Geoffrey Chaucer (1343 – 1400)
English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, and diplomat.
Therfore bihoveth hire a ful long spoon
That shal ete with a feend.
Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do;
Eek for to winne love in sondry ages,
In sondry londes, sondry ben usages.
The gretteste clerkes been noght wisest men.
For I am shave as neigh as any frere.
But yit I praye unto youre curteisye:
Beeth hevy again, or elles moot I die.
And of his port as meke as is a mayde.
Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on him, I think obscene, and contemptible, he owes his celebrity, merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas of Ercildoune.
For gold in phisike is a cordial;
Therefore he loved gold in special.
Go, little booke! go, my little tragedie!
Wide was his parish, and houses fer asonder.
Yet in our ashen cold is fire yreken.
Forbede us thing, and that desiren we;
Preesse on us faste, and thanne wol we flee.
With daunger oute we al oure chaffare:
Greet prees at market maketh dere ware,
And too greet chepe is holden at litel pris.
And yet he had a thomb of gold parde.
Up rose the sonne, and up rose Emelie.
For of fortunes sharp adversitee
The worst kynde of infortune is this,
A man to han ben in prosperitee,
And it remembren, whan it passed is.
Certes, they been lyk to houndes, for an hound whan he comth by the roser, or by other bushes, though he may nat pisse, yet wole he heve up his leg and make a contenaunce to pisse.
O yonge fresshe folkes, he or she,
In which that love up-groweth with your age,
Repeyreth hoom fro worldly vanitee,
And of your herte up-casteth the visage
To thilke God that after his image
Yow made, and thynketh al nis but a faire
This world, that passeth sone as floures faire.
This world nys but a thurghfare ful of wo,
And we been pilgrymes, passynge to and fro;
Deeth is an ende of every worldly soore.
Ther nis no werkman, whatsoevere he be,
That may bothe werke wel and hastily.
Of studie took he most cure and most hede.
Noght o word spak he more than was nede,
And that was seyd in forme and reverence,
And short and quik, and ful of hy sentence.
Souninge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely,
And Frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of Stratford atte Bowe,
For Frenssh of Parys was to hire unknowe.