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النشر الإلكتروني

POETICAL WORKS

OF

GEOFFREY CHAUCER.

VOL. 11.

CONTAINING HIS

CANTERBURY TALES, viz.

PROL. TO CANT. TALES,
THE KNIGHTES TALE,
THE MILLERES TALE,

THE REVESTALE,
THE COKES TALE,

THE MAN OF LAWES TALE,

&c. &c. Sc.

But natheles certain

I can right now no thrifty Tale fain,

But CHAUCER, (though he can hut lewedly
On metres and on riming craftily)

Hath fayd bem in fwiche English as he can
Of olde time, as knoweth many a man;
And if he have not fayd hem, leve brother,
In o book, he hath fayd hem in another....

Who fo that wol his large Volume feke. TALES, ver. 4465.
Dan CHAUCER, weli of English undef,

On Fame's eternal bead-roli worthy to be fil'd-...

Old Dan Geffrey, in whofe gentle fpright
The pure well-head of poetry did dwell....
He whilft he lived was the foveraigne head
Of thepherds all.

Old CHAUCER, like the morning flar,
To us difcovers day from far;

This light thofe mifts and clouds diffolv'd
Which our dark nation long involv'd;
But he defcending to the fhades

Darkness again the age invades.

SPENSER.

DENHAM.

CHAUCER, him who fra with harmony inform'd

The language of our fathers.Lis legends blithe

Jie fang of love or knighthood, or the wiles

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AT THE Apollo Prefs, BY THE MARIING.
inno 1782.

THE PROLOGUE.

WHANNE that April with his shoures fote

The droughte of March hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veine in swiche licour,
Of whiche vertue engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eke with his fote brethe 6-
Enfpired hath in every holt and hethe
The tendre cropper, and the yonge fonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
And fmale foules maken melodie,
That flepen alle night with open eye,
So priketh hem nature in hir
Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,

corages,

And palmeres for to feken ftrange ftrondes,
To ferve halwes couthe in fondry londes;

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For a grammatical and metrical analysis of the first eighteen lines fee the Ejay, c. p. 167-170.

. 8. Hath in the Ram] Rather the Bolle. See the reafons in the Difcourfe, &c. p. 177.

.13. And palmeres] The different forts of pilgrims are thus diftinguished by Dante, Vita nuova, p. 80, "Chiamanti Palmi"eri, inquanto vanno oltra mare, laonde molte volte recano “la palmag-Peregrini, inquanto vanno alla casa di Galizia; "Romei, inquanto vanuo a Roina." But he speaks as an italian. Chaucer feems to contider all pilgrims to foreign parts as paliner.

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Of Englelond to Canterbury they wende,
The holy blissful martyr for to feke

That hem hath holpen whan that they were feke.
Befelle that in that fefon on a day,

In Southwerk at The Tabard as I lay,
Redy to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury with devoute corage,
At night was come into that hoftelrie
Wel nine-and-twenty in a compagnie
Of fondry folk, by aventure yfalle

20

25

In felawship, and pilgrimes were they alle

That toward Canterbury wolden ride.
The chambres and the ftables weren wide,

And wel we weren efed atte beste.

And fhortly when the fonne was gon to refte, 30 So hadde I fpoken with hem everich on,

That I was of hir felawfhip anon,

And made forward erly for to rise,

To take oure way ther as I you devise.

But natheles while I have time and space,

Or that I forther in this Tale pace,

35

.20. The Tabard] See Mr. Speght's note, as cited in the Difcourfe, c. n. 6.

. 29. wel―efed] Bien aifés. The later French usage of aife fing. and aifes plur. unaccented, feems to be a corruption. V. 33. And made forward] More properly forword. See be low, ver. 831, 50, 54, from the Sax. fore-word, promise. Made (contracted from maked) is a diffyllable. See ver. 4361.

Me thinketh it accordant to refon
To tellen you alle the condition
Of eche of hem, fo as it femed me,

And whiche they weren, and of what degre,
And eke in what araie that they were inne;
And at a knight than wol I firfte beginne.

A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the time that he firfte began
To riden out he loved chevalrie,

Trouthe and honour, fredom and curtefie.
Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre,
And therto hadde he ridden, no man ferre

40

45

.43. A Knight] The course of adventures of our Knight may be illuftrated by those of a real knight of Chaucer's age, who (for any thing that appears to the contrary) might have been upon this very pilgrimage; his epitaph is in Leland's Itin v. iii. p. 111; "Icy gift le noble et vaillant Chivaler Matheu "de Gourney, &c.—qui en fa vie fu a la bataille de Bena"maryn, et ala apres a la fiege d'Algezire fur les Sarazines et "auffi a les batailles de l'Efclufe, de Creffy, de Deyngeneffe, "de Peyteres, de Nazare, d'Ozrey et a plufours autres batail"les et affeges en les quex il gaigna noblement graunt los et "honour." He died in 1406 at the age of ninty-fix. Why Chaucer thould have chosen to bring his knight from Alexandria and Lettowe rather than from Crefly and Poitiers is a problem difficult to refolve, except by supposing that the flightet services against infidels were in those days more honourable than the moft fplendid victories over Chriftians.

*. 48. ferre] i. e. ferer, the comparative of fer, far. So Chaucer ufes derre for derer, the comparat. of dere, dear, ver. 1450; "Ther n'as no man that Thefeus hath derre." Ferrer is used at length by Peter of Langtoft, and ferreß, the fuper!. below, ver. 496.

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