Geoffrey Chaucer

“ Yet listen, lordings, to my tale,
Merrier than the nightingale,
For now I will you rown,
How Sir Thopas, with sides smale,
Pricking over hill and dale,
Is come again to town.
His merry men commanded he
To make him both game and glee;
For needes must he fight
With a giant with heades three,
For paramour and jollity
Of one that shone full bright. ”

“ To binde me so sore?
Me dreamed all this night, pardie,
An elf-queen shall my leman be,
And sleep under my gore.
An elf-queen will I love, y-wis,
For in this world no woman is
Worthy to be my make
In town ”

“ Eut of a rhyme I learned yore agone."
"Yea, that is good," quoth he; "now shall we hear
Some dainty thing, me thinketh by thy cheer."
THE TALE The First Fit Listen, lordings, in good intent,
And I will tell you verrament
Of mirth and of solas,
All of a knight was fair and gent,
In battle and in tournament,
His name was Sir Thopas.
Y-born he was in far country,
In Flanders, all beyond the sea,
At Popering in the place;
His father was a man full free,
And lord he was of that country,
As it was Godde's grace. ”