A moste excelente swevene
Gwan ysaide recyentlye...
...Ich hadde a prophetik swevene (and as eny cokke wot, daun Catoun speketh of the veritee of swevenes). In this swevene, Ich saw there shall be a scrivener hote daun Shakespeare, of grete renoun, and thisse Shakespeare shall deme Gowere the bettre poete, as witnesseth Shakespeare his play Pericles. Whatte seyestow to that, daun Chaucere?
Indede I repete for yow Maistre Gefroi, what seyestow to thatte? Yow cannst not touch thys.
-- JG
1 Comments:
O Gowere, thou makst yt so esy.
Ich see nat how gentil Will glorifieth thee. He doth mime thy noysome and noxious verse, and presente thee as a comike oold man, an eldre antik sort. He giveth thee al thy infirmitees of bodye and mynde -- thy vttir lak of originalitee ("I tell you what mine authors say"), thy obsessioun wyth inceste, thy vseless obsessioun wyht excessif exposicioun ("What's dumb in show I'll plain with speech").
Alwayes, indede, ridiculous - always, indede, the foole.
And doth gentil Will saye eny smal thyng of me? Perhaps jvst this smal passage yn the ENTIRE PLAYE HE WROTE BASID ON MYN TALE OF THE KNIGHT:
[ovre playe] has a noble breeder and a pure,
A learned, and a poet never went
More famous yet 'twixt Po and silver Trent.
Chaucer (of all admir'd) the story gives;
There constant to eternity it lives.
And Will goth on to saye that he "aspire[th] to [me] / Weak as [he be]."
Le Vostre
GC
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