But it were any persone obstinat, He taught, but first he folwed it himselve. To obviate the difficulties arising from this source, various attempts have been made to translate Chaucer into modern English. The portions modernized by Pope and Dryden are indeed splendid pieces of composition, worthy of the distinguished fame of their authors, but cannot be looked upon as the poems of Chaucer; not only the diction being wholly original, but in many instances the ideas being new. Several similar essays by inferior hands are still more objectionable. The most successful attempt to modernize Chaucer is that made by Wordsworth, Leigh Hunt, R. H. Horne, and others, in 1841. In this work, the spelling is modernized almost entirely, and a few of the obsolete words are replaced by others of kindred meaning now in use. Such. other changes are also made in the verse as are rendered necessary by those just named, in order, under the new spelling, to maintain the metre and the rhyme. In this work we have, not imitations of Chaucer, nor even translations, but Chaucer himself, modernized indeed so far as to be intelligible to the common reader, but still retaining all his venerable simplicity, all his exquisite touches of nature, all his quiet humour, all his sweetness, truth, and unaffected pathos The specimens given in the present compilation are from the edition just described. They comprise the most of the Prologue to the Tales, and contain a pleasing and instructive picture of the state of manners aniong our ancestors five hundred vears ago. PROLOGUE TO THE CANTERBURY TALES. WHEN that sweet April showers with downward shoot That folks are bent to go on pilgrimages, And palmers for to wander thro' strange strands To sing the holy mass in sundry lands: Of England, they to Canterbury wend, The holy blissful martyr for to seek, Who hath upheld them when that they were weak. In Southwark, at the Tabard as I lay, Ready to wend upon my pilgrim route And shortly when the sun was gone to rest, And made them promise early for to rise Of each of them, so as it seem'd to me; And which they were of what kind, and degree; And eke in what array that they were in: And at a knight, then, will I first begin. A KNIGHT there was, and that a worthy man, At Alexandria was he when 't was won. Had join'd the siege; and ridden in Belmarie: At Layas was he, and at Satalie When they were won; and, borne on the Great Sea, At many a noble fight of ships was he. In mortal battles had he been fifteen, But for to tell you of his staid array,— All smutch'd with rust from coat of mail, and rain. For he was late return'd; and he was sage, And cared for nought but his good pilgrimage. His son, a young SQUIRE, with him there I saw ; A lover and a lusty bachelor; With locks crisp curl'd, as they'd been laid in press: Of twenty years of age he was, I guess. He was in stature of the common length, With wondrous nimbleness, and great of strength: In Flanders, Artois, and in Picardy; And borne him well, tho' in so little space, All crowded with fresh flowers, white and red. He was as fresh as is the month of May. Short was his gown, with sleeves right long and wide; Well could he sit his horse, and fairly ride. He could make songs, and letters well endite, Joust and eke dance, and portraits paint, and write. His amorous ditties nightly fill'd the vale; He slept no more than doth the nightingale. A YEOMAN had he; and no page beside: And by his side a buckler and a sword; Well sheathed was hung, and on his breast he bare |