Therewith this queen wax’d red for shame a lite
When she was praised so in her presence.
Then saide Love: “A full great negligence
Was it to thee, that ilke* time thou made *that same
‘Hide Absolon thy tresses,’ in ballade,
That thou forgot her in thy song to set,
Since that thou art so greatly in her debt,
And knowest well that calendar* is she *guide, example
To any woman that will lover be:
For she taught all the craft of true loving,
And namely* of wifehood the living, *especially
And all the boundes that she ought to keep:
Thy little wit was thilke* time asleep. *that
But now I charge thee, upon thy life,
That in thy Legend thou make* of this wife, *poetise, compose
When thou hast other small y-made before;
And fare now well, I charge thee no more.
But ere I go, thus much I will thee tell, —
Never shall no true lover come in hell.
These other ladies, sitting here a-row,
Be in my ballad, if thou canst them know,
And in thy bookes all thou shalt them find;
Have them in thy Legend now all in mind;
I mean of them that be in thy knowing.
For here be twenty thousand more sitting
Than that thou knowest, goode women all,
And true of love, for aught that may befall;
Make the metres of them as thee lest;
I must go home, — the sunne draweth west, —
To Paradise, with all this company:
And serve alway the freshe daisy.
At Cleopatra I will that thou begin,
And so forth, and my love so shalt thou win;
For let see now what man, that lover be,
Will do so strong a pain for love as she.
I wot well that thou may’st not all it rhyme,
That suche lovers didden in their time;
It were too long to readen and to hear;
Suffice me thou make in this mannere,
That thou rehearse of all their life the great,* *substance
After* these old authors list for to treat; *according as
For whoso shall so many a story tell,
Say shortly, or he shall too longe dwell.”
And with that word my bookes gan I take,
And right thus on my Legend gan I make.
Thus endeth the Prologue.
Notes to The prologue to The Legend of Good Women
1. Bernard, the Monke, saw not all, pardie!: a proverbial saying, signifying that even the wisest, or those who claim to be the wisest, cannot know everything. Saint Bernard, who was the last, or among the last, of the Fathers, lived in the first half of the twelfth century.
2. Compare Chaucer’s account of his habits, in “The House of Fame.”
3. See introductory note to “The Flower and the Leaf.”
4. “ye have herebefore Of making ropen, and led away the corn” The meaning is, that the “lovers” have long ago said all that can be said, by way of poetry, or “making” on the subject. See note 89 to “Troilus and Cressida” for the etymology of “making” meaning “writing poetry.”
5. The poet glides here into an address to his lady.