Welcome To Spring

Chaucer's Canterbury Tales has always been one of my favorite pieces of literature both in the original Middle English and modern translations.  The language can be intimidating to students who have to slog a bit to understand the jokes, puns, ribald tales, and heartfelt depiction of human beings in all their flaws.  Here is a teacher showing how to make learning fun enough that studying seems like it might be a good idea.

The Prologue Rap by Dr. Enelow



The Prologue

Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
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
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages

Modern English

When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage

Ram's Course Half Run

It is April Fool's Day and thus commences my annual foolish thing to do by reading the perfect poem for the season followed by the ongoing foolish attempt to read the whole thing in the original language by going back and forth between Middle English and the modern version of same. After decades, I'm getting pretty good as the memory slowly absorbes another way of saying the same beautiful, sad, wise, or funny thing in The Canterbury Tales

If you have never read Chaucer's Canterbury Tales or if you would like to try this same side by side reading and don't have your own copy, you can do it tale by tale here, but just to keep it simple here is the prologue and introduction to the Knight's Tale.

Here Begins the Book of The Tales of Canterbury

When in April the sweet showers fall
That pierce March's drought to the root and all
And bathed every vein in liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has with his sweet breath,
Filled again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and leaves, and the young sun
His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)
Then folk do long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in distant lands.
And specially from every shire's end
Of England they to Canterbury went,
The holy blessed martyr there to seek
Who helped them when they lay so ill and weak

It happened that, in that season, on a day
In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I lay
Ready to go on pilgrimage and start
To Canterbury, full devout at heart,
There came at nightfall to that hostelry
Some nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry persons who had chanced to fall
In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all
That toward Canterbury town would ride.
The rooms and stables spacious were and wide,
And well we there were eased, and of the best.
And briefly, when the sun had gone to rest,
So had I spoken with them, every one,
That I was of their fellowship anon,
And made agreement that we'd early rise
To take the road, as I will to you apprise.

But none the less, whilst I have time and space,
Before yet further in this tale I pace,
It seems to me in accord with reason
To describe to you the state of every one
Of each of them, as it appeared to me,
And who they were, and what was their degree,
And even what clothes they were dressed in;
And with a knight thus will I first begin.

Canterbury Cathedral

Geoffrey Chaucer