Sinopsis

THE PROLOGUE. When that Aprilis, with his showers swoot*, *sweet The drought of March hath pierced to the root, And bathed every vein in such licour, Of which virtue engender'd is the flower; When Zephyrus eke with his swoote breath Inspired hath in every holt* and heath *grove, forest The tender croppes* and the younge sun *twigs, boughs Hath in the Ram his halfe course y-run, And smalle fowles make melody, That sleepen all the night with open eye, (So pricketh them nature in their corages*); *hearts, inclinations Then longe folk to go on pilgrimages, And palmers for to seeke strange strands, To *ferne hallows couth* in sundry lands; *distant saints known* And specially, from every shire's end Of Engleland, to Canterbury they wend, The holy blissful Martyr for to seek, That them hath holpen*, when that they were sick. *helped Befell that, in that season on a day, In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay, Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage To Canterbury with devout corage, At night was come into that hostelry Well nine and twenty in a company Of sundry folk, *by aventure y-fall *who had by chance fallen In fellowship*, and pilgrims were they all, into compan...