The Canterbury Tales, and Other Poems

do I but lite.”* little And when this Canon saw it would not be But his Yeoman would tell his privity, *secrets He fled away for very sorrow and shame.

“Ah!” quoth the Yeoman, “here shall rise a game;* some diversion All that I can anon I will you tell, Since he is gone; the foule fiend him quell! destroy For ne’er hereafter will I with him meet, For penny nor for pound, I you behete. promise He that me broughte first unto that game, Ere that he die, sorrow have he and shame. For it is earnest to me, by my faith; a serious matter That feel I well, what so any man saith; And yet for all my smart, and all my grief, For all my sorrow, labour, and mischief, *trouble I coulde never leave it in no wise. Now would to God my witte might suffice To tellen all that longeth to that art! But natheless yet will I telle part; Since that my lord is gone, I will not spare; Such thing as that I know, I will declare.”

Notes to the Prologue to the Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale

1. “The introduction,” says Tyrwhitt, “of the Canon’s Yeoman to tell a Tale at a time when so many of the original characters remain to be called upon, appears a little extraordinary. It should seem that some sudden resentment had determined Chaucer to interrupt the regular course of his work, in order to insert a satire against the alchemists. That their pretended science was much cultivated about this time, and produced its usual evils, may fairly be inferred from the