In Chaucer the description of the miller's daughter ends with this line—
"But right faire was hire here, I will not lie,"
i.e. her hair. Mr Horne translates it "was she here."
But there is no end to such blunders.
In Chaucer, as in all our old poets of every degree, there occur, over and over again, such forms of natural expression as the following,—and when they do occur, let us have them; but what a feeble modernizer must he be who keeps adding to the number till he gives his readers the ear-ache. Not one of the following is in the original:—
"At Algeziras, in Granada, he,"
"At many a noble fight of ships was he."
"For certainly a prelate fair was he."
"In songs and tales the prize o'er all bore he."
"And a poor parson of a town was he."