GEOFFREY CHAUCER, called the "Father of English Poetry." Born in London, about 1340; died there, October 25, 1400. Author of "Canterbury Tales," "Troilus and Cressida," "The Assembly of Fowls," "Book of the Duchess," "The House of Fame," "The Legend of Good Women." The "Canterbury Tales" appeared when the poet was fifty years old. His language is not more difficult to acquire than that of Burns, and any one who will master a hundred obsolete words can read Chaucer with ease, and have a sense of being present at the dawn of British poetry. The rugged and picturesque epithets and exquisite cadence of his musical style pertain to the springtime of our literature.
THE PROLOGUE OF THE CANTERBURY TALES
WHAN that Aprille with his schowres swoote1
The drought of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich2 licour,
Of which vertue engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breethe
Enspired hath in every holte and heethe
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours i-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodie,
That slepen al the night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in here corages:-
Thanne longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seeken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes,' kouthe in sondry londes:
And specially, from every schires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seeke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
Byfel that, in that sesoun on a day,
In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Caunterbury with ful devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelrie
Wel nyne and twenty in a compainye,
Of sondry folk, by aventure i-falle1
In felaweschipe, and pilgryms were thei alle,
That toward Caunterbury wolden ryde;
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And wel we weren esed2 atte beste."
And schortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
So hadde I spoken with hem everychon,*
That I was of here felaweschipe anon,
And made forward erly for to ryse,
To take our wey ther as I yow devyse.
But natheles, whil I have tyme and space,
Or that I forther in this tale pace,
Me thinketh it acordaunt to resoun,
To telle yow al the condicioun
Of eche of hem, so as it semede me,
And whiche they weren, and of what degre;
And eek in what array that they were inne:
And at a knight than wol I first bygynne.
A KNIGHT ther was, and that a worthy man,
That from the tyme that he first bigan
To ryden out, he lovede chyvalrye,
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.
Ful worthi was he in his lordes werre,
And therto hadde he riden, noman ferre,'
As wel in Cristendom as in hethenesse,
And evere honoured for his worthinesse.
At Alisaundre he was whan it was wonne,
Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bygonne;"
Aboven alle naciouns in Pruce.10
In Lettowe hadde he reysed 11 and in Ruce,
No cristen man so ofte of his degre.
In Gernade 12 atte siege hadde he be
Of Algesir, and riden in Belmarie.13
1 fallen 3 in the best manner 4 every one of them their 7 farther 8 Alexandria was captured A.D. 1365, by Pierre de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, who, however, immediately abandoned it. 9 i.e. he had been placed at the head of the table; or, possibly, won chief place 10 Pruce, Prussia; Lettowe, Lithuania; Ruce, Russia 11 journeyed of Algezir was taken from the Moorish King of Granada in 1344.
in tourneys. 12 The city Palmyra
CATHEDRAL AT CANTERBURY, ENGLAND
CZJHEDKIT VJ. CTZLFKBCKI' EZCI¬ZD
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