Geoffrey Chaucer

"Many a smale maketh a grate."

"So was hir jolly whistel wel y-wette."

"Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed."

"One of those rare authors whom, if we had met him under a porch in a shower, we should have preferred to the rain."

"One... characteristic of medieval space must be noted: space and time form two relatively independent systems. First: the medieval artist introduced other times within his own spatial world, as when he projected the events of Christ's life within a contemporary Italian city, without the slightest feeling that the passage of time has made a difference, just as in Chaucer the classical legend of Troilus and Cressida is related as if it were a contemporary story. When a medieval chronicler mentions the King... it is sometimes difficult to find out whether he is talking about Caeser or Alexander the Great or his own monarch: each is equally near to him. ...the word anachronism is meaningless when applied to medieval art... in Botticelli's The Three Miracles of St. Zenobius, three different times are presented upon a single stage."

"I read Chaucer still with as much pleasure as almost any of our poets. He is a master of manners, of description, and the first tale-teller in the true enlivened natural way."

"Dan Geffrey, in whose gentle spright The pure well-head of poetry did dwell."

"The morning star of song, who made His music heard below; Dan Chaucer, the first warbler, whose sweet breath Preluded those melodious bursts that fill The spacious times of great Elizabeth With sounds that echo still."

"It is pretty generally admitted that Geoffrey Chaucer, the eminent poet of the fourteenth century, though obsessed with an almost Rooseveltian passion for the new spelling, was there with the goods when it came to profundity of thought."

"For I am shave as nye as any frere. But yit I pray un-to youre curtesye: Beth hevy ageyn, or elles mot I die."

"Hard is his herte that loveth nought In May."

"Your yën two wol slee me sodenly, I may the beautè of hem not sustene, So woundeth hit through-out my herte kene."

"Sin I fro Love escaped am so fat, I never thenk to ben in his prison lene; Sin I am free, I counte him not a bene."

"Madame, ye ben of al beautè shryne As fer as cercled is the mappemounde; For as the cristal glorious ye shyne, And lyke ruby ben your chekes rounde."

"Therwith ye ben so mery and so jocounde, That at a revel whan that I see you daunce, It is an oynement unto my wounde, Thogh ye to me ne do no daliaunce."

"Flee fro the prees, and dwelle with sothfastnesse, Suffyce unto thy good, though hit be smal; For hord hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse, Prees hath envye, and wele blent overal."

"Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal! Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al; Hold the hye wey, and lat thy gost thee lede: And trouthe shal delivere, hit is no drede."

"The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne, Th' assay so hard, so sharp the conquering, The dredful joy, that alwey slit so yerne, Al this mene I by love."

"For out of olde feldes, as men seith, Cometh al this newe corn fro yeer to yere; And out of olde bokes, in good feith, Cometh al this newe science that men lere."

"Nature, the vicar of th' Almightie Lorde."

"Now welcom somer, with thy sonne softe, That hast this wintres weders over-shake, And driven awey the longe nightes blake!"

"A thousand tymes have I herd men telle, That ther is joye in heven, and peyne in helle; And I acorde wel that hit is so; But natheles, yit wot I wel also, That ther nis noon dwelling in this contree, That either hath in heven or helle y-be, Ne may of hit non other weyes witen, But as he hath herd seyd, or founde hit writen; For by assay ther may no man hit preve. But god forbede but men shulde leve Wel more thing then men han seen with yë! Men shal nat wenen every-thing a lyë But-if him-self hit seeth, or elles dooth; For, god wot, thing is never the lasse sooth, Thogh every wight ne may hit nat y-see. Bernard the monk ne saugh nat al, parde!"

"And if that olde bokes were a-weye, Y-loren were of remembraunce the keye."

"And as for me, thogh that I can but lyte, On bokes for to rede I me delyte, And to hem yeve I feyth and ful credence, And in myn herte have hem in reverence So hertely, that ther is game noon That fro my bokes maketh me to goon, But hit be seldom, on the holyday; Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May Is comen, and that I here the foules singe, And that the floures ginnen for to springe, Farwel my book and my devocioun!"

"Of all the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche that men callen daysies in our toun."

"That wel by reson men hit calle may The 'dayesye' or elles the 'ye of day,' The emperice and flour of floures alle."

"My lady cometh, that al this may disteyne."

"And she was fair as is the rose in May."

"Your duty is, as ferre as I can gesse."

"O little booke, thou art so unconning, How darst thou put thy-self in prees for drede?"

"For iii may keep a counsel if twain be away."

"Chaucer, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on him, I think obscene and contemptible;—he owes his celebrity, merely to his antiquity, which he does not deserve so well as Pierce Plowman, or Thomas of Ercildoune."

"The worshipful father and first founder and embellisher of ornate eloquence in our English."

"Chaucer was one of the most original men who ever lived. There had never been anything like the lively realism of the ride to Canterbury done or dreamed of in our literature before. He is not only the father of all our poets, but the grandfather of all our hundred million novelists."

"As he is the Father of English Poetry, so I hold him in the same Degree of Veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil: He is a perpetual Fountain of good Sense; learn'd in all Sciences; and, therefore speaks properly on all Subjects: As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a Continence which is practis'd by few Writers, and scarcely by any of the Ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. ... Chaucer follow'd Nature every where, but was never so bold to go beyond her."

"'Tis sufficient to say according to the Proverb, that here is God's Plenty."

"That noble Chaucer, in those former times, The first enriched our English with his rhymes, And was the first of ours that ever broke Into the Muses' treasures, and first spoke In weighty numbers, delving in the mine Of perfect knowledge."

"He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote The Canterbury Tales, and his old age Made beautiful with song; and as I read I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note Of lark and linnet, and from every page Rise odors of ploughed field or flowery mead."

"Ful craftier to pley she was Than Athalus, that made the game First of the ches: so was his name."

"Soun is noght but air y-broken, And every speche that is spoken, Loud or privee, foul or fair, In his substaunce is but air; For as flaumbe is but lighted smoke, Right so soun is air y-broke."

"Now purs, that be to me my lyves light, And saveour, as doun in this worlde here, Out of this toune help me through your might."

"Mulier est hominis confusio."

"Das Leben so kurz, das Handwerk so lang zu lernen."

"Let sleeping dogs lie."