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

poore folk compassion.

For lo! the gentle kind of the lion;

For when a fly offendeth him, or biteth, He with his tail away the flye smiteth, All easily; for of his gentery nobleness Him deigneth not to wreak him on a fly, As doth a cur, or else another beast.

*In noble corage ought to be arrest, in a noble nature ought And weighen ev’rything by equity, to be self-restraint*

And ever have regard to his degree.

For, Sir, it is no mastery for a lord

To damn* a man, without answer of word; condemn And for a lord, that is full foul to use. most infamous practice*

And it be so he* may him not excuse, the offender But asketh mercy with a dreadful heart, *fearing, timid And proffereth him, right in his bare shirt, To be right at your owen judgement,

Then ought a god, by short advisement, deliberation Consider his own honour, and his trespass; For since no pow’r of death lies in this case, You ought to be the lighter merciable; Lette* your ire, and be somewhat tractable! *restrain This man hath served you of his cunning, ability, skill And further’d well your law in his making. composing poetry Albeit that he cannot well endite,

Yet hath he made lewed* folk delight *ignorant To serve you, in praising of your name.

He made the book that hight the House of Fame, And eke the Death of Blanche the Duchess, And the Parliament of Fowles, as I guess, And all the Love of Palamon and Arcite, <25>

Of Thebes, though the story is known lite; little And many a hymne for your holydays,

That highte ballads, roundels, virelays.

And, for to speak of other holiness,

He hath in prose translated Boece, <26>

And made the Life also of Saint Cecile; He made also, gone is a greate while,

Origenes upon the Magdalene. <27>

Him oughte now to have the lesse pain; penalty He hath made many a lay, and many a thing.

Now as ye be a god, and eke a king,

I your Alcestis, <28> whilom queen of Thrace, I aske you this man, right of your grace, That ye him never hurt in all his life; And he shall sweare to you, and that blife, quickly He shall no more aguilten* in this wise, *offend But shall maken, as ye will him devise, Of women true in loving all their life, Whereso ye will, of maiden or of wife, And further you as much as he missaid

Or* in the Rose, or elles in Cresseide.” *either The God of Love answered her anon:

“Madame,” quoth he, “it is so long agone That I you knew, so charitable and true, That never yet, since that the world was new, To me ne found I better none than ye;

If that I woulde save my degree,

I may nor will not warne* your request; *refuse All lies in you, do with him as you lest.

I all forgive withoute longer space; delay For he who gives a gift, or doth a grace, Do it betimes, his thank is well the more; <29>

And deeme* ye what he shall do therefor. *adjudge Go thanke now my Lady here,” quoth he.

I rose, and down I set me on my knee,

And saide thus; “Madame, the God above Foryielde* you that ye the God of Love *reward Have made me his wrathe to forgive;

And grace* so longe for to live, *give me grace That I may knowe soothly what ye be,

That have me help’d, and put in this degree!

But truely I ween’d, as in this case,

Naught t’ have aguilt,* nor done to Love trespass;* offended For why? a true man, withoute dread, **offence Hath not to parte with a thieve’s deed. any share in

Nor a true lover oughte me to blame,

Though that I spoke a false lover some shame.

They oughte rather with me for to hold, For that I of Cressida wrote or told,

Or of the Rose, *what so mine author meant; made a true translation*

Algate, God wot, it was mine intent *by all ways To further truth in love, and it cherice, cherish And to beware from falseness and from vice, By such example; this was my meaning.”

 

And she answer’d; “Let be thine arguing, For Love will not counterpleaded be <30>

In right nor wrong, and learne that of me; Thou hast thy grace, and hold thee right thereto.

Now will I say what penance thou shalt do For thy trespass;* and understand it here: *offence Thou shalt, while that thou livest, year by year, The moste partie of thy time spend

In making of a glorious Legend

Of Goode Women, maidenes and wives,

That were true in loving all their lives; And tell of false men that them betray, That all their life do naught but assay How many women they may do a shame;

For in your world that is now *held a game. considered a sport*

And though thou like not a lover be, <31>

Speak well of love; this penance give I thee.

And to the God of Love I shall so pray, That he shall charge his servants, by any way, To further thee, and well thy labour quite: requite Go now thy way, thy penance is but lite.

And, when this book ye make, give it the queen On my behalf, at Eltham, or at Sheen.”

 

The God of Love gan smile, and then he said: “Know’st thou,” quoth he, “whether this be wife or maid, Or queen, or countess, or of what degree, That hath so little penance given thee, That hath deserved sorely for to smart?

But pity runneth soon in gentle* heart; <32> nobly born That may’st thou see, she kitheth what she is. *showeth And I answer’d: “Nay, Sir, so have I bliss, No more but that I see well she is good.”

“That is a true tale, by my hood,”

Quoth Love; “and that thou knowest well, pardie!

If it be so that thou advise* thee. bethink Hast thou not in a book, li’th in thy chest, *(that) lies The greate goodness of the queen Alceste, That turned was into a daisy

She that for her husbande chose to die, And eke to go to hell rather than he;

And Hercules rescued her, pardie!

And brought her out of hell again to bliss?”

And I answer’d again, and saide; “Yes, Now know I her; and is this good Alceste, The daisy, and mine own hearte’s rest?

Now feel I well the goodness of this wife, That both after her death, and in her life, Her greate bounty* doubleth her renown. virtue Well hath she quit me mine affectioun *recompensed That I have to her flow’r the daisy;

No wonder is though Jove her stellify, <33>

As telleth Agathon, <34> for her goodness; Her white crowne bears of it witness;

For all so many virtues hadde she

As smalle flowrons in her crowne be.

In remembrance of her, and in honour,

Cybele made the daisy, and the flow’r, Y-crowned all with white, as men may see, And Mars gave her a crowne red, pardie!

Instead of rubies set among the white.”

 

Therewith this queen wax’d red for shame a lite When she was praised so in her presence.

Then saide Love: “A full great negligence Was it to thee, that ilke* time thou made that same ‘Hide Absolon thy tresses,’ in ballade, That thou forgot her in thy song to set, Since that thou art so greatly in her debt, And knowest well that calendar is she *guide, example To any woman that will lover be:

For she taught all the craft of true loving, And namely* of wifehood the living, especially And all the boundes that she ought to keep: Thy little wit was thilke time asleep. *that But now I charge thee, upon thy life,

That in thy Legend thou make* of this wife, *poetise, compose When thou hast other small y-made before; And fare now well, I charge thee no more.

But ere I go, thus much I will thee tell, —

Never shall no true lover come in hell.

These other ladies, sitting here a-row, Be in my ballad, if thou canst them know, And in thy bookes all thou shalt them find; Have them in thy Legend now all in mind; I mean of them that be in thy knowing.

For here be twenty thousand more sitting Than that thou knowest, goode women all, And true of love, for aught that may befall; Make the metres of them as thee lest;

I must go home, — the sunne draweth west, —

To Paradise, with all this company:

And serve alway the freshe daisy.

At Cleopatra I will that thou begin,

And so forth, and my love so shalt thou win; For let see now what man, that lover be, Will do so strong a pain for love as she.

I wot well that thou may’st not all it rhyme, That suche lovers didden in their time; It were too long to readen and to hear; Suffice me thou make in this mannere,

That thou rehearse of all their life the great, substance After* these old authors list for to treat; *according as For whoso shall so many a story tell,

Say shortly, or he shall too longe dwell.”

 

And with that word my bookes gan I take, And right thus on my Legend gan I make.

 

Thus endeth the Prologue.

 

Notes to The prologue to The Legend of Good Women 1. Bernard, the Monke, saw not all, pardie!: a proverbial saying, signifying that even the wisest, or those who claim to be the wisest, cannot know everything. Saint Bernard, who was the last, or among the last, of the Fathers, lived in the first half of the twelfth century.

 

2. Compare Chaucer’s account of his habits, in “The House of Fame.”

 

3. See introductory note to “The Flower and the Leaf.”

 

4. “ye have herebefore Of making ropen, and led away the corn”

The meaning is, that the “lovers” have long ago said all that can be said, by way of poetry, or “making” on the subject. See note 89 to “Troilus and Cressida” for the etymology of “making”

meaning “writing poetry.”

 

5. The poet glides here into an address to his lady.

 

6. Europa was the daughter of Agenores, king of Phrygia. She was carried away to Crete by Jupiter, disguised as a lovely and tame bull, on whose back Europa mounted as she was sporting with her maidens by the sea-shore. The story is beautifully told in Horace, Odes, iii. 27.

 

7. See “The Assembly of Fowls,” which was supposed to happen on St. Valentine’s day.

 

8. The tidife: The titmouse, or any other small bird, which sometimes brings up the cuckoo’s young when its own have been destroyed. See note 44 to “The Assembly of Fowls.”

 

9. Ethic: the “Ethics” of Aristotle.

 

10. “For as to me is lever none nor lother, I n’am withholden yet with neither n’other.”

i.e For as neither is more liked or disliked by me, I am not bound by, holden to, either the one or the other.

 

11. All of another tun i.e. wine of another tun — a quite different matter.

 

12. Compare the description of the arbour in “The Flower and the Leaf.”

 

13. Flowrons: florets; little flowers on the disk of the main flower; French “fleuron.”

 

14. Mr Bell thinks that Chaucer here praises the complaisance of Marcia, the wife of Cato, in complying with his will when he made her over to his friend