The Man of Law’s Tale: Prologue

Our Hoste saw well that the brighte sunTh’ arc of his artificial day had runThe fourthe part, and half an houre more;And, though he were not deep expert in lore,He wist it was the eight-and-twenty dayOf April, that is messenger to May;And saw well that the shadow of every treeWas in its length of the same quantityThat was the body erect that caused it;And therefore by the shadow he took his wit,That Phoebus, which that shone so clear and bright,Degrees was five-and-forty clomb on height;And for that day, as in that latitude,It was ten of the clock, he gan conclude;And suddenly he plight his horse about.

“Lordings,” quoth he, “I warn you all this rout,The fourthe partie of this day is gone.Now for the love of God and of Saint JohnLose no time, as farforth as ye may.Lordings, the time wasteth night and day,And steals from us, what privily sleeping,And what through negligence in our waking,As doth the stream, that turneth never again,Descending from the mountain to the plain.Well might Senec, and many a philosopher,Bewaile time more than gold in coffer.For loss of chattels may recover’d be,But loss of time shendeth us, quoth he.

It will not come again, withoute dread,No more than will Malkin’s maidenhead,When she hath lost it in her wantonness.Let us not moulde thus in idleness.“Sir Man of Law,” quoth he, “so have ye bliss,Tell us a tale anon, as forword is.Ye be submitted through your free assentTo stand in this case at my judgement.Acquit you now, and holde your behest;Then have ye done your devoir at the least.”“Hoste,” quoth he, “de par dieux jeo asente;To breake forword is not mine intent.Behest is debt, and I would hold it fain,All my behest; I can no better sayn.For such law as a man gives another wight,He should himselfe usen it by right.Thus will our text: but natheless certainI can right now no thrifty tale sayn,But Chaucer (though he can but lewedlyOn metres and on rhyming craftily)Hath said them, in such English as he can,Of olde time, as knoweth many a man.And if he have not said them, leve brother,In one book, he hath said them in anotherFor he hath told of lovers up and down,More than Ovide made of mentiounIn his Epistolae, that be full old.Why should I telle them, since they he told?In youth he made of Ceyx and Alcyon,And since then he hath spoke of every oneThese noble wives, and these lovers eke.Whoso that will his large volume seekCalled the Saintes’ Legend of Cupid:There may he see the large woundes wideOf Lucrece, and of Babylon Thisbe;The sword of Dido for the false Enee;The tree of Phillis for her Demophon;The plaint of Diane, and of Hermion,Of Ariadne, and Hypsipile;The barren isle standing in the sea;The drown’d Leander for his fair Hero;The teares of Helene, and eke the woeOf Briseis, and Laodamia;The cruelty of thee, Queen Medea,Thy little children hanging by the halse,For thy Jason, that was of love so false.Hypermnestra, Penelop’, Alcest’,Your wifehood he commendeth with the best.But certainly no worde writeth heOf thilke wick’ example of Canace,That loved her own brother sinfully;(Of all such cursed stories I say, Fy),Or else of Tyrius Apollonius,How that the cursed king AntiochusBereft his daughter of her maidenhead;That is so horrible a tale to read,When he her threw upon the pavement.And therefore he, of full avisement,Would never write in none of his sermonsOf such unkind abominations;Nor I will none rehearse, if that I may.But of my tale how shall I do this day?Me were loth to be liken’d doubtelessTo Muses, that men call Pierides(Metamorphoseos wot what I mean),But natheless I recke not a bean,Though I come after him with hawebake;I speak in prose, and let him rhymes make.”And with that word, he with a sober cheerBegan his tale, and said as ye shall hear.

De par dieux jeo asente: “by God, I agree”. It ischaracteristic that the somewhat pompous Sergeant of Lawshould couch his assent in the semi-barbarous French, thenfamiliar in law procedure.

The Saintes Legend of Cupid: Now called “The Legend ofGood Women”. The names of eight ladies mentioned here arenot in the “Legend” as it has come down to us; while those oftwo ladies in the “legend” — Cleopatra and Philomela — are heromitted.