THE

CANTERBURY TALES.

THE PROLOGUE.

WHAN that Aprille with his schowres swoote
The drought of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathud every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertue engendred is the flour;-
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

1

B

Enspirud hath in every holte and heeth
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 yhe,
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 Canturbury 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 Tabbard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canturbury with ful devout corage,
At night was come into that hostelrie
Wel nyne and twenty in a companye,
Of sondry folk, by aventure i-falle

In felaschipe, and pilgryms were thei alle,
That toward Canturbury wolden ryde.

The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
And wel we weren esud atte beste.

8.-the Ram. Tyrwhitt thinks Chaucer has made a mistake, and that it ought to be the Bull, because, the showers of April having pierced the drouth of March to the root, the sun must have passed through the sign of the Ram and entered that of the Bull.

14. ferne. Nearly all the MSS. I have examined, and certainly the best, agree in this reading. Tyrwhitt has adopted the reading serve, which probably originated in mistaking "ferne" for "ferue,"― ferne halwes means distant saints.

And schortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
So hadde I spoken with hem everychon,
That I was of here felawschipe anon,
And made forward erly to aryse,

To take oure weye ther as I yow devyse.
But natheles, whiles I have tyme and space,
Or that I ferthere in this tale pace,
Me thinketh it acordant to resoun,
To telle yow alle the condicioun
Of eche of hem, so as it semed me,

And which they weren, and of what degré ;
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 ferst bigan
To ryden out, he lovede chyvalrye,
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtesie.
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 Alisandre he was whan it was wonne.
Ful ofte tyme he hadde the bord bygonne

43.-A knight. It was a common thing, in this age, for knights to seek employment in foreign countries which were at war. Tyrwhitt cites from Leland the epitaph of a knight of this period, Matthew de Gournay, who “en sa vie fu à la bataille de Benamarin, et ala après à la siege d'Algezire sur les Sarazines, et aussi à les batailles de L'Escluse, de Cressy, de Deyngenesse, de Peyteres, de Nazare, d'Ozrey, et à pulsours autres batailles et asseges."

51.-Alisandre. Alexandria, in Egypt, was taken by Pierre de Lusignan, king of Cyprus, in 1365, but immediately afterwards abandoned.