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

>Of them that him list not advance.

Wherefore, as I said now, y-wis,

Jupiter well considers this;

And also, beausire,* other things; *good sir That is, that thou hast no tidings

Of Love’s folk, if they be glad,

Nor of naught elles that God made;

And not only from far country

That no tidings come to thee,

But of thy very neighebours,

That dwellen almost at thy doors,

Thou hearest neither that nor this.

For when thy labour all done is,

And hast y-made thy reckonings, <12>

Instead of rest and newe things,

Thou go’st home to thy house anon,

And, all so dumb as any stone,

Thou sittest at another book,

Till fully dazed* is thy look; *blinded And livest thus as a hermite

Although thine abstinence is lite.”* <13> *little Therefore has Jove appointed the eagle to take the poet to the House of Fame, to do him some pleasure in recompense for his devotion to Cupid; and he will hear, says the bird, “When we be come there as I say,

More wondrous thinges, dare I lay, bet Of Love’s folke more tidings,

Both *soothe sawes and leasings; true sayings and lies*

And more loves new begun,

And long y-served loves won,

And more loves casually

That be betid,* no man knows why, *happened by chance But as a blind man starts a hare;

And more jollity and welfare,

While that they finde *love of steel, love true as steel*

As thinketh them, and over all weel;

More discords, and more jealousies,

More murmurs, and more novelties,

And more dissimulations,

And feigned reparations;

And more beardes, in two hours,

Withoute razor or scissours

Y-made, <14> than graines be of sands; And eke more holding in hands, embracings And also more renovelances renewings Of old *forleten acquaintances; broken-off acquaintanceships*

More lovedays,<15> and more accords, agreements Than on instruments be chords;

And eke of love more exchanges

Than ever cornes were in granges.” barns The poet can scarcely believe that, though Fame had all the pies [magpies] and all the spies in a kingdom, she should hear so much; but the eagle proceeds to prove that she can.

 

First shalt thou heare where she dwelleth; And, so as thine own booke telleth, <16>

Her palace stands, as I shall say,

Right ev’n in middes of the way

Betweene heav’n, and earth, and sea,

That whatsoe’er in all these three

Is spoken, *privy or apert, secretly or openly*

The air thereto is so overt, clear And stands eke in so just* a place, *suitable That ev’ry sound must to it pace,

Or whatso comes from any tongue,

Be it rowned,* read, or sung, *whispered Or spoken in surety or dread, doubt Certain *it must thither need.” it must needs go thither*

 

The eagle, in a long discourse, demonstrates that, as all natural things have a natural place towards which they move by natural inclination, and as sound is only broken air, so every sound must come to Fame’s House, “though it were piped of a mouse”

— on the same principle by which every part of a mass of water is affected by the casting in of a stone. The poet is all the while borne upward, entertained with various information by the bird; which at last cries out —

 

“Hold up thy head, for all is well!

Saint Julian, lo! bon hostel! <17>

See here the House of Fame, lo

May’st thou not heare that I do?”

“What?” quoth I. “The greate soun’,”

Quoth he, “that rumbleth up and down

In Fame’s House, full of tidings,

Both of fair speech and of chidings,

And of false and sooth compouned; compounded, mingled Hearken well; it is not rowned. whispered Hearest thou not the greate swough?” confused sound “Yes, pardie!” quoth I, “well enough.”

And what sound is it like?” quoth he

“Peter! the beating of the sea,”

Quoth I, “against the rockes hollow,

When tempests do the shippes swallow.

And let a man stand, out of doubt,

A mile thence, and hear it rout. roar Or elles like the last humbling dull low distant noise After the clap of a thund’ring,

When Jovis hath the air y-beat;

But it doth me for feare sweat.”

“Nay, dread thee not thereof,” quoth he; “It is nothing will bite thee,

Thou shalt no harme have, truly.”

 

And with that word both he and I

As nigh the place arrived were,

As men might caste with a spear.

I wist not how, but in a street

He set me fair upon my feet,

And saide: “Walke forth apace,

And take *thine adventure or case, thy chance of what That thou shalt find in Fame’s place.” may befall*

“Now,” quoth I, “while we have space

To speak, ere that I go from thee,

For the love of God, as telle me,

In sooth, that I will of thee lear, learn If this noise that I hear

Be, as I have heard thee tell,

Of folk that down in earthe dwell,

And cometh here in the same wise

As I thee heard, ere this, devise?

And that there living body n’is is not In all that house that yonder is,

That maketh all this loude fare?” hubbub, ado “No,” answered he, “by Saint Clare,

And all *so wisly God rede me; so surely god But one thing I will warne thee, guide me*

Of the which thou wilt have wonder.

Lo! to the House of Fame yonder,

Thou know’st how cometh ev’ry speech;

It needeth not thee eft* to teach. *again But understand now right well this;

When any speech y-comen is

Up to the palace, anon right

It waxeth* like the same wight* becomes **person Which that the word in earthe spake,

Be he cloth’d in red or black;

And so weareth his likeness,

And speaks the word, that thou wilt guess fancy That it the same body be,

Whether man or woman, he or she.

And is not this a wondrous thing?”

“Yes,” quoth I then, “by Heaven’s king!”

And with this word, “Farewell,” quoth he, And here I will abide* thee, *wait for And God of Heaven send thee grace

Some good to learen* in this place.” *learn And I of him took leave anon,

And gan forth to the palace go’n.

 

At the opening of the Third Book, Chaucer briefly invokes Apollo’s guidance, and entreats him, because “the rhyme is light and lewd,” to “make it somewhat agreeable, though some verse fail in a syllable.” If the god answers the prayer, the poet promises to kiss the next laurel-tree <18> he sees; and he proceeds:

 

When I was from this eagle gone,

I gan behold upon this place;

And certain, ere I farther pace,

I will you all the shape devise describe Of house and city; and all the wise

How I gan to this place approach,

That stood upon so high a roche, rock <19>

Higher standeth none in Spain;

But up I climb’d with muche pain,

And though to climbe *grieved me, cost me painful effort*

Yet I ententive* was to see, attentive And for to pore wondrous low, *gaze closely If I could any wise know

What manner stone this rocke was,

For it was like a thing of glass,

But that it shone full more clear

But of what congealed mattere

It was, I wist not readily,

But at the last espied I,

And found that it was *ev’ry deal entirely*

A rock of ice, and not of steel.

Thought I, “By Saint Thomas of Kent, <20>

This were a feeble fundament foundation *To builden* a place so high; on which to build He ought him lite to glorify *little That hereon built, God so me save!”

 

Then saw I all the half y-grave <21>

With famous folke’s names fele, many That hadde been in muche weal, good fortune And their fames wide y-blow.

But well unnethes* might I know *scarcely Any letters for to read

Their names by; for out of dread doubt They were almost off thawed so,

That of the letters one or two

Were molt* away of ev’ry name, melted So unfamous was wox their fame; *become But men say, “What may ever last?”

Then gan I in my heart to cast conjecture That they were molt away for heat,

And not away with stormes beat;

For on the other side I sey saw Of this hill, that northward lay,

How it was written full of names

Of folke that had greate fames

Of olde times, and yet they were

As fresh as men had writ them there

The selfe day, right ere that hour

That I upon them gan to pore.

But well I wiste what it made; meant It was conserved with the shade,

All the writing which I sigh, saw Of a castle that stood on high;

And stood eke on so cold a place,

That heat might it not deface. injure, destroy Then gan I on this hill to go’n,

And found upon the cop* a won,* summit <22> **house That all the men that be alive

Have not the *cunning to descrive skill to describe*

The beauty of that like place,

Nor coulde *caste no compass find no contrivance*

Such another for to make,

That might of beauty be its make, match, equal Nor one so wondrously y-wrought,

That it astonieth yet my thought,

And maketh all my wit to swink, labour Upon this castle for to think;

So that the greate beauty,

Cast,* craft, and curiosity, *ingenuity Ne can I not to you devise; describe My witte may me not suffice.

But natheless all the substance

I have yet in my remembrance;

For why, me thoughte, by Saint Gile,

Alle was of stone of beryle,

Bothe the castle and the tow’r,

And eke the hall, and ev’ry bow’r, chamber Withoute pieces or joinings,

But many subtile compassings, contrivances As barbicans* and pinnacles, *watch-towers Imageries and tabernacles,

I saw; and eke full of windows,

As flakes fall in greate snows.

And eke in each of the pinnacles

Were sundry habitacles, apartments or niches In which stooden, all without,

Full the castle all about,

Of all manner of minstrales

And gestiours,<23> that telle tales

Both of weeping and of game, mirth Of all that longeth unto Fame.

 

There heard I play upon a harp,

That sounded bothe well and sharp,

Him, Orpheus, full craftily;

And on this side faste by

Satte the harper Arion,<24>

And eke Aeacides Chiron <25>

And other harpers many a one,

And the great Glasgerion; <26>

And smalle harpers, with their glees, instruments Satten under them in sees, seats And gan on them upward to gape,

And counterfeit them as an ape,

Or as *craft counterfeiteth kind. art counterfeits nature*

Then saw I standing them behind,

Afar from them, all by themselve,

Many thousand times twelve,

That made loude minstrelsies

In cornmuse and eke in shawmies, <27>

And in many another pipe,

That craftily began to pipe,

Both in dulcet <28> and in reed,

That be at feastes with the bride.

And many a flute and lilting horn,

And pipes made of greene corn,

As have these little herde-grooms, shepherd-boys That keepe beastes in the brooms.

There saw I then Dan Citherus,

And of Athens Dan Pronomus, <29>

And Marsyas <30> that lost his skin,

Both in the face, body, and chin,

For that he would envyen, lo!

To pipe better than Apollo.

There saw I famous, old and young,

Pipers of alle Dutche tongue, <31>

To learne love-dances and springs,

Reyes, <32> and these strange things.

Then