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

into my house by violence, and have done such outrage, that all men know well that ye have deserved the death: and therefore will I know and weet of you, whether ye will put the punishing and chastising, and the vengeance of this outrage, in the will of me and of my wife, or ye will not?” Then the wisest of them three answered for them all, and said; “Sir,” quoth he, “we know well, that we be I unworthy to come to the court of so great a lord and so worthy as ye be, for we have so greatly mistaken us, and have offended and aguilt [incurred guilt] in such wise against your high lordship, that truly we have deserved the death. But yet for the great goodness and debonairte [courtesy, gentleness]

that all the world witnesseth of your person, we submit us to the excellence and benignity of your gracious lordship, and be ready to obey to all your commandments, beseeching you, that of your merciable [merciful] pity ye will consider our great repentance and low submission, and grant us forgiveness of our outrageous trespass and offence; for well we know, that your liberal grace and mercy stretch them farther into goodness, than do our outrageous guilt and trespass into wickedness; albeit that cursedly [wickedly] and damnably we have aguilt [incurred guilt] against your high lordship.” Then Meliboeus took them up from the ground full benignly, and received their obligations and their bonds, by their oaths upon their pledges and borrows, [sureties] and assigned them a certain day to return unto his court for to receive and accept sentence and judgement, that Meliboeus would command to be done on them, by the causes aforesaid; which things ordained, every man returned home to his house.

 

And when that Dame Prudence saw her time she freined [inquired] and asked her lord Meliboeus, what vengeance he thought to take of his adversaries. To which Meliboeus answered, and said; “Certes,” quoth he, “I think and purpose me fully to disinherit them of all that ever they have, and for to put them in exile for evermore.” “Certes,” quoth Dame Prudence, “this were a cruel sentence, and much against reason. For ye be rich enough, and have no need of other men’s goods; and ye might lightly [easily] in this wise get you a covetous name, which is a vicious thing, and ought to be eschewed of every good man: for, after the saying of the Apostle, covetousness is root of all harms. And therefore it were better for you to lose much good of your own, than for to take of their good in this manner. For better it is to lose good with worship [honour], than to win good with villainy and shame. And every man ought to do his diligence and his business to get him a good name.

And yet [further] shall he not only busy him in keeping his good name, but he shall also enforce him alway to do some thing by which he may renew his good name; for it is written, that the old good los [reputation <5>] of a man is soon gone and passed, when it is not renewed. And as touching that ye say, that ye will exile your adversaries, that thinketh ye much against reason, and out of measure, [moderation] considered the power that they have given you upon themselves. And it is written, that he is worthy to lose his privilege, that misuseth the might and the power that is given him. And I set case [if I assume] ye might enjoin them that pain by right and by law (which I trow ye may not do), I say, ye might not put it to execution peradventure, and then it were like to return to the war, as it was before. And therefore if ye will that men do you obeisance, ye must deem [decide] more courteously, that is to say, ye must give more easy sentences and judgements. For it is written, ‘He that most courteously commandeth, to him men most obey.’

And therefore I pray you, that in this necessity and in this need ye cast you [endeavour, devise a way] to overcome your heart.

For Seneca saith, that he that overcometh his heart, overcometh twice. And Tullius saith, ‘There is nothing so commendable in a great lord, as when he is debonair and meek, and appeaseth him lightly [easily].’ And I pray you, that ye will now forbear to do vengeance, in such a manner, that your good name may be kept and conserved, and that men may have cause and matter to praise you of pity and of mercy; and that ye have no cause to repent you of thing that ye do. For Seneca saith, ‘He overcometh in an evil manner, that repenteth him of his victory.’

Wherefore I pray you let mercy be in your heart, to the effect and intent that God Almighty have mercy upon you in his last judgement; for Saint James saith in his Epistle, ‘Judgement without mercy shall be done to him, that hath no mercy of another wight.’”

 

When Meliboeus had heard the great skills [arguments, reasons]

and reasons of Dame Prudence, and her wise information and teaching, his heart gan incline to the will of his wife, considering her true intent, he conformed him anon and assented fully to work after her counsel, and thanked God, of whom proceedeth all goodness and all virtue, that him sent a wife of so great discretion. And when the day came that his adversaries should appear in his presence, he spake to them full goodly, and said in this wise; “Albeit so, that of your pride and high presumption and folly, an of your negligence and unconning, [ignorance] ye have misborne [misbehaved] you, and trespassed [done injury]

unto me, yet forasmuch as I see and behold your great humility, and that ye be sorry and repentant of your guilts, it constraineth me to do you grace and mercy. Wherefore I receive you into my grace, and forgive you utterly all the offences, injuries, and wrongs, that ye have done against me and mine, to this effect and to this end, that God of his endless mercy will at the time of our dying forgive us our guilts, that we have trespassed to him in this wretched world; for doubtless, if we be sorry and repentant of the sins and guilts which we have trespassed in the sight of our Lord God, he is so free and so merciable [merciful], that he will forgive us our guilts, and bring us to the bliss that never hath end.” Amen.

 

Notes to Chaucer’s Tale of Meliboeus.

 

1. The Tale of Meliboeus is literally translated from a French story, or rather “treatise,” in prose, entitled “Le Livre de Melibee et de Dame Prudence,” of which two manuscripts, both dating from the fifteenth century, are preserved in the British Museum. Tyrwhitt, justly enough, says of it that it is indeed, as Chaucer called it in the prologue, “‘a moral tale virtuous,’ and was probably much esteemed in its time; but, in this age of levity, I doubt some readers will be apt to regret that he did not rather give us the remainder of Sir Thopas.” It has been remarked that in the earlier portion of the Tale, as it left the hand of the poet, a number of blank verses were intermixed; though this peculiarity of style, noticeable in any case only in the first 150 or 200 lines, has necessarily all but disappeared by the changes of spelling made in the modern editions. The Editor’s purpose being to present to the public not “The Canterbury Tales” merely, but “The Poems of Chaucer,” so far as may be consistent with the limits of this volume, he has condensed the long reasonings and learned quotations of Dame Prudence into a mere outline, connecting those portions of the Tale wherein lies so much of story as it actually possesses, and the general reader will probably not regret the sacrifice, made in the view of retaining so far as possible the completeness of the Tales, while lessening the intrusion of prose into a volume or poems. The good wife of Meliboeus literally overflows with quotations from David, Solomon, Jesus the Son of Sirach, the Apostles, Ovid, Cicero, Seneca, Cassiodorus, Cato, Petrus Alphonsus — the converted Spanish Jew, of the twelfth century, who wrote the “Disciplina Clericalis” — and other authorities; and in some passages, especially where husband and wife debate the merits or demerits of women, and where Prudence dilates on the evils of poverty, Chaucer only reproduces much that had been said already in the Tales that preceded — such as the Merchant’s and the Man of Law’s.

 

2. The lines which follow are a close translation of the original Latin, which reads:

“Quis matrem, nisi mentis inops, in funere nati Flere vetet? non hoc illa monenda loco.

Cum dederit lacrymas, animumque expleverit aegrum, Ille dolor verbis emoderandus erit.”

Ovid, “Remedia Amoris,” 127-131.

 

3. See the conversation between Pluto and Proserpine, in the Merchant’s Tale.

 

4. “Thy name,” she says, “is Meliboeus; that is to say, a man that drinketh honey.”

 

5. Los: reputation; from the past participle of the Anglo-Saxon, “hlisan” to celebrate. Compare Latin, “laus.”

 

THE MONK’S TALE.

 

THE PROLOGUE

 

WHEN ended was my tale of Melibee,

And of Prudence and her benignity,

Our Hoste said, “As I am faithful man, And by the precious corpus Madrian,<1>

I had lever* than a barrel of ale, rather That goode lefe my wife had heard this tale; *dear For she is no thing of such patience

As was this Meliboeus’ wife Prudence.

By Godde’s bones! when I beat my knaves She bringeth me the greate clubbed staves, And crieth, ‘Slay the dogges every one, And break of them both back and ev’ry bone.’

And if that any neighebour of mine

Will not in church unto my wife incline, Or be so hardy to her to trespace, offend When she comes home she rampeth* in my face, springs And crieth, ‘False coward, wreak thy wife *avenge By corpus Domini, I will have thy knife, And thou shalt have my distaff, and go spin.’

From day till night right thus she will begin.

‘Alas!’ she saith, ‘that ever I was shape destined To wed a milksop, or a coward ape,

That will be overlad* with every wight! *imposed on Thou darest not stand by thy wife’s right.’

 

“This is my life, but if that I will fight; *unless And out at door anon I must me dight, betake myself Or elles I am lost, but if that I

Be, like a wilde lion, fool-hardy.

I wot well she will do* me slay some day make Some neighebour and thenne go my way; take to flight*

For I am perilous with knife in hand,

Albeit that I dare not her withstand;

For she is big in armes, by my faith!

That shall he find, that her misdoth or saith. <2>

But let us pass away from this mattere.

My lord the Monk,” quoth he, “be merry of cheer, For ye shall tell a tale truely.

Lo, Rochester stands here faste by.

Ride forth, mine owen lord, break not our game.

But by my troth I cannot tell your name; Whether shall I call you my lord Dan John, Or Dan Thomas, or elles Dan Albon?

Of what house be ye, by your father’s kin?

I vow to God, thou hast a full fair skin; It is a gentle pasture where thou go’st; Thou art not like a penant* or a ghost. *penitent Upon my faith thou art some officer,

Some worthy sexton, or some cellarer.

For by my father’s soul, *as to my dome, in my