In April the sweet showers fall

And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all

The veins are bathed in liquor of such power

As brings about the engendering of the flower.

You each, to shorten the long journey,

Shall tell two tales en route to Canterbury,

And, coming homeward, another two,

Stories of things that happened long ago.

Whoever best acquits himself, and tells

The most amusing and instructive tale,

Shall have a dinner, paid by us all,

Here in this roof, and under this roof-tree,

When we come back again from Canterbury.

Gold stimulates the heart, or so we're told.

He therefore had a special love of gold.

For God's love, take things patiently, have sense,

Think! We are prisoners and shall always be.

Fortune has given us this adversity,

Some wicked planetary dispensation,

Some Saturn's trick or evil constellation

Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn

The contrary, so stood when we were born.

We must endure it, that's the long and short.

And so it is in politics, dear brother,

Each for himself alone, there is no other.

What God, from everlasting, has foreseen,

Is of such strength, that though the world had been

Sure of the contrary, by Yea and Nay,

That thing will happen on a certain day,

Though never again within a thousand years.

And certainly our appetites and fears,

Whether in war or peace, in hate or love,

Are governed by a providence above.

Death is the end of every worldly pain.

Certain, when I was born, so long ago,

Death drew the tap of life and let it flow;

And ever since the tap has done its task,

And now there's little but an empty cask.

This lad was known as Nicholas the Gallant,

And making love in secret was his talent,

For he was very close and sly, and took

Advantage of his meek and girlish look.

There was a prentice living in our town

Worked in the victualling trade, and he was brown,

Brown as a berry; spruce and short he stood,

As gallant as a goldfinch in the wood.

Black were his locks and combed with fetching skill;

He danced so merrily, with such a will,

That he was known as Revelling Peterkin,

He was as full of love, as full of sin

As hives are full of honey, and as sweet.

Lucky the wench that Peter chanced to meet.

I only preach of avarice and the like,

And in this way induce them to be free

In giving cash--especially to me.

Because my only interest is in gain;

I've none whatever in rebuking sin.

No, none! When they are pushing up the daisys,

Their souls, for all I care, can go to blazes.

A yokel mind loves stories from of old,

Being the kind it can repeat and hold.

Experience--and no matter what they say

In books--is good enough authority

For me to speak of trouble in marriage.

For ever since I was twelve years of age,

Thanks be to God, I've had no less than five

Husbands at church door--if one may believe

I could be wed so often legally!

Purity in body and heart

May please some--as for me, I make no boast.

For, as you know, no master of a household

Has all of his utensils made of gold;

Some are wood, and yet they are of use.

For if you singe a cat it will not roam

And that's the way to keep a cat at home.

But when she feels her fur is sleek and gay

She can't be kept indoors for half a day

But off she takes herself as dusk is falling

To show her fur and go a-caterwauling.

Then you compared a woman's love to Hell,

To barren land where water will not dwell,

And you compared it to a quenchless fire,

The more it burns the more is its desire

To burn up everything that burnt can be.

You say that just as worms destroy a tree

A wife destroys her husband and contrives,

As husbands know, the ruin of their lives.

Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!

I ever followed natural inclination

Under the power of my constellation

And was unable to deny, in truth,

My chamber of Venus to a likely youth.

A love grown old is not the love once new.

Well may a man in sickness wail and weep

Who has no wife to nurse him and to keep

His house for him; do wisely then and search

For one and lover her as Christ loves His Church.

For if you love yourself you love your wife,

For no one hates his flesh, nay all his life

He fosters it, and so I bid you wive

And cherish her, or you will never thrive.

Husband and wife, whatever the worldly say

In ribald jest, are on the straight sure way.

For there's one thing, my lords, it's safe to say;

Lovers must each be ready to obey

The other, if they would long keep company.

Love will not be constrained by mastery;

When mastery comes the god of love anon

Stretches his wings and farewell! he is gone.

Patience is a conquering virtue.

The learned say that, if it not desert you,

It vanquishes what force can never reach;

Why answer back at every angry speech?

No, learn forbearance or, I'll tell you what,

You will be taught it, whether you will or not.

No one alive--it needs no arguing

But sometimes says or does a wrongful thing;

Rage, sickness, influence of some malign

Star-constellation, temper, woe or wine

Spur us to wrongful words or make us trip.

One should not seek revenge for every slip.

And so I meekly beseech you, for God's mercy, that you pray for me, that Christ may have mercy upon me and forgive me my trespasses, in particular any translations and my authorship of works of worldly vanity, the which I revoke in this Retraction.

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