C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
From ‘The Canterbury Pilgrims’
By Percy MacKaye (1875–1956)
K
And go to pay my vows at Canterbury.
This is my son.
Chaucer—Go you to Canterbury
As well, Sir Squire?
Accosts thee!
Squire—Noble gentleman—Ah me!
Chaucer[follows him]—My dearest heart and best beloved foe,
Why liketh you to do me all this woe?
What have I done that grieveth you, or said,
Save that I love and serve you, high and low?
And whilst I live I will do ever so.
Wherefore, my sweet, do not that I be dead;
For good and fair and gentle as ye be,
It were great wonder if but that ye had
A thousand thousand servants, good and bad:
The most unworthiest servant—I am he!
Squire—Sir, by my lady’s grace, you are a poet
And lover, like myself. We shall be brothers.
But pardon, sir, those verses are not yours.
Dan Chaucer wrote them. Ah, sir, know you Chaucer?
Chaucer—Twelve stone of him!
Squire—Would I did! Is he not
An amorous divinity? Looks he
Like pale Leander, or some ancient god?
Chaucer—Sooth, he is like old Bacchus round the middle.
Squire—How acts he when in love? What feathers wears he?
Doth he sigh oft? What lady doth he serve?
Oh!
Miller[to Franklin]—Ten gallon ale? God’s arms! I take thee.
Man of Law—What’s
The wager?
Franklin—Yonder door; this miller here
Shall break it, at a running, with his head.
The door is oak. The stakes ten gallon ale.
Shipman—Ho, then, I bet the miller shall be drunk.
Merchant—What bet?
Shipman—Twelve crown upon the miller.
Merchant—Done.
Host—Welcome, my lady dear. Vouchsafe to enter
Poor Harry Bailey’s inn.
Progress—Merci.
Host[to a serving-boy]—Knave, show
My lady Prioress to the blue chamber
Where His Majesty, King Richard, slept.
Prioress—Joannes,
Mark, Paulus, stay! have you the little hound
Safe?
Joannes—Yes, my lady.
Prioress—Carry him before,
But carefully.
Miller[to Yeoman]—Here, nut-head, hold my hood.
Yeoman—Wilt try bareheaded?
Friar—’Mass!
Franklin—Ho, for a skull!
Miller, thou art as tough a knot as e’er
The Devil tied. By God, mine ale is spilled.
Ploughman—The door is locked.
Joannes—But, sir, the Prioress—
Shipman—Heigh! Clear the decks!
Parson—Run, Robin.
Guild-Men[rise from their dice]—Ho!
Miller—A twenty devils!
Guild-Men[all but the Weaver, clambering over the table]—Come on!
Ploughman[to the Miller]—What aileth thee?
Miller—The priest hath bit my hand.
Joannes—Sweet sir, the puppy—
It was the puppy, sir.
Miller—Wring me its neck.
Prioress—Alas, Joannes—help!
Miller—By Corpus bones!
Give me the cur.
Prioress—St. Loy! Will no one help?
Chaucer—Madame, what may I do?
Prioress—My little hound—
The churl—My little hound! The churl will hurt it.
If you would fetch to me my little hound—
Chaucer—Madame, I’d fetch you Cerberus from hell.
Miller—Lo, masters! See a dog’s neck-wrung!
Chaucer[breaking through the crowd, seizes the Miller by the throat]—Which dog’s?
Miller—Leave go!—’Sdeath! Take the whelp, a devil’s name.
Chaucer—Kneel! Ask grace of this lady here.
Miller[sullenly]—What lady?
Chaucer—Of her whom gentles call St. Charity
In every place and time.—
This lady bears, I have not yet been honored
With knowing.—Kneel!
Miller[morosely; kneels]—Lady, I axe your pardon.
Chaucer—Madame, your little hound is safe.
Prioress[nestles the little hound with tender effusiveness; then turns shyly to Chaucer]—Merci!
My name is Madame Eglantine.
Yon beastie’s quaking side thumped not as thine
Thumps now. And wilt thou ape a little hound?
Ah, Madame Eglantine, unless ye be
To me, as well as him, St. Charity!
Franklin—Who is the man?
Miller—The Devil, by his eye.
They say King Richard hath to court a wrastler
Can grip ten men. I guess that he be him.
Cook—Ho! milksop of a miller!
Miller[seizing him]—Say it twice;
What?
Cook—Nay, thou art a bull at bucking doors.
Franklin—Let ribs be hoops for twenty gallon ale
And stop your wind-bags. Come.
Miller[with a grin, follows the Franklin]—By Corpus bones!
Shipman—Twelve crown.
Merchant—Twelve, say you? See my man of law.
Weaver[springs to his feet]—The throw is mine!
Dyer—A lie! When we were away
You changed the dice!
Weaver—My throw was cinq and three.
Dyer—A lie! Have it in your gullet!
Tapicer—Back!
Host—Harrow! Dick Weaver, hold! Fie, Master Dyer,
Here’s not a dyeing stablishment; we want
No crimson cloth—Clap hands now: Knave, more ale.
Chaucer[to the Doctor]—If then, as by hypothesis, this cook
Hath broke his nose, it follows first that we
Must calculate the ascendent of his image.
Doctor—Precisely! Pray proceed. I am fortunate
To have met a fellow-doctor at this inn.
Chaucer—Next, treating him by magic natural,
Provide him well with old authorities,
As Esculapius, Diescorides,
Damascien, Constantinus, Averrois,
Hippocrates, Serapion, Razis,
Bernardus, Galienus, Gilbertinus—
Doctor—But, sir, the fellow cannot read—
Chaucer—Why, true;
Then there remains but one sure remedy,
Thus: bid him, fasting, when the moon is wane,
And Venus rises in the house of Pisces,
To rub it nine times with a herring’s tail.
Doctor—Yea, Pisces is a fish.—I thank you, sir.
Host[to the Reeve, who enters]—God save thee, Osewold! What’s o’clock? Thou looks’t
As puckered as a pear at Candlemas.
Reeve—There be too many fold i’ the world; and none
Is ripe till he be rotten.
Squire—My lord, father!
Knight—Well, son?
Squire[looking at Chaucer]—Sir, saw you ever
So knightly, sweet, and sovereign a man,
With eyes so glad and shrewdly innocent?
O, when I laid my hand in his, and looked
Into his eyes, meseemed I rode on horse
Into the April open fields, and heard
The larks upsinging in the sun. Sir, have
You guessed who ’tis?
Knight—To judge him by his speech,
Some valiant officer.
Squire—Nay, I have guessed.