Chaucer and His England

"Although the style [of Chaucer] for the antiquity may distaste you, yet as under a bitter and rough rind there lieth a delicate kernel of conceit and sweet invention."--HENRY P...

"Del un Marchant au jour present L'en parle molt communement, Il ad noun Triche plein de guile, Qe pour sercher del orient Jusques au fin del occident, N'y ad cité ne bonne vile...

"Forget six counties overhung with smoke, Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke, Forget the spreading of the hideous town; Think rather of the pack-horse on the down, And...

"Misuse not thy bondman, the better mayst thou speed; Though he be thine underling here, well may hap in heaven That he win a worthier seat, and with more bliss; For in charnel...

"Madamë, whilom I was one That to my father had a king; But I was slow, and for nothing Me listë not to Love obey; And that I now full sore abey.... Among the gentle nation Love...

"Adieu, mol lit, adieu, piteux regards; Adieu, pain frais que l'on soulait trouver; Il me convient porter honneur aux lards; Il convient ail et biscuit avaler, Et chevaucher un...

That which in Chaucer's day passed for rank "sluggardy a-night" might yet be very early rising by the modern standard; and our poet, sorely as he needed Philippa's shrill alarum...

"'But teach me,' quoth the Knight; 'and, by Christ, I will assay!' 'By St. Paul,' quoth Perkin, 'ye proffer you so fair That I shall work and sweat, and sow for us both, And oth...

"Io ho uno grandissimo dubbio di voi, ch'io mi credo che se ne salvino tanti pochi di quegli che sono in istato di matrimonio, che de' mille, novecento novantanove credo che sia...

We have traced the main course of the poet's life, followed him at work and at play, and considered his immediate environment. Let us now try to roam more at large through the E...

"Ce voyons bien, qu'au temps présent La guerre si commune éprend, Qu'a peine y a nul labourer Lequel a son métier se prend: Le prêtre laist le sacrement, [laisse Et le vilain le...

The Italian journey of 1372-3 was far from being Chaucer's last embassy. In 1376 he was abroad on secret service with Sir John Burley; in February of next year he was associated...

"Jeunes amours, si vite épanouies, Vous êtes l'aube et le matin du coeur. Charmez l'enfant, extases inouïes Et, quand le soir vient avec la douleur, Charmez encor nos âmes éblou...

"Accident plays a greater part in the fourteenth century than perhaps at any other epoch.... At bottom society was neither quite calm nor quite settled, and many of its members...

"Pilgrims and palmers plighted them together To seek St. James, and saints in Rome. They went forth in their way with many wise tales, And had leave to lie all their life after...

On the morning of the third day we find the Physician speaking; he tells the tragedy of Virginia, not straight from Livy, whom Chaucer had probably never had a chance of reading...

"[Edward], the first of English nation That ever had right unto the crown of France By succession of blood and generation Of his mother withouten variance, The which me thinketh...

"I strove with none, for none was worth my strife: Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art. I warmed both hands before the fire of life: It sinks; and I am ready to depart." W....

Few men could lay better claim than Chaucer to this happy accident of birth with which Matthew Arnold endows his Scholar Gipsy, if we refrain from pressing too literally the poe...

For I, that God of Lovë's servants serve, Dare not to Love for mine unlikeliness Prayen for speed, though I should therefore sterve, So far am I from this help in darkness! "Tro...

"For though the love of books, in a cleric, be honourable in the very nature of the case, yet it hath sorely exposed us to the adverse judgment of many folk, to whom we became a...

"In the holidays all the summer the youths are exercised in leaping, dancing, shooting, wrestling, casting the stone, and practising their shields; the maidens trip in their tim...

"Charity is a childlike thing, as Holy Church witnesseth; As proud of a penny as of a pound of gold, And all so glad of a gown of grey russet As of a coat of damask or of clean...

"For lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our la...