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

in swoon adown she falleth For piteous joy; and after her swooning, She both her younge children to her calleth, And in her armes piteously weeping

Embraced them, and tenderly kissing,

Full like a mother, with her salte tears She bathed both their visage and their hairs.

 

O, what a piteous thing it was to see

Her swooning, and her humble voice to hear!

“Grand mercy, Lord, God thank it you,” quoth she, That ye have saved me my children dear; Now reck* I never to be dead right here; care Since I stand in your love, and in your grace, No force of* death, nor when my spirit pace. no matter for pass “O tender, O dear, O young children mine, Your woeful mother *weened steadfastly believed firmly*

That cruel houndes, or some foul vermine, Had eaten you; but God of his mercy,

And your benigne father tenderly

Have done you keep:” and in that same stound caused you to All suddenly she swapt** down to the ground. be preserved*

hour *fell And in her swoon so sadly* holdeth she firmly Her children two, when she gan them embrace, That with great sleight and great difficulty *art The children from her arm they can arace, pull away O! many a tear on many a piteous face

Down ran of them that stoode her beside, Unneth’* aboute her might they abide. *scarcely Walter her gladdeth, and her sorrow slaketh: assuages She riseth up abashed* from her trance, *astonished And every wight her joy and feaste maketh, Till she hath caught again her countenance.

Walter her doth so faithfully pleasance, That it was dainty for to see the cheer Betwixt them two, since they be met in fere. together The ladies, when that they their time sey, saw Have taken her, and into chamber gone, And stripped her out of her rude array, And in a cloth of gold that brightly shone, And with a crown of many a riche stone Upon her head, they into hall her brought: And there she was honoured as her ought.

 

Thus had this piteous day a blissful end; For every man and woman did his might

This day in mirth and revel to dispend, Till on the welkin* shone the starres bright: *firmament For more solemn in every mannes sight

This feaste was, and greater of costage, expense Than was the revel of her marriage.

 

Full many a year in high prosperity

Lived these two in concord and in rest; And richely his daughter married he

Unto a lord, one of the worthiest

Of all Itale; and then in peace and rest His wife’s father in his court he kept, Till that the soul out of his body crept.

 

His son succeeded in his heritage,

In rest and peace, after his father’s day: And fortunate was eke in marriage,

All* he put not his wife in great assay: although This world is not so strong, it is no nay, not to be denied*

As it hath been in olde times yore;

And hearken what this author saith, therefore; This story is said, <14> not for that wives should Follow Griselda in humility,

For it were importable* though they would; *not to be borne But for that every wight in his degree Shoulde be constant in adversity,

As was Griselda; therefore Petrarch writeth This story, which with high style he inditeth.

 

For, since a woman was so patient

Unto a mortal man, well more we ought

Receiven all in gree* that God us sent. goodwill *For great skill is he proved that he wrought: see note <15>*

But he tempteth no man that he hath bought, As saith Saint James, if ye his ‘pistle read; He proveth folk all day, it is no dread. doubt And suffereth us, for our exercise,

With sharpe scourges of adversity

Full often to be beat in sundry wise;

Not for to know our will, for certes he, Ere we were born, knew all our frailty; And for our best is all his governance; Let us then live in virtuous sufferance.

 

But one word, lordings, hearken, ere I go: It were full hard to finde now-a-days

In all a town Griseldas three or two:

For, if that they were put to such assays, The gold of them hath now so bad allays alloys With brass, that though the coin be fair *at eye, to see*

It woulde rather break in two than ply. bend For which here, for the Wife’s love of Bath, —

Whose life and all her sex may God maintain In high mast’ry, and elles were it scath,* — *damage, pity I will, with lusty hearte fresh and green, Say you a song to gladden you, I ween: And let us stint of earnestful mattere.

Hearken my song, that saith in this mannere.

 

L’Envoy of Chaucer.

 

“Griseld’ is dead, and eke her patience, And both at once are buried in Itale:

For which I cry in open audience,

No wedded man so hardy be t’ assail

His wife’s patience, in trust to find

Griselda’s, for in certain he shall fail.

 

“O noble wives, full of high prudence, Let no humility your tongues nail:

Nor let no clerk have cause or diligence To write of you a story of such marvail, As of Griselda patient and kind,

Lest Chichevache<16> you swallow in her entrail.

 

“Follow Echo, that holdeth no silence, But ever answereth at the countertail; counter-tally <17>

Be not bedaffed* for your innocence, *befooled But sharply take on you the governail; helm Imprinte well this lesson in your mind, For common profit, since it may avail.

 

“Ye archiwives,* stand aye at defence, *wives of rank Since ye be strong as is a great camail, camel Nor suffer not that men do you offence.

And slender wives, feeble in battail,

Be eager as a tiger yond in Ind;

Aye clapping as a mill, I you counsail.

 

“Nor dread them not, nor do them reverence; For though thine husband armed be in mail, The arrows of thy crabbed eloquence

Shall pierce his breast, and eke his aventail;<18>

In jealousy I rede* eke thou him bind, advise And thou shalt make him couch as doth a quail. *submit, shrink “If thou be fair, where folk be in presence Shew thou thy visage and thine apparail: If thou be foul, be free of thy dispence; To get thee friendes aye do thy travail: Be aye of cheer as light as leaf on lind, linden, lime-tree And let him care, and weep, and wring, and wail.”

 

Notes to the Clerk’s Tale

 

1. Petrarch, in his Latin romance, “De obedientia et fide uxoria Mythologia,” (Of obedient and faithful wives in Mythology) translated the charming story of “the patient Grizel” from the Italian of Bocaccio’s “Decameron;” and Chaucer has closely followed Petrarch’s translation, made in 1373, the year before that in which he died. The fact that the embassy to Genoa, on which Chaucer was sent, took place in 1372-73, has lent countenance to the opinion that the English poet did actually visit the Italian bard at Padua, and hear the story from his own lips. This, however, is only a probability; for it is a moot point whether the two poets ever met.

 

2. Vesulus: Monte Viso, a lofty peak at the junction of the Maritime and Cottian Alps; from two springs on its east side rises the Po.

 

3. Buxomly: obediently; Anglo-Saxon, “bogsom,” old English, “boughsome,” that can be easily bent or bowed; German, “biegsam,” pliant, obedient.

 

4. Well ofter of the well than of the tun she drank: she drank water much more often than wine.

 

5. Undern: afternoon, evening, though by some “undern”

is understood as dinner-time — 9 a. m. See note 4 to the Wife of Bath’s Tale.

 

6. Very: true; French “vrai”.

 

7. Nouches: Ornaments of some kind not precisely known; some editions read “ouches,” studs, brooches. (Transcriber’s note: The OED gives “nouches” as a form of “ouches,”

buckles)

 

8. A furlong way or two: a short time; literally, as long as it takes to walk one or two furlongs (a furlong is 220 yards) 9. Lordes’ hestes may not be y-feign’d: it will not do merely to feign compliance with a lord’s commands.

 

10. Arace: tear; French, “arracher.”

 

11. Fele: many; German, “viel.”

 

12. Dear enough a jane: worth nothing. A jane was a small coin of little worth, so the meaning is “not worth a red cent”.

 

13. Mo: me. “This is one of the most licentious corruptions of orthography,” says Tyrwhitt, “that I remember to have observed in Chaucer;” but such liberties were common among the European poets of his time, when there was an extreme lack of certainty in orthography.

 

14. The fourteen lines that follow are translated almost literally from Petrarch’s Latin.

 

15. For great skill is he proved that he wrought: for it is most reasonable that He should prove or test that which he made.

 

16. Chichevache, in old popular fable, was a monster that fed only on good women, and was always very thin from scarcity of such food; a corresponding monster, Bycorne, fed only on obedient and kind husbands, and was always fat. The origin of the fable was French; but Lydgate has a ballad on the subject.

“Chichevache” literally means “niggardly” or “greedy cow.”

 

17. Countertail: Counter-tally or counter-foil; something exactly corresponding.

 

18. Aventail: forepart of a helmet, vizor.

 

THE MERCHANT’S TALE.

 

THE PROLOGUE.<l>

 

“Weeping and wailing, care and other sorrow, I have enough, on even and on morrow,”

Quoth the Merchant, “and so have other mo’, That wedded be; I trow* that it be so; *believe For well I wot it fareth so by me.

I have a wife, the worste that may be, For though the fiend to her y-coupled were, She would him overmatch, I dare well swear.

Why should I you rehearse in special

Her high malice? she is *a shrew at all. thoroughly, in There is a long and large difference everything wicked*

Betwixt Griselda’s greate patience,

And of my wife the passing cruelty.

Were I unbounden, all so may I the, thrive I woulde never eft* come in the snare. *again We wedded men live in sorrow and care; Assay it whoso will, and he shall find That I say sooth, by Saint Thomas of Ind,<2>

As for the more part; I say not all, —

God shielde* that it shoulde so befall. *forbid Ah! good Sir Host, I have y-wedded be

These moneths two, and more not, pardie; And yet I trow* that he that all his life *believe Wifeless hath been, though that men would him rive wound Into the hearte, could in no mannere

Telle so much sorrow, as I you here

Could tellen of my wife’s cursedness.” wickedness “Now,” quoth our Host, “Merchant, so God you bless, Since ye so muche knowen of that art,

Full heartily I pray you tell us part.”

“Gladly,” quoth he; “but of mine owen sore, For sorry heart, I telle may no more.”

 

Notes to the Prologue to the Merchant’s Tale 1. Though the manner in which the Merchant takes up the closing words of the Envoy to the Clerk’s Tale, and refers to the patience of Griselda, seems to prove beyond doubt that the order of the Tales in the text is the right one, yet in some manuscripts of good authority the Franklin’s Tale follows the Clerk’s, and the Envoy is concluded by this stanza: —

“This worthy Clerk when ended was his tale, Our Hoste said, and swore by cocke’s bones ‘Me lever