Portrait of a Priest
A holy-minded man of good renown
There was, and poor, the Parson to a town,
Yet he was rich in holy thought and work.
He also was a learned man, a clerk,
Who truly knew Christ’s gospel and would preach it
Devoutly to parishioners, and teach it.
Benign and wonderfully diligent,
And patient when adversity was sent
(For so he proved in much adversity)
He hated cursing to extort a fee,
Nay rather he preferred beyond a doubt
Giving to poor parishioners round about
Both from church offerings and his property;
He could in little find sufficiency.
Wide was his parish, with houses far asunder,
Yet he neglected not in rain or thunder,
In sickness or in grief, to pay a call
On the remotest, whether great or small,
Upon his feet, and in his hand a stave.
This noble example to his sheep he gave
That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught;
And it was from the Gospel he had caught
Those words, and he would add this figure too,
That if gold rust, what then will iron do?
For if a priest be foul in whom we trust
No wonder that a common man should rust;
And shame it is to see – let priests take stock –
A shitten shepherd and a snowy flock.
The true example that a priest should give
Is one of cleanness, how the sheep should live.
He did not set his benefice to hire
And leave his sheep encumbered in the mire
Or run to London to earn easy bread
By singing masses for the wealthy dead,
Or find some Brotherhood and get enrolled.
He stayed at home and watched over his fold
So that no wolf should make the sheep miscarry.
He was a shepherd and no mercenary.
Holy and virtuous he was, but then
Never contemptuous of sinful men,
Never disdainful, never too proud or fine,
But was discreet in teaching and benign.
His business was to show a fair behaviour
And draw men thus to Heaven and their Saviour,
Unless indeed a man were obstinate;
And such, whether of high or low estate,
He put to sharp rebuke, to say the least.
I think there never was a better priest.
Portrait of a Princess
This was the common voice of every man:
‘Our Emperor – God save his majesty! –
Has such a daughter, since the world began
There never was another such as she
For beauty and for goodness; she could be
The Queen of Europe with all eyes upon her.
May God sustain her long in health and honour!
‘Peerless in beauty, yet untouched by pride,
Young, but untainted by frivolity,
In all her dealings goodness is her guide,
And humbleness has vanquished tyranny.
She is the mirror of all courtesy,
Her heart the very chamber of holiness,
Her hand the minister to all distress.’
And yet what matter? Woman is a thrall
Disposed and ruled over by men in all!’
No, not in Troy, when Pyrrhus broke the wall
And burnt down Ilium, nor in Thebes destroyed,
Nor yet in Rome when it was ripe to fall
To conquering Hannibal that had thrice enjoyed
The victory, was grief so unalloyed
As in her chamber when she made to go.
But go she must, whether she wept or no.
First cause of motion, cruel firmament,
Driving the stars with thy diurnal sway
And hurling all from east to occident
That naturally would take another way,
Thy crowding force set heaven in such array
That this her first, fierce journey must miscarry
And Mars will slay this marriage, if she marry.
On Fate
In that large book that overhangs the earth
And people call the heavens, it well may be
That it was written in his stars at birth
Love was to be his death; for certainly
The death of every man is there to see
Patterned in stars clearer than in a glass,
Could one but read how all will come to pass.
For in the stars, and many years before
His birth, the death of proud Achilles stood,
Hector’s and Pompey’s, Caesar’s too; the War
Of Thebes, shorn Samson’s death, the hardihood
Of Hercules, and Socrates the Good
And Turnus murdered, all was written plain.
Man cannot read it, he is dull of brain
References:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Translated by Nevill Coghill. London: Penguin Classics, 2013.