Today's classic is The Canterbury Tales (1400) by Geoffrey Chaucer.
Synopsis:
On a spring day in April--sometime in the waning years of the 14th century--29 travelers set out for Canterbury on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett. Among them is a knight, a monk, a prioress, a plowman, a miller, a merchant, a clerk, and an oft-widowed wife from Bath. Travel is arduous and wearing; to maintain their spirits, this band of pilgrims entertains each other with a series of tall tales that span the spectrum of literary genres. Five hundred years later, people are still reading Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. From the heroic romance of "The Knight's Tale" to the low farce embodied in the stories of the Miller, the Reeve, and the Merchant, Chaucer treated such universal subjects as love, sex, and death in poetry that is simultaneously witty, insightful, and poignant. The Canterbury Tales is a grand tour of 14th-century English mores and morals--one that modern-day readers will enjoy.Do you remember any of it? Here is a Modern English excerpt from "The Physician's Tale."
There was, as we're told by Titus Livius,
A knight once who was called Virginius,
A man of worth and honor through and through,
One strong in friends and with great riches too.
This knight begat a daughter by his wife
And had no other children all his life.
This maiden had such loveliness that she
Was fairer than all creatures men may see;
For Nature in her sovereign diligence
Had molded her with such great excellence
It was as if "Look here!" she would proclaim,
"I, Nature, form and paint just so, the same,
When I may choose. Who with me can compete?
Pygmalion? No, let him forge and beat,
Engrave or paint, for I will dare to say
Both Zeuxis and Apelles work away
In vain to sculpt and paint, to forge, create,
If me they would presume to imitate.
For He who's the Creator principal
Has made of me His vicar general,
To form and paint all creatures everywhere
As I desire, and all are in my care
Beneath the changing moon. And for my task
There's nothing as I work I need to ask,
My Lord and I are fully in accord.
I fashioned her in worship of my Lord,
And so I do with all my other creatures,
Whatever be their hue or other features."
So Nature would have spoken, I would gauge.
You can read the entire text of The Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English form online at Read Print. You can also read the Modern English translation here.
If you've read it, take a quiz to test your memory here.
Have you read The Canterbury Tales? Which tale is your favorite? The Knight's, the Cook's, the Wife of Bath's?
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