The Knight's Tale
Folio 18v
34 of 58 folios
445
¶ Thanne seyde he / o crewel goddes / þt gouerne
This world / with byndyng of youre word eterne
And writen / in the table of Atthamaūt
Youre parlement. and youre eterne graūt
What is man kynde / moore vn to yow holde
450
Than is the sheepe / þt rowketh in the folde
For slayn is man / right as another beest
And dwelleth eek in prison and arrest
And hath siknesse / and greet aduersitee
And ofte tymes / giltlees pardee
455
¶ What gouernance / is in this perscience
That giltlees / tormenteth Innocence
And yet encreeceth this / al my penance
That man is bounden / to his obseruance
For goddes sake / to letten of his wille
460
Ther as a beest may al his lust fulfille
And whan a beest is deed / it hath no peyne
But man after his deeth / moot wepe and pleyne
Thogh in this world / he haue care and wo
With outen doute / it moot stonden so
465
The answere of this / lete I to diuynys
But wel I woot þt in this world / greet pyne is
¶ Allas / I se a serpent or a theef /
That many a trewe man / hath doon mescheef
Goon at his large / and wher hym lust may turne
470
But I moot been in prison / thurgh Saturne
And eek thurgh Iuno / Ialous / and eek wood
That hath destroyed / wel neigh al the blood
Of Thebes / with his waste walles wyde
And Venus / sleeth me / on that oother syde
475
For Ialousie / and feere / of hym Arcite
¶ Now wol I stynte / of Palamon alite
And lete hym / in his prisou stille dwelle
And of Arcita / forth I wol yow telle
¶ The Somer / and the nyghtes longe
480
Encreecen / double wise / the peynes stronge
Bothe of the louere / and the prisoner
I noot which hath / the sorwefuller myster
For soothly for to seyn / this Palamon
Perpetuelly / is dampned to prisou