The parlament of foules, by Geoffrey Chaucer. Ed., with introduction, notes, and glossary, by T. R. Lounsbury.

SOURCES OF THE POEM.

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of these the southern one, in which dwell those who make their footprints opposite
yours, is a foreign world to your race. But even this other one, which lies to the
north, which you occupy, — see with how small a part of it you come into contact! For
all the land which is cultivated by you, very narrow at the extremities, but wider at
the sides, is only a small island surrounded by that water which on earth you call the
Atlantic, or the great sea, or the ocean. But though its name is so high-sounding,
yet thou beholdest how small it is. From these cultivated and well-known regions can
either thy name, or the name of any of us, surmount and pass this Caucasus which
thou seest, or cross yonder flood of the Ganges? Who in the farthest remaining
regions of the rising and the setting sun, or on the confines of the north and the
south, will hear thy name? When these are taken away, thou assuredly perceivest
how immense is the littleness of that space in which your reputation seeks to spread
itself abroad. Moreover, even those who speak of us, for how long a time will
they speak?
VII. " Nay, even if the generations of men were desirous, one after the other, to
hand down to posterity the praises of any one of us heard from their fathers, nevertheless, on account of the changes in the earth, - wrought by inundations and conflagrations, which are sure to recur at certain fixed epochs, - we are not simply unable to
secure for ourselves a glory which lasts forever, but are even unable to gain a glory
which lasts for a long time. Moreover, of what value is it that the speech of those
who are to be born hereafter shall be about thee, when nothing has been said of thee
by all those who were born before, who were neither fewer in number, and were unquestionably better men, especially when no one is able to live in the memory of
those very persons, by whom one's name can be heard, for the space of one year?
" For men commonly measure the year by the return to its place of the sun alone,
-that is, of one star; but when all the stars shall have returned to that same point
from which they once set out, and, after a long period of time, have brought back the
same relative arrangement of the whole heaven, that, then, can justly be called the
complete year. In it I hardly dare say how many ages of human life are contained.
For once, in the past, the sun seemed to disappear from the eyes of men, and to be
annihilated, at the time when the soul of Romulus made its way into this very temple.
When, from the same region of the sky, and at the same moment of time, the sun
shall have again vanished, then be sure that all constellations and stars have come
back to the position they had in the beginning, and that the perfect year is completed.
Of that year know that now not even the twentieth part has passed.
"Wherefore, if thou givest up the hope of a return to this place, in which all things
exist for lofty and pre-eminent souls, yet of how much value is that human glory
which can hardly endure for even the small part of a single year? But if, as I was
saying, thou wishest to look on high, and to fix thy gaze upon this abode of the blest,
and this eternal home, never give thyself up to the applause of the vulgar, nor rest
the recompense of thy achievements in the rewards which can be bestowed upon thee
by men. It is incumbent on thee that Virtue herself shall draw thee by her own
charm to true glory. As for the way in which others talk about thee, let them take
care of that themselves; yet without doubt they will talk. But all such renown is
limited to the petty provinces of the regions which thou seest: nor in the case of
any one is it everlasting; for it both dies with the death of men, and is buried in
oblivion by the forgetfulness of posterity."
VIII. When he had said these things, " 0 Africanus!" I replied, " if the path that