Geoffrey Chaucer

“ By my faith, I cannot love a coward! For certes, whatsoever any woman may say, we all desire, if may be, to have husbands hardy, wise, generous, and trusty with secrets; yea, and no niggard, nor fool, nor him that's aghast at every knife, nor a boaster, by that God in heaven! How for shame durst ye say unto your love that anything might make you afraid? Have ye no man's heart—and have a beard? Alas! how can ye be aghast at dreams? ”

“ A fox, that had dwelt three years in the grove, full of sly iniquity, and fore-guided by lofty imagination, that same night burst through the hedges into the yard, where Chaunticleer, the splendid, was wont to repair with his wives, and in a bed of herbs he lay still, till it was past undern, biding his time to fall upon Chaunticleer, as all these homicides will do, that lie in wait to murder men. ”

“ There is nothing, God wot, but vanity in dreams. Dreams be engendered by repletions, and fumes, and oft of a man's temperament, when humours be too abundant in a wight. Certes, this dream which ye have dreamt cometh from the great superfluity of your red colera, which causeth folk in their dreams to be in terror of arrows, of fire with red flames, of great beasts, lest they bite them, of fighting, and of whelps, great and small; right as the humour of melancholy causeth full many a man to cry out in his sleep for fear of black bears, or black bulls, or else lest black devils catch them. ”

“ For dreams be but vanities and trash. Daily men dream of owls, or of apes, and therewithal of many a strange marvel—such things as never were, nor ever shall be. But sith I see that thou wilt abide here, and thus wilfully waste thy time in dallying, God wot, I am sorry ”

“ This Chaunticleer gan beat his wings, as one that could not discern the fox's treason, so ravished he was by his flattery.
Alas! ye lords; many a false flatterer is in your courts and many a dissimulator that, by my faith, pleaseth you far more than he that saith soothfastness unto you. Read of flattery in Ecclesiasticus, and beware, ye lords, of her treachery. ”

“ In short, I say that I shall have adversity from this vision, and further I say that I set no store by laxatives, for I wot well they be venomous. I defy them; I love them never a whit. Let us stint all this now and speak of mirth. Madame Pertelote, in one thing hath God given me largely of his blessing, for when I look upon the beauty of your face, ye be so scarlet-red about the eyes, that it maketh all my dread for to cease. ”

“ For a day or two, ye shall eat worms as digestives, before ye take your laxatives, lauriol, centaury and fumitary, or else hellibore (which grows there) , catapuce, goat-tree berries, or herb-ivy, that is pleasant to take and grows in our yard. Peck them up just as they grow and eat them in. ”

“ O woful hens! even so ye cried as cried the wives of the Senators, because their husbands had perished, when Nero burned the city of Rome; without guilt, this Nero hath slain them.
Now will I turn once more to my tale. This simple widow and eke her two daughters heard these hens cry and make woe, and anon they started out of doors and saw how the fox went toward the grove and on his back bare away the cock ; and cried : "Out! Harrow! Weylaway! Ha! ha! the fox!" and after him they ran, and eke many other folk with staves. ”

“ Herein men may see that dreams be worthy of dread. And certes, in the same book (as I hope for joy, I gab not) , right in the next chapter after, I read thus: 'Two men who, for a certain cause, would cross the sea into a far country, were constrained by contrary winds to tarry in a certain city, that stood full pleasant on a haven-shore. ”