Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer, known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to be buried in Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
love woe be-good
If love be good, from whence cometh my woe?
book men years
For out of old fields, as men saith, Cometh all this new corn from year to year; And out of old books, in good faith, Cometh all this new science that men learn.
aspens quake
Right as an aspen lefe she gan to quake.
death long-ago done
Certain, when I was born, so long ago, Death drew the tap of life and let it flow; And ever since the tap has done its task, And now there's little but an empty cask.
wise wisdom school
A whetstone is no carving instrument, And yet it maketh sharp the carving tool; And if you see my efforts wrongly spent, Eschew that course and learn out of my school; For thus the wise may profit by the fool, And edge his wit, and grow more keen and wary, For wisdom shines opposed to its contrary.
use temperance temperament
One cannot be avenged for every wrong; according to the occasion, everyone who knows how, must use temperance.
deeds gentle
He is gentle that doeth gentle deeds.
adversity thinking evil
For God's love, take things patiently, have sense, Think! We are prisoners and shall always be. Fortune has given us this adversity, Some wicked planetary dispensation, Some Saturn's trick or evil constellation Has given us this, and Heaven, though we had sworn The contrary, so stood when we were born. We must endure it, that's the long and short.
nature lord vicars
Nature, the vicar of the Almighty Lord.
That he is gentil that doth gentil dedis.
A love grown old is not the love once new.
men rome
For thogh we slepe, or wake, or rome, or ryde, Ay fleeth the tyme; it nyl no man abyde.
men iron gold
. . . 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. . . .
walls-have-ears woods fields
That field hath eyen, and the wood hath ears.