, —

Which me thought was a wondrous thing, —

And, after that, flow’r and new seed;

Of which the people all took heed,

And said it was some great miracle,

Or medicine fine more than treacle; <12>

And were well done there to assay

If it might ease, in any way,

The corpses, which with torchelight

They waked had there all that night.

Soon did the lordes there consent,

And all the people thereto content,

With easy words and little fare; ado, trouble And made the queene’s visage bare,

Which showed was to all about,

Wherefore in swoon fell all the rout, company, crowd And were so sorry, most and least,

That long of weeping they not ceas’d;

For of their lord the remembrance

Unto them was such displeasance. cause of grief That for to live they called pain,

So were they very true and plain.

And after this the good abbess

Of the grains gan choose and dress prepare Three, with her fingers clean and smale, small And in the queenes mouth, by tale,

One after other, full easily

She put, and eke full cunningly. skilfully Which showed some such virtue.

That proved was the medicine true.

For with a smiling countenance

The queen uprose, and of usance custom As she was wont, to ev’ry wight

She *made good cheer;* for whiche sight showed a gracious The people, kneeling on the stones, countenance

Thought they in heav’n were, soul and bones; And to the prince, where that he lay,

They went to make the same assay. trial, experiment And when the queen it understood,

And how the medicine was good,

She pray’d that she might have the grains, To relieve him from the pains

Which she and he had both endur’d.

And to him went, and so him cur’d,

That, within a little space,

Lusty and fresh alive he was,

And in good heal, and whole of speech, And laugh’d, and said, *“Gramercy, leach!” “Great thanks, For which the joy throughout the town my physician!”*

So great was, that the belles’ soun’

Affray’d the people a journey to the distance of About the city ev’ry way; a day’s journey*

And came and ask’d the cause, and why

They rungen were so stately. proudly, solemnly And after that the queen, th’abbess,

Made diligence, <14> ere they would cease, Such, that of ladies soon a rout company, crowd Suing* the queen was all about; *following And, call’d by name each one and told, numbered Was none forgotten, young nor old.

There mighte men see joyes new,

When the medicine, fine and true,

Thus restor’d had ev’ry wight,

So well the queen as the knight,

Unto perfect joy and heal,

That *floating they were in such weal swimming in such As folk that woulden in no wise happiness*

Desire more perfect paradise.

 

On the morrow a general assembly was convoked, and it was resolved that the wedding feast should be celebrated within the island. Messengers were sent to strange realms, to invite kings, queens, duchesses, and princesses; and a special embassy was despatched, in the magic barge, to seek the poet’s mistress —

who was brought back after fourteen days, to the great joy of the queen. Next day took place the wedding of the prince and all the knights to the queen and all the ladies; and a three months’ feast followed, on a large plain “under a wood, in a champaign, betwixt a river and a well, where never had abbey nor cell been, nor church, house, nor village, in time of any manne’s age.” On the day after the general wedding, all entreated the poet’s lady to consent to crown his love with marriage; she yielded; the bridal was splendidly celebrated; and to the sound of marvellous music the poet awoke, to find neither lady nor creature — but only old portraitures on the tapestry, of horsemen, hawks, and hounds, and hurt deer full of wounds. Great was his grief that he had lost all the bliss of his dream; and he concludes by praying his lady so to accept his love-service, that the dream may turn to reality.

 

Or elles, without more I pray,

That this night, ere it be day,

I may unto my dream return,

And sleeping so forth ay sojourn

Aboute the Isle of Pleasance,

*Under my lady’s obeisance, subject to my lady*

In her service, and in such wise,

As it may please her to devise;

And grace once to be accept’,

Like as I dreamed when I slept,

And dure a thousand year and ten

In her good will: Amen, amen!

 

Notes to Chaucer’s Dream

 

1. The birds on the weathervanes were set up facing the wind, so that it entered their open mouths, and by some mechanism produced the musical sound.

 

2. “And to you been of governance

Such as you found in whole pleasance”

That is, “and have governed you in a manner which you have found wholly pleasant.”

 

3. Hext: highest; from “high,” as “next” from “nigh.” Compare the sounds of the German, “hoechst,” highest, and “naechst,”

next.

 

4. “Your brother friend,” is the common reading; but the phrase has no apparent applicability; and perhaps the better reading is “our bother friend” — that is, the lady who has proved herself a friend both to me and to you. In the same way, Reason, in Troilus’ soliloquy on the impending loss of his mistress, is made, addressing Troilus and Cressida, to speaks of “your bother,” or “bothe,” love.

 

5. The ships had high embattled poops and forecastles, as in mediaeval ships of war.

 

6. Compare Spenser’s account of Phaedria’s barque, in “The Faerie Queen,” canto vi. book ii.; and, mutatis mutandis, Chaucer’s description of the wondrous horse, in The Squire’s Tale.

 

7. Salad: a small helmet; french, “salade.”

 

8. Gardebrace: French, “gardebras,” an arm-shield; probably resembling the “gay bracer” which the Yeoman, in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales, wears on his arm.

 

9. Confession and prayer were the usual preliminaries of any enterprise in those superstitious days; and in these days of enlightenment the fashion yet lingers among the most superstitious class — the fisher-folk.

 

10. The knights resolved that they would quit their castles and houses of stone for humble huts.

 

11. The knight and lady were buried without music, although the office for the dead was generally sung.

 

12. Avisand: considering; present participle from “avise” or “advise.”

 

13. Treacle; corrupted from Latin, “therisca,” an antidote. The word is used for medicine in general.

 

14. The abbess made diligence: i.e. to administer the grain to the dead ladies.

 

THE PROLOGUE TO THE