The Prologue
When folk had laughed all at this nice case
Of Absolon and Hendy Nicholas,
Diversë folk diversëly they said,
But for the morë part they laugh’d and play’d;
And at this tale I saw no man him grieve,
But it were only Osëwold the Reeve.
Because he was of carpentérë’s craft,
A little ire is in his heartë laft;
He gan to grudge and blamed it a lite.
“So thé I,” quoth he, “full well could I him quite
With blearing of a proudë miller’s eye,
If that me list to speak of ribaldry.
But I am old; me list not play for age;
Grass time is done, my fodder is now foráge.
This whitë top writeth mine oldë years;
Mine heart is also moulded as mine hairs;
And I do fare as doth an open-erse;
That ilkë fruit is ever longer werse,
Till it be rotten in mullok or in stre.
We oldë men, I dread, so farë we;
Till we be rotten, can we not be ripe;
We hop away, while that the world will pipe;
For in our will there sticketh aye a nail,
To have an hoary head and a green tail,
As hath a leek; for though our might be gone,
Our will desireth folly ever-in-one:
For when we may not do, then will we speak,
Yet in our ashes cold does firë reek.
Four gledës have we, which I shall devise,
Vaunting, and lying, anger, covetíse.
These fourë sparks belongen unto eld.
Our oldë limbës well may be unweld,
But will shall never fail us, that is sooth.
And yet have I alway a coltë’s tooth,
As many a year as it is passed and gone
Since that my tap of life began to run;
For sickerly, when I was born, anon
Death drew the tap of life, and let it gon:
And ever since hath so the tap y-run,
Till that almost all empty is the tun.
The stream of life now droppeth on the chimb.
The silly tonguë well may ring and chime
Of wretchedness, that passed is full yore:
With oldë folk, save dotage, is no more.”
When that our Host had heard this sermoning,
He gan to speak as lordly as a king,
And said; “To what amounteth all this wit?
What? shall we speak all day of holy writ?
The devil made a Reevë for to preach,
As of a souter a shipman, or a leach.
Say forth thy tale, and tarry not the time:
Lo here is Deptford, and ’tis half past prime:
Lo Greenwich, where many a shrew is in.
It were high time thy talë to begin.”
“Now, sirs,” quoth then this Osëwold the Reeve,
“I pray you all that none of you do grieve,
Though I answér, and somewhat set his hove,
For lawful is force off with force to shove.
This drunken miller hath y-told us here
How that beguiled was a carpentére,
Paráventure in scorn—for I am one:
And, by your leave, I shall him quite anon.
Right in his churlish termës will I speak—
I pray to God his neckë might to-break.
He can well in mine eyë see a stalk,
But in his own he cannot see a balk.”