Читать книгу Playful Poems - Группа авторов - Страница 12

1.

Now hold your speech for charity,

Both gallant knight and lady free,

And hearken to my song

Of battle and of chivalry,

Of ladies’ love and minstrelsy,

All ambling thus along.

2.

Men speak much of old tales, I know;

Of Hornchild, Ipotis, alsó

Of Bevis and Sir Guy;

Of Sire Libeaux, and Pleindamour;

But Sire Thopas, he is the flower

Of real chivalry.

3.

Now was his gallant steed bestrode,

And forth upon his way he rode,

As spark flies from a brand;

Upon his crest he bare a tower,

And therein stuck a lily flower:

Save him from giant hand.

4.

He was a knight in battle bred,

And in no house would seek his bed,

But laid him in the wood;

His pillow was his helmet bright,—

His horse grazed by him all the night

On herbs both fine and good.

5.

And he drank water from the well,

As did the knight Sir Percival,

So worthy under weed;

Till on a day—

[Here Chaucer is interrupted in his Rime.]