高級英語教材第50課

先讀課文﹕
The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer

The General Prologue--
Here begins the Book of the Tales of Canterbury﹕
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
And specially from every shire's end
Of England they to Canterbury wend,
The holy blessed martyr there to seek
Who helped them when they lay so ill and weal
Befell that, in that season, on a day
In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I lay
Ready to start upon my pilgrimage
To Canterbury, full of devout homage,
There came at nightfall to that hostelry
Some nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry persons who had chanced to fall
In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all
That toward Canterbury town would ride.
The rooms and stables spacious were and wide,
And well we there were eased, and of the best.
And briefly, when the sun had gone to rest,
So had I spoken with them, every one,
That I was of their fellowship anon,
And made agreement that we'd early rise
To take the road, as you I will apprise.
But none the less, whilst I have time and space,
Before yet farther in this tale I pace,
It seems to me accordant with reason
To inform you of the state of every one
Of all of these, as it appeared to me,
And who they were, and what was their degree,
And even how arrayed there at the inn;
And with a knight thus will I first begin.

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 -- 25 October 1400), known as the
Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English
poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's
Corner of Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime
as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer, composing a scientific
treatise on the astrolabe for his ten year-old son Lewis, Chaucer also maintained
an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat.
 Among his many works, which include The Book of the Duchess, the House
of Fame, the Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde, he is best known
today for The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is a crucial figure in developing
the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant
literary languages in England were French and Latin.
3) 本書介紹﹕The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in
Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales
(mostly written in verse although some are in prose) are presented as part
of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together
on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury
Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at
Southwark on their return.
4) 喬叟也是一個世界著名的作家。其Canterbury故事集屬文學名著。原著是用中古
英文寫的。這裡已經是被改寫為現代英文的版本。要知道中古英文是怎麼樣的﹐這
裡放上兩行﹐讓大家看一下﹕
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
[When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root]

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• thx! -走马读人- ♂ (0 bytes) () 09/08/2012 postreply 06:44:04

• Thank you! Have a great weekend! -NewVoice- ♀ (0 bytes) () 09/08/2012 postreply 08:05:32