The House of FAME
by Geoffrey Chaucer
BOOK I Incipit liber primus.
1 God turne us every dreem to gode!
2 For hit is wonder, be the rode,
3 To my wit, what causeth swevens
4 Either on morwes, or on evens;
5 And why the effect folweth of somme,
6 And of somme hit shal never come;
7 Why that is an avisioun,
8 And this a revelacioun,
9 Why this a dreem, why that a sweven,
10 And nat to every man liche even;
11 Why this a fantom, these oracles,
12 I noot; but who-so of these miracles
13 The causes knoweth bet than I,
14 Devyne he; for I certeinly
15 Ne can hem noght, ne never thinke
16 To besily my wit to swinke,
17 To knowe of hir signifiaunce
18 The gendres, neither the distaunce
19 Of tymes of hem, ne the causes,
20 For-why this more than that cause is;
21 As if folkes complexiouns
22 Make hem dreme of reflexiouns;
23 Or ellis thus, as other sayn,
24 For to greet feblenesse of brayn,
25 By abstinence, or by seeknesse,
26 Prison, stewe, or greet distresse;
27 Or elles by disordinaunce
28 Of naturel acustomaunce,
29 That som man is to curious
30 In studie, or melancolious,
31 Or thus, so inly ful of drede,
32 That no man may him bote bede;
33 Or elles, that devocioun
34 Of somme, and contemplacioun
35 Causeth swiche dremes ofte;
36 Or that the cruel lyf unsofte
37 Which these ilke lovers leden
38 That hopen over muche or dreden,
39 That purely hir impressiouns
40 Causeth hem avisiouns;
41 Or if that spirites have the might
42 To make folk to dreme a-night
43 Or if the soule, of propre ...
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