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

22

INTROD UCTION.

Justice incited my sublime Creator;
Created me divine Omnipotence,
The highest Wisdom and the primal Love.
Before me there were no created things,
Only eterne, and I eternal last.
All hope abandon, ye who enter in I
There is no doubt that tho passage in Dante suggested the
nineteenth and twentieth verses of " The Parlament of Foules;"
but while the meaning in one case is perfectly plain, that of the
other is by no means so evident. For the further consideration
of this question, I print these two stanzas in modern English
orthography. It will be noticed that the only thing which would
be apt to occasion any ordinary reader the slightest trouble is
the use of " there " and "there as " in the sense of "where,"
and the accentuation of "aventure" on the first and the last
syllable, instead of on the second. The following are the lines,
modernized as regards spelling. Syllables then, but no longer,
pronounced, are accented.
" Through me men gon into that blissful place,
Of hearths heal and deadly woundes cure;
Through me men gon unto the well of grace,
There green and lusty May shall ever endure;
This is the way to all good Aventure;
Be glad, thou reader, and thy sorrow offcast,
All open am I, pass in, and speed thee fast."
"Through me men gon," then spake that other side,
" Unto the mortal strokes of the spear,
Of which disdain and danger ls the guide;
There never tree shall fruit ne leaves bear;
This stream you leadeth to the sorrowful weir,
There as the fish in prison is all dry;
The eschewing is only the remedy."
Most of the trouble in reading Chaucer vanishes with the
spelling. It is not particularly creditable to the English-speaking
race that difficulties so slight should not only deter so many
from the attempt, but even deprive them of the desire, to
become familiar with an author whose rank in our literature
is only below that of Shakspeare.
While there is no question as to the poetry of these stanzas,