The Canterbury Tales [295]
the foe of Love; and then, having sung him one of her new songs, she flies away to all the other birds that are in that dale, assembles them, and demands that they should do her right upon the Cuckoo. By one assent it is agreed that a parliament shall be held, "the morrow after Saint Valentine's Day," under a maple before the window of Queen Philippa at Woodstock, when judgment shall be passed upon the Cuckoo; then the Nightingale flies into a hawthorn, and sings a lay of love so loud that the poet awakes. The five-line stanza, of which the first, second, and fifth lines agree in one rhyme, the third and fourth in another, is peculiar to this poem; and while the prevailing measure is the decasyllabic line used in the "Canterbury Tales," many of the lines have one or two syllables less. The poem is given here without abridgement.] (Transcriber's note: Modern scholars believe that Chaucer was not the author of this poem)
THE God of Love, ah! benedicite, How mighty and how great a lord is he! <1> For he can make of lowe heartes high, And of high low, and like for to die, And harde heartes he can make free.
He can make, within a little stound,* *moment Of sicke folke whole, and fresh, and sound, And of the whole he can make sick; He can bind, and unbinden eke, What he will have bounden or unbound.
To tell his might my wit may not suffice; For he can make of wise folk full nice,* -- *foolish For he may do all that he will devise, -- And lither* folke to destroye vice, *idle, vicious And proude heartes he can make agrise.* *tremble
Shortly, all that ever he will he may; Against him dare no wight say nay; For he can glad and grieve *whom him liketh.* *whom he pleases* And who that he will, he laugheth or siketh,* *sigheth And most his might he sheddeth ever in May.
For every true gentle hearte free, That with him is, or thinketh for to be, Against May now shall have some stirring,* *impulse Either to joy, or else to some mourning, In no season so much, as thinketh me.
For when that they may hear the birdes sing, And see the flowers and the leaves spring, That bringeth into hearte's remembrance A manner ease, *medled with grievance,* *mingled with sorrow* And lusty thoughtes full of great longing.
And of that longing cometh heaviness, And thereof groweth greate sickeness, And <2> for the lack of that that they desire: And thus in May be heartes set on fire, So that they brennen* forth in great distress. *burn
I speake this of feeling truely; If I be old and unlusty, Yet I have felt the sickness thorough May *Both hot and cold, an access ev'ry day,* *every day a hot and a How sore, y-wis, there wot no wight but I. cold fit*
I am so shaken with the fevers white, Of all this May sleep I but lite;* *little And also it is not like* unto me *pleasing That any hearte shoulde sleepy be, In whom that Love his fiery dart will smite,
But as I lay this other night waking, I thought how lovers had a tokening,* *significance And among them it was a common tale, That it were good to hear the nightingale Rather than the lewd cuckoo sing.
And then I thought, anon* it was day, *whenever I would go somewhere to assay If that I might a nightingale hear; For yet had I none heard of all that year, And it was then the thirde night of May.
And anon as I the day espied, No longer would I in my bed abide; But to a wood that was fast by, I went forth alone boldely, And held the way down by a brooke's side,
Till I came to a laund* of white and green, *lawn So fair a one had I never in been; The ground was green, *y-powder'd with daisy,* *strewn with daisies* The flowers and the *greves like high,* *bushes of the same height* All green and white; was nothing elles seen.
There sat I
THE God of Love, ah! benedicite, How mighty and how great a lord is he! <1> For he can make of lowe heartes high, And of high low, and like for to die, And harde heartes he can make free.
He can make, within a little stound,* *moment Of sicke folke whole, and fresh, and sound, And of the whole he can make sick; He can bind, and unbinden eke, What he will have bounden or unbound.
To tell his might my wit may not suffice; For he can make of wise folk full nice,* -- *foolish For he may do all that he will devise, -- And lither* folke to destroye vice, *idle, vicious And proude heartes he can make agrise.* *tremble
Shortly, all that ever he will he may; Against him dare no wight say nay; For he can glad and grieve *whom him liketh.* *whom he pleases* And who that he will, he laugheth or siketh,* *sigheth And most his might he sheddeth ever in May.
For every true gentle hearte free, That with him is, or thinketh for to be, Against May now shall have some stirring,* *impulse Either to joy, or else to some mourning, In no season so much, as thinketh me.
For when that they may hear the birdes sing, And see the flowers and the leaves spring, That bringeth into hearte's remembrance A manner ease, *medled with grievance,* *mingled with sorrow* And lusty thoughtes full of great longing.
And of that longing cometh heaviness, And thereof groweth greate sickeness, And <2> for the lack of that that they desire: And thus in May be heartes set on fire, So that they brennen* forth in great distress. *burn
I speake this of feeling truely; If I be old and unlusty, Yet I have felt the sickness thorough May *Both hot and cold, an access ev'ry day,* *every day a hot and a How sore, y-wis, there wot no wight but I. cold fit*
I am so shaken with the fevers white, Of all this May sleep I but lite;* *little And also it is not like* unto me *pleasing That any hearte shoulde sleepy be, In whom that Love his fiery dart will smite,
But as I lay this other night waking, I thought how lovers had a tokening,* *significance And among them it was a common tale, That it were good to hear the nightingale Rather than the lewd cuckoo sing.
And then I thought, anon* it was day, *whenever I would go somewhere to assay If that I might a nightingale hear; For yet had I none heard of all that year, And it was then the thirde night of May.
And anon as I the day espied, No longer would I in my bed abide; But to a wood that was fast by, I went forth alone boldely, And held the way down by a brooke's side,
Till I came to a laund* of white and green, *lawn So fair a one had I never in been; The ground was green, *y-powder'd with daisy,* *strewn with daisies* The flowers and the *greves like high,* *bushes of the same height* All green and white; was nothing elles seen.
There sat I