Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: The Reeve's Prologue (A Minimalist Translation) Poem by Forrest Hainline

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales: The Reeve's Prologue (A Minimalist Translation)

When folk had laughed at this nice case
Of Absolon and handy Nicholas,
Diverse folk diversely they said,
But for the most part they laughed and played.
5 Nor at this tale I saw no man him grieve,
But it were only Oswald the Reeve.
Because he was of carpenter's craft,
A little ire is in his heart left;
He gan to grouch, and blamed it a lit.

10 "So then, " said he, "full well could I thee quit
With blearing of a proud miller's eye,
If that me list speak of ribaldry.
But I am old; me list not play for age;
Grass time is done; my fodder is now forage;
15 This white top writes my old years;
My heart is also moldy as my hairs,
But if I fare as does the medlars -
That like fruit is ever longer the worse,
Til it be rotten in rubbish or in stree.
20 We old men, I dread, so fare we:
Til we be rotten, can we not be ripe;
We hop always while that the world will pipe.
For in our will there sticks ever a nail,
To have a hoar head and a green tail,
25 As has a leek; for though our might be gone,
Our will desires folly ever in one.
For when we may not do, then will we speak;
Yet in our ashes old is fire reek.

"Four gleeds have we, which I shall devise -
30 Avaunting, lying, anger, covetise;
These four sparks belong unto eld.
Our old limbs may well be unweld,
But will shall not fail, that is sooth.
And yet I have always a colt's tooth,
35 As many a year as it is passed hence
Since that my tap of life began to run.
For surely, when I was born, anon
Death drew the tap of life and let it go on,
And ever since has so the tap run
40 Til that almost all empty is the tun.
The stream of life now drops on the chime.
The silly tongue may well ring and chime
Of wretchedness that passed is full yore;
With old folk, save dotage, there is no more! "

45 When that our Host had heard this sermoning,
He gan to speak as lordly as a king.
He said, "What amounteth all this wit?
What! shall we speak all day of holy writ?
The devil made a reeve for to preach,
50 And of a souter a shipman or a leech.
Say forth thy tale, and tarry not the time.
Lo Deptford, and it is have-way prime!
Lo Greenwich, there many a shrew is in!
It were all time thy tale to begin."

55 "Now, sirs, " said this Oswald the Reeve,
"I pray you all that you'll not you grieve,
Though I answer, and somewhat set his houve;
For lawful is with force force off-shove.

"This drunk Miller has told us here
60 How that beguiled was a carpenter,
Peradventure in scorn, for I am one.
And, by your leave, I shall him quite anon;
Right in his churl's terms will I speak.
I pray to God his neck might to-break;
65 He can well in my eye see a stalk,
But in his own he cannot see a balk."