Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer (2 of 115)

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THE COURT OF LOVE. (CONT'D)

The poem consists of 206 stanzas of seven lines each; of which,
in this edition, eighty-three are represented by a prose
abridgement.

With timorous heart, and trembling hand of dread,
Of cunning naked, bare of eloquence, skill
Unto the flow'r of port in womanhead one who is the perfection
I write, as he that none intelligence of womanly behaviour
Of metres hath, <1> nor flowers of sentence,
Save that me list my writing to convey,
In that I can, to please her high nobley. nobleness

The blossoms fresh of Tullius' garden swoot Cicero sweet
Present they not, my matter for to born: <2> burnish, polish
Poems of Virgil take here no root,
Nor craft of Galfrid <3> may not here sojourn;
Why n'am I cunning? O well may I mourn, am I not
For lack of science, that I cannot write
Unto the princess of my life aright!

No terms are dign unto her excellence, worthy
So is she sprung of noble stirp and high; stock <4>
A world of honour and of reverence
There is in her, this will I testify.
Calliope, <5> thou sister wise and sly, skilful
And thou, Minerva, guide me with thy grace,
That language rude my matter not deface!

Thy sugar droppes sweet of Helicon
Distil in me, thou gentle Muse, I pray;
And thee, Melpomene, <6> I call anon
Of ignorance the mist to chase away;
And give me grace so for to write and say,
That she, my lady, of her worthiness,
Accept in gree this little short treatess, with favour treatise

That is entitled thus, The Court of Love.
And ye that be metricians, me excuse, skilled versifiers
I you beseech, for Venus' sake above;
For what I mean in this ye need not muse:
And if so be my lady it refuse
For lack of ornate speech, I would be woe
That I presume to her to write so.

But my intent, and all my busy cure, care
Is for to write this treatise, as I can,
Unto my lady, stable, true, and sure,
Faithful and kind, since first that she began
Me to accept in service as her man;
To her be all the pleasure of this book,
That, when her like, she may it read and look. it pleases her

When [he] was young, at eighteen year of age,
Lusty and light, desirous of pleasance,
Approaching full sad and ripe corage,<7> gradually attaining

Then -- says the poet -- did Love urge him to do
him obeisance, and to go "the Court of Love to
see, a lite [little] beside the Mount of Citharee."
<8> Mercury bade him, on pain of death, to
appear; and he went by strange and far countries
in search of the Court. Seeing at last a crowd of
people, "as bees," making their way thither, the
poet asked whither they went; and "one that
answer'd like a maid" said that they were bound to
the Court of Love, at Citheron, where "the King
of Love, and all his noble rout [company],

"Dwelleth within a castle royally."
So them apace I journey'd forth among,
And as he said, so found I there truly;
For I beheld the town -- so high and strong,
And high pinnacles, large of height and long,
With plate of gold bespread on ev'ry side,
And precious stones, the stone work for to hide.

No sapphire of Ind, no ruby rich of price,
There lacked then, nor emerald so green,
Balais, Turkeis, <9> nor thing, to my devise, in my judgement
That may the castle make for to sheen; be beautiful
All was as bright as stars in winter be'n;
And Phoebus shone, to make his peace again,
For trespass done to high estates twain, -- offence

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1. So the Man of Law, in the prologue to his Tale, is made to
say that Chaucer "can but lewedly (ignorantly or imperfectly) on
metres and on rhyming craftily." But the humility of those
apologies is not justified by the care and finish of his earlier
poems.

2. Born: burnish, polish: the poet means, that his verses do not
display the eloquence or brilliancy of Cicero in setting forth his
subject-matter.

3. Galfrid: Geoffrey de Vinsauf to whose treatise on poetical
composition a less flattering allusion is made in The Nun's
Priest's Tale. See note 33 to that Tale.

4. Stirp: race, stock; Latin, "stirps."

5. Calliope is the epic muse -- "sister" to the other eight.

6. Melpomene was the tragic muse.

7. The same is said of Griselda, in The Clerk's Tale; though she
was of tender years, "yet in the breast of her virginity there was
inclos'd a sad and ripe corage"

8. The confusion which Chaucer makes between Cithaeron and
Cythera, has already been remarked. See note 41 to the
Knight's Tale.

9. Balais: Bastard rubies; said to be so called from Balassa, the
Asian country where they were found. Turkeis: turquoise
stones.

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