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

heart is broken; help; I am but dead: There li’th one on my womb and on mine head.

Help, Simkin, for these false clerks do fight”

This John start up as fast as e’er he might, And groped by the walles to and fro

To find a staff; and she start up also, And knew the estres* better than this John, apartment And by the wall she took a staff anon: And saw a little shimmering of a light, For at an hole in shone the moone bright, And by that light she saw them both the two, But sickerly she wist not who was who, *certainly But as she saw a white thing in her eye.

And when she gan this white thing espy, She ween’d* the clerk had wear’d a volupere**; supposed *night-cap And with the staff she drew aye nere* and nere, nearer And ween’d to have hit this Alein at the full, And smote the miller on the pilled* skull; *bald That down he went, and cried,” Harow! I die.”

These clerkes beat him well, and let him lie, And greithen* them, and take their horse anon, *make ready, dress And eke their meal, and on their way they gon: And at the mill door eke they took their cake Of half a bushel flour, full well y-bake.

 

Thus is the proude miller well y-beat, And hath y-lost the grinding of the wheat; And payed for the supper *every deal every bit Of Alein and of John, that beat him well; His wife is swived, and his daughter als*; *also Lo, such it is a miller to be false.

And therefore this proverb is said full sooth, “*Him thar not winnen well* that evil do’th, he deserves not to gain

A guiler shall himself beguiled be:”

And God that sitteth high in majesty

Save all this Company, both great and smale.

Thus have I quit* the Miller in my tale. *made myself quits with Notes to the Reeve’s Tale

 

1. The incidents of this tale were much relished in the Middle Ages, and are found under various forms. Boccaccio has told them in the ninth day of his “Decameron”.

 

2. Camuse: flat; French “camuse”, snub-nosed.

 

3. Gite: gown or coat; French “jupe.”

 

4. Soler Hall: the hall or college at Cambridge with the gallery or upper storey; supposed to have been Clare Hall.

(Transcribers note: later commentators identify it with King’s Hall, now merged with Trinity College) 5. Manciple: steward; provisioner of the hall. See also note 47

to the prologue to the Tales.

 

6. Testif: headstrong, wild-brained; French, “entete.”

 

7. Strother: Tyrwhitt points to Anstruther, in Fife: Mr Wright to the Vale of Langstroth, in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Chaucer has given the scholars a dialect that may have belonged to either district, although it more immediately suggests the more northern of the two.

(Transcribers note: later commentators have identified it with a now vanished village near Kirknewton in Northumberland.

There was a well-known Alein of Strother in Chaucer’s lifetime.)

 

8. Wanges: grinders, cheek-teeth; Anglo-Saxon, “Wang,” the cheek; German, “Wange.”

 

9. See note 1 to the Prologue to the Reeves Tale 10. In the “Cento Novelle Antiche,” the story is told of a mule, which pretends that his name is written on the bottom of his hind foot. The wolf attempts to read it, the mule kills him with a kick in the forehead; and the fox, looking on, remarks that “every man of letters is not wise.” A similar story is told in “Reynard the Fox.”

 

11. Levesell: an arbour; Anglo-Saxon, “lefe-setl,” leafy seat.

 

12. Noth: business; German, “Noth,” necessity.

 

13. Bathe: both; Scottice, “baith.”

 

14. Capel: horse; Gaelic, “capall;” French, “cheval;” Italian, “cavallo,” from Latin, “caballus.”

 

15. Make a clerkes beard: cheat a scholar; French, “faire la barbe;” and Boccaccio uses the proverb in the same sense.

 

16. “Gar” is Scotch for “cause;” some editions read, however, “get us some”.

 

17. Chalons: blankets, coverlets, made at Chalons in France.

 

18. Crock: pitcher, cruse; Anglo-Saxon, “crocca;” German, “krug;” hence “crockery.”

 

19. Dwale: night-shade, Solanum somniferum, given to cause sleep.

 

20. Burdoun: bass; “burden” of a song. It originally means the drone of a bagpipe; French, “bourdon.”

 

21. Compline: evensong in the church service; chorus.

 

22. Ferly: strange. In Scotland, a “ferlie” is an unwonted or remarkable sight.

 

23. A furlong way: As long as it might take to walk a furlong.

 

24. Cockenay: a term of contempt, probably borrowed from the kitchen; a cook, in base Latin, being termed “coquinarius.”

compare French “coquin,” rascal.

 

25. Unhardy is unsely: the cowardly is unlucky; “nothing venture, nothing have;” German, “unselig,” unhappy.

 

26. Holy cross of Bromeholm: A common adjuration at that time; the cross or rood of the priory of Bromholm, in Norfolk, was said to contain part of the real cross and therefore held in high esteem.

 

27. In manus tuas: Latin, “in your hands”.

 

THE COOK’S TALE.

 

THE PROLOGUE.

 

THE Cook of London, while the Reeve thus spake, For joy he laugh’d and clapp’d him on the back: “Aha!” quoth he, “for Christes passion, This Miller had a sharp conclusion,

Upon this argument of herbergage. lodging Well saide Solomon in his language,

Bring thou not every man into thine house, For harbouring by night is perilous.

*Well ought a man avised for to be a man should take good heed*

Whom that he brought into his privity.

I pray to God to give me sorrow and care If ever, since I highte* Hodge of Ware, was called Heard I a miller better set a-work*; handled He had a jape of malice in the derk. trick But God forbid that we should stinte here, *stop And therefore if ye will vouchsafe to hear A tale of me, that am a poore man,

I will you tell as well as e’er I can

A little jape that fell in our city.”

 

Our Host answer’d and said; “I grant it thee.

Roger, tell on; and look that it be good, For many a pasty hast thou letten blood, And many a Jack of Dover<1> hast thou sold, That had been twice hot and twice cold.

Of many a pilgrim hast thou Christe’s curse, For of thy parsley yet fare they the worse.

That they have eaten in thy stubble goose: For in thy shop doth many a fly go loose.

Now tell on, gentle Roger, by thy name, But yet I pray thee be not *wroth for game*; angry with my jesting

A man may say full sooth in game and play.”

“Thou sayst full sooth,” quoth Roger, “by my fay; But sooth play quad play,<2> as the Fleming saith, And therefore, Harry Bailly, by thy faith, Be thou not wroth, else we departe* here, *part company Though that my tale be of an hostelere. innkeeper But natheless, I will not tell it yet, But ere we part, y-wis* thou shalt be quit.”<3> *assuredly And therewithal he laugh’d and made cheer,<4>

And told his tale, as ye shall after hear.

 

Notes to the Prologue to the Cook’s Tale 1. Jack of Dover: an article of cookery. (Transcriber’s note: suggested by some commentators to be a kind of pie, and by others to be a fish)

 

2. Sooth play quad play: true jest is no jest.

 

3. It may be remembered that each pilgrim was bound to tell two stories; one on the way to Canterbury, the other returning.

 

4. Made cheer: French, “fit bonne mine;” put on a pleasant countenance.

 

THE TALE.

 

A prentice whilom dwelt in our city,

And of a craft of victuallers was he:

Galliard* he was, as goldfinch in the shaw*, lively **grove Brown as a berry, a proper short fellaw: With lockes black, combed full fetisly. daintily And dance he could so well and jollily, That he was called Perkin Revellour.

He was as full of love and paramour,

As is the honeycomb of honey sweet;

Well was the wenche that with him might meet.

At every bridal would he sing and hop; He better lov’d the tavern than the shop.

For when there any riding was in Cheap,<1>

Out of the shoppe thither would he leap, And, till that he had all the sight y-seen, And danced well, he would not come again; And gather’d him a meinie* of his sort, company of fellows To hop and sing, and make such disport: And there they sette steven* for to meet made appointment

To playen at the dice in such a street.

For in the towne was there no prentice That fairer coulde cast a pair of dice Than Perkin could; and thereto he was free he spent money liberally Of his dispence, in place of privity.* where he would not be seen*

That found his master well in his chaffare, merchandise For oftentime he found his box full bare.

For, soothely, a prentice revellour,

That haunteth dice, riot, and paramour, His master shall it in his shop abie, suffer for All* have he no part of the minstrelsy. although For theft and riot they be convertible, All can they play on gitern or ribible. guitar or rebeck*

Revel and truth, as in a low degree,

They be full wroth* all day, as men may see. at variance This jolly prentice with his master bode, Till he was nigh out of his prenticehood, All were he snubbed both early and late, *rebuked And sometimes led with revel to Newgate.

But at the last his master him bethought, Upon a day when he his paper<2> sought, Of a proverb, that saith this same word; Better is rotten apple out of hoard,

Than that it should rot all the remenant: So fares it by a riotous servant;

It is well lesse harm to let him pace, pass, go Than he shend* all the servants in the place. *corrupt Therefore his master gave him a quittance, And bade him go, with sorrow and mischance.

And thus this jolly prentice had his leve*: desire Now let him riot all the night, or leave. *refrain And, for there is no thief without a louke,<3>

That helpeth him to wasten and to souk spend Of that he bribe* can, or borrow may, *steal Anon he sent his bed and his array

Unto a compere* of his owen sort, comrade That loved dice, and riot, and disport; And had a wife, that held for countenance for appearances*

A shop, and swived* for her sustenance. *prostituted herself … … . <4>

 

Notes to the Cook’s Tale

 

1. Cheapside, where jousts were sometimes held, and which was the great scene of city revels and processions.

 

2. His paper: his certificate of completion of his apprenticeship.

 

3. Louke: The precise meaning of the word is unknown, but it is doubtless included in the cant term “pal”.

 

4. The Cook’s Tale is unfinished in all the manuscripts; but in some, of minor authority, the Cook is made to break off his tale, because “it is so foul,” and to tell the story of Gamelyn, on which Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” is founded. The story is not Chaucer’s, and is different in metre, and inferior in composition to the Tales. It is supposed that Chaucer expunged the Cook’s Tale for the same reason that made him on his deathbed lament that he had written so much “ribaldry.”

 

THE MAN OF LAW’S TALE.

 

THE PROLOGUE.

 

Our Hoste saw well that the brighte sun Th’ arc of his artificial day had run

The fourthe part, and half an houre more; And, though he