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

choose yourselfe whether that you liketh.

 

This knight adviseth* him and sore he siketh,* considered **sighed But at the last he said in this mannere; “My lady and my love, and wife so dear, I put me in your wise governance,

Choose for yourself which may be most pleasance And most honour to you and me also;

I do no force the whether of the two: *care not For as you liketh, it sufficeth me.”

“Then have I got the mastery,” quoth she, “Since I may choose and govern as me lest.” pleases “Yea, certes wife,” quoth he, “I hold it best.”

“Kiss me,” quoth she, “we are no longer wroth, at variance For by my troth I will be to you both; This is to say, yea, bothe fair and good.

I pray to God that I may *sterve wood, die mad*

But* I to you be all so good and true, unless As ever was wife since the world was new; And but I be to-morrow as fair to seen, *unless As any lady, emperess or queen,

That is betwixt the East and eke the West Do with my life and death right as you lest. please Cast up the curtain, and look how it is.”

 

And when the knight saw verily all this, That she so fair was, and so young thereto, For joy he hent* her in his armes two: *took His hearte bathed in a bath of bliss,

A thousand times *on row* he gan her kiss: in succession

And she obeyed him in every thing

That mighte do him pleasance or liking.

And thus they live unto their lives’ end In perfect joy; and Jesus Christ us send Husbandes meek and young, and fresh in bed, And grace to overlive them that we wed.

And eke I pray Jesus to short their lives, That will not be governed by their wives.

And old and angry niggards of dispence, expense God send them soon a very pestilence!

 

Notes to the Wife of Bath’s Tale

 

1. It is not clear whence Chaucer derived this tale. Tyrwhitt thinks it was taken from the story of Florent, in the first book of Gower’s “Confessio Amantis;” or perhaps from an older narrative from which Gower himself borrowed. Chaucer has condensed and otherwise improved the fable, especially by laying the scene, not in Sicily, but at the court of our own King Arthur.

 

2. Limitours: begging friars. See note 18 to the prologue to the Tales.

 

3. Thorpes: villages. Compare German, “Dorf,”; Dutch, “Dorp.”

 

4. Undermeles: evening-tides, afternoons; “undern” signifies the evening; and “mele,” corresponds to the German “Mal” or “Mahl,” time.

 

5. Incubus: an evil spirit supposed to do violence to women; a nightmare.

 

6. Where he had been hawking after waterfowl. Froissart says that any one engaged in this sport “alloit en riviere.”

 

7. Nice: foolish; French, “niais.”

 

8. Claw us on the gall: Scratch us on the sore place. Compare, “Let the galled jade wince.” Hamlet iii. 2.

 

9. Hele: hide; from Anglo-Saxon, “helan,” to hide, conceal.

 

10. Yern: eagerly; German, “gern.”

 

11. Wiss: instruct; German, “weisen,” to show or counsel.

 

12. Dante, “Purgatorio”, vii. 121.

 

13. “Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator” — “Satires,” x. 22.

 

14. In a fabulous conference between the Emperor Adrian and the philosopher Secundus, reported by Vincent of Beauvais, occurs the passage which Chaucer here paraphrases: — “Quid est Paupertas? Odibile bonum; sanitas mater; remotio Curarum; sapientae repertrix; negotium sine damno; possessio absque calumnia; sine sollicitudinae felicitas.” (What is Poverty? A hateful good; a mother of health; a putting away of cares; a discoverer of wisdom; business without injury; ownership without calumny; happiness without anxiety) 15. Elenge: strange; from French “eloigner,” to remove.

 

THE FRIAR’S TALE.

 

THE PROLOGUE.<1>

 

This worthy limitour, this noble Frere, He made always a manner louring cheer countenance Upon the Sompnour; but for honesty courtesy No villain word as yet to him spake he: But at the last he said unto the Wife: “Dame,” quoth he, “God give you right good life, Ye have here touched, all so may I the, thrive In school matter a greate difficulty.

Ye have said muche thing right well, I say; But, Dame, here as we ride by the way, Us needeth not but for to speak of game, And leave authorities, in Godde’s name, To preaching, and to school eke of clergy.

But if it like unto this company,

I will you of a Sompnour tell a game;

Pardie, ye may well knowe by the name, That of a Sompnour may no good be said; I pray that none of you be *evil paid; dissatisfied*

A Sompnour is a runner up and down

With mandements* for fornicatioun, mandates, summonses

And is y-beat at every towne’s end.”

Then spake our Host; “Ah, sir, ye should be hend civil, gentle And courteous, as a man of your estate; In company we will have no debate:

Tell us your tale, and let the Sompnour be.”

“Nay,” quoth the Sompnour, “let him say by me What so him list; when it comes to my lot, By God, I shall him quiten* every groat! *pay him off I shall him telle what a great honour

It is to be a flattering limitour

And his office I shall him tell y-wis”.

Our Host answered, “Peace, no more of this.”

And afterward he said unto the frere,

“Tell forth your tale, mine owen master dear.”

 

Notes to the Prologue to the Friar’s tale 1. On the Tale of the Friar, and that of the Sompnour which follows, Tyrwhitt has remarked that they “are well engrafted upon that of the Wife of Bath. The ill-humour which shows itself between these two characters is quite natural, as no two professions at that time were at more constant variance. The regular clergy, and particularly the mendicant friars, affected a total exemption from all ecclesiastical jurisdiction, except that of the Pope, which made them exceedingly obnoxious to the bishops and of course to all the inferior officers of the national hierarchy.” Both tales, whatever their origin, are bitter satires on the greed and worldliness of the Romish clergy.

 

THE TALE.

 

Whilom* there was dwelling in my country *once on a time An archdeacon, a man of high degree,

That boldely did execution,

In punishing of fornication,

Of witchecraft, and eke of bawdery,

Of defamation, and adultery,

Of churche-reeves,* and of testaments, churchwardens Of contracts, and of lack of sacraments, And eke of many another manner crime, *sort of Which needeth not rehearsen at this time, Of usury, and simony also;

But, certes, lechours did he greatest woe; They shoulde singen, if that they were hent; caught And smale tithers<1> were foul y-shent, troubled, put to shame If any person would on them complain;

There might astert them no pecunial pain.<2>

For smalle tithes, and small offering, He made the people piteously to sing;

For ere the bishop caught them with his crook, They weren in the archedeacon’s book;

Then had he, through his jurisdiction, Power to do on them correction.

 

He had a Sompnour ready to his hand,

A slier boy was none in Engleland;

For subtlely he had his espiaille, espionage That taught him well where it might aught avail.

He coulde spare of lechours one or two, To teache him to four and twenty mo’.

For, — though this Sompnour wood* be as a hare, — *furious, mad To tell his harlotry I will not spare, For we be out of their correction,

They have of us no jurisdiction,

Ne never shall have, term of all their lives.

 

“Peter; so be the women of the stives,” stews Quoth this Sompnour, “y-put out of our cure.” care “Peace, with mischance and with misaventure,”

Our Hoste said, “and let him tell his tale.

Now telle forth, and let the Sompnour gale, whistle; bawl Nor spare not, mine owen master dear.”

 

This false thief, the Sompnour (quoth the Frere), Had always bawdes ready to his hand,

As any hawk to lure in Engleland,

That told him all the secrets that they knew, —

For their acquaintance was not come of new; They were his approvers* privily. *informers He took himself at great profit thereby: His master knew not always what he wan. won Withoute mandement, a lewed* man *ignorant He could summon, on pain of Christe’s curse, And they were inly glad to fill his purse, And make him greate feastes at the nale. alehouse And right as Judas hadde purses smale, small And was a thief, right such a thief was he, His master had but half *his duety. what was owing him*

He was (if I shall give him his laud)

A thief, and eke a Sompnour, and a bawd.

And he had wenches at his retinue,

That whether that Sir Robert or Sir Hugh, Or Jack, or Ralph, or whoso that it were That lay by them, they told it in his ear.

Thus were the wench and he of one assent; And he would fetch a feigned mandement, And to the chapter summon them both two, And pill* the man, and let the wenche go. *plunder, pluck Then would he say, “Friend, I shall for thy sake Do strike thee out of oure letters blake; black Thee thar* no more as in this case travail; *need I am thy friend where I may thee avail.”

Certain he knew of bribers many mo’

Than possible is to tell in yeare’s two: For in this world is no dog for the bow,<3>

That can a hurt deer from a whole know, Bet* than this Sompnour knew a sly lechour, *better Or an adult’rer, or a paramour:

And, for that was the fruit of all his rent, Therefore on it he set all his intent.

 

And so befell, that once upon a day.

This Sompnour, waiting ever on his prey, Rode forth to summon a widow, an old ribibe,<4>

Feigning a cause, for he would have a bribe.

And happen’d that he saw before him ride A gay yeoman under a forest side:

A bow he bare, and arrows bright and keen, He had upon a courtepy* of green, *short doublet A hat upon his head with fringes blake. black “Sir,” quoth this Sompnour, “hail, and well o’ertake.”

“Welcome,” quoth he, “and every good fellaw; Whither ridest thou under this green shaw?”* shade Saide this yeoman; “wilt thou far to-day?”

This Sompnour answer’d him, and saide, “Nay.

Here faste by,” quoth he, “is mine intent To ride, for to raisen up a rent,

That longeth to my lorde’s duety.”

“Ah! art thou then a bailiff?” “Yea,” quoth he.

He durste not for very filth and shame Say that he was a Sompnour, for the name.

“De par dieux,” <5> quoth this yeoman, “leve* brother, *dear Thou art a bailiff, and I am another.

I am unknowen, as in this country.

Of thine acquaintance I will praye thee, And eke of brotherhood, if that thee list. please I have gold and silver lying in my chest; If that thee hap to come into our shire, All shall be thine, right as thou wilt desire.”

“Grand mercy,”* quoth this Sompnour, “by my faith.” *great thanks Each in the other’s hand his trothe lay’th, For to be sworne brethren till they dey. die<6>

In dalliance they ride forth and play.

 

This Sompnour, which that was as full of jangles, chattering As full of venom be those wariangles, butcher-birds <7>

And ev’r inquiring upon every thing,

“Brother,” quoth he, “where is now your dwelling, Another day if that I should you seech?” seek, visit