Canterbury Tales and Other Poems, Geoffrey Chaucer [good fiction books to read txt] 📗

old folk a great dotage;

Who most it useth, moste shall enpair. suffer harm “For thereof come disease and heaviness, Sorrow and care, and many a great sickness, Despite, debate, anger, envy,

Depraving,* shame, untrust, and jealousy, *loss of fame or character Pride, mischief, povert’, and woodness. madness “Loving is an office of despair,

And one thing is therein that is not fair; For who that gets of love a little bliss, *But if he be away therewith, y-wis,

He may full soon of age have his hair. see note <5>*

 

“And, Nightingale, therefore hold thee nigh; For, ‘lieve me well, for all thy quainte cry, If thou be far or longe from thy make, mate Thou shalt be as other that be forsake, And then thou shalt hoten* as do I.” *be called “Fie,” quoth she, “on thy name and on thee!

The god of Love let thee never the! thrive For thou art worse a thousand fold than wood, mad For many one is full worthy and full good, That had been naught, ne hadde Love y-be.

 

“For evermore Love his servants amendeth, And from all evile taches* them defendeth, blemishes And maketh them to burn right in a fire, In truth and in worshipful desire, *honourable And, when him liketh, joy enough them sendeth.”

 

“Thou Nightingale,” he said, “be still!

For Love hath no reason but his will;

For ofttime untrue folk he easeth,

And true folk so bitterly displeaseth, That for default of grace* he lets them spill.”* favour **be ruined Then took I of the nightingale keep,

How she cast a sigh out of her deep,

And said, “Alas, that ever I was bore!

I can for teen* not say one worde more;” *vexation, grief And right with that word she burst out to weep.

 

“Alas!” quoth she, “my hearte will to-break To heare thus this lewd bird speak

Of Love, and of his worshipful service.

Now, God of Love, thou help me in some wise, That I may on this cuckoo be awreak!” revenged Methought then I start up anon,

And to the brook I ran and got a stone, And at the cuckoo heartly cast;

And for dread he flew away full fast,

And glad was I when he was gone.

 

And evermore the cuckoo, as he flay, flew He saide, “Farewell, farewell, popinjay,”

As though he had scorned, thought me;

But ay I hunted him from the tree,

Until he was far out of sight away.

 

And then came the nightingale to me,

And said, “Friend, forsooth I thank thee That thou hast lik’d me to rescow; rescue And one avow to Love make I now,

That all this May I will thy singer be.”

 

I thanked her, and was right *well apaid: satisfied “Yea,” quoth she, “and be thou not dismay’d, Though thou have heard the cuckoo erst than me; <6> *before For, if I live, it shall amended be

The next May, if I be not afraid.

 

“And one thing I will rede* thee also, Believe thou not the cuckoo, the love’s foe, For all that he hath said is strong leasing.” falsehood “Nay,” quoth I, “thereto shall nothing me bring For love, and it hath done me much woe.”

 

“Yea? Use,” quoth she, “this medicine, Every day this May ere thou dine:

Go look upon the fresh daisy,

And, though thou be for woe in point to die, That shall full greatly less thee of thy pine. sorrow “And look alway that thou be good and true, And I will sing one of my songes new

For love of thee, as loud as I may cry:”

And then she began this song full high: “I shrew* all them that be of love untrue.” *curse And when she had sung it to the end,

“Now farewell,” quoth she, “for I must wend, go And, God of Love, that can right well and may, As much joy sende thee this day,

As any lover yet he ever send!”

 

Thus took the nightingale her leave of me.

I pray to God alway with her be,

And joy of love he send her evermore,

And shield us from the cuckoo and his lore; For there is not so false a bird as he.

 

Forth she flew, the gentle nightingale, To all the birdes that were in that dale, And got them all into a place in fere, together And besought them that they would hear Her disease,* and thus began her tale. distress, grievance “Ye witte well, it is not for to hide, *know How the cuckoo and I fast have chide, quarrelled Ever since that it was daylight;

I pray you all that ye do me right

On that foul false unkind bride.” bird Then spake one bird for all, by one assent: “This matter asketh good advisement;

For we be fewe birdes here in fere,

And sooth it is, the cuckoo is not here, And therefore we will have a parlement.

 

“And thereat shall the eagle be our lord, And other peers that been *of record, of established authority*

And the cuckoo shall be *after sent; summoned There shall be given the judgment,

Or else we shall finally *make accord. be reconciled*

 

“And this shall be, withoute nay, contradiction The morrow after Saint Valentine’s Day, Under a maple that is fair and green,

Before the chamber window of the Queen, <7>

At Woodstock upon the green lay.” lawn She thanked them, and then her leave took, And into a hawthorn by that brook,

And there she sat and sang upon that tree, *“Term of life love hath withhold me;” love hath me in her So loude, that I with that song awoke. service all my life*

 

Explicit. The End The Author to His Book.

 

O LEWD book! with thy foul rudeness,

Since thou hast neither beauty nor eloquence, Who hath thee caus’d or giv’n the hardiness For to appear in my lady’s presence?

I am full sicker* thou know’st her benevolence, *certain Full agreeable to all her abying, merit For of all good she is the best living.

 

Alas! that thou ne haddest worthiness, To show to her some pleasant sentence, Since that she hath, thorough her gentleness, Accepted thee servant to her dign reverence!

O! me repenteth that I n’had science,

And leisure als’, t’make thee more flourishing, For of all good she is the best living.

 

Beseech her meekly with all lowliness, Though I be ferre* from her in absence, *far To think on my truth to her and steadfastness, And to abridge of my sorrows the violence, Which caused is whereof knoweth your sapience; wisdom She like among to notify me her liking, For of all good she is the best living.

 

Explicit.

 

L’Envoy; To the Author’s Lady.

 

Aurore of gladness, day of lustiness,

Lucern* at night with heav’nly influence lamp Illumin’d, root of beauty and goodness, Suspires which I effund** in silence! sighs *pour forth Of grace I beseech, allege* let your writing *declare Now of all good, since ye be best living.

 

Explicit.

 

Notes to the Cuckoo and the Nightingale 1. These two lines occur also in The Knight’s Tale; they commence the speech of Theseus on the love follies of Palamon and Arcite, whom the Duke has just found fighting in the forest.

 

2. A stronger reading is “all.”

 

3. “Ocy, ocy,” is supposed to come from the Latin “occidere,”

to kill; or rather the old French, “occire,” “occis,” denoting the doom which the nightingale imprecates or supplicates on all who do offence to Love.

 

4. Grede: cry; Italian, “grido.”

 

5.“But if he be away therewith, y-wis, He may full soon of age have his hair”: Unless he be always fortunate in love pursuits, he may full soon have gray hair, through his anxieties.

 

6. It was of evil omen to hear the cuckoo before the nightingale or any other bird.

 

7. The Queen: Philippa of Hainault, wife of Edward III.

 

THE ASSEMBLY OF FOWLS.

 

[In “The Assembly of Fowls” — which Chaucer’s “Retractation”

describes as “The Book of Saint Valentine’s Day, or of the Parliament of Birds” — we are presented with a picture of the mediaeval “Court of Love” far closer to the reality than we find in Chaucer’s poem which bears that express title. We have a regularly constituted conclave or tribunal, under a president whose decisions are final. A difficult question is proposed for the consideration and judgment of the Court — the disputants advancing and vindicating their claims in person. The attendants upon the Court, through specially chosen mouthpieces, deliver their opinions on the cause; and finally a decision is authoritatively pronounced by the president — which, as in many of the cases actually judged before the Courts of Love in France, places the reasonable and modest wish of a sensitive and chaste lady above all the eagerness of her lovers, all the incongruous counsels of representative courtiers. So far, therefore, as the poem reproduces the characteristic features of procedure in those romantic Middle Age halls of amatory justice, Chaucer’s “Assembly of Fowls” is his real “Court of Love;” for although, in the castle and among the courtiers of Admetus and Alcestis, we have all the personages and machinery necessary for one of those erotic contentions, in the present poem we see the personages and the machinery actually at work, upon another scene and under other guises. The allegory which makes the contention arise out of the loves, and proceed in the assembly, of the feathered race, is quite in keeping with the fanciful yet nature-loving spirit of the poetry of Chaucer’s time, in which the influence of the Troubadours was still largely present. It is quite in keeping, also, with the principles that regulated the Courts, the purpose of which was more to discuss and determine the proper conduct of love affairs, than to secure conviction or acquittal, sanction or reprobation, in particular cases — though the jurisdiction and the judgments of such assemblies often closely concerned individuals. Chaucer introduces us to his main theme through the vestibule of a fancied dream — a method which be repeatedly employs with great relish, as for instance in “The House of Fame.” He has spent the whole day over Cicero’s account of the Dream of Scipio (Africanus the Younger); and, having gone to bed, he dreams that Africanus the Elder appears to him — just as in the book he appeared to his namesake — and carries him into a beautiful park, in which is a fair garden by a river-side. Here the poet is led into a splendid temple, through a crowd of courtiers allegorically representing the various instruments, pleasures, emotions, and encouragements of Love; and in the temple Venus herself is found, sporting with her porter Richess. Returning into the garden, he sees the Goddess of Nature seated on a hill of flowers; and before her are assembled all the birds — for it is Saint Valentine’s Day, when every fowl chooses her mate. Having with a graphic touch enumerated and described the principal birds, the poet sees that on her hand Nature bears a female eagle of surpassing loveliness and virtue, for which three male eagles advance contending claims. The disputation lasts all day; and at evening the assembled birds, eager to be gone with their mates, clamour for a decision. The tercelet, the goose, the cuckoo, and the turtle —

for birds of prey, waterfowl, worm-fowl, and seed-fowl respectively — pronounce their verdicts on the dispute, in speeches full of character and humour; but Nature refers the decision between the three claimants to the female eagle