VII. From the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales

Modern English

Old English

Hwæt, ic swefna cyst secgan wylle,

hwæt me gemætte to midre nihte

siþþan reordberend reste wunedon.

þuhte me þæt ic gesawe syllicre treow

on lyft lædan leohte bewunden,

beama beorhtost. Eall þæt beacen wæs

begoten mid golde; gimmas stodon

fægere æt foldan sceatum,

swylce þær fife wæron

uppe on þæm eaxlegespanne.

Beheoldon þær engeldryhta fela

fægere þurh forþgesceaft;

ne wæs þær huru fracodes gealga,

ac hine þær beheoldon halige gastas,

men ofer moldan,

and eall þeos mære gesceaft.

Behold, I wish to tell the best of dreams

which I dreamt at the middle of the night,

after speakers remained in rest.

It seemed to me that I saw a wondrous tree

rise into [the] air surrounded by light,

brightest of trees. The entire symbol was

covered with gold; beautiful gems

stood on the earth's surface,

likewise there were five

up on the crossbeam.

Many angel hosts there looked on,

beautiful throughout creation;

nor was [it] there indeed a criminal's gallows,

but holy spirits looked on it there,

men above heaven

and all this glorious creation

The Canterbury Tales, from which texts (1) - (3) are all taken, was Chaucer’s last major work, undertaken largely in the last decade of the fourteenth century. Chaucer’s aim was to present a series of stories within a linking framework. Such a structure was fashionable among contemporaries; it is exemplified in English by John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, which was completed in its first form in 1390, and in Italian by Boccaccio in his Decameron. The chosen framework for Chaucer’s poem was that of a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket (martyred 1170) at Canterbury, perhaps the most important cult-centre in England during the later Middle Ages.

Text (1) is the opening of the complete cycle of tales: The General Prologue. The complex syntax, beginning with two lengthy Adverbial Clauses which themselves contain subordinate elements, reflects the complexity of the underlying thought, with its reference to medieval thinking on the processes of nature in relation to the grander workings of the universe. The opening is reminiscent of the opening of the dream-visions with which Chaucer began his poetic career (The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Parliament of Fowls); but in contrast to these texts the vision encountered is a real medieval event, a pilgrimage. A marginal glossary has been supplied. Glossed words are noted in the text.

Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote (1)

The droghte (2) of March hath perced (3) to the roote,

And bathed euery veyne (4) in swich licour (5)

Of which vertu engendred is the flour (6);

Whan Zephirus (7) eek with his sweete breeth

Inspired (8) hath in euery holt (9) and heeth

The tendre croppes (10), and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his half cours yronne (11),

And smale fowelesmaken melodye,

That slepen al the nyght with open eye (12)

(So priketh (13) hem nature in hir corages (14)),

Thanne longen (15) folk to goon on pilgrimages,

And palmeres (16) for to seken straunge strondes (17),

To ferne halwes(18), kowthe in sondry londes (19);

And specially from euery shires ende

Of Engelond to Caunterburythey wende,

The hooly blisful martir for to seke,

That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke (20).

1. sweet showers

2. drought;

3. pierced

4. vein; 5. such liquid

6. 'by which power the flower is engendered'

7. 'Zephyrus, the west wind of spring'

8. breathed life into; 9. grove

10. shoots

11. 'the young sun has run his half-course in the ram' (ie. the sign of Aries). Chaucer’s interest in astrology is well-attested, not least by his composition of a textbook on the subject for his son, A Treatise on the Astrolabe. The sun is “young” because the solar year has just begun with the spring equinox.

12. with open eye(s). This seems to have been an original observation by Chaucer. In the Riverside Chaucer it is noted that “one can rarely see a bird with its eyes closed, since most birds have two sets of eyelids, and that which they use for blinking is transparent.”;

13. incites; 14. spirits

15. long, desire

16. palmeres pilgrims to the holy land. Such pilgrims wre known as “palmers” because they carried a palm-branch as a sign that they had been to Palestine; 17. foreign shores

18. distant shrines

19. 'known in various lands'

20. sick

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