Chaucer's Works, Volume 3 — The House of Fame; The Legend of Good Women; The Treatise on the Astrolabe; The Sources of the Canterbury Tales

by Geoffrey Chaucer

that is to sein, in Latin. And god wot, that in alle thise langages,

and in many mo, han thise conclusiouns ben suffisantly lerned and

taught, and yit by diverse rewles, right as diverse pathes leden

diverse folk the righte wey to Rome. Now wol I prey meekly

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every discret persone that redeth or hereth this litel tretis, to have

my rewde endyting for excused, and my superfluite of wordes, for

two causes. The firste cause is, for that [curious endyting] and hard

sentence is ful hevy atones for swich a child to lerne. And the

seconde cause is this, that sothly me semeth betre to wryten un-to