'The
Tabard' section from 'The Prologue' of Geoffrey Chaucer's
The Canterbury Tales
Text
taken from the Electronic
Text Center, University of Virginia Library
The General Prologue
1:
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
2:
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
3:
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
4:
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5:
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
6:
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7:
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8:
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
9: And smale foweles maken melodye,
10:
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
11:
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
12:
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
13:
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
14:
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15:
And specially from every shires ende
16:
Of engelond to caunterbury they wende,
17:
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
18:
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
19:
Bifil that in that seson on a day,
20:
In southwerk at the tabard as I lay
21:
Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage
22:
To caunterbury with ful devout corage,
23:
At nyght was come into that hostelrye
24:
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye,
25:
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
26:
In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle,
27:
That toward caunterbury wolden ryde.
28:
The chambres and the stables weren wyde,
29:
And wel we weren esed atte beste.
30:
And shortly, whan the sonne was to reste,
31:
So hadde I spoken with hem everichon
32:
That I was of hir felaweshipe anon,
33:
And made forward erly for to ryse,
34:
To take oure wey ther as I yow devyse.
35:
But nathelees, whil I have tyme and space,
36:
Er that I ferther in this tale pace,
37:
Me thynketh it acordaunt to resoun
38:
To telle yow al the condicioun
39:
Of ech of hem, so as it semed me,
40:
And whiche they weren, and of what degree,
41:
And eek in what array that they were inne;
42:
And at a knyght than wol I first bigynne.
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