From Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales"..... "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote"
Categories: International, Literature, Metaphysical, Art, History
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The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages),
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.
(General Prologue, 1–12)
These are the opening lines with which the narrator begins the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales. The imagery in this opening passage is of spring's renewal and rebirth. April's sweet showers have penetrated the dry earth of March, hydrating the roots, which in turn coax flowers out of the ground. The constellation Taurus is in the sky; Zephyr, the warm, gentle west wind, has breathed life into the fields; and the birds chirp merrily. The verbs used to describe Nature's actions—piercing (2), engendering (4), inspiring (5), and pricking (11)—conjure up images of conception.
HERE
English poetry masters: Geoffrey Chaucer
Telegraph.co.uk's week-long series celebrating the great poets of the English canon. Sam Leith begins with the 14th-century poet, Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400): Almost certainly the best poet ever to have served as a customs officer, Geoffrey Chaucer is the fountainhead of modern English verse.
It is no accident that The Waste Land, T S Eliot's survey of a botched civilisation, opened with a sour allusion to the opening lines of the General Prologue To The Canterbury Tales.
By writing in the English vernacular and moving from alliterative to metrical arrangements of sound, his work was the incubator for modern English prosody.
It contains multitudes - by turns ribald, courtly, devotional, philosophical, scholarly and merrily vulgar - and speaks to the modern reader, once the surface unfamiliarity of his language is overcome, in a living voice.
Here's the first appearance in the General Prologue of his Wife of Bath, a well-travelled and five-times-married provincial burgher with a loud mouth, a big hat, and a strong sense, even amid her religious observances, of her place in the pecking order.
A good wif was ther of biside Bathe,
But she was somdel deef, and that was scathe.
Of clooth-makyng she hadde swich an haunt
She passed hem of Ypres and of Gaunt.
In al the parisshe wif ne was ther noon
That to the offrynge bifore hire sholde goon;
And if ther dide, certeyn so wrooth was she
That she was out of alle charitee.
Hir coverchiefs ful fyne weren of ground;
I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound
That on a Sonday weren upon hir heed.
Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed,
Ful streite yteyd, and shoes ful moyste and newe.
Boold was hir face, and fair, and reed of hewe.
She was a worthy womman al hir lyve:
Housbondes at chirche dore she hadde fyve,
Withouten oother compaignye in youthe --
But thereof nedeth nat to speke as nowthe.
And thries hadde she been at Jerusalem;
She hadde passed many a straunge strem;
At Rome she hadde been, and at Boloigne,
In Galice at Seint-Jame, and at Coloigne.
She koude muchel of wandrynge by the weye.
Gat-tothed was she, soothly for to seye.
Upon an amblere esily she sat,
Ywympled wel, and on hir heed an hat
As brood as is a bokeler or a targe;
A foot-mantel aboute hir hipes large,
And on hir feet a paire of spores sharpe.
In felaweshipe wel koude she laughe and carpe.
Of remedies of love she knew per chaunce,
For she koude of that art the olde daunce.
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Geoffrey Chaucer: image HERE
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