12th Grade Recommended Reading List: "The Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Wife of Bath's Tale

But no one now sees fairies any more.
For now the saintly charity and prayer
Of holy friars seem to have purged the air

Wherever there was wont to walk an elf
To-day there walks the holy friar himself

Women can now go safely up and down
By every bush or under every tree;
There is no other incubus but he,
So there is really no one else to hurt you

This act of violence made such a stir,
So much petitioning to the king for her,
That he condemned the knight to lose his head
By course of law. He was as good as dead
(It seems that then the statutes took that view)

But that the queen, and other ladies too,
Implored the king to exercise his grace
So ceaselessly, he gave the queen the case
And granted her his life, and she could choose
Whether to show him mercy or refuse.

If you can’t answer on the moment, though,
I will concede you this: you are to go
A twelvemonth and a day to seek and learn
Sufficient answer, then you shall return.

some that what most mattered
Was that we should be cosseted and flattered.

As he rode home in a dejected mood
Suddenly, at the margin of a wood,
He saw a dance upon the leafy floor
Of four and twenty ladies, nay, and more.

And then she crooned her gospel in his ear
And told him to be glad and not to fear.

There sat the noble matrons and the heady
Young girls, and widows too, that have the grace
Of wisdom, all assembled in that place,
And there the queen herself was throned to hear
And judge his answer.

‘My liege and lady, in general,’ said he,
‘A woman wants the self-same sovereignty
Over her husband as over her lover,
And master him; he must not be above her.
That is your greatest wish, whether you kill
Or spare me; please yourself. I wait your will.’

Are these the laws of good King Arthur’s house?
Are knights of his all so contemptuous?

You’re old, and so abominably plain,
So poor to start with, so low-bred to follow;
It’s little wonder if I twist and wallow!

Christ wills we take our gentleness from Him,
Not from a wealth of ancestry long dim,
Though they bequeath their whole establishment
By which we claim to be of high descent.

Seldom arises by these slender branches
Prowess of men, for it is God, no less,
Wills us to claim of Him our gentleness.

For of our parents nothing can we claim
Save temporal things, and these may hurt and maim.

For if gentility were implanted by
The natural course of lineage down the line,
Public or private, could it cease to shine
In doing the fair work of gentle deed?

If you would be esteemed for the mere name
Of having been by birth a gentleman
And stemming from some virtuous, noble clan,
And do not live yourself by gentle deed
Or take your father’s noble code and creed,
You are no gentleman, though duke or earl

Gentility must come from God alone.
That we are gentle comes to us by grace
And by no means is it bequeathed with place.

But truly poor are they who whine and fret
And covet what they cannot hope to get.
And he that, having nothing, covets not,
Is rich, though you may think he is a sot.

Though it be hateful, poverty is good,
A great incentive to a livelihood,
And a great help to our capacity
For wisdom, if accepted patiently.

Poverty is, though wanting in estate,
A kind of wealth that none calumniate.

Nevertheless, well knowing your delights,
I shall fulfil your worldly appetites.

You make the choice yourself, for the provision
Of what may be agreeable and rich
In honour to us both, I don’t care which;
Whatever pleases you suffices me.

In ecstasy he caught her in his arms,
His heart went bathing in a bath of blisses
And melted in a hundred thousand kisses